Loading...
06/06/2007 CITIZEN’S ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING NOTES ON 2008 EAR-BASED AMENDMENTS Clearwater Public Library Wednesday, June 6, 2007 – 1:30 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Frank Dame, Barbara Green, Judy Melges, Duke Tieman, Norma Carlough, Elizabeth France, Bill Murray, Helen Kerwin, Gloria Bailey, Ronald Delp, Alex Plisko, Jr. Vonabell Sherman, J.B. Johnson, Laura St. Clair and David Walker of Pinellas County Planning. STAFF PRESENT: Michael Delk, Gina Clayton, Catherine W. Porter, Sandra Herman, Steven Everitt of the Planning Department; Bill Vola, Emergency Management Director, and Bill Morris, Harbormaster. Michael Delk thanked the committee for their time and effort in this process. This effort is one of the most important efforts for planning for the City. We want this to be meaningful, and make this a sustainable community. Clearwater is built out with only about 300 acres of developable land. It is very important how we approach this; to create and maintain while providing affordable housing and things that are important to making a community viable. Delk went over the 5 areas of Local Concern: Comprehensive and Diversified Redevelopment, Community Character and Livable Neighborhoods, Attainable Housing, Annexation and Coastal and Disaster Management. The City Council wants to accommodate workforce housing. It is of prime importance for us to promote character and support our existing quality neighborhoods. We may want to facilitate development. Population estimates for the Tampa Bay area show that about a million people will be added to the region in the next 30 years. It is clearly in Clearwater’s long term economic and environmental interest to not encourage sprawl. Clearwater won’t be a high growth area, but there are opportunities for utilizing the existing infrastructure to accommodate some of that growth in a way that promotes affordable housing as well as sustaining and promoting our economic base. There are lots of opportunities to help the City maintain and solidify the tax base and maintain the existing level of services to promote community values for work force, economic growth and affordable housing. Clearwater has urban characteristics which make its issues and opportunities unique. Staff’s approach to the Comprehensive Plan updates is a work in progress in terms of how we will be coming and what we will be bringing to you. We are starting of with Coastal Management and Hazard Mitigation today because it may be an easier topic to get our arms around and many of the items are mandated by the legislature. Sandy Herman explained that we must address 2 things---statutory issues and Issues of Local Concern which came out of the last CAC. Staff is working on Sections II, IV, V of the EAR because it is statutory. This will be done through strikethrough and underline format for the Committee’s information. She distributed the statutorily corrected Coastal - 1 - Management Element, statutory definitions of working waterfront, and talking points from that Issue of Local Concern. We will be discussing this today. Bill Vola and Bill Morris are the experts on this topic and they are here to answer questions on this area. Vola said the City is in good shape as regards disaster preparedness. Florida is the best prepared state and Clearwater and Tampa are among best-prepared cities in the state. Clearwater continues to improve the own level of competence and response, including exercises, etc. However, Clearwater is located on a peninsula on a peninsula so we are in a tough spot with regard to evacuations. A better approach is to have housing be hurricane hardened so that those people living in hardened housing do not have to evacuate, making it easier for those who must, to do so. It is beyond the City’s control to significantly improve hurricane evacuation times. Zoning and density which affect safety must be balanced with economic demands. There is a shelter deficit county-wide of 75,000 spaces. Clearwater is trying to improve that figure, and this year added Ross Norton Recreation Center as a public County shelter. Delk said we have development agreements with new hotels on the beach that if there is a hurricane watch, they must get their guests off the beach. Hazard mitigation would be to expand that somewhat. Changes to density rules would make hotels more economically viable, which would also make evacuation easier than if there were all condominiums. Vola suggested There is a need to require that hotels have a specific place to send their guests to, rather than dumping them in a public shelter. Dame asked whether as residential density changes, have the Emergency Governments improved the number of shelters for them? Vola said there are limited public spaces available; there is only so much a government can do. In reality, there is also a burden on the individual to protect their homes and be prepared. Herman reminded the committee that we also need to discuss other things such as recreational and working waterfronts. Bill Morris said the City is very aggressive on expanding public access. An example of this would be the recently approved grant for $ 1.2 M for construction of downtown boatslips. Another tactic is encouraging public private partnerships in things such as parking structures, restaurants as anchors, etc. There is also the possibility of vertical evacuation too. We have been working on a Waterway Management Plan.Working waterfronts currently existing are “Quality Boats” and “Frenchy’s”. Clearwater will have public boatslips at the Beach Recreation Center and Island Estates. The City is also looking at Jack Russell Stadium as a potential for high and dry boat and camper storage built to hurricane standards. The City is also looking at expanding facilities at the Seminole boat launch. Dame wanted to know whether the City can provide protection through zoning for working waterfronts; specifically could this have saved Ross Boats? Delk said the City recently did the East Shore amendments to Beach By Design. In that document accessory use of docks without additional parking is permitted in order to promote water and boating access. Should the City to extend this to other areas? Morris said that this would be great if addressed the parking issue were addressed. There is a need for transient slips - 2 - rather than a rental slips because that will decrease traffic and parking issues. Morris said Pinellas County hired a realtor to evaluate waterfront properties and find and partner with someone to run transient slips. Morris said Island Estates has transient docks. Madeira Beach lets you rent out private boatslips on your property. Many communities don’t allow it. Sarasota has 50-60 transient slips that bring in boat clubs to hotels and restaurants and shopping. Clearwater is hoping to do this with the downtown docks. Dame said this could also work behind the Marina at the mangroves, with boardwalks through the mangroves to the slips. This would be great, especially since Clearwater Beach is very walkable. Delk said “no net loss” on boat slips is a possibility. Shall we pursue it? This would possibly impact property rights. Perhaps we could look at this like we do trees---i.e. if you delete a slip, you pay into a fund for replacement. Carlough asked about launch facilities. Morris said the City could build one on the Beach parcel, and possibly at Seminole, although that would result in a loss of parking if launch sites were added. There is great demand for slips and it would increase City revenue, and especially with budget constraints the City could use the revenue. Dunedin has condo boat slips going for $250K. In Clearwater the problem is that in many places there is not enough depth for boatslips. Green said that since fuel and other sales are related to use, what about putting a use clause in the slip lease? Morris responded that in the past the City has gone with serving the community rather than going after the money such as biggest money is with largest boats, but largest boat owners are not year-round residents. In addition, more use would require larger fuel tanks and larger fuel tanks would present environmental concerns so the City can only increase fuel sales to a point. Clayton said that from our discussion it appears that there are 4-5 key points the staff should review and we would like consensus on these as to what you want us to do: 1. Disaster management---work with smaller businesses to develop evacuation plans. 2. Mandatory evacuation as part of development agreements or development orders, and how and where and interagency agreements subject to City and County approval, especially with regard to hotel development. 3. Define working waterfronts. 4. No net loss policy for docking facilities; criteria for land use amendments that involve marine facilities, including high and dry. Impact fee type of thing or like the public art program. Morris will look for prototype ordinance. Maintenance of docking facilities is not enough, there must be no net loss. This would work for cash reserve to get the $9M high and dry proposal going. Supporting accessory transient slips due to parking issues through City land development code changes. Judy Melges asked---as regards Disaster Management---can condos be required to have a disaster plan like hotels do? Vola said probably not---due to property rights. State - 3 - Statute 252 gives County government most of powers of Disaster Management; the City has a narrow list of disaster management that they can do. Can public parking ramps be used for vertical evacuation? (Note: this would be for sheltering of vehicles, not people). There may be a liability issue with that. The County and City work with condo associations to get the information out. Dame said the Coastal Management Element needs to look at beach access and parks on the beach. The City should consider the recreation center site for parking if it closes. Comprehensively, Clearwater’s waterfront is shallow for boating. The City should look for opportunities to acquire lands that are good for boating through acquisition or redevelopment or public-private partnerships. France said that we should bring in water conservation, especially in publicly owned properties. Delk said the staff is looking at sustainable development like LEED and green building, etc. as well as incentives for developers who use sustainable methods. Delp said we should be concerned with beach access and water access. CDB has allowed variances past few years to make them more difficult. In other words, they are allowing private development next to public property and the variances impact the public property. Trolley language should be strengthened because of its importance to tourism despite the budget concerns of funding the trolley. Should the trolley be taken out of the Comprehensive Plan because we can’t fund it? Herman said staff will be contacting the committee prior to the next meeting. It will be on a Wednesday, since our poll shows this will work for everyone. The meeting adjourned 3:30 p.m. Meeting notes by Porter - 4 -