First I want to highlight a huge improvement I just noticed this week to the Youtube videos of Council meetings. There are chapter markers for each agenda item that you can see when scrubbing the video. When I originally started reviewing Council meetings I linked to the agenda item in the video because it was difficult to target a specific part of the meeting. I’m not sure if it was the result of improvements at Google or something the City IT did, but it’s greatly appreciated. (Glad I don’t have to revisit that idea now.)
CRA
The CRA meeting was pretty light with some updates about improvements to retention ponds in East Tampa, Memorial Park Cemetery (there will be a community cleanup next Saturday) including refurbishing the memorial to African-American Veterans of World War I. An update on work on Tampa Union Station was provided as well as the Board approving an additional $1.5 million in funding.
What I missed was any conversation about item 9, “CRA Staff to report on exploring the possibility of the CRA buying the Tampa Police Department building from the City of Tampa.” This was part of a giant scheme from Board member Maniscalco to build a fire station downtown by having the CRA buy the TPD station from the city and then put a fire station on the first floor and have affordable housing above. There is a memo that simply states “After consideration, the Administration does not want to pursue the sale of TPD at this time. The administration thanks the Board for consideration and working with staff during the budget process and would like to retain the option to re-engage in discussions in the future.”
Evening Land Use
Agenda
Youtube
First I want to commend City Council for their work and how they managed this meeting. Every case was given equal consideration and the management of the chambers was flawlessly executed. By all accounts this was the longest and most difficult evening meeting in Council history.
Second, I’ll update the items with vote counts after the minutes are posted. For now I’m focused on how the Council as a body voted. These were all first readings and except for the ones that failed, there will be a second chance for the public and Council members to weigh in.
Item 1 is a request for a comprehensive plan amendment that was continued until March 21st.
Item 2 was a good discussion about what a Planned Development (PD) means when you rezone a property and dare I say foreshadowing for item 8. At it’s core the property owner was requesting to rezone his property from Commercial Intensive (CI) and Residential Multi-family (RM) 24 to a planned development for retail sales, car repair and open storage. There was some back and forth on this as the property owner made statements about unifying the zoning to make it easier to sell later. It was made clear that if the PD was approved, any future property owner would be bound by the terms of the PD and any change of use for the property beyond what was approved would require another rezoning request. Ultimately Council denied the request and the property maintains the split zoning.
For item 3 see how best to introduce mixed use development into a neighborhood. The developer and their representatives understand by working with the neighborhood and doing their homework upfront results in a better project and easy approval by Council.
Item 4 relates to plot of land adjacent to a city owned cemetery privately acquired for the use as a Jewish cemetery and objections to access and traffic. The discussion got into the broader conversation about city owned cemeteries. Fencing was also in question. Both which related to conversations earlier in the day before Council sitting as the CRA board. After the applicant agreed to a few minor edits to the site plan it was approved.
Item 5 was another example of how to breeze through Council approval. The architect and developer went to great lengths to design a building to work around a grand tree. It was noted by Council and easily approved.
Item 6 was approved but not without some opposition from the neighborhood. There was however at least an equal amount of support from the immediate neighbors. The approved plan takes an odd shaped lot in a transition area of South Tampa and turns 2 homes into 4.
The last item before breaking and getting set up for the crowds, item 7 was another breath of fresh air. Someone found a lot with a portion of a specimen grand live oak hanging over the front portion. They did their research on what it would require to develop on the back half of the lot and preserve the tree. Council approved the rezoning request.
Four hours and 50 minutes after the meeting started, item 8 was introduced to Council. There was a question as to how this came back before Council within 12 months. The explanation was that the Zoning Administrator has the discretion to allow it if they consider there have been material changes to the plan. That was not up for debate. With that out of the way, the hearing began.
Remember item 2 and the discussion about PDs? The property at 2713 Bayshore Blvd is a PD for the use of religious worship and daycare. That was approved by Council in 2006. I do not know what the prior zoning was but that doesn’t matter. They gave that up for reason and asked for this. And anyone who were to purchase the property would be allowed to use it for a place of religious worship and daycare. Otherwise they would need to request a rezoning. Which led us to this hearing.
The request is to rezone from PD religious worship and daycare to PD religious worship and multifamily attached. The request was for a 26 story building with parking and 42 ~5000sq ft units. The prior application had numerous waivers requested and were the grounds for the denial. This application resolved all of the waiver requests. Beyond that, the applicant was offering to enter into a development agreement to make some improvements to a nearby Fred Ball public park.
Despite a lot of public testimony on a variety of issues, a lot unrelated to land use laws Council is required to base their decisions on, it came down to size and scale of the proposed building on a Future Land Use designation intended for 6 stories, not 26.
Nearly 10 hours after Council convened their meeting, they voted down the proposed change to the PD. That doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the end of the story, there is time for appeal. Or other litigation. There may be ways to do an administrative rezoning that would result in the relocation of the religious institution.
Or the religious institution could scale back their expectations of the ROI off their daycare land and build something more modest that fits within the future land use plan that still could provide them financial stability and keep their home on Bayshore.
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