we also have the affordable housing components, the military
components, and the Hero Housing components. So it's the overlap of these two systems
that is really coming out with an amazing product for the community.
The other thing with, um, this here provides
a comparison of the 3 projects as it
evolved through time, and each time it got better and better,
and we are very proud of the product that is here before you with regards
to the development, the enhancements, the community engagement.
They've been working on this for a very long time. And I think the critical
component to their project success is truly the
intergenerational design of the community.
Excuse me one second. When designing
communities for the elderly, one of the things that the studies and many of
these organizations has come up that even
though all the elderly have housing near each other,
they still are suffering from many different things. Improved health
and wellbeing, reduced isolation, Having intergenerational
communities helps support both, helps support that an elderly person
could help take care of a young person's family or child. To me, I think
the elderly are the best security system any community could ever have, because they know
who's coming in, who's going out, who's happening with what. So that's
been my experience with them. And it also provides for wellness
and open. And these communities that have both the young and the old all interchanging
with each other actually supports for a much better wellbeing
of both communities, the young and the elderly.
In addition to that, oops, sorry, the AARP also
came out with a study with regards to reducing isolation,
improving the mental health and economic opportunities, and reduction
in ageism, which is contact between the different groups and the stereotypes.
Our community is proposing to have senior
living for 55+ age restriction for 120 units.
We're also proposing family and hero housing, young professionals,
health and fitness wellness programs, a fitness center, a 3.5-acre
walking trail within the linear park. So there's a walking wellness trail.
In addition to that, we have also committed to 12 exercise stations.
Along that. To me, it's gonna be an amazing space with
the lake to have the openness, to have the exercise. It's very zen.
It's gonna be, uh, a wonderful opportunity for
the public to enjoy. We also are gonna have medical uses on site,
um, preventative healthcare and on-site medic. And then we also have
along the front, along 216th Street, we have a real retail component,
which we're proposing approximately 10,000 square feet of restaurant,
4,500 on one end and 4,000 on the other, um,
to anchor the community. And one of the things that I think that, um,
this project really brings to the table is proximity. Proximity between age
groups, proximity between uses, proximity between open spaces.
If you look at this new linear park and you look at your Blue Heron
Park and the new park that you all are improving in Legacy, it's right in
the middle. So somebody could essentially you know,
exercise or walk through your Blue Heron, connect around us,
and end up at Legacy. So this is like a connector piece of your public
open spaces. In addition to that, in April
of 2026, our team appeared before the Age-Friendly Committee
of the Cutler Bay, and we went over the 8 pillars
of the design of the project, and it was
positively received by the board. We received good feedback and good engagement.
So we appreciated the opportunity to appear before them.
So again, I wanted to just break down a little bit of the numbers so
that we're all clear on, on what's being proposed. We have 147
Hero Workforce Housing units. We have 120 elderly and 27
units that are workforce that are non-age-restricted, and we also have 20
units that are military service members. That is a total of 167
units that will have rental restrictions on them. In addition to
that, Live Local typically requires 40%. This project has 52%
of an age— of a rental restriction with regards to the
units. So as rents go up, we're in South Florida. If I've never
seen them go down, it'd be nice because my kids are looking for apartments.
They're in college. Um, but rents go up. So what happens is
that these rental restrictions will, as time goes
on, will be more and more favorable for the community because rents will continue to
go up. But these are continually capped. And these numbers are established by HUD.
These numbers are established by Miami-Dade County. And these are numbers that we actually have
to file an annual report in the covenant, uh, requires every year that we file
an annual report in January to the manager of our status and our
compliance with these numbers.
This is the latest of the AMI tables,
the average median income that's issued by HUD and Miami-Dade County with regards
to income limits and rental. The Hero
Housing program is one that our team is extremely proud of. They've been
working with— it attracts law enforcement,
firefighters, healthcare professionals, Town of Cutler Bay employees,
and educational employees in the neighborhood.
We have received, uh, positive feedback from Matter Bay,
um, that they're very supportive of this because they would love to be able to
have teachers housing near them. We also spoke with Billy McAllister
of the fire union. He said it would be great if his folks can have
places close by to their stations. So this is something that we think would be
very successful and probably rent out right away.
The military rental program. This is Homestead Air Force Base, is our
neighbor, is our, um, our security, our so many things
from a, from a big picture perspective. So the opportunity
to have 20 units dedicated to them for that, they could have the,
um, residences near, um, the base, I think would
be amazing for them. So that is part of the program. This gives you a
preview of the linear walkway around the park that around
the, the project that I was mentioning, the Wellness Loop.
So the community benefits. This is one that
I wanted to go over in detail, because some of the community benefits were
from the original project, and some of the community benefits are what I'm calling the
enhanced community benefits. So again, the 3.4-acre
linear park and walking trails and space for town center program remains,
and it's being enhanced with 12 pieces of exercise Equipment equipment.
at those exercise stations. We are continuing with the 51
golf cart and charging stations, um, for the project.
Neighborhood retail shops and medical uses within close proximity— those
uses will remain. We are undergrounding the utilities. The environmental
cleanup via the brownfield— as many of you know, the site is a brownfield.
Our team is working with Michael Goldstein and Brett Beaumont, who are
here this evening, in case you have any questions with regards to the cleanup.
We anticipate that if the brownfield designation is successful,
we'll be probably spending the next 6 to 8 months on just cleanup items.
So the community, um, access to the
pickleball courts and the children. So in the town center, when you come in,
you have the linear park that goes around it, but in the center there are
pickleball courts that we have opened it up for the Lakes of the,
of the Bay Master Association, and I think the underlying 12
or so associations under them to be able to come and use the pickleball courts.
Pickleball is a very popular sport. We've also enhanced the project by
complying with the town's Art in Public Places program.
We have also worked on the shared maintenance costs of future signalization
and improvements of up to $450,000 along 216th
Street, and we maintain the town's circular stop at our site.
This provides you, um, a depiction by our
architect Ivo Fernandez from Modus Architects, who is here this evening. That shows you
where the linear park is, the access right from the sidewalk
all around the site. Um,
here is a depiction of what the park would look like along the
edge of the property.
With regards to the covenant modification, um, I believe Mr.
Perez did an amazing job to go over the covenant
modification requests and the restrictions and the securities that are being provided provided to
you all within the covenant and the importance of the covenant with
regards to the future restrictions and compliance.
I did want to point out that there's 2, uh, changes that
we worked with the City Attorney on between yesterday and today,
and it was a clarification of 2 things: that the commercial use come online
at the same time as the residential, and the second, that the linear park
include 12 pieces of outdoor exercise equipment. So these two changes
were added between the published version and today's version. So I just
wanted to note it as amended as to these two additional changes for
the record.
In addition,
I'd like to introduce into the record the Lakes by the Bay letter of support
for, for the project. We've met with them, our team has met with them,
and we're very excited of such an opportunity, and we are very
¡Gracias! Very grateful for their support in writing, and we'd like
to introduce it to the clerk. And my colleague just told me that we also
got Miami-Dade firefighters' support in writing, and we will be delivering
it to the clerk for the record as well.
With that said, I'm open for any questions. Our team
is here should you have any questions that you'd like us to respond to.
Thank you very much. I'm going to open up the floor now for public comments.
Anybody would like to come forward, speak on this item, please come forward now.
If you're going to go ahead and get in line if you could, and if
you're going to be naturally— Good
evening, my name is Avis Ross. I live at Lakes by
the Bay Laguna Point at 21940 Southwest
98th Avenue. And I have a few questions about the project.
While it looks very nice and it looks like we're making progress
in the community, I was wondering if there had been any impact
studies on, first of all, property values for the homeowners that live
in that area. Uh, it's going to impact us in some way, and we
have no clue as to what that impact might be. But there have been other
developments like this in residential areas,
and I'm sure there's some history there, and I'm sure we—
well, me and my husband and other homeowners would like to
know what the impact might be on property values. And the other
question is around trash. Mount Trashmore is probably filled to
the brink as it is, and what kind of accommodations are
going to be made you know, for the extra trash.
Crime impact study— have you done one
when there has been a community like this impacted by
a development such as this? The traffic
mitigation— traffic's definitely going to be an issue. But the first
thing that I'm sure most homeowners are concerned with is property values.
Thank you. Um, this is not a question and answer session. This is for public
comments. The applicant or our staff can maybe address some
of those things after the public comments. So, okay, thank you.
Good evening, Mayor, council members. My name is Christine Taylor. I live at 9846
Southwest 222nd Terrace. I am a
member of the Lakes by the Bay Master Board, and I'm here to say that
we support this. I'm also that elderly 65-year-old,
and I'm also a teacher, so I check off a bunch of boxes.
The Contemporary has been a really good neighbor. They have been to at least
3 meetings. They have taken their time to go through all of this with
us on the Master Board. They presented everything. They've gone through all the
different questions that we've had. They've come back with answers. And we now have
an agreement with them, which I'm not going to speak on. That's an attorney thing
where they're going to be a good neighbor and help us maintain all of the
public areas. So I'm here to support it. I'm here to, on behalf of
Lakes by the Bay Master Board, to support it and say this is the first
meeting I've ever been to in my life. So it's very interesting what you guys
do. Thank you for your service. I'm sure you guys don't get paid enough to
do this. So thank you. Goodly noted. Thank you.
Okay, any questions of me? Because I'm actually here representing— not a—
just for you to make comments. So if you can bring the lineup forward,
that way you don't have to have that silence of 20-minute recessions.
Bring the rest of the lineup all the way to the front. There you go.
Okay, good. Good evening, my name is Barbara Libby Brown. My address is
8757 Southwest 213 Terrace, 33189.
I want to thank you for what you're doing
for our community, but I would like to make a comment.
As we are identifying,
or there was a— by the lawyer, I believe that,
um, please do not forget Miami-Dade County Public Schools.
Miami-Dade County Public Schools have a handful of
schools down here at the south, and I would implore that they meet
with, um, the, um, the powers that be, because there are teachers—
I'm an educator, I'm a principal— and there are teachers who are
in desperate need of housing. So please do not forget Miami-Dade
County Public Schools. Thank you.
Hi, my name is Lauren Rodriguez. I'm a resident in Isles of
Bayshore. I live in the 122560 Southwest 89th
Place. Um, I think this is going to be a great addition,
uh, this project. Um, I just had my, uh,
son a month ago with my husband, and we've been in this community for 2
years now, and we love Cutler Bay. So I think this is going to be
a great addition to our community, especially with young families.
And I love the addition with healthcare profession, as I am a healthcare professional myself.
So I think this is going to be a great addition to our community.
Hi, my name is Gabriella Fernandez. Um, I'm a resident of Color Bay.
I've been a resident for about 4 years. Um, my home address is 8800
Southwest 191st Street. Um, and I'm very
excited for this project. Um, that was my twin sister, so, um, we live
nearby one another, but it's nice to have this project to have
families, growing families, as one for myself. My husband and
I, we've lived here again for 4 years, and I think also as a healthcare
professional as well, I love the emphasis of,
you know, as an older community having that accessibility for healthcare.
So I approve this project. Thank you.
Good evening, Mayor,
Council. My name is John Sperling. I live at 9553
Southwest 189 Terrace. I live on a cul-de-sac.
In our cul-de-sac, there's 4— there's 12
homes with 4— 4 of the homes are either police
or fire. Most of these people bring their vehicles home
home. So there's always representation in the neighborhood.
So I feel it makes it much safer.
Um, there is very little— there are, there are very little places to go
in Cutler Bay with, with golf carts, first of all, with golf carts,
with— for restaurants and activities. So I would,
I would welcome this, this community 100%.
There needs to be more restaurants, obviously,
because there, there literally is none. I know, um, I know
that Flanagan's is supposedly moving in by Publix, but you
know, that's a long time out. Um, so there's nothing about this that I have
any opposition to. So I appreciate your time. Thank you very
much. Thank you. Oh, by the way, my wife's a teacher in this— in the
school board as well. So thank you. Thank you.
All right, anybody else? Anybody in the queue? No one in the queue.
Okay, public comments is now closed. You know, as far as with
property values, it's kind of hard to answer that question because there's so many different
variables going into it. But just as a general,
you know, you have Legacy Park going in, you have Blue Heron Park being— I
think the property values in that area are going to do pretty good. Um,
so all of Cutler Bay has been doing very, very well, but that area
is going to do really, really well, especially after It goes in,
and Julian, we do require traffic studies on everything that we have again. So that's
required. Yes, there's a
traffic study that is on its way. It should be done mid-July as
part of the site plan approval. There's also a trip generation study that
was done when they started this process that is available.
And the number of trips, the AM as well as
the PM, are very small. The increase, I can give you the numbers if you
want to. To. Okay, but that's,
that's correct. And the trash, of course, we require everybody keep their trash taken care
of, so it's not an issue. Yeah, Mitch, do you have a comment, sir?
I was just going to speak to the solid waste issue with respect to
the current landfill, South Dade Landfill. It is,
it is, it is running up against capacity, and Miami-Dade County
has now contracted with several haulers to move
the waste upstate to upstate landfills by
rail, and that's the current solution. However,
the county continues to discuss the replacement
of the old waste-to-energy facility, which was
destroyed in a fire. Yeah.
And that, that could be part of a long-term— of their
long-term solution. But right now they're, they're able to adequately
landfill the waste upstate. And I don't know if
you all remember a couple years ago when a similar project— I remember a little
boy saying, I'd love to go and get ice cream. Because, you know, one of
the things that we do need in Cutler Bay we've all been working on is
more restaurants, more types of places like that. And I think one of
the things that I like about this project is the cornerstones on each
side is specifically for restaurant space,
which is great. There's nothing better than having a good restaurant
within the neighborhood. There's so many, you know, you see ones like Elaine's down the
street. Struggles for, for places to go.
Well, we could, we could have something much better right there. So, um, but with
that, I'll open it up to the council for comments or questions.
So, okay, well, Councilor Ramirez, you're recognized.
Well, no, whenever you raise your hand, I'm going to call on you, so you're
going. Good evening. All right,
thanks for the presentation. You know, pretty good presentation. I,
um, have been on the fence a little bit because I'm
not a huge fan of developers getting something approved and then coming back and trying
to ask for more and more and more. But Live Local actually
kind of created that. So we kind of have to live within those confines.
You know, basically it kind of boils down to do we have
322 units that are actually split in threes
to accommodate, you know, different generations and also
for, you know, people that are first responders, teachers, and such,
or do we say no and we have 644
units with no commercial, no restaurants, no nothing, just, you know,
here's a bunch of home, here's a bunch, a bunch of apartments sitting there.
So I think you kind of have to look at the lesser two evils when
it comes to that. But I can tell you that I was very impressed with
the developer when you presented the 192 units. So I'm
pretty sure that you guys are going to do pretty good job,
you know, making sure this looks beautiful and is well maintained. And I
appreciate the fact that you have met with the town and
really kind of wanted to give a lot of things to this town to make
it something that's very, you know,
kind of open, kind of open pretty much for our residents.
So I kind of know which way I'm going to go on this. And I
just wanted to kind of, you know, put my thoughts out there on that,
you know. So we'll see what everybody else has to say and
see what happens at the end. Thank you. Councilman Duncan, you're recognized. Thank you,
Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Councilmember Ramirez.
Yeah, I know I'll echo
some of the sentiments that he had said. I do have a few, I guess,
questions or points for clarification. Could you
put the slide back on that demonstrates what the rents will
be just so our residents will have an understanding as to
what that is, because I mean, we can, you know, till we're blue in the
face say 120% of the AMI, but for most people, you know, you tell
them what the monthly rents will be, and that's a little bit easier to kind
of grasp and understand. Correct. And I will— here it is.
What this is, is that this is the— oops, sorry.
There. Thank you very much, Mr. Clerk. What this provides is
that this is the maximum rents. If you go to the right columns, the,
the last 6 columns provide what the rental income maximums will be.
So for at 120%, a studio is $2,862,
a 1-bedroom would be $3,000, a 2-bedroom would be $3,670.
Now these are maximums that are established by Miami-Dade
County with regards to— it's a correlation between the income limits of
the resident as well as the rent that could be
charged at a maximum. And these include any additional fees as well. You can't
like charge the rent and then you have like a pool fee or a
gym fee. This is maximum of what can be charged to each tenant.
Okay, thank you so very much for sharing that. Moving on.
So I'm very pleased of the development of where
essentially the certificate of occupancy for the retail
would also come online the same time as the residential. That was one of the
things that I was hoping to at least discuss tonight, but I'm glad you all
worked that out ahead of time. Similarly to how the Vice Mayor was able to
work with the Publix property to get those out parcels ensured
that they were built and not just, you know, get the residential part built and
then, oops, you know, we're not going to build these. So I think that is
the biggest public outside of the parks and the the green spaces.
I think that's gonna be the biggest public benefit is additional retail, additional restaurants,
medical space. So I'm glad that that was taken care of. A point of clarification,
I guess, for Julian. So if I'm not mistaken, this is
live local. So any sort of site plan approval, or that's not coming before this
council, that's administratively correct? No, Councilman, no. So all of it, it's administrative.
And again, what we're going to do is we're going to get those
conditions and we're going to put them as part of a covenant. Okay.
So the traffic study that, that's currently underway, or that's pending,
if the traffic study comes back saying that improvements need to be made beyond
the $450,000, what is the enforcement mechanism for that? Well,
that's those improvements. Those are mitigation improvements. They're going to go into
the conditions, and those are going to go into that covenant, and they're going
to have to do that as part of the approval. That was not accepted by
Live Local. I want to make that very clear. Okay, that was one of the
things that were not accepted. Them. I do want to emphasize that the traffic study
is performed by us internally. Absolutely, sir, that's according to code.
Absolutely looking out for what's in the best interest of the residents, especially along that,
you know, 216th corridor. So any sort of negative impacts of traffic
with this development, if anything needs to be added, whether lighting or traffic
signaling, curb, what have you, it would have to be handled at
that— yes, it's going to be handled through the conditions again. Okay,
okay, perfect. Perfect. And then the only other point that I'll make, and just to
reemphasize in the same way that Council Member Ramirez did,
is, you know, with the Live Local, just for the residents to understand,
they can, as of right, go to 714—
I believe was the number that we did— 714 units without
this council ever saying yay or nay.
Correcto. So I'm glad that our town staff and the team has
been able to negotiate a lot of very positive community benefits that
are going to benefit all of the community, not just, you know, the Lakes by
the Bay and Isles Bayshore community, but all of Cutler Bay.
So thank you for that. Thank you for all of your work. Sure. And I
just want to add something to it. We also added a number of conditions that
have to do with security, and that is under crime prevention
through environmental design. Those are going directly into the
conditions on the site plan. And again, I keep making emphasis this and a
covenant. All right, so added protection. And then one other, if I may.
I'm sorry, uh, the linear park, so the hours being extended publicly to 9:30,
then that will require lighting be installed, correct? Absolutely. Perfect. Thank you,
Councilman. Thank you,
Mr. Mayor. Um, I'm gonna piggyback on what he just asked
about the lighting. I have concerns that the lighting might spill into
the residence the residents sees. Do we have, like, assurances that that
won't happen? Yeah, and that'll be part of the site plan when we submit the
site plan. We are anticipating to have low lighting actually around the linear park.
There's actually low lighting and highlighting because it's both have different coverages of the
lighting, but we have the different types already included in our site plan.
Thank you. I do have some comments. A lot of that my
colleagues have already covered. I want to
show people what this could have looked like
if you guys didn't live local. And, and I really appreciate this.
So these— we— I have two of these. These are from— it looks like a
prison to me, and I'm just not comfortable with that. And I'm glad we're not
doing that. I had a great deal of phone calls,
one of which was from our former mayor, Peggy Bell,
with many, many, many concerns. About this project.
Now, like I said in the beginning of this, we were presented at
the Age-Friendly Community Committee twice on this project. It was well received
both times. It was better received the second time that
we're doing intergenerational because that committee has been working for at
least a year on trying to do intergenerational activities.
We know the benefits of the young and the older people being
together. They're vast. I talked about them when we had our workshop. Shop.
So, um, for that part, I can tell you that the committee is
very excited about, uh, that development coming in.
Because I had so many phone calls and I had a very long discussion with
Mayor Bell, um, I ended up having the town manager
send to me the Zoom from the HOA meeting,
and I listened to that, and there was a lot of chatter about
the property values, a lot of chatter about
about the traffic. I would suggest that— and I'm by no
means a traffic specialist— I would think that at some point we're going to end
up getting signals put in, which for residents
to understand, that's not to impede your traveling, it is traffic calming.
So it would actually help that situation.
The linear park has me— so I also went through the covenant like
crazy. Again, I'm a paralegal, so I start reading this stuff with my
legal hat on. I'm really excited about the
linear park. I was going to ask if we could have more
equipment than Blue Heron Park has, and you guys beat me to that punch because
Blue Heron only has 9 pieces of equipment. Oh, I like beating— I'm so competitive.
That's awesome. That's awesome. That this linear
park is at the sole cost of you guys. You're giving— this is a
gift. I, I look at, at it as— and the maintenance. Yeah, and the maintenance
and the security, cost of the lighting, right? All of that, the landscaping,
the park furniture, it's all here in the covenant. I, I personally
feel like that's a gift. This is, um, a win in the situation,
and it's not just for Lakes by the Bay, it's for all the residents of
Cutler Bay. So, um, you know, if we can add more parks, I'm all
for that, right? As a former member of our Parks and Rec Committee, I'm like
let's, you know, let's do that. I also wanted to point out,
which I loved in the covenant, that the workforce unit housing,
senior housing, military housing, and the other housing, that has to
be complied with by annual reports every year
to the town. And I think that's important because I know that the naysayers out
there, and there are a few, may say, oh yeah, well, that's what they say,
but they're not going to do it, they're not going to comply. Well, you're required
to comply apply with that and I think that that is an important thing that
we should point out to the residents. But I
wanted to ask about the priority leasing,
if I may. We have, it's not just firefighters
and law enforcement or healthcare, it's not doctors,
it's actually the staff, if I'm not mistaken,
right, that are also on these priority leasing
lists that they can go. So the lunch lady, from Cutler Bay
Senior can get priority leasing here, and I think that's significant
for everyone to understand.
I like that very much because a lot of times the
officers, the firefighters, they're all taken care of, but maybe not their support
staff. That is so critical. And by the way, while we do have a lot
of police officers and firefighters that live in town, we also have a great deal
of the supporting employees for the healthcare providers
and those entities. And to speak to that public
comment, public educational institutions are
included in the priority leasing, which does include teachers and, like I
said, other school personnel. The only thing I'm really left
to touch on, I was honestly a little on the fence about this as
well, although, you know, my committee loved it and I love the intergenerational. It just
seemed like a big hit But like Council Member Ramirez was saying,
this is getting developed, right? And I love the fact that you guys
have worked so well with our HOAs. That's not
always done here. And having come to my age-friendly community
committee, that speaks volumes. Not doing the
full monty with the Live Local— thank you for that as a community.
The history of Cutler Ridge and Cutler Bay is that we are
a military town, right? That's why I'm here. My father retired after
a career in the Army, over 22 years, and we ended up here so
we could be near Homestead Air Force Base. Both of our mayor
and vice mayor had family members who were in the military. Cutler Ridge,
which is now Cutler Bay, started as military housing.
So my whole heart goes to these 20 units that you guys
have for the active duty and also support support personnel
out at Homestead Air Force Base. We don't see a lot of that.
And I, I loved Mr. Perez's comment
about the 18-year-old enlisted who may be coming to Homestead
Air Force Base with a young bride and maybe expecting a child.
What, what a gift we are offering to
them to potentially live off base in a
beautiful development using the military rental program and all those
schools, we have amazing schools in that area that they would then be afforded to.
That's, I can't say enough about that. I grew up in military housing.
Every opportunity my parents could take to have
us live off base in a more normal environment, they took.
And so I really appreciate that we're gonna be able to offer that. And the
last thing I'm gonna say about the military is that in the next couple of
years, we're going to have F-35s coming to Homestead Air Force Base.
It's a reserve base, so the housing is not as plentiful as it was when
it wasn't a reserve base. And once these F-35s come there,
I would expect that more and more of these enlisted
are going to need to live off base. So I— that part
of this, I really appreciate and I commend you guys for that.
Thank you, Vice Mayor Kellyanne.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, for those who know me and
have followed me since my very first meeting, I hate
when applicants come back before us requesting changes
to something that we've already approved. It, for me,
over the years, it's really been a bait and switch type of thing.
You know, hey, this is a great idea and we
approve it. And then 6 months later, the applicant comes back
and, just kidding, you know, we want to do this. And usually at
these meetings, I have a legal pad filled with comments and
notes, but I must say,
this is the first time in 6 and a half years that
I've had an applicant applicant come back for a modification
that's actually better than what the original plan was.
And we loved the original plan. I remember, I, I tell you, I got word
that from the town manager that the applicant was coming back before us
for a modification, and I went, oh God, here we go again, right?
What, what, what is it going to end up looking like? And after I sat
down with him and we went through the, uh, the covenant modifications
that that, that you guys were— had come up
with, it was just so much of a, much of a better plan. I mean,
Julian, fantastic job. I mean, just really working
with the applicant. This is, this is really what
our process is about, and a lot of
municipalities don't have this type of relationship between
the council and town staff staff that have the
best interest of our residents. Normally,
for modifications like this, this place is
filled and the comments go on forever.
And today we had, you know, our residents who stepped up and really
supported this, and it really, it really shows, you know, how this council
and how this town works for the betterment of our
residents. And, and thank you so much for, for doing
what you've done to modify the covenant to make this a better place and working
with our town staff. I mean, this is, uh, this is a first,
so I'll remember this for the rest of my term.
You make them just change their pants after that. You start off—
so, uh, so again, you know,
um, that, that property's been sitting vacant for a long, long time.
It's quite honestly, it's an eyesore because waste just kind of rooftop and overgrown.
I like the component of, you know, cleaning it up with the arsenic as a
brownfield. When I first became mayor, I sat down with the base
commander, Colonel Piferero, who's now General Piferero, and said,
you know, I know we're not right next to you, but how can we support
you? And he said, he goes, I'm a colonel. I can afford— when I
move, I can afford first, last, and security. He goes, but my enlisted men
can't. And they can— they find it very, very hard to find a place to
live. So So when I was discussing this with the town manager about, you know,
when these projects come forward, the component
of having housing for our enlisted is very, very important. And thank you for
coming forward with that. Also for all the other housing for
the heroes and teachers. My son just got hired as a teacher this week.
I'm like, woohoo! So tell me you've got a place to live now.
Anyway, but it's overall, I think it's a, it's a great project because the
retail component is something that's real, real important. Um, and that's what we
need is, is more retail. We need more restaurants and places to go for entertainment
in our town. So with that, I'm going to wrap up our discussion and ask
for a motion on this item. Members of council,
um, there were a couple minor changes that were in the covenant that,
that was proffered by the developer. We negotiated in the wee hours, and if I
can have our town Attorney Roger Poe come up because he was instrumental
in finalizing negotiations last night. Thank you, Mr. Manager, Mayor,
members of the council. It's a pleasure to see you. I almost hate to say
this, but there's more, right? In terms of the good news, we were
able to negotiate as of almost 3 hours ago, 2 hours ago, a further
clarification as to the essential workers and military housing components.
That's 6D and 6E3. Just to clarify that
in the event that one of those individuals that's given priority in the lease leasing
as a priority unit for essential workers or for military housing, and then
they lose that qualification, those leases aren't going to be renewed and,
you know, create a loophole. So just additional protection.
So, okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. And again, it was
Section— it was Section 6D and
Section 6E3.