Local Planning Agency Meeting - September 10, 2025: Floodplain Amendments and Land Use Rezoning
Local Planning Agency Meeting – September 10, 2025
The Dunedin Local Planning Agency (LPA) met on Wednesday, September 10, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. at City Hall. The board considered three agenda items: approval of prior meeting minutes, amendments to floodplain management regulations to comply with new state law, and a land use plan amendment and rezoning for a 0.53‑acre parcel at 1050 Main Street. All items received unanimous recommendations for approval to the City Commission. No members of the public spoke on any agenda item.
Consent Calendar
- Approval of July 9, 2025 LPA Minutes: Motion by Vice Chair Benjamin, seconded by Ms. Kynes. Carried unanimously with no corrections or public comment.
Discussion Items
- Ordinance 25‑07 – Floodplain Management Regulations Amendments: Community Development Assistant Director Joseph DiPasqua explained that Chapter 2025‑190, Laws of Florida (effective July 1, 2025) prohibits local governments from maintaining a cumulative substantial damage or improvement rule. Dunedin had a 5‑year cumulative rule (50% threshold) that must be removed. The ordinance deletes the cumulative provision and makes housekeeping changes: removing language already covered by the Florida Building Code (e.g., 1‑foot freeboard requirement), deleting sections conflicting with state law, and updating references. Staff noted the city has already been following the new law operationally. The 50% threshold remains for individual projects: if a repair or improvement equals or exceeds 50% of the structure’s value (excluding land and features like pools, fences), the building must be brought into compliance (e.g., elevation). The new rule eliminates the “look back” period; each permit stands alone. The historic structure exemption was clarified: alterations that would de‑list a structure from a historic register are prohibited.
- Application LUP/ZO‑2025‑0001 – 1050 Main Street (Golden Acres Mobile Home Park): The applicant, Golden Acres R.O. Association (a resident‑owned co‑op), seeks to change the land use from Retail & Services (R&S) to Residential Low Medium (RLM) and rezone from Form‑Based Medium (FX‑M) to Mobile Home (MH) for a 0.53‑acre landlocked parcel that is currently vacant after demolition of a former residence. The parcel is surrounded by the mobile home park and can only be accessed via private park streets. The proposed land use (RLM) allows a maximum density of 10 dwelling units per acre, significantly less intense than the current 24 du/a under R&S. The MH zoning matches the surrounding park. The applicant’s representative, Jonathan James Damonte, provided a history: the Hardin family owned the land from 1959; the house was built in 1963; the mobile home park was developed 1968‑1971; the Hardins retained the house parcel; in 2015 the parcel was rezoned to FX‑M (possibly without the elderly owner’s full awareness); the residents purchased the property in 2020 after Mrs. Hardin’s death and demolished the dilapidated house. The co‑op cannot add more mobile home lots without 100% consent of all lot owners (unlikely); the parcel will be used as common area – green space, overflow parking, picnic tables, etc. Staff found the amendment consistent with the Comprehensive Plan and Countywide Rules, and the rezoning consistent with all seven LDC approval criteria. The next steps include City Commission first readings (October 9, 2025), then Forward Pinellas/Pinellas County review as a Tier II amendment, followed by second and final readings (expected late 2025 or early 2026).
Key Outcomes
- Motion to recommend approval of Ordinance 25‑07: Made by Vice Chair Benjamin, seconded by Mr. Stanek. Vote: unanimous (8‑0).
- Motion to recommend approval of Ordinance 25‑08 (Land Use Plan Amendment) and Ordinance 25‑09 (Rezoning): Made by Mr. Stanek, seconded by Ms. Telford. Vote: unanimous (8‑0).
- The meeting adjourned at 6:34 p.m.
Meeting Transcript
Good evening, everyone. And welcome. The September 2025 meeting of the local planning agency of the City of Nindeedon will now come to order. The local planning agency is an advisory board of citizens appointed by the City Commission. This board is comprised of volunteers who represent the thoughts and concerns of the community. The purpose of tonight's meeting is to make recommendations to the City Commission regarding each item on the agenda. Except for item 1C, tonight's format will be as follows. I will introduce each item on the agenda, after which the city representative will present information about it. Thereafter, the members of the local planning agency will have an opportunity to ask questions of the city representative. Finally, anyone from the public may come forward. Those from the public wishing to provide comments will need to please approach the lectern, state your name and address, and then utilize the microphone at the lecture in order for their comments to be recorded. Individual public speakers will be limited to three minutes of speaking time. And we kindly request that speakers are respectful of the countdown clock. Citizens speaking on that on an agenda item or during citizen comment will not engage in loud, boisterous or disruptive conduct. Please don't do that. Any speaker that has continued in any speaker that has continued inappropriate or irrelevant comments would be requested to relinquish the podium by the chair. The first item on the agenda is to approve the July 9th, 2025 LPA minutes. Are there any corrections, additions, or doetings to be to be made? Guessing look like it. Hearing none, do I hear a motion to accept the minutes as submitted? So moved. It has been moved and second to accept the minutes as submitted. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Thank you very much. This is public input on this. Yes, sir. Any time you vote on an item. Oh okay. Is there any public input about our minutes? It doesn't sound like there are any. So we're closing public input. That's new, isn't it? No. I don't remember doing that before. All right. Ordinance 25-07. Amendments to the city's floodplain management regulations. Well, good uh good evening, Joseph DePasqua on behalf of uh community development. And so what I have for you tonight is just a brief overview of our ordinance, so 2507. This is amendments to our floodplain management uh regulations. Um essentially, you may or may not know, but in July, a new law was enacted, and um Chapter 25-190 Laws of Florida that became effective July 1st, and what essentially it does is it requires by state law that the cities, any city or county um municipality can no longer have a cumulative substantial uh damage or improvement rule on the book. So in the city of Dunedin, we've had for about 10 years now a five-year cumulative. And so that has to base essentially by law now that has to go away. So the the primary function of the ordinance you're considering here this evening is to just simply remove that. And in doing so, there's a couple other housekeeping items that I'd like to point out that we're going to be doing. So again, we're gonna delete the language. Um that has to do with the uh conflict with the new the new state law. We are also deleting uh language in 1052.2, and that's because these these are requirements that are now in the Florida Building Code. And what I mean by that is when we adopted them uh and I provided the the previous ordinance 15-40, when we adopted those, we were a little ahead of the game.
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