2014-0731 Special City Commission Meeting

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Summary Minutes:Special City Commission Meeting July 31,2014 Sunny Isles Beach,Florida staff they came up with several solutions,and the conceptual is sort of a combination of three different solutions and it uses typical South Florida landscape materials. There is almost no sod, it is all going to be shrubbery and so there will be no problem trimming other than once a month and will be easier to take care of. The materials we are using are Green Island Ficus, Dwarf Ilex, and other materials that are slow growing, easy to manage, very sustainable material,easy to buy,and they do well in any kind of soil. We have two renderings here,one is for the middle sections of the roadway,and the other one shows the end treatments which will be A 1 A and at North Bay Road where we have opportunities to put Phoenix Mejool Date Palms. In the middle are the Bismarkia Palms which gives us a wonderful effect and this will unify the street all the way through in quality and in design. City Manager Russo said part of our other main consideration, and if you recall, we made a calculated decision which was a substantial savings,to maintain the dual streetlights on the center island median. We may do some adjustments, we may add one but that is a lot different than moving them over. To do that we are trying to keep the landscaping to the type of material that is not going to hinder having proper lighting on the street which is part of the problem we have now in the dark areas. Vice Mayor Aelion said that we traditionally had the issue with lighting interference with the planting and so that has to be addressed when this is taken care of With the Ficus,we have issues with the white flies and now more and more landscapers are going to the alternative with shrubbery. Also, the distance between the Palm Trees, if the Palm Trees are put too close to each other there is interference of shrubbery when they grow up. Commissioner Gatto said this is her block and so she is concerned about it and has a lot of questions about the lights. She said it shows that the Bismarkia Palm is 10-feet tall, and Assistant City Manager Evans clarified that it is 10-feet clear trunk. She asked how tall the streetlights are, and Assistant City Manager Evans said the bottom of the tier is at 15 feet. She said she wants to be sure if we are going through all this that the lighting is going to improve. Assistant City Manager Evans said when they met with Mr. Santiago we understood your wishes and improving the lighting was a number one priority. We didn't want to do away with the light poles, and so what we have done is reduce the canopy. To address Vice Mayor Aelion's comments, the spacing has been increased to allow for the canopy to not grow into a solid mass all the way down. As a City we have to maintain those trees to maintain a clearance between the bottom of the lights and the top of the trees,and we can do that by the way we maintain them. Whoever our landscape maintenance contractor is at the time, it is Luke's now, it will be in their instructions to maintain that height level. Commissioner Gatto said there are seven(7)buildings and they each have an in and out and a retail area, and when it is getting dark it is really hard to see pedestrians who are walking along Collins Avenue as cars are trying to pull into a building. Mr. Santiago said the whole purpose of going into basically a Palm Tree pallet was that there is no canopy to inhibit that, as long as we can keep a distance between the existing lights and the first Palm. The angle at which the light is going and hitting the street is going to be unimpeded during the life of the project. They are staggered as you go down the street, and so there is open space, also in between them to augment that happening a little quicker. If you put them in a complete line you end up with a solid mass in one direction. 8