##VIDEO ID:m9_4tzuC4TQ## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e to the next okay we will we're going to call this meeting back to order it is 12:38 we are on to Item B of our public hearings this is an emergency ordinance at the town of Fort Meers Beach Florida amending section 2- 94 qualifications and appointments of members and section 2- 96 removal of agency board committee or commission members of division 2 procedures for the establishment of boards committees and commissions of article 4 boards commissions committees and other agencies of chapter 2 Administration and section 34-13 composition appointment and compensation of members of division 3 local planning agency of Article 2 zoning procedures of chapter 34 zoning districts designed standards and non-conformities of the code of ordinances of the town of Fort Meers Beach Florida removing property ownership as a qualification requirement for the members of the town's agency boards committees or commissions and adding a voting registration requirement for members of the local planning agency and audit committee eliminating duplicative and unforce unenforceable language adding a provision to section 34-13 regarding the mandatory annual Financial disclosure form as required by Florida Commission of Ethics providing for codification severability scrier erors conflicts of Law and an effective date Nancy thank you um this is the one that keeps coming back I guess like ground Hawk's day maybe um but I think hopefully we're going to get it right this time um so at your last uh meeting that we had on uh I believe it was even a second reading of the ordinance and then of course the Hurricanes came in and you did ask for some changes to be made that required a change to the title of the previously um advertised ordinance in the meantime um it's now time for you to do appointments to your committees and your advisory boards and for that reason we have prepared an an emergency ordinance that you could adopt today with a single reading of the title um which would allow you to apply your new proposed criteria um to your decisions that you make later this later today in the meeting um the next item that's on your agenda would be the first reading of a very similar ordinance that would then get you back into the normal process of two readings and then adoption um but you are able to under Florida law to take um to enact an emergency ordinance that would allow you to to appoint people to your committees today um with that said um I can direct your attention to um the agenda materials I believe it's page 154 and this is some of the language that we um we added so as far as the qualifications it would be um qualifications may be specified um for a the commission shall give preference to a registered voter within the town's jurisdiction a property owner within the town's jurisdiction other individuals with specialized experience or knowledge or individuals who have shown interest in the subject matter so that broadens it very deeply um I was also asked a question regarding zip codes um we can add a little clause in there a person having um a fort Meer speech zip code for clarity if you if you all would like to do that as well but Fort Myers Beach Z code it's not the beach it's not it's not the town jurisdiction but not the town jurisdiction right that is correct but we do have folks on committees and one seeking reappointment that's in the zip code so that zip code would only apply to the Committees except for the audit committee and the planning yeah correct so all the other committees would be opened up to anyone in 33931 yes which in effect that's what the revised language has done because you want to be able to have the expertise from people who perhaps don't live in the area but have a keen interest in the area subject matter U expertise um or have an interest maybe they work here um but don't actually live here so it really doesn't um change what you have I mean I probably could make the argument that someone with a zip code would be an individual who's shown an interest in the town but for purposes of clarity to help our clerk out it might might be good to put that clause in there or we could you guys could uh discuss it and discuss it and if that's your intent and your understanding of it we could just let that be reflected in the record and not make any changes this is just your emergency ordinance right now you can think about it after you pass the emergency ordinance if you want to change first reading well you don't have too much time because that's the next item but um sorry I'm trying but it but it's strictly it does not include LPA or audit correct I'm okay with the 33931 I am too yep okay that enough direction for you yes yes so I will add that clause and um if there's no further question um perhaps a motion move oh public comment oh yeah we got have public comment first public comment anyone care to speak on the emergency ordinance 24-33 for advisory committees thank you seeing none we'll close public comment John I'll move emergency ordinance 24-33 advisory committees with Amendment with Amendment yeah I'll second okay got a motion by councelor King seconded by councelor Safford any further discussion councelor King uh counc Safford hi councelor Woodson hi vice mayor adal hi and I'm an i as well motion carries unanimously the next item C is the first reading and introduction of a proposed ordinance 24-17 entitled an ordinance of the town of Fort Meers Beach Florida amending section 2- 94 qualifications and appointments of the members and section 2- 96 removal of agency board committee or commission members of division two procedures for the establishment of boards committees and Comm commissions of article 4 boards commissions committees and other agencies of chapter 2 Administration and section 34-13 composition appointment and compensation of members of division 3 local planning agency of Article 2 zoning procedures of chapter 34 zoning districts design standards and non-conformities of the code ordinances of the town of Fort Meers Beach Florida removing property ownership as a qualification requirement for the members of the town's agencies boards committees or commissions and and adding a voting registration requirement for the members of the local planning agency and audit committee eliminating duplicative and unenforceable language adding a provision to section 34-13 regarding the mandatory annual Financial disclosure form as required by the Florida Commission of Ethics providing for codifications severability scrier erors conflicts of Law and an effective date will now open the first public hearing so it's basically I I think I've provided you with an explanation of what this um ordinances intended to do um there was the approval in the emergency ordinance to add that additional language um it would be my recommendation that we go ahead and add it to this one as well um and if there is a motion after public comment okay I'm okay with adding it vice mayor that's fine just had a quick question uh Nancy just sort of gerain to this but I I know the legislature passed the law that required us to fill out this more extensive Financial disclosure form and then the courts I believe overturn that correct is that uh is that is that now uh stated policy for the state in other words does the legislature have to come back again and pass something different in other words is that stable is that going to be the policy going yes yes you you only need to file the form one you don't have to file the form six so unless the legislature comes back and addresses the Court's concerns and comes back and does it differently this is this will be this will be policy going forward yes okay thank page 181 still says form six 181 181 I'm sorry 181 okay and that is part of the resolution I think that's what came up on mine that would be your rules and procedures no it's council member requirements electronically file a statement of financial interests form six under exhibit a under exhibit a okay that I believe is your next item and I apologize that would be regarding a change to your resolution 23-12 okay that's okay apologize Mr Safford because um well we'll go ahead I I'm going to actually recommend that we take no action on that at this time because you want your resolution ution to be consistent with your ordinance this ordinance is coming back to you for second reading so when you adopt it assuming you adopt it at second reading that's when we'll make sure that that's corrected okay fair enough so do you still need us to do the 33931 yes dire if you are yes I'm okay with it councelor King yes uh y everybody's okay with it okay public comment that be Woodson okay I'm watching Scott's head's going like this I was sure I was going to go public comment anyone care to speak on ordinance 24-17 advisory committees seeing none we will we will close public comment and ask for a motion to approve or deny I'll move ordinance 24-17 advisory committees okay as amended as amend okay got a motion by councelor King second seconded by councelor Woodson any further discussion councelor King hi councelor Woodson hi councel Safford hi Vice edal hi and I'm an i as well motion carries unanimously next is item D this is a resolution of the town of Fort Meers Beach Florida amending sections two and five of the town's policies and procedure manuals to make it consistent with eligibility requirements for members of the town's agencies boards committees and commissions and to update reference to required Financial disclosure forms and providing for an effective date so the recommendation is that you take no action on this item at this meeting um this item will come back to you um on second reading of the prior ordinance okay do we need to make a motion to table it or yes okay that'd be fine is there a motion to table resolution 24- 178 so moved motion by councilor Safford I'll second any further discussion councelor Safford hi I'm an i councelor Woodson hi Vice mayhle hi and councelor King all right the motion is tabled to the next meeting which is the 28th sweet got it okay next is item e this is the first reading in public hearing on proposed ordinance 24-31 entitled an ordinance of the town of Fort Meers Beach Florida amending section 4.02 mayor 4.03 vice mayor 5.01 elections and 5.03 terms of office on of Fort Meers Beach toown Charter to codify changes to the date of the Town elections from March to November and to establish four-year terms of office for Town Council Members as approved by the voters at the March 2020 municipal election providing for codification severability scrier eras conflicts of Law and an effective date will now open the first public hearing so this um ordinance is just basically some housekeeping that we're doing um it does involve a charter change change your Charter used to have your Municipal elections in March um the voters approved a change to November however your code of ordinances was just not updated to to show that change okay and that's all it does any questions for Nancy none public comment anyone care to speak on ordinance 24-31 codification of 2020 Charter amendments seeing none we'll close public comment comment bring it back for a motion to approve or deny I will move to approve ordinance 24-31 second got a motion by Mary Aller seconded by councel Woodson any further discussion I'm an i councelor Woodson I councelor Safford I uh Vice May idle hi coun King hi motion carries unanimously next is our final public uh our public hearing item f it is ordinance 24-34 this is the first reading and public hearing of on proposal ordinance 24-3 24-32 entitled an ordinance of the town of Fort Meers Beach Florida amending section two of ordinance 2005-04 to reflect the changes to the town Charter approved by the town voters at the Municipal elections on March 17th 2020 providing for codification severability scribers erors conflicts of Law and an effective date will now open the first public hearing if I may um this is just another little housekeeping item um you had a prior ordinance that was enacted back in I think 2005 um where you changed the date from November to March and now because of the vote of the electorate in 2020 we are now changing that back to November so it's just housekeeping got it followup any questions for Nancy see none we'll open it for public comment does anyone like to speak in public comment seeing none we'll close public comment is there a motion to approve or deny ordinance 24-32 so moved second motion by councelor King seconded by councelor Safford any further discussion councelor King hi counc Stafford hi counc wson hi vice mayor and I'm an i as well that motion carries unanimously that brings us to our administrative agenda first one is a resolution of the Town Council of the town of Fort Meers Beach Florida approving an agreement for Disaster Recovery Services for debris and vegetation removal from waterways canals and natural Creeks with aftermath Disaster Recovery Inc based on competitive pricing procured by Lee County authorizing the mayor or town manager to sign the agreement and providing for an effective date yes sir uh Mr Mayor this is basically looking at uh agreements to cter Gulf or their subsidiaries to uh procure them as our debris clean up for canals okay questions for Frankie or Andy seeing none is there a motion to approve resolution 24-1 191 or deny motion 24 so move to approve okay motion by councelor Woodson second seconded by councelor Safford beat you to the punch that's okay do you want a roll call vote for these two okay uh any further discussion councel Woodson I councelor Safford I vice mayor adhal hi councelor King hi and I'm an i as well that motion carries unanimously next is Item B this is a resolution of the town of Fort Myers Beach Florida amending and restating its contract restarting restating its contract with the Florida Department of administrative hearings for delivery of special magistrate Services authorizing the town manager or mayor to sign the agreement and providing for an effective date thank you um so if you recall we had situation where uh the appeal process that we formally used with Lee County Board of adjustment um the interlocal agreement with the county had expired um we came back to the Town Council an emergency ordinance was adopted to send any appeals to a the special magistrate you have um an individual and attorney Monica Schmucker uh who serves as your special magistrate you also have a contract with um the department of administrative hearings um to also provide special magistrate Services um Miss schmucker's U contract was amended I think at the last meeting and this would just amend the DOA contract that we have um if an appeal comes up during this emergency period Nancy would now be a time appropriate time to address the public comment that was made regarding this specific yes we can no I I can do it now okay um so just as we just did with our committee appointments um we did you all did adopt a um emergency ordinance that has a lifetime of I believe 60 days you also did a first reading of a proposed ordinance which would make that choice um permanent so your first reading is done we're bringing it back for second reading I believe on the 28th which would be next Monday and at that point um you could look at available Alternatives um I appreciate the information from the public comment today um the county has not indicated to us that it would be willing to um enter into a interlocal agreement with um with the town um in fact when I spoke with one of the attorneys um I believe he said that they don't have an inter local with other jurisdictions within Le County um but what I will say is that that is an option that you have and if you want us to go back and try to um negotiate that um with the county and let them go back to the way it was that that's fine um I just need to make sure that there is an opportunity for an appeal um and who that decision maker would be has there been any discussion with that is there a cost associated with in relation to what the cost adjustment is in this resolution uh I have not done that analysis um I don't no I don't think that Lee County was charging perhaps they were charging what the um administrative fee was there we go and I talk to Dave Harner and it's about $1,000 per case that would be passed along to the complaint it's my understanding that they were doing it for us because we they were doing our inspections and they no longer do our inspections and that's why we had theou Joe is that correct I think it's possible come on up Joe if he's gonna we got a Cy on Mike come up you got that's the understanding I had when I talked to to Dave Horner about this and he he put me in touch with their building officials and everything and so that's kind of why we went this direction because it was cheaper and and I'm not sure on that but I think it's possible I know it was a while back when Lee County was doing plan review and inspections for Fort Meers speach right they said that in order to to go through the process they'd have to have somebody do plan review they'd have to have somebody that also did the and that's why it was with them because it was just easier for them to do everything at the time in a in a contract I wasn't here so that's just information I'm getting from from the background check I was doing so gentlemen when when you say it's a while back I keep hearing that is it was it prean was it five years ago six 2017 okay 17 okay and and based on what we were able to find through email correspondence um the the interlocal agreement expired and then there was just kind of a gentleman's um agreement that if there was an appeal because I don't think we've even had an appeal but uh we have one now with our unsafe buildings but um for that period of time there really wasn't anything so they had an agreement that yeah if it came we would we would try to process it and um and provide that forum and that opportunity but it never materialized corre if I'm wrong but the only the affected party can appeal the building official decision not neighbors and things of that nature is that true that's correct yes that is correct yeah that's an important yes piece of the puzzle yes that is the piece of the puzzle okay any questions more questions for Joe or Nancy okay thanks Joe all right any further discussion or a motion to approve or deny Item B do amended and restate contract for special magistrate service contract for special magistrate Services I will make a motion to approve second seconded by councelor King any further discussion I'm an i councelor King hi vice mayor adle hi councelor Woodson hi hi and councelor Safford hi motion carries unanimously next is item C 20 resolution 24-0 209 this is a resolution of the Town Council the town of Fort Meers Beach Lee County Florida approving budget amendment number one def fund the purchase of 6221 Estero Boulevard providing Authority and an effective date Joe Joe anac Finance director um this is really a simple budget adjustment we originally had had the the budget for the purchase of the property adjacent to the new town hall um budgeted in 2024 since the closing did not take place in that fiscal year we're just moving the budget into 2025 and roughly half of it is still um coming from the state at $980,000 35 and the remainder of the portion is the insurance proceeds 7399 $65 okay questions for Joe Scott no Karen none Vice May no King none um the only question I have is maybe where are we at in the process with that we're in escrow and waiting now for the closing documents and we can move forward as soon as we get those okay any kind of time frame on that do you think no we haven't heard I think it wasn't it 45 days for the due diligence period right um but I'll I'll get with Andy and Frankie and if you want us to try to close quicker maybe we can I think we're still waiting on the title report okay all right other question is there a motion to approve resolution 24209 so moved got a motion by councelor Woodson second seconded by councelor King any further discussion councelor Woodson I councelor King I Vice m i c Safford I I'm an i as well next is item D fee waiver for salty Sams wave fees associated with pumping out of the salty Sams pirate ship so let's get walk the plank on this one um basically what we're doing is uh it's Our obligation to take care of people under that Grant um within a th ft of our boundary of our Island okay uh is probably pushing it within a foot or two uh but they've been really good to us in the past helping us with certain situations this seems like a logical thing to go ahead and help them during this situation they were doing peer renovation and they had remove their mechanical pump out while they did that um so it was really no big task for our our pump out Bo to go there and help them and the feed just for PP just pumping out it which is $5 so I well it says in here a $100 pump out fee so right I think over over the time the amount of pump outs but that was not to exceed that but actually each pump out is only five okay any further any questions for Frankie or staff is there a motion to got there's a joke there I'm not gonna do it is there is there yeah is there a motion to approve waving the fees associated with the pumping out of the Salty Sam's pirate ship so move moved by councelor Safford second second by councelor Woodson any further discussion councelor Safford oh you know I'm going to say this r i coun Woodson I May councelor King I was going to say I but's and I'm an i as well the motion carries unanimously next is the local planning agency LPA appointing members for the fiscal year 2024 2025 can I before we get move forward on the agenda it looks like there was also um a hold harmless agreement regarding the waving of the fees and I don't think that was approved I think that we would need to have a motion to have that approved okay is there a motion to approve the hold harmis agreement between the town and the I'm assuming the salty Sams yes pirate boat yes so moved I moved by Conor Safford second seconded by councelor Woodson any further discussion councelor Safford see yes I councelor Woodson hi vice mayor Ed hi coun King hi I'm an i as well motion carries your n now we're on the LPA as mentioned at the beginning there was a a request because there is a a good siiz project on the docket for the LPA meeting tomorrow so there was a request from the chair to delay this appointment for one you can do that um you can do that yes council is authorized to do it it's in your code of ordinances on 34-11 14 and it allows for the extension of the term of an existing um member until the successor is appointed so you could delay your vote uh of appointment okay is there is there anyone that has go ahead I'm just so I I'm just maybe I'm not following this so so if we change the makeup of the LPA we would delay the LPA meeting tomorrow but if we don't change it it will occur tomorrow is that necess no my understand delaying the vote right wouldn't yes you're delaying the vote just the vote of who gets point because if we if the board was to a member was to change hands based on to vote today y the meeting tomorrow that new member would be in place and would not have time to review the whole if what if we reversed the two and we had the vote on the lp and then it could be a moot point then right I if the people that you appoint are sitting members then they would have received but if that occurs if it doesn't occur then we could go ahead and address the moving of the meeting right yes well moving of the meeting moving of the voteing to a point right I think I think the chair of the LPA suggests this and it's probably a good idea no no I I I'm agreeing with the thrust of what she's trying to accomplish I just didn't know if the cart was before the horse no I think what this would do is it would just allow the people that have put all the time and effort into making the recommendation of the what's on the agenda tomorrow it would allow for sure the people that have put the work in to be able to I got review the review review that that's fine as opposed to putting potentially one or more members under a 24hour it it is the seate Redevelopment it's a development agreement it's the first one so it's a little complex no no no I get that I just and I know some members are sitting in the audience hopefully this if this is approved it won't be too too detrimental for another week although he's got a look on his face so I said I would bring it up so you could reschedule this agenda item in Toto and its status quo for tomorrow or we could just have if we just voted on the LPA and and it and if the status quo happens to same members then it's kind of a mood point then right that is correct that's all I'm saying I I just seems like well procedurally yeah I guess it's up whatever you think is the best to do I I I'm Amy is there another that's easier for you or we can do it either way I I think we should just do it next week just Monday I mean next Monday yeah yeah Karen what think well I'm kind of with Jim like if it if it goes with the same people then it's done if not then but then you're G then you're going to have to post there's there's no way anybody can go I mean they've been they've had that packet for we well you can still postpone the meeting you still postpone it no I think what Jim is I think what Jim is suggesting is that if there is a change through the vote of the LPA and it is a new member postponing the seat that new member until the following Monday is that what you're trying to say they'll still have the vote tomorrow yeah with the same LPA members but the new person wouldn't take that seat until until after the next week until after that so their appointment would take place at next meeting yeah that that might you might have a member that's that didn't get reelected so it might but that's what we're saying it might potentially change his his or her vote Ian I see your point on that it's a good point that's a good point you see what he's saying should yeah given given the rational characters who are on the LPA I I don't think so but yes I don't know I'm looking at a couple of them now what it doesn't matter I I I would support just waiting until next Monday to make the appointments just so that those that have put in the hard work I mean that's it's it's a big these guys have been here all day it's kind of cruel well that's why we tried to at the beginning say this could potentially happen so that uh if they chose to sit around at course John used to come to all of our meetings so this is kind of old hat for him yeah exactly so there's two for moving into next week and we'll go down and see your let's see what let's see what Mr King says he's passing to us councelor King yeah um let's go ahead and delay till next Monday okay so it would be a motion to reschedule this item to the 28 I'll will make a motion to reschedule the appointment of the lp to next Monday the 28th second and if possible can we get it close to the top so the gentleman that we'll put it where it belongs at the front of the okay with the appointments all right so we got a motion was there a second yes Scott yeah oh okay motion by mayor Aller seconded by councelor Stafford any further discussion no I'm I I counc Stafford hi oh councelor Woodson hi hi hi okay okay motion carries unanimously next is the Anchorage advisory committee I don't know that we have to have it since there's only four PE there's uh five people in Five openings since Jim Haw had dropped out right and while you're talking about that also on the Public Safety Committee Cynthia Johnson pulled her application also on which one Public Safety Safety I'm sorry where are we now Andy I had an ocular occurrence find it and who was it oh it's already crossed out you already have cross on you already have it marked okay so where which so on this one we can just make a motion to approve Nancy we can just make a motion to approve the five remaining people on the Anchorage advisory committee just yes yes yes okay do we still got to fill out our little sheet here okay because your your dire out that's F okay is there a motion to approve the five remaining do I need to read their names in record or does that matter I think you should okay if I V you your name I apologize just real quick Mr what's the aster for next to their names you need wer under your old ordinance okay oh got it okay so under the five remaining is Theodore Lael La lawell Sam lurry John Wesley Nash Jennifer Rusk and Rebecca Weber is there a motion to make a motion you got to count it then tell us yeah we we're missing three ballots here's mine okay I had to read the name would you like my name yes please the H you can take the honor and while they're talking I should have probably asked the beginning of this does anyone have any objection to if there's someone in the audience that would like to speak if their name is on one of these lists to allow them to speak before the the vote does anyone have any objection not only do I not have an objection if the two LPA members want to put in their two cents so they don't have to come back next week they're welcome to I welcome that too that's a good good good point S I should have offered that I'm fine John you all right come on up John why they're tallying up the I just like to formally state that I would like to continue to serve on the LPA thank you doly noted thank you can I just reiterate the names for AAC so your policies are followed because I'm supposed to read them okay then I'll just let you read them and I won't them okay so the five appointments to U Anchorage advisory committee are Theodore lell Sam lurry John Wesley Nash Jennifer Rusk and Rebecca Weber okay so we don't need to take a motion on it you already did by giving you the sheets yes because you're voting okay next is the audit committee there are four applicants and four open seats I don't need a motion okay you can do a motion just to appoint those based on the tally okay is there a motion to appoint those on the tally for the Anchorage advisory committee sove so I'll second because the agenda says a point any dis all in favor signify by saying I I oppose hearing none motion carries doesn't she have to read their names she did she did she did no this the last one we had to motion next next we have the audit committee there are four open seats and four applicants so your ballots I was one step ahead of you so we'll tally and then you all can make a motion okay away they're testing us okay is there anyone here for the next one B Oaks borab uh we can read you the the name so for the audit okay so for the audit committee with a vote of five each um Debbie Dutton Jack Leon David sanberg and Brian Thomas motion is there a motion to appr to approve the results of the audit committee appoint appointees appoint the audit committee members so I moved motion by councelor Safford coun Woodson seconds any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I oppos hearing none the motion carries unanimously next is borab would you like to come up and say a few words before we take our vote three my name is Michelle I'm a fulltime resident I on a I'm also the president there I use theks a lot and I'm excited to be part of the growth and the expansion and the future of it so all right thank you Michelle okay there are five people have put their name in and three seats available so vote for three please please for okay so with two votes is Michelle Cherney I'm sorry if I said that wrong uh John du DUS Larry received four votes uh Ed skover received five votes and Betty Simpson received four so your three appointees would be John Duce Larry Ed skover and Betty Simpson okay is there a motion to approve the results of the borab advisory committee or is that the right them and appoint them got it okay I will make a motion to approve the Bor cab appointees I'll second second by Conor Safford all all those in favor signify by saying I I approved motion is approved five to zero next is cell cab there are four applicants and four seats five applicants five applicants I only have okay I got four I only have four on mine I only have four oh you should have Carrie Henderson Barbara Hill Betty Simpson Cheryl Smith and Becky wner no Becky sorry can be a right in please yeah Becky Warner's on there also long time member ready we are voting for five though right you're voting for four what you only vote for four four there five applicants four votes but they're all incumbent all five of those people are incumbents yeah so it's a reappointment switch on to the next one then let's us look into this for a minute okay we are going to table the cell cab vote and put it at the end and move on to murf the Marine environmental resources task force there are five open seats and 12 applicants has that changed just make sure before we well we'll move on with that for now should not be on here do expire till next year okay okay oh sorry go on with your which one are you on now we are on murf murf okay five seats 12 applicants yes and I have an we have an answer for an oh I'm sorry come on up Sharon you sitting out there so patient and so quiet I didn't see you sorry we're kind of moving all over the place here well um good afternoon all of you um I'm Sharon Hegstrom and a full-time resident at Fort Meers Beach I became began coming here in the late 60s when my mom and dad bought a place in Cape Coral I remember the first time my dad brought us out to the beach and he said he just had to explain to me the value of the mangroves he said so that was where I think was my first taste of the ironment on this island how the M Groves protect the soil prevent the storm surge protect the fish the birds the shellfish I think they are a significant part of the tapestry woven into the environment on our Barrier Island living on Fort Meers Beach offers me a full Taste of environment every day as president at Castle Beach for six years I was totally involved and supported the birding and worked with Rebecca with Florida Fish and Wildlife every every season um I also watched the other day how effective the burm was because we didn't have any sand on a sterile Island on our part of the of the road at all not one bit because that BM held the sand back and now we have a much higher Beach all all our whole Beach is is higher it's coming up almost to the BM and it's the biggest it's the biggest U you know Beach we on the island so anyway well I would appreciate the opportunity to serve on the Mur committee to learn to share with you the Town Council and Chad in a respectful manner this barer island is teaming with life that all works together as one unit to form the environment we've received from our creator and that we're obliged to care for weaving all the intricacies into one thank you for considering me as a member the murf committee thank you Sharon anyone else Steve come on up good afternoon I'm actually here to uh withdraw my application for reappointment to the murf Advisory Board there's a number of reasons why but I'd like to share two of the most compelling first uh I believe the Town Council has has has begun to politicize the advis The Advisory boards and appear to want to continue this um which really doesn't serve the the the uh the needs of the community uh by placing uh folks that primarily pursue self-interest or defend them uh second I refuse to volunteer and serve on an Advisory board for a town councilman like Jim King John King all V all volunteers seek an appointment need to heed this warning John King um uses really despicable tactics against Advisory Board volunteers to subg his responsibilities as an elected official this issue originates when a discreet email detailing a valid concern is sent to the entirety of the Town Council instead of uh um considering the issue he immediately forwards it to Ed Roy over at beach talk radio to be posted on social media for public harassment who does this I mean who does this a discreet email forwarded directly to social media uh in this case the the email was actually edited even before it was po uh posted to maximize this uh his social media crucifixion his site is highly censored negative messages are removed and opposing contributors are blocked it's not news it's a propaganda narrative uh this disgusting tactic is reprehensible from an elected leader and John keing deserves no respect nor support for his from his constituents his actions defy any moral code or ethical requirement of a counselor uh I believe that the Town Council continues to support Beach Talk Radio in their defis of rhetoric um excessively recognizes good deeds and providing access to information and providing content to his shows it is an unhealthy relationship and exists really to avoid being the uh center of his attention uh Ed Roy is nothing more than the Haw Tua girl of hurricane Ian and has been monetizing our town ever since like an abusive partner it's always a couple of nice acts and then a punch in the face if he's not rallying against our prior mayor Town councilman or even me he tries to stay relevant now he's picked a fight with probably the most selfless and giving member of our community Jackie liik this has to stop it has to stop you know edroid is nothing but a cancer on this town and morally vacant counselors like John King continue to feed this tumor so thank you thanks Steve where are we all right right oh you go ahead finish murf and then we'll go back to then we'll go back y to cellc okay got their murf recommendations leave already you left already he doesn't give a chance to respond under when we take our vote you can respond if you'd like no I don't need to I'll do it later in my time thank you okay all right than takes a little longer 12 people yeah 11 sorry 11 now this is a handy little 11 five five no this is a just a four in case anybody wonders what I'm looking at it's just a it's just a spreadsheet if you will of all the members that are expiration dat and their expiration dates and when they B on date or expiration hope my name's not on that there is a born on okay what do you got M all right Madam clerk what do you got okay so we have four for sure okay we're going to have to revote on uh several for the fifth position okay so the vote of five is Sharon Hegstrom uh Robert how had do you want me to just read these four right now yes okay so Sharon Hegstrom had five votes Edward Roode had five votes Jennifer Rusk has three three Leo sand has four those four are your highest votes right there so we need a second vote on your fifth seat and your fifth seat would be between Robert Howell Moren cico coo James onod David Patton and Thomas torguson only can you repeat those again because I can't write that fast Sharon Hegstrom or I'm sorry Robert Howell mhm Moren Kus Cisco I don't know how to say her name uh James onoto David Patton or Thomas torguson you're only going to vote for one of those and only those people what do you want us to vote on just any piece paper sorry another second ballot so we just circle we'll just circle the name now that you want of those you're going to get a fresh ballot oh we got a look at us you're only going to vote for one person out of those got it you want me to read them again the ones you're going to vote like okay now that we have it we can put a little check mark So Robert Howell okay Moren Casco I'm sorry Moren I'm butchering your name uh James onod onod okay uh David Patton and Thomas torguson so one of those five one of those five one okay two I'm curious as to how many of these you have I know see has number two you got a whole another round three I knew this was going to go a while I was like they're never going to get five people on the first try and then are you going to repeat the five again will okay okay that's okay we're not through we're not yet there we go okay okay so Robert how received two votes uh Moren I'm not even going to try her name again received one David Patton received one and Thomas horgus received one so Robert how is your applicant or your got okay so now a motion too to read all five of them again just read it and then we'll make the motion got okay so the five with the highest amount of votes is Sharon Hegstrom Edward Roode Jennifer Rusk Leo sand and Robert Howell okay is there a motion to approve the five members of murf of murf committee I will move to approve the vote for the approval of the five committee members I will second it okay got a motion in a second uh by councilor Safford any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I I there seems to be something going on out of them no okay okay so can we go back to ccab real quick sure okay so Becky wner is on is not up for reappointment so it is only the four okay got it so there are four seats and four applicants correct got it Becky got put on the tally sheet for some reason want yeah yeah they can still Ser on it Simpson she's on she was apped Barbara Hill would be on board cab also she's not up for appointment but she's on I don't know right off hand so I I would recommend you go ahead and appoint them and then we'll come back if we have to we've always been too right they had a waiver system in there in the old ordinance there's a waiver system that they could wave them and put them on two committees in the old system in the old right do you want us to move on the other one and come back or do you are you checking on something Nancy yes okay um whether or not someone can serve on two committees we already have three others on two committees all right Amy do you want to go on to one of the other we can go on to Public Safety okay we'll move on to Public Safety Committee and then come back there are three open seats and two applicants correct the public is aware there's two vacancies still and there are two vacancies on the Public Safety Committee as just reported by Madam after to after today thank you do you want are you gonna want these LP ones back for next week I'll give them to you next week because they're dated so mayor yes with vote of five each is Todd capella and Karen Ferrell Kieran k k farell for Public Safety Committee and there are still two open seats on Public Safety if anyone out there in TV view England is interested there you go so we need a motion and a vote well we're waiting for the vice mayor to come back got it okay ordinance it's not in the proced wasn't in there and then the last time we changed it back years ago they put no pressure Jim but we're waiting on you that's all right I turned in your we got to take the vote we wait for you to get back approval of the vote is there a motion to approve the appointees for the Public Safety Committee as laid out by the town clerk so moved second motion by councelor Safford second by councelor Woodson any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed hearing none that motion carries unanimously and we back to is that the last one we're done we're still at cell cab so at cell cab and the questions AR arose about serving on two boards the uh you're talking about Barbara and Betty correct they have both been on those committees for a long long time would also be Ed schoonover as well and Jennifer Russ now we've always been able to be on two committees that I remember I I it I understand um okay so you have two options you could delay your vote on that particular appointment to the 28th or you could vote appoint them based on everyone's knowledge that it has been the past practice I can do the research and verify and report to you on Monday okay what would you like to do councelor k um continue as we approved I guess okay Mar I I'd prefer to go ahead today and affirm those and then if there's an issue we'll bring it back to you that's fine that's finec W same go ahead and make absolutely okay is there a motion to well goe read the names okay so with all with votes of 5 Z is appointments would go to Carrie Henderson Barbara Hill Betty Simpson and Cheryl Smith is there a motion to approve the four members of ccab as I'm sorry I was just gonna make that as laid out by town clerk trying to move things so move all right I councelor Safford seconded is there any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed hearing none the motion carries unanimously okay the last thing we have that was added on was item L it is the interlocal agreement with the library for for the beach school this is a resolution of the Town Council of the town of Fort Meers Beach Florida approving an interlocal agreement with the library Board of the town of Fort Meers Beach to allow use of the public library while repairs are made at the Bay Oaks Recreation Center for after school programming authorizing the mayor to sign the interlocal agreement and direct the clerk to record a copy in the Lee County official records and providing an effective date okay CH mhal yes if I could uh I just would first of all like to thank a number of people who helped make this possible I don't have my list in front of me so I have to do it off the top of my head but I uh wanted to thank John C who was here earlier uh John is a force of Nature and he will not be denied and I say that affectionately uh he not only drove this particular provision but he also drove getting the remediation to the beach school after the hurricane and I wanted to thank all my colleagues on the council for reaching out to various people I want to thank Sam fiser from the town who chairs the school board along with Chris Patria who's our district rep and those school officials who uh work with us to get that school get that remediation uh going it is going to be a few months uh hopefully fewer rather than more uh the estimate is around three to four months and uh and then so but that remediation uh occurring quickly was so important because that just didn't happen after Ian so we're very thankful for that second of all with respect to the uh after school care uh Jenny tardiff was also very helpful in this we thank the the uh Town staff Jeff and Danielle and Andy and and everybody for helping us do this I thank Our Town attorney for over the weekend of putting this together for us last minute and working with the library board and their Town attorney and Liz rhs at the library all very helpful everybody working together to uh to help help preserve some sense of normaly in the Bizarro World in which our poor Beach school elementary kids have to live in uh to the school district's credit they are bringing a bus to Fort Meers Beach uh which didn't happen before they had to go out to the Walmart uh there is still a stop at the Walmart and at Buttonwood and at the at the beach school which is a great convenience to the kids unfortunately the first day the bus didn't show up but they had a challenge with the driver hopefully those will be remedied uh but this after school program program uh the parents love it the kids love it that's a testimony to our staff Jeff and Danielle and the whole team over there and we're happy to have at the library for maybe a few weeks maybe a little longer just depending how long it takes to remediate Bay Oaks and and and while this was going on the the folks at Margaritaville were offered to help us as well as an interim solution uh but the library came through so that wasn't necessary but we want to thank the Margaritaville people as well for their kind offer as well to assist so I'm sure I missed somebody because I don't have my note in front of me but I just want to thank everybody involved and urge your support for this interlocal agreement which is really and I'll let Nancy correct me but it's really procedural in nature there's no there's no subsid of policy issues involved in this interlocal agreement it's just a it's just a legal document to codify the agreement to have the kids be there for a few weeks so appreciate your support y I will move to approve the inter local agreement with the school with the library for the School Board second got a motion by mayy all seconded by councelor King any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I opposed hearing none that motion carries unanimously final public comment anyone Leah come on up I just want to address what we discussed earlier about this um appeal process Le just again oh sure I'm sorry Leah Leah Greg resident so you know I anticipated that in the initial reading when I when I kind of read through the the the lines with regard to okay why are we changing this um and I reached out to um his name is Thomas Delaney you might know Andy Tad Delaney he's the building official in Lee County so uh first off Lee County and Bia and St James City and Matt leay Bonita Springs and Cape Coral all have the process in place that anyone not just the homeowner can file a complaint if their Pro property was adversely affected by building officials decision you Andy Frankie Joe all told me that I could follow this process if I didn't agree with the decisions that the building official made that's causing my property to be adversely effective right it's fortunately you guys let me record that meeting for reference it's recorded that you all informed me to do that when I contacted Lee County they didn't say it was a gentleman's agreement they said that we did have an interlocal agreement signed in place place and Tad the building official he also told me that you met with um I guess Mark MOA a couple building officials well that's I have the email I'll send it to you but nonetheless they said that they suggested that we continue our interlocal agreement to keep it consistent with what we had in the past I also shared with Tad I said look and this was on September 18th I sent him this email I said my interpretation is the town is not allowing the town of Fort Meers Beach is not allowing anyone but the homeowner to appeal at the decision made by a building official if that decision adversely affects their property so I said can you please help me understand the way it works in Lee County and he said quote any concern under Lee County's jurisdiction would be heard by anyone I repeat anyone not just the homeowner who feels that they have been adversely effective by a decision made by a building official regardless of if they were or were not the property owner so my question is why did you change that why did you make it now where there's absolutely no oversight because you don't ask them any questions I've asked you to ask them questions Dan you hav't I understand you're not a building official you put it back on these guys but nobody oversees his decisions and now we had one Avenue to do that and you changed the game on us can I just ask why perhaps it's not mandatory legally to allow anyone to be able to to file an appeal or to appeal a building's decision a building official's decision but is it is it ethical is it the right thing to do and why are you protecting decisions he makes that could adversely affect someone's property when you told me to take this step I did and now it's completely completely changed where now no one can question the building official unless they're a homeowner so again why why did you change that disadvantaging homeowners you can't answer that question here we'll ask her to ask I'll ask her to ask answer under her yeah and and I'd be happy to respond I know you don't respond to anyone via email it has to go through I'm sorry we do Frankie it has to go through Frankie all right let we we'll have a okay I I can go ahead and address it so if you have a concern with your neighbor because of not my neighbor a building permit that is issued it's not about a permit it's about the building officials decision to to to allow code violation in your code right now you do have an administrative appeal process M and that is of any director or town employee that makes a decision gets appealed primarily first to our town manager who then can bring the appeal uh to Town Council that process is in place and I believe that that is the process right now that uh decisions of the building official would follow yeah well it was told to me and it was also told to me by Lee County that the interlocal agreement allowed this 13 member board to hear and decide on any appeal that someone would bring forth by the building official so I know you sent me an email through Frankie about a permit I've never said anything about permits yes this discussion can be had there might be other people that want to speak under public comment so you can have this discussion after yeah okay but I just want to make it clear that it seems that it changed and a change that does not Advantage the home owners thank you Leah you're welcome is there anyone else that would like to speak in public comment all right seeing none we'll close public comment Tom manager Riders thank you mayor um we appreciate everything that that you guys do it's it's not always uh an easy task but uh as far as the emergency preparedness um you know councelor King's right it wasn't perfect but I would submit that with the intangibles that we had to deal with unnown of Storms and dealing with two other professional entities of fire department and a Le County Sheriff's department and dealing with residents who had had you know been through this we we we came as close to perfect as we could at at this point and I think as we learned from this we'll we'll continue to raise that bar and I appreciate all the all the Kudos but staff did an excellent job uh debris removal continues apparently there's supposed to be another truck out today I haven't been out to check but I know that we had one um as I stated earlier to some of you during a break that you know it's the it's they go where the money is and so right now the money's in the mountains and they're going for the debris up there because they had post disaster contracts put in place which which created a different Dynamic for us we were pre- disaster which is required they were post disaster so they charging some more dollars so I think from what I was told on yesterday afternoon trucks turn around and they go to where the money is so we are working to try to get more trucks here to try to to come up with a better system a different angle uh we do have the annual report uh that's required by contract and what I'll do is I can either give you a hard copy or we can email that to you whatever your preference will be uh the new town hall we did take since just to keep safe time and I won't because it's gerain to what you just said Andy I was going to ask this during Council items but since we're on debris could you just help people understand a little bit better and and it's it's it's in terms of uh I as I understand it uh because this is federally funded this debris pickup as opposed to under Ian it was state funded we're restricted to picking up residential property debris in other words commercial and I think condos are considered commercial under this new sort of Paradigm is that true then that and I understand you're also working on some other options for those can you just kind of flush that off for that's the way we understood it as of like Saturday night as of yesterday I found out that when when the federal government says commercial they're talking about a big development like Walmart or Target or the whole of 7-Eleven for instance not necessarily commercial mom and pop stores and condos we I'm getting that clarified I'm reached out to someone that that's in the business uh he's up in Greenville but he's up working in North Carolina at this point so he I'm I'm leaning on him for some guidance he was supposed to send me an email yesterday but maybe didn't get around to it so I believe we'll still be able to get it and we'll be able to get paid for by the federal government FEMA okay at this point I also understand through that source is that it's originally it was 30 days now we believe it's 90 days 100% reimbursement so I'm still clarifying that so as soon as I get that clarification we'll get that out so our friends in commercial properties when I say commercial small businesses on the island and condos should kind of just hang tight correct and that it may it may work out they still need to separate it appropriately absolutely it needs to be separated and then the other question I get about is is people that just have sand are they allowed to move that to the boulevard does the town want that will they pick it up we do want it and we are working to to get that worked out as well because it's very valuable we stop the county from taking it down to l key and then sending it to Santa Bel on Friday so that was that was a big issue that we had but yes we're working to get that where if somebody does put it out on the boulevard not in the road but next to it that do they need to call Chad to come out and inspect every single pile or just how do you guys want us to Pro how do you want the public to proceed with that do you want to be called for each one Chan or just ones that are suspicious uh morning I think it's still morning uh Chad shoot Australia okay there you go so uh our uh our contractors are pretty well versed in what we want and what we don't want in the piles it's the monkey stuff that's uh more mud and Landscape stuff that may uh raise some Flags um as long as they've kept it uh away from debris reasonably um it should be okay for pickup and uh and they don't need to call you to to inspect it then right I thought I saw somewhere that's more for if they want to put clean sand out on the beach okay so and that is that does not require permit but um we're keeping an eye on that we don't want rocks and debris to the beach call you but if they're just putting it out to be picked up go ahead and do that or better yet send me an email yes sir CHD fmb.com but I mean send you an email if you're going to if they're going to take you to the beach correct but not if they're just putting it on the boulevard to be picked up correct gotcha all right that's that's helpful thank you thank you the new town hall we did take some water there it's been remediated um we continue to move forward with the the process of carpet paint hopefully in the next 7 10 days I'll have those lines up so we can start moving forward with getting those two levels and we are getting the RFP together hopefully this week so we can put that out to get the downstairs ready to go because obviously we'll be ready to do a a swearing in ceremony down there we it's cleared out um whenever we decide to swear in the new um the new Council after U the election in a couple week couple two weeks from tomorrow actually um I want to thank the Lee County Sheriff's Office and the fort Meers Beach U fire district for for their cooperation and their support during Milton it was really a a team effort with all of us the town and those two entities um as far as the council the LPA joint voting meeting it was brought up earlier that that was we we were trying to get it scheduled then we had uh Helen and then we had Milton and then you know so we sometimes you prioritize things and that was clean up and so now we'll get with uh the clerk and she can send out an email to see what dates work for everybody so we can keep moving on that so you can have a voting meeting on the comp plan only um before you move on that though weren't we wasn't the discussion to have some charettes with the public before it got to the council that is correct yes so we I was working with with access to get a quote to get that those things going as well okay so that will come before the joint correct yes okay just want to clarification it's a bigger it's a bigger picture than just a quick meeting right I think it was Barbara that was asking about what that she's not here now but I think she was the one asking for we also were able to secure through Senator Scott's office the extension for the uh uh Recreation grant for for back here for the park um we need to move we need to get some U probably get a contract in place by the end of the the year calendar year to be able to secure the the the money from the uh um arpa funds um the match that we'll put for that so we're working to get that accomplished as far as the appeal to the the building official yeah we you know uh we do support the building official we do think he does a good job you know his due diligence also when I spoke on a phone call to Dave I have no idea who else was in the room so I can't attest to who uh who was in the room at that time um they were telling me it's $1,000 minimum for our residents to pay to go through that so my suggestion was that we go this other route in order to save the the residents that money uh so hopefully they didn't have to pay anything but in order to go through the process with the county and by the way we are not in Lee County jurisdiction because we don't have anou with them we're in for Myers Beach jurisdiction so we have that to be part of as well uh going forward but we wanted I felt like in the best interest of of all the citizens that we would look at it is not having them to have to pay $1,000 minimum to have them do plan reviews and do all the research they needed before they they rendered a decision so that was a more of an economic decision for the residents that's all we have Jeff if you speak a little bit about the boks uh gymnasium Arena that's work yes so we had a good uh good initial almost immediate response from our insurance company uh they came down and did an assessment of of Bay Oaks again right after the storm um they they've already started some of the mediation process they're doing some more tests on on the flooring that's down there um just with all the storms that have gone through and all the flooding we're going to make sure that it's safe for the visitors and residents to be in so they're assessing that right now we should get their report here in the next few days and and then they'll make a decision on uh on what needs to be done if we need to pull up the the gym floor and all the flooring in there or uh it can be remediated that way so um we're also working on power uh Kirkwood Electric is is building us a whole new kind of switch gear and then we're going to actually hopefully raise it up into the concession stand so we don't keep getting this every single time we have you know a foot foot of surge at all uh down there so uh we're trying to remediate it so we don't have these interruptions and and um we're just trying to make it it's safe for the residents and the visitors do we have an update on the election was going to be in that room had we talked to Tommy Doyle's office to find out if that one if we're going to have electric to be able to do it and two if not what is Plan B we do have electric there uh the whole building is is under generator power right now um and so that that won't be an issue at all um we just make sure there's diesel in the generator and plenty of lights and we'll follow up with Tommy Do's office just to make sure he doesn't have to you know switch gears and go a different direction yeah sounds good that's all we got any any questions for you wave in your hand councelor King like you got a question just scratching okay we ditches any questions for Andy yeah dude uh I've got actually two questions uh one when is the beach renourishment going to start back up I already have yes and we we kind of get a time frame now how much what the expected end date is and where they're starting from where they're going to finish sure Chad Shoots for the record um so we have started back up as my understanding uh I haven't seen it today see if where whether or not we're putting material out but uh believe uh last week they were starting to put material back on the beach um as far as the schedule I'm still waiting for that uh as of last week's construction meeting uh the engineer and contractor promised me to get an answer on that so I'll give it to you as soon as possible were were they going to start at Newton park now or did did they change that because we had all that piping down there right so uh that pipe was moved out for I guess it was Helen or Milton I can't remember it's all burn together but they got it out of there and uh they are going to start moving it back um a little bit uh not all at once kind of thing so okay um but they will start staging at Newton Park uh sometime in the near future okay so they're going to work Newton Park this way yes sir okay great thank you well I don't know that that's necessarily true is it they're not going to start up again at Newton Park they're just going to continue down the beach but they're stay yeah once they reach whatever threshold they need to to make Newton Park worth it to Stage there they'll move to Newton Park but they're not jumping from where they're at now down to Newton Park and starting correct sorry so yeah that was kind of a misconception because everybody saw that pipe there they thought oh they're going to started Newton Park and work backwards but they're continuing going marching yeah yeah they were just using that to to fuse pipe and as a a staging yard okay yeah there was lot misunderstood confusion there that thank you you're welcome and it appears like they're just past Best Western now at least that's what I saw this weekend yes sir and they're still moving at the thousand feet a week or 100 feet a day trying to it all just depends on where they're at how much volume uh they have per Shoreline foot uh will dictate how fast uh they move down the shoreline and we'll get an idea on scheduling once we have a good idea of production um production rates hopefully we make it two weeks without any disturbance fingers crossed right all right yeah and then my other question I've had a lot of uh residents ask about water credit or some help filling their pools back up so yeah so we still have the up to 9,000 gallons uh that we give the uh billing adjust for um you just got to contact the the utilities billing department and and set that up so each resident has to do that on their own yeah I mean not everyone has a pool I guess's isn't there a form there's a form yeah yeah they'll have a form to fill out and do an adjustment that way but yeah it's up to 9,000 gallons okay can we make a a announcement on that so everybody knows yes that'd be great thank you can I piggyback on that Scott I had a constituent who uh qu queried about that same concept as a credit that once a year credit for pool fill up whether they could get that credit for pressure washing uh after their house is mucked out would that be something that they would they be potentially be eligible for and how would that work they were it was just sort of a suggestion to help people who are trying to clean out their house because they're used to get a disproportionate amount of water that particular day I don't know may be tough to it's something well we can discuss something to take a look I just promised her i' ask about it y all right thank you anyone else question for Andy or three Migos all right Town attorney items I do have an item um so as you know we have been working on our unsafe building program and um a couple of the properties have evolved where three of them were identified for possible demolition by the town um and I'm not certain of the exact status um Joe is here he can give you more information about that but um working with Jason Freeman we priced him out um and it looks like um what was it almost $100,000 for the three so if the town is going to expend the money uh we want to be able to recover it and when you amended your code um the unsafe building code you provided for the collection of any money that the town pays to have a building demolished to be placed on the tax roll there is a process in Florida law that allows that to occur but there are certain things that need to happen before you're able to do that and so on November the 18th um in your packet you'll have a resolution to consider putting any expenses only expenses that the city pays to have a c a home demolished or residence demolished to be recovered on the tax roll I brought it up today because part of the procedures in Florida law requires that an advertisement be placed in the newspaper for four consecutive weeks prior to that time so last Friday there was an ad in the newspaper referencing this and this Friday there will also be an ad um so I wanted to make sure that you were aware that that was out there in the event that questions were asked of you as to what is this and how does it impact me it only impacts a property owner if the town pays money to have a structure demolished and maybe this is a Joe question does that if the town moves forward with you said there's three properties I think so Joe if you could maybe give the update on that yes we have we have three properties that are chosen to be demolished by the town I'm not sure where we are on the scheduling of that um that is Jason Freeman I think who is working on that Contracting and is this public information what three properties this is at this point or is it yeah it is this is through the town's program to um has the town has been working with these Property Owners to get them to comply um because their buildings are unsafe okay um there's been notice that's been provided there was an appeal period there was no uh movement during the appeal period there was a 60-day period in the event anybody was living there that has now expired and so now we're in a position where the town can move forward and demolish the structure I think Joe you had mentioned to me that you're going to reach out again to the property owner to see if they wanted to perhaps demolish it on their own well I that thought occurred to me and I expressed it and then I thought we are already making it public knowledge by by way of posting it in our lobby here as well as posting it on our website so I I think it's um I decided not to reach out because we're making it public information I'm trying to find the be on the fine line of making the owners responsible for what I think this ordinance is meant for not only to uh clean the town up but make make the owners liable for doing what they're supposed to do on these properties that have been sitting in that condition for so long so I I'm more inclined to hold them to the timeline as best I can okay and instead of letting them keep extending the timeline Mr Mayor to that point we started out with eight properties right off the get-go one of the properties was remediated by the owner um and since then we have fallen through with other properties also doing the demolition on their Accord after they seen that we initiated this first go yes when we talk about three properties that was off the initial list of eight we have subsequent lists waiting to be enacted behind this of the tune of I think of another 14 properties altogether we scoped out almost 40 properties in all um that needed to be demoed the process is is as Joe is out in the field and his staff find these properties they've been going and and submitting them to the V Law Firm who's been doing the title searches those type of things so we can start that process going so when we've had these discussions over the last couple of meetings about these three these three properties were actually that initial list that we had given you uh one of which which is a a company or a resident commercial property downtown on old St Carlos who inadvertently through our investigation actually reached out to our demolition vendor as well and is under contract with them so now it's just who's going to get there first are is he going to act on our behalf first or is he going to act on the owners first it's just a scheduling thing but Jason has been very good as far as taking the two firms that we vetted and and getting feedback back and forth on the properties okay so thanks Joe can I just have a clarification that you said the three properties that we're talking about are on the website is that correct yes all right thank you and my question would be for you Joe the funding for this if it's say $100,000 and it's approved where will that come from will that come from the Community Development portion of the budget or general fund no Joe anzic Finance director we earlier I think had approved the use of the bridge loan because it can be used for emergency um response all right I couldn't remember that's it so I just wanted to make you aware of this advertisement so if anybody asked you um there wasn't any misinformation and it's only if the town has to pay for the demolition of the structure okay questions for Nancy John no vice mayor no council Woodson no that okay uh what do we got next council member items and reports councilor King can I go last sure thank stff um actually the Andy answered all my questions so I'm good counc Woodson I'm good all mine have been answered as well Vice mayot I had uh two of three or two of three answered and I just wanted to ask publicly and I talk to Frankie off mic here so he's not on the spot but we had a query from Linda Miller who runs the Farmers Market and and there's some challenges with Time Square right now no fault of the Town um and she had asked under her existing permit whether she could move temporarily the farmers market to Santini Plaza on Friday and Saturdays uh in addition to Thursday uh when they open on Thursday uh until Time Square is either ready or they just hope to I don't know what exactly of their La I just want to make sure that was people aware are aware of there's the thought that of moving it to Santini I'll let Linda give people the details and the specifics I just wanted to make sure publicly that the town's comfortable with with them doing that under their existing permit yeah uh right after Milton one of the recovery efforts it was making sure that Time Square was safe um for everybody yep um and we had taken some damage with our trees um some of the infrastructure to some extent uh so we had uh reached out to the Millers and I just expressed that over the next several weeks uh it would probably not be a good idea to hold uh the farmers market there until we get a better handle on what we need to do it's not a long-term thing it's just a temporary uh relocate I know last weekend Margaritaville was very nice to offer their their facility for it and uh she reached out to Santini and Santini was very receptive as as well U again it's not a a permanent thing it's just until we can get a better handle on what we are are doing there it should be more than a week or so and the one thing was vehicular traffic they usually bring heavy vehicles and we don't know what's underneath right now I don't think anybody B grudges it just I just wanted it for informational purposes so we'll let lenda from the farmers market let the public know that hey it's okay but here's when and how we're going to move to Santini I'll let I'll let her and the Millers have been very good communicating with myself and with Tracy rasy and permitting and letting us know what their discussions were with not only Margarita bille but with also Santini Plaza soe appreciate that as well is there any specific uh challenges at Times Square that you could use some help with from the private sector or do you not want to get specific not not at this time very good sir thank you that's all I've got councilor G um I don't know if we want to address what uh Tom how his concerns were earlier today um I'll tell you um it hurts because I grew up in a small business and and um most of you know there was a donnut shop you don't know uh that was taken away from us uh By A semi- TRU that crashed through the uh business when my mom and dad were in there I was 10 years old and I remember getting pulled out of school uh because uh they were my dad had to go to the hospital uh the building had tipped over and it was very difficult to get out but he got and the we had natural gas too at the time because uh when you frosted the doughnuts you needed to uh have a burner so he got my mom out um so that's always stayed with me I mean we were we were very well well off I won't say well off we like comma we were middle class um after that we struggled to stay to even get up to middle class but um it hurts me I know in talking to Tom that he thinks it's it's hurting him financially and may even caus him to be bankrupt I don't know if he wanted that share it or not but he shared it with me so I I'm torn because I know what we have to do but it seems like there's a little bit of a push back I feel that we could give to FEMA or the federal government U because this is our town um we should be able to exercise our rights within this this town uh I know the flood insurance uh is an issue uh and checking with Andy earlier that what I think you said over 5,000 folks that were in the program as of last November um I don't want to hurt those folks either so um I'm just torn I don't know where to go with this um so I'm just looking for any feedback I guess well I was going to actually come back in and ask that same thing to to see if Frankie you can give us an update I know we've I've pushed I know that you've pushed give an update as to you know we pushed pretty hard back on the November deadline for V reasons everybody knows because it just doesn't make sense we're going into season we're outside of hurricane season um well and it's our autonomy as as a governing body I think that is been challenged yeah and and I don't want to speak for Frankie but my interpretation of what I've been told is we're just requiring you to do what your code is requiring you to do and I think that we've done that um doesn't mean we can't send a letter he had requested us to send a letter a formal letter to them to say look at what he's done how fast he can do it I would certainly be behind doing that at least on his behalf because he asked us to do it um now whether or not they do or don't we but at least we can send the recommendation if my fellow council members are okay with directing you to do that um because I'm I'm with you I mean it's you know people have been punched in the face too many times and the timing of this is irresponsible in my opinion from from FEMA and uh for them to not at least look at it and understand that it's outside a hurricane season and this is when these people make their money from 3 to four months and they're all understanding that they have to be out before next hurricane season and they're all amable to that um I guess my my suggestion would be let's take another run at the well well I think in September you guys supported 5 for me to enforce that letter that was in July and that's part of that letter matter of fact they're specifically spelled out in the email I got last week laola is spelled out I believe you shared it with mayor that way back when FEMA came the the one place they talked about when they were here was laola it's not like this was it just came up a couple months ago and we just decided that that's who we're going to start going I mean we're we're going after everybody but we'll we'll do if Nancy can prepare a letter we I think that that's fine we just want to remind everybody that's where we are we've been going through the process that we were directed to do and so we will and maybe not specific to that I mean they we can use them as an example since they spelled out them specifically but I think in general for those that are working outside of hurricane season to try to to try to you know make it across the board for people with the intent that everybody understands were at least they understood if it was coming into hurricane season that they had to go okay fine they knew the deadline was coming anyway but to just take away especially after the last two storms to take away their their potential to to make a little bit of money back um when it is no inherent Danger from hurricanes to me just it's irresponsible and i' have no other word for it than that okay Mr Mayor if I may uh when we found out a couple months ago about FEMA actually singling out this and it was by the regional uh director of FEMA out of Atlanta who specifically had a meeting with Andy and I and spoke of that particular establishment um it was shortly thereafter that I met with the property owner and with Tom and expressed what was brought up in part in that meeting um and what options that we had available to us as a Town um one of which I could speak on their behalf to fima uh Tom shared with me that he had a little video that he had just put together about how quick his establishment could be taken down this was before he put it on Facebook um he sent me a copy of that I sent it up to the deputy director um in Atlanta on Town email and asked that very question I have not gotten an answer back they have not responded in any way shape or form our female repres represenative that come through here on a weekly basis or that we talk with on a weekly basis um that's one of the items on our corrective action plan um wondering why this has not been addressed um week in and week out um whatever reason they are adamant that this has to be done that's what precipitated the town taking the lead and saying okay if you want us to give them a notice of violation and expect them to be out of here by November 18 we are going to do the same thing and we've talked about this before and people don't understand we noov oursel we are in that same process we are going to have to go through the same magistrate process uh through DOA obviously we can't use our own magistrate that would not be impartial um I express to the land owner and through Tom and through a couple other uh Property Owners commercial property owners in here in town who have businesses on trailers that cannot be readily taken down and hauled out quickly uh uh with a pickup truck um that this process is available we're going to be using it ourselves where are we going to go are we going to go back into a tent are we going to ask the fire department if we can use their property again um so this is a process that we're all going to have to use to ask for a stay ask for some type of understanding as we move forward FEMA the process that we're going to be going through is is the regular magistrate process the Magistrate whether FEMA recognizes what the magistrate says or not again it's uncharted waters we really don't know but we're going to try this is the last physical thing we can do besides taking and and suing FEMA itself um and that's something that I believe yes the one thing that I got on corrective action plan review comments on uh uh October 18th late Friday oh early Friday plan plan to complete removal of all non-compliant structures quot parentheses containers trailers laola Etc Clos parentheses by November 18th 2024 issuing notices of violations is insufficient we can write a letter so so even though we've sent notice of violation that's insufficient in their eyes we were told but they're not giving us any direction on what they want us to do we were told one thing Mr Mayor we were told that federal law supersedes state law which superstates local law in this case and we well that's not federal law it's a Federal Regulation it is a Federal Regulation but it was adopted as a federal as a state stand that was quote from Kevin G so that was from our own director of Emergency Management in this meeting sitting next to we can still send a letter I mean that never hurt to I mean we had Rick Scott working on this and we still continue to get these emails nobody's no offense nobody's higher than him in the state of Florida I don't think a letter would be great because it would show well I that's it's the first I've heard of this and not that keep banging that that's not the first we've heard of it no well it's first I've heard of it no you told me about L look two years no no I'm talking about what you just read what you just read there the response came this came fr the response saying just giving them a notice of violation is not sufficient it that's what our that's what our code requires us to do so what they act what what FEA called for was to show some relevance that you're you're trying to enforce the code for for flood proper flood plane uh regulations right in their own regulations book it talks about uh sending things through uh magistrate having a code process where you can bring these people to a magistrate and file that code process and here they turned around and told us that because we've done this that doesn't mean hell beans even though we're following the regulation that they set for the same regulation that we've adopted as a town the same regulation that we've adopted into our action plan all along for this continuance of our flood insurance so it it's like no matter what we do they just kind of say oh we never said that um and again as the town manager suggested we've had multiple engagements with Senator Scott um and representative Byron Donald who botht sit in committees that adversely affect FEMA and how it operates and they have both from the top down tried to approach us as we have collectively with the county and a couple other municipalities from the bottom up uh being affected and they're just looking at us and basically not giving us anything so essentially what they're saying is these have to be gone by the 18 there's no process in which they can go before a magistrate so it's different from what was originally told to us is that what you're saying is that what you're saying basically yes yes but again the process is going to be be the same I'm going to hold to that and I'm going to I'm we have to show and demonstrate that we followed everything legally possible in the State of Florida that's another thing that FEMA doesn't get a a good grasp on when we talk to our people that are here on a weekly basis looking at all our records They Don't grasp the fact that Florida law is different than Georgia law or North Carolina law and and we have followed the true letter of Florida law to the T so until they WRA heads around that um there there's there's room to squeak some things by and I think that's what we're basically trying to do with our our notice of violation is byas all time we're using ourselves as an example to be totally honest with you as a council where we sit right now we're not affected by that we're we're sitting high enough we're we're in a different flood zone area we get all that I mean we don't we need but using ourselves as an example uh marching forward and and showing that we we were going to do the same thing we're all going to sit in the same room we're all going to follow the same edict uh trying to show some unification behind this and that still didn't uh meet the requirement I still intend to follow through with that just for the sake of this is our plan I'm just trying to because this is a big question that people are asking about in the public when it comes to these you know condos all these other places Nancy if their if their ultimate thing is that the trailers have to be and all the other structures have to be out by the 18th or to me what that sounds like is a threat saying if it's not done you're going to be put on probation and or minimum at least lose your discount there's legally nothing we can we can't go hook up to somebody's trailers and pull them off their property because FMA doesn't like it if you have a finding of a violation you do have authority to Abate a violation but we haven't gone through that we haven't gone through that process I haven't spoken with code in the last day or two but and and this is news to me as well but I don't know um there is a process for code enforcement it's not just issuing the notice of violation it's issuing that taking it before the magistrate having the magistrate make a decision um a determination on whether there's a violation or not and then ordering the appropriate remedy which could be abatement which would be the removal of the um of the structure yeah but we're never we have that authority to we were actually also looking if we got to this point and got to the magistrate and people were able to plead their case properly you talked about getting through season having having time to get to next year that the magistrate would at least give us a stay for these businesses then we would have some whatat of a legal precedence to base our claim back to FEMA saying we've taken it to and and appealed and shown the process of what we do we all understand that we have to be out of here no later than season next year but at least give us this time to formulate and and move that through at least we would have some type of find but that is that is out the window now based on what the response was you said you just got back from FEMA or was it from FD on that I'm assuming came from FEMA that that's not sufficient correct so essentially they're telling us if the trailers aren't gone by the 18th you're containers trailers this is the goalpost moving I always talk about with FEMA continue to move the book nobody can give you an answer but this has been this way ever since July when our feet got really put to the fire that they've continually moved what they wanted that ring farther and farther so you couldn't jump through that hoop and again trying to be a good soldier and and follow everything that we can uh we've been scurrying around trying to get every piece of documentation if my fellow counselors will go along with me i' would like to direct you guys to get an answer from them I don't care whose doors we got to knock on because to me it sounds like we need to be preparing ing our residents for the fact they're going to lose their National flood insurance program based on what you just read there's no other way out of it from what you're telling me and what they're telling me unless the trailers and containers are gone in my professional opinion I don't think it's going to matter whether they're moved or not I think this predetermined months ago years right after the storm that they wanted to do this this is it was it's just been prolonged for six months because we went to a higher level in my professional opinion but is it the discount that's being lost or the whole event both they won't tell us would people with mortgages what do you do it would be the discount and you'd be on probation nobody comes back off you would never get another discount I but that's what they've told us is that best case scenario you will lose your discount worst case scenario is you get taken out of the national flood insurance program alt together and they haven't given us the definitive answer on that and and going back to Senator Scott's discussions with him I mean here you have the the most senior ranking Senator on that committee and he knows these people and he has talked from the top down well I we've got no movement either so you you wonder where the policy is coming from well all we can do is keep trying and push every level we can y vice mayor you look like you're leaning in to words I don't we're right in the middle middle of the Silly Season politically but I I I do think that that there is an election on November 5th and we would have an opportunity if the magistrate allows if these folks like like Tom makes his case and shows his Exit Plan and he buys some time with the magistrat or DOA they we might be able to buy a month or two and then you know again I'm not saying anything I'm just telling you if we'll have a new Administration that at least we can take into a fresh crack at and Senator Scott obviously would have a great relationship with that relationship if it changes and that could have an impact saying there's there's possibilities out there it's just a it's a volatile time politically all right well I don't know where else to go with that try to get an answer I guess we will still want a letter I think it I I think anything of showing any type of unity oh absolutely has Merit never hurts you just can't say okay we got to keep on trying no I think we should have 11 yes I believe that would be a good good step and I think showing how I I think we have a track record now showing that when we asked people to leave they they left and they took things with them not all people did and not every dumpster got taken away but a great majority did and it and it really made an impact on how fast people could recover from the storm I think showing that in that letter and showing how fast things went because people left I think would go a long way well maybe it won't go anywhere but at least it's showing we're trying to make a unified effort to show that our residents are working with policy makers to to mitigate as much as possible the impacts of a storm so take that how you will people smarter than me will write the letter you're looking at me you looking at me any anything else uh councelor King uh yeah just quickly I'll U briefly address the molotov cocktail that was thrown in the bomb thrower left before I could respond but uh I find that typical of that individual that he projects onto others what he actually embodies so um I'll just end it with paraphrasing former um prime minister Winston Churchill that says uh you made enemies good means you stood for something in your lifetime so with that I'm done okay if there's nothing else is a procedural question to Amy and to Andy uh is it true that the rest of the advisory committee for this month have been cancelled yes they have been yes we we did that at the emergency meeting you guys have voted advisory committees been notified then that they've been canceled for the rest for this month I just have I haven't seen anything for Anchorage or cellc that they've been canceled formally we've just posted it everywhere that we've canceled them yeah I just want to make sure those members don't show up I thought Nicole sent something that but I'll make sure we'll send we'll dou check be we haven't had anyone show up yet so okay all right with that is there a motion to adjourn so move a motion by councelor King second by councelor Safford all those in favor signify by saying I all right we are a jour --------- ##VIDEO ID:tyk3ZYpKdBc## e e all right good morning everyone we are going to call this meeting to order today we are thankful for this day that you have given us for its blessings it opport unities its challenges may we appreciate and use each day that is given to us we pray for strength and guidance for each day as it comes for each day's duties and for each day's difficulties may we be challenged to give our best always and may we be assured of your presence with us amen the United States of America and to the for it stands na indice thank you for that we've got a pretty good sized crowd here so if you could just remember to silence your phones um so they're not going off we're probably going to have a lengthy meeting um next is the approval of a final agenda there are a couple changes potential changes uh one the LPA hearing there's been a request from the chair to delay that vote in the event that there could be a change in the seat until next week because they have an LPA meeting tomorrow with a very large item on it may not potentially give the person time so I just want to let anybody know that that's here we're going to discuss that when that comes up to either continue it or go ahead and vote on it at the time but there has been a request to ask to delay that a week so that if there is a change in the seat that person has time to come up to speed with what they're going to be discussing tomorrow the other thing is we have an interlocal agreement with the school board um to use the or with the I'm sorry with the library to use for after school programs for the kids at the beach school that will be adding as administrative agenda item L um so if you have any comments on that you're welcome to comment that public comment um also just a reminder with the public comment um if you're here for one for one of the hearings if you want your testimony to be part of the record to that part of your testimony for that hearing you're certainly welcome to to to talk at the beginning public comment at the end as well just want you to know if you want your comments to be part of the public record for that hearing to save those for the actual public comment portion in that hearing with that is there any other amendments to the final agenda seeing none is there a motion to approve the final agenda as discussed so move got a motion by councel King second seconded by councel Woodson fur discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed hearing none that motion carries unanimously next is public comment Y I have few signed up for this morning first up is Rose Lin after Miss L will be Eddie Roode good morning good morning I'm Rose Lin and I came to speak about Mur for a few minutes um first off there seems to be some misinformation that some people thought that murf was exceeding their boundaries and I have to say that murf is an advisory committee and that anything that we've discuss and since I'm a member of Mur I can say has dealt with the environment and once we've discussed the environment it's always been proposed to all R few folks and as the governing board you either decided to agree with it it or not so murf really hasn't done anything that's exceeded what it's supposed to be doing so then I'd like to address some of the candidates you have Jennifer Rusk is applying for reappointment she has been super Dynamic with the group um she also has been approved by FWC to be a sea turtle permit holder for turtle time worked with the International osy Foundation and actually observed here on the island nesting and she's a volunteer for Crow as a murf member she's the one who came up with the whole concept of having a popup information booth on the island and that's been going on now for three and a half years and she also was the one who orchestrated the activity book which just got published recently this summer there's already been 10,000 copies most of which were already handed out and we just ordered last month another 16,000 cop so she's been very instrumental in that um you also have Robert Hall reapplying to be on earth he is actually a ranger and he gives guided walks on the beach he does kayak tours in the Back Bay he has created his own information site at the Pink Shell Resort and he was starting to arrange guest speakers to come there actually one was supposed to be this week on dolphins that would be open to the public cancelled unfortunately but um he also had the Discovery Channel here last month they videotaped him for several days so he's like the rock star of Fort Meers Beach for environmental issues and then you have Steve Johnson Steve Johnson's been the chairman um you may not always like what he says or how he says it but he always gives you straightforward factual information and a great example of what he does is one of our newer members uh earlier this year came up with a study that said the mechanical raking on the beach did not impact C tur nesting and that seemed kind of questionable because whenever humans do something to the environment there's normally a consequence so Steve volunteered to check into it so he contacted two separate biologists that are involved with sea turtle research and it turned out that the paper was a student a college students thesis paper it had no data review by any other group no peer review go just just just wrap it up post very and that the scientist said that there was not any substantial evidence that supported it and they did not agree with that conclusion so as you pick your candidates today I hope you select people that are knowledgeable about the local environment not people that have really have no former knowledge or experience okay thank you Rose thanks oh by the way I'd like to be reappointed to next up is Eddie Roode after Eddie is Steve Johnson good morning everyone uh Eddie Roode 8150 esterel Boulevard um I'm asking for your consideration this morning to uh be appointed to the murf committee um the uh I've been a resident I've owned the beachfront uh prop property uh for 14 years now uh 13 years I'm sorry and uh I have been a resident of that property full-time resident of that property and a registered voter here uh in in Fort Myers Beach uh since uh 2018 uh so for the last six years um I've been very involved um in the past uh six or seven years in the uh the bird uh uh habitat in the bird nesting season um I have gained a tremendous amount of knowledge um about that specific subject and area um I think that would be a benefit um on the committee um with the knowledge that I have about the nesting the imperal nesting birds and and their habitat and um and so I'm I'm asking for your consideration I think that that'd be a benefit to the to the committee and a benefit to the community thank you thank you Steve Johnson after Steve is John C morning Council staff um the uh issue I wanted to bring up today really is it involves the beach and the renourishment project that's that's occurring right now uh I think it's long awaited you know we need we need uh a sand back on our beach after six Water Events I'd call them flooding events in the last two years including Ian um the the Upland properties need protection as as well as the beach owners uh back in August 21st I think 2023 Michael pfff came and did a presentation an update of where the projects were at at that at that point he had uh asked councel to decide how they wanted to manage properties that did not sign e mins or did not respond at that time there were two choices one was to uh build um basically add sand for a dune on the erosion control line the ecl I think you all understand what that is that's basically the official demarcation between private property and state-owned property um so I'm here to encourage revisiting that I think there was never a decision made and you just simply told Michael P to to do whatever he thinks is best um there were two choices one was to put up uh the permitted height um of of a dune on E and I'm not sure where that's at I'm sure Chad would be able to to to update you on that uh but then there was also a lower uh choice and I think that was the one that was ultimately Chosen and uh I'm here today to ask you to put the maximum amount of sand on that beach to mitigate this flooding that has just destroyed so many lives over the last two years uh the erosion control line again that's State Property it's St State taxpayer sand and there will be puddle you know there will be some some some puddling behind it um for short term but you owe nothing to those Property Owners they are refusing to protect our Island and the Upland Property Owners so my recommendation really is to please uh review that again with our Coastal engineer and ensure that the the highest and the most uh protection you could possibly add to that beach is done thank you oh by the way is are there going to be comments before the uh Advisory Board as well for the members or are they expected to do it a public com we certainly can okay as long nobody has an issue with it okay thank you uh John C and after John will be Tom Thomas hton hi good morning uh John C I'm here to talk to you about something that you'll see on the agenda later about an Ila between the town and our library and that's for a temporary after school program for our children uh as we know our children have been dis placed again um it's very important that we approve this I'll tell you the second day that the buses were to come pick our children up they just didn't show up in the morning uh which really makes things tough on our parents so having something on the island especially at the end of the day when our parents are working where our kids can go to in case the bus runs late and then just for the kids is a uh very important to our children um I'd also like to take a minut to thank everybody that I'm looking at here each one of you individually called reached out and spoke to me after this to give your support the town staff as usual has been amazing um quick thing about the school you know uh we took two two three inches of water in the school not quite sure how long it's going to take yet we're waiting for some more revised uh construction timelines we're hoping to get our kids back as soon as possible but um through to everybody's work in here and our parents' work and Jenny tardiff work we've raised our enrollment over 25% since last year um and it was a year that we know has been a tough year on this island so to be able to raise it that much I think boats well for the future of the island and uh I really appreciate if you uh approve our Ila thank you thanks um Thomas Halton and that's all I have signed up okay morning Tom morning morning council members staff read today my name is Thomas hoton I'm the owner of laola Surfside restaurant I've been the owner for nine years now I've worked very close to Times Square or within Times Square for the last 18 years um during my career here um I've survived many major hurricanes pan panad demic oil spills or an oil spill and many bows with red tide about a month ago we were made aware of a letter sent by FEMA to the town I believe it was sent back in June um flagging our property as well as many other properties for having um trailers that um couldn't be hauled out with a lightweight pickup truck therefore needing to be removed okay um this prompted me to create and share on social media our evacuation camp on only weeks later it was time to put that plan into action for um tropical storm Helen that passed by we removed almost everything on the property except for the bar trailers and and the deck and we were ready to move those as well should the storm surge projections in be increased or had the town issued a mandatory evacuation order okay so so for that evacuation we we didn't have to evacuate everything um it was only about a week later during a late afternoon emergency meeting on September October 6 I'm sorry on Sunday October 6 the town of Fort Myers Beach issued a mandatory evacuation order we put our plan into action we alerted everyone that we would evacuate starting at 7:00 a.m. the following morning I encourage you all to watch the videos that we shared to show exactly how that process went we moved the rear trailer first only blocking traffic for a matter of 2 or 3 minutes we used the left closed Lane of a sto Boulevard to secure the tarps to cover the exposed side of the trailer there was a wull in the rain and I had my staff there so we thought it was most efficient to do that okay we used after the first trailer was away my crew was able to seal up the other trailer by 10:07 a.m. the second trailer pulled away from the deck and was evacuated downtown to a lot on Evans Avenue which was out outside of all the evacuation zone or outside of all the flood zones had a faster evacuation been necessary we could have just gotten the first one over the bridge and come right back for the other I have proven that I can and will evacuate in the event of our hurricane our bar is a common sense solution born out of necessity to keep business alive on this island after the tragedy of Hurricane Ian I believe that keeping our bar in place provides great public benefits I believe that our bar is the Hub that is also supporting many other surviving businesses within Times Square we we actually provide the only bathrooms within Times Square and I proudly employ some of the most talented musicians and Hospitality staff in the business I'm humbly asking the town of Fort Meers Beach as well as all County and state officials that they write a letter urging the federal government FEMA to review our actions and accept that we have an evacuation plan in place and remove us from the targeted property list we plan to request to go before a special magistrate in the coming days maybe today while I'm here um I ask that we be afforded the same treatment and due process as all other properties on the island that have trailers shipping containers dumpsters anything deemed unfit to be on the island wrap it up for us Lola surf Surfside restaurant is one of the last surviving businesses in our our beloved Time Square we've been operating under the assumption that we would need to have a plan in place to rebuild by the 3D anniversary of hurricane Ean this has come to a big surprise to us at the end of the summer and the fall to notify us that we need to leave now and not even get season him thank you for your time thanks Tom that's all I have signed up is there anyone else that would like to speak yeah Leah come on up morning good morning so I am here this morning to get clarity on the new ordinance 2430 titled unsaved building code appeals excuse me Leah Greg uh permanent resident homeowner on the beach so this new ordinance will amend existing Provisions related to any appeal of the building officials decisions until recently the town's Land Development code article two of chapter 6 provided the opportunity for anyone who does not agree with the building officials officials decision to appeal those decisions through the Lee County Board of adjustment and appeals for years the town had an interlocal agreement with Lee County to utilize their Board of adjustments and appeals the Lee County Board of adjustment and appeals is a 13 member board appointed by the County Commission whose only purpose is to hear and decide matters relating to the interpretation or application of the county and Town's building and codes requirements example include appeals uh of the decisions of a building official A Fire official flood plan coordinator to name a few so I had a meeting with Joe back the building official Andy Frankie mayor allers and a few others regarding Joe Spec's decisions to allow code violations that are adversely affecting my property and at a larger scale his decisions to allow code violations for some property owners that literally is putting the entire town of Fort Meers Beach at risk of losing arfima flood insurance discount so I shared with Andy Joe Frankie and danan specific codes and proof of the violations of that code so unfortunately no one really questions Joe instead they gave me an Avenue Joe Andy Frankie and Dan all of them informed me that if I do not agree with the building's official decisions to appeal his decisions with the Lee County Board of adjustment and appeals but when I contacted them Unfortunately they informed us that we no longer have the interlocal agreement uh it expired uh some time ago but they did encourage the town to sign uh a new interlocal agreement so we can continue the collaboration but instead of signing the a new interlocal agreement with Lee County the town attorney provided two options for the town to implement an appeal process and Lee County was not one of them one option was to use our special magistrate and if she's too busy then we would use the Florida Division of administration hearing DOA the town attorney also said changes will be made to our special magistrate contract and to the DOA contract contract to allow them to expand their scope of service to address Decisions by the building official that may be on appeal so instead of having a 13- member board appointed by the Lee County Commission whose sole purpose is to hear and decide matters relating to the interpretation or application of building codes and requirements by the building official the town attorney to decided to implement new ordinances that will replace them with just one person the town magistrate and if she's too busy then it'll roll over to DOA and the town attorney also didn't provide any cost differentiation between our own County appeal process uh versus the the attorney eroa but just in closing just so I can have some clarity so the town attorney stated during the reading uh back in September that this new ordinance creates a process for appeal of any decisions by the building official concerning any demolition of properties under the unsafe building code so I just ask for clarity this leads people to believe that the appeal process is now just for demolition of properties when before and just like Lee County and all the jurisdictions within Lee County when they use an appeal process anyone has the right to file an appeal for a building on the building official's decision if they feel that that decision is adversely affecting specifically their property okay so if you could provide Clarity that would be awesome thanks Le thank you can you address that under your comments today under later okay yeah yeah if you don't mind no not at all I I could answer real quick if you wanted or just later okay there's people waiting that uh is there anyone else that would like to speak during public comment see none we'll close public comment next is local achievements and recognition we have a resolution uh 24-1 188 for Florida government week let me find it here is it in our packet I didn't see it yeah okay give me just a second sorry May would you like me to read it if you have it yeah I accidentally hit the middle of the space bar and it went down halfway that's right uh resolution 24188 a resolution of the Town Council of the town of Fort Meers Beach recognizing Florida city government week October 21st through 27th 2024 encouraging all citizens to support the celebration and corresponding activities and providing for an effective date right thank you and we need to vote on that Madam attorney is that correct yes okay is that a roll call Vote or yes okay is there a motion to approve resolution 24-18 Florida city government week so moved motion by councelor Safford second second by councelor Woodson any further discussion councelor Safford hi councelor Woodson hi vice mayor adal hi councelor King all and I'm an i as well that motion carries unanimously um councelor King any local achievements or recognitions well um it almost take a separate meeting to recognize everybody in the nearly month since our last meeting but I'll give it a go uh I want to uh recognize the residents who know how we know how resilient this community is but we uh need to recognize the perseverance of our people as well so congratulations and thank you for your hard work Mr Town manager and your management staff you made a plan you implemented that plan and you didn't detour from that plan was it perfect no as Vincent blardy said Perfection is not attainable but if we C Chase Perfection we can catch excellence and I think you did and thank you for your hard work staff uh the town staff um gosh they didn't even really get a chance to catch their breath after Helen and they were uh out there on their own as well after Milton all the while having to worry about their own homes and families and I thank them for their hard work uh I you know we still need to recognize um Ed Ryan and Beach radio um you know it's Kim went all the way to another continent just to take a break from him but he was out there doing Yan's work uh informing people raising funds and getting volunteers to help others after the uh occurrences my fellow council members uh Scott and uh Karen U I know you were busy a lot with your own things but I know you also pitched in and helped uh your friends and neighbors and thank you for doing that um vice mayor aderhold uh again as usual you were out there uh with your contacts behind the scenes doing the work uh as needed and getting things accomplished and I appreciate that and uh mayor it was a personal pleasure to be able to accompany you uh early uh the morning after Milton as we made our way back to the island I watched you work tirelessly in so many ways for Fort Meers Beach and Sports they call key players the face of the franchise and you continue to set a high bar for those who will someday follow and thank you for that and uh I would be remiss uh in honoring my father if I didn't recognize the New York Yankees for making it to the World Series uh in Iowa there was a pulit prizewinning uh cartoonist for the de Mo register that always said uh it wasn't official World Series unless the Yankees were in it so that's it for me thank you VI May in the interest of time I'm not even going to try to top those comments thank you councelor King I I I will I will yield to the rest of my colleagues okay councilor Woodson um I will do the same I I will reiterate though the planning that the town staff Andy and his team went through and it it was it was light years ahead of when we had to do this two years ago and I just want to thank you and your team for all your efforts it was great all right councelor saffre yeah same it's hard to hard to beat a Vince Lombardi quote but um what I had a a council person from another Beach that was affected by the storm and she she said that we are the Chick-fil-A drive throughs of towns the way we had a plan implemented she couldn't believe we only got what that we got as much surge as we did because we were back open we had water on she they're they're in awe so we're thankfully setting the bar for for their Coastal communities and I'd like to give a a quick shout out to all the people that help helped After the Storm FNB strong the Red Cross Harry chapen Food Bank World Central Kitchen um The Millers and Gulfside 12 for their event yesterday and finally the Alex King group um a lot of people weren't able to go to Buttonwood to get supplies Alex King and his team went over got the supplies went Street to Street and house to house and that's that's what you know leadership in the community is all about so so thank you well said well you guys covered all mine so in the interest of time I won't reiterate it but uh good job by everybody involved and I think a special special Thanks goes out to the residents I know that the the you know the fifth storm in two years is tough on everybody's wallet their psyche and their physical their physical uh abilities so thank you for sticking in there know that the town staff is working as hard as they can to to get things back to whatever The New Normal is but um it's it's you people that that that make them work as hard as they do because they enjoy where they work and they enjoy who they represent so thank you to the residents next do advisory committees items reports and appointments is there anyone that has a is here from an advisory committee with a report you don't have any okay next is the approval of the minutes uh Town Council from September 23rd 2023 Town Council budget hearings from September 23rd 2024 and Joint session Town Council with cell cabs September 18th of 2024 is there a motion to approve the minutes of the three meetings so moved got a motion by councelor King I'll second any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed hearing none that motion carries unanimously next is the consent agenda we have four items on there they're all state of local emergency uh resolution 24193 through 24196 for the Emergency extension of local emergency for Hurricane Ian resolution 24-1 197 through 24200 extension of local emergency for Hurricane nalia resolution 24-20 through 24-204 the extension of local emergency for tropical storm Debbie and last resolutions 24 through 202 205 through 24-28 extension of local emergency for Hurricane Helen is there a motion to to approve the consent agenda just one one comment mayor um on all those resolutions the date still says October 7th so yeah we'll fix those fantastic okay with that correction is there a motion to approve so moved got a motion by councelor Safford second seconded by councelor Woodson any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed hearing none that motion carries unanimously next is our public hearing I need to cheat sheet the first one is the first reading and public hearing on proposed ordinance entitled an ordinance of the town of Fort Meers Beach Florida approving with conditions denying a town of Fort Meers Beach ordinance and approving the conditions for commercial plan development Zone re development rezoning for the properties located at 1836 and 1840 EST stero Boulevard Les the area within the environmental critical zoning District generally identified as strap numbers 19-4 6-24 dw432 z00.00 CE and 1946 d24 dw4 D3200 z1010 Fort Meers Beach providing for other CL clarifications as necessary providing for conflicts of law scrier errors severability and providing for an effective date we'll now open the public hearing but we have to read our cheat sheet first yes so if I can um make I'd like to make just a few comments to to place into the record um today you only have one quasi judicial matter before you the remaining um public hearings that you'll be having they're all ordinances those are legislative in nature um this is a uh rezoning to uh rezone the property to commercial planned uh development and as such it is uh quasi judicial in nature and that requires that this public hearing comply with some procedural requirements that have been established in Florida law and in our Land Development code so our quasi judicial proceeding will be less formal than proceedings before circuit court but it will be more formal than the remaining um public hearings that you'll have on those other ordinances we will be following the basic standards of due process that requires that certain notices application of the correct standards and decisions to be made on competent and substantial evidence that's presented to you in written documents or by Oral testimony it is your job as the Town Council to evaluate the testimony and the information for the item and draw a conclusion regarding whether the criteria that is in your Land Development code your comprehensive plan or state law has been satisfied so pure speculation or mere opinion that is not based on competent facts should not and cannot legally be considered by you in evaluating this agenda item testimony by professionals who are qualified as experts in a particular area have been considered competence evidence uh by Florida courts as well as testimony by neighbors and residents who have fact-based information such as minutes surveys engineering reports or testimony that is based on current personal knowledge so members of the audience if you do intend to speak please keep this in mind and when you come forward if you could state your name clearly for the record whether or not you've been sworn in and your qualifications or interest in the matter also I want to advise you that if the Town Council decides to deny this request the reason for the denial should be stated in the motion and under Florida law a denial of a quasi judicial matter must not be made merely on a determination of public support or opposition to the application the reason for the denial cannot be arbitrary discriminatory or unreasonable and it should be based on a lack of competent and substantial evidence in support of a specific criteria so before you get into the merits of the um application before you we'd like to go ahead and and go through a couple of items first I would like to ask the town clerk if all agenda items were noticed pursuant to Our Land Development code yes they have been and also at this time if any council member has a conflict of interest that would prohibit you from voting on this item please disclose this at this time for the record so we can ascertain that we have a quorum present Council Stafford I do not counc Woodson do not I do not as well Vice M none councelor King none Okay so at this time if there is anyone present including the applicant the owner who intends to provide testimony in today's hearing if you would please stand raise your right hand and be sworn in by the town clerk that would include public comment also do you swear or affirm that the testimony you about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth okay all parties have been sworn okay um the next item we need to uh address is the and if there's been any exp parte communication um by any Town council member with anyone um prior to this hearing regarding this matter this is the appropriate time to make that disclosure on the record councelor K I've had a zoom presentation from these folks and I've received uh Pro andon emails Vice exactly the same I also have meetings with the applicant as well as emails for and against counc Woodson exactly the same CC Safford likewise exactly the same okay has the applicant I directed to the town clerk um has the applicant been provided copies of emails that have been referred to or referenced no no okay so can we make those available to them yes um prior to the uh vote being taken so they can address any matters that are um that have been um stated um also Jason SMY and Sarah PR they have previously been qualified as experts by the Town Council in the area of land use planning and development in the town of Fort Meyers Beach do you wish to continue their uh qualifications as experts councelor Safford yes councelor Woodson yes I'm a yes VI May hi ccor King yes is there anyone who is providing Tes today that would like to be qualified as an expert if so if you could please approach the podium state your name your qualifications and the subject matter your testimony would address hello my name is uh Anthony Ashford um I've sent a few emails out to uh everybody um and I'd like to ask for your uh support work to qualify me as an expert um I've been working in the industry of architecture interior design and uh urban planning for the last 27 so years I've designed um in conjunction with other city planners um the city of uh Sarasota Florida I've worked on projects in Lee County as well as across the State of Florida uh for over a decade and across the United States and some International projects focusing on projects ranging from 1 million to about $2.4 billion um I'm a nationally certified interior designer uh accredited with the nciq um I have been licensed in the past for interior design I taught at the ringland College of Art and Design the art of hospitality design for interior designers as an Adjunct professor and um I'm probably leaving a few things out but um and I've done study and research on uh the project we're discussing okay is there a motion to accept him go ahead as as an expert so move second motion by councelor King second by councelor Stafford all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed hearing none thank you Council thank you do you want me to continue you might as well you're doing a great job okay just for the record um I want to make sure that the applicant has seen a copy of the agenda materials in the backup can someone confirm that can the applicant okay thank you um and mayor I think at this point I turn it back over to you okay let see where I pick up he did such a thorough job uh staff staff yes yeah go ahead Jason good morning uh my name is Jason small I'm with your planning and zoning department uh so as was mentioned in the initial reading here before you is a CPD request uh to redevelop a 75 unit uh time share building uh located in the downtown zoning and pedestrian commercial land use uh future land use Zone uh today before you uh the presentation uh from the applicant we'll get into many of these details I wanted to just sort of lay out uh what they're asking for right up front uh so they are proposing to move from uh what was approximately 62,000 square feet to a uh approximately under the current uh proposed plan of 105,3 121 Square ft which is an approximate increase of roughly 43,6 21 Square F feet give or give or take a few feet uh that that is below the one that is below the 1.4 called for in the downtown zoning District but more importantly that is less than the maximum they could uh theoretically ask for under the uh future land use uh that zone would be 2.5 F I believe at the LPA the representative had said that they were in range of about 1.2 with their current iteration of the plans I will defer to them to to give the exact number uh but into our own calculation it is below 1.4 uh they are also requesting an additional 58 feet in height uh for a total of 10 floors that would include the lower level which the town counts as a floor and then a maximum of nine uh living levels above that so that would be a total of 10 uh the overall height that they are proposing is 117 feet from grade I apologize I believe the staff report said it it was it was at 112 but uh we refined that number and they are requesting up to 117 uh that is that constitutes roughly 58 additional feet in height above what they would be allowed under the normal zoning uh regulations which would be 40 feet and three stories including the lower um the lower parking area uh staff is here for any discussions that you may want to have or any questions you have I will leave the applicant also has a fairly lengthy presentation uh are there any questions or comments so far in the introduction uh Jason if you would just for those at home that maybe don't have the packet in front of them can you go through the specific and read the specific deviations that they requesting I I apologize for that yes absolutely uh bear with me one moment if you would so in the in the uh the request before you there was actually five uh request the fifth request was left in there just because there some there was some questions whether or not they would be able to meet the uh 1.4 I believe that the applicant is requesting that they do not need to request to have the bottom floor uh not counted in their f u require or in the F maximums so number five before you the request for additional floor area ratio the applicant is stating that they no longer request to have that one uh the other four uh relate to the the site design and to the building design I will go through them briefly uh so they are again asking for additional height and floors again that number was roughly 58 feet uh higher than the 40 feet that they are allowed by code and a total of 10 stories if we are counting the lowest uh the lowest parking area uh number two is a relief from the requirement to provide under build building screening area for the parking area uh part of their design Choice has been to request U removal of that and in lie of that they're going to be providing uh a minimal amount of screening using uh Green Space and Landscaping so they will have some screening around the building but the intent is to largely leave the under building as open as possible for any views that could be retained through that uh number three is relief uh for the requirements that the building provide an entrance facing a stero Boulevard uh so this was their design Choice it was also a problem with they were closing off some of the entrances from that area and providing a buffer so it would break some of the possible pedestrian access Jason I'm sorry to interrupt you but is is J I can't have my glasses is Jason back there I think I'm I'm getting some text that we're not having some sound so uh they are the close captioning is working but there is one at least one text came I don't know if anybody else is getting text but we just wanted just check on your sound issues okay you're good all right s sorry I just promised I'd check thanks Jason sorry to interrupt you yeah problem um sorry I lost my place there for a moment uh so the the entrance along esto they're asking to uh they're asking for relief from having to provide an entrance on Estero uh this goes into also their request has to um uh to have uh front or excuse me sorry I'm still lost here on my take your time I three off um so the entrance facing a stero they're asking for Relief that oh uh the relief from the requirement that buildings with more than 50 feet of Frontage uh provide oper operable doors and access no more than 50 F feet apart again they're designing the frontage on a stero to be more aesthetic Ally pleasing they're they're going to be pushing the building a little bit further back uh than they had initially designed so they are telling us here that it doesn't make sense for them in their design choice to put a entry directly onto a stero the last one um as I mentioned before was a request for additional floor area ratio I will defer to the applicant and and their uh Consultants but they have told us and their presentation that they are no longer going to be requesting that fifth uh request to increase the floor area ratio okay questions for Jason CC Safford so you you had said that they could go up to 2.5 through the CPD the maximum for that future land use District they could request a maximum of 2.5 that would be allow that's the max right um the the 1.4 the 1.2 is only for if you were using the underlying zoning um got but I think it's good to just make mention that they are trying to Hue to the LDC um so they've tried to keep that that portion underneath the the LDC mentioned 1.4 but they could theoretically get up to 2.5 if granted by Town Council through the CPD okay that's all I have at the moment sure I'm G to have a lot more questions yeah counc Woodson I'll wait for the presentation and then come questions mle I just wanted to ask you Jason according to your records or the town's records the 75 units the square footage of those units did it vary or was it all the same yes um presented by by the applicant they have provided us with an AB and C option for units that existed pre- storm I believe the smallest unit was right about 595 the highest I believe was about 75 according according to the well it's not going to work on clear plastic uh in their in their presentation they go through a a more rigorous breakdown that I've just gone through with you but I believe yes they have uh condensed three different sized units that existed pre- storm into a single type of unit at approximately 73 Square fet today uh that is smaller than the largest units they had uh but larger than two of the other types of units that they had I don't expect you to know this but do you have any sense where where most of them the 595 square foot or were most of them the larger of of those options um I will defer to the applicant on the exact counts I believe most of them were split up between Type A and type B the smaller units and I believe there was one larger unit that stood out by itself that was at 787 but I I'll defer to them for you said when you use the when when you use the number five 95 for the smaller unit is that including the Leni or just the Interior Space uh so in their calculations they did include the Leni although in the CPD they're not required to account for that outside area for their F purposes is it your experience I mean just talking to some local Realtors the the lenai square footage is generally not included correct right it for uh post- disaster build back that would be more relevant because then we will be talking about what was the internal Space versus the external space what the what they're asking for today is firmly under the CPD guidelines so they're asking for more than they would be allowed for if they use the post disaster where then we would take more consideration about whether or not that was outside space or inside Space uh pre- storm I don't expect you to know this and you could defer to the applicant if you want but of the 595 do you know what how many square feet was was on the Leni versus interior space uh they're calling out 7 by 12 and I apologize I'm not a math major um that should be basic there we go thank you okay thank you very much that's all I have for now councilor King I have no questions at this time just a has it ever been presented to you what the the square footage of the entire buildings were before was staff ever presented with that uh so we have some historical documents that they were able to provide a lot of this was done sort of After the Storm because if you remember uh Lepa doesn't have a lot of internal space that they can offer or a lot of uh Records about internal space so the I'm deferring to them on the 62,000 it seems right in the Wheelhouse of what we would expect just taking the the footprint of the building and then extrapolating based on the number of floors in the two separate buildings that existed pre storm so what would be the St determination as to why the significant increase in overall square footage from the old building to the new building if the units are similar inside so um I'll ultimately sorry uh I will ultimately defer to the presentation that's going to be given because I believe in in the latter part of it they go break out more detailed but I'll get into just a few things right now so it seems like a vast majority of the changing space here is related to um non-living unit space and they they break this out uh into things like uh an increase in elevators and walkway internal walkways uh they had a a relatively large jump in their Hospitality deck which I believe includes their pool area but this also includes slightly smaller increases but notable increases in their electrical and laundry areas uh they've deferred or they've uh noted in their presentation that they're trying to rearrange the internal space to try and maximize where I believe they have their fold out sleepers uh to retain the maximum number of uh people that could possibly sleep in that unit so most of the increase within the units is going to that but the wider building uh a lot of this is going into things for their staff or wider hallways or wider or larger staircases okay we'll let them could I ask yes sir One More Mr Mayor Jason given your experience you've got a you've got a complex with 62 an older complex with 62,000 square feet if if if they were to come into compliance with all ADA requirements what would you need to go to roughly from 62,000 Square F feet to be in compliant with Ada regulations oh I apologize I I do not apply the Ada us line staff tend to not be required to do that that's that's is it is it a is it a 10% increase of square footage 15% what's what's been your experience traditionally or Sarah either one of you quite honestly I myself would defer to Joe spec who ultimately has responsibility for determining what ADA requirements are met and and whether they meet them just trying to get a round number just to see how we get from 62,000 Sarah do you know that just how you get when if you've got 62,000 huh Jo here oh Joe I didn't see him oh there he is back there I was going to say it wouldn't wouldn't necessarily be appropriate for us to make that sort of determination just I didn't know if there was an industry standard or Joe Joe if do you mind coming up for a second Joe just I think that's an important question good morning Good morning Joe how you doing identify yourself for us Joe Joe spec the town building official Joe the question was if you have an older building on this island that may not necessarily have been in compliance with Ada standards and it's been destroyed and they're rebuilding and it's I don't I it's 62,000 square feet roughly in in the past what would it need to be generally in other words it is it a 10% increase in square footage 15% to be in compliance with Ada is there is there a general uh industry average for what what what additional space you would need to get into compliance for 75 unit structure the space is new it has to uh comply 100% with accessibility requirements gotcha um if it's remodeled space space is remodeled or restored 20% of the contract for that remodel or restoration can be used toward Ada or AC accessibility upgrades as opposed to it being 100% compliant and that's the restoration area as opposed to the new area new has to be 100% compliant I got that I guess a lot of it depends on what the original structure was I'm just trying to get a sense of traditionally in Florida given your experience if somebody's trying to get into compliance with a new building is it usually a 10% increase in space to make their ada8 requirements 20% it sounds like did you use the number 20% I don't want to put words in your mouth well the the 20% is is an allowance to the designer and the owner to uh not bring it up to 100% compliance so they can use 20% of the cost of the rest restoration or remodel to add accessibility features to the restoration and remodel as opposed to 100% and those features have to be be in a certain order of priority as listed in the accessibility code so I'm not sure I I hope I'm answering your question if they're increasing the square footage that increase in square footage has to be 100% compliant if and then what is U existing gets the 20% allowance 20% of the contracts if G to jump in I think try to help get I think to where you're trying to go is it let's start is it a requirement for all 75 units in this case to be ADA Compliant no okay next if they go to ADA compliance is what you're saying is it a requirement for them to have the features that are within the ADBA compliance manual if you will or code to no bathtubs things like that can you talk a little bit about what is required to make something Ada compatible and you said they're not all 75 units are not required to be ADA Compliant per code but you're saying 20% are is that kind of what you're trying to get at vice mayor at I'm trying to get a rough sense and it's not really fair to you uh Because youve unless you've analyzed their building as it was previously built and compared at what they what they've presented today or what they're presenting today what I'm trying to get a sense is is it a reasonable amount of increase in order to satisfy basic Ed requirements or is it is it is it is it above what they would need to satisfy their ADA requirements that that's what I'm trying to get at so um I don't expect you to youve got a lot on your plate so I don't know if you've analyzed this proposal so this is a new structure right correct so everything that uh is required to meet the accessibility requirements is expressed in the accessibility code in the form of a percentage or there's a table um similar to like the parking table if if there's if it's this much square footage to this much square footage then you have to have this many accessible parking spaces and that's how that table progresses so it it's a uh it's basically a percentage if you have a certain amount of units whatever the total amount is uh a certain percentage would have to be accessible and it it's based on how many units and the accessible units would grow based on if the amount of total units grows I I don't have the percentages memorized um I can look it up and very quickly let you but didn't you say this you just said this is a new build yes so it has to be 100% ADA Compliant correct correct but in saying that it's not saying that every unit has to be accessible so it's based on when it's a new structure 100% compliance means that they don't get the benefit of the 20% uh offset in a contract to avoid 100% compliance Joe would it be safe because a lot of people are visual and what you're saying is is kind of complex a little bit Yeah is it safe to say that anyone that's ever been to a hotel that has been into a Ada accessible unit how it looks much different than a normal Hotel unit meaning the handrails meaning the the rolling showers meaning it is made to be accessible for those that have Ada complications yes but each room is ADA Compliant just not necessarily accessible is that a fair assumption well it it's a fair assumption um I I don't like to use the term Ada because um that's a that's a federal standard and in Florida we're enforcing the Florida building code as far as accessibility requirements go and that's that's the term accessibility so the State of Florida although it uses the federal requirements um to make up their access accessibility code the accessibility code is what we enforce okay so Ada would it be beneficial because some of those requirements are much more stringent would it be beneficial uh to be more stringent sure every we all like Overkill but uh we don't necessarily have have the ability to enforce it is the criteria that you're just talking about Joe is that is there a difference between remodels versus new construction yes could you explain the difference well the difference is what I tried to explain earlier remodel does not have to be 100% compliance and in compliance they are allowed to only use 20% of their contract to upgrade Ada features as opposed to making it 100% compliant B be thank you thanks Jo any other questions for Joel thank you sir you're welcome any other questions for staff before we go to the applicant all right who's uh coming up on behalf of the applicant good morning council members for the record Amy sarz and too with retel I have been sworn and we represent the applicant first and foremost we would really like to thank staff for all of the hard work that they have expended on this project we have come back with so many ideas and so many questions and every step of the way Sarah and Jason and their entire team has been really helpful and excellent so I would just like to put that on the record um our project team includes myself John Shaw with our management Fred drv who will be coming up here shortly he's with rvi and he's been really leading the charge with this case and has done a fantastic job uh Bob Huff with Mecca and we also have Mike Shey with MK architecture who is the architect on this project presid so again as Jason explained this request is for a CPD to rebuild the Estero Island beach club which was approxim which was 75 units across just under two acres um of course this building was destroyed in hurricane Ian and given the complexity of building back under the build back ordinance we're seeking to come in for a complete rezone of the property to CPD so again the objective is to redevelop the same density uh that existed before while meeting all of the current requirements that weren't in place when the structure was originally developed so those requirements include of course FEMA flood plane standards they include um the most recent Florida building code and accessibility code requirements which I'm sure we will be discussing in uh even greater detail as this presentation goes on um it also includes the cccl which you know is the Coastal Construction Control line um we cannot we previously had some building mass that was located waterw of that line which we cannot rebuild uh within that footprint so that will be discussed as well okay and with that I will hand it over to Fred dck unless any of y'all have a question for me before he begins any questions for any enough this time all right thanks thanks good morning for the record name is Fred dck I'm a planner uh with uh RBI planning and Landscape architecture been working in this uh area Southwest Florida Fort Myers Beach since uh 2005 um and presented here before as an expert in land use and planning so I want to present as an expert in that way today um what I want to go through today you'll you'll hear quite a bit from me I apologize about that that um we'll we'll do our best but then we have our team here that I think will be a lot of the questions and rebuttal answers um that you'll you'll seek so I'll run through the presentation uh first without stopping because it may answer a significant amount of the questions and then we can dive back into the details afterwards and have good discussion so once again thank you mayor vice mayor and counselors and uh I'll get started so I think we are all familiar with the location um you know on the the north side of of of Diamond Head South side of a stero Boulevard about a half mile from Time Square uh down the stero Boulevard um as Amy said it's 1.92 Acres that's what's uh um uh landward of the 1978 Coastal Construction Control line Total Parts is 2.7 Acres but that's not a relevant piece of the uh calculations or anything that we're dealing with today it's the 1.92 Acres the zoning um as staff mentioned is the downtown district um we're trying to move that from a downtown district zoning to a commercial plan development we'll walk through that um you know part of this we meet post- disaster billback qualifications part of this we don't so I do have a broke down an analysis of that as well as to what what what we do meet what we don't why we didn't go just straight post disaster Bill back and why we needed to request a commercial plan develop velopment uh instead of the the staying with the conventional zoning District um new construction will be built landward of 1978 Lee County cccl that's important there's about uh 10 or 15 feet of the building affecting 10 units that were constructed over that line so now they will need to meet that and um subject property future land use category will remain pedestrian commercial um that's the next slide there's not too much to say about that but what I want to do um and and get into a little bit is the the building Heights and this and maybe you guys are familiar with this this may be as much for the public or just at least to give you the understanding of how we looked at it as the applican in the Estero Island Beach Club board looked at this and how staff gave us some direction regarding building Heights so um as as many of you know after incorporation 1997 the Town Council imposed an interm height cap of two stories and this is an excerpt taken right from the future land use plan element so I'm just I'm not making up my own words I'm just kind of paraphrasing a couple of pages from the building height section of the future land use element um so they've made an interm height cap of two stories um above the lowest floor in order to give time to form a comprehensive plan that would you know in the meantime no uh tall towers being built so so they had an interm the interm height was imposed in 1997 this action was taken for the Lo because of local plan agency um was studying several types of hike restrictions while preparing the comp plan um the LPA inventor the height of existing buildings along all of Aero Boulevard as part of their research so in evaluating that at least five different situations were considered one was Redevelopment of deteriorating robs Le buildings or buildings that were destroyed several different concept were considered for new permanent height restrictions one was height districts would there be different parts of the island that different different heights would apply to another one was um a single height limit for the entire Island and the third was are there going to be designated infill Parcels that maybe were surrounded by taller buildings where applying the interm height cap or a single height cap would be inappropriate so 3D map of the existing tall buildings was analyzed to determine the feasibility of the height District concept and as a result of that analysis the height District concept was put aside in favor of a case-by casee analysis that's what we're here doing today this plan uh resulted in new Provisions being added to the Fort Meers Beach Land Development code to address these special situations which is policy 4- C-4 and much of this language was then incorporated into that policy so a height limit similar to the 1997 interchange was maintained um in this case it was 40 40 ft and three stories over base flood elevation but an opportunity was set aside uh to be provided to owners of existing Parcels that are either surrounded by tall buildings um to apply the new height or uh the owners in that s will be off offered an opportunity to modify the height cap through the plan development zoning process and interesting so and and this is where staff came into really directing us and this is where our development is today is particular attention um it's stated would be paid to any permanent view corridors to the golf or Bay Waters that could be provided in exchange for allowing the building to be taller um this case by casee approach very similar to the new Provisions being added to build back policy um as well so that's just a little bit of the the background I wanted to get that you know to let you know our understanding perhaps that helps somebody understand where we are and why here on the the commercial plan development and and the path that we're moving forward on um is was set up and is currently set up uh as part of the policy for the building Heights in the future in the comprehensive plan so a little bit of history of this site um one was a partial converted uh Motel um the Ester onion Beach Club was constructed late 1970s the two buildings consist of 75 time share units across two uh buildings that were two and three stories tall uh building were ranged perpendicular for the most part to the golf um and then and and with a drive VI in between that I guess provided somewhat of a a limited view corridor um it included two pool areas um that served as private onsite amenities for guests and we'll show that comparison later one of those pool areas is going to remain um the other one needs to be reconstructed um and we'll show how that works the present so built prior to the incorporation of the town of Fort Meers Beach the site resulted in a legal non-conforming property relative to the downtown District's Heights and density requirements um and then like Fort Meers Beach site was it was it was destroyed has been the building has obviously been removed and is an empty site now ready for redevelopment so and that's the goal for the future redevelop this through the CPD process with a class a structure um that meets building life and safety codes um and increases height to accommodate moving 10 units landward to CCL provide new corridors a view corridor adjust building adjust build two lines for buffers and green space on a stero Boulevard um site will retain the pool men in the areas um that extended seword of the cccl although that is not part of this this will be that will need thank you that will need to be part of the a special except that would come later um and uh and only provide improvements Allowed by the 1978 Lee County CC L policy all right so here's some pictures sometimes the memories fade fast so I figured I'd include some pictures in this to show uh on the upper upper leftand corner is showing the uh building on the right Diamond Head on the left down Palm Avenue um so that beach access point is showing what it looked like in the past you notice there a few uh you know parking areas it was it was a motel there was a direct pool in off Palm Avenue and parking back in and out onto Palm Avenue at that point um the next picture over stero entrance by Palm Avenue so there was a pretty close curb cut to Palm Avenue at that point um and uh there was also a second curve cut as well um shows also the corner of stair Boulevard in myar um with some some landscaping and then parking right up against the sidewalk on uh a ster Boulevard um the lower leftand corner viewed from Estero Boulevard to the beach showing uh second uh Estero access so um there's one to on the left left end of that picture that was a curb cut on a stero and then the main Drive aisle in between the two buildings in that other picture and then just a with the with the post with the mail truck in the in the front of it just showing the general view from a stair Boulevard looking towards the gulf so now show just a few highlights of the uh former site and then some of the stuff that we're going to try to improve so this on the left hand side was is the former building so just a an an aerial view showing kind of the L-shaped design of the original Motel was converted into the time share and then on the right the additional building that was constructed and those two made up to 75 units so on the bottom there's a bunch of areas so there's removed parking um and uh and added Green Space and Landscaping so we'll show you a plan there that obviously there's a bunch of parking on Palm Avenue right on a stair Boulevard limited Landscaping that we're going to improve that there's no buffer landscape requirements in this District um but we are providing some enhanced and and buffers around the entire perimeter property to try to improve the look and feel of this particularly along sto Boulevard the uh drive a in between shows what you could see through to the to the golf um is about a 40 50 foot wide uh Drive aisle in between the two buildings and then the existing pool that's beyond that cccl line up on the uh top of that picture and then there's obviously a second pool and we'll show you the redesign of men in the area it's arranged a little bit differently but essentially it's going to give them back what they what they had prior um maybe a little bit more deck space but for the most part I think it's it's pretty comparable um the picture on the right side was obviously post storm um I put a yellow line on there trying to show and you know this is not CAD level accuracy but it generally shows that there's a part of the building about 10 or 15 feet of the building uh that's on mirar um that's beyond the cccl line and so that's the part that needs to come back um and constraint the site a little bit more to reconstruct the 75 units there 's uh no building proposed now of budding the homes across myar so we're providing a significant setback combining everything into one building thus some of the requests for the heights by combining those two buildings Closing one of the two entrances on myar and closing two entrances on the stero Boulevard all right now let's show you let's show you some pictures I'm obviously not the architect mik she is here we'll answer questions after that I'm going to go through some of the planning aspects of this and then you can get into the detail questions with Mike um after the presentation if that's works for everybody so I think everybody's seen these for the most part I mean these pictures have been um you know around uh uh Facebook and and Cent around quite a bit so could I ask just a quick question as you kind of go from the past to the Future I've received some correspondents from various folks including some comments from the LPA some LPA members that there was some confusion during the LPA presentation about what was on the website for the property versus square footage are you going to address that issue will you address that later yeah uh yeah I have a couple of slides completely dedicated to those those questions with as accurate of breakdown as we possibly could come up thank you so some of the highlights of this so this is another this is the view looking down Palm Avenue across the street from Aero um the you know after one presentation we got some neg negative feedback on the building and we agreed and that's when we hired Sheely uh or MK architecture and Mike Sheely to really redesign this thing and make this a quality design not only that the time share residents would want to reinvest in but that we think is a long-term benefit uh to the beach itself as far as uh just greatl looking infrastructure that fits um I understand the part that doesn't fit is the height in the back but the part we tried to make fit a lot better was the reduced height on a stero Boulevard so that the on the front of the stair Boulevard what you see one is a lot of landscaping so there was a build to line of uh had to be within between five and 10 feet on a stair Boulevard for the building LPA suggested that we that would be a favorable deviation to ask for that building to be set back more so we could provide additional landscaping and relief for an imposing massive structure on a scale Boulevard so we were able to accomplish movement of back to 23 ft and providing just 23 feet of pure landscaping and we're kind of locked in at least volume wise of plantings um in the landscape plan as part of this CPD process um and then lower the building so you'll see the bottom where there where there's the big green Walls that's the 20 ft that is required for the fdp U building uh building elevation so that bottom floor before any living areas is just about I think 20 feet and 3 Ines something like that um and then Fred so and you said that's the required so that's not including any free board that's what's what you're looking at is what you're proposing is what's required not any extra free board well it's a it's it's much above base flood elevation but it's but it's the fdp design elevation so um yeah the the bottom structure on that is at 20 feet then freeboard and then the living structures got it okay yeah so there so there is but uh I B split here I think it's 16 or so we're that's what I was getting at yeah yeah yeah we're well well above that to the fdp design elevation the lowest structural member meeting 20 feet and then the then the the structures for the floor and then the living area so yeah Mike can get into that detail but I think the living area is 21 or 22 when you finally get to a floor that you're walking on um there and then here we have three stories of units on a stero Boulevard on the endcaps are stairwells elevators um the fourth the fourth floor on the top with the different Windows is is their their relocated area for their office um I I say a community room it's really but it's just it's not in general for the communities for the time share residents to have a meeting room or to get together play games have socials I don't know whatever they want to use it for also includes office space and kind of a sales area I mean you can bring them up there and be that's about three4 floor and then the rest of it's open air deck that you see on the right and I do have a little bit better view of that um and that's to take people out there the residents can use it to sit out there with a little elevated height and look down into the Gulf of Mexico it's great would be a great View and then also in the office they can bring them out there and show them and be able to point out their unit and get people excited about the opportunity um me go to the next on down palm Palm Avenue of course no no buffers required between 10 well between 10 and 13 ft on Palm Avenue as far as room to plant some Hedges room to plant you know palms and some other vegetation stuff too um you know try to reduce that height so let's go to the next one this shows us uh really the uh the view looking more more kind of south on a ster Boulevard towards Palm Avenue there you can see Diamond Head in the background there um and the parking area to the right uh mostly it shows the 23 ft of landscape area that's in front of between the building and the sidewalk uh on a stero Boulevard um we do have a little bit of view so I'll hit this a little bit on the deviation but I might as well show you here so you see some of the the green wall um to the right of that there's some open some open area where there would be parking um that's really the only area we aren't screening on this to hide parking and that's just to provide a little bit of light and see through there but we are locked into providing a minimum of a 5ot hedge in front of that area in front of that entire area along a stair Boulevard to try to hide you know at least the grills of the cars and the hoods and maybe the few SUVs and trucks you could see the the windshields of but for the most part we want to have tall Landscaping to hide that but then the what 10 or so feet above that there'll be a little bit of light and air let let through to see through that that corner of the building and then this other view that is I think you know it just gives it one of the best overviews here you can see um the am men thean deck area the existing pool on the North side and then the reconstructive pool um it's a little bit more of a better laid out uh deck area but it's really similar to as far as the extent of the amenities that they had prior it's it meet it meets up um maybe a few little bit more deck area but for the most part it's compar comparable um and it shows the Upper Floor the office and that outdoor deck area and the uh the tower that's Nine Stories uh over the parking um next to Diamond Head all right oops so we were asked too at LPA I think this was a helpful one so we asked what what are the really the view the view corridors or just where does how does this building fit into the landscape um so this would be standing a stero Boulevard looking towards the gulf um there's the massive of Diamond Head on the left hand side our proposed building in between Palm Avenue we have about 115 ft uh in between the uh Diamond Head structure and this proposed structure so there was some concern was this kind of a tunnel effect down there was it going to be real close but 115 ft is really like having a whole another lot in between there as far as is is not creating a tunnel effect I mean that would be a large lot here on the beach so and then on the other side of the building um between the two structures the the single family house and our structure is about 170 ft um little over 90 feet of that is just our the parking area and on our site so we have a minimum setback there of 90 feet for that building I think we probably are going to exceed that to a fair extent based on our site plan right I'm sorry to interruped just curiosity's got me you're going to have a variety of views in this proposed uh building here what do you do with the existing owners do you have a lottery or how does that work who gets what spot in that building yeah I mean I could go to John sh with arel to really answer that um one of one of the goals was um prior most people had somewhat of a well there were a mix of views before as well so no that's a good question for for arel I don't know the answer to that exactly yeah was curious yeah I got a more specific part of that question so we'll ask it yep we'll go we'll go into that one you can walk through that all right so we were also asked to break down why don't we just go straight post disaster Bill back and you know with the additional height and stuff it may be pretty obvious why we're here with the CPD but I really wanted to break down our understanding of post disaster billback and how that fits in and how it doesn't so it's our understanding that the post- disaster build back policy as outlined in the Fort Meers Beach Land Development code section 34 3238 allows owners of the buildings that are damaged or destroyed by disaster to be permitted to replace those buildings at up to their pre- disaster lawful density intensity Andor height according to in accordance with policy 4- d-1 of the fort Meers Beach Comprehensive plan so in analyzing that and breaking it down this may be a little tedious and I apologize but I want to walk through our understanding and I think it helps with with showing you some of our decisions so this is the the breakdown of 34 3238 number two which is for buildings damage more than 50% obviously this was because it had to be demolished and removed so these are four this these are four criteria that got us to that commercial plan development so if you would use post Disaster billback One the new building must meet flood plane regulations that's understood building must meet Coastal Construction requirements that means it needs to be built landward of the cccl understood building must comply with all current Building Life Safety and accessibility codes that was what was a little bit of discussed here Building Life Safety building and life safety are a big part of this and we'll break that down as far as elevators external stairwells fire escape areas those kind of things and I'll try to break that down in detail and then of course the property owner wishing to exceed the square footage limitations must be eligible request additional square footage through a commercial plan development that's big part of what got us there is the additional square footage and we'll walk through those reasons now we will acknowledge that the post disaster Bill back for hotel motel buildings does allow in the post disaster billback does allow or provides for allowances to add additional square feet square footage um and this is interesting the way this was done so a rebuilt Hotel May exceed the equivalency Factor multiply limits for new hotel buildings but cannot exceed the docum square footage within the building footprint immediately before the natural disaster so what they did in order to allow for some of those improvements is to be able to count as the original square footage um not count or count the Leni everything under roof and count the overhang of the original building so we do acknowledge that there's some there is some allowance for some additional square footage to meet some of the things and then property request up to 30 squ ft of additional space per room um for uh maybe meeting Ada or some other other requirements like that Fred have you done those calculations we have yeah so how does that compare to the original footprint based on what you just said the the the original footprint we came up was is well how I have a couple slides on that okay wanted to just step through this one by one and we'll get to that and then we'll answer this specific questions so we acknowledge that and and I'm and I'm going through this because we're going to break down the square footages of the former buildings and the proposed buildings based on the post disaster analysis and and not justify that but show you just where we went with that um so in the postas build back analysis for hotel motel buildings there's a couple more things in here one additional space may be allocated uh for the purpose of uh meat building or Ada codes and the uh owner may choose to reduce the number of rooms um but may not create more guest units space that is part of the the the place where we did divert from this so in the CPD versus post- disaster billback analysis I have a little thing on the side here that says um the reason we ended up going to CPD one we were not permitted to exceed documented square foot in the original buildings and we really needed to and we'll walk through that could not accommodate all ad compliance of with 30 foot allowance per room we acknowledge that as it said not every room would be required to be accessible we do have some reasoning behind that why we think that a new time share building really should be with 52 different 51 or 52 different people using every one of those units every week um to have them to have a sing only some being ADA Compliant well people own a certain unit and if there is theirs isn't and they become where they need that kind of accessibility now their unit is either limited or not being able to be useful for them so we really felt that these units need to be 100% if everybody's going to buy back into this process and invest so um in order to do that we couldn't fit that in within the 30 fet but we also felt like every unit needed to be Ada accessible um and compliant with those so that was that was a decision that was made um obviously that is not what was required but that was a decision we made because there is concern about the former owners needing to reinvest in this I mean they've they've had it pretty good for a lot of years they bought the into this at a in a really cheap way I mean years ago it just wasn't expensive in the 80s to do this generationally they passed down the ownership now 30 40 50 years later second third fourth generation they're going to be asked to reassessed at at a higher value and we want them all to be compliant to be excited about that to not only have certain units that certain people could purchase um because they own certain units already um so and we were not permitted to create more guest space the units had to be set back further from cccl um and a direction given to provide uh view corridors for the comp PL so that was part of it as well we couldn't rebuild this thing and provide any View rors if we were going to try to stay anywhere near the reasonable the the height that was previously there all right last little piece um there's there's a few there's few things that just apply to all buildings in post- disaster billback not just motel hotel and motel and that's what these are um the number one is that the uh if the they if the buildings need to be rebuilt um elevated higher than the damage a destroyed structure because of flood plane then you can increase the height by that amount obviously that is the case here but we are exceeding that height that would be allowed for the increase in the flood plane um must be set back further from any property lines due the current requirements of this code um and reduce the uh including one or more extra stories so there is a caveat in there that allows for some extra height based on changes in this case it would be because we had move units back behind the cccl so there would be some allowance for that um and then if current and open open space parking Fred could you just comment just a little the the the the the CCL line issue what percentage of the of the old complex was over the CCL line it was it was it affected 10 units but it affected about 10 or 15% of the uh golf side part of a building okay or 10 10 or 15 ft that did touch on 10 units that needed to be addressed and I'm just curious from a legal analysis does your attorney or do are you being advised that when you when that happens that the town has an obligation to to sort of help you correct that issue or is that sort of considered an act of God or what how do what what how do you what's the legal analysis of who's obligated to help who in that situation do you in other words do you have a right to that is that is that something that the town is obligated I'm just curious just philosophically is that a legal obligation the town has to make you whole on that or is that just something you request or either one you either one of you want to comment on that I I don't think it's the town's um obligation to correct uh a problem with the prior design the prior construction um what they have a right to is what's currently in your code as part of their Redevelopment where they want to push that those extra units they have a right to ask correct but but we're not legally obligated to accommodate a CCL issue like we're seeing today I'm just asking I'm not editorializing yes I don't think we're required to so the cccl issue outside of Fort Meyers Beach is a little bit different technically we could come in outside of Fort Meers Beach and we could come in and get a cccl permit from FD to build waterw of the ccco and one of the requirements that we have to get in order to obtain that permit is a letter from the jurisdiction with zoning Authority that basically certifies that what we're proposing in that permit application it meets the zoning and other Land Development code requirements of that jurisdiction here the town is a little bit unique in that it has created a separate zoning District the EC zoning District District that applies to all privately owned lands that are waterw of that CCC cccl and major structures are prohibited waterw of the cccl and that's a town rule not a not a d rule so that is one of the many LDC issues that has contributed to the analysis of this particular request here it's not that we're prohibited by the state from building waterw of the cccl is that we're prohibited by the town zoning code and we can't get a variance from that because use variances are prohibited by law and there is no special exception that would be available for us to try to seek some type of special approval from you guys so unless you know down the line you guys changed your requirements which wouldn't even apply to this application because this is what was an effect when we submitted there's there's really no way that we can come to you guys and have a legally defensible project that includes building water word of the cccl so I hope that answers that that's great background but I guess what I'm trying to understand is does the town I understand the town sets the parameters that creates your dilemma but the does the town in your mind have a legal obligation to assist you because you are your your your structures was destroyed and is now coming back and it previously was over the cccl line I guess that's what I'm asking in your mind I wouldn't characterize it as an obligation or assistance um the town does have an obligation to work with us within the parameters of the code so if we present something that you know for example a deviation and we meet the justification criteria for that and we prove that by competent substantial evidence and there's not competent substantial evidence to support a denial then there's a very good argument to be made that that deviation for example should be approved um the bigger issue here is one of vested rights and this particular owner which is the EBC Association does have Ved rights to build back 75 units and we have the right to do that again within the reasonable limitations that the town the state and the federal government have created within their police powers to not just Zone but govern for life safety issues flood plane things like that so to the extent that somebody has a vested right to 75 units but we would not get approval for 75 units that would be an issue of vested rights and and that's really within the context of like a Bert Harris claim I just want to understand the legal thought process thank you and Nancy can also provide you know whatever right so not proposing to diminish the 75 units it's where they're located understand and so at this point because of your code they're not going to be located uh waterw of the cccl line right I I I appreciate that I just that that that that colloquy was helpful thank you y all right let's move on to a little bit of analysis of the past and present so here's the here's here's the table that was the details of some of what you were asking for now this is done the title of this slide is historical rooms and the post- disaster build back comparison and that's important because I don't want anybody to think that we're manipulating the numbers past what the code allows as far as post- disaster build back comparison because we are not required it the square footage in the orange that's 713 square feet does not need to be include the lenai area but we're acknowledging that there is a lenai it's 98 Square fet it it exists but it doesn't in order to compare post disaster billback increases we don't have to include that lenai area but we are allowed to include it in the original analysis so this got to one of the questions so on the website they advertise living area and I think 498 square feet or something like that so on the website first stah and Beach Club they said there's a number of types there's type A B and C uh Jason characterized it correctly almost all the units were A and B one unit that was a type c so almost all of them were A and B units 594 Square fet to 605 Square F feet every one of them had uh you know one bedroom uh two baths and two sleeper areas um and and that's what we're proposing to replace so on the website it said just under 500 ft that was accurate it did not include the Leni so with the Leni it's about five just around 600 square feet as far as post disaster billback that's what counts we did not try to account figure out the amount of overhang so we would be able to add that to these numbers for the total square foot of relig building I mean I think we captur some of a but not all of it it was just there's no good engineering documents that we could hang our hat on but we did know we could figure out the square footages so these are accurate for what was and what we're proposing so we're around 600 square feet for type A type B the new units 713 Square F feet you can start to see the ba the breakdown room by room that we're not trying to grab too much we're not trying to be excessive what we were trying to do is provide just a little B a little bit more room for better circulation and in a little bit of a more modern context so the bedrooms same size or less um bathrooms were a little bit larger um little bit wider uh same with the kitchen wider so you could move around a little bit better I mean the former kitchens were five or seven feet wide pretty tight in there um extra room on the dining dining sleeper area um and the living and sleeper sleeping area uh living area the dining and living area are a little bit larger that is true so we did add some some additional square footage there in order to really just get I mean part of it just to accommodate a little bit better circulation and modern layout and to uh um you know just get people get new investors uh and the people that need to buy back in excited about this project so the post disaster uh allows rooms to be 30t larger so it' be between say 630 sare ft proposed rooms are 713 so that's about an 11 to 13% increase over the way we're allowed to calculate it under post disaster billback b um just under 20% if we added the Leni back in so we'd be between like 17 and maybe 19% if we add the Leni in so that's the increase in the rooms that we're proposing and we can jump back to this and really dig into this a little bit later but I'm gonna move on for now and then see what questions you have so here's the other one the historical floor area comparison so living area other floor area so living area obviously the rooms the 75 times you know the the different Square footages including lenai total roughly 62,000 square feet in the former building the new proposed living areas about 54 thou 53,486 Square ft and the porch area another 7,350 other floor area was almost 45,000 Square ft so that's when we say you're increasing by you know 62,000 to 105,000 this is where we get that number so that 44,000 square fet is broken down into 70% of that stairs elevators and external walkways for fire escapes and wider external walkways to be you know the full 5et wide in order for accessibility so 75 70% of that extra 44,000 is building life safety and accessibility um there are some other things that add a little more square footage to I mean remember this was a kind of converted motel and built a lot of years ago there was never in the original building I mean far this post disaster billback assumes that that original building was done really really well and that just a little bit increase here and there will make it all make sense well it didn't it didn't have adequate storage they just worked around it for years and years and years um so little bit more of a hospit Hospitality deck a little bit more room in the office um there's increases in electrical laundry is a little bit bigger um in maintenance and storage areas for new you know electrical equipments and and me and that kind of thing is a little bit larger so it wasn't all I mean there is there is we will admit there is increases in the living area to try to make this thing a little bit more modern meet some Building Life Safety codes internally and then but most of this is external so uh you know good 40% of this is external improvements I mean some of those had walk up units that were multiple stories you didn't need stairs in the elevators um and pieces of that so now we have to have all those things um to the to meet the modern codes and it took up a lot of space um it really did um so that'll be the further breakdown that obviously Mike Shey can detail on this since he is a building designer and gave us all these numbers so so that's our breakdown um without that we're still improving under 20% but um most of the other area is building like safety and accessibility and then some improvements in just uh uh electrical maintenance and storage Fred before you go on just have a question on your previous slide you had shown that you only had three units ab and C that were available um Mr Ashford who we've deemed now as an expert has sent us something that combats what that says according to what he has sent us it says that there are seven different types of units with the largest unit that existed before at 773 Square ft and the smallest being at 426 Square ft not including the 8444 square feet of balcony space so is his information wrong or is your information wrong well I would like to say our information is correct um so yeah um I mean this there may I mean there may be a few nuances here and there of of a few feet here and there but I mean based on our our knowledge that this was this was the most accurate that we could come up with and I mean it actually goes into I don't know if you've had a chance to see it but it actually goes down to it's very gr I mean it gets down into the nitty-gritty of the stuff and it shows that the one building had 42 units another building had 33 units and the the second building building two is the one that had the bigger what appears the bigger units and of that only one of those units unit H was the one that was the bigger of the 773 ft so I would just like a little clarification whether it's you or someone else if your data is correct and his isn't or it just seems like there's a disparity there between and this was I don't know if that this was available to the LPA when they they they made their decision but or if it was available to staff in their determination but I'm just curious as to there seems to be a lot of disparen in the size of the rooms and the amount of rooms that were available or units that were available yeah um there was correct there was only one unit that was we have 787 Square F feet but yeah there's just the one unit that was that size and the other ones the A and B okay um I'm sure someone in your group will get to it at some point is wanted to bring it up um so let's go through a few other things um on the uh so uh going through the site plan so I was also asked to just provide a little bit of comparison this isn't maybe the the the way you want us I don't know this is we're trying to show so there's what was here's what we're here's what we're proposing now so you can see that's kind of the logic behind some of this one was to not have a building next to mirar push everything towards uh the Diamond Head structure on Palm Avenue but really mimic that l-shape that was there prior um so the building now it mimics the the building that was the pool in pull out on you know Palm Avenue um in that area uh the pool deck and amenity area and then re the redesigned parking of the site so um and showing the enhanced Landscaping so that was just a little bit comparison of what was and what we're proposing the site plan features a few of these one we'll just walk around from the the lower left so there was on this original site plan we'd had a a setback that was different we increased it to 90 ft from uh from near Mar to the Clos Clos structure which is uh the elevator stair area so minimum of 90 ft from myar the uh and the 1.4 F so we are not asking for that includes the ground level parking the 1.4 so we are able to meet the 1.4 counting all the under story parking as well um without that counted we would be at that one like around 1.2 that Jason mentioned but we're we're counting that we're not asking for that deviation um the dedicated perimeter buffers around all three sides um myar palm and a stero Boulevard uh 170 foot um in between the building and the closest other structure um large majority of that's on our site additional building setback and enhanced buffer area on a stereo Boulevard at 23 feet um and then we're about 100 yeah we said 115 it's 115 to 125 ft from our structure to the Diamond Head structure and then the uh in the lower right hand side there the the the original design we had the dumpster really close to myar which would have been you know having the trucks go down there for garbage pickup and that's pretty noisy so we moved that over to the other side and it almost aligns uh across the street from the uh garbage pickup for Diamond Head so makes a pretty convenient it makes a smart site plan so now now this one is the uh conceptual landscape plan that kind of locks Us in now we didn't take this to be uh the we didn't we didn't break this down to list every single species that would be on there but it does list the volume of plants and the type of planning and some of the heights there as well to lock us into this is going to substantially have to be like this um with the surrounding perimeter buffers and the parking areas and uh with the Landscaping there and all the Landscaping on the stero and pal all right a little bit of planning planning analysis there's not too much of this I'm getting I'm getting to the to the end of this so we can get to the questions there were four deviations we are withdrawing the fifth the fifth was for the deviation to not count ground level parking towards F we didn't need to do that we reduced where where we needed to in order to meet F so there's only four deviations left um one is uh the requires entrance and Views into the first floor of commercial buildings this is a downtown district and that's why there's these build two lines meant to be for commercial buildings which a time share building is considered commercial is required you know they want storefront active storefront areas well because of the history of this and the best of Rights it's a fully Residential Building as far as time share but it does fit into that commercial area so we're not um providing the uh uh storefront retail office uses on the ground ground floor obviously and there's no entrance onto a stero Boulevard to the building because it's a private building in that way and then number two is for uh under to Bas PL elevation commercial uses below base flood to screen under building parking areas like I said we are asking for this deviation but it's really for a small area we are planning to screen the under story with with green walls with Hedges um so the large majority of it will be screened in accordance with this requirement but there is some area where we thought just light and air through there would be better than um just completely closing it off um but we are providing a tall hedge Road in order to hide the cars underneath um and then build to uh the three and four for build two lines on the side and on the front um and then for uh exceeding the maximum height which is the obvious one here today so um those are the four deviations that asking for um that staff has recommended approval of I'm not going to get too far into these because the LDC compliance and stuff can get pretty can get a little bit tedious but I do have to acknowledge on the record that um we are in agreement staff and as approval through the LPA they feel that we met the 12 uh the 12 criteria for approval of the zoning as applicable uh particularly the subject um request is consistent with the uh goals objectives policies and intent and with the densities intensities and General Uses set forth in the Fort Meyers Beach Comprehensive plan uh there's an exert ex excert there from staff and whether the request will be compatible with existing or planned uses and not cause damage Hazard nuisance and other detriment to the uh persons or property staff felt that we met that criteria as well um and then lastly compliance in consist consy with the comprehensive plan so I listed all these out um we've gone through most of these already The Orange Box on the side was really just pulling out some of the areas where it talked about view corridors in your current comprehensive plan um and so and it it's talked about it in a number of places in policy 4- C-4 about height um in the implementation in the uh height divion um they all talk about um that being a benefit and I know we talk a lot about public benefits and I'm part of other cases that that's is a is a big piece of this because it's just new development it's not rebuilding vested rights it's completely new develop developed building um like the Seagate and the London Bays that's a different category than trying to rebuild a former um you know time share building with some vested rights so we do think there is some Public public benefit here um it's not going to be with the public space and some of the other things but we do feel there is still still some public benefit and that's what I'll hit on on this last section here so one uh enhanced Landscaping so no Landscaping requirements uh for the project we're providing perimeter landscaping and enhanced 23 ft of Landscaping on a stero Boulevard uh The View Corridor uh 170 ft between the two buildings minimum 90 feet on our building um I think it's probably closer to 110 120 on our piece of property where there is not will not be building blocking that view if we tried to spread this out lower the height we would have to spread it out and use the entire site and it would be three four maybe five stories tall um in order to rebuild this thing correctly to meet you know life life safety codes to meet uh fire circulation all this stuff and it would block completely I mean anything over a couple stories blocks blocks any View and we'd have to be taller than that so at least in this way we believe that it's a benefit in order to push this all to one end towards the taller building that's already existing next to it and open that space up a little bit for more light and air towards the gulf uh another public benefit just high quality design I mean we were we were pushed to do this we're glad we did it um little bit of you know nervousness about just people willing to reinvest in this because at the end of the day that's what's got to happen we got to have the super majority of people have reinvest in this or there's no path to move forward to refinance and build a time share building so the quality design was a huge piece of this to get people excited about not only Council or and the other people on the beach about a high quality building going up but then the re people that would reinvest being excited about being in a building that is just a Class A building um compatibility for us planning wise I consider that pushing it away from single family houses and towards another the other taller buildings um and just creating more open space of better compatibility um sustainability that's built in because we have to meet all the codes for flood and life safety and then um safety I think circulation wise uh you know closing off a bunch of entrances two on a stero one on mirar um no parking backing out onto Palm Avenue anymore um just a real a modern logical circulation to this that pre provides better safety so couple more slides stick with me so some things to consider so this is more this is more of instead of just that technical analysis this is more this the the heartfelt really what's what's happening what people have to deal with on the ground here so one the history is 1978 to 81 construction um R has been property manager here since 2004 and I don't think it's a loss on anybody that this is Generation generational ownership in fact some of the people on the board they're they're passing off to the fourth generation of people that are coming there in time share many many of these people over the years have for coming on time share weeks and I'm sure you have stories for a lot of time share buildings on the on the island they come they come they come eventually they said we love Fort Meers Beach and they reinvest and they become residents this has happened number many many many times over the last 50 or 60 years with this time share there's particular time share challenges one is I mean it's going to be an estimated $34 million bill after insurance there going to to be 25 26 million I mean these are our rough estimates now of of what would have to be financed so there will be some new assessments coming to the to the people um some are happy about that some aren't um and we understand that but we want to try to get the majority of people excited about this so they'd want to reinvest in this um and and really make it a modern thing that's desirable um because the other result is selling this and we we we know what would happen with this with if you sell this to a developer and they're going to come in and it's going to be aggressive um and it's not going to be the people that have been coming here for 30 or 40 or 50 years it's going to be a completely different uh uh socioeconomic group of people and entirely different people that would be there so we don't want this thing to sell we don't want to have to have the only Last Choice be sell this to a developer everybody Cash Out make some money and and go home and no longer have 3,825 owners come to Fort Meers Beach anymore because that's a huge benefit so before the hurricane there was an average of three people per unit 51 weeks a year and cyclical and offseason occupancy was 90% plus year around now you think of in season all right not that big of a deal almost everywhere's 90% Plus off seon to still be around that that is a lot of people every single week walking to the local shops the local restaurants they come down with what one rental car park it and then walk around buy groceries buy buy food go out um and just spend their money on Fort Meers Beach um and for and the historically know we don't have stat statistics to back this up but we know from management people would drive down there they would park and typically they aren't adding to traffic because they're within a walk shed and that's what I wanted to show on my last slide here is that um we're within a half mile so a typical walk shed I mean the short walk shed for people like by Florida Department of Transportation is that quarter mile but they also have a secondary walk shed that is accessible for people that is a half mile this is almost exactly a half mile to Time Square in between there and I didn't even go south there's other shops and things and restaurants to the South but to go north there's all these businesses that 3,825 different owners uh support uh on a weekly basis and uh and contri you to particularly in the offseason and keep these places going um so that's part of my summary there and um and so now we're going to beat to the to the conclusion part really I don't have anything new to say about the conclusions I think we the LPA has approved this 5 to2 staff has recommended approval as well they say that we meet the Land Development code they say that we meet all the all the pieces of the comp plan as well um um I think we showed and demonstrated that we're not trying to grab and build necessarily more than we needed to um in order to meet some Building Life Safety and to modernize the structure somewhat I don't think we're trying to grab be gree and just uh make this thing unreasonable and in order to do that yep there is a little bit more height that isn't the most desirable thing for some people we understand we think this plan was solid we think the building is a great benef will be a great benefit to Fort Meers Beach and we think it'll get the own reform own is excited enough to reinvest and this not go to another development so that's my conclusion now we're off to flip them back and forth on the slides and seeing what questions you guys have all right questions for Fred councelor King you want to go first um a couple of mine have been answered I think I'll wait because I I got a feeling we'll hear more that might take care of them as well okay vice mayor yeah I was able to ask ask most of them during the during his presentation but I'm interested in public comments then I'll have maybe have some additional questions okay I have a question on because I we all have gotten emails on the whole myar and pedestrian walkways and that type of thing amongst all the cars that will be on the the beach side of myar and that kind why can you help me understand why those ENT why there's multiple entrances on the myar that may prohibit pedestrian walking and that type of thing yeah there were there were two um entrances we're proposing one now okay um so let me oops was that different than from the LPA discussion is that in enhance sense LPA no no that had that that stayed the same it did stay the same that did stay we moved the dumpsters the way over there but there um historically there were there was uh maybe go right to this one oops stopped so there were two entrances there on myar you can see the parking area it was in front of the building so this our entrance we propose now goes goes a little bit deeper into the property um but we only because that one was so close to a stair Boulevard it just made for it was a very safe turn in so we're proposing one that's just a little bit south of there on um on Mir Mar but we are proposed that I mean the quickest way in to get the underbuilding parking which will go first is off of Palm um and then the the parking area I think I think you could probably justify that it's it's it's not quite split but it's probably a 60 6040 split so um so yeah there will be some people that would need need to use myar but I think the majority of people might get down palm and uh get to the understory parking instead of driving around that parking area so that was part of our design thought on there we had to make it obviously meet with fire code um and and it does but um we think people mostly use pal Avenue where exactly is that cut for the parking uh for on Palm yeah it's about in the middle oh y it's about goes away on the screen so it's about in the middle between the in between those Palms there's a white area about mid mid of that building okay cuz it with with with that solid line there that doesn't look like a cut oh yeah well this is this is where you're talking about correct yeah the the solid line is is the property boundary line so yeah right I think that's okay no no yeah it's the property boundary line but that is the correct location of the of the Palm Avenue entrance got it okay so there will be access on both both side streets there will be yes okay they both entrance and exit they are Karen I'm good thank you conc yeah that was a concern i' I've gotten several emails on that but I I I just the numbers guy and I I it's something just you're that we their Ra's web page your web page the the client's web page they have they state that half the units were 475 square feet the other ones were 495 and the bigger I didn't give the square footage for the for the one two bedroom and you know you you're saying that you're adding the patio which is in one slot it was 96 but in effect it's 84 so I 96 was I'm having a hard time figuring out how 475 plus 84 is is 500 and something CU it it's it's uh it's not it's it's 5 59 so why why are these numbers just not matching up because I I like to see a cohesive numbers numbers numbers and it just seems that all these numbers are flying out there and I can't get a straight answer it doesn't seem like the math that'ss up does that make sense yeah I mean now I I I totally understand where you know typically the rooms have have to be 15 to 20% bigger of course you the the numbers work on on on the you know mechanical and and the stairwells and and that it's usually you know 30 to 40% larger but it it just um I'm just having a hard time with with those numbers because it and I understand the room's got to be bigger and to to sell them to make them you know 713 is okay but it just seems the the why that website has one number in your presentation has a number just just well and this is part of the difficulty of trying to categor try to make this Simple and Clean versus every single detail so there's in some of that 475 they were just show what what are you existing in where's all your living area and your bathroom you know all the areas that you would circulate so in some of that there was there was little closets and other things in fo little foyer areas that were not counted accurately under there for just the website they were just trying to say hey here's the generally generally your living area but there are some small storage areas and everything that we just tried to then capture under one thing so that we wouldn't be caught under well are you trying to hide hide area or in different so we were just trying to get the more accurate even some little closets and storage areas that were inside it and just capture that entire internal area for each one of the units so that was that was mainly it so they were saying more living area than you know coule couple closets here and there storage yeah okay that's all I have right now I'm sure I'm going to have more yeah I I will have some as well I mean I asked the one already so I don't know if you want to try to address it or someone in your team wants to try to address it um as far as a discrepancy between what has been sent to us from someone that you know versus what you're saying I I I really need to get an answer to that as to why they're they're showing seven units different types of units in different Square footages now I understand their layouts may be a little bit different but um how do they have access to this information or is this information in not accurate and yours is I'm just trying to get my head wrapped around and and it doesn't appear staff has seen any of this documentation so we have also not seen this okay for what it's worth so it it's really challenging for us to comment on the veracity of what you've seen presented by somebody who hasn't actually directly provided us with any of this information okay and and we're familiar with the plans but again those were not directly provided to us either for context we're we're going off of records that we have obtained both from public records were available and also from records you know that are on file with raal and the board and other folks who've engaged us to do this work okay so we are we are attempting to get all the emails that were uh disclosed during our expar disclosures um getting a copy to them so they can look at those emails and respond I think we're in the process of that so next email has been sent to them okay so I guess just move let me say one there's never hold on come on come on up and excuse me my name is John Shaw and with r resort property management and I've been managing the resorts since 2004 uh there is yes there's a discrepancy as far as the unit there was only five different units and those other units were the little corners of 07s 06s uh in the three-story unit uh that were but again space was not accounted for the uh electrical room that was outside of those units that took up some of those spaces a bigger closet in the one unit so there was not really much of a square footage difference and it was never really related that way it was never on the website that was probably from the uh I I don't know the original developers or whatever put a square footage on there so that was never really a calculated uh square footage ever so that that thing that seems to be going back and forth uh you know again was just a a brochure uh that's all it was it was never calculated it was this the calculations were done by uh meccan engineer ing uh square footages and and mic so you know understanding I I don't know what's been been presented but it was never something that's been approved by the board of directors uh out there I don't know why it's out there but again it's never been approved by the board of directors and I don't know why it's being judged because again this is not something that's ever been uh presented as factual to uh be presented so and Jack well thanks for coming up I'm not not trying to it's not about judging it's just simply asking like councelor Safford numbers are important to me and usually numbers don't lie and and you just admitted that there were two more different types of room than what you've already presented so now we've gone from three units that you presented to what you just said there were actually two more different types of rooms so I'm just trying to understand the numbers is it three is it five is again again we're talking about maybe 10 square foot in in differences so you know when we were trying to calculate uh total squared footage of buildings again this was the main units and again if you look at the website what did it only say it said two sizes didn't it uh so again discrepancy wise we never intended to have any discrepancy that it was just again a calculation of the square footages of the whole buildings and again I thought originally we were looking at a billback program now we're looking at a totally new design building one should have nothing to do with it what was and what what we're actually presenting uh so again I I don't know where we're getting old sizes new sizes and why that was ever really brought up because again if we had gone back to billback program yes it would but this is not a billback so just trying to clarify you know I don't understand why we're getting well since you brought up Bill back in your up here Jackal we'll just ask when we originally met you and I and Fred I don't believe was one of the design team back then it was a different firm you had presented something under the under the build back that would have met all the requirements and still done everything that you needed to accomplish do you remember that meeting yes it is okay and the fire district was there yes and everybody was talking everybody was there and it was a a completely different design than what we're seeing now yes um the fire district at the time had a concern with not being able to get their apparatuses in to that area if you remember yes so I'm just curious as to the change from what was then and the firm that you had then to what is now what what is changed on your end that has required you to go from what design was presented that day to what we're looking at now all right several things one was again a clear view was part of this the situation the turnaround radiuses of what the uh fire department required uh the uh again the the original design that was just shown took up the entire piece of property basically from property line to property line uh was not recommended by uh staff was not uh a feasible again that was a preliminary drawing uh that you saw and it came out of that meeting uh that we were guided toward this direction uh to go with a higher elevated building uh to present to uh LPA which is what we did which is what's been approved uh to this point uh so again why that would been the only reason why again would did we want to go higher no uh do we need to to present to uh comply with all the city codes requirements that's where we're at uh so right and just one last question so Jack based on your testimony you just had do you believe believe that what you originally presented which was the three stories above parking at that original meeting to what you have now is is needed because of the setbacks that you're providing in this proposal as well as the turnaround apparatuses so those two reasons are the reasons you would need six additional floors and the Clear View area uh spacing uh use of the land uh PL and simple okay thanks any other questions no that's it that's all I have thanks for now so Jack or sorry I was called you Jackie sorry sorry Becky Becky Nancy whatever hey hey you I know so we're gonna go to public comment my question is because I do have questions about what Mr Ashford has presented to us can his is his com can his comments be outside because he's not an applicant and he's not the can his his comments could be um basically you received it by email right I I'm very concerned um the clerk has indicated that she has shared the emails with the applicant I want in the emails that were sent to us also he he says that these have been presented to the applicant group as well so they have received according to his according to him but I need to confirm with them on the record that they do have the emails allowing them an opportunity to actually rebut or make additional comments for that because that is in the context of fairness yeah and and that's what I'm trying to get at what if he's speaking is it best for him to speak during public comment or can he speak outside the public comment realm to answer questions if you want him to speak outside you can you can ask him to to respond to the questions it would be preferable to go into public comment with everybody else but then if Council has direct questions that they would want to ask him the applicant also has the opportunity to ask questions of him okay fair enough that Mak sense okay so before we open up public comment is there any council member has any other questions for the applicant or staff at this time okay we will open it up for public comment okay uh first up I have Dave Lee and following Dave will be Michael Bri bre good morning all thanks for all your effort efforts and moving the town forward which is really what we want to do um I agree with Dan 100% what threw me off on this whole project and got it totally out of whack is that there was this of all projects should have been a droped easy job to do within three stories over uh flood this is the project why it ever got to be initially presented to the LPA as a tower makes no sense whatsoever but so obviously I'm in opposition to the plan as proposed I'm a resident and a neighbor live right across the street and the issue is height and my position is that this has been the most contentious issue the town has as a matter of fact was the reason Town's created so the citizens and everybody's fought this from the GetGo so the town was created for height da I'm just getting some get closer to the mic okay the the town was created for height and we had a major issue with this issue with with height with Margaritaville project what Margaritaville is is three stories over parking three stories over flood that's what in fact the def facto standard of the town is so this isn't just an arbitrary number of three stories over parking it's a real number that the town was created for and is currently set up de facto with the Margaritaville project um the LPA was not unanimous on this Anita was waffling over this issue when she decided against it because she said this issue of public benefit has got to be vetted with all of you and with the residents to find out what a public benefit really is so in my opinion the only vote on this project is a no um so what does need to be decided is what constitutes a public benefit and what is it worth uh Margaritaville in their project they actually gave things to the town they gave them parking at WIA away they gave public swimming access they gave overhead Street crossover they provided discounts to Residents miscellaneous property was assigned to the town that's all gives that they had to give as far as I can see their EBC is giving nothing what they're calling a view corridor is a parking lot it's just no one access looking over parking lot um a couple of anecdotal things about View Corridor is that I've seen numerous people over the years complement how they love The View when they're driving out of the Publix halfway down the island what it is across from Publix is a open parking garage looking right out to the beach people like that that's considered in their particular opinion A View Corridor course da huh just the time's up we just need you to wrap up here uh anyway Dom Minimus is an important thing on this if you're going to concede anything it should be one floor maybe additional that's that's all it should be uh if you want an option if they give us uh a lane of parking on Palm Avenue free to the town is paid parking that would be a gift that would be something I suggest maybe consider okay thanks thank you who's next okay Michael brief and after Michael is Anthony Ashford good morning good morning if everybody could speak right into that microphone you can adjust it if you want because we people are concerned they can't hear at home so thank you good morning Mr Mayor vice mayor council members staff and guests um I was sworn in I am on hibiscus Drive in Fort mys Beach along with Ellen fure and David F culture all um voting citizens and uh it's been an interesting uh presentation uh the previous gentleman mentioned something that I would uh reiterate that as part of uh the fort Meers Beach Town's purpose or U impetus for being Incorporated was the build of Diamond Head uh evidently people didn't like that and wanted to have more control uh we have guidelines in place for uh Building height for a reason and uh this uh proposal exceeds those Heights and for that and other reasons uh I cannot support it and I ask that you do the same um it's a slippery slope to say we're going to allow 50 feet then 60 feet then 70 feet um we need to hold the line somewhere the gentleman mentioned margarit and the issues they went through um again uh thank you for your time I'll be brief but please uh decline to support this uh proposal and let's keep Fort Meers the way it is as much as we can thank you very much thank you m Anthony Ashford and after Mr Ashford will be Matthew wad you want Matthew first you got it Matthew W after Mr W is Anthony Ashford and he has a uh handout here Mr Rod does okay good morning good morning mayor vice mayor council members councelor I'm Matthew wad I'm a multi-week owner at the stero Island Beach Club 1840 stero Island Boulevard or excuse me a stero buror you correct I own weeks uh over the Christmas and New Year holidays 112 138 203 209 and 21 my family's been coming to for Myers Beach for 40 years and more uh I'm at stero Island Beach Club board member I'm the sole member in opposition of this I provided you some documents uh if you wish to to read I can cover uh details of that later I'm retired Air Force Reserve Colonel 11 years active duty 15.5 years in reserves last several assignments I've been a mission Support Officer uh doing base and Mission uh installation Mission support role bottom line I request the EBC agenda item here be tabled in opposition until EC owners address the situation the board has not adhered to specific requirements in our bylaws and I'll list those out here they have not provided an estimate in in immediacy and it's not been accurate based off of third- party estimates the architect is not employed by EBC as required and plans and specifications are not approved by the ownership as required the board of direct directors approved an increase in Square fet as well as occupancy and I list those on the right we in the minutes it says 60% from 500 to 800 and our Rocky increase by roughly 23% board of directors also pushed owners to lower the approval threshold without even voting on the changes or the design develop in the closed meetings the current rendition that is up here on the board has not even been voted on the bo by the board or the members or the owners multiple changes inaccuracies and misrepresentations that have been presented at the LPA is the the reason why I'm here and why I consider myself a whistleblower in this case I want the build I want the rebuild but with the owner vote on specific options based on accurate estimates and specifications I'd like to make mention that the precipitous of this that why it came forward is because the last LPA LPA number two is what I call it requires the the building to be sub substantially the same going forward if you approve this if you have any questions I'm glad to take it I respectfully ask you to listen to Anthony asford and we'll stand here and take those questions appreciate it thank you m uh Anthony Ashford and that's all I have signed up after Mr Ashford thank you mayor vice mayor council members counselor um I'm here to uh speak in opposition of the plan um throughout the uh process we have seen um a lot of great efforts by a lot of good people um unfortunately I've found a lot of uh discrepancies and uh I want to just point out a few major things um uh Matt had already mention the vote so I'm going to skip that and go right to uh time uh throughout my uh uh career We have basically done these processes and planning approval and roughly you know a few months granted we're dealing with a lot of unprecedented occurrences with natural disasters um this isn't and can't be an easy process however um this usually is not a uh 24th mon process um with not dealing with other things but it's more of a in the architecture World about a uh two to three month maybe six at the most process to get a concept and get it approved by owners and get it uh passed through any kind of zoning board um moving on I want to just go on to talk about the real main problems one one is the proposal that was put out together uh exceeded the uh F uh floor area ratio of 1.4 um I'm understanding that there may be an allowance for them to increase that F but I would urge the um Town Council not to move forward with anything like that because increasing the intensity of a building can increase the occupancy load and that can and will have effect on uh vehicular Transportation where I don't think the city can afford added uh circulation know traffic circulation um uh I did propose an alternative that provides a uh an F that would fall under the 1.4 as far as square footage which is probably uh the largest question for most people um I don't think you need to take my word for it there's um plenty of information uh in the official records on um official record 1511 uh page count um 1758 describe units b c and d and official record 1511 page count 1754 describes uh units um e and H I think I think one of those is a manager's office so um g& I did an extensive analysis excuse me for a second can you we were talking about an official record according What official record are you sting on uh the county records okay thank you yes uh so this is all on U and I don't have the slide here but uh it's all right here if you can see the uh units they're all outlined there's dimensions on them Mr as yes you you got three minutes my question to you is based on what the attorney has said to us if there are questions directly to you outside the public comment are you okay to be questioned by by the applicant as well if we ask question is that is their attorney okay with with that I want to make sure that she has an opinion her opportunity to cross exam yes most certainly of course I think that's the most judicial thing before you move on then if you wouldn't mind do we have anybody else that wants to speak I want to make sure everybody has the ability to speak before you go into what you're going to be going into can we do that Nancy can we tell him his three minutes is up and then yes you can bring him back there's no one else out is there anybody out that wants to speak during public comment okay so if you don't mind we'll call you back up after we close public comment yeah may I say one more thing sir before the questions um I think one of the other largest uh contingencies of this project proposal is the cost burden to the clients um to the ownership that'll be one of my questions so we'll make sure we address it great thank you Barbara did you want to public comment that's okay does she have to put her name in no she can okay it is still morning barely good good morning everyone and uh thank you all for all the great work you did after Hurricane Milton getting us all back on the island uh and that's to both Town staff and counsel um this is stero Island beach club and I'm really sort of questioning at this point generally why this is even on the agenda because as I remember before our hurries that Andy was going to schedule a group meeting where we could talk in general eneral about the uh cons inconsistencies about what it is we want to do EXC what we wanted to do going forward with development so uh I just have a question as to when that meeting was to be scheduled uh if if am I correct Andy that we had that um conversation uh publicly that there would be the LPA the council and staff really come to grips with these there was a comp plan there was a yeah okay so I don't know if that's still um going to happen but if uh it is um I'd like to have that happen before we make a decision on this Estero Island Beach Club um I'm opposed as you all know about the uh a 10 story building in this part of the beach I'm also concerned about the discrepancies in the presentation um I uh really admired what Margaritaville did and they did comply why would we not this excuse me why would we not have this development do the same so I'm voicing my uh disapproval of this um project and I encourage you uh to respectively um disapprove it as well thank you thanks bar is there anyone else in the building that wants to speak during public comment all right see none we'll close public comment and uh now can we bring Mr Ashford back up or um you can um and again we want to afford their um the opportunity for their attorney to address any of the emails that were disclosed during um our disclosure period okay yes so he's coming back up or the attorney u m oh you want to come back up Amy you first look like you've got something to say we have received the emails we have read through many of them but we have done so you know during the pendency of this hearing so we haven't actually looked at everything in super great detail most of them are a form that most people just kind of use to Plug and Play uh concerns that are pretty consistent with what we've heard from public today we are fully prepared prepared to address those but um you know I mean I will also note that we still have the second reading where we can we will have the opportunity to address those emails as well so if you know in the in the interest of time we can use the just want to on the record make sure that you're afforded the opportunity so that they did make disclosures that they received emails you have gotten a copy of them so you can figure out whatever questions you want to ask or clarification so we want to keep it fair that's all VI may look want to ask something before good okay come on up ask um actually wanted to just say something I think that's um definitely something that needs to happen um while the can you pull your mic up for sry thanks while the uh board had received uh Concepts um another alternative idea that would save us a lot of money um they hadn't received the communication of the opposition paper I put together for you um so obviously they need time to digest it there's a lot of information in there and um they deserve that opportunity to be able to understand what's you know kind of putting it in play here so um go ahead with the questions well just as a touch on the cost and you're I've obvious I've gone through quite a there's a lot of detail in there to your point there's a lot of of stuff to to digest and I guess my question to you is where did you get all this email you touched on all this information within there and you've talked about your your experience in your background and I have no reason to doubt your calculations that you have in a lot of the stuff that's in this this email that you sent us I think you sent it to us several times I think it was more than once sent to us there were a couple revisions correct this this latest one was though your kind of your updated final I I did a latest update based off of uh new Financial records that we obtained on my last visit here uh which totally changed the numbers on our availability of insurance funds and uh what we have in um reserves and money market if you could just I know it's 24 25 Pages roughly just an overview of what is within I don't know if you want to call it a report or your findings as to what you covered in there and how it relates to what's being proposed yes so I did a extensive of historical um if you want to say U analysis or uh um uh discovery of what was existing in the past uh this was uh used uh or this was created and developed by everything from record documents that have scale markers on them so you can actually take some measurements when you can't read the measurements um it's done from past surveys as uh that are old old as well as some that are is from 2022 that give you some um factors of building width and things like that so um you know then you have other technology that you know can be used to capture um dimensional criteria as well to cohesively build a u a forensic study of the uh existing conditions that were once there um it in developing this you can easily um I basically put this data into a advanced building information modeling system um that generates all the square foot calculations from gross square footage and net square foot calculations um I believe uh you know like the statement uh Mr Shaw was uh making earlier about the uh marketing material uh where it's just like a big number those are um closely related to the net square footage of two of the most typical units um but not all units and um and so there's there are details you know um whether you want to say God or Devil's in the details it's here and it's being presented to us um through this analysis I basically put together um the total square footage of what was historically given um as well as um I also did an analysis of what was proposed post um there's not a whole lot of detail in their drawings but it was put together and I did uh what's known as a rough order of magnitude which is a very early preliminary study of a cost analysis um I kind of get a little more hyper involved with those and to get down to uh you know some real brass TXS so in doing this what I assessed was um the units that we once had which were roughly around the 500 Mark uh 5 to 600 right and U what was being proposed was an additional and let me just go to one of my exhibits here sorry is it in the one you sent us yeah it's um they're it's basically an additional 440 uh to 479 uh gross square feet than the historical units uh B and D respectively um those are your common units which is what you saw in the marketing material could I just stop you just so I understand so you're saying it goes from 600 to 1,000 square foot it um their calculation based off of a uh unit layout drawing that is roughly 20 ft wide uh by uh 56 feet deep is the unit Bay that includes the corridor that's that's 1120 ft uh give you know give or take I think their Dimensions like 19 fo2 or something like that but um so your numbers there are based on the corridor and the Leni my numbers are based off of also their design units that have been uh presented to owners um some uh yeah so and then if you did without the corridor it's 20 by 51 so the unit has uh 1,20 grow square feet if you deduct the the Leni of uh let's say 100 square ft you're looking at 920 but what I did is because the units are um I quantify the difference between the historical and the proposal and you're looking at 440 additional square feet now my experience in interior design and Hospitality design um has basically assessed that I think uh uh Mr oule you were asking earlier uh what's the percentage you need for Ada that's really like a um you could have a facility that used to be semi compliant and so your percentage would be lower and increasing the square footage where you could have a a facility like ours that was Zero compliance with Ada and so you have a lot more square footage to add but I did uh several unit design uh to see what all you would need and my assessment is uh my units uh layout would be uh roughly 200 square ft uh to 250 sare ft less than what they're proposing what that does and that would comply with all Ada uh ironically the proposed uh plan of the units that they provided isn't compliant at all with Ada because it's not designed by a professional architect so there's something a Miss with that I'm not going to say more about that uh but there's a a lack of ADA in their design and it's evident when any inter interior designer architect looks at it um with that being said my assessment is you could increase the square footage to maybe 200 to 250 square feet and certainly accommodate the same exact program that they used to have for both the typical Studio which slept four and the typical one-bedroom that slept six and what that means is there were the studio head a bed and a pull out sofa the one-bedroom had a b a bedroom with a bed and two pullout sofas if you changed them to all be one bedrooms you now have the potential capacity to increase the occupant load to six people per unit and maybe that's something that the ownership would love to vote on doing but they haven't they haven't been able to have that opportunity and then if they did say say yes then they would say hey we want you know an extra you know 250 sare ft for every unit we want them all to be one bedrooms and add more occupancy and you know we need a little extra parking for that occupancy etc etc so there's a lot of so there's the difference and a 200q foot less per unit is a lot less money and my assessment is uh going from 7,000 unit week owner to 13,000 or even as high as 17 if you built the you know similar to uh Margaritaville which I think they're at like 550 a square foot versus 450 is where I priced at that's why I do two assessments for the uh rough order magnitude for a 10 story I created a opportunity of like this is your typical construction that's its cost and this is if I had to do a 10 story um this is how I would do it to save money but if I really did it it would be 200 ft smaller per unit and guess what with the same footprint that equates to basically not a 10-story building but a fivestory building instead what I did is I provided and I don't have an agenda I spent um a lot of hours creating an alternative as a gift to not just my owners um at EC the board uh but as well as the community and it's important to look at that as a alternative option not as the option right but as a look you can do this 3+ one um and I think there's still discussion on the table of whether or not that concept design would uh be approved I think that's uh something on on U Jason's desk so that's okay John you have any questions for was your proposal submitted to the board and rejected or not submitted at all uh it was presented as a last minute alternative uh kind of like a Hail Mary MH um and that's because um over the last 20 two months it's not you know nobody's listening to the what's required in the bylaws owners aren't being able to vote um and the cost burden you know I'm just trying to buy back into a property uh like Matt our family has had for 40 years and uh you know I'm the Next Generation my daughter's the Next Generation and so forth and uh you know it's like this big coming here every summer and the you know July forth so yeah it's it's imperative that we can buy back in at a cost that is economically viable um because we've already put in this and if we're asked to put put in this much more there might be a better alternative somewhere else but was it accepted or rejected it was completely rejected and not even wanting to look that not even wanting to be looked at okay thank you may this time okay c not this time okay uh yeah yes go I I'm now even more intrigued that that you're saying that these units are actually a th000 ft your counting yeah and so if if I think U I think it was mentioned earlier that in the uh redesign you don't count balconies um I I I do because it's a cost burden um if it's not included in the F that's quite indifferent from most uh zoning codes so what what you had said was the the bay for that each unit was what close to a thousand the bay like Corridor unit balcony 1120 Square F feet without the corridor 1,20 square feet without the balcony without the balcony um I don't know what's minus another 80 square feet from you know 10 you know 1020 so 960 970 980 so that's still again it's 400 ft more than what they had in with the studios and that's a considerable amount of money for owners to put in it you know to like Pony up um uh you know I'm working on a master's thesis right now a little belated in my career but I'm doing it because of these things and it's all about hyperdensity and about economical viability and um what I see is a 10 story option that's going to basically push um um my family out from repurchasing because it's not a good investment if it's a lower cost it's a better investment because you have to look at you know the the value that's been put in once before and what you would get out of it later okay so we need to allow the applicant the opportunity to uh cross examine and of course if they need time to come up with more questions and review the it's a lot of data okay she's ready that was quick she said I'm ready come on you got to stick close by yeah yeah we got another micro right here can we get that so he can who remember make sure it's turned on though too again good afternoon good morning good morning Mr Ashford I'm Amy too I am the land use attorney that has been engaged by the board um so you mentioned that our plans were not designed by a licensed Florida architect are you a licensed Florida architect I I said uh the unit plan okay are are you a licensed architect uh no Ma I'm a nationally certified interior designer which qualifies me to um aen any interior layout especially when it's concerned with ad yeah are so you're not LIC you're not a like licensed architect outside of Florida either I was formally licensed in Florida and I haven't reinstated it you were formerly licensed as an architect interior designer oh how long were you licensed as an interior designer in Florida um I held it I believe from 2001 to 2006 or 7 okay and I and I didn't renew it because I had relocated to New Jersey okay um do you want to ask questions about the or my expertise I have to ask both okay it's my job are you a Florida licensed engineer nope are you a a traffic consultant I've done uh more City plans than you have so yeah no I'm not I'm going to ask that we follow the you're attacking so just ask ask general questions that would support what I'm putting out there instead of attacking my expertise Miss sterck would you like to explain the process to Mr Ashford well she's she has the opportunity to cross-examine you um you're not providing further testimony um you to respond to her and also Council has a a motive of decorum that we we try to stay very professional and in our comments yes and respectful and so you mentioned earlier you were not engaged by EBC but you did provide a proposal I provided an opportunity for the ownership to um I guess use my capabilities um uh that was 20 some months ago um they had decided against it and uh then recently I proposed an alternative scheme and uh that was very recent last month so the scheme that you have provided in The Proposal that you have that has been circulating um have you submitted that to town staff on any level to see if they have reviewed it for consistency with the town's comprehensive plan or the Land Development code or any of the other relevant zoning requirements yes um through extensive uh well not extensive let me rephrase through several phone calls um with uh the city planner Jason SMY um I've reviewed this project since um March of 2022 and um and recently I had asked them to take this design and do a uh preapp uh review of the design and and what was the feedback that you got in the prea uh we haven't received any there's been two hurricanes okay okay you mentioned that you have found a lot of data that provides you know discrepancies what you're finding with what the applicant is presenting um have you attempted to profer any of the data that you have found directly to the applicant or the design te the project team yeah the statements I've made in the um argument um report that I provided the city I had offered this same information verbally on my presentation to EC um last month and it wasn't it was rejected and people are pretty upset the board okay um so you didn't you never sent over any any of these documents that you found they have a full copy of the drawings from that date uh that I presented online as well as a a uh ream of uh 80 images of renderings no and I and I have the renderings we've we've been able to obtain those but the extensive historical analysis that you've done the surveys the photos those those documents that you found and that you used as the basis for your design have you provided that information that was provided to the r it was left in their custody on H the 20th and it has a full extent outline of the historical analysis um as a matter of fact I provided a programmatic survey of most of this information three months after the hurricane let me ask this via email let me ask this another way because I think my question was a little confusing the information that you pulled that was created by other people um have you that you're using as the basis for this have you provided that to r or to the board of directors it's public information and or it's also information that uh R and the board had provided me okay so so you did not provide that to them directly a survey right so you did not so so documents that you have found because you had referenced you I'm I'm going off of your testimony here and I'm trying to understand the picture here so that we can all understand where you're saying that you have found discrepancies between the information that we have have found and the information that you have found you have not provided those documents directly to the board or to r r provided many of the documents and I would imagine R has access to their own you know our own um records um there's no NE there wasn't a need to provide them with that information so what they were provided was the aggregation of that data and composed in drawing format okay so to confirm the answer to that question is no you did not provide them those copies of that information those documents let me be clearer they provided me half of that information and the other is public record so if you want me to say no I didn't provide it to him it's because it was provided to me it it is a yes or no question I'm I'm asking for clarity for the for the sake of the record here I'll say no comment all right with that I will rest my questioning um I will make an objection though to finding Mr um Ashford uh to be an expert he given that he is not a licensed Florida architect or planner engineer um there are certain issues discussed here that would not be competent substantial evidence uh when those opinions are proferred by someone who is not an expert in those fields so just as a matter of procedure I will make that quick objection and then when we come back up for rebuttal I will bring up our architect at that time okay thank you thank you thank you okay now we ready for the rebuttal part I believe so yes okay uh staff you don't you have any rebuttal based on information that you've heard or not heard actually come back up for just a second because maybe there's some questions can we can still ask questions right okay absolutely does anyone have any questions for staff let's do it that way no John looks like he does I don't know that I do I just um everybody looks a little confused and battle Weary at this point but uh so I did want to just briefly comment uh staff cannot just take uh and insert anybody else's plans into an existing plan um the applicant has been in contact with us uh we did agree to go ahead and have a prea with him just generally to hear him out uh but but unfortunately as was mentioned that happened right before the uh the Spade of storms here so if they would like to continue to have a prea we will have one with them unfortunately it was just storm related got pushed back okay all right rebuttal from the applicant thanks for bearing with us as we've gone through this today it's been quite a hearing I know it's taken a lot of your time so I'll keep my rebuttal fairly short um a few things I want to note um again this is a zoning hearing so we've we've heard certain considerations today you know things about maybe bylaws procedures and cost to owners and and things of that nature um just to clarify those those particular considerations would not be relevant to a decision on this particular case so I ask you to remember that um I would like to bring up Mr Mike Shey who is the architect on this project both um so that I can ask some questions but also so that you guys can maybe ask some you know remaining questions that you might have of him and anybody else on our team can you clarify for me why the charges would not be allowed to be heard then or you just stated that which charges you talked about Mr wads and Mr ashfords why why that shouldn't be a part of this if there's if there's no agreement among the the community itself why my question is why is it even here I think we've heard that earlier so from a legal perspective if we start having from from what I can I'm going to back this up a little bit from what I can tell things have been done by the book I'm not the condo and HOA attorney for this particular property owner uh I'm just a land use attorney you don't want me opining about chapter 718 of the Florida Statutes and Rel ated um well you're the one that said it shouldn't be considered so I just wondered what you were basing that on it's not related to the approval criteria for that's in front of you today and next week so when we're looking at a zoning action we're limited to considerations that are codified in the Land Development code um and that's a substantive due process and sort of equal protection reason it just makes sure everybody's on the same playing field when they come in front of you for rezonings so when we start getting into issues of whether the board's you know votes or membership votes and things like that were maybe done perfectly correctly that's outside of the the scope of this zoning hearing today um the same would go for discrepancies and potential cost you know and quotes that that people who are not the board and others have gotten because again we we do have some cost estimates and some quotes but by the time this actually goes to bid we could be looking at something wildly different anyway so we don't consider the actual cost to build a project typically when we're looking at a um privately initiated zoning action it's just not one of the criteria for approval so that was that was where I was coming from on that does that make sense thank you thank you any other questions before I bring up Mr she thank you okay good I'm good good morning mayor and councel good morning my name is m afternoon now officially sorry it's afternoon officially afternoon it is isn't it uh my name is Michael Shey I'm president of MK architecture here in Fort Meers I've not previously been recognized as an expert by this board but I was by the LPA uh my background experience I'm a 57e resident of Lee County I grew up here on the beach when I was in uh High School my parents own some cottages 5370 formerly the Bahama Court um I um went away to college military came back and I've been licensed as an architect here uh since December of 1984 so this December will be 40 years as a licensed architect in our community I have designed thousands of buildings in Lee County and CER County I have designed tens of thousands of living units condominium units Hotel units Etc ET in our local area so this has been my life and my background so I would request to be considered an expert for this testimony right is there any objection to M being move I'll second any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose welcome board expert thank you Mr Shey can you um tell us at what point in this process you were engaged to provide your services for eibc I was engaged probably about uh four months ago by Mecca engineering who was working for EBC and this was after the original LPA hearing with a different site plan and different building massing yes after that original plan was re rejected and So within your within your engagement on this project were you given direction that related to LPA feedback that the applicant had received at the first hearing yes and specifically I guess what you're getting at is to The View Corridor that was uh that is required and is frankly a very good idea uh by the U by the planning board planning department thank you and in the scope of your engagement here have you reviewed issues related to accessibility uh when it comes to the design of the building and the units themselves of course it's part of my responsibility as an architect uh let me just State there's been a lot of discussion about ADA and accessibility uh the building officials said it correctly we really it's not Ada it's the Florida accessibility code that we use um this project is a is basically a condominium which are individually singly owned so they're like single family homes but the strict interpretation of the code you are not required any Ada or accessibility in within the units themselves only the public elements however in this case because the unit the the property operates pretty much as a hotel and the Florida building ACC accessibility code 5% of the units should be strictly designed as Ada however in this case because we have 3,800 owners in 52 weeks uh we are proposing that we make all the units uh accessible per the Florida building code um the gentleman referred to the units not being Ada accessible well they will first of all our units are not designed yet but all of the units will be fully accessible when they are designed and one final question so within the scope of the accessibility requirements and the other various regulatory uh constraints that we have on redeveloping this site um would it is there really any other way that we could design this building without destroying the view corridor that we were asked to provide well if if you look at our plan we have about half of the site given up to the view corridor uh which is generous and and I think appropriate I think of I've thought about the reasons why that's being asked for here at the beach and and after working on a job in Naples on Gulfshore Drive I realized the reason if you go down there and you drive along Gulfshore drive you have no idea you're near the ocean you can't see it anywhere it's completely blocked by condo Tower after condo Tower so having the view corridors really keeps at least what we're kind of used to here at the beach and being able to see openness light air and the Beach views so I think it's totally rational that we do that now the only reason we didn't start out this process trying to create a a 10-story building it wasn't our goal our goal was to cre to recreate the number of units and make it work with the view corridor and so we are left few options with that by giving up half the site uh other than going up now in my in my consideration in the design the nine story over parking building I thought the only appropriate place to put it is up against Diamond Head that's already 13 story stories that made sense to me because then you leave most of the site open from from the air air and light coming into a stero Boulevard we could as an alternate you could have a four-story building wall along a stero and it would cover the entire width of the site I don't think that's what planning is looking for I don't think that's what you all are looking for or the residents are looking for so while some object to a building just because it's tall I don't think that the I think the offset for that is is to have half of the site revealed and open and have a narrow Tower keep in mind this Tower he uh Mr Ashford misquoted the dimensions of the building he doesn't have the drawings he misquoted the square footages also by the way um the the width of the the 10 Story Tower is only about 45 ft wide so it's not a big wide building like diamond head is a big chunk of a building it's a narrow slender tower that goes per pendicular from a stereo to the to the gulf and that makes sense to me because it's shoved up against an already tall building leaves the rest of the site open essentially so I think it's the only appropriate way without covering the site with building which is what his proposal was uh that would work thank you so much Mr Shey any other questions for yeah if you don't mind I gotta based on your expertise and your design let's just take the view cor View Corridor out of it which is apparently the only public benefit that's been discussed right if you take that away in your design expertise is there a way to design a building to keep the 75 units meet the requirements at floor building code as well as ADA compliance and all the things necessary without requesting a single deviation from the town's Land Development CT comprehensive plan taking the view cter out of it if you took the view cter out of it could you design a building to meet all the requirements necessary without a deviation from the town's line development code you could do that yeah okay I believe so okay any other questions counc King pondering but I don't think so at this time okay CC won so I'm I'm kind of perplexed um my understanding is that the LPA asked for the redesign from the original one that came in um they asked for the view C that's what we ask of practically every development that comes in um so I'm I'm perplexed as to why you know what was wrong with the original one it didn't have a view corridor correct the original plan that came I think it had a partial View Corridor if I recall and that was that was rejected by LPA because they wanted better views better right right I believe I wasn't at that meeting so I'm not 100% sure okay Jason would know well and that I mean I know that is I know that's part of the thing so I'm I'm kind of perplexed about if we asked for this and you gave it to us why are we going back and forth about the height of this because this is what we asked for so that's that's my confusion understandable so I mean personally I would not expect you to go back to the drawing board and do a three story or four story height building when you were asked not to that's all I have I'll save my comments to that till we're discussing it once you guys are all finished but um no other questions okay thank you thanks and with that I will just make my final comment which is you have heard from the fine experts that you guys have hired to advise you in these types of cases and they have found that this request as it has come in front of you today meets the criteria for approval our experts that have been in accepted as experts have are in agreement with your town experts so we have provided the competent substantial evidence um that would be required to demonstrate that we do meet the criteria for approval and we we know that this is a challenging case and we certainly empathize with you guys but we respectfully request and hope that when it comes time for the final decision that you guys will vote favor in our favor so thank you very much for your time today I I really appreciate it we all do thank Youk you thank you all right if there's nothing else no rebuttal from either side good on the rebuttals okay then we will close the public hearing I will not close the public hearing and request a discussion or a motion from Town Council to approve approve with conditions or Deni with reasons or a continuance to a Time certain of the first reading um councelor Safford you want to go first no I'm good I want to see what everybody has to say okay councelor Woodson yeah you gave me the option yeah well I think I basically said mate okay Vice May well uh my Approach is significant increases in height should be the last resort not the first option the threshold for that additional height in terms of being in the public interest must be high I can Envision scenarios I can Envision scenarios where the public benefits of a particular project warrant significant additional height project before us today does not meet that public benefit threshold and therefore I will I believe the additional height is not in the public interest therefore I will be voting no today Con king um can I get some clarification from our Council on what am I supposed to be making a decision on so this is your first because of the back and forth between um the internal back and forth I guess between the stero Island Beach Club folks uh has got me a little confused honestly and so please enlighten me okay so today you are uh presented with the first reading of a proposed ordinance that would rezone the property um representations has been made that they represent the board and you have heard testimony to that effect you've also heard from apparently a a unit owner um with different right right so there's conflict in in the testimony that's that's been presented to you so your vote right now your deliberation is on whether or not this item should even move to the second reading so you could approve it to move it to Second reading you could approve it with conditions you could continue it or you could deny it at this point can I take into consideration those objections from those two owners or not in making my decision if you found them to be uh credible uh they were sworn in and you believe them to be competent substantial evidence however the issues need to be narrowed to the application that is before you today um and the criteria that is in your code if there is an alternative that's great there's there's perhaps multiple Alternatives but those alternatives are not before you today I understand that thank thank you anything else to add at this time John um no not at this time okay so first I want to say you know there's been a lot of talk about the 35 or 3800 owners and wanting to get them back and we've all received a lot of emails both pro and con and for it and there's not a person I don't want to speak for them but I feel confident saying that don't want these 3,800 owners to get back in their units I think between I was at the LPA meeting and and sitting in the audience and listening and there were a lot of questions that didn't come up that I thought maybe wouldn't have had to be brought up had there been more information put in there um so over the course of meeting with the applicant they they've provided some of this information so for me I don't think the LPA had all the information that we've had to make the decision that they made now whether or not that would change their opinion or not based on the information that's come out today and over the last month since they heard it I don't know that but at best um I think that they would want to take another crack at this now I'm guessing nobody wants to do that um so for me I I and and the staff has made a recommendation but at this point I disagree with the staff no offense and and the reason why is I didn't is in in your staff analysis on deviation the first deviation you said the applicant and the time share owners have priorities which making the logistics of running the time share housekeeping maintenance access easier if the staff of the complex doesn't have to move between separate building and across a property the applicant has also prioritized Beach views for their owners which is required in their HOA bylaws but staff cannot review based on the requirement of their private deed restrictions and have noted that the open view requirements could be developed along with Redevelopment of 75 units while providing minimum landscaping and parking C to me as you've testified in the past on many other things it that to me sounds like a design choice not necessarily a requirement um I think through the testimony of their architect things could be different on this project I think we're all open to things aren't necessarily going to always be three stories maybe there's a need to have to go higher um but to the vice mayor's point is is the public benefit that's being proposed with this project to does it warrant the extra stories that are required to do this um as I said before being involved with the discussions with with some of this group that were a different part of the group um and to your point councelor Woodson when you were talking about this as the direction at that initial meeting the direction was they wanted to just build back what was affordable because it was a cost issue for them and they could do that the fire department said well wait a minute we can't turn our big trucks around so I was under the impression that they were going to move forward with trying to redesign that little bit when I saw what came to the LPA that was nothing what was presented at that meeting probably a year prior to that it was what we all saw it was a wall of building right up on a stero Boulevard which then the LPA said we don't like that go back to the drawing board so when for me the drawing board was that first initial meeting we had not what the LPA saw because when I saw that I thought well this is really taking a different turn from the original meeting so for those reasons um and again no disrespect to the staff but I did disagree with your your analysis based on what to me appears to be a design change I think something could be designed that would be much better and much more within what I think the Land Development code and the comp plan are are trying to um accomplish with this um but for those reasons I I will be voting no on this project it is proposed yeah if you want to can come on up yeah watch your court just for clar ification regarding how um staff evaluates deviations so we refer to the section 34264 and it has so it's you you were sort of referring to the variance criteria which is not how we evaluate deviations because the code tells us to evaluate them and with different uh considerations in mind so that's how we came to that conclusion just because we're looking at it based on what the code says we have to evaluate it by understood thanks for the clarification all right so with that is there a motion someone like to make a motion or further discussion all right well I will make it then I will make a motion to deny moving ordinance 24-24 CPD 202 40015 1836 and 1840 Estero Boulevard eibc to a second reading uh for the reasons already stated second all right got a motion and a second second any further discussion roll call vote uh mayor allers I'm I vice mayor adal I councelor King hi councelor Woodson nay councelor Zaff I the motion carries 4 to one okay all right let's take a 15 minute break maybe a couple hours we will we will reconvene at 1245 well no 20 minutes 12:35 that was a long one well that would have been for a special exception now we have to go back