2011-0721 Regular City Commission Meeting

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Summary Minutes: Regular City Commission Meeting July 21, 2011 City of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida nuance, it is a commercial center, and just happened to fall into residential zoning because at the time they built the condos the zoning was off because he has never heard of a commercial strip center with residential zoning. Assistant City Manager Vera said the other businesses that have come there fall under Business, what you have there is a covenant restricting uses in a residential zone. Going back to the beginning normally the uses under, at that time RU-4A, you are permitted to have some type of uses within the complex itself. Apparently the developers decided that they were not going to have all these complexes with uses throughout and they created this area to accommodate Winston Towers under the BU-l uses. Commissioner Scholl said then instead of having retail embedded in the condos they have a retail area, and so it was not zoned properly. He said from his perspective, the zoning is an anomaly, if it was zoned commercial they would have a right for 59 students, there is a Traffic Analysis Study and the traffic intensity is spaced out. Commissioner Aelion made a disclosure that he is a member of the Board ofthe Association of Winston Towers and as such, the matter was brought up at the last meeting and presented as an item and discussed among the Board members and the residents who attended the meeting. He agrees there is a need for a daycare center but his concerns are that there may be a need for guard crossings, and once you open this to one, others will follow. Vice Mayor Thaler asked if we change this variance do others have a right to come in, and Assistant City Manager Vera said no it would not be automatic. The next applicant would have to go through the same procedure, the scrutiny would be the same, and it would be up to the Commission to approve it. There are conditions that could be set on this Applicant or on the whole site by this Commission and therefore restricting uses. Mayor Edelcup said this one would stand alone but there would be precedent that someone else could use. Mayor Edelcup said he believes a daycare center is needed in this City, perhaps more than one is needed because we have so many children in our City because we as a Commission set out to create a City where younger people were welcomed and we wanted to see the City grow. However, he believes that this site is not a safe site for children. There is a small parking lot in the front that is always overfilled with cars when there is any major event going on in that center, the parking lot is one way, they have to go in and out the same way. With as many children that would be dropped off there, and as much care as we would like to see in protecting the lives of our children, he does not see how we can say this is a safe location to have a daycare center in our City. Some day relatively soon we will have an emergency bridge that will bring an amount oftraffic at certain times right behind this facility and again, it looks like that playground area would be abutting that street and that entrance to the bridge, and we will have fire trucks and ambulances using that bridge at high speed trying to get to the emergency. Mayor Edelcup said to call a motion to either accept or deny this request. Vice Mayor Thaler moved and Commissioner Scholl seconded a motion to consider the application. Resolution No. ll-Z-122 was adopted by a roll call vote of 4-1 [Commissioner Scholl in favor] denying the Application. V ote: Commissioner Aelion no Commissioner Gatto no Commissioner Scholl yes Vice Mayor Thaler no Mayor Ede1cup no [City Clerk's Note: The City Commission took a short break.] 4