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DSAC Minutes 11/06/2024 1 MINUTES OF THE COLLIER COUNTY DEVELOPMENT SERVICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING Naples, Florida November 06, 2024 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, the Collier County Development Services Advisory Committee Meeting and Collier County, having conducted business herein, met on this date at 3:00 PM in REGULAR SESSION at the Collier County Growth Management Community Department Building, Conference Room #609/610, 2800 N. Horseshoe Dr., Naples, Florida, 34102 with the following members present: Chairman: William J. Varian Vice Chairman: Blair Foley Hannah Roberts – AHAC – Non-Voting (Absent) Mark McLean Jeffrey Curl Marco Espinar Chris Mitchell Jeremy Sterk (Excused) John English (Excused) James E. Boughton (Excused) Robert Mulhere Laura Spurgeon DeJohn David Dunnavant Clay Brooker Norm Gentry Mario Valle Also Present: James French, Department Head – GMCD Mike Bosi, Director – Zoning, GMCD Christopher Mason – Community Planning & Resiliency, GMCD Cormac Giblin, Director – Housing Policy & Economic Development, GMCD Jaime Cook, Director – Development Review, GMCD Michael Stark, Director – Operations & Regulatory Management, GMCD John McCormick, Director – Building Review & Permitting Division, GMCD Captain Bryan Horbal – North Collier Fire Review Thomas Iandimarino, Director – Code Enforcement, GMCD Claudia Vargas, Project Manager I – PUD Lorraine Lantz, Manager – Transportation Planning, Transportation Management Diane Lynch, Management Analyst I, Staff Liaison – GMCD Rey Torres Fuentes, Ops. Support Specialist I, Staff Liaison – GMCD 4 2 1. CALL TO ORDER • Meeting called to order at 3:00pm 2. APPROVAL OF AGENDA Mario Valle made a motion to accept the agenda, the motion was seconded by Jeff curl. The Motion passed unanimously. 3. APPROVAL OF MINUTES a. DSAC Meeting: October 2, 2024 Jeff Curl made a motion to approve minutes, the motion was seconded by Mark McLean. The Motion passed unanimously. 4. PUBLIC SPEAKERS We have 2 public speakers for guest houses. We'll hold them for our discussion. 5. STAFF ANNOUNCEMENTS / UPDATES a. Zoning Division – [Mike Bosi, Director] We're still actively pursuing a Planner 3 to replace our Comp. Plan Manager. We've got a few applicants and hoping to close that gap and get fully staffed. Tomorrow, Planning Commission with 3 new members. Michelle McLeod, Mike Petscher, and Chap Colucci. We've had orientations with each of them. They all seem astute, reasonable, levelheaded folks, and we're hoping they will be a good addition to the Planning Commission. We've got a car wash in a GMP that Mr. Mulhere is bringing forward that the staff agrees with. We have created a little bit of a backup with what we had originally reserved for the November 12th Board of County Commissioners meeting, specifically to hear the Fiddlers Creek 3 trio petitions for the affordable housing. We had only allowed any land use petitions that were summary. Everything else got pushed to December. Last week, Commissioner LoCastro asked staff and the applicant to continue to December. He'd like to have more time to digest it and work with staff, the applicant, and the community. Mr. Yovanovich agreed, and the County Manager has moved that item to December. We're going to have an extremely busy agenda in December. Not sure if we're going to be able to get through all the land use items. December 10th is the is the only Board meeting in December. We've got a little bit of backup with 5 additional petitions scheduled for the 1st meeting in January. Right behind that, we have the Myrtle Lane rezone, which is the relocation of the U Haul, which is critical for the Bayshore and the Bayshore redevelopment progress. They want to relocate U Haul from its current location to by Myrtle Lane off East Trail . We think it’s a good arrangement in freeing up that property for use with the redevelopment efforts within Bayshore. b. Community Planning & Resiliency Division – [Christopher Mason, Director] I was absent for the last DSAC meeting at the beginning of October. Hurricane Helene was probably talked about beforehand. We've been working with FEMA and 5 3 tracking all our damaged structures. We're standing by from any reporting request from FEMA now but if there are any inquiries from FEMA, we will be ready. Same problematic areas as Ian. c. Economic Development & Housing Division – [Cormac Giblin, Director] Good news story. The first closing on property that we are using the surtax money from is scheduled to close on to next Tuesday, the 12th. That's $3,750,000 for about 7 and a half acres on Collier Boulevard South. Earlier this week there was a grand opening for a new affordable development called Ekos Cadenza, in Allegra, which is a sister property right next door. One hundred and sixty affordable rental units dedicated to senior housing It's the 1st senior housing development affordable senior housing and development to open in Collier County since 1975. Another 160 units in about 3-4 months. d. Development Review Division [Jaime Cook, Director] One major piece of news, Brett Rosenblum, our Planning Manager for Engineering, is leaving. His last day is next Friday. I know some of you may email things with regards to plats or insubstantial change preapproval, continue to send those to Lisa Blackledge and myself. We're working on redistributing his workload and the position is posted. e. Operation & Regulatory Management Division [Jason Badge] Good afternoon. Jason Badge, Supervisor Project Management of the Operations and Support and Regulatory Management Division. In October, the Department received 3,710 permit applications. One hundred and twenty-nine of these were related to Hurricane Helene, and 110 were related to Hurricane Milton. The average turnaround time for intake staff is 1.1 days. We welcomed 1,244 customers to our business center and the satellite offices, and staff answered 5,384 calls in our call center. We also removed the building permit application on October 1st as a permit requirement, except for right away well and owner builder applications, and so far, it's been a successful launch. On the 18th we deployed the new changes that were requested for allowing multiple text messages to be sent to different phone numbers and email addresses. Hopefully, you have seen that as you've been scheduling inspections on our portal. Chairman Varian It's been great. Thank you. So Awesome to hear. Jason Badge We appreciate the opportunity to share this information and data with you. My team and I are readily available to answer any questions and address any concerns, and we're open to feedback on how we can improve our processes. Robert Mulhere Jason, I think it was the last meeting we're talking about some of the bosses and things. They do a great job. I was thinking that there's a lot of training that must occur there because there's so many different types of petitions and there's nuances here and there. 6 4 For example, if we ask for a waiver of a pre app, we usually get an email from Ray Bellows, and we submit that with the application so that intake is aware because otherwise, they will hold it up. Another thing, it was a PUD amendment of a of an older PUD, so it doesn't follow the typical format of a of a PUD with exhibits a, b, c, d, and e. that was going to be put on hold because it wasn't following the typical format, except, of course, it wasn't following the typical format because it was about amendment. I was just thinking something for consideration, and I've said this before. I think it's as much my responsibility as it is Steph’s , maybe there could be a section on the pre app notes that talks about either destruct or instructions for intake if it's something unique. Because then it doesn't sit somewhere. It's all taken care of upfront, puts the burden on us to ask for those special conditions that might apply upfront. Jason Badge Sure. I'll make a note and bring it up with pre app staff as an idea. f. Building Review & Inspection [John McCormick] Good afternoon. It's my 3rd day here but I've been here 10 years. I started with Jamie in the same Division and spent the last 7 years as Director of Facilities and Sir Tac Liaison helping the County spend about half a billion dollars. I was in a family construction company for 30 years. I'm a mechanical engineer by trade, and I love what I do. I'm anxious to get to know you folks, and if I can help in any way, I'm a quick learner. Rich was here like 19 years. If there’s anything I can do to help I have the same phone number and will pass out new business cards next meeting. g. Collier County Fire Review NO UPDATE h. North Collier Fire Review [Brian Horbal] We had another busy month in October. We did 1414 new construction permitted inspections. That's on par for our busy months. We interviewed 4-5 Plan Reviewers and have 3 that we like. We were hoping for one but we're trying to see if the Chief will give us a couple more because we're just so busy. September was just as busy, 655 plan reviews, and we are averaging a 4-day turnaround. That's all-permitted stuff. Planning review, we did 63 with a 3-day turnaround. The Ritz Carlton Beach Project is done for now. The remodel, addition, new CEP outback, and all the hurricane stuff, we're done. That's been my baby for the last couple of years, so I'm glad to have it have it done. i. Code Enforcement [Thomas Iandimarino, Director] It's been status quo back in Code. We've been steadily gearing up for season. Chairman Varian The uptick in unlicensed people trying to do contracting work with the new work? Tom Iandimarino Not so much since the Hurricanes, but we have had Contractor Licensing Staff working Saturdays and Sundays out in the field. You know, we do get a few cases 7 5 here and there. And when we get a call on a Sunday for something that we miss, we try to catch it next Sunday, and sometimes that's how it works. GMCD [Jamie French, Department Head] • With the transition of Parks and Recreation and Domestic Animal Services coming into the Community Development Model, Tom will be picking up 16 Park Rangers, and he has 9 Animal Control Officers. We're looking at trying to flatten the job descriptions to where you have code 1, code 2, code 3 type of a scenario so that entry level may be a Park Ranger, Code Enforcement Officer, or Licensing Person. With more advanced licensing and training offered throughout the State, we're looking at Tom doing it now, for example, like the ACOs. That training's very difficult to get in. We just reached out to the Company. They're coming in I think, next week. It's a 4-day course we're putting Park Rangers and Code Enforcement People through. It really takes on that force multiplier approach, and the same thing with Licensing and everything else. • They're all Code Enforcement employees that operate under that consolidated Code Enforcement Ordinance through the County, and Tom was already processing all their hearings anyway. The idea is that having that type of multi- tiered level of training, it enables us during vacations, busy seasons, off time to be able to take that apparatus, that vehicle that's been specialized, for example, for ACOs, for the Animal Control Officers and that way that van is never off the road. • One of the things that Tom has done is shift work and you'll see it is much like what the Park Rangers are doing. They've all brought different aspects of business that we appreciate. Much like the Sheriff's Office, the way they run their dispatch. • You'll see that level of service from 7 AM until 10 PM and nights and weekends on call services. So that it's more of an accommodation to the Sheriff's Office and to our 911 Centers so that we can get that specialized trained person in the field. There will be some budget constraints but at the end of the day, we think having that additional staff will not influence in any way, shape, or form your enterprise funds. We look at it as a cost savings because that way we're spending less time bringing these cases through for prosecution. • For example, with the ACOs, $26,000 in fines got away because of how bad it was managed. Now we are at 100% conviction. • If we're bringing a case forward, our goal is the educational path. But you are if you are resistant and don’t get your license or pull a permit or register your dog, you will get a ticket. And we're going to enforce fines and lien on property, however the law allows. That’s our goal. • One of the things Tom has not disclosed is that we'll be moving Code Enforcement much like Sheriff's Office where you'll have individual offices. • With the merger of Parks, we're going to create a North Naples Code Office at North Collier Regional Park like we have at Heritage Bay in Immokalee. • Conservation Collier needs more space and we're looking at some additional lease spaces through another State Agency. • We're looking at taking all the calls for Parks, DAS, and Growth Management and putting them all in the same call center. 8 6 • I've asked the Board and the County Manager to give me the transition of the Park Rangers and that should be completed by the end of this month. • We've been going through some growing pains for the last 9 months with these transitions, and I apologize for that. Jeff Curl My hat's off to you, it's a world of difference, and I don't mean to be disrespectful to Mike but Tom with his law enforcement background, you're hitting the nail on the head. Jamie French I agree. I think it's a combination of Tom being 32 years in federal law enforcement, but then also having Tim Crotts there who spent a lifetime as an executive officer for a small police force and then a Police Chief up in the New England States, having that level of administration helps with prosecution. Taking this force multiplier approach will allow us to have consistent messaging across the entire agency as one unified Code effort. With that the ACOs as well as Park Rangers have the training and know what to look for. It also offers them a multifaceted career path. And hats off to the Sheriff Office because I've learned so much from them in my 21 plus years here. They’ve been wonderful partners throughout this venture. j. Public Utilities Engineering & Project Management [Claudia Vargas, Project Manager] We had our first Subcommittee meeting last week, the next one is November 18th. Mario can give a brief update on where we are and the process and how the review went. Mario Valle Thanks. I appreciate everybody voting me in as Vice-Chair of the Subcommittee while I was on vacation. There are over 571 pages for us to review. There were about a dozen highlights I wrote down. Chris and John English were both there. We 've asked staff to allow us to have enough time to review this diligently. It's been a long time since it's been reviewed, and it looks like we're making good progress towards the sustainability of our infrastructure. We started off with a half an hour conversation about introducing liability to the civil engineers and design professionals and it was something we asked to have to go back and review. It was onerous in terms of how much they were asking the design professionals to ascertain. With that major caveat out of the way, we went through and most of it seemed to flow well. It's just a lot to go through. David Dunavant Just a little curious. I used to track it a little closer when I was getting them, but I've never understood how response times for letters of availability could be at 6 business weeks. There was an exerted push a couple years ago to try and reduce that, and it seems to have fallen off again. Claudia Vargas 9 7 So right now, our response time is 10 business days. While I was starting training, there were some anomalies and time frames due to the training, but other than that, we're back on schedule. k. Transportation Planning [Lorraine Lantz, Manager] The first thing is Wilson Boulevard, the south project, for the extension, not the widening. This is Golden Gate Boulevard to City Gate North, that connection. I probably haven't spoken to you about that for 2 years. That was shelved as we were having some timing in staffing. We're bringing that back. I believe we're scheduling that for December 9th meeting, which is a Monday. That’s a public meeting to explain where we are in the corridor and to talk about the alignment. We are also working on our access management study and revising the access management policies. Mike Sawyer or Kathy came to you a little bit ago and said we would kick that off. We 've had one meeting already with the Development Community. It's going well. We're will have another one and then bring that to the Board of County Commissioners in September. Mostly we're adopting FDOT's guidelines. Just updating them. Tonight, they're at the IFES Center, there’s a public meeting for the Randall, Immokalee intersection project that's at 30% design plans. They're anticipating that for construction for the intersection improvements in late 2026. Jeff Curl It seems like Transportation is infatuated with these. I heard that one is going in at DeSoto and Golden Gate. A lot of 18 wheelers go through there and isn’t a good scenario. That is one we are looking at. Roundabouts in the right place with the right design are effective. They're good traffic calming and sustainable if power goes out. The one in Immokalee and 29 functions. intersection improvement, but it is an intersection improvement. Clay Brooker The Wilson extension. Do you know where that meeting will be held on December 9th? We're looking at Heritage Bay, Immokalee and Collier Boulevard. 6. NEW BUSINESS a. Expiring Terms Five of us are expiring our terms here. We've done great and I think we have 6 applications. We'll go one at a time because some of us must excuse ourselves from voting. Chairman Varian So first up i. Architect Blair Foley motioned to recommend Mark McClain Robert Mulhere seconded Motion passed unanimously 10 8 ii. Planner Blair Foley motioned to recommend Robert Mulhere Mario Valle seconded Motion passed unanimously iii. Environmental Consultant Blair Foley motioned to recommend Jeremy Sterk Jeff Curl seconded Motion passed unanimously iv. General Contractor Mario Valley motioned to recommend William Varian Blair Foley seconded Blair Foley needs to take over as Chair for this vote only. Motion passed unanimously Dave Dunnavant’s spot we will be filling v. Developer Blair Foley motioned to recommend Nick Cole Harris Mario Valle seconded Motion passed unanimously b. PL20240009067 Guesthouse Rentals in Urban Estates Eric Johnson, LDC Planning Manager This Land Development Code amendment would establish interim regulations for the rental of guest- houses with Urban Estate Zone Lots. The provisions for guesthouses have been on the books in the county since the seventies, as well as in the seventies has been the prohibition about renting the guest- houses. In 2023, The Board discussed the prospect of amending the Land Development Code to allow for the rental of these guesthouses on a State Zone Lots. • On May 14th this year, The Board directed staff to move forward with an LDC amendment with a provision in writing of the 1-year revisit and a specific report from Code Enforcement to amend the Land Development Code to allow the rental of guesthouses. • The focus is to be on Estate Zone Lots in the Urban Part of the County. That affects the Golden Gate Area Master Plan. There are 3 sub elements, the Golden Gate City, The Rural, and The Urban. This would only affect estates and lots in the Urban Golden Gate Estates Element Sub Element, as well as other Estate Zone lots west of Collier Boulevard. • I provided an exhibit for you in your packet, exhibit A that shows where the study area is, including the, Estate Zone Lots that are not in the Urban Sub element of the GBA and P. • In your package, you'll also find there’s yellow highlighting, text that represents the changes that were made to this amendment since it went to the Subcommittee 11 9 on October 15th. Basically, staff is looking to amend, LDC sections 2.03.01, agricultural districts, as well as LDC section 5 guesthouses. You'll see that in 5 of the most proposed text is in 50303, particularly F. You have the leasing or rental renting of guesthouse shall be prohibited unless the following requirements are met. And it shows 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. We have also added 7 and 8, and you'll notice that 7 is a minimum duration of a lease between a lessor and lessee, shall be 9 months. Then number 8, this code is supposed to sunset unless it's extended by the Board of County Commissioners by a resolution. The amendment has been reviewed by staff and I wanted to read for the record what transportation planning had to say. I provided 5 bullets. 1. There are a limited number of parcels affected by the amendment. 2. The Urban Sub District contains an established road network with major north south and east west arterials and collectors. 3. Traffic impacts resulting from the rental units should be more widely distributed within the sub district compared to the compared to traditional PUD developments with single point trip impacts. 4. There is a reasonable network of interconnected local neighborhood roads providing alternative routes. 5. There are numerous goods and services employment opportunities adjacent to the Sub District area to reduce lengths on the network compared to longer and rural commuter residential trips. • Our comprehensive planning staff reviewed the previous iteration. They have not seen the yellow yet. I'm still waiting for their approval. I suspect that they're not going to have an issue with the minimum duration of a lease of 9 months. • After consulting with our County Attorney's Office, there was concern about having a minimum duration lease. Do the State Statutes preempt us from instituting that? Conclusion was no. We, as in staff, conducted a survey of some apartment complexes within the County, and you'll note in the overhead, behind you that many of the minimum durations that they have is 12 months 11 months, so we feel like we are justified with a minimum of at least 9 months and this will help further the prospect of having , or the supply of rentals in the community that helps with the affordable housing problem in the County. But I would like to point out that no one is compelling any property owner to rent to any of the categories of affordable housing qualified applicants. • This is strictly a property owner who would want to rent out their guesthouse, they can do so under these provisions, if it is in the study area. The property owner would have to figure out through their own due diligence whether it would be financially feasible for them to continue with this because, in doing so, we are mandating that only homesteaded properties would be eligible to rent out the guesthouses. And as you know, or maybe you don't know, when you do a rental the property appraiser's office is going to look at that guesthouse structure differently and you will lose that homestead exemption on the guesthouse structure but not the main structure. Staff is looking for a recommendation of approval with that. 12 10 • And the subcommittee did review this on October 15th and recommended approval. Robert Mulhere Why the sunsetting? I don't I don't understand that. Eric Johnson That was directed by The Board so we must follow through with what they want from us. So, they actively want to report within 5 years. They may extend it, but if they don't like it, they can sunset it. It's my understanding they want an annual report. Laura Spurgeon DeJohn I am a property owner in the red box. I learned in past experiences, usually, if you're1 out of 1,000, you're not a heavily affected party. Is anyone else in the red box? Clay Brooker I can comment. I mean, my understanding of the law under these circumstances, you would not be conflicted from participating and voting. But that's my understanding of it. Chris Mitchell I know the basis behind losing your exemption on the structure only? In the last 3-4 years, the land value is probably going to far outweigh the construction cost of the structure. I don't understand the benefit. I mean, do you get that small square footage of the land comes out of that homestead too? And why are we doing that? Eric Johnson This is not the zoning staff's area of expertise. Obviously, we would have to get feedback from the Property Appraiser, and whoever will eventually want to rent out their guesthouse will have to make their own decision as to whether it's financially beneficial to them. It's my understanding that the Property Appraiser assesses a property on 3 different matters. The land itself, the principal dwelling, and the guesthouse structure. That would be the guesthouse structure would lose its homestead exemption, and therefore not be protected under the same save our homes cap, and I think that's 3%. Clay Brooker The Subcommittee heard from the public and I suspect we'll be hearing from the public again on that issue. They're all valid points, but this is a zoning exercise. We made an informal suggestion that the County have a brochure or a pamphlet that if you decide to do this there are consequences, and you should be aware of them before you make that decision. Chris Mitchell Was there any discussion that if you subsequently pull that out of the rental, do you get re-homesteaded and at what value? Eric Johnson I just think that those are questions for the property appraiser and not subject to DSAC from a zoning perspective. Clay Brooker I would suggest that we don't even go down that road because we could possibly getting get something wrong, and I don't want to mislead anyone in that respect. Tax 13 11 consequences, homestead exemption consequences, save our homes consequences, all of that should be outside of our purview, in my opinion. Eric Johnson I just wanted to mention that in the future, administrative code amendment, to support this land development code effort. And we envision having a zoning certificate process, like comparable to the guesthouse rental being associated with this as well. Laura Spurgeon DeJohn I understand that this formalizes something however, it has been going on prolifically and regularly for decades and those folks did not get hacked by the tax office because they had been renting their guest- houses. People have been doing this, and it's a little crooked to now say we're going to encourage it and make sure there's affordable opportunities in this County, and then here's all the consequences that make it harder to be affordable. Eric Johnson There is a short-term registration program that it will remain separate from this. Before, I envisioned having a zoning certificate and a registration that's separate from this. Except the thousands of people doing it, like, the 40 or 50% of homeowners on my street who do it are not going to sign up. Keep in mind that this will make it lawful for someone to rent out their guesthouse. Rey Torres Buddy Smith. You have 3 minutes, Sir. 5170 10th Avenue Southwest off Logan. I bought that property in 78. I look through this information have a couple of questions. I'm not unhappy with the information because I have a rented guesthouse, but here's a hole in the time frame of 9 months being a minimum and12 months being a maximum. According to Naples Board of Realtors you can only rent for 12 months. I'm glad to see that the 9 months minimum which eliminates short term rentals. I am a licensed realtor. But there's also a question about the sales tax and bed tax. You can't have a tourist tax when you're renting a guesthouse, but you can have a bed tax. And I see we've got to get a $50 permit. But are the taxes going to also apply? Chairman Varian It's above our level right here, but it's a good question. Laura Spurgeon DeJohn Can I ask because I don't know if I heard you correctly in the beginning? Did you say you do rent out a guest house presently? Buddy Smith I was referring to other properties Robert Mulhere The Property Appraiser would have a lot of this information. My recommendation for staff, if we get through this, it's probably going to be important to have somebody here that can answer these questions. David Dunnavant 14 12 I'm just curious what violates the principle of paragraph C that the owner can't live in the guesthouse and rent out as principal. Clay Brooker From a zoning perspective, it doesn't matter. We brought that up at the Subcommittee meeting, but there was not an answer for that. Chris Mitchell Did the Subcommittee confirm that current Code says that guesthouse distance between structures is 20 feet? Eric Johnson D4 says a detached guest detached guest houses shall not be closer than 20 feet to the principal dwelling. I don't think that means you can't have an attached guest house. Yes, i t must be 20 feet. Rey Torres Our next speaker is Jill Rosenfeld. • Jill Rosenthal, 2230 10th Avenue at East West Valley Road, Wilmington Estates. I just wanted to bring up a couple of points. I asked about the properties identified that have guest houses, how many of those are homesteaded properties and would qualify for this program? I got an email this morning that someone in the public records department is going to help me with that. I'll get that information soon. • Another point is once a homesteaded property owner enters the program to rent the guesthouse, they lose their homestead exemption, and more importantly, the homestead protection, that is protection from judgment creditors on the guesthouse. Additionally, the guesthouse will be reassessed the following January at the current market value. I'm just trying to figure out as this goes forward, what is the estimated projected increase in tax assessment and property taxes for these properties? • I think it's a prior priority to determine that now before we go ahead and start changing the Code and any regulations. I think we really should focus on what is this going to do to the property owners. • The State has preempted short term rentals, so the County cannot limit or ban them. I don't understand how a guesthouse or a house compares to apartment buildings, because apartment buildings are solely for rentals. I think that needs to be investigated. • Then the 5-year pilot program had already been addressed by the County Attorney at the BCC meeting. He advised that once the County gives a property owner a right such as a rental of guesthouses, the County cannot then restrict it or the County could be subject to a Bert Harris claim. So that needs to be investigated before it goes forward. The affected property owners deserve a thorough analysis. Let's not be short sighted and let's take the time now while it's in front of us and look at what are the actual ramifications. • Why don't we do this as a referendum to the voters and let them decide whether they want to go through with this program? Because I think there's a lot of issues that are just not being addressed. 15 13 Chairman Varian Both speakers mentioned concerns about taxes, and we're just focused on the zoning side. You mentioned that once before. I don't think we should get clouded in that. I mean, they're all valid points. Robert Mulhere If I was making the presentation, I'd certainly have somebody there to answer questions. Blair Foley • I think so too. There is a lot of this going on now. We've investigated this. There's this promulgated rule, and I think we're trying to separate the zoning from the tax implications, but, invariably, they're connected. • And I'm not quite sure why that wasn't part of all the research initially. I'm really of the position that it's a collective, collaborative deal between the two, and they should be looked at not just bring somebody at the time of a vote at the public hearing, but maybe they should have been involved early on. Perhaps it could be still discussed before it goes to those public hearings. Chris Mitchell • I thought it might be beneficial. The public doesn't come here very often, so you might define our role in this whole process as a as a review committee. • Chairman Varian • For the public, just to explain. We are an advisory committee with 15 members. We make a recommendation to the planning commission of BCC. The Board members come various industries or trades that we represent, but we are just an advisory committee. • And what we say doesn't really matter once it gets to the higher end. They may take it under consideration. That's where we're at as a Board. • I had a question and I'm just curious as to why it's only west of 951. Eric Johnson That's because that's what we were directed to do. Okay. We were not advised to open it up in the rural subelement of the GGA&P. Jeff Curl I would just add one thing too because the last public speaker just brought up probably the best point of all. How do you grant a zoning for only 5 years and then take it away? Eric Johnson That is highlighted in yellow, language has been reviewed by the County Attorney's Office and they felt that this would be acceptable at this point. Clay Brooker When you have a sunset clause, meaning the right is automatically going to go away, Burt Harris Act only applies to things that are reasonably foreseeable in the future. If you have something that's automatically going away, an argument exists that you don't have a Burt Harris claim when that right is taken away from you because everyone knows it's going away. It's not reasonably so foreseeable. Jeff Curl 16 14 That to me, is why the Property Appraiser needs to be there because that homestead exemption or carve out also needs to sunset in theory. Clay Brooker My suggestion would be we need to just a couple of observations that I've already been made by Eric is this is BCC directed from a pure zoning we put on our zoning blinders. Does this make sense from a zoning perspective? I guess. At least personally, it does, but there's serious consequences. Any recommendation from this Board should come with that kind of qualification. However, we recommend that all future public hearings be advised of with expert advice as to the tax implications that are embedded. Laura Spurgeon DeJohn • Just make part of a recommendation moving forward that the fiscal impacts quantify the ramifications of the property tax adjustments. There's going to be a positive fiscal impact on the County, so that could be quantified. • The statement that this is hoping to promote the goal of addressing the affordable housing problem should be qualified with however, if there are unknowns of the, you know, fiscal impacts to the property owner who will be renting that home, it may not help the affordable housing problems in the County. You know, you have to say both sides of the story because it sounds positive, and it sounds like these great affordable opportunities are out there. We're talking about financial outcomes that could be different. Eric Johnson • Let me just remind everyone that right now, renting of a guesthouse is not allowed. Legally, with respect to taxing, I'd love to know more about it myself. Uh, remember back in 2008 when there was the, you know, the recession, the great recession, property values went down. So, there's a lot of different things that impact property taxes, millage rates, you know, that could change from one administration to the next. But certainly, I think having someone be on hand at the public hearing from the tax office is a very legitimate and, uh, prudent advice to staff. Chairman Varian Was t he thought process of the BCC that more homes more of these guesthouses might be built? Or they're just trying to take the ones that are already built and put them into the legal mix? Out of curiosity, do you was there any discussion on that? Mike Bosi • There was no discussion in terms of, uh, specifically if they anticipated more, their urban estates are allowed guest houses. The relationship between the prices that landlords can command and what the market's bearing is related to your supply and demand curve. And the more supply that we can add, the more positive we're in effect what those rents are. That's the overriding message of what we're trying to do. • We're trying to add a little bit more supply. The more supply should help with, uh, a little bit of providing loosening of the demand side of the shop towards where it may have an effect upon what the rents that are being commanded. At the end of the day, I think there was anticipation if the if it was a legitimacy, uh, to allowing guest houses to be ridden to be rented, that would spur the 17 15 construction of more guest houses. I mean, we've had there there's over 3,000 guest houses within the within the study area, and there's only it's a little bit above 10% of the of those that have guest houses. So, it's a very low number. • And I think what they were hoping is if there is an allowance, more property owners would build guest houses that could be rented that could help with the supply and demand imbalance that we currently have. Um, so I think that was the whole intent. And we had spoken with the property appraiser. We have spoken with the tax collector. We had public information meetings. • We had handouts from them, and we'll include those within the packages that go to the planning commission and the board of county commissions with an invitation from each one of those agencies to make sure that they're they have representatives there to be able to expel why that they're obligated by state statute to exempt properties that are being commercially rented from an exemption that that's to provide for homeowners to, you know, to lessen that tax burden. I understand that there's an increase in taxes, but there's an increase in value that's going on for that individual property owner because they're now renting out their house. And because of that, that doesn't that disqualifies them from having that 3% cap upon there. And it's a different cap there's a different tax rate that's associated with it. But we'll have, uh, uh, members from each of those agencies to be able to describe why and why and how specifically those taxing app implications are. • We may add as part of one of the disclaimers in the actual land development code itself, if the county attorney's office would agree, to suggest that any property owner should explore their individual situation with both the tax collector and the property appraiser because of the unique sec situation for each individual property. Um, so that's I think that's the nutshell of what the board was looking for. I I don't think that they were anticipating that this was going to be a huge windfall for additional supply, but they thought it was one measure to potentially explore within the urbanized area that has the network of, uh, of transportation network to be able to handle the additional loads, um, and potentially add additional supply to the to the equation. • Any other questions? Do we take a I guess I can entertain a motion if that's what we're going to do. • Come on, Clay. • The attorney. Again, you the subcommittee, you guys approved it. Clay Brooker I move to recommend approval of the proposed LDC amendment with a few qualifications. 1. The Planning Commission and BCC be fully apprised of the tax implications or potential tax implications of the proposal. 2. The fiscal impact on the memo proposal should be revised to raise that as a potential fiscal impact as well. 3. Both sides that the fiscal impact to the County might be positive given the additional revenue. On the flip side, the increase in the additional tax rate to the homeowner might have an impact in the rents, which might affect affordability. 18 16 4. Be that qualification for the from the fiscal side of the of the cover memo for the LDC amendment. That's my motion. Mario Valle seconded Chairman Varian 2 opposed David Dunavant Unintended consequences, you're gonna reduce the housing availability, and the traffic load already exists right now. You’re not changing the traffic load. Claudia from Public Utilities wants to give a quick update on the slides. Just for the record I wanted to clarify the availability chart. The number of days is referring to the bar chart, and the number of requests is for the line graph. The max number of days we had for a response was 21 days in June, and that was due to training. Again, for the number of business days, it's referring to the bar chart, and so we've been reducing the number of days that we've been getting back to the applicants. He's at 4 now. Laura Spurgeon DeJohn You're just updating us to say in September it was a 4-day turnaround? Blair Foley Huge improvement. It's only a month ago. Then you're doing a wonderful job. 7. OLD BUSINESS Clay Brooker Manning the door at the voting poll yester was Stan Chudzianowski. He wanted me to say hello to everyone, and he misses us all dearly. Chairman Varian Any other old business? Any other committee member comments? Hearing none, I can entertain a motion to adjourn. 8. COMMITTEE MEMBER COMMENTS 9. ADJOURN There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned at 4:18 p.m. 19 These m i nutes * r r" upp, o, " d gydiom m i nee/C ha i rman on (check one) as submined t/ or as amended zq COI,I,IE,R COI-]NTY DEVELOPMENT SERVICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE Chairman William Varian qt 17 20