morning every Doug I know you can hear us or maybe you can't but we're going to start without being able to hear you for the time being okay uh good morning everyone and welcome to the uh Fort Meers Beach local planning agency meeting this is Tuesday June 11th 2024 before I start anything I'd like you all to please meet Mr Jim Dunlop he is uh our new member he was appointed by the council and we're very happy to have him I'll ask you in a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself um so if you would please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and the invocation pled algi to the flag the United States of America indivisible for all Justice for All oh so our invitation is thank you for this Reign and let it be uh all the rain that we're going to get this summer and not have any wind associated with rain or anything like that uh and help us make great decisions today amen am amen a good there's ail okay so now before we go further Jim tell us a little bit about yourself good morning thank you Anita I'm thrilled to be here um we purchased our property in July 2021 on eward street here in former Beach we also have a home in Aero um we went through what everybody went through and we remodel it when we bought it and we remodeled it after end so um in in speaking with the mayor uh during the interview process he said it says something when you rebuilt your home twice so appreciate having you here in the commitment to the island I spent um 38 years with a company called Huntington National Bank as a senior executive there running many of the Departments across the country and uh retired now in 2017 live in Florida full-time and thrilled to be part of the process yay we're glad to have you here Jim thank you very much for applying and thank you to the council for uh choosing you um Amy you need a motion and a vote okay can can you guys hear us Don uh Doug hear us yes can we hear you no no okay well could I have a motion please to accept Doug and Don uh via Zoom because of extraordinary uh situations that they both have found themselves in out of town um and we hope we'll be able to hear them shortly I make a motion to approve the zoom meeting with Doug and Don and hope to hear from them soon and if I may add to the record um there is a quorum present right correct second I'll second okay we we have uh two seconds and a motion and is there any objection to that motion a hearing none uh the motion is accepted unanimously the next item is an approval of the minutes for May 14th 2024 if I could have a motion for them as they were distributed or if there are any corrections uh I move to approve the minutes thank you I'll second and thank you Jane uh is there any discussion on that motion attorney do I need to abstain since I'm not here for the U meeting these motions are relevant to um technically you really should I mean you've had the opportunity to review it if you had any questions about it um there's only certain items that you can abstain from voting and I'm not I don't think that's happy to support okay um any objection to the motion hearing none the motion carries unanimously uh so the first item on our agenda is public comment and this is public comment that does not have anything to do with the cases that we're hearing or if for example you're short of time and you just need to tell us something that does have to do with one of these cases we'll be glad to hear from you now is there anybody who'd like to make any public comment I have some signed up for the for the public comment yep one for EBC and one for London Bay um London Bay okay well London Bay isn't on the agenda so who's here to speak about London Bay oh come on up Mike Miller you popped up there like a little squirrel Mike nice to see you andrul for all your uh your openings yes sir it's it's been a challenge I'm I'm sure and uh uh I was up here to I got a question is this um able to be heard throughout everybody can hear now throughout the land yes okay I was up at uh the um Town council meeting and I was up here but no one outside could hear so I just wanted to reiterate what I was uh talking about regarding London Bay um they had a meeting with our Canal owners about bringing a uh 20 to 30 25 to 30 people um boat going down our Canal our Canal is is currently 29 to 30 ft wide they intend to depending on season half hour to every hour bringing this boat up and down our Canal um let's see here um realistically what they're going to do they're going to bring them to the resort uh through two other Resorts and they're going to whine them and dine them go through their shops and have a great time load them right back on their boat and they go right back to um their other resorts on the mainland um this does nothing to benefit this is nothing to benefit the local businesses only to benefit London Bay um so there're even currently promoting this at their other locations so you know I'm not here to give problems without a solution and the solution is they get a dock at fishtail Marina okay they acquire an open air trolley or Shuttle you know like the one that we've got Lee Lee has so they don't feel cons confined in like a van okay that Canal is 90 to 130 ft wide and it's designed to support the commercial traffic um now let's take a look at what they've got what what the advantage is for the local community uh once all the shops and everything are back at Santini Plaza you've got local restaurants you've got shops trinket shops you got clothing stores okay they're going to know that this is there so what'll happen is you know I estimate in my opinion 25 to 30% of everyone that comes on that boat is going to notice this and they're going to let's say they're already at London Bay and they're going to do what my wife likes to call shop out you know whever we are you know we anywhere there's a shop nearby look I'm going to shop out before we get in the car or get on a a boat and go back home and give you an example moms and kids they're they're on their way back or even on the way to London Bay hey why don't we uh let's do a little bit of shopping naturally the dad in my opinion me hey I'm going to hit the little sports bar and have a cocktail while you guys have fun and then after that let's get dinner at the local shop and uh and maybe some ice cream hop on the boat and go back and by doing that there are so many benefits to this island they actually get to see part of the island and best of all there's no cars or traffic that is being implemented for uh uh coming there versus and so what I'm saying is that that the boat is a great idea it's very you know I M estimating they could get 75 to 100 people and that's only 25% of the people on the boat stop it stop there so you're looking at 75 to 100 people a day that can if not more that will stop at Santini Plaza and again no traffic um and it's a win-win for the island and um it's great for local businesses because we want local businesses to prosper and and at the end of the day that's what it's all about local businesses thank Mike and if we can do that it'd be great I appreciate those comments no problem thank you very much it's a great idea uh anybody else have Dave for EC that's it Dave for okay but you're going to come up perfect okay then we'll begin uh our public hearings uh the very first one is uh a vacation um Nancy do you want to talk about the the uh letters we have received so we can put those on record and what our processes are through this yes if I can make a few comments um first of all I'd like to point out that you have two three four five you do have six public hearings this morning um I will point out that the um public hearing for item agenda Item B is a request to review a text amendment to your Land Development code um and this is legislative in nature rather than quasi judicial the remaining items on your agenda today um are the vacation which is your first item followed by two rezonings uh special exception and a variance so as you are aware um the land use items that are Quasi judicial in nature um this requires those public hearings to comply with procedural requirements that have been established in Florida law and in our Land Development code these quas judicial proceedings are less formal than proceedings before a circuit court but they are more formal than the remaining the remainder of our meeting and we must follow basic standards of due process requiring certain notices application of the correct standards in our code and comprehensive plan and decisions made and recommen decisions and recommendations made on competent and substantial evidence that is presented to you in written documents or through oral testimony so once the uh oral testimony is concluded and you have had the opportunity to look at the documents in your packet you must evaluate the testimony and the information and therefore and thereafter U draw a conclusion regarding whether the criteria in Your Land Development code or in state law has been satisfied so pure speculation or mere opinion not based on competent facts you should not uh legally consider that in evaluating whether or not the criteria has been satisfied testimony by professionals individuals who are qualified as as experts before you in a particular area that has been viewed as competent substantial EV competent evidence by Florida courts as well as testimony by neighbors and residents who have fact-based information such as minutes surveys engineering reports Etc or testimony based again on their personal um knowledge and information so members of the public that are present um and applicants staff if you intend to speak please keep this in mind when you come forward please state your name clearly for the record whether or not you have been sworn in there has been a recent change to the town's uh Land Development code regarding variance request and in the event there is a unanimous decision by eligible voting members of the LPA to approve a variance that decision shall constitute final agency action which is subject to a request by anyone for an additional hearing review of the matter by the town councel if the request for the additional hearing is received by the town clerk within 10 days so when that variance item comes before the LPA if it is a unanimous vote and no one objects within that 10 bay period um that will be uh final agency action and there'll be no further review before the Town Council so for purposes of efficiency at our meetings um we need to dispose of a few U matters um first of all I need to ask the town clerk have all um items been properly uh noticed yes they have okay and at this point I need to ask if any of our LPA members have any conflict of interest under Florida law that would prohibit them from voting on any particular item on the agenda I need to ask this question not only for compliance with Florida law but also to ascertain if we still have a quorum present um in order to proceed with with the matter so any conflicts on any agenda items today let's ask the two gentlemen on the screen Don or Doug any conflicts no conflict Doug uh no conflict for me thank you how about you Jim none for me Jane none I have none Jim none John joh no conflicts Nancy excellent so we do have a quorum present um and the acceptance of two participate participants uh remotely um at this point we would need to swear in anyone who is intending to give testimony in the Quasi judicial matters if you would please stand and raise your right hand and the town clerk will administer a note that includes public comment yes that includes public comment so if you're going to speak on um gosh on anything but the CB zoning change you need to be sworn in so if you would please stand if you want to if you're going to speak on the CB on the text Amendment it doesn't matter if you want to stand up and get sworn but if you're going to talk about uh Estero Island beach club or anything else you need to be sworn in okay I guess we just have audience members right we're getting some more okay stand up you know when in doubt say everyone just stand up I'll swear you all in all right do you solemnly swear and affirm that the testimony that you were about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth okay all parties have been sworn okay Madame chair um your first item is the uh vacation um we do have copies of a resolution um that we that has just been prepared um if you could read the title and all members of the public would be aware of the item this is a um a resolution vacating beach access point number 42 located over real property owned by Captiva Villas at 200 Estero Boulevard Fort Meers Beach accepting dedication of a replacement easement to be located on real property owned by jaabo LLC subject to terms and conditions contained in the second amended and restated easement relocation View Corridor agreement replacement easement directing the town clerk to record this resolution and replacement easement and providing an effective date um Nancy this doesn't require any expar or anything like that um we should have expar okay um Doug any expar on this particular case no ma' how about you Don no exper John comment uh I drove by and uh physically looked at the the various location excellent Jim no Jane site visit only how about you Jim none uh site visit okay Jason um Jason before you begin I believe the LPA members have been in receipt of numerous emails regarding this item um if we could for the record simp identify who the E the email was from well there's some that aren't here that were sent by uh emails so the ones that we have here one is from Christine Madden um that's the only one that's here so I I have the one that we got by email was from Katherine Shotz Catherine yes and uh there was somebody else so Amy yes that would be great thank you okay bear with me because I'm going to just go down through these uh I have one from Katherine shots um Mary Herman that's right here's one Mary Herman again uh Mo Mora bee El mhm again from Mora Todd zastro I didn't read that one would you like me to forward that one to you no that's okay Mary Herman um Bob basil basil Christine Walters penny a Ager aguire Jean Sone Phyllis scroggy scroggy um Irish 14 oh Chris fahe again Irish 14 Marty mcin mcginity Paul doring um and Richard row that's the ones I know of so we need to um make sure that our property owner applicant um has had the opportunity to look at those emails um since they have conveyed information to you um and so we'll we'll double check she has not back in January you might have okay so um Madame chair at some point um if we could just take a break um yes we process and we'll we'll review those to give her the opportunity Jason go ahead excellent thank you good morning LPA members staff my name is Jason SMY I'm with your Community Development Department uh today we are being being asked to consider the vacation and relocation of a 6ot walking easement uh the the easement itself is six 6 ft wide uh they are requesting to move the easement approximately 250 ft south of where it currently exists uh that abandonment would then allow for access from and directly adjacent Trolley Stop and funnel uh visitors and beachgoers through through uh 200 Estero uh through what is known as the pink shells building across their pool deck and towards the beach uh it should be noted that the originally uh the beach access number 42 which is the access in question today uh was originally approved in 1985 uh it's been moved a couple times in the intervening decades uh currently a previous location for it is being used as a View Corridor a 6ot uh U View Corridor across the property that will um be maintained so that will continue to exist if the application to move the easement is approved uh one thing of note that I would bring up is that through consultations with the attorneys and the county and the town uh there was an agreement that the uh hours of operation for this beach access would be sun up to sun down staff is here for any questions or concerns you may have and I believe that the applicant is here as well to uh to discuss this who made the who made the agreement for sunup to sundown uh this was made in conjunction with uh with Town staff I believe the attorney was involved as well in the discussion uh this is recent is that um that is a term of the proposed draft um relocation easement right so that is um subject to review and recommendation and the previous the previous one was not s to send down correct it was 24 by7 uh don saying what I was going to say but there the previous easement or the existing easement did it have a time limit uh that was not part of my notes so I don't think I can address that but if the applicant would be able to speak to that she may have some information okay uh Jim did you have a question um so who was asking for the Sun up sun down which one of the the staff of the applic as it relates to those rules the applicant um so this this one is a discussion point I I'm not exactly sure who brought the matter up initially okay thank Jane um on the I mean do any of our accesses have time limits on them not that I'm aware of or or lock off areas it would be subject to normal um nuisance and Land Development code regulations okay the um letter from to Mr Clemens from Sarah on February 21st which is page 49 of our package are you talking about Sarah Spectre or Sarah PR Pro okay uh no yeah both of them are on there from both of them actually no it's from Sarah Spector I'm sorry I cannot hear Jane very well I'm not sure if move the mic closer J oh sorry it is Sarah Spectre um it it states that this is in the early stages but the county staff knows now that they cannot support such a request can you tell me what changed to make it supported uh I think Miss Spectre could could speak to that I was not involved in the initial meetings unfortunately okay uh Jim any questions for for um Jason and more towards the attorney I guess is Dawn to Duff seems vague I've had had problems in the past with the language as to you know when is Dawn and when is done versus a fixed hour and personally you've had problems with those words I have so um is that something that is acceptable and then we just saw the language for the easement this morning and that got handed out have you signed off on that or do we I have not it's still in make it subject to your approval at least for the language correct subject to and that is part of the actual request that if you recommend vacation there has to be a replacement easement for it and then there would be terms and conditions associated with that replacement easement um as far as the um discretion that would be exercised for Dust to Dawn um because of daylight savings time it changes so you have to basically Trust and have faith that um it would be properly monitored and enforced and the alternative will be fixed hours correct hold on hold on let's see anything oh go ahead would it make sense to be sunrise to sunset just asking it's an alternative that you could consider yes or 1 hour after sunset for example yeah exactly well it's a good point sunset and sunrise are fixed times Dawn and dusk which are I guess more open more vague any other questions uh John um I actually have a question um regarding the Town versus the county control over those Beach accesses when I look on the website at the number of accesses that we have under control it seems like the North End in our County accesses is that correct I'm I'm not sure that's my understanding is a large portion of the northern accesses are County controlled they probably built under Cy correct exactly incorporate um Jane you had another question well I don't I just don't understand why they would want to impose these things when they are spouting that they're going to have other um things for the public use at this property why would they shut off their dining or their you know entertainment or whatever else they have and if you get over there and watch the sunset and then they get locked out where is their access to get back to their house across the street or whatever I I just don't see the point of I mean is they say for safety issues I you're going to have to ask the applicant that J I'm overwhelmed with simil question Jane you're overwhelmed with the questions well honey okay um thank you Jason thank you inspector Jane's got a lot of questions for you but we'll let you you've got answers that's good I'll let you speak then good morning Sarah good morning Sarah Spector with retel and Andress I can move this um on behalf of the applicant which is both Captiva Villa development and jbo LLC would you like me to answer questions first or no do your presentation all right perfect so it's a short presentation just a few slides to since it's easier to point out what we're talking about with a map so and I don't does no it doesn't work so um what I'll point out here is you'll see there are three red outlined easement areas the first farthest South is beach access 41 the next is the current beach access 42 and then the furthest North is beach access 43 what we are asking to relocate is beach access 42 beach access 42 will move from where you see it in the center right there the the middle red outlined area to where it's shown in green and as was stated previously it will go from uh bus stop through the resort through the pool deck and across an already established access to the beach and this is just to show you an aerial so it's easier to see without the overlay wait go back please yes it looks like the proposed one goes right through the pool area too it does that's what we're asking that's what they're proposing okay and I can explain um and I think some of the comments which we have may have seen back in January were in response to an earlier request and what I'll show you is the earlier request instead of moving it where the Green is right now is to move the 6 foot wide easement to the north and combine it with beach access 43 so beach access 43 would run between the pink shell and pink shell Vacation Villas and that was one reason why there was some um consternation among the public because vacation um Villas did not want more traffic to go down beach access 43 so in response to that that is why we're proposing to move Beach XS 42 to where it's shown in green it's my understanding that one of the um emails that you received is from Vacation Villas uh the general manager bill wulus has been working very closely with them and the board is in agreement with the location being where it's shown in green and does support that it's my understanding although I don't know if you've gotten anything on the vacation but I know with regard to the special exception um it's my understanding that there was support from beach villas which is just to the South where Beach accs 41 is so we previously had letters of opposition that I do believe have been changed into letters of support so I know there's I've only seen one letter of um opposition well they're complicated letters okay um yeah okay so cuz if there's anything else I'm not aware of it and I'm not able to you know what Sarah I think you need to review these letters so Amy um forward them all to her oh okay okay so she's forwarded them all to you would you like to take a break and review the letters um do you want me to finish my presentation and then just yeah yes I would like to review those to be able to okay um we have been working in concert with the county because this was originally uh an easement in favor of the county prior to incorporation of the town so we have been working with them closely and the um director of County lands Robert Clemens and the County Attorney responsible for County lands Mark Mora are both in agreement with this the they have the agreements that will replace this and all that we're waiting for is for it to be placed on an agenda before the board of County Commissioners I will say that we had initially suggested just because of the nature of the location that there be hours it was the county that suggested From Dusk Till Dawn because that is what their public park hours are so we went with Dusk to Dawn we're not married to an idea but we'd have to go back to the county and ask the county if they're okay with different hours um because right now the agreement that we have with them and the replacement agreement does have it from uh Dusk Till Dawn um and then just the one other thing I want to point out which I think we've discussed before is that 800 um notation there on the drawing that's just to show you that there's only 800 ft in between beach access 41 and beach access 43 so if they weren't able to use beach access 42 because it was outside of the areas there's two very close and right now the only thing across the street where you see the 800 on the Bayside is all pink shell owned property the only non-pink shell owned properties are the two you see circled so the closest they would go to is the one on the south to beach ja as 41 and the one to the north to beach ja as 43 so um with that we believe that a replacement easement that allows for public benefit it provides a beach trolley access it provides restaurants and other amenities and most importantly what no other beach access point has this will have bathrooms so the public will have access to bathrooms in this location there was a comment in one of the um objection letters that the Ping shell is not open to the public based on a code or I'm sorry a previous ordinance provision that was amended because I didn't see it until late in the day I wasn't able to pull the exact ordinance but it's my understanding in 2011 that condition was removed from the ordinance so there's no longer a condition um that the pink shell is only open to those guests and employees so with that that oh the one other thing I did want to point out in the package you have your the easement is only to the Coastal Construction line because we just figured that once you get to the beach they had access um they were there but the town I'm sorry the County Attorney had asked that that be extended to the um extent of the property so we have revised the legal description to actually go to the main high water line rather than the Coastal Construction line so as um the town attorney mentioned we are still working on the agreement the agreement that's in there right now I believe still contemplates the old um combination of 42 and 43 by no means is that what we plan to go forward with we will work with the town attorney to revise the agreement and in doing so I I do believe that staff has a copy of this it's just the wrong one was put into the presentation so just know that it will go to the mean high water line and not the Coastal Construction line so with that do you have any questions okay right now um uh Jim questions from inspectre so as these Beach accesses are used you have a variety of of people and accouterments they bring with them wagons umbrellas fishing pools Etc is there anything that you all are concerned about and or have issues with how people end up using this beach access versus the way they would traditionally use one going through your lobby and through the deck of the pool no and it's not going it's going under the building okay so no there are no concerns okay the intention is that they'll be able to use it the same as any other access thank you can you go back to the other one so this goes right into your pool area will they have access to the pool no they will not unless they're a guest or have a day pass who will be telling them there's not a fence around the pool where this beach access comes around correct one reason we do want to move this access the main reason we want to move this access is there was an ADA issue where the current beach access is and the pool deck had to be leveled out because there were accidents that were happening because the pool uh decks were not even they've been even out and that is one reason why the beach access cannot go through there anymore but the one reason we've proposed this as an alternative is that's where pink shell staff is stationed so they'll be able to monitor who and pink shell guests have a um a bracelet that they wear to differentiate between public and I see a major issue with the public going through and not being able to get in that pool cuz that's going to be their plan and then having to be thrown out basically and then to be locked off at a certain hour I can see the benefits for you to have people go see the pool and see the amenities around but I don't see the public benefit of going through there and being denied use and then being shut off it at time in time frames I I could not support this at all okay um Jim one of the emails we got and when I drove by I thought it too the relocated access easan goes you know under the Portico past the valet into this sort of tunnel like you said it's underneath would the applicant consider putting some sign AG saying you know beach access like we have Elsewhere on the island um maybe even on the the post where the uh the tram stop is saying that the beach access is there some sort of acknowledgement so people know it's it's available I don't see an issue with that oh no I didn't see yeah no issue with that we could certainly do that right now there is a a sign for 41 and 43 the 42 just or whatever reason isn't there so we don't have an issue with that that's my only question I'm sorry there's signage for the other ones I was there the other day and quite frankly I couldn't find them never mind use them sorry it was pre-storm there were well I mean is there actually access currently because I don't believe I tried to go down that access and wasn't able to do that the current uh 42 uh yes no there is no access because of the Ada uh changes made to the deck and for safety reasons it has been fenced off all right well I also couldn't find the other two on either side I mean they weren't apparent to me and we don't have a problem with signage there either they've been there for some time uh I think those date back to I don't believe they're maintained or open you're right I apologize the county handle signage so we can work with them to have the signage reinstated uh Sarah historically um I think those accesses have been a bit of a mystery and and it for me it is super important that they are signed just like every other beach access because there's a lot of different um nomenclature for this one is is it a is it an AIS it is it an easement is it a beach access I mean there are different words that have been used for this and and what I really want to know is is it a beach access like every other beach access on the island because if it is it should have the same use it shouldn't be any different um so I'm I'm with Jane and I think Jim kind of hinted at that as well as far as the hours are concerned it's like it either is a beach access or it isn't if it's an easement through your property that you own and it's not public and you're only allowing certain things then I understand the criteria for the usage but I'm under the impression that I it I mean it was nice to read all of this because I came across a name of roxxy's mother who actually was the first person who dealt with the county for that uh for that access and I think they should be numbered signed Beach accesses um which we don't have an issue with at all which you don't have an issue with okay that's great all right um uh don any questions uh my my question is um back to the the reason for vacating the old uh beach access can you hear him is the reason for vacating made made it ADA Compliant now but we've already fenced it off so we you've effectively already vacated it without Town approval is that correct I would not say that no it the access is currently blocked but we haven't vacated it and one thing I do want to speak to is the vacation process and maybe why it's a little confusing um this has been as was mentioned by Mr SMY it's been moved twice before it was moved twice before by agreement with the Town Council it wasn't until it was under Mr Heron and I don't remember exactly the year the code was amended to provide for vacation of any type of easements whereas the statute only requires vacation of platted easements so it made it a little difficult to fit this round peg into you know a square hole so I apologize if there's different terminology used throughout it is intended to be a beach access easement and that's what we're replacing it with um if I can just add perhaps hold on hold on hold on uh Jacob can you increase Don's volume because we can barely hear him Don go again yeah no I I I don't want to interrupt the U attorney if there was something with respect to that I just I'm still very curious about the uh the reasoning for this meaning the Ada was it a step before is it now and not a step could it not be rammed I'm just trying to figure out is it just was it just to make the pool deck even for pink shell um and I'm just I'm just puzzled by why there still couldn't be a beach access in the same if if I'm thinking of the one which I used before um I think in years back there was a gate there you couldn't get through but right I'm just trying to figure out I'm still trying to figure out why we had to do this or why we have to vacate this and and I do think that I I want to make sure that it still can be used exactly as it is today you can take a bicycle through you know most all of the beach accesses you can ride a bicycle you can bring you know a wagon or what have you um if you wouldn't mind I'd like um Mr to speak to that good morning pH whiteis president pel Beach Marina I'm sorry good morning good morning uh answer the question where the access was before 42 there was a we had a building there we lost it in the storm which was the kind of the showers for our our Marina guest um we in turn instead of trying to build that building up 14 ft up in the air and trying to figure out how to get people up to it we we took the building out and we incorporated into the main building the showers and restrooms in that main building but that landscape where that building was between the two pool decks is just completely two different elevations we've made it and we've had Ada issues we've had many trips and falls in that area so we were able to make the deck flat to where anybody in a wheelchair can travel through our pool decks um with full access um you know you had mentioned about Beach accesses at the pink shell versus other where I mean the big difference is honestly 18 years there hardly anybody uses that access we own all the land across so if you're coming you're either using 41 43 or you're going to bage but we understand you know I met with all the council members the county and here on the town in regards to this and you know obviously our we would love to just take it away but we know that we can't do that so moving it to the best situation that helps the public and us is was what we were looking for a compromise as Sarah mentioned we wanted to combine 43 my neighbors didn't like that so we worked with the neighbors and came with this proposal where they sent letters and enough support um so you know we are being a good citizen with our neighbors in regards to these Beach accesses you know the other another big one what beach access has bathrooms no this one will it's a biggie I mean it's a biggie I mean trying to get bathrooms on the ground level that you don't have to go up it's it's difficult and these will have bathrooms that are accessible to anybody to the public that come comes in on that axis I think it's a it's a big one can I ask you how you plan to manage the differentiation between guests and public when I walk into that into your facility you go through the valet then you walk through the Portico then you come to a uh I I guess it's like a station where somebody is ensuring that they are guests that are allowed on the property it's our greeter yeah there's a greeter at a Podium and he is D answering questions and directing people or or appearing to be somewhat of a hindrance if you don't feel like you're supposed to be there my concern is that if it's not well understood by the public that they have access to that facility as I'm walking up I don't feel that I'm welcome if I don't believe that I belong there well and that's where I think the signage would come in handy but that the signage isn't something that I put up that's the county that puts those those signs up for the accesses 41 and 43 are open right now I mean you can go to them I mean they're a little overgrown on them but those are County maintained accesses that you know that that are not marked right now but 41 and 43 are open but not not maintained they're difficult to see yes I mean yeah there's yes but the other challeng is is that you know nobody's using those because there we own all the property across the street I me mind to keep harping on that but I just want to make it clear that you know the public is available to use those but where are you going to park you know you're going to come down the trolley that's why this other location is a better spot because the trolley stops right there if you are have trouble with walking it it's an easy access right in into the to the property versus the other ones other questions for Bill or Sarah and can one more question so can you tell me if if you're going to have restaurants and I assume you have a bar in there by the pool and things like that why you would want to shut it down the the the the the hours that was a recommendation with the county my only thing is I've got to shut it down with the pool because I can't have people coming there at 1:00 in the morning and falling in the pool so you know there is going to have to be some hours on that aspect from a safety standpoint but you know if somebody wanted to come to the beach in the middle of the night you do have 43 you do have 41 and I I mean honestly nobody's coming in the middle of the night to go out to the beach um but that's the only reason for the time that was I think County recommended for the Dust to Dawn based on what the park hours were but I mean if it was sunrise the sunset I mean that's fine too I mean we're open to 11 so I mean it's it's not uh you know if it was 211 it's fine too I mean it's not an issue on our part we just followed you know the recommendation of the county we're trying to trying to make everybody happy it's ended up awkward bill it's just awkward to even think about it it's awkward for me to think about you know Joe and Mary from Columbus who oh hey the pink Shell's got a beach access and so they take the trolley down there they've got their kids they unload the trolley and they walk through your property I'm with John I wouldn't feel welcome I'd feel like I shouldn't be here you know everybody else has got on their cute little pink bracelet and here I am trudging through I wonder how it's going to impact your guests but but we get we get we get the public coming to eat at the restaurants many of you have been Gifts of me eating at the restaurants it's the same the same thing okay all right um would you like a break to review the letters absolutely okay so Sarah um we're uh yeah we're going to we're going to do the public comment and you review the letters and if you haven't had enough time we'll we'll break okay um is there public comment on this anybody who'd like to speak on the pink shell I see a hand were you sworn in um I was not well come on up and you can still speak we'll we'll just swear you in while you're here good morning how is everybody very well thank you all right do you solemnly swear and affirm to sorry that the testimony that you are about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes good morning good morning everybody my name is Melody King I'm a local resident here on Fort Meers Beach and I love Margaritaville okay I wish I knew the pink showell was open to the public all this time so thanks for that information rock on um Margaritaville has a beach access and they were granted a be beach access right by their swimming pool perhaps maybe there's a little safety gate or something you guys could put in place around the pool area like Margaritaville did to save your guys' Resort um the beach access being moved seems like it's being very personalized by the LPN if you guys aren't comfortable with it maybe we should make a huge announcement on the ISA Fort Meers Beach Florida page that the pink shell is and has been open to the public and that's what they're trying to do is just give people access not only to go through their Resort but if more families knew it was open to the public more people would be more comfortable to go there so maybe there just needs to be a little bit more local knowledge spread it all over the place and then we can all agree to help the pink shell help people enjoy their Resort especially us locals I mean they could be doing what Margaritaville is doing and doing water aerobics and all these things but at the end of the day I ask everybody in the LPN to not take this so personal about finding beach access and signs we waited a year and a half to get street signs thank you is there anybody else who'd like to speak anyone okay we'll close the public comment Sarah you need a few minutes I do not we had actually um as I mentioned we did receive some um opposition back in January yes what I'm looking at now is that it was from January okay so there is one individual uh I think it's a family member of an owner and vacation bill is that is opposed but for reasons that I've already addressed with regard to the um Resort being open to the public us moving it and it being um codified in an agreement that we'll make sure to work with Nancy on okay uh stay stay still for a second um Doug or Don do you have any questions for Miss Spectre I do uh this is Doug uh M Spector um do you know of any uh I understand the county uh uses the dawn to DK do a a description but do you know of any uh legal definition of dawn to dusk is there a is there a legal definition for that there may be but I'm not aware of it I would have to look at the county there is Pilots have it I think I'd like to see like it was brought earlier a a definition and I think um it was mentioned you know they might be with 11:00 if that's the hours of the restaurant um you know something like that like uh uh half hour before Sunrise to 11: p.m. or whatever but I think you need a a more definitive uh hours of operation and we're not to in the longer yeah so don they Doug they have not been they're not opposed to hours uh they've been dealing with what the county um uh suggestions or requirements have been but they evidently are amenable to whatever hours we um prescribe and and just so you know Doug just so you know Doug uh Jim did say that there is a legal definition of dawn to dusk the Twilight Etc the pilots have to have it for certifications when to fly so there's a definition they've all agreed to on that okay there you go uh uh don any further questions no I mean I'm still I don't support it I'm so puzzled with respect to I understand the explanation that it makes their pool deck better but I don't understand why we couldn't have ramped it up and put it in the same place without any restrictions without a a you know a concierge or greeter telling someone you can only walk through the pool deck straight through you can't you know avert your eyes or turn or or sit at the pool or anything else so I just um and and I'm still puzzled why it was done before it was approved okay uh uh don bill's coming back up to answer that question for you okay yeah first Resort reopen 100 families from FEA I I had to get this Resort open to help this island I had to keep it safe you know I met with everybody to make sure everybody was fine County was fine with taking it away completely we're trying to keep it so you know I asked for this to help us because I've been helping everybody but to get this done I had to get it done to keep the area safe so I mean yeah I mean if you guys deny it and the council denies it yeah it's going to have to go back I get that but I took that that gamble to get the Resort open that was the most important thing for me understood okay may I ask does anybody have anyone else have any questions for the staff or for the applicant Madam chair um I think today we only had one expert um testifying before you and that would have been Jason SMY who has been considered an expert um and I'm not sure if the record is clear regarding um staff's opinion on consistency with your comp plan because that is one of the primary roles of the LPA uh thank you yes just to attest that uh staff believes with the relocation of the easement uh since it will still be available that it uh it meets the intent of the comprehensive plan thank you Jason any further questions for the staff or the applicant hearing none may I have a motion to approve or deny vacation to 2024 0030 for 190 Estero Boulevard I move to approve uh the VAC 20243 1990 Estero Boulevard with the condition that it be subject to attorney approval of the easement language and with a recommendation to the city council to cons consider a more definitive time frame and that the council urge the county to provide three access signs second is eement or is it a public access I'm sorry just a question on the motion Public Access okay because the motion was for an easement uh yeah you correct access signage okay so there is a motion uh by uh Jim Bone and a second by Jim Dunlop uh is there any discussion on that motion i' like to follow up on I don't know if this is change to the motion or just clarification you've already included in your tent but the willingness of the applicant to provide significant flexibility in the hours I don't know how we build that into a condition as much as we can an influence a request but to the degree that we represent Whoever has to ultimately approve this whether that's the county otherwise that our request from the organization LPA Etc is to have a maximum number of hours allowed to be used for the public while the um while the pool is open the other things that we talked about I'd like to see somehow we include some language in in in expressing our interest in that Jim could we um would you be willing to amend the motion instead of to say more definitive time frame to something perhaps like Jim is alluding to of uh maximum maximum hours or maximum usage time or something I Jim do you have a suggestion 11 yeah I'd like to go um if the applicant's offering the hours they're operating I think we start there and let them walk us back on whatever restrictions they have they can't approve that so the pink shell hours of operation right Jim do you have any objection to that no we could add uh more defend of hours uh reflecting the maximum uh time that the pink shell is open to the public okay do you agree with that I do have SP second to that okay very good so we have a motion in a second is there any discussion anything from you John no I still have concerns with it I feel it's um quite restrictive I really do anything Doug or Don no ma'am no thank you okay anybody else any comments okay uh we'll do a roll call vote Jim yes Jim yes Doug yes Don no Jane no John no yes the motion carries uh 4 to three thank you all very much I'm I'm sorry your next one oh yes I know it's the CB zoning District it's very exciting I'm sorry that uh where is Sarah today I miss seeing her uh Sarah is working on her PhD and had had class requirements unfortunately so darn smart okay good enough we're we're happy to have you and Eli here so okay go ahead Jason this is the CB uh zoning District language changes it's a text Amendment this is legislative and so let's have a discussion excellent uh so good morning my name is Jason SMY again with your planning and zoning department uh through Community Development uh the ordinance language that's before you creates a Commercial Boulevard otherwise known as CB zoning District that allows for the uses that were allowed on those Parcels prior to the creation of the CB zoning District under the authority of Lee County uh those Parcels now in the CB zoning district and were develop with a wide variety of uses however when the town created the CB zoning District chose to limit those uses um and those those limitations uh were generally allowed or were generally uh focused on Redevelopment of the parcels uh the creation uh this created a downgrading effect where once that something was developed as an office it could never then come back and be red redeveloped by right as something more intense so it was uh what I like to describe as a one-way ratchet once you made that change that's what you were limited to Forever in a day and any changes to that required the uh use of the plan development process to come back and redevelop those lots um most changes uh required the C the uh commercial plan development and so uh the outcome of that is that many of the lots and Parcels have stayed static over the years because their uses have been limited and any um any uses that were in effect after 2003 were not invested so you have to show evidence of Prior than 2003 that the use existed obviously that's difficult um through different uh through the County's jurisdiction over it through the town's jurisdiction and the record U the record keeping was not great so trying to establish uh a use exist prior to 2003 was exceedingly difficult even if everybody knew that it was there uh the Town Council had asked staff to recommend code changes that would allow a whole Suite of uses that had been available to Property Owners prior to the town's development of the CB zoning District uh the only changes that this will affect will be to allow additional uses all other criteria in the section will remain the same uh we ask that the lp LPA Prov provide any feedback or make any recommendations to the council uh I would note a couple things uh just to sort of nutshell this if you look at the use table what has been done is with the exception of marine uses everything has been brought to an open status so that is much more in line with what you would see in the generally accepted full commercial zones like downtown um the the things that haven't changed is you could still redevelop for a single family home but realistically we haven't seen much of that change from CB to a single family home so it might be somewhat of a moot point uh one thing that staff did want to bring up that didn't make its way into the memo uh we did want to point out that the that currently the allowance for redevelopment of the buildings uh buildings on these CB zoning districts are limited to two stories above flood if you uh enclose that lower area if you leave that low open or the lower area unenclosed much like downtown certain areas of downtown you would be eligible to develop that second level above ground floor so staff just wanted to put that out there and see if that was a discussion point that you would like to bring up if you wanted to uh more liberalize that or if you wanted to stick with um the the general feel of of downtown where certain areas are given slightly higher um um allowances for height and other areas a are a little bit more restrictive so our our assessment is that the heights are generally in line but uh it's open for discussion if if there's any questions or any concerns or clarifications for staff I'm here to answer those thank you Jason Don do you have any questions no questions how about you Doug uh no ma'am thank you Jim no none than did a good job J nothing Jim so the direction from the Town Council the direction from the Town Council was a general run that specific to the boulevard uh so we were we were told to look at the CB uh zoning District in particular because a few specific issues had Arisen from that and that some uh business owners in that area found it extremely difficult to do anything with the property other than continue they have a remedy go through the cdb process absolutely what we're doing here though is giving them a right to do other development which is really expanding um the uses that are allowable I think that's a fair assessment correct Bill V talked about this a lot do you remember yeah he talked about it a lot and uh I I think one of the one of the biggest questions is um that or for me a concern would be that density is not increased and that there's some public benefit to these changes um those are those are my my two and I talked to Bill about this last night so I mean those those were his concerns those are my concerns as well yeah it's it's hard for staff to assess the validity of public benefit um I think we would aede that the ability for the business owners and the building owners down there to have a little bit more use other than just continuing with a office type use the look The the island has changed somewhat um there are bit little bit so so the uses and what people want especially down where the CBS clustered down together um they may have changed so I think that's what sort of initiated this the discussion is do we want to perpetuate the use of just offices uh or do we want to more liberalize it like downtown where you can come in with a different mix a different mix of uses that don't necessarily require that you absolutely must do a plan development to even I'll give you an example so let's use C Great Plaza because it's CB and that is part of it's it's very you can visualize it right so Ali's beauty parlor could only be a beauty parlor in this CB zoning now it could not change to be a little restaurant could not change to be an accountant's office couldn't change anything else it is a beauty parlor well wait it could be something else that's in that Plaza is that correct um so just a minor clarification they could go from a personal use I.E beauty parlor down to what is generally generally termed a less intense use such as an office such as an office okay so that she could be a realtor or she could be a whatever a bookkeeper that's where that one way ratchet comes in and once somebody makes that determination then they're locked into that use as a byright use unless they came back through the PD process follow up to Jim's question Jason you said something that resonated with I'm going to make sure I both heard it right and and this is staff's belief you said you believe that some of these lots have stagnated stagnated because of the current application of the zoning process we have whether it's complex expensive whatever happens to be so the opposite of that belief with men be that we will see more stimulation as R all doing this either through ease of access or right and more creativity with how they get used because they have multiple uses they can now take advantage of is that what sta believes uh I think that's a fair assessment of what could possibly happen if if nothing else it will provide a lot more options for those current business owners thank you uh I don't have any further questions like using that same Plaza the bank that was there they that could only have been a bank they did come in and reone is that correct at se grape you mean or well it's outside of C grae it's the what what was the wacovia and now is going to be coal casual or something in indeed uh unfortunately I don't know off hand I think that change was made just prior to me getting here right but uh yes that CB zoning District could continue its use as a bank once they abandoned the bank use theoretically they had to go through a PD to do anything else which is very expensive there there is some definite costs in the thousands of dollars to go throughout through the CB path or through the PD path excuse me and it takes more time yes sir sure absolutely so you're just looking for this kind of input from us on this correct exactly we we'd like to hear what concerns uh you may have about it or see if you'd like to tweak the language um and that's why we brought up the question of the heights as well well I'll just back up and say that my concern would be not to deposit additional density um f height nothing I I I I wouldn't do that everything from that perspective from dimensional standards I.E the setbacks Heights uh to your to your point U about f f will continue to be 1.0 uh in those districts with a Max of 1.5 through a PD so none of none of that would change the intensification we don't expect to to increase through this this is really just opening up the schedule of uses that's allowed in that zone very good y anything else from anyone thank you Jason thank you very much oh wait that's a public hearing would anybody like to have any input on this oh yes someone did I'm glad I asked good morning good morning how are you very well you good thank you good TJ gronwald from uh Bay Village vice president Bay Village Condo Association uhuh so wanted to touch base on this whole situation because when it came up originally some guy was walking down the street and asked vice president adal hey can we change this area and he specifically said from Golf Street on the water side south from Ascension Church South So based on exhibit a all those changes in here it's not hardly nothing there's a lot of strikes through here and that would essentially make that whole area commercial use bigger intrusive and everything else into our neighborhood which is right across the street um oh I know what you're talking about now okay I mean to the best of my knowledge there's no current owners here land owners that are asking for this in that area cuz that's specifically where this was brought up for um well I'm sorry I'm not supposed to comment on this go ahead no I get it I mean no big deal I'm just saying I'm only as good as what what I know so that's what I know was brought up cuz whatever for whatever reason I mean so you know I don't understand why this change is being proposed now because specifically was for that section of land in our neighborhood right across the street on the curve where the church is allowing more commercial use in neighborhoods where houses are going up already and I understand like where the bank is where the lahina is and the 7-Eleven which you can't do or anything but or where munchbox was yeah I get if you can't it's commercial build back or let somebody else some something else there but who wants a strip mall on Golf Street or if you're behind Golf Street on a stero with two houses that are brand new on both sides those people that are building those houses don't even realize that this is probably even going on um I have a ton of notes here I mean going through everything I mean you can see that if this goes through it gets rid of the non-residential land use percentage that's currently on the books in your policy right now under 4 db-5 it will eliminate the summary of zoning actions on the future and land map specifically 489 if anybody looks at it that's the London Bay which is the Charlie property which goes back to what they were saying if this goes through that gets rid of all that language and now they can bring whatever they want onto that property no questions asked what was your name again TJ grunwaldt TJ grunwaldt um I'm going to have all of your questions answered I just we have a policy that we're not supposed to go back and forth but I'm going to get not a problem so I mean I don't want to I mean and like they were saying before Santini is right down the street why do we need all this I know new stuff I mean if if I mean it sucks but I mean it is what it is you can't get a haircut on the island anymore no one's going to open up a shop to get a haircut no dentist is going to come here and open up a shop unless they're bored and they want nothing to do I mean if it's going to get done use the existing stuff that's there or go down to Santini and do it but to try to create new stuff in that little section on that curve I mean it's hard enough everybody lives on this island knows you can't get out on a Sunday morning you imagine adding all that more commercial right there and everything else so I'm just asking if you stick to the current zone or tweak what's there but as far as hardly no changes that's a big lie because in you're exhibit a in this packet the first two pages are all strike lines through the current zoning and it will open the door for anybody to do anything in those districts specifically where this is brought up for thank you thank you TJ Jason I hope you're listening to all that because I'm going to be bringing something up Patrick for the record Pat Patrick vanas um I I would uh implore you to move forward with some changes to the CB District uh this is an issue that we've been discussing for many years I think you've all heard the bank example you know you've got a bank they want to redevelop they can't do anything else but a bank and we've talked about opening up the uses and I think just just in case people are concerned about expansion or intrusion of commercial into neighborhoods we're not changing the zoning District in the boundaries whatsoever this is just opening up the uses and again if we use the example of the bank of the only way a property owner in what is a commercial District let's not forget this the the CB districts are commercial in nature they've always been and again they were there before incorporation of this town and we restricted that because there was very little change at the time on this island and the idea was we want to review any change that is proposed and we want to put some stringent um we want to put a lot of scrutiny on anything that's being proposed uh I think we we've discussed that these things conditions have changed and also even uses like banks have changed you know no one goes to bank anymore you know you do everything online so you have to allow some kind of neighborhood commercial use so I'm not saying uh open it up to any kind of use and in increase uh intensity by R I'm just saying look at the uses and what is considered a neighborhood commercial use I think that should be allowed anything above a neighborhood commercial use yes by all means make that where they have to go come in through a conditional use special EXA or plan development um but you know communities like Lee County clearly Define what neighborhood commercial is and what that level of intensity is so I uh you know I support sta s uh recommended changes I think if there's a need to restrict those uses anymore please do so and make those recommendations to council thank you thank you Patrick I saw someone else yes [Music] sir TJ's reacting to Jim's idea about having a restaurant on Gulf Road good morning good morning how are you doing fine how are you good cash is up in Fort Myers Beach um I have a couple concerns my first one is I won't keep saying that there's multiple empty lots that aren't being used up until the storm the only place that really wasn't being used was that bank you know there's still the medical clinic There's real estate offices down there Flamingo end was flourishing I mean they were had people all the time so to say that there are these vacant properties seems very misconstrued cuz that's not true at all second thing is is going back to before we incorp inated well we incorporated for a reason Anita was our first mayor because we didn't want a bunch of diamond heads so this is prior to that I don't see why now that we're a town you're going to go back and go to that if that's the case why are we at Town in the first place go back to Lee County where there's actually more tax revenue and everything else so if we're going to stay at town which I think we should do I don't know why we're trying to go backwards in time going back to Mike's Point about the boat I don't know how they already have this idea in place because without these code changes they can't do that you know you can't have a commercial vessel going down a a residential Canal so just that alone will save those residents on biaa and not Egret but so they would have less of a headache so please just don't vote Yes on this there is a lot more due diligence that needs to be done they are trying to change this and the only person I see that's really affecting POS is London Bay so keep that in mind thank you thank you cash somebody else anybody else want to speak okay Jason I'm going to close the public comment Jason hop back up here because I I understand I understand uh didn't even think about what you brought up TJ didn't even think about it but iag only of course is is your neighborhood yes yes so um can you address the issues because you remember when Jim brought up Atul brought up um uh wouldn't it be nice to have a restaurant in this neighborhood and he specifically talked about the end of Gulf Road and I I called him up and I said W have you open people are going to it's actually a neighborhood I mean granted there were no houses there but that was a neighborhood and um and that is not at all what this is intending to do is it I I don't think I understand the question I think the question is that the issue is that I think both cash and TJ have just brought up is this SE opening up uses in existing only existing CB zoned properties does that increase uh or will it create the spread of some massive commercial expansion into these neighborhoods because if it does I mean I certainly did not see that coming um okay so it's a little hypothetical here but if you if you look at the opened up use categories now in CB it's very much like downtown so I I agree in some respect that what you would see is you would be importing many of those uses from downtown into more of the transition areas so there there is always a risk of nuisance of change of sort of the tenor of the neighborhood but this is what we were told to do is to come back with something that that liberalizes and opens up the use for the CB zoning District owners now there may be a compromise somewhere in between where we go back to the uses and expand those uses and keep the limitations with that one-way ratchet um forcing people to come through the PD process again but I don't know if that answers sort of the the intent that staff was given from Town Council in particular Mr R hold now there may also be a discussion of do we want to ring fence or is it feasible to ring fence what's ring fence uh so to so to put a uh an overlay or or some sort of specific uh language in the code and staff staff has problems with this but put something in the code that specifically says in in these areas we want to liberalize and bring the downtown zoning district and on areas farther south or or outside of those core areas that Town Council was interested in in encouraging Redevelopment uh you could you could say that only these areas have the the most liberalized uh uses and everything else then defers back to the previous use what about what Patrick said about this neighborhood commercial use I don't ever remember hearing that thank you Patrick uh neighborhood commercial use would you say that downtown is neighborhood commercial use because if I lived on the south end of the island I would not want downtown in my neighborhood I mean we've got a couple of guys who live on the bird streets I'm sure they don't want downtown in their neighborhood so fair enough so would you would you say there is a difference is it is there some worthiness to this notion of commercial neighborhood commercial use versus downtown open uses well I think that gets into the question of which devil is in the detail because when we say we want to sort of open up the uses that really feels like what we brought you today is there discussion where there's too many uses now and now you want to bring it bring it down a little bit more and focus more on specific uses you would like to encourage in those areas but again we get right back to the discussion of what CB was before where we're laying out five or six uses that make sense in 2024 and saying those are the uses that we would then allow cutting off other other uses that people may have wanted you know do the do the neighborhoods really want a bunch of new restaurants down there maybe they do maybe they don't but you know as as it stands right now you you can't do that unless you've already got an existing restaurant use so I think what staff was looking at is bringing you a wholesale change of what we were told CB how it was problematic and then we're just looking for y'all to to sort of give us a little push back and say well we we want to to Really keep a focus on who lives down there and what sort of uses could reasonably be allowed down there that haven't been allowed down there that aren't going to exacerbate nuisances that's where I'd be mhm that's where I would be I I I don't want I mean I personally I don't want their worst nightmare to occur not not in any way and but I didn't think about that and I apologize to you guys I did not think about that I thought about SE Great Plaza because it's been the one that's come up over and over again now and I didn't even think about what Jim had said that that particular day so I wanted to make a point that whatever is going to happen with the London Bay project they're going to be coming in under plan development so the idea that CB would somehow give them expanded uses or something up and above what they could do under a plan development just isn't going to happen you obviously can write your own rules when it comes to a plan development yes but there's a question about that because you know how they have said we're not sure what we're going to do with the Charlie's property yet that's been like this open like well but we don't know which seems hard to believe but uh so let me stop talking new guy you got a thing on this one Jim Jim I know there are cultures and characteristics that are unique to specific geographies across the island and and that's the beauty of both being here and being part of it and the responsibility we have to protect it okay um and in that context am I hearing that there is flexibility that if we develop this particular category of zoning um that it can be overlaid in different parts and still have characteristics that are different geographically let's say the South End which we both know very well John and I and allow those things to come in be kickers that that cannot happen in the zoning District without an additional process hearing and all the things you're suggesting no problem with doing that I assume I I would defer to for instance the parking uh count reductions that are allowed for in downtown they they do allow for specific areas in the text no no no no that would be nightmares well I don't mean parking in general I just mean specific area say between these streets are given this use now I think ultimately though it sort of implicates a legal question about whether or not you can say we want these certain things in CB zoning District without giving it to everybody in the CB zoning district and so I think that's a discussion from the legal perspective that we would need to sort of hash out so I guess the middle ground looking for certainly based on some of the feedback we're hearing is you want to stimulate creativity but like kind in the in the geographies where it has previously existed neighbors have become accustomed to that Services were provided they're vacant now for one reason or another and this gives some additional uses that those owners or particular tenants wouldn't have had access to but not stimulate where it didn't exist before or it becomes intrusive to the neighborhood culture and the lifestyle those residents have become comfortable with bought because of and want to protect so I'm looking for that balance where it does both and if language is it as long as you're not saying we can't do something that has those characteristics to it then Inc combing Upon Us create the language to make that happen so it doesn't to be one siiz fits all it can be lat in different geographies and we'd accomplish both things harmoniously is what I'm hearing that possible so what I'm hearing from you is you would like staff to answer the question of whether or not CB zoning District could be further sort of fragmented out specific areas have an allowed use and then other areas have either a greater or a lesser intensity depending on what's determined the uh the sort of culture different public reaction and I think a much more um supportive outcome for what we're really trying to do and that's get these Lots used be current with 2024 you keep using the bank and obviously know that well but um it just shouldn't apply to the places that hasn't historically been or we' stimulate development that isn't consistent with the neighborhood it's not one siiz pit all that's it understandable um now one thing I will bring up because we deal with this day in and day out um is a matter of clarity and I think that's why staff began with a a very open view of CB I get uh we just want to make sure that anybody reading this code also as a business owner can immediately say well now I know what I can do in that area uh whereas before it was a bit opaque that's fair uh Doug Don do you have any input on this uh no ma' how about you Don thank you John Jim anything I think this show is a 's an unintended consequence of overgeneralization yeah yeah yeah I agree completely with the discussion that's been going on I think that uh personally I I'm very much in favor of giving people the ability to develop what makes sense for their properties but it needs to be in conjunction with the neighborhood I'm really intrigued by this neighborhood uses term I don't know neighborhood commercial use if that's a definition uh I'd love to know what that is it sounds right to me uh but I don't know the definition of it okay so this is going to come back to us again okay you'd like to come back to you again are you are you going table it or uh yes let's um could I have a motion to table this to uh um not a specific date yeah before you do this can I I I would like to see the Restriction lifted on properties that are are just like Bank uses like and you know I I would like the use category opened so that there's choices of things that can come back to the island that maybe we didn't have before but maybe we had someplace else but need to go someplace else cuz now there's a building or there's no building but I think the the category of bank or beauty shop those kind of things need to have this many opportunities that can be this this this and this as opposed to just opening up downtown commercial come in and yeah have your way with us we we want to have you know open uses for those restricted and not allow it to go down the neighborhoods the neighborhood can I see the chart here over here I have a c did you print the chart I didk way I learned so so do you have a a general concept of how what sort of uses you would like to see encouraged in these zones yet well I mean before I mean I can remember going to properties and pulling up what the uses could be for those properties and and there there was many many choices for a commercial you know honest a Boulevard property but to take it and have it go down canals or throughout the neighborhood doesn't seem like the neighborly thing to do but I think that we need to open them up so that we just don't have spot that nobody's going to fill because banks are probably not coming back here other than maybe an ATM in a hotel um you know I don't I I just don't want our our our labels that we have put on these uses to create non-developable developable developable properties so so let me let me kind of take a step back here and just State remember at some point in the past 2003 there was a there was a series of uses that were thought to be good at that time and over the years they 2003 I believe that's when the uh well excuse me 2003 was the the stop date when if where if you didn't have that use existing you oh yes okay you no longer could uh could continue that use without a PD so I apologize but the point being is somebody somebody kind of argued went went down that route is what it looks like and we ended up with four or five uses that everybody thought was great in that in that area and times have changed the culture has changed so I'm just I'm making the point that if we go back and say well instead of four uses we really want six uses down there what's to say we're not going to be down here in a few more years with business owners saying well those six uses were great you know back in the Heyday of 2024 but now the market dictates that I have to do something better or more intense on that property or a different type of use that wasn't envisioned uh today so I I just think it's not it's not an answer to just say we want we want to add a couple more uses to it the the language change needs to be a bit more holistic but we will take the suggestions that we've heard today and we will attempt to refine it uh for the next time that this comes before you and see if that meets what your your intentions are so I'd suggest I guess distinction with the difference for me is this context matters a lot um there's a point in time where the island was as someone suggested earlier was completely built out so the stimulation wasn't there for um uses to appear in neighborhoods and in in areas of our community that no one thought ever would because you couldn't get rid of what we had and it was what it was it's a whole different environment right now I'm not really as concerned about what would happen several years in advance the LPA or council could deal with that in a time I'm concerned about making sure that the next series of decisions get made in this very vulnerable time are consistent with what what we want them to be correct after they're put in place okay and that's why this is so important and delicate and nuanced and I think in that regard I'm willing to make a motion to table this uh the language on um on the um CB zoning district and until such a time we get a chance for both provide more input to you and come back with some Alternatives that are not absolutely consistent across the entire Island okay I second that motion thank you gentlemen uh is there any discussion on the motion all those in favor say I by the way the definition of neighborhood commercial means a commercial use such as a small grocery general or specialty stores which furnish convenience goods and services to meet the daily needs of the residents of the neighborhood that sounds about perfect a very nice very nice definition okay thank you uh thank thank you very much for being here today thank you okay um the next item on our agenda does anybody wish to take a quick break I'm good no everybody good okay um next item on the agenda is uh DCI 202 400015 this is 186 and 1840 EST sto Boulevard this is an ordinance of the town of Fort Meers Beach FL Florida approving approving with conditions or denying a town of Fort Meers Beach ordinance and approving the conditions for the commercial plan development resoning for the properties located at 1836 and 1840 Estero Boulevard less the area within the environmentally critical zoning District generally identified as strap numbers 19- 46-24 dw4 D3200 CE and 19- 46-24 dw432 z1010 Fort Meyers Beach providing for other clarifications as necessary providing for conflicts of law scribers errors severability and providing for an effective date um may I ask does anybody have uh exp parte Communications to report how about you Doug uh no uh don no Jim no Jane no Jim no John no and I have none as well um Nancy you want to you have anything you need to say here before we move forward uh no okay Jason good morning Jason SMY again with your planning and zoning department uh as was mentioned in the introduction this is a request for a rezoning into a CPD or commercial plan development for the um the lot located at 1836 and 1840 Estero Boulevard uh the proposal is to redevelop a um time share condominium of 75 units those 75 units existed prior to the storm so they're requesting to continue that use at that in that uh intensity uh what they are asking for is five separate deviations um to make the project feasible from their perspective uh the deviations include additional height they are asking for 47 additional feet above the 40 ft that would be allowed in that zoning District by right uh they are asking for relief of the requirements to screen parking areas underneath the building they are asking for relief from the requirements that the building provide entrances facing a stero Boulevard and in that same vein also asking for or relief that the building provide um entrances and Frontage uh doors and windows at 50 minimum 50t intervals uh lastly they are requesting a deviation to remove the calculation of the lowest floor from the floor area ratio calculation reminder that the the town does include that lower area if it is taller than 6 fet above grade in the F floor area uh calcul ation in the requests there's a there's a separate alternative ask for five that if uh the the deviation to uh remove that lower area on the ground floor is not approved they're going to have to request an increase of the F from the allowable 1.4 to 1.67 to make the uh the development feasible the way that it has been designed uh so the building itself has been in existence for many years uh was originally developed in in 1981 uh as a uh as a multi-unit time share um portions of the building and portions of their pool and pool deck were developed uh seword of the 1978 cccl that has been recognized in discussions with staff and we the both us and the applicant understand that at some point in the future they're going to have to come in to discuss how and what their design for those pool areas are going to look like but the intent of of this process is to pull the buildings forward towards Estero away from the 1978 cccl line which a portion of one of their their previous building the northern most building went across that line uh staff is here for any questions or concerns that you may have and the applicant and the applicant's representative Mr drugi are are here for questions if you have some for them thank you very much um questions for Jason John uh none at this time how about you Don no Doug Doug do you have any questions um uh not at this time okay Jim I'll defer to after we hear from the applicant thank you same Jane same with me same with you okay thank you very much Jason could we ask the applicant to come forward course s you'll see Fred in a minute but I'm going to introduce the uh we had a oh here it is okay perfect good morning Sarah Spectre again with retzel and Andress I'm here on behalf of the Estero Island Beach Club Condominium Association we do have the team here today we have the vice president and manager of the association I am here um Fred will be here to speak on behalf of the planning aspect and we do have the engineers here in case there's any engineering questions Sarah did you want them to be qualified as experts yes ma'am thank you um could you State for the board or for the LPA their qualifications or can they do that when they come up yes that'd be fine thank you thank you very much um as uh Mr SMY said we are asking for approval to rezone as downtown zoned property to commercial plan development this is one of the only residential is we understand that Time Shares are um commercial within the code but the residential is um development on the in the development the Downtown Development Area and so we are asking for a reone to commercial plan development rezoning only a portion of the site as um as I think Mr smly also alluded to the site is 2.7 Acres but we're only rezoning 1.92 the remainder of the property is in the EC Zone and we're leaving that as is if anything does need to be done in the EC Zone such as um repairs to the pool that is currently located there we will come back for a special exception but currently we're not asking for anything within the um the EC zone so the purpose of this request is to allow the time share to build back the same number of units that they had before as Mr dck will um further expound upon the reason that we are asking for seven floors over parking so for a total of eight floors is the orientation of the building This was um the orientation was discussed with Town staff and we understood that one of the um points that the Town Council is looking for and the LPA as well was The View Corridor and we wanted to reestablish a view corridor because the way that the buildings were situated previously which we will show you did not provide much of a uh a view corridor so we're reestablishing a view corridor but only building back the 75 units that were there before with the seven story is over parking it's a maximum height of 91 ft over the base flood elevation plus one and 87 ft from the designed flood elevation established by D and as Mr SMY mentioned we are asking for a deviation to exclude the first floor of parking for purposes of calculating the floor area ratio for purposes of identifying where this is you all are probably quite familiar with it because you looked over the property when the building uh when your meetings were in the uh Diamond Head it was very sad it was very sad it's cleaned up now it's a clean site and we're looking forward to building back um as you can see here it was developed in two separate buildings and um I'm sure there's pictures later on but they were perpendicular to the um aera Boulevard and were looking to build that back with a slight L turn at towards Estero on the larger the buildings which we'll show you when we show you the master concept plan and Mr SMY already shared this with you but just in the way of a quick background of the buildings they were constructed in 1981 prior to incorporation of the town there was two buildings one was three stories one was two um and there were two pool areas one is remaining that crosses over the EC Zone but nothing is planned other than to open that back up if possible at present the site is vacant because the buildings were in such a condition that they needed to be demolished and um the intent with the Demolition was to be able to build back what was there previously as we've had several meetings with the time share owners um there's actually quite a bit of participation and they're very excited to get back in their building so they do want to see this built back so in order to accomplish that we are asking for the commercial plan development to allow for the 75 units to be built in a seven story overp parking building so with that I will bring Fred up here Fred dck is the planner and I would ask that he be admitted as an expert so I would ask that he share his qualifications with you he already has been I'm sorry you're right so yes but if we do need the engineers they will need to be certified thank you Sarah yes certifi good morning Fred good morning morning and once again thank everybody for their time and their efforts on this important um boy you're your your your role is very important so we appreciate your energy I'll try not to be too redundant I do have a number of slides so I want to hit on the details hopefully it takes care of most of the questions and we can get to the real meat of what you're concerned about on this project so I provided a couple of uh kind of walkarounds of the property historically and uh to show um the things that we had to through um so on the uh on the left picture we're showing the existing pool it is over the cccl line um the majority of it on the master concept plan we show where that where that goes the pool equipment was on was landward of that line but the the pool structure itself the majority of it is cross that line as was the building closest to Diamond Head and Palm Avenue there were about 10 units that were over the construction Coastal Construction line which will be rectified um the beach view so to speak on that side was really there there wasn't a whole lot I mean the buildings weren't real tall so there was there was sky above but in order to see through to the beach you really just had the drive aisle in between the two buildings and I have some other pictures of that um for the most part then there were the buildings on each side that that obscured the rest of the view so maybe it was 50 or 60 ft in between there and the drive AES um on the right on the right picture on the right we're showing a couple of important things one is um all the parking spaces that were backing out directly on the Palm Avenue um obviously it doesn't meet code now we're going to fix that we'll show you the master concept plan that'll make that beach access safer and just modern um the building on the the right uh this along mirar Avenue um was the the taller of the buildings it was you know in that road is a little more residential so part of our design was to go up but then to move the building away from the residences and closer to Diamond Head where was more compatible the um and then the other two things to point out there was that there were two entran onto a stair of Boulevard and those will both be eliminated with the redesign with entrances only being on myar and palm and a decent way down so there's no traffic back up on the on the turns um so I'll show you that here little next picture a few more historical pictures I'm sure you're very familiar with these but Google Street View still has show still shows the historical pictures um in the uh upper upper left is Palm Avenue showing Diamond Head the existing building and the pull outs of the parking spaces onto Palm Avenue um the building location there will be similar to the proposed new building um so it will be um the boundary will be along Palm Avenue um stero entrance by Palm Avenue so that's showing one of the curb cuts that are there that are now going to be eliminated it was fairly close to Palm Avenue uh and corner at a stair bouard and myar I put that one on there because um I mean you can see the the parking was almost right up against uh the sidewalk the parking went clear to the corner the way we're going to redesign it and based on current code in order to meet codes there'll be more area there that'll allow for some landscaping and some other things and I think that corner will be beautified uh to a decent extent um and then just general in the bottom views from aab be Boulevard to the beach you can see on the right hand side of that picture there's the really The View corridors down the drive AIS um that was also a curb cut onto a stero so now let's go to the next page here uh of course the zoning as as existing is uh uh you know the downtown district and we're rezoning it to commercial plan development because of the uh increase floor area and the height um and the few and the number of deviations that we'll run through um obviously all new construction will be landward of the 1978 uh cccl line um and the subject part future land use category will remain the same so um in pedestrian commercial I put this map on here just as a matter of completion of the of of the zoning and entitlements but we are not making any changes to the Future land use category the green is the r line which is corresponds with the cccl line and then the other part is the current zoning that'll be changed to CPD uh let's walk around the master concept plan so let me start in the upper left hand corner this uh a stero so stero Boulevard is on the top of this page so stero Boulevard on the top then you have the uh redesign parking area and that corner from the corner of that property to the closest piece of the new L-shaped building there's about 170 ft so that would just be landscaped area that you would be able to see straight through um we are proposing buffers surrounding the property it's not required in the zoning District but we have uh we've left 5T surrounding the property and to do a uh a type a buffer around the perimeter um all except of course the uh the boundary line and the cccl we moved the park or the entrances now are quite a bit uh South in there part partly to be able to for people to pull off a stereo Boulevard and not have some somebody else there you know pulling into the parking space slowly and creating traffic conflicts um so on Palm Avenue and myar there's those are the sole entrances now of uh to the property uh the L-shaped building in the gray is uh you know on a a stero and on Palm Avenue under story parking we have 83 spaces here proposed the uh the district allows for pretty substantial reduction in parking um we had a there was 87 prior um we're proposing 83 we actually do have room for probably probably a few more this is you know conceptual plan and we'll redesign that um so we aren't uh the the parking I don't think will be exacerbated it'll be either close to or or the same as it was um and uh so they then what I'll go through right after this is then the advantages have gone higher I mean you know I know height uh height has an issue the are some issues of course with compatibility um in this case height has several benefits that I'll run through that I think are um advantageous to the site plan and hopefully the Redevelopment of this uh in the long term uh let's see let's go to the next one so we provided some elevations um this one would be looking from a stero Boulevard it's a little hard to see the the turn of the building there u based on the angle but um what we do show is to the right of that building um you know that that kind of view corter so that would be the landscaping and overlooking the the the new parking area and then the building we proposed to have with no screening underneath so you could see through I think the design flood elevation there would put our our our lowest beam I think at 20 ft so above cars there if we don't have screening on that we would have I mean a substantial amount of light to be able to see through there um which was kind of the idea here to make it seem lighter even though it is taller um so to reduce the feeling of Mass on the building the I hope those are not waves that you they don't have mountains so I can't figure out what they are I guess they Artis freedoms on some of that you could see thef waves that were I don't know rolling up 5 feet high that's pretty funny yeah that's a little higher than normal surf that we have isn't it let's wipe those out yeah that's funny yeah you're right though um there you go yeah they they're they're gone now job yeah so and reason why now we're looking from Palm this would be with our back at uh uh against Diamond Head look um uh I guess kind of North uh from Palm Avenue across stair Boulevard then would be on your would be on your right and that gives some idea that's uh you know to scale of cars uh underneath the parking um what you could see through there the uh and then on there are the obviously the elevations as was stated we're we're 87 ft above the design flood elevation for FEMA um which is high higher than in the uh base flood elevation there were 91 ft above base flood on this um so additional 47 ft um we're about 40 ft above base flood in this uh in this district and we would be at uh 87 technically so the difference is 47 ft above what is permitted in this District without a CPD the next one slide so um benefit of increased height so reduced lot coverage obviously if you're putting you know two buildings into one you're going up up you're going to have less lock coverage so our lock coverage is significantly less um in which allowed us to then increase the view shed uh in order to see through to the gulf um underbuilding parking light and light and view through the underbuilding parking as well which is one of our deviation requests for not having it screened in as a commercial building on the ground floor um compatibility so we're able to move the buildings towards Diamond Head against Palm Avenue move them away from myar um unit Counts from the same still 75 units um that part of the the post disaster build back um and parking provided is above code and close to what existed prior and they didn't have any parking issues prior that me or anybody else here is aware of um from the from the group so sustainability obviously it's building to the um moving the 10 units in the building away from the cccl um so no units are proposed beyond the look The 1798 cccl so back in time back in the day back in the yeah what a day the Pioneers established that so no that's my typo um Redevelopment of property meet the exceed the current floor of building codes obviously and the FEMA standards all right few more slides there we go deviations um so first one obviously is the height um weow 40 stories uh 40 ft and three stories um it will be uh eight stories and uh uh a total of 106 ft from the ground 87 ft from design flood elevation um so the number two requires Hotel buildings without commercial are or uses below base flood elevation to screen under the building so we're asking to consider that as a deviation to allow light and air through and be able to see through to the gulf and lessen the mass of the building in the field um requires the deviations three and four require entrances and views uh into the first floor of the commercial building so so time shers are Comm considered commercial but obviously it's a fully Residential Building um there's no storefront storefronts or anything else that would require pedestrian access on the ground floor so we're asking that that requirement be um deviated from and then uh ground floor parking included in the gross floor area that was the deviation that Jason outlined well that uh without if we are granted that deviation we meet the area ratio for this District at 1.4 um almost done here so there's a couple of LDC compliances um I really want to sum this up and said that there was there was some analysis in there and some wording that maybe I wouldn't use for that Jason used but for the most part when he came to findings and conclusions we are in full agreement with the staff report as it is written um the recommendations for the deviations findings and conclusions the meeting of the criteria for plan development ments the uh 388 3485 B and C and 34 2162 um set forth the requirements for considerations and findings and approval of zoning he states that we meet all 12 we agree that we do um and then a couple I highlighted a couple there about uh uh you know densities intensities and General Uses obviously I think this make this fits um so we AG agree with staff so I'm not going to blaber these too long same with this St the compliance and consistency with the comp plan we believe this is this is consistent with the with the building height request under 4 C-4 where we're allowed to do this based on a CPD request and the other considerations that we made for the site design um and so in conclusion um again we agree with staff recommendations conditions and their evaluation and uh we don't believe the the proposed development uh increases unit well it doesn't increase units or trips uh from the site it allows some additional benefits with views um lower lower uh building away from lower intensity uses curb cuts on a stair improves buffers and increases resiliency obviously based on the new build so in my opinion um as an aicp certified planner um I agree and would ask for you to recommend approval on this um and it's exciting think for the for the residents you know if the the I you are all even more familiar with me even though I have a time share here on the beach as well luckily that place is actually opened uh as of last week the with the tropical Sands down on the south end so I'm one of the few lucky ones that gets to go back in So and my assessment wasn't that bad thank you know great management and John Shaw is one of the people that manages this as well and he's one of the people that really worked through that and have the assessments not be onerous and and really have people just stop paying you know and bow out so I really appreciate their efforts to get the own the uh the ownership on board I mean it's going to be expensive there's going to be assessment so we're trying to balance all those things and try to make the best development we can out of this and have this be back up and successful running time share there you go thank you Fred um questions for uh the applicant uh John I have some oh okay Doug you start um there's a lot of good thoughts in what was presented uh I have I guess what I'm challenged by is the elevated Mass right on a stero Boulevard and um other proposals for height variances have had a more inventive architectural design where there's like the building stepped back or uh otherwise adjusted architecturally so it's not such a mass that you're looking at here for example even Diamond Head next door you know is sort of set back from Estero as um this uh face here this um elevation that we're looking at is Right smack on a sterile Boulevard as close you know pretty much as close as you can get which I appreciate because they you know they have the view corridor and they have the landscaping and they have the view under the building but still uh I think it's um frankly I hate to be so blunt but I think it's going to be kind of an eyes sord the way it's presented in such a big Mass vertically right there on a stero Boulevard and I'd like to see a little more creativity in the architecture thank you douc so that's my uh don anything I I would Echo Doug's comments that's my only reaction again I love love that folks are building back and excited to see it just uh it did that that was my reaction to it is it just seemed kind of uh you know with the hype right on a stero it definitely but but I do love that they went from two buildings to one and did some really creative or good things with respect to Ingress egress and those things on the property so they definitely very thoughtful just that was my only thought so I down to do um how about you Jim any comments no it's been covered nicely I agree with what both gentleman said Jane um a couple uh I I would just like to she does it all the time thank you Jim years years I would like to know the difference in the size of the units and what the height of ceiling is on on each floor okay what it yeah come on up have our engineer up uh I can I can guess but I want on the elevation it does show that so they but we'll have the expert we couldn't really read it on our teeny tiny little piece of information first we need to qualify you as an expert so could you give us your qualifications and your name sir my name is Robert Hoff I have engineering education from nor Western legal education from Pepperdine I worked for two different engineering firms over the course of probably about 5 10 years right in that range Bravo uh could I have a motion to accept the gentleman as an expert so moved second is there any objection no okay you're an expert on a bunch of things I hope um I didn't hear your question I'm sorry my question was can you tell me the difference in the square footage of the units and the height of the ceilings ceilings I believe are the same uh really yeah built in 1981 81 uh if they're not the same they're in the current code whatever the current code required if there was a difference from that I didn't pay much attention to the height but the footprint I can speak to Okay um there is a size increase but the the motivation behind the size increase been working with Jason to try to minimize the amount of variances we'd have to come and ask you for uh we need to bring these units to ada8 compliance they were not 8 compliance for so the essential additional square footage interior living space was based on having that ADA compliance where wheelchair spinning being able to eat in the kitchen bathrooms and all of that uh specific numbers I can get that to you I just don't have that with me right now okay um can you get that to me in this meeting maybe but most certainly I can get it to you by the end of the day what my associate's working on it okay he's got a his phone and we're trying to email the home office to see if I can get those calculations okay um so I don't know who to answer this next question of when you're asking for no relief of screening underneath what will be underneath that people would want screening from so where's your trash and all that kind of stuff trash show you it's on the footprint there there's a uh designated area that would be walled that there is a zoning requirement en that has it enclosed um presently yeah it's all it's the back of the property back of the property the parking area is kind of close to the Mir Mark and those things will be screened those things will be SC closed underneath is just parking and and a little bit of uh all open you know the elevator the elevator underneath is nothing else so we're asking relief from the screening so you can just see through the the main motivation for that was View Corridor this property has a long history Jason I spent a lot of time talking about this along with Sarah Pro and others one recurring topic that we just couldn't ever get away from was the importance of this View Corridor and so in order to try to show good faith best effort possible not just to the building department but to the city and the citizens around was to say how much can we possibly give you seethrough access at the end of the day you're going to have cars and modernly SUVs and so there is going to be limitations but to the extent that we can provide a view corridor we want to now on the flip side maybe the turtle people don't want the light coming the other direction we're open on that this was primarily a give back to the city um also you know the building is very plain and a big box I I hope that you will have some architectural things things on the painting or something of this building so that it is more than just a this is an engineered representative we work in black and white and ones and zeros The Architects are the people that color the world and once we get the pathway to an an actual building I assure you Our intention is not an isore but to create a signature property for the island okay anything else Jane no not not until they can get that number um Jim anything from you couple of things have already been said and um I was interested in finding out the size of the units was the setback from Aero uh is I think counterproductive to what we've been saying is especially the taller buildings you know push them back from Aero not bring them up to Aero and and as far as deviation number two um if you're parking cars underneath the building you've already blocked a certain height of the view corridor so I'm not sure I don't see why plantings that have a maturity that's no higher than a car can't be planted along a sterile CU it really you've already got some view obstructions there yeah those are my comments John yeah I think uh the right questions have been asked already um I understand you're looking to build the the envelope at which you can build in and the giving it single story is uh I think preferable in this case or single single unit uh building um I have the same issues around massing and and Architectural design um it it it feels like it will be at least from the rendering kind of a monolithic building um a lot can be done with Landscaping a lot can be done with architectural details I'm just we're not seeing it we're seeing it pushed as has been stated directly against Aero yeah part of part of that with oh sorry no no part of that with the up to AO is that that that district has a bill two line yeah so we'd have it'd be a that's another variation because you're supposed to be 5T from a sterile yeah yeah so it's that would have been a deviation worth asking for but that would be a deviation really for um storefront things right this is not that use right right it is you're you're correct yeah the build two line I don't think applies to to this as much but yeah that would be a deviation you know Fred um uh when the town had this uh Christmas Tree Festival last year I met two sisters who are owners at um at this place and um they were just lovely people and I wish I had asked them for their phone number because I would have loved to have talked to them about this because the last thing in the world I want to do is stand in the way of them I mean they've had this property in their family their grandparents their parents now them and their children it's a generational thing which is very typical of Fort Meyers Beach and over the years I've known lots of people who have you know been part of of this property but this particular plan is just you know let let me just do an aside here and ask Nancy something you know Nancy um I there is lots of chatter about this on social media and I read quite a good bit of it would that be an next party it it would be and you should disclose um what information um you have retained having um read those those social media posts so I I I will disclose that the the chatter or the commentary uh uh had to do with the height which you know for many years now I've I've been you know using a piece of paper and saying you know do we want this box or do we want this box in which case we have space um and I can make an I can make an argument for this box versus taking up the whole property but I can't make an argument for something that um that the the commentary was in large part due to the massing on a stero Boulevard which I don't even think that everybody recognized because until you just pointed it out I didn't recognize it was up on a stero Boulevard but it was a lot of commentary about the look of the building um in a case we just had there was also commentary on the look of the building and I think in part it's why it p uh because there's something about uh I was having a a conversation with someone yesterday and there is so much to be said about the public realm the public space how people experience Fort Meers Beach and if if sir you know this is meant to be an iconic uh or a wonderful contribution to our rebuilding of Fort Meers Beach you haven't hit it yet and and I think that that perhaps more than anything is impacting my decision on this today um you know Doug and all these uh gentlemen have all said you know you're taking this this High building and you're putting it right on the boulevard it's a bad idea it's a really bad idea I listen I'm not a planner I'm but I'm a good visual person and it just seems to me that there would be some other way to present this project so that it was more amenable to those of us who won't be staying there and um and and those of us who every single day will be experiencing the boulevard so Fred and and if the two sisters are listening to me right now please know that I want this to I want you to have this I I can't I can't support what I'm seeing here today and and it's unfortunate maybe this maybe this application isn't ripe for um the process right now maybe this would be better to be um instead of denied to be continued uh so that we can see a further or a better explanation of what this property will look like and how it will impact the neighbors the boulevard um the community uh so I'm going to leave that with you to think about for a moment um everybody's made their comments i' I'd like to open this to he's coming back with an answer oh he's coming back to an answer for Jane okay I have your information so we do have 10t ceilings as part of our concept plan here the uh interior square footage went from six and average of 625 there were different floor plans for the different two buildings so obviously that's now uniform and it's 850 so there is an increase M but minimal but like I said it's largely attributable to ADA compliance and I agree with you my takeaways from listening to you is uh first of all it's time for us definitely to engage the architectural side to this to beautify it for you is is what I'm hearing a lot of but also to come up with a design that maybe takes it off of a sterile Boulevard that's right that's right um but it sounds to me like if we can make it look pretty make it look uh like something you want to see come back with another variance request to take it off of a sterile the concept of going up higher is not a a big problem for you folks as as a board is that a fair takeaway well I think that the that the thing I I have to also disclose that I did read the uh posts that were on uh Facebook but and most of it was on height but I do think the general public may not truly understand that the they have a right to the 75 70 units and if and you have to to give some extra space for making them ADA Compliant in today's building structures so they are going to be a little bit bigger not a huge bit that's why I asked that thing and their floors are not 12T or 14t floors they are 10t which is very reasonable and in in allowing for the view corridor it is a choice that we can either recommend or not recommend but it is also a way to get get view light air moving through and it it does benefit the people on the other side of the street instead of having a concrete building that goes from corner to corner of concrete wall which is not what we want in our houses nor in our commercial that it is something that we need to educate the public on this is a choice in how we can rebuild either to go with it this way or this way way and so I I do just want to kind of educate there I know that's not really a question but um I think the comment you're talking on is it was it was repeated over and over and over again follow the code follow the code well you are in fact following the code because you are going through this process there is this process that is available to any property owner any Resident any commercial process you have the ability to ask for something that is outside the box uh then it's our option to say yes or no so you're right Jane it's difficult to take one unit off the Palm Street side flip it onto the Estero side building and that would give us one unit push back but as you point out that's the flip the paper sacrifice there that's going to remove whatever the width of a unit is from that uh view cordor that we're trying to be as uh open as we can but it might give more air feeling than it being right there 10 feet in I think that's and I'll discuss with ownership I think that's what we will do start with that and then like I said we have an architectural team in in the wings waiting to get on to this and we it just hasn't been the right time we so thought we were wrong so we will come back with a uh better appearing design uh aesthetically speaking and probably spend a little bit more attention to the Landscaping component of the drawings too just to give you a better feel for what it would look like cuz the the ownership truly does want to make this a property that the beach is proud to have well of course they do I mean of course they do they've been there's so many people here who have you know lifetimes invested in that property and we understand that we understand that but it's uh well um I I hear a lot of conversation back here is there is there anything that we should know sure yeah excuse me my name is John Shaw and I'm principal in this Construction uh management of the property yes sir we have we hear you've been doing a good job well I we were trying our best good all right this design was due to the requirements that the city requested of us not our design we came in with a three-story design which would have taken up much more space within the property the Clear View was a major issue uh the design change was done due to that the architectural part of this has not even been done uh because again uh we were more or less turned down on our original request okay so this was really nothing more than that if if this is only uh my biggest problem is again time we're already two years into this almost we are losing people all the time more and more people are are dropping out of the situation the longer this takes the more more likely that maybe it will never be built you know this is this is again uh one of those things that uh I I understand looking at this drawing uh we don't have architecturally uh design involved with it I mean again what what would make the city happy that is what we want well first of all it's a town but that's that's that's just a stickiest thing but Mr Shaw I um uh are you are you telling me that you came forward with a plan for a three-story building and you were told don't build this yes we need more talk with you yeah again so you know this this did not meet the criterias of the city or the town uh that uh would give us uh uh I thought we had all of the parking and all that involved with this but the Clear View was an issue it took up a different design uh the uh parking uh entrances needed to be uh adjusted which we could have done uh but it still would have been parking underneath it still would have had let's let's let let let me see what let's hear what Jason has to say to this so yes if you'll remember back when we were all working out of Diamond Head I believe this came up and I believe it was councelor King uh who had a lot of discussion about this staff we read the code it was very explicit the intent of Redevelopment of this area uh was meant to provide these breaks and as big a break as as we possibly could for all the reasons that people want view sheds so when we were brought a revie um an initial design and they've gone through multiple designs now in conjunction with us it it was a lot like what existed before there was two buildings um there was effectively a little sliver of of light coming above cars and below the the building itself and the argument at that point or let me restate that the discussion at that point was more about well doesn't that really answer the The View shed that the code seems to ask for and that wasn't staff's interpretation of it we were looking for an actual view shed as a public benefit so just let me make sure you clarified both being new and making sure we're hearing what you're trying to express you're saying that that design as presented did not comply with the code form my speech as you understand it no because what was being asked of us was to take a very small sliver that if you stood on one corner of one sidewalk would provide a clear view and the rest of the Clear View would have been satisfied through that tiny sliver above cars and below the building so you believe that that view corridor is equal to any other component of the code it's not a suggestion or alternative or recommendation it's a code violation it's a requirement of the design and they would have had to ask for deviations or variances to that specific for the view oh boy is that perplexing because so then then we're challenged with would we rather have three floor would we rather have a three story building with no view through it or this oh I just don't know that that's boy um so um so Mr I'm sorry Jason thank you for that explanation Mr Shaw did you have other comment no other than like I said the time is is that of course an issue I understand invol and again this is this is the third basically design of which we came in with uh again the original was a three story The need to come to the mic the microphone that did it was one building uh but it was an L-shaped building or excuse me v-shaped building uh so it would span the property uh and but would not meet the criteria of the uh space on the on the on Estero Boulevard uh it would not give that clear view uh was the issue so Madam chair I I think that there's a recognition amount the efforts you've all gone into to get to this point yes um there's a lot of sunk cost and effort in time as you talked about and and while it doesn't appear you're at the final it's not like all the other things she suggested here are not good advantages good improvements and worthy if you will of protecting uh the have put in that I think that what you're hearing to repeat what the gentleman said before is we can't really visualize with what you've given us anything other than what we can see and it looks scary in its architectural um prominence but if you have alternatives to take another stab at that piece and then push it back from stero to the degree that that needs to be asked for requested I think you have a lot more receptivity at least on my side to reacting to that in a more positive way so elevation height preferences is what we need to know again I I can't redesign something and then come back and say you know just because we've uh taken we're still at seven stories or eight stories height that we still got to be close to the road because again we've got to meet all these other criterias involved with it but Mr Shaw we can't we're not we we're not in a position where we can say you know here's what we'd like to see that that's not that's it's really it's not our role yes I mean we've given this does meet the criterias this does meet the the rules and this again architecturally wise no it doesn't have the architectural drawings uh completed at this time what we're requesting is really nothing more than what the zoning requires to do and we've met those criterias here according to what I have seen uh but but you've got seven people telling you we don't like it and and what I'm afraid of excuse me you you can't you can't interact with the people who are speaking you really can't um so I I I'm just going to tell you that I think your best bet at this moment and with this is a public hearing so I'm going to open the public hearing but I think your best bet is to to um ask to table this okay and come back to us that's that person does anybody object to that no I would I would say that something that that the LPA has done recently and I think I I'm very pleased that we're going down this path is having the renderings be something that is actually part of the package and by doing so we can ensure that we're not just agreeing to the envelope but we're agreeing to the project details to the Aesthetics um so I don't think you're hearing a lot of push back on the envelope except for the setback on Estero um I I haven't heard that up here so I think your envelope seems to be there's agreement except for some variances required to to push it back off of a sterile I don't know if that's clear enough Direction some architecture yeah because what we what we would like to be able to do is say that not only do we do we support the project but that we have some assurance that the project will be built as it was presented correct that's really what we're hoping for correct so uh don were you saying something I'm sorry yeah no I just saying I was just giving you know thoughts or um you know you know you can stair step it back off of the stair to make it not such a you know a tall you know eight story wall and you know other there's other architectural um approaches yeah and I would love we do that it would be great if we could go to a Time certain August 13th I think is that that meeting has been changed but before we do that I'm going to open the public comment because this is a public hearing so is there anybody you have you have comments okay go ahead Amy I just have one signed up for com oh just one yep uh Dave Lee Mr Lee oh hi David I'm looking at you yes it's nice to see my name is Dave Le I live at 1920 bayw drive I'm a resident there and I'm right across the street from this property um you'll know it because it's the one where the the roof is ripped off my kitchen and you can see right into my house we're going to be rebuilding that house about 24t above ground and the view down Palm Avenue which I currently have uh I want to at least make sure we maintain that uh The View two of the setbacks that appears to be on these drawings indicate almost that it's right up against the setback on the east side against Diamond Head and it's right up against the setback on a stair Boulevard this looks to me just like madir beach and I can't stand madir beach condo rental complex one after the other they all look exactly the same and I thought we would never become that in Fort Meers Beach that's part of the reason I'm here uh I agree 100% with what Doug and Don said that the idea of the what Diamond Head did even though they're kind of repulsive from the height and what caused the town to be created is that there's a setback it goes up it goes up two stories they have all their offices and their convention rooms there and then it set steps back from there to the tall rise of the building seems to me you've got enough square footage to do that exactly on this property but I can't at all go along with a property that's 106 ft tall right on a s Boulevard and looking out the side I mean I might have a little sliver of view right down pal Avenue but I'm going to be seeing this huge complex part of the view that we like to see is the uh uh parasailers flying around out on the Gulf of Mexico you don't have to look up terribly High to see that and a a property that's three or four stories high wouldn't block that view so what I'm saying they can almost build back what they had before just make it higher I mean that's something that possibly could have worked so again I agree with Doug and Don about the fact it should be set back it's way too close to way too much massing right on a sto Boulevard way too much we don't want to be Madera Beach so thank you Dave thank you nice to see you is there anybody else who'd like to speak on this one anyone thank uh cash cash something in Fort Myers Beach again hello everyone um I AG I also agree I think that the height is very scary especially right on a sterile Boulevard um that property when what was there before the storm really did not take away from the views and there was you were able to see through the beach so when they say you couldn't really see through the property I I have to disagree I grew up on Ohio Avenue almost my entire life um Jane was my neighbor for a very long time on Anchorage um so I I I have to say that if they can go to more of a three-story concept I think that fits our Island a lot better I mean again Diamond Head was created by the uh the city of Fort Meyers we did not have input on that and that's why we became a town so to continue to build higher than that just doesn't make sense I mean this is the reason why we became town it's the reason why most people moved here is because of the small island feel um if you want those big condos there's tons of beaches up and down the coast of Fort Meers Beach that are Florida that will do exactly what you want if you want that go there that's not what this town was was that's not what this town stands for so I I suggest smaller building and if it is a wider footprint on their property that's better longterm than having shade cast all day on across St Boulevard thank you thank you is there anybody else who wants to comment okay we'll close the public comment um is there are there any further questions for the staff or for the applicant Nancy or Amy what is our August U meeting date was it 20 it's the 20s something me just a moment I'll find out for you 29 29th I thought that's what I have in my calendar you have it the 29th I do uh 23rd 23rd 23rd 23rd what do I miss out Friday Friday Friday the 23rd okay that's the August meeting is Friday the 23rd um uh would somebody like to make a motion can the applicant provide um revised application drawings by then uh yeah we could we could meet that I think I'm going to make a motion to table um Madam chair is it table or continue to a date certain continue continue I'm going to make motion to continue um DCI 12024 z15 to a date certain of August 23rd second there's a motion in a second is there any discussion on the motion Madam chair is there any direction you want to give specific to the applicants as I think that's been our whole discussion okay all right just you need any other disc you need any other information yes sir I I have one question query because I I'm going to meet with him afterwards would it be something that you would like to consider where we put two different concepts in front of you yes again without necessarily the beautification because that cost a lot of money to have an architect come and take two engineered designs but can we put the original design in front of you and then also make some changes to the current design and then have you tell it I would like that would wonderful could we do that in some sort of pre planning meeting so that we don't lose the August is a hearing date you C you can you can meet with all of us individually but you can't meet with us as a group okay individually though individually you're welcome to meet with us absolutely can staff meet that um uh Jason can are you good with us taking this to the 23rd make it happen thank you Jason okay um is there any other discussion on the motion hearing none my vote is yes Jim yes John yes Doug yes Don yes Jane yes Jim and I'm a yes okay thank you all very much um for for all those uh folks who I know are listening to this uh far and wide um just know that we're trying to help you out okay thank you all very much take we're going to take a short break okay how how short uh 10 minutes thank you um so in Naples every two hours they take e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e figure out which Jason just go in was Jason said that I didn't if everybody would please take a seat G uh I could please take a seat thank you the gav the next item on our agenda is sez could you all please be [Music] quiet sez 202 4126 this is for 74 Estero Boulevard it's Leonardo arms a resolution of the Town Council the town of Fort Meers Beach approving approving with conditions or denying special exception sez 202 40126 to allow reconstruction of storm damaged infrastructure in the EC zoning District including a partial parking lot a new aluminum rail fence along the seaw wall and a new fence with gate around the South Garden for the property located at 7400 Estero Boulevard providing for scribers errors separability and effective date uh Doug do you have any exp parte Doug no ma'am uh don xar no xon thank you Jim none Jane none Jim none John none uh I have none as well uh Eli it's your turn presentation please oh do I need to be oh you know what I don't think we've ever qualified Eli as an expert so Eli tell us why you're an expert in your field yes uh Eli Le for the record I'm a planet with a town of for Mars beach for about three years um being the code officer for the town for two years so a total of five years um when I got my master's degrees of public administration at FGCU and we're happy to have you thank you a motion to accept yes I'll make a motion to accept Levi Lee as our uh as an expert in his field second there's a motion in a second is there any objection to that motion okay you're permanently an expert now go ahead with your presentation sir she said so afternoon good morning everyone it's Eli Lee with Community Development um Leonardo Orange Beach Club uh Association has applied for a special exception to allow the replacement or repair if a major assess structure that was constructed in the environmental environmentally critical zoning district and the construction of two new minor structures on the common element portion of the condominium property prior to Hurricane Ian these previously existing structures is a partial parking lot the main structures are an aluminum um rail fence along the seaw wall and a fence with a gate around the soft Garden the applicant is requesting the special exception through the newly adopted ordinance amendment to session 34- 652 e that allows reconstruction or renewal of the primary structures and major accessory structures uh partially or fully within EC zoning district with the approval of a special exception the EC zoning district is the land Seer of the 1978 Coastal Construction Control line U this cond medium was constructed in 1969 prior to the creation of the 1978 tricl it appears that the parking lot was part of the pre-existing development prior to Hurricane Ian the applicant is also proposing installation of the fences which are new developments that did not exist prior to Hurricane Ian staff notes that the proposed um sorry staff notes that because the proposed fences are new they do not meet the Cod requirement for the for the specialist option uh staff is available to answer any question that you may have a represent of arms Beach Club uh Association is here so Levi you have recommended approval of the partially damaged parking lot but denial of the new seaw wall or garden fence correct okay thank you very much questions for um for staff John just a clarification the reason that your request um your recommending denial is because they were not pre-existing and that they're new correct so the proposed new uh Seawall fence as well as a soft garden fence did not exist prior to Uranian um also I know the applicant also St there supplemental that the uh proposal for the the uh the fist on the seaw wall was for safety purposes um and we have noted that in our staff report um I talk to the biding official the biding official believes that um since the seaw wall is not a walk-in surface is not required by the flored building code okay um so that's what aided in my decision uh for denial of that request as well as the soft guard fense as well um part of the EC code session says that minor stretches are allowed in EC um via special exception um but it must be uh relocated close to the land edge of EC on District where these proposals are fully or or mainly fully in EC thank you thank you thank you uh questions Jim not at this time thank you how about you Jane I'll wait uh none here Doug any questions for staff uh yes um what is this um I've heard this reference to the safety fence SE wall what does this thing actually look like that they wanted to build I didn't really see a good depiction of it it should be one when they say safety fence are they is it like for a railing so somebody doesn't fall off the SE if I may no not yet not yet not yet not yet just just hold on so with the conversation and the U the applicant is here as well but with my conversation with the Alin they're proposing I believe a 3 feet high um uh fence on top of the seaw wall capab to help with anybody from climbing the seaw wall crossing over to the other property or jumping off hurting themselves um they did state that it's going to be flood compliant um but the main purpose of it is to obviously for safety purposes Doug the the applicant is here and they evidently have something so um when they when they get up we'll we'll know what that is better okay one question I'm looking at pictures on page 230 of the uh packet there is a fence is that a garden fence on 230 of packet I'm sorry so here's the fence is that a garden fence it doesn't like I'm sorry can you guys hear me yeah um on the images that you guys are showing me um the garden fist that they're proposing is not in that same location it appears to be across the site um you know in the same um same under the same common element but not in the same location as what you're seeing on that image okay Don do you have questions for Eli none right now all right uh we'll invite the applicant up sorry I know you were trying to be helpful uh good morning guys my name is Miles lagard I'm with souo construction uh I apologize that I'm here um one of the things about this property and I know you guys have all gone through it why are you apologizing that you're here well cuz none of the owners are here they're still displaced U they're hoping within two weeks they'll have property back to prop so uh I've worked a lot with them and they're all just fantastic people sir may I interrupt have you been sworn in uh yes I thank you thank you oh cool okay does he need to be an expert he he's just a couple of things that uh I wanted to address this has been quite a process um I think we started out with seven pages and I think you guys are well into 50 60 Pages this thing just keeps kind of Reinventing itself and when it first was proposed it was for the entire parking lot and then we realized hey we just need to keep this down to anything that is seaword of the CCC so it's kind of really shrunk so one of the things was um we removed all the parking lot lights they did get accepted as a grant so there'll be none in the CC Sal area but uh they were again approved for a grant so anything in that immediate area will be taken care of with the turtle Conservatory U the couple of things that Eli had mentioned um I guess I'll jump to the main thing is the um fence that they're trying to propose Doug look pay attention to this here's the fence is um what's really tricky is it is going to be proposed on the seaw wall and you should have a site plan that shows that the tricky part is there was no seaw wall prior to Ian so this is a new uh area for them until the beach replenishment is done the only way to get from Bermuda Dunes across um uh Leonardo arms into the next property is the seaw wall so they just don't want people crawling on the seaw wall and walking across the seaw wall to get through the property that's the idea of the the safety gate the other thing is part of this proposed um parking lot replenishment it's not in here because it's gone separately is uh on top of the seaw wall they're proposing a rock apron that actually is shown in your survey that is under permiting through this uh the state uh and that's another thing they don't want people watch walking across the seaw wall and possibly falling into the Rock apron so it really is a safety concern obviously it's probably not very pretty um but it'll be uh optic code powder coded and they just feel this is a safety feature this is why they wanted to have this gate or this fence on the seat wall hold on one second sure does that change your [Music] opinion I I wrestled with it for a little bit yeah it's the Rocks right right is the I know the roster you're talking about is the uh the rip wct the waterw um so yes I I do understand that the argument that the uh miles was making during the whole review process was was obviously that you know fall protection things like that um when I talk to Ben official um he said the for the B code does not require it because the seaw wall itself the intent was it is not a walking surface so there's no need for it yeah um so that's why my report I recommended not it because it's not recommended by any for B Cod or Friday Cod or anything like that it's more so of a a liability uh purpose I I would would say okay the only thing I would say to that is is again and my last point on that is the seaw wall starts at only about 18 in high and as it goes across the property it grows so although the seaw wall is not a walkable surface it is 18 to 24 in wide that's easily accessible to get on people walk on yeah and again to get across the property that's that's where they're going so I guess I don't want to take up a lot of time that's my thought on that as far as the South garden fence uh Eli is correct it is part of their South Garden they're just asking to relocate that the reason why they're asking to relocate that is uh I was here about eight months ago for a special exception for the pool and part of us getting the special exception was agreeing to without identifying exactly uh to get rid of what they had was a knee wall that went back across that property and then we agreed to uh plant native plants and things behind the building so what the gate was partially there for they're they're basically giving part of their Garden back and they're asking to keep it on the side of the building again you'll see it on your survey so they do want to keep a little bit of the small South Garden but it'll be on the um side elevation of the building as opposed to behind the building that will all be replanted with native plants and stuff like that M so that takes care of those twoo and then the parking lot uh is very crucial to them uh the building Leonards was built in the early 70s so that was far you know years before the 1978 cccl and the parking lots are deed to the building and to the the owners if you take away the 14 to 15 parking spots that they're asking to get back uh the building as is falls 30 parking lots shy of today's code if the building would be put back tomorrow it's required to have 90 spots at best it's only going to have 60 so they can't afford to lose those parking spots good presentation very well done thank you thank you miles uh any questions for the applicant uh let let me just Doug are you clear on the fence now yeah and um if I may comment um I think the fence or some type of fence there and I think uh when you do have a fence um probably needs to be 42 inches high but um is probably a good idea um even if it is a build back um if they're going to put the seaw wall in uh I can see a potential Hazard um you know even even if it's you know it's not supposed to be a walking surface but kids and stuff people are going to probably walk there MH um so I I would say the fence is is I would go along with the fence the other the garden gate I'm just I'll let somebody else comment I'm just not sure okay thank you Doug yeah thank you Don any comments no Jim comments I think the um it's pretty obvious to me after hearing the presentation the applicant's trying to do the right thing for the right reasons with your own money and you don't have to do them so I think it's advantageous to both how the development will end up being utilized protected and and I get the liability piece so good job thank you thank you Jane questions I ditto on Jim's comments Jim I'm not sure I understand what the benefit of the gate and the fence is when the property to the South is wide open it looks like somebody from R Riviera Club can just walk in there anyway so yes and and I guess my only rebuttal to that is like I said until the beach replenishment happens at high tide there really is not much of a beach to walk on so they're going to walk on that seaw wall and the seaw wall was not there prior to the St I'm not on the seaw wall you're on the other side I'm on the fence okay for the South Garden I it looks like you you're blocking off your own residence When anybody coming from the south has total access to it so there is part there is an old uh property wall small property wall that I guess wasn't highlighted that's still in place so it would kind of by running the the South garden fence like that it will just encapsulate a small little garden for them and what's the intent on I guess enclosing this I I just because they gave up all the property willingly behind the building they just want to move the garden of whatever they had there into a little separate area I guess is the best way I can explain that right wrong or indifferent I mean they they can have the garden this is a fence fence issue it's just so people Trump through it like I said if there is a small retaining wall property wall that's still in place on the other side of that the property that you're uh referring to just put in a cheeky Hut so there's going to be some loud noise there'll be some party in there whatever they do which is again not a big deal it's just a little enclosure for them to and that was specifically required or requested for me to ask so I other than telling you that they just want a little piece of Tranquility that's the best I can tell you uh okay John any questions I I think the seawell fence is a brilliant idea actually okay any objections to the garden fence not particularly Jim's the only one with the garden fence issue yep you have a lot of fake plants in your house don't you oh he's a landscaper he's a he's a he's a BL guy um that was a bad call that was a bad call Miles if that's going to hang me then I got a long way to go okay um any other questions for the applicant nope thank you very much miles thank you guys for your time I really appreciate it we appreciate you okay we'll open it up to public comment does anybody have any comments on Leonardo arms okay we'll close the public comment any further questions for staff of the applicant nope anyone okay may I have a motion please would you like to take them individually or would somebody like to make an allinone I would like the aluminum gate and fence in the South Garden to be a separate consideration or vote from the fence well let's take them individually let's take them all individually may I have a motion to approve uh the replacement of the partially damaged parking lot so thank you Jim is there a second second there's a motion in a second um and uh is there any discussion on this motion uh roll call Jim yes I yes Jim yes John yes I'm yes Jane Doug yes and Don yes yes okay now how about the seaw wall fence may I have a motion there I'd like to motion I would approve the okay James made a motion to approve do you second that Doug yes all right is there any discussion on that your motion Jane your vote Jane hi Doug hi Don hi Jim hi Jim yes John hi yes unanimous and now uh Jim did you want to make a motion for the garden fence or do you want some discussion on one question on the G yeah okay so is this my question is this oh shoot need to have a reason for denial if I deny it it is this fence right here the old um the old fence and is this fence going to go across here and block it or where does this fence go uh s maybe it's better if you ask me applicant okay who are you asking Eli or the applicant anybody that can answer it what page are you on I'm on page 230 of the packet that's the picture oh yeah sure have this one yeah by way so there there is a a walkway closer to the building that appears to go in the front of so from there'll be a walkway here of papers that they have that are land of the cccl this is where they would like the gate and then this is just the area that I have here that's going to end up being thank you that'll end up being the garden yeah that's directly in front of the pool close up to the pool not in the walkway coming over from Riviera Club to walk in front of uh Leonardo arm so uh that actually is uh not any anywhere near the pool um I'm so sorry I know it's hard to see so from Leonardo arms their pool is way over here that's okay so it's basically off the front of the parking lot to the left of uh building one is they just want a little bit of a a garden area and building one is the one closest to the water correct where the damage is for the parking uh no so building one is not damaged with the parking lot at all it's at the other end it's at the completely other end building sou of the property yes so it's not it's not going to cross the path that comes from the south end building to walk North correct it will not okay right here okay okay I I I don't have a problem with that I just didn't want the walkway crossed off oh yeah Jane you see did you hear this one yeah this building is next to rier right right right right so now I understand I just was not seeing the location of it properly would somebody make a motion on this uh famous gate I'll move approval Madam chair moving approval I'll second and a second by Jane any discussion on this you want to make your pitch again for no gate no okay I I don't see the purpose okay there's a motion and a second is there any further discussion uh your vote Jim yes Jane yes how about you Doug M yes dog joh yes Jim no John yes I'm yes also okay so I don't see any purpose either but they're asking so it's all right with me a motion carries unanimously uh good luck and oh the that's right that's right we have a denter Jim the denter council all right next item is don't bring Gardens back don't bring your Gardens back the next item is this is all variances so this will be a final action because we'll decide this unless anybody objects in the next 10 days and it and your decision is unanimous and it has to oh that's right and it has to be unanimous oh we'll see okay V 202 40071 this is 1250 Estero Boulevard Cottage and Shuckers a resolution of the Town Council of the town of Fort Meers Beach Florida approving with conditions V 2024 471 five variances from LD oh gosh from LDC sections 34 674 a1b 34675 B3 34676 A4 34676 B and 3467 D requesting relief from build back from build two line maximum setbacks increased Building height parking reductions relief from parking location and location of site access in the downtown zoning district for the property located at 1250 Estero Boulevard less any area within the EC zoning District generally known as strap number 1946242 z70 f0010 to redevelop a restaurant bar and providing an effective date Jason Jason Smalling with your landing and zoning department uh as was mentioned the request before you uh revolves around five separate variances for the Redevelopment of a previously previously existing restaurant and bar um the the uh the previously existing building was generally known as cottages and Shuckers uh so that that will be returning the buildings originally were constructed in 1921 uh over the decades and years they have uh expanded and as of the introduction of the 1978 line a large portion of the building complexes ended up on the seaward side of the 1978 line so after the storm the the com the uh complex of buildings was effectively completely destroyed uh it's been demolished and the site has been scraped since and the applicant is coming back to try and redevelop the uses as they existed pre- storm now the five requests before you I'd like to put into two separate buckets there's one bucket of requests that are generally to keep the site as it existed pre storm and there are two requests of the five that um are functionally different and those include a um an addition or a request to have additional height um over what would be allowed for this Zone uh the other the um the requests themselves again generally are are to keep the site as is uh we'll go through them briefly here uh one of the requests is to um to deviate from the requirement of a build two line of 0 to 5et as as we talked about in the previous time share that is required by code they're asking for a deviation to that uh the current building I believe is or the building pre- storm existed I believe somewhere between about 46 to 50 ft back from Aero they're looking to rebuild generally that same placement but they're going to pull all of those buildings forward of the 1978 line so that first deviation is to effectively not have them right on a stero uh the second deviation request is the increase in maximum height they are requesting 2 3 in uh staff can state that for the most part uh that additional height is going towards redeveloping the final destination of the Elevator Shaft on the top of the building where they would access some um storage and office space and that would also be the access to the roof for their Mechanicals and electricals uh the third deviation being requested is a reduction of the parking so staff recognizes that the parking that existed before was not uh was not compliant uh the site itself uh the new request is requesting to remove a a vast majority of the parking on site I believe the the number uh to be reduced is 97 spaces so they will be providing uh essentially the spaces that existed there pre- storm on the site um I would note that this is what staff considers to be a flag lot so it's it's generally sort of L-shaped in nature and the parking that existed pre- storm will be retained in um in the pole of that flag lot directly adjacent to Aero so they will be taking access from Aero through the lot uh and that's where the parking is intended to remain uh the fourth request here is a a deviation from the requirement to develop uh parking on site in the rear or in some cases to the side of the building again staff recognizes that the site is they're they're bringing the the buildings forward uh to the cccl line there there really isn't a way of putting parking in the rear that would there therefore be waterw of the line and this is in conjunction with their request to keep their um for roughly 45t setback from a stero rather than pulling it Forward uh lastly their fifth uh deviation request is uh relief from the requirement that you uh when read a redeveloping a site that you close off the curb cuts and entrances off of a stero and instead relocate those to side streets uh they do have access to a side street but the way that the lot is designed and the the relative closeness of the property lines that is it is a relatively thin lot um staff understands the request to keep the entrance on a stero where it is and then allow for Ingress and egress on the side street as well um staff is oh uh one last thing the the difference here is roughly 1100 square ft in the area that is being requested compared to what existed before storm staff also recognizes that much of that deviation is going to come from bringing it up to flood codes making an ADA Compliant uh but that number number is roughly 1100t difference uh an increase of 1100 ft uh staff is here for any questions or comments that you may have and the applicant and their representative are here as well thank you Jason um all is Dawn gone Don appears to be gone so let the record reflect that Mr suth has uh he back oh he's back never mind no I sneezed and forgot to turn my camera back on very tricky there Mr sth okay uh any questions for Jason uh don do you have any questions for Jason no question how about you Doug uh no ma'am Jim nope very clear thank you Jason Jane nothing right now Jim no questions John I'm good thank you very much Jason um Madam chair were there conditions Associated yes thank you very much uh so there are some conditions here that staff has uh has recommended um a couple of them are generally going to be boilerplate but uh we did want to make the the point that if the deviation with regards to uh further reduction of the parking counts were not approved that the applicant would need to come through prior to uh getting any permits and show us that they can provide the the Full Count of parking on that site which would mean the the full 114 I believe parking spaces that would be necessary under today's parking counts thank you very much Jason you're welcome okay the applicant good afternoon good afternoon thank you madam chair good to see you all again n Davies on behalf nice to see you too um just a quick housekeeping item and I may have missed it did we do X parte on this item we did okay um do you need to run through it again I don't think anybody I just wanted to make sure that that was a we didn't do X because it was okay well let's do it let's do it we will how about you John uh Yes actually I've met with the neighborhood group on this project Jim same same Jane n none how about you Doug or Don exp parte did you meet with Patrick I did wait I did meet with him here at the building I'm sorry uh Doug did you say yes uh no I did not okay no exp part okay thank you very much for reminding about that thank again go ahead no Davies with law firm of Davies Duke on behalf the applicant right choice Investments LLC project team is here today uh including Joe orlandini uh as well as the applicants professional planner uh Patrick vaness with the neighborhood company our request today is to seek your help to build back the the iconic Cottage uh in order to do that as you heard from Mr SMY we are in need of five variances uh the shape of the subject lot is unique as you heard from Mr SMY and given the updates to the FEMA regulations as well as that 1978 Coastal Construction Control line these variances are required to in essence build back uh what was there before Ian uh and with that I will turn it over to Mr vaness to walk you through the specific of the variances and we'll both be here for any questions you have thank you Mr Davies thank you madam chair welcome Patrick good afternoon I'm pretty excited to be here today um for the record Patrick vanas certified planner with the neighborhood company you guys we're talking about a famous fence we are going to talk about a famous venue here uh that Cottage Shuckers uh I know we've all been there it's very close to my heart um and and was one of my favorite places on Fort Myers Beach M too and and I think we all agree it's iconic we want to see it come back uh so uh we are going to talk about the world famous uh Cottage and Shuckers okay um okay I missing something here okay so what I'm going to do today is uh I'm going to give you a little history a little background on the venue and uh I'm going to talk about what's being planned for the uh the future of uh this property and the uses that they are requesting and I'm going to walk you through the variances and why those variances are Justified um so just to to give you a little history though before we start this um the the the venue was first developed in 1921 um it was uh a casino it was the Crescent Beach Casino when it first opened uh over the years they added some rooms in the 30s and 40s and uh it became the Gulf Shore in it was also a bath house and I don't know about you guys but I I always wonder what what what's a bath house I think it meant something different has but it was the Golf Shore and and bath house and it continued to evolve through the years and it became a a very popular restaurant and bar venue and um you know in in the80s the cottage opened and it became the venue that we all grew to love uh the cottage uh the Shuckers uh bar restaurant pub food live music entertainment um so um you know obviously the the uh the hurricane um wiped it out completely so in order to come forward and redevelop we do need to ask for these uh five variances that uh staff introduced um so uh just a little background about uh little context about the property uh it's one parcel a little under an acre uh plus or minus 82 Acres it is in The Pedestrian commercial future land use category that's the development area of the property the uh each area is within the recreation future land use category um the existing zoning is downtown again for the Development Area environmentally critical for the beach area um as we know uh previous uses have been wiped out and we are coming forward with uh a new proposal uh location uh I'm sure you guys all know where that is but about a quarter of a mile from the base of the bridge and uh as you can see on this exhibit the um the property is a flag lot it's irregular in shape and uh we got a closeup here and um the lot is about 55 50 ft wide along is stero midpoint lot it goes to about 100 ft and it's at the widest point uh on the beach we're at about 152 ft uh what's really important to point out on this uh aerial is the the 1978 Coastal Construction line and as you'll see um pretty much all the variances that we're asking for stem from having to deal with this 1978 Coastal Construction line uh what you can see is that most of the building was Seward of that cccl uh we now have to rebuild and everything has to be landward of the cccl and the challenge with that is we're we're dealing with a much narrow portion of the property and uh also we are um having to eat into uh existing area that was used for parking so we're going to address that and talk about that and um you know essentially the the the widest part of our property is now going to be left open and um Beach uh without any uh structures on there um this is just a different uh View view of the property again just to show you prean conditions um most of the structure uh within the widest part of the uh the property and then post Ian where it was completely wiped out um as mentioned by staff uh the previous structure there was plus or minus 11,000 square ft uh we are asking for or 12,000 ft um the and I'll walk you through the floor plan so you get a real appreciation as to how things have changed everybody that's been there will remember the bathroom conditions at that Cottage Chuckers well you you'll be very pleased to bathroom story you'll be very pleased to see that we have much bigger bathrooms uh bigger kitchens bigger back of the house to just make it a much more more modern functional uh facility uh the actual Patron space that was usable for for the the guest and and uh you know diners and uh people at the bar is staying roughly the same um we couldn't get an exact count of what it was before um and even the property appraiser records are very general uh but that number was probably somewhere between 7,000 and 8,000 square fet of usable space um and what we're asking for today is 7,800 plus or minus usable space so staying about the same the exort square footage really for back of the house um so the concept uh for this new venue is uh going to honor the history of what was there uh the ground level will be a beach bar the intent just like it was you go to the bar you can be there your flip-flops or or bare bare feet and you can walk right onto our sandy beaches um the second floor is going to be the restaurant Park Shuckers and that'll be fully enclosed uh casual fine dining and um you it will be a restaurant uh and with a bar component to it for people waiting to be seated or just people that want to eat at the bar the third floor will be the cottage uh that'll be a little more open air uh it'll be more of the pub food uh type of dining up there and it'll be the bar and entertainment venue uh with live bands and uh music uh for the cottage um as mentioned the building is different it's got to be built a lot stronger it's got to be hardened it's got to be a resilient structure it's got to meet all modern codes and when I'm saying talking about codes we're talking about um Florida building code we're talking about FEMA requirements we're also talking about code uh um Fort Myers Beach codes that have changed over time so keep in mind that these structures and what was there previously were all legal buildings those were built at a time where the rules were very different but they built them legally and what what's happened is over time we keep changing codes and we keep making things a little more stringent and rightly so we are in Florida we do have hurricanes but when something gets destroyed we have to address it and we have to build it a little differently hence the need for these variances so um so again why and this is criteria that uh is in the code that we have to address when we come forward with the variance so why are we asking for this well obviously it's it's the hurricane first of all uh second of all is we have to meet Uh current code requirements and third of all is we want to build back a beach venue like it was this iconic venue is always a beach bar and restaurant that you could walk right onto the sand and we want to keep it that way so those are the the reasons why um question is does that are we going to have a negative impact on surrounding properties and uh my professional planning opinion is that uh no there will not be any negative impacts uh again we're putting back something that already existed um and from a hardship standpoint I mentioned it it's it's really a question of we've been through a devastating hurricane um we've got a a funky irregular lot um that is unique and we have to uh meet today's code requirements so these are the five variances before I go into that I'll just show you what's being proposed uh this is a rendering of the front of uh the proposed Cottage it's going to have a contemporary Coastal architecture um and again we we see the various levels uh lower level uh is going to be the the beach bar directly onto the sand second level is going to be enclosed and is going to be uh a seed for the restaurant uh upper level will be the cottage and uh just on the rooftop is where we have our Mechanicals AC Elevator Shaft fire suppression um type of of uh Mechanicals uh This Is A View From the rear of the property from the beach again just showing you that the rear is a little more open that's where you've got the open views of the water direct access onto the beach um there again uh more of a close-up view and I think that really um shows you the look and feel um that is desired here and again keeping this uh uh you know different different look different style uh more contemporary but the same Vibe the same beach bar that we we've uh grown to know and love um these are just the architecturals front rear um and these are the floor plants so uh what you'll see this is the ground level I just want to put point out on the lower right side um that's where the the entrance is reception there's some seating area all that area is area that didn't exist before um you're going to have a stairwell you're going to have an Elevator Shaft there's a secondary stairwell if you look on the upper left corner um any kind of recycling and garbage is going to be enclosed fully with roll up doors they're going to be brought out on collection days and you're going to have some dry storage there uh long linear bar very reminiscent of what was there before um Second Story story uh same thing a lot of uh back of the house area as you can see a much bigger kitchen than they had before and um modern upto-date bathroom facilities uh to make it easier on all of us um and on the Upper Floor uh same thing um stairwells uh office space uh M much bigger bathroom facilities they kept the the bar uh very consistent with the old um Cottage bar and and I'm looking forward to uh seeing it built and and having those memories of of the old Cottage so this is just the the upper uh the the upper deck and where the fire equipment and is and the Elevator Shaft so I'll go through these uh variances one by one um the first variance is associated with the building placement as you know this is in the downtown district uh the intent of the bill two line was really to activate uh the public realm and put some storefronts uh like you see in in in in a lot of towns a lot of downtowns near the street uh I think we all recognize that this is not retail this is not storefront it's an iconic bar that was always a beach bar and we're putting it back along the beach as close as we can to the beach so it straddles the uh Coastal Construction line and um we are asking for a 34t setback from a sterile rather than the five foot Bill two line um the next uh deviation is uh the height uh variance and we are allowed uh 40 ft uh above uh design flood elevation we are asking for a height of 42 feet and 3 in and uh that additional height is really to hide the Mechanicals and if it wasn't for that uh height variance I think we we would have a a building that just wasn't as attractive where you could see some of those uh Mechanicals on the rooftop um the third uh variance is um the parking requirement uh as as uh Jason mentioned we were deficient uh prior to the storm uh there were 28 parking spaces on site um today's code requires 114 parking spaces and uh unfortunately uh with the new placement of the building we lose 10 parking spaces um actually uh 12 I'll explain that to you we we are providing 18 spaces but 16 of those are actual spaces two of those are credits for bike racks proposing two bike racks um so um we understand this is a significant reduction in parking however um as was discussed with uh the whale that came before you a little while back uh this is the best we can do on this site uh there is uh no other room for parking um and I think we um as a town are acknowledging that in the downtown district we have to look at parking a little differently and we believe that the solution for uh the cottage and some other venues in the downtown area is paid parking and um in in a quarter of a mile from uh this property there are over 550 uh paid parking spaces the uh next uh variance requested is the parking lot location again with this idea of bringing the the buildings up to the street the idea was to put the parking in the back we're not bringing the building up the street therefore we need that variance and uh last but not least we are asking for a deviation to uh keep uh access to the property along a sterile uh what the code calls for is if you are located along a side street like Avenue a um the code intended on uh the sites re becoming your primary access point um in this case we don't think it's a good idea because a it it it just isn't feasible from a functionality standpoint if we took access from Avenue a you would have to go into the parking lot and somehow turn around because you can exit on the stero there's not enough width to have a two-way Drive aisle in there uh also um Avenue a as staff mentions in their report um is used quite bit by beach goers so again if we can minimize and just have an U egress situation along Avenue a we think is a better situation um so with that said uh I will just quickly go through some of the criteria I'm not going to deal with each variance one by one but I do want to talk about um the boxes that you have to check off when you approve these variances and um first one is whether there are exceptional or extra extraordinary conditions or circumstances associated with this property uh as mentioned we've had a devastating storm uh it it wasn't it was an act of God um there there is also a very irregular uh shape to this property and also we have a Coastal Construction line that has changed over time and has significantly reduced the ability to develop on the property um then uh criteria number two those exceptional or extraordinary conditions where they uh caused by an action of the applicant again uh know the the property has always been irregular and the storm was uh was not caused by the applicant um whether the requested variance is the minimum variance to allow this use um the answer is yes we are not we are keeping uh the same uses and we are keeping roughly the same uh square footage total uh slightly bigger to accommodate for this uh these Mechanicals and back of the house uh functional requirements but from a footprint standpoint the footprint is actually smaller than it used to be um then the next one is uh will granting the variance be inur injurious or detrimental to uh neighbors and and the public uh the answer again is No we are putting back an existing use um and um we think that it uh it fits within the context of the downtown and and historically the uses that have been there and last but not least is this a reoccurring variance that somehow would need a code change no this is very unique to this specific property and specific conditions there so with that said um in my professional opinion I think we've met all the criteria I think we are consistent with the code and uh the comp plan and and I do want to make one request I know that uh you mentioned that your your decision can be a final decision and that if it's unanimous there's no need to go to council um we were hoping to be at the LPA last month uh we had to be at the LPA today instead we're trying to get final approval before the July break so given that the next meeting is on the 17th if someone waits to the very last day to put in a to contest this we would then get bumped to August we want to keep our time scheduled for the 17th at Council we will go back there and talk to council if needed if no one um files a complaint then we are fine but we want to reserve that spot on the agenda if needed did you hear that am I did okay okay so thank you very much for your time and we are here to answer any questions you may have thank you very much Patrick um questions for Patrick let's start with you John uh no it's very thorough thank you anything from you Jim no questions uh Jane with the third floor being where the live entertainment is and is most open on both sides sides how do you plan to contain the noise from going back towards the store B GL glad you brought it up and um we we knew in our discussion that this might come up um part of it is is is I'll take the blame for this uh these plans call for roll up shutters mhm um at the ground level mhm and also for the cottage up there we never indicated that in our application but through the discussions and I I sat down with Joe also and we talked about how this could be addressed um if there was any kind of sound concern um Joe has indicated that they want to look into putting uh garage doors so I think I think the option is either rollup shutters or uh clear glass garage doors that could be closed down if there is live music pass 10:00 but they fully intend on abiding by uh the noise ordinance and also having a mechanism uh to to contain that noise and the other thing also and and we've discussed this uh for other cases is this would be fully directed towards the beach there's going to be building behind them and uh that will buffer and and and direct uh the sound where you don't have people can you go back to the view from the a St Boulevard rear yeah so all of that looks like it's open to me so so what you're seeing on on the right side is really the stairwell component of it and there seems to there's like one Bay that is open but same thing the treatment would be the same for that bay as it is on the uh on the Gulf side uh there would be either a roll down shutter or some kind of a garage door that can be open or closed but the the idea and the discussion that that we had was you know when they designed this they they they they were trying to honor the old Cottage that was an open venue uh but understanding the concern for the the the sound um you know the the the applicant is more than than willing to uh put those uh put those garage doors in there and also what it does it it does protect patrons or or or the facility itself from from the weather so there could be an additional condition that adds um something to do with closur because we required the beached whale to have all of their live entertainment being en closed is that not correct um I I did look at the approved ordinance for the beach whale and I did look at the minutes of approval um Council approved it without any conditions yeah uh however I know that the uh the owners of the whale had just made that commitment and they had indicated that to to everybody that uh the venue was going to be enclosed and and and all the the bands and the music would be internal anything else Jan that would be my only concern because noise violations are the biggest thing we talk about on this beach and to have that open to the Estero Boulevard side I think will create a NeverEnding issue of where's the music coming from okay Jane I've got Joe here and he's nodding and he's okay with making that commitment today okay uh Jim any questions no nothing Don any questions Doug any questions there's Don there's Don any questions no no questions uh how about Doug is he around not lost wild okay we'll assume that Doug doesn't have any questions either thank you very much Patrick apprciate it I don't see him on the screen yeah he's not we lost he's not okay okay um any other questions for the staff or the applicant or any discussion on this uh I I think that the height being to cover up the Mechanicals it doesn't appear that they're sealing Heights are are extreme to make it you know worth having it be 2 and 1/2 ft shorter um I don't really have a problem with that my only problem like I said would be adding that condition um to that well I'll tell you what because I'm very excited about this project I'm going to make a motion to approve um com oh yeah darn it well I'm still going to make the motion when we come back thank you Jim I apologize for that does anybody want to make some public comment on this hearing none heing not M Mike Mike are you gonna come up thank you she's just videoing or she I think she's just videoing okay we're wondering if she's raising her hand or hand or oh no she she's videotaping go ahead Mike yep my name is Mike Miller owner the beach DW um I want to go on record that I am 100% for the cottage um reopening up I hope you guys approve it um my only concern is the noise um I don't want to be the uh the the brunt of all of any complaints and the reason is is because you know I I have completely enclosed and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in in a soundproof for the most part second level and you know having that dance floor on the third floor it's going to be awesome for the cottage it's going to be exciting um anyone that complains in the residences behind me if they hear it they're going to think it's us and I want to just see a planet where it's going to be enclosed in more more uh sound proof um give you one example and then I'll be done is one day um we got had a complaint that uh we had our music was too loud this is why we were under a tent okay and I understand perfectly uh we called the gentleman back the next morning and let him know that we weren't even open and it was it was um uh the Taco Company um Yo Taco and they had two speakers facing Estero Boulevard jaming music and it was loud enough it where we got a complaint and again I'm all for 100% for the cottage to open I hope you guys all do it unanimous and they start breaking ground as soon you know right after us and uh we we break ground in a couple weeks and um you know and get the ball rolling and get this town back together but I just want to make sure that and that's a concern and and Jane had mentioned it just you know figure out something to be able to enclose that so we don't get the the the grunt of the the complaints that's it thank you for your comments Mike and good luck aage thank you very much um is there anybody else that would like to make any comments okay we'll close the public comment and uh you know I didn't mean to jump to it does there any any other discussion on this I think that we do need to discuss that um condition because not only maybe that it needs the walls in the back but it needs to contain its music on its property on the sides and everywhere else so that you know it isn't tra traveling it's not traveling anywhere well I mean because I think asking them to have that be a completely enclosed area uh eliminates the idea of it being the cottage bar I'm asking them to be responsible for their noise and that would be their responsibility period right and there are decel requirements any way so those protect us and we don't can't be more restrictive than those okay well with with your permission I'm going to make a motion to um to approve uh the variance variances for 1250 Estero Boulevard which is the cottage and Shuckers uh including the findings and and conditions of approval in the staff report adding a condition that there be enclosures on the third floor to uh contain uh sound as much as possible and finding that this is consistent with our comprehensive plan fully support Second so there's a motion and a second is there any further discussion my vote is yes Jim yes Jane yes Doug yes Don yes Jim yes yes John bra congratulations thank you uh thank you for again for a great proposal okay now listen we have to go on so please keep it down Joe do a good job okay next next item the most important comment DCI 202443 this is 668 I Street this is the beach bub another thing we're looking forward to uh an ordinance of the town of Fort Meers Beach Florida approving approv with conditions or denying a request to rezone the property located at 1668 I Street to um generally identified a strap number 1946242 70b 0010 Fort Meers Beach from downtown to commercial plan development CPD zoning with deviations for a bar and residents providing for other clarifications is necessary providing for conflicts of law scrier a severability and providing for an effective date um Jason X xart what would I do without you John any xart uh yes I spoke with Albert from Studio ad about this project okay how about you Jim yes I've talked to the applicant about it Don how about you no Doug how about you uh Doug's gone again uh Jim I have none jam and I I have none um you know again I wonder do I'm I'm just going to tell you I have read social media posts that were in favor of this project okay I that is your disclosure thank you um Jason hello again uh good afternoon this time Jason SMY with your planning and zoning department uh so as was mentioned before the request before you is for a approval of a CPD with one deviation uh the general thrust of the request is that they are looking to rebuild after the storm uh the a structure known as the beach bar uh this would Encompass a ground level Beach Bar um and then the Upper Floor would be a a single residential unit uh the the construction is obviously necessary After the Storm it was completely destroyed and the lot has been scraped the general thrust of why they're needing a a Devi ation today comes down to floor area ratio uh as it exists this site within the pedestrian commercial portion of this of the downtown um has a maximum floor area ratio of 1.0 so to accomplish the 1.4 F that they have proposed they need to go through a CPD and through the plan development process they are uh eligible to request additional F so that's what they are doing is requesting an increase from 1.0 to 1.4 uh one one piece of uh note here in the in the different iterations of the plan it should be noted that the applicant is effectively giving up one of the recognized dwelling units upstairs decreasing the density that is correct um so staff recognizes that uh choice and there we will be combining what was previously to units into a larger single unit um and then all of the allowances that would go with that uh we would point out also that this would be eligible for short-term rental so that is a thing but we uh we have no indication from the from the applicant or anybody that that is an intent we just wanted to be very upfront about what the implications would be uh so staff is here for any questions or concerns that you may have uh the applicant and the applicant's representative here for your uh for questions as well thank you very much Jane with there being a one unit occupancy um where will that person park because there are zero parking requirements for this property so there are two there are two spaces but is one assigned to that parking person to that occupant uh so that isn't dealt with in our review just having the two parking SPAC required for the single unit on site uh would be sufficient to to meet the code okay I saw there were two parking spaces I just didn't know whether they would be assigned or how that would handled any other questions for Jason sorry is there public parking allowed on Avenue E or First Avenue no no it is it is not so they would people parking there could be subjected to uhfor okay anything John no anything uh gentlemen in the clouds No Okay Jim nothing thank you very much Jason thank you will I ask for the applicant to come up what forgot it was you Jim afternoon for the record Jim anink engineering and nice to see you chair would allow me to pass out certainly a uh some documents yes thank you Amy thank you Amy thank you little bit of housekeeping I was sworn in and I have been deemed an expert in planning and engineering and would like to continue to do so okay you and forever thank thank you we we are here today for the beach bar everybody loves the beach bar beach bar has been there for a very very long time decades predates the town and what we're here for is a CPD and it is probably the simplest CPD I've ever done in that we have one deviation and we're basically putting back putting back what uh what was previously allow it's much prettier team members that make up this is uh Greg and mine Boyd are the owners Greg is in the audience um myself planning and Engineering Albert Ambrose Studio ad is the architect of this and the construction is Stevens's construction um because we're kind of going a little backwards at this we have a development order that is almost complete we have a building permit that is almost complete but we're back to do clean up on the f reques as I said the request is a simple one the f are in this area of I Street dalva there's about 12 lots and on across the street from I Street there's about three or four pieces of property that the town planners and and share may know why they did this decided to set the F at the lowest level of all F ARS on the island at 1.0 RM is 1.2 Aero island is 1.4 downtown is 1.8 um in the comprehensive plan in pedestrian commercial which we are it's 2.5 so what would this request do would allow the increase to go from 1.0 to 1.4 the current codee as as I said was basically there we ran into some you know there is some uniqueness here is here's the property it's that little blue box right there um as I said future land uses pedest commercials zoning is downtown those are the two most intense future land use and Zoning districts that we have on the island the property is. 23 Acres being on the Gulf 0.1 is in the downtown zoning 0.13 is environmental critical when you count F you can only count the Upland portion Y and the dividing line when the town set it up was the 78 line Y that was established for the state that the town just decided to establish for that um this was a two Family Residence it had a single family and a and apartment use on it and there was the beach bar below the beach bar was codified in 1988 in 1995 is the beach bar and as commissioner plumber stated we have a zero parking requirement for the beach bar we have the do and the building permit is well underway what you can see on the lot right here again in blue is the red future land use and Zoning District just bisects the middle of the property the rest is out on the on the beach property current survey again I want to show you that it's the small piece and the big piece the yellow is what we can build on the green is what we can't and we can't include that in our F calculations had it been in the RM District which is the majority of the Gul front property outside of downtown we probably would have been subject to a 40% loot coverage which we do meet but unfortunately we're in downtown F it's why we're here here's the master site plan in the in the Shaded area is the footprint of the building and the footprint is right around 2,000 square ft it shows the uh 75 table seating that's allowed out in the sand the intent of how the beach bar works is this is intended to be a complete walkup commercial facility no parking it's not pretended to park on I Street and and it's Contin walk up in the master concept plan you see three parking spaces two of which is dedicated to the residential use and one is dedicated for deliveries and and functionalities to make the beach bar work property regulations they're exactly the same as downtown except the F we increased to 1.4 for our area we're within the zero to five front Bill back the 5- foot setback um rear yard setback is really governed by the 78 line and building coverage is not acable 40t height which we're going to continue to do schedule the uses we put together uh sta wanted us to be a little more specific than say what's allowed in downtown is is what we were going to keep so we limited down to every one of these uses and all of these uses are existing today or Preen except for the ATM and it was just a good thought that maybe an ATM might be good there at some point deviation requests it's in your packet you all understand that part the dev scat the justification I'm not going to go through that part at this point what I am going to talk about though is this stretch of I Street and why we think 1.4 is justifiable if you look at these Lots these 12 Go Go Front Lots 12 13 of them they're all bisected they're all smaller there is a property right expectation since they're all destroyed to be able to build them back to current standards the code was put into effect when the town was incorporated which I think was 1996 it stayed pretty much the same it's now 2024 so it's been there so what I want to show is there are three existing buildings one to the south of us adjacent and then two down ice street it's these on the left is the one that is adjacent I Street 70 Avenue E and it shows an estimated F of 0.71 if you look at the original lot they had a little they acquired some more property they made a little bit bigger lot if it was the original platted lot it would be at about 1.1 so it would not be consistent you go down to 61 Alva Drive which was constructed and that's at about a 1.4 and then 70 Avenue E is about a 1.5 this is based on using the gis and and area and you know what we can find so it just shows that yes same address different buildings oh I'm sorry that's the one on farther down I Street at at Alva okay that was a typo there okay um this is is a problem that the town's aware of uh people such as myself and coun they just had their management and planning meeting and this was brought up that maybe we need to go back and relook at the F it's it's it's a concern of if you're going to build a single family house on the island why shouldn't you be 40% lot coverage like everybody and and treat them all the same so it's just a part of we have three well two inconsistent existing houses that were actually constructed after the code was put in place and at some point with with previous administration but it's just to show how what you get and how hard it is to get to that 1.0 and that expected right to use your land on a g front piece of property uh the conditions this is just a repeat that's what's in the staff report uh working with staff we took a lot lot of the relevant conditions out of the 88 zoning and out of the 95 cop and we brought them forward and we put them in this document so this document can stand alone on its part uh and it but it does reflect to everything that's in the previous two entitlements stay in place but these are the conditions that are there so again what we're asking for is real simple it's just an F of 1.4 which is consistent with a stero Boulevard consistent with the surrounding area to bring the beach bar back to what it was there and have an attractive area and as everybody's seen on beach talk radio for months and in various places now Albert has done a a very good design at creating something that that really has that beach five this is is a real building we get through this process we get issued the site development plan and the building permit and we hope to be under construction in September this is the building this is the building excellent okay that was my question any questions for Mr Inc anyone Jane I just want to confirm that the um that the master site plan has the existing outdoor seat feating is on the sand CU it kind of looks like a hardened surface there I just want to confirm that that is yes it is on Sand it's it's required in the 88 and the 95 cop that it must be on the sand just wanted to confirm that was my only other question because I have been to the beach bar you don't remember that um under the conditions um number six it says however this does not prohibit the sale of draft beer or wine which is poured from a large bottle that is original language but they do they do not pour from a large bottle they have individual containers so I don't want to restrict them by saying pouring out of a large bottle I understand that that was back with the county but it's not an accurate description of how they operated before or after Ian but do we want want to touch that I would like to be consistent I mean if if the board decides that should be addressed and and we should uh adjust that language I I'm just saying that's not how they operate giving them for something not that they you say totally well it says it doesn't prohibit the sale from a large bottle it doesn't say that it must be however this does not prohibit the sale of draft beer or wine poured from a large model oh so they're allowed to sometimes you got to go 7 refill does not prohibit a double negative yeah the use of jimy you got to make that print bigger how in the world can you read that how but they are limited to beer and wine right yes because they don't have a or hold whatever the app can Happ any other questions for Mr Inc good job Don Doug no questions okay thank you very much thank you very much Mr Inc okay we appreciate it thank you is there any public comment on this case kazzy you're you're here today I'm telling you I'm staying busy today I see good to see you conditions here in the resolution yeah I just want to say I know Greg you say your name again cash is up in for my beach um I spend time at uh Beach Bar and I know Greg I think what they're asking for is very reasonable um they're not asking for anything more which some of these other people have been asking for and I think the quicker that you guys can help out a local business that's been established the better it is for the entire Island um he had two units he's going down to one really to me um this is about building to the new code uh and I think it's a great great fit for the island he's great for the community great person in general and uh the faster that this gets approved the faster that he gets beach bar back up and running and I think it's a good thing for the island this isn't a big project asking for million variances and everything else so that being said thank you for your time you guys have a great day thank you you're wel anybody else okay we'll close the public comment any further questions for staff or the applicant and if not may I have a motion please I make a motion to approve ordinance uh dc1 1202 40143 660 1668 I Street um with the conditions that the staff has placed on the petition I second it so there is a motion in a second any discussion on the motion your vote Jim yes John hi Don hi Doug if you're there missing Doug Jim hi Jane I I uh the motion carries uh six with we're not sure I think Doug has dropped offed okay so six six to Z not thank you very much uh congratulations we look forward to seeing it that uh thank you Jim the next uh next item on the agenda is LPA policies and procedures no there not a variance yeah the question was asked if that still has to go to council yes because it's a resing yeah okay so your next item um we uh announced at your last meeting that we would be reviewing your um procedures uh that were adopted back in 2009 um as resolution number 2009-2 we did I did receive comments from Jim and also from John um and I would still be looking for additional comments from um the rest of you um I'll tell you all what I said some kind of Direction my my my thing is you know this is so much Overkill exact exactly I would I said to Nancy could you not just come back and bring us a stream include the ordinance obviously bring us a streamline version of this we don't need flowcharts and all of this uh it's just it's just Overkill and um that that's my that's my comment every time I started to read it I just went and I put it down so my direct or my request would be that you uh that perhaps we take five minutes or so and just tell me what topics you find to be most important to conduct your meetings Okay um Jane do you want to or we go Page by page I I've only had it 38 hours so we're going to give you a pass yeah Don do you have any comments Don I don't have anything any more specific than the questions that um I think it was I think it was John that that uh or you know made comments on there there were just things that I didn't really know about or we've ever uh in any way enacted or worked upon like the historic preservation board and some of those things it just seem like to to your point Anita it it seems like far more luminous than what the way we operate could I make a comment though because I would say that as somebody who is new to this and has not participated in any sort of Municipal role in the past actually find it kind of helpful to understand what the PO procedures are okay um so for me while I had some questions about some specific aspects and yes it's long and it's hard to get through it it did provide me some insights on how my role should be uh conducted how about you I think I think it can be Consolidated I don't know if we can get it to five pages but we don't need it at 30 pages um that doesn't give you a lot does it well okay so briefly if we can like that five minutes um the table of content yeah that's what I was just looking do you feel like we need to put your mission and your job description in here it is your code no of ordinances um training materials no um historic preservation board you serve in that capacity but that is by ordinance as well so if if an an issue comes up we would schedule it as as necessary so that could come out um ad hoc interaction with other advisory committees does not need to be here either because meeting preparation this is one that um Amy and I kind of wanted to talk about a little bit um we know that it is very difficult for you to review 464 Pages uh when your agenda goes out on Friday for A Tuesday meeting um we feel your pay Friday late afternoon yes for A Tuesday meeting and we really are working hard on that but you are the end receiver of it um Amy is the next to the end and I'm next to the end and Jason's cranking it out and just for example um the items that you heard today they are to go on an agenda for the 17th that agenda has to go out tomorrow which means we are dropping everything and we'll try to package together your decisions today and get that on the agenda for Town Council um that doesn't give us time to to do a lot of other things so um we're we're working hard on it but I don't really see any end in sight other than we have a new staff member um has she been introduced I don't think we met yes okay I must have been out of the room I apologize um so that's going to help so we recognize the the burden that it puts on you um and we're trying to to struggle through it do you want to say anything or you talking specifically about process or just getting the package yeah okay meeting yeah meeting schedule length of agenda items yes let me make a comment on that coming from a little bit different world than this might apply I work for a large public company and OB be 0 days we told the world everything we did of course by law and Etc and um over time we developed our presentation materials in two separate distinct packets that both complied with the legal requirements but also were digestible and therefore could be consumed and could be could be value added wor the analy community or even our own employees and when I read through this the 400 plus Pages there are multiple redundancies that are required by all the right reasons that I don't think any added any value to me reading and developing a point of view and a position on that so I talked to Jason and Nancy about this a few days ago and said I'd prefer to have the actual package for LPA consumption and they know they have to do the entire package be in the form of an addendum that if we wanted to go look at further drawings or further individual names or things that are pertinent to only a follow-up question but not forming an opinion on request we have access to that Public's got to get it anyway and all the things to go with that so I think just the construct of the package itself for us knowing that you're under time constraints would would make us more efficient and aligning what we want to talk about in our questions and then leave the rest for those that are both curious or just interested in going deeper and want to challenge something in the Nuance it may come up during the meeting but it I don't think it ought to be in our study pack and is what I'm talking about I want all the pictures I can get but I don't need to know the mailing list and things like that so I I do have some comments about that um from a legal perspective remember at the beginning of the meeting we talked about the fundamental components of fairness and due process and the first being notice so by having all those labels and I know that honestly I didn't read each label to see who got a copy of it which I'm sure you probably didn't as well but that is proof and evidence and documents in your record so in the event there was an appeal and someone said well I didn't get a copy my neighbors didn't there were 50 properties couldn't that be an addendum like Jim is saying so so it doesn't have to so when we look at our agenda it comes to us and we see 432 Pages it's really only 27 that's exactly right so the summary the executive summary we could call it that is really your staff report which then cross references to your exhibits um I don't know Jason do you want to speak to how that's the staff report and the applicant and the application absolutely that and the associated pictures that graphically represent the rest can be I I'm suggesting the entire thing still being available and all that those of us that are in a depressed mode and want to read all that you can do that but I like the approach trying to get here so I can consume it the right way and make an informed decision and and we would assume that you you did read it all or you glanced through it you reviewed it um and then that assume that yes and then it factors at all the notices and it factors into your decision making process to because again your decisions uh to be upheld if they are challenged and some of them may not be I mean we haven't knock on wood haven't had really too many um if there's competence substantial evidence in the record those are the doc continue to assume we read it and just break it apart so we get a choice of what to read and what cont to you Jason as far as Amy has something to say I think I have a solution for that you have the ability to go on your board portal in the past nobody's ever wanted to do that before so you haven't been trained to do that where you can toggle toggle it would be a good word right now you're seeing a big 400 and something page document in the portal itself you have the ability to just look at certain parts of it yes that would be very helpful per training or per project I don't know that's debatable some of the older members probably already have their sign on they probably don't know how to get in there they've never used it because it was you didn't mean by age you meant no no we since the hurricane we've become more of an online community oh we revolted against that you remember I used to go to the library and print it out yeah good luck getting out in the past electronic hadn't always gone so well so you have the ability to do that now it's just a matter of you know coming in sit and talk with Jason or I get that option show you how to do that okay give me an account hold Jason did you have something the the the condensed with the addendum separate so that we can through it exactly so I can only speak to what we see on our on our end we have two systems for storage of the documents that come through and then we've got the one agenda management system which is your front end that's what you see my question I think is to Nancy we're always going to have those documents in the eyework system if they're sent to us we keep them in in that format if they don't really need or want to have those put into the agenda management does that create the problem that you are concerned with yes I need to have the kitchen sink in the record because then if there is a challenge it's not just one piece of evidence testimony from one person it's competent and substantial so I need to pull things out of that record to justify why you felt a particular criteria was satisfied um so you know in in the quote script that we use we do often sometimes make reference to acceptance of the agenda as into the record um there's a little bit more formalities that we have in our in our um script that we default back to at times um so uh you know the organization component of it I don't have an issue with that at all um but I would not want to put things in there that if they're not focused on the criteria then they're extraneous and they cause confusion yes do not put them in the record but if they do go to the heart of the criteria those should be in the record well maybe I can ask the LPA is there a term that would immediately in your mind trigger you to say okay this is addendum material do we want to just call it addendum because we can go through and strip out the stuff your boilerplate requirements all those Public Notices all the listing stuff to me all required all necessary but I'm trying to ascertain the alignment of the request from the applicant into what we're trying to create here I assume you're doing your job and all those things are happening you're getting all the right requirements I just don't need proof of that in my first Brea so all those kind of things from a process standpoint just the rule of thumb is the higher up in the list that you see on the agenda management that is relevant documents in our opinion the more boilerplate stuff we always put towards the bottom uh but if there is a way to immediately have you recognize that this stuff is your application your list of of contacts things like that staff is more than happy to to change our policy and put something in there saying application addendum or or something so you immediately know okay this may be important for legal perspective but is not necessarily important for my review of it and pragmatically you find yourself during the meeting trying to go back and look at particular pieces and parts and we're all doing this we're all passing and that's why that would number where the staff report starts exactly exactly so Nancy you have I mean what Jim is saying is absolutely right so you have worked with us enough you can do this I have faith in you oh yeah and I will I have no problems with that it will comport with um those you know fundamental concepts of due process fairness transparency but not 30 pages worth yeah okay but um I did hear some questions during the meeting about the Facebook on the disclosure of xart so think about it um you are getting information off of Facebook may or may not influence your decision on a particular whether a particular criteria has been satisfied so to be Fair we need to disclose that to the applicant and applicants do have the ability to ask you questions about it for instance Anita I'll pick on you I don't I don't see the difference between social media and the newspaper though there is no difference well then we we should disclose the newspaper you know and the television news covers some of these things but it's information that you have that maybe might sway it's not dialogue but it's public publicly aail it doesn't have to be dialogue I mean you could go and research on go well then we should put into our boilerplate disclos influence your decision we've done all of these things but did it influence your decision that when did you come to the meeting with a fair um nothing I read influenced my decision and that's what you could say yeah uh you could say I saw some still want me to tell them I think it's preferable because down the road if they were to find out somehow that you did read a whole bunch on on Facebook and you were commenting on Facebook no I never com you didn't and you didn't disclose no conversation I mean you know look the bottom line the rule of thumb let we want to be fair we want to disclose have an opinion I'm open to Chang wouldn't it make sense though but you can't anounce when you say because you disclosure of experte communication you go is there a way include in that recognizing that we've May seen something on social media news media print media and then cover everybody all at once because we we all do it if you remind me I'll remember to do that if you remind me Jim so if there is someone who has done a lot of research or something I may try to quote rehabilitate them and say okay you've made some disclosures you've had some conversations are you able to come to this hearing um with an uh you haven't made your decision before you came to this meeting you have a open mind and you're willing to listen to the testimony and the evidence that's presented today and render a decision so you know and and the applicant has that opportunity to question you know oh you said you had some conversations with some people in the community who did you talk to what did you talk about when did you talk about it yeah they have that right to make sure that they have a fair and impartial set of decision makers okay got it got it yes all right so you are tasking me with I'm tasking you I am tasking you Nancy uh next item for for when for for August I I don't care oh no August you'll have too much on your plate September September is even better September okay thank you yes it's not urgent it's not urgent because you do have to announce when it's going to be discussed okay September October whenever you're ready when you're ready give us some whole announce I'll give you I'll give you a a month to say hey it's coming the that sounds great very good thank you all okay LPA members items and reports do you have anything I do not how about you Don I do not chane nothing Jim you do I do um I have talked to uh several of the um council members um I know that the council has retained a firm uh to look at impact fees um and that uh report could take up to a year to um be codified and brought back to the council and I would urge them to look at trying to find a way within the code or amending the code to uh come up with a Approach at least on the interim basis uh to get some impact fees I think that we're leaving money on the table with all of these developments coming in in including all of these parking variances that if there was an impact fee that we could be collecting money every time we Pro uh approve a variance that could go into uh a pool looking at alternate means of transportation whether it's boats bikes buses something to help uh solve our uh traffic problem I agree completely thank you uh John anything uh I actually had asked that question to see if there was a way that we might be able to put in some sort of temporary using like communities something like that uh I would absolutely support that I'm just not sure if it can be done yeah yeah I I don't think it can be done but I'm not saying no we're going to look further and see if we can come up with something expedite the uh if you need to have a basis for the impact study expedited you know yeah it means paying more for the study to be done in 3 months instead of a year it'll be well spent money it would be um I I wanted to make a comment speaking of council things at their work session they talked about short-term rentals and so you know Nancy uh short-term there's never been a hotter issue for the town than short-term rental but the most recent addition of the registry uh part of the uh the thought process with the registry and having a phone number associated because one of the council members said well isn't that the police's job to come and you know check on things or whatever well in fact the police could be called but it is the property owner or the property manager's job to make sure that that business that short-term rental is operating properly and so it was decided to put that phone number attached with each rental so that somebody could call that property owner or that property uh manager to say hey you've got a problem um and not so and it was Shifting the onus from the uh from the sheriff to the to the person that where it belonged and at least in my opinion so I just just wanted to say that so you knew what the background of that was okay I appreciate that uh and next item do you have any do you have any items um Nancy LBA how about you how about you Jason anything uh anything from you uh Amy nothing uh the next our next meeting will be on the 20 is it the 25th 23rd at 9:00 a.m. 20 the 23rd of this month oh no our next we have another meeting in June you added yeah no it's the Outrigger is there anything else on that agenda other than the out rer I don't know about that date it's June I not going to say the date because I got the last one wrong expect us to add stuff to it as it comes in we'll be trying to clear clear Our Deck as much as possible I think it's June 25th isn't it that's what I have June 25th yeah that'll be a Bigg e gim okay got it um anything else from anybody may I have a motion to adjourn it is 137 thank you very much we