Good morning.

I'd like to call this meeting of the uh December thirty first regular city commission meeting of the city of Sarasota to order.

Um first we will have the invocation by the city auditor and clerk.

Please stay in.

December first.

Heavenly Father, we affirm our faith in thee.

We seek your divine strength, wisdom, and guidance in deliberations of the I'm sorry, in guidance in the deliberations of the lives that affect each of the citizens of our community.

Sorry.

Thank you all very much.

Commissioners, would you mind taking a picture of maybe real quick?

Great.

Thank you.

We'd love to take a look at the question.

Congratulations.

Thank you all.

They're really good.

And then we if you turn around and face the audience, then we will stand behind.

See this way, the city of Sarasota is right behind us, and everybody's motion because we're going to call it.

Come on, Robert.

Go ahead.

Well, thank you again to Beyhaven students.

And the next thing on our agenda are changes to the order of the day.

Um Madam Mayor, just real quick, we just want to make the announcement that Commissioner Albert is via Zoom.

So just so the public is aware.

Thank you.

And and that will adjust a little bit of how we do things.

So changes to the order of the day.

The mayor have a couple of suggested changes to the order of the day.

Actually, I have two changes to suggest.

So I suggest that we define membership qualifications before we appoint members.

So I'm suggesting that we move item eight point two to immediately following item ten point two.

Yes.

Could I have a motion to either for or against that suggestion?

So move.

Let's vote.

Four?

Yes.

Four.

Second.

So move by Commissioner Batti, seconded by the Vice Mayor.

We'll do a roll call vote.

Roll call vote.

Yes.

Aaron Kotch?

Yes.

Alpert.

Yes.

That's E.

Yes.

Already?

Yes.

Yes.

Thank you.

My second suggestion has to do with the Bobby Jones Clubhouse.

Item nine point one is to provide direction regarding the clubhouse design options.

And item 11.1 is a quasi-judicial public hearing on the currently proposed clubhouse site plan.

I would suggest that they be adjacent to each other.

And I will turn to Mr.

Bullock to ask which is better for staffs or the presenters to move item nine point one down to immediately following eleven point one or the other way around.

Move eleven point one to immediately after nine point one.

So I think if you um move the discussion down and do it just prior to the quasi-judicial hearing.

That way if you decide to do something that disqualifies the need for the quasi-judicial hearing, you can just not hold that hearing.

Okay.

Thank you.

So the suggestion is to move item 9.1 to immediately following the last legislative public hearing so that it will be immediately before item 11.1.

May I have a motion to move forward.

I'll make that motion.

Is there a second?

Second.

Okay.

Moved by Commissioner Batti.

Uh seconded by the Vice Mayor.

Uh is there any discussion?

Uh roll call vote.

All right.

Aaron Kotch?

Yes.

Albert?

Yes.

That's he?

Yes.

Yes.

Right.

Yes.

Well, thank you very much.

With those changes.

Is there agreement on the agenda?

Move approval of the agenda schedule?

Second.

Okay.

Move by Commissioner A.

Her and Kotch, seconded by Commissioner Batte to approve the agenda.

Do we need a voice?

Okay.

Voice vote.

Albert?

Yes.

That's he?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Thank you very much.

So we can move forward with our agenda.

The first item on the agenda, well, the next item on the agenda is uh commission presentation.

So if you will join me up front to recognize on presentation.

Who has the presentation?

Wait on you.

Thank you.

Do I need to turn the RCTB on?

Um have everybody come in?

Yeah, I was going to suggest this is recognizes a whole lot of individuals and organizations.

So whoever is here to get that recognition and uh receive someone is going to receive the proclamation, please join us on you.

We got a big group here.

Great.

Sorry.

Yeah, I I don't think you want to block me.

Maybe stand over a mess.

Okay, this is a proclamation of the City of Sarasota, whereas the City of Sarasota Public Art Program, in partnership with Fresh Fridays, presented a first of its kind projection mapping art installation on the Palm Avenue parking garage on November 7th, 2025, transforming the structure into a dynamic, light-based work of public art.

And whereas the installation was created by students in the Department of Motion Design at Ringling College of Art and Design under the guidance of faculty member Dante Rinaldi, showcasing the students' creativity, technical expertise and innovation.

And whereas the City of Sarasota gratefully acknowledges the essential support of Barco Inc.

for providing a high-powered 4K projector, light mural for technical expertise and the collaboration of Fresh Fridays, its organizer, next mark, the Sarasota Downtown Improvement District, and Bay Plaza, whose partnership helped make this event possible.

And whereas this project stands as a shining example of partnership between the city, educational institutions, private industry, and community organizations, advancing Sarasota's identity as a city that celebrates creativity, technology, and public art.

Now, therefore, the City Commission of the City of Sarasota, Florida, and on behalf of the citizens of our community, takes great pride in recognizing December 1, 2025 as public art in motion day, a day of special importance and worthy of the recognition of the residents of the City of Sarasota.

Thank you all for making it possible.

It was a beautiful event.

And Sierra, did you want to say a few words?

Yes, good morning.

I'm Sierra Coleman, the public art administrator.

Just want to briefly say, you know, thank you so much.

As you see, this is an incredible uh display of partnerships.

Many, many people came together for this one spectacular night.

I don't see where Professor Cheatham is down there.

I'll pass the mic down.

Um I just want to say how special it is, I think, to involve these students to give them something special, a special connection to the city of Sarasota.

These are some incredibly talented young artists, and you know, to give them that platform and and to have a special memorable experience here.

Maybe they'll want to stay or come back and continue sharing those talents.

So we're just very, very grateful for everybody who made this possible.

My name is Jonathan Parks, and I'm the chair of the public art committee.

And I just want to thank them for uh completing a vision.

Uh two worlds kind of aligning here.

I was actually the architect for the Palm Amateur Garage and talked about doing this many, many years ago when we first did the project to put into context.

Um I talked to one of the students, I said, Do you mind just telling me how old you are?

And she told me.

And I said, um and I went back and I said to Sierra, I said, I just talked to somebody who was four years old when we put these sales up and talked about projecting.

So it's good to be persistent.

So thank you very much, everyone.

But and to put that in context, the little children that were here, that's how old these people were when we came up with this.

A little older, yeah.

Yeah, Steve Kerber, planning director.

I know about a year ago uh we went over to um Ringling College for their uh special arts night, and uh that was the first time we saw uh uh the the students projection artwork, and uh as soon as we saw left, we said we have to do this.

I mean it was just that spectacular.

And so uh anyway, um wanted to thank Ed Dante and Kelly for all your work and the students who just did an incredible job, and uh we are going to do this again.

So uh and we already have some new ideas, so anyway.

Um as head of the Department of Motion Design, I just wanted to thank Sierra and Steven for their amazing work and collaboration.

Thank you very much.

Oh no, I just want to say thank you to all the incredible work from the students.

They're just incredible, and thank you so much.

Couldn't have done it without you.

And it was suggested that the proclamation go to you.

We will we will display it proudly on our phone.

Thank you so much.

Thank you now.

Stay up here with photographs.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

I'm looking forward to the next one.

Thank you.

So I guess so.

Congratulations.

Or does it want to pull those four chairs up and find them?

I can get every share.

Perfect.

There we go.

That's perfect.

That's perfect.

All right, everyone here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, well, get that skill and then let us be here for everyone here.

Oh, good, yeah.

Yeah, thanks, Jimmy.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Okay, I guess we can continue with the next item on the agenda will be citizens' input concerning city city topics.

And I'm going to ask Ms.

Griggs to read the pledge of public conduct.

Thank you, Mayor.

We may disagree, but we will be respectful to one another.

We will direct all comments to issues.

We will not engage in personal attacks.

Thank you.

We have two people who have signed up to speak.

So if you want to come forward, that's it.

And you will each have up to three minutes and give your name, whether or not you're a city resident, and if you're representing another organization besides yourself.

And Mr.

Hyde goes first.

Always.

All right.

Well, uh, I uh remain Martin Hyde.

I remain looking after my dear mother just outside of the uh the city.

Um last episode of the uh the Twilight Zone for 2025.

Good to see four of you at least recovered from your four-night fully expensed unsupervised trip to Salt Lake City of all places for five commissioners with the attendant sunshine risks at a cost of tens of thousands to taxpayers on the back of another junket a few weeks before the Delray Beach.

But I wanted to talk about review the truths.

We're looking at the same facts, but we seem to be coming up with remarkably different conclusions.

Most everything that I bring up to you is not right or left politically.

It's right or wrong empirically.

You consistently back your stuff, notwithstanding the likelihood of municipal employees in a small city being likely to know more than a successful CEO.

A better question is why do you trust them over me?

At the last meeting, you had to transfer over two million dollars from a loan between funds to permanent transfer based on misinformation given to you in May 2024 by your former city manager.

Specifically, he told you on record, and I've reviewed it, that community foundation money would be forthcoming to support a 7.5 million dollar property purchase.

Last week it was confirmed 18 months later, that was not going to be the case.

Furthermore, no disclosure was made about potential contamination to you of the site by a former dry cleaning business, and therefore no cat cleanup cost was calculated or even mooted.

These are the people you trust.

Why?

Because you don't like me.

Lots of people feel that way.

Or because you're more concerned with keeping staff happy, regardless of how it affects taxpayers.

Facts, as John Adams, our second president said, are stubborn things.

And so is your unwillingness to face them.

Today I'll address some further shocking examples of profligacy, which amount to, if I'm frank, dishonesty.

Ignoring them doesn't hurt me.

It hurts the poorest in our community who need your help, which you can't give because you've wasted millions despite clear evidence.

You've ignored facts over what I can assume is a only assume is a bizarre bizarre form of uh collegiality.

Because the alternative would be corruption.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Eugene, uh please state your name and whether or not you're a city resident.

Hi, uh Eugene City Resident.

Uh I'd like to start this beautiful Monday off by uh saying I have infinite respect for police uh uh infinite respect admiration, and I'm grateful for them every day.

Um I'm here to talk about uh SPD official media accounts, so Facebook, Instagram, X, and so on.

Uh somebody that runs these accounts, uh these official accounts decided to disable uh commenting other posts.

This was without seeking guidance from the uh commission, uh was not for public input.

This is a brazen violation of free speech, uh, and there's plenty of case law to show it, which I also emailed uh some of you.

Uh constituents are allowed to gesture like like a post or uh angry face, but not speak about it.

Most public debate nowadays happens online.

Uh this shuts down meaningful public dialogue and silences the very people you serve.

Uh there are only a handful of agencies in the entire country that do it, and I really saddened that our American city does this as well.

I'm asking you today to direct the SPD and the media manager to restore written comments on all police department social media pages so we can restore accountability and a rise to free speech.

Whether I want to praise the police or criticize them, I should be able to do it online.

I don't need to take a day off to come here and beg for it.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

The next agenda item is approval of the minutes of the regular city, the Sarasota Commission meeting of November 3rd, 2025.

I'll move.

Well, first lesson, do we have any comments?

I submitted some non-substantive comments.

So it was moved by Commissioner Batti to accept them.

Is there a second?

Second.

And seconded by the Vice Mayor.

REL call vote.

Mets E.

Yes.

Or it's price.

Yes.

And Catch.

Yes.

Albert.

I thought I heard something.

Albert.

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, you're a little low.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you very much.

So it was moved and passed unanimously.

Then we have the minutes of the statutory Sarasota City Commission meeting of November 7th.

May I have a motion?

Well, are there any changes, corrections?

I made one suggestion, but other than that, no.

May I have a motion to accept?

Move by Commissioner Batti.

Second.

Seconded by the Vice Mayor.

Call for a roll call vote.

Thank you.

Price?

Yes.

And patch.

Yes.

Albert.

Well, Betty.

Yes.

Thank you.

The motion passed unanimously.

The next item on the agenda is a presentation.

It's item 5.1 presentation regarding the citizens with disabilities advisory boards annual update.

And we have ADA coordinator Brown and Board Chair Krimble to make a presentation.

Thank you for coming.

Good morning, Commissioners.

My name is Jake Brown, and I'm the ADA coordinator.

Good morning.

I'm Rosemary Krimble.

I'm the chair of the ADA Council.

Okay.

There we go.

All right.

So first things first.

We'll talk about some of the board purpose and our accomplishments.

So the purpose of our board is to provide the community.

Oh, sorry.

A little closer to me.

Thank you, Jake.

The purpose of the board is to provide the community with a place to uh speak about accessibility issues that we could potentially remediate.

We can investigate and work to resolve those barriers in accessibility.

Whether or not they are physical or programmatic barriers, it's a place to discuss it.

We also fund the city's closed captioning program.

And this is done through live captioning for city commission meetings as well as an auto captioner for the advisory boards.

The Citizens with Disability Board is also fund uh funded the Eco Rover Beach wheelchair, which has had fantastic uh feedback from everyone who's used it.

Um we've had a ridership of 27 individuals, but over 30 actual rides, and that is 36 if you were curious.

Um and we have had also had 58 total requests for information or reservation of the Eco Rover.

It's actually probably a bit higher than that, but I stopped counting after they were just calling and asking if uh what hours it worked without booking.

Um but we get a lot of questions about it and a lot of public interest.

Um, our board attendance has been phenomenal.

I'd like to thank everyone on my board for making time in their days to show up in 2024.

We had 100% board attendance.

And so far in 2025, um, there were only five absences, and each of them were excused and they were distributed pretty evenly among uh members.

So we can't do it without them.

Okay.

And uh for our board work plan, um, our current board members have report community barriers and access concerns identified throughout the city, uh, which we discussed during meetings, and then I will look into them.

I'll reach out to businesses and do what we need to do to see about getting those addressed and moving forward.

Uh I also provide regular updates to the board regarding our transition plan status each quarter, and I address board concerns or thoughts on the plan at that time or in any of our other meetings that they're brought up.

Um the board will continue to monitor eco rover usage and cost.

Uh and I would like to give a shout out to the vendor for the Eco Rover.

Um when we first got it on board, um the salt and the sand corroded it much faster than expected.

But the vendor replaced um the wheels, bearings, and axles with stainless steel at no cost to the city.

Um so he's a really great guy, um, and he makes sure that we are taken care of, and I really appreciate that because he's helped keep our maintenance load very reasonable.

Um the board has also placed specific interest on the city's web compliance initiative.

In accordance with the Department of Justice, the city has until April of 2026 to bring our website and documents up to compliance with web content accessibility guidelines 2.1 level A and AA.

Um these are the standard for accessibility and they're updated regularly.

Um but the Department of Justice, rather than having us use the newest one, 2.2, they left it at 2.1 since it's more reasonable to accomplish in the time frame provided.

And then finally, we'll do a quick comment on our board fund.

Um in terms of revenue, the Citizens with Disabilities Board receives two-thirds of every ADA parking violation, something our Eco Rover and uh writers enjoy.

Um and this fund balance is used to support the Eco Rover program and the city's captioning initiatives.

Um the board is interested in more projects similar in nature to the Eco Rover that could assist the city in becoming more accessible.

Um and one way we're doing this too is we've asked the board to fund six thousand dollars in uh ADA document software remediation um purchasing.

And um we also review the fund balance in each of our meetings with um full you know spreadsheets where everyone can kind of dig into the numbers and we can really go through.

That's another mic you'd like to say anything.

The only thing I would like to say is that the board does keep close tabs on the money.

Um we've actually brought the police in to speak to us when we saw a dip in our revenues.

Um and uh it turned out that some of the money was being diverted to a different account, but we found it and brought it back.

So we we still do have the money.

We'd like to use it for more projects to make the city more accessible.

We have been following the accessibility reports every quarter.

Some departments have done phenomenal work to become accessible, some are a little slower.

Umly that's because they're much bigger and they have bigger challenges to become ADA qualified.

Um but other than that, I just want you to know that uh we have a phenomenal board.

Um two of our members are wheelchair bound, and they are very good at reporting their accessibility issues.

Um that's all I wanted to add.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Uh Commissioners, do you have questions?

Yes, I see Commission the Vice Mayor is first on the list.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you very much for your presentation.

This is the first board I sat on for the city, so welcome.

Um I have a question about the $6,000 you requested for software purchase.

Is that to assist in the compliance issue that you mentioned previous to the that slide?

Yes.

Um when we first started the project in we were under the impression that Adobe Acrobat would be all we really needed.

Most of my trainings kind of signified that.

But as we've gone further in, I've worked with departments like utilities and parks and rec who have site plans and very large things, and that's where Adobe really should go.

Um I've had issues with it crashing and uh people in other departments are struggling with it because it just takes so much time.

Um but we did find some software after working with a few vendors, and this one he showed um he remediated an entire document that took me 45 minutes and 10 minutes.

So it's uh a software that has a very reasonable cost that I believe will really help move us forward on that goal.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um Commissioner Albert, do you have any questions?

I do not.

Okay.

I do.

Okay.

My button just went off and on the way.

Yeah.

So Commissioner Aherncotch is questions.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for your presentation.

Thank you also for volunteering your time and to the entire board as well.

Um I was uh at attended one of the meetings where you presented the transition plan.

And I was wondering if at a future commission meeting you might be able to present that to the city commission.

Not only the transition plan, but as you did before, where we are, where we hope to be, what it takes to get there.

Some aspirations are pretty pretty high, but some are very realistic, and some of them are actually you know pretty important to make immediately.

And I was hoping you're okay with that, and I could request that.

I'd be open to that.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, it's an invaluable information.

Also I noticed in your report that you had talked about um coordination with other city commission boards so I believe it was the Parks Board um it was human relations and also DRC.

And I was wondering if the board had ever talked about an actual plan to attend, present, interact with have a joint meeting or something if those three the DRC is very different but the other two advisory boards may be a bit a little bit easier of a lift what the discussion was around more interaction with those boards to be more efficient.

So that part of the board report was about um if other boards do portions of it.

So we haven't had any discussion about actually meeting it with them but I do know that um board member Peccarella he has um thought about going to parks and rec boards a few times but I don't I'm not sure if he has.

Okay.

Just an idea for discussion that you all may want to consider I mean we don't want two advisory boards talking parallel and nobody actually connecting on ideas.

So maybe there's room there for I don't know.

I I think that's an excellent idea because we often call departments in to speak to us and it would make more sense if we could bring another advisory board in at the same time when we have them in.

I don't know how that will work but I'll let you all talk about it figure it out.

And in addition to that board as well we have an ad hoc advisory board for our downtown master plan.

I think this board would be incredibly valuable in those discussions.

We've already seated the advisory board but um maybe you know an idea is that your board appoint a member or you rotate to attend to those ad hoc meetings and maybe report back to you all and at some point potentially take some formal position on some of the things but at least monitor their discussions and and be able to add input to it I think would be um invaluable.

I I welcome that yeah I I agree we we had the Bay do a presentation and they learned more from us than we learned from them and it was very useful and they did make some changes to make it more accessible over at the bay.

Yeah it's it's it's a really important part of the you know the growth as we go along is that we consider everybody in in in our growth and we have to have all points of view not that we can accommodate everybody but at least we we we take everybody's point of view and and input into consideration.

And then my last one was that at a recent seminar I attended at a conference um I did a a session on um accessibility and one of the suggestions that was I think an easy ADA aid was having a chat bot on your website and I didn't know if that was part of your 2.1 uh web update pieces but it immediately gave people the opportunity to uh voice uh a search or a question or something and I didn't know if that was something that was in your world.

Um no we haven't that's not in the 2.1 but that could be something we explore at a later point once we get everything kind of buttoned up and in compliance with the standards now then I would be very happy to work with IT or whoever we need to to see if there's anything we can do a little bit beyond that.

Yeah they said that that was sort of a a low-hanging fruit easy thing to accomplish and just get that done and it helps a lot.

Did they mention whether it was audio or only visual I can look back at my notes.

Okay.

Okay.

Just wondering because that that is one of the problems with interacting with a computer for the disabled is if they're blind the the computer is somewhat useless without audio.

My impression it was audio.

Good okay thank you.

Those are my questions thank you and thank you for everything you do for um our community thank you commissioner Batti did you have any questions?

No just again to echo the sentiments of the commissioner and thank you for the work that you're doing.

Thank you.

Presented and I did have a couple of quick ones one is the um website project do you expect to meet the deadline I just checked our site improve recently which is our web crawler that looks at our website and goes through each of the categories in 2.1 and all of our websites were over 80% of several were over 90%.

So we're making very good progress and then I will be engaging in manual testing where I'm using a screen reader and then it will actually check if I can navigate the website using a screen reader if I can navigate using only the keyboard and all the other things that the crawlers cannot check for.

So I feel like we're on a very good trajectory and I'll keep trying to communicate with IT and making sure that they're aware of issues as I come up.

Do you have other projects that you would really like to see happen, but you do not have the funding for I'm I'm not going to take the time now, but I would like you to bring those up to uh say the interim city manager because just because you don't just because people are not parking illegally doesn't mean that a important project should be passed over.

So thank you very much.

Uh so with I don't see any other questions, so thank you for coming in and thank you for the work you're doing and the update.

Thank you very much.

Have a wonderful day, Commissioners.

Thank you.

Okay.

So at this time we will recess from the city regular city commission meeting and uh go into a special session of the new town community redevelopment agency.

Uh okay, and the first thing on that agenda is the approval of the minutes of the uh CRA meeting of October 6, 2025.

Are there any additions or corrections?

So moved.

Madam Mayor, well the I was gonna say, Madam Mayor, I I would move approval of the um special uh community redevelopment agency meeting minutes of October 6, 2025.

Okay, so since Commissioner Bats was first, would you like to make your absolutely second?

Um so moved approval by Commissioner Batis, seconded by Commissioner Ahern Koch.

Uh roll call vote.

Albert.

Yes.

Betsy.

Yes.

Or Aaron Kutch.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

That motion passed unanimously.

Uh now the next item is the appointment of uh members of the Newtown Community Redevelopment Agency, the CRA advisory board.

Um so I'm gonna call on uh Ms.

Griggs and development manager economic development manager Appleby to make the presentation.

Thank you.

I'm just gonna give the basics and if you guys have any additional questions, we have um Mr.

Appleby here to answer.

Um the terms of Mr.

Carlos Jancey, seat for designated representative economic development corps.

Um and Alex Chow, seat designated for individuals involved in urban design, planning or commercial real estate.

Expire December 2025.

Mr.

Yancey is eligible for reappointment and has expressed interest and has submitted his application for reappointment.

Is the Chow is no longer eligible for reappointment?

So you have applications for your consideration.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh Mr.

Appleby, did you want to make a presentation or are you just gonna wait for questions?

Yes, I'm gonna go for questions.

Okay.

Uh Commissioner Ahern Koch.

Um I have no questions, and I can make a motion if the commission's ready.

Um I would move that we reappoint Mr.

Yancey and appoint uh Janine Johnson.

Second.

Okay.

Moved by Commissioner Ahern Koch, seconded by Commissioner Batte to reappoint uh Mr.

Yancey and to appoint Ms.

Johnson.

Um I would ask Commissioner Albert if she has any.

Oh, yeah, Commissioner Albert, do you have any um comments?

Comments?

Okay.

I did want to point out what we have been doing where there are seat requirements.

We've been slotting in the new appointees without acknowledging the seat requirement necessarily.

So I would like to state for the record that we would be waiving the seat requirements and appoint Ms.

Johnson to the seat vacated by Jesse Hubbard.

That has a seat requirement of property owner in the CRA.

She is not a property owner, but she is a business owner.

And that's and that's fine.

I think and the reason why, you know, like I stated before is we have such a hard time getting volunteers.

I think in the previous year's commission has you know kind of waive that requirement just so we can have somebody be a part of this board.

So typically the main boards that we really need to pay attention to city requirements is the planning board, the board of adjustment, maybe they did, but any of the other boards is just a preference to be, but you know, it's it's up to the commission's discretion.

But we do have two empty seats.

So I wanted to specify that the seat she's going into is for property owner, not for an individual with specific professional expertise.

No, I mean uh thank you, Mayor.

If I may, I just wanted to say uh first to uh Mr.

Jesse Hubbard that I hope he gets well, you know, soon because it was a personal matter that he had to uh remove himself from the board.

Um and then also uh knowing both uh Mr.

Carlos Yancey personally and uh Ms.

Janine Johnson, you know, having grown up with the both of them, that they'll be both valuable assets to the CRA, um, particularly Mr.

Uh Yancey, being that he um works at uh Bay First Bank, you know, which is the first financial institution on the corridor in Newtown.

Um and I think he brings uh a great deal of uh expertise um and much needed knowledge to the CRA and Ms.

uh Ms.

Janine Johnson as well and uh her um care for the community, having grown up in the community, her being a business owner, and these are the types of people that that uh that we want to continue to take have interest and uh take the initiative to to be a part of particularly the CRA um is especially as we try and and grow new town and uh evolve it and get it on par with the rest of the rest of the neighborhoods and the communities of the city.

So um I commend the both of them for taking the interest and uh and taking the initiative to be a part of this board and uh your your service is uh much needed and and much appreciated.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh thank you, Commissioner Batti.

Commissioner Alpert, do you have any comments?

Uh no, I don't, thank you.

Thank you, I guess.

It's time for a roll call vote then.

Thank you, Mayor Betty.

Yes.

Price, yes, yes, Albert.

Yes.

Uh it passed unanimously.

Thank you very much.

Uh and with that, we are ending the um new town CRA um board meeting, and we will resume the city uh regular city commission meeting.

Um looking at the clock.

So we have reached consent agenda number one on the agenda.

Are there any items to be removed?

There are um items to be pulled, but I just want to make a brief statement.

Um I do have a public comment on multiple items, so I just wanted to ask the commission, do you all want to, I believe you would like to speak one time on multiple items?

Is that correct, Mr.

Hyde?

Yeah, let me take it through.

Okay.

So he has multiple items.

So if you want to go ahead and let him speak before you guys make a decision um on pulling whatever you want to pull, but he's got items on here that aren't being pulled, so that's why I state that.

So I just wanted to Ms.

Commissioner Henrikai.

I just uh so that we have clarity when you're speaking to an item, which one you're speaking to, which consent item.

Okay.

Okay.

Um do you want me to go ahead and announce the items to be pulled?

Or you want to go ahead and have him speak?

Speak and speak.

Okay, well call Mr.

Hyde first, and then we will talk about which items we will pull.

Maybe you will influence whether or not we vote something.

Thanks.

My best gonna happen.

With me a sec.

Uh I have another point of clarification of proportion.

Is this consent one and two or just one?

Just one.

Just one.

So for the purpose of clarity, it's a consent agenda with four items on it.

There are three.

Um the just tiny, small, about relevant uh issues.

The first one is the first one, and that concerns a five hundred and forty-five thousand dollar roof for the uh tennis and medical center.

And my only question, it's an open one.

I know you weren't particularly answer me, but you might want to ask yourselves because we've talked about this before.

Do we have no roofing contractors in Sarasota, the city or the county?

Um these taxes are raised here.

Surely they should be spent here.

The second item on your consent agenda, it's not the second one, but there's the second one which I got a comment on is a ninety-three thousand dollar change order for a concrete ramp to fulfill ADA requirements being awarded again to a firm from Georgia, the same firm who were building the $900,000 fountain outside the city manager's office, uh, for which no other bids were received.

Your own report from September 2021, which is 300 pages long.

That's how they get you.

300 pages long.

Suggested work at a fraction of these costs, but no other bid has been solicited.

Finally, call me a cynic.

The water meter replacement item.

The apparently winning bid is just one thousand dollar less, or under one tenth of one percent less than the other bids on one point six seven million dollars.

That seems frankly terribly coincidental, given the the winning bid, yet again is a current out of town supplier.

Yogi Berra famously said, it's too coincidental to be a coincidence.

This one has the whiff of implausibility to it at point one of a percent.

Which would be avoided if you had an objective finance and purchase board reviewing these things.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Hyde.

Um so Ms.

Griggs, do we have items to be pulled from consent one?

Yes, Mayor.

Item 6.2 is being pulled by Vice Mayor Ulrich, and item 6.3 is being pulled by Vice Mayor Ulrich, and that is all that I'm aware of at this time.

I'm not aware of um Commissioner Alpert.

Did you have anything did you want it to pull?

No, I didn't thank you.

So I'm sorry, um, Commissioner Betty just um stated that he would like to pull six six point one.

Okay, six point one.

So that really all is a voice.

So uh shall we have a motion and a vote on the remaining item 6.4 uh move to approve item six point four and consent one balance.

Yes.

And did I hear that okay?

Moved by the vice mayor, seconded by Commissioner Batti uh to approve the remaining item and consent one, which is six point four.

Um may I have a roll call vote, please.

Thank you.

All right, yes.

Price?

Yes.

Aaron Cotch?

Yes.

Albert?

Yes.

Betty.

Yes.

Uh passed unanimously, thank you.

Um so Commissioner Batti, you pulled item 6.1.

Yes.

Um thank you, Mayor.

No, I mean that uh I just wanted to get some clarification to be honest.

Um who we have to speak to regarding this on the price of 500 and a half, you know, um $540,000 or whatever.

What is the square footage of this?

Because I'm not certain what it is.

I have a number of friends that own roofing companies and so on.

And I'm just trying to get understanding like what the what the square footage of this building is that it should cost this this amount of money.

And why?

Because that's the substantial amount.

Uh how you doing how you're doing that.

Uh regarding the roof.

And out your cell phone.

I'm sorry.

Eric Patrick Development Services facility measure.

I'm sorry.

Uh oh, I'm sorry, sir.

And I just wanted like the square footage of this of this roof and like you know why it's such uh an exorbitant amount.

Um it was to help bring it up to the latest codes, too, but it's practically around eight eight thousand square feet.

And standing sea metal roof.

And they got to put some extra plates down too, which will reinforce it and make it a much stronger roof.

And uh with that project ever is all done, it's a new gutter system.

And we're also going to uh paint the building when we're all finished, and there's an awning to replace.

So there's a couple of miscellaneous items.

And that was it went out the bid, and uh we had two different bidders, uh Crowther, which is local, just missed it.

Uh they weren't off by much, but the lowest bid was the company that won the bid.

Okay.

Oh, so even Crowder like came in like somewhere in this in the middle of the city.

Yeah, real close.

It wasn't that far off.

I don't I could dig through the numbers and get them to you.

Eric, let me help you out there.

The winning bid was 554,000 in change, and the next bid was 571,000 in change.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Reasonably close for the and that's primarily what I was looking for, like, you know, um gaining some type of understanding as to why, you know, it it will cost so much for you know for a roof for a building.

And and they're also a standing seam, you know, metal roof is durable and all, and and the last one's been on there a lot of years, so I mean most people say they last usually up to 50 years.

And we're gonna be reinforcing some of the uh yeah, roof to make it much stronger, stuff like that.

So thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And uh the vice mayor has a question.

I do.

Um I think this is for the city manager.

Um there's a committee that's currently meeting that expressed preference for a local vendor and is redoing some part of their work to give that preference.

Is that something we could do in matters like this?

I have to look at the procurement code, but your local preference applies in different places, and I don't know specifically if it applied here or not.

Um Eric, maybe you know.

Um it's sometimes the procurement changes, you know, as far as preferences and this and that, but that's all through our procurement department.

So basically your local preference applies when you have like an RFP where there's a scoring.

This was a bid, and a bid is lowest bidder wins.

Right.

And and uh I don't believe there's any points assigned, it's lowest bidder.

I got it.

And long as they meet all the requirements too, so uh and which they have.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um Commissioner Alpert, do you have any questions on this item?

I do not, but okay.

Uh seeing no more questions, um, can I have uh motion concerning this item?

Move approval of consent one six point one.

Uh second.

Uh move approval by Commissioner Ahern Koch, seconded by Commissioner Batti.

Um roll call vote, please.

Thank you.

Ulrich?

Yes.

Price, yes, Aaron Kotch.

Yes.

Albert.

Batti.

Yes.

Thank you very much.

Passed unanimously.

Uh commit Vice Mayor Ulric is uh pulled item 6.2.

I did.

Um who from staff would join us at the table?

Uh he's here.

Well, what do you know?

Figure out stick around.

Thank you.

Um so of course we want to be ADA compliant on all projects.

But it seems um like we shouldn't have to have a change order to be ADA compliant on any project.

Why do we need a change order for that?

Most of this work, you know, and looking at the whole project as it's been taking place, most of the work is a project that was outside of the fountain project, but it was a good idea at this time to incorporate it into the lower uh patio area.

And uh with that said, we didn't have to go back out bid because anything over 65,000, you gotta go back out for an official bid, so we kind of stay away from that, even though it's uh brought the price of the project up, it made sense to do it now with the contractor already on site, they're already mobilized and ready to do the work.

And that was the reason uh the driving force behind getting this done now and making our ADA requirements at the lower area.

Thank you.

And so comment not question to the city manager.

Um I would heads up uh ask staff to be very comprehensive in their look at proposed projects so that we get things like ADA compliance in there the first time around.

Agree.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Commissioner Batti.

Uh yes.

Uh thank you, sir.

And I just want to say, you know, um seeing Eric around you know, campus every day, he does uh invaluable work here for the city.

But one thing that I want you know wanted to ask, particularly, you know, uh intercity manager, because I've uh broached this before, and that is regarding um there's a difference between project managers and say owners reps uh or what have you.

And when it comes to like these contracts uh and you know, whether they go out for RFP or for uh procurement um uh or um or bid or what have you.

You know, the project manager, which you know, miss what's the last name?

I apologize.

Patreon.

Yeah, my apologies.

I just know you it's air, whatever.

Um, have two totally different functions and what have you.

And you know, I have here like what they are.

And one is C the difference between project manager and owner's representative and the key differences.

The focus start with focus.

Uh the project manager focuses on management of the project, whereas uh owner's rep focuses on protecting the the owner's interests, uh the role the project manager executes and coordinates work with the owner's rep oversees and validates and advises, reporting project manager reports on projects propens rep reports on owner to the owner and the commission with oversight.

Decision influence project manager recommends technical decisions, whereas the owner's rep evaluates them for the owner's impact.

Risk oversight, project manager manages risk uh operationally, whereas the owner's rep reviews risk to safeguard the city.

Contract interaction, project manager works directly with contractors with owners rep ensures contracts are followed and budgets in schedule.

Project manager uh manages the budget and schedule daily, whereas the only owner's rep verifies variances and justifications.

So, and I think that's that comes into question what we've been talking about today, and and that is you know when things go out for procurement, whether it's bid RFP or what have you, the project and someone as say an owner's rep to make sure that that that we're getting not necessarily just so the bet the best quality of work and bids and so on and so forth, but just to make sure that overall this the city's best interest is is uh you know adhered to in uh in our best interest and safeguarded as well and whatnot.

If you can if you understand my question or whatever.

I do, and I've used owners' reps a number of times.

Generally you we use an owner's rep on a large complex project that involves a lot of things going on at one time.

So if you're doing a big complex construction project, I'll give an example, performing art center, uh it it's almost assured that we would have an owner's representative on that.

We'd have a project manager too.

On this particular case, what you really have is a although it may seem like it took forever, um, and I've only been here seven months and it still seemed like it took forever.

This was really a I believe this project was bid, correct?

Yes, sir.

One time we had one better, and then uh when Mr.

Brown was here, we went out for a second bid, which made sense because now we got something to compare it to.

So there was a second bid.

Okay, so we had an engine a set of engineering drawings.

It was it was all done in great detail.

So for this particular project, um it probably doesn't just I was not here in the beginning, but in my mind it probably doesn't hit the threshold for an owner's rep for this one, but certainly for the larger complex projects where you want your interests to be represented with the contractor and all parties, because sometimes there's an engineer involved, sometimes there's a whole variety of consultants, where the project manager like Eric is kind of detailed focused, and they they take the drawings and the and the specifications and they compare them to the work, and when they see something that doesn't look like it's headed in the right direction, they get with the contractor or the architect or whoever it is, and they and they align.

And on a smaller scale project like this, that's an appropriate way for us to handle the that kind of project.

Um Eric's air, as you know, every day talking to the contractor, sometimes making recommendations, sometimes giving direction, sometimes correction, whatever is is needed.

So for this scale project, I I think the project manager approach is appropriate.

You know, one of the things that brought us to this one is we had a complete ADA review of much of the citywide of our citywide situation, and this was brought up during that review, which of course happened after the project was designed and the contract was let, which is why we're here in front of this today.

But the owner's rep is an important element, especially in the larger complex projects.

Okay.

Uh thank you.

Thank you for that clarification, Mr.

Bullock.

And another thing I wanted to ask is, because you know, like this project, the project with the bathroom or what have you, and there have been a number of other projects.

Uh uh, even with uh the properties that we had in in in Newtown that that uh um Habitat for Humanity eventually like got what is what is what's going on with uh our our our local vendors or contractors or what have you that that a lot of times we just don't you know like you said in in this in this bid it was just two of them one out of Georgia and and then one local, you know, like w is this something that we're missing or that we're not doing or or I mean this is just the question.

No, it's a great question.

And and and in my experience there's a a variety of factors.

Some of them are just to be frank, doing business with government isn't easy.

Um we're clunky, we're cumbersome.

Um it's difficult for us to do things just by directive, and the public doesn't want that.

They may say they do.

But if we're spending their money, they want to make sure there was an even shot and we got the best deal we could possibly get.

Now, if I'm a private person developing something, we can go along and I can go back and forth with the contractor however I want.

When the city is doing it, we do that in a very formal way and require what you see here, change orders, um, get into all sorts of processes to protect that public interest.

Has public procurement gone a little overboard?

Some could argue, and thus you see some different uh approaches to public procurement starting in recent years to come out.

A public-private partnership where the specifications are they leave some flexibility to accommodate changing conditions.

Um the other piece of that is why does public work sometimes get so few bids?

When the private construction market is booming, then you don't see a lot of it's more difficult to get public bids when you could just go build without a bid, get a contract with someone you know or someone who trusts you and they'll just give you the contract because of a relationship.

We while we have relationships, we have to ignore them in the public bidding process.

It's lowest bid.

So thus you've got in this situation a fairly local crowded roofing.

Everyone sees their trucks around.

They didn't get the they missed it by 20,000.

So we have to go with with someone else.

So the relationship doesn't count as much.

And we have a procurement code, we have a law we have to follow and a process we have to follow, and state laws we have to follow.

We are clunky to contract with.

I mean, no, no, I appreciate that explanation because that leads me to to another thing, and and I brought this up before as well, and when that particularly when it comes to minority contracts or what have you, and last I checked, we don't have any.

You know.

And uh and I propose us doing a desire a disparity study or what have you to see what we can do to uh get minorities more involved in the process or what have you.

And on your recommendation of ask procurement, we don't actually have an identifier once the procurement is finished when it goes to a contract phase.

We don't have an identifier that identifies minority contractors.

So I've asked them to look back through we do in the procurement process because sometimes they're eligible for just like local preference eligible for uh some adjustments.

So I've asked them to look at how many went from procurement to contract, and then from now on, I've asked them to put that identifier on so we can easily produce that kind of information.

Uh excellent.

Thank you so very much.

I appreciate that, Mr.

Bullock.

And thank you so very much, uh Ms.

Patchett, for the work that you continue to do for the city.

Uh thank you very much.

And I I agree a hundred percent with Mr.

Bullock uh brought up all those points for right on the money.

Uh thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Uh Commissioner Alpert, do you have any questions?

I do not thank you very much.

And thank you for your response on this one.

Thank you.

Uh may I have a motion?

Move approval of consent item number six point two.

Second.

Okay.

Moved by Commissioner A.

Heron Koch, seconded by Commissioner Bat T.

Can we have a roll call vote, please?

Ulrich.

Yes.

Trice.

Yes.

Aaron Kotch?

Yes.

Albert?

Yes.

Betty.

Yes.

Passed unanimously.

Thank you very much.

And now Commissioner Vice Mayor Ulrich has item 6.3.

Pulled item 6.3.

I did pull that item.

A question.

I have, if Ms.

M.

Schoff could come down.

Good morning.

Good morning.

My question is, when this project is completed, will the city still own the land?

No.

That was already deeded to St.

Vincent de Plot's.

Excuse me.

Cindy M.

Schaff, General Manager, Office of Housing and Community Development.

Thank you.

So for some reason, based on the wording of what I read, I thought the city would still own the land.

And St.

Vincent de Paul would own the units on the land, not the case.

Not the case.

They already were deeded the land.

However, with the deed restrictions, the city wants to make sure that whoever owns this property continues with the purpose and intent that the city originally specified, and that is for 50 years to have affordable rental units.

So my point is still valid then.

I think this is something, and projects like this are something that we should include when we track affordable housing initiatives.

We do a really good job, and this is out of your area now of a tracking density bonus initiatives and things like that.

But this should count because it is affordable housing.

So would you pass that along to those who do track affordable housing?

Thank you.

Thank you.

That was my only question.

Okay.

Commissioner Albert, do you have any questions?

I do not.

Thank you.

Thank you.

May have a motion.

Move approval of consent number one item 6.3.

Second.

Okay.

Moved by Commissioner A.

Hern Koch.

Seconded by Commissioner Batti.

May have a roll call vote, please.

Yes.

Trice?

Yes.

Aaron Kotch?

Yes.

Alpert.

Yes.

Betty?

Yes.

Already.

Yes.

Okay.

It passed unanimously.

And that ends consent agenda one.

I'm going to suggest that we postpone the break until after consent agenda two, if that's meets with everybody.

Okay.

So we next up is consent agenda number two.

Um mayor, just real quick, if you don't mind.

Um Commissioner Albert, we need you to speak up a little bit.

You're like really low.

We can barely hear you.

So I don't know if there's something we maybe we need to make an adjustment at a when we have a break, but we can barely hear you on our end.

Shouting.

Yeah, we can't hear you.

So we'll figure it out.

But I'm sorry, Mayor, go ahead.

Okay.

Okay, we have reached consent agenda number two.

Are there any items pulled?

Um yes.

Commissioner Ahern Cotch pulled consent agenda item number seven point two.

And that is all I have, which is the only two items, so there you go.

Okay.

So since we only have two items, we have 7.1 that we can vote on.

How about I go ahead and read the thing?

Oh, sorry.

And we will do that just a second.

Resolution number 26R 3368.

A resolution of the City Commission of the City of Sarasota, Florida, amending the budget for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2025, by providing for supplemental appropriations.

Any amounts identify in exhibit A.

Providing for several if any of the parts here of are declared invalid.

Providing for reading by title only and provided an effective date.

Thank you very much.

So may I have a motion concerning the balance of consent agenda number two, which is just comprised of item 7.4.

Okay, you moving approval, Commissioner Batti.

Yes, Mayor.

Second.

And seconded by Commission Vice Mayor Ulrich.

Thank you, Mayor.

Aheron Kotch.

Yes.

Alpert.

Yes.

Betty.

Yes.

Ulrich.

Yes.

Trice.

Yes.

And motion passed unanimously.

And Commissioner Ahern Kotch, you pulled seven point two.

Yes, I pulled seven point two for two reasons.

Number one is to take an express vote on this ordinance, and number two is to clarify that and state for the record that in our executive summary.

Um there is a complete summary here at the very end, uh the very last sentence it says no additional changes were made to the ordinance between first and second readings, and all required conditions have been met.

However, on the previous page, one two three paragraphs earlier.

I'm sorry, two the paragraph earlier, it says between first and second reading, the ordinance was amended to remove condition A.

So it did change uh because condition A was no longer a valid condition on the previously discussed piece of it.

I just wanted to state for the record that condition A was removed from this ordinance.

And unless anybody has any of the questions or statements or anything.

And I I did inquire as to why it does that.

And the the logic of the writers of the ordinance is they disclosed the change that occurred in the memo, so we read that, and then at the end of it, they say no additional changes occurred between the first and second hearing.

So in the minds of the of the staff writers, they say here's the changes that occurred, and then they summarize by saying no additional changes uh occurred.

And it it gets confusing when you because you look at it and say, well, a change occurred.

How can you say nothing else?

How can you say nothing occurred?

Maybe what they should say, they use the word additional to assure the commission that they've already disclosed all changes.

We can work on that wording a little bit to try to clarify that.

But I I did because it bugged me, and I asked staff why they do that, and it shows up a lot.

And that was the logic which from their perspective made sense.

So let us try to clarify the wording.

And it does make sense.

Uh and this was an added, this was a request to add that so that when we get this ginormous agenda, um, and it's first reading and second reading, you can very quickly see has anything changed between first and second reading?

Because it's rare when something does change.

So, you know, I get the confusion here, but I'm sure there's a solution.

I just wanted to point that out for the record.

Thank you very much.

Ums on this?

I would move approval of consent item number two seven point two.

Second.

Uh moved by Commissioner Ahern Coch, seconded by Commissioner Batti.

Uh roll call vote.

Thank you.

Albert?

Yes.

Betty?

Yes.

Alright?

Yes.

Price?

Yes.

Aherncot.

Yes.

A motion passed unanimously.

It is quarter after 10.

We have finished consent agenda to why don't we take a break now and reconvene at 1025 and resume with the board appointments at that time.

Thank you.

Good morning.

We are calling the regular meeting of the city commission back to order.

Um, and it was brought to my attention that item five point one, which was the presentation by the disability advisory board.

I neglected to ask the commission to officially receive the report.

So may I have a motion to receive the report?

So move.

Second.

Move by Commission Vice Mayor Ulrich, seconded by Commissioner Batti.

Um we just do by a consensus, everybody go with that.

Yep.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Taken care of.

So we are now here to board appointments.

Uh, but the first item on the agenda is the boards that the commissioners sit on.

Um I guess the first question is does anybody want to change for the boards that they're currently on.

Well, I think the best way for us to do this to make it clean is to go through one by one, that's what we've done in the past, and then we can do it quickly.

Um, and I think that would be cleaner instead of just like deciding willy-nilly.

I don't want to be on this board, I don't want to be better that board.

Let's just start from the top and go through them all.

Okay.

The um I can do that if you'd like for me to like do it.

I'll handle that for you.

Okay.

Okay.

Sounds good.

Let's start at the top.

Um, board of directors for the um economic economic development corporation right now, current representative is vice mayor Ulrich.

Alternate is Commissioner Ahon Kosh.

Do we want to keep those?

I'd like to continue on that board.

And I'm okay as well.

Okay.

Unless anybody else would like to be the alternate.

Okay.

All right.

Do we we have a consensus, correct?

Correct.

All right.

Next.

I'd like to continue to represent it.

Is there a need for an alternate?

I mean, have you ever missed some no?

Well, in actuality, uh Jennifer Jorgensen's on that on that committee as well, so we have pretty much two representatives.

But that's that, so she doesn't have right now.

I'd be happy to be the alternate.

All right, so um Vice Mayor Ulrich is like to be alternate.

Do we have a consensus on that?

Sure.

I haven't heard from Commissioner Albert, if you have any objection, just chime in.

Okay.

Yes.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Okay.

Next item is the Bay Park Improvement Board.

Current representative is Mayor Trice and Commissioner Alpert.

And is everybody okay with that?

I'll ask the question does that need a an alternate?

I don't believe so.

No, it meets once a year.

Okay.

And they adjust the schedule to make sure we can all attend.

All right, so we have a consensus on that.

Okay.

Next is the council of governments, the it is typical the mayor and the city manager, and the vice mayor is alternate, so uh that should stay standard.

Okay.

Next is the Minnesota League of Cities currently is Commissioner Ahern Koch.

The alternate is Vice Mayor Ulrich.

Do we want any changes?

I'd like to continue if that's okay.

I'm finding the alternate.

Okay, everybody consensus on that.

All right.

Next is the Sarasota Bay National Estuary Policy Committee.

Currently, Commissioner Aaron Koch, Vice Vice Mayor as the alternate.

I'm fine.

That's fine.

Yep.

Okay.

Sarasota Council, Sarasota County Coastal Advisory Committee, Vice Mayor Ulrich is the representative, Commissioner Aaron Koch, alternate.

Everybody good?

Okay.

Sarasota County Community Action Agency Board.

Um the city representative is um Cindy Inshaw as a staff member serves as the alternate.

So I don't think there's really much there that needs to change in my opinion.

Okay.

Okay.

Um Sarasota Manatee Metropolitan Planning Organization, Commissioner Alpert and Commissioner Ahern Koch, are the representatives, Vice Mayor, I'm sorry, Mayor Trice is the uh alternate.

Is everybody okay with that?

I I'd like to stay on that.

Okay.

All right.

Sounds good.

Consensus there.

Yep.

Um I don't know.

Southwest Florida Regional Planning Council is Rachel Ingram Ingle, which that was a previously appointed by um Arroyo.

So I don't know we need to maybe look at a little bit more into that.

Um we may need to bring that back to you all at a different time.

Okay.

Okay, yeah, because I would like to know more about what that board does.

We'll bring that back.

Okay.

Because that's on hold, just for clarity.

Yes.

Okay.

Sun Coast Partnership to in homelessness.

Um currently is Mayor Trice.

The alternate is Commissioner Batti.

Is everybody good?

Yeah, but if somebody else would like to slide in, um I would be happy to move aside.

But if not, I'll stay there.

Okay.

All right.

Sounds good.

We have a consensus there.

Tourist Development Council, Commissioner Aaron Koch, representative, alternate commissioner Batti.

Do we have any objections?

I would like to be on that.

Perhaps Commissioner Batti, if I could take your alternate slot.

Okay.

Unless Commissioner Ahern Koch wants to move.

I I would be I mean, if you would like to to move into that slot, you're welcome to.

It's a very interesting board.

I I would very much like to be.

I have no problem.

So you will give me your uh primary slot.

Yep.

Did you want to move to alternate or stay alternate?

Yeah, continue to stay.

Okay, so Mayor Trice would go ahead and be the representative for the Tourist Development Council, and Commissioner Batti will stay the alternate.

Is that correct?

And we have a consensus on that.

Sure.

I was also worried about you being on so many things.

When do you have time?

Well, you know, I I do get there, it's not a problem, and uh and uh it does take some preparation, but that's also not a problem, but it's very interesting, and and anybody I I'm willingly thank you I give that up for somebody who who would have the opportunity to learn.

Okay, sounds good.

And the last one here we have Sarasota Housing Authority, the commission, Commissioner Aaron Coch is the liaison, the alternate is a Mayor Trice.

Are we okay with that?

Okay, okay, consistent on that.

All right, thank you.

Those easy to move forward.

So that takes care of item eight point one.

We uh have moved item eight point two to further down on the agenda.

So we are now at item 8.3 appointments to the citizens with disabilities board and uh Ms.

Griggs, would you thank you, Mayor?

The terms of Mr.

Eric Crompak and Andrew Peccarella expire December 2025.

Both members are eligible for reappointment and have expressed interest in being reappointed.

Move to approve Mr.

Eric Crom Pack and Mr.

Andrew Percarella.

Second actually, we can just do that with a consensus that everybody's okay with those reappointments.

Yes, okay.

Yes, I just have one thing to add.

Um so here is uh star position one of the boards.

Um and Commissioner Alleric, uh, Vice Mayor Ulrich, you may or may um um not know this, but we have I think three boards where we have star positions, and um where they vote, it's important that that spot is filled.

And we've had multiple interactions with the boys and girls club for the star position, and whatever we can do to encourage that group because it's an important spot and we had young people here today.

I would love to see these kids were too little, but it's mainly for high school students.

Um whatever we can do to work with that group to get there two spots open on for star students, and we were going to we had talked um vice mayor about getting rid of that spot, making that spot a non-voting spot.

Um the group, the organization came out strongly advocated please keep it, it's really important.

We did said okay, please don't make it a non-voting position.

We said, okay, that's fine, kids aren't gonna show up if they're not valued and their voice is never a spot, and so um that's a struggle.

But it's it's a struggle, and and and I really value that star role, but it also does not help the board if the student is not there.

Yeah.

So I'm caught between this and I I'm throwing it out there for whatever your input is from all of you.

Yeah, um a couple meetings ago we brought this up for discussion in a more general sense.

And um it was brought to my attention then that the boys and girls club uh organized this aspect of our advisory boards.

Yes.

Perhaps it's something that we could bring up for discussion when we uh uh talk to school board members.

Uh not at the meeting that we're going to have, but um they could do something to advocate for these students being appointed, I think.

So since they've been given the ability to to vote, uh has there been a change?

I mean is that the attendance a change.

They they always had the ability to vote, and our commission discussion was well, if it if it's a problem with quorum in voting, let's just take that voting right away.

And they came back back to us.

The organization came back to us and said, please don't do that.

The students will definitely not show up that they don't have a voice to vote.

And so we would gave weight to that as a commission and we kept it as it was.

And I will say, and I can state uh myself and Ms.

Rivers met with the boys and girls club multiple times and trying to get them to get their students to participate in.

They stated that they were really work hard on trying to get those students to uh be a part of these, and they advocated really heavy because you know we also refer them to commissioners uh to voice their you know state in this.

So but you know, we can try to reach out again and say, hey, we need these students to come.

And and this uh surprising to be honest with you, because you know that's the star leadership program over at the boys and the boys and girls club is is incredible.

I've I've done uh a number of uh programs with them and work with them a number of times, you know.

Um I'll personally speak to Bill Sadlow myself and uh and see what we can to kind of advocate for that.

So is there a suggestion of how to move forward?

So m one of the suggestions that we discussed as a commission last time was having this as a star position, but also potentially opening up and doing some outreach to maybe some college students that were here today.

They have their own transportation, they make their own schedules, they're a lot more flexible, they don't have the pressures of seniors in high school or juniors in high school.

And so maybe that's an opportunity for us is to do as a city do some sort of outreach to our local universities.

Still keeping in mind that it's somebody that's it's you know the younger generation, but maybe someone who's a little bit more flexible, so it's not a star student exclusive position only, but a student position.

Well, I think that's something that you know maybe as a commission we can talk about at a later date.

Yeah, yeah, and bring back to discuss.

Um they're an adult, they're not a high school student.

This is totally separate, and I think we need to have a uh a big discussion on that.

Yeah.

That was that was my suggestion in bringing it up that we bring it up and maybe potentially talk about having it be a star student, and if it can't be filled by a star student, what's the alternate approach?

So uh can we ask you, Ms.

Griggs, to put an item on the agenda, but also someone on your staff maybe list some possible things, action items for us to consider.

Yeah, I we can get with um our staff and we also can work with um maybe the city attorney's office as well to figure out the ordinance, but um or I'm sorry, resolution regarding this board.

Um we'll reach out uh again to this to the boys and girls club um to see if we can maybe kind of push them as well again.

We've done it multiple times.

I know Lori would probably be like talk to them, but but you know that's but if you have a sense that uh one of the elected's reaching out to them would be so any thoughts that you have if you put them in the backup for an agenda item.

I think that way we could address it.

Sounds good.

Official time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So um just to be clear, we are um we have a consensus in the reappointment of Eric Crompak and Mr.

Andrew Pecarilla, correct.

Right.

We'll move forward for the and Commissioner Alpert, please weigh in loudly if you want to.

Yes, um I I will.

Thank you.

So now we are at item eight point four appointment of the members of the downtown improvement district board.

Thank you.

Made a terms of Ms.

And I will weigh in.

Okay, okay.

The terms of Ms.

Harmony Crushing in Eileen Hampshire expired December 2025.

Ms.

Hampshire is eligible and has expressed interest in being reappointed, a new application um submitted to our office, and Miss it actually, and then we have two seats, one reappointment and one available.

Okay.

Do we have any commission?

I'd like to nominate somebody.

Yes, thank you, Miss Commissioner Albert.

Omar Sadek and Susan North.

Okay, so Commissioner Albert has put on the table Omar Sadek and Susan North.

Uh any other suggestions.

I I I would second that if I mean I know it's not a motion, but I would agree with that.

Okay.

I'll nominate Eileen Hampshire for reappointment.

And I'll support that.

And anybody else.

I was going to suggest John Harshman.

So all of the applicants are really it's uh really qualified and eager to to fill that the the roles.

Um all, met them all, and you know, conflicted uh about who to appoint in that position.

Um but i typically when we have somebody who served on a board like Ms.

Hampshire, uh and they have uh served well and and uh attended all the meetings and showed up prepared, we um sort of out of respect reappoint them because this is a voluntary position.

That was my that's my reasoning for supporting Ms.

Hampshire.

Um but the remaining applicants for the one position, they're all I support them all.

Um I sort of echo what Commissioner Ahern Koch said.

We do typically reappoint somebody if they've shown up and done a good job.

Um so that's why I nominated Ms.

Hampshire.

Uh the four remaining applicants, you know, you I think you can't lose.

They're all very qualified, and I'm sure they'd all do a good job.

Commissioner Batti, did you have anything?

Uh no.

Um I was just gonna again move forward with uh Omar Sadek and Um Susan North, Mrs.

North is uh applied for this board uh a number of times, like maybe two or three times or something like that, maybe.

This is her third time, yeah.

And uh I would hate to see her like continue down the road of being denied or whatever, um, because I think she's a valuable asset to what we're doing downtown and especially uh Mr.

Sedick with his investment in in the city uh overall and particularly the downtown and what um he has coming in the future uh which speaks to the future of downtown.

So that's that's uh where I am with with with those two nominations.

Commissioner Alpert, did you want to say something?

Yes, yes.

I I I was gonna say the same thing.

And normally I would agree with the reappointment, but and um, you know, and uh you know I love Ms.

Hampshire and I know she's qualified, but she has you know she has served on the board four years, and I think it's just time to get a new perspective.

Umer Sedeck has made a huge investment in our downtown, and I think has some really good ideas for how we really uh bring our downtown forward to the next level, and I think Susan North again has applied three times.

She's a really energetic businesswoman, and I think she would be a great asset to the downtown improvement board.

So that's why I'm I'm advocating for them rather than a reappointment.

Okay.

Yeah, I I did want to say I really appreciate Ms.

Hampshire's contributions over the years.

Um, but times are changing, and one of the changes we are going to be discussing later in the agenda is um now that the downtown improvement board has a strategic plan and moving forward into the future with that new strategic plan.

I I think we need to include new thinking, new ideas.

So while I appreciate everything that Ms.

Hampshire has done, maybe it's time to appoint somebody new to that position.

So I would like to do that.

I just wanted to weigh in about Ms.

Hampshire.

I I hear um everything everybody's saying, and I and I um and I value all of that.

The one thing about Ms.

Hampshire is that when you attend a lot of advisory board meetings, some topics keep reappearing, and she offers an incredible amount of legacy knowledge.

She has invested in that property, she owns the property, she runs the shop, she's boots on ground, so she's not just a property owner, she's also there day to day and has been there day to day for many, many, many years.

And she also lives in downtown Sarasota as well.

So she offers a very unique perspective and has legacy knowledge, which is invaluable when you have a board discussing things and you you you need somebody to ground you.

So uh that's those are some of my reasons for supporting her.

So thank you.

So do you want to handle this?

I would like to do this as uh to receive them as um nominations will receive first.

I have an order, so we will start with Commissioner Alpert and her appointments of we'll just do one by one.

So Commissioner Alpert would like to appoint Mr.

Omar Sidi.

I would think I would like to have a vote on the city.

I'm sorry if I think it's the other way around, City Goldman.

I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, sir.

I apologize.

Um would like to um have a vote on that first.

All right.

So I will do a roll call, and this will be the appointment of Mr.

Omar.

Um Aaron Koch.

Yes.

Albert?

Yes.

Betty?

Yes.

Ulrich?

Yes.

Trice.

Yes.

Okay, so is to move forward with Mr.

Omer.

And he will be taking the seat of Ms.

Eileen Hampshire.

No, no, we well no, just a seat.

Just a seat.

I'm sorry, I apologize, a seat.

My apologies.

I'm right.

You're right.

Um next, Commissioner Alpert stated uh she would like to uh recommend Susan North.

We would like to do a vote on that.

Okay.

All right.

Alpert.

Yes.

Betty?

Yes.

Ulrich?

No.

Trice.

No.

Aaron Clutch.

Say it.

Um, I'm really conflicted here.

Say yes.

I I I really advocate for Eileen Hampshire.

I think that it's important that she's on this board.

Um, and if we come back, I may change my vote, but um no.

Okay.

So motion fails.

Okay.

So Susan North will not move forward.

Okay.

I will go next to um Commissioner Ulrich.

I mean, sorry, Vice Mayor Ulrich in her nomination of Eileen Hampshire, and we'll have a vote.

Okay.

Albert.

No.

Betty?

No.

Ulrich?

Yes.

Trice.

Yes.

Aaron Kotch.

Yes.

Okay.

So Ms.

Hampshire will remain on this board.

Okay.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

And may I say just say thank you to all the applicants.

Your volunteering, um, stepping up, and us struggling over this is a really good sign, and it's really appreciated.

So I just want everybody to know that.

Okay.

We thank you all.

And I just like to say Mrs.

North don't give up.

I would like to say the same thing.

Mrs.

North, don't give up.

Yeah.

She's two great applicants.

So thank you very much.

And moving right along to the next board appointment is the if I can get my pages to separate.

The nuisance abatement board.

Thank you.

This should be a hopefully click one.

Um, the terms of Mr.

Richard Ruger expired June 2024.

Um he has continued to serve and was never really formally reappointed.

He is eligible and has expressed interest in being reappointed and has submitted his application.

I would move approval.

Uh I would move to reappoint Mr.

Ruger and thank him for his.

Do we have a consensus on that?

Yeah.

I did want to express my disappointment that he did not choose to update his application so that we do not have information from the application on why he wants to continue to serve.

Okay.

So that would have been helpful.

Okay.

But so we are good with the um appointment of Mr.

Ruger.

Yes.

Okay.

We'll move forward there.

Next item.

All right.

The next item on the agenda is appointment to the parks, recreation, and environmental protection advisory board.

Okay, thank you.

The term of Miss Rachel Brodsky expires December 225.

She is eligible for reappointment and has expressed interest in being re reappointed.

And we have uh one reappointment to applications receipt.

I would move that uh that we reappoint uh Miss Brodsky and then again highlight the open star students spot which could be filled by an active resident or somebody else.

Okay.

Noted.

I'll second.

All right.

And so do we have a consistency and moving forward with the reappointment?

And and I'd also like to thank Mr.

Walsh for applying uh as well.

All right, perfect.

Awesome.

Right, next item.

Okay.

Next item is appointment to the planning board.

Thank you, Mayor.

The term of Mr.

Torrell Salem expired December 2025.

Mr.

Salem is not eligible for reappointment due to term limits.

Mr.

Alexander Nihas, who is currently serving as an alternate member, has applied for this seat, and as a permanent member in addition, one other application was received.

So one seat to applications, and you can also um appoint the alternate as well.

I I moved to approve Chad Overson.

And I move to appoint Alexander Nehaas.

And I would move to appoint Alexander Nihas as the permanent position and Mr.

Overson as the alternate.

Okay, hold on.

I'm trying to write all this down.

Okay.

Vice we're waiting for the the vice mayor.

First of all, I would like to thank Tyrrell Salem.

Yes.

I sat on the bo planning board with him, and he always came prepared.

You knew he'd be prepared for the meeting.

And so thank you, Tyrell.

Yeah.

Mr.

Salem is uh been uh an invaluable asset to you know the the forward thinking of the city and and uh the direction of the city and where we're going um and what we're trying to accomplish.

So uh thank you for his time and his energy, his efforts, and his preparedness as you as you so aptly stated.

Yep.

And um I'll continue.

Um so I read Mr.

Nihas's application, and I was really impressed with this statement.

Um, where he wrote the lens through which planning board views and application should not be driven exclusively by a specific discipline or profession, but instead be governed by the language and intent of the zoning codes and city plan.

I could have written that for him, but I didn't.

So um again I reiterate my desire to appoint him to the permanent spot.

Madam Mayor?

Yes.

I would also like to chime in.

So I would like to thank um Terrell Salem as well.

He was invaluable, he served well, he um just was so prepared, it was incredibly uh uh impressive uh his presence at those meetings, and so he put in a lot of time and a lot of effort, and uh I I want to publicly thank him as well.

And so he put in a lot of time and a lot of effort and I I want to publicly thank him as well.

And we as a commission created this alternate position for the planning board.

I think it's worked out really well for this board.

And the alternate position sort of serves as a uh training ground for the permanent position.

Mr.

Neehouse has served on the board for a year.

Um he's put in his time, he's put in his effort.

They have to show up prepared, even though they may or may not hear the item or be participate in the meeting.

They have to be ready to go at all times.

He's done that.

He's never showed up not prepared.

Um and he's always been there to do the voluntary job that we've asked him to do.

So out of respect, I would like to support the um suggestion that he be appointed to the permanent position.

And I met with Mr.

Oberson and very uh impressive man.

He um is new to the city, but very eager to get involved and has knowledge and background in the things that we do, not in Sarasota.

So the training ground of the alternate would be very, very valuable for him, so that maybe one day he can also slide into that role of the permanent position.

So it sounds like we're suggesting that Mr.

Knee House be the permanent member and that Mr.

Overson be the alternate and we do not what Commissioner Albert's data, so we're gonna have to do in individually.

She there's no consensus because she and the initially um nominated Mr.

Olberson.

So I for the main position.

Yes, correct.

So I think we need to go in order as nominations received again.

Um so we will start with Commissioner Alpert's nomination uh Mr.

Chad Olgerson and I will do a roll call vote.

Aaron Kotch?

No.

Albert.

Yes.

Betsy.

Um I'm trying to remember Miss Overson.

Um, but uh no.

No.

Okay.

Ulrich?

No.

Trice?

No.

Aaron Kotch.

You are saying sorry about that.

So did I get two votes?

No, no, no.

Sorry.

Motion fails on that.

Um we will move forward with um Commissioner, I'm sorry, Vice Mayor Ulrich's nomination of Mr.

Nihas, and then we'll do a vote.

Albert.

Yes.

Betsy?

Yes.

Ulrich.

Yes.

Aaron Kotch.

Yes.

Okay, so we'll move forward with Mr.

Nihas as the um permanent member.

And then do we have nominations for the alternate?

Mr.

Overhouse.

Okay.

Right, I agree with that.

I'm sorry, Mr.

Overson.

Do we have a consensus then to nominate Mr.

Olberson as the alternate to the planning board?

Yes.

Yes.

Um thank you very much.

Uh we are now down to 8.8 appointment to the public art committee.

Thank you.

The term of Miss Cassia Kite Jager, seat nominate designated for a member of the local arts organization, expires December 2025 and has expressed interest in being reappointed.

I would like to move that we reappoint Ms.

Yeager.

Uh I agree with that.

Um she brings a unique perspective to this board as an art educator.

And you see what art educators did to the Palm Avenue garage recently.

All right.

Um do we have a consensus and a reappointment?

Well, my I mean I I'm I'm supportive of her nomination uh for reappointment.

I did want to point out that she is a Manatee County resident.

She is not a Sarasota County resident.

So just wanted us to be aware of that and recognize that we are waiving uh city residency requirement.

And I even wonder if we have a county residency requirement, but that we are waiving them in this instance.

Thank you, Mayor, for flagging that.

Um we have a consensus on that.

Yes.

So that is all Mayor.

Thank you.

So that ends the um appointments to board appointments, and we are excuse me, now at unfinished business, and the next item is presentation and discussion regarding the overview and status update on the affordable housing advisory committee, also known as the AHAC local affordable housing incentive strategy, and planning director Cover, Planning General Manager Chapdelane, and Chief Planner Dobbs are coming to brief us.

And just so the public is aware and they're not confused of what we're doing, we did move um unfinished business item number um 9.1, the Bobby Jones Coffee course clubhouse design to another part of the meeting.

So thank you, Mayor.

Good morning.

For the record, uh Steve Cover, Director of Planning here at the city.

Um, as we look at the key goals of the um the city's attainable housing program, uh we definitely took the recommendations made in the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, blueprint for workforce housing reports, both were adopted by the commission and um move forward to implement those recommendations.

Some of the key ones were one uh to provide significant incentives, including density bonuses to create attainable housing for households uh at all income levels, second, to implement provisions uh that allow attainable housing projects to be granted administratively or by right rather than go through a public hearing process, thus providing a greater level of predictability.

Third, provide attainable housing opportunities for service workers and others who work in the city that currently don't exist.

And also, too, there's a transportation component to this, and that is really to reduce the commuter road traffic that affects and congests our roads today.

And uh there and we will be going through each of these recommendations that were made by um by them, and uh it's just and what we'll show you is that we have moved forward and implemented many of their recommendations um, like I said, which we'll cover today.

We knew back then that just relying on accessory dwelling units, changing of um RMF six and seven, selling uh city surplus properties, creating the missing middle overlay district, and also then including the great work of the Sarasota Housing Authority, uh we just knew this wasn't enough really to meet the demand and and the need and demand here in the city.

We also knew that our our downtown um downtown attainable housing initiative, just for downtown, wouldn't be able to meet all the city's needs.

And we knew we needed to spread the attainable housing out throughout the city, and that is why we came forward with the commercial corridors component of this.

Uh obviously the goals for people to live close to work, reduce traffic on our roadways, improve one's quality of life, and their transportation benefits as well, which uh also spelled out in Sarasota and Motion, our transportation master plan.

So we knew back then we had to approach the private sector and get them to participate because it basically they were providing zero attainable housing units.

Um in 2022, um the commission approved our the comprehensive plan changes of this initiative in 2023.

Um the downtown attainable housing zoning tax amendments were approved.

In 2024, the commercial corridors and commercial sites zoning tax amendments were approved by the commission.

This effort did not rezone any properties, but did create new zoning categories that uh developers potentially could pursue.

Uh we included a chart uh which shows um really some remarkable results since all of these um uh um zoning tax amendments were were approved.

We have 27 active applications right now in process, and all but four are all only four of those include uh are using the live local act, two of those for just minor height increases.

So you can see as you can tell uh the developers are choosing the city options versus the live local AC so far for the most part.

Uh we're also seeing competition, and this is really a very healthy thing, I think, um, not only between private developers, but also between the private developers and our nonprofits.

I know back when I was in the city of Madison, Wisconsin, uh we created a lot of um competition in the attainable housing, and it really did benefit all.

Uh I would also like to say one other thing that over 50 percent of all the attainable housing units in process are at 80 percent or below.

And I think that's really important because as what was uh identified by the Florida Housing Coalition is where the biggest needs are, it is in that category.

And so ultimately I just like to say uh before we jump into the uh PowerPoint presentation.

We've created a lot of momentum here.

We want to keep that momentum going, and uh, we are definitely going in the right direction.

So now we'll pass it on to uh Brian.

Thank you, Steve.

Ryan Chaplin, General Manager Planning Department.

Good morning.

Um this item came back, came before you back in uh November 3rd.

We had the affordable housing advisory committee or AHAC recommendations before you, and I think at that time there was some discussion about drilling down a little further or having some more detail.

So what we've done today is is kind of you know have a little quick overview and then get into each of the 11 topics that's that are statutorily required by the state in the status of these recommendations the AHC have have made on each of those topics.

And it's yeah, I think as you'll see the city's been quite responsive to those topics and the recommendations.

So first, as you see here, is just we call it the toolbox, the different uh programs or initiatives that have been uh adopted uh by the commission uh to help facilitate more affordable attainable housing.

And I think most are familiar with that, and again, we'll we'll we'll drill down a little bit as we go through the presentation.

But we have the Rosemary Residential Overlay District 2, we have the RMF six and seven uh density bonus options, we've reduced parking for attainable housing units, ADUs, as Steve mentioned, uh that was adopted back in 2021.

Uh multimodal transportation impact fees, the ability to discount those fees 100 percent for those units that are designated as attainable.

That that that is a big savings.

Uh missing middle overlay district, uh it is in one area of the city, but we'll talk some more about that.

Obviously, the density bonus programs that Steve mentioned on the next slide there with downtown attainable uh downtown and the commercial corridors.

Housing authority overlay district.

This commission had uh elected to essentially double the uh density per acre from 25 units to 50 units an acre and also allow a height increase from 35 feet to 45 feet to facilitate some additional housing authority uh projects.

Um we've also expedited permit reviews for for attainable housing projects, including single family homes.

Um, and then a continuous funding source for affordable housing.

We have an affordable housing trust fund.

How can we continue to replenish that fund?

Uh we do have a as part of the penny for surtex renewal uh a designated funding source for that.

And then lastly, live local, uh, as many of you are familiar with and that does require that at least 40% of the total density be uh considered affordable, 120% or less for uh at least 30 years.

So uh moving on, and the one thing I do want to uh suggest here the tiering requirement, one thing that live local does not require that we're really proud of having that mix of affordability that we say at least eight at least a third of the units have to be eighty percent or less AMI, no more can be between 100 and 120 percent AMI.

Um that that really is something that's not seen much around the state.

Um the country having this this tiering mix in.

I think one of the charts that you have in your packet shows just that you know how many units are at 80 percent or less AMI, etc.

So and here in the on the screen you see just the different professions to sort of humanize uh what that means, someone at 80 percent versus someone at 120 percent AMI.

Um, and you see the different professions there, and you know, generally what what these salaries are and what that means in terms of rent that would pay, and and just to be clear that that is rent with utilities that includes utilities on those numbers there.

All right, so now we'll move into the items in the in the matrix that's also in your backup material.

Again, these are the 11 topics the state requires that the AHAC consider and make recommendations upon.

Um haven't changed too dramatically over the the last years, but we'll just go here quickly through it.

The processing of approvals to expedite uh the these reviews.

That's something that we that we have been doing, we continue to do.

Uh we work closely with development services on those, and uh, think it's been working quite well and and how these how these projects, including again including single family homes, are being uh reviewed.

The next one uh the modification of impact fee requirements.

So in the city, the city controls two impact fees, multimodal transportation impact fees, and and the other one is the utility uh fees, um, which we don't have as much water and sewer impact fees, we don't have as much flexibility in terms of reducing those rates.

However, we have for the multimodal transportation impact fees, reduce those for any project that has 120% or less AMI, they have the ability to come in in it's called a deferral lien agreement that's executed at the city manager level to go ahead and waive those fees just for those units that are designated as attainable for 30 years or longer.

Um the next topic is the allowance of flexibility and densities for affordable housing.

Uh again, we I think most of you are familiar with the different programs out there that have been adopted to help facilitate more affordable housing in in uh with respect to density bonuses.

Um right now we have you know uh again roughly 600 and some odd units in the pipeline that have just from the density bonus aspect uh have taken advantage from the from the private sector.

So uh it is working now.

I think that the idea is we need to see you know once these projects actually break ground.

Um still waiting on some of that, and and I go, I know that's a lot of depending on the market, interest rates, construction costs, labor, etc.

So, but the good news is a lot of those have already been entitled, and I think a few actually are close to breaking ground.

Uh this one, the committee.

This is the reservation of infrastructure capacity for affordable housing.

The committee didn't make any res any recommendations.

As you all are familiar with, we have a comp plan amendment.

There is a level of service analysis that has to occur, so that does happen when we are looking at a feature land use map amendment.

Um the next one is ADUs, accessory dwelling units.

And since 2021, approximately 70 ADUs have been approved.

And this is just something again for context with respect to impact fees.

Um, there is a cost to building these, as you can see, the the list of impact fees there uh that the county assesses again, not including the multimodal transportation impact fee.

We have the ability to to discount and and and essentially defer that.

But for the the other fees, they are required.

So just to sense, you know, that you have the cost of the construction plus these other additional fees that are required upon certificate of occupancy.

Um parking.

Again, we've we've had the ability to reduce the minimum parking requirement for multifamily dwelling units to a half space per attainable unit.

Just a minimum.

Certainly, people can build more if they like, but that that has helped facilitate some projects being able to reduce that that parking requirement for those designated attainable units, and again, designated for at least 30 years.

Um this item here, and I know that it's probably going to generate some more discussion.

Missing middle.

Um, you know, we talk about flexible lot configurations or zero lot line configurations.

Um what can we do to look at, you know, maybe are there additional densities in certain areas that we'll want to consider along certain roadways versus just single family.

Um, should the lot areas and lot widths be looked at to uh to help facilitate additional missing middle type housing.

But you see that graphic there on the bottom that kind of gives you a sense what we're talking about when you say missing middle, you know, a duplex, a four-plex, courtyard buildings, um, mid-level uh apartments, mid-rise apartments.

So there are a number of items that can be considered, and then the other question is where where would it make the most sense to do it?

It'd be the most compatible.

This one uh again, another steps truly required topic.

Um the committee didn't have any specific recommendations.

It should be noted that the updated EC EDCM does contain walk-up walkable thoroughfare street types that help support the notion of complete streets.

Uh number nine, um, this is something that I think you all see any agenda item coming before you.

You know, does the agenda impact the ability or does it increase the cost of housing?

So that's something that you know for any agenda requests that's submitted has to either say yes or no, it has whether or not it has that impact.

Number 10, and most of you I think have seen the list of we this is required every three years.

We the state requires that we bring a list of of those city-owned properties suitable for affordable housing.

Um we'll have the next one coming, I believe, next year.

And there's roughly 10 or so uh parcels left on the list, mostly just vacant single family owned parcels in North Sarasota.

But Habitat, we've worked with them.

They've they've they've taken over about 10 parcels there in various stages of trying to uh redevelop those into single family homes.

Also worked with council to provide uh some two-family uh units on these parcels too.

So it is working, and that this it's all helps, and they've been great partners in in helping to facilitate more single family affordable housing.

Uh and then the other the last topic that the state requires this is uh supporting development near transportation hubs or major employment centers, and as you can see from the maps here, we've tried to do that with respect to the downtown density bonus.

Obviously, your urban core, that's where you'd expect to see more density.

And then uh with the with the commercial corridors and the urban mixed use, you see the green there on the right.

Uh, again, having the higher densities along those those corridors.

Um, so it's something that we've we've tried this that we have supported, I think, based on this this topic, and then what's been recommended from the AHAC.

And then lastly, uh the number 12 is just it's other affordable housing recommendations that they discuss, talk about, consider.

Uh, and then really the the most recent one that came out of the meetings this year is that first bullet there, looking at using a certain percentage of property tax growth to put into an affordable housing trust fund.

Um so that's something we'll look at.

That'll require collaboration certainly with our finance department.

Also, we have a number of items coming out of Tallahassee with respect to property tax potential reforms, so seeing how that plays out as well.

Um and then as I mentioned earlier, we do have the if we do have the penny force for tax remote, we have a line item for affordable housing than that that we get roughly 225,000, I think it is annually.

And uh I think this last slide here just highlighting some of the awards or recognitions that have been received with respect to the the different programs that have been adopted.

Um I know the Florida Housing Coalition has cited uh the City of Sarasota's housing programs uh as great examples throughout the state and something that's working, and again, I'll just highlight having that mix of incomes, I think is is really what differentiates differentiates us uh certainly from anything live local uh that which doesn't require that.

So that is that, and we'll uh take any questions or comments.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Uh commissioners questions.

Uh Vice Mayor.

Hello.

Um I have many questions for you on affordable housing, as I have had for years.

Um the first one is we have this table that was in our backup materials dated 11, 17, 25.

And I have in my possession this table, which is dated January 14, 25.

Why did you switch?

What was the rationale for switching from this, which I thought was very valuable, to this, which is also valuable?

So it's they're both and you're right, they're both viable, trying to maybe lessen any confusion.

We can look to combine them, but this table here that you mentioned is is all the currently active applications that we have.

The other one is more the historical everything that's that's been built, or and that also was is pending, but it has uh going back to just some of the Service Housing Authority developments from decades ago showing kind of a totality of of units that are either you know existing or in the pipeline.

Okay, and um with this table, do you plan to continue using it to gather data so that when projects are completed, you can tell us and the public whether a project is completed, not just applied for, and if there are any differences between the application and the completed project, particularly in terms of the number of units.

Does that ever change?

The number of units that were applied for but completed?

It can typically on the on the on the affordable or the attainable units, those are pretty much in concrete.

Um we have uh we have an affordable housing agreement uh that has to be executed and recorded uh outlining you know those number of units at at what income levels.

I think to your earlier question, yes, we could look at some additional columns.

Maybe you have you know, is the project fully entitled?

Is the project constructed?

Yes or no.

We can certainly mean it's this is a very fluid dynamic uh chart, so we can certainly improve upon it.

Right.

And as um you know, as projects get completed and then people move in, you know, they will they will roll off of the projects and process lists and then roll over to the to the other list where where it's in place.

Now do you have any thoughts of putting this kind of data on our website in the form of like a dashboard so that the public and commissioners and the development community, everybody can see almost real time.

You know the numbers can if it's on a dashboard, the numbers can change as soon as you click the button.

Are there any thoughts of that?

Uh I I think having this data is is helpful.

I know there's a I think a weekly report that goes out that that has some of this too, but yes, we can look at putting something like that on the website.

That's that should be an issue.

I would really like that.

Um could you add number of bedrooms per unit?

We could.

I got a bunch of other stuff per per uh attainable unit?

Yes.

Okay.

Um now how much time do I have?

63 and a half.

Um so now I'll go to the PowerPoint.

On page two of the PowerPoint, um, we talked about the R-Rod.

And we all know our rod one, you know, was our first try at this, and we ended up getting zero affordable units.

Our Rod 2 was the second try at it.

We tweaked it a little bit, and we ended up with zero affordable units.

And since then we've done some other things other than density, uh we bring up parking, the reduction in parking requirements.

So their rosemary is all built out now, and people who live there and bought into the reduced parking requirements are really upset that they have no place to park.

And so what are they doing?

They're approaching the city of Sarasota to build a parking garage.

I don't know.

Somewhere along the line, there seems to be a mismatch that they didn't want parking, but now they do want parking, and now it's our responsibility to do that.

All the citizens of the city.

So my question is, is there any consideration to change the reduced parking requirement for affordable units.

So your first comment in terms of those units in Rosemary that received a reduced parking benefit.

The other projects that are were constructed were at market rate.

They a lot of them came under the former R Rod, so they did not get a reduction of parking.

In fact, I think they may have gotten the one space per unit.

So it's really just specific to one project.

But to answer the question, we have not considered looking at revising that ratio of a half space per unit because I think it has helped facilitate some projects that maybe otherwise would not have been able to be constructed.

I know that that those conversations continue to be ongoing, and I we know parking is desperately needed in Rosemary more public parking, especially what what's happening at the bay and so forth.

So something that we want to help support and try to work in some kind of agreement.

Yeah, I have to agree with Ryan, the the point five parking spaces per attainable unit, not just per unit, per retainable unit, really is working uh in multiple ways.

Uh one, it is at an adequate number.

Two, um it, you know, for those projects require the construction of parking garages, the fact that you're reducing the number, reducing the costs of constructing those parking spaces in the parking garages.

You're looking at 30 to 50,000 per space.

It's a big savings for the attainable housing developer.

I I think the real issue of parking in the Rosemary district is obviously there are a lot more commercial uses that are very popular.

Um so uh I think that's um really that's uh maybe affecting the the parking need, not really the attainable housing that's the.

And that's a good thing.

The the mix in Rosemary, everybody just loves, right?

And every parking spot you don't have to build could join with another parking spot you don't have to build for affordable housing.

I get that.

Um ADUs, 70 built since two 2021 on page nine.

Um have we had conversation with the county about the possibility of reducing some of the fees that are county fees?

We we had they didn't seem terribly open to adjusting those fees.

I think there are some ongoing discussions that they're having with their board and looking at just more of a uh a holistic view of it, so that may continue to happen.

Um certainly if there's a joint meeting, maybe that's a topic you'd all look to discuss with them.

But um, but we'll see where it goes.

I know I know for a fact they are looking at uh at their fees and how they might be able to uh modify them for attainable housing.

They have done as much, I will say for the park impact fees.

Um they've they've tweaked it a little bit to allow for some discounting of the park impact fees.

Okay, thanks for that.

And then I didn't write down the page number, but Mr.

Chapdelane, you talked about creating competition.

Um competition that's not the same, of course, as partnerships.

So is there anything we're doing or have done that created partnerships of public and private and foundation and everybody working together instead of competing for it?

Certainly.

In terms of partnerships, you know, we we do have a project right across the street that you know is gonna continue to have some partners with it and continue to evolve.

In fact, we have a RFP that should be getting to be released here any time any moment now to have a uh a kind of a real estate manager help oversee that and making sure, you know, we you talked someone talked about an owner's rep earlier, you know, having that idea of protecting the city's interests and so forth.

Um but yes, in terms of other partnerships, uh in fact there's a meeting, it's actually tomorrow.

The county owned property on Hatton Street right by Sarasota High School there.

Um the community housing trust had a project there some years ago.

Uh it looks like something may be wanting to be revived.

So we're gonna be meeting with uh person that's apparently involved in that and seeing what can be done to facilitate some more affordable housing really, you know, for the teachers and so forth.

I think that's the idea and working with the school district.

Perfect.

That was gonna be my second last question.

Okay.

Working with the large employers to create affordable housing for their own employees.

Then my last question is oh um second round on that.

Okay, I'll save that one.

Thanks Commissioner Harry Kotch.

Okay, thank you very much.

Uh I'm just gonna go back off of what the vice mayor was talking about about um suggestions for tracking.

Um we did talk in uh a meeting one-on-one about tracking the and I believe somebody mentioned this earlier, single-family homes, other things that are not on our lists.

Um it's invaluable to know every effort that the city makes, whether it's a rezone to do smaller lots, um, so that which we did at Jordan's Crossing, and by we I mean nobody here, um 20 years ago uh to allow Habitat for Humanity, I believe, to build a hundred homes there.

So um it's important to know where we were to know where we're going and and and to be able to track the things that have been successful and well received and the things that haven't, and to really understand these metrics.

We talk here a lot about you know data-driven decisions, and that's all part of it.

Um what makes sense, you know, all of our ideas about track this, track that, and apologies ahead of all of these requests.

Um but I think as a commission and as a city, it's it's essential that we understand what we've done, how it's impacted us, what's working and what's not.

Um so with that, um in the uh um uh number one in the the suggestion, uh and it talks about uh it's expressed um for the city and for the county for the affordable housing requirement.

In the city's uh column it says 15% of bonus units in the counties it's 15% of total units.

Is that a recommendation of the hay AHAC to express a request in two different measurements?

Um wouldn't they prefer to have either uh a representation of this in bonus units or total units and not two different representations two different ways?

It's a little confusing.

It was deliberate uh to have it specified for each um you know the local government.

I think the county, I'm not sure they have a a density bonus program, where obviously the city does, so I think that was probably the difference.

And and wouldn't they want us like across the board to like as you go column to column to under make it easily easy to understand what that means?

Because it it looks like it's the same, and it's it's not the same when you do total units versus bonus units.

It's not.

I will say, you know, going forward now that the counties is managing their own ship allocation.

Right.

Um you'll just be seeing the city's uh recommendations since we're gonna have a city AHAC, which will be discussed here later this afternoon.

I just didn't know if there was some conversation behind the scenes about why that was so different.

And do we have um definitions of expedited review, attainable, affordable, and workforce that that are easily understood.

I mean, when you introduced Mr.

Chaplin, you said attainable affordable.

And I we get that question all the time.

What is affordable?

What is affordable?

And maybe we should be talking a little bit more and what exactly do we mean by attainable affordable workforce and what is expedited review?

We define attainable, it's in the zoning code and also in the conference of plan.

I was saying affordable, just the Live Local Act, they they use the term affordable, but we definitely have a definition for attainable in the in the zoning code.

Um expedited, you know, certainly with a lot of these projects, uh, there's a forum that's in the OHCD division that um is part of the packet, and that person or entity can submit the forum development services to shell clearly that it's a affordable, attainable project that does warrant expedited review.

Yeah, I mean in this sort of a document when we produce it in the future for us, because it's not gonna have the counties columns in there.

Perhaps we could have like a little thing that explains what's attainable, what's affordable, what's workforce, what's expedited review, and so that people understand what what we're talking about when we do that.

I mean, uh the vice mayor talked about putting you know a chart online and having this information readily available.

That may help with folks to understand.

And um on the second item, uh it uh Mr.

Chaplin, you had put in your representation that there's relief for uh multimodal uh transportation impact fees.

120 AMI and below, but here it says, am I looking at the wrong column?

It's maybe that's the counties.

No, it says city.

Um it says relief at 80, 100 percent relief at 80 for multimodals, and then adjusted for 80 to 120.

Is that changed?

It has.

So what you see on the first paragraph is an ordinance from 2017, uh where is only 80 percent or less in 2024, the commission elected to expand that from 80 all the way up to 120 percent.

Okay.

Okay.

And then um for me I continue to want to push back on calling 120 area median income as affordable or attainable.

Um when we saw recently that those numbers are very close to market rate, it was uh a project that came before us and the difference between 120 and market rate was sixty-five dollars.

I will say though, so it's apples to apples that those those units, those numbers rather than 120 percent include utilities.

Right.

I know that, yeah.

It's still it's it's it's uh extremely impactful at 80 um and almost negligible at 120, so I will continue to state that.

Uh um and I I I hope that we can focus on more units.

And Mr.

Cover, you had said 50 percent um are at 80 AMI or below.

Uh 50 percent, that's correct.

Okay, and so does that include the um uh housing authorities and uh nonprofits, units.

That includes all of the units.

All of the units.

Okay, I just wanted to get clarity on that.

Um so that we have so that we understand, you know, those those numbers better.

And then I wanted to ask a question about item number four.

Um you had spoken, Mr.

Chapterlin, about you know, us uh measuring that when we go through you know our um impacts, the DRC and all of that.

Can you just um speak to to why we were I don't know, we're not looking into that a little bit more.

I thought that that was a really interesting thought, and that the fact that they didn't weigh in on it and make any recommendations struck me.

Um, they really haven't for for years now.

I think we have an adopted level of service here, and then when there's a comp plan uh petition that comes in that's reviewed, reviewed against those adopted uh levels of service, and then does it impact does it increase it?

And that's that's part of the analysis that's done as part of the complan amendment application.

But the conversation about reserving uh some of that level of service for affordable housing, what what's I thought that was an excellent suggestion, and I mean I don't know, it may not be an excellent suggestion, but the fact that they didn't make any recommendation discussion behind that, I know you attended all the meetings.

I did.

Um when we did this component amendment back in 22 to allow or facilitate you know the bonuses, if you recall there was analysis done there about you know, do we have the infrastructure in place to accommodate the all of the potential increase in growth?

And the answer was yes.

So I think because of that, that's why that really wasn't discussed.

So you don't think we need to reserve it or set it aside or not right now, maybe in the future.

I think right now we're okay.

Okay.

Um when we had the initial discussions about the R rod.

Remember there was you know the boat density bonus, but it when we get to a certain limit, then we're stopping.

It was like the first person in to get that you know the bonus.

They they get their application, and if you come late, well tough on you.

That's so that's what I'm thinking of for um level of service for for our infrastructure.

Do we need to have something reserved for affordable housing?

And so that it balances the affordable housing and the market rate.

Um anyway, that's uh um a thought, uh a conversation for another time.

Uh my time is running up, but uh container homes.

So that's item number five, ADUs.

Um we've had some uh conferences recently about uh container homes and uh aid and how they can be valuable ADUs and and use for other um uh uh purposes in the city.

What uh what's the city staff's thought on on container homes?

And is that something we could consider as part of this discussion?

Has it been brought up?

Um it's an obvious uh uh discussion point.

Yeah, we have talked about it a number of times.

I know from a code standpoint, Brianna, you might yeah, Brianna Dodds Chief Planner, uh planning department just currently in our zoning code it specifically prohibits shipping containers under those residential uses um and accessory structures.

So it I think it's something that we could continue to discuss, get direction from city commission, probably some public outreach as well.

Uh and was this something that's like a uh spill over from 50 years ago, or is this a recent thing?

Is it a safety issue?

Is it what is the reason?

I'll I'll read it here verbatim.

It's a storage containers used primarily for shipping purposes, truck compartments or trailers shall not be deemed principal or accessory structures or buildings and shall not be permitted, and that's in the residential.

Right.

And is that from when?

That's from some time.

1892 or something.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

So we're open for discussion on that.

And I think well uh we are, but I I think there's another thing that should be mentioned is is that historically um container home projects, you know, it's a cool idea, but when you look at the actual costs that are incurred to to build something with a container and meet the current code requirements, it actually almost costs exactly the same as constructing from new.

So and and I know I've experienced that in the number of jurisdictions.

It sounds like a great idea, but the actual construction cost to meet code, it it's almost identical to building new.

So my time is up.

Okay.

Uh Commissioner Commissioner Batti.

Yeah, do you you want to uh ask uh Commissioner Albert and whatever?

Well, I was gonna after you because you're next on the list, then I'll ask our thank you, Mayor.

First of all, thank you all for that presentation.

Um that's incredible work.

Um, as you know, prior commissions, we've done a lot of work to try and accomplish what it is you just presented to us today.

Um just for public consumption, I I want to ask the question as I've uh asked here before and stated before prior to you know what we implemented into the comprehensive plan with uh bonus density and and so on.

How much uh affordable housing did we get?

We were basically getting zero, zero units.

Zero, okay.

And you know, as you you you uh presented um awards and and the accolades that that that we amass, you know, because of that.

I know one of them was from the Florida League of Cities.

We have recognizing us for the work that we did with uh with um the bonus density.

So based on that, you said zero we were getting and you were just talking about what's to come down the pipeline and what's in the pipeline and and do you have a number on that?

Yeah, we have uh over a thousand forty well, we have a thousand forty-six units in the pipeline.

Uh of those uh six hundred and forty-nine are private sector generated.

Wow.

So one thousand four-six forty-six.

And what what uh and what time span?

Uh well, you could say two years, but some of them are actually in our commercial corridors, which has only been like a year, year and a half.

So um I I uh to be honest with you, uh, even a large city to be able to generate a thousand attainable housing units in a shorter period of time would be really pleased.

So think about that.

You know, from the uh zero up until this point of what was it, 2022?

Yeah, 2023 and 2024.

Zero.

And in two years, we got well over uh uh a thousand.

You know, that's a huge accomplishment and something to to be applauded and you should, you know, thank yourselves and we thank you for the work that you've done on on this and trying to uh get us to where we're we're trying to go or what or whatever.

Because one of the issues that that um that people have to understand is you know none of this is easy and to come up with these numbers, you know.

I know the the Commissioner uh spoke of you know 120 AMI, you know, is kind of you know is a bit much of whatever, but you factor into that equation and you stated it yourself, Mr.

Chaplin.

Utilities included.

That puts it on balance.

the commissioner uh spoke of you know 120 a mi you know is kind of you know is is a bit much but whatever but you factor into that equation and you stated it yourself mr chaplin utilities included that puts it on balance and that that that is that is that is very very significant when you when you're talking about the inclusion of uh of of utilities and what have you and just so the public knows again that the fifteen percent was not arbitrary it was wasn't conjecture it wasn't something that was just grabbed out of thin air this was this was very h healthy and robust discussion with a myriad of of groups from you know developers to uh architects you know the city the county everyone in the affordable housing you know realm to come up with that number or whatever that was the sweet spot so to get that where we are right now and to implement that into the state and it be recognized by the Florida League of Cities other cities can use this as well for for their own metrics or whatever you know what you may be in say Del Ray and 15% may not work for you maybe it's 10% you know maybe it's 20% but just that in in in incentivization is is something but um one of the things that I saw when we were in Salt Lake City um the Vice Mayor spoke about partnerships or what have you we we do we are working on something regarding that are we not with the partnership yes we are okay public private partnership particularly across the street right and and we have we have done that in the past uh you know Office of Housing Community Developments you know through through its programs of you know provided funding for for attainable housing projects here in the city so it we we do it quite often okay excellent and then another question was asked regarding the change in number of uh affordable units you know in a project now I I know that there have been changes in in the number of of units in the project where I spoken to developers and I say oh no what we're adding some affordable units am I correct in in saying that okay that's correct uh excellent and to get that you know on the on the uh the corridors and in the vicinity of downtown and in downtown is incredible you know considering where we were and where we are and where we're going you are to be uh applauded and uh you should uh take a bow for the work that that you've done and whatnot and uh just what I just want to say and for not only for myself but those that will be going into those units thank you very much I yield mayor thank you uh commissioner alpert do you have questions no but I want to ditto what commissioner batti uh was saying as well I think um you know this the creation of that many affordable units and the pipeline is a testament to what the work that the commission and the staff have been doing to try to increase the number of affordable units in our city thanks okay thank you I do have a couple of questions myself on this first round and then uh we do have one request to speak so after we finish the first round I will ask the member the public to come and take that one seat and then we can resume with second round of questioning.

Since the Vice Mayor brought up the issue of parking I have a concern and what I have seen in rosemary district is that the developer takes the number of required parking spaces and appears to assume that that number is required for the residents of the building is there any way that you can say well this is the number required but it should cover both the residents and the visitors because in my building the garage is like less than two thirds occupied and people visitors are searching around where can I park where can I park so is there any way that you can encourage developers to recognize that you're also responsible for providing parking for visitors I think it can come up sometimes at the at the DRC level the the code now requires it's it's a ratio and it's it's for the actual units um for multifamily in downtown I'm not sure there is any anything for uh visitors in the yeah I think it's uh certainly it can be encouraged um no question about it.

So you know, you should be calculating the number of cars per unit based on residents of the unit and people who are going to come and service their unit, guests who are going to be visiting them.

So it shouldn't be assumed that this parking space is just for residents.

It it can be done certainly in the form of a zoning text amendment.

Unfortunately, you're gonna have a right now a bit of a conflict with with 250, but uh it can be done.

A lot of times the developers, you know, in terms of marketability, they're gonna, you know, they have uh, I'm sure a formula they use to have a certain amount of the spaces for for guests, service uh vehicles, et cetera.

Um something we can take a look at.

Um please do because I would think that that calculation, you could keep the same total number calculated, but say, but you need to include provision for the visitors within that number.

Um the other thing is uh I fully agree putting affordable housing numbers on the day on a dashboard on the website, and uh I think it would also be helpful if we had information for people who are seeking affordable housing, what's available, what's in the pipeline, how how do you apply, who do you reach out to?

Um other cities do that, and it's very difficult to find out if you're looking for affordable housing.

How do I find out what's out there?

Uh and I saw that with loss on lemon, there was a big billboard when it was under construction with a website or a phone number, but other than that, unless you walked by that billboard and you know copy down the information, you had no idea that it was coming.

Umtainer homes.

And thank you for reading the um the ordinance because I'm I'm gonna be quibbling a little about the wording.

Uh what we have seen is quote unquote containers that were following the uh floor plans, building plans of a container, a shipping container, but it was solely being built for a residence.

It was not a used shipping container.

It was that was just the starting point in terms of the design.

So I would think that even within that ordinance that you could use the shipping container design and uh where we were seeing a savings on price, was these were factory built, and then just put on a tractor trailer, it was the trailer on the tractor trailer, and then just card it into place.

So, you know, it's hard to believe that that would be more expensive, and you know, maybe some of the uh the building codes might need to be adapted for that to you know to create more affordable housing.

So you know please consider you know the manufactured housing, whether it's containers or the other thing that we saw um was stick-built little homes, but they were sticked built in a factory and then just shipped and placed on site.

So, you know, those might be additional things to consider.

Um so that ends round one, and we do have a request to speak by John Simon, and it's just one person.

So Mr.

Simon, give us your name.

Again, John Simon, resident of 1350 Main Street.

Um I'm not I don't need the full five or five minutes or three minutes.

I just wanted to note for the commission that in a prior life and not too long ago, I was a nationally recognized expert in affordable housing, largely with respect to uh affordable housing tax or low-income housing tax credits, but also I I was very involved for 30 years in the business of affordable housing.

And the things that you're talking about today are are very uh clear to me.

Uh I dealt with a lot of projects where the attainable or the affordable limits were not much below market rate.

I've dealt with shipping containers, I've dealt with modular construction.

So I just want you to know if there's any way I can be helpful to the city, I'd be happy to do it.

Thank you.

Um round two, and we haven't cleared the board from before.

I know uh vice.

The mayor had more than she wanted to add.

I thought I did clear it.

I think these are second rounds.

Okay, so Commissioner A.

Her and Coch is next.

Okay, I just have a a couple here.

Um for the the discussion on parking reduction and uh not to be mixed with lot line setback reduction as well.

Um those are two conversations that um perhaps when we have this you know this advisory board reconvened again, for which we are I guess are going to be making an appointment soon for the advisory board applications.

Um what are your thoughts on those?

Um those are tools and there's angst over enough parking in the city, too much parking in the city.

We have angst over lot line to lot line building versus setbacks.

Well, I think that that's item set six, seven, six and seven.

Um I think with respect to the parking, as Mr.

Cobra mentioned, when you're talking about structured parking, those costs can be you know, probably 40 to 50.

I don't know if 30 is even repeasable any more of space, 40 to 50,000 dollars a space for structured parking.

So when you're talking multifamily, that does make quite a difference.

Um I think with respect to um setbacks and lot area, that really I think for us would be probably the next thing that should be reviewed.

That's probably one thing we haven't, other than the missing middle that's in Park East right now, something that really hasn't been explored too much, and you know, there's some thoughts on that.

We have a lot of um RMF uh zone properties kind of on the perimeters of of single family neighborhoods.

Would it make sense to look at those, you know, lot sizes for our an RMF uh zone parcel and maybe reducing that to help facilitate uh a duplex, triplex, four flex, et cetera.

Um but I think for us that's something we should you know, we we'd like to like to look into.

I know there's some other examples around the state, other local governments that have that have done that have done this.

Um and I think you know, again, it has to be the right area.

Certainly we're sensitive to that.

It's not gonna work everywhere.

Um but I think you know, finding those right areas and and seeing if this is something that that could be achievable uh is at least worth considering.

Okay.

Um and then building near transportation hubs and employment centers.

Uh you know, I mean, we know that the hospital is a big employer.

Um each time we ask them to consider making affordable housing a piece of their project, they they decline that.

Um you know, and they are on a corridor.

So I mean the good news is with the urban mixed use, the the land use is in place along the South Trail.

If someone wanted to come in and rezone to urban mixed use and and provide affordable, attainable housing, the ability is there for them to do so.

Yeah, okay.

And and then the the um transportation hubs as well.

I mean, it's basically for us, it's downtown Sarasota.

I don't know if we have any other quote unquote hubs other than that.

Uh but you know, thinking along those lines of where maybe you have we have work with the county on popular SCAT um, you know, bus stops, obviously.

Well, we have 99, which is along the North Trail where we've got the urban mixed use.

But I think to that idea you're having you know, with this, you know, a lot of the the density in the downtown with respect to attainable housing in the reduction and parking.

Some folks, you know, maybe they choose to to walk, you have the transit, you have your ride share, you know, you're in downtown, you can walk to most things anyway.

So you have that that nexus there, you know, where it does you know seem to make sense, you know, not everyone's gonna have a car uh in the downtown.

You can get away with not having a car these days in the downtown.

Yeah.

Um yeah.

And then um the last uh uh uh towards the end of the um packet is the recommendations.

That's um 12 is other, I believe.

Um can it says there the recommendation is to consider uh mandatory, which what I would probably say voluntary inclusionary zoning, because I think that's old text.

Um and inclusionary zoning uh options.

So you either build the units, you um do a multiplier, or you uh uh pay a fee.

Um was there any more discussion from the uh committee on on that aspect?

There really was, and I think you know the the caveat there is consistent with state law.

Um consider mandatory inclusionary zoning that is consistent with state law and you know what the state said is yes, you know, you can allow it, but you have to do XYZ.

Right.

So um there wasn't to answer your question, yeah.

There wasn't not much discussion at all on that on that point.

It was more in the on more on the tax issue.

Right.

Right.

Okay, so but uh you know just for the future, I would I don't think we're allowed to do mandatory.

I think we're only allowed to do voluntary, correct?

That's correct.

Okay, so maybe change the wording to voluntary inclusionary zoning is a possibility.

Maybe this commission can discuss that at some point in time again and and and revise, uh revisit that um discussion.

And uh one last thing.

Oh, my time's up.

Thank you.

Um Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Um so Commissioner Betty said take a vow.

I say not yet.

This is so difficult work we're doing.

And you know, I applaud you guys every day for the new ideas that you try to come up with.

We're all in this together, and nobody on earth has solved the problem.

So let us be the first as we continue to work together.

Um two questions.

I am very interested in adaptive reuse, and I don't hear much about that here in Sarasota.

Can you speak to it?

Certainly, I think as we were going through the commercial corridors and centers, uh zoning text amendment, we talked about some of these older shopping centers.

Could those be right for for reuse uh in converting them to to some form of residential if that you know if there's the ability to do that?

Um we certainly encourage that with historically designated structures.

Um we have the TDR program that helps facilitate that too.

So something that that that's supported.

I mean a lot of the times it's it's a private sector decision, but I think we have some tools in place to help allow that to happen, if they so choose.

So um in Salt Lake City, I saw about a 10-story building that had previously been a medical office building that had been converted into I think two and three bedroom apartments.

So that was very appealing to me.

Well, I think in and another example here, uh which we think is going to happen, the old county administration building at 1660 Ringling.

Uh there's certainly been discussion by the uh owner to look at converting that to, as you mentioned, some kind of some form of residential, maybe some ground floor or non-residential, but that that idea is out there.

Good.

Um and then the last thing I want to talk about is the tiering and the range of affordability.

I must say in Salt Lake City we saw a lot of it.

But I did not I do not recall hearing of one project that went up to 120 AMI.

80 is what I heard is a max.

And is there any discussion about us bringing our cap a little?

Yeah, I'd say two points to that.

First, having that mix allows the developer to make everything whole.

If you had every too many of these the table units at the lower end, it may be are from the pencil for numbers there.

But probably more importantly, now we're competing against live local.

So if we if we tinker too much, someone made you say, well, we'll just go straight to live local.

We can do everything at 120 percent and just go right through right to building permit.

So you have to you know weigh that as well.

Sure.

And as shown on that chart, you know, the different um professions, there's a need at all the different levels.

I mean, uh there's a there's a big need at every level.

Well, certainly the greatest is 80 percent or less, but 80 to uh 100, 100, and 120, there's there's huge needs, you know, in those areas as well.

So thank you.

Commissioner Batti?

Oh, yeah, uh uh, thank you, Mayor.

Um, you know, the Vice Mayor mentioned you know, Salt Lake City.

Did it it's the kind of a different makeup out there, particularly when you're talking about those numbers.

Um a very different makeup out there when I think before we got there, Carl Malone might have been only black.

But um that that being said, what can be done in terms of creating programs for say ADUs, let's say like in Newtown, you know, people have like decent sized lots, you know, and in the three four area code or whatever.

Um is there anything that we can do to to create something that to that people can get ADUs or currently ADUs are allowed throughout the city, yeah, with the exception of a couple locations.

Um I think one of the big things is you know this this discussion with the county uh on saying, hey, can we can we make some changes to these uh impact fees?

Because as soon as someone sees those numbers, saying uh I think I'll I think I'll pass on this.

So that's uh and then another idea uh so long as we flushed out a bit.

Um what if we had you know maybe out of three ADU designs of someone that you engineered, you get to bring it in, here you go.

Is that in the that saves some money obviously on cost of design?

So something that we may look to partner with uh maybe it is an arch architecture school that might want to partner with us to have a design and maybe three different types of of ADUs that you just kind of flooded black.

Exactly.

That's what I'm talking about.

Something that's kind of like turn key that you can just uh put with the whatever, but um again, you know, thank you all very much, you know.

Take take take a bow.

Commissioner Alpert, do you have any questions?

I do not, thank you.

Thank you.

Um boy, I I just had one and it flipped out.

Oh, yeah.

Um we frequently hear uh the uh AMI levels and questioning whether or not we want to go up to 120, or people say or disparaging a market rate, and if you consider market rate is anything, and in many of our minds, market rate is the super luxury that we're seeing built along the bay front, and people who are moderate and middle income may say, well, I don't qualify for affordable attainable, but I sure can't go anywhere near those super luxuries.

So my question is, is there any effort being made to understand exactly what the income distribution of the households in the city are and also what the price distribution is of the housing units in the city?

Have not performed that research.

I mean I know there's data out there.

Um we certainly can drill down on that.

Because I would think having that information, again, we're going back to data-driven decision making.

Having that information might be useful and would also help us be guided by, well, gee, maybe we do need more at the 120 level, or you know, the we don't have the information at this point to necessarily make good decisions.

Yeah, and the Florida Housing Polish, they do do that kind of research, although it's usually at the lowest level, the county level.

Obviously, the county is different than the city.

Um, you know, we I mean the information we've received from them is obviously the 80 percent or low or lower is the big need, but there are needs at other levels.

Um yeah, that's that's an interesting it it would be useful, and I did the beginning check by going online and getting information for the city that was based on uh the census.

So it's out there, and I suspect that the realtors could give you uh the distribution of the price of properties in the city.

Um the and and I'm gonna draw a blank on my other thoughts.

So thank you very much.

Um who had more questions?

Okay.

So do we need a motion at this point of any sort other than to thank you for this information?

I would I would defer to interesting managers he needs on this.

Well, Madam Mayor, I think several suggestions, recommendations, and yet unanswered questions were put out on the table.

So let us uh take that and chew on that a little bit.

And there uh let's think about an update at some point, give us a little time to do some work and maybe a quick update at some point on what we were able to address that is still on the table.

Thank thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time and your information, and I'm looking at the clock, and it looks like approximately 12.07.

The official Apple time is 12.06.

How much one how about one fifteen?

So we will take a break for lunch until one fifteen.

Welcome back to the December 1st regular city commission meeting.

We're going to start with legislative public hearings agenda item 10.1.

But before we do, I'm going to call upon the city auditor and clerk to administer the oath.

Okay, just a second here.

Let me get some nice stuff.

All those here to speak at a public hearing today, please stand and take your oh.

Apologize.

I wasn't already ready myself.

Okay.

Do you swear or affirm that the evidence or factual representations which you're about to give or present to this commission during any public hearing held this first day of December 2025 or truthful?

All right.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I am going to open the public hearing on proposed ordinance 25-5572.

Do we need to?

No.

Okay.

Can you ready for me to go ahead and read those?

Yes.

Okay, thank you, Mayor.

Ordinance number 25-5572.

An ordinance of the City of Sarasota, Florida, amending the description of the purpose, powers, function, duties, and authority of the downtown improvement district to correspond in align with the description of saying found in the downtown improvement district strategic plan, an amending and restating ordinance number 08-48-32.

I'm sorry.

Repealing ordinances and conflict provided for reading by title only and providing for an effective date.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Julie Ryan, Business District Manager for the Downtown Improvement District.

And I am going to give a brief presentation of the changes to proposed ordinance 25-5572.

So first, a brief history of the downtown improvement district.

So back in August of 2008, an ad hoc committee of downtown commercial property owners.

In November 17th of 2008, they actually had the adoption, which established the downtown improvement district.

From there, it allowed the city commission to levy the two mills to each of the commercial property owners within the district.

Since then, there's been three minor amendments to the enable an ordinance.

In the third, as recent as 2023, which clarified the eligibility requirement for board members.

This just depicts the boundaries, primarily 2nd Street up to Goodridge, Ringland, and Coconut and my drawing a blank.

Goodrich.

Good.

This just tells you we're about 84 acres, which is point 12 square miles.

There's about 185 individual parcels in the district and about 158 ownership groups.

Within there, there's about 634 businesses that employs about 5600 employees.

Also within the district, this should actually say 21 for 26.

Over the course of collecting that two miles 2010, it did take an extra year and a half to actually start collecting the funding.

So in 2024, there was some legislative changes to special districts.

It started with House Bill 7030 that was enacted in April of 2024 and went into effect in July of 2024.

And basically, what it then required is for each special district, they would have to then define clear goals and objectives, set measurable performance standards, and fund an annual report every December 1st, which is today.

So these will be the characteristics that you will see rolled up into the proposed ordinance.

They also redefine their mission to create a vibrant and competitive, thriving downtown that attracts and retains businesses, employees, residents, and visitors as a self-tax in district of commercial property owners.

They strive to elevate downtown Sarasota as an exciting place to live, work, visit, and invest.

So they actually the board unanimous unanimous unanimously adopted the plan in September of 2024.

They presented it to the city commission in October, and this commission or the commission accepted the plan.

After the plan was accepted, came looking at the plan and the 2008 enabling ordinance and deciding how that ordinance needed to be changed in order to meet the new goals and objectives.

So in May of 2025, the DID received permission from the commission to work with the city attorneys to develop a new proposed ordinance.

So the first part since 2008, the state statute has changed.

So we have updated the first section, the creation of the district to reflect that the detent dependent district of the Florida statute has changed.

The next section, which I mentioned before, the purpose powers, functions, and duties.

You will see this first section incorporates the mission statement of the district, and then in the next following areas, you will see those five focus groups mentioned.

So again, the first now focus area for the board will be the economic vitality, which its objective is to enhance the property values, foster a high competitive urban core, and building a vibrant commercial environment.

Then you'll see all of the activities underneath correlate with that economic strategic goal.

The second is advocacy and partnership, and this objective is to provide leadership and act as the primary advocates for the commercial property owners in the district to bring stakeholders and decision makers together and to effectively communicate.

So again, you'll see a lot of the action items under this goal correlate with those in the strategic plan.

The beautification and placement objective is to drive uh street level vibrancy, improve public spaces, and reinforce the district as a unique and memorable regional destination.

The marketing and imaging objective is to promote downtown as the regional premier destination for businesses, the arts, entertainment, shopping, and dining that elevates the vision through innovative and effective marketing.

Clean, safe, and welcome objective is to work with the city to expand and explore innovative technologies and to promote a safe, clean and maintained environment.

This next section was added to ensure that the board regularly maintains their strategic plan and updates it as well as adheres to the state statute and make sure that we present our annual report.

The next section that went through a little revision is section four, which is the authority.

And again, this particular language here took a lot to not only include independent contractors, but also the ability to hire a city employee for any other type of need that the district may have.

Some of the other um sections here provide just clarity.

Um the one on F actually outlines more of a process when given out grants.

Um the previous language was more vague.

Now they have a process in place where it's an application and score and process and a grant agreement.

Um so it makes it more valuable to the district to make sure that they are um following their core values.

Again, more clarification language on some of these, um, and again updating language that has to do specifically with the strategic plan you'll see throughout.

And then finally, um this one is related to the marketing.

Um back in 2008, we didn't have all of the social media that we do have today, so this was just expanding on the ability to do those things.

Um with that, I will be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

First, we do have two members of the public who have requested to speak.

Ronnie Sugar and Jim Lample, if you will join us and you can stay there since it's just two of them.

And I will have to say Ronnie Sugar did have to leave.

Oh, okay.

So Jim Lample, you your request to speak.

And you have five minutes and up to five minutes.

Okay.

Miles.

I've been here before with other commissions.

Okay.

Jim Lample, downtown city resident.

14 years.

We love downtown.

We love Main Street.

We love the shops, the restaurants, the boutiques.

We love the ice cream stores.

I have a friend who is a quadrupegic.

This is what he and many others are up against, the struggle to get down Main Street because our former commission from a few years ago decided that five feet width between the building and the sidewalk, the clearance five feet was plenty enough.

And I had already showed seven and nine feet.

That didn't work.

This happens to be about seven or eight feet.

The five feet is where the person in the blue is from the right.

And I would like to suggest that we consider in the strategic plan opening up sidewalks so that there are passable, not just for regular ambulatory pedestrians, but also for our friends who are in wheelchairs.

They don't dare attempt this in the evenings.

And this is a typical, this wasn't even a Friday night.

This was about a year ago.

No, actually, this is a week ago.

So as you can see, there are sandwich boards and all kinds of obstacles clogging the area, and there's there's a buggy right there.

A baby buggy.

And there's also uh chairs that get pulled out.

So I think you've all seen this.

This isn't news to anybody.

Thank you, Miles.

Uh but this is terrible for pedestrians and for people who are wheelchair accessible.

So I would like you to in the strategic plan.

Please consider opening up Lower Main Street and giving them maybe uh to the uh curb of the planners.

If you look at the edge there where the main street sandwich board is, that's the start of the planter.

And I think that was the original intention when we re redesigned and bricked up Main Street.

Uh sidewalks that way.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um so questions for uh Ms.

Ryan uh Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Um, this wasn't one of my items, but uh Mr.

Lample, you know that I lived for 10 years pushing my husband in a wheelchair, and half the time, instead of struggling with what you just showed us, we'd go back home because we just couldn't do it.

So I hear you.

Um questions start with a comment.

I think the five focus areas are a great addition in helping the did guide their decision making and spending.

My questions are um number one.

Um maybe this is for the city attorney.

Um in section four, page twelve, items K and L says that the DID may lease her own property and may borrow funds.

Does any of this encumber the city, or could it encumber the city in any way?

I can city attorney, I think that's for you.

Yeah, I'm actually gonna call up uh Bob Fournier.

He worked on this project for me.

He's got a lot of historical knowledge.

Thank you.

Bob Fournier, former city attorney now retired, and did work on this.

I think that what it would encumber would be the additional two mills.

So and the and the the uh did has perpetual life until it's terminated by ordinance.

So what they could pledge or the funds that they would have control over would be the two mills that they receive annually.

So to that extent, yes, because that budget goes through you, but it would be confined to that two mills that that goes to them.

Thank you.

Not beyond that.

Not beyond that.

Okay, thank you.

Um answered one of my questions, and I think that's it for now.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Uh Commissioner Albert, do you have any questions?

I do not, thank you.

Um did you want to do it?

So no more questions then.

Uh so was that uh you want another question or not?

No.

Okay.

So I will close the public hearing.

And ask for a motion.

Um I don't quite know how to word it.

I'll say uh move to accept the changes in the DID formulating documents.

Actually, since they're all incorporated into the proposed ordinance, you could just move to approve the first the ordinance on first reading.

Turn the page on.

And that's what I'll do.

Move to approve ordinance 25-5572.

And second.

Okay.

Move by the Vice Mayor, seconded by Commissioner A.

Hern Kotch to uh approve ordinance number 25-5572.

Um roll call vote?

Thank you.

Aaron Kotch?

Yes.

Albert.

Yes.

Betty.

Yes.

Ulrich?

Yes.

Trice.

Yes.

Uh motion carried unanimously.

Thank you very much.

Um the next item on the agenda is uh 10.2.

And that is public hearing regarding proposed ordinance number 26-5587 amending the code relative to the affordable housing advisory committee.

And calling upon Ms.

Anshoft and Mr.

Chaplain.

Chaplain.

For a presentation.

Sure.

If you don't mind, can I read the ordinance?

Oh sorry.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'll go to read ordinance.

Number ordinance number 26-5587.

An ordinance of the City of Sarasota, Florida, and meaningless Sarasota City Code.

Chapter 2, Administration, Article 5, Board, Commissions, and Committees, Division 2.6, Affordable Housing Advisory Committee.

Section 2-278.

Composition appointment terms of office.

Procedures provided for changes to this composition of the board and providing that all board members will now be appointed by the city commission.

Repealing ordinances and conflict provided for meeting by title only and providing an effective date.

Thank you.

Yes, uh, good afternoon, Ryan Chaplain, General Manager Planning Department.

This one is fairly simple.

We alluded it alluded to it earlier.

The county has now uh elected to receive the relevant ship allocation and also terminated the interlocal agreement that formed the joint committee.

So therefore we'll be having two separate committees, a county affordable housing advisory committee and a city affordable housing advisory committee.

Therefore, in our uh city code, it required some amendments in terms of the composition of that committee.

Um that's actually on page I think it's gonna be on page three of uh your backup material.

Um the underlying is the new language.

And as I think the clerk had mentioned earlier with the Drossy Boards, it can be challenging to try to find citizens to serve on these boards.

So one of the changes just providing a little greater flexibility in how members from the public can be appointed to this committee.

Um and again, that's those changes are highlighted there on the underline on um page um page two of the ordinance.

Um did you want to add anything or uh any members of the public wanting to speak on this one?

Okay.

Um questions from the commissioner here and cotch.

Um yes.

I think that they this the committee when it was the county and the city committee met, I think four times a year.

Three to four to complete is that prescribed in here that they meet three or four or it's not.

I think it's kind of on an as-needed basis.

Sometimes it may need to be more, sometimes maybe it's less, so try to keep it a little open.

Okay, so um, do we know what we're aiming for?

The three to four.

I mean, historically over the last few years that seemed seemed to have worked well.

Okay.

And will there be a joint meeting between the county and the city board eventually so that we're not on the letter prepared?

Yeah, I think at the previous or I think it was a November third meeting, there was some direction to have the city sent a letter, send a letter to the county uh requesting that because you know I think there was some benefit in even though they may have separate motions and votes, meeting collectively and sharing that knowledge is helpful.

Right.

Absolutely good.

I'm glad you've already uh predicted uh and plan for something like that.

Uh and my last question is um do we have a fur uh a meeting schedule set?

Is there is there any urgency to us appointing this board immediately?

Is there a uh January second meeting or something?

We typically start around April or May.

Okay.

But yes, there are prescribed deadlines for reporting and everything, so we try to work backward and meeting jointly.

We have to take into consideration the month that the city commission is off, and then the county commission is off a different time period.

So because we have an elected official from each body, if we try to um designate dates that allow everyone to attend, we do have to take that into consideration.

So we do need to plan ahead of time.

And is there a first meeting planned already for this board?

Well, tentatively, but we do want to hear the county's response.

So we no no no, I don't mean the joint board, I mean the city's board.

Not at this time.

I think the idea would be they if the county is uh receptive that we would be meeting collectively.

So again to Ms.

Simpson's point, there's a lot of coordination that has to be involved when you have you know roughly eight members on this committee, another eight on their committee, county, city staff, the room, so it's a lot of logistics to coordinate.

Okay, thank you.

Those are my questions.

Um Vice Mayor, thank you.

Um I know the committee is not convened yet, but are there any benefits or detriments that you anticipate to a committee that used to be joint with the county but is now on its own?

Any benefits or detriments?

I don't think so.

I mean, before we had the interlocal, probably pre-21, it was it was just that setup actually.

They they met together, but we did have a separate city committee and county committee with separate motions and votes.

So it's not like this is uncharted territory here.

Um so I I think it should be fine.

Okay.

I concur.

And really, as you heard this morning from Mr.

Chaplin, Mr.

Cobert.

The city has made great strides, and it's all reflected in that matrix, which we usually use as a guideline.

And so City is making great strides and will continue to do so regardless of whether we're meeting together or not.

Great.

Thank you.

Okay.

Uh Commissioner Alpert, do you have any questions?

I do not, thank you.

Thank you.

Um I wanna ask you because uh see if my recollection of the discussions at the last meeting are correct.

First of all, to my knowledge, we have a couple of m people who are members of both the city and the county committees.

So meetings separately would impose some sort of uh you know complication in their lives having to attend two separate meetings.

So my understanding also was part of the discussion at the last meeting was speculating that we would have a single entity but vote separately.

Is that your understanding of what we might have suggested?

Along those lines, I mean I would say it's still technically two entities meeting jointly or collectively, uh, but again it was separate motions and votes, separate meeting minutes, etc.

But but at least being able to share that knowledge of everyone in the same room.

Yeah, thank you.

And and you mentioned the county commissioner.

Would the county commissioner be on the city's committee?

No.

Okay.

That that was one of yeah, but well, that was what was confusing me, whether or not we had to guess that they desire to join in with our meetings, they're welcome to.

Okay.

So uh, and you just said uh you anticipate the first meeting, maybe be in March, April time frame.

So does that mean that we don't necessarily have to rush to fill the committee today?

Not necessarily.

We always like to start ahead of time preparing for the meeting.

So the first meeting will be April to May, most likely.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um that that is um that was the last of my questions.

Any other questions?

Okay, so I will close the public hearing.

And thank you very much.

And ask for a motion.

And move approval of ordinance number 26-5587 on first reading.

Second.

Okay, moved by Commissioner A.

Hearn Cox, seconded by Commissioner Batti.

Is there any discussion?

So may we have a roll call vote.

Thank you, Mayor.

Alpert?

Yes.

Betsy?

Yes.

Ulrich?

Yes.

Trice, yes.

Aaron Cut.

Yes.

And motion passed unanimously.

Um, which brings us now to the board appointments that we had moved.

So we are doing uh I agenda item 8.2 appointments to the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee.

Uh oh, sorry.

Sorry.

Um I was ready to move some appointments.

I have a question.

Actually, and if we don't mind, can we have Miss Imshaw come back down just in case she has an answering questions for you all regarding this?

Thank you.

And we do not have anybody signed up to speak.

And um, so I I guess Commissioner Ahern Koch is Yeah, I just had a question to the mayor's last point about appointing this board today.

Um I am so thrilled we had four people that applied for this for because we have four spots and you know it's it's wonderful that they've stepped up uh and and volunteered for this board.

But I'm wondering if we should not hold off for a little bit longer, continue to advertise it to see if we can get others to apply for this board.

And we do have great candidates, but I'm I'm I'm wondering if there's not wisdom in us just waiting and re-advertising and seeing if we can get some more uh people to apply.

And I'm curious of the commissioners, other commissioners' thoughts.

Um experience in this area is really important.

And I think we should appoint all four who've applied.

I don't know why we should wait.

We have four good candidates that have applied, so why are we saying we should wait and not appoint them?

I agree.

I agree with that.

I think the four candidates we have are with each person would bring something to this committee.

I spoke to two of them, and um I was thrilled with the qualifications they would bring to the job.

There are three remaining vacancies, and if we don't have these open these four open spots, it would give us time to focus on those three areas where we need representation.

Do we have three remaining vacancies?

Well, you need a minimum of eight, correct.

You can have a maximum of eleven.

Right.

So with these four, if you approve them, we already have four excellent persons who are serving, and the four who have applied, that would bring us to the required eight.

So could we then continue to advertise to get more can't more uh to fill that board with for three more spots.

I'm asking because the vice mayor just mentioned that we have three more spots.

So I just want some questions.

When I saw the empty spots on the table.

Presumably, yes.

I don't that isn't usually um, we have usually done it on an annual basis, so I don't know that there's any reason why we could not.

Yeah.

I I I uh I have a concern and I would really like to advertise a little bit longer.

Uh one of the individuals who applied is a county resident, not a city resident, and does not have any active uh engagement in the industry in affordable housing currently.

Um so I and I said, gee, you would probably be an excellent candidate for the county's a hack.

He said, I didn't know they had one, so I did suggest he applied at the county's affordable housing uh advisory committee.

So um, yeah, I I just have a concern about an individual who is not a city resident, does not have any active city uh experience, actually experience in the industry was in Lee County.

So you know, I didn't think that that would be the best person best fit while we have time to advertise for additional people.

So um I think uh some understanding and experience, not that everybody can't learn, but uh a certain level of experience and understanding of this area is kind of important.

Um what it means.

What we've done in the past in the city over the last 40 years, efforts we've done, things that have been successful.

I mean, when we here at this commission table discuss this, and we're all familiar with the acronyms and the vernacular and the history and you know the issue and the problem, and we go to conferences, we still get confused.

And so it's it's not a simple issue, it's not a simple problem.

And um what we're looking for, I think from this advisory committee is people who have experience in it throughout the the state, the country, the area, the region, and can offer that level of expertise and that that um you know background to say, well, you know, we tried this here and that worked and this didn't, and uh that's sort of what you know what I was looking for in an advisory committee, some level of knowledge and expertise that we could lean on and use to guide us.

And you know, it's so nice to have so many people step up and volunteer.

And I will note that you know there are some people on here, for example, um Mr.

Saunders has he I think fulfills two of those requirements at least um the one he's in and the you know the citizen uh represents employees you know within the jurisdiction so you know he can those three other spots he can fill into some of those Mr.

Eller as well offers you know multi-category experience but you know we as a commission we really do and I think city staff as well we really do look to this board to be you know experienced in this area and in this field um so you do and I will say that they do not all have to be city residents that's why but that's what we just passed actually the the the ordinance we just passed said they have to be city residents.

Well what we have in there if I I'm reading it correctly is actually that they have to be a city resident or they have to be engaged in business in the city.

So we're trying to one if one of our applicants is neither so that was my concern.

But um yeah so Mr Chapter I was just gonna say if you like Ryan Chapterlinal manager planning department I can read the change that just occurred in the the ordinance um it just says all members must throughout his or her term of office be either residents of the city of Sarasota or residents of an entity with offices and facilities in the city of Sarasota or conducting business within the city of Sarasota.

One of our applicants isn't so that was my point.

Well I I'm not aware of that because I know that the banker and one of the um applicants they both have been intimately involved with habitat for humanity they conduct business within the city of Sarasota and also there's a for profit developer who's planning on doing a low income housing tax credit project in the city of Sarasota and then Mr Eller is with the community assisted and supported living and they do projects within the city of Sarasota so all four of them the the person one of the people you're referring to is retiring from the board position of the habitat of habitat so we'll no longer be actively engaged and his professional experience was Lee County he is a county resident.

So that was my concern and are you aware of whether or not John Harney who's on the current AHAC had any interest in applying to be on the city AH I had not heard that he I had not heard from him.

Okay so he would be an excellent person if you know we got an application from him may I say um I could be swayed to uh hold off on the appointments um there are so many people who we'd have time to talk to and bring them on board or make them you know one of our choices I see we have a couple of options one we could have a motion first of all whether or not to postpone and we could have a motion to just go through them individually to vote affirmatively onto the um the committee so should I I would entertain a motion whether or not to postpone the appointments to a later date.

Madam Mayor uh I believe Commissioner Petit would like to speak but I I'm prepared to make a motion to postpone yeah yeah and I mean I had to say mayor was I just wanted to make sure you know you know to your comment on whether or not someone is conducting business in the city.

That that that's accurate or whatever just because they're going off of the the um uh habitat for humanity board or whatever doesn't necessarily mean that they don't conduct business in the city that was part of the interview process but well I mean that was the point he has they have been working in the city frequently and he has been an active board in that just as Mr.

Harney is from you know Collier County so that's where all of his experience was with habitat.

Okay.

So people do have a history of that.

Yeah yeah so um I would I will make a motion that we postpone uh to try to um and put this out for for additional applications.

Um continue to um advertise and collect.

And if we get none, we get none.

You uh you all okay with that.

Yes.

Okay.

So I'll second that.

So motion by Commissioner Aher and Kutch, seconded by the vice mayor to uh continue the appointment board appointments to the AHAC uh did we say a time certain a month for you think that's sufficient?

Yes, sure.

Okay.

For for a month in order to uh advertise for it.

Okay.

Um we have uh motion on the table, uh roll call.

Okay.

Um Aaron Kotch?

Yes.

Alpert.

No.

Betsy?

Yes.

All right, yes.

Trice.

Yes.

Uh motion passes 4-1.

Thank you very much.

Um we are now back to legislative public hearing.

Uh this one is 10 3.

And this is the sound ordinance.

Um is there do we need to administer the oath again or is everybody sworn?

Is there anyone here who hasn't received an oath to speak at his public hearing?

At least stand.

Anyone else that plans on speaking at any public hearing?

Okay.

All right.

Anybody else?

There you go.

Keep your knees.

All right.

Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth that this public hearing held held today?

Okay, thank you.

Thank you very much.

And I will uh open the public hearing on proposed ordinance 24-5518, and ask the city auditor and clerk to read the title.

Thank you, Mayor.

Ordinance number 24-5518.

An ordinance of the City of Sarasota, Florida amending chapter 20 of the Sarasota City Code, sound regulations to simplify and facilitate enforcement by clarifying current section 20-5 regarding sound and excess of specified decibel limits by eliminating amplified sound as a separately regulated category of sound, by eliminating the destin distinction between continuous source sound and impulsive source sound, and by substituting a distinction between outside source sound and inside source sound by stating a time when all outside source sound must not exceed lower maximum decibel limits by adding a plainly audible standard for violations between specified hours at a specified distance from the source of the sound by updating, deleting, and modifying certain definitions provided for the servability of the parts or of if declared invalid, providing for the re repeal of ordinances and conflict, provide for reading by titler only and providing for an effective date.

Thank you.

And Mr.

Polzak, would you like care to make a presentation?

Sure.

Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners.

I'm actually going to call up Bob Fournier on this one too.

This uh the revisions to this ordinance date back to uh Mr.

Fournier's term as city attorney, uh much of which was accomplished during his term, and this was essentially the last set of revisions that were attempted to be done.

Uh they've been tweaked a little bit.

We've got a lot to discuss here today.

I'll let him kind of get into a brief introduction.

Okay, good afternoon, everyone.

Uh again, uh Bob Fournier, immediate former city attorney now retired.

And as Joe said, um I was extensively involved in work on the SAND ordinance for many years prior to my retirement.

And in fact, this uh same ordinance was before you in January of this year.

So uh we both after we talked thought it made sense that I come back and and spend some time on this presentation and I've given it some thought and hopefully can cover the points that will be meaningful to the people who are interested and want to talk and hopefully explain to them why some of the things were written the way that they were.

Uh we had made a lot of progress, I think, by way of background in the beginning of uh 2024.

I had presented a plan and said, you know, part of the problem with this was this ordinance covers such a wide broad array of topics that you'd start to talk about one thing and you know inevitably people would have comments on another.

So I suggested a plan to adopt four ordinances, and we have gotten through two of the four in 2024.

The commission adopted an ordinance because the state legislature acted finally to amend the statute to take uh sound emanating from motor vehicles out of our ordinance and return that to the statutes.

And you may also recall you passed an ordinance to transfer the enforcement jurisdiction from a county court to the special magistrate, which for reasons I won't get into, I think was desirable.

So the other two items that I wanted to address were the uh change of the structure or the organization of the section that limits uh uh decibels that sets the maximal decimal limits and to add a plainly audible standard.

And we were going to do these separately, but then decided when time was running out to combine them into one ordinance.

So today is uh still first reading.

The first reading on this ordinance was actually January 21st of this year, 2025.

Today is the second public hearing for the first reading.

So even if you vote today, this would have to come back for second reading.

So I wanted to make that clear.

Now, although I do believe what's proposed is uh a step in the right direction, if you will, I have to say at the outset that I don't think it's going to fix all of the concerns that I've heard people express.

And I say I've come up with really three reasons for that, and I I think the first one is to keep in mind the primary purpose of this ordinance, as I've said before, was reorganization for greater clarity, uh, with the idea being that if more if it was more understandable to law enforcement officers, and from what I'm going to show you, I think you can understand their problems with it, we would get better enforcement, right?

That seems logical.

The second reason is some of these amendments that are required for this ordinance really cannot be undertaken absent the services of a consultant.

And I've defined three areas that I just want to say right at the beginning are going to require the services of the consultant.

Nothing that this ordinance does would.

But I think if you want to change these maximal, maximum decibel limits, you really do need the services of a consultant to do that for reasons that are related to the legal test for validity and the constitutionality of the ordinance that I won't get into.

The second area is you'll see many ordinances that have different sound limits for either different zone districts or different uses in the city.

For example, one limit applies to residential neighborhoods where there's all primarily residential uses.

I guess in Sarasota it would be RSF, RMF, perhaps some others, maybe DTN or something.

And uh some to commercial areas or industrial areas or there's very c Sarasota has one standard citywide.

It doesn't have uh it's not divided up into areas.

There's one standard citywide.

So that's the second reason, I think.

And then the other one I said uh just before, there's such a wide array of different topics that this encompasses that it's very difficult to get everything all together you know in here.

So there are actually 10 sections in the sound ordinance.

Um I'm sure people are gonna comment on other sections other than the ones that are addressed today, and that's certainly fine, but uh because they can talk on the ordinance, but this ordinance really addresses primarily three sections, which are 23, the definitions, 24 unreasonable sound, and 20-5, which is maximum sound levels.

And I want to focus on 20-5, which is the maximum sound levels in in what I say.

And I want to start out too, because I'm gonna be using a term uh just to facilitate reference, just for ease of reference to daytime hours and nighttime hours.

And what I'm suggesting that means is that there would be uh certain decibel limits that apply what in what I'll call daytime hours, and then another set of presumably lower decibel maximums that would apply during the nighttime hours.

And I I say that because I had uh, you know, now it's been to like a uh 11 o'clock is what's being enforced, and that's when the levels go down for uh outside amplified sound, and people have said, well, 11 o'clock isn't daytime.

I don't think anybody would argue that 11 o'clock is daytime, but that's not the point.

It's just to facilitate the reference, daytime hours, nighttime hours.

So I wanted to say that.

Now, Sarasota uh has traditionally regulated sound by applying maximum decibel limits to the sound, and that's all.

We don't currently have a plainly audible standard, and that would be something that would be added.

So I want to start out talking about the maximum decibels, finish that, and then move into what would be proposed to be added.

Um I want to say also, because people have complained about this.

I've acknowledged this before publicly that the decibel levels in the city code in Sarasota that are applied in residential areas and indeed throughout the city, I think would be considered high when they're compared to other jurisdictions.

They that they they are set high.

As I said, there's only one decibel standard uh that's applicable everywhere throughout the city.

Uh and I I I found out, actually, I did some uh some digging and some research, and I found out how that actually happened was uh back in the 90s when these uh the the sound ordinance was first worked on, it was in the zoning code.

And the maximum decibel limits only applied in what was then the C C B D, which is City Central Business District, in CBN commercial business Newtown, and in CRT, a commercial uh uh tour CT, CT, commercial tourist on the St.

Armin's Circle.

And there was a workshop in 2002, I believe, where the the planning director and that I think the uh there was a recommendation made to the commission to take those decibel levels uh out of the zoning code, put them in the city code, and make them apply citywide.

So you do have standards that were intended for those areas and now they're applicable citywide.

So by way of background, people say, how did this happen?

How did this happen?

You know, the commission didn't do it, I didn't do it, this was just done long ago, and I I I was uh, you know, wanted to share that history because I thought it was interesting that that's how this came about.

So to talk about what's there now, as I said, the proposed changes are based on the premise that reorganization and clarification of the language will result in more effective uh enforcement.

And so first I want to point out there are three distinct decibel standards and thus three distinct decibel measurements that can be taken in our code.

Any one of these standing alone, I think would be a violation.

First, there is a uh DBA measurement, which is when the sound meter is operating on the A-weighted scale, and that removes especially high and especially low frequency sound, and it's intended really to measure sound as you would hear it by the human ear.

Then there's the DBC reading, which gives more weight to low frequency sounds, and it's most often used to measure the base sounds that everyone talks about or talked about at the hearing on the uh special events.

And sometimes, you know, a low frequency sound is often as much felt actually as it is heard because of the vibrations.

And then there's another measurement that's taken which measures the difference between the DBA and the DBC.

And I guess this is done to another way to measure or control the base sound because the greater the difference, the greater the prevalence of the base low frequency sound.

So uh, and I I've looked at this, and uh virtually every ordinance that I've seen, the DBC maximum is higher than the DBA maximum in those ordinances where they measure the two, and I think that's just because there's two different scales and those very low frequencies aren't really uh probably not audible, and so the DBC would be higher.

I'm not an expert, I can't explain it much better than that.

But and then another point is the decibel level measurements, they're not on a linear scale.

It is a logarithmic scale.

So the differences between these numbers are not equal.

It's not a constant difference, it's a constant ratio.

So that uh 80 uh dBs is twice as loud as 70 dBs.

Each 10 dB is about a doubling, and that would mean then uh 90 dBs would be four times as loud as 70 dBs, and a hundred would be eight times as loud as seven dbs.

It it increases exponentially, in other words.

So I want to like maybe put up the current section here with some annotations in there to look at.

Now, this is just by way of illustration here, if you can see that.

Move it up a little bit.

Move it up here.

Yeah, because I wrote on it.

And to take you through that is it starts out with it it divides it into three separate areas uh the for the regulation.

And there's there's amplified sound, but it's amplified sound is regulated only when not in a completely enclosed building, and then only when it's in what I'll call the nighttime hours.

And then secondly, there's a regulation of what the code calls continuous source sound, and then there's a regulation of impulsive sound.

I've never seen a violation of impulse sound, impulsive sound.

That's like a gunshot or a firecracker or something like that, not a continuous sound.

And I'm not sure we that that's actually needed in the code.

And you can see that for continuous source sound, there's daytime hours and there's nighttime maximum decibel limits.

And but the uh the amplified sound, not in a completely enclosed building, is not regulated during the day, and people have made arguments to me that they thought therefore that meant that there were no limits on amplified sound during the day, and it really isn't clear.

So, you know, you you you put yourself in the position of a of a perhaps an inexperienced law enforcement officer, and I think it's understandable when you look at this, you can see that um you might have an issue deciding which section to cite somebody under.

And under the amplified sound, there are actually two different standards.

There's a citywide standard that is the amplified sound from not in a completely enclosed building is supposed to be lowered at 10 p.m.

seven nights a week.

That was the general rule.

10 p.m.

seven nights a week, that outdoor amplified sound, the maximum decibel level is to be reduced.

Then there was an amendment added for the city-owned property on the Lemon Avenue Mall, and you can see that there, they got an extra hour during the week and an extra two hours on the weekends and the nights before federal holidays.

I didn't want to go into the background on that, but we have to get rid of that distinction because legal concerns.

So one of the goals here is to take those two and to make it into a uniform standard.

You know, either one or the other or something different.

Now, uh as I said, the citywide standard is a uniform seven days a week at 10 p.m.

when outdoor amplified sound has to be turned down.

Uh and what's happened is since uh 2013, I believe, when this was all pointed out and we realized this was a problem in the code, the exception sort of swallowed the rule, and the later hours, the one hour later during the week and the two hours later on the weekends, are is what's being enforced.

And I've heard from uh many people who would like to make 10 p.m., which is in the code now the new standard.

And I would like to say that's certainly fine.

You won't get an objection from me on that.

It is absolutely lawful, but it is, however, a change in the current status quo.

And I was asked to fill in times in January because that was left blank because I perhaps naively thought after some discussion that the commission maybe could fill that in.

And so I thought it through and I talked about it with Mr.

Polzak, and I said, you know, I don't feel I have the discretion here to set policy.

I think the safest thing for me to do, you know, as a former city attorney, current city attorney then, is to just keep it at the status quo, which is why I filled in the later the 11 o'clock and the the midnight on the weekends.

But if you want to change that to something that's earlier, I think that is something that is within your legislative discretion, and the reason I fill that in was not due to any legal objection to the earlier hour.

So that's something that you need to discuss and debate and hear public input and decide.

And the continuous source sound and the impulse sound, that's a distinction that I don't think is really well understood in practice.

And the continuous source sound, you see that, but I think you see it in most of the older codes, and I think that's somewhat confusing because a law enforcement officer might think, well, you know, they stopped.

Is that how what is this continuous mean?

How am I supposed to how am I supposed to look at that?

So what I've done to illustrate how this maybe could be changed is to switch this continuous source and impulsive source to outside source sound and inside source sound.

Because we've got an attempt at outside source sound, but it's amplified only and it's only at night.

So when you do that, and I won't show you the text of the news section, but if you look at it, and I've got another visual aid here and one after this, this is just the simple version of this.

This is what the new ordinance would do.

You have the ability to put it into a diagram that's a perfect square that you can divide into quadrants.

And if you see the daytime hours at the top and the nighttime hours, and then you just go by outside source sound or inside source sound.

I think it becomes a lot easier to, you know, understand the logic of how maybe this should be set up.

And what let me just I'm gonna put the other one up here that has the times filled in and just sort of just put this up.

So these are the times that I had filled in because these are the times that are enforced citywide now that are applicable at the Lemon Avenue Mall.

But what the city commission has to decide today really are does should there be a distinction between Sunday and Thursday, Friday, Saturday, should it be seven nights uniform?

Should these times be as stated here?

Should it be 10 o'clock across the board?

What should these times be?

Now the decibel limits have been left alone.

These references here, let's take the the bottom two quadrants here for inside source sound.

I've cited the current sections where they come from.

That's uh 20-5a, that is a continuous source sound daytime hours, just converted here to inside source sound daytime hours.

And the same with the one in this quadrant here.

That's the current uh nighttime hour sound for continuous source sound.

And then here, this one in the upper right quadrant is the sound that has to be lowered for that now applies only to outdoor uh what is the code says amplified sound not in a completely enclosed building.

So I took that same standard, made it the nighttime standard.

So these three come from the code.

This one, there's no standard in there now for uh amplified sound not in a completely enclosed building during the day, as I said, that's only at night.

So I simply took this standard here for inside source and plugged it in there so that it would be the same for outside source during the day.

So that's where this all comes from.

And the idea here is that something like this, I think would uh facilitate a law enforcement officer's ability to understand what section they were supposed to use.

Now, these decibel limits could be changed in the future if you decide to move away from a citywide standard, you'd need multiple charts for different zones because it would be different.

But to reiterate, the issue that the commission should be focused on today, in my opinion, with this 25 are the times here.

And as I said, the reason I filled in uh these times that are on this chart was only to maintain the status quo because that's what's currently being enforced, and I didn't think that I should be, you know, advocating or instigating a change in policy.

So now to move to the plainly audible standard, if I could explain that, and if I run over my time, hopefully you can bear with me.

Um plainly audible sound is defined as a sound that can be heard by an officer using the officer's normal auditory senses that is their normal hearing facilities, but at a specified distance from the source of the sound.

I did add in the uh definition of uh plainly audible sound that the detection of the rhythmic based component of music was also a plainly audible sound.

So that is one change that has been made.

And a plainly audible standard in a sound ordinance would make sound that is plainly audible at a specified distance from the source of the sound unlawful.

Now, this is usually only after a certain specified hour of the day.

That's when you convert from daytime hours to nighttime hours.

When it when this kicks in.

Now I have seen, and there are numbers, I think there's still a minority, but there's an increasing number of ordinances that go to the daytime hours as well.

I'm not recommending that you do that today.

This ordinance doesn't do that.

I do think you would need a consultant for that because some of these ordinances, I don't know how you could have a uniform standard applied during the day, because some areas of the city, let's face it, are going to be there's going to be a lot more ambient noise downtown than say uh in Glen Oaks or in a residential neighborhood.

And I think that would have to take that into account.

So you'd have a lower distance in those areas where you would expect that not as much daytime ambient sound.

But at night, it's easier to do because I think generally speaking, at least, everyone thinks that it should be quieter during those nighttime hours.

So that's why this ordinance only has it at night, and again, you have to determine the time, and I want to address that.

Um, adopted a plainly audible standard do retain a maximal decimal limit standard as well, and they just put the uh plainly audible on top of that, especially if it's only at night.

So it supplements rather than replaces.

Uh, and but there are some jurisdictions that actually have converted, and some of a few have done it for a long time, that go entirely by plainly audible.

Uh but I don't think those use usually don't use a citywide standard.