2012-0301 Special Commission Meeting

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SUl1unary Minutes: Special City Commission Meeting March 1,2012 Sunny Isles Beach, Florida importantly on how it relates to the guests in their hotel. They have several European guests and in their agreements with the tour operators which say if there is ongoing construction within a certain distance of the hotel they have the right to cancel and get their money back. They should be opposed to this project but the Dezer Companies have a much broader view of what is in the best interest of the City and how this decision will impact current and future projects. By allowing this project to go forward with minimum setbacks, the Commission will be setting a precedent for other developers to build new and exciting projects in the City. Mr. Schulman asked Mr. Stamm what precedent would be set by granting a variance to a I OO-foot lot, you don't own any 1 OO-foot lots, you would not be able to take advantage of it. Mr. Warren said if setbacks are 3 feet, wouldn't that afford them the opportunity to do the same. City Attorney Ottinot said he disagreed with Mr. Stamm that the Commission is bound by any precedent, the law made it clear that the Commission must act as a Quasi- Judicial Board and must review each Zoning application based on the evidence set before them on that day and precedence has no value in terms of Zoning matters with respect to the role that the Commission plays in this matter. Mr. Stamm said he is in no way suggesting that this is set in stone, he agrees that this Commission is considering the Applicant's petition here this evening based on what the Applicant has presented here, he is just saying that he is pleased that this Commission and the Commissions in the future will take into consideration these types of progressive moves and what is in the best interest of the City. Tony LoCastro, Vice President of Concerned Citizens, said they generated that Letter of Objection, and he asked if there was 5-15-foot setbacks from the Park on the south side of their building, and Mr. Karp said that is correct, and Mr. LoCastro said then that was the change that they were looking for. Mayor Edelcup noted that there is a 2+ foot setback on the south side to the pedestal and so make sure you are on the same wave length. Mr. Karp said at the tower it does have that setback just noted because it comes from the wave on the pedestal only we have a setback of2 feet and 3 feet and so that is where the shortfall is, and 18 feet at the highest point which is the green-wall. Mr. LoCastro said he has to withdraw his vote of approval because the pedestal was not mentioned, and Mr. Karp said the required setback on it is 5 feet but what they did was to provide the green-wall there, and the tower is set back even further which gives you the greater setback. Former Commissioner Danny Iglesias gave some background when they started to work on the MURs in 1998, at that time they established the Citizens Advisory Council and one of the things that they knew would be a challenge was to redevelop Sunny Isles Beach especially the beach side. One of the challenges they had was they set the 100-foot lots, they got together to see what they could do, and the Beach Cove and the Princess Beach became the Gilbert Samson Park, Sunny Isles Beach and the Tahiti were merged into one and now we have another big Park on the side. Fifteen years has passed and the Commission continues to do the same great job as we started doing at the very beginning of the City. You have taken this idea to the west side and you have developed land which he thought we could never use and we developed it into Parks but even at that time we knew we were going to have challenges and some of them were left over. We couldn't buy them all, and this is one of those that we could not buy. In these challenging times when a developer tries to come up with a development on a very challenging project on a very challenging lot, and one of the 5