e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e all we're going to start this meeting thank you welcome everyone Mary R call Mayor Bruner yes vice mayor Rich yes commissioner Clark yes commissioner Collins yes here commissioner McDonald here and um we're g to stand up and do our invocation and Pastor darl Orman so happy you're here from First Baptist thank you sir thank you good to be with you several years ago I started listening to country music again so my wife thought I was having a midlife crisis so for your edification I want to share with you just a handful real quickly of real country music titles okay I'm so miserable without you it's like having you here please bypass this heart how can I miss you if you won't go away I changed her oil and she changed my life and this is one of my favorites I want to whip your cow and then finally if my nose were full of nickels I'd blow it all on you close with that one let's let's have a word of prayer father we just want to tell you we love you today and thank you for the privilege to be here we ask you to pour your spirit out in this meeting and father we just pray that you'd give wisdom and guidance and instruction and father help everyone to hear clear communication and Lord we also want to ask if you would just to bring an Awakening to our nation and specifically even to our County and to the city we pray Lord that they' be just an Awakening of morality and honesty and integrity and Lord just a supernatural movement of your spirit and we just want to tell you we love you and praise you in Jesus name amen amen thank you so now we'll do the Pledge of Allegiance IED to the of the United States of America for it stands one nation God indivisible withy and justice for all okay do I have any comments uh with the Commissioners I'll start with you commissioner Clark is that it already if you have any comments yeah I do have comments I just want to say that before this meeting we had a um community redevelopment agency meeting and at that meeting we approved um a matching grant for mural on Martin Luther King junr Boulevard and I know we've had other grants and murals in the community and starting out this year with a mural in this area and especially um during February of Black History Month I think that is um a good move that the city made and I just want to applaud our staff for the CRA for their continuous work and what they're doing and I really really appreciate that at our last meeting um I don't know if it was a city manager one of us who had brought up or maybe I did bring brought up the idea of the um NAACP the National Association for the advancement of colored people that was um started in 1909 by both black and white um men and women of these United States they're having their annual Gala on March 16th and I brought it up and there was discussion and I thought that somehow staff had gotten Direction but apparently they haven't they didn't get specific Direction and I want to make a motion and I hope that I'll get a second in my comments section today to um for the city to at least fund um a table at the NAACP I know that last year we had both staff and Commissioners who were at a particular table and I think we probably had a little bit of overflow I would hope that we could get staff as well as um Commissioners if all of us do attend with a spouse or somebody um but I at least want to make sure that we I want to make this motion that we fund uh at least a table I don't know if we need two tables I I could ask the city manager I think they had actually gone and ask people who might want to go both staff and Commissioners and if there's an overflow I'd like to probably know if we need to have two tables or one table or have that up to the amount of whoever is um available to attend up to a certain amount what is that suggestion so that I can complete my motion Mr city manager um so you're correct commissioner Clark in your uh comment that I was confused after the last meeting I went back and listened to the tape and you had actually said you would she she said I would make a motion and then the mayor chimed in and when I uh told the mayor that the mayor couldn't make the motion that somebody else did there was some other discussion that went back and forth related to just getting our own tickets and things like that and then it wasn't followed up with a motion um so the position I would take is that I U looked and last year the city manager had or the commission had voted to have the city manager uh purchase a table at the event um I had in anticipation of the commission um having me purchase a table had started to ask staff if there were anybody that interested in going in the event certain Commissioners or or their uh significant others couldn't attend with them and I did get some expression from some staff members uh that they would in fact be interested in attending so if the if the board would like me to get a table for the commission I would need a I would need a motion and second and a vote to get a table um for the and it's a 10 seat so it's each commissioner get two tickets if I did that and you weren't able to go you could have two choices you could give the tickets back to me and have me give them to staff or you could give them to someone else that that was interested in going and then if you wanted me to um get a second table I would be happy to discuss that with staff members and and give the uh it would be five tickets because they'd probably bring a guest so it' be five people to attend and fill the second table and I know I've been talking to Jimmy Smith who is here and he was uh filling me in on um all the activity and it sounds like it's going to be a very successful and highly attended event with plenty of entertainment and and we will even be able to see Jimmy on the dance floor for anybody willing to go well that's worth it right there right so I should make a motion for up to two tables that's your discretion but yes that is my motion we have a motion by commissioner Clark do we have a second I'll second it oh good all right we um have a motion and we have a second um do I need public comment that's it public comment yeah do we have any public comment concerning nea I see none Mary can I just ask what how much is this going to cost do we have a sense yes I do it's it's uh $1,200 for a table or 12250 if the tickets were bought separately so it's 24 not 22 I miss quote thank you yeah thank you'all uh um me give your name and uh Jimmy SMI president NCP Branch Mar County I I just wanted to say that why that uh I invite the city to be a part of this because uh order for us to really bring this city to be the best city in the State of Florida we have to look Beyond some of the things and that we can incorporate together this is about the youth uh the kids our future that we can grasp aold that we can unite all kids together VI diversity here in Stuart um the theme this year is where will our kid future be like without your vote vote mean in participation involving the schools the county the city whatever could pertain to our kids uh whether in the churches and you can see that this world is is if we don't capture together and join together hold hands together I don't know where our future and stute would be and NP P A lot of people feel that NCP is only a black organization only no it's a national advanc Min for Association of color people I just want to ask everybody just take a look at the person to the left of you look at somebody to the right of you see can you find somebody the same color you are so we all got a color and from our heart and loving to see my City commissioners that doing a great job uniting together and come and support and we can uh meet and uh do great things together we got some great ideas to bring to the city Stewart I was sharing with some of them earlier and I think you all going to be very proud of what's this going to bring is to unite to unite all together and I want to thank you for your support thank you very much thank you yes um i' just like to say that I have always intended to purchase my own ticket so uh Mr morto my ticket could be made available to staff we um any more public comment all right we we will vote on this um we have a motion in second Mary commissioner McDonald yes commissioner Collins yes commissioner Clark yes mayor Bruner yes vice mayor Rich yes very good all in favor do you have directions on Mr mortell yes I do um Madame mayor just want to say that uh in our community and I know that Miss um Helen McBride is here all the time well we have a program at the 10th Street Recreation Center which the meals and wheels comes out there and participate and I think one of our longest um members of the community um miss Will May has passed away and um she has always been out there for the time that they've had the meals and wheels and has always been an active member in our community and I just want to um just let everybody know that this wonderful lady from the especially from the East Stewart community and has worked at zerilla cabbage farms and other areas in our community and uh she is uh no longer with us and I I just know that that program out there strive because of people like her and miss um Helen McBride and others who attend the the lunch program there um and Madame mayor I would want to say other things but I think that it'll probably accom other people's comments because I just had phone calls before the meeting regarding um uh bright line and articles that are floating around as of this afternoon or today but I'll just leave those comments until if they come up with anybody else um and uh that's it and anything else with regard to the agenda also thank you thank you commissioner commission commissioner Collins but you got to be the first to say bright line now oh shs I was trying to avoid it all right all right so I I did it even though bright Line's going on and there's a lot of energy around the affordable housing agenda item tonight I actually wanted to talk about water I know all of us are very aware that since the last meeting discharges have begun and I just wanted to say first off that I was very encouraged that uh most of us were there at the Rivers Coalition meeting um with Colonel booth and you know Congressman Mass was there it was just so great to see most of us were there and even one of the candidates running for City commission was there so we were well represented and that went a long way in that room um when people were looking around and seeing how how uh present the city of Stewart was including our City attorney and city manager so it said a lot to our commitment to uh water quality and what I wanted to say first is though I am forever committed committed to zero discharges and we'll continue to Advocate probably in the future once Loom is going for an environmental attorney uh to have the water quality of our Estuary hopefully one day considered by a federal judge uh I think the most important battle that we're looking at right now which is very obvious with discharges is the fight for lome and when I say that I'll reference uh Congressman Mast who uh brought up a really good point at that Rivers Coalition meeting when he said to Colonel Booth you know in a military setting I would never go into a battle with an old map you know and he and he said that to Colonel booth and I thought that was really well said because right now it's very confusing the situation we're in where we're somewhere between l08 and Loom according to you know even major Bell when I got to talk with him uh we are Under LS with the spirit of loom but um we're facing discharges the lake has been being kept deeper IE lome but with the wet weather and the current El Nino that I don't know once every 10 years kind of event that we're facing right now we have schizophrenically reverted back to L's 08 style discharges which I know we're all facing uh taking on the chin I'm sure there has been a lot of pressure from the core and the south Florida Water Management District from the stakeholders that are around the lake um they don't necessarily want the core to carry that much water in their Lake but that is the deal that we have signed uh we just need Loom to be adopted so after years of this proc process we ever more than ever can now see that it needs to be be adopted as soon as humanly possible uh water needs to sit in that lake so our estuaries can be spared from the kind of damage that they're facing right now so last time you know an anticipation of discharges that have since started I asked for a letter and all of you were very kind and and on the same page with wanting to draft a letter and I actually wanted to double that this time and ask for two and this was the ask I'm going to ask for you guys is one to South Florida Water Management District and one to the core and and this is sort of the context of what I wanted to ask you guys for is to encourage the core to truly operate under lome uh guidelines keeping more water in the lake um again looking at the health and human safety of the people who live here the ability of our River to clean itself I.E the oysters you know Nearshore reefs everything that Ben knows to ride in there is Ben in here where's Ben at I don't see him but secondarily to South Florida Water Management District we all need right now more than ever for these guys to be our Advocates as a board being very vocal in lome getting adopted as soon as possible so if you guys were open to it I would love for a letter to go now that discharges have formally started uh to the core and also to South Florida Water Management District again Ben I'm sure can craft really great language here that's very gracious um but I'll say it one more time now more than ever we need to make sure that our interests just like a lot of the interests of the stakeholders around the lake are being heard so that Loom can go forward which I know we all feel like it's a done deal but you never know in situations like this where we're now facing discharges and and the confusion around what map we're following like you know Congressman Mass said I think makes evident that we need to encourage the core and the district to remember us and remember our Estuary the biodiversity and all of it so with that I'll yield thank you no objection yes I agree thank you guys any more commissioner Collins no commissioner rich thank you Madame mayor uh I'd like to point out a correction that needs to be made and this error occurred at our last joint meeting with the county the other cities and the school board and at that time a report was made about residential units that were either permitted or in process uh applications in process and those of us in the cities in Stewart were quite happy to see the big number zero come up with regard to 2023 in terms of the number of new units approved or in process that actually was incorrect if you look at the data it um it it was from July 1st to the end of September so I just wanted to cor the actual number for 2023 is the total of number of new units approved in the city of Stewart was 60 um for a development on Central Parkway sailfish K yeah home ownership the total for the number just to put it in perspective because and the reason I want to make this correction is because I still get a great many people come up to me and say the city is out of control with their development approvals the county approved or in are in process 5,911 Indian Town poor I me I mean not portal but booming little Indian town 2,970 so in Martin County that's a total of 8,861 units approved residential units approved or in process r60 represents 2/3 of 1% of the total number units approved so I just want people to understand what's actually taking place in the city um on another note I was lucky enough to be invited and was able to attend the graduation for project lift and I had never done that I would like to commend Dr is is he a doctor Dr robt Robert zacho for putting on a very enthusiastic um Graduation Ceremony this is a terrific example I think of a public private partnership and the impact he has had on these children's and young adults life is so obvious and their families are there it was just terrific and here is you know children young children who have been having great difficulty in their lives apparently and here they are graduating and the hcav kids who were engaged in that course of study they didn't even get to graduation before they had jobs carpentry skills welding skills there was a young girl there who is the valid dictorian who's just a hair away from being a certified nurse who had her newborn baby on her hip and these are kids who want to work in the city of Stewart they want to start businesses in the city of Stewart and I just hope we're able to accommodate them at some point and again congratulations to Robert zako and project lft and the city in fact we're trying to work out we're trying to work out a partnership with them is that correct Mr mortell we uh through our CRA have actually already uh tentatively entered into an agreement with them we have a applied for and received a very successful Grant that's allowed us to acquire some property which is previously known as the Willie Gary property uh on Martin Luther King Boulevard which um we closed on and are the proud owners of now and we're working forward on entering into a lease agreement with uh the project lft which will end up providing a 12,000 sq foot building on that site that'll be brand new landscape and building and it's going to be designed to train uh 18 to 25-year olds in the trades of carpentry electrical mechanical Plumbing Etc and it's uh going to be actually uh Bob zaco's textbook that we'll be stealing and uh it seems to have been extremely successful this far and we're really looking forward to working with him and boy I sure wish my graduation had been that much fun thank you Madame mayor um unfortunately I wasn't able to attend the uh graduation but as uh someone who came through the vocational process in High School uh I'm really excited about uh the trade because I think this is going to create a lot of opportunities uh for young people in our community to have higher paying jobs and you know an higher paying job means a better standard of living it's a better quality life for not just that person but the people around them people that have higher quality life have more healthy uh so I'm really excited about it and I've been we've been working in this project for quite a while and our CRA did a great job getting the grant I just want to kind of touch base today on at today's no meeting um I was we did there's a series of procedural steps you have to go through for funding of projects uh Transportation projects throughout the county and today was one of those procedural we approved the uh uh we approved the the uh work plan and what was uh nice to see on there and this is uh the priorities actually the our Mo priorities for the next year and there was 19 priorities and five of them were in the city of Stewart including uh no six of them I'm sorry six of them were in the city of Stewart and a couple of them are pretty ambitious but it's the fact that we're working on improving our transportation improving our roads improving our traffic uh it's something that uh I've been I've been put a lot of effort in over the years I'm very excited about it it's uh and it's really good to see the these projects kind of getting through because getting on the priorities is what ultimately gets them funded by Federal Highway in the State of Florida and then they get and that eventually they'll get a f they'll get funded for uh design and construction so we're working on it uh but that was I was really pleased to see that uh happen that we have so many considering the city of Steward is only seven square miles out of about 500 square miles of Martin County and of course I think I'll let Mr mortell later talk about I'm sure he'll want to talk about the bright line announcement today um so I'll leave it at that and thank you very much for being here tonight thank you commissioner McDonald our our manager um so uh first I I don't actually have any specific comments for tonight other than to say that the we do have a d and d for the end of the meeting that's um scheduled as a uh discussion and deliberation based upon on a offer I had received for clarity I want to be very clear that it is not a site plan approval it is not a quasi judicial proceeding it is not us approving a development it is not anything like that it is an initial discussion and therefore there's no concern about whether or not people were notified or if enough people are aware and things like that because it's truly an initial uh uh initial um discuss discussion um the other thing I was going to talk about um was I had a great weekend at the Arts uh Fest that was downtown it was beautiful weather um enjoyed myself dramatically and I'm kind of dragging my feet trying to get past the discussion that commissioner McDonald was pointing at but I guess I'll go there um so there was a lot lot of Buzz today about a project we've been working very hard on and I'll start by saying I do not officially have anything in writing that has selected any particular location for bright line but I can tell you that I was informed that the I should notify the City commissioners and others that are interested that there was going to be an important announcement at the location of the um proposed bright Line station in the city of Stewart which is on Flagler Avenue next to the courthouse in that parking lot on March 11th um this afternoon at 3:00 after all of the conversation um that changed and I was told that it might be March 4th so um as of right now what I know for sure is that a very important announcement is going to happen either on March 4th or March 11th and it's likely to happen at the parking lot next to the courthouse on Flagler Avenue in Stewart but to be official and to give a statement is that I I don't have anything in writing and I can say you know we applied for a an enormous Grant to um build to replace the uh railroad bridge going over the river and before Christmas we were notified um by a very reliable source on that matter and it was Congressman mask in that particular uh instance that told us that uh he had helped us secure the funding for that Grant however we didn't get a letter until almost the end of January from the Florida Department of or the Federal Department of Transportation as it related to that Grant and it truly wasn't official until we got that particular letter so I I can't officially say that I have any more information than maybe anybody else other than I am very familiar with the location that the announcement would be made at and I would really be surprised that there would be a a suggestion that we be invited to that location to tell us we were the wrong application that wouldn't be so great but that's really all I have on it okay thank you can I get a motion to approve the agenda to approve the agenda second okay any any comment any comment from the public Mary R all in favor all in favor hi hi always no nice let's see oh comments from the public um Helen and we do have some members uh comment uh from the public on the item seven this is just general non-agenda items that's right non agendas okay thank you you're welcome H Helen McBride from Flingo Avenue and to follow through on commissioner Clark at the 10th Street rec center every day from um 10:30 to a 1 uh 12:30 it's not only just meals and wheels but we have arts and crafts we have um physical fitness we have people coming to to help in case you need help at home or that um and how to eat healthier your nutrition and that there's a lot more at least one day a week we do slip in Bingo uh but it but it's it's getting us all out now the reason I'm up here talking at the last meeting when I was talking about parking down at um by FLW park for Hudson on the river and I know our new city manager not real he may not realize it but I've gone through five or six city managers and I've always sat in the same exact chair so he probably doesn't realize that and at the meeting where you were saying about um Hudson on the river could put out cones and anybody could park there in my mind I thought it was six or eight parking spots now I've been coming down and it's getting worse Hudson on the river this Saturday they had so many cones out even the two parking spots for the railroad people they had con here to park cars now when I'm talking to people we have a wonderful police department and the crime watch and the sheriff's department and they constantly are on us about locking our cars lock in your cars now you five seem to think it's going to be all right for me to come down he my car keys with my house keys on it to some valet person I've never met in my life and I'm from the old school where we keep money you know some little chains what used to be a dime to always call home or a quarter you're endangering and now oh I'll go with the fisherman because Bob was a fisherman I've never met a fisherman yet who didn't go fishing and they didn't expect to end up in the water but they usually do so they are going well maybe you don't Mr rich but when they go they leave their things in the car our fishermen and I should say fisher wom cuz some of the women have been talking to me they're not going to H hand over their keys to complete stranger now I think you should readdress it because let's face it Hudson on the river and the boat house are owned by the same gentleman he built boat house and he's using our city parking lot now he built Hudson on the river and now he wants to take the public parking that whole area down uh by his by the bridge of fishingman you've got to stop we elected five people to represent we the people and I'm off with the business people you know that I was here when this was the Ghost Town downtown I'm I'm for the business people but not on the back of the ordinary person who likes to go fishing or like myself when I have Joseph A busi with me go down and watch the trains and we walk that and he likes to sit there and watch a bridge go up and down you've got to readdress them you've got to serve the people and not just one business thank you very much um I had said at the last meeting I would uh speak with Helen and I have and uh gone down there many times I do believe as as the mayor may I bring um would like to bring it up for discussion sometime or the you can meeting you can discuss whatever you'd like you're the mayor okay um because it is it is a real concern I I um my first thoughts when Hudson was going in were those three parking spaces for the uh fisherman the railroad track has taking it over I've gone down there all hours of the day and um 8 or nine at night um the fisherman a lot of them fish on the old Roosevelt and they'll Park on both sides or they'll Park uh uh and go down under they'll Park on on on um my goodness can't remember the behold us on Dixie and go down under and get to the uh Boardwalk but um and I agree that they're not going to just give their uh their old car or their new car or whatever they're driving these are fishermen my uh nephew goes down there and Fishes all the time and he's a young man and he can uh you know park over with the bathrooms or further down but it is it it it um I agree for he owns both both of the restaurants and this is something that we ask and it hasn't uh it hasn't fall it's fallen through it it it's not working so if we can have another discussion or what other Commissioners think uh but the railroad has taken those first three U parking places and take it down the signs that we had for the fishermen that that was our parking spot commission uh Mike what is the current status of that agreement do we have flexibility to even amend what's going on down there kind of refreshing me because I wasn't that deal was before I even got here I'm kind of curious what the logistics are for what it's worth I I've never actually pulled the fishermen to see if they were residents of Stuart or customers of Stewart or who they are and I don't think it matters but when the commit when the uh restaurant was opening um I believe the city manager was David di at the time but he put an agenda item on to treat that parking lot the same way way that we treated the other Surplus land that we received from FL from fot when they built the new bridge because that was the same land that we received on the other side of Sunset Bay Marina and what happened there was with sailor returns they said sailor return is going to provide valet parking and anybody can park there and they can't charge to valet and anybody can park there and walk the boardwalk and go fishing off the sides or whatever and then on the other side people can park on Dixie and walk up the fish the to fish there's a fishing pier that goes directly off underneath the Roosevelt bridge when the commission voted to allow Hudsons to have valet parking it was conditioned upon it had to be open to the public and anybody could park there and they can't charge for valet and at the time I believe it was the first three spaces were dedicated to fishermen on the bridge about about I think it was August or September uh the FEC not the the FBC notified uh us that it was revoking those two parking spaces and reserving them for the railroad bridge tenders that were also a requirement um that happened several years ago uh as part of the Martin County arrangement with um the railroad so the first two spaces are now dedicated to this um uh FEC Rail Road Bridge tenders the third space I believe is still dedicated to the fishermen but then it goes to the uh valet spots that the commission had voted on how many of those spots are tied up in the valet I don't know how many it is because what happens is when you valet it you can actually add about 25% more cars because they don't actually Park them right on the spaces they because of valet they Park them right tighter but off the top of your head you don't know the physical number of spots I honestly don't have the top of my head but the the board could not do it the board could amend it board could direct me to add two more spaces something for the fishermen um and I don't honestly know you know my experience with fishing is that when the tide is changing is when fishing is better than when it's slack and so as a result the fishermen are there at very it's a moving schedule because as that six-hour tide swing changes it shifts when the hot fishing is and hot fishing tomorrow might be at 10:00 a.m. and then 3 months from now it might be at 10 p.m. or 8:00 p.m. or 6:00 p.m. or whatever I think the valet parking is Thursday Friday and Saturday so but I don't know if it's Monday Tuesday and Wednesday but you guys could also address that and you could say you know it's not on this day or it is on that day could we could we actually make it a a DND potentially it seems like there might be some interest in talking about it I'd like to kind well that's what that's what she had asked me if you want there's a couple of ways to do it I could bring it back as an agenda item that you can vote on with a new resolution um or a D and D whatever is your reference I mean if I if I bring it up as a resolution and you don't vote to change it it doesn't matter okay so it's probably easier just to do it as a resolution we can amend it at that moment if if you're inclined I'm I would like to do that if you all are second M may can I just make a comment yes I mean I don't want to Discount the concerns of the fishermen but but I asked a half a dozen people who lived in this town for decades and I said did you know that the valet is available to you when you go down to the Huds and they they had no idea nobody has any idea that that valet is available to the public so it's it's de facto handing them all and when people see cones they're you know all they see is that they're those are not accessible to them so we've got more problems than just these and yes we need to talk about this further thank you Commissioners anyone else so how soon is it going to come back Miss some more Jo um I was thinking next November I'm kidding I'm come on it'll be the next meeting man you guys are tough don't mess with Helen no and Helen Helen you're right there's many more cones out now than there have been it will be worse it'll be the the the first meeting meeting in March will we have a motion m m Mr Martel we should notify uh hson to let them know because obviously they probably need to be here since they're affected by it let him know of our and they're our tenant so our great concerns uh we we have a motion we have a second do we have anyone from the public like to make any comments was there a motion I'm sorry I missed an act it was they just gave me a consensus there was no motion we don't need okay we don't not okay all right then we will move on let's see Sean re please come forward am I doing the yeah yeah hello my name is Sean Reed uh this one's for commissioner Rich so the city of Stewart's 8.5 square miles and Martin County 753 square miles to put it into perspective for you as far as what Martin County's approved we're also in the city of Stuart not Martin County so um also I want to talk about just being born and raised here my name is Shawn Reed I was born in Martin County been here for 34 years some of my family's been here for 50 years a lot of us are very proud coming from this area and I look at the commission and we all move here for a reason right we want to protect the quality of life we want to vote to protect the quality of life there's been a bunch of apartments that have been approved that obviously affect traff traffic now we have a bright Line Station coming in I would imagine everybody sitting up here doesn't like driving in the city of Stewart I don't think anybody can agree with that I know I can't I drive around quite a bit I'd imagine most of you do up here as well um also now we have um affordable housing that they finally want to fix we've approved 2250 apartments and town homes it didn't fix it did it now everybody in this crowd wants to fix it and everybody wants it until it's in your backyard and then you don't want it I I would imagine most of us want to fix it as long as it's not next to us right um and then what are we going to do lose more baseball fields again because it's going to be right next to it they're going to want to develop that then as well you know as a child here we used to play outside right you can't do that anymore you're going to get ran down by a car I'd imagine I drive around in neighborhoods I don't see kids we have to travel to go to a park now to even play to enjoy what we have we don't even have bathtub Beach anymore I'd imagine some of you might have you know been there as a kid I went there quite a bit you can't enjoy it anymore um I'm hoping come August 20th we'll see some change in the city of Stewart and you know we'll see what happens have a good night thank you Mr Mr Brinkley Albert Brinkley thank you all for having me here uh my name is Albert Brinkley proud resident of East Community I'm here with the matter that I was to the development department on Friday to get an application for rway abandonment when I went through the discussion with with them when it came to the prices that I would have to pay I'm here to tell you I am highly upset you want to know why because the city of St ran drainage pipes through my property and to this day it's almost 30 years no one have given me an answer why were those pipes went through my property and I end up with some property that the city had which is is a lot smaller than the property that I would have had my house on on top of an Avenue which Mr smitham have the property now nobody have given me an answer but yet for the right away that I'm trying to get I have to pay for something that you all not specifically talking you all that the city created with me it's a RightWay behind my house that I rightfully should have because like I said the property that I would have had on top Avenue is a lot bigger than what I have now and nobody to this day and again I reiterate it's almost 30 years and nobody have given me an answer why was those drainage pipes ran through my property behind the police department and that was my problem where my house supposed to been built and when I came and got the paperwork Friday to fill out for the abandonment right behind my house then I'm confronted with Mr Brank this is what is going to cost you it shouldn't cost me nothing cuz you all basically as I can stand here and say took took my property and now I have to pay you all for something that the city created I deserve some answers why would I have to pay for sub that the city created and that is not right on in the sight of God that is not right my property was taken and I reiterate a lot small smaller than the property on top new so why and I want to answer from somebody because I can say almost 30 years why would I have to pay you all for something that a problem that you all created Mr Brinkley U we'll look into this I know nothing about it but I will be happy to look into it for you and I and I appreciate that mayor Bruner because that's that is not right you all and I would appreciate it if someone look into that and see why would I have to pay for something and I asked that in that particular day I didn't tell him that was my property I say why y'all running pipes through somebody property and he looked at me like he was lost he couldn't even give me an answer I said that's somebody property right there that y'all running those pipes to and he just looked at me he was puzzled so I would like to know why would I have to pay for abandonment behind my house when the city basically took my property that is not frag you all and God is not pleased with that and Mr Brinkley so that I can do the research on it you're talking about a property you still currently own or is it a property you used to own that had the pipes under it has and it runs it runs I'm from tarun behind the police department and my house was going to go there but do you still own it if I I I think it end up in the city Hal the lot where the pipes went through but that whole lot was my property and where the city ran the pipes to it's kind of it's blocked off but where the pipes ran at that whole situation was where my house was going to go I believe it's storm water but can you give me the address of what the property was I don't well you have to speak with Mr because he's more familiar I don't know the address where is on top top in Avenue and what happened was the city where I am now the city owned that property and that's where things got switched but where I am now is smaller than where I would have been Mike do we have the discretion to wave his fees for his application for the right away abandonment you have the discretion to wave the privilege fee for the white RightWay abandonment I don't know enough about the rideway abandonment at this point to comment on it one way or the other nor I do I know what fees were quoted um at the time just to review it but but it was my recollection that back then and I wasn't here but didn't the city give you the house and property that you're living in now in exchange for it this how yeah no what what why why I what happened the house my house books originally went there right and when the pipes got put on that property then I had to end up with the property that the city had that's where I am now wasn't originally where I supposed to had been but that's why I am but the City built the house and made you whole then right the city didn't bu buil buil that it was it was what the the original house was moved that house got 29 cu the city another Pro did created dig up CW space and that created CU where I am not that whole area I've lived there since I was a little kid that always been a lowline area that area where I am has always been L line ever since I was a kid in other words it hold water and what what created was water stayed up under my house so I had to reveal that house had to be torn down and rebuilt okay where where I am now but the but the proper will switch you all end up with the property where I was supposed to had to been and I end up with the property where the city had owned and right and just for clarification right now you're you have an application to have the ride of way abandoned uh that's a part of your property behind it or in front of it behind behind and that's the fee that you're just that you're referencing that that fee is what you're talking about well commissioner cins just for clarity yeah and I just and for what it's worth that is important to me too because the commission when you adopted the um East Stewart future land use there was some significant discussion about the fact that the city had been um disengaging from some ride of ways and the Treasure Coast Regional planning Council had the board um discuss the abandonment of rways and the and the board uh voted that they wanted to continue maintaining those rways and not to abandon them because they could be used as future pedestrian paths and other things which is why it's the application process and everything is in place because some of those were actually adopted and specifically identified in that form based code I don't know which one this is and I'm happy to look into it we will there's so much going on that we don't know setting up here so we need to get all that information and we and we will we'll get we'll get back what what I'm sorry for interrupt you but this right away don't lead to nothing it's just behind four or five houses don't lead to Nowhere it doesn't lead to nowhere and it's not fair that I get put in this situation and have to do out money when originally you all put pipes through proper I just don't in the sight of God I just don't see that that being fair Albert s me send me the info okay shoot shoot it to me and we'll sort it out we will yes we will move on now Jimmy Smith Mr Smith I think property he talking about I think my father bought 20 feet of that property uh there off topon 10 feet remain the same for that the city had a drainage running through that property uh I don't own the property but my stepmother owned the property I think it's up for sale uh I think that's the property you're talking about right uh I don't know anything about what happened in that ter but I'm here just talk on uh uh the good things that I here young man was speaking about the housing uh everybody's talking about traffic this and that about what's going on in the city of Stewart and we talking about people that lives in the city of St being all our lives when Ratt snakes and dirt roads and we watch our communities uh people move in with money funds and just bulldo you over everything we accept it understand that people want trying to get a good living but I also want people to understand that how people that been payment away that been pineapple workers uh worked in these fields and tilt the ground here all these years and then marched over but then people come here for a few years and say oh we want this we come here and move here man I want to tell you whoever listening out here there people been dying and struggling all their lives to live here and there nobody have respect for the people that have paid away here some people live out of town come here and then want to just bu bulldo you everybody have respect for the people that live here we need housing they need low they need to be affordable they don't have good jobs you know what saying I mean they made it well easier for other people to become wealthy off the backs of they work and we don't even have no caring in consideration I thank y'all City Commissioner for you not listening in and caring the want even not trying to get some things done it's it's irrelevant I understand how people feel angry talking about coming downtown man downtown always been this way and we're going to need more Park and we going to need all that but people need places to live e almost been almost gone all the families at George Taylor gone in poort St Lucy all the places that was at there Cherokee is gone we lost over 300 families out of eood 300 families and that and that all I'm saying is that so many people come want to bombard the city and get on you or saying by passing some roots with y'all care you know people need housing you know that so let's let's let's stay on board we talking about the election yes we we NCP is forming least 75 people that's we're going to pay the streets and get people to vote for you all that stand for the rightness of the our community thank you very much thank you sir I have no other public comment Madame mayor I move for approval of the consent second calendar the three items second we have a um we have the approval we have a second and um is there any public comment all right we'll vote on this commissioner McDonald yes vice mayor Rich yes mayor Bruner yes commissioner Collins yes commissioner Clark yes okay that's that's the end of our um consent calendar we're going to go into commission action um I will read this part and Lee you'll read the resolution portion of Southeast or rapo Avenue rideway abandonment thank you Madame mayor resolution number 14-22 24 a resolution of the city Commission of the city of Stewart Florida declaring pursuing chapter 36 of the code of ordinances of the city of Stewart Florida the intention of the city commission to abandon and to set public hearings in City commission Chambers to consider the abandonment of a 50 foot wide public ralway within the city being the portion of Southeast Arapaho Avenue more clearly described an exhibit a attached providing an effective date and for other purposes okay thank you Michelle is that you back there yes I okay ready you're going to give us a presentation yes thank you ma'am good evening mayor vice mayor and Commissioners for the record my name is Michelle arbow I'm I'm a planner in the city of steuart development department tonight I am presenting agenda item number four an intention to the abandonment of portion of Southeast arapo Avenue right of way the development department received a request from the property owners Todd Britt and Carla Williamson located on the west side of the ride of way at 8:25 Southeast 13th Street the existing ride of way is 50 ft wide as depicted in red the 10th Street Sports Complex is located north of the subject R of way the owners of the real property Todd Brit and Carla Williamson located 825 Southeast 13th Street have requested the abandonment of a 50 foot entire Southeast arapo Avenue public rideway I'm sorry that's portion of Southeast Arapaho Avenue right of way the city's uh public work department public works department has determined that the use of the right of way is no longer in the Public's best interest and does not object to the abandonment of the city's interest the procedure for abandonment of the city owned right of way is governed by section 36-3 of the city's code of ordinances which requires the city commission to First pass a resolution declaring the intent to abandon the RightWay the vacation or change of any Street Alley Road or public way shall be accomplished by our ordinance the city commission may include in one ordinance the changes of name or vacation or narrowing of more than one street avenue or alley while vacating any Street or part thereof or changing its name but before vacating any streets or part thereof are narrowing any Street Avenue or alley the city commission shall first pass a resolution declaring its intention to do so the 1925 recorded plat identifies the 50 foot wide rideway outline in red staff recommends approving resolution number 14-22 a declaration of interest to abandon certain right of way within the city's limits Madam mayor move for approval second we have a motion for approval and a second any discussion with the Commissioners is it quiz judicial just that if we're gonna do this for this applicant that we'll also do it for Albert if he gets his Pap again seems only fair just so you're clear all that we're doing is moving forward it doesn't wait anything it's just moving it forward so in order to do a um RightWay abandonment the first thing that comes for the commission is a resolution authorizing the city to move forward then the applicant has to pay for a survey to survey the abandonment part then the value and survey and appraisal comes back to the commission for a two- reading ordinance and that is when the commission can wave the privilege fee or not but this is just part of the same procedure that I understand I'm saying just in in reference to mentioned with form based code and E Stewart that we're trying to hold on to right away so that's why I said right well that's why we can't just straight do it we have to have it come through you guys as a process do we have mad mayor yes so it goes this abandonment goes right between these two houses so will ownership be split between those two houses or how does that work eventually when the city abandons a right of way it doesn't transfer ownership to anybody all it does is lift the city City's rideway off of the original plat as a result the case law in history on the rideway says that 50% of the road goes to one adjacent property and 50 goes to the other we had a rideway abandonment where Palm Beach Road was supposed to go through to Riverside Drive several years ago and that particular rideway wasn't 50/50 it was a 50ft rideway and the underlying plat showed that 20 ft went to one side and 30 fet went to the other side so in that instance that would reconcile it we don't give a deed we don't say here's a here's a quick claim deed or a title deed or anything we just record an abandonment of our RightWay and then the property owners if they have a dispute over that would have to take that up among themselves one of the owners came to the city and said I want to build a Adu and that's I got to be 10 feet off my property line would we allow him then to go that extra let's say 10 feet over or would his survey indicate that no in fact well you're assuming we abandoned the property the right of way yeah so if he and his neighbor had resolved it in the underlying plat gave 100% of the right of way to his neighbor it wouldn't change his setbacks at all if the right of way is 20 feet wide and he got an additional 20 ft his property line would then become again it it would be his responsibility to get a survey to get the plat to go to the property appraiser to get a new parcel ID to get a new legal description to do all that stuff and when he made application for that Adu or the expansion of the pool or the porch or whatever it is the lot that he presents to planning would be the lot that they use to review it and they'd verify it on the public records if the property appraiser or the public records didn't reflect that his property was his then there it would have to be addressed Madam mayor yes thank you we we had that issue with that property that bought it up with Snug Harbor where right you know where one party actually didn't want the property and it was just it was very confusing and challenging but so anyways do we have any comments from the public that would like to speak on this you have to sign out a green slip when you're through yes thank you ma'am hi everyone I'm Carla Williamson I'm one half of the potty that is is asking for this request um I thought I'd give you a little bit of presidence as well um so unfortunately on could you give us your name oh yeah car Williamson KLA Williamson and I live in at 825 Southeast 13th Street um and so actually the when we bought the house um in 2021 the whole entire abandonment was like broken asphalt glass um and while I was beautifully looking after my property one day there was an arrest made a kid tried to run through the um uh through the field I don't know and they got stopped um innocent child right but the because the that area just looks so abandoned it's an area that cars can just sit and so we have two little boys and so do our neighbors and we just want to keep that beautiful safe environment and um unfortunately as well what happened to us and might give you this a bit of pity I was going to bring this in the hopefully if you did approve the next one um my family actually lost our home um on 2022 to a fire on Christmas um morning and so we've been a fire you said yeah yeah our whole house is completely it's actually a shell you'll go past it it looks fine but um inside is completely ruined and it's it's really really sad s I'm surprised I'm it's okay yeah so but we want we have to rebuild and so um the idea is that our neighbor grow agree to the 50/50 and it just allows us to you know put a garage opening on that that side or you know so on so we're not trying to do anything crazy um and I think actually our neighbor currently has paved his side of it so it is it's kind of like old school rules that were inherited and I'm sorry like you know just old stuff from a long time ago so we just want to make the city so much better we believe in it we invest in it is where we want to put our Roots I do have an accent I am not from Stuart I'm from Australia but I love Stuart I call it no yeah I I love Stewart like I've lived everywhere and this is where I wanted to like buy house and call home with my kids so thank you thank you thank you awesome okay we had a motion by um uh for approval by commissioner McDonald second by commissioner Clark do a vote now roll Mary commissioner McDonald yes commissioner Clark yes mayor Rich yes mayor Bruner yes commissioner colins yes um Madame mayor may I make just one more comment um you got my name backwards on this I'm sorry I one of these I apologize easy to do he's a rich guy yeah also happy birthday Mary right thank you all right now we GNA move on to uh should we say the next one Proclamation policy update um putting this on me let him read it first yeah resolution number 25224 a resolution of the city Commission of the city of Stuart Florida amending resolution 56-9 by re reestablishing a policy for the issuance of proclamations by the mayor and City commission and concurrently approving and adopting an updated city of Stewart Proclamation policy providing an effective date and for other purposes um I don't know if anybody's had an opportunity uh to review the proclamation policy or not but I've been meeting with the clerk uh on this matter and um we had been discussing it uh um for some time the last time the proclamation policy was uh was a was a updated or reviewed was I believe in 2009 and it wasn't in the format that you'll find before you today the clerk had put it um together in a more of an outline form so that it's easier to kind of follow and and to determine the criteria um it's essentially the same as it was before however I wanted to bring it to your attention to discuss it because I know that um in the we have two meetings a month but a couple years ago the commission voted to adjust those meetings so that one of the meetings starts at 4 pm and during that meeting we do proclamations and other Service events and other announcements and um the last meeting started at 4: and we finished the proclamations and got to the finish the consent agenda which is generally pretty quick at 6:15 so it took 2 hours and 15 minutes to get to the agenda and so one of the discussions I wanted to bring up and again it's totally the discretion of the board and and it's um you know I'm looking for Direction but we're asking number one at minimum that you adopt this policy as an updated Proclamation policy which is essentially a reminder of what the rules are of what the proclamations are um and what they aren't and then the other thing I was looking for is did you want staff to limit the number of proclamations that are added to any particular agenda and we could do one of two things we could either just have it be first come first servant have it whatever number you want or um we could allow however many proclamations um come in but we could have the mayor signed those proclamations but only read a specific number at the meeting unless one of the Commissioners contacted me and made like a special exception because of something there'd be certain proclamations that that um would go forward no matter what every year and I I'm thinking of like the MLK Day Proclamation would be a standard Proclamation thats of the American Revolution well there's certain ones that have been standardized and go through that we do every year but now I know recently there was a situation where we actually had two groups have the same Proclamation on the same meeting and it would seem that in that situation I'd be happy to have the mayor sign one of them and then just do one Proclamation for that content rather than multiple proclamations for the same content but again if you guys would rather keep it the way it is and go forward I'm happy to do it or if you have any other feedback as it relates to the policies and procedures in the proposed Proclamation um please I don't think it's really the proclamations that take up the time I think we take up the time in our commission comments that's why the meetings go okay long so I mean there's I can tell you the it the people who come and get proclamations and come they're very excited about it this is an opportunity uh and yeah occasionally we do once in a blue moon we get the where you have the two groups with the same or similar proper Proclamation but these proclamations are very important to the community and I hate to deny people the opportunity to come and get one okay any other Commissioners want to speak on yes Mike I like your idea of you are formally uh showing recognition by having a signed Proclamation but maybe having a limited number that actually make it up to presentation that you know staff has deemed are the most relevant and appropriate so that it's not like you know National chiropractors day or something when a lot of people have come here to speak to a specific item you know it's not just our time it's the people who come here uh so that there's more time for us where we're not completely exhausted for public comment and to hear you know relative items versus who knows what it so I'd be looking for a motion to approve this policy and I'll start paying attention to that and I'll kind of report back to you guys give a number just off the top of my head maybe three proclamations just winging it just to throw one out there I'm approve the policy as asft Prov is drafted and and I don't want it to limit it to where the next meeting we absolutely don't have any proclamations if we need to have a proclamation I don't want to say that it's just on the first Monday I know that we want to limit the number that come in front of us but uh if we do need to have a proclamation are we saying that we'll never have a proclamation on the second meeting and everything has to stay once a month we haven't had a second a proclamation on the second meeting of the month in three years CU we've just been taking care of it all on the first meeting that's why we start at 4 pm the theory was that when you get applicants here that are paying for their Architects and engineers and professionals to have them at $1,000 an hour get here and wait for two hours for that kind of stuff so what we did is we start started at 4:00 and then we published that the agenda item started 5:30 so if we had ever finished before 530 we would actually have to wait until 5:30 to start those items we've never had that problem so maybe we should have Ed speak to how the county is so much more efficient commissioner can't be being here we just just so this yes so this is actually a common topic of discussion when I get together with other elected officials um our policy seems to be the most Antiquated at this point uh a common change is that while while the proclamation is being read you would be in the well having the photo taken and rather than having you run up and down and back and forth we can expedite it that way but most of the other municipality this is a you know it's a problem we all share obviously and Mike makes very good points regarding the cost for the staff of the applicant um most municipalities seem to limit it to a degree so if we can have Implement a means of accomplishing that and see how it goes commissioner Clark then I I would what what I'll do is if we adopt this Proclamation as we move forward I'll start asking people if they would accept it just by the mayor and make you know if they have if they're IND toward coming to the meeting I'll start try and shave those off and if that works then we won't have to do anything formally thank you but we still need to vote on the motion so I made a motion anybody second it second commissioner did right we we have a motion by um um commissioner McDonald second by uh commissioner Clark is there any um anyone in the audience want to speak on this item commissioner C be okay yes um before I move forward I'd like to say that our County Commissioner is in the back there back seat all the lights are on you we're glad you're here yeah anyway so we'll we'll uh since we don't have any public comment we'll uh move forward and do roll commissioner Collins yes mayor Bruner yes vice mayor Rich yes commissioner Clark yes commissioner McDonald okay updated uh procurement policy Lee sure uh Madame mayor uh resolution number 23-24 a resolution of the city Commission of the city of Stewart Florida approving the updated procurement policy for the city providing an effective date and for other purposes we have any U comments from um for for the record as far as this item is concerned um I'm going to going to have the City attorney uh present it to you because it um primarily included a uh a an appeals process that he has drafted on on our behalf so sure why don't you take it away sure um I was uh assisting Elena on just updating she wanted to do some updates um obviously you have a a copy uh attached to the agenda item which has the um underlines in in red markings of the uh redactions and additions um primarily 11.1 is a dispute procedure um which um my time at working at the county in Fort St Lucy I I I had worked on something like this before where we needed to dispute procedure that we did not have one in our policy and uh we had an issue in in my prior employment that uh I looked up the statute that required to have the dispute procedure which we did not have one so that's 11.1 is probably the biggest change or addition uh some of the others we were like updating the address you know the procurement division moved to the Wells Fargo building but we still had our address here as far as sending notice to our procurement Department um I I just cleaned up a lot of things while I was making changes um way things were written and spelled out I I saw some grammatical changes that were didn't really change anything I was cleaning them up to make them look better but that's primarily the biggest differen is is what I've mentioned already great thank you thank you Le up U do we have a Madam mayor yes I make a motion that we approve resolution number 2324 regarding the updated procurement policy second okay any other comments from the Commissioners we have any comment from the public would like to Madam mayor can I make a comment now that I've made the motion yes I just want to um thank our new City attorney for taking the initiative to do this and to bring us into the modern world you're welcome and um we appreciate that I know that Jolie has done a lot in finance and and the internet people have done a lot and it's good to see that our legal department is trying to get out there ahead to do some things thank you thank you you're welcome thank you thank you commissioner clar all right we'll take a roll Mary mayor Bruner yes vice mayor Rich yes commissioner McDonald yes commissioner Clark yes commissioner Collins yes okay we don't have a second reading or a first reading we're going to move on to uh discussion and deliberation number seven discussion and deliberation of an unsolicited proposal from the green Mills Group Green Mills um just just briefly as I before uh he starts I just wanted to say um we received this uh offer and under the way that the public private Partnerships work municipalities have the right to uh consider and move forward on these types of um matters without the need for rfps and other stuff so it's in compliance with procurement um I uh told the green Mills group that they would be allowed to do a PowerPoint or quick presentation to you guys so I'll let them handle it and if you guys have any questions I would ask that you defer them to to him okay thank you thank you very much uh really appreciate your time today my name is Mitch Rosenstein I'm a principal of green Mills group uh we're based in Fort Lauderdale Florida I live in Del re a technically unincorporated Palm Beach about 45 minutes away from here um before I start the presentation I I just I want to say that we've been we've been hoping to be in a position to develop affordable housing in Martin County uh for the better part of the the decade I don't need to tell you all or anyone in the audience that that um the the political climate and the the the opposition um was was fierce uh but I haven't given up um what we're proposing today is uh is appropriate um and actually affordable housing uh the renderings the site plan these are all draft obviously they're subject to input from staff and from the community and for local bu building codes and for the neighborhood Improvement plan um but it's a it's a starting point nonetheless uh a little bit about us all we do is Affordable and Workforce Housing Development that's all we do affordable and Workforce housing development in Florida um with the exception of our nonprofit Partnerships about four of them we own and operate all of our communities we have no intentions of selling any of our communities we are not mercenaries we're still pretty young and we have energy uh and I make another Point later in the presentation about that we just completed our 13th community in Lakeland um a lot of parallels between that site that opportunity in the City of Lakeland and the one that we uh we envision for the southeast MLK Boulevard um City Garage lot we're going to talk more about that in a second um we have experienced with local government Partnerships I already mentioned the City of Lakeland Citrus County PO County city of Fort Lauderdale Broward County city of St Petersburg County Miami D County um this is the nature of our business is working closely with local governments and probably more importantly working closely with neighbors I asked Michelle who's in back if I could uh call her out by name she she gave me an earful um before this and I've been thinking about it ever since and I and I wrote her a note um we're I on the Fly we're we're going to make some changes based on feedback from from Michelle and um and from the gentleman she was with uh and I'll and I'll describe what I'm what I'm talking about uh this is so cringey I don't even want to do it there's a we have a video of of from a grand opening of a community that we developed in Central Florida also many parallels um many parallels um and uh it's hard sometimes it's hard to see yourself on video but we're we're going to try to to play this so that you can hopefully get a feel for who we are and and what we build um I don't know if I can do it from from here you might be able to kind of scroll over yeah [Music] louder [Music] [Music] it's the former mayor of auale city of auale other Commissioners um there's I think the the audio is not working we're we're going to we're going to plow forward um but that's the community that's Aubin Village in uh in P County 100% affordable uh all of our homes there are at um I believe 80% and Below of P County's median income 80% and below and we had to agree to a 5050 50-year affordability period 50 years we assume that it's going to that's one of our residents who spoke at the Grand Opening um we assume that our our properties are going to be affordable you can't hear the sound let's not play video yeah I'm going to I'm going to let's see if I can move forward okay um we did a lot of research obviously uh and I'm going to quote a little bit from the city's 2017 housing action plan much of steuart's housing stock is characterized by aging structures in need of hardening uh affordability CH affordability challenges for the working class um this is one of one of our notes the city hasn't had a new formal affordable housing community of more than 32 units 32 homes since 2012 so it's been over a decade and the smallest new formally affordable Community was 32 homes um there needs to be a focus of new housing in areas adjacent to employment centers and Transportation uh City should offer incentives to developers who are willing to include a percentage of below market rate units as part of their residential products now um I minored in economics um and I I believe in uh the laws of supply and demand so I I do think that supply side will help with the affordable housing crisis that we have uh there is also a place for the habitat for humanities and for the green Mills groups to do formally designated affordable housing that's appropriate uh there's also a note in the action plan to use Tiff to support Economic Development efforts for example increased variety of housing options street level neighborhood improvements Etc uh the schimberg center at the University of Florida publishes data regularly to speak to the need for affordable housing throughout the State of Florida and they break it down by county and these were two statistics from their 2022 data set there's an estimated 14,000 plus renter households of which 25% are cost burdened I would bet that the percentage is higher uh over the last year year and a half uh cost burden means that um residents are spending more than 30% of their income on the cost of housing and if they're spending more than 30% of their income on rent or on owning a home with current insurance rates it means that they have less money for health care for child care for transportation for their cars for car insurance the other statistic that I want to highlight um all households not just renter households all households there's an estimated 14,000 Plus cost burdened households specifically at 80% and Below of the median income of Martin County and that's who we're targeting 80% and Below most of our residents will be at 60% and Below but we can go up to 80% of the median income here's the site on MLK Boulevard uh it's about three and a half acres it's within the East Stewart C it's currently zoned Public Service there are multiple bus stops within walking distance that have service from 6: a.m. to 7:00 p.m. one thing I want to note about the property uh and this is maybe a bit of a tangent is that right now this property generates zero revenue for the city it does not generate revenue for the city now that's not to say it's not useful for the city but as a baseline it generates zero revenue for the city what we're proposing is up to two phases of income and rent restricted housing apartments for up to 130 residences uh currently assuming all one bedroom one bathro units uh I was speaking with Michelle and now I'm getting back to Michelle and I might embarass her I hope not um she expressed a need for for working families with kids uh it is always our preference always our preference to have a mix really a life stage is family demographic Community where we have uh one bedroom two apartments two bedom apartments and three bedom Apartments um the reason we started with one bedroom one B Apartments is because we have to apply for a competitive housing tax credit subsidy they look at the they they score our applications in terms of subsidy requests per unit not in terms of subsidy request per bedroom subsidy request per unit and so when I can have more units in the development relative to that subsidy request my application for these big big pots of federal subsidy is much more competitive that said I did hear the feedback from a neighbor um and we will include some two-bedroom two-b units I don't know how many I don't know what percentage but we will do that I cannot commit to three-bedroom two B units at this point but we will commit to including some two-bedroom two B units each phase may include up to 65 units um and up to four stories but only three stories facing Southeast Martin Luther King Boulevard um onsite amenities and Property Management we do this at all of our properties literally every one of our communities has on-site Property Management on-site maintenance and on-site amenities we're estimating a parking ratio of one space per one unit I hear the concerns about traffic we we all had to engage in the traffic to get here this evening um I'm sensitive to it um a parking ratio of one to one is is appropriate for what for what we're proposing um and I think it's doable on the three and a half acres available for residents earning up to 80% of the AA median income and I have a slide that shows exactly what that means with the current with Hud's current income and rents for no less than 30 years I'm committing to keeping these homes affordable for at least 30 years chances are the state agency is going to require me to commit to a 505050 year affordability period we will abide by fair housing laws we will not violate fair housing laws but we will commit to marketing locally first we will commit to marketing locally first now what that means practically speaking is we're going to work with neighborhood associations and nonprofits and the city's housing staff um as soon as we start pre-leasing efforts we may have a bit of have a lottery system in rounds um but if someone who lives in the community gets it and submits an application invites their relative from out of state to apply in that same application round I have to accept it just the same but I will commit to marketing locally first uh we've been talking with House of Hope to uh help get them approved by the state agency by florid Housing Finance Corporation the goal is to have them get approved as the community's Supportive Service Agency and referral Agency for some of the homes this is a draft draft draft site plan it needs uh it needs some work and you can see we added a note that the site plan and Frontage are to be designed in concert with the MLK Boulevard Improvement plan but this shows the scale of what we're talking about two developments two two phases of 65 units each again subject to change if we have more two-bedroom units it might impact the total apartment count the total home count but this is an example of what we're thinking these are elevations draft elevations of course subject to standards and feedback this is a sample floor plan for a pretty typical one-bedroom onebro home for in one of our communities it's about 600 square ft of course there's our our one-bedroom one b homes are not Studios otherwise we'd call them Studios they have separate bedroom um full kitchen uh inunit washer dryer hookups small walk-in closet they're efficient right we have to design and build to the subsidy that's available so we have to build efficiently are we using real hardwood floors nope we're using high-end uh vinyl or laminate flooring are we using the highest end quartz site countertops NOP we typically use granite countertops um we're proud of what we do and we we also have to be good stewards of public subsidy these are some of the amenities we provide social and planned activities by the way this is at all of our communities this isn't just what we would propose in the city of Stewart social and planned activities Financial Management Programs literacy training to those who who want it or need it employment assistant training Community amenities again on onsite management and maintenance Fitness Studio library and computer center club and community room 24-hour laundry areas for those who don't want to want to want to bring washers and dryers into their own homes these are the incomes and rents I only included one bedroom one B apartments at the bottom of this chart but but I'll I'll read a little bit to you about what a two-bedroom uh two-bedroom two B apartment would would look like you can see first of all Martin County's median income is just shy of $85,000 a year if we limit our incomes to 80% of the Ami for one person that's someone earning $47,000 in below a year two persons two people earning about $54,000 and Below technically believe it or not $47,000 and $54,000 for a one and two person household respectively is is now considered low income wrap wrap your brain around that that's low now considered and by the way that's significantly higher than many people earn especially people with who are living off of social security or who have lower wage hourly jobs that's significantly higher that is technically considered low income right now that's why when we talk about affordable housing and Workforce housing even though we have prescribed definitions much of the time we can see why all of this has become conflated because we know that's that a single parent who earns $54,000 a year is absolutely part of our Workforce guess what they're also considered low income most of our homes are going to be reserved at 60% of the Ami in below again for one person that's someone earning about $35,000 a year for two people that's about $40,000 a year HUD uses statistical data Census Data inflation data to set the median income for every County every single year it typically gets published around summertime it hasn't been published yet for 2024 um they change a little bit every year they tie to incomes they tie to inflation um but this is what the 2023 income chart looks like now let's talk about rents most of our homes as I said will be at 60% and Below of the median income the maximum gross rent that I'd be allowed to charge today in Martin County is $953 for a one-bedroom one B apartment $953 um that's not affordable to everyone that's not affordable to everyone um 10 to 15% of our homes will be set aside at the 30% level so that's for one person earning just shy of $188,000 with a rent of $476 a month that is Affordable for for more people 10 to 15% of our homes will be reserved at that 30% income level uh I want to talk about this and and the there was a gentleman who spoke uh during the open mic period who who said you know who who really made an interesting point about um not not in my backyard and and and one of my biggest challenges as a principle of my company is to do what I can to educate people and and combat nimm not in my backyard um particularly with elected officials specifically with elected officials um and so this slide resonates with with a lot of people and I want to just read through it all of our residents all of our applicants for residency go through a t a credit application a criminal and a background check we have to do thorough income and asset verifications to make sure that they qualify under our strict income restriction gu guidelines and we only we only allow long-term residents we our leases are for periods of 12 months now um we understand that people have histories and we can turn the dials up and down on what kind of a history uh we're we're willing to accept at our communities where we draw the line is with a violent uh Andor with a sexual criminal history uh if someone has misdemeanors or felony but they served their time um and it was nonviolent behavior um we would we would consider them we turn the dials up and down depending on the development but I'm harping on this slide because I think it's it's important to um we have standard security measures at all of our communities we have on-site maintenance and management I keep saying that we have on-site maintenance and management we try to have one or two Exempted what we call Exempted homes um at all of our commun communities for staff for property management staff of the community and ideally for someone in law enforcement we just love seeing the cop car in the parking lot um we have 24-hour emergency phone service if there's a leak in a unit if there's an emergency we offer a 24-hour phone line we have key fob secured access at all building entry points we have security cameras at the entryways and within most of the common areas and we would anticipate for this community two full-time staffers and two part-time employees uh this is Parker point this is a community that I was referring to in the City of Lakeland a few moments ago the City of Lakeland owned this property um it was doing nothing it was underutilized um we um we worked with them we signed a a long-term ground lease sufficient for me to be able to get financing and ultimately we built one four-story building with 88 homes this also fits that life stages demographic which means it's for families we have a mix of one bedroom apartments two twos and we have uh actually a couple of three-bedroom two-b apartments here too um incomes can go up to 80% of the Ami again amenities and management on site we completed this um about 3 months ago and it was fully occupied by January 1st in the City of Lakeland fully occupied uh in about 2 months we have our Grand Opening Ceremony this Friday this Friday afternoon at 4 you're invited you all are invited just please email us first so that we we can get a a good sense for headcount but we would love to host you at the Grand Opening if you're able to come on a Friday afternoon this is col a park in Ines um a lot of similarities too uh Citrus County provided the local government match contribution which I'm going to get to in a little bit uh here we had more of a garden style setup with three three-story residential buildings and a clubhouse uh this is also for a family demographic here our incomes were capped at 60% of the median income again amenities and management on site last bullet point is one that I want to highlight we Face a lot of initial Community hesitation we fa we there was a lot of pushback a lot of push back um for some of the same reasons and for some different reasons um now that we completed this um we're being invited back for potentially a second development and and a third community in the city of invernes this is Midtown Lofts also in Lakeland the city the city CRA originally owned the land we entered into a contract to to purchase that property um the city also provided a local contribution this has one four-story building with with 80 homes also a family demographic here incomes go up to 80% of P County's Ami the Lakeland MSA um again amenities and management on site fully occupied with the weight list and we want a beautification award we want a CRA beautification award um a little bit more of a modern aesthetic here at Midtown LOF so you can see the two-story community room we had we worked with local artists we have um community art um with local artists provided by local artists at most of our communities um we're really proud of what we do we're really proud of what we do and we want our residents to be proud of it too uh this is Auburn Village in the city of auale this was the video that you saw that was the grand opening from this community um single building with 102 homes with a separate Clubhouse P County provided the local government contribution that local match this one is reserved for seniors in this case 55 plus incomes up to 60% Ami amenities and management on site and we're fully occupied with a weightless we're we're occupied with weightless at all of our affordable housing communities everyone okay a lot of words here um this is what we're hoping to accomplish um we would pay the city a capitalized ground lease payment per developed unit of $6,000 um we can try to pay more I want to be clear right we can try to pay more we are trans trans arent about the math we are transparent about the numbers this is what we think we can pay and even with the other things that I've mentioned um it's a pretty inefficient um it's a pretty inefficient development for us um we have to find ways to to make it better but we're at 6,000 per development of a capitalized ground lease just to clarify also we're not asking for fee simple interest in the land I can get these developments financed in my industry with long-term ground leases so the city doesn't have to give up ownership of its property support from the city via impact fees and utility connection fee waivers and any other potential resources and I know that's a that's a vague statement that's going to rub people the wrong way and I know that our minds can go wild with what that could mean or how much money that could mean um that's not the goal here that is not the goal here we estimated for a 65 unit development with one bedroom one baths the city portion of impact fees would be about $887,000 right um connection fees for those utilities that the city provides directly that is a big deal for us site work and underground work is outrageously expensive construction costs are outrageously expensive and just as I'm asking for with you we have to take a kitchen syn approach to being able to balance our budgets also if I'm going to be changing the unimix to include two bedroom two bath units that's going to add significantly to the hard cost which is another reason why I need a little bit more help from the city if we're going to be able to make this a reality um collaboration with the city's um C to obtain potential property tax exemptions that helps me leverage more debt if my operating expenses go down I can go get more conventional debt which means more sources which again means I can probably build more two-bedroom two B Homes I need the local Financial match last year it was $340,000 for what the state agency for what Florida housing calls medium-sized counties um I don't know they they haven't published the rfas they haven't even finalized the timeline for this year I would estimate it's probably going to be around $400,000 per development which is incidentally right around what I'm offering to pay uh in the form of a ground lease to the city I will say however that it's important for the state agency um to use a different source a funding for the local match than from what we're proposing to pay the city um in other words you can't recycle the land payment it's got to come from a different Source um the reason for that is because the state agency uh wants to know that we're not paying for our own local government match which makes perfect sense from a policy perspective um the city will not fund a dime will not give us any money unless and until we're permitted we close on financing and we put shs in the ground I'm not asking for any money up front I have to perform we have to perform the city can obligate or earmark funds from a future fiscal year it doesn't have to be from the 2023 or 2024 fiscal year the state agency just wants to know that the city signed the local match form and they'll find the money in the future the reality is if we're so lucky if we're fortunate enough to be able to do this we still have to apply for these housing tax credits which would amount to about $188 million of federal subsidy allocated by the state agency often times it goes to a lottery number we have developments that have taken us four application rounds four years of applying before we W this is not a rushed situation this is not I'm not I'm not saying sign right now this is not a rush job the reality is these take a long time which fortunately for the city means it won't have to fund any money right assuming we're fortunate enough to do this for a long time um okay um green Mills my company uh will be required to provide standard Development and Construction completion guarantees I would offer you the same standard construction completion guarantees that I offer to my other financing partners because I'm asking you to be my financing partner also we're long-term Partners I mentioned this before uh we would would agree that we would not be allowed to sell or exit the the partnership interests in this development in this community without prior approval from the city we assume um 15 years of operations that's that's the typical sort of timeline let me let me be clear about that um the federal affordability period is 15 years the State of Florida imposes a longer and extended affordability period of 50 years um but what we would say is for the first 15 years we wouldn't be able to sell our interests without prior approval from the city so what you see is what you get what you see is what you get I'm not a mercenary and that's it I'm here to answer any questions you have great presentation thank you thank you commissioner I'm here um I I I've read your thing and the public is here here and want to listen and we want to listen keenly and I know that you'll have opportunity if we decide to go ahead and investigate what you're proposing on the number of acreage that is currently the the city what is it 2.9 2. 3.5 Acres 3.5 um and and the two stories and so on what was the total number that did you give a up to 130 homes up to four stories okay and you had said that you had done something at only one 111 but if you did it at 21 or 22 or 23 there might be less units yes ma'am which which isn't ultimately what we want but but we have to be able to balance the budget have you looked at for multi family especially in that area and I know that when we look at the area we're looking at the entire city but have you looked at the types of units that is there in the public housing now like the number of units which are two or three bedrooms or yes ma'am okay so you you have all of that yes ma'am and um and you mentioned about talking to um someone when you came here today uh in the other communities I see that you've been in Hernando County in in veress and so on and I I wouldn't I'm not going to call any communities any names but I'd say that some some places are not as as um urbanized as others I I do see you in St Petersburg and other areas so you do you deal with urban and rural communities or communities which are and everything in between ma'am okay yes yes City of St Petersburg we're about to break ground on our third Community um it's in South St Pete which is a historically minority area um the Land There was unused underused used at best but really it was it was unused um and there were concerns in South St Pete as well um that's the reality needless to say we're fully occupied with a weight list at both of our completed communities and we're breaking ground on a on a 75 unit phas second phase of the second phase um for seniors thank you this summer thank you man thank you I'm glad you mentioned the word phas and I'm not going to take up all the time mayor but I wanted you to give us a perspective if been a long time since the city of Stewart has been involved if we do get involved with this in having um I'd call it other money whether it be federal dollars or other dollars coming to do um uh a a a a development just give us an idea of what kind of um funding mechanisms you you seek and what kind of a time frame you look at for doing uh getting a development done even with some assistance half and half the city land or whatever agreement we make yes ma'am okay uh the biggest part of subsidy is this housing tax credit it's a federal subsidy originally created in the late 80s um incidentally by the the Reagan Administration to try to help rebuild a lot of the older stock of public housing um and um I so so this brings me back I I was fortunate enough to be invited uh mine invited me to speak at um at a symposium about a year ago um and uh and I and I addressed a little bit about it the history of the program it's important um and and I want to spend just another 10 seconds talking about it this housing tax credit program is now the biggest source for formally designated uh low-income housing again 80% of the median income and Below of affordable housing um that exists it is one of a handful of public private partnership programs um that exists still with bipartisan support um on a state level and at a federal level uh these housing subsidies these housing tax credits they're effectively a tax shelter that gets allocated um every state gets a per capita allocation Florida is one of the biggest states so it gets one of the biggest applic uh allocations of these housing taxx credits every state then has its own designated agency which writes the rules for um compliance uh award allocation for that state here in Florida we have the Florida Housing Finance Corporation there our state agency up in Tallahassee they put out funding rounds for different targeted um communities throughout the year this particular one would fall into what they call their medium and small County Geographic round they have other funding rounds for Supportive Housing which we do about a third of our communities are are Supportive Housing for formally homeless people um for veterans in one case in Miami um but this would be in the general Geographic funding round we um we think the the funding round will be um open and then closed in Fall we don't know that but we think it will be open and closed in Fall um if the amounts per development that were allowed to request track to last year's application round we'd be able to uh uh ask for don't know whether we'll win because it often comes down to a lottery number um the equivalent of about $18 million of this housing tax credit Equity um that is the biggest part of subsidy um so let's say and again I'm being presumptuous just for discussion purposes let's say we're fortunate enough to get approval to be able to proceed the city uh helps us reone this property to be able to build um apartments at this site in time for a fall Geographic funding round we won't find out whether or not we're going to win for several months after that at that point we would then really get into designs engineering site planning permitting we could do a lot of the site planning up front we would do that we would recommend doing that but the specific building designs the architect heavy mechanical electrical Plumbing things like that don't get finished until really we we we more formally Engage The Architects after we win the allocation of these housing tax credits so back to your question we'd be applying for the biggest pot of money from the state agency of these Federal subsidies through the state agency um best case scenario um early next year realistic ially we're full steam ahead with designs and with permitting I'm lining up the financing at that point which includes back to your question conventional debt we have to leverage conventional real estate debt at all of our communities so we've got conventional debt we've got these housing tax credit this housing tax credit Equity um we've got the city's contribution which we need we need that local match for points at the state level and then the developer has to defer whatever amount of its potential fee to balance the budget so those are the primary sources now um we always again it's a kitchen syn approach we always chase other other sources Capital magnet funds home funds uh the the treasury has certain funding rounds where we can request ahp funds the federal Home Loan Bank has ahp funds up to $500,000 per development and it often requires uh 75% of all of the above to be able to balance our budgets best case scenario best case scenario we we have shovels in the ground um I would say summer fall of next year best case scenario summer fall of next year that was a long-winded answer to a good question yes and I M mayor I don't want to go too much but you so there would be potential for you I in your present in your paperwork that I'd read previously you talked about the percentage of City's participation based on value and and how that would would work so there would be an actual uh funding participation from the city as well as some type of a long-term agreement for the land because that would be the money that would be you actually would be paying us you're not wanting that dollar a year thing correct I'm paying a capitalized ground leas payment for the property um but but again I the if the city's able to give me that local match contribution which we need uh in order to to to have a chance of winning this $18 million pot of subsid it has to come from a different Source in the city's budget general or ship funds or something like that or a combination of five it just can't come from my land payment to the city now you could take the capitalized ground Le payment and put it back in the general fund that's for for you all and staff to decide but that but yes you're you basically got it right all right we have to see if we have land or if we would want to go forward because the main thing is if if we are dedicated to using the property that he's asking for the proposal Madam mayor yes yes so thank you for your presentation it was very thorough and I enjoyed talking to you earlier today uh and I as I said um right now I there's there's a lot of Need for affordable housing I've random numbers I think to to afford a single family home at the median price in Martin County you're looking at needing a $2 $330,000 annual household income that being said we haven't even decided that we're going to stop using this property as a garage yet so I don't think it's rip plus I've always said all along that this property I think would be better especially now in the light of bright line uh announcement that uh pending forthcoming something like that Mike at me what that don't look at me um something that's going to happen on the 4th or the 11th or some other point um that this would make a great corporate this would be an opportunity for a corporate headquarters but even if as much as I think that even if we were coming in for a corporate headquarter say proposal today I would say it's not ripe and I don't want to send people everybody down the road Road doing a lot of work just for us to say well we're not it's not feasable to move to move the garage and and I don't know if this is necessarily the right place it might be it might not be but but I'm not prepared to move forward on it at this time thank you for for that feedback commissioner I I understand and like I told you I'd be happy to talk to you and meet with you and and you know because I do see there's a need but you know there's a lot of moving Parts here and I'm just not prepared to move forward at this time thank you commissioner I one of the things that that um I I got beat up pretty pretty good about from my new friend Michelle was um appropriateness um for for E Stewart and and again I I fully appreciate that that um that I that I'm white and I'm wearing I'm I'm the suit here from a different County proposing a community in in the city of Stewart um I I I get that um I would argue however um that long-term affordable housing that is truly affordable that ties to the median incomes where people aren't spending more than 30% of their income um on rent that's professionally managed on a community that's professionally managed is um perhaps a more appropriate use of that property than a big hotel or a big uh corporate headquarters but I also understand the point you're making and and and I get it I do get it I hear from any of the other Commissioners thank you Madame mayor uh thank you Mr Ro for that presentation um I believe I read that the Ami for Martin County is somewhat distorted because we have such prosperous County prosperous areas and that the number is unusually high actually is that correct $884,000 a year yeah so um I appreciate that you recognize that and are working down at those levels at the 30% and the 60% level I mean a one bedroom for $953 yeah um and and 10 to 15% at 30% right at about $460 if memory serves me correctly um so you have to score these right these applications are scored yes correct yes sir so relative to your other applications how how does this one score how will this one score not great um here's the challenge um and and here's why I'm I'm walking this tight RPP about one bedroom one bath units and the number and the total number of units um other medium Counties have more have more developable land uh and other medium counties might not be in quite uh quite such a high um hurricane risk Zone and what that means uh from a developer perspective in the in my industry is that I might be able to build um 80 or 90 or 100 homes in a garden style development um for the same cost as it would take me to build 65 Apartments um here because of the additional hard ining and the concrete block and the all of those additional impact factors um 65 homes is the reality is it's not that efficient for commercial development right it's cheaper to build per square foot if we can build 300 units instead of 65 units there's a similar phenomenon on the operational side we have to have a big professional copier or scanner in all of our management spaces whether we're 65 apartments or whether it's 300 Apartments um and so it's not terribly efficient to operate it's not terribly efficient to build but I've been trying to develop affordable housing in Martin County now for a decade and maybe I'm naive I'm not giving up anytime soon um and we're willing to make this a priority if we can build more units um if other subsidies become available if hard costs come down I won't hold my breath if insurance premiums come down probably shouldn't hold my breath either if interest rates come down I might be able to leverage more sources or I might be able to build more units relative to that dollar of subsidy um I'm hopeful but I can't hold my breath and so when I present uh in situations like this I I present the current reality but I acknowledge that that things can change that's a long way of saying it's inefficient um I don't know how it'll score um we would hope that it would score in the top tier bucket this is another reason why I'm asking for some of those other benefits like property tax exemption um at least from the city's part or utility connection fee um but we're going to do our best to make sure that it scores in a top tier and so that only lot number is the deciding factor and nothing else that's what we try to do for all of our applications is the score influenced by the fact this is so close to two schools so close to the hospital in part yes um over the last I would say five years Floy Housing Finance Corporation has uh we we used to call what you're describing the the strict proximity test um and Florida housing would uh have a threshold proximity score how close is your development your designated development location I'm geeking out you but I'll get to the point in a second how close is your development location point to the closest public school public school how close is it to a pharmacy how close is it to public transportation that operates during rush hour how close is it to a doctor's office or a medical clinic or a hospital all of those things still matter there's still a proximity score in our application how however Over The Last 5 Years the state agency um has given much more weight to the local government contribution than two proximity scores because they want to know which development which affordable housing proposal the local government has blessed um so it still matters uh but it won't win us the day uh um what will win us the day if we're able to get this $18 million pot of federal subsidy is having a good proximity score which this site does and the local government contribution um so you're asking the city to contribute I've heard some wild numbers out here but you're asking the city to contribute between 350 and $450,000 that's our per phase per phase yes sir and by the way this might end up being one phase okay right but at the same time you're agreeing to pay the city yes sir $6,000 per unit or that comes out to $390,000 at 65 units right okay just want to make that clear to people but I also don't want to one thing I'm not willing to do is pretend that this fee is an enormous burden to the city if we choose to go forward which we're not agreeing to do tonight but at some point the city is going to be made made aware of the past settlement that we have received and that amount is not known it's known it's just known to us up here and if the half cent sales tax goes through in the fall the city's going to re be the recipient of well over $2 million a year that's it's complete windfall for us for 10 years I believe so we certainly have the means to meet this payment especially in of your payment back to us um I actually called one of your references I called Mr James Walker Jim Walker Florida Community Loan funds U which is an organization I was not aware of it's been around it's been around for 30 years and I said how how does green Mills differentiate itself from the other applicants you have and he goes what they do that nobody else really does is they make sure that both parties win that it's a good deal both for the community and for themselves and um they are very happy partners of yours for a long long time and uh he give you a very nice recommendation um and I just I'm struck by a comment made from the Das regarding the fact that we have not voted to move we've actually had two votes on that issue and we're simply waiting to hear back and we authorize the city manager to go to pay for a design for the new structures over by the water plant so as far as I'm concerned the city has decided to move from this site thank you thank you hi mayor Madame mayor yes Mr city manager I just want to follow up on that too that Mr rich and both Mr um commissioner McDonald had said sorry Mr Rich vice mayor Rich um so uh yeah it's a time frame is something premature is there a time frame issue and if there's a time frame issue and if we do I think what I think what I want to know and I think what the public wants to know is how serious and how committed is the city of Steward to moving towards taking advantage of opportunities for affordable housing that we're not providing ourselves and how we can work with an agent to do it now can we do it in a half an hour can we do it with with this uh one um discussion and deliberation no and can can we go forward and authorize something I'm not sure but I think that um we are it's I I wouldn't say that it's premature I think it is very important to have this discussion at this time because after this we're going to be tipping another way and we I'm here talking about headquarters and all this kind of stuff um we're going to be tipping another way if the city has any land to be develop we're going to get different type of partners coming in here asking us to do all kinds of stuff and it won't be the least and most and best affordable housing that you can think of okay so that's that's an a whole other thing I want to know for sure and I don't know if if it takes a motion we're in a discussion deliberation but we have members of the public here who wanted to hear his presentation and we haven't had a workshop to hear how the public feels about some of this stuff happening he brought he sent in his unsolicited proposal and I'd really like to find a way to hear from the public even if there's no motion to move ahead but for lack of anything I would like to make a motion that says we need our city manager to um to fully investigate this proposal some more especially at this location to see if there's anything that can can come back is that something that's feasible Mr cine manager do we have to actually make a it's a discussion and deliberation so we don't have to do anything on his proposal do so I at the end you made a statement so I don't what's the question I want you to look I I I'd want you to to work with with this gentleman to uh to see if the proposal is even feas able to get something to bring back to us and um well first for clarity as I mentioned at the beginning of the meeting I I don't want to cause green Mills to incur any the expenses necessary to go through an application process with the development department and the design and and plans and spend 30 or $40,000 to put a design together if the commission has no interest in pursu pursuing it because that would be unfair to them now as it relates to you could direct me to bring back a formal um agenda item to uh negotiate a a contract with green Mills as it relates to this site you could do nothing you could direct me to um T you could not table it but you could continue it to another hearing and have a workshop on it if you wanted to you could um I mean like you said it's a it's a DND tonight it's more about you guys discussing it and kind of reaching a consensus uh as far as it goes but if you direct me regarding the feasibility of it what you're actually talking about is a development review which would be talking about site planning and and and approval of that nature because the the feasibility is you know whatever the commission it would be the former it would be the the other thing that you discuss to try and look into to come back with something more um Madame mayor before we make a decision would you like to hear from the public there many of them have come here to speak to this that's what I'm saying what what do we want to hear from the public without having any motion on the table you guys are welcome to if that's M mayor let's do that then that's that I can well I want to say a few things myself um thank you I can call you Mitch I hope U for coming and and uh the presentation you gave there are so many people out here in the audience that would like us to to see us to go forward to to start um me learning more and in the finances and all that uh and I wanted to ask also with these uh with the buildings do does everyone get their own electric how does all that work what what's paid and what's not paid yes so the the rents that I posted are maximum gross rents we typically ask our residents to pay their own electric because those are typically individually metered by the electric provider okay we then have to reduce that maximum gross rent by what's called a utility allowance equal to the estimated monthly cost of that electric of that electric bill if you will so let's just use a round number let's say the utility allowance for electricity is $50 a month uh at that $953 60% median income level we would be able to charge $93 and then our resident would be responsible for paying their electric bill directly to the electric provider that's how it works so the rents that I posted are maximum gross for 2023 again 2024 hasn't been published but to the extent any of our residents have to pay their own utilities we actually have to reduce reduce the rent to account for that utility allowance okay U well thank you very much thank you that was the only question that I have um what other the commissioner Clark has talked about um I agree and it's important for us to to hear from the audience you're here and then we can go from there so I want to hear from everyone um Aaron Hawkins do you please come Aaron it's good to see you again you're very involved in your community and I like that yeah how you guys doing um just uh you know since it's just discussion and deliberation I just wanted to put something out there to give people uh a better context um I'm not sure what the number is now but over the last uh year or two there was about 300 over 300 kids that were living out of their cars here in Martin County or um here in here in the city of Stewart um you know the public school system calls them transient or or or in transition families um you know affordability is a huge issue here in our area I think most people know that and aside from that it's also a big issue when it comes to you know I know a lot of people that worked here in the downtown area and you know a lot of people have been moved out to Port St Louis or for peers because they can't afford to stay here and that causes uh a lack of Labor issue here in our city so there's a lot of factors to consider a lot of young people also uh you know this would also benefit our young population here in the city of Stewart uh that's all I have to say thank you okay uh let's see if I can uh tame Beck King you have to pronounce that for me give me your name and address hi I'm toind it's toind um Beck King and I live at 494 Woods Edge Trail in Stewart and um I work every day as a nurse home visitor actually with a healthy start and nurse Family Partnership and um I work with um what we say disadvantaged firsttime moms and I'm here to to make a plea for this affordable housing um just to give you an example one mom I've been working with for the last year and a half she just turned 18 two weeks ago she has a one-year-old now and um this uh housing that is being suggested in East Stewart would definitely benefit her and her child um she's now working full-time at a local restaurant and has her child in subsidized daycare un fortunately the restaurant's giving her day shift so that's working working okay um but she's currently living with her mentally unstable mother and at any given time as in which happened what situation happened a couple months ago she was kicked out and had absolutely no place to go no place at all and at the time she was still a minor so she really couldn't even get into um a shelter um Healthy Start actually stepped in and paid for a little bit um until we could figure out some stable things she's back living with her mother again again but reality is I expect the other shoe to drop any minute and she'll she will need a place to live so even if she earns let's say maybe an average of $15 an hour which be which would be great for minimum wage her gross income is what 2,600 a month and you all know that the cost of housing right now for all these beautiful new complexes that have gone up are 19 2,000 a month there's no way she can earn that yeah you're right even more and of course she can't afford that with car insurance gas car registration diapers and other necessity of life and really I'd like to see her have time to get her GED and to get some more education she would like to become a FLOTUS or a CNA and um so she can earn more but of course you can imagine her situation every bit of money is going towards just surviving at this point and so my plea is that definitely this request for affordable housing we very much need it here in the city of Stewart thank you ma'am samtha saich this she's here hi good evening so I'm Samantha seage the CEO of Martin County Healthy Start Coalition uh toind is a marvelous home visitor for us um first I wanted to while I have you as an audience thank you for changing the scope of the work for the arpa funding that we received we greatly appreciate being able to put that funding into the Doula and the diaper Pantry um but I am um I was raised in Martin County I live at 1380 Southeast sand dollar Lane over in Serita Heights I have two kid two kids at JD Parker and another one that will go there soon um my kids have children in their classrooms who uh are living out of the cars and tense and when I have to explain that reality to them uh it's devastating and it's shocking to them um I think that you guys need to explore this as an option it would make a difference to very little the the tiny city of Stewart that we are um we in the nonprofit world we strive to empower our families we want them to become self-sufficient and right now the way that the economy is forcing them to structure their budgets is making it so they're not able to get off of Medicaid they're not able to get off of Wick uh they're having to use their childhood vouchers because all their money is going into their housing or they're living in tents or cars or whatnot so I do appreciate toind bringing forth the story I that's one of the things that we face every single day so thank you thank you very much is it link H H link l it's oh okay Robert arer got that right good evening good evening Commissioners Rob rer uh city of steart Resident and CEO for House of Hope uh first and foremost thank you uh for having this discussion tonight and allowing some public participation um you know affordable housing is an issue in the city in our County in our state in our country and there is not enough talk about Solutions and opportunities and resources so I appreciate that this is happening here um so one thing I think just in general about housing um you know what we know from numerous studies and research is uh safe reliable affordable housing uh the impact that it has on on the the community and on the residents um you know kids are better students adults are better earners it has a positive impact on mental Health on physical health um and I will also say that in municipalities where uh there is traction in creating solutions that fit for our our low wage earners like what um Mitch Mitch presented tonight um the only way those things work is um is support from the the municipalities you got to have everybody working together public private Partnerships nonprofits the government that is the only way to develop true solutions that are longlasting 30 to 50 years like what was talked about here tonight so um if we're going to actually you know do something about this issue this is the way it's going to happen um and and I think it's urgent um that we start to address these needs in our community U we've you've heard some of the stories here and I'm sure you're going to hear more um in Martin County um housing is now the biggest challenge that our um clients a House of Hope are facing have jumped four five6 $700 that's just not sustainable that's pushing more people into unsafe Solutions uh not just homelessness but other uh issues and challenges um that it creates there's also um the economic challenge um open jobs because there's nowhere for workers to live so all of these things are obviously um addressed properly when we have a solution like what was presented here tonight so I I hope that what you'll do here is um provide some direction um you're not committing to anything you're not spending anything what you're doing is instructing your staff to work with green Mills hopefully um to explore them to explore this parcel to explore potentially other Solutions um but let's not just let the dialogue die let's you know let's dig in um and connect and I think as far as the dollars and the resources um you know that give the city manager time to talk to his counterparts at the county maybe they'll find ways to participate philanthropy could potentially be a solution for some of this there is Big interest among our donor community in Martin County in helping to be part of a solution for this issue so what you have before you tonight is a chance to um to explore to let's you know figure out what's going to work um share diversity with the issues around cost and other challenges that come with it but create opportunity that betters the lives of our residents thank you very much thank you thank you very much Nikki Hawkins welcome good evening I'm Nikki Hawkins I am CEO of alante Development Group I'm the housing chair of the NAACP and also the first vice president right here in the city of stor and Martin County so happy to be here I want to say first thank you all for considering this development of Workforce SL affordable housing as a developer I understand how hard it is to BU build one of the reasons why I started my company was because I was forced to move to Port St Lucy because there was no affordable housing here in the city when I got ready to buy my house so that's why I started my company I'm here tonight to say that I see the renderings and everything that's going on but I think that we need to um have some more discussion and I think that the uh plans need to go back and actually involve the community because the plans that we have currently do not involve the community you thank you very much much Caitlyn Paul Mar hi everybody um thanks for talking about this this is a huge crisis for so many of us uh I wanted to address the idea of not in my backyard first because I've been it's been sitting with me this whole time um I have a 12-year-old son at Murray middle school he's on the honor rooll he plays trumpet in the marching B band um I work in child care and youth programming after school programming I work at the Boys and Girls Club but these thoughts are my own flet if you're listening um I taught religious education at my uu Church on Central Parkway for five years I'm the clerk at the um Women's Club excuse me uh polling place I work all the elections um I I'm on the committee to run the NAACP 5K at the guide Davis Park every year I'm on the committee to run miracle on 10th Street in guy Davis Park every year um I worked for about a year Staffing the East Stewart community garden and I definitely could find a home in the development here um I was in uh an apartment outside the city of Stewart for the last year and they tried to raise my rent when the lease went to renew by $400 I was already having a hard time doing that with my full-time job and a part-time job and my 12-year-old um so I had to move again I moved within the city of Stewart so I was so excited to find out that you were even looking at this as a solution sorry um I always like to think you know part of why community service is so important to me is I always like to think that you folks have our best interest at heart that you're trying your best that you're um you understand what's going on with people who live in the city and that you're trying to create Solutions um it was pretty tough commissioner McDonald to hear that you thought that maybe a corporate headquarters would be a good use of that so many many of my uh friends and co-workers are in crisis with housing and their budgets like something's got to happen I understand it doesn't seem ripe for you it's very ripe for many of us this is a real real crisis I do my best to give back to my community I understand that I can't write big checks I can't uh you know throw my weight around as like a CEO of a nonprofit um but I do a lot and I think that the city you know I have a vote and I vote for you folks and I vote for for people that I feel you know are going to represent my interests and maybe what's happening is our interests are not making it up to to you folks and our conditions are not making up to you folks and so I'll certainly do my part to have my friends come and speak more um but also look what time it is and I'm a single parent it was really hard for me to get here so keep that in mind as well I mean the people who are here can be here and the people who come to speak at the mic every time and I watch can do that um yeah and I just really would say like even if it doesn't seem perfect you know was talking to friends who know a lot about like the coding um you know keeping the neighborhood character in intact please please at least look at this please at least try and make it work it's it's needed beyond what any of you can understand thank you thank you Michelle mcfaden thank you for having me here tonight welcome um my um first of all I'm sitting here listening about what they saying the need in the community which I had talked to Mr McDonald before and it is a need here in the community but if you look there's a lot of places around here that has places over there by JD Parker there's an apartment place over there then you have one over there The Crossings nobody's living there because they can't afford the rent so if he builds his places which the rent is about the same or a little bit more will they be able to afford that then I don't think so they won't be able to afford it I like what Mr McDonald said when he was saying that about not building his places there we need to build something that's affordable for our people and and I I don't want to use the word affordable because affordable is an umbrella and everything falls upon that umbrella we need to build something lwi income single mothers cannot stand in a one bedro with with two or three children paying that kind of rent what time is she going to have to be able to spend time with her children when she going to have to work two two or three jobs in in order to afford the rent I work with the school system I I don't even I'm barely in the 40s making and and here it is I wouldn't be able to afford that rent and I have like I have two children staying at home with me they need their own bedroom how can I afford a two bedroom two bath with three with me and two children a boy and a girl need their own room we do need places around here we do need places that low income low income for these people to afford there are children that are staying in hop tails are in standing cars and everything we need to do more for them cuz apparently the places over there on the side of JD Parker The Crossings and everywhere else around here they can't afford that and if you let somebody else come in here and Bill with with the rent amount being as high as it that he's saying it's going to build but they won't be able to afford it neither so it's not a solution that is not a solution we need lwi income places that is the solution we need to build and building right there in St where he talking about building that's not going to help the community it's going to drive up the up up the rent for the people that's have that has that property over there the the funeral home going to have to close down then what's going to happen then the then the then the place go away we already have given up two places that here Cherokee and George Taylor we lost our families our families have moved out build something that bring our families back here in the community I was born and raised here in Martin County in storeart this is my roots and I don't want to see somebody coming in here building places that the people here in store can't afford already you got single people now that's they're they haven't even moved into the apartments at at the end of this street down here on on Martin Luther King because they can't afford it they still stand in the rooming house cuz they can't afford the apartments so build something that people here in the community in E store that's born and raised there in East store build something that they can afford lowincome not affordable cuz affordable is an umbrella that has all kinds of numbers going back and forth thank you thank you Miss mcf next ala Wy want to um get up of course my name is Alia Wy um I do a lot in the community um I'm also a realtor um caterer mother you name it but there are certain trigger words and triggers trigger situations that really kind of makes my skin crawl and it hurts me okay and Mr McDonald you did a couple of set of trou CP of trigger words to me um and it's easy for you all to sit up there and make a decision um for a community that you really haven't experienced okay I'm trying not to really get emotional but this is very emotional for me because I was almost homeless couple of months ago homeless living in a mobile home park okay and that and I I'm telling you it wasn't for the grace of God and a lot of people that really stood behind me to really um make it happen because a lot of things were happening behind behind for my circumstances and what makes me very passionate about this and those trigger words about um it may not be the right time when is the right time okay I'm going to tell you all you now take ownership of the Gary building of the Gary property take a night and go and stay there take your tent go buy a tent or go sleep in your car and see what is happening at night where we have homeless people that are there and now that you have home I let you take an ownership they're going to have no place to go I was not even going to come here tonight because of you know affordable housing I'm thinking it's someplace else or whatever but when I found out that it was going to be here in East Stewart where how housing is needed housing is needed so when will the right time be when will the right time be okay you look at E Stewart Mr Gary's property is now no longer Cherokee is now no longer the tayor are no longer what is happening here what is happening here to the families of Easter where are they going to go if you never experienced homelessness if you don't even know what it feels like you will not understand and you are sitting there and you don't even you can't even fathom what people go through when they don't have a roof over their head and the children do not have a place to stay but they got to get up and go to school and they can't even focus and I understand about the Thousand doll and you may may be high for some people the one bedroom you may need to do more two bedrooms because there is a big need here I'm going to stop because please let all Mr blunt welcome Mr blunt good evening Madame mayor and Commissioners uh I've been before you before chair the Housing Solutions Council for the last five years so you've heard me here before make my pitch about aordable housing uh I'd like to First say that and acknowledge that I'm very familiar with the green Mills group but it was just today that I heard about this project and I was very excited when I heard about it particularly with them being involved um but I'm particularly excited about it because their model fits what our organization has been pre reaching for a long time and that's not dealing with those people in the 140% of Ami which really by State Statute could even be affordable Workforce housing but uh we're interested and we've been saying all along our message has been as take care of those people in the at least under the 80% we've talked more about those under the 60% of the Ami which which in Martin County you've seen the numbers is $84,500 and so I urge you to to take this forward for further discussion and as the previous speaker said you know Now's the Time you know we just can't begin we can't continue to put this off if we want to keep our workers that provide services for each one of us here in Stewart and Martin County to stay here we can't just brush that under the rug so I encourage you to take this further uh for more discussion thanks thank you thank you Mr Mr Smith Jimmy Smith on item seven thank you for having him again yes sir listen uh I got a couple questions for him that he had made a statement of saying that um your application would be on based on um the background check you got to look at me this way Jimmy you can talk to him just let us hear you okay okay on on a background uh you said it was turn the dial up and down uh that concerned me uh and then also you said something about um uh there someone on the application can choose to put someone on the application and that would be another way that you still have to review that application right some I'm just trying to get those because that's concerning now we do low income housing uh for our community which we need and I'm going to explain why we we needed uh is will the city have a part of being a review board on who's you're going to let come in because the same thing with Port St Lucy when they first created their housing uh $500 down you can get a house built and then it got bombarded from out CI different cities I just concerned about those things when we do make that decision that we can have a review board with the city having some involvement or creating a review board that someone can make sure that this thing get bombarded from the outside and then the inside is not being paying attention to um don't get a chance to get you can see it all over even now the um uh other housing part uh Habitat housing has been bombarded and other people that really need a housing can't get it now because it's been bombarded by others uh so reason I want to say that the city Ste is in De uh really needs that because you know the number one fing school for in Martin County JD Parker Elementary the blacks only two two black kids that's passing at JD Parker two and all of them come out of East Community felling because of the condition that they're living worrying about the next meal a place to stay probably sleeping uncomfortable right here here working with right now working with the school board is that we got a a group of uh retired teachers that willing to come in and try to tutor JD Parker school that's why it's so important that we need to consider and no those parents those grandparents have paid the way here for Martin County have paid the way I work I know cuz my mother my mother took the ground work for the bushes for all those years and when she retired she got nothing they paid her peanut under the table she couldn't even not get Social Security so I know that it's not your fault but it's somebody because the Dum no effect triple down the line so we has to really come together on these things and try to help these kids out that's that's right now failing at JD Parker thank you thank you Mr Smith I have one more uh mayor should I should I I have one more uh then I'll let you come up uh Sean Reed on seven hello yes I want to clarify my comment first of all I'm not in my backyard um everybody in this crowd wants affordable housing when they come up in front of the commission though most people on this commission or other people that come into the crowd they say they don't want it but it's a real issue obviously it needs fixed at one point um and this was a question for Mitchell um what's your salary compared to what's up here for people to afford um also has green Mills sold any of these properties in the past I know he mentioned something about 15 years and also it's I remember at the steuart Housing Authority they were talking they were 1300 behind even if this project was approved you fixed maybe 10% % of the issue in the city of Stewart I don't know how much property the city even has if they gave it all to them if it would even fix it um and also you know if if we really wanted to fix it we have Newfield that was approved and I know there is a county commissioner you know in the meeting that was 4,000 single family houses imagine how many apartments we could put there to where people could afford them instead of doing that thank you yes sir please come forward I I appreciate the opportunity to respond to some of the questions um first Mr Mr Smiths uh about the the um the tenant application process I'm going to try to clarify and and I'll try to be brief um we're required because we're getting this federal subsidy there's a lot of um compliance restrictions that are brought with it we go through typically um two at least one usually two audits every single year for every single one of our properties and literally all of our residents um incomes are checked so we have to abide by the strict uh income restrictions that we're Bound by that's number one the when I made the comment about turning dials up and down I was actually just trying to um articulate that we can be um more flexible than a lot of the other housing owners uh when it comes to um our perspective residents that's all I was trying to convey um I did clarify um where where we draw the line again it's with sexual criminal history and or a violent criminal history um that's where that's where we draw the line um the unit mix um again I I heard Michelle speak again about about kids it's absolutely our preference to have not just one bedroom one bath units it's our preference to have two bedroom two B units as well um it's just costs a lot more to build we're adding square footage but we we will commit to including at least some two bedroom two B units um the the did I answer your question sir I feel like I missed one but I can't remember I'm gonna allow you to do it but don't normally okay okay and we we can we can chat I'm I'm available yeah um the the next gentleman who spoke I'm not going to take the bait as to what my salary is what I I can tell you is that um I went broke starting my business um I left the prior company where I was an executive because I wasn't sleeping at night um as did my my partner my now partner uh with me and we're not going to get into details but um we both went broke starting green Mills group um and uh you don't need my family history but you can have it um my dad was and my dad sold shoes at the mall so um certainly I'm not I'm not you know didn't grow up um extremely low income but I was for sure lower middle class and my dad was well below that you didn't have to answer that as to I'm not going to take the bait I'm not going to answer what my salary is um I'm blessed that's that's the reality I worked really hard and I'm grateful for everything I have in part because I had to give up everything in order to to achieve what I've achieved um and now I have an opportunity to to build a company my my partner Oscar and I have built a company over the last 11 12 years from nothing um except our experiences and our hard work and and our what little savings we had left and I'm absolutely grateful for every opportunity I have to be passionate about what I do before commissions like this and before staff and before members of the audience um uh have I sold any of my communities no sir I haven't um we have not sold any of our communities and I would agree that we can't sell our partnership interests in this community for at least 15 years uh without prior approval from the city you mentioned that the Housing Authority is 1300 units behind I think that's what you said about 1300 um it's a problem yeah I agree this is a this is a we need we need a kitchen sync response at all levels of income I I agree with what commissioner McDonald said um when we spoke about about supply side economics I agree that there's benefit um on the supply side I also think that there's a place for Housing Authority new Housing Authority stock um which is at the extremely low income level uh um the low income level which is what we pride for a Habitat for Humanity I think there's a role for all of them and certainly there's a need for all of us thank you thank you all right um yes M yes sir Mr Brinkley three minutes go ahead speak yes sir no problem thank you sir I look around in here and nobody knows that community and specifically the area but me I was raised that I came here two years old went around the block in up where I am now so nobody knows that area or that Community but me I deal with the people in the community this situation that is being put on the table we not will not absolutely not benefit no one in that East Community it will be put there but it would not benefit nobody in that Community all these property that been torn down in there you know right now people living on the street when I take my grandbaby to school in the morning I'm looking at people that's been on the street all night the same people that been living in the house that the city I'm just telling you like it is like the city to down in there those same people know where to live I had to feed a young lady with her two kids living in a tent around the corner for me this would not benefit what is a one bedroom going to do with a two or three kids come on y'all let's come to reality here now we need to be looked at and heard in the East Community not look over cuz right now you know you know what the community is saying that our community about to be taken and the community I'm telling you what being told mean I deal with the community the community is tied y all they feel like we are not being heard in the community the community is feel like the city wants to take the EAS Community one bedroom come on we kids come on y'all let's come to reality now come on we all adults here come on nothing that's being said tonight will not benefit no one in the Easter Community I lived on that street like I say from a child the only thing that ever been and I lived in one tutoral houses on that Community that's all ever been on my Luther King I lived in a twostory up near erneston produce it was three TW stories there that's all ever been in the East Community what East look like with a three or four story building in come on y'all come on let's be real come on now we are du here let's be real how would that look in the Easter community and how would it look that something is being built that is not going to help no residence people living on the streets to now from the houses that have been torn down children come on that hurts me being a child of God that hurts I hate people coming to me Miss abber do you know where I can live the places J Leon built those places on my new King Boulevard right there and you know what they charge $1,800 I got a duplex behind me empty $1,300 I understand you that's sad come on y'all help the people in the community I'm sorry I remembered Mr Smith's other question it was about if if I might uh you asked about um marketing locally first you you took issue with with what I said I want to I want to clarify hopefully this will help um we will not violate any fair housing laws we can have um um application we can open up um the community for for tenants for applications for tency and we will absolutely commit to marketing locally first if someone from the community right invites one of their relatives to simultaneously submit an application I can't turn them away because that would potentially violate a fair housing law but I will mark it locally first I commit to that I hope that I hope that helps I have a question thank you thank you sir Madam mayor I have a question yes so so just to clarify you cannot guarantee that that building will be filled with people from this community the reality is you cannot guarantee that cor no I can't but the reality is 80% are likely to come from the city because that was the promise with the 3,000 units that we have approved over the last four years is they they would be Workforce and that Supply would no no that's not true that's not true commissioner that's not true did it we we didn't build a bunch of Workforce housing no that's not what we did the last four years there might have been one or two but no sir no we've got a lot of really nice because that's what was sold to all of well a lot of people believe that because you hear them say it over and over and over and and they repeat it to people over and over and over and then they start believing it the lops wasn't Workforce pardon Harbor Grove wasn't Workforce no Costco was supposed to be for the those apartments for the people that worked at Costco the one that's coming up that's supposed to be for the the people that work at the car dealership there that's always the thing as its Workforce they hope so yes that's always what we're told yes ma'am hi mine Bone Green I'm here with Housing Solutions Council and also I'm the third generation native to City of Stewart my grandfather is a City Commissioner and um but I just want to say I think the problem that a lot of people in the community have about the units that were built that were Workforce is that it didn't go to our local Workforce we've got these what we call digital Nomads working virtually coming from California New York working on their incomes which is much higher than our local wage earners and they're taking up all those units and displacing our local Workforce who are being pushed out of not just Martin County but Florida altogether 245,000 local um vidiians moved out last year and a lot of them from our community were seeing being displaced so I understand the concerns of the local community and U East Stewart wanted to make sure that people here they're working here will be housed and what it's my understanding and Mitchell can correct me if I'm wrong that you can give a local preference to local workers first you can't discriminate someone else coming in from West Palm or Port St Lucy but you can give a preference to the local Workforce and at Family Promise we all the time see locals that have been working here for 10 20 years moving out we actually have to help them move out of the state and these are people that are much beloved here that work at the at the hospital that work in the local grocery store that work for the county even um and so we are really trying to do something and so it seems like whenever someone brings something in my understanding House of Hope will be vetting them so that's a local nonprofit that will help vet people that are in the Eli the extremely low income so that's a more of a guarantee that you'll have someone kind of making sure it's people from the community to first get access to these units I'm not saying that that's the best location I'm just saying some location and I also know Mitchell very well we invited him to speak at a Sumit and I know that he hasn't had an opportunity yet to meet with the community but if he did have an opportunity he would hear their concerns and try to come to some Middle Ground best as possible but at the end of the day if you're trying to offer something affordable you do have to have lots of things we tried it with Housing Solutions Council as you all well know and aart if you can't get a bunch of very wealthy donors that are willing to just give the money and then not get anything in return you can't offer something affordable without these tax credit deals from Florida Housing Finance Corporation in order to do that there there's certain laws that they must abide by but if we the more people we get from the community to put in to make something like this happen maybe it won't look like the like you saw he can make it look different somehow but but something that the locals at people in East Stewart and the rest of the community can live here they're just being pushed out and the prices are crazy right now just for so many different reasons but it's so expensive to build and so it's very very hard to get something done but we need something from the city the county the local nonprofits to work together to get something done this seems like a really great opportunity if there's more conversation so that's my my part my two cents thank you there's a madame mayor I I have a couple of questions um uh Mr Mortel and I don't know is Miss uh is our development department director here yes Joe yes so um I just want to make it clear we have a housing element chapter in our comprehensive plan is that correct yes ma'am and we have land we have a Land Development code okay and is there anything in our housing plan in or in our um policies or objectives that says the city of Stewart is going to build housing and build I'm talking about build now I'm not even talking about part parnerships I'm talking about building housing for low income or any income or any housing at all Mr Mortel there's no requirement on our Land Development regulations or our comprehensive plan that the city of Stewart actually build any housing whatsoever there is a housing element which is element three of the comprehensive plan that addresses the maintain maintenance of housing inventory which addresses different housing types and um the goal of the city to balance those objective to attainment of certain types of housing so when we have residents who ask us and say the city is not doing enough or the city is not building housing for people we need to make sure that people understand what our role is as policy makers and decision makers and what is in the comprehensive plan and as especially what the role is of people who are involved in the community such as Mr reri who research and find out ways in which the city can help the city to partner and to try to meet some of our requirements that we're supposed to do and so I think that is where we are and I know I understand Miss Hall and Mr Brinkley and their comments and there's no rule that says that when housing is built is going to have to go exit exactly for this person or that person it is there for the community and for the income level and for those who applying those who come in and it's not going to be racially set out or anything like that and if a private developer wants to come in and do something and decide how they want to deal with something that's fine but when the city is looking at something for the city it's truly is for the city and we haven't I mean we do have some I don't know if you call them Geographic lines or longitude latitude they're real lines but I don't think those real lines say when it comes to housing that if you're stepping out from Port Salerno or someplace else or Palm Beach County and if you happen to end up in Martin County that somehow you either get out of the line completely or you're constantly in the back of the line people are always looking for opportunities and I think meline said it so well in her she's out there in the community she knows who's coming and who's applying and and which teachers are having issues and which um even our police and fire and others or if I decide to if I become homeless tomorrow if I can't pay the 2400 or 3500 or whatever it is in mortgage or rent they're they're fully aware and I think that what we're being asked and I will make a motion right now that we get let me see what the staff is asking had suggested that we do that we try we we ask for direction that we place an item on the agenda for presentation and vote in the future and I will say whatever happens with this I'm asking I'm asking for a second on my motion but I also want to at this time appreciate and acknowledge what Mr um Rothstein has brought in in for us um to look at and the the um the sheare being brave in coming to Martin County which is one of the richest counties and when we get one little opportunity to look at Federal Monies to try to figure out what we can do it may or may not be the right place we have two acres nor of the bridge I know the Housing Coalition has been looking at that and there there might be other places we have very limited spaces in the city of Stewart and maybe this can work on something I don't know if there'll be left over land after we work with redesigning the willig gar property with the with um with the with the Hub and so on I don't know if there'll be anything maybe the this the county commissioner was here maybe he heard something that can be done in Martin County to in order to to get these type of funding there but I would like I'm making a motion to um put it on the agenda for full presentation a and vote and to do it at a future time and to continue this discussion on um working with the property for uh affordable housing we have a motion on the floor second we have a second what about any of the Commissioners anyone have any more to say do we have mad mayor I'd like yeah I'd like to make a comment through with public comment I believe no you public comment right you took public comment before the motion so you proba um so many issues brought up [Music] um what's very frustrating to me and actually it's been my entire life is when someone I hear you Mr Rich when when someone reveals an men's problem and solutions are presented that deal with a percentage of them and the comment is made well you're not solving the entire problem it's very rare that any organization or municipality can solve an entire problem but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do the best we can when an opportunity presents itself is it going to and you know it'll make a huge difference for for the 130 individuals and families who will be able to get off the street and have a place to live and maybe not have to own a car and can walk to the hospital and be one of the hospital workers because though that income sector is essential to a community for the services we all take for granted and if we can't house them and if we can't H accommodate them the vibrancy of this city will suffer one of my phrases I always keep in mind is a city is diversity and what that means is we need a diversity not only ethnic diversity and racial diversity but e economic diversity um you know I can't think of a better place for this to be because it's in it's in an area we've spent more time talking about than any other area and that's East Stewart especially with the form based code and why this is so good is the form based code the East Stewart Neighborhood code overlay first paragraph first sentence the purpose of this code is to encourage Redevelopment infield development Small Business Development and affordable housing that's the first thing we decided that we wanted to see in East Stewart and you know what's a nice accompanyment to that is if we do build a building in there a community Workshop is required ired neighbors make neighborhoods okay to think I I am not willing to put a structure into E Stewart without meeting with the community and speaking with the community and understanding what the problems are and what's the best way to solve them and in fact the code requires that we do that so and I'm sure Mr Rosenstein will be more than happy to make that that effort and I certainly will be making that effort and taking advantage of the time we now have to speak with the people who live in his steart and I know Jimmy will be knocking on my door okay um any other comments no thank you madam mayor anyone that hasn't commented before can come before us so we're going to have a vote anyone from the public okay thank you very much give us your name and address fill out of card when you're when you get through we'll do my name is Regina Hawkins another Hawkins um I wanted to say that this project of having affordable or Workforce housing whatever you want to call it or low lwi income housing um is very much needed in stored I just hope that it goes and it's done the right way you need to meet with East St that is very important diversity is very important and another thing is the people that work on this project they need to be from steart some of them because then the generational wealth is passed along with in the same communities instead of it going all the way back to where Fort Lauderdale Miami some of these people people who build these projects some of the people needs to be uh the people in the communities need to also be be the ones working on the project thank you you the good news is Mr is it Rosenstein rosstein you live in Del re and the people behind you are right there on Martin Luther King Boulevard so it is a it's it's good to know that that it is local um and I look out at this audience and look at all the thein men and women that have been working very hard for us to go forward and try to figure out something so that's what we're going to do and try to figure it out we take a role Mary vice mayor Rich yes commissioner McDonald no commissioner Collins no commissioner Clark yes and mayor Bruner yes 32 okay we through with that adjourned thank you good job Madam May