An Ordinance By The Pasco County Board Of County Commissioners Amending The Pasco County Land Development Code; Amending Section 403.5 Construction Plans; Section 403.7 Mass Grading; Section 901.6 Street Design and Dedication Requirements; Section 905.2 Landscaping and Buffering; And Other Sections, As Necessary, For Internal Consistency; Providing For Applicability; Repealer; Providing For Severability; Inclusion Into The Land Development Code, And An Effective Date.

1:25:11The last item on the agenda is AP 10. You'll be sitting as a local planning agency for this one. It's PDA 260949. An ordinance by the Pasco County Board of County Commissioners, amending the Pasco County Land Development Code, amending Section 403.5 construction plan, section 403.7 mass grading, section 901.6 street design and dedication requirements. Section 905.2, landscaping and buffering, and other sections as necessary for internal consistency, providing for applicability,

1:25:41repealer, providing for severability and inclusion to the land development code, and an effective date to be presented by staff.

1:25:49All right. Thank you.

1:25:53I think the staff just left. Oh, there we go.

1:25:57The experts did. Yeah. The experts.

1:26:03Good afternoon everybody. Tammy Snyder, Planning Development and Economic Growth. Hope y'all are doing great. It's been a hot minute since I've been up here. Um I'm set. Yeah. Yeah. I'm here to present a few proposed land development code changes for construction traffic, wooden bridges, and landscape and buffering. The first one is it's gonna be the same for both 4035 and 4037 construction plans and mass grading.

1:26:33Mm.

1:26:35So we want everybody for um who's doing these projects to try to stay off the local roads if at all possible. Um they need to go to the arterial or collector roads first. If they if they need to use a local road to get there, you know, try to do the shortest route. Um But we are going to stress that they need to use the arterials or collectors. If a local road is the only way that they can get around, then they need in

1:27:05it if there's a school zone on that local road, we're going to also make them coordinate with the school board and the local school to Uh avoid the drop off and pick up times. Their their big trucks aren't gonna be impeding that traffic.

1:27:21Thank you for that.

1:27:22You're welcome, Chris.

1:27:26Um and there's not gonna be any staging on local roads. Um we want them to also keep them debris free daily sweeping or watering or whatever's necessary. Um and repair any um road issues that they have caused when they're done with their construction.

1:27:47If noncompliance is observed, then we can make them erect signage. We can have uh stop work order issued, and we can also have them employ an off-duty law enforcement officer to turn their trucks around and go the other way. Here's just a sample, a snip from Mapper, proposed project site. We have Kitten Trail, a collector on the north. We have Hudson Avenue Collector on the south. This project's right in between them, so it

1:28:17does have to use local roads to get to one of those. And since there is a school, the preferred route would be to the north to Kitten Trail. If for some reason that route was not there and they would have to go south to Hudson Avenue, then the since they're going through the school zone, we would make them coordinate with the school board.

1:28:41Uh proposed amendment to LDC 9016 street design and dedication requirements. We want to prohibit um wooden bridges on all roadways within unincorporated Pasco County. Does not affect any existing wooden bridges. You know, it's kind of a going forward type regulation.

1:29:02Um just basic facts about the difference between wooden bridges and concrete. You know surface for the wood is seven to ten, concrete um fourteen to fifteen, you know, a concrete bridge could last about fifty years, wooden you're lucky to get twenty-five years out of. Um, you know, you can do all kinds of really cool things with concrete as well. You can make it look like wood if you're so inclined.

1:29:28Um proposed amendment to 905.2, landscaping and buffering. We're just revising some tables and subsections for clarity and consistency, closing some loopholes, and giving street trees a separate subsection and making them a requirement rather than just an option.

1:29:48The first table you come to in 9052 is 9052-8. And that's the one where if somebody is redeveloping, remodeling, or renovating an existing structure, then we have different tiers of landscaping and things that they must bring up to current code. But

1:30:12adding a building to that site was somehow not involved in this table, and that created some confusion. Some developers thought that they didn't have to do some of this other stuff to their site if they were adding a building. They just had to do things around the building that they were adding. Adding. Um so seeing as how those new buildings will i increase the value of their property, we also want them to follow the same structure.

1:30:39Tammy.

1:30:43I caught this in my review of the ordinance.

1:30:49If you're building a new building... Which one of these three things do I have to do? Because these things are based on how much renovation I'm doing to the appraised value of a existing building.

1:31:01Right.

1:31:02So how do how does the

1:31:03new

1:31:03building get in that? Yeah. Which which category am I in?

1:31:06Well it depends on if you're a car dealer and you're just adding a little tiny building, it's not going to If here sort of rate big link that you've already got going on. Um,

1:31:14but you're trying to say that the value of the new building in relation to the value of the existing building? Existing structure. That's not how I and I apologize if I mean to sound argument if that's not how I read it, but I'm guessing maybe it would help us fix it.

1:31:26Yeah. How many the value of the

1:31:33The question is in the case of a new building being added to Existing building that makes sense. We look at the value of the building and then is is the renovation. So how do we apply

1:31:45The level of landscaping that I have to do is based on

1:31:50This table was based on the assumption that you were renovating and doing a a project. that was a certain percent of the value of the existing building. How do we apply that when doing a new building?

1:32:08Mm-hmm.

1:32:11Okay, so your question is is the fi as far as applying the seventy-five percent and the fifty-one to seventy five, whether it's Yes sir.

1:32:25I

1:32:25guess

1:32:25I don't know what staff but I

1:32:26don't

1:32:26know what they were trying to say you take value of everything and apply seven five percent to

1:32:30the property appraiser value of the structures on this.

1:32:34But it uh what you were trying to do is say you're gonna look at these. You don't look at you're gonna look at renovating endings. Here look at the value all that the other. It's a

1:32:45I will have to get the FP from Patrick to load it.

1:32:58It it's compelled. Um

1:33:00if it replies on the right-of-way,

1:33:01but

1:33:03they're they're they're dependent this height, they want a new, if they're one, you should just improve the area around the new building. And so we're trying to capture the rest of the stuff.

1:33:10How is it binding thrown into the calculation? Of percentage. It tricks whether it applies to the regulated goals.

1:33:17That's a good clarification on that.

1:33:19Yeah,

1:33:19example because I have a guy that they're trying to close with some. I have planned the church. The church has been under property sixteen sixty nine since before we had zoning code. Since before we had any required building code departments or site plans. The church wanted to build a three thousand square foot sun school building on their site. And they went in and met with staff and they were told you said this plan, you need to modify your entire site to plug with our code and bring all the escape our site up to go. of their code. They've been there since nineteen sixty-nine. The only thing they wanted to do was move their Sunday

1:33:49school classes from inside their main church building to building. And they were told now we have to install escape buffers around five acres. You need to landscape your parking lot, you need to cut landscape islands into your park. You need to modify your accesses And then there they've been since I'm not sure. Is it under the Sunday school vertical? So Hap experiment was this the view of work associated redeveloped, remodeled, or renovated is a work we want a new structure, therefore we did not trigger any of these.

1:34:13But I guess my question is the new structure. Is the new structure not required out of the landscape?

1:34:19Petty? New structure. So the part of the landscape code lies to a structured building perimeter landscaping which is will gate strip around fifty percent of the building. Hence the client agreed to adhere that and is landscaping the building in accordance with the code. What this would do after you get the formula fixed would force somebody doing that. You have to install landscape buffers around the entire perimeter property. Mind you this five acres. So that's hundreds of thousands of dollars.

1:34:46to take an older buy.

1:34:50there any discussion whether the code requires landscaping through Sunday school?

1:34:55No. There was no dispute that there was landscaping installed around the new Sunday school building. The dispute was whether or not the rest of the existing site needed to be pro fit to comply with today's code. The rest of the existing site was not

1:35:06being improved at all.

1:35:07Correct.

1:35:12And so in this example if the rest of the site was worth a hundred thousand and you're installing a twenty five thousand dollar building the trigger is twenty five to fifty percent.

1:35:21Well I don't know because they haven't explained how This table was set up such that we're looking at the value of a ration and comparing it to the value of a building. Okay, when we're adding a new building and comparing it to what? It's not a renovation, it's not a remodel. It could be fixed. I think David's a crafty guy and can come up with some good language to fix it. to if they if that's a loophole they want to close. But I would tell you before we agree to do that, understand the ramifications.

1:35:53You take a civic organization. that is doing a minor project This would force them into complying with landscape code in whole.

1:36:02Or they could apply for an alternative standard.

1:36:04I was gonna ask if there's any other administrative relief from this.

1:36:07But

1:36:08of course that's

1:36:08the right-of-way.

1:36:11What's the point at that? Right? If that's what we're gonna do then what's the point? And then and then the people are gonna say, oh well y oh well you treated them differently from me.

1:36:20Right.

1:36:24Well because I could see the flip side of it's a a shack that's on a property and they build this Taj Mall next to it. Well this is included in the right-of-way.

1:36:32And then the other thing that I would tell you that is not fair about this, and I'm not pointing fingers at staff because you guys don't assess the value of buildings. I can go and pull up the property appraisers records in a neighborhood today, brand new subdivision built by D.R. Horton and Lennar, and I can have two identical model homes right next door to each other and the building value on one home will be different from the building value on the home right next door.

1:36:57Also true. It's a very subjective value.

1:37:03Okay, I I guess what I know and the reason it's hard for me to assist with the drafting of this is because I don't know what the policy directive was. I don't know if the policy directive was to

1:37:15Subject

1:37:20Buildings that aren't being touched in any way, shape, or form.

1:37:25to having to be landscaped. I uh it was that the policy directive?

1:37:32I apologize, I don't know. I don't know what exactly spurred this. I wasn't involved that far back.

1:37:42Who was the person that

1:37:43Patrick.

1:37:44Major, that's right.

1:37:46Well then I need I kinda need Patrick to tell me what his intent was. I I can't help Draft without knowing the intent.

1:38:02Well's the planning expert though, not the la L D C expert.

1:38:05Well that's

1:38:06You mean is he available on from uh from I understand he's on vacation or something.

1:38:13Yeah, similar.

1:38:18Oh training. That's right. He said he was in training.

1:38:22I mean the other reason I'm a little concerned about this is I don't know I mean

1:38:30I don't know the limits of this. I d I don't know

1:38:38I think we all f believe it's important to get it right, so I'd rather continue it until Patrick's here if that's uh if that's a key.

1:38:46I mean the the th because it is based on values, so you in theory could have Hypothetically you could have a very small building that just has just happened to have an extreme value for whatever reason. It's gold plated. But it's small, it's a small building, but then it requires the because it's so valuable the property, it requires somebody to landscape a hundred acres of property.

1:39:13Is Patty sending

1:39:14that? So I I don't know if if that was really the intent. Right. Yes. Right. And so Somebody needs to help me out here. I don't know what the goal was.

1:39:24Patty. Can you send Patrick an invite?

1:39:28He's he's at a conference.

1:39:29No, he he just said he asked you to send him an invite. He g he wants to he's gonna call in.

1:39:33Oh okay, cool.

1:39:35Well.

1:39:38He's not paying attention in the class.

1:39:42He's texting Jamie because

1:39:44he's already the expert, so

1:40:27Patrick, can you hear us?

1:40:29I can, can you hear me? Welcome back. Yeah, sorry about that. Today today was uh graduation day from uh C P M.

1:40:39Oh, so sorry sorry to bother you, Patrick. Uh have you been listening to any of this conversation or now?

1:40:46I have. Um and uh it's breaking up a little bit, so feel free to flag me if you can't hear me. Um but essentially what what has been happening, uh, and I I think John uh gave a uh an example, I guess, but different context. Um we have existing sites where the value of that building itself is, let's say, very low. It's uh unimproved building, it's maybe Maybe it's like ten thousand dollars. Then someone comes in and adds a $250,000

1:41:17building to the site. And they point at this table and say, Well, no, no, no. We don't have to give you all the perimeter buffering to the site because this is not an existing building that we're redeveloping or re remodeling or revent r uh renovating. So they're essentially redeveloping their site, adding at least a a significantly large building to their site, um, and not really bringing it up to uh standard. uh in terms of like perimeter landscaping. So that's the loophole we were trying to fix.

1:41:47So Patrick, I I guess my only concern with it though is that it does make some sense if

1:41:57If you're saying, okay, well somebody was you know, you know in a scenario where okay the new building would have made them landscape seventy-five percent of the site anyway and they just don't want to landscape the remaining twenty-five percent. My concern though is

1:42:14The way it's worded though, you could have a scenario that somebody's building a highly valuable tiny building They just it just happens to be really valuable, say it's gold-plated for whatever reason, and it occupies a quarter acre. But then they have, you know, a bunch of remaining property that is maybe lower valued, that's fifty fifty fifty acres, and then you're saying you gotta landscape

1:42:44the rest of it because of this really highly valuable quarter acre. Okay. I mean there's no limits to what y it's all based on value. It's not based on the percentage of the site that they were otherwise landscaping.

1:43:05I mean I I don't know if there's I mean

1:43:09If you're saying that you're just trying to catch a loophole where somebody's trying to avoid

1:43:17you know, landscaping A small portion of their site that Because it's They're not touching it. I that makes some sense, but I I don't The way this is worded, I'm not sure that's the only thing you're catching.

1:43:36Understood. Um I again I have no issue if we want to kind of strike this one from these updates and maybe reevaluate it. Um this wasn't necessarily commissioner driven. Um in all honesty, I I this this was an attempt to get redeveloping sites and redeveloping commercial properties to install more landscaping, but I think uh the the board discretion these days is is looking to be less restrictive. on small businesses. So I think uh for those two reasons, I think this is maybe something we kind

1:44:06of uh take back and tweak and maybe move forward with the rest of the nine oh five two changes.

1:44:13J just a suggestion it may be better to look instead of looking at value, look at use. So maybe if it's an ancillary building it's ancillary to the main use of the property, then it may not apply. But if it's not gonna be considered ancillary use, it's a new use or a greater use of the property, that might be when this may be triggered. That might be something that's right.

1:44:35Well also if you're gonna use value uh having done a lot of appraisal work over my years in the business, um it in this particular case it would make more sense to use replacement cost value rather than market value. Correct.

1:44:54Rather than the property appraiser's value.

1:44:59always representative accurately representative of the market value or replacement value of a property. At least in my experience it's not. And it can why it can vary wildly to two very similar properties in this in the same location.

1:45:15Well especially if it's been hold held for a long time.

1:45:18Yes.

1:45:19Yes.

1:45:20Yeah, I mean again if you put a put up a property with a gold plated bathroom then you know that could be

1:45:25And that replacement cost is gonna be more than the market market price. Right. 'Cause a lot of people wouldn't pay market for that.

1:45:32And while we have Patrick, Patrick can I ask you a question about the wooden bridges?

1:45:38Sure.

1:45:39So one I'm not opposed to the proposed amendment, but you had called me months, I don't know, four or five months ago Just to pick my brain about wooden bridges and I d remember the conversation I told you at one I wasn't a bridge expert, but If I recall the situation, you told me you had a C D or an HOA that was complaining about the maintenance costs of a wooden bridge.

1:46:09was that the

1:46:10uh y yeah, we've we've to this point we've had uh uh a few I believe and they've not all come through me. I think they've come through the County Attorney's Office, uh public works, um but I I so I I don't know directly, I don't know which C D Ds they are. Well I do know what C D Ds they are, but they haven't those complaints didn't come directly to me, but there were a few of them, yes.

1:46:29Gotcha. So I was shocked When I read the language of the proposed amendment It just prohibits the wooden bridges on a county road, but if it was going to be a privately maintained road, such as by a C D D, then you could still have a wooden bridge, so I was trying to figure out what was the point.

1:46:56Tammy, is is that um updated language from what we were like working on this week?

1:47:02Um it it's part of the agenda packet, but it it does say that if it's completely privately owned that they may get special permission from the county administrator or designee. That was Elizabeth's link.

1:47:15Okay. Um so uh well our intent was to say no outright, but if someone wants to apply for an alternative standard and they can justify, you know, at the end of the day it's maintenance cost, right? So there and I don't want to suggest ways to accomplish that, but if they can provide um an alternative standard with their application, that's somehow proves that the maintenance cost of the wooden bridge is not going to be significant or a detriment, um, that's

1:47:45something we would we would consider. Uh we didn't necessarily want it to be an outright complete prohibition on wooden bridges because in some instances maybe that's that's all that there there there's available.

1:47:56Well th okay so then that brings me to your comment brings me to a follow-up question.

1:48:03Since when does the staff evaluate the O and M cost, there's nothing in our code about O and M costs. And where when when does the staff evaluate the O and M cost to an HOA or to a C D D? So for instance, um it's kind of standard in my industry to specify reinforced concrete pipe, but the builders and the developers all want to use plastic pipe. Because they can inst Sometimes buy it cheaper and install it

1:48:34faster. Does the county doesn't go in and say, well, we think the O and M cost of that plastic pipe is different from this RCP pipe. Or we think that variety of sod you've specified takes more or less maintenance than this variety of sod that you've specified, why should we pick on a wooden bridge?

1:48:55Yeah, understood. And and that's again why I said our answer in the outright is gonna be no. So no wooden bridges unless you, the applicant, can prove to us uh through whatever method you want. Maybe you can provide data, maybe you have some, you know, methods of

1:49:12I guess what I'm asking is why are we You're worried about the operation and maintenance cost of a wooden bridge, but yet we're not worried about the operation and maintenance cost of any other piece of infrastructure in a development. What makes a wooden bridge different from any other piece of infrastructure?

1:49:32David, I think it's the the reoccurrence of

1:49:37you for a second. Uh Patrick. Uh David, did you have something to say?

1:49:41Hey Patrick. Uh David Engel, Planning and Economic Development Director. This is Patrick Dutter's agenda item, but I may want to give you some context. So uh we've had several C Ds that have wooden bridges and s and spans in their within their development. and they they don't like to maintain them. And what's happened is looking at the the case history on these matters, they're different. One is on a county road with a CDD maintained wooden bridge and one is a CDD road. They the

1:50:11developer controls C D in the front end of the project. They uh they decide to go in and install a timber bridge, and then and then it's given to the C D D afterwards when the homeowners take over and they don't want to maintain it. So I believe in context that's how this thing even got percolating there at uh Patrick's Group.

1:50:31Right, but what I'm getting at is what makes the bridge so different from anything else. Okay, the developer says I'm gonna use this type of building to build the clubhouse that I'm gonna turn over to the C D D or the HOA or the What what? The developer the developer installs all this infrastructure that he's going to build. Why are we picking on only the bridge? What about all the rest of

1:50:53the state? Carrie, you want to comment on that? Yeah,

1:50:55Nicaragua's Picos Planning, Development, and Economic Growth. I think one of the main issues associated with the in particular, I'll call it out as the wooden rangeland bridges.

1:51:06What kind?

1:51:07The wooden bridges on Rangeland Boulevard, for example. I I think that was probably the most famous example that's been in the media of late. The issue with the that bridge or those two bridges that are there for the east and westbound sides is the frequency of maintenance. The not only are the wooden boards warping quickly. Um but as they warp with every passing car, you hear the constant thudding of the of the planks slapping down on the ground with the passage of every car that goes by that. So there's

1:51:37a there's a whoppin' thop going on every single

1:51:40But is that just bad construction? And and

1:51:44that is the frequency of of fixing that. So every few weeks the bridges are c shut down, one lane is shut down at a time, and they're relaying the new

1:51:52bridge.

1:51:54So I I know you haven't been here as long as I have. Has anybody gone and talked to the Florida D O T about the Sunsheim Skyway Bridge and how much maintenance they've had to do on that and that it's not gonna last its projected and there you go, it's a steel and concrete bridge. and it cost billions and billions of dollars to build and it's under constant maintenance. because the design Uh actually I'm trying to be careful. I don't want to accuse anybody because I'm not a bridge expert, but they will tell

1:52:24you there were certain defects in the design and the construction of that bridge that led to all of the maintenance that they have to do to keep that bridge up. It's not a matter of whether it was wood, steel, or concrete, it was a matter of how it was designed. And you know, when Patrick called and asked me about this issue I told him I was aware of a bridge that had probably been here eighty, ninety years, and that'd be the bridge out to Manor Beach Island. That's a wooden bridge in a marine environment. And how long's it been here? So it's not necessarily

1:52:55the wood.

1:52:55But I think the the nuanced difference between those two bridges, the Rangeland Bridge and the one that you're referencing, is the fact that people live right in front of them.

1:53:04People live right ne uh on the next to the bridge at Manor Beach Island. I guess the point I'm trying to make is I can build a design a road, a private roadway, And it pothole can open up every other day in my poorly designed roadway and cause noise for the people who listen live adjacent to the street. It's not because the bridge is wood, it was because the bridge was maybe not designed or built properly. Or maybe the C D D is not

1:53:34properly maintaining it. I don't know what the C D D does and I don't know anything about that bridge, but I just hate to see us throw this seems to me like a case of throwing the baby out with the bath water.

1:53:49And uh for and it's and it's an edge case. It's this isn't every bridge in the county that we've got a problem on or a widespread problem. It's one particular area And here's another thing and I'm I'm gonna be talking to our commission actually I've been talking to our commissioners about this. And it's something I'm gonna be pushing on as we go forward.

1:54:15We need to start taking the Rick Scott approach to our land development code. Right, when Rick Scott was governor of this state, he told the state agencies For every new regulation you propose, you need to find an old regulation and get rid of it. Our land development code in this county is over fifteen hundred pages long. The King James Version of the Bible is only twelve hundred. War and peace is only a thousand. Okay? And do you know how our code got this

1:54:46long? because it's full of ad hoc reactions. to something that somebody did that somebody else didn't like. and it has created a regulatory nightmare. for those trying to get permits in this county. It's fifteen hundred I practice all over the place. And I can't tell you, go down to Pinellas County. Their land development code is not fifteen hundred pages long. Hernando County's is not fifteen hundred pages long. Why does Pasco's

1:55:16need to be longer than the Bible itself? We need to ask ourselves that. And I j and again. I don't really care if we want to ban wooden bridges. I'm not involved in the design of wooden bridges, but it just really seems dumb. And all it does is make this land development code one more regulation bigger. Then and it doesn't necessarily need to.

1:55:42Okay.

1:55:45Can I make one minor comment to the paragraph? I'm not gonna weigh in on whether it should ban them or not.

1:55:52I don't know what the intent is, but it says for those roadways privately owned. Just so we're clear, a C D D is not a private ent entity. Right, right. So I don't know if your intent If that includes C D. If you're intending to include C Ds in that paragraph They're not a private entity.

1:56:13Right, no we wanted to to keep it this way.

1:56:16So you just the H do you don't want Cs included in that paragraph then. Pardon? Is your intent to not include C Ds in that paragraph then?

1:56:25Right.

1:56:30So then you so then you only want that paragraph to apply to HOAs then?

1:56:34Right, strictly private.

1:56:37So only each OA is then.

1:56:38Right.

1:56:39So C D D's would not be able to take advantage of that.

1:56:43Well,

1:56:48They could if if the C D D really wanted to install a wooden bridge on their public roadway.

1:56:57They would need an old they would need an alt standard, then? Yeah. Okay.

1:57:00Right. They they

1:57:01I just wanted to make sure that was your intent.

1:57:03Right, right, yeah. But we

1:57:05C D Ds are not a private entity. I just wanna make sure that was your intent.

1:57:08Right.

1:57:09You ever been to the right-of-way. Main Street in Newport Ritchie over there by the post office. Isn't there a neighborhood with a old fashioned Vermont style covered bridge going into a neighborhood?

1:57:20Mm-hmm. Just really neat

1:57:22visual. Exactly. Do we want to deprive the public of opportunities like that? How long have the wooden bridges in Vermont been there? Again, how long has the bridge to Manor Beach Island been there? Hundreds of years. What's ninety percent of the railroad bridges made from? I'm not sure that it's the wood that's the problem.

1:57:50And then I'd ask you this, if a category four or five hurricane blew through here and blew out the bridge on Florimar Terrace to Gulf Harbors, and the people couldn't get in or out. I bet we'd rethink this real quick.

1:58:08You can build wood bridge a lot quicker.

1:58:13Anybody else have any comment?

1:58:16Well can we get let Tammy finish her presentation? We only got through the one I don't know if we let her finish. Well Patrick apparently dropped one of them. So did we finish with all everything else, Tammy?

1:58:30No, we got a couple more to go.

1:58:32Okay.

1:58:32Just just quick ones though. Like this one um is just uh adding some verbiage and replacing verbiage to be consistent with our updated development review manual that we're coming out with. So um we added understory to the ornamental tree section and we replaced shade palm with grand palm.

1:58:53Quick question on this one. This I'm trying to understand this whole concept of Street trees. Are you is this requiring strees along trees along residential streets or trees at the entrances of subdivisions?

1:59:10Trees along residential streets. We haven't gotten that far yet though. Okay.

1:59:17All right, so it has been noted that the county needs more shade trees. Um and we have been allowing folks to uh avoid utility conflicts and install understory um trees underneath the utilities, we're instead going to be asking them to go ahead and install those shade trees, just staggering back a little bit from uh being directly underneath power lines if they can. Of course. If they can't then they can apply

1:59:47for an alternative standard. But we're trying to get the bigger trees.

1:59:52How

1:59:52do we

1:59:52determine whether they can or can't?

1:59:56They would they would show us. You know, if the if if the power lines are l running, you know, just outside their property line, then they can install some shade trees. You know, if the power lines are in the right-of-way, they can install some shade trees because it'd be on their property to be back from the power lines. But if the power lines are over their property, you know, then they can apply. for an alternative standard to go ahead and use understory trees if if they feel it is necessary.

2:00:21Okay.

2:00:25And here we go with the table 905.2-C. This is the table that tells how many shade trees are required per residential lot. And because we are going to be requiring street. trees in residential subdivisions. We figured that it would make more sense for the smaller lots of 6,000 square feet or less to just have one shade tree per lot and plant that one on the side of the back of it of the structure,

2:00:56the street tree would be acting as the front yard. tree. Also protects the front yard tree because it becomes an HOA tree as opposed to an individual resident tree, which the state says they can just go ahead and take out if they want to. But the HOA can't do that. So that's what we're proposing for the really small lots and that's the only change on this table.

2:01:21And excuse me, 905.2. D.1 was revised to split out the street tree section to give them their own section. And what was 905 D2 is now three. Um 905 D23B5A removes the requirement for all landscaped islands to have at least one evergreen shade tree. It's proposed to say fifty percent of

2:01:51the islands shall be evergreen. Um, but they're you know it's still required to all the shade trees, just fifty percent have to be the evergreen variety.

2:02:01And our water management systems, man-made systems are pretty much horrible looking. We're going to be trying to encourage a more natural look by requesting that developers group trees rather than fence posting them one every 50 feet, you know, boom, boom, boom. Put a couple over here, a few feet down the way, put three, and I would do something like that that looks a little bit more natural than what we've got going on.

2:02:32Any other questions?

2:02:36Tammy I've got several questions. I I guess

2:02:40Street trees and I'm not anti landscape but street trees, didn't we used to require street trees and then we used to delete bottom with street trees and now we're putting street trees back in as a mandatory requirement?

2:02:50Um I don't or it requires trade trees. I know that they have been in option and there have been occasional grounds and things. Um but in Belgium we have so root barriers and things or you know.

2:03:00Okay and barriers I noticed that. Requiring root barriers to protect utilities. And then you have a definition of utility, it's more swords are not included in that so So A that we protect the cable TV, fiber, optic, water and sewer and we don't care whether in the trees are here with the storm, even though all the res are complaining about the unmaintained source was a plant. We're trying to figure out why we need types more sewers.

2:03:19From a definition. The other issue too is street tree in our hercron area that's closer to the street more like a three block for storm. Yeah, further further off because that was an issue. Someone once goes down to the arts just serious issues for first response or I mean they're pretty along the street, don't get me wrong, but aside from the U Ply incorrectional streets we have a that

2:03:38Is that a question? Perfect

2:03:40time.

2:03:43I I'm just concerned about the problems that are created with street trees. More of the concern. Um I don't jump with a length code, but see every time you come here, everything adds cost of develop doesn't cost the developer money, it costs a lot more money.

2:03:52Right.

2:03:53That's the end of the day. Everything just gets more and more involved. Oh,

2:03:55we need more tax per cost, that creates higher values for the problem.

2:04:01I mean yes it looks nicer. I mean everybody w the only way everybody loved to drive down a a campy road to get to it. I don't know too many people that don't like that, but to make it a mandatory requirement on every single thing. Um it adds a cost per message to cost tree. Same cost to the group where to do all the protection. Plus you wanna cost and we just got the bug holding bridge spending cost in HOAs. I mean look on leaf. I mean I think that's well

2:04:23By the way, this is nobody just texting me how many thousand dollars for my papers and my the tree dug up my pa the roots of tree

2:04:29dug papers, right? The same thing. Yeah, that's meaning that plant a tree behind the curve plant a tree but between the back of the curve and the face of the sidewalk. And then five years later, your sidewalk eat the Americans with Disabilities Act because the tree roots have pushed it out or the tree roots have destroyed the curve. Now we've got cattle in my street because their gutter has been destroyed by the tree roots.

2:04:51It depends on what kind of tree they plant. Well

2:04:53If

2:04:54you plant palm trees at all.

2:04:56I

2:04:56know

2:04:56as Loridians are enamored with live oak trees. But We cannot plant a monoculture of live oak trees either. Okay? There are lots of species of trees that Florida. And you know, some people well they only they think the only it looks good is a live oak tree. You know, but yet the state tree is the sable palm meadow. Go figure. And that sable palm meadow isn't gonna have roots big enough to tear up a sidewalk.

2:05:25Just be glad it's not a banyan tree.

2:05:28Yeah. I got one of them on a project right now. And those Plocorn sewers when they drop all their leaves. Yeah, yeah.

2:05:37So do you guys wish to Have anything moving on? Or do you wish to halt these and go back to the drawing board?

2:05:47Well Patrick has withdrawn one of the changes. I guess the question is do you all want to make any recommendation on the remaining changes?

2:05:55I don't know. It just seems to me there's so many questions and concerns about this that I think it's just too early to make any motion to move. Treat this as a workshop and then

2:06:10we have a workshop to discuss this. I'm sure that there's some

2:06:15We've expressed some thoughts and opinions and I'm sure there's other thoughts and opinions out there that are just as valuable and that's the point of having such workshops so you can get all that stuff out there and then kinda debate the pros and the cons and then figure out what's best.

2:06:33Which we've kind of done.

2:06:35This is a topic that the public is always asking us about anyway. Trees.

2:06:43Well then I would move to continue and schedule a workshop on the matter with public participation.

2:06:51So we have a motion. Any f and is there do I have a second for

2:06:55the sake of discussion.

2:06:56Okay, so for the purpose of discussion we have a second. Is there any further discussion on the motion?

2:07:02So do do we wanna have uh an entire workshop on it or should this be something that we can the staff can take our comments and then kind of come back

2:07:14And we'll notice it and give the public an opportunity to speak on it, but perhaps at least we could move it forward with a with a second

2:07:22Can I ask a question related to that? Has this gone into horizontal round table yet?

2:07:26Yes.

2:07:27And did you get comments from Rosa Round Table?

2:07:30Um there weren't very many that I can recall. No. And it went to the commissioners and there were hardly any comments from them too. Um Starkey really liked the street treat then.

2:07:46If you didn't give many comments from horrors on the round table, my guess is that if you had a workshop you're not gonna get much additional comments, but uh it's up to you all what you would want to do.

2:07:59And maybe just to continue this to address some of the things we've discussed and bring it back. And that gives the public a second option if they do wanna comment. That would be my That wasn't your motion, but

2:08:13By the way, this is a public hearing. I don't know if you asked for public comment on this one, did you?

2:08:17I didn't.

2:08:22Okay, then for the moment

2:08:23because we're out of order, I will withdraw the motion and we'll come back to that.

2:08:29Okay.

2:08:32Anything else, Danny? All right, is there any public comment?

2:08:38Did you raise your hand right there?

2:08:43I thought I saw your oh you scratched your head.

2:08:47You gotta be careful in there, you know. You go like that.

2:08:50Nancy, you already spoke once, I'm sorry, you have to

2:08:55thought it was about the challenge of pitches.

2:08:58And see it's what [address removed]. Um so to Mr. Von Waldy's point, I would rather see the whole county benefit from being a premier county than have no trees. Maybe we could get the developer. To leave in the trees and build their developments around the trees. Well,

2:09:23and I and I agree with you. I mean, again, I might my question or my comment was not anti trees. I I'm not saying that. It's just it's the added cost. There have been things done. There's been revisions of the land development code recently to save I mean there's a mandatory requirement to save twenty percent of the trees on the site. So I mean there they are there are things that are being done to Promote. preservation of the existing vegetation. And I I'm I'm not against trees. I what I'm against is is all the potential ramifications

2:09:53and problems that a mandatory requirement for this to happen as on all the other things that are in the ground. I mean there's a lot of people that share that space.

2:10:05Well and the other thing uh I think Jamie r was alluding to earlier too was that every time we do something like that We we all like it, but it costs money. So and the we and the other the the other thing that people are always complaining about is affordability. You know, so how you c how can you have both? You know, you can't have uh Park Avenue without and and affordability.

2:10:34Yeah, I mean for for example, going into a residential subdivision, if you take street trees into a residential subdivision, the main road when you come into the subdivision where there's not all the services, all the other stuff outside of the pavement and the right-of-way. Makes a hundred percent perfect sense. Mandatory street trees for that entrance. Beautify the entrance, beautify the community. But in front of every single fifty or sixty foot lot to have a mandatory tree right in the middle where you're sharing it with the driveway, the water service, the sewer service. I mean th there's there's a lot of stuff going in that small space.

2:11:05Small. They used to be bigger.

2:11:07Well, I I understand.

2:11:08That's a different subject.

2:11:11But right now right now, a developer is permitted in a lot of places to go in and put in a fifty-foot lot. Can I tell you? something funny.

2:11:18So and here we have all of these inconsistencies in our code. We go and we change the land of the landscape code. Islands in a parking lot have a minimum planting width of ten feet. We used to have islands that were as wide as a parking space, that's nine feet, and then there was curbs, so there was about eight feet left to plant. Then somebody in their infinite wisdom thought we needed more room for those trees to grow in

2:11:48those parking lots, so we made it ten feet. But now here we are. We want to put trees along the street and we're going to plant them in a two-foot strip of grass between the back of a curb and the face of a sidewalk.

2:12:01Which is even more narrow because of the push for multi-use paths which are wider and use up more of that right-of-way.

2:12:09And we all like bigger lots, but that adds again to the unaffordability.

2:12:18Taller houses, huh?

2:12:21I mean that that would be affordable. Maybe the money should be a big thing.

2:12:27Maybe maybe if someone takes my comment to heart. about the Number of pages our land development code requires compliance of So You gotta understand that the economics of building a residential development are not what they were thirty or forty years ago. Okay, we used to have developers that used to go in and Buy a tract of land. would develop the land, put in the main streets, and

2:12:57the sidewalks and the utilities and then they would sell blocks of lots to builders. And they were able to do this at a profit selling the lot. Today we don't have master developers. We have builders that go in and buy these tracks and develop the lots at a loss. They actually can't sell the lot for what it costs them to buy the land and develop it. They make their money from the Profit on the house. The

2:13:28house is sold at a certain number of dollars per square foot. So the builder is now incentivized to build on every last square foot of that lot to try to offset the loss he took developing the land because we have a land development code that is 1,500 pages long that they can't afford to comply with.

2:13:49And it's driven up the price of houses and then so then we have Then we have laws that you know are passed uh the state level that are pushing, you know, laws like Live Local that I thought all we have is problems today.

2:14:03We're trying to get to solutions.

2:14:04That's right.

2:14:05Yeah. Well, thank you all.

2:14:09No, you know what though? The good news is this, you keep coming here and keep discussing things and That starts a discussion here and if nobody came there wouldn't be these discussions. So mm-hmm it's much appreciated.

2:14:29And I do encourage the young lady to keep coming here, but you gotta understand how the system works.

2:14:35Yeah, and and thank you all for taking the time too. I know you all are

2:14:44We're making it we're paid by your wonderful presence.

2:14:50She lives

2:14:51at

2:14:51a nice

2:14:51place. That's

2:14:52right.

2:14:52She's a nice lady. Um just a question. So do you w are you talking about tabling the whole thing or are you fine with four oh three point five and four oh three point seven, which is the construction traffic plan?

2:15:06Well I think he withdrew his motion, so I don't know if we're talking about it.

2:15:09Yeah, so that's what that was my I guess that was my question was whether we wanted to or do you want to do the whole you know, table the whole thing. Was there anybody else with public comment? Or

2:15:19were we sorry? Um

2:15:24just to answer your question, my thoughts, I didn't say anything about that, and I really don't have a problem submitting a construction plan as depicted in Tammy's presentation. Where I do have a problem with the language that's in that proposed ordinance is that there are no standards for that plan. So What I don't want to do and I'm sure Jamie can attest to having d been through these kinds of things over the years with different

2:15:54people in charge. When you don't have a standard for what a plan has to meet then it can be whatever that reviewer wants the standard to be and we can drag the approval on of that forever and ever and ever and ever because there's no standard that is to be met.

2:16:12Mm-hmm. Yeah.

2:16:14If it's as simple as what you drew, I'm great with it, but I'd like to see you either put that example in the code and say this is the level of detail to be provided. where I I don't want somebody coming in here and telling me, well, well that's a nice plan you drew, Mr. Moody, but now I need the design speed for all the roads, I need the average daily traffic for all the roads, I need the number of le tur cars turning left at this intersection and right turning and it's gonna take me five years to

2:16:44get a construction traffic plan approved.

2:16:47Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was not the intent of the

2:16:50I know it's not your intent, but I've been around long enough to to have been jerked away.

2:16:54Yeah, I

2:16:55mean

2:16:55it it does say shall depict a construction traffic route from the project site to the closest arterial or collector roadway. I mean if that's all and it it's limited to that. Then that's no worries. But so if somebody comes in and interprets that it's not, that's a valid point. Correct.

2:17:11So it sounds like we want a little bit of change to everything. A little bit more thought. Yeah.

2:17:17Yeah, I mean uh it seems to me that it's just not mature yet to vote on, but

2:17:24I'm open to listening to the

2:17:26motions. A month be okay. To fix it, to work it out with is thirty days uh enough?

2:17:38I knew you were gonna say that.

2:17:46Next Christmas.

2:17:51Tammy the other thing and maybe this is in here I just didn't know but I saw this is effective ten days, it has to be filed or m made effective. How does that handle I mean how is that If an application's already submitted, is it retroactive or something that's already submitted and not approved? All of these requirements. Of a project you're currently reviewing, are they I mean if this gets adopted a project currently that you're currently reviewing that doesn't have approval yet, do they are they gonna be required then to meet this? No. Okay.

2:18:19No. It's only applicable. Okay. Okay. It won't be effective.

2:18:24Can we add a statement to that?

2:18:29That any application submitted on or before it doesn't have to comply with this requirement?

2:18:36All right, yeah, I hear a motion. Some kinda

2:18:40So I'd move that we continue it to the August twentieth meeting in New Port Richey, which is two weeks. Wouldn't that make you happy, David?

2:18:52Well,

2:18:55Second. Okay, we have a second from Matthew. Any further discussion?

2:19:04Okay, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye aye. Opposed, like sign, motion carries.