Discussion of multifamily design and workshop

1:08:10Well we have left is old business except you wanted to discuss one item, so

1:08:15Well I well I wanna discuss a philosophy and suggest that maybe um we workshop it. Um I just I know that when uh a a multifamily developer or whatever comes into my office and I I know that you do this, Commissioner Weightman. Um I really try and

1:08:40um encourage a better site plan that um adds some value to the community around it because we don't We've just been approving these apartments with no thought to the connectivity or or how it affects um sometimes the community around it and it and if and you know we've done we've approved so many Makes me nervous. Um and adjusts

1:09:12I just want them to be the best they can be within the parameters that we have. And I I I do feel bad when um someone's come in with engineered or you know, engineered layouts and I know that the applicant has spent a lot of money and time coming up with a fit plan, um as as my husband calls them. and and then based on what each one of us tell them, they start going back to the drawing board.

1:09:43So I just wondered if it made sense for us to um workshop or discuss what we're looking for in uh so that people like Barbara or anyone who's got a client they can I think they they can kinda direct them to hey you just plop this stuff down they're not gonna approve it. For example, Fletcher. If you saw the one by the airport? With all the town uh apartments

1:10:13in the front, the townhomes in the back. There is nothing redeeming about that plan and there is no way I'm gonna vote for that like that. Um, I it's just how many units can you fit on a piece of property and maximize the value of the property without any thought to quality of life for anyone living in there or around and um so I just personally am trying to be a lot more thoughtful about what these look and feel like and

1:10:44I wanted to share that with you because I don't know what you're doing in your meetings because we have sunshine um but that's what I'm doing in mine. So I'm just gonna throw How to do it.

1:10:55I'll I'll I'll jump in if you if I may chair. The uh I'm highly borrowed to say that the smoke-camily project comes in our office and pretty critical. Yeah, same. And uh I I challenge them, you know, what's your what's the amenities going to do what's gonna bring the quality of life? Where's the you know uh an opportunity for entrepreneurship to occur? And that was really the Driving force behind the project we saw

1:11:25last meeting. An island. Yep. Yeah,

1:11:28that island.

1:11:28Yeah. And and and it was nice to have the developer there who was genuinely listened and worked through when we must have met half a dozen times probably going back and forth. And no, I I was pretty frank with them, kick told them kick rocks a number a number of times. But they kept coming back and wanted to be a good partner and they came up with something unique. And I'm hoping that that project's the catalyst, right? Which I

1:11:59think is what brought up this conversation to what's our identity, what's our multi-family style living, what's our identity, what do we want to see and Pasco moving forward. So um I'd be welcome to a workshop and bring in stakeholders and maybe see what's around the rest around the working around the rest of the country and find something that that fits that fits for us. I mean our residents come to us every day, they're looking for amenities all day of life and it's an opportunity with that many folks coming into

1:12:29an area to create, you know, a nice ecosystem to live in.

1:12:34We certainly don't wanna build a community where they have to get in their car and go somewhere to do anything. Um and I keep or I'm gonna keep I keep having the planners pull up the one on island. I keep the book from I never remember the name of it, the something village, Pasadena Village? I don't know. Uh the one that um Mr. Landis did, uh where it has the village green and the commercial properties over overlooking

1:13:05the village green and then there's apartments and then there's townhomes around that. I keep that site plan in my office. I'm gonna keep the island one. I might um pull out the one that we did at um in Odessa where they put the two restaurants kind of like what they did on Island, but it's much tight a tighter piece of land with a little green space in between um and a walkway to the back. I mean, I think we should have some good examples of what we're

1:13:35looking for and and that's we s just connect we don't have to approve these. So if they want to come in with multifamily and town home, we can require a better product.

1:13:50Mr. Chairman Mariano

1:13:51I also don't think they should be stucco all the way up and down.

1:13:56Are you gonna shut me down?

1:13:58No, I'm not gonna shut you down. I'm I'm going to make a pitch that uh it's probably been five years since I've made Which is y most of what is coming before you is Euclidean, is straight zoning. We are now starting to get into a position of putting deed restrictions on Euclidean zoning to rule out things that we don't want in a particular zoning classification.

1:14:30The issues that both in the conversation on the townhomes And and the group and what you're bringing up is They are areas where if you refined your code

1:14:47they could the the developers would have to comply with those changes. I mean number parking spaces, uh green space design, all that sort of thing, are things that you can put in your straight zoning categories and in your P D categories but but especially in the straight zoning categories and get you to where you're not having to have meetings to impose

1:15:17your will on them, it's Certainty and It's understood. It's it's what your code requires and it's practicality and certainty that they can that they can see this is your expectation when they come in to do business in Pasco County. And so that's the pitch from your lawyer That I've Not made in a couple of years, so I'm trying.

1:15:42I like it. I mean I think it's appropriate that we that we tighten these things up.

1:15:51Mr. Chairman Mariano. So I I agree the certainty is is a good thing and uh Mr. County Attorney thanks for bringing that again because I think it's something we should put in. Um you know the difficulty with that previous zoning we had literally we discussed it. I thought we had pretty well resolved all but one, the fur the first one, but I don't see anything addressing you know the things we're we're concerned about was gonna happen. So I think that needs to be a good thing. to come back and let's go review that and let's go look at our rezoning what do we really want from these things. As far as the apartment

1:16:21conversation. Everywhere I go, they say too many apartments. We've got way too many. And we've granted them when we didn't have to. Saddlebrook, we could even force that off to the side, wouldn't affect it directly in there. Uh Seven Oaks didn't have to do that one. Overpass, I know we're fighting that, because there's even more pressure coming up. I think we got some meetings coming up. I know I do. Um We were just studied recently, I think Connected Cities had done commissioned the study to do it to study, how are we doing on commercial development? And I'm

1:16:52happy to say we're gonna in a very short period of time, David is gonna probably do the presentation, if not the next meeting, the meeting after. We're actually the number one commercial producing county in the state of Florida. And that's done with the infrastructure we put in place and I think the incentives to go along with it and this board pushing for good commercial development. We've we've done a lot of good stuff, but we gotta watch what's gonna come up next. And again, the citizens I'm talking to. Especially Trinity Wesley Chapel. They see enough. They don't need more. I mean

1:17:2219 we could probably use a few for for if they're affordable, not with all the amenities in the world, but are true affordable uh units. There's some use for it, but especially the Wesley Chapel Trinity area there's in 41's a concern. Like we did one today, but that already had density in it, and I'm glad that they actually took some of the apartments up and put townhomes in it. It and kept the commercial locked ins, and they're working real close with us to make a north-south connector road that's gonna help with the traffic flow so. That type

1:17:52of thing working with them, you know, that that's a good thing. But it's definitely something we need to keep an eye out for.

1:17:59Um, I thought we had asked for a study of what we a map of approved apartment or multifamily sites. Do we have that yet?

1:18:14I mean I in a way, whenever we approve one, we should see what's around you know, it's it's hard hard sometimes to see it in context to what's around it. Yeah. And I I think that we we need to have that kind of map.

1:18:29Good afternoon, David Engel. Planning and economic growth director. So the board's conversation today is music to our ears and we heard you loud and clear when you had a conducted a workshop and discussed the land use and expectations. So since I've been the director of the department now it's about four weeks, we've already pro proactively engaged developers trying to come up with better outcomes on these developments. I'll give you an example. was a Clark Hobby project.

1:18:59Next door was Barbara Wilheit's project 4152. They weren't plop and drops. We actually asked the two attorneys to get together with their developers and integrate these facilities into one holistic community. So we're building communities, not cut and paste developments. So the retail, the situation of multifamily tucked away behind over Open space and wetlands and things like that were very thoughtfully designed. So as you probably hear, some of

1:19:29the attorneys are being we reach out to them, we ask them to sit down. And if you look at most of our actions, we basically are your board is in a discretionary position because it's either a rezone request for Euclidean zoning or a comp plan. Amendment, so that gives us the latitude to come up with better outcomes in a collaborative fashion. So we're doing that. As far as the entitlement study, the board had requested that we do Connected City and BOPH, and those studies are coming to

1:19:59a close, and we're also working on a countywide entitlement study. Also, looking behind the curtain at planning and economic growth, we are working on. performance standards for like TND, form-based zoning, depending on where it is in the county, and other mechanisms to have much more collaborative beneficial development because we only have one crack at the apple. We can't, you know, once something's in the ground it's there 50 to 60 years plus. So we take your guidance seriously and we are

1:20:29moving forward.

1:20:32Um, that leads me to say something else I'm telling them when they come in. And a lot of times you see The apartments in the back. And commercial in the front and it's it's a fast food with a parking lot, fast food with the parking lot, fast food with the parking lot. I don't want to do that to any more roads than what we did to fifty four. It's not a good development plan at all. So, um I don't know what the answer is. I'm not a planner. But I know I know when I don't

1:21:02like something and that is what I don't like.

1:21:07I

1:21:07don't think I don't like it. We shouldn't copy it again.

1:21:10Again, we we hear you and I'll give you another example. Uh Barbara here Barbara brought in a uh commercial development on Stateway 52 near Murata. And we actually created a neighborhood commercial embedded in the center, not on the periphery, with with walkability and access. So we are moving away from strip commercial to more thoughtful commercial being integrated in the walkable community. Secondly, we are holding collaborative sessions now with our land development community on drive-thru

1:21:41restaurants, on car washes. So we're moving forward and we provided the county administrator and our ACA board priority projects with delivery dates, and we'll be adding to it for TND and some of the other things we're working on.

1:21:57So I want to throw out to you all um an invitation. I'm gonna go. Um there's something called the Congress for New Urbanism. My brother-in-law's been on the board for years and um their annual meeting is in um Cincinnati. And I will have my assistant email to you the different breakouts that you go on and you literally go and you go and see ki uh a part of the neighborhood out you know around t around

1:22:28that area that use the form-based code and what it did for them. Um rearloaded neighborhoods, uh uh there's all different ki I couldn't believe all the very interesting um field trips that you go on. And so it's in I think it's in April. I I don't remember the dates right now, but I'm gonna go and I'd love for more of y'all to go. Um I'm trying to get the county administrator to go. Love for you to go. Whoa whoever. And you know when

1:22:58we went to Bentonville, it really opened our eyes to um what what more can be done with with trails. And we're bringing back some of those ideas and Keith will explain to you one of his big projects that's coming when when it's ready for him to explain. Um but when you can go and see what communities have done that we say we want to do, it's it's powerful. So I wouldn't invite you to go. Um

1:23:29I I think it's really important that these things get fixed sooner rather than later because we're just we're so busy and we're we're improving things and I know we want to improve them in a in a better way and I think I think we pretty much are all on the same page on most of the stuff. Uh which I'm grateful for because for From what I hear a lot of counties are not like this.

1:23:55I think what David said is we're we're moving toward what you're talking about.

1:23:59Quickly.

1:24:00Yeah. Because it's fast moving, it's coming quicker. Yes, sir. Mr.

1:24:06Chairman Mariano. There

1:24:08was

1:24:08an item I wanted to bring up, but uh it's not too late.

1:24:12It's only two forty seven.

1:24:17But just I was just gonna throw it throw it out there 'cause it was brought to me as uh Commissioner Weightman had brought up the surplus lands about should we go out to the nonprofit, should we go otherwise? And I don't think I I've made this point clear enough and I know it was like it was a longer day, so maybe it just didn't sink in and we did make a decision, but we can't reconsider but I just want to throw it out there. The thought was to a contractor that I talked to that was interested in buying some properties that said, Well, we're looking at this discussion now, hang on. The discussion went pretty much, well, let me ask you this. If

1:24:47you're gonna go put this stuff out for bid, If you let everybody bid on it, let's say a non-profit may bid $1,000, you may get a profit one to say, I want to bid $20,000. you may get a situation where you owe in fees that were that are owed like five thousand dollars that you're not gonna collect from the nonprofit for a thousand dollars, but you'd be able to collect that money for the profit. Is it something You guys were the motion in the majority. You consider should we throw

1:25:17it out there to let the profit and non profit and then make a decision once we look at the offers what we want to do. Because if it's so close, you could say let the non profit have it, but if it's a big gap and the the profit's gonna pay more money, we can pay off some of the debts that we've It's gonna have to pay somebody. Do we want to consider that?

1:25:37And here here's why I would say no. Um and we're talking about ten a year, may m I I don't even know if we could do ten a year. But um how many? Five

1:25:47a ten per

1:25:48year. Five five a year. Um They already have an opportunity to go buy it before it comes to us. Because it's come to us because they didn't pay their taxes. So they have that opportunity already. Go do your homework. Um, but when it comes to us, it's our ability to help a non profit Put something out uh that helps a family begin a journey of home ownership. So I think that is part of our responsibility

1:26:18to help people get home ownership. And so it's very little skin off our back, but it helps these nonprofits build these homes which we have already put in the rule that has to go to someone who has an income restriction. So I think that's a noble project and I think not doing projects like that is what brought us live local. you know, NIMBYism turning down a a a uh A project we had a we had one at Bear Creek. That

1:26:48would have been wonderful. Um the units were nicer than the houses around it in some cases. Um, but we voted it down. And and so

1:26:59We I think that study's gonna show we we have a a a problem when it gets to the lower income people of of being able to find something's affordable. And I think that's a noble thing to have five lots a year go to help someone build a house for someone who's income challenged. Also, we control more of what kind of product they put in there. If it's if it's just someone buying a lot, they could put a mobile home

1:27:30on there, a used mobile home or something and not improve that neighborhood. So the other thing this does in my opinion is starts to restabilize a neighborhood.

1:27:40So that's why I would I don't want to go down that path.

1:27:43Okay.

1:27:45Okay. Still time.

1:27:47Yeah. All right, we'll move on. We're gonna

1:27:50keep working on you guys.

1:27:51Yeah. We'll move to uh Back to ordinary business and I think uh Mr. Cabal is up.