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03-03-2003 - Workshop , .t.) u CITY COUNCIL OF EDGEWATER WORKSHOP MARCH 3, 2003 5:30 P.M. COMMUNITY CENTER MINUTES CALL TO ORDER Mayor Schmidt called the Workshop to order at 5:30 p.m. in the Community Center. ROLL CALL Mayor Donald Schmidt Councilman James Brown Councilman Myron Hammond Councilwoman Harriet Rhodes Councilwoman Judith Lichter City Manager Kenneth Hooper City Clerk Susan Wadsworth Paralegal Robin Matusick Present Present Arrived at 5:35 p.m. Present Present Present Present Present INVOCATION, PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE There was a pledge of allegiance to the Flag. MEETING PURPOSE The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the Land Development Code. City Manager Hooper presented a history of the Land Development Code. He further explained the process they would be following. They will hold the first public hearing at the next Council meeting. He wanted to hold the article regarding height until later for a lengthy discussion. He asked Council to ask any questions as they discuss each article. Chief Planner Darren Lear explained the changes to the Land Development Code by way of a Powerpoint Presentation. (Attached) Councilwoman Lichter felt by adding Community Center to Article III it gives a different feeling to it. City Manager Hooper elaborated on her concerns. Mayor Schmidt asked if 500 feet is the average for not allowing alcoholic beverage esfablishments near churches or schools. City Manager Hooper informed him most of the other cities have 500 ~ Q u \ feet but there are also a few with 1,000 feet. Councilwoman Lichter questioned the homes on U.S. #1 now being in commercial being non-conforming. Mr. Lear commented on the waiver which has been incorporated into the Land Development Code. City Manager Hooper explained you can't have new residential going into commercial. Mr. Lear continued his presentation with Article IV. He informed Council they would be discussing footnote 16 under Article V after they are done going through each article. There was a brief discussion regarding Article V, Section 21- 52.06 Public Recreation and Open Spaces. Mr. Lear continued his presentation with Article VII due to there being no significant changes to Article VI. Councilwoman Lichter questioned there being a time limit on the waiver with regard to Section 21-71.01 (2) (a) under Non- Conforming Uses. City Manager Hooper explained the only time limit on the initial waiver that was issued was to get them to this point. Councilwoman Rhodes questioned why it has to be to the existing footprint. If you have allowed someone to have their house on their property, why can't they have whatever house they want as long as it conforms to the other codes. City Manager Hooper explained you don't want it to grow or get any worse. It is non- conforming because it is a residential in a commercial area. Councilwoman Rhodes stated they added this because a man couldn't get a second mortgage on his home so they changed it so that he could and anybody else could that had a non-conforming home. If you have a non-conforming home, what happens when you want to add a room to your house. This is saying you can't do it. City Manager Hooper stated this is saying if it burns down and it is to be rebuilt. The other processes allow them to come in and ask for a variance or the waiver process. There was further discussion regarding non-conformance. Councilwoman Rhodes feels if you have a house that is now commercially zoned that was residential when it was built, she doesn't think you should be penalized for it. She would like to have this as an agenda item at some point. She feels if you own property in a commercial area and have since before it was a commercial area, you should have the same rights and privileges as the people that own property in a residential area. City Manager Hooper commented on if the property is sold, it then ~ Q o changes. Councilwoman Lichter referred to the Comprehensive Plan. Councilwoman Rhodes stated this does not change the Comprehensive Plan because those places already exist. Councilwoman Rhodes stated she feels if someone owns one acre of property and he has a house on that property and it is non- conforming now, if it burnt down he could rebuild that house and if he complies with the codes, for whatever that zone is, he should be allowed to do it. City Manager Hooper explained he can do all that except the size. He is able to build and replace to the same size. He went on to explain if he wanted to build the home larger he would have to get a variance. If he is in a commercial area today and he has a residential house and he wants to add a residential room to it, he needs a variance. Councilwoman Rhodes stated she lives in Florida Shores and she can add a room to her house without it costing her $1,000 as long as she complies with the setbacks. City Manager Hooper stated that is because she is in a residential land use. Councilwoman Rhodes feels this is wrong. She questioned how to address this issue. City Manager Hooper explained the only way to address this is to go back and describe in B-3 what you can do. As long as they say B-3 is strictly commercial and they have a non- conforming use to it, the State is going to tell them you can't let them have a non-conforming structure that stays and expands without it coming back and it is addressed individually. They can make the definition of B-3 that would allow that but at this point everything along u.S. #1 in B-3 commercial, they have designated they don't want another square inch of residential except to replace that that is naturally damaged. Councilwoman Rhodes asked if they do want to increase it and they do come to Council for a variance, they are not charged the $1,000 to do that as long as they are complying with the setbacks in B-3. City Manager Hooper informed her the Council can waive the fee when it is in front of them. Councilwoman Rhodes asked if they can add a section that addresses that issue, that they don't have to ask for it, it just is. If it is non-conforming in a commercial zone and they ask for a variance that complies with all of the other setbacks the fee is waived. City Manager Hooper stated they can do it but in reality this won't work. Councilwoman Lichter feels this should take a different time because of all they have to do. There may be other issues that they have to go over again and can do in general before they pass the whole thing. \ o u Mayor Schmidt suggested they pull this out. City Manager Hooper agreedtto bring alternative language at the first public hearing. They will work with City Attorney Cookson to see if there is a way to do that. Mr. Lear continued his presentation with Article VIII. City Manager Hooper then went over the history for the Height Restriction on Riverside Drive. (Attached) He then explained the current proposal from the Planning & Zoning Board and staff. City Manager Hooper stated what he suspects is occurring is there is the minimum standards adopted by the County that in years past Planning & Zoning has allowed those waivers to occur, to let somebody move 25 feet further. Talking to the County Attorney, he has assured him that shouldn't be occurring. Cities are supposed to adhere to the minimum standards. The City can do variances to side yard setbacks, the front yard setbacks but by way of the County's Charter we shouldn't be allowing somebody to get closer than the 25 feet to a wetlands. City Manager Hooper stated we have had a fair number of people asking to move closer to the water. Planning & Zoning has done some exchange. When they presented this to Planning & zoning and talked of the single story, it was a unanimous recommendation that it go to single story. Since then there has been quite a bit of discussion about that. It went back to Planning & Zoning and they granted the two story variance at their last meeting. The other discussion that hasn't been had is what does it mean to the City as far as money. He spoke of building a house on the river having a higher value. If you build a two-story house on the river, it has an even higher value. Some of the trade-offs are you have more tax base for being able to build a larger, two- story and some turn into multi-million dollar homes. He spoke of seeing assemblage of some of these lots. He also mentioned people coming in and tearing an old house down and building a larger house, which does economic benefit greatly to the City. There is a real dilemma of not so much visual or looking across the river, that is a minor component. A major component is setback from the river, zoning overlay that would cover the east side and be able to describe the height limitation to it. If Council is willing to say 26 feet is fine then two stories fit within 26 feet. That doesn't change. If the answer is trying to get to a one-story height because you are letting them encroach closer to the water, one story at 26 feet doesn't work. One story needs to be 16 feet and that is the missing piece as far as what they need for direction. Councilwoman Rhodes questioned why a variance had to be granted for a two story. City Manager Hooper explained when Planning & ~ Q u Zoning heard the variance to give the setback getting closer to the water they came to an agreement. They agreed to let them get closer if they voluntarily restricted their house to one story. The owner did that but when the lot sold to somebody else, they didn't want a one-story so they asked to come back and be relieved of that Planning & Zoning agreement. Mayor Schmidt and Councilwoman Rhodes didn't like the idea of getting closer to the water. Councilwoman Rhodes would like to know who made that decision and why. City Manager Hooper elaborated on her concern by referring to the restriction the City put on back in 1986 that you had to be 30 feet from the water. Councilwoman Rhodes couldn't think of one case where someone should be closer than 25 feet to the river. Councilwoman Lichter feels this is the biggest mess of zoning she has ever seen. She feels when you own a piece of property you should not be penalized by being different than the rest of the City. She sees no problem with letting people go up two stories. She further spoke of view not being a legal concept. You can not be guaranteed a view. We have a County ordinance we have to abide by. Councilman Brown questioned not being able to change the setback the County has set legally. City Manager Hooper stated it has been changed. He further spoke of this applying strictly to wetlands. He is still trying to find out more about setbacks from the ordinary high. The wetlands the County Attorney has told him that it's 25 feet and you can't change the setback unless there is some pre-existing plat or some vesting that had already been put in place. The setbacks of at least 25 feet on Riverside Drive would apply. From a staff perspective, they could recommend if they adhere to the 25 feet, he doesn't have a problem of continuing with the 26 feet the way it's done and allowing as much square footage and building under there, which increases the tax base. The closer you get to the river the more he does have a problem with the ability to keep going as high. Councilwoman Lichter spoke of the mix-up in zoning with regard to one house having one requirement and next door having another. He feels they have to be consistent and people need to know what it is they have. She has no problem with two stories on the river. He referred to pictures of a home going up on Riverside Drive that is perched about nine feet and then it starts 26 feet above the nine feet. That should not have occurred. He further spoke of two or three applications that are going to be very similar. Councilwoman Rhodes asked if when the people bought the lot if the setbacks were in existence. City Manager Hooper informed her they were. She asked if there are other places in Edgewater that , ~ Q \ they make these variance trade-offs. City Manager Hooper stated there is a little. You have some of it occurring in Florida Shores. Councilwoman Rhodes asked when the environment counts. City Manager Hooper stated all the time. Councilwoman Rhodes stated apparently it doesn't count all the time because we make trade-offs for the environment. Councilwoman Lichter stated of the 15 lots that are not occupied at the moment, are there those that don't meet requirements for building a normal home. City Manager Hooper stated most of those lots would be non-conforming lots. There would probably be in the neighborhood of five units with not much being buildable after that. There was a brief discussion regarding setbacks. Councilman Hammond stated he doesn't think they would be discussing this if this home was built 20 or 30 feet off of Riverside itself. City Manager Hooper encouraged the Council to look at this property. If that is allowed, you are going to have more people wanting the same thing. Councilman Brown feels 26 feet sounds like a reasonable height for a two-story home. As long as a house will fit on it and meet the setback requirements, he can't see that they should be restricted to a one-story house. It doesn't make sense to put a $200,000 one-story house on a half million dollar piece of property. He feels they should leave the height at 26 feet. City Manager Hooper stated on the west side he doesn't think there are three or four that he has heard from but he isn't certain they live on the west side. It hasn't been one side against the other. City Manager Hooper asked if it is a clear consensus that they want them to leave the 26 feet, define better terms for the setbacks, County minimum standards and define what those are and put those in the Code. Mayor Schmidt stated he thinks that is the consensus and he thinks as far as the setback from the river, they need to try and have as strong a language as they can for Planning & Zoning. City Manager Hooper spoke of DEP and other state agencies that were out there and permitted it. Councilwoman Rhodes stated that isn't the only one along Riverside Drive. What is done is done but she thinks in moving forward what they need to do is hold a hard line on that issue, which she feels is in the best interest of the City as well as the river. ~ Q Q city Manager Hooper stated they will work on the 26 feet, they will work on the setback language and strengthen that and that will be in the first public hearing which will be held March 17th. ADJOURNMENT There being no further business to discuss, Mayor Schmidt took a recess before the regular meeting. Minutes submitted by: Lisa Bloomer