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Summary Minutes:Regular City Commission Meeting May 21,2015 City of Sunny Isles Beach,Florida <br /> Commissioner Levin asked about the ingress and the egress for the property on both sides,that <br /> would be the best or only way to do it? There were no other solutions for the parking and the <br /> way it was done? Mr. Garcia said they have a lot of constraints, and when he first looked at <br /> one of the plans he knew immediately that even if it passed muster here it wouldn't in FDOT. <br /> With his experience he immediately brought it up to the client's attention and they worked on <br /> revising it two or three times before they presented it to the City.Not only does it get approved <br /> here but ultimately it gets approved by FDOT as well. <br /> Commissioner Levin said she is feeling what everybody is saying tonight. We have a problem <br /> in Sunny Isles Beach with the traffic and the congestion, and the construction. Everybody <br /> understands that the people including developers,come in and they buy property and they have <br /> an expectation to be able to build what the Code allows them to build. So to the extent that it <br /> causes additional congestion on the road, she thinks it is what it is, and there is really nothing <br /> we can do about it because they are allowed to build the building. We also can't tell them <br /> what to do on the property except to a certain extent. Certain types of businesses are <br /> prohibited by our Code but we can't tell them that they can't have a restaurant there. If it is <br /> not a destination restaurant then chances are that we won't get a lot of traffic from outside the <br /> City so hopefully people who live here will walk. We are doing this Transportation Study, <br /> maybe there will be better ways to get there, maybe bicycles, however that is going to come <br /> out at the end. That having been said, if you look at the TDRs, you can look at it from two <br /> different perspectives, you can say if we sell them the TDRs they get six (6) additional units, <br /> and it doesn't seem like a lot generally. If we don't give them the TDRs it's really not <br /> changing the envelope of the building,they are showing us what the building is going to look <br /> like, and the math is still going to be the same. So you can take the perspective that, what is <br /> the six units, but maybe the answer is to start chipping away, little by little. Even though it is <br /> only six units, if it is six units here and maybe five units there, in the long run it could make a <br /> difference. <br /> Vice Mayor Gatto said this is her District, she represents it and lives in Winston Towers 300, <br /> and she knows it is an as-of-right project. We have to be incredibly diligent about the <br /> decisions that we make on the west side because we have to live with them, to use a phrase <br /> from a movie,"What we do today echoes an eternity." We have to live with the decisions that <br /> we make for 30, 40, 50 years. To paint a little bigger picture of what is going on in Sunny <br /> Isles Beach because she likes to look at everything. We have four(4)projects as well as other <br /> things that are going on and she thinks it is important to list them germane to the situation. 1) <br /> We are building an Annex to the School next to City Hall which certainly is going to add some <br /> issues there. School hours are a game changer in a City especially with a City as small as ours <br /> but we all make that sacrifice because it is for the kids. 2.) We are going to be experiencing a <br /> new Publix being built 2'/z times the size that is there right now, that is actually across the <br /> . street from the school. 3.)Right now she is painting a picture of North Bay Road and some of <br /> the issues that we are going to have. She is doing that because North Bay Road has become a <br /> back street for Collins Avenue for people that are not even our traffic. 4.) There is an <br /> Emergency Bridge that is going to start construction in July that is between two Winston <br /> Towers Buildings that is going to feed into North Bay Road. When that is used for emergency <br /> vehicles the world stops. It is going to bookend the other strip mall where this project is,and <br /> she didn't support that. She felt that the same issues were to have people that are in a hotel <br /> begin using all the back streets to navigate their way around our City to get onto Collins <br /> 12 <br />