Brian Scott: Hope everybody's doing well.
Our our chair is under the
weather today, so we wish her
the best and we hope that she
feels better soon. So the moral
of that story
is you all are
stuck with me. So if you would
please rise and join me with
pledge. I pledge allegiance to
the flag of the United States
of America and to the Republic
for which it
stands. One nation
under God, indivisible, with
liberty and justice for all.
Thank you for that. So let's go
around the room and do some
introductions, and we'll start
over here with with my friend
Mike.
You. Yeah.
>> Mike Eisner, Tarpon Springs,
good afternoon. Yes, good
afternoon to all. Thank you for
allowing me here to share my
ideas and thoughts.
>> Good afternoon, Anne-Marie
Brooks, mayor, Madeira Beach
representing the beach
communities.
>> Good afternoon. Tom Reid,
vice mayor of City of South
Pasadena, representing PSTA.
>> Good afternoon. Chris
Johnson, vice mayor of City of
Largo.
>> Good afternoon, Council
member Brandi Gabbard,
representing the City of Saint
Petersburg.
>> Chris Scherer Pinellas
County Commission.
>> Good afternoon. Your
executive director.
>> Brian Scott, Pinellas County
Commissioner.
>> Tom Shelley, deputy mayor of
Belleair and representing the
North Inland communities.
>> Good afternoon, Council
member Mike Mannino, city of
Clearwater.
>> Council member Richie Floyd,
city of Saint Petersburg.
>> Mayor Karen Love of Gulfport,
Florida, representing South
inland communities.
Brian Scott: Well, thank you, everybody
for that. And I know Mayor Moe
is on her way and will be
joining us shortly. So with
that, we'll move on to citizens
to be heard. Tina, are there
any
citizens wishing to be
heard on any items not already
on the agenda for action by the
board today?
Tina Jablon: No, chair, there is not.
Brian Scott: Okay. Thank you. Mayor Moe
Welcome. Okay. Next we'll move
on to the consent agenda. Does
any board member wish to pull
any item from the consent
agenda? Hearing none. Do we
have a motion?
Chris Johnson: So moved.
Brian Scott: Motion by Commissioner.
Councilmember Gabbard. Second by. Okay,
Vice Mayor Johnson. Okay. Any
discussion? Hearing none. All
in favor? Any opposed? Okay.
Passes unanimously. Thank you
very much.
Tina Jablon: For the record, there were
no citizens wishing to be heard
on the consent agenda today.
Brian Scott: Okay. Thank you.
Okay. Now
we will move on to our public
hearing items. And the first
one of that is we have item
number five, A dash one, case
CW26-08, City of Clearwater.
And we do have two
presentations on this item here.
Good afternoon.
Marcie Stenmark: Good afternoon, Marcie
Stenmark with the Planning and
Development Department. Before
you is a proposed County-wide
map amendment to the planned
Redevelopment district within
North Greenwood and the city
has a companion future land use
map amendment
for the North
Greenwood area. We've been
asked to provide some
information to you this
afternoon regarding this
amendment and the community
engagement that has led to the
amendment. Sorry.
There we go.
The overlay is was recommended
by the North Greenwood CRA plan,
which was a community led
effort. The CRA plan was
adopted in 2023 after extensive
community engagement.
The
outreach included property
owner and occupant mailings and
surveys. There were meetings
and workshops and also
roundtable meetings with the
Faith Leadership Community
Roundtable.
The CRA plan has
several goals, including public
safety, mobility, poverty
reduction, housing
affordability, quality of life
and investing in use. I'm sorry,
in youth.
The CRA plan
workshops included group table
exercise, where participants
talked about what types of
redevelopment would fit and
what kind of housing types they
would like to see. The CRA plan
also recommended a zoning tool
wi
th design guidelines to allow
for more housing options such
as duplexes, triplexes,
townhomes and small apartments.
The goal of the plan is to
create more choices so people
can stay in the community as
their needs changed, including
seniors,
young adults, families,
renters and property owners.
Creating the overlay is a four
step process. We are currently
working on action items one and
two. One is a comprehensive
plan amendment to establish the
overlay and
bonuses. The second
is the Future Land Use Map
amendment to apply the overlay.
And that is where this meeting
fits in. Today is an action
items one and two. Because it
requires a county wide
countywide plan map amendment.
We will also then
be working on
a Community Development Code
amendment and a zoning map
overlay to apply design
standards, because anyone who
would wish to apply for the
bonus would need to meet design
standards for their new
development. In
2024, after the
CRA plan was adopted, we held a
series of meetings, including
listening sessions, a kickoff
meeting and a game of zones
workshops where participants
looked at different development
types and talked about how many
units might fit per acre due to
the impacts of the
hurricanes.
The department's focus was
paused to work on post-storm
permitting, we have resumed
work starting last winter, and
part of our discussion at that
time was, how did we want to
move forward with the
community's goals to allow
people to age in place and
provide more housing types? And
it was decided, after much
discussion by the staff and
consultant team, that an
overlay would be the
appropriate land use tool
moving forward. And that is
because people can choose to
opt into the overlay. Property
owners are not r
equired to
participate, and it provides
flexibility for how they use
their lot. Because it's a
county wide amendment as well.
A traffic study was prepared
and we were evaluating the
maximum potential build out. I
wanted to mention that we don't
expect that this area
will
develop to the maximum
potential, because it is an opt
in system. Not everyone wishes
to participate, and also we
don't expect everyone to
develop the maximum amount. The
traffic study found that there
would be an acceptable level of
service on all roads that we
studied, except for one
segment
on alternate US 19 and Myrtle
Avenue, and that the
transportation network would
remain acceptable, and this is
likely due to the unique and
street grid and connected
streets.
This is the language
regarding the potential overlay,
and we are proposing a bonus of
up to 40 units per acre and a
1.1 floor area ratio bonus for
residential.
I'm sorry for non
residential. So the residential
bonus is up to 40 units. And
the non residential is up to
1.1 floor area ratio. I wanted
to note that the county wide
plan allows for a maximum
density of 45 units. And we're
proposing 40 units. So what
we
're proposing is a little bit
lower. And also the countywide
plan allows a maximum floor
area ratio of 2.0. And we're
proposing a maximum of 1.1. I'm
going to go through a series of
maps to show you the CRA area,
as well as the areas to be
exclud
ed. And this is showing
the CRA boundary which is over
600 acres. We're going to be
excluding the central business
district area, which is at the
southwest corner of the CRA.
And that's because it is
already in the downtown old Bay
character district and subject
to those
regulations, we will
also be excluding water.
Preservation, open space,
industrial limited
transportation utility, and
also land within
unincorporated
Pinellas County. There are
seven future land use
classifications that would be
part of the overlay listed here.
There are four residential and
three non residential and mixed
use.
I wanted to provide some
information to you about the
community meeting that we held
on June the 30th. I also wanted
to thank you very much for
continuing the item on last
month's agenda so we could have
this meeting. The meeting was
held at the North Greenwood
Recreation Center, and we had
approximately 50 people attend,
not including staff. We also
had several staff members and
attendance staff from planning
and development this year, and
Economic Development Department
presented informati
on about the
CRA plan, the ongoing
implementation and the next
steps. During the meeting, we
provided the public hearing
schedule, and we also promised
we'd be back in September for
some more community meetings
about the upcoming Community
Development Code, amendments
and design standards, because
we want to
make sure that we
are checking in with the
community about those standards
and that they could support
them. How we're moving forward.
I've been asked to share some
information about the concerns
that were raised during the
meeting and how we responded,
and I wanted to indicate that
we heard from the community of
a concern about increased
property taxes. We did share
some information there that we
talked with the property
appraiser. The overlay itself
will not directly result in
increased property taxes.
However, the area is in a CRA
area. It's a CRA. We're hoping
for redevelopment and
reinvestment. So over time
those reinvestments may affect
property values. There's also a
Florida Save Our Homes program
that limits how much the
assessed value can be increased
each year for homesteaded
properties. There was a concern
raised about the Marshall
Street wastewater plant and if
it can handle more development,
and we mentioned that we
recently did a water
reclamation facility master
plan, which calls for
consolidation of the plants.
There's also a concern raised
regarding developers coming in
and buying up property or
gentrification. And we did talk
about how the overlay is an opt
in system. No one is required
to participate. Property owners
can choose if they wish to
participate in the overlay. And
also the CRA plan has a chapter
and
an equity statement that
talks about reinvestment and
redevelopment in the
neighborhood and or in the area,
and that gentrification can
potentially occur over time and
some at some level, because the
area we're hoping for
reinvestment and for
redevelopmen
t to occur. There
was a question about impervious
surface requirements and if
they still apply, if a floor
area ratio bonus is applied.
And the answer is yes, we are
not going to require an
affordability requirement.
Instead, we're going to be
proposing
a new mix of housing
types that are not currently
allowed today and encourage a
diversity of housing types. And
people were asking if their
house burns down, could they
rebuild based on current zoning?
And the answer is yes. If it
was non-conforming.
We received
some letters before today's
meeting asking for a meeting
with staff regarding concerns
about anti displacement. We
wanted to let you know that we
will. We will be holding a
meeting with the individual who
requested the meeting to talk
about those ideas,
and I wanted
to share with you the. We. We
assessed the proposed amendment
based on our Community
Development code. We found that
it meets the comprehensive plan,
the county wide rules. It will
not adversely affect the use of
property in the area. There's
sufficient public facilities
and will not impact natural
resources. Our next steps in
the process include a county
wide. I'm sorry. There's a CPA
hearing on August the 11th, a
City Council second reading on
October the 1st, and then we
will be having meetings with
the community starting in
September regarding the
Community Development Code
amendments. We anticipate
finishing up those code
amendments around February of
next year, and I wanted to
mention that they're all
bundled together and that the
overlay will not become
effective until the Community
Development Code amendments are
passed. So the earliest that
the overlay would be effective
would be February of next year.
Next, I would like to introduce
Jesus Nino, our CRA director.
He would like to provide some
information to you about the
CRA. Thank you.
Brian Scott: Thank you Marcie.
Jesus Nino: Good afternoon. Jesus Nino
CRA, executive director for the
City of Clearwater chair and
board members, thank you for
allowing me to speak. So
first,
I'd like to share briefly a
little bit about the CRA
perspective. So last night,
which was July the 7th, the
North Greenwood Community
Redevelopment Area Citizens
Advisory Committee took action
on this particular item. So it
was presented by staff to the
CAC.
And the unanimous
unanimously voted for this
particular initiative here to
move it forward. In addition,
the committee reaffirmed its
support for the city's efforts
to develop a local zoning
overlay that does reflect the
community's vision
for North
Greenwood. I'd also like to
recognize the Clearwater Urban
Leadership Coalition, who's
here in the audience is also in
support of this initiative. So
this this amendment is the
first step. It creates the
foundation for future
land use
and zoning changes that do
support the community's vision
and help address long standing
slum and blight conditions in
the area. It also opens the
door for projects like the
recently approved The Grove,
which is a mini container
village in the North G
reenwood
area, which is led by the
Clearwater Urban Leadership
Coalition, also for new infill
housing for future mixed use
redevelopment along the Martin
Luther King Junior Avenue
corridor. And throughout this
process, CRA staff, the
Citizens Advisory Committee,
residents, business owners and
other property owners have
worked together to try to move
forward. The goal of the CRA in
that area. So anything the CRA
does CRA Staff Advisory
Committee, we all work together
to plan for that committee. We
don't plan for them, we
plan
with them, and we collaborate.
So those priorities are also
reflected in the adopted. Like
I mentioned, North Greenwood
CRA plan. So this is a big tool
that's going to help us move
our vision forward to create a
prosperous
community. So from
the perspective, today's action
is about more than just land
use designation. It's about
creating a framework for
redevelopment that reflects the
community's vision. We believe
that the best plans are created
together, and our goal is
simple to improve the community
and create more opportunities
for residents and businesses in
North Greenwood. And thank you
for the opportunity.
Brian Scott: Thank you very much. Before
we move on to the four
panelists presentation, do we
have any questions for either
Jesus or Marcie?
No. Okay. Move
on to our next presentation.
Good afternoon, Emma.
Emma Wennick: Good afternoon. Thank you to
City Clearwater staff for just
giving a little bit more
background on this. Before I
dive into our county wide
review for this case.
Okay, so
this case is a 461.5 proposed
countywide plan map amendment.
That's the acreage of the site.
And this is within the North
Greenwood Community
Redevelopment area. And this
amendment proposes to
transition multiple existing
countywide plan map categories
to the planned Redevelopment
District category, or PRD
category. And the proposal is
intended to establish a
coordinated
redevelopment
framework. As the city
mentioned. I did want to start
with just kind of a broad
overview of how a zoning
overlay differs from base
zoning. So basically, property
owners within this overlay area
that is being proposed can
choose to develop over with the
overlay standards or existing
zoning regulation standards. So
as Clearwater City staff
mentioned, it is optional.
So
just a quick location depiction.
This subject area is located
within the North Greenwood
Community Redevelopment area,
and it's immediately north of
downtown Clearwater.
So again,
the proposed amendment
functions primarily as a
redevelopment framework rather
than direct development
approval.
And more importantly,
the overlay operates as an
incentive based framework. So
future redevelopment projects
would still require compliance
with the comprehensive Plan
amendments, community
Development C
ode standards, and
qualifying design criteria. So
this amendment comes to us as a
tier two amendment. It's
reviewed as a tier two
amendment because it rep
resents
a substantive modification to
the planning framework
governing the North Greenwood
CRA. And although this proposal
does not directly approve
specific development projects,
it does establish a new
countywide redevelopment
structure intended to
facilita
te mixed use
redevelopment and additional
density and intensity through
qualifying redevelopment
standards. So the visual
depiction of this this
amendment would consolidate
multiple existing countywide
plan map categories into
that
PRD category, which is the
purple that you see there. So
the proposed overlay does
establish the bonus density and
intensity standards that are
tied to the qualifying
redevelopment projects. So just
kind of reiterating what the
city showed you. They're
proposing residential densities
up to 40 units per acre and
nonresidential intensity up to
1.05, and mixed use intensity
up to 1.5. And I did want to
show that, again, these
standards do remain below the
maximum thresholds for our
countywide category for the
planned redevelopment district.
So consistency with our
countywide rules. The proposal
is supporting redevelopment
within an existing urbanized
area tha
t's already served by
infrastructure, transit and
public facilities. It also
would support several adopted
countywide strategies related
to infill redevelopment,
multimodal transportation,
housing opportunity, and
coordinated reinvestment as
well. Touching a little bit
more on the transportation
impact analysis that the city
did provide to us. It did
identify an increase in
projected trips under the
maximum theoretical build out
analysis, which did trigger
additional transportation
review requirements that the
city did complete and provide
to us. So we considered this
area. We considered the
surrounding strong multimodal
characteristics. So that
includes the t
ransit services
that do exist, including the
Pinellas Trail. The city also
has adopted a mobility
management system that we took
into account. This provides
mechanisms for transportation
mitigation, as well as project
level reviews that would be
requir
ed as development
proposals come forward to the
city. Portions of this area are
located within the coastal High
Hazard area, so we did
have our
additional evaluation criteria
that had to be met. So our
staff evaluated evacuation
access, shelter capacity and
the potential population
increase associated with the
proposed overlay, while taking
into account tha
t it is an
optional overlay. It's not a by
right increase. So graphically
showing the shelter capacity
analysis that we completed.
So
basically under theoretical
maximum build out scenario. So
this would be maximum build out
occurred the projected shelter
demand associated with the
amendment does remain
substantially below the
available shelter capacity in
the
serving area. So based on
the submitted analysis analysis,
we found that there is
sufficient shelter capacity
within the surrounding area
that would be able to
accommodate the projected
increase in population at the
maximum bui
ld out. Staff finds
this amendment consistent with
the purpose and requirements of
the planned
Redevelopment
District category. In the
countywide rules, the area does
contain the interconnected mix
of uses and urban development
characteristics contemplated by
the PRD category that we've
established in the countywide
rules.
I did also just want to
note that for Pinellas did
receive some public comment,
mainly in the forms of phone
calls, emails, and written
correspondence. Many of the
conversations that I had
were
informational and focused on
kind of understanding what the
proposed overlay would do and
what could potentially happen
to their property, how it would
affect individual properties,
and the timeline for any future
redevelopment as well. And then
all of
this public comment did
result in Clearwater staff
holding those additional public
meetings that Marcy spoke about
as well. So we'll just conclude
here that we
find the proposed
amendment consistent with the
countywide rules and our
strategies. We also found that
the transportation impact and
coastal high hazard area
analysis could be adequately
addressed through existing
regula
tory and mitigation
frameworks that the city
provided. So based on the
submitted materials and our
review, Forward Pinellas staff
would recommend approval. And
that's all that I had, and I'm
open for
questions now at this
time.
Brian Scott: Thank you. Emma, any
questions for Emma? Mike.
Mike Eisner: So when this is done, do
they also take into
consideration whether the
infrastructure can
supply all
of these extra locations, or is
that too early in the process?
Emma Wennick: So with Clearwater's review
and as part of their CRA review,
they do look at infrastructure
capacity.
Mike Eisner: Okay. The other question I
had is when you put up the
amount of shelter area in case
of coastal high hazard, do they
figure in other locations that
also might be utilizing these
locations? Because I know for a
fact Tarpon Springs does not
have any shelters. So they are
counting on Palm Harbor and. ET
cetera. ET cetera. So when when
we see these results, this is
just for Clearwater or is this
for Clearwater? Plus whatever
else
could come in there in the
event of a hurricane.
Emma Wennick: So we did a, we drew
basically a radius around the
area of the North Greenwood
location. And we took in all of
those shelters into account.
And we did a build
out analysis
based on the resources that we
have, kind of that stated the
numbers that potentially would
go there if a hurricane event
was to happen. And then we
factored in the potential
population
increase of the
numbers of the amendment. Does
that answer your question?
Mike Eisner: That's that's for the
project, not for the other
places that could come into
shelter.
Emma Wennick: So our numbers that we did
the study with were based on
the national hurricane.
Evacuation information that's
online. So we took those
numbers and then we factored in,
yes, North Greenwood's
population increase.
Mike Eisner: I rea
lize there's no clear.
Emma Wennick: Yeah, there's not an exact.
It's a guesstimate.
Mike Eisner: I know. Okay. Thank you.
Emma Wennick: But as you can see, there's.
It's a
Lot plenty of space. Yes.
Mike Eisner: That's where I'm going.
Brian Scott: Oh, good. Mike.
Okay.
Mike Mannino: Thank you. I do have some
comments to make. Not
necessarily questions for staff.
So I can hold that until the
appropriate time. I don't want
to take up any body else's time.
If they had questions for staff.
Brian Scott: I mean you can go now.
That's fine. Yeah, we'll go for
you then we'll go to
Richie.
Okay.
Mike Mannino: Perfect. Thank you.
Richie Floyd: I want to hear what you.
Mike Mannino: Thank you. I first wanted to
thank this board for supporting
the continuation of this item.
I think that was an important
decision to make. What it did
was it gave our staff has been
said a couple times a little
more time to go back and sit in
our community and do some
additional engagement sessions
with our Citizens Advisory
Committee, as well as some of
the community members that did
have some opposition or
concerns regarding this
optional overlay district. So I,
I appreciate this board's
continuation. I appreciate our
staff's willingness to get out
in the community again and make
sure that engagement in those
deeper discussions
were had,
and I appreciate our North
Greenwood Redevelopment Area
Citizens Advisory Board in
those deeper discussions that
they had. I think it's
important in these processes
that the the quality of the
process is as important as the
policy and ensuring that it's
handled transparently, that
it's handled with patience and
that the process is handled
respectfully. And I commend all
staff members from Forward
Pinellas City of Clearwater and
our Citizens Advisory
Community
Board for for handling it that
way. This one caught me a
little bit off guard because
our CRA in the Greenwood
community was, as it was noted,
was formed in 2023, and it
wasn't
driven by City of
Clearwater staff. It wasn't
driven by electeds. It was
truly a community vision. And
that community, our North
Greenwood community, worked
hard,
worked hard for a number
of years to ensure that it was.
It was their vision and it was
their direction and guidance
for the future of our North
Greenwood community, and that
they had the adequate tools and
not just
for growth and
development, but for
protections. And a lot of these
concerns that I see that have
popped out since this overlay
district was proposed, are a
lot of the very concerns that
are legit. I don't want
to take
away from the legitimacy of
them. Those are fears and
concerns when these things come
about. But these are also fears
and concerns that were
discussed in deep lengths
within our community for a
number of years, which led up
to the creation of that CRA in
2023. So I think some members
of the community were kind of
caught off guard, like, we went
through this, we've been
through this, and now we're
circling back. So I commend all
sides for for having the
patience to kind of go back
over it,
walk back through it
and get a better understanding
for it. I think at the end of
the day, there are some
important things with it. It's
optional. This isn't required.
I think that's an important
distinction. I think it's also
important to acknowledge a
couple
of things. This does not
force density increases in our
North Greenwood community. This
does not remove residential
protections, which is very
important in our community. And
it doesn't override homestead
rights. And I think those are
all very important
components
to this amendment. I know my
myself, I'm going to fall right
in line with our city staff,
with our North Greenwood
Redevelopment Area Citizens
Advisory Board, with our
Clearwater Urban Leadership
Coalition, as well as with
Forward
Pinellas. And I think
this this amendment should be
unanimously approved going
forward because it is a big
benefit to the future of our
North Greenwood community. So
thank you.
Brian Scott: Thank you, Mike. Richie.
Richie Floyd: Thank you. Thanks for that
context.
You know, whenever we
have cases like this, you I
always view my goal as like
determining where legitimate
concerns are, mitigating them,
eliminating them if possible,
and then weighing and then
determining if it's something
that could actually have a
negative impact on people. And
I think we've done a good job
of that. My one question is,
and I don't know, it might be
more appropriate for the city,
but
is there information on.
Homeownership rates in the area
that could be provided? Because.
If you own a home here like
this is no
problem at all. But
if you're a renter and all of a
sudden the property you live in
is much more valuable as
redeveloped, that can lead to
displacement. And I haven't
heard about mitigation for that
aspect of it, so I didn't know
if anyone could p
rovide any
context for that.
Emma Wennick: I don't have those homeowner
numbers for City of Clearwater
offhand right now. I will the
city to speak on that.
Or we
can get back to you on that.
Richie Floyd: Yeah. I ask because, you
know, we have communities in
Saint Pete that want to see
certain things get done and
open themselves up for
investment. But there's
concerns because
like a portion
of the community might be 80%
renters and, you know, rezoning
that area would probably imply
that a lot of those people
would be displaced. And so and
I'm not opposed to still
opening areas up for
redevelopment and doing
overlays and stuff like that
because of it. Just usually
want to see that aspect of it
mitigated as best as we can.
And so that's why I was hoping
to get context for that.
>> Gotcha.
Lauren Matzke: Good afternoon. Lauren
Matzke, planning and
development. I went old school
and brought my book, so it took
me a few minutes to flip, but I
brought the CRA plan itself. So
this would be the data and an
analysis piece from around 2023.
And at that time, approximately
35% of the residential
properties are owner occupied,
according to the homestead
exemption data published by the
PCPA when looking at only
single family residential units,
about
47% are owner occupied.
This indicates that about 65%
of all residential units and
53% of single family
residential units in the CRA
are renter occupied, so there
is a higher percentage of
renter occupied to homeowner
oc
cupied.
Richie Floyd: And has any consideration
been given to mitigate, like
the effect of the large
financial incentive, you might
have to redevelop your property.
Once an overlay would go
through.
Lauren Matzke: So some of the conversations
that we've been having are,
you
know, the partnership, of
course, with the CRA and the
Citizens Advisory Committee in
terms of their role, helping
prioritize the strategies as
more tax increment comes in. So
I wouldn't want to speak to
exactly what the CRA itself
has
in mind for that. But certainly
with all of the dialog that's
taken place over the last month
or so, it's it's definitely
become apparent that we need to
be having those conversations.
We just respectfully think, you
know, that's a different piece
to this, but still
an important
piece.
Richie Floyd: Yeah, I agree that the it's
definitely a good place, a good
thing for the CRA to tackle.
But, you know, you bring a plan
forward that could potentially
amplify displacement of people.
Like it's going to be part of
the conversation.
Jesus Nino: Again,
you know, CR
Executive Director for the City
of Clearwater. And I hear loud
and clear, like South Saint
Pete, you know, we do have
programs in place where we're
always trying to help
individuals improve their
existing homes, especially
individuals that are
homesteaded so they can stay
there. We actually even
put in
incentives for individuals that
have been there a long time to
stay there. But we also work
very closely with our housing
division to for down payment
assistance programs, because we
do want to encourage
individuals to buy their homes
there. But we are very new CRA.
So we're trying to we're tryin
g
to learn from places like South
Saint Pete, East Tampa, other
places around Florida, so we
can help those individuals stay
in those communities and
actually become homeowners.
Richie Floyd: Yeah, I appreciate that. You
could learn some from us. You
could learn some of what not to
do from us as
well, because I
think we could have done a much
better job. So I'll give you
that caveat, but okay. All
right. I'll leave it there for
now. Thank you.
Lauren Matzke: Sorry if I, if I may add, I
won't find the right page, but
I would like to mention a lot
of what came up in the
development of the CRA
plan,
which I was part of as well,
was just the, especially the
current opportunity being that
there's so many vacant parcels.
So when we talk about that, it
not being built out to its
maximum development potential,
we are still hoping that those,
you know, vacanci
es that exist
throughout the area will start
to fill in because, you know,
that's, that's also, you know,
can be perceived as a detriment
to the community itself. I'm
trying to flip, I found it,
sorry, I totally s
hould start
bringing my laptop. So
according to the property
Appraiser's data, there were
350 vacant parcels within the
CRA comprising 4949.7 acres, or
8.2% of the CRA area.
Admittedly, some of those are
city owned. And so with these
changes, that gives us the the
ability to work with the
partners that we have long
established to, to help, you
know, lead by example with the
type of development that we
know that the the community
has
expressed an interest in
particularly specifically
starting to reinvest in the
Martin Luther King corridor,
rebuilding the historic main
street. That's been clearly
expressed as important to the
community.
Richie Floyd: Yeah, that's totally
fair.
And yeah, we have the same
thing going on with like vacant
parcels, but some of that
speculation as to how much more
valuable their property might
be in the future based off us
doing things like that. So
doing things like this. So but
yeah, I mean, I think, you
know,
obviously I would say I'm
supportive of us moving
something like this forward. I
just want to make sure that
there's a plan for people who,
you know, rent and, and maybe
push out because of that. Y
eah,
yeah, just that there's
mitigation, same as any other
topic that we've talked about
that we're mitigating as best
as we can. Sure.
Lauren Matzke: The oh, never mind. I lost
my train of thought. It's okay.
Sorry.
Richie Floyd: I understand where you all
are coming from. So I feel good.
So I'm good.
Lauren Matzke: Yeah. Sorry I apologize.
What I wanted to say was
also something that was
important. Marcie had touched on
it, you know, post-storm where
we regrouped with our team and
part of the reason for doing
the overlay, but specifically
an optional overlay was, was to
help reduce, you know, the
potential for that speculation
the city worked with for
Pinellas in 2015 and did a
wholesale rezoning of our U.S.
19 corridor. Different
everything about that. But we
immediately saw that the
speculation went up, the pri
ces
for those properties went up,
and we were aware of that, you
know, being something we did
not want to encourage in this
area. The other part that I
would say is. We've talked
about, you know, residential,
commercial and mixed use,
and
it was touched on the
importance for us to protect
our our primarily residential
areas. And the overlay also
allows us to do that because at
the at the zoning level, we'll
be able to fine tune those
boundaries with the community
as part of our community
outreach
and have a mixed use
area, a residential only area,
and then the commercial area.
And that way we can continue to
to maintain, you know, this
area is largely residential. So
when we w
orked through the game
of zones with the community, it
became very clear the scale of
development that they want is
more compatible with more of a
single family home. In the
planning world, we talk
sometimes about gentle density
or, you know, things that just
fit in the missing middle type
of housing. And we wanted to
reaffirm
that vision with them.
And that's where we brought the,
the, the models and help place
buildings. And it was very
clear that the desire was, you
know, two, three units, maybe
not. They reaffirmed that they
do not want wholesale larger
complexes despite whate
ver kind
of ownership, condominium or
apartment rental, you know,
within the community because it
breaks apart the fabric that
they have. So those are all the
things that we're going to
continue to work towards. So
ideally, we will end up with
that mix of rental and
continued home ownership
because home ownership is also
important. But the
displacement
back to the very original part
is, is, is in our, in our game
plan to continue to work on.
Okay. Thank you.
Brian Scott: Mike. And then.
Mike Mannino: Thank you, Chair. Thank you.
Staff Council member does bring
up great
points. And I think we.
This is probably the perfect
time to acknowledge the fact
that those very concerns are
part of what drove that
community vision. And they were
seeing the location, t
he
geographic location of their
community is just on the
outskirts of downtown. They
were seeing hundreds and
hundreds of millions of dollars
being dumped into developing
downtown. And we know what
developments ripple effect does.
It's also just down the
corridor attached to the water
and a Marina. There's a
beautiful Pinellas Trail system
that we're all familiar with.
It runs through the
neighborhood as well as we're
now as a county building, the
new multimodal transportation
facility. And I think what the
community did see is they saw
what that could do to their
community if they didn't have
those tools and mechanisms to,
to try to protect their
community, to protect
homeowners, to protect renters,
to protect historical buildings.
In the history was it could
have just all went away because
of mass development and people
moving in and buying up houses
and things. That was part of
why the CRA was created, so
that that community and our
community could then have a
little more control and have
those tools and mechanisms to
do the very things that
staff
are discussing on down payment
assistance, helping build more
affordable housing projects,
rental assistance programs to
the tune of hundreds of
thousands of dollars, rehab
services to help fix up some of
those existing homes. So you do
bring up a great point. And I
think that
great point is, what
brought us in this direction of
the CRA was to have those
protections in place. I know
staff will do a good job of
continuing to move forward and
ensure some of those
protections and mechanisms are
in place. But great, great
point. Thank you for sharing
that.
Brian Scott: Thanks, Mike.
Mike Eisner: Thank you, Chair. Councilman,
that was a great point. You
jogged my memory. That's what I
love when we discuss these
things. And maybe, Mike, you're
the one that can answer this
question. When we do these tow
n
hall meetings and you get all
this information that you've
been explaining to us, which is
a wealth of information, do you
do also check to make sure that
you're getting feedback from
the renters as well as the
owners? Because I k
now that we
have a CRA that's that's fairly
new in a new area. And the one
thing that always scares me
with that is who's giving me
the information in order to
compile the results. And so if
you're getting it all from
people that are in the
investment or owners, I don't
know, the question, I guess I
got to ask is, are the renters
as enthused as the owners?
Mike Mannino: What is your measuring stick?
That's a that's a
difficult
question, but it is a good
question. And I think the
Citizens Advisory Committee
does a great job of spreading
the word and via social media,
via city staff newsletters and
communications on calendars. At
the end of the day, you can't
force e
ngagement and
participation. But I do know
that the web that they cast and
that net that they cast to
incorporate all of the
community is large, and they do
grab all of it. At the end of
the day. Do you sit down at the
end and question everybody that
comes in and out? Are you a
renter? Are you owner? What
that is, that's a tough process
to do in that. But I do know
the attempt is there, the
interest is there, and the
community behind me could
probably speak more to what
that demographic makeup is.
That does voice their opinions,
but I can promise that they are
invited to the table. The doors
are open to all segments of the
community, and not just those
investors or developers or
staff.
Mike Eisner: So you want me to ask for a
raise of hands behind you?
Who's. No,
I'm just kidding.
But you know, I understand as I
go to a lot of these meetings
myself, and it's always the
squeaky wheel gets the oil, and
it's the people that have a
vested interest in the income,
you know, producing. But that's
why Councilman Floyd's comment
jogged my memory. When and my
question when I hear that, I
think I heard you say 65% was
it that is renters. That's a
lot of renters in that area and
they could easily be displaced.
I'm
not against this, this CRA
it's just I would like to not
see, you know, a vast removal
of people because everything
has gone out of their their
means.
Mike Mannino: Those are great
points. I
think we do have to
recognize that the community we
are talking about is the most
poverty community in all of
Pinellas County, and we don't
say that lightly. Something has
to be done as a
community, and
the community has stepped up,
created the vision for their
community, engaged the
community immensely for years.
And this is the direction that
we're slowly moving as a
community to ensure that we
don't continue to share that
same fact
that our North
Greenwood community is the most
impoverished community in
Pinellas County, and that takes
all of us. It doesn't just take
city officials, it doesn't just
take North Greenwood community
members. I would ask all of us
to take an interest in it. And
if we have such a deep concern
as we do in
here, step up and
help as community leaders and
let's make a difference in our
Pinellas County and Clearwater
region to ensure that this
neighborhood isn't the most
impoverished in all of Pinellas
County.
Brian Scott: Okay, any other
questions?
Thoughts? No. Okay, I got a
couple. Are there any height
restrictions in this overlay or
in the current zoning?
Emma Wennick: So for my review, this is at
the county wide
level, which is
what we are voting on for today.
So that's not something that we
consider when we do our
countywide review. But if you
want to speak on the height
more than welcome to for
Clearwater City staff.
Lauren Matzke: Hi, Lauren.
Matzke again,
that is that is the work that
we're going to that we've we've
started on the staff level
translating the things that we
heard in those earlier
community meetings into the
Community Development Code, our
land development regulations.
That will be the work
that
we're committed to doing in the
fall with the community. So
we'll write something and we'll
get their feedback on it. But
truly recognizing that
residential properties, if the
desire remains, the vision
remains to have any new
development consistent with the
pattern
that's there. Heights
would need to be limited in
those areas, whereas 3 to 4
stories could be potentially
compatible, of course, on a
main street. So like Martin
Luther King, transitions are
always important to. And those
are things that we've enabl
ed
elsewhere in in our special
planning districts in the city
of Clearwater.
Brian Scott: Okay. I think I know the
answer to this next question
here, but are any of these
properties, could any of these
be properties be subject to
live local?
Lauren Matzke: Well,
currently, anything
that's zoned commercial or in
our commercial general district
would be would be available for
live local project.
Brian Scott: So that's already within the
CRA. Some of those.
Lauren Matzke: Yes.
That's regardless of
location in Clearwater.
Brian Scott: Okay. So what we're
being
asked to do here today is to,
is to not we're not approving
any specific developments.
We're just, it's just an
overlay. So for the benefit of
members of the public that are
here now, or maybe watching
when a project is being
approved, okay, developer comes
through a homeowner and says, I
want to, I want to do this.
Okay, walk through that step.
What does that process look
like? And what is that
community input look like at
that level?
Emma Wennick: So first, I'll just
reiterate. Yes. So this is what
the recommendation
for the
countywide plan map amendment.
So this is changing the
countywide plan map from all
the existing categories to the
PRD classification, which
allows City of Clearwater to be
able to utilize their optional
overlay.
So in terms of when a
building comes in, that would
go to the city of Clearwater in
terms of a development proposal,
and they would review it. And
it's my understanding that they
have incentive based
development with this overlay.
So if they're opting in,
there
are certain criteria that the
developer would have to meet in
order to be able to utilize the
bonus of the overlay, if that
answers your question.
Brian Scott: So it would be approved by
the city of Clearwater. Yes.
City Cou
ncil.
Emma Wennick: Yes.
Brian Scott: Got it. All right. Any other
thoughts or questions before we
move to public comment? No.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
Emma Wennick: Thank you.
Brian Scott: Okay with that, Tina, do
we
have any proponents, opponents
or other citizens to be heard
on this item?
Tina Jablon: Yes, chair. We do. We have
three proponents wishing to
speak and one opponent today.
And the first proponent that we
will call on is Gloria Campbell.
Okay, miss Campbell, if you
could go to the podium, you
have
three minutes.
Gloria Campbell: Good afternoon. Good
afternoon. My name is Gloria
Campbell. I am the executive
director of the Clearwater
Urban Leadership Coalition. We
are the
organization that
Councilman Mannino talked about
that led the grassroots effort,
community, grassroots effort to
create the North Greenwood CRA,
the only CRA created in the
county from a grassroots effort.
We reached out and we
had we
have different organizations,
everything from churches to
civic organizations to people
who are property owners,
residents, renters were part of
this effort. Councilman Mannino
and Councilman Floyd actually
told my
story already.
Councilman Floyd, I was part of
the Southside CRA group when
that started. And one of the
things is we moved to North
Greenwood that I said was we
were going to try to correct
some of the t
hings that didn't
go right in the South Side. And
so that was one of our primary
goals. Some of those things
included being sure to, first
of all, make sure that the
community was engaged at every
level. We literally walked the
streets of North Greenwood,
handing
out cards to residents,
whether they were renters,
whether they owned property,
whatever, and said, this is
what's coming. This is what
hold on to your property if
you're a property owner. We
also contacted people who owned
property in the area
who were
renting their property to give
them an idea of what was coming,
because we saw that happen in
the South Side. By the time
people recognized what was
happening. The property was
gone. So we wanted to protect
that. This overlay was a result
of another
tool that we talked
about that we could use to,
number one, protect and build
and make sure that the
community was engaged. We we
were part of the selection
process for the consultants.
That actually helped us to
develop the goals
for the
overlay. The criteria was
someone who, number one, looked
like us, number two, who had
worked in an environment where
this was the case and knew how
to help the community be
sustainable. All of those were
met by the city. As menti
oned,
we did this two years ago. This
would have already been done,
we thought. But then who could
have predicted two hurricanes
back to back? We are here today
in support of this overlay. We
recognize that there are
members of the community that
are concerned, and they should
be,
and I welcome them because
one of the things we've had to
do and that we struggle with is
getting all segments, everybody
I often say to people when they
say, oh, I didn't know that.
The first question is, where do
you get your information?
Because obviously we're not
putting it where you need to
get it. And so that becomes
then a gathering point for us.
So we have engaged at all
levels. We everyone is invited,
as I often say, to have a seat
at the table. We're about
community and we're about
making sure the c
ommunity wins.
Brian Scott: Thank you. Thank you, Gloria.
Okay, next.
Tina Jablon: Next we have Kathleen
Beckman, Miss Beckman.
Brian Scott: Okay.
Tina Jablon: And you'll likewise have
e minutes, ma'am. Thank you.
thre
Brian Scott: Good afternoon.
Kathleen Beckman: Good afternoon. I'm Kathleen
Beckman, former Clearwater City
Council member. I served on the
council proudly for four years
from 2020 to 2024. And first,
I'd like to say thank you,
Council member Mannino. You just
nailed it. As far as the
history, the engagement, and
the work that's been done, I
was involved, I've been
involved with this CRA work for
the last seven years, proudly
advocated for ARPA funds to
jump start the work and
I'm
telling you, it has been
work. It has been a labor of
love for members of the
community. I'm a member of the
Clearwater Urban Leadership
Coalition as well, which
continues to be leaders in the
community. The the
intentionality in reaching to
the
community. And, and there
wasn't, you know, we did reach
out, but it was truly
grassroots. So it was
collaborative from, from the
very beginning, the work that
we've done with community
meetings and, and allocating
those ARPA funds. And so I
would
say, you know, strongly
in favor of approving this
overlay, it meets the goals of
that plan. That plan is a
phenomenal plan. The North
Greenwood CRA plan, it's about
this thick. It's probably, I
don't know, close to 200 pages.
But when I was approving that
plan and going through it, we
all went through it with a fine
tooth comb, and it comes
directly from the community.
And it is it is the result of
those meetings. It is the
result of educating,
collaborating, understanding,
and it is a phenomenal pla
n.
And this overlay honors that
plan and works towards those
goals that were that were
developed over a number of
years from passionate, informed
engagement. So thank you very
much.
Brian Scott: Thank you.
Tina Jablon: Marilyn Turman. Good
afternoon, Ms. Turman. You'll
have three minutes to.
Brian Scott: Good afternoon.
Marilyn Turman: Good afternoon. Thank you
all for allowing me a moment to
speak. My name is Marilyn
Turman. I am the vice chair of
the Citizens North Greenwood
Citizens Advisory Committee. I
have had the
pleasure of being
a part of the Clearwater Urban
Leadership Coalition since its
inception. And I can tell you,
when we got received word, of
course, we can visually see the
things that were not happening
in North Greenwood, but
understanding that it was the
highest concentration of
poverty in the entire county,
it compelled the members of
this community to come together
and first educate our community
on what a CRA was and how it
would benefit us. So
this labor
of love, and the reason that I
call it a labor of love is
because since September 19th of
2019, we have had meetings
every fourth Tuesday at 630. I
have missed one meeting, and
that was because I was at a
candidate forum. So that being
said, I am so committed to this
work. I love my community. I
want to see things be better in
my community, and I know the
hard work that we have put into
this. There's a saying that
says you can always make more
mo
ney, but you can never get
your time back. And the time
that we have put into this,
Miss Gloria talked about,
everybody had an opportunity to
come to the table. And that
meant from the person in the
pulpit to the person on the
corner, everybody, everybody
had an
opportunity to come to
the table and be a part of this
effort to revitalize our
community and make it a
community that we were all
proud of. What I'm happy to
know about the overlay plan is
that it does give us the
options. It gives us the
options to be able to do t
hings,
to expand and grow beyond what
we currently have. It's, it's,
it's one thing to be a consumer.
It's another thing to own some
stuff. And I don't know how
much you all know about the
upcoming Container Village
project called The Village at
the Grove. We are so
very, very,
very excited about the
opportunities and the
businesses that will be housed
there. And this overlay plan
will give us the opportunity to
do some things that we might
not be able to do otherwise.
And the last comment I want to
make is about the
housing. When
I think about we all know
there's been a housing crisis,
and when I think about this
overlay plan and the ability to
have accessory dwelling units
and those things in place, it's
kind of like that village
mentality in my mind where w
I think about the fact that
hen
some family members have have
had to move to distant places,
and if we have the ability to
come together and provide
housing opportunities in our
community, because we can
expand and do
ADUs or have
duplexes, I think Triplexes is
another middle housing, I think
is the correct term for that,
and my time is up. But thank
you. I am in full support of
this. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Brian Scott: Thank you.
Any other public
comment?
Tina Jablon: That's all the proponents.
We do have one opponent who
wishes to wishes to speak today.
And that's Miss Katrina George.
Brian Scott: Okay. Please come up.
Good
afternoon.
Katrina George: Good afternoon. My name is
Katrina George. I live at 1276
Eldridge Street. I am within
the CRA. The CRA jurisdiction.
I want to address
something
stated stated publicly about
this overlay. The city
representatives have described
participation in this overlay
as voluntary, saying no
homeowner is required to change
their zoning. But the city's
own ordinance language directs
the land use
designation itself.
The actual factual land use map
changes. Change applies to
every parcel in the amended
area, regardless of whether any
owner uses the bonus provision.
I'm asking the city to clarify
in writing
whether homeowners
may decline the designation
itself, separate from declining
the bonus program. I also want
to raise a specific question.
Factual problem with the record
you have today. The
notice for
case CW2 thousand 608 states
that the amendment affects
approximately 491.5 acres, but
the city's own ordinance
exhibits this the same
amendment that shows two
different acreages figures
674.2 acres in. In the one
version and 627.8 acres in
another. These figures don't
match each other, and none of
them match what's before the
board. I'm asking that this be
resolved before any
recommendation is made. There
is a related question about the
industrial limit category. City
Council minutes from March 30th
show off shows that staff
requested moving industrial
limits parcels from the overlay.
But the notice before Pinellas
for today still includes
employment, the countywide
equivalent of land use limited.
I'm asking which version is
actually controlling beyond the
notice today, my deeper concern
is protecting the people who
already
live and work in North
Greenwood. I'm asking for two
specific things, both grounded
in existing Florida law, not
new authority. First, that the
defined percentage of the North
Greenwood CRA Trust Fund, the
tax increment revenue. Florida
Statute 163387 already allows
to be used for affordable
housing. Be dedicated to
property tax assistance fund
for the legacy owners facing
rising assessments because of
this
overlay. Second, that the
city adopts a temporary
exemption of the increased
amendment value for. Of home
improvements for property
owners who held exemption home
status exemption before this
overlay, modeled on the Florida
existing Historic Preservation
tax exemption under section one,
96.1997 and 196.111998, one of
the. Thank you.
Brian Scott: Mr. George. You can finish
if you'd like.
Katrina George: I'm sorry.
Brian Scott: You can finish if you like.
Katrina George: I'll close today. One of the
issues that I want to also
bring up is the fact that you
all are stating that the city
is stating that proper notice
was provided to us as residents.
That's not
totally correct. One
of the I didn't I have 104
signatures that I've submitted
to the board from residents of
North Greenwood with no notices
of these movements for the
rezoning, what we were
receiving, or what
we actually
saw within the community is
actually notices of a container
mall. That's the information
that we saw or I was provided.
Nobody knocked on my door. I
didn't receive a card from the
June 8th meeti
ng. I didn't
receive a notice. And from what
I've spoken with Lauren, she
stated that some of the
churches weren't even notified.
So again, it's proper notice
and some of the timings of
these meetings. Yesterday's
meeting was at 530.
Who can get
to a 530 meeting leaving from
work? These things aren't being,
you know, and there are no real
safeguards right now in this
plan for our community. Again,
as Representative Floyd stated,
for the renters
in the area,
we're concerned about
displacement. We saw this with
the North Greenwood Apartments.
They were kicked. All of the
residents were kicked out of
North Greenwood stating that
they were upgrading the area.
All of a sudden, 20% were able
to be
able to move back in.
Those neighbors were never
compensated, nor were they
given opportunity to move back.
So these are the things that we
want. We want to make sure that
we're not going to experience
mo
ving forward. My thing is,
I'm not against forward
movement. I'm against the way
that it's set up where there's
no protections.
Brian Scott: Thank you. Tina. Any further
citizens to be heard?
Tina Jablon: No. Chair, there's no
further.
Brian Scott: Okay. All right. Hearing no
more. We will close the public
hearing. Do we have any other
questions? Q & A from the
board. Okay. Hearing none. What,
Richie, did you have?
Richie Floyd: I'll just say
I want I
wanted to get a full picture
from the community feedback as
well. I see no reason for us
not to move it forward, but
because we're just here like
deciding on land use things.
But yeah, definitely heard from
the city that some of my
concerns will be addressed
going forward. And so I'll just
rely on y'all to make
considerations for some of the
displacement concerns that are
brought up. So and I see
you
nodding in agreement, so I'll
leave it there.
Brian Scott: Okay. Thank you. Anybody
else? Okay. What is the will of
the board.
Maureen Freaney: Move approval.
Chris Scherer: Second.
Brian Scott: We have a motion from Mayor
Moe and a second from
Commissioner Scherer. A
ny further
discussion? All in favor?
All: Aye.
Brian Scott: Any opposed? Okay. Motion
carries unanimously. Thank you
very much. Okay. Now we will
move. Yes.
Maureen Freaney: Mr. Chair, I just want to.
Brian Scott: Yes.
Maureen Freaney: I'm headed to the
Florida
League of Mayors. I just made
sure we had a quorum. So excuse
me for coming in and leaving,
so.
Brian Scott: All right, we'll let you off
the hook this time. All right.
Whit Blanton: You might have to chair the
next meeting.
Brian Scott: All right, now we'll move on
to
item five. A 2KCW26-11. City
of Clearwater. Does any member
of the board like to would like
to see a presentation on this
particular one here? No. Okay.
Hearing none.
Do we have any
questions?
Thoughts ask if there's any
okay.
Any Tina, do we have any
members of the public that
would like to speak on this
item?
Tina Jablon: No, chair, we do not.
Brian Scott: Okay. All right. Hearing
none on that, then we will
close this particula
r public
hearing. And what is the will
of the board.
Ricky Butler: Move approval.
Brian Scott: Okay. Motion from Ricky,
second from Tom. Okay. Any
further discussion? Hearing
none. All in favor?
All: Aye.
Brian Scott: Any opposed?
Okay. Motion
carries unanimously. Thank you,
everybody, for that. Okay. I
would like to just so we don't
lose any other members here in
case anybody has to leave early.
I would like to move 6E
up
first, which is our last
remaining action item, which is
our fiscal year 27 PPC budget
and millage rate recommendation.
So Rodney, come on up.
Rodney Chatman: Good afternoon. Good
afternoon. Rodney Chatman
Division Manager and. I guess
I'll say
I'm excited to present
the FY 27 budget to you all. As
you hear from me each year. I
you know, I remind you all that
I volunteered for this. And as
a matter of fact.
Brian Scott: That'll teach you.
Whit Blanton: Yeah, that's not completely
accurate.
Rodney Chatman: This is 2017. And I always
tell you all that it's complex.
It's never easy. The goalposts
always move. And definitely
that is the case for FY 27. So
I'll get right to it. The
budget request that we're
submitting to you
all for
recommendation to the county
commission is about $8 million.
What you see here is a
breakdown of the. The revenue
categories for the submittal,
beginning with the beginning
fund balance. In other words,
that's the amount that we start
with. Given that that sort of
carry over from the previous
budget year, we have about 2.3
million in property taxes.
And
that's based on a projection
from the property appraiser
that the increase will be about
4.3% for FY 27. We get another
1.4 million in the revenue
column for the MPO. Again, the
Planning Council covers those
costs for the MPO and then gets
reimbursed. So that's the money
that the Planning Council gets
from the MPO. And then there's
two
supplementary line items on
the revenue side that are very
small in nature. It's just a
projection from us as to what
we can expect from our local
assistance that we provide to
the cities. And then just a
small amount of interest we get
from an interest bearing
account
. On the expense side,
these are the six primary
expense categories, about 2.5
million in salaries and
benefits, another 1.4 million
in our operating expenses. And
that includes everything from
rent to
our audit, our
accounting, our
intergovernmental service
charges from Pinellas County
and so on. We also pay the
property appraiser and tax
collector commissions for the
tax revenue they collect on our
behalf. So you see that they're
about
$67,000. And then just
like last year, we have divided
the reserves into three line
items. There's reserve
contingencies, reserve fund
balance, and then reserves for
future years. And you
see the
the ways those are unlocked,
consistent with Florida
statutes and parentheses. So as
in prior years, we continue to
find effective and creative
ways to spend our reserves.
That's often the message from
the county commission. And our
approach has been and continues
to be an adjustment to the rate,
as well as working with our our
city partners to find ways to
advance projects that are
aligned w
ith the mission of
Pinellas. So for FY 27, that
will continue to be the
strategy. We will. Complete the
final phase, hopefully, of the
ordinance update for the
county's multimodal impact fee.
That's been a project that's
been ongoing, and we've had to
modify the approach because of
some changes in state law,
whether to send Bill 180, House
Bill 429 and House Bill 1329.
So the state continues to
pass
legislation impacting impact
fee in our ordinance update.
And so that hopefully will come
to a close this year. And we
can wrap up the ordinance
update and FY 27. And you can
see that is a jointly funded
project between
us, Pinellas
County and City of Saint Pete,
Clearwater and Largo. The other
project that we plan to pursue
for FY 27 is a partnership with
the City of Largo. This project
came to us
because TD Synnex is
one of three fortune 500
companies in Pinellas County.
They are located in the Bay
Vista Office Park, which was
built back in 1984. So some of
you who have been on the board
for a while may recall the term
flight to quality when we did
the teals update. The idea
behind that is employers now
are looking for a bit more in
where they're located.
Typically, employers like TD
Synnex want class A office
space,
and Bay Vista office
Park is more like class B,
class C, and there's
competition for employers like
that to go to class A office
space that have the amenities
and services that these
employers expec
t. And we've
seen in the past where
employers like this have gone
to Midtown and Water Street in
Hillsborough County or into
downtown Saint Pete. So Largo
has asked that we work with
them on developing a
redevelopment master
plan for
Bay Vista Office Park to come
up with a series of strategies
to. With the goal of retaining
and keeping TD Synnex, as well
as other employers within that
very important office park in
the city of Largo.
We also plan
to work with the city of
Dunedin to develop our downtown
Master Plan update. This
project is twofold. One is a
market assessment to understand
how the market has changed over
time. Since downtown has
successfully redeveloped a
successfully redeveloped their
downtown. And the other part to
the project is to develop a. A
set of guidelines or standards
that memorialize the. The great
things about downtown Dunedin.
It's. It's got a lot of
character. It's got a lot of
amenities, but a lot of what
you see down there is really
coming from the. Their Housing
and redevelopment
manager. And
so we're going to work with
them to put that in a plan and
a series of standards. We also
plan to work with our partners
at fDOT, at the county and the
city of Clearwater to execute a
corridor study for
for the Gulf
to Bay Boulevard corridor. The
limits of that project will be
basically from McMullen Booth
road through downtown and end
at the roundabout. The overall
goal is to do a couple of
things. One is to
figure out a
solution for that intersection
there at Gulf to Bay and
Belcher. It's been studied for
quite a while, and there hasn't
been a resolution to that. And
so we we hope that the study
will find a solution to one of
the most
dangerous
intersections in the county.
The other important piece to it
is we've been in communication
with county administration and
think that the timing of the
study could support the
redevelopment of the downtown
campus for Pin
ellas County,
which is going to be vacated
and then redeveloped. So those
are kind of the two signature
pieces of that corridor study.
The other couple of things that
are in the budget. You've heard
us talk about the countywide
trail planning initiative.
Ag
ain, that's just that pilot
program position for about two
and a half years or so. That
will work across jurisdictional
boundaries to advance trail
planning countywide. And then,
you know, you've heard me talk
about the need to have support
from our lobbyists as we work
to amend the special act. So
all total those equal about
$691,000. And that's our plan
to to try and further spin down
reserves. So I can't talk to
you all about the budget
without addressing property tax
reform through the Joint
resolution one F I'm sure you
all are very familia
r with it
in your roles with your
respective cities. I think I've
shared with you in the past
that it it also has impacts to
us. Fortunately, the property
appraiser has a great dashboard
that estimates what the impact
would be if it
passes to all
the taxing authorities across
the county. So what you see
here is what that reform would
mean to the Planning Council.
So the chart up at top is that
blue
line is the current tax
law and homestead exemption,
and how much revenue the
Planning Council would derive
from the current rate and the
current exemption. The yellow
line shows you what
will happen
if the referendum passes in
November to those revenues the
Planning Council collects for
its operations. And you can see
at the on the chart to the
bottom, that's a percent
breakdown of how much revenue
will be lost over the years
through 2030. And you can see
it's anywhere between 14 and
24% of our revenue will will be
lost if that referendum passes.
So
in order for us to be good
stewards of the tax dollars and
also provide you with proper
information to inform a
recommendation on our millage
rate and budget, we've been
working
with the Office of
Management and Budget to
develop a five year forecast.
Looking forward between FY 28
and FY 32. We have done this in
the past with them, but it's
taken greater urgency
given the
potential impact to the
revenues for the council based
on the increased homestead
exemption. So what we have done
is and you know, all you all
know, I'm I share your work
kind of person. So
I've got
about ten spreadsheets up here.
We've looked at scenarios that
forecast what happens to the
planning Council operations if
the referendum passes and what
that drawd
own looks like on
reserves, as well as what if
the referendum doesn't pass?
And again, what, what that does
to to reserves. So. What we are
comfortable with at this time
is to recommend to you all that
we could
reduce the millage
rate to the rollback rate. What
that means from a revenue
perspective is in that first
year that is effective, we lose
about $420,000 less in property
tax revenue, and
then about
620,000 less in property tax
revenue thereafter. The
forecast also has some
assumptions that were built in
on the revenue side. So what
I've provided in your backup,
and I'll show
you a couple
slides after this, what that
looks like. So 5% annual
increase in property tax
revenues, some other increases
in in revenues, and then a 10%
increase in expenses. Again, to
develop a forecast, you got to
make some assumptions. I'm not
saying that we have a crystal
ball and we know what the
future is going to be like. But
OMB felt like these percent
assumptions were pretty solid.
So. What we have
determined
that by adopting the rollback
rate, there would be a
predictable drawdown on
reserves over the next 4 or 5
years to balance the budget. If
you look at FY 31, the reserve
balance will be about $700,000.
Again, maintaining or adopting
that millage rollback rate. So
any questions on that. I know
it's a lot,
but I'll try to
reinforce a little bit of what
I just told you all. So what
you're looking at here is one
of the spreadsheets for the
forecast. It is what we have
calculated based on the current
millage rate. So you can see
that in
yellow it's the 0.0175.
Here are the five years. So FY
28 through FY 32. And then this
top portion of the spreadsheet
are the revenues with with our
rate. And then those
assumptions that I told you
about about revenue
growth.
There's also assumptions that
were put into the forecast to
estimate our expenses going out
those five years. The thing
that I want you to kind of
focus in on is what does that
do to reserve
s? So reserves are
down here and you can see where
we are right now at FY 27. And
then that systematic drawdown
of reserves in the intervening
five years. And you can see at
the very bottom how much extra
or how much
reserves are being
drawn upon over time to balance
the budget. So that's at the
current rate. We also did
various scenarios all the way
down to look at the financial
picture. If we reduce the
millage rate down to
0.0145. So
again, same assumptions for
those five years. Now the
reserve line item here you can
see the drawdown there in 28,
then 29. And then we're
negative
in 30 3132. So this
last spreadsheet is what we're
recommending. The rollback rate
according to OMB at this point
is 0.0171.
Again same five year
same assumptions reserve level.
This is what the request looks
like here and about $8 million.
But again, even at the rollback
rate, you can see the drawdown
on reserves. And then we're
okay. In FY 31 it's FY 32 where
we're negative. But if we were
to adopt a rollback rate, we
would start to make other
changes most likely next year
on kind of right sizing our
expenses to make sure that we
ar
e in a positive financial
position. Again, going out
those five years.
Brian Scott: Rodney. Yes. These all these
assume amendment three passes.
Rodney Chatman: Yes.
Brian Scott: Okay. Do you have one with
the the
rollback that if it
didn't pass.
It's out.
Rodney Chatman: Pete, can you switch to the
overhead. Commissioner, I don't
have one with the rollback, but
the closest I
have to that. I
know you.
Probably can't see that.
That well.
This is at the current
millage rate. And then if it
doesn't pass and FY 32 we're
still at about
3.2 million in
reserves.
Brian Scott: Okay.
Whit Blanton: So the way we've been
approaching this is just kind
of really trying to be fiscally
prudent for our agency. And
this ballot is, you know,
initiative
is going to be voted
on by the voters in November.
We don't know how that's going
to turn out. The voters are
going to have an opportunity,
and we will spend down our
reserves to the tune of about
$300,000 by the year 2032 if it
passes. So the r
eserves are
going to get spent down. In the
meantime, what we've outlined
here is roughly $700,000 of
reserve funding that we are
putting into the 27 budget.
That is a commitment to begin
spending down those dollars. If
the amendment doesn't pass and
we only go to the rollback rate
this year, we are going to come
back to you next year with a
with a little bit more
aggressive millage rate
reduction at that point, or
another commitment to show how
we're lowering the reserve
reserve spending in the future.
But I can't in good conscience
recommend the aggressive
millage reduction that we were
talking about two months ago
just because by fiscal year 30,
we would be I think it's over
$300,000 in the
deficit
situation, which would have a
real impact on our staffing
ability and ability to function.
And as we've talked about a
little bit with the
subcommittee, you know,
planning departments are
probably not well protected
when the millage rate, when the
mi
llage, when the homestead
exemption is extended. And I
don't think there's going to be
a lot of capacity for local
governments in Pinellas County
to undertake planning
activities. And with the
charter requirement that we do
countywide planning, we may be
the last county planning
department standing. And I
think demand will probably
increase on our services. It
doesn't mean that everybody's
going to cut their planning
department, but it's kind of
like Parks and Recreation. It's
going to be one of those things
that people will say, well,
that's not police and that'
s
not fire. That may be something
that that could could cut. So
we're proposing we go to the
rollback rate that that does
not require a supermajority,
which would be a requirement of
keeping the millage rate as is.
So and we do
think we have more
reserves than we need. So the
way we've kind of balanced this
out from a staff perspective is
let's demonstrate to the voters,
let's demonstrate to the
elected officials that we can
reduce our millage rate because
we are bringing in more revenue
than we need right now. But at
the same time, if the amendment
passes, we're going to be
needing those reserves to keep
us going for the next 3 to 4
years.
Brian Scott: Questions?
Yes.
Chris Scherer: Yeah. Thank you, Chair.
Rodney, on the
the charges for
other services that that's what
the local governments pay for.
No.
Rodney Chatman: No, those are the revenues
that we receive from the MPO.
So you remember me saying that
the PPC fronts the costs
of the
MPO and then the MPO reimbursed
the the PPC on a quarterly
basis. So that money that we
get back from the MPO shows up
as revenue.
Chris Scherer: So we're we're where are you
showing the revenue that you
get when you charge other.
Rodney Chatman: Oh, I see right.
Chris Scherer: I didn't see it on this.
Rodney Chatman: Oh, it's it's very little
right there. It's less than
$5,000.
Chris Scherer: Okay. All right. I didn't
realize that. Okay.
Whit Blanton: And that's an estimate
because projects may come up in
the fiscal year where
we want
to do a 50/50 commitment.
Chris Scherer: So and I was confused about
the personnel services. They
they dropped 1,000,008 and 26.
And then they're going to bump
them back up to 2.5. I didn't.
And for 27.
Rodney Chatman: we take those numbers
from OMB. So we only. We have
control of most of those line
items. But for the personnel,
the salary benefits, those
things
, we get those figures
from the Office of Management
budget. So it's probably a
question for Chris Rose.
Chris Scherer: it's a $600,000 question. For some
reason, I didn't see what the
justification for that bump.
Whit Blanton: It doesn't include any
additional staff persons other
than the trail planner position.
Chris Scherer: Okay. So yeah, I really
don't understand the number now
because it goes from 1.8
million to 2 point, almost 2.6.
So I don't know why that number
is jumping up. And the reason I
asked, because the budget that
I studied that I
really liked
was 6.0165, because I thought.
That budget I really liked
because, I mean, we don't need
all these reserves. They can't
be used for the MPO. This, this
one
that you gave me, gave us
that says 0.0165 would actually
provide not just a millage rate
reduction, but would actually
provide a small, you know, tax
tax cut. And I think that would
be something that we could
show
the citizens. Do we roll it
back more than a millage rate.
We're actually going to get a
reduction in your taxes this
year. And the deficits very,
very small on that budget. And
I believe
I just don't
understand the the number, but
I think it's very close. It's
manageable. So I think we could
do more if we wanted to. I just
wanted to point that out. 2.65
everybody got in their packet.
It works. It wouldn't run a. We
wouldn't run out of reserves
until 2032.
If nothing else
changes and something else
would change. So just pointing
that out, I mean, I love the
rollback, but we, I think we
could do better if, if the
board wanted to. So a little
bit, just a little.
Whit Blanton: Ultimately, this is a
recommendation to the Board of
County commissioners, right?
Rodney Chatman: That's correct.
Brian Scott: Okay. Thank you.
Commissioner Scherer. Share any other
thoughts or comments, Mike.
Mike Eisner: Just a statement. Last night
we did our budget or our one of
our first ones. And just the
early feedback, what we have is
64% of the poll is in favor of
this property tax, you know,
cutback and savings. So I'm
glad to see that we're doing
this and that we're being
conscientious because it's
looking like it's going to fly.
Brian Scott: Okay.
Anybody else? All right.
Tina, do we have any members of
the public that wish to speak
on this item?
Tina Jablon: No, chair, we do not.
Brian Scott: Okay. All right. What is the
will of the board on this move?
Ricky Butler: Approval. Second.
Brian Scott: Okay. We have a motion from
Ricky, second from Tom.
Whit Blanton: Can we clarify what the
motion is for? Is that for the
staff recommendation of the
millage rate reduction?
Ricky Butler: Yes.
Whit Blanton: 0.0171. The rollback rate.
Ricky Butler: Yes.
Brian Scott: Okay. Now, now exhibit A
Rodney does not have the
correct numbers on it. So we.
Rodney Chatman: Have to be updated and
attached to the resolution
resolution that you all adopt.
And that will
occur after this
action. And okay. Make sure
it's all okay.
Brian Scott: Okay. Just make sure that's
on the record. Okay. All right.
Is there any further discussion
on this item? Okay. All in
favor
opposed? Okay. So we have
Mayor Love was in opposition.
Okay. All right. Motion carries.
Thank you everybody. That was
our last action item. So now we
can go into our presentation items.
Whit Blanton: Don't everybody leave.
Brian Scott: All right. So now we'll go
back up to item six a PSTA
activities report.
Tom Reid: Thank you, Mr. Chair. The
state board met on Wednesday,
June 24th, 2026. The board
meeting began with a special
presentation on the two
marketing awards, PSTA one at
the Florida Public
Transportation Association
Awards ceremony last month.
First, an award for stars 40
year history book, and second
for the ridership and marketing
of stars newest limited stop
premium service
route, the
Spark in Saint Pete between
Eckerd College and Grand
Central Station. The board
approved several items during
the June meeting. These
included a renewal of Stars
employee health benefits for
fiscal year 27, funding
agreements with several
nonprofits under the
Transportation Disadvantage, or
TD grant program that's
administered by the state. As
the Community Transportation
Coordinator for Pinellas County,
Psta is responsible for all TD
services in the county, which
includes the administration of
TD bus passes, paratransit
and
nonprofit eligible trips so
they can provide transportation
to their own TD eligible
clients. The nonprofits include
Neighborly Care Network, Park
Arc, and the Homeless Emergency
Project, funding over 5.8
million over the next five
years. The
board also heard one
information update from Psta
CFO Debbie Lewis, who presented
a summary on the fiscal year 27
operating and capital budget.
We will receive budget updates
again in July and August before
final adoption in September,
and the next Psta board m
eeting
is Wednesday, July 22nd at 9
a.m. And that concludes my
report.
Brian Scott: Thank you Tom. All right.
We'll move on to item 6 B
Regional Activities Report.
Whit Blanton: Okay, I'll handle this one.
I'll go fairly quickly. I just
wanted to let you all know that
we have kicked off our
regional
transportation planning
prioritization process. I'm not
going to give you the full name.
It's a bunch of peas, but this
was a grant that was awarded to
the Hillsborough County MPO or
TPO, and we are partnering with
them and Pasco County. So it's
an early form of regional
regionalization. We had the
kickoff meeting about a week
ago, and Chelsea and Caitlin of
our staff are kind of the point
people for that. And they have
hired a consultant and we are
integrating the regional
benefit cost analysis tool that
our staff developed. M
achine
gave you that presentation last
week, and what we are doing is
we were looking at
transportation trends,
transportation projects, and
determining a methodology that
will be consistent across all
three MPOs for prioritization,
prioritizing transportation
projects. And
we're all really
excited about this project
because we all do it a little
bit differently. But as you
know, transportation doesn't
stop at a county line. So the
goal is to begin outreach and
engagement immediately. We'll
have a website live in August.
We will create a project
dashboard that will guide the
analysis and development of
recommendations for
prioritization for all of the
MPOs to integrate best
practices. And the goal is to
bring a unified process to our
committees and our boards this
November, so that it's ready to
use in our project
prioritization for next year.
And so I just wanted to give
you a heads up that we are
coordinating regionally on that.
And the goal is to have this to
where it can telescope and
identify regionally significant
projects, but also projects at
the local scale that are
evaluated similarly. That might
not be regionally significant,
but are still meaningful to
local communities. So that's
underway, basically just a
heads up. And then another
heads up is many of you have
participated or at least
seen
the reports on the regional
competitiveness report that the
Tampa Bay partnership
undertakes. And they've been
doing that now for, I believe,
about ten years, where they
benchmark the Tampa Bay region
against other
comparable
regions around the country.
Some are a little bit bigger,
some are a little smaller, but
but they're all in many ways
similar to ours. They are
opening up that process to sort
of reevaluate what we've
accomplished, where our trends
have taken us over ten years
and where we need to go next.
And so we are being invited to
a meeting at the Urban Center
two building in Tampa on
Kennedy Boulevard, Wednesday,
August 5th, to continue that
conversation about what that
means.
And I wanted to let you
know that I am going to be on
vacation moving my daughter to
Texas so I won't be able to
participate. But our staff will.
But I think you all are welcome.
If anybody's interested in
being engaged in the Regional
Competitiveness Report, we can
certainly RSVP for you if you
would like to participate in
that and share your thoughts
from Pinellas perspective. So
just food for thought on that
and that's all.
I have.
Brian Scott: Thank you. Whit, any
questions for Whit? All right.
We will move on then to item
6 C East Bay drive, Roosevelt
Boulevard.
Nousheen Rahman: Good afternoon, board
members. Good afternoon,
principal planner at Fort
Pinellas. And I have here with
me Amanda Chornoby with
Renaissanc
e Planning, who was a
consultant on this project. And
I'm here to provide an update
on our final corridor study for
this for this roadway that we
have been working on for well
over a year now. And in that
last year, this
corridor study
has undertaken has been
undertaken in three different
phases. First, a review of the
existing conditions. The second
phase involved a mobility
evaluation, which you can think
of almost as scenario planning
and stress testing, the future
conditions of the corridor. And
then finally, phase three
involved recommendations, some
of which I provided a preview
of here that I'll go over. They
include recommendations for
enhanced pedestrian crossings,
as well as improved transit
facilities such as
opport
unities for bus bays
along the corridor. So I will
present that towards the end.
But to take a step back and
tell you why we are studying
this corridor, East Bay Drive
and Roosevelt Boulevard is
identified as one of our
priority investment corridors,
and this is a framework that we
have
adopted in our long range
transportation plan, where we
identify corridors based on
their potential to link jobs,
housing and job training
opportunities. And this quarter
in particular, serves both
local and regional purposes.
But what's really happened
along this corri
dor? There have
been several improvements and
planning efforts undertaken by
various entities ourselves,
fDOT, the City of Largo, PSTA,
and what we have the
opportunity to do is provide a
cohesive vision for this
corridor, which we try to do
for our other investment
corridors as well.
East Bay
drive, Roosevelt Boulevard
connects directly to the other
two investment corridors that
we have completed or are
completing, such as US 19. But
something that's really key
about this is while Alt 19 and
US 19 those corridor studies
required coordination among
multiple municipalities, and in
the case of US 19 multiple
counties, this roadway actually
just goes through the city of
Largo. So we are looking at one
land use vision that is
involved in this corridor. But
ul
timately, the leads on this
project were ourselves at
forward, Pinellas and fDOT. We
both jointly funded this
project and coordinated across
the phases the city of Largo,
PSTA and Pinellas County were
active stakeholders throughout
the process. The corridor study
looks
at the segment from 20th
Street, which is just west of
HCA Florida Largo Hospital. If
you are familiar and goes all
the way east to Lightwave Drive,
which is right before Saint
Pete Clearwater International
Airport. So we're looking at
about seven miles of the
corridor that we kind
of looked
at in different sections. And
ultimately, the purpose was to
evaluate how to improve safety
and mobility and operational
access along East Bay drive.
And as I mentioned, we
undertook this in three
different phases, and I'll kind
of break down the three phases.
And today I'd like to provide
context that we are presenting
this as just an informational
item to you. Our corridor study
is often have a lot of
information to digest. So we
want to make sure that we
answer your questions. But at
the September board meeting,
this will be in front of you
for just a recommendation of
acceptance, as we typically do
with our corridor studies. So
with that, I'd like to set some
important context for the
corridor, because there's a lot
going on here, starting with
the land use context. There are
several activity centers within
the city of Largo and
specifically along this
corridor. But the three I'd
like to bring your attention to
are the West Bay Drive
Community Redevelopment
District directly to the West,
which you just a couple of
months ago saw extensive
presentations on. And know that
Largo has updated their
standards to really continue
developing their
downtown.
Provide opportunities for mixed
uses and similarly to the right,
we have the tri city activity
center. This is something that
was adopted about 5 or 6 years
ago. And while this area is the
node surrounding US 19 and is
very auto oriented,
the City of
Largo standards provides that
opportunity to improve
transportation access, as well
as create more of a sense of
place around this area. And
then the last land use area I'd
like to draw your attention to
is the Target Employment Center,
which Rodney actually talked
about in his budget
presentation. This involves Bay
Vista Office Park, and I'll
reiterate that TD annex is just
one of three fortune 500
companies in our county. And in
addition to the land use in
place, we also need to make
sure that the transportation
infrastructure surrounding this
area is up to par.
And this
area is where the corridor
turns into Roosevelt Boulevard.
Of course, moving on to some of
the efforts that have already
been planned, implemented or
underway, I won't go through
every single one of these
projects, but this table and
this map here is meant to
communicate to you
exactly how
much is being done on the
corridor. The map on this slide
shows you the areas for planned
improvements, and you can see
much of the corridor has been
programed for resurfacing by
fDOT. All of these resurfacing
projects one, two
and three, I
can confirm, involve separated
bike lanes. So for example,
from Highland to Belcher, the
bike lanes are separated or
separated through race
separators. So not flex posts,
but something a little bit more
visually appealing. But all of
this is to say that this
corridor is continuing to
improve. And what we have the
opportunity to do is fill some
of those gaps in safety and
operations. In addition to fDOT
planned projects, Pinellas
County does have jurisdiction
over the roadway
for from 20th
Street to Clearwater Largo Road,
specifically within our project
segment. And they also have a
resurfacing plan, namely to
improve business access and
also provide a wider ten foot
sidewalk on the south side of
West Bay drive.
In addition to
having roadway jurisdiction,
Pinellas County also manages
all of the signals along this
corridor through the county's
very robust its ATMs program
and all of the signals along
this study segment have
either
been implemented with signal
retiming improvements or are
going to be. For example, in
the third bullet, you can see
that the signal retiming are
planned for seven signals from
28th Street to Fourth Street
and from Highland to 58th
Street. The signals have
already been retimed, which
essentially covers the entire
corridor. So operational
improvements have also been
underway. In addition, if you
aren't familiar, the county,
through its ATMs program also
has programed this corridor for.
With intelligent Video
analytics, which gives the
county the ability
to assess
congestion and adjust signal
timings in real time and in
addition, monitor near-miss
incidents. And this is
something that we're tying into
our Safe Streets study as well
as we look at the intersections
and segments around the county
which hav
e which haven't made
it onto the high injury network
yet, but are kind of on that
edge of safety concerns. Lastly,
with the transit changes, you
might be familiar that Psta
implemented its updated bus
network in October of 2025, and
that actually saw a doubling of
frequency along this corridor,
which is served by route 52. So
it went from 30 minute
frequency to 15 minutes. And
you can see in the third and
fourth bullets that since that
implementation, PSTA has seen
increased weekday ridership as
a result of
that frequency
increase. On the transit side
as well. We have been working
with PSTA the last couple of
months to identify potential
locations countywide for bus
bay implementation. This is
something that has come from
board
members at both Ford,
Pinellas and Psta. So this
corridor study was an excellent
opportunity to incorporate
those recommendations. So that
was a whole lot of improvements
and activities that are already
underway. And so I'll reiterate
that the purpose of our
corridor study is to bring
that
together in a cohesive vision
and fill those gaps. And when
identifying some of those gaps
from a safety perspective, a
very high level overview here
is that you can see the crashes
have steadily increased the
last couple of years,
especially in those post-COVID
years, both overall crashes and
bicyclists and pedestrian
crashes. A lot of that has been
due to the lack of those
facilities along this corridor,
which are now being implemented
through those resurfacing, and
generally where there are
pedestrian hotspots. So lots of
pedestrian activity. There was
there is a
commonality between
that and the crash hotspots.
Namely, you can see County Road
one, alt 19 as well as Highland
Avenue as well, which gives
access to a lot of residential
destinations. When we consider
corridor capacity. I know that
traveling east west on this
co
rridor feels like every
single one of our corridors is
at a deficient level. But this
corridor actually, especially
when compared to its
counterpart directly to the
south Ulmerton road, does have
some capacity. I know it
doesn't feel like that when
we're driving it, but the
numbers tell
us otherwise. What
I will say is that the level of
service is varying depending on
the segment and the
intersection that you're
approaching, and the highest
traffic volumes are between
Keene Road and which is County
Road one and US 19. So it kind
of points us to
where there's
opportunity for improvement
there, but also gives us some
wiggle room to consider where
there is capacity. How do we
implement these safety and
operational improvements. So
with that I'm going to turn it
over phase two to Amanda. And
then I'll be back to talk about
the recommendations.
Amanda Chornoby All right. Good afternoon
everyone. My name is Amanda.
I'm a project manager with
Renaissance Planning, the
transportation and land use
planning firm that was tasked
with completing completing
phases one through three of the
East Bay corridor study. So as
I mentioned, I'll
be providing
an overview of phase two that
was completed earlier this year
in February. So phase two had
two goals, first of which was
to gather stakeholder and
public input to get feedback on
corridor issues and potential
improvements. And two, was to
model future growth in the
corridor based on the activity
centers identified in the Largo
Comprehensive Plan. To
understand how this may affect
travel demand, congestion and
mode choice. So several
outreach methods were utilized
to solicit feedback from the
community. This included a mix
of in-person and virtual
stakeholder meetings, in-person
community events such as at the
Largo Saturday Night Market and
at Largo High School, and an
online survey that received
over 100 plus unique responses
during these in-person
community events, dots and
poster boards were utilized
with the public to identify
where there were intersections,
sidewalk transit, and bicycle
concerns along the corridor.
Additionally, these poster
boards were utilized to
identify prioritized
improvements to address those
issues. Key findings were
consistent across all
engagement methods. Safety
concerns were primarily located
at intersections along the East
Bay corridor, and some of the
most requested
improvements
were related to separated
protected bicycle lanes, wider
sidewalks, and improved
lighting. Others emphasize the
need for better bus stop
amenities, and, as mentioned,
pull out bays to reduce traffic
delays and improve safety.
Lastly, feedback from
drivers
noted concerns about congestion
and aggressive driving behavior.
So to test the impacts of
potential growth and increased
travel demand in the corridor,
phase two modeled a scenario to
shift an increase in jobs and
housing to the
corridor,
reflecting adopted city land
use plans, future land use
regulations and defined
activity centers. The analysis
began with the planning
assessment that modified year
2045 person trip tables from
the Tampa Bay Regional
Transportation Analysis model
to efficiently test differing
land use scenarios and the
study corridor. And it should
be noted that at the time, 2045
was the latest when we
completed the study, travel
demand data from replica was
also reviewed. To better
understand walking and biking
demand in the corridor,
as the
Tampa Bay model does not
develop, walk and bike trip
details. Insights from both the
planning model and replica were
used to create the future land
use scenario. Year 2045 Traffic
Analysis Zone forecasts were
modified to reflect the
scenario, and a full model run
was made to estimate future
year traffic levels in the
corridor. Overall, the results
showed that the land use
pattern and vision, coupled
with multimodal investments,
can result in a significant
modal shift along the corridor.
So the map here depicts the
resulting shift in the estimate
at the traffic analysis zone
level between the adopted 2045
and the future scenario. As you
can see in future scenario
where there are multimodal
investments coupled
with the
land use changes, there is a
shift of jobs to areas like the
places that mentioned West Bay
drive, CRD, the tri city
activity area, and the Bay
Vista Office Park. Similarly,
there is a
shift of dwelling
units near those same activity
centers along the corridor,
effectively creating a corridor
that aligns people with
transportation infrastructure
to get them where they need to
go. And so while the shift does
not change the total
number of
trips in the corridor, it does
change the distribution of
trips and shortens the overall
trip lengths by 20% and lowers
vehicle miles traveled by
approximately 30%. This
basically means more users
utilizing alternative modes of
transportation. Besides
a
motorized vehicle, the modeling
aligns with community feedback
we heard to focus on
improvements at key
intersections near activity
center areas. And so for
anybody who wants to read more
in depth about the corridor
mobility evaluation, appendix D
in the
phase two report details
this out more. If you're into
the nitty gritty details. And
so with that, I'll hand it back
over to Nousheen to cover phase
three.
Nousheen Rahman: Thanks, Amanda. So with the
context of the existing
conditions along the corridor,
and then essentially the
scenario testing that we did,
we worked closely with the
consultant as well as the city
of Largo to identify the
priority recommendations along
this corridor. And so today,
I'll give you
kind of an
overview of those
recommendations and some
examples. But what I want to
provide context on first is the
varying right of way widths
along the corridor, which
essentially inform how much
room we have to make certain
improvements. And you can see
we have a more narrow right of
way more on the
western end.
And it widens as we get to the
eastern end. So this is just
context for how we looked at
this corridor based on its
segments and the feasibility.
And while our recommendations
are really on a project by
project basis, identifying very
specific improvements that can
be made, it's also
important
for us to have a long term
vision for the corridor. This
typical section in front of you
shows the potential for
improvements from US 19 to
Lightwave Drive, which is the
last eastern portion, and you
can see currently at the top
there ar
e no separated bike
lanes, but then the potential
shows the ability to
incorporate that. And this is
actually something that is
under design by fDOT. This
typical section is not the
design plan itself, but the
resurfacing that is under
design currently will
incorporate the
separated bike
lanes, and the lane widths here
also reflect the lane widths
that are being implemented
through the remaining
resurfacing that are underway
from Highland to Belcher and
then Belcher to US. 19 so
there's an opportunity for this
corridor to have a continuous
bike lanes and
the opportunity
to connect into the Pinellas
Trail, which is on the western
side of the corridor. But that
is the long term vision. And
what we're really focused on
with our corridor studies are
trying to do with our corridor
studies, is have projects that
come out of them, because
ulti
mately projects need to be
incorporated in our priority
list in the transportation
improvement program that you
approve last month. So with the
consultant with the city of
Largo, we identified pretty
much every single improvement
that needed to be made. I think
there was a list of maybe 800
different improvements, and a
lot of those were Ada
noncompliance, like curb ramps,
tactile warning pavers. So we
got down to that level of
identifying every single
sidewalk, every single
intersection. But then how do
you prioritize that? How do you
identify which projects we need
to move forward now?
So with
the help of our consultant,
they developed this scoring
criteria. And then all of the
projects were scored and then
put into the buckets of the
recommended strategies in front
of you. And in working with the
city of Largo based on their
priorities, their community
feedback. We also
identified
the kind of key intersections
where improvements could be
seen or should be seen, and
those are listed in front of
you as well, which are also
supported by the data. But I
will start to go over some of
the recommended strategies, and
I'll start with the enhanced
transit facilities that were
recommended. As I mentioned, we
have been working with Psta to
identify a methodology and a
way to prioritize locations for
bus based countywide. So while
this corridor study was
underway, we thought it would
be great to have some
recommendations that utilize
that methodology. And we kind
of scored these locations based
on some initial criteria, the
first being crash exposure at a
bus stop, the number of routes
serviced by a stop. So the
number of times a bus or a
different route might actually
be stopping at a stop, as well
as the land
use context.
Because of course, transit
riders are going somewhere
after the bus stop. And then we,
based on all of the bus stops
in the corridors, scored them
based on these criteria. And
the picture at the top of the
slide shows you the highest
scored location for East Bay
drive specifically, which is
the
stop at second Street. This
is right across from Largo
Central Park, and I had to put
a box around this bus stop
because when I looked at this
picture, I couldn't tell where
the bus stop was. So that is to
help you identify. And you can
see that aside from a sign,
there are no other facilities.
And what we will do with PSTA
is to kind of narrow down some
of the locations, not just on
this corridor, but countywide,
because this is just an initial
screening criteria. We have to
determine right of way
feasibility. We have to
determine if, you know, the
curb needs to be moved. All of
those other design
recommendations or
considerations that go into
this, and we will be working
with PSTA staff to give an
update to their board, as well
as you all as we advance this.
But this report does include
some recommendations for bus
bays. Moving on
to pedestrian
improvements. The study also
identified mid-block crossing
recommendations. This was
something that the Largo City
Commission also provided
feedback on and wanting to see,
especially due to some of the
very long distances for
pedestrian crossings. So, for
example, on the eastern end of
the corridor from 62nd Street
to 58th Street, you have to
walk half a mile until you
cross. In this weather, I would
not recommend it. So what we
have done is identified those
top locations and above. Here
is an
example of how a
mid-block crossing could
potentially be incorporated,
especially where there's
already a median, because you
are crossing three lanes of
traffic on each side. And these
are the top locations, and then
a little bit more of an
extensive recommendation, which
would be less in the short term
an
d probably more in the
mid-term, is considering
improvements to intersections.
The picture here on the top of
the slide shows you the
existing intersection at
Belcher Road. You can see that
it's a very wide intersection.
The pedestrian crossings are
quite long
and there are often
lots of turning movement
conflicts. And some of these
improvements could potentially
improve both the pedestrian
safety as well as the
operations along or within an
intersection. And these
locations that are
scored here
scored the highest in the
report. And the one that I want
to point out to you is the
number one location at Bay
Vista Drive, where while this
corridor study was underway, we
actually tried to start
implementing the recommendation
based on a request we received
from
TD from Bay Vista Office
Park to incorporate a signal at
this intersection. Given the
very high speeds along this
segment of Roosevelt Boulevard,
and the fact that right now,
the age of work from home and
hybrid environments have been
changing, TD S
ynnex pretty much
is completely back to office,
which means that all those cars
are now going back into that
office park. So currently in
intersection control evaluation
is underway by fDOT, and we're
awaiting the results of that in
the next couple of weeks. So
as
far as the implementation of
this project or of this study,
as I mentioned, our goal is to
identify projects and then
ultimately move them into our
project priority list and then
coordinate with partners as
needed. For example, in
implementing a signal at Bay
Vista
Drive. And as I mentioned,
today's presentation to you was
just informational. I'm here to
take your questions and
comments, but we will be taking
this to the Largo City
Commission at their next work
session. Our Technical
Coordinating Committee has also
received this prese
ntation. I
gave it to them last week, and
they will be providing a
recommendation to you all. And
this will ultimately come back
to you in September for
approval, if that's how you
wish to move forward. And
immediate next steps include
continuing to coordinate with
fDOT and Bay Vis
ta Office Park,
as well as coordinating with
PSTA on those shorter term
transit improvements. But with
that, I'm happy to take any
questions. And Amanda is here
as well. Thank you for your
attention.
Brian Scott: Thank
you very much.
Questions.
Comments.
Thoughts.
Chris Johnson: I just wanted to say thank
you for the team. We greatly
appreciate the partnership with
you all and also the fDOT. The
bike lanes are already making a
huge difference. So just thank
you for that and
we're excited
to partner with you throughout
this process. So just thanks to
everyone involved.
Brian Scott: Thank you
Chris. Anybody
else?
Chris Scherer: I like all the bus bay ideas.
Nousheen Rahman: That's great. I thought you
might. Yeah.
Whit Blanton: We did those just for you.
Brian Scott: Particularly right there
on
that stretch there. Yeah I know.
I that's my daily my daily
route so I get it.
Tom Reid: And as for your inability to
see the sign, we have
authorized new larger hire
print signs. So I bet your
point is well taken.
Thank you.
Whit Blanton: Board members, I just wan
t
to add one little thing. I
think Amanda did a really nice
job highlighting, you know,
what we're really trying to
accomplish here in Pinellas
County as we redevelop. And
that is, you know, the magic
bullet here is shorter trip
links. And if we can get more
mixed use housing, housing
closer to where jobs are,
ensure that we retain those
jobs here in Pinellas County,
near where people live, then
we're in a lot better shape
than a lot of other counties
because they're having to drive
longer distances to get to
those destinations. Look at
Pasco County, for instance,
which didn't really
plan for a
lot of commercial activity. And
their residents are all forced
to get on like one major road
where we have more of a network
of streets. And so this plan
really does show that with
redevelopment, with smart
transportation investments,
that we can reduce trip links,
we can, you know, not
everybody's going to want to
get on a bike or walk, you know,
as, as Nousheen mentioned in
this heat. But if a small
number of those people start
doing that, that's fewer trips
on the road, but it's really
the shorter trip lengths
because that's the death knell
of transportation is forcing
people to get in, you know, a
15, 25, 30 minute drive every
time to go anywhere. You don't
have to do that in this
corridor. This corridor is ripe
for that. So I think this
demonstrates that even in
a
very developed roadway
environment, you know, high
speed arterial, we're not going
to take away any lanes or
anything like that. They're
still measurable opportunity
for improvement. I think that's
the big takeaway I have for
this.
Brian Scott: Yeah. Great
points, great
points. Okay. Thank you very
much. All right. Now move on to
item 6 D 22nd Avenue North
trail crossing study. And I've
been looking forward to this
one because I am extremely
familiar with this particular
trail crossing.
Whit Blanton: So
you're saying you've had
some near-misses?
Brian Scott: Yes, I have had a few along
that stretch of road. Yes,
indeed I have. So how are you
doing.
Kyle Simpson: Kyle Simpson for Pinellas
staff. And as noted here to
talk about the study that we
did in
partnership with the
City of Saint Petersburg and
Pinellas County, on the trail
crossing of 22nd Avenue North
in Saint Petersburg. So the
crossing. Just for a little
context looking bird's eye view,
you have alt 19 kind of in
Tyro
ne Boulevard in the upper
right corner and then Tyrone
Mall. An important thing to
note about Tyrone Mall is
that's a huge transfer point
for PSTA. They have nine routes
that stop there and the stop
itself is on 22nd. And so all
nine of those routes
cross the
trail to make a loop in the
neighborhood to head back east.
So there's a lot of bus traffic
across this crossing. So the
cleaner look again from the top
down. And then as a driver view,
this is kind of what it looks
li
ke today. It's four lanes.
There's kind of sort of a
median. We wouldn't really call
it a refuge, but there's a kind
of planters there to enable the
rectangular rapid flashing
beacon to be put in the middle.
And then again, there's the bus.
There's pretty good sightlines,
generally speaking, and it's
there is traffic, but it's not
that much traffic as we'll get
into. So it's an interesting
case study that really came to
the forefront after a fatal
crash that happened in late
2024, actually involving a psta
bus. And so we worked with the
city after that. And the county
to identify this location was
overrepresented for Pinellas
Trail crossings for crashes.
And so we wanted to take a
deeper dive into why.
So the
scope of this project included
looking at how the existing
configuration operates,
basically, how people driving
or on the trail interact with
each other, and what are the
volumes of vehicles and then
trail traffic. And then based
on that
data, what are some
improvements we could make to
make it work better for
everyone? So looking at vehicle
operations, the posted speed
limit out there is 35 and the
actual speeds are really close
to that, which doesn't happen a
lot. And that was actually
really good to see
vehicle
volumes. The darker bars are
the weekday and then weekend is
the lighter orange bars post.
Pre-COVID, we saw, especially
in weekdays, pretty defined AM
and PM peaks, but now it's kind
of
consistent throughout the
day with a more definitive peak
in the PM. And then weekend
traffic has always kind of been
consistent midday and started
later. And so this kind of is
similar to any other roadway we
would see around the county. We
look at
trail volume. So the
graph on the top is weekday in
15 minute increments. So we
actually see really consistent
use throughout the whole day.
And then the bottom one is one
Saturday. These counts were
taken November 12th through
15th in 2025. So that's a
Wednesday through Saturday. And
on the weekend we'd have well
over 100 trail users crossing
this intersection an hour. And
so that's a really high volume
for for crossing. So over those
four days, we counted just
under
3000 trail users crossing
here, and 88% of those were on
a bicycle of some sort, 8% were
on their feet, and then 4% were
on a scooter, in a wheelchair,
on a one board, on a skateboard,
kind of anything else that they
could
be moving on. So as I
said, there's rectangular rapid
flashing beacons, and those
require the user to press a
button to turn it on. Flashing
beacons. They don't change the
law. They just draw attention
to somebody there, but they
don't
change right of way.
State law says that a driver
shall stop for someone in a
crosswalk, so this just
enforces that someone is there.
But we were interested in kind
of how trail users interacted
with that. And we found over
those four days that basically
one out of every
three trail
users activated the beacon. And
that could be because they
arrived when there wasn't
traffic. And so they just went
when there was a gap, it could
be that they waited until
traffic cleared and then just
went when they
felt safe.
There's different. We didn't do
it. We didn't go out there and
say, why did you do this or not?
But just from the video footage
that we had, that's what we
found. And then another
interesting tidbit from that
review was that of the one
third that pressed
it, quote
unquote, it only activated 64%
of the time. So that could have
been someone's biking by. They
didn't like stop, kind of just
hit at it, but didn't actually
hit the button. So that was an
interesting thing that we can
take back with our design
recommendations and
considerations. We did find
that on the week days, the
number of people that activated
the RFP was higher. So it was
40% on weekdays and 31% on
weekends. That probably could
correlate with
the difference
in traffic volume. So on the
weekdays, there were around
12,000 vehicles a day passing
through there. And then on the
Saturday there was 9000. So
there's opportunity for more
gaps where someone would just
feel comfortable continuing on
because there's no motorist to
alert to their presence. So
then we looked at how do
drivers interact with trail
users. And so we found that
when a trail user was at the
crossing, 63% of the time,
there was a vehicle
kind of in
the mix 91% of the time when
that happened, the driver
yielded to the trail user, the
one on the bottom 95% of the
time that the trail user turned
on the flashing beacon, the
driver yielded in
accordance
with state law. That's really
good numbers. It's kind of what
we see with most flashing
beacon assemblies around the
county. They are effective when
used, but we do see they're a
little bit more when someone's
on a bike, getting them to
slow
down and turn it on. It's just
a harder ask. So then we looked
at near miss conflicts. So
these are what are things that
could cause concern and that we
want to look into further where
some things a close call but
doesn't show up in our crash
data because a crash didn't
happen, luckily. So how we
measure this is called post
encroachment time. So basically
if someone is going, oh, sorry,
wake you up. So if someone's
going in on the trail
and then
someone's driving on the street
and they pass within a second,
within two seconds or within
three seconds of each other, we
note that. And so there's
different ways to interpret
this. We saw that most
instances of this were when
someone on the
trail passed
within a second or two of
someone driving. So that means
kind of they yielded for the
the vehicle and then went
behind them. So it wasn't a
close call necessarily. They
both probably knew what was
going on, but it shows up in
our data.
The second most
common was when a driver kind
of opposite of that. So a trail
user is there and a driver cuts
behind the trail user really
close. So that's a little bit
more concerning. It could be
where someone on the trail
thought a motorist was stopp
ing
and they didn't, or they cut
close. That could be where we
get into the situation where
someone, a trail user, feels
like it was a close call and it
was uncomfortable. And then
with this type of crossing
where it's two lanes in each
direction, there's the
issue of
multiple threat. So that's
where the driver and the curb
lane stops. But then the driver
in the left lane does not stop.
Technically speaking, that's
illegal. If there's someone
stopped at a crosswalk, you
shall stop. But there's a
difference between what we
should do
and what actually
happens. And so that was a big
focus of us, especially knowing
that there's a lot of bus
traffic here. And this actually
was an issue that we noticed a
few times through the review of
the camera footage that some of
the, the most close
incidences
occurred when someone in one
lane stopped, but in the next
lane did not. So then looking
at the crash data from the last
five years of 2021 to 2025, we
maintain a system.
And then we
also looked at the state system
signal for. And we had the one
fatal crash in 2024 that
involved a user. So someone
walking activated the flashing
beacon vehicle, stopped for
them. They started crossing.
Someone on a scooter, noticed
that traffic had stopped and
kind of went to cross. When
they went to cross, a bus
started continuing after the
first pedestrian had crossed
and there was a collisi
on which
resulted in a fatality. That
instance, we found that 8% of
the 3000 crossings that we. We
monitored, 8% of those
crossings happened where
basically someone entered the
crosswalk after someone else
had turned the flashing beacon
on. So the beacon is timed to
if someone hits the button,
it's at a walking speed and so
it will flash, say for 20s and
then turn off if someone else
doesn't hit the button. So that
was a concern that we noticed
and has shown up in our crash
data. Other than that, there
weren't too many glaring issues
for us. There were. It was
pretty consistent with a trail
user type. So most of the
crashes involved bicyclists,
but most of the trail use is
bicyclists
. And then the one
scooter crash was the fatality.
Most of these were in daylight
hours with clear weather, kind
of also consistent with when
the trail is used. And just to
note, when we look through the
written n
arrative, ten of the
crashes occurred when it was
noted that the RFB was
activated, noting that would
require either a witness or the
driver or trail user saying, so
again, that doesn't change the
law necessarily, but it is an
interesting fact. Three drivers
directly said that a bus
blocked their line of sight of
a trail user that was involved
in the collision, and then
three of the crashes involved
that kind of multiple threat
issue, where you might have
someone going northbound on the
trail and someone
coming
southbound and they stopped for
one person and then didn't see
the other person coming. And
then also two reports noted sun
glare. That's a difficult one
with roads that go due east
west, but something that we can
take into consideration with
design recommendations. So
based on all that, went back
and developed some some
potential alternatives,
starting from kind of the least
intensive to the most intensive.
So the first option would be.
The clicker. It's so good that
we're we can't move forward.
Brian Scott: Got a clicker. Thank you.
There we go. There we go.
Kyle Simpson: So the fir
st one is just
updating the signage with
current standards out there.
Can you advance the next. Thank
you. Going forward would be
formalizing the medians. So
right now they're kind of just
landscaped medians but not a
refuge island. This would make
it a refuge island and raise
the the crossing. So this would
be consistent with fDOT has a
standard now for raised
pedestrian crossings on state
roadways. Currently it's not
allowed in Saint Petersburg per
their
comprehensive plan. But
it's our understanding that the
city intends to work through a
comprehensive plan update
sometime in the near future to
allow this in the future on
their collector and arterial
roadways, and so this could be
a good option
to address some
of the issues that we saw.
Another alternative we looked
at was adding kind of chicanes,
medians on the trail itself. If
we go to the next and then also
doing
a, we call this like a Z
crossing or a 45. So
positioning trail users where
as they cross the intersection
A, they have to slow down if
they're on some sort of wheeled
device, and it positions them
to look at the direction of
traffic that they're crossing.
And so it would have a kind of
dual purpose effect if we go to
the next. And then the most
aggressive is doing a lane
pinch through the crossing. So
this would be just for the
crossing
location, going down
from two lanes in each
direction to one lane. This one
would require additional
analysis and study based on
current Florida statutory
requirements. So this was
thrown as an option, but it was
currently not being considered.
We
continue to the next. There
we go. And then so this is the
same lane pinch but with the 45.
Next slide please. And then the
preferred alternative that was
come through. So we shopped
all
these around to our Bicycle
pedestrian advisory committee,
as well as the city's bike-ped
advisory Committee and their
Complete Streets Committee. And
so this would add a raised
crossing as well as the 45
degree alignment for the trail.
So this has the
benefit of
slowing down basically all
users. We see that when when
everyone is going at a slower
speed, when things happen,
everyone has more time to react
to that and ability to, you
know, prohibit
basically
conflict from happening. So
this was a good option that
everyone felt kind of addressed.
All the concerns that we saw
out there. If we continue to
the next. So at this point, we
pass this along this t
o the
county and the city. They were
involved throughout the whole
process. It will be it's a city
road. So they're in lead for
what happens in the future.
They do have fDOT and a good
partnership has identified
fu
nding in fiscal year 28 that
could be available to implement
these these improvements. And
we will be provide all the
assistance as required or as
requested from the city and
fDOT as we move forward with
this.
And if changes are made
in the future, we have
committed to go back and and
look at what impact they had.
And if it's something that that
could be implemented at similar
trail crossings throughout the
county, and
I'd be happy to
answer any questions.
Brian Scott: Questions or comments. No, I
got oh, Mike, go for it. Yes.
Mike Eisner: I'll answer to anything.
Don't worry. So I'm going to
ologize to start this off,
ap
because this whole situation of
what I've just listened to has
been a pet peeve of mine. I've
been sitting on the School
Transportation Safety Council,
and for years I've been
speaking about why can't we
have a motion sensor at every
one of these
intersections? It
is just beyond me. I, as Whit
knows, I have a bike. I travel
the trail all the time. Tarpon
Avenue, they don't even
consider going near that thing.
They buzz across a 30 miles an
hour, and then they dodge the
vehicles tha
t are going up and
down on Tarpon Avenue. We've
all seen it. That's what
happens in all these things.
You're going to have the the
the weakened biker is the one
that will sit there, push the
button, hope for the best and
whatnot. But the skin tight
people flying
across 30 miles
an hour, they're not stopping.
And you can't expect the you
cannot expect the cars to be
able to see everything that
goes on. I know when you go
down in my neck of the woods in
mirror
s, there's a huge area of
grass that you cannot see going
south. When you're traveling
east, you just cannot see. So
there is a stop sign there.
Some people stop, some people
almost
run into the people, you
know, the people that are
coming down the trail. We have
to have to not count on
people's consideration. We have
to think beyond the the, the
ability, their abilities. And
there has to be a motion senso
r
there to be able to warn the
driver that somebody is coming
and flashing. This will stop.
Also, that next person that
comes behind, the person that
you know, you have that timer,
the timer will be reset again
by the. We have the
technology,
we just don't use it. When I
delved into it, from what I
understand, the fDOT didn't
have anything on their list
that warranted a motion sensors.
They didn't have anything on
the list for a school light,
which is not what we're talking
about. But we have to, you know,
wake up and understand if we
want to save, you know,
pedestrians and we want to save
people, we have to make sure
that we put electronics into
this. I, I'm seeing what you
what you pre
sented and I
appreciate it all. But but
that's not going to solve the
problem.
Kyle Simpson: Yeah. So you bring up a good
point. And that is something
that we looked into and we went
around to. So basically today
there are sensors that kind of.
And there actually is one on
the trail at an intersection in
Clearwater when they're higher
volume crossings. Good. Then.
Yeah, the current, the
challenge is if it's just
always flashing, it reduces its
effectiveness. And so we were
trying to see if there is a
kind of off the shelf item that
we could
recommend, where it
uses camera technology to kind
of see when someone's in the
crosswalk versus not. So right
now, if it activates, it
activates for a walking speed.
So whereas 90% of the people
crossing are on bike, every
time it turns on, it's going
for as if someone's walking
across. So we wanted to see,
could we implement a passive
detection.
>> Reading.
>> Your own accident?
>> Have a yeah, where you don't
have to press the button.
But
then it's also not activating a
bunch of stale activation where,
you know, the lights are
flashing, but no one's in the
crosswalk. Unfortunately, we
weren't able to identify that
at this point, but it's
something that I know fDOT is
interested in and some of the
districts are working on. It's
something
that we noted in the
report that passive detection
is a good option, especially
combined with noting the user
type and trying to address kind
of those, those concerns that
you identified.
Mike Eisner: Let me let me just go into
this one more. Yes, there's
always
extenuating
circumstances. And there is a
spot in Dunedin. I know that
the light could be going on all
day. And in those particular
areas we need to have a red
light, not a flashing light.
And it's to stop the the
bicyclists. It's to
stop the
pedestrians from walking across.
Just have a red light. I know
I've spoken a number of times
about Klosterman in 19. I just
saw some posts that people
don't even want to have that do
not turn on red. They're. They
just don't want it
and they
don't obey it. I was almost hit
there because the person's
looking to the left and
straight sees nobody coming.
The intersection there is at a
acute angle, and there. If you
don't put a
arm down to stop
the people, they're going to
make that right on red. And I
luckily was able to give it all
the gas I had on my e-bike, or
I would have been hit. So
they're always going to be the
one or 2 or 3 areas where we
have to think
outside the box.
But for the most part, a motion
sensor at each one of these
intersections. Golden. That's
all I have to say. It's my pet
peeve.
Brian Scott: Thank you. Mike. Any other
thoughts?
So I got a couple
thoughts. So I agree with the
preferred alternative. To me,
that's the one that makes the
most sense to me. Putting
medians on the trail don't do
that. That's going to get
people hurt. They're going to
run into them. They're not
going to pay attention to them.
I was thinking along
the same
lines as you were Mike. If
there'd be a great way if we
could just automate the RF, you
know, the beacons, I think
there may be a false sense of
security in that, though, is
that people think, well, it
just it's off. I can just clear
through and I worry about that
a little bit too.
If the
technology certainly exists to
to do that. I mean, I've got on,
on, you know, any serious
cyclist these days, you've got
a Garmin up front and you've
got a flashing red light on the
back. That's actually a radar.
And it tells you when a car is
approachin
g before you can ever
hear it. So you're aware of, of
something that's coming up on
you that's going to overtake
you, you know, long before you
can ever hear it. So that type
of technology is certainly out
there. I just the only concern
I have is that people get a
fa
lse sense of security with
the lights on. I can just keep
I can just.
Kyle Simpson: Yeah, that was another
concern with it being not a
regulatory device. Right? Yeah.
Brian Scott: Right. But but I like the,
the preferred alternative here.
I think that's the best option.
So anything else.
No. All right.
Thanks, Kyle.
Kyle Simpson: Thank you.
Brian Scott: All right. So my
understanding is on the Special
Act review subcommittee you all
wanted to meet one more time.
So we're going to we're going
to hold on that one until next
meeting. And then we'll move on
to data center overview.
Whit Blanton: As Linda is coming up, I do
want to say that the
subcommittee made a lot of good
progress today. So I think
we'll be ready. And we've just
got a couple of more things to
work out. So stay tuned on that.
Linda Fisher: Thank you.
I need to say at the
beginning that giving credit
where it's due that this data
centers project was mainly the
product of Emma Wennick. I
helped out and I'm helping out
today with the presentation.
Thank you Tina.
So we have been
asked to look at this very
important emerging issue. We've
drafted a white paper which is
in your packets. We looked at
trends for data center
development and the planning
implications that our
communities need to be aware of.
Our goal is not
to advocate for
or against data centers, but
just to provide information.
Could someone advance the slide
for me, please?
Tina Jablon: You can do it from that
touch screen.
Linds Fisher: Okay. Right there. That one.
Thank you. So why are data
centers suddenly such an urgent
issue? Well, the industry is
being driven by an explosion of
demand for artificial
intelligence or AI, as well as
cloud computing and other
industry trends. The amount of
data center capacity in North
America has increased by more
than 12 fold since 2020, and
demand is still outpacing
supply, so these facilities are
needed to support the digital
economy, but they're also
causing growing public concern.
Some of these facilities take
up enormous amounts of land.
They can consume very large
amounts of electricity and
water, which can drive up costs
for those
utilities or even
create scarcity in local
communities. And they some of
them can also create pollution
or intrusive levels of noise
and other impacts on the on
their surrounding communities.
And for all of
those impacts,
data centers actually generate
relatively few jobs. They are
mostly automated. So all of
these issues have put them on
the forefront of our land use
planning concerns.
Still not
working. Thank you. I need you
to click two more times. Thank
you. So one of the most
important findings from our
research
is that not all data
centers are alike. Much of the
public discussion centers on
the very large, what are called
hyperscale facilities. And
those are extremely large
campuses that can occupy
hundreds of acres and consume
utilities at a rate that can
rival cities. But there are
smaller types of cities
referred to as edge or
enterprise centers that operate
very differently, and they can
often coexist in developed
areas. The ones shown on the
left is one
of a handful of
data centers. It's actually
located in downtown Tampa. And
then there are some medium
sized facilities that can fit
into office or industrial parks.
A particularly if there's some
distance from residential areas.
So it's important to understand
the differences in impacts
between the different sizes and
types of facilities and to
tailor our regulations for them.
And we talk about that. Those
issues in the white paper. Next
slide please.
Thank you. As far
as we're able to determine, we
don't have any data centers in
Pinellas County currently, but
it's been fairly well
publicized that Pinellas Park
has received an application to
build one. It's for a small
er
edge facility on just three
acres of land. But even so,
it's projected electricity use
would be four megawatts, which
is the equivalent of about 2500
houses. And there are just a
lot of unknowns about its
potential impacts.
So the city
has come to the conclusion that
they need more time to draft
regulations to address those
concerns. They are pausing the
application and exploring the
possibility for a formal
moratorium. And that is a
decision that is e
choing around
the state. There is a growing
list of jurisdictions, mostly
counties, that have enacted
either limited moratoriums or
outright bans, and that is to
give them more time to evaluate
the impacts of these data
centers and to develop the
regulations that adequately
protect their communities. Next
slide, please. Thank you. So
our staff is supportive of
the
city's determination after
studying this issue. Our
determination is that data
centers don't clearly fit in
with the county wide rules. We
haven't been able to identify a
land use definition or a
category that can accommodate
them.
The closest thing we have
in terms of addressing the
potential impacts that they
have would be heavy
manufacturing. But these aren't
manufacturing uses, and their
impacts aren't quite the same.
So we have talked with our
planners advisory committee
,
and we determined that no other
community as of now has, has
heard of any serious proposals
to build these. And everyone is
really just at the very
beginning of thinking about how
to address these, these issues
as they arise.
So after a
discussion at last week's
meeting, pack voted to
establish a subcommittee to
begin working through the
potential policy and regulatory
implications. And one more time.
Next slide please. The
se are
not just technical planning
issues for staff to solve. This
is also a matter of policy. So
we are requesting your
direction for how you would
like us to approach the issue
as countywide staff. Should we
work toward a single
countywide
policy approach? That could
include a formal determination
that we don't have a land use
category that can accommodate
data centers? That would be
something that the local
governments would need to be
consistent with as well. We
could
also potentially explore
whether something like a
countywide moratorium would be
possible or desirable. And
should we begin working to
develop amendments to the
countywide rules again, every
community would need to be
consistent. We
would work with
the pack subcommittee. That's
not something that would happen
overnight, because there's a
lot more research that would
need to be done, so it would
likely be sometime early next
year at the earliest, but those
things would be our recommended
approach. As staff. There is
strength in numbers. If we are
all on the same page across our
local governments, then that
gives us stronger, a stronger
legal foundation for responding
to these applications in a way
that protects our communities.
So that is our report. I'm
happy to answer any questions,
otherwise I will request your
direction.
Brian Scott: Questions? Thoughts? All
right Mike. And then we'll go
to
Richie.
Mike Mannino: Thank you, chairman. I have a
couple. I would be a little
hesitant on a single county
wide ban and my kind of issue
unresolved stems from, you know,
Clearwater Gas Company serves
over 17 local
municipalities.
And two of the biggest
pushbacks we hear so often on
data centers are stresses that
are put on the grid, as well as
the use and or waste use of
water and consumption, which is
obviously
rightfully so, should
be concerns. But when you have
the ability to convert
something like to natural gas,
where there's plenty of it, and
a local company that supplies
all the municipalities as well,
as I think a lot of our
municipalities have
challenges
and how we get rid of
wastewater. Is there ever
discussions about natural gas,
as well as how we use recycled
wastewater versus. I'm just
wondering how that if that's
come into the discussion.
Linda Fisher: There are different impacts
based on how these facilities
are p
owered and what type of
cooling they use, which is
where the water consumption
comes from. So that would be
part of what we would study.
When I say county wide approach,
I don't mean to say that this
would be exactly prescriptive,
that every local government
would need to do it. This
need
to regulate these uses the same.
The coordinated county wide
approach would mainly be taking
a pause, crafting county wide
rules before local governments
start to approve these
proposals.
Mike Mannino: Thank you. Thank you, Chair
Brian Scott: Richie.
Richie Floyd: Thank you. And to that point,
yeah, I think I would be
supportive of a pause
moratorium. I don't know what
language we're using because I
don't have answers to things
like that.
And. To hear at
first I was like, oh, the one
in Pinellas Parks, you know,
not very large. And then to
hear that it was the amount of
electric usage is 2500 homes
was kind of stunning for me.
And I just don't feel like I
have enough info to be able to
make any sort of educated
decision on uses like that. But
beyond that. I just I don't
know if you could speak
more to
like what we anticipate seeing
over time or what other
communities have seen as far as
like demand for these things to
be built. Because we don't have
any here. And there's only been
one tan
gible proposal. So I
don't know if you could speak
to that.
Linda Fisher: We are working to reach out
to some of our local industries
that have a presence in the
data center field. We haven't
made a successful connection
thus far, but we are we are
trying to get a better se
nse of
that.
Richie Floyd: Okay. Yeah, that's yeah. I
mean, that's another reason for
me to have hesitations. I'll
leave it there for now.
Mr. Chairman.
Brian Scott: Thanks, Richie. Any other.
Sorry,
Chris.
We'll go to you and then
we'll go to Mike.
Chris Johnson: I think, you know, our
city would be for a coordinated
policy approach. We definitely
are starting to talk about this
now in our planning board.
So,
you know, having some some
coordinated efforts on this and
some and a pause while we
figure it out. You know, it
seems wise.
Ricky Butler: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Totally agree on the pause and
figuring out. But I will just
tell you all, you know, one
of
the most interesting things
about being an elected official
is kind of that balance between
this incredible staff that does
their work. And we have the
same staff at the city, but
then balancing that with the
public and their understanding
of things. And I can tell you
that I have never seen a more
unifying t
opic in the year of
our Lord 2026 than data centers.
And, you know, the way our
county is built and built out
in some senses, the way a lot
of our zoning works is, you
know, my concern is, you know,
it comes before us as
a
conditional conditional use.
There's no formal application,
but it comes before us that way.
And if we approve that, it
opens the door. And we have a
tremendous amount of zoning
that's adjacent to
neighborhoods. And I just I'm
usually the guy that's like,
hey, let's, let's be reasonable
and let's get to the facts.
This one, I'm like,
nope, nope,
not doing it. So it's not worth
it. So definitely study more.
There are places that are
definitely appropriate for them,
but at the rate at which the
legislature decides what we can
and can't zone whatever, and
the changes that can come from
that, it's it's not worth the
battle for me here in Pin
ellas
County. So definitely
supportive of, of a pause that
probably ultimately goes
towards go elsewhere.
>> Right.
Tom Shelly: I just wanted to say, we do
need a one year ban and we need
a policy in place before
we
accept these. Thank you.
Ricky Butler: Mr. Chair. One more thing.
Sorry. The other thing too,
because obviously there are
data centers in Pinellas County.
They're part of other uses,
hospitals and so on and so
forth. We all understand that.
But part of that discussion,
just put
ting it out there, is
when you have a data center
that supports, you know,
infrastructure, cloud computing,
those things that an AI data
center, so that I can make
really great AI images of
myself should not be held to
the same standard or
expectation. I think that
should be definitely a thought
process that, you know, hey, if
this is supporting critical
infrastructure for government
health care, what have you,
that's got to be different than,
you know, I know it's a hard
it's not something we can
decide, but just putting that
thought out there because
that's a, that's a difference
to me as well.
Brian Scott: Right.
Linda Fisher: And I should have clarified
when I said there were no data
centers in Pinellas County.
We're talking about the
standalone.
Ricky Butler: Right.
Understood, understood. Just
the public is like, we're
already here. The three
proponents of data centers that
showed up.
Brian Scott: Right.
Right.
Yeah. I agree with pretty
much everything that's been
said here. And, you know,
Pinellas County does not have
as as you mentioned, we don't
have a land use, you know,
category for data centers, but
because we don't have one, if
it's not listed, then it's then
it's excluded is the way it's
been told to us. So do we need
to update that? Maybe we do. I
think an approach that we're
going to consider looking at at
the county level is, is
more of
is resource based. If we're
going to get an application for
something that's going to use,
you know, pick a number, X
amount of water or X amount of,
you know, electricity, that it
has to be voted on by the board
of county comm
issioners. You
know, so there's a level of, of,
of accountability and process
that has to go through that. So
I think that's something that
we're going to look at at the
county.
Richie.
Richie Floyd: I want to add one more thing,
sort of just context for
the
conversation. My main concern,
or at least the thing that's
concerned me the most when
these have come up has been
impact on our energy grid. And
we're going to be reliant on
what other
counties do around
what the utility companies
approve, because our energy
grids are all interconnected.
So I hope that we can use our
relationships with our
colleagues in nearby
jurisdictions to have this
discussion as well. I've seen
like a hyper scale one I
believe was approved in Citrus
County not too long ago. And
that's going to impact, you
know, energy usage for us as
well. It's all the same grid.
It could impact our
energy
bills. And, you know, at
crucial times, whenever the
grid is under high demand,
that's there now. And so that's
one of been one of my biggest
concerns. So I think the
conversation needs to be broad,
needs to include, y
ou know,
jurisdictions nearby. And I
don't know if we have any
leverage, but like a
conversation with utility
companies, at the very least.
Linda Fisher: One positive is that we're
seeing a lot of counties and
some nearby that are
looking at
that are either passing or
considering moratoriums as well.
Richie Floyd: Thank you, thank you.
Brian Scott: Okay. Anything else? All
right. So now we will move on
to the director's report.
Whit Blanton: Well, the good news is
I
don't have much. I just wanted
to let you know that tomorrow I
should be getting a draft of
the preferred scenario for the
regional MPO in terms of the
structure of the staffing
outsourcing. Cost, full time
equivalency of sta
ff. And I
will pour into that review it,
and I will let you know what
that looks like. But the good
news is they're making a lot of
good progress. We have we're
going to have a lot of good
information, and I think that's
setting us up to have all that
information availab
le in August.
And then we'll distribute that
to you all, and we'll have it
ready for the next TMA
leadership Group meeting. So
that'll be early October.
Brian Scott: So okay, great.
Whit Blanton: That's all I've got.
Brian Scott: All right. Upcoming events.
We have informational items
which is in your packet. If
anybody has any questions about
that, you can.
Whit Blanton: I do want to note that
there's an MPO Advisory Council
training in Gainesville that's
in your packet. And if you're
interested in that, it's just a
one day. But I highly encourage
you all. If you
haven't done
the MPO training, it will make
this job a lot easier for you.
I promise.
Brian Scott: It will. I did it, it's
worth it.
Whit Blanton: And Gainesville is a fun
town to go to.
Brian Scott: All right. Anybody else have
any other business to bring
forward?
We're good.
Mike.
Mike Mannino: Just the last comment. Just
wanted to thank you for
stepping up and stepping in as
our substitute teacher today. I
think you did
I
think you did a phenomenal
job.
Brian Scott: I hope I did. Okay, so you
were stuck with me for the day.
Mike Mannino: So you did
a great job.
Brian Scott: All right. Good. All right.
Well, today was a longer
meeting. So I appreciate
everybody coming in and and
sticking it out here. So thank
you very much. And with that we
are adjourned.
Thank you.