e e good morning everyone remember everyone please silence your cell phones welcome to the blending board regular meeting on Thursday March 14 2024 and it's 9:30 a.m. and we're waiting for Roger to come through the door at any second we so let's can we yes so can we switch the agenda a bit and let's do the Pledge of Allegiance first please okayed [Music] I am going to have to call the role Mr Hart please call the role member Rosen Eva Rosen member Powell member chowski member Axelrod here Vice chair person Mendelson here chairperson Goldenberg here and I believe Roger will be here in a moment okay approval of the agenda is there a call for a motion to accept the agenda as presented and here's Roger so Roger is present we were Dilly ding a little bit for you Roger I know blaming on the town it ain't going to get better that's for sure is there a second to approve the agenda all in favor say I swearing and of the public for those giving testimony please stand and raise your right hands to be sworn in by m deart to provide testimony for the application you are affiliated with with everybody Mr har by the authority vested in me as notary of the State of Florida do you swear or affirm that the testimony that you're about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth thank you approval of excuse me approval of the minutes February 8 2024 are there any corrections or not hearing none may I have a motion to approve all in favor say I is there any unfinished business uh as not part of the agenda I would like to just refer to uh find out in the last meeting we said that we approved that application was it formalized yes uh was going to advise the board so staff received the deed on March 6 of 2024 from that uh property 1101 Highland Beach Drive Unit A so they did purchase that strip of land to the north and they can now proceed with the submitting for their building permit all right so then we have no further action on that no further action and we can put that one to bed all right moving to new business development order application 23-1 four that's Kai would you help me pronounce that Kai thank you application by Joseph gillow ctech Construction Inc for special exception request to install 100 foot linear seaw wall cap and a 365 sqt concrete Dock and 100 linear foot stem wall for the property located at 4215 Tranquility Drive I will ask do any board members have any expar communication hearing none at this time the public meeting is hearing and Miss pwn Allen I'm Sorry Miss pwn planner Allan please present the application okay good morning for the record in Grid Allen Town planner uh so um I go ahead and start with the aerial of the project uh this aial is on page 12 of your packets um here you have the subject property outlined in red and then the next uh photo here that we have is of the actual rear of the property where you have the existing seaw wall and dock uh so um as indicated this applicant is proposing to install a 100 foot linear seaw wall cap a 375 foot concrete dock um and a 100 linear foot stem wall uh for the property at 4215 Tranquility drive as you can see there's currently a seaw wall there and there's currently a dock uh the current dock is 364 Square F feet I do want to put point out that the dock is currently 5.2 feet in width and the new proposed dock will be 7 feet 6 Ines in width the applicant has received fdp approval uh that is in your packets as well and when you read the first second page of that approval it does indicate that Army Corp approval is not required for this particular permit um as you all are aware uh section 6-128 B of the town code does require all seawalls that are west of A1A that they be at base flet elevation or higher the base flet elevation for this property is six feet and the proposed sew wall as is at six feet now this uh request also is for a stem wall um and I do indicate on page nine of your staff reports that the code is silent on stem walls but keep in mind that stem walls and retaining walls are very similar in terms of construction and we do have a provision in the code that the planning board should approve uh any type a retaining wall so retaining wall stem wall um we did have the town engineer uh we do Outsource our Engineering Services with cap government uh the town engineer did confirm uh from a structural perspective that uh the sem wall is um structurally supported by the seaw wall and obviously part of the seaw wall and the engineer did review and accept that stem wall um if the uh planning board finds this application viable for approval or appropriate for approval I should say uh the applicant will require will be required to uh attain a building permit and construction shall be initiated within two years following the date of the planning board approval uh staff we reviewed the project and uh those plans there dates stand February 21st 2024 and they are compliant with the code um let's look at the rest of the plans these are again these are the 11 by 17 sheets that are in your package this is just a survey of the property you could see the existing Dock and here you have the site plan showing the new dock seaw wall uh this is in a residential single family zoning District so they are required to provide the 25 feet Marine side setback which is I put a little 25 foot there on the plan and then here you have the detail um you could see the top there's a six foot uh height there so I'll be happy to address any questions we also have the authorized agent here to ask any questions yes all right uh we have any board members with questions and I Eileen please so can you show me what the stem wall is that little thing up there do we have the light thing no okay you see on the top it says new8 inch stem wall yeah okay so my question is um it if the code um if the code deals with retaining walls and specifically didn't deal with stem walls what is the actual difference like in the definition I mean you said it's like a retaining yeah I mean it's similar in terms of construction the code doesn't Define um either a stem wall I don't think it even defines a retaining wall but um because they're similar in construction we did call it out in the request um but it is as I said the engineer indicated that it is indeed part obious of the step of the seaw wall right yeah so it's not meant like a retaining wall is meant to hold things back or yeah um actually I did have uh Jeff remas our building official because when it comes to structures I'll defer it to Jeff because it's you know how the structures are built is not really my forte but maybe Jeff can you can elaborate a little bit about the structural aspect of it yeah let s good morning for the rec je Miss building official town of high Beach so they Incorporated basically a retaining wall into the uh seaw wall cap that's acting it essentially is acting as a retaining wall but they're calling it a stem wall it's a necessity for the property because of the elevation of the home and everything else so right now because of the seaw wall is actually pushing out and it it really needs to be replaced so that's why gave emergency approval to put in temporary pilings to kind of Hold It Back part of the problem is that some of the uh Earth from behind from underne the pool Stu is falling out so in order to make a proper Improvement and do it the right way they've added and they've called it a stem wall they could have done it afterwards and just called it a retaining wall and that wouldn't even have to come in front of you right so but right so it's basically a post that comes out and holds the retaining wall a little stronger no it's it's a wall itself they're calling a stem wall it it's to me it's it's really a retaining wall if I look at building code definitions but are in Planning and Zoning they don't Define a stem wall because it's normally a a very specific component of construction that's what the engineer decided to call it it's essentially acting as a retaining wall that is going to be a significant Improvement to the property and help it and that additional and what's going to be even better about this is is that the seaw Wall height is going to six feet and then that stem wall is going even higher so it's going to provide even more protection to the property and more protection to the island so Jeff the retaining wall is really for the Earth sea wall for the water that is correct okay but they Incorporated that and call it a stem wall into the cap therefore it becomes part of the seaw wall assembly so you actually I all this approved it and you feel that this is really a good thing for the oh this is fantastic yeah this is this is very this is he's going even higher this is excellent is he going on the stem according to the plans it's another four feet up which is what he needs because that's about how high it's going to be to get to uh like the deck of his pool and and the other question is is how is that compared to the other properties surrounding his when there was when we when we did our accessory Marine facilities conversations we were concerned about making each property a separate moat so to speak well everyone has a very low seaw Wall height but they all have uh High properties in that area so as they bring everything up they're all going to have to do probably essentially the same thing so he's ahead of the curve basically he's gonna be ahead of the curve and any new developmental you any new properties if because we have a ton just being knocked down and rebuilt they're goingon to have to be built significantly higher so he's future proofing himself and and it's he kind of has to do it because of the amount of unbalanced backfill what we call coming off of his property any other questions there I have a question Jeff I have a question it's it's up 40 by the way it's up 40 in which is great to elevate the seaw wall 40 in 12 plus 28 but if you want to put a stem wall like this on an existing seaw wall whether the seaw wall is in good condition or bad condition because this stem wall you can put up to elevate your retaining wall and your seaw wall without coming before the planning board if you have an existing seaw wall that's in place is my understanding and ingr could confirm that retaining walls are not she said all retain so all okay so that's my mistake because I'm getting because you know we had an issue with that was Landscaping all right I'm thinking about the Landscaping issue you still have to go in front of the planning board apparently if you're going to build a retaining wall on top of or in front of a seaw wall and essentially believe we decided if it's going to be greater than 30 30 in right but this is this is a great solution for anybody that wants to elevate the height of their seaw wall without having to redo the entire seaw wall well okay um without getting too far off um that is that really depends on how well what condition the seaw wall is in and how well it was built because often the seaw wall cannot handle the the additional imposed load which is why you know sometimes they can put a bigger cap on it and raise it and other times they just simply can't do that because of the weight capacity limitation so they're forced to put in a new so most a lot of the permits we see coming in are coming with brand new seaw walls because they don't have the ability to have that additional weight on top of the seaw wall itself and that's determined by their engineer or by their engineer we don't design approval yeah and we look at it for approval we sent it to our town engineer to basically do a peer review to make sure that their calculations and their design meets you know minimum safety standards thank you for your input any other board members have a question I don't have a question but I have a please go ahead so I I would you know I don't know how we would go about doing this but Roger made an interesting point it could become like a loop where people just call them stem walls and are building them as high as they want and that come you know saying that there's nothing in the code that prohibits stem so maybe we should um clarify in the code that stem walls are like retaining walls and should come before the planning board just so that nobody gets it in their head that they no retaining wall no no she said it was silent in the silent in the code let's let's see if we can qualify that before we move on right but keep in mind this as the engineer indicated this the stem wall is part of the seaw wall so it's it's part of the seaw wall they have to come before the planning board right but if it wasn't part of the seaw wall if they were building some stem wall that they titled at stem wall and the code didn't specifically say stem walls have to come in front of the planning board I'm just saying that maybe we should clarify that retaining walls and stem walls because you said to me they're almost indistinguishable I mentioned that they're similar in terms construction but yeah so you're saying a stem wall not related to a seaw wall just would there be a scenario for a stem wall okay okay so I just think that just terminology I just think if you have to come to the planning board for a retaining wall but the code is silent on a stem wall unless it's part of the SE wall then that might be a clarification to the code that we might want to make so that it's all closed up that everybody is so Jeff is there any other term other than retaining wall stem walls there anything else that's similar comparable to that that may you know we can maybe have a long list of or is it just basically those two it would typically be those two and again I don't know why the engineer called it a stem wall because but he did and that's what we're dealing with but either way the function it performs is that of a retaining wall so we look at the function and and to your point um we already have the situation where someone didn't want to spend the money to raise their seaw wall because they would have had to replace it because it was didn't have the ability so what they did is they came in about two or three feet built a like 28 30 in just under 30 inch retaining wall and brought in Phil so it's essentially it's it's Landscaping but as their wall continues to deteriorate they're eventually going to have to replace it anyway so they're just basically didn't want to spend the money on raising the seaw wall so it's nothing that because it was less than 30 inches in height and it was Landscaping it didn't have to come in front of the planning board I point and I agree with you Ken's point is is there a potential loophole where you could put a call it a stem wall and not come before the planning board and do we have to correct that if there is a loophole do we have to correct that I I I'm not quite sure again I think Jeff made a good point it's about the function you could call it what it is but it's actually a retaining right it's retaining something so um one of the ways that you cure this is when you see the picture yeah is to add the definition and say that it's equivalent or maybe stem wall retainer Ro put that on the plan and that soles issue I think that would be better right that's fine yeah when they come in with stem wall tell them to call it or retaining yeah and actually I believe on their application um it is in your packets if you bear with me moment on their application on page 10 of your packets the applicant put retaining wall on the application but on the plans it says stem wall so all right no I I I the application is what the applicant submits it's I take it at face value but I think that's a good step if I've yet to see anyone else identify that before no but I think it's a good point that Eileen brought up she's in here as an attorney and she wants to make sure that we could have them put the slash retaining acoss the no problem uh do we need any further action from from the town planner at this point is there does a board excuse me is there a presentation from the applicant or do we want to move forward I say we move forward is there any members of the public that have any comment on this application please uh come and identify yourself could you need to come to the podium no by the authority vested in me as a notary of the State of Florida do you swear or affirm that the testimony that you're about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth thank you Norman Weinstein of at 4207 Tranquility just to the the neighbor on the north of of Kai uh who had been no fault of his own laboring on this project for probably the part of three years almost three almost three years with a a large portion of that time where we had a a large barge SE c tech barge sitting in front of our home uh for probably four or five months was only on repeated phone calls I made to CC they actually removed the barge from the front of you know our our our our dock um our dock is uh seaw wall on that side is in good condition we regularly have it inspected and sealed every two to three years we did actually did it recently this past fall uh so our concern since our seaw wall is integrally tied in with with kais is that when CCH does their work that they do not damage our sea wall in any way whatsoever and if they do that they would be responsible for for repairs um I know that you saw the photos of how the seaw wall has this huge Bend in it and that occurred as it began to to fail and then uh I guess Alan Garcia whom I know very well uh got involved and CCH put in these uh pilings to support the seaw wall from from from failure and I I assume those pilings will be just cut cut down I don't know the construction uh uh of the of the seaw wall it's not my area of expertise uh but uh but I assume when they're finished the seaw wall is going to look good and you're probably not going to be able to see those pil but I would that would gu PR your question to to CC uh but I just want to make sure that ourc wall will will remain TCT and if it is damaged it will be repaired because there are no cracks of any kind whatsoever uh in any portion of that that area of the ceing Jason you have yeah I I would that is not really our our area of of concern but I would think that to be you seem to be fairly friendly with Kai that you you folks can work fed Out Among yourselves but we appreciate your input I just want the planning board to be aware of the the actual you know onsite conditions uh that we've been going through for the past several years all right thank you very much all right thank you and any board members have any other questions of Staff applicant or the public if so the public hearing is now closed is there a motion to to approve with conditions motion to deny the request or motion just to approve do I have a motion to approve second let's call the question please Mr Hart member chowski yes member Axelrod yes member Rosen member Brown member pal yes Vice chairperson Mendon yes chairperson Goldenberg yes motion carries thank you thank you so much all right next agenda item development application 23 - 0018 application by David willin is that correct pronunciation for an amendment to a previously approved major modification request to an existing building de from the development order 23-2 as provided in section 30-39 of the town code of ordinances including but not limited to changes to the exterior facade building footprint and the roof line for the property located at 2362 South Ocean Boulevard do any members have any expart Communications to disclose hearing none at this time the public hearing is now open Miss Allen please present the application okay um so here we have the Aerials of the property thank you Jeff for your input uh this aerial start the aial start on page 59 of your packets so here we have the property uh located on the west side of A1A here you have the front of the home and here you have the rear of the home uh so as indicated this is amendment to a previously approved major June 8th of 2023 and the previous approval um the main components of that approval and I provided those on page 55 of your packets that included uh two additional uh garages totaling 1,1 197.4 one square feet with new air conditioned area above and two new balconies it also included a new covered entertainment area along the rear of the property um exterior facade changings including um alterations to the balconies um that ALS also to the windows and doors with a more modern style architecture and alteration of the roof line now um on the proposed the newly proposed let me just show you here's a survey of the property and here you have the site plan I'm going to show you these here these are again in your 11 by 17 packets uh the new Amendment eliminates the garages um if you could see the bottom um here on the slide the the bottom square is the previously approved you can see the first floor is the the lower one the the top one there is second floor those two squares in the front those were the previous garages and you could see the top one here the newly proposed those garages have been eliminated also the entertainment area in the rear has been eliminated uh the new proposal does include new exterior facade changes to the Windows Doors and balconies to a more Balinese traditional modern style or modern design um in addition there's been some changes to the front entry of the residents um again if you look at the previous approved there was a water feature in the front and if you look at the top you could see that water feature has been removed um in addition uh the let's see here there was a new under a square footage both on the first and second floor of the existing residents that have been reduced um again you could see these also on the slide that's in front of you and also the roof line has been altered I also mentioned on page 55 of your uh package at your staff report that in their original major modification they were going to remove because they submitted a landscape plan with that original one they were going to remove three Royal Palms from their property not from the RightWay but act the actual property and I did indicate back in June that those Royal Palms per our code are considered specimen trees and the code says when you remove a specimen tree you have to get Town commission approval well on their revised landscape plan which is in your pocket those three Roy Palms will now remain so no need to get the approval from the commission nice to yeah um so um that's pretty much it in a nutshell um as with every site plan um review um even though it's a major modification still considered a site plan review commencement of construction if the application is approved shall be initiated within two years um the board can approve approval conditions or deny the applications um the uh plans that were dates St February 15 of 2024 have been reviewed by they've been determined to be compliant with the code we have the property owner here to address any questions that you may have U one question the footprint is basically the same it's just modifications within the footprint right actually it's a little bit smaller because those two new garages are not going to be there again you could look at that um great little slide here right it's a smaller footprint than what was previously approved any other board members have questions I'd be happy to go through the renderings I don't know if you want me to do that but just explain to me the garages and the bottom are the the bottom thing the bottom one right that was previously approved right and those garages were on the side no they're in the front in the front they're in the front and then the second floor is that top part that's the second floor where they had additional square footage but that's not happening anymore I okay yeah yeah any other questions no again I'll be happy to show the Rend are in your 11 by 17 but you could see the change in that design style and size yeah um again aesthetic the facade um some square footage minor reduction in the under AC square footage and we'd like we' like to thank uh the applicant for keeping the Royal Pals also that's very nice yes uh any other questions for the board hearing none the public hearing is now closed is there a motion to approve a motion to approve with conditions or a motion to deny the request second Mr Hart call the role please Jason Second Jason second member Rosen member chanowski member Brown member pal yes member ax R yes Vice chairperson Mendon yes chairperson Goldenberg yes motion carries thank you thank you so much thank you for your assistance all right thank you m alen uh next on the agenda motion nomination of chairperson and vice chair person person nominations I'll open for chairperson are there any nominations other than I hopefully myself I would like second and third okay uh I accept the nomination uh and let's put it formally Eric Goldenberg has been nominated no other nominations for chairperson is there a motion to approve seconded all in favor I all right thank you so much nominations for vice chairperson eileene you want to yes I'd like continue I I guess we can do so to put it in ien mson will accept the nomination Eileen mson has been nominated shall we all vote uh all in favor say I I I all right thank you thank you as we continue continue for another year hopefully it'll be nice and easy all right announcements there was a change and March 19th so everybody's aware 2024 10 a.m. the 2024 presidential preference primary or PPP as it's known is uniform municipal election Town Hall will be closed March 21st 2024 10:00 a.m. Financial Advisory board meeting and I think we can adjourn this meeting at 10:02 may I have a motion second all in favor I 102