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10-01-2007 - Joint Workshop w/ Planning & Zoning Board CITY COUNCIL OF EDGEWATER JOINT WORKSHOP WITH PLANNING & ZONING BOARD OCTOBER 1, 2007 6:00 P.M. COMMUNITY CENTER MINUTES 1. CALL TO ORDER Mayor Thomas called the Joint Workshop to order at 6:00 p.m. in the Community Center. 2. ROLL CALL Mayor Michael Thomas Councilwoman Debra Rogers Councilman Dennis Vincenzi Councilwoman Harriet Rhodes Councilwoman Judith Lichter Present Present Present Excused Present Edwin Vopelak Gigi Bennington David Ross John Weiss Dave Leonard William Miller Pat Card Present Present Present Present Present Present Present Also present were Development Services Director Darren Lear, Planning Technician Bonnie Wenzel and Janet Shira, B&H Consultants. 3. OPENING REMARKS Mr. Lear gave a brief statement and then turned the meeting over to Janet Shira of B&H Consultants. Ms. Shira stated the goal of the workshop was to discuss the major issues list and hopefully Council will have something to vote on at the regular meeting following the workshop. She stated the EAR Committee met several times to develop this list, they went over the Goals, Objectives and Polices that are outlined in the current Comprehensive Plan, as well as discussing several items brought up at the Strategic Planning session, as well as some issues that were not on any list. Ms. Shira stated the list was put together through consensus, 1 Council Workshop October I, 2007 and at their final meeting they went through an exercise similar to the one Council went through at their Strategic Planning Session and individually voted to come up with rankings. Not only are these issues provided to you they are in rank order. Ms. Shira then stated the objective for this meeting to come up with a list of major issues to take to other public agencies at the Scoping Meeting. She stated they are on schedule for what is required by the State. Once everyone is in agreement Ms. Shira and Darren will work with the Department of Community Affairs to get the Letter of Understanding. 4. DISCUSSION OF EAR COMMITTEE'S MAJOR ISSUES LIST Ms. Shira stated that the EAR Committee could answer any of Council's questions. Mayor Thomas asked Ms. Shira is she was talking about the items such as taxes. Ms. Shira stated yes, those were the issues. Mayor Thomas then stated he did have questions, and asked Council if they had any questions. Mayor Thomas asked about the taxes, he asked City Manager Williams if it was true that a large portion of the residents received their services for free because they do not meet the ad valorem taxes. City Manager Williams stated that was correct, a large portion of the City in terms of taxable value does not generate enough ad valorem to support the services that we provide. He added that the number was relatively high. Mayor Thomas stated so we are going to try and increase the tax base with larger homes. Mayor Thomas stated under Conservation we are in conjunction with what the county wants to do. Mayor Thomas stated those are things that we are right on track with and he looks at things everyday and thinks we are right on track with everything. Mayor Thomas asked Council if they had any questions before we hear from the public. Councilwoman Rogers asked what items could be discussed regarding traffic circulation to see if they are on the same page. Chairman Vopelak talked about trying to alleviate problems from development outside of the City. He added that there was also discussion concerning an alternate route to alleviate congestion along US Highway 1. 2 Council Workshop October I, 2007 Mr. Card stated another concern was that they were really not asked to provide solutions. What they were told to do was identify areas that needed work. Mr. Card stated they were not tasked with finding the solutions. Councilwoman Rogers stated her understanding was that we have to look 10-25 years out. She added that we will want to have a study in place and be in the planning stage to alleviate future traffic. She suggests we start doing what we need to do to start looking at a north/south road. 5. PUBLIC COMMENT Ferd Heeb, 115 N. Riverside Drive, stated the problem with the MPO and MPO staff is that anything you bring up they point to the 25-year plan, the money is spent. This City needs to adopt their own transportation plan showing were you want the north south corridors. Councilwoman Rogers stated that increasing the tax base by a larger home, then we're going to need to try and attract developers that will come in and build a subdivision that's more conducive to larger homes instead of tract builders. Custom builders are needed where families come in and pick their own floor plan, which is what will bring in higher revenue, we will need to talk further about that and try to identify some areas. We cannot just blanketly say it and identify areas. Mr. Card stated he drove this language because there are certain areas of this City that it would be foolish to not develop into high unit value low municipal impact dwellings. He added that high unit value is any unit in excess of some high dollar amount. Mr. Card stated the City has a great asset along the riverfront. He stated the document just stated that the City should encourage high unit value low municipal impact development; it does not say everything has to be approved. Mr. Leonard stated he agreed with Mr. Ross, he does not like the "high unit" wording, if we mean high value then we should say high value. He added that he sees no reason why that cannot be changed. Councilwoman Lichter spoke about US Highway 1, stating that right now it is not a congested state road. She thinks the MPO is like a sleeping giant and that is not who we should be 3 Council Workshop October 1, 2007 dealing with, we should be dealing with the State. She believes that Tallahassee does not have a good handle US 1. Councilwoman Lichter spoke about the wording of high unit, people will think it is condos. She feels the wording should be changed. Councilwoman Lichter stated that development has to consider all types of housing, including workforce housing. She stated that she is now a strong supporter of "smart growth", and that it should also take into consideration "green". This means the development must show how it will conserve energy and water. Councilman vincenzi stated each point in the document is important and should be looked at. Ms. Shira stated that Mr. Card stated that the direction the Board had was to come up with the issues, not resolve them. She added that the EAR is to update the Comprehensive Plan. She stated that the State wants to know what the major issues are right now. Bill Glaser, 1703 Needle Palm Drive, stated the agenda did not include the pages that were going to be discussed. They could only be found online. He stated regarding the traffic circulation; there are other problems with traffic other than US 1. Some of the streets have become truck routes. He asked that the rest of Edgewater be considered. Mr. Glasser stated that for housing he never knew the three (3) issues that Smart Growth Addresses. He stated that it does not seem we are doing that with the development that is going on and it should be considered. Ferd Heeb, 115 N. Riverside, had another comment about traffic. He stated that southeast Volusia is a metropolitan area. Somehow the 3 cities have got to get together to form a plan. He stated that anything that we develop will move people through New Smyrna. He just does not know how to do this, maybe a workshop or putting together a plan and present it to New Smyrna. He stated that the only dollars being spent in this area are on 10th Street. Agnes Whitter, 223 Flagler Avenue, has been attending the MPO meeting, on June 26 there was map of what was funded and not and what the future plans were. The only thing for Edgewater was a connector road, Cow Creek Road to May town Road. They also have a plan to widen Mission Road, other than that there is really not much for us in their 20-year plan. She added 4 Council Workshop October 1, 2007 that our growth rate is going to be far above the norm for the state of Florida. 6. ADDITIONAL COMMENTS FROM EAR COMMITTEE MEMBERS Dave Ross discussed the suggested item of encouragement of semi-rural development. He stated that once this hits the smart growth people they will scream and yell. If y~u look at all of the objections that they have, there is not a single issue that cannot be solved with our own LDC. The issues of these type of developments can be handled and really enhance the City, the City has some great opportunity for high tax rate single-family developments, so can the semi-rural. Gigi Bennington Council was hung up on the taxes. It is not saying to go out and build high rises. She requested the Council to look this over carefully, but not to knit-pick. These were the issues the P&Z board thought should be addressedj the council should consider the issues. Pat Card stated they keep talking about Reflections and Restoration as being the problem, but we have to keep in mind that in the last 4 years we have approximately 2,100 homes, the majority of which are south of Roberts Road. This must be kept in mind when you talk about transportation. The quality of life of the people who live here today is most important. If the traffic is moved off of US 1, you have to be careful of what you are going to cut to get that done. This must be kept in mind. The Board really looked, and it was very hard to prioritize because they are all important. But housing for the young people trying to establish themselves must be considered. Ed Vopelak felt they did a reasonably good job establishing the issues, then we will get into the solutions. John Weiss stated that they looked at how we can increase our taxes. We were looking at high-end development. He stated that Councilwoman Rogers was correct. He further stated that Oak Hill and New Smyrna are going to grow and we must plan for that traffic also. He felt these were the most important issues. Bill Miller stated one thing that is very important to him is that Oak Hill and New Smyrna are part of our development because they affect this City. We need to have some type of dialogue with these cities. We have to pay attention to our 5 Council Workshop October 1, 2007 neighbors to the north and south. He stated the P&Z Board worked very hard and did a lot to come up with these issues. 7. CITY COUNCIL DISCUSSION/ACTION ON MAJOR ISSUES Mayor Thomas stated that southeast Volusia meets with Jack Haymen bi-monthly to address problems; VCOG also addresses the issues, Ms. Rogers is on the MPO and Ms. Lichter is on WAVE. He added that he felt strongly about each issue and commended the committee for doing such a good job. 8. ADJOURNMENT There being no further business to discuss, the meeting adjourned at 7:00 p.m. Minutes respectfully submitted by: Bonnie Wenzel - Board Coordinator 6 Council Workshop October I, 2007