CITY OF
LAND USE AND ZONING
COMMITTEE
Proceedings held on Wednesday, September 3,
2008, commencing at 5:05 p.m., City Hall, Council
Chambers, 1st Floor
Tina Hutcheson, a Notary Public in and for the State
of
PRESENT:
ART GRAHAM, Chair
STEPHEN JOOST, Vice Chair
JOHNNY GAFFNEY, Committee Member
RAY HOLT, Committee Member
DON REDMAN, Committee Member
JACK Webb, Committee Member
ALSO PRESENT:
WARREN JONES, City Council Member
JOHN CROFTS, Deputy Director, Planning Dept.
SEAN KELLY, Chief, Current Planning
KEN AVERY, Planning and Development Dept.
FOLKS HUXFORD, Zoning Administrator
MARILYN ALLEN, Legislative Assistant
MERRIANE LAHMEUR, Legislative Assistant
- - -
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 September 3, 2008 5:05 p.m.
3
4 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Good afternoon,
5 everybody.
6 Let the record show it's about five after
7 five. And I apologize, I was tied up in
8 another meeting.
9 On Wednesday, September the 3rd, this is
10 the Land Use and Zoning Committee meeting.
11 And, Mr. Crofts, let's start with you and
12 go around the bend.
13 MR. CROFTS: Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman.
14 John Crofts is my name and I'm with the
15 Planning and Development Department as Deputy
16 Director.
17 MR. KELLY: Sean Kelly, Planning and
18 Development.
19 MR. AVERY: Ken Avery, Planning and
20 Development.
21 MR. HUXFORD: Folks Huxford, Planning and
22 Development.
23 MS. ELLER: Shannon Eller, General
24 Counsel's Office.
25 MR. REDMAN: Don Redman, District 4.
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1 MR. GAFFNEY: Councilman Gaffney, District
2 7.
3 MR. HOLT: Ray Holt, District 11.
4 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Art Graham, District 13.
5 MR. JOOST: Stephen Joost, Group 3,
6 at-large.
7 MR. WEBB: Jack Webb, District 6.
8 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Let the record show we
9 have an excused absence for Richard Clark who
10 is out counting votes or confirming votes, or
11 whatever he is.
12 Okay. Let's start.
13 Page 2, top of the page.
14 2005-1228 is deferred.
15 2006-24 is deferred.
16 2006-220 is deferred.
17 2006-658 is deferred.
18 2007-384 is deferred.
19 2007-581 is deferred.
20 Now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to
21 go through the entire agenda and let you know
22 what's deferred so you're not sitting here
23 waiting on a bill that we're not going to take
24 any action on, and then we'll come back and
25 take action on some of these bills.
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1 2007-803 is deferred.
2 2007-1086 is deferred.
3 Top of Page 5, 2008-236, -413, -414 are
4 all deferred.
5 Top of Page 6, -515, -516, -517 are all
6 deferred.
7 Top of Page 7, -418, -419, -420 are all
8 deferred.
9 Top of Page 8 -- bottom of the Page 8.
10 I'm sorry. 2008-541 we're deferring.
11 Top of page 9, -542, bottom of Page 9,
12 -545, all deferred.
13 Top of Page 10, -546, bottom of Page 10,
14 -549 are deferred.
15 Page 11, -550, -551, -552 are all
16 deferred.
17 Page 12, we will be doing something on all
18 that, at least opening a public hearing.
19 On Page 13, bottom of the page, -606 --
20 nope. We're at least having a public hearing
21 on that one.
22 Bottom of Page 14, 2008-650 -- am I losing
23 you?
24 COURT REPORTER: No, sir. I'm fine.
25 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: -650, we're deferred.
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1 Page 15, -651, -652, -653, -654, we are
2 all deferred.
3 And Page 16 and 17, which is -713, -714,
4 -715, -716, -717, -718, -719 and -720 are all
5 second rereferred.
6 I said that so no one is sitting here and
7 be disappointed that they sat here for a couple
8 of hours and the bill was deferred.
9 Okay. We are back on Page 4.
10 2007-1350. We will open the public
11 hearing.
12 Seeing no speakers, we'll continue that
13 public hearing and take no further action.
14 2008-23. Open the public hearing.
15 And we'll continue that public hearing and
16 take no further action.
17 Over to Page 8, top of the page.
18 2008-493. We'll open that public hearing.
19 And we have Roger, is it Futch?
20 Come on down, sir. Please give us your
21 name and address for the record, and you have
22 three minutes.
23 MR. FUTCH: My name is Roger Futch. I
24 live at
25
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1 property at -- I'm the owner of the property at
3 property, 2510
4 The reason I'm trying to get it rezoned,
5 right now it's the CO and I can't do any kind
6 of retail sales. I don't have any plans for it
7 right this minute, but if I wanted to sale
8 Christmas trees or anything there, to be
9 compliant, I'd have to have it CCG-1.
10 So that's really all my statement, if any
11 questions.
12 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: So you're here for
13 questions?
14 MR. FUTCH: Right.
15 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay. I don't see any
16 questions right now. So we will -- just hold
17 on.
18 We'll close the public hearing.
19 (Inaudible motion and second)
20 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Bill's been moved and
21 seconded.
22 Any further discussion on the bill?
23 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response)
24 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Seeing none, please open
25 the ballot.
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1 (Committee ballot opened)
2 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Close the ballot and
3 record the vote.
4 MR. GRAHAM: (Votes yea)
5 MR. JOOST: (Votes yea)
6 MR. REDMAN: (Votes yea)
7 MR. GAFFNEY: (Votes yea)
8 MR. HOLT: (Votes yea)
9 MR. WEBB: (Votes yea)
10 (Committee ballot closed)
11 MS. LAHMEUR: Six yea, zero nay.
12 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: By your action, you've
13 approved 2008-493.
14 Sir, thank you for coming down. You're
15 good to go?
16 MR. FUTCH: Good.
17 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: 2008-517. Open the
18 public hearing.
19 Seeing no speakers, we'll continue that
20 public hearing.
21 -518. Open the public hearing.
22 Seeing no speakers, we'll continue that
23 public hearing.
24 We are on Page 9. We will open the public
25 hearing for both 2008-543 and -544. We'll open
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1 those public hearings.
2 First speaker is Alice Barrett.
3 Come on down, ma'am. Name and address for
4 the record.
5 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Alice Barrett, 1888
7 I'm just basically here if anyone has any
8 questions.
9 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay. Hold tight.
10 Any questions?
11 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response)
12 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Seeing none, we will
13 close the public hearing on both of those.
14 Hold on.
15 We'll start with -543.
16 (Inaudible motion and second)
17 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Bill's been moved and
18 seconded.
19 Any discussion on the bill?
20 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response)
21 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Seeing none, please open
22 the ballot.
23 (Committee ballot opened)
24 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Close the ballot and
25 record the vote.
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1 MR. GRAHAM: (Votes yea)
2 MR. JOOST: (Votes yea)
3 MR. REDMAN: (Votes yea)
4 MR. GAFFNEY: (Votes yea)
5 MR. HOLT: (Votes yea)
6 (Committee ballot closed)
7 MS. LAHMEUR: Five yea, zero nay.
8 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: By your action, you have
9 approved 2008-543.
10 2008-544. Move the amendment?
11 Can we hear the amendment, please.
12 MR. CROFTS: Yes, Mr. Chairman.
13 The amendment is as follows. There are
14 nine conditions for the PUD and they are as
15 follows:
16 "The developer shall be subject to the
17 original legal description dated July 27,
18 2007."
19 Number 2, "The developer shall be subject
20 to the original written description dated
21 September 27, 2007."
22 Number 3, "Developer shall be subject to
23 the revised site plan dated August 14, 2008."
24 Number 4, "Signage shall be limited to
25 wall signage and no larger than four square
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1 feet."
2 Number 5, "All requirements of Section
3 656.1216 of the zoning code shall be met;
4 however, the fence height may remain at
5 six feet."
6 Number 6, "Access shall be limited to one
7 driveway on
8 40 feet of the southern property line."
9 Number 7, "An evergreen hedge shall be
10 provided in front of the existing six-foot
11 fence to screen the vehicular use area from the
13 Number 8, "The Development shall be
14 subject to the development services division
15 memorandum dated June 24, 2008, or as otherwise
16 approved by the Planning and Development
17 Department."
18 Number 9, "No trees shall be required as
19 part of the uncomplimentary buffer."
20 That concludes the amendment.
21 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Ma'am, are you in
22 agreement with all those?
23 MS. BARRETT: Sound fine to me.
24 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: That sounds like yes.
25 (Inaudible motion and second)
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1 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: We've moved and seconded
2 the amendment.
3 Any further discussion on the amendment?
4 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response)
5 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Seeing none, all in
6 favor say aye.
7 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: Aye.
8 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Those opposed?
9 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response)
10 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: By your action, you
11 approve the amendment.
12 (Inaudible motion and second)
13 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Bill's been moved and
14 seconded as amended.
15 Any further discussion on the bill?
16 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response)
17 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Seeing none, please open
18 the ballot.
19 (Committee ballot opened)
20 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Close the ballot and
21 record the vote.
22 MR. GRAHAM: (Votes yea)
23 MR. JOOST: (Votes yea)
24 MR. REDMAN: (Votes yea)
25 MR. GAFFNEY: (Votes yea)
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1 MR. HOLT: (Votes yea)
2 MR. WEBB: (Votes yea)
3 (Committee ballot closed)
4 MS. LAHMEUR: Six yea, zero nay.
5 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: By your action, you've
6 approved 2008-544.
7 Guys, I -- let me use a little discretion
8 as the Chair. If we could go over to the
9 bottom of Page 12. I'm sorry I didn't do this
10 earlier.
11 2008-566. I want to open that public
12 hearing.
13 Name and address for the record, please.
14 MR. HAZOURI: Tommy Hazouri, 12175
15 Dividing Oaks Trail West,
16
17 for a sign waiver moving his present sign one
18 block up the street to his new facility. It's
19 10 foot to 5 feet, and he did this about three
20 years ago at the present site and now he's
21 built a new building.
22 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Seeing no other speakers
23 for this bill, we have closed the public
24 hearing.
25 MR. WEBB: Move.
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1 MR. JOOST: Second.
2 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: It's been moved and
3 seconded to grant the waiver.
4 Any discussion on the amendment?
5 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response)
6 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Seeing none, all in
7 favor signify by say aye.
8 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: Aye.
9 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Those opposed?
10 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response)
11 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: By your action, you've
12 approved the amendment.
13 (Inaudible motion and second)
14 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: The bill's been moved
15 and seconded to grant.
16 Any discussion on the bill?
17 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response)
18 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Seeing none, please open
19 the ballot.
20 (Committee ballot opened)
21 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Close the ballot and
22 record the vote.
23 MR. GRAHAM: (Votes yea)
24 MR. JOOST: (Votes yea)
25 MR. REDMAN: (Votes yea)
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1 MR. GAFFNEY: (Votes yea)
2 MR. HOLT: (Votes yea)
3 MR. WEBB: (Votes yea)
4 (Committee ballot closed)
5 MS. LAHMEUR: Six yea, zero nay.
6 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: By your action, you've
7 approved to grant the waiver on 2008-566.
8 MR. HAZOURI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and
9 councilmembers. Appreciate it.
10 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: All right. Now, where
11 were we?
12 Let's go to Page 10, middle of the page.
13 2008-547 and -548. We will open a public
14 hearing on both of those.
15 Seeing no speakers, we will continue that
16 public hearing and take no further action.
17 (Inaudible comment)
18 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: We're not taking any
19 action on that. We asked for a deferral. We
20 had a request for deferral from the district
21 councilperson.
22 Page 11, bottom of the page.
23 2008-562. Open the public hearing.
24 We have Ms.
25 MS. HIPPS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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1
2 32204.
3 I'm here to answer any questions. We've
4 asked for any action on this to be deferred
5 until we work out some issues with the site
6 plan. But I'm here for the public hearing.
7 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay.
8 MS. HIPPS: Thank you.
9 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Seeing no other
10 speakers, we will continue that public hearing
11 and take no further action.
12 Top of the Page 12.
13 2008-563. We'll open a public hearing.
14 We have Robert Blade.
15 Sir, come on down. Your name and address
16 for the record, followed by Deryle -- I'm
17 sorry. Mr. Calhoun. Please make your way down
18 as well.
19 MR. BLADE: Hi. My name is Robert Blade
20 at
21 I'm speaking in opposition to the Jackson
22 Square development on
23 I'm all for mass transit in neighborhoods
24 clustered to bring pedestrian friendly shops,
25 but this proposed
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1 has too many unanswered questions. Three to be
2 specific.
3 What kind of housing is going to be built
4 there? 900 units, especially in today's
5 housing market, is a lot to fill.
6 Will federal Section 8 rent subsidies
7
vouchers be used to fill them?
The
8 Magazine in a piece last July had compelling
9 evidence that showed a huge upswing in violent
10 crime in a once peaceful area of
11
12 The parallels with the San Marco area are
13 vividly clear.
14 How will all the new traffic brought on by
15 900 housing units be handled? Children would
16 in all probability go to
17 Elementary School. Would River
18 become a major through street where it's now a
19 quiet -- mostly quiet residential street? What
20 happens to the quality of life for the people
21 who live on River Oaks? What will happen to
22
23 City's master plan has it as a passive park.
24 If the developers use it as part of their green
25 space, what happens to its passive purpose?
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1 What happens to the neighborhoods around the
2 park?
3 Until these issues and similar ones can be
4 resolved to the satisfaction of everyone, I
5 urge the committee to deny the rezoning.
6 Thank you.
7 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Thank you.
8 Mr. Blade, just for your information, this
9 bill is going to be deferred until October 7.
10 So there's plenty of time for you guys to get
11 questions and answers.
12 Mr. Jones, hold on just a second.
13 Go ahead.
14 MR. JONES: Through the Chair to
15 Mr. Blade.
16 I hope -- this is in District 9 that I
17 represent. I know you live in Mr. Shad's --
18 MR. BLADE: Shad's district, yes, sir.
19 MR. JONES: To my knowledge, there is no
20 evidence, and I'd like to get that, that
21 there's a correlation between poor people and
22 crime, first of all.
23 Secondly, I would think that the
24 development that's proposed, some of those
25 questions you have can be answered once they
Tina Hutcheson, Inc.
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1 finalize their plan unit development.
2 And the park use, if it's a passive park
3 today, it would certainly be a passive park
4 once the zoning -- if the zoning is approved by
5 the council.
6 MR. BLADE: I mean I think that's the
7 whole point, that we want some of these issues
8 resolved before anything goes forward on this.
9 MR. JONES: Through the Chair, I
10 understand there is a meeting between the
11 developer and the community association.
12 MR. BLADE: There was one last Thursday,
13 but nothing really was resolved.
14 MR. JONES: Okay. And I think there's
15 another one scheduled, and I hope -- I'm going
16 to try to attend, but it's a quasi-judicial
17 function and I'm not sure I can. I'll have to
18 talk to my legal counsel here, but I hope that
19 y'all can get together and work through some of
20 those issues.
21 MR. BLADE: Yeah. Compromises are great.
22 MR. JONES: Thank you.
23 MR. BLADE: Thank you.
24 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Thank you, sir.
25 Mr. Calhoun?
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1 MR. CALHOUN: Good afternoon. Deryle
2 Calhoun, Jr.,
3 appreciate the opportunity to address the
4 committee today, and I too am opposed to the
5 development that's currently proposed.
6 First, let me say redevelopment of the
7 subject property is important.
8 has its challenges here, but not the
9 residential development density that negatively
10 impacts the character of our neighborhood and
11 puts additional strain on resources such as
12 roads, in particular River Oaks, and schools.
13 Hendricks Elementary already has plenty of
14 portables and a very small cafeteria.
15 I support commercial development of the
16 property. A show of hands by about 100
17 attendees at the community meeting hosted by
18 San Marco Preservation indicated overwhelming
19 approval of smart commercial development at the
20 property.
21 Commercial development would take many
22 more cars off the road. San Marco residents
23 currently have to travel to Regency, Baymeadows
24 or I-10 to shop at a Home Depot or a Target.
25 Look at the residents' disappointment at the
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1 delayed Publix project to understand how we're
2 starving for commercial.
3 If the proposed residential component
4 remains, there are a number of objections to
5 the current proposal. The development claims
6 to be transit oriented, yet there are no
7 agreements in place with JTA. If it were a
8 TOD, the proposed parking of one half the
9 typical required of a development of this type
10 would make more sense, and the pioneers who
11 move there will most certainly need a car.
12 There will be plenty of roommates to share the
13 rent with multiple vehicles per unit. My
14 understanding is a transit commitment typically
15 precedes a TOD application.
16 The application says off-site parking
17 adjacent to the development shall be credited
18 against any parking requirements. Where are
19 those spaces and how much sense does it make to
20 park along
21 and walk into the development?
22 The application indicates a height of
23 buildings up to 75 feet at the railroad. Train
24 noise will be unbearable to the residents in
25 the buildings and then will bounce off those
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1 buildings into our neighborhood. The buildings
2 are indicated to be located right at the River
4 horn. And I live about a third of a mile from
5 both the River Oaks and the Atlantic crossings
6 and can tell you train noise is already an
7 issue. I'm awakened some nights and can't
8 imagine anyone paying good money for rent or a
9 condo immediately adjacent to a very active
10 railroad.
11 Lighting impacts to the neighborhood
12 should also be considered. All lighting in
13 parking and on buildings should be required to
14 be directed back into the development.
15 Traffic impacts to River
16 closing it at the railroad. It's incredible to
17 think what will become of a 25-foot road and
18 the property values of roughly 65 homes on it
19 and three dead-end side streets. I can tell
20 you many of us already use it as a cut-though
21 between Hendricks and Philips. This
22 development will degrade the quality of life
23 for River Oaks residents. Railroad crossing at
24 River Oaks should be a condition of the
25 development.
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1 Finally, a request for a 90 percent
2 maximum lot coverage versus the typical
3 residential high density coverage at 50 percent
4 with 25 percent natural seems excessive. A
5 more green friendly coverage will make the site
6 more appealing to potential residents.
7 I appreciate the time.
8 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Thank you, sir.
9 Philip?
10 MR. ELSON: Thank you, Chairman Graham.
11 My name is Philip Elson. I live at 1608
12 River
13 opposition to the PUD for the
14 development.
15 I'm just -- I just urge you to take a real
16 good look at this, the staff recommendations
17 and the PUD application itself. I think there
18 are some fairly significant problems with the
19 application itself. Many things I think will
20 be brought up by the San Marco Preservation
21 Society as it relates to just what's included
22 and what's not included.
23 I've lived in this neighborhood for 15
24 years. It's a beautiful little enclave in San
25 Marco. Sidewalks on either side of the road.
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1 If you go out during the evening, people are
2 walking their dogs, they're pushing their kids
3 in strollers. And I've got three small
4 children that we try to keep out of River Oaks
5 Road just because of the problems we already
6 have with traffic. And that's really the issue
7 that I have is the impacts that this
8 development is going to have on traffic. And
9 specifically putting all -- having an entrance
10 onto River
11 development.
12 The traffic counts that they have have
13 over 6,000 trips per day just relating to the
14 residential aspect of this. And that's
15 basically traffic that's going to be funneled
16 right down River
17 think the impacts to the neighborhood have been
18 taken into consideration.
19 I think the big part of this is the
20 residential aspect of it. We're all for the
21 redevelopment of this site. An infill
22 redevelopment is something personally I've been
23 involved with, brownfields redevelopment, for
24 over ten years with this community. So it's
25 not the issue of development of the site, but
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1 it really is an issue of 900 units of
2 residential apartment being built right
3 adjacent to our neighborhood, and then having
4 the traffic impacts onto River
5 I just really urge you to kind of take a
6 look at, and I hate to do this, but in regards
7 to your zoning legislation, Section 656.125 as
8 it relates to what the limitations on the
9 rezoning of land. There's one section in here
10 that I think really hits home as it relates to
11 this project, and it's Item Number C5. The
12 proposed rezoning and redevelopment permitted
13 thereunder will detract from the character and
14 quality of life in the general area of the
15 neighborhood by creating excess traffic, noise,
16 vibration, fumes, dust, odors, physical
17 activities and other detrimental effects or
18 nuisances.
19 That's exactly what's going to happen.
20 You've heard Deryle talk a little bit about
21 that with the train noise; traffic on River
23 the death blow for our little enclave there on
24 River
25 Appreciate your time.
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1 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Thank you, sir.
2 Shane, is it
3 Name and address for the record, sir.
4 You've got three minutes.
5 MR. SHEFFIELD: My name is Shane
6
7 the corner of Marco and
8 FEC park across the railroad from this
9 property.
10 I agree with all those comments that
11 Deryle made and oppose it for all those
12 reasons.
13 The biggest concern I have about this
14 property, obviously, it's a very industrial
15 area. It's worked well zoned as such. I do
16 think the property as proposed in this PUD, it
17 doesn't -- it's just going to have a very huge
18 impact on our area from a traffic standpoint.
19 And what concerns me most, in addition to
20 those things, is that my children attend
21 Hendricks Avenue Elementary. In fact, I'm
22 lucky to be here. My wife is due to have our
23 third child at any moment now, so I know I'll
24 be attending that school or being involved in
25 that school for the next 11 years. My daughter
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1 is in a portable right now at
2 The school does not have much room for
3 expansion. And my concern is 900 units and the
4 impact it would have upon that school as well
5 as traffic. It's a nice quiet neighborhood and
6 I'm afraid of what this development might do.
7 Thank you for your time.
8 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Sir, for your
9 information, they're in the process of
10 redistricting the schools now, so in about 2010
11 you may not be going to that school.
12 MR. SHEFFIELD: Hope so.
13 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Paul Harden.
14 MR. HARDEN: Paul Harden, 1301 Riverplace
15 Boulevard.
16 I was going to wait until the meeting
17 where we had scheduled this hearing, which was
18 done at the request of these folks, but I feel
19 compelled to respond. Let me just talk about
20 first the status of the application.
21 Before the Planning Department takes in an
22 application, they do a sufficiency review.
23 They go through and determine whether or not
24 the application is sufficient. The Planning
25 Department, your professional staff, asked us
Tina Hutcheson, Inc.
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1 for additional information before they accepted
2 the application. We provided that additional
3 information. They did that review. We have
4 filed everything that the ordinance code
5 requires. There are things in there that may
6 be required if the Planning Department deems so
7 necessary that we have not filed, and those are
8 the documents that the gentlemen are talking
9 about. We have provided everything the
10 Planning Department requires, the ordinance
11 code requires, and they have plenty of
12 information to do the review.
13 Now, the site is not in fact industrial.
14 The site is currently zoned CCG-2. For your
15 information, on 17 acres we could set back off
16 the site 30 feet under the CCG-2 zoning
17 category, go 165 feet in the air and build
18 about 3,000 hotel rooms. You can do that
19 without changing the current zoning on the
20 site.
21 So the proposal that we have made, the
22 massing of it, the location, the access is not
23 in fact going to change the available traffic
24 count on River Oaks Road. What can go on River
25 Oaks Road now off the site if it were built out
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1 would be about three times what we are
2 proposing on the site.
3 What we have proposed for the site are
4 multi-family use, commercial use, a mixed-use
5 activity. We haven't proposed to add traffic
6 onto River Oaks Road. In Fact, we've done the
7 traffic study, and about 90 percent of the
8 traffic goes onto Philips Highway. One of the
9 proposals the Planning Department has made is
10 that we have a stub-out to allow traffic to
11 head to the north into the San Marco area.
12 So I want you to remember when you listen
13 to these comments, currently the site is zoned
14 CCG-2. There are a multitude of uses on the
15 site that could go that would substantially --
16 would provide substantially more impact than
17 we're proposing on this site. For instance, we
18 could get probably a 24-hour Wal-Mart and a
19 24-hour Target on 17 acres at the site; could
20 build those, you know, about 60 feet in the air
21 without changing the setbacks. And I suspect
22 that the traffic off River Oaks Road would be
23 substantially different.
24 We've offered to meet with the folks in
25 San Marco. I have attended every meeting
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1 they've had. We've gotten absolutely no
2 impact. The only issues they're raising is
3 close River Oaks Road. That's not our issue.
4 We can't close River Oaks Road notwithstanding
5 the comments of the neighbors. If there are
6 traffic issues you want us to deal with in the
7 conditions, we'll he happy to do that, but that
8 being said, what's allowed on the site now
9 would provide for substantially more impact.
10 If people have questions, and I know
11 you've been getting e-mails, if you have
12 questions arising from those, please let me
13 know.
14 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
15 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: I have a question.
16 I don't understand -- actually, Mr. Jones
17 and Mr. Gaffney both have questions.
18 MR. HARDEN: Okay.
19 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Why would you close
20 River Oaks Road and now you're cutting off
21 access to that park?
22 MR. HARDEN: I have not proposed closing
23 River Oaks Road. I haven't proposed that being
24 our only access. I haven't proposed closing
25 access to the road.
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1 You know, that's a traffic issue. I
2 understand the issue of the neighbors. If I
3 had a 20-acre park that I could cut anybody
4 else from use off on, I might make a run at it
5 too. If I had a road that was built by the
6 City and I could make a run at cutting off any
7 other access, I might make a run at it too.
8 There's been two attempts to close River
9 Oaks Road. Both of them have failed. It's not
10 our issue. If you want to close River Oaks
11 Road, please deal with that as a council, but
12 we don't want to get our issue mixed up with
13 that. We're not adding additional traffic that
14 can't already go there. We aren't proposing
15 closing it or leaving it open, either way. We
16 do think there ought to be open access to the
17 park.
18 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: I just -- and I guess I
19 can't speak for the district councilperson, but
20 if you're looking to put in -- even if you're
21 looking to put in five apartments, I mean
22 there's going to be kids in those apartments.
23 You want for them to get to that park and not
24 have to jump over railroad tracks, and this way
25 you can walk where there is a break. I mean
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1 there's a road that goes through there.
2 MR. HARDEN: Yes, sir.
3 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: It doesn't make any
4 sense to close that off.
5 Anyway, Mr. Jones.
6 MR. JONES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
7 Through the Chair to Mr. Harden, have you
8 scheduled another meeting with the neighborhood
9 to try to work out -- explain the conditions
10 that are being placed on the planning and
11 development?
12 MR. HARDEN: Councilman Jones, you
13 suggested at the -- well, let's start with
14 there had been a meeting scheduled, apparently
15 it got cancelled because of the storm. At the
16 last council meeting, representatives of the
17 San Marco group asked for a deferral to allow
18 them to have their meeting. You suggested at
19 that time that after that meeting they meet
20 with us. I went to that meeting. I answered a
21 few questions. I was then asked not to answer
22 any more questions or suggested that that
23 wasn't the reason for the meeting. So I
24 haven't heard back from them.
25 I am available. I have let those folks
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1 know, those folks that have been communicating
2 directly with me that I am available to meet
3 with them. As of yet, I have not heard from
4 them, but I will tell you I'm happy to meet
5 anywhere anytime. I am out of town for some of
6 the period the next five weeks, that's why it's
7 delayed for five weeks, but I'm happy to do it.
8 We'll do it at your suggestion at your office
9 or I'll meet with them, you know, closer into
10 the neighborhood.
11 MR. JONES: Okay. I hope that we can
12 schedule a meeting so that you can work through
13 some of these issues. Maybe all of them can't
14 be resolved, but certainly some of the issues.
15 And maybe they are nonissues once the
16 conditions are added to the PUD.
17 MR. HARDEN: Yeah.
18 MR. JONES: Some of the questions that
19 were raised today may not be issues at all by
20 the time it comes back for a final vote.
21 MR. HARDEN: There was in fact one
22 meeting, and you attended part of the meeting,
23 and there were comments made. We respond to
24 that, filed an amended written description and
25 an amended site plan in response to that. At
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1 that meeting as well I suggested that if there
2 are further comments, I'll be happy to take
3 that input.
4 MR. JONES: Okay. And one final question
5 through the Chair to staff, to Mr. Crofts, I
6 guess, or whomever.
7 The property is zoned CCG-2 right now, and
8 that would allow for the development as
9 Mr. Harden described earlier for 3,000 hotel
10 rooms?
11 MR. KELLY: That's correct. The property
12 is zoned CCG-2. There is that development
13 potential on there.
14 MR. JONES: That would not require any
15 additional action by this committee or the
16 council, just a matter of permit?
17 MR. KELLY: That's correct.
18 MR. JONES: Thank you.
19 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: All right. Mr. Gaffney
20 followed by Mr. Redman.
21 MR. GAFFNEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
22 Through the Chair, Mr. Harden, how you
23 doing?
24 MR. HARDEN: I'm fine, Dr. Gaffney.
25 MR. GAFFNEY: Good. Just a quick
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1 question.
2 I know there's going to be plenty of
3 discussions on this. It's not affordable
4 housing, are they?
5 MR. HARDEN: Councilman Gaffney, it is not
6 planned to be affordable housing. Personally,
7 I don't think that should be an issue, but
8 because the question's been raised, I will tell
9 you that's not the business Cypress is in. I
10 suggested to the folks at the meeting the other
11 night if they go on the web page for Cypress,
12 they will see that every development that
13 they've built has been infill, high-end,
14 mixed-use products. They've built them all
15 over the country. It is not going to be
16 affordable housing. It's going to be what I
17 would call expensive housing. I don't want to
18 say it's unaffordable, but it's going to be
19 relatively high-end apartment use and mixed
20 use.
21 MR. GAFFNEY: That kind of was my point.
22 They're executive homes?
23 MR. HARDEN: There's a mix of folks who
24 rent apartments in that strata. People moving
25 to town that haven't found a high-end house
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1 they want to build; it's young couples, both
2 with jobs. There's a mix of people that rent
3 those. But I think executive housing would be
4 one of the large niches, yes, sir.
5 MR. GAFFNEY: Okay. Thank you.
6 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Thank you, Dr. Gaffney.
7 Don Redman.
8 MR. REDMAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
9 There seems to be some concern about the
10 overcrowding of Hendricks school. Knowing the
11 area fairly well, Spring Park Elementary would
12 be actually closer to this development than
13 Hendricks, so would not any children that lived
14 in this development be going to Spring Park?
15 MR. HARDEN: Well, we had suggested that
16 Spring Park was the closest elementary school.
17 One of the neighbors said they called the
18 school board or looked at a map on the school
19 board and said that Hendricks was the school.
20 But unrelated to what school it is, schools are
21 now part of the concurrency requirement so that
22 if there are issues relating to schools, we
23 have to deal with them in the concurrency
24 review so that there is available capacity for
25 the schools.
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1 River Oaks Road, quite frankly, is closer
2 to Spring Park Elementary than Hendricks. So I
3 don't know how the school board does their
4 districting. Councilman Graham indicated there
5 is a redistricting going on. Unrelated to all
6 that, development now has to meet a concurrency
7 requirement on school uses, and we will go
8 through that review.
9 MR. REDMAN: And I know Spring Park is
10 underattended (sic), so they have plenty of
11 room.
12 MR. HARDEN: Available capacity at Spring
13 Park. We're aware of that, yes, sir.
14 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: I don't see anybody
15 else, so thank you.
16 MR. HARDEN: And I told this to the folks
17 at the meeting the other night so we can
18 clarify, this is scheduled to be back in front
19 of the LUZ Committee five weeks from tonight.
20 There was some confusion --
21 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: October 7th.
22 MR. HARDEN: Sir?
23 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: October 7th.
24 MR. HARDEN: Yes, sir. Thank you.
25 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: If there's no further
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1 speakers, we'll continue this until October 7th
2 and take no further action.
3 2008-564. We will open a public hearing.
4 Seeing no speakers, we will continue that.
5 2008-565. We will open that public
6 hearing.
7 We have Steve Powers.
8 Sir, come on down. Name and address for
9 the record, please.
10 MR. POWERS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
11 I'm Steve Powers, 3423 Loretto Road,
12 pastor of Mandarin Assembly of God.
13 We are sort of in the process to try to
14 work on a sign to -- we are a growing church
15 that has a lot of -- has been growing the last
16 two years and a lot of ministries for our
17 community, as well as the largest Portuguese
18 congregation in the area, growing Spanish
19 congregation, a school, two voting precincts,
20 polling districts, marriage ministries, and on
21 and on it goes. We have a tremendous amount of
22 ministries. And I have at least 50, 60 times
23 my first year here alone, people said, I wish I
24 knew you had this or that, or, We didn't even
25 know the church was there. And we used to have
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1 an outside interior illuminated sign, and they
2 had -- before I got there they took that down
3 and they put the monument sign that they have
4 up when they purchased the nextdoor piece of
5 property. So we thought, Well, how do we go
6 about this.
7 And it was suggested that maybe we try
8 rezoning. And so we went that route until --
9 it was all good right up until the very end. A
10 couple of neighbors called. So I met with
11 Mr. Kelly and a couple of other men, and they
12 said, Well, maybe just go with a sign waiver.
13 I said that would be fine. We just want to
14 better serve our community.
15 So we began that process. Looked like
16 everything was going well, met with Mr. Huxford
17 for a while concerning that, and, you know,
18 everything was thumbs up and I don't think
19 there was a problem. We were expecting to hear
20 by the 22nd the positive report, and nothing
21 came. Came to city council, stood here in case
22 there was questions, there wasn't any
23 questions. And then at 5:00 on Labor Day
24 weekend I got the e-mail that said they
25 recommend it would be denied. It was just sort
Tina Hutcheson, Inc.
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1 of stunning to me because I didn't know there
2 was a problem with it.
3 Councilman Webb, I apologize. I was going
4 to get with you, I just didn't want to bother
5 you because in my mind it was told, Well, this
6 is not going do be an issue. It's sort of just
7 an easy thing.
8 We are just putting a much nicer sign,
9 exactly the same sign. So from everything I
10 was told through the process, it wasn't going
11 to be an issue until I got this e-mail. So I'm
12 looking at the e-mail and seeing the things
13 that were listed, you know.
14 Is it in consistent character with that
15 street? Well, we have a Lil' Champ that has a
16 sign, we have Loretto School, St. Joe's Church.
17 There's other signs in that area. And what
18 we're looking for is something very modest.
19 Is it going to reduce the value of the
20 property? It says yes. We're taking an old
21 beaten down like VW out of the yard and putting
22 a brand new BMX in the driveway. We're going
23 to put a beautiful new sign there that's going
24 to be nice and it's going to be very
25 conservative and aesthetically pleasing. So
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1 some of these things I didn't understand.
2 It says it would be detrimental to road
3 traffic. We're taking away the exterior
4 lighting that blinds in your eyes as you drive
5 by and putting some nice soft amber lighting
6 and a modestly-lit sign. It's going to create
7 public health and safety and welfare issues.
8 So I guess the best thing I guess I can do is
9 ask is deferment (sic) because I'm sort of
10 shocked by this e-mail which came late, which
11 came just before last weekend, and I wasn't --
12 didn't have any information on it.
13 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Thank you, sir. Hold on
14 just a second.
15 Mr. Webb.
16 MR. WEBB: Thank you for coming down
17 tonight. I apologize. This matter -- we are
18 going to -- we're going to continue the public
19 hearing and take no further action on this
20 matter this evening.
21 Like you, sir, I was somewhat surprised
22 that the Planning Department had recommended
23 denial of the waiver. As my understanding,
24 kind of just watching this go through the
25 process, that there were no snags. So if you
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1 can contact my office tomorrow or we'll give
2 you a call, we'll work something out. We'll
3 work on the Planning Department a little bit.
4 MR. POWERS: Thank you, sir.
5 MR. WEBB: Thank you.
6 MR. POWERS: Appreciate it.
7 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: I see no further
8 questions and I see no further speakers, so we
9 will continue this and take no further action.
10 Councilmembers, top of the Page 13.
11 2008-567. Open the public hearing.
12 We have Ralphael Floyd.
13 Sir, name and address for the record, and
14 you have three minutes.
15 MR. FLOYD: Thank you. My name is Saint
16 Ralphael Floyd and I live at 628 Phelps Street,
17 and this is right in front of the property that
18 they are planning on building on. What
19 happened, though, due to the weather and so
20 forth and conditions, I missed the two meetings
21 on this matter, and I wanted to talk to my city
22 councilman first, if I could, before I make
23 anything public.
24 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: I'm sorry. I didn't
25 hear what you said, sir.
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1 MR. FLOYD: I would like --
2 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: You need to speak into
3 the microphone. I can't hear you.
4 MR. FLOYD: I would like to talk to my
5 city councilman first before I make anything
6 public about this building in front of my
7 house.
8 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay. Well, we are not
9 going to take any action on this tonight.
10 MR. FLOYD: Good.
11 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: So you can always
12 contact his office or however you want to get a
13 hold of him, send him an e-mail.
14 MR. FLOYD: All right. When will the
15 action be taken care of, after we discuss this?
16 When the next action will be --
17 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Somebody from Planning?
18 When are we moving forward with this?
19 MR. FLOYD: Okay. Thank you.
20 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Hold on a second, sir.
21 You're going to talk to him?
22 MR. CROFTS: (Nods head)
23 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay. Head over here to
24 the Green Room and they'll talk to you, sir.
25 Thanks.
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1 Seeing no further speakers, we'll continue
2 that public hearing and take no further action.
3 2008-588. We will open the public
4 hearing.
5 Seeing no speakers, we will continue that
6 public hearing and take no further action.
7 -589. Oh, that's the appeal. We're
8 supposed to take that at the end. Hold on a
9 second. We'll come back to that one.
10 Let's move on. We are over to middle of
11 Page 14.
12 2008-627 and -628. We will open the
13 public hearing on both of those.
14 The first one is Harry Wagner, followed by
15 Dallas -- it's hard to read this last name.
16 Cook maybe.
17 MR. WAGNER: We're talking about -628?
18 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: -627, -628. We're doing
19 both at the same time.
20 MR. WAGNER: Okay.
21 Hey. I'm Harry Wagner. Live at 13659
22 Dunn Creek Road, Jacksonville, Florida, 32218.
23 I'm a member of the Planning District 6
24 CPAC. I'm also a member of the governmental
25 affairs in which we look at all zoning and
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1 everything as a subcommittee before we even
2 move on it and then make a recommendation to
3 the full CPAC. The CPAC is the one that makes
4 the motions. And I'm talking to the choir
5 here.
6 The first time I heard this piece of
7 property going to the land use change was -- I
8 don't know what the date is, but I asked the
9 specific question at our subcommittee and the
10 question was, What are you going to do with
11 this property.
12 And the answer that I got that bedded into
13 my mind was it's going to be 400-plus homes,
14 single-dwelling homes along with some office
15 buildings, some office park on the front of the
16 road, which is Starratt Road. And I asked the
17 question specifically.
18 I live a half a mile from this property
19 and I was concerned. Plus, right across the
20 street from this property is my church and we
21 were building a new sanctuary at that time and
22 I was concerned about the single-dwelling homes
23 to see how many it was going to be. We may
24 have to enlarge our sanctuary. And that's why
25 I can remember the question that I asked.
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1 Well, I was told later that I
2 misunderstood, especially when it came back for
3 the second time, came back I guess for the
4 zoning change. And then was nothing mentioned
5 about this thing but the single-dwelling homes,
6 and they were going to do everything but. They
7 were going to put apartments or either condos
8 or townhomes.
9 That part of town, of Jacksonville cannot
10 handle that, the road to start with, and we
11 don't need that in that area of town. It's in
12 a single-dwelling home established neighborhood
13 on both north, east and south and west of this
14 property, and it just doesn't make sense to be
15 able to do something like this.
16 I think as far as my concern, I'm told
17 that that's not what happened when I first
18 asked the question, but CPAC did not -- opposed
19 when we found out it was going to be apartment
20 houses and we just -- we didn't want them and
21 we didn't need them. The road will not take
22 it, and it's just an unfortunate situation the
23 way it came about.
24 The property, the area is still conducive
25 to single-family homes with the frontage on
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1 Starratt Road of office buildings. The area
2 doesn't have no problem with that. But when it
3 comes to the other, and it's a catch-all zoning
4 called an RPI, that's the one that got us in
5 trouble.
6 Thank you very much.
7 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Thank you, sir.
8 Dallas, followed by Loren Kivo.
9 MR. COOK: Good evening, sir, councilmen.
10 My name is Dallas Cook. I live at 1085
11 Seattle Slew Lane, Jacksonville, 32218, the
12 Saddlewood subdivision.
13 I'm representing several residents in and
14 around the area.
15 If you would just stand up.
16 (Involved audience members stand)
17 MR. COOK: The reason for this is that we
18 are not going to hammer you with everybody
19 speaking. We've gotten together and we've
20 selected a few people. We respect your time,
21 we respect your intelligence on this. But
22 there's a few points that we want to come out
23 with.
24 Number one is this is a spot zoning
25 amendment or request. There is nothing,
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1 nothing around our community that is
2 multi-family. Multi-family, according to the
3 2010 plan, needs to be around interstate
4 highways, which we're far from that. The roads
5 in the area cannot handle it. The density,
6 they want to put 672 multi-family dwellings
7 there. We have a very big problem with that.
8 We do not oppose single-family homes, but we do
9 stringently oppose the density, the spot zoning
10 and the whole idea of anything going in that
11 area like that.
12 We are a community that is trying to
13 protect our whole general community. This is
14 not just for Saddlewood. It is for North
15 Creek, it is for The Cape, it is for Amelia
16 View, it is for Ashford Wood, all the areas
17 around there.
18 This is a very, very, very bad plan. I
19 was sitting there listening to Mr. Harden a
20 while ago saying what they could do with the
21 proper zoning, which they have the proper
22 zoning in another area, with 17 acres, putting
23 165-foot-high buildings there. Can you imagine
24 if we just let it go and if we don't stand up
25 as a community to protect our way of life, what
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1 could they do with 87 acres or 89 acres, which
2 one it is?
3 We stand firm. We stand very firm and we
4 ask you to really back us up as a community, as
5 people that support you, and use your best
6 judgment on this. We plead with you to go
7 against this.
8 Thank you.
9 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Thank you, sir.
10 Mr. Kivo. Did I pronounce that correctly?
11 Name and address for the record, please.
12 MR. KIVO: My name is Loren Kivo. I live
13 at 13526 War Admiral Court, 32218.
14 I agree with what Dallas said and I'm with
15 this group of people here.
16 I just would like to point out the fact
17 that the application that was turned in to the
18 DCA with the five-year road improvement plan
19 included a couple of roads on the northside
20 which affect this property or thought to affect
21 the property. I'd just like to say that if you
22 were to leave this property and go to any of
23 the major thoroughfares, you would not drive on
24 any of the roads that are being improved over
25 the next five years. It would take roads that
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1 are in place today to go to like 9A or 95, and
2 I just wanted to kind of point that out.
3 Thank you.
4 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Thank you, sir.
5 Tanya Mauro.
6 MS. MAURO: Hi. My name is Tanya Mauro.
7 I live at 1103 Gallant Fox Circle North. I'm
8 also with these people in the Saddlewood
9 community.
10 I'm just -- I just want to say that I
11 agree with everything they're talking about,
12 and I want to reiterate -- I'm actually a CFO
13 for a mortgage company -- what the impact would
14 be on our community value when you put our PI
15 density in there depending on -- next to all
16 single-family residences. I think it would be
17 a strong impact on the value of all the
18 communities around us, and I just wanted to
19 point that out.
20 Thank you.
21 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Thank you, ma'am.
22 Dahte.
23 MS. KEREKES: Good evening. My name is
24 Dahte Kerekes. Nothing like it's spelled.
25 1047 Gallant Fox Circle North, Saddlewood. I'm
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1 with all the good folks behind me as well. I
2 agree with the previous speakers.
3 I'd just like to touch basically a little
4 bit on some of the traffic concerns that we
5 have. The developer of this property is
6 optimistic and he indicates that the increase
7 in the net peak hour traffic of 1,184 net
8 average daily traffic of 5,858 will result from
9 their project. We find that their figures are
10 incorrect. Using the accepted standard for
11 determining traffic impact, it suggests that
12 per every thousand square feet of gross
13 leasable area, these following numbers would
14 apply:
15 11.01 trips daily for the general office
16 building, which they're estimating at 128,000
17 square feet, would bring it to 2,217 trips.
18 Six trips daily per dwelling unit for the
19 condos and townhomes that they're estimating
20 out there, that would come up to 4,032 trips
21 per day, totalling 6,249 trips per day in
22 addition to the already heavy traffic flow that
23 we're experiencing out there. When you take
24 into consideration the condos that they're
25 talking about as well, that would bring the
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1 numbers up to 9,280. There's a medical office
2 building, calculating the numbers for that and
3 a convenience store at 2,500 square feet, we're
4 coming up with the condos and the square
5 footage for the general office and the medical
6 buildings to 6,065. And a shopping center,
7 calculating 48 trips per thousand square feet,
8 and again this is 128,000, plus condos, we are
9 getting an additional 10,176 additional trips
10 on this rural road. And the gas station, we're
11 estimating another 4,264 to 4,032, plus the
12 condos, again we're at 9,184. In addition,
13 there is an office retail development on the
14 corner of Webb Road right across from our
15 entrance that has already been approved, and
16 that's about 15-20,000 square feet of retail --
17 I'm sorry -- 15,000 square feet of retail and
18 20,000 of professional which we're estimating
19 837 trips a day. Anyway, combining all these
20 trips, we're looking at a low of 6,900 to a
21 high of 11,000.
22 Also, the left-hand turns coming from this
23 commercial center would block the traffic as it
24 comes west on Duval Station. And the developer
25 did indicate that he also owns the land across
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1 the street from this proposed activity and that
2 a four-lane road would be constructed, which
3 we're all well aware of as well that's coming
4 in there.
5 We as a group understand that this road is
6 going to be -- with approval of this proposed
7 project, it will bring the Starratt Road
8 operating down to a level of F. So we all ask
9 you to please deny this bill, 2008-627 and
10 -628.
11 Thank you.
12 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Thank you, ma'am.
13 Steven. I'm not even going to try your
14 last name.
15 MR. PAGLIOCCA: Good evening. Steve
16 Pagliocca, 13417 Dunn Creek Road, Jacksonville,
17 Florida, 32218. I'm here as part of this
18 contingent to voice my opposition to -627 and
19 -628. I want to reiterate all the reasons are
20 just. Traffic issues, density issues, spot
21 zoning.
22 I moved here about two and a half, three
23 years ago. Before I moved here, I consulted
24 the 2010 Comprehensive Plan. I wanted to live
25 in a rural area out away from primary
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1 congestion. That's why I chose this area to
2 live in. The zoning that they're looking
3 for -- I'm sorry -- the land use change they're
4 looking for is in direct contradiction to that
5 2010 plan. It would substantially change the
6 complexion of the entire area. We're talking
7 about multi-family, multi-story. That's not at
8 all what's out there.
9 I like where I live, and as Americans, we
10 get to choose where we live. And quite
11 frankly, we as a community have a say as to
12 what goes on where we live. That's why we are
13 here in such force.
14 I used to run an operation out at the
15 Craig Airport. I was on the other side of the
16 Craig Airport runway extension. I wanted it,
17 but the surrounding community didn't, and they
18 were there voicing their opinions and being
19 heard. I saw how the process works. The
20 community didn't want it, and I really
21 respected that and their ability and their
22 right to fight for it. And now here I am.
23 That's why we are here. We don't want to
24 change the complexion of where we live like
25 this so drastically. We understand progress,
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1 that's fine. But throwing in high-density,
2 multi-story, multi-family, in a one-acre LDR
3 kind of area does not make sense, and it's no
4 good for any of us. That is my point.
5 Thank you very much for your time.
6 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Thank you, sir.
7
8 Name and address for the record. You have
9 three minutes to speak.
10 MS. JOHNSTON: Hello.
I'm
11 1301 Riverplace Boulevard. I am representing
12 the land owner and the developer in this matter
13 in this settlement agreement. I have limited
14 time, so I'm going to hit the highlights, and
15 if you have additional questions, please ask me
16 and I'll be more particular.
17 As you heard, this is a settlement
18 agreement dealing with a land use amendment
19 that was submitted. It was adopted by the City
20 Council in May 2007, and in July 2007, DCA
21 found 17 out of 22 or 23 land use amendments in
22 noncompliance. DCA's issue with these 17 land
23 use amendments was traffic methodology. One of
24 those amendments was the Moody Amendment. It
25 had additional concerns, so it's not really
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1 related. There were 16 that dealt specifically
2 and only with traffic methodology.
3 The land owner, developer intervened in
4 the proceeding in August 2007. The City and
5 the land owner and developer have participated
6 in the settlement negotiations since that time,
7 and no one in the audience who is sitting here
8 today intervened at all in the settlement
9 proceedings before DOA and DCA.
10 I understand that Saddlewood residents
11 understood how to initiate the process because
12 I have e-mails from members of Saddlewood to
13 DCA asking how they can appeal a decision. So
14 they were aware of the fact that they could
15 intervene in the settlement proceedings. But
16 that being said, the applicant participated
17 with the City in settlement negotiations. The
18 issue was traffic methodology.
19 After discussions with DCA, the City and
20 all the applicants with traffic issues met with
21 DCA to discuss an improved methodology. This
22 is the same methodology that DOT has approved,
23 that the metropolitan planning council uses,
24 which I think they have a new name and I don't
25 know what it is, but the city traffic engineer
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1 certified the methodology to DCA. Each of the
2 applicants submitted traffic studies by
3 certified traffic engineers. Ours is on file.
4 Wayne Petrone (phonetic) of King Engineering
5 prepared it.
6 There is a fair share contract for this
7 project that has already been approved. It
8 went through TEU last year when Mr. Holt was on
9 the committee. It's approved for 672
10 multi-family dwelling units and 128,000
11 commercial uses. Mr. Holt had indicated in the
12 recent weeks that he had questions about
13 traffic methodology, but when we provided
14 information and Mr. Killingsworth and Ms. Catry
15 (phonetic) provided information, it appeared
16 that his issues were not about methodology and
17 perhaps about use.
18 The PUD has not been approved at this
19 point, it's pending while this is going on.
20 The specific limitations in the remedial
21 amendment are nonspecific for residential and
22 for commercial uses because we understand that
23 those types of things need to be determined in
24 the zoning and not in the land use stage. The
25 RPI land use category allows for a multitude of
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1 uses. We should be allowed to use any of those
2 uses within the land use context, and then in
3 the PUD, if there's specific uses that are not
4 agreeable to residents or to council members,
5 those can be vetted and those can be discussed
6 and negotiated with the applicant.
7 And I'm cut off.
8 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Seeing no further
9 speakers, we will close the public hearing.
10 Hold on a second. We've got some
11 questions for you.
12 First is Mr. Webb.
13 MR. WEBB: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
14 Through the Chair, what was the reason for
15 the DCA's denial or rejection of the
16 amendments? The traffic methodology, was that
17 the sole issue?
18 MS. JOHNSTON: Yes, sir.
19 MR. WEBB: So that's really the only --
20 but the modifications of the comp plan text
21 amendment was vetted with respect to uses and
22 things of that nature?
23 MS. JOHNSTON: Yes, sir. And the --
24 MR. WEBB: Subject to public hearing and
25 all of that?
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1 MS. JOHNSTON: Yes, sir. Compatibility
2 and consistency with the comprehensive plan
3 were not issues raised by DCA, only traffic
4 methodology.
5 MR. WEBB: Okay. What was the DCA's issue
6 with respect to the traffic methodology?
7 MS. JOHNSTON: I may have to defer -- I'll
8 explain it the best I can and then I'll let the
9 City respond if I've explained it incorrectly.
10 But it's my understanding, based on our
11 negotiations with DCA that they had two issues
12 with the City in the determination of traffic
13 methodology. The first issue is that certain
14 land use categories that are --
15 MR. WEBB: That's okay. Again, my
16 question is just --
17 MS. JOHNSTON: Okay. The traffic
18 methodology had to do with -- I'm going to have
19 to ask Bill to answer that.
20 MR. WEBB: My only question, the issue the
21 DCA had with the substance of the plan --
22 MS. JOHNSTON: It was traffic methodology.
23 MR. WEBB: -- was traffic methodology?
24 MS. JOHNSTON: Yes, sir.
25 MR. WEBB: All right. Fair enough.
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1 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Any other questions?
2 Thank you, Ms. Johnston.
3 We've opened and closed the public hearing
4 on -627 and -628.
5 We'll move -627 first.
6 (Inaudible motion and second)
7 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Been moved and seconded.
8 Any discussion on the bill?
9 Mr. Holt.
10 MR. HOLT: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I
11 appreciate you giving me the deferral at the
12 last meeting so that I could get a chance to
13 talk to Mr. Killingsworth and some of the
14 Planning Department and the attorneys about
15 this and really understand what a settlement
16 agreement is and what this particular
17 settlement agreement says. And I'm going to be
18 talking about the settlement agreement and the
19 land use kind of synonymously because they're
20 really wrapped up together.
21 The land use hasn't really been approved
22 until this settlement agreement is approved by
23 us, by the council and by the DCA. I learned a
24 lot. Bill and I went over some of this
25 information, and I wanted to expound on here
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1 for the committee. And if I could ask the
2 Planning Department some questions. I don't
3 know who would be best to answer them.
4 But the trip generation estimation
5 indicates that RPI land use creates 409 more
6 peak trips than the previously approved land
7 use; is that right?
8 MR. KILLINGSWORTH: Bill Killingsworth,
9 Chief of Community Planning.
10 Actually, I believe I sent a revised one.
11 The number is still positive, but it's my
12 belief now after conferring with Laurie that
13 that number is approximately 108 net new peak
14 hour trips.
15 MR. HOLT: 108?
16 MR. KILLINGSWORTH: Correct.
17 MR. HOLT: What was the drastic --
18 MR. KILLINGSWORTH: The equation there for
19 commercial use, it's a natural logarithm
20 equation. The planner who did that
21 miscalculated it.
22 MR. HOLT: Okay. So the numbers that we
23 reviewed the other day --
24 MR. KILLINGSWORTH: There's still -- I
25 sent you and Dylan the new -- the spreadsheet.
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1 There is still a positive net number of trips,
2 approximately 108 peak hour trips.
3 MR. HOLT: Okay. And that has to do with
4 the commercial portion of it?
5 MR. KILLINGSWORTH: The reason the number
6 dropped from the time you and I talked was,
7 yes, that the number of trips generated from
8 the commercial aspect was miscalculated.
9 MR. HOLT: Okay. When did you find that
10 out?
11 MR. KILLINGSWORTH: Laurie responded this
12 afternoon and I sent it to Dylan and yourself
13 this afternoon.
14 It dropped from -- I scratched it out so I
15 can't actually read it. I think it's 650 peak
16 hour trips to 417 peak hour trips, the
17 commercial aspect.
18 MR. HOLT: Okay. So it's 108 additional
19 trips, peak hour trips?
20 MR. KILLINGSWORTH: Correct.
21 MR. HOLT: Okay. And in the settlement
22 agreement, the two projects that you list as
23 offsetting the impact of this development are
24 the three-laning of a portion of Starratt Road
25 and the addition of the east-west connector or
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1 Airport Center Drive; is that right?
2 MR. KILLINGSWORTH: That's correct.
3 MR. HOLT: Okay. And how did you pick
4 those two projects?
5 MR. KILLINGSWORTH: Basically, those
6 projects were picked through negotiations with
7 DCA. Maybe if I go back, just kind of answer
8 the other Councilmember Webb's question a
9 little bit so we can have some history on how
10 we are where we are.
11 Those 17 amendments were sent to DCA,
12 actually adopted. They were found out of
13 compliance. The reason that they were found
14 out of compliance was our comp plan doesn't
15 have -- at that time did not have impact
16 standards in them. We had impact standards
17 that we used to do the analysis, but they were
18 not adopted into our comprehensive plan.
19 Because they weren't adopted into our
20 comprehensive plan, DCA took the position that
21 they couldn't verify our impacts. For
22 instance, one of the items, particularly with
23 nonresidential properties, there is no Fleurieu
24 ratio or there's no lot coverage in a height
25 restriction. And because of that, they
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1 couldn't calculate the actual impacts
2 independent of the department, so they couldn't
3 verify our work.
4 Since that time, we've adopted those
5 development impact standards into our
6 comprehensive plan and they have not found any
7 of our land use amendments out of compliance.
8 They have, however, found some others, but not
9 our land use amendments. So that's kind of how
10 we got to where we got to.
11 Additionally -- that was the first item
12 that they objected to. The second item that
13 they objected to was the actual methodology in
14 which we used to do the transportation impact
15 analysis. So we negotiated with FDOT and DCA
16 on how we would do impact analysis going
17 forward. For that series, we asked the
18 applicants to prepare a transportation impact
19 report and provide that to DCA. My
20 understanding is DCA found all of those
21 sufficient because they didn't come back and
22 ask for additional studies.
23 At that point, we were asked to identify
24 roadway projects that we felt offset the
25 impacts of the particular amendments. In this
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1 case, the applicant had a fair share in place
2 already, so what the applicant chose to do, why
3 you see a cap on the land use is that they
4 capped their land use to match the fair share.
5 So in essence, they have an existing
6 proportionate share agreement that exactly
7 matches the trip count that they anticipate
8 having on this land use amendment. And these
9 two items are two of what I think are four
10 items that are listed in the fair share, and
11 DCA agreed to that. So that's how we are where
12 we are right now.
13 MR. HOLT: So they rejected your
14 methodology, and as a way of offsetting that,
15 you listed these two road projects?
16 MR. KILLINGSWORTH: Correct.
17 MR. HOLT: Okay. Well, it's my contention
18 that those two road projects don't offset the
19 impact of the development. And I brought a
20 map, if the Chair will let me, I want to point
21 out these two road projects.
22 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Sure.
23 MR. HOLT: And I'll just have to use my
24 loud voice.
25 (Mr. Holt approaches map)
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1 MR. HOLT: This is probably the best
2 location I can put it so that all the members
3 can see, but this is the area that we're
4 talking about here. If you can see this little
5 pink line here, this is the development area --
6 (provided microphone) -- thank you very much.
7 This is the development area right here,
8 okay. And these are the two road projects that
9 they're talking about. They will be
10 three-laning this road from here to here,
11 Starratt Road. Project's going on right now
12 going from two to three lanes, which according
13 to the engineers, increases the capacity of
14 that road by five percent. The widening does
15 not go down here, so there are no additional
16 lanes. There's no additional center lane in
17 front of the actual development. And the
18 east-west connector is the other road project
19 they listed. It's a new road that will go from
20 here down to here.
21 And those projects, although they're very
22 important, they may help -- they will
23 definitely help these people down here, but
24 they will not help the people who live here.
25 The people who live here, if they want to get
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1 to 95, they go straight to 95. They don't
2 touch this road. They certainly wouldn't go
3 down here to go to here to go through there.
4 So this road doesn't help them in any way to
5 get that direction. It doesn't help them to
6 get to Main Street. It doesn't help them to
7 get over here to Dunn Creek, which is the
8 primary way they get to 9A.
9 See, I know the traffic patterns in that
10 area, I live there. These people that are here
11 tonight, they live there, and they know that
12 when they want to go to 9A, they turn here,
13 they go down here, they get to 9A right here,
14 okay. And these road projects don't improve
15 that in any way. When they want to get to 95,
16 they go another route. So I don't understand
17 why the Planning Department -- well, I do
18 understand that the Planning Department is
19 required to defend the action of the last
20 council, whether they supported it in the past
21 or not. Any settlement agreements, our
22 Planning Department is required to support the
23 action of the last council.
24 But these two road projects, if they
25 improve these folks' lives at all, the traffic
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1 for these folks at all, it is very minimal. A
2 two to three lane only improves this road five
3 percent. And that's -- it's even debatable
4 whether these people will be taking this road
5 very often. Like I say, they always go this
6 direction to go to 95, this direction to go to
7 9A. So if you guys could look at that map
8 while I'm finishing up my comments, I'd
9 appreciate it.
10 (Mr. Holt returns to seat)
11 MR. HOLT: And unfortunately, this is one
12 of those cases where the last council was
13 pressured into approving this land use without
14 having the zoning nailed down. You know, we've
15 seen it over and over again where -- we pass
16 through the land use and zoning together for a
17 reason. They didn't do it in this case. They
18 separated the two. And this was a very tough
19 case.
20 For those of you who were not around back
21 then, I was actually in the audience when it
22 happened. The rezoning subsequently was denied
23 five to nothing. When it came to the land use
24 that night, I'll tell you what was said.
25 Mr. Clark, I'm sorry he's not here tonight, but
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1 Mr. Clark spoke vehemently against it and voted
2 against it. This is what Mr. Clark said that
3 night.
4 He said, "I've looked online at all the
5 pictures. I've zoomed in on the pictures.
6 I've looked at all the land use. Everything
7 out there is rural and low density residential.
8 There's nothing touching this piece of property
9 that's anywhere near this density. And just
10 because we want to do master-planned
11 communities to the north of this doesn't mean
12 that master-planned communities are going to
13 push, you know, the higher levels of density in
14 an area that's just not. To create a
15 transition, they're creating their own
16 transition within their own, you know, little
17 area here. That being said, you know, if -- if
18 we make a land use change, we're in. I'm not
19 going to support the land use change," he said.
20 I'm quoting him directly there.
21 And he made a very good point. If we make
22 the land use change, we're in. And then the
23 committee came back later, that same committee,
24 and rejected -- and that's something else that
25 just reminded me.
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1 When the zoning came through on this, it
2 was for 590 units. Now they want 672 units.
3 That seems a little disingenuous to me to come
4 back and ask for more than what we've already
5 refused as a council. I think what they're
6 trying to do is they'll ask for 672, and then
7 they'll come back and negotiate down and
8 they'll still get the 590 that was previously
9 refused to them and come off looking like they
10 have been so magnanimous to come down.
11 I'll tell you one other reason why the
12 committee did that night. My predecessor,
13 Mr. Alvarez, was putting on a lot of pressure
14 to push it through. I'll quote him.
15 He said, "The land use can go forward
16 with -- land use you can go forward with, but
17 the zoning, we want no holdup on the zoning
18 because I think most everybody that spoke to
19 this was speaking of zoning matters. I know
20 it's confusing to y'all. To the zoning
21 committee, it's very, but to those, it's all
22 one big bundle. So I'm glad that you let them
23 speak about it. So the land use can go
24 forward, but I think the zoning -- and I'll
25 speak to that when they speak to the zoning
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1 issues."
2 So Mr. Alvarez pushed for these two to be
3 separated, and I respect the committee for
4 listening to this district council member on
5 that, but I think that was a bad decision. And
6 now we have a chance to correct that. This
7 land use has not been passed until we approve
8 of the settlement agreement and the DCA
9 approves of the settlement agreement.
10 So for all those reasons, I'm going to
11 move an amendment to repeal the land use of RPI
12 and return to the original land use of LDR, and
13 that will certainly be satisfactory to the
14 State. So I move that amendment.
15 (Inaudible second)
16 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Amendment has been moved
17 and seconded. Now we are on the --
18 MR. JOOST: May I ask a question?
19 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Sure. To clarification?
20 MR. JOOST: Yes.
21 (Inaudible discussion)
22 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay. We'll get her to
23 explain it.
24 MR. HOLT: Yes. That would be great,
25 Ms. Eller.
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1 MS. ELLER: To the committee, -627 is the
2 stipulated settlement agreement. It is -- the
3 City, intervenor, Valerie Britt,
4 intervenor/applicant and the DCA, it's just a
5 proposed settlement agreement. Councilmember
6 Holt's amendment would change the settlement
7 agreement to reflect that the City would take
8 the remedial action to change the land use back
9 to its original land use designation. And I
10 assume that the City and DCA would agree to
11 that. I don't think the State would object if
12 we're going back to what it was before. I'm
13 assuming that the applicant would no longer
14 sign on to that settlement. I don't -- I can't
15 speak for the other intervenor Britt on that
16 particular issue.
17 So what would happen is if it's ultimately
18 passed, this settlement agreement as amended
19 would go to DCA, and if they agree and they
20 sign off on it, then the DCA and the City have,
21 in essence, settled their issues. If the
22 intervenor, who's still a part of the case,
23 wants to proceed, it's my understanding that
24 DCA typically at that point dismisses the case,
25 so the case, in essence, goes away. Now,
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1 whether or not the applicant could have some
2 other, you know, cause of action against the
3 City for reversing course at this point, I
4 don't know, we could see what happens then, but
5 that's a risk you take in every legislative
6 decision that you make.
7 Additionally, if the amendment does pass
8 and the settlement agreement passes as amended,
9 the remedial amendment that's its companion
10 would then need an amendment also to reflect
11 the changes made to the settlement agreement.
12 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Thank you, Ms. Eller.
13 I have a question, if I can, Ms. Johnston.
14 Here where you have the saying the land
15 use change I guess is -628 where you're talking
16 about the 672 dwelling units, why the
17 difference between the 672 and the 590 that
18 Mr. Holt was speaking of?
19 MS. JOHNSTON: Well, first of all, the
20 traffic information that was submitted with the
21 original land use amendment before DCA found
22 any of the applications in noncompliance, the
23 City requested applicants provide a traffic
24 study. The information for March 2007 I think
25 is the date, that was the information that was
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1 submitted to DCA, and it included 672
2 multi-family units and the commercial.
3 Subsequent to that, DCA asked for additional
4 information. We revised the traffic study and
5 kept everything the same, in part because the
6 PUD zoning has not been approved at this point,
7 and it was my understanding that when
8 negotiations kind of soured on the PUD zoning
9 that all bets were off the table.
10 I think at one point the applicant was
11 willing to reduce the number of units. They
12 got to a point where the members of Saddlewood
13 were kind of chipping away and asking for
14 additional things, and finally they walked away
15 and said, We'll handle this later, basically.
16 So from my viewpoint, 590 was off the table
17 sometime in midsummer last year.
18 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay. Thank you.
19 Mr. Webb.
20 MR. WEBB: (Shakes head)
21 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay.
22 Any other discussion on the amendment?
23 Seeing none, all in favor say aye.
24 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: Aye.
25 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Those opposed?
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1 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response)
2 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: By your action, you
3 approve the amendment.
4 (Inaudible motion and second)
5 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Bill's been moved and
6 second as amended.
7 Any discussion on the bill?
8 Mr. Webb.
9 MR. WEBB: No, none.
10 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay.
11 MR. WEBB: Actually, I do have one
12 question.
13 Shannon, these stipulated settlements,
14 these are all discreet settlements regarding
15 different land uses throughout the city on the
16 comp plan; is that correct?
17 MS. ELLER: Correct. The package of
18 amendments that we sent are considered one
19 package.
20 MR. WEBB: Got it. So we just got dinged
21 on a number of issues.
22 MS. ELLER: Yeah. But they're one package
23 at DCA and they file them under one case at
24 DOA, but then the DOA parcels them out as
25 individual settlements and individual cases.
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1 MR. WEBB: Understood. Thank you.
2 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Any other discussion?
3 Seeing none, we're on -627, open the
4 ballot.
5 (Committee ballot opened)
6 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Close the ballot and
7 record the vote.
8 MR. GRAHAM: (Votes yea)
9 MR. JOOST: (Votes yea)
10 MR. REDMAN: (Votes yea)
11 MR. GAFFNEY: (Votes yea)
12 MR. HOLT: (Votes yea)
13 MR. WEBB: (Votes yea)
14 (Committee ballot closed)
15 MS. LAHMEUR: Six yea, zero nay.
16 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: By your action, you've
17 approved 2008-627 as amended.
18 -628, Miss General Counsel, do we have to
19 make the same amendment on this one as well?
20 MS. ELLER: Correct. The structure that
21 we have in place is that the settlement
22 agreement is a stand-alone document, and in the
23 settlement agreement, it indicates what
24 remedial action the City will take. So then
25 the separate remedial action would be -- if you
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1 had approved the original proposal, would be to
2 add these limitations onto the future land use
3 map. Now the remedial action would be to
4 change our local map, even though it hadn't
5 become final, back to the original land use
6 designation. We'll send all that information
7 up to DCA and see what they do with the case at
8 that point.
9 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Well, is it necessary to
10 even move forward with this bill? I mean
11 wasn't it all just handled in -627?
12 MS. ELLER: That's not the structure that
13 DCA has put in place. They have a very
14 specific formulaic settlement agreement which
15 has this exhibit attached which identifies what
16 the City will do as a remedial action in a
17 separate act. And additionally, this would --
18 under -628, it would make clear that -- I could
19 put in language that you're, in essence,
20 reversing what you did in 2007-383E, which was
21 the original land use map amendment bill. So
22 in order to keep it clear and clean, that's the
23 process that's been requested by the State.
24 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay. So we will move
25 forward with the Holt amendment. Did I get a
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1 second?
2 (Inaudible second)
3 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: It's been moved and
4 seconded.
5 Any discussion on the amendment?
6 Seeing none, all in favor say aye.
7 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: Aye.
8 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Those opposed.
9 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response)
10 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: By your action, you
11 approve the amendment.
12 (Inaudible motion and second)
13 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Bill's been moved and
14 seconded as amended.
15 Any further discussion on the bill?
16 Mr. Crofts.
17 MR. CROFTS: Just for the record, Shannon,
18 could you tell me is the MDR on the schedule,
19 the agenda, is the bill correct or is it RPI?
20 MS. ELLER: The bill is correct and the
21 maps attached to the bill are correct. I
22 believe the agenda title has an error in it
23 where it talks about the bill, the original
24 land use map amendment going to MDR, but that's
25 just an agenda error.
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1 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Seeing no other
2 discussion, please open the ballot.
3 (Committee ballot opened)
4 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Close the ballot and
5 record the vote.
6 MR. GRAHAM: (Votes yea)
7 MR. JOOST: (Votes yea)
8 MR. REDMAN: (Votes yea)
9 MR. GAFFNEY: (Votes yea)
10 MR. HOLT: (Votes yea)
11 MR. WEBB: (Votes yea)
12 (Committee ballot closed)
13 MS. LAHMEUR: Six yea, zero nay.
14 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: By your action, you've
15 approved 2008-628 as amended.
16 Bottom of Page 15.
17 2008-678. Open the public hearing.
18 Seeing no speakers, we'll close that
19 public hearing.
20 (Inaudible motion and second)
21 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Amendment's been moved
22 and seconded.
23 Any discussion on the amendment? Can we
24 hear the amendment?
25 MS. ELLER: To the committee, this is
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1 another DOA matter whereby the DCA found our
2 Interlocal Agreement regarding public school
3 concurrency out of compliance. And in this
4 case, they have asked us just to make one
5 administrative, almost scrivener's change, and
6 we're going to do that. So this bill would
7 accomplish that, and I wanted to attach the
8 settlement agreement to the bill so that way it
9 was complete. Originally when we filed the
10 bill, we did not have that settlement agreement
11 from DCA.
12 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay. Any further
13 discussion on the amendment?
14 Seeing none, all in favor say aye.
15 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: Aye.
16 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Any opposed?
17 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response)
18 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: By your action, you
19 approve the amendment.
20 (Inaudible motion and second)
21 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Bill's been moved and
22 seconded as amended.
23 Any further discussion on the bill?
24 Seeing none, please open the ballot.
25 (Committee ballot opened)
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1 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Close the ballot and
2 record the vote.
3 MR. GRAHAM: (Votes yea)
4 MR. JOOST: (Votes yea)
5 MR. REDMAN: (Votes yea)
6 MR. GAFFNEY: (Votes yea)
7 MR. HOLT: (Votes yea)
8 (Committee ballot closed)
9 MS. LAHMEUR: Five yeah, zero nay.
10 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: By your action, you've
11 approved 2008-678 as amended.
12 We are back now on the appeal. I guess I
13 have a question for the court reporter.
14 How do you feel?
15 COURT REPORTER: I'm fine.
16 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: All right. I just
17 wanted -- because we figure it's going to be
18 another good half hour to 45 minutes. You're
19 good? Our standard is normally every two hours
20 to give you a break.
21 COURT REPORTER: I'm good. Thank you.
22 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: All right. March on.
23 2008-589 we have an appeal, Page 13.
24 We will open that public hearing.
25 We will give both sides --
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1 (Inaudible comment)
2 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Let's do it right now.
3 Mr. Holt.
4 MR. HOLT: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
5 I spoke today with Mr. Wyman Duggan about
6 this discussing exactly what the plan was to
7 incorporate those two parcels together.
8 Thank you.
9 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay. Any other
10 ex-parte?
11 Mr. Webb.
12 MR. WEBB: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
13 I rise to declare ex-parte.
14 I as well had a conversation at 4:30 p.m.
15 today in my office with Wyman Duggan regarding
16 the background facts relating to this appeal.
17 Thank you.
18 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Thank you, sir.
19 Mr. Joost.
20 MR. JOOST: Yes, sir.
21 Mr. Chairman, I as well would like to
22 declare ex-parte communication with Wyman
23 Duggan again of Rogers Towers regarding this
24 project and the background information, et
25 cetera.
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1 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Dr. Gaffney.
2 MR. GAFFNEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
3 I too wish to declare ex-parte
4 communication with Wyman Duggan with Rogers
5 Towers in reference to some background
6 information.
7 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay. He spoke to me as
8 well about background information.
9 All right. This is how we're going to
10 handle this. We are going to have
11 Mr. Franklin, we will give you 10 minutes --
12 well, actually, you've got 15 minutes. You
13 decide how much you want to use upfront and
14 then you can use what's ever left to rebut.
15 And we will give Mr. Duggan, or whoever he
16 wants to bring up here, his 15 minutes.
17 MR. FRANKLIN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
18 Tim Franklin, 418 Seagate Avenue, Neptune
19 Beach, Florida. I'm here on behalf of the
20 Harbortown Marina Condo Association. I would
21 like to, I guess, take about 12 minutes, if you
22 could set the timer for that, and reserve about
23 three for rebuttal.
24 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Sure.
25 MR. FRANKLIN: Also, I've got real quickly
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1 some materials just to turn in to the record
2 and then as well a handout here for each of
3 you.
4 The handout that I'm passing out to you is
5 a redacted version of what I'm putting into the
6 record, but the top page there references
7 everything that's going in.
8 First of all, the decision before you
9 today is two things. One, it's about what's
10 very simple and it's about what's fair. The
11 simple thing is that the Planning Commission
12 goofed in granting this minor modification. 30
13 wet slips -- or 30 parking spaces for a
14 165-wet-slip marina is wholly insufficient to
15 deal with the parking on that. What's fair
16 here is that the City should stand behind the
17 original PUD and the intent of that that was
18 relied upon by the, for instance, HMY Yacht
19 Sales, a very large national company that owns
20 approximately 17 of the slips in here, Custom
21 Marine, as well as all the individual
22 homeowners who have a right to expect to have
23 adequate parking for a marina of this size.
24 Just to give you a quick time line,
25 councilmembers.
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1 The PUD went through in 2002. It was
2 approved for 150 wet slips with 100 parking
3 spaces. The terms of the PUD, the written
4 description said that the parking could be
5 changed by administrative modification but so
6 long as all concurrent uses were adequately
7 taken care of. That was one of the conditions
8 for granting an admin modification.
9 2003 a site plan was approved. That site
10 plan showed approximately 100 spaces, all up by
11 the marina. Starting in about the middle --
12 end of '03 and '04, condominium documents were
13 filed and started being sold on the units with
14 that site plan and renderings based on it
15 prominently used in the sales presentations.
16 In '05 the Planning Department granted an
17 administrative modification, and that's
18 something that's very much related to this
19 minor mod. That admin modification reduced the
20 parking from 100 spaces to 30. Additionally,
21 they said that the 30 spaces could be
22 distributed among four residential parcels --
23 or three residential parcels. I'll tell you
24 that one of the residential parcels that's
25 supposed to have the eight parking spaces on it
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1 is a gated community. There's no way to even
2 reach those for the marina people. And the
3 spaces that they set in there, they're not even
4 required to be dedicated to the marina facility
5 inside the three separate residential
6 communities. They can be used by guests, they
7 can be used by someone coming to mow the lawn,
8 whatever. They're just undifferentiated
9 spaces. So essentially, that admin
10 modification totally eliminated the requirement
11 to have parking for the marina. I'll come back
12 to that in a minute.
13 '07, they filed a condominium amendment,
14 and that created 165 wet slips, even though the
15 PUD has not been modified on that issue,
16 limited to 150, they went to 165. I'm assuming
17 that was some administrative determination.
18 What they did was actually split a couple of
19 the end wet slips that were on what you call
20 the T out there into two separate ones. But in
21 any event, it went from 150 to 165 now with 30
22 parking spaces split between three
23 developments.
24 '08, minor mod comes up dealing with
25 height amendment and also changing the site
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1 plan to allow two parcels to be combined. And
2 the reason for that, if you read the
3 department's report closely, they are -- what
4 the developer's proposing is they sold it to
5 Julian LeCraw, who is going to develop it not
6 with condominiums, but with apartments. Same
7 number of residential units, but a different
8 type of use, and I submit to you a use that's
9 highly unlikely to use wet slips. In any
10 event, between the Planning Department and the
11 Planning Commission, that decision is just
12 wrong, and I'll tell you the four reasons.
13 First of all, the code of the City
14 Jacksonville, the basic code, is two parking
15 spaces for every three wet slips. That's by
16 code. And as you know, a PUD is not intended
17 to get around parking requirements or any other
18 normal code requirement. It's to allow
19 efficiencies in development, allow for
20 creativity and things. Other codes I'll tell
21 you are a lot or one for two is what you see a
22 lot. I put some materials in there.
23 Miami-Dade County, St. Augustine, Fort
24 Lauderdale does one for two. There are some
25 refueling facilities that have to provide more.
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1 And St. Johns County, for example, starts at
2 one per two but then requires every three
3 passengers the boat can carry to have an
4 additional parking space, so they end up
5 somewhere between one and two and two and
6 three. But in any event, the City's is two and
7 three, and that's what the PUD that you
8 originally as City Council approved and
9 required here, approximately 100 spaces, 150
10 wet slips.
11 I'm just going to tell you what we're
12 looking for here from this committee tonight
13 would be a reversal of the minor modification.
14 What we'd like to see is you require the minor
15 modification, which you can do. It's a de novo
16 appeal. You can either send it back, deny it,
17 or you can grant it and put, from my
18 understanding, new conditions on it.
19 We'd like to see 60 parking spaces.
20 That's what we need here. That comes out to on
21 165 wet slips, somewhere between one and three
22 and one and two. One and three would be 55
23 spaces, one and two would be 80. We'd like to
24 see 60.
25 But I just wanted to give you that
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1 background information on some of the other
2 codes to see that's well within, in fact a
3 little less, frankly, than other communities,
4 similar communities, waterbase, would require.
5 So the code, first of all, it's reasonable,
6 what we had.
7 Second, the biggest reason the admin mod
8 was granted and the Planning Commission did
9 what they did with the minor modification, and
10 I'd point out that the Planning Department
11 recommended for a height increase and for these
12 things to add 30 parking spaces, seemingly out
13 of the blue because the minor mod really didn't
14 go into parking except to the extent that the
15 units were being sold, being combined, Parcels
16 A and B, for leased property rather than
17 condominiums. But the Planning Department came
18 up with that because I think they went back and
19 realized that there had been a goof back in '05
20 and here was a chance to correct it. And I
21 point out what Councilmember Holt said a minute
22 ago. We put the same thing to you. You get a
23 chance to correct your decision and correct the
24 decision of the Planning Commission here.
25 One of the reasons they did what they did
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1 in '05 and '07 is the developer and the
2 developer's counsel asserted that the wet slips
3 were going to be sold in conjunction with
4 ownership of a condominium. In fact, their
5 letter in the admin mod file said it's
6 reasonable to assume that these numbers will
7 continue.
8 I don't know where they got their numbers
9 from because the numbers they were showing
10 were, for instance, out of 75 units, 65 wet
11 slips were sold corresponding to that. Right
12 now I'm telling you with the association's
13 records, out of 165 slips, we have 20 owned by
14 owners, three of those are leased, one of those
15 that's being leased is in foreclosure. So out
16 of 165 slips right now total, 17 are owned by
17 people that live within the PUD. So the fact
18 that these are going to be sold to owners or
19 sold with wet slips, that's not happening,
20 period.
21 Now, Julian LeCraw does own approximately
22 45 more slips. The rest of these are owned by
23 private individuals, 20 who live in the PUD,
24 the majority who don't. Approximately 16 are
25 owned by HMY Yacht Brokers, and then there's
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1 another couple of slips owned by other people.
2 But if you take their numbers at 45 and work it
3 out, you're going to find a rate of about --
4 right now it's 12 percent owner occupied, if
5 you will. You extrapolate that out, it comes
6 out to about the maximum expected would be
7 about 16 percent people that live within the
8 PUD owning a wet slip.
9 What people did, the people that did
10 purchase a wet slip initially with their
11 condominium found the wet slip had a lot higher
12 value. They got a deal between the two, they
13 sold the wet slips off as soon as they can.
14 There were no restrictions in the '05 mod or in
15 the '07 minor mod requiring a tying between if
16 you own a unit, the wet slip goes with it.
17 That could easily have been done, but it wasn't
18 required by the Planning Department or the
19 Planning Commission when they did what they
20 did, nor was it done in the original PUD
21 because that was sort of an afterthought when
22 they came in on the admin mod. But in any
23 event, they're not owner occupied, and that was
24 their strongest basis for getting the reduction
25 to 30 spaces undifferentiated, and it's a
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1 complete falsehood, misleading at best I think.
2 The third point would be the 30 spaces,
3 the required in the 2005 admin mod, again
4 they're not accessible. They're all within
5 these three communities, eight of them are
6 located within a gated community. They're not
7 of any use to the marina owners.
8 The fourth point I'd make, again, the 520
9 units that are still on the table that were
10 going to be condominiumized, they're going to
11 be an apartment building now. That's what they
12 increased the height for. Combine the two
13 buildings, combine the parcels and build a huge
14 apartment building. Apartment dwellers, even
15 in the luxury high-end apartment, aren't going
16 to own a wet slip also. If they were going to
17 do that, they would buy one of the condos. As
18 you know, we have a lot of condos right now,
19 that's why they're going to apartments. The
20 people who are going to buy these are not going
21 to need a condo.
22 I'd point out too just general ITE
23 standards, I think the Planning Department will
24 back this up, when you have a multi-family
25 dwelling or tenant space, if you will, versus
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1 an owner-occupied space, there are more trips
2 that go out. I can't tell you the factors for
3 why that is, but there are a significant number
4 of trips associated with that. I think you'd
5 see in there too the traffic engineering
6 department when they went for the minor mod
7 opposed this on some of those bases.
8 Again, the biggest thing this did or
9 violated, I think where the Planning Commission
10 goofed is the parking admin mod and the minor
11 mod. It doesn't change the associated
12 characteristic of land use, and here it
13 absolutely does. The changed characteristic is
14 you do not have owner-occupied properties.
15 You've got tenant-occupied properties or people
16 that own these that do not own the wet slips.
17 That fact was again I think misrepresented to
18 the Planning Department which they represented
19 to the Planning Commission. At best it was
20 just incorrect information given or an
21 assumption that proved to be false. But now
22 you know that, you know it's false. I've
23 tendered the numbers into the record.
24 So again -- and there's also a letter in
25 there you'll see from the president of Mira
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1 Vista, which is the gated community in the
2 back. I'm here representing Harbortown, which
3 are the marina owners. Mira Vista also opposed
4 this minor modification on all of those bases.
5 These are residents living in a brand new
6 condominium complex who feel like that they got
7 a little shafted here by the reduction in the
8 parking up front because they feel it's just
9 going to send people on the street. And I can
10 tell you that's what's going to happen.
11 Summertime when people go to get on their boat,
12 invite their neighbors to go with them, get the
13 mechanic on the boat because it broke down,
14 those kind of things, you're going to see
15 people parking willy-nilly, people parking up
16 on Atlantic Boulevard on the rights-of-way.
17 They have basically two spaces for offloading
18 space, and that's insufficient as well.
19 The proposal now, as I understand it, and
20 I'll let Mr. Duggan speak to this, the proposal
21 I understand is they're building a parking
22 garage and expect to put all the parking, the
23 30 spaces in that parking garage with two
24 offloading spaces, and otherwise people will
25 ferry their stuff across a street. That makes
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1 no pedestrian safety sense with that point.
2 But there's a letter you're going to see in the
3 materials I've submitted from HMY Yacht
4 Brokers, and I'll tell you the president of the
5 association is here if you've got any questions
6 of him.
7 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Mr. Franklin, your 12
8 minutes is up. Do you want to continue?
9 MR. FRANKLIN: 30 seconds. Thanks,
10 Mr. Chair.
11 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay.
12 MR. FRANKLIN: Leaving two and a half.
13 But you'll see in the letter here they
14 manage a lot of marinas and yacht sales
15 operations across the country, and to the
16 extent it's a professional-considered opinion,
17 their letter states it very plainly, 30 spaces
18 for 165 wet slips is ludicrous. That makes no
19 sense. It's going to create a public welfare
20 problem. It's going to create a problem for
21 the residents.
22 And so again, we would like to see 60
23 spaces. It's very close to one and three.
24 It's far less than the code would require, it's
25 far less than what they agreed to originally,
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1 and it's in keeping with the original
2 understanding which was the slips would be sold
3 separately in this. They came back in with,
4 no, they won't, we're going to sell them
5 together. That hasn't proved true. So we'd
6 like to see you go back to the latest greatest
7 information, the Planning Commission did not
8 have it in front of them, and do the right
9 thing here. And we'd like to see 60 slips
10 dedicated to the marina near the marina.
11 Thank you.
12 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Mr. Franklin, you have
13 about two and a half minutes left.
14 Mr. Duggan, come on down. You have 15
15 minutes to wow us.
16 MR. DUGGAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
17 I'll be brief.
18 First of all, we didn't seek this minor
19 modification to do an apartment use. That's
20 inaccurate. We could always do an apartment
21 use. And secondly, we did not ask to
22 increase -- let me back up.
23 Nothing in our application addressed the
24 parking issue because the marina is a
25 separately-owned parcel from our land. We
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1 don't have an ownership interest in their land
2 and they don't have an ownership interest in
3 our land. The minor modification to the --
4 excuse me -- the administrative modification to
5 the PUD obligated our parcel to provide 12
6 spaces to serve the marina. The Planning
7 Commission more than doubled that to 30. So
8 they've already gotten relief on the parking
9 issue. You cannot put this inordinate burden
10 on our land that they don't own, that they
11 don't have an ownership interest in, nor was it
12 a subject of our application. There's no
13 ownership tie between the marina and our land.
14 Contrary to what Mr. Franklin said, the
15 traffic engineer did not oppose our
16 application. She had concerns about the
17 operation of how the proposed roundabout would
18 work. Those issues will have to be addressed
19 in engineering. I believe that they have been.
20 So to sum up, all that we asked for was to
21 combine two parcels into one, keep the same
22 number of units, do an apartment use, which the
23 PUD always contemplated. We asked for an
24 increase in height so we could cluster the
25 development in the middle of the parcel to
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1 provide more setback, more open space. I
2 personally think a greater height right there
3 on the waterway is a better planning approach
4 rather than covering the whole site in low-rise
5 buildings. The Planning Department reviewed
6 it, recommended approval. Planning Commission
7 heard several pages of testimony. You can look
8 through your binders and see how long this
9 hearing lasted. There were six or seven
10 speakers from the community or slip owners.
11 The only area the Planning Commission felt was
12 worth addressing was the parking issue. They
13 more than doubled our obligation to provide
14 parking for the marina. I think that's a
15 reasonable result and I would ask you to
16 support the findings of the Planning
17 Department, the ruling of the Planning
18 Commission.
19 And just to summarize, I would point out
20 that I haven't seen what Mr. Franklin put into
21 the record, I haven't gotten a copy of it, but
22 certainly nothing he says counts as evidence on
23 which you can overturn this decision. The case
24 law is quite clear that attorney testimony is
25 not competent substantial evidence.
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1 Thank you.
2 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: You're not going to use
3 technical terms like willy-nilly?
4 MR. DUGGAN: Not at this time.
5 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay. Thank you. Hold
6 on a second.
7 Mr. Webb, is this for -- do you want to
8 wait until after we close?
9 MR. WEBB: (Inaudible comment)
10 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay. Mr. Franklin, you
11 have two and a half minutes.
12 MR. FRANKLIN: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
13 First of all, it's true that minor
14 modification did not need approval to go to an
15 apartment. It's still multi-family use whether
16 you build it as a condo or whether you build it
17 as this. What they did need to do in order to
18 make the apartment building workable and
19 financially feasible was to combine the parcels
20 and put it into one building. So that's the
21 extent of it. That's what happened on it, and
22 that was the reason for it.
23 Second issue, I would just disagree with
24 Mr. Duggan. The letter's in the file. In the
25 minor mod, Lisa King recommend disapproval
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1 unless the roundabout issue was dealt with.
2 This goes back to January. The Planning
3 Department approved it, or Planning Commission
4 approved it with a condition that they work
5 with them and the final plans subject to their
6 review and approval. The original
7 recommendation was to oppose this.
8 Third here, I think the biggest misnomer
9 is Crescent Properties developed this entire
10 parcel. They're the master developer, they
11 filed the master restrictions for the parcel
12 and still controlled the master common area on
13 this. Crescent Properties has always been
14 represented by Rogers Towers. I believe they
15 may also in some cases represent Julian LeCraw,
16 but I believe they're here for Crescent
17 Properties on this. And the common area where
18 the parking was slated to be originally is
19 still controlled by them and can be put there.
20 The word on the street -- similar to a
21 willy-nilly comment, the word on the street is
22 that they don't want parking up by the marina
23 because it would block the views of the people
24 looking out over the towers, even though when
25 they originally came in, brought the site plan
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1 in that was approved and drew up all the fancy
2 renderings, that's exactly what it showed.
3 That's what everybody's been expecting the
4 whole time because that's where you want your
5 marina parking so you can pull up, unload your
6 gear, unload your stuff, unload your cooler,
7 unload your family in a safe place and walk
8 right out to your boat and get on that. That's
9 pedestrian safe and it's expected. It's a
10 ground-level parking.
11 What they now want to do is go back and
12 put a big parking garage behind this and
13 preserve open views and things like that. But
14 the idea that we are trying to somehow get a
15 little bit of their property or something that
16 we're not entitled to is just absolutely not
17 true. It's a question of how the property
18 that's available for parking is used. And
19 again, 60 spaces is immanently reasonable for a
20 165-wet-slip marina.
21 What I tendered into the record in there
22 were the records from the master association on
23 ownership of the parcel. The highlighted
24 people, there's approximately 20 of them, the
25 highlighted ones are owner occupied, and then
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1 where there's renters, there's three of those.
2 So those are the master association's records
3 that I tendered in there.
4 And again, on standby, 60 spaces is
5 reasonable, 30 spaces is not. It's an
6 associated characteristic land use. The
7 Planning Commission got it wrong. The Planning
8 Department when they did the admin mod got it
9 wrong based on misinformation. You've got a
10 chance to correct the decision here tonight,
11 and I ask for your support.
12 Thank you.
13 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Thank you, sir. That
14 all being --
15 MR. DUGGAN: Regrettably, Mr. Chairman, I
16 do have to use one of those legal terms.
17 Mr. Franklin's comment about "the word on the
18 street" is total hearsay.
19 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Mister mister.
20 Okay. Thank you.
21 The public hearing is closed, and I
22 have -- Mr. Webb, I thought you were first.
23 How did Mr. Joost get in front of you?
24 MR. WEBB: I'll yield.
25 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Mr. Joost.
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1 MR. JOOST: Through the Chair to legal, my
2 question is -- or to whoever can speak to the
3 contention that one space is required per two
4 wet slips. Is that true or not?
5 MR. KELLY: The code requirement is that
6 there's two spaces required for every three
7 slips, two parking spaces per three slips.
8 MR. JOOST: So let me ask you this, how
9 did we get around that whole issue to begin
10 with?
11 MR. KELLY: Well, originally, as they had
12 proposed, the original PUD was contemplated to
13 meet Part 6 of the zoning code, the two spaces
14 per three slips. Subsequent to that, based on
15 the purchasing and the owner-occupied units,
16 the LeCraw company at the time hired Rogers
17 Towers to file for an administrative
18 modification to the PUD basically to reduce the
19 required number of parking spaces, that 100
20 spaces, down to 30 spaces to be distributed on
21 the three parcels. One of the parcels is the
22 subject of this appeal, Parcel B.
23 MR. JOOST: What was the underlying basis
24 of their -- of the change from the number of
25 parking spaces?
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1 MR. KELLY: Their argument was that the
2 residents at that time that were buying the
3 units were also buying the boat slips. So the
4 majority of the slips that were being purchased
5 were being purchased by the residents who
6 already had parking available to them with
7 their residential unit. So they essentially
8 requested a reduction from 100 down to 30,
9 basically a 70 percent reduction.
10 Our code, in a sense, is a little
11 deficient when it comes to marinas because it
12 doesn't specifically anticipate the mixed use.
13 If you had a stand-alone marina with no
14 dwelling units, then yes, certainly you would
15 need the two spaces for every three slips. But
16 when you have a mixed-use residential, people
17 living there, then it's questionable whether or
18 not those number of spaces are warranted. And
19 based on the information that we received and
20 the administrative --
21 MR. JOOST: So what you're saying is the
22 higher ratio is needed when the residents
23 actually live on the premises versus -- what
24 I'm saying, the boat owner and the resident is
25 one in the same, therefore, the higher ratio is
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1 required of the two to three versus, "I'm
2 parking my boat at that particular marina, but
3 I do not live there," therefore, not as many
4 parking spaces are needed?
5 MR. KELLY: That was the thinking,
6 correct, that basically the need for the
7 parking was diminished by the fact that the
8 people that owned the slips at the marina were
9 living on site.
10 MR. JOOST: Were living on site? So in
11 reality, what's happened -- so you're saying
12 the higher ratio is needed when people have
13 their boats at the marina but do not live on
14 site?
15 MR. KELLY: Correct. If it was a
16 stand-alone marina, then yes, we would expect
17 it to meet the full requirement under the code,
18 which was the two spaces per three boat slips.
19 MR. JOOST: How do you -- well, I guess
20 how do you verify the residential ratio there
21 currently now living there?
22 MR. KELLY: The residential parking
23 requirements are to code and probably exceed
24 code requirements. Generally, a two bedroom
25 requires two spaces, and then for each
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1 additional bedroom beyond a two bedroom there's
2 another quarter space required. So generally,
3 the residential parking I believe in this
4 instance is to code or exceeds code.
5 MR. JOOST: Mr. Franklin, can I ask you a
6 question, please.
7 So what your contention is is that's not
8 what -- the boat owner and the condo owner are
9 now two different parties?
10 MR. FRANKLIN: Correct, for the most part.
11 MR. JOOST: And therefore, you need more
12 parking?
13 MR. FRANKLIN: That's correct.
14 And just to Mr. Kelly's point real quickly
15 and off what you said, while the residential
16 may meet or exceed code for the residential,
17 the additional spaces they had available were
18 the ones that were first tagged to be the eight
19 spaces and 12 spaces and five spaces, however
20 that adds up to 30, the 30 extra spaces were
21 incorporated into what they had additional and
22 extra there that again are not required to be
23 marked for marina spaces, not required to be
24 located close to the marina or closest to the
25 marina. They're there for guests or anybody
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1 else at the residence.
2 MR. JOOST: How did you compile your --
3 well, I guess since you're representing the
4 homeowners association you would know, but how
5 did you comprise your information? I mean how
6 do you know only X number of people living
7 there actually have boat slips also?
8 MR. FRANKLIN: Going off the addresses
9 that we had available from the management
10 company. The records I've given you were
11 supplied and they're essentially the billing
12 records for the management company for billing.
13 Every month or every three months, I believe,
14 with the association there's an assessment
15 levied. That bill goes out, and so the address
16 for the person is not Mira Vista or Harbortown
17 or Waters Edge or one of those condominium
18 complexes. They don't live there. And then as
19 well, if you lease your slip, you're required
20 to give us notice and give us the name of the
21 tenant and what kind of boat they're using and
22 stuff, so we have those. For every one that's
23 leased, we have that information as well. So
24 that's, again, the 20 we know live there, and
25 of those, the three tenants.
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1 MR. JOOST: Mr. Duggan, would you dispute
2 his information as far as the residential ratio
3 to boat owners goes?
4 MR. DUGGAN: I would. I haven't seen any
5 of that information. It hasn't been provided
6 to me, I can't validate it. I have no idea.
7 He's made statements tonight that I know aren't
8 true. I'm not going to take that one at face
9 value.
10 MR. JOOST: All right. Thank you.
11 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: I have a question,
12 Mr. Webb, if I may.
13 To the Planning Department, when the
14 spaces were reduced from 100 spaces down to 30
15 spaces and then they kind of divvied it up
16 between the different projects, how many
17 different projects are we talking about? Are
18 we talking about -- go ahead.
19 MR. KELLY: There's multiple parcels.
20 Mr. Duggan's client owns Parcel A and B. The
21 parking was distributed between Parcel D,
22 Parcel B, which Mr. Duggan owns, and Parcel E.
23 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: How was that
24 distributed, the 30 parking spaces, 10, 10, 10?
25 MR. KELLY: 10 to Parcel D, 8 to Parcel E
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1 and 12 to Parcel B, the subject of the
2 modification.
3 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: So Mr. Duggan, his
4 burden was 12 parking spaces?
5 MR. KELLY: Correct, initially.
6 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay. And initially,
7 his piece was considered to be a condo that's
8 now going apartment; is that correct?
9 MR. KELLY: The change in the use, I
10 guess, that was not the subject of the
11 modification request.
12 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay. Second question,
13 the other two pieces that were burdened with
14 parking, those are apartments or condos? Those
15 are owners or leases?
16 MR. KELLY: I believe they're all owners.
17 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay. So the only thing
18 that potentially has changed from the beginning
19 of all this is that Mr. Duggan's current client
20 is proposing to go to apartments, but that
21 wasn't part of the minor mod?
22 MR. KELLY: That's correct. The minor mod
23 obviously contemplated the height issues and
24 some setbacks and open space issues, which were
25 really the main requirements. When we reviewed
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1 the application, I think we kind of thought a
2 little bit twice about the original
3 administrative modification that was approved
4 that reduced that number so significantly
5 because we had a lot of calls and a lot of
6 questions about opposition on this minor mod,
7 but when it turned out at the public hearing,
8 the opposition wasn't really for anything that
9 they were requesting, but it was for the
10 parking. And we essentially knew that was
11 coming, and in light of that, we made
12 consolation, I guess, to increase the required
13 number of parking spaces for the marina portion
14 of their property on their site.
15 Initially, they wanted to do it in the
16 parking garage, tie it to their development,
17 but we had requested that it be specifically in
18 front of the marina. So they went from the 12
19 required to the 30 provided. Plus, you've got
20 10 additional on Parcel D and 8 additional on
21 Parcel E. So you're really looking now total
22 at 48 spaces, which based on the number of
23 slips, cuts the original PUD approved, 2002
24 PUD, basically by 50 percent.
25 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay. Mr. Webb, I'm
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1 sorry.
2 MR. WEBB: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
3 All right. Through the Chair to Sean,
4 what parcel is the marina on?
5 MR. KELLY: Well, the marina is in the
6 water so --
7 MR. WEBB: Well, I appreciate that. Where
8 is the ship store and where is the parking for
9 the marina?
10 MR. KELLY: If you look at the site plan,
11 it should be in your package, it's dated
12 3/4/08, that's Parcel A and B that basically
13 fronts. So the marina is not, but the parking
14 for the marina is on I think parcel -- I want
15 to say Parcel B.
16 MR. WEBB: All right. And how many spots
17 were there?
18 MR. KELLY: Initially, the overall PUD was
19 required to do 100 spaces. Based on the sales
20 that occurred over the course, and they had
21 applied for an administrative modification, we
22 reduced that requirement down to 30 spaces for
23 the overall development, 12 of which would be
24 on Parcel B. As a result of the minor
25 modification, we basically required Parcel B to
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1 increase from 12 to 30 spaces.
2 MR. WEBB: Say that again, that last line.
3 MR. KELLY: The minor modification, one of
4 the conditions was that we felt the 12 spaces
5 weren't sufficient, that we wanted to gain some
6 additional parking spaces for the marina
7 facilities and go to 30.
8 MR. WEBB: Right. Okay. So --
9 interesting. Okay. But once again, the minor
10 modification had nothing to do with the use of
11 the property, that is it just had to do with
12 the linking it or the combining of the two?
13 MR. KELLY: That's correct. The
14 parcelization was --
15 MR. WEBB: I tell ya what, let's cut to
16 the chase here. What effect did the minor
17 modification have on overall parking between --
18 what effect did it have on overall parking?
19 Was there a reduction, was it just moot, what
20 was the net?
21 MR. KELLY: In actuality, what they
22 requested as part of the minor modification had
23 no effect on the parking. The parking was a
24 condition we recommended in our review of it in
25 light of I guess some of the anticipated
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1 opposition that was calling and in light of we
2 felt that we probably under -- or
3 overcorrected -- the original reduction we felt
4 was a little too much.
5 MR. WEBB: So that decision had been made,
6 again, but the minor mod had nothing to do on
7 the overall parking situation?
8 MR. KELLY: Correct. We didn't think that
9 the minor modification --
10 MR. WEBB: Okay.
11 MR. KELLY: One, it couldn't supervent --
12 or supersede the original administrative
13 modification that reduced the parking in the
14 first place.
15 MR. WEBB: Okay. Fair enough. All right.
16 So again, back to the supposition that if
17 apartments are there as opposed to
18 condominiums, what is the assumption, that that
19 would require a greater number of spots? Is
20 that what I'm hearing?
21 MR. KELLY: No. We are -- essentially,
22 from the zoning perspective, we're ownership
23 neutral. So the use is the use, it's
24 multi-family, based on the number of units,
25 that's how we look at it.
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1 MR. WEBB: Okay. All right. Thank you.
2 I have no further questions.
3 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: I have -- I was going to
4 say let me back up.
5 Initially, there was -- if this was just a
6 stand-alone marina, there's 100 parking spaces
7 that would be associated with this marina,
8 correct?
9 MR. KELLY: (Nods head)
10 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: And since they made the
11 argument that some of these marina slips are
12 going to be owner occupied, we cut that number
13 down to just a little bit more than a third, so
14 we cut it down to 30 spaces; is that correct?
15 MR. KELLY: (Nods head)
16 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: And of the 30 spaces, 12
17 of those were associated with Mr. Duggan's PUD?
18 MR. KELLY: (Nods head)
19 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: So if you wanted to use
20 the assumption that somebody that's in an
21 apartment is probably not going to own a boat
22 slip, then -- you had ratcheted down by a
23 third, and you'd probably have to ratchet it
24 back up by the third to be back, assuming that
25 100 percent of the apartment people will not be
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1 owning boat slips. Does that make sense?
2 MR. KELLY: There's an assumption there.
3 I don't know, you know, to what -- whether or
4 not that's so entirely accurate.
5 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: So even if the
6 assumption that apartment people or the people
7 in the apartment won't be owning boat slips,
8 ratcheting that back up by three times only
9 brings it back up to 36 spots. So they're
10 really only six spots shy of the argument that
11 they're making; is that correct? You're just
12 multiplying the 12 spots that they had to
13 initially provide, multiply that by three.
14 MR. KELLY: Correct. 36 spaces. Again,
15 it's all based on, you know --
16 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: It's all very
17 subjective, but if the argument that people
18 living in a place -- I mean owning a place
19 compared to renting a place aren't going to be
20 someone that's going to own a boat slip, and
21 I'm just going off of that assumption that was
22 out there.
23 MR. KELLY: (Nods head)
24 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay. I just wanted to
25 get that straight in my head. So we're only
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1 really talking about six spots instead of 60
2 spots. Well, we're talking about 36 spots
3 opposed to 60 spots.
4 MR. KELLY: The condition of approval was
5 that they provide 30. They were already
6 required to provide 12. I think the argument
7 now became -- and it was kind of unclear at the
8 time whether or not it was 30 in lieu of 12 or
9 30 in addition to the 12 that they were already
10 providing. So is it 42 or is it 30?
11 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: I understand that there
12 is a burden out there and there's people out
13 there looking for places to park and there's
14 just not parking available.
15 Mr. Joost.
16 MR. JOOST: Through the Chair to
17 Mr. Kelly.
18 Can you back up a second? Originally,
19 you're saying there's roughly 100 parking
20 spaces, then we knocked it down to 30, and then
21 we divided that 30 up to 9, 9 and 12?
22 MR. KELLY: 8, 10 and 12.
23 MR. JOOST: Okay. Close enough. What
24 happened to the other 18? I mean are they
25 still designated for boat owners?
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1 MR. KELLY: They're a requirement under
2 that administrative modification to the overall
3 PUD.
4 MR. JOOST: So if we go up to 30, there's
5 still -- that would make a total of 48,
6 wouldn't it, that's set aside for boat owners?
7 MR. KELLY: That's correct.
8 MR. JOOST: The other 10 and 8 are in
9 other parcels?
10 MR. KELLY: That's correct. 18 would be
11 on Parcels D and E, and then, correct, 30 on
12 Parcel B. So 48 total.
13 MR. JOOST: There would be a total of 48
14 spaces available if we went with the 30. Okay.
15 That answers my question.
16 Thank you.
17 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Mr. Webb.
18 MR. KELLY: To the Chair, though, to point
19 out, I think they did indicate that the number
20 of slips was increased, although not through
21 the PUD. The PUD I don't believe specifically
22 regulated the number of slips, but it was
23 increased from 150 to 165, so there's 15
24 additional slips that were added.
25 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay. So rather than
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1 the initial burden being 100, the initial
2 burden would have been -- what's two thirds of
3 165? It's 110.
4 All right. I don't have anybody in the
5 queue, so we opened and closed the public
6 hearing, now we need to make an amendment to
7 approve to grant the appeal or to deny the
8 appeal.
9 Ms. Eller, if we move to grant the appeal
10 means that we're overturning the minor mod; is
11 that correct?
12 MS. ELLER: Correct.
13 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: If we move to deny the
14 appeal, that means we're moving for the minor
15 mod as written?
16 Do we have within our purview to change
17 the minor mod as it came before us?
18 MS. ELLER: Yes. This is a de novo
19 appeal, which means that you hear all of the
20 evidence anew and you can approve the appeal
21 and you can approve portions of the minor mod,
22 you can change portions of the minor mod, you
23 can do any of those things. If you do do those
24 things, I suggest that we ask the applicant on
25 the record if they agree or they don't agree.
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1 If they don't agree, then your choice is to
2 either approve something over their objection
3 or just take that off the table and deny or
4 approve flat out.
5 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay. I just wanted to
6 figure out where we are.
7 Mr. Joost.
8 MR. JOOST: Through the Chair to
9 Mr. Duggan.
10 Just one question for you. Say we're five
11 years down the road, the economy's much
12 improved, all the boat slips, condominiums,
13 apartments are sold. Where do all these people
14 park?
15 MR. DUGGAN: Well, I would say there's a
16 lot of assumptions in that question.
17 MR. JOOST: Well, I mean obviously you
18 don't build a project not to sell it out. I
19 mean I don't. So at some point just say it's
20 90 percent occupied, I mean you're always going
21 to have some turnover, where is everybody going
22 to park?
23 MR. DUGGAN: Are you talking about for the
24 apartments on my client's parcel, is that your
25 question?
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1 MR. JOOST: The whole thing. Because
2 originally it all started out as one ownership
3 deal.
4 MR. DUGGAN: Okay. Now I understand.
5 On our parcel, the parcels formerly A and
6 B, now one, we're providing two parking
7 garages, so we're going to have more than
8 sufficient parking to park all of the people
9 who reside there either as apartments or
10 condos. Again, we didn't need approval to do
11 apartments. The original PUD approved it for
12 multifamily. So either way, we're going to
13 park all those people.
14 MR. JOOST: Has there ever been any
15 thought to putting some of the spaces in the
16 garage to designate for the marina boat owners?
17 MR. DUGGAN: Yes, there was. That was
18 suggested by me at Planning Commission.
19 Planning Commissioners did not want to go that
20 route. They wanted to provide the spots closer
21 to the water, and that's what we have done.
22 Our site plan that has been submitted for
23 ten-set approval shows those spots in that main
24 access road in close proximity to the marina.
25 Now, just to finish answering your
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1 question, the other two parcels are built out.
2 They've sold out. They've got parking.
3 They've got 18 spaces -- I think their
4 testimony was that 17 people who live out there
5 have slips, so they're fully parked. So
6 they're fully parked. Our garages are going to
7 fully park our site.
8 MR. JOOST: So what do you do -- I mean if
9 the contention is most of the people that live
10 there don't own boats, so therefore, the ratio
11 of parking for the marina needs to be closer to
12 the two to three versus where are we at now,
13 one to three? What do you do -- what do you do
14 with all those boat owners that don't have a
15 place to park?
16 MR. DUGGAN: Well, my response to that
17 would be that's not my client's obligation.
18 That's an interesting hypothetical. It's not
19 what we sought review for. It's not -- you
20 can't put all of that burden on us. We're
21 providing 48 spaces. I would submit to you --
22 by the way, I believe there was actually
23 another PUD amendment in 2005 to add the 15
24 marina slips. It explicitly provided that the
25 administrative modification provisions would
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1 continue to control the parking issue. But
2 that's an aside.
3 I don't think that you are going to have a
4 day, even if you assume that 165 of those slips
5 are full, and I don't know of a marina around
6 town that has every one of its slips full, I
7 don't think you're going to have a day where
8 every one of those people comes out there and
9 wants to use their boat.
10 I've done work, as Mr. Webb knows, we
11 represented an attempt to redevelop the
12 Julington Creek Marina at San Jose. They only
13 have about 30 spots. They're doing fine. They
14 don't have days where they've got problems with
15 too much parking -- I mean not enough parking,
16 too many cars. So I just think -- I understand
17 your question. Does it exist within the
18 universe of risk? Yes, but I think it's a
19 vanishingly small probability.
20 MR. JOOST: Okay.
21 Thank you.
22 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Mr. Duggan, you said
23 something, and maybe I misheard you. You said
24 that you're providing 48 parking spaces?
25 MR. DUGGAN: The 30 on our parcels, the 18
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1 on the other two parcels combine for 48.
2 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay. I just wanted to
3 make sure I got you correctly. I thought
4 you -- I just wanted to make sure I got you
5 correctly.
6 MR. DUGGAN: Thank you.
7 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Well, guys, this is just
8 my own opinion. I don't think the burden of
9 the parking is on Mr. Duggan's property. I
10 understand that it may be hard finding parking
11 spaces. I think if you go to any boat dock,
12 you'll find it would be hard to be finding
13 parking spaces. I mean that's just the nature
14 of the beast. It sounds like the Planning
15 Commission did some equitable things, assuming
16 some of these assumptions that we made, and
17 bumped those parking numbers up to the 30
18 parking spaces. Sitting here at the Chair, I
19 can't make the amendment, but --
20 (Inaudible motion and second)
21 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Thank you. It's been
22 moved to amend to deny and there's been a
23 second.
24 Any further discussion on the amendment?
25 I have Mr. Webb.
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1 MR. WEBB: Very briefly.
2 I'm very sensitive to the needs of boaters
3 in this community as a boater myself, however,
4 I think Mr. Duggan's comments regarding the 48
5 spots for 165 wet slips is very well taken.
6 Clearly, that's anecdotal, it's not competent
7 substantial evidence, but I think we'll take,
8 you know, council notice of the fact that you
9 go down to any marina this day and age and
10 you're not going to have -- I think 48 --
11 again, I spend a lot of time at marinas, and 48
12 dedicated slips (sic) for 165 wet slips I think
13 is adequate. And again, I don't think there's
14 been competent substantial evidence offered
15 before this committee to warrant overturning
16 the granting of the minor modification. As
17 such, I urge my colleagues to support the
18 motion to amend to deny.
19 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Any further discussion
20 on the amendment?
21 AUDIENCE MEMBER: There are not another 18
22 spaces available, so that 48 number is totally
23 incorrect.
24 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Other than the fact
25 you're out of order, sir, thank you for your
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1 comment.
2 Seeing no further comments, all in favor
3 say aye.
4 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: Aye.
5 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Those opposed?
6 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: (No response)
7 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: By your action, you
8 approve the amendment.
9 Move the bill is amended to deny.
10 Any further discussion on the bill?
11 Seeing none, please open the ballot.
12 (Committee ballot opened)
13 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Close the ballot, record
14 the vote.
15 MR. GRAHAM: (Votes yea)
16 MR. JOOST: (Votes yea)
17 MR. REDMAN: (Votes yea)
18 MR. GAFFNEY: (Votes yea)
19 MR. HOLT: (Votes yea)
20 MR. WEBB: (Votes yea)
21 (Committee ballot closed)
22 MS. LAHMEUR: Six yea, zero nay.
23 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: By your action, you have
24 approved 2008-589 as amended.
25 We have two bills left, guys.
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1 We're going to open the public hearing on
2 -606 and -607.
3 The public hearing is open.
4 We have no speakers.
5 We will continue that and take no further
6 action.
7 That all being said, I just want to point
8 out to you guys, I thought it was interesting,
9 I supported Mr. Holt on that land use change
10 out in his district, but if I recall the
11 arguments that were made on that fair share
12 that somebody being so far down the path and
13 now having to change, it was undue burden on
14 the property owner, and I think that's just
15 what we did with that land use change.
16 MR. WEBB: There's a fair share
17 agreement -- if there's a modification of the
18 land use change, the fair share agreement is --
19 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: No, no, no. I'm just
20 giving the example of what we did with that
21 last fair share that was calculated
22 incorrectly. And the reason why we didn't
23 charge them that extra million dollars was
24 because we said we were being unfair to that
25 guy. And I'm saying, Well, this guy went down
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1 the path and spent a lot of money, but yet we
2 thought nothing about changing his land use
3 back to what it originally was.
4 MR. WEBB: I would -- through the Chair, I
5 would respectfully disagree somewhat and defer
6 to the General Counsel's Office.
7 MS. ELLER: The applicant can make that
8 assertion, of course. Of course, any applicant
9 can assert that they've relied upon decisions
10 by the council. However, with land use map
11 amendments, we do include in the original
12 legislation that they are not final until the
13 Department of Community Affairs process is
14 completed. So there is notice to applicants
15 when an amendment is adopted by the council in
16 the ordinance text itself that that amendment
17 does not become final until the Department of
18 Community Affairs gives that final stamp stamp.
19 And that, of course, has not happened because
20 they challenged it.
21 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Do we not make that same
22 announcement with the fair shares, that they're
23 not final until they're approved by the
24 council?
25 MS. ELLER: Yes.
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1 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Okay. I just wanted to
2 make sure I made my point.
3 Thanks.
4 Anyway -- oh, Mr. Holt. I'm sorry.
5 MR. HOLT: I would just say I appreciate
6 your comment there and I'm sure that when it
7 comes to council, something will be said to
8 that effect. Maybe they'll even say something
9 about Burt Harris, but as far as I know,
10 there's no case law that supports a Burt Harris
11 claim when the land use was never granted.
12 CHAIRMAN GRAHAM: Trust me, I'm in full
13 support of the district councilperson, and if
14 you're looking for a way to correct errors that
15 were made in the past, I support you.
16 Seeing nothing else, we're adjourned.
17 (The above proceedings were adjourned at
18 7:25 p.m.)
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1 C E R T I F I C A T E
2 STATE OF FLORIDA)
3 COUNTY OF DUVAL )
4 I, Tina Hutcheson, Court Reporter, certify that
5 I was authorized to and did stenographically report
6 the foregoing proceedings and that the transcript is
7 a true and complete copy of my stenographic notes.
8
9 Dated this 8th day of September 2008.
10
11
12 _______________________________
Tina Hutcheson
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