##VIDEO ID:iC1LNNE8gig## e e thank you good morning everyone this is a regularly meeting of the fort May beach local planning agency it is Tuesday September 324 and is 91 inv of Al I pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America for it stands indice our invocation this morning is that um we all have the courage of our convictions and Grace to do what's best for our community and that our community continues to F there's a motion remely there's multiple isak news us not May ition approval of final agenda or changes anyes I move to approve I'll second there's a motion second to that unanimously now approval ofes fore a 23r carries now com com agenda or have you're welcome to ases anybody have comment thank you very much we'll move on to the first of quite a few quite a few hearings NY would you like to make comments before we begin yes thank you very much um Madam chair so um just so we're all basically on the same page um today in your agenda you have seven items um the first two items one and two are rezonings you have um a request to vacate a utility easement you have one VAR two special exceptions and one potential change to your Land Development code the first six items which is excluding the change to your Land Development code those items are all quasi judicial in nature and I will momentarily read um some comments about uh cases that come before you in a quasi judicial manner um so the formalities that um I'm going to be describing for the um quasi judicial matters are not applicable to your last item on your agenda so with that said um basically your rezoning your vacating of the um easement your variants and your special exceptions these are all quasi judicial in nature and this requires this portion of our public meeting um which is a hearing to comply with procedural requirements that have been established in Florida law and in our Land Development code so these judicial proceedings they're going to be less formal than proceedings before circuit court however they're going to be more formal than the remainder of your meeting when you address that final um legislative change and during your quasi judicial meetings you're going to follow the basic standards of due process and that requires that there have been certain notices made of the various applications before you that we Pro we apply the correct stand standards of law embedded in your code of ordinances and that your decisions are made on competent and substantial evidence presented to you either in written form or verbally then you will evaluate the testimony the evidence that's been provided for each item and you'll draw a conclusion regarding whether the criteria that is established in Your Land Development code or in state law has been satisfied so just pure speculation or an opinion about a particular um application is not based on competent substantial evidence and the courts have not legally considered it to be such um however testimony by professionals who have been qualified as experts in a particular area the courts have viewed that as being a competent and substantial evidence as well as testimony by neighbors or residents in the community who have fact based information such as minutes surveys engineering reports or testimony that is based on their personal knowledge and observations so members of the public if you intend to speak please keep this in mind and when you come forward state your name clearly for the record and whether or not you have been sworn in you do have one variance on your agenda today and a unanimous decision by eligible voting members of the LPA in the event approval of the variant um is is given that will constitute final agency a action subject to a request by anyone for an additional hearing or review of the matter by the Town Council if the request for the additional hearing is received by the town clerk within 10 days so for purposes of efficiency and to try to manage today's um heavy agenda um we'd like to go ahead and dis of a few um administrative matters my first question is directed to the town clerk and I need to ask have all the agenda items been properly advertised pursuant or noticed properly noticed pursuant to Our Land Development code and Florida law yes they have thank you um also at this time if any LPA member has a conflict of interest which would prevent them from voting on a particular ma matter this is the time should make that disclosure of the record so we can assure that we do have a quorum present when that item comes up does anyone have a conflict anyone have a conflict no so the record shall reflect that there were no conflicts disclosed um also at this time because we are Quasi judicial we do engage in uh the swearing in of witnesses so at this time members of the audience um if there is anyone present including staff um who intends to Prov testimony please stand raise your right hand and be sworn in by our town clerk that would include public comment too anybody who's gonna speak anybody okay do you solemnly swear and affirm that the testimony that you are about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth all parties have been thank you all um is there anyone intending to provide ttim as an expert witness this is has not already been qualified by the town yes okay great so we should be able to proceed on um Madam chair would you like to read the title and then we can do some expart dis just be thrilled to um ordinance 2428 which is CPD 20245 it is 1836 and 1840 Estero Boulevard this is the Estero Island Beach Club uh case an ordinance at the town of Fort Meers Beach Florida approving approving with conditions or denying a town of Fort Meers Beach ordinance and approving the conditions for the commercial plan development rezoning for the properties located at 1836 and 1840 EST stero Boulevard less the area within the environmentally critical zoning District generally identified as strap numbers 19464 w43 2000.00 CE and 19464 w43 211010 Fort Meers Beach providing for clarifications is necessary providing for conflicts of law scrier errors severability and providing for an effective date uh Mr suth do you have any exp parte Communications no I do not how about you I do not Doug uh yes I do I um attended meeting at their planning their planner's office which was in the same building as my office thank you Doug Jane Jim I had a zoom meeting with the uh developer on this issue to go over their revised plan after the first uh meeting thank you John yeah I also had a meeting with the applicant over Zoom okay um Amy all the emails that we received our part of the record because we have received several emails on this I'll I did not meet with a developer I'll also tell you that um I spoke with uh the mayor on this case and uh former uh council member bill vich um that's my exper all right Madam chair if the applicant is present um does the applicant have any questions to members of the LPA regarding the disclosures that have been made no questions okay thank you thank you Jason good morning good morning my name is Jason SM my name is Jason small I'm with planning and zoning department today I'm here to present the second uh second iteration of a plan that was Ted previously commonly known as the Estero Island Beach Club ATO Boulevard uh the request today I'd like to has been amended since the first time that it was before the including in included in those amendments is an additional request deviation height will be asking total above currently0 asking addal deviation number five that was originally requested this is the deviation to remove parking area of building and request a increased or area ratio unfortunately the request to remove Devi agenda will they are to bring the plan into the maximum by to and they will be requesting going forward the removal of that deviation excuse me can we take a recess just for a moment we're having problems with our sound we certainly can um we're just going to stop for a moment uh we're having problems with with a sound thank you Amy thank you e e e e e so we're going we're going to uh resume our meeting uh Jason go back uh go back to your spot but Nancy you don't think we need to repeat anything that's already been said no okay go ahead Jason okay um so as was said before uh this is a presentation for a stero Island Beach Club again they were removing one of their deviations and to uh stay to the 1.4 F Allowed by code uh 75 units and one of the changes in the iteration from the last plan you saw is a request for a total of 58 ft above uh the max 40 that is allowed for a total of 98 ft above the design flood flood elevation uh the applicant is here they do have a presentation and I will refer to them if there are any questions or concerns for me right now for the LPA to it okay any questions uh don do you have any questions for Jason right now how about you Jim did you not Doug none can you tell me do you know what the square footage of the units were before defer to the applicant as far as the floor layout so I do know that they they will be allow to develop 17,000 square feet spread across 75 units and they're asking for uh they are stating that they will be building 75 units and that they will stick to the 1.4 F of 117,000 square feet of usable space Jim any questions no for Jason how about you John none okay Jason we'll let you uh we'll let you rest for a moment we'll listen to the applicant good morning good morning um for the record Amy too with retzel and Andress Amy have you been qualified as an expert for the town of Fort Meers Beach I have not but I'm not an expert I'm an attorney we don't have to qualify attorneys no she's not providing um expert testimony um she's presenting the case on behalf of her client well it's very nice to meet you it's nice to meet you all as well thank you I hope you had a nice long weekend you did um I guess I'll wait for the presentation to come up but sorry Jacob are you going to take Don off and put the presentation up thank you sorry goodbye came with this could be interesting it won't work well while we wait for the presentation to come up I'll take this time to acknowledge um the town and uh how much we appreciate staff working with us not only going through the application process the first time around but working with us as we revised the proposal um so of course you will see those revisions here today but um we really appreciate you know the town working with us and their thoughtful review this particular request thank you you brought the fire station up we have these glitches every once in a while Amy there you go thank you Jacob I say that so again we represent we represent the Estero Island beach club and we are here requesting uh CPD zoning here we go um the project team includes Jeff huner and John Shaw who are with the Estero Island Beach Club association myself Fred Dr with rbii Tony stco with Mecca and Mike she with MK architecture Amy any relation to Randy T that's my father-in-law he is not involved with this project good thing no okay I'm just putting it out there oh no no I've know him a long time it there we go oh here we go so the request today is for C zoning again this is for the 1.92 Acres um located in the downtown zoning District that we are seeking to reone to CPD so the goal of this request is ultimately to allow this property to rebuild to the same density that existed prior to Hurricane Ian that is um 75 multifam and specifically time share units um again as Mr SMY already stated we are seeking a Max height of 98 feet measured from design flood that would be 10 stories um over parking and or Nine Stories over parking 10 stories total and um a total Florida area Florida area ratio not to exceed 1.4 um the slide represents the previous request prior to withdrawing that fifth deviation so again we're seeking an F 1.4 1.23 and now I will turn it over to Fred thank you good morning everybody good morning Fred good to seeing you thanks for having me back on this and giving us a chance to you know dig a Little Deeper make this project a little better and I think I think we've got there well hope your opinion is the same um so let's show you where we where we were before um so this was more of an engineered design um since that time we've hired MK architecture and Mike Mike she is here to answer questions about maybe some of the the layouts and Design that were made um this one was you know there was a lot of comments on this about it being confusing not really representing either what the town would want or what was really going to be built it just wasn't accurate enough and and it didn't look good enough honestly um so so now we have some new renderings we'll we'll get right in with those now I did provide um printouts of those because sometimes it's harder to see on the screen and look um so there's the packet of the renderings there's the Master concept plan package and then there's a conceptual landscape plan package as well on on 11 by 17 so you can see those better um those will be in the presentation so we will go over those but you have a place to write some good notes um so new architectural design so let me point out some of the features in my layman terms on this and if you want to dig deeper Mike's here um so to answer Jane's question right off the bat the the former units were just under 750 sare feet 13 or so the new units are about 875 uh in design so for each of the units are about 875 square feet um this building one of the comments right off the bat on the other building was that there was a lot of Mass on AO Boulevard there were some things about build two lines so we had the building set between that five and 10 foot build two line on a sto Boulevard and it was uh seven stories over parking so it was eight stories total on a stero Boulevard so what you see you see what we did and part of the reason that we did increase height in the back a little bit was to reduce height on a stero Boulevard to three uh three stories over parking and four stories over parking the three stories over parking are uh in the the lower the lower parts towards the um towards the north side there um those are living units beside Elevator Shaft and things and then on top of the that fourth floor is kind of an office and an open air area area um really is is just a good sales Center almost um but then also community room as well on the Upper Floor and then we'll show you a view of that that really gives a a nice look to that probably create a little bit of activity even though it's a little bit up in the air a little little Outdoor Activity one of the comments was well we should asked for a deviation about those build two lines to not have so much mass on the stero Boulevard so that is part of our deviation request today and we'll go over that but a big big big part of the feature that that we did was try to you know we're trying to rebuild these units to more a modern design that is attractive to the time share people so that they are willing to really reinvest in this project um and so we set back the building now 23 feet and from a stero Boulevard and providing a conceptual landscape plan that will lock us into you know uh Landscaping that in a positive way with uh Native vegetation salt salt tolerant uh vegetation coordinating with the the Garden Club on those types of of builds coordinate with staff on on those types of plants that will really survive and thrive in this environment um we also have a little bit bigger of a setback on Palm Boulevard so now part of the building is 10 feet there's some insets in that they're 13 feet and we'll have that landscaped as well um and let's go to the next picture so this one shows a little bit of the Landscaping along a sto Boulevard and those are some plants it may not be exactly what the conceptual landscape plan is showing but it's pretty close and and that's why we did the conceptual landscape plant we know you want assurances about what will be planted and built um so we do have that to lock Us in there and so this is our kind of our favorite view of this um few quick quick notes on here we do have a parking we do have islands in the parking lot we rendered this thing um just with honestly just without noticing that and then we redesigned the site plan to make sure and have uh the parking Islands in there as required so there's a little few more Palms in the parking lot but here just show the bird's eyee view looking towards the gulf and you can see the outdoor activity area on the on the fourth floor and um the building next to uh Diamond Head and the uh am men in the area we meeting parking um we're actually exceeding the required parking and we're within we're right around the spaces that they had originally and the parking worked well so we won't need any parking off site we're g to that's going to be fully contained on site in a positive way so and we were asked too what were some of the distances between the bu proposed building and Diamond Head so there we're showing that about 115t some depending on the maybe it's up to 120 or 125 ft from this building to the parking structure of Diamond Head so I think that's a that's I mean that's a pretty decent distance so the question was are we creating a corridor down this beach access that is going to be very negative I think the distance in between the two um hopefully you don't have the opinion that we are creating a CT or 120 120 ft is a fair distance would you mind pulling the microphone closer to you getting some complaints yes thank you very much the bu compromis one of the um really adjustments that were that were needed to be made based on uh the alternative designs that could be that could be done so staff you know pushed us initially to really find that view corridor versus sprawling uh a building out along the entire property so compared to the original that just had a few a drive a to look out to the golf this should provide a little bit better room and a little bit more of a view uh over the parking over the parking area and the landscaped area the site plan changes uh and a a few good ones one um I'll just go around the circle so we have one access onto myar we closed two accesses on a stero Boulevard so there were two curb Cuts so those will be closed so now the only accesses to the property are one off myar and then one off of Palm uh Avenue we moved the uh the dumpster area it was near the parking area on you know near the single family residence so we were able to flip it to the other side once we did the the site redesign and had enough room left that we it almost aligns exactly with the dumpster pickup for Diamond heads so those two will be actually a really convenient and quick way to do that and all the noise of that is is contained towards the Diamond Head the uh we showed the additional building setback and then the enhanced buffer on a stero Boulevard and the and the view shed um and they said 90 90 parking spaces and we're exceeding the requirements for the uh Land Development code the conceptual landscape PL so this was produced so that you would have some insurances so what we have on there is not the specific uh species that will be planted in the specific locations because again it's conceptual but we do have an entire list of species that are acceptable that were coordinated with the Garden Club and the staff and then we have the numbers of plants per veneer square feet linear square foot so as far as shrubs canopy trees uh hedge RS those kind of things along there so that gives locks us into a range of plantings that will be guaranteed and this is part of really the the concep or the master concept plan package at the end of the day that you approval for and here we show the islands in the middle of the parking area those are accurate we go beyond the CPD boundary on this just to show the existing Palms that are remaining so we do show the retaining wall and the existing stairs that were there and even though uh it's beyond the CPD line because that dark line that goes through that cuts through the the the pool that's on near the gulf is the CPD line we did show the historical P areas that to the retaining wall on this those are not part of this approval we would have to a special exception for those to rebuild those as they were and that'll be a next step that we'll we'll proceed to do after um we make it through this process hopefully we do um so so deviations we'll run through those real quick the so there's a couple of justun through just it out um so deviations uh there's required so there's a deviation for uh first floor of commercial building so this is a building that is entirely residential so there's no storefront or retail office um on this type of building it's just a time share building so this one in the in the downtown area is a consideration to allow that requirement because that's not the type of build you mind stopping for one second I I've had several people ask me what a deviation is and um because we have variances deviations special exceptions and whatever so a deviation just for everyone to know a deviation is uh we're asking for an exception to your rule so a deviation says we if your rule is uh 10 feet we don't want 10et we want 35 so that's what a deviation is okay yeah a variance yeah different different way of say it's a variance within the CPD and then if there's different criteria but there are specific but it does have to enhance and improve the project in some way um in this case it's just the type of build the LDC really would didn't allow for just the straight residential type building in the downtown area deviate from that no commercial so uh the next for uh is to screen the parking areas so this one we're we're deviating from this a lot less than we were so we we heard what you said about one you know where there is open air underneath to be able to see through the redesign of this there wasn't a whole lot of area to see through underneath but where that where you could see through we are proposing at least a five foot hedge to hide the uh cars the bumpers you may may see some tops of the SUVs or something over but for the most part you w't see that but in all the other areas we're proposing like living walls um and other green green areas to fully screen the underneath of that so from a sto Boulevard you would pretty much see Hedges and there's a little area underneath three story area where you can see through a little bit the rest of it have livings Andes aity deviations three or four are the ones that are know deviation three is for the height so that's the the big one talk that correctly at um and then the new deviation would be exceed the two lines of five to 10t so now we're proposing set back of 10t on Palm 23t on a stero Boulevard and then 50t on from on we actually are obviously set a lot away 50 that was we thought just good us into having a building on that side and the last deviation was you know there's been talk that that may amend the LDC to not include ground level parking as part of the Flor area ratio so we well that's true then let's let's ask for that deviation but honestly it did it all it did was make the numbers look better because when we went back to the drawing board we could meet the F of the the future Landes category now the zoning District so there wasn't any need for that deviation after all if the LDC gets changed then the FL ratio is calculated as less at time of development order but it doesn't really matter for our design we're going to meet the uh we're going to meet that code at 1.4 all right so some some of the benefits at least as we see them the benefits of the the additional height because that's really the decision here we you know we expl several different iterations of this um as low as we could and sprawling it out over the entire property we still had to be more than than the three stories in order to rebuild these to a modern design you know with Ada and having a little bit larger units um but so if we sprawled it out we would have still been probably four to five stories for most of the buildings in a really inefficient design you would see but building along a stair Boulevard there was a design we went that was about six stories maybe seven that was two separate buildings with the amenity Center in the middle so it did provide some View Corridor a lot less than we have now but it was still going to be taller and there were some other factors that we looked at um and at the end of the day we thought we push everything towards Diamond Head have a little bit of height there in the back now reducing it on a stair of Boulevard that this may what we think is the biggest benefit which is just a little more room view a little more view on a sto Boulevard but there are a few other some Pals and things but weiding official buffers on palar and a sto Boulevard and some of been enhanced and locked in with the conceptual landscape uh additional view view shed that we've mentioned um Quality design so it pushed us to really up this level of design where this is going to be you know one of those 50 to 100 Year buildings that is going to be stand the test of time and that was really the goal here um it obviously up the up the possible price of this and the amount of contribution that's going to be needed from the time shareholders but we think they'll be excited about this type of design and this type of quality versus one that we were trying to be you know just more efficient on as far as the overall budget sustainability is obvious um everybody has to meet sustain you know new sustainability requirements and pild requirements in the building code um but in the past there were 10 units that were over the cccl line so the the co St back line obviously that was part of the reason that it was going to be taller no matter what we did in order to get these units back we had to push those 10 units um back into the main site um and then uh safety so I think the safety part of that is just the tra the the curb cuts on the stair Boulevard and slowing down that traffic additionally um so better traffic circulation um so some things to consider so these were these are just some of my thoughts these aren't these aren right from the Land Development code this is just my thoughts on things to consider that as we're working with Ral we're working with uh Mike Shey and the team um the struggles that we had and some of the decision making that we did so the history of mean this was 1978 this started RL started managing in 2004 there's 3,800 little over 3,800 time share owners of this piece of property the and the estimated new bill that we proposed was about $34 million well in order to in order to fund this the banks we have to have a certain level of commitment out of the former time share owners so if we don't make something that they're going to be excited about because they have to reinvest now in 1978 some these people may bought this for $ thousand doll and they're paying maintenance fees maybe maybe less um and this is could be multiple multiple generations of people visiting the beach some of which by transfer into they love the beach and become residents and owners over time so this becomes a the time share has become a fabric of Fort Meers Beach and of the residents so Fred we're still getting comments it's difficult to hear you I just got to be right up yeah right up there okay there you go um the so we're thinking through that and because if people are going to get assess thousands of dollars for this new building which everybody wants back because what a piece of property it is right there on the beach and what a location they got they have to be excited about this or they're just going to take the be the buyback option that is happening um and if you fall below certain percentage we're not going to be able to be funded with a construction loan for the time share then one of the only options is going to be will we sell and then distribute the money to the time share owners and another developer will come in buy that piece of property for who knows how much and build what they wanted to build ask for additional density uh I would guess and build something with diamond head next to it that would push the push the limits of the height push the limits of the site plan with the additional density push the limits of the parking and not be just the 75 units trying to get those time share people back on the beach so that's what we're really trying to fight you know trying to fight through and out of efficiency of design and the quality of Design This and push and pushing everything away from myar the sacrifices the height the rest of it is I think an outstanding product at least in our opinion and so we tried as well as we could to meet this need to get those people back on the on the beach at the 3,800 owners these time shares that's three people on average per unit per stay that are coming in week after week uh and and really the economic impacts of some these time shares is phenom because I have a time share down here I show up with nothing go to Publix buy all my food go to the restaurants and eat out and hang out here for a week I mean we want these people back in here so that's how we were trying to think through these things um as we went so then um at the end of the day then staff is recommending approval with conditions we are in agreement with staff and their the analysis in their in their uh staff uh staff plan they find that we're consistent with the comprehensive plan and the policies there are listed um and obviously the one that we're requesting the deviation from is for the uh is for the height uh e e standing in the record um the number of units that's just like it was before so any traffic other than the the changes to the entrances there's no additional traffic impacts and so forth um and then your the variance you're requesting for setbacks is actually to increase the setbacks right correct yeah the has so you have a better landscape upper along the stero correct which is a kind of beautification so uh like Jim said uh I think this is a vast improvement over what we first looked at I guess my and you mentioned it because this is going to come up over and over again is you know how we address on Doug Jacob uh the vice mayor is sending a message saying that there's no sound at all were you coming in for the same reason and now he's saying it's back all right okay I'll get back in no one was talking how does he know yeah that's right how did you know that Jim if no one was talking Jacob do you think we're good to continue yes okay perfect so I'll continue so um you know I really what we're seeing here uh looks really good and you did listen to some comments we made at the last meeting I guess the elephant in the room is we're going to be seeing a lot about more height more stories and this is not maybe maybe you know I don't know how what's what's the tallest building on the island right now do anybody know 13 stores on on the south end 15 stories over parking I think that's our water side so um and you're not asking for that height but I guess this is more of a general comment I think we really need to think about how we're going to address height requests because there's a lot of negative public we're getting a lot of emails and letters and the biggest issue seems to be height like the town was funded was founded because we didn't want a bunch of tall buildings now I understand what you're saying that you know maybe let's not shoot ourselves in the foot because really if we allow some taller buildings that are intelligently done and architecturally done it's actually kind of in my opinion might be better than just sprawled out over the site meeting all the requirements by compacting them you've got a lot more green space open space which is a good thing and it's sort of a trend I think in Urban Design but um we're we're getting a lot of push back on approving taller buildings I don't know if like Council or if we need to rethink how we how we reconcile that because that's I like your project but I'm hesitant to vote for it just simply because we really haven't figured out how we're handling it's a pretty extreme I mean you're talking about twice the height or more more really which on the sound of it is pretty extreme request everything else looks great and that looks great too and looking at it that way but I'm hesitant to Doug Jim has a comment on what you're gonna say go ahead Jim well it's just a perspective and every decision we make rule we put in place policy we approve it has a consequence and there's several of them converging here in my mind you've got bucor priorities which means less buildable space without height we have a new partner in the mix FEMA you can't do you must do you won't do we won't approve that changes it and then we're trying to put an aesthetic component on top of the design of these buildings that gives them the view that you're looking at something gradual versus something Stark well therefore last two units by which we build on have got to exceed what all four or five or six of them would have been had they not been stair stepped so this is just a consequence in my mind of the inevitability of the things that we said we value and the developers the The Architects are reacting I think in good conscience to what we said we value the most and they have to adjust their Footprints and floor plans accordingly so while it doesn't solve the question about height we could remove other components and this height would come back down I think we've rolled pretty far into this conversation about what we prioritize here and what we value and here's the consequence of that so I'm not as bothered by that because I believe it's a direct outcome of what we've already said we want you're looking at and we have to just adjust our thinking to take in consideration those other points have one last uh comment that's good thanks Jim um and this has come up before because this is it's a very nice looking building it's going to be expensive to build and there is a little concern that we approve variances and everything but what actually gets built is not doesn't is not the same thing as we're looking at pictures so I just want to be clear that if we approve this it's on the condition that what's built actually substantially looks like what you're showing us not something different yeah and we did come knowing that that's been a recent discussion that is something that's uh POS then that is Jan well my my comments are basically that we have to look at each project separately so by voting for one doesn't mean that everybody else is going to get approved based on this one getting approved the key thing here is that there is actually 75 units they're not asking for 150 they're not asking for 76 they're asking for 75 and their units if if they were 750 adding 125 square feet for bathrooms hallways for handicap accessibility and all of that is pretty dious as far as you know they're not asking for another room you know so they're not making three bedrooms or four bedrooms they're just making hallways in living space to get around that way J can we get a can we get a clarification on that because um as I was just trying to get some background information um the Estero Island beach CL website states that there are 400 and 475 square foot rooms and there is one two-bedroom unit in that plan so there's a discrepancy between what the website said of an average of 475 square feet and what you're telling us of 730 and 875 wait we we you can't speak from there so you could you can um you could come to the microphone and say your name for the record get close to it get close to the microphone and John were you sworn in thank you I can't he not included in the other and we have added bathroom an additional bathroom handicap bathroom uh so there was just some that's as far as I understand that's the calculation differences okay 0 the 8 requirements and again but there was the others had no calculations for the Balcones which are included in that that correct in the new calculations yes okay okay thank you okay go ahead Jane sorry I just so I I feel that that's reasonable um but the question uh so then I started looking for the height of the floors and it's 10 feet I'm sure the other ones were 8 feet MH and you know today's standards 10 ft is pretty much the standard would you say yeah nine to 10 yeah somewhere in between so the only place that there's area to bring it down would be to bring it down 9 feet is that you know worth it I don't know um it would you know it could bring it down a few feet 10 feet 10 feet so um that's an option um other than that um they are staying within the uh far which is what we also are looking for and we are required to go up and they are St stepping it so it won't be such a mass on a stero Boulevard which I think is very important um I do hear the neighbor saying you know uh all the traffic on myamar but it's either that or we'd have to have staging or to get into the building off of a stero so this allows the staging to be you know not that everybody's G come at the same time any other questions for Frank for Fred Frank oh that would be bad for me to give you another name no I just wanted to confirm that those were the basic standards okay thank you Jane Jim I'll defer my comments until after I hear the public thank you John uh I just have a question as to the 50 Foot to mirar why are you not stating the uh we could well I would like a little bit of flexibility in design but I mean we could say more than 50 and I could probably give you that number yeah just interested what I know we can do 75 I'm not sure if we can get I'm not sure about the I don't think 100 feet but we could we could go more it's just to the point I think that was made that we all have uh signaled that we'd like to see what is built is what is represented right and that's I think just a consistency that we have yeah um other than that I I I would Echo I think a lot of the comments which is that you have listen to the concerns that we had around massing um I I understand that there's a trade-off between height and view corridors and and and quite frankly you know there's no increase in density here and a minimal increase in the in the floor space so I I think that in my opinion this has this has been really responsive to a lot of the concerns that we have Don do you have any questions no questions Echo what was said I really appreciate the uh it's clear that um somebody took notes and listened to uh the feedback and um I I just want to mention you know I did the same as you and looked at the website and uh what the old buildings were and you know kind of you see the beach before and those kind of things but I I think they've uh they've addressed all of that and again Echo what every one of the folks have said here I think I agree with every one of them thank you Don Fred so you're a planner and I'd like you to talk for a second about density and intensity so clearly this is a far greater uh the intensity of this project is greater um by the nature of the size of the rooms the height um um so you know I I tie density and intensity together I know they're different uh and I know uh it's nice to say it's only 75 units and we're asking for 75 units and we'll hear this more as cases come before us but the intensity of this project is different um so could you just talk about that for a moment um yeah so some of the felt intensity is is going to be that we have less land to build on than was previously because those units over you know were in part were over the line that they should have been over so bringing those back would create um well just less buildable area so those those new units were going to be uh you know put in that same area so it would feel more intense in that way um the intensity overall of this uh well I guess we could argue either way in some ways so I felt that the intensity of the other one was uh of the former build was was similar but it was just it was just lower but on the site the intensity of the actual build was pretty significant there were just some Drive aisles and some parking areas there was parking out on you know directly out on the Palm Avenue um that intensity with no buffers or anything to me um we tried to minimize some of that new intensity by providing those larger green spaces and the traffic circulation and the safety concerns and other things because it was wall to--all pavement for for the most part for those who H so low lowering that so we tried to fight against the intensity of the building is is more intense obviously it's bigger it's uh but it does have intensity so we try to balance that with other things the the open view to the to the gulf which we're all getting more and more used to buildings to look through so for the time being so that the buffers better traffic circulation all the other things that really would made feel busyness from wallt toall um we tried to fight against that intensity of the building itself to provide you know okay um so I Echo John's concern about about a uh nebulous uh distance on Miramar I think that needs to be a firm number uh you know you're you're you're making a presentation I'm also concerned about the conceptual nature of your Landscaping plan when you it shouldn't be conceptual it should be a plan uh because it does give you a range but it doesn't give any Assurance to the public and that's our job to protect the public interest so you think about that while we listen to some public comment and then I'll share some other concerns with me any other questions for um for Fred before we go to public comment okay thank you very much Fred thank you uh if anybody would Jason were you gonna say something before we go in no okay um so if you would please state your name for the record when you come up um and the limit is three minutes to speak so who would like to speak on this case come on up I'm sorry I would have called you by your name but I don't know your name uh I'm Nancy Walker hi Nancy I'm not an engineer or architect I'm just a concerned resident of this beach that votes um this project and many of the projects you'll be voting on in the future weeks and months will effectively determine the future of our town for our little island this is important as important as the past efforts to block the development of the Estero Bay Area and make our Estero Bay Preserve um the developer plans back then were beautiful they promised tax ratables they promised improved economy jobs and restaurants all the same things um but the voters of Lee County stopped that development this and we're going back 203 years um we you the council have the same chance to keep our Paradise a paradise imagine a town of rebuild homes and condominiums that conform to the community development plan for height with obvious exceptions for fud right for FEMA we know that imagine how beautiful our town will be without giant multi-story complexes looming down over a stero in the beach imagine what a unique Barrier Island we could we can make many times I hear in planning uh well what did santel do well look at sanabel go stand on the beach and look at santel you can see it from here what do you see do you see multi store Condominiums and hotels now go to Santa Belle and look at our beach because I've done that stand by the lighthouse and look at Fort Myers Beach what do you see you see large large buildings and that's why we became a town for the height orn or ordinance um we don't need any more of these please protect Fort Myers Beach from this overdevelopment the the esta Island beach club I feel bad for the people just like we all have lost something um they want to rebuild they should be able to rebuild but there should be a way they can do it within the height ordinance they had almost the same the same number they're not increasing density or F or whatever we call it um but they don't need to go 10 stories um we kept Margaritaville from going up that high or as high as he wanted to go that was a long battle this is the first of many many battles don't be swayed by Promises of restaurants crossovers um tax income increased beach access these items are small tidbits used to like to catch a big fish like bait don't get hooked by that shiny lore there are concerned residents and voters and we're beginning to organize and we're watching you now you have a chance to make a real true gem on Fort Meers Beach if we keep the height within our CPD plan or whatever it's called the comprehensive plan um please stick to the plan and don't let us down thank you thank you Nancy I appreciate it uh yes sir sir were you signed were you sworn in I was not okay but I have no problem the lovely Amy will swear you in now as I find my script Amy you don't know that by heart now I do as soon as I anybody else okay can you raise your right hand do you swear or affirm that the testimony that you are about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes I do hold on one second I think Jacob's gonna make a switch with the microphone there you go hello I don't know we'll see okay yes hi good morning my name is Gordon stow and we own the property directly across street un that it's not exis but when we purchased thisty we actually did some analis direct down was a hug investment back back then the storm for us so now what they are proposing is just ridiculous it'll take away completely all of our views the way the building was Prior with left right left down the middle we would have no objection with that but to build a building dead center in the middle there's no way that we could allow that like we would have to fight this every which way possible use you know the terminology of Legally but um that's what has to be done to stop this we have no problem doing that now in the meantime we've done we've hired the neighborhood which is a local organization kind working with the city everybody to see about what we could do to re we've been offered a lot of money from developers that want to come in and buy we own the property behind us on Ohio Avenue the first residential but we know we've been approached we don't want to do that we you know we love this town we are locals we live here and the last thing we want to do is sell to a developer and have some come in to build a 10 story building where our proper is because that's what will happen somebody will buy the property next to us combine it all and now you're going to have an acre across the street from here and they're going to want to build a story building also I I personally think what was there was wonderful you know it's a shame that they lost like the lady said before us we've all lost a tremendous amount of money tremendous amount of Heartache um you know we put a lot lot into our property and now it's gone so we're looking to rebuild but we're looking to rebuild the height restrictions that are there PDS architecture that we've retained and we've already spent like $20,000 on architectural fees and we have pretty much just a rendering but everything is under the 40 40 foot height um when we approach The Architects and the and the uh the neighborhood organization the whole thing was to stay conforming to stay into the very not to not to you know uh push the envelope of Heights or anything like that just let us build back what's legal right now and move forward so as far as we're concerned um we'll do everything in our power to try to stop this because it'll just decimate the value of our property so we have a property that had Gulf views and now we're we're going to have a 10 story building directly in front of us what can we possibly build there to recoup our values there's nothing except for to invest more money buy more property and and do the same thing there and that's not what we want to do okay thank you very much Gordon is there anybody else who'd like to speak on this Mike good morning Mike Mike Mike Will you pull that down there you go that help that does okay I have one suggestion instead of going up why can't they go sideways you know if you did three stories sideways over the property and you had the ground floor as parking you have the whole property that's parking and go side sideways instead of going up now Red Coconut wants to put a 17-story building up this is going to set precedence on all of this stuff but why can't they do that why do you need one tall 17 story building or seven story building as opposed to going three stories sideways just a suggestion thank you Mike anybody else yes ma'am good morning good morning um I'm Magdalena Hager with Ral and I am the broker for a stero Island Beach Club um we have listened to the planning agency's requests um and we've had the option to stay lower floors uh but we took into consideration the corridor view the open view that was asked of us and we took into consideration the setbacks we also have the FEMA setbacks that we had to meet those requirements as well um there are Generations at this property and it is a beachfront property the properties located across the street are not beachfront properties they are across the street from the beach and as much as we want to say everyone can keep exactly what they had you're not able to do that anymore it it's unfortunate it's a hurricane came in and wiped us out um I was there I stood and watched everything wash away underneath me um we were standing at 17 ft and the water was right underneath us um so I I saw it and it's sad but we also have to meet the requirements that are set in front of us um this is not our first time in front of you and we have consistently triy to meet um the what you've been looking for um at first it was we just were coming in for a height variance we came in we had a property that was designed and then we came back with additional views um and trying to meet those requirements from the last time spending a lot of money on this project and we're just asking that that you know we are able to move forward we're able to give these 75 owners um well 300 800 3,895 unit week owners the ability to come back to this island where they love and I thank you for your time thank you very much Magdalen is there anybody else who'd like to speak yes David yeah my name is David leay with a 1920 bayew Drive which is right across the street right next to where used to be um I first have a housekeeping issue with the way this whole project was brought before you we uh what should have been done was to have community meeting first with the owners and developers of the property to go over all these issues it's really taken a lot of everybody's time which could have been addressed at like we're seeing at the of the other there significant opposition some of these issues we have to address it I'll just go right to the issue View Corridor sounds to me what I'm hearing is I really feel bad for the developer is that they came up with a by right plan they could develop at a low level then they were apparently steered by the town to somehow go with for and pight where did that come from I mean our town development code says three stories above aring that's what it says so everything is to me as a Dom minimist should be if you can't meet that you know you really have to have an extreme benefit and this view quarter actually it's an arbitrary location why is it located on mear why isn't the view quarter expanded on the pawn Avenue side which is my side which is his side it makes no sense it's arbitrary and there was no input from the citizens to give any input at all whatsoever to make that happen uh height basically this is a de facto precent if you allow this to happen you're basically approving height for the rest of the essentially what you have is you already have a pres it's called Margarita bill that's three stories above parking that's the way in my mind everything from Diamond Head North any new project that's in that area should be to that that's that it's way too big what I suggested I think I copied you all in on an email I sent Amy and you should have it distributed is we should have a revision a review of what the public benefits are what the value of view quarters really is because essentially what you're saying is a 10 story building is equal to a little bit of a view of a parking lot at one end on miror I think that's right so appreciate your input um I'm looking forward to see a Citizens Community but this whole process is backwards we're having all these citizens oppositions at an LBA meeting we should have had way thank you David is there anyone else who'd like to speak seeing none I'll close the public hearing portion of this um is there any followup from the applicant that you'd like to make so Madame chair I'd also like to um ask the applicant have you had a copy have you been given these emails that have been discussed have you been able to see them and do you have were you provided a copy of the um agenda packet prior to the meeting for review we were provided a the agenda packet but we have not seen the would you like to review them now Amy that would be wonderful okay okay thank you um go ahead Rie um I would just like to make a really quick comment and um if the town attorney disagrees with please let me know but case law when it comes to deviations and variances really clear that um you know this is a really sight specific request yes it's not precedent setting but that is the public The public's impression is always if you do this for them you've got to do it for everyone of course and politically and and I mean you understand the general the general feeling is that of course they're going to but it is not precedent setting yes and I certainly don't envy you know the predicament that that it puts you in both now and later on but I just wanted to clarify that and I appreciate appreciate your understanding absolutely let's take a let's take a few minute break and let the applicant review the emails if they have any um any comments on that and just to advise the LPA not to speak to anybody or we have to disclose further expart so we're going to take a five minute break e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e we're back live and um Miss TBO will you come back up and and did you have any further comments I'm GNA turn the microphone over to Mike Shey who is our architect with MK architecture and he's going to discuss um some of the height and massing issues that have been discussed here thank you very much thank you Mr Shey good morning good morning were you sworn in sir I was yes but I've not been previously list qualified as an expert so could you tell us what your expertise is and your qualifications sure I'm a registered architect in Florida I have been since 1984 I'm a for former resident of Fort Meers Beach I lived here from about 69 to about 75 back in the good old days had Cottages down at 5370 so I'm very familiar with this but uh I've had my own firm for the last 30 years or so thank you Mr Sheely could I have a motion to accept Mr she I'll make a motion to accept Mr Sheely as an expert thank you second there's a motion in a second any objection to that motion you're officially you're officially an expert thank you okay uh just a couple of items I wanted to mention with this design um we've talked about the building height and that the floor to floor right excuse me right now that we we' designed is 10 foot floor to floor which yields a 9 foot6 unit ceiling height previously they were an 8ot ceiling height we could lower the building slightly say to give them a 9ft ceiling height which would lower the building five or six feet whether that really makes any difference visually in terms of the building I don't think so but we could do it if it's if it would be your preference uh secondly I wanted to mention that U that while we have a 10 story portion of this building we have designed this to put it close to Diamond Head because if you look at Diamond Head now it's a 12 13 story block that sits there and blocks everything to the waterall right so we chose to put this thin building which is and it's very thin 10 story building because it's only one one unit deep and shoved it over as far as we could toward Diamond Head so that the mask can stay over there and the rest of the site can be open so while it's 10 stories over there and in front we only have four stories over parking three and four uh you know probably 75% of the site is open above that fourth floor so it's not like we're building a wall That's blocking you know along a sto Boulevard because this building runs perpendicular you know down Palm but it's a slight angle but basically perpendicular from the stero to the G so it's in my opinion the best way to handle that that that height and we needed the height of course to achieve the density be able to provide basically half the site as an open viewp that's all I wanted to mention unless you want me to mention yeah we we relooked at the site plan instead of that 50 feet from from myar we we can easily achieve 90 so that you want to make that part of part of the uh the uh packet then that's fine and unless you have any other questions on the units or anything be happy to answer thank you sir hold on does anybody have a question for Mr she Doug I do and I know we're not supposed to be designing your project for sure and I get that but uh based on what you just said it occurs to me that might be it might not be more acceptable to the public that the long thin building next to the Diamond Head is a story taller and the building that fronts a stero is a story shorter that's a possibility it just might be more acceptable to the public any other questions for Mr Shey thank you so much much we appreciate you being here um Madam chair um I'm not certain that the record contains um the staff recommendation for this particular item staff recommendation is for approval with conditions yes um and perhaps staff can State what the conditions are okay if if you don't have them do that let could I just finish first with the applicant to see if there's any other questions of the applicant from the LPA or any followup on your part Fred little bit of followup um so on the so on the conceptual landscape plan um so I'm not sure to the extent that would satis by the comment that was made about so what we tried to do was was was was show I know why that made me laugh was show a plan um what we have listed on there is the potential species that we coordinated with staff in the Garden Club and then we called out along the uh perimeters how many trees per 100 line how many shrubs how many ground cover in numbers the only thing we didn't do because we just don't know what we don't know yet based on the project is really designed this to a the development order level that would show exactly every single species in every location because some of that we just don't know where the Footers of the buildings are and what kind of infrastructure in different places and we don't and we're coordinating with you know power and other utilities and things that we just don't know exactly it's not you we just don't know exactly what can what what will survive in some of those places so that's the that's the battle that we were going we trying to lock ourselves into we are going to landscape this pretty well based on here's our numbers that we need to put on there here's our number of plants and we're calling out taller trees shorter trees under story and that kind of stuff so to lock Us in farther than that I I I don't know we're going to get development order and I don't know if we're going to be able to adhere to some of those just based on the final bills but we're willing to do whatever we can without making trouble when they get to the development stage so okay thank you Fred all right anything else for the applicant from anyone any other followup I think uh yeah Amy has a few little summar okay yep so just to summarize as we're all aware this request is simply a request to be able to build back the 75 units that existed prior and some of some of the changes is that we're that we need to address from a regulatory perspective are the current theme of flood maps the CC the updated floor to building code updated Land Development code and comprehensive plan um and the current Florida Uh current ADA requirements all of these current regulations are vastly different than what were in place when this original development was constructed in the 70s so we are just trying to work within those requirements to provide something that not only you know gives these time share owners back the units that existed but that also meets the goals you know that the town has set forward and the priorities that yall have stated like The View Corridor and those issues um I did have a chance to read through those emails um you know again most of the concerns dealt with height I will note um I saw some comments about concurrency you know how is this going to affect traffic and utilities again we're not um we're not increasing density so therefore the concurrency analysis doesn't change there should be no additional traffic impacts there should be no additional um utilization of other public facilities to do what we are trying to do here I also wanted to quickly address a comment that somebody had had about storm water management because we are building back we do need to go and completely re permit this site with South Florida Water Management District that means that we are we are going to have to provide a storm water management system that meets the 2024 regulations not the 1978 regulations so um you know we can certainly assure that the storm water management facilities that you will be seeing are far superior Superior to what existed prior um with that are there any questions for me any questions for Miss Ste thank you very much thank you so much Jason Jason SMY planning and zoning department um so just to reiterate uh staff had uh had recommended a approval with conditions uh staff just wanted to lay out the conditions that were included in the initial staff report and then go over what we've heard so far from you uh during this LPA meeting so initially there were two conditions of approval uh one was a boilerplate reminding the applicant that they uh have to come back for New permitting should another storm or or natural disaster occur and they need to rep permit just boiler plate information uh one one additional comment that we had made during the review process is we are asking uh the developer to make sure that they have signs on the Ingress egress on Palm Avenue just to ensure that it's notifying the uh people in cars the motorists coming from their site that there will be pedestrians and people on bike uh on the beach access and to take extreme care as they uh turn left out of the building onto Palm to then access uh access Estero during this meeting we have also heard uh what I believe is two additional conditions of approval that have been brought up uh one was to specify that the architectural package will be substantially similar to the um to what actually appears on the ground so we've heard that from LPA today also in reference to uh landscape buffers it may be beneficial to go ahead and just Define or have them Define what their buffer is going to be so for instance something like a type B buffer uh exclusively planted with Florida friendly species so that would uh give them a little guard rails about what species would be uh correct for that area and would be sustainable in there and then it would also Define what the actual buffers would be as opposed to just how they've designed it with additional buffer space so that may be an option to put into the conditions of approval uh staff is here for questions or concerns on what I've just went over here or anything else has been brought up there this speak thank you thank you Jason uh don do you have any questions followup for the staff we can't hear you you're muted there you go we can't hear you at all sign language Don we're gonna come back to you if you hear me John any questions for Jason uh no I'm good right now Jim questions for Jason no j no not at this time uh Doug any questions further for for Jason just one comment and I wasn't sure I followed it there was a mention of a that from the architect they could do 90 feet on mirar is that like a buff or what we need to add that to the uh the 90 ft what what did that refer to exactly it referred to the setback from myamar oh the setback from we might want to make that a condition yeah the architect confirmed that that's they could do um Jim any questions for Jason just one quick one Jason you talked about egress um on Palm I from what I read in the specs isn't aren't there also traffic arms that are required to go through other than just a stop sign did I read that they were going to have some sort of barrier so I caused a pause before you went out so they can choose to put a barrier up there uh that would require a setback off of Palm but uh they are not required to put a barrier this would the signage itself would just be to notify people coming off of their property to watch out for pedestrians fighers Jason yes ma'am um I'm gonna ask this question a lot of Staff because I keep getting asked the question which is um what impacts do you think this new development will have relative to uh FEMA's impression of the build back of our Comm of our our community will it have a positive or negative impact so we're we're speaking exclusively from flood resistance here sure okay so absolutely the buildings themselves uh the original design as we could see from the storm uh lower levels were inundated uh the new design as a rule of thumb is somewhere between 19 and a half and 20 feet before you get to the top beam and so my impression as a nonexpert here would be as far as uh flood engineering is that this will provide an extra amount of protection and if we do experience a surge event like we saw this time with 15 plus foot uh surge these new buildings are going to be largely above it and what is going to be impacted by waves is going to be much less than what we saw PR storm so in my opinion these are more sustainable more hardened buildings and so do you think that that benefits us relative to absolutely I think the ability to go through a similar event and come out uh with buildings still intact in people's lives not utterly destroyed I I think that's a net benefit to theity go ahead so basically um this is something I I think that doesn't understand is that just Don we getting some feedback looks like it's coming from youan on can you guys hear me we can hear you fine there's also some noise we also hear some rattling noise yeah it is weird Okay goad question is you know by right is the question I want to kind of discuss the the property had 75 units and by right they can build back 75 units using the post disaster build back they would be allowed to vest that 75 units correct okay so for instance the property is this thing okay so you know people are saying we want them to build this size and get all the 75 units in here but that may mean that they have to reduce the size even less than what they had previous to get them in that four over parking or or whatever or they can go this way and give you Corridor and setbacks and and wind and sun and things like that to the rest of the neighborhood because they are on the St so that when you drive down the store you get either this is the size of the property they going to have setbacks on either side and you can either pick up the whole proper side to get your space or by changing it to this direction and not even the whole be this direction it does give a different perspective and either one is correct yeah I don't I don't know if I can assess the validity of of two different designs but staff staff did go into the project with the understanding that uh if the applicant was not able to put their building stretched across the entire property that they would be obligated to give a a view p in my opinion through the iterations of this plan uh We've we've held true to what the code is telling us which is if you are not going to if you are not going to make a very a low building that stretches across the entire property you need to give the view ship so they have gone and and provided 170 ft which is timately the amount of space that they had for their main building not taking into account the previous building that would have taken up a large chunk of what is now used so in our opinion pushing everything off to one side especially uh to the side where the large uh the large building already is Diamond Head uh opens up the space it opens up the view but also brings some of the impact away from the individual single family uh homeowners that are going to be on the other side of pal mirar uh it it opens that up and and brings a little bit more light a little bit more air and and less uh in my opinion claustrophobia from stretching that building across the entire site which would have been only one choice for design they remember this the design here with the open space was already accounted for in the code this wasn't something that was just thought up of uh during meetings this was one of two options that they could have taken so they've decided to take the open space and then clustering the bulk of the building to one side that's it's a viable option at inut and and what is your opinion of the difference of 125 ft per per unit um with uh handicap accessibility and for the bathroom and hallways that's you find that to be dominous um so I think the additional Ada space I can't I can't really speak to it professionally because I don't deal with Ada but but I think everybody recognizes that a building that was built in the late 70s just doesn't have the same amenities our our understanding of the use and the needs of people that might have uh life limitations they they've only expanded since the 70s so I think the increase in the space if we're attributing that to wider hallways wider doorways larger turnaround area in a bathroom uh I think that's a viable tradeoff and uh it's relatively di Minimus to the larger size of the of the building any other questions for Jason Jason thank you very much appreciate it okay um Jim I think I'm pretty clear where you stand did com Don whatever you did you got rid of the buzzing sound go ahead but you're gone yeah I turned the camera off thinking maybe it's the bandwidth I'm not sure but anyway no I I think the uh the questions got answered so okay thank you very much um any other comments or discussion you gonna say something I'd be happy to I'm waiting for it okay pull your mic towards you a little bit perect thank you okay yeah first I'll start with some comments and then I guess uh my opinions first um each of these projects that come before are independently looked at they don't necessarily set any precedent for any future development on any other site um we we hear that um stick to the code well the CPD process is part of the code so the fact that the applicant on any project has made a request that is according to code the comments about follow the process we're following a statutory process we are step by step following what we have to do the fact that you know other applicants may want to have a neighborhood meeting that's great and it's beneficial but it's not a requirement statuto Estero Boulevard the height on this proposal building the three story is no higher than Margarita build the height primarily is along Palm uh Avenue this project was always going to be higher than what was there before first FEMA has got a requirement that we raise the projects all of the projects have to be raised Additionally the 10 units that were beyond the CCL line that they have a right to build is going to force the project to go up I do think that the landscape plan needs to be nailed down and if Chef is uh satisfied that with the parameters that Jason mentioned it is sufficient to do that that's fine um but in the in the tradeoff for the there are a number of of benefits that I see to the public first we're eliminating um two curb cuts on um Estero traffic is a problem and the more curb Cuts we can eliminate we're going to eliminate congestion of people trying to get in and out there's also one uh curb cut being eliminated at mirror Mark so I think we're helping the overall traffic um I think from the first plan we see greater setbacks um the landscape plan um if we can nail it down is I think very good my background originally is as a landscape architect and I liked what I saw here um and the view corridors is something that I think Town Council has said is a priority to them so I think the the applicant in this case did listen to what uh the LPA had to say during the first uh presentation and has brought back a better project for our consideration thank you can I move um like to comment on what what you said um what if this might be another condition um I think the building on a stero is actually one story higher than the code but it looks like it could be fixed I think portion of it is three three stories and portions four the three-story portion would be the same as Mar correct so what if uh the condition was that the building that front of the stero would meet the code of 40 ft above base flood no more than three stories but the long thin building that's up against Diamond Head we would relax the height there to give them the extra space they need and maybe like I said go another story or something on that one I think I think that might be more acceptable to the public but I agree it's it looks like a really well thought out project and a lot of benefits but that one that height issue is a big issue but as an pointed out at the last meeting we can only consider what's been presented by the applicant correct thank you but you know what's good that you're talking about that because the applicant could present that as an option to the Town Council um yeah so you know I think it's pretty clear to everybody that this is going to pass but let me tell you uh just a couple of comments from me I have lost sleep over this and it's primarily because of those generations of people who have had owners the OWN owners of this property because I know so many of them so many of them were friends of my parents they're I talked at the very first meeting about these two sisters that I met that I looked diligently for on Facebook I wish one of them would reach out to me because I can't get them out of my head and yet I can't find a way to approve this it's G to pass but it's I I just keep so the other thing that I've had in my head so many of you know that I was here at Incorporation and Diamond Head is the beacon of our incorporation and a lot of it was because of height it wasn't the only reason and I realize that we're I'm just telling you what I've thought about the last few days so you know where my thought process is um as far as a public benefit to this parcel the public benefit you could say is The View on a sterile Boulevard but the public doesn't have access to that benefit so I can't put it in the public benefit category and I I have looked at this every which way I agree with everything my counterparts have said here I agree with them and I admire and respect their point of views but I still can't support this because I can't escape the very premise of you know Jim said you you get it's a trade-off everything's a trade-off and he's absolutely right so we've talked about wanting this View Corridor and we do want it but what's the trade-off somebody still gets to redevelop their 75 units and the trade-off is they've got to go somewhere right but I I I'll tell you what I would like to see happen in the future in the very very near future is that the Town Council and the Planning and Zoning Board have a conversation about what we're going to do about this as we go forward because George the owner of the Leaky TI is absolutely right everybody's going to come in with this height deviation everyone and every time it comes in we're going to hear from people of our community Like Jesse Titus who served on the local planning agency who had some very compelling comments in social media they're going to bring up this issue of why did we incorporate because of height and they're also going to bring up the issue of well but it's bigger it's more intense it may still be 75 units but it's much more intense we'll hear that with the Seagate development and and I find myself truly perplexed about this what Jane did this here's your building or here's your building I have been doing that for 10 years people have seen me do it for 10 years and I agree this is the same building but our community isn't ready for this I don't think yet unless we can get together and talk about it and say you know what a major catastrophe hit us this is going to be a better project than what existed before obviously because it crumbled uh and uh and now I feel like I'm rambling I'm I'm trying to explain to you all why my vote is going to be what it is and it's because I don't feel like we have truly vetted this concept of going 10 stories so I'll tell you the last 10-story building that was built here was by London Bay in um in Bay Beach and 20 some years ago when that was debated in this community dear Lord was that a drama it was a huge drama and and here we are again faced with something at a very different moment in our history and I just think there needs to be uh these Concepts need to be more fully vetted in with our community and with the Town Council and with the local planning agency and that's all I have to say and now I'll ask for a motion I'm move approval of ordinance 24-28 um consistent with the staff recommendations and adding the additional additional conditions that have been brought forward today consistent with the comprehensive plan I second so the the motion was made by by um by Jim Dunlop and seconded over here by my friends John and Jim but we can only have one of them so we'll use John give okay I'll give it to John um uh Jim are you also going to include in your motion the 90 foot minimum setback from Miramar is that included in your yeah the two additional or three additional um components we had as conditions of approval I think Jason captured those but they are included in my motion okay that would be the architectural representations the 90 foot and to better Define the land plan absolutely okay and you agree with that John I do okay uh is there any discussion on the motion Don you have anything to add on this nothing to add thank you okay uh so I'll call for your vote Jim hi John hi Jim I don I Jane I uh Doug I'm gonna vote nay uh not just like this largely the same reasons an need mention there's a The public's not ready for these higher buildings yet I think there's some education that has to take place and the fact is it's a pretty big it's a pretty big leap from our you know our ordinance so uh I like the project I think they really listened and it's much improved over what we first saw but I have to vote now okay uh my vote is also no but um I explained it to you so uh the motion carries five to2 uh okay uh thank you all very much for your time and attention on this matter uh I think a bunch of people are going to leave so we'll just wait a minute before we go on to the next hearing really good comments you know what 2427 uh DCI 202 4155 2545 and 2555 EST stero Boulevard this is the fire department case an ordin an ordinance of the town of Fort Meers Beach Florida approving approving with conditions or denying the commercial plan development CPD Zoning for the property located at 2545 and 2555 EST stero bouvard generally identified as strap numbers 1946242 48.00 00000000 uh 19 4624 w348 45810 in Fort Meers Beach to allow a fire station and a mixed use development including Civic residential lodging retail office and Marine uses providing for other clarifications as necessary providing for conflicts of law scriveners errors severability and providing for an effective date okay Judith thank you very much uh Fort Meers Beach Fire Control District is requesting to rezone um parcel at 2545 and 2555 Aero Boulevard from a CPD to a CPD um this is necessary to allow for um the fire station use use which is considered an essential service which is not covered under the current CPD the um Parcels comprise a 2.16 acre tract where the former Topps uh shopping center was located the front parcel um on a stero Boulevard is approximately 1.17 Acres um and the remaining 0.99 Acres um is at the uh rear of the property and is intended to be developed later um you'll see on the master concept plan is the fire station um itself um since no master concept is included for that remaining .99 um Acres a a CPD Amendment um and master concept plan would be required when that development was to come forward um they're bringing this now um because they're eager to get their fire station um uh built and and up and running um it's important to point out the applicant is requesting six deviations um they're mainly related to its use um as a fire station and to make the site um usable by emergency uh Vehicles which have different turning radiuses and and such um and I'll go into those in a second it's important to not the exist existing CPD zoning um uh list of uses is actually being reduced so what could be built on that rear parcel um the list of available land uses um is reduced including uh important to note that um the deleted uses include restaurant bar cocktail lounge um and on pre on premises consumption of alcohol so the um staff and applicant felt that the by removing these uses we're removing the potential for certain nuisances um such as noise that would impact the single family neighborhood um bordering it to the um to the north um and the list of uses is is there um in your packet um so the requested list of deviations as I said they mainly relate to the um parking and the use and the the navigation of these you know oversized emergency vehicles deviation one um is to deviate from the type D site perimeter right of way buffer standard that requires a 15 foot landscape buffer with five trees per 100 linear feet um uh as you can imagine with emergency vehicles they need to be able to see where they're going having um trees on a stero Boulevard could prevent um would certainly prevent line of sight um for those vehicles um deviation two uh Major Street access connection um this again is is we um the uh fire station prefers to have their connection um to be right on Aero Boulevard for the speed and ease of getting to the um emergency sites as needed um the entrance to the rear parcel would be off of um tropical Shores way um deviation three um has to do with the parking lot access aisle width requirements um requires a maximum 25 foot width at the property line to allow 75 ft access aisle with it Aero Boulevard um again this has to do with Ingress and egress of the emergency vehicles um deviation for parking lot internal landscaping again requires trees on the site um and that would uh um uh prevent the line of sight for the emergency vehicles um uh deviation five is minimum average width of parking lot landscape area um again that relates to the use of emergency vehicles deviation six um deviation six has to do with the rear portion of the parcel that 0.99 Acres um the current CPD and what is standard is uh six uh uh density of six units per acre so because this that portion is only .99 Acres they would only be allowed five dwelling units because it is less and you typically round down so in this deviation they're asking to round up to um a maximum of six dwelling units for that N9 Acres so there's a slight difference but when you're rounding up you're going from 5.94 to six not 5.1 to six yes but the industry standard is to round down make sure that it's just very very very small very small yes that's correct and then um one of the conditions would be that that would only apply to that rear lot so if then some Future Point the fire station moved or something they would have to you know renegotiate that at that point okay um in terms of neighborhood compatibility this is one of the reasons the the uh fire station is on a stero Boulevard and not directly abing the um the F the single family homes to the rear and there is that separation um and staff will have to evaluate whatever comes to that um at at a future time um in terms of code considerations in reaching the decision there's a number here um that we've listed um it is important to note that the density intensity request are consistent with the comprehensive plan um the proposed development will be required to meet all um performance standards um and as the front front pel parcel um uh the um fire station is the primary use um and the applicant is here and they can go over this but they're eager to get construction going as soon as possible on this um project um and to get it completed as as quickly as possible to mitigate any kind of um Hazard or or nuisance there um yes so again compatible with the the comprehensive plan um if you would like me I can go through all of the comprehensive plan policies were there no but I compliment you on the thoroughness of your of your uh presentation of your of your report Judith it was very good um go ahead do you want me to give my the the rec staff recommendation the applicant is is here and they have a presentation you should give your recommendation okay so staff is recommending approval um of this application um the conditions specific to note um all of the signage and Landscaping has to meet the the vehicle visibility which will be evaluated based on the specific vehicles in use of this site um we have also added the condition we've asked them um that the station should provide um a flashing indicator light so when the vehicles are exiting their garages at the pedestrians and and um uh Motor Vehicles on a stero Boulevard are are duly notified so they can they can um get out of the way and we did add that condition um that the the rear portion um that that uh rounding up of the um dwelling units only apply to that rear portion of the property okay thank you Judith are there wait Judith don't go anywhere Amy I was just saying you need to do X part day still please yesk and thanks for reminding me about that because I forgot um Don do you have exp parte in this no Jim no Doug no ma'am Jane no Jim no Don John uh I do I spoke with Ron Fleming about this case uh who's a fire commissioner um so Judith hold on anybody have questions for Judith was there any discussion about a need for an emergency signal not just pedestrian signal on a stero or a Vehicles leaving you know similar to what's on San Carlos by the fire station or Jora yes uh well the applicant is here they can answer that but we did speak about that's what we're talking about like the indicator light to to let um people know okay vehicles vehicles vehicles and pedestrians yes okay uh other questions for Judith Judith I have a question for you uh did you find it um I have a difficulty I have difficulty with uh rezoning a parcel that there's no plan for did you not have that difficulty um no not in this specific case um I understand that point in general um this was already a CPD and they could have just rezoned the the parcel for the fire station because they know what they're doing right now with the parcel for the fire station and left the existing and left the existing but if they had left that alone then the the restaurant the alcohol consumption would all be remaining thank you thank for sharing that what we discussed with because we had talked about that as as a potential option of separating it out and dealing with one and then the other um but whatever develops there will have to come back here um so I I felt that that was a reasonable you know Middle Ground thank you very much Jud all right now we'll have the applicant Mr Stewart um Madam chair can I just ask Mr Stewart did you get a copy of the agenda packet yes I did okay thank you yes hi good morning Madam mayor morning Jane pH PA Commissioners uh Greg Stewart for the record I've been qualified in this body in Florida Washington State as an expert in comprehensive land use Planning and Zoning Urban Design and real estate land use development uh you have an old outdated resume on the file someplace but you do have my my um uh um my qualifications um let's see um before I begin I do want to point out that uh represent I'm assisting katron and Associates in representing the uh town of Fort Meers Beach Fire Control District uh we have done extensive community outreach uh in all forms of media social media radio print we had a uh an open house uh June 19th you know to to reach out to the community to get input to show them what we're doing uh so with that in mind let's see if I can it works uh we agree with the 3 September staff report in its entirety we agree with the conditions imposed uh uh the project is compatible with the neighborhood to the north along tropical Shores way it complies with the code in terms of both uh uh zoning criteria in general and CPD zoning criteria uh the six deviations requested are uh not detrimental to the public interest they support the code uh and uh they also uh in case of the um the the last deviation that's a rollover from the previous uh CPD uh ordinance 0808 so we agree with staff and that they agree with our deviations um and again we do agree with the conditions imposed there there's no space between us and then finally I would like to uh on on behalf of the fire district and myself and controlling Associates you know thanks staff they've been working diligently in getting this project off the ground uh their responses uh their comments and and ideas for this been well welcomed so again I want to thank you give kudos where Kudos is is is granted uh the project is on the old Topps uh shopping center uh site it is uh uh two strap numbers the luse is Boulevard it is in the Civic complex uh designation it relies on the former uh resolution 088 which uh gives extensive uses and intensities which I'll get into shortly uh the top Center had Direct access onto Estero Boulevard and then also tropical Shores way uh and Gulf Beach Drive as the location map shows uh the request for the 2.16 acre is again for a CPD uh what we're doing is bifurcating the property as staff said uh the front uh the sto Boulevard side 1.17 is for the fire station of the fire station at 17,18 FT gross so that's a 33% plus floor area ratio the rear north of of canal facing a parcel um will be uh for uh select commercial uses um and again it is uh the request is for 10,000 square ft uh or 15 uh lodging rooms or units or uh six residential dwelling units overall the the far is at 23.1% so in both uh Parcels it's under 40% uh the height is the code uh 30 ft uh uh three stories uh the setbacks are 25 ft from esto Boulevard and then the code required minimum for tropical Shores and Gulf Beach at 15 feet flood zones 13 uh the buffering um um and in fact I'll jump into the first deviation deviation one we have and instead of doing a traditional type D 15t buffer with a double hedge in five trees per um uh 100 linear feet uh in order to allow for maximum V visibility in emergency vehicle access and eess uh no trees but in Li of no trees uh we're doing the double hedge and then an additional 18 shrubs per 100 linear fee so in effect uh we will have a triple hedge on a stero Boulevard and we hope that that beats the you know beautification aspirations of the Town um the other buffers along tropical Shores and Gulf Beach or type D 15 ft five trees and a double hedge uh the existing ordinance allows for 50, 304 Square fet 13 residential units uh and uh and or 32 rooms the existing ordinance does allow for the density Roundup uh the fire station and what's and the the rear North facing mixed use parcel presents a significant deintensification of the existing ordinance um if you can refer to the staff reports pages 4 through six it kind of walks you through it but just just FYI our total at 27,1 188 Square ft represents a 54% reduction the residential units drop 46% the same thing with the lodging unit so it's a significant deintensification in terms of uses we've more or less mirrored the 08 but again with staff input hey we need to pull this use out this use out um uh because of compatibility intensity so we do delete restaurant we do delete Barn cocktail lounge on on premise consumption of on on premise consumption of alcoholic beverages dock use the water taxi thing that could be a nuisance uh terminal uh uh terminal uh bus terminal Transit uh so those uses are out uh we're in front of you because the old ordinance didn't include the heart of the case which is essential service building so we're adding that Parks places of worship such as religious facility or Standalone church school Assisting Living facility and bed and breakfast our ideas on that is that they present low intensity lodging Hospitality uses uh in conjunction with the office and select retail that we're asking for and as staff said basically anything that happens on the north. N9 Acre Site they're coming back for a master concept plan Amendment you know so it's basically a rezoning uh to approve you know the design configuration of what's going to what's going to happen uh the new Master concept plan as I pointed out this this shows the the positioning of the fire station actually the the regulatory setback on on um golf Beach is 15 fet it's setback a little bit more than that uh we of course will have sidewalks on both tropical Shores and golf Beach as per code the existing sidewalk system along the stero Beach will be integrated into that uh the access connection utilizes the the existing and former tops stero Boulevard access connection um the site plan and again I'll key into it but on deviation uh on deviation five which is the average width of parking lot landscape area that pertains to the Estero Boulevard facing Park that the small parking lot and it's the island that uh is more or less associated with the fire station truck bin I'll show you that but I wanted to point that out because it's not for everything it's just for that one little island uh the fire station design um again fitting into the you know the town's architectural theme you know Coastal colorful friendly funky uh we also again uh meet the code in both elevation safety access Building height and the like I think it's a good-look uh plan we will be compliant with the various other code elements in your architectural section including um the open space and the and having an area for Public Access little public Plaza will probably have I think a 9911 type Memorial or something that that more or less corresponds to the um uh stereo Boulevard area as it relates to golf Beach so that's the architecture the elevation uh as I pointed out with the dev the landscape 5 foot deviation that uh though it's not really shown but that'll be to the immediate left of the of the uh fire uh truck uh uh garage bins so that's where that is and again you see how how it's designed um in terms of findings we comply with 34 85 BC uh there is no error ambiguity the change of conditions that it was nuked by Ian so we're rebuilding uh the impact n well yeah you know I'm a Matt Lee guy so we kind of kind of handle it informally oh yeah anyway the proposed uh the proposed changes were de-intensify and again staff I I completely agree and and that's why I'm citing staff report page eight page seven comprehensive plan consistency I can go through that but but it is consistent across the board for architecture height uh and essential uh service buildings um uh so does it meet all the performance standards yes it does page nine uh Urban Services exist uh protecting uh environmental resources critical areas yes it does because the whole site was basically a shopping center it's been paved and U then we demoed it I think in 2009 neighbor compatibility yes um one of the conditions in staff for the tropical short way uh North facing area uh we have the uh standard 15t uh uh buffering with an 8ft screening wall uh so that will help ensure compatibility uh and then um the other aspect it's not neighborhood compatibility but internal compatibility uh staff conditioned for a 5-ft type a uh buffer between the fire station and the future mixed juice so again you know making sure that it's external and internally compatible uh undue um undue burdens no our traffic impact statement basically shows of well based on the the the existing approval a deintensification and then the nature and intent of in the cenal service building the trip generation rates are very low so you know we're we're you know we're completely compant with that and of course water sewer electric cables is available um in terms of uh the other criteria for PD uh yeah the uses um if you look at the use schedule for the Mixed use area again they're very select we've deleted the intense ones such as restaurant and bars uh so the uses are appropriate clearly the fire station is appropriate uh the sufficient safeguards are addressed U by both the site plan and staff's recommended conditions um though you can't see it on the presentation but those are the conditions and again they're in the staff report I I don't need to go through them line by line what I what I would like to do is go through the deviations real quick because they're they're very important and the first one I already mentioned that's the uh type D Estero Boulevard Landscaping uh basically we're coming in for a triple hedge in new of the trees we don't want the trees because they obstruct uh visual uh corridors line of sight you know for for fire truck emergency service Vehicles the um access connection again that's um relying on the previous uh uh use we're using the driveway but because it's a wider connection and because we uh we don't meet the code you know we're requesting IT staff is agreeing uh with our um uh with our deviation from 250 to uh 27 foot separation from trop Shores way and 126 so um and again that's that's to basically put it right in the middle of the property allow for maximum visibility when large emergency vehicles and fire service trucks and such go in and out of the site deviation three a parking lot access aisle withd the standard is based upon residential and Commercial uses maximum 25 ft clearly you know that's not sufficient we need larger width we need need larger turning radiuses so that's the basis of that and staff agrees with that uh Park uh deviation for the parking lot internal Landscaping uh that relates to the uh North area behind the fire station uh the concept is by by minimizing the Landscaping you're allowing for better turning turning movements uh uh and staging for fire trucks as they go into and out of the site if they're accessing tropical way so uh again staff agrees with our basis and thank you for that uh deviation five the average parking lot withd uh Landscaping aisle I talked about that so it's just one aisle it's 5T instead of 10 ft that works and then finally deviation six that's the Roundup uh right now the computed computed density for the north rear mixed use is 5.94 units rounding up is di Minimus and again it's consistent uh uh with the previous ordinance that that had an identical deviation so in summary we're consistent with the plan uh with the town's plan we're de-intensify the site we exceed the performance standards compatible with the neighborhood clearly we're responding to public health safety uh uh and Welfare interest uh and the code the deviations reasonably relate to the essential purpose of the project which is a new fire station so with that any questions or comments thank you very much Greg uh Jane what will the property that is not being developed look like I mean will it be landscaped will it be when grass will it be rock it will be open uh the landscape buffer a will be put in place as part of the first phase which is the fire station it's it's my understanding that we have a development order in the development order does not show any other Landscaping other than the P buffer so it'll just be cleared um and and maintained and maintained but it won't we won't be putting in the screening wall we won't be putting in the sidewalks going all the way back we'll be putting the sidewalks to the uh first phase line okay I just want to make sure that that isn't just left to look horrible for everybody else okay while you're not designing yet gentlemen questions for um Jim for Greg one if I may um you mentioned and I can get a independent communication but you mentioned you had an Outreach meetings with the public yes can you depict kind of how that conversation was what the general tone was well uh it was June 9th it was at Diamond Head we had a lot of sandwiches a lot of food and cookies I'll testify to that uh sparsely attended there were probably throughout the day maybe half dozen people that drifted in and out uh we had illustration boards and and a slideshow that was going on so um U that wasn't I mean again it was sparely attended I'd say half a dozen and then in other words there weren't obvious objections recommendations that you didn't find we didn't have any comments and then on social media it's my understanding there's been no negative comments and of course radio and print well it's not why you do what you do but clearly under the community community benefit category um you know one of the questions you get asked every time you renew your personal insurance is how close are you to fire station so that whole Community picks up a discount in that or recognition for you being close so good job thank you Jim and then before you know you asked about the was it you that asked about the U uh the light uh an emergency emergency signal light on the stero Boulevard uh we have been in consultation with uh uh lee Count's Department of Transportation uh we do not need to do a full-on structured hang light we're looking at doing a ground mounted light the concept being to do something smaller still functionally effective but something smaller and less obtrusive you know that ties into the town's beautification and streetscaping desires so uh we probably will have something like that but it's not going to be one of those big over like like in front of the fire station on St har okay other questions Jim no John Don any questions for Mr Stewart no questions thank you thank you very much gray appreciate it do Don H hang lighting up there Don is hangliding all right this ISS the end not a good representation any any um any other questions for the staff before we go to public comment okay any public comment on this uh case hearing none okay thank you very much further followup to staff or the applicant if not may I have a motion or if somebody'd like to discuss further let me know I'll make a motion uh to approve ordinance 24-27 uh 2545 and 2555 Estero Boulevard uh subject to the uh staff recommendations on deviations is there a second to that second okay so motion by uh Jim Bone and seconded by uh Don suth uh any discussion on the motion I I'd just like to thank you for the clarification about the reduction because I was hung up on two separate things and Greg I appreciate you you uh bringing out the reduction in the existing CPD because all I could think about was Casey's alley back in the day which I'm sure many of many folks remember um not that I ever went but uh so sure oh it was some kind of place you could play ping pong do your laundry and have a beer it iPhone cameras it was but thank goodness okay so um there's a motion to approve uh finding it consistent with the comprehensive plan and the Land Development code and is there any discussion on the motion hearing none your vote Mr bone yes Don yay John Yay Jane hi Doug I Jim I I the motion carries unanimously thank you very much good luck with your project Chief okay anybody need a break or we continue okay we'll move on to the next item which is variant this is a variance the LPA will have final uh decision making a vacation I'm sorry this is a vacation this is vacation 202468 3030 shell Mound easement vacation this is for the Art Association a resolution vacating a utility a a utility easement located over real property owned by Fort Meers Beach Art Association generally located at 3030 shellmound Boulevard Fort Meers Beach accepting and accepting and approving a comparable replacement and easement to be located on the same real property subject to the terms and conditions is contained in a second amended and restated utility easement agreement directing the Town Council to accept the second amended and restated utility easement and agreement directing clerk to record this resolution authorizing the mayor to sign all needed documents and providing an effective date I think that the first time I ever read anything like that uh Judith hi Judith Frankle again um as you said this is an application to vacate an easement um this is uh typical of what was done when these Lots were originally platted um in general to provide a utility easen for future utilities so if you look at the um the plat map you can see how the Lots were originally drawn and the easement was added at that time um we believe in 1958 when the Lots were ploted um the applicant has gotten letters from all of the pertinent utilities including the town and there is no um use happening there and in order for this lot to be redeveloped by the fort Meers Beach Art Association the easement needs to be vacated um and potentially relocated um so that's what you're you're seeing before you um the uh recommendation is so the typical easement utility easement has six feet on either side of the the property as it goes down so right now there's a 12 foot easement but that would have been most applicable when there was lots um uh on either side of that easement um uh I didn't feel it made sense to require them to move that whole 12 feet because typically you would only provide six feet on on your property um the town does not have any reason to believe that we will need that it's not Public Access it's only for utilities um but we're asking to relocate it just for the um the idea in case there was something in the future undergrounding of something um but we don't foresee any of that at this time um if you have any questions about it um there is a we did kind of draw a rudimentary map of what that would look like what the six foot easement versus the 12 fl easement would be um and just for clarification purposes I spoke with some um members of the board of the Fort Meyers Association um I I I don't know easements and vacations can be technical terms and to be clear this is removing an impediment to their development yes thank you J okay uh questions for Judah so on the on 128 um it appears that the six foot is an easement on their side and then would the other six foot go to the other property well that property is not before us so we don't have an ability to ask vacating the entire easement yes so right now so the the the subject parcel is made up of kind of two platted lots and then a third portion of a parcel it it just has to do with how it was originally yep platted it's not how it's being used currently so that's why the EA doesn't really make sense functionally now um so in relocating it so there would have been each property as they were originally divided would have had six feet at the edge of their property for potential utility so um they we need to move that easement in order for them to develop you know to put a building in the middle of the lot so by moving it to the The Edge um each property would only have been required to give up six feet and it's only six feet of an easement it's not of use you know that can be their uh Landscaping not ownership yes right so my question still is the what your property is gaining is the six feet of the 12T that is being vacated not the 12et they're not gain anything 's just being relocated but it is a difference in in amount it is smaller yes okay okay any other questions for Judith thank you very much now we'll ask the applicant to come forward so Madam chair um also I want to make sure the applicant has received the um the copy of the agenda packet but I don't think we did disclosures expart for the vacation do we have to have xte yes okay Don X parte xte Jim Doug none Jan Jim no n John I have none okay go ahead SW in were you not sworn in this very beginning was not let's have you sworn in if you'll raise your right hand uh do you swear do you solemnly swear and affirm that the testimony that you're about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth I do now that we know you're not gonna lie to us go ahead go ahead I think it's pretty cut and dry um all we're looking to do is will you state your name for oh yes sorry Aaron Spence with mrict engineering hi hi so all we're looking to do is just relocate the seasment or vacate it either or we have based on our current design shouldn't be an issue to provide the general six foot Pue that standard for these lots and that I do we have do we have questions for the gentlemen I guess I'd just like to clarify that in the package all of the utilities have come out in favor of this yeah yes uh yes we've received letters of no objection from all the relevant utility organizations okay any other questions thank you very much sir all right thank you uh any other discussion on this if not may I have a motion please I'll make a motion to approve we have public hearing oh yeah public comment see I'm out of it is there public comment Mike Mike Mike Mike Mike Mike come to the come to the microphone he thinks he can just get up and say anything go ahead hi Mikey um I was just wondering what they're trying to move they're not moving anything it's an easement it's an easement it's it's a it's an invisible line to the public is there a drawing maybe because I never I never saw anything about it and I live right on that property line that's why I'm asking you know it's like cuz there is utility easement because there's a Transformer on the ground right there are they moving the Transformer or is it not doing anything what are they you I live right here six okay so this this whole portion in red is owned by the Fort Myers Beach Artis right so um this is where the original plats were so there is a utility if this is your property the utility easement continues to run on your property yep it's not being used used anymore right the telephone line no you can't access no the public can't go on to it it's just for the utilities only so they're going to effectually kind of delete this and then just move it down here along their property just in case the town needed it okay all I was wondering I didn't know what nobody said anything about it I didn't know anything about it take that e been out all the way down or is it just theirs just just theirs just here we not all the way because it's a between because we can only deal with their property okay thank you Mike all right just Mike one minute did you not get noticed of this no I just got a little thing in the mail that said show up today that's the only thing I got so that's why I'm here there you go thank you Mike little yes that's it here you are it's good to know you follow directions okay um is there any further discussion on this case may I have a motion please so I'll make a motion to move forward vac 202468 330 shellmound easement vacation for the Fort Meers Beach Art Association second there's a motion by uh John and a second by Jim uh Jim Dunlap is there any discussion all those in favor no John your vote hi hi Don hi Doug I Jane I Jim I Anita I motion carries unanimously the next item on the agenda thank you sir is a variance request it's V 20241 142 for 319 Estero Boulevard this is a resolution of the fort Meers Beach local planning agency approving with conditions variance 202442 request in a variance from Land Development Code table 34-3 of 3T from the West Side setback for a side setback of 4 Fe 6 in for air conditioning equipment and two a variance from section 34-6 38D to B of 3 feet from the street setback for a street setback of 22 feet for the second floor balcony of a new single family structure in the RC zoning district for the property located at 319 Estero Boulevard Fort Meers Beach Florida and providing for an effective date uh do we have any expar communication from you Mr DL none how about you Don no uh Doug Noone Jane yes I spoke with the owner you spoke with the owner Jim none um none for me okay and I have none and site visit sorry and you had site visit also also Jan thank you all right Sarah good morning Sarah propes with Community Development Cara Stewart on behalf of Jack Pome owner of 319 Estero Boulevard is requesting two variances to the setback requirements for a new single family residence in the residential conservation zoning District the variance requests are a variance of three feet from the West Side setback for a side setback of 4 feet and 6 in for the mechanical equipment and a variance of 3 feet from the street setback for a street setback of 22 feet for a second floor balcony of a second living story floor balcony of a new single family structure the property is a conforming commercial sorry residential conservation zone property where a single family residence existed prior to Ian it was damaged during the storm and has been demolished uh the town's Land Development Code table 34-3 requires a 7 and A2 foot side setback and section 34- 638 d1g states that mechanical equipment must meet the same side setbacks for uh as the required building it serves for new new structures uh a 3-foot variance is requested from the required 7 and 1/2t side setback for a 4 and 1/2t side setback from the West property line for AC equipment the uh second request is for a porch porches balconies and Stoops are allowed to encroach 10 feet on the first living level however this request is for a second second living level porch so one that stacks on top of it so therefore they are requesting a setback of 22 feet so that's a variance of three feet from that required front setback for the second living story uh balcony um the applicant is here for any questions and staff is also available Sarah do you think that's a glitch we allow we allow the um setback encroachment for the ground the first floor but not the second no um and that's because it was a change that actually occurred I believe in 2018 or 2019 um the issue was that the idea was that a porch kind of gave some uh difference to the massing but when people stacked those porches it created just a wall of front because of the structure that and the support and the roof so it just made the whole front of the building feel closer to the road so they were allowed to put the whole front of the building 10et closer to the road so there was a change request to the code to only allow that on a single story so the Second Story uh is not allowed by right I would agree with that if if it were enclosed but the fact that it's not enclosed gives some kind of architectural deviation to just a flat law I wonder what I thought about that in 2018 because there must have been reason you can think back because I was there I you can think back to some of the structures that were being approved at that time uhuh okay yeah I'm trying to understand I mean maybe it's my build back mentality but I'm thinking a second floor balcony is way better than a first floor balcony and if I was only going to allow one I think I'd allow it on the second floor well and and the reason that the second so we're not talking about ground floor we're talking about we yeah so so that would be like basically a third story balcony and that would feel like an over now I understand thank you that's helpful one other question um have the side set backs Chang since the previous structure was there um not for this size lot no okay and stats recommendation uh denial denial okay there's looking at the drawing was there coverage calculation done on this I mean it it looks like there's a lot of impervious surface on this they will be required to meet the 67% impervious coverage they won't be allowed to exceed that at this point in the process we don't review that aspect but they are still required to meet it they aren't asking for a variance from that okay Sarah thank you very much thank you Mrs Stewart do you remember what I thought about this in 2018 you do oh that's good I'm glad you got a KCK out of that I do what did I think about it did I like the idea Cara Stewart for the record representing Jack holom of 319 Estero Boulevard to refresh our memories back then yeah what was happening was contractors or whomever was were applying and they were doing exactly what was mentioned bringing out the entire roof line from the ground up so the facade of the building was in essence being extended that is not What's Happening Here we have no support from the ground up we have no roof coverage from the top down I had met just to address all of that quickly I had met with the building official um during this because what had happened the owner had applied for a building permit unbeknownst to him and he and his designer missed this three-foot issue called in a panic what do we do what do we do so went through the whole thing in the meantime they were moving forward to try to get construction so in this report it says that the permit was is already issued there is a permit that was issued they modified their drawing to eliminate that in order to keep this process going um so we applied for the and then we applied for the variance I think about four months ago so here we are today in the meantime construction has started um with the anticipation that we would like to be able to explain it a little further I've met with the building official the current building official here went over with him what exactly is an overhang what is this a balcony is this a structure and it was um determined that it was just a balcony because there is no vertical iCal structure coming down so you will have just as the the drawing I had provided a drawing here earlier you just have a 3 foot it's about the size excuse me from this ceiling tile to here is what we're talking about that will be protruding as far as lot coverage goes we're allowed by code a 40% lot coverage we have only designed this structure at a 31% so we have we have kept it small and and efficient the purpose for this front balcony is what they're trying to do in the front of the house they have their elevator their view is is a little bit blocked looking towards a sterile Boulevard this three foot does serves two purposes it allows us to get a view going was that West going this way going west and it also provides coverage for that first floor permitted balcony of 3 feet the code allows us a 10- foot encroachment for our balcony we are at a three-foot encroachment for the balcony so when we're talking about Minimus we believe that this really is a Dom Minimus request it's not it's not the intent of the 10 foot it's less than a third of what we're allowed by rate on the first floor we're looking to cover the second floor the air conditioner um the it's kind of unique the plans have been approved already with the air conditioner platform because the platform is allowed our only option was in order to keep the permit going was to place the air conditioner Up on the Roof the the structure is approximately I think we're like 15t above above ground for our flood compliance um so that places those air conditioners very very high for maintenance and accessibility um the owner is really looking to keep it at a more usable level they've got buffering the uniqueness here again for our di Minimus conversation is if the house had survived and the air conditioner didn't I could have put the air conditioner back right where it we're proposing to put it right now we have the of no objection from the owner so all in all those those are the the recap um of why we feel that this really is something that we can move forward with we have our lot coverage we're under our expected our anticipated lot coverage we have no cover this is going to give us a cover on our first floor so I'm here for any other questions the owner is here as well if you have anything that you need to ask of him thank you cara questions for Cara Stewart Don I don't have any questions thanks okay Doug Jane any questions I think I just wanted to confirm that the if the very granted then the uh mechanical equipment on the side of the house is going to be screened in correct I had uh provided a drawing here to you as well with some nice screening yes okay John Jim questions for Karen no um I still have a question question I guess about the placement of the mechanical equipment and the neighbors impact on the neighbors from noise Etc that would be my concern the neighbor has provided a letter of no objection and is willing to accept that there there has it's been there forever there's been no conflict thank you you're welcome so Cara I'm I'm and Sarah I think I'm recalling all of this discussion about that second don't laugh it's gonna happen to you one day uh and uh and and there were some homes on a sterile Boulevard those that was our example of this is not at all what we intended for okay I remember that you are correct okay thank goodness and on poo I think yeah y y okay thank you very much um we'll open the public hearing on this is there anybody here who wish to speak to this case sir would you like to say something nobody can ever resist as long as I'm here my name is Jack olon and I'm the owner nice to meet you we're glad your house is being rebuilt thank you and I was sworn in at the beginning of the meeting good so my wife and I have been blessed to be part of this fort fort Meers Beach Community with you guys for about 12 years and hurricane in and stuff certainly was we don't want to be here we'd rather just have our house back and we're trying to do that to the best of our ability to floor plan is almost identical to what it was before we're not trying to encroach or do a land grab or anything like that we just that um our footprint was about the same as what it is now it's just that we had to move some stuff inside from outside so we're it's there it's a very small thing but it's a huge thing when you're looking at utilizing the house because that was our uh Sun area and we used to have a 10 by1 19 there now it's n and a half by S and if if it gets held back architecturally look hideous because the other balconies are there and also from a use perspective you can't even put a lounge chair and has someone walk safely in front of it so really appreciate your time and your consideration of this these two small di Minimus things mean the world to us for the architectural Beauty we have no issue with the neighbors it's all commercial property there with one neighbor to the north they're 100% supportive of it and I think the AC is 17 feet above FL bring it on so really thank you so much appreciate your consideration thank you good luck to you thank you thank you okay anybody else wish to speak seriously you have train whistle guy okay um so any discussion on this uh on this variance request I think that the difference here in what we discussed in 2018 is the fact that the roof does not come over making the entire project the footprint larger and not enclosing or things come down it is basically a thing hanging in the air and um you know I I don't have a problem with the balconies I don't I don't have a problem with any of it I agree completely with the applicant's request it's a dominous request Madam chair I'd move approval of V v224 0142 uh 319 319 EST stero Boulevard I'll second thank you uh very much uh for the motion and the second is there any discussion on the motion to approve uh hearing no discussion uh your vote Jim I and Doug I don I Jane I Jim I John I I the motion's carried so Madam chair this is a uh variance request so there is uh the opportunity for anyone to request a hearing Jack listen to this um go ahead so this is a various request and the way that our code is written WR um there is the opportunity for someone anyone to object or not to object to request a second hearing on this matter before the Town Council so after 10 days should there be no request then this is your final stop I turned it off so in other words Jack don't start building anything I know it's already there it's already there don't start finishing for another 10 days thank you very much thank you anyone wish to have a break okay we're going to take a um okay we're going to take a we're going to take a 20 minute break coming back at what time coming back at 1220 okay e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e okay everyone thank you for that uh that little break there uh we're going to move on to e I'm sorry e is an elephant e is an elephant yes uh item number e which is a special exception for, 1400 Estero Boulevard it's the lon Kai property a resolution of the Town Council of the town of Fort Meers Beach Florida to approve approve with conditions or deny special exception for, 1400 Estero Boulevard the Lanai resort to rebuild PEX Beach Bar structures walkways covered screen areas gazebo planting areas and wood decking to prean conditions fully in the EC which is environmentally critical zoning District um is there any expar Don no Jim Doug no ma'am Jane Jim no John none I have none as well uh okay Jason good afternoon Jason SMY with your planning and zoning department excuse me as was mentioned before uh this is a special exception request for 1400 stero Boulevard otherwise known as Lon Kai um the the purpose of this request is to rebuild and rehabilitate uh the developed area directly behind the building uh all of this area behind the building or or on the beach each side of the building is fully within the EC or environmentally critical zone so that necessitates them have come before you and Town Council to ultimately get approval to rebuild that now as uh as part of the request they are looking at approximately 8,000 square feet of disturbed area uh that would be the their decking and the proposed pavers uh on top of that there is is approximately 12200 Square ft of planting area that they are proposing so that would be a planting strip at the edge of this Disturbed area where their Hardscape is going to be uh that will be uh plantings with trees and and uh Beach uh Beach species plants excuse me uh in addition to that I did want to make note that of the 8,000 squ ft of disturbed area actually uh approximately 1300 square feet of that will be sand area that will be dedicated as a playground uh so just understand that we are talking about roughly 6700 square feet total of decking gazebos bars and the PA area back there uh through staff's research we were able to establish that the general area was developed uh going back to at least 2001 which is as far back as we could go with the Lee property appraiser Aerials we did also An approved limited development order from 2001 that generally showed the same area was approved uh by the town through Lee County at that time so what they're proposing today is in line with what was previously approved and uh based on just the 2001 ldo document is actually uh minimally smaller as far as the area dedicated to pavers and to decking area uh I also did want to make a point that uh most of this area in the back did have uh covered roofs on there uh they were not solid roofs as best we can tell but uh the application does propose some uh roofed area with three walls or enclosures in there so I just did want to point that out it's not all going to be completely open area if you have any questions or concerns staff is here for that otherwise the app applicant and their professionals are here as well questions for Jason any questions Jason I have a question for you yes so you referred to these structures as major structures that would include the structures themselves and not just the pavers and decking area so I'm going to go back to my question I asked you on the other case about FEMA what do you think FEMA will say about us allowing major structures to be constructed in the environmentally critical zone of the island um so just as a matter of clarification FEMA doesn't really care about the EC Zone they care about it being in the vzone but your point is well taken uh FEMA generally has concerns about accessory structures uh particularly if they are habitable structures going on a property in the vzone what we have here in general are going to be open-sided structures they are going to be expected to fail under wind and and water load and where will they go well they will either sink or they will become minor uh flatsome in the in the water so this is always the threat of anything in the vzone uh anything that you have there that is not really sort of planted into the ground can always become a a minor missile uh what we have here from FEMA is a requirement that anything built out there uh has to be frangible so it has to be able to break up into smaller part parts from its initial constituency so you if you have a a p deck the expectation is that large chunks of it are not going to float up and and go out there but there will be small things uh you know buoyancy in in some of these materials that they may use may cause pavers to float or wood decking or you know the hybrid decking whatever it may be this to your to your point the structures that are being rebuilt on the beach are expected to handle these sorts of loads and minor missiles in the water we don't expect that this would be a a major issue that might cause a complete collapse if part of this decking were to hit another building along uh the beach but I did want to make the point also that going forward any time that these things are damaged and have to be repair they will have to come back to the town again make their case and at that point you know prerogatives may be different at that point but under today they are requesting roughly 8,000 square feet of decking and papers okay so all of the decking that was there is now gone a large majority of it and I'll defer to the applicant but I believe there was some small remnants of Pap areas that were still left but for the most part everything back there has been destroyed okay and for the public staff's recommendation uh so recommendation was approval with conditions uh one of the conditions that uh staff did recommend was that they go ahead and revise their uh D permit they they have already received a d permit uh but we would like it to be a bit more specific about the types of structures that they're going to be building back there and not just general material areas okay okay any other questions for Jason thank you very much Jason now we'll have the applicant Greg are you filling for Mr barant today okay yes good a good afternoon good afternoon Madam chairman fellow Commissioners Greg Stewart for the record uh repres assisting kronan Associates and representing the lon Kai limited partnership uh just for the record and for clarification uh I'm going to be referring to the August 30th staff report that was a staff report that was generated this past Friday the uh conditions for recommend recomendations or or uh were revised and we agree with those conditions so I just wanted to put that out of the way we agree with the conditions as I said we agree with the staff's uh analysis and assessment their findings uh an important consideration in this is that we are as with staff relying on the code 34 uh 652e which allows for major accessory structures such as what we're talking about to be put into the environmentally critical area the EC is this is the subject zoning District I staff already mentioned that um so uh the request is to it's a build back request to replace what was destroyed the um major major accessory structure is the bar uh the rest we're talking about are you sitting areas uh a playground but that was in a sand area um uh the papers the wooden decking and like let me just skip through this because we have uh that is a a nice picture and illustration of what we're doing uh and that really illustrates what was there albe it what we're going to do now is going to be more structurally integrated into uh uh both the building and its environment uh but the bottom line is this uh we do meet the code we are compliant with a with 6 uh 366 B3 is Staff pointed out on page two um you know we will meet all relevant uh codes uh including as staff said the Breakaway provisions and FEMA stuff um you know the uh the damage to existing a beach ve vegetation we're citing this where it was so there's no uh damage to existing I mean it it's this is a build back to where it was um of course we will be going through d uh Coast Construction line permitting process to verify that in terms of U uh uh other considerations environmental considerations sea turtle lighting specifically yes we we agree with staff and their conditions and findings relating to sea turtles uh uh non we will not be building during nesting season we'll be using all the appropriate lighting and all the town permits relating to those types of environmental uh considerations um and then the existing uh uh the existing change condition that supports us of course was hurricane in um there were a few there were a few problems environmentally um uh speaking you know from the existing set of uses at the ground floor the lon K uh so we don't anticipate any compatibility impacts or neighboring impacts and again if you if you look at it the surrounding the adjoining uses or commercial parking lot and then um I think uh uh uh residential condo with retail then across the street there's parking so there's no compatibility impacts to what was going on and what is being proposed to be put back in terms of consistency with the town plan again we agree with staff if you look at 5 D1 development of minor uh uh accessory structures uh you know again we're consistent with that and the other compatibility uh uh code requirements in the in the plan uh we do not create new development and again repeating myself this is a build back we're replacing what was destroyed uh we will meet other code requirements um uh and it is my understanding that we are in the are in yes so we've submitted so staff's looking the at at the actual construction plans um so to conclude I I just wanted to make this real quick it's a build back request um there's no uh we're in agreement with staff all the conditions are reasonably related to what we're seeking and I'm available to address any questions thank you grg questions for Mr Stewart Don do you have any questions for Greg I don't have any questions L okay uh anyone have any questions for Mr Stewart thank you Greg we'll open the public hearing would anybody care to make comments seeing none we'll close the public hearing uh any I asked for expert okay yeah uh any um any comments or concerns from anyone I don't have you don't have expar okay John do you have any expart I do not Jim no Jane no Doug no Jim no John did you have any exp parte for the lonai no neither do I okay any um any comments from anybody on this case do any of you have a concern about replacing stuff that is gone I'm not talking about repairing I'm talking about rebuilding in the EC nobody Shar Cas is different but I think we did this exact same thing for another Resort down the North End of the island and I had a concern there where where there were utilities and such going out to structures at U well beyond or well into the EC and do you have that concern now as well I had the same concern I had then yeah I have a concern for the wood structures decking and things like that because uh just this last storm nobody can hear you just this last storm I had uh from the construction sites their pallets all came down to my house so I I worry about structures that are built like that because they do come part and separate with the water I I would prefer a harder surface as as in tiles or pavers because I think they're not as easy to lift or or float over to people's properties as as a a decking is anybody else have that concern yeah one other thing I was going to suggest is that you know I know that there's two uh thickness of favers and I think uh if if this does move forward we should put a put a stipulation that they have to be the thicker papers and they have to be uh most of them are bordered with concrete but uh something to kind of hold them in place you know when I think of uh where I live at the time of the storm we we did lose uh some pavers in some places but it was where they were thinner or not uh completely U you know sort of tied together with a concrete order okay any other comments on this topic Jason uh don just uh just to make the point part of it says they have to be able to break apart yeah FEMA FEMA is going is going to require a design that that really U adheres to this frangibility idea so they're going to have to be designed even if we put that condition on there for FEMA uh purposes to to basically be sand set and be able to break up into their small small pieces for sure yeah understand that part what's your thought about Jason about wood decking versus pavers in in what respect of the potential for damage M um I mean you've got to understand that a piece of wood in in the water is going to be dangerous to a human body to a car um does it go through a house if it hits it um probably not can it break out a window and cause floods to come in sure but toys floating in the water or any number of things could do the can do the same amount of damage but I do I do take your point nobody nobody wants to have 12T long pieces of wood floating down a stero waiting to hit something but I don't I don't really see how you design something that's both Beach compatible uh vzone FEMA compatible and also usable at a reasonable price so I think uh there's probably some compromise to be made there thank you Mrs Stewart did you come there because you have something to add to this conversation public go ahead Caris Stewart also a CFM certified flood plane manager I would like to caution LPA members that there is some very strict guidelines from FEMA that dictates how construction has to take place um which is more stringent in a vzone so I just I I just want to caution you for adding and um or trying to design what can happen they will be bound by the femo regulations um for instance Plumbing and Electric has to be quick disconnect we still we have a lot of other things that we have to deal with so uh that's really all I want to say is just caution you on on on providing that when there is some very strong guidance correct okay okay all right public comment is closed um any other discussion on this uh on this case I guess need my thought and I think it's already been addressed is uh when they build back in this e EC Zone um they understand that whatever they bill backs likely or quite possible get washed away again they comply with all the F regulations frangibility etc etc but it sounds like that's we don't have to remind them to think about that that'll be forced to look into that so but U I think I do if it washes away again they got to come back again just like you did that okay any other comments if not would somebody make a motion please I'll make a motion to approve Doug is making I'm sorry I gotta read it yes yeah let's see I make a motion to approve the variance uh s z202 424 1400 to stero Boulevard Lon Kai uh to um provide a special exception to allow reconstruction of pre-existing frangible U decking and other amenities in EC Zone with the five subject yeah with the uh subject to the conditions recommended by staff okay second so there's a motion made by Doug and seconded by uh by Jim is there any discussion on the motion I you know Mike I mean the conadis family has been very important to Fort Meers Beach for many many many years I can't I I can understand repairing something that is been Disturbed in the EC but completely recreating it seems contrary to what we should be doing um that's my comment okay there's a motion in a second uh Doug your vote hi Jim hi Doug D I mean John oh hi say d Jane hi Jim hi Don hi uh no no motion carries uh six to one y okay the next case comment on this package it would be really great if it can all be up and down instead of sideways it was mine is all half sideways and upside you talking about all the everything in the package sideways okay we're going to move on to the next case sez 2024 2000 which is 6502 EST sterile Boulevard 6502 Estero Boulevard the Privateer this is a resolution of the Town Council of the town of Fort Meers Beach Florida approving approving with conditions or denying special exception sez 202 42000 to conditions denying to conditions denying special exception sez that doesn't make sense secz 202 4200 to allow repairs to a retaining one in the EC zoning District as authorized by section 6366 of the town of Fort Meyers Beach Land Development code for property located at 6500 and 6502 EST stero Boulevard providing for scrier error severability and an effective date and this is the Privateer John do you have any expart uh I live on the street across from the private here um so approval or denial of this motion would this uh provide any type of special benefit to you that's not speculative any nature not that I can think of is there anything that would cause you to have an inability to render a fair and impartial decision in this matter no nothing okay she's fine Jim do you have any expart none I have none Jane none Doug none Jim I am also noticed within the 500 feet closer than John is so if you want to ask me those questions again I'll yes so so the denial or the approval of this would that create any type of special benefit for you as a property owner uh within the 500 feet it would not and uh aside from that do you come to this hearing with the ability to render a fair and impartial decision I do no hidden biases or absolutely not okay thank you um Don do you have any expar no expar okay go ahead Judith good afternoon again Judith Frankle uh Planning and Zoning um this is a application to repair an existing retaining wall uh I do want to note um it's not in the report but if you look at the package it refers to the structure as a seaw wall every place um structurally it's similar the the applicant is here and they can explain to you the the differences but per R code because of the location of it it is a retaining wall it doesn't change anything about about the application but when they come and submit for their permit we'll ask them to to correctly label it as a retaining wall okay um the retaining wall has been at PL in place at least since um 1972 based on aerial images that are available through Lee County um the applicant also provided um an enabling declaration which as far as I can tell is very similar to a development order that would have been issued by Lee County at the time and that stated um 1964 so all this to say that the um the building and the structure in question um were uh built prior to the uh 1978 um cccl line which is why it's it's in that location um the uh Land Development code says that existing retaining walls and seaw walls along the gulf may be maintained but not rebuilt in this case they are repairing what is um existing um and uh no more um and what they um are proposing to do will add usability to that space um for the the the main structure there are um two criteria for um consideration one for um special exceptions another ones for things happening in the EC Zone um as again for in the EC Zone it is a repair and not a a new construction um and they will have to comply um with all the the regulation for the um the EC Zone in terms of a special exception um as uh previous applications have stated um the changing condition was Hurricane Ian which um damaged the the structure um and now they are repairing it um we do not feel that it um uh differs in any way from the comprehensive plan um the comprehensive plan um states that um special exception may be approved for reconstruction or renewal of any part of an existing building for the purpose of its maintenance or to correct damage um to existing primary structures which encroach into the EC and their customary accessory uses so this is a customary accessory use for this property that existed pre hurricane Ian um the applicant is here as well thank you very much Judith gentlemen good morning for the record my name is John sikman I am sworn in and I'm here with Stokes marine and we're here on behalf of the Privateer Condo Association I'd like to start by thanking the LPA and staff for their time that they put into this uh project and application given that it's in the EC zoning District we understand there's extra layers of review and more scrutiny that goes into a project like that with that being said this is just a repair to an existing seaw wall cap the seaw wall I keep calling it seaw wall as she mentioned it is a retaining wall structurally the same but it's where it's located retaining wall versus seaw wall it did survive Ian but it was damaged and the cap itself which is the top portion that's what we're looking to repair we do have science seal engineered plan so will be repaired to the current Florida 2 2023 building code and it's in a like for like fashion we're not trying to expand or improve it improve on it we're just trying to repair the way it's been since the early 1970s as you saw in the application packet with the historic aals it has been there since the early 1970s so 50 plus years and it is something that the the owners are looking to get completed right now they're going through renovations to bring the property you know get all the repairs completed now is a good time because we come in with the equipment and everything and before Landscaping goes in and all that kind of stuff we can repair this get it back to pre preore conditions and then they can go on with the other repairs so that's uh the reason we're here today is is for that so um thank you for your consideration any questions I'm happy to answer thank you do we have any questions for the gentleman yes Doug uh yeah I just want to uh the exhibits I'm looking at S1 point2 what this retaining wall is clearly what it is it's to like support the parking area right and uh but what I can't see on this exhibit is where the con Coastal Construction line is which I would have been interested in because it looks like it probably bumps right up against D but if you look at page 366 of the packet 366 it's got CCL on it 366 it's no it's not I guess it's um but I think um I think it's important and it's been mentioned already but it's it's clearly Ting yeah that was my error when I wrote The Narrative I'm used to seaw walls and with the code it is retaining clear from the drawings that they're just simply putting a new concrete gap on the top of it yes and picture goe I would like to make note of that is that the actual wall itself the panels that are embedded into the ground they're in great shape they're staying so we're not touching the actual wall we're just just the caping any other questions now that you finished your presentation I have to give you a compliment I have never heard anyone say anything negative about Stokes Marine well thank you that's a good that is a big kudos for you because you know we're all like you we like to complain about things and and never have I heard anybody say anything but great comments about you guys thank you that's why I work for them a good great company good for you thank you okay you're welcome thank you very much we'll open the public comment does anybody here would like to speak seeing none we'll close the public comment uh any further discussion on this anybody have any further questions for staff or the applicant if there are none may I have a motion please move approval of special exemption z222 4200 6502 sterile Boulevard so as a privateer with the conditions of Staff their report second thank you both um any discussion on the motion hearing none your vote Jim I Doug I don I Jane I Jim I John I I motion carries unanimously thank you gentlemen very much the next item on our agenda is ordinance 2426 which is the CV zoning District amendments an ordinance of the town of Fort Meers Beach Florida amending t one table 34-2 titled use subgroups permitted in each zoning District in chapter 34 article 3 division 2 to amend the allowed subgroups for the CB zoning district from limited to open for the lodging office and Retail use groups two the Land Development code subdivision 5 CB zoning District found in chapter 34 article 3 division 5 Redevelopment zoning District to place limitations on new outdoor dining and outdoor entertainment uses providing for severability codification scrier errors conflicts of Law and providing for an effective date um just a reminder this one is legislative in in character not quasa judicial so we don't need exper take Communications correct thank you Sarah good afternoon Sarah propes with Community Development uh when where do I start with the CV zoning history so uh the CB zoning district has has um had a bit of um a history with the town in the past it was you were not allowed to uh develop any use greater more intense than the used before it and there was sort of a a level so restaurants were the highest level most intense use retail was the second highest intense use and then office was considered to be the least intense use and then of course there was residential that was also allowed um the way the code had previously been written you were not able to uh once you became for instance if you were a restaurant you became an office you could never become a restaurant again uh a couple years ago we updated the CB zoning District so it could be any use that had previously been on that parcel um now as Redevelopment is occurring on the island and people have these CB Properties and they're sort of reimagining what they could do they still have these limitations that they can't have a use that wasn't previously allowed on it unless they come to us with a uh CPD so this code change would allow um more open uses than were previously allowed so if you look at the exhibit B um we've xed out limited for lodging office and Retail to make them open for those uses however we do have a limitation that if you did not previously have outdoor entertainment or um let's see what it is new outdoor entertainment is not permitted new live entertainment is not permitted and new outdoor seating is not permitted um so if you had those uses previously those can go back on the parcel but with this new open um having these additional uses allowed those those additional uses are not allowed the outdoor entertainment and seating and that's because of the impacts to the adjacent properties um um when this first came before you I I was not at that hearing but I listened to the hearing and one of the big concerns that I heard is that that people were concerned that these properties were back in neighborhoods so I created a map with all the CB zoning districts are all the properties that are in the CV zoning District um if you look at the map on the screen it's kind of hard to tell the differences um so the the pink you see there and the orange the the solid orange so I think there's only maybe just a few solid orange on there the solid orange indicates that those are currently as a residential use but in the CV zoning district and the solid pink indicates that that's a commercial use in the CV zoning District um and I created this map so that you could see how few properties were actually impacted by this zoning District so these are your oranges yep those are the oranges these are the pinks and those are the pinks that's correct um it's a total of 35 properties on the whole island so uh this is the North End of the island um Jacob could you scroll to the next one please and then that's the south end of the island um originally there had been a request to do an overlay I didn't think an overlay was appropriate because it affected so few properties um I felt that just a change to the zoning District made the most sense so everybody's treated the same um there are no changes to the uh development criteria having to do with uh density or intensity or setback those will all remain the same and this is in an intensity of so a floor area ratio of 1.0 so it's not hugely intense uses um you're not going to be able to put a huge development on there I know that was a concern um but I think that that is already managed by the uh development regulations I'm available oh one additional item um we received a phone call from someone trying to redevelop a residential a single family residential in the Sony District um and asking about setbacks so I did include um in 34-74 A2 I included an additional uh change to setbacks for residential structures and that is an option we can certainly require everything to meet the same setbacks whether it's residential or commercial or we can give them an additional setback so that they have room for a driveway it's really up to you I put this in here so that it could be up for discussion M what are your thoughts on the additional setback for driveways or whatever for the residential does anybody have a comment on that well only if the uh you know if the lot is a standard lot of 75 ft I would agree with these but that oh so the 10 foot setback would be five on five on each side or a foot on each side oh that's what street hang on five feet from the property line okay sorry never mind but wait a minute all streets why would they only have a 10 foot setback from a sterile Boulevard so so that so if you look at um 34-74 building placement A2 is the change um so the idea is that so these are commercial and it's sort of the same concept as what we have for downtown where you want the buildings to be closer to the street to build um sort of a consistent pedestrian feeling area um so the question is do you want houses to also meet that criteria or do you think it's okay for houses to have a little bit more of a setback so they have somewhat of a front yard and a driveway or do we think that it's important that they they still create that pedestrian uh fabric by being close to the the main Corridor what do you think Sarah what's your opinion um I can see reasons depending on the design quite honestly um we don't have parking on street um so we would have to they would essentially have to leave the under story of their house open so that people would be able to pull underneath the house um if you don't want to have sort of that requirement then then you would want to give them enough of a setback so the car could fit between the sidewalk the option well and that's what we did in the town downtown district except for only on secondary streets we didn't allow it on a sterile Boulevard but we did allow for Residential Properties to have um between I think we did between five and 25 foot setback where the code required between five and know 0o to five or something like that so we allowed that for the secondary streets but we didn't allow it for a sterile Boulevard because we wanted to maintain that consistent fabric for a sterile Boulevard okay do we still have the same fabric for these properties though if there's only so few of them and they seem to be separated well and and there aren't a lot of uh residential either um so I mean I think that it might be appropriate to allow just the flexibility for that because there aren't a lot of them um and um it is they aren't regular siiz Lots you know we're not talking about like the lots that are all consistently the same size um so it may be a little bit harder to develop on some of these lots and as a you know having a residential having a home on a stero Boulevard you might want that additional setback just because a stero is a very busy street I would give them the option I would agree like that too so so do we think um a five to 18 feet so I didn't go the full 25 I figure 18 is room enough for a truck um do you think that that's appropriate I do I do okay I do okay thank you no problems are you g to participate so general question vot general question Sarah you've been working real hard to create a zoning to bring it current with the reality we all live in now so from a workload standpoint efficiency speed decision- making describe what these changes when adopted mean to the public how they interact with the town in particular your department um so essentially this is going to make some this is going to allow people to sort of reimagine what their lot uh can be um where we have some especially I know there are some real estate offices especially the offices you know people might want to have a restaurant they might want to have a retail store and they weren't allowed to do that previously um it's not going to do much different for our office except for in the past we had to go back and try to find records of what was previously approved from there so this may actually improve our ability to more accurately review these because we were riant on older records that maybe were incomplete in the past my point Madam chair was this puts the creativity and the optionality down at the user level it does allows things that we can't Envision or wouldn't be comfortable with be brought to us to be vincing to say I think this will add to the for Myers Beach Vibe so it's an unended consequence perhaps or it's a direct consequence don't carry the way point is we need to recognize I believe staff is bringing us those options and in supporting this I think we get a more Vibrant Community from A diversity standpoint okay so we all agree on that but now let's talk about the building height okay so um for 34705 building size the building height previously was two stories M and now you're suggesting three hold on let me get to that portion of the it's a 34705 letter B I can't tell you what page it is because I didn't there you go okay good okay and I'm assuming or or should we imagine that this is to be consistent islandwide for height yes um so this is essentially what we did with the downtown zoning District when we said well why is this little section being treated differently than the other section um it doesn't give it any additional floor area ratio so they're still at a one um so if they want to go up to potentially a 1.5 they would still have to come in and do a CPD um I also want to point out that I think I'm going to make a correction unless unless you refer it this way um I have in here for uh 3473 that new outdoor entertainment new live entertainment new outdoor seating is not permitted what I'm going to say is by right so people can still come in and request that through the CPD process okay um okay anybody have a question on the height on the height change are you okay with so is that three stories over parking or it is no it isn't no it's three stor three stories total three stories total that's right okay I think that was that was it for your questions for us anybody have any other comments on this I think you did a great job Sarah great I really do I it's like this has been sort of floundering uh but I think you did a very good job with this good okay sounds good anybody else have any comments no and I think that our plan is to send out postcards to all the people who own the CB zone property so that they're aware of this change not just put it in the newspaper because we have the option to just advertise in the newspaper I think we're going to do both yes great idea great idea thank you very much you don't need a vote on that do you yes because we want to transmit the thoughts correct so it would be a motion to recommend approval of the proposed uh ordinance that it is consistent with your comprehensive plan so move could we Jim could you amend that just to reflect the um the the option for setback changes with the change with the option that sharah mentioned on setbacks and the ability for the CPD well that's that's that's yeah that's okay is there a second for that motion second there's a motion and a second is there any discussion on the motion uh all those in favor say I I I I thank you Don okay uh we'll move on hey this is I'm not saying anything yet administrative agenda anything from anyone LPA items and reports Don do you have anything I don't thank you how about you John no I don't Jim um I've been working on uh my thoughts on what a public benefit is so I'm going to distribute that if it's okay with the chair at the next meeting excellent can Jim distribute something to us or does it need to go to you Amy and then you distribute it it should go to Amy first and then she'll distribute it okay thank you Jim Jim you be Distributing those just so we have it you plan on having a conversation because I think the next meeting's probably going to mean evening lunch and dinner so we may want have we'll see about that see um will for it'll be it'll be distributed for when public benefit is a topic of discussion it won't be discussed thank you uh Jane um I I've gotten a couple calls from people on things that have been cut out of the street and not resealed properly like there's a six foot Edge and people's cars tires are getting damaged and stuff who who do they call at the Town um Public Works Public Works the city manager it's uh Carolina there I mean there's a a pretty long piece that's if somebody's walking down the street it definitely trip them in the night or whatever but I think it could do car damage yeah so Carol um public anything else Jan no d a Doug no ma'am thank you Jim just want to ask as to the status of the duties and responsibilities document talked about in June some of us are up for reappointment so it' be kind of fun to have some of that cleaned up as we hopefully get uh to accept that rules I don't know where it is I know we have a busy agenda coming up that go in Nancy um I don't see it coming to you on the n9th honestly October then sometime October okay thank you very much Don did I ask you do you have anything you asked me and I did not I still don't all right you still don't okay um I I I have uh I have several things to uh to bring up one I I have a meeting tomorrow with the town manager with um Frankie with the mayor with Amy um and Nancy uh to discuss our scheduling because I've had a repeated conversation you all can tell me if you agree with this point of view or if you don't um I when when I asked uh recently what will be on our September 10th meeting I was told well probably Seagate The Arches Neptune and blah blah blah and I said no way no way it it it would just be so difficult it isn't fair to the applicant it's not fair to the LPA and it's not fair to the staff to have that burden for one meeting so the suggestion was made well the LPA could have more meetings but if you all remember there was a comment made by staff that having more meetings doesn't mean that they can be more productive it means that they're sitting here for a day instead of being doing their thing so so I in speaking um in speaking with several people I reached out to the town manager and the mayor and that group to say could we talk about these schedules because I understand completely the pressure to get projects moved forward one of the greatest pressures of course as I am told is we want to get our project in before the election to me that that sounds a little suspect I I mean I I don't think people should be saying that quite honestly but but that is that is a um there is a real pressure on the staff to get everything to us now if you all so I'm just saying hey uh maybe it's a good opportunity I mean whether a project is good or not good shouldn't DET shouldn't be determined by an election if it's a good project it's going to pass period but I think that we should um I think that we should talk about the work burden for the staff and for the LPA at any given meeting um I I don't know how much I know how much I can absorb when I think about working when I go to a trade show or something my limit is five to six hours after that I'm just I'm really I'm useless my brain just ju ju I just can't do anymore um and so I wanted to hear what your thoughts are because if you disagree with me on this then I'll cancel that meeting and we'll just let them push on as they're pushing on I guess my initial reaction would be I'm glad it's coming up as a topic because I think everyone here desires to be prepared absolutely knowledgeable site business take time interactions take time and every time there's an iteration particular these major ones you have to hear again why the change was made and what benefit is it to everybody involved so I say that to say this I think there's different categories of agenda items that we're not bifurcating into meetings there are some we can get through I will call them administratively no offense to the legalities of it all but they don't require staff's work and or ours to get through what I think the salian issues are then there's these other ones that require entire and full attention and again staff should have the freedom to say we're dealing with that today and that only so if you could bring up a topic discrimination around what what is at a meeting versus what's available and everything ought to be on it I agree I would appreciate that conversation I agree I agree um anybody else have comments on that I think the the staff shouldn't feel any political pressure to try and get something done by an election I agree with you a Project's a project I think staff ought to be able to make a determination whether it's based on when they filed or how far along the review has been and they ought to be able to determine the agenda and uh if they feel like they need a special meeting they can request it we consider it but I sort of think that the staff ought to be able to feel free to set an agenda that they're comfortable that they can comply with everything that we need John you any com it I 100% agreed with yeah I think also the importance is the giv giving it to us in a timely manner so that we have time to digest it so on Friday on F Well late in the evening on Thursday I know that there were staff members still working on their to get things to us and it came to us Friday I think at 11:30 in the morning or so it came to us at 11:30 on Friday on holiday on a holiday weekend which you know okay it's a holiday weekend we live on an island whatever but uh but still the there were substantial cases here now I it's Monday afternoon and next Tuesday uh from what I understand all these cases are bloom bloom bloom where do you stand right now with preparation for um a doozy of next Tuesday can we get the report tomorrow go ahead we're good okay um we are still working on several items for that meeting okay I would say all items for that meeting are still being worked on all items for that meeting are still being worked on so if I can add um it's not because staff is not working of course not that's not tomorrow is our deadline for agenda distribution to the town council meeting which is the day before your meeting so um that agenda is also going to be quite lengthy and so I think there's still things that need to be finalized on that and then it will be a shift to the LPA um as quickly as as possible would it help the staff if we took the meeting on the 10th and maybe moves it to the 17th and you could take care of the Town Council get that done you buy yourself another week worth of time advertising was it these items were they advertised for that meeting date so it's possible that items that were on the 10th were going to be going on the 23rd do we have any items that we supposed to be going on on the 23rd of September to Town Council sorry sorry um so it would be going to the LPA on the 10th and then going to the Town Council on the 23rd I would need to look at advertisements to see which ones if any got advertised for that so this is this is my point so I tend to look at this from a business point of view where this there's this big snowball and uh somehow we we need the snowball not to run over us and that's the kind of the impression that I'm getting and uh and that that I understand the pressure that's there and and let me also say because I'm sure people are listening I appreciate these people who have invested their time and tons of their money to rehabilitate our community I appreciate that immensely but there's we can only go as fast as we can go and so anyway the objective of my meeting is to get a better perspective from staff uh of what what the expectation is for us to perform and uh and and if we even can do it so and I think there's a respect and a professionalism that comes with both being prepared and having the communication absolutely so you can be productive in that context do the applicants see the staff report in your recommendation same time you sent us um no we typically send it so they will get the staff report typically as soon as it's finalized you don't get the staff report until it gets reviewed by all the other reviewers and these big developments it just seemed like to me and maybe I'm reading the wrong tea leaves but the London Bay reaction was we just saw the staff report and we're have to work on those responses so we're asking for whatever they asked for so it's that kind of continuity that I believe you're trying to deal with here so that the people are serving get the same service as the ones that are serving now because ultimately that's who needs to be served is everybody out there that we're not seeing in this room right this minute because for them to all of a sudden have all of this like oh we're gonna do this and this and this and this and it's like what we're not even there with you and yeah that's the B that that that is exactly the point yeah okay so I'm having that meeting then tomorrow thank you very much um the next item on my agenda the next item I wanted to bring up to you and this kind of came out of a 3:00 a.m. not sleeping moment was um uh you know I like the Estero Island Beach Club proposal like Doug I I thought it was they listened I thought it was a good proposal but I could not get beyond the hype and I couldn't get beyond the height you know somebody would say well then she's going to not approve Seagate oh no I'm going to look at every case in individually because that's what it is and that's a very different proposal but I think that it is probably Beyond time for the Town Council and the planning agency to talk about public benefits and height because it's coming up in every single case and I think we should be in unison maybe we don't agree but we should at least voice and and come to a discussion on it because you know when somebody says to me well uh two years ago or last last year you said you would never approve anything that wasn't part of this plan and then we say well the CPD is part of this plan that doesn't ring um not that doesn't ring truthful it sounds like we're looking for an exception you know which of course that's what it is but I just I just think there needs to be an open conversation about it it it will be beneficial for the developers it will be very beneficial for the community and I think it will help us and help the Town Council so if you all agree I'll request a joint meeting yeah I I agree totally I need I think we need some guidance would that be after the elction because like Jim raised some very good points you know we can't have everything we know we want view quarters and all this stuff well some you squeeze the balloon and it pops up someplace else but we're here we are trying to make we shouldn't we should have some guidance before we make our determinations on what's okay to squeeze and what's not and the consequences of getting this wrong are generational generational and by the way on both sides because the partners we have willingly come into the island now to make huge Investments may not be those kind of people anymore if we be working with someone we don't know from a far away land that frankly will push every legal button they can push and I've gone through this personally in other place that I live when the developers get cornered and feel like you're not attending to what they're legally allowed to do and they don't have to do all the other things with it you have a different fight on your hand so we don't want Nancy spend the next six years of her life no defending a decision that we thought we had the right to make and we have consequence so it is important very important for us to have the guidance and the clarity around where are the not only the tolerable limits but the consequence limits when I say I want this then we need to talk through the three things that's going to create and have an honest discussion about that and that's where we are the last thing I would say is there's only so many Parcels of land in this on this this island that we're going to have to be dealing with these type of of intensity and density issues um and we got to get those right I know it feels bigger than that for the audience listening there but in reality when that gets done we're going to be in a more normal case so we need this guidance now and you know you you point out something too Jim that is extraordinarily important for Fort Meers Beach you know people refer to the Developers and it's this sort of nasty taste in your mouth when you say that but these are decent human beings and we're very fortunate to have the people that we have at the table right now I don't know what will happen in the future but right now to have these people at the table with us and I say with us because I see it that way and you talked about the community outreach you can have it or not have it's not required I think these developers at least to this point are doing the other thing and that's meeting with all of us and all of council they're not required is it in their best interest of course it is but it's not a requirement to can come in with the what's my right and fight it through there so we have a relationship now that we want to preserve we want to encourage and take advantage of in the best way for everyone yes I agree so um so we'll request that uh we'll request that meeting and we'll see what comes of the um uh we'll see what comes of the meeting tomorrow uh Nancy what well you know what you'll have been in that meeting so you can tell everybody what happened uh with the with the the meeting that where we're where we're going to discuss scheduling things like that you'll be able to report so having heard what you said it is in Conflict a little bit with the fact on September the 10th the Seagate proposal is coming forward that does have the special I know in it but it's putting it in everybody's head you know so did you want to have a discussion on um the tent of special benefit from polic perspective among yourselves and then address the um I don't I don't time I I would I would like to have a special benefit discussion with the Town Council and a hike discussion with the Town Council because otherwise we're just I mean we're just going to get we're just going to hit the wall every time we do something every time we do something and I I think that's important that we have that now is it unfortunate or fortunate that seagate's coming on the tent you could look at it however you want um are they for sure coming in on the 10 as far as we can tell yes as far as we can tell hard do we do we know who else might be coming in on the 10th so we're moving now to next month's agenda uh so the 10th so far we have um Seagate Neptune arches potentially arches we're still waiting on things for marches so that's that's on the 10th and the 11th Neptune and what and the Arches okay when you speak to these uh folks do they give you an indication of how long they think their presentation or their um you know I I happened to watch another meeting where the the mayor time limited the presentations said this this is a this is allocated 45 minutes now I don't see us doing that but do they give you an indication or no okay okay um you don't know how many people in the public will come either that's true anything from anybody else thank you all I really love serving with you I really do it's 1:18 may I have a motion thank you Jim we're adjourned wow bye Donn are you ever coming back