##VIDEO ID:MQKXUwKYd74## for [Music] [Music] [Music] for [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] he [Music] he he he e [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] please take your seats the meeting is about to begin remember to speak into the microphone as this meeting is being recorded for public [Music] record please stand by we are going on air in 5 4 3 2 1 good afternoon and welcome to the December 7 17th meeting of the land use and sustainability committee today's meeting of the land use committee will be conducted in a hybrid format with members of the committee physically present in the commission Chambers at Miami Beach City Hall and staff and members of the public appearing either in person or virtually via Zoom to participate virtually members of the public may dial 88847591 9923 037 pound or log into the Zoom app and enter the webinar ID which again is 8505 9923 037 anyone wishing to speak on an item must click the race hand hand icon in the Zoom app or dial star9 if participating by phone with that Mr director we have an agenda for today's meeting are there any withdrawal deferrals changes to the agendas printed uh not to my knowledge Mr chair no with that is there a motion to set the agenda is there a motion to set the agenda the agenda has been moved and second by acclamation we can show the agenda as as adopted um with that Mr DOR ctor let's call item number one okay Mr chair item number one is understory requirements in single family districts all right commissioner Suarez this is your item you're welcome to introduce your item thank you Mr chair uh PJ can we start the slideshow please okay so uh I believe where we're at is a second stop before second reading uh to discuss stories and I think we could have a longer uh robust discussion on why I believe uh and I agree with our planning director on underst stories as a superior home for South Florida especially living on a Barrier Island um we just have to look at history and we have to look at the uh hurricanes that have come to uh Florida um and you can realize that basically any home that was built on St stilts or AKA an underst story survive the catastrophe survive the the storm surge um you know hurricane Michael Hurricane Katrina hurricane Ian they any home that was built on still store understory greatly uh survive the the impact than houses built on um on a mound or what we call a a an elevated burm uh next slide please okay so these are some of the pictures uh of in Florida of where homes that were built with under stories survived and you can see that you know that there's I see five there all the all the homes that were newly constructed on stilts survive that catastrophic storm surge um and I believe this was uh Milton next slide please here's another uh clear example uh the that what you're looking at in the middle is a canal and that is the home of a house that was not built on uh an under story or stilts and that's literally washing away in the canal while the homes that you see there are built on stilts and are still standing obviously next slide please here is a continuation of that of that same um picture um next slide and so you can also see here that the house on the left which is just completely destroyed that's not an un under story and the on the right side is with an under story and that just shows that basically you can have you can be in proximity to one house that has uh that's not built for sustainability and another that is and and a picture is worth a thousand words here next slide PJ there's some more examples and and I'm taking examples from different hurricanes in different years so this is not just one one particular instance next slide so these are some of the articles that have recently come out um this was October 12th of of this year um you know on on one Gul Coast Street flooded by Milton benefits of elevated homes stand out and and here is a perfect Clear View and this is this is an underst story as you can see um that they are able to survive these ever increasing catastrophic storms that are are are going to be hitting Florida for the next foreseeable future uh next slide in fact it's getting to the point where we're actually at risk of losing flood insurance and you know look when we plan for the future I I think it's as far as us up here I think we need to take into account that the policies we put forward are for the future and when I see you know articles like this and insurance providers just dropping out of Florida I mean that's a huge cause for concern and everything that we can do to incentivize a more resilient uh Miami Beach I think should be championed so let's go to the next slide so another one you know this is raising the this is all Miami Harold by the way there asking the question our city is going to build higher for these catastrophic storm surges you know recently we've had a a a string of um hurricanes that have plagued the West Coast it's only a matter of time before they start coming to the east coast and and it will come and I think we need to prepare for that next slide okay so as I explained earlier right now if you were to build a home a single family home and you wanted to build it on an elevated burm you don't have to go to drb and you have no oversight whatsoever on on anything that has to do with the the home but if you wanted to build it with on an underst story you have to go to drb and so what I want to go over right real quick is the problems with houses built on BMS so over time BMS can uh can degrade because at the end of the day it's just basically sand it's dirt uh they lose their structural integrity uh they become ineffective during uh due to changing uh flood patterns so for example this just this year we've had two back-to-back hundred-year storms I mean I mean imagine that um so you know I think that's that's something to consider um if you don't mind I I don't think any of my colleagues are paying attention to me I am okay well Tanya sorry I was asking a question about okay well two of you are on your phone and one of you is not even listening and this is for you guys this is this is not for anyone else excuse me commissioner you're recognized to present your item we all listening to you but if we're if I'm going to get a text message on my phone I will respond to the text message we are listening to you but we're all also doing other things okay can you please so I ask you to please be considerate of your colleagues because yes we're we are all listening to you thank you you may continue thank you so Community level impact so when when multiple properties use burms they collectively alter the flood plane Dynamics so for example when you when when FEMA comes in and they and they do the flood planes we're changing that a a single family home changes the flood plane when you build on an elevated burm and that gives potential increase of risk uh for for flooding for your neighbors that aren't built uh higher um Regulatory and insurance challenges burms may not meet modern flood plan uh plane management requirements set by Fimo or local governments homes on burms may also face higher flood insurance premiums compared to stilted homes due to their high-risk profile next slide please okay so the environmental impact you're basically disrupting the the natural composition of Miami Beach um you know burms can block natural water flow patterns uh leading to alternate drainage systems and increased water pooling in surrounding areas so you know one of the issues and one of the I guess the arguments are going to be made is well when you build it on an elevated burm we have certain criteria that has to be met to uh contain the water and what I'm going about the next slide I'm going to show you or a couple slides is even with retaining walls you're still there's still a risk of flooding your neighbor so you can go to the next slide uh flooding so increased risk for neighb like I said so when you build an elevated BM naturally the water goes downward and it can flood into your neighbor's yard it can also flood into the public right away um and then there's ponding and then there's again limited protection against storm surge next slide so high cost building a burm requires significant amounts of fill material and labor making it expensive compared to to stil homes and Construction in fact all the fill that we get comes from the Everglades I'm not sure if everyone knows that and you know we're taking fill from the Everglades putting on a truck and we're and we're delivering here and over time it erods um there's a potential for failure a lot of them are like I said uh prone to erosion um and then that you need to have regular maintenance for for burms as opposed to it being on stilts or an understory next slide okay so PJ if you I don't know if you can play the video um but here on the left is a home that was built as a spec home and it was built with an elevated berm and during just a regular rainstorm this isn't this isn't one of the floods that we had it is actually leaking into the property next door okay and this was a minimum requirement for for um uh for the elevated burms for for containing the Water Management next slide okay so there's been a lot of misinformation uh surrounding this um there's been like a website that has been dedicated to this it says you know protect Miami Beach design review for understory homes uh I'm sure Caldo is going to be uh speaking I mean he says that this is a developer proposed project you know in fact believe it or not all of our items we have to check off if this was developer if a developer requested project this is not a developer requested project I specifically made sure that it's not the this is coming from me meeting with residents and then telling me that I have to there's one case one guy is going through five years of drb approval five years his name is D.A he spoke at the last meeting and you know I think that's I think that's sad I I I think when we want to really incentivize the right type of construction on Miami Beach this is completely backwards the way we have it now and so I want to go over some of the claims that are being made um so next slide please now there's one claim creates neighborhood blight with unsold speculative homes so um you know many understory homes are built for families prioritizing safety and function not speculative development um the claim there's a contributes to infl home prices and reduces affordability in fact you know streamlining the process the building permit process reduces costs and timelines make it more affordable for families to build resilient homes another claim limits neighborhood notification and removes public feedback opportunity zoning codes ensure still ensure compatibility and protections without requiring an unnecessary redundant drb process so um our city staff is probably the best in the state to really Monitor and and handle the the homes that are being um proposed to being built next slide another claim weakens public review by eliminating drb oversight reducing transparency and input so streamlined administrative review will still ensures compliance with zoning codes while removing unnecessary delays for homeowners another claim in encourages overdevelopment of mcmansions that are out of scale with neighborhoods under stories promote resilient flood designs that are compatible with zoning regulations and Community standards I mean the fact that there the claim that we're building man this is for Mansions it's I mean that that's so disingenuous um okay another claim erases Miami Beach's architectural history by replacing older homes under stories focus on future proofing homes for climate CH challenges without sacrificing neighborhood character uh and again I want to let everyone that's watching and listening to understand this if you were going to build a home on an elevated burm you do not need to go to drb if you were if you want to build it on an understory you have to go through a drb process and the only incentive the only benefit that you have for going through a drb uh process is you get an extra three feet that three feet is just for the understory doesn't doesn't mean your ceiling is going to be 3 feet higher or any room in your building in your house is going to be 3 it's just specifically for the under store to be 3 feet and why is that it's to make it usable you want to be able to use it you want to be able to put your kayak or your paddle board on the wall or your fishing poles and you you want to be able to park your car underneath so that's that's where the rubber meets the road go to the next slide please okay so I know I'm almost done chair um I I said it at the first reading that nearly half half of the applicants that go to drb have to go to another drb meeting and so what is that what does that translate to so if if you're a property owner and you bought a plot of land and you want to build and you're thinking to yourself well you know and your architect is telling you this well you can you can build it on another story we would prefer to build it on another story however if you do that you're going to risk being being caught up for 6 months possibly a year and I think one of the callers is going to say 5 years in a process that you know we there's no control over and it's completely arbitrary so and if if you're a home owner and you say well you know what I'd rather just build it on a burm I would get my building permits in two three months and I'm not going to have to worry about insurance costs carry costs uh taxes uh Etc and and time lost so you know another issue and this 44% 22 22 were continues 11 were design related and the other 11 were really because of a lack of qum and other issues and I mean you know that that's a really that's a there's it's hard to say that there's um a streamlined process here that helps the residents who actually want to invest in the future in Miami Beach um you know I wrote excessive delays and a cumbersome bureaucratic process discourage the adoption of resilient highquality designs that are critical for addressing the impacts of climate change so again if you're a homeowner and you want to build you're you're risking either six months possibly a year or more to build with an understory as opposed to billing on a burm where you don't have to go through a process where you you a board may not even make quum and PJ you can you can uh end the slideshow so look I I I understand where this is the next stop before the second reading um I'm I'm more than happy to continue this discussion I think there's a lot of people here to to to discuss um but you know I I just want to end off on this I I think it's important that we recognize incentives for a a a a Miami Beach that can with stand these ever increasing storms that are coming I'm not even talking about hurricanes I'm I'm simply talking about these rainstorms that happen that are happening more and more frequently every year and and how do we plan for that so um I'm more more than happy to listen to my colleagues concerns about this and um and move this along thank you commissioner Suarez for bringing forward this imported this important item before we hear from members from the committee given the importance of this item and seeing the amount of members of the public interested in speaking in this item I'm going to open up the public hearing members of the public wishing to speak on this Ion on this item can raise their hand on Zoom speak virtually and those wishing to speak press in the audience can come to the podium and speak for two minutes so members of the public wishing to speak can approach the uh Podium or ra raise their hand on zoom and you'll have two minutes to speak the City attorney will keep track of the time two minutes my name is Peter Lura 1800 West 23rd Street I've lived on Miami Beach in the same house for over 30 years with my wife Pam and in which we raised our family it is an historic 1936 home that John F Kennedy once slept in and that we'd like to preserve I wasn't going to come here today because I recently had a bypass surgery but I felt this is too important and I needed to be here yesterday I spoke with Commissioners Dominguez bot and Suarez and left the message for commissioner Fernandez who returned it but I didn't have a chance to connect with him commissioner bot suggested I write an email to all members of this committee to explain my position which is what I intend to do before speaking with commissioner Suarez in our conversation commissioner Suarez asked who put me up to calling him yesterday and wouldn't believe me when I told him nobody I told them what actually happened was that several friends sent me a video from the first reading before the Commission on November 20th of the proposed R5 AG understory ordinance in which Mr Carlton mentioned that the neighbors next door to a new understory house that he's building like to swim in the buff and mentioned my name and my wife as well what that had to do with this proposed ordinance I have no idea but it would seem to me that it would serve to support the argument against giving more height to a new Under story house because that would only be more invasive to the privacy of the neighbors next door I support the understory homes the more homes that go though before the drb the better the proposed ordinance is mixing up the issue what it does is it raises the height and increases the mass of undestroyed Homes at the same time that it eliminates the drb the following paraphrase from the Save Miami Beach neighborhoods newsletter this ordinance proposed by commissioner David Suarez would fundamentally weaken the public process for the review of new construction single family homes and contain that contain an understory in Miami Beach many of you know about the epidemic in our single family neighborhoods homes are being snatched up by L LC's by a handful of developers who profit through tear Downs existing homes are replaced with mcmansions with the intention of being flipped for maximum profit sadly their business plans class greatly with our residential single family neighborhoods as we see many of these projects sit unsold and become oblit in our neighborhoods or Worse become party houses not only is this commercial activity erasing an important part of Miami Beach's architectural history but has helped to create a property bubble that is leading to extreme home prices making a family home Out Of Reach for so many Miami Beach residents item four R5 AG which is proposed by commissioner David Suarez and supported by the Miami Beach planning director is meant to streamline the processes but that is misleading while the Comm commer claims that the proposal is driven by his concern regarding flooding of existing single family homes he fails to acknowledge that the design review board process is an important step for neighborhood review of new construction the review process offers neighbors the opportunity to review plans and provide input and help to ensure compatibility under the zoning code thank you thank you Mr Lua please give me time because I'd like to finish the thought I I came here just understand that if I give you the extra time I need to give all the members of the public what if I ask one of my colleagues to give me some of their time we don't we we don't just like to I just have a very short I'll give you an extra 30 seconds uh imagine the house next door being knocked down without ever receiving notification or information about what will be built this is what will happen if R5 AG is passed how could we strip neighborhoods of the current review and input process which helps ensure compatibility compatible new construction the ordinance as proposed would fundamentally weaken the public process for the the review of new construction single family homes that contain under stories in Miami Beach for further analysis the ordinance also contains a substantial height increase for new homes from 4 to 7 feet more than currently allowed above base flood elevation plus five freeboard don't you think the new homes are already tall enough well apparently not to the speculators who are now buying up homes that do not face the open Bay and try to add even more height to loom over their neighbors and have a downtown view look for small interior LS and Canal homes snatched up and supersized by this initiative goes before all without any input from the neighborhood in conclusion the drb an important purpose it provides for transparency and those homes that go before it for review are more compatible with the neighborhood and better design than those that don't I urge this committee to vote against it and for the residents of our city to speak up and stop this misguided initiative thank you Peter just to confirm you're against this item right all right all right uh okay so to the other members who are present we will stick to two minutes if you go beyond the two minutes I will stop you I cannot allow for everyone to go beyond the two minutes so please be respectful of the timer and of and of the time restriction out of a courtesy to your neighbors welcome sir you have two minutes to speak so uh I'm Pascal Nikolai I'm the CE of Sabal development which is spec developer doing Like Houses Sor just just one second when need to keep speakers on a timer please thank you okay thank you so you know developing house is we did something for buyer for end user and what end user wants they want to be scared about floting about every like rise sea level urcan and stuff so everyone in this our business wants to be elevated you know they wants to be feel safe and there's no speculation there's no money to mix when you raise house there most safety for everybody they wants to to be able to to when when flooding is coming in Miami be don't have any issues without the water goes in the house when the insurance come to your say your house is floating so you have to pay like 50k years to get like insures or sometime Insurance say we don't insure so people have to have sell the house as a land values because there is no like insurance they want to cover so I think for me there's no discussion here I think what's David sare is proposing is is obvious is you have to be like this you have to be you have to be able to be to raise the house if you want it as designed propose and if you have to if you feel safe on it you have to do it so I support this this what David says I support fairly because we are facing this issue with Builder with clients with everybody wants this house elevated so thank you for bringing this on the table I think as Miami Beach for the future you know how Miami Beach see for overseas the floing city everybody think when you go when you travel and from France I got TR in France when say I'm live in Miami they say oh you live under water we're scared we we we're like done by this so we need to build Road House like walking with the level of the sea because it's going to go up so no matter what here we are thank you sir thank you for time are there members on Zoom uh wishing to speak Mr attorney yes we have Miss Elizabeth Laton Elizabeth welcome you have two minutes to speak hi good afternoon um I'm going to make this short my mom um is in the hospital I'll just found out but um I'm I wrote you and I've asked that you support this item um and I've called him before um the previous speaker said something very important and that is insurance if we are already facing crisis levels of Home pricing and affordability if you want to see it Skyrocket this is how you get it no insurance these homes that are designed with under stories are going to incorporate sustainable practices their natural ventilation energy efficient design and they're beneficial for the environment as Urban environments involved homes with under stories can adapt to changing needs and Lifestyles making rigid design reviews counterproductive and restrictively burdensome on the homeowner I'm not really sure why 3 feet is a resident right to know issue because it's not um and if you look at our residents right to know that is only 3 feet or more so I would ask that you support this as is thank you thank you Elizabeth good luck with your mom if there's members of the public in the audience please approach the podium good afternoon Sarah hi I'm Sarah letic and do I need to say my address and all that or 4469 Royal Palm Avenue Miami Beach Florida and I live in Orchard Park which is north of 41st Street kind of right up the middle not over by pine tree not over by Alton right in the middle and I'm seeing a lot of houses go in and they're really believe it or not quite attractive there's a house around the corner for me that uh they just built replaced a kind of awful house and and I'm happy to see the other one go um it is has an understory and it's a really really attractive house but guess what it's part of the design the under story it's a parking area it allows the cars to pull right in at street level and park and then there's a staircase that goes up to the first story you know the first living uh story but it is part of the design and the whole point of eliminating design review board um uh U uh involvement is that now we can stick birthday cakes on top of stilts and there's no uh uh um accounting for what is holding the building up what the underst story is and I saw the pictures that you showed of the keys and on the west coast and all that and they're not very attractive houses one of the things in Miami Beach that we are very proud of is that our designs are really elegant and gorgeous and even the new houses are fitting in with the neighborhood take away the drb's involvement with the underst story which would take away their involvement with Breeze block and all the other elements that allow uh you know the under story to be uh compatible with the neighborhood and not just look like it's standing up on Match sticks is the design review board's participation in the design and that being said I have come in here several times to design review board uh meetings and kind of stood up for uh a a design that's not compatible not attractive and needs to be worked on and they talk to the architect the architect is there and they go back to the drawing board and come back with a better design so the drb serves a very important purpose not just for the demolition of of The Unwanted House houses on the properties but also for making sure that the design of the entire house including what's on the ground you know and where the parking garage is going to be is compatible with the neighborhood so thank you thank you Sarah thank you for taking the time to participate in today's meeting the members on Zoom members of the public on Zoom yes there's somebody with the name Dev deev Dev good afternoon please unmute yourself you have two minutes to speak hi my name is actually finger and I was at the last meeting I spoke a little bit and I'm actually calling in from a hospital hospital bed this time so let that tell you how serious I think this issue is and I am in V support of David's motion here for the main reason I'll just get right to the point because I told you a lot about my story and I think you all know that I've been through the drb series multiple times for for going on five years now but it comes down to the fact that we can not have this type of catch22 legislation in our system you have to raise your home above the flood plane but now you can't build it because the drb can't come to a consensus or doesn't have enough members present or is coming out of a pandemic and and you're just held over and held over and held over it is so incredibly costly it has been for me and it's frankly not fair and it's completely illogical so I'm just going to get right to it and say that this is an incredible place and the drb doesn't have to be present to make sure beautiful homes are built across our city there are other homes that are built that go to the drb that are beautiful and there's there's a million different ways to ensure that everybody is staying in line with the zoning and the laws and and I've been through it and I'm trying to get my home built because I'm building it for my family I'm not I'm not a developer and I've been through this and through this and through this and I just really need there to be fair legislation that allows people to move forward with the bill that they have to do and if if a home I know that there was a gentleman that spoke about um you know his his beautiful home that is historic and you know Kennedy's lived in that's wonderful and there is a historic review board for that but you can't tell somebody that they have to raise their home above the flood plane and have to rebuild and then tell somebody that they can't do it and to keep trying come back come back later or if you have an indignant neighbor that is illogical or irrational which I happen to have had that has power over your future thank you Devon I think commissioner Bob wants to ask you a question Dev um has your project been approved yet by the drb I think we I'll unmute can can you hear me yes so my project was ultimately approved after three sessions by the drb however we my architect did anything to get us through that final approval and he just said yes to significantly lower Heights than is feasible to actually build an understory home at so now we're stuck at the point where we have an approval that we can't structurally build so we have to come back to the drb again and ask for more more height which is now legal because now that we've gone through it for years and years and years the code has since changed to allow for more height which is very reasonable but my home was approved thank you you know way back when we're stuck with a height that is completely unbuildable does that thank you thank you Dev uh and best of luck to you uh hope you have nothing serious and a speedy recovery but thank you for participating from the hospital um is there any members of the public present in the audience yes yes welcome you have two minutes to speak hi um I'm here to support uh commissioner Suarez motion um I am I live in Miami Beach I uh if you could state your name for the record Lis Bosch I live on 235 North coconut Lane thank you I I'm a builder uh I build homes for clients and the goal when anybody's building a home most at least with me is to make the home beautiful and resilient um and having to go through the drb is is just not something that anybody wants to go through because you don't know if it's going to be you know six months a year and there's a lot of cost associated with that um Additionally the for us when we're building a home having an under story makes it a lot more easy to not impact the neighbors we have much more parking staging of materials so I I don't see what you know if you're raising a home what's you know the home's already going to be raised what impact is there to the neighbors of utilizing the space that's under it there's no impact the home is it's going to be at the same height so I uh I'm in support of the motion and uh I think it's very useful thank you sir thank you for being here uh any members of the public wishing to speak on Sue we have Mr Larry schaer and Mr Schaefer welcome uh you have two minutes to speak please unmute yourself hi hello everyone uh I'm calling to support this measure I don't know about all the specific details of it but Sharon and I are interested in uh building on top of our existing structure and we are in an rm1 Zone which is not an the I think the zones that are covered with RS under this measure and we were wondering if it was possible to consider perhaps new legislation to to handle the understory development of homes that aren't necessarily single family homes we have a a duplex it's a 1940 Art Deco home and uh we were basically just planning for this thing to flood and then to come back later and build on top later making the first floor an understory but if we could get ahead of the the the storms and actually build on top and make our current first story an understory that would be very much helpful for us in terms of having a sustainable long-term place to live in Miami Beach um we would like to note that some other parts of Florida are much more Progressive in allowing these underst stories and so we're not really asking I don't think that David Suarez is asking for too much and asking for um you know things that are in this measure to encourage understory development um thank you very much thank you Mr chaer for your participation any other members of the public and the audience wishing to approach the the podium to speak good afternoon hi good afternoon um members of the land use and sustainability committee my name is Janette Dorfman and I am a homeowner in the Nautilus neighborhood I designated my home as historic because I believe in preserving the unique character of Miami Beach I've also invested significant resources into making my home resilient to flooding and climate challenges I'm deeply concerned about the proposed changes to understory requirements reducing design review board oversight and increasing allowable sorry I can hear you okay reducing design review board oversight and increasing allowable Heights to 31 ft risk degrading the value of storic homes like mine these changes could encourage out of scale development and the disruption of neighborhood Harmony and it will diminish the the Investments homeowners like such as myself have made to protect and enhance their properties while I support climate resistance and resilience these proposals prioritize expedience over the thoughtful design without proper review understory homes could introduce massing private intrusions and storm water issues that directly affect adjacent properties and our community's quality of life as someone who has taken personal steps to make my home both resilient and historically significant I urge you to maintain the oversight process that protects homeowners and will preserve the Integrity of our neighborhoods please consider the voices of residents who care deeply about Miami Beach and vote against these amendments thank you thank you thank you for your participation Mr attorney any members of the public on Zoom wishing to speak no one else okay other members of the public attending in person please approach the podium good afternoon uh good afternoon thank you for the time um I brought my notes but not my glasses so I'm going to struggle here for a minute but um my name is Glenn Boer I'm a 20-year resident of Miami Beach um and a homeowner and a architect by education and I've worked as an owner's rep and as a project manager uh property manager Etc um I'm wor I've PID close attention to this sort of thing and I I do believe that the burm homes do pro uh create some of the issues that commissioner Suarez pointed out with regard to water retention with regard to the sidey yard issues the front yard issues and it really does create a compatibility issue with our neighborhoods um I would suggest that you know as someone involved in this process we love a code that that if we follow it's it's sort of a guid line that you know we can just follow and go through the process um and I think that the city is sort of putting its finger maybe inadvertently putting its finger on the scales and saying okay we recognize there are these issues they have to be addressed you sort of have two paths to go down but one path will take a extra you know six months or a year it can be very expensive the carry cost the attorney's fees etc etc the process and in some cases I guess three or four times uh going through the process and I don't think that's the the goal of the city when it's when something is codified I don't have to come in for if if I follow the rules on lot coverage on F on side yard setbacks on front yard setbacks on roof Terrace locations within my I don't have to come in front of a design review board because it's there in the code and so if it's there in the code that I can build an under story I think having that additional step is just inconsistent with the rest of the code and since I have 15 seconds left I would just suggest that thinking about this today there's this show on Netflix called the world's most extraordinary homes and there's one of them that's a block north of here that Renee Gonzalez did which is an understory home and there's another one that um Marcio kogan did on Pine Tree Drive I believe it's an understory home and I believe that aesthetically and architecturally they're much more compatible with our neighborhoods and these homes that are built up on DMS thank you very much thank you very much any other members of the public wishing to speak please approach the podium good good afternoon welcome you have two minutes thank you I'm Mike tennis I'm resident of Miami Beach for nearly 30 years raised three kids here I work for a home builder uh Pur and hes and uh thank you for this moment I'll be very quick the gentleman that just spoke before me brilliant that's EX exactly what I would say essentially the the rules as they exist are an encumbrance to us building as is probably a better solution the under story there are cities very near to us that have codes that this is codified in I've built in Golden Beach we dealt with this every home we built um there's very specific codes of how an understory is utilized how is designed and it could be very simple by having the drb you're placing a tremendous encumbrance on us an extra six months to a year is a lot of money a lot of resources and the unders story is a really great solution having grown up in Florida on the coast Pensacola where it's been hit by many hurricanes this solution is really the only thing that works that's it have a great day thank you sir thank you for participating today's meeting Daniel welcome thank you so much Daniel Calo with Miami Design preservation league first of all uh everyone's talking about the UN story and just the dispense of that no one's against un they're currently allowed there's absolutely no is anyone against sories I don't think so no one raised their hand in the room so that's not what um we're here for there's a misnomer on the name it's actually a height increase and in particular chair I want to point your attention to that in my very short time there in the very back and the planning board didn't even have time to discuss it like we asked because it was being uh pushed uh to go through the first reading but we now have here it says RS3 currently 24t with the new regulation 28 ft flat roof under Sor home and did you notice footnote 7 guess what if your RS3 and your property is over 18,000 Square fet you get another 3 feet so instead of 24 feet now you got 31 wow how'd that happen very interesting what I would like to ask if if I can is to bifurcate this issue I don't think there's any controversy about building under stories but what we really need to refine is a maximum height in these neighborhoods I was really shocked watching the design review board hearing 2024 when a developer who didn't even own the property at the time for the property appraiser applied for major variances waivers and even push some of our commissioners to push it through what I don't want ever to happen is for people to be afraid of what's going up next door to them I want residents whether they're billionaires or not to live in the comfort and quality of life of their neighborhoods these folks have decided that they need to make their Millions by developing properties but other people made their Millions other ways or just want to have a quiet life in a non-commercial single family neighborhood so let's bifurcate the height I'd like to meet with the other developers in the meantime come back with a better uh resolution thank you thank you Daniel any other members of the public wishing to speak hopefully the last will be the first so my name is Agnes gray I am the resident at uh my myself and my husband Keith Gray we residents at 1645 West West 22nd Street and we are actually uh the house that is uh directly located uh east of uh the new development which actually brought myself and this is I'm going to speak only about about my experience brought me uh to drb meetings uh twice the first meeting actually was a few years ago and it was in our favor and in favor of myself and our neighbors and the second meeting was not which by the way I fully accept I appreciate it and I'm very very grateful for the ability of speaking out so the most important part about this particular ordinance is that is essentially shutting down the neighbors and believe me I was born in a communist country I was raised in Poland and the part that we couldn't do is to speak freely so therefore I don't think there's nobody here as it was said before there was anybody against under story houses absolutely they should be encouraged this is the way how to build but why this particular ordinance is saying that now the house which is so higher than me is limited 20 but it will be administratively allowed to be 31 ft or 34 uh slopped roof feet above me without any check and balances the whole purpose of drb and I don't know I'm humbly I'm speaking here as a resident I don't know how to improve the drb meetings and the procedures but drb is essentially checking balances and eyes on different projects and removing that and de delegating that only to the some bureaucratic process is not the answer to create a friendly environment and a happy neighbors and I spoke to my other neighbor and the truth is that it's I want to stress it we are not against underst story but we're against increase of the height and also removing drb review which would be very uh helpful to the thank you so much thank you for your participation any other members of the public welcome please state your name for the record you'll have two minutes to speak good afternoon everyone my name is Edward kiches can you guys hear me okay yes we can hear you uh so I recently actually went through uh the drb review process I'm a developer uh by trade and I guess contrary to some popular belief um I aim to to my goal is to build projects that are beautiful that add to the community don't detract from them uh so during the um design process with our architect um we went through some options uh and we were focusing on affordability at first but after seeing what South Florida and Florida in general just really um climate change has done not just here but all over the world affordability was important but sustainability wasn't something that I was willing to negotiate on so yes the idea of building our house on a burm was suggested but I told our architect listen I think that if we want this project to not only be beautiful but to last it has to be done with an underst story now I was made aware of the process of having to go to the drb and thankfully for me and unfortunately unlike some other members that have spoken it was a short process I believe it was only five six months from February to July um because the only thing that I was requesting as a variance or an exception was the underst story uh funny enough uh after I like to work very closely with Architects Engineers seeing how they follow the code law everything that applies to building in certain municipalities um it almost became it was funny it was funny to me but it almost became like a not a popularity contest but there was a lot of items that were touched on that was based in subjectivity and opinions and not based in what I saw how I saw the way the project was designed uh with our engineers and our architect and so I think that that process inadvertently undermines the actual formal building approval process wherein these projects are looked at on under you know stri I mean Miami Beach has probably one of the strictest building codes in the United States and I think that looking at these projects in that lens of opinion undermines that process and it should be baked into the final permit approval process and not be a standalone thank you sir thank you thank you for for your participation um any other members of the public wishing to speak on this item Mr attorney any on Zoom I'll speak is attorney no okay welcome hi Fred Carlton 1800 pry Avenue so I guess I'm the focus of a couple of people up here and uh so I'm gonna address Miss gray since I've known her for a long time she uh she did s tell me that one of her concerns Mr carlt I'll just ask you keep your comments to the day we don't mention members of the public by name so just well my neighor I'll mention my neighbor to the east who who said that she was concerned about the house that we were building for privacy reasons that our husband's uh as uh what do you call it he he swam he swam in the in the naked but then I found out later on when they came to me and said excuse me when when they there were people on the phone you said it and I I the people up here know I don't tell Tales out of school so when but then I found out later that really what she wanted was for me to knock down 30 feet of my back wall so that she could have uh a clear view out to the Bay so you know the people up here are just very disingenuous in what they're saying it's really not right look there were studies done for underst stories and you know the recommendations were uh resil for resiliency were underst stories that was adopted by the commission there are all sorts of codes in place okay the drb doesn't know all the codes the drb is made up mostly of unprofessional people that do not uh you know have design experience they're not Architects you know they're Realtors they're organizers you know none of you would have uh exp non-experts uh advising you let's say you had you wouldn't have a financial a non-expert financial expert uh advising you so why should citizens have a a board that is comprised of people that are not experts advising them telling them you know what they like you're the one making the investment you hire professional people uh they're trained professionals and you have nonprofessional people telling these people what they like it's absolutely absurd none of you would do it um you know all these homes are cons a lot of these homes are consistent or most of these homes are consistent with what's built on Miami Beach all of this could be worked out so that you know the the homes remain consistent there's no reason to go before a board that cost you tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars and and many many delays thank you Fred uh any other members of the public wishing to speak yes Sarah welcome please I will not allow for there to be this back and forth everyone has an opportunity to speak and everyone has been given given an opportunity to to speak but I ask us to please maintain the Quorum while in the chambers thank you madam chair welcome thank you thank you Sarah Giller Nelson I'm the current chair of the design review board and I have been on the drb since 2020 I wanted to begin my remarks I'm glad that I got to speak I think last um because I wanted to respond to a few points that were made by other members of the public and people on the day to clarify um the first point was uh Mr finger I was there in November we don't call Members I want to clarify that the person that called in that said that it has taken him over five years because of the drb process to realize his home I was on the drb in 2020 when that home was approved so any delays that have been caused since then is part of the perming process which is different than the drb process um I'd also like to mention there seems to be a perception from a number of other people that called in to speak to support this measure that having drb review eliminates or prevents people from being able to have underst stories again we're all pro resiliency I think you made very good points we all want resilient homes we really like underst stories it's exciting so going to the drb doesn't mean that people cannot make under Stories the city is promoting this it's something that is applicable um the other point was that the the drb is redundant and I think that anybody that has gone any sort of creative type that has gone through the drb process realizes that this cannot be true that the staff the code their role deals more with quantitative there was another person who spoke who mentioned all these different quantitative things that were contributed by staff where is what the drb does is qualitative we had a number of people speak about what they want is beautiful buildings and beauty and I will say that perhaps more than any other city in our region beauty is a really important value resiliency is important but beauty is as well beautiful buildings are would keep the lights on at City Hall they pay for our Parks they pay for our services this is why people come to Miami Beach this is what as you've heard residents want this is what buyers of homes want sorry can I out of a courtesy to you uh I'll give you a few extra okay I really appreciate that so I think that my main argument and my reason for coming and I've said this over and over again is that there are many steps in the pering process that can be eliminated to increase efficiency speed up development promote resiliency and make our community better let's examine the processes that are not helpful to our residents businesses and visitors before we eliminate the ones like the drb that has been promoting and creating beautiful homes in our community for decades thank you very much as as well as the importance of the public review process thank you I'm also available thank you I'm also available as the person who's been on the drb for the longest time and has the direct experience dealing with these to answer any questions and to please allow me to be a resource to you for any questions thank you for your service on the design review board it's appreciated any other members of the public here to speak seeing none in person Mr attorney any on Zoom with that we're going to close a public hearing and I'm going to recognize commissioner Dominguez and then commissioner Bond thank you Mr chair um so this was a very good discussion on under stories I had done some digging about this as well and under stories first became uh allowed in Miami Beach in 2014 and then in 2018 the commissioner at the time alaman brought in the design review to be part of the process uh during those years I think there were maybe three or four homes that had underst stories and in 2020 commissioner samin who was vice mayor at the time uh brought in an ordinance to incorporate um all of the suggestions to streamline the process that came from a consulting firm I think it was Matrix at the time um for the DB approval of underst stories and other um resilient measures um commissioner samin was also the one that brought residents right to know when he was president of Miami Beach United and so oversight of things was very important to him and I've had conversations with um the drb and with members of the public I've heard from both sides of the equations and so what I want to ensure is when a home has an underst story it is a massive structure the neighbors deserve to know that it's what's happening next door to them and the drb in my experience from 2020 to now we've had over 50 homes with underst stories so the drb is working and I do understand that some developers don't like it and there could be ways to streamline it and that's what I'm hoping we can get from ton Mooney and from the discussion today how can we streamline the process so that a developer doesn't have to come or wait months how can we make it better so that both the residents are finding out about these massive structures the drb is getting their chance to review it and um the developers are also not spending months and thousands of dollars in order to complete their projects thank you uh commissioner Mr director I don't know if you wish to respond to commissioner dominguez's uh request we had looked at ways of streamlining the process not just for single family homes but for other types of projects that had to go before the drb and and HPB when the Matrix Group did their first study and some of the options that we had were somewhat limited such as reducing the amount of notice that might be required but generally speaking the process itself is what leads to the delays because um there's a certain amount of unpredictability with regard to making an application to the drb and so that's why for single family homes this was something that we felt uh should be reviewed at staff level because of the fact that we have a very very um straightforward and detailed criteria for what single family homes should look like in terms of their height in terms of their setbacks in terms of their design and unlike commercial and multif family projects which have a greater impact and are more significantly experienced by the public single family homes are generally only experienced by the homeowner um and they're not experienced by by members of the general public thank you uh Mr director uh commissioner ding is I don't know that answerers to your question there's any followup that you have think a little bit and go on to other okay and uh commissioner SAR yeah I don't it's okay I mean of T but I there's some B wanted to so I don't know if you want to hear there was just some points that I wanted to clarify on but I can wait my turn commissioner Bob um I would actually say that single family homes are not only experience by the family living in that home they're put in the middle of the neighborhood and everybody living in that block or adjacent to it um experiences it as well and you know I share the late Mark samin's um desire to maintain oversight in not oversight necessarily to limit what can happen but a discourse a dialogue between people who are affected by something it's something we value signific ly as legislators we build it into our ordinances to make sure that people have a right to be notified and weigh in if they want to now I understand there are people who abuse that um there are Grudge matches between neighbors I'd like to find a way to eliminate that I think that's really problematic and that is an undue burden for Homeowner homeowners developers you know if you're upset because you're about to get busted for having run something illegal through somebody's yard 30 years ago go that should not hold up the design review process um I'm not supposed to ask questions I don't know answers to but here I go Tom what is the height that um a house can be built to if you're doing it as a burm versus as a um an under story home currently under the code um it would depend on the zoning District that you're in um if you're proposing currently a non-story home home in the rs1 and rs2 District which are the much larger estate Lots like Star Island the large water front estate Lots the maximum height is 28 feet for for flat roofs and 31 feet for slope for slope roofs uh in the RS3 District uh the maximum height is 24 feet for flat roofs and 27 feet for slope roofs and the same holds true for the RS4 District uh 24 ft 27 ft so that's for burm houses correct okay so nobody is disagreeing and and um commissioner Suarez you always put together very thorough PowerPoints but nobody is disagreeing with the fact that understory homes look to be our Collective future nobody's saying we shouldn't have those there is a discussion that is meritorious to be had about what is the maximum height to have an understory house as of right there are guard rails put into place to make sure that we don't have these birthday cakes popped onto stilts the way you see throughout other parts of the coastal communities in the Southeast that is something very important to me because that is going to undermine our architectural fabric but from what I understand that is not possible so I'm not so worried about that um I will say that having more eyes on projects always makes things better I mean even on the planning board we had somebody come forward with an application for perfectly viable project but one of their walls was the equivalent unintended but was the equivalent of a spite wall to their neighbors and you know it wasn't our perview on the planning board to to say hey maybe think about that a little differently but we did anyhow and so now that wall was provided you know it had um texturing and and you know some artistic Merit to it so it wasn't a complete spite wall um so here's what I might suggest as a compromise to consider if we are allowing and nobody has issues with burm houses being built to a certain height why do we why wouldn't we allow the same thing to happen with under story houses where we know that they are better for the neighborhood the community and ultimate resilience goals however if you want to have higher better use of that under story so that you can store your gear you can put in bigger vehicles as parking you can use it for usable space then you would come to the drb for a variance so if you're building like for like with the height impact being the same then you can you can forego the drb if you want to build an understory that has a little bit more usable space in the understory uh portion then you would have the opportunity to come and get that done through a drb hearing is that an amendment you're proposing to the ordinance before us today I think I think I'd like to hear some discussion but yes yes okay let me recognize let me recognize the item sponsor are you amable to that because it sounds reasonable to I think what we should talk to the the planning director I mean the reason why we have a 3 feet increase is to make the understo usable like if you remember Diva he says that because he didn't ask for the additional 3 feet uh on the under story now his space is unusable and he has to go back to the drb now and request the the extra 3 feed so but let's let's remain mindful what is the intent of the under Story the intent of the underst story is to remote resiliency the safety of these of these homes uh address issues having to do with insurability uh and by having the under story we can achieve that and the extra height pertains to the usability of the underst story which is a nonresilient issue so um to the point that commissioner bad was making I'm going to defer to the planning director as suggested by the item sponsor Mr director so in in our experience in the experience of my staff um the additional three feed for that understory becomes critical for usability purposes and I think that if you were to maintain the same building Heights but require that any height above that uh for basically the additional three 3 fet go to the drb it would amount to all understory homes going to the drb because that 3 feet is something that's important in terms of the usability of that um understory area commiss schars thank you Mr chair so so Tom if you're if you're explaining this correctly if we were to move forward with this amendment it would it would result in in no meaningful impact for uh single family home construction because I again I think at the end of the day what we want to do Mr chair is incentivize A Better Home and I don't think an extra three feet is going to make any difference in in terms of uh massing or uh visual line of sight I our planning director has said on the record that that three feet is negligible we are not increasing the massing the f is staying exactly the same we are just simply increasing 36 in of the underst story to make it usable so um I I mean I think we've heard enough from City staff who by the way they set up a very detailed plan on underst stories this is not just a bunch of check boxes they go through I mean it it goes through a strenuous staff review process and I would I would really welcome our planning director to talk about that so to give a little bit more insight to the public that's listening on on the steps required to to for a staff level approval for an understory yes and and clearly there's there's detailed criteria in the code uh which we've adopted over time for for single family homes but let me just ask you Mr Mr director uh because you know it was it was referenced that um RS3 homes currently have a height of up to 24 feet and that this would allow a height up to 31 ft um explain that to me because that's that's not 3 feet that is 7 feet so I just want to understand that and how many what percentage of the homes being approved are getting up to 31 feet in height sure currently I I think it's important to look at maximum height in terms of the four different RS districts we have rs1 and rs2 districts as I mentioned which are the much larger estate lots and those are going to have a higher height limit simply because they're just much larger Lots then you have RS3 Lots which are kind of a mix you have some RS3 lots that are that are much um that are not quite as big as rs1 and rs rs2 Lots then you have RS3 lots that are as big and sometimes exceed the size of rs1 and rs2 lots and then you have the RS4 Lots which are generally the smaller dry Lots under the code now um the maximum Building height in the RS3 district is 24 ft for flat roofs however under the code current Curr if somebody has an understory proposal when they go to the drb the drb can allow up to 31 ft so 31 ft technically is already allowed because you have to go to drb for understory approval what we had suggested is that the height be uh limited to 28 feet but that the 3- foot increase be allowed administratively but only for those much larger RS3 Lots in the RS4 District um it would continue to be um as proposed 28 ft even though currently the drb could allow up to 31 feet thank you uh commissioner Dominguez thank you Mr chair so for the RS4 it's 28 ft for the flat 31 for the sloped that's what is proposed under the ordinance and um somebody had mentioned I don't know if it was in the audience or not but um so BMS are allowed in the city and they if they were horrible I'm they wouldn't be allowed an underst story that is 3 feet which is the size of a berm is better than a burm so I don't see why it would be not good not usable CU if it's better than a burm a three- foot understory sounds amazing now for it to be usable we've got to increase the height but a three- foot understory is better than a burm so um the reason that the threefoot came into play was as you may recall when we um adopted the ldr updates in the resiliency code in late 2022 and and early 2023 um we had suggested that there be an additional 3 feet um so that the understory areas could be more usable up until that point Architects were struggling with trying to make that area usable because the overall maximum height doesn't change it's it's measured from base flood elevation plus allowable freeboard and even by measuring height from base flood elevation plus up to 5 feet Architects were struggling to have enough usable space in the ground understory level yet still provide livable space in the second and third floors of the home actually technically the first and second floors of the home um some of the things that are factored into that include roof slabs and they also include other things um such as the drainage that is required for a flat roof one other thing that's um important to point out is that when you look at bmed homes which do not require drb approval the size of the burm will depend depend upon the overall height of the home as measured from base flood elevation plus freeboard so in a lot of instances a homeowner may do base flood elevation plus 2 feet which depending on sidewalk elevation may only be a 3 to four foot burm however if a homeowner wants to do base flood elevation plus 5T you could end up with a six foot burm um and as experien from the sidewalk level that would actually in some cases potenti be higher than an understory home that was limited to the heights that are being proposed okay thank you um PJ can you put the PDF up please page two and another thing that was mentioned here and it might have been commissioner bot was how massive a structure it could be and that the neighborhood deserves to know and in page two of this uh PDF the next page it shows an example of how much higher it is in a single family neighborhood and those neighbors deserve to know um what is happening there uh go two more pages please P let me just ask you on that if if you go back uh PJ go back please okay because there you know we see the homes there but how much I would imagine the picture in the middle is the one that has the underst story and how much of that it looks like an extra floor it doesn't look like an extra three feet Mr director if because I I just wanted to make sure that that you know people there's not a misinterpretation of what's there it looks like an extra floor looks like that could be potentially an extra 10 feet not an extra three feet is that but if you look at two homes down it's a twostory home and it's still more in line with the neighborhood um than the one with the under story I'm I'm not saying no to under stories I'm just pointing out that neighborhoods but I'm just pointing out that this isn't the three feet there right there's also another floor but there's there's two story homes in that picture the one next door and the one next door to that uh the two to the right are both twostory homes and they fit in the neighborhood where the end of story one doesn't we don't know if this is the scale and then two two slides down um here's another example of um a real picture not a rending and then the home's next door um and then U as the de B had mentioned previously they do help with the design and we do have professional people on there and there is a mix of people so if uh there needs to be more Architects maybe that's something we can look at as a commission for the future but I do think that they're helpful thank you and so let me just ask this this addresses a very important issue of having to do with um with resiliency in our city uh there is an issue with with with the homes with with the BMS I do believe uh that um that that they do create flooding for for neighboring properties I just don't believe it I know it I've seen it I've witnessed it in my neighborhood over time BMS degrade they they lose their their structural integrity and they become ineffective especially um as flood patterns intensify um and rain patterns as as well due due to the impacts of climate change so so I think anything that we can do to move away from the burm model to the underst story Model we're doing uh um a service to our community we've also seen case studies from from FEMA that show significant cost savings uh to those homes that have been uh built uh with with uh with the underst stories and so we do need to encourage this and we need to be very Balan about it and how we handle the public uh the public input and the public participation my question is is there a way where we could allow for an administrative review of of under stories but if something is so outrageous that you know an AB budding property owner an AB budding neighbor be able to appeal the administrative review have you know a one- Monon window where someone could file an an appeal that way we're not holding up homes that could be reviewed that could be approved if someone is really very onerously impacted they can file an an an appeal and have those appeals be prioritized by the drb because that way I feel we're doing something that's balanced we're sending the message and we're communicating out there hey we want to move away from the burms we want to promote this more resilient uh style of architecture but we also feel that there is still a place where if you are an affected homeowner you have an opportunity where if it really is impacting okay you can file an an appeal but at the same time not have an entire you know neighborhood because there here's the thing you know we all are neighbors but if I buy a piece of property I want to be able to decide the home that I want to have I don't want someone three blocks away dictating what my home is going to look like as it is it's expensive enough to build a home in Miami Beach and then on top of it bureaucracy and red tape is adding to it and so I think we need to find the balance how is it that we accommodate both and just wondering uh Mr director how how you would see something like that working if it would be amable to the sponsor of the item um something like that generally in my experience can be challenging um because while you could post a property to notify residents which the current ordinance requires if you were to provide an appet process and a neighbor Avail themselves of that appet process then the owners would likely be on the homeowner to then have to bring an application to the design review board and that likely would would take months certainly if it's the direction of the commission I'm sorry the owners would be on whom I'm sorry to bring an application before the owners would would likely be on the applicant to bring an application to the drb um in which case would have to file all of the exhibits and provide copies of the plans um and then go before the board but all of that is already being provided to you through an administrative review the administrative review is only the plans um in terms of what needs to go to the drb they would need to see um those plans and any other exhibits that they would deem necessary to be able to to make a decision on whether the so what other exhibits besze plans because from what I understood you in an administrative review you are you're looking for specific detailed criteria designed criteria that we've had codified what is and I need to understand this what is the difference in material that would be reviewed by staff as opposed to the material that would be reviewed by theb because I'm okay you know having something administratively reviewed if you are reviewing the same material but you're telling me now something that was not CL verified previously I'm sorry sir please I no we are not disruptive in the chambers I will not allow this distractions in the chambers if you want to be distractive you can go outside thank you lost my train of thought yes um so the materials I need to understand what is the difference in the materials for administrative review between what drb requires as opposed to what would be required by an administrative review if the appell process was set up so that the only thing that is required to be submitted to the drb is what was provided to staff then it would be a matter of making duplicates of that and that would include Tom I'm sorry a review of an underst story home what is it that that drb right now is reviewing as part of an application package as opposed to what staff will review administratively the drb um what would be additional that would be provided to the drb over say building permit plans would be photographs of the property um context drawings um and perspectives those are probably the three key differences and those typically are not required when we do an administrative permit review okay and why wouldn't you review that administratively if we if we were to create because I just I mean I want us let's say if we move and I don't think it's the intent of of of the it I think the intent of the item sponsor is to create a more efficient process but I don't think it's the intent of the item sponsor to have to have a uh less review of you know you know Concepts and perspectives and that type of stuff so why wouldn't staff review that um because you guys are professionals we would we would typically re require for permit review which would include compliance with all of this criteria um site plan a survey a landscape plan floor plans detailed elevations and to the extent that that we needed more detail to ensure compliance with those plans we would request those from the architect and those could potentially be um prospective drawings in terms of uh neighborhood context drawings and photos that's something that we could Avail ourselves of by either doing a field visit or reviewing it on on Google Earth or Google Maps we wouldn't necessarily need an applicant to provide that level of detail okay because I just feel that if you're going to be approving something like this you know you do I I don't see how do you look at the full context of it without seeing these perspectives the context drawings you know that's I would imagine that's important and so like I would feel more much more comfortable allowing for an administrative review process if you guys are getting this information taking this into consideration as part of your review and then if something really is very honorous then allowing for there to be an an appeal at the uh at the um at at drb um from you know certain stakeholders you know people who would have standing uh because right now what we have is an open system you know some someone could be proposing something in in um an Orchard Park and I can show up and I don't live in Orchard Park and I can be telling a neighbor of Orchard Park what their home needs to look like and stall someone's investment and stall someone's plans for years and I'm not even an immediately impacted neighbor and so and and so you know if I'm if I'm the abing neighbor if I'm the neighbor across the street you know I get that I I get you know wanted to have a say because you know I might be dealing with the Shadows I might be dealing with a wall I might be dealing with something someone looking over my yard that that I'm I'm fine with as a matter of an appeal someone withstanding making their case to the board um and that's a matter of appeal but but as of right or not as of right but as a just a general process of doing business requiring each one of these to go through this process I think we set us back and so I I would encourage you m uh to to the sponsor um to to to consider this because I think it creates a balance uh that could be that could be fair for for everyone um thank you Mr chair so I'm still a little unclear about what the proposal is but I I think our planning director said that any sort of appeal process is going to be a challenge but uh Mr Mr chair one thing you did touch up on was the understory process Tom if you can explain to the rest of our committee that the understory if someone was to do a staff level administrative review of underst stories you have created a whole system and outline in place that's a separate and apart from anything to do with a house built on a burm and it's a much more stricter stringent process than houses built on can you can you touch up on that for a minute so we can um Enlighten uh members of the public and and my colleagues sure the the review of single family homes there's specific uh criteria that is used for the review of single family homes um and this applies currently to both understory and to burm homes and for instance if somebody comes in with a burm home there is specific criteria that our staff looks at in in in terms of the design of the home and its relationship to surrounding property as well as all of the technical requirements of the Land Development regulation such as unit size lot coverage Building height and we're already doing that now yeah okay um the same would hold true for understory in addition to what we call understory level standards and that's a separate section of the RS regulations that is specific to under stories um and it regulates things like the um use of the understory area um the um amount of non-air conditioned space that is required um basically air condition space is limited to things like an elevator to get you from the um understory area to the the first hitable floor um it gets into things like the um the use for parking and storage and limitations in that regard um details such as a continuous sopit that is required um um and the um overall elevation of the understory and probably the most important is the understory Edge and that regulates things like um Breakaway walls um open lattice work louvers um and that's the type of criteria that sets understory homes on Mii Beach apart from what you see in the keys and other areas that are truly just buildings placed on stilts with no thought to architecture design and that's why the understory homes that we seen look like they do because of this criteria so one of the colleague one of my I call it commissioner bot I believe said you know we don't want to see like a cake on stilts if that if a cake on stilts was presented to staff staff I'm assuming would say this is not compatible with the neighborhood you'd have to go to drb even the drb couldn't approve that because the understory criteria requires uh a certain number of enclosure walls and sofits um so that you don't have that cake on stils effect correct so and and if if you can explain it to me correctly right now hous is built on burms go through a staff level review process and I'm assuming most of the people are okay with that because we don't see a flood of complaints about houses built on BMS uh other than the flooding of course um and if we apply that same with with the same stat that's doing for BMS would be would be the same staff applying it for under stories we we would have a a a uniform review process at the staff level that's already working for one type of uh structure correct firms so you know uh colleagues I I think yeah at the end of the day we just have to realize that we're flooding and no matter you know whether you want to put your head in the sand or not we're going to be underwater and these 100-year storms are going to be more frequent we're going to have a lot more storm surge and where the rubber meets the road on this issue is that single family homeowners they don't want to have to go through a drb process that is very subjective and I understand that it can it can certainly enhance project but again that is also very subjective you know what may be beautiful to you may not be beautiful to the person applying or to the neighbor Etc it's very subjective and the fact that we don't have that same subject subjective review process for host for homes built on burms it's unfair to do it for homes that are much more Superior uh for climate change so um I I think you know given the fact that we have a system in place already for reviews we have a we have a worldclass staff I mean really best in the world considering all the challenges that South Florida has in particular a particularly a Barrier Island you know I I certainly feel comfortable with W with with our planning director and his staff on reviewing these projects um thank you yes and and and I think that's evident by the nature of the of the the legislation you've you've presented I'll just remind you you know I I think this is very important I Believe in Us doing anything that we can do to make our city more resilient because of this I want to make sure that this item leaves this committee positioned in in a way that I feel that it can receive the five votes that this will need to get in order to pass at the city commission um you know and and you know I I'm supportive of of this item uh but I think that this item could potentially get more support hearing the feedback that that that we're receiving if there could be a potential you know appeal process where where affected uh stakeholders individuals that can be defined as having standing can be given an opportunity to appeal and have have their voices heard and so to me that's important that we don't go through this process and then we get to commission and we end up with a 43 vote this ultimately needs to get uh five votes at the city commission I want to recognize commissioner Bond uh who's been waiting to speak so I you know I come back to the notion that arguably the Desir effect here is to make more resilient communities so is there a way to look at the numbers and aggregate um and limit the total maximum height and it is then up to the applicant to decide if they want to have that excess height in understory or instead of having 14 ft ceilings or 20 ft ceilings they could have 18 ft ceilings and then have more understory that's usable what I'm trying to do is and I I love the idea of having some kind of a review process but I also you know if we're not going to have drb I um having some kind of an appeal process but I it that worries me that it's going to be um complicated my wish is to not take it out of drb but I think we want to encourage people building homes um the everyday people building homes to make it as resilient as possible if you're going to be building a speck house or a $50 million house or something like that then there is and you you want the soaring floor to ceiling windows and you want you know the Roof Garden then I think that is a project in its totality that is meritorious of coming to the drb because it's not just about the extra three feet on the under story it's about everything where your walls are where your Landscaping is what you're going to put on the roof how where you're going to put the five different air conditioning systems you know it's a bigger project but for people building you know they bought a they bought a piece of property with the 1930s Bungalow that is crumbling down and and you know it's not I'm sorry Daniel and Sarah because I love those to but you know they're not going to because it's just not it's not viable for them but they're not building a an enormous um you know multi bazillion dollar home but they want it to be sustainable and we know under stories are better than Burns could we not put a total package cap and then there thereby bifurcating something that is more um you know for everyday people versus something that is a bigger project that is the type of project that might get neighbors um engaged and if we can what would those numbers be and what would they look like before Tom answers that I just wanted to clarify one thing when you said the three feet is it going to go toward higher ceilings no the three feet only goes toward the under story no that's not I understand that what I was saying is that in what can we find what those numbers are in aggregate so the total height of the project you can divide up instead of having two stories with 20 story uh 20 foot ceilings you could have two stories with 18 um foot ceilings or 17 foot ceilings and then make the under Story bigger I I don't know what those numbers are whatever that's why I'm asking our director of planning to see because maybe that then alleviates the issue with the really big projects that have multiple facets to them and the smaller projects where they just somebody just wants to move their family into someplace that they can call home for the next 40 years without being Swept Away in um in my experience um the Florida ceiling Heights um for new construction are in a lot of instances is more limited when you do an understory because of the fact that you want the understory or the homeowner wants the the understory to be usable and so uh a usable under story typically is anywhere from 9 to 10 feet um and sometimes it can go to 11 ft when they do that that will typically limit their Florida ceiling Heights of the floors above to anywhere between 13 and 15 feet depending upon the base flood elevation that they measure the house from and so you're not talking about um ginormous types of Florida ceiling Heights um ironically the homes that don't utilize the understory and do the burm because they start measuring the height from the top of the burm they end up getting the higher Florida ceiling Heights um even though the total height of the home might be slightly under and understory when you take into consideration the high of the burm and you're reviewing these cases side by side often times when viewed from the sidewalk a home with a BM can be at almost the same height as an under story home commissioner schars I mean look I I certainly can understand you know some of the the concerns raised by some of the residents you know I I trust me you know I I I'll be the first one to admit you know the reason I got on the politics is because I wasn't notified um about a hotel being built next to me um and that's why I'm here so I'm gonna I'm gonna support your item um and I I would encourage you I want to make sure that that for for the intent of what you have before us I'm sorry I I'm Sor but Public public comment disclosed you were given extra time time as out of a courtesy and so I I I can't I'm not going to reopen public comments thank you I'm sorry it's more a technical thing specifically about the or thank you Miss Giller okay I would encourage you you know I would allow for I would encourage you to allow for there to be an appeal process so then so that so we can allow a certain level of community involvment to because I want to make sure that you know we can get to commission have a 43 vote or five I want to make sure that this is in a position that can actually move forward and so and so that's I don't want this I don't want us to waste our time in the process yeah I I totally understand I want this to be a 70 vote you know I think because it makes sense I mean at the end of the day as legislators we need to plan for the future and if if we lived in um in a mfy okay where where they have very strict standards on on building you but they don't have the challenges that we have as far as climate change you know they they don't have sea level rise they don't have hurricanes they don't have rainstorms that happen out of nowhere and then all of a sudden you know you're flooded then you see Tarpon and on Alton Road you know they don't have that problem we do unfortunately being a man-made Barrier Island um and I look I I think the the what we need to do do is incentivize this type of construction and the moment we start putting a roadblock here and a road block there you or an appeal you that is going to deinen divize and that's the whole point uh of of of moving this forward and so the fact that you don't have that appeal process for berms you know it's it's counterintuitive um you know cuz like if someone wanted to build Cinderella's C CLE next door and they wanted to for both huh that's required for both if I can finish my thought if someone wanted to do that they they they couldn't um they couldn't be approved they it would go to staff staff would be like look this is Cinderella's castle you can't build this here it's not it's not in style with the neighborhood send it to the and if that was the case for for a an underst story like what we just talked about with a cake on top of Stills that wouldn't be approved at staff level that would definitely have to go back to well I I even think the RB would approve that but there there are certain guidelines and checks and balances at the staff level and I personally feel comfortable with our staff overseeing that as it relates to these single family homes because at the end of the day they're doing it for houses built on bmms and it's working so why wouldn't it work for a much better Superior structure all right thank you commissioner I'm going to recognize commissioner Dominguez and we're going to call the question uh and you know let the process end up however it ends up well I wonder if the process is the vot at the end of the day I mean the vote at the end of the day I wonder if the process is working on burms because everyone's saying how horrible BMS are so I think that the thing that we need to look at is how do we eliminate BMS so that we don't offer them and uh we do only underst stories but some questions that I had is that the Ender story doesn't specify the ordinance doesn't specify the height of the underst story and if it did I missed it and how to guarantee that extra height will actually be used for the underst story and not some other part of the structure we could make that clarification um in the code um but in order for the understory to be usable they're going to need at least 8 to n feet and so in our experience that is built into it but we could certainly tweak the ordinance to mandate a minimum Flor to ceiling height that would ensure that that extra uh height is in the understory Mr and that wouldn't affect the title that's something that we could add before second reading uh commissioner bot again going back to the idea that we are trying to build resiliency and not um that there are two types of projects right there are the more modest understory homes and then the more um elaborate so I would be interested in doing something that specifies a minimum under story height of 8 to9 fet and then anything that wants a greater understory height um exceeding the maximum you know whatever that the the maximum height would be would have to go to drv again I'm trying to get back to how do we get more resilient homes across the board but the things that are going to be really large and really impactful um have the opportunity to be heard and and resolved would that work Tom yeah I mean we could certainly tweak this to mandate a minimum understory height to clarify that that additional height and then to specify um what the heights of the either one or two floors above would be and by specifying a minimum of 8 to 9 fet that would still allow for a very usable uh first and second floor above that and then anything above that has to go to DRP I that's a very fair compromise uh Mr M commissioner Suarez uh would you is that something you would be willing to accept as an amendment to your item so just to clarify um a minimum height of the underst story uh and they still get the additional three feet as it would depends on the district that they're in correct because it would go to the under story correct correct it would only go to the understory to make the stories usable he said that would be I'm sorry Mr yeah the chair um you just mentioned that an understory to be usable needed eight or n feet so that's that a minimum in most instances people want in our experience 9 to 10 feet but if they want to get to 9 to 10 feet then they have to go to drb or they would have to reduce the floor to ceiling height of the levels above so if the overall height exceeded a certain cap then they would have to go to drb but to the extent they wanted to say provide a 9 foot understory and then have slightly shorter tall Florida ceiling Heights on the two hitable levels that might be an option if they're looking for something much bigger that would go above the cap then perhaps that's what would trigger the drv so just so I understand correctly we set a minimum height for the underst story you still have it depends on the district I think 31 was was the highest one to to play with with an underst story that was with the three feet variance but that three feet is B it the majority of it it's going through the understory correct yeah that's that's fine because at the end of the day we want to build a more resilient under story right because if there's a storm surge for example if you're on this if you're on one of the islands and there's a 10- foot storm surge you want to be able to withstand that you know the last thing I want to do is have an understory that's only you know four feet tall for my kids to play in your point the the goal is the height is not to get better views from the second floor the goal is to have a usable under story where where where we're encouraging the use of underst stories it's still to to a a space that is usable to to the homeowner uh so giving them that that that opportunity without necessarily increasing the mass and the size of the home that is built above it yeah I I think we need to really understand through the chair understand what the maximum total height is because the goal is is to not have it be what's currently proposed the goal is to keep it as low as possible but give them the maximum area to play with internally so th those three feet they can they can put them to the end story and then they take it from someplace internal but it's not like it just keeps adding up I I want to just make sure we're on the same page we're going to go through the chair I'm not going to have a back and forth like this so I want Tom to respond to to us okay um the the actual overall height will depend upon what your cap is so for instance under the code now in the RS um one District you can go to 28 feet um and the drb can allow up to 31 feet 31 fet generally will allow the most flexibility with regard to a very usable understory and usable have habitable first floor and second floor to the extent somebody wanted to do something higher on the understory and subtract an amount from the habitable floors above to stay at or below the cap that is set that's something that people can certainly do and I think that is where your your heading commissioner bot where you want to establish a minimum height for the understory for resiliency purposes and then there would be a cap on the overall height and how a homeowner would want to have more height in addition to the minimum required for the Ender story or would want to have additional height on the floors of the two habitable floors then they go to theb yeah if they wanted to exceed that cap they would have to go to the drb the chair just to clarify that yes and then we really need to bring this in because soon it'll be two hours that we've been on one item when I and so I after this I want there to be a motion if there's an amendment that's Ed by the sponsor and then we're closing out this item so the burm houses could go up to 28 ft depending on the zoning district for rs1 and two for instance for rs1 and two a burm home is 28 feet above base flood elevation plus allowable freeboard and freeboard can go up to 5T and so the understory house would be 3T above that it would be an additional 3 ft you have a motion you'd like to make um through the chair yes just just so we're clear I I think commissioner bot proposed a a minimum height of the underst story um I'm okay with that I would like to keep the additional 3T incentive for building this home because you're not going to if you don't add that 3et toward the understory and you're taking it away let's say you have the maximum of 28 ft and then you're you're forced to build an understory with a certain height and your Florida ceilings go down and then you're like well that's not really an incentive for me I want to have tall ceilings uh or you know that's just my design then I'm going to go to BMS and then it kind of defeats the purpose again I I think um I'm okay with a minimum understory requirement that makes it usable and storm surge protective if you will um but I think the three feet incentive depending on the district or or the Zone uh makes the project sense so I I'll I'll make a motion to require a minimum understory height um and you can come back to us I think between SEC before second reading um as a as an amendment to this item I have a question I really quick quick and then we're calling the vote I because I really want to get there I am not supportive of the three- feet incentive for for me that would be go to drb if you want to have that three feet incentive but um an amendment to the item might be uh the trigger notice to the neighbor so that they neighbors know what's coming I remember at the first land use meeting I had asked if we could do the same thing to burms and the reaction from the city staff was like a that would be massive uh so I'm not saying for everybody but to the underst stories because they are such taller projects yeah yeah and and and and I think the the goal is allow these other stories to be usable so the three feet incentive should be for the under stories uh it shouldn't necessarily be for the other parts of of the homes which I don't think this be translated with what you're saying I is that what the sponsor was saying I believe so yes yeah yeah the three feet is only for the underst story for the underst stories okay yeah um so uh David you recognize just a thought in terms of how this is ends up with a calculation if the height is B is basically measured off your design base flood elevation plus freeboard right so if we say that if you get the 3it in 3 foot incentive 3T in incentive it has to go in the under story it's going to basically lift the base flood elevation that was originally designed on 3 feet higher height is measured from there so what I'm saying what I'm thinking is if you keep the current Heights as required let's just take the example of the 31t with a slope roof roof right you still 31 ft is always going to be from base FL elevation plus your freeboard so now if you include the 3 feet that's the incentive to have a usable under story that pushes that finish Floor Up 3 feet you still measure 31 fet from where that ends up and you end up with the same thing but you don't have to change the height so you're saying measuring from from BF from bfv Plus free board and the 3T and then you calculate from correct and then you calculate the height but but you don't have to change it because it's still going to be 31 ft from wherever that point is and you're going to have the three feet is going to be in the under story all right Tom it it's could you explain that to us yes um what I was is clarifying is that for instance in the RS3 District just as an example what is proposed as a maximum height flat roof for an understory home is 28 ft and that includes the additional 3 feet um if you have a property that exceeds 18,000 Square fet which is basically an estate lot that's similar to rs1 and rs2 then you could go to that height of 31 fet and that is measured from base flood elevation plus allowable Freeport so I think what commissioner Suarez was suggesting is that the ordinance be amended to clarify that the additional three fee which is already included in either the 28 ft for RS3 or 31 ft for rs1 and two um be utilized in the understory area yeah I'm exactly I'm fine with that are we all are we all okay with we still have concerns with that are the neighbors notified the um through the chair if I may under the uh draft ordinance there's a requirement for a posting uh prior to the issuance of a building permit so that neighbors can see what is potentially going to be proposed and to the extent that they want to review the plans or reach out to the neighbor um there will be contact information for property owner and the design team on the posting so that they may reach out to them before the permit is issued okay so the item has been moved by commissioner Suarez that's amended uh I'll second in if there's no other discussion any other questions or discussions no all right seeing none uh all those in favor of the item say I I those oppose all right I'm not leing it I'm sorry I'm not Ling it all right so is that a that's a a okay so a 22 is it moves forward with what type of recommendation well the item was a an amendment uh to the item that is currently a commission so a22 means there's an unfavorable recommendation for the amendment okay so so so the for the amendment okay so do you need a motion on the unamended item or I mean that item is still currently in front of the commission it's going to Second reading the sponsor could on his own bring an amendment at second reading if he wishes to incorporate what this committee has rejected I could do that I'm sorry I I okay I don't I don't understand here Mr attorney tell me again tell me what's your explanation again there was a motion to amend the ordinance that is currently uh going to Second reading at Commission that a that motion failed there wasn't support for it so the ordinance as in current as in its current form is still at commission for second reading okay yes understood okay all right very well uh is there any any anything else we need to do them with this item today no all right okay we're on good moving forward from it just seems it it seems disappointing that we spent two hours and it it seemed like we you know at least commissioner bot was there I I mean commissioner look I mean I think you know we spent two hours it would be a real shame if if that just got wasted um on that you know I I think um we took a vote we took a vote I mean we had the opportunities to amend this item and I you know I just and by the way I foresee this will die a commission I'm just being very transparent I know how to count to five and and I've been experienced enough in this to know that in its current form I don't want you to spend your wheels or waste your time I have no expectation of this passing a commission okay so all right we're moving forward uh from this item we're going to item number two commissioner Suarez you have item number two yeah um again to streamline just to make it quick to streamline the process for a lot of our land use uh committee meetings uh I propose that we have a uh consent agenda similar to what we have at commission um a lot of the a lot of these issues can be resolved um in as part of like a homework for some of our land use boards and if there is an issue um one of the members can easily pull it from consent so um I'd like to explore what my colleagues um think about that all right uh Mr director do um do land use Sports currently have the ability to have a consent agenda if they so choose yes as we noted in the memo um the land use boards have implemented a consent type of agenda in the past um it has been somewhat challenging because all the items that go before our L use boards are technically public hearing so in order for an item to be considered as a consent item there's three conditions that have to be met one is that the applicant has to agree to all the conditions set forth in the draft development order number two there is no public comment on the proposal and number three all members of the uh land use board have to agree to foro a presentation um and so the um L use boards could implement this right now um if they if they so choose how would it work for the public hearing because that that is one of the key things uh with uh with with these hearings before the land use boards it's the Public's ability to be heard uh and and applicants uh before land use boards applications before land use boards as I understand correct me if I'm wrong the these are all public hearing items right okay um how would it happen then the the the public hearing would be all lumped in one public hearing for all the consent items rather than the public hearings being heard individually what we've done in the past is when we've had very lengthy agendas um we've reached out to applicants to see who agrees with the conditions in the draft order and for those applicants that have agreed to the conditions we would then create a consent agenda at the beginning of the agenda and then the chair would call each one and if there was no public comment and if the members of the board all uh agreed that they did not need a presentation then the item could be moved and seconded and approved if there was public comment or if one of the members wanted to hear a presentation then it would be moved off the consent agenda okay so there's the ability already to do this it sounds like there are times when you guys are doing this already um and would this mandated on the committees or would this uh in essence just allow them to have this if there is the opportunity or the will if there was an amendment to the ldrs it would basically codify a practice that the committee already has uh in practice um and but again any codification would have to be subject to these three conditions because these are all public hearings all right so it's happening all right so um you know I don't have an issue with this it creates efficiency any other uh comments from the de no other comments from the de members of the public wishing to speak on this item Daniel welcome you have two minutes to speak thank you commissioner Sor your mic is not own earlier um I actually want Daniel Sado with Miami Design preservation League I think this is a good idea we've suggested this previously consent agendas for certain types of items could be helpful even honestly with the discussion we just had I I just was thinking maybe certain um housing items or or other things that are sort of minimal could be possibly done via consent sometimes as an example there's a single family homeowner that comes and like there's not really much like at HP board there's not that much um controversy and it could possibly be approved on consent and make it easier so if the sponsor is interested maybe we could work together and figure out some of these uh types of projects that can help save time and streamline the process thank you sponsor would you be interested in working with Daniel Caldo and mdpl always okay great so so I look forward to that any other members of the public wishing to speak on this item Mr attorney any members of the public via Zoom no sir no okay seeing seeing no other comments is there a motion on the item I'll second the item uh can we show this adopted by I see the before we vote Mr director yes I just need to know what action you are moving do you want us to draft an ldr amendment for referral to the planning board or is this something that was this a dual referral no no this was not a dual referral okay so then it needs to come back let's keep um why don't why don't we bring back a potential ldr amendment that we could recommend to the city commission for them referral to the plan board okay so we'll bring this back to the land use committee with the draft ordinance can we show that done by acclamation yes okay let's move on to item number three Mr director let's introduce the item okay Mr chair item number three is a discussion discuss future programming of the West Lots commissioner David Suare is this is your item you're welcome to introduce it thank you Mr chair uh look I I think the West lots have have been underutilized um and I wanted to just get some ideas on this Commission on what we could potentially do uh with these Lots um you know there's a lot of there's a lot of talk about doing nothing there's a lot of talk about maybe potentially making them into at least a park so if you want to take your dog to the park um you don't have to worry about him running on to Collins Avenue and getting you know hurt um or your children so um Mr rebar if you want to have any ideas that you prepared or um specifically maybe a park in in the area yeah you're sure I could I could offer some some suggestions now as as you probably know that there's eight lots and right now one has been designated to the parks department and that's where the skate park is and where the future skate park or pump track expansion will take place as part of the go and adjacent to that to the east is North North Beach Oceanside Park um and there's been a lot of talks but the rest of those lots are not part of the parks parks department so there's all these conversations from an economic development standpoint what is the best use of it to meet our parking needs to meet other City needs now of course you want if the policy decision was to go ahead and assign another lot or two or three to the parks department um we we have some ideas uh it would be smaller scale things we're not going to fit a full-size soccer field on those lots we're not going to f fit a full siiz baseball field but there are a lot of other things that can be done during um different Master planning there was a talk about having active Recreation there because you have such a large beautiful passive Park than the beach to the east how many lots are just grass it's just under not eight but is there eight total or eight total that's under U underutilized or eight total the total stretches I um in in I believe in your your packet here you'll have eight and then um seven and eight remain vacant um two five and six are used for municipal parking lots um then I mentioned the skate park you have the ol Lo cabin site you have so so how many just have grass on it vacant I believe it's three and A2 three and a half I Le okay but there's different things happening and you have one of them that's vacant I have that's the half we have the skate park on the half and then we have the other half for expansion and we have the Botanical Garden composting site up there so there's some temporary uses be taking place there as well it's um so even if it's vacant it might have a temporary use other than than the parking got it so to get back into what can we do what things we can do are things that we talk about a lot here pickle ball paddle quartz small-sided soofer soccer those types of things like a five on five three on three soccer probably you you 12 12 and under soccer or 11 and under because we have to worry about you know we have Collins Avenue there we'd have to have a nety you got to keep the ball in there you need room for spectators so we have to be we have to be careful with how large of a field we go well but there's there's opportunities for sure I I I I mean I think like a soccer field there on one of those three and a half Lots would be excellent added benefit to that community of North Beach I mean where's where's the nearest soccer field in North Beach from there we have um Normandy we have a multi-use field at Normandy Isle we have a multi-use field at um Fairway we also have joint use of biscan Beach Elementary um in the evening but a true true soccer only field they're all they're they're multi-use we don't have much you we're not we're not there's there's two in Flamingo park or just one right that's that's very popular Flamingo Park we have two areas we have the football soccer stadium and then we have what we call the soccer cage Which is closest to City Hall here on on Meridian and that would be in the northeast corner okay I don't know how my colleagues would feel about I think I'd love a soccer field there um at least on some on least the other half perhaps of the um lot that's owned by Parks thank you commissioner uh let me just you know make some comments here I very strongly feel that anything that we do on the west lots and this is this is a a motion I made a while back at the finance committee under the previous composition um that that it' be Community Driven that we reach out to the community and I don't know if you remembered this John that we reach out to the community that we have a meeting that we canvas the North Beach Community we have a lot of community there um that that you know they are our residents they are our constituents um but they need to be engaged and they won't engage Us in the way that we are accustomed to but that we need to reach out we need to knock on their doors we need to speak to them in their language we need to ask them you know do you have children do you have elderly what is it that's missing what would you what is the need of the community what would you like to see here um and I and and I would love for you know I would love a a sager field I think that's great uh but I would love I would love for it to be the desire of the community and so and so I think that Outreach is is very important um the other thing I would say is I'll tell you what I don't want to see there I don't want to see commercial activity I don't want us to be leasing out these slots I don't want us to I don't want to see and any any concrete going in there I feel that this should be almost um a continuation of um of the open space park across the street and this should almost be ancillary to to that um and so and so for from from my perspective you know we should be expanding the recreational space using this as as recreational space and anything that's placed their ultim L um you know spe through specific public engagement the way we've done the the open house at um at the Southshore Community Center the way the commissioner B is organizing one for for the house up that that we purchased up in North Beach I think we kind of need to do a reverse open house where we reach out to those neighbors we go to their doors we ask them what is it that You' like to see here and use that as uh as guidance for us commissioner Dominguez and then commissioner bot thank you so much uh thank you for bringing this item up I absolutely love it and I completely agree what uh the chair is saying is 100% true we need to get community input to see what it is they' like there because maybe pickle paa is so popular here but the people up there only want soccer um some of the Lots the ones that are paved and are currently parking should remain that way because we have the North Beach parking uh item that's going to be in effect next year and I think those slots are going to be a lot Fuller than we've seen them in the past and in another one of the Lots I I think it might be six is the kitty campus is that where it is you said the cat one the kitty camp cat I believe that's three three okay hold on let me see on 82nd okay so I just want to make sure that that stays um as it is and I know that ocean rest is using one of the Lots also is number one there may be talks that they move into the house on Collins or maybe not a and also there is a future project within North Beach Oceanside Park that would would provide space for the county beach operations Parks Rec operations and ocean rescue okay and then there is that conversation which I heard which I'm not a part of with that the house on Collins okay but um all in all this is a great item very exciting I really like it thank you and I'm going to recognize commissioner bot yeah I'll Echo everything that my colleagues have said so far Community input is going to be critical we can't just dictate what goes in there um these Parcels are sacrosanct to North Beach and we need to treat them accordingly I um I would be interested also in hearing from uh community members about other uses are recreational in a different way um you know arts and learning spaces perhaps uh Community Resources in different ways not permanent structures I don't want to see concrete board there either but you know having kind of funky popup container um Villages perhaps that that meet a need that may not be addressed so um I would be open to that as well um if if I may all four all four the public AR um chair um we we spoke about it and then we were triple booked that night we had to postpone the meeting then summer came here we are any guard rails you want to put on on me and staff for the public for the public outreach are we talking about two lots is this going to be just an a blank page that we have this conversation because we're talking about we'd like to keep parking I already you know we're hearing that we we really don't want concrete I don't know how that affects paddle or pedal or pickle ball because that would be an improved surface anything more you want to any any more Direction you want to give me or just really let's just go out to the community and get some input make sure we protect the um the kitty campus okay yeah or or find a different home for them yeah but they can't be just booted out but commissioner SM I think this is great because you know this is a great asset that we have it's just sitting there well and the public being is being deprived of of the opportunity from having improvements there it's not just Improvement to the Lots the improvements there are to the Improvement of the quality of life of the residents of that area and you know this is some of our most culturally diverse but also some of our most you know limited income individuals that are living there and we could be providing them with amenities for that can enhance their quality of life and so uh I love the direction you're going with this is it's it's consistent with a vision that I have as well and uh and I love to see what the community would say I don't think we need you know we've said this in in the past let's reach out to the community we don't need Consultants to reach out to the community this is what we do we are public servants we are government we should be able to reach out to the community get their feedback without needs to hire Consultants or anything like that commissioner Suarez thank you how about we send out a survey uh an open Ed survey we don't we don't put any I mean maybe we could multiple choice and other uh but how about we send a survey out to the North Beach ZIP code and ask hey what would you like to see on here we we could start with something like that and then go on to an open house set up some tents and I think I love the idea of the survey I love the idea about hosting uh let's let's host a picnic a community picnic at one of the lots and let's find a day where we can actually do Outreach let's go out to these to the neighbors of these areas maybe we can engage some of our schools you know to help us with this let's go out to some of these areas knock on doors of people that we because let's be real the people who are going to come to respond to to a survey which is great I think we should do that but those are the people who we already engage with and they're already in our mailing list the people who are going to find out about a community of to come and give us their input are also the people who we already engage with but there's more to the community that's there and again because of language barriers or they may have two or three jobs they might not come out to these things but but those lots are there for them and I think we need to actively go knock on their doors and ask them how they see this uh being activated to fill whatever voids they feel may be existing there are we with that with those three approaches yeah okay great does someone want so do we want to bring this back before the land use committee how much time do you anticipate you'll need to do this type of Outreach let's say three months yeah you right now the next few weeks we're talking about the December holidays um we have a lot of blue zones things happening in January so we could do the survey during that but I'm thinking February then hit the ground survey January hit the ground February March come back so so come back to March or April do we want to say maybe cuz that way we have three months you know maybe one for the survey one for the event one for outreach door to door and then we come back in April with substantive feedback that we can consider sometimes March is busy in the city too yes some sometimes it is sometimes it is is that good uh colleagues yeah if I might just John um the blue zones thing is the beginning of February not January oh move okay the the big presentation that okay okay bye B thank you for the corre all right I have to say by the way all of you who are working on the on the blue zones I just want to commend the of us in Costa Rica for Robert's birthday and and they are so proud that they are part of blue zones and how they promote and how it contributes to their quality of life I'm so proud that our City's engaged with it so yeah well if I might through the chair through since you te that up I have to give a major shout out to Cindy Casanova who I thought this would be like a little Pro that she might help us organize and it is an enormous undertaking it's a second full-time job and so she's turning blue she is turning blue she is true blue blue zone so major prop she Rael she needs a big rise just say We'll second that um thank you commissioner U members of the public wishing to speak on this item seeing none in the chambers Mr attorney are there any on Zoom um I see Mr Larry Schaefer and Miss Elizabeth Laton Mr Schaefer welcome uh please unmute yourself you have two minutes to speak on this item good good afternoon I um wanted to bring up an idea that I had for the former Log Cabin parcel on the west Lots um my idea is a temporary artist village built from container structures the North Beach yard was going to be built from containers and things like food trucks that were temporary uh my proposal is to build something like the North Beach yard but with a greater focus on living and working space for artists uh there would be some commercial space uh basically areas so the artists can sell their works it maybe a cafe coffee shop and so on but not as much commercial use as the North Beach yard got approved years ago um and I think there would be a strong emphasis on providing affordable housing for artists that would be interested in living in a dedicated artist community on the west Lots um my proposal would include container homes container Studios for working artists and other temporary structures that be removed if the city wanted to develop the West Lots or wanted to replace the project with a park or anything else so we're not talking about putting concrete block structures here we're talking about something that could be built uh effectively and efficiently and then removed later if the needs of the city in the neighborhood change um I know there was a recent discussion of bead vendors and artists vending on the beach um I think that we'd be glad to have all of those artists and vendors inside our artist village selling whatever it is that they like that's considered art um and I think that this is something that we could bring to North Beach would actually make us more competitive with some hipper areas like Winwood where artists have helped to revitalize an entire area which used to be former industrial space um I don't think that all the West Lots should be covered by an artist village maybe one West lot maybe one and a half um and I'd like to see if my neighbors this is the first time I really shared this idea with others so interested to see if my neighbors ALS like this idea as well thank you very much and thank you Mr schaer that's the benefit of having Community meetings where we can all voice our Adas and hear from each other commissioner domiguez and then I'll go back to public comments uh just quickly um there is an artist village made out of containers in Las Vegas and um so if the city wants to look at a template on how they do it uh artists live in the containers there's also some that are cafes and it's a a very unique project in the a section of town thank you um let's proceed with the next uh speaker Mr attorney uh Miss Elizabeth Laton welcome Elizabeth please unmute yourself you have two minutes to speak hi good afternoon again um Larry I like your idea um I think I think the community and I appreciate you all reaching out to us because these are our lots and you know there's been so many controversies over the years I think if we could all have Community input it would really be appreciated and we'd be able to make something work but one thing I would ask is that before anything is done can can y'all please clean them up I don't know how I mean they are complete junk um they are waiting on a hurricane to just toss rebar and rusted things they're they're they're unsightly it's it contributes to the decline in the area um their Vines growing up some of the old she eating that's that's covering the um fence I I'm not quite sure why you know the rest of the beach has these beautiful areas and we've got eight lots that can be beautiful and we can utilize them right now but the city is using them they're cover it's they need cleaning up and maintaining and that should be first um and I just appreciate if y'all could take that into consideration thank you Elizabeth thanks any other members of the public on Zoom wishing to speak on this item Mr attorney there are no okay and I just like to confirm with staff um through the geobond projects I believe 20 the 2018 geobond was there there was $5 million have been allocated um to Spur investments in Green Space and open Park areas on the west lots are those funds still there yes they are Mr chair there's $1 million as part of trench one and then the other four million would come as part of trench two okay all right and we and we still have the funding for the log uh cabin to reconstruct the Log Cabin yes we do and we actually I know we have an item at commission for an update that hasn't occurred yet but loog cabin we're already securing a consultant to begin that design consultant a consultant to design the new lock cabin it looks like the Old Log Cabin okay what is occurring with the current Log Cabin it's it's in store all the components are in storage okay and so we're going to we're going to use the pieces of the Old Log Cabin to design and build a new log cabin is this what we're doing simplistically yes I like simple answers yes okay all right um okay uh I don't know if that's the best use of those dollars uh but um all right so we so so I guess the point is there is funding available if we do go out to the community when we when we do go out to the community and we get feedback we have Gob dollars available today to improve uh these West Lots yes sir okay perfect all right any action that that is needed on this item I believe you the motion was to continue this to the April 2025 meeting meting to allow for the Outreach okay perfect acclamation perfect thank you we'll continue item number four to the next meeting and let's introduce item number five Mr director let's read item number five into the record okay Mr chair item number five is an ordinance to create F height and setback incentives for non-transient residential uses for properties fronting 6th Street in the cps2 zoning District commissioner Suarez I'm just going to withraw the iagree I don't want to waste any more time you sure you want to withdraw the item yeah and no one no one here is going to be in support of it so I I don't want to waste any more time okay all right item number six uh commissioner vot is your item um yeah so I will let Jose do most of the heavy lifting here but this is um to address the issue that we have with um both delivery trucks and um ride share Vehicles stopping you know in the middle of the street when we don't have loading zones available to them or designated drop off or pickup spots and really snarling traffic you see it on Collins down here in South Beach you see it in um on Indian Creek heading south where um traffic is snarled because you've got an UPS truck that doesn't pull into the building um you know um so there there are a couple of different aspects of this and I wanted to get um some information from the city about what we've been doing what we can do better and um to take the two elements of it separately the um uh the loading zones for the commercial vehicles and the pickup ride shair uh pickup and drop off points okay thank you Mr chair uh committee members Jose Gonzalez Transportation director and interim parking director uh so I will start with the freight loaning Zone the topic of freight loaning zone so about 10 years ago uh the city passed legislation that allowed the creation of on street parking spaces dedicated for Freight um loading and unloading and we call those Freight loading zones or flz's currently so this was 10 years ago when the program started at this time we have 100 about 107 uh flz's located throughout the city most of them are located in either South Beach or north beach and um uh flz is comprised of several parking spaces it's not just one so the 107 flz's actually consume almost 400 on street parking spaces uh in our city so these fzs are in effect for certain times of the day usually about 30 minutes and they're shared by by the different uh purveyors that have to apply and be issued a permit in order to be in order to be able to park in in that L flz the parking depart uh Department strictly enforces flz's we have a flz detail if you will that consists about three to five uh parking enforcement uh Specialists that go throughout the city and look for FLC uh violations um something that we also do very periodically is look at our flc's where they're located their size their usage uh or uh utilization to determine if any tweaks need to be made we work with the purveyors one-on-one uh we've worked recently with Amazon with um UPS to uh to try to address their their concerns and their requests some of these companies uh rack up quite a number of violations citations so we work with them to try to um address their their needs and to really ensure that the program is working effectively and the um FLC spaces are used for their intended purposes um so there's two types of violations that can occur related to an flz it could be a situation where a vehicle is parked in the flz space that is not authorized to be there uh in those cases uh a citation is issued and the amount of the of the citation is $74 that's $74 and then there are other cases where there are trucks that are just blocking a travel Lane they're blocking traffic flow or the public rideway in those cases we issue a citation of a higher amount it's $124 and it's issued for obstructing um uh for obstructing traffic and then in addition we also issue a RightWay fine in the amount of $500 and that's for the first offense a $500 fine um there are uh there is an issue that at at least has been brought to my attention with regard to those RightWay fines uh some of them do not have much legal standing and they're being dismissed and it's a little glitch in the code that we may need to take care of and just you know clean up so we can work with our city attorney's office um to to try to clean that up so that those right of way violations that we're issuing to trucks that are blocking travel Lanes can have some more legal standing and in terms of uh the number of of citations that that we've issued uh in the memo we included a a small table that compares uh fiscal year 23 with last fiscal year 24 and what we see is we see an optic in the number of FLC citations issu from 7,241 uh last uh or fiscal year 23 to 9,461 citations issued last fiscal year and in terms of right of way VI violations issued um there were 767 issued in fiscal year 23 and 1,562 so more than double the amount in fiscal year 24 um as I mentioned we're always looking for ways of maximizing the utilization of our flz's for their intended purpose uh one of the um I think Innovative strategies that we're going to be looking at in the coming months is to is to better manage our curbs there are Technologies out there that use automation to to just more efficiently manage our very limited curb space through the use of cameras and different and lprs and different technologies that um can uh uh more efficiently enforce if someone is parked where they're not supposed to be parked in an flz curbside flz uh space for example uh there are other cities that uh have this technology already it's it's it's out there and I think uh it's incumbent upon us to to look towards those uh in innovative solutions to try to enforce um more efficiently and um and if you'd like we can pause here and talk about flz's or goes to the right share aspect yes um so I I'm actually I I'm very eager to hear you come back and maybe we can continue this um so that you can come back and give us an update on those different technologies that other cities are using but one of the things that's really a problem is beyond the flz's and whether or not people are abusing them um is when trucks just park in the middle you of a travel Lane and what are we doing to you know we know when it happens we know where it happens it's rush hour that we feel the impact you know if it's the middle of the afternoon nobody's there it's not as big of a deal but I I Traverse that Corridor going north uh from north to south all the time and traffic is always bottled up in the same couple of blocks because there's always a delivery truck if we know that's the pattern um what can we do whether it's working with the delivery trucks and making sure they pull into the buildings or enforce you know have have police officers out there um writing tickets and violations I know we have four people who are doing just this specifically in the the freight loading zones but this is a little bit different and so could we not um Target these these locations and work to try to alleviate the traffic snarls that they cause and how absolutely commissioner we do we do do that uh it becomes a cat and mouse game you know our en for officers are out there they may enforce uh 10 minutes later the same driver may be doing the same thing a few blocks down I mean we encountered that all the time as a matter of fact there recently there was a case where one driver was cited multiple times aot so in in that case we did reach out to the company that that driver works for because that's just unacceptable um you know we're trying to change behavior and there's there's got to be some sort of penalty but if if these drivers are just just uh ignoring them that that's an issue so by working oneon-one with uh these companies we we've been doing that as I mentioned with UPS Amazon and um fatex as well and and why can't um the drivers pull into the buildings well sometimes they they physically can't because the clearance isn't there in their portare in the building's Port ofare there's a variety of reasons sometimes the building just doesn't allow them to even though they could be accommodated um and this happens in a lot of the older buildings that don't have their uh and it happens in new buildings as well that don't have they're loading a dedicated loading on loading area and it it needs to happen from the RightWay and then we we try to work with these companies to of course we're not going to have these loading zones on every block but we try to strategically locate them in a way where it makes sense for the drivers they may need to pull out their Dolly and go a few blocks to make their delivery iies but um you know it's it's really a a case-by casee basis and it happens all throughout the city um we also uh we're considering doing a workshop of sorts with the industry like an industry Workshop just to uh really raise awareness on this issue because it it it is we've seen you know an uptick in the amount of illegal activity or just illegally blocking travel Lanes so just trying to uh I remember there was one that was done years ago in this room uh with the industry and just you know share with them uh our rules our regulations and ask them to be um good good partners and if if I if I can call on um Albert assistant director Albert if You' like to add anything good afternoon Alberto Ventura assistant parking director we try to always meet with the purveyors with their management teams to advise them on what's going on try to help them help us help them because at the end of the day then they come back not knowing that they ow a 100,000 in fines and they find out months later so we always try to meet with them to see how we can help them hear them out if they ask us for additional Freight loaning zones additional loaning zones we look at the area and we can accommodate them we go ahead and accommodate them do we um how does parking and transportation work with the police in monitoring monitoring this you want to speak to that again we have a crew of parking enforcement officers that that we ask every day to go out to different zones that's part of parking that's not police police also we allocate some funds for them to assist us with with that with those duties as well and are we getting a good bank for our buck on those funds well the lately the numbers are are low it's something that we'll have to meet with PD and see where is it that they're sending the officers and what else we can do how much money do we pay uh allocate for Police Department enforcement I believe a 100,000 a year we first allocate 50,000 and then if they come back before the end of the year T us for more then we we proceed to give them the additional 50,000 and do we do we have um tracking of how much how many um violations that has netted us I mean would we be better served by hiring two more PES in the in the parking Department instead it would be a possibility that we that's something we're looking at so can can you come back to us with that as well when you come back absolutely there's actually also a very similar item on the finance and economic resiliency committee agenda about parking enforcement and this particular item of you know the the police uh efforts the supplemental efforts and the tow trucks following the parking enforcement officers and we have some some stats they're just not part of this they weren't part of this item but we'll we'll be happy to come back and share those as well commissioner I I fully agree from where you're coming from I think given given the declining performance uh uh from the partnership between police and and and parking um that perhaps it could be better to consider reallocating that $100,000 to hire the additional parking enforcement specialist that can be more dedicated more focused so happy to continue design of to the next month and uh and hopefully we'll have a more comprehensive enforcement program for the flz's and the allei zones uh to for staff to present at the next meeting so then um if you want to switch over to ride chair I'll jump over to right here just very briefly in the interest of time so during this uh art week for the first time we actually partnered with Uber and uh we created spaces some of our passenger loading zones that were underutilized spaces in front of hotels for example we created a handful of those and um Uber was able to geofence those spaces on their platform so that uh and and uh the the locations included the convention center right uh on Convention Center Drive between 18th and 19th Street the Goodtime Hotel uh and the one hotel as well those three locations we wanted to start with a small number and then expand you know the pilot uh will be meeting with with Uber to go over the the stats we were monitoring those those uh locations just because of all the you know the the the grid lock um so potentially under those extreme you know gridlock conditions um the pilot is not going to be as effective as during just normal you know day-to-day um but um Uber has done this with other cities and it's worked very well the way it works is when somebody wants to request a ride if you're in one of next to one of those uh geofence zones it will tell you where to go to get picked up uh by by Uber or Lyft we can also potentially expand the program to lift as well um that had never uh been done before it was the first time that we did it and again it was during art week so um a good test case probably worst case scenario as well uh but we we hope to do more of that in Partnership with Uber and you're meeting with them this week if I recall correctly okay so um I would love it to be expanded to LT as well and the other thing I'd like to contemplate is the um Flex spaces that we have for taxi cabs if we could consider and I don't know if this is within our purview um but consider co- designating them Flex spaces for C uh taxi cabs and also ride share pickup drop off zones absolutely there's actually from the last commission meeting a resolution that directs us to to work with the county on that the county regulates uh ta taxi cap Service uh and operations uh but we'll we'll be working with them to see what opportunities there are for that Flex the ride share and I know they're competing economic interests but if there's a way to kind of capture them and and put them into that that geocache location template that you're that you're testing out that would be great yes so through the chair I'd like to make a motion to continue this I mean do you need until February since it's the holidays to get this done or when do you think you'd be ready for January there's a January meeting is janary is it I think it's the 16th January 16th is our January meeting we could come back with an update okay for the 16th make a motion to continue to January 16th okay all right thank you thank you Jose perfect thank you we show that by acclamation um we didn't open up the floor to public comment but is there members of the public to speak on this item uh seeing none in person there's one on Zoom um yes we have uh Mr Wayne on Zoom Wayne welcome Happy Holidays ladies and gentlemen um Wayne from South the fifth how are you um I really like Tanya's suggestions and ideas uh they were pretty much right on um the cab services are a dinosaur industry and the faster we get those spots to ride share or other utilization would be in the best interest of Miami Beach um additionally um uh it's a it's a catch 22 on on parking regulations so uh five six seven years ago the city Administration or I should say the the commission um did away with I think everybody in parking and these guys were really good I mean they were out there hustling and they moved them to other divisions thanks to one or two Commissioners who work for their jobs but um we we lack uh parking uh people um I like the idea of Technology I'm a little concerned that um getting a ticket while I'm standing in a No Parking Zone I don't know if there's like a time frame that you could stand without being um uh impacted by a fine uh additionally I'm very worried about not so much the trucks they don't get in my way so much but the buses we we lack turnoff areas for buses on Alton Road and other man thorough fars you know comes to mind almost continuously I'm I'm stuck behind a bus that's parked um it's 11th in Alon the turn for uh Whole Foods uh from the north on the on the west side of the street is consistently stopped for buses that at that station right in front of Whole Foods on Alton um and there's no turnoff so that blocks traffic for you know a couple minutes so um that's what I think about the traffic of Miami Beach and and what we could do with the spaces more effectively thanks thank you Wayne and thank you for your participation any other members of the public wishing to speak on this item Mr attorney no thank you uh with that uh we can show this item being continued to the January 16th uh city um landy's committee meeting and colleagues um my co-sponsors are not here for items seven and eight so what I'm going to do I'm going to continue those as well to the January 16th City commission meeting with that uh land use committee land use committee I'm so sorry L's committee meeting with that is there any other sorry which item are you here to speak on on which item okay if if you're please reach out to us I'm happy to meet I'm happy to meet with you uh but I we we speak we allow the public to speak on items once they're before us uh so with that is there any other uh business before us for the good of the order with no other businesses this meeting Mee is adjourned thank you all no just going to say thank you for cheering all year you've been terrific and thank you to the city Administration for all of your hard work and coming before us thanks to the residents thank you everybody happy holidays I EO colleague just said thank you Laura thank you and and I'd be remiss not to recognize the fabulous work of our planning director Thomas Mooney for our assistant City Manager David Martinez and of our chief Deputy City attorney Nick cerges who doesn't join us today but our City attorney Rick topico who uh who who leads the the city so thank you all for your hard work and to the community for always participating thank you