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HomeMy WebLinkAbout04-17-95 WS '-' MINUTES OF THE JOINT CITY COMMISSION AND PLANNING AND ZONING COMMISSION HELD APRIL 17, 1995 Mayor Vandergrift called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. in the Commission Chambers. The roll was called and a quorum declared present for both boards. PRESENT: Mayor Vandergrift and Commissioners Johnson, Foster, Glass (arrived at 7:50 p.m.) and Gleason. Also present were City Manager Shapiro, City Attorney Rosenthal, Director of Administrative Services Beamer, Planning Director Wagner, Capital Projects/Concurrency Analyst Resnik, Senior Planner Dow, Planning and zoning Commissioners Switzer, Rhodus, Jones, Landefeld, Hopkins, Bond (arrived at 7:05 p.m.) and City Clerk Grafton. ABSENT: Planning & Zoning Member Miller. Discussion: Future Growth to the North of the City Chairman Switzer gave the background regarding annexation of a great deal of property to the north and west and the agreement with the property owners that there would be no City services provided to those areas for seven years. He felt the City should have direction from the Planning and Zoning Commission regarding development of that area since the end of the agreement was four and a half years away. '-" Planning Director Wagner advised that a property owner who had signed the annexation agreement requested permission to develop his property. There was a land use plan for that area, but the City did not have within the capital improvement or impact fee program provisions for urban services and utilities in that area. City Manager Shapiro explained there were provisions for utilities in that area, including the secondary water system. A Joint Planning Agreement was made with the County that addressed the issue of water and sewer, and a notation had been made when fire stations and fire impact fees were done that there would be a fourth station located in the northwest sector. The type of development had been determined unless a great change occurred such as the Western Beltway. Mayor Vandergrift asked Mr. Wagner if utility service were given away in the JPA in that area. Mr. Shapiro said there was a water and sewer agreement that had certain service areas delineated in the early 1980s which were the areas the City kept. ~ Mayor Vandergrift asked if it was part of the suit agreement with Orange County that the City would get the annexation and the County would provide the services. City Attorney Rosenthal stated what Mr. Shapiro said was correct. The concern that was not part of the lawsuit but was an issue raised by the City in that there was a suggestion during the negotiations over the Joint Planning Area Agreement that if the litigation continued, the City might challenge the validity of the existing utility agreements with the County. One of the things the City pushed for and obtained in the Joint Planning Area Agreement was a commitment on the part of the County to Joint City Commission and Planning '-' and Zoning Commission April 17, 1995 provide utility services under certain circumstances related to the County utility policy to those areas that were within the corporate limits of the City of Ocoee, in other words, the annexation to the north, and outside the City of Ocoee sewer and water territorial areas. The Joint Planning Area Agreement did address the subject of utilities and did improve the prospect of these lands obtaining sewer and water services from the County, which is a prospect which was at best uncertain prior to the Joint Planning Area Agreement but that was not part of the litigation; that was part of the position raised by staff as a condition of settling the litigation brought against the city. Mayor Vandergrift stated there had been "chest-pounding" that the litigation had been settled, and part of the settlement was that the City was going to have to give up the utilities in that area. He said he had made the comment that the City was going to regret it later. He said he thought there were people being held up because the County was in a position to serve that area, and the City might or might not be willing to negotiate with those developers to allow the County to do that. '-" Mr. Rosenthal clarified the "chest-pounding" by saying at the beginning of the negotiations, the condition of the City was that they were insisting upon an amendment to the existing sewer and water utility agreements to expand the sewer and water territory so that the City could provide the services. The City was unsuccessful in those negotiations to get the County to agree to, in effect, contract the County utility territory and expand the City utility territory. The legal analysis was that the City did not have a way to force the County to do anything, so if someone in the County is saying they achieved something, they achieved the maintenance of the status quo, and the City was not successful in changing that aspect of the existing agreements. Mr. Shapiro asked for clarification from the mayor regarding his thoughts that the landowners were being held up. Mayor Vandergrift said based on the context of conversations he had with some of the people, they felt there was a hold-up. Mr. Rosenthal advised that annexation agreements related to urban services other than just water and sewer utilities. The types of urban services which were addressed in the annexation agreement were referred to as services typically provided to residential, commercial and industrial uses permitted in the City of Ocoee residential, commercial and industrial districts. Lands receiving urban services will typically have paved roads, urban response times for police and fire services and street lighting. Sanitary sewer and potable water services will also typically be available for extension to lands receiving urban services. Mr. Wagner stated the provision of utility services was just a part of providing urban services. Urban services include parks, schools, stormwater management's, etc. One of the reasons for the annexation agreement was that the City did not feel it was in a position to provide all the services ....... 2 Joint City Commission and Planning '-" and Zoning Commission April 17, 1995 within that period of time. The City asked that the people affected develop a plan for the area to provide urban services, typically called special area plans. There were a number of meetings with the property owners, who presented a basic proposal for a special area planning study. At the last Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting, the Commission thought it was a good start but was not comprehensive enough. '~ Mr. Shapiro explained it was not only capital improvements but was also the matter of additional police officers, patrol cars, building inspectors, etc. Chairman Switzer wanted to know what was needed to make it happen. Mr. Shapiro said a strategy was needed, and that strategy belonged to the people who wanted to do the road. It did not belong to the citizens who were already in the City. A cost associated with putting the strategy together would not be the cost to the person who had been in the City for a number of years but would be the cost to the person who wanted to build in those areas. Chairman Switzer wanted to know where to begin. Mr. Shapiro said the cost of a plan was one of the barriers to be overcome. Chairman Switzer asked if the City had done a drainage study, Mr. Shapiro said a portion of a drainage study was done in the northwest ditch. The study needed had to go further. He said the seven or eight needed in the City required by Federal law had not been done. He said it took eight months to a year to do each one. Chairman Switzer asked how much it would cost, and Mr. Shapiro said since much of the information was available, it would not be as expensive as the case when all information had to be gathered. He explained that the City was not asking the landowners to do the same study the Federal government was asking the City to do. The City was asking them to do some of the allocation of joint water so there would not be a problem. He said if the City did ask them to do the same kind of study, it would probably cost $100,000. Mayor Vandergrift asked if the County were doing a study in the unincorporated area, and Mr. Shapiro stated the County would eventually do it but was about $14 million short. Mayor Vandergrift also mentioned there was a five-minute response time between an Orange County fire station and that area. He asked if it were part of the JP A that the City cooperate with police and fire. Mr. Shapiro said there was a difference between the sheriffs office and a local police department. One was a crime solver, and the other was a crime preventer. The County did not provide service there other than rural service. Chairman Switzer said he had no problem with the Comprehensive Plan, but he did not see anything from the City that development would be started. He said there was no plan or discussion about looking at the development. Mr. Shapiro said he felt the plan should be done, and probably should be done in about 24 months. He said the next Comprehensive Plan amendment after this one would be the approximate time. He explained the reasoning behind the seven-year agreement was that in five to seven years, the City would know more about the Western Beltway. He said there probably would be $20 million set aside for the beltway in 1995, which would start paying some of the right-of-way costs. '-" 3 Joint City Commission and Planning ....... and Zoning Commission April 17, 1995 Mr. Milton West said he felt the biggest thing that discouraged everyone was that they realized a study and planning had to be done, but he had never heard of a special area planning study (SAP). He asked if one had been done in Ocoee, and Mr. Shapiro replied no. Mr. West said the study that was done cost about $30,000, and they were told it was not adequate. He said the landowners in that area were not a town, and he could not see their planning for other property owners due to the possibility of liability. Mr. Shapiro said he felt the biggest problem was that there would be people who would benefit that someone else paid for. He said he did not know how they would be encouraged to pay their fair share after the plan was done. He said if the City Commission wanted to begin work on it, a study could be put together as long as it was understood it was going to be expensive. He felt the City could do it for half the cost the landowners would bear because of the overhead. Mayor Vandergrift asked if the possibility of de-annexation were an answer. Mr. West said he was not sure, but that was not his intent. '-" Mrs. Bond asked if the developers would be able to pick up the tab since the City would not be looking at making a profit on it. Mr. Shapiro said the City could put together a study. Eventually it could be part of the Comprehensive Plan. It would have to be funded by the Commission. Mrs. Bond said she understood Mr. Shapiro's observation that people who had already been in the City should not fund the new. She said she felt everyone benefits from growth and that everyone should pay his fair share. Mr. Shapiro said there had to be a balance in City spending so that one project did not take from another one. Commissioner Glass arrived at 7:50 p.rn. during Mr. West's discussion thatfollows. Mr. West said one of the main things was to study a form of financing this. He said their understanding originally was water and sewer. Orange County kept the water and sewer, so they ended up with them, which was fortunate to a degree since they are closer than the City. He said the big factor was fire and police. He said when they talked it was that they needed to find a way to fund it, whether it was a property tax assessment. They were in agreement. He said that was one of the problems in doing a study for people who did not fund it. Mr. Shapiro said the easy part was capital improvements, the hard part was operations. Mr. West said they did not have the staff or expertise, and Mr. Shapiro said the City had the expertise but not the staff. Mr. West said he would support ajoint effort. Director of Administrative Services Beamer said one of the critical concerns was direction of water flow. There were wetlands critical to Lake Apopka. The Expressway Authority had said they would not take care of Lake Apopka concerns. Ms. Beamer said it had to happen as a joint effort. She said she understood that the County had not done the Planning Design and '-" 4 Joint City Commission and Planning and Zoning Commission April 17, 1995 '-' Engineering, but it had been started. She said a special area plan should be done. She said the study has to be driven by economics. She said all the new property owners had to be protected by knowing which way the water flowed. She felt the next step was to talk about timing and the information available from property owners or the ones that could go to the County. Mr. Shapiro said budget talks were approaching, and at that time, the City would see what could or could not be done and make decisions. Commissioner Johnson asked who was sitting on the Commission when the annexations to the north were done besides Mr. Foster and himself. Mr. Shapiro advised those were Mr. Woodson, Mr. Dabbs and Mr. Combs. Commissioner Johnson said the Commission knew there was a desire to have the north side in the City. He said he did not think the City should wait five to seven years and then start the study. He said the study would take another two to three years. He believed the City had the responsibility to do the studies, and he felt they should be done now. He felt there should be joint planning with the developers to be ready. Mr. Shapiro listed the obstacles. Mrs. Rhodus asked if an initial part of the study or a phase of it be done as a project possibly by UCF engineering students or planning students. Mr. Shapiro said doing that might move them in the wrong direction. He felt it would be hard to ask the people who had their life savings on '-' the line to have a group of students do the study. Mayor Vandergrift thought Mrs. Rhodus had a good idea. There were graduate students and programs that go across his desk where someone could be hired to assist the staff that could do some of the leg work needed. He said that did not say they were going to go out there and finalize it, but the staff might look at it in the long term. Commissioner Foster said he agreed with Mr. Switzer and Mr. Wagner that a plan was needed. When the property was annexed in 1992, five to seven years seemed like an eternity. He felt it was time to move forward and do something. He felt the very act of annexation implied to the property owner that the City would provide for some type of infrastructure for future development. He felt the staff should be instructed to sit down with the developers and property owners and hammer out some type of agreement and move forward. Commissioner Gleason said he agreed with Commissioners Johnson and Foster and Planning and Zoning, but he wanted each person to pay his fair share. Mr. West said they had spent about $6,000 for the lawsuit, but the planning expense had been minimal because they felt they did not have clear direction to proceed. Commissioner Gleason said he felt there was a need for a clear list of answers needed with a cost analysis from Mr. Shapiro. He thought it was necessary to eliminate forays in the wrong direction. "'" 5 Joint City Commission and Planning '-' and Zoning Commission April 17, 1995 Commissioner Glass apologized for being late due to a prior commitment. He said he felt the City made some commitments at that time, and if that were the case, he thought those commitments should be honored. The first step would be to find out the cost. He agreed with Commissioner Foster and Johnson that you do not wait until the last minute to take the first step. He said he would like to see the budget figures and decide what the next step was. Mrs. Bond asked how concurrency affecting future development in and around the older portions ofthe City. Mr. Shapiro said there were areas along Bluford Avenue that probably did not have any more expansion. The mall used up trips on Silver Star. There would be other areas unvested for trips that would not able to develop certain things on their property, but that was always stated in the public hearings. Recess 8:15 p.m. to 8:25 p.m. Discussion: General Planning and Zoning Matters Mayor Vandergrift asked the Clerk to have the staff identify themselves when there were new people in the audience. '-' Chairman Switzer thanked everyone for attending the meeting. He said he would ask the Commission to consider a joint meeting every six months or so since it was beneficial to all. He said from things he heard, when people went to City Hall to do business of any kind, they were not received very well. He wanted the staff to be more user friendly. He said possibly he should have talked to the City Manager about this matter in his office, but he chose this forum. Mr. Shapiro said he felt he did not think it was fair to make a statement like that without going into detail. If someone were being accused of not being friendly, it needed to be addressed so it did not occur again. He said it were going to be put on the table, if there were specific circumstances associated with it, they needed to know those circumstances. If someone did not feel it was an appropriate place for those circumstances, he suggested making an appointment to see whomever so it did not appear that they were talking about someone publicly. He said there may have been bluntness but did not think there had been rudeness. Mayor Vandergrift agreed with Mr. Switzer that everyone should work hard never to lose sight of the user friendliness of government. Commissioner Gleason said he had received calls and understood when a citizen did not get the desired answer, he might be disgruntled. The issues that concerned him more was that he perceived there was not a lot of dialogue in planning. He believed that highly trained professional staff should carry out the policies established by the boards. He felt that sometimes on some issues there was a perception that decisions were not being made by the boards but ~ 6 Joint City Commission and Planning '-' and Zoning Commission April 17, 1995 rather possibly at a senior staff level and are rubber-stamped by the Commission. He felt he was well-informed about the mall, but it was because he attended many meetings in the homes of people. There never was a joint meeting, and he felt it would have helped everyone to feel they were actively participating. He wanted to see more open communication or involvement, more opinion-asking versus "this is our position," and if you do not like it, you come up with the options." He wanted more open communication among staff, Planning and Zoning and the City. Mr. Shapiro said he did not think the staff wanted the burden of not understanding. He said they needed to decide how much time they wanted to take. Commissioner Gleason said possibly quarterly workshops would be good to exchange ideas with Planning and Zoning and staff. Possibly college interns could do routine things that would allow staff to focus on the things that are high priority. Mr. Shapiro asked about quarterly policy initiatives. A group would sit down and list a number of policies that needed discussion, and the discussion needed to be had with the policy-makers. Every so often there would be a meeting associated with those policy initiatives. The initiatives could be of a planning or financial nature. '-' Commissioner Gleason said the Sunshine Law allowed each Commissioner to meet with the City Manager. Unless there was a good job of communicating back or answering questions, the City Manager had to try to read him. He said it was not fair for staff to have to guess what was expected. Mr. Rob McKey, alternate member of the Planning and Zoning Commission, he said this had come to his mind quite some time before. He thought he had presented it and been beaten back severely. He thought this forum or maybe a chairman or vice-chairman of the Planning and Zoning Commission sitting in on the ORC might be a viable way of communicating. Mr. Shapiro said he had no problem with it. Mayor Vandergrift gave his gavel to Commissioner Johnson and left the podium. Mr. Rosenthal said the only issue would be participating in those meetings since they are not public meetings. Mrs. Rhodus said she did not want to get in staffs face or be in the way. Mr. Shapiro said to be there was no problem, but there could be no participation. Mr. Rosenthal said if more than one member attended, they had to be careful and always remember they could not talk among themselves because of the Sunshine Law issues. He said he guessed at a certain point if it was a large number, they might want to look at posting considerations, but initially unless it looked like this was something everybody wanted to do all the time, he did not think there would be any posting problems. Mr. Shapiro said if he were one of them, he would prefer to sit on the developer level when they first came in and went through the generation of it. By the time they got to the DRC, they had been through the staff so many times that the DRC '-' 7 Joint City Commission and Planning ......... and Zoning Commission April 17, 1995 usually lasts no more than one-half hour because they had gone through all the processes. Mr. Wagner said by the time the DRC gets involved, it is all over. Mayor Vandergrift returned to the table at 8:50 p.m. Mayor Vandergrift brought up the CRA, Community Redevelopment Agency, for downtown Ocoee. Winter Garden, Apopka and Orlando have a CRA. He said it was one of the ways the City could show leadership to the community in the downtown area to get them to look toward self-improvement. Discussion followed. Mayor Vandergrift advised he would ask for a work session on CRA and having some people from the outside address the many variations in CRAs. ......... Commissioner Glass said he was hearing a need for an overlay district much like Orlando has. The City has a traditional city overlay district which recognizes the older, smaller lots and gives someone different minimum parking standards, different standards that allows someone to rehab his property without regard to C-l zoning or what other standards would be. He said a CRA was not needed for that. A zoning ordinance with the appropriate development standards was needed. Mr. Wagner said CRA is a funding device. Commissioner Glass said he would like to see the downtown area revived and would like to have someone from Winter Garden come to tell them what and how they are doing it. Mrs. Bond, Mr. Landefeld and Commissioner Foster left at 9:10 p.m. Mayor Vandergrift said he wanted quarterly meetings that were themed with one of the themes to be an overlay district and a CRA. He also asked that they might designate some scenic routes through the City. Commissioner Gleason said the people who live there, own the property, etc., also do not to look to the boards for leadership. They owe responsibility to themselves to do something about that area not so much to be told it is the vision of the City and that they would impose it on them. Chairman Switzer said Mrs. Bond left because she had been trying to do this for years. Suddenly there is a way to do it, and it had never been discussed before. Apparently everyone knew about it. He said here was a typical case, and instead of someone saying what needed to be done, it was said to be too difficult. Commissioner Gleason said he felt it was a very beneficial meeting, and Mayor Vandergrift concurred. '-" 8 Joint City Commission and Planning '-" and Zoning Commission April 17, 1995 '-' ADJOURNMENT The meeting adjourned at 9: 15 p.m. Attest ......, APPROVED: C~Ocoee ~, ~J s. W S. Scott Vandergrift, Mayor 9