TAMPA CITY COUNCIL
Thursday, September 10, 2015
5:30 p.m.

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[Sounding gavel]
17:32:19 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Good evening.
We are going to call this meeting to order.
Roll call.
Miranda here.
17:32:26 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Here.
17:32:29 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
Present.
17:32:30 >>HARRY COHEN:
Here.
17:32:30 >>GUIDO MANISCALCO:
Here.
17:32:35 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Here.
17:32:35 >>HARRY COHEN:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I wanted to let everyone know, I am going to be

excusing myself from item number 4 because my
father and uncle are petitioners.
I had understood now that number 1 and number 2
which are area rezonings are adjacent to that so I
going to also excuse myself from those and, as
a result, I will see you back here at item number
5 since item number 3 is not going.
17:33:09 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
For the record, Mr. Cohen will
be able to file the appropriate document at the
next regular meeting.
MARY SAMANIEGO: Land Development Coordination.
Items number 1 and 2 which are area-wide rezonings
REZ 15-52 and 53 were set for 5:30 this evening.
However, the applicant noticed for 6:00 this
evening, so I respectfully request that these
items are forwarded --
17:33:46 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Item number 1 and 2?
MARY SAMANIEGO: Yes, sir.
17:33:54 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Okay.
17:33:56 >>JOHN GRANDOFF:
Hill, Ward, Henderson, suite 3700
Bank of America Plaza on behalf of the applicant
on number 1 and 2.
The official letter received from the clerk said
the notice is 6:00.
When the agenda came out 6:00 but can came out

5:30. You can always go later.
You can't go earlier.
17:34:19 >>FRANK REDDICK:
All right.
Anyone here wants to speak on item number 1 or
number 2?
All right.
Then in this case we stand adjourned until 6:00.
18:02:44 >>> [Recess]

[Sounding gavel]
18:02:49 >>FRANK REDDICK:
I am going to call this meeting
to order.
Roll call.
Miranda here.
18:03:03 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
Present.
18:03:05 >>GUIDO MANISCALCO:
Here.
18:03:06 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Here.
18:03:07 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Here.
All right, staff, anything you need to clean up?
MARY SAMANIEGO: Yes, sir.
Land Development Coordination.
Item number 3 on your agenda cannot be heard
because they failed to perfect notice.
So they will be set for a future meeting.
Item number 5 on your agenda they sent a letter to

the clerk requesting a continuance.
We have room available on our November 12th
hearing night.
I believe the applicant is here to speak on this
if you would like.
18:03:47 >>FRANK REDDICK:
All right.
We will open the public hearing.
Miranda move to open the public hearing 1 through
9.
18:03:59 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Motion by Mr. Miranda.
Second by Mrs. Capin.
All in favor?
Opposed?
Anyone going to speak on item 1 through 9 please
stand to be sworn in.
18:04:06 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Mr. Chairman, if I can bring to
your attention, my understanding is people who are
outside and perhaps downstairs in the Mascotte
room, there's an overflow crowd.
(Oath administered by Clerk)
18:04:33 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Item number 1.
18:04:35 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Mr. Chairman, forgive me, did
you want to take up the continuance on item number
5 first?
And remove 3?

I would ask the clerk, requesting to remove number
2 from the agenda.
18:04:49 >> So moved.
18:04:50 >> Second.
18:04:51 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Motion by Mrs. Montelione Lon.
Second by Mrs. Capin.
All in favor?
Opposed?
All right.
18:04:56 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Did you wish to hear from the
petitioner on number 5?
18:05:00 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Petitioner on number 5.
Item number 5.
18:05:05 >> [Off microphone.]
18:05:32 >> I assume we are talking about Luana.
18:05:41 >> Before we start, you need to be sworn in.
18:05:43 >> I do need to be sworn in.
(Oath administered by Clerk).
18:05:50 >> I do.
I'm the representative of the applicant.
I understand there are some issues with staff and
the Planning Commission about the use.
We would request a continuance.
We have till December.
We are competent we can develop a plan and work

with staff and we would like the additional time.
18:06:11 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Did you say December?
18:06:13 >> Yes, if council will permit.
18:06:19 >>FRANK REDDICK:
We had been informed you
requested to November 12th.
18:06:21 >> I believe my client would request the
additional time.
We want to make sure we get this plan right.
And I believe staff offered.
18:06:34 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Do we have anything in November?
I mean December?
18:06:38 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
Land development.
Right now tentatively December has nine items but
you typically would allow for three continuances
to get to your 13.
So we do have space available, yes.
December 10th.
18:06:54 >> Move to continue to December 10th.
18:06:58 >> Second.
18:07:00 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Motion by Mrs. Montelione Lon.
18:07:01 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
6:00 in the evening.
18:07:03 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Motion by Mrs. Montelione Lon.
Second by Mrs. Capin.
All in favor?
All right.

We go to item number 9.
It set for public hearing.
18:07:14 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Mr. Chairman, there's a
request for a continuance to December 24 B by Mr.
arnani.
I don't know if that's correct or not.
18:07:34 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Is petitioner here on item number
9?
18:07:37 >>MARY SAMANIEGO:
City staff requested a
continuance to September 24.
18:07:47 >> Move to 6 p.m. on September 24.
18:07:50 >> motion by Mrs. Montelione Lon, second by Mr.
Miranda.
In favor?
Opposed?
All right.
Anyone here to speak on item number 9?
All right.
Seeing none, we go to item number 1.
18:08:01 >>MARY SAMANIEGO:
Land Development Coordination.
Three of the petitions we have tonight are related
so I ask that we open all three of them at once.
They are all adjoining properties.
Item 1, REZ 15-52.
REZ 15-53.

And item 4, REZ 15-51.
18:08:30 >>FRANK REDDICK:
We opened all of them.
18:08:31 >>MARY SAMANIEGO:
Thank you.
REZ 15-52 and 15-53 are at 4712 and 4714 west
Pearl Avenue.
Both of those properties back were a portion of a
larger rezoning to a planned development which is
the same area that was REZ 15-47.
Because of a change in the project, those pro
properties at 14-12, 1414 are no longer part of
the PD.
So it's all being amended.
They are requesting to rezone an area wide
rezoning back to RS-50.
18:09:11 >>DAVID HAY:
Planning Commission staff.
I have been sworn.
The three cases that we are discussing --
18:09:24 >> I'm sorry, before we get started, happy
birthday.
18:09:27 >>DAVID HAY:
Thank you.
The three cases.
They are located within the South Tampa urban
South Tampa planning district.
Excuse me.
They are located near the northeast corner of

South Westshore Boulevard and west Pearl Avenue.
There is transit along Westshore Boulevard, and
that connects the three subjects sites to downtown
Tampa and to port of Tampa city and all three
sites are within the level B evacuation zone.
Onto the aerial.
This is the first site the .26-acre subject site.
The other site that's going to RS-50 zoning
district, the house directly to the east of these
two parcels are going to the RS-50 zoning district
and then the larger is the larger planned
development.
I'll describe the area.
This is Tyson Avenue.
We have South Westshore.
There's townhomes to the north and to the
northwest.
The Westshore Yacht Club is located down to the
southwest.
And we have some commercial uses on the south side
of the CSX railroad right-of-way that runs along
the bottom of the REZ 15-54.
Onto the future land use map.
The two subject sites that are going to RS-50 and
the larger PD that's here, all of that CMU 35

future land use category.
We have some urban mixed use 60 directly across
the street.
And then the tan color the residential 10.
Planning Commission staff found that the proposed
rezonings to RS-50, the two sites, would be
compatible and comparable to that development
pattern, that single-family detached development
pattern located to the east of Sun Bay South.
The larger planned development is also consistent
with the multifamily vision under that CMU 35.
So all three zoning cases were consistent with the
Tampa comprehensive plan.
If you have any questions.
18:12:12 >>MARY SAMANIEGO:
Thank you, David.
Mary Samaniego for the record.
I'll briefly go over the aerial.
Here is the subject property for the overall PD
and these are the two houses that would be
converted from the PD back to RS-50.
Here on the zoning map you can see this line that
includes the two residential lots.
Part of the original PD.
Those two lots are no longer part of the project
and will be converted back to RS-50 which is the

new overall encompassing area and then the PD is
being amended through REZ 15-51 to be in the green
area.
Photographs of the subject property.
The subject property looking from the corner of
Westshore and Tyson.
Going down Westshore, there's some old quonset
huts.
There's a shot of some of the structures on the
subject property.
Here is a shot looking to the south of the subject
property.
There's a PVC fence, the railroad tracks, and then
some of the townhomes that have been recently
constructed.
In this area in this larger PD back here.
Here is the subject property looking again.
This is Pearl.
This is Westshore.
From Pearl looking into the subject property.
Driveway cut into the subject property.
This is looking down Westshore towards the north.
This property is 4714 which is the subject
property of REZ 15-52, your item number 1.
This is next door, continuing to the east.

This is 4712 which is REZ 15-53, again to be
converted back to the RS-50 zoning district.
These are adjoining properties further down Pearl
on the same side of the road and across the
street.
And then there's this directly across the street
from the residential properties 4712 and 4714
multifamily development.
Now we are going across Westshore and looking in
this area.
These are apartments across Westshore.
An open field.
And then directly to the south of the subject
property is an industrial warehousing use.
I do have a handout for REZ 15-51.
A row vision to this -- an amendment for
clarification.
Just a note to be added regarding the
specifications.
As I said previously, the larger project is an
endment to the previously planned development
which is REZ 14-24, which was two multifamily
buildings, totaling 275 units.
Now the proposal before you this evening is for
three multifamily buildings as opposed to the 275.

As far as waivers, the waivers carried over from
the previous rezoning.
And there are no new waivers associated with the
proposal.
There will be main entrances for the site plan at
the Westshore --.
The main entrance will be off of Westshore.
There will be a secondary entrance off of Pearl.
This is one main structure with first floor
parking and then some on-street parking here,
on-site parking, rather, here.
A second building is in this area.
A third building is over here.
And then there's a large stand of trees to the
direct east that will be preserved with this
application.
Principally it's the same design that you approved
back in 2014.
Other than that I have no further comments.
18:16:45 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Any questions by council?
Petitioner?
18:16:56 >>JOHN GRANDOFF:
I practice at the Hill, Ward,
Henderson firm.
My address is suite 3700 Bank of America plaza. I
would like to put the site plan on the easel.

This is my markup that I illustrated in blue, the
building footprint.
You can appreciate the location of the building a
little better and I highlighted several conditions
that I will briefly mention to you in my
presentation.
This evening, I represent ABC capital and I'm also
here handling the rezoning of items 1 and 2.
Those two parcels were in the previous rezoning we
did with 275 units.
We are now zoning them back to RS-50.
Properties CMU 35, 35 units per acre.
They have come out of the project.
The remainder that we are still going to develop
is CMU 35 with a PD.
A few highlights that you need to be aware of,
install a bus stop.
We put significant buffering or setbacks on the
north property line.
This is single-family residential along Pearl.
It measures 78 feet and 80 feet.
We have 120 feet over towards Trask of open area.
We saved three grand trees and large plots of
trees here also to add to the buffering.
Parking which is always an issue in these

projects.
We are planning parking at 329 spaces.
329 spaces are required.
The unit count varies a little bit.
Depending upon the number of bedrooms.
There are 28 efficiencies, 168 one- two-bedroom
units, spread over these three buildings.
It's important to note that they are .83.
That's almost three quarters of one, a little more
than three quarters of one when you have a right
to build two times the acreage and we have five
acres here.
So this is a very low intensity manageable density
development in the Westshore area.
Let me summarize one other issue.
The site plan shows a six foot fence on the north
boundary.
We have spoken with one of the owners.
It's on the map right here.
That is acceptable and we will place that on the
site plan as a revision.
There are also findings in the staff report --
pardon me for a moment.
On page 3 at the top there are some revisions that
need to be installed.

We can do those revisions after the tree table and
80% for parking structures to take the massing out
of the parking structure.
We can do that also.
And then Ms. Samaniego provided a revised
condition dated December 10th from Jonathan
Scott on the transportation note, provides for the
mitigation fee of $554 per unit which we will pay
for improvements in the immediate vicinity and
also impact fees that's going to the general fund
and also through infrastructure repair.
This is also -- I forgot the acronym, but
stormwater SWAC project which improves to
stormwater relations and facilities south of
Gandy.
Just one moment.
We have met with the neighborhood.
We have we also have an official from the
condominium across the street also, project.
I will close now, reserve the rest of my comments
for rebuttal.
Thank you.
18:21:55 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Any questions from council?
All right.
Anyone -- okay.

18:22:00 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
I have one quick question.
The reason we are taking these two parcels how the
is the decision was made not to maximize the space
that was already a PD?
18:22:16 >>JOHN GRANDOFF:
Right.
The PD we did last summer.
The project was recast at 194 units instead of
275, and it was no longer necessary.
We are obliged to return them to the previous
owner.
18:22:31 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
I want to make sure that's the
reason why we are reducing the number of units you
have from the previous one.
18:22:36 >> Yes.
18:22:37 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Thank you, chair.
18:22:41 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Anyone from the public wishing to
speak on item 1 or 2?
18:22:51 >> Good evening.
My name is Rene Ruggiero, 1463 Citrus Street,
Clearwater, Florida.
I'm here this evening with Mr. Chris van Sims and
Mr. Polermo who are the neighboring properties to
this project.
The owners of property 4712 west Pearl Avenue and
4714 west Pearl Avenue.

The owners wanted to be in attendance tonight to
somewhat talk about the proposed amendment from PD
to the RS 50.
Both properties were originally envision dollars
as part of the 196 unit apartment complex.
It's a planned development and it's directly
adjacent to the properties to the west and the
south.
After the initial rezoning of the PD for the
preliminary submission, the developer then
determined that these gentlemen's property was not
necessary for their design.
So they are now log at their pieces of property
that are adjacent to a larger scale multifamily
complex.
So they have a few concerns with how this is
working.
As indicated on the zoning map that were before
you earlier, the property directly across from
their site is PD and it's 3-story apartment
building.
The property to the south of them is PD as well as
to the west.
They are at this point really engulfed by than
multifamily development, from their front door

forward.
It's completely engulfed by multifamily.
So what they would like to do is, if possible, to
consider having it zoned to a higher district to
allow a higher density instead of the RS-50.
We would like to see if it's possible for the
council to consider perhaps to give them a few
more units on this property.
When we are looking at this plan, when their
properties were a part of the project, obviously
when you are part of the project you have no --
there are some things you would not object to.
But now if you are a single-family house
immediately adjacent to this, with a five-foot
buffer to the west, from parking, driveways, so
forth, their opinion on this project is a little
bit different.
They don't want to necessarily object to the
project, but if it remains single-family there,
then it's really not appropriate for them.
(Bell sounds).
18:25:55 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Mr. Miranda?
18:25:56 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me see if I can understand what I am hearing.
That part is now out of that PD from whoever

wanted to buy the property, bought the property,
but evidently from what you said they didn't buy
the property.
They are here.
18:26:10 >> They decided they did not --
18:26:12 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I understand.
I can't speak for the other council members, but I
don't think I have the right to rezone anybody's
property without them petitioning for that
rezoning.
And there's where our dilemma is.
I can understand what I have before me and what
the different items between first and second
reading the cleaning up of whatever may or may not
happen in today's evening meeting.
But I can't say to you or anyone else that
certainly I am going to rezone that property, even
though the odds -- I can't calculate, but they
certainly look like they are in your favor.
So what I am saying is I can't rezone somebody's
property that they themselves haven't petitioned
to rezone.
That's where I'm at.
As far as your clients, I'm talking about.
18:26:58 >> Thank you, chairman.

I think I need to clarify for a minute where we
are because this is a somewhat unusual process
that is in fact provided for in your code.
You hardly ever see this probably for good reason,
but your code does provide a process called an
area zoning that allows for a third party to come
in and petition to rezone another person's
property.
And that is the process that we are in for items 1
and 2.
I do understand what the property owners are
saying, which is that they are not necessarily
objecting.
I don't want to put words in your mouth.
But what I heard them saying is they would like
Tampa City Council to consider a request that is
not before City Council tonight.
The request is to take these two properties back
to RS-50 rather than to a multifamily.
That's not the request before you so you can't
consider that request.
You have to request the request before you on the
basis of how the courts set the standards for
review of rezoning which is that the petitioner
has the burden to prove that the proposal is

consistent with the local government zoning
ordinance.
Once that burden is met, if it is met, then the
burden shifts to the government to demonstrate
that maintaining the existing classification,
which is the part of the PD, may handle legitimate
public purpose.
The property owner could potentially come in with
their own rezoning to multifamily, or the
possibility that the application that's pending
could be amended.
It would have to be continued obviously, but those
are really the only two options rather than going
forward with what you have before you tonight.
18:28:47 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Mrs. Capin?
18:28:49 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
I think she answered.
I was going to ask staff to weigh in on this.
So thank you.
18:28:55 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Mrs. Montelione Lon?
18:28:56 >> Good evening.
Al Steenson, 4100 west Leila Avenue, tonight
representing Gandy Sun Bay South civic
association.
And yes, sir, I have been sworn.
The association did not meet in the months of July

and August, and knowing this was coming up, we had
a long discussion about this in our June meeting,
had the folks from ABC capital there, and they
then voted to support this particular item, and in
order to save time, I will simply say that our
position on item 1 and item 2 is exactly the same
as it is on item 1, and that's all I have to say
about that, 1 and 2.
We are supportive.
18:29:49 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Ms. Montelione?
18:29:51 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Thank you, sir.
In light of what Ms. Kert has said to us, I'm
wondering if the applicant would be willing to
end the application to instead of asking for
RS-50, ask for the zoning designations that the
property owners actually really want.
18:30:26 >>JOHN GRANDOFF:
We have three pending rezonings.
Items 1 and 2 are a PD zoning district on them,
part of a multifamily project.
My client did not close on those parcels.
We are certainly fine if they want to take over
items 1 and 2 and proceed with them and amend
those applications and request an RM-18
designation.
If consistent with CMU 35, that's okay.

We would like to get approved item 4 this evening.
We don't want to hold up our project waiting for
them to be -- we are distinct from their project.
And I wrote a letter to these folks on August
7th and we are going to do this.
We are going to do it at our cost.
And call me if you have any questions.
18:31:21 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Did you have any conversation
with them after --
18:31:26 >>JOHN GRANDOFF:
Yesterday.
We can't have a back and forth.
18:31:35 >>JOHN GRANDOFF:
All we are doing is going back to
square one, putting them where they were, RS-50
last summer.
We are putting them right back.
18:31:42 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
I understand.
I understand.
Ms. Kert?
Could we go forward with item number 4 and have 1
and 2 come back with an amended petition?
18:31:57 >>REBECCA KERT:
You could, but when they get to
second reading they are all going to have to catch
up because the entire reason why Mr. Grandoff's
client paid for the area zoning is because staff
won't let item 4 go forward, because then it's

leaving two parcels with entitlements for a
parking lot or something.
I don't want to testify for staff.
I'm trying to repeat what they said earlier.
18:32:22 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
By catching up, Ms. Feeley, is
it possible with the calendar that we have?
I mean, if they go to the Euclidean zoning it
would not be as paperwork heavy, documentation
heavy, if they went to PD the property.
So if those two lots and those two property owners
went to another Euclidean zoning district other
than RS-50, would have they be able to make the
cycle for catching up with item number 4?
18:32:58 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
Land development.
I am the one who counseled on this when they came
to our office.
So if I may for just a moment.
Those two parcels are entitled as a parking lot
right now.
And the third application goes forward, you have
two pieces of a parking lot sitting out there and
the houses that are there are nonconforming to
that parking locality so they could never be
developed as anything else but a parking locality
that doesn't go with an apartment complex that it

used to go with.
So it was my suggestion to put them back in order
to make them whole back to how they were before
this all started.
The question of catching up, could it catch up?
Yes.
The burden is now on the property owners who were
not active participants when this began to now do
a public notice to go to the RS, and then put Mr.
Grandoff's applicant waiting for the other people
to catch up, so to speak.
And if they don't, you could have still taken
action tonight to put it back to the RS-50, and
they can still elect to come back to you again and
ask for the RM.
So it's really six of one, half of -- I mean, the
burden has been on the people.
What's before you tonight is whole.
It can move forward the way that it is.
The other parts of it is that staff did not
evaluate for these applicants in RM.
They evaluated an RS based on what originally came
through the door.
So I can't tell you tonight that if that
application comes back in a different form, we are

where it's going to be and then we are left with
something that may or may not happen.
So it's your pleasure to handle it as you wish,
and you do have those two options, and the burden
here, but what is before you is whole in all three
pieces, and does not take away their right to come
back to you and ask again for an RM under their
own accord.
18:34:53 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Understood.
I was trying to find that happy medium.
Sorry.
18:34:59 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Ms. Kert, I just want to get it
straight in my head.
We are untangling one piece, and then the
gentlemen that were standing up a moment ago,
those two separate parcels that are now untangled,
because there's a contractual relationship between
the applicant and them, would be my guess, because
then rear zoning all of it, to repurchase their
land, so we have to untangle this for them to have
a right back to be being able to resolve their
RS-50 lot to something else.
Is that correct?
18:35:34 >> Yes.
18:35:35 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
I'm glad we got that out.

I just want to be sure because trying to do this
here now doesn't make a lot of sense because it
hasn't arrived yet.
Is that correct?
18:35:45 >> Yes.
18:35:46 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Thank you.
18:35:47 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Anyone else from the public like
to speak on item number 1 or 2?
18:35:50 >> Fernando Buen, live at the property in
question, and I would like to rebut what was said
a little earlier.
We were here 12 months ago and they were very
active communicating with us by phone to come and
support the rezoning 12 months ago, and then this
go around, for them to tell me they were rezoning
my property, so at no point was I involved with be
this application asking me what my opinion was
with my property.
So I object to this.
And I believe that it should be amended and that
we should be able to rezone to the zone that we
would like.
18:36:31 >> My name is Craig denson, 4712 west Pearl.
I never received any letter.
I found out less than a week ago, my rental

property speaking to my neighbor of the rezoning.
I did not know anything at all about this.
And actually, he actually gave me my letter that
was supposed to be sent to me, was actually sent
to him in the same envelope.
And to me, how this is being handled over the last
six, seven months.
Very happy to contact me last year when they
wanted the property but when they decided they
didn't want the property, it was a disgrace how
was handled.
18:37:16 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Mr. Grandoff, if I could ask you a
quick question.
Was there a contract contingent?
Unless you have something else to say.
Thank you, sir.
Mr. Grandoff, I want to make sure I have this in
my head.
There was a contractual relationship contingent on
the rezoning of the property and maybe some other
contingencies I don't know about.
Is that correct?
18:37:41 >>JOHN GRANDOFF:
Correct.
These two properties were under contract last
year.

18:37:43 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Now that you want to revert back,
meaning that you don't need those two pieces of
property, it reverts back directly to them in
terms of ownership and the same zoning that was
therefore prior to your PD application from about
a year ago.
18:38:00 >> One thing.
We never closed.
They have always owned it.
18:38:04 >> Okay.
My point is the contingency -- we are going to get
this zoning and there probably was another
contingency based on other factors.
I don't know --
18:38:15 >>JOHN GRANDOFF:
It would have to be zoned and my
client has the discretion not to buy the property.
These gentlemen were aware of that when they
signed the contract.
They also signed an affidavit for us to handle
this last summer.
They can file an application tomorrow morning to
rezone it from RS-50 -- well, not tomorrow
morning.
It would have to be approved.
18:38:35 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
I understand that.

There comes a force now on something that's a
contractual obligation that was not met for a
different reasons and different conditions, has
nothing to do with the zoning itself.
18:38:47 >> Correct.
18:38:48 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
That's all I wanted to get out
because we can get all confused in this.
They had a relationship with the applicant.
It did not work out because and now they are not
going to buy the property.
They are not happy about it because now they have
an RS-50 zoning as opposed to the PD after the
sale.
18:39:11 >>JOHN GRANDOFF:
And may I say one other thing?
In the event of a catastrophic event, they have a
parking lot.
They don't have a house.
I want to show you one other thing.
A letter sent to Mr. Denson August 7th at his
address according to the property appraiser.
And that's what the property appraiser has.
I tried to reach him.
It was returned to me.
Here is the letter I sent Mr. Buen, August
7th.

Called me yesterday.
We request approval.
18:39:46 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Anyone else wishing to speak on
this item, item 1 and 2?
18:39:51 >> My name is Ralph --
18:39:55 >>FRANK REDDICK:
You have to be sworn. Anyone
else that came in and has not been sworn at this
time?
Please stand.
(Oath administered by Clerk)
18:40:04 >> I own the property --
18:40:11 >> State your full name for the record.
18:40:13 >> Ralph Marcadis. I own property at 5104 south
Westshore right down the street from this
property.
And I am very much in favor of the complex that's
proposed.
I take clients up and down the street all the
time.
And I think it would be a major improvement to the
area to see something built on that property
rather than an empty lot and what's there now.
And I think it would be very good for the property
values.
So I'm very much in favor of it.

And I thank you for your time.
18:40:43 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you.
All right.
Anyone else to speak on item 1 or 2?
18:40:52 >> My name is Carrie Humeston and I represent the
homeowners association for the townhomes.
We are the townhomes that were shown before.
The 30 individual townhomes on the corner of
Westshore Boulevard and Pearl Avenue.
They are two to three stories and you might have
seen them.
The units on the south side of the property
overlook the proposed development and also the
proposed rezoning.
We support the proposed project in our
neighborhood.
The townhomes were built in 2004.
This is after the Westshore Yacht Club and the
land for New Port Tampa.
At the time the development had several condo
developments, mixed use and increased traffic.
Our community was completed before the real estate
market crash.
However many of the projects around were canceled.
The vacant land, that is ATHENA, in the area which

is upsetting and dangerous to our owners.
It's been a long wait to see the development
initiative come back and we would like to see it
not held up.
We believe the proposed project will help
stabilize the area between our neighborhood and
Westshore Yacht Club.
We support the height and size of the proposed
project because it will help create a cohesive
theme on Westshore Boulevard south of Gandy as a
mixed use residential area.
We are grateful for the developers for taking
their time to share their plans with our board and
for City Council's time for us tonight.
18:42:27 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you.
All right.
No, sir, you have had your chance do speak.
We don't let you come back and forth.
Mr. Grandoff, do you have any time remaining on
rebuttal on anything?
18:42:42 >>JOHN GRANDOFF:
That's all I have, Mr. Chairman,
members of council.
I do ask you to do review Mr. Heys report from the
Planning Commission which makes very good findings
and recommending approval based on consistency

with the comprehensive plan.
Thank you very much.
18:42:56 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Need a motion to close.
18:42:57 >> So moved.
18:42:58 >> Second.
18:42:59 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Motion by Mrs. Montelione Lon.
Second by Mr. Miranda.
All in favor of the motion say aye.
Opposed?
Mr. Miranda, would you like to take item number 1?
18:43:06 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Move an ordinance presented
for first reading, an ordinance of the city of
Tampa, Florida relating to an area rezoning the
general location of which is 4714 west Pearl
Avenue in the city of Tampa, Florida from zoning
district classifications PD, planned development,
multifamily residential, to zoning classification
RS-50, residential single-family, providing for
notice, providing an effective date, with all the
revisions that were given to us this evening.
18:43:34 >> Second.
18:43:36 >>FRANK REDDICK:
I have got a motion from Mr.
Miranda.
Second by Mr. Suarez.
Any further questions on the motion?

All those in favor say aye.
Opposed?
All right.
18:43:44 >>THE CLERK:
Motion carried with Cohen being
absent at vote.
Second reading and adoption will be on October
1st at 9:30 a.m.
18:43:51 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Mr. Chairman, a correction for
the clerk.
Mr. Cohen has abstained from that vote.
18:43:56 >> Correction.
Cohen abstaining.
Thank you.
18:44:01 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Mr. Suarez, item 2.
18:44:03 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
I move an ordinance for first
reading consideration, an ordinance of the city of
Tampa, Florida relating to an area rezoning, the
general location of which is 4712 west Pearl
Avenue in the city of Tampa, Florida from zoning
district classification PD planned development,
multifamily residential, to zoning classification
RS-50 residential single-family providing for
notice, providing an effective date.
18:44:25 >> Second.
18:44:28 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Motion by Mr. Suarez.

Seconded by Mr. Miranda.
Any discussion on the motion?
All those in favor of the motion say aye.
Opposed?
All right.
18:44:34 >>THE CLERK:
Motion carried with Cohen
abstaining.
Second reading and adoption will be on October
1st at 9:30 a.m.
18:44:41 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Item number 4.
Item number 4.
Is this part of this?
18:44:55 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Item number 4 --
18:45:01 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Oh, okay.
18:45:02 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Public hearing is closed.
18:45:07 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Oh, okay.
All right.
Mrs. Capin, would you read item number 4?
18:45:12 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I will.
Ordinance being presented for first reading
consideration.
An ordinance rezoning property in the general
vicinity of 5320 South Westshore Boulevard in the
city of Tampa, Florida and more particularly

described in section 1 from zoning district
classifications PD planned development,
residential multifamily, to PD, planned
development, residential multifamily, providing an
effective date, and need a note that per Abbye
Feeley, transportation note, with the addition of
the transportation note on the site plan.
18:45:57 >> Including the original revision sheet, correct?
18:46:06 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
And Tampa revision sheet.
18:46:07 >>MARY SAMANIEGO:
Including the commitment by Mr.
Grandoff to put an 8-foot high PVC fence along the
north property.
18:46:16 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Second.
18:46:18 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
An 8-foot fence on the north part
of the notched-out area.
Oh, along the entire north side.
18:46:31 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Motion from Mrs. Capin.
Second by Mr. Miranda.
Discussion on that motion?
All those in favor of the motion say aye.
Opposed?
All right.
18:46:39 >>THE CLERK:
Motion carried with Cohen
abstaining.
Second reading and adoption will be on October

1st at 9:30 a.m.
18:46:47 >>FRANK REDDICK:
All right.
Item 6.
MARY SAMANIEGO: Item 6 is REZ 15-48, properties
located at 3015 West Azeele Street, 309, 311, 315
South New Jersey Avenue and 310 and 312 South
MacDill Avenue from planned development to planned
development.
18:47:09 >>DAVID HAY:
Planning Commission staff.
I have been sworn.
The next case we move up to the central Tampa
planning district.
Proposed mixed use is in the vicinity of west
MacDill and South MacDill Avenue,
approximately .6-acre subject site is located
within the Palma Ceia neighborhood.
Transit is provided within the area by Hart route
19 connecting the subject site to downtown and
parts of South Tampa.
And the subject site is also located within a
level D evacuation zone.
And the central Tampa planning district is one of
the three targeted growth areas for the City of
Tampa.
The other being the university in the Westshore

planning district.
Onto the aerial.
The subject site is right here in the middle.
We have South MacDill Avenue running north-south.
West Azeele.
There's some medical office uses along this
portion of South MacDill.
There's some light commercial and some office uses
to the south of Azeele.
We have a lawyer's office directly to the east.
There's residential uses located up New Jersey.
And this is the new north star bank.
And then we have the light path building to the
south.
Onto the future land use map.
The subject site has 2001 future land use
designations along the South MacDill portion.
At this time community mixed use 35.
And in the back along south New Jersey Avenue, we
have the residential 20.
The CMU 35, mixed use 35, continues down along
South MacDill.
The properties to the east are all in the
residential 20.
We have to the south is the residential 35.

That brown color.
Planning Commission staff found the proposed
development would be in keeping with the style of
commercial development already along this portion
of South MacDill Avenue, additional residential in
a mixed use fashion along west Azeele street.
The proposed development brings both new
residences and employment opportunity to the
central Tampa planning district to accommodate
significant increase in both job opportunities and
res opportunities during the arrival of the comp
plan.
The proposed development would be comparable and
compatible to the existing development patterns in
this portion of the City of Tampa.
Therefore, based on the findings and the goals and
objectives and policies of the comprehensive plan,
Planning Commission staff finds the rezoning
request consistent with the Tampa comprehensive
plan.
18:50:07 >>MARY SAMANIEGO:
Thank you, David.
Land Development Coordination.
Here is another aerial of the property.
I won't go through it since Dave just did.
This is the subject property.

New Jersey, Azeele, MacDill.
Here is the subject property zoning map.
This is the existing planned development that's
really being amended tonight.
This is a separate planned development that was
approved several years ago for medical office.
This area is being added to the original planned
development that was approved last year.
Up and down MacDill is PD zoning.
Over here RO 1.
Another office to the east.
And then the single-family residential along New
Jersey to the north.
Here is a shot of the subject property from
Azeele.
You can see the original development was for a
medical office which is almost complete
construction as well as detached single-family
residence which they are just finishing up now.
Here is a shot on the other end of the property
from MacDill looking in.
Again here is a medical office which is almost
complete.
This will be the driveway and the new addition and
the new building will be in this area.

Here is the medical office under construction.
The subject property again.
The vacant area which will house the residential
building.
This is our Pearl Avenue, the attached
single-family house that was part of the original
PD, been under construction.
This is directly to the west on Azeele.
This is the property right here.
Small office.
Going up around the corner going north on
MacDill now, a small retail use.
A second small retail use continuing north.
I'll back up.
One retail use.
Another car repair use on MacDill.
When you cross MacDill from more retail
commercial uses, a bank.
Another bank.
This is on the corner of MacDill and Azeele.
Here is a gas station that's catty-corner.
Right here.
Now going along the south side of Azeele.
This is north star bank.
It was recently approved by this City Council.

The medical offices.
Another office.
Here are some detached single-family residences on
New Jersey across the street from the existing
house under construction.
And then two more single-family houses on New
Jersey.
Here is the proposed site plan.
This is part of the original previously-approved
rezoning REZ 14-57.
Only this area is being added to the overall PD.
The proposal is to allow storefront residential.
What that means is there will be one on the first
floor, there will be retail uses, and then a
second and third floor there will be residential
uses for a total of four residential.
On the than that the majority of the site, there
will be driveway access off of Azeele and the two
parking lots will be connected for the driveways.
Previously approved REZ 14-57 was carried forward
with this new planned development.
There are 2014 new waivers for consideration with
the new building.
There is RM 27-285 to reduce the required
multifamily space from 1400 square feet to 1,046

square feet subject to in lieu permit at time of
permitting as well as the reduction in reduced
space to 16% of those subjects through landscaping
in lieu of pavement.
This proposal was reviewed before the Development
Review Committee.
Only Land Development Coordination has a couple of
modifications requested between first and second
reading.
One is just to clean up the waivers to add some
dimensions on the site plan, and to also slightly
one of the parking spaces.
So if those changes are made between first and
second reading the planning staff found it
consistent with the City of Tampa Land Development
Code.
Do you have any questions for me at this time?
18:55:07 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Questions by council?
Petitioner?
Have you been sworn in?
18:55:18 >> I have not.
18:55:21 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Anyone who came in and has not
been sworn in, please stand to be sworn in.
(Oath administered by Clerk)
I do.

Good morning.
Excuse me, good evening.
Jeremy couch with Tampa Civil Design.
I'm joined tonight by Mr. Ron Scaglione of South
Tampa RE 1-2-3 and his father Basil Scaglione who
is working his way up the elevator.
I just want to give you a quick history of this
application, where we are, and what we are asking
for tonight.
We were here last year to take this older
commercial property and redevelop it into the
two-story medical office building that you saw in
the picture that's almost completed, and the
single-family town structure that we have over
here.
Tonight's request is to incorporate this parcel,
which is southeast of the project that will be
connected to the project, shared parking with the
project and hopefully be a good addition to Azeele
street.
Elevations of the proposed structure will look as
such.
This will be the east elevation that will be seen
from New Jersey.
West elevation that will be seen from MacDill

and approaching New Jersey along Azeele.
And the south elevation that you can see from
Azeele.
As Ms. Samaniego said there will be a storefront.
The request is storefront residential.
Some nice retail space below, office 2100 square
feet along with two sets of two apartments on the
second and third floor.
We have worked with staff.
Staff has conditionally approved our request.
And I'm here if you have any questions about the
next phase of our project.
Thank you.
18:58:01 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Any questions from council?
Mr. Suarez.
18:58:02 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Sir, that outparcel, why was that
not originally rezoned with the original PD?
18:58:13 >> It was not acquired at that time, yes, sir.
It was previously zoned -- it was previously zoned
PD.
18:58:21 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
I can see that on the staff
report.
So was the plan to try to get that parcel?
18:58:29 >> That was the plan.
We initially tried that.

It didn't work out till after we started
construction.
Then it was able to be acquired.
That's why we came back.
I also have letters of support from a lot of the
surrounding neighbors.
18:58:42 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
If you could give that to our
attorney.
Thank you, that was the only question I had.
Thank you, chair.
18:58:49 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Any other questions by council?
Anyone in the public wish to be speak on item
number 6?
Anyone in the public to wishes to speak on item
number 6?
18:58:57 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Move to close.
18:58:58 >> Second.
18:59:00 >>FRANK REDDICK:
I have a motion from Mr. Miranda.
Seconded by Ms. Capin to close the public hearing.
All in favor say aye.
Opposed?
Mr. Cohen, would you read number 6?
18:59:10 >>HARRY COHEN:
Thank you very much.
I move an ordinance being presented for first
reading consideration, an ordinance rezoning

property in the general vicinity of 3015 west
Azeele street, 310 and 312 South MacDill Avenue
and 309, 311 and 315 south New Jersey Avenue in
the city of Tampa, Florida and more particularly
described in section 1 from zoning district
classifications PD, planned development, office,
medical, commercial general uses, residential,
single-family detached, to PD, planned
development, office, medical, commercial general
uses, residential, single-family detached, and
storefront residential, providing an effective
date.
18:59:47 >> Second.
18:59:49 >>FRANK REDDICK:
I have a motion from Mr. Cohen,
seconded by Mr. Suarez.
Discussion on the motion?
All those in favor of the motion say aye.
Opposed?
All right.
18:59:56 >>THE CLERK:
Motion carried with Montelione being
absent at vote.
Second reading and adoption will be on October
1st at 9:30 a.m.
19:00:04 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you.
Item number 7.

19:00:05 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
Land Development Coordination.
Item number 7 on your agenda this evening is REZ
15-4 located at 3801 west Obispo street, and the
request before you tonight is from an RS-60
residential single-family to PD planned
development, office, business and professional,
specialty retail, and/or storefront residential
with specialty retail and office, business and
professional.
19:00:37 >>DAVID HAY:
Planning Commission staff.
I have been sworn.
We move down to the South Tampa planning district
for this next case.
It's a .18-acre subject at the northwest corner of
South Dale Mabry Highway and west Obispo street,
E.it is located within the Virginia park
neighborhood.
It located adjacent to South Dale Mabry Highway,
so it's a transit emphasis corridor.
There's three transit routes on that portion of
Dale Mabry, and it's also within the South Tampa
flex service area.
Onto the aerial.
The subject site is right here.
We have south Dale Mabry running north-south.

West Obispo street to the south.
There are a strip shopping plaza directly to the
south.
And then this portion of Dale Mabry is mostly
office uses, with the more intensive commercial
uses located further south on Dale Mabry.
Again, this is part of the Virginia park
neighborhood.
So mostly all, if not all, the residential that
you see is also single-family detached
residential.
Onto the future land use map.
You can see that pattern better.
The residential 20 is this brown color right along
this portion of Dale Mabry.
We have some CMU 35 further to the south where the
more intensive commercial typically is found.
And then we have the residential 10 for the
single-family detached.
This portion of south Dale Mabry highway, due to
the shallow lot depth and other reasons,
developing more than a traditional office corridor
with some very limited retail opportunity.
The conversion of an existing residential unit for
business professional office is specialty retail

use in keeping with that development trend.
The residential 20 land use category does allow
for consideration of nonresidential uses in
compliance with the commercial location criteria
as called for under the criteria the subject site
is located adjacent to an arterial which is South
Dale Mabry Highway.
Vehicular access proposed along west Obispo
street.
The access is directly across from the planned
development strip shopping center directly to the
south.
That does contain retail, office and medical
office uses.
Planning Commission staff finds the request is
consistent with the principles outlined within the
commercial locational criteria, and with the
overall development pattern envisioned under that
residential 20 future land use category.
Therefore, based on those findings and the goals,
objectives and policy of the comprehensive plan,
Planning Commission staff finds the rezoning
request consistent with the Tampa comprehensive
plan.
19:03:49 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you.

19:03:51 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
Thanks, David.
The request before you tonight is from an RS-60
residential single-family to PD planned
development, office, business, professional,
specialty retail, and/or storefront residential.
Council, this would be a very familiar segment of
south Dale Mabry for you.
Over the past three months you have had a number
of rezonings including the property directly to
the east across the street and the property
directly to the north of that.
I'm sorry, to the northeast one lot and then the
one to the north of that.
So those two are now PDs as reflected on the
zoning atlas.
The property we are talking about this evening is
Obispo to the south, Dale Mabry to the east.
As David pointed out to you, there is some mixed
strip commercial just to the south, and
sprinklings of business professional offices, both
converted single-family residential to those
offices, as well as new construction, which I
believe you have heard most recently last month
was a one-story over parking right up at the next
intersection.

What's being requested of you tonight is a 3,000
square foot structure.
This is the subject property from Obispo looking
north.
This is another picture of the subject, two-strip
commercial directly to the south of the property.
This is the vacant RO 1.
That's to the north.
So this would be a residential office zoning
category that would allow for lower intensity
office development.
This is RO 1 also and is currently an office.
That was a single-family residential conversion
years ago.
On the east side of Dale Mabry.
Some of these are a little bit dark.
This is directly across from residential.
This is a PD to the southeast.
Most recently, I remember there was a bridal store
there, I think, wedding gowns.
This property here is one of the PDs you did two
months ago.
This was going to get an addition and become an
office.
With ingress on San Pedro and egress on Dale

Mabry.
This is the one that was recently done last month.
I think that is 3110 south Dale Mabry.
That was for a 35-foot maximizing the F.A.R.
office over structured parking.
On the south side of Obispo now headed west to
Church, it's all single-family residential.
This is directly behind the strip commercial.
From the south side all the way to Church and then
come back.
This is all the south side.
Of Obispo headed west towards Church.
Now the north side of Obispo, because this is
directly to the west of the subject, now headed
west towards Church.
One of the main issues that you have been facing
in each of the rezonings that you have seen before
is the access that FDOT allows onto Dale Mabry
Highway.
This project before you tonight, same thing.
This is directly south.
It's that strip commercial.
The property before you tonight also was denied
access onto Dale Mabry.
D.O.T. indicated they needed 125 feet from the

intersection to the driveway in order for them to
be allowed to have an access, and that could not
be achieved.
So the access being requested tonight is on
Obispo.
It is a full access.
The project being proposed has 3,000 square feet.
It is residential in character.
It does have the transparency along south Dale
Mabry for the mixed use corridor.
The setbacks proposed tonight are north 5-foot
adjacent to the vacant RO, south 40 feet, west 3
feet, and east 4 feet along south Dale Mabry.
That eastern setback does require a special
setback reduction that is one of the waivers.
There are two waivers before you tonight with this
application.
The first is to reduce the required use to use
buffer along the north from 15-foot with the
current 6-foot concrete masonry wall to 6-foot
with a 6-foot PVC fence.
There is a large tree you will see on your site
plan being preserved in that area, so that is part
of the reason for the utilization of the 6-foot
PVC fence, a 32-inch oak that's located there and

being preserved.
The second part of that waiver request is on the
west from 15-foot with a 6-foot PVC fence to
2-foot with a 6-foot PVC fence.
The maximum building height is proposed at 35
feet.
Based on potential occupancy of the 3,000, the
maximum number of parking spaces required would be
nine, and nine parking spaces are being provided.
The site plan shows an optional 4-foot high
transparent decorative fence along south Dale
Mabry and west Obispo.
What they are asking for is to be able to
potentially change out the uses.
Specialty retail by definition does not allow for
more than 2,000 square feet.
So if specialty retail goes into this space the
remaining 1,000 square feet would either have to
be office or could potentially be a residential
unit above the retail on the ground floor.
So no matter what the configuration within the
3,000, the maximum number of spaces required are
nine, and nine are being provided, so no parking
waiver is being requested.
There are a few corrections being requested.

The first is to correct the site plan to
accurately show those uses and the potential
configuration for those uses as I just described,
and also to correct the maximum building height to
be 35 feet.
The second correction from natural resources is
that the proposed trees should have a minimum of
6-foot pervious radius.
The one palm tree that's shown on the site plan,
12-inch palm in the front, that either needs to be
relocated or it needs to be removed and then taken
into account in the replacement.
I did speak to the applicant.
They were going to transplant that palm.
They are easy to transplant.
And then the last thing was that they needed
pervious material in the parking spaces on the
south and west for the proposed trees.
So they just need to label that as pervious, and
then take care of the tree.
All the modifications have been provided in the
revision sheet.
And if those changes are made, staff did find the
request consistent.
Thank you.

19:11:53 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Any questions from council?
19:11:54 >>HARRY COHEN:
A few years ago, Ms. Feeley, we
did a rezoning on Santiago of a similar type of
parcel.
And if I remember correctly, there was also the
issue of not being able to get any ingress or
egress on Dale Mabry.
Is that correct?
At that time, and it was a pretty lengthy hearing.
We restricted the entire use of the PD to
specialty retail, and we were very specific about
what the uses were able to be.
What's being asked for here is a much broader
range of uses than what we approved on that one,
isn't it?
19:12:39 >> No, the specialty retail is the same.
And business professional office is the only other
allowable use.
19:12:47 >>HARRY COHEN:
So all of the same restrictions
that we went through the litany of discovering
when we did the Santiago one applied to this one
as well.
The type of retail that can go there.
Here you have an additional 1,000 feet that can be
professional office space or residential.

You didn't have that on the last one.
19:13:09 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
Correct.
Correct.
19:13:11 >>HARRY COHEN:
It seems to me the one we did up
on Santiago was more than 2,000 feet.
19:13:19 >> It was two tenant spaces and they could be
2,000 square feet apiece.
So it was a total of 4,000.
19:13:26 >>HARRY COHEN:
Thank you.
That's all.
19:13:30 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Questions by council?
19:13:32 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
Do you think the maximum restricts
what it could be used for in the future?
Did we not list --
19:13:44 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
We had numerous discussions and
they ranged from things such as a sub shop or head
shop to a lot of things, and what exactly
specialty retail was.
That was a very long hearing.
(Laughter).
And specialty retail is restricted in itself by
definition.
I can read you that definition, but at that time,
Julie Mandell was the rezoning attorney and she
was very hesitant as to putting, you know,

excluding head shop, excluding -- she was
confident that the specialty retail definition
took care of that.
This could not be a convenience store.
It could not be shoppers goods, regular things.
It does have to be specialty retail.
The other option that could play out is a
specialty retail was not executed, this could be
2,000 of professional office which it would still
meet all the parking.
We run the different scenarios, and they cannot
trip any sort of parking waivers.
They are not asking you for that waiver tonight.
19:14:51 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
Thank you.
I just wanted to hear it put on the record.
Thank you.
19:14:54 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
You know, Ms. Feeley, I think this
is probably the fifth one that we have done in
this area in the last four years.
I may be wrong.
Maybe six, five or six.
19:15:06 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
I think it's five.
19:15:09 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
It's number five.
And I ask the same question which you brought up
anyway about the ingress and E agrees from Dale

Mabry now I ask another question because I asked
this at each one of these hearings.
Do you know why D.O.T. stopped allowing any kind
of ingress and egress off of Dale Mabry?
Because obviously at some point they used to allow
that on a lot of these strip malls that are down.
There was there a rule change at any time in the
past? Is there something different?
I see Mr. Scott and he might know.
And I apologize, Mr. Scott.
I didn't see you before.
If you don't mind, maybe you have a little bit of
history.
This is the letter that they sent now, right?
19:15:54 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
Well, this is in relation to this
one, and I just wanted to -- I don't have site 17
because Mary Samaniego -- I adore her.
The property is only 100 deep, and why FDOT was
saying was from the intersection here you needed
125 per their standards to qualify for that
driveway.
19:16:18 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
I understand.
But the question I have, because we have had
various sizes of lots and rezoning those five
lots.

So, you know, to me I'm not sure that FDOT has any
other concern that we just don't want to do this
anymore.
And I think that's the essence of it, that at some
point they used to allow that for relatively
smaller -- not smaller, but about the same size,
to allow ingress and egress before.
Now, years ago, probably 60, 370, maybe early
80s.
And I just wonder why that has changed.
Maybe Mr. Scott knows the answer to that.
19:16:57 >> Jonathan Scott, transportation planning.
I don't know about the past but I know now they
are kind of stricter.
It might have been so far back where the traffic
volumes were less and so forth.
They might have had different numbers.
They might note have the restrictions they have
today.
That's all I can think of.
19:17:24 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
I find it very interesting the
cars got smaller but the restrictions got worse,
you know, now, because -- I'm not sure why the
purpose behind this, the restriction to begin
with, that he would don't allow some folks to be

able to do this.
And it doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense
especially on that stretch of road from Dale
Mabry, because there's plenty of other places that
has stops.
It's not going to create too much of a flow issue
in my mind.
But again I only play a civil engineer on TV.
I'm not a professional like you are.
Thank you, Mr. Scott.
Thank you, chair.
19:17:59 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Petitioner?
19:18:00 >> Dick La Rosa, La Rosa Civil Design representing
petitioner.
I have been sworn.
I do have copies of the handouts that I was going
to present.
I will gladly pass them out.
We have worked with staff and Mr. Cohen.
The Santiago project is very similar.
We did in fact have specialty retail and office in
that request.
The only addition here is perhaps a single-family
component storefront, which may or may not go
upstairs.

Really what we learned in the initial one is once
we lose the entitlement for single-family it goes
away.
That's the only difference here.
Specialty retail is still the same.
Initially, on the Santiago project our intent was
to have David Alexander store and smarty pants
which was a specialty retail component.
That project tended to one story.
Now we need to find a home for smarty pants.
So this is the retail component here.
I will go through the site plan itself.
The site is currently developed as single-family.
Let me go ahead and go to the Elmo here.
We do meet the parking requirements.
Nine parking spaces.
We are asking for a waiver to the setback and
buffer to the side.
There is a large oak tree here which the building
has been adjusted to accommodate that.
So we have taken a notch of the building here.
We do have a little bit of encroachment on the
west.
That's the setback and buffer waiver.
Granted, there currently is single-family

residence possibly in the middle.
There's a detached garage write lies about 6 feet
off the west property line.
So we are coming a little closer to the west
property line.
A couple feet with our request.
Single-family residence like I say is in the
middle here.
That will be demolished.
This is the site plan itself from Obispo because
of the D.O.T. denial.
And I agree with you, Mr. Suarez, I would love to
have access to Dale Mabry.
But D.O.T. would not permit.
We designed the building, if you go to the second
sheet that I provided you, this is the north
elevation.
This is what you will see from Obispo.
We designed the building to be residential in
nature.
We have trade to keep it pleasing to match the
neighborhood itself.
The third page here, the east elevation is what
you will see from Dale Mabry.
Again, residential in nature.

We do have access to sidewalks.
They are preserving the tree.
And than sheet is the west elevation.
This elevation here, the west elevation, we will
have a fence in front of that, but we don't
propose any windows on the second floor right now
for privacy to the neighbor.
If it pleases council, we would put faux windows
to keep it residential in nature.
We definitely want to work with the neighbor in
this particular aspect.
That's the west elevation looking from the
adjacent property.
And the final elevation here would be looking from
the north which I believe is commercially zoned
parcel itself.
Again, all residential in nature.
We meet the parking requirement.
We have worked with staff on this project.
It's going to be very similar right now that's a
fabulous project.
We request your approval.
If you have any questions.
19:21:38 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Mr. Cohen.
19:21:38 >>HARRY COHEN:
One of the waivers you are asking

for is to the west, which I guess means you are
going to be getting closer to the residential
property that's immediately adjacent.
19:21:48 >> Correct.
19:21:49 >>HARRY COHEN:
Why are you asking for that
waiver?
19:21:53 >> Well, the main reason, there's a 32-inch oak.
We had to carve a niche out of the tree.
There is an attached garage which is 6 feet from
the property line.
Than the waiver says 3 feet.
The building is actually placed four feet.
Granted we put a little -- we are coming -- it's
to preserve that one tree and also give us the
distance from D.O.T.
We are trying to balance the two because we do
have a requirement for separation from the center
line of Dale Mabry.
We are asking for a waiver from that as well so we
are kind of caught in the middle here.
19:22:25 >>HARRY COHEN:
Well, you could make it a little
smaller and not have to ask for the waiver from
the residential immediately to the west.
19:22:32 >> If waiver to residential, if you read
commercial, 15 feet would be.

So we are going to have to request a waiver unless
the building -- because we are commercial, the
residential is a 15-foot buffer.
And granted right now, one of the waivers for the
overhang which is going to be 20 feet up in the
air or even more up in the air.
So the building itself is a couple feet closers
than the garage right now but it's two feet closer
than what's currently existing.
There is a dilapidated garage which I think is
partially constructed.
I don't know if I answered your question or not.
19:23:20 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Any other comments from council?
All right.
Anything else?
Petitioner?
Anything?
19:23:29 >> No.
If you have any questions I will be happy to.
19:23:32 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
I'm sorry.
So the 6.14 I think is what's on the site plan, on
the north.
19:23:44 >> Yes, the north is --
19:23:46 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
And that's where the 15-foot
would be required?

6.14 for only maybe half, and then 10 feet for the
rest of the property.
19:24:02 >> Correct, that's on the north.
For the oak tree.
19:24:07 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
So the 15-foot setback is the
10-foot for most of it and then 6-foot for the
rest.
19:24:16 >> Correct, a long the north.
19:24:18 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
You are saying that it's the
overhang that creates that 6.14?
19:24:22 >> No, the 4.14 is to the face of the building.
19:24:27 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
And then there's an
addition --
19:24:31 >> There is an overhang, correct.
That's closer but again would be 20, you know, 20
or so feet in the air.
And then things of that nature took --
19:24:42 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Because when you said that, it
was a little bit --
19:24:45 >> Yeah, definitely -- no, we'll definitely
collect gutters and downspouts.
We won't have any adverse impacts, you know, from
the encroach empties.
We are proposing a fence.
Whatever buffer we need to do, we'll gladly do.

We definitely want to buffer to the adjacent
property.
19:25:00 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Well, the buffer would be 15
feet.
19:25:03 >> Part of the -- screens.
Yes.
19:25:10 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
All of our setbacks include and
allow 37-foot for the projections of the eaves and
gutters.
Every setback in the city allows for that.
19:25:20 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
But 15 feet, if they were
meeting the 15-foot setback and has the 3-foot
overhang, it wouldn't be a big deal but they are
not meeting the 15 feet.
19:25:30 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
If I may on the north they are
buffering to a vacant property.
I always do worst case scenario.
If an office went in there under the RL they
wouldn't be required the 15-foot buffer.
I think what Mr. Cohen was speaking to was the
buffer on the west, adjacent to the single-family
residential, not the one on the north.
19:25:47 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
That's only 46 feet.
19:25:54 >> Yeah, we are kind of caught between two buffer
requirements.

There's one for the residential, one for Dale
Mabry Highway.
We have to ask waivers from both.
The property would narrow down to about -- I don't
know the math in my head right now but about
20-foot buildable area we applied those buffers so
we are here to ask relief for those.
19:26:13 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
4 feet is a little close.
19:26:15 >> If we need to shift the building east and
increase the waiver from Dale Mabry, I think we
could certainly accommodate that.
19:26:23 >>HARRY COHEN:
After what Abbye said now, you are
really a foot from there, from their property,
theoretically, on the west.
Excuse me, from their property on the west.
And I think in fairness, these have been very
difficult hearings when we are dealing with Dale
Mabry, as you know, and there's been a lot of
discussion about sort of what it is that we are
going to allow.
But I think that also to ask for relief from the
setbacks to the west side -- I mean, I could care
less how close you are to Dale Mabry, as opposed
to a house to the west.
To me, that to me is a real sticking point.

But I'm sure everyone wants to hear from the
public.
19:27:12 >> Well, certainly.
And I would propose this, and I would ask Abbye
this.
We could certainly shift the building east.
We could take the gutter, the overhang off that
side, but the setback at 6-foot where it currently
is for the garage and putting -- and we would be
able to work -- that would work perfectly.
We would have to increase the setbacks to Dale
Mabry.
The waiver to that.
But we could certainly move our building to where
the existing garage is, remove the gutter
downspouts.
We have no more encroachments.
19:27:43 >>HARRY COHEN:
Well, is the existing garage
encroaching into what would be a reasonable
setback, on residential?
19:27:52 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
Residential, detached accessory to
the garage can be at 3-foot and it can be 15 feet
in height.
I evaluated part of this application based on that
buffer waiver because there were a number of

things going on.
It was -- there was going to be runoff.
I would rather have the eve and the gutter and
avoid any sort of stormwater runoff into the
residential property by allowing for the eaves to
do that.
It was more of a balancing act getting all of
these things together, and also making sure we met
all the parking.
They didn't want to come -- they would rather come
with a little bit of a setback waiver instead of
parking waiver because of everything going on, and
it being so active on the -- proactive on the
residential street.
If we could hear from be the public, we can talk
about adjustments, and more than happy to -- but I
would hate to see that eaves go because of all the
stormwater issues.
We have been trying to be very sensitive to that
and making sure that there's adequate ability to
provide that and for them to take care of what
they need to on their property.
19:28:52 >>HARRY COHEN:
My view is let's hear from the
public and then --
19:28:57 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Before we hear from the

public, and maybe the public wants to take this
into consideration.
Are you willing to shift the building closer to
Dale Mabry, increase the waiver request to Dale
Mabry, but I also would like to see the eaves and
gutters remain.
And if you shift the building closer to Dale
Mabry, the eaves and gutters may not be such a
problem or such an encroachment now on the west,
all things moving forward.
19:29:27 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
Part of what we already
considered from a staff perspective is it requires
a 6-foot masonry wall at zero.
That elevation of the building behind the PVC
fence is providing a buffer and protection that
the 6-foot wall as required by code would have
been providing.
So it was a little bit of give and take on both of
those to get to that.
Yes, I know it's in the 15-foot buffer, but what
code would require is a 6 foot wall at zero and
then the 15-foot buffer.
So you are getting opacity.
You are getting a buffer to the residential.
So it's a little bit of both.

We have some wiggle room.
19:30:09 >>FRANK REDDICK:
All right, anyone from the public
like to speak on item number 7?
Anyone from the public like to speak on item
number 7?
19:30:15 >> My name is Janine Dorsey.
19:30:20 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
I live directly west of this
property.
I do not want them four feet right on top of me.
There has been unprecedented flooding at that
intersection recently.
We had flood damage to our home because of
standing water in the immediate area.
We have lived there 13 years, and we have never
had flood damage in our home.
I think that adding a paved parking area and the
larger building on that lot is only going to
increase this problem to my property.
Since that house has been purchased, several large
trees have been removed.
I don't understand why now there is concern over
preserving one.
There was an oak tree immediately on the property
line between that house and our house, which is
now gone.

So I'm not sure why all of a sudden we have
concern about those trees.
And regarding the waiver on the wall, I want the
full wall, if this project is approved, I don't
want any vinyl fencing.
As a matter of fact, the applicant drafted a
letter addressed to the land development office on
my behalf.
He wrote this letter and filled it out as if it
was me and said, we don't object to the land use
change and we are okay with a 6-foot vinyl fence,
and he instructed me to sign this letter and
submit it.
Waiving my right to a masonry wall.
Why was that done, I have no idea.
I mean, this whole project really rubs me the
wrong way.
I have to live next door there.
And I don't want a property four feet from my
home.
Regarding the ingress and egress, the plaza that
is on south Dale Mabry, they have access to Dale
Mabry, and we still have high traffic and
parking -- people park in front of my home, even
though they have parking for the project.

They have access to Dale Mabry.
So you're saying this property wants, you know, to
be coming in and out on Obispo?
That's going to be even more parking in front of
my home, and people coming back and forth past
little children who live on that street.
So whether it's planned development or not, it
can't be that close to my house.
And I hope that you consider flooding with regards
to parking.
Thank you.
19:33:07 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Let me ask you a question,
Mrs. Dorsey.
We had this question about PVC and concrete block
wall all the time.
Can you tell me why you prefer concrete block over
PVC?
19:33:23 >> Well, for the sound buffer, for one thing.
I think it's a more substantial buffer for my
home.
I mean, we have so much noise from Dale Mabry as
it is: Because as my experience -- I shouldn't
say my experience.
Generally speaking, concrete block is harder to
keep, it's painted, the paint wears off, and it's

just more unsightly over time than PVC, just is a
cleaner look.
So I was just wondering why it was your preference
of concrete block and not PVC.
19:34:07 >> Well, I would want it down as far as it will go
whatever the law allows.
The full length of the property.
What he was proposing was what the existing fence
is, which is a more neighborly placement of the
fence.
And I'm not -- it's not neighborly.
It's not a neighborhood home anymore.
I'm done with that.
19:34:32 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
You do understand about Dale
Mabry and the entrance there.
We can't do anything --
19:34:37 >> I understand that.
And I'm following that discussion.
But what I'm saying is the plaza has that access
on Dale Mabry and still we have people parked on
the residential street and go back and forth.
19:34:48 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Thank you very much.
Are? Anyone else?
19:34:52 >> Terri Rock, 3910 west Obispo street.
I have been there 40 years.

And I was going to say, one of the major problems
that we already have is the people that are in the
plaza that's on the south side.
We have had to deal with the side of the complex.
The garbage cans are knocked over by whatever.
Who knows?
But it's not over so we are dealing with the trash
as we are driving in and out of our neighborhoods.
The flooding has become a very serious issue, as
bigger houses are allowed to be built in the area.
You know, this is going to be a huge monstrosity
that's going to be at the end of the street.
So now you are asking a lot more water to be able
to come onto the streets.
During the recent rains, we had for the first time
in 40 years the water actually went over our
sidewalk, and I'm a block down.
So, you know, there's a problem that's coming down
the road with all this overgrowth that's
happening.
Getting into our neighborhood.
The people don't park in the plaza.
They park on Obispo.
I couldn't figure out -- I saw the people getting
out of their cars, and walking over to the plaza

or whatever it is because they don't want to fight
Dale Mabry to come in and out.
So, you know, all these things added up.
It's not something that the neighborhood really
wants to have happen.
And if it continues to encroach into our
neighborhood, the businesses are coming into our
neighborhood.
You know, we lose that neighborhood feel that we
have, and in the blocks that we are talking about,
there is probably nine children in that one block,
you know.
So we have already increased traffic flow, just
because of so many cars that people have nowadays,
but now we also are going to have, you know, where
cars are trying to either come in or go out of
this plaza.
It just doesn't make sense, you know.
So we are not for it.
Thank you.
19:37:17 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Anyone else?
19:37:17 >> Ryan Watts.
I actually just built --
19:37:25 >> Have you been sworn?
19:37:28 >> I have not, sir.

19:37:29 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Anyone else planning on speaking,
have you been sworn?
(Oath administered by Clerk)
19:37:44 >> Ryan Watts, one block southeast of there, just
constructed and moved in a few months ago.
When we purchased that lot in December, most of
that area just north, south of Bay to Bay and
Jetton, which is where I live, 3723, was RO.
Between plant high school nine blocks north of
there and us, 59% were zoned residential.
Knowing that it was still a good chunk of
residential for resell down the road, but as
stated you could buy, I think, in the last six
months rezone to PD, and the more it gets rezoned
the more it comes to commercial taking down the
residents property values.
On Bay to Bay, I live at the intersection of Dale
Mabry and Jetton.
The water, because my concrete wall had been built
along Dale Mabry, stopped the water flow coming to
the side of my house but there was enough of the
water driving down to be go over the wall into my
backyard.
The water in front of the house actually went from
the corner of the intersection beyond the

sidewalks around the wall, and that's how much
water is coming from the parking lot there, nine
feet or nine parking spots, more concrete doesn't
absorb.
You already have flooding issues, I guess.
Obviously soil, concrete doesn't.
The more they build the more water it floods.
The more it affects the property values.
I am opposed to it building more and more
encroachment in our neighborhood.
Thank you.
19:39:24 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you.
Next person.
19:39:27 >> Fred Rock, president at 3910 west Obispo.
The I need to first compliment the planners on
this particular project, because the building,
it's a fantastic looking piece of art.
However, everything that's golden, everything that
appears to be golden, everything that glitters is
not golden.
And when we look at how narrow this street called
Obispo street is.
And we are trying to egress into Dale Mabry
ourselves.
We are about to make this even worse of a

challenge, not just to Obispo going onto Dale
Mabry but now people off of Dale Mabry having to
slow down to allow the traffic to pull into
Obispo, to turn into this proposed building.
When you talk about putting a two-foot wall, you
start having to pull your car out in order to look
around to be see if it's safe to enter into the
road, that's another whole issue.
I have lived in this home for approximately 15
years or so.
And I just read the nine or ten children that live
in our neighborhood that one of may be hit by one
of our drivers who isn't paying attention because
the roads have been cluttered with automobiles,
and we are at the point right now where we can fix
that by not allowing something that's just so
dense with a population of more automobile
traffic.
Obviously, I have not in favor of this.
And I appreciate your time this evening.
Thank you.
19:41:11 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you.
Anyone else wish to speak on item number 7?
All right, petitioner.
19:41:17 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Before he speaks, can I ask

Mary Daniel Bryson all the way there in the back
if I could ask her about the tree issue that was
brought up by one of the residents?
There are trees, while she's making her way up
there, on the site plan.
I do see the protected one the petitioner talked
about on the north side, but it appears that there
was some tree removal already possibly on the west
side?
So I'm wondering about that.
And I'm also wondering -- this may not come into
play, with the concrete block versus the PVC
fence.
Sometimes we change from block to PVC because of
the trees.
The tree roots, and that the PVC can be lifted up
a little bit higher and not affect the trees.
19:42:25 >> Correct.
Mary Daniel Bryson, natural resources.
I have been sworn.
I did not do the initial site inspection on this.
However, in looking at the aerial photo and in
looking at the site plan, the survey that was
provided that did correspond, I am not privy to
whether or not there were permits pulled for the

other trees.
But the survey that was provided that shows the
trees on-site, over here is a 32-inch.
Here this is a 32-inch.
I would have to research the records to find out
if any additional tree removal other than what was
shown.
19:43:24 >> So I guess if this goes forward between first
and second reading I would like to know if there
was any tree removal that was done, and if there
were permits pulled or not.
19:43:34 >> Sure.
19:43:35 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
And the concrete block versus
PVC?
19:43:40 >> It's preferable that PVC is used because you
can manipulate that around the roots a lot easier
than a block wall.
Block wall you have to have a footer, and then the
Lentil to carry the load and it's a lot more
difficult to work that around the tree as opposed
to PVC fence.
So PVC is preferred.
19:44:02 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Thank you.
The only other observation -- I don't think this
is in your bailiwick, but as far as the runoff and

the flooding from the parking lot and impervious
surface, is it possible to use a material that the
water would still be able to permeate?
19:44:24 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
Land Development Coordination.
Stormwater typically only gives a 30% credit for
the use of pervious concrete or pavers.
So code requires that they are going to retain
anything that they are offsetting on their
property.
19:44:41 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Understood, but anytime that
we can have pervious surface instead of impervious
surface on a lot I am going to encourage our
buildings to go to the new materials that are
available on the market.
19:44:54 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
Given that there is not a solid
waste truck that is going to be on this property
and that they are going to use carts just like
residential in nature, I would say that they could
elect to use a pervious.
They'll get 30%.
But in addition to that, they are going to have to
retain on-site everything that --
19:45:15 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Understood.
All right.
Thank you very much.

19:45:17 >>HARRY COHEN:
So in that line of questioning, I
see stormwater that's consistent.
I am looking at the site plan.
Can you show me what it is they are planning to do
to capture the water on the site plan?
19:45:34 >> At this point they are committing to meet code.
They can speak to that.
They are either going to use under the parking
area, they are going to use chambers or some sort
of retention, or swales of some sort on the
property.
So they can speak to that.
And they have commitments to have to meet code at
the time that they permit for construction.
19:45:55 >> I would just like to add that they are required
to plant trees.
And trees intercept water and help with
stormwater, and the infiltration of the roots in
the soil also provide stormwater relief.
19:46:15 >> Thank you, Mary.
19:46:20 >> Dick La Rosa, La Rosa civil design.
To address your concerns, we did have an arborist
go out and see the site prior to the development.
Mr. Reilly was out there.
Did inspect the trees.

Any trees that were removed were removed with
permits.
Just to address that.
We will agree to do a wall, along the west
property line, if that is the preference.
We wanted to keep the PVC to be more residential
in nature.
However, we want to be neighborly.
We want to be neighborly in this particular case
of the.
We will agree to the wall.
If the setback is an issue, right now we have it
set at 4 for the structure itself.
We will gladly increase that to 6.
As it relates to stormwater, we are going to meet
code as required.
We definitely agree tonight to do pervious
concrete which will help exacerbate any additional
situations.
We definitely want this project to move forward.
We want to be do it in a neighborly manner.
As for the parking issue, I think we should
recognize there are is professional office,
specialty retail.
Specialty retail parking is 1.1 per thousand.

It's not like the retail across the street which
is your general retail coffee shop.
Specialty retail is very limited.
On Santiago, I have been there several times.
I have not been there once when the parking lot
has been full.
The peak hours for this type of use is very
limited.
You are not going to see the traffic here the same
as the traffic on the highway itself.
So I think actually with the Santiago project,
traffic is not an issue.
We'll do what we can with stormwater, with the
pervious concrete.
We'll do the wall.
Increase the setback.
We'll do have what we can.
We think this is a great project.
We want to develop it residential in nature and we
want to be a good neighbor.
19:48:13 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Any questions from council?
All right.
19:48:15 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
May I inquire whether this will
require a continuance for the site plan,
alterations?

19:48:29 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
Land development.
I think it all depends on the direction by
council.
If the 6-foot on the west with a 6-foot wall is
adequate, we could direct that change in between
first and second reading.
The pervious concrete between first and second
reading.
That's not -- the other changes that I was
requesting were very, very minor in nature.
So we would adjust the eastern setback to take
care of that western setback adjustment as well,
still retaining the eaves and gutters as shown.
19:49:02 >> Move to close.
19:49:06 >>FRANK REDDICK:
I have a motion from Mrs.
Montelione Lon, second by Mr. Miranda.
All in favor of the motion?
Opposed?
All right.
Mr. Maniscalco?
19:49:18 >>GUIDO MANISCALCO:
I have an ordinance being
presented for first reading consideration, an
ordinance rezoning property in the general
vicinity of 3801 west Obispo street in the city of
Tampa, Florida and more particularly described in

section 1 from zoning district classifications
RS-60 residential single-family to PD planned
development, office, business and professional,
specialty retail and/or storefront residential,
providing an effective date.
With changes to the site plan.
19:49:48 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I think we want to name it.
Concrete, wall.
19:49:52 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
I would add the revision sheet
as submitted by Ms. Feeley and increase setback on
the west side and adjustment on the setback on the
eastern side of the property with I believe a
waiver is going to have to be requested to the
proximity to Dale Mabry.
The change from a PVC fence to a concrete block
6-foot wall and pervious concrete to be used as a
parking surface.
19:50:37 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
But that waiver, I'm assuming, we
are making the two-foot adjustment.
So that waiver is going to be for the setback of
29 feet instead of the 31.
Any other adjustments that have to be made they
are going to have to shrink the building a little
bit because the waiver needs to be stated.
19:50:55 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
We'll let that gone between

first and second.
19:51:00 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
And utilization --
19:51:02 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
I think you can make it work.
19:51:04 >>FRANK REDDICK:
I have a motion from Mr.
Maniscalco, with an amendment by Mrs. Montelione
Lon, seconded by Mr. Miranda.
All in favor of the motion say aye.
Opposed?
All right.
19:51:16 >>THE CLERK:
Motion carried with Suarez voting.
No second reading and adoption will be on October
1st at 9:30 a.m.
19:51:24 >>FRANK REDDICK:
All right.
The last item of the night.
Number 8.
19:51:27 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Mr. Chair, may I ask some house
keeping, please?
With regard to item number 8 and all items this
evening, I ask that all written communications
relative to tonight's hearing which has been
available for public inspection in City Council
office be received and filed into the record at
this time by motion.
19:51:50 >> So moved.
19:51:52 >> Second.

19:51:53 >>FRANK REDDICK:
I have a motion from Mr. Cohen.
Second by Mrs. Capin.
All in favor of the motion say aye.
Opposed?
19:52:01 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Thank you.
Further, council with, regard to hearing number 8,
if any members of City Council have had any verbal
communication with any petitioner, his or her
representative, or any member of the public in
connection with any of today's hearings,
particularly now we are talking about number 8,
that member of council should prior to action
disclose the following -- the person or persons,
group or entity with whom the verbal communication
occurred and the substance of that verbal
communication.
19:52:25 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Yes, sir, I have advised Mr.
Shelby prior to this hearing that I was contacted
by Mr. Casper via text message to make an
appointment with me.
I did not know what he wanted at that point in
time.
I did not ask what he wanted at that point in time
and did not find oh out until he was seated in my
office during that appointment.

As the conversation developed, he had discussed
this project, this upcoming project, and like the
rest of us, I never know if an applicant has filed
an application until it appears on our agenda.
So I didn't know at the time when I made the
appointment that the applicant had already filed.
I asked him if he knew, and he said, yes, they
had.
So at that point I said, well, then we can't talk
about this because it would be ex parte
communication that I would have to disclose.
Unfortunately, it was after I found out part way
through the conversation that I found that out.
And also there were several articles written about
this, one that appeared in the business journal
and people honor had commented on that business
journal article that I had seen.
I didn't read the whole article.
I just saw it.
19:53:48 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Then let me ask you, can you be
fair and impartial and base your decision on the
evidence you will hear at this hearing?
19:53:55 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Yes, sir.
19:53:56 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Thank you.
Any other?

19:53:57 >>GUIDO MANISCALCO:
I had coffee a few weeks ago
at the Oxford Exchange.
Mr. Casper said good morning, said they would be
at council in a few weeks, and that was it.
Very limited conversation.
19:54:08 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Okay.
And as a result, or putting that aside, can you be
fair and impartial and base your decision on the
evidence you hear at this hearing?
19:54:19 >> Yes.
19:54:20 >>HARRY COHEN:
I have been contacted.
I had very similar experiences to them.
I have been contacted by people on different sides
of this issue and advised all of them that I was
not able to talk about this matter because it was
quasi-judicial.
And I am capable of being fully impartial on the
matter.
19:54:39 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Thank you.
19:54:41 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Mr. Suarez?
19:54:43 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Mr. Shelby, I have spoken to be
Mr. Casper, had a meeting with him prior to --
first similar to Mrs. Montelione Lon's situation,
and when that came up, I actually had coffee and
talked to him, not about this issue.

I reiterated that this would have been an ex parte
communication, and that the only thing we talked
about primarily was the nature of zoning and what
it means when you come before council.
In a very general way.
Not about this particular project.
Nothing about this the specifics of this project
because at the time I knew nothing about the
project.
And so for me it was just, you know, this is what
it means to zone.
This is what we do on council.
19:55:27 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
And, sir, you can be fair and
impartial than and base your decision on the
evidence at the hearing?
19:55:33 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Absolutely.
19:55:35 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
And I will say I was contacted by
Mr. Casper but never met.
19:55:42 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Well, I did meet with Mr. Casper
in the office, ended up talking about
McDonald's.
(Laughter).
That's all we talked about.
19:55:56 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Again, both Councilwoman Capin
and Mr. Reddick, the question is can you be fair

and impartial and base your decision on the
evidence at this hearing?
19:56:07 >> Yes.
19:56:08 >>FRANK REDDICK:
In a problem.
19:56:09 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Thank you.
19:56:15 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Item number 8.
And before we start, would someone give me a check
on how many more people are outside?
The last time I heard it was 30.
And I want to make sure.
19:56:38 >> [Off microphone.]
19:56:41 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Okay, we can get a count.
Let me get a hand.
How many people in here are planning to speak?
All right.
19:56:49 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Mr. Chairman, just to let you
know, behind those doors are at least another
dozen or more people.
And at least downstairs there's probably another
20 at least, perhaps more.
19:57:05 >>FRANK REDDICK:
All right.
Council, because of the volume who want to speak,
are we going to limit it from three to two
minutes?
Based on the number that raised and the number we

have out there, do we want to do that?
19:57:31 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
May I ask a question, Mr.
Shelby?
Do we have any individuals who have submitted
forms to increase their amount of time?
So everybody who raised their hand may not be
speaking.
They may have given their time to someone else?
19:57:46 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
My anticipation is you will find
speaker waiver forms being offered, which raises
another issue that the people whose names I called
should ideally be in this room because if they are
not present, it's problematic and if they are
downstairs or outside and they yield their time.
I won't know that they are here when they are
outside.
So that's an issue.
19:58:07 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Why don't we do this, if I may
make a suggestion.
Why don't you read off all the names now, and
anybody who is outside or downstairs has the
opportunity --
19:58:20 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
I don't have any speaker waiver
forms.
19:58:22 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Well, if we could get the

speaker waiver forms.
And in that way anybody who is downstairs or out
in the hallway can come into chambers now and be
sworn, because I have a feeling none of them are
sworn in and we are going to have to do the
swearing in, stop six or seven times to get
everybody sworn in.
I think that would save a little bit of time.
This is one of the suggestions I was going to make
at a workshop session, because with the county,
what they do is you have to turn everything in
prior to the hearing starting.
And they have all of the names before you start
and it makes the meeting go a lot more smoothly.
So if we make an announcement to that effect.
19:59:19 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
That's a decision that we have to
make now, because if we start in three minutes it
would not be fair to the others to change it to
two.
It has to be decided, I think, now.
19:59:30 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
If I can, council, also your
rules with regard to the speaker waiver form does
allow that the person designated speaker gets the
time that's allotted and each waiver, it says they
relinquish their three minutes and are given an

additional one minute.
That's the rule with regard to it.
19:59:51 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
If I may, I would say we
change this right now from three minutes to two
minutes.
That would change the speaker waiver form as well.
They are not waiving the ever three minutes.
They are wavering the 2001.
20:00:06 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
That's correct.
And with regard to the additional speaker would
they get an additional minute?
Three two, three --
20:00:17 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
That's my motion and I accept the
endment.
20:00:20 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
And I second the motion to
only allow two minutes per person and two minutes
on the waiver form.
20:00:34 >>FRANK REDDICK:
All in favor of the motion say
aye.
20:00:36 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
And just to inform council, I
have in my possession eight speaker waiver forms,
so you know that.
And I will do my best to keep track.
20:00:44 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Now let's have the speakers come
in so those who came in and have not been sworn

in, please stand to be sworn in.
Raise your hand to be sworn in.
Those who wish to speak and you came in need to be
sworn in.
(Oath administered by Clerk)
20:01:03 >>FRANK REDDICK:
All right.
Okay.
Let's get this show rolling.
20:01:12 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
My understanding is an
announcement was going to be made that everybody
attending would have their name on the speaker
waiver form, if you have your name on a speaker
waiver form, even though you are not speaking, you
need to be present so when I call your name that
we can acknowledge that you are here.
So if you are downstairs or outside, please come
in.
20:01:42 >>FRANK REDDICK:
All right.
Staff.
20:01:43 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
Land Development Coordination.
The last item on your agenda this evening is REZ
15-41.
Located at 109, 111, 115 and 117 Cedar Avenue,
507, 509, 511 West Cleveland Street, 502, 504, 506
West Grand Avenue, 100, 110, 112, 114 and 116

South Magnolia Avenue. The request before you
tonight is from a CG commercial general and OP
office professional to PD planned development,
residential, multifamily, principle parking, and
all CG uses.
There are five waivers with this request.
Let me go ahead and run through those waivers and
then I'll defer to David for his report on the
comp plan.
The waiver is to remove two nonhazardous great
trees, the second to reduce the required tree
retention from 50% to zero percent, all trees
on-site are being requested to be removed.
The third is to allow for payment into the tree
trust fund prayer to mitigation, planting being
achieved on-site.
Total mitigation required for the project is 154
two-inch trees or 308 inches of tree planting.
The developer commits to plant 160 inches of trees
on-site or within the contiguous right-of-way.
The remainder of the trees, both mitigation and
new planting, could be achieved through payment
into the tree trust fund at a rate of $150 per
inch.
The fourth is to allow loading to occur in more

than one continuous maneuver and to allow
maneuvering into the right-of-way, and the last to
reduce the number of loading berths from 3 to 2.
One loading berth is required for every 100,000
square feet of development.
20:03:32 >>DAVID HAY:
Planning Commission staff.
I have been sworn.
The subject site is located within the central
planning district.
The central, Westshore and university.
The subject site is located south of Grand Central
Boulevard and north of West Cleveland Street
between South Magnolia and South Cedar Avenue.
It is not located within the boundaries of an
identified neighborhood association. North Hyde
Park is directly to the south of the subject site,
south of West Cleveland Street.
It is a 2.51-acre subject site.
It is located within proximity to West Kennedy
Boulevard which is identified 80s a transit
corridor.
There are a number of transit routes within
proximity to the subject site connecting into a
number of activity centers throughout the city and
unincorporated county.

Plant Park, the closest open space, is located
approximately 700 feet to the northeast of the
subject site, and the subject site is also located
within a level C evacuation zone.
Onto the future land use map.
The subject site and all the properties within
this kind of reddish color is all the RMU 100, the
regional mixed use 100 future land use category.
That's the same category within the Channel
District.
It is one of the most intensive future land use
categories outside of downtown.
North in the blue, we have University of Tampa.
That's the public quasi public future land use
category.
We have the Crosstown expressway immediately to
the south and West Cleveland Street, that's all
right-of-way.
And then further south on West Platt, we go down
to the community mixed use 35 future land use
category.
This right here is residential 50 allowing up to
50 dwelling units per acre.
The dark brown along Bayshore is the residential
83, and that allows 83 dwelling units per acre.

And then than the lighter brown color to the
southwest is the residential 35 allowing up to 35
dwelling units per acre.
Back to the aerial.
Here again is the subject site.
We have the University of Tampa.
There's the Hillsborough River.
We have the TGH property immediately to the west.
We have got also to the north the theater and the
Oxford Exchange directly to the north, and then to
the east we have more of some surface parking lot
and also a religious establishment and then
further we have the parking garage and properties
associated with Tampa Tribune.
South, you can see the Crosstown.
There's a demarcation.
There's less intense development to the south.
Again, this is community mixed use 35.
So there's office and commercial uses further to
the south.
Kennedy Boulevard again is that transit emphasis
corridor.
Back to the future land use map, the approximately
2.51-acre subject site is designated regional
mixed use 100.

The primary purpose of that regional mixed use 100
land use category is to encourage and maintain
areas for high-rise residential development, major
office and regional-serving commercial
developments, that because of their need for
space, significant vehicular access or intensity
of use, require locations related to major
transportation facilities, to encourage a true
mixture of uses, residential development can be
guided by either density or floor area ratio, and
building Heights typically range from 5 to 24
stories within that regional mixed use 100 future
land use category.
With that category the subject site and adjacent
parcels are expected to develop into a more urban
character within the horizon of the comprehensive
plan.
This would be the fifth proposed development would
be the first significant mixed use development
within the general area.
The proposed density is 296 residential units
within a 308, approximately, 308,000 square foot
structure would provide for development with a
floor area ratio of 2.82.
That's below the maximum of 3.5 floor area ratio

that can be considered under that regional mixed
use 100 future land use category.
The proposed development is urban in character
with uses oriented toward adjacent right-of-way.
Parking is also provided within a structured
parking garage, and no surface parking is being
proposed under the proposed planned development.
Future residents would also have easy access to a
number of transit routes within the surrounding
area.
Though the overall use is consistent with the
regional mixed use 100 future land use category
and the associated policies of the comp plan,
Planning Commission staff has identified a number
of opportunities to further provide consistency
with the overall comprehensive plan.
The removal of the proposed vehicular drop-off
area along Grand Central Avenue would provide
additional space for pedestrian oriented
activities, also eliminating conflict points
between vehicles and pedestrians.
Also, the seven buildings seem to lack a be highly
visible pedestrian oriented lobby similar to the
one provided in the Morgan building.
Similar design techniques to distinguish the

pedestrian lobby proposed along Cedar, south Cedar
Avenue, would be encouraged under the mixed use
corridor policies of the comp plan.
One other note, and Planning Commission staff
supports the city's note to remove the note
transportation regarding removal of the
nonresidential uses, if they are not deemed viable
by the applicant.
Planning Commission staff would agree with city
staff that that would be more appropriately be
removed.
Based on all those findings and the goals,
objectives and policies of the comprehensive plan,
Planning Commission staff does find the proposed
planned development consistent with the Tampa
comprehensive plan.
Thank you.
20:11:08 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
Thank you, David.
Land Development Coordination.
Just a little housekeeping first.
I did provide you -- I had the printer on extra
large when but I did provide copies of this for
you.
This is the documentation from the state in
relation to the structures that are on the

property.
When I submitted my report to you, which was a
week ago, the property was set for public hearing
before the HPC on Tuesday to discuss the three
structures that are on the property and were
designated as contributing structures.
This documentation I provided to you says that
they have been deemed by the national register of
historic places as considered noncontributing.
So they would not need a hearing before the HPC.
Dennis Fernandez is here this evening to answer
questions directly related to that.
I think there was concern as to if the application
could actually seek entitlement if there were
contributing structures still determined to be on
the property.
So those structures are no longer contributing,
and that information was provided to you.
20:12:29 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Mrs. Feeley, in terms of the
recommendation, it was inconsistent by virtue of
the HPC not having done their hearing yet.
And now this essentially eliminated what would
have been a hearing back on September 8th.
20:12:49 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
Correct.
It was also found inconsistent related to the

waivers for the tree removal.
20:12:56 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Right.
But this is one portion of the distance site.
That's what I wanted to find out.
Thank you, chair.
20:13:04 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
Thank you.
The subject property that we are talking about
tonight, and I think you are all familiar with
what David just showed you, is the block that's
bounded by Grand Central to the north, Magnolia to
the west, Cedar to the east, and Cleveland to the
south.
It is 2.51 acres.
It is RMU 100.
RMU 100 allows for an F.A.R. up to three without
bonus.
What is being proposed before you tonight is 2.82.
There's been questions of me as to where be the
bonus is.
There's no bonus.
They are below the allowable F.A.R.
What is being proposed is the construction of 296
multifamily residential units and 5,203 square
feet of nonresidential entitlement.
I call them nonresidential entitlements because,

as we experienced at Post and SoHo, Post and SoHo
did all of theirs retail.
Once they were constructed they saw other things
wanted to go in besides retail.
They had to come back and re-PD with you just to
get other uses so what we have done from that
point forward is treated these as nonresidential,
strip commercial definition which the code has to
allow for multiple tenants to be in those spaces,
and allow for the interchanging of those with the
exception of -- and those are typically posted at
4 per thousand with the exception of restaurant,
that would have to be part of the regular rate and
medical office which would have to be parked at
the regular rate but it allows for things like a
hair salon or a dry cleaner or a regular retail
space to be able to interchange in those spaces
based on market demands versus saying it's all
going to be retail and then nothing gets leased up
and they come back before you.
That's something we have been incorporating now in
a couple of projects after that is how this
application is also taken care of.
The building is designed with two buildings
separated by a structured garage.

The north building is going to be six stories with
a maximum height of 80 feet 6 inches.
The southern building is proposed at 5 stories
with a maximum height of 69 feet 6 inches.
The garage is proposed at 9 stories with a maximum
height of 110 fate 2 inches.
There are rooftop amenities proposed on the ninth
level of the garage including a pool, a sky
lounge, two-lane bowling alley and a club room.
The proposed nonresidential uses are oriented
along west and central in relation to the historic
commercial property to the north.
The PD setbacks are as follows:
North 5-foot.
East 5-foot.
South zero foot.
West 5 foot.
The proposed development requires 528 parking
spaces and 627 are being provided.
The application is requesting principal parking as
allowable use to commit for additional parking
spaces to be utilized by the surrounding
businesses in the area.
The property contains structures I already
addressed, which have been deemed contributing,

and that issue was taken care of.
Let me go ahead and shop you in relation to this
application being able to move forward in those
structures that issue has been resolved.
One other item I did want to show you tonight in
relation to the zoning atlas, the zoning atlas has
a PD to the west, which many people say that's
TGH, their administrative building as it is.
That PD also had an option for two six-story mixed
use buildings, and I believe approximately
26067-some residential units, and a ten-story
garage.
So I wanted to show you that, because as part of
my application, my review of this application in
determining compatibility with surrounding
properties, the property directly to the west is
entitled the two of six-story, three levels of
parking, 240 spaces, 240 spaces and then
approximately 200,000 square feet above it, and
the front building, a ten-story parking garage
along Cleveland, with retail at the bottom.
The bottom has nine levels of parking,
approximately 2500 parking spaces entitle for that
property.
When you look around and saying what's being

proposed is out of character you have to look at
what's entitled on the ground, and that's part of
our review for this application as well under the
RMU and how it relates to the surrounding
property.
20:18:04 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Can you give us a time frame
it was rezoned?
20:18:11 >> 2011.
20:18:12 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
All right.
Thank you.
20:18:15 >> On the other side of this, at the other corner,
which people say that's a surface parking lot now,
that is part of a 1997 zoning, and that too is
entitled 135-foot garage.
It's part of the Rivergate tower before me H.it
has two pieces at Kennedy and Parker.
And this was the third piece.
It's 135 feet, eleven levels, plus roof, garage,
with potentially 50,000 square feet of retail.
So in my report to you when I look around and say
what is compatible when I go through the nine PD
criteria I have to take into account what can go
under construction tomorrow on the adjacent
properties.
That's part of what is ingrained in the report

that's before you tonight in finding the
application consistent as far as mass, scale and
development potential.
Let me go ahead and show you what's out there.
I am going to start on Grand Central and move east
towards downtown.
So this is Grand Central.
And Magnolia.
There is the sign there.
The TGH administrative building.
I am going to move east towards downtown.
This is the corner of Cedar and Grand Central
looking back west.
This is the subject at Cedar and Grand Central.
This is moving down Cedar looking back west across
the subject property.
This is on the Magnolia side.
Back east.
Here are the trees.
This is the northern facade of the structures off
of Magnolia.
Southern.
This is looking back north.
This is from the southern boundary of the property
looking north toward Grand Central.

The southern looking to the south of the
Crosstown.
East of the Cedar.
Place of religious assembly.
This is moving east.
This is the church from Cedar.
This is directly east of the property on Cedar.
That is also from the property looking east on
Cedar.
That is at the corner of Cedar and Grand Central
back on Magnolia.
I think a lot of you are familiar with of this.
Directly north along Grand Central.
Headed west.
Land Development Coordination, David mentioned
there was a notation on the plan right now that
discusses the possibility of removing the
non-residential and making it residential.
I'm asking that that note be removed, the portion
that is proposed is nonresidential should remain
as nonresidential.
The proposed height needs to be corrected on the
site plan.
The plan currently states that the garage is
82-foot 8 inches and the residential building is

110.
Those are inverted.
They need to be reversed.
Finally, I did speak to the Aviation Authority.
110 feet is the highest crane they are going to be
able to get on the property.
If so they are asking that final building
height -- add a notation that final building
height is subject to FAA approval.
The proposed height does require a height permit
from the Aviation Authority.
Staff does recognize that there was a discrepency
between -- there's a notation on the tree table
right now underneath that talks about the
commitment for tree planting, but the waiver on
the plan that's before you tonight asks that
everything be able to be paid into the tree trust.
The way the waiver is written on the front page of
the report is the way it should be written.
They are committing to planting 160 inches.
So it will either be planted on their property or
immediately in the right-of-way adjacent which
code does allow for.
But the difference here is that code requires that
you plant your mitigation trees on your property

first, and that mitigation is taken care of before
you are eligible to pay into the tree trust fund.
They will not be able to take care of all
mitigation trees on-site or on the adjacent
right-of-way.
The waiver is asking to be allowed to utilize that
prior to meeting mitigation.
Transportation has site plan modifications.
They meet need the loading berth reduction waiver
to reference the correct citation.
I do have that correct on the front page.
And secondly, they need a notation added that the
developer shall comply with section 22-305 and
will be required to have a City Council hearing
prior to any brick street modification.
Given that the PD doesn't touch the brick streets,
at that time they are going to construct on-street
parking or anything related to those brick
streets, they would need to come back before you
to comply with 22-305 and have the brick street
hearing.
Natural resources had a finding of inconsistency
related to the tree removal.
I know you guys saw Mary here.
She's still here.

The site is 2.51 acres.
It's requesting to remove 35 protected trees and
three grand, two nonhazardous and one hazardous.
That's 100% tree removal.
They do not support the waiver to remove the
trees.
If council finds that reasonable use of the
property has been denied pursuant to 13-45-G, that
would be your finding, then the waiver would be
consistent.
I did provide those reasonable use criteria for
you.
Page 5 of your report.
Lastly, on page 6 of your report, solid waste does
require that some notations are added to the plan
in between first and second reading to be replace
the existing policy notes that are on the plan.
As I mentioned to you, my findings in relation to
the PD criteria are pages 7, 8, 9 and 10 of your
report as well as the waiver criteria for
consideration of waivers on page 10.
In context to the surrounding area, I showed you
entitlements that have not been constructed yet.
However, in this area, the most recently
constructed was the UT dormitory at the corner of

Kennedy.
That is eleven stories and 120 feet in height.
Before that, the Baptist tower was 40 years prior
to that.
I think it was '73.
I did reference that as well.
The rest of my findings are found on those pages.
And I am available for any questions.
20:26:17 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Mr. Suarez.
20:26:17 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Now here is the difference between
some of the entitlements that I mentioned, first
Tampa General building that's nearest to the
proposed project.
Then secondly the project you just mentioned which
was the UT building on the corner of Kennedy and
that right there.
20:26:43 >> Hyde Park.
20:26:45 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Hyde Park.
The difference for me, the only difference I can
see primarily, is the way you have -- the way you
get in and out of those particular properties.
Maybe you are on two major corridors, Kennedy and
Cleveland on both of those -- excuse me, on the
Tampa General site, and you also have I think it's
Boulevard to Kennedy was that the one you are

talking about, the other proposed --
20:27:16 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
Yes, it's right --
20:27:19 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
You are talking about the --
20:27:22 >> I pulled it up on my Google earth.
It's over to the east.
20:27:26 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Got it.
So for me the difference is that Kennedy and the
major thoroughfare has a little bit of a different
connotation to what we are talking about here, and
when you go and look at these entitlements, in
relation to your PD requirements, do you look at
that in terms of some of the traffic issues that
are part of the proposed development?
And the reason I am asking you is because it's a
little bit unique because you have got Kennedy
that swerves off.
You have got Grand Central.
And I won't say landlocked but you are in a
different kind of situation than you are for the
Tampa General site.
That's a large site, and it's right off of
Kennedy.
It does have some access I think off one of the
site streets in addition.
But to meet Kennedy approval that's the main thing

because you are talking about a thoroughfare as
opposed to be maybe putting something in a
different context
I guess my point is when you do this, do you put
that in context with everything else that's going
in place?
20:28:34 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
Yes, the Kennedy actually had all
of its access on fielding and on Magnolia.
It didn't have, because of the Kennedy overlay, it
didn't have access onto there.
So its impacts were also being put onto the
smaller local streets, as this is as well.
Unlike typical application that comes before you
for local street access, there's no local street
waiver here because there is no single-family
residential that is on any of these segments
either.
So they would be permitted accesses by code.
20:29:06 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Because most next to it was
probably already commercial or something else,
correct?
20:29:13 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
Yes, sir.
20:29:14 >>HARRY COHEN:
I wanted to ask you, would you
show us again very briefly what is already
entitled contiguous?

Just things that you already showed us.
Thank you.
20:29:27 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
This was the PD to the west.
This was done in 2011.
So it has two options.
Option one was the administrative building the way
you partly see it constructing and operating
today.
And option two is to construct this property, and
it was 100 land use, and I had the number written
down.
200 ... 277, I believe.
The other side, so that was this whole block to
the west of the subject.
The other one I showed you was a portion of a
multi-partial PD.
The two other pieces are Parker and Kennedy.
And the third piece is here.
And that's 135-foot, 11-story garage.
20:30:47 >>HARRY COHEN:
The first one they ended up
building something else.
20:30:49 >> That building was there.
That was existing.
There was an adaptive reuse and they retained the
right to build this.

20:30:57 >> They had the right to build this in addition if
they choose to.
20:31:00 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
Yes.
Yes.
20:31:02 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Mr. Maniscalco?
20:31:04 >>GUIDO MANISCALCO:
I was just curious regarding
the three properties, the three older structures
that are on the property now, 110, 112, and 502
Grand Central.
They were registered historic up until the other
day, and now are deemed noncontributing because
they are isolated.
And the feeling an association has been broken and
none of these three demonstrates significance of
individual buildings.
It's interesting how easy it is to remove that
historic designation from these properties.
[ Applause ]
[Sounding gavel]
20:31:49 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Let me make an announcement that
we are not going to tolerate the outbursts.
And if you continue to do this you are going to be
removed from the chambers.
Mr. Maniscalco.
20:32:00 >>GUIDO MANISCALCO:
So my question is look at

downtown Tampa which this is considered part of
downtown by border on this side of Boulevard.
I mean, this structure is isolated. We have had
demolition all around and new construction whereas
this is the only building on the block.
The same can be said throughout downtown with
other structures, the courthouse, Tampa Theatre
would be -- could be considered isolated.
Buildings have been demolished around the area.
How is it so simple that something can be
historically designated and then just like that
taken right off?
20:32:36 >>DENNIS FERNANDEZ:
Architectural review
preservation manager.
To address your question, it involves different
components of historic designation.
These particular properties located on the subject
parcel are located in the national register
historic district, which is a district that is
developed, there's the National Park Service in
coordination with the state historic preservation
office that brings identification and recognition
to areas that are considered to be historic
criteria.
The other buildings that you referred to, they

qualify at a higher level of historic significance
because they are considered to be individually
significant in and of themselves.
They are not necessarily dependent on grouping for
their significance or relationships to areas, to
boundaries.
Also, the buildings that you mentioned are also
locally designated structures, which under our
code, under chapter 27, my office pursues local
designation as a means of bringing adequate
protection to historic buildings.
So in the case of, for example, this particular
building, if someone were to pursue or suggest
delisting it from the national register of
historic places for some particular reason, if
that were successful, which I highly doubt it
would be, we would still have a local level of
protection that would require the preservation of
property.
In this particular case, the applicant agent
initiated a dialogue with the state historic
preservation office, and at some point there was a
reevaluation of the historic significance of these
particular properties, 110 and 112 south Magnolia,
as they contribute to the Hyde Park national

register of historic district.
That is a process that is driven through
coordination of the state and federal level,
without much coordination through the local level.
And in than particular situation, the National
Park Service agreed with the state historic
preservation office that the environment in which
the structures are situated in had changed since
it was originally inventoried in the 80s, and
you see there were repercussions of that in the
letter.
20:35:03 >>GUIDO MANISCALCO:
So somebody that's not
familiar with the area or from Tampa, whether it
be at the state level or wherever, signs off on
something without really seeing a property first
hand, something that's over 100 years old, they
can just move to have delist it and then therefore
go to demolition?
20:35:24 >> Under their regulations they can do that.
They notify the local government, but as you can
see, our process was governed towards dealing with
these structures as being contributing structures
to the national register of historic district.
We are moving towards a local hearing at the
historic commission based on my objection to these

structures' demolition.
Once the National Park Service delisted these
structures as noncontributing, it essentially
undermined the criteria that we have within our
code under 27-260 for potential emergency
designation that's not locally designated historic
structures.
20:36:11 >> So you have objected to the demolition of these
structures, but the state moved quicker than we
did?
20:36:18 >>DENNIS FERNANDEZ:
I objected to the demolition
of those structures at that time, and I don't
believe it's the right thing to do at this time.
But the ordinance allows for the applicant to move
forward with demolition requests based on these
being noncontributing structures within a historic
district at this time.
20:36:35 >>GUIDO MANISCALCO:
So these structures have
survived over 100 years, and it's not your fault,
but because this state or whomever said we can
move quicker than you can, these places get wiped
out just like that?
20:36:49 >>DENNIS FERNANDEZ:
Well, there's other caveats to
that statement, I believe.
We were never able to successfully extend the

local historic district boundaries to encompass
this area, which obviously leads to these
buildings not having adequate protections at this
particular time.
But more disturbing, I think the National Park
Service essentially questioning the validity of
the entire national register district to the north
of the Crosstown expressway, brings in a whole
other element that goes beyond this site and
causes potential jeopardy to all structures north
of the Crosstown that are really within the
national historic district.
20:37:30 >>REBECCA KERT:
Legal department.
This is a very, very important conversation, but I
do need to refocus you that you are here for a
specific request on a rezoning tonight, and
whether or not you agree or don't disagree with
the National Park Service and their decision, they
have rendered that decision, they have made these
buildings noncontributing.
That is the status that we are at today.
I certainly think if council would like to
continue this discussion looking at ways that we
can perhaps evaluate our codes and the power we
have locally, I think that's an important

discussion but perhaps could be scheduled at a
different time for a work shown.
But tonight, I mean, we are where we are with the
facts we are, whether we like them or not.
And we need to focus on the compatibility of the
rezoning whether or not the applicant is able to
meet their burden and all the other competent
substantial evidence that's presented to you
tonight.
Thank you.
20:38:28 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Mr. Miranda?
20:38:29 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
If I remember what was said here, there's no
ingress or egress on the TGH building at Brevard
and Magnolia and Kennedy, correct?
There's no ingress or egress?
20:38:44 >> None.
20:38:46 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
In fact about that time there
was another rezoning by TGH, southern cures,
certified by the state, if I remember.
One on Rome and Kennedy.
Close proximity.
That was a much larger, much, much larger.
In fact, both of them, the one at Brevard and
Magnolia, if I remember back in the 60s, was

Hawk Plymouth.
Long time ago.
Some of you may or may not remember.
Hawk Plymouth had an automobile dealership there.
And on Rome was the Ferman Oldsmobile Chevrolet
dealership.
So what we are looking at now is cars and cars.
Both come from lots and both -- cars everywhere.
But from what I'm looking at, this parcel of
property has in a different benefit or no
different determination than the property that TGH
has right next to it.
I correct, oat record?
Ms. Feeley?
20:39:59 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
The ingress and egress?
There is no ingress or egress on Kennedy
Boulevard.
20:40:04 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
On either one of the two
properties.
The one that TGH has, and the one where we are
dealing tonight.
20:40:11 >> The one we are dealing tonight does not have
frontage on Kennedy but it does not have access on
the north either.
The access is on the east and the west.

20:40:20 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Right.
Thank you very much.
20:40:24 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Okay.
Petitioner?
20:40:34 >> I provided each of you with copies of these.
I would like to admit one into the record of the
evidence we would like to submit for the record.
Also, I believe passed outs somebody information
for you about the Altman companies.
I hope you will take a look and I hope you won't
take a look at now because I have a lot to talk
about.
Before we get started, I did send you a letter
asking for an additional ten minutes.
We have a lot of information to go over, and I
really think that to afford my clients procedural
due process I need that additional time.
In addition, you saw how many people are going to
speak here tonight.
I am given 15 minutes.
If seven people speak for -- or eight people speak
for two minutes apiece, they have already exceeded
my time.
Obviously a lot more than that are going to be
speaking.

So I really think it's only fair to my client that
I be given the additional time.
And I respectfully request it.
20:41:46 >>FRANK REDDICK:
You have got 15 minutes.
You start the 15 minutes.
If you need additional time we'll take it up at
that time.
20:41:53 >>ANDREA ZELMAN:
Okay.
Thank you.
Good evening.
I'm Andrea Zellman with the law firm of Buchanan
Ingersoll, 501 East Kennedy Boulevard, and I'm
very happy tonight to be able to tell you about
this project.
I want to first introduce the Altman team.
I have with me Nat Baganier, Jeff Roberts from
Altman. Tim Price from Price Design, land
planners and engineers, Randy Coen, our traffic
consultant, and also a certified planner; Scott
Andreas and Kevin Steele, landscape architects;
Joe Stanwick, our arborist; Joe Hafner, our
historic preservation architect, and Beatrice
Hernandez, the architects of the building.
I want to thank city staff for their time.
I want to note that we did agree to all the

changes to the conditions that Abbye mentioned so
we don't need to discuss that any further.
Before we talk about this project I wanted to take
a brief moment to tell you a little bit about
Altman itself.
They are a Florida-based multifamily developer.
They are not new to this area.
They have been developing in the Tampa Bay area
since the 1970s, and they recently built
apartments in the neotraditional Highland Park
neighborhood at Westchase and also in Pasco
County.
In the booklet we gave you they have been
recognized by municipalities throughout the state
and the national for their commitment to good
design and exceptional quality.
Also, Jeff Roberts, the president and chef
operating officer of Altman grew up here in the
Tampa Bay area, and is a USF graduate.
The other thing I want to make sure everyone
understands is that they do not build
production-line apartment buildings.
With each project they hire an architect to
individually design that project, and they charge
them with the responsibility to make it compatible

and sensitive to and to enhance the particular
community that it's being built in.
They also, as you have heard, have a lot of high
quality amenities in order to attract quality
tenants.
Now, there's been a lot of misinformation going
around about this project.
So I want to tell you very clearly what it is and
why it is good for Tampa and why it's actually the
missing piece for this neighborhood in particular.
And let me start by saying that in all my years of
doing this kind of works, I have never seen any
developer work as hard as Altman has to reach out
to its neighbors to be try to start a conversation
about the planning of this project.
They have been doing that for months.
They reached out to and have met with Blake Casper
of Oxford exchange, with Mary, with Dr. Vaughan
and others from UT, from Wells Fargo bank, with
Cheryl Eagan and Steve short from Tampa General,
with the representative of the First Baptist
Church and the Christian science church, and also
with the tenants of the Grand Central place
building across the street.
And as a result of those meetings, this has been a

work in progress.
They have taken the plan to many, many revisions
as they met with each of these neighbors and heard
their concerns, and said the plan that you are
seeing before you today really does reflect a lot
of community input from those that will be most
impacted.
So let me just show you real quickly.
That rendering, I think, is a little better view.
As Abbye told you, this has 296 F.A.R. units, more
than 5,000 square feet of commercial uses.
We did lose five parking spaces to design issues
so there's 622 parking spaces, but that's still 94
more spaces than is required by code.
One thing we forgot to include on the site plan
and we would also like to add this as a condition,
is that the building will be LEED certified and we
are happy to add that as a condition.
You can see the architecture review Altman added
after talking to their neighbors about what they
could do to make it look better.
They had their architect tweak the plan several
times and they asked to incorporate features of
Oxford, of the Grand Central building across the
street, and at UT they use brick, arched windows,

awnings, landscaping.
They also asked the architect to look at some old
historical photos.
This is a building that was across from the
apartment hotel and the family actually lived in
it, and some of the features I am going to point
to you here -- this is the back of that building.
Here you can see where the architect picked up
some of those features, some of the arches.
And then we have the awnings down here like an
Oxford and Grand Central.
The molding.
All of these features were picked up from the
architecture around them, and because they do want
to blend in with the neighborhood, and they do
actually care about the history of the
neighborhood.
And again you can see here on Grand Central, this
is the commercial space.
Originally the project didn't have commercial
spaces.
They were very worried about being able to provide
enough parking.
But when the neighbors said, no, they want to see
commercial, they added it on the ground floor.

We don't know yet who the tenants will be. At
Altman's Highland park complex there's a co-op
coffee, maybe we'll get one of those, maybe Misen
Place, maybe Oxford will have the Oxford market
again.
Let me show you one more rendering.
This is the theater side of the building and you
can see what a nice job they have done.
This is the parking garage there and you can see
how they break up the wall.
They don't have the ugly white slab that you see
on many of the parking garages in downtown Tampa.
Altman was also asked to make the project more
pedestrian friendly.
So they added a number of features to do that.
They widened sidewalks, added fences, going to
have bike repair stations for public use.
They have ground level apartments that for true
pedestrian integration into the project.
They have also committed to a very lush
landscaping plan.
The most significant aspect is that your code
requires two-inch caliper trees.
Altman has committed to wherever possible and as
much as possible, use larger trees up to eight

inches in caliper, and they have done this at
their other developments.
What that means is be that from day one you
actually have a tree canopy.
So this whole concept of the plan is not just to
plant the minimum number of trees to meet code but
is to plant the right trees in the right places so
that they will thrive, not just survive.
Also, I would note the Grand Central building to
the north is not part of this project.
However, Altman has already begun talking with
your city staff about adding some landscaping
along there.
You can see some of the pictures that Abbye showed
you.
The street is pretty bare there.
Adding some nice landscaping and even approving a
park.
That's an example of how Altman is committed to
improving this area and improving the community.
Now some have criticized us for including a large
parking garage between the two apartment
buildings.
Today is surface parking lot.
That's what it looks like now.

Let me just say, one of the things that Altman
took into account was we are not required by your
code, and we are not legally obligated, to provide
parking for Misen Place, Oxford Exchange and the
Grand Central tenants.
All of them you can see are using the parking lot
now.
However, again from when Altman first began
designing this project, they said it would not be
right to take away that parking.
And also they want those businesses to be a
successful part of the attraction of this site was
that their tenants would be able to walk across
the street to some of the better restaurants in
town.
So it was the right thing to do.
They oversized their parking garage so that they
could continue to provide parking for Oxford and
Mise en Place.
They also did not want ask you for the waivers
that in South Tampa they do to lead to the
situation we have on South Howard.
Again, they are providing more parking than your
code requires, not less.
Now let me talk for a minute about why this

project is so good for this particular location in
Tampa.
Again, right now it's just a surface parking lot.
We have got again Mise en Place, Oxford Exchange,
other retail to the north.
To the east, the First Baptist Church and the
Christian science church.
As was explained to you, to the immediate west,
the 2011 Tampa General PD, but ultimately it's
going to allow for a ten-story parking garage, six
stories of office, two six story buildings above
three level parking.
By the way they have a trade-off matrix that
allows them to have, I believe, about 250
apartments on the TGH site.
Again to the east as Abbye mentioned is the 1997
PD that allows an 11-story parking garage so Abbye
made a very important point, when you look at the
scale of our nine-story garage, compared to be
what's there today, it may seem large, but you
have to look at it in the context of what is
ultimately going to go on the parcels to the east
and to the west.
We believe that Altman has added to the mix of
uses that's already there and entitled will create

a true walkable environment.
Tenants will be able to work next door at the TGH
offices.
They will be able to walk across the street to
Mise en Place and Oxford for dinner or lunch.
They could live and ride the shuttle buses that
TGH runs to the hospital and Davis Island.
And of course they will also be walking,
bicycling, scootering distance to University of
Tampa, which always needs housing alternatives for
students, faculty and staff.
Even with all that, some are questioning whether
residential is appropriate for this site.
First of all for those of you interested in the
historical perspective, this site was always first
and foremost residential.
It originally contained 11 homes, eight of which
were demolished over time.
The three remaining are being used as small
businesses right now, but it was always primarily
residential.
But more significantly it's basically planning 101
that tells you that in order for any commercial
district to be successful, you have to have
housing.

I included in your notebook experts from walkable
city and also a book by Andres Duany called The
Smart Growth Manual, and I want to actually read
from Andres Duany's and Jeff Speck's book.
The key to active streetwise is to create a 24
hour city which implies an area so diverse in use
that it is inhabited around the clock.
Living, working, shopping, schooling and
socializing must coexist in close proximity.
No one such activity can really flourish in the
absence of another as they are all mutually
reinforcing.
In most downtowns, housing is underrepresented,
but cities should make special effort to bring
more apartments into their urban core.
Council, this area already has the working.
You have got the offices of TGH and in Grand
Central.
You have got the shopping.
You have the shops at Oxford Exchange and the
other small retail there.
You have the beautiful art gallery.
You have got the schooling.
You have got UT.
You have got the socializing.

Mise en Place and Oxford.
What's the missing piece?
The piece that's missing is a place for people to
live.
Step two out of the ten steps in Jeff Beck's
Walkable City book.
That's what Altman brings.
That's exactly how you create a walkable city.
And that's why included in our packet is a letter
from the Tampa Downtown Partnership saying that
they support this mix of uses.
This is what we have been trying to do in our
urban core for years.
Now, there's someone I would like to bring very
briefly, Randy Coen up to talk a little bit as a
certified planner.
20:55:18 >> Randy Coen, 4121 West Cypress street.
I have been sworn.
And I am a certified planner.
I have been asked to talk a little bit about land
use.
It's an indication in some correspondence, I
believe, to you that this particular project is
not consistent with the RMU 100 comp plan
designation, that's regional mixed use 100.

First thing they wanted to say -- and I will put
something on the Elmo about that -- is that this
particular building really isn't mixed use.
It only has 5,000 square feet of retail or
commercial uses within it.
That's absolutely correct.
But it doesn't need to be mixed use.
As a matter of fact are if you look at your
particular code, it talks about individual
buildings with various types especially
residential.
It's the area that needs to be mixed use and
that's the requirement of the comp plan, not an
individual building.
This provides a new use in this area that provides
for additional mix of uses.
Residential in an area that currently has no
residential.
The second item is talking about the height of
parking structure within this particular building.
Bottom line is we just heard that to the west we
have a project that is a nine-story building,
three stories of parking, six stories of building
above it, and a parking structure over there is
actually 30 feet hair than what's proposed by

Altman.
If you look to the immediate east you heard
there's an eleven story parking garage.
It's actually 35 feet higher than we'll have.
Therefore, it is not inconsistent with office
projects, is very consistent with the trends in
the area, what has been approved on both sides of
it.
Going on to the next item.
(Bell sounds).
20:57:02 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Let me -- that red light means
stop.
So I am going to grant you an additional ten
minutes that you requested.
20:57:14 >> Thank you.
And I will be very quick.
We talked about the building lacking historical
items in it and blending with the architects.
I think Andrea did a wonderful job of showing how
this building is taking various elements from all
the buildings around it.
The third item was historic structures on the
property.
We found out they are not historic.
They are not contributing structures today.

They may have been in the 80s, but a lot of
things have changed between if 80s and today.
Both at the state level and the federal level they
made the determining decision that these are not
contributing structures at this particular point
in time.
Fourth item is the grand trees and I'm sure
there's going to be a lot of discussion on those.
I'm not an expert when it comes to grand trees,
but in fact I know that everything that has been
proposed here is in a matter consistent with city
code and to your deliberations.
Those are the four items that have been brought
out, I think potentially inconsistent with RMU 100
and you should approve it.
Thank you.
20:58:13 >> Thank you for the additional time. I'll try to
be quick.
I get a lot of e-mails and a lot of objections
saying that this site should remain zoned as it
is, commercial general.
In fact, "Tampa Deserves Better," the group that
has launched a vigorous campaign against this,
wrote on their Facebook page, and I quote, Our
ideal outcome is for the zoning to remain

commercial general.
Let me point out first, commercial general allows
residential uses, including multifamily.
If this site remains commercial general, this
developer or another could build apartments
without having to come before City Council for
rezoning.
Also, if this site remains commercial general,
there are a lot of other uses someone could build
there without ever having to come before this
council.
A fast food restaurant, a fraternity or sorority
house, a gasoline station, a convenience store, an
oil change place, a car wash, a rooming house, a
nursing home, a motel, a free standing parking
garage.
Even a funeral home complete with a crematorium.
Is that really the right vision for the area?
Is that really the ideal outcome?
Is that really the hashtag better that Tampa
deserves? I don't think so.
As you know over the last several years, this city
has engaged in a lot of planning effort with the
InVision plan with ULI and tabs 5 and 6 in your
book I have included certain excerpts of Pinellas

from a study of downtown Tampa and the InVision
plan, and again that reinforces, you need a mix of
uses and it's goat to include residential for the
area to thrive.
For the sake of time, I'll try to address the
waivers.
I am going to point to tab 9 in your notebooks
where I think there's eight pages addressing the
waivers including the tree and landscape code.
I want to make sure to be clear your natural
resources staff has advised you that under your
code, the waiver that would allow us to remove the
tree grand trees is consistent with code if you
find that reasonable use of the property as
defined by your code would be denied if we cannot
remove them.
And Abbye listed the factors, and in our waiver
justification, we went through them, and explained
why reasonable use would be precluded if we can't
remove the trees.
I won't go through them all now, but they include
the fact that one of the two trees is already in
decline.
The location of the trees, unfortunately, they are
right necessary the center of the site, and given

the size of the site and their location, you
couldn't develop anything consistent with the RMU
100 comprehensive plan category without having to
remove them.
One of the other factors you are supposed to
consider is the fair market value of the site
versus the value of the trees.
Clearly, the value of the site far exceeds the
value of the two trees as our arborist measured
those values, and in addition the difference
between the value of the property as is versus the
value of the property as developed is many, many,
many millions of dollars.
And that is one of the factors you are to consider
in determining whether reasonable use would be
precluded if we couldn't remove them.
We have also submitted arborist reports behind tab
10 and 11 in your packet, and they established
that it would not be feasible, very carefully
addressed with your staff, that it would not be
feasible to relocate the trees, and your natural
resources staff, Cathy Beck and Mary agreed with
that determination, and again if you want to hear
more about this, we do have our arborist here, and
also Scott Andreas and our landscape architect.

Also behind page 9 we included documentation
establishing, and I think Abbye went through this
as well, in the staff report, that the project
meets the purpose and intent of the PD zoning.
And I will quote wherever your code which is to
recognize unique conditions allow for design
flexibility, and promote planned diversification
and integration of uses of structure.
Now again, I know you have gotten a lot of e-mails
about this, the one saying that it should remain
commercial general.
I don't know whether they are saying to keep it as
is, and I really don't think that a surface
parking lot within three small structures on it is
really what we want to preserve in the RMU 100
district, or they just don't understand as I just
explained to you that commercial general one allow
apartments and would also allow a lot of uses I
don't think anyone really wants to see there.
The other common theme I keep is seeing in these
e-mails, this is in a walkable community, but as I
have explained, the missing piece that all the
experts tell you you have to have to create a walk
being community is residential.
The concept is people come home, park their car

and then they can walk to the shops, they can walk
to the restaurants, they can walk to the
entertainment.
People point to say, well, the advantage St. Pete
has for years was that they have residents living
downtown before Tampa did.
That's why Tampa has had a push to have residents
downtown.
Now a lot of the e-mails accuse this project of
being just apartments wrapping around a big
parking garage.
And that's just so ironic to me.
As I said before, the garage was oversized,
designed with more spaces than your code requires,
because Altman wanted to make sure that the people
using this parking lot now, and to go to Mise en
Place, to go to the oxford, to go to the Grand
Central offices would still have a place to park.
Why is that a bad thing?
And as for hiding the garage behind the
apartments, would they really prefer to see a
parking garage as a stand-alone building instead?
Now again, a number of the e-mails called Altman
greedy.
As I have explained they have a lot of ties to the

area.
They have been building in this area for years.
That's just not fair.
And they have also again worked very hard to
engage the community in the design of this
project.
So if I can conclude, you have before you
competent, substantial evidence establishing the
following:
The project is consistent with the City of Tampa
code, is consistent with the overall intent of the
PD site controlled plan district as described in
your code, it's consistent, you have heard from
Randy, you heard from David Hay, it's consistent
with the comprehensive plan and the goals,
objectives and policies of the original mixed use
100 planned category, consistent with the ULI
study, the InVision study, the study that city
engaged in to consider how this part of Tampa
should develop, and then it also advances the
planning and smart growth concept advocated by
people such as Andres Duany and Jeff Speck and
countless others and is the type of project that
helps create the true walkable city that this part
of Tampa deserves to be.

So for all these reasons we are asking that you
approve this rezoning, and I'm very happy to
answer any questions.
Thank you.
21:05:34 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Any questions from council?
Mr. Suarez.
21:05:36 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Thank you, chair.
Mrs. Zellman, I am trying to figure something out
here about you talked about some of the ideas.
I'm curious about something.
The project that you are proposing has 627 spaces.
Isn't that right?
21:05:57 >>ANDREA ZELMAN:
It's actually down to 622.
21:05:59 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
We'll go with that.
So those 625, and part of what they are talking
about in the excerpts that you have given us is
that walkable city talks very little about parking
per se except for one portion which is under the
walkable city, page 108 of the walkable city
portion, and saying, and to give you an example of
permitting and about stringent parking
requirements.
Why would we build 625 parking spaces if we wanted
to make it more walkable?
And the reason I am asking this is that to me it

seems a little disingenuous --
21:06:40 >> I would like to answer that.
21:06:42 >> Yeah, because, you know, the walkability
portion of it, to my understanding -- and I am by
no means any expert at all in terms of planning --
is that we get more dense communities, and those
dense communities produce more walkable areas,
which means that we have more use for transit
which makes a more vibrant cityscape and city
community.
Okay.
We never talk about parking per se.
In these studies, they are always talking about a
lot of things.
A lot of design issues.
A lot of very esoteric things.
And we really don't get to the nitty gritty which
is most people have at least one car, some
families have two cars or more.
Even when they want to live within the city.
And that's an issue.
And I know that that's part of the problem.
I know that Lowell, Massachusetts, and there's
some areas in Massachusetts that talk about
providing a vehicle with townhouses that are part

of the purchase of the townhouse meaning you don't
have to buy a car, you are going to have a car in
the townhouse.
But when we talk about walkability, why provide so
many spaces in an apartment that is about 290
units?
That's what I am curious about.
21:08:03 >>ANDREA ZELMAN:
The very simple answer is because
they are building on the parking lot that is now
providing parking for Mise en Place and the Grand
Central place tenants, and again although we are
not obligated to do it, we thought it was the
right thing to do, to oversize the garage, so
those people would still have a place to park.
You are right, Jeff Speck advocates for less
parking than what's required by code.
And as I said most apartment developers I have
represented, we always ask for parking waivers.
Most apartment developers think your city code
requires too many spaces for apartments.
The simple reason, we overparked this garage was
because we thought it was the right thing to do
because we are building on the parking lot that
today serves those uses.
21:08:50 >> Now, how many spaces are you using if this

proposed project goes through?
How many -- what number of parking spaces are you
replacing if the project goes through?
21:09:04 >>ANDREA ZELMAN:
I don't remember the exact
number.
And Randy can explain that in more detail.
I believe it's about 170.
21:09:10 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
I didn't think it was 300 or
anything like that.
I was just curious about it.
Because, you know, it seems cross pursuance for
each other when you talk about walkability and
then having a very large garage.
And I agree with you.
Anteriorly, it is better than having it on the
outside.
And I don't think there's anybody that would
disagree with that.
I am just wondering, it is such a large structure,
and there's so much parking, and I know that you
try to accommodate other folks.
But it still kind of goes -- kind of flies in the
face of the walkability issue.
And I'm really curious.
You made this a centerpiece of your presentation.

I wanted to make sure I understood where you are
going.
Thank you, chair.
That's it.
21:09:53 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Okay.
Mrs. Montelione Lon.
21:09:54 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Along those same lines, Mrs.
Zelman, does that many that getting any parking
for those businesses within the anticipation of
some kind of agreement with the businesses across
the street so that they have legal permission to
have dedicated parking within your building?
21:10:15 >>ANDREA ZELMAN:
My client has met with both Mise
en Place and the tenants and Oxford Exchange.
Oxford Exchange wouldn't talk to them about the
number of spaces.
My client made an offer.
I believe it's 65 dedicated spaces and Oxford
Exchange wouldn't continue the discussion.
I believe they worked it out with Mise en Place
and the Grand Central place.
They are going to dedicated the spaces.
Is that correct?
Or still talking?
I think they are still talking.

21:10:44 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
And the other commercial that
would be interior to the building, did I hear you
say in the beginning that you agree to all of the
conditions that are proposed by staff?
21:11:01 >>ANDREA ZELMAN:
Correct.
21:11:02 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
So the first condition
regarding --
21:11:07 >> It can no longer be changed.
We would have to go back and amend the PD to
change it.
21:11:11 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
And included in the parking
calculation, the parking --
21:11:15 >> Right.
21:11:17 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
And I am the one up here
saying I hate parking, I do not want any more
parking built, and, you know, this is a lot of
parking.
But I also sit and hear residents from other
areas of our city who say -- who blame City
Council, whether it's this City Council sitting
here or the City Councils who have come before us,
and yell and scream and jump up and down --
21:11:43 >> Oh, I heard them.
21:11:44 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
We allowed this to happen.
21:11:46 >> Right.

21:11:47 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
And that we didn't make
developers accommodate the parking that was going
to be required.
And, you know, I want it to be walkable.
But, I mean, I can tell you when I go to Oxford
Exchange or to Mise en Place, I do not walk from
this building to those locations.
In address and heel.
I do not take a bike to those locations, I drive
my car.
And I need a place to park.
21:12:15 >> We have one.
21:12:18 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Unfortunately, that's still
the norm here.
There's no trolley for me to take.
There's no little hop on the bus that I can take
over there.
So I get the juxtaposition between, yes, walkable
city, and yes, we still need parking.
And I anticipate in the area the other entitled
projects are going to require parking as well.
In fact, did you factor any of that into the
number of spaces that you are planning on?
21:12:57 >>ANDREA ZELMAN:
You many the TGH?
I mean, they have a massive parking garage planned

but I believe that's for their employees.
Because they park there, and shuttle to Davis
Island, and then they are also planning I
understand to do medical office which requires a
lot of parking.
I don't think there's necessarily --
21:13:20 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Additional buildings were
going to be with parking if there's going to be
any more retail and that tape of thing.
Thank you.
That's all I have for now.
21:13:33 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you.
Now we go to the audience participation.
Plaintiff Shelby.
21:13:43 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
When you do come up, if you do
have a speaker waiver form that you handed in,
please do let me know so I can pull your name and
ask that the people who are on the list
acknowledge that they are here.
Thank you.
21:13:55 >> Truett Gardner, a couple of housekeeping issues
on this end.
We have got a group that would like to give case
of a case in chief in opposition to this.
The time has been aggravated.

I talked to Marty about it.
21:14:13 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Griff me but I don't know how
the time has been added.
I see you have a speaker waiver form that has two
names with your name on the top.
21:14:23 >> Correct.
I'll get to the speakers right now.
It's myself.
I have got two additional minutes.
We have Dell accost a, our planner, Stephanie
Ferrell, our architect, George Deakin, our traffic
engineer, and Blake Casper, and we would all like
to group those together.
21:14:43 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
I don't have Mr. Deacons.
21:14:47 >> No need for additional time with him.
My point is we would all like to go together for
continuity reasons.
21:14:52 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
If I can, Mr. Chairman.
What you are saying, I see your name, Dell Acosta,
Stephanie Ferrell, what other name?
21:15:00 >> George Deakin and Blake Casper.
George Deakin requires no additional time.
And I'm not sure whether Blake --
21:15:08 >> I see Casper has two sheets for a total of 12
names soap that's more than he's entitled, to

which he's entitled.
21:15:16 >> Your rules which is a maximum of ten minutes.
21:15:21 >> And Mary Lou Bailey and Gina Grimes, Seth
Austin, and Tolitto are not on your list, is that
correct?
21:15:32 >> Correct.
21:15:32 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
You will put those aside.
Okay, if I can.
I might need some help.
Let's start with you, Mr. Gardner.
Now, council, is it council's rules that you are
giving this spokesperson two minutes with each
additional minute?
So Mr. Gardner, you have two minutes.
Is Michelle Brooks here?
Please acknowledge your presence.
That's one additional minute.
Tracy Bailey.
Okay.
That's four minutes so far for you, Mr. Gardner.
Mr. Acosta is here.
He gets two minutes.
Bianca benadetto, an additional minute.
Vance Kerry, one minute.
Albert Cruz, one minute.

Sergio MARTEZ, that's two, three, four, that's
six.
Minutes.
And that's a total of ten so far.
Is that correct?
Do I have that correct?
This is rather unusual.
Basically, you are having all these speakers
asking to be aggregated.
Each one of them has their own speaker waiver form
and they will speak for that amount of time.
Okay.
I misunderstood.
Okay.
Then Stephanie Ferrell is here.
That's two minutes.
Jeff English.
That's one minute.
Tyler Siegel.
Thank you.
One minute.
Debby Zolloman?
One minute.
And Janet, is that Davis?
Okay.

That would be six minutes total.
And Mr. Casper.
Mr. Casper is Jake Wyatt.
Jack, I'm sorry.
Richard Price.
Is Richard Price here?
I don't see Richard Price.
Wanda Hill.
Is Wanda Hill here?
Okay, wanda Hill is here.
Shavon Young Lindsay.
Renitia Baker.
Okay.
Marisol Bavilla.
Did I say that correctly?
I apologize.
Marisol?
Thank you.
Iliana Hernandez.
Thank you.
And Santene Charlie?
Did I say that correctly?
Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine minutes there
for Mr. Casper.
And then I can add an additional name.

Kevin Newsome.
Okay.
That's ten minutes for Mr. Casper.
Okay.
So if I have this correctly, Mr. Gardner, Del
Acosta, Stephanie Ferrell and Blake Casper are
your speakers speaking consecutively.
These what you are asking for.
I'm sorry?
And Mr. Deakins.
Okay, I'll write that down.
21:19:39 >> GINA GRIMES:
I have a procedural question.
I'm not sure why they are entitled to special
privilege to come up the line ahead of everybody
else.
We all got here early so we could get to the
beginning of the line.
We didn't have any special priorities.
And I object to the fact that they are able to
take over this hearing, have their speakers appear
in the order that they are requesting that they
appear when the rest of us who attended this
hearing early stood in line, and just want to get
up and make our presentation as we are entitled to
when it's our turn.

I have never seen anything like this occur at City
Council.
And that doesn't even address the issue of all the
additional time that they are requesting.
21:20:23 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Your objection is noted.
I am going to --
21:20:32 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Maybe I missed something but
Mr. Gardner asked that his speakers be in order
consecutively.
I don't, and --
21:20:47 >>GINA GRIMES:
These are all individual speakers.
21:20:49 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
No, I get that.
21:20:51 >>GINA GRIMES:
He's entitled to ten minutes.
21:20:52 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Mrs. Grimes, let me finish.
What I am suggesting is that we take the folks who
are in line, and like you say, people got here
early, they have been standing up for quite a long
time.
21:21:08 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Okay, here is the problem.
21:21:10 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
And then Mr. Gardner wherever
they fall in line --
This is one of the problems, calling out the names
of some of the people on the list standing in
line, you are going to have that problem.
I don't have no problem if people stand in line

and allowing them to go first if they want to
speak.
I don't have a problem with that.
But those whose names appear on the list, I guess
if they stand in line, if their name is on that
list -- okay, so you made that clear.
So we are ready to get started?
21:21:56 >> The only thing I would like to adjust as Ms.
Zellman stated that her client is entitled to
procedural due process, my client is, too, and
they were able to give a full speech with 15
minutes plus the additional 10, and all I'm asking
for is we be able to give a speech, and with
individual speakers that have continuity to it.
21:22:18 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
And Mr. Chair, I wasn't
suggesting otherwise.
I was just suggesting we take the people who are
not part of your group first.
And then everybody in your group can speak after
the individuals who have come so they can speak.
I'm not sure if a lot of them wanted to stay for
the entire hearing, but maybe some of them, the
individuals can speak, and then go home and watch
the rest on TV if you are so inclined.
21:22:46 >>FRANK REDDICK:
All right.

Those standing in line, let me first ask, those
who plan on speaking have to get sworn in.
21:22:57 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Anybody here who has not been
sworn in who plans on speaking?
21:23:03 >> Yes.
21:23:06 >>FRANK REDDICK:
If you plan on speaking, you need
to be sworn in.
(Oath administered by Clerk)
21:23:15 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Mr. Chairman, may I inquire?
[Sounding gavel]
21:23:26 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
May I inquire of the chairman?
Sir, with regards to the people who are now
present whose names have been called and don't
have seats, do you wish them to remain in the room
at this point?
Because they have acknowledged --
21:23:41 >>FRANK REDDICK:
No.
21:23:41 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
So if your name has been called
as being on the speaker waiver list and you are
not a speaker, please remember you are not
entitled to speak.
You have waived your time.
And additionally, you do not have to -- for the
council, you do not have to remain in the room
particularly if you don't have a seat.

You can have seats elsewhere.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
21:24:08 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Okay.
All right.
Any speakers we agreed to two minutes, right?
21:24:17 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Two minutes.
And if your name is on a speaker, if you are a
speaker who has filled out a speaker waiver form,
that is not with Mr. Gardner's group, just please
when you announce your name remained me and make
sure we do give you the time you are entitled.
Thank you.
21:24:34 >> Any name is Cecille Parido. I have a list.
21:24:40 >> There are three names.
Landon Parido.
Anna Hoffstetter.
Annette Reed.
That is two plus three, a total of five minutes.
21:24:58 >>FRANK REDDICK:
You have five minutes.
21:24:59 >> My name is Cecille Parago. I am the daughter
of and Bill and Maderas Stoeltzing, and I own
Grand Central building immediately north to the
site which has offices, art gallery and
restaurant.
I am speaking as the adjacent property owner.

My family has been true pioneers of the block and
surrounding area.
61 years ago in 1954 my parents took -- because of
the great location, only a short walk to the
downtown business Bryn Allen Studios.
And the walkability was extremely important to us.
In 1972 my parents purchased the two buildings
shown in the blue which now houses Oxford
Exchange.
21:25:47 >> [Off microphone.]
21:25:57 >> We can't hear.
21:25:58 >> Sorry.
Can you hear me now?
Get closer?
21:26:16 >> Is the clock still going?
21:26:22 >>FRANK REDDICK:
No.
All right.
21:26:55 >> Are you ready?
In 1972 my parents purchased the two buildings
shown in blue which now houses Oxford Exchange
where they moved their home office studio to the
Bryn Allen studios.
In 1974, construction of the Crosstown expressway
created a large barrier separating our
neighborhood from the rest of Hyde Park.

The depression began, and my parents in an attempt
to clean up the neighborhood began to purchase
neighboring properties when they became available.
My father decided that the business stream and
passion to redevelop our neighborhood and become
actively involved in the creation of downtown,
redevelopment association, and the Kennedy
Boulevard council and received the gold medallion
award in recognition of his commitment to the
improvement of Kennedy Boulevard.
Our redevelopment efforts for the entire area were
as follows: In 1985 we purchased the building
shown in red.
Originally known as Lafayette arcade, a mixed use
building designed by architect Leo Elliott who
also designed City Hall.
After being converted to student housing, the
photographs helped to restore the building back to
its original beauty and intended use and is now
Grand Central Place, home to Mise en Place
restaurant since 1972, the center gallery and many
other office tenants.
In 1995 we purchased the building and surrounding
parcels shown in orange.
Originally built in 1923 as a car dealership with

a wooden parking garage located within the
building, and redeveloped to Bryn Allen
headquarters. In 2009 we sold the building and
the entire block to Tampa General Hospital for the
corporate offices.
As you know, City Council already approved TGH's
redevelopment plans for two six-story office
buildings, retail and ten-story parking garage.
Around 2001 we started our second renovation to
the building shown in blue.
To redevelop the office building to our
redevelopment of Grand Central place.
Unfortunately on May 9, 2002 by brother died in an
auto accident and construction ceased.
Eventually we sold the building to Oxford exchange
in 2011.
On the block, which is the subject of the
rezoning, over the years my family continued to
assemble property for redevelopment of the entire
block as my father had always intended.
The buildings shown in yellow was transformed from
an old boarding house to Bryn Allen Portrait
studio.
The building was converted to offices and operates
as a small office building for the past 20 years.

The building shown in purple was an old boarding
house converted to a small office building, and
the area shown in green contains dilapidated
buildings and boarding housings which were
demolished and the land has been temporarily used
for parking.
Finally, in 2013, City Council vacated all the
alleys on the Grand Central block which at the
time requested to allow us to assemble the entire
block for redevelopment.
After struggling for so many years, downtown Tampa
and the surrounding neighborhoods like this area
are finally embarking on monumental progress.
However, as we have all learned from the
resurgence of downtown, it's a renewed energy,
urban core residents are essential for
neighborhoods and cities to prosper and grow.
And Altman's development has a grand plan to bring
residents back to this area.
As a result of what my father started, the area
has already become redeveloped with a true mixture
of uses, office, restaurant, and retail.
This is the missing link and the last remaining
step to my father's redevelopment plans for this
area.

Over the past several years I haven't received one
phone call from any commercial developer
interested in developing the subject block, but I
had many calls from residential developers.
However, no one has interested me more than Altman
development.
They have an exceptional reputation for high
quality, vast experience and multiple awards.
I'm confident office Grand Central will deliver
the life so desired by today's city residents, but
at the same time helping our neighborhood prosper
and grow.
(Bell sounds).
21:31:17 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you.
That means your time is up.
21:31:18 >> Okay.
Thank you.
21:31:20 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you.
21:31:20 >> Habonay Sanchez, also known as Bonay Sanchez,
762 Harbor Island in Clearwater.
Excuse me, sir.
I'm understanding we were taking people in line.
21:31:36 >> I apologize.
Okay.
Next person.

Well, we said we were going to allow people in
line to go first.
All right, thank you.
21:31:49 >> John Holland, 808 north Frankland street
downtown.
I have been a long time Tampa resident.
And one of the things that I am encouraged by
slowly, very slowly, over the time that I have
been in Tampa is the revitalization of downtown.
I think that in order to have ab community that is
energized like economically, socially, and from a
standpoint of having accessible community, you
need to have residential in that area.
I think that it is in Tampa's best interest to
have this part of town energizing our way.
I think what's before you tonight will allow you
to, if you choose, make that happen in a stronger
way than it is happening now.
That's all I have.
21:33:00 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you.
Next speaker.
21:33:01 >> Bob Walt, 3407 south Philmore Avenue.
I have the privilege of serving as the senior
pastor of First Baptist Church of Tampa and
represent the 700 members of that congregation.

We celebrate 156th anniversary of serving the
church and the community here in Tampa this year.
For the past almost 100 years First Baptist Church
of Tampa has set at 302 West Kennedy Boulevard,
and over the last several years the church has
strived to improve the neighborhood by buying the
property around it, and currently the church owns
from Cleveland Avenue up to Kennedy Boulevard, to
the TECO substation and from Plant Avenue to south
Hyde Park Avenue.
In 1973 as was mentioned earlier, the church
entered into an agreement with the department of
housing and urban development to build a 13-story
apartment complex for low-income senior adults.
Today, Tampa Baptist manor has 240 apartments with
263 residents over the age of 55, and that address
is 215 Grand Central Boulevard.
Grand Central Boulevard bisects the church's
property.
In the 1980s the church bought the old furniture
building, and in subsequent years remodeled it,
turned it into business offices, and as a result
many businesses have moved into our community.
I say all of this to say that the church is very
interested and committed to that neighborhood, and

we would be excited to see the revitalization
starting in downtown and continuing in our area,
to continue, and we are especially excited about
residents moving into the area, and we would be
excited to see that happen in the general area of
the church.
I know that our residents of the manor would
appreciate 24 hour residents for the stability and
security that it will provide for the community as
well.
Thank you.
(Bell sounds).
21:35:06 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you.
Next.
21:35:07 >> I apologize for not following procedure.
My name is Bonay Sanchez, and I live at 762 Harbor
Island in Clearwater.
And I will cut this down because I had planned for
three minutes.
Anyhow, the surface parking, I have known Nat
Baganier for many years. He's a person of great
business ethics and I have great respect for his
ability and his performance.
He has taught me that one of the things that he
was doing to accommodate the residents, the

businesses, is he's going to have a separate
entrance, a grand lobby for the patrons of the
local businesses to enter the separate parking
garage that they are going to have spaces for
those businesses.
So they'll have a separate elevator.
They'll have a separate grand lobby to enter.
It will not be commingled with the residents'
parking spaces.
As far as residential, I grew up in the most
walkable city in the neighborhood that Tampa ever
had and that was Ybor City.
We didn't have a car.
We didn't have bicycles.
Weighed to walk or take the street car.
We lived upstairs.
Our business was downstairs so the commute time
was 24 steps.
One of the things that I notice more and more
people want to live near where they work.
This residence that's going to be constructed here
will provide people the opportunity to walk to
where they work and live in a nice area.
Thank you.
21:36:51 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you.

Next speaker.
You're not speaking?
21:36:57 >> They are part of our speakers, however you want
to conduct this.
21:37:06 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Who is not part of the speaking
group in line?
Come up.
21:37:10 >> Mary Lou Bailey and I have one of the sheets.
21:37:21 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Thank you.
Rosa priest.
Did I say that correctly?
Do I have the name correctly?
I'm sorry.
Roger PRI-something-DE.
Is there a Roger here?
No, okay.
Glen English is here.
An additional minute.
And Steven Roberts is here.
Let me ask, you are Steven Roberts?
Oh, you are Paul Hoffstetter.
Okay.
Is Steven Roberts here?
(Laughter)
Steven Roberts is downstairs?

Are there people downstairs who are on the speaker
waiver form?
21:38:17 >> If you don't mind could you get all your people
together?
21:38:25 >> If I can run through it, I can do it in three
minutes.
So I have got three.
I will say my piece and move on.
Again my name is Mary Lou Bailey, 810 south
Packwood Avenue in Tampa.
It's in historic Hyde Park.
I'm using my time to be speak formally as the
president of historic Hyde Park neighborhood
association.
My board took a formal vote on the matter that I
representing, not just my individual opinion.
While the subject property is not within the
boundaries of historic Hyde Park it is within the
boundaries of the national district of Hyde Park
and we have a great increase in protecting that
boundary.
We oppose the Altman Development Corporation plan.
We do not see it as consistent with the intentions
as in the specifics of the comprehensive plan.
We have great interest in that.

I am going to name four specific objections.
First the proposal to demolish three historic
buildings.
With no local consultation and the city department
or citizens the developer an end around and we are
quite disappointed with the people at the state.
While these buildings have indeed been modified
most of the changes are in the rear of the
building or on the porch.
Myself, and my board members, have a lot of
experience with historic preservation, and we
think these could really be something special and
endearing to Tampa and what we will proceed.
We are in the process of figuring out how to do.
That in the meantime our local comprehensive plan
does offer protection of the historic buildings
and I offer you to pursue that.
Number two, the project proposes something that is
not relatable to the specific neighborhood and
makes no effort to respect the architecture of the
storied and memorable place.
Again, these are things that our comprehensive
plan significantly says it is intended to do.
Number three, proposed substantial protected trees
including those special grand oaks and makes no

effort to preserve the streetscape.
Number four, we do not see the project that is
true to the planned development of mixed use.
The percentage of commercial uses so small
relative to the residential and parking usage.
It does not promote a sense of community or
pedestrian use.
To the contrary, to historic district, that will
even encroach into the right-of-way.
The developer's application does not enrich
community life or further a public purpose.
Further we are concerned about than the potential
for precedence set by this proposal that might be
incredibly damaging to other areas of Hyde Park
and our greater city.
The developer did not contact me as president of
the historic Hyde Park neighborhood association or
any of our board members despite our very active
role in preserving Hyde Park.
Quite a contrast with the development of Hyde Park
village.
We are not opposed to development but expect the
development to be appropriate to the context in
which it fits.
We urge the council to deny this application and

by doing so honor the history of this special
place for the future of our great city and the
citizens purpose of the comprehensive plan.
I have documented historic Hyde Park neighborhood
association objections to this project in a formal
letter that I will deliver to you now and it does
contain substantial and competent evidence.
Thank you.
(Bell sounds)
21:41:44 >> My name is Stephanie Melnick.
We occupy space 442 West Kennedy Boulevard.
As far as I know we are the largest tenant in that
space.
My business partner and own a consulting firm, we
work with some clients in the Tampa area but we
also bring very large clients like Pfeisser and
Triple A into this area and looking for a very
specific place that has the charm that is
consistent with what I know as being a fourth
generation Tampa native.
Four generations on both sides as is my business
partner, Haley Creedy.
My great grandfather occupied the Valdez jewelry
in that walking area of Ybor City, and I wanted to
contribute to that very special entrepreneurial

spirit.
The only place we could find after a year of
searching was a cigar factory owned by the church
of Scientology which we did not get, and this very
walkable space.
I will say that there are two grand restaurants
than we frequent, the pizza place around the
corner that is new and there's a dough knot nut
shop.
There is one retail place in the Oxford Exchange
and that is the only retail in that building.
We really, really appreciate the development.
We want this area to develop.
We are committed to this area.
We have deep roots in this area.
And what we would really like to be see is true
walkability.
And if you drive down those streets, you can
barely get down them now, and if you look at the
scale and size of the proposed building, it dwarfs
every other building in that area.
Thanks.
21:43:22 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Next speaker.
Two minutes.
21:43:27 >> My name is Haley Norman.

Haley creedy Norman, 336 west Rio Vista court.
Seminole Heights is where I live.
I come as a fourth generation Tampa native to talk
to you tonight.
I do own a business with my business partner
Stephanie Melnick in the Grand Central business
but I this about my 95-year-old grandmother who
went to the doctor in that Grand Central building.
I think about my father who went to the movies
when it was called the park theater.
I think about when I went to the University of
Tampa and I performed with the Spanish New York
theater and I think about my now son who goes to
the University of Tampa and who enjoys that space.
I have had the opportunity to talk to hundreds of
my relatives because they all still live here
because they all believe in Tampa from Wesley
chapel to Carrollwood to everywhere in between,
and they all feel this is not what's best for
Tampa.
What's best for Tampa is that we take a thoughtful
approach, that we look at that area.
We want it to be developed.
We really do.
But we want it to be developed in the right way so

that it's preserved, so that the historical
integrity of that space is preserved.
And I plead with you tonight to please think of
that as you vote so that my daughter's daughter
will be able to enjoy that area and see it thrive.
It truly is a walkable area.
Please give that some consideration tonight.
Let's do the right thing for Tampa.
This gigantic building is not it.
Thank you.
21:44:53 >> My name is Greg Scrivener.
I am a tenant in the Grand Central place building.
I have been thereby for six years now.
Paying my rent every month on time and in a
professional manner.
The problem I have is I have only had one meeting
with the owners in the property management.
That means only discussion.
Nothing came out of it in writing.
Right now, my lease is attached to that whole
entire parking lot area that is supposed to be
parking space granted to me as a tenant.
This plan will destroy the entire parking lot for
a length of time that will not allow any of my
clients, because 95% of my clients are attorneys,

come into my business, with court reporting, legal
business.
It will put me out of business.
I explained that to Altman as well.
The worst part about this whole scenario is when
my lease came due on my fist year, and I
negotiated my lease renewal with the owner -- not
the owners but with the property management, that
time was the most difficult time of my life.
My son had stage four colon cancer.
Property manager worked with me, which put in
something there that allowed me to opt out three
years after my next lease renewal thinking my son
would have two or three years left.
Unfortunately, he passed away Christmas day 2014.
Their current lease that they give to have me to
renew, they added a page in there that if we did
not negotiate, we did not approve, and I find that
so deceptive and deceiving that they would insert
something that included the parking.
They changed a couple words and that sentence and
that word gave them more power and authority to
accomplish what they are trying to do, and I am
sorry, that is despicable of the owners and any
property manager.

(Bell sounds).
21:47:09 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you.
Next speaker.
21:47:10 >> My name is Dominique Martinez.
Through the past several weeks, this was really an
educational process, finding out how everything
goes when somebody wants to develop something, and
it seems to be what the regular process of filing
paperwork with the city, and inform the community
of what your intentions are without their
approval.
It's like trying to hide a white elephant, and I
think the white elephant is a subject in question.
I lived in Channelside for quite some time,
approximately 20 years, I was one of the first
pioneers there, the sixth tenant that lived there
when nobody else would move down there.
I have seen every building come down and every
building go up.
Eventually, I said enough is enough, witnessing
first hand history disappearing, even its original
name because if you ask somebody whereby the
banana docks are nobody knows now.
And it used to be called channel district.
Now it's Channelside.

The Channel District never had a master plan.
They say if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
A custom plan design which will add value to the
community putting that in place would attract the
right projects, the right business, the rate
demographics and the right -- the right landscape.
We also raised our standards within can community
and not just sell them off to the highest bidder.
We are all actions from the city.
What we do and input that we leave behind is very
important.
So when tourists visit Tampa, they can at least go
back home and say, you know what?
Tampa did it right.
We set a precedence for other communities, and
being looked at as a positive role model for other
cities to learn from.
The quaint and charming little pockets of Tampa
still exist and more are being covered and
renovated but even more are torn down.
I myself am restoring station number five in Tampa
Heights, more history being preserved, painstaking
and costly process which will be completed very,
very soon.
We as residents have a duty to preserve our

culture, our history and be extremely selective
where and what we tear down and build up.
Before we know it within the blink of an eye
history disappears --
(Bell sounds).
21:49:19 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you, sir.
Next.
21:49:20 >> Good evening.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak.
My name is Vinny Tafuro, downtown resident at 510
east Harrison street.
I'm asked you to deny this application for the
following three reasons.
The first is the proposal is not in lane for great
urban design and will destroy three historic
buildings regardless of national designation.
Irish poet and philosopher John O'Donohue believes
tradition is to the community what memory is to
the individual.
If you lose your memory, you don't know who you
are, and if you lose your tradition it's the same
thing.
Second, we are witnessing a civic wakening from
Tampa Bay Express to the size of craft beer
growlers.

Tampa residents are deeply engaged and ware asking
you to think different.
We are asking you to encourage transit oriented
development.
We are asking that you discourage reliance on
cars.
We are asking for creative ideas to accomplish
these goals.
Third, I encourage you to use this opportunity to
consider changing parking requirements for
redevelopment in and around the urban core and
incentivize transit.
Grand Central is serviced by three bus routes as
well as a potential circulator in need of
operating funds.
One source of funds could be an endowment funded
by development projects in exchange for parking
concessions.
From teenagers to retiring boomers, the desire to
drive less is growing quickly and very soon will
translate into huge decline of car ownership.
Driverless car technology combined with Uber and
sold in Netflix subscription manner will
eventually devastate the auto industry as we know
it.

Parking garages and projects like the one proposed
tonight will fit its ugly relics to a time gone
by.
An innovative idea to prepare our urban core and
surrounding neighborhoods for a future where fewer
people own a car is an opportunity for the City of
Tampa to tell the community we understand and
embrace the future and we welcome development that
does as well.
Thank you.
21:51:10 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you.
21:51:11 >> My name is Rodney Kite-Powell. I live at 2003
North Village Avenue, Tampa, Florida.
I am a professional historian, everybody
researching the City of Tampa, Hillsborough
County, the State of Florida for about 20 years.
I also served from 2000 to 2006 on the Historic
Preservation Commission.
I am here to speak a little bit about the history
of this subject property, and it certainly
distresses me to think about those three
buildings.
They are not considered historic and are certainly
old enough and the idea of contributing.
What don't they contribute to?

They certainly contribute to what is left of that
part of Hyde Park which is the original part of
Hyde Park, the oldest part of Hyde Park that still
exists today and contributes to the surrounding
neighborhood.
If you look at the building toward the northeast
you see the buildings along Grand Central, you see
the church, and so without a doubt, they
contribute.
That aside, looking at the elements that they want
to add to these buildings.
If you take little bits and pieces, don't your
buildings fit historically?
A bird makes a bed of twigs and leaves, does that
make that nest a tree?
Not really.
Fast forwarding to some modern history, 2011,
Tampa General Hospital, for this property, and
think of what was going on in 2011.
There was slow downs looking for any way to
energize the neighborhood.
So City Council made a decision that would
hopefully energize that space.
Also it included residential.
And so that area needs residential.

This subject property, it's already allowed under
the present zoning under the comprehensive plan.
So look at what's already there and look at what's
allowed. And that's really would fit in with
everything you see today.
Thank you.
21:53:07 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you.
Next speaker.
21:53:08 >> Good evening.
My name is Dave Ward.
I am the co-founder and co-owner of Buddy Brew
Coffee.
I also work in real estate much of my professional
career before, before founding Buddy Brew Coffee.
We currently operate two stores in the Hyde Park
neighborhood, and soon to be three.
And Hyde Park village that we open later this
year.
I want to first state that I am very -- I think
development is essential but it has to be the
right development.
And I strongly oppose this project for those
reasons.
It's not right.
If you look at the scale and mass of this compared

to the neighborhood, that it's going to be put in,
it just doesn't fit.
I am also very in favor of more commercial.
Business is moving in, and entrepreneurial
activities.
I believe this is along with multifamily, which I
not opposed to as well, is the future of
greater walking city which Tampa desperately
needs.
On another note, I find it absolutely appalling
that somehow these three historic buildings can
slipped through the cracks and have been
declassified as historic.
It's unbelievable.
As a guy who lives at 806 Fremont in Hyde Park
itself, I can't even replace a window in my house
without going behalf committee such as this to get
approval.
And the fact that these buildings be declassified
and then torn down is absolutely appalling.
I also am very much disappointed in the fact that
they weren't looked at for legalization or reuse.
Some of the other things that -- we did the same
thing with our building at 2020 West Kennedy.
The Ulele, same thing, great outcome for historic

buildings and especially the Oxford Exchange.
(Bell sounds).
21:55:17 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you.
21:55:17 >> Create historic and walking business areas.
21:55:23 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Next speaker.
21:55:23 >> Paul Hoffstetter, 562 Madiera Avenue on Davis
Island, and I have worked in commercial real
estate in this part of Tampa, in Hyde Park for
over 30 years.
Actually, I'm the manager of Grand Central place,
and I helped with the renovation of it when it was
run down and had been used as dorms for University
of Tampa and really needed rehab, in a great way.
And I worked hand in hand with Bill Stoeltzing,
Sr. to make that building what it is today, and
now those that would have offices there in the
building.
Also like to go to Mise en Place restaurant.
And that building Grand Central Place was a
catalyst for redevelopment of that particular part
of Hyde Park.
As you all probably know, the Crosstown
expressway, you know, that serves transportation
very well, cut off that part of Hyde Park and the
rest of it and eliminated the residential

component which was essential.
As has been mentioned before, without significant
residential development, this part -- that part of
Tampa will not sustain a downturn in the economy.
Also, when you look out for Grand Central place,
you look across large parking lots.
Not only the parking lot that Grand Central uses
and those tenants will use, and continue to use
through getting covered parking, a parking garage,
but you look over to the left and you see the
property that eagle realty has that Tampa General
leases.
It's all parking too.
It's like having a field next to an office
building and it really serves no purpose at this
time.
In that area other than parking cars.
Well, the residential component was eliminated and
needs to be replaced or the area will remain out
of balance.
If you put any other type of development on that
site, it will not be us sustainable.
It will be like Channelside that was put in in
advance of residential development.
It died.

It had to be revived.
(Bell sounds).
21:57:41 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you.
21:57:48 >> Good evening, council.
Benjamin Buckley, 1705 west state street.
I'm a member of the neighborhood association North
Hyde Park area which adjoins this neighborhood and
I think Tampa deserves better.
I am not a member of their group, Tampa preserve,
but that's what I think.
The project may go along with the minimum
requirements, with the comprehensive plan of the
city code, but I don't think this plan hold the
spirit of the InVision plan.
The intent.
We worked a couple years on this.
And I think that's very important.
Another thing.
I think you are familiar with the phrase they
paved paradise and put up a parking lot.
The "they" will become you, City Council.
Historic Preservation Commission of Tampa, Altman
development and others involved who will allow
this project with a parking garage with an
apartment facade.

Architects are entrusted with the site to work
within the confines, the site challenges offer and
the contextual fabric of sites surrounding, not
come in and bulldoze everything and say now I can
work.
The project is nothing more than cookie cutter
architecture and planning.
As a matter of fact, I think we have two of these
projects you can look at them over in North Hyde
Park.
And I haven't heard much praise from our
neighborhood over there about those two projects
on Rome Avenue.
They can go anywhere.
This is an empty parcel.
Perhaps with no historical significance.
Lest we forget the national historic significance
of the existing buildings.
The proposed development north of the site, it
ignores the fawna, trees, landscaping, and most
importantly ignores the three historical
structures.
What happened to adaptive reuse?
What happened to historical rehab?
Has anyone asked the developer these questions?

Why does the architect and developer not want to
be challenged?
(Bell sounds)
Thank you.
I ask that you use your wisdom here and vote
against this.
22:00:02 >> My name is Mary McCahon, 2812 north Central
Avenue in Tampa Heights.
I urge you to either allow the developer to build
what he can do without a waiver or develop a
design that reflects the current thinking about
new construction in historical, historic, meaning
the national register of historic places, which
this land still is, or sensitive setting.
Tampa does deserve better.
But that does not mean more, or more expensive
decoration.
Apply decoration to stock design solutions and
calling it a content sensitive solution is so late
90s, and nationally quickly learned and what
City Council has seen that applying decoration to
be standard designs and calling them context
sensitive have not been successful.
It isn't a context sensitive solution as the
interstate in Tampa shows you, and it is not good

design.
What is a better approach is what I offer should
be considered here is good for the opportunity for
good context as a solution and shows by the
interstate highway in YUMA which is quiet, and
select history and the scenic beauty makes a
statement.
You have that opportunity with this project.
You have three fine buildings that should be
brought forward.
And would you please put the picture down?
Brought forward onto the Grand Central approach,
and let us maintain the grandeur that remains of
Grand Central Avenue.
That could be where the mixed use goes and it
would provide a superb buffer between the historic
buildings and maintain the new construction which
should be quiet and reflect the historical of our
community that doesn't exist because all the rest
of it has been torn down.
Thank you.
(Bell sounds).
22:02:29 >>HARRY COHEN:
Thank you very much.
Next.
22:02:31 >> My name is Meaghan O'Neal.

I reside at 24231 Satinwood Court in Lutz, and I'm
here to represent my family, because my family
loves Tampa.
I have grown up here my entire life.
My family has invested their lives here.
My grandfather and my grandmother pat and Sally
O'Neal opened Sally O'Neal's over 30 years ago and
they are still open today.
My grandmother Joyce Schafer was president of City
Council and the Chamber of Commerce, and was
president of the Chamber of Commerce in Ybor City.
She was very influential in revitalizing Ybor City
while preserving the history there.
And she instilled that love to me for history, for
historical places.
So that's why I am before you today, because I
believe that we can do better, that Tampa deserves
better than destroying three places that are
historical, and that deserve to be recognized as
an historical place.
I also believe that the development that is being
proposed is as many have been stated massively
oversized for the area, and that even just the
construction of this development and this huge
structure could change and will change the

character of this area, that the brick streets,
the small town feel, the historical area feel that
this area has, due to the fact that hits so close
to the University of Tampa, and so close to
buildings that are historical, that that will be
changed in this development.
So I would encourage you to recognize history and
just all of the family roots that we have here as
Tampa residents.
Thank you.
22:04:19 >>HARRY COHEN:
Councilman Miranda.
22:04:21 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
This has nothing to say of
this rezoning.
Maybe I shouldn't say this.
But I know your mother and I know your father.
(Laughter)
No, no, no, you aren't going to believe what I am
going to say.
Your mother was from Massachusetts.
Her name was Sally Mosby.
Yeah, your grandmother.
And I worked with her in 1957 at the Sagamore
Hotel.
That's all.
Just that little critique.

(Laughter).
22:04:58 >> I'm Donald profield. I live in the Hyde Park
historic district.
I would like to begin by saying I am not
anti-development.
As a matter of fact I am very pro responsible
development.
To take a location, history, existing
neighborhood, and the responsibility guardianship
of the land in which the development is to stand
under consideration.
I believe that this particular development does
not meet the criteria to be labeled responsible.
As a matter of fact this development seems to be a
wanton disregard for our city and our history.
Buildings that want removed from the historic
roles as shown as a fifth generation Tampan and
I'm frankly not happy about that move but as an
owner of a historic home who is forced to preserve
that history, I'm angry.
That precedence set by allowing those buildings to
be demolished is not one I want to see as our city
moves into what appears to be a great future.
As far as guardianship of the land, there are a
couple of grand oaks on this site that are slated

to be cleared should this development go through.
Again it sets a terrible precedence.
I myself have a grand oak in my backyard where I
would frankly like to have a pool.
I accept that fact, and understand that I can't
get way want, because destruction of that tree
would and should be almost impossible.
These trees don't simply recreate themselves and
should be protected.
However, this developer seems to think they can
remove theirs.
Grand Central and several long standing businesses
that have been good stewards of our community as
well as the unique Grand Central area.
They will be adversely affected as well.
Rezoning is a privilege to this development does
not deserve.
You are the people we have elected to help us
govern our city to help us protect those things
that we as individuals cannot, and I urge you to
please review this -- rebuke this request to
rezone this property.
Thank you.
22:06:48 >>HARRY COHEN:
Thank you.
22:06:51 >> Good evening.

My name is Jeff Gibson. I live at 101 south 12th
Street in the Channel District.
When I last came here and stood before the council
was in favor of the tower that was by the Straz
Center was going up.
A truly mixed use urban building.
I came before the council and argued density,
density, density.
The density and density alone isn't the answer.
We must look at the entire neighborhood and what
the neighborhood would support.
I live in Channel District.
I work downtown.
I frequent the establishment across the street
from this property and plan to continue to
frequent it.
And what they have proposed is not a truly mixed
use place for that, particularly with the only
5,000 square foot of retail space or commercial
space in that.
I urge the council to look at the neighborhood as
a whole.
What we really want for our urban core, and to
deny this as proposed and allow them to come back
with something that trawl would fit within this

neighborhood.
Thank you.
22:07:54 >>HARRY COHEN:
Thank you.
22:07:58 >> MaryAnn Ferpal, West Kennedy Boulevard.
The first six of 29 years were on Platt Street and
23 of which have been located at Grand Central
place across from the proposed development.
I ask you to note that the proposed developer
would thus be my landlord and I believe this
demonstrates that we have much at stake here.
My reputation precedes me with the pro upon end
for progress, one who works for a better Tampa and
as a pioneer and proponent of development.
I remember when this property would one day be
developed but I dreamt about how wonderful it
would be for our city and for our business.
When clients ask me as we opened on Platt Street
in 1987 if it was safe to be drop off their wives
and park, I said yes.
The neighborhood is different now that we are
here.
When clients asked them when we moved to Grand
Central Place and Platt Street in 1992 if we were
jumping from the frying pan into the fryer, I said
no, we want to be part of the growth of downtown

and this neighborhood will be different now that
we are here.
When the Oxford exchange opened and clients asked
if I was worried I said no. Watch how much better
the neighborhood will get with them here.
In fact it has.
And I believe that we have become the destination
that I believe Mr. Stoeltzing dreamt it would be.
But now I have not -- respect for the owner and
developer expressed publicly today, but if someone
asked me if I am worried about the development, I
would have to say yes, I am very worried.
I am worried because if I could put aside my fears
of a year plus of construction upheaval and
parking loads to which no solution has been
presented that comes close to solving a problem in
ways that will save my business, I cannot put my
worries aside that the neighborhood has risked the
test of time and has seen our investment will be
irrevocably devastated, become average,
unremarkable and no longer a unique district
creating a real destination with the power to draw
many but a place that looks and feels like
everyone where else.
We have dedicated ourselves and our business, so

yes, I am worried about first the disruption and
the dissolution of our neighborhood and our era
and the livelihood of the 150 people we employ.
I urge the council this development is
inconsistent with urban neighborhood created by
pioneers like Henry Plant and Mr. Stoeltzing, and
please wait for the right development for this
location.
Thank you.
(Bell sounds).
22:10:17 >> Jim Floyd of Adams and Reese, 101 East Kennedy.
I represent Mise en Place.
Council, you can't see the forest for the trees.
But in this case it's about the trees.
We all like trees.
But what's important is what your code that we all
have to live with says about trees.
In order to remove a grand oak under section
13-45-Z-2-B, it has to preclude reasonable use of
the property.
The reasons stated on the application that why
trees needed to be removed -- and there are grand
oaks, two nonhazardous -- is because of the
constraints of the property. Council, this
property is 2.51 acres.

That's very large by urban standards.
The applicant has not demonstrated by competent
substantial evidence that be they meet the
criteria to show that they are not reasonable use
of the property if the trees remain.
Specifically number 8 of the ten criteria.
Any effort by the applicant to redesign the
proposed development structure or use in a
management to a grand or protected tree. There's
been no competent substantial evidence to support
that and we find the application is flawed for
that reason.
I also want to point you -- and Ms. Feeley said
section 27-136, and requires to be proven when you
approve a planned development rezoning.
I want to read what that says because the
applicant has not demonstrated again by competent
substantial evidence.
The sufficient and sustainable use of land and
infrastructure with careful consideration of one,
potential adverse impact to onsite natural
elements. They are removing 34 trees including
three grand oaks.
They are stripping the property of all the trees
on the property.

Number two, surrounding impact to neighborhoods.
You heard competent substantial testimony of
people who live breathe and work there and is not
compatible to the neighborhood.
And they are tearing down three historic
structures, did an end around the process.
A due process question, really.
We are not against development here.
We welcome responsible residential development.
But we are opposed to this and ask that you deny
it.
Thank you.
(Bell sounds).
22:12:24 >> Thank you.
22:12:25 >> I would say good evening but it's almost good
night.
My name is Mit Patel, a resident of 807 south
Oregon Avenue.
I believe it's historic Hyde Park but I'm still
confused about divisions.
I have seen a lot of you all at different meetings
before.
You know I am a big advocate for smart everything.
I like smart government.
I like smart phones.

I like smart development.
I like smart roads.
I like smart transit.
I'm a smart advocate.
I have been a business owner in this community in
Hillsborough County for 17 years, so I would say
that stretching outside, I think Tampa deserves
better but I think the county deserves better.
I grew up in east county in Brandon, good country
boy.
I moved out of there in 2007, moved to Tampa, and
I'm glad I did, not because I don't love Brandon.
I love Brandon to death but it didn't fit with
what I was looking for.
I went to USF, got are two degrees in USF, one in
engineering, one in entrepreneurship.
I have five businesses, six businesses in
Hillsborough County.
I have three businesses in the city limits of
Tampa, new Tampa, south Tampa, and north Tampa,
and I have seen this area come alive in the last,
you know, few years that I have never seen before,
which is exciting for someone like me.
I almost moved to San Francisco three years ago
because I didn't think there was going to be a

place for me and my generation.
I'm excited about that.
As far as this development, I don't know too much
about it.
I found about it last night.
I do like the T-shirts.
I'm very jealous to come up with a name.
The Oxford Exchange, I love that.
And I looked at the pictures.
It just didn't make sense as far as the way it
looks. And on the surface of it.
And that pretty much concludes it.
Thank you.
22:14:28 >> Good evening.
Anilese Meir, 2307 west Briscoll Avenue.
It is very nice to come before you all again.
It's been quite some time.
This picture I would like you to deny this
rezoning request.
For many reasons.
I'm here to talk to you about this house is 110
Magnolia, owned by the Shimcock family, immigrants
from Lithuania, and my parents and I went to
church on Highland Avenue in Tampa Heights.
And this was a rooming house.

It was very upscale rooming house.
That house is gorgeous inside and I cannot imagine
it's not gorgeous inside.
The balustrade alone is just to die for.
Lydia and Fred came here after World War II.
I'm not quite sure.
And I believe the addition in the back was already
on.
They actually have a kitchen down here and they
lived upstairs.
Their daughter Ruth, who went to plant high
school, lived in the house on the ground floor and
the rooms upstairs were mostly for men.
There was a very strict rule.
No alcohol.
No women.
Or no overnight guests.
Let's put that the way.
This is the cleanest alley in Tampa.
It's not so clean anymore although it's cleaner
than most.
She would get out every day and sweep, as most
eastern Europeans and actually Europeans did.
They swept every day.
This house is still gorgeous.

It is still historic.
Something shifty was done here getting this off
the national register.
Don't want to go into it.
I only wish the Stoeltzing family and the Casper
family would talk because I don't think this
property is under contract unless the zoning goes
through.
Thank you very much.
22:16:25 >> Good evening.
I'm Linda Saul-Sena, and I live at 157 Biscayne.
First of all, I couldn't figure out how you could
delist a contributing structure, so I called
Tallahassee, and the woman, Desiree, said, you
know, I really was kind of new in the job.
Then I called the keeper of the national register
in Washington, U.S. Parks Service, and he said he
looked at a Google Earth image and agreed with
Desiree, that there are a lot of surface parking
lots.
Neither of them visited here. Neither of them
heard from any advocates or from the neighborhood,
and that process was preempted.
The good news is the guy from Washington said we
can reapply, that these again become contributing

structures, and I think it's something we should
consider.
But the reason I am speaking before you tonight is
because, as a City Council member for 20 years, I
can tell you a very specific things that council
did to protect the character of the neighborhood
as identified in the comp plan.
We got the University of Tampa to spend several
hundred thousand dollars to keep two grand trees
alive.
Then across the street they wanted to build a
dorm.
We forced them, the developer of the dorm, to move
the proposed structure back to enable the
continuation of the grand tree at the corner of
Kennedy and Hyde Park Avenue.
And that's in addition to many other rezonings in
the area where we said you must respect the
character of this portion of Hyde Park.
Just because the Crosstown Expressway goes through
there doesn't many there isn't a national register
district to the north of it.
And if you look at the charming house on Fremont
and Edison and those other streets that have been
converted into offices, and residences, you can

see that the residential character north of the
Crosstown is still there.
I believe it was a grave mistake made to remove
those contributing structures, and the trees need
protection.
Thank you.
Please deny this rezoning.
(Bell sounds)
22:18:40 >>FRANK REDDICK:
State your name.
22:18:46 >> Kevin O'Hare, Valrico, Florida.
So a few weeks ago, I am walking down Kennedy.
I ran into a friend of mine.
He said, Hey, Kevin -- we were at the intersection
by City Hall, by Kennedy and Florida.
And said, Look at that intersection right there.
It has a parking lot and TPD headquarters.
He showed me a picture of what used to be there.
The Hillsborough County courthouse.
First one ever built.
And then you look at that structure.
And that picture and I think to myself, I think,
you know, that picture identifies Tampa.
It identifies who we are as a community.
It's something unique.
Something that's nowhere else in the world.

It's right here in our downtown.
It was gone.
And now you have a TPD and a parking garage.
And a few businesses on the side.
Every time, we knock down an historical building,
we need to think to ourselves about what we are
destroying, and what we are destroying is the
fabric that makes this community completely
different than anywhere else in the world.
What makes us Tampa, what defines us as a city.
I had a big decision I had to make a couple of
months ago and that's where I was going to go to
school, and I'm proud to be at the University of
Tampa and proud I made the commitment to stay in
my home.
And a big reason why I made that commitment was
because I honestly believe with all of my heart
that Tampa is going to be the next great American
city, and there are advocates working tirelessly
day after day to make that a reality.
And we ask ourselves, why does Tampa deserve
better, oh war does Tampa deserve better of?
And while there's a lot of things that we can
improve on, and while we have a history of tearing
down buildings before, we can start tonight and

set a precedence that we want to protect what
makes Tampa the next great American city.
Thank you.
Pleas stop this project.
(Bell sounds).
22:20:49 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you.
22:20:49 >> 3213 west pine street.
I am currently an independent contractor at 303
Grand Central Avenue.
And with this development, I feel there can be
something else that can be developed commercially
for the environment for what's going on now.
And we get plenty of walkability with what we are
building in downtown already.
With this development, I think that we should
create something more commercial, and I urge City
Council to take that into consideration.
Thank you.
22:21:20 >> My name is Jonathan Myers, 509 south Willow
Avenue.
I lived in Tampa Hyde Park specifically for about
eight years now.
When I first moved here, I lived in apartments,
townhouses, historic buildings.
I was looking for something that drew me to the

area having mixes of uses.
I used to be closer to Howard.
But came to the Oxford Exchange area really
brought a lot to the dynamics of that overall
area.
I have also seen that as we are getting more of a
work-play type element introduced to the area it's
attracting a lot of corporations and a lot of good
responsible businesses.
I think that we need to support projects like
this.
And I think that it's overall great for the
economy, and will help to kind of go in a roll,
and it's the first of many steps of redeveloping
that Kennedy corridor.
Thank you.
22:22:31 >> Matt Hanley, district 7.
I have lived here my entire life.
I matriculated through Hillsborough County school
system at every level.
And I'm a huge fan of this city.
And I have been other places.
As a construction professional, I have worked in
large markets, Charlotte, Atlanta, and I have
always come back home.

I love this city.
And when I was not here, and I was in the bigger
market, I lived in multifamily housing and it was
a lot of nice accommodations, and I had a lot of
neighbors who were transient to those markets as
well.
And I know the importance of projects like these.
And I think it's very important for our city, as
we are in a growing economy and our state's
economy is growing.
We just passed New York for the third most
populace states.
Jobs are coming here.
People are coming here.
And that's exciting and I want to live in a city
that's competitive.
And that's very important to me.
And I heard someone say this earlier, but they
reminded me of 2009, and it reminds me that our
city is not -- we are not immune to a downturn in
the economy.
And as a construction professional, I see a
barometer is a good growth and good economy is
companies who want to develop, companies oh who
want to grow in your area, and unfortunately the

operative issue here is time.
And I know some of you read the business journal.
And I know you have seen the articles.
And as people get older they want to move out of
their houses and they don't wanted that burden and
they want nice places to live.
And I don't want to compete with Orlando.
They are always a point below us in unemployment
and I don't want to be second fiddle to them.
I love this city.
Thank you very much.
(Bell sounds).
22:24:45 >> Nice to see district 7 in the house.
22:24:54 >> Ms. Grimes has a speaker waiver form with one
name.
Is Harvey Territo here?
22:25:01 >>GINA GRIMES:
I really just planned on three
minutes.
Sorry I had to use the speaker waiver form.
Gina Grimes, Hill, Ward, Henderson, 101 East
Kennedy Boulevard.
I represent Ryland property management which is
the asset manager of several properties including
the surface parking lot and the buildings which is
the subject of this rezoning.

I would like to address the opposition to this
rezoning and most of it has been from Oxford
Exchange and their social media campaign, Tampa
Deserves Better.
I would like to address why we believe that they
are so opposed to this project.
Although the basis for their objection has changed
several times over the course of this application,
their current position that the project is not
pedestrian friendly, and that CG zoning is better
than residential just does not make sense.
When something like this doesn't make sense you
really need to look behind it and find out what
the true motivation is.
Is there an ulterior motive with respect to their
opposition to this project? With all due respect
to Mr. Casper we think that there is.
We believe what's really motivating Oxford
Exchange and their on situation is the fact that
they have a lease for 65 parking spaces on the
subject rezoning site, but that lease is
terminable upon sale of this property.
So if this rezoning is approved, and if the sale
of the property occurs, the parking lease will be
terminated.

Why is their parking lease so important?
Well, their parking issues started back in 2011
when they purchased this property, because they
knowingly purchased this building knowing that it
had no parking associated with it.
And by the way, the price of the building
reflected the fact that it didn't have parking.
So in 2011, Oxford Exchange had applied to the
city to obtain a design exception so the off-site
spaces could be used to be counted for parking
requirements.
Then in 2014, Oxford Exchange also was further
dependent on their parking lease and they obtained
a special use permit for alcohol, also conditioned
upon the existence of these parking spaces, these
lease spaces.
Obviously, they have a lot to lose if this
rezoning is approved and they lose their parking
lease.
They have their design exception, their zoning
compliance, and their alcoholic zoning at stake.
But they always knew this parking lease was
terminable upon the sale of any of the parcels on
the subject site.
And you have heard from Ms. Zellman that even

though Altman is not legally obligated to provide
them parking, they have offered to lease to Oxford
Exchange the same number of spaces in the parking
garage as they currently have now in the surface
lot.
But that's not enough apparently for Oxford
Exchange and they refused to even discuss the
parking issue.
Maybe they are worried about disruption during
construction. Maybe they are worried about less
than favorable lease terms.
Maybe they are worried about the convenience of
surface parking versus garage parking.
But at this point they are asking this council to
deny this rezoning, and what we think are faulty
legal grounds, and that is that residential isn't
appropriate and RMU 100 and retaining CG and
surface parking is better than what is the better
that Tampa deserves.
That's not a legitimate basis for denial, and we
ask for your approval of this rezoning for the
reasons stated by Ms. Zellman.
Thank you.
22:28:19 >> Rosemary Henderson, 2001 Bayshore Boulevard.
I've lived in my home in Hyde Park for 44 years.

I have been very involved in a lot of different
parts of Hyde Park.
I was past president, Historic Hyde Park
Neighborhood Association.
And I came tonight because I'm opposed to this
plan.
I had hoped to hear everything that the other
presenters are getting ready to present, and also
going to try to pick up on what I thought were
some of the most important aspects.
But I will hear that in a minute, but I have heard
enough tonight from all the different speakers we
heard from to know that I'm still even more
strongly about why I am opposed to this.
I will be very brief.
The batteries in my hearing aids are starting to
beep.
(Laughter)
And I can't tell the difference between that beep
and your beep.
So I will just say, so many great things are
happening in our city that we can be so proud of.
I am proud of Hyde Park, and so many changes we
have seen there.
I just do not believe that this is the best plan

for our neighborhood, for our city, and for those
reasons I oppose it.
Thank you.
22:29:33 >> Truett Gardner. 401 North Ashley Drive.
A couple of housekeeping issues.
I sent you a memo today.
This is a complete memo with all -- from our
experts as well as the sheets in the front of it
which provides our grounds of substantial,
competent evidence to deny this request, and I
would ask that you peruse this as we are making
our presentation.
To make it more efficient I have some things that
came in late, but it is a letter of opposition
from Tampa General Hospital.
22:30:19 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Does the clerk have any of this
yet?
22:30:24 >> I am turning it in right now.
22:30:26 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
You do have that one.
Okay.
22:30:38 >> Mr. Gardner.
Four minutes.
That's four.
22:30:44 >> And I will try to be under that.
22:30:47 >> There are two names here which we already

acknowledged.
Two minutes plus two names.
22:30:51 >> Truett Gardner, 401 north Ashley drive.
I have the pleasure of representing Blake Casper
and Allison Adams.
They have been life-long friends and are the
owners of Visionary Oxford Exchange which is
across from the property in question.
And on a personal note I have been coming in front
of this board, had the honor to do so for the past
18 years and I believe this is the first time I
have ever come in opposition to a project, but I
believe this project sincerely warrants opposition
and I feel good about being in front of you
tonight.
Next I would like to dispel some of the rumors and
innuendos circulating, also as Ms. Grimes just
said, which I think she completely missed the boat
in all due respect with why Blake and Allison are
opposed to this project.
First of all, they are not opposed to this because
they are anti-development or anti-residential.
In fact, they would welcome a far denser
development and taller development in keeping with
the neighborhood.

Secondly, this is not a sour grapes argument or
argument over fear of losing parking.
Again, they would welcome a development to this
site, and Blake is going to speak to the parking
issue, I'm sure, and that is simply not a reason
why they are here in opposition.
Next I would like to discuss exactly why they are
in opposition.
First, obviously Blake and Allison spent a lot of
their time, their money, and their passion to
creating the Oxford Exchange as with Mise en Place
and they don't want to the see their work to go to
waste with an inferior development.
Second, Blake and Allison want a project along
Grand Central to be of good design, that are
compatible in scale with the neighborhood and that
are sensitive to the historical aspects of the
neighborhood which includes the trees and includes
the homes, just because they are tech I E the
comprehensive plan still protect historic
structures.
All of Blake and Allison's desires are completely
supported by the code, the InVision plan, and the
comprehensive plan, which I can go into place, and
which will go into detail after I speak.

Finally, before the experts, I want to distill the
problem with the development is in the simplest
terms possible, and that is it's simply
fundamentally flawed and not worthy of this
special neighborhood and of your approval.
The developer has a great opportunity, in working
with a two and a half acre site, to put that into
perspective, a block in downtown Tampa is one
acre.
They have two and a half times that to work with
for this site.
In addition, they have the same comprehensive plan
designation as the Channel District, which is RMU
100 and specifically encourages high-rises and
mixed use developments.
However, in essence the developer is proposing a
suburban style apartment complex that is sprawled
over 9% of the property, three of Tampa's oldest
remaining historical residential structures and
100% of the trees including three grand oaks and
34 protected trees.
In summary, a PD should be approved to allow for
flexibility in order to do innovative things.
There is nothing innovative about completely
grading a 2.5-acre site and removing three

historic structures and 100% of the trees.
As a result, this project should be denied.
22:34:43 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
And forgive me if I am
mischaracterizing what you said.
But you said something about the high-rise
development in the city is encouraged?
And this project represents a residential style,
or a suburban style development?
22:35:04 >> Correct.
22:35:05 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
So you would rather see a
high-rise?
22:35:07 >> Yes.
And we'll get into that exactly and the exact
reasons why.
I would like to introduce our experts.
We have Del Acosta, head of historic preservation
of the City of Tampa for 12 years.
A masters in regional planning and three years ago
Dell literally wrote the book on Hyde Park.
And I am going to submit it into the record.
Next we will have Stephanie Ferrell, a registered
architect in the State of Florida since 1976 and
she is an adjunct professor for the school of
architecture, school of design at the University
of South Florida, won numerous awards for her work

including restoration of the federal courthouse in
downtown Tampa which is now the Le Meridian hotel.
Finally we have George Deakin.
George has a degree in civil engineering from the
University of Virginia and 42 years of experience
in traffic engineer.
And our last speaker will be Blake Casper.
With that I would like to introduce Del Acosta.
22:36:10 >>FRANK REDDICK:
How much time do you have?
22:36:13 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Mr. Acosta has six minutes.
22:36:15 >> I will try to do it in less time.
I am going to be using the overhead projector.
And the young man spoke a little while ago, talked
about the original courthouse in downtown Tampa,
which was across the street.
And in 1950 it was considered outmoded, outdated
and inefficient.
I would like to go back.
I'm Del Acosta, 1903 West Bristol Avenue, Tampa,
Florida.
And I'm speaking to you today.
I have on the screen a 1892 map of Tampa.
It really codifies what Tampa looked like.
When Tampa was incorporated in the city as we know
today, in 1887, it created four wards -- downtown,

Ybor City, Tampa Heights, and Hyde Park.
So Hyde Park is really one of the original -- one
of the four original wards made up in the City of
Tampa.
Just north of Hyde Park, a few years later, West
Tampa began to emerge, subdivided about two years
later after this was done.
Using Tampa Bay hotel which was open for one year
at this time, and -- excuse me, I'm losing my
voice.
And before crossing the Hillsborough River.
That made Hyde Park possible.
A few years earlier, OH Plant platted Hyde Park
along plant street.
We have Henry B. Plant north of Kennedy.
Then called Lafayette Street.
And then Platt Street you had OH Plant
subdivision, and in between, you have the subject
property over here.
And that block appears, and still is pretty much
the grid of that area that exists today, and this
property is still in the Hyde Park historic
district.
That hasn't been changed.
At all.

And when you talk about historic district, you are
not just talking about the building.
You are talking about the grid, the scale, and the
natural features.
And all of those to a degree still exist, still
have the grid pretty much intact.
You can see Snow Park there.
You can see the triangle where the arcade is,
Grand Central and of course the University of
Tampa.
Between 1890 and 1930, Tampa was one of the
fastest growing cities in the United States.
The map that I showed of Tampa was 1892, and Tampa
had 5,000 people.
By 1930 it had 100,000 people.
So the city grew at a relatively rapid rate.
In 1920, Hyde Park was defined by the area
approximately where North B Street is now on the
north.
Howard Avenue on the south.
Hillsborough bay -- Hillsborough River.
So that ward of Tampa, although politics and
government changed, still is Hyde Park area and
very important to the community and very important
to maintaining our heritage tourism.

Here is the image of Hyde Park in the 1920s.
We begin to see the Hyde Park that we know today.
Where you do have that Intown city that urban
village that we are talking about here, more
pedestrians than cars on the road.
Also the trolley system is still in place.
And we still have the opportunity to maintain that
in the city of the 21st century.
This is the site under question.
It has three historic buildings.
You can determine historic, the comprehensive plan
does call for historic buildings.
Those three still pass what I call the squint
test, the contributing features to those buildings
are still there.
That's one of them.
And this is the other one.
I think it's rather fortunate that they have been
delisted but they haven't been lost.
That block has always been residential.
And those buildings were constructed approximately
1908.
I want to be go back to the plat that I originally
showed you.
And again, when we talk about the fabric of the

grid, this grid still exists.
This block still exists.
Still has Snow park here.
You have the church over here.
And you have this residential block.
I think it's Kuwait possible -- and in keeping
with your comprehensive plan -- to maintain the
structures, to maintain the grand trees, and still
create than the urban village that everyone has
talked about today.
This is Grand Central Avenue.
As it exists today.
You have the church over here.
You have the north side Central Avenue, and you
have that historic house.
A historic district could be made up of three
buildings.
So you still have the four.
You don't necessarily need to keep the whole
thing, but an urban village is still there.
And if you stand at this particular intersection
overhear, this is Grand Central.
This is -- you have a structure here.
1908 building here.
If you turn around, you have a whole collection of

buildings on the north side of Grand Central.
You can go to lower Manhattan.
You can go to neighborhood in Chicago,
neighborhoods in San Francisco.
You can go all over Europe.
And you can see these little pockets of historic
districts that give you the historic reference of
the past and still accommodate future growth.
(Bell sounds)
And there are the grand trees.
Thank you so much.
22:42:30 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you. How much time for
speakers?
22:42:46 >> Mrs. Ferrell has six minutes in total.
My name is Stephanie Ferrell.
I am a licensed architect, and it's been quite a
while that that's been the case.
It's hard to believe, but subsequent to that, I
became about five years subsequent to that I
became the architect for the Historic
Tampa-Hillsborough County Preservation Board and
then shortly thereafter I became the director of
the Historic Tampa-Hillsborough County
Preservation Board.
During that time I was requested by the city for

the board to prepare -- to basically prepare a
cultural resources survey of the Hyde Park area.
In an effort to determine whether it might become
possibly a historic district -- a National
Register Historic District first and then with the
possibility of a Local Historic District.
My office in the mid 1980s prepared the
nomination that resulted in listing Hyde Park on
the national register of historic places.
I think it's only fitting that I be here this
evening to talk about the new building in the
context of the historic district.
Also, let me point out while we are talking about
this, the historic district boundaries remain the
same, that the proposed Alt site is located within
the historic district, that any new construction
should be compatible with the cultural resources,
historic resources and our cultural resources in
the historic district.
And then I will also mention that the trees
separately are a natural resource and the project
should be compatible with the natural resources of
the area as well.
I'd be happy to answer any questions about the
national register listing and process that maybe

weren't addressed earlier if need to be.
Let me get to my task at hand.
I was asked to look at the proposed project in the
context of the Hyde Park district and determine
whether or not it was compatible with the district
and whether or not I believed that it met the
criteria for meeting the strict requirements of PD
zoning.
And in that, the project proposes to wipe the site
clean, including the three turn-of-the-century
structures plus all the trees, and this includes
three grand trees, 34 protected trees but also
totally on the site as provided by the applicant.
There are 54 trees on the site all of which are to
be removed.
That goes against the requirements of the PD
zoning requirements.
Also, I see no evidence, no apparent effort to
consider adaptive use of the historic structures
on the site, nor consideration of possible
relocation of the structures.
And then I'd like for Truett to put up some of the
renderings of the site so we can talk about the
massing of the site.
One of the most important concepts in looking at

design review is not just the surface of the
building and not just its height and not just the
setback, but what all of those things together
mean to the appearance of a building and it's
relationship to its context.
The reason, in my opinion, that this building is
incompatible with the district is not because it's
tall, because a tall building that's properly set
back I believe could be compatible.
Not just because of the setbacks, but because of
the combination of that massing, which basically
occupies the full site and is a monolithic and
massive project, which -- and the reason -- and
that design in particular results in the removal
of the historic structures and in the removal of
the grand trees.
But what if that density was placed in a tower
that was set back from the edge of the site?
What if the historic buildings were maintained
on-site either in their current location or
relocated?
Then we would have a project that related in scale
to the pedestrian scale of the neighborhood to
grand central itself, to the Lafayette arcade
building and so forth.

And then you would have a project that might fit
well within the context of the area.
So what we are saying, and I'm going to show you
another exhibit.
The first one shows the existing trees on the
site, highlighted with our graphics, but they are
the tree locations per the applicant's data.
The three grand trees are trees one, two, and
three.
Three is determined to be hazardous and will be
removed so the two of them are really towards the
south end of the site.
You see there's quite a bit of site that is
available toward the center of the site.
And then also I'd like to point out that there are
towers -- this is the applicant site here, and
then there are towers that range in height from 8
to actually 13 stories in height all around this
district, and their footprints are such that you
can visually see that many of these, that each of
these could be placed in the middle of this large
two and a half acre site.
22:49:29 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you.
How much time?
22:49:45 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Two minutes.

Two minutes total.
22:49:52 >> Good evening.
I'm George Deakin.
I'm a Registered Professional Engineer in Florida.
My street address, business address is 2909 West
Bay to Bay Boulevard, Tampa, Florida.
I've conducted traffic counts and traffic impact
studies for over 40 years.
My resumé and my actual letter of comments is in
the packet that was distributed to you earlier.
I reviewed the traffic report that was submitted
by the applicant, and three major comments or
primary comments are, number one, the applicant
looked at less development, the impact of less
development than what's being proposed by the
applicant.
The traffic planner looked at 274 apartments and
2600 square feet of retail.
The actual retail that's being requested is double
that.
It's almost 300 apartments, so the traffic study
needs to be revised to reflect the impact of
actually what's being proposed.
Another comment is that the -- one of the most
critical intersections is the intersection of

Cleveland Avenue and Hyde Park Avenue.
The recent counts that were used were made in June
of 2015, actually taken June 11th, but Cleveland
Avenue West, immediately west of the site was
under construction, being narrowed from three
lanes to one lane.
It choked the capacity.
It reduced the traffic, for that reason, that
count should be redone and the study should also
be revised.
Likewise, the rest of the Cleveland intersection,
there's resurfacing, when those counts were made
in March of this year, so it needs to be redone to
reflect typical conditions, supposed to be the
basis of the traffic study.
Thank you.
22:51:57 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you.
Next speaker.
22:52:03 >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Blake Casper.
22:52:07 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Mr. Casper has ten minutes.
22:52:10 >> I hope not to take that long.
It's late.
I appreciate everybody being out this late.
I'm going to go quickly.

My wife and I live at 80 Ladoga Avenue.
And along with my sister Allison Adams, we own the
retail complex called The Oxford Exchange.
Before I get too into this prepared speech I think
I'll stop and talk to Gina's point about the
parking.
Let's get the parking out on the table.
Gina is right.
She's correct in saying that they have the right
to terminate our parking on the advent of
development of the site.
In fact, that's how we found out about this
project.
We got a letter.
I think it was slipped under the door or maybe it
was dropped off by Harvey, but that's how we found
out about this and it was also in the newspaper.
It's not from a lack of dialogue that we had with
the seller or with Harvey.
We've known them.
We've worked with them, but that was how we found
out about this project.
We were not approached before it was filed with
the city.
We were not approached before we found out about

it in the paper.
But going back to Gina's point on the termination
of the parking agreement.
She's right.
What she failed to mention, though, is our
agreement ends in March of 2016.
We're not going to have any parking in March of
2016 on this property going forward.
So my selfish interest in this is gone after March
of 2016.
In fact, if I had a business interest in all of
this, I would have said let's build it, right?
Let's build it, you're building the parking.
You're not putting retail on the bottom.
From a selfish standpoint as a business operator,
I probably shouldn't be here at all, right?
I'm not going to have any parking after March of
2016.
Whether or not it gets built or doesn't get built
really is beyond our interest.
I speak for my sister as well.
I opened up a bookstore, right?
So business sense, me, probably not so smart,
right?
So I'm opening up a business and a bookstore, and

that was the original concept of the Oxford
Exchange.
It is a business.
We run it like a business.
We haven't applied for any tax credits.
We haven't applied for any government subsidies.
We haven't applied for any of it.
We did it, and we did it in the way that we felt
like the city would enjoy and it would be
received.
So far from the results, it's been that way.
But it's not something that we are doing to -- I'm
not here tonight because I need to protect The
Oxford Exchange business.
I'm not.
I'm here because Tampa deserves better.
You know, we can do better.
We can demand better.
Andrea talked about Jeff spect and walkability.
The book I was going to reference was Mayor Rick
Baker's book in "Seamless City."
What downtown St. Pete has done, folks, we don't
have to go all the way to Jeff Speck who lives up
in Boston.
We can look at what's going on in downtown

St. Pete.
There are wonderful things happening right here in
Tampa largely from public works, right?
Curtis Hixon Park, the Riverwalk, all the things
that are happening.
Now, we've got what's going to happen with Jeff
Vinik, and he's going to do it wonderfully.
We're going to have wonderful, incredible
development.
What Richard Gonzmart and you all did at water
works, that's a public/private partnership.
That's fantastic.
That's really great stuff.
That's the kind of great stuff that Tampa
deserves.
We deserve better than, you know, what's being
proposed here.
And, you know, I've met with Jeff.
I want to say Jeff Altman.
It's not Jeff Altman.
It's Jeff Roberts.
You know, Joe Altman is not here, right?
He's so concerned about this development that I
don't believe Joe is here.
The fact is, I haven't met Joe Altman.

I don't think anybody has met Joe Altman.
How concerned is he with the project?
What is he doing for this project?
You heard Maryann speak here.
You've heard all the tenants speak that work and
ply their trade in this area.
If you want to call this selfish, if you want to
call this like, you know, I'm doing this for
financial reasons, I mean, I can take a lot of it,
but that's not -- you know, it's beyond pale.
We're not here to tell people how to do things.
We obviously have a lot of passion for this.
We have a lot of passion for this area.
You've heard a lot tonight.
We can do better.
We can absolutely do better.
I hope you vote to decline their application.
I did it in five minutes.
Thank you.
22:57:36 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Who is next on the list?
Anybody else remaining?
22:57:39 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
No.
That is the last of Mr. Gardner's group.
22:57:43 >> That concludes our presentation.
22:57:54 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Mr. Nelson, let me see who is

here.
Charles Manley.
That's an additional minute.
Beverly Snow.
Beverly Snow?
22:58:04 >> She might have left.
22:58:05 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
I don't see Beverly snow.
Is David Snow here?
I don't see David Snow.
Is Kathryn Reine here?
Okay.
Total of four minutes.
22:58:18 >> Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Council.
Thank you for your attention.
It's good to see you all again.
It's a late hour, so I'll get to it.
First, I'm going to explain a couple of misnomers
that have been brought before you tonight to make
sure the record is clear, and I'll end quickly.
22:58:33 >>FRANK REDDICK:
State your name for the record.
22:58:35 >> Seth Nelson, I'm sorry.
442 West Kennedy.
The sole shareholder of Nelson Law Group where we
have 12 employees at the grand central building.

We're going to just set the facts straight a
little bit on some things that have been said and
I'll quickly wrap up with, as you started the
evening, that this is a quasi-judicial proceeding
and why under your code, you can deny this
project.
Said she was speaking as an adjacent owner.
That's currently true but Grand Central Building
is under contract and closes if this project goes
through.
She'll no longer be an adjacent owner.
I will still be an adjacent tenant.
They have talked many times tonight about they are
not required to give us so much parking on this
project.
Technically, that is true.
It's a misnomer, though.
It's a red herring.
It's not the full truth.
It's not the full truth because part of the sale
includes grand central without the extra parking,
Grand Central isn't worth what they are getting
for it.
But you cannot deny on that basis.
You cannot deny on any alleged reasons and

motivations.
You can deny this project if you find that it does
not meet with the comprehensive plan.
You can deny this project if you say the trees
doesn't comply with the comprehensive plan.
You can deny this project if you say the scope and
the scale does not comply with the comprehensive
plan.
But if you disagree with all that and you say it
is within the comprehensive plan, you can still
deny this project because you can deny this
project by maintaining that the existing zoning
classification with respect to the property
accomplishes a legitimate public purpose.
What is that purpose?
That purpose is that this project is zoned for
more commercial.
It's zoned for residential.
We are only here tonight because they want more
residential.
They can build residential today without coming
before you, but not to the scale that they want.
And what do they trade for it?
They trade the commercial, and then they wrap
back, in we don't need commercial to meet the

comprehensive plan.
They can look to the surrounding area, and let's
do that.
They say we need more residential, we want more
residential, we want it more walkable, but then
they point to University of Tampa that has a dorm.
Then they point to the church that has
residential.
I submit to you we have enough residential in this
area.
It's zoned for the appropriate amount of
residential, but it needs more commercial to make
it a truly walkable area, a walkable city.
As Councilwoman pointed out, she's not walking
from here over there.
So why do we think they are going to balk from
there to downtown?
They are not walking to a bowling alley.
They've got one in the building.
They are not walking to a dog park.
We were told when we met with the developers that
they had a walking area for dogs in the building.
And they also said it's good for safety at night.
Where are they walking?
When you look at this, you have to look at the

community as a whole.
It is a great project for the community, if you
define that community as the project in and of
itself.
They told us, we're going to have residential, and
we're going to have commercial.
The commercial is going to support the
residential.
We're going to get a dry cleaner.
I'm not walking my clothes over there.
If you define the community as solely that one
block -- excuse me, over two city blocks, it's a
great project.
If you define community as a community as a whole,
not just south Tampa and downtown and Channelside,
but district 7.
How do those people come down and work it?
How do we work as a community as a whole, the
entire City of Tampa?
Then this project fails.
It's up to you as City Council to define how we do
that.
I ask you tonight to do a motion to deny this
project, one, because it doesn't meet with the
consistent comprehensive plan, but in the

alternative, if you find that it does, I ask you
to deny this on a motion and I'll be very clear.
The current zoning classification with respect to
the property at issue accomplishes a legitimate
public purpose that is not arbitrary.
Councilman Miranda, I appreciate what you're
saying about TGH.
But TGH is on Kennedy.
This is a block off.
I think that is a distinguishing difference that
should be taken in.
It's not arbitrary.
There's been no issue about discriminatory reason
and it's certainly not unreasonable with the
competent substantial evidence that you've heard
throughout this evening.
Thank you for your time.
23:03:36 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Anyone else wishing to speak that
has not spoken at this time?
23:03:45 >> Jason Ball, 5802 Idle Forest Place.
Before I start, I would like to personally thank
folks like Mr. Blake Casper, Linda Saul-Sena.
They are stakeholders and community leaders like
that for taking up this issue, coming out and
meeting people face to face, shaking their hand

and telling them how they feel.
A lot of us have seen Tampa has changed a lot over
the last few years.
The kind of developments we saw occur in the
'90s, changed in the 2000s.
Started seeing more urbanism, the urban core.
Now we're starting to see it spread out into other
neighborhoods.
The primary issue we see here is not so much this
particular development.
Item 4, item 6 on the agenda, these are also urban
projects occurring in neighborhoods where there is
no walkability included in the project.
The one on Westshore, what is it, parking on the
ground floor?
So while you're sitting here deciding on this
project tonight, it's important to keep in mind
the overall greater issues that the city is
facing.
You should consider being a little more proactive
instead of reactive.
We might even need to look at improving the code
so you're not dealing with the issue over and over
again.
For example, other projects over on North Rome,

spruce and the Westshore area, they are all seeing
the same kind of issue, not getting the sufficient
walkability, not getting a sufficient mix of uses
in the RMU-100 designation.
You don't necessarily think of it now, but a key
aspect of this project, if it goes through as a
largely residential project, what that does to the
tax base is a less effective than if it goes
through as a truly mixed use that has office space
included or a hotel or something like that.
Moreover, like down the street where they are
proposing the project, same neighborhood at the
Tribune building.
Replacing jobs with residential.
It's not going to help the tax base and not going
to help the city.
Thank you.
23:05:52 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you.
Do we have any additional people signed up?
23:06:00 >> No, sir.
23:06:00 >>FRANK REDDICK:
We'll take a three minutes break
to allow the clerk to scratch his legs and do what
else he has to do.
And we'll come back for the rebuttal after three
minutes.

[Recess]

[ SOUNDING GAVEL ]
23:14:29 >>FRANK REDDICK:
I hope you're not lining up to
speak again.
[ LAUGHTER ]
We'll call this meeting back to order.
Roll call.
23:14:57 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Here.
23:14:59 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Here.
23:15:00 >> Capin?
23:15:01 >>HARRY COHEN:
Here.
23:15:02 >>GUIDO MANISCALCO:
Here.
23:15:03 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Here.
23:15:03 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Here.
All right.
23:15:11 >>ANDREA ZELMAN:
Thank you.
Andrea Zelman on rebuttal.
I'll try to keep my remarks brief.
I think Council tonight hearing the opposition to
this, you got a little flavor of what we've been
dealing with trying to address the community's
concerns because through the course of the
testimony, you heard keep the three buildings in
place and keep it small and charming, despite the

fact that again the scale of the neighborhood, the
character of this neighborhood has changed.
You've got huge buildings going up on the Tampa
general site to the west and again to the east,
they have the right to build an 11-story garage.
So the character that people think is there --
that horse is already out of the barn, but you
heard that.
You heard keep it small.
Then you heard build a high-rise tower.
It's too suburban.
It's not urban enough.
I feel like Goldilocks.
This is what we're dealing with trying to address
everyone's concerns.
But the thing to keep in mind is -- and I just
lost my train of thought.
I apologize.
The thing to keep in mind, the people that keep
saying keep it commercial general, if we were to
develop this site as apartments under CG, you
would have a suburban apartment complex.
You would have to meet greenspace requirement.
You couldn't go -- is it 45 or 60 feet in height?
60 feet in height would be as tall as you could

go.
You would have surface parking.
That would be a suburban development.
What we're proposing is not a suburban
development.
What we're proposing is in scale with what's to
our west and what's to our east.
And it is complementary to the businesses nearby.
People kept talking about, no, you need to create
commercial.
That will make it walkable.
Who is going to walk there if people don't live
there?
That's the whole point.
A couple of things I just want to correct.
I don't want to go too deep into this but
Mr. Casper said something incorrect about his
parking lease.
He has the right to renew that lease for 18 years.
So it's just incorrect to say it's going away
March 16.
Again, tonight he said he wanted a high-rise
tower.
Last week on Facebook he said keep it
commercial.

I want it commercial.
This is what we're dealing with in trying to
please everyone, but please understand, it seems
like what a lot of people are saying we don't like
it.
Don't like the look of it.
We are not in an overlay district.
We are not in a design district.
We are not under the control of the ARC.
It's not for this Council to say it's not pretty
enough, it's not designed well enough.
We believe it is designed.
We believe it is a beautiful building.
In any event, that's not what is before you.
I do want to talk about the trees, but just
briefly, the historic preservation thing, I wish
it didn't play out the way it did.
I have a two-hour presentation prepared on the
historic preservation issues, and just to be
clear, the issue that was in front of the HPC
wasn't should these buildings be demolished or
not?
The issue before them was whether they should
recommend to this Council that these structures be
individually designated as landmarks.

That was question one.
And the criteria they were supposed to apply is
the same criteria that's in the national register,
bulletin 15.
The second question they were supposed to
consider, even if they found the buildings
warranted landmark designation, would it be too
much of an economic hardship to require this
property owner to preserve them?
And your staff, we submitted books and documents
about the economic hardship that would be created,
and, yes, we did look at relocating the buildings.
We did look at preserving the buildings on-site.
We submitted documentation showing what an
economic hardship it would be to preserve them,
and your staff agreed that we establish one so I
want to make that clear.
Nothing underhanded was done.
Our historic architect approached the state and
said, would they still be considered contributing
today?
And what he was looking at was this.
This is the area we're talking about north of the
Crosstown.
Can you all see these?

Everything in red has been demolished.
Everything in red has been demolished.
It's almost 30 structures.
Where was the outcry then?
On our site, there were 11 structures.
There are three left now.
8 have been demolished, five contributing, two
were demolished two years ago in order to provide
more parking for Oxford Exchange.
There was no outcry then.
I do want to talk about the trees.
We do have Scott Andreasen here.
What he will explain and Kathy Beck is here as
well and can testify to this we did meet with her
about redesigning the site -- I mean, originally
we talked with her about designing the site in a
way that would preserve the trees.
We talked about relocating the trees.
Frankly, it just didn't work.
Scott and Kathy, are you here?
I'd like to bring them up.
In addition, as I mentioned earlier --
23:20:52 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Well, let me say this.
Your time has expired.
They should have been utilized prior to this time.

They should have done it during public comment.
23:21:04 >> I would invite your staff to ask questions
about the trees because it was a long process to
preserve them.
Thank you.
23:21:10 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you.
That concludes the comments.
23:21:18 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Before we close, I want to make
a comment, an observation.
I never met Mr. Vinik.
I never met Mr. Altman.
I might have met Mr. Casper and shook hands but
never had a conversation that I know of.
Let me tell you who I have met.
I've met every attorney who has been here.
They are damn good.
You know what else I see?
I see I had a minitrial.
Court reporter and all.
It reminds me back of the '90s, the late '90s
when a previous Council on the design of a
building on Bay to Bay and Bayshore, and I don't
know what the figure was, but it was in the
millions it cost the city, the taxpayers.
No matter which way this Council goes, I don't

think this is ending tonight.
I see two great people, all of you.
You don't have to be here to listen to us.
You could be watching TV still listening to us.
I mean, it's wonderful that you're here.
I'm happy to see that.
But it's just going to end up somewhere along the
line, there's going to be somebody who think they
won, somebody who think they won, too.
So at the end of the day, it's going to go down
the street over there to the building that was
over here called the courthouse.
And there's where it's going to end up at in the
near future, no matter what this Council does.
That's my personal feeling.
I'm not trying to sway anyone's opinion.
Never have and never will.
But that's what I see, Mr. Chairman.
I see this coming, so I'm just asking this
Council, whatever remarks they make, they make
them precise to the point, get in and get out
because the more you say, the more we're going to
have to pay one way or the other.
23:23:17 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Mr. Suarez.
23:23:20 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Thank you, chair.

We know you didn't meet other people, but you did
meet Sally O'Neal.
We know that.
23:23:28 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Her name was Sally Hosey.
23:23:31 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
I've got a couple of questions, and
this goes specifically to two distinct issues.
The first, and I would like Ms. Kert to come up
and speak about this, because I have a question.
You made a comment during the time that there was
some questioning by Mr. Maniscalco about -- maybe
not questioning, but he was making a lament or
comment about historic buildings and the
destruction of historic buildings.
Now, that doesn't mean that we can't discuss the
historic district and what has happened or
transpired.
The applicant has even brought it up and made
quite a discussion of it.
What can we discuss about the historic nature of
the buildings that are currently there?
23:24:18 >> The only thing that I would caution Council
about in making your decision, you need to
consider whether or not the petitioner
demonstrated that they met your code requirements
because you can only deny this if you find they

did meet the code requirement or demonstrate that
maintaining the existing accomplishes a legitimate
public purpose or that it does not meet your
comprehensive plan.
And to go back to what you actually said, my main
point was, there has been some action by the
keeper of the federal government related to the
contributing or noncontributing status of three
buildings on that.
And I understand that there is a level of concern
about that decision, and whether or not that
decision was right would not be the appropriate
basis for approval or a denial of this decision.
23:25:12 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
I'm going to follow your line of
what you just said, but the staff report
specifically talks about this.
Now, why do we put it in the staff report if we
can't even discuss it when it comes to an open
public hearing?
And that's where I'm a little bit distressed about
because if it's not an issue, it's not going to be
an issue, only if it's already been designated one
way, why do we bring it up in any way --
23:25:44 >>REBECCA KERT:
Staff may be able to answer that
better.

Just from a factual standpoint, I can say the
staff report was written when the structures were
still designated as contributing.
23:25:54 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
I totally understand.
Again, it's in the staff report specifically as
one of the key elements that makes it
inconsistent.
How can we not discuss about what has happened
since that point about the inconsistency?
That's my only concern.
I wanted to bring that out because like a lot of
other things that we have done on this Council
when it comes to public hearings -- this happened
a few years back, we had the police officer report
something to us that we could not use for a zoning
issue.
It's extremely frustrating, Ms. Kert, to see it in
the staff report that we can't discuss.
That's all I have to say.
23:26:33 >>REBECCA KERT:
Yes, sir.
23:26:34 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Okay, thank you.
Mr. Fernandez, I'm going to ask you a question
specific to the type in terms of what happens with
the designations.
I know these things change all the time.

I know we had a designation for the bro bowl and
that was not changed but it was allowed to be
demolished even though it was considered an
historic landmark.
The terminology is wrong.
I apologize.
So there's nothing unusual about this happening,
is that correct?
About buildings being demolished that are part of
historic districts?
23:27:11 >>DENNIS FERNANDEZ:
Dennis Fernandez, Historic
Preservation Manager.
There are no protections for properties that are
listed on the national register.
There are mitigative circumstances, as was the
case with the skateboard bowl, because there were
federal dollars being expended.
It was an entire different process.
23:27:34 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Different contingency as part of
that.
My point in bringing that up is we as a city did
not preserve the buildings that are on this
property now currently, is that correct?
And we could have made a designation of them, is
that what it is?

23:27:52 >>DENNIS FERNANDEZ:
We have not extended the local
boundaries to encompass that area.
We do have a section of our code that deals with
nonlocally designated properties that are listed
on or eligible for listing on the national
register, and that's what we were working up --
working under the scope of until the delisting.
23:28:17 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Got it.
We were on that path.
We did not get it done before this national
designation said, well, look, we don't consider
contributing building in that district.
23:28:33 >>DENNIS FERNANDEZ:
National Park Service.
23:28:35 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
The National Park Service, yes.
Thank you.
I want to talk about the trees, if I could have
someone -- where is our staff member for the
design?
I don't think for the trees specifically, but for
the design, the applicant just made a comment to
go to staff about what designs were done.
I guess, Ms. Feeley, if you want to come up.
Oh, Kathy.
I think this has to do with the design, though, if
I'm not mistaken.

During the presentation, the applicant talked
about -- that they tried to save the trees.
Now, when you look at that, and Ms. Zelman said
just didn't work -- oh, Kathy, because of the tree
stuff.
I thought you might have seen the design itself.
I apologize.
I'm sorry, Kathy.
I didn't mean to keep you in the back over there.
23:29:29 >> Good evening, Council.
Kathy Beck, natural resources coordinator.
And I have been sworn.
23:29:33 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Okay, Kathy.
What went on between the applicant and you in
discussing saving those trees and trying to
preserve them?
What happened?
23:29:43 >> Okay.
Our initial conversations which took place a long,
long time ago started out with how to preserve the
trees.
The first option they provided us was
transplanting.
We did not feel that these particular trees were
candidates for transplanting.

We then went into scenarios with how we could
possibly preserve them.
The trees are kind of like in the middle of the
site, how possibly we could put them in a
courtyard.
We didn't feel that was going to work either based
on the size of the structure and the space that
they could be provided.
So we did look at options for redesigning the
site, came up with not a lot of options,
basically.
23:30:25 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Okay, so, meaning that fitting the
development around the tree itself in the same
configuration, essentially but maybe in doing a
few adjustments in order to make the tree survive
was not doable because of the conditions of the
trees or because what's necessary to keep the root
structure viable?
23:30:48 >> What's necessary.
Based on what they proposed to build on the site,
it was difficult to get the amount of space.
These are very large trees, very old trees, and
they need space.
There was a lot of discussion about pruning.
That would have not been acceptable either.

It would have been too much removed from the
trees.
23:31:10 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Thank you.
Ms. Zelman, can I ask you a quick question about
that, specifically?
The design of the building was not changed
significantly in terms of reducing the number of
units or anything in order to accommodate or try
to accommodate the trees, am I correct?
23:31:26 >>ANDREA ZELMAN:
What we're trying to explain is
that -- yes.
We have two competing things here.
You have an RMU-100 comprehensive plan category
that encourages dense development, high density
development.
23:31:42 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Sure.
23:31:43 >>ANDREA ZELMAN:
Then you have the tree issue.
So what you're left with is, yeah, trying to
design a courtyard around trees.
Well, then you have issues with light and space
for the trees, and so, again, to preserve them,
you go back to having a very suburban-scale
development, which is inconsistent with the comp
plan, which isn't what many of the people that
spoke here tonight said they wanted.

It doesn't work.
23:32:11 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Meaning there is no way you can
design something that was going to both -- you
were trying to do a balancing act, am I correct?
23:32:20 >>ANDREA ZELMAN:
It would be a very small urban
scale development in order to protect the trees.
23:32:25 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Meaning you probably would have
taken out a number of units.
23:32:28 >>ANDREA ZELMAN:
A lot of units.
Probably couldn't have structured parking --
23:32:32 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Can you give me a ballpark?
23:32:33 >>ANDREA ZELMAN:
-- development that would be
consistent with the comprehensive plan.
23:32:36 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Do you have a ballpark about how
many?
23:32:41 >>ANDREA ZELMAN:
I'm sorry.
23:32:46 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
That's okay.
23:32:47 >>ANDREA ZELMAN:
I actually wasn't privy to a lot
of these early discussions.
23:32:53 >> Scott Andreasen.
I have been sworn in.
When we worked on the layout of the community, we
worked on the trees first.
We worked on traditional apartment configurations
that are done throughout the industry of kind of

unit, hall, unit or just unit and non-hall, and we
looked at those traditional proportions and worked
hard on trying to preserve those trees and met
numerous times with natural resources looking at
those different configurations and balancing out
the amount of units and parking you would need to
be able to make it work.
Through all the different ones, we were unable to
find the combination that could achieve both that
was deemed reasonable use of land in the
preservation and, like I said, even looked at
transplanting and those different items.
Additionally, we hired an arborist before we
started that did a tree assessment that assessed
these trees on the basis of City of Tampa
guidelines.
We presented those to natural resources, and then
because there were some questions, their arborist
met and that, we did actually a further study that
is typically never done where we did a photometric
study and looked at the density of the trees
because we were so fixed on trying to make it work
around them or transplant them and worked hand in
hand with natural resources.
We met with Mary and Kathy numerous times,

probably five to six times on these various issues
trying to make it work.
23:34:20 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
I guess my question, though, to
you, how many units would have been loss in order
to try and deal with the canopy issues and the
root system?
I assume those are two of the things they talked
about, that natural resources talked about to you.
Do you have a ballpark figure of what that was?
23:34:39 >> What we ran into was, if you were trying to get
height to accomplish the preservation of those
areas, we ran out of room to fit the garage and
the units that would be, A, you know, aesthetic
and also be meeting the walkability and fitting
the fabric of the community.
And then secondly, if we were low enough to
achieve that, our densities were not at all in
compliance to the RMU-100 and were so minimal that
it just wasn't worth doing the project.
23:35:07 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Did you look at going vertical
higher and not -- I mean, I'm just curious about
that.
You haven't answered my question, which is, about,
if you were to accommodate the trees, and
obviously you were trying to accommodate the

trees.
I have no doubt about that, what would that have
looked like in terms of the number of units you
would have had on there?
You obviously have a number because you said it
didn't fit into the CMU-100.
23:35:32 >> If we were going with the garden-style
apartments, I think we were in the range of 50 to
60.
And then when you went super hikers you ran into
problems of physically fitting a large enough
garage to accommodate that higher building and
preserving those trees in location as it fit
within the site, because, unfortunately, those two
are kind of located in the middle, so it became
very difficult because either you were on one side
or the other and the wraparound was very difficult
in the preservation.
We looked at preserving one or both in that whole
process.
23:36:06 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Got it.
Thank you.
Appreciated that.
23:36:10 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Mr. Cohen.
23:36:11 >>HARRY COHEN:
Thank you.

So I spoke to Ms. Kert, our attorney, during the
break and beforehand, and she explained to me, as
my colleagues mentioned, that the whole issue of
the historic buildings is not really part of what
we're going to be considering here tonight.
I have to tell you, however, that on Tuesday
morning when I woke up, I had intended to come
down here and listen to the hearing about the
historic significance of the buildings.
When I went online to find out what time it was, I
saw that it had been canceled.
And I had never been -- ever seen anything cancel
this close to a land use hearing that was directly
related to the subject that was being discussed.
I hope that regardless of where this particular
application goes, that we will returning to --
that we will return to the issue of historic
buildings because I just cannot believe that we
can be put in a position of losing the structures
when no one even has a chance to weigh in on it or
hear what the arguments or make sure that the fact
finders have had the opportunity to actually visit
the site and see for themselves the context of the
area.
I'm going to follow Mr. Miranda's advice and say

less rather than more.
But I do want to say that I think the biggest
issue in front of us tonight has to do with the
context of the neighborhood.
There are an awful lot of places in Tampa where I
would vote for this project in a heartbeat.
But this is a very unique neighborhood and between
the brick streets and the historical character and
the unique businesses that have grown up, I do
think that we run the risk when we are quick to
demolish looking back many years later and
wondering what happened to what it was we used to
have.
We've sat here in this chamber many times and
talked about the courthouse that was once across
the street.
And I know we've all asked the question, who on
Earth thought it was a good idea to tear that
down?
You know, one of the things that's so exciting
about a lot of the redevelopment that's going on
in Tampa is that it literally is coming up out of
the ground and replacing nothing.
This neighborhood, though, is a little bit
different, a lot different.

And what would normally go in a lot of good places
I think deserves an extra level of scrutiny here.
And that is what I'm wrestling with as we look at
this question, because I know that once this very
unique and special neighborhood is gone, it will
be gone.
And, you know, whether we're right or wrong now,
we won't have a chance to redo these decisions
later.
23:39:32 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Ms. Montelione.
23:39:34 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and
forgive me, as all of you probably know by now, I
a little bit under the weather, which is an
understatement.
So bear with me.
It is very difficult, this particular decision,
and I've been looking through all of the criteria
that are laid out in the staff report and in the
comprehensive plan and kind of ticking off which
arguments make the case and which do not under the
code.
I can tell you it's really very close.
Ms. Zelman, I have some similar questions to what
councilman Suarez was asking.
About not just the preservation of trees, but some

of what Ms. Ferrell testified to about the massing
of the structure and actually bringing it higher
to scale it back and make it a more relatable
structure, at least from the streetscape.
Mr. Suarez asked you about how many units you
would lose by doing something like that and
working around the existing conditions.
But he didn't ask you how many parking spaces you
would lose if you were to do that.
You already stated at the very beginning, if I
remember correctly, I think I wrote down, you said
you had over-parked by 95 --
23:41:23 >> 94.
23:41:25 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
94 spaces.
So one of the tenets of our code and the
comprehensive plan is transit oriented
development.
We talk about it all the time.
If you were to reduce the parking to encourage
that transit-oriented development, because,
remember, I said I'm the one who doesn't want
parking because that forces people to find
alternative ways, including myself, of how to get
from here to there.
What would that do to this project if you were to

scale down the parking and do some of that
massing.
I'm sure in an expensive project with all of these
experts involved over the length of time, that was
one of the scenarios discussed.
23:42:17 >>ANDREA ZELMAN:
I don't think what Ms. Ferrell
talked about really related to the parking garage.
I think she was talking about the building going
lot line to lot line as opposed to being set back.
If you set it back and built a high-rise, you
could still have parking.
If you set it back and don't build structured
parking, you would be very limited in what you
could build and how much parking you could provide
for any of the uses on the site let alone the
folks across the street.
23:42:48 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
I guess what I'm trying to do
is find a balance of what I mentioned earlier
about encouraging transit oriented development and
having the bonus density credits by putting in
some of the features that would promote transit
oriented development, and avoiding the situation
we have in other areas of our city where
developments were built but the parking that is
necessary to keep the roads moving because they

are very narrow roads, just like they are here.
So I'm trying to find that balance.
And I didn't see -- I didn't see that in the plans
that you presented that you try to create that
balance.
23:43:42 >>ANDREA ZELMAN:
I would submit to you that we
did.
First of all, in terms of the scale, again, ten
stories to the west, 11 stories to the east, we're
at 9.
We were trying to keep within that scale.
Okay?
Then in terms of pedestrian -- we have pedestrian.
We have bicycle stations.
We are trying to encourage that.
The concept is, not that this is going to become a
driving community.
This is going to be like the residences in the
Channel District.
People are going to leave their cars in the garage
and walk.
They'll walk to Mise en Place.
They'll walk to Oxford Exchange.
They can walk to Publix.
23:44:20 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
I'm sorry for interrupting, but

if they can leave the cars in the parking garage
and walk, then why build so many parking spaces?
23:44:30 >>ANDREA ZELMAN:
I'm talking about the people who
live there.
The additional spaces are for the people like you
and me who want to eat lunch at Mise en Place and
don't have a place to park if someone doesn't
provide parking.
23:44:41 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
But the people who live there,
if they are moving there because of the
walkability, because they can walk to Mise en
Place.
You and I wouldn't be able to.
Right.
But not necessarily downtown to work, unless it's
transit-oriented development.
Unless there's less parking and they have to take
a bus or they have to take the trolley.
And there are some considerations for mass transit
in this project.
And I didn't see any consideration for mass
transit in this project.
I would beg to question, too, how many bicycle
spaces you referred to as opposed to parking.
23:45:26 >> [Not speaking into a microphone]

23:45:30 >>ANDREA ZELMAN:
There is a bike storage area.
Bike repair stations, bike parking.
Close to a hundred bikes.
There is a bus stop on Cleveland that would serve
the development as well.
23:45:53 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
It's a very difficult decision
for us to make.
Based on what we heard from all of the citizens, I
don't hear that there is a lot of concession on
your side.
I'm curious, when you looked into moving the
homes, how expensive was that?
We do that all the time, especially when it's in
the way of an interstate.
23:46:18 >>ANDREA ZELMAN:
I don't have that information
with me.
Maybe someone else does.
There were several problems.
There was the condition of the homes themselves.
There was the location near the Crosstown, trying
to move them under a highway.
There were a lot of economic factors.
We did submit that.
Again, that was all part of the package that went
to the ACC.

23:46:42 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Since you talked about that, I
would like to hear from Dennis about that.
23:46:46 >>ANDREA ZELMAN:
Again, Dennis found that it was
an economic hardship to ask this property owner to
preserve the building.
23:46:55 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
But I also heard him say he was
in opposition.
23:47:03 >>ANDREA ZELMAN:
One other issue that also relates
to -- 600,000 to 800,000 total to relocate.
We also had to purchase donor sites.
We don't have a number for that because we
couldn't necessarily find any.
I'm a little concerned that we're going too far
astray into the historic preservation.
Again, this is not in front of the Council.
We can present our historic preservation case.
Again, we have a two-hour case we can present.
If you want to stay tonight, but I don't think
it's appropriate because --
23:47:41 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
I'm asking about that not
specifically about the nature of the historic
preservation and whether or not it should be.
I'm talking about it as an economic hardship.
And that is one of the criteria in our code about
economic hardship.

23:47:56 >>ANDREA ZELMAN:
Your staff found that we met it.
23:47:59 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Okay.
23:48:01 >>ANDREA ZELMAN:
I do have those staff reports
here.
Go ahead, Dennis.
Dennis found that we met the criteria for economic
hardship.
23:48:08 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Again, I'm asking it in the
context of what's in both our Land Development
code and what's in the comprehensive plan, not in
the context of whether or not this is based on
preserving history.
If you could keep your comments.
23:48:24 >>DENNIS FERNANDEZ:
I evaluated the projects based
on section 259 and section 260 under chapter 27,
which is where the criteria is specified.
And where the definition of economic hardship is
delineated.
Based on -- this is the demolition packet that was
presented to the staff for the three properties on
the site.
And evaluating that, there is the discussion on
relocations within the information.
Based on the dynamics of the project were, I found
that keeping the structures on-site did constitute

an economic hardship in the sense of the
definition of the code.
But I did ask for further information on
relocations of the structure.
There was discussion on the cost of relocation
which ranged somewhere within the 80 to 90
thousand dollar estimate by the mover, but that
was a very truncated investigation because it
didn't take into consideration prospective
receiving sites and the marketability upon
relocation that could be considered in the act of
relocating the structure.
And that was to be discussed further at the
Historic Preservation Commission.
But because the delisting and the applications
were then --
23:49:53 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Understood.
Thank you.
23:49:54 >>DENNIS FERNANDEZ:
-- withdrawn.
23:49:56 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Thank you very much.
23:49:59 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Anything else?
23:50:01 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
I'm not sure if Ms. Feeley or
Ms. Beck would have to answer the question.
When we have a situation when we have, I think --
were there two or three grand trees on-site?

I think there were three.
Two non---
23:50:24 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
Abbye Feeley, Land Development.
Two non-hazardous and one hazardous.
The hazardous would be able to receive a permit
for removal given its hazardous status without a
waiver by council.
23:50:36 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
It was actually two grand that we
want to protect as part of our code.
Is there a way or have we done this before where
there is a sort of Sophie's choice of you can take
one tree but not the other type of thing?
I'm curious about that -- maybe Sophie's choice is
a bad analogy, you know -- maybe it's in bad
taste.
23:50:59 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
They are right next to each other
in this case, so it isn't one without the other
because of what Ms. Beck has taught me, the root
system, everything is intertwined there.
You couldn't have a sole survivor if we decided to
take one instead --
23:51:17 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
They are Siamese twins.
They are conjoined twins, so to speak.
Kathy, why don't you come up here and make sure
we're right about this.

I was curious about that.
I thought, you're removing every tree along there.
There are 34 trees -- is it 34 plus the two grand
or is it 36 trees, including the two grand?
23:51:40 >> 34 trees that are coming out including the
grand trees.
And the trees, the two grand trees, one is, they
did a lot of work to investigate the condition of
the trees and the viability of transplanting
and/or preservation, all down to what's called
sonic tomography, which is kind of like radar
through the trunks of the trees, and one was
better than the other.
We just couldn't find a way to get what they
needed to develop and preserve the trees.
23:52:17 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Was there any discussion about
saving one tree versus the other?
23:52:21 >> Yes.
23:52:21 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
There was no way that they could
save the one tree and get rid of the other --
23:52:27 >> That's why we're here this evening, putting it
in your capable hands for reasonable use
determination.
23:52:34 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
So you punted to us.
23:52:36 >> Yes, sir.

23:52:37 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
That's a good answer.
Okay.
Thank you, chair.
23:52:40 >>FRANK REDDICK:
All right.
Do we have a motion to close?
23:52:48 >> [not speaking at a microphone]
23:52:53 >>FRANK REDDICK:
All right, Council, do we have a
motion to close the public hearing?
23:52:57 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
So move to close.
23:52:59 >> Second.
23:52:59 >>FRANK REDDICK:
We have a motion from
Mr. Miranda, seconded by Mr. Cohen.
All in favor say aye.
Opposed?
All right.
What is the pleasure of Council?
23:53:21 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Just a reminder, Mr. Chairman,
that your code, as Ms. Feeley stated at the outset
is delineated to section 27-136.
Begins on page 7 and ends on page 10.
The code itself numbers 1 through 9 are listed,
and the staff's findings are in bold italics.
But the criteria itself precedes that in regular
type.
Also, with regard to the waivers, your criteria

for consideration of a waiver is 27-139 sub 4.
That's listed on page 10.
And you have A, B, C, and D.
I would ask again, as we usually do, that you base
your decision on the competent substantial
evidence that you've heard and seen from tonight's
hearing and apply that to your code to make a
determination.
23:54:30 >>FRANK REDDICK:
All right.
What's the pleasure of Council?
23:54:41 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
I move to deny the application
based on section 27-136 of our code, subsection 1,
that the project does not promote the efficient
and sustainable use of land and infrastructure
with careful consideration of potential adverse
impacts to on-site natural elements surrounding
impacted neighborhoods and cultural resources.
I refer back to the two grand trees that are
currently on-site.
Those grand trees were found as part of our
regulation chapter 13 and chapter 27, that they do
not reach for a hardship for the tree removal and
for reasonable use.
I did not find any evidence to show that the
applicant made a reasonable effort to try and come

up with a plan that would have saved those trees,
either one or the other, and it sounded to me like
there was not anything that was proposed that
would change the project but also save the trees.
23:55:54 >> Second.
23:55:59 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
I'd like to add to that,
please.
23:56:01 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
I know you do.
You're the conscience.
23:56:09 >>FRANK REDDICK:
You have a friendly amendment.
23:56:10 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Tighten it up.
23:56:12 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
I know you are.
Go ahead.
23:56:14 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
I'll also reference section
27-136, number one, promote the efficient and
sustainable use of land and infrastructure with
careful consideration of the potential adverse
impacts to on-site natural elements surrounding
impacted neighborhoods and cultural resources.
This redevelopment of the block -- I'm quoting
from our staff report, page 7 -- redevelopment of
the block with a minimum setback development
requires total site clearing, including structures
and trees.
That purpose starts out with, provides rezoning

districts that recognize unique conditions.
I'll also cite the application as Mr. Suarez
pointed out, requesting 100% tree removal,
including grand trees, which the staff finds
inconsistent.
That is at the top of page 8.
Number 2, in that paragraph, development that
would not otherwise be provided for or allowed for
under general zoning districts established in this
chapter, the existing district allows for
residential as we have heard testimony tonight.
Encourage compatibility and overall site design
and scale both internal, external to the project.
We've heard lots of testimony tonight from expert
witnesses and substantial competent evidence that
the site design and scale is inappropriate for the
area.
Number five, encourage flexible Land Development
which reduces transportation needs, conserves
energy, and will maximize the preservation of
natural resources, and one of those resources is
open space, greenspace, and historical and
archaeological sites.
We heard testimony tonight where the parking as
designed is actually over-parked by 95 spaces.

So it's not reducing transportation needs.
It increases the transportation availability to
residents, and it's not compatible with
transportation-oriented development as cited in
the Comprehensive Plan page 5 of the staff report,
transit-oriented communities, objective 26.11,
transit-oriented development and villages with
mixed-use development.
Policy 26-112, place new residential development
in locations that increase potential ridership on
the regional transit system.
We only heard about one bus stop that is located
on Central -- I believe it was -- Avenue, that was
cited.
Policy 26.113, establish development patterns that
combine residential with other compatible uses in
mixed-use areas, such as CDB, business centers,
urban villages, mixed-use corridors, village --
corridor village and transit station.
The 5,000-square-foot of commercial does
constitute mixed use, but in comparison with the
number of residential units and the amount of
parking, I don't feel that, from the testimony we
received here tonight, that that is a true mixed
use in good urban planning design.

I believe those are the specific areas of the code
that I wish to cite.
Urban design goals, objectives, and policies in
the Comprehensive Plan, objective 13.1, respect
Tampa's human scale, unique history, aesthetics,
natural environment, and sense of community
identity as the City changes and evolves.
I don't think based on a preponderance of evidence
that we received here tonight from expert
witnesses and from the public that this project,
especially, is in conflict with objective 13.1.
00:00:10 >> Good to have a planner on council.
00:00:17 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Five different motions there.
We have a motion --
00:00:23 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I'm not going to be supporting
the motion to deny.
I'll tell you why.
When you look at what was said and you look at the
expert witness that they are talking about, the
Planning Commission did not object.
The city planner had some reservations and
observations in the beginning, which were dropped
later on in the text of conversation.
The trees were talked about, and I'm satisfied
with the remedies, including the expert witness

that they are talking about that's a city employee
that talked about saving the trees and they
couldn't do it with what they had to work with.
When you look at the preservation of the
structures, that was put in the record in the
beginning.
This will not end here.
I guarantee you.
I've been around here long enough to know where
this is going.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:01:15 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Any other comments?
Motion by Mr. Suarez, seconded by Mr. Maniscalco,
ended by Ms. Montelione.
All in favor of that motion say aye.
Opposed?
00:01:31 >> Nay.
00:01:32 >> Motion carried with Miranda voting no and Capin
being absent at vote.
00:01:38 >>FRANK REDDICK:
All right.
We'll go to information reports.
Ms. Montelione, anything?
00:01:45 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
No new business, sir.
[ SOUNDING GAVEL ]
00:01:55 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Let me remind you, we are still

in session.
Mr. Maniscalco?
00:02:13 >>GUIDO MANISCALCO:
No.
00:02:14 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Mr. Cohen.
00:02:15 >>HARRY COHEN:
No.
00:02:16 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Mr. Suarez?
Ms. Capin had to leave, would you read that for
her?
00:02:25 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
Ladies and gentlemen, if you
could please be quiet, we still have business to
attend to and it's almost midnight.
Thank you.
00:02:32 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Thank you, councilman.
I make a motion to present Vicki Pollyea with a
commendation on Thursday, September 24th at
9 a.m. in recognition of her work for the Tampa
Bay area Charcot-Marie-Tooth Association support
group.
00:02:46 >> Second.
00:02:47 >>FRANK REDDICK:
A motion from Mr. Suarez on
behalf of Mr. Capin.
Seconded by Mr. Cohen.
All in favor, aye.
Those opposed?
Mr. Miranda.

00:02:57 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I got ten of them, but they are
for another day.
00:03:01 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Motion to receive all documents.
00:03:03 >> So moved.
00:03:04 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Motion by Mr. Miranda, seconded
by Mr. Cohen.
All in favor aye.
Anything else to come before?
We stand adjourned.

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