2015-0917 Regular City Commission Meeting

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Summm Minutes: Regular City Commission Meeting September 17, 2015 City of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida that request until the local government has authorized the use. We have no difficulty agreeing to the position that if we don't get the designation then our zoning application is not approved. But we are not permitted to request the relief until local government has acted. We have no problem making a condition to give priority to the people in Sunny Isles Beach. Vice Mayor Gatto said then that we are talking about 90 children, do you know how many will be from Winston Towers; is there a waiting list? Mr. Price said they do have a waiting list and he gave the list to Vice Mayor Gatto. She asked if they are strictly Sunny Isles Beach kids or are they from outside the City; and Mr. Price said he does not know but the reality of it is that many Sunny Isles Beach children go to daycare outside of Sunny Isles Beach based on where their parents work. Vice Mayor Gatto said she understands that butjust because there is a need, it doesn't mean that it has to be at that location. It is a location that is very difficult for that area right now. Mr. Price said that the Legislature felt that there was such an important need for daycare that they passed a statutory, and Vice Mayor Gatto said she is not challenging the need, she is challenging the location. Mr. Price said there is no other location in the City that works, and Vice Mayor Gatto said Nye have two very large strip malls in the area. She noted that we have a school annex that is going to be built, we have an emergency bridge that is cutting right to the side of the daycare that is going under construction, and the City has wanted to create bike lanes, something that Commissioner Levin has been advocating for months and the only way to map that out was to get it to feed into Collins from 174th Street which is nicknamed the busiest intersection in the City, and so what we are trying to do is reduce traffic at that intersection rather than add to it. There is a hotel that is going up where Wings is, there is a new building with commerce that is going up where Denny's was, all of this together is clearly going to affect 1741^ Street and North Bay Road. The hotel people are going to try to get their bearings and work their way around the back streets of the City. Also, there is a consortium in the City of buildings that are south of 174th Street that will be sending a letter to our State Legislatures asking for a U -turn sign to be permitted if you are going north on Collins and you have to go south because there is no U- turn there. You can be coming into 174th Street making the U -turn and going out and clogging up 174th Street. She thinks that 90 children, even at 45, are walking, they come with their parents, and so 180 people. Her point is that there is a lot going on that she is not sure if his client realizes in terms of that area, or at least have him pay attention as we have been discussing 1741h Street and Collins Avenue as far back as October or November in every single Commission meeting there has been an issue. Mr. Price said there is no question that this City is geographically challenged, you have only a few ways in and out of this peninsula, and he understands that. Yet at the same time, he thinks that it would be a lacking of reality to believe that if this school doesn't go there that the parents who need daycare center are not going to get into their car at the same time of the day, and Vice Mayor Gatto said that you don't know that. Mr. Price said then that you suspect that these kids now stay at home. and Mayor Scholl said yes, that some are staying home now. Mr. Price said you are correct but when you have a five -fold increase in the amount of population of children five years old, there is a certain percentage that is going to go to daycare. You are putting 550 kids three blocks north of here on less than one acre, and Vice Mayor Gatto said there is a big difference between a school and a daycare center in infrastructure and the body of the school, it is apples to oranges. It can be done somewhere else in the City. Mr. Price said then would you agree that all the commercial space in the E