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09-28-2009 - Workshop CITY COUNCIL OF EDGEWATER WORKSHOP SEPTEMBER 28, 2009 5:00 P.M. COUNCIL CHAMBERS MINUTES CALL TO ORDER Mayor Thomas called the Workshop to order at 5:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers. ROLL CALL Mayor Michael Thomas Councilwoman Debra Rogers Councilwoman Gigi Bennington Councilwoman Harriet Rhodes Councilman Ted Cooper City Manager Tracey Barlow City Clerk Bonnie Wenzel City Attorney Carolyn Ansay Present Present Present Present Present Present Present Present MEETING PURPOSE The purpose of the meeting was for Council to hear a presentation by Glenn Storch on the Farmton Property Comprehensive Plan Amendment. Mayor Thomas turned the meeting over to Glenn Storch. Glenn Storch, Law Firm of Storch, Morris & Harris, thanked the Council and expressed his appreciation for them meeting with him before the Regular Meeting. Attorney Storch commented on Miami Corp, who is Edgewater's neighbor all along the southern border with Restoration, being engaged in a vision process with Brevard County and Volusia County. Attorney Storch commented on Rural Land Stewardship and meeting with literally hundreds of people to give them a vision of what that could or should be. He spoke of the property being 94 square miles and all ranchettes being planned for this property. They decided to start looking at some other things as well. Miami Corp purchased this property in 1925 because they saw this as an up and coming area. He further spoke of this property being forestry since the 1960's and forestry declining over the last ten years. He commented on the County constantly changing the land use rights on this property, which they continue to do. All of their land use rights to put a subdivision on the property is vested but this takes out all the 1 Council Workshop September 28, 2009 habitat corridor. He further spoke of the suggestion by DCA to look at Rural Land Stewardship where they trade density and intensity for environmental corridors. They agreed to look at that. Attorney Storch further commented on ranchettes and over time taking these environmental wetland corridors and doing away with those. He felt it wasn't a good system all the way around. In the early 1980's they thought by doing ranchettes they would decrease density and in fact preserve environment. What happened was the exact opposite. He further commented on Rural Sprawl, clustering and preserving everything else. Attorney Storch then commented on a parcel right in the middle of the Farmton Property. They try to buy up every enclave they can. Attorney Storch described what they were talking about was doing something other than ranchettes. He spoke of Restoration probably absorbing most of the growth in that area for years to come, which is okay with them. He commented on his clients giving them the opportunity to plan. They are looking at a 50-year plan. Attorney Storch commented on this being important because there is an environmental corridor trying to be established with the State and this being a key part of that and without it they have a break in that corridor. Attorney Storch further commented on looking at and creating habitat corridors. He further commented on the types of animals that use the habitat corridors. Attorney Storch commented on the Regional Trail and the issues involved with making this a reality. This project took three years. Attorney Storch then spoke about the green areas represented must have habitat and this being what they are going to preserve. Over 50 years Farmton will preserve 75% of its land. Mayor Thomas asked how this works with the Smart Growth Principles set by the Volusia County Smart Growth Committee. Attorney Storch explained Volusia County adopted the Smart Growth principles as part of their Comprehensive Plan. They utilized all of those in designing this. He spoke of starting with linkages and consensus building and looking at this long term. Attorney Storch then commented on one of the Smart Growth Principles being clustering and trying to cluster their developments into the areas where they should be and then after deciding where they are going to preserve the other areas. He pointed out in this case they are clustering the initial entitlements they are entitled to and putting them in the brown area, which is within the Edgewater service 2 Council Workshop September 28, 2009 area. Anything to be developed between now and 2027 has to go in that area. Everything else until 2027 is basically wiped out as far as density is concerned. Attorney Storch they want to make sure they are providing their fair share. He then commented on the City being concerned about water issues and this project having potential water resources. They are working with staff to try and come up with a way of providing those water resources now even though they may not be using them. He spoke of representing Miami Corp for 20 years and Edgewater always being a good neighbor. They want to continue to work with Edgewater to solve the water issues. He also made mention of working with Volusia County to create a partnership as well as entering into a joint venture with Titusville to solve some of their water issues. Attorney Storch informed Council the maximum they could place in the Gateway Area is 4,692 units and 820,000 square feet of commercial or industrial based on their current entitlements they have under the Comp Plan. Until they have a capacity enhancement agreement with the schools the amount of units that will be allowed to be placed there until 2027 unless they change the agreement which he didn't anticipate was 2,287 units, tops. Miami Corporation is not a developer. They have been a landowner and good steward of the land but they want to try to create a vision for what this land could be and should be in the future as opposed to ranchettes. Attorney Storch felt the analysis of the County Manager was very interesting which was basically when then need arises, when the market arises, then they would have a vision for what this could and should be as opposed of doing it in a haphazard manner, which is the way they have done it in the past. They aren't looking at developing right now. Attorney Storch commented on the advantages of having a single landowner, working together and having flexible planning. Attorney Storch mentioned Restoration starting differently than it ended up. What ended up was after a lot of input, a lot of good planning and a lot of good thoughts. They have taken what has been done with Restoration and tried to do better. Attorney Storch informed Council that Brevard County had already looked at the plan and they had unanimous approval of the plan from the Planning Board and the Commission, who are very excited about this. They saw this as solving problems for years to come. He further spoke about preserving corridors now for the future so they will be ready to be used as part of their planning process. Attorney Storch commented on one corridor being from SA up to SR 442. Another corridor would connect SR 442 to May town Road. They would 3 Council Workshop September 28, 2009 probably be required to have a new interchange at May town Road and I- 95 which he felt would help as far as some of the City's concerns regarding north/south accesses and hurricane accesses. He further commented on May town Road needing to be rebuilt due to being too low and flooding. He also commented on there probably being a change from what the traffic engineers are telling him to the Maytown/SR415 intersection because right now it is a nightmare. Attorney Storch then pointed out some of the other features of the project. Councilwoman Rhodes asked Attorney Storch how they saw this getting past DCA. She mentioned the problems they are having with Restoration. Attorney Storch explained DCA obviously had a different take on things since Secretary pellam has gone in. Secretary pellam suggested they do this as a Comp Plan amendment as opposed to Rural Land Stewardship because the area is too urban for Rural Land Stewardship. How they get past them? They do everything the right way and hopefully they have tried to do that in this case. So far every board they have been before has voted unanimously in favor of this vision. Councilwoman Rhodes asked who would be providing the 2,287 units with water. Attorney Storch spoke of it being important that they cause no impact to Edgewater other than positive. They have suggested they needed to supply Edgewater that water by providing additional raw water to the City and the City could supply the finished water. They have the water resources to do that so he felt that was possible. Councilwoman Rhodes felt none of them had the water resources and they all had the same water resources. They were all taking it from the same place. 2,200 more units and the people that go with them. She wasn't necessarily against this; she was just trying to understand how they are going to give the City water that they can't get anyway. Attorney Storch explained he asked the question if they divide this up into ranchettes how much water would be used. He spoke of typically having individual wells and individual sewers with ranchettes. He spoke of the irrigation with ranchettes being enormous. For the entire Farmton project they estimated they would need about 32 million gallons per water per day. If they do this the right way and cluster and reduce the size of lawns, if they require a stringent water conservation element, if they require that every home or business is supplied by City or a central water source, and have reclaimed water. All those things are absolute sustainability they are looking at potentially 6.3 million gallons per day if they had the potential 29,000 units they could have over time. He spoke of there being a number of things they can do to make this the most sustainable area they could imagine. 4 Council Workshop September 28, 2009 Councilwoman Rhodes expressed concern with this property not being annexed into the City and the City not getting the tax dollars to help out but they get the impact from the people. Attorney Storch elaborated on her concerns. He felt annexing a portion of the property would be appropriate due to its proximity to Edgewater and the services they would be receiving from Edgewater. Councilman Cooper expressed concern with water issues and sprawl issues. He asked how they would deal with the flow of water through the green area that is being clogged up by the development that has happened with Venetian Bay and Restoration going to be west of it. Attorney Storch explained where the water was coming from and the issues they are looking at with a hydrologist. He spoke of an additional considerable water source the hydrologist has found that would help Volusia County enormously that almost parallels the St. Johns River. Councilman Cooper commented on pushing the reservoir concept. If they follow their eco plan and utilize the land to be more nature friendly with pockets of residential and industry he agreed this was the proper use of the land. He felt if they were to give them a reservoir of comparable size they solve the water problem for Volusia County. They also bring tremendous job opportunities to the local area. He spoke of things such as fish hatcheries and utility for water for hydrogen fuel off the reservoir. He asked Attorney Storch if this was in the plan anywhere. Attorney Storch informed him it was. One of the concepts has been the creation of the 10,000 acre reservoir which would have 3.6 billion gallons of water allowed for it. They could then store the water that would be flushed out anyway during storm phases. He spoke of this helping with the Consumptive Use Permit issues they are seeing and St. Johns permitting issues. There was a brief discussion regarding having a deeper reservoir for multiple uses as boating, recreation, wetland preservation and enhancement. St. Johns is agreeable to the concepts. Councilwoman Rogers expressed concern with the traffic. She mentioned Attorney Storch commenting on May town Road needing to be rebuilt and the road tying SR 442 to May town Road. Since there is going to be a large amount of time to span between now and when they are going to start doing this and because the Miami property owners want to be a good neighbor is perhaps the suggestion that they do these roads before the developments even begin. She is going to make it a driving force that they have the roads complete before any of the developments occur. Attorney Storch commented on this being addressed with the Development of Regional Impact. They will be setting aside the corridors now. Councilwoman Rogers commented on looking at the Smart Growth principles. She expressed concern with possibly annexing the north 5 Council Workshop September 28, 2009 portion into the City of Edgewater and that would be residential but yet they are talking about the commercial to be more down toward u.s. #1 and May town Road. Attorney Storch explained the Gateway was really a mixed use. They have 820,000 square feet of, non-commercial. They have a total of around 800 acres in the brown areas. The chance of having very much residential was probably pretty slim. He felt they were looking at mostly commercial/industrial in those areas. Most of the interest from anyone has been for commercial or industrial, mostly industrial. They would have to extend SR 442. Councilwoman Rogers felt that was something that needed to be done. There was a discussion regarding the Gobler property, consisting of 10 or 20 acres that is not owned by the Miami corporation and the enclaves they have not been able to be purchased over the years. There was then a discussion regarding the upfront infrastructure costs being enormous and before they can build in these areas they will have to build the roads. Councilman Cooper assumed they would have all underground utilities. Attorney Storch informed him they were talking about absolute maximum environmental standards for water, energy, transportation, etc. Mayor Thomas asked for citizens comments. There were none at this time. Attorney Storch pointed out even in the sustainable development areas at least 50% of that land would also be preserved because they would all be clustered even within those areas. When they are done with this 75% of the land, over 44,000 acres would be preserved for free. Staff estimates in Volusia County that $600 million to $1.1 billion of land would be set aside for public preservation, which was twice as much as Florida Forever right now. Mayor Thomas expressed his appreciation to Attorney Storch for his presentation and Ms. Going, the Second Vice President of the Miami Corporation for coming all the way from Chicago and attending the meeting. ADJOURNMENT There being no further business to discuss, the workshop adjourned at 5:50 p.m. Minutes submitted by: Lisa Bloomer 6 Council Workshop September 28, 2009