Live Local Act options and declaratory judgment

1:19:24So while Roy is getting this ready, there's two handouts that I left on the dias that relate to this issue which is one's called identified policy issues with the Lib Local Act, another one's called Board Association FACA Growth and Environmental Committee and Identified Issues with the Lib Local Act. Those are on those were left on your dais if you want to pull those out for this discussion.

1:19:48Well.

1:19:51This is crazy. No R atoms in them.

1:19:54What just happened there? What'd you care?

1:20:01What are we doing? We're pulling something up here?

1:20:03I'm trying to find one.

1:20:06David is here for sixty two. Uh so there's there's two relate to this discussion. Sixty two.

1:20:13But it is absolutely freezing in here.

1:20:17Brazy. Anything?

1:20:19I'm cool.

1:20:22It's gotta be in the gotta be mid sixties.

1:20:30They're not in my book. They're not in your book.

1:20:33That's not good. All right. I just got one resolution in my book. Sixty-five.

1:20:41Fine fine, right? And go get extra copies if you need it. it. So this is the thing left on the diet.

1:20:49What number is yours?

1:20:50It doesn't have a number on it. It just

1:20:52Oh it doesn't

1:20:53have a number.

1:20:55Titled identifying policy issues with the local act. That document. That document.

1:21:01Okay. All right. Who you could see the

1:21:06Yeah, those are irregular items there. They say C. No, I somebody could see but that's the numbers.

1:21:18Okay. All right.

1:21:24Go ahead. Good morning board. Uh Mr. Chairman Roy Major Development Services. Myself and my colleague from the from the County Attorney's Office, Dave Goldstein, are gonna facilitate uh a presentation on the Livel Live Local Act. The the the purpose of the presentation is to remind the board of of some of the concerns with the Live Local Act. Uh secondly to update the board on recent events locally here involving the Live Local Act. And then uh Dave is gonna present some ideas. Uh Uh

1:21:55to the board a list of ideas or alternatives for them to consider while we're working through some of these live local issues.

1:22:06Yeah, this this slide here is is is the property which really brought attention and shine a light on the potential of Live Local impacting our community. And just to just to showing the slide to refresh everybody's memory, here's a site on I seventy five and Overpass Road, the northwest corner, which had Is it 315,000 square feet of entitlements for commercial, light industrial, and similar uses? And the landowner

1:22:36came in with a developer potentially to make this largely a multifamily property. And this is this is really the the project which brought this to light um and and got got us thinking about this carefully. Sort of a recap of some of the some of the concerns. That have been have been discussed is the unfunded local financing liabilities, namely the ad valorem exemptions. You know, secondly. undermines job growth and the ability to work local. The increased demand

1:23:07on infrastructure undermines our policy of a diversified tax base, and then there's multiple constitutional and implementation issues with this.

1:23:19One of the handouts that we gave you it's the one that says identify policy issues. That has a more detailed list of what Roy just did a very quick summary. But we have identified at least 14 major policy issues with the Lib Local Act, which are summarized in that handout. Oh it worked.

1:23:36Okay.

1:23:39Got a recap of current events, what's been going on live with Live Local and projects here in Pasco County. This has been made a top legislative priority for our county to for the legislature to take up and perhaps address. Uh the county has sent a letter to the legislature and the as a result of the joint Pasco Pinellas Hillsboro meeting about a month ago, a letter was sent signed by those three Board Chairman Mariano. In the last two

1:24:09months, last three months, we've received a little longer than I maybe four months, we've received twelve expressed interest or or had initial discussions with properties, potentially wanting to use the live local. We've had four pre-application meetings. Two applications actually submitted. One was quickly withdrawn and one is being held right now pending a decision on on how the board wants to move forward. The one that's being held is at Rowan and Bailey

1:24:39Road, just north of Trouble Creek Road, really not very far, very far from here.

1:24:46We have created a a tool, uh a GIS layer to help us track the right-of-way. uh what these what these locations are and where they are in the county. You know currently there have been twelve inquiries representing ten different projects. Uh this is a screen capture of that GIS map. The green flags show the actual location of those projects. And when you click on that one of those flags, it actually gives you that parcel information

1:25:16and what the use is. So what we're going for here is as these come in, we can actually, you know, we can track them and and those present those to you or or the community.

1:25:25So Roy, before you leave this slide, um So I have three. So I think Mike's had conversations about this too. We're a little bit of an outlier. We actually have more liblocal Interest and applications than most counties that I've spoken to. Most counties that I've spoken to have maybe one, two applications. We've got significantly more. So we're sort of at the epicenter of Live Local when it comes to the number of applications that we have.

1:25:54And going going forward, we could further develop this tool and create a a series of applications, uh, GIS applications in this tool to set parameters and have it track various properties which are eligible for Live Local. Um, and depending on how the board wants to go, we can actually use this as a tool uh to help track. and inform the board on the on the progress of of any decisions that they make relative to the the projects that are submitted.

1:26:27So really with that said, I'll hand it over to Dave to kind of lead a discussion on some of the board's possible alternatives.

1:26:33So before I do that, Commissioner is any questions about the number of local sites that we have or Thank you, Chairman M it's important to note. Every

1:26:42one of these sites is zoned on what, C two?

1:26:46I believe all of them are commercially zoned. Some of them are M P D, but I believe most of them are commercially zoned. Is that right, Roy? That's correct.

1:26:52So it's important that you know it's a shotgun blast. It's It's important though as we go into this conversation to know that these properties that we're target are job creating sites. and we planned accordingly for those sites.

1:27:08So the first option that we've discussed and the board's discussed this in the past is the what Mr. Well Commissioner Weightman has called The nuclear option. I call it the sledgehammer sledgehammer option. It's kind of a blunt tool, it's the moratorium. Um, you know, there's some pros and cons to a moratorium that we've discussed. The the pro is that it's a useful tool to delay your take a pause while we develop regulations. The con is that it's a blunt tool. So A moratorium's gonna catch some some folks

1:27:39that maybe were never intending to invoke the Lib Local Act. And even if you do kind of a targeted nodal type um attack through a moratorium, You may not catch some of the local sites because not all of our C2 zoning and I1 zoning is at a commercial node. So and we have a map that we could show you kind of a sample of how we could do a commercial node moratorium, but It's like I said, it's a very blunt instrument. It's a slow jammer, nuclear bomb. It it's gonna catch some people that you didn't want to catch. And You

1:28:10know, and it may not catch some people that you wanted to catch. Um Second option is a declaratory judgment action. This is basically what I like to call a friendly lawsuit. It it's basically asking a court to declare, you know, to address so there's a we identified a list of twenty-two legal issues and there there's uh another handout here that talks about these twenty-two legal issues. You'll be asking a court to declare or or get advice from the court on how do we resolve these twenty-two legal issues under the Lib

1:28:40Local Act. Some of them are constitutional issues, some of them are ambiguities under the Lib Local Act. And I didn't create this list of twenty-two issues on my own. There was actually a a committee Uh the Florida Association of County Attorney, the Growth and Environmental Committee. Um I've gotten some of the issues on list from that committee. So this these are issues that have been identified statewide um with the Live Local Act. So we're now at the twenty two legal issues. So we'd be asking the court for a declaration of how we resolve these twenty two legal issues. The

1:29:10theory would be that we cannot process these applications unless the court gives us advice on how to resolve these twenty two legal issues. It's more of a scalpel approach as opposed to the sludge hammer or nuclear option because it would only be uh basically suing those projects that actually intempt to invoke the Lib Local Act. It would not be Targeting anybody else. Now we would have to serve the attorney general with a lawsuit because if you're challenging the constitution uh constitutionality of an act You do have to serve the

1:29:40attorney general, so they would have an opportunity to weigh in. Um The pros of it is you know, it's a scalpel approach. The con of it is that All we can address in a declaratory judgment action is these twenty-two legal issues. So the fourteen policy issues that we That are on that list. Those are policy issues. The court's not gonna be able to weigh in on those things. That's still gonna involve some legislative effort by the legislature. So Litigation might be a useful tool to resolve the legal issues, but unless

1:30:10we get the entire act thrown out as unconstitutional. the legislature's still gonna need to take some action to address your policy concerns. So I can't Can't get a court to solve the policy problems, but it can be an effective tool to clear up these legal ambiguities in the Act. The other downside is any time you're in with litigation there's gonna be some litigation expenses. Um particularly the second item on the legal list, the the legal list about You know, whether this is a charitable purpose for the tax exemption,

1:30:41whether it's a charitable purpose, that probably would require us to retain an expert witness to testify that These Avalorum tax exemptions are not for a charitable purpose, at least that's my that's my opinion, but I would likely need an expert to to hire an expert to testify to that. Um third option would be that we just process the local application the best we can, even though there's 22 legal ambiguities. Just do our best to try to process them. Um but you do it without giving them any form of relief. The LIB Local doesn't LIBE LOCOL Act

1:31:11doesn't require that you give them alternative standards or variances on parking, neighborhood parks, the typical variances and alternative standards that staff and you you normally give for those these type of projects, you don't necessarily have to give those for Live Local projects. So If you wanted to process them You could do it in a way that tell and direct staff and say Process them but don't give any relief. And then the fourth option would be just a little bit. Process them best you can like any other application. And

1:31:41sort of just You know Try to follow the law the best that you can. So those are the four options we've identified. I know Um other commissioners and some commissioners have raised other ideas such as downzoning all the property in the county. Don't recommend that because it you're also gonna have some unintended consequences and I also think some potential claims against the county if we went ahead and did that. I mean you know the the concept that was discussed was Changing all the commercial zoning or industrial zoning to office. Well, the

1:32:12problem is with that is you may have a perfectly legitimate commercial business that was prepared to develop under C two zoning a public, a restaurant. Now they can't do it if you change their zoning to office. So I don't think that's a realistic option and it may even result in some legal liability. So Um It's really up to the board as to w how you want to proceed. Um with this I think staff and the county attorney's office are prepared to implement any four of these options. Um It's really up to you is t to give

1:32:42us some direction on where you want to proceed.

1:32:46Um sounds to me like we ought to be doing the option two where we Ask the court to clarify. before we move forward on on those items. So But what's the board think? Ms. Darkey.

1:33:00Um a question on the um uh process applications and strict accord accordance. Will there be an issue if we do that for some, but not for all?

1:33:17You're talking about the Lib Local

1:33:19applications? So so we frequently are waiving the park requirements in a multifamily.

1:33:28If we do that for this this regular Zone one. Um Would they be able to come after us? On a live local project if we didn't treat them, you know, if we did it on one but not the other.

1:33:46I think there is a rational basis to distinguish a live local project from the other projects that are going through the process because the Liv Local project is getting exempted from land use and zoning. That's a big thing. exception that they're already getting. So I think you could rationally say You already got this big exception which is exemption from land use and zoning, you shouldn't get any other exceptions. So I think there is a rational if somebody brought an equal protection argument like that, I think I'd feel comfortable

1:34:16defending it if that's the question.

1:34:18So I'm wondering Um if we proceed with number three, but let the legislature know we're gonna If we don't get some relief, we'll go to number two. That's just a s um A thought. 'Cause I know this is the Senate presidents

1:34:41so so I gotta caution you on one thing though. If you go with number three, it may be difficult to go back to number two and let me explain why.

1:34:48Okay.

1:34:49Because number three, you're basically Starting to process the application of that you're kind of evidencing the fact that you can process them. If you're asking the court if you're telling the court I can't process these applications because I'm in doubt on these twenty two legal issues Then you start processing them. That calls into now somebody could argue well you're not in doubt, Capasco County, because you processed Okay. You started processing the applications.

1:35:13All right then.

1:35:15to you before we've started processing anything. So if you want to go with number two, my recommendation would be that you do it before you process even the first application.

1:35:25So would that put all the um all of them on hold while we go through this?

1:35:30Effectively, yes.

1:35:31Okay.

1:35:32Well I want to be clear. Well

1:35:33we have to

1:35:34do everything.

1:35:42Like the rest of the world, Right. And we've had s we've had some discussions with folks that May in fact do that because They're fully aware of how our board feels about the Live Local Act and so They may in fact go down the path of just following normal land use and zoning. And I want to be clear, even if you elected option two If an applicant had already filed an application and then they say, Oh my God, I'm gonna be sued, if they withdrew their application,

1:36:13we would not sue them. I mean if somebody says we're not going to invoke the Lib Local Act, we're gonna go through your normal process then we ru there really wouldn't be a basis to be suing them for a declaratory judgment because they wouldn't be invoking Live Local.

1:36:25Okay, so we're suing the developer, not the not the state.

1:36:31Well, there has to be a defendant in any action. I want to be clear. You're asking the court for a declaration of our rights under the Live Local Act. There has to be somebody Did you name in that lawsuit? In my opinion, that would be the the entity that's invoking the Live Local Act, which would be the developer.

1:36:46Okay.

1:36:47But like I said Three of the first three of these claims are constitutional claims. For those claims, if I'm if I'm asking for a court to declare an act unconstitutional, I have to serve it on the Attorney General of the State of Florida.

1:37:02But they wouldn't be a name the state of Florida would not be a named defendant. There's a statutory requirement that the

1:37:10They could intervene.

1:37:11Yes. And and it may be that it could be one of the developer defendants may try to bring in the state.

1:37:17The problem with suing the state is there's always an issue about who you sue with the state. Do you sue the governor? Do you sue the I be there there's In my opinion The the best defendant is the one that's actually attempting to invoke the Lib Local Act.

1:37:34Okay.

1:37:35Mr. Chairman Mariano. Yeah. So I'm good with the initiating the declaratory judgment. I think it's a good first step. I think if it's not going to work If we find issues with it. I think we've got to really look strong at going to the moratorium. um and put that message out there. The process applications and strict accords with no uh variations alternative standards is a great thing. And if the first one works then we're good, but Hopefully.

1:38:06That would be enough incentive for it. But I think if as a jobs poor county and there's several of them out there. I think this could be devastating. if any of these live locals get through. Because once one gets through, they're all coming.

1:38:20Yeah.

1:38:20And that would be devastating for our tax base, devastating for the whole community. Yeah.

1:38:26Uh f from what I Mr. Chairman Mariano the difference between a hundred and twenty percent AMI and our market rate is not that different.

1:38:37That's kind of that's kind of the argument that we're making if you look at the second legal issue, is that I think there's a very viable argument that that's unconstitutional to be giving a tax exemption to a for profit apartment builder based on them providing rents at one hundred and twenty percent of AMI. At least in Pasco County I think there's strong argument that's not a charitable purpose, that that's not an act of charity. And the constitution clearly requires that you can only give tax exemptions for a charitable purpose. The legislature

1:39:08declared it was a charitable purpose and maybe in some counties it might be a charitable purpose. to have rents at 120 percent of AMI, but in Pasco, I don't think it is. Yeah.

1:39:16And I heard other counties at fact say it wasn't in their county. It's market rate and it makes a real unfair advantage to the regular Apartment.

1:39:27I think if this act had been directed to housing below sixty percent or eighty percent of AMI, this would be a completely different conversation. But in my opinion, this act is basically just subsidizing for profit apartment builders. Yep.

1:39:43Yeah sir.

1:39:44Yes, thank you. Um Roy and David and uh David Engle he's not here with all your your work and your time. with our office and dissecting the Live Local Act and understanding it's been it's been difficult. Our office has had Been having active and robust dialogue and negotiations with several Live Local projects. And uh they haven't been easy and our county does not have the ability to negoti I mean we're literally

1:40:14negotiating against ourselves and it's been quite frustrating. And I think it's important that we move forward with Um But we're not going to be able to Uh The judgment against these uh sites, that way we can find time and A, I think it will wake the state up. I am very disappointed in FAC for not taking a position on this. I I don't know why we pay dues to them. This is their job. And we're a growing county. Pasco is known now. Everybody's wanting

1:40:44to come here, whether start a business here or or or live here. Um And quite frankly this is this is gonna hurt us as to all the points that Commissioner Mariano made. So I think it's time that we We enact judgments on those that are coming in through through Live Local and it gives us a leg to stand on as we work through uh how to manage these type of projects and maybe just maybe This will be what uh helps the state

1:41:15take a take a look at it this session because we want to offer solutions. We want to help provide a way for folks to be able to afford to live, to have good quality, affordable housing in our community. But this is not the way, this does not help Anyone but out of state. apartment developers and investment firms. So I appreciate all your efforts and

1:41:36I feel like number two is what we need to be going forward to, so

1:41:41So I'm hearing final

1:41:43consent. That's the direction I think.

1:41:46I'm go with number two, but I want to be ready to go back after that.

1:41:50If they don't work we're going. Try to find some other way. So

1:41:55Hey. I will I will caution you that litigation is generally not a fast process. So I mean it may be it may be a while before we determine whether Number two works or not.

1:42:08Many times claims last a year or longer.

1:42:12Yeah, if I could just add to that, part of the part of the plan is to continue to lobby for change. You know, uh you know, we've got a number of of policy issues that that David has mentioned. And so we we continue to work that during during the process. And then whatever happens with these live local projects is is what happens, whether they come in and seek rezoning through the normal process, that that that's a different ball game. But uh we will continue to lob for the easy. for changes uh with the legislature this year and in future years to to continue to make this right for jobs poor

1:42:42counties, you know, like Pasco County.

1:42:44Right. Yeah. Okay.

1:42:50Thank you, Chairman Mariano do we want to bring up the overpass site? I know there's representatives

1:42:54here. Sure. Do you want to put the we can put that back on the right-of-way?

1:42:57Yeah. So we've been actively working, this was obviously the one that That really brought attention to how What do we do with Live Local now that it's here? And the other site we're actively uh working to figure out is at 54 and curly. Um Um that one's not ready to bring forward yet. There's Roy Roy can talk about kind of where we're at there. We're actually working through it. So the fifty f the the overpass and curly road site Um it's been an interesting negotiation. The

1:43:27the the the partners in this project I've really stepped up And have really been working well with the county to bring forward. uh a much better product. Um including adding an opportunity for industrial on here. um and you know keeping commercial but there is a residential component to it. Mm-hmm. There is a representative from the Overpass site in the crowd. If he wants to come up and talk with the reason that we're

1:43:57doing this, this is uncharted waters, we've never done this. In order to prevent it become a live local site. It's really an active negotiation. And so it it's we're we're working through and how to to process things to prevent live local from happening. Um And I'd I'd be anxious to see what the board thinks about the the plan that they've come up with. Uh Mr Engel's not here But I'm fairly confident he's or anybody

1:44:27from his office said that this The new plan actually adds more value to the county tax base. Uh and it and it provides uh more opportunity to the county. So I think this one's worth looking and talking about. That way we know what direction. that we can give to the property owners and how the county we move forward and negotiating these type of deals.

1:44:51Mr. Chairman Mariano. Can I ask a question? Yes,

1:44:53sir.

1:44:54David, we had picked out a different section a couple of years ago on an apartment moratorium. Old Pasco Road's still got to get improved. Going all the way up. Could we take Old Pasco Road from Overpass Road to the north and just make that a moratorium area?

1:45:10You can. You can do a geographic specific moratorium. Um

1:45:18You know

1:45:23I think Mr. Wayman's point though is that they're trying to come in so let me be clear. They originally said they wanted to invoke Live Local. They now have said that. They didn't get a very warm reception from the county when they said that. Um So They came back and said, We'll redo our project. We do need some residential in it, but we're willing to provide some Non residential as well, we're willing to provide some townhomes and not it all be apartments. But the two requests they made were one that we Did

1:45:54they want they want to go through the zoning and land use process to be clear? So the same process that everybody else follows. But they did ask for and I don't know if they're here, but They did ask for it to be the review to be expedited and they asked for a waiver of the application fees for the zoning and the land use change.

1:46:11And with the industrial

1:46:13Yeah.

1:46:16So um I think the Commissioner Weightman's point is the question for the board really is Is that something you're willing to entertain? I mean i if you are willing to entertain it, there'd be no point to do a moratorium on it because That means it's something you would like to have. So I I think That's ultimately Commissioner Weightman's question is is that somet are you willing to entertain Because previously the Board said no residential at all on this site. That was previously in the Com plan now it says, No

1:46:47residential at all on the site. The question is, is that something would the board consider a mixed use project on that site.

1:46:56And I'm gonna say we built a Mr. Chairman M Yes. Oh yeah. You know, we spent a lot of time picking these sites. Uh to the south we put that industrial park down below. I will tell you that the money spent on that interchange that we put our own money into was huge. When and I drove by from let's say at fifty two down Wort Road, not Wort Road but at Curly Road, swung all the way around there, watched it through, drove through there, got all the way to seventy-five. The w it flows. I I wasn't there at prime time as far as Traffic

1:47:27goes, but from I what I'm hearing from there to hand card over You try to put more residential that you don't need to? It's gonna be a disaster. Old Pasco Road from all the way up, I'm glad it's gonna be bid, but Again, from from that intersection all the way up if it means moratorium, we need jobs. This is a key, key spot. You've got great demographics in Wesley Chapel that people are gonna wanna stay. You've got to the south, you've got all sorts of apartments already. Was it seven thousand apartments coming in? And now you're gonna throw more into there? I

1:47:58mean really we need to keep the jobs here. And and and I'm comfortable just like we did before, take over Pass Road, take it all the way up.

1:48:06So I wanna be clear though. If you invoke option number two, the board just did. They really wouldn't be able to invoke Lib Lok on the site unless they win the lawsuit basically. So I'm not sure what a moratorium does for you. It's already their only choice would be to keep currently the compliment says it has to be commercial. or in or office or light industrial. So That's the status quo. The only way somebody gets around that is doing Voke Live Local. Which

1:48:37under option two we would be filing a declaratory judgment action against them. So I'm if you're just trying to keep this site commercial, you don't need a moratorium for for who said who said for all of Overpass Road. If if you're trying to stop any multifamily from occurring anywhere on a river pass road, I guess that's that's an option. But I don't think I don't want you to think you need a moratorium. Just to stop

1:48:58Yeah.

1:48:58this site from becoming residential. It already is prohibited from being residential in the current comp plan.

1:49:06So if we go with number two, then that I and like I said, I'm good with number two first.

1:49:10Yeah.

1:49:10But I just want to send a message that strong. We need jobs right there. Right. Yes, sorry.

1:49:17If the applicants here are I'm willing to listen because I haven't had that opportunity to hear what their thoughts are, but Well we

1:49:23had a time certain at

1:49:251130. Any residential that goes on here that's off off the tax rules, I would not be okay with. So I m my preference is kind of the leak.

1:49:36The Live Local Act tax exemption.

1:49:38Okay.

1:49:42I think they would just do market rate rents.

1:49:44Well

1:49:44that is.

1:49:45It

1:49:46wouldn't be an affordable project at all anymore.

1:49:48So so they're bargaining of they won't do live local, but let us have a residential is this a vertical mixed use or is this a mix of uses on a property

1:49:57they're not proposing vertical mixed use

1:49:59yeah so I would I would probably be for straight commercial keep commercial

1:50:03the applicant's here I'd welcome to say if I said that wrong is the applicant here are my facts accurate Okay. They're proposing basically horizontal mixed use. There's there's a My recollection of the site plan is it had some commercial and office, maybe light industrial on the frontage of Overpass road. I'm I'm sorry, in the fringe of Old Pasco Road and then had residential and some townhomes and apartments in the back.

1:50:33You know, typically I say near an intersection with a lot of public investment, that's a good place for density, but there's so much on Overpass Road already that concerns me. Um and I just think that that that needs to be jobs, jobs, jobs on that.

1:50:50Well it

1:50:50really

1:50:51needs to be because we spent sixty five million dollars of citizens' money toward toward this interchange and We'll need uh Go forward with what's best for the county.

1:51:01What's the piece just north of this red piece? Oh, I can oh let me use my little thing. Oh no, it doesn't work. It only works on the wall. It doesn't go on screen. Okay.

1:51:13I think there

1:51:14is

1:51:14a vacant piece that was part of the there's a residential M P D to the north, which I think is Grantham Ranch, if I my memory's correct.

1:51:22Okay.

1:51:22Um they had a small piece of their M P D which they're not really using I think this project to the south was talking about acquiring it for stormwater or some other purposes, but it's not It's not really large enough to be its own development piece. It would probably only work as If it was incorporated into the property to the south.

1:51:42And is that a wetland between that property and um Overpass? Uh the I seventy five? That long skinny piece?

1:51:50I believe a lot of that is wetlands, yes. There there are there are significant wetlands in this area, but the piece that we're talking about that's in red It does have a lot of upland areas. It it's a developable piece of of property.

1:52:03Okay.

1:52:04Yeah. We wouldn't have zoned it for commercial if it was tall wetlands.

1:52:12Chair Oakley.

1:52:14Yes. Thank you.

1:52:18I think we've had a lot of people. quality dialogue with the applicant on there and the fact that they've they're they're open to If if we work, you know, to make this have an industrial component or if they choose to to rezone it to Um an industrial piece I I think they need to give us a presentation that way we can see because until now We had no negotiating power. until we picked what we were going to do. And right now

1:52:48it was just okay, let's try to work as expeditiously as we can to avoid a live local product going on these sites. And it's even tougher negotiations going on at fifty four and curly road. Uh that's an interesting one, but we'll save that for another day. Uh But I think that's a good thing. We need they they put in the time and the effort. And uh we can do this during I guess maybe my commissioner time, so we have time certain I I d I

1:53:18saved everything for Live Local today. But I've committed to them that they'd have an opportunity to present what they were thinking towards the board and get the board's get the board's take on it. Since they were kind enough to go back to the drawing board and spend the amount of time that they have and coming up coming up with a new plan. Um and so I I said I'd bring it up bringing up last meeting but we ran late. Um And we didn't have this

1:53:46you know, legal direction that we have now. So I guess it's board preference on what we what we want to do here.

1:53:54Anybody could I mean they they can file an application to change the land use to P D to do what they're asking to do. The specific request that they made, I mean if the applicant if I say this wrong and welcome them to get up.

1:54:08application to be expedited. Um and they wanted their review fees waived. That's the only thing that would require board action is if you wanted to waive their fees. and direct staff to expedite their application. Otherwise if they just want to file an application to change it to P D in the normal course You could react to that like you would any other application. It would just Go to the planning department. Planning department would evaluate it. determine whether they want to support it or not or require some of it to be vertical mixed use, or require

1:54:39more of it to be industrial. The specific request they made to us in those negotiations was Are you willing to waive the fees and are you willing to expedite the review? That that was really their request. Is that the applicant am I saying that accurate?

1:54:52Yeah, it's less than fees. The process is kind of

1:54:56Okay, so apparently the main request is that the review be expedited, so

1:55:02Mr. Chairman Mariano. Years ago when I first became elected, I went to a seminar and I get to hear an attorney talk about how he's got how he dealt with the county commissions. He says, I ask for the most egregious things I can possibly get. could probably never even get and let 'em go stew on that. And slowly work 'em down to where I get 'em to where I want to go. This is a prime piece of property. We got a ton of money invested in it. And I don't want to start negotiating from their spots, coming down. I think we're really gonna protect that piece. And if it

1:55:32means the lawsuit first And come right behind with a moratorium from there to go all the way up overpass, just so we're protected, so be it.

1:55:39Yeah. But

1:55:40we've got to protect that piece. We get too much invested and the people don't want to see it. I mean you heard the uh H what we have nine o'clock the other night? That whole area is like all concerned what's gonna go on here? Now, for what's coming in, there's gonna be enough commercial on the other side to throw something else over there when you don't have to? It'd be crazy. And again, devastating for us.

1:56:01I'm in agreement with that. So anything else? All right. You have direction?

1:56:07If we could get a motion to authorize the county attorney's office to file Suit. Um a declaratory judgment action on those live local projects which the county attorney and the chief assistant believe Would protect the board's position.

1:56:28Um and I want to be clear it would only be those that file an a an actual application. There's a lot of th folks that that have just had discussions with staff about the local We would not be filing suit against somebody just for having a discussion with staff. So They'd actually actually file actually filed an application and then state that they're unwilling to withdraw and go through our normal process.

1:56:55Has um one question. Has this property been closed upon or is it contingent the closing contingent upon approvals?

1:57:03I don't know the answer to that question either.

1:57:06Not

1:57:07that it matters the distance.

1:57:08Yeah. Yeah.

1:57:12County Attorney's uh statement for the motion.

1:57:15Second. Got a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye.

1:57:20Aye.

1:57:21All opposed, like, sign? Hearing none, it passed unanimously. So you have your direction. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you. No, I've got a time certain it was at uh on can we can go to the afternoon, sir

1:57:35if

1:57:35that's

1:57:36Mm-hmm. How how I can't take so Yeah, I can't stay till nine o'clock like last time. I have to be

1:57:46nine o'clock.

1:57:47Okay, I I have to leave By no later than five thirty.