Good morning.

Uh, welcome to the July sixth uh Sarasota City Commission meeting.

I will call this meeting to order, and I just silenced my cell phone, and I hope you will all do the same.

Um, before we start, I would like to welcome our new city manager, Carrie Fryling to her first city commission meeting, and I'm sure I speak for all of us to say we hope you will be leading the city for many more years.

And I'm sure I speak for all of us to say we hope you will be leading the city for many more years.

And did you want to say anything before we start?

I feel like today is my first day of school.

But no, I just again thank you for the warm welcome.

I'm thrilled to be here.

Um it's been an amazing one month, which I will share some of that later in the meeting.

But again, the the warmth that I felt from both inside the organization as well and in the community is very much appreciated.

So thank you.

Great, thank you.

And we're also very happy that Jennifer Jorgensen is now a permanent member on this dais as the new deputy city manager officially.

So welcome, Jennifer.

Thank you.

Welcome back.

Okay.

So with that, I will turn to City Auditor and Clerk Griggs for the invocation, followed by the Vice Mayor leading us in the pledge.

Those who can stand, please stand.

Heavenly Father, we affirm our faith in thee.

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

In our name we pray, Amen.

Indivisible with liberty and justice.

Thank you both.

Um are there any changes to the order of the day, Ms.

Griggs?

No, Mayor.

Okay.

Um may I have a motion to approve the proposed agenda schedule?

So moved.

Second.

Uh moved by the vice mayor, seconded by uh Commissioner Batti.

Um can we have your votes, please?

And that passed unanimously.

Thank you very much.

Um the first thing up is if everybody will join me.

Well, commissioners join me up front, uh, because we have a presentation uh happening now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I'm going to invite our parks director, Jerry Fogel to join me up here, um, because we have a proclamation dealing with parks.

And bring his cohorts, his team.

Okay.

Whereas parks and recreation are an integral part of the city of Sarasota, enhancing the quality of life for residents and visitors alike, and whereas parks, natural areas, and recreation programs promote physical and mental health, encourage active lifestyles, and provide opportunities for people of all ages to connect with nature, and whereas parks and recreation programming, including youth sports, environmental education, and out-of-school activities, supports healthy childhood development and lifelong learning.

Whereas parks and recreation contribute to the economic, environmental, and social well-being of our community by increasing tourism, supporting businesses, enhancing property values, protecting natural resources, and fostering community resilience.

And whereas the U.S.

House of Representatives has designated July as Parks and Recreation Month, and the City of Sarasota recognizes and celebrates the many benefits provided by its parks and recreation resources now, therefore the City Commission of the City of Sarasota, and on behalf of the citizens of our community, takes great pride in recognizing July 6th, July 2026 as Parks and Recreation Month, a month of special importance and worthy of the recognition of the residents of the City of Sarasota.

Well, thank you all, and let me turn the mic to Jerry.

Thank you so much.

Jerry Folkwell Parks and Recreation.

Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, for the proclamation.

It means a great deal to our team.

I brought a few team members with me, the ones that actually do the work.

They deserve this experience.

They deserve to be here and to be able to meet you if they haven't done so already.

You are kind of a big deal, Commissioner.

So really and truly, we couldn't do this alone.

So I want to thank everybody that assists Parks and Recreation with providing the services to our residents.

I can't thank everybody, but I would like to thank all the city departments.

I want to thank the City Audrey and Clerk's office, the city attorney's office, our parks, recreation, environmental protection advisory board, all of the neighborhood associations.

And there's so many more, but I can't thank everybody.

I want to thank a special thanks to our city manager's office, you commissioners, and our residents, because you are the one that consistently prioritizes parks and recreation.

You're the ones that consistently, you know, and has established parks of recreation as a core service.

And we are grateful and thank you for that.

If you allow me just one quick story that sums up your parks and recreation team.

So I was at the park, I was at uh Robert L.

Taylor Community Complex, and I saw Arthur Larkins, who's the manager there, walking out of the gym with just socks on.

And I, of course, I go to him, I'm like, what are you what are you doing?

You where's your shoes at?

You're a manager.

This is not professional.

I give them the what to for, you know.

So he proceeds to let me know that there's a foster kid that doesn't have didn't have any shoes.

They happen to wear his size, so he took his shoes off his feet and he gave it to the kid so he can participate and play basketball with the rest of the kids.

Later found out that the shoes, he bought the shoes the day before.

Uh, but this is just a little bit, I have many, many stories to tell you, but this is just one glimpse of just the good decent people that we have, not only in parks and recreation, but you have throughout the city commissioners.

You have good decent people that work hard, they care deeply about the city and about our residents, they go the extra mile.

They take the extra step to help somebody when others would not.

Uh and so I'm just proud to be a part of Team Sarasota.

Uh so thank you so much for this honor.

And on the next thing, we've got photos and handshaking and thank you so much for love.

Thank you.

Appreciate you.

Thank you.

And let me give you this together to your photos.

Yeah, there's quite a few of us.

All right, I'm standing on.

Nope, nope, I'm not saying it in front of you.

I said in front of you.

She's got a sidewest.

I'm gonna switch the lesson.

All right, if we'll live.

Come on, Jelly.

All right.

Thank you all for everything that you do.

Uh don't go too far because we have a presentation.

Oh, the president's.

I don't know what the presenters are.

Okay.

Okay.

Next on the agenda, we've got another something very special.

Um, and it's a presentation by Ed Lavell Lavell from the uh ICMA, International City Management.

City Management Association.

And he will make a presentation.

Thank you for inviting me, Mayor, City Commissioners.

And staff is in some respects is a sort of a welcome back, as I know many of you from years of working.

So my name is Ed LaValle.

Recently retired from Venice, where I was a city manager for almost 14 years, and I'm now a senior advisor for the state of Florida, Florida, City and County Managers Association, FCCMA, and I'm here today to congratulate you on an achievement that's uh listed in the agenda.

Significant one.

And uh for operating under the city, the council management form of government, which is a form that is uh designed and sanctioned by the International City Managers Association, which FCCMA is the state uh recognized uh legate.

And in your case, for achieving 80 years, eight decades of effective management uh under this council management form, successful management form of government.

And uh it was established, and you operate in this manner, but the model was established to separate the administrative and operational functions of service from the very difficult and challenging policy making function that the elected officials are challenged with, and uh Sarasota is just a great example of how effective this professional model is.

Seventy percent of the states, city and towns operate under this form of government.

It was a surprise to me to find out how successful in almost all of the 67 counties also use the same government uh form.

And Sarasota, of course, stands out as a great example.

Eighty years of success demonstrating the effective benefits of that management form.

Um, from my personal experience, having worked with many of you for such a long period of time, you are additionally blessed with having great wisdom and professional leadership on your elected body and uh a strong um staff which uh I've collaborated with over the years very successfully and with great enjoyment and professional uh gratitude.

So thank you for that, and it's uh it's great to be back here.

So, on behalf of um FCCMA and the council management forms across the state of Florida, I have a uh recognition certificate for you that I'd like to present to your commission and to uh the managers, management staff for successfully operating this form of government.

I will say, by the way, that um FCCMA, in the role that I'm in the senior advisors position, offers a lot of uh benefits that are probably not widely known to cities and towns, but um support and management guidance on any other features of your government service, either from the elected side or your staff side, and your manager probably fully apprised of that already.

Uh but uh we are available to support you in any regard, so uh feel free to call on us, but I just leave you with this.

Congratulations.

It's been great working with you for my 14 years in Venice, and uh it's great to see all of you again.

Congratulations.

Thank you very much.

Uh real quick.

All right, okay.

Thank you.

Thank you for thinking to put it on the ones.

Thank you.

And I have a feeling we'll see it posted outside Carrie's office shortly.

So we are now approaching the time where we are going to be taking citizens' input concerning city topics, and Ms.

Griggs, if you would please read the Pledge of Public Content.

Thank you.

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

We will direct all comments to issues.

Thank you.

And we have five requests to speak for the five chairs that are up here.

Uh Martin Hyde, Ron Watts, Jerry Wells, Ronnie Sugar, and Chris Vulker.

I'm on up.

Okay.

Okay.

Mr.

Hyde, you're on.

Please recite your name and whether or not you are a city resident.

I am not the city resident.

My name remains Martin Hyde.

Happy days are here again.

Proclamations.

Very light agenda.

Fresh from a month-long vacation fully paid by taxpayers.

All is good in the neighborhood.

One might presume.

Want to know what's been happening while you've been on holiday.

The city produced this propaganda sheet on property taxes.

But uh that's what I think of that.

Um I did obtain this set of facts on a record's request while you had your feet up.

It's a list of last week, as of last week, of the 200 plus constituents and neighbors that you have cut off from water right now.

Before you start looking for someone else to blame, Scarecrow.

Um this is on the five of you, as you set the rates and you set policy.

Your neighbors have no ability to flush a toilet, no way to bathe in the caring city of Sarasota, a compassionate city which decided to impose a regressive 3.5% annual water increase in 2019, which compounded over seven years is 27.22 percent.

I told you in 2019 how unjust this increase was to those least able to pay.

The most expensive water in the region, while a part of the city is the poorest in the whole county.

Late fees, charges to simply pay by credit card, and reconnection fees mean all of these people in these homes are unable to wash themselves today in a city with aspirations to build a seven million dollar clubhouse on a golf course and a 300 million plus performing art center.

Do you spare a thought for those suffering a public health hazard as you spend millions on designs for these luxuries?

I'm here to demand your highly paid city manager.

Stop handring over how to budget for discretionary luxuries, and to start figuring out a way to get all your neighbors back with water this week.

And a more immediate moratorium on cutoffs, an immediate reinstatement pending a review for all.

I'm not interested in justifications, as there is no justification in a civilized country to have people without water in these numbers when their only failure is keeping up with your 27% increase imposed by you.

One last question you might want to ask your new manager is why I'm the one bringing this to your attention.

One might hope this would be a concern for her.

This is an urgent and requires an immediate response.

You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

And if you're not, maybe it's time the city elected commissioners who actually care about their neighborhood's health more than you care about funding vanity projects in the Golden State.

And theater goers.

Thank you.

Um Ron Watts.

Good morning.

Uh Ron Watts, uh resident of Laurel Park, and also a member of your parks advisory board.

Thank you for acknowledging parks and recreation this month.

With upcoming budget workshops, I know that each of you is a difficult task forecasting potential funding challenges that might come if the property tax changes are voted in.

Hopefully enough people recognize the downsides of that proposal were to pass.

However, regardless of the outcome, I ask you to continue to acknowledge the importance of parks in their programming to the community.

As discussed a couple months ago, I encourage you to adopt the concept of a parks district in the city with an ongoing funding mechanism that allows staff to not only meet the daily needs, but allows them to pursue the full 10-year master park plan that was approved in 2019.

Staff has been able to update one or two parks per year based on available funds from the penny tax.

But we have over 60 parks in the system.

Considerations being given currently to switching one or two parks from the county at the beach to city control, which I support.

But that requires funding.

And we're not even talking about right now the idea of adding parks to the system to meet one of the key goals from that master plan, have a park within a 10-minute walk of every residence.

There are a number of priorities to be considered in the budget.

The parks are a key part of the quality of life for our community.

Please show your support for them in this budget cycle.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And uh Jerry Wells.

Good morning.

My name is Jerry Wells, and I'm a resident of the city of Sarasota.

And when I look around at the table here, at least five of you I could do this in my homework.

But I'm going to bring it in.

And I didn't realize that parks and rec was speaking today.

Um, so it kind of really fits in.

The issue I'm bringing to your attention involves a small city-owned public beach access on Leto Key at the corner of Cleveland and Ben Franklin Drive.

It's between the Leto Beach Resort and the 800 building.

And I want to show you a picture of what that looked like before.

And I'm sorry that I'm not techno savvy, but you can see that's the entrance, and on the left-hand side, as you're walking west out to the beach, you can see sea grape trees.

First show, this first photo shows exactly what it looked like two weeks ago.

Several months ago, when I noticed the trees had been marked with orange tape, I immediately contacted the city arborist, who basically dismissed me and told me she had everything under control.

I gave her a copy of the state and local laws about trimming those trees.

I also reached out to Commissioner Jen, who immediately came down with me and took photos and said she would look into it, and I trust that she did.

Okay.

That's not what happened here.

Now I want you to look at this photo.

So state law is very, very specific with coastal zones, specifically with sea grapes.

You're allowed to trim one third of any tree that's over six feet tall, and there was no reason to cut the tops of those trees.

But what you're seeing here is what our public beach access looks like today.

It was clear cut.

So as a resident, I find this deeply concerning.

These native plants are not only part of Sarasota's natural beauty, but they help protect our coastline and provide important light filtering during sea turtle nesting season, which is happening right now.

I filed a complaint with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to help everyone find out who in our city staff was responsible for this absolute devastation of the environment.

I'm asking for transparency and accountability.

Whoever authorized this destruction to our coastal property and whoever is responsible needs to be held accountable.

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much for coming down and letting us know.

Uh Ronnie Sugar.

Good morning, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Commissioners.

My name is Ronnie Sugar, and I'm here today as a private citizen.

I am an entrepreneur, downtown landlord with over 20,000 square feet of retail space, restauranteur, investor, and philanthropist.

I'm not here today to discuss the abstract parking theory.

I sit here today to impart concerns from my numerous tenants, my customers, and fellow business leaders that paid parking is having a real, long-lasting and negative impact on downtown commerce.

People are choosing to go elsewhere.

They are cutting their visits short, they are meeting friends, having lunch, shopping, and spending their days in places where parking is easier and free.

Every one of those decisions costs the downtown business money, profit, customer curation, and retention.

If the goal is turnover or tax revenues, the city can establish reasonable time limits and enforce them.

It can create employee parking programs or be created with an advalorum tax to commercial property owners.

Visitors can go to the Beast on the East, otherwise known as UTC, Gulf Gate, Venice, or countless shopping centers and restaurants where parking is free, well lit, and convenient.

Downtown businesses are being forced to compete with one hand tied behind our backs, and the city is the one applying the binds.

For example, 8 a.m.

in the morning.

If one wants to grab a cup of coffee or Danish at Coarse Coffee, at Palm Delhi, Starbucks, two dollars just to step inside.

Why?

There are real options.

You can go to a Starbucks or a Wawa just off Washington with no parking fee headache.

Or hourly parking on Sunday through Tuesday from 7 p.m.

in the evening to 12 a.m.

There are literally less than 10% of retailers open during those hours.

The streets are empty.

So why does the city need to incur overhead, payroll, or meter maids for those hours?

Government should be helping businesses succeed.

It should be removing barriers to commerce, supporting entrepreneurs, and making downtown more inviting.

I implore the commission review the city of Venice's very successful two-hour free downtown parking system.

In Venice, they are treating downtown businesses as partners rather than sources of additional government revenue.

Just recently, CNN Travel named Sarasota as the most desirable place to visit in the USA.

One of those reasons, downtown Main Street.

To those of us who have invested in downtown, paid parking feels like a personal tack on our businesses and on the people whose livelihood depends on them.

We pay property taxes, we employ people, we attract visitors, we take risks.

We help create the downtown area that the city promotes.

We are being punished for it.

I'm advocating for a downtown petition to be signed by all commercial property owners and retail businesses to bring this matter before the commission and vote to end paid parking downtown.

Keep reasonable time limits, protect premium spaces for all day employee parking.

Thank you, Mr.

Sugar.

We heard your message.

Chris Vulker.

Good morning, everyone.

It's good to see you all.

Mr.

Sugar, my colleague, fellow business owner, business operator, commercial property owner, uh, and has said made great points, and I I'm not gonna dwell on that.

I'm gonna try to keep my message as short as I can.

This is hard for me because I'm always long-minded.

Um, while I realize that you are not in a great position to make be making a lot of financial decisions right now.

Um I think it's time to consider what Mr.

Sugar just shared with you about how palpable and how this impact of this parking uh division's current increase is hitting us.

When the parking division manager came to us and spoke to us, he said, you know, we've we've lost revenue.

We've lost revenue because of the three hurricanes.

And I sat there thinking, well, we small businesses really suffered also because of the three hurricanes.

But what we did is we looked inside first.

We said, okay, how can we reduce expenses with without worrying about our product, not not uh denigrating our product.

So and we did that.

We couldn't exactly just start targeting twice as much for everything.

I think this opportunity, while you are all are looking at the potential legislation coming down, is a good time to do some introspection, particularly with the parking division.

Um just a couple of good ideas that I have.

I think I could share for one.

Um this division runs at 43 percent of personnel.

That's one of the highest in the nation.

It's in the highest range.

When they while they invested a lot of money in technology, there was no return on investment that we're aware of.

What why?

Just to ponder that.

And also um, there as Mr.

Sugar pointed out, cities, smaller cities than ours, are able to offer free parking to the businesses.

And we have never even considered that.

So I think it's a good time to look at what should we be doing.

We should be upholding the economic driver of the city.

That's what we should be doing, not getting in its way.

And you can hear, you may hear from all of us, you're gonna hear from us because this is not going to go away.

All of us that own businesses and are thriving, try and really care about the city and are thriving, uh wanting it to thrive.

But I would like to just share with you something I have right here that is not coming from the business owners.

So you can't consider it kind of a self-interest.

This is from the community.

If any of you are familiar with neighbor, is a forum for people to talk.

Most of these comments that they I have here are actually related to one business, a restaurant downtown that all these people went to.

Sorry, Chris.

All right.

I'm willing to share this, by the way.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you all for coming in and talking to us.

And we will probably have comments about what you said later in the program.

Um at this point, we're up to approval of the minutes of uh first one is May 4th, 2026.

Move approval of the minutes of May 4th, 2026.

Second.

Um move by the Vice Mayor, seconded by Commissioner Batti to approve the minutes of May 4th.

Um, please.

Just want to state for the record that I did submit some non-substantive changes.

Okay.

Thank you, Commissioner.

And that passed unanimously.

Uh we also have the minutes of the May 18th, 2026 meeting.

Um Commissioner Ahern Koch.

Yes, I did want to ask um about the uh um comment on page 13 of those minutes when we repeat that motion.

Okay.

I didn't know that you were going to bring this up.

Um I don't think it was sorry.

I didn't think you it was anything substantive that needed to be changed.

The correction was made.

Okay, I just wanted to make sure that's so I believe I heard a motion by the vice mayor and did I hear second by Commissioner Batti to approve the minutes of the meeting of May 18th.

May we have your votes, please?

And that passed unanimously.

Thank you all very much.

Uh next we are up to uh board actions, and we are going to have a report from the planning board, uh local planning agency, their annual update.

And joining us at the Dais is uh Development Services General Manager Alison Christie and Doug Christie, the planning board vice chair.

Welcome.

Good morning.

Thank you very much for having us.

For the record, Alison Christie, General Manager of Development Services, and I'm also Secretary to the Board.

So you all received our report for so far this calendar year.

Um the planning board does hold 11 regular meetings per year, usually break for the month of August.

However, we're not planning to do that this year.

We will be having an August meeting because we're that busy.

Um so far this year, we've had uh 15 total petitions, and that includes a comprehensive plan amendment, three rezone amendment um applications, five site plans, two conditional uses, two right-of-way vacations, one zoning text amendment, and one G zone waiver.

And then I will turn it over to our Vice Chair Doug.

Uh that all sounds correct to me.

Um I don't really have much to report substantively, and I apologize, this is going to be a little bit uh cursory uh from my perspective, but uh I intend fully intended to go back and spend however long it would have taken me to look at all of our prior uh board uh comments at the end of our meeting to kind of get a flavor for what our our current potential issues are.

So what I'm saying right now is largely from recollection because I was on vacation last week and I just didn't have the time when I got back um Friday with other things to catch up on.

But long story short, I mean I think we work well with staff, and if I were going to highlight some issues that I think we encounter frequently enough that they might merit some attention.

Uh I think the first one is the information sharing.

Uh sometimes we feel like we're not getting full or adequate information, and I think some of that's a procedural issue.

Like for example, I know recently we've had some rezone applications where the applicant will come in with additional materials that uh weren't part of the materials we receive, and sometimes those are related to site plans, which may be part of separate applications or may have been sub may have been submitted subsequently, and even though I know we're not technically supposed to be looking at those materials with respect to the rezone application in front of us, we nevertheless feel it would be uh helpful to have that information.

And then kind of similarly, uh we do tend to get distracted by wanting to know what else is going on with the property when things like that are pending, and we do get sidetracked with that.

So I think that would be a much more substantive change for the board with respect to the process.

I don't know that it would be reasonable to expect uh somebody coming to uh the planning board and then ultimately the city commission on a rezone that we know will also involve a site plan or other applications to be doing those all at the same time, but from our perspective, uh we think it would be a lot more helpful to have all those things in front of us and be looking at the full picture instead of just looking at it kind of more uh piecemeal in that respect.

But other than that, uh and unless my fellow planning board member back there uh has further comments.

I think that's uh a sufficient report from my perspective.

Thank you.

Commissioners, do you have questions?

Uh Commissioner A.

Heroncoch.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Having served six years on the planning board.

Um thank you for your for your service and thank you for doing this.

I know it is uh a board that demands a lot of work, a lot of attention, a lot of time, but it's also very rewarding, isn't it?

Sure.

I I learn a lot, yes.

Um you served as our alternate, uh, Mr.

Nehouse uh served as our alternate.

Um that's a relatively new thing for this commission to have an alternate on a board.

Um I'm curious about your thoughts about having an alternate and how that's worked out.

I think it's helpful.

I think just by the nature of the folks who can spend the time to volunteer for this, it's it's inevitable that somebody will be out, somebody will have a conflict, uh some more than others.

So I think the the alternate is a useful position to have.

I mean, having said that and having served in that role and not intending to comment on this, uh it is a little bit more burdensome for that person because I don't know what I I don't know what kind of notice they get, but it's not a lot of notice that I would get frequently, and that means I'm scrambling to look at something in literally less time than I would normally have as a normal uh planning board member.

So you know, perhaps there's some way to change that.

Uh I know some people's schedules change at the last minute, and that makes the alternate have to step up at the last minute.

Um so I think that's just kind of unfortunately baked into that that role for better or for worse.

Maybe the alternate could be given the information at the same time the regular planning board members get the information and just read it and be prepared.

I mean that's fair, but then you're putting a burden on somebody to do something that they might not have to do, and what you know, what's the what's the trade-off there?

I guess if you volunteer knowing that that's baked into your role, then I guess that might make sense.

I mean maybe the maybe the up maybe the solution is additional alternative uh additional alternate.

I don't know.

Um I mean I'm I'm not I haven't really given much thought to other ways to fix that.

That's not a bad idea.

I was if I were going to say one thing about when we get the materials, and I know this would be a burden on city staff as well as perhaps the applicants, but uh getting it basically less than a week before the meeting is not always the most conducive for us to have the time to do this.

For example, I was on vacation last week.

I got back into town Friday at whatever time, it was a holiday, offices are closed, so I'm literally getting you know materials that I have to be reviewing and prepared to discuss and consider in you know 48 hours.

So um I don't know if that's I don't think we've talked about that formally, but if there's a waiting for us to get these materials maybe two weeks out, I think that would be a lot more helpful whether you're a you know actual planning board member or an alternate.

But curious about that.

We can definitely look into doing the the materials earlier.

We do them a week in advance, so we have the materials ready the Wednesday before the Wednesday meeting.

But we can definitely look into doing it earlier.

I mean we get our materials ten days in advance, which makes all the difference in the world.

It doesn't sound like a lot, but ten days to go over you know the material.

I mean, we have more than they do, but um still this one's pretty thick this week, and again I just started reviewing it.

But it's dense.

That's the thing.

It's very dense.

Sometimes you have to read it two or three times to really get the big picture.

And so I'm if there's anything that can be done about that.

And then my other question is typically, you know, I'd like to ask, is there any are there any suggestions about things that can be done better, make it more efficient?

Um also the the role that you have of bringing items to the table.

Um are your planning board members feeling like they they are comfortable to do that as as planning board members to suggest um topics to be brought before the the board.

That's my perception, certainly.

I don't think anybody pulls punches when we get to that part uh of our agenda at the end of the meetings.

Uh I know the gentleman behind me is a frequent commenter and makes great suggestions for ways to change the process or additional things that might be helpful to us.

So I don't have the sense that anybody's uh not comfortable doing that.

Now having said that, obviously implementing those things is a different issue, but I I don't think we've ever not had cooperation from staff or not gotten the information we need when we raise it, and as long as, you know, as long as it's not something that's gonna formally require a change in the application process or things of that nature.

I don't, you know, we again I think we work well with staff.

I think staff adequately supports what we need and is receptive to issues when we bring them to their attention.

That wasn't really what I was hinting at.

I was hinting more at um the planning board members uh feeling comfortable in suggesting uh agenda items for do they know that that's their part of their role is to to bring things forward that they have observed in our process to make our process better.

Oh.

Um that I don't know that I can speak to adequately.

Again, I I know we I know we're comfortable raising issues as we see them.

I I can't specifically tell you that I know members are fully apprised of that opportunity or how to exercise it.

I I do recall I think it's been raised at least a time or two within the past year.

But I don't know what that speaks to for the you know the planning board as a whole.

Okay.

Well maybe that could be um highlighted.

Sure, I I can remind the board members.

I I do think they know that, and we we do have to um often have people bring things up during topics at the end of the agenda.

So thank you, Ms.

Christie.

You do a great job as the the staff uh um liaison to that board.

I know it's sometimes difficult.

Um, but you know you do a very, very good job.

Thank you.

So thank you for that.

Those are my questions, and thank you.

Thank you for your service.

Appreciate it.

Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Well, I too sat six years on the planning board.

We overlapped, I repeat.

Yes.

So I know your joys and your pains.

Thanks to everyone for that.

Um I've watched some meetings, and it's clear that the current board works well together, and I commend you for that.

It's not always easy because you have different points of view on matters.

Uh regarding matter uh materials that come in after the deadline.

That's a real dilemma because you want as much information as you can get.

But there's something to be said about deadlines, isn't there?

And if you miss the deadline, well then you miss it.

So I'd have discussion about that, what to do about it.

Um thirdly, um, when to receive the packet.

I totally agree that one week is just not enough time.

And if you can extend that by even just a couple of days, um, it'd be helpful to planning board members who by definition have to get into the weeds on applications.

And in full disclosure, I don't think we've ever said this at a meeting, so I apologize for springing that on staff at the literal last minute.

I just popped into my head.

Yeah, again, thank you all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I want to thank you both for coming and the presentation and Ms.

Christie.

I hope that you will in some form bring some of those recommendations forward to us to you know do what we need to do regarding them.

Sure.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Oh, wait, do we need a motion?

Yeah, we need a motion.

You can you can be excused as we have a motion, I believe, to receive their report.

So move.

Second.

Okay.

Motion by the Vice Mayor, seconded by Commissioner A.

Her and Kotch to receive the annual update from the planning board.

And may we have your votes, please.

And it passed unanimously.

Thank you all very much.

Uh next up is uh the pension plans uh police officers pension fund board of trustees and pension plans administrator Martin and Chair Ron Beatty are going to make a presentation.

Which I needed to update that because we had a chair change in the middle of the we did the agenda.

So Mr.

Ross Nagel is now our new chair, and Mr.

Beatty is now a vice chair.

So for the record.

Thank you.

So if you want to update the names for the record.

Uh Sergeant Tyler Ross Nagel.

I think I'm Deborah Martin.

I didn't change.

Thank you for having us this morning.

Um the police officers pension plan is one of three defined benefit plans that we administer in our department.

It is the only active plan.

Um we are established pursuant to Chapter 185 of Florida statutes as well as city ordinance.

So as you can imagine, we have a lot of um regulatory and compliance issues to take care of.

And um Mr.

Ross Nagel has been on the board for a little over two years.

He's one of the elected active members.

He does a fine job.

And he, when he's elected chair, I said, guess what?

Yeah, you get to go before city commission.

So I'll try it.

Good morning.

And again, my name is Tyler Ross Nagel.

I'm currently a sergeant with the Sarasota Police Department and currently serve as the chair of the police officers pension board of trustees.

I'm here to provide you with an overview of the police officers' defined benefit pension plan, Board of Trustees, its structure, responsibilities, and vital roles it plays in protecting retirement security of men and women who serve our community.

The police officer's pension plan is defined benefit retirement plan established under Chapter 185 of Florida statutes and Chapter 24-62, Article 2 of the Sarasota City Code.

The city pension ordinance was originally adopted in 1986 and has been amended over the years to ensure compliance with the changes in state law and to meet the needs of both the city and its members.

The Board of Trustees is comprised of five members representing the a balance of the city, the plan participants and the public.

The city auditor and clerk serve as standing trustees.

Two trustees are after participants in the pension plan and are elected by fellow members.

One trustee is appointed by the city commission and must be a legal resident of the city.

The fifth trustee is selected by the other four trustees.

Serving as the pension trustee carries significant fiduciary responsibility.

Under Florida law, every trustee has a legal obligation to act solely in the best interest of the members and beneficiaries of the plan while ensuring the long-term financial health and sustainability of the pension fund.

While many people think the Board of Trust the Board's role simply approving retirements and responsibilities are much broader.

The Board reviews and interprets provisions of the pension plan, determines eligibility for retirement and survivor benefits, approves retirement calculations to ensure members receive the benefits that they have earned.

We also conduct disability retirement hearings when necessary, carefully reviewing medical evidence and an expert opinions before making decisions that can have lifelong impacts on a members and its plan.

Another major responsibility of the board is investment oversight.

Trustees regularly meet with performance and meet with our investment consultants and personal professional fund managers to review portfolio performance, evaluate marketing conditions, monitor investment risk, and ensure assets are appropriately diversified.

Based on those recommendations, the board may authorize reallocations among asset classes or investment managers when doing so at the best interest of the fund.

The board also oversees the plan's financial integrity and commissioning annual actual evaluations, reviewing assumptions about investment returns and future liabilities.

And monitoring the funded status of the plan.

Each year we engage an independent certified public account to conduct a financial audit and retain independent investment consultants to evaluate the performance of our investment managers against industry benchmarks.

In addition, the board is responsible for ensuring compliance with Chapter 185 of the Florida statutes, applicable provisions of internal revenue code and all our state federal regulations governing public pension plans.

We work closely closely with legal counsel, actuary auditors, pension administrators to ensure the plan remains compliant, transparent, and well managed.

Ultimately, every decision made by the board is guided by one objective: protecting the retirement security of our members and maintaining financial sound pension plan for current and future generations with police officers.

As of May 31st, 2026, police officers' pension plan includes 167 active members currently contributing to the plan, 88 members who are not yet vested, four vested members with deferred retirement benefits, 253 retirees with beneficiaries currently receiving pensions, including 17% participants who remain active city employees through the deferred retirement option plan, commonly known as the drop.

In total, the board oversees retirement benefits of more than 500 active members, retirees, beneficiaries, and deferred invested participants.

Before I conclude, I'd like to recognize that dedication of the trustees who have served before me for overall health of the pension fund, their commitment to careful oversight, disciplined investment management, and long-term financial planning, which has resulted in a pension fund that remains exceptionally healthy and well funded.

On behalf of the board, I'd like to thank you for your time and do the best I can to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Commissioners, any questions?

Commissioner Agar and Kotch.

Thank you and congratulations on being the chair.

Thank you for serving on this board.

I'm going to ask you the same question I asked the other board.

Is there anything about the board that you think that can be done better, more efficiently?

Any suggestions you have.

Really, at this time, I think it's been ran pretty well over the years.

As Ms.

Martin said, I'm relatively new to the board over the last two years.

Learned quite a bit.

And I don't I think our board is actually pretty efficient.

Yeah.

I would agree.

Good.

And if you have any suggestions, you can always feel free to to let Ms.

Martin know.

Um any of your board members, you know, that they can make those suggestions at the table.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, I I was going to ask the similar question, so I guess it's Ms.

Martin.

Have you any thoughts on recommended changes to the board's responsibilities or procedures that you know?

Um I don't have any recommendations since I've been in the position.

Um we have implemented internal controls to tighten up to make sure that no nefarious activity occurs.

Um the board is wonderful.

We work with the trustees really well, and they work with the professionals that we all work with very well.

We have good rapport with everyone.

Well, thank you both very much.

And uh not seeing any more questions.

I can excuse you from the dais, and we I will entertain a motion to receive the update.

So move.

Second.

Motioned by the Vice Mayor, seconded by Commissioner Aher and Kotch.

May we have your votes, please.

And it passed unanimously.

Thank you, Million.

Tyler, thank you.

And for serving.

Okay.

We are at consent items.

Consent number one items.

Ms.

Griggs, were there any items polled?

Um at this time I am aware of item number six point three being pulled by Commissioner Ahern Clutch.

And that is the only item that I'm aware of being pulled.

Okay.

So may I have a motion to approve the balance of consent agenda number one?

So move.

Second.

Okay, motion by Commissioner Batti, seconded by the Vice Mayor.

Um may we have your votes, please.

Passed unanimously.

So now uh item uh 6.3, Commissioner Ahern Kotch, you requested that that be pulled.

Yes.

Um Madam Mayor, I reached out um I uh several of the meetings that we had that were had by the residents association for Lido Key.

Um the they would ask about this what's going on with the lights and this you know the damage from the hurricanes and uh so it's it's a big topic.

And I reached out to the neighboring association and they said that they would like uh a presentation uh just on this so that we can uh have it out in the open and uh some of the residents will have some of their questions answered.

So just a short presentation is all I'm requesting.

So project manager Corralis, uh city surveyor Hagen and City Engineer, uh Kamiya, are you prepared?

Uh I see two out of the three.

Good morning, Albie Mary Carallis, Capital Projects Manager.

Um so we have been communicating with the residents of LEDO.

Uh the project as it stands right now, we received funding from Federal Highway Administration.

Those those funds got funneled through to the Florida Department of Transportation, and we have to go through the local um agency partnership agreement that you have before you.

Um right now, some of those lights are in this repair due to the hurricanes.

So the funding would go directly for those um lights.

The reason there's so much delay is because of the process that we have to go through with FDOT.

Um this agreement is the first item that um is before you, and then there's a resolution to actually adopt the agreement.

Once we have that, we have been in communications with FDOT.

They have, since it has federal funds only, um, no state funds.

Um of that local match comes from us.

We should be able to proceed with this once we get all the documentation in place.

And what that means is there is a checklist that needs to be done followed by FDOT.

Once we receive approval from them, um it usually takes a couple of months.

We should be able to do the sole source that we set out to do um as part of this process.

Okay, thank you.

Um for the funding, the city side of the funding, um, those are CIP dollars?

Correct.

Okay.

So I the the coordination that goes with this is pretty important.

Yes.

And the timeline.

Do we have a timeline?

Um so usually the FDOT process takes about two or three months right now.

Um I'm going through a couple of lap agreements with them, and uh there's a lot of back and forth.

So the local agency partnership agreements.

Yeah.

Um so within that time frame, we should be able to get that rolling through FDOT by the end of the year.

Um, but in terms of the procurement process, I I am unsure.

There's um there's the sole source documentation that needs to be done, which has partially been um approved and already gone through our purchasing division.

Uh but from there, uh it's all up to FDOT and the time frame that they have to get this running.

We do have the funds available in this fiscal year.

It's just that without the agreement and without the um documentation that FDOT requires, we cannot fully receive those funds.

And you should get a budget amendment coming through within the next couple of months once we get approval from FDOT.

Okay.

Do we have any kind of an idea of a timeline we can tell the residents?

I am unsure.

I'm just going to say that it would not begin until next next year, calendar year.

So it won't begin until next.

And if everything went smoothly, how long would it take?

Just pretend it does.

It's hard.

You're putting it in a situation.

Okay.

I'm wondering if your question really is once it gets started, how long will it take the work to be accomplished exactly?

I think within so we have a couple of lights that have to be replaced.

So I would say within a year and a half or so.

I just want to be able to give the residents an idea of what they're what they're in for.

You know, of course, they've been talking to us for a long time about when is this going to happen, what's hold up, what's the problem?

Yes.

It is also regarding supply.

So a lot of the batteries need to be replaced as well.

So we are at the supplier's mercy as well.

Okay.

Um it's just want to have the information.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

Those are my questions.

Thank you.

Anybody else with questions?

Uh thank you very much, Ms.

Kerr Alis.

Um we I would move approval of consent uh six point three.

Second.

Okay, motion by Commissioner A.

Her and Kotch, seconded by Commissioner Batchie to approve this uh item 6.3.

May we have your votes, please.

And it is um approved unanimously.

Thank you all very much.

Um we now are at consent agenda number two.

Ms.

Griggs, are there any items to be pulled?

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I believe item number 7.1 is to be pulled by Mayor Trice, and item 7.5 is to be pulled by Commissioner Aaron Coch, and that is all I'm aware of.

Okay, so would you like to read the titles?

Yes, please.

Thank you, Mayor.

Resolution number 26R 3400, a resolution of the City Commission of the City of Sarasota, Florida, calling for the first municipal election to be held on Tuesday, August 18, 2026, and a general municipal election to be held on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2026.

For the purpose of electing two at-large city commissioners for a term of four years, setting forth the location of the polling places, authorizing the mayor to appoint the clerks, inspectors, and officers for the election, providing for reading of this resolution by title only and providing an effective date.

Resolution number 26R, sorry 3401, 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 identified in exhibit A, provided for servability if any of the parts hereof are declared invalid, providing for reading by title only and providing an effective date.

Resolution number 26R 3402, 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 identified in exhibit A, provided for servability if any of the parts hereof are declared invalid, provided for reading by title only and providing an effective date.

Resolution number 26R 3404, a resolution of the city commission of the city of Sarasota, Florida, authorizing the mayor and city auditor and clerk to execute the local agency program agreement between the state of Florida, Department of Transportation, and the City of Sarasota for the Hurricane Milton Permanent Highway Light and Repair Project, provided for reading of this resolution by title only and providing for an effective date.

Resolution number 26R 3405, a resolution of the city of Sarasota, sorry, a resolution of the city commission of the city of Sarasota, Florida, amending the budget for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2025, but provide for supplemental appropriations in the amounts identified in exhibit A.

Provide for save ability if any of the parts are declared invalid, providing for reading by title only and provided an effective date.

Resolution number 26R 3406.

A resolution of the City Commission of City of Sarasota, Florida, a meaning the budget for fiscal year beginning October 1, 2025, by providing for supplemental appropriations in the amounts identified in exhibit A.

Provided for servability if any of parts here of are declared invalid.

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

To increase the rate set forth therein by adding a uniform surcharge of $3.63 per account to be used to fund the City of Sarasota Natural Disaster Collection Reserve Account and to delete provision setting the rates that were previously in fact for fiscal year 2023-2024 and 2024-2025.

Amending the Sarasota City Code Chapter 13, emergencies to add there to a new section 13-7 to be entitled Natural Disaster Collection Reserve Account.

In order to codify resolution 26R-3372, providing for the severability of the parts hereof, provided for reading by title only and providing an effective date.

And that's all May.

Thank you very much.

So I'm going to ask for a motion to adopt the balance of consent agenda number two, which would be excluding number one and number five.

So move.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

Second.

Okay.

Move by Commissioner Batti, seconded by the Vice Mayor.

May we have your votes please?

And also it will be roll call as well.

Okay.

Ahern Cotch?

Yes.

Albert?

Yes.

Betty.

Yes.

Alright.

Yes.

Trice.

Yes.

Commissioner Albert, can you hit your button for me again?

Thank you.

Oh.

Go through.

Okay.

Thank you.

It passed unanimously.

The reason I pulled item number one was because if you look at the text of the resolution on the second page of the resolution, section three, as authorized by section 12-4 of the code of the city of Sarasota, Florida, the Mayor, or in his absence, the Vice Mayor.

After we had our first female mayor was 40 years ago.

So I am suggesting that we move to gender neutral language.

And specifically on this item, I would ask that that or in his absence be amended to, or in the mayor's absence.

Mayor, you don't mind?

Thank you.

Definitely definitely agree.

But that is in the code.

So that's something that maybe needs to be discussed on another level of updating the code.

I don't know if it needs to come back to commission.

I don't know if you can just have the city attorney look into it and just make those updates because we're not changing the code.

But that is something that probably should be addressed where the code needs to be changed.

Can I?

Yes.

Who is first?

My button's not working.

Oh sorry.

That is my fault.

I hadn't switched back yet.

Okay.

Sorry, I'm sorry.

She grabbed the mic first.

Sure.

Um while you're bringing it up, one of the agreements as well that we have before us, the definition of the city manager.

Um also has city manager means city manager of the city of Sarasota, Florida, or his designee and refers to our city manager many times throughout this as he he he he he.

Something I've been bringing up for a very long time, and literally as you can see by my notes here, makes me crazy.

So please, whatever we can do to fix this, gender neutral or just designee or mayor, whatever we need to do, please let's definitely think that with this, we can you all can make the decision to change it in this particular um but I think move a forward and maybe need to be a discussion to change the code to update that language in the code.

So thank you.

And uh Vice Mayor, did you have something you wanted to add?

Uh it's been covered okay.

Great.

So can so you are saying we can change the language the in language in this resolution if the commission so agrees.

Do we have to pull this and do that for this one?

No, I mean, I I I will say I'm we're speaking on this particular one.

I don't want to bring everything into this particular um approval.

So if you want to make the you know the motion to approve this with the suggested changes, um discuss, we can do that, and then we can discuss that further later.

Okay.

So may I have a motion or are we still discussing with the correction?

Okay.

Um so motion by Commissioner Alpert, seconded by Commissioner Batti to approve resolution 26R-340 with the amended changing the language to the mayor rather than gender neutral.

May we have your votes, please.

And also that will be roll call.

Albert?

Yes.

Betty?

Yes.

Ulric?

Yes.

Trice?

Yes.

Aaron Kotch.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

It passes unanimously.

And now we are looking at uh item uh 7.5 uh Commissioner Ahern Kotch, you pulled this?

Yes, just for uh um a presentation uh as well.

Okay, yes, uh invite uh deputy city attorney Joe Balladnikdown.

Okay, and and uh director of financial administration, Kelly Strickland is joining us also.

Thank you.

Uh well this item uh is in regards to outside counsel and litigation expenditures and really there's two primary cost drivers behind this.

Um the first one is is a case that I know you're all you all are familiar with because we we had a shade meeting on it um on I believe May 6th.

And that's the case of uh Carl Jackson and Rose Salem versus City of Sarasota.

And uh, you know, that case involved uh allegations that basically uh police officers were were engaged in in a pursuit uh when in fact uh they they actually were gonna stop an individual.

They started to in engage and turned on their lights and sirens and uh the person fled.

Uh that person crashed into someone else and uh you know the person that he hit, you know, suffered injuries and um you know the litigation isn't sued.

And it's it's set for trial in August.

It's been quite expensive.

Uh you know, there's been over 200,000 in uh attorneys' fees and costs to date.

And more is anticipated, and so that's that's part of what uh this is about is not just um past expenses but uh future ones.

And it's not just attorney's fees, but it's also costs, which include you know, transcriptionists, uh you know, paying for deposition transcripts, court reporters, expert witnesses, uh, you know, so there are all sorts of associated costs with that.

Um, when talking about litigation, it's it's a little challenging because uh, you know, as you know, you you have to discuss many things uh as a commission at public meetings, uh, and you're required to pursue the sunshine law, and but you know there is one big exception, and that is uh you know, attorney client shade meetings, and so that's where we usually like to discuss you know items like litigation expenditures and litigation strategy.

So, you know, I don't want to go too far um discussing these items in depth, but I I definitely want to answer any questions you may have.

Um the the other major cost driver is uh uh a lawsuit, Christian Siegler versus City of Sarasota, and that was uh a 1983 action in federal court, and you know, we have incurred uh uh significant expenses in in that case as well, and anticipate further expenses.

So those are the two major cost drivers.

Um, the the third would be you know uh litigation involving land use decisions, and and there's there's six of those.

Uh and you know, I I'll be happy to go into uh detail or not.

Um but uh that's just kind of uh uh a 10,000 foot view of what the cost drivers are behind this amendment.

I I think my biggest uh question is um uh sort of planning for these situations and and uh the financial um pathway that we we handle all of this.

I mean we are going we should anticipate that we're going to have lawsuits and that we're going to either settle, litigate, you know uh mediate them and and have these expenses.

So what is the financial path and why why are why is this coming to us when I don't recall this having come to us before and in in these kinds of situations?

Or perhaps it has and I just don't recall it.

I'm just curious about that.

I'll adjust that.

My name is Kelly Strickland.

I'm for the records, I'm the director of financial administration.

And what we have here are just as he mentioned, the cost due to the actions that have been taken uh recently for past experience when we've had big claims, we've had to come to you for a budget amendment.

For past experience, when we've had big claims, we've had to come to you for a budget amendment.

What we do during the budget planning process is try to anticipate as much as we can as far as out what this represents outside legal council mediation fees, claims, uh disposition hearings, that type thing.

But we don't necessarily know.

So when you see when we come to the budget workshops in the end of J July, you will see a number for the city attorney, and we will we can talk it through of what is anticipated there, but we really don't know until it happens.

And also as far as being able to pay the invoices, we have to have budget.

So that's why you have a budget amendment before you right now.

Um there's an increase to the general fund, an increase to the fleet and liability fund, and an increase to the police liability fund.

So for lack of a better term, uh, you know, we just created this natural disaster savings account sort of a situation so that we can anticipate those situations and then have the funds available to to do that.

Do we have um I know you just explained that we do, but is there something we can do better to anticipate so that we don't have to go into the the general fund?

Well, as right now we're working on the general fund.

You know, with a hurricanes that our fund balance is at an extreme low.

Right.

So we have a three-year plan to rebuild that.

We do have a revenue revenue stabilization fund within the general fund.

Um any future reserves would be a decision of the commission if you'd like to.

But is there a mechanism to plan for litigation?

Do we have it would be just using the reserves or else planning an additional reserve for that?

And and that's that's something that um we've talked about a little bit for for next year as well.

And um, you know, the the feedback I've gotten thus far is that uh the budget's more backwards looking as far as historical norms.

And you know, the the uh the preference I've heard from from staff and administration is to um budget as as to historical norms and then come back to you with amendments as needed, but it could be done another way.

It could could be more of a forward looking, saying, well, we anticipate in this coming year there's gonna be greater expenditures because of XYZ and and budget for it in advance, and then we don't have to come back with an amendment.

So so those are the the two different ways to do it, which is basically you know, really look at at the nuts and bolts of what do we have coming down the road, let's go ahead and budget for it in advance.

That's that's one option.

The other option is just budget like we always have and come back to you with with amendments as needed.

So th those are really the the the two different strategies and and you know presently it's come back as needed.

Uh Mr.

Polzek, do you have any comments on that?

Yeah, I mean I think that's a discussion probably for the next budget cycle as we plan for the next year how how we want to do that.

I'm happy to work with the new city manager on that as also what's effective for for the Yeah.

I just you know, I I don't love surprises when it and not that it's a good surprise either.

When it comes especially to the general fund right now, I think we're all super sensitive to the general fund and we're doing what we can to protect it and also get our reserves where they need to be.

That's also a really important situation for us.

So um I'm a planner, I like to plan ahead and and have that pot of money ready to go in case something happens.

Um being here a month, we've had numerous conversations about the budget that you're gonna be seeing here relatively soon, the draft budget.

And this is a conversation I think we can have during those budget cycles and the workshops we're having with the commission.

Um I understand the hesitat hesitation to over budget on legal fees because our general fund is so tight.

So I do think it's a fine balance there.

But I know that these are also abnormal um situations with the litigation that we're going through.

This is not something that we anticipate seeing every single year or two.

I but I think we could find the good balance there as we go into our workshops.

Well, and then um also if I may, Madam Mayor.

Yeah, you're about out of time.

Okay.

I just wanted to add about the sovereign immunity was vetoed by the governor, but I would anticipate it's coming back.

And so if the sovereign immunity levels are going to be raised, I think we should be having conversations about planning.

Yeah, I definitely think the budgeting could be more robust to to plan for these things in advance if if the preference is to be ready for them as opposed to you know having amendments.

Okay.

Um I suppose so, yes.

Okay, uh Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Um I'll be very interested in discussions about establishing a reserve account for this particular reason during our budget workshops.

Um and the other that wasn't a question.

Um but my question is is there any possibility that we could recoup some of these funds if any of these cases end up in our favor?

Well, you know, earlier this year we we did have um a case where you know I filed a motion for summary judgment, which was granted, and there had also been uh a proposal for settlement uh which caused a fee shifting provision where I I did pursue that and we did get funds back.

And that's a very rare thing to to have done or to to have executed successfully.

Uh you know, basically in in most litigation, the prevailing party can get costs, which are are not including attorney's fees, so it's more of hard costs, uh which are very you know a small portion of of the overall expenditures which which include attorneys' fees and costs, and then sometimes you have a fee shifting uh provision, like when you make a proposal for settlement.

You you may recall I I I talked to you guys sometimes at shade meetings about you know we've received a proposal for settlement or we're making a proposal for settlement.

In those cases, then it can uh trigger an attorney fee provision.

But but most of the time uh even if you win, you're not getting your attorney's fees back.

That's just the way it is.

Now, you know, as I said, you can't have fee shifting provisions or in certain causes of action uh that's available in certain contracts, uh contexts.

Um are the only thing where you're getting money back, but it it it's frankly a small fraction of the overall expenditures.

Thank you.

Uh Commissioner Batti, did you change your mind about it Okay?

I I just and I just had a question.

Is there any way that we could adjust our insurance coverage to uh cover more of our legal costs?

So is you aware we have we're self-insured, we have a self-insurance fund.

Um the reason we're having to pull from the general fund here is because that self-insurance fund is legally required to keep a certain amount in it.

Um and included in the self-insurance fund is police liability, your group health and life, your fleet liability, your general liability, your workers' comp.

Um these items, and we have to keep a certain balance there.

As we come to the budget workshops, we can talk about that.

Um where the revenues come for the this fund, um, primarily are our our employees for their health insurance from the various funds for their fleet needs and the police for their police liability.

Um so we don't have a really solid funding source other than just allocating it throughout the city, and that's where we will we'll have that discussion at budget.

Yeah, yeah, I will be interested to hear at budget discussion and also you know, is there a kind of insurance for you know an excess legal fee over you know million dollar whatever?

You know, so but we'll talk about that during budget season.

Yes, and it could be, and we are we're looking into it if we instead of being self-insured, if we had an insurance company, would it be possibly a savings?

And that is something that we're looking at.

Great.

It's always good to assess the cost of that compared to where we're at.

Yeah.

Great.

Well, thank you.

Um does that address your issues with this agenda item.

Would you like to make a motion?

Uh sure.

I would move approval of uh consent item two 7.5.

Second.

Okay.

Motion by Commissioner Ahern Coch, seconded by Commissioner Batti.

Um we have your to approve.

May we have your votes?

Also roll call, Betty.

Yes.

All right, yes.

Yes.

Aheron Kotch?

Yes.

Albert.

Yes.

And it passed unanimously.

Now I'm looking at the clock, and it's 1020.

I had thought we might be able to get through board appointments before a break, but I will ask for your thoughts.

Shall we take the break?

Yes.

Okay.

So it is uh ten twenty one.

Shall we break until ten thirty five?

Yes.

Nine minutes.

We have to go upstairs.

Well about the how about ten thirty-five.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

We are on recess till ten thirty-five.

Thank you.

Oh, I played it.

Welcome back.

We're returning from break.

Calling the meeting back into session.

And the first thing on our agenda at this point, we're at board appointments.

Item 8.1 is the appointment of the external auditor selection committee.

And is I look at the wrong thing?

No, you're good.

Okay.

I'm ready to make a motion.

Okay.

Or recommendation.

Okay.

Commissioner Ahern Koch is ready to make a recommendation.

I would move to appoint the two applicants, Hugh Fiori and Kelly Brown.

I'll second.

Okay.

Motion by nomination by uh Commissioner Ahern Kotch and seconded by the Vice Mayor to appoint you Fiore and Kelly Brown to the External Auditor Selection Committee.

And they were the two individuals who had applied.

So do we have consensus?

Do we need a vote?

No, we need to vote if we have a consensus.

Yeah.

Mayor.

Both of them are to the applied.

So well, I I don't think we need a discussion.

I think if we are very pleased to welcome you to the external auditor selection committee by consensus.

Thank you very much.

Was that a hoop to do?

Okay.

Next up is the appointment.

And we have uh several applicants, uh Mr.

Lemay and Mr.

DeLeo.

Uh their terms expired, but Mr.

Lemay has expressed interest in being appointed.

And I see the vice mayor would like to make a nomination.

No, I'd like discussion.

Oh well, a nomination.

First of all, if we could agree that uh Mr.

Lemay will be reappointed, then we'd have only one person to discuss after that.

Is there any objection?

I'd ask to reappointing Mr.

Lemay to the planning board.

No objection.

Is there any okay?

So I I don't see any objection.

Huh?

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm not gonna say I wouldn't reappoint him, but then if that's the case, then you don't have a consensus.

Okay, so we don't have a consensus.

So we will be looking for two applications.

And so the rest of my discussion is I think we have very highly qualified applicants.

And it was difficult for me to select from among them.

So what I did was make a little grid for myself and identify that the planning board is heavily weighted for district two residents.

There is one district three resident and zero district one residents.

So with that in mind, I would nominate highly qualified candidate Rebecca Owens, who lives in District One.

Um Commissioner Ahern Cotch, you're on the board.

Yeah, I would like to nominate uh Mr.

Lamay to be reappointed.

That would be my first um suggestion.

And um I don't know how we're gonna go about doing this because um if we he does not get reappointed, then there are two spots to fill, which determines everything else.

So I think at first we need to address the reappointment.

Yeah, just the question.

And you know, I mean uh uh you know I I'm gonna I I I would be the only one out, so I'll just can with consent.

Let's just address that first.

So do we have a motion to reappoint Mr.

LeMay?

Yes, that's the motion I'm making.

Second.

Okay.

Okay, motion by Commissioner Ahern or nomination by Commissioner Ahern Koch, seconded by uh the vice mayor to reappoint Mr.

Lamey.

Okay, please vote.

Okay, that's unanimous.

That brings us to we need to fill one more one more position.

Uh the vice mayor has nominated Ms.

Owens uh Miss Commissioner Ahern Koch, you still on the board, or you pass it.

Um yes, and I I would like to have some discussion about um uh Tiffany Nisbet and um Justin Bloom as well.

Um Vice Mayor, your point is well taken.

I hadn't thought about it as far as districts go.

That's that is a good that is a good uh uh point to bring up about district representation.

Um but from uh experience level, um Ms.

Nisbet currently serves on our board of adjustment, has done a great job on there and represented well.

Um she prepares for the meetings and she's you know knowledgeable, lives in the city a long time, has a lot of qualifications that I think are are really invaluable, along with Justin Bloom as well.

He lives in uh you know he's lived in our cities, been he went to new college, uh so he's you know a Sarasotan, so to speak, um, has a family in a home and you know is active involved.

Um his other qualifications, you know, are are valuable, but his residency is also and his advocacy at that level are also valuable.

Um so I just wanted to hear your dis your thoughts on those because I had not thought of the district representation piece of it, which is a very good point.

Uh Commissioner Albert.

Um I I agree we have um five really qualified nominees nominees.

So um it was hard for me to um narrow it down as well, and and I was uh leaning towards Tiffany Nisbet.

Um but I think the Vice Mayor's point about someone from District One, I think is a good one, and Rebecca Owens, I you know, was my uh second um you know, first or second choice.

So as I was leaning towards Tiffany Nisbet and Rebecca Owens.

So I'm happy to go with Rebecca Owens because I think there is something to be said for having someone from every district on the planning board because they have a different perspective.

Okay, and Commissioner Batti.

Uh yes, um, I met with uh Mr.

Bloom and um Mrs.

Nedbith.

I haven't met with Mrs.

Owens um not familiar with who she is.

I searched high and low in district one to find um qualify applicants for the planning board, thought that we had a couple, um, but they they lived outside of the the um the city um and you know couldn't do it.

Uh and particularly like someone from uh um netown area um and again that that that didn't work out but uh you know familiar with both Mr.

Bloom and um Mrs.

Nedbith had had uh um dealings and with uh Mr.

Bloom, particularly when it came to uh Whitaker Bayou and the water access and trying to gain the grant, you know, to to uh get money for dredging and so on.

Um so he you know played a uh a valuable role in trying to help make that happen with the waterkeepers and all that kind of stuff.

So it speaks to you know his level of uh involvement in the city and engagement.

Um Mrs.

Nesbitt has a great deal of uh involvement and engagement with the city as well.

She not only was she um a part of the uh um adjustment board, but also um on the uh downtown master plan board as well.

So she's given a great deal of her time and energy to to the city and and to our boards.

And I think like you know, when you look at the tiers of of um of the city, you know, from the say the city commission, then the planning board, the board of adjustments, board of adjustments might be a tier bel below the planning board, which you go from the planning board and the next step probably be the planning board or whatever.

I think uh that that uh you know she would be a valuable asset to the planning board, you know, if if we were to to go that route.

And like I said, she's also on on the uh ad hoc committee for the uh downtown master plan as well.

So she has a great deal of familiarity with with what we're trying to do in terms of the development and planning of the city.

So um I've got to be quite frank.

It's disappointing to me when applicants for a board as important as the planning board do not make appointments with commissioners to meet them in person.

And I'm not really pleased with having to uh decide based purely on a paper application.

So uh I met with I'm I'm I'm just expressing my things.

So I I met with Ms.

Nisbet, Mr.

Bloom and Mr.

Lemay, and while I was impressed with everyone that I spoke to in person, I really felt that Mr.

Bloom stood out while he has professional knowledge, gravitas.

He also seems really connected to the community, the residents, and maybe that is also something we need to add to the planning board.

And as far as Ms.

Owens goes, I appreciate the idea of you know, let's make sure we have somebody from all of the districts.

However, from her application, it looks like she moved into the district within the past year.

So doesn't necessarily have a history there.

So I am leaning toward Mr.

Bloom.

So Commissioner Ahern Kotch, you're next up.

Yeah, I'm just curious why you didn't uh I had the opportunity to meet with four of the five.

So they didn't make appointments.

Did you have the appointment last year?

I have to I have no uh no issue, I don't know timing wise postponing this decision to give you the opportunity to meet with everybody and have that discussion, or anybody else here who didn't get the opportunity.

Um I met with all of them and I I know Mr.

Schimmel as well.

Yeah, I do also done a lot of work for our need to meet with uh wouldn't know I didn't meet with Mrs.

Schimmel, nor did uh did uh I meet with Mrs.

Owens and whatnot.

I had the opportunity to meet with her, so I mean I didn't I didn't even I didn't meet I don't think I met with Shane Lamain actually, but I met with uh everybody except for Mr.

Shovel.

Yeah, I mean I already know and I know you yeah, and and I appreciate that you have the opportunity and will take at you know your recommendations into you know because they're based on one-on-one contact.

I do appreciate that.

Would you would you like the opportunity to postpone this and and have the opportunity to meet with them before you make this morning?

I think that we can come to a consensus.

I mean, I you know I don't have a problem, you know, continuing it to meet with to meet with her or whatever, especially as she's coming out of my district, you know.

Um can I ask a quick question?

Is this gonna hinder, and I'm this might be for Ms.

Christie.

Is this gonna hinder you all from having meetings?

I just want to make sure we're not putting the planning board in a position where at least they have a meeting on Wednesday.

Like are are we putting you all in a bad position that they postpone?

Thank you for asking.

Um we do have a meeting on Wednesday.

I believe we would with the reappointment of Mr.

Lemay, we would have four.

Okay, you go ahead and you have a so you have enough okay to have our quorum.

As long as everybody's able to show up.

Yes.

I haven't heard of any other absences, so we should have four for our meeting on Wednesday.

I just want to make sure.

Thank you.

Well, I think we heard three people who were for Ms.

Nisbet.

So you know maybe that's a step in in that direction.

So can I ask a question?

So the um said they'll have four.

The fifth is coming off of the planning board.

Is that what it is?

And to leave it.

So he's coming off.

It expired in June.

They have a meeting on Wednesday.

We appoint someone today that would be a part of that meeting on Wednesday.

How they're going to be up to speed with what we've got.

How are they going to read all the documents?

We just had this I actually had this discussion with some of them, and they are the applicants are know about the meeting on Wednesday and have been reading and getting prepared.

That's the level of commitment you have when you when you apply for this board.

And so some of them are already reading the materials.

Okay.

Vice Mayor, you're up on the on the list next.

Um I don't have anything to say.

Okay.

And Commissioner Alford.

Well, then, you know, I I don't think we should necessarily delay it.

Um and from what I you know, like when I was serving on a board, I kept serving until they could get somebody else appointed.

So it just doesn't, you know, it doesn't mean that they uh don't stay on.

But I think there were three that mentioned Tiffany Nisbet, so I'm gonna nominate Tiffany Nisbet for the board.

I would do the same.

I concur.

Okay.

So is there a consensus for Tiffany Nisbet?

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

Yes, okay.

So we have a consensus to appoint Tiffany Nisbet to the planning board.

All right, great.

Thank you all very much.

Thank you all for applying.

Yeah.

Yes.

And next opening.

And there is a next opening in 27, I believe.

Okay.

In June, less than a year.

So the next item up is the board of adjustment.

Which the appointment that you all just made affects this one because Ms.

Nesbitt will have to resign from this board to be on the planning board.

But you do have applications where you can appoint to the Yeah, and I wanted to bring up the fact that requirement of the Board of Adjustment, and it is actually underlined in the ordinance, is that the board member must be a city resident.

We've got two applicants right now.

One of them is not currently a resident.

So I would like a legal opinion as to whether or not that individual can be appointed.

So my understanding I actually spoke with him, and he owns a property in the city in house for some time and is demolishing that property and then rebuilding on the same site.

So he's essentially just living somewhere else temporarily.

Out of the city temporarily while the rebuild is occurring.

And it's almost completed.

Well you said before the end by the end of the year.

So is that sufficient to meet the requirements of the law?

I think it is.

I mean it's analogous to somebody maybe they live seasonal away for part of the year but maintain their residency here.

Okay.

I'd like to make a nomination.

Okay.

So but so let me also clarify.

Do we have two to fill or just one to fill with Ms.

Nisbet?

Not quite resigning yet.

Two, because she has to resign because you appointed her, so she doesn't have a choice.

So you it's two.

Okay, so she's aware, she knows that.

Okay, so we're looking for two nominations.

Yeah, and I would nominate Mr.

Salem and Mr.

Blumetti for these positions.

They both served on the planning board, did a phenomenal job on those two boards.

Um you repeat that I didn't hit a second thing.

Mr.

Salem and Mr.

Blumetti.

Um they both did a phenomenal job.

They were prepared, they were engaged.

Um they are two sort of dream applicants for this.

So that's my nomination, both of them.

I'm next up for a comment, and I will.

Uh I served on the planning board with both of these gentlemen.

And know that they come prepared.

And are as uh Commissioner Ahern Koch said, dream candidates, dream applications.

We can't miss with both of them.

Okay.

So um Commissioner Alpert, did you wish to say anything?

No, I was going to uh nominate Mr.

Blumetti anyway, so we've got two applicants.

We should nominate the two applicants.

Okay.

So they're both Mr.

Blumetti and Mr.

Salem have been mentioned, and I see Commissioner Batti nodding his head.

So do we have a consent to appoint both of them to the two open positions?

Yes.

Yes, great.

All right, sounds good.

Thank you.

Um finally, item 8.4 is my nomination to the Sarasota Housing Authority Board of Directors, and there are uh both of the current members whose terms are expiring this month, have expressed interest in being reappointed.

Um and Commissioner Ahern Koch is actually on this board, so I would appreciate your recommendation whether or not these individuals should be reappointed.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you for that.

Um absolutely.

Okay.

Yeah, they they both do a great job, show up prepared um and and really discuss the issues at a level that's necessary.

So absolutely.

Great.

So I would be happy to nominate uh Carolyn Mason and David Morgan to be reappointed to the Sarasota Housing Authority Board of Directors.

And um we have a consensus of the commission confirming that.

Yes.

Yep, yes, Commissioner Albert, you good?

I'm good.

Okay, thank you.

Great.

Thank you very much.

And so we had our break, and we are moving on to legislative public hearings.

And uh Ms.

Griggs, do you want to administer the oath for us, please?

Yes.

Anyone who plans on speaking at any public hearing held today, please stand and take a note.

Okay.

Do you swore or affirm it the evidence or factual representations which we're about to give or present to this commission during any public hearing held the sixth day of July 2026 are truthful?

Thank you.

Okay.

So the next item is a public hearing on proposed ordinance number 26-5597.

So I will open the public hearing on the proposed ordinance and call upon City Auditor and Clerk Griggs to read the title of it.

Thank you, Mayor.

Ordinance number 26-5596, an ordinance of the City of Sarasota amending Chapter 24 personnel, Article 2, Pensions Division 4, General Employees Defined Benefit Pension Plan of the Code of City Ordinances of the City of Sarasota, amending Section 24-116, reemployment after retirement, repealing our ordinances in conflict here with providing for severality of the parts hereof if declared invalid, providing for reading by title only and provide an effective date.

Okay.

So do we have any persons who have requested to speak on this item?

No, Mayor.

Okay.

So presentation?

Okay.

Presentation by I saw your name first, so that's good news.

Well, we would like to call on uh the pension attorney to he is actually via Zoom and he will go ahead and make that presentation.

Okay.

So can everybody hear me okay?

Yes.

Yes, yes.

Very good.

Stuart Kaufman with the uh law firm of Klaus McKaufmann Jensen Levinson, uh fortunate enough to represent the uh general employees' pension fund as well as the police plan and the fire plan as well.

Uh the ordinance contains just a small change uh to the city code, which uh currently requires that if you go out on normal retirement and you are reemployed thereafter, if you are under the age of 59 and a half, then your benefit shall be discontinued for the period of reemployment.

Uh there have been some changes to both the tax code and the IRS regulations that do not prohibit someone who goes out on normal retirement.

In this case, it would be 30 years of credited service, would not prohibit them uh from receiving and continuing to re to receive their their benefit, even if they were under the age of 59 and a half, so that is the just a quick uh small change and fix to the current ordinance.

Uh you have an actual impact statement for you as well, uh confirming that there is no financial or actual impact to the plan as well, and something that may never come up, but just in case someone is reemployed after uh completing 30 years of uh employment as an employee of the city, uh they do not have to have their benefits discontinued should they uh be re-employed, they would not be eligible to participate in the plan again, uh but at least they continue to receive their uh benefits during the period of reemployment.

Thank you.

Um Commissioners, are there any questions?

I don't have any questions.

Okay.

Uh actually I do have, I guess a simple one based on your testimony.

I gather that the reason for the change is the tax code has changed.

Yeah, although the past couple of years the tax code is has changed, even to the point where uh there does not need to be a break in service, and you continue.

It's called an in-service distribution.

You can continue to receive your benefit without there being a break in service.

But the ordinance does currently provide for a break in service.

So that's not really an issue, but it is uh clear that it is uh legal under the tax code and the uh IRS regulations as well, that we do not need to discontinue the benefits if you reach eligibility for normal retirement.

In this case, it's you know 30 years of accredited service.

So it would really apply to anyone that begins their employment with the city prior to being age 29 and a half and puts in 30 years of service and is then re-employed.

So if it even comes up down the road, it you know, may not.

Um but just in case it does, we you know we don't want to uh penalize anyone who is under the age of 59 and a half from continuing to receive their benefit, especially if they you know put it in the longstanding service of 30 years to the city.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um and I guess I don't know if this is a question for you, Ms.

Criggs.

Um people who are under the defined benefit plan who have retired and then they are rehired.

I was just wondering about this relative to FRS.

Do you automatically have to go back on to defined benefit or do you have the option of FRS or I b I believe you would have to go back on FRS, but I wouldn't have verified that.

Yes, you cannot re-enter the DB plan.

Okay.

You are re-employed.

You have to go through the normal processes with HR apply.

And if you're re-imployed re-employed, you become a member of the FS.

So you can be retired under the defined benefit plan and rehired and continue rehired, but continue if we pass, continue your uh pension payment, receiving your pension.

But as a rehired new employee, you will start on FRS.

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It's difficult when we have multiple retirement plans.

Thank you.

Uh any other questions from the commission?

So I guess I will entertain a motion.

Move to adopt ordinance 26-5597.

Second.

Oh, sorry.

Thank you.

Closing the public hearing.

And now I move.

And and motion by the Vice Mayor, seconded by Commissioner Batti to approve approve this uh proposed ordinance.

And we are voting.

Yes, and it will also be roll call.

Aaron Cotch.

Yes.

Albert?

Yes.

Betty?

Yes.

Alright?

Yes.

Yes.

And motion passes unanimously.

Thank you all.

And we all.

Thank you for participating.

So now we are at uh item 10.2 uh proposed ordinance 26-5599.

And I'm going to open the public hearing on that and ask uh Ms.

Griggs to read the title of proposed ordinance number 526-5599.

Thank you, Mayor.

And ordinance, ordinance number 26-5599, an ordinance of the City of Sarasota, Florida to vacate their certain 4,0145.4 plus minus square foot section of the approximately 20-foot wide, improved right-of-way, known as Osprey Court, running east-west between the western edge of South Osprey Avenue and the east boundary of block 10 for a distance of approximately 207.28 feet.

Such section of improved alleyway having been platted as an unnamed alley on the plat of the subdivision of block D of Map of Sarasota, Florida, all as is more particularly described herein, providing for several of the parts here of provided for reading by title only and provided for an effective aid.

Sorry about that.

Thank you very much.

I will call upon Chief Planner Dodge to make a presentation.

Mayor, before we get started with that, I have a procedural question.

And I think this is to the city attorney.

So I watched the planning board meeting, and there was a lot of discussion about the proposed development on the site.

However, we're not here discussing a site plan.

We're here discussing whether or not to vacate, right?

Correct.

So what do we do with information that is presented today that is related to the site and the proposed site plan?

Disregard it totally or what?

Well, um I don't think you need to disregard it totally.

Um so you you can factor it into your analysis uh as you weigh the uh criteria for us revocation in the code in the zoning code, but the the applicant has been clear that they are not proffering a specific slight plan with this revocation application.

So they they will not be bound by a specific site plan moving forward.

There are specific um design elements and and conditions that we put in the ordinance that they have agreed to be bound by uh moving forward, those are in section two of the ordinance, those are permanent, and then section three has conditions precedent, which are things that have to occur before the sheet vacation becomes effective.

So but but back to your the the essence of your question, I I would say this is a legislative hearing, so you can weigh that.

Um and that can be part of your analysis, but just to be clear that they are not proffering a specific site plan.

So during the planning board meeting, the applicant did proffer certain things and uh did so to um provide greater benefit to the commun public benefit, and that's one of the things we have to base our decision on based on the standards for review.

So are you saying that anything that's proffered today isn't really because they're not proffering a site plan?

No, that that's no.

If I applied that, that's incorrect.

Anything they have proffered that is in the draft ordinance before you is absolutely they are gonna be bound to that, and that should factor into your analysis of whether there's a uh public purpose being uh provided or not.

Thank you.

Okay, let me also add, because I don't know if the vice mayor was present.

In the past, this commission has been known to approve a vacation subject to site plan approval in the future, so that if the site plan does not get approved, that we will take back that vacation.

Right.

And and and that's a good a good segue into some of the terms of the ordinance before you too.

That this ordinance does say that for the site for the street vacation to become effective, they have to have a site plan approved.

Uh and it says actually they have to have a building permit issued, or the vacation that never becomes effective.

I'm I'm just making the distinction that they're not proffering a specific site plan, they are proffering a site plan be approved with these specific things that we've listed in detail in section two of the ordinance.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay, Commissioner Hern Cash.

Okay.

So just to be clear, the a site plan will be an administrative site plan.

It will not come back before this commission.

That is correct.

Okay.

So that there could be changes to an administrative site plan that are done administratively that we will not ever know about unless we participate in the hearings.

Possibly, but those changes cannot go against the specified pro uh proffers and conditions that are in this ordinance.

If they do, we have added language that that would have to come back to the city commission for approval to amending those conditions.

Okay.

And on page 103, we have a page of a site plan, the first page of it, but no plan following it, and it's also not on the backup materials online.

I'm curious why do we have a picture of a site plan page without actually having a site plan?

Yes.

Uh Brianna Dobbs, chief planner for the record.

This was requested by the applicant, and after the major discussions that happened at Planning Board, we wanted to provide a visual aid of what this could look like.

Um however, it is not actually proffering the site plan.

So it's just to be a visual aid.

Okay.

Okay.

And then page 101, there's a picture of something.

A ground floor floor plan.

Is that part of our decision-making decor material or what is that?

Oh, sorry.

Um so the 101, that is the ground floor site plan, and then the I'm sorry, and then make sure we're talking about the same pages.

This was the 103 image.

This one talks um and it's very small on the eight and a half by 11, but discusses the changes in attainable dwelling units from the two to the four, just showing that's been included.

Okay.

And this ground site plan, is that something we consider or we don't consider?

That's just a visual aid.

It's not it's not proffered.

Okay.

Okay.

So we got all of our procedural questions out of the way, and we will let Ms.

Dobbs make her presentation.

Thank you.

And I do think that was a very helpful conversation to have before the presentation.

So thank you for those questions.

Um again, Brianna Dobbs, chief planner for the record, and I do have our PowerPoint presentation if we could show this.

And also head focus on the mic.

Yes.

Thank you.

In front of you today is the Osprey Court right-of-way vacation.

This is application number 25 SV01.

The applicant is proposing to vacate an approximately 20-foot by 207-foot alley located south of Ringling Boulevard, north of Merrill Street, and west of Osprey Avenue.

The approximate 4,145 square foot alley is currently improved with brick pavers and dead ends into an existing property located at 0 and 205 cosmopolitan court, commonly known as the Q Town Homes.

The applicant is currently the owner of the properties abutting the alley to the north and to the south, 1776 Ringling Boulevard and 222 South Ospreay Avenue, respectively.

Parking for the office building, which is the parcel to the north, can be accessed through Osprey Court and also Ringling Boulevard.

Dumpsters are located at the end of the alley, and access to the office parking and the refuse containers would remain until the property is redeveloped.

The applicant is requesting the alley vacation to combine the existing properties to the north and south of Osprey Court for a future development to construct a residential development.

An administrative site plan was filed November 10th, 2025, proposing to develop the site.

The administrative site plan received partial sign-off at the DRC meeting on March 4th.

However, approval of the administrative site plan is subject to City Commission approval of the Osprey Court right-of-way vacation.

The proposed alley vacation has been reviewed against the standards for review for vacations of streets and right-of-way, pursuant to section 41306 of the zoning code and as detailed on page 22 of the backup material.

When considering an application for approval of a vacation of the right-of-way, the DRC Planning Board and City Commission shall consider the five bullet points that are provided on the screen.

The subject alley primarily functions as service access for the properties located immediately to the north and south.

The alley does not contain sidewalks or pedestrian infrastructure and terminates a dead end at its western extent, preventing through pedestrian or vehicular connectivity.

As a result, the alley does not serve as a public circulation route between the surrounding streets or neighborhoods.

Existing access to the adjacent properties is also available from Ringling Boulevard and South Osprey Avenue.

Based on these conditions, the existing alley provides limited benefit to the general public.

The alley currently functions as a dead end and does not connect to any additional public streets or rights of way.

No reconfiguration of nearby streets or public right of way would be required.

Due to the alley's dead end configuration and limited connectivity, it is not anticipated to serve a significant role in the future of public circulation.

An administrative site plan was submitted on November 10th, 2025, proposing redevelopment of this site, which would incorporate the area proposed to be vacated.

While the administrative site plan is being reviewed concurrently, approval of the development application will occur through a separate review process and is contingent upon the approval of the requested right-of-way vacation.

If approved, the vacated area would be incorporated into the overall development.

The proposed vacation would facilitate the redevelopment of the subject property through an administrative site plan submitted by the applicant that incorporates the area proposed to be vacated.

As part of the request, the applicant has proffered several improvements that will be required through the site plan if the right-of-way vacation is approved.

While this application is limited, well, this application that we're reviewing is limited to the vacation of the right-of-way.

It does not include the approval of the site plan.

And the applicant has voluntarily proffered several commitments that will be incorporated into the administrative site plan.

These proffers are intended to demonstrate public benefit associated with the requested vacation and would be required to be implemented at the time of the site plan approval.

And the ground floor site plan has been included per the request of the applicant in the backup material to help visualize the following proffers.

So at a minimum, the future.

Okay, we'll go this way.

Sorry about that.

At a minimum, the future site plan will incorporate the following elements for attainable dwelling units subject on the property, available at or below 80% of the area median income or AMI for a minimum of 30 years.

And this is an increase of two attainable units that was originally proffered.

So between planning board and city commission, they have proffered two additional attainable units at that 80% AMI or below.

Additionally, enhanced street design along Ringling Boulevard, including a building setback above the second floor, expanded sidewalks, landscape areas with regularly spaced shade trees, and a publicly accessible plaza and green space near the intersection of Ring Lane Boulevard and Osprey Avenue, as well as enhanced pedestrian improvements along Osprey Avenue, including a building step back above the second floor, widened sidewalks, landscape buffer areas, and improved bus shelter and continuous pedestrian canopy along the building frontage.

Additionally, include the installation of larger caliper canopy trees, subject to staff review.

This was a word that was added to between planning board and city commission as well to ensure that these were canopy trees.

Removal of the existing curb cut along Ringling Boulevard with vehicular access to the project limited to Osprey Avenue, public art provided on site, the creation of a publicly accessible park, and then compliance with all other required city codes.

Additionally, a 42-inch stormwater pipe facility is currently located in this right-of-way that is proposed to be vacated.

In order for the properties to be redeveloped, the stormwater pipe will need to be relocated.

The applicant is proposing to reroute the stormwater pipe to Ringling Avenue, and the easement for the stormwater pipe facility is required to be recorded in the official records of Sarasota County prior to the effective date of the street vacation.

Additionally, utility letters of no objection have been provided by the applicant, and they are in appendix one of the backup material.

And due to the presence of the existing uh Florida Power and Light utilities, two conditions addressing the easement requirements have been provided.

Language was also included to state that the notice of the effective date of the street vacation would not incur until the issuance of a building permit.

As Mr.

Shamsy said, it would require the approval of the site plan that meets all of the proffers and then also the issuance of a the um boating permit before the effective date of the right-of-way vacation.

A community workshop was held July 1st, 2025.

Approximately 13 members of the public were in attendance.

Question raised during the workshop to focus on potential public benefit of vacating the alley, the scale and the details of the proposed residential development, traffic and pedestrian safety impacts, and ownership of the alley.

On April 8th, 2026, the planning board conducted a public hearing to consider the subject right-of-way vacation.

During the public hearing, board members discussed the potential loss of existing residential units at 222 South Ospreay Avenue that could result from the redevelopment of the site as depicted in the conceptual site plan that was visually presented by the applicant, as well as the relationship between those units and the number of attainable dwelling units proffered in the connection with the right-of-way vacation.

Following the discussion, planning board voted for one to recommend denial of the vacation request to the city commission.

Between Planning Board and City Commission hearings, the applicant voluntarily proffered two additional attainable dwelling units, bringing a total to four attainable dwelling units, each date designated at 80% AMI or below for a minimum of 30 years.

Additionally, the word approximate was removed from the proffered dimensional standards to provide greater certainty during the building permit review and administration.

As part of this revision, the minimum landscape area along Ringling Boulevard was established as four feet in width instead of five.

And finally, the word canopy was also added in condition number four to clarify this increased caliper requirement applies specifically to canopy trees.

The amendment, the amended proffers have been reflected in the ordinance and updated in the backup material.

And with that, I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you.

Well, first we will hear from the applicant.

So please introduce yourselves, and we're eager to hear what you are recommending.

Good morning, everyone.

For the record, my name is McCair King with iCard Meryl.

I feel like it's not very often that I get to say good morning.

So a big warm welcome as well to our new city manager.

All right, I believe we have our presentation up on the screen.

We're here today to discuss the potential vacation of Osprey Court, specifically petition number 25 SV01.

We're here today on behalf of the applicant, PFI 721 Development LLC.

And as I mentioned, again, my name is McCair King with the law firm of ICard Merrill, and I'll let my colleagues introduce themselves as well.

Mark Sultana, DSTG architects.

Thanks for having me this morning.

Philip DiMaria, urban planner with Kimley Cord.

Thank you.

I have been sword involved as work.

So to summarize our request, we are seeking to vacate a portion of the alley, commonly known as Osprey Court, which is located generally south of Ringling Boulevard, west of South Osprey Avenue, and east of Cosmopolitan Court.

The vacated area encompasses approximately 4,0145 square feet.

It is anticipated that this vacated area will be developed as part of a 10-story development in concert with the surrounding parcels, which are also owned by the applicant.

The applicant has proposed proffers for public benefits, including four attainable units provided at 80% AMI, enhanced streetscape and design, building stepbacks, building stepbacks, widened sidewalks, pedestrian canopies, shade trees, public art available on site, as well as a publicly accessible park.

Here you can see the area that we are proposing to vacate in red, as well as the two properties owned additionally by the applicant in blue to the north and south of the proposed right-of-way vacation.

The future land use designation is downtown core as well as the zoning designation.

And here you can see a brief history of the vacation.

It was formerly a U-shaped alley.

However, portions over time have been vacated, leading this to remain as a dead-end alley.

So here you can see the portion in purple that was vacated in 1960, as well as the portion in orange that was vacated in 2013.

And we are seeking to vacate the portion highlighted in green.

We did engage in quite a bit of community outreach as well.

First of all, we held our community workshop on July 1st, 2025.

This was actually in advance of the submission of the administrative site plan, and so we were able to incorporate a lot of the community's comments into that subsequent administrative site plan as well.

There were approximately 13 members of the public that were in attendance.

And again, that discussion largely centered on public benefit, future development traffic, pedestrian safety, and streetscape.

We had additional meetings with members of Laurel Park on July 15th, 2025 to discuss that community specific requests, understanding the close proximity to their community.

They expressed a strong interest in additional setbacks and the pedestrian experience, particularly along Osprey Avenue, as well as creating safe and shaded walkways.

So as part of, in accordance with zoning code section 413, the following criteria are considered for requests involving right-of-way vacations.

The first of which is the benefit to the general public of the existing public street.

And as noted before by staff, this is primarily used to service properties to the north and south.

There are track receptacles and dumpsters located at its westernmost terminus.

There is some deterioration of the conditions due to heavy waste collection trucks that often traverse this portion of the alley.

It does also dead end at the development to the west, and there is no through pedestrian or vehicular connection.

There also are no sidewalks or landscaping that facilitate safe pedestrian travel.

Therefore, there is limited benefit, if any, to the general public as the alley currently exists today.

Clearly, there are no sidewalks or trees or anything.

Again, that would facilitate safe pedestrian travel, and there's no access to the multifamily to the south, but there is some access off of this alley to the parking for the northernmost building.

And here you can see again the terminus of that alley.

And there clearly is no through connection to the townhomes to the west.

The second criteria is the rearrangement of public streets or easements for rights of way purposes that would be required to secure a regular and harmonious system for traffic circulation if the vacation is granted.

Again, this is a dead-end service drive for refuse containers.

There is no connection to additional public streets or rights of way, and alternative access is available for abutting properties.

Therefore, no rearrangement is required to maintain current traffic circulation.

The third standard of review is whether the right-of-way has been improved and the extent to which it is currently or in the future will be utilized by the general public.

Currently, it is not utilized by the general public.

It is improved with brick pavers that are and is largely used for solid waste collection and access to parking for the northern property.

There are no sidewalks or landscaping for pedestrian travel and no through connection to additional public streets or rights of way.

Therefore, it is not anticipated to serve a significant role in future public circulation, and we will be providing utility easements to FPL as well to ensure continued access to their existing infrastructure until such time as those that infrastructure is relocated when redevelopment occurs.

The fourth criteria is whether the vacation is proposed in conjunction with an application for development approval.

Here we're noting it is intended to be incorporated into administrative site plan number 26 ASP05.

And I believe that the city attorney nicely clarified what exactly is proposed before you today.

While we're not proffering a specific site plan, we are in proffering all of the specific measurements to be incorporated into any future development on the property that would include this vacated site.

The fifth and final criteria is whether the proposed vacation is in the public interest.

We really went to the community to see what all is important to them in this respect, and we tried to incorporate as many of their comments as possible.

And so we have included four attainable dwelling units at 80% AMI, which we felt was important to again expand the opportunity for affordable housing in the city, especially at that lower AMI level.

We're also proposing to remove the existing access on Ringling Boulevard to create a safer and more continuous experience for pedestrians and bicyclists along Ringling Boulevard.

We are proposing to provide public art on site.

Additionally, and I think it's appropriate that we have the parks department here today.

We are proposing to include a thousand square foot to 1,100 square foot publicly accessible park on the western side of the property.

We are also improving proposing to increase the caliper of shade trees from three inches to five inches along Ringling Boulevard and Osprey Avenue, as well as to include an improved bus shelter on Osprey Avenue.

And we will be providing easements to the necessary utility providers.

And I do have a graphic here to help sort of visualize what specifically these would look like in practice.

So the first is along Ringling Boulevard.

We are proposing a 20-foot step back to the building face above the second floor, so increasing the availability of light and air in this area.

We are proposing a minimum six-foot eight-inch building setback, and those are mainly for structural columns that are within that setback.

However, for a majority of the frontage, we will be providing a 10-foot general setback for 172 feet, which is approximately 94% of the frontage.

We're also proposing along ringling a minimum eight-foot sidewalk, which expands to over 20 feet of public plaza in greenspace nearest to the intersection of Ringling Boulevard and Osprey Avenue.

And we will be including a four-foot landscape area as well as shade trees approximately every 30 feet when not in conflict with utilities.

Along Osprey Avenue, we have also prioritized the pedestrian experience, and we'll be including a 14-foot three-inch stepback to the building face above the second floor, a three-foot building setback, a seven-foot-wide sidewalk, and a six-foot landscaped area, except where points of ingress egress and the bus shelter are located.

We are also proposing a pedestrian canopy along the full length of the building facade.

Couple things I just want to note here as well.

And so to some extent, some of these measurements may actually be exceeded in the forthcoming or approval of the administrative site plan.

So for example, I think that we are currently showing approximately seven feet of landscaped area along Osprey Avenue, which exceeds the six foot there, as well as a 183 or 182-foot 10-foot setback along Ringling.

So to give you an idea of what we're talking about, we are proposing to vacate the 4,0145 square foot alley.

However, we are essentially swapping out this land in some respects to create a more accessible and beneficial we feel area for the community to enjoy, which would include the publicly accessible park as well as the increased setbacks to the building.

So here you can see that area outlined in red, which we are essentially giving back to the community totals to about 3,625 square feet.

And that's just about a 500 square foot difference between what we're seeking to vacate and what we'd be giving back to the community.

As Brianna mentioned, we are also proposing to relocate a portion of the stormwater infrastructure that's currently located within the alley, which will be rerouted north through Ringling, and we will be providing an easement to the city for those facilities as well.

There are several conditions of approval.

The first would be the relocation of the stormwater pipe facilities and the establishment of the required easement.

And then the second condition would be that all of the conditions precedent are completed, which would include a site plan that incorporates all of the proffered dimensions in particular, as well as the issuance of a building permit for redevelopment.

Staff reviewed the proposed vacation against the criteria set forth in section 413, and it was found to comply, and therefore they recommended approval.

I also want to note as well that we just received approval from our client to work with the Laurel Park community to actually donate any of the salvageable brakes to their community to incorporate if they can.

I also did want to note as well in your packet, we included a letter from the property manager for the multifamily building to the south, stating the unfortunate conditions of that building as it exists today.

I believe that the last lease that's set is expected to terminate in November 2026, and no new leases will be offered at that point.

26, so a few months from now.

Well, thank you for your presentation.

We have people who request to speak, so after they're finished, we will invite you back for questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And as they're moving away, we have two individuals, Jennifer Trier and Ron Cashton.

And you each have five minutes and introduce yourselves and whether or not your city residents.

So that was uh issue number one that I had.

And then more specifically for our community, in regards to reviewing applications for this, it seems to be that we're losing four twelve current affordable housing and being replaced with only four.

And when I listened to the hearing this morning, it seems like the language was changed from the number of units to an approximate language.

I'm not sure how if that specifically addresses the topic of the attainable housing.

So that would be issue number two.

Um topic number three times into that, and I don't know if it was approximate because it's 80% of AMI or a different number.

So I was just like the board to kind of look into the proposed language being added about the word approximate.

I don't know if it's the number of units or the income of the individuals that would live there, and specifically, is that somewhere cited on the site plan where these four units would be?

Because I think there was some sort of confusion on the first floor about some sort of utility closets or fire closets or something like that.

I didn't know if those would be the proposed part of the four proposed units.

And then my last topic I would like to bring up, topic number four.

It's the petition is asking for 4,0145 square feet of city-owned land to be given to the developer.

But the reality of that land is in my math in my head, it's going to be a 10-story building.

It's really more closely to 41,000 450 square feet because of the air rights.

There's 4145 on the ground.

But it's going up.

So that's almost 0.95 of an acre.

Versus in the proposal, it's 0.01952 acres.

So we have to kind of look at the air rights.

They're getting the chunk of land, but that chunk of land goes up 10 stories.

So I was wondering if the board would please respectfully consider the issues that I'm bringing up as a local citizen.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr.

Cashton.

Thank you.

Ron Cashton, City Resident, board member of the Laurel Park Neighborhood Association and speaking on behalf of the Laurel Park Neighborhood Association.

Oh my.

Thank you, Miles.

Or John.

Here's a photo of a tree-lined southwest corner of Osprey and Ringley.

And with the deforestation of Orange Avenue, Osprey Avenue is now the last shaded route to downtown.

And as you know, street vacations require that a loss of public roadway be counterbalanced by a net positive benefit to the public.

And the developer deserves a lot of credit for engaging in the community early on and to ask what we wanted from this project.

And Laurel Park, we had several productive meetings with the architect Mark Sultan Sultana.

And for this project, two parties gave up something.

The neighborhood gave up an underused historic brick-lined alley along with all the trees that you see visible on this corner.

Now, in exchange, the developer has proffered meaningful concessions.

There's a continuous pedestrian canopy along Osprey Avenue.

The trees, the shade trees are going to be larger than the code requires.

There's going to be a second floor setback, a wider sidewalk, and McCair, thank you for the bricks.

And the neighbors do appreciate that.

But there's something the Commission can do that goes beyond the single project.

You can make it easier for architects to save more urban trees.

Amend the zoning code to remove maximum setbacks and allow unlimited setbacks when developers preserve histor uh existing trees.

Because today, architects must apply for a variance simply to pull back a building enough to spare mature canopy.

And that barrier is what produced the pedestrian wasteland in front of the view, and it did constrain the options that Mark and his team had here.

So please remove that restriction, and every future project in Sarasota will gain a tool that this one didn't have.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay.

So Commissioner questions.

And let's everybody's jotting down their questions right now, so give us a minute.

Do we do rebuttals after the commissioner questions?

We don't do rebuttals on legislative hearings.

Right.

So yeah, waiting for somebody to choose to be the first to ask questions.

And the vice mayor is up first.

I may have questions for Ms.

Dobbs as well.

I think the all probably should have come down.

There's a room table for all.

Thank you.

So regarding the existing apartment building, I know there was some confusion at the planning board meeting about whether it was occupied or it wasn't.

We have determined that it's correct.

There are still tenants that are within the building, but as we mentioned, and I actually have a printed out copy, but it was included in your backup materials, a letter from the property manager on the status of those leases.

And so there are a couple that are through, I believe, November of 2026.

The remaining are month to month.

However, no new leases will be offered after after November 2026.

That's partially due to the condition of the building, unfortunately.

It did suffer some damage from the hurricanes and just the cost to refit that building, unfortunately, is just not tenable at this point.

And so there is something to be said about the quality of housing as well.

And so as through this application, we will be providing for attainable units that are restricted through 30 years.

Thank you.

And so I've got to shut you down.

So I don't know how it usually works when tenants are no longer able to lease an apartment.

Do you help provide some guidance to them as to where they could go?

Or is that not how it works?

I believe typically that would be within the purview of the actual owner themselves or potentially the property management company.

But I know that the city also has resources for potentially locating affordable housing if those individuals do qualify.

Okay, and what is the current monthly rent on those areas?

I'm sorry?

I'm not aware of that at this point.

Do you anybody know?

It's but we could agree that it's within the attainable range.

I am not aware of it being within or outside of these.

Well, it better be the I mean nobody would rent it if it wasn't attainable.

Anyway, okay, you don't know.

Um the new building you're proposing, um, again, for the record, on my own, I would not have allowed any information about what's being proposed because I think it distorts the decision making.

Um, but here it is, and so here I go.

Um you're proposing a 10-story building, how many units?

Um so we had originally proposed 50 units, however, following the planning commission, we proffered an additional two attainable units, which brings the new proposed total to um 52 units.

Thank you.

And you said you met with two members, two residents of Laurel Park.

Um yet the support you said was from them, not the Laurel Park Board.

Is that correct?

Um so my understanding was we mainly met with those members of the community to receive input from them and things that they had heard from their neighbors.

Um however, I believe that Mr.

Cashton um just spoke to the support of Laurel Community or the Laura Park community, excuse me, um, as a whole.

Okay.

And so please correct me if I'm wrong, Mr.

Cashton.

It was from the board.

It was the board.

Okay.

Um and so during your testimony, you talked about how this would expand affordable housing in the city.

Could you explain that further?

So as part of this um site plan, or excuse me, the street vacation, again, we are profering to the fact that we will include a minimum of four attainable units available at 80 percent AMI um or less.

And again, I I believe that you're speaking to the fact that we are um removing the 12 existing units on site.

However, I would encourage the commission to again be reminded that those are not restricted attainable units for a specific um income range, and those will be um removed here at some point.

So we're here to disc uh to discuss and decide on what is, not what could be.

So those units are currently 12 attainable affordable units.

Is that correct?

They are not restricted attainable units.

But they are.

I'm not sure what the what they're being rented at currently, um, and again, those leases will not be renewed following November of 2026.

But we're here to decide on what is, not what will be.

We're not deciding on your site plan.

We're deciding on what exists and the benefits to vacating an alley based on nothing else.

Is there benefit to vacating this alley?

Is that right?

Yes.

And I I believe realistically, when you look at the actual dimensions of the site plan and Philip, feel free to jump in as necessary.

Essentially what we're looking at is again that benefit of the alley as it currently exists.

It is a dead-end alley.

It's largely used for trash receptacles, and it's not really providing any benefit to the community.

And so we are providing these specific proffers for any future development on the property.

Again, it's not been vacated, it will not be effective.

The vacation will not be effective until after the issuance of a building permit that incorporates all of these specific proffers.

And so to the extent that you are looking at what is the benefit of this alley currently versus what is the benefit if you do vacate the alley, we would look at that on balance and ask your opinion on that as well.

But we would we would state that we are providing a comparable public benefit for that alley.

And so some would say the benefit to the alley is being an alley for 12 currently, we think probably, most likely, affordable rental units.

And removing it, let's see, 12 minus 4.

So we're having a debt net negative number of affordable units, probably most likely.

Vice Mayor, if I may.

Yes.

So I think we're I would see this as maybe conflating a few different issues.

The first is what is the purpose of a right-of-way, right?

And the criteria within the zoning code as it relates to right-of-way right-of-acations really speaks to circulation as a whole, right?

What purpose does the right-of-way have?

But you see, you're the ones who brought up the housing information.

I told you I wouldn't have allowed it.

Vice Mayor, totally understand.

If the right of way can be seen as a barrier to redevelopment, right, which is the discussion that's being had here today, I think there's this is the nuance of the discussion about what attainable housing really is.

So these properties divided by right-of-way have rights associated with them, right?

There's an entitlement associated with them.

There's zero protection to those attainable units today.

Those individual parcels could be renovated, they could be redeveloped where all attainable units are removed with zero protection, zero rent controls.

The discussion we're having today, right, is if the removal of the right of way occurs, there's this net public benefit of both public space being given back, right?

That's kind of that like for like with the removal of the right-of-way and the benefits of that.

In addition to that, listening to the community's concerns about attainable housing, we're providing that capital A, what we say capital A attainable in terms of units under rent control, which is really a long-term agreement to provide affordable housing.

Totally understand about market rates and how the market's affected by substandard living.

And I was a person that lived in units that were very nice first starting my career, so totally understand, and there's an important place for that in our community.

But when a parcel has been rede has been designated for redevelopment, we need to maybe think about, you know, I would encourage recognizing the nuance of redevelopment occurring and what happens when that redevelopment occurs and how we can include distributed attainable housing in what would normally be very high-end, very expensive condominium development.

So development is yours by right, but the alley is not.

And so you have to show us that there's a greater public benefit to removing the alley than there is to keeping the alley.

And if that's what you think you're doing, then we'll, you know, we'll go ahead.

I'm done with my questions.

Thank you.

Commissioner Alpert.

Um My question is in maybe I'm understanding this incorrectly.

Um you own the property on either side of the alley.

Correct.

So you own those apartment buildings.

Correct.

So if the alley is not vacated, there's nothing to keep you from building a building there and on the other property, isn't that correct?

Correct.

And they could go to the full um sort of availability and development standards that are permitted within the downtown core, which does not necessarily include a requirement for attainable housing, and so there's no guarantee essentially that there would be attainable housing in future development.

And so there's no guarantee essentially that there would be attainable housing in future development.

And then you won't.

And the parking lot.

Higher caliper trees, all of those things.

Right.

There'd be no requirement to do these enhancements to the property to make the corner much better, and you would have a useless alley sitting there.

Correct.

Thank you.

Commissioner Aheron Koch.

Thank you.

Okay.

So could you develop the two parcels without the vacation of the right-of-way?

Technically, yes, there are development rights that are associated with those two different parcels.

However, um as we sort of move through the process, it was identified that this would be a more ideal, more ideal for traffic circulation in particular.

And then again, it allows us to incorporate things like wider sidewalks and enhance um landscaping areas along the outside of the property as well to sort of swap that out for the community.

But you could you could develop it without the right-of-way.

Yes.

Right.

Okay.

And if you were to do it, did you do the exercise where if you developed them separately?

Asking for the density bonus.

So I am what I'm trying to get to is a comparison, right?

What you could develop those two parcels as and what would be required as attainable units in that in that scenario as opposed to a consolidated development.

Do we have those comparisons?

I don't think we did any site planning exercise, but uh it would be suffice to say that it would be a compromised site plan with the limited amount of space available to provide some of the public benefits that we've been discussing, the additional setback at the edges, et cetera.

Right.

But do we have an idea of how many if you were to develop them separately using the attainable housing bonus?

How many you would have to provide in those two proposals comparing to what you're doing now?

Conceivably we would have to provide zero attainable units if we were staying below the density rule.

But I'm asking I'm trying to compare what you're asking for now, which what with it could be without it.

I'm trying to make a comparison.

Understood.

We we didn't study it.

This is the ideal.

I would say we could have the same amount number-wise units.

Um two of the attainable housing units that we're providing, we're not asking for bonus density for it.

We're just providing it.

Right.

Two we are.

Right.

I I'm just trying to get a nice.

So we're we we have to make a comparison, right?

About what is and what could be and what you're proposing and what the public benefit is.

And I'm trying to put them side by side to try to figure that out.

And um, so the answer is no that we don't have that that comparison of what could be to what is.

All right.

Commissioner Koch, um Brianna Dazz, for the record.

I did the calculation um just for this question.

Okay.

Um it would be different depending on whether it was the proposed 50 dwelling units or 52.

Um if it was the 53 attainable dwelling units would be required, and at the increase of 52 um dwelling units, it would be four.

So they're comparable.

Say that one more time.

So originally the proposed development was 50 dwelling units in total.

Um I did not have the site plan that has the proposed 52 that was mentioned at the table today.

Okay.

However, if there were 52 for attainable dwelling units would be required.

Okay.

So the per so the 52 for attainable dwelling units, if it was 50 total units, then it would be three.

Okay, so it developed under the other scenario without it, there would still be four units provided.

Correct.

If they chose to develop at the 50s, separately.

All right, that's very good.

Um the attainable units, the four attainable units, do we know what the bedroom mix is going to be?

Is it going to be comparable to the uh market rate units that you have, or is it what are those going to be those four units?

We have two bedroom and one bedroom den units.

Okay.

So the four units will be two two bedrooms and two one bedrooms?

Uh we have one two-bedroom and three one bedroom den units.

One two bedroom and three one bedroom with a den units.

Okay.

Thank you for that.

Um the trees.

Let me ask about the trees that was that was brought up by the public, the grand tree.

Is it a grand tree?

Hi, Kelsey Shy, I am a landscape architect with Kimley Horn, I haven't sworn in.

Um technically, due to its size and species, it's a grand tree.

However, we did um have our arborists go out there and look at it and do a full root collar excavation.

And structurally, it's not sound.

So she had recommended removal of the tree if any sort of demolition of the parking lot around it would be done.

She'd recommend removal.

And did our arborist, Ms.

Dobbs, look at that tree as well.

Yes, but I am not I'm not aware of what the determination was.

Um I would love that information.

Um perhaps some.

I'm a fighter for trees, so I think that's really important information to have.

Any discussion from development services may be able to assist.

Allison Christie for the record, um, General Manager Development Services, yes, the senior arborist did go out on site and verify the testing that was done by the other arborists and agreed with their findings.

Okay, that it is in poor condition, or that um if the asphalt were removed, it would make the tree unstable.

Is that my understanding?

Yeah, the report says it would create a safety hazard.

Okay, and there's just one grand tree, but then there's another shade tree.

Is that correct?

I'd have to get the materials, I'm not sure.

Um there's several smaller oaks on site.

Um there's one grand tree that is off-site that we are obviously um preserving, um, and we're working with the city arborists to come up with the right um tree mitigation techniques to make sure that tree stays healthy.

Okay.

All right.

I'm running out of time, so I gotta hurry up here.

Um that uh plan that you had with the red.

I think it's up on the screen.

Yes, okay, here.

Um the comments that we're given.

It is not just the physical ground, it is the ground plus all of the the the square footage.

So I I just I wanted to to make sure that when we think about that, that is what we are thinking about times times 10.

Yeah, and I I would just like to briefly address that.

I'm glad I'm glad that you brought that up.

Um again, we are providing 3,600 square feet approximately of ground floor, which also could be multiplied by 10.

Um and then in addition to the actual ground floor setbacks that we're providing, we are providing increased stepbacks.

And so where I believe, and Brianna correct me if I'm wrong, the minimum required step back to the building face is 12 feet.

We're actually providing eight or 20 feet, excuse me, along Ringling and then um 14 feet, a little over 14 feet along hospitality.

Okay, well, thank you.

You're leading me into my next question, which is of the things the benefits that you're providing, and is uh well if we could go as quickly as possible that are in our ordinance, and let me ask Ms.

Dobbs really quickly, or Mr.

Polzak.

The words that in our are in our our our ordinance right here.

Um so to the speakers, the prox word approximate is no longer in there, by the way.

Um our public input that we had.

Can any of these words of these proffers be altered?

If we adopt this today, so for example, the minimum three-foot setback, could that during the administrative go to two feet eight inches?

Or the um five-inch caliper trees could go those go to four-inch caliber trees because they couldn't find five-inch caliber trees.

Can any of these words be altered between what we decide today and what happens at the administrative site plan?

No.

Um I think that is why we also remove the word approximate to make sure we knew the exact measurements of these dimensional standards.

Okay, so nothing, not one word can be altered.

No.

Agreed.

It's in the ordinance.

We'll be in the ordinance, correct.

Correct.

Okay.

So that does give us a little bit of surety that what is in here actually will happen.

Um then what what I wanted to ask was um of the the proffers that are being put out here.

What are what's the so you ask the question, what's required by the city, so 12 feet, and you're offering 20 feet.

Do you have any document that can show me side by side actually what is asked and what you're going above and beyond on?

Not what's required, like some of the relocation of the you know, those things.

That that's gonna happen anyway.

A public art requirement.

Either you provide the public art or you contribute to the fund.

That's already so I don't see those, sorry, as my side-by-side comparisons of benefits.

I want to see actually where you're going above and beyond so that I can weigh the public benefit.

Because there is some benefit to having a historic brick street alley where you can stand and look up at the sky and the rain can fall and go right into the ground, right?

If this is built, you will stand on the sidewalk and look up at a building.

So there is benefit to what is there.

It may not be circulation of a car, but there's not nothing there.

So I want to be able to weigh what is being given above and beyond.

Do we have anything like that?

And I'm out of time.

But in case in case you do, maybe I have a second round of questions.

I could see something like that.

I was thinking if recognizing the time that it is, uh maybe prior to rebuttal we can put together.

Or the second round.

That's right.

I can we can go back to that question.

All right.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh my turn.

Um I first want to talk about the current use of that right of way.

And I see the dumpsters at the far end, the dead end.

So what happens now?

Do the garbage trucks back in?

Are they able to turn around?

What happens today with that?

You're all familiar with it.

Um I'm not entirely sure how the dump trucks currently circulate.

I do know that they access that as you noted for the trash receptor.

I would imagine that they either um turn around in the parking lot um to the north or they just back out.

Um but I I would need to confirm that.

It's interesting.

Code doesn't allow trucks to back into the right-of-way.

Um so they pull in and and technically they're not supposed to back out into Osprey, so conceivably they've likely use private property to turn around.

But there's a dead end there.

Right.

So some it would be probably very interesting to know how they are managing right now.

So on your slide number 17 that showed that was the one with the the red, that showed the um ground floor.

So am I reading this correctly that the garbage trucks will come on the on osprey, the northern piece of osprey, that driveway, and come around and in that U shape and then exit on the southern cut on Osprey.

That's so the garbage handling would be inside the structure.

It would be internal to the structure and no trucks will need to back out onto the public streets.

Is that something you could proffer?

It's required by code.

The city doesn't allow us to back out trees.

Or sorry, trucks.

Well, I mean that the that you are going to be handling it internal to the building.

We have uh had other developments that do not plan to handle it internal to the building.

Yes, I think we can profer that the garbage will be handled internal to the building.

And that was reviewed during the DRC process.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um so while we're still keep that slide up, because I wanted to ask about the park, the 1,000 to 11 to 32 square foot park.

Where would that be located?

It's in the red.

It's the larger area on the left top corner.

Oh okay.

The re reason I asked is I had to do the math and said, oh, what would be the relative size in, you know, and 11, I mean a thousand square feet is really tiny.

Um in fact, I wanted I'm from New York.

I did a comparison.

I said, what is the smallest park in New York?

This among one of the smallest was uh approximately the same size as this, and they refer this nickname is the one tree park when it has three benches.

So just considering the size of this public benefit is not very big.

Um I also wanted to know about uh the target, well, I'm assuming you the site, the potential site plan is for uh rental units rather than condo.

What is the thought there?

No, they're m more condo than rentals.

Okay, so it's condo, and I'm wondering what target market is being considered, income-wise or price-wise.

There is a spread of unit sizes, so I think the you know it's gonna be market rate for the size units that they are.

Market rate for even any size could be 20 million dollars.

So that's why I was wondering what general range are is being considered.

We don't know that yet because we haven't gotten in the construction drawings on the building, which needs to get priced out, so we would know what it costs to actually build the construct the building.

So what average square footage are you considering for the units?

I think uh average square footage is around 2,000 square feet.

Okay, so that is the high at a mid range.

Yeah.

Another benefit that we didn't mention, but uh the developer is very uh sustainable friendly, and he's asked us as architects to design the building in a sustainable manner so that the building actually has been designed with full photovoltaic on the roof to support the common area of the building.

So all the other buildings he's developed throughout the world all have a sustainable component to them.

And you wanted to maintain that.

Okay.

Uh have you been given any instructions on the distribution of the attainable housing in the building?

Um what the larger unit, the two-bedroom, two-bath, is in the tower with all the other units.

The other three are um I think they are located on the second floor along with some other of the regular units as well, smaller size.

Okay.

So but they would be rentals where the objective for the everything else would be condo.

Correct.

Okay.

Okay.

Um then what else did I want to ask at this point?

Yeah, I so I was looking at the thing because I had an initial question on is there a conflict between the street trees and the pedestrian canopy?

Am I correct now that the pedestrian canopy is on osprey and the street trees are going to be on ringling?

Yes, I believe so.

I know that the pedestrian canopy is along the building facade essentially for Osprey and really just focusing on shade there in that manner.

Um I believe that there are also trees that are located along Osprey, um, but uh a focus in particular with trees along um ring length.

Okay, great.

Thanks.

And I have a couple of questions to Ms.

Dobbs.

Um, what was the planning board's rationale for recommending denial?

Um I think a lot of that conversation was based off of the assumption of the attainable housing is the parcel to the South and the comparison of the 12 units compared to the two units at that time that were proposed.

Again, it is more of an assumption and it is not designated by the city as attainable housing.

But it it is within a range for I don't want to say lower income, but right now that the existing building, even though it is not now rented out, it was for lower income or lower priced rentals.

So that's going away, and so in effect, 12 lower price rentals are going to be replaced by four officially affordable units, right?

And I don't know the price that it's being rented at.

I tried to do a Google search of something on apartments.com because it's not being up for to be at least again.

So but the form though that was filled out regarding attainable, affordable use that the effect on affordable that may or may not be accurate.

And I do believe that she does say have an increase in the cost of um constructing affordable units, and this wouldn't have an increase in cost.

Okay.

I thought it was how many, how it would affect having them.

And I just want to point out that those units are not restricted and and those leases are terminating in in November and would not be reassigned.

So that they can't charge very much if they chose to rent it out.

So in effect the city would be losing an inventory of what might be affordable to entry-level employees, not you know, public housing uh eligible.

You know, it's uh it's part of city's evolution in general, right?

You get these discrepancies between land values and improved values, and it leads itself to what we call it gentrification, right?

I mean, the entire neighborhood of Arlington Park looked completely different than than it does today 20 years ago.

It's because of the same exact but recognizing, you know, saying 2,000 square foot average unit size, if they were 1,000 average square foot unit size and using the density bonuses, even the non-quote unquote affordable units would be lower priced because they're only a thousand square feet instead of two thousand square feet.

So you can't say this is a fact of life.

It's actually planned to be more expensive by making larger units.

Understood.

And I would I would I agree with you completely.

The other aspect of this too is that there is what often happens with gentrification is you have displacement, right?

Full-on displacement.

Um and there's no mitigating effect for some of those units that eventually leave the market.

What's being proposed in these proffers, there's actually a plan for it.

Okay.

Uh my time is up, but Commissioner Albert is next.

Okay.

And again, I may be misunderstanding all of this.

Those units, the 12 units we're talking about, um, you don't own them?

Um the applicant does own that property.

The applicant owns those.

Okay.

So the applicant has no duty to continue to rent them.

No, they do not.

Okay.

And as I said, they could just they could build a building there.

Correct.

Um upon approval of an administrative site plan, those units could all be gone and no attainable housing units could be provided in their replacement.

Okay.

And um, if the alley is not vacated, then um potentially the setback at the corner of Osprey and Ringling also would have to probably be not as large because you would need the space to build the building.

That's my understanding.

And I'll let Mark add if you're as of November the leases are up, and the applicant could apply for a demo permit and just demolish the building.

Because it is in disrepair.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's all I have.

Okay.

Commissioner Batti.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Um just have pretty much one question.

Um, and I guess this is for Mrs.

Dobbs.

Without all of this, what could they build there by right?

What can be built there, like how many units, how high?

I mean, by right.

The parcel is zoned downtown core and allows for up to 10 stories and 50 dwelling units per acre by right, and that there was up to 200 dwelling units per acre uh if they participate in the attainable housing density bonus.

Um zero setbacks is permitted, I think up to a maximum of 10 by right.

I guess that's you know what they would have the way, you know.

They want that, or do they want this?

You know, um and you say that you all own that building in the 12 units that are there presently, and that's you know pretty much uh the remains of what Laurel Park was compared to what it is today.

And when I just like one of those last, you know, remaining, you know, parcels of uh of land that has those pretty much run down units uh that uh that presently exist there.

But again, you know, talk you know, to your point, you know, Mr.

Demaria, about the disbursement of um of attainable units, you know, throughout the city.

I'm looking at, again, and I go back to this all the time, in terms of what we were getting with development, which was absolutely zero to what it is we're trying to get with development and even with this this development right now with the 52 units and the four attainable units of 80 percent could have gone 120.

Could have gone a hundred or whatever, but it went eighty.

Um I think that that is a public benefit.

I think that uh um uh that's a lot of a decent give back, you know, to the city, to the community and those that that that need affordable housing.

So um, you know, you know, to say, okay, we have 12 units or whatever that uh that are affordable and you know we we're mixing that for these four or whatever.

That building is gonna be gone and they won't even have the there will be no 12 units.

You know, whatever.

But you're giving us four.

And I'll take that four compared to the twelve that would be gone completely any day.

So I just wanted to know what could be built there by right as compared to what what uh we're talking about here today.

All right, so thank you.

Those are my questions.

Thank you.

Commissioner Ahern Koch.

Yes.

Okay, can we go back to my original question?

So if we you go to page six uh five, I guess it is, of the um ordinance.

Um start with the development along Ringling Boulevard.

Oh okay.

So the first is the the four attainable dwelling units within the subject of property at 80 80 or below for 30 years.

Um that is gonna be recorded in the land use restriction agreement, correct?

Correct.

Okay.

And that goes with the land, right?

Correct.

So if you sell the property of your app, the applicant sells the property tomorrow, uh, these those four units are still required at 80 AMI for 30 years.

Um upon the vacation of the right-of-way, then.

Correct, it would be.

I am assuming that, yes.

Okay.

I'm not assuming it really, but I mean in this discussion.

Okay.

Correct, correct.

Yeah, because I wanted to note your question too, but uh you can go ahead.

I added let's go with your your note first.

Okay.

So you had asked about the permanence of a lot of the conditions of the ordinance and the survivability of those conditions.

I just did want to call attention to uh page six of the PDF.

Yes, please.

The ordinance that that first paragraph at the top there and talks about deviations coming back before the commission for approval under our code.

But then it does have that language except for revisions required or requested by DRC or staff.

Um I just want to call that to your attention.

So things could change.

I mean, you have gotten testimony here today that it it wouldn't, but that language does suggest the possibility of that happening.

If required or requested by the city, right.

Right.

So but the city could could request or require a change.

So we would approve one thing, one ordinance thinking one thing, and after the site plan, during the site plan process, a whole nother thing could come out.

If required or requested by the city, yes.

So the answer is yes.

So there is no real guarantee then for us.

It would be the city DRC or staff requesting it.

But if you want the city commission to have to approve any change at all to this wording, then we we would have to remove that that last step four in that sense.

And then any any any deviation at all, no matter how minor it would have to come back to the city commission.

All right.

Well I think we include that language then, saying any deviation would have to come back to the commission?

We mean we could that's the commission's wish.

We could you could suggest striking that that language and then the language any requested deviation would require commission approval would remain.

Okay.

And what about um ha having this as a restrictive covenant, these these proffers?

Would that be a another safeguard?

That's another possibility of if they're that could be achieved.

We could use that as a tool.

Okay, so we right now have two tools for assuring that what is being promised is actually what happens.

Correct.

Yeah, so I just I just want to add to that point as well.

Um as part of the actual approval process, so for the administrative site plan, we're actually required to record that affordable housing Laura um prior to site plan approval, and then again that attainable house or that um street vacation wouldn't become effective until after approval of the building permit in particular.

Some of that language was really just um incorporated to allow for slight minor um discrepancies, especially when it comes to trees and utilities.

Um one of the things that we encounter quite often is a conflict between the two.

Um however, we felt fairly comfortable moving forward with these specific dimensions, particularly because we have well, we had achieved the um partial sign-off on the for from DRC for the administrative site plan um with the inclusion of the two attainable units.

I believe we have to go back to DRC for those and update um the traffic study for that as well.

But that it's really just to accommodate some of those small minor revisions that may be required.

However, any um any of the approvals for the administrative site plan from here on out that would include the vacated alley are required to adhere to the listed proffers.

Okay.

Yeah, but um anyway, okay.

So let me just go very quickly down here, down this um a minimum twenty-foot setback, what's required is twelve by the city, is that right?

Oh, I'm sorry, could you repeat that?

The uh along Ringling Boulevard, the you're giving a 20-foot setback, but what's required is 12, correct?

Step back, yes.

Okay.

Yeah, step back, I'm sorry.

We are giving a 10-foot setback when zero is required.

Uh let me okay, so that's number two, correct?

Correct.

Yes.

Okay, I'm gonna put that here zero.

Um sidewalk.

We're giving eight feet.

Uh huh.

I believe five feet are is required.

I'd have to check the design criteria manual, but I believe that's required.

And eight foot is the minimum it expands as you get closer and closer to the intersection.

It's eight foot to twice.

Right, because it doesn't matter.

So minimum, let's say two foot expansion up to 15 foot expansion beyond the minimum.

Okay.

Um that's my time.

Sure.

I can continue to walk down though because I know the direction that you're going.

Anyone interested in hearing that?

She's going to have another round.

Short round, but she'll have another round.

Um I'm next, Liz.

Um, but I had some questions for Ms.

Dobbs.

Um I'm looking at the um criteria review criteria.

And let me find that page again.

Page 22.

Yes, thank you.

Um specifically mentions the harmonious system for traffic circulation if the vacation is granted.

Number one does not mention traffic circulation at all.

And I look at that as among other things, streets and alleys prevent the creation of super blocks.

So right now we have on the north we have a building, and on the south we have a building.

So that is enabling air circulation, light, etc.

That alley is creating more air circulation, light circulation.

If we vacate the alley, in effect, you're saying we're going to add to the bulk, the mass of the building in that area.

So that alley is providing a public benefit right now.

It's preventing a single massive structure.

Um I I would just speak to that.

Again, the the permitted development on those two properties does not necessarily require um us to incorporate some of the additional setbacks and stepbacks that we've created, which we would argue um balance out that that give essentially to create enhanced opportunities for light and air as well as an enhanced pedestrian light and air around a bulky building as opposed to light and air surrounding.

I mean, even if you built two buildings each 10 stories tall, there would still be light and air circulating between the two of them, at least by the width of 20 feet.

So I believe those could go up 10 stories, 10 stories on either side without the lights or circulation.

So it's not that there is no benefit of having that alleyway.

It is a public benefit, even if you put in two 10-story buildings versus a single bulky one.

Um I thought I had another question.

Oh, for Ms.

Dobbs, um the proffer regarding the public art.

Is there potential minimum value of the public art, like if they were paying into the public art fund, is there a specific minimum value that they would have to pay in?

And by not including the value in the proffers, are we enabling them to put public art on their site with at less value than they would be paying into the fund?

They would still have to meet the code requirements, so one half of one percent of the construction value.

Okay, so we don't have to make sure that that's in there.

And they would be so the excuse me, so the only difference between what they're proffering and the code is that they're saying it will be on their site as opposed to somewhere where the city might want to put it elsewhere from downtown.

That or they have the option to pay into the public art fund as well.

So then they're choosing to proffer to provide it on the site.

But I mean maybe it's more advantageous if they if we had it elsewhere rather than downtown, because we're trying to move public art away from being downtown and out into the neighborhoods.

So again, it's not necessarily a benefit.

That proffer is not necessarily a benefit.

They're going to meet the minimum requirements, and the city will not have the flexibility to put it someplace where it might be more needed.

Yes.

So they do have to meet the requirements.

But I think it's um, but either way, they have to meet the requirements.

Yeah.

So it's not a benefit to it's not an additional benefit for us.

I think I understand your saying.

I think it could be seen either way.

But this that this would be a benefit, I guess, to this area.

I think too, the intent behind that proffer really was to just beautify the area for the community, especially when you have those widened sidewalks and the park that people would be able to access and enjoy that art where they don't necessarily have something else similar in that area.

But the immediate vicinity.

Yeah.

Correct.

Okay.

Uh Commissioner Alpert, your third round.

Um, you know, just in in terms of talking about the uh provision in the um, I guess in the in the ordinance where we talk about that nothing would change um unless the city needed to make a minor change um to the development, so it would be something the city would ask.

So I would ask Ms.

Dobbs.

The the proffers that have been made in this ordinance.

Would any of them require the city to make a change to those the have these are these have already been vetted by the city that they would be allowed?

That that is the intent, and yes, it has been reviewed by the development review committee and received partial sign-off.

Um so the intent would be to not make any changes.

I think it just allows for the minor flexibility if something happens during the building permit process.

Okay.

So and it if it if it did, it would likely be just something minor and not and not really worth coming back before the city commission for that.

And then in terms of the you know, I I guess the doing the setbacks and the little, you know, park, even if it's small, it's green space and a um wouldn't the general public benefit more from being able to uh see light and air and and be able to, you know, I I guess enjoy the the property and what it looks like to the entire community if it's on the corner and you know along the street rather than an alley that is just gonna it's not gonna have light and it's just gonna be an ugly addition.

That's certainly our perspective.

Uh you know, the general public experiences buildings from the ground floor, as you know.

Um this is a a dramatic improvement in that public realm experience off the ground floor.

The alley is approximately 20 feet wide.

I believe so, yes.

And so when we think about the length of this block too, that 20-foot wide alley doesn't provide for as much light and air, and I think this is the point we're trying to make as the dramatic stepbacks that exceed code requirements do, certainly on the the Osprey and on the ring link side.

And I think too, one of the things that's very telling is the community support in this.

And and the applicant and Mark in particular did a really wonderful job of reaching out to them to see what they wanted to see here.

Um so that has been incorporated into this site plan and into the proffers to the extent that that is what the community is looking for.

And so we wanted to be able to provide those benefits to them for that trade-off of public benefit.

Yeah, the 20-foot alleys that we have around the city that have 10-foot story, 10-story buildings on both sides are just not very nice.

Nobody wants to walk in those alleys and use those alleys.

I mean, I'm I'm sure you're seeing them.

Um, having a building span over the alley and create these additional setbacks, and even though the park is small, it is adjacent open space to the adjacent property.

So I think it'll feel bigger than it what it is, and that's where the developer is planning the public arc to be so that actually could be viewed by passers by the neighbor, the neighbors on both sides and and all around the area.

So as an architect, I I think that alley is better not being used and the building encapsulating it.

Thank you.

Um Vice Mayors, this is her second round.

Right.

How many minutes do I five?

Five minutes, all right.

So I keep thinking about the existing building that currently probably very likely provides affordable housing will be demolished regardless.

Correct.

Is that true?

Yeah, that's the plan of the developer.

All right.

If that building's demolished, which it very likely will be, there will be zero affordable units.

Correct.

Okay.

Then to me, the question becomes, and I may have said this already.

Do the public benefits that are being proffered outweigh the lack of public benefit if we don't have them.

And based on the vacation and the standards for review.

So I go back to the ordinance and the um proffers that Commissioner Ahern Koch was in the middle of discussing when her time ran out.

I'm not going to go over one by one, those proffers, but if you look at them.

If you don't get the alley vacation and end up building two separate buildings on two separate lots, let's look at uh proffer number two.

The development along Ringling Boulevard will include uh you were in the middle of item two there, I think.

Which of those items do you think could still be proffered if you don't get the alley vacation?

Well, I think we we discussed this.

We didn't um so I'll I'll just repeat myself.

I think the the question is in the scenario in which a right-of-way is not vacated, what do two separate parcels that are redeveloped look like?

We didn't study it, but imagining circulation at a ground floor podium that's a much smaller size that means where parking needs to be provided and habitable space needs to be provided.

I mean, ground floor space will be at a premium due to zoning requirements.

Um I would imagine that all of these would be on the menu for trimming, considering their impact on the ground the required ground floor space per zoning, right?

Okay, so you certainly wouldn't have one through five, but you may have zero in that item number two along Ringling Boulevard.

I think that's that's safe to say.

I mean, I it's hard for me to say without sure.

Sure.

Um you're not proffering what you're saying right here.

What about um item number three?

The development along Osprey will include if you don't get that alley vacation, what will happen along Osprey, maybe?

I would imagine it would just be a similar situation where everything would be on the table.

Now the uh what Osprey has that is different than Ringling is it is not a primary street.

Is that accurate?

Believe that it is a it is a primary street.

Okay.

I think they're both primary streets.

They're both primary streets.

So even still we would have issue, you know, primary street requirements require that you have uh habitable space at the ground floor that you minimize curb cuts that uh sidewalks and canopy or place to a certain degree, right?

Higher emphasis on design.

Um but what that often does on those primary streets is it squeezes buildings because you're packing all that in.

Okay, let's go on to number four.

Um, the caliper of canopy trees.

Uh that could remain.

Um they they could provide the code, the code minimum.

Uh again, I think it would be dependent upon sort of the spacing for that as well.

And the curb cut along ringling.

That's the next one.

It could also remain as is.

Public art, same.

Public access park.

What about the park?

We wouldn't need the park.

Wouldn't need the park.

Park would be gone.

Two and three would might be gone.

Okay.

Um I don't have any more questions.

And uh well, Commissioner Batty managed to get in.

No, no, that's fine.

I can wait.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Um talking about public benefit.

I'll just wanted to ask a question what would be the public benefit.

Alley's not vacated, and uh you are able to build by right or whatever on both sides of that alley.

And or if you went live local.

So that's the question.

What do you want?

What's being proffered here today?

You know, um the vacation vacation of this alley, or whether that is of no public benefit, no public use, yeah.

There's light coming through it in air, or whatever.

But you can build uh um two ten story buildings there or whatever.

Um with no light and no air.

Um go live local.

No light, no air.

Uh let's see.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Because I'm always asking a question about this about when it comes to live local.

What is uh the AMI of live local?

I know it's 40 percent, you know, affordable housing, but I keep hearing that they can stop at 120.

It's 120% AMI.

And not go below.

Uh you're not required to not required.

Not required to.

Okay.

So well, you can go live local.

Do one twenty.

They do have to meet the city's density bonus requirement as well.

So 15% of the uh bonus units would have to be tiered.

So the remaining percentage could be at the 120% AMI if they use the attainable housing density bonus.

And I I I think it's a good point to bring up.

It's certainly another administrative option that developers and applicants have at their disposal.

I think that's the nuance of the conversation that I I wasn't included on, but included in, but I know Mark spent a lot of time with the neighborhood.

McKair and Patrick Seinsticker at iCard Meryl spent a lot of time with the neighborhood.

I think that sort of nuanced conversation is exactly what happened, the recognition that there are development rights.

So to a certain extent, let's look at what's optimal for the site, what the future looks like.

How can we improve upon the situation where it is a win-win-win as opposed to a win-lose in this particular situation?

And this is a you know, one of those you know, rare cases where we have the community and development, you know, trying to come together to work out something.

Um I do think that that you know the vacation in this alley would be uh of public benefit.

You know, so but you look at the alternatives and they won't be.

So that's something that uh I think that we need to weigh.

But I just wanted to ask that question in terms of you know, how does that look with what you can build by right and what it is you can build in terms of live locally as opposed to what we get in here today.

Uh thank you very much, Mike.

Thank you.

Uh Commissioner A.

Her and Kotch, third round.

Go.

All right.

Kelsey, you got it?

You want me to read it?

I can do it.

Whatever you can forget.

Um, so on the setback, we've got 20 feet is what we've proffered, and what's required is 12.

So that's a difference of eight feet.

Um the setback, 10 foot is proffered, zero is required, so that's the difference of 10 feet.

On the sidewalk on wringling, um, we are proffering between eight and twenty.

Um there's an eight-foot minimum, but you'll see at that corner that it expands to twenty to create that plaza green space area.

Um so that's the difference of between you know, zero at the minimum and and twelve at the maximum.

Um along osprey, um, six is required, six-foot sidewalk, and a we are per proffering a seven foot sidewalk.

Um, and then that's the difference of one foot.

And then on the landscape area on ringling, um, it's technically a four-foot amenity zone is required, and we are proffering a four-foot landscaped area, so landscaped amenity zone.

And we are proffering a four-foot landscaped area, so landscaped amenity zone.

So that's a difference of you know zero to four feet with trees.

Okay.

Six landscape.

On Osprey.

On Osprey, we are meeting the minimum requirement.

Okay, so that's just the same.

Okay.

And the improved bus shelter, what is that?

What are you improving?

Um so currently there is no structure that's located there.

My understanding is I believe that there's just a sign for the buff for the bus stop and it doesn't include a shelter.

Um Kelsey, do you can you speak to what a specifically is going to be included?

I believe that there's a canopy as well, or uh a structural overhang.

So it's not an improved bus shelter, it's a shelter a bus shelter.

There's nothing there.

Right.

So it's not improved.

It's providing a bus shelter.

Correct.

With shade.

Correct.

Okay.

Um then the pedestrian canopy, full length of the facade.

There was a question asked earlier about the canopy, the trees being canopy only on one of the two streets.

I see here the caliper of canopy trees on ringling and osprey.

So they will be candy trees on both streets, not just one street.

Correct.

Yes?

Yes.

Okay.

Um the existing curb cut, that's required anyway for a primary street, isn't it?

To get rid of a curb cut?

It's not, well, would you like me to quickly current current zoning requirements that you cannot propose new curb cuts on streets.

If there's an existing curb cut, there's an interpretation that you can maintain that existing curb cut without widening it, widening it or approving it.

Okay, but you're going to get rid of it.

Correct.

Okay, so then that is a sort of a benefit.

Okay, and then the public art, it's either a cut.

So for me, that's a wash.

Um the public the park will be a thousand to one.

What's determining the extra 132 square feet?

So we are actually working with um one of the neighbors in Kew Town Homes to um purchase a portion of land.

So technically he would own because of the vacation, yeah.

Um, and so that would be incorporated.

Sorry.

Okay.

We got through that at least.

Okay.

Any other commissioner questions?

I do.

Right.

I do have more detailed questions.

Any other commissioner questions?

No.

So I mean you can talk about okay.

So I am going to close the public hearing.

And thank you all very much for answering and addressing all of our concerns as thoroughly as you did.

And uh I will ask for a motion.

Um I'll make a motion to approve proposed ordinance number 26-559, in that um the applicant is providing a public benefit in exchange for vacation of the alley and meets our criteria regarding that.

Second.

Okay.

Motion by Commissioner Alpert, seconded by Commissioner Batte.

Uh would the maker of the motion care to discuss?

Um yeah, as I said, you know, I believe that adding additional space on the corner and adding an additional space for park or green space and public art between uh the two buildings that are located there along wringling.

Um I think that provides a public benefit, wider sidewalks, enhanced landscaping.

Um, and I think it'll make for an improved uh pedestrian experience and improved appearance when you when you approach that corner to have the the more breathing room, then you would you know have to then they would have to provide.

So I think that's a greater public benefit than an alley that leads nowhere, and would just be it wouldn't be enhanced by landscaping.

It just would be sitting there unused, probably um, you know, providing for a place to throw trash and uh hang out, and um you know, I I just think it would be more of a detriment to keep the alley there and more of a public benefit to do what the applicant is proposing.

You know, in terms of what's in this ordinance, um the proffers as Ms.

Dobbs uh discussed um follow the code and and would not likely have to be changed.

So I don't think there's a reason to say if there is some minor deviation that the city is requiring, not the applicant asking for, the city is requiring, then to have to come back before the city commission I think would be unnecessary and um a you know and and not cost effective, and I just don't think that it would make sense to do that or require that.

That's it.

Um Mr.

Bettee, would you gonna uh yeah, thank you, Mayor.

Um I concur with that of uh Commissioner Albert and uh like to commend the developer and the community coming together for coming together um and see you know what would be of uh a benefit to not only that immediate area but to the community as a whole or whatever the the last thing that I think anyone would want or any particularly anyone in that area would want is the alternative.

Um these proffers that are being made um for this project uh benefit us all or what have you.

You know, so um again, you don't you don't want the alternative and they have every right to to know to explore those possibilities if if they so choose.

So um I concur with that that of the Commissioner.

Thank you.

Commissioner Hern Kotch.

Um I would like to know if you would accept a uh friendly amendment to the motion.

The first one being um after the second sentence, uh shall be permitted and shall survive the effect.

In the um sorry, uh should make that correction.

Um page six, the top paragraph there, um all conditions under section two shall be permitted and shall survive the effective date of the right of way vacation and add uh and be recorded in a restrictive covenant.

Um I had some conversations with the uh city manager and the city attorney, uh and it was recommended that that would be um uh language to protect the intent of what the developers is um proposing that that would help in in pr protecting that um intent.

And then instead of at the bottom where it says I I understand the the um discussion about the city staff requiring some changes, and in your conversation to the motion, you said the word minor deviation.

So maybe except for any revisions change to minor deviation required by the city.

Com Commissioner Aher and Kotch, since we could you specifically state uh a motion to amend and then we can vote on the I I request a friendly amendment.

Well do I just make a move to the motion to amend, yeah.

And you make your motion.

I would make a motion to amend.

To amend the to amend your motion.

Well, I mean, but what what is the la what is the amendment that you want?

Okay.

All conditions under Section 2 shall be permitted and shall survive the effective date of the right-of-way vacation and be recorded in a restrictive covenant.

Any violation of the listed conditions specified uh above shall be considered a violation of the zoning code in the City of Sarasota.

Article 4, Division 13.

Any requested deviation to the listed conditions shall require uh City Commission approval pursuant Section 4 1307, except for any minor deviation required or requested by the City of Sarasota Development Review Committee or City Staff.

Can I ask a quick clarifying question?

So specifically with regard to the required recorded um restrictive covenant, um I just wanted to clarify when that would take effect because again this effective date of the right of way wouldn't be effective until essentially after a site plan had been approved that incorporated all of these restrictions.

And so that would be then recorded I I'm assuming concurrently with the affordable housing, Laura for the site plan.

Yeah, that would be my understanding.

Or or even in the same document, or or are you saying a different land use restriction document?

Uh I mean I would say either concurrent with the affordable housing, Laura, or if we could incorporate it into the same document and make it one Laura, yeah.

So with approval of the site plan.

Okay.

First off.

Do we we have had we have a second to wait here a second to her amend motion to amend?

I still am not clear where in my paperwork you're talking about.

Page six in the ordinance.

Page six.

Yes.

Page six of one twenty-four.

Are you inserting specific words?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

We can't see.

Okay, so it's it's page six of our 124.

Okay.

Read it again, please.

After this point, insert these words.

Okay.

Second line.

Okay.

After date of the right of way vacation, insert.

Okay.

There we are.

There we are.

It's right up there.

The last paragraph of section two of the ordinance.

So after that vacate word vacation and be recorded in a restrictive covenant.

And then the second to last line, except for any revisions, I went with the term that Commissioner Alpert used minor deviations.

I'll set them to your motion.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

So we we are um Do we have a consensus to approve?

Well, well, first let's make sure you have the word incorrect.

Yeah.

All right.

Yes, thank you.

Okay.

So you are you clear on what the motion and the amendment is?

I think we're good right now.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

So we have a motion to amend and a second.

Um do we need clarification what Commissioner Ann Koch's amendment was was to require that uh that all conditions ultimately would be recorded in a restrictive covenant, and that any revisions minor was it any minor revision.

Minor deviation instead of revisions.

Okay.

So except for any minor deviations required or requested by the city.

So um, yeah, we need a vote.

Okay.

So um on the amendment.

Right now we're voting on the amendment.

Yeah, right now we're voting on the amendment.

Okay.

Okay, and that passed four to one.

So now we're going to continue discussing the amended uh motion motion which was to approve with amendments as uh moved by Commissioner Alcard, second by Commissioner Batty.

Did you want to speak to the motion?

Yeah.

Yes, I I do.

Um and there are some reasons why those words are really important.

Um this does not reflect this current application or this developer in any way, shape, or form, but sometimes in the past of this, the history of the city.

Um this has happened where we don't see the site plan that is finally approved.

And what we had the language and what we approve and what we think in our head and what is actually happening on the ground are two completely different things.

It is real, it has happened.

Um then the public comes to us and they're very confused about why certain things haven't happened the way that you know we thought they were going to.

So I think this avoids that confusion because I think the the intent here is to provide public benefit.

Um I do compliment the applicant on working with the public.

And I I do see public benefit here.

Um I very much value the light in the air.

Um the rain falls from the sky, goes into the ground, that's valuable.

The citizen walks on the sidewalk and can look through two two ten-story buildings.

That's valuable.

Um they can stand on a public right-of-way with a sign saying whatever they want it to say because they have that right to do it.

So giving up public right-of-way, not owning the land, we don't own it, but giving up that right of way is big.

It's really a big step.

Um, and that public benefit must be there.

Um the super block point is is a very, very, very valid one.

Um I'm not uh in the position to look at you know, worst case scenarios.

I don't want to do that.

I want to weigh what's in front of us.

And I I do see benefit, public benefit in a pocket park.

I do see benefit in the extra stepbacks.

Um I I do agree to some point about you you have your public realm from the ground, but you also have it from a car, which is where the two taller, thinner buildings comes into play.

That's also part of the public realm.

This was a very difficult.

I watched the planning board meeting.

I saw how they struggled, and I was hoping that this language that we introduced here will ironclad what we're looking at, what you are proffering as a benefit, which we know proffers can go away, but we just put that in ironclad right now that it won't.

So that's where a lot of the suffering happens.

And I think this language does take care of it.

I get the assurance from the attorney that it would, and the city manager's office as well before today's meeting.

So this was not made lightly.

And this is a very tough one, but I do think that there is a public benefit when I look at the standards for review.

That's the big one, and and I do see it uh in this case.

So I I want to thank you all for for working together.

Uh Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Well, I surprise myself.

Um it boiled down to me to the question of do the public benefits being proffered outweigh what would happen without those proffers.

And to me they do.

Um I too thank you for coming up with plans and proffers that will work to benefit the community.

And when I walked in here, I didn't think I'd be saying that to you.

Okay.

So it's um I do want to say the quote unquote site plan-ish stuff that you shared with us that you're not committed to was very attractive, and I I think that will be very positive in Sarasota.

Uh on the other side, I really don't like the idea.

Well, this is not a super block as super blocks go, but I don't like the idea of combining what's currently two blocks into one block and fill it with a single building.

Um, even if you're saying they're both going to be the same height no matter what.

Two ten-story buildings on a smaller piece is better than one ten-story building that fills a you know, even if it's the same footprint, it's different.

Um I'm I've got a marketing background, so I suspect if you needed to build two separate buildings just to be able to make them attractive to purchasers of the units or renters, you're gonna figure out some way of making that alley more attractive than it is today.

That's the reality.

It is not gonna stay looking as it is if you're trying to sell million-dollar condos facing that alley.

So while I do congratulate you on what you've brought forward unofficially uncommitted, and I appreciate that Commissioner Ahern Koch went through the list and made sure that the city would be getting those benefits.

I see the superblock light and air issue as outweighing the benefits that you're offering if we vacate the alley.

So I may be the only one who votes no, but I am not in favor of vacating the alley.

So uh Commissioner Batsy.

No, I just had one question, Mayor Warna.

I wanted to ask, is is CitySide a super block?

Consider the superblock.

In my opinion, yeah, I don't like it.

But you live there.

Well, I mean, you know, in terms of it's I I was not on the commission when it was approved.

So shall we call the question?

Yes, please.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

Okay.

And also this is needs to be roll call.

Aheron cotch?

Yes.

Alpert, yes.

Betty, Ulrich, yes, Price.

No.

Oh, no.

But you don't know.

Oops, sorry.

Sorry.

I'm so used to hitting it.

Sorry.

Commissioner Alper, hit you button one more time, please for me.

Thank you.

All right.

So it passes four to one.

And uh thank you for your time.

And it is now one o'clock.

Um do we want to push through or can we have a bathroom break?

Yes.

Okay.

So two minutes.

Ten minutes.

So it's one it's one oh one.

Come back at one ten.

Yep.

Okay, perfect.

Great.

Thank you.

Welcome back.

The um July 6th Commission meeting is back in session.

And we are now at a new business item 12.1, which is going to be a discussion to about allowing mobile food trucks as a permitted use in the downtown bayfront zone district.

And we have Planning General Manager Ryan Chapdelane and Chief Planner Rihanna Dobbs to make a presentation.

Well, good afternoon.

Thank you, Ryan Chapterline, as you mentioned, and Brianna Dobbs, and thank you for pushing through.

We just have uh a very brief presentation, so it shouldn't take too long.

But uh the reason we're here, there's been some discussion and correspondence on the allowance of mobile food trucks in the downtown bayfront or DTB zone district.

Um just give you a little, I think today we'll give you a little bit of a brief background on the history of mobile food trucks in the city, where they've been permitted, and um kind of see where you'd like to go in terms of uh considering this as a future ZTA or not.

I'm just really looking to uh to seek your direction, and if you do want to go decide to go forward with it, then we would go through a formal application process uh as all zoning text amendments do with DRC Planning Board City Commission.

So now we've had roughly three different ordinances related to mobile food trucks over the last roughly five years.

Um the first, and then as you see the last bullet here is the uh what we're gonna be talking about today about expanding it further.

Um back in 21, we defined what a mobile food truck is, uh where they'd be allowed.

Uh we had the use standards in place, and that's in your backup material as well.

Those are in effect today.

And uh there was also a a state uh preemption that dealt with uh food trucks that we were also mindful of and made sure we did not conflict with that in our code language.

Um the following year, per the direction of the city commission at the time, uh there the food mobile food trucks were expanded into the downtown core DTC zone district.

And then just two years ago, as we were going through the urban mixed use zone district, it created those zone districts and all the use standards and permitted uses, et cetera, uh mobile food trucks were allowed in in that zone district, too.

And then just to give you uh a graphic here of what that looks like uh within the city uh where mobile food trucks are allowed today.

And that's all in the the blue area there.

And then uh what we're discussing for downtown Bayfront, um that's what that looks like today, if if those were to be allowed.

Um may ask, you know, how come this wasn't part of you know one of the initial zone districts that were allowed way back when?

And you know, I think downtown Bayfront is a little different, at least there are parts that are more residential in nature.

Um certainly there is a bit of a commercial area, but a lot of it, you know, when you think of South Palm Avenue, um that's generally residential, right?

Even though it's on downtown Bayfront.

Um there is a thought, you know, if you wanted to look at this, you know, maybe more on a case-by-case basis.

We do have a provisional use option in the zoning code that um does require a permit, and that can be something that's you know looked at on an annual basis for renewal, uh, but not something that would just be completely by right.

And then as we talked about downtown buryfront, the other thought was well, should they also be allowed in some of the commercial zone districts where today they are not.

Now there's not many of them, the the urban mixed use uh as parcels begin to rezone.

We'll we'll kind of replace a lot of these.

But uh there are you know number of commercial zone districts, and for consistency's sake, should those should mobile food trucks be allowed in those zone districts as well.

Uh so that's really it.

Again, there's you know, staff hasn't drafted anything, it's more just taking this uh before you for your consideration and you know, comments, questions.

Again, there isn't there's been some correspondence from the public on this, so uh we're here to you know address any comments you may have.

Okay.

Thank you.

Before we take uh the you take questions, we do have a request to speak from one person.

David Lowe, come on down.

Hi, everyone.

I'm uh David Lowe, uh City resident.

I'm a big fan of food trucks.

Um the concern and and I think they add a degree of vitality and vibrancy to community you can't quantify, just like a farmer's market or a uh a micro distillery or special event.

So I'm for them.

I'm I'm just concerned about going too far on this given the nature of where uh they might end up.

The I've done a site visit to the Swim City uh location, and it's quite a large parcel.

It's about the size of the rosemary park.

So I think personally it would be kind of ideal for that.

But the devil's in the details on if it happens there, then there's some vacant uh parcels, the old Joey's pizza spot.

Uh I mean you could end up with food truck down and then there's another commercial property, you know, uh a block down.

So you could all of a sudden end up with multiple food trucks all over the place on one stretch of of land.

But but this idea of uh the uh Mr.

Chapterling mentioned about some uh something short of a zoning text amendment that is more gives some flexibility to try and test this out is also quicker.

I think when I talked to Ms.

Dobbs, she was saying if this if we were to go this whole process could take six months.

And I don't think that that's uh appropriate for this business owner if uh if there was a uh uh indication of the commission to try and try something.

How to what form this takes, I can't, it's above.

It's different than what I live in.

But uh again, I would uh I like the idea of it, uh particularly uh on on a business such as that, and we know what uh time of year we're in.

If it helps them activate their business, they keep their business open later.

I think it it it uh services the Western guests and stuff like that walking to and from town.

So I think it uh you know it serves a different price point than some of the fixed um restaurants, and I don't think real in reality, in my opinion, uh really is competition in the greater sense of things.

All boats rise at high tide.

So I my hope in as a personal resident, not as a any association member, that there might be some avenues here to look at this in a semi-out-of-the-box area, still consistent with your policies to see if uh something might be done to accommodate this uh interest.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

UK, so we will invite Mr.

Chapdelane and Ms.

Dobbs back.

And uh Commission Vice Mayor is first up.

Thank you.

Um couple of questions for clarity.

Do all food trucks have to have a permit?

Yes.

And um that means a permit for the food truck, but also that they have permission from the property owner to park their food truck in that location.

Correct.

Do in the permit, do they have to identify all locations at which they will be parking?

Well, they would have to have the written ownership from each of those locations.

So essentially they would have to have a list of all the locations.

Okay.

Um Mr.

Lowe's question was interesting.

Is there a way to allow the specific coffee cart that brought this to our attention?

Is there a way to allow that to go back on site before a ZTA on this matter goes through all of our hopes?

In the past, if there's a pending ZTA, we've an applicant's been allowed to operate a potential user, having a potential activity at at their risk, knowing that you know this this is pending.

It may or may not be approved, but that's something that we that has been considered in the past.

Has been considered or has been done.

Has been allowed in the past.

Okay.

Once a ZTA is filed.

So if this passes, I'm gonna ask that we reach out to the coffee cart person.

Do we have her name and number?