>> good morning. We'll call this april 7th meeting of the county commissioners and order.
we'll go right to the roll call please. >> chair commissioner clay murphy.
>> present. >> vice chair commissioner and taylor. >> present.
>> commissioner kristin whitehurst. >> president . >> commissioner sarah arnold.
>> present. >> we will call for the
invocation... >> thank you let's pray. Heavenly father we thank you so much for this new day.
and new day filled with new promises and so give us the ears to hear you speak those promises to us, give us the eyes to be
able to see those promises at work. Give us the peat to step into those promises and the hands to
be active and participate in those promises. We thank you for the country we live in on the freedoms we
enjoy. We pray for the men and women serving around the world right now.
we pray for those in harm's way would you please bring them home to your family safely. We thank you for this incredible
county you've given us and it's truly a little slice of heaven
on earth. There's -- I pray you help us as
residents to restore this community well and pray for our chief stewards and commissioners here today to conduct business.
we pray for wisdom as we make decisions as they guide us forward into the next season of this incredible county.
we thank you for this -- word of god said it's your favors so we
thank you for your paper here today. We pray over the meeting. >> please remain standing as we
invite -- to come up and lead us in the pledge of allegiance.
good morning. >> 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. >> all right we have two
proclamations this morning. We will start with a proclamation recognizing assault awareness month.
>>> it morning everyone. We have quite a full house today. It's my honor on behalf of
the county commissioners recognizing april a
sexual assault awareness month. I see the team coming up already. Would you please read the
proclamation of the record? >> a proclamation by the board of county commissioners st. Johns county florida.
whereas sexual assault awareness month is observed to bring
attention to the importance of safety, respect and well-being
within our community, recognizing that experiences
involving unwanted or harmful behavior can have impacts
through st. Johns county and whereas incidents involving sexual assault including unwanted contact or harassment
affect individuals of all ages and backgrounds, and research
shows many people experience such behavior at some point in their lives underscoring the importance of prevention,
education and support. And whereas through leadership,
education and collaboration communities can reduce incidents
of sexual misconduct by promoting awareness, encouraging respectful behavior, supporting accountability and fostering
environments where individuals feel safe and valued. And whereas the betty griffin center supports the efforts of
national state and local partners as well as the
residents of st. Johns county to engage in meaningful dialog and outreach focused on prevention, education, access to supportive
services and community-wide cooperation to address and reduce sexual misconduct. Proclaimed by the board
of county commissioners of st. Johns county florida that april 2026 be designated as sexual assault awareness month
passed and adopted by the board of county commissioners of st. Johns county florida the seventh day of april 2026.
>> thank you so much for recognizing april as sexual assault awareness month. We have many activities planned
this month to raise awareness but I'd like to mention we will
be april 13th for take back the night and april 17th we will be joining lauren's walk as statewide walk to raise
awareness for sexual assault awareness month that will be coming through st. Johns county on april 17th.
we will start at 9:30. Please join us if you are able and the walk ends toward the end of the month and tallahassee.
just again to raise awareness. There's been a lot of talk in the media lately about victims of sexual violence especially
minors and how they have not received justice and that can be
impactful to survivors of the community here. We want you to know we're here for you to support you and
please reach out. Our helpline is 24/7.
(904)824-1555 and their website has information on how to
contact us on more information resources. That is bettye griffin center.org.
there are things you can do this month to take action and we ask you do these things. When we ask you start by
believing, believe survivors. Believing them is a step in the right direction and help support them.
please support betty griffin in our mission to support survivors and if you are able, we can always use volunteers.
thank you commissioners for supporting us during sexual assault awareness month. Thank you.
's. [applause]
[applause] >> thank you so much.
proclamation recognizing child abuse prevention month. Commissioner taylor. >> good morning, everyone.
it's my honor on behalf of the board to invite the team backed
up to recognize april as child abuse prevention month.
a special month to recognize this and it should never hurt to be a child. >> a proclamation by the board
of county commissioners st. Johns county florida. Whereas national child abuse prevention month will be
recognized throughout the united states during april 2026
and whereas child maltreatment occurs when people find themselves in stressful situations without community
resources on don't know how to cope. The majority of child abuse cases stem from situations and
conditions that are preventable in an engaged and supportive community. Whereas child abuse or neglect
not only directly harm children but also increase the likelihood
of future criminal behavior, substance abuse, health problems and risky behavior. Child abuse and neglect can be
reduced by making sure each family has the support they need to raise their children in a healthy environment.
and whereas effective child abuse prevention programs
succeed because of partnerships created among mental health
providers social service agencies, schools, communities,
civic organizations, law enforcement agencies on the business community. All citizens should become
involved in supporting families in raising their children in a safe, nurturing environment and therefore be it proclaimed by
the board of county commissioners at st. Johns county florida that april 2026 be designated as
child abuse prevention month calling all citizens, community
agencies, religious organizations, medical facilities and businesses to increase participation in our
efforts to prevent child abuse strengthening our communities.
passed and adopted by the board of county commissioners st. Johns county florida the seventh day of april 2026.
I will invite chana to come up but I want to recognize what an amazing team you have. God bless each and every one of
you for all that you do. >> good morning and thank you
for supporting the work we do here. I'd like to thank administration for your continued support.
the county has been doing this work over 24 years now. Could not do it without the team behind us.
I will turn it over to our partners with the department of children and families who we contract with and if you would
like to come say a few words on behalf of the department.
>> it morning and thank you for being here today. Each april communities across florida come together to
recognize child abuse prevention month. A time to raise awareness and reaffirm our shared commitment
to supporting children and strengthening families. This work does not happen in isolation.
it happens to strong partnerships with state and
local partners, face partners, community-based care partners, service providers, educators, law enforcement and local
leaders who are committed to helping families succeed.
together through partnership and shared responsibility we can help ensure every child grows up in a safe, stable and nurturing
environment. Thank you all for being part of this important effort. [applause]
>> we want to recognize -- gather nice and close.
we need at least three rows. Behind your friends and family.
come on in. Everyone right here please.
>> if you can't see me, I can't see you. If someone is in front of you shift to the right or left.
everybody ready? Thank you guys.
>> I like to make a motion to accept the proclamations. >> we have a motion. >> second.
>> all those in favor of accepting proclamation signify
by saying aye. >> aye.
>> that is unanimous. Commissioner arnold --
>> I have none. >> okay.
joseph. >> I'd like to pull number 2 please. >> consent agenda item number 2
will be pulled and placed in line as number 10.
>> thank you, chair. >> number 2.
>> okay commissioner whitehurst. >> I have none.
>> commissioner taylor. >> I have none. >> I have none. >> mr. Chair there's a -- an
item for item consent agenda number 13. There's additional information provided to support that item.
>> do we need to just be aware of this or do we need to pull
it? Do we need to amended?
>> you need to amended and it would come onto the regular
agenda. Material on consent agenda.
>> I will remove consent agenda item number 13 and make it a number 11. All right.
motion to -- do we need a motion for an approval of the consent agenda than? I guess we do.
as amended. Do I have a motion to approve
the -- approve the consent agenda as amended. >> approved. >> a second.
I'll agree saying -- we need public comment on agenda items.
>> at this time we will take public comment for these agenda
items. If you have a comment, please come up. Seeing none we will close that.
>> we have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. And oppose. That passes unanimously. We will move to additions or
deletions to the regular agenda. Commissioner arnold. We have none. Commissioner joseph.
>> I have none. >> commissioner whitehurst.
>> I have none. >> do we need a vote for
approval of the regular agenda? I need a motion for approval of
the regular agenda. >> I will make that. >> we have a motion. >> second.
>> we have a second. All those in favor of the regular agenda say aye. I deposed.
we have none so now we will move right to public comment. Before we get started with a public comment I want to remind
everybody we have a full house so as we start public comment we have three different positions up front.
please line up and let's let everybody be heard and everybody gets a turn so let's move up and make this orderly and efficient.
thank you. >> at this time the board will
hear general public comment on items not scheduled for action on today's agenda. Come to one of the three
podiums, state your name and address at each person will be provided 3 minutes to speak and we ask you speak directly into
the microphone. Speakers will comply with the rules of civility and a corpsman may not demand an immediate
response from the board. Members of the audience will refrain from disruptive demonstration or approval or
disapproval of any comments. Finally any speaker who would like to present materials, please utilize the center
podium. Paper materials may be placed on the x for overhead camera to display and the laptop will be
set up for you. After presenting please provide
materials to the staff of the court, the clerk.
>> good morning. >> and morning. Satchel martin 1:30 three coastal hall circle.
are county has a broken system that's not effectively planning
ahead for what will happen in our future. Become increased traffic residents cannot often leave
their driveways. They have to make doctor appointments early morning and fear they will not be able to call an ambulance and will die instead periods the
county is not able to control or benefit from all short-term
rentals, resulting in county residents suffering a lower quality of life. Our growth management department
is not able to meaningfully manage growth. Why? Where there's a will there should be away. Our code enforcement program
does not work. It's not responsive or available with tiny staff and little authority.
they don't work hours when violations occur most periods many of our short-term rental businesses do not register as
business. And do not provide tax income resulting from there profitability.
are residential streets now have a majority of short term rental
dwellings why did this happen? As a result of what these
renters because the counties faced with additional costs and no corresponding additional revenue.
extra introduction -- infrastructure needed, additional deputies for traffic control and violations.
as st. John's citizen story on march 30 reported trash for a
greater number of adult transitory occupants in the same
building means more trucks over time large piles, slower
collection,'s and special equipment.
let's go back to traditional planning practices which can save patent -- taxpayer dollars and bring peace to homeowners.
homeowners are your taxpayers. They are suffering from sleep
preventing noise, landscape of many cars parked on the lawn
across the street. Inability to get out of their driveways. Do errands or buy groceries when
they want to. I usa story on april 4th
reported emergency operations are not able to sufficiently provide short-term renters with emergency alerts for storms,
hazards and other safety concerns. Are residents ability to evacuate as being severely
affected. Where there's a well on the part of our governing body, there should be a way.
thank you. >> thank you very much periods next. Good morning.
>> good morning. 1:30 seven morgan avenue. Full-time resident. Good morning commissioners.
I stand here representing the residents of...
we're not just witnessing growth, were witnessing systemic
failure. And co. Oversight that's actively compromising our safety and our infrastructure and
quality of life periods are messages simple. Stop waiting for a catastrophe to happen and start planning for
the future you are currently approving. Are infrastructures at a breaking point.
were facing possible evacuation problem. How do you evacuate an additional 274 homes minimum 500
cars over a single bridge on a two-lane highway while emergency
vehicles are trying to head in the opposite direction. We need a commitment to a new bridge between pot of these --
to divert traffic before the next major storm.
public safety we've seen four pedestrian deaths on a one. How many more are acceptable? Leasee zero enforcement of
traffic violations, people parking and bike lanes, a complete lack of law enforcement presence when people are running
red lights. Utility and waste, our utility capacity a stretch to the limit. Yet we continue to -- approve
density. Were seen excessive shortage from short -- garbage from short-term rentals...
can become florida residents to avoid state taxes while paying
zero property tax and stretching our schools.
lack of oversight. The county seems to have no idea what's actually happening on build sites.
permitting violations developers are operating with free range.
where's the penalty for dlp cutting down protective
vegetations that legally required to be retained. Why are -- requirements not being enforced.
the rv loophole, we need clarity today. What's the legal distinction between park home and the rv and
our current parks. Are these units needed? Of zoning is handled at the county level why is the county
refusing to enforce the rules on these sites?
flooding new developments are being built on top of the flood zones, pushing water into existing neighborhoods.
were creating a man-made disaster.
storm and conclusion were tired of contacting with violations only to receive no action and demand a master plan for the a1
a stretch from alano to south -- if the master plan and growth
does not exist we demand moratorium on new approvals
until one is drafted that accounts for emergency services, police and ambulances. The county is under your
control. Do not wait for the worst to
happen. Plan our survival, make it happen, your jobs count on it. >> thank you.
good morning. >> in morning periods I live at
129 cased and drive. I'm here today to ask for accountability of our county and for your help and it --
improving the safety of the north beach. Our communities experiencing rapid change of the
infrastructure and enforcement have not kept up with the pace of development and visitation. We face excessive speeding on a
daily basis, vehicles regularly travel to fast and residential areas and on roads that lead to beach access points.
the streets are used by family, children, cyclists and
pedestrians yet drivers often treat them like a high-speed core door instead of neighborhood roads, creating an
unsafe environment for both residents and visitors. Another major issue is parking. Vehicles are parked in areas not
designated for parking, especially along already narrow roadways and over bike lanes. Would cars lined both sides of
the street, the roadways become dangerously tight. Creating a serious problem for emergency vehicles.
fire trucks, ambulances and other first responders not being able to pass through quickly or sometimes at all in an emergency
seconds matter. Of an ambulance or fire truck cannot get through because the roads have been narrowed by
illegal or unmanaged parking, knives are put at risk. We do not have enough police or first responders for the volume
of people here now not even taking into account weekends or
holidays. At the same time our community is dealing with increasing overdevelopment.
we're seeing projects move forward that have density and
traffic without the infrastructure improvements necessary to support them in particular the rv park currently
being built that is not following the approved date that
was originally agreed upon. There has not been clarification of what actually is being built and every day they keep moving
forward. There has not been any information given regarding an emergency evacuation plan for the park or for the residents who will need to leave at the
same time periods how will our roads accommodate this? When developments move forward without adhering to the
conditions approved it erodes the trust in places greater strain on an already stressed community.
increase traffic and limited parking compound the safety
concerns were already facing. The residents are simply asking
for accountability, enforcement of the rules in place and a thoughtful consideration of the safety impacts these decisions
create. Would you please commit today to bring the rv park back to the commission for review and
clarification and enforcement. We love our community and we wanted to remain a safe place for residents and visitors but
safety infrastructure and accountability must come first. We deserve it. As the saying goes, public
safety is the first duty of government. Right now our community does not feel protected.
please help us restore the trust and ensure the growth of our community never comes at the expense of residents or
visitors. Our community deserve safe roads, clear accountability and leadership that puts public
safety first. Thank you for your time and for hearing the concerns of our community's.
>> thank you. Good morning. >> my name is mary sullivan for 515 street and have an overhead
here. Doesn't need to be shown? Can we restart the time so you can see it?
thank you. This comes up on your website
and looking at the vision for our county and the priorities. I went ahead and looked at some of the things that have been
bothering all the residents of the community and it applies to
almost any community of this county, overgrowth and
stopping everything until we breathe and get our heads straight to figure out what's going on.
everyone here will be talking about or talked about some of the key factors that are listed here and some of our priorities
but I will focus on the safety. We've completed and spent a
fortune on all these beautiful new parks along a1. The safety factor. Overflow parking, no one is
monitoring it. If there was an emergency and rescue first responders needed to get into those, it could not
happen. The north beach park people parking on the right of way and on the street. You can barely get in and out of that car's to do it.
the new salem park I counted 35 cars the other day.
saturday morning before traffic even got busy. 35 cars parked on the right-of-way on the bike path
and I couldn't even ride my bike. Weekends I put my car -- I want to ride my bike, I can't even
ride my bike because all the parking people are parking anywhere they want. There's no -- no one finding
them or toeing them into there's money to be made on the county
is looking for resources for people to work and help us do it. I went down to the house,
overflow parking. Surfside overflow parking. People are parking everywhere. They feel -- I'm here, I will go
to the beach and find space to park.
but their safety involve. People cannot see crossing among all the cars. People can't -- they call 911
for rescue and it doesn't do any good having a 911 address there because rescue cannot even get into those places because of all
the parking that's there. All of these things listed here,
community trust, community well-being, economic prosperity, where some of the tax money? Why aren't some of the bed tax
monies coming into the area being used for extra resources?
you up 4000 people parking on the beach at porpoise point.
from 4000 people what about the quality of the water out there from people using the beach as the restroom.
what about overflow. You've one or two recycle bins. Why can't some of the bed tax money and the other money.
>> thank you very much. Thank you so much. >> thank you for your time. >> fake you.
good morning. >> my name is john, I reside at 3085 coastal highway periods is the seaside milano condominiums
adjacent to the rv parks, park homes.
project. I'm speaking as a resident --
condo... Thank you for allowing me to speak. I've been a homeowner here for
roughly nine years and have seen enormous growth in milano beach. In my immediate area. The development of the property
to north. I'm not against growth and development of land. Milano beach and the community
and beautiful place to live periods what I'm concerned with
is unsustainable overdevelopment of the area. I feel the resort approved by you folks wasn't -- was a
reasonable addition to the community. Not the unauthorized tiny home changes made.
a homeowner who lived there since 1983 with the previous resort and stated -- absolutely prefers it.
I surveyed my 26 resident unit from my community.
overwhelming majority prefer a traditional rv resort.
I've attended numerous meetings and reviewed options on an rv resort approved several years ago the best choice.
building horizontal homes is an eyesore and has airbnb written
all over it. The flooding in my development will be catastrophic. W already had floodwaters on
our property when the dirt was delivered and performed by the project next door. Our buildings shook terribly I'm
still due as of yesterday. Pump trucks constant up and down
the road. Is overdevelopment and the impact on environment disturbing the fragile wildlife.
I'm concerned about these homes -- a hurricane or major storm
will they detach from tie-downs' or block the evacuation route.
do they consider the evacuation plan? I constantly hear complaints on social media from neighbors and
the beach about short-term rentals. Please consider the concerns of the residents' seaside of milano
condominiums. We've been there since 1983 and have been caring stewards of the land and ask for your help in
preventing -- I appreciate your time. Thank you for the opportunity. >> thank you so much.
good morning. >> my name is patty I live at 2960 coastal highway in milano. While I've been waiting for my
turn I looked up and it says public comment.
address matters that may reasonably need the attention of
the board. Yes. Something that definitely needs the attention of the board.
that is the rv park project's being currently built by dlp
capital on coastal highway. This project was originally
approved several years ago as a natural environment campground.
since then, the developer has been proceeding without much accountability and advertising something other than a natural
environment campground. It seems the developers working
on a bait and switch. I asked the commissioners to
heighten scrutiny of this project. Make sure it complies with the original approved plan all
county codes and all safety and environmental safeguards periods
commissioners, we've a community depend on you to carefully watch
what's going on and if incorrect things are happening, we depend
on you to address it. On our behalf periods thank you so much. Good morning.
>> my name is john, of the store manager of the supermarket
there. I want to highlight some of our
growing traffic safety concerns in the community.
the beach towns tourism local growth continue to spike
congestion during peak hours, weekends and holidays pick some examples of the risk situations emergency vehicles having access
to be able to get into the parking lot to move around with
thecongestion we have. Tensions in the parking lot
arise with impatient customers, citizens, associates trying to get a cart and being yelled at. Phone calls to the businesses
asking us to do something about the traffic, asking us to move.
it's an ongoing issue that needs retention. I get complaints every single day from customers thinking that
it's -- asking what can we do about this. Last weekend we had an altercation of the parking lot.
the associates were out there, they had a fight, altercation
and cops were called. They could not even get to the plaza because of the congestion that -- that the part of the
bridge on walk and run over to the scene to address the situation. This concern needs immediate
attention. I invite you to come any given weekend to the peak hours during the season friday, saturday or
sunday. Wait in the parking lot and come get a public seven see how long it takes to leave the
parking lot. Thank you for your time. >> think you so much. Thank you.
good morning. >> good morning. I live at 144 kingston drive periods I'm here this morning to
say I really love the area and have enjoyed living here for eight years now. There's been a lot of change
during the eight years. I understand development is just
part of life in most places especially if you live somewhere as great as st. Johns county. I do feel like we need to
definitely be more thoughtful and considerate about the development happening and to really monitor each step of the
process to make sure as by favorite boss would always say,
inspect what you expect. If we set the expectation of a
certain pud per property, then that needs to be inspected at each step along the process to make sure what was approved is
what's happening. And specifically I'm going to
keep on with this. The rv park concerned, I drive
past it almost every single day and there's obviously somebody has a plan for what's going on there because there is something
happening every single day. I feel like the information is
not being distributed to the residents of st. Johns county. We don't have a clear picture of what is supposed to be happening
or the -- we think we know what supposed to be happening because
we look at documens as far as what's been approved. Wha we are seeing is not matching what we have been
presented as what's been approved. I'm asking that there's a little more due diligence in place to
make sure we all have a safe place to live, we all have a
safe plan for when not if when a hurricane evacuation needs to
happen. And to make sure all our residents and visitors have the same consideration for safety.
thank you. >> thank you very much.
>> my name is lisa, I live at 21,117th street.
I'd like to address regarding the model home project by the
dlp developers in -- located between the seaside of collado
townhomes and the hotel. Particularly regarding the government which is the counties accountability with this project
and the lack of transparency for this project.
it was to be a natural environment rv park. However it has been allowed to proceed outside the p.e.d.
periods we already have an rv park that is beautiful in its
natural environment just north and this is the type of project
we actually expected and it has never been an issue.
you wouldn't even know it was there periods since what we're
getting now is not what we expected, my question is why. Was there an environmental impact study conducted
particularly regarding flooding to the surrounding area periods the entire land development was clear cut from the intercoastal
to a-1 a and the land, the elevation was significantly
raised with -- is there a drainage plan?
this development will affect traffic and safety of pedestrians crossing the street periods where is this planned?
and what about evacuation? This is a barrier island and evacuation affects all of us. It's a one-way in and out a
single road. We as a community should have
answers and access to the plans and studies done regarding
drainage, traffic and why permitting was allowed outside of the scope of the p.e.d. Specifically of we as a
community do not know what their plans are, how can we adjust our plans regarding problems with flooding, evacuation.
we know raising the elevation will impact the surrounding residences because the water has to go somewhere.
therefore we just ask you as the board that transparency and
accountability for this project is essential to our community.
thank you very much. >> thank you.
good morning. >> good morning. My name is denise. I live at 615, 19th street.
on north beach and I've been out here 50 years.
I was a student here. Of course I have safety concerns
for number 1 my family. My fellow residents, the other
fellow residents and our visitors. So it's all --'s here's a reality where we live.
we have limited land, we only up two lanes on a one. One bridge. As everyone is sharing we have
trapped -- horrific traffic problems that increase year to year. Like the gentleman was saying
about publix, it literally can take you no exaggeration one hour to get out of publix parking on the weekends,
holidays and sometimes even a normal day. Just a busy day. My main concern today is the
massive and mysterious oceanfront rv project that dlp
project for the capital par partners.
myself, and my neighbors talk about this. Were highly suspicious as what was noted to be an rv park which
we assumed was going to happen. Now it appears the developer has
something very different in mind. 's it's obvious when looking at the property and visually noting
the massive foundations, this is a much bigger project.
my current understanding it may be horizontal hotel which is a new concept for myself but my understanding is potentially
will bring in even more people. And vehicles and put enormous
strain on an already very stressed a1a traffic.
our water system and utilities. High density projects like this
directly affect our safety particularly with regards to
hurricane, evacuation and general transportation,
emergency vehicles. We have drownings too. How are they going to get there? And families in need of
immediate medical and safety issues. I feel continued approval of high density developments on
vilano north beach is a reckless gamble with human lives. Our water sewer and road system as we know it already operating,
it's operating beyond its capacity. >> thank you very much. Thank you.
>> thank you. >> good morning. >> good morning. My name is laura winston.
I live at 1905 windjammer lane in north beach and I want to share with you my concerns about bike safety both as a bike rider
and a car driver. I hoped when we moved to north beach three years ago I'd ride my bike south into vilano
there's too much traffic moving much too quickly for me to feel
safe. I limit my bike riding to a short stretch from my home to the gym at the ocean club and
even going that short distance, I've had a couple of close calls with speeding drivers typically at the end of a kind of long
backed up chain toward the and feeling very stressed on not
being able to see clearly what lies ahead.
with the growth and vilano and north beach is population I ask you to consider lowering the speed limits on a1a as it runs
along residential neighborhoods in north beach peerk I also
worry about bikers when driving my car along a1a. With the recent warm weather and other people have talked about
this beach parking lots have been filled to capacity. The overflow cars are parking in the bike lane, pushing
bicyclists into the car lane. This is particularly unsafe for
bicyclists traveling in small groups where the warm weather has brought out steady and have -- heavy to a car traffic.
these are the ingredients for accidents.
I urge you to post signs prohibiting parking along a one
a and to enforce this policy. Thank you for your consideration ways to increase bike safety in north beach and vilano for bike
riders and car drivers and all of us.
>> think you very much. Thank you.
it morning. >> I live at 1905 lane and north beach vilano. During the advocation it was
stated st. Johns county is a slice of heaven and indeed if you've been to vilano you would know that is true.
I don't have any prepared notes because I'm really just here to provide my support in numbers of the people here that have
objections around what's going on at vilano beach. I moved in 2023 to a place that I thought was spectacular and
continues to be. In this.
of time in the microcosm where I live nearly half of our residencies are short term rentals.
with a short term rentals come many people, many children and
many cars. As you have heard from many of the people who can better back up with facts than what I have
to say that traffic and those people are creating a hazards
along the roads in vilano so I come to you with a question.
how will you fulfill your responsibility as a board in st. Johns county to protect the people that live on vilano
without adequate and enforceable rules and regulations around
short-term rentals and traffic. I leave you with that question
in that play because I think as you can see today by the many people and white, we have a problem on vilano and a problem
on that slice of heaven. Thank you. >> thank you very much. And morning commissioners my
name -- I'm president of north beach community alliance. I'm with good guys wearing white.
I'm here to ask you to please bring the project at 3450
coastal highway also known as former rv park also known as trailer park in vilano development.
we have enough evidence to substantiate -- on the agenda
not just public comment as we have done multiple times. Some of those facts include the fact that a line development
expert in the state of florida. Well within its legal right to
demand to know what the building plans are and that this project
go back to the board of county commissioners because the pud
issued to former owners is not what's being fulfilled by current developers. Also noted the limits and square
footage 2:30 5000 square feet. Attorney was for the county --
she is absolute correct. The existing pud does not allow additional square footage for park models and does not mention
models though the developer has. Which further underscores the
fact that this was not the project permitted.
additioally section of the florida administrative code
requires park models remaining in any one location more than 45
days be inspected. Andhe park model remaining in place for 180 days is classified as a structure.
therefore would be included in the 35,000 square-foot limit for
imperfect -- and he park model remaining in place for more than
180 days is fully subject to elevation standards, full building code inspection and the issue of occupants of
certificates. Where st. Johns county?
having unchecked development in an area already at a crisis level is completely unacceptable.
when we ask what's being built there, where's the county
holding accountability? The answer we've got multiple times in writing and in person is we don't have a clue and we
may not for two years. Bringing this back under your
authority we -- more evidence -- thank you so much.
>> and morning. I live at 143 16th street.
I've been told if you plan to fail -- if you fail to plan, you
fail to plan. Me writing the speech I guess.
I have a number of safety concerns and bullet points, reiterating the concerns you've already heard but if we use
example from february 19th of this year the traffic was so bad that it was impossible to move around within vilano and
north beach.% the strs are taking over our neighborhoods. We once had a unique home
neighborhood that was families were living in a now we have as
tr's that are cookie-cutter little boxes single car garages, not able to support today's families and with cars parked
everywhere. We're just one quick example personally we had one across the street from us not long ago.
seven men rented it. They went out for crew -- booze
cruise that afternoon one of the members was so drunk they brought him back home and put them to bed and went and went --
went back barhopping. A little while later this drunk entered our house and a neighbor's house across the
street. My granddaughter was there. I'm so glad I was not there because I probably would --
would be in very big trouble right now. That's a sidebar. It terrifies me to drive by the
bicycles on the bike lanes. They are struggling to get by. Not just from cars parked there. 's list and is coming off of the
hills beside it and they have nowhere to go. There's trash cans everywhere -- boat across the traffic lanes.
we have 14,000 cars across vilano bridge everyday.
year. We ought to be able to get some of the money shifted our way -- I'd like to see the speed
reduced on a1a. As two safety benefits very real
and immediate safety benefits. Pedestrian crossing and then it
would change the mapping algorithms for the maps of people going north or south when they have to come through vilano
at a lower speed limit they will be rerouted most likely because everybody takes the fastest usually.
onto u.s. 195 to get north and south.
the trailer park building in accordance with the pud is not possible. I don't know what they're going
to do at this point but it had to be a big variance allowed for
that one. >> thank you very much.
I'm sorry there's -- thank you so much.
>> no management. It's not safe. >> good morning. >> morning commissioners.
I live and vilano and I'm not going to reiterate a lot of what you heard. You know we have a problem.
it's very evident what the problem is and the concerns are to people there. A few more specifics to add to a
cliff had particularly the audience -- sitting through
lengthy general comments. 14,000 cars come over the bridge
a day. Probably 1500 cars come to hotels, restaurants, publics, bars -- a day on saturday and a
summer in vilano. That's four to 5000 cars. The reality is there's only one way in and out and you know
that, it's over the vilano bridge. Last year we increase the number of cars I can go over the bridge
from three to six to seven but think about it, it six to seven
cars every minute to 2 minutes. A bolt of lightning or clap of
thunder because every person in vilano decides at that moment they're going to go. And you cannot get over the
bridge. It does not include both lending that we added some parking to at the base of the vilano bridge.
there's some things we think we can do, we can restrict the
number of cars at the beach. A couple thousand is way too many because there's only one way in and out.
we need to increase our police presence. We don't see them like we did last year. Were not quite at the season. Started early the viewer a 19th
was a shock to all of us. 90 degrees undefeatable saturday in the spring. We can reduce our speed limits
in vilano north beach 15 miles an hour. We need to add some stop signs and have some traffic control at
the corner of vilano and coastal highway of the base of the
bridge and the other side because you know people are parking in the intersection of san marco so you cannot get -- I
know it's a lot and will cost money and I know st. Johns county doesn't have some unlimited amount of funding
but maybe we could increase the amount -- to the beach and
started to getting the offenders. The guy grilling the hot dogs it's nice but it's not allowed.
we could ticket the illegal cars parked on a1a up and down those
lanes and may be give vilano a percentage of the tax collected
last year because at this point vilano does not receive any of the bed tax. I know you probably are going to
say all of these things cannot be done but credit to you we
asked about the safety on a1a and said reducing speed limits
wouldn't make any difference but what you did do was put up crosswalks and it was a tremendous effort on the part of
st. Johns county and made a1a safer and I appreciate it so
thank you guys. >> thank you very much.
good morning. >> good morning my name is tabatha frost. At purpose point of the
vice president of vilano beach main street and as a homeowner and single mom the head of my household I'm invest over
$24,000 each year in property taxes and insurance alone. For my fully paid off home. Those costs continue to rise but
I chose to live here because I was investing in a safe community to raise my three kids.
recently that drastically changed. My neighbors and I regularly witnessed vehicle speeding
through a residential streets and running stop signs as they travel to and from the beach. We tried placing cones and signs
for their ignored, stolen or vandalized and my own
observation is 9 out of 10 cars ran a stop side outside of my
home... Even while a dozen children are playing outside. With 4000 cars going to and from
-- there's at least 4000 cars passing my home to it from the beach every single day. There more than a dozen children
in the neighborhood on my corner loaded play outside regularly. For volume of traffic and reckless driving made many of us
feel unsafe in our own community. At peak times especially when beachgoers are leaving, traffic
becomes completely gridlocked. I have a photo right here.
the traffic circle -- this is 4. Here's another one as well.
this is my street. You can't even get out to the public's. Also 45 minutes of waiting.
I've watched our mail carrier get stuck in the same gridlocked
traffic and is trying to finish off the day at 5:00 and can't
move. There are many times when I've tried to back out of my own driveway and there's cars lined
up bumper-to-bumper that they can't even move to get out of my way. Even a quick trip to publics can
be an hour. I can walk there in 4 minutes.
most concerning of all there been instances where a
first responders struggled to access homes during emergencies due to the congestion. It's not just an inconvenience,
it's very serious public issue. Safety issue. Were asking you to take these concerns seriously and work with
our community to find urgent effective solutions. We want our neighborhood and beaches to be safer for
residents and visitors. Thank you.
>> thank you very much. Morning. >> at morning. >> I live on 136 -- I'd like to
offer a solution to the gridlock in vilano.
I think one thing we can do is limit the overwhelming amount of
cars allowed to park on the beach. From march through september it's all the vehicles causing
traffic problems but it's also harmful to the beach itself as
we have heard many people say our beach is a slice of heaven.
when many vehicles are allowed on the sand, it turns what
should be a natural and peaceful shoreline into traffic --
packing the beach far beyond what pedestrian only access would allow. This increases noise,
congestion, litter and causes conflict between the visitors.
instead of a relaxing beach experience, we get gridlocked and overwhelmed sherlock. The damage to the environment is
undeniable. According to the florida fish and game conservation commission, it would be best
practices to never allow any vehicles on the beach.
I think driving on the beach was a fun and unique experience and
I think it should be allowed but beaches are not just recreational spaces. They are living ecosystems.
they disrupt doom systems and destroy the fragile vegetation
that helps prevent erosion. Oil drips, fuel residue, engine exhaust and trash left behind further contaminate the habitat.
over time this accelerates the shoreline erosion and weakens
the barriers that protect our community.
beach driving poses a serious threat to sea turtles.
florida beaches are nesting grounds for five endangered species. Vehicle traffic can crush nests
buried beneath the sand, tire ruts trap the hatchlings trying to reach the ocean. More cars means more people.
which raises the risk of nest disturbance.
who among us has not seen tire tracks and footprints in the areas that are clearly marked conservation zone.
vilano beach should be a sanctuary pick a sanctuary for families, for wildlife and a sanctuary for future
generations. I would ask you to please
consider limiting the amount of cars that can park on the beach.
thank you. >> thank you very much. Good morning. >> at morning. My name is -- I live at 1:30 six on vilano.
it's december 2020 -- since that time we've seen significant
growth in vilano's. The holiday inn express opens as
well as several tour boats began utilizing the dock near beaches
and for tourist trade such as a. Of several to -- in the future
more townhomes, houses on restaurants on an rv park will be opening in the immediate area.
I'm very pro-capitalism and improvements were community but the infrastructure of vilano main street and porpoise point
community has not changed since the grid was opened in 1995. We basically have two lane roads everywhere.
the traffic from north a1a to access the bridge, traffic from
vilano leaving the area from the beach or peer must merge with
traffic coming out... Out of the vilano landing where
you have many trucks with boat trailers coming out. This leads to a severe choke point at the intersection
we call the peanut on san marco in may street.
the gridlock I've seen results and visitors, residents and business employees not getting out of vilano in a timely manner
which should take perhaps 5 minutes can stretch up to an hour as we've already hurt. 's this leads to short tempers
and road rage witnessed by myself and my immediate family
members and raises serious safety concerns with regards to
people experiencing medical conditions and emergencies. In my opinion good governance would dictate that a traffic
gridlock problem should be resolved in a proactive manner
by making changes to ensure the safety of everyone either visiting or living in our area. We've heard a lot of excellent
suggestions I hope we can take those into account. Thank you again for the opportunity to speak.
>> thank you. Good morning. >> morning. My name is dennis I live at 1:30
seven man racer road and I have a personal story to reflect all
that's very relevant to what we're talking about today.
on to 13 26 those fortunate enough to call st. John's -- the
time of the call I wasn't sure% what was taking place but it turns out I was bleeding out of my esophagus in three places are
not to be overdramatic but I was bleeding to death. You know why I'm fortunate? Fortunate to be here today
unfortunate that call took place at 9:45 p.m. On friday.
if this incident would have taken place at 3:00 on a
saturday, or sunday I would have bled to death before I got the hospital. I'm very fortunate somebody is
not here telling my story and I have the ability to talk myself.
if you would've had the bleed at 9:45 and not 3:00 -- the time of
the incident should make no reflection on addressing somebody's medical care whether it's 3:00 or 9:45 everybody
deserves proper reasonable medical attention. Sometimes I think we -- if you don't evacuate we can service
you pick on a weekend between 12 and seven we live in an evacuation so that you can't service us.
god forbid there's an emergency, you can't service us.
were all here asking for reasonable cooperation addressing this issue. I'm glad to be here today.
I'm glad my spouse is not telling the story. I hope when we have the next meeting where not discussing
somebody's post telling the story. We have a problem -- an enormous problem and it needs to be
fixed. We appreciate your attention and let's take care of the issue so my stories never told again.
and if it is, it has a happy ending. >> thank you very much. >> in morning.
's I'm coming to give you an eyewitness account.
everybody heard what happened february 19th. Let's talk what happened on february 22nd.
beaches were packed, there was a clap of thunder and they emptied. I watched the rescue lifeguard
with a firefighter straight down towards beaches. It took them 50 minutes to get to the call and then another
25 minutes for the engine of the squad to show up because they could not get through the traffic. I don't know what the outcome was but dennis brought up a good
point it happened, I witnessed there was no way that engine
could get -- I'm thankful we are the lifeguard and firefigher because at the same time -- he got to respond but it still took
15 minutes to go 5000 feet? That's just a grave concern.
were not talking about is there going to be a fatality, it's
when we will have the fatality that could be prevented. I agree and I've been here for a good while that if we limit
parking on the beach when everyone -- it causes gridlock.
's I don't know what we can do but we have great minds and can put ourselves together but let's -- that's last for.
>> thank you very much. Good morning. >> in morning commissioners. My name is robert -- coastal
highway vilano beach. Thank you for being -- allowing me to speak this morning. My wife and I discovered vilano
about 15 years ago and moved here for our retirement.
we've enjoyed our time here and are pleased others have discovered vilano in the first few years it was very sleepy and
quiet and that's one of the things we liked about it but now it's been discovered and we accept that.
it's spiraling out of control it feels like. Were not -- we don't have the infrastructure in place.
we have regulations but they're not being enforced clearly.
we see some of the growth going on unchecked and our concerns
are going beyond the scope of the planet nobody's monitoring
we say how we survive here. Were getting old, were worried about if we have a medical condition like this gentleman,
will we be able to get the ambulance service we need if that day comes. We see safety issues on the
roads when bicycles are having to swerve out into the roadway because of cars that are part of nobody's enforcing the
regulations. Many have spoken about these issues but I'd ask you commissioners pleased to do
something about this and see what we can do to keep the quality of life we've enjoyed and vilano.
thank you. >> thank you very much. Good morning. >> in morning. Richard living stone 2741 -- vilano beach.
moved here six years ago to this idyllic community. Beautiful place, I'm never leaving, it's paradise.
these are my neighbors, you've heard their complaints about what's going on traffic wise. 's I may have made a mistake.
somewhere along the line I told two of my friends about how
beautiful my place was. And the community that I live
in. I think some of my neighbors may have done the same thing. Those two friends told two
friends and told two more friends to the point that eventually the word got out. Hyatt heard about it, developers
heard about it and the cats out of the bag.
it's not like it was. Fast-forward to the present from four to seven, it's not just weekends and holidays anymore.
it's every day in the summer months from march to september
or from four to seven you don't get in your car. You can't because it's not just 45 minutes, it's 90 even it's to
get out of vilano beach to get anywhere.
don't plan anything between four and 7:00. I know a lot of people complained about the traffic.
there has not been many suggestions about it. 's I think if we in a traffic light of some sort at the
turnaround that takes us to the bridge or some man to traffic
people involved here. This may be a financial burden for the county but I have a suggestion for that as well.
conservatively speaking are going to say 500 cars a day on
the beach at $20 a pop, that's $10,000 a day.
that's $300,000 a month. That's almost one point a million dollars in the summer that might be available to the
county to help defray some of the costs of having man people
and having a few more traffic lights to try to solve the problem. I know it's not unsolvable.
there's some brilliant minds on the council here who could probably figure a way around this and I thank you for your
time. >> thank you very much. Good morning. >> my name is russell phillips.
I live at 109 in china eight and my issue today's the
overwhelming traffic jams that are reached typically saturday,
sunday and holidays between 2:30 and six. The problem will be a beach emergency.
a fender bender or pedestrian head and there's no way the person can be addressed with the exception of out or helicopter
because of the congestion of the road at that time.
I do believe it's a community beach open for all and just like the night of lights, it's a worldwide event.
vilano beaches popularity should be handled in a similar way.
form a committee consisting of key representatives to come together and formulate a plan to create a plan and implement
solutions. Use drones in the initial
figuring out of where the traffic snags from the north beach to porpoise point up to the peanut and u.s. One to
identify some of the congested areas. Make a beach parking app similar to the night of lights.
identifying full lots or open parking lots, all over from --
all the way down to anastasia island.
and assign a traffic guard at those key times very similar to
every school in st. Johns county where they have one or two officers facilitating traffic. To make it efficient.
I think that should always be done on the weekends on saturday
and sunday between three and six. That should just be a given. I do believe the safety issues
are serious, but solvable. We just ask that you as the
commissioners realize this is a tragedy and waiting and make it a priority. Thank you.
>> thank you. Thank you very much. Good morning. >> in morning everybody.
I'm reminded of a saying about well-known football coach from new england who would say, do your job.
and I look at what you all are doing here and you have a
difficult job. I look at even your agenda for today. You've multiple agenda items and
I imagine it's very difficult to avoid a walkable kind of
mind-set here. You've issues you cannot possibly predict or anticipate and you do your best to
accommodate a demanding public to address these.
I think ultimately the answer, there's been a lot of imaginative solutions here for specific symptoms but ultimately
I think the need here is a strategy to address the root problem. The root problem in my mind
particularly the unique geographic area such as the area
down to vilano beach of the bridge this narrow high demand
area is to figure out a way to manage the volume.
I think what's necessary is demand management strategy here,
public safety strategy here which has at its root a way of
controlling buy-in. Meantime there's all sorts of
symptoms that need to be addressed but ultimately there
are a couple dozen plus public access points already between
gtm and vilano beach. Across and, a tunnel, a bridge for all of them? Ultimately I think you need to
figure out a way to manage demand.
which brings me to the second specific issue which is this so-called rv park. That just adds to demand.
my understanding that this was originally proposed five or six years ago arguably under the darkness of covid and perhaps it
didn't afford public scrutiny that it deserved and even still circumstances have changed greatly since then.
might ask here would be take a hard second look at what is
going on there. What are the assumptions, what are the design, what's the process look like in terms of
moving in and out on a hot sunday, on a time when a storm's
impending. Figure that out, laid out, don't
wait until it happens to understand. Anticipate, understand the trade-offs in advance and allow
all of us yourselves included to way and accordingly. I appreciate everybody's time and patience.
>> your name and address for the record. >> robert greene 180 kingston drive.
>> thank you. Thank you very much. >> in morning. 4260...
I'm here to discuss our proposed rv campground and its potential
impact on surrounding communities affecting quality-of-life property and safety.
the proposed 170 park model home rv campground directly on a1a
from intercoastal to the ocean seriously and directly interferes with the quality-of-life and safety of our properties. Traffic.
a1a as you heard is a two-lane highway leading onto a two-lane bridge leading onto a two-lane street and that the peanut
roundabout which is the only form of egress and ingress. Traffic is gridlocked. At least 170 more vehicles to
the picture consider the delays and emergency vehicles arriving
and leaving the potential of loss of life.
safety. Evacuation again only two lane highway et cetera. That affects the population f
from... To porpoise point and another 70 plus vehicles to that. Flooding nor'easter in 2021 in
2022. Devastated vilano beach porpoise point north beach with the main floodwaters coming directly from
the intercoastal both mandatory higher elevations and paved surfaces, the mandatory elevation -- will definitely
increase the likelihood of more severe flooding in the same
areas. The water has nowhere to go. Other than people's property. This is a picture 16th street
vilano bridge after nicole and ian. My conclusion, to the board, you must take into account all of
the above issues with approving any variance rezoning or major
development. Safety of citizens must take precedent over developers profits. Thank you. >> thank you so much.
good morning. >> my name is michael.
and 114 third street st. Augustine and 25 year resident of north beach. There's been quite a few
comments on the various issues and I think vice president of
vilano beach -- I won't repeat those which have already been presented. I'd like to tell a story four
years ago to this day on easter we had easter service my priest
father greg bennett who lived in vilano was taking his monday
stroll after easter and was hit behind by a contractor truck
that knocked him to the ground. A traumatic brain injury and he
died three days later. From that injury.
this is not theoretical, it's not me telling you I happened to
hear or see something that concerned me. This is personal. He was my priest, a great man
and we've hated to lose some. From the time I moved here and
I'm sure all of you heard the jimmy buffett songs strolling
down the avenue is known as a1a. It's not an avenue anymore. The hazard zone. Friends of a1a to periodic
cleanups and adopt a highway. We were there -- I would
challenge any of you commissioners or your staff to come out there and experience this with us.
it's truly taking your life in your hands. To do something as -- a civic service to this county.
at a recent meeting a person who volunteered about five months ago came up to me and said you looked -- lived here long time.
what will this look like in three years?
we've seen some of these changes. Will it be rv parks, gas stations, convenience stores?
high-rise? Multifamily? What's it going to look like? I had to tell them I truly don't
know. We need the county commissioner
to create a vision of the future for this.
's only through your leadership and vision can we understand us residents where this is going and what it will look like in
the next three years. I'm not asking ten years from
now, I'm asking three years from now what will it look like? We do not know. I'm asking your leadership on
this issue to create a vision for our community that the
residence and the district could see and appreciate and live with. Thank you so much.
>> thank you. Good morning.
>> in morning. My name is lee miller and I reside at 121 -- also known as the straight -- street across
from the infamous blue house that is no longer there.
I'm coming because I've been in the area for quite a long time pick our family had a place here as early as 1992.
we loved it so much this is my piece of heaven so we bought a
law and we proceeded to build our home.
I will tell you to build a home at that point I had to go through a lot of hoops because I back up to the marsh.
there were a lot of things I needed to consider as we were building and believe me, if I had submitted my plans and then
change the midway through my building, I'm sure there
would've been some repercussions around that. I'm probably the caboose of the vilano people.
I know you probably hope so but maybe not.
I'm here just to reiterate a few of the points my neighbors have made. First of overlooking for
oversight of this rv park. I spoke against it when it first came out years ago. At that point it was tabled and
not approved when the developer had a big presentation. I'm not -- I don't know how many of you were there than but it
was tabled for a while and then it was approved under being this
rv park after it was sold we now have what we have today.
I ask you to consider 170 residences in your own area.
that's a lot of things. If you consider the density of a number of people that will be crossing over a1a to go to the
ocean with an average of two people per residents, that's 340 people during the day. If it were four people were
talking closer to 700 people crossing a1a to get to the
beach. As far as I know there has not been any proposal as to how that will take place.
my neighbor a longtime resident of vilano fell down and broke her arm trying to cross vilano and dodging the traffic.
again please consider the request to bring the rv park
back under your jurisdiction, take a look at it and thoughtfully consider what our plans would be going forward.
I appreciate your attention. Thank you very much.
>> thank you. Good morning. >> good morning. Sherry badger 2772 south collins avenue. These people are like the angels
-- this is going on all over this town and you can look at
these pictures that I'm fixing to show alyssa's what your neighborhood will look like. Of 4-foot, 6-foot wide deep
ditch. It's even with the sidewalk.
this is also on rabbit hill. Rabbit hill I started coming to
this county commission complaining about what these people are complaining about now seven years ago.
paul waldron died and now it's come to a complete halt in my
neighborhood of your county, your code enforcement does not address it and if they do, your senior staff squash it.
y'all have a big problem here and I've been telling you about it. Now this is what you get.
and I'm so thankful we do have public comment in the morning
because you people need a lot more of this because you're doing it to the whole town some of you are completely
devastating this town and neighborhood. Thank you. God bless and have a good day.
>> thank you. >> good morning. My name is jane norton I live at 109 -- over on porpoise point.
here today to support my neighbors, we are very much
concerned about our quality of life and our safety and the environmental impact that's going on currently with the
number of cars on the beach, the grid log we're facing, that type
of thing. Were asking for attention to our concerns and to help us create solutions.
that's all I want to say today. Thank you.
>> thank you. >> my name is ed.
I had this nice long speech about traffic but I think you get the picture now so I won't bore you with that.
I will give this -- possible solutions I thought about.
one is it's hard to regulate traffic on the beach. You have to be able to count who's going on, who's coming
off, we have multiple accesses. One of my thoughts was let's
raise the daily rate to 20 or $30 an hour. That will definitely reduce some people going down there.
keep the current resident rate annual passwords at.
prohibit on street parking of the residential neighborhoods,
enforce parking violations with tickets or towing, add more
police on the beach and in the neighborhoods to address both
moving and drinking violations. I have a perfect view of the beach and I can guarantee you that no drinking policy is being
ignored. On the weekend public service officers at the base of the bridge and to control the lights
and allow more than six cars through before the light turns red. Also I think there needs to be
strong consideration for another branch between pontevedra and
tried eight beach if a true emergency happened where evacuation was needed immediately, it would be a
complete disaster. Thank you for your time. >> thank you very much. Good morning.
>> my name is nancy watson at -- sorry and nervous.
311 -- all the speeches you've heard, I'm behind them.
everything they've said, I could have repeated here today but -- but I'm not going to waste time with you on it.
all I can say is my husband and I have spent some time down at
the coffee shop and we watch the cars go by.
I would say nine months ago the speeding on vilano road was
atrocious. I used to work with the police and fire department and I see these cars and I'm going he
could get a ticket. Where is somebody to come down there and do something? The other day we were down there
watching the cars and I looked at the sign outside and it said
no parking from midnight to 6:00 a.m.
otherwise you will be towed. I want to know how many cars
have been told. How many cars have been eliminated? I would guess not one.
and anyone who parks their nose it. No one's going to toe our car, don't worry about it.
as far as the police department and the fire department goes, I
have a lot of admiration for these guys. I worked with them. I know how they feel.
and I watch this one car recently park behind all these
cars on the valenti road and he was called, could he get out?
there is no way. Cars were going this way and that way. He couldn't get out.
he would be stuck. I was wondering, what's he thinking sitting there? As for the fire department,
these guys really have it tough. If there is a call for an emergency and they can't get there, they are going to panic.
I could do this or that and I'm losing time. When these guys come back from a call, you should be there.
they are totally different people. They really take it to heart, especially when they lose a
child. And I think you should consider all these things that these people have said today and what
I'm saying with the police and fire department behind you.
we are going to need more of them as time goes on. Thanks for listening to me. >> thank you.
>> good morning. >> good morning. My name is douglas clay. I live at 113 coastal hollow
circle in vilano. Thank you for this opportunity. What I'm going to speak about is the rv park or trailer park.
we don't actually really know what it's going to be.
there is a lot of information rolling around, and a lot of it is conflicting. So that makes it difficult to
understand exactly what we are going to end up with. I know there's a difference between trailers and campers.
I guess you think of trailers as mobile homes, at least that's what I was thinking it was going to be.
either way, they don't play nice during hurricanes.
campers are going to want to be getting out, as everybody says. If they are trailers they're going to be permanent or close
to permanent, and as I said, they won't do well in a hurricane situation. So I think that needs to be
considered. I've also heard if they are going to be trailers they could be low-cost housing.
would that be operated by the county or some other entity for
that? Low-cost housing at vilano is
probably not a good place to locate it because there really aren't a lot of jobs around the area.
most of the people are retired or older.
will there be campers there, nonpermanent residents living
there? As we all know, if you are
living in florida for six months or longer, you can apply for
residency here in the state and there is many snowbirds that do
such and live up north and come down to stay for six months or
so, declare florida to be their residence.
is that somewhat the intention of what's going on here?
infrastructure I think has been talked about. Electrical needs, the water needs, the sewer, the plumbing.
who's going to pay for that? Is some of that burden foisted
on taxpayers, or is it going to be done totally by the
developers of the area? What I have for you is a suggestion. Appoint a committee to be
concerned with this particular development and have that committee with residents from vilano.
they should attend all the commissioners meetings, all the meetings that we are going to have and be able to bring back
information so there isn't all this misinformation going on.
plus, be able to bring in concerns from residents. Thank you for your time. I appreciate you listening.
>> thank you. Good morning. >> good morning. My name is brad martin. I'm not a resident of st. Johns county.
I live in tallahassee. But I'm a safety education
representative. That's the call before you dig
center. April is national safe digging month. I realized when I saw the agenda
this morning I probably should have put in a proclamation
request for the call before you dig message. It sounds to me like listening to the comments, there is a need
or going to be continued discussion on infrastructure, road building, lots of construction driving over from
this area is a boom of construction activities. I urge you guys to really preach the message of call before you
dig and damage prevention to our current infrastructure and the things that are happening now, things that are going to be
taking place it sounds like. We really need to protect the existing infrastructure. We each wake up every morning
and take for granted those vital services that our utilities provide. Water, sewer, turn on the tv,
pick up our telephone, flip the switch, turn on the stove.
gas lines have been cut by excavation practices and you can hear the urgency in some of the voices you've heard this mor
morning. Things tend to get a little carried away or rushed. The one call system and the
state of florida, we take around 2,000,001: notifications.
so things are happening. We really want to encourage our community leaders. My primary target are the
professional contractors and things of that nature. But we are seeing increased urgency, the let's get it done,
we've got to get it done right away. So we are seeing an increase in potential violations of the
statute as well which increases the risk for damages, outages,
explosions, injuries, potential deaths. So we are really trying to extend our outreach for the
education processes to community leaders. Working to get law enforcement more involved, to help with
these violations. Damage prevention is everyone's
responsibility and we want to make sure to include all the stakeholders. I stand ready for you folks, for
law enforcement friends, the general public for educational
purposes. I've been doing it for 25 years now. The reason I'm here is all of
north florida is my educational territory.
please feel free to give us a shout. Thank you. >> thank you so much.
good morning. >> good morning. It's great to see everybody here from vilano about what's going
on there. But I wanted to say that you are
not alone. There's the shores here for similar things. Too much going to that little
area. But for me, I'm in mill creek
estates which is over near county road 208. So I don't go to the beach. But what's happening, ladies and
gentlemen, is this is being broken down into certain ways of
over developing little places like where you are because
there's money being brought in from tourism, whether you are
getting rebates from the tourism money for that specific area or
not. But that's happening throughout the whole county with all the new developments coming up
that's going to increase the population. Now we have infrastructure issues that we are still trying
to work on. If you haven't been following
this committee for the last couple years because you had
senate bill 180 get passed, that's what helped them to shut down some of the changes for 2050, specifically for the
developers having their way to do what they want to. Now house bill 399, which is like a bait and switch from the
other bill, house bill 299 and the senate bill, I forget what
that one was, was focused on developers having their ways.
that was tossed aside, but at the same time, 399 also gives
developers a lot more rights to know from the county.
we are the county. And yes, ladies and gentlemen,
there is commissioners who didn't want to do anything about that because their backers are the ones who were building all
this stuff, who's out there doing all that.
look at it as a whole. If you think it's just happening in your little area, which I hate to hear about it, because
I'm a jacksonville boy. We used to come on down and vilano was nothing. But now, I understand it.
commissioners backed by a big developers, we have them. We probably should. And that's going to continue on
for vilano throughout the county. >> thank you. Anyone else before we close out
public comment at this time? [applause]
>> good morning.% >> good morning.
rodney dangerfield from -- [laughter]
>> no. Bill hennessy, 54,614th street.
before I get to the windswept acres I need to let you all know
something even more dangerous. That butler west boat ramp where you turn in there where dollar general was at his
becoming -- people are coming out of that dollar general from
the north and blocking the traffic. So the guy with the boat has to hit the brakes, and a one a has
thousands of cars on it. And they are not realizing, so
they are going to run into that 20-inch stainless steel and have
serious injuries. I walk this dog around that
neighborhood, I've been doing it for 30 years. Not to stop particularly. [laughter]
>> but I'm telling you, it's going to end up being a tragedy. And once you get on that road it goes from 26 feet wide at the
entrance down to 16 feet where you have that culvert with about a 12-foot drop or 12 feet of water.
and it's got three runoffs on it. As soon as the tire catch is that runoff, you are going in that ditch. And its 10 feet of air or
10 feet of water. And it's not "if," it's "when."
I sat there and watched people have tobacco with their boats to
let other boaters go in there. One day someone from out of town who don't realize what's going on is going to come down that
road and plunged into that culvert there and it's going to
make headline news. I've been preaching about it for a while. Five years that I've been coming
here on may the 18th. On june fifth I was at that boat ramp and ask some people if they could pull out of the way so I
could get my boat put in. I came to in the hospital six
hours later. Now I have equilibrium problems.
walking, depth perception. Whose responsibility is going to be my disability? Is it st. Johns county?
those people should of been told of the recreation man standing
right there, move out of the way and let other people get in.
I gave away my golf clubs because I can't play no more.
I got time to get to the road. Cuts and hazardous situation you will need to address. I used to have good pocket
change from playing golf. It was like a second job. I had beer money and all that stuff.
but now I can't even ride a bike. >> thank you so much. Any other public comment at this
time before we close this I would? All right. Good morning.
>> good morning. The failure of the st. Johns county sheriff to post all mug shots excuses the
actions of those arrested. This continues to jeopardize the
safety of everyone in st. Johns county. At the march 27th, 2026 as a bc meeting, we were told the
beaches visitors and convention bureau advertising is to
new york city. Knights of lights will end on
mlk day, which is all about money, not quality of life.
commissioners murphy and taylor attended this meeting. Taxpayers and residents may not be aware, commissioner taylor
does not live in the city limits of st. Augustine.
the county gives district st. Augustine steady limits to a
commissioner who actually lives in the county and represents the city. If a property owner lives in the
city, the city limits of st. Augustine, and pays the city
and county property taxes, the effect on quality of life is different than those not living in the city and have a business.
question. What is the actual income of all businesses who work but don't live in the city limits of
st. Augustine? This would be an interesting economic study. If that ever got out we would
see where the problem is. Always remember cigars can be
smoked on county beaches, but not cigarettes.
thank you for a public comment before agenda items. Going to continue to say that until people are elected, and
hopefully the ones elected will believe in this. And I want to say, white shirt speakers sounds like knights of
lights problems. Got it everywhere.
perfect example. And -- what time is it?
almost 10:30, 11:00. Now the red shirts have their
opportunity to speak for the item that they are here for.
watch that buzzer, folks. You've got to stay with it when it counts down on you. If you are over, there's some
people that get excited about some people, and other people don't get too excited. You don't have to answer any of
these people that got up, but I hope regardless of who that
district person is that all of you got the gist of what went
over. >> thank you. Good morning. >> my name is laura freeman.
my husband and I own 69 seaside vista court in north beach.
I had notes, but I'm going to wing it, so hopefully I sound
understandable. We moved to vilano in 2010 when
my husband accepted a job with the florida national guard. We decided we were going to retire on vilano.
we moved away and we knew this was the place we wanted to go.
we have children. We used to reside at 104 second
street and decided to build in seaside vista in 2014.
we moved when my daughter was getting...
because we know she was going to high school and we decided that
it was our time to get back to vilano, which we loved so much.
I didn't realize that the first day she got in the car and
pulled out on a1a how scared I was going to be and how every
single day I tell her to be safe when she pulls out on a1a.
because cars are coming through the turn, and you have a brief
moment to pull out before another car is coming your way. I also have a daughter who has severe asthma.
she's had it since she was ten years old, which is about when we moved here. I don't know what that means.
but she's had an ambulance come to the home.
she's blown a hole in her lungs because of her asthma attacks. We've tried to get her to the hospital, and realistically she
could die. She's had moments where she's
flighted to a hospital in jacksonville to save her life. I just do not know that she would be able to get the help
she needs if she has an asthma attack. Thank god most of hers happen in the winter when the traffic is
not as bad, but still. I worry about both of my
daughters. We went to ireland this summer and asked someone, a local, and they said it's been someone
moves to the community and contributes for the greater good. That's when you become a local. I would hope that you would listen to all the white shirts
on this matter and know that natasha, who spoke first, she's
been on vilano, she's contributed, she's a local. She deserves protection. Imagine if she were your mother.
imagine if my 17-year-old were your daughter or my older
daughter with asthma. My husband is a helicopter pilot. He works for the federal
aviation administration. I just texted him to ask him about landing a life flight helicopter on vilano in the
middle of the mess and he says once every development planned
goes in, you can't. >> thank you so much.
are there any other general public comments at this time?
seeing none, we will close public comment. >> let's go right to agenda item number 1.
>> I had a few comments. Through the chair, thank you. There was just no way I could ignore all these white shirts.
I appreciate everybody that came out today. I just want you to know that I do hear you, I've been listening
for some time. I'd love mike roberson to come
up for a moment. I do have a question for the legal team. I know we've heard many times
about bringing back the rv park under our authority. I would like that to be addressed, because if we could
bring it back, I was not on the board when that was approved years ago, but I would like that address.
if we could bring it back we certainly would. But if you could please clarify and if you could also clarify
regarding the pud, what was approved, how that has been
changed without coming before us again if indeed it has.
thank you. >> mike robertson, director of growth and management. I will let legal chime in about
whether it could be brought back, but I think the comments will inform that. The rv campground that I think
was in discussion or public comment here is -- oh, I'm
sorry. The campground was from the beachcomber rv club. This had been modified in 2021
and granted approvals for 170 rv units. So that's an approved ordinance, that's what's allowed and staff
has looked at this, obviously, with leadership and the legal
team to confirm. So that is an approved
development from staff size. I think you asked specifically about changes, commissioner. Repeat your question, if you
would. >> have there been changes to the pud? >> sure.
I think we've had three small adjustments. So everyone understands we have different levels of changes and
modifications. You have a major modification through the planning and zoning agency and you for a
determination, minor modification so the level is
lower. It then goes to the planning and zoning, the only agency who decides.
that you have small adjustments. These are tweaks to a development site that happen at almost every development that
are small enough that staff looks at it and make sure the change doesn't trip the threshold as well as anything
that was understood and large enough by the board. We've had three small adjustments that have occurred.
I don't have all of them in my head exactly. But I have looked at them subsequent to their approval
from staff and they did not generate it tripping to the minor modification. >> thank you.
>> through the chair to commissioner taylor, by virtue of the ordinance, the properties entitled.
there is no mechanism at this juncture to bring it back before this board. The previous board, which you are not a part of I understand had made that approval.
we don't have a mechanism to bring it back to a subsequent board. >> thank you so much.
we do hear that quite often. We don't determine what comes before us. I just want that to be very
clear. But I thank you very much.
that'll do it. But we will follow up on other things. Thank you both very much. >> thank you so much. >> thank you, mr. Chair.
I think we would be missing an of these concerns. Commissioner taylor got the big one.
we don't have a legal mechanism to bring this back and fix it. I was the only commissioner who is still on this board that
approved that, and this is -- what they are building is not at
all what I saw in the presentation. So yes, I have some feelings about that, but my feelings
don't override what my attorneys are telling me is the law. So I think they do have a legal right to build what they are
building in spite of what my feelings are. That's the advice we are getting from our office at county
attorney's. I wanted to address the concerns I kept hearing over and over which are legitimate concerns,
obviously. Many concerns are about illegal parking in the right-of-way, and ticketing those parking legally.
obviously and speeding, that's all a function of a st. Johns county sheriff's office.
I realize you can't go speak to the sheriff every two weeks, but I had a great experience with the sheriff and some of his
executive staff and in my district addressing some safety concerns. Just as a suggestion, the only
time we can really talk about agenda items, it might be worth having a town hall in vilano with the sheriff, with russ
martin for transportation, greg caldwell and his public works team just to be subject matter experts on what enhancements if
any can be made to the area. We had a fantastic back and
forth with the community. Commissioner joseph was there and I thought it was very productive and constructive, and
public works was able to erect an improvement within a week of
that town hall happening. So it was very productive. You may want to get together with the sheriff to talk about
enforing some of the existing laws with that.
why can't we use the tax to build infrastructure? State statute does not allow us to use the bed tax.
there are strictly tailored guidelines for what we can use bed tax dollars for. Widening roads is not one of
those uses. We also cannot create a law that
regulates how long or how often someone...
we went through this back in 2022 for months and we learned during those items that we cannot really regulate
short-term rentals. If you don't like that law, like I don't, I would recommend you call our state representatives
and ask them to give some control back to the local government which is what we ask for every year.
those are my thoughts. >> thank you so much. Commissioner joseph. >> yes.
first of all, is there a site plan, a current site plan for
the fake rv property? >> through the chair, there is a
construction plan, the civil engineer plant. >> can we see with their current plan is?
we don't have to do it right now, but to my office at some point, that would be great. The other thing is, could we get
a consensus to actually get a traffic plan immediately?
can they have a helicopter area cordoned off, it may be the
public parking lot where it's always open for a life light --
life flight like immediately? I don't know. The sheriff needs to be involved.
but I was just wondering if we could get consensus to actually get a traffic plan going right now.
or look at it. Town hall takes a while.
>> without the sheriff who would have to enact these suggestions, all we can say is, we'd like to see someone out there
controlling traffic and the intersections. >> I can't tell him that but maybe they can come with a plan
as soon as possible. >> we can certainly ask them.
the challenge with cordoning off a helicopter pad is that it's private property. But that's a good concern that
we have somewhere over in vi vilano.
>> the top of the hotel or something like that? Did do that in scottsdale. >> who wants to give up their
house roof? >> I think they're offering to give up the campground for a helicopter pad.
>> one last thing. Sorry. And the airbnb ordinance, I know there are other counties that
have outlawed a or b and b. I don't know why we can't do an ordinance like that or look at it in the future.
that's it. >> I think I can answer that.
the state preempted us a couple years ago that if we didn't have a plan already in place, we couldn't go forward with the
plan now, it was too late. We don't have the legal authority according to the state to now go back and do one.
commissioner taylor? >> that's correct. In st. Augustine beach, they were aware of the state law
before it was put in place, they put things in place to restrict their short-term rentals. Unfortunately, vilano did not do
that in st. Augustine beach did. But I do appreciate what
mr. Hunt said earlier. You've each got to pay attention of what's going on at the state level.
he mentioned sp 180 and hb 399. There are a number of things
occurring at the state level that are handcuffing us from being able to do many of the things that you are asking us to
do. Please pay attention to what's happening at the state level. Please reach out to those state
representatives. You do have my commitment, I will definitely plan to have a community meeting with the
I did actually just meet with the sheriff as well and we specifically did speak about a a1a.
but I just want you to know you do have my commitment and I look forward to having a town hall to discuss those concerns.
thank you. >> anyone else?
okay. Honorable brandon patty, eat the
floor is yours. This goes right to agenda item
number 1. >> morning, mr. Chair, commissioners. Good to be with you.
I'm with richard from bfm to provide an overview of our investment performance for calendar year 2025.
>> you can go to the first page. Is there a clicker?
>> I will start off by saying, richard with pfm asset
management. I'm going to give a report on
the performance for the county's portfolios for the calendar year
2025. Overall performance was good
both in the fixed income funds, which are your operating funds as well as the portfolio. In the core funds you've got
allocated to two separate portfolios aligned with the
projections for expenditures for those reserves over time. One is the one to three your portfolio when one is one to
five. Year one to three year portfolio had a return of 5.52% for calendar 2025.
1-5 was 6.24%. Both exceeded their benchmark
and on a relative basis were helped by the decline in interest rates over the course of the year, which increase the
value of the portfolio's. For opeb funds, it was another
year, three years in a row with double-digit returns. You had a return close to 16%, 15.93%.
it underperformed the benchmark over the course of the year. That's a function of us taking us it -- a defensive position
about this time last year with the announcement of the tariffs
on april second, liberation day, which created some uncertainty
around the potential impact for several months. Once there was more clarity around the deals being
negotiated around the world, the markets actually did very well. But for three months, given that defensive position we had, you
had a slight underperformance relative to benchmark. However, relative to other similar public plans, your
performance was in the top quartile.
I think for the year probably the top decile relative to other
similar public plans. So very good performance last year. Looking at some of the details,
the portfolio was in compliance with your investment policy, and your policy is again on state statute, which promotes a very
conservative requirements and sets the guidelines for what you
can own in a portfolio. So you are in compliance across the board. In terms of the characteristics
of the portfolios, the overall credit quality is aa.
the u.s. Government rating is aa plus. Of again reflecting the high credit log.
both of the portfolios have yields that are expected to
produce about 4-4.5% over the course of the year, and that
will vary based on market conditions throughout the course of the year, but we are expecting decent performance for
the portfolios in 2026. Jumping to the opeb portfolio,
we always talk in terms of percentages. You will of course hear about dollars.
for the calendar year the portfolio grew by 6.7 million
over the course of the year. And as I mentioned, the return
was strong for 2025. I will pause there for ques
questions. >> I just have one question.
I love whole numbers. In the course of that, our
investments over 2025 produced what back to the county in total? Do you know? >> in dollars? I don't have the aggregate
number from all of the funds. This report really just covers the long-term investment fund. But for the two portfolios, it
was 6.2 million for the 1-5 portfolio and 17.5 million for the 1-3 portfolio. >> thank you.
other questions? Thank you.
>> thank you. That is our report. Pending any questions. >> I see no questions.
thank you so much. That was a great job.
>> the pleasure is ours. Thank you.
>> commissioner? All right.
agenda item number 2 is quasijudicial, so we will go to
commissioner arnold. You can go first if you well. >> thank you mr. Chair. I had approximately 40 emails
and a meeting with brad wester on behalf of the applicant and staff. I had a leak meeting in the
office with residents in opposition and staff was in that meeting as well. >> thank you so much,
commissioner. You are recognized.
>> also over 40 emails. I think I had about 5-six.
and meeting with opposed residents of the team. >> commissioner whitehurst. >> I had over 40 emails, I would
say 80% were opposed and about 20% in favor. I met in person with brad wester, the applicant, job or so
and our staff in the office. I met with lynn and john who are
opposed here in the office. >> thank you so much.
commissioner taylor. >> I had well over 60 emails. The majority, all but a few were opposed.
I had meeting with brad wester and staff and a meeting with lynn and james, also opposing and staff.
>> thank you so much. 47 plus emails, phone call
meeting with brad wester in the applicant, meeting with brad
wester, the applicant and joe russo and staff again. Meeting with lynn pagano, james fee, and staff and opposition.
I received probably before yesterday about 75-80% running
against, received an email last night with a petition of over 50 people who are for the tower in the communications.
that's all I have. >> thank you.
brad wester, driver mcafee how and even oh.
here at shores telecommunications tower, this is an appeal item. We are appealing the pnc denial
of a special use permit which was tower 24-0 for to allow for
170-foot model wireless communication tower and support facilities in the st. Augustine shores pud, which is ordinance
1974-16, tower 2024-0 for. And quotes, transmitter slow
content is allowed by exception. The county required processing
this as a special use permit because there is no exception process in the county. Typically a special use permit
is only required if a proposed tower is within 250 feet of a
residential lot or use and the tower is not within 250 feet of a residential property and we exceed that distance requirement
for the code minimum distance at that criteria. This is a 5-acre parcel located in the business commercial area
of the pud and not in a residential zoning district.
the proposed tower site is an 80 by 80 lease parcel and in a location to allow for the church to adequately build in the
future. The proposed tower is certified with a collapsed radius of 40 feet which exceeds the
requirement, and that's actually six times the required distance from the nearest residential dwelling as far as the collapsed
radius. The proposed tower is 170 feet high, 165 feet of tower and a 5-foot switch.
it's a lightning rod if you will. That's 130 feet lower than the maximum allowed for the
development code. The tower will not include a
blinking beacon light on top. There are no environmental,
wetland, wildlife, fema or archeological impacts for the
property. We've included all of that with our original submit for this application.
here is a location map of the parcel on the shores boulevard. Here's an aerial and then we will go into further details on
all of this. Here's a land use and zoning.
it's residential c, this is just noting the mixture of uses in
the pud. It is purely a residential pud. It does talk about the conversion back in the 70s
from rs three, rg two, two pud. Those uses remain today.
you can see there are commercial and business areas in the pud
specifically. Again, st. Augustine shores pud is mixed use with a variety of uses including commercial and
industrial to complement and serve the residents is similar to this tower, which will serve specific demand and growing
residential base. Here's the permissible lot by
exception citation in the code. Please note item h, specific to
radio or television broadcasting office, radio or television
studio, radio or television transmitter, antenna, or line of sight really. H describes those uses related
to radio and television broadcasting, not necessary telephones or even cellular services but ten years prior to
the existence of the first commercially available cellular
phone. But the antenna was deemed the basis for this special use permit application and here we
are. More importantly, central public services. This is in the pud.
essential public services may be permitted in any area within this pud. Those are defined as you see
here. Telephone or electrical, dry
utilities. Systems and similar installations. Cell tower is an essential
public service use and provide phone and communication
infrastructure. Similar to the other uses described in the essential public services section.
I will go into that in more detail. It may be permitted anywhere in this pud.
I ask for you to consider that. Here's the site plan which shows the context of the property, the green of the blue the separation
from the wetlands and the green is the buffer in accordance with
the rules and criteria for separation. You can see the distance criteria for the ring, the
250-foot line. Again, the site plan we are all
familiar with. And the 80 by 80 lease parcel and you can see the landscaping added to this small parcel.
this does not mean the entire 5-acre site will be clear-cut for a cell phone tower. It is specifically cleared for
an access road and of course the 80 by 80 tower parcel itself as
you see here. Here is the proposed tower
elevation. 165 feet tall with a lightning rod at the top. Here are the existing towers.
this is a required map for this application. You can see the varying towers in the circulation.
showing what other towers exist in the area. You can see them on there and we can go into those a little bit.
here's the photo simulations. This has been supplied since day
one we submitted this application, going through the various viewpoints and view sheds of the vista of this to
tower. Here is the reason this tower is
here. As I've mentioned in the hearing and meeting with the commissioners individually,
services like this follow the rooftops. Whether it's commercial, industrial, something to serve
residents. Same thing with cell towers. There's a void of coverage in this area.
have got my experts here with me. Dave is the ceo of next tower, he's got 45 years of total
communications business behind him and 32 years specifically in the cell tower industry. If there's anything in the
slides that need further clarification, I will gladly ask him to come up. You can see the several maps
that we are providing showing coverage layers of before and
after. You can see the void in coverage
before and after. Here are the towers.
this is a more detailed map of the one and 2-mile rings showing
the proximity. 2.3 miles to the northwest, generally 1.8 to the west, and so forth, out to the beaches
communities. The applicant affirms that the
proposed height of the communications tower is essential to support the designed cover object deck --
coverage objectives. The tower is enhancing to the
shores area and supports planned expansion around moses creek conservation area as well as in vehicle coverage.
the submitted and reviewed a radio-frequency study demonstrates the requested elevation is necessary to
achieve optimal signal coverage and performance in the target area. The closest tower to the
property is located about 1.8 miles to the west northwest,
which t-mobile currently utilizes.
ocg, omnicom, the county's third-party tower review consultant has confirmed our coverage production models and
all of our information is supplied to be substantially accurate for the coverage prediction software.
in the report they take no exceptions to our findings as
submitted. Additionally the tower is strategically positioned on the church property and adjacent to open space to the north and west in the pud and complies with
the county and st. John's water and building setback regul
regulations. The green checkmarks are affirmation of the requirements for the communication tower section in the code. It talks about uniform
standards, natural features, minimize adverse visual and
esthetic impacts, accommodating growing demand for communication for the telecommunications act of 1996, and avoid and minimize
damage to adjacent properties from tower failure. The zoning district, regardless of the district in which the
tower is located, any tower proposed within 250 feet of the
nearest lot line or residential zoning district shall be reviewed as a special use. We are still required to be
reviewed as a war because accounting made that determination that the antenna is part of the typical radio and
television broadcasting verbiage warranted this to be reviewed as a special use permit. Notwithstanding contrary code,
tower alternative structures shall be located in any
residential zoning district. That talks about the county has already prescribed criteria for a tower itself on how it looks,
how it functions. Again, and all other zoning
districts that are not residential, because we are not, this talks about if constructed for three or more users it could
be up to 300 feet height. We are 130 feet less than that.
then it talks about providing colocation technologies and the
base pad measured from the finished grade.
here is one of the plats from the st. Augustine shores. You see the church site specifically there.
this is the site plan superimposed over the aerial and describes all the uses. Again, I want you to focus
please on the open space track adjacent and abutting our
property. Residential is not adjacent or abutting. Continuing on, this business
commercial segment of the pud itself.
you can see here the yellow is for church and community and
commercial across the street. If you look at the master plan the area has already been designated for uses other than
residential. Here's the distance from the centreline of the tower location. You can see from the nearest residential lot what we've done
is added additional criteria, 276 feet plus or minus two the
nearest residential lot. You can see growing across the street into other various angles from the different lot lines.
under the fcc framework and telecommunications act of 1996,
local governments cannot prohibit or effectively prohibit wireless service. This remote is a little glitchy,
cannot regulate based on environmental or health effects of the rf emissions. Must base denials on subst
substantial, competent evidence and the written record. The monopole has been engineered to minimize visual impact
through height optimization, neutral finishes, landscape buffering. In land-use planning terms this
represents... Visual presence alone should not outweigh demonstrated service gaps affecting public safety and
economic activity. We understand visual impacts matter to the community. Our goal is to balance that
concerned with the documented service need and implement the least intrusive design that still functions and provide
service to the community. Wireless communication
infrastructure today serves a similar essential public function similar to water, sanitary sewer, electrical
systems, gas, fibre-optic's and roads. This is confirmed by the st. Augustine shores pud.
the tower provide service for team mobile and space for at&t and verizon, the large legacy carriers.
each company provides partition space, and this is important, for calls prioritized for public safety.
at&t has first nat and verizon has frontline.
public safety utilizes these prioritized calling capabilities over and above nonpublic safety use of the carriers network and
specific cell site. The city of st. Augustine uses at&t first nat and st. Johns county uses verizon's
frontline. This tower provides normal cell and internet service and is engineered to assist public
safety. They are very interested if this were to be approved. The public safety entities
utilize their own 800 megahertz radio communication system owned
by st. Johns county. For example in st. Johns county of a public safety radio does not have coverage it will revert
to the nearest verizon frontline cell site and provide such.
the tower is designed to provide this essential service.
the proposed tower meets or exceeds every measurable criteria in the st. Joh st. Johns county.
denying the subject -- on subjective grounds would create
and consistent enforcement. The denial order is in effect an exclusion of wireless communication facilities in the
st. Augustine shores pud and there exists no... In fact the pud states essential public services may be permitted
in any area within this pud, defined as gas, water, sewer,
telephone -- in 1974 they contemplated telephone. Ten years later service came online -- or electrical systems.
the denial includes summary determinations without explanation or justification, determination is not relied on
by pci members and determinations unsupported by competent substantial evidence. There is no testimony as to how
wide -- nor did the pca member delineate any reason for such.
additionally the denial order did not make factual findings from the evidence presented, but instead made conclusory
determinations regarding criteria. Residential c future land use does allow for neighborhood community commercial uses to support the residential base.
the denial order makes several determinations generally based on the proposed towers and compatibility with the
surrounding area. Many members adopted the viewpoint and subjectively opined that the entire
st. Augustine shores community is residential and as a result the cell tower would be incompatible, mainly because
it's visible during the day. Such analysis is an effective
prohibition of wireless communications facilities in a residential area prohibited under the federal and florida
law. This viewpoint is also ignoring the uncontroverted evidence that the proposed tower is located on
a nonresidential property, which again including the very
specific lease parcel for the proposed tower, which is the
criteria to be held required for the separation.
in closing, and all the denial order is in effect an exclusion
of wireless communication facilities in the st. Augustine shores neighborhood. Includes summary determinations
without explanation or justification. Determinations were not relied upon and determinations that
were unsupported by competent, substantial evidence peer testimony in opposition of the application was general, not
fact-based but subjective and speculative. Wireless infrastructure today is considered essential public
infrastructure. Reliable connectivity supports
emergency response, business activity, and every day communications. Denial of this facility will
leave a significant service deficiency unresolved, affecting public safety and the broader community including the newer
residential phase is underway in the area. Our goal is to balance the community's esthetic with
critical infrastructure needs. They are committed to working with staff and the board on reasonable conditions that
further reduce visual impact without compromising the facilities function. With that I have my experts here
if you need any questions, but I won't wait for my rebuttal.
back. >> thank you. I just have one question. In determining the site, is
there something that might be more compatible -- and may be
compatible isn't the word. Is there another site that might
work that would move it out of that particular area that might be considered closer to the south?
>> we do have several factors on that. We don't just choose one site. We started this process over two
years ago, and we don't just pin on one site.
we have multiple that we are vetting at any one time. I don't recall the exact number, but I've been involved with
towers, and it's usually 5-10 different sites. You select based on where the rf engineers and legacy carriers
tell you to go based on where the void in the coverage is. So they already give you a precise location saying, we need
to provide service here because there's a void. From that we go hunting for parcels.
we make phone calls, we do mail outs, knock on doors.
like many other industries, when people are looking at new development or new parcels to build on.
and in fact it's no different than any other item.
we put all those different parcels to the chest. Conceivably could there be another down the street that
works because maybe nobody would see it as well? Yes. Does that mean site condition
wide it works? No. There's wetlands, floodplain, accessibility issues, elevation
issues. So there are different factors where you start checking those boxes on what works and passes
all the tests, and the site was one of those.
not only providing the coverage layers we need per the engineering, but also the fact that there are zero impact on
the property. No legacy trees, no floodplains, no wetlands, no bugs and bun bunnies.
we are not on a residential parcel. We aren't even abutting or adjacent residential parcel.
being in the commercial business district, it checked all the
parcels for this site specifically. Then we had an end user, or as we are least parcel, we had a
parent parcel owner willing to discuss all those opportunities
with us. So even if no site checks the box there may not be a participant, a participatory
person that wants to sell that property or lease the property
to us. So we have looked at many other
sites. Ufortunately finding an ideal one just doesn't work with the engineering coverage.
>> thank you so much. Commissioner whitehurst.
>> thank you, mr. Chair. Give us a lot of information quickly which I always appreciate.
but just getting a favor for the emails that were opposed to this
use, and all that work, I get the sense we are going to hear a lot of this in the public comment that's forthcoming.
make the case for compatibility. A lot of folks don't think this is a compatible use. You have the burden of proof to
prove to this board that it is in fact a compatible use. Please restate maybe what you've already touched on and a little
more detail about why you think this is a compatible use. >> it's a compatible use because we meet the tests for all the
criteria in the code. We check all the boxes. We are within 250 feet, I think we would have a further debate
on whether it was compatible or not. But there is already prescribed data and criteria in the cove
that we adhere to. The check all those boxes.
what you do in this case, there is no prohibition in the pud explicitly that says towers are not allowed.
and it allows essential service public communications infrastructure and it allows other elements through an exception process. We've already described those.
the exception process specifically talked about radio television broadcasting infrastructure and antennas and
things like that. We believe this is an essential
service, communications infrastructure, that obviously through time was just never really updated in the pud.
the pud does address communication infrastructure and specifically cites telephone. So we believe we are part of
that, because again, this was a decade before that cell coverage
came online. But compatibility comes down to, what are the impacts? As I addressed, this site will
not have a blinking beacon on top. It's not painted because of the tight with red and orange and
white stripes. It doesn't have guy wires, it's not a lattice tower. It is uniformly in context with
the coloration and type. We also 130 feet less than the
required or allowed amount because of four co. Locates from
a structural engineering standpoint. Likewise, there is almost zero traffic besides every once in a
while a maintenance person showing up to check on the generators for security. There is no noise associated
with this whatsoever. And there is no environmental,
as we went through, no wetlands, no wildlife, no issues from
that. From an intensity standpoint it's about as low intensity as you can get. The only element you are going to hear about today is the
visible aspect, the vista of it. You're going to see it sticking over the trees. There are options.
coud you do a different type of pole? I think we had this discussion with commissioner joseph, if we
could do one of those large flagpole type things with the different communications infrastructure up top.
we've looked at all of that. We look at all that before we even go on the property. So we looked at various things
to even be more stealthy from a visual standpoint. You are only ever going to see this tower during the day.
won't be lights on it. That visual element is something
I almost tie to when you drive through your development and see the sanitary sewer lift station. That half communication tower at
the top. There are some other things that could be deemed esthetically pleasing by the community, but
there is vital essential service infrastructure in the same community. And this is certainly one of
those. So compatibility. It is compatible. If there were an essential
service that required a tower and the county deemed they wanted to put their own tower up for essential services based on
that closet could go anywhere in the pud. If the pud wanted to prohibit this based on a specific height
or anything else in the future based on technology, that would
be prohibited or outlawed. From a compatibility standpoint this is not a 100% residential pud.
you're going to hear a lot of that. This is a mixed use pud. It does allow for varying use
is. I have personal experience representing other matters here. And they weren't even towers.
there were single-story structures, both '01 building
and a organic plant nursery. We had a lot of opposition for that as well. So you can see that, but those
are not more than 25 feet high. The esthetic element of this,
one day a church is going to go here, and if it were not already
zoned for church I think we would have the same amount of people showing up opposing a church campus potentially being
built on the 5-acre property. Because it's something new and they can see it from the backyard.
the visual esthetics of this means, are we dose you're going to hear this a lot. We are in the middle of a
residential area or "my backyard." and it's just not true. The adjacency factors are,
what's adjacent to ice is open space, not a residential lot.
because this pud allows for a mixture of uses and it doesn't prohibit a cell tower or any type of other tower, he just%
asks for you to go through additional criteria. We've met every criteria in the land development code including
the separation. So that would be my item for the
cap -- compatibility element. It's only based on the visual
esthetics of it because someone can see it.
>> anything else? Commissioner joseph? >> the one picture showed the commercial part being long.
you can't move the tower further down?
away from the neighborhood? >> we only have a 5-acre parcel.
>> you showed kind of all the yellow. >> that's owned by a different entity.
there are other parcels in the area that are under different ownership. And of course we initially
vetted all those. But this landowner was certainly
a willing participant to be part of this. We have that 80 by 80 lease parcel as part of this property.
>> it can't be a relay? Chuck has pictures of different
relays on top of poles, like your lights where they just don't look like a tower. You can't do a relay system
there? >> the pca member brought that up as well. I'd like for dave to come up if
you don't mind to elaborate a little more on this. He's a ceo of next tower. The way those work, they do
require a lot more of those. One tower provides broad
coverage of service required for the engineering void in that coverage layer. If you were to do the smaller
towers typically on top of light poles or anything else, that
typically, you would need a lot more. You would string those all the way down the street and they
hand off to each other with a direct line of sight.
this is dave. If you could just give a name and address for the record and explain a little bit more to
commissioner joseph on why we are using this cell tower
infrastructure on this property. Commissioner joseph also brought up the flagpole. >> one other question.
how long until satellites replace all the poles ever
everywhere? Starlink is already doing it. >> that's a great question. >> thank you.
my name is david, 905 northwest 56 terrace.
and the ceo and president of next tower. I've been a tower developer for 32 years.
I've been in telecommunications a total of 47.
we've built over 15 sites over the years here in st. Johns county. We've built hundreds of towers
basically basically between orlando and atlanta. So we bring a lot of experience in here.
in regard to your question, the type of antennas, what you are
talking about is what we call a unit poll. That's where there's one solid pole, all the antennas are
mounted within it. Sometimes they put a flag on it or it's a flag lists pole. It was very prevalent during 1g,
2g, 3g era of cellular when the antennas were much more limited.
radios were on the ground. But now with 5g, much bigger
antennas, more of them. The radios are no longer on the ground but up on the tower to provide optical signal for data
and the bottom line is, if I could have a pile of the
antennas I show you the mount sitting over here, show you
basically a canister 11 feet long and about 52 inches in diameter it can't fit. The carriers now are no longer
wanting to go on unit poles and we have a national suit with
t-mobile. We have not done a unit pole probably at least ten years. If you want 5g coverage, you got
to have the amount of antennas at the proper height.
as brad mentioned, when we get a search ring from a carrier, it's
a specific point at latitude and longitude. Usually depending where it's located we get a certain radius
that we have to go out and find properties. In a populated area it's typically about a quarter mile
radius. So we are pretty restrictive as far as an engineering stan standpoint.
in this instance the towers designed for at&t, and verizon.
a couple things have happened since I've been developing
towers. In 2012 there was a national
agreement with at&t for first net, a prioritized system on
every at&t site. If you and I were trying to access it with our cell phones and a public safety or
first responder was trying, they get the channel first. That's a national program. In 2021, verizon came out with their own, cold front line and they had the same.
st. Johns county, their backup system for their 800 megahertz communication system. The city of st. Augustine for
example uses first net on the at&t system.
t-mobile, kind of late to the game, but they've come up in
september 2024 and offer that same type of service. The only reason the county or the city do not use it is
because the contracts were probably prior to when t-mobile had the service availability. So the big thing on this tower,
and again, I've developed towers just for public safety. I bid on all the towers when this was done 10-15 years ago
with the st. Johns county and I'm very familiar with every
location. A lot of times people will say, there is a communications tower for public safety and there is
cell towers and they are different. I beg to argue that point. The county leases space on their
towers even though they are primarily for public safety for
cellular. Cellular on the other hand, recently, their systems provide for public safety.
each one of them with those accessibility for
first responders. I know where a lot of these towers are because again, I bid on everyone of them back when.
if you look at locations versus residential areas, there's one
at scott mill -- scott road. There is one right next to
cimarron. There is 12 miles due west of us
right now of the proposed site on the west side of u.s. One right next to the subdivision. I can keep going with the
different locations, and the bottom line is this.
yes, people don't want them in the backyard. But especially with everything we've heard earlier this morning
about public safety and access and first responders, this is absolutely part of that. We could probably argue prior to
2012 before first net came up with this, he would say this is just for recreational use or surfing the internet or
whatever. It's not.
this is also important criteria for public safety to use and
your own county and city are using these now. Our anchor tenant is t-mobile. Right now none of the agencies
are on that. But the towers designed for all
three. We are talking to t-mobile, verizon, and at&t but until we are approved those conversations
are going to go any further. But the towers being designed
for it. Also one less thing to point out. Those locations, just the few I
mentioned on public safety, they wre designed for one specific
reason, coverage for public safety. I'm not talking about my cell towers, I'm talking about the
system to use as an example. We didn't take into
consideration property values, esthetics. It was what worked best for public safety, period.
I argue with us, yes, we are concerned. We believe this pole is the least obtrusive design to be
able to accomplish what we are trying to do.
but please remember first responders. These towers are absolutely part of that.
>> my only comment is also that -- >> in order please. >> a lot of the pud's already
say where they're going to be, so when you buy your house you know that's going to happen possibly.
I think it's just such a surprise to people down the road that have been there for years. That's all I have to say.
>> understood. >> putting the small ones on the
street -- >> t-mobile has technology
called small cell and one called midsouth. T-mobile is the only carrier of the three national carriers that
have mid sales which are 60-80-foot towers allowed in the
right-of-way with no public comment with a lot of the requirements you have to go through for a macro tower, which
this is. You do not have to do for those. The problem with those as they cover the trees and a lot of
instances are taller than them. They only work on a line of
sight basis. You were looking at our 8-900-foot radius coverage with one of those.
so you basically have the highway dotted with those.
there have been complaints from the public and from residents that they are literally in their front yard.
a lot of people's yards, unbeknownst to them, have a right of for their mailbox or culvert.
those right-of-way's are game for small cells and mid-cells to
go in because they are allowed by right. We argue that this macro tower is going to eliminate that
possibility, which would be even more obtrusive because they would be so many more of them. >> anything else from the board
before we go to public comment? >> thank you. If you could go back to the photos, can you please share a
photo of once all the carriers are on it what it will look like? The one you shared was a little
bit hard to see but I want to see what it looks like once all the carriers have what they need on there.
I don't know if you have a picture of another when you have
somewhere? >> you didn't answer the
satellite question. >> oh, yes.
and the satellite question. >> so this is the elevation
picture. This is the elevation picture of those four units that are on that basically showing the
colocations. >> do you have a photo that just
a sketch? Like a photo of what it's going to look like? >> this one has the single user
right. So you can see that single-user. There would be at least two others under that because
there's three carriers. At&t, verizon, t-mobile. So there be to others underneath that.
>> okay. Do you have a photo with all of them on a? >> I do not. This proposal is only for this, but does allow for colocates by
rule in the code. I also want to show this image.
dave mentioned a tower about 2 miles to the west.
I'm going to just show it to you and confirm.
>> in regard to the question about satellites, right now,
satellites in the future, 20-25 years down the road, is it
possible today from a technological standpoint, yes. But there's a little problem. One is penetrating buildings and
rooftops without having a stationary antenna. One is cost, when his capacity. Cell tower, for example,
radiates about a mile, a mile and a half depending on the height of the tower and where it's located.
but the signal is having to fight through whether it's a building or trees or what have you.
satellite cannot today replace terrestrial infrastructure. The other part of this is that carriers have hundreds of
billions of dollars each invested in it. Even when a new technology comes out, you don't just go running
to it. And today's technology will work
in extremely remote places where there is no road, there's no
access. Believe me, probably this rescue operation that just happened recently, a lot of satellite
communications happening there. But it's a different type of communications on the normal public uses.
I would say we are pretty far from that.
>> thank you. >> day of, is this the site you were referring to? There were two towers there.
I believe one of them is a 250-foot lattice tower, the other is 198-foot tower. Those are right here, as I'm
pointing. This is within the two-mile ring to the rest of the -- west of the proposed site.
you see this neighborhood here, timbercreek. That neighborhood was built within 300 feet of that tower.
several phases of that residential neighborhood, hundreds of lots all developed within 300 feet of that existing
tower. Compatibility works both ways.
towers do fill a need, but at the time, these were towers
created years ago, decades ago. This neighborhood was built right up against it. And I'll show an image.
>> this is from one of the streets.
part of the row houses I just showed were highlighted. There are the towers in question, both lattice.
and here's the other residents in that same neighborhood.
those two lots, this lot here and this lot here.
those lots were designed, built, and sold within about 300 feet
of two towers, and larger than ours. 's are residential has clearly been built up and against that
area where the towers are cited on this proposal or that I just showed in the exhibit. I will enter that into the
record but we need -- may need to refer to these during my
rebuttal. Thank you. >> one of the things about that is that people can actually see
there was a tower there before they bought.
is there anything else that we need to come from the board, any more questions before we get to public comment?
I didn't say that for reaction, I just wanted to point that out.
we understand that point, but they have a right to be here.
let's go to public comment. >> okay.
at this time we will take public comment on agenda item number 2. Please come up, and if you have something to show please use the
middle podium. >> through the chair, just a
reminder for this item we do have some designated speakers.
>> we couldn't let her go first, and then we will get to our public speakers. >> I have to leave, that's why I
jumped up here. I can get it done in a second.
just listening to this, I just want to say, uphold the denial
of the pca. And if you don't mind, if you
can't today or you can't, this is really important.
whenever you meet with these developers and whoever they are
employing to get things done, can you start telling us, the
public, how long your meeting is, whether it's 15 minutes, an
hour, to? We've been on this since mr. Wester got up from 11:10 to almost 11:55, and I'm sorry that
I have to leave. I think it would be good for the
public to understand. That's part of your job, granted, but I think sometimes when you have face-to-face there
is more then when you get an email. I know you are bombarded by then.
would you please think about that? We've already spent an hour almost with him and it's going
to be longer, and I'm sorry I'm going to miss this but I do
appreciate you allowing me to get up here. I think this should be denied. Thank you.
>> thank you very much. At this time, we were going to go to our designated speakers. The first will be mr. Ronald
moody, and he has 10 minutes. >> before you start that I just
want to remind everybody, if you signed a petition to allow someone to take your time for you, you don't have the ability
to come up and speak for 3 minutes later on. Thank you for that. >> I get 10 minutes?
>> yes. She's going to work that out.
>> there we go. Thank you. >> good morning. My name is ron moody.
I'm a full-time real estate appraiser for the last 53 years of my professional career. I'm also a real estate broker
with the state of florida and state certified
general appraiser. Very active in the appraisal institute, which is the largest, most well-known appraisal
organization in the world. I hold an m.I.a. Designation that signifies member of the appraisal institute and also the
sra designation which signifies senior residential appraiser. I have copies of the certificates that I'd like to
present for the record. Today, in my opinion the
testimony will be this. The proposed cell tower is not
compatible with existing uses or with the general character and
esthetics of the area. At the end of my presentation, my valuation opinion would be this.
the proposed cell tower will, in my opinion, have a detrimental
and significant impact on property values. I base this opinion on the following items.
as an appraiser, we have to go to the marketplace, the
individuals that are in the market, and collect that
information. There is also a lot of published information available through the internet, it's very easy to
search. But I've looked at a lot of information and published articles.
number 2, I've been reviewing real estate brokers. Number 3, developers. And I also have empirical
evidence from my own database with my appraisal company.
so let's quickly go to published articles. Please forgive me for reading some of this, but I will get
through a quick. From the appraisal journal, this
was summer 2005, it states 38% of the control group said a cell
tower would reduce the price of their property by more than 20%.
another article that I found. U.s. Department of housing and urban development. Classifies cell towers as
hazards and nuisances. It goes on to say homes in close proximity often experience a decline in value.
the decrease in property values can be as much as more than 20%.
from the national association of realtors, recent article 2024
says this. The results show a significant
impact that the proximity of cell towers have on residents and property sale prices. However, the impact of cell
tower proximity on residential property values depends on their distance from the residential properties, and the closer the
greater it has of an effect. Another organization puts out
this really interesting, environmental health services
did research and came up with this. They entitled their brief, cell towers drop property values.
evidence and published research on market impacts. They posed two questions, make two points.
they ask this question. Would you buy a home near cell
tower? The realtor's essay visible towers can cut home values by up to 20%, with surveys showing 94%
of buyers say they would pay less or avoid such properties.
number 2, regulatory filings by the fcc representing over 1800
communities born of cell towers and affect ocean negative impact on esthetics, the beauty aspect, and property values.
they consulted with an appraiser, state certified general appraiser and he makes this statement regarding
realtors and cell towers in relation to homes. Buyers are extremely hesitant to purchase homes located near
cell phone towers and in many cases homes near towers take
longer to sell and ultimately sell for less. He goes on, his opinion was this.
in my professional experience, a visible cell tower in close proximity to a property can reduce its value by as much as
or more than 20%. He goes on to say he reports
that realtors and cell towers, it says this. Cell phone towers bring extra tax revenue and better reception
to a section of the city, but many are skeptical because of the impact on property values. Increasing numbers of people
don't want to live near cell towers.
in some areas property values have decreased by up to 20%.
one survey says they are less interested and pay less for a property located near cell to tower.
interesting information. Next thing I did was interviewed
realtors. We will probably recognize watson realty, the largest privately owned realty company
in the state of florida. 5100 employees. He says this. We've consulted on a variety of
different issues over the years but he says this, cell towers are a negative feature in his opinion that will cause
devaluing. He goes on to say that buyers want quiet enjoyment. Want to avoid negative
situations. People don't want to be looking
out a billboard. They don't want to locate right
next to a right-of-way. Or overhead power lines.
they try to avoid being too close to an overhead power line.
it's because these are noncompatible uses in relation to residential real estate causing diminishing value.
another prominent realtor that I interviewed was jan shields,
who's been in the business over 40 years. She says yes, there is a negative effect of a cell tower.
if given a choice a buyer will typically pick a home without a
cell tower. Robert porter is the big landmen
for horton, who like me has been in business over 50 years.
mr. Porter said this. Cell towers can and most probably will have a negative effect.
he says the variables are this. The orientation of the cell
tower in relation to the property. Doesn't have a direct view, what's the distance.
obviously it has more effect closer at.
I talked to alex, out in the jacksonville area.
one of the bright and shining stars as a developer he says
cell towers can have a negative effect.
I didn't suggest it, but he said the cell towers can cause a loss
in value between 2-20% depending on how close they are.
andy allen is another developer pack he owns a corner lot
development and clearly says no, we have to work around cell
towers. He said they decrease the value.
the last thing I did was from my office, we collected a bunch of
information. Some properties very close visually to a cell tower, others further away.
the decrease in market value ranged from 2-26% depending
where they were located. In summary what I would say is this. I've talked to a lot of
different people and my own experience. My opinion is this. The cell tower will in my
opinion have a significant negative effect on nearby and
adjacent property. That's what I have. Thank you. >> thank you.
thank you very much. [applause]
next we have elizabeth scott. She's a designated speaker
that's been given 5 minutes. >> let me interrupt just a
minute. This particular issue is what's known as a quasijudicial hea hearing.
if you would keep your applause down so that you don't
influence, impede, or disrupt the hearing. Thank you. >> good morning.
my name is elizabeth michaels and I've been a florida licensed
realtor since 1999. I have worked in residential real estate in st. Johns county for over 20 years.
more recently with a focus on... I've provided my real estate
license to be entered into the record and I'm here today to offer my professional opinion as to why the proposed 170-foot
cell tower should be denied. Based on my experience in this
specific market, the proposed tower is not compatible with the surrounding st. Augustine shores residential neighborhood.
and it will have a direct negative impact on property
values, marketability, behavior, and the neighborhood esthetic.
this is also supported by national and international
recognized studies as previously mentioned, including those summarized by the national association of realtors.
the reports of price declines of up to more than 20%.
and fha insured mortgages classify cell towers as hazards
and nuisances. Appraisers are required to make
adjustments accordingly. From a market perspective,
values determined by what buyers are willing to pay.
and buyers consistently discount homes near towers. 94% of buyers would pay less for a home near a cell tower.
many buyers eliminate properties even before scheduling a
showing. In today's digital environment, online listings and drone photography are critical in
marketing homes. 170-foot tower becomes a
permanent visual objection, which is extremely difficult if not impossible for a realtor to overcome.
this is not theoretical. The proposed tower is located
directly on shores boulevard with homes immediately adjacent and across from the site, and within the visual and market
field of a residential comm community. From a real estate perspective, buyers will encounter the tower
immediately entering the area. It will appear in listing
photographs and aerial drone photography, and homes within
this visual field will be directly impacted in value and
desirability. 170-foot tower within the visual
field of a property becomes an immediate deterrent, often
eliminating the home from consideration before the showing is even scheduled. This is not speculative.
in practice this translates to reduced buyer interest, longer
days on market, increased price reductions, lower appraised
values when compared to similar homes without such proximity.
beyond individual homeowners, this has a broader implications
for the community. Affected homes that struggle to sell impact neighborhood stability.
the long-term desirability of the community can decline.
and finally, the shores neighborhood was developed 50
years ago, and part of that intention was to maintain the
canopies and vistas that exist within the neighborhood.
finally, in denying the location it does not prevent service. It simply requires the infrastructure be placed in a
less intrusive and more appropriate location. I have yet to see evidence presented that this is the least
intrusive alternative. In closing, as a real estate
professional working in this market, I can say with confidence this proposal will reduce property values, deter
buyers, and reduce showings, create a lasting visual and market stigma, permanently compromise the esthetic
character, degrading to visual integrity and appeal of the shores neighborhood. I respectfully ask that you
uphold the denial and I'd like to thank you for your time and consideration this morning. >> thank you very much.
next we have jody caputo, who's also being allowed 5 minutes.
>> good morning. I am jody caputo with a round table realty. 87 in the shores sable estates
for almost two years now. I'm a full-time agent who's been in the industry for over 20 years.
I've held realtor licenses in three states, broker's license
in north carolina, and I've been a member of the northeast
florida association of realtors since 2008.
I mean strong opposition to this tower for several reasons.
most importantly, as a real estate expert, I've seen
firsthand how they can negatively affect properties.
there is a term in my industry called external obsolescence.
this is widely used among realtors and appraisers when there are negative factors noted that are outside of a property
owner's control, and this affects desirability, marketability, and results in a loss of value.
a nearby cell tower is a prime example of that. I can tell you without hesitation that none of my
buyers have ever wanted to live near a tower. I've seen homes sit longer on the market, bringing several
price reductions in order to get it sold.
u.s. Census data shows more than 33% of residents in the
st. Augustine shores community are over 65 years old.
our homes our our nest eggs, here to gain equity for
retirement. For many of us, this is our last
home as the next step will be going into assisted living or nursing homes, where we will need every last dime out of our
equity. To pay for our long-term care.
I'm concerned as to who is going to reimburse us. We are taking a loss on our property values if this eyesore
gets approved. I'm shocked and saddened that we are even here today, because nothing about this tower fits in
with the esthetics of the shores community.
last, I work mostly from home and it's crucial for me to have
excellent cell phone reception. I'm happy to say that mine is
excellent. Thank you.
>> thank you. Next we have cindy, and she's
been given 5 minutes. Good afternoon. >> good afternoon. My name is cindy aiello, I live
at 601 felix court in st. Augustine shores. I'm here to ask you to deny the proposed cell tower based on
land-use law, community impact, and long-term consequences that
fall squarely within your authority. The law preserves your authority over zoning, land use
compatibility, esthetics, safety, and neighborhood
character. Courts have consistently upheld denials when they are grounded in substantial evidence tied to
those factors. This case gives you evidence.
st. Augustine shores is a planned residential community. It was not designed to accommodate industrial scale
vertical infrastructures. A tower by its nature introduces a commercially utility use into a residential zone, and that
matters legally. It is a use that is out of character with the surrounding area.
all utility wires are underground, including telephone wires. Then you are within your rights
to determine that is not incompatible.
incompatibility is valid basis for a denial when supported by record. This is not whether a structure
is visible. It's about scale, dominance, and
permanence. A tower will rise far above the tree lines and rooftops, fundamentally changing the
visual environment. But here is the deeper issue.
esthetics directly affects livability. When people look out of their windows and see industrial
infrastructure instead of a residential skyline, it changes how both they experience their homes.
that is not abstract, that his daily life. Noise. There is a consistent noise when
towers operate. Those noises include backup
generators, cooling systems, and periodic maintenance activities. During testing or power outages, generators can run for extended
periods of time, introducing intermittent and destructive noise into a neighborhood that was never designed for it.
that noise is considered unpredictable, and that is more
destructive than constant noise. It creates stress, anxiety,
because residents cannot adapt to it. That is a quality-of-life issue that falls squarely under your
review authority. No fire and safety.
cell tower facilities include electrical equipment and in many
cases fuel power backup generators. That introduces fire risk. Even if it is statistically low.
but did you know that st. Augustine shores has the highest risk for fire by 84% more than any other
neighborhood? And that's a comparison in all communities across the united states.
not just st. Johns county. I want to address the emergency
response and the 9-1-1 calls talked about earlier.
when you dial 9-1-1, your phone activates its emergency call
function, sending a signal to the nearest cell tower even
without an active service plan, regardless of your service
provider, the phone is legally required to connect any available network. That ensures everyone has access
to emergency services. Directing your call to the closest emergency center for swift assistance.
we now have access to satellite services. Now, not in 25 years. If you live in a desolate area,
which we do not, satellite services exist for those
purposes. Newer phones, automatically equipped with this feature, and that includes apple and android.
now I want to talk about -- I want to address something that's
often left unsaid. She would have impact.
esthetics, noise, safety, environmental risk, the value of our homes. Together they create a layered
burden on this community. And the cumulative burden is
what zoning law is designed to prevent. Residents of st. Johns county and st. Augustine shores chose
this community for a reason. They expected a certain
environment, a certain level of peace, a certain degree of
stability. This sets a precedent. If a tower is approved in a residential neighborhood without
clear necessity without exhausting alternatives, it sends a message. It says the residential zoning
protections are flexible when they should be firm. In closing, you have the authority on the responsibility
to act. You can deny this -- I'm done. >> thank you so much. At this time that does conclude
our designated speakers. We will open it up to public comment at this time. >> good afternoon.
>> good afternoon. I'd like to clarify something
from this morning. Speaking with the residents of
the vilano north beach area. Their main concern had nothing
to do with a cell tower that makes traffic.
there was nobody saying the cell tower right in the middle of
vilano beach is making the traffic be congested.
if you want to compare traffic congestion with a cell tower
placement, obviously the cell tower is put in the wrong place and they built the road into a cell tower.
even though that was being brought up earlier.
this is the thing about what's going on now.
the little protest when the people who showed up find out
that there's a cell tower going in behind.
they didn't know, they weren't informed they had nothing to look into. And then they are aggravated.
but it's treat me like. They just bought the house. Know they are going to have to live with it.
when an establishment like this, it's bringing it in after it's
been established for decades. That's what it's going to be
like. If we just want to put into they are, we will read between the lines and find the words that
are so broad that we can go put in a tower.
I'm also concerned that it is this really a church that will be billed here? -- built here?
it says it. It's easy to put on paper.
bringing in a representative to speak about it. The church that's going to be built there.
or is this listed as a church listing so whoever put it in and
is getting the money, where is it going to then? If it's a nonprofit for-profit tower.
maybe I'm trying to look at common sense rather than reading the very broad words that are brought up.
we can squeeze a tower into there, because yes, as they
talked about the timeline of how technology advanced from no
cell phone to his cell phone, commercial to residential, everything like that. It seems like they need to get
these big things out before they need -- start getting cut out.
>> thank you. Good afternoon.
>> hi. Denise locke from 50 sevilla drive, st. Augustine shores. I wasn't prepared to speak, but
I have a few things to say about what I heard, so hopefully I can keep a cohesive. Essential services are on the
ground, and they are talking about the code and the law, but
they are assuming telephone, but they are talking that they
expected... And they are just putting their interpretation on it. We need to me to take into
consideration when these homes were built, telephone lines,
utilities, everything was underground. They determined that should not be visible for everyday life.
so that to me is what was in the code.
I'm 73 years old, I'm still working to be able to pay for my home, and now we are talking losing 20% or more if I want to
sell it. Where am I going to go? What can I do? That's ridiculous.
the zoning, they are talking about a church, not commercial.
cell towers are commercial. They are shown a picture with
one antenna. My understanding is they can put up to 24 antennae. What does that look like?
>> just four I think. >> I know it's more than what they were shown. >> four stacks.
>> I was under the impression it was more than that. But it's going to be more than what was shown in the picture.
they are not showing us what they can do, they are showing us the minimum of what they're going to do.
and what else? We have three churches, so I don't think -- like what the heck is that statement.
and satellite is definitely something to think about. Europe and africa, the rest of the world is using satellite.
it's crazy, and I just want to make sure my point of view
healthwise and for finances, they haven't even talked about health concerns for humans, which my understanding is they
provide the possibility of health concerns brought up in the future for people. And I have neighbors with
2-year-old little girls and 6-month-old little boy's. If they want to stay in the home that could be a major concern
for them. Thank you. >> thank you so much. >> good afternoon.
or -- I guess it is afternoon, isn't it. My name is sue and I'm a 20 plus year resident of the
st. Augustine shores. I live at 292 and the new
community of sable estates. I'm also a licensed real estate professional with over 25 years of experience.
I'm here today to respectfully ask you to oppose the planning
and -- the proposed 170-foot cell tower in our community.
st. Augustine shores is thoughtfully planned community dating back to the late 1950s, developed by a forward thinking
vision. One of the defining characteristics of the vision was the placement of utilities
underground, preserving what we still value today, the natural beauty, the scale, and the open skies of our neighborhood.
that sense of openness is part of what defines our community.
we are primarily a neighborhood of one-story homes with very few acceding to stories. 170-foot tower would rise
approximately eight times taller than most of our homes. It would not blend into our skyline.
it would permanently alter it. It would interrupt the very open
skies homeowner's value and expect when they choose to live in st. Augustine shores. It is fundamentally a matter of
compatibility. The proposed structure is out of scale, of character, and inconsistent with the
established residential nature of our community.
from a real estate perspective I can tell you these things do matter. Buyers don't just purchase a
home, they invest in a setting, feeling, and visual environment.
when that environment changes, especially with the structure of this magnitude, it can influence desirability and ultimately
property values. This is not about opposing
progress or technology. It is about appropriate placement, ensuring infrastructure of this scale is
located where it's compatible with its surroundings, not in the center of an established residential community.
your planning and zoning agency recognized this location is not appropriate and voted to deny the application.
I respectfully ask that you uphold this decision. Please protect the character of our community, preserve our open
skies, and safeguard the property values of the residents of st. Augustine shores. Thank you for your consid
consideration. I have a couple pictures I would like to show you. This is a five layer tower.
so just eliminate one of those layers.
this is the lot where their proposed cell tower is, and this
we weren't supposed to be talking about, environmental
issues. And this is our entire
community, or most of it and that's where the tower would be. Thank you. >> thank you very much.
good afternoon. >> good morning. My name is david, I live at 667 east bianchi circle in the
shores. One of the areas that's the most
remote, the furthest in the east. But I still get good cell service.
I get two bars, occasionally I get 5g.
my house will be less than two tenths of a mile from the cell tower. I'd like to be clear, this is
not a debate about technology. We all need better technology
and we realize that. But the question is whether a residential neighborhood should carry the burden of that
infrastructure, and the data suggested should not. First, the science is not settled.
one person has already brought up the health issue.
the world health organization classifies radio-frequency radiation as possibly carcinogenic.
that's not a declaration of safety, it is a statement of
uncertainty. The federal communications commission sets exposure limits, but those standards focus on
short-term effects, not lifelong exposure in close proximity to where people live. And the national toxicology
program has reported two more findings in animal studies. You don't ignore signals like that.
you take them seriously. Second, 5g changes the exposure
landscape. This is not just another upgrade. It requires more transmitters placed closer to homes. That means higher density,
closer range, and continuous exposure, saying each unit needs
guidelines, and this is the point. The environment itself is changing.
third, the financial impact israel. Studies in real estate consistently show homes near
visible towers can lose value, sometimes significantly.
even when estimates vary, one fact does not. Perception drives markets. If buyers are hesitant,
homeowners pay the price. Finally, this is a question of
fairness. The benefits of 5g are spread
across entire cities. But the risks, visual, economic,
and uncertain health impacts, are concentrated on a handful of
residents. I would like to emphasize, that is a handful of residents. That is not balanced policy, and
it is not necessary. There are less intrusive ways to
build this network without placing the burden on one neighborhood. Thank you for your time.
>> thank you. Next, good afternoon. >> hi. My name is jeff hewitt. We live at 461 incentive veto. -- I have three short comments.
the first one is, there is a hell of a lot of construction going on around here. Why not put the tower in a place
where people can see it before they buy rather than in our case
12 years after we bought. When we bought the house, there
was no church, no nothing in that lot.
it was starting to find out that they were going to put a
175-foot tower right there. There are lots of places where
they could do it from the ground up, and then there would be
people buying homes knowing what the impact would be. That's my first point. My second point is, they talked
about connecting with all the safety features. Isn't all of that going on right now?
I haven't heard anybody say they don't get good signal, that they
tried to get 9-1-1 and couldn't get through.
what does that mean, trying to >> somebody who's spent most of
his life in sales and marketing. The third thing that nobody has mentioned, which I think is critical to this discussion, has
anybody talked about department of health and human services
suddenly starting a program to evaluate potential health risks
from cell phones and cell phone towers? I haven't heard any of that. These standards go back to 1996,
that we are living with today, okay.
as of january of 2026, health and human services suddenly took
down all the information from their website and the fda website that said that cell phone services were not
health hazards. They took them down, and they've started a new program to evaluate the potential health
issues with cell phone service towers and handhelds as well.
guess what, part of the population is most likely to be
affected? Kids. So here we are today, we are talking about putting something
in an area where nobody expected it when there are places that they could do it, and everybody would know in advance and so
that is my story for today. >> thank you very much.
good afternoon. >> hello.
I live on caste one circle. I am here today because this
decision directly affects my home and community, which I chose very carefully. I do not have any issues with my
current service and there is no demonstrated need that justify placing this tower in a residential area like ours.
there are over 3500 homes in our community and relatively few --
the tower doesn't belong here. If this tower had existed or
even been proposed by my home, I never would've purchased it. I invested my life savings here because I like the character,
the appearance and stability of my neighborhood. This fundamentally will change that.
this tower is not compatible with the area, it places an
excessive burden on the residents who live nearby but the benefits go elsewhere. Those of us who live here will
have daily visual impacts, loss of enjoyment of our property. It undermines the comfort, appearance, sense of security
that makes this community a place that people want to live and raise their children. This proposal also conflicts
with the way this area has developed and the way the
residents expected it to develop in the future.
once something is there that's approved, it cannot be undone. The neighborhood will be permanently changed and altered.
I ask this board to consider the people who live here and to
protect the integrity of our community by supporting our
land-use development code and the denial of the proposal. Thank you. >> thank you.
good afternoon. >> hello. I am rachel good kind, seven catalonia court, st. Augustine.
first of all, I live in a condo community that is approximately
five or six blocks from the proposed site. There are over 450 condominiums where I live.
if each one, the value increases about $10,000, we are talking
about millions of dollars. These companies never mentioned
the decrease in property values, and they were well aware of it.
secondly, one thing I never hear talked about is something called
fiber-optic cables. They are perfectly safe, they emit no radio frequencies, no emfs and they actually provide
better coverage. That is a viable alternative to putting a tower in a neighborhood where the vast
majority of the people object. But nobody mentioned it. And I the reason is because the towers make a good fat monthly
income from all of those refrigerator things on the towers. But why not bury your cables?
in fact, I send the board here at least ten articles showing
property values decrease with cell towers, and two that showed
that fiber-optic cables actually raise property values. Which would someone prefer as a home owner?
the choice is obvious. But this has never been brought up as an option because I think it's about profits, not about
the people. Secondly, thirdly, our fcc has
betrayed all american citizens by violating our first amendment
rights and stifling us from talking about health and
environmental issues. These are directly connected to these towers. Children's health defense in
2020 the fcc and showed 3000 pieces of evidence that clearly
showed that even though I'm not allowed to mention it, there are
health effects, there are environmental effects and the fcc was found liable for everything the children's health
defense said. And the conclusion of the lawsuit in the appeals court said that the fcc failed to
provide evidence to 5g -- that 5g and wireless were safe. This is so important to mention. And again, I resent the fact
that my first amendment rights are violated by the agency that is slated and paid to protect us.
if they are not protecting us, it's the citizens who must speak
up and be heard by boards like this. Thank you for listening. >> thank you very much.
good afternoon. >> colo, my name is tonya alba
knees, I live in st. Augustine shores. I have lived there for 20 years. I chose the neighborhood because
of its beauty, and we do not have a problem with any
cell phone reception. There are two cell towers near the neighborhood, one near each entrance to the neighborhood.
there is one that is about 1.8 miles away.
we do not need this cell phone tower that is 170 feet tall,
which is equal to the height of an 11-story building.
we do not want this, we do not need it. Towers like this would be compatible in other places like
rural areas or a timber forest, away from homes and schools.
when this was established, probably somewhere around the
50s to the 70s, there was no such thing as a cell tower, so
they couldn't say we are going to prohibit this because they didn't know anything about it. We do have satellite service, we
can even purchase a satellite telephone.
so I say please say no to this. He was turned down four months
ago. Police say no for this cell tower. Thank you. >> thank you. Good afternoon.
>> good afternoon. I am showing you a picture again
of where I live, marked with a x.
I'm approximately 375 feet from the proposed tower.
I am at 619 west bianca circle. My next-door neighbor is the
person who is the closest to the tower site at 263 feet.
if you weeks ago, a very nice security officer helped me
measure the distance from this podium to the back wall. It's approximately 60 feet, which means this tower will be
almost three times this length. The special use permit does
allow for a taller tower but the st. Joan -- st. Johns county
ordinance 97.5 restricts the height at 150 feet.
previously, ice shared the petitions signed by 393
neighbors, opposing the tower based on language directly from
the st. Johns county land development code. They were so pleased that the board denied the proposal in
december. The comments earlier about property value impact was especially appreciated, as he is
regarded by many as an expert witness in his own right. When I think of the term compatibility, I equate it with
peaceful enjoyment of my home and property, which we now have.
our grandchildren enjoy gardening in our backyard with us. We are not supposed to the
church, I have not heard anyone say that they are opposed to the church, we just don't want the intrusion of a 170-foot tower
looming over our heads. My cell phone service is
excellent, my cable service is as well. However, I am confused by their contention that service coverage
deficits are well documented. I went to the team mobile websites, and this is what I saw when I put in my address for
coverage, that is pretty saturated, actually, with 5g
coverage. So I'm confused. Maybe somebody could speak to that.
and we have asked several times to see a list of other sites
that they explored. We have yet to see that.
I am wondering if that might be available for the commissioners. Thank you so much. We are asking that you uphold
the denial of the pca. Thank you. >> thank you. Good afternoon.
>> hello. My name is charles moran, I live at 601 felix court. Behind my house is a lake called
bird lake. When first purchased the property, that's what attracted us to that property.
when we were looking over at the lake, there were about 2500
birds there, egrets, ducks, wood storks, you name it, they are
there. That was a premium loft.
all of those lots on the lake our premium lots. They sell for more money. So here we are.
there have been organizations such as the american bird conservancy and the u.s. And wildlife services and the
national park conservation association that recommends
avoiding placement of cell phone towers in migratory corridors such as birdlike. Find another place.
there are plenty of lots for sale all around. There is a state property over there.
there is a state property past the golf course on the south
there is room. He says he can't see the cell
tower at night. B.s.
let me tell you something, the moon rises behind our house.
I see the shades of all the trees. It's beautiful when I look out. What am I going to see?
this crazy cell tower with four different types of carriers on
it. I don't want to see that. I have beautiful pictures of my backyard and now those pictures
will be ruined by this cell tower. I'm going to have to move out of this neighborhood, sell my house
at a lower cost. I don't want that.
we have an hoa in our neighborhood.
supposedly they can't take a position. Why? Why can't they take a position
on this? You are our hoa.
make a good decision for the people of the community.
that's all I've got to say. >> thank you.
>> I am a st. Augustine shores residents. I have never spoken in opposition to this many people.
so I'm a little nervous. I live in the area of where it
will be. I will be able to see it from my house. I am so thankful.
I don't know if anyone else, and I don't know if people have kids
but I do. And there are more of us moving into the shores because of the wonderful opportunities.
I have changed carriers twice. The wrong carriers but I do not
have 5g service. There are a couple of quick
points I want to make. I'm just hoping that you will do it based on the fax. I know there are a lot of people
opposed and I'm sure that their points are good. You probably can't see what this is but if you can -- it's power
lines. Near this, there is a huge space
where there are a bunch of power lines, they are above
ground. So yes, there is a lot of underground but there is a huge amount of power lines.
I'm not against clearcutting and I am so afraid from the ones
that have gotten clear cut it near us recently. But I want to show you this. That big green space, look who
comes? This is after the clear cutting. They are still coming. They come all the time.
I love it. Thank god for our protected
green spaces. They clear cut just across the street and they are still coming.
I just saw a baby fond. I get the fear.
I was against the liquor store coming near the same area but this isn't a liquor store. So I want to speak about safety.
my kids have reached the age where they can go down the street a bit to my mom's house. They cannot call me and lets me
know they are there because their watches don't work.
my husband and I called to my mom on messenger. I don't know why everyone else has great service because we
don't and I have tried other ones. If you look in the area, if we had taken that map and put the
number of sexual offenders there, let's just say there are
three within walking distance that we pass. We have a dog, my kids walk the dog before I get home.
I would love to be able to call them. They don't have smart watches because I don't believe it's
safe. It's a special watch and I can only call them. Help a mama out.
you need a hot spot in emergencies. That would be amazing to be able to have my kids not be bored.
>> thank you very much. >> 1748 -- technology has been
running like you wouldn't believe. I remember growing up, you were on a party line, a party line,
then we got our own separate line. My first mobile phone was the size of a six pack of beer.
that's a regular handheld set so it's growing leaps and bounds and here we are now to 5g. You were asking about the polls,
there is your poll. Yes what's on the top of it?
when you add on all the carriers, it's about the size of
a sun bus. I understand where people are coming from but there are alternatives.
there are definitely alternatives. As fast as it is growing, right now, this is on a one.
a18 has those in place right n now.
more and more community futures and towns are going with this
type of cell phone tower. You have to have a few more.
the proper head, it's a mile and a half that that reaches out with the proper frequency. Downtown, there's another one
downtown. And jacksonville right now has these in place. They are in place right now.
95 by gp has one of those things set right in front right now.
so it is being put to use. Powers, yes, they were needed a
long time ago but as we progress in the cell phone future,
satellite is going to be the next step. But in the meantime, we don't have to have these large towers.
we can use the alternative. You have to have a few more,
yes, but still, it's better than having one out your back window.
we don't need to have it. There are alternatives. I urge you to go with the alternatives.
they are being used out there. Commissioner taylor, I think because you had the nights for lights, the burned a mobile
unit. There are now one of these units
sitting outside st. Francis field right now. So it is used now, so let's continue to use.
there are alternatives. Thank you. >> thank you. Are there any other public
comments at this time on agenda item number 2. Seeing then, we will close -- we will close public comment.
>> any questions or comments from the board members?
okay. >> on rebuttal, I do want to
enter this into the records. This is the matter I spoke about
briefly and showed a map, ended talked about -- it really talks
about the compatibility. Compatibility isn't just about is a tower their first or second or home first or second.
it's about cohabitating. Harmonious uses.
it doesn't have to be exactly alike. The plan is very specific about that.
there's a policy that says that. It does not have to be exactly alike. That's a compatibility stat
statement. And while a tower is not exactly alike something in the neighborhood, it is critical
communication infrastructure and an essential service and it does provide that for this neighborhood and the growing
communities essentially right across the street there are
hundreds of lots coming online. Deltona themselves owning a lot
of land in the shores and there are a ton of lots in the area.
neither of them have shown up. It's just a fact. They haven't written an opposition letter.
because having cell phone service for new developments, new families, a lot of people ditch the land line and go
straight to cell phone service. That's an asset, that's a selling point. I wanted to provide concrete
facts on this on property valuations, and you can see from the property appraisers themselves that there are values
associated with the properties that are right next door to two of the towers but I just showed. I want to be very approximate --
I want to have a proximity to this scale of reference regarding comparables. I'm not a licensed real estate
appraisers so I'm stating that on the record. But we can all do research on sales and comparables and
evaluations. I just want to show this for the record and then I will enter it into the record as well.
once again, and the reason why this is key to this subject
matter because this isn't a google search. I'm trying to find something that's going to fit my narrative
on do cell phone towers search everybody's property values. Because I can find some articles to talk about the value of
cell phone coverage and essential services for residential areas. These are properties you see on
your screen here. These are the lots within 300 feet of two towers. One tower is 19018 -- 198,
there's 250 feet tall. That was a residential neighborhood built after the towers were there.
so correct, that is after the towers existed. But again, it didn't sway folks from designing and plotting and
building and promoting the neighborhood and also let the
record showed the valuation of the lots that are circled increasing in value. From late 2018, 2019 until
today. And so there also comes a value with knowing the home you are buying in the neighborhood does
have adequate cell phone service and coverage. And so I'm going to submit these from the record.
they are from a property appraiser itself showing valuations. I will submit these showing the
towers in proximity to those same residential lots as I discussed here. Again, that is the two-mile ring
around the property and that's part of the exhibit would provide this required for this application.
I will say that we have met all the criteria in the code for a
special use permit for this tower location.
there is one area that people describe and that's why we're here because compatibility. What's the compatibility, it's
based on visual esthetics. How did those visual esthetics impact. In the code, it says adjacent
property values. Adjacent means abutting. This tower and this property is not abutting a residential
property. It's actually exceeds the minimum distance requirements for the code. As we know, 250 feet is the standard we are beyond that.
so I do believe that some of the discussion about the appraiser
dating articles back to 2005, when there wasn't even 5g coverage back then, are subjective and not a comparison
for this specific location, and they lack writable substantial
details. There's nothing comparing the
exact type of tower in a neighborhood such as this. It's a strong brush and broad campus of interviews and
articles online. One could speculate that lack of coverage and a specific area of a neighborhood could result in
less desirable factors that outweigh having a cell phone tower in view that meets or exceeds the ldc tower
requirements in the st. Johns county code. We heard today through an hour plus of public comment, a lot of
them talked about safety and communication. The ability to communicate and the ability to have safety.
congestion in the tower, congestion and radio-frequency for tower coverage. The key was having adequate
coverage. Dozens of citizens attests the need for critical communication of a structure that adequately
serve the community. Again, appraisals in testimony
doesn't portray an entire picture very detailed with confident substantial evidence were as is reasonably probable
that comparables of real estate also reflect increase in values near towers as I submitted for the record.
whether visible in the distance or any similar development because of service they provide. There are not a lot of places to
put towers like this. We are given a specific ring to
go hunt for properties. The engineers at the service provider say this is the area where there is a black hole, a
void in coverage. The key to the void in coverages and home and in the car service. People say I can go in my front
yard and get my coverage and hold my phone up and everyone does that answer try to get service coverage.
the key to that, there aren't a lot of places to put this it doesn't come with another set of circumstances including
visibility. That's nimby as him to team. We want service but get out of my backyard. That's my green space. When I moved there, the church
wasn't there. There's all trees. So they've adore -- they've adorned it to their own green
space when it's private property and as part of the commercial and business district. A mixed used pod, not purely
residential. So I cite the policy and comprehensive plan the talks about compatibility does not
mean it needs to be exactly alike. That's a policy adopted in the conference of plan.
we understand towers are not exactly like other elements in there as far as critical information of her structure but
it does not have to be exactly alike to live in coharmony overtime. And so I stated this before and
I will again, I have a tower in by backyard as we are going to talk about it. When I look at my back door of
my front door, I can see the tower, it's on executive way.
it's about 165 roughly foot tower. It's not live. I bought it several years ago
and the gentleman that sold it to me certainly didn't offer him
the ability to negotiate because there's a tower back there for a diminution of property value. I have a tower, I cohabitate
with it. I see it. And it does provide adequate service.
again, I ask for your consideration. The other item I will pitch to you that we haven't brought up
is mr. Moody brought up one good point, we were collaborating in the back. The further you get away from
the proximity of other specific use, is not a business parcel or
a tower parcel, it does not affect or diminish property values as much. So I'm willing to proffer if I
can get your support for this to move the tower about 320 feet to
the south on the same property. We can only deal with the 5 acres we have at hand. We can't say go to the parcel
across the street. That public service announcement was for the 5-acre property in total, not just the lease
parcel. It encapsulate the full 5 acres. We are willing to move the tower to the south side of that
property in the corner. What that does is it gets that tower 500 feet which is double the 250-foot requirement,
500 feet from the northern most residential property and the western most residential property adjacent to us.
again, after cross over the open space residential area before you get to the residential space both ways.
it's double the standard to 50. And it does lower the perceived
view or vista of the tower itself. We are willing to make that concession if you would so like.
from here, if this were to be approved with that condition, we would then go do our environmental studies on that
parcel. We looked at the church parcel but we were working with the church itself on the master plan
and where they should go where we're going. But I would like to make that offer.
>> thank you for adding that. I just wanted you to go back to the last slide that you have. You acknowledge yourself that
there is a visibility problem. The last thing that you said waa
quicker way to get through these sites. >> the very last one. >> I know.
I think it mentioned working with the staff commission. >> because of visibility. >> again, we looked at the
flagpole type and there are inherent issues with that as described. Furthermore, towers are
working -- >> I know you are talking fast right now but it looks like you actively would do this.
>> our goal is to balance community esthetics with critical infrastructure needs. We are committed to working with
staff and the board on reasonable conditions or further reduce visual impact without compromising the facilities
function. >> so you acknowledge there is a
visual problem. And I appreciate right now that you are moving it's. Thanks. >> we acknowledge it. It's hard to put a 164 --
8165-foot tower anywhere without someone seeing it and potentially complaining about it.
so I ask for your recommendation of approval on this matter. Thank you. >> thank you.
commissioner, you are recognized. >> thank you, mr. Chair. Is mr. Moody still here?
ms. Caputo, you are a real estate agent. Did you bring any comparables that would indicate that a
property value does go down within a certain proximity of a cell phone tower? >> no, I have not.
I thought that mr. Moody was bringing them, so I did not bring any. >> just for the record, she
answered that no, she did not bring any. She thought mr. Moody was bringing them.
>> through the chair. ♪ mr. Moody left me his
materials. To reflect for the record, there are no comps in the material. >> so the material left with
you, there are no comps. Okay. Thank you. >> if I may, mr. Moody was
predicated on the adjacency factor. The definition talks about adjacent as being abutting.
the lack of any further clarification, you go to webster's dictionary, I staff can back that up.
webster's dictionary does describe adjacent does not mean
abutting or sharing or cohabitating with a property line. And we meet that metric.
in the code specifically, it's as possible reduction in property value, adjacent property value and we are not
adjacent by definition. >> okay, back to the board.
any other discussion from any of the board members?
okay. I am ready to hear a motion.
let's me put my two cents worth in here. One of the challenges that I had with this is going back, I
needed something to really hang my hat on when it came to the
legalities of this. All go back to what I said earlier, that this is not a regular hearing.
this is quasijudicial. And we actually have to sit as the judge in this case and not the defense attorney or the
prosecutor. So we have to take credible substantial evidence, and that's the biggest challenge for me
going back and looking at this is I needed something to hang my hat on that was credible and substantial in order to move.
one of the big challenges that I have with this is in mr. Moody's
testimony, I felt like I had something that I could hang my hat on to deny. I would have liked to have seen
something else. I would have liked to have seen
that he had comps, and those of the kinds of things that we can use as a judge to hang our hat up on.
and talking about that for weeks, as people send me emails and we talk about that. I still struggle.
one of the challenges that I struggle with is the legalities of it. That we are going to be back
here in a court of law getting this overturned because I don't
really feel or I do feel the challenges of trying to do
something here. So let me take the advice of a
good friend of mine and when the going gets rough, you've got to
go with your heart. I'm going to make a motion to deny the appeal. Upholding the decision of the
planning and zoning agency denied tower 224 based upon the
substantial evidence of mr mr. Moody, elizabeth michaels
and judy caputo when they testify about the diminishing values of the property. >> and I seconds that's.
>> we have a motion to seconds. Just as a reminder, as we go to
vote, a "yes" vote would be to deny the appeal court -- to
agree with the appeal -- let me make sure that I get this right.
a "yes" vote means that you are agreeing with my decision, my
motion to deny. That's correct.
as we go to vote, a "yes" would be with the motion and a no
would be against the motion. >> I don't have it.
>> that is 5-0. Motion to deny how past.
thank you so much for the hard work of not only the applicants
but also the people here. We are going to take a break. We will be back at quarter to choose, 145 will be when we
>> we are back in the folder, and we are ready for agenda item
number 3. >> good afternoon, sir.
>> good afternoon, mr. Chairman. James white house,.
>> before you get started, this is quasijudicial.
I will ask commissioner arnold% for her ex partes. >>> thank you, mr. Chair. I had no emails from residents
or stops but I did have a phone conversation with james
white house on behalf of the applicant. >> no emails from residents or the team.
a meeting with james white house and the team. >> thank you. Commissioner whitehurst.
>> no emails. Did meet with james white house yesterday to select site location, uses and concession to
make with some of the other signs that were allowed.
>> commissioner taylor. >> no emails from residents or staff. A meeting with james
white house, applicant and staff. >> I would say the same, I did have a meeting with mr
mr. Whitehouse. You know have the floor.
>> thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman, commissioners. For the record, james whit
whitehouse, saint johns law group. I am here on behalf of of u-haul florida, for this application,
which is a application for a nonzone variance to request approval for reason related for -- for the number of signs,
the total, size amount when added together and including, as
you heard, and I spoke with some of the about this, the removal of a previous life -- previous line not preferred by the
community in the area. This is located, as you know, to
the west of 95 of 16. It's a very large, almost
13-acre property at the southwest corner of the major intersection of state road 16 and county road 16a.
here you see an overview of the property itself from the self
report, as outlined in yellow, with the two buildings. There is a big agricultural piece to the west of this.
this is a better aerial view where you can see in the green the village, in the orange, the mirabel area, and the pink, as
well as the red. The intersection we are talking about outlined in blue is the property.
you can see the bridge down to the left there. We are within the future land use commercial ends world
commercial on the backside of this particular property. As you can see, these are from your staff report.
this is within a pud, as discussed within the staff
report. Staff report. This is an allowed use there in. You can see the two very large
buildings that have been developed on-site and in use currently without signs on them. That's why we're here are here
to talk about that. The big building is almost
125,000 square feet, very large, almost 300-foot in facade along
16 and smaller buildings about 17,000 square feet. And over 150-foot in facade along the roadway.
here you can see the major intersection in red.
that is 16 going to the intersection then turning down toward where you go to 13, so believe and you have 16 a going
straight. The pink is outlined, this major intersection within our county. Here you can see the
intersection south outlined in orange. Many are probably familiar with that and have gone through that
before. You can see the distance with the red arrow, how far it is from the building itself.
I will have more pictures in a moment. Here you can see the buildings, and these are the distances,
about 450 feet to the wilting b labeled within the staff report,
in building a from 16 -- over 550 feet away.
as we talked about and is outlined within your staff report, this pud is currently approved to have 425 put signs
on county road 16 a as well as four 30-foot signs on state road
16 that can all be out and they are tech nick liu monument ground sides going on there, those were the ones talking
about a mid minute they are prepared to forgo in the exchange of 88. This is an within the northwest
sector so you will have landscaping, scenic edges and buffers et cetera which as you see, the trees out there now are
not as big but they will be big when you go up and down roads like st. John's parkway or racetrack.
you see how a lot of these buildings have to have signs higher up and larger. In fact, I was here before one
in st. John's it was for a gas station that we had to put higher up and put bigger signs on the gas station because of
the landscaping. These are the kind of signs that
didn't go along, and they are approved, four of these on both
roadways along 16. Like I said, they can be up to 40 feet. And along 16a, they can be
25 feet. Like I said, the application is being made on behalf of the u-haul center for relief from
the one-size-fits-all ldc song -- sign code provisions which require 88 resigns -- the request is to talk about the
number of signs vis-a-vis the total size amount when added together. It includes the removal of this
approved sign as that is not preferred by the communities along the other state and county roadway.
this is the language that specifically from the pud that approve these signs, along 16 and 16.
they have a right to these. Today, they could go put these up, and they would much rather have a minor increase on the
amounts on the side of the building, giving up these signs, which is on each roadway, would be 500 square feet of ada, which
is less of what they are asking for in addition to each bui
building. As you see from your staff
report, this is within the cattle ridge plan unit. Development is to allow for advertising display of 636
square feet on building a and 576 feet on building b.
that's a reduction on building a of over 100 square feet from when they first brought this application.
as you know, a nonzoning variance is a case-by-case deviation to the rules of our code, upon a showing of good
because that's an alternative to the code is provided that conforms to the general spirit and intent of the code.
you see within your staff report, it talks about the fact that this particular pud allows for these other signs on 16 and
16a. We would assert to you the fact that it is within the spirit and intent of our code and within
the pud to remove those, adding that ada to the building itself,
taking into consideration the very large characteristics of the buildings themselves, scenic visibility from the roadway with
the landscaping et cetera. Like I said, today, I am here to tell you that that is the reason why we think this is appropriate
because we are willing to give those up and that would be a condition, that would be added to the order if this board
approved the ada requested for this particular building.
again, it's very important to note the distances because distance is one of the requirements that we talked
about when we talk about signs and whether there should be an increase in the size of signs on the holdings.
as you will see from within your packet, the spirit and intent of
our code is so you don't take a building and put signs over the whole side of the building or have a sign that is so large
úthat it takes up the whole side of the building. Not to say we have the signs that take up a reasonable
amount. When you look at these and you look at the depictions, and I will show you pictures of the buildings itself, they don't. They take up one particular
area. Our code talks about businesses, signs for business. This happens to be the u-haul
center, suis considered one business under our code, although they really have four businesses within the building
itself. That's why they have the four different types of signs on different facades.
again, when you look at the different on building b, it's right in the middle on the one brown material side.
when you look at the other side of building b, looking at the intersection, it's only on that one side.
the one little area, and again on the backside looking up 16a.
this is accumulation of all the signs, and that's where we come into the request because none of the signs which are code allows
for up to 150 square seat -- square feet per sign, none of the signs are even 150 square feet.
in fact, it shows the accumulation because our code is
interesting in it says you can have signs that can be up to 150 square feet but the maximum can only be 200.
to really if you have a hundred 50-foot side, you would only be able to have one fine. So it doesn't make sense in
these huge buildings to do that. That's what a nonzoning variance is. That's why when we look at the
different -- here you can see from the intersection itself,
it's not god, it's not like they are putting signs all over the building. It's one section. When you come to the huge intersection, to be able to see
these for a business. Like I said, it may be these four sides up to 35 to 40 feet up down 16 and 60a which are
prepare -- they are prepared to forgo those as a condition of this proposal. Within the code, as you know, we
have the requirements for nonzoning variance. We've gone through that. The staff as shown that within staff report. Therefore, we are here to ask
you for reasonable considration to allow these additional building exchange removing the right to have these multiple
signs along the roadways. The request isn't -- is in
complete harmony with the area, the pud and comprehensive plan
and that the removal of the unwanted signs will merely allow for additional signs on these very large buildings.
we have received no calls or opposition to this particular
request. The staff has provided motion for approval with conditions and findings.
I'm here to answer any questions. Thank you, mr. Chair. >> thank you. Questions from the board? We will go to mr. Arnold.
you are recognized. >> to mr. Whitehouse, when we discuss this on the phone, I think you mentioned perhaps the
pca, when they made their decision, wasn't fully made aware of the entitled signs, if you will, that will be on 16k,
if this is -- >> yes, ma'am.
unfortunately -- not unfortunately but as you know, sometimes individual applicants come and present their items,
which they are allowed to do. Sometimes, since some of us do this a lot and all the time, understand the nuances of how to
explain things and how to make it clear that that is really the exchange, that's why it's within these.
and intent of our code and pud is the removal of those. That was not made clear when I went back and watched it.
I think that's a big difference. >> thank you. >> thank you. We will go to public comments.
>> at this time, we will take public comment on agenda item
number 3. >> good afternoon. I live at 101 greenwell lane. I was fully aware of the removal
of the monument signs. For me, it was a matter of
636.14 and 576.91 where feet, with the maximum allowed of
200 feet. It seems like to have -- it seems like too much. Especially with u-haul trucks
everywhere. It seems like there's no lack of advertising with this large building.
and perhaps there will be eventually buffers that will grow but for now there are tiny shrubs and tiny trees.
it just doesn't seem to fit with the character of the neighborhood to add such a huge increase.
I do understand it's a branding issue, and they know they want what they want to but for me, it was just too much for that
general area. And defense, with all due
respect to mr. Whitehouse, who does a wonderful job, and I do appreciate him stepping up for this one, but I think it is too
much, in my opinion. But it is your decision to make it, mine. Thank you.
>> good afternoon. >> good afternoon.
I know exactly where this intersection is because I live right down the road from it. If you want to be able to worry
about the little shrubs that are growing, then they might overgrow and you won't be able to see the 127,000 square-foot
storage facility on that small intersection.
god help you. Please. You shouldn't be driving. Honestly.
this building is massive. It is. Both of them are. And so we need bigger size -- we
will take some outside from the road but the building is right there. It's not like these signs are
four or 5 miles from the building. It is right there. They didn't want to show all of
the big true pictures of what it's like. Did you see how far 16 is from that building?
50 eet, 75 feet, of 127,000 square-foot building, with all
of the u-haul surrounded? Come on. This is a constant issue that happens.
and yes, this is the same person who brings it up.
we need to get this building down. The second time, we will come around and get it done.
we need to get the signs a lot larger. Why? Because bucky's did it.
why? Because home depot did it. Why? Because the church needed a
bigger sign because everybody wasn't seeing it, even though
the iron cross that is above the church about 25 feet, nobody can see that but they need to see the massive sign on the church.
this is not just a simple -- we messed up and we need to fix
this. Who really cares if there's a sign beside the road and the 18,000 square foot two story and
then the 127,000 square foot two story is right there, all of the storage facilities around it and people are like oh, no, I'm
looking for a u-haul that says u-haul on it. These signs aren't big enough for you to see this.
this is just ignorance. This is just a way to come in and put their point across of how it looks and it will look --
it needs to look better because no one will find this thing. It's hidden. By all means.
we have to have signs bigger and we will take down a few of them,
but we need to have these other ones larger because when we do that, nobody will find it. We will have problems.
oh, my word! Are you serious?
? Nobody will see this better than an inter
intersection... If you don't know that end come and sit in that intersection and see how many people are driving
around asking people, have you seen a u-haul place around here?
>> thank you, thank you very much. Are there any other public comments at this time on agenda
item number three? Seeing none we will close public comment.
>> okay we will go back -- do we have any rebuttal?
>> just briefly. I want to show a couple of these because I'm going -- I. Don't want to -- you've been by here
so you know so this is looking at the intersection on the left hand turn lane going towards 13 and the wins bridge, you can see
there's a number of things between this building and where they are and this is another one that shows you there's a number
of things. Here's looking on 16a looking back at it again. It will grow up.
these are just and there's one sections that we talked about on the brown areas where the signs will be, they're not trying to
take up the whole side. I just want to refer back to because our code is very interesting in that when it
talks about businesses, we could have this -- if this could be a strip mall and you could have 200 per business in a strip mall
all along the whole side of the building if this is for different businesses, it's not, it just happens to be owned by
u-haul center, they're all under u-haul center so it can't have
four different signs for that. If that was the case we would have 200 per and it would be 800 square feet per building.
and I would still be below that. This is a reasonable exchange
for taking out those signs which I don't think anyone wants along 16 or 16a which makes it within the spirit and intent of our
code and the unity itself which is why this is appropriate for nonzoning variance. Thank you mr. Chair.
>> thank you commissioner joseph you have the floor. >> we will increase the landscaping please.
>> yes, ma'am, and I've already met with the staff. I didn't do the pca presentation.
>> not take out and replace but add. >> yes, I talked to them while we were going through this to
bring it as a pile, I talked to them and they said they would send someone back out to review it to see whether it sector plan
stopped and people said they were finishing it and they were still having to do more landscaping so what you see out
there is not fully what is required under the plan in the process of doing that. >> thank you.
>> thank you mr. Chair. Obviously the trees will never completely blot out this building, I don't think that's
this business doesn't need -- needs visibility to succeed.
the signs are big, there's no denying that but against the
building, it kind of fits. This is totally subjective, in the eye of the beholder and I understand that but for signs
along the road, in each direction, to me that's more unsightly than these signs right against the buildings so I'm in
favor of allowing these signs to exist, the applicant is giving
up to get the signs, I think the signs are a good fit at this
commercial node. >> I have a couple of comments.%
when we met I asked if you could please bring in a picture of what it would look like, the sign portion to the wall, did
you do that? >> not a rendering but another
building you already have because u-haul is all over.
>> I only brought the billing we have but I brought the billing to show you that it's on a.brown so when you compare the
depiction to the building, you can see it's only on that brown section that's in the middle again which is a very small part
of the facade of this 125,000 square foot and 18,000 square
foot building when we will go back to the depictions. >> that would have been very helpful to see that.
I just drive by yesterday, you can't miss it that this is a
u-haul facility. This is very clear with -- what this is. You've got bright orange all
over. I think one of my concerns is that right across the street are townhomes going in and signs are
already there so there will be townhomes there and just the fact that they'll have to look out their window and have to
look at that, I had no problem from a long way away saying that
this is a clearly -- it was very clear to me from quite a
distance, what this business is. I do agree with the pca
decision. That's a huge increase for that
building. >> anyone else? Do I have a
motion? Mr. Arnold,. >> thank you mr. Chair.
I will make a motion to approve the planning application 2020
6-04 u-haul center signs 2025 -- ten overturning the decision of
the planning and zoning agency and improving non zoning variance 2025 -- ten based on five conditions.
and including the additional vegetation that you've promised here on the record that you will be planting.
>> second, we have a motion to second. Let's go to vote. Remember, a yes is to overturn.
that passes 4-1. Let's go straight into agenda
item number four. Orthodontics this is a quasi
judicial matter for agenda item number four so I will go to the
first two. >> thank you mr. Chair. I've had a handful of emails, I'm meeting with mark shelton,
chris henry on suzanne henry individually about this project
as well as attempt at community meeting would be hosted at the elementary school. >> thank you so much.
commissioner joseph. >> I have nothing.
>> I have a handful of emails, I met with mark sheldon in the office we discussed the site location compatibility and the
intended use. >> I guess I have -- meeting
with mark shelton, chris henry, suzanne henry and staff.
>> I also had no emails that I met with them and staff so we
will go. >> , thank you.
good afternoon as opposed to morning. My name is mark shelton with -- my address is 12740 bay parkway
west suite 2350 jacksonville, florida, 32258. With me today was doctor chris henry, he had to go work on some
braces but his wife suzanne henry is with me here today as well as bill, also with associates.
pierre the request before you today is a small pud called pud
2025-05 henry orthodontics which is located around state road 16 close to igp intersection near mirabella.
the property is currently zoned as open rural and contains two single family homes. Our request to rezone to pud is
consistent with the residential letter section of the composite plan in that number when we have to rezone to pud neighborhood
commercial uses only, number two keep the intensity to less than
10,000 square feet per acre and number three, make sure we don't develop it as a strip setter, that linear 1970s esque
commercial. There's the existing zoning, and
there's a proposed zoning. As we head to rezone the pud as
we mentioned when we met with y'all back in october last year, it gave us a chance to control the permissible uses.
we looked in the code, it got those neighborhood commercial uses and we said what is best for this small commercial
development for medical office being in orthodontics in medical
office like that so we purposely took out those considerations
for residential. We took out things like schools, funeral homes, convenience stores, grocery stores, billiard
parlors, liquor and wine stores, antenna towers, banks with drive
thrus and then at northwest center meeting we heard a suggestion by chuck lobanovsky to include shops.
we included that as well. In this slide shows a conceptual
site plan that you might be familiar with. We left this colorized photo in their -- exhibit in there to
show the enhanced landscaping that we've agreed to. It's also part of the code. The undistrbed wetlands in the
back which will be undisturbed, untouched, unmitigated as well
as compliant with weather management buffer as well as the location of the pond. In this slide, we're happy to
report that we have multiple letters of support. We reached out to neighbors and the green shaded properties were
the ones that sent us back letters of support. We had no opposition at the northwest sector meeting which
was well attended. Heard about the suggestion for the shop which we took off and then we had no opposition at
pga. This is mainly due to the fact that this is a true neighborhood service development.
this is not a regional attr attractor.
some of the project benefits is that this is infill development along four-lane divided highway. These are neighborhood
commercial uses which are liable in the land use and compatible with the area. It complies with the
st. Johns county plan, provides appropriately sized commercial development along the minor arterial approximate a
residential development and schools those children that will use this facility it's preserving the quality of
wetlands behind us. As mentioned at the pza meeting
back in march we received a70 recommendation for approval and
it was suggested that we lower our monument side height from 30
to 15 and we said yes absolutely, we will change that in the pud to comply with that. With that, bill and I and
suzanne are available for questions.
>> any questions? Public comment. >> at this time we would hear public comment on agenda item
number four. >> hello again, I live right there within that area. I have seen all the developments
I got denied and everything else getting developed around it.
there is concern, is that area losing its ruler -- rural area?
there is no -- nothing we can do about it now because like always here that was 25 years ago when they made the plans to do this
stuff but orthodontist offered 30,000 square feet, is that
multiple -- is that worth other businesses in there to make it and to use it? It just seems extremely large.
that seems to be a big common factor like walmart buys a big
piece of property and they sub a lot of buildings out so they can
cover their cost but there's only -- I know where this place
is, I hate seeing 16 getting stripped out of what it was.
even though it has no matter of what I say but seeing this for
the kids, please don't use them as an example or excuse to have
a business being put in. 16 is losing it.
that's the middle of district two. It's losing it. I think a lot of people might
pass by this looking for the orthodontics and then look down
at the u-haul place because their signs will be so big now
that, hey, you're in district two we've got the bigger u-haul center, around and if you can't find it, too bad.
that's what's happening out there. My neighbors who live there for 40 plus years in mill creek
estates, built in the early 30s, part of it was in the
dairy lands back there. Yes, we are strange people.
we know this will happen, this is a normal thing, highway
coming through but a 30,000 square foot orthodontics
facility it's used up all the property and are they going to
ride in ride out to get there? That could cause problems too
because just because they're doing up the intersection of 16
and pacetti, there's nothing going to be backing up to help track it there. >> thank you.
are there any other public comments at this time on agenda item number four? Seeing none we will close public comments buy
go back to the board. >> thank you mr. Chair.
motion to enact ordinance 2020 6-6 approving pud 2025-05 henry
orthodontics based upon nine finding fact as listed in the report. >> second.
>> we have a motion to second. Let's vote.
it passes 4yn. Congratulations. Let's go straight into agenda number five.
so, commissioner, my name is lex taylor deputy county attorney and here bringing the wellhead protection.
in our review of people coming in, trying to figure out what they can do close to our wellheads, in us trying to go
get new wellheads to increase water pressure, we found out our
rules are not completely clear, they don't comply with some state laws on what we've been complying with state laws can
create some confusion. We're bringing this amendment to bring ourselves into compliance with state law to update the
wellhead protection standards to the current best practices and make sure we align so that we are working with the water
management district. This is the authority and
justification. What is a wellhead? Wellheads
are the top structure that we use to protect where we get our
public water. These are not the wellheads that people might have at their houses.
these are only for large units like ga, our utility company or
maybe one or two other public use for potable water in the
county. Not for irrigation. We currently have a prime rate -- 200 feet, the state has one
zone of 500 feet and we have a secondary zone for 1000 feet so we will change the ldc and come back to you in about a month to
align with the state 500 feet for our primary zone and keep the thousand foot secondary z zone.
that -- those are the changes. This is the red line in case questions that were specific but we've already gone through this
with pza, this only had the baseline questions of what it is
and they seem to be favorable to it. It was seven and out. If you have any questions, I
have all of the staff here or a good person to answer questions and we'll be happy to do that. >> the chair: thank you any
questions from the board? Seeing none --
>> this time we will take public comment on agenda item number
five. >> seeing none we will close public comment. >> the chair: back to the
board and we can do this by consensus.
>> you need a motion because you're transmitting. >> I'll make that motion. >> the chair: I think the
motion would be to transmit the comprehensive plan amendment to
the state, is that correct? So is that good enough? Would you
second my motion then? >> yes absolutely.
>> the chair: a yes vote will be to transmit to the state for
review. Let's get the vote.
that passes 5-0. Let's go to agenda item number
six. >> good afternoon board I am
terri shoemaker with saint john's county utilities chief engineer for development services.
I'm back, I was here march third for the first reading of our so we have the second reading today.
just review what we've been doing. As you recall, this is our utility ordinance, 2237 and in
october, commissioner murphy asked us to look into our line extension program specifically for sewer, septic sewer, really
wanted to streamline that and make it accessible to the public. We wrote a white paper that you
all reviewed, we actually -- commissioner murphy, myself and neil went to treasure beach where a lot of the interest was
for a public meeting in december. We came back in january for a discussion with you all and you
said go ahead and do the updates so now we're here to codify this
program and with that like I said the first reading was on the 3rd of march and here we are today.
the existing sewer policy -- I. Know you've heard this a few times so I will be quick but this existing program that we've
had is only 200 feet or less from our infrastructure to the
home which is very limiting and we do offer that facilitation of
the project because a lot of homeowners don't have engineers and contractors and the design but only within that 200 feet.
the rest of the policy is pretty silent and if you have a few
people what if it is 600 feet and so we want to get all that in writing so we can facilitate more and get the sewer to more
people. Also our previous line extension program had the 25% administrative fee that we are
removing now and like I said silent on other things and also didn't even account for the cpi, consumer price indexing we do in
our tariff every october first. We only focused on sewer, the
water line extensions are less common and also we had to account for things like fire flow and it's trickier with
sizing so we're getting the sewer out there to streamline that and make it more efficient paired with that we increase the
length from 200 feet to a thousand feet. That's considering operations of that line, if you're a thousand
feet at the end you'll need to find a couple neighbors between or else it will clog up. The infrastructure charge will
be equitable across the service area, right now depending on where you are, it could cost more or less, how far away you
are and all of that so $2250 will be the infrastructure
charge in the main tariff for all the new sewer customers that will be indexed each october first.
we took out the administrative fee, the tapping fee, and we
will allow the financing of the infrastructure charge with the unit connection fees that we've always allowed financing for and
that's 5% over seven years. The rate tariff we're hoping may first would be the effective date and at that point, we have
a website we will launch with the septic to sewer information, a one-pager that we will mail out to interested -- I. Have a
list of interested parties and we will send out information to their neighbors to get that street connected at one time and
the web page will have all the details they need and as you
know, all the different goals, the treasure beach folks with all their waterways and water quality, the state has these
goals, the county has these goals to eliminate septic tanks and we will make it happen. So while we're in the ordinance,
we're doing some cleanup so you saw the red lines that were in
the package, we will remove an antiquated process that we had for many years ago that hasn't been used recently.
it's the capacity commitment reservation agreement and the
associated sections. Also we will allow some flexibility in our rate tariff to try new technology for
reclaimed water. It's basically where we can control the meter and it will shave off the peak demands when
everyone wants to irrigate at one time, we will experiment in silverleaf with it. They have an irrigation schedule
but even so, it's nice to have this technology and we don't
have to increase pipe sizes, pumps tanks and also gets the best service because if you're all irrigating at once you can
get less water pressure and just that level of service.
those are the clean ups in addition to the septic to sewer
program policy changes. With that I will take any questions you have. >> fantastic.
I want to say, -- thank you so much for the hard work.
this is -- I. Can imagine for some people moving here this is
long overdue. We have so many septic tanks in this county and they just -- to think about the fact that we
could literally reclaim every gallon of sewer, reclaim it,
treat it and use it as irrigation somewhere as the county I think is an amazing feat and I certainly appreciate
the hard work. We will go to public comment.
>> at this time we will take public comment on agenda item
number six. Seeing none we will close public comment. >> I would like to make a
motion. >> seven. >> county ordinance 2022 -- 37 is amended concerning septic to
sewer program enhancements and other administrative revisions. >> I will second. >> we have a motion to second,
let's vote. >> that passes 5-0.
thank you. Let's go to agenda item number seven. >> thank you.
>> good afternoon commissioner jamie purchasing director item number seven is the award of rp 2476 for the management of the
solomon county community center pool.
just to go back over the timeline how we got here back in august, the board gave direction to do a six month extension to
the current contract because it was expiring in october with direction of doing new rfp solicitation for the services.
the rfp went out november fifth, proposals came in on
december 11th, evaluations of proposals were done january 22nd, presentations were done on february fifth and we've
been negotiating since then to this point.
there were five responses submitted, three of those proposals were deemed materially responsive to the requirements
of the rfp. Those three proposals were provided to our evaluation committee for review and
consideration based on the criteria in the rfp. All three proposals were brought back to due presentations to
also score presentations and then with the scoring of both the proposals and presentations, it was determined to be the top
ranked farm. In the negotiations, these are some kind of key points that we've come to an agreement on
with what we're presenting in the negotiating contract to you. There's been an agreement to keep the rates consistent with
current rate structure for swim lessons and based on what's in the county schedule. There is a revenue share of 15%
of all the revenues generated from the programs at the pool to come to the county. There's a contribution for
capital improvements and maintenance projects of 15,000 plus another potential 10% of all revenues.
they've agreed to provide annual passes and a summer swim team
access at reduced fees for cra residents. They're also providing private learn to swim lessons for zero
to three year olds that have not been previously provided at the
pool or are not currently provided and they're also providing private development lessons which are being added to
the schedule. They're also agreeing to provide a 90 minute supervised swim program once each week charged
to those children that may come to the pool but don't have an accompanying adult to supervise them so they agree to implement
that program for us as well. Some of the scope of services.
there's been some questions about the scope of services or the services at the solomon will change drastically.
where we direct the scope of services that have been under the contract and these are some of the key points that are
mandated as part of the scope to services of this contract, the
hours of operation -- these are required to maintain throughout the duration of the contract. If they look to change their
schedule from swim lessons for programs and things that we have approved as part of their programs they have to let us know ahead of time and we have to give them approval to do that
so they can't just all of a sudden stop offering programs without our approval and consideration.
daily regular maintenance pool programs, lifeguard services, supplies and inventories, pool rentals, reporting, all of those
things are all part of the scope of services that we dictate as part of this contract. They're required to develop and
implement and abide by a policy and procedure manual which we also approve and mandate and monitor their performance by.
they have to provide an audit financial statement every october 31st and each year during the contract, there's an
ongoing requirement for advertising marketing plans that they would refresh every 90 days so that they're getting
they're offering and what isms- available at the solomon pool.
they have to refresh it every 90 days throughout the contract so it's an ongoing effort to communicate out into the
community of what they're doing what's available and how they get access to these programs. If any of their staff is not
performing or not doing what we need them to do from the county's perspective, the county can let them know they have to
replace those staff people within five days of our notification. At the outside we sang -- john
smith is not doing what he's supposed to, he needs to be gone to morrow, then they have to replace him, if that's what the
county dictates. There's also financial consequences built into the contracts so if they fail to
provide the number of programs each month or in a month, they
have to lose $500 off of their payment for that program they
failed to provide. They're required to provide eight unique programs. If they don't do eight, if they
do seven, then $500 comes off for each instance of a program
not provided. There's also requirements for licensing and certification for the various personnel,
lifeguards and different folks they have to have employed if those certifications lapse, they don't maintain them as they're
supposed to, their financial consequences built into the contract in those instances as well.
this is the fee schedule that is in the backup. These are the changes. The strikethrough is what is
currently in the fee schedule and essentially the items below
that like for like but just how the titling of the programs are but the pricing structure is insane.
for the swim lessons and the additional things are the private stroke development lessons, the summer swim team,
the discount structure for the annual passes and the summer swim team for cra residents. Those are all added to the fee
schedule but the fees that were currently being charged for programs for daily swim things are all staying flat.
essentially, the contract is that there's a $300,000 annual management fee that we pay to them each year that will be
broken up into monthly installments and then the revenue contributions to us will be handled as separate
transactions so that we can have the auditing trail of where did those revenues come from, what was that amount of revenue and
then show the portion of it that comes to the county. It's a five year initial term, there are three available, one
year renewal options and the consideration for that was because of the revenue sharing and the contributions to capital
improvement it kind of warrants a longer term consideration for
those renewals. We always have the ability to terminate if someone is not performing, we always have the ability to terminate for convenience.
that's built into our contracts just as a standard.
the motion before you is a recommendation to award the negotiated contract to planet swim as the top ranked
respondent and to approve the modification to the fee schedule because that's adopted by you all so that's also part of this
motion. I'm here and also recreation and parks is here if you have any questions.
>> thank you so much. >> I'm very familiar with all
the programs, my daughter's being part of every single one of them except for the second, I don't know if it's the second
one. The background checks, all their
instructors are certified in three different ways, there's
not -- had the instruction of how to teach someone, how to
save lives and I know change is hard and I know this group would probably work with anyone who has issues and so with that I'd
like to adopt -- resolution... I'm making the motion, I'm
allowed to make the motion. I'm making the motion and
there's -- the motion is on the table, right? Motion to adopt resolution 20 2026-11 for authorizing the
county administrator or designee to award rfp 2426 management of
solomon calhoun community center pool to plan as the top ranked
proposer and to execute the negotiated contract for the performance of the required services in accordance with our
fp2476 and improving the revised county fee schedule for the pool
programs. >> speaker-04: we have a motion and a second. >> thank you mr. Chair.
miss locklear, have they provided the county with audited financials as part of the rfp process?
>> no that was not part of the criteria that we were
considering? >> they will be provided -- required to provide audited financials by october 31st of
this year but they have not done that as of yet? >> no because they intended to audit the financials as it
relates to the contracts of the operation of the contract to make sure that their management of the contract for this
facility isn't negatively impacted by other operations and things they have going on so it's done as a contractual
measure, it wasn't done as a consideration in the rfp.
>> thank you for answering that question. I understand the process and why it's set up that way, I just
wanted to get clarification from that point. Through the chair, miss ferguson mr. Commando mr. Taylor I. Will
go to you as best equipped to answer this question but I read
through the contract, I'm not an attorney.
the things jenny put up here on the slides, I want to make sure they are enforceable for the terms of the contract.
what I will not ever do is vote yes to hire a vendor that would
cause the children who live in this community to take a step backwards. That's not something I will ever
support so all of the things that will benefit the community that jamie put up on these slides which I love, I want to
make sure they're detailed in this contract and enforceable.
>> through the chair yes they're enforceable once the county is made aware of those things this county can do whatever the
county needs to do to make sure all the previous -- contracts
will be enforced. >> thank you miss ferguson. Mr. Chair I have some comments after public comment.
>> the chair: let's go to public comment. >> at this time we will take public comments on agenda item
number seven. Come on up.
>> my name is laurie muffett I. Live at 917.
I'm a volunteer for the west -- kids safe zone and some of the
kids that we teach at the ymca are terrified of the water. We live in florida where there's water everywhere.
especially in saint johns county. Many will only enter the pool if I promise to hold on to them
every step of the way. At the start of every lesson at
the y, we tell them the same thing. I've got you, you'll be safe, I promise.
and slowly that fear begins to fade. They learn to float, kick and to swim.
by the end of the summer, many are swimming across the deep end of the pool while the other kids cheer them on.
experiences like this are incredibly powerful and life saving. Our students often take a little
longer to learn because many start when they're slightly
older. Some are deeply afraid of the water and each year we also teach some kids who are
autistic. These children need consistency and frequent instruction to succeed.
that's why I'm concerned about the proposed contract change at
the calhoun pool. The ymca currently provides swim instruction five days a week for the west augustine kids safe
zone. I understand that planet swim from the slide we just saw is proposing one day a week of
supervised swim programing for 90 minutes.
if there is swim lessons during that one day a week of swim
programing, with that frequency these kids will not learn how to swim. It's simply not enough time to
build trust, skills or safety. I would ask that any issues with
the ymca contract be worked on to be resolved in a way that does not reduce access to swim instruction from these children.
their safety depends on it. Thank you very much for your consideration and time. >> thank you.
>> good afternoon my name is greg white, 905 pearl street,
saint augustine florida. I'm here today and I'm asking the county administration as well as the board of
commissioners, reconsider awarding the solomon calhoun
pool contract today. Based on the following.
when the next provider provide over 1800 free swim lessons to
the relatives in the area per year? Two, would the -- do they
have a record of providing swim lessons dating back as far as
the 1800s in the area? Three. Does the next provider have a
letter of endorsement from the west augustine c. R committee?
four, will the for profit organization financially be able to provide free swim lessons in our underserved area.
five, will the next provider ensure that the underserved
community that swim teams will not ever dominate the pool
usage. Merger, it would determine several weeks ago that planet swim merged with sport in may o.
last week, it was an announcement that merger was
terminated so I would hope that someone would look into it and find out why it was terminated. The current provider teach swim
lessons in the spring four times a week providing transportation
to the following schools. R&b hunt, osceola, southwood,
webster, cruickshank, five days a week, during the summer, the
camp is a five day a week with swimming lessons.
the cra committee vote 60 years ago to bring this pool as well
as the community center to underserved area when some thought it was an impossibility. Trust me, it was always going
uphill but we succeeded, we've been the -- when it concerns
during that time. , we put six millions in the
underserved area and it would not be utilized. The first week it was at capacity and it remains at
capacity. In the early 2000, we had one public pool in st. Augustine. The organization that ran that
pool allowed the neighborhood kid to come in for 45 minutes,
use the pool and exit. >> thank you very much.
>> good afternoon. >> good afternoon.
that was really good by the way. Mia and mr. White go way back.
my name is frank hallman, I live at 1221 north street
saint augustine florida. I run an independent community based swim program with in saint johns county for the past -- I'm
also a longtime resident of west st. Augustine and my neighbors and friends rely on the calhoun center as one of their few
public resources serving the city limits of saint augustine of the west saint augustine community.
they've served thousands of local families, supported every high school in the area and provided safe, structured
environments for development. With the new management contract, the solomon calhoun pool I want to ensure that
long-standing community like mine continue to have stable fair access to the facility. In reviewing the current bid, I
noticed that several long-standing community groups who were either not dressed or left out entirely.
these omissions raised to me understandable concerns about access that will be allocated moving forward.
a fully support and -- improvements to the pool and expanding programing. My only request is that
independent teams or programs which have been part of this community for decades are not displaced or restricted as a
result of this transition. I'm asking to ensure public
facilities remain accessible to all community programs and that
clear, fair, written access agreements are established so that we can continue to serve the families who rely on us.
thank you for your time and commitment to the residents of saint johns county. >> thank you.
good afternoon. >> good afternoon. 895 south orange street. I will speak today on behalf of
our those who couldn't be here. It's so important and critical to our community that he submitted a written comment that
he wanted to make so please bear with me. The west augustine cra was established in 2000 on the two
-- establishment was that the key part of that mission was
that we were ensure accessible and safe recreational
opportunities for our community. Submitting this with the strong
support of the ymca aquatics program at the solomon calhoun center, it was built around 2007 through collaborative community
efforts and was a direct response to decades of drownings
in -- dating back to the 19 1950s.
the need for a safe community pool was long evident and it
became even more urgent through the tragic drowning of residents
on april 23rd 1994 at the pits. His passing highlighted the
importance of water safety and access to proper swimming facilities. Today the ymca continues to pay
-- play a role in addressing that need with the development
corporation to provide free swimming lessons to
approximately 1800 children working with six local schools, transportation was coordinated to ensure access to all of our
families. In total nearly $388,000 in swimming lessons and water safety program was delivered at
no cost to the community. These programs go beyond recreation. They're vital to public safety,
development and preventing future tragedies. I support maintain the ymca at the solomon calhoun center while
also utilizing the pool to expand access and balance
programs. The west augustine and understanding that the solomon calhoun center is a community
pool, any other scope of business goes against the
efforts of our mission. Thank you for your continuous leadership and commitment to the west augustine community.
thank you. >> thank you.
>> good afternoon. I live on harbor vista circle
saint augustine. I'm here representing myself and community applicants for racial equity.
since its inception it's advocated on behalf of underserved communities and voices who may not always get
heard when voices -- decisions are made. Building the community doctor martin luther king envisioned.
historically west augustine has been underserved and in fulfilling its mission care has always tried to support west
augustine and consultation with community leaders. The county created the west augustine community
redevelopment area because of its related condition when the cra was created, west augustine was in dire need for
redevelopment. Pleased to see that in recent years thanks to the hard work of community leaders and west
augustine, working with county staff, the county has done a
much better job of improving this community. We understand the solomon calhoun community center was a
project that wouldn't have happened without the availability of cra tax increment funding.
we also understand a community has a trusted working
relationship with first coast ymca and is unfamiliar with planet swim which is based in -- largely operated in northeast
saint johns county. Change is often difficult can we get that. Sometimes change may be
necessary but only when it makes sense. Chair just learned this contract was coming up next weekend for a
lot of reasons we are in no position to evaluate the pros and cons of various responses to rfp but we can see that on paper
planets swim appears to be offering some things that would be good for west augustine. Management fee is slightly less
than the wise plus it's offering to contribute toward capital improvement and maintenance of the pool which apparently the
ymca is not in a position to do. That said ultimately this decision is not about paper and it's not even about money.
although we know you must run our county fiscally responsibly.
finances are a necessary consideration but ultimately this situation must be about people.
we understand the calhoun center is a resource but the people of west augustine deserve a pool that all -- will continue to
focus on their needs and serve them well in the pool built with
their tif funds. West augustine will continue its
long-standing working relationship with the y regardless of the decision on this contract thanks to its
opening a branch in the new greg and lydia white health and wellness center. But we are very concerned about
planet swim's ability to deliver the level of promised pool
management services. One reason we are concerned is we understand it was publicly announced that the merger was
called off. Planet's swim is no longer part of the much larger organization with more resources.
it seems like a good reason to delay and reconsider this decision. Regardless of the contract the
county must be diligent in managing this contract.
>> thank you. Good afternoon.
>> good afternoon. 1808 vista code road.
you heard the west augustine cra really had the drownings of
their children at the back -- in the forefront of their desire to have this pool, it was always there in the back of their mind.
I think what I see missing here is the importance of
relationship because you can't come into the west augustine
community as a business from the north or as a city or county
government and expect them to not be skeptical.
they earned their skepticism because we've given it to them.
what I want to say is, the why worked hard over 100 years
serving underserved communities. This is critical. They don't do it for a profit, they do it out of a sense of
mission. This is really important. So what I think I want you to this plan and fiscally
responsible. All kinds of things. But it will not work in this relationship.
if you -- it will not work there if you just come in and think, we're offering this for your children.
that's not going to work there. There's good reasons why it
shouldn't work there so I hope they will pause this long enough
to listen to the west augustine cra and listen to this
community, we've already heard some of the things they have and
then make a decision based on how will we make this work? The
why has six schools they bus over there, I was there this
morning, I go to the calhoun center, I live in this area, I go to the calhoun center at least twice a week.
I take yoga in a class of over 60 people, it's an amazing
class. I watch the children over 100
children paraded down the hall while we were doing yoga with the towels around their necks coming from their school to go
in and take their free swim lessons.
I'm impressed with the relationship that the y has
built, I'm impressed with how well, it's worked and I think to our detriment if we don't look more closely at this and value
of the whole issue of relationship in west augustine. They worked hard -- the cra has worked hard on that relationship
with y'all and y'all in turn have worked hard with him.
>> thank you. Are there any other public comments at this time? Seeing none we will close public
comment. >> mr. Joseph you have the floor. >> planet swim right here in the audience I would love to call them up because I want to ask
him a couple questions. >> good afternoon.
>> can you tell us a little about yourself and your mission and have you met with the cra? >> we've been around 16 years,
,I was a professional swimmer myself and my life is always
about swimming and aquatic sports. We've started this business called planet swim 16 years ago
over the last 16 years, we've done over 300,000 swim lessons,
we do about 6000 swim lessons a year. At that location, we have no profit organization that funds
scholarship for all aquatic programs that we offer and one good reference is the project that we've started seven years
ago with the city spring park pool, we teach approximately 300
kids every year for free. We have that partnership going
for seven years, we just renewed again so we are very familiar
with operating in community pools and we are committed to
creating a better community with better services and better programs. That's what we're all about.
that's how we define success in this business. We understand that it's more than just an operation.
it's a community center hub that can become something where it
connects to the community and provides safety education and fitness and health alternatives for the residents of the
community. So we're excited for that, we are very confident that we can deliver this service but we
would like to have the opportunity to show that to the community and hopefully gain -- they view the relationship with
the ymca. >> did you not meet -- I. Thought -- did you meet with the cra?
>> we met with a group twice. There was one who was a board
meeting that we had and it was a neighbor -- member of the cra
and we never received a formal endorsement as I don't believe there was a requirement. >> we want to really quick talk
about the jacs issue. >> absolutely. For clarification, I was the one who called off that partnership
because they were not aligned. I was promised a lot of things that was going to happen and they didn't happen like I was
promised and I felt like our membership and staff was suffering through that partnership and I decided to
call it off. That's what happened.
>> thank you. Mr. Chairman I don't have any questions -- but I appreciate all of that insight.
I will respectfully request that commissioner joseph withdraw the motion not because planet swim did not rightfully win the bid
in the rfp, not because they may not be the best vendor but I met
with them prior to the blackout. And I really liked what they
said and their perspective on taking care of people.
the reason the west augustine cra speaks with such affection
about the ymca was because that was earned over a lot of time.
the ymca is really taking care of their kids. Some things that I just learned in my briefing yesterday that
just came to light yesterday, I'm not sure the west augustine cra has had time to fully process, I just learned
yesterday that we can't award the bid to ymca today even if we wanted to. There are legal and good rules,
good laws in place that would prevent them from doing that, I'm not sure the cra learned that until yesterday so, I would
rather take the time to sit down with mr. White and other members
of west augustine community with our staff with ryan king, I had a great conversation with mr. King yesterday said, with
the planet -- would they do what ymca is doing and mr. Kane's opinion they might even be better, it's possible.
it might be worse but I want to sit down and have the conversation so we can work through it together.
it's different when you're dealing with the cra in my opinion. A community redevelopment agency
is in place because the community has a voice. Its intent is to get the community more voice and more
control over where the money goes and how it's used so it is different dealing with his community in some other areas in
the county. I would just ask if it's the will of this board how to make -- I. Would like to make a
motion to continue this to the next meeting and we extend the ymca to operate until may seventh so that everything is
taken care of over there and when we come back on the 21st we might be able to vote for planet win.
right now I'm not ready to vote on this item so that's my
request. >> ryan, mr. King, I don't
really want to withdraw the motion because I don't want to see the summer be gone and they have to staff it by april 21st
is that correct? >> but the original contract
would expire though transition would place -- take place there. There would be some challenges no matter what with extensions
to the contract, we've had some communications from the ymca that they would cover some of the events that would be coming
down the road but we haven't had anything formal in our writing so you don't have anything formal from the ymca that we
continue on from the april 20th... >> I don't know if the people will come over, I have no idea
but what is the problem with the ymca? Why didn't this go out for
bid? >> I don't know if there's a specific problem to the ymca, there are challenges in
operating the pool I know that from operating pools for 20 years myself, or governments previously north and I think no
matter who comes in and tries to operate a pool whether it's the challenges of closures from pools, mechanicals, operations,
whether, contaminations, et cetera to staffing,
traditionally pools staffed with younger staff and had a lot of challenges there we've had communication with the ymca over
the years for challenges that have happened there. Some may have corrected, they've had challenges in correcting and
I expect that happens with a lot of vendors that are operating pools so I wouldn't say they're alone in that.
from my own experiences of trying to manage and operate a
pool facility. I had spoken previously to ymca
staff about the contract they didn't necessarily like how it was drawn up originally -- I. Wanted to see if there was
a possibility for change that started in some of the generation of this conversation come back around and go out for
rfp. So I met with the ymca and he was meeting with me because of the concerns of the contract and
I simultaneously had concerns about the contract. >> I met with y also and they said they couldn't keep the pool
open all day long and that's been the problem and that's why
I thought it was a good idea. If we approve today, could
planet swim meet with you and come up with a plan for west
augustine? The only reason I hate to put it off as all of a sudden everybody gets bombarded with all of these
phony gossip things that are just not true especially about planet swim. And I do feel bad for them
people. >> the intention has been if it was approved today to do a >> and they would meet with west
augustine and with frank over here and make sure that the masters program works into our program?
>> we can organize that, yes. >> thank you.
commissioner arnold. >> mr. Chair, I respect commissioner joseph commissioner josephs movement and not being
willing to withdraw but I also like the idea -- what I don't
see here is community buy-in. That is what makes west augustine so special. It's the way that community
operates and the way that community -- in this instance,
it has contribute into their reluctance. There is history. You nailed it. The reluctance is earned. While I'm not saying that the y
is the best choice or planet swim, what you are offering looks amazing but I want to make sure there is community buy-in
and that is what I'm truly seeing lacking here and that is what is so important in west augustine and that's why there
is a cra there and a standing committee. I don't want it to go into the summer months and backed people
up two weeks. If we could hear this at the next meeting with the intention of us as a board having time to
meet with the community, that is something I would be in favor of. Tabling to the next meeting.
but I know there's a motion on the floor.
>> if I may offer a couple clarifications. >> you make. >> one point I wanted to clarify
is this rfp was necessary because the term of the contract
was coming up for expiration. I didn't wanted to be perceived
that this was a termination of their contract. It just came to its natural contract and which requires
resolicitation which goes for all of our service contracts. I did want to clarify that. Secondly, food for thought, if
we are going to push this out, we need to consider the time frame that it will take if there is input from the
community that needs to be factored in that may or may not
require additional conversations and/or adjustments on what has
already been put together and structured for approval today. I don't want to cut a so short in a time frame that we are back
before you and not able to act in a timely fashion so we are starting and stopping when we need to for recreations,
programs, operations, logistc purposes, and for the contract
and for the supplier to be able to ramp up as they need to. I would ask that is thought about with an extension of time
frame or whatever just a factor in that there is work behind the scenes that coincides with that. >> let me ask you that question.
if we vote in the affirmative for the motion that is on the floor now, you have to enter into contract negotiations.
>> we've already negotiated appeared what is before you is the negotiated contract. But I want to say because this
was mentioned in one of the briefings. We can always facilitate community feedback, community
input meetings, if there are needs that they are not sure how they are being met or how they roll in.
a lot of the programs and things -- excuse me, are built
into the exhibit a that delineates all of the scope of services that factors in swim teams, that factors in summer
camps, that factors in those hours that are reserved and sad
for those programs and things to happen. They are obligated to do those things. But there's always the availability for us to sit down
and look at is there an adjustment that is necessary and needed? It is always subject to
discussion, agreement, and whether or not it comes back to the board or if it is able to be approved at the level.
those adjustments and things can always be done with the contract in place. We don't have to do those things
before there is a contract in order for us to accomplish those things. >> here is my concern.
because it is in my district, I feel very strongly about the cra
and the cra's position in us. Also know that legally we have
put an rfp out. The parameters were set and of
the was the y came out in third. Even if they fail in the ability
to uphold their part of the contract, it would go to the second person on the list and not the ymca.
it is that correct? >> no, sir. If we award the contract, we are under that contract.
we have taken the action for the rfp. If they fail, if we terminate once the contract is in place,
we are then in a situation where we have to, likely, could procure an interim solution so that we maintain operation of a
much-needed and used facility but also to give us time to redo
the full solicitation. >> so we would have to get another one. >> essentially, yes.
>> commissioner joseph. >> can I ask mr. Gestapo.
>> come on down. >> are you willing to get with
west augustine right away and get those extra swim lessons in that they need and get going? I know you have to get that pool
going so it's ready to go. At the same time, help them get what they need for their community?
>> offered once a week. It's the way that we program,
you as a customer, you can choose if you want to come once a week, twice a week, three times a week.
we offer linings morning and afternoon monday through saturday and every facility that we operate.
the client, the family would then choose and say I want to come every monday, I want to come monday tuesdays, I want to
come wednesday. Whatever works best for the schedule. >> and you have scholarships for
west augustine, specifically for them? >> yes. We have a fund-raising event happening on the 25th and 26th of april that we've done
for years and we have raised about $50,000 every year and that is what the funds that we used to fund the scholarships
for swimming lessons. >> thank you.
commissioner whitehurst. I will be brief. I want to say again I don't doubt anything about planet
swim. They clearly won the bid going away. I don't doubt the process by which they won it. I am not questioning or saying
anything bad about your organization. That is not what this is about. What I think it's critically important is that we work with our community.
we have this incredible special relationship and the trajectory of our wave motion ship, the arrow has been up for ten or 15.
I don't want us to take even a half step backward. >> and that would be -- admonishment is not a good word.
it would be... I want to make this very clear.
the west augustine community is very important to this board.
so your ability to work with them is very important to our relationship going forward. Is that fair to say?
>> absolutely. We are fully aware of the responsibility. >> good. Because it's a big responsibility.
these people -- these people. My people are very important to
me. And it's important that you understand how important it is to this board going forward.
I understand the legal requirements that we have.
we put it out and scored and it's time to award the highest one. That's where we are.
>> the board has three options. The motion before you is to award based on the ranking. The board can give us additional
negotiations that need to occur in order for us to award, but again, that probably necessitates a level of
extension and time consideration to accomplish that before we are
bringing back the renegotiated contract or rereject all. Reject all means we are rejecting all for a
resolicitation and that means that we have to extend the
current contract for resolicitation. The crux of the resolicitation as we have to materially change
our requirements because we can't just plop the same solicitation on the street hoping for a different result.
>> all right. Okay.
without pulling of your motion, then we have a motion on the floor. Any other discussion before we
vote? In that case, give us an opportunity to vote. Voting yes means we are awarding
the contract to planet swim. Did I say planet swim question
work is that right question work there is a motion on the floor. Let's vote. Okay.
that passes 3-2. Congratulations.
let's go on to eight. >> good afternoon commissioners.
shelby romero, senior assistant to the board of county commissioners. My item today is for the
conservation board. There is one vacancy due to a resignation. This vacancy was posted and ran
for 30 days. Please find the attached documents for your review consideration.
>> okay. Any questions from the board? Seeing none we will go right to public comments.
>> at this time will take public comment on agenda item number
eight. Seeing none we will close public comment. >> okay.
I got an email requesting the appointment of rhonda love it
separately. So she comes not only by the
lamp board, but there are people sending me emails about her so I would make a motion to appoint her to the lamp board for
personal term due to expire november 1st 2027. >> I will second. >> we have a second.
let's vote. All right.
that passes 5-0. Congratulations. Let's move right onto the next agenda item.
>> the next item is also mine. This is for the contract review board. Currently there are two
vacancies on this board to an expired term and one of a
resignation. This ad was posted and ran for three months. This one vacancy you received an
application for the electrician position will remain open because we did not receive any qualified applicants.
>> any questions from the board? Let's go to public comments. >> at this time we will hear public comment on agenda item
number nine. Seeing on, we will close public comments. >> making a motion to reappoint
for the contract review board as a citizen representative for a second four-year term to schedule.
schedule expires march 1st 2030. >> I will second. >> we have a motion to second. Let's vote.
that passes 5-0. Congratulations. You have done a great job today. Let's move on to agenda item
number ten which is agenda item number two.
that would be jan. >> good afternoon.
jan with the growth management. >> thank you, jan.
>> this item was a proposed concurrency and impact fee
credit agreement for the fountains east independent
living facility which is 174 senior adult multifamily units
within the fountains east pud. Which is located on county road
210 just east of I-95. And I am not real sure what the
questions were, but I am here to answer the questions and the applicant is here as well. >> any questions from the board?
commissioner joseph, you are recognized. >> I just want to know how much is the traffic on 210 and what
is the percentage and how did you come to this amount? I think there were quite a few things, not just that.
are there homes and all kinds of things?
>> no. The fountains east is described, I put it in the staff report as far as the background
information. It is approved to be developed
as currently there is existing 276 multifamily units that were
approved and have paid the mitigation for county road 210 similar to this project. This project is a minor in
nature, but it is still residential units technically so it is subject to concurrency. The nonresidential development
would not be subject to concurrency review.
they will be paying the road impact fees, all of which would be used in that district. >> what is the percentage?
I think it is 178% over? >> the status of the roadway?
>> and that I just wanted to know how you got to that number because I feel like it should be a lot more. That's the only reason I pulled it.
>> okay. >> because that area is hor horrific. >> the roadway is deficient.
they are going to pay the mitigation calculation that is
their share to ride in the roadway. >> right. I got it. But what is the percentage of traffic on that road?
>> the percentage of existing traffic or total? >> you said it was deficient. What is the number?
>> the existing traffic of this segment is a 122.6%.
and the total committed is 116.8%.
>> I just wanted to point out that this road has so much traffic on it and I hope we receive as much money as we can
to help with that road. >> absolutely. That is our effort and we are putting the money in an account
ready and working with d.o.t. On what the proper improvements would be. >> thank you.
>> was this a land development calculation where you came up with the amount? >> yes, sir.
the share calculation is specifically a mathematical equation that is in the land development code.
based on the cost to improve the road, the amount of capacity
that is being added, and what this projects percentage of that capacity is. >> fantastic great thank you so
much. Any questions? >> now. I think we have to vote it
though. >> do we need to go to public comment? Let's go to public comments.
>> at this time we will take public comments on agenda item
number ten. Seeing none, we will close public comments. >> back to the board for a
motion. >> I will go ahead and make t that. Motion to approve 2026 -- 01 an
authorized county administrator to execute the fountains east iowa left concurrency impacted by agreement.
finding the proposed agreement is consistent with section 11.09 of the land development code. >> second.
>> we have a motion that is seconded. Let's vote. It passes 5-0.
congratulations. Let's go to agenda item number
11 which is consent agenda item number 13.
>> good afternoon commissioners. Consent item 13 was the
authorization of a purchase of some councils for fire rescue's
e-91 communications dispatch facility. The current councils have reached their end of life so
this is a necessary replacement for that infrastructure. The reason why we are coming now is because the provider motorola
has offered incentives and discounts for us to go ahead and commit to purchasing the replacement consuls and in
negotiations with them, they have also put forth an
additional incentive that brings the total discounts if we move now to about $2 million from the original proposed amount of
about 4.4 million. The 2.5 million is total
purchase of 23 main dispatch consuls and an additional 14 consuls for the backup dispatch. The commitment is now.
we would purchase and receive the main dispatch consuls, the
23 consuls now and the second group for the backup dispatch would occur in october. The commitment for now is to
secure those discounts so we get it for the best price possible.
>> save money. >> yes. >> you receive the item with a revised motion as opposed to the
one in your original packet and that is basically to provide for the purchase of both sets of dispatch consuls but also to
provide for the funding out of the general fund reserve. Part of this item is fire rescue will pursue reimbursement of
general fund from the e911 communications fund to see if we can get some monies out of that fund to replenish this.
they will pursue that and see what process that looks like and if there's any way to bring back those funds or some of those
funds from the general fund based on the transfer if we approve this today. >> that's working for the
people. I love it. Great job. Without comment, let's go to public comments. >> at this time we will take
public comment on agenda item number 11.
seeing none, we will close public comments. >> fantastic. I will make that motion.
2026 —-dash 115. Authorizing the county administrator to utilize the contract number 0206254 public
safety communications technology to purchase radio consuls.
for fire rescue at a purchase price of 2.589 -- 504 and
authorized the use of general fund reserves to the amount of
$2,589,504 for the purchase. >> I will second.
>> we have a motion to second. Let's vote. That passes 5-0. Fantastic job everyone.
we made it through the agenda. Let's get right to the
commissioners report. Commissioner arnold, you are up.
you are recognized. Nothing to report.
commissioner joseph, you are recognized. >> I have the coolest thing ever, everyone.
we will see a beautiful commercial from our new vcp
advertising firm. And can I just say, they did the impossible. They melded to three different
areas of our county into one commercial and when you see it, you will see it's great and I'm really shocked because I don't
think I saw this coming. So hopefully it is ready to s
show. >> the age of discovery didn't and 500 years ago. It's alive and well today.
from ancient oaks to wild beaches to cultural treasures
and sanctuaries for the soul. St. Augustine pontevedra and the
beaches. Welcome to the new world.
>> don't you wish summer could go on forever?
work every day is an endless beach day. With a new adventure on every tide.
limit list feasts the senses. And long nights filled with
magic and mystery. St. Augustine pontevedra and the
beaches. Explore florida's historic
coast.com. >> I would like to move there.
>> that's at. >> thank you so much.
commissioner whitehurst, you have the floor.
>> nothing to report here. >> commissioner taylor appeared. >> I want to follow-up. Many of you know that we as a
commission send a letter to governor desantis urging him
to veto hospital and unfortunately he did indeed sign
that bill into law. So very unfortunate. I want the residents of st. Johns county to understand
exactly what tallahassee just did to us because this is a direct attack on our home rule and our ability to manage the
explosive growth in our bac backyard. Number one, our residents are losing their voice.
the new law allows certain development applications to be approved without a public hearing or any other further
local action. Developers can bypass the very process is designed to give residents a chance and ask
questions and raise concerns and to protect their neighborhoods.
also we are losing the right to say it doesn't fit. Historically if a developer wanted to draw up a massive high
density project right next to a quiet single family neighborhood, we had the authority to say no because it
wasn't compatible with our community character. That strips away the leverage and tallahassee is telling us
that local zoning compatibility and neighborhood fit are no longer adequate reasons to deny a project.
the new law also caps development fees and it requires local governments to base those fees it strictly on the actual
cost of reviewing projects. It really limits how projects
can be denied and it shifts the power away from your local elected officials and we heard loud and clear this morning from
so many residents that took advantage of being able to speak
to us as a board and people need to be aware of what's going on.
at the state level, they are doing all they can to take away our residents votes. And their voices.
our residents voices. I just wanted to share that.
very disappointing. We did that joint letter, it fell on deaf ears. That's all I have and wanted to
say. >> thank you so much for that.
I would like to get more consensus. We talked about the fact that I wanted to wait until the
legislature finished their deliberations on e-bike ordinances and what they had in the laws that they wanted to
change. They have done that and I would love to get consensus to have an e-bike ordinance workshop and
figure out how we can look at the state law and what is coming down and what we want to see in our county when it comes to
e-bike ordinances. If any changes are needed and what changes are needed to bring back to the board.
can I get consensus for that? Beautiful.
we will work with your team and probably your team.
thank you. We will talk about that. One other thing is I noticed one of the things that I would
really like to do is go back over the rules and to do the
same thing. Do a revision of the board of county commissioner rules and make sure we are keeping up with the times and making sure we are where we are supposed to be with that. We would love to have board
consensus to address staff to meet with me and figure out a way to go over that and make sure that we are up at the times
and we are doing what we are supposed to do.
>> is there any rule in particular that is of concern that you think needs to be updated?
>> I would say yes, there are. >> I'm sorry?
>> there are some legal changes that we need to readjust our rules to comply with. >> okay.
understood. >> okay. That was easy. Everybody good?
thank you guys so much for that. I appreciate you. Other than that, I don't have anything.
I would move to our county administer.
>> I have no report today. >> our county attorney. >> nothing additional. Thank you mr. Chair.
>> I look forward to working with you both and the two things that we talked about. Other than that, without
anything else coming before the board, we are