1 CITY OF
2 LAND USE AND ZONING
3 COMMITTEE
4
5
6 Proceedings held on Tuesday, October 7,
7 2008, commencing at 5:00 p.m., City Hall, Council
8 Chambers, 1st Floor,
9 Diane M. Tropia, a Notary Public in and for the State
10 of
11
12 PRESENT:
13 ART GRAHAM, Chair.
STEPHEN JOOST, Vice Chair.
14 RICHARD CLARK, Committee Member.
JOHNNY GAFFNEY, Committee Member.
15 RAY HOLT, Committee Member.
JACK WEBB, Committee Member.
16 DON REDMAN, Committee Member.
17
ALSO PRESENT:
18
ART SHAD, City Council Member.
19 WARREN JONES, City Council Member.
JOHN CROFTS, Deputy Director, Planning Dept.
20 SEAN KELLY, Chief, Current Planning.
KEN AVERY, Planning and Development Dept.
21 FOLKS HUXFORD, Zoning Administrator.
22 MARILYN ALLEN, Legislative Assistant.
MERRIANE LAHMEUR, Legislative Assistant.
23
- - -
24
25
Diane M.
Tropia,
2
1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 October 7, 2008 5:00 p.m.
3 - - -
4 THE CHAIRMAN: Good afternoon, everyone.
5 This is the Land Use and Zoning Committee
6 meeting. Let the record show it's about
7 5 o'clock on Tuesday, October the 7th.
8 And if we can start over here on our right,
9 let's introduce ourselves.
10 MR. CROFTS: My name is John Crofts,
11 Planning and Development Department.
12 MR. KELLY: Sean Kelly, Planning and
13 Development.
14 MR. AVERY: Ken Avery, Planning and
15 Development.
16 MR. HUXFORD: Folks Huxford, Planning and
17 Development.
18 MR. REDMAN: Don Redman, Council
19 District 4.
20 MR. HOLT: Ray Holt, District 11.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: Art Graham, District 13.
22 MR. JOOST: Stephen Joost, Group 3
23 at-large.
24 MR. CLARK: Richard Clark, District 3.
25 THE CHAIRMAN: Now, we have a pretty full
Diane M.
Tropia,
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1 agenda today, so I'll let those of you in the
2 audience know what we're going to do.
3 First, we're going to go through the
4 agenda, and I'm going to tell you everything
5 that's going to be deferred so if you're here
6 for one of those items to be deferred, you don't
7 have to sit here for three hours before we get
8 to your bill and you realize we're not taking
9 any action on it.
10 And then after that, we're going to start
11 with a special request. And we don't have any
12 visiting council members here yet, so we'll
13 start at the beginning of the agenda and work
14 our way through until we get a special request.
15 We will be taking a break probably around
16 the 7 o'clock hour. Our court reporter needs to
17 rest her little fingers after about two hours,
18 so we'll take a break and we'll probably
19 actually break for dinner. We'll take a break
20 about 7:00, so 7:30, and then we'll continue the
21 meeting after that.
22 That all being said, top of page 2,
23 2005-1228 is deferred. 2006-24 is deferred.
24 2006-220 is deferred.
25 Top of page 3. 2006-658 is deferred.
Diane M.
Tropia,
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1 2007-581 is deferred. 2007-1086 is deferred.
2 Top of page 4. 2008-236 is deferred.
3 2008-314 is deferred.
4 Top of page 5. 2008-414 is deferred.
5 Page 6. -416 is deferred and -418 is
6 deferred.
7 We skip over to page 8, top of the page.
8 2008-541 is deferred. -542 is deferred. At the
9 bottom of the page, -546 is deferred.
10 Bottom of page 9. 2008-549 is deferred.
11 Top of page 10. -550 is deferred. -552 is
12 deferred.
13 Then we continue on to -- and continuing on
14 until the bottom of page 22, 2008-799 is
15 deferred. -800 is deferred. -801 is deferred.
16 -802 is deferred. -803 is deferred. -833 is
17 second and rereferred. -840, -841, and -842 are
18 all second and rereferred.
19 That all being said, let's go back to the
20 agenda and start doing some work.
21 (Dr. Gaffney enters the proceedings.)
22 THE CHAIRMAN: Top of page 4. 2007-1350.
23 We'll open the public hearing.
24 We don't have any speakers, so we'll
25 continue that public hearing till November the
Diane M.
Tropia,
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1 3rd.
2 That's one of the things I meant to say.
3 For those of you that normally come to these
4 meetings, our first meeting in November is
5 normally November 4th, but since that's Election
6 Day and a lot of the councilmembers have other
7 commitments, we have moved that day forward to
8 November 3rd. So make sure you have that on
9 your calendar. We'll meet November 3rd at
10 5 o'clock. I just want for everybody to know
11 that so there's no confusion. We're actually
12 meeting on that Monday.
13 Okay. Top of page 5, committee members,
14 2008-413. We have a substitute.
15 MR. CLARK: Move the sub.
16 MR. JOOST: Second.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: The sub's been moved and
18 seconded.
19 Any discussion on the sub?
20 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response.)
21 THE CHAIRMAN: Seeing none, all in favor
22 say aye.
23 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: Aye.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: Those opposed.
25 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response.)
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1 THE CHAIRMAN: By your action, you approved
2 the sub.
3 MR. CLARK: Move to rerefer as substituted.
4 MR. JOOST: Second.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: It's been moved and seconded
6 to rerefer to LUZ as substituted.
7 Any discussion on the rereferral?
8 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response.)
9 THE CHAIRMAN: Seeing none, please open the
10 ballot.
11 (Committee ballot opened.)
12 MR. GRAHAM: (Votes yea.)
13 MR. JOOST: (Votes yea.)
14 MR. CLARK: (Votes yea.)
15 DR. GAFFNEY: (Votes yea.)
16 MR. HOLT: (Votes yea.)
17 (Committee ballot closed.)
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Close the ballot and record
19 the vote.
20 MS. LAHMEUR: Five yeas, zero nays.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: By your action, you have
22 rereferred 2008-413.
23 (Mr. Webb enters the proceedings.)
24 THE CHAIRMAN: Bottom of the page.
25 2008-415. There's a substitute.
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1 MR. CLARK: Move the sub.
2 MR. HOLT: Second.
3 THE CHAIRMAN: The sub's been moved and
4 seconded.
5 Any discussion on the substitute?
6 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response.)
7 THE CHAIRMAN: Seeing none, all in favor
8 say aye.
9 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: Aye.
10 THE CHAIRMAN: Those opposed.
11 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response.)
12 THE CHAIRMAN: By your action, you have
13 approved the substitute.
14 MR. HOLT: Move to rerefer as substituted.
15 MR. CLARK: Second.
16 THE CHAIRMAN: It's been moved and seconded
17 to rerefer to LUZ as substituted.
18 Any discussion on the rereferral?
19 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response.)
20 THE CHAIRMAN: Seeing none, please open the
21 ballot.
22 (Committee ballot opened.)
23 MR. GRAHAM: (Votes yea.)
24 MR. JOOST: (Votes yea.)
25 MR. CLARK: (Votes yea.)
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Tropia,
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1 DR. GAFFNEY: (Votes yea.)
2 MR. HOLT: (Votes yea.)
3 MR. REDMAN: (Votes yea.)
4 (Committee ballot closed.)
5 THE CHAIRMAN: Close the ballot and record
6 the vote
7 MS. LAHMEUR: Six yeas, zero nays.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: By your action, you have
9 rereferred -415 as substituted.
10 (Mr. Shad enters the proceedings.)
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Middle of page 6. -417. We
12 have a substitute.
13 MR. CLARK: Move the sub.
14 MR. HOLT: Second.
15 THE CHAIRMAN: The sub's been moved and
16 seconded.
17 Any discussion on the sub?
18 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response.)
19 THE CHAIRMAN: Seeing none, please open the
20 ballot.
21 I'm sorry. All in favor of the sub signify
22 by saying aye.
23 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: Aye.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: Those opposed.
25 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response.)
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1 THE CHAIRMAN: By your action, you approved
2 the substitute.
3 MR. CLARK: Move to rerefer.
4 MR. HOLT: Second.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: It's been moved to rerefer
6 to LUZ as substituted and seconded.
7 Any discussion on the rereferral?
8 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response.)
9 THE CHAIRMAN: Seeing none, please open the
10 ballot.
11 (Committee ballot opened.)
12 MR. GRAHAM: (Votes yea.)
13 MR. JOOST: (Votes yea.)
14 MR. CLARK: (Votes yea.)
15 DR. GAFFNEY: (Votes yea.)
16 MR. HOLT: (Votes yea.)
17 MR. REDMAN: (Votes yea.)
18 (Committee ballot closed.)
19 THE CHAIRMAN: Close the ballot and record
20 the vote.
21 MS. LAHMEUR: Six yeas, zero nays.
22 THE CHAIRMAN: By your action, you have
23 rereferred 2008-417.
24 Top of page 7. We're going to open the
25 public hearing on -419 and -420.
Diane M. Tropia,
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1 (Mr. Mann approaches the podium.)
2 MR. MANN: Mr. Chairman, Charles Mann, 165
4 Women's
5 This is a center that offers post and
6 prenatal care. It's a benefit to the
7 neighborhood. We've worked through it prior to
8 this, before -- this was one of the items that
9 was rereferred to DCA, and I'll just stand by
10 for questions.
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mann.
12 Any other speakers?
13 AUDIENCE MEMBERS: (No response.)
14 THE CHAIRMAN: Seeing no other speakers,
15 we're going to close the public hearing on -419
16 and -420.
17 MR. WEBB: Move the bill.
18 MR. CLARK: Second.
19 THE CHAIRMAN: The bill's been moved and
20 seconded.
21 Any discussion on the bill?
22 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response.)
23 THE CHAIRMAN: Seeing none, please open the
24 ballot.
25 (Committee ballot opened.)
Diane M.
Tropia,
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1 MR. GRAHAM: (Votes yea.)
2 MR. JOOST: (Votes yea.)
3 MR. CLARK: (Votes yea.)
4 DR. GAFFNEY: (Votes yea.)
5 MR. HOLT: (Votes yea.)
6 MR. WEBB: (Votes yea.)
7 MR. REDMAN: (Votes yea.)
8 (Committee ballot closed.)
9 THE CHAIRMAN: Close the ballot and record
10 the vote.
11 MS. LAHMEUR: Six yeas [sic], zero nays.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: By your action, you have
13 approved -419.
14 -420. We have an amendment.
15 MR. CLARK: Move the amendment.
16 MR. WEBB: Second.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: The amendment's been moved
18 and seconded.
19 Planning Department, can we hear the
20 amendment, please.
21 MR. CROFTS: Yes, Mr. Chairman. The
22 amendment is as follows:
23 Condition number 1, "The developer shall be
24 subject to the original legal description dated
25 January 22nd, 2008."
Diane M.
Tropia,
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1 Condition number 2, "The developer shall be
2 subject to the original written description
3 dated January 22nd, 2008."
4 Number 3, "The developer shall be subject
5 to the original site plan dated January 22nd,
6 2008."
7 Condition number 4, "The developer shall be
8 subject to the review and approval of the
9 Development Services Division, pursuant to their
10 memorandum dated May 16th, 2008, and the
11 Transportation Planning Division memorandum
12 dated June 16th, 2008, or as otherwise approved
13 by the Planning and Development Department."
14 Condition number 5, "A pregnancy counseling
15 center with ancillary medical services
16 subordinate to the primary use shall be
17 permitted. However, the following permitted
18 uses and permissible uses by exception in the
19 CRO zoning district are specifically
20 prohibited: medical clinics, banks,
21 drive-throughs, cosmetology and similar uses,
22 fitness and gymnastic centers, stage theatres,
23 rooming houses, residential treatment centers,
24 group care homes, and emergency shelters."
25 Condition number 6, "The parking lot shall
Diane M.
Tropia,
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1 be brought into compliance with Part 12 of the
2 zoning code and a sidewalk shall be provided
3 from
4 Number 7, "No vehicular access shall be
5 permitted from
6 Number 8, "Only nonilluminated signs shall
7 be allowed pursuant to the CRO zoning district
8 criteria found in Part 13 of the zoning code."
9 Number 9 and finally, "The developer shall
10 provide an uncomplementary buffer along the
11 northerly property line per Section 656.1216 of
12 the zoning code."
13 That's it.
14 MR. MANN: Mr. Chairman, I've been over
15 those conditions with my client and he's in
16 agreement.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mann.
18 We have a motion and a second on the
19 amendment.
20 Any further discussion on the amendment?
21 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response.)
22 THE CHAIRMAN: Seeing none, all in favor
23 say aye.
24 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: Aye.
25 THE CHAIRMAN: Those opposed.
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1 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response.)
2 THE CHAIRMAN: By your action, you have
3 approved the amendment.
4 MR. CLARK: Move the bill as amended.
5 MR. HOLT: Second.
6 THE CHAIRMAN: The bill's been moved and
7 seconded as amended.
8 Any further discussion on the bill?
9 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response.)
10 THE CHAIRMAN: Seeing none, please open the
11 ballot.
12 (Committee ballot opened.)
13 MR. GRAHAM: (Votes yea.)
14 MR. JOOST: (Votes yea.)
15 MR. CLARK: (Votes yea.)
16 DR. GAFFNEY: (Votes yea.)
17 MR. HOLT: (Votes yea.)
18 MR. REDMAN: (Votes yea.)
19 (Committee ballot closed.)
20 THE CHAIRMAN: Close the ballot and record
21 the vote.
22 MS. LAHMEUR: Six yeas, zero nays.
23 THE CHAIRMAN: By your action, you have
24 approved 2008-420.
25 Let the record show that Councilmember Shad
Diane M.
Tropia,
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1 has joined us.
2 MR. MANN: Committee, thank you very much.
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
4 Mr. Shad, I have two other ones so I can
5 close out page 8, if you don't mind.
6 MR. SHAD: We have to wait on Councilmember
7 Jones, I'm sure.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. We'll wait on
9 Councilmember Jones.
10 2008-517. We'll open the public hearing.
11 No speakers. We'll continue that public
12 hearing and take no further action.
13 Page 8. 2008-545.
14 MR. CLARK: Move the sub.
15 MR. HOLT: Second.
16 THE CHAIRMAN: The sub's been moved and
17 seconded.
18 Any discussion on the substitute?
19 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response.)
20 THE CHAIRMAN: All in favor say aye.
21 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: Aye.
22 THE CHAIRMAN: Those opposed.
23 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response.)
24 THE CHAIRMAN: By your action, you approved
25 the substitute.
Diane M.
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1 MR. CLARK: Move to rerefer.
2 MR. HOLT: Second.
3 THE CHAIRMAN: It's been moved and seconded
4 to rerefer to LUZ as substituted.
5 Any further discussion on the rereferral?
6 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response.)
7 THE CHAIRMAN: Seeing none, please open the
8 ballot.
9 (Committee ballot opened.)
10 MR. GRAHAM: (Votes yea.)
11 MR. JOOST: (Votes yea.)
12 MR. CLARK: (Votes yea.)
13 DR. GAFFNEY: (Votes yea.)
14 MR. HOLT: (Votes yea.)
15 MR. REDMAN: (Votes yea.)
16 (Committee ballot closed.)
17 THE CHAIRMAN: Close the ballot and record
18 the vote.
19 MS. LAHMEUR: Six yeas, zero nays.
20 THE CHAIRMAN: By your action, you have
21 rereferred 2008-545 as substituted.
22 Okay. We'll move on until Mr. Jones
23 comes.
24 Top of page 9. 2008-547 and -548. We'll
25 open both of those public hearings.
Diane M.
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1 We have Dan and Dan. Come on down, Dan.
2 (Audience member approaches the podium.)
3 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Dan Boswell, 4014 Ranie
4 Road, representing the owners of the property,
5 Traw Engineering.
6 What we have is 9.31 acres going to -- from
7 LDR to light industrial. It currently has heavy
8 industrial to the north, 295 to the west,
10 density residential, and then some industrial
11 and residential to the south.
12 (Mr. Jones enters the proceedings.)
13 THE CHAIRMAN: Very good.
14 Is that it?
15 MR. BOSWELL: That's it.
16 THE CHAIRMAN: We have no further speakers,
17 so we'll close the public hearing. Just hold
18 on.
19 Let's start with -547. Someone move the
20 bill.
21 MR. CLARK: Move the bill.
22 MR. JOOST: Second.
23 THE CHAIRMAN: It's been moved and
24 seconded.
25 Any discussion on the bill?
Diane M.
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1 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response.)
2 THE CHAIRMAN: Seeing none, please open the
3 ballot.
4 (Committee ballot opened.)
5 MR. GRAHAM: (Votes yea.)
6 MR. JOOST: (Votes yea.)
7 MR. CLARK: (Votes yea.)
8 DR. GAFFNEY: (Votes yea.)
9 MR. HOLT: (Votes yea.)
10 MR. WEBB: (Votes yea.)
11 MR. REDMAN: (Votes yea.)
12 (Committee ballot closed.)
13 THE CHAIRMAN: Close the ballot and record
14 the vote.
15 MS. LAHMEUR: Seven yeas, zero nays.
16 THE CHAIRMAN: By your action, you have
17 approved -547.
18 -548.
19 MR. CLARK: Move the bill.
20 MR. JOOST: Second.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: It's been moved and
22 seconded, -548.
23 Any discussion on -548?
24 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response.)
25 THE CHAIRMAN: Seeing none, please open the
Diane M.
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1 ballot.
2 (Committee ballot opened.)
3 MR. GRAHAM: (Votes yea.)
4 MR. JOOST: (Votes yea.)
5 MR. CLARK: (Votes yea.)
6 DR. GAFFNEY: (Votes yea.)
7 MR. HOLT: (Votes yea.)
8 MR. WEBB: (Votes yea.)
9 MR. REDMAN: (Votes yea.)
10 (Committee ballot closed.)
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Close the ballot and record
12 the vote.
13 MS. LAHMEUR: Seven yeas, zero nays.
14 THE CHAIRMAN: By your action, you have
15 approved 2008-548.
16 MR. BOSWELL: Thank you very much.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, sir.
18 Actually, you can thank Mr. Jones because
19 we were able to get to your bill.
20 Let the record show that Mr. Warren Jones
21 has joined us.
22 Welcome, sir.
23 MR. JONES: Thank you.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: And Dr. Johnny Gaffney.
25 I'm sorry, sir. I thought you were here
Diane M.
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1 earlier. We missed you. Welcome.
2 Middle of page 10, 2008-551. We have a
3 substitute.
4 MR. CLARK: Move the substitute.
5 MR. JOOST: Second.
6 THE CHAIRMAN: The sub's been moved and
7 seconded.
8 Any discussion on the substitute?
9 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response.)
10 THE CHAIRMAN: All in favor say aye.
11 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: Aye.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: Those opposed.
13 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response.)
14 THE CHAIRMAN: By your action, you approved
15 the substitute.
16 MR. CLARK: Moved to rerefer.
17 MR. HOLT: Second.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: It's been moved and seconded
19 to rerefer to LUZ as substituted.
20 Any discussion on the rereferral?
21 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response.)
22 THE CHAIRMAN: Seeing none, please open the
23 ballot.
24 (Committee ballot opened.)
25 MR. GRAHAM: (Votes yea.)
Diane M.
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1 MR. JOOST: (Votes yea.)
2 MR. CLARK: (Votes yea.)
3 DR. GAFFNEY: (Votes yea.)
4 MR. HOLT: (Votes yea.)
5 MR. WEBB: (Votes yea.)
6 MR. REDMAN: (Votes yea.)
7 (Committee ballot closed.)
8 THE CHAIRMAN: Close the ballot and record
9 the vote.
10 MS. LAHMEUR: Seven yeas, zero nays.
11 THE CHAIRMAN: By your action, you have
12 rereferred 2008-551 as substituted.
13 2008-562. Open the public hearing.
14 Seeing no speakers, we'll continue that
15 public hearing and take no action.
16 First ten pages are down.
17 Okay. Mr. Jones -- well, I'm sorry,
18 Mr. Shad was here first.
19 Mr. Shad, what on our agenda do you want to
20 take up first?
21 MR. SHAD: -563.
22 THE CHAIRMAN: Top of page 11. -563.
23 Okay. Mr. Shad, did you say you wanted to
24 make a statement before we got started with the
25 official quasi-judicial process?
Diane M.
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1 MR. SHAD: I did.
2 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
3 MR. SHAD: Thank you, committee members.
4 A couple of items. There had been a -- I
5 wanted to acknowledge, I had received a couple
6 of requests for deferral from some members of
7 the community, and I wanted to just note -- make
8 sure it was clear that I did ask the applicant
9 if they would support a deferral because we had
10 deferred it one time for five weeks, and
11 actually for two cycles, including a fifth week
12 there.
13 I just wanted to go on record, it had been
14 deferred for five weeks and that the applicant
15 strongly -- even -- I tried to insist, but
16 strongly did not want to go forward with a
17 deferral, so that's why we're going to hear it
18 tonight.
19 I also wanted to ask y'all for your -- draw
20 upon all your skills as we go forward with
21 this. It has a lot of moving parts.
22 River Oaks Road, you will hear tonight, is
23 where you're going to hear most of the
24 opposition. It's a -- if you haven't been out
25 there, River
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1 that is very commercial on one end, separated by
2 railroad tracks, and very residential --
3 extremely residential on the other end, and I
4 would ask you to consider that and to protect
5 that neighborhood and that road as you
6 deliberate and look at competing amendments
7 tonight.
8 I'll also note that -- to the community,
9 that the closure of River
10 something that has been talked about a lot. I
11 know it's been attempted in the past, several
12 times, and I, myself, have struggled with how
13 that relates to this zoning.
14 And it really is a separate issue, but I
15 would just say here on the record that as the
16 development of
17 both with this development and other
18 developments, that I think I, more than ever
19 now, will support the closure of that crossing
20 there.
21 And, you know, I am, myself, not the
22 deciding factor in doing that. The railroad,
23 the mayor's office, other council members in
24 that area -- I just want to get that on the
25 record, that with this development on River Oaks
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1 Road, with the unusual nature of it being one of
2 the only cross-throughs between Emerson and
3
4 develop
5 closed, and I just wanted to get that on the
6 record.
7 Thank you.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Shad.
9 Okay. We're at 2008-563. We've got a
10 formal request to have a formal quasi-judicial
11 hearing, so our process will change a little
12 today to make sure that we comply with that
13 request.
14 That being said, we can start with
15 declaring ex-parte communications. And if
16 you've declared communications the last time on
17 this bill, you do not need to do it again unless
18 you've had further conversations with people
19 since the last time.
20 That all being said, the first one is
21 Mr. Holt.
22 MR. HOLT: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
23 I declare ex-parte communication with
24 Mr. Ashton Hudson and Lori Boyer on September
25 23rd.
We discussed the
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1 And also with the agent, Paul Harden,
2 yesterday. We discussed some of the issues
3 surrounding it.
4 Thank you.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
6 Mr. Clark.
7 MR. CLARK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
8 I would like to declare ex-parte on
9 September 23rd with the agent, Paul Harden.
10 Also, on September 23rd with Christine Sasser,
11 on the 15th with Ashton Hudson and the San Marco
12 Preservation Society, as well as today with
13 Bruce Barcelo.
14 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
15 Mr. Joost.
16 MR. JOOST: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
17 On September 3rd, I had a meeting with the
18 applicant, Paul Harden.
19 On September 10th, I had a phone
20 conversation with Mr. Harden.
21 On September 30th, I had a meeting with
22 Christine Sasser and Philip Elson.
23 On September 30th, I also had a meeting
24 with Steve Cissel, the developer.
25 On October 3rd, I had another phone
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1 conversation with Mr. Harden.
2 On October 3rd, I had a phone conversation
3 with Christine Sasser.
4 And on October 7th, I had a meeting with
5 Tim Franklin in my office, all to discuss
6 various aspects of the project.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
8 Mr. Webb.
9 MR. WEBB: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
10 Three weeks ago, I had ex-parte
11 communications with Ashton Hudson and Lori Boyer
12 with regards -- with respect to this
13 application. Moreover, two weeks ago, I had a
14 meeting in my office with Steve Cissel, the
15 developer, to talk about this -- the project.
16 Thank you.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Jones.
18 MR. JONES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
19 I had ex-parte communications today with
20 Bruce Barcelo and Paul Harden regarding the -- a
21 deferral, a possible deferral.
22 I had an ex-parte communication with
23 Ms. Boyer two weeks ago regarding some
24 additional conditions that she would like to see
25 added to the rezoning.
Diane M.
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1 And I met yesterday with Steve Cissel to
2 discuss access to River
3 conditions that were imposed by the Planning
4 Commission and recommended by the Planning
5 Department.
6 Thank you.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Dr. Gaffney.
8 DR. GAFFNEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
9 Yes. I wish to declare ex-parte
10 communication. On 9/23, I had a meeting in my
11 office with Mr. Paul Harden in reference to the
12 project and the zoning area.
13 Also on 9/23, I had -- I met with
14 Ms. Christine Sasser in reference to
15 accessibility to the project that they're
16 contemplating building over there.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, sir.
18 Mr. Shad.
19 MR. SHAD: Thank you.
20 Since our last announced ex-parte
21 communications, Wednesday, October 1st, in my
22 office, Christine Sasser, Philip Elson.
23 Friday, October 3rd, the leadership from
24 San Marco Preservation Society, the developer,
25 his agent, the Planning Department and General
Diane M.
Tropia,
28
1 Counsel's Office.
2 Yesterday by phone, Lori Boyer and Matt
3 Carlucci; and today by phone, Bruce Barcelo and
4 Mr. Paul Harden.
5 Thank you.
6 THE CHAIRMAN: And I've had ex-parte
7 communications since the last time with
8 Ms. Boyer three weeks ago, and with the
9 applicant last Thursday, and with Ms. Sasser and
10 Bruce Barcelo yesterday.
11 MR. JONES: I forgot one.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Jones.
13 MR. JONES: Thank you.
14 I omitted -- yesterday I discussed the
15 deferral with -- ex-parte communication with
16 Matt Carlucci.
17 Thank you.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, sir.
19 Okay. I want to let you know that we will
20 be swearing in the speakers. We will swear in
21 the applicant and his experts, and then we will
22 swear in the other side and their experts. They
23 will each be given 15 minutes to speak, and then
24 after that we will open the public comment, and
25 we will give anybody that's not already
Diane M.
Tropia,
29
1 represented by an attorney, on one side or the
2 other, a minute to speak to get what you need to
3 get out on record.
4 I'll let you know that we have all the
5 information from the Planning Commission meeting
6 last Thursday. So if you've heard some of the
7 things that have already been said, it's really
8 not necessary to be duplicative. But if there's
9 any new information you need to add, please feel
10 free to come up and add that.
11 And then afterwards, we will be giving both
12 sides ten minutes to rebut, and then they'll
13 have closing statements.
14 This all being said, let's start off with
15 the Planning Department to give us the report,
16 tell us where we are.
17 MR. KELLY: Through the Chair, members of
18 Council, application for rezoning R-2008-563
19 seeks approval of a rezoning of the old Jerry
20
21 north of River
22 The subject property is currently zoned
23 CCG-1 and -2, primarily CCG-2. There is some CO
24 along the west parcel -- the west area of the
25 parcel that parallels the railroad line.
Diane M. Tropia,
30
1 The department has reviewed the application
2 for the criteria for the rezoning, in addition
3 to the criteria for a PUD rezoning, and finds
4 that the application is sufficient and finds
5 that it does comply with the criteria and
6 further specifies those goals through the
7 written description dated September 17th and the
8 revised site plan dated September 17th.
9 This item was heard at Planning
10 Commission. Planning Commission voted to
11 approve the application subject to one
12 modification, which is a fairly major
13 modification to the staff recommendation, which
14 recommended that there be no access from the
15 subject property to and from
16 River
17 The rest of the conditions were adopted
18 intact, and I can go over those individually or
19 we can proceed.
20 THE CHAIRMAN: Let's just go ahead and go
21 over those amendments that the Planning
22 Commission passed because there may be something
23 that one side or the other want to challenge or
24 speak about.
25 MR. KELLY: Okay. Condition 1, "The
Diane M.
Tropia,
31
1 development shall be subject to the original
2 legal description dated June 23rd, 2008."
3 Condition 2, "The development shall be
4 subject to the revised written description dated
5 September 17th, 2008."
6 Condition 3, "The development shall be
7 subject to the revised site plan dated September
8 17th, 2008."
9 Condition 4, "The development shall be
10 subject to the review and approval of the
11 Development Services Division, pursuant to the
12 memorandum dated September 8th, 2008, except for
13 comment 3 as attached within the memo; and the
14 FDOT memorandum dated July 22nd, 2008, attached;
15 or as otherwise approved by the FDOT and
16 Planning and Development Department."
17 Condition 5, "At the time of verification
18 of substantial compliance a phasing schedule
19 shall be provided to the Planning and
20 Development Department."
21 Condition 6 -- there's a proposed
22 amendment, and I can either read the new
23 proposed condition or the adopted condition.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: Let's just go ahead and read
25 what was adopted in Planning Commission.
Diane M.
Tropia,
32
1 MR. KELLY: Condition 6 adopted by Planning
2 Commission states, "Prior to any residential
3 development beyond 30 units gross acre, a bus
4 rapid transit station or alternative equivalent
5 JTA commuter transit station facility, including
6 shelter and amenities, shall be completed and
7 operational, subject to the review and approval
8 of the Planning and Development Department."
9 Condition 7, "A roundabout shall contain a
10 fountain feature or a piece of public art."
11 Condition 8, "The applicant shall provide
12 at least one dedicated parking space per
13 multifamily dwelling unit, plus one guest
14 parking space per three multifamily dwelling
15 units or a minimum of 1.25 spaces per dwelling
16 unit."
17 Condition 9, "Sidewalks along
18 Square Boulevard shall be no less than eight
19 feet in width."
20 Condition 10, "At the time of verification
21 of substantial compliance the applicant will
22 provide a pedestrian plan that shows street
23 trees and street furniture along
24 Boulevard and the perimeter of the landscaping
25 areas fronting
Diane M.
Tropia,
33
1 Condition 11, "All entry signage shall be
2 architecturally consistent, of a monument style,
3 and be limited to 200 square feet per sign
4 face."
5 Condition 12, "Signage that advertises
6 multifamily uses shall be nonilluminated or
7 externally illuminated except on
8 or
9 internally illuminated."
10 Condition 13, as adopted from the Planning
11 Commission, "There shall be no access from the
12 subject property to and from
13 River
14 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, sir.
15 Let us start off with the applicant.
16 (Mr. Harden approaches the podium.)
17 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Harden, you have three
18 minutes to give your opening statement.
19 MR. HARDEN: Can I pass these out first?
20 MR. HOLT: Mr. Chair, could I ask a
21 question?
22 THE CHAIRMAN: Sure.
23 MR. HOLT: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
24 Mr. Kelly, could I ask you a question?
25 MR. KELLY: (No response.)
Diane M.
Tropia,
34
1 MR. HOLT: Mr. Kelly, could I ask you a
2 question?
3 MR. KELLY: Sure.
4 MR. HOLT: Just to make sure I'm perfectly
5 clear on this, your support of this is
6 conditional that River
7 open. If there were to be an amendment that
8 were to close the access to River Oaks, the
9 Planning Department would not support that; is
10 that true?
11 MR. KELLY: That's correct.
12 The Planning Department does not support
13 the full closure of access to River Oaks and
14 Summerall.
15 MR. HOLT: Okay. I just wanted to make
16 sure I was clear on that.
17 Thank you.
18 MR. JONES: (Inaudible.)
19 THE CHAIRMAN: Sure.
20 MR. JONES: Through the Chair to Mr. Kelly,
21 the Planning Department did not recommend
22 condition number 13; is that correct?
23 MR. KELLY: That's correct. That was
24 brought out at Planning Commission.
25 MR. JONES: Okay. Why would you not
Diane M.
Tropia,
35
1 support that, item 13, the closure -- closing
2 access to River
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Well, before we get into
4 that, let's just get the presentations and then
5 we'll get back into the -- to the deep, deepness
6 of it all.
7 MR. JONES: Okay. Thank you, sir.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: Unless you really have to
9 have that before we go forward.
10 MR. JONES: No.
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Mr. Harden.
12 MR. HARDEN: Paul Harden, 1301 Riverplace
13 Boulevard.
14 I represent
15 is a major national urban infill developer.
16
17 the country doing similar urban infill projects
18 that you have before you today. They spent
19 millions of dollars in anticipation of the
20 cleanup of the
21 projects, you have water, sewer infrastructure
22 that you have to move around, and it causes a
23 great deal of expense.
24 The current status of the property is shown
25 in the handout you have before you. If you'll
Diane M.
Tropia,
36
1 look at the inside cover and then follow through
2 with the next three or four pictures, you'll see
3 the existing commercial development, both to the
4 north and south of the project, as well as what
5 will -- previously, the residential housing
6 along the rear of the site, along the railroad.
7 As you, I think, will agree, this is a
8 substantial upgrade to the current status of the
9 property. The current status of the property is
10 a CCG-2 zoning except for a small strip along
11 the railroad.
12 The most intense commercial zoning allowed
13 under the zoning code is available for use on
14 this site currently. The classification will
15 allow for intense retail activity 24 hours a day
16 and basically at unlimited heights with
17 setbacks.
18 The suggested design of the current
19 allowable zoning is shown in the handout.
20 An additional potential zoning on the site
21 could be a 15- or 20-story hotel with a lot more
22 than 900 rooms on the site. It's the intention
23 of
24 zoning, to build a low-rise, mid-rise, mixed-use
25 development.
Diane M.
Tropia,
37
1 The proposed plan is set forth and shown in
2 the handout you have before you.
3 The proposed use would include a mix of
4 single-family, retail and office use, and would
5 focus around transportation amenities that are
6 shown on the site.
7
8 as other developers [sic] in other parts of the
9 country and in
10 photographs of similar mixed-use products that
11
12 Before you today is a request for an
13 approval of a PUD. That PUD is consistent with
14 the current land use designation on the site.
15 This is not a change to the future land use
16 map. The current land use designation allows up
17 to 90 percent residential on the site through
18 the planned unit development.
19
20 site. I know it's difficult to visualize
21 knowing what's in the area now, the proposal
22 that
23 we have, the vision that
24 as shown in juxtaposition to what's on the
Diane M.
Tropia,
38
1 particularly the
2 we respectfully request your approval of the
3 application of the PUD.
4 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, sir.
5 Mr. Franklin.
6 (Mr. Franklin approaches the podium.)
7 THE CHAIRMAN: You have three minutes to
8 give your opening statement as well.
9 MR. FRANKLIN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
10 council members.
11 Tim Franklin,
12 San Marco Preservation Society.
13 My grandfather used to say, "It only takes
14 a second longer to do something right." Good
15 advice to me growing up, and I think good advice
16 to the council tonight.
17 What's at stake here on the upside, as Paul
18 said, you do have an opportunity to potentially
19 have a vibrant redevelopment, a cure for urban
20 blight along
21 upside and a potentially great project.
22 The downside is -- we have a golden goose,
23 if you will, in terms of the San Marco
24 neighborhood, that you don't want to kill by
25 approving this project without careful
Diane M.
Tropia,
39
1 consideration and/or careful conditions. The
2 project tonight, we have neither one.
3 In terms of the careful consideration of
4 this project, there has been a lack of that from
5 the very outset in terms of the application
6 proposed. The site plan was a bubble plan,
7 pretty standard, but, however, the written
8 description did not contain the items that the
9 PUD portions of the code require to contain. It
10 still doesn't contain all those things. But,
11 despite that, the Planning Department found it
12 to be sufficient and had two public hearings
13 based on that site plan and based on the written
14 description that is very sparse.
15 These things, again, they -- we believe
16 they violate our due process. Some of these
17 things violate your ordinance code expressly,
18 and violates express- -- other provisions of
19
20 committee and council from having competent
21 substantial evidence on which to make a decision
22 in this case.
23 Once they went ahead there, they amended
24 the application. That violates another specific
25 provision of the ordinance code that says no
Diane M.
Tropia,
40
1 amendments. It doesn't say if we accept it,
2 it's not the developer amending it. It says
3 what it says, no amendments or withdrawals after
4 fees have been paid. That's been violated.
5 But even with the amendments, there's a lot
6 of critical information lacking in the
7 application. There's no traffic study, even
8 though the
9 requires -- recommends that -- over 750 trips
10 you do a traffic study. Not in there.
11 The study that's in there was done for
12 concurrency. We're going to tell you tonight
13 that that's flawed a little bit. The DOT study
14 that they did, that was based on misinformation
15 and is flawed.
16 School concurrency information, there's
17 none in there. We're going to show you tonight
18 that it violates that, and that the fair share
19 that they put in is probably inadequate based on
20 those two things.
21 We're going to also show you that it's a
22 DRI. In spite of state law requiring it to be
23 considered as a DRI, they're piecemealing it,
24 and that's wrong.
25 There's also no -- they're calling it a
Diane M.
Tropia,
41
1 transit-oriented development. There's no TOD
2 standards in their PUD. There's no written
3 phasing. There's no mixed use requirement in
4 the PUD. They have an or, or, or. They could
5 do 90 percent residential here and not a bit of
6 commercial.
7 So those things, we think, haven't been
8 carefully considered and carefully conditioned.
9 We're going to have a list of conditions for you
10 which we'd like you to consider as we go
11 forward.
12 Thank you.
13 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, sir.
14 Okay. We've had the opening statements
15 from both parties. Now it's time for the
16 applicant. You have 15 minutes to present your
17 case.
18 (Mr. Harden approaches the podium.)
19 THE CHAIRMAN: Before you start, I need for
20 you and whichever witnesses you plan on calling
21 to be sworn in by the court reporter.
22 MR. HARDEN: Well, the witnesses I'm going
23 to call are here, but they'll be in response to
24 anything that's presented by Mr. Franklin. I'm
25 going to rely on the testimony of the Planning
Diane M.
Tropia,
42
1 Department.
2 THE CHAIRMAN: So you're going to do it as
3 a rebuttal?
4 MR. HARDEN: I'm going to speak --
5 THE CHAIRMAN: But you're not going to
6 bring anybody in your 15 minutes to --
7 MR. HARDEN: Correct.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Well, we need to
9 swear you in, then.
10 MR. HARDEN: Okay.
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Diane.
12 THE REPORTER: Do you affirm that the
13 testimony you're about to give will be the
14 truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
15 truth?
16 MR. HARDEN: I do.
17 THE REPORTER: Thank you.
18 MR. HARDEN: Let me do some handouts before
19 I start, if you don't mind.
20 THE CHAIRMAN: Sure.
21 MR. HARDEN: (Tenders documents.)
22 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Mr. Harden.
23 MR. HARDEN: Let me give Mr. Jones a copy,
24 if I could, Mr. Chairman.
25 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Diane M.
Tropia,
43
1 Just as a preface, in response to
2 Mr. Franklin's comments, there has been a great
3 deal of careful consideration of this proposal.
4 The only amendment which we prepared but we
5 can't amend, you can't amend, was at the
6 specific request of his client. They asked for
7 five changes to the written description; we put
8 them in there.
9 Now, you can see the comments that -- he
10 thinks he's gearing up for litigation, but we
11 feel very comfortable that the actions of your
12 staff and your professional staff, in the review
13 of this, adequately comply with the law, and
14 we're prepared to defend it.
15
16 Department, many, many months ago, the Jackson
17 Square concept. The Planning Department
18 reviewed in great detail the documents
19 presented, and on several occasions requested
20 additional input prior to moving forward with
21 the application.
22 Before presenting the application to you,
23 there was a great deal of research and gathering
24 of information. The
25 has not only been the product of many, many
Diane M.
Tropia,
44
1 hours by the engineers and traffic consultants
2 and planners that
3 the document, but many, many hours of work by
4 your Planning Department and the Development
5 Services department of the City of
6
7 The many hours of work by the Planning
8 Department resulted in a detailed report which
9 contained the imposition of 12 additional
10 conditions, over and above the many conditions
11 that were required by the Planning Department as
12 part of the sufficiency review. So we went
13 through a review, there were amendments
14 requested to the application before it was
15 presented, and now there are an additional 12
16 conditions on top of that, on top of the five
17 that actually were given to us initially by the
18 San Marco Preservation group.
19 Following the initial written description,
20 we took that input from the San Marco
21 Preservation group and asked you to amend the
22 application for us, which is allowable under the
23 code.
24 One of the specific requests, for example,
25 was a height request that moved from 90 feet
Diane M.
Tropia,
45
1 down to 70 feet that we agreed to at their
2 request.
3 Following that initial community meeting, a
4 request for a deferral was made by
5 Mr. Franklin's client. They said they wanted to
6 review the process and meet with us. That's
7 been over the last -- Councilman Shad said five,
8 I count six weeks, but -- there's been six weeks
9 since the full process was geared up to go
10 forward with this application.
11 During that time, while we did not receive
12 a request for a meeting, we received, from the
13 San Marco Preservation group, a list of
14 questions, which I have referred to as
15 interrogatories, and you have a copy of those.
16 These are questions that were sent to us
17 specifically to glean the information that
18 Mr. Franklin feels wasn't put in the
19 application. And in all due respect, it's the
20 information the Planning Department thinks they
21 deemed sufficient, but on top of that, they sent
22 us this set of interrogatories, or questions,
23 and those are -- that's information that they
24 felt was left out, and we provided that document
25 to them, now, about two-and-a-half weeks ago.
Diane M.
Tropia,
46
1 The questions go into great detail about
2 percentages and heights and activity on the
3 site, and that is all included in our
4 application.
5 Two business days ago, I received from the
6 San Marco Preservation group a list of 17
7 additional conditions to burden the site. Those
8 proposed conditions included nine topics. Those
9 topics were obviously the River Oaks access, the
10 transit-oriented development information, what
11 they called "clarity," the
12 multifamily housing requirements, parking,
13 phasing, additional height limitations,
14 recreation and landscaping.
15 With regard to the River Oaks issue, in all
16 due respect, we agree with the Planning
17 Department, and I'm going to present you some
18 statistics and make available information to you
19 why we think River Oaks should stay open.
20 With regard to the transit-oriented
21 development, that matter was fully vetted by
22 your planning staff and dealt with by the
23 planning staff.
24 Additionally, the developer is at the mercy
25 of the
Diane M.
Tropia,
47
1 timing with regard to the transit-oriented
2 development.
3 The site plan and written description
4 include a 30-foot-wide right-of-way along the
5 railroad for rapid rail, if and when [sic] such
6 time that's available.
7 The design and site plan include a bus
8 facility that would rival any in the city of
9
10 the Planning Department has added an upgraded
11 condition 6, I believe it is, that becomes more
12 specific about that bus activity and it includes
13 a site plan on the design.
14 So with regard to transit-oriented
15 development, we believe the Planning Department
16 has dealt with that.
17 With regard to River Oaks Road, the -- we
18 just basically disagree.
19 On the other hand, the additional seven
20 topics that were presented to us two days ago
21 were the subject of agreed-upon conditions we
22 agreed to add on to the application.
23 Councilman Shad asked Ms. Eller to reduce
24 those to writing. She was the scrivener at the
25 meeting. We agreed to them. The
Diane M.
Tropia,
48
1 representatives of San Marco Preservation agreed
2 to them. And we were agreeable to adding on,
3 again, an additional seven conditions.
4 In all due respect, I think a cursory
5 review of the Planning Department report shows
6 that the issues that were newly raised two
7 business days ago were included in the Planning
8 Department's report, but for accommodation and
9 clarity sake, we were agreeable and agreed to
10 those seven additional conditions.
11 About 20 minutes ago -- or 20 minutes
12 before the agenda meeting, I received a list of
13 an additional ten conditions that reworded the
14 seven conditions that we agreed to just two
15 business days ago.
16 In all due respect, I don't think it's
17 appropriate -- particularly since the Planning
18 Department has vetted all of these issues, we
19 agreed to a set of conditions just two days
20 ago -- to come up with an additional group of
21 conditions that reword things that we dealt with
22 several days ago.
23 This is a very, very reviewed process by
24 the Planning Department. They dealt with all
25 these issues, and we respectfully request that
Diane M.
Tropia,
49
1 the conditions Mr. Franklin has mentioned and
2 the new ones that we got an hour ago, after a
3 six-week deferral -- remember, that six-week
4 deferral came after five weeks of scheduled
5 public hearings and meetings.
6 I just don't think it's an appropriate
7 methodology to review the site -- and, in all
8 due respect, the items that are listed were the
9 nine that I went through, are included in the
10 Planning Department report and the conditions
11 that we agreed to at the meeting Councilman Shad
12 prepared.
13 With regard to the remaining issue -- and I
14 think it's been identified -- the
15 [sic] access activity, you can see by the
16 handout that our project will not have a
17 substantial effect on River
18 Let me -- our traffic engineer is here and
19 will testify if you have questions.
20 River
21 7 percent capacity. Not 70, Danny Warfel's
22 number, 7 percent capacity on its current
23 activity.
24 The Planning Department, since the Planning
25 Commission activity, has done a traffic study to
Diane M. Tropia,
50
1 make a determination with regard to access to
2 Summerall. And it's not access directly on
3
River
4 see on the site plan that's a part of the
5 handout -- it goes between the JEA industrial
6 site and an existing commercial facility that
7 adds Summerall to that site.
8 We believe that the access to Summerall is
9 important for the same reasons the Planning
10 Department does, life safety reasons, you know,
11 police and fire. Proper planning would suggest
12 that there be some access off the site onto
13 River Oaks to meet the needs of utility and
14 service entrances. The JEA wants that as the
15 access. As I told you, we had to deal with a
16 multitude of infrastructure needs there -- and
17 the JEA has their site there at that location --
18 and interconnectivity.
19 The Planning Department and the City of
20
21 supports the Summerall access. The folks who
22 don't want that access suggest that it will
23 overburden River
24 capacity now.
25 If you will look at the other handout I
Diane M.
Tropia,
51
1 handed out to you, that's a report prepared by
2 your Planning Department. What it says is, with
3 full access to River
4 there will be 29 peak-hour trips coming from
5 this project.
6 If you put what I now know is a chicane on
7 the Summerall access and make sure that you can
8 only do a left in, not a right out -- that would
9 be a limited access -- it would result in
10 24 peak-hour trips onto River
11 on there. And then with no access off
12 Summerall, the project will result in
13 19 peak-hour trips. So the difference between
14 full access and limited access is ten peak-hour
15 trips on a parcel -- on a road that has
16 7 percent capacity currently.
17 Now, I would again suggest that that is a
18 de minimis impact on the site, but don't forget,
19 it's 17 acres of CCG-2 zoned land. So without
20 this PUD and the project were to be developed
21 consistent with the current zoning -- there's a
22 report from the -- it came out at the Planning
23 Commission meeting -- that says the trips off
24 the site would be about 12,500. That's a DOT
25 report that the San Marco Preservation group
Diane M.
Tropia,
52
1 gave to the Planning Commission.
2 Our project has about 8,000 trips a day.
3 So about two-thirds, using their numbers, of the
4 trips. So our project, even if you use the full
5 number of trips in the Planning Department's
6 report, it's still 66 percent of what you
7 could -- if the site were developed as currently
8 proposed. And, in addition, it only burdens an
9 additional five -- excuse me, ten peak-hour
10 trips to the location.
11 In response to questions raised by the
12 community, the Planning Department actually went
13 out to determine what the impact was, and I
14 would respectfully suggest that that's the most
15 competent substantial information that you can
16 have before you on that.
17 We believe it's an unfounded fear that
18 River
19 And while I'm talking about that, I keep
20 hearing rumors and people keep coming back and
21 saying that we want to four-lane River Oaks
22 Road, we want to put in traffic -- parking
23 spaces. We don't want to do anything to River
25 The Planning Department initially suggested
Diane M.
Tropia,
53
1 two things:
2 One, traffic calming devices; humps, if you
3 will, on the road. We said that we would agree
4 to put those in.
5 And, second, a neighborhood identification
6 sign at the railroad track. As you move -- I
7 think as Sean indicated -- from across the
8 railroad track, to use a euphemism, to the east,
9 you go into a full industrial-zoned and
10 developed area with commercial as you get to
12 tracks, it's single-family. So the Planning
13 Department suggested perhaps identifying that
14 neighborhood would also be a traffic calming
15 activity.
16 So to make our position clear, we don't
17 want to four-lane River
18 want to put in additional parking spaces. We
19 don't want to do anything to River
20 that the folks who live there don't want.
21 If they want the traffic calming devices,
22 we'll be happy to participate as part of the
23 project.
24 It is our hope that you will approve this
25 application as approved by the Planning
Diane M.
Tropia,
54
1 Department with the 12 conditions that they
2 proposed as part of their additional -- I guess
3 there's an amended number 6 condition, so the
4 12 conditions as amended by condition number --
5 no it's 8, I'm sorry. Condition 8.
6 MS. ELLER: Six.
7 MR. HARDEN: Six? All right. Thank you.
8 Now, on top of that, we are agreeable to
9 the seven conditions that we thought everybody
10 agreed to Friday, that Ms. Eller reduced to
11 writing.
12 In all due respect, we believe the Planning
13 Commission additional condition is not warranted
14 due to the fact of the limited activity on
15 River Oaks now and the limited amount of
16 activity that will be shown by the -- that's
17 shown by the Planning Department's report with
18 regard to the matter.
19 So, with that, I'll close our presentation
20 and certainly be happy to answer any questions
21 at the appropriate time.
22 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Harden.
23 I think -- do I take -- cross-examine now
24 of the applicant?
25 MS. ELLER: If Tim has anything to say.
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1 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Franklin, you have five
2 minutes to cross-examine.
3 Mr. Harden, don't go too far.
4 MR. HARDEN: I'm not. I'm just staying out
5 of --
6 THE CHAIRMAN: It may work a little easier
7 if -- Mr. Crofts, if you can give him your mic.
8 MR. CROFTS: (Complies.)
9 THE CHAIRMAN: That way we don't have to
10 worry about Mr. Harden hitting you.
11 MR. FRANKLIN: First of all, Mr. Harden,
12 talking about the --
13 MR. HARDEN: Tim, I'm not going to hit you.
14 MR. FRANKLIN: Pardon?
15 MR. HARDEN: I'm not going to hit you.
16 THE CHAIRMAN: He's not going to hit you.
17 MR. FRANKLIN: Oh. Thank you.
18 Talking about the deferral, isn't it a fact
19 that at least two of the weeks of the deferral
20 were due to the councilman's request and another
21 week was at the request for you on vacation?
22 MR. HARDEN: No.
23 The original request for deferral came at
24 the request of San Marco Preservation standing
25 here at a public meeting before the LUZ
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1 Committee. That resulted in a hearing that was
2 set for Tuesday night where I had a meeting with
3 Lehman Brothers in
4 planned for about three months. Unfortunately,
5 it was the day after they went bankrupt. And so
6 I couldn't be here on that night. It was a
7 meeting I couldn't change. And it was said at
8 that time, it won't be a two-week deferral
9 because there's a fifth week; it will be a
10 five-week deferral. Ultimately, it worked out
11 to be a six-week deferral.
12 So it was never at my request. It was
13 never for a vacation. It was never at a
14 councilman's request. It was at Ms. Boyer's
15 request.
16 MR. FRANKLIN: Okay. Isn't it a fact,
17 though, that during the deferral on September
18 17th that that's when we actually received a
19 revised site plan and a revised written
20 description, was during the deferral period?
21 MR. HARDEN: During the deferral period we
22 had already scheduled a meeting with generally
23 the River Oaks community, with some San Marco
24 Preservation folks at the site.
25 We went to that meeting. I went to the
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1 meeting. Mr. Cissel was there, all of our
2 consultants were there.
3 At that time, there were requests for five
4 changes to the site plan and five -- or five
5 changes to the written description and site
6 plan. We accommodated those requests. If you
7 want them taken back out, we'll be happy to do
8 that, if you think that's a change. So I'm
9 offering to do that. If they prefer to stick
10 with the original site plan and written
11 description, we're happy to do that.
12 But, yes, that's when it happened, at the
13 request of your clients. But if you want to
14 take it back, we'll take it back.
15 MR. FRANKLIN: No. We'll keep them in.
16 You had mentioned, Paul, in talking about
17 how many of the changed conditions and things
18 like that and talking about the seven conditions
19 at the meeting of Friday -- isn't it a fact that
20 those seven conditions were essentially proposed
21 as part of the list by San Marco at the Planning
22 Commission the day before?
23 The seven conditions talked about on
24 Friday -- at the meeting with Councilman Shad on
25 Friday, came from the list of conditions
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1 tendered to the Planning Commission the day
2 before at the public hearing?
3 MR. HARDEN: I don't think it was the day
4 before the -- because there was a fifth week,
5 Planning Commission met a week before that.
6 MR. FRANKLIN: A week before that, that's
7 correct.
8 MR. HARDEN: And at that time they tendered
9 a list of, I think, 14 conditions. Those were a
10 different set of conditions that were tendered
11 at the meeting and yet a different set of
12 conditions that were tendered today.
13 They dealt with the same subjects, to
14 answer your question. Councilman Shad had us go
15 through the entire list. He asked what we could
16 agree on. Things we couldn't agree on, we
17 didn't discuss. Things that we could agree
18 on --
19 Ms. Eller was the scrivener. I didn't
20 write them down. She wrote down what the
21 agreements were, and we agreed to those. In
22 fact, there were some pretty substantial
23 concessions on height and landscaping and that
24 sort of stuff.
25 And, you know, we thought that was a
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1 resolution of the matter, but the topics were
2 the same, the conditions were different I think
3 is the answer to your question.
4 MR. FRANKLIN: Okay. Talking about some of
5 the -- the access to
6 that you mentioned, you mentioned one that JEA,
7 for utility service entrances --
8 MR. HARDEN: Yes.
9 MR. FRANKLIN: -- and access, didn't -- JEA
10 owns a piece of property on the southwest
11 corner, where the water plant is?
12 MR. HARDEN: JEA, yeah.
13 MR. FRANKLIN: And that property is
14 actually under contract to be a part of, I
15 guess, an integrated development?
16 MR. HARDEN: Well, yeah.
17 You can see on the site plan the location
18 of the JEA facility. It's out-moded
19 infrastructure facility.
20 As part of our activity, we've agreed to
21 update some of the infrastructure there, but the
22 JEA will -- you know, it's not just for our
23 capacity. It would be capacity for the whole
24
25 accommodate, you know, some portion -- small
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1 portion for our project as well, yes.
2 MR. FRANKLIN: Okay. Just my point -- only
3 point was going to be if JEA needed access to
4 the property, you guys could agree to put a
5 fence somewhere between their property and yours
6 to allow some kind of emergency additional
7 access that wouldn't be an ingress/egress point
8 for the entire development?
9 MR. HARDEN: Certainly we could allow that,
10 and that -- be happy to do that.
11 That's not the Planning Commission
12 condition. They conditioned it -- cutting it
13 off at Summerall, which would require immediate
14 access from the JEA off of River
15 Summerall.
16 Currently, the JEA goes out on Summerall
17 and then to River
18 access. If you were to cut off the Summerall
19 access, they'd have to go out onto River Oaks
20 Road directly.
21 MR. FRANKLIN: Okay. I think the JEA
22 property is actually to the southwest, so I
23 don't think they access off of Summerall. I
24 think it's River Oaks, but -- just meaning
25 that they could --
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1 You mentioned a life safety issue. Isn't
2 it true that for multifamily housing that one of
3 the recommendations of life safety and of
4 anticrime initiatives is that you limit access
5 and to have a central access point rather than
6 have multiple accesses to a large multifamily
7 facility such as this?
8 MR. HARDEN: Well, one of the requested
9 conditions -- I think it actually came from
10 Councilman Joost, but they added it in, was that
11
we comply with the
12 conditions with regard to multifamily and
13 controlled access -- it's not limited access,
14 controlled access -- so that at each location
15 where there is an access it would be
16 controlled. I don't think limiting it to one
17 door is what they're proposing.
18 Life safety, if you have
19 say you have a bad wreck on
20 it blocks the
21 want to get in for a fire truck on River Oaks
22 Road, that's what I mean by life safety issues.
23 MR. FRANKLIN: Okay. And the proposal has
24 two other entrances to the north --
25 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Franklin, your five
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1 minutes are up.
2 MR. FRANKLIN: Okay.
3 MR. HARDEN: I'll stand here and answer
4 questions as long as he likes, Mr. Chairman.
5 MR. FRANKLIN: I only had one more, if I
6 could get one more.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: We'll let you get that last
8 one.
9 MR. FRANKLIN: Okay. Thank you.
10 And if you could answer the one I just
11 asked, if there are two entrances on Mark and
12 Mitchell to the north.
13 MR. HARDEN: That's correct.
14 MR. FRANKLIN: Okay. Last question, Paul.
15 You mentioned about the -- projected
16 somewhere between five -- or excuse me -- yeah,
17 five or ten additional peak-hour trips,
18 depending upon the -- based on Mr. Kelly's
19 methodology. The average --
20 MR. HARDEN: Whose methodology?
21 MR. FRANKLIN: Was it Ms. King?
22 MR. HARDEN: Oh.
23 MR. FRANKLIN: I'm not sure. Did Ms. King
24 prepare that?
25 I know that it was --
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1 MR. KELLY: (Inaudible.)
2 MR. FRANKLIN: We'll come back to that.
3 My question was, by the department's
4 methodology on the average daily trips on it,
5 it's approximated to be about 850, 847; is that
6 about right?
7 MR. HARDEN: I don't have those numbers in
8 front of me.
9 I only dealt with the peak-hour trips on
10 River
11 24 with the chicane or the one-way-in,
12 one-way-out access, and 29 with full access,
13 which by mathematical -- means 10 additional
14 peak-hour trips on the project -- on the road,
15 that, as I said, is 7 percent of its current
16 capacity.
17 MR. FRANKLIN: Thank you.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
19 Thank you, Mr. Harden.
20 MR. HARDEN: Thanks.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Franklin, you have
22 15 minutes to present your case.
23 MR. FRANKLIN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
24 Briefly, if I could, before I start, I've
25 got some -- I guess the latest and greatest that
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1 Paul was talking about, he received a little bit
2 ago, the set of conditions.
3 We sent these out yesterday, but if I could
4 pass these out here.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: Sure.
6 MR. FRANKLIN: I think there should be
7 sufficient copies. If there's not, I have more.
8 Let me say this: The intent with the
9 conditions, as Paul had said, they -- they've
10 stayed the same. We've basically got about six
11 little areas, landscape, transit-orient [sic],
12 access to River
13 The conditions really haven't changed from
14 what we proposed at Planning Commission. We
15 have simply consolidated them to make them
16 easier to read. There are one or two that we
17 tightened up a little bit on them, some of the
18 language. There were one or two that we
19 actually relaxed to allow a little more -- for
20 example, we had proposed, I believe -- for
21 instance, one condition, 276 units with 20,000
22 retail. We now said up to 300 units with 18,000
23 retail.
24 So we -- they're essentially the same
25 conditions, committee members. There's nothing
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1 new here, no surprises, if you will. We're just
2 at a standstill on getting agreement on these
3 conditions.
4 In the first condition Mr. Harden had spoke
5 of, you know, the River Oaks access, the --
6 actually, the Planning Commission -- and I've
7 got the transcript here. Paul said, we will
8 work with you on whatever condition you come up
9 with. And there was a couple of comments to
10 that perspective at Planning Commission. I
11 mean, whatever you want to do, that road is
12 not -- several commissioners suggested it wasn't
13 vital to the project. It's not a necessity, so
14 why do it. Paul said -- and I could quote him,
15 but -- and I will just for fun:
16 "We're going to accept whatever solution
17 you-all propose."
18 Mr. Hardesty: "Fair enough."
19 They accepted at Planning Commission and
20 now they're here telling you it is a do-or-die
21 issue. Well, I'm here to tell you it's a
22 do-or-die issue for this neighborhood. That
23 condition, above everything else that you're
24 looking at today, that is the one that the
25 neighborhood needs. That's the one they believe
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1 is going to be most critical to the preservation
2 of San Marco.
3 Again, let's face it, that's the reason
4 they want to build this project here, is because
5 it's a very successful TND neighborhood.
6 There's bungalows, there's mansions on the
7 river, there's rental properties, owner-occupied
8 properties, all in a nice, mixed-use area with a
9 great mix of retail, service, restaurants,
10 office, and it works. And that's why they want
11 to be close to it. And we -- we're going to
12 protect that.
13 So that condition, just looking at that
14 one, River Oaks, we -- we do think that that's
15 very important.
16 And I do have a couple of questions for
17 staff, and I may -- I don't know exactly who I'm
18 going to call on yet, if we can maybe have them
19 sworn in, Mr. Chairman.
20 THE CHAIRMAN: You want to swear in the
21 staff?
22 MR. FRANKLIN: I would like to.
23 THE CHAIRMAN: Speaking of -- stop the
24 clock for a second. We didn't swear you in.
25 THE REPORTER: Do you affirm that the
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1 testimony you're about to give will be the
2 truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
3 truth?
4 MR. FRANKLIN: I do.
5 THE REPORTER: Thank you.
6 THE CHAIRMAN: Well, since you're there,
7 let's get the staff -- go ahead. Put your arms
8 up, all of you. You too,
9 Go ahead. Do it again.
10 THE REPORTER: Do you affirm that the
11 testimony you're about to give will be the
12 truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
13 truth?
14 (Mr. Kelly, Mr. Huxford, Mr. Avery,
15 Mr. Crofts, and Ms. Eller respond
16 affirmatively.)
17 THE CHAIRMAN: Go ahead.
18 MR. FRANKLIN: Thank you.
19 And let me say too, you know, we -- this is
20 not the -- Paul would participate in the
21 meeting -- chicanery or that the developer is
22 not trustworthy and reputable. These people are
23 all trustworthy and reputable people. The
24 question here is -- our real concern -- and I
25 think it's apparent now -- we're worried about
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1 market changes. We're worried about what
2 happens if the worst thing happens. What
3 happens if there's a successor developer here or
4 a bank that is the developer of this project,
5 what conditions are going to be on them to make
6 this thing work? Are they going to widdle it
7 down to the best possible alternative?
8 Those things happen. We've just seen it
9 happen, and so it's not some far off concept of,
10 yeah, but it will probably be okay. No, it's
11 happening. So you don't want it to happen at
12 this prime location. That's why we're
13 suggesting these conditions.
14 But I'd like to ask, I guess, Sean Kelly a
15 few questions about some of the traffic issues
16 because that's our -- that's what's at stake
17 here on River
18 Mr. Kelly, do you have a copy of the -- I
19 guess it would be the table 1 trip generation
20 that was prepared in the original report? This
21 one, Sean, where it comes up with total of 8,496
22 new trips, if you will, or daily trips on the
23 property?
24 MR. KELLY: I've got a copy of trip
25 generation table 1, but it's dated October 2nd,
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1 2008.
2 MR. FRANKLIN: Okay. What final number do
3 you have on that -- or what number comes up?
4 MR. KELLY: Average daily trips --
5 MR. FRANKLIN: Yes.
6 MR. KELLY: -- or p.m. peak hour?
7 MR. FRANKLIN: I'd go with the average
8 daily.
9 MR. KELLY: Daily trips are 8,496.
10 MR. FRANKLIN: Okay. So we're coming up
11 with essentially the same numbers.
12 A couple of questions about that real
13 quickly, Sean.
14 First one, if you look in the -- and,
15 council members, this is in some of your
16 original materials too, but --
17 There's an internal capture rate that
18 they're using to come up with the number of
19 trips. Apartments, there's 17.74; commercial,
20 13.08; general office, 8.58. My question to
21 Sean, where did -- does that internal capture
22 rate, is that related to the mix of commercial
23 to residential? Is that related to being a
24 mixed-use development?
25 MR. KELLY: That's correct.
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1 MR. FRANKLIN: Okay. My question, then, is
2 that based on the maximum -- or I guess the
3 target of 65 percent residential and 35 percent
4 commercial, is that where that internal capture
5 rate comes from?
6 MR. KELLY: That internal capture rate is
7 based on the concurrency application and the
8 number of dwelling units and square feet of
9 office and square feet of commercial.
10 MR. FRANKLIN: Which is essentially about a
11 65/35 mix, if I'm correct on that, residential
12 to -- gross floor area of commercial and office;
13 is that about right?
14 MR. KELLY: It depends on how big the units
15 are.
16 MR. FRANKLIN: Okay. Well, let me just ask
17 it this way: Using whatever units, is there
18 anything in the PUD that would require them to
19 build or not build a certain number of
20 residential units or a certain number of
21 commercial units?
22 MR. KELLY: The PUD deals with maximum
23 amounts of residential units and maximum amounts
24 of commercial and office.
25 MR. FRANKLIN: Okay. But, in other words,
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1 the -- the PUD, as I read the written
2 description, simply says a mix of this
3 residential or office or retail. It doesn't
4 require them to build a mixed-use development,
5 in fact?
6 MR. KELLY: The underlying land use would
7 require the mixed-use development. The CGC land
8 use cannot be single -- residential use.
9 MR. FRANKLIN: But it could be up to
10 90 percent residential and 10 percent
11 commercial, and they'd be in compliance with the
12 comp plan and the PUD, correct?
13 MR. KELLY: No. The site plan specifically
14 shows designated commercial/retail uses on the
15 first floor of the buildings in Phase I and
16 Phase II, so I'd say that ultimately 10 percent
17 would be inconsistent with the site plan which
18 generates a larger percentage.
19 MR. FRANKLIN: Well, that's assuming that
20 the site plan is multistory or assuming, the
21 residential, they could go up four stories
22 and -- they could go up actually to 75 feet with
23 the residential and first floor commercial, and
24 they would be about 90 and 10 percent?
25 In other words, your assumption is based on
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1 them building equal amounts of commercial and
2 residential, I guess, floors, if you will, in
3 each space, Sean?
4 MR. KELLY: No. I mean, the assumption is
5 based on the site plan and the specific
6 dimensions of the office component, building,
7 which is, I believe, a -- a one- or two-story
8 building at the northeast end of the development
9 and then based upon the commercial ground floor
10 retail components along
11 and the
12 MR. FRANKLIN: That site plan is just a
13 floor plan? It doesn't show any heights or
14 story buildings on that? That is merely a floor
15 plan --
16 MR. KELLY: It's a horizontal plan.
17 MR. FRANKLIN: It's not elevations, so
18 there's no -- there's no actual limitations on
19 that site plan that would require all those to
20 be one story or all to be four? Some could be
21 four, some could be one? And no particular
22 building is required to be any certain height or
23 size, correct?
24 MR. KELLY: There's maximum heights set out
25 in the written description.
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1 MR. FRANKLIN: Right. But the site plan
2 doesn't require any particular building to be
3 any certain height?
4 MR. KELLY: (Nods head.)
5 MR. FRANKLIN: Okay. The other thing I
6 wanted to ask you about, Mr. Kelly, just real
7 quick. Same memorandum -- or same table showing
8 certain land use codes there for the traffic
9 generation. We're showing an 843 and a 942,
10 automotive parts sales credit, automotive care
11 center credit. Are you familiar with that?
12 MR. KELLY: (Nods head.)
13 MR. FRANKLIN: They're being given a credit
14 on those.
15 Aren't those land use codes associated more
16 frequently with Auto Zones and other stores?
17 MR. KELLY: That's correct.
18 That is credit from the previous use of the
19 property.
20 MR. FRANKLIN: Okay. Isn't it true,
21 though, that the land use code 841, new car
22 sales, would include as a component a
23 substantial amount of used car sales and also
24 parts and accessories and servicing under that
25 land use code for just the new automotive
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1 sales?
2 MR. KELLY: I would have to look at the ITE
3 definition of what that entailed, but it seems
4 plausible.
5 MR. FRANKLIN: Well, I'm going to turn in,
6 if I can, Mr. Chairman, a -- just a brief table
7 prepared by Richard McCubbin, former City
8 traffic engineer. Mr. McCubbin has basically
9 estimated a couple of things here, but the big
10 one being that -- using those numbers, come up
11 with about -- approximately 400 more trips by
12 reducing the credit they're getting because a
13 new car place has used car sales and it has
14 automotive service, so they're giving too great
15 of a credit with that.
16 So I'd like to tender this for the record,
17 if I could.
18 Last question for Mr. Kelly.
19 The DOT memorandum, Mr. Kelly, that they
20 turned in, are you familiar with that? It's
21 actually addressed to Aaron Glick, dated July
22 22nd, 2008.
23 MR. KELLY: I've got it.
24 MR. FRANKLIN: Could I get a time count?
25 THE CHAIRMAN: You have five-and-a-half
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1 minutes.
2 MR. FRANKLIN: Okay. Very quickly. The
3 FDOT generated their numbers by using
4 approximately -- about 264,000 of retail, and
5 it's correct, they came up -- they estimated
6 12,761 trips based on that amount of retail,
7 correct?
8 MR. KELLY: They used land use ITE code
9 820.
10 MR. FRANKLIN: A shopping center?
11 MR. KELLY: Correct.
12 MR. FRANKLIN: Okay. And we're using a
13 retail code and office -- we're using
14 approximately 150 of retail, 200 of office, and
15 900 residential units, and coming up with 8,400
16 or Richard's number is about 8,800, whichever
17 you accept, correct? Based on table 3 in
18 Richard's memorandum.
19 MR. KELLY: Correct.
20 MR. FRANKLIN: Okay. Thanks.
21 Real quick, just basically three questions
22 for
23 THE CHAIRMAN: Sure.
24 MR. FRANKLIN: Through the Chair to
25 Ms. Eller.
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1 development order under
2 MS. ELLER: Yes.
3 MR. FRANKLIN: And development orders,
4 generally under -- mainly rule 9J-5, are
5 required to meet concurrency -- or to use the
6 laymen's terms, required to be concurrent with
7 the impacts measured under 9J-5, all development
8 orders?
9 MS. ELLER: Yes.
10 MR. FRANKLIN: Okay. And just -- last
11 question. Schools are an element now under
12 state law of concurrency?
13 MS. ELLER: Yes.
14 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Thank you,
15 Ms. Eller.
16 Just like to turn this in for the record.
17 It's an e-mail. Some of you may have this
18 already. It's from John Loehnert of Duval
19 schools to Councilman Shad, just referencing the
20 fact that at present the two -- elementary
21 school and the high school are over capacity,
22 where they would be going to.
23 Now, we know we're going through
24 redistricting, and that's all fine, but it's --
25 it's well and good to say, well, we're going
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1 through redistricting. That doesn't take care
2 of the problem that this PUD has never been
3 through concurrency.
4 The fact that concurrency has been done for
5 the property is fine. The fact that that was
6 filed before school concurrency was an element
7 of our concurrency office analysis, that's all
8 well and good, but this PUD is actually
9 approving residential units and has to be
10 verified to be concurrent and meeting the
11 impacts. If not, it's a violation of state law,
12 and it's going to be -- it's going to be
13 rejected on that basis.
14 The better question is, why would you want
15 to approve something not knowing if it's going
16 to impact the schools? We don't know yet which
17 schools when the redistricting goes forward, so
18 why wouldn't you put a requirement in the PUD
19 that they go through, at the end of the day, and
20 be required to show that they meet the impacts?
21 Right now, before redistricting, they
22 wouldn't.
23 Another issue that comes up again -- and
24 you may have some of these in the file. I'll
25 turn these in for the record (indicating).
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1 Just parts of the CCAS applications and
2 concurrency management office applications show
3 this as one aggregate development. You actually
4 have commonality of developers with this
5 project, this PUD, and the project across the
6 street.
7 We believe that this project here is right
8 under the DRI thresholds by itself. I mean,
9 we're talking about one or two units or one or
10 two square feet.
11 If you go across for a mixed-use project --
12 if you go across the street and include that,
13 it's way over, way over. And we believe we have
14 commonality of development. They have a common
15 development plan, commonality of the developers,
16 and we believe this is going to constitute a
17 DRI, where a traffic study would be required and
18 all sorts of other things under state law,
19 notwithstanding whatever the City code
20 required.
21 But you've got to ask yourself why none of
22 these things are being requested in this case,
23 traffic studies and those sort of things,
24 privately, just to see what the impacts are on
25 the street.
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1 Another issue, we -- one of our conditions,
2 you'll see, has to do with phasing. I'd like to
3 turn in some of these -- they've essentially
4 said in Phase I they need 281 units. We're very
5 close to that in what we've suggested in
6 phasing.
7 The phasing will actually go through and
8 ensure that this is going to be a mixed-use
9 project.
10 The last, really, issues -- landscaping is
11 kind of off the table. Rec/open space, as long
12 as they meet the comprehensive plan.
13 Some of the bigger things -- if it's going
14 to be a transit-oriented development, why not
15 have those conditions in the PUD and the written
16 description?
17 This doesn't have anything referencing
18 Part 14 that the council adopted just very
19 recently. There's no requirement that they meet
20 any of those standards.
21 Again, it makes little sense to tout it as
22 a transit-oriented development and not have any
23 of those things in there. We would ask that you
24 require them to meet those conditions.
25 The height limit, again, makes a lot of
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1 sense. It's a buffer now, should stay a buffer.
2 The bottom line: River
3 concern we have. That's the major concern. A
4 huge amount of trips on that road. It's not a
5 question of peak-hour trips; it's a question of
6 the average daily trips, about 850 to 880, at a
7 minimum, on that road, in addition to what there
8 are now. That's the thing that's going to
9 impact the neighborhood. Those are the trips
10 that need to be precluded, under the comp plan,
11 from intruding into this neighborhood.
12 You have an opportunity to do it. Planning
13 Commission did it. All you have to do is accept
14 it. It won't kill the deal. They'll find a way
15 to do this with that access, and so we'd ask you
16 to do it because this is -- that's the do-or-die
17 deal for this neighborhood, and they're going to
18 protect it and stand up for it.
19 Thank you.
20 Otherwise, we'll -- let me say this:
21 Otherwise, you know, with these conditions in
22 here, this turns into a very viable, good
23 project. We just want to make sure it ends up
24 being transit-oriented. We want to make sure
25 it's consistent with the existing residential
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1 neighborhood.
2 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Franklin, your
3 15 minutes is up and you'll have five minutes at
4 the end to conclude.
5 MR. FRANKLIN: Okay.
6 THE CHAIRMAN: That's what it sounds like
7 you were doing now.
8 MR. FRANKLIN: Yeah.
9 THE CHAIRMAN: Hold on a second.
10 Mr. Harden, do you have any
11 cross-examination?
12 MR. HARDEN: Can I cross-examine Mr. Kelly,
13 his witness?
14 THE CHAIRMAN: You can do Mr. Kelly when
15 you do the rebuttal.
16 MR. HARDEN: That was his witness. I was
17 going to --
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Sure. Fair enough.
19 MR. HARDEN: Mr. Kelly, have you reviewed
20 the traffic report that the Planning Department
21 did?
22 MR. KELLY: The trip generation table?
23 MR. HARDEN: Yes.
24 MR. KELLY: Yes.
25 MR. HARDEN: Notwithstanding Mr. Franklin's
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1 comments, do you believe it to be accurate?
2 MR. KELLY: Yes.
3 MR. HARDEN: Is there anything that he said
4 that would make you think that the information
5 contained in your very thorough report is
6 inaccurate?
7 MR. KELLY: No.
8 MR. HARDEN: Do you stand by the
9 information in there?
10 MR. KELLY: Absolutely.
11 MR. HARDEN: What is the difference in
12 peak-hour trips on that report for a full access
13 on Summerall and no access on Summerall?
14 MR. KELLY: It's ten net trips.
15 MR. HARDEN: Okay. That's all I have.
16 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
17 Now --
18 MR. FRANKLIN: Real quick. Normally you
19 get redirect. I just have one question of
20 Mr. Kelly.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: You will get rebuttal time.
22 Hold on. I'm following the rules.
23 MR. FRANKLIN: Okay.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: Now, we are -- we're going
25 to public comment, and then after we're done
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1 with public comment, both you and Harden get ten
2 minutes rebuttal time.
3 MR. FRANKLIN: Okay. Well, let me ask
4 this -- can I direct a question through the
5 Chair to General Counsel?
6 THE CHAIRMAN: Write it down. You can hit
7 them on your rebuttal time.
8 MR. FRANKLIN: Okay.
9 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Public comment. Do
10 we have cards?
11 MS. ALLEN: (Tenders speakers' cards.)
12 THE CHAIRMAN: Now, as I call you up,
13 you'll each get a minute to speak. Please try
14 not to be repetitive.
15 Now, I'm not going to be a tyrant and cut
16 you off right at a minute, but you'll see the
17 clock in front of you. You know when you're
18 running over.
19 We understand this is very emotional. We
20 understand a lot of it -- this is the first time
21 you've ever come to this kind of process and
22 spoke, so relax, take your time. If you go
23 over, just please don't be duplicative and don't
24 be repetitive, but we're here to hear you.
25 Estelle Vickery, followed by Robin
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1 Robinson.
2 And as I call your name, just come up
3 forward.
4 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Estelle had to leave.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Let the record show
6 that Estelle is not here.
7 MR. ELSON: I've got her written comments
8 if you --
9 THE CHAIRMAN: Sure.
10 MR. ELSON: (Tenders document.)
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Robin Robinson, followed by
12 Carol Hinckley -- Carolyn Hinckley, sorry.
13 (Audience member approaches the podium.)
14 THE CHAIRMAN: Ma'am.
15 AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name is Robin
16 Robinson. I live at
17 I support the redevelopment of this
18 blighted piece of property, but not without
19 knowing what is being proposed. The internal
20 inconsistencies in the description in this PUD
21 application have caused massive confusion to the
22 members of our community that are going to be
23 affected by it.
24 I was raised out West, and we pride
25 ourselves on straight talk out there. We have a
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1 saying that says, "Say what you mean and mean
2 what you say." I wish, sincerely, that that
3 applied to this application.
4 I have heard the developer's words. I've
5 seen his pretty pictures and his site plan, and
6 they don't match, and this is of great concern
7 to me.
8 For example, is this residential use only
9 multifamily or can it be single-family as well?
10 The written description says one thing in one
11 place and another thing in another. The site
12 plan depicts only multifamily.
13 The traffic generated by the single-family
14 is double that for multifamily, yet only
15 multifamily was evaluated by the staff.
16 The appropriate lot coverage, setbacks, and
17 parking also differ greatly between the two
18 uses.
19 The written description says the
20 residential development will be in accordance
21 with the RHD-B zoning category. And the staff
22 report, in discussion, repeats that statement.
23 The minimum lot requirements, maximum lot
24 coverage, minimum yard requirements, and
25 permissible uses stated in the written
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1 description are all inconsistent with RHD-B.
2 Absent a condition resolving these and
3 other inconsistencies between the written
4 description and the site plan, the rezoning is
5 vague, misleading, and much of the analyses of
6 the application is unsupported.
7 If the written description were to override
8 RHD-B requirements in the site plan, this
9 rezoning would fall as inconsistent with the
10 comprehensive plan, both internally and
11 externally.
12 The staff finding of consistency with the
13 comprehensive plan is expressly based on RHD
14 compliance and the depiction in the site plan.
15 Therefore, I support the inclusion of a
16 condition suggested by San Marco Preservation
17 Society that the site plan must be deemed to
18 control over the written description.
19 I also support the other conditions which
20 have been requested by the San Marco
21 Preservation Society.
22 Based on what I've heard tonight, I believe
23 this PUD violates
24 ordinances, and the 2010 Comprehensive Plan.
25 Unless you adopt the conditions recommended
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1 by the San Marco Preservation Society, I believe
2 that this application must be denied.
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, ma'am.
4 Carolyn, followed by Rob -- it looks like
5 Smith or Sluth.
6 (Audience member approaches the podium.)
7 THE CHAIRMAN: Ma'am.
8 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Carolyn Hinckley, 1545
10 MR. HARDEN: Excuse me. Before you start,
11 ma'am.
12 Mr. Chairman.
13 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, sir.
14 MR. HARDEN: The San Marco Preservation
15 Society is represented by Mr. Franklin. You
16 gave him additional time. We raised this at the
17 agenda meeting. This is the -- they're coming
18 up and repeating the San Marco conditions. It's
19 not -- that's not the process. This is for
20 unrepresented people.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: Ma'am, are you part of the
22 San Marco Preservation?
23 MS. HINCKLEY: I am, but I'm speaking as a
24 resident.
25 THE CHAIRMAN: But you've already been
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1 represented by an attorney. This is only for
2 people that are not already represented by an
3 attorney.
4 MS. HINCKLEY: Okay.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: Now, if there's anything at
6 the end that you'd like to add to the comments,
7 ma'am, you will get the opportunity to do that,
8 but as it is right now, these are only the
9 people that are not represented by an attorney.
10 You asked for this special process;
11 therefore, we're doing it this way.
12 (Audience member approaches the podium.)
13 THE CHAIRMAN: Sir, are you part of
14 San Marco Preservation?
15 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm here representing
16 myself, so -- but, yes, I am also a member of
17 San Marco Preservation.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Then we need for you to step
19 back, and you can add things later on if need
20 be.
21 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Okay.
22 THE CHAIRMAN: Alicia [sic] Abernathy.
23 (Mr. Franklin approaches the podium.)
24 MR. FRANKLIN: Mr. Chairman, just for
25 clarity, I'm representing the board of directors
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1 of the San Marco Preservation Society.
2 Again, there's -- probably 95 percent of
3 the people that live in San Marco that own homes
4 are members of the preservation society, but
5 they're not here today representing the
6 preservation society. They're speaking on
7 behalf of their own issues.
8 Like I said, I believe the people that we
9 had, that spoke at the Planning Commission
10 meeting, I'm actually speaking on behalf of many
11 of those people who were there at that meeting
12 representing the board, but here tonight are a
13 lot of people just representing their own
14 neighborhood interests who happen to be members
15 of it, so --
16 THE CHAIRMAN: Ms. Eller, do you have the
17 letter that they requested to go through this
18 official process? Do we have a copy of that
19 letter?
20 If I'm not mistaken, the letter says that
21 you're representing San Marco Preservation
22 Society, not necessarily the board.
23 MR. SHAD: Mr. Chairman.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: Yeah. Go ahead.
25 MR. SHAD: Thank you.
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1 Through the Chairman to the committee, I
2 see where we're going here. It's going to be
3 challenging. You know, there's people here that
4 have come down to speak. Are we saying if they
5 paid their dues this year and they're a member
6 of the preservation society -- I don't know how
7 we would quantify who is represented by an
8 attorney and who's not.
9 I think we should err on the side -- I know
10 it's going to take a while, and I hope people
11 won't be repetitive of what's been said, but I
12 think we need to err on the side of allowing
13 people who say they're here tonight not being
14 represented by the attorneys to speak, unless
15 they're board members. And there's board
16 members out there who voted to hire an attorney,
17 and I -- no doubt that they are represented, but
18 if someone paid their dues, I don't know if that
19 would disqualify them from speaking tonight, so
20 I'd just put that out there.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: What we were planning on
22 doing is we were going to go through and have
23 those people that are not represented by an
24 attorney, which is somebody that is not a member
25 of the preservation society, and then when
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1 they're done, anything that has not been put on
2 the record that someone feels like they need to
3 add, we can call them up, even though they're a
4 member of the preservation society. At that
5 time, we could have them add what they need to
6 add to the record.
7 MR. SHAD: Would they turn in another card,
8 then?
9 THE CHAIRMAN: No. I'll go back through.
10 I've got them pulled to the side, the people
11 that are a member of the preservation society.
12 I will call them up and ask them if there's
13 anything left they need to add that has not
14 already been said.
15 MR. SHAD: Okay. That's good. So you'll
16 get an opportunity at the end.
17 Thank you.
18 AUDIENCE MEMBER: That would be me,
19 Abernathy.
20 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Thank you.
21 MR. FRANKLIN: Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
22 I'll just object for the record, but I
23 understand.
24 Thank you.
25 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. That's Ms. Abernathy.
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1 We have Clarence Frazier.
2 (Audience member approaches the podium.)
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Sir, are you a member of the
4 San Marco Preservation Society?
5 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I am not.
6 THE CHAIRMAN: Please go ahead, sir.
7 AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name is Clarence
8 Frazier. I reside at
9
10 Southwood is one of the one-block-long
11 streets that runs south from River Oaks, between
12 the railroad tracks and
13 I believe that the mixed-use nature of this
14 project needs to be more conditioned that -- the
15 way the language appears in the development is
16 that Phase I could include up to the full extent
17 of the 30 units per acre without further
18 conditions of -- of the development, of the
19 commercial and retail space, except for the
20 18,000 square feet required in Phase I, and the
21 issue is the residential density, which would be
22 appropriate if this never became a transit
23 development.
24 The -- there's just no justification for
25 permitting a high-density residential in this
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1 commercial infill. Density alone won't solve
2 the urban blight in this location anymore than
3 it would anywhere else.
4 The applicant wants flexibility. We all
5 want to see the area improved, but we also want
6 to protect our neighborhood, just as you would
7 want to maintain and protect your neighborhood,
8 so I -- I and my neighbors feel that there's --
9 needs to be more restrictions on density and the
10 mixture of the uses to have a positive impact
11 rather than a negative one. And I do recommend
12 that you adopt all the conditions, including
13 that of the Planning Commission, that the --
14 there be no southern access on Summerall to
15 River Oaks.
16 That's all. Thank you.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, sir.
18 David Hamm, followed by Brittney Audibert.
19 (Audience member approaches the podium.)
20 THE CHAIRMAN: Welcome sir.
21 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thanks.
22 David Hamm, Jerry Hamm Chevrolet, 3494
24 Pretty familiar with this location having
25 worked there about 31 years and dad about
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1 53 years before we moved about six months ago
2 and -- just about a half mile -- I guess it
3 would be south of there, and thank you for the
4 help that we had in getting that.
5 And I know in any -- this was a much less
6 complicated process than what this is, but just
7 having gone through that, I know there's got to
8 be some flexibility built in. And also in our
9 industry there's a lot of negotiations goes on
10 and we get a lot of things.
11 And I have to say, the developer, both
12 First Star, Mr. Cissel,
and
13 get-go have been nothing but gentlemen, have
14 done everything they said they would do. They
15 were about the third developer that we worked
16 with on this project and met with City Council
17 way back earlier just to see what may -- what
18 might be able to be done as we were trying to
19 market the property.
20 We wanted to develop our current property
21 and stay there. We love the neighborhood. We
22 didn't want to move to The Avenues or any other,
23 you know, fancy location. We love the
24 neighborhood, wanted to stay. But as these
25 developers began to approach us, we wanted to
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1 see what could be done and have, you know, early
2 on meetings with some -- a lot of you guys'
3 predecessors.
4 But we just want to tell you we support
5 it. The developers have done everything they
6 said they would do in negotiating with us over
7 about an 18-month, two-year period, and we think
8 it will be an improvement for our neighborhood
9 and appreciate your favorable consideration.
10 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, sir.
11 Brittney. Come on down, ma'am. Followed
12 by Douglas Gollnick, I think.
13 (Audience member approaches the podium.)
14 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Brittney Audibert, 2779
16 This is Cadence Audibert. This is my
17 visual aid. I brought a picture last time, and
18 now I'm bringing her this time.
19 I just want to be pretty quick and blunt.
20 I don't know all of the statistics and
21 everything like that, but I know what I go
22 through every day, so . . .
23 My husband Craig and I -- my husband Craig
24 Audibert and I moved from California, where our
25 neighborhood was filled with great people, but
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1 it became too busy.
2 everything like that. I told him my story about
3 growing up in this neighborhood, slow, you know,
4 my family being built there. We have four
5 generations. She's four. And I just want to
6 let you know that we love our neighborhood, and
7 I don't want -- I like how simple it is and how
8 it isn't busy with traffic.
9 And since I've been back, it's -- we live
10 at the very end of
11 turnarounds twice, maybe three times more since
12 I've been back, and -- I mean, I rode my bike to
13 the park,
14 dogs when I was young. I was able to ride my
15 bike to
16 think that will be possible if this -- this is
17 going to -- you know, if River Oaks is going to
18 stay open.
19 I think that River Oaks should -- I mean, I
20 keep on hearing, you know, in the past
21 River Oaks Road has tried to be closed, but, you
22 know, now it's a new day. You know, it's a new
23 time.
And I think that River
24 definitely be considered to be closed.
25 And I just want to let you know that I'm
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1 coming here as a concerned parent for the safety
2 of my child and for my brother and sister also,
3 who are 18 and living and driving and -- that
4 area they know.
5 So that's pretty much it. Thank you for
6 your time.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: Ma'am, great visual aid.
8 MS. AUDIBERT: Thank you.
9 THE CHAIRMAN:
10 Mott.
11 (Audience member approaches the podium.)
12 AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name is
13 Gollnick. I am a member of the San Marco
14 Preservation Society. And so when you are
15 interested in hearing my remarks, let me know.
16 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Thank you, sir.
17 Gordon Mott.
18 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm also a member of
19 San Marco.
20 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Thank you, sir.
21 Brown Whatley Law.
22 (Audience member approaches the podium.)
23 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
24 Whatley Law,
25
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1 I'm here to speak to you on my behalf, and
2 I'd like to say that, as the grandson of one of
3 the developers of our neighborhood, it is unique
4 and there's nothing like anything else in this
5 country, and it certainly is unique to
6
7 responsibility to protect the children and the
8 elderly that live in the neighborhood,
9 especially on River
10 That said, in evaluating whether a proposed
11 PUD is externally compatible, you are required
12 to evaluate whether the PUD will have any
13 avoidable or undue adverse impact on existing
14 uses.
15 I submit that a PUD will have a very
16 significant adverse impact on the traffic on
17 River
18 values, preservation of historically-qualified
19 homes, and the entire surrounding residential
20 neighborhood.
21 The language that I've read of the
22 ordinance is important to put the analysis in
23 proper perspective. In rezoning, the question
24 is not whether the traffic generated by the
25 requested zoning change will require roadway
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1 improvements or the degree to which a specific
2 change in a site plan will reduce the impact.
3 The question that must be answered by ordinance
4 is whether the PUD will have any avoidable or
5 undue adverse impact.
6 By your own concurrency plan, table 1,
7 trip generation, the way I read it and the way I
8 understand it, it looks like there's between
9 21,698 and 8,496 trips generated each day by
10 this PUD build-out. I'm not sure where the
11 numbers come from, but these look like real
12 numbers to me.
13 Between 6.72 and 10.21 percent of that
14 traffic is projected to travel River Oaks,
15 between
16 Assuming most traffic occurs between 6 a.m.
17 and midnight, that would mean anywhere between
18 one additional car every two minutes to two
19 additional cars per minute on this neighborhood
20 street.
21 There again, that's math that I think is
22 reality.
23 This is clearly a major impact on a
24 neighborhood, clearly a major impact.
25 Off-site improvements contemplated by the
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1 applicant as part of this development will
2 further exacerbate the problem. These include
3 railroad grade crossing improvements, River Oaks
4 realignment, the right-of-way grants, and new
5 signalization.
6 The staff is clearly aware of these
7 improvements contemplated as part of this
8 development but failed to mention or analyze the
9 impact of the adjacent residential street and
10 neighborhood.
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Sir, your time is up.
12 MR. LAW: Thank you for your time.
13 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
14 Mr. Clark, do you have a question for --
15 MR. CLARK: No. I have a general
16 statement.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay.
18 MR. CLARK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
19 I just want to reiterate as we get through
20 this -- and I waited till I heard from three or
21 four people. I understand how adamant everybody
22 is about River
23 the methodology behind this is to stand up and
24 tell us new evidence and new things that we
25 haven't already heard. We clearly understand
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1 the concern on River
2 from everybody that stood up so far, but we need
3 to hear new things and other concerns that you
4 have. We understand that one.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Clark.
6 Karen Mattison, followed by Andrew Dickson.
7 (Audience member approaches the podium.)
8 AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name is Karen
9 Mattison. I live at
10 I'm here today to represent River Oaks
11 Community Club. That's who I'm representing.
12 And I won't go into all the statistics
13 about the traffic information you've heard, but
14 one of the things that I must remind everyone
15 here today and the public is that once the
16 traffic hits this road -- and we're guessing
17 now. This is a traffic model utilized by FDOT,
18 you know, estimating, which is guesstimating, to
19 me, that this traffic will occur on River Oaks
20 Road.
21 What will happen is -- there's another
22 thing called level of service for roads. DOT
23 follows it and the City follows it. Level of
24 service is how these roads are graded. And once
25 it goes from being one kind of road at a certain
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1 level, it then becomes another.
2 River Oaks Road is a neighborhood road, and
3 your traffic engineering folks will tell you
4 that. And it is further compounded by the fact
5 that on their on-site review of
6 traffic-generated trips within the city,
7 River
8 chart.
9 It is a neighborhood road specifically
10 designed for the people who live in that area.
11 There are three dead-end roads. We have no
12 other way to go.
13 What will happen, Mr. Harden, is even
14 though you have no plans to make that a
15 four-lane road, you don't have any choice, we
16 don't have any choice. When that traffic hits
17 it and it no longer is functioning at a specific
18 level of service, it is mandated by law that
19 that road is then four-laned, and that will
20 simply destroy our neighborhood. And I've
21 seen it happen and try to happen in
22 Riverside/Avondale.
23 Thank you.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, ma'am.
25 Mr. Dickson, followed by Jay Robinson.
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1 (Audience member approaches the podium.)
2 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm Andrew Dickson. I
3 live at 1641 River
4 stretch that we're talking about.
5 I work with the River Oaks Community Club,
6 and I just want to second everything
7 Ms. Mattison said, and also add the fact that I
8 believe in
9 expressly said that residential streets should
10 not be used for cut-through traffic, you know,
11 contingent upon new development. So I'd like to
12 remind you of that.
13 I enthusiastically support the
14 redevelopment of
15 enthusiastically support transit-oriented
16 development. I just want to express to you how
17 bewildering it's been as a resident to see all
18 the contradictions inside the planned unit
19 development application, the claim of TOD but no
20 commitment from JTA, JTA's own studies that show
21 that Emerson would be a more desirable location
22 for a transit station. All this leads me to
23 believe that we're putting the cart before the
24 horse here with the building of
25 as a TOD.
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1 You know, you -- you've heard everything
2 about the increase in traffic. I don't know --
3 I don't really understand the numbers. I've
4 been hearing two sets, one from Planning, one
5 from Mr. Harden. I do know that any new
6 development will add traffic to our road,
7 especially when it's found that our road is the
8 most convenient shortcut between
9 and
10 and
11 So I beg you, really, to respect the
12 Planning Commission's recommendation to
13 eliminate access to River
14 Summerall Avenue, I encourage you to include the
15 staff report's conditions as well, and I finally
16 intrigue you to include the rest of San Marco
17 Preservation Society's conditions, in essence or
18 in full, in the PUD application because I
19 believe it's the only way to assure the
20 long-term health of River
22 Thank you.
23 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, sir.
24 Jay Robinson, followed by --
25 (Audience member approaches the podium.)
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1 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm Jay Robinson, 1573
3 I am a past member of San Marco
4 Preservation Society, and I have sent in my
5 check to rejoin, but they haven't cashed my
6 check yet.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: Go ahead, sir. Fair
8 enough. Fair enough.
9 MR. ROBINSON: Thank you.
10 We'd also strongly support the
11 redevelopment of the project along Philips
12 Highway. However, we believe it should be done
13 in -- consistent with the 2010 Comprehensive
14 Plan, which we believe calls for a gradual
15 transition of use and intensity. And from --
16 and it should not have any avoidable or undue
17 adverse impact on the surrounding usage.
18 If you will -- and I'm sure you've seen
19 this already, but if -- on page 16 of your staff
20 report it shows a picture of the property and it
21 shows the right-of-way next to the railroad, and
22 I'm sure you're aware that the houses next to
23 that right-of-way are single-family homes and
24 they run about 125 feet deep to
25 Now, these lots are currently single-family
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1 homes and they're zoned CO, not CCG-1 or -2 as
2 described in the application for the total
3 project.
4 Now, these lots serve as a zoning
5 transitional [sic], you know, to -- before you
6 get to the intense use of the property, which is
7 appropriate. As such, the height limit for CO
8 property is 35 feet.
9 Now, I think can you increase that to 45
10 with an administration [sic] deviation, but
11 they're asking for 75 feet, or they at least
12 have put 75 feet in their application, and just
13 5 feet from the property.
14 Now, our thought is that we should at least
15 have specifically specified in the application
16 that the maximum height should be 45 feet. I
17 mean, it needs to be spelled out that you can't
18 go to 75 feet.
19 Now, you can also -- I don't know if you've
20 heard this before, but if you've been along that
21 area when the train goes by, the noise is pretty
22 incredible. Now, we live pretty close to
23 there. And if you have buildings that are
24 relatively tall and they're right next to
25 railroad tracks, the noise reverberation is
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1 going to be unbelievable, and it just can't
2 happen. If there's going to be anything built
3 over there, it has to be a transition away from
4 the edge of the property and it has to be low
5 rise.
6 And so, from that standpoint, we recommend
7 that you just not approve this application.
8 Thank you.
9 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, sir.
10 And thank you for talking about something
11 other than the traffic on River
12 Missie Sarra.
13 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm a member of the
14 San Marco Preservation Society.
15 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, ma'am.
16 Christine Sasser.
17 MS. SASSER: I'm a member.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Carol Garner.
19 (Audience member approaches the podium.)
20 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm a member, but they
21 haven't cashed my check yet either.
22 I'm actually speaking -- I'm Carol Garner
23 from 1713 River
24 practitioner for the Department of Health and
25 for the JSO, so it's my job to speak about
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1 crime, so I won't talk about River
2 From the beginning, the descriptions and
3 the drawings and the presentations to the public
4 from this developer have been inconsistent. The
5 Zone 3 police were under the understanding that
6 the
7 high-end condominium complex. They raised
8 questions about this because they said Zone 3
9 already has 40 percent apartments and, according
10 to their statistics, 3.8 times as many crimes
11 occur in apartment complexes as other residences
12 in
13 they might have been misinformed that way.
14 I also spoke to the president and the
15 historian from the
16 action group, and they relayed that their
17 understanding was that this also was going to be
18 a high-end condominium complex that they were
19 supportive of, but then they also had a concern
20 for some brethren of theirs and -- concerning
21 a -- especially Pastor Brian Campbell of the
22
23 there was potential danger on
24 regarding his parishioners and children crossing
25 the street because their parking lot is across
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1 the street on
2 also ask that the only in and out -- I mean,
3 entrance and exit from this complex be on
5 which will then lead into
6 I also brought a handout from a cartoon I
7 saw Saturday, which is a little -- if you would
8 hand -- I made enough copies for everyone.
9 Because it was a little disheartening, I
10 was extremely in despair -- the first time I
11 came here, it was my first time in front of the
12 City Council, then I had a glimmer of hope, and
13 now thank you for considering closing off River
15 that this is maybe what we were up against, and
16 I'll let the cartoon speak to [sic] itself.
17 Thank you very much for listening to my
18 presentation.
19 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, ma'am.
20 MS. GARNER: Thank you.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: Philip Elson.
22 (Audience member approaches the podium.)
23 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you very much,
24 Chairman Graham.
25 Councilman Shad, thank you very much as
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1 well for supporting the initiative as it relates
2 to the traffic on River
3 I'm not going to talk about the traffic,
4 but that's why -- that's one of the reasons I'm
5 here.
6 I live on 1608 River
7 and three children, we've lived there for
8 15 years. This is our very first house, and
9 there's -- and I'm 100 percent for the
10 redevelopment of this site.
11 I mean, this is what I do for a living. I
12 work in brownfields redevelopment. I worked on
13 LaVilla 15 years ago. I am the Chair of the
14 Enterprise Empowerment Zone for the City of
15
16 with Lad Daniels trying to make brownfields
17 redevelopment and projects of this nature work,
18 so it's very ironic that I'm even here today
19 kind of speaking on behalf of this project.
20 We handed out a little brochure, and I'm
21 just going to -- instead of talking, I'm just
22 going to take you through this. I'd like you to
23 take a look at this because Alison spent a whole
24 lot of time putting this together, and she
25 wasn't able to speak, and I am speaking on
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1 behalf of the River Oaks Community Club.
2 If you look at the very first page, you can
3 get a -- kind of a bird's-eye view of the
4 development on page 2, and this little area up
5 to the left-hand corner is our community.
6 That's River Oaks -- the River Oaks community.
7 We've been here for over 70 years. There's
8 75 homes in this area, about an average of
9 1,600 square foot in size.
10 And you can look at some of the
11 predevelopment, post
12 development pictures here on River
14 beautiful little bungalows. It's a
15 working-class neighborhood in San Marco.
16 So you can -- you know, once we heard about
17 this -- and I went and met with Mr. Cissel back
18 in July and started asking of -- what types of
19 impacts is this going to have on our
20 neighborhood. I was basically told none;
21 there's not going to be any impacts to your
22 road; I have no plans to do any type of
23 improvements to it; and, if so, the City of
24
25 Another -- if you look at page 9, the big
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1 aerial view, this is -- this development is
2 being done in the context of something that's
3 much bigger that's getting ready to go on in
4 this area. And, again, it's something that's
5 very important, but what concerned me was this
6 little -- and I asked Steve about this many
7 times -- the red line where River
8 you can see the blue arrow to it, where it hooks
9 up, River Oaks,
10 railroad tracks to
11 continues on over into
12 And I've asked him, well, you don't have
13 plans? Why is it on your map? This looks like
14 you're going to turn my little neighborhood,
15 this little connector road that I live on,
16 into -- a neighborhood road into a connector.
17 So I've asked that many times, and I
18 haven't -- I was told that that was the drainage
19 line by Mr. Cissel. This is the divide between
20
21 Mr. Harden -- the next page, on 10, this is
22 going to scare the bejeebers out of us and tell
23 us that this is the -- this is what could be
24 here with the current zoning.
25 Build it, build an office park, see if
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1 that's something that's going to work in this
2 area. We're literally all for that.
3 And it really is the residential. Nine
4 hundred units --
5 THE CHAIRMAN: Sir.
6 MR. ELSON: -- of residential in this
7 neighborhood is really what is scaring
8 everybody.
9 THE CHAIRMAN: Your time is up.
10 MR. ELSON: All right. Well, I really hope
11 that you spend a little bit of time with this.
12 Look in the back of this document --
13 THE CHAIRMAN: Sir.
14 MR. ELSON: -- look at the pictures, and I
15 think you'll get a good feel for what we're
16 concerned about and what we're worried about
17 losing.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
19 Guy Beard.
20 AUDIENCE MEMBER: San Marco.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, sir.
22 Wendy LaPrade.
23 AUDIENCE MEMBER: San Marco Preservation.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, ma'am.
25 Tim Franklin, I can't believe you filled
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1 out a card.
2 Shane Sheffield.
3 (Audience member approaches the podium.)
4 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi.
5 My name is Shane Sheffield. I'm -- I live
6 at
7 You know, I have a -- kids in school, River
8 Oaks -- I mean, at
9 School. I went to the ACE meeting, which is the
10 school study on overcrowding or undercrowding of
11 schools and trying to figure out the financial
12 viability of how we fund our schools.
13 This does not -- has not taken into account
14 the concurrency. I'm not an expert on this, but
15 all I know is that -- that no impact of the
16 schools is being taken into account with this
17 application.
18 And now I'm going to speak as a taxpayer.
19 I just want to be clear, this is not a
20 transportation-oriented development, so it's a
21 joke to keep referring to it as that. It is
22 not. There is no one here from JTA to say that
23 they support it or they're in favor of it. And
24 our history in our community of mass transit is
25 a -- is really kind of funny.
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1 I was doing a little bit of research last
2 night. And, you know, the Skyway was built with
3 $200 million. I thought it was like
4 $20 million. But $200 million. At -- at
5 current ridership of 1,700 people a week and
6 funding it for -- at $3-and-a-half million a
7 year, it generates $500,000 a year in revenue.
8 I think I figured out by the year of 2385 it
9 might actually pay for itself.
10 You know, I am not in favor of
11 transportation-oriented developments because I
12 think it's -- this is
13 People are not -- people own cars. They're not
14 going to ride mass transit. I mean, the Skyway
15 is the ultimate bridge to nowhere.
16 And, you know, let's just be clear, this is
17 not a transportation-oriented development, so I
18 don't know why we're throwing hard code that's
19 been planned. We're just throwing the planning
20 away, and -- and I just -- as a taxpayer and a
21 person who loves this city, I would hate to see
22 us just trash our code and our planning for
23 something that is not what it's being called.
24 Thank you.
25 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, sir.
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1 George Foote.
2 AUDIENCE MEMBER: San Marco Preservation.
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
4 George Jaghab.
5 (Audience member approaches the podium.)
6 THE CHAIRMAN: Sorry, sir, if I butchered
7 your name.
8 AUDIENCE MEMBER: That's all right.
9 My name is George Jaghab. I live at 10859
10
12 I am very, very symp- -- well, first, let
13 me just -- I mean, honestly say I'm very
14 supportive of this project, but I am also very
15 concerned and sympathetic for the concerns of
16 the members and residents -- members of the
17 San Marco Preservation Society and residents of
18 the San Marco area.
19 I will tell you from a business owner's
20 perspective, the crime that goes on during the
21 day just really is very taxing on many of the
22 business owners. I could -- I have even sensed
23 more crime to the area ever since my good
24 neighbor David Hamm, Jerry Hamm Chevrolet moved
25 up the road because there's no activity in the
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1 area. All you're left with is abandoned
2 buildings and businesses and abandoned
3 storefronts. Drug use is open, prostitution is
4 open, so any vibrant improvement to the area is
5 very much welcomed.
6 I can tell you other business owners in the
7 area are enthusiastic about it. I hope, with
8 your collective wisdom, you can make business
9 owners happy and meet the concerns of residents
10 of San Marco.
11 Thank you.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, sir.
13 Bill Argus.
14 (Audience member approaches the podium.)
15 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I have a visual that I
16 want to put, I think, on the --
17 THE CHAIRMAN: Sure. We can do that for
18 you.
19 AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name is Bill Argus. I
20 live at
21 I'm just off of River Oaks, and I'm
22 concerned about the density that the PUD has at
23 this time.
24 I wanted to share with you, just for the
25 record, that there are some residential homes
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1 that abut the property, and that's what I'm --
2 I'm trying to show here.
3 The -- visual aid number 1, it's a -- it's
4 at
5 developer's property. There's two shots of
6 that.
7 The next sheet. These are just, you know,
8 regular, middle-class homes.
9 Number 2 is a house along the boundary
10 line, and you can see on the first sheet where
11 they're numbered, you know, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.
12 Number 3 is another nice, middle-class
13 home, and it has a side yard along the
14 boundary. Number 4, it has a side yard along
15 the boundary. And 5 is just nearby number 4.
16 And the point I'm trying to make is, right
17 now, with the -- with the setbacks that are in
18 place, I think you're going to destroy some of
19 the character that I love about San Marco.
20 San Marco houses are relatively spaced
21 apart, uncharacteristically of the new
22 developments around the country, and there's a
23 lot of landscape. It's a friendly
24 neighborhood. It's a neighborhood that I have
25 no problem supporting development, albeit it's
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1 across the railroad tracks. I understand that
2 psychological difference, but I'd love to be
3 able to -- to bridge the gap there, but I think
4 something that is a little bit more generous in
5 the landscape and conducive to the park area and
6 the historical flavor of San Marco would
7 probably be a lot more successful and beneficial
8 to San Marco.
9 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, sir.
10 All right. That's the last card that I
11 have. I'm going to go back through the people
12 that were represented.
13 Now, you guys -- put in mind that you guys
14 asked for this to be a quasi-judicial hearing
15 and to be represented by an attorney or
16 everybody would have just been given three
17 minutes to speak as normal.
18 Now, I didn't cut anybody off prior to
19 three minutes. I let everybody speak. I didn't
20 cut anybody off at one minute, but I let
21 everybody speak through the end.
22 If there's anything that you want to add
23 that you haven't heard that was said thus far,
24 come forward. If you felt like everything has
25 already been said, then we'll continue from
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1 there.
2 Rob Smith.
3 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm okay.
4 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, sir.
5 Carolyn Hinckley.
6 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm all right.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Thank you.
8 Alicia [sic] Abernathy, followed
by
9 Gollnick.
10 (Audience member approaches the podium.)
11 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Alison Abernathy, and I
12
live at
13 And I don't want to take a lot of your
14 time, but I would like to point -- on page
15 number 25 in the handout that we gave you that
16 says "the other side of the
17 development," we've got a couple of, I think,
18 very important quotes that came out of the
19 Planning Commission meeting about ten days ago.
20 Eddie Johnson, the chairman of the Planning
21 Commission, said quote, No access on River Oaks
22 or Summerall. That way we know we're all
23 covered and we understand what our intent is,
24 and if anybody goes back into the record of what
25 we're trying to do here, they understand the
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1 intent is we don't want any cars leaving this
2 site to the south at all, period, end of story.
3 That quote is followed by one from
4 Mr. Harden, where he said, quote, We're going to
5 accept whatever solution you-all propose.
6 He said that to the Planning Commission,
7 and we hope that he abides by it.
8 Thank you.
9 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, ma'am.
10
11 (Audience member approaches the podium.)
12 AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name is
13 Gollnick. I live at
14 I'm here to represent the residents of
15 Brookwood, Lorimier, and Dunsford Roads, which
16 comprise approximately 150 families.
17 We'd like to register a concern about
18 increased traffic on our residential roads.
19 Today Lorimier, Brookwood, and Dunsford Roads
20 are used as -- pardon me -- are used as
21 cut-throughs for people who want to drive
22 between
24 Adding 900 new families and their cars to
25 the area would create a considerable danger to
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1 traffic -- or to pets, children, and pedestrians
2 in our neighborhood streets.
3 Unlike River Oaks, we do not have sidewalks
4 to separate us from the cars that drive
5 sometimes at excessive speeds through our
6 neighborhood.
7 We request that traffic studies be
8 conducted in the area, also extend to Lorimier,
9 Brookwood, and Dunsford Roads.
10 We understand that we will experience some
11 increase in traffic; however, limiting the
12 residential component of this development to a
13 significantly smaller number of units would help
14 us to maintain a safe and healthy environment
15 for our families, and the potential closure of
16 River
17 traffic that's going to be cutting through our
18 neighborhood streets.
19 We love our homes, and we would think of
20 living nowhere else in
21 improvement along this stretch of Philips
22 Highway that has gone too long without
23 attention. We want to be sure that -- the right
24 type of improvement that benefits us all, both
25 in the new and existing residences.
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1 There's no reason to damage -- there's no
2 reason to cause damage to a well-established
3 community for the sake of installing a new one.
4 Surely a solution that is beneficial can be
5 achieved for all of us.
6 Thank you.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, sir.
8 Gordon Mott.
9 (Audience member approaches the podium.)
10 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Gordon Mott, 1567
12 Very briefly, and I'll make this very brief
13 because no one's mentioned the issue of parking
14 and variance from -- from code that's being
15 requested.
16 The project is requesting that the -- that
17 they be granted a reduction of -- to one-half of
18 the requirements under residential and one-half
19 of the requirements under commercial, and I
20 would point out specifically that the
21 Development Services Division of the Planning
22 Department has specifically recommended that
23 this not be granted. I believe that's included
24 in the material that you have before you, so I
25 would only ask that the City codes be respected
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1 with respect to parking in this project.
2 Thank you.
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, sir.
4 Missie Sarra.
5 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm on the board, so I'm
6 represented.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Thank you, ma'am.
8 Christine Sasser.
9 (Ms. Sasser approaches the podium.)
10 MS. SASSER: Good evening.
11 My name is Christine Sasser. I live at 951
13 And this is a public hearing, and I am here
14 as part of the public. My husband Doug and I
15 are going to be represented by these comments.
16 We do not support -- first of all, we support
17 revitalization on
18 it to be done according to code.
19 And I just wanted to remind everyone -- a
20 lot of what's been said I support, but just
21 remember Part 14 of the zoning code was amended
22 by the City Council in 2007, and that created a
23 TOD zoning category.
24 Now, the PUD -- as, you know, everyone has
25 said, this is not a TOD. However, the Planning
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1 Department staff report says, and I quote, The
3 transit-oriented development.
4 And, you know, Mr. Harden says that the
5 Planning Department has clearly vetted this
6 issue. Well, if that's so, the PUD -- I mean,
7 how can they explain, then, that the PUD has
8 granted reductions in parking, increased
9 density, and reductions in landscaping, which
10 are clearly given to TODs. And I just want to
11 remind you of that and to please follow the
12 zoning code.
13 This is not a TOD. The JTA memo in your
14 paperwork clearly states that their only
15 commitment is for a bus stop and a bus pull-off
16 lane. JTA has no plans as of right now to put a
17 transit-oriented -- a transit station -- rapid
18 transit station at this location, so please be
19 mindful of that.
20 And if using this TOD concept -- it's not a
21 justification for waivers or for uses or
22 intensities which violate the US-1 Corridor
23 Study, the requirements of the comp plan, and
24 recommendations from the Development Services
25 Division. So please follow your own zoning code
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1 and please consider these recommendations from
2 San Marco.
3 Thank you.
4 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, ma'am.
5 Guy Beard.
6 (Audience member approaches the podium.)
7 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hello.
8 My name is Guy Beard. I live at 2763
10 You know, this whole project is basically
11 been on a "this is going to work" basis. You
12 know, we're going to go in there and we're going
13 to fill these things out. We're going to fill
14 this commercial space up. I haven't heard what
15 if, what if they don't fill it up, what if the
16 commercial property isn't filled up, how long
17 will it be vacant?
18 There's a lot of commercial property on
20 places you can go rent around here. That's the
21 big question. What if this doesn't happen? We
22 give them the zoning that they need and they
23 decide not to build and to sell, who's the
24 second owner of this property going to be?
25 That's the contention that I look at, is, what
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1 if this really doesn't work?
2 You know, the big saying is, build it and
3 they will come. Well, in today's world, that's
4 not necessarily true. So that's -- that's my
5 different view.
6 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, sir. I
7 appreciate it.
8 Wendy LaPrade.
9 AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Indicating.)
10 THE CHAIRMAN: Let the record show she said
11 she's fine.
12 George Foote.
13 AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Indicating.)
14 THE CHAIRMAN: Let the record indicate he's
15 okay.
16 And Barbara Pickett, Puckett.
17 (Audience member approaches the podium.)
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Sorry, ma'am. I can't see
19 if that's an "I" or a "U."
20 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good evening.
21 My name is Barbara Puckett. I live at
23 And I am the director emeritus of San Marco
24 Preservation. Do I qualify?
25 THE CHAIRMAN: You're fine. Go ahead.
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1 MS. PUCKETT: I would like to invite each
2 of you to our neighborhood. I have a feeling
3 that you're not familiar with the area in which
4 you've been asked to make a decision. It's a
5 neighborhood that was built before World War II
6 broke out. My family has lived in the
7 neighborhood since 1938, and I have lived there
8 most of the time myself.
9 The neighborhood was designed with narrow
10 streets, lots 60 feet by 125, lovely brick
11 homes, frame homes, some of them are 1,200
12 square feet up to 2,5-, 3,000 square feet.
13 They're all maintained. And everyone admires
14 San Marco for what we have been able to do, with
15 the help of the City, I might add.
16 We have -- people keep their neighborhoods
17 up, their homes, they keep the trash off the
18 street. If they see something that's going
19 wrong, amidst with a neighbor, they help. We
20 have just helped with a neighbor who died and
21 put on an event after the funeral, and those are
22 neighbors just getting together to aid one
23 another.
24 I really don't think you understand what
25 San Marco is. San Marco is a small
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1 neighborhood. The City bus actually turned at
2 River
3 of the city of
4 So please come visit our neighborhood
5 before you let too much activity and traffic
6 destroy the small streets and small homes.
7 Thank you.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, ma'am.
9 (Audience member approaches the podium.)
10 THE CHAIRMAN: Sir, are you going to speak
11 on this project?
12 AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Nods head.)
13 THE CHAIRMAN: You might as well come on
14 up.
15 AUDIENCE MEMBER: How you doing?
16 THE CHAIRMAN: Name and address for the
17 record, please.
18 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes, sir.
19 My name is Hanif Shakir. My address is
21 I represent the people, but good evening,
22 everybody.
23 THE CHAIRMAN: Good evening.
24 MR. SHAKIR: Yeah, I didn't know I was
25 coming down here. I just -- but anyway, the
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1 biggest problem I have is just getting the
2 people together right now. You know, when the
3 world is -- the world order is confused, so I'm
4 just in that confusion, but I'm not confused.
5 So our resident [sic]. I pray for us.
6 Safety. But just -- just with (inaudible) for
7 me.
8 I do everything right. I support the
9 people, but when I tell y'all, I like to go to
10 Jaguar games, I like to go -- support the
11 children, I like to have money to spend with
12 them sometimes. I like a lot of money because I
13 do a lot of things, so it's my -- and I'm going
14 to make this short. I don't want to speak
15 too -- I'm tired of speaking. I want you to see
16 my action, how I live.
17 But when I go out there with a little
18 money, try to get a ticket -- you know, when the
19 sheriff called me -- what? Yeah, I'll walk with
20 you. Let's go clean the street up. State
21 attorney, Angela, Jay Plotkin, Mr. Shorstein, I
22 know people. I know y'all. But when I need
23 help for a -- $10 or something for a ticket and
24 I can't get it, I'm the god, I'm the Jesus of
25 the world. I can love every race, but I'm going
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1 to make it because I'm very sincere about my
2 education, my self-esteem. I'm going to be
3 healthy, and I know God, and I know what he told
4 me, to keep being vigorous, energetic.
5 So I say this: I'm struggling, but who
6 ain't struggling? So I be wanting to go to the
7 game, but then you ain't -- you know my address,
8 I just told you, but you don't come check on
9 me. But I check on you, your children. I pray
10 for all y'all, all these communities in
11
12 I'm from Duval, but why you let a man of
13 God die? But I ain't going to die because I'm
14 vigorous. I'm -- I got so many words, but this
15 is the key: I want to live and not suffer like
16 the prophets of old. I'm going to live. I'm
17 going to still do what I have to do. I'm just
18 pissed off, but I'm all right.
19 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, sir. And thank
20 you for not talking about the traffic on
21 River
22 (Audience member approaches the podium.)
23 THE CHAIRMAN: Ma'am.
24 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes. Hi.
25 My name is Elizabeth Duff. I reside at
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2 dead-end streets which runs into River Oaks
3 Road.
4 I'm not going to say a lot about traffic,
5 but I just wanted -- this -- these are just two
6 things that nobody mentioned that will affect
7 implications of traffic.
8 We already deal with a lot of congestion at
9 certain times of the day because of the light on
10 River Oaks and Hendricks. It's like the
11 shortest light of the southeast of the United
12 States. I mean, you really have, like, maybe
13 three seconds to get through a green light
14 there. Sometimes the cars can be backed up
15 several blocks there in the afternoon.
16 The other thing is the train. I have sat
17 at the train, waiting for a train to go by, and
18 then having another train show up to come by
19 after the other one just finished, sometimes for
20 20 minutes, and that causes a lot of traffic to
21 back up too.
22 So I just -- when you're thinking about the
23 traffic, just think about the congestion that we
24 already deal with and how it's going to be
25 larger if we should deal with a lot more
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1 traffic.
2 Thank you.
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, ma'am.
4 Now, I don't have any more cards. Is there
5 anybody else that would like to speak or felt
6 like there's something they need to add to the
7 record?
8 AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Indicating.)
9 THE CHAIRMAN: Ma'am, come on up.
10 Did you fill out a card?
11 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I had one before. Does
12 that count?
13 THE CHAIRMAN: Did you -- you already
14 spoke?
15 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm Carol Garner, but I
16 just wanted to present to the City Council a
17 letter from my neighbor, who couldn't be here,
18 so that's --
19 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. That's fine, ma'am.
20 We'll add that to the record.
21 MS. GARNER: Thank you.
22 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
23 Is there anybody else?
24 AUDIENCE MEMBERS: (No response.)
25 THE CHAIRMAN: Seeing none, I'm going to
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1 close the public hearing.
2 Diane, I know your fingers are probably
3 getting a little sore right now. Can you hold
4 on? We have about ten minutes -- I'm sorry,
5 twenty minutes of rebuttal. Hopefully, they're
6 not going to use that much time, but -- if you
7 can hold on through that so we can just go ahead
8 and be done with the public hearing.
9 THE REPORTER: Okay. That's fine.
10 THE CHAIRMAN: First is Mr. Franklin,
11 followed by Mr. Harden.
12 (Mr. Franklin approaches the podium.)
13 MR. FRANKLIN: Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
14 I, based on these comments, don't have a
15 whole lot to rebut, if you will.
16 I think that what I would say about the
17 comments is it really shows, number one, a
18 diversity that we have in the neighborhood
19 there. It really shows the brain power that we
20 have in San Marco, some of the probably best
21 professional and service and -- and all
22 different fields live in this neighborhood.
23 The San Marco Preservation Society and its
24 members are not one of your -- well, I'll just
25 say they're probably the best -- one of the
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1 best, if not the best neighborhood action groups
2 out there. They're very involved, they've
3 always been in the forefront of making sure
4 their neighborhood has zoning controls and
5 protections, those sort of the things.
6 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Franklin, you're not
7 rebutting right now. You'll get five minutes to
8 conclude, if you'd like.
9 Do you have any rebuttal?
10 MR. FRANKLIN: I was just trying to use
11 some of -- you caught me. I'll wait for
12 rebuttal -- I'll wait for closing.
13 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Thank you.
14 Mr. Harden.
15 (Mr. Harden approaches the podium.)
16 MR. HARDEN: Thank you.
17 I want to first comment on the complaint of
18 lack of information. In all due respect, I
19 don't criticize anyone for their positions.
20 This PUD is like a hundred other planned
21 unit developments that you've been through. I
22 don't think there's a fair understanding of how
23 detailed the Planning Department requires the
24 information that you provide before you get in
25 the door. And we did that, and that information
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1 was provided, and then, on top of that, we have
2 the set of conditions, on top of that the
3 conditions required by the San Marco
4 Preservation -- not to mention the
5 interrogatories they sent if they wanted
6 information that we want to give them.
7 So I think, in fairness, the process has,
8 in fact, yielded very substantial information.
9 I'm going to go quickly through some of the
10 comments.
11 The internal inconsistencies, I just beg to
12 differ. The Planning Department has reviewed
13 the specific issue. The one that was raised was
14 single-family versus multifamily. Single-family
15 is a listed use in the CCG zoning category.
16 It's listed as a use in the PUD. There is no
17 location on here there's [sic] going to be a
18 single-family development.
19 Potentially, you would put a row of houses
20 along
21 potentially along Mitchell, and those would be
22 single-family and that use. And that's the only
23 reason it's in there. But every single
24 commercial general PUD that's a mixed use
25 includes that language in there, so it's not
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1 something that's intended to concern somebody.
2 The density that Mr. Frazier raised --
3 sixty units per acre is allowable under the CGC
4 zoning category. The Planning Department is
5 limiting us until there's some activity for the
6 mass transit activity. There's no requirement
7 that we do a TOD here, but they required us to
8 do mass transit activity.
9 Don't call it a TOD if you don't want to.
10 Call it what it is. It's a facility to start
11 mass transit activity on
12 there's very detailed requirements for that.
13 Sixty units an acre is what we're allowed
14 under the zoning code. They've limited us to 30
15 until we get up with the transportation
16 activity, and that was a fair request and we
17 agreed to it, but don't think that that's not an
18 allowable use.
19 A lady mentioned level of service capacity
20 on River
21 7 percent currently.
22 A gentleman said he has a problem because
23 of the lack of gradual transition. Right now
24 it's commercial general right up to the houses
25 on both sides of the property and there's one
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1 line along the railroad track. We're changing
2 that. We're actually going to make it into a
3 gradual transition by making it residential. So
4 remember, now it's commercial activity up there
5 and we're the one actually putting that into
6 effect.
7 I'm not sure -- the lady that talked about
8 crime in the neighborhood, I wish she had a fair
9 understanding of what's happening now on Philips
10 Highway. Our goal is to help clean that up.
11 Our goal is to bring in -- and they are high-end
12 units, but that's not the issue. I don't want
13 to suggest that people who live in less
14 expensive houses commit more crime, but we're
15 agreeing to all the
16 activity on that, and so our goal is to not
17 precipitate that.
18 Someone mentioned -- a gentleman mentioned
19 the
20 of the conditions that we agreed to last Friday
21 was putting in a buffer along that location to
22 offset the single-family homes at that location,
23 so we're -- we're agreeable to that.
24 Likewise, the parking reduction. They
25 asked for an increase in parking. The Planning
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1 Department had given us something less. We
2 raised that in -- consistent with that
3 discussion.
4 So almost all of these issues were raised
5 and we responded in the conditions that the --
6 Councilman Shad reduced to writing.
7 The Dunsford, Brookwood, Lorimier activity,
8 those are streets that are parallel, heading
9 south from River
10 River
11 going to go. So I'm not sure what the
12 gentleman's comment was other than maybe -- you
13 know, maybe he's on our position that -- that we
14 want to increase the connectivity, so -- just so
15 you know where those are, those aren't being
16 proposed to shut off. They're off
17 Road.
18 The last thing I want to talk about is the
19 what if, what if -- what if it doesn't happen.