Cutler Bay, Florida

Good evening, everyone. Today is Wednesday, June 17, 2026, 5 p.m. We are having our Town Council workshop on our budget. With that, Mr. Clerk, if you could please take the roll. Council Member Ramirez? Here. Council Member Lord? Here. Council Member Duncan? Here. Vice Mayor Callahan? Here. Mayor, Mayor Bud. Present. We have a quorum. Thank you. Please join in, rise, for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, Ralph, I'll let you go ahead and take over from here. Thank you, Mayor, members of Council. Thank you for attending today's budget visiting workshop. I know it's 5 o'clock, and then we have a council meeting right after. So we have, as we normally do, this is our first budget visiting workshop, and particularly this year, there's a lot of different changes that we know are upcoming in the state. So with that, if we could have the town clerk, please put the powerpoint up, please. We'll try to get through this within the specified hour, Mayor. So thank you. So again, today's our first budget visiting workshop. A couple of things. Let me make sure I got the clicker on. Is it working? Okay. Okay. So first budget work, budget visiting workshop is tonight. We're going to have our second one. It will be on Thursday, July 30th. Our third one will be on August the 31st. Then we'll also have our hearings. Tentatively, we have our first budget hearing Thursday, September the 10th. Our second budget hearing will be Thursday, September the 24th. Again, these are subject to Miami County Board of County Commissioners and Miami County School Board agendas that are out. Once we make sure that we don't conflict with any of those meetings. So there you see Mayor and Members of Council will have at least five opportunities to have an open public discussion regarding our budget. And you'll start getting the figures on the July 30th meeting as well. Again, the location, the time is 6 o'clock and the location will be the council chambers. Just a little quick recap. As you know, we had our townwide property values and you can see 2006. You see our property values still going at a nice, good, steady increase. Last year... Let me see. Maybe I click on it. I might... There we go. Did I click too fast, guys? Okay. Last year was a 4.3% increase in our property values. The millage rate for the last 10 years, we've been steady. For the last 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 years, we're going to go in there with the mindset of keeping it flat at 2.8332. So we'll start building our budget around that number. This just gives you a recap of the 2025 adopted millage rates throughout Miami-Dade County. We are still the ninth lowest in the county at $2.8332 per thousand. Our fund balance continues to be strong. We have our 2025, again, it's unaudited, but we should be finishing up the audit here in the next couple of weeks here. It's at $27.7 million. So, again, strong financial unrestricted balance there. Now, we do know that we had a plan dip for Legacy Park. We had the resolution authorizing the $12.8 million worth of soil remediation. The funding source that we identified was American Rescue Plan, as we refer to it as ARPA. We used $6.5 million of the ARPA. And then we also committed, last year, unrestricted reserves. We call it our fund balance of the remaining $6.3 million for a total project of 12.8. Why is that relevant? Because one of the things that we're doing is also making sure that we get maximum amount of our voluntary cleanup tax credits for the eligible brownfield credits, as we call it, for Legacy Park. This provides you a quick summary. Even back from 2021, we were able to capture the entire $58,000, $22,000, $260,000, $23,000, $113,000, $24,000, $94,000. Last year, the reason why that has an asterisk is because we actually expended over $2.2 million worth of eligible expenses there in terms of what we felt was a lot of the soil remediation that we did there. But we can only go up to $1 million. But we were able to capture the entire million dollars. What that means is that the tax credit amount that we had received on the other column there equates to 50% of our expenses. So last year, although we spent way beyond the $1 million, we were able to at least capture the entire amount. But 50% of it, the $500,000, you'll see here later this year where we sell those tax proceeds. We have an agreement with Publix next door to sell those at $0.90 on a dollar. So we'll start recouping all that, all those funds there. Why is that relevant? Because in 2025, we also had what we call the cost of living adjustments resolution. One of the highlights there that we worked hard with the council in many meetings was identifying that no cost of living adjustments will be provided to town employees if the town's most recently audited annual comprehensive financial report reflects a negative net change in the fund balance in general fund unless approved by town council. So what's that mean for us? Our projected, we do have a projected deficit. We had solar remediation costs was funded by unrestricted reserves last year because it's fiscal years, right? We expended $4.1 million from our reserves for Legacy Park Reserves for Legacy Park Solar Remediation Project. Our projected deficit on pending audit in the next couple of weeks, but give or take a couple dollars there, believe it or not, it's about $988,000. If it wasn't for the solar remediation, we would be in the plus by $3.2 million. So again, we knew going in that we were going to be using those unrestricted funds. We know we were going to be capturing it. If it wasn't for just those funds, we would actually be in the plus over $3 million. Now, the COLA for next year, as you see that we have, we use the consumer price index for all urban consumer prices for the Miami, for a lot of the greater Palm Beach area. We go through that annual column. We use the last two years, which calculates to 2.6% COLA. That is the Miami for a lot of the greater area. What's that mean? 2.6%. Potential fiscal impact for a 26-27 budget. It's $123,000, 506. The reason why I bring that up, Mayor and Members of the Council, because at this point, we'll just need some guidance from the Council. I mean, we know that the resolution says that there are any type of extraordinary expenses that we know, and there is a deficit, $988,000, some change. And we know that the COLA for next year is 2.6%. We know the budget impact is approximately $123,000. So at this point, I'll pause for a second and just have the discussion, just to get that guidance from the Council. I'll open it up. Vice Mayor Callahan, you're right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, I was really the one that was working hard on revising this and really to protect the reserves. That's not what happened to us when I was first on the Council, where we were consistently digging into our reserves to meet budgetary numbers. And there was just a lot of issues back then that have been corrected. The way I see it is that I don't feel that we should hold the staff responsible for something that was unforeseen. This was, I mean, again, like you just stated, right? If we weren't building Legacy Park, if we didn't have solar remediation, we'd be putting $3 million in. And on this particular case, I don't, this is something that was unforeseen to any of us until we got into the midst of the project. I mean, I would certainly be in favor of moving forward with the 2.6% COLA. Any other comments? No? I agree. I would be in agreement. Council Member Mayor, you're recognized. Okay, so the total then ends up being $1.1 million overall. The $9.88 that we're short plus the $1.23 if we approve that. So we're looking at about $1.1 million. No, no, no. Sorry. Okay, so for the- Council Member, the $9.88 is what we know is going to be the end result of our annual audit, give or take a couple dollars, right? Going into next year's budget, going into next year's budget, that $1.20 is going to be rolled into that budget. And I'll have a little further discussion about what our plans are for next year's budget as well. I'm not against going forward with that. You know, you're right. They shouldn't be held responsible for something that was unforeseen. But would it be more prudent to find out what's going to happen with the homestead tax situation and how that affects us? I mean, I don't know what our total numbers are. I think that's a- That's the lecture too, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, I think we'll kind of get into that. We're talking about $120. And again, right now we're just- I'm going to agree with the Vice Mayor on that. When we put this before, remember our discussion, it was like for things that happened to us, right? And this isn't something that happened to us. This is something that we decided to do to remediate an environmental condition. And again, so do we really want to hold our employees accountable for something we decided to do instead of something that happened to us? And I'm in agreement with the Vice Mayor on it. You know, it should not be on their back solely. And Councilor Meyers, you must be looking at my presentation, but we're going to get into that in a second. So, you know, further along, but again, thank you. All right. So, you know, the ordinance requires that we take- Council take action on that call. So, I don't know if it's an ordinance or just a- Or a resolution. Since this is a workshop, I think you can only- You can only direct staff to move forward with a particular policy. And then if you want to do it formally by resolution, that can be done as part of the- It can just be part of the resolution adopting the budget. Ralph, let's go ahead and we'll do that. We have consensus up here unless anybody disagrees. Then we'll go ahead and- And resolution. Yeah. And- And- And Mayor, Council, thank you. And Vice Mayor, particularly yourself. Because this was the safeguard that we created. So, this was exactly what we envisioned when we were going through that. Having this open discussion. Finding out what the extraordinary event is. We already knew what it was. We committed back last year. And then we had this discussion. To me, I love this interaction because that's what the resolution was meant to do. So, thank you, Mayor and Mayor, Council. We will proceed with that 2.6. And now we're going to get more into my presentation. Okay. So, next year we have some key projects. Some of the key projects that we have are finalizing upgrade for the software program. That's being funded by ARPA. General Fund, Avalorum. We do have a joint use agreement that we're still finalizing negotiations with Miami County School Board to use the fields at Cutler Bay Senior and Middle Schools. We're getting really close. We actually have one of our final meetings there. But we already know that it's going to be built into the budget next year for, it's called, you know, almost $42,000 worth of fencing that needs to be done there. But we do gain, again, six acres at Cutler Bay Senior High, four basketball courts, two tennis courts, Cutler Bay Middle, 11.5 acres, and six basketball courts. So, I think it's a great price for what we're going to be gaining for the public use. Additional incentives. Obviously, we're going to finalize and negotiate with Miami County EO on Coastal Ridge Preserve. We are going through, we just got the results for our solar remediation. There are some hotspots that we knew about. So, we're getting that pricing together. So, I could make that presentation to the council. Also, commence our five-year strategic planning process. Hopefully, there we can team up with local universities there to kind of offset those costs there. Parks and Recreation Department, we funded through FDEP. We have finalized the Cutler Bay Wetlands at 53 acres off of 97th Avenue 224. We're also seeking funding for the Coastal Ridge Preserve. Now that we know that it's not designated a brownfield, we were very successful in doing that in Veterans Park. That we received a grant from FDEP for FDEP and their country to clean it up. We're going to probably use the same path with Coastal Ridge Preserve because there are some hotspots there. But it's not enough to justify the expense of creating a brownfield like we did with Blue Herring Park. Commence the restoration on Coastal Ridge Preserve. The $250,000 we received in collaboration with Commissioner Cohen Higgins' office. And then we also have the soil remediation at Blue Herring Park to finalize that project too. And that has a brownfield implications there as well. And then, last but not least, commenced demolition of Bel Air Park concession standard restrooms. Good news, that project is still within the governor's budget. So, it hasn't got to the red pen yet, but it's there. It's still alive. And then, obviously, finalized the master plan for the Veterans Park. But I think that we could do, you know, internally and maybe with low cost as well. Because I know that the Parks and Rec Department, sorry, Advisory Committee has also reviewed that as well. And then, obviously, commenced the planning construction phase for Coastal Ridge Preserve that we've had some discussion regarding now what's the next phase for that, for the construction. We have the master plan, but now we've got to start going through the construction drawings. And we're actually negotiating with consultants so I can provide that cost in the budget. Hopefully, maybe if I could get it in the next couple of weeks, maybe I could probably try to squeeze it in this year's budget as well. It's roughly in that $70,000 range. We're still negotiating it down with it. That is to complete the construction plans for Coastal Ridge Preserve. We do have a master plan, but now it's the construction plans. Public Works Department, a lot of these projects are funded through different grants. The Saga Bay drainage improvements. We have ARPA grants to finalize construction for the Bel Air neighborhood. You know, that's currently on the final stages. But, again, funded through ARPA and FDEP grants. Capital improvement projects from various funding sources. The commenced design for Southwest 212th Street. If you recall, Southwest 212th Street is going to be the backside of our Legacy Park. But that is a four-lane highway there. We actually had to do a study because we had to comply with the new state law that if you reduce any type of travel lanes, you have to do a traffic study. We did the traffic study. The traffic study came back that is eligible. So, now you'll see that later tonight on agenda item for work authorization for our consultant being paid through PTP as well. Finalized Frangio Road. As you see, that's coming towards the final end project there. Hopefully, knock on wood. Hopefully, it's going to be under budget as well. And ahead of schedule, we have Caribbean Boulevard. We call it the J, as we call it, right? You know, Caribbean Boulevard from 87 to 184 commenced that construction. And then we also have finalizing the design for Marlin Road Complete Streets that we received two different grants. And that's the one we received from Federal Appropriations as well. Federal Appropriations commenced the Saga Bay Lake Pump Station project. Again, that's a federal appropriation. Finalized Marlin Road, the design. Commenced construction on Lakes by the Bay. We also received another million dollars for federal appropriation for Lakes by the Bay Section 4 water quality improvements there. Transportation-related projects. Continued the on-demand service. It's funded through FDOT grants as well as PTP Transportation Funds portion of it. Continuing negotiations for joint participation agreement. This is something that we have been working really closely with Commissioner Cohen-Higgins. Myself and the mayor went and met with her, you know, several months ago. We then had at least four follow-up meetings with county staff. They loved the project. We had a cost-benefit analysis. The cost-benefit analysis came back at a ratio of 2.04. Anything above a 2, it's a great criteria. We've had the conversation with the Public Works Director of Monmouth County. We're trying to see where we can include that in the long-range plan. This project here is going to be almost a $20 million project. That's going to be our next Franger Road, if that makes sense. You can see here the number of amount of grants that we receive, the design phase, the state appropriation, as well as the direct appropriation. We have federal grant for 4.4 towards the construction phase, and we also have an FDOT lab grant for a million. What you do not see on that board is hopefully we'll get the thumbs up or thumbs down at the end of July for a FDOT CIGP grant. Don't ask me what a CIGP stands for. Yeah, CIGP grant, but that, to me, it's a $4 million grant. If we receive that, that's a $4 million swing there, too, as well. So Alfredo Nuneer did the presentation several months ago. We've gotten some informal great feedback, but it goes through the ranking process. But, again, we showed our projects, our track record. Hopefully we'll get that. That's a $4 million swing there. Any questions so far for that? Okay. Councilman Lord, you're recognized. Thank you, Mayor. Maybe I missed it. When you were going through the parks and rec projects for next year, I didn't see a project for the Saga Bay playground. Are we not going through with that? Great question. The Saga Bay playground, it's included in this year's budget. It's the inclusive playground that we have. In the state budget that's been presented to the governor's office, we have been already approved. Our grant has been approved, but not funded. Okay. So in the governor's overall budget, there's funding for FDEP. Sorry, FURDAP. It's a FURDAP grant for various grants. We are rolling that. So once the governor approves that and he approves that line item, then we are essentially, that's being funded. That will be funded. So that's still in this year's budget. It's still under this year's budget. But great follow-up question. In fact, one of the things that we're doing there, just a side note, is I challenge our parks department because, you know, we had to take down our playground at Bell Air Park because of safety reasons. So we did our own internal inspections with our own consultant, and we had to take it down. There's no playground there now. So one of the things that we're having a discussion, I had Lakeisha actually talk to the state, was if we get awarded, can we just shift the playground to that park? Because Saga Bay Park, when you see that playground, it's still usable. There's a couple different items that might need to be upgraded, which at least I could have that park there with those items there and maybe use it over to at Bell Air Park that has no parking, no playground equipment at all. It's a lot of moving parts. We're waiting for that folks to see if we can make that shift. If that is, then we'll report back to the council. And it would still be an inclusive park. 100% inclusive. We have the footprint there. Yeah, we'll have that footprint there. It's just one of those like, okay, well, is the other park playground equipment, Saga Bay Park? Yes, maybe we have to do a little bit, a couple upgrades, but not $250,000 worth of upgrades. And again, another park at the other end. Right. Thank you. That's the moving parts that we have there. And then also in Bell Air Park, we know that that building is unsafe structure. Our parks director has been working with our different vendors to start taking out all different pieces of equipment. There's a lot of electrical things that need to be put out there. We actually, Etienne and I think Alan actually went to our friends at North Bay Village where they had a, I want to say, Paul Vogelpark in North Bay Village. It was ex-mayor there. And they had almost like a prefab building that is a restroom building with water fountain and, you know, ADA restrooms. And it's like one of those like literally just, you know, coming like a Ted's shed, but it's a lot fancier where it meets the Florida building code. So we actually looked at that to see how quick we could, you know, once we demolish it, can we at least put something out there? Because right now that park is being operated, you know, with porta potties right now. So we want to make sure that we have that also in place. That's another moving part. In fact, that's Bell Air Park building is on the governor's list for appropriations, for approval. So thank you, Ralph. Anything else? Anything else? All right. Continue, sir. Okay. Thank you, Mayor and members of the council. So now we go to Councilmember Ramirez, what we talked about here. Save our homes, right, from excessive property taxes. The big gorilla in the room, as we call it, right? We understand that question there. There's also been a lawsuit filed. We understand we're monitoring that. All the cities are monitoring that. If approved, it'll go in effect January 2027. We understand that. Provides new homes exemptions, the first 150 in 27 and 250,000 in 28. And we're going to get into what our impact is going to be. It also creates a five-year homes exemption of the first 50. And you can read the rest there where it talks about non-school levy property taxes. This is going to be really, really tough for all the cities in the state of Florida. Requires legislators to prescribe a uniform procedure for certain local governments to increase the amount of assessed property values exempt taxes. Reduce the non-homestead property assessment increase limits from 10% to 5%. That is a big game changer. That is basically saying that all the commercial properties, they'll have a cap of 5% versus 10% cap. So that has a major impact as well. So what's that mean? And obviously, sorry, limits the use of everyone revenue for counties and municipalities for specific purposes. So we know there's a multi-page, 100-page bill. What's that mean for us? Proposed additional 150,000 homes to property exemption. We know there's going to be 10,200 homes that are going to be impacted in the town. I mean, that we have, because we've been working closely with the Florida League of Cities. We have 19,000 homes in Cutler Bay. 10,000 are going to be affected. Reduction, $2.5 million per year. That is a 22% reduction of our total Avalon collected. Our total Avalon collected last year was $11.6 million. I want to keep this on the screen for a second, because that is something that you see us, and you're going to see us now tighten our belt in anticipation of that, right? We are preparing for the worst, Mayor and Members of Council. That's what I'm trying to prepare everybody for the worst. We know there's going to be challenges, but at the same time, for us to be fiscally responsible, we know what that number is now. We know what that number is. 22% reduction. Part of the issue is that a lot of folks have been here forever, right? And yet that 3%, you know, save your homes. But again, we know that this is the numbers that we have. Our challenge for next year, our challenge for next year kind of, you know, goes back to what we were talking earlier. We're going to develop a proposed budget. I'm challenging all my department heads and myself as well to reduce a 2.5% reduction. You're like, hey, what's 2.5%? Well, it's $760,000. I mean, that's my challenge now is with all departments, we're literally item by item by item. Like we do, like we've done in the past with the council, but it's when I was like, hey, well, do I need this or not? Am I doing this for extra services or not? Because we know what's going to happen here. So instead of having that big hit once, and again, that's my goal of 2.5%, but there's going to be something that's going to be a budget that's going to be a lot less, right? We understand that we have the relationship with the Miami County Sheriff's Department. I've been in communication with my counterparts in Palmetto Bay and Pinecrest, the other two contractors. We know those prices are going up. So we're collectively setting up meetings with the sheriff's staff to kind of like look at what else can be, you know, further reduced or maybe spread across the county versus the three municipalities. I'm using that for example. That's our biggest department. Our biggest department. You're going to see that later in the presentation. Obviously, you know, I've had this individual meetings with council members, educate our residents the use of the Avalon taxes. I mean, I know that when I spoke to our state representative and our state senator, you know, he said, you know, Ralph, we know that you guys in Palmetto Bay run a lean machine, you know, but it's going to be even harder for you. I'm like, yeah, I know. I know. I mean, so that's something that we're going to be looking at. And obviously identify potential non-essential services, which can be further reduced, anticipate approval for the property tax ballot question. Again, that's going to us line, literally line by line, line by line, you know, because we know that this storm is coming. And how do we anticipate it? We will educate. We will have different workshops. There's the League of Cities is helping all a lot of different cities put out, you know, talking points, go out to a lot of homeowner association. And it's going to be, I don't want to say a scare tactic. I think it's just more of an education campaign. Did you know your taxes paid for this? That's why in my previous presentation, you see a lot of different roadway projects that we've taken for granted. And I know that I've had this conversation with Councilman Duncan where we say, hey, all these projects, non-advert-alarm taxes are used. Wow, that's great. Because at least we continue a lot of those capital improvement projects. Some cities aren't that lucky to say that. So we will continue our capital improvement projects there, but some other items that are funded through Avalorm, that's going to have to have a serious look at as well. I just want to point out that, you know, I'm not a math whiz by a long shot, but in some cities, your rolled back rate is actually going to be a rolled up rate. Because in order to capture the same amount of revenue as you did in the prior year, you would have to have a higher millage rate than you did in the previous year. And under those circumstances, you know, the threshold for increasing millage would be lower than it normally is, which is a kind of an interesting anomaly that would occur from this. But, you know, luckily you have a very low millage rate. And if you found that the reduction in revenue under the current millage rate was inadequate to be able to pay for all of the needs in terms of services and quality of life that you want to deliver, you have a lot of room under the cap. Much more than most cities. Correct. And Mitch, that's something that when I just came back from the city manager's conference online, that was a topic conversation where some cities to get to make up the difference in what they're losing, they're going to go over the 10 mil cap. You know, they're going to go over the 10 mil cap. They can't. They can't. They can't. That's their pickle, right? Yeah. You know, so just to give you a good example, member council, as you saw the chart before, we're at 2.8332. Just some quick math that, you know, Robert and I did to recoup the funds, we will have to be somewhere in the 4 mil rate. I mean, so, yeah, that's a conversation that, you know, remember, we've been up here very, you know, stewardship of our coffers. And, you know, we'll sit there and split hairs about, you know, going up 0.0232 or something like that. Now we're talking about a full two numbers there. You know, so again, that's a challenge. We're not in it by ourselves. There's going to be a mountain of campaign. Again, what I wanted to show the council is that we will provide you a budget. My own ceiling goal that I have there is that $706,000. Again, that's a challenge that we're going to go through with staff as well. So that is the storm that we know that's coming, you know, members of council. So we understand that. So there's going to be a big edge-to-edge campaign. Next, now, not only that, now we have House Bill 1329. Okay. That one is known as the Local Government Finance Transparency Accountability Act. This bill is already in place. It goes in effect on January 1. The other one is dependent on the ballot. This is already in the books, as we call it. All right? So what's this do? The effects. Requires budgets to be posted on the municipality's website. And we're going to go through each one in a second here. Requires, sorry, requires quarterly employee compensation reports and annual budget calendars. Requires an annual budget cutting exercise, BCE, which results posted online 10%. Every city must have a workshop and show how they're reducing their budget by 10% on this bill. Updates how long budget information must remain posted online. Requires counties to provide at least five days' notice before budget amendment hearings. So we're going to just, I'm going to go briefly through each one. Because, I mean, I think a lot of it we already comply with. But I want to make this a word to the council. Because this is a whole game changer of what the state's trying to do to unify everyone to do it the same way. So budget posted on the website. One of the things you're going to see us do here shortly in our main budget button, our main page, that's going to be the most important button right there. Budget reports. Okay, so that's something that we're going to be changing here shortly. It's going to say budget reports. There it is, right on the main page. No click, click, click, click. Our adopted budgets for the last four years will be, as soon as you click it, you're going to get to see our adopted budget. As you know, as transparent as we are, we provide the budget book. The budget book will be provided there. It's provided already in the agenda item. But again, click, click, click, click. This is going to be one click. You're there. You see the budget book right there. Full transparency. Requires quarterly employee and annual budget calendars. Let's talk about that for a second. So this is the new requirement. Employee, name, job title, department, salary. What they made that quarter. And what's the year to date. For us, we're like, okay, let's see what we do already with our transparency budget. Well, here's what we present in the budget workshops and hearings. We have, I'm using that for, you know, the finance. We already have the position and the salary. Kind of break it down that way. So we know that we've got to add some more columns. So again, for us, we'll add that. But the game changer now, obviously, you put names and titles departments. But we kind of do that already. But we'll update that. The budget development calendar. I'm just going to go through so you can see. Just click all the ones that are reds or new requirements that we will start complying with. The ones that are green, we already do. In one shape or form or another, right? And I'm just going to put them on the screen here and just, you know. Oops, sorry. Right there. So, I mean, again, you know. If you go to the first, you know, green there. It says June, July, August. Insert any workshops and proposed budget meetings open to the public. We're here now. We're using that now. Example. I don't know. I'm just going to the second column, the third bullet there, August. Inform property owners of public workshops on budget as applicable. We post it on our website. You know, we do all that. And also, these are just the workshops, right? But now, we have been historically, and I've always kid about it, that we do three workshops a year in the two required hearings. This is now telling everyone you got to start doing workshops. So, for us, we already do the workshops. Just a matter of maybe just posting in a different format or what have you. I don't know. I'm just using, for example, July, the first one in the column. Local governing body adopts their tentative military. Everybody does that in July. So, now what the state legislator is doing is saying, you're going to unify this. So, again, this is part of that one requirement. So, it doesn't scare me. It's there. Requires an annual budget cutting exercise results posted online. 10%. We just talked about that, right? So, give you an idea. This just tells you that it's going to be, you know, fiscal year 27, 28. That's when it starts. Gitch is giving an idea. This is an excerpt from our budget book. You know, our general fund, the department's there. $30 million. Using the 10%. We're talking about over $3 million. Going back to that column we talked about before, for the impact of the $150,000. We're at 2.5. Getting close. You see? We're getting close. So, we're going to do that exercise anyway. Just to give you an idea. This is our revenues. $29 million. Our largest revenue, obviously, is Avalor. It's 39%. This is right from our budget book. This kind of gives you graphically what it shows you that's 39%. Again, I had to reintroduce this again. We're still the ninth lowest. And now, this is part of our budget book, too. This is part of something that's actually within our charter. It says that during the charter, Section 6.2, Citizens Bill of Rights, A11, now on the bottom, that we have to put this on our budget, and we do that every year. Folks, our biggest department, which is our public safety, it's the police department. See that number there? $13 million. Remember, we said that we collect $11.6 million for Avalor? So, we didn't cover that. But, in the new legislation, the police department is carved out. The police and fire are carved out. Summary. Total general fund budget, $300 million. Using the town's current budget, 10%. We're at $3 million. Compared to the fiscal impact of $150,000, we're at $2.5. So, you know, we're getting close to that number anyway. So, this is that exercise that... Going through the BCE cutting exercise, something that we would have to do anyway, give or take, you know, $500,000 there. Updates on how long the budget information must remain posted online. Last four years. Well, okay, remember that little button? Yeah, we got the button. Not a problem. We're going to post it. Four years. Detail budget book. There it is. Two clicks away. Requires counties, and I say the word counties, to provide at least five-day notice before budget amendment and hearings. Town already complies. Why? It looks familiar. Budget amendments that we have here that Robert puts together. We have normally done the month of May. Council meeting advertised in the website, e-news, and community newspaper center pages. We have the agenda summary, which is the manager's memo, the resolution, the adopted budget amendments. And we also post it online as well. So, it's just a matter of, you know, complying with that section there. Again, we don't have to, but what do we do anyway? Any questions for the House Bill? Nothing but roses and sunshine here. All right. Go ahead, Councilman Duncan. You're right. Thank you. It was just a comment. So, the exercise that we're discussing as far as the $2.5 million, that's for the $150,000 threshold. But to remind our residents that that goes up to a $250,000 threshold in the following fiscal year, which then I believe would amount to a $4.3 million cut. Correct, Councilmember. So, I provided there the, you know, the best of the worst case. $150,000 increase in property homestead exemption will have an impact of $2.5 million. The full $250,000 homestead exemption will have even a devastating impact of $4.3 million. $4.3 million. You know? So, we're starting gradually looking at those. I mean, I wish I could sit there and say that the budget visioning would be, you know, nice vision. But, I mean, I think we like having a nice, open, frank conversation with the council and the community. And this is where we're at. This is where we're at. So, yes, I mean, I know that it may not be a lot. What I'm sitting there saying, I'm sitting our own internal goal of trying to come in with a budget that's like 2.5% less than last year. But that's $706,000. At least we're moving it. We're moving it. We're moving it. And that's where we're going back to a lot of items that we're going to have to go through of what's essential, what's not essential. You know, making those tough decisions. Other comments. Nobody wants to say anything on here. I'm just like, oh, my goodness. You know, there is, I guess, a downside from being efficient. Yes. And when I hear that, Mayor and I say it jokingly, and I love, you know, Representative Blanco and Senator Colati, but they both said that, oh, it's going to be a little bit harder for you guys. I'm like, yes. And I know that we've had this conversation individually. I mean, maybe it should have been intended for a lot of the counties, right? We're not alone. We're not alone. A lot of cities are doing this. Some, I don't want to say, some may have more fat than others, you know, but we are lean. We are lean here. So, again, it's one of those that we're going to look at every single corner that we can, Mayor and Mayor's Council. And the challenge starts now in this fiscal year coming up. It's a double whammy for us because, again, I think we're one of the largest, the city that has the largest impact of homesteaded homes that are under 250, nearly 60%. So it is a real big whammy. And which means we're going to have to get real, real creative between now and the end of the year when we get our final budget going on working with your staff to let us know their recommendations. Hopefully they're going to be creative as possible as well, but it's not a great thing. Is it doable? Yeah. Or will we, you know, there's mention of grants coming from the state. We don't know any of the details on that yet. But judging by our success with the red pin in a couple of years, I don't know how much success we'll have with that. But we'll obviously have to be taking a look at that as well. And, again, it's going to be a major partnership, right? It's going to be a team effort. Where I say team effort is that is, you know, us leaning on the expertise of our town attorney's office, right? Because we have a lot of cities that are in the same boat. There's been a lot of discussions amongst the managers, right? Of maybe different creative ways of maybe creating special taxing districts or what have you, right? But, I mean, again, we've got to look at all the different options that we've never had to explore before. But bottom line for us and the message that I've been telling our state representative and senator that, thank them both. They actually came and sat down and looked at it, our budget. And I said, here it is, guys. This is it. I mean, just when you see their eyes light up saying our police department is $13 million. Nothing against our police department, our sheriff's department, right? That's why we incorporated. I understand that. But our ad valorem of 11.6 doesn't even cover that. And we know that that's something that cannot be cut, right? So even if it did cover it, it's off-limits. I want to say off-limits. You know, it was carved out. That and the fire department was carved out. So it's looking at different creative ways that we could do things differently. It might be looking at every single agreement. Every single, you know, agreement that we have with different vendors or, you know, I hate to say it, leagues as well. I mean, everything is up, is up. It's not a scare tactic. It's reality. It's reality. So that's why, you know me, mayor and councilor, this is how we operate in Calabaya. It's going to be a reality looking at those, you know, can you supplement these type of services or what services are non-essential. So it's going to be, this is going to be one of our toughest years, you know, but again, all 467, you know, cities in the state of Florida going through that as well. I think it's real helpful, the exercise of kind of identifying what exactly does our ad valorem cover. You know, and again, those non-essentials can be anything from our STEM camps to our elderly activities to public works, cleaning. You know, they seem like they're non-essential, but the removal obviously will reduce the quality of life. So trying to find that balance between those things is going to be very, very, very difficult. And I agree. And I think, mayor, that's going to be part of the education campaign, right? Well, you know, because that way people, oh, I didn't know what pays for that. Oh, I didn't know. Well, I'm educating you now. I'm not advocating. I'm educating you of what the impacts are going to be. Because I know Spine Linder, I know Mitchell, keep me out of trouble there with the council, you know. And again, you know, the firm, I love it. I love it because, you know, there's a lawsuit that's been filed. But again, we're looking at different creative ways. The lawsuit really does not challenge the concept. It just seeks to have the state clarify the language of the ballot measure so that it's clean and truthful. Because right now it's confounding and not completely and not truthful regarding what the actual import of the measure is under the current ballot language. So if it's successful, the attorney general will be required to correct the language and present a clearer ballot language for the voters. You'll know, I think, if you look into it, that there are several fairly conservative-leaning organizations, including Florida Tax Watch, that have come out in opposition to this. Because, you know, in their view, governments are not actually going to become leaner. They're just going to find alternates in terms of the ways to fund the services that their communities want. And that may just move the burden of the taxes over to commercial property and to renters, largely. And that's something that Florida Tax Watch has, you know, warned is not what it's seeking in terms of its goals of reducing the burden on taxpayers. As I was told in one interview, or actually, as I said in one interview, if you're a homeowner, you're going to lose, you're going to gain by losing, not having to pay certain amount of taxes. But you're also going to lose services, which you're providing. So you might break even. If you were not a homeowner, more than likely, you're going to lose the services. More than likely, you would see an increase in the military for the non-homesteads, which would mean if you're a renter, you're probably paying more. So you're a lose-lose there. And somebody's pointed out, like, it's not the case here because you have county collecting your waste, although it may impact because the county's going to need. They were very reluctant to raise the waste fees at the last go-round. The mayor asked them to increase waste fees, and the commission rejected that idea. But they're going to have no choice. And the waste fees, if, you know, the subsidy that the general fund pays into the cost of waste, a taxpayer who's funding that has that, that's partly deductible from federal income taxes. The waste fee that you pay is not. So if they put the waste fee to the full amount and didn't subsidize it, a typical taxpayer might see an increase in, not just in that cost, but a loss of the tax benefit that they would have had had it been covered by general fund taxes. All the things is simple. People would not understand. It's very, very complicated. You know, Rafa, I really look forward to, again, as we can start getting a clearer picture to educate the public and the council what the ad vorum comes so we can start getting creative and having open discussions while we need getting feedback from our citizens on their ideas. So we're all in this together. And we, if this is a pass, it's basically our hands are tied. Unless you can come up with other creative things. You know, do you have a, you know, do you have a parks and recreation bond that the city gets to vote on every year? Do you want to keep your parks going? Yeah, vote for this bond. Or do you want to do public works bonds? There's other creative ways to do it. But like, like Mitch said, it won't go away. We'll just, unless it's absolutely not needed. It may get reduced a slight bit, but in a town like Cutler Bay, who is very, very efficient, it's almost going to be draconian unless we can find creative ways or be one of those lucky recipients of the grants that the, as mentioned, coming through. But I don't think we're going to hold our breaths on that. And I think members council, I mean, it's going to be critical because, like I mentioned, we're not, we're all in it together, all the cities. So I know that there's a mayor's coalition meeting coming up, you know, the chamber's hosting. Another one as well, there's going to be the Florida League of Cities this year, their annual conference. It's in Broward County in mid-August. That's going to be the talk of the town, you know. So I encourage, you know, that, you know, attend those, you know, as well, because, you know, we're looking for creative ways. You know, we're looking for creative ways. I mean, you know, I'm in constant contact with different, you know, the managers throughout the county. You know, it's kind of like, you know, figuring out different ways, you know, what creative ways that you could do. I could tell you that we're in a better position if that makes, if there's any silver lining there, than some of the other municipalities that are in that middle trade of, you know, seven above. You know, as we catch them, we were in the lower end there, but we're in a better financial position. It's going to be hit, yes, but there's some other councils and marriages that have an even tougher job with that. So I just like to end with that, you know. We're in a better position. Remind me that Monty Python movie. Hung upside down and, oh, I wish I knew it was the other guy getting whipped. Oh, you're lucky. So, all right. Any other questions or comments? Let's have a really. Okay. Councilwoman Duncan. I'm sorry, Lord. Lord, that's okay. I was looking positive there. I just wanted to add on to what Ralph was saying. I saw that they opened the registration for the FLC's conference at the Diplomat, which is mid-August. I've already registered. It's right in the middle of our budget talks, right? And it will be the hot topic. So I think it would be prudent for as many of us who can make it. You know, I'm taking time off of work to go, but I think it's a wealth of information for us. And let's use the league and the information they can offer and try and attend that if we could. I think it's going to be really important this year. I agree. There's all those concepts. We can learn so much. Right. Was that anything else, Ralph? No, Mayor. We'll see you back at 6 o'clock for the regular council meeting. 10 minutes. All right. See you at 10. In 10. We'll see you.

good evening welcome back everybody uh today is wednesday j une 17th 2026 welcome to our town council meeting mr clerk if you could please take the roll council member lord here council member duncan here council member ramirez here vice mayor callahan here mayor but present have a quorum you please rise and join me for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all i think it was a good feeling whenever you say the pledge of allegiance and the entire crowd and the entire council is saying it loudly and proudly so i appreciate that all right welcome to our town council meeting um mr clerk if you could please read the directions for calling in please be advised that when joining the meeting thank you welcome to tonight's meeting the public was able to make public comments prior to the meeting either by leaving a voicemail message or sending an email to the town clerk we did receive a couple of emails uh for public comments that was forwarded to the council but no voicemails if you wish to speak tonight please press star nine and the host will be alerted pressing star nine is known as raising your hand once you press star nine you will be placed in a queue to speak and will be called upon by your name or the last three digits of your telephone number please wait to be called upon please state your name and address if you are a hired consultant or town employee and or if you are engaged in lobbying activities and or representing an organization please provide that information before speaking please be sure to be in a quiet area to avoid unnecessary noise a time limit of three minutes will be imposed for each speaker during public comments all right thank you i'm now opening up the floor for public comments if you wish to speak please come forward is there is none in the auditorium is there anybody in the queue no one please please come forward yes i'll take two boxes i'm kidding we'll be back for sure okay all right go ahead some people couldn't make it today can you give me your name and your address my name is mackenzie school and i live at 282 31 southwest 136 place hello good evening thank you for having us here today mr mayor commissioners and members of the audience hi i am mackenzie school and i live at 282 31 southwest 136 place i am also joined by amber we are members of airbase k through a girl scout trip 2311 we are currently working on we are currently working to complete our bronze award which is the highest award that fourth and fifth graders can earn we chose to help stray animals as our service project this is the dog which over this past weekend we with them from 7 30 to 10 a.m to ship 500 or 55 i meant 55 cats and kittens to their new homes and socialize them and other animals that haven't found a home yet we are asking for your support and making our goal possible for this is the dog stray animals are a big problem in our community they get abandoned or surrendered that's why we are fundraising we are asking the help get as much food for dogs and cats as we can so they don't go hungry we are politely asking this the town of cutler bay if they would allow us to place a pet food donation box at the a place you guys recommend the food we will collect will be given to families who need it so pets can stay with their owners we hope our goal will be surpassed because no one likes saying stay animals on the road thank you for letting us be here tonight and now amber will share some additional information good evening mayor and council members my name is amber and i'm a girl scout from troop 2311 we are happy wait we are here today to share our bronze award project with focuses on helping animals in need through our partnership with this is the dog as girl south we are taught to make a positive difference in our community through this project we are collecting pet food toys blankets and other supplies to help rescue dogs and cats while they wait for loving homes now we know you have a lot of important decisions to make we are not asking for dog parts all over the community although we are pretty sure the dogs will approve of that idea what oh you can continue go ahead what we are asking for is your support in helping us raise awareness and collect donations for animals in need unfortunately many rescue organizations rely on community or support to provide food shelter and care for rescued dogs and cats every donation whether big or small can help make a big difference in an animal's life together we can help provide comfort care and hope to pets waiting for their forever homes thank you for your time your service to our community and for giving us the opportunity to speak today a lot of people couldn't make it we had you all we had to say you all are very prompt with your meetings i think we have two other scouts that were on their way but in traffic they might not make it but to just wrap up thank you so much for allowing their public comment my name is jennifer messimer scold i'm their troop leader in communication with the town manager mr casals i just wanted to also share that this organization this is the dog that we partnered with is volunteer based one of the things that we're doing is that at your at your discretion um if there's a look at a town location where you feel would be a high visibility high traffic um spot we would ask that we have uh you know nothing too obtrusive that would you know impact uh you're not for dog parks i certainly understand yeah just to have a location i'm asking you can continue to get in touch with the town manager and he'll get his staff to work with you on that okay perfect and then if um and then if you all could help through the town social media to amplify it it'd be great and then all the food that's collected uh would be um promoted on social media channels so that the people in cutler bay in south d ade you know from cutler bay south would have an opportunity for those in need in order to collect the would take advantage of the food collected to help keep the animals in their home so thank you very much unless you all have any other questions just mckinsey was everybody here today no i'm kidding okay all right thank you very much thank you have a good evening anybody else yeah anybody in the queue no one of them okay public comments is now closed that moves us on to our town council announcement board of committee reports have submitted any additions uh councilman duncan you're recognized thank you mr mayor i just have a few uh items that i'd like to just get consensus on from the council uh that i'd like to work with town staff on in developing for future councils as far as resolutions and ordinances uh the first of which is um i'd like to seek a consensus uh to work on uh urging on a resolution the the state legislature to amend the current firefighters retired firefighters cancer bill uh to eliminate the 10-year cap that is currently in place for retired firefighters um and to work through some of the other uh limitations that are currently within that this kind of hits home to me i have a cousin who was a retired firefighter in the tampa area is dealing with cancer and and there's a lot of other issues and and risks that you take within that field um so it's just something that i'd like to at least work on a resolution urging the state legislature to take up i just want to make sure that you know i'm not going down a right path or there's no opposition uh from the council for me exploring that with town staff no opposition i'm and uh council well i'll give you after you is that on that item you want to do council member mares i'd like to piggyback i'd like to piggyback on that if you don't mind yeah that's that's absolutely okay okay fantastic next one i'd like to uh to work on updating and kind of future-proofing our current ordinance as it pertains to farmers markets our current uh ordinance on the the books is from 2012 it eliminates or it limits the times in which a farmer's market can operate uh to uh the morning till 3 p.m um we have a farmer's market that's been operating here in town recently it's very very hot uh in the mornings and up to 3 p.m other municipalities allow a farmer's market to operate into the evening i'd like to work with town staff to explore the feasibility of and to propose extending those hours within reason uh and and putting limitations of course just to keep ourselves safe and protected but to allow farmers markets uh to operate at later hours than 3 p.m this also goes towards when we have our legacy park uh one of the the ide ations that we had was having a farmer's market uh exist within that park uh this would allow us to operate at past 3 p.m within our code so i just want to see was that resolution or that would be an ordinance because that's part of the okay uh um objection bring it forward we can look at it okay okay number three um i'd like the consensus on creating a cutler bay historical task force similar to what we did recently uh with the environmental task force it would not be a standing committee or task force it would be tasked with collecting stories histories artifacts things of that nature that then after a specified amount of time that the council determines whether it be six months what have you they come back and provide a final report this would go towards uh providing historical exhibits in our new legacy park and town hall that highlights the history of cutler ridge of cutler bay of the town not just once we incorporated but the entirety of the town including our our rich veteran and military histories uh it's not something that we have this like i said this is not going to be a permanent standing committee it's just something i think that would benefit us to get some volunteers from the town in an official capacity working to come up with and provide this type of information uh to the council to then determine what's the best way to put it forward there from my engine there are one or two groups out there that are already kind of working on that kind of stuff so um but i don't know enough about it at this point um even rose martin brought something up to me up to me reasonable about that um so it kind of i kind of like the idea of having our history chronicled and and put whether it be a task force or a private group would be the best question so if you want to bring it forward let's look at it and then within the meantime for any groups that are already doing that out there maybe we can explore that together absolutely and we can absolutely and that's something that wouldn't if i have the consensus to move it to bring it forward then i'll bring it forward and we can debate that on the dais and figure out the best way uh to kind of put that forward okay thank you and then the last item that i have it's just kind of something that uh in going through our our code and going through our charter there's nothing ultimately what it is is i would like to work with the town staff to kind of future-proof the way that we conduct business in that uh ethics transparency and public trust safeguards as it pertains to people who serve on this council on this body right now there's no protections in place if you are directly related to somebody who serves there's nothing legally that prohibits that from happening but there is a a certain idea that if you have two people who who are directly related to each other serving simultaneously that there might be issues as it pertains to sunshine as it pertains to compliance and ethical behaviors i would just like to cod ify and work with the town council in the future to determine what types of steps and what types of things that might be it's really looking at expanding reporting expanding sunshine expanding compliance within those elements that already exist within florida statute but requiring them in that event and this is something that it can be worked on with town staff and come before this entire group uh or a future council for that matter and determine how that would be uh best implemented or not and just looking for a consensus to be able to at least work with staff to explore that miss you have thoughts on that or is that something you want to explore with him um it well i i haven't um councilman uh duncan and i haven't discussed this before but there are i and i'm not exactly sure what he has in mind but i think there are models out there that we could borrow from okay that's right yeah okay um go ahead lord i got the advice sorry um i have a comment i think this is a great idea i in my very first florida league of cities event after i was first elected i met a husband and wife were both sitting on a council and i was intrigued how they handle the sunshine and and all of that so i i actually think this is a great idea and yeah um i i think it's again i'm always worried about creating new laws uh things like that that can be challenged so um i would suggest that you you yeah you get with mitch first kind of explore it a little bit and then you have to be bringing forward if you think it's something that you know any of us can bring something forward but this is something perfectly yeah yeah i have no objection to you just our town attorney okay thank you very much okay that's all i got all right okay all right yeah all right um so it takes us to our uh town attorney report i mean time i was gonna skip him um town manager report ralph thank you mayor members of council uh once again thank you for everyone participating during our budget visiting workshop that occurred before this council meeting in case somebody missed it it'll be posted on on our website but thank you mayor members of council because we we did have a meeting before this meeting for the budget visiting um in regards to town manager report we have our monthly update our design services for 16 acre legacy park we have emma jones from st antec our owners rep that'll be providing you a brief update good evening good evening everyone uh emma jones with fante c as uh owners rep for the town of cutler bay um can everyone see my screen yeah excellent there we go so um a quick project update for everyone um in terms of phase one which was gmp1 site um we are still seeking the closeout for this phase um we have submitted a soil verification reports was sent to derm on april 16th um they came back to us asked for some additional information we sent that over on may 5th and um we are back and forth with them working to um get that rectified um the final um earthwork is uh is obviously pending um their approval of the soil verification report um phase two which is gmp2 underground utilities and site work uh pm the permitting uh salts mickelson architects with their sub consultant chenmore they are um they recalculated based on some groundwater calcs um and submitted to um derm the week of uh june 1st uh germ comments were received on june 4th the storm water plan and calculations were resubmitted um on the week of uh june 15th these um calculations were based on the exfiltration trenches and the storm water management and that's around um basically we're trying to avoid any of the plume areas um with the arsenic and iron uh so on site current on site or activity for this the legacy park um mobilization is completed to site currently there's a temporary trailer compound the um the actual double wide office trailer permit that's currently in progress um uh kaufman lynn is back and forth with the town just to make sure everything complies with the um flood compliance the um kaufman lynn are maintaining the temporary fence i.e the windshield that you guys see keeping it um tidy um so it's not an eyesore there are coordination meetings being held with uh c davis and redland and uh uh so it's not a big part of the gmp2 and the gmp2 and work through um pricing um for final cost savings um so um the west and east edge of the property line um are going to be remediated that's sort of the final remediation soil remediation and we are waiting to do that um as we were then going to move the fence a um to finish the site and then um next steps um along with the west and east edge east edge remediation um we will be excavating the pool and remediating those soils and bringing in clean fill um and all of this is going to occur while we're waiting to get our um final permitting uh to move forward with this so off-site activity um contract procurement is in process as i mentioned um davis and redland contracts they should be finalized this week um and the elevator uh contract negotiation is underway um again temporary power coordination in process um and submittals are going back and forth within the team uh phase three which is gmp3 the buildings in the park there is ongoing coordination between kaufman lynn and salt z michaelson to address outstanding permit comments uh gmp3 value engineering is ongoing we are constantly getting you know pricing in every day and then rfis again back and forth between the team um and rfis just for everyone's understanding our request for information so that's when the construction team reaches out and says we have a question on the drawings and that goes back to the design team and they answer the questions just for layman's terms on that um and then along with all of that we are looking into um art in public places within the buildings and we are formulating an rfp for that and we're looking at um the the facades that you've seen that have the egret images on them as well as for murals for the buildings to satisfy those requirements and um we have we're working through those rfps and we'll let you know when they're ready to be released um and then phase four g mp4 will be um the southwest 212 improvements and there's ongoing design currently and pricing and then the final design will be submitted um in terms of the project timeline this is where we are right now obviously middle of june and then the pool timeline specifically um we're here and as i mentioned we're going to start to excavate for the new pool at legacy park and get that moving happy to answer any questions any questions for the council no all right all right no questions thank you thank you next mayor members council we have an update on frangio road project we have tonight virtually stefano viola and we also have in person janet delgado from kimberly horn associates so stefano we're not hearing uh stefano right now marissa do you have one he's muted he's muted okay could you unmute all right so if you can't unmute yourself then janet you're going to double dip here janet just come up and if you could just walk us through the presentation for on texting right now like yeah let's try all right let's continue it here so just if you could put up on the screen maurice and we'll just walk us through it mr mayor members of the council i'm happy to be with you today so um let's see i'm sorry there you go you're good sorry janet i will save you from that i will take over the next one thank you so much for the council members um this is our june 26th update for the fanger road improvements project jumping into the construction activities we continue to hold our bi-weekly construction progress meetings with the contractor um the town um the engineer of record and ourselves for work zones one two three and four acosta has completed the majority of the work in these areas and they are open to the public um these zones include the improvements along frangio from 184th street to southwest 92nd avenue cost is currently wrapping up some outstanding items that were identified during our substantial completion walkthrough then for work zone five they're currently working within that area which is on frangio road from 92nd avenue oak cut ler road they are still finalizing the reconstruction of this roadway section and at all times the team is focused on keeping the site clean and safe as well as maintaining the mlt throughout the duration of the project then just for the general reminder that while phases one two three and four are open to the public that does not equate to them being finalized we have some pending items that must be installed throughout the corridor before the project is considered complete these items should not impact public use of the roadway and include the bus shelter installations electrical service installations lipo removal installation and insulation excuse me and then the landscaping tree and sod removal and then the final list of lift of asphalt specifically on the final lift acosta's tentatively planned to begin paving the final lift of asphalt starting june 29th and that is for the phases zones one through four they're expecting that to take three to four weeks and during that process the residents should expect some changing detours throughout the duration as they move throughout the sections and paving it and then we are continuing to coordinate with the county and fpl regarding the light poles we've been informed that the light light poles were not being used until all light poles have been installed and an fpl account has been created by the county which we are working with them on and then they have to inspect it and perform and clear it so at this time we do not have a specific timeline but we are hoping to have those on prior to final completion in september of this year and then as we jump into the schedule the current project duration is from july 24 2024 to september of 2026 acosta has declared seven tonal rain days but as we see here in the duration i've just given you most likely this project will be done prior to september just the light poles might be the only thing that just lingers as we continue to work with fpl and the county on that and now i'll turn it over to janet apologize for that okay he didn't leave much for me to say but um as always i am available for the residents and the business owners um to answer questions i visit with them regularly i was pleased to announce finally the opening of phase four also um materials that were at the staging area have already been cleaned out so that's another plus in the right direction and as um stefano mentioned the final lift is scheduled for june 29th um prior to paving i will be distributing flyers to let everybody know more or less the detours and more than that um how it's moving along right because they're going to expect detours but just letting everybody know more or less phase one expect two to three weeks and it'll be fluid um flyers and information given to the residents and the businesses and um that's it for now does anybody have any questions for me no the final lift is going to be started yeah the question is why didn't they pave it all the way up to the manhole yeah so that'll be uh taken care of on the 29th that's the ralph we saw fpnl recently and they said they're going to expedite getting that power of those polls apparently that was uh just left service yeah we actually you know cornered them uh at at the at the meeting i think it was yourself and myself and council member duncan i mean i thought it was intimidating enough to have us three around the around them and we'll follow up with the fpl representative because uh they said they were going to try to expedite but as you hear stefano say you know there was an expedite sometime before september i want to get a lot closer than that obviously you know because we're getting a lot of calls of the beautiful light poles that folks never seen they want to get energized as well as the final lift those are our top two calls that we get of course so so we will follow up with fpl and hopefully i'll get a better response here by next month if not have fpl representative ear to explain why not very good okay thank you so much anything else ralph yes thank you members council so now on some brighter note uh uh last week uh myself um alfredo quintero and nir vega accepted and let this i'm going to try to hold this up here without making this fall down here we accepted the james lee witt award for excellent and floodplain management for the association of state floodplain managers in milwaukee believe it or not and we were in a conference that had over 2500 certified floodplain managers and our project was selected our town was selected for all of our efforts folks there's only been three other cities in counties in the state of florida in the 60- year history of the organization so that's kudos to alfredo engineer and part of the reason why they 're not here today is we're actually i'm driving tomorrow to port charlotte is the florida storm water association we're receiving the uh excellence award for our stormwater integrated stormwater program for the stormwater program the projects and the efforts that we got uh we're receiving that award tomorrow at nine o'clock in the morning over in port charlotte so two back-to-back awards so kudos to to everyone there uh a great team effort and again members of council um you know we're we're entering that budget season as we mentioned in the budget visiting workshop encourage all the all the residents to to stay uh uh informed and uh join us on our websites and that completes my report man thank you very much takes us to the town attorney's report i don't have anything for you takes us to our town clerk's report uh friendly reminder your form one's due by july 1st and also i left on the day as the fact sheet for the sb 180 training if you have not completed it that also is due at the same time all right thank you very much takes us to our consent agenda it pulls i'm looking for a motion no proof so moved we have a motion by vice mayor callian i second we have a second by council woman laura all of the favor say aye aye i apologize for that okay all right that takes us to second okay all right takes us to item 6a all right uh this is five judicial mention you need to read the statement um i'll read the quasi judicial statement now cause your judicial public hearing notice please be advised the following item on the agenda 6a is quite nature if you wish to comment on this item please indicate that you would like to do so uh and address the council at the appropriate time an opportunity to speak on this item will be afforded to individuals after the applicant and the staff have made their presentations on the item all testimony including public testimony and evidence will be made under oath or affirmation additionally each person who gives testimony may be subject to cross-examination if you do not wish to be either cross-examined or sworn your testimony will be given its due weight the general public will not be permitted to cross-examined witnesses but the public may request the council ask questions of staff or witnesses on their behalf pull agenda packet on this item town code of ordinances and the town's comprehensive plan are all hereby entered into the record persons representing organizations must present evidence of their authority to speak for the organization further details of the quasi judicial procedure may be obtained from the clerk any lobbyist must register before addressing the council on this quasi judicial item disclosure of pre-hearing transactions pursuant to section 2-237 of the town code of ordinances all applicants are required to disclose on the record whether any consideration monetary or otherwise has been paid or offered to or requested by any person or entity in exchange for any promise or agreement to support oppose or refrain from supporting or opposing any quasi judicial agenda item or application the disclosure shall include the person or entity to which such consideration was paid or offered or by which such request was made whether the consideration was received and the position such person or entity agreed or promised to take at this time the clerk will swear in any persons who wish to testify on the quasi judicial item if you are going to be testifying please stand now do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth to the best of your knowledge and belief thank you um finally the town clerk shall confirm receipt of any ex parte communication disclosures that were received prior to this public hearing members of the council should disclose any ex parte communications that were not previously disclosed for the record at this time uh mr mayor uh i have met with the um the the builders for the of the for the contemporary on two separate occasions just to discuss the project all right anybody else council and lord and i i've actually disclosed this before but we've had um the developer present to the age-friendly community committee on two separate occasions in 2022 and 2026 so i just want to put that back on the record anything else all right nothing else all right billion anything else sir we'll have the clerk read the title okay um or if you could please read the title please a resolution of the mayor and the town council of the town of color bay florida approving an amendment to the existing declaration of restrictive covenants for property generally located on southwest 216th street between southwest 88th place and southwest 93rd path consisting of approximately 18.52 acres of vacant land and unimproved land and identified by folio number 36-6016-000- 0027 providing for an authorization providing for implementation and providing for an effective date all right thank you very much thank you members council tonight we're going to have our our planning zoning director julian perez present the the item on staff report and then the second part will be the applicant Thank you. Sorry. Okay, great. Good evening, Mayor, members of the Council, Town Manager, Town Attorney, Clerk, members of the audience. My name is Julian Perez, and I'm the Planning and Zoning Director. This evening before you is a request to modify a previously approved covenant. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you a brief introduction. I'm going to talk a little bit about the historical appro vals, and then we'll get into the evaluation of the project itself from a comprehensive plan, the land development regulations, and other documents associated with the development not only of the town of Cut ler Bay, but also Miami South State. And that's a competitive analysis that has been done that was submitted to the Economic Development Council and to the rest of the other cities and town participating in the Miami-Dade South. So, and then finally, I'm going to walk you through some of the benefits, community benefits, that we successfully negotiated with the applicant to make sure that this project was, one, that it was integrated, one that was multi-generational, and that really meet the needs of the town. So with that, basically, that is our introduction. As indicated by the clerk, this is an amendment to an existing declaration of restricted covenant for the property generally located on Southwest 216th Street between Southwest 88th Place and Southwest 93rd Path . And this is to integrate a multi-generational residential use, it's a mixed use, to complement the previous approved senior living commercial and public open space uses originally approved in 2022, and later amended in 2024. What do I mean by that? That there was a site plan that was amended in 2022, and then later it was updated because of a live local act that was made in common. For the record, this public hearing was advertised in the Miami Herald on Sunday, June 7th of 2026, in the neighbor's section. Also, courtesy notices were mailed out on Friday, June 12th , 2026, and about 1,156 of those mailers went out to the residence. Two of those were sent out to international people living outside the country. The property itself was posted on Thursday, June 11th, 2026 . As you can see, the project location, as I indicated, on Southwest 216th Street, and as you know, this is one of the last parcels left on this huge development, and that has been there for quite some time because of many reasons. There's one, you know, environmental, other changes in the market, and so forth. And finally, now we have a developer that wants to develop this property. Under the future land use category, this is a mixed use, and on the zoning district, as I indicated, this is an NC2. The NC2 has a maximum density of 11 units per acre and a maximum floor area ratio of 0.4. The history goes back to 1970, as some of you know that have been around here for quite some time and are familiar with the project. And this basically started with an agreement governing the land development, and that was executed by Saga Bay Development Corporation. The parcel was designated for, originally, for business, and that means office uses, restaurants, bars, drugs, drug stores, coffee shops, beauty shops, barbershops, and other compatible business service uses. Now this is Saga Bay Development. It's known as delays, by the way. The reason why I'm going through this is because it's very important that everybody that's not familiar with the project knows that there's an extensive history associated with this project. Then, that was in 1970. Then in May 28th of 1982, then there was a covenant declaration of restriction. And this very specific parcel from N through X and AA, okay , was only designated for residential use. Later on, it was amended, and then there was residential allow. And I will go into that in a few seconds. In 1982, okay, the subject property and application was s own BU2. And that is a special business district, and that was done by Miami-Dade County. And it remained as such until the town implemented its growth management plan and land development regulations in 2008 and 2012, respectively. And that's when we went to a future land use of mixed use. And then we went to a zoning classification or zoning district of NC2, and that's neighborhood center. So, neither of these designations at that time permitted residential. Then on October 19th of 2022, laced by debate, mixed use, land use designation, and the NC2 sub-district zoning text was amended to allow a senior housing residential. The existing declaration of restriction, a restricted covenant at the time, limited subject parcel to non- residential. So, that's very clear. But with this, then, in 2022, it was approved, the 2022 approved 196 senior housing units, ages 55 and older. Very important. Then later on, at the same meeting, 42,250 square feet of medical office was also approved, as well as 7,100 square feet of office use, 14,100 square feet of restaurant, and 9,307 square feet of retail use. All of this was on resolutions number 2294 and 2285, respectively, and that's part of the manager's report as an attachment. Then that same meeting, on that same time, okay, as part of the site plan and the flume and the zoning text amendments, the developer proffered a restricted covenant to provide landscaping improvements within the linear park, senior programming, and incorporated a designated pick-up-and-drop-off location for the town circulator. On that site plan, there was a series of conditions, and one of those conditions in that site plan said that by the time of permitting, that's when they were supposed to go ahead and record the covenant. It's very important because these covenants were never recorded, all right? But there is a condition on that site plan. All right? On November 15th of 15th of 2024 is another important point in this whole process, because the developer came back to the town on that day, and they requested that they wanted to modify that site plan and convert it into a Live Local Act, and that was approved. So they went under the state section 166.04151 of the Florida statutes, and that is your Live Local Act. This approval is very important because this approval retained the same mixed-use horizontal residential development program except an increase in the number of units from 196 to 322 senior housing units. All right? So that was part of that process, part of that approval under the Live Local Act. Now, it is important to note that pursuant to Section 3-30- 3010B of the town code, the 2024 site plan has been extended through July 19th of 2028, consistent with the tolling time period requirements set forth in Section 252.363 of the Florida statutes. All right? And this is basically what it says, that every time there is an emergency, because there's a disaster or any other emergency declared by the governor, then the permits then are extended for a certain amount of time. And that's the reason how we got here. There were like six or seven different emergency orders. Now, that gets us to February 24th of this year, when the developer submitted a land-use application seeking to modify the existing declaration of restricted covenant, the original, among other things, to implement the proposed multi-gener ational component into the mixed-use project. And what do we mean by that? It's 120 age-restricted, which is 55 and over, and 202 non-age-restricted units, a total of 322 units. And this is where we come in with the evaluation of this covenant. This is where we come in and we sit down with the applicant to ensure that there were certain community benefits that now would enhance the project and benefit the community itself. And we'll get into that in a few minutes. As part of this whole analysis, we went back, as I indicated originally, and we looked at our comprehensive plan. And we looked at those policies that a project of this magnitude would further. Not only did we look at the comprehensive plan, but we also went ahead and we looked at other documents to ensure that this project itself was not only consistent with our comprehensive plan, but would also further some of the information provided in the competitive assessment. Sorry that I'm going through here. Because in that competitive assessment that was done and funded through the EDC, and it was submitted as a draft on April 2026. That's the competitive assessment in South Miami-Dade County. It really shows some very interesting information regarding our demography and also our labor force. And I want to take a few seconds to talk to you about that, because it is very interesting what's happening in the town of Cutler Bay. When it comes to the bottom part of the demographic age cohort, what am I talking about? I'm talking about the age cohort that goes from 55 to 64 and then 64 and over. And this is what the reason why I'm bringing this up is because this is the type of project that is trying to address that population because of the age component to it. The 120 units that's going to be set aside in perpetuity for that age cohort that falls into those two cohorts. All right. So what we're looking at here is that those two cohorts are the only one, or the rest of the other ones that from zero to 10 or 12 and then 25 and so forth. Those are the only two that shows an increase in population . Those are the only two that shows increase in population. And what that tells you is that to a certain degree, there will be a demand for those type of units by that population. Let's say, for example, you have a family that have lived all their lives here in Cutler Bay, and now they're empty nesters, and they really wanted to stay in our community. Obviously, the first thing that they're going to do is they 're going to look at Cutler Bay to stay here because you have your extended family and so forth. You also have, you know, your kids, too, that you want them to stay in this community. Well, you know, you have another component of this project that would provide that environment for them to stay. Not only for them, but as part of the negotiations, we also negotiated with the applicants that certain units would be made available to people that are in the military, people that are teachers, first responders, and so forth. So by looking at those numbers, then, again, we tried to cross-reference our analysis to see if there was a need. So now we went away from the comprehensive plan, the policies, now to the real life, the numbers. Then we also went ahead and we looked at the labor force. Unfortunate numbers were not very specific for the town of Cutler Bay, but there were numbers for the region, the south region. And between 2017 and 2024, Miami-Dade County, from a labor force perspective, only grew by 8.4% during that period. However, this region right here grew by 13.2%, meaning, again, you know, that we're going to have more job opportunities and so forth, and there was going to be need for housing. As we move forward, the next analysis that we did was to look at the existing evaluation, the standard evaluation review criteria. And these were the same criteria that we used in 2022 to evaluate the original request. We went ahead as a department and we looked at all of them and made sure that they were all crossing, not only based on the 2022 report, but also on our comprehensive plan and the other documents that I just mentioned that we looked at. So in every category, they were in compliance. Now, let's talk a little bit about the community benefits. And the applicant is going to come before you. He's going to give you a lot of the information that I just walked you through, but in more detail. And they are also going to talk about these commitments that they have made to our community. First of all, is the linear park and the extended hours and the number of stations that were going to be located throughout the linear park. Well, we were able to successfully negotiate with them the time. We were able to successfully negotiate with them the stations that were going to be in, you know, throughout the linear park. And we wanted to make sure that that park was functioning. We wanted to make sure that that park was open until a certain time where everybody in the community could go out, especially the young families, because we've seen a lot of that. And those young families, they work until six, seven, and that we still wanted them to also take advantage of the park. So that was one of the things that was one of our priorities. The next priority is something that has really been a major cornerstone, I would say, like an obstacle to the development of this location. And that's the environmental cleanup. And the applicant has committed to cleaning up this site through the Brownfield program to address the arsenic issue . And arsenic, folks, let me just mention something, is everywhere around here. It's not only the town of Cutler Bay, it's everywhere you find arsenic. Then finally, we look at the senior housing, all right? And we wanted to make sure that the senior housing was in perpetuity. And that was very important because we just don't want another developer, in case they started to come back and then change it. And we just wanted to make sure that it was done through the covenant and it was not done through a condition on the site plan. All right. Although the site plan itself, which is not the issue here at hand tonight, because it's not administrative, as you know, because of the Live Local Act. But we're going to have a covenant to make sure that those conditions go into that covenant. All right. And it's not something that is very easy for them to, even if they do it administrative, for them to come and change it. So what we're doing here is to make sure that all of these community benefits are put in a place that is safeguarded. Okay? So next is the utility, the underground utilities. Underground utilities, the reason why we kept going back and asking to putting it there. And if you look at other improvements, if you look at other restricted covenants, you're always going to find the underground utility. We wanted to make sure that we continue to underground the utilities. And every opportunity that we had to bring it up, we did so . The next item. The next item is the priority leasing. Okay? And this is where the applicant is going to get into more detail as to what we agreed to. But the bottom line here is that we wanted to make sure that certain segments of the population were able to participate in this project. And specifically, those individuals that work for our different agencies, especially here, that was one we included, the town of Cutler Bay, its employees, also as part of the negotiation. They were not part of those approvals back then. Now they are, and now they're part of the covenants. Next, we wanted to make sure that they had an excellent targeting marketing program. That they were very aggressive in finding this, the population that we identified, that we wanted to make sure that we give them priority. So they came up with a very, I would say, a very strong program to do that. Then finally was the military rental partnership program. This was extremely, extremely important, I think, to all of us because of the military base that we have on Homestead Air Force Base, the number of military personnel. And we wanted to make sure that we were going to be in the military base that we wanted to make sure that we were going to be in the military base. And we wanted to make sure that there was affordable living close to where they were going to be stationed. And that was something that the applicant was very receptive. And as a matter of fact, we even negotiated a minimum of 20 units. It's going to be reserved for those folks. With that, the department recommends approval of this modified covenant. And if you have any questions, I'll be more than happy to answer those questions. But at this time, I would like to pass on the presentation to the applicant. We'll let the applicant before we do questions. So go ahead, applicant, come on. Bring the applicant on. And Marisha, we'll set the timer for 20 minutes, please. Oh, thank you. I think I got it. Which way is it? It's down. Okay. Good evening, Mayor, Council Members, City Attorney, Mr. Manager, and guests. Thank you so much. My name is Iris Escarra. I'm an attorney at Greenberg-Troyg with offices at 333 Southeast 2nd Avenue. I'm joined this evening by my co-counsel, Devin Vickers. And I'm also in representing George Navarro, who typically, many of you know, has been handling this application, but unfortunately, he couldn't be here this evening. So I will try to do my best job to be Mr. Navarro with his specificity. This project is 18 and a half acres, as many of you know, located on 216th Street between 88th Place and 93rd. One of the things that we wanted to just kind of give you is a quick overview. I think Mr. Perez did an amazing job at giving you a lot of the details. But one of the things we wanted to just start the conversation with, we're maintaining the community benefits. And what the client has done is really come up with an enhanced project that has really gone above and beyond, especially with the integrational focused design elements that I believe are so critical to many communities, not only in Cutler Bay, but across South Florida, to be able to have the elderly along with the young. The project overview maintains the medical commercial uses. It maintains the previous community benefits regarding the linear park, the golf cart parking, the charging stations, the hosting of the senior events, and the town circular stop. In addition to that, it has updated the design elements for the intergenerational focused community. Affordable housing caps now exceed 50% of the units. We have dedicated essential worker and hero housing, and we have dedicated military service. And additional benefits that I will go into in more detail. I'm going to go quickly through the 2022-2024 site plans, because I believe the planning director did a very good job at that. So I don't think I need to add much. I think many of you were here during those applications. So I'm going to skip to the issue at hand and the application before you. So in looking at the site, when Live Local was adopted by the state, interestingly enough, many communities, some benefited, some adapted. Here, if you were to look at this without the existing covenant, the 18 and a half acres could allow up to 4,625 units. Thankfully, you all have a covenant that restricts that. And because of that, you are able to sit down at the table with any new development and come up with something that's appropriate for your community. So that covenant is actually a safeguard. That this covenant will be a further safeguard of that and in perpetuity. So I just want to highlight that because the covenant process is something that I think most jurisdictions have, that it is really the way everybody can come to the table and decide on something that is really appropriate for their community . The covenant that exists today allows for the remaining 714 units that haven't been built. So that 1982 covenant allowed like 3,941 units, allowing 7 14 to remain. Our community is only proposing 322. So there's still additional units for somebody else to develop. But we're proposing 322 of those units for this particular site. In addition of those 322 units, 129 units will be workforce housing restricted. So I want to explain because sometimes I want to make sure the numbers don't get a little confusing. But we have 322 units, 120 are elderly, and 202 are non-age restricted. That's almost like one bucket, right? On top of that, we also have the affordable housing components, the military components, and the hero housing components. So it's the overlap of these two systems that is really coming out with an amazing product for the community. The other thing with this here provides a comparison of the three projects as it evolved through time. And each time it got better and better. And we are very proud of the product that is here before you with regards to the development, the enhancements, the community engagement. They've been working on this for a very long time. And I think the critical component to their project success is truly the intergenerational design of the community. Excuse me one second. When designing communities for the elderly, one of the things that the studies and many of these organizations has come up, that even though all the elderly have a housing near each other, they still are suffering from many different things. It's improved health and well-being, reduced isolation. Having intergenerational communities helps support both. Helps support that an elderly person could help take care of a young person's family or child. To me, I think the elderly are the best security system any community can ever have because they know who's coming in, who's going out, who's happening with what. So that's been my experience with them. And it also provides for wellness and open. And these communities that have both the young and the old all interchanging with each other actually supports for a much better well-being of both communities, the young and the elderly. In addition to that, the AARP also came out with a study with regards to reducing isolation, improving the mental health and economic opportunities, and reduction in ageism, which is contact between the different groups and the stereotypes. Our community is proposing to have senior living for 55- plus age restriction for 120 units. We're also proposing family and hero housing, young professionals, health and fitness wellness programs, a fitness center, a 3.5-acre walking trail within the linear park. So there's a walking wellness trail. In addition to that, we have also committed to 12 exercise stations along that. To me, it's going to be an amazing space with the lake to have the openness, to have the exercise. It's very zen. It's going to be a wonderful opportunity for the public to enjoy. We also are going to have medical uses on site, prevent ative health care and on site medic. And then we also have along the front, along 216th Street, we have a real retail component, which we're proposing approximately 10,000 square feet of restaurant, 4 ,500 on one end and 4,000 on the other, to anchor the community. And one of the things that I think that this project really brings to the table is proximity. Proximity between age groups, proximity between uses, proximity between open spaces. If you look at this new linear park and you look at your Blue Heron Park and the new park that you all are improving in Legacy, it's right in the middle. So somebody could essentially, you know, exercise or walk through your Blue Heron, connect around us and end up at Legacy. So this is like a connector piece of your public open spaces. In addition to that, in April of 2026, our team appeared before the Age-Friendly Committee of the Cutler Bay and we went over the eight pillars of the design of the project. And it was positively received by the board. We received good feedback and good engagement. So we appreciated the opportunity to appear before them. So again, I wanted to just break down a little bit of the numbers so that we're all clear on what's being proposed. We have 147 Hero Workforce Housing units. We have 120 elderly and 27 units that are workforce that are non-age restricted. And we also have 20 units that are military service members . That is a total of 167 units that will have rental restrictions on them. In addition to that, Live Local typically requires 40%. This project has 52% of an age of a rental restriction with regards to the units. So as rents go up, we're in South Florida. If I've never seen them go down, it'd be nice because my kids are looking for apartments. They're in college. But rents go up. So what happens is that these rental restrictions will, as time goes on, will be more and more favorable for the community because rents will continue to go up. But these are continually capped. And these numbers are established by HUD. These numbers are established by Miami-Dade County. And these are numbers that we actually have to file an annual report in the Covenant. It requires every year that we file an annual report in January to the manager of our status and our compliance with these numbers. This is the latest of the AMI tables, the average median income that's issued by HUD and Miami-Dade County with regards to income limits and rental. The Hero Housing Program is one that our team is extremely proud of. They've been working with, it attracts law enforcement, firefighters, healthcare professionals, Town of Cutler Bay employees, and educational employees in the neighborhood. We have received positive feedback from Matter Bay that they're very supportive of this because they would love to be able to have teachers housing near them. We also spoke with Billy McAllister of the fire union. He said it would be great if his folks can have places close by to their stations. So this is something that we think would be very successful and probably rent out right away. The military rental program. This is Homestead Air Force Base. It's our neighbor. It's our security. There are so many things from a big picture perspective. So the opportunity to have 20 units dedicated to them for that they could have the residences near the base, I think, would be amazing for them. So that is part of the program. This gives you a preview of the linear walkway around the park, around the project that I was mentioning, the wellness loop. So the community benefits. This is one that I wanted to go over in detail because some of the community benefits were from the original project, and some of the community benefits are what I'm calling the enhanced community benefits. So again, the 3.4 acre linear park and walking trails and space for town center program remains, and it's being enhanced with 12 pieces of exercise equipment at those exercise stations. We are continuing with the 51 golf cart and charging stations for the project. Neighborhood retail shops and medical uses within close proximity. Those uses will remain. We are undergrounding the utilities. The environmental cleanup via the Brownsfield. As many of you know, the site is a Brownsfield. Our team is working with Michael Goldstein and Brett Bumon, who are here this evening, in case you have any questions with regards to the cleanup. We anticipate that if the Brownsfield designation is successful, we'll be probably spending the next six to eight months on just cleanup items. So the community access to the pickleball courts and the children. So in the town center, when you come in, you have the linear park that goes around it, but in the center there are pickleball courts that we have opened it up for the lakes of the Bay Master Association, and I think the underlying 12 or so associations under them to be able to come and use the pickleball courts. Pickleball is a very popular sport. We've also enhanced the project by complying with the town 's art and public places program. We have also worked on the shared maintenance costs of future signalization and improvements of up to $450,000 along 216th Street. And we maintain the town's circular stop at our site. This provides you a depiction by our architect, Evo Fern andez-Pamotis Architects, who is here this evening, that shows you where the linear park is, the access right from the sidewalk all around the site. Here's a depiction of what the park would look like along the edge of the property. With regards to the covenant modification, I believe Mr. Perez did an amazing job to go over the covenant modification requests and the restrictions and the securities that are being provided to you all within the covenant, and the importance of the covenant with regards to the future restrictions and compliance. I did want to point out that there's two changes that we worked with the city attorney on between yesterday and today, and it was a clarification of two things. That the commercial use come online at the same time as the residential, and the second that the linear park include 12 pieces of outdoor exercise equipment. So these two changes were added between the published version and today's version. So I just wanted to note it as amended as to these two additional changes for the record. In addition, I'd like to introduce into the record the Lakes by the Bay letter of support for the project. We've met with them, our team has met with them, and we're very excited of such an opportunity, and we are very... very grateful for their support in writing, and we'd like to introduce it to the clerk. And my colleague just told me that we also got Miami-Dade firefighters support in writing, and we will be delivering it to the clerk for the record as well. With that said, I'm open for any questions. Our team is here. Should you have any questions that you'd like us to respond to? Thank you very much. I'm going to open up the floor now for public comments. If anybody would like to come forward to speak on this item , please come forward now. If you're going to... Go ahead and get in line if you could. It's going to be next. We can see you. Good evening. My name is Avis Ross. I live at Lakes by the Bay, Laguna Point, at 21940 Southwest 98th Avenue. And I have a few questions about the project. While it looks very nice, and it looks like we're making progress in the community, I was wondering if there had been any impact studies on, first of all, property values for the homeowners that live in that area. It's going to impact us in some way, and we have no clue as to what that impact might be. But there have been other developments like this in residential areas, and I'm sure there's some history there. And I'm sure we... Well, me and my husband and other homeowners would like to know what the impact might be on property values. And the other question is around trash. Mount Trashmore is probably filled to the brink, as it is. And what kind of accommodations are going to be made, you know, for the extra trash? Crime impact study. Have you done one when there has been a community like this impacted by a development such as this? The traffic mitigation, traffic's definitely going to be an issue. But the first thing that I'm sure most homeowners are concerned with is property values. Thank you. This is not a question and answer session. This is for public comments. And the applicant or staff can maybe address some of those things after the public comments. Okay. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, Councilman. My name is Christine Taylor. I live at 9846 Southwest 222nd Terrace. I am a member of the Lakes by the Bay Master Board. And I'm here to say that we support this. I'm also that elderly 65-year-old. And I'm also a teacher. So I check off a bunch of boxes. The Contemporary has been a really good neighbor. They have been to at least three meetings. They have taken their time to go through all of this with us on the Master Board. They've presented everything. They've gone through all the different questions that we've had. They've come back with answers. And we now have an agreement with them, which I'm not going to speak on. That's an attorney thing where they're going to be a good neighbor and help us maintain all of the public areas. So I'm here to support it. I'm here to, on behalf of Lakes by the Bay Master Board, to support it and say, this is the first meeting I've ever been to in my life. So it's very interesting what you guys do. Thank you for your service. I'm sure you guys don't get paid enough to do this. So thank you. Do you need to? Thank you. Any questions of me? Because I'm actually here representing. Just for you to make comments. So if you can bring the line up forward, then we don't have to have that silence of the waiting recession. Bring the rest of the line up all the way to the front. There you go. Okay. Go ahead. Good evening. My name is Barbara Libby Brown. My address is 8757 Southwest 213 Terrace, 33189. I want to thank you for what you're doing for our community . But I would like to make a comment. As we are identifying or there was a, by the lawyer, I believe that, please do not forget Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Miami-Dade County Public Schools have a handful of schools down here at the South. And I would implore that they meet with the powers that be because there are teachers. I'm an educator. I'm a principal. And there are teachers who are in desperate need of housing . So please do not forget Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Thank you. Hi. My name is Lauren Rodriguez. I'm a resident in Isles of Bayshore. I live in the Cove in 22560 Southwest 89th Place. I think this is going to be a great addition of this project. I just had my son a month ago with my husband. And we've been in this community for two years now. And we love Cutler Bay. So I think this is going to be a great addition to our community, especially with young families. And I love the addition with healthcare professionals. I am a healthcare professional myself. So I think this is going to be a great addition to our community. Hi. Hi. My name is Gabriela Fernandez. I am a resident of Color Bay. I've been a resident for about four years. My home address is 8800 Southwest 191st Street. And I'm very excited for this project. That was my twin sister. So we live nearby one another. But it's nice to have this project, to have families, growing families as one for myself. My husband and I, we've lived here again for four years. And I think also as a healthcare professional as well, I love the emphasis of, you know, as an older community, having that accessibility for healthcare. So I approve of this project. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, Council. My name is John Sperling. I live at 9553 Southwest 189 Terrace. I live on a cul-de-sac. In our cul-de-sac, there's four, there's 12 homes with four , four of the homes are either one. Either police or fire. Most of these people bring their vehicles home. So there's always representation in the neighborhood. So I feel it makes it much safer. There is very little. There are very little places to go in Cutler Bay with golf carts. First of all, with golf carts. For restaurants and activities. So I would welcome this community 100%. There needs to be more restaurants, obviously, because there literally is none. I know that Flanagan's is supposedly moving in by Publix. But, you know, that's a long time out. So there's nothing about this that I have any opposition to . So I appreciate your time. Thank you very much. Thank you. Oh, by the way, my wife's a teacher in the school board as well. So thank you. Thank you. All right. Anybody else? Anybody in the queue? No one in the queue. Okay. Public comments is now closed. You know, as far as with property values, it's kind of hard to answer that question because there's so many different variables going into it. But just as a general, you know, you have Legacy Park going in. You have Blue Heron Park being. I think the property values in that area are going to do pretty good. So all of Cutler Bay has been doing very, very well. But that area is going to do really, really well, especially after it goes in. And Julian, we do require traffic studies on everything that we have again. So that's required. Yes, there's a traffic study that is on this way. It should be done mid-July as part of the site plan approval. There's also a trip generation study that was done when they started this process that is available. And the number of trips, the AM as well as the PM, are very small, the increase. I can give you the numbers if you want to. Okay. But that's correct. And the trash, of course. We require everybody to keep their trash taken care of. Mitch, did you have a comment, sir? No, I was just going to speak to the solid waste issue with respect to the current landfill, the South Day landfill. It is running up against capacity. And Miami-Dade County has now contracted with several haul ers to move the waste upstate to upstate landfills by rail. And that's the current solution. However, the county continues to discuss the replacement of the old waste energy facility, which was destroyed in a fire. Yeah. And that could be part of their long-term solution. But right now, they're able to adequately landfill the waste upstate. And I don't know if you all remember a couple years ago when a similar project, I remember a little boy saying, I'd love to go and get ice cream. Because, you know, one of the things that we do need in Keller Bay, we've all been working on, is more restaurants, more types of places like that. And I think one of the things that I like about this project is the cornerstones on each side is specifically for restaurant space, which is great. There's nothing better than having a good restaurant within the neighborhood. There's so many, you know, you see ones like Elaine's down the street, struggles for places to go. We could have something much better right there. So, but with that, I'll open it up to the council for comments or questions. So, okay. Well, Councilman Ramirez, you're recognized. Well, no, whenever you raise your hand, I can call on you. So, you're going. Good evening. All right. Thanks for the presentations. You know, pretty good presentation. I have been on the fence a little bit because I'm not a huge fan of developers getting something approved and then coming back and trying to ask for more and more and more. But Live Local actually kind of created that. So, we kind of have to live within those confines. You know, basically, it kind of boils down to do we have 3 22 units that are actually split in threes to accommodate, you know, different generations? And also for, you know, people that are first responders, teachers and such. Or do we say no and we have 644 units with no commercial, no restaurants, no nothing. Just, you know, here's a bunch of homes. Here's a bunch of apartments sitting there. So, I think you kind of have to look at the lesser two ev ils when it comes to that. But I can tell you that I was very impressed with the developer when you presented the 192 units. So, I'm pretty sure that you guys are going to do a pretty good job, you know, making sure this looks beautiful and is well maintained. And I appreciate the fact that you have met with the town and really kind of wanted to give a lot of things to this town to make it something that's very, you know, kind of open, kind of open pretty much for our residents. So, I kind of know which way I'm going to go on this and just wanted to kind of, you know, put my thoughts out there on that, you know. So, we'll see what everybody else has to say and see what happens at the end. Thank you. Councilman Duncan, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Councilmember Ramirez. Yeah, I'll echo some of the sentiments that he had said. I do have a few, I guess, questions or points for clarification. Could you, can you put the slide back on that demonstrates what the rents will be just so that our residents will have an understanding as to what that is? Because, I mean, we can, you know, until we're blue in the face, say 120% of the AMI. But for most people, you know, you tell them what the monthly rents will be. And that's a little bit easier to kind of grasp and understand. Correct. And I will do this. What this is, is that this is the, oops, sorry. There. Thank you very much, Mr. Clerk. What this provides is that this is the maximum rents. If you go to the right columns, the last six columns provide what the rental income maximums will be. So, for, at 120%, a studio is $2,862. A one-bedroom would be $3,000. A two-bedroom would be $3,678. Now, these are maximums that are established by Miami-Dade County with regards to, it's a correlation between the income limits of the resident, as well as the rent that can be charged at a maximum. And these include any additional fees as well. You can't, like, charge the rent and then you have, like, a pool fee or a gym fee. This is maximum of what can be charged to each tenant. Okay. Thank you so very much for sharing that. Moving on. So, I'm very pleased of the development where, essentially, the certificate of occupancy for the retail would also come online at the same time as the residential. That was one of the things that I was hoping to at least discuss tonight, but I'm glad you all worked that out ahead of time. And similarly to how the vice mayor was able to work with the public's property to get those out parcels ensured that they were built and not just, you know, get the residential part built and then, oops, you know, we're not going to build these. So, I think that is the biggest public, outside of the parks and the green spaces, I think that's going to be the biggest public benefit is additional retail, additional restaurants, medical space. So, I'm glad that that was taken care of. A point of clarification, I guess, for Julian. So, if I'm not mistaken, this is live local. So, any sort of site plan approval, that's not coming before this council. That's not administratively correct. No, councilman. No. All of it is administrative. And, again, what we're going to do is we're going to get those conditions and we're going to put them as part of a covenant. Okay. Just so the traffic study that's currently underway or that 's pending, if the traffic study comes back saying that improvements need to be made beyond the $450,000, what is the enforcement mechanism for that? Well, that's those improvements. Those are mitigation improvements. They're going to go into the conditions and those are going to go into that covenant and they're going to have to do that as part of the approval. That was not exempt by live local. I want to make that very clear. Okay. That was one of the things I would not accept. I do want to emphasize that the traffic study is performed by us internally. Absolutely, sir. That's according to code. Absolutely. Looking out for what's in the best interest of the residents, especially along that 216th corridor. So any sort of negative impacts of traffic with this development, if anything needs to be added, whether lighting or traffic signaling, curb it, what have you, it would have to be handled. Yes. It's going to be handled through the conditions again. Okay. Okay. Perfect. And then the only other point that I'll make, and just to reemphasize in the same way that Councilmember Ramirez did, is with the live local, just for the residents to understand, they can, as of right, so 714, I believe was the number that we did, 714 units, without this council ever saying yay or nay. Correct. Correct. So I'm glad that our town staff and the team has been able to negotiate a lot of very positive community benefits that are going to benefit all of the community, not just, you know, the Lakes by the Bay and Isles Bayshore community, but all of Cutler Bay. So thank you for that. Thank you for all of your work. Sure. And I just want to add something to it. We also added a number of conditions that have to do with security, and that is on the crime prevention through environmental design. Those are going directly into the conditions on the site plan. And again, I keep making emphasis of this and a covenant. All right. So added protection. And then one other, if I may, I'm sorry, the linear park. So the hours being extended publicly to 930, then that will require lighting be installed. Absolutely. Perfect. Thank you. Councilman Lorsch. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm going to piggyback on what he just asked about the lighting. I have concerns that the lighting might spill into the residents, the residencies. Do we have like assurances that that won't happen? Yeah. And that'll be part of the site plan where we submit the site plan. We are anticipating to have low lighting actually around the linear park. There's actually low lighting and highlighting because it's both have different coverages of the lighting, but we have the different types already. We include it in our site plan. Thank you. Thank you. I do have some comments. A lot of that my colleagues have already covered. I want to show people what this could have looked like if you guys didn't live local. And I really appreciate this. I have two of these. These are front. It looks like a prison to me, and I'm just not comfortable with that, and I'm glad we're not doing that. I had a great deal of phone calls, one of which was from our former mayor, Peggy Bell, with many, many, many concerns about this project. Now, like I said in the beginning of this, we were presented at the Age-Friendly Community Committee twice on this project. It was well received both times. It was better received the second time that we're doing intergenerational because that committee has been working for at least a year on trying to do intergenerational activities. We know the benefits of the young and the older people being together. They're vast. I talked about them when we had our workshop. So for that part, I can tell you that the committee is very excited about that development coming in. Because I had so many phone calls and I had a very long discussion with Mayor Bell, I ended up having the town manager send to me the Zoom from the HOA meeting. And I listened to that and there was a lot of chatter about the property values and a lot of chatter about the traffic. I would suggest that I'm by no means a traffic specialist. I would think that at some point we're going to end up getting signals put in, which for residents to understand that's not to impede your traveling. It is traffic calming. So it would actually help that situation. The linear park has me. So I also went through the covenant like crazy. Again, I'm a paralegal. So I start reading this stuff with my legal hat on. I'm really excited about the linear park. I was going to ask if we could have more equipment than Blue Heron Park has. And you guys beat me to that punch because Blue Heron only has nine pieces of equipment. Oh, I like beating. I'm so competitive. That's awesome. That's awesome. I also want to point out that this linear park is at the sole cost of you guys. This is a gift. I look at it. And a maintenance. Yeah. And the maintenance. And the security. The cost of the lighting. Right? All of that. The landscaping. The park furniture. It's all here in the covenant. I personally feel like that's a gift. This is a win in the situation. And it's not just for Lakes by the Bay. It's for all the residents of Cutler Bay. So, you know, if we can add more parks, I'm all for that. Right? As a former member of our Parks and Rec Committee. I'm like, let's, you know, let's do that. I also wanted to point out, which I loved in the covenant, that the workforce unit housing, senior housing, military housing, and the other housing, that has to be complied with by annual reports every year to the town. And I think that's important because I know that the naysay ers out there, and there are a few, may say, oh, yeah, well, that's what they say, but they're not going to do it. They're not going to comply. Well, you're required to comply with that. I think that that is an important thing that we should point out to the residents. But I wanted to ask about the priority leasing, if I may. We have, it's not just firefighters on law enforcement or healthcare. It's not doctors. It's actually the staff, if I'm not mistaken, right, that are also on these priority leasing lists that they can go. So the lunch lady from Cutler Bay Senior can get priority leasing here. And I think that's significant for everyone to understand. I like that very much because a lot of times the officers, the firefighters, they're all taken care of, but maybe not their support staff. That is so critical. And by the way, while we do have a lot of police officers and firefighters that live in town, we also have a great deal of the supporting employees for the healthcare providers and those entities. And to speak to that public comment, public educational institutions are included in the priority leasing, which does include teachers and, like I said, other school personnel. The only thing I'm really left to touch on, I was honestly a little on the fence about this as well, although, you know, my committee loved it and I love the intergener ational. It just seemed like a big hit. But like Council Member Ramirez was saying, this is getting developed, right? And I love the fact that you guys have worked so well with our HOAs. That's not always done here. And having come to my age-friendly community committee that speaks volumes, not doing the full Monty with the Live Local. Thank you for that as a community. The history of Cutler Ridge and Cutler Bay is that we are a military town, right? That's why I'm here. My father retired after a career in the Army over 22 years, and we ended up here so we could be near Homestead Air Force Base. Both of our mayor and vice mayor had family members who were in the military. Cutler Ridge, which is now Cutler Bay, started as military housing. So my whole heart goes to these 20 units that you guys have for the active duty and also support personnel out at Hom estead Air Force Base. We don't see a lot of that. And I loved Mr. Perez's comment about the 18-year-old en listed who may be coming to Homestead Air Force Base with a young bride and maybe expecting a child. What a gift we are offering to them to potentially live off base in a beautiful development using the military rental program. And all those schools, we have amazing schools in that area that they would then be afforded to. I can't say enough about that. I grew up in military housing. Every opportunity my parents could take to have us live off base in a more normal environment, they took. And so I really appreciate that we're going to be able to offer that. And the last thing I'm going to say about the military is that in the next couple of years, we're going to have F-35s coming to Homestead Air Force Base. It's a reserve base, so the housing is not as plentiful as it was when it wasn't a reserve base. And once these F-35s come there, I would expect that more and more of these enlisted are going to need to live off base. So that part of this, I really appreciate and I commend you guys for that. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kellyanne. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. For those who know me and have followed me since my very first meeting, I hate when applicants come back before us requesting changes to something that we've already approved . For me, over the years, it's really been a bait and switch type of thing. You know, hey, this is a great idea and we approve it. And then six months later, the applicant comes back and just kidding. You know, we want to do this. And usually at these meetings, I have a legal pad filled with comments and notes. But I must say, this is the first time in six and a half years. That I've had an applicant come back for a modification that's actually better than what the original plan was. And we love the original plan. I remember, I tell you, I got word from the town manager that the applicant was coming back before us for a modification. And I went, oh, God, here we go again. Right? What is it going to end up looking like? And after I sat down with him and we went through the covenant modifications that you guys were, had come up with , it was just so much of a much of a better plan. I mean, Julian, fantastic job. I mean, just really working with the applicant. This is really what our process is about. And a lot of municipalities don't have this type of relationship between the council and town staff that have the best interest of our residents. Normally, for modifications like this, this place is filled . And the comments go on forever. And today we had, you know, our residents who stepped up and really supported this. And it really, it really shows, you know, how this council and how this town works for the betterment of our residents . And thank you so much for doing what you've done to modify the covenant to make this a better place in working with our town staff. I mean, this is a first. So I'll remember this for the rest of my term. You know, make them just change their pants after you start off. So, again, you know, that property's been sitting vacant for a long, long time. Quite honestly, it's an eyesore because the way it's just kind of roped off and overgrown. I like the component of, you know, cleaning it up with the arsenic as a brownfield. When I first became mayor, I sat down with the base commander, Colonel Piferrero, who's now General Piferrero. And he said, you know, I know we're not right next to you, but how can we support you? And he said, he goes, I'm a colonel. I can afford, when I move, I can afford first, last to security. He goes, but my enlisted men can't. And they find it very, very hard to find a place to live. So when I was discussing this with the town manager, but, you know, when these projects come forward, the component of having housing for our enlisted is very, very important. And thank you for coming forward with that. Also for all the other housing for the heroes and teachers. My son just got hired as a teacher this week. I'm like, woohoo. So I'm telling you I've got a place to live now. Anyway, but it's overall, I think it's a great project because the retail component is something that's real, real important. And that's what we need is more retail. We need more restaurants and places to go for entertainment in our town. So with that, I'm going to wrap up our discussion and ask for a motion on this item. Members, counsel, there were a couple minor changes that were in the covenant that was proffered by the developer. We negotiated in the wee hours. And if I can't have our town attorney, Roger Poe, come up because he was instrumental in finalizing negotiations last night. Thank you, Mr. Manager, Mayor, members of the council. It's a pleasure to see you. I almost hate to say this, but there's more, right? In terms of the good news, we were able to negotiate as of almost three hours ago, two hours ago. A further clarification as to the essential workers and military housing components. That's 6D and 6E3. Just to clarify that, in the event that one of those individuals that's given priority in the leasing as a priority unit for essential workers or for military housing , and then they lose that qualification, those leases aren't going to be renewed and create a loophole. So just additional protection. Okay, great. Thank you very much, Bob. So again, it was section 6D and section 6E3. Thank you.

Good evening, folks. My name is Julian Perez, and I'm the Planning and Zoning Director for the town of Cutler Bay. Today is June the 10th, and we're having a zoning workshop for two projects in our town. The first project is Car Wash, and the second project is MM G Best Plans LLC. At this time, the first half of this meeting will be for the developer and the community to interact, present their projects, and then the second half of this workshop will be the elected body will have an opportunity to listen to a brief presentation from the applicants and ask questions. So at this time, let's go with phase one, which is the community and the folks that are here. So if there's any members of the community here and would like to ask any questions, now is the time. Until 6:30. All right. Do that again. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the second part of our Town Zoning Workshop. Today is June 10th, 2026. If you could please take the roll. Councilmember Duncan. Here. Councilmember Ramirez. Here. Councilmember Lord. Here. Vice Mayor Callahan. Mayor Mayor Butte. Present. William McCormick. Thank you. Please join me in rise for the place of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right. Julian, I guess you'll be taking over. Ralph, did you mean to introduce him or can you just let him go? Sure. Thank you, Mayor. Members of Council. Tonight we have a unique opportunity as our zoning workshop . We just completed the first half from 6:00 to 6:30 for the public. We have two applications and tonight we have our planning and zoning director, Julian Perez, that will introduce both the applications. Mayor Mayor, I'm going to ask you to come at the last three days. The first project that's going to come before you this evening is a car wash and then the second project is going to be MMG Best Plaza LLC to my left , El Car Wash to my right. Those are the renderings. Very briefly, the applicant El Car Wash Florida LLC. The project number is plan 0042600153. That's for the two variances. 042600152 is the conditional use. And 00154, again, 042600154, that is your site plan. The project is located on 19875 South Dixie Highway. The folio number is 366006-0240010. This project was advertised in the Miami Herald on May 31st , 2026. The property was posted on May 29th of 2026. As indicated, this is a commercial project which includes two variances. And basically they're asking for zero building frontage where 100% is required. And then the second variance is again is a building front age zero where 75% is required for secondary streets. The conditional use and the site plan approval is also part of this process for this specific project. At this time, the applicant is represented by counsel, Tracy Slavin, that is here. And I would have -- I would have -- I would ask her to please approach. And she could probably give you an overview of the project. Thank you, Julian. My name is Tracy Slavins. My address is 3800 Northeast 2nd Avenue, Suite 200. I'm here on behalf of El Car Wash. And I'm joined by Alex Quintana from El Car Wash and our team of experts to guide you through any questions that you may have this evening about the project. Our site is approximately 0.98 acres and it's located at 198 75 South Dixie Highway and 107th Avenue. Currently, the site is an old OG paint store that's going to be demolished. And the goal is to eliminate this abandoned building and redevelop the corner with a vibrant, high-quality amenity that will also hopefully encourage economic development in the city. Because the car wash is one component of the site, but this is a mixed-use development that has approximately 4,400 square feet of office space as well. So that office space is intended to hopefully be an incub ator space for startup companies, you know, maybe a civic space or a home to a small business in the community. As Julian mentioned, we do have four requests that will ultimately be before the council for approval. The site plan approval, the conditional use for the car wash, and the two variances. I want to focus on the variances just to explain why we've gone from 100% to a 0% request. And the purpose is by situating the building more in the center of the site away from the property lines, we're able to enhance the circulation and parking here. You know, we do have two uses. They are quite different. They need to be, have separate parking, separate entrances. And, and circulation is key to the success of this site. So the, the variances allow for that. They also allow us to have additional landscaping. You know, we've learned over several years of working on sites in Miami-Dade County that landscape buffering is critical to this use. You know, it helps buffer sound. You know, it helps buffer sound. It helps to buffer the visual impacts of the tunnel as they , you know, as it faces the road. And so adding the landscaping is, is important. I think not only for the site to, to enhance and, and fit into the fabric of the community, but for the visual effects of the people who live and work nearby and drive by . So, um, so, um, before you, you have some renderings and a color landscape and site plan showing the layout of the site. Um, cars will enter for the car wash just off South Dixie highway and circulate around, uh, the site and, and then into the, the tunnel. They're stacking for approximately 24 vehicles. Um, each car goes through the car wash, um, at a very rapid pace. So that line of stacking moves very quickly. Um, and our traffic studies have indicated that based on the design and layout, there should be no queuing that backs up into the roadway. Cause that's, you know, our number one concern. And if you've ever driven around some of the older sites or ones in the urban core, you know, on long eighth street, they, that, that can be an issue sometimes. So our goal here was to make sure that there was ample space to avoid that. Um, the office space is uniquely designed, as I mentioned before, to be an incubator for Cutler based startups, small businesses and community organizations. And we hope that the community does take advantage of this opportunity to situate their businesses in the town. Um, and as far as, um, the design, it's going to be the, the, this typical L car wash color patterns of the pink and teal, um, white building. Um, there will be shading and screening and ample landsca ping. Um, the parking spaces serving the car wash will have vacuum hoses at each side of the building. Um, and also, um, as parking spaces for anyone that needs to talk to staff or, or get out of their car for any reason . Um, on the office side, there are six parking spaces, which is one more than what's required by the code. Um, it equates to, we, you know, at about 4,000 square feet , you probably have two or three office spaces in there. Um, so that's about two employees per space, which, which makes, um, the parking for the office compliant with code requirements. Um, and. Um, and. Um, and. Um, I would just wanted to touch on quickly, um, that L car wash is cognizant of environmental and sound impacts. Um, and so, you know, there are water efficiency standards that they employ at every store. Um, their reuse level is extremely high. So, you know, this isn't like all the water is going down the drain. The water is being reused and recycled. Um, you know, they use the best practices for environmental management for all the products that are used at the car wash. And as far as the sound goes, they use state of the art equipment to make sure that that impact of noise is mitig ated to the minimal effect possible. So with that, it concludes my presentation and we're here to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you. Councilor questions. Councilor questions. Councilman Duncan, you recognize. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Not necessarily questions, comments on the, the presentation. Um, I think that, that your design here is, is a big improvement over what's currently, uh, in the space. I know this property has come before this council before, at least in, in my tenure here in the last 70 years. And I understand the, the, the difficulties with complying with the frontage, uh, on this specific property. I think the way that you have it designed, how you have it situated, especially in a mixed use setting. I think that, that, you know, for, for what you're asking for, um, is appropriate. And I think it's going to be, uh, you know, a great opportunity, uh, to, to bring, you know, a business such as El Car Wash to our town. Um, with that being said, you know, I, I'm, I'm glad that you, you put a big emphasis on the, the added landscaping, especially as a buffer between the residential areas and whatnot. And I think that is always going to be a plus here in Cut ler Bay. Uh, and, and I'm, I'm kind of really excited about the, uh, the, the mixed use office incubator type space. Cause I think that's going to provide, especially along the US one corridor where we have other opportunities to grow, uh, newer tech driven type, uh, roles. I think that's, that's something that that area is prime for, for using. So I want to thank you all for that. So overall, I think, you know, your design of course looks great and, and I'm excited for you all to bring it, uh, further on down the line. Thank you. All right. Councilman Lurk. Thank you, mayor. Um, I too, I like this project very much. Um, how many, how many other projects do you have that have a building like that on? On your site? The, um, I believe Doral is the only other site that has office incorporated into it. The Doral site is actually, um, the corporate offices for El Car Wash. Okay. And they, that has been quite successful, um, especially for the operations. Cause they have eyes on what's going on and they can do real improvements in, you know, in their operations for other stores by watching what happens. Um, but most of the El Car washes around town are single use sites. So this is quite innovative for them. And hopefully it's successful and we can duplicate this in other places too. Right. Right. That's why I was asking because I've, I've obviously seen this brand and I don't recall ever seeing, um, a building on it. And I had concerns with the parking spots. I didn't, it didn't seem to me like there would be enough, but I'm, I'm glad you addressed that in your presentation. Um, so hopefully I do love the idea that this is going to be for startups and an incubator, but, um, if it doesn't work, if people don't show up, if it, if it sits idle. Um, I know that there's a component where we, as the town, we're going to be able to use some of that space, um, for our activities. Our town hall is always booked out. We have a summer camp here right now. So I think we would appreciate that. If, if you, if the going forward in a year or so, you guys notice that it's not being used is what's plan B for that? Like, I would love to see maybe classes offered there, you know, um, if the space isn't being used. Uh, and I know that's something you can't ask or answer now . I just want to throw that out there. And then also, since you have a different parking area and a different entrance for that area, um, maybe branded like the, you know, business center at the car wash or something like that. So, so it stands out as this incubator that people driving up us one goes, Oh wait, hold on. What is that business center all about? They can Google it. They can find it. It would help help get that word out. Just a thought I'm, I'm flowing here, but I, I, I do. I do like the project very much. And I like the ability to have a community component there, you know, for, um, you know, for our residents to be able to use, or even not residents, people popping off the turnp ike. And, and, and stopping in there, it is much better than what's, what's there now. And I also learned that the noise is being, uh, driven away from the community and not toward the community. So I, I want to, I want to express my appreciation for that . Correct. Just to clarify that the blowers, you know, the dryers for the vehicles going through the tunnel are going to be on the US one side of the building. Thank you. And I love the idea about branding it. I think that's really smart. And I took a note. So we'll take that back to corporate. Counselor Ramirez. Well, I too, like the idea and it's absolutely a hundred percent better than what's right now. Um, we, we share some ideas as far as the business center and stuff like that. Hopefully you guys will take some of that stuff into consideration. Cause I think it could be a money producer for you as well. The only question I have is, and this is probably more for Julian. The parking is actually for the, for the car wash itself. The parking is actually the same area for the, for the vacu ums and everything else like that. You know, um, do you, and I'll, and I'll ask, uh, Stacy, maybe she knows too, is the, is that idea being done at the other, um, car washes that, that you guys have to work. I mean, uh, usually we have parking or parking space, but the space is actually kind of mixed use if you think about it as it sits right now. So does that actually qualify for the amount of parking that they need for the building? Yeah. First of all, for the building, they meet the parking requirements. Okay. Okay. For the car wash itself is a combined for the vacuum as well as for parking is if it's necessary. If you look at one of their models that they did, and I think very successful in Troy, Michigan, and I think that this is where the idea basically comes from. Okay. It's, it's basically the same concept that, you know, you have the actual car wash itself, and then you have this, the business center, the, what I like to call the innovation center. Okay. But, uh, in terms of the parking, yes, it meets the, uh, the requirements. Okay. Mm-hmm . Just curious about that, you know. Yes. Um, as you notice, we don't have a parking variance is one of our requests. We, we meet the parking for the uses. Um, and, and your code is, you know, pretty clear on what the parking requirements are. Um, and so it was easy to follow, but yes, um, Julian's right. There, there's a Troy, Michigan site, um, that, that also incorporates offices. I was thinking more locally with the Doral site, but that one is a two story building where you have the tunnel on the bottom and the office on the top. However, because your mixed use town center district wants frontage, we felt that having the glazing on the building, on the ground floor, putting the office there, we could fit it. And it made more sense because it created a little bit more of a street presence, even though we're not up against the street. Um, I'm not a fan, um, you know, the, the stress that we had in town and the chains that we're trying to make the town was to create a better space. Um, all along our US one quarter, we see lots of improvements, you know, just to the north, even a furniture store, El Dorado. Um, it looks great. We have banks that are looking good, recognized for their aesthetics. Um, and then we're asking us to go ahead and give variances , um, for things where, sir, a stretch to call mixed use without a doubt. It's a stretch is not what it was intended to be. Um, the idea of an incubator, um, not, not the something that's real vibrant right now. Um, they haven't been shown to be very, very successful. Um, I think it's just an attempt to try to get underneath the changes to make this acceptable to the council. But from what I can see, it has nowhere near what the vision of what we wanted for our town. Granted, it might be better than what's there now, but it's not what the best use is going to be there. It's not what the best use could be there. And I don't like anything about this. Um, it's a stretch to call anything versus what the people of this city wanted and what the shreds we wanted. So I'm not going to go into much more than that because I just, it doesn't come anywhere close from my perspective. Understood. Any other questions? No. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. The next project before us this evening is MMG Best Plaza LLC. That's the applicant. The project number is plan 042600156. The location is at 19700 South Dixie Highway. The folio number is 366006040010. This project was advertised in the Miami Herald on May 31st of 2026. The property was posted on May 29th of 2026. And this is a site plan modification to an already approved site plan back on April 15th of 2025. And that was plan number 122400120. And again, the proposal here is a modification to a site plan to accommodate a new PNC bank. The renderings to my left with a drive through facility at the existing retail center. So what they're asking for is number one to the modification of the site plan. Number one is adding an egress connection to South Dixie Highway. Number two is raising the paved elevation around the proposed bank building. Number three is adding the ATM drive up lane. And then number four is converting the two lane drive ais les behind the main building to a one-way drive aisle. At this time, we have the applicant here with us. And he's ready to make a quick presentation and to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you. Good evening, Council Mayor. My name is Joshua Simpson. Address is 9171 South Dixie Highway, Miami, Florida 33156. He pretty much explained exactly what we're trying to do here. Last year, we got an approval for facade renovation and some minor site plan improvements. It's the shopping center just east of the turnpike where it 's a rental wheel, a Sherman Williams. You might have seen the construction already start when we ripped off the signs to put banners. We're starting the renovation this next 30 days. This is, like he said, just to add some more elements to the site to get the drive through for the tenant, to add the exit onto US-1. Providing the one-way behind the main structure is to add parking. So we're already to cope with the parking, but we know that what's required and what's actually going to be used are not aligned. And so we wanted to create ample parking for the prospective tenants. And any other questions, please let me know. Questions from the council? No? Much easier presentation. Cool. I don't have any questions for you as well. I'm not going to lambast you either. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you. Officer, I believe that's all we have. Do you have anything else you'd like to add? No? Nope. All right. Julian, thank you very much. This meeting is adjourned.