2010-0902 Special City Commission Meeting

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Summary Minutes: Special City Commission Meeting September 2, 2010 Sunny Isles Beach, Florida Commissioner Scholl said he is the only non-Jew on the Commission, he lives in the only historic house in Sunny Isles Beach, and he was the Chairman of the Historic Preservation Board for several years as was his wife before he became a Commissioner. He is most impressed here tonight by the passion by all fronts. At the same time a lot of us are missing the point, the point is property rights. The one thing that makes this City great is the fact that we have all walks oflife owning property here from every nation in Europe, South America, everywhere, and the fact is that those people feel comfortable owning property here because they know it is highly unlikely that there is going to be issues with their property ownership unlike in their host countries in many cases. The issue is if we are going to burden somebody's property rights. He said his property rights are burden but he bought his house that way and he loves his house, it is a very unique house, and for the record, the hurricane blew down the Pergola and that is why it is gone. He lives in an historic house, he takes painstaking care when they have to do anything to the house to preserve the character of the house, but the fact is that he bought his house that way and he understood the rules coming in. In this case he really believes that if we are going to burden somebody's property rights and this Commission is going to make a ruling here and it is going to set a precedent, and sometimes we are judge and jury up here and he thinks we need to be very careful when we are doing that and really look at the core issue, and the emotions ran high here tonight but it is not the core issue in his mind. The core issue is that are we going to burden somebody's property rights and take something away from them over some arguments that he thinks are a little flimsy personally. He doesn't really buy into the veracity of these arguments, if we are going to take somebody's property rights away, which is a fundamental right in this country, he thinks we should have overwhelming evidence that supports doing that. He believes when his house was designated historic before he owned it, there was overwhelming evidence, it was built in 1922, it was the oldest house in this part of town, very unique architecture, they designated it, no problem. We have a lot of countervailing arguments here and the onus is on us to be absolutely certain that we are going to do something that is appropriate given the fact that we are going to take something away from a property owner. We have to discount our perspective toward the actual property owner and look at the fact that we are going to take away somebody's property rights, whether it is a Temple, a single family home, a rich condominium developer, those things need to be protected, and he thinks we have to hold them at a very high standard if we are going to burden them. Vice Mayor Thaler said he hasn't been living in the City as long as just about everyone here tonight, but he looks at the architecture, at what has happened in this Temple, and he was a member of the Temple for a limited amount of years. He looks at the people that he has spoken to on the street, the people that he knows, and the significance of what that Temple is not only to an individual but to the City. Just because we didn't make the other hotels and motels historic, he believes this is very different, the majority of the people in Sunny Isles Beach were Jewish, they belonged to this Temple, and the architecture does create a difference and therefore he believes that we should sustain this Temple and make it an historic site. Commissioner Brezin said as the Architect indicated this is something that is unique, it's different, and you may never see it again. She also has a high regard and respect for the professionals that have spoken here explaining why this should be an historic site. Based on that and based on the input from the people in our community that have a very strong feeling, 10