AP8 PDD 220454 vehicle dealership ordinance standards

1:37:13Thank you, Patty. No, that's I so appreciate you. Okay, so this is item A P eight on your addendum agenda. And it's P D D twenty two zero four five four.

1:37:29So, first let's talk about why we're here. Um, on this item, you're sitting as a local planning agency. Um, first off. So earlier this year, the Board of County Commissioners directed a temporary moratorium on the opening or establishment of vehicle sales businesses. And on March 8th. Ordinance 2022 11 was adopted, and that's a 180-day moratorium on the establishment or opening of vehicle sales bit of vehicle sales businesses, and that's new and used. So one

1:37:59of the concerns that the Board of County Commissioners had, not the only one, but one of them, is that there's a lot of overstocking of vehicles that are happening on these properties and safety and their and the safety

1:38:13So during the time from March until literally this point in time, staff has studied the issues and we've had meetings with stakeholders from both the new auto dealers and used auto dealers. Brad Tippen has left led the charge and he's done an amazing job as he usually does. We have had meetings on our meetings occurred on April thirteenth and on June eighth. of this year. And I'm not going to state every

1:38:43single person that we met with, but just to give you an idea, we met with the folks from Furman Auto Group, from Moss, from Spring Engineering who designs many of these vehicle dealerships throughout the United States. We also met with the folks from Morgan Auto Group. and um East Lake Auto Sales, I think was the smaller business owner who does um um um used auto sales. So we met with that team of folks. Um the item was presented at the ordinance development team um team on May

1:39:1326, 2022. And basically Um what we've done to Section Eleven O One, which as you know was adopted um in 2005. So basically what we did is we clarified the applicability of the section, changed changed some words because words matter. We broke down the section into a few different sections, which are basically general design standards that are applicable for auto dealers that were established or received site plans after 125 of 2005.

1:39:44The reason why that date is important is because that's when the vehicle dealership ordinance was adopted. So basically in that section there's general cleanup language, and that general cleanup language is mostly resulting because from the changes that we made earlier this year to change the type H buffer. As you probably recall, there was a 75-foot buffer for auto dealers. That was a type H buffer. Well that type H buffer is now a 20-foot buffer. So there's a lot of cleanup needed in that section to to deal with that. Then we created um some additional

1:40:14design standards for sites that were approved after August 25th, 2022, which is when we expect this item to be adopted. It's gonna be adopted the 24th, but it's gonna get set to the state and stuff like that. The reason why we specifically broke this out this way is because some of the auto dealers folks that we met with in our stakeholders' meeting said, Well, we have approved sites, so we don't want to have to retrofit our sites to new standards if new standards are adopted. Even though in many cases they're already

1:40:44following those standards. However, they just didn't want to have to retrofit. So basically, those standards discuss employee and customer parking. There's four different methods that you can choose. Learned a lot through this process that a lot of these vehicle dealers I'm gonna have a lot of side notes because I've learned a lot through this process, but a lot of these vehicle dealers actually deal with the um The uh so BMW has specific standards, Mercedes has I'm I'm talking about cars that I really want to say and have specific

1:41:15standards. So they have to meet those standards. Uh which may be m more than what our land development code says in in certain situations. So um so basically um So this discusses the vehicle inventory and vehicle storage, which is basically surface level inventory and display combined with ground floor area of buildings and structures cannot exceed 50% of the developable acreage. It cannot occupy required parking spaces. It cannot encroach

1:41:45into the right-of-way or any landscape buffer or wetland upland buffer or drainage pond. It has to be delineated on the site plans. There are allowance of triple tandem rows or quadruple tandem rows under certain instances. There's requirements for pedestrian connectivity. Again, these are the additional design standards for sites approved after August 25th, 2022. So these the the folks who have already approved sites, they don't have to retrofit.

1:42:12What's a triple tandem road?

1:42:14Oh yeah. So the way that they actually stack the vehicles, so it's three rows triple tandem, so they're they're stacked together the way that the cars are stacked. So there's a requirement where you have to um also I didn't mention that, but clearly you have to it is in the ordinance that you have to have some separation so that fire vehicles can get in between.

1:42:34Okay.

1:42:35So um Sorry. Okay, so yeah, so this is the next one. So the next uh section is outdoor display and buffering standards. So these are these are actually standards that may, these are not must. It may be used by vehicle dealerships. So what happens is that we ask folks To have certain standards for outdoor display and buffering. So there are situations where you can plant a tree that might cause hardship with the stuff that's coming off the

1:43:05tree for the vehicles. So we're allowing some things to happen in lieu of The actual requirements that are in 1102 and 905. And this is May. So I mean if they've met the code requirements, not a problem. But if they want to have another option, this is the option. And this this is the third section, which is things that they may use whether it was approved prior to 2022 or not.

1:43:31And this was presented to the Horizontal Roundtable and Interested Parties Group on the 15th of June and the 20th of July. And um Didn't really have much commentary. We did have some commentary, but we made changes based on the commentary that we received after June 15th. And we're asking that you find it consistent with a comprehensive plan and recommend approval to the board. And this is actually set for first reading is is on 8-9 at 1.30 in

1:44:01Dade City and the adoption on August 24th at 1.30 in Newport Ritchie. And I will say that we are within the 180-day temporary moratorium. So hopefully if this gets adopted on the 24th, the moratorium expires in September. So we'll, you know, promise kept.

1:44:20Okay.

1:44:20Here for any questions and of course Brad who is the brain child will be able to answer a question?

1:44:28First off, uh, you can tell you guys have been working on this for a long time because there's mentions in here about inventory and car dealers and inventory don't go hand in hand lately. Um

1:44:40parking.

1:44:40That's plenty of parking right

1:44:41now. Triple tandem is not an issue.

1:44:46Um yeah, I just wanted to add one thing to what Denise said. Thank you, Denise. That was uh very good synopsis of it. Uh in that section that we talked about that she mentioned then where uh they may do some additional things, uh what we did was we tried to codify a and allow some things that normally would take an additional process. We we generally allowed those things to occur anyway through an alternative standard process. We never denied an alternative standard that was requested for these. So So for example, if a shade tree is required in a particular location and a shade tree would be damaging to their vehicles,

1:45:16where that is, they can swap it for two understory trees. So they're putting more trees in, just a different kind of tree that can kind of split the difference, get the middle ground there. So it's it's things like that that we were having to go through extra processes, extra time, and extra cost for applicants and for County staff resources. uh that we were trying to clarify and just to allow that to happen by the code. So that's what those those May sections are that she mentioned. And I can answer any questions if you guys have any questions on this stuff.

1:45:47I see how this affects New car auto dealers going forward, but how does it help the problem that the commissioners are complaining about today.

1:46:00So the the I think? Do you have there there's a lot of people? What happens to help

1:46:04this problem?

1:46:05There's a lot of different problems involved here. One of those I believe that is was of key concern was people retrofitting a site, uh using a site that was not originally designed to be a dealership, using it as a dealership. Excuse me, I losing my voice. Um and I think that there are some very specific criteria in here of the amount of space that that is allowed to be used for certain things, such as display area. Uh and if you can't provide for that then then you can't do that type of activity there. So I think that addresses that type of

1:46:35Yeah, and just to add to that too, John, um part of the problem that prompted all of this was these car dealerships that never came in with a site plan. So they were operating along US nineteen and forty-one without a site plan. Well

1:46:47I know they all come in my

1:46:48office and ask

1:46:49me to get them out of trouble.

1:46:50So now so now they have to do a site plan and they'll be subject to these standards. So one of the problems identified by particularly Commissioner Starkey was the over parking of inventory and having to move a car to get to a car and having cars on the right-of-way to get to a car. So that will be taken care of. So If once they come in and they get themselves situated properly, we won't have that problem hopefully.

1:47:09And the ones that do have an approved site plan, uh like Elizabeth mentioned, was uh you know they're they're allowed to operate by their uh approved site plan.

1:47:18The other question that I have is a lot of times from where I sit. Part of the problem is I'll call it a communication problem. If I'm a guy who wants to open a used car lot, well I found this C two property over here and I just throw my cars on there and I got a little office trailer over here and I paint whatever the price of the car is on the window and all of a sudden I'm business and they have no idea that they needed a permit. They went

1:47:48down to the tax collector's office and they got their business tax receipt. So I guess what I'm asking is going forward Can you work with the tax collector when they do this to let them know you have to have an approved site plan? Yeah, I can hand you a business tax receipt, you paid your thirty three dollars or whatever it is, but you still no good need to go see the people upstairs before you can legally operate your business.

1:48:16Probably. Yeah.

1:48:18Good afternoon, Board. Sally Sherman, Deputy County Administrator Development Services. Mike Wells and I had a conversation yesterday about this issue and how we can help improve collaboration and coordination with people when they come in for their business tax receipt to operate the business. How we need to come up with a process whereby We're pulling them in to make sure that they have the proper zoning, that they have an approved

1:48:49site plan, because like you said, now that code enforcement is going out there, they're having to get bring the properties into compliance. So we will be working with the property appraiser's office. To try and come up with a process whereby we can improve that. And also, the code enforcement team have been trying to do some educational efforts. Over the past year, there was a sweep that over 60 plus dealerships

1:49:19along, 19 and mile stretch were evaluated, and we're still working under.

1:49:28Mm-hmm.

1:49:29Okay.

1:49:31I also think that there's an arrangement with Fasano's office as well.

1:49:36Yes, that's a good thing.

1:49:40It's actually not just this. There's some other things too that happened in other uh other offices uh that were coordinating too.

1:49:47I always thought it would be very helpful if the county used its internet presence to help guide the public, you know, if they log on to the building department site or the planning and development site, hey, I wanna do this, I wanna do that, and maybe there could be some quick QA there to help educate them. I get people that walked in my office and they're just shocked at the number of things that you know, requirements that they have to satisfy before they can do what they want to do. And I think we'd

1:50:17have a lot less code violations if we helped get that information out there a little easier to them.

1:50:24Yeah, we we actually do have it available it in online for them to be able to do that. We have some software that they can go through and say this is what I would like to do and and it'll tell you if the zoning is proper or what you would need to do and it can actually give you some estimates on cost for permitting and things like that. Uh the problem is that most of the individuals that you're talking about didn't seek it out. Um we we can't just s shotgun this out to everybody in the county, you know. Uh they've if they come, there's ways for them to get it if if they if they seek it. We we've got several different sources for that.

1:50:54But we still wanna streamline it further. So

1:50:59Okay. Anything else?

1:51:03I guess you're off the hook.

1:51:08Thank you, Brad.

1:51:09Fine.

1:51:12I'll make a motion for approval.

1:51:14I'll second it. Motion is second. Part of the discussion?

1:51:19All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Like sign? She carries.

1:51:29Good job.