Good afternoon. I am Keana Singleton, Vice Chair of the Development Review Commission. I will be presiding over today's hearing on behalf of the rest of the board. Welcome. The Development Review Commission is a voluntary group of citizens appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the City Council. The commissioners is responsible for considering requests including special exceptions, site plan approvals, variances, reinstatements, redevelopments, and street vacations. Copies of today's agenda and are available at the podium to my right. Year-Light. Certain proceedings on today's agenda are quasi judicial, meaning that all parties will have a chance to present evidence and testimony to assist the commission in making its decision. If you have questions regarding the quasi judicial procedures, there's a guide available from the clerk at the center console. All persons who plan to provide testimony today will be required to take an oath prior to speaking. Anyone speaking before the commission on a quasi judicial item must fill out a blue card and will be sworn in by the clerk prior to speaking. A representative for a group or organization may be designated, but the representative will be allowed only three minutes. The pulling of time is not permitted. For each quasi judicial case on today's agenda, a presentation will be made to the commission by a representative of the city admission administration. Staff, the applicant and any registered opponent will each have 10 minutes for their presentation. Following presentations, all persons in attendance who have filled out a blue card located on the podium will be given three minutes to speak. If you have filled out a card, you will be called by name and ask, approach the podium. All statements, questions, or testimony must be stated in front of a microphone located at either podium or inside of the room to ensure all audio is recorded for the record. When addressing the commission, please begin with your name and address and state whether you have been sworn in. Once members of the public have had a chance to speak, cross examination will begin. During the cross examination phase of the proceedings, city administration, the registered opponent, if any, and the applicant will each have five minutes to ask questions of any witness. Questions should be directed to me as vice chair. I will in turn redirect the questions to the appropriate person for response. Following cross examination, Rebuttal and closing statements will begin. Join this phase of the preceding city administration, the registered opponent, if any, in the applicant will each have five minutes to provide a rebuttal and closing statements. If there is no registered opponent, any person who wishes to be a registered opponent may register as a registered opponent with a DRC clerk prior to the beginning of the initial presentation of the case and may participate in the limited purposes across examination and rebuttal or closing statement phases of the hearings. If more than one person wishes to utilize the time for the opponent, the opponent must select one representative to present their case. After rebuttal and closing statements, the public hearing will be closed and the commission will go into executive session. The commission may ask questions of the applicant or the public at any time during the proceedings. All motions of the commission are made in an affirmative manner. With a Cormor 5 or more commission members, it takes four concurrent votes of the commission for any motion to pass. Once the commission has voted on your item, we ask that you continue any conversations outside if whether permits. This will allow us to move forward with your fellow St. Petersburg citizens DRC matters. Thank you for your anticipated cooperation. Finally, I ask that you turn off all cell phones and similar devices during these proceedings. At this time, please rise so that we may begin the pledge of allegiance. All right. May you please take the role? Yes. I pledge allegiance to the Lord of the United States of America and to the Republic who will manifest my nation under God in the nearest law, the liberty of the justice world. All right, may you please take the role? I'm going to leave it to you. I'm going to just sit there. I'm going to leave it to you. I'm going to just sit there. I'm going to leave it to you. I'm going to just sit there. I'm going to leave it to you. I'm going to just sit there. All right, may you please take the role? Yes. So. Here. Here, and in. We allie. Clemens. Flimmons, Singleton, Year, Black, Year, Reiner, Year, Flimm, Year, Thataloo, Year, and we have a quorum. here. Black here. Riner here. Lynn here. That alone here and we have a quorum. We have team for the evening today. You have to do this right now. If you're going to be speaking today, Please stand up. No general public comment. Approval of minutes. So we're going to approve a minute from March 5, 2025, meeting the RCD. Move approval. Second. Second. All right, ready? Still? Yes. Singleton? Flat? Yes. Reiner. Yes. What? Yes. Vatelow. Yes. And that motion passes. Okay. Other comments? Answer. No. We're here on microphone. The end of the microphone. The owner does have a microphone. Like, does not have a microphone. I just saw that hold up. I know I didn't do this. I'm pretty familiar with it. I'm just going to wipe it over there. Okay. I'm going to hold if this is too loud. I'm going to do to move to the other side. I'm just having a little spots. That'd be Joe, come here. I'm an engineer. Thank you. You can figure that out. Nope. Okay. That's one. Thank you. Thank you. That's for We have two different cases today. Phase number two, five, dash five, four. We have zero. Chair, let's us switch in front of the mic. Thank you. I'll switch. We'll slide this way. We could do that. Yeah. Yeah. We're just, we're gonna just slide down one. We'll just have a little, that's yours. A little gap in the middle. That's why there wasn't on there. Yeah. Alright, we're, they're sliding down. Okay. I think that's why I wasn't there. Chambers too. Through you the chambers. I'm chaperous. Through you the chaperous. I feel like we've committed to this. Okay. Hold on. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Hold on. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Then we have two different cases say. Defer case to say case number 25-540000003 and case number 25-540000009. They have been deferred to May 7, 2025. Today's agenda order will be slightly altered from the normal proceedings to hear quasi-judicial terms ahead of our legislative item. We also have six voting members here today on the board and all cases have agreed to move forward with less than seven voting members. The first case we're going to hear today is agenda item 24-5400134. Staff. Good afternoon, Brian Bridal with Development Review Services. And today I'm presenting case number 24, 4-5, 4, 0, 0, 0, 1, 3, 4. This property is located at 3, 3, 5, 11th Avenue, Northeast. It's zoned NT3, neighborhood traditional single-family 3. It's within the historic old Northeast neighborhood association boundaries. And the existing house was built in 1925 and the applicants purchased the property in 2024 and it is a 50 foot wide lot More specifically, it's the east 50 feet of lot 10 And it was originally planted as a 60 foot wide lot like most of the neighborhood and it is unclear exactly when the west 10 feet of that lot was sold to the neighbor but we do know it was before 1989 and here's the the entire Bayview addition platt and you can see that 95% of the lots, we at 60 feet wide except those long locusts which were 65 feet wide. And currently over time a lot of those lots have been reconfigured divided up and primarily are now less than the original platet width. So most of them are less than 60 feet wide currently. This is a survey of the existing house, showing the setbacks. It's currently three and a half feet from the left side property line, 16.7 feet from the front, and roughly six feet from the right side property line, which means it's currently non-conforming with NT3 standards. The applicants plan to demo the existing single-family house and build a new single-family home on the property. The plans for the new single-family home show a story house with meets fenestration and transparency requirements and proposes a floor area ratio of 0.57 which the base and NT3 is 0.4 but you're allowed up to 0.2 of bonuses so they're applying for 0.17 worth of FAR bonuses. Here's the site plan shown in the setbacks. The proposed setbacks in the the rear setback meets code at nine feet, but the front and side setbacks are short of what's required in NT3. the front yards proposed proposed that 20.3, the required is 30. Right side yard's proposed that 5, 7.5 is required. On the left 5.3 feet is proposed and 7.5 is required. However, for the reduced front setback, the code allows administrative approval of a reduced front yard setback if it is consistent with the predominant setbacks on that block face. So they applied for that earlier this year. Staff went out measured the front setbacks of the homes on that street and found that the predominant setback was 20.2 feet. So they're proposing 20.3 so that was administratively approved. So the variance request is only for the side yard setbacks. That's to reduce the side yard setback from seven and a half feet on each side, to five feet on one side, and five point three feet on the other side. and it was advertised as five feet on both sides, but the plans have since been revised. So our analysis, one of the criteria for reviewing variances is whether the lot is substandard. And this lot is substandard. it's 50 feet wide where the minimum required is 60 feet and it is 6,360 square feet in lot area where the minimum lot size and NT3 is 7,620 and as stated before over 50% of the lots within this subdivision are currently less than 60 feet and on this block face five of the 11 lots are less than 60 feet wide and 100 percent are less than the minimum 7,620. The substandard lots are not uncommon in this subdivision and on the street. And analyzing the neighborhood character, staff looked at whether the proposed project promotes the established traditional development pattern on a block face, including setbacks, height and other dimensional requirements. So we looked at the block face out of the 12 homes, nine were two story homes homes The front yard setback is consistent The and then the combined side yard setbacks we looked at the property appraiser Information for lot width as well as building width and subtracted that from the lot width to get the Combined side yards, so it could be more on one side Less on the other, but these are just the combined. And they range from 15 to 30 feet. The proposed project has a combined side yard setback of 10.3 feet. And then on the block and block face, we analyzed the predominant FAR and found that it was 0.44 And applicant is proposing 0.57 for the new home Another criteria is whether the strict application of the provisions of this code would prevent reasonable use of the land or buildings Staff does not believe that that is the case as the property can still be developed with a single family home while meeting the seven and a half foot side yard setbacks and we looked at recent development within that area of properties less than 60 feet in zone NT3 in the surrounding area and we found four homes were built on 50 foot wide lots. Two were built with the seven and a half foot setbacks and two were granted barrienses. One, because the applicant was the only affected party in that case on the reduced side yard setback. And the other one was, because it did not but single family homes. We did receive a comment from Kona but we did receive an email yesterday afternoon from the historic Old Northeast neighborhood association objecting to the request citing that the existing encroachment that three and a half foot setback is a minimal depth. There's viable options within the setbacks for building and advocating for the reuse and rehabilitation of existing structures. And when new development is necessary that it should meet the current LDRs to achieve compatibility with the neighborhood. The applicant submitted two signatures of no objection from nearby property owners, shown with the stars. And I did receive a call from the adjacent neighbor who their support was undecided at the time. They wanted to think it over, but their main concern was with increased stormwater runoff. Based on those criteria, review of the application, staff is recommending to an aisle of the variants. But in the staff report, there are recommended conditions approval if the case is approved. That concludes my presentation. Let me know if you have any questions. Thank you. Do you have any questions? I got one. Do you know what your adjacent neighbor called whether it was to the west or east? To the west. It was okay. Thank you. So you said not a single other property owner in that area has a combined interior setback or side-side setback of less than 15 feet. Is that right? Right. Okay. Yeah, just on that block face. Okay. So both sides of the street. Okay. and based on property of appraisal records. And that's just for the primary house, not accessory structures. Right, okay. All right, anyone else? Well, I have a question maybe for Cory or maybe you know. In the FAR bonus spreadsheet, it's on page 28 of the staff report. I just had a question on, well, two questions. Item O says solar ready and they get .02. How do you determine if something is solar ready? I don't know what that means. Because the FAR bonus, you know, enters into this because it's already exceeding the, and they're asking for these numbers to be able to build. So what does solar ready mean? Currently we require 200 amp, I believe, capabilities, a letter from the engineer stating that the roof can support the solar capabilities. I may be missing one more. They're kind of steep pitched. Okay, Scott. For the records, Scott, the last item we require is conduit running from the electric panel to the roof. Okay. And so the only other one I had was item I says windows have true or simulated by light and it says mountains, but I think that means millions on an exterior surfaces. With the plans that we have, I mean, you all go through this checklist when they go in for permit, because there's some of these things that are pretty specific on what they have to do to get the FAR bonus rightfully so. Yes, yeah, we'll check it during plan review, require that it's noted on there and then during final inspection we make sure that it's on the exterior and on the interior of the windows. Okay. Thank Okay. All right, is the applicant here? All right. Please state your name, address, and if you've been sworn. Good afternoon. My name is Clinton Kurtz. I'm a property owner of $335, 11th Avenue. Have you been sworn in? Yes. Sorry. I'm sworn property owner of 335, 11th Avenue. Heavy Vince's warning. Yes, sorry. Vince's warning. Thank you, everyone, for meeting with us this afternoon. And everyone's busy. Just a brief introduction. My name is Clinton Kurtz. I'm moved here in 2024. I work for a national company that is, thank you. That is looking to relocate and open office in the Tampa Bay area in St. Pete. My wife is here, Tara, and she's a local realtor for Berkshire Hathaway now. And our son, Caden, lives in the neighborhood and he plays baseball for the Northeast Little League. He's a member of the St. Petersburg Museum of History and we like to go fishing. So that's just a little bit about us. I know that's nothing to the variance, but just kind of who we are. Just a brief overview. I mean, Brian explained it really, really well. The home is currently located at 335-11th Avenue, and has side-yard setbacks of 3 1 1 2 feet. So it's pretty small setbacks currently. Our playing was to try to rebuild the home in its current footprint or even renovate and do an addition to what was there. Unfortunately, it's just got a lot of damage over the years, the two hurricanes, of course, did some damage and there's termites and mold and we were advised to try to build a new block home in its location instead. And of course, once we started making plans for block home, we made it two stories. But as Brian said, the current code requires a setback of seven and a half feet. We were requesting a five foot setback based on previous approvals and we did a, I want to say a non-official study, an unconfirmed study. It was what I wrote on here just because we paid somebody to measure all the setbacks for the side yards and they found it to be about five feet, which is one of the reasons we applied for that. I also just thought it was worth noting that since it's a non-conforming lot of 50 feet, NT1, NT2, and NT4 under circumstances for a 50 foot wide lot does allow for a five yards setback for the side yards and t3 does not but we thought it was reasonable a reasonable request and hence the reason for variance. I don't want to dig too deep into this staff report dated 31925 but it did address combined setbacks it was based upon information from the tax records so it the overall dimension of the property and then the overall dimension of the home. We didn't think that was 100% accurate to be basing that information on mainly because of the study that we did in the measurements that were taken. We think the tax records are probably not 100% accurate. There's two properties that I just listed on here. One is 345-11th Avenue. It says it has combined setback of 20 feet but it's only located about two and a half feet from the western side of the property. So I have a picture of that to show you as well as some aerials. And then 317 and 11th Avenue and the reports says it has a combined setback of 30 feet or 15 foot on each side. But the rear of the property, it's about one foot from each side and the front's maybe four or five feet. So I think the process of taking the tax record dimension of property and taking what's recorded as the home dimension doesn't give you an accurate portrayal of the actual side yard setbacks. So as he showed, this is block six. It is between 11th and 12th and Locust and Oak where the lot number 10 on block six. This is an aerial of block six. I just did some unofficial scaling Google Earth, but it kind of just gives you some ideas. I don't know if this has a Does that have a pointer on it? Oh yeah. So this was 317 as as noted, as a 30-foot wide side yard setback. And as you can see, it's pretty close to the property on either side, and in the back. I mean, you might have a foot on either side. And a lot of these properties are less than 10 feet apart. They're all pretty close. So we thought five foot was reasonable. This is our house here. It's the third one in. And 245, this one's got a two and a half yards side or it's set back from our property, which I got a picture of here. It's just the current foot of the home. Like I said, we originally wanted to try to do an addition to it and renovate it, but we revised against that. The home to the, if you're looking at the property to plan east, is obviously in a very poor shape. It's holes inside of the house. It's in pretty rough shape, but it's about two and a half feet from the fence. The fence has fallen over, but that's the base of the fence right along the house. So the reason I just say this is a lot of the homes there. Do you have a less than a five foot side yard set back? And we think it was a reasonable request, and we're looking forward to making the home look a lot prettier as you saw in the rendering. This is an overview of our current home that we own, and then the proposed home. So the red is the current home and the gray is the proposed. So we took a similar layout to what's existing for the garage and for the home, but we did bring in the sides to make the house skinnier at the request of the city on both sides. So we were trying to be accommodating there and make a better situation for the side yard setbacks. And just briefly wanted to chat while we thought this was a hardship and that's because obviously a bigger setback makes the house a lot skinnier. It's going to reduce the home by 410 square feet. We had the home of praise with a 7.5 foot side yard setback and then a 5 yard setback. And it reduced the home value by $265,000, which is a big hit on equity for us in our opinion. It almost makes it tough to justify the build. And for us, that's a financial hardship. We also feel like, like I said earlier, the five yard setback kind of matches the predominant homes, based on what we measured with an actual tape measure on the structures, especially since a lot is 50 foot wide. If this was a much wider lot, if there was even a 60 foot lot, as most of the lots were supposed to be in block six, we think a seven and a half foot side yard setback would be reasonable for sure. But because it's so much skinnier, we're asking for a five foot we're willing to, again, if we leave it as is, it's three and a half foot, so we're willing to obviously give you a better condition at five. And lastly, we're willing to, again, if we leave it as is, it's three and a half foot, so we're willing to, obviously give you a better condition at five. And lastly, we're excited to increase the neighborhood and fix up the place. We don't have to have, we're willing to work with the city with the design of the house, we've changed the plans a few times to bring it and align with the rest of the character of the neighborhood It doesn't have to be five and on each side we were trying to get a 40 foot wide home So be six and four seven and three whatever makes sense, but the 40 foot home is really what we were trying to get to so And that was based on all the math from from all the builders and Prizes and architects so anyway that's it. Unless you guys have any questions for me. Thank you. Yes, sir. Plus, since we're on this slide here, does it cost 264,732 dollars and 23 cents additional to build the home, the additional five feet narrower. So according to the builder, your argument is it's a financial hardship. Are you saying that to go with a narrower home would cost you 264,732 dollars and 23 cents? I don't think that's what you're saying worth my understand so yeah that you would not be able to resell the house For as much money as is your financial hardship argument you'll be a loss of equity. Yeah, okay House of worth less. Okay. Of course, I don't think that's something we consider here. Just heads up to you. It's, your profit is not calculated into this. We're gonna, have you presented a home layout that meets the seven and a half foot setbacks on both sides to the city. We have not. Okay. I have no further at this time. Anyone else? A couple questions for you. I mean, I feel sorry for you. It looks like you closed on the house at the end of August, and then you had about a month, and then the hurricane's hit. So it looks like kind of a rough time for you. But on, staying on this slide, which was kind of good, the home value drops by that much. I would say that the home value had a seven and a half foot side yard setback when you bought it last year. And it's more of an increase in 264,000 if the side yard setback is reduced. So I wouldn't say that that was necessarily a hardship because that's what it was built the way it was built and now you want to change things which is, I understand, it's just I don't know that I kind of, and I was struggling with what Commissioner Flint said about you know, how that's a hardship but I understand it's a cost but it's not something that really enters into the variance, I think, question. And that's really all I had on as far as this slide. You know, the layout is nice, and I appreciate the fact that you made it smaller, narrower. So it shows that you're trying. I don't know if it's enough, but it's certainly unfortunate that you had to do that because of the storm. So that's all. Okay. Oh, have you talked to the neighbor to the West 325, Elementav Northeast? What did they say about the fight foot set back from their house? So they just closed in that property like a month or two ago. So they're a new owner. They are also building a new home. So they're going to demolish their home allegedly. They have a builder that's going to do that. We had reached out to them to ask if we could buy a couple of feet of property. So this wouldn't be an issue. And they just did not give a response. They were unsure of what they were going to build, unsure about the size. They were happy to see that our current home was going to be new, hopefully, in a better condition. But no objections or anything as to the setbacks. What's the matter? Okay. Let me show you a foot. What kind of damage was sustained by the current home from the hurricane? Understand, termite issue, but what did the home just sustain? Yes, it's now skewed a little bit. It's just from the wind. I guess old foundations, foundations couldn't really hold up the wind. I mean, is it repairable? Anything, anything's repairable? Is it a frame home or a block home? It's frame, wood frame. Yeah, it's a hundred year old wood frame, which I'm sure hundred years ago, they wasn't a big deal but now it's you want a block home for termites and wind and everything so thank you. Yes sir. Any other questions? Okay thank you. Are there any additional blue cards? No okay so I have one blue card Rob Wertz. Okay. Can you say your name, Adress, and if you've been sworn in? I'm Rob Wertz. I live at 305-8th Avenue, Northeast. I'm here as co-chair of the Historical Northeast Neighborhood Association's Planning and Preservation Committee, and I have been sworn in. Okay. Actually, I did summarize what we had stated as our stance for this. We concur with staff that there is a viable house that can be built on this property that conforms to current setbacks. The Neighborhood Association generally advocates for reuse and rehabilitation of structures such as this one because it contributes to the North Shore National Register or Historic District. It is 100 years old so it's a contributing structure to that. And in cases where an owner elects to demolish, we wish them to be held to the current zoning and use LDR and bonus points to achieve something that's compatible instead. Thank you. Any questions for? Okay. So we're moving across examination. Staff, do you have any cross examination for the applicant? Staff waves. Do you have any cross examination for staff? I do not. We wave. Okay. Staff do you have a you have a question? No, I'm just going to see how staff I was trying to keep with the podium. Staff do you have any closing arguments? Do not. You have any closing arguments? Yes ma'am my last thing was just that we we're just gonna live in the home it's our future home we're really excited to be there and it's gonna be our forever home so we're not just trying to like make a buck here it's it house. Okay, thank you. All right, we'll move into executive session. One of the issues I have is that we're approving, or I should say the designing incorporates FAR bonuses and it seems counterintuitive that you would allow for reduced setbacks when you're allowing .17 of additional FAR. If we didn't approve the additional FAR, would we not be in a situation where we could meet the setbacks? The other is that I could see skewing this so that it's closer to the west side than it is the east side because that's what the west side is used to and they've got a larger lot. And they're going to, it sounds like, is if they're going to redevelop and if they knew that they were going to be looking at a reduced setback, maybe five feet or three and a half feet or whatever on the west side, then we could increase the The east side could be increased. And we don't have a sign off from the two immediate east side. It knows the two stars were to the north and not either to the west or to the east. I'd also like to add the using other NT zoning as a reference for the five foot setback. That's for single story structures. For two story structures, they typically have six foot setback. So I think the ask here is a little more than it could be. I mean, I look at the floor plans and I can see opportunity for a tightening of the design. I think, you know, it hasn't been, I don't think a hardship has been demonstrated here. There are plenty of opportunities to design an excellent home within the proposed setbacks. I think we step back to when the city goes through in meetings with citizens, neighbors, they start looking at what future developments coming, what do they like, what do they dislike about the neighborhoods. The seven and a half foot setback is not something that the city pulls out of the air. It's something that's been discussed in public meetings, hearings. What do you want to see in your neighborhood in that particular zoning? So once we start varying from what the people that live there want in their own neighborhoods overall, it helps to avoid stacking of homes. Again, there's nothing wrong with in downtown where you have zero lot lines. That's expected. It's not expected here. And when I look at the front elevation of this home with reduced setbacks, once you start getting, like in this case, mentioned the property to the West is gonna get redeveloped. Well, guess what? Almost guarantee it's gonna be a two story. Now you've got two two stories with reduced setback. Now you're looking like potentially more of a townhome community of two and three story buildings, which is not the character of that particular neighborhood. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's the wrong zoning, the wrong neighborhood to have that intense lack of air circulation gaps between homes, et cetera. So I don't think there's been any demonstrated hardship on this other than it's an ask, they've asked, but I don't think it's appropriate in this zoning. Also, the measurements done from Google and I'd like to point out our little misleading because the setbacks are not from roof-eeve to roof-eave, right, those project into the setbacks. The setbacks are measured from the face of structure to face of structure. So that would give you, you'd have to look at, you know, floor plans for your site plans for each of those places in order to determine what the setbacks are. staff did provide the combined setback dimension, which was a minimum of at least 15 feet of setback. So there, if you split it partially 50-50, you're looking at seven and a half on both sides. So it's not meeting the setbacks in any way, shape, or form based upon an average with the neighbors. So I can't see supporting it. It's an ask without the hardship. I mean, yeah, it's a beautiful home. I think that it's great to see a family that wants to make it through to here, but I think we've kind of came to a consensus that we want to stick within the setbacks that are within this zoning. All right, go ahead and make a motion. Move approval of our answer to the interior side yard from seven half feet to five feet for both interior lat lines subject to the staff conditions. Second. Second. second. I can't remember if room. The flat second. Somebody here did. Oh. Can't hear. Okay. Black? No. So? No. Singleton? No. Got a low? No. Reiner? No. Blint? No. That motion fails. All right. OK, we will move to case number 25-540000009. I nervous six. Six. Sorry. Let me say that again. Case number 25-54006. Thank you. Good afternoon. Brian Bradell, planner with development review services to present case 25-5400006. This property is located at 2610 coffee pot Boulevard Northeast. It's owned neighborhood traditional three within the historic old northeast neighborhood association boundaries. It was purchased by the applicants in 2024. And after experiencing flood damage in the storms, they have since demoed the house that was in that aerial. So the lot has an irregular shape to it, where it has 12 feet of alley frontage in the back and then jogs a little bit and then becomes a rectangle with 66 feet of frontage along coffee pot boulevard. Here's some pictures from that alley, a couple from staff on the left and then the applicant's picture with their showing 12 feet there. And then so that single card garage within that 12 feet was on the applicants' property and then the garage to the right is actually the neighbors' garage. So the property was platted with these frontages, 12 feet along the alley and 66 feet along coffee pot. And that was plated in 1925. So the pre-existing conditions before the house was removed, they had the one car garage in the back facing the alley and then they had a circular driveway in the front. So you can see here. The applicant's plan is to build a new single-family home on the property. It would be two stories above the garage and storage to meet FEMA requirements. and they're proposing a circular driveway in the front along Coffee Pot Boulevard with two single Bay garage doors also facing the front. So within the original variance request, that's mentioned in the advertisement, and the staff report There was there's two parts the first was to Evarience to allow the circular driveway and the garage doors on coffee pot boulevard rather than the alley And then the second part was a variance to the circular driveway dimensions But that second part has been met through through revised plans since that advertisement went out. So the second part is no longer required. So the variance request is only to allow the circular driveway and the garage doors on coffee pot boulevard. So the variance comes from the neighborhood traditional building and site design standards for vehicle connections and parking. It requires an NT2, NT3 and NT4 that access for new garages and driveways be designed to take advantage of the first available alternative and the following list and the first one on that list is driveways and garage doors shall face the alley. So since this does have frontage on the alley, the applicants were told that they would need to, that they could not have a circular driveway in the garage doors facing coffee pot boulevard. And the second part of that subsection under vehicle connections and parking talks about when a driveway is allowed in the front yard in NT when more than one curb cut is allowed. And basically it's if it's on a future major street, which this property is not. So in analyzing the neighborhood character staff evaluated 25 similar properties in the area from 30th Avenue Northeast at the north down to 22nd Avenue Northeast. And that was chosen because that's where coffee pot Boulevard becomes a local residential street and it is no longer a major street and all the properties were developed with frontage on coffee pot access to the rear alley and we're all zoned into three. Valuating these properties we found that 64% have driveways on coffee pot boulevard. The remaining 36% do not. And then two of the 25 had garage doors facing coffee pot boulevard. One had two single big garage doors. And the other had one single big garage door. And then we also looked at four of those 25 homes that were built after 2008, when this code requirement kicked in, and out of the four two received variances for circular driveways on coffee pot boulevard, one in 2013 and one in 2014, And then two were recently built in 2021 and 2022 with rear access only off of the alley. And as mentioned, a special condition of the limited frontage on the alley is not a result of the applicant since it was plated in 1925 with those frontages. Another criteria, general purpose and intent of the, of the NT district within the NT district purpose and intent, the street standards are intended to preserve the alley system as a mechanism to provide limited access for parking and utility functions in the rear of the site. Staff routed this application to both the engineering and capital engineering department and the transportation departments. Both supported the request for access on coffee pot boulevard. They did not support the second request, but that is no longer required. Staff received an email yesterday from the historic Old Northeast neighborhood association objecting to the request, citing that the property does have achievable access to the alley. Garage doors facing pot boulevard is inconsistent with the surrounding area and advocating for the use of alleys and accordance with the code. And the applicant submitted seven signatures of no objection from nearby property owners shown with those stars on the map. And then two additional emails of support were received by staff from two of those seven neighbors. So based on the review of the application and the criteria staff is recommending denial of the variance. That concludes my presentation. Let me know if you have any questions. Thank you. Any questions for staff? Just making sure here. Circular driveway is no longer an issue. They've altered it. Yeah, the city code. Yeah, the circular driveway dimensions are meet the the code standards for circular driveways. So the issue is the two garage doors on the front of the building. Would that also include removal of a drive connection up to the front of the house as part of that? Yeah, so the code... From the circular driveway to where they proposed the garage doors. Would those... are those going away? Or this would need to go away. It's with OK as well, yeah. Right, thank you. Any additional questions for staff? Is that so? OK, well, I had that picture of the driveway in my head. So if they go, they're going to just be driving over grass or gravel or how will they access the garage? They would need to redesign the home to access from the alley and the garage doors would have to face the alley. But if they, but if we approved this and it was the circular driveway was there but, but I understand your question just was that the two actual little pieces that get to the garage would have to go? And the garage doors would have to go. Because you can't have a garage door facing the front. OK, I thought the question I thought you asked was, if the circular driveway were approved, would those two connections? Right. It's my understanding the circular driveway that would be included in the garage. Now there's two separate, you have the variance of the circular driveway. There was the variance for the dimensions that was then removed. And then so it's just a circular driveway and the second is the garage doors. Yeah, I think. I understand what you're saying. I'm just wondering how do you access the garage? From just the, say, the semi-circle. And you don't have the two. That would come out. I mean, it's still part of the driveway. OK, it is part of the driveway to get to the garage. OK, question now. So still what's pictured is just the dimensions are different. The dimensions would now be code if you approve a circular driveway in the front yard. Prior to that they're requesting a larger circular driveway as well. Correct me if I'm wrong. Correct. I can see a little bit of the confusion too. So really what's before you is a request to approve the circular driveway. If you approve the circular driveway which is is not permitted currently, then the garage doors could remain. If you disapprove the circular driveway, they're going to have to redesign it to give her to the garage doors, because they won't be able to access them without the circular driveway on the front. OK. Thank you. Do we confuse you more? No, I'm fine. Any additional questions for staff? Is applicant here? Okay. Good. Please say your name, your address, and if you've been sworn in. Hello, my name is Mike Miyada. I'm with son 2610 Coffee Pop Boulevard. And I've been sworn in. Thank you. So the, as you know, the House Sustainess of Tantial Damage as a term by FEMA, unfortunately, we had to tear it down. So the new design was much more compressed portion to the neighborhood in size, approximately 32, 65 square feet. If you notice, I don't have clicker to bring up what he has, but you know, the alley access is very limited. There's a block wall to the north that blocks your view, leaving the driveway. The driveway standards in my understanding is minimum of 10 feet and a flare is typically suggested, especially when you have limited access and this would not allow that because I would make it 14 foot wide because the flare is generally 2 by 7 and I understand that to be the front, but it should apply also in the rear The tandem parking we just don't feel is efficient and That's pretty much all I have to say Thank you Any questions for the applicant? So Currently doesn't it show an ADU going into the backyard? No ADU any structures at all in that backyard Not to bright.. It's a pool. Just a pool. You know, the garage door. Trying to pull up the site plan here, bear with me a moment. The proposed garage doors, they will not look like garage doors, they will look like French doors. Oh, the only idea behind it is that it is going to look consistent with what NT zoning likes to see. I'm looking at the site plan and it has the pool. Yeah, basically at the northwest corner, you know, probably 30, 40 feet back from the alley. Have you looked at putting the swimming pool immediately due west of the home, running north south, that would leave an open area to put a garage for tandem parking at that point. I'm just trying to create I guess the egress for the staircase. Sure that could be done although it's not about the location of the pool. It's about the access to the garage and the rear access. You know, if that picture. Right, but I'm seeing where you could come in from the back alley, and you could create a parking garage that's a tandem directly underneath the home. If you look to the house that shares the driveway to the adjacent home, there's a big obstruction there. That's really the issue is when they park in their driveway and this this driveway is trying to be used that's you know the point of this variance is at the neighboring property they share the access we're trying to eliminate that so it's a private issue between these two property owners one is obstructing the other is you're saying? Yes. Are they parking in the public alley and obstructing the rear access? Yes, the alley's been vacated. So the alley that runs north to south has been vacated. So everyone's using that space that would have when this place was plated. The alley that runs north, south is vacated. Yes, it's yard. Oh, okay, well, there's, yeah, they've got a portion of it vacated on that house. Yeah, this makes sense if that alley was usable, but that alley is, it's not usable. Is there, on the overhead, could you put up something showing that vacated alley, it shows a layout of the alleyway, because you still have the alleyway that approaches from the north, because that's the way I drove to get to the backside of the property, is from the north, and it's an L-shaped alley, so once you get... So that piece has been vacated there? Yeah, that's vacated. So you've got, you know, looks like unobstructed access to the alley in the back. Now, if you're coming from the north, do you think that that would be able to kind of make that turn into there without a proper flare? What if you approach from the west? It's a straight shot in. There's no turn. Absolutely nothing. Well, the city guys are there working on the alley. I mean, there for a couple of days, I have it blocked. So how do we access it? Okay. Just just laying an example out. I'm just looking at it from a layman's actual site visit as a contractor myself It's a strange layout, but now that I see it is the neighbor that Has their garage and the photos which they appear to be probably parking in that vacated alley section? Are they obstructing your drive? Just, I mean, it can be because they don't have any way of parking in their backyard. They don't have off street parking. That's their only parking. But they've got a garage. They can park in their garage. They have a garage for one car. Okay. Not two. Do they have. Okay, so your argument is because the neighbor has an issue, you're going to accept that issue as your issue. We're just trying to correct the issue with this new development and what's something that we think makes sense for this particular lot. In any NT case where it's a square lot, we wouldn't be here with this variance request. Because I mean what I'm hearing from you is because the neighbors have a somewhat unusual layout of having a vacated alley as part of their property, they don't have to solve their issue. You've got to solve the issue for them by having everything come through the front. Yeah, I mean, they're not tearing the house down and that's what they're dealing with. But again, you have direct access to the alley, no obstruction from what I'm seeing in the field and seeing here. I have no further to get. I have no further to answer. I have no further to answer. I have no further to answer. I have no further to answer. I have no further to answer. I have no further to answer. I have no further to answer. I have no further to answer. I have no further to answer. I have no further to answer. I have no further to answer. So I'll call one person. If you can go to the first podium, the second person go over here. Tara Williams. All right. And Rob works. If you can come over here. So we'll start with you. Tara, please state your name, address, at 2610 Coffee Pot Boulevard. My husband, David, is here as well. As Brian mentioned, we bought the house February 29th of 24 and enjoyed it for seven months and then it was destroyed and and Haleen. This is not something we want to do. It's not something we take lightly. We thought we we bought our dream home back in February. We are now full-time residents of St. Petersburg as well, planning to be here the rest of our lives. So this is a permanent home for us. This is not, we're not snowbirds. We, this is where we live. We have four kids, two grandkids, that will be enjoying the home as well. Couple of things that I wanted to call out, transportation and engineering did acknowledge the irregular shape and I think everyone was able to see the narrow entryway on the back. This would not be an issue every other neighbor on the road has at least 40 plus feet pushing to 60 so that they can accommodate the alley parking in the alley garages. We are on a weird as you saw L. Our neighbor at 263 13926 street, the neighbor that the gentleman was questioning about when they park in their driveway, they are within their legal boundaries. However, when they are parked there, we do not have a clear shot to enter our garage there. It's 12 feet and that is deadline to deadline. And we have often had to maneuver in the past or wait for them to move because they were blocking our way to get in. The other thing I would say is it is a non-standard light. We start at 60 so I know that is the definition but we go to 12 which is a pretty large decrease and a pretty short amount of time. It does feel like a literal, if we enforce the code at a literal level, it is a hardship around reasonable use. If we had to come in that way and again, have to coordinate with our neighbors to park our own two vehicles, that also't allow for anyone else to park anywhere. A coffee pot does not have parking allowable and it shouldn't. We agree with that. But that really does take away from the reasonable use of our home and our parking and any guests as well. There is literally nowhere to park for them. The other thing I would say is we've taken a lot of care to build this. We looked for years. We wanted to live on coffee pot. We acknowledge and appreciate and honor everything that it has to offer in that historical area. We love being able to walk. Our grandkids are here and they love walking along the water. We honor every bit of that. And that is why we made sure that those garage doors, our neighbors didn't even know they were garages when we showed them because they actually have handles. I mean, they look like French doors. There are other houses on coffee pot. They are not all single car garages. If you think of the Rhino House, that has three garages. I believe that are facing the front of Coffee Pot boulevard. So that I'll leave it at that. But I appreciate your consideration. We're not trying to take advantage. Thank you. Rob Wards, 30 8th Avenue Northeast and Co-chair of Historical Northeast neighborhood association planning and preservation committee have been sworn in has stated with the staff report slides we're advocating to retain the alley access. We we sympathize that it is limited but there are solutions that are there, including some novel solutions such as the tandem garage structures that could achieve what you're looking at expanding, what you have, which is an expansion from what you currently have even. We offer no objection to the circular drive that is a bit more common along coffee pot, just a simple circular drive, but front-facing garage doors is exceptionally rare. And in those few isolated cases, they even received those. They physically received those away from the premier facade so that it's not so visible. And we would argue for something like that instead. Okay. Thank you. You have it. All right. We have another blue car from Mike. Is it Mayano? Yes, I spoke. This is for blue cars. So you just turn that one in. Okay. It's okay. Any questions for any of the public? All right. We'll move into a cross. Staff. Staff waves. All right. Applicant. Okay. Any closing arguments? Staff waves. Applicant, do you have any closing arguments? I do not. Okay, thank you. We'll move into executive session. Could, could comment comments. The block wall there on the side 17. I think it's a lot next door. It's pretty tight in there. I agree with Commissioner Flynn. If you came in from the west, it's a little bit easier to negotiate. But if there's something there, car there, it's kind of, it's gonna be difficult. The doors that they are proposing are pretty nice. I mean, I don't think they're real. It's real obvious that that's a driveway and that those are garage doors. It was that way since I've been a kid, the circular driveway there. So it doesn't look that much, in my opinion, I think it looks pretty good. It's probably the best looking that it could be. And I know that there is sort of a difficulty getting into the, and if there was an emergency and there was a vehicle parked there, and that was the only way in or out, that seemed like it would would be sort of troublesome so I understand the applicants perspective and I said I think it's a decent looking rendering for what they have proposed. I agree with the commissioner I think I think the circular driveways and even a question I think that's part of the character of Coffee Pot and approving that is the obvious thing we should do. But I think from the standpoint of the access, I mean to me this property and its access is a textbook example of why you do a variance. And I think because the architecture makes it look good, I'm inclined to side with the applicant here and allow them with the garage doors. I agree this is a very unusual shaped lot. I'm not set into exactly what I'd be willing to vote on here. But when you look at these, you know, you do have the ability to park overnight in your circular driveway. I'm fine with the circular driveway as long as it meets the city-dimensional requirements that's very standard in that area. It's more of how much of a grudge door is predominant on the block. I'm more of do we approve both garage doors as they stand or do we approve one or none? Is there a possibility of parking additional vehicle the back because as we've seen on a lot of these cases in Old Northeast neighborhood, they'll have a two car garage, but they park no vehicles and if they're all outside anyway. Then everybody in the neighborhood's complaining, well, they don't park in their garage, they're blocking the alley, they're blocking the street, you name it. So yeah, we approve a two garages with two separate drives to get to it. Do they end up getting used as garages? No they end up parking in the well in this case they can't park on coffee pot but do they end up in the driveway anyway? In the circular drive? Do they end up in the rear? I would be more inclined to approve just one of the garage doors so that you limit some of that front concrete because that's a big goal of this district Old Northeast is not being as vehicle centric but because it is on coffee pot, you don't have the ability to park in the street, I'm fine with that circular driveway. But do we have to prove every bit of the ask for all the garages? Could we limit to one garage door? And you know, hey, you parked tandem in that. As you can see on the floor plan, one side is a golf simulator, another side is, you know, a big storage room. Well, they could have either the the north or south side of the house fit two cars inside they could fit two three cars in the driveway they could potentially even fit a vehicle in the back off the alley on the property in that 12 foot wide stretch so I think there's there's some reasonable ask here for a front loading garage due to the odd shape of the lot. But do we approve all of the ask or do we give enough because again they could park tandem. It's not perfect. But there's absolutely no guarantee that all those vehicles are going to be parked in the garage all the time as we've seen over the years in Old Northeast. Stop laughing. You're garage too. Your garage too is full of stuff right? Yeah, yeah. I don't have a garage. So. That's it. I think there's enough of a hardship based upon property layout dimensions for something. It's just I don't know if it would qualify for all because now we have two full grudge doors where they're really not supposed to have any because they don't meet the because they do have the alley. It is there. I agree that there is a hardship. I think when this was plated 12 feet was a lot more than it is today for vehicles. In the circular driveway, you know, it's replacing a circular driveway that was there. And then I do appreciate that both the engineering memo and the transportation memo found that access to coffee pot was acceptable. and that goes a long way in my opinion as to what can be approved here or how I can vote. I agree that those memos are helpful to guide our decision. The doors that are proposed are an elegant solution. Are they automatic? The doors are they planned to? Okay. Is that certainly helps as well for usability? I mean, are there like, could they sit and try to figure something else out, yes? But I think what drives my view of the situation is just how tight the access is and how, you know, prone to accidents or errors in maneuvering. This type of configuration gives given that the remainder of the alley was vacated. Anyone else? Can I get a motion? I'm sorry. Did I understand that the circular drive was off the table now? The dimensions. The dimensions. The four dimensions. So I'll get proof the counts. It's the sizing, right? Like the dimensions are fine now. Yeah. But our allowing others to allow it. OK. Could we take a look at the, did you provide the updated dimension of the circular driveway that you could approve. Was that one of the overhead slides? Yeah, the updated plan was on the slides and in the staff report and it'll have the dimensions on there. So that is something that staff could agree and approve dimensionally. Correct. Now the question is just the two driveway connections to the garage doors would be the issue. Well, the circular driveway is still the variance. So it's basically the code doesn't want a circular driveway or driveway in the front if you have alley access. So that's why there's that variance for the circular slash, you know, the connections to the garage doors. Then the garage doors is the other variance. I think we should do two separate motions. Okay. I can't. I would move approval of a variance to allow a circular driveway subject to the staff conditions. Second. Can we take a vote? Flat? Yes. So? Yes. Singleton? Yes. Battle-o? Yes. Reiner? Yes. Flint? Yes. Yes. Battle. Yes. Reiner. Yes. Blint. Yes. Not motion passes. I move approval of a variance to allow garage to garage doors to face the primary street subject to state conditions. Second. Black. Yes. So. Yes. Singleton. Yes. Battle. Yes. Reiner. Yes. What? No. That motion passes. Congratulations. We're going to move to legislative item LDR-2024-05. We take a five minute break until this might go on for a little while. Okay, we're going to take a five minute break. Thank you. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. Thank you. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. you you . . . you you I'm going to have a little bit of a break. I'm going to have a little bit of a break. I'm going to have a little bit of a break. 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I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do with legislative item. LDR-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2 zoning official. I'm here also with Scott Ballard. He's the deputy zoning official. And we've been working on this actually now for probably 10 months. We're slightly delayed with the hurricanes. We're hoping to get this done before the first of the year. We're hoping to, after today, move this forward to city council in May. So a little brief history. In 2007, the city did a city wide rezoning, which created the neighborhood traditional neighborhood suburban zoning districts. In 2017 council adopted amendments to the code, which included changes to the design standards, as well as an adoption of floor ratio bonuses for new homes and our neighborhood traditional zoning districts. In 2019 there was a report to the committee of the whole, which is one of the City Council committees, on the FAR limit and utilization of the bonuses. And since the adoption of the code in 17 for the FAR, there have been almost 2,000 new homes constructed with 356 new homes utilizing the bonuses in the traditional districts. changes that we're attending will evaluate the FAR bonuses for potential changes, not to the actual bonus, but the actual, the bonuses, not the actual FAR, excuse me, and provide feedback from the stakeholders, also address several items presented at council committee meetings, such as fancy materials and design standards, as well as refinements to the code Language related to residential standards provide clarity and consistency Some of the modifications in this packet include additions to the actual bonuses that you can choose from in the anti-district Modifications to some of the building design regulations also modifications to fence regulations, addition of a payment and lieu option for sidewalk, additional changes to screening of ancillary equipment and flood zones, as well as language to elevating existing structures and flood zones, and a lot of code cleanup. So this would be consistency with co-language throughout the residential packet, also adding definitions, roof height measurements, removing or modifying sections of the code to being compliance with state statutes. Also we are adding something that we'll be talked about later to providing a reasonable accommodations. The commission has been hearing a lot of variance requests because of ADA, so we're actually looking to develop. Doing a process that is, and legal may be able to discuss this a little bit at the end, but it's a provided reasonable accommodation that won't be considered a variance. So lastly to the reason why we created FAR bonuses and FAR structure in 2017, this was basically concerns that were expressed by the neighborhoods due to the size and bulk of the existing homes that were being built. The city adopted these standards to help limit the size and bulk of the new homes to be proportionate with the lot size by establishing the maximum floor area ratio bonuses. And the maximum bonus you can achieve is either a .6 and NT3 or .7 and the NT1 and 2s. And also, FAR is considered any enclosed space above the required design flood elevation. It does not include rod spaces and excludes portions of any enclosed space below the flood plane elevation as well. And I'm going to move over to Scott, who's going to discuss some of the changes we're doing to the bonuses. Thank you, Corey, the first FAR bonus change that I have is for FAR bonus H. It currently provides a .06 bonus for each additional front facade articulation with a .1 max bonus. It requires a minimum articulation of 6 feet which adds up to a .36 bonus. However, it's capped at .1 resulting in the max bonus being applied whenever the minimum articulation is provided. So therefore, we're going to remove the .06 bonus for each foot as it's not necessary. We have minor changes included for the FAR bonus for planning larger shade trees as it contains a typo indicating the minimum spread required is 8 to 10 inches when it should be 8 to 10 feet. feet. The current FAR bonus for solar ready is vague to address this. We're adding that a 200 amp electric panel and conduit running to the roof for future solar installation be provided. This solar bonus is proposed to be reduced from .02 to .01 to offset new bonuses. Proposed for solar installation that are providing a .01 bonus per kilowatt installed up to a maximum bonus of .03 and a .01 bonus for residential EV charging capability. During stakeholder meetings last year attendees from historic neighborhoods indicated that new homes are typically built with taller ceiling heights and lower foundation walls resulting in new homes with lowered front porches and increased building heights compared to the store combs in their neighborhoods. Based on this feedback, staff is proposing a .03 bonus for homes with front porches that are elevated a minimum of 18 inches above grade, where 12 inches is currently required with limitations on building height to encourage construction of new homes, more to scale with existing historic homes and the historic neighborhoods. During the workshop held with DRC members, a commissioner expressed an interest in adding a bonus for quality materials on exterior facades. Based on that feedback, a .05 bonus is proposed when exterior facades are proposed with solid wood siding, brick, stone, and or iron throughout all structures. This also includes a .03 bonus when brick or stone veneer or hardy board are utilized. Next is, staff has been seeing a prevalence of new single family residences built to maximize the entire buildable area of the lot with large two story box like structures. To help break the box, a new FAR bonus is proposed for providing a minimum 20 foot separation between the principal and accessory structures, as well as between second floor portions of the principal structure. In the top picture, you can see the massing of the second floor of the new home stretches from the front set back line to the rear set back line with no brakes. And in the bottom picture, the separation is provided, which helps break up the massing of the building on the site. Excuse me. Another new FAR bonus is proposed for preservation of existing grand trees. It will grant a .02 bonus for each tree with a maximum bonus of .04. Preservation of existing on-site grand trees is not currently incentivized. Existing structures located in special flood hazard areas typically cannot adhere to setbacks which creates conflicts when elevating the structure to meet current female flood elevations To address this one staff is proposing a minor encroachment option to allow an existing single family home to be elevated to meet female elevation requirements when specific criteria is met. Another change we have for properties and flood zones is to add an allowable encroachment for wooden platforms for energy meters shown on the slide here. These platforms that are required for energy meters on new homes and flood zones typically encroaching to the required side yard setback. Staff has roles all of this. Staff has had to process numerous variances for these platforms that are really only usable for servicing the energy meters. We should probably ask questions as you go or you want to wait to the end. As you want. At your time, let me just lay down. So, exactly. Go back to the last one. Sure. And this may not be exactly the appropriate place, but I've got to just one of my questions. So we've seen people come before us with a second story, and now we've exceeded the height, and we increase the setback Is that addressed to any one of these or would it could? No, it's so there are maximum height requirements that the stuff to meet this is more so if you're and we had one last year Where they were elevating the home and the home had received a setback encroachment for a garage the garage was about four feet from the side Property line where now now seven and a half feet is required. So when they elevated that, and they, you know, they basically couldn't get rid of the garage to elevate the whole structure, that garage structure wasn't going to meet step back. So they had to come forward for the variance. Actually, was the second floor that I think? Yeah, it's the viewable. It looks like a second floor out in these, and the properties that are in flood zones, but the first floor is non habitable. It's typically just the garage. We might have some. It's the view, it looks like a second floor out in these and the properties that are in flood zones, but the first floor is non habitable. It's typically just the garage. Might have some. We relax that setback for people going up. When you're elevating, so yeah, now when you're elevating an existing home, as long as you're keeping your same side setbacks, it'll be allowed to elevate it. I mean, there are some criteria, like it's a minimum three foot side set back. It's for the existing only. So any additions would have to meet or if they decide to do a third story edition. You know that would have to meet current. So it's only to keep the existing instead of having the come through the variance processes for elevating existing homes that are built legally. And now they're elevating them. We've seen a couple of those variants. Yeah, we have. They're good to go. Going forward, we would not need a variance, is that? Correct, if they met that criteria. And we did get some of the feedback from the short acres, as well as a former council member, who would like to see get rid of some of the red tape to allow people to easily raise their houses. Existing houses. Quick, quick question.. You might want to say used only for energy meter access because somebody might put a balcony out there and go, ah, this is my for my. Yeah, it does say it wouldn't platform for energy. And if you limit the width of it or something like that, too, might be something to consider. We can easily add that Duke Energy has some specs. Minimum clearance. Well, yeah, yes, exactly. These are never used, but it's required by. One of the emails it was provided to have said something about that third step to get to 18 inches. That is just an option. It's not a requirement. When you read the email that was provided, they thought it was a requirement. But it's an option just to get additional FAR. Well, the one was about, you already have the 12 inches that's required. And so we're saying you have to have two risers, but they have really one step and then the actual porch is considered the other riser. That's more or less for clarification, because building codes are going to require that to have that step up. So we're actually not increasing the cost. It's just clarifying it because we have everyone who's like, oh, well, 12 inches on the side, but not on the front. And then we have like six inches. And like, no, that's not it. You're supposed to have 12 inches at the front of that porch and not coming up because you put fill in. OK. And the reason that 18 inches came up is because that's what's currently, that's the more predominant. We heard that from the historical earthy, so it was just here in the audience. It was just a good and doubt which was the. Yeah, we're looking at, you know, if you, some of the porches in like Old Northeast and even Prion, Kenwood, if you, some of the porches in like Old Northeast and even Prite and Kenwood, they're higher than 12 inches, but they're also then lower in height. So that's where we came up with that bonus is like, okay, we'll give you an additional bonus. Do you have more of a traditional historic elevated porch, you know, and also decrease the height of the overall building. And again, it was a bonus to encourage it. Should have been asking as we went here, but on the 20-foot gap between primary and the accessory, why isn't instead of giving a FAR bonus for having that gap, is it something that could just be required to have that gap of 20 feet to keep the space? That was something that would be required further discussion. Mm-hmm. You know, because the intent of these changes were not to decrease the FAR from the existing .4.5 or decrease the amount of bonuses you could achieve or change the building heights or the setbacks. It was about, you know, because that would require further discussion with more neighborhood associations, the building community as well. I mean, you saw some of the emails we got today last minute who think opposite and get rid of everything, just let anything be built, because of the housing crisis and affordability. So that's why we did this as a bonus. And now incentivizing keeping that gap to leave for future pools and things that have ended up being an issue. Right, that or do the opposite, where you could do that on the first floor but not on the second floor. Because right now that actually is open on the first floor. You can start to see it with the fence. But that's actually a second for walkway connection between the garage and the house. So almost like if that was on the first floor and not on the second floor, you know, massing wise you couldn't tell because you have a fence in the way. So that was kind of a common we heard from historical northeast as well as Kenwood, historic Kenwood. Okay, thank you. Right, and so the next one I have is about a single-bait garage doors. We found that they've enhanced the visual interest and architectural quality of homes compared to double-bagged garage doors. The picture on the left is a photo of a home with a double-bagged garage door that's typically 16 feet in width on the right as a home with two single-bagged doors. Within the NT2 and 3 districts, garages are required to face an alley when present. Garages that face a primary street are limited to 40% of the width of the home. when they face the side street and about a neighbor's front yard are required to provide the single-bagged garage doors. This code change expands that requirement to all street facing facades, excluding alleys. The next amendment is for repetitive design. The code requires new homes to be varied from all other homes within three parcels, with a minimum of three of the four following variations required, architectural style, roof form, exterior building materials, and architectural details including doors, windows, columns, and porches. These regulations do not account for new homes proposed with a different number of stories or varied heights and widths. With the proposed change, new homes with varied habitable stories will not be considered repetitive. of a fifth variation is added for new homes that have varied front facade withs and heights. So we also have a change proposing to expand the maximum width of a blank facade, allowed from 16 feet to 20 feet, for fasods located in the rear one half of the lot that are not visible from a right of way. This is a new home that received approval of a design variance to allow for a 20-foot wide blank facade located in the rear third of the home. The photos were taken from the crown of the road and that distance a difference of 16 or 20 feet for a blank wall is barely noticeable. Currently doors windows and other architectural details or features are required on all sides of a home with no blank facades allowed that are greater than 16 feet in width and this sometimes creates challenges when there's a kitchen or closet proposed on the interior of the home and the cabinets are shelving that are going to make providing a window or other feature in practical. This is the approved elevation drawing for that new home and here are the measurements of the widest blank facades. Here's another new home that received the same design variants. And these are those elevation drawings. And then the widths of the widest blank facades for that home. We also have a change proposed to allow ADUs on neighborhood suburban single family's own lots with at least 4,500 square feet that are located on an alley and on corner lots that meet the minimum lot area requirement. At this time NS corner lots and lots on alleys must meet both the minimum lot area and width requirements. The next amendment is for side setback waiver requests for docs. When a property owner that seeks a side setback reduction for a doc obtains a sign off from the budding property owner on the side where the setback reduction is being requested. The notices are mailed to all waterfront property owners within 200 feet on both sides of the request. This allows property owners that are not affected by the request to appeal and send it to a public hearing. In all instances where this has occurred the DRC has approved the setback reduction. This change will revise noticing requirements that only waterfront property owners within 200 feet on the same side as the setback waiver request are notified. And then the last amendment on this slide is to add an exception for installation of walkways between public sidewalks and curbs that do not meet ADA slow requirements due to existing grades. This has become a recent issue that we've had to start issuing variances when they don't meet that ADA requirement. And I will now turn it back over to Corey. Thank you. So we also talked about working on a payment in lieu for sidewalks. Again, this is just an area where there are no sidewalks that exist. We have some criteria in the code currently if there's issues with Topography utilities the engineering director could approve that So we've been seeing a lot of these That's basically a benemonstratively approved City staff which is Scott and I work with our engineering transportation department Transportation is working on a complete streets or they have the complete streets master plan so So's not just a simple waiver, just because someone wants that to do a payment in lieu. So we are providing that instead of going through the variance process, they would pay for the cost of a sidewalk, that would go into a trust fund, and then that trust fund would be used by transportation to install sidewalks, and consistent with the complete streets plan that they have. working actually on the fee. We want to be kind of a scale that slides every year due to inflation. Currently for instance we're going to meet in with Tampa. They're actually going to be raising their fee that we're currently they charge $29. Per linear foot they're raising it to $220 per linear foot. So we're going to see why that number is drastically increased. It almost seems a little high to me, but I'm not expert in construction cost for concrete. But in average, a lot, you know, that would be $11,000 for 50 foot, 50 foot wide lot. So that's why we're going to speak to Tampa, figure that out. But that fee can always be charged. It doesn't need to be actually applied to this. We actually need the change to the code As well as we're gonna put in a appeal process that if staff does deny they have a appeal authority that would come in front of the commission If they if we decided not to take their payment in lieu Another thing that's come up to in front of some of the committees in front of before council was metal fences So we had some folks installing metal fences that were basically corrugated metal or roofing material. And so we didn't have that in the code. And so we're actually clarifying that if any metal is used, it's decorative metal and not roofing materials. So as you get away from someone putting in basically corrugated metal or the sand seam type of roof, roofing materials. So as you get away from someone putting in basically corrugated metal or the sand seam type roofing materials. Another thing that came up through Council Committee meetings was design standards for fences over 150 linear feet on a non-major road and a major road. The top picture is this is in a local neighborhood down in the pink streets on Serpentine. The Summary built a six-foot salad makes for a wall. The neighbors on the other side of the street did not like that. And so, in Councilmember also was pushing some of this changes to the code of doing allowing a six-foot fence, you know, on a residential street for property with a 150 linear feet of front edge, but making sure that the top two feet is actually transparent and the four feet could be solid similar to what you see in the lower picture. This is probably more of a three and three but it gives you kind of an idea of you could still have six foot but the top two would actually be transparent. And then also just looking at, so we had some community engagement just kind of going through those dates. We had a medium A15 and June 26 of last year. Some of the comments that we received was expanding the FAR bonus M to include preservation of shade trees. We also looked at creating a new FAR bonus to increase the elevations of the foundations that we discussed as well as decreasing the building height. Also, we were increasing the required porch width, which we actually did not require in this packet. And then also discussed regarding the relationship between FAR and the local national historic districts came up as well. Additional comments that we did receive were attendees were generally supportive of changes to the non-traditional fencing materials. Many comments indicated interest and support to the payment and lieu for the sidewalk. And then many residents expressed concerns about code changes that would permit domestic equipment. So that has been removed from this packet. We met with the TBBA Tampa Bay Village Association as well. Thank you. They do have a representative here. This was basically discussing in front of station transparency requirements. Should we reduce one appropriate to fit with our textual style? Also looking at expanding the available list of architectural styles, amend the repetitive design requirement, as well as looking at some of this we did do a second story porch above the first floor. Right now would be a balcony. We did not actually add that. Allow an exemption to the required from porch minimums, consistent with our textual style. We didn't put a note in there, typically a colonial style of our texture wouldn't have a traditional porch. It's more of a stoop. So our code didn't have that as well as the payment only for the sidewalk. Cory, was there any disagreement between what the Builders Association was recommending and what the community meetings were saying? Yes. I I mean there's going to be a conflict. So I mean the one thing that we didn't add is like I said the second story porch where right now we'd have a front porch and the top of that would be a balcony because it doesn't have a roof structure. TBVA would like to actually have a true two story porch with the roof structure, but we also have folks from the neighborhoods that they don't want all that masking on the street. And also, they also, some of the neighbors want a certain amount of penetration. They would like less penetration. So we have some of that general conflict. And as planners, we're looking at the middle ground on that as well. And there's also further emails that I'll read at the end of the record that we've got in additional comments on that. All right, thank you. Okay, let's see, or I have to think. All right, so these are our different ones. I think we, all right, so looking at different allowable encroachments for elevated equipment. So we kind of clarified this in the code. I also talking about the DFE and how we're looking at setbacks for things within flood zones. So we did do our relaxation and S1 a little bit. You mimic the NT standards for front porches to give a couple additional feet for that elevated stoop or stair because now the house is going up. Also removing the requirement. Let's see about registration within the rear of the house. This also verbiage about repetitive design. And a lot of this again was because even though the house might have the same architectural style has different Massing floor plates roof heights, you know could be an L shape a square single story double story And then also we had a meeting with HLUT which is the Housing Land use and Transportation Committee of the City Council This meeting was held we had two meetings with. September 12th of last year, as well as in March six of this year. And we had general support of all the co-changes. And they just wanted us an additional information from that first meeting. And then the second meeting we did have with them is that they had general support. They just wanted some clarification on the reduction in the window spacing or frustration on the facades as well as we are looking to do some changes to the CRT design regulations to mimic the NT regulations. And we're doing this now because we are eventually moving forward with some commercial changes, but that'll happen at a later date. So some and council member had some concerns of the new town home as being built. And as you know, this came through the DRC workshop. Again, a while ago. So the DRC workshop, that was in September of last year. We talked about, again, reduction of building heights. We talked about the tree protection, looking at the payment of lieu So there's general support, but you did give us some comments, which we did try to address and the report is well. All right. And so we do find that the proposed changes to be consistent as part of the comp plan. And as the commission, you're supposed to review this, the fore this the for consistency with the comp plan. If you that for this it will go the city council and city council either a vote to approve or deny these changes to the code. So objectives of the land collusion objective LU8 talks about the city will continue to revise and amend the land development regulations as necessary. Land use element 8.1 discusses that the land development regulations will be amended as necessary to ensure compliance with the goals, objectives and policies of the comprehensive plan. LUA point 2 encourages more consistent interpretation and administration of the land development regulations. Among city council, the commission does an aid in the LDRs and the City staff through orientation meetings and joint workshops. Also, as part of this, the City shall on an ongoing basis review and consider the adoption of amendments to the existing code. LU 2.1 discusses the City shall continue to utilize in its innovative development regulations and staff shall continue to examine new innovative techniques by working with the private sector, neighborhood groups, special interest groups and by monitoring regulatory changes as well as land use planning decisions so we wait heavily based on the established character of the predominantly developed areas where changes are proposed to be made. And legal, I don't know if you want to discuss going over the reasonable accommodation section that is pending. Sure. In short, I think everybody on this board can recall at least a few instances where ADA issues have been implicated in a variance request and We think that the ADA nature of these types of requests require an ADA approach to them reasonable accommodation is the language of the Americans with disabilities act and we have an ADA coordinator here at the city that can work in tandem with the zoning folks to come to potentially an agreement as to that reasonable accommodation. A variance runs with the land as we all, and a reasonable accommodation is really more situated to be responsive to a particular owner at that time, their needs. So in the event that a reasonable accommodation is able to be granted through this new process, which will be located in the LDRs, we can come to an agreement with the applicant that means it wouldn't run with the land. It would be something that a recordable document that would essentially expire upon the transfer of that property from the current owner who needs the accommodation. So from a zoning perspective, it wouldn't be setting a precedent that other variants could potentially be, obviously we look at the neighborhood, right? And if that became a data point, that's not exactly what we're trying to do here from a variant standpoint. But we want to make sure that as a city we're responsive to those types of requests. And so we think that this is the best way to do it. You're talking like probably the most common that you'd see out there is a temporary mental railing for ADA access with a wheelchair. You see them sometimes on a single family home that's a step up that they'll have the ramps outside. Is that what this is set up for essentially? That's one of them. I mean, there could be setback issues with that. There's driveway widths and circular driveways, things like that that might be able to provide, it might be necessary from a reasonable accommodation standpoint to help somebody with a disability access their home that isn't necessarily allowed by the underlying zoning district. So I think we've seen a couple of those as well over the years. And I think that just the volume of these types of requests is such that it was time to adopt a better vehicle for the analysis of those types of requests. So I just have a question about logistics. I guess upon the sale of the property would then the improvements be required to be removed or would they just stay there until upgrades are made to the property in which at which time their removal would be required. Like say it's a driveway window, right? That's a little bit more difficult to remove than a ramp. So with this process, whatever agreement is made as a result of that would contemplate that. So if you essentially want to create a non-conformity that couldn't be reconstructed in the one hand or requiring the removal of the feature, the accommodation upon the transfer of the sale, that's the devil in the details that would be memorialized in whatever agreement the city makes with the applicant So it's in other words to answer your question. It would be a case by case basis And so just in closing we did receive Which was included in the packet one email from Rob Warts with Hona. We also did receive an additional email from Max with Palmetto, he lives in the Palmetto Park area of the city, and then those were included in your packet. We did receive three additional emails this afternoon. Two were the same emails that Max sent, just with another person from Palmetto Park in the third does not live in a neighborhood association but they live just north of Central Park Oak. And then we did receive one additional email which I didn't have time which is different. I'm not sure what part of the city they work in but they basically are saying that in regards to the zoning amendments being proposed at today's hearing, I strongly advocate for moving all regulations that do not direct directly address safety. We should be focusing on storm resiliency and affordability. And I urge all you and all city staff to and the city government should be used to enforce subjective aesthetic standards at the expense of affordability. Yes, sir. Well, I'm back again. One of the items I believe that I read in here was about, you know, your 100 square foot storage sheds. It's now required to be like a commercially produced shed. It's always required to get not for the permit. So if it's a pre-constructed pre-manufactured shed, you don't need a permit for that. So if they hand-built, you had to get a permit for that. I didn't know that. But at a hundred square feet as long as I met those dimensions you're fine. Correct and then if it goes above that then you have to meet setbacks and then if it goes above two hour square feet you have to meet the design regulations. Okay. Can you look at number 52? The page or number? No, these are the numbers. They were not our staff for. Ah, you're in the chart. Yeah, the 52 of the 124. We're busy. So I think this is what we were talking about with the elevation of the new homes and that kind of thing. And then the request to actually added in additional layer of increased setbacks. So yes, right now there's a... Right now there's basically a two tier system for setbacks in the NS. One for building height up to 24 feet. It would prescribe a seven and a half foot side setback. And then if you go above 24 feet, you can go up to 36 feet. That's the maximum. So imagine you got about flat roof, set 36 feet. you'd have to have a 15 foot side set back. We're adding another layer in there, and I believe it's... F... That's the maximum. So imagine you got a flat roof, set 36 feet, then you'd have to have a 15 foot side setback. We're adding another layer in there, and I believe it's from 24 to 28 feet. I don't have it right in front of me. So if you have a building height between 24 and 28 feet, then your side setback will be 10 feet. We had a case last, earlier this year, last year, come before us where they won't basically, they wanted to elevate their garage slab, garage slab a couple you know two extra feet to get their garage slab out of the flood zone. It would flood in their property you know anytime there's a heavy rain event. So by pushing that garage slab up to feet it kicked the building height from 24 to 26 feet. So it then kicked the side setbacks required from seven and a half to 15. Well he was providing 10 foot setbacks on most of the sides. So yeah and I would have got yes. In an intermediate layer to allow for you know just a slight increase in building height for people that want to you know try and get themselves a little bit further out of that flood zone. When I read it I thought you're increasing the setback. Okay can you explain number 83? Okay, we're first to green yards in the front yard. I'm asking for clarification on the clarification. I think it's got this one is trying to find the right section. Section 16.40.0. So, it's here, that's 2.1.3. It's going to be under the last game section of the code. 40.06, 0.2.1.3. It's going to be under the last game section of the code. Is that 82 correct? Oops. I went to the long page. We have some, some little landscape section of our code and we're striking out. It's under landscaping adjacent to mechanical equipment on site. Right now it says mechanical equipment visible from streets excluding alleys shall be landscaped with a continuous hedge comprised of shrubs, plan no more than 30 inches on center or decorative fence or architectural feature and then it says if the location is inadequate for landscape so you need to decorate a fence or architectural feature if the location is inadequate for landscape e.g. too small and sufficient light that text if the location is inadequate if the location is inadequate for landscape is being struck through. So we're moving that. That's okay. That's where the references. Yeah. And if you look at number 39 and number 16, it's discussion of what needs to be behind the front facade. And in one, it mentions dumpsters. And then the next one that it left it out and I don't and I think it might be residential versus commercial I'm not quite sure. Correct so yes some of this was we didn't have certain regulations in the code you know in single family districts we do allow churches schools, but then we didn't get into, you can put in a dumpster in the front yard, or where's the mechanical equipment or retention pond. So we're basically adding that for clarification purposes, if for non-residential uses, you know we're adding that in there so that we're not getting the things in the front yard and they're going to the back or there. Just make sure that you didn't want dumpster in one of them when you did in the other. I just, it seems inconsistent. Okay. That's all. I just, if you look at the language, it looks very, very similar, but the word dumpster's left out. I don't think. It was 39 and the other one was. 16. All right, thank you. And I'll just make a comment, because your guys are going to have to do this, is that when, apparently, there's at least, I think it was the colonial you mentioned, there was at least one architectural style that had something to do with the porches and it changed it, and how you're going to make that consistent throughout your, because it sounds like some of our blanket statements and yet it's going to exempt this one. So I'm not quite sure how you're going to be able to do that on the, because that's, it goes through a number of, a number of them where you've got the porches being described. And then you've got that exemption. So, I mean we have, we do review this, you know, we do look at our textual styles. We do have a book that we look at and we also have the historic islands for stercombs throughout the city that we also reference. So certain styles typically wouldn't have a typical front covered porch. It's more of a stoop. So, I mean, you've been like Art Deco, something like that. You're not going to necessarily have a covered porch, but you would for a craftsman or a bungalow. You've met Rav, some of those, you know, would have it, but maybe not the Spanish style, because they might have more of like a landing stepping up into the house. So, you know, that we do look at what is the typical requirement for that architectural style. So that architecture style would trump another LDR that said, oh, where is my 18 inches or whatever? Correct. I mean, it doesn't get rid of the elevation of the stew, but basically those houses would still be elevated. It just doesn't have to be a covered porch. It's more of a stoop. Okay. So we're not taking away. You still have to have an entry feature. This is not necessarily covered. I had a question on the staff report under consistency and compatibility with the Comprehensive Plan. There's the last two bullets are underlined? Is that for emphasis additional? Just curious what that is. Nope, that was probably just a formatting issue. Oh, okay. But thank you for clearing. I think it was just supposed to be like the LU 3.6 underlined and not the rest of it. Okay. Any additional questions? Chair, were there any blue cards? Yes. I'm going to make sure we're good. Any additional questions or staff? Okay. Blue cards. We have two. We got three coming. Okay. All right. If John can go to one podium and rob to the other. And then John Barry. And then if Rob you can step to the other side please. So if you can state your name your address. I I've been sworn in for the record. My name is John Barry and I resided 21 21 First Street Northeast and I have been sworn. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen of the DRC, it's a pleasure to be before you this afternoon. Unfortunately, there are three of me. So I'm going to speak to you in three different ways. First is a homeowner in historic Old Northeast. My wife and I bought our house there 15 years ago, and we picked Old Northeast precisely because it was a traditional neighborhood. The interesting thing about Old Northeast is unlike historic districts, and we have several of them in the city of St. Petersburg. Old Northeast is on the national register of historic places and the value of that is a plaque. Nothing in Old Northeast is protected and what we have worried about since about 2015, 2016 is what we have called lovingly the intrusion of the big box. I'll put on hat number two. In 2016 I became a member of the Hona Preservation and Planning Commission and also simultaneously a member of the Neighborhood Review Commission which was sanctioned by the city to solicit input from this community about the changes that were about to take place in the LDR from 2016 to 2017. I'm proud to say that I was able to make significant contributions in that process, deliberative back and forth with staff. And one of the things that was the focus of our issue was to create a bonus system that would look at opportunities to get away from the big box by introducing bonuses that would change the configuration of the massing, the height, and architectural detail. At number three, I am a practicing architect engaged in residential design and construction in the city of St. Petersburg, actively. I have clients who are private citizens, homeowners who are building their private residents and I have developer clients. So when I'm faced with an opportunity to design, I have two choices. I can go to the bonus table because people want to max the amount of living space that they have and I can seek out Design ideas a front porch front facade articulation architectural detailing and I can accumulate the points to get to point six or I can take another approach and that is to cobble together a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with the character of these buildings. I'm talking about giving credit for a solar design, an extra tree, and all that kind of stuff. Leave the solar design where it is at point one. All you're doing is you're giving a bonus for somebody to run a cable from the electrical box to the roof. That's all you're doing and you're giving them extra floor area for that please don't do that. So what I'm saying to you is in conclusion, I urge you to look at these bonuses and say, pick the ones that have architectural character. And in that architectural character is the change in mass, architectural details, and things like reducing the height. And I'll leave with, I've got a couple of seconds left. Let me give you one more thought. In the current plan, sorry about that. Thank you much for your time. Please don't see me rude. I am a practicing architect. I have things to get to from a client's behalf. I thank you for the opportunity to speak this afternoon. For the record, are you four against? Are me? You say to your four for the record? I am four, yes. Four most everything. Thank you. Rob Words, still at 305, 8th Avenue, Northeast, with Hona on the Planning and Preservation Committee, and I have been sworn in. To echo some of Donberes' comments, we've been integrally involved in the creation and watching the bonus point system be applied, so we're speaking specifically to bonus point systems within the NT as far as these revisions to LDR. What our concerns are is that while each individual bonus as stated is a good thing and many of these things should be encouraged, the expansion of that bonus system and the waste being applied with the FARs, our concern is that they're not addressing that one key issue that came out around in 2017, which is the expansion of these big, quite boxes. There's not a hierarchy of the bonus system, really, that brings people to say, I need to address the specific bonuses that deal with mass, scale, and detailing at this point. So adding more bonuses, all for very good things a very restricted FAR zone which takes you from point one five is the leeway that you have. You can achieve that in so many ways that we're almost deemphasizing one of our major purposes what was to deal with scaling and maths. So there are ways to do that. You know, you can do it mathematically by just decreasing each individual points award that you might see in there. You can take ones that have mass and scale as a bonus right now, and you've already discussed. Maybe these should be requirements. Maybe these should be part of code. And I would encourage you to look at those specifically so that you can expand the range of bonuses that are on offer and the range that are actually used. Try to incentivize using more and more of them. You could even expand the FIR that you go. So beyond the .15. So those were some of the considerations that we would like to see as you go through. I know that some of them are beyond a revision at this point, but there might be some ways to help incentivize using more varied and particularly the mass and scale bonuses. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Ben. Please state your name, address, and if you've been sworn in. I've been gilston with Canopy Billers 1900 MLK Street North at St. Petersburg. I've not been sworn sorry to make everybody sit through this. We don't need to swear in for a legislative. Oh, OK, perfect. OK, perfect. All right. Great. Well, then, I'm not sorry. Today I'm coming for you as the chairman of the Tampa Bay Builders Association, St. Pete, Government Affairs Committee. I'd like to commend staff here, I've worked with Liz for many years, as obviously you have all of us well. She's done a great job, set the city up for success. In my day job at Canopy Builders we've worked with, Liz, to try and help provide input on how the code would be developed over the years we've been active in the community for about 11 years. I think there's no question that project that she began and continued is left in good hands with staff here today. Staff's been excellent in responding to our requests meeting with us, hearing our voices, not always agreeing with us, and I think is a testament to their fair handiness today that nobody really is 100% happy in the audience today. So I just wanted to bring up a couple of items from the from the the new LDR update just to mention that and overall from where I said we I interact with a lot of C St. Pete G are government affairs committees with it builders association and hands down I am told that I have it easy in St. Pete and that it's a great city to work in so it's a very high compliment from my brethren throughout the Tampa Bay area so a couple things on the sidewalk in lieu of payment in lieu of request just going to point out that sidewalks are not $11,000 for 50 foot linear foot there's a serious issue in Tampa right now. They're using commercial standards for those. We find sidewalk to be around $30 to $40 a foot. It seems pretty reasonable. Another specific thing on the sidewalk in lieu of it would be really helpful if it's available at the, if that decision is made upon certificate of occupancy, or payment is made as certificate of occupancy. Reason being is that we deal with clients allotting some clients don't mind sidewalks, some clients really can't stand sidewalks. So they get wind of this as an available option. They tell us and usually it's after we're under construction. We also have a number of projects and our membership has a number of projects in process right now where that would avail themselves. Lastly, Lastly, something left on the cutting room floor was in flood zones. There could be a lot of construction in flood zones coming up and you've not seen anything yet. There's gonna be a ton of construction in flood zones. The stair set back, that front stair set back, because of the elevation, it would be really helpful to have approximately six to eight feet of encroachment, allowable encroachment into the front step back so we can run those stairs a nice wide staircase into that front setback. These are generally in districts within 30 foot setbacks, so it's not really going to have a negative effect on the pedestrian experience. It really has a positive effect on the architecture. You can drive around north these park, snow-yles, see these turnstairs, and the lots just aren't deep enough to push back eight, 10 feet. So anyway, I look forward to doing these LDRs next year. It was kind of a mess with hurricanes and reaching out and including meetings with us and the community, I think, would be't hear you. You can continue to talk. And anytime somebody has a motion, we can, you know, but yeah. I think you just keep on keeping on. Okay, you all have anything ahead? Which plant does it? As we've had on every other time, something like this has popped up that overall, it's the right direction, it's meeting the requirements, but now is the time to make a comment for Corey and staff and Scott to take into account when they go to City Council with this that, hey, overall, yes, it's the right thing. But here are a few points that we would like to see altered. Like like Mr. Barry and Mr. Works, I believe it is, came up and spoke about the FAR bonus for running the Condwiff for Solar. I can agree. Our biggest complaint's always been massing. It's kind of like if somebody wants to put solar in a future to run a Condwiff, not that big of a deal, I don't see really the need for incentivizing that. It's either you wanted it or you don't, you hire electrician to do it, but give a floor area ratio bonus when our big issue has always been the mass of the home. There's other things that were mentioned that create a much nicer product to the pedestrian, the neighbors. So that would be something I would agree probably should be eliminated, but overall is everything else is the right direction. I like the idea of a bonus priority where the commercial code kind of has some of that, it says if you get, I can't remember a word for word what it is, but let's say 25% of your bonuses have to be within this category, right? So that way you can incentivize selecting bonuses that have to do with massing and size and that sort of thing in that way, that sure they can get the solar bonus as long as they're also obtaining bonuses that have to do with volume reduction and facade articulation, et cetera. I think that would be a great addition. It's like the workforce. You have to do that first. Yeah. And you can do others. I like that idea. At the first 25% of an FAR or whatever it is must come from. I'll leave the numbers to you. The idea generally speaking. And we did have that one request for grants for the front steps as Mr. Goldsmith was talking about. We did turn that down because we thought they had enough room, but if it's going to come up again. Well, right now we decreased it from 17 and we, to 15. So that's an encroachment of five feet instead of the sixth to eight. So again, we're always open to looking at examples of what's been built. To see, you know, if it doesn't need to take more than just the five foot encroachment that we're lying for the stair and that's from the porch up back. So the house is typically not an NS2 but like NS 25 porch is at 20 and then the stoop right now is only at set or steps at 17 but if you're in the flood you need a couple so we decreased it to 15 foot's up back for the stairs, which is only five feet, which may not be enough. And actually John Barry was the one that requested the stairs. I guess I'm more aware of that. And unfortunately, he was... And his was an NS1 zoning district, too. I know it's not addressed in here. And I just wondered if you had given any thought to how many times the swimming pool on the side, which we'd everybody think what thought was the front. Did you give any consideration to that? Or do you want to do that on a case by case basis? Case by case. Okay. I figured that's what I mean in my head I was thinking boy I'd love to get rid of that but Staff still has issues And I'll continue to come up then. Yeah So today is the goal to find for the Committees to find its consistent with the LDRs because typically don't we have an extra month in there to review after these comments? Well we already did the workshop earlier. Of course that was a while ago before the hurricane so that's usually what we do is the workshop then a month later we come to you for this. So we didn't do any major substantial changes we actually narrowed down the scope so that's why we didn't do another workshop. So but what it is, it's your task with, you're basically acting as a land development regulation commission. Yeah, just finding a minute. I mean, you're finding consistency with the comp plan, and that's why we listed the comp plan elements in the report on the presentation. Council would be the one that actually approved the changes to the code. You're looking to make sure that it's consistent with the comp plan that we can move forward to City Council. Okay. So any suggestions that we've made today or thoughts that we've shared? Does that get incorporated into the process? Well, we'll incorporate that into, I mean, we'll take all this into consideration, of course, but we'll also provide a summary of this meeting to City Council. So City Council may want to move forward as is and then look at always doing amendments. One thing that is coming up that I want to mention is that may first there might be some legislation past at the state level that prohibits us from enacting codes that are basically what's the correct term Mr. Dima more onerous more restrictive more restrictive yeah and for the most part we did reviews and say to who for the most part I think we're good as is some of the changes could be construed like talking about the massing and the hierarchy of the bonuses. You know, we would have to look at that as that more restrictive. And currently exists, depending if this passes on May 1st at the state level. So reach out to your congress folks. And that also goes back to you anything that we've approved prior to that LDR-wise, which shouldn't affect anything we've done. Can I make a motion? That okay. I move that the commission finds that the proposed land development regulations, the proposed amendments are consistent with a comprehensive plan and the land development regulations and Recommend them to city council second Okay, flat yes So yes Singleton yes Battle oh yes Riner yes in Flint Yes. And that motion passes. Very much. Easy. Good work. This concludes today's hearing. Thank you, Mr. St. Two-hours-and-twent- to win. you . . you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you