Beacon Park construction route and site plan authority
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The county’s agenda for Board of County Commissioners, Feb 11, 2025
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The county’s minutes for Board of County Commissioners, Feb 11, 2025
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What was said
Machine transcription of 25m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 69% of 104 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
work and now and just and Jeff to try to change that. What happened was there was a decision made by staff, which we empowered them years ago. I think it was under under Dan Biles, to give staff flexibility on doing certain things. I want to undo that flexibility from staff because staff has overruled a public hearing, which these people were very vocal on, very knowledgeable about, like one of the generals here back in 06 earlier today. and to see that public hearing that they had protected themselves in the neighborhoods
to have the development come in, flipped on them, and now they gotta deal with all this hassle. So I'm gonna say that uh Jeff if you talk to the ordinance, I wanna bring it back to us so we can reverse it back and give the power back to the commission and and keep the strength in the public hearing we've had in the past how how we've decided we wanted the development to come in and for ex you know, construction rooms, etcetera, that they get respected, not changed by staff. This is a fatal uh not a fatal error, but a very bad error that uh Staff have made it a forward. I'm gonna make sure we don't
have this happen again. So hang on a second. Commissioner Oakley.
I just want to add something to I mean if we're gonna bring it back that's fine. Let's find out why it ended up that way and the reasons and then be able to make a good decision on whether we should keep it that way or
change. And I I think um our staff can talk with you as we bring it forward, but uh Jeff if you would talk to it for a minute.
Sure. Um you know, when I when I became your county attorney the the and when there was a development review committee Um all site plans went to the DRC as a n notice public hearing item.
DRC would make a decision on it after hearing public comment and it could it could be appealed to the board. Back in. Back in the day. Um
The rationale for doing that. the planning director at the time, uh, was that site plans generally should be consistent with your land development code and so therefore there there's nothing that could be done in a public hearing.
as we as you know, the the In certain instances like this one, where they were dealing with construction graphic, It wasn't really the site plan approval that was at issue. It was the how they were going to access the site. And so that the the DRC back then may put a condition on it that said this is going to be the hall route for the for an entry and exit into
into the speacon park approval.
Had it all been done in two thousand and six, be we probably wouldn't have the issues that we're having today. But this remained an undeveloped portion. And so now the this several developers later this is the new project coming in.
I'm not so sure that it's the site plan. And and we can we can I mean it all can come back and you can t you can talk about it. It may be more along the lines of Whether or not Deviations. from the plan, the site plan should be approved administratively or not. But that's up to you all. Um i you know, if the alt standard as it's become known Um is
something that you all approve within MPUD in the zoning stage. There is also an ability to do them administratively Yeah. under the current code. At staff level during site plan review. And to some extent, I think that's what's happened here. Part the the other the other issue that that is that occurred in this particular project was
The construction Hall route was tied to moving dirt on and off the site through an excavation permit that they then chose not to use. So there was no condition at the time that the development of the residential subdivision is currently undergoing, which is why county staff did not stop them from using these roads is because there
is no condition that's legally enforceable to do that and these are public roads.
Who's the builder right?
So adult in my southern.
Good afternoon, board David Allen, Assistant County Administrator Development Services. Had to change that one up. I have Southern Impressions. Southern Brussel's development out of Jacksonville is who the developer is. And I think you know, I think part of the the challenge with um the this particular project was was as Mr. Sni Steinstreiter had mentioned was The hall road condition being on the grading permit, that same required requirement
didn't carry over to the site development plan, which probably would have been appropriate in this particular case because just because of the nature of the location of where this project is in proximity to existing residential uses. Certainly, I think that the difficulty with the request is going to be the volume of work that we process. And I think that that not having that ability is going to be a challenge. But I think that there are
ways that we can work around those types of deviations and ensuring that any pre-existing conditions that are on projects carry forward to subsequent reviews
and approval. L let me stop here for a second. Let me ask you this question, because I I've I looked at the documents all the way back from O six. And O six initially was gonna be Buffalo Drive, switched to Aqua Clara. Um And in that it said construction traffic was going into that. So what happened to take away that condition that was in the public hearing from the DRC? Did s did the Look for an alternative channel, they say they could put did they put something and very clearly say their construction traffic could go somewhere else? Is it something I'm missing?
No. Because Because that's what the public hearing
said.
The hall route was specific to the mass grading plans, was in which which included mass grading and construction activities. That for the six it was
all
construction
activities. Didn't talk about mass gradings,
it was O six. The subsequent approval, however, was the site Development plan, which did then did not have the construction route specifications within the standards.
But how does it disappear? If it wasn't mentioned, how does it disappear that the construction wrote no changes? Because they were the same approval.
They were they were equivalent approvals. So you between 06, when it was done by the DRC and then subsequently ratified by the board, and the ones that were issued More recently, they were issued administratively because the board gave site plan authority to staff. There we there is no more notice public hearing for a site
plan.
That's okay. But what I'm saying is the site plan or the approval done with DRC back in 06 said your construction traffic had to go in aquaculture. Yeah. Didn't talk about mask grading, just that. And we're in the in the from staff changes to talk about mask grading, that's mass grading. But that
condition was not carried forward in the new in the in the more
recent. How does it disappear though? If it was in the MPUD and it wasn't mentioned, 'cause it wasn't carried forward, it's still in the conditions from back in O six.
It wasn't in the zoning conditions, it
was
in the site plan approval and a subsequent site plan approval. Took that condition off.
I don't did it address the construction traffic.
It did not. Did not. And I mean rather than taking it off I think I think it was just it was not carried forward in terms of the So if it's not mentioned,
why wouldn't it still stay? It's one thing if you say construction traffic can go through public roads or through other things, but if you don't mention it, I don't think that thing in O six disappears. There's a public hearing. We had people in there speaking about it, fighting for it, had the condition put in. If you didn't take it away, I don't think just because you don't mention it, it doesn't disappear. It's still there.
Chairman M To his point, I mean are these whenever these are amended, are they red lined like an like an addendum or amendment to a contract, like an RFP site? That way you can see what was there and what wasn't there?
Generally what would happen it's
for the record and
so so Part of the challenge here is is is the way that we handle the the Approval process has changed.
So that answer is no.
So that answer no.
It's an entirely different form of
example. Yeah. All right. You're good.
So the builder at the time if it changes contractors They may or may not be looking what was said back in O six.
It's not even the same property owner.
It the the the the property owner in O six that got it was a D R Horton project that got the initial approvals, at least my research is and now it's a property owner out of Texas with southern impressions as doing the site work.
So things can get lost in translation.
Well they've been found. And I'm saying if a public hearing Done in O six in front of the people. With the document that's there that said construction traffic has to go through the uh whether you mentioned it not and subject other other approvals and other alternate stands, if you didn't cover clearly construction traffic goes somewhere else, I think they got the right to have them stopped.
And my legal opinion, Commissioner, is that The site plan that was issued by staff administratively superseded the O six approval.
How can a staff approval
overtake a public hearing? Because you changed the process in the interim.
And you no longer require that public hearing.
You I haven't heard we're in the new approval that you dealt with the construction traffic. And if you didn't deal with it, it's still there.
How does it disappear? It's a completely different approval. And that's When you when you revise an approval
It takes over the previous approval completely. I mean they issued a new legal approval for a different site plan. for the same property That's what controls them.
Site plan, site plan. But if we're talking about access, and
they put access in as a separate condition was on the site plan, it was not on the zoning. But I'd agree with you all day long if that was a condition of the MPD rezoning. But that's not where that condition got attached to it. It got attached to it at a noticed public hearing. Before the DRC that is n that then wa then the board's change of the land development code Took away the public
hearing and gave it to an administrative body to approve.
Just because another hearing was held if you didn't address the issue the previous law. our approval goes away. I mean if if if it's a site plan's a site plan and if you want to talk about your masquerading go a certain way, I don't think that thing goes away. I think you've got something to work with.
There were two approvals that staff issued. One was masquerading and one was the site plan. The site plan had no conditions in it regarding a hall route. The masquerading plan was not utilized and abandoned by the applicant.
Well I wanna sit down and I'll review this with staff, but at the minimum at least right now, how do we go change this rule of staff changing these things?
It it would take a land development code amendment. I think your planning director wants to speak to it.
Check.
Commissioner Weightman.
So two things. So staff unilaterally. Th amended the the decisions.
They had an application from the developer. They processed it in the due course. They issued an approval.
Stat.
Stat.
Okay. Interesting. Uh next piece is Are these what's the condition of these roads? If the volume of dump trucks that are running up and down it, they are public road under ordinary use. How much life has been eroded away from it? and the roads were never intended to handle the volume of and the weight of the commercial traffic. I don't know, I'd hate I'd hate that to be a piece
of something the taxpayer has to eat. I think if there's a decent partner in this contractor, I would hope. in hearing the public's uproar and, you know, they could be a good partner using my legal terms right, Jeff, be a good partner and help them be a solution to fix at least clean it up, right? It's all in how it's all in how we respond now, right? The damage is done. So that
avenue at this point to me is almost more important because then it's going to exacerbate the frustrations of the neighborhood that the roads have eroded away with the volume of traffic. And we get a couple of weather events next couple of years, and then they're coming say, hey, we need our roads repaved because of the situation. Chair Mariano was talking about today. So I think we need to look further downstream how we get this cleaned up in the right way.
Thank you.
David Engel, Planning and Economic Development Director. Commissioner Weightman, you bring up some good valid points, and that's what I wanted to speak to today. We had a meeting with the officers of the Beacon Park Homeowners Association this morning. Uh we are going to uh we we discussed the situation. They realize uh that the Current development order and site plan does not regulate access in and out of the site. Uh we have a number of things we're gonna do and we're gonna report back to the uh Beacon
Park HOA at the next meeting. Uh I'm gonna look very carefully through the conditions of approval for that MPUD to see if there's anything that we could hang our hat on, regulating and requiring access. We're we also have, I believe, a meeting tomorrow with David Allen and Jason Mickel to talk about post development uh road road restoration project. Um compliance is now engaged and there'll be a designated point person so if there is violations to our
hours of work and noise requirements in our land development code, we will expeditiously respond to that. And um I could tell you that the HOA officers were very pleased with our attitude and the fact that we are doing everything possible to help them. So speaking about discretionary deviations from board policy Back in the summer, the current planning department was reconsolidated with planning and development. We have measures in
place that will make sure that this situation does not occur again. Uh there is a SOP we're developing now requiring supervisory reproval of all the plans and permitting before they're executed. And we have what's called a planning check instituted at our current planning division where The board approvals and memorialization of policy pertaining to any particular development is carried out at the site plan level. So let's say hypothetically Beacon Park came
up today and what we're dealing with today, I would review it and determine that there's a board policy question and I would I would render the f uh the decision to bring it back to the board as a substantial modification of their approval because this isn't a minor deviation, this is a substantial deviation. So we have the check and balances in place to make sure that board policy is maintained and there's no arbitrary approvals going forward.
And I will tell you the manager of this project. Contractors have been just brutal to these people. I'm gonna show you a couple of pictures of what this is going through. I got homes that have had to put a black screen on the back of their fence where they hadn't used to be just woods, whatever. And granted things are gonna change. But instead they got a large trailer truck with Burgess civil engineering right in their backyard. That's their view now. right front. They could have ch they could've angled it back to minimize the impact. Oh, thank you for the putting the pictures up. Then you look at the edge of up this is the edge of
a yard. Right where you see the grass, that was the yard and within like eight feet, you got a cliff going down to where they're putting A lift station, of all things. Um And that's I mean good rain that thing erodes away, but even still Not not good for the for the long term. They had it nice and loud. They kinda turned it up at night, so you see the pump that's kinda block boxed out to minimize the damage. They could have pumped that thing like fifty yards away. Instead they put it right by the home, so they've got to look at it and listen to it. Going to the next
picture.
Sorry to go back a little bit.
That looks a little less serious.
Yeah, all right. So this the this there this is one of the houses right in the on the left side. This is the pool. This is like their pride and joy. The I mean these people have a capanna out there and put a TV against the wall with a nice cover on it. Is that dirty? That's the pool. No, that's a concrete wearing away from the pool because of the vibrations. So they can't even use their pool and all the dust and dirt. Is it what they're gonna deal with? Go ahead and go to the next one?
Next one? No, that's f that's Mr. Fritz hundred years old, my dad.
Uh that could be okay, that's it. Alright, so anyway, so so what these people are dealing with, it's been brutal. Every step of the way. It's not what we designed and I and again if this public hearing was not so clear in vision to when we made him go Aqua Clara And part of the reason was Not even to think that we would think about going down that road from Coral Creek Lou. There's probably more sink homes in that area built over wetlands and marshlands, etc. So a lot of settling going on. And the roadways that go through, there's already one part that's settled down a
little bit already, but you get these roads that are with these hit huge truck traffics. As they say when they get older, it exponentially damages these roads. So I know staff's talking about doing some looking at the roads. Frankly sh it needs to be done immediately and just kind of like get this guy to the table. But I will tell ya between the contract and between the uh developer it's the worst I've ever dealt with. As far as I You know, what's reasonable, what's better. Again, going one point one miles, it would have slowed the development down getting done. But if they had started the other way, they
could have worked their way to it, 'cause they still gotta start everything from the other end anyway. So I mean literally just been it's been brutal and if Jeff, if you can bring this back to us and we can look at it, um it's something we need to change. We need When you have the public hearing that you have, and people come on, they spend the time to go protect the neighborhood, have the hearings, decisions are made. We can't have staff changing these things. And I still want to go through this, Mr. County Attorney, with you, to what was actually changed from 06. I haven't seen those documents, I just saw the original ones, to when
the public hearing was. I want to see what really we looked at because I still can't get past it. Turning over a public hearing when something clearly didn't say, all right, we're going to change your axis. Alright, stay on that picture there, that's good. That's a different one.
Jack, I if I could just add something to the conversation. Notwithstanding the things that uh Mr. Engel have brought up, some of the things we've we've been talking about internally too is as we see more infill projects coming back into the county is is really something that I was kind of call thoughtful design in looking at how these site plans and things that are configured because sometimes you do have individual groups looking look at the the instance Of this pump station being right where it's at, you know, you know, are there things that our team members can be looking
at, looking at a holistic picture in terms of you know how we move our approval? So we're gonna be talking more about that because I think you're gonna see more and more of that as we do more infill projects, smaller projects that are gonna kind of kind of fit into the into the nooks and crannies that need to peacefully coexist with with residents and people that have built their lives. So I just appreciate the the conversation on this and just know that your your team has listened and that uh we are we are moving forward in the right direction.
Again, I don't want to see it again. Here's what I want Show you just a few pictures of this is Corolla Estates. You've heard them, uh the ladies speak before us, you've heard some other speak. This is one where it used to be one house per uh 10 acres in this whole development. It's now been changed to 180. When this came before the board, it didn't show access on this little side road preload which went right through the middle school. Now it does. And not only does it show just an easement what they had permission for. But now they've come in without I don't even think t told staff, they've raised this land
up like eight feet. So now you see that huge pitch going down. That's going to the bottom of an area and this is at the bottom of a bowl. Of this whole area. So all the water is going to go to this low area, and now you're taking out a lot of the storage by building this road. Go take an another picture. Yeah they've been knocked on a school side school side down. School's only time they left it there on the ground. Absurd. Okay, next one. That's all. That's all for that. Okay. If you looked from the berms
up that are up over there where that house is, it's about To the top of that berm is probably six feet higher than where the lady's property is. And with the con and the where that pond is on the other side, there's not even a buffer between the two. So all the water, and this is the lowest pond, and everything that's gonna be built in is gonna come in. I mean you got a retention wall up by that one house with the wood around it, and then you got the street that's there, and then all that water. Very very poorly designed for the people, great for them. Commissioner.
Yeah some of the issues.
We
fought. Excuse me.
Some of the issues that we're finding out when we're going back in infilling, they're raising the land up, which makes the property next door lower. and really create some problems. Zephyrhills, the city, raised that property four or five feet higher and some of the county property is a bold. And there was only one place the water goes in that boat. So we need to watch how we build next door and don't cause a problem by raising up
the the height of the land to create a problem next door. Which they hadn't had one before.
And we heard the one about the in city today too. So I don't know what we can do about City annexations and then this this going on, but this has got to be handled better. But again this is Like county to county changing a big use of property from a little easement to now they're building a road. Um kind of crazy. All right. Um I'm gonna go through my rest of my pictures.