e e e okay now we can go all right Welcome to our March 5th 2024 uh Board of County Commission meeting Mr Donaldson uh puts a dollar in the jar for that Woods okay leave the room okay all right we're going to start with an invocation by Hank BR Brighton cam Brighton Cam and followed by The Pledge uh Alan Hurt So please stand good morning morning it's a wonderful day to be alive in Martin County Florida USA a great place to make home to do business to vacation at to return home too to brag about and to continue to make even better things happen and so that is this commission's intent at this meeting this fine morning to Simply continue to make good things happen for Martin County May each commission member be blessed with Prudence diligence and tenacity in preparation respect patience with and understanding for others wisdom to discern Fidelity to Mission ethical integrity and the joy and honor of service and vision We the People place our confidence in this honorable commission for this Noble Endeavor we say this in the name of every good thing peace Harmony and kindness to name a few all the best for Martin County Florida USA on this fine day amen amen amen Mr K I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all tell us a little bit about yourself yes sir um my name is alen hurt I was 22 years in the US Army 13 of it overseas I've lived in Germany Greece and Turkey as well as the United States uh during my overseas time I picked up a couple of languages I picked up a wife uh and quite frankly it was an amazing experience it was my honor to serve in the military I will tell you the one thing that has remained with me after all these years more than all the memories and I have such amazing memories of everything I did and everything I've seen and done was the and the level of the soldiers and the sailors and the Airmen that we have in the military I don't believe the average American knows how good our armed forces are and it's because of the level of the young men and women that serve they are disciplined they are educated they are motivated and they do just an amazing job and to serve with them for 22 years was was truly my honor it was something that I will never forget more than anything else and I tell everybody you want a good employee hire a veteran these guys even the people that only serve for one one term 2 years 3 years four years they know what it means to get up they know what it means to go to work they know what it means to be responsible from the day one we put tremendous responsibility on these young men and women we hold them accountable and they respond do all of them respond no there's not 100% anywhere but you know what 95 98% of the people that serve in the military come out they say the experience was good and it was so basically that's my story in a nutshell it was a great opportunity I loved it do it again if I could we're lucky to have you [Applause] okay with that um our presets very first thing um before we do anything Miss Jenny Fields our property appraiser will be giving us a uh brief uh discussion about homestead exemption and pability portability um we have 905 comment ment at 10:30 we have a presentation of the draft evaluation and appraisal report on the comprehensive uh growth management plan and 505 we have public comment we have no con uh consent polls so with that we can take a commissioner Smith move approval of the agenda uh with the presets as uh listed by the chairman and no consent second okay we have a motion and uh by commissioner Smith seconded by commissioner campy is that what the line is for no okay um all in favor I all opposed motion passes unanimously uh commissioner campy thank you uh thank you Mr chair Miss Fields thank you so much I had the opportunity to host our property appraiser Miss Fields uh at an event in Palm City uh and she shared such important information that many of Us in the crowd was not necessarily completely aware of the opportunities as they were and so I asked her if she would be willing to come and share some of that information with not just all of us here but the folks that are sitting behind her but also hopefully watching and then I also wanted to uh as she said I could offer the invitation for any homeowners association any uh associations groups to have Miss fields property appraiser come and speak to your associations because there is you think you know how it all works out but uh there are opportunities that might be left on the table uh that are timely and so I'm so appreciative that you came this morning because even with just the information that especially if you've moved recently downsized upsized uh Miss Fields has information that it's very valuable so good morning and welcome thank you good morning Commissioners thank you so much for having me here today I'm thrilled anyone who's actually come and listen to me talk they know I love to talk so especially if it's a topic that I'm passionate about which is my office and really it comes down to educating buyers and sellers because you know they buy the biggest asset they're ever going to own and it's just remarkable how little they know about the property tax system so any chance any opportunity I can get get out and talk to you and and talk to homeowners association and Realtors and uh our our Outreach is just very Broad and and the whole key comes down to education so with that I'm really going to focus this morning on buyers and sellers um of all the topics I discussed this is my favorite one but before I kind of dive into buyers and sellers I really think everyone needs to understand what a date of assessment is Department of Revenue says that all Florida property appraisers have a date of assessment they have to Value property by okay and that date of assessment is January 1 well what does that mean to me a lot of times we get the question well how's the market looking Jenny what's happening today and things like that well if you knew our date of assessment was January 1 we don't even look at anything that happens after January 1 we're always looking backwards and what I mean by that is our date of assessment means the valuation whether you qualify for exemptions anything that has to do with that taxes is based on a snapshot on January 1st so the bill the tax bill that goes out 11 months later is based on 11 months prior so the bill you're going to be paying in November of 2024 is based on a snapshot or a picture of what look that property looked like on January 1st two months ago so it's hard to kind of wrap your head around that so and that goes for value and exemptions so if you're going to qualify for any exemptions for 2024 you would have to qualify on January 1 so with that I would like to talk about all the buyers that occurred last year so any anybody who purchased a home in 2023 it's important to understand at your closing the closing agents and the mortgage payment and everything that you that was derived at that closing was not based on the 2023 tax bill because they didn't even have it yet you know if you closed in the middle of the year the tax bill wasn't even issued until November so at all closings it's based on the prior year taxes so anyone who purchased in 23 they would have used the 2022 taxes a lot of times that's hard to to understand too so now that's the reason for that is because when you purchased the property in the middle of 2023 you were not an owner on January 1st which is the date of assessment of 23 so in August of 23 last year when the new buyer got the trim notice or the tax bill it didn't probably look very different from what the closing was based on which was the 2022 and mainly it's because you were buying it from a seller who did qualify on January 1 so typically in a normal scenario all the buyers last year inherited whatever was there on January 1 which is the sell's exemptions it's the sellers save our homes benefit everything that the seller had you got the benefit of it and so in November 2023 a couple months ago when you got your tax bill it probably didn't look a whole lot different than what you were surfing for on Zillow when you were looking to buy that house okay and it didn't look any different in August when you got the trim notice however now January 1 24 it's your year now you qualify because you owned it on January 1 so now last Friday March 1st was your deadline to file for your homestead exemption because now the seller has taken all their benefits with them and they've ported it to the to the pant handle where they now have retired okay so what happens is even though the deadline was last Friday please if you qualified if you purchased last year still come into the office we can do a late file application so we don't want you to miss the opportunity of claiming your homestead but just know this is going to be your year in August when you get your trim notice you might have owned that property now a year and a half and in August in a few months you're going to get the trim notice that is going to be your first Glimpse first glimpse of what your taxes are going to be and that is going to be based on your sale price a lot of times we get that phone call you cannot possibly raise me 60% well we didn't it's because you purchased from somebody who had the save our homes benefit for 30 years and they they had a save our homes benefit that was $500,000 which resets to market value because they've taken that Port now to the Panhandle that's a hard thing to explain when everyone gets their Trimm notice in August now the second thing I want to communicate is for anyone who purchased today anyone who's purchasing right now in 2024 remember the date of assessment you don't qualify because you're purchasing after January 1 so I know you're probably thinking at the closing the realtor and the title company they're all telling you get in and file for your homestead well yeah you would be pre-filing for 25 because you don't even qualify for 24 so come in a couple months you're a new buyer when you get that trim notice know that the proposed taxes you see on that trim notice they're not yours you're inheriting them and the best thing I can tell you right now is so crucial pull up the tax estimator on our website estimate your own taxes put in your sale price it won't be exact but it's going to be a heck of a lot better than you using the 2023 taxes which is based on an owner who had a save our homes benefit that is actually coming off this year year next year when you file so estimate estimate estimate and then again your deadline to file for Homestead you can obviously pre-file you can do it online on our website or come into our office but um your deadline will not be until next March March 1st 20125 if you purchased in 24 so estimate your taxes and the last thing I'd love to just really stress to anyone looking to buy a home number one do not go buy any tax you see displayed anywhere on a website because they are not going to be your taxes not because we're trying to raise your value it's because if you don't realize who you're buying it from they could be a total and permanent disability veteran who doesn't even pay taxes and you're going to be thinking well this is great all I have is non-ad valorum no because he's taking that with him so number one estimate just don't go by any online and actually there's legislation right now that's actually rushing very quickly through the house and the senate in that it's going to prevent Zillow realty.com any online websites will no longer be allowed to uh list prior year taxes and instead it's going to link them to the Department of Revenue tax calculator and then you will be basing your taxes off of your sale price so just know that's and that's the main reason because it's so misguided when people look at that and assume that's what their escro payment is going to be and then the next thing do not go byy taxes and prior years again they're they're they're not correct they are not correct they were correct for the seller not for you and then lastly just estimate your own taxes our website is www.pa martin.fl.us and it's right under quick links if you have if you need help we have a live chat you can just ask us we have 20 operators on that live chat all day every day or you can just give us a call we're happy to walk you through it but um those are just I hope I didn't go over my 10 minutes I know I talk fast but so thank you thank you we got some lights minut it we got some lights commissioner Smith yay great job um I don't think I I know I couldn't do all that um in that quick a time so Jenny we had a we had a speaker a couple weeks that I had called you a couple weeks ago that had come up and talked about uh his taxes being increased like by 100% And you and I talked about that and I I think that he had purchased the home maybe seven years prior or some timeline like that and he never homesteaded and so what happens to someone's tax bill when you don't Homestead and how how does the appraisal process happen and how does someone go from what the value I I I think was in the low 200s and went maybe to like 500 or 450 how does that happen Okay so in the State of Florida pretty much every property is capped you have an assessment limitation that you're going to benefit benefit from if you're homesteaded your assessed value can't increase any more than 3% if you're not homesteaded say you're a vacant land or a commercial shopping center you're capped at 10% meaning your assess value can't go up any more than 10% however that 10% cap does not apply to school levies so any taxable value that goes to your school levies listed on your tax bill that will be full market value but with that being said even though you have a property and let's say you don't have homestead exemption you're still benefiting from a cap and so what happens often is people will come in because they're like they hear homestead exemption it's going to save you money get in there and file well this has been their summer home they've been Michigan residents for 20 years and now they're going to come in and they're going to file homestead exemption is only a $50,000 exemption and if you're coming from out of state your market and your assessed are going to match in that first year and in the first year you file for Homestead that 10% 10% limitation gets restored it has to reset to full market value so if you're sitting on a a summer home that was is always your second home and your 10% cap benefit is $400,000 cuz it's been your summer home it's been your second home that's been subject to that 10% cap the year you come in to file for Homestead is now your base year for Homestead it doesn't continue with the 10% cap whatever you have not been paying taxes on and that 10% gets restored to market value and that's where you're starting so they're seeing an increase going wait a second I thought this was supposed to be a reduction well yeah it but you have we've actually had people resend their their Homestead application which you can do you have to do it in writing if you get your trim notice but mainly is because they don't realize it is a reset that is another legislation bill that's looking to kind of go through right now we don't know it might be in a property tax P package but basically it'll say that from the time for your summer home that you file for Homestead it might be that cap is where you start with your homestead they're trying to get that pass but as of right now it's not and it will reset if you've had that home for a while and the last quick question and I I think you touched on a little bit but the portability issue so effectively if you are capped and you sell your home and let's say the value of it is 800,000 but you've had it homesteaded for 20 years you take that difference with you right to wherever you're going anywhere in the state all 67 counties it applies to your example was the Panhandle I think um what happens to the house after that okay so when you you can Port that nugget of savings that you're sitting on that you've had and you're not paying taxes it's just floating around out there and you go to move when you go and file for your new homestead exemption that property appraiser and our office would look at the values what is the last market value that was placed on your property here in Martin County and what is the market value they're applying in that county in the Panhandle if you're going to a higher valued home you are going to be able to take the entire nugget of savings with you if you're downsizing to a lower valued home valued home then it's a proportionate amount but what happens is if that seller goes and takes their their save our homes benefit the buyer who bought that property in their first year that they file for Homestead their market and their assessed is going to equal each other and it will be based off the sale price that they paid not what was there in the prior year it will reset and and by like right now we're studying the 23 Market because that's what we're going to use to put the 2024 values out there so everything that's occurring the values we place on the property the market values we place in 2024 will be based on all the sales that occurred in 23 so the sale prices all of that will be will reflect that so again if you purchased in 23 that guy who moved to the Panhandle he took that with him and in 24 you are starting over your market and your assess are going to match and they're going to be based on your sale price and hence I think why some people come in and say my taxes went off the chart well they did but they reset the majority 99% of the time it's because they're a new homeowner and they didn't realize that that they were looking at the prior year taxes and that person now that cap came off and now they're starting over and they don't realize it's based off your sale price cuz 99% of the time they'll call and go how could you incre inre my value you know 60% well we didn't it was the cap came off you're looking at taxes and and it's not that and and you know we we have that conversation a lot a lot so I have a question before I get to commissioner how long do you have let's say you're going to sell a house and you're going to build another house let's say that house is going to take over a year to build how long do you have to PT P you only have three years okay and three years from the time yeah you don't want you don't want to be not deciding and then wait two years and then decide to build a home you're going to miss your window so if you are going to build a home I would say get on it right after you leave you know or rent somewhere but get get on it because it's three years from the from the year you sell or move commissioner hington thank you Jenny I've heard this before it's great information I would add U some of the things I've heard before if you are widowed or divorced what should you do to check on your homestead cuz there are a lot of people that miss that opportunity or they haven't filed it in the right name or okay so two different Widow and widower uh there is an exemption for both widows and widowers it's a $5,000 exemption so it equates to about $100 a year if you are a widower or widower on January 1st so if you are please come in it's so easy to file and you know if you remarry you have to let us know because then the exemption out comes off divorce is a whole different animal and lately we're hearing a lot more or we're seeing a lot more in marriage settlement agreements where they're actually listing the save our home's benefit as an asset because think about that if you're the one staying in the home and your save our home's nugget of savings is $400,000 that's a huge benefit for whoever's going to stay in the home are you both going to leave but just know in order to you can designate that save our homes where it goes 5050 but there is a form that has to be filed it has to be filed by both parties and both parties have to agree to abandon the home for example let's say well I don't like to use me I love my husband anyway so let's just say you know uh Mary stayed in the home and John left okay and John moved to another County and he wants to file for Homestead if Mary stays in the house she didn't abandon the home so technically he gets nothing so you really have to know the timeline and what what's happening and you have to have that conversation the only way he can get 50% is if she willingly comes in to our office and relinquishes abandons the homestead which means now she has to start over she will file a brand new Homestead application admitting that she's abandoned it and now we can split it and take 50/50 we just had this last week and a gentleman was very upset because I you know I said you're going to need to talk to your ex-wife and you nobody wants to have that conversation so again it's just one of those things where it's kind of tricky on but it is a huge savings right now and who gets it and where you're going and so be be in contact with us and and we can walk you through that process I don't know if that answered your question okay commission Smith Sarah I forgot to ask us in the sequence oh SAR you want to go first I'm okay so um Soul's point and I'm I'm sure there's other parts of town that are kind of experiencing this um has gone through a series of tear Downs and rebuilds so whether it's the same well maybe it's a different answer whether it's the same family or a new purchaser and I'm guessing in most cases it's a new purchaser that's tearing down and building new what happens with homestead on that well it depends if they're buying it and let's say they bought it right now it's going to reset to Market anyway and if they're if they're remodeling and it's an extensive remodel it would probably go on as a capital Improvement they're not protected by the cap so let's say they're going through the remodel but it's not Co it's they don't have their final until next year okay then it wouldn't go on till the prior year but any new construction any Capital Improvements major and I'm not talking windows or doors or roof that's typical maintenance that's covered by your cap but if you're doing anything extensive like what you're saying where you gut it and tear it it's going to be a capital Improvement and that's not subject to the cap it will go on at full market value in the first year okay so there have been a few homes in Souls point so let's just not hypothetically literally they have so somebody tears all the way down to the foundation down to the or down to the floor level there's no walls no nothing left and they build new does the portability or does it do you get to take that old value with you and let's say so let's say you had a million-dollar home you tear the million dollar home down and you build a new million dooll home what happens well anytime the stat you say anytime you remove property you're supposed to recognize that in the assessed value so let's say you are moving temporarily that's still your primary home you let us know you file an affidavit that's my intent is to stay here but you're going to go rent somewhere while you're rebuilding in that year that that house is demoed we're going to W we're going to take that off you know it's going to come down off your assessed value so only the proportionate amount of assessed value that's attributable to your land would remain and so then you build the new house it would go on as new and it resets at whatever the value of the new house is right whatever what whatever additional value attributable to that new construction would be added to the value above the cap but that proportionate amount for the land and whatever was left the dock or pool or whatever that would still have the cap proportionate to that amount of the market value that's typically how it would work commissioner her terrific presentation as as always Commissioners we need to do this every year um because every time I hear uh Miss Fields talk it's it's uh it's so informative so I'm sure that people also would like to visit you in person and where do they do that uh our office is at 3473 Southeast Willoughby Boulevard we're sweet 101 uh you can contact I on my on my website anytime that you say contact Jenny or a schedule a speaker it always comes to me I'm happy to return any phone call um yeah my my direct line is 772 28856 one8 you can call me every present presentation I do they get my direct line so um but we have a great team of professionals at the office that are you know willing to sit down and kind of go through this whole process anybody who wants us to come talk if you click schedule a speaker there's a whole list of topics this was just one topic believe it or not we have all kinds of topics to discuss but it affects everyone from uh you know so really it's kind of how do we gauge our Outreach and and uh right now we're actually reaching out to churches because it wasn't until I was sitting in my church going I can really have information for all these people sitting here so uh that was just another Outreach initiative we're trying to reach people to kind of get them before they sign on the dotted line how to you know teach them everything they need to know as an owner or a potential owner thank you great um one last follow on just s um so when we do roron November that would give people time before January 1st to figure out what they need to do and get time when you say what in November when we do reorganization when when our board does reorg would that be a good time for you to come in every year I it kind of just depends November it's kind of uh the tax bills have gone out I can come in and talk it really doesn't matter I can you know it's going to apply every year I just wonder if there was a set time like Sarah said if you came in every single year in when the numbers come out I think well I was just going to say we have everything we do is repetitive over the years so certain times of the year I really we really Hammer the Outreach on tangible personal property because as a business owner you need to know that's coming up April 1st right now it's homestead exemption come July it's going to be the millage rate and how to understand your trim notice which I'm all about so it's going to be that and then come November it's going to be the taxes due or VAB and explaining so really it kind of just depends when you want us to come that we're going to have a an important topic for that time of year sounds like five times a year I know I'll do it well miss Fields I just wanted to say thank you so much I appreciate your time and um excellent job [Applause] okay and with that we're going to move on to proclamations we have three today we have Irish American Heritage Month yay Irish uh procurement professional day and food or flood Awareness Week good morning Commissioners the Irish first came to Spanish La florita in the 1500s first as missionaries and mercenary soldiers and then has as planters Traders businessmen doctors and administrators and three of the Spanish governors of La Florida were actually Irish Military Officers Irish Americans since America's Inception have provided leadership and service to Florida and our nation March is recognized as Irish American heritage month and all are encouraged to celebrate this cultural heritage and many valuable their many valuable contributions and here to accept we have Ray Lynch who is the national secretary and immediate past Florida State president of the Ancient Order of Hibernians wow morning getting somewhere in the world I'd like to just take a second to thank the Martin County Commissioners for joining the governor and 73 other municipalities across the state uh in claiming March 24th as Irish American Heritage Month um like the the lovely lady said my name is Ray Lynch I'm the national Secretary of the Ancient Order of Hibernians we have Hibernians in every state um across the State of Florida we have 15 divisions with just a little less than 800 Hibernians across the state so um I I thank you for for all Hibernians but especially the ones in Florida thank you very much you [Applause] he looks like dick czy he does very I know most kids like who's Dick Trace I know EV good to see you buddy next we have a proclamation declaring procurement month and procurement Professionals Day in Martin County the public procurement profession provide plays a significant role in the efficiency and effectiveness of both government and business Martin County's procurement professionals are committed to providing High Caliber strategic logistical and operational supports for all departments within the organization in recognition of March as procurement month and March 13th 2024 as procurement Professionals Day the board recognizes the role of the purchasing and materials management profession within business industry and government and here to accept along with a lot of folks we have Christy Brotherton who's our chief procurement officer they are bring the team up bring the team up uh good morning my name is Christy Brotherton I am your Chief procurement officer um I prepared a few words so please bear with me um it's with immense gratitude that I accept this Proclamation on behalf of the purchasing division of Martin County declaring March as procurement month and March 13th as procurement Professionals Day um this recognition not only honors our tireless efforts but acknowledges the vital role procurement plays in the success of our County uh while you see me every other Tuesday um we have a lot of very important individuals acting behind the scenes i' would like to introduce them um we've got Seth mccon Tasha sap Autumn Bryan Deborah Gerwin Morgan Brigham and Katie folks um we also are under the leadership of assistant County Administrator Matthew Graham hiding in the corner you can come out there he is everybody there he is um each member of our purchasing division embodies professionalism expertise and dedication it is their commitment to Excellence that drives our division forward um for those of you that don't know what purchasing does uh we shoulder a significant responsibility processing approximately 100 formal solicitations annually overseeing selection committee meetings and coordinating pre-bid meetings additionally we diligently administer over 400 contracts annually monitoring expenditures and administer the pre- card program on behalf of the BCC processing approximately 650 transactions each month the oversight extends to the approval of around 700 purchase orders monthly fixed asset inventory control and the management of Surplus auctions and furthermore they conduct invaluable in-house trainings throughout the year ensuring that the county staff are equipped with the necessary Knowledge and Skills for procurement functions I'm proud to share that all of our purchasing staff hold professional procurement certifications and designations demonstrating their commitment to ongoing professional development and education this ensures that we stay AB breast of the latest best practices and standards in procurement I want to extend a special thanks to County attorney woods and her staff for unwavering support in ensuring that the procurement processes comply with the law in every aspect their guidance and expertise are invaluable in navigating complex legal matters which feel like they change every day um furthermore I express my gratitude to assistant County Administrator Matt Graham his leadership not only sets a high standard for our team but also motivates us to exceed expectations in every task we undertake his unwavering support Fosters a culture of collaboration and Innovation within our division driving us to achieve our goals and serve Martin County with distinction and thank you to County Administrator Donaldson and assistant County Administrator stokus for their continued support of our division and last but not least I want to thank the commission for their trust in our division to uphold Fair open and competitive procurement practices it's an honor to serve our community in this capacity and we remain committed to maintaining the highest standards of integrity and transparency so in closing I extend my deepest appreciation to the board for this Proclamation and let us continue working together to ensure the prosperity and well-being of Martin County thank you that was a beautiful speech feel like we should give you an award or something all right let's have everybody scoot together she's an organizer that was very nice squeeze all right everybody smile we're g to do a and our final Proclamation today is designating March 4th through 10th 2024 as flood Awareness Week in Martin County Florida Martin County has experienced severe weather in the past in the form of extreme rainfall and tropical events resulting in flooding in both Coastal and riverine areas this flooding has caused damage and flood losses to homes and buildings in all areas whether they are highrisk special flood Hazard areas or low to moderate risk flood zones during flood awareness week again March 4th through the 10th the board encourages residents to increase their knowledge of how to protect themselves in their property from flooding and here to accept we have Christine Madson who is the engineering permit manager with our public works department thank you good morning Commissioners morning the Martin County Public Works Department is joining a Statewide effort to educate residents about the importance of flood awareness and the benefits of flood insurance flooding is one of the most common and expensive natural disasters that occur in the United States just one inch of flood water can cause up to $25,000 in Damages we encourage residents to become flood ready and by being prepared and understanding the risks of flooding in our community we ask residents to have an emergency plan and a disaster Supply kit ready in case of an evacuation and to obtain flood insurance to protect their homes and property during flood Awareness Week residents can learn about the different flood related topics features on the county social media Pages or by visiting the County's website we also have flood awareness displays set up here in the administrative Center lobby at the Blake Library and the building department so please stop by and take a look thank you thank you I welcome back thanks okay now we are going to move on to public comment um please limit your comments to 3 minutes at 2 minutes 45 seconds you will hear a tone and that only means to wrap up your comments and um there's a good chance I'm going to mispronounce your name so when you get to the podium uh please uh state your name and uh and that's it do his thing oh I'm sorry and Don's going to do his thing first which I was prepared even on their way up so since we are in election season politicking is prohibited which is defined as advocating the election or defeat of a candidate for public office either partisan or nonpartisan this includes the worse use of words dates signs props and or wearing app apparel that convey a message of support for a person or group of persons thank you okay our first um person is Peter urick and that will be followed by Ted Gilbert good morning morning thank you for allowing me to speak today uh my name is Peter uck and I am the President of the moring Safety Harbor Homeowners Association of 162 households our neighborhood located at Southeast lahi River Road in Island Way in South Martin County consists of many seasoned citizens as well as young families with small children I am here to present to you a petition with 186 signatures with a couple more while I was in travel today uh at my house and more to come from surrounding neighborhoods that was signed to express deep concern regarding a young man's Recovery Center located directly on the west side of our neighborhood 18890 Southeast Jupiter Road appears to be a large in beautiful single family home located on 2.5 acres with all upscale amenities this is a one lane about 20 ft wide deadend privately maintained Road located about 3 and 1/2 mil north of Indiantown Road in Jupiter many of the moing residents walk along Jupiter Road Walkers were impressed to see the year and a half long construction improvements little did we know that the home was to be sold to a business that houses young men with drug and alcohol issues the nearest Martin County fire rescue station is in taquesta and response times are are limited this subject property is on a dead end street with no turnabout for a fire truck just last week there was a car accident in the mornings it took 20 minutes for emergency vehicles to arrive Martin County Code number 3.75 D States a recovery facility shall not be located within 10 mies of another such facility the same company runs a home at 18083 Southeast Federal Highway into Questa 6.1 miles away via County Line Road moring Safety Harbor residents are not opposed to young men receiving treatment at a rehab facility however we believe this type of business would have greater impact and better serve Martin County if located in a more of a business district this would allow family members undisturbed access to loved ones located at the facility while not disturbing the quiet enjoyment of the moing Safety Harbor neighborhood I believe it is wrong and unfair a voyage to try to convince this board to enact zoning ch changes favorable to its business model we the homeowners of The Moorings in surrounding communities respectfully request that Martin County deny the voyage's request for reasonable accommodation thank you very much I dropped off a packet with the sheriff that has the great thank you questions do I no we can't do that can't do that hang in there don't leave I shall thank you Ed Gilbert is followed by Barbara Eric eurick I'm sorry morning good morning good morning ladies and gentlemen of the Martin County Board of County Commissioners today I stand before you to address a topic of utmost importance the placement of a drug rehabilitation facility at 18890 Southeast Jupiter River Road this matter has garnered significant attention in the morning and adjacent developments as we grapple with the challenge of providing crucial support to individuals battling addiction while also being a community of victims still healing ourselves following the tragic 2016 double murder of our neighbors just seven houses away from this uh business that that has moved in this shook our community to its core as we strive to provide essential support to those bad on addiction we must also prioritize the safety and mental well-being of our residents drug addiction Knows No Boundaries it's affect it affects individuals from all walks of life tearing apart families and devastating communities while Rehabilitation Facilities offer hope for those seeking recovery their location demands careful consideration the disasterous outcome that presents itself when gaps in our current laws allow private for-profit businesses to decide to locate a treatment facility in a residential neighborhood that itself is still recovering is on Full display we must balance the right of individual seeking treatment with the unique and legitimate concerns of our neighborhood for example the community surrounding the proposed location are located in a distinctly underserved portion of Martin County it's Martin County with a Jupiter address severed from the rest of the county by 11,500 Acres of Jonathan Dickinson State Park the proposed location of the rehabilitation facilities in such a unique location raises critical questions that must be explored given the location our emergency Services equipped to handle a high-risk population that resides in a sheltered area away from emergency and medical uh emergency medical and police infrastructure that would be required to ensure everyone's safety other questions that need to be answered why are these businesses not required to OB to obtain licenses through our County or to go through a vetting process at a local level what about the workers and patients themselves that work at these facilities is there any screening for a history of violent or sexual crimes that takes place psychological issues that might lead to either the lack of regulations only puts well-intentioned facilities at a disadvantage and also breeds uncertainty and conflict within our communities we must demand Clarity and accountability from our governing bodies how are these locations of these facilities determined do current laws consider proximity to schools Parks pass sites of of tragedies that have scarred our community what safeguards are in place to protect both our current residents and those on their healing journey in closing I urge this esteemed board to consider any means possible to stop the approval of the reasonable assessment and work to Institute Common Sense laws and regulations that prioritize the well-being of our residents while upholding the principles of compassion and dignity for all individuals seeking Rehabilitation thank you for your time thank you sir get that when they're done and miss it be followed by Peter CI good morning my name is Barbara URI and I live in the moing I'm here this morning to speak about concerns regarding the voyage recovery for substance abuses application for reasonable accommodation the Ada and the FHA aim to ensure disabled people can live in housing by making reasonable Mo modifications such as wheelchair ramps or handrails or a potty partk for your service animal nowhere can I find that increasing the number of residents from 5 to 14 to be considered a reasonable modification the request must be necessary to afford the recovering substance abuser an equal opportunity to enjoy and use the home the application submitted does not discuss this at all perfect timing on an article in the Palm Beach Co post just last week hopefully you read it the article States studies find that out ofate visitors visitors who come to Florida for addiction treatment have the highest risk of Overdose deaths the article also St States stop sending your children and your loved ones to South Florida because we're sending them back to you in in body bags now a study by Pennsylvania State University shows the chances of dying from drug overdose are 63% higher for out ofate visitors in Florida than they are visitors from any other state at this Recovery Home the patients are not incarcerated which means they are Fe free to leave anytime they want to the application states that the patients aren't L cell phones no vehicles there's no therapy provided at the recovery home and the young men's are in active recovery they're not recovered they're inactive recovery it also states that frequently four out of six patients will experience emotional Fallout after hours of therapy and not uncommon to be emotionally distraught and vulnerable wow that's 66.6% now increase that number to 10 patients and now we have six or seven distraught patients that are free to leave their property and wander through our quaint little community on a 3 and 1 half mile hike while he attempts to calm down and not relapse I hope one of those six to seven distraught patients doesn't walk past my garage like Austin harff did the voyage website states that every Sunday are they encourage all the residents to have a family feast great now we have 10 patients inviting their whole family to come commute into our tiny little neighborhood if each patient only invites two family members now we have a dinner party of 34 or more every Sunday in our little neighborhood Martin County can deny a reasonable accommodation request where the increased density of the patient census poses a direct threat to the safety or the health of others or poses a direct threat of physical damage to the property of others which treatment cannot be reduced or eliminated by other reasonable accommodations they do not disclose disclose any scientific ific studies legal cases or present no meaningful evidence to support the request for the accommodation reasonable accommodation just 14 is better than five we the homeowners of the wars and surrounding communities respectfully request that Martin County deny the Voyages request reasonable combination from 5 to 14 based on the merits just stated your time is up thank you uh Peter sky is followed by Diane Meyer good morning Commissioners my name is Peter seoli I'm a Palm City business owner homeowner and president-elect of the Palm City Chamber I'm here today to request your support for the Newfield Parks master plan like many things related to Newfield this is an exciting plan as you aware madami Holmes is building Newfield and they've proven themselves to be a great corporate citizen investing in and supporting supporting our community so much in fact they were named the Palm City Chamber of Commerce 2023 business of the Year More than 70% of newfields 300 uh 3,400 Acres will be open space conservation the park master plan will protect and conserve more than 2400 Acres this will include Playing Fields as well as natural lands a trail Network totally more than 50 miles all of this will be open and available for the public to use whether you plan to be a future resident of Newfield or not the trail Network that Madam Holmes is creating is uniquely designed to accommodate hiking biking and horseback riding Newfield is a great example of what's possible when you combine sound planning principles with a commitment to conservation and Community please support this excellent addition to our community thank you for your [Applause] time Diane Meyer followed by Kayla Shay hello commissioner San Meer um I want to make two technical considerations on two agenda items which would be most appreciative for transparency and closing some loopholes uh first is r and P1 text amendments to the comp plan with respect to the draft of the evaluation and Appraisal review the E conducted by the Treasure Coast Regional planning Council where the commission is being asked to change the comprehensive growth management plan this resolution must describe and specifically identify all amendments to the comp plan and Link each of these changes to the modified State statutes or requirements otherwise the Martin County Commissioners are essentially writing a blank check to the comp plan that allows staff and their developers to make Chang Es as they see fit the second one is agenda item cnst T8 um I'm not sure if this is conservation or Recreation it's paulmar East subdivision future land use map change I recommend voting against this until the agenda language proposed and the resolution language proposed is corrected to read public conservation only with explicit definitions of what outdoor recre ation means and what enforcement means the agenda item is to start the process to change the comprehensive plan to designate the property public conservation only I'm told by administrative Aid that no off-road vehicles are allowed on public conservation land however the agenda language states that the future land use map states land use consistent with open space and Recreation the problem is what's the meaning of outdoor recreation target shooting practice of shooting the gun alligator hunting and an any animal that moves being shot at driving quads allterrain Vehicles driving swamp buggies automatic gunfire bombs unpermitted structures motorcycles bulldozers heavy equipment Earth moving Vehicles all these activities destroying the fragile and sensitive Conservation Area must be specifically delineated and defined as not permitted the county is too familiar with the destruction of sensitive pristine lands in Palmore West the unincorporated drainage of Uplands and wetlands by not defining outdoor recreation is leaving the door open for unscrupulous attorneys who will say all the above are permited in outdoor recreation since the sheriff's department is not patrolling parmar West because it's honorous what mechanism and Safeguard will there be for enforcement I urge you to tighten the language and make it consistent and specific spell out what is permitted and not permitted and is there any enforcement [Applause] thanks Kyla will be followed by Megan Shirley morning morning my name is Kyla Shay I'm the longtime president of TRS side homeowners association let's talk about palar I see that palar East is addressed the nine gems property like with Diane we're concerned with the wording the description says open space and Recreation we experience the version of recreation daily we experience that sheriff's department and Public Works aren't patrolling otherwise you'd know about the bombed out Baro car with windows that are shot out that's been on Pratt Whitney for the last 8 days it's a wonderful reminder of what we get to endure daily that's great you're going to do something about Palmer East what about Palmer North our most recent home sale in Trailside was for 4.3 million Mrs Fields went through and described how property taxes are assessed the most lot that sold was for 675,000 we're still abandoned we're still alone we're still waiting and trailze as a whole Demands a private meeting again to be updated on the status of palar thank you for your time Miss Shirley will be followed by sh shye excuse me told you I'd do it will be followed by Mr Tom pine pine pine I got that good morning my name is Megan shyri I am the director of marketing and external Affairs for the Boys and Girls Club of Martin County and I'm also the vice president of the Palm City Chamber of Commerce I'm here today to speak in support of the Newfield Parks master plan we've had the opportunity to team with Madame Holmes which is making night kiplinger's vision for New Field of reality on several initiatives we appreciate the company's commitment to our community that commitment is reflected at Newfield Farm where our club members took part in planting and growing vegetables it was a fun educational experience for our kids taking part in agricultural activities upholds the emphasis that we place on the club's nutrition and healthy choices the experience at Newfield Farm also complements the gardening work that our members are already doing at our hop sound and Indian toown clubs hopefully you've had the chance to enjoy the meals that our members create and cater through our food truck known as fork in the road you may have even tasted these meals from fork in the road at the monthly Newfield Farm Green Market where we have been featured the food our members create is delicious and often incorporates vegetables that they have grown themselves as we often say the fork in the road team does everything grow the vegetables create the menu cook and soothe the food except for drive the truck they're not old enough to drive the truck just yet most relevant to today's agenda items are the thousands of Acres of conservation land being protected at Newfield we have been looking forward to the official opening of the trail Network that Madame is creating at Newfield ever since we attended the dedication of the kick blinger conserv last year this will be an amazing benefit to the entire public please vote in support of this item thank you Mr fine uh Pine will be uh followed by Mr Paul Owens morning Commissioners my name is Tom pan I've been a resident of Martin County for over 50 years in today's consent agenda this County Commission will approve 15, 319 95860 spent between February 5th and February 12th of 2024 with then identifying the name of the payes or the purpose of the payments this is the same consent agenda that this County Commission used to hide from we the taxpayers millions of dollars in cost overruns at of our County Golf Course what is being hidden today in the consent that that in the consent that that might be of interest to the taxpayers of Martin County at the last County Commission meeting this board approved the pro proposal to add a half cent to the sales tax to buy conservation land because there is so much distrust of our mountain of our County government if this tax increases for land conservation passes in the November general election there'll be an oversight Community consp cons comprising of the Martin County taxpayers Association the Martin County Realtors association the tourist development board at the same meeting our C our County government gave us another l and clear example why we don't trust our local government it was the slimy way that senior staff gave our County government an easy out to approve a land designation change at the park on Park Drive in Port Sol solerno senior staff had a seaw wall erected at that location prior to the land even being approved for May Marine Waterfront commercial which made it impossible for any alternative to even be considered what did you expect senior staff don't work for the taxpayers of Martin County they work for The Big Spenders of our commy commission as we as a county go into more and more business ventures is that why more local residents are being kicked to the curb because now it's all about making money instead of serving the community sad another tree car accident on Indian River Drive in the Jensen Beach area I believe it's at least the four tree car accidents since the be beautification project was completed just like the redoing of Dixie Highway on the port solono area after the beautification accidents go up that's scary because Jensen Beach Boulevard is slated for beautification real soon it seems beautification is more important than safety in Martin County what you permit you promote what you allow you encourage what you condone you own thank you Mr Owens will be followed by Barry sherber Mr chair There's an opportunity to speak during the presentation oh absolutely I'll put this aside Mr Barry sherber morning so uh they're going to have an evaluation of the uh comprehensive growth management plan uh I've so far I've evaluated it in my time and most of what you have approved hasn't even come to fruition I mean just ideas but already I can tell you that as uh quality of life in Martin County who is uh who's benefiting from all these uh additional amendments that uh you all are are passing my quality of life hasn't gotten any better from it I know this when I go to park downtown I know that I have to go so far I need an Uber to get back downtown that's not that's not helping me and and what about what we're going to have parking meters downtown that's not in in helping my way of life or anybody else's way of life that's a citizen of this area traffic is worse drivers are worse we don't need to import more bad drivers we got plenty of our own I hear people talking about accd I cannot believe the amount of accidents that I've seen in the last two months ridiculous accidents like these people have no clue about which end of a car even to get into the drive it's crazy waiting doctors shortage of doctors uh police firemen crossing guards they're short of crossing guards so schools are overcrowded they're going to get worse not better these kids deserve a good education they don't need to be stuffed into classrooms with a shortage of teachers we don't need more building we need a better quality of life here and having all this new uh building is not really going to help so that's all I have to say and uh I think with all the amendment ments you all are making and uh pretty soon uh we can take the uh word management out of uh comprehensive planning thank you we have Linda Smith followed by Belinda GES gals gals good morning Linda Smith Jupiter Florida representing the Sierra Club lock aah hatchee group including members and supporters in Martin County I've given you a copy of these comments as well I wasn't sure if I'd stay long enough to be able to read them but I appreciate your time speaking on the nrp1 draft evaluation and appraisal report on the comprehensive growth management plan I hope you've all read the 341 pages of Treasure Coast Regional count council's evaluation and more importantly digested the information from quite frankly a fairly poorly advertised two workshops and one survey of residents participation in these workshops and surveys was something around what 0.01% or anyway you can do the math um none of the surveyed were under the age of 18 yet they will be the ones that will have to live with your decisions 91% say Redevelopment not new development on vacant lands this should tell you not to approve any amendments on vacant lands 73% say Redevelopment needs to take place along the commercial corridors this should tell you there should be no development outside of the urban boundary 87% said the development to develop living shorelines and just as an aside um you need to procure and guarantee funding for the Indian River c23 and c24 Reservoir project currently the Florida Senate budget is considering defunding these everyone should be writing letters to their Senators right now um staff I know you're underpaid and overworked and I know you must do what your bosses tell you to do but you know from your education and experience that sometimes this council is asking you to do something that is not in good planning you don't need to tell them what they want to hear you need to tell them what they need need to hear don't propose blank checks the CEO of a company is only as good as the information they receive from their staff each Amendment needs to describe the purpose what are the good and what are the bad take off the glossy Rosy glasses that the developers often provide Commissioners should not be initiating amendments without disclosure of specific subjects and specific language words matter as far as Paul PA Mar Paul Mar needs help it is being destroyed please tighten this language and provide enforcement provide funding for enforcement because without funding there will be no enforcement and I thank you for your [Applause] time Belinda gels is my last speaker form so if anybody's else would like to speak good morning Belinda gels I live in Palm City 35 years now it's not my first time up here I did want to thank you for your service all these years but I like all the people that have spoken so far are concerned about what is happening in this County I'm concerned about the apartments the condos the tow houses everywhere and there seems to be no regard for leaving oh here's a pasture what could we put here everyone has expressed frustration with traffic if you look at the sheriff's Facebook page which I'm looking at every day now and there have been 140 accidents already this year and we are just on the 5th of March look at these consequences and realize at some point they're going to affect you or member of your family think about what you're doing also on the Facebook page of the sheriff's department you'll see we have a lot more serious crime here the more people you have coming in and you all have built it so they will come we had a disgusting case of child pornography on there where one of the people arrested worked in a high school the judge sentenced these guys to 1600 years because the crime was so hideous these are the type of people that are coming to our County open up your eyes people here are frustrated you have heard them this morning yesterday we had helicopters going around the area to capture people fleeing that aren't that are fleeing because they don't have licenses so when they steal a car and they come up here they don't have a license they get caught they flee so that was a tremendous amount of Manpower from the sheriff's department trying to catch these guys you can get the daily update yourself and maybe that will help you wake up a little bit I do thank you for the service that you've provided us but you all have been here a long time now and it's not supposed to be a vocation it's supposed to be a service and my time is up and I think some of you should think about your time being up thank you [Applause] okay with that we'll move on to commissioner Smith she's great thank you Mr chairman so a couple things and I'll start here because I think the folks here in the front um would probably benefit from hearing some of this Miss Woods could you share with us um uh about this men's housing how and what laws govern or Clyde whoever but I this is not unfortunately the first go around with all of this um I have a few in my neighborhood um but there are some federal laws that supersede anything that we have here and I think it's just important that both our attorney and growth management folks share with you unfortunately what we have to deal with and then when they're done I'll share with you maybe some ideas about how we federally can fix or address some of it good morning uh members of the board my name is Clyde Duan with the growth man Department uh we have received an application from a uh firm or from a from the facility mentioned here today at the at the meeting uh they are requesting a reasonable accommodation uh to uh the Land Development regulations in Martin County and uh I'm not going to go into the specifics of that because it's under review right now um this is not the first reasonable accommodation we've probably processed maybe six of them over the time that I can remember uh regulations being adopted to permit this uh review um as you mentioned commissioner um federal and state uh law protecting the rights of the disabled um must be recognized and sometimes that means an accommodation must be made in our local zoning regulations um when we are finished with our review it will be scheduled for presentation between before a special magistrate it will not be coming before the board of County Commissioners for your review or your vote it'll be done by a special magistrate and um that could then be um further reviewed but we haven't gotten to that point yet so um I'll stop there and be happy to answer any questions I can I would also ask just again for the Public's benefit um some years back I don't know how long ago exactly maybe 10 years plus or minus uh the federal government decided that uh alcoholism drug abuse uh was a disability that uh I say forced it put it into the American with Disabilities Act and that is a very very hard federal policy to go and correct and change and we have tried for years the State of Florida is probably one of the Premier destinations for these types of facilities the State of Florida has tried our association of counties have tried there have been multiple lawsuits that have lost in very expensive lawsuits that have lost because of ADA and it's not that we ever gave up it's just we have our hands tied behind our back and our ankles tied and the federal government has put us in this spot for whatever reason is that fairly accurate yes sir I I I just would like to add that I don't know if we need to do go into it um in the meeting but um our office the county attorney's office as well as growth management is happy to meet with the citizens that are concerned it's a very complicated process and to put it simply our hands are severely tied over what we can do because of the requirements of law but again we we're happy to inform so that you know that it it isn't just a discretionary decision that can be made by the board it's it goes to a special Master there's a very formal process that we have to go through and it's not our process it's the one that's dictated by law next comment uh if that's okay with you folks I I I would ask you to reach out to our Count's Attorney office and please take an opportunity to meet with her and and understand further what we deal with or what we have to deal with to the comments about Palmar uh Palmar has been on my priorities priorities ization list for years uh both for the complete acquisition uh but also the management and the um the process by which everybody seemed not everybody some people seem to understand uh because they live there uh what we're going through with Palmar I would say this much about it over the last few years um our board has fully committed our staff has fully committed and we have done our best to put ourselves back in a position to be at least uh a voice on the board of palar um and to make decisions and to get the right people working for us uh for the best interest of a residence in Martin County and in Palm Beach County um the enforcement side still continues to be an issue as you have pointed out to us um and we are constantly working on ways to improve upon that and make that better downtown Stewart was mentioned by one of our folks uh we do not control downtown Stewart we do not control parking meters we do not uh control parking we do not control hours of of operation the city of Stewart's limits are completely within their comprehensive plan and the rules and the laws that operate within downtown Stewart fall wholly under the five members that are elected to the city commission uh in Stuart um relative to the approval of Apartments we've had some apartment approvals in Martin County but I would say the fair share of what most people see these days are in the city limits and we have no control and we have no say and no governance whatsoever over the rules of what the city of Stewart does those are things that you need to talk to the City about uh c23 and 24 um immediately following uh us receiving Martin County receiving from our legislative uh Aid the language that was being discussed about uh defunding um most if not all of the Everglades uh funding from the state level uh myself and others went to uh Tallahassee to meet with our legislative delegation and others that had their hand involved uh to make sure that they um understood at least from our perspective the importance of Everglades restoration the funding strategy the partnership between the Water Management District and the Army Corps of Engineers um because sometimes in Tallahassee even though I think most the folks that we met with fully understood uh there are a l share of them that do not uh because that's not their discipline it's not their focus and so we took every effort to make sure that we at least told our side of the story and our success story that we have had here in Martin County uh relative to Everglades restoration and that it may not be the perfect uh cake mix uh but there are times where the district does uh does part of the work there's times where the Army Corps of Engineers does part of the work but together we have significantly escalated the amount of work and the success of the projects um that we have been funding now or I say we we the community the 16 counties that make up the Water Management District and the Army Corp of of um and the Army Corps um have made significant strides relative to uh fixing what has been broken for over 100 years that Mr I'm all set thank Youk you commissioner campy thank you I cannot let uh some of the public comments that we heard this morning go by I had also had received several emails from the residents that live there and and um I was surprised by them because that was the first I had heard of the issue uh understanding now that it doesn't come to us uh this is reminiscent back to the sober home days of several years ago um that everybody was frustrated about and there were some in out in Palm City as well um I don't know what strategy or tactics were used but most of them found their way out of the county I know that uh you know look I'm not a lawyer and I know that it's being reviewed but since it's not going to come to me um I thought the the content and tone of the emails and the content and tone of this morning's comments were exactly the way it's supposed to happen they were understanding uh of the you know the the need the need for rehabilitation and Recovery um this is is I'm so disappointed that this ugly issue of people taking advantage of not just the local residents but in many cases the people that are in these facilities um I remember speaking back then if you travel or live anywhere else in the United States you'll hear do you or a loved one have a problem with an addiction contact the addiction help hotline and what they do is they take folks from Minnesota and and Michigan and Ohio these freezing cold States and they say come to Florida and then what you find is either people that have addicts that have family members that love them that have the financial wherewithal they send them down or they have insurance and when the insurance runs out now remember there's no money in cure there's money in treatment so they'll run the treatment process and I don't know this place but I know the type of place and the money is there now as far as I'm concerned and I'm not an expert on this but to me reasonable accommodation I thought one of the points were if the house is meant for four to five people and they want to make it 15 that doesn't in my personal opinion doesn't sound like a reasonable accommodation that sounds like an accommodation for a business to maximize profit in a certain square footage the worst part and when I read these emails at home on my phone the shocking part was this is the neighborhood where the husband and wife were murdered in their garage that's as insulting to me uh that any business would think let's you know they have the whole entire State country County to look in they put it seven doors away where someone who was obviously had mental issues and addicted to everything didn't even live in that neighborhood ran into the neighborhood and murdered two people that were simply in their garage in the most horrific murder that could possibly happen and then also attack the neighbor across the street if I remember correctly was trying to help them and now someone seven doors away is going to put one of these facilities that is an Abomination so I get that there's some legal problem that maybe there's some way to do this but I mean I don't know what the board can do but if you're protesting or rallying or anything else Count Me In commissioner Smith yeah I would I I would add um certainly I would take your communication to us today uh and copy that to our Senators and to our Congressional member um they are the ones that have the power to fix and address what has been done in DC and it's not easy and there hasn't been a want or a desire I wouldn't say on necessarily on our delegation but there has not been a want or desire to fix this nationally this has been going on whether it was sober homes whether it's an addiction home whatever you want to call it it's going into a residential neighborhood and putting a facility that does does not belong there but that is got to come from DC we can keep communicating it to them we can keep working with them Palm Beach County did an excellent job 8 to 10 years ago and really drilled into every single detail and finally with a lot of the sober homes they went after the taxes and they went after the revenue and that was the only way to stop certain types of homes from happening it was going after the fin financial side of it um but please do reach out to them share your your emails with them um and see if we can't make some Headway there's certainly plenty Statewide support for doing it I would contact David aronburg he led the charge in Palm Beach County um I I don't know what his current title is and he's a special prosecutor or something like that his name is David aronberg I'm sure you can find him he's an expert on how to handle these kind of scenarios okay with that we go to commissioner comments commission that was mine you're done commissioner heatherington uh commissioner Smith covered some of my comments on parking meters and city of Stuart that is completely wholly out of our jurisdiction and um that's all I have for this morning thank you commissioner campy that commissioner herd yeah in response to um the charges about Palmar uh from from the Trailside residents you're absolutely right uh we do have ordinances in place uh laws in place to protect you and to prevent the illegal activities that are occurring in palar right now and endangering you and we just need to enforce them and I promise you that I'll do everything possible to make sure that we do robust enforcement of all the illegal activities that are happening in Palmar now it's a disgrace thanks I Echo those comments plus commissioner Smith and commissioner campy um and I apologize for missing last meeting I thank commissioner heatherington for covering for me but I definitely was not ready for prime time so um with that County Administrator okay okay so it is very close to our 10:30 um close captioning break so I think we will take 10 minutes at this point and uh and come back at uh 10:35 thanks e e e e e you're on all right we're back we have our uh can you hear me we have our uh 10:30 preset um presentation of draft evaluation and appraisal report on the comprehensive growth management plan by Mr Clyde dlan good morning members of the board my name is Clyde Duan I'm the comprehensive planning administrator with me is Dana little with the Treasure Coast Regional planning Council and uh we're happy to present uh the evaluation and appraisal report uh where we have considered and listed changes in State Statute uh as you know this is required every seven years uh by Statute that we do an evaluation of our comprehensive growth management plan A lot of it will just be housekeeping there but there will be uh some um policy decisions and potential changes that you may be considering in the future at future public hearings T today we're only asking that you receive the report approve the report and initiate the resolution attached to the board item and with that I'll let Dana take it away uh good morning uh Mr chair and Commissioners my name is Dana little I'm the Urban Design director from from Treasure Coast Regional planning Council thank you for having us and also behind me is Tom Lanahan our executive director um to be clear this this morning we're just presenting the report of the public Outreach effort relative to the evaluation and Appraisal review um that process the E is still ongoing and we are also working with growth Management on the analysis of some of the chapters within the comprehensive plan in comparing them to State T statute changes that have occurred what I'm going to present to you today and I confess there's a number of slides so I will move through it quickly um is the effort that we've undergone in outreaching with the community and trying to um explain what the process is and emphasize that we are not bringing forth any comprehensive plan changes today today is just presenting the Outreach effort that we've gone through uh we were engaged by Martin County the Treasure Coast Regional planning Council was in May of last year to specifically at the time do this Outreach component um the growth management Department's reviewing the Florida statute changes to growth management Pol policies as part of this we conducted interviews we had a workshop on August 29th of last year we actually had a public survey that was launched on September 1st and was live through the end of December we had a second Workshop in January of this year and we presented this same effort to the LPA in February what I'd like to do is kind of go through with some details some of this information I'll move through some of it more quickly um because you're familiar with a lot of the issues but I do want to take a bit of time to go through the survey results I know that it's in your package but um it was alluded to earlier today in some of the comments and I think it's interesting to look at the ear process the evaluation and Appraisal review is required by the state for every local government at least every seven years to review their comprehensive plan chapters and policies relative to statutory changes that have occurred during that period in addition local governments and I'm quoting here shall comprehensively evaluate and as necessary update comprehensive plans to reflect changes in local conditions and I'm pointing that out because through our interview process and through the workshops we heard a lot of local condition issues uh you're familiar with all of them I'm sure um I don't think that we're ready to we or the county is ready to make any decisions on those local issues yet the primary focus right now is to get through some of the statutory changes but it was very important to put on record what we heard through the interview and in um public um Workshop process so as I mentioned uh updating the comp plan as needed to State statutes over the last seven years this includes a review of all 19 chapters of the compr hensive plan identify areas within the comprehensive plan where updates might be needed and I emphasize might um one example is references to Indiantown as one of the cras in Martin County clearly that's not the case anymore that's a housekeeping item that needs to get fixed uh you'll recall that in December of last year um this body notified the County's intent to develop the ear process and any potential changes we're going through the process right now that Matrix of stat statutory changes um to identify those uh changes in law that may or may not result in changes to the comprehensive plan and if there are any changes or recommendations to change the comprehensive plan those will follow their own required public hearing processes so right now after completing this public Outreach effort to it hopefully have educated folks in the community about what this process is and maybe demystify it a little bit um as each of the chapters if they have changes they will come before this board in the LPA of course uh and go through the regular public hearing process now um sometimes you know there many years um through the last seven there have not been really significant legislative changes last year was different last year there were a handful of significant changes two of which I want to touch on um I think you're all familiar with Senate Bill 102 the live local act um we have through our Outreach through our interview process through the through the uh through the public input survey try to educate folks on what this is and that they need to be paying attention to it we don't yet know in any of our communities in fact within the regional planning council's region uh what the implications are but we know what the intent is and the intent as you knows to um is to create a housing strategy uh for affordable housing that basically preempts local government's control over height and density um if uh minimum thresholds of of um zoning excuse me minimum thresholds of affordable housing are met uh we understand that this is being reviewed again at the state and we're not sure what the changes uh will be if there are any but um fundamentally it um allow for uh affordable housing projects to be built um within multif family mixed juice commercial and Industrial zoned areas without the requirement of um the standard review process there's also House Bill 1379 which is a septic to sewer bill and it's an act that's requiring much higher level of Environmental Protection relative to existing septic tanks or new septic tanks septic systems and requires a 10-year uh plan for the county to put in place a a a septic sewers uh master plan it changes a lot of the shs to musts in the existing language and um as the implications of this bill are better understood and the potential impacts are better understood they'll be discussed as staff brings this through uh the public hearing process um as I mentioned we did 30 31 32 interviews throughout the process these were one-on-one interview and um I want to go through um some of the key things some of the categories if you will that we heard uh repeatedly those were conducted July through September of last year and um again I just want to highlight some of the key issues that may or not may not be addressed initially in the ear process but again uh are warrant further attention uh Western lands not a surprise um strategies for maintaining Rural and agricultural character methods to reduce sprawl um you know understanding that there may be underlying development uh rights in what are considered rural lands what are the strategies to try to control that we know that some strategies are in place right now but this may warrant further discussion it was brought up many times through the interview process resil resiliency in a lot of different um in a lot of different um capacities was brought up be a climate change and the effects of climate change or sea level rise and the impact to Coastal um coastal areas heat gain and in fact um I bring this up because I found it fascinating um but within that resiliency umbrella was um the the the notion of of food scarcity and you know what what's happening with affordable housing and the ability for folks to live close to work etc so resiliency through our experience through this process was a large umbrella umbrella that connects to a lot of other things growth and development Trends I think you heard a little bit about that this morning from one of the public speakers where should New Growth go and what are strategies to direct growth to certain locations that make sense um it was brought up that one of the survey questions was you know do you support Redevelopment occurring along some of the major corridors as opposed to other rural areas and the answer was yes um but also what are the impacts potentially of Senate Bill 102 uh the live local act to growth and one of the things we discussed are there ways to not not address Senate Bill 102 but maybe tailor some of those impacts and focus them in certain areas transportation and Mobility was an issue that was brought up repeated excuse me repeatedly how do we improve our existing system of Mobility traffic and congestion is something that you all as elected officials hear about multiple times daily I'm sure and we hear it at every single workshop and presentation we go to what are ways that if you agree that there's going to be continued growth uh not unbridled growth but continued growth ways that we can try to mitigate some of the mobility issues through greater connectivity through um land uses through increasing you know emphasis on some of the transit infrastructure that exists today tied into that of course is affordable housing um and and you know what are different ways to increase the inventory how do we maintain a multigenerational county that was brought up over and again you know my kids have gone to college there's nowhere for them to live if I want them to come back um and then of course the recent legislation we had a lot of discussions about that on August 29th of last year we had our first Workshop we had nearly 100 attendees and I won't read all of this to you but I'll hit a couple of the high points this is some of what we heard from those in attendance number one limit the amount of new affordable housing we have enough number two pro provide more affordable housing and Workforce housing we don't have enough so there was um almost an equal split on many of these issues um concerns about you know permitting new septics new septic systems and sent you know septic to sewer conversions overall concerns about growth and and and congestion uh Western lands we discussed um I thought that this was Germaine we need to maintain and protect marine industries and working waterfronts and um I thought that was very good to get into the mix and also there was a discussion at this Workshop about requiring green infrastructure or implementing what's called uh low impact development strategies and um there there's a whole host of of of research and best practices on that and Jim Moyer who's on the LPA was has participated heavily in this and has a lot of experience on that the following day we launched we launched our survey um and that was live until December 31st uh we received over those few months um over 600 responses we thought that was good but we've heard that maybe that wasn't so good but nevertheless it was a lot of uh information to go through and if you'll indulge me I thought I'd go through those 23 questions quickly so that they're on the record and what the answers are um for those that participated um you know the first question is what is your age um almost 50% were over 64 and 115% were between 35 and 44 87% of those that participated identify as white Caucasian and then another eight or % preferred not to say um the majority of those that participated and I thought this was this was good to know 96% lived in Martin County or continued to live in Martin County um and only 4% um from outside we didn't police it and say you can only be Martin County residents but it was good to see that the majority the vast majority are are residents we identified the zip codes from where the results came from um and the majority came from Palm City and Port cero um some from Jensen Beach and we've got more detailed information in the backup in terms of the exact number of of responses from what ZIP code um 44.5% of those that responded work in Martin County the majority 55% do not but that could easily reflect the retirement population within the county um what are the things you like about Martin County now we had five or six questions that were open-ended where we asked folks to just feel free to write their thoughts and those are included in the backup as well and if you have time they're worth going through I think they're very interesting but and order to try to present them in some succinct way we created these word clouds where the words that were used most frequently um are the ones that that are that show up in this Cloud just to give you a sense of of the tenor of the answer of those questions so the small town field um controlled Community the parks the beaches low development height those are things that um those that responded like the most about the county and as I said you can go through all of those responses in detail in the backup how well do how well does Martin County accommodate those young adults who want to return home to live and work and raise a family 23% said they accommod the county accommodates um them very well or to a level of Excellence um nearly 40% um were on the opposite end and about 40% um were kind of indifferent um so you can see it's almost an equal split three ways um but clearly I think that if you include the the the poor rating through the middle ground rating there's there's work to be done there and we heard that a lot through the surveys and the interviews what are the three most important areas the county should focus on to accommodate the return of young adults number one is employment opportunities uh 52.3% number two is quality of primary and secondary education which is 48.5% and number three is a variety of housing options in including you know those that are affordable um so um there you have it the top three um things that uh probably need to be focused on to try to keep the younger Generations in the county what are your thoughts on the availability of affordable housing in Martin County 11.5% said the county has more affordable housing than it's needed um 30 almost 36% said the county has enough affordable housing and the the majority 52 almost 53% said there's not enough affordable housing so if you combine the 11.5 and the 35.8 again there's almost an equal split in terms of is there enough or is there not if you feel there is not enough affordable housing in the county do you have any thoughts on appropriate Solutions um build more um don't build anymore stop growth we need more Apartments it needs to be more cost affordable um you know we want to see more Young Folks Etc and again those answers are um elucidated greater in the in the backup here's where we ask about the uh live local act uh which enables the development of affordable housing on Commercial and Industrial properties provided the new development meets certain affordability standards are you familiar with this legislation nearly right down the middle half said yes and half said no and hopefully through this process we've informed folks that this is out there and it's something they should pay attention to um number 12 is if yes do you think this new legislation how do you think this new legislation will affect Martin County um and it's going to make it more busy too much development more building we'll see more restaurants more shops so um you know again this was kind of equally split how often do you use the following Transportation modes in Martin County personal personal vehicle 94.3% um said frequently notice the green is frequently the red is never at the bottom 91.5% of those that responded to the survey said that they never use Marty um almost 45% said that they sometimes walk um now that could be for recreation or for you know getting to a destination um 35% said they never bike and basically almost 30% said they sometimes do um 52.6% said they never use ride share and 70 almost 73% said they don't use other modes um this may not be surprising but what I find interesting is that the next question of which of the following transportation choices not including a personal vehicle are important in your community Marty 32.4% said it's very important and and then another 36% said it was somewhat important so that's a swing of almost 70% uh walking 53% said the walking is very important and 35 almost 36% said it's somewhat important again while I may not be doing it today I see the value and importance of it in the future and we should try to Pro provide facilities for that biking almost 90% ride share this was shocking to me nearly 49% said by ride share is somewhat important going forward and other personal modes I think that could be sort of a nebulous thing what does that actually mean but still it's a swing from what the existing conditions are at least we thought that was a positive do you feel Martin County should encourage the Redevelopment of existing built sites over the new development of vacant lands 91.5% said yes that's what you heard this morning should Martin County encourage Redevelopment of strategic locations along its primary commercial corridors I.E US1 Dixie Highway map road where it's happening already 74% said yes 26.5% said no and what is an appropriate type of Redevelopment and this focused a lot on uses industry Marine manufacturing medical um again if you look at the backup you'll see the answers in much greater detail would you support locating small limited commercial uses in proximity to residential us uses to minimize Andor short shorten travel distances 40 41% said no uh 50% said yes in some places and 99.5% said yes emphatically and I think that that's a fair um I I I would assume I I'm reading that is that context matters in some locations it makes sense in some locations it doesn't make sense to drop commercial into a strictly residential environment especially if it's an existing one as a Coastal Community within a coastal State should Martin County revisit the issues of Shoreline treatment and protection within the comp plan I.E living shorelines consistency and regulations seaw wall Heights and locations Etc um this raised a good discussion during the the second Workshop 87% said yes 13% said No and when we ask well why would you say no uh because well we don't want to do any harm we don't want to go back backwards and you know the idea is that if you if you try to address some of these issues in the comprehensive plan going forward the idea is to improve the conditions not to make them worse so depending on which side of that um that coin you're on I can see how folks responded differently How concerned are you about the impacts of climate change in Martin County nearly 60% are very concerned or concerned and nearly 30% are not concerned at all or slightly concerned do you feel that the issues of resiliency and climate change should be further discussed within Martin County I don't know said 11% 26% said no and 63% said yes um we're almost there what Industries or businesses do you feel the county should expand or attract to enhance Economic Development again Marine industry small businesses trades boat mechanical manufacturing there's an emphasis on sort of of light industrial manufacturing um and Marine industry and finally are there other issues that should be discussed during the E process affordability um do not build more build more housing um you know taxes um live local so that's um that's the summary of the survey that closed at the end of last year as I said in January 18th we had our second Workshop where we presented those survey results uh that was not as well attended and we heard about that at the workshop um there were concerns about the advertising we can discuss that if you'd like uh we had approximately 50 attendees and uh we heard a lot of the same um comments um issues of the urban service boundary is sacred it's currently being eroded um you know the Martin difference comes from the comprehensive plan first J no harm and as I said there were concerns that quote no one knew about the second Workshop just to that point um I just want to say that the workshop and we can always do better uh the workshop was advertised in the newspaper there was a uh there was the the information on the County's website on the front page and the growth management page there was newspaper articles and so I think we went through the normal protocols for advertising I think we feel comfortable that I will tell you though um between the second excuse me between the second workshop and the LPA presentation we went through all of the sign-in sheets and contacted directly all the individuals that participated in Workshop number one and workshop number two assuming that their information was legible and if it wasn't entirely legible we did a little bit of research to try to get to it but there was like three or four I think that we weren't able to reach but overall we reached out to over 100 folks I think directly um to make sure that they knew about the LPA meeting and the board of County Commissioners meeting so what you have in your in your package today is our Outreach report that goes over all of the information that I had notice that we're not here to recommend any comprehensive plan changes any changes should they occur will come in the future and will be duly notified and be part of the public process and um we're here to get any input you have today and um answer any questions if I can thank you very much commissioner hington this might be a question for Clyde but what can you give a general overview of what the timeline is for this process um what other public input will be provided and the public hearings coming up and opportunities for people to participate certainly uh we'll assuming the the board adopts the resolution attached to this agenda item we can begin work on pres making presentations to the local planning agency uh for various chapters that uh We've identified will'll need to do changes on and uh for each of those chapters there will be three public hearings there will be a public hearing before the local planning agency there'll be a transmittal public hearing here with Board of County Commissioners then there will be an adoption hearing before the board of County Commissioners in between the transmittal and the adoption the uh items go off to the State of Florida and to all of the um state agencies and surrounding municipalities uh for their review input and comment um each of those chapters will uh like I said be three advertised public hearings where the members of the public can provide Public public comment on each chapter and can participate in each public hearing with public comment uh here at the podium um so the timeline which you asked about we need to have all of the chapters transmitted to the State of Florida before December 1st uh 2024 before the end of this year thank you commissioner Smith Dana um as always great work um I always always very much value what the regional planning the approach the regional planning Council takes I think to a process likees this like this um I there's been decades worth of public Outreach and and involvement throughout our region certainly outside of our region as well uh and I think you all do amazing work um one thing I would ask on the survey portion um the the last 23 slides plus or minus whatever there were is that something that can be sent out to organizations is it is it a canned kind of a here are 23 three questions we'd like your membership to fill out and respond to could we resend the survey yeah I don't see why not because what I'm I'm I'm thinking and I would love I I would really like to know um what do the Martin County Realtor Association think about a lot of those questions when it gets into affordable housing when it gets into commercial where it should be and where it shouldn't be what the quarter should look like if you if you were to Target a group that had probably more one-on-one involvement with people who buy sell live move in this community it's probably the Realtors association that have probably the most diverse understanding of what people are thinking because every single day they're dealing with homeowners making a decision to come or go or or or or stay um all the chambers I would I would send it out to all of the chambers I I think the business Community it would be super important to get their feedback um you may have had Realtors you may have had business folks um in the meeting um but I think a more diverse cross-section if you will of when you put up like the what types of businesses do people think ought to be here I don't suspect that we would see necessarily dramatically different answers but it may reinforce the idea that the marine industries is important that high-tech is important important that research is important that medical is important um and to and to that point um I would also engage because it played a couple of your slides the Marine industry has played a significant response in in in the scale of the the cloud routine the marine industries is going through uh a 50-year reset um in our County uh there are companies that are merging together that are looking for the next 20 years next 25 or 30 years of what is that industry going to look like um and there's some really interesting exciting mergers that are happening and from a business that plays probably one of the most significant roles in our community relative to employment and culture I think it would be important to reach out to that group and really try to get them the marine industries to drill into their membership so that we can get what are their needs what are they looking for what is what is important to them moving on into the future um those are just some thoughts I I I I think the um the content is great I think it helps us it will help us form um some ideas and some and some looking inward as to what can we do to do a better job I forget where the email was or maybe it was from lcio on the the one issue that certainly is something I would like to see looked at uh this Commercial Street and and private road um application of how you can enter into a neighborhood a project that could have gone completely different than where it's going to go today because of live local our comp plan and our rules bound that idea up which could have been I think a really fantastic opportunity for a project that's close to I95 that would have been very different than where it's going to end up because a live local and had our rules allowed for it to been more comprehensive in terms of it strategy of what will be built on that site we will now miss that opportunity because our rules didn't allow it to happen and a state um um rule law that is usurping basically our ability to do anything with it if they apply live local we will end up with something very different that people will not be necessarily happy about and given the response to the thing 50% will be and 50% won't be but at the end of the day what we will hear on I'm sure is that people won't be happy anyway thank you I thought it was great thank you very much commissioner campy thank you very much uh in con um sort of piggybacking on what commissioner Smith just said if you're going to potentially send out the survey again to um to groups I would add uh the three high schools be interesting to see what you know you had 018 and under uh IRSC uh and then if you could I know that you guys there was some feedback that if you were primarily using any of the social media platforms some older people don't have social media platforms which I get but young people definitely have social media platforms but you can't use Facebook for them you'd have to use Instagram and X which I'm well aware yes yeah so so I think if you put them out there and especially if it was sort of like a a clickbait type of thing about you know what's your future look like in Martin County and then you know I don't know if you're going to get them to go through all 23 questions or 25 questions but especially the high schools they have Civic groups they have student government they have debate groups I think that would be a nice opportunity for them and then IRSC because I mean that's our only secondary education but even maybe um project lift because not everyone um that goes to high schools going off to college it'd be interesting to hear from young people that are absolutely going to go into the workforce hopefully locally several years ago I had a local business owner that was very surprised he wanted to relocate a big company here and he's very surprised he had two schoolage children of his own and um and he couldn't comprehend that there just wasn't more action for it and so we did a sort of a a morning seminar and we invited six kids from each of the local high schools but also the Pine School um that had graduated from there they were in either in the workforce or about Midway through college and to your results the first one for them was housing and the second one which was a close second was jobs because there was a lot more talk about being able to come back and get jobs versus there was talk to come back and get housing uh which he was very surp surprised by and then um and then I've always said that I use it as an expression that Martin County's biggest export is are talented young people um I have three in my own family so I can give you personal experience um one was very interested in staying and living and working where she grew up and the other two had no interest in that so it's just anecdotal but uh even in my own life if I experience the same things thank you very much I appreciate it I know that you're not done yet uh appreciate what you've done thus far uh as the ear process starts to rev up I think more people will start to pay more attention to it so I think if you were looking to um increase your survey results um in terms of the 100 at the first meeting and 50 at the second I mean I've been to your presentations it's not for a lack of fantastic presentation and Outreach some people are just either I think there's plenty of people that didn't know but there's plenty of people that don't see it as their thing it's just you know not not something that they're necessarily interested in in participating in the survey would probably be the best result thank you thank you even approaching some large um Employers in the county I think is probably a good the hospital the school district school board special yeah for sure all right commissioner herd yeah what I hear from all all residents is stop overdevelopment stop harming our quality of life stop weakening our comprehensive plan uh residents have relied Upon Our comprehensive plan in order to protect our quality of life for the last 32 years 33 years and residents want to be assured that that we're not you're not going to propose weakening our comprehensive plan but there's nothing in this entire agenda item that makes any indication that you're going to honor that request to your point this was intended to gain public input and I think that's what we've done this as I said before and as Clyde has men mention and as we've mentioned in each of the workshops multiple times this was not this Outreach effort was not an effort to make recommendations to change the comprehensive plan but you are making recommendations that we go into the plan and change every chapter what and nobody knows nobody knows what those recommendations are going to be forgive meion there's an awful lot of of of a lack of confidence that you're actually going to be recommending changes that will continue to improve improve our quality of life um we'll have to see because there are no recommended changes in the presentation that I just made to there's no recommended changes in your in your your agenda package and as we are also working with growth management and Clyde we don't even know yet what changes may or may not be necessary due to statutory um the statutory changes that have occurred over the last seven years we're parsing through all of that right now the residents I've talked to say understand that we have to comply with Florida law so there have been changes in the last seven years that we have to incorporate into the comprehensive plan and the people I talk to say we will honor we will we will comply with the law but we will not change anything else we still want to have the same protections you know people people are very concerned about about the uh suburbination the urbanization of Western Martin County they're very concerned that there are going to be changes proposed that weaken those protections that further erode them and we've heard Martin County its character is completely changing as we make these uh paper cuts into our comprehensive plan you know I hear from people every day I've lived here you know I'm in my 70s I've lived here for the last 50 years and I'm moving and that's heartbreaking so what I'm hearing from all residents is stop weakening our comprehensive plan and I think and I agree that's what we presented to you this morning thanks thank you commissioner Smith and when I hear commissioner herd's comments and I I I hear the same thing but I think it it deserves over and over and over because we had some speakers this morning allude to things going on within the city that have absolutely nothing to do with the county and so much of what people are upset about is happening within the city and and and I just however we enforce the idea that there are two entirely separate governments two entirely sets of rule different rules that the protections and the and the Concepts in which our comp plan and Land Development regulations are have nothing to do with the city and and and maybe Dana maybe it it it helps in one of the opening slides whenever whatever presentation that ever gets made here is the city and every street that surrounds it and forms the boundary of the city and here is unincorporated Martin County um just there is there is a complete I I think frustration but lack of understanding as to where the city boundaries are um and what is allowed and and I can't tell you how many times if if we all he I'm sure we do um stop doing this stop doing that there's a belief by a lot of people um that we have control over the school board and we have control over the city I there's a complete disconnect of understanding that that is not so we control and oversee unincorporated Martin County and sure there's a lot of criticism and and and and there can be for what goes on in unincorporated Martin County but the city is a different animal all together and how we Define that and share that with people and make that if we're trying to educate people through the process by what you're doing which is great through the questions and and how what do people think about things I would spend a fair amount of time every single presentation drilling into the fact that here's the box and we're outside of that box because there's a lack there is a lack of understanding and even to the extent that so many people think that once you get on the Roosevelt bridge and go north you're in Jensen well it used to be but you know a third of Jensen Beach is now the city of Stewart or has been for over 20 years and now you're seeing it develop to what the city wanted wanted it to develop into with us having absolutely no say in what happens up there anyway thank you Mr chair well we forced Indian Town into becoming a uh municipality so buckle up because their goals and objectives um are not going to it's going to be the same thing so and that was avoidable but here we are that that leads into my next question does not do not all comprehensive plans in all of the state have to go through the ear process so therefore would city of Stewart and Village of Indiantown would also be doing this ear process yes that's correct they will also be having public hearings and opportunities to input is that correct me if I'm wrong and maybe someone will will it's optional it's not a mandate I don't believe didn't they take the requirement to have to do the year out like six or seven years ago yeah that's correct each each Community whether it be county or city can choose to send a letter to the State of Florida that says we don't have any changes that we need to make we're all in compliance with State Statute but each Community must look at their plan and consider whether they need to do an evaluation and Appraisal of it and one of the changes in Statute in 2023 in fact uh says that the chairman of the County Commission has to you know sign and certify that if the if there's not going to be any evaluation appr appraisal report and there's not going to be any ear amendments that the the chairman is is putting his name to the fact that nope everything's in compliance and uh so they've they've ramped up the intensity and the and the pressure on communities to to make sure that our our comp plans whether it be city or county are in compliance with state statute wish should have known that a few months ago excuse me commission you are having one so it doesn't make a difference excuse me commissioner Alise Elder Deputy County attorney just one more thing each Community is on a different timetable so not everybody follows the same schedule it depends on your own community and the schedule you're on so we have to do it every seven years city of Stewart has to do it every seven years but they don't necessarily coincide with one another all right and with that I see no other comments so Mr Owens has been waiting patiently please come up thank you um Mr chairman and Commissioners and I've appreciated the uh conversation this morning uh Paul Owens 1,000 friends of Florida were a nonprofit nonpartisan organization dedicated to protecting the environment quality of life and economy in Mar County and throughout our state from what uh Mr little referred to as a perhaps unbridled growth for decades we've been active in this County uh the home of our late co-founder Nat Reed we are proud of our role in helping to develop this County's uh comprehensive plan which we consider the foundation for the Martin County difference the County's commitment to protecting its environment and quality of life but that commitment has increasingly come under challenge in recent years the current evaluation and appraisal report process for the comp plan creates both risk and opportunity risk that shortsighted changes could weaken the plans environmental and quality of life protections an opportunity to reaffirm and strengthen those protections while addressing Community concerns or emerging threats to environmentally and fiscally sustainable growth we believe the first imperative in this process and you saw it in one of the bullet points from January is to do no harm to the comp plan but we hope County leaders also seize the opportunity to improve it recognizing today that the recommended changes are yet to come we Advocate some practical proposals for strengthening the community planning process through the comp plan from our 1,000 friends of Florida model property rights element which you can find at our website 1000 f.org those proposals include a requirement that developers meet with affected neighbors before submitting their applications to get an early start on identifying and resolving conflicts a requirement that development applic apption and any revisions to them be made available to local officials and the public for review 10 days before they're voted on so that decisions are made with full understanding of their details and impacts and a requirement that any comp plan amendments or rezonings earn a majority plus one to be enacted because permanent changes to a community's landscape and character should be subject to a higher standard of approval thank you all for the opportunity to address you this morning in your service to this community you all right so this action for the board is to initiate the plan amendments and adopt the attached resolution and uh adopt the attached evaluation appraisal report okay before we do that is there any other public comment I that's what you want to do it good morning uh for the record my name is Morris Kady senior partner with Theo and Associates and I did submit a letter uh for the record um that that talks about one of my clients that has property on caner Highway and in order to access his property has to go through a commercial land use so I'm asking uh there's a an internal policy County staff that uh you can't utilize a a road that's built in a commercial land use to access a residential property um even though it's built to County standards and it's maintained by a legal entity other than the county their only uh exception is when the road is a public road and I don't think you know a road going through a commercial property to one residential property uh needs to be a public road that's maintained by the public and I know this also come up I don't represent any live local um clients but I know it's also come up in the context of live live local so I would like you at least to direct staff to um as they peruse these other changes to the comp plan some type of way to to blend infrastructure when you're dealing with Residential Properties next to commercial properties and allow them access and it's common in the CRA it's done quite frequently so it just needs to be a policy there that that would allow that to occur and not not uh just prohibit use of a private road through a commercial property that is perfectly capable of um providing access to Residential Properties and on a on a on a personal note you know I was here in April 1st 1982 when the comprehensive plan was originally adopted I've been working with it for 30 years or 40 years now and I tell you that the plan in 1982 and 1990 when it was updated was a 30-year growth plan it had it had uh a plan for growth over the 30 years well it's been almost 40 years and there's not been another 30-year plan cre created so that's why a lot of what's happening is a reaction to applicants proposals to try to meet the requirements of the comprehensive plan so that the state requires that you have a 15 and 30e plan and and if you don't plan for the next 15 or 30 years someone else is going to do it for you whether it be the courts or the state or private individuals thank you thank you commissioner Smith yeah to Morris's point and and I hope that everybody in the room or everybody watching us take this away um whatever we do with any fixes changes corrections to the comp plan um they should be changes and direction that this board our community want to make that we're not pushing ourselves into the state making them for us and this live local Act is just that it is intended to take away local local involvement local say and do something that our residents may not otherwise want and so if there are changes that will help us create or at least let us have the say that someone who's going to take a piece of property that is zoned appropriately or or has land use that's appropriate I would much rather the five of us have the say and someone from Tallahassee dictating to us what is going to happen with that peaceful property and having no say and that may be hard to swallow but at least you can hold us accountable and not tell hassie waving their magic wand and saying this is the way it's going to be so Morse I agree and and the project we looked at that you were referencing um I thought was a unique opportunity to do something interesting in the more affordable if you want to call it that housing discussion but also how do you mix that with commercial and how do you make it a destination for maybe younger people that would have and and to Dana's surveys would have a better opportunity to come back here and be maybe in a community that they could start to work and afford in but also have direct access to commercial activities that you don't physically have to go back out and get on the road and go do something um six miles away so anyway thank you okay looking for a motion or something we just need to accept do we need a motion move stff resolution staff's recommendation Mo um staff recommendation is on the screen moves that the board can can I do you mind if I can make it I I would move staff's recommendation with the addition to uh the recommendation that um the regional planning Council does do do some additional Outreach to those groups organizations that both Ed and I and others talked about uh just to get a a a little bit broader Dana um cross-section of information I I don't know that it'll be dramatically different but I think it would be important to get direct feedback because as Ed I think it was Ed who said it you know how many people really want to go to the Blake Library on a Wednesday night or a Tuesday night and sit there for a couple hours um and if you can take a survey as at home or or as part of your day um because you have interest or because you're a chamber member you're a hospital member or you're a Community member we might just get some really interesting additional information so I would ask that as part of the motion that we do the recommended action but that we also ask the region planning Council to um do one more round of of virtual online um survey that's my motion okay I are you coming to speak or what are you doing no I was in the parking lot and I found someone's Social Security card and I thought you might want to do an announcement just so oh somebody don don Lee Bryant whoever that might be Donald Lee Bryant Donald Lee Bryant you have lost your Social Security card please come retrieve it from our bayth all right with that we have a uh motion by commissioner Smith seconded by commissioner heatherington all in favor I all opposed opposed motion carries 4 to one uh commissioner herd dissenting thank you members of the board thank you moving on to public hearing number two fund balance adjustment that are necessary for fiscal year sounds like a quick and easy agenda item Stephanie merly I don't see see that that's how you just jump right in it's good I don't know oh I'm sorry I checked the wrong check yes please go for it public hearing number one public hearing to consider adoption of an ordinance amending chapter 47 courts article 8 additional court cost in criminal cases Melissa Petri Petri there we go thank you good morning Commissioners thank you for hearing me um this should be relatively quick this is an amendment I'm presenting to the board so that um the board would amend section 47. 154 of chapter 47 of the Martin County Code um this matter just so the uh sorry the Commissioners are aware was published on February 23rd of 2024 there is currently a Florida statute which is section 9391 185 that allows by ordinance that we enact um sear U court costs of $65 against those who plead guilty to certain uh criminal charges we have that ordinance in place the amendment here is merely to ensure that our ordinance mimics what the state statute says um and specifically the changes would be that the um an imposing of these court costs it would just state that the court shall order a person to pay the additional C court cost and if the person is determined to be Indigent the clerk shall defer payment of this cost um like I've said that's what the state statute requires and this is merely here to make sure the statute is in compliance with our County ordinance and with that commissioner Smith sou recommendation second motion by commissioner Smith seconded by commissioner campy all in favor I oh public comment I'm sorry any public comment uh I see no public comment so thank thank you motion by commissioner Smith seconded by commissioner campy all in favor I all opposed motion carries unanimously okay now we'll do public hearing number two Miss Stephanie fund balance adjustment that are necessary for fiscal year 2024 good morning Commissioners I'm Stephanie merley director of OMB here to present um our fund balance adjustments that are necessary for fiscal year 2024 um fund balance is really just a routine annual adjustment to the current Year's budget due to planned expenditures that were not made expenditures that were less than plann revenues anticipated that weren't collected in more revenues that were collected than planned from the previous fiscal year adjusting the fund balances allows projects which were planned but not completed to have the funding available to continue and is a sound fiscal practice as the budget will reflect an actual number rather than an estimate um what fund balance does is just reappropriates the funding in the line items that they were and anything left over goes into our Reserve um this this is a public hearing so all notice requirements have been made in accordance with the law and Florida Statutes um a little noteworthy comments for fy2 24 with this fund balance we have been able to um to fully replenish our Disaster Recovery Disaster Recovery Fund for the um replenishment of expenditures made during the post hurricane Nicole recovery efforts and this um fund balance also EST establishes multiple fixed asset replacement budgets for the Parks and Recreation fee generating facilities that were revenues that were collected over the expenditures and with that um unless you have any questions I believe public comment is required but otherwise this is a really big accounting entry okay do we have any public comment seeing none to the board motion to accept staff's recommendation second okay we have a motion by commissioner campy seconded by commissioner heatherington all in favor I all opposed motion passes unanimously now we will move on to Department quasi judicial number one request approval for the Newfield Parks master plan and conservation open space easements by Elizabeth Nagle Nagle Nagle Nagle Nagle nle so commissioner Elise Elder Deputy County attorney this is a quasi judicial proceeding right okay um all that uh is going to testify please stand and raise your hand do you swear or affirm the evidence you're about to give will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the [Music] truth okay and do we have any uh interveners there are no interveners in this ERS okay have all the proper paperwork been turned in to the clerk a copy of my work history and agenda item as one that's quite theg that ly quite the thing and uh we have a experte commissioner herd if I have any they've been filed commiss Cy that's safe if I have any they've been filed and if I have any they've been filed if any they've been filed you'll have to get back to I'll get back to you commissioner we will get back to commissioner Smith all right okay coming wait wait any expar um if they are they're fine there we go okay good morning uh Elizabeth Nagle development review administrator you're here this morning to talk about the new field Parks master plan and conservation easements some background on Newfield formerly known as Pine Pineland Prairie is a 3400 acre development located generally west of the Florida turnpik North of Southwest Martin Highway south of the c23 canal on August 18th 2018 CPA 1804 and 1803 were adopted 1804 created the mixed use Village land use specific to the new field development 1803 assigned the mixed use Village land use to the 3400 acre New Field development on September 11th of the same year ordinance 1083 created Article 11 Land Development regulations plan mixed use Village which is the form base code consistent with the muv land use on December 15th 2020 a development agreement was entered between the master developer and Martin County BCC the agreement ensured County's level of service needs are met in the project through the timing location and specification of facilities and services to meet or exceed the level of service standards level of service standards including libraries open space conservation fire rescue Water and Wastewater and Parks among others um facilities and amenities that are considered towards the level of service do have to be open for all Martin County residents and there is an impact free credit to the developer in return for the facilities that are open to the public So today we're talking about the parks level of service um that was adopted as part of the development agreement the Park section in the agreement calls for the level of service to be met by implementing a Parks master plan the plan is meant to provide a general outline of parks facilities and includes category a Parks and Recreation and category B open space conservation level of service standards through both active and passive Recreation facilities for example could be multi-purpose Fields there also could be an Open Space Trail Head um that I believe we heard mentioned earlier today in the public comment the park master plan is to be approved prior to issuance of the 150th building permit there are no current permits in right now so we are um we are here ahead of ahead of time to make sure we get this adopted the Master Plan before you today gives an overall view of the parks it's not designed to be specific to the scope or type of facilities the final site plans will be necessary for the individual Park areas including the trail heads with collaboration collaboration with County staff and the developer also before you today our conservation open space easements two preserve area management plans were approved in 2020 with the development agreement for areas outside the primary urban service District boundary both the development agreement and article 11 requires conservation easements to be approved to guarantee preservation of all open space and conservation areas outside the PD prior to issuance of the 50th building permit so there are three easements pamp 1 conservation easement for wetlands and Native Upland habitat pamp 2 conservation easement for wetlands and Native Upland habitat and an open space easement for the open space outside of wetland and N native Upland habitat within the pamp 2 area um the applicant is also here to make a presentation um the recommendation to the board is to move that the board rece even file the agenda item and its attachments including staff report as exhibit one move the board adopt a resolution to approve the parks master plan for the new field development and move that the board adopt a resolution accepting and approving three conservation easements covering pamp one pamp 2 and the pamp 2 open space area happy to answer any questions um the applicant's presentation May answer some of those questions but happy to commissioner herd how are the conservation easements guaranteed I don't understand the question Elise Elder Deputy County attorney there easements that are recorded over the property and they will be in place in perpetuity until they are um released by the county so they'll be um who guarantees their perpetuity the county they're they're they're recorded and they're given to the county so the county the board of County Commissioners um would have to release those in order for the conservation easements to be uh removed from the property but they run with the land and they're attached to the land so the the border of County Commission major simple majority can remove them um I believe it's in the master plan as well it'll be in the plans but yeah the board of County Commissioners would be able to release them I believe I don't think I asked this because there are problems to the south of us on this very thing there are conservation easements on on uh voter approved lands that are instead being developed I don't think for this conservation easement we have a third party like a nonprofit that guarantees it with it but we can we can hear from the applicant if they have further but that's okay I'm interested to find out because we hear Promises of perpetuity and we see reversals all the time so that they're very very fluid they're not perpetual and I'm very concerned that there are 2400 acres here that have a development reservation Miss Marcela you are up good morning Commissioners Marcela camblor uh principle of Marcel camper and Associates and planner for uh Madame holes do you want me to answer that question first there are multiple levels and I know this has been your concern throughout this entire process um as following Mr kiplinger's footsteps Madame is attempting to establish every available tool to us at this point to make this guaranteed in perpetuity one of them is the easement we have we're establishing a um a Conservancy on top of that as well and on top of that there's also a Community Development District so there's multiple entities that would have to agree the board of County Commissioners would have to agree those um the board of the Conservancy would have to agree the board of the CDD would have to agree and now within this preservation area we we're also establishing elements like an sta where the Water Management District would have to agree or we are establishing a tortoise uh Bank where the Florida Wildlife Conservation agency would have to agree so there are so many agencies that are participating in several elements that it wouldn't just be a clean sweep from a a 3-2 vote that could get rid of of all this I'm not going to say that someone in 50 years or 205 is not going to try but it's it it would just be a very complicated thing and if you have any ideas of how it can be up tighter we're open to it it's it's been the intent continuously to just make it as airtight as possible thanks commissioner Smith Sarah uh woods and I had a conversation the other day and it pops up every I don't know year or every couple of years um there is a like question and and there have been at least in my years of doing this there have been two maybe three runs at converting a golf course in North River Shores to something other than a golf course and that has been met with our resistance and our commitment to that neighborhood that that will never happen and maybe Sarah could just take one second and explain why that exists and how that exists in the legal challenges that come along with it and I I I haven't researched it as as it would apply to this development but in the case in north of rores there was a transfer of density that was used and the language in that restrictive covenant which runs with the land much as a conservation eement does and it's irrevocable um and I I know that everything is always possible to be undone but there's never in this County um in the over 20 years that I've been here 23 years that that anything has been met with at all going forward I think there also could be a legal challenge to that and in this case as well I think these conservation easements and Miss Elder may be able to clarify but they're the conservation easements are intertwined with the appr the development approval and so I think you're talking about a very complicated and complex process that would be difficult at best to undo and commissioner Smith's right it's similar to what happened I think it was in the late 60s early 70s with the Pine Lake Golf Course which continues to exist and has never been undone thank you thank you um so with me here today are Jason Corp who is the acquisition manager for Madame Holmes and also Ike grumer who's a local consultant like me participated in um the the visioning process with Knight Kiplinger since the beginning and I think we're happy to to report too that um Madam has maintained night kiplinger's uh Vision vision and consultant team to ensure that that vision is implemented as originally thought out and just before I start a shout out to your growth Management Department what a pleasure it is to work with them always so this is one step forward in the implementation of this idea that Knight had that 70% of these 3400 Acres would be preserved open and publicly accessible in perpetuity as staff mentioned there's a couple of pamps already in place there's the the conservation easement with the Kiplinger Conservancy there's a CDD there's a number of different layers that um will guarantee or hope this open and public imp perpetuity um the staff showed you the master plan that was approved at the time of adoption and um you know within that Master Plan there are a series of parks and greens and open space and each of those will be reviewed by this board when we bring each of the neighborhood plans forward for approval we are not here today to talk about any of those internal Parks or Open Spaces those you will get a chance to see every time we bring a neighborhood plan in front of you we're here to have you consider the adoption of a master plan as required by a development agree devel agreement and staff mentioned for the 2400 Acres that are now open and will remain open and I I just want to add um if not for this Vision if not for this new land use Amendment all of this 2400 Acres was slated to be um developed or could have been developed as 5 acre renats so it's completely stripped of development and what we want to do now is establish the general ener parameters as to what could happen where Within These 2400 Acres the there's a chapter in Your Land Development regulations that states um how the different areas inside the neighborhood can be develop at what density at what intensity with what kinds of uses and there are two sections or or two areas outlined in the Land Development regulations as well that are called the T1 and T2 zones and specifically coding for open space which is pretty unique to Martin County's code in T2 areas we can do um athletic fields and active Recreation and have farming and have buildings that support farming or that active Recreation and again the buildings would be so long as they're inside the urban service boundary we can't just go putting buildings outside the urban service boundary and then there are areas within those 2400 Acres that are under what is known as the T1 Zone and in that T1 Zone what we can do and the impacts um can still be publicly accessible but it's very limited it's more in the forms of trails and boardwalks and and um much more light access and uh and recreation still public so just to go over a few of the principles that are embedded in the master plan that we are asking you to consider adopting today as staff mentioned we are required to as we develop Newfield meet the County's level of service in many different categories um one of the things that I am the most proud of with Newfield is the fact that by implementing this project we are not only meeting the County's level of services we're exceeding them we are taking Martin County to a a a level of service when it comes to public open space and Recreation space that is the highest actually in the state and we're incredibly proud of that um with all the development that is being proposed in Newfield at buildout there would have been a requirement to provide a minimum of 30 Acres of active Park land um that that would fulfill theel of service for the entirety of the development just with the first master plan that this commission approved back in I think it was March of 2020 inside that neighborhood plan we satisfied 11 of those 30 Acres um a a lot of the remainder will be in other neighborhoods but we will greatly exceed that minimum requirement um as far as open space or conservation lands again at buildout Newfield would have been required to provide 160 Acres of open space or conservation according to the level of service and what is being provided is 2400 Acres again this all reflects in the County's level of service and availability of um these types of services for the entirety of the community you know when we when we started creating this master plan we looked at some general principles I think we referenced first you know what would have Frederick L Alstead uh you know the the the America's father of of the creation of parks would have done you know he followed seven principles to design parks and open space and those were that open space and Parks were great but they had to build community they had to contribute to building Community um they had to respect the local landscape uh they had had to be such that the people using them could enjoy the local scenery they had to integrate built elements into the park plan they had to be used also to define the developed space which you know if you can see in the plan of Newfield we are completely compressing and surrounding the developed area uh they would be such that they increase property values for the community as a whole they had to elevate the lives of citizens and they had to be accessible to all which was also night kiplinger's initial tenant um this master plan again it's General because we will have individual site plans for each element that comes in to these 2400 acres is intended to elevate the level of service I mean to comply and Elevate the level of service within Martin County to provide indoor and outdoor recreation septed septed design uh to to provide environmental stewardship programs educational opportunities flu control and water cleanup uh to be a case study for green infrastructure to allow for public private Partnerships for development or operations of recreation areas should the county uh want to participate with Madam to Foster tourism uh really focused on Wildlife inhabitant preservation to allow for urban farming and yes or job creation as it relates to the amount of recreation that is going to be provided um I am I'm not going to go over the conditions of the developers agreement because staff did that I just want to show you um with a caveat that these few images are not included in your master plan these are part of um the exhibits that Madame is working on right now to start to implement this plan this first image that you're seeing here is the Newfield trails and Recreation plan what you can see in all those like mustard color and beige and um and purple lines are all of the trails that are being proposed throughout the entirety of the project the trails will not only be in the 2400 Acres but will enter and connect through the through the neighborhoods now we are right now in the process of getting three Trail heads um approved we have been working with staff on the design of very light imprint uh parking areas a little bit of um shell cover to allow some parks to pull in and then start to access some of these Trails I think some of you participated in the sort of ribbon cutting ceremony of our first Trail but um it is madame's intention to have just as they had the farm before they had the development and they had the conservation easement before they had the development to have the trails and Public Access before development come in again trying to make true to the promise that this will be a benefit to the community as a whole uh there is a list in this document of the type of activities that that um are envisioned to happen within these 2400 Acres um you can see a small map in the bottom when this green area encounter developed area there's opportunities to to do small um kayak launches and and boat ramp uh launches and um this is being developed so that you can use those in between the neighborhoods and also in the Lakes um in the in the public areas in in the green area so these are some examples of the type of architecture and um and character that we would uh consider for this type of use there's all sorts of things I just put a couple of images of the ones that I thought were the most interesting again when development encounters natural open space there's ideas to do um spiritual labyrinths and places where you can just uh go and have a very complete and different experience with uh with nature and the environment um there is U the idea to also fairly soon come with um an adventure course and other amenities um for the community to be able to use out there um within this open space again none of this is being approved under this master plan it's I'm just showing you the types of activities that could be proposed prior site plan development and uh and um staff approval as we move forward activities for all ages there will be a ton of trails for uh bicyclists throughout the 2400 Acres but if you don't want your little ones to venture and maybe meet you know an alligator out there uh there will be closer to the developed areas also um some of these um activity areas so amenities for all ages is what is being proposed um they um just across the street from what is going to be um Newfield Town Square uh there's the proposal to do four multi-use multi-purpose fields we have been working already with with staff I think it is before the 150th um permit we need to have a temporary field but instead Madam has decided we're not just going to do a temporary field let's do the four Fields ahead of time and we believe that those are going to be available before development comes as well so with that um I'm happy to answer any questions I think this is a very exciting um opport opportunity for the county and for all the residents again this area is five times larger than the largest park currently in Martin County and we believe the activities um will just be incredibly complimentary so thank you commissioner Smith thanks Marcel um something I haven't talked to you about but I've certainly um brought it up the regional planning Council uh it's one of my priorities for this year um both as chair of the regional planning Council but also here at the county um we've had two presentations over the last year at the regional planning Council one at our joint meeting and one last month or the month two months ago rather about the wildlife Corridor program that the State of Florida has embarked on and what I found most interesting in all of that is that for all intents of purposes the Treasure Coast from Indian River to Northern Palm Beach is excluded there are no missing gaps there are no links there are no anything it's all generally speaking the west coast and some of Central Florida some of North Central Florida and so what I've asked the regional planning Council to do with us uh is to put on a summit of a wildlife Corridor discussion um that clearly it was intended at least in my thought process that all of what you all have done with the 2400 Acres what we're doing with some other projects and what we've done with land acquisition what we did with c44 what we're doing with Palmar all of those components could get worked into a long range strategy of how do we finish connecting the dots um by what the private sector is doing what the governmental sector is doing um what the agricultural sector is doing um that we can somehow uh put all those together and and come up with a really incredibly super plan and if it's not to be uh because if it's not wanted to be part of the other Statewide plan then we'll have our own plan for uh the Treasure Coast and certainly up through Indian River maybe into bravard but I I think with everything that we're doing on the East Coast it it is absolutely imperative that we recognize the works of what you all are doing um and what others are doing um it was a huge land acquisition in in in Harold's District um that could have been 6 to 800 homes and probably hardly more than the people in this room even know that that doesn't exist anymore because it was it was acquired and and put into private ownership that has absolutely zero intentions of developing it with homes and so there are a lot of things like that if there is a formalized way to include of all what you are doing what n Kiplinger has done what Madame is going to do and coales that into an overall um strategy that the public can understand what more we're doing than Whatever Gets talked about I think that would be great and so I probably should had that conversation with you before you came to the podium I'm not asking you to do anything today other than to recognize um that it is important to us as a community certainly to me um and we will be doing probably April May is some time uh at the regional planning Council some kind of a summit that pulls all those ideas together no I think I think that's fantastic I mean I'm sure Madam would like to participate they've been an incredible Steward I did not mention just responded in your question um last month we got an inspection by Florida Wildlife um and we we think we're very close to having the first established uh tortoise Bank in Martin County and it's going to be also in this land I didn't know tortoises had density but they do it's interesting um so that's also very exciting but yes I'm sure yes density chases me through life anyway tnd D tortoise density there you go commissioner campy thank you Mr chair uh Miss camblor from the first time I had a chance to meet with Knight Kiplinger I remember he was talking about this family property that they've had for a long time and what his vision was and the word Vision comes up all the time uh because he really had a very clear defined vision of what he wanted and it was a little different than what most people were thinking about especially in Florida there would be no golf courses there would be no gated communities he was going to which we can see here on this slide going to make sure that uh massive majority of it was left untouched and that it would also not exclusively be for the folks that lived there that it would be very well publicized that it was open for everyone and um what's nice about the process and it's been long what's it five or six years seven years we started in 2017 so yeah yeah yeah so um with that in mind it's nice to see it starting to really happen I know that when he was you know a lot of people were surprised that he was not he and an and I guess the family weren't going to develop this personally or within the family uh and I know he was very concerned about finding an appropriate partner because the partner would have to really um not only Embrace but actually accomplish execute his vision we call it night vision and I remember the first time when they were announcing who the partner was going to be in Madam Holmes that um that we said they would you know those of us that approved the project with your assistant our growth management department and all the other departments at the county and the Commissioners that approved it and the residents that really endorsed it which you know in Martin County is a remarkable feat Knight and an and you and your team with Mr Crumpler and Stacy rener and everybody else they went around and how many presentations did you do a hundred we reached out to 10,000 people but yes so you know and now I use that as an example for other uh developers and applicants that come forward to call it the Kiplinger process and because of that so I know that by selecting Madam um there was still until you actually did it there was still concern that they would embrace the same vision that he had and it it's I've been out to the trails I was out there recently uh they had some of the kids from um Citrus Grove Elementary School were planting trees they have a Green Market once a month uh that is very unique so Madam was the perfect partner for the klingers to uh to sort of bring this dream of knights to uh to fruition but the beneficiary the beneficiaries will not just be people that live in Newfield but all Martin County residents I encourage them to already come out and see some of the trails and the things that are happening in the Green Market um so job well done and I know we have to take public comment but it you know I as as well as the fact that the bragging rights of this is in District 5 um I'll make a motion gladly to accept uh staff's recommendation of your proposal after public comment and just I want to add one thing Mr Kiplinger and an are still heavily involved they're not here today but they check everything I know you know they're never going away that's which is we don't want them to for sure it it is amazing to watch this EV yes absolutely uh with that do we have any public comment seeing none we had a motion by commissioner campy and I heard something you can't second your own motion okay seconded by commissioner Smith all in favor I all opposed motion carries unanimously thank you very much and with that it's lunchtime so we'll see everybody back at 1:30 do well