PLANNING AND ZONING COMMISSION (P&Z)

Donna A. Keys-District 1 Jens Tripson-District 3 George Hamner, Jr.-Member at Large Pilar E. Turner-District 5 David L. Cox-Member at Large Sam Zimmerman-District 2

Carol Johnson - Non-voting liaison School Board

Gregory W. Smith-District 4, Chairman

The Planning and Zoning Commission will meet at 7:00 p.m. ON THURSDAY, February 11, 2010, in the County Commission Chambers of the County Administration Building, 1801 27'h Street, Vero Beach.

THE PLANNING AND ZONING COMMISSION SHALL ADJOURN NO LATER THAN 11 :00 P.M. UNLESS THE MEETING IS EXTENDED OR CONTINUED TO A TIME CERTAIN BY A COMMISSION VOTE.

ITEM #1

ITEM#2

ITEM#3

ITEM#4

AGENDA

CALL TO ORDER AND PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

A. January 28, 2010

ITEM NOT ON CONSENT

A. St. Edward's Private School: Saint Edwards Schools, Inc's. request for approval of a special parking rate for the consolidated lower/middle/upper school campus at 1895 St. Edward's Drive. Saint Edwards School, Inc., Owner. Masteller & Moler, Inc., Agent. [Quasi-Judicial]

PUBLIC DISCUSSION

A. Re-Scheduled from January 28, 2010 meeting: Bruce Barkett's Appeal, on Behalf of Lakeside Fellowship Baptist Church, Inc., of a Decision by the Community Development Director to Deny a Project lying Outside the Urban Service Area from Connecting to the Potable Water Line Within the 66th Avenue Right-of-way [Quasi-Judicial]

F:\Community Development\Users\CurDev\P&Z\Agenda & Lists 2010\2-11-10 agenda.rtf 1

ITEM#5

ITEM#6

ITEM#7

ITEM#S

B. Consideration of Draft EAR (Evalnation and Appraisal Report) based amendments to the Natnral Groundwater Sub-Element, Stormwater Sub-Element, Housing Element, Recreation and Open Space Element, and Intergovernmental Coordination Element of the Comprehensive Plan [Workshop]

COMMISSIONERS MATTERS

PLANNING MATTERS

A. Planning Information Package

ATTORNEY'S MATTERS

ADJOURNMENT

ANYONE WHO MAY WISH TO APPEAL ANY DECISION, WHICH MAY BE MADE AT THIS MEETING, WILL NEED TO ENSURE THAT A VERBATIM RECORD OF THE PROCEEDINGS IS MADE, WHICH INCLUDES THE TESTIMONY AND EVIDENCE ON WHICH THE APPEAL IS BASED.

ANYONE WHO NEEDS A SPECIAL ACCOMMODATION FOR THIS MEETING MUST CONTACT THE COUNTY'S AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT (ADA) COORDINATOR AT 772-226-1223, (TDD #772-770-5215) AT LEAST 48 HOURS IN ADVANCE OF THE MEETING.

Meeting may be broadcast live on Comcast Cable Channel 27 -may be rebroadcast continuously Saturday 7:00 p.m. until Sunday morning 7 :00 a.m. Meeting broadcast same as above on Comcast Broadband, Channel 27 in Sebastian.

F:\Community Development\Users\CurDev\P&Z\Agenda & Lists 2010\2-11-10 agenda.rtf 2

PLANNING AND ZONING COMMISSION

There was a meeting of the Indian River County {IRC) Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) on Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. in the Commission Chambers of the County Administration Building, 1801 2yth Street, Vero Beach, Florida. You may hear an audio of the meeting; review the meeting agenda, backup material and the minutes on Indian River County website www.ircgov.com/Boards/PZC/2010.

Present were members: Chairman Greg Smith, District 4 Appointee; Jens Tripson, District 3 Appointee; Dr. David Cox and George Hamner, Members-at-Large; and Carol Johnson, non-voting School Board Liaison.

Absent was Donna Keys, District 1 Appointee; Sam Zimmerman, District 2 Appointee; and Pilar Turner, District 5 Appointee {all excused).

Also present was IRC staff: George Glenn, Assistant County Attorney; Bob Keating, Community Development Director; Stan Boling, Planning Director; Roland DeBlois, Chief, Environmental & Code Enforcement; Sasan Rohani, Chief, Long-Range Planning; Andrew Sobczak and Bill Schutt, Senior Planners; and Reta Smith, Recording Secretary.

Call to Order and Pledge of Allegiance (7:08:10)

Chairman Smith called the meeting to order and led all in the Pledge of Allegiance. He announced Item #3(A) under Public Discussion had been pulled from the agenda and would be rescheduled at a later date.

Approval of Minutes (7:09:08)

ON MOTION BY Dr. Cox, SECONDED BY Mr. Tripson, the members voted unanimously (4-0) to approve the minutes of the meeting of January 14, 2010, as presented.

Public Discussion (7:09:50)

Chairman Smith read the following into the record:

PZC/Unapproved 1 January 28, 2010 F:/BCC/AII Committees/P&Z/2010 Ag&Minutes/P&Z01.28.1 0.doc

B. Consideration of Draft EAR (Evaluation and Appraisal Report) based amendments to the Introductory Element, Economic Development Element, Capital Improvements Element, Conservation Element, and Coastal Management Element of the Comprehensive Plan [Workshop]

Mr. Bill Schutt, IRC Senior Planner (7:10:15), gave a PowerPoint presentation on draft EAR based amendments to the Introductory, Capital Improvements and Economic Development Elements of the Comprehensive (Comp) Plan, a copy of which is on file in the Commission Office.

Chairman Smith noted counties to the south of us had been very aggressive about contacting the types and groups of businesses they would like to come to the Treasure Coast area, and said he would rather see IRC be more aggressive about having things available for those types of industries He wondered if this was included in the Comp Plan.

Mr. Bob Keating, IRC Community Development Director (7:23:13), responded the IRC Chamber of Commerce (COC) was the County's Economic Development Agency and a certain amount of money was appropriated every year for the COC's activities. He related the IRC Economic Development Council had recently been discussing coming up with a dedicated funding source for economic development; however he acknowledged there was no specific objective in the Comp Plan.

Discussion followed.

Mr. Roland DeBlois, IRC Chief Environmental & Code Enforcement (7:36: 11 ), gave a PowerPoint presentation on draft EAR based amendments to the Conservation and Coastal Management Elements of the Comp Plan, a copy of which is on file in the Commission Office.

Mr. Tripson (7:41 :24) inquired if the St. Sebastian River demucking project had actually worked. Mr. DeBlois felt it was a positive for improving water quality and it was being monitored to see how much was being accomplished.

Management of the County's conservation lands was discussed.

Dr. Cox (7:59:28) noted on page 73 of the Capital Improvement Element there were entries for the North and South Relief Canal treatment systems with dollar amounts and specific years, and suggested these

PZC/Unapproved 2 January 28, 2010 F:/BCC/AII Committees/P&Z/2010 Ag&Minutes/P&Z01.28.1 0.doc

could be incorporated in the Objectives. Mr. Keating agreed this was a good idea.

Discussion ensued about the Coastal Management Element of the Comp Plan.

Commissioners Matters (8: 15:45)

None.

Planning Matters (8: 15:48)

Mr. Stan Boling, IRC Planning Director, talked about items that would be coming to the P&Z in the future.

Attorney's Matters (8: 16:49)

None.

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 8:07 p.m.

Gregory W. Smith, Chairman Date

Reta Smith, Recording Secretary Date

PZC/Unapproved 3 January 28, 2010 F:/BCC/AII Committees/P&Z/2010 Ag&Minutes/P&Z01.28.10.doc

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY, FLORIDA MEMORANDUM

TO: The Honorable Members of the Planning and Zoning Commission

TMENT HEAD CONCURRENCE:

Robert M. Keating, AIC

THROUGH: Stan Boli~CP Planning Director

ity Development Director

FROM: John W. McCoy, AICP :f\,,Jyv\ Senior Planner, Current Development

DATE: February 2, 2010

PARKING STUDY (QUASI-JUDICIAL)

SUBJECT: Saint Edwards Schools, Inc's. Request for Approval of a Special Parking Rate for the Consolidated Lower/Middle/Upper School Campus at 1895 St. Edward's Drive [SP-MI-10-03-03 / 97050012-64791]

It is requested that the data herein presented be given formal consideration by the Planning and Zoning Commission at its regular meeting of February 11, 2010.

DESCRIPTION & CONDITIONS

Masteller & Moler, Inc., on behalf of Saint Edwards School, has submitted a parking study to establish a project specific parking rate for the Saint Edwards School consolidated lower/middle/upper school campus (K-12). The site is located on the west side of SR A-1-A, south of Sand Pointe Subdivision, at 1895 St. Edward's Drive. In this case, the parking study was submitted in conjunction with a site plan application for minor improvements needed to consolidate the Saint Edwards elementary grades at the current middle/upper school campus. As proposed, the site plan reflects a parking rate for the school that exceeds the parking study recommendation, but is less than the conventional school parking rate. Therefore, the site plan is contingent upon Planning and Zoning Commission (PZC) approval of the parking study and the lower than conventional parking rate.

Pursuant to Land Development Regulation (LDR) Section 954.08(3), an applicant may submit and obtain approval of a parking study to determine a parking rate when there are parking spaces shared between multiple uses, or when a use is not similar to one of the uses listed in LDR Chapter 954. In the Saint Edwards case, the proposed use is a consolidated lower/middle/upper school. Since the off-street parking chapter of the county's LDRs does not provide a parking rate for a consolidated school facility use, the Saint Edwards project qualifies for establishment of a no similar use parking study derived rate. Examples of other parking studies that were approved by the PZC include: Crazy Frogs, Home Depot (Roseland), 4th Street Homeless Shelter, and Vero Mall.

In this case, Saint Edwards is a well established, two campus school with grades K-5 located in the City of Vero Beach on Club Drive and the middle school and upper school located in the county on the subject south A-1-A site. At this time, the school is seeking to consolidate all grades at the existing, subject south

F: \Community Development\ U sers\Cur Dev\P &Z\20 I 0\StEd wardParkingS tudy. rtf I

A-1-A campus site. If the PZC accepts the parking study and approves the special parking rate, then the project specific parking rate will be established for the consolidated campus and used in the consolidated campus site plan and any subsequent site planning.

The Planning and Zoning Commission is now to review the submitted parking study and consider approval of a special parking rate for the consolidated Saint Edwards School (K-12) campus on south A­l-A.

ANALYSIS

1. Existing Site/Use: The subject south A-1-A site is approved for middle/upper school use. The currently approved site plan for the middle/upper schools accommodates 540 students. Presently, there are 296 parking spaces on site.

2. Proposed Changes to Existing Site: Recently, the applicant submitted a site plan proposing minor site changes to accommodate the consolidation. That site plan is currently under review and, when acceptable, will be approved at a staff level. As proposed, the site plan involves adding 19 parking spaces, adding a south-bound right tum lane on SR A-1-A at the site's existing south driveway, adding a play ground, and making minor building and pedestrian additions.

As part of the consolidation, the following changes are proposed to the school's enrollment:

Lower School Students Middle School Students Upper School Students

Currently Enrolled

276 192 258 726

Future Allowed (Consolidated@ A-1-A site)

276 144 240 660

While the consolidation project will increase the current enrollment at the A-1-A campus by 2 I 0 students, there will be fewer middle and upper school students on the site after consolidation.

3. Off-Street Parking: LDR Section 954.05 requires parking for elementary, middle, and high schools at the following rates:

High schools: Twelve (12) spaces for each classroom plus one space per each teaching, administrative or staff position.

Junior high and elementary schools: Two and one-half (2 ½) spaces per each classroom, plus one space per each teaching, administrative or staff position.

Based on stand-alone public school facilities, these "conventional rates" provide a higher parking rate for high schools than for middle and elementary schools. That reflects high school student parking demand. In this case, the parking study was conducted to determine an appropriate parking rate for a private school with a consolidated campus.

4. Parking Study: Under county parking study regulations, parking studies are required to provide an analysis of parking demand at three or more sites over a three-day period. These sites must be approved by the County Traffic Engineer prior to the study being conducted. For this study, Traffic Engineering approved the following study sites: Saint Edwards existing lower school, Saint Edwards existing middle/upper school, Glades Day School, and Lakeland Christian School.

F: \Community Development\U sers\CurDev\P &Z\20 1 0\StEdwardParkingStud y. rtf 2

Both the Glades Day (412 students) and Lakeland Christian (1,075 students) schools are existing private schools with consolidated (K-12) campuses comparable to the proposed Saint Edwards ( 660 students) consolidated campus.

As required under the county's parking study regulations, all four sites were studied over three school days, between the hours of 7:30 AM and 4:00 PM. During the study observation periods, occupied parking spaces were counted at 15-minute intervals. The resulting count data are summarized in attachment #3.

Generally, school day parking demand is not seasonally influenced; therefore, a peak season factor was not applied. As required by the parking study regulations, however, a 15% safety factor was applied to the highest 15 minute count to derive a special parking rate. That rate was then applied to the proposed 660 student, K-12 consolidated Saint Edwards campus to obtain the number of parking spaces needed to accommodate parking demand at the consolidated campus.

According to the parking study results, the actual average demand plus a 15% safety factor for all schools studied resulted in a peak period school day parking rate of one space per 2.78 students. The rate for the existing Saint Edwards sites (peak demand plus 15% safety factor) was one space per 2.33 students. In this case, the applicant is proposing to add 19 parking spaces to the existing facility to provide a total of 315 spaces. That will result in a parking rate of one space per 2.1 students.

After review, Traffic Engineering and Community Development determined that the parking study meets all applicable parking ordinance criteria. Based on that finding, staff approved the study.

In the parking study, the data specific to Saint Edwards indicate that the existing Saint Edwards facilities have a higher parking demand than the study average. With consolidation, however, certain efficiencies will result, and the Saint Edwards parking rate can be expected to decrease and be closer to the rates observed for the other two consolidated schools. Based on the parking study results, including specific data for existing Saint Edwards parking demand, planning staff believes that an appropriate parking rate for the Saint Edwards consolidated campus is one space per 2.5 students. That rate is more than accommodated by the proposed site plan and provides flexibility for future expansion of the school. Given the proposed 315 parking spaces on the consolidated campus, the recommended rate of one space per 2.5 students would allow for enrollment to increase up to 787 students without the need for additional parking.

RECOMMENDATION

Based on the analysis performed, staff recommends that the Planning and Zoning Commission accept the Saint Edwards parking study and approve a special rate of one space per 2.5 students for the St. Edwards consolidated campus.

.6.PPROVED AS TO FORM

ATTACHMENTS '-~?~=F~ -I. Locat1onMap ;;~ 2. Parking Ordinance Section 954.08(3) " GEOII.GEA. GLENN 3. Parking Study Excerpts: Report and Parking Data Collection Summa~ANTCOUNTYATTOII.NEY

4. Site Plan

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11111& COURTS

fflACHMENT l

OFF-STREET PARKING § 954.08

any undivided driveway shall not be in ex­cess of twenty-four (24) feet, unless said re­quirement is waived by the county public works director or his designee and the coun­ty community development director.

1. The distance to any street intersection shall be no less than thirty (30) feet (from the edge of the right-of-way to the edge of the driveway apron pave­ment), unless said requirements are waived by the county public works di­rector or is designee and the county community development director ..

(e) Exclusive access drive. Commercial sites having fifty thousand (50,000) square feet of gross floor area or more shall provide for an exclusive access drive (not including ser­vice drives) at the primary entrance of the development and at all points of ingress and egress located on a collector or arterial road­way. Said drive shall be used for providing access to all parking aisles and shall not directly access individual parking spaces.

(Ord. No. 90-16, § 1, 9-11-90; Ord. No. 91-48, §§ 59, 60, 12-4-91; Ord. No. 92-11, § 8, 4-22-92; Ord. No. 92-39, § 29, 9-29-92; Ord. No. 93-8, § 31, 3-18-93; Ord: No. 95-10, § 13, 5-31-95)

Section 954.08. Special parking regulations and arrangements.

(1) Cross parking agreement (physically shared).

(a) A site may utilize parking spaces of an abut­ting property provided that the abutting property has excess parking spaces as com­pared to the applicable standards set forth in section 954.05, and the site being devel­oped provides on-site a minimum of fifty (50) percent ofits required parking spaces.

1. A cross access easement agreement must be executed by all parties having a legal interest in the property(s) cov­ered. Said agreement shall be provided at the time of site plan application for the properties affected.

2. The easement agreement shall provide for perpetual access and use of the abut­ting property's parking spaces and driv­ing aisles.

3. The easement agreement must be ap­proved as to substance by the commu­nity development director.

4. The easement agreement must be·ap­proved as to legal form and sufficiency by the county attorney's office.

5. The easement agreement must be re­corded in the public records prior to release of the project site plan or, in cases where no site plan approval is applicable,'prior to issuance of a build­ing permit or certificate of occupancy if no building permit is to be issued.

(2) Non-concurrent parking (shared Oller time) study. The required amount of parking for a project may be reduced from the requirements of section 954.05, as specified herein, upon submittal and review of the following information, a determina­tion by the public works director or his designee and community development director that the stan­dards specified herein have been met, and approv­al by the planning and·zoning commission.

(a) A parking accumulation study must be pre­pared by a registered engineer and submit­ted with the site plan application. The study must be signed and sealed by a profession­al engineer.

(b) A pre-study meeting is required between the petitioner's engineer and the county pub­lic works director or his designee to set forth the parameters of the study (number of days, hours of the day, site(s) to be studied).

(c) All parking studies at a minimum shall:

1. Cover at least a three-day period;

2. a. Proposed projects. Cover at least three (3) sites having a similar mix of uses and design characteristics as the proposed use;

b. Existing projects: may use one site, being the existing site;

3. Record occupied parking spaces within the study area at fifteen-minute incre­ments;

4. Record the information on sketch;

5. Summarize the information for each day of the study and compile the informa­tion for analysis; ·and

Supp. No. 19 954/11

ATI'ACHMENT 2

§ 954.08 INDIAN RIVER COUNTY CODE

6. Factor in a peak season demand;

7. Include an analysis section that de­rives a total parking demand number and compares that number plus the fif­teen (15) percent safety factor refer­enced in ( d) below with the standard rate total parking requirement;

8. Include a conclusions section which, based upon the date and analysis, pro­poses a reduced total parking number, if warranted.

(d) Fifteen (15) percent of the highest fifteen­minute accumulation period must be added to the maximum number of spaces occupied during the highest fifteen-minute period.

(e) The signed and sealed parking accumula­tion study shall be reviewed by the county public works director or his designee and the co=unity development director. The petition and the recommendations of the county public works director or his desig­nee and community development director will then be f'orwarded to the planning and zoning commission for final action. llJly ap­peal shall be handled the same as a site plan ·appeal pursuant to Chapter 902.

-pt' (3) No similar use study. For uses which are not listed in section 954.05 of this chapter and where the applicant so desires, the applicant may · conduct a parking accumulation study to deter­mine a parking standard for the subject use. The parking standard for the subject use will be de­termined after submittal and review of the follow­ing information, a determination by the public works director or his designee and community de­velopment director that the standards specified herein have been met, and approval by the plan­ning and zoning commission.

(a) A parking accumulation study must be pre­pared by a registered engineer and submit­ted with a site plan application. The study must be signed and sealed by a profession-. al engineer.

(b) A pre-study meeting is required between the petitioner's engineer and the county pub­lic works director or his designee to set forth the parameters of the study(number of days, hours of the day, site(s) to be studied).

(c) The site(s) to be studied must be occupied by11ses similar to the uses proposed by the applicant.

(d) All parking studies at a minimum shall:

1. Cover at least a three-day period;

2. Cover at least three (3) site(s) having a similar mix of uses and design charac• teristics as the proposed use;

3. Record bccupied parking spaces within the study area at fifteen-minute incre­ments;

4. Record the information on a sketch;

5. Su=arize the information for each day of the study and compile the informa­tion for analysis;

6. Factor in a peak season demand;

7. Include an analysis section that states the parking demand number for each use on each site, along with the aver­age parking demand number for each use studied (all sites). Said numbers shall include the fifteen (15) percent safety factor in (d) below;

8. Include a conditions section which, based upon the data and analysis, pro­poses a standard parking rate (a cer­tain number of spaces per a certain number of square feet gross building area) for a particular use category.

(e) Fifteen (15) percent of the highest fifteen­minute accumulation period must be added to the maximum number of spaces occupied during the highest fifteen-minute period.

(f) The signed and sealed parking accumula­tion study will be reviewed and approved by the county public works director or his designee and the co=unity development director. The petition will then be.forward­ed to the planning and zoning commission for final action. Any appeal shall be han­dled the same as a site plan appeal pursu­ant to Chapter 902.

· (4) Non-paved parking. Fully sodded or other­wise stabilized parking may be permitted for cer­tain areas as specified in section 954.05, and also for projects subject to infrequent use such as sites

Supp. No. 19 954/12 AlTACHMENT 2

PARKING STUDY Saint Edward's School Consolidation Project

Saint Edward's School is a private school located in Indian River County, Florida. Saint Edward's School provides educational instruction to students from Pre-kindergarten (PK} through 12th grade. Currently the school operates on two separate campuses. The Lower School containing grade levels Pre-K through 5th grade is located on Club Drive in the City of Vero Beach within Indian River County. The Middle & Upper School containing grade levels 6th through 12th grade is located on State Highway A-1-A in the unincorporated area of Indian River County. The Middle & Upper School campus was approved in the past for a total of 540 students. It should be noted that the actual current enrollment of students at the Middle / Upper School campus for this school year is 450 students which is less than past approved 540 students.

Saint Edward's School is considering consolidating its two campuses at the State Highway A-1-A Middle & Upper School site. As a result of the consolidation, the Club Drive Lower School campus will be closed, and the 276 students currently enrolled there will be relocated to the State Highway A-1-A campus bringing the total number of students that will be allowed at the State Highway A-1-A campus to 660 students. The following table depicts the current enrollment at the two separate campuses as well as the future student enrollment for the consolidation:

Lower School Students Middle School Students Upper School Students

Currently Enrolled

276 192 258 726

Future Allowed (Consolidated@A-1-A Site\

276 144 240 660

The consolidation project will increase enrollment at the State Highway A-1-A campus 120 students more than the previously approved 540 for a total of 660 students.

After evaluating the Lower School and Middle & Upper School current operations, we determined that expansion of parking to meet a strict interpretation of the County's parking ordinance for schools for computation of total spaces required would significantly overstate actual parking needs. As such, in order to evaluate the amount of parking required for the consolidation project, a No Similar Use "Parking Study" has been completed to develop a more reasonable parking space to student ratio.

ATIACHMENT 3

I I I

I I I I I I I I II II I! -- I

IJ

The Indian River County Parking Code, Chapter 954.05 (53) requires the following for high schools and junior high I elementary schools:

High Schools: Twelve spaces per classroom plus one space for each staff member Junior High I Elementary Schools: Two and one-half spaces per classroom plus one space for each staff member

The computations per County code are presented below:

Parking Computations Lower School: 33 employees x 1 space ea. Upper Middle School: 140 employees x 1 space ea. Elementary School: 16 classrooms x 2.5 spaces ea. Junior High School: 11 classrooms x 2.5 spaces ea. High School: 16 classrooms x 12 spaces ea. Total required

= = = =

=

40 spaces 140 spaces 40spaces 28spaces

192 spaces 440 spaces

Utilizing the above described criteria would result in parking space requirements well beyond what is reasonably needed for a private Pre-kindergarten through 12th grade school.

Private schools typically have smaller classroom sizes, and since the County's parking code does not offer a specific rate for private Pre-kindergarten through 12th grade school facilities, a No Similar Use "Parking Study" has been completed. The Study has been completed in conformance with Indian River County Code, Section 954.08. In order to complete the study, parking data was collected at three (3) separate private schools covering a three (3) day period for each site. One of the accepted sites was Saint Edward's School. Occupied parking space data was collected every fifteen minutes beginning one-half hour before start of school and ending one-half hour after end of school. This information was recorded on the sketches at the end of this report. The three (3) schools studied were as follows:

Glades Day School. Belle Glade, Palm Beach County. Florida Grades Educated PK through 12th Grade Number of Students 442 students Number of Parking Spaces 162 spaces

Lakeland Christian School, Lakeland, Polk County. Florida Grades Educated PK through 12ifi Grade Number of Students 1075 students Number of Parking Spaces 389 spaces

Saint Edward's Lower & Middle/Upper Schools, Indian River County. Florida Grades Educated PK through 12th Grade Number of Students 726 (276+ 450) Number of Parking Spaces 375 (70 + 305)

ATTACHMENT }

I 1

I l n n n II u

I I I

Glades Day School, a private PK through 12th grade school located in Palm Beach County was studied October 5th

, 7th, and 9th of 2009. Lakeland Christian School, also a

PK through 12th grade school located in Polk County was studied October 19th, 21 st

• and 23rt1 of 2009. Lastly, both St. Edward's Upper/Middle and Lower Schools were studied November 2nd

, 4th, and 6th of 2009. After collecting data from each of the above

described sites, the data was evaluated to determine the peak number of parking spaces occupied during a fifteen minute interval at each of the sites. It should be noted that the peak fifteen minute interval for Saint Edward's School is based on the highest sum of the fifteen minute intervals from each campus. As a result of the parking data collected, we have developed a parking rate per student including a 15% safety factor as required by Indian River County Code. The following data was used to develop the parking space ratio in this study:

School Glades Day Lakeland Christian Saint Edward's Totals

Spaces Occupied

Peak 120 309 271 700

Spaces Occupied Peak+ 15%

138 356 312 805

Students 442

1075 726

2243

As a result of the completion of the Parking Study it has been established that the parking computation rate for the Saint Edward's School Consolidation project is "One (1) Parking Space for Each 2. 78 Students" based on the following computations:

Parking Space Ratio (Spaces to Students) = 805 Spaces per 2243 students = 1 Space per 2. 78 students

For the Saint Edward's School Consolidation project, the total number of required parking spaces is 238 parking spaces based on the following computations:

Parking Space Computations Number of Students (PK through 12th Grade) 660 Students Number of Spaces Required

= 660 Students/ 1 Space per 2. 78 Students = 238 Spaces

The Saint Edward's School State Highway A-1-A campus already has on-site a total of 296 parking spaces. Although this amount will satisfy the amount of parking required by the parking study, Saint Edward's proposes to add additional spaces as depicted on the site plan included as an attachment to this study.

As revealed in the Site Plan, there are 258 existing parlcing spaces in the northern portion of the campus accessible from State Highway A-1-A through the site's north entrance. The Site Plan also depicts an additional 19 spaces that will be added to the north parking lot bringing the north lot total to 277. There are 38 existing parking spaces in the southern portion of the campus accessible from State Highway A-1-A through the site's southern entrance. The southern parking area will generally be used for a portion of the school faculty, maintenance and cafeteria personnel, and for drop-off /pick-up of Pre-kindergarten through 3rd grade students. The northern parking facilities will be used "ENT 3

A'llACHm

for facul~, student drivers, and visitors including parents, as well as drop-off/pick-up for grades 4 through 12

th• The total number of proposed spaces to be located at the campus is 315.

The information contained in this report has been completed in compliance with Indian River County Code, Section 954.08. The findings of this study show that the number of parking spaces proposed by the St. Edward's School Consolidation project is adequate and meets the aforementioned Code.

Respectfully submitted,

Mastel! r n1,lroof c.

~. ~ 7 _,j

Stephen E. Moler, P.E. Vice President sh/sem File# 0925 [Parking Study(120109).docJ

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fflACHMENT '6

RE-SCHEDULED TO FEBRUARY 11, 2010 PZC MEETING

INDIAN RNER COUNTY, FLORIDA MEMORANDUM

TO: The Honorable Members of the Planning and Zoning Commission

FROM:

Robert M. Keating, AI

A,/\ Stan Boling, AICP Planning Director

DATE: January 15, 2009

velopment Director

APPEAL PUBLIC DISCUSSION

QUASI-JUDICIAL

SUBJECT: Bruce Barkett's Appeal, on Behalf of Lakeside Fellowship Baptist Church, Inc., of a Decision by the Community Development Director to Deny a Project lying Outside the Urban Service Area from Connecting to the Potable Water Line Within the 66th Avenue Right-of-way

It is requested that the data herein presented be given formal consideration by the Planning and Zoning Commission at its regular meeting of February 11, 2010.

BACKGROUND

Lakeside Fellowship Baptist Church, Inc., represented by attorney Bruce Barkett, has appealed a decision of the community development director that potable water sub-element policy 5.7 prohibits the church facility located at 8000 66th Avenue from connecting to county potable water service. Currently, the site is occupied by church facilities ( modular buildings) that were site plan approved in 2002 and for which a certificate of occupancy (C.O.) was issued in 2006. Those existing church facilities are not served by the county potable water system, but instead are served by an on-site potable well, a septic tank/drainfield system, and a dry hydrant system approved by the Fire Division in 2002.

In April 2009, site plan approval was granted for new phases of development, including a "phase 2" site-built church building to be served by the existing on-site well and an additional septic/drainfield system. That building is currently under construction.

During the 2009 site plan review process, the county advised project engineer Aaron Bowles verbally and in writing that connection to public water and sewer services is prohibited (see attachment#!). The project engineer acknowledged staffs no connection comments in his written response submitted to the county, and also stated in that response that the project would be served by the church's existing dry hydrant as well as a recently installed hydrant in the 66th Avenue right-of-way (see attachment #2). Consistent with that no connection acknowledgement, the site plan did not list a utility water connection permit as one of the jurisdictional agency permits needed for the project.

F:\Community Development\Users\CurDev\P&Z\20 I 0\LakesideFellowshipAppeal(rescheduled).rtf I

Contrary to and inconsistent with staffs comments and the project engineer's response and contrary to the site plan data section list ofrequired permits, the final and revised site plan set sheet C6 of 12 produced by the project engineer showed a fire line connection to the county's potable water main that lies along the site's 66th

Avenue frontage. Although sheet C6 was included in the overall site plan set approved by staff, staff did not approve the connection depicted on sheet 6, and the approved site plan did not list a utility water connection permit among the jurisdictional agency permits required for the project.

In October, the project engineer e-mailed Utility Services and requested an on-site pre-construction meeting for a fireline connection to the proposed "phase 2" church building. In response, Utility Services staff e­mailed the project engineer's office, stating that Utility Services understood that no connection to water is allowed, that Utility Services signed-off on the project site plan based on its comment that water and sewer service is not available for connection, and that Utility Services was coordinating with Community Development Director Bob Keating regarding the no connection policy (see attachment #3).

Later in October, Community Development staff notified the project engineer that comprehensive plan potable water sub-element policy 5. 7 prohibits connection of the church facilities to the county potable water line for any use of the water ( drinking or fire protection) and that other fire protection methods would need to be used by the church ( e.g. pump and use of well or pond water). At that time, the project engineer indicated that a fireline connection to the county's potable water system would be less expensive than upgrading the site's dry hydrant system to meet fire code requirements.

On November 9, 2009, community development staff received a letter from attorney Bruce Barkett seeking a change in staffs position (see attachment #4). Several days later, the community development director sent a written response (see attachment #5) to attorney Barkett. That response re-iterated staffs position. In December, Mr. Barkett filed an appeal of the community development director's decision ( see attachment #6).

In this case, the subject appeal was filed pursuant to land development regulations section 902.07. Consistent with those regulations and procedures, staff has reviewed and analyzed the appeal, scheduled the appeal for Planning and Zoning Commission (PZC) consideration, and notified adjacent property owners, Lakeside Fellowship, and Mr. Barkett regarding the PZC's scheduled consideration. The PZC is now to consider the appeal under guidelines provided in section 902.07. The PZC may reverse, affirm wholly or partly, or modify staffs determination.

ANALYSIS

• The Site

The Lakeside Fellowship site consists of± I 4.52 acres with approximately 450 feet of frontage on 66th

Avenue. It lies on the east side of66th Avenue, approximately 320 feet south of SI st Street, and is separated from the Urban Service Area boundary by an intervening parcel and a distance of approximately 320 feet to the north, and by intervening parcels and a distance of approximately 1,330 feet to the east. Thus, the subject site is not adjacent to the Urban Service Area boundary and does not abut an Urban Service Area boundary that coincides with a roadway ( e.g. 81 st Street).

• Comprehensive Plan Policies

In the county's adopted 2020 Comprehensive Plan, Future Land Use Element Policy 2.1 establishes the Urban Service Area. Through that policy and other comprehensive plan policies, the county directs more intense, urban type development to properties that lie within the Urban Service Area, commits to providing public

F: \Community Development\U sers\CurDev\P &Z\20 I O\LakesideF el lowshipAppeal( rescheduled ).rtf 2

water and sewer services to properties that lie within the Urban Service Area boundaries, and commits to not providing services in rural areas. In both the Sanitary Sewer and Potable Water Sub-elements, county policies prohibit public sewer and water connections for properties that lie outside the Urban Service Area with a few, specific exceptions. Those exceptions are for agricultural PDs, mixed use developments, TNDs, and certain agricultural businesses. In addition, there are exceptions for public facilities (schools), sites with contaminated well water, and properties where a portion of the site is contiguous to the Urban Service Area boundary (see attachment #7). The Lakeside Fellowship site/project meets none of the exceptions.

• TheAppeal

The appeal is based on the appellant's assertion that the community development director misinterpreted potable water sub-element Policy 5. 7. Staff has summarized the appellant's contentions and staffs responses below:

I. Appellant's Contention: Policy 5.7 applies to potable water service and does not apply to Lakeside Fellowship's request for a fire line connection.

Staff's Response: Policy 5.7 applies to the" ... provision of potable water service". Potable water service includes connection to and use of the county's potable water system for any number of uses, including use of the service for a fireline connection to a building. Therefore, a fireline connection to the potable water system is subject to Policy 5.7.

2. Appellant's Contention: The requested fireline connection is safer than other fire protection alternatives such as a system using a well, pump, and back-up generator.

Staff's Response: The issue of safety is adequately addressed by the fire code, which allows alternatives that do not include the requested fireline connection. In fact, an "alternative" system has served the existing church for a number of years. That fact illustrates that there are fire protection alternatives that meet both the fire code and the Policy 5.7 prohibition on connecting to the county's potable water service system.

3. Appellant's Contention: Although the purpose of Policy 5.7 is to direct development into the Urban Service Area, Lakeside Fellowship is allowed to develop its site with or without connection to the county's potable water service system. Therefore, denying the connection does not affect the location of the development and achieve the purpose of Policy 5. 7. In addition, the denial does harm by preventing use of" ... the safest fire protection available".

Staff's Response: The purpose of Policy 5.7 is served by prohibiting fireline connections for Lakeside Fellowship and other similarly situated developments located in rural areas. Under county policies and regulations, churches and residences are allowed in rural areas but are not afforded the benefits of urban services. Applying Policy 5. 7 to fire line connections keeps uses that are dependent on urban services inside the Urban Service Area where they belong and where the county has committed to providing services.

PZC REVIEW GUIDELINES FOR APPEALS

Section 902. 07 provides guidelines for the PZC' s review of an appeal of a staff decision ( see attachment #8). Under Section 902.07(5), the PZC is to review the staff decision and make findings in the following four areas. In accordance with 902.07(4), the PZC may make additional findings of fact.

F:\Community Development\Users\CurDev\P&Z\20 I 0\LakesideFellowshipAppeal(rescheduled).rtf 3

I. Did the reviewing official fail to follow the appropriate review procedures?

Staff's Response: Staff followed all proper review procedures related to the fireline connection request and subsequent appeal. Furthermore, the appellant has not raised any procedural issues. Therefore, the reviewing official did not fail to follow appropriate review procedures.

2. Did the reviewing official act in an arbitrary or capricious manner?

Staff's Response: The reviewing official followed the clear wording of Policy 5.7 to prohibit the provision of potable water service to the subject project. In the past, staff has applied Policy 5.7 consistently to similarly situated projects located outside the Urban Service Area. Therefore, the reviewing official did not act in an arbitrary or capricious manner.

3. Did the reviewing official fail to consider adequately the effects of the proposed development upon surrounding properties, traffic circulation or public health, safety and welfare?

Staff's Response: The reviewing official logically determined that health and safety regulations can be adequately addressed without the requested fireline connection. No evidence has been presented that denying the requested fireline connection will adversely affect surrounding properties, and no potential adverse effects are apparent. Therefore, the reviewing official did not fail to adequately consider the effects of the proposed development upon surrounding properties, traffic circulation or public health, safety and welfare.

4. Did the reviewing official fail to evaluate the application with respect to the comprehensive plan and the land development regulations of Indian River County?

Staffs Response: As stated previously in this report, the applicable comprehensive plan policy was properly applied based on a straight-forward reading of Policy 5. 7. Therefore, the reviewing official did not fail to evaluate the application with respect to the comprehensive plan and the land development regulations oflndian River County.

RECOMMENDATION

Based on the analysis performed, staff recommends that the Planning & Zoning Commission:

I. Make a finding that staffs determination did not fail any of the 4 areas outlined in LDR section 902.07, and

2. Deny the appeal and wholly affirm staffs determinations.

ATTACHMENTS

I. Copy of Staffs Technical Review Committee Review Comment Letter dated 10-14-08 2. Copy of Engineer's Response to Staffs Technical Review Committee Comments dated 1-14-09 3. October 2009 E-mail Correspondence between Utility Services and Project Engineer 4. November 6, 2009 Letter from Attorney Bruce Barkett 5. November 13, 2009 Response Letter to Attorney Bruce Barkett 6. Application for Appeal and Related Correspondence 7. Potable Water Sub-Element Policy 5.7 8. LDR Section 902.07 9. Location Map

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•

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT

1801 27th Street, Vero Beach FL 32960 772-226-1237 / 772-978-1806 fax

www. ire gov. com

October 14, 2008

AARON BOWLES P.E. MBV ENGINEERING, INC. 2455 14THAVE VERO BEACH, FL 32960-

RE: Project Name: LAKESIDE FELLOWSIDP BAPTIST CHURCH PHASE I & II Project Description: NEW PLACE OF WORSHIP/ PHASE I-- 4992 SQ FT CHURCH/NOC 7-l l-

02JR---FORMBOARD OK 7/17/02/GP/DENSITY 09/17/02/SPAD/PRE-AP/SPMN/TREE/LAND/CCCN ProjectNumber: 2001030090 File Number: SP-MI-08-12-50 Application Description: CHURCH & YOUTH CENTER - TRC COMMENTS - PHASE II Application Number: 62936 Tax ID#: 3 l-39-32-00000-5000-00008.l Site address/Location: 8000 66TH AV VERO BEACH South of 81 st St on east side of 66th Ave

Dear Mr. Bowles:

The above referenced application has been reviewed by the Technical Review Committee (TRC). Pursuant to the site plan application requirements of Chapter 914, easements, exterior mechanical equipment, fences, and other proposed and existing site characteristics must be shown on the site plan(s). An absence of any of these elements from the submitted plans is determined to mean that said characteristics do not exist and are not proposed. It is the applicant's responsibility to show all such information on the plans. The following application discrepancies have been identified:

(PL3) - PLANNING: CURRENT DEVELOPMENT

I. Please label the landuse and the zoning of the surrounding parcels on the site plan.

2. On sheet C4, please dimension the distance between the proposed chapel and the north property line.

3. On sheet 3 and 4, please label the square footage of the buildings under the F .F .E.

4. Please depict and label the location of any mechanical equipment on any pads and the method of screening from public.

ATTACHMENT 1

5. Is the parking area to be illuminated? If yes, please provide the location of lighting and method of shielding of lights from adjacent roadways or property.

6. Current traffic statement say church without school, but classrooms are proposed. Please clarify.

7. Project is staff level approval.

(PL2) - PLANNING: ENVIRONMENTAL

8. Andy Sobczak. 226-1518.

9. Please verify that no specimen trees will be removed from the site.

10. Please include a gravel construction entrance and perimeter silt fence around the wetland area on the SWPPP.

11. Please provide details regarding the 25' upland buffer. Is this an existing or proposed feature? If proposed, please provide a planting plan.

12. Is the 20' wide existing ditch to be filled in phase I part of the overall wetland area?

(PLl) - PLANNING TECHNICIAN

13. PLANNING TECH HAS NO COMMENTS FOR THIS PROJECT.

(PWl) - PUBLIC WORKS: PLAN/PLAT DRAINAGE

14. Pre-application conference comment letter dated May 28, 2008, item no. 32 and item no. 41 remain to be addressed.

15. The on-site drainage system must be designed so that post development runoff does not exceed pre-development runoff during the 25 year-24 hour storm using the modified SCS Type II rainfall distribution. [930.07(l)(a)]

16. Provide property line transition grade cross-section details including off site area of sufficient size to indicate the general neighboring elevations and drainage patterns. [930.08(1)(a)]

17. List FDEP Notice of Intent to Use Generic Permit for Stormwater Discharge From Large and Small Construction Activities (Rule 62-621.300(4), F.A.C.) as a required permit. [914.l0(l)(d)l.]

ATTACHMENT 1

18. Is the south Canal District Indian River Farms or Sebastian River District?

19. Please clarify the arrangement that the Applicant has with the County to fill in the existing ditch on the Applicant's property.

20. The plans variously note that drainage structure 1 or drainage structure 2 is being modified. Please clarify which is correct.

21. The reviewing engineer for this project is Jack Jolly, P.E. For discussion regarding the "Drainage" or "Right-Of-Way" comments herein, please contact him at (772) 567-8000 extension 1697.

(PW2) - PUBLIC WORKS: PLAN/PLAT R-O-W

22. Contact County Right-of-Way Agent Louise Gates at extension 1263 to determine ifa mutually agreeable amount of right-of-way can be purchased from the site that will be compatible with the proposed site development and roadway widening requirements. [952.08]

(PW3) - PUBLIC WORKS: PLAN/PLAT TRAFFIC

23. The reviewing traffic analyst for this project is Jearme Bresett. For discussion regarding the traffic comments contained herein, contact her at (772) 226-1326.

24. Traffic Engineering staff reviewed and approved the traffic impact study on September 25, 2008. No off-site improvements are required. The SR60 Interest Share Fee is $890.26.

25. Revise the handicapped parking space detail shown on sheet C9 of 11 per FDOT Standard Index 17346, 2006 Edition. See sheet 10 of 13 of the following link: http://www.dot.state.fl.us/rddesign/rd/RTDS/04/l 7346.pdf

Revise the dimensions shown on sheet C2 of 11 and all sheets that reflect the incorrect widths.

26. A detail of the support columns for the covered drop off structure need to be shown on the plans. In addition, all solid, non-brealcaway objects (gate posts/columns, bollards, street light poles, etc.) alongside interior streets and driving aisles, shall be located outside the clear zone. For streets and driving aisles with a design speed of 25 mph or less, the minimum clear zone is 2.5 feet from the face of the curb (type "D" or "F" ),

ATTACHMENT 1

or 6 feet from the edge of the travel lane. This applies to public and private property.

27. A 30" STOP sign, 24" wide, white STOP bar, and Do Not Enter (R5-l) sign is required at the exit of the one-way drop of£'pick up area and shall be denoted on the site plan.

28. Two way driving aisles serving 90 degree parking spaces are required to be a minimum of twenty two feet in width. Revise the width of the driving aisle adjacent to the existing building, south of the entrance driving aisle.

(EV2) - DEPT OF HEALTH PLAN/PLAT REVIEW

29. The Phase II "North" building sewage disposal system shall be an engineered designed low pressure drainfield. The sewage disposal area shall be a minmum of 3000 square feet and depicted on the plan.

30. The "South" building domestic sewage disposal flows and drianfield size shall be depicted on the plan. Be.advised that the system will require a dosing tank.

31. Both proposed sewage disposal systems are located in close proximity to swales and drainage ditches. Sewage disposal systems shall be located a minimum of 50 feet from "wet" ditches and 15 feet from drainage ditches.

32. The grease trap shall be a minimum of 1050 gallons.

33. It is recommended that the project engineer contact Ms. Lori Hoffman to discuss and evaluate the site plan relative to the sewage disposal systems prior to resubmittal.

(UT!) - CO UTILITIES:PLAN/PLAT WATER & SEWER

34. Project lies outside of the USA. Water and sewer are not available.

(FIRE) - FIRE DIVISION DEVELOPMENT REVIEW

35. The release of these plans are pending payment of plan review fees. The review fee is $250.00.

36. Fire hydrants shall be installed within 500 ft. of the most remote portion of any new buildings, measured along the fire truck access route to the most remote building perimeter. IRCO 914.14 (14) (b)

ATTACHMENT 1

* Hyd need on site.

37. The fire inspector for this project is Ellis Buckner, 772-226-1978.

A written response to every discrepancy comment, revised plans, and a completed "Project Application Resubmittal Form" (copy attached) must be submitted to the Planning Division to continue the application review process.

The discrepancies do not appear to be significant; therefore, no second TRC meeting will be required for reconsideration of the proposal.

Once a complete response and resubmittal materials are submitted to the Planning Division, TRC members will review the resubmittal and determine its adequacy. Within 7 working days of that resubmittal, county staff will either issue site plan approval or another discrepancy letter for this project.

If you have any questions regarding any of these matters, please do not hesitate to contact this office at (772) 226-1240.

Sincerely,

MARKZANS Senior Planner, Current Development

cc: Robert M. Keating, AICP Stan Boling, AICP Erik Olson, P .E. (via e-mail) Mike Hotchkiss (via e-mail) John King (via e-mail) Glenn Schuessler (via e-mail) Engineering (via e-mail) Traffic Engineering (via e-mail) Utilities (via e-mail) Fire Division (via e-mail) Envirol)tnental Planning (via e-mail) Terry Alderton

John Dean

Attachment: Project Application Resubmittal Form

cdpluslresub _staff.letter

ltTTACHMENT 1

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· MOIA BOWLES VILLAMIZAR & ASSOC! . 0:;, · certificate of Authorization #3728 c '°" c/411/ 1', .;;,

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January 14, 2009 ~::,,0,a6~i/J?,~1~'j\if· Mr. Mark Zans Via Hand Delivery Indian River County Planning 1801 27th Street Vero Beach, FL 32960

Subject: Lakeside ·Fellowship Church SP-MI-08-12-50/2001030090-62936 Indian River County, Florida Engineer's Project Number: 08-119

Dear Mr. Zans:

Enclosed are six ( 6) sets of revised plans. This information has been provided in accordance with your TRC comment letter dated October 14, 2008. The following are our responses:

PLANNING: CURRENT DEVELOPMENT I. Please label the land use and the zoning of the surrounding parcels on the site

plan. See cover sheet and C4 for land use and zoning labeling.

2. On sheet C4, please dimension the distance between the proposed chapel and the north property line. See sheet C4 for dimension to the north property line from the northern most wall of the sanctuary.

3. On sheets 3 & 4, please label the square footage of the buildings under the FFE. See revised sheets for building areas.

4. Please depict and label the location of any mechanical equipment on any pads and the method of screening from public. See revised plans for locations of proposed mechanical equipment pad areas.

5. Is the parking area to be illuminated? If yes, please provide the location of lighting and method of shielding of lights from adjacent roadways or property. See sheet C4 for proposed light pole locations. See note no. 5 on sheet C3 under notes section for shielding.

2455 - 14th Avenue vero Beach, Florida 32960

Phone(772)569-0035 Fax 072) 778-3617

E-mail: mbveng@mbveng.com

The Boulevard Professional center 1600 W. Eau Gallie Blvd., Suite 203

Melbourne. Florida 32935 Phone (321) 253-1510

Fax (321) 253-0911

ATTACHMENT 2

Mr. Mark Zans January 14, 2009 Page 2

6. Current traffic statement says church without school, but classrooms are proposed. Please clarify. See revised traffic statement on C3. The statement was revised to reflect the approved data from the TIA report submitted by KHA.

7. Project is staff level approval. Acknowledged.

PLANNING: ENVIRONMENTAL 8. Andy Sobczak. 226-1518.

Acknowledged.

9. Please verify that no specimen trees will be removed froni the site. The site will remove the existing trees located in the ROW that must be conveyed to IRC. The relocated buffer along 66th Avenue will be replanted with new trees meeting the County's requirements.

I 0. Please include a gravel construction entrance and perimeter silt fence around the wetland area on the SWPPP. See sheet CS for proposed, temporary construction entrance to be located on the north end of the project. See sheet 12 for construction entrance details.

11. Please provide details regarding the 25' upland buffer. Is this an existing or proposed feature? If proposed, please provide a planting plan. The 25' Upland Buffer is currently existing maintained land around the berm that encloses the wetland system, and is· not intended to be planted at this time. Therefore, we have revised the label to read "25' Wetland Setback''. There will be no development activity or disturbance in this area.

12. Is the 20' wide existing ditch to be filled in phase I part of the overall wetland area? The existing ditch that will be filled is not part of the wetland area. It was previously constructed to route stormwater back to the wet pond. See hatched area around existing wet pond that demarcates the 25' wide upland buffer area around the wetland. This demarcates the boundaries of the wetland.

ATTACHMENT 2

Mr. Mark Zans .January 14, 2009 Page3

PLANNING TECHNICIAN 13. Planning tech has no comments for this project.

Acknowledged.

PUBLIC WORKS: PLAN/PLAT DRAINAGE 14. Pre-application conference comment letter dated May 2$, 2008, item no. 32 and.

item no. 41 remains to be addressed. ·

32. Provide one-foot interval contour based upon coastal geodetic datum. Site is uniformly flat with the exception of the swales. 1' interval contours are not necessary.

41. Contact County Land Acquisition Specialist Louise Gates at extension 1263 to determine if a mutually agreeable amount of right-of-way can be purchased from the site that will be compatible with the proposed site development and roadway widening requirements. The owner's attorney is presently coordinating this item with IRC ROW agents and Public Works.

15. The on-site drainage system must be designed so that post development runoff does not exceed pre-development runoff during the 25 year - 24 hour storm using the modified SCS Type II rainfall distribution. Acknowledged. A submittal will be made to IRC Ejigineering Dept. for a Type A SWMS permit, which will include the stormwater calculations for the 25 year - 24 hour storm event. Please note that this site has previously been approved by IRC and SJRWMD and that this project proposes to construct Phase II with minor modifications. A SJRWMD permit modification and IRC SWMS permit has been applied for. ·

16. Provide property line transition grade cross-section details including off-site area of sufficient size to indicate the general neighboring elevations and drainage patterns. See sheet C9 for cross section details. No modifications to the site are proposed at the property lines except for the west area adjacent to 661h

Avenue. All other existing property line transitions will remain unchanged.

17. List FDEP Notice ofintent to Use Generic Permit for Stormwater Discharge from Large and Small Construction Activities as a required pertnit. See permits required section on sheet C3.

ATTACHMENT 2

Mr. Mark Zans January 14, 2009 Page4

18. Is the south Canal District Indian River Farms or Sebastia,i River District? The canal to the south lies in the jurisdiction of Sebastian River Water Control District. A permit application package has been submitted to this district for review. Copy of said permit will be provided to your office upon receipt.

19. Please clarify the arrangement that the applicant has with the County to fill in the existing ditch on the Applicant's property. The applicant will proceed with the construction of Pbase II as shown on the plan, inclusive of the necessary requirements within the ROW presently under negotiations for purchase. Client will seek re-1mbursement for those activities required due to IRC ROW widening. The filling of the portion of the existing swale will be part of said reimbursable activities.

20. The plans variously note that drainage structure 1 or drainage structure 2 is being modified. Please clarify which is correct. · Drainage structure number 1 is the only structure proposed to be revised. See sheets C3 and C9. ·

21. The reviewing engineer for this project is Jack Jolly, P.E. For discussion regarding the "Drainage" or "Right-of-way" comments herein, please contact him at 772-226-1697. Acknowledged.

PUBLIC WORKS: PLAN/PLAT ROW 22. Contact County Right-of-way Agent Louise gates at extension 1263 to determine

is a mutually agreeable amount of right-of-way can be :purchased from the site that will be compatible with the proposed site development and roadway widening requirements. The owner's attorney is presently coordinating this item with IRC ROW agents and Public Works.

PUBLIC WORKS: PLAN/PLAT TRAFFIC 23. The reviewing traffic analyst for this project is Jeanne Bresett. For discussion

regarding the traffic comments contained herein, contact her at 772-226-1326. Acknowledged.

ATTACHMENT 2

Mr. Mark Zans January 14, 2009 Page 5

24. Traffic Engineering staff reviewed and approved the traffic impact study on September 25, 2008. No off-site improvements are required. The SR60 Interest Share fee if $890.26. Acknowledged. This fee will be paid prior to site plan release.

25. Review the handicapped parking space detail shown on sheet C9 per FDOT Standard Index 17346, 2006 Edition. Revise the dimensions shown on sheet C2 and all sheets that reflect the incorrect widths. See sheets C4 and C9 for revised widths.

26. A detail of the support columns for the covered drop off structure need to be shown on the plans. In addition, all solid, non-breakaway objects (gate posts/columns, bollards, street light poles, etc.) alongside interior streets and driving aisles, shall be located outside the clear zone. ;For streets and driving aisles with a design speed of 25 mph or less, the minimum clear zone is 2,5 feet from the face of the curb (type "D" or "F"), or 6 feet from the edge of the travel lane. This applies to public and private property. See sheet C4 for pole locations and call out.

27. A 30" STOP sign, 24" wide, white STOP bar, and Do Not Enter (RS-I) sign is required at the exit of the one-way drop-off/pick-up area and shall be denoted on the site plan. See revised C4 for 30" Rl-1 STOP sign and RS-1 "Do Not Enter" sign mounted on opposite side at egress point of the one-way drop-off area.

28. Two way driving aisles serving 90-degree parking spaces are required to be minimum of twenty two feet in width. Revise the width of the driving aisle adjacent to the existing building, south of the entrance driving aisle. See revised existing aisle width on sheet C4. ' Please note that the dimensioning was incorrect on the original submittal and the ·actual width of the existing aisle is 22'.

DEPT OF HEALTH: PLAN/PLAT REVIEW 29. The phase II "North" building sewage disposal system shall be an engineered

designed low-pressure drainfield. The sewage disposal area shall be a minimum of 3000 SF and depicted on the plan. · See sheet C6 for sewage calculations and plans for proposed Chapel building. Project proposes a low-pressure dosing system.

ATTACHMENT 2

Mr. Mark Zans January 14, 2009 Page 6

30.

31.

32.

33.

The "South" building domestic sewage disposal flows and drainfield size shall be depicted on the plan. Be advised that the system will require a dosing tank. See sheet C6. Please note that this will not be constructed until Phase III at which time the new youth building will be constructed. The existing drainfiel_d will remain in place to support the existing building at this time.

Both proposed sewage disposal systems are located in close proximity to swales and drainage ditches. Sewage disposal systems shall be located a minimum of 50 feet from "wet" ditches and 15 feet from drainage ditches. The proposed sewage system has been located to be a minimum of 15' from the drainage swale. See sheet C6.

The grease trap shall be a minimum of 1050 gallons. See sheet C6 for proposed grease trap.

It is recommended that the project engineer contact Ms. Lori Hoffman to discuss and evaluate the site plan relative to the sewage disposal systems prior to re­submittal. A meeting was held on October 28, 2008 with Ms. Lori Hoffman and Mr. Glen Schuessler to discuss the proposed developments. It was agreed upon that a septic system with a dosing unit will be constructed for this site. Sheet C6 specifies the location and calculations for the proposed system. Sheet Cll specifics the details of the Infiltrator drain field system proposed. It was also agreed upon that the septic system for the future 4,000 SF youth gathering building will be permitted separately at a later date when the church proceeds with that phase of the construction, A plan and permit application

,,.----,.,__..w~ill"'b:::e subm' ed to DOH at that time.

CO. UTILITIES: PLAN/PLAT WATER & SEWER 34. Project lies outside of the USA. Water and sewer are not l!-vailable.

Acknowledged. Site proposes septic systems for Phase II and III. See sheet C6 for proposed septic system with dosing unit.

FIRE DIVISION: DEVELOPMENT REVIEW 35. The release of these plans are pending payment of plan review fees. The review

fee is $250.00. Fee will be submitted under separate cover by owner. ,

ATTACHMENT 2

•

Mr. Mark Zans January 14, 2009 Page 7

36. Fire hydrants shall be installed within 500 ft. of the most remote portion of any new buildings, measured along the fire truck access route to the most remote building perimeter. * Hydrant needed on site. There is an existing hydrant recently installed at the SW corner of the site in the 66th Avenue ROW. In addition, there is an active 6" Dry Hydrant that was installed on the east side of the project during the first phase. These two hydrant systems will provide the necessary 500' coverage for the project. See sheet C6 for the 500' radius demarcation lines.

37. The fire inspector for this project is Ellis Buckner 772-226-1978. Acknowledged.

Should you have any questions regarding the above subject, please call.

TH/jeh

cc: Mr. John Dean

ATTACHMENT 2

Maria Bowdren

From: Jesse Roland Oroland@ircgov.com]

Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 10:41 AM

To: Maria Bowdren

Subject: FW: Lakeside Fellowship Church

From: Jesse Roland [mailto:jroland@ircgov.com] Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 8:58 AM To: 'Jessica Hawkins' Cc: Bob Keating; Mike Hotchkiss; 'toddh@mbveng.com'; Kathy Charest Subject: RE: Lakeside Fellowship Church

Page 1 of2

I'm trying to meet with Bob Keating this morning about this. It's my uuderstauding that outside of the USA means no connection what so ever, including fire service. The only reason I signed off on the Site Plan was because at Pre-App am! TRC I commented that "Outside the USA, water all(! sewer is not available." I mistakenly didn't think I needecl to examine the plans afte1· that point. I need to get clarification from Mr. Keating. I'll get back with you asap.

P.S. Any connection(s) to our water and sewer mains need to be permittecl through IRCDUS whethe1· for drinking water or fire hydrants/lines.

,Jesse R. Roland Plt11is Revieu;e1· Indian River County Utilities Engineering 1801 27th Street Vero Beach, FL 32960 Tel: 772-567-8000, ext. 1636 Fax: 772-770-5143

From: Jessica Hawkins [mailto:jessicah@mbveng.com] Sent: Wednesday, October 07, 2009 5:05 PM To: Jesse Roland Subject: RE: Lakeside Fellowship Church

There was no permit required from your department, as this project is outside the USA. Does that help?

From: Jesse Roland [mailto:jroland@ircgov.com] Sent: Wednesday, October 07, 2009 4:34 PM To: 'Jessica Hawkins' Subject: RE: Lakeside Fellowship Church

What do you mean "a fire service connection?" Is it connecting to our water main along 66th

12/30/2009 ATTACHMENT 3

Ave?

From: Jessica Hawkins [mailto:jessicah@mbveng.com] Sent: Wednesday, October 07, 2009 4:25 PM To: Jesse Roland Cc: toddh@mbveng.com Subject: Lakeside Fellowship Church Importance: High

Jesse,

Page 2 of2

Will you require an inspector be present at the pre-con for the subject project since their is a fire service connection?

Jessica Hawkins, Project Specialist MBV Engineering, Inc. 2455 14th Avenue Vero Beach, FL 32960 Phone: 772-569-0035 / Fax: 772-778-3617 E-Mail: jessicah@mbveng.com Website: www.mbvenq.com

12/30/2009

AtTACHMENT }

.. Cornii:us, Brown, Caldwell,

IBarlett & Garavaglia BRUCE D. BARKETT

CALVIN B, BROWN

GEORGE G, COLLINS, JR,*

JANIT CARNEY CROOM'•t

M/CliAEL J, GARAVAGLIA

RONALD KEITH LAWN4"1'i'I

LISA N, THOMPS0N*O •

CHARTERED

JQ'"TORNEVS tQ'" LAW

756 BE'ACHLAND BOULEVARD, VERO BEACH, FLORIDA 32963

POST OFFICE BOX 64•3686, VERO BEACH, FL 32964-3686

WILLIAM W. CALDWELL, OF COUNSEL

STEVEN L. HENDERSON, OF COUNSEL

tBOARD CERTJFfEO CONSTRUCTION !AW

•BOAR!> CERTJFIIID Rl';AL ESW'E

••MASTER OF LAWS 1AXATIDN

*UMASTER OF LAWS Rl:tAL PROPER!'( DEVELOPMENT

'-AL.So AOMITTIW IN AR AARON V. JOHNSON

C. DOUGLAS VJTUNAC

TELEPHONE: 772-231-4343 • FACSJM!LE: 772-234-5213

EMAIL: cec@VEROLAW.COM • WEBSITE! WWW,VEROLAW.COM

November 6, 2009

fl ALSO ADMITTED IN DC AND SC

OALSO AOMITTEO IN THE COMMONWE:1>.LTH OF

nm BAHAMAS

Bob Keating, AICP Community Development Director Indian River County 1801 27th Street Vero Beach, FL 32960

RE: Lakeside Fellowship Church: Fire line connection

Dear Bob:

I understand that you have taken the position that Lakeside Fellowship Church may not connect its fire line to the existing water main on 66th A venue because the church is not within or contiguous to the Urban Service Area. Your staff has indicated that you are relying upon policy 5. 7 of the Potable Water Sub-element of the Comprehensive Plan.

We disagree with this position for the following reasons:

I. Policy 5.7 limits potable water service to areas within the Urban Service Area, areas where the County has legal commitments to provide facilities, and areas where at least a portion of the site is contiguous to the Urban Service Area. However, Lakeside is not seeking potable water service: it is seeking fire line service.

2. The alternative to a fire line connection to the existing water main would be an on site fire well with a fire pump and backup service. This is not considered as safe as a direct fire line connection to the water main.

3. The purpose of the provision which restricts potable water service to areas within or adjacent to the Urban Service boundary is to confine future development to within the Urban Service Area. Notwithstanding, Lakeside Fellowship Church is a use which is permitted in its existing location To then deny it the safest fire protection available, while permitting its construction, would be to elevate form over substance. Denying fire line service to a permitted church simply does nothing to discourage residential development outside the Urban Service Area.

A'1TACHMENT 4 REAL PROPER'fY LAW & REAL ES'l:lU'E CLOSINGS , ZONING & LAND USE • W!U.S, TRUST & ES"WE PLANNING • OVlL & BUSINESS TRIAL PRACTICE • CORJ>ORta'E & BUSINESS ORGANiztmON

CONSTRUCT!ON LAW • INSURANCE LAW • ADMIN!STRATIVF.: & (OOVF.Rf\l'Mf'NTIII I IIW • DJ:'D<::nPJ/II 1~ 1 "'"v · """"~'""'" ,..,.-, --••••••••

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Robert Keating, AICP November 6, 2009 Page2

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4. The site plan was approved with a fire line connection to the water main.

By copy of this letter to Mr. Baird and Mr. Collins I am hoping this matter can be resolved short of an "appeal" of your position. If not, please consider this letter an appeal of your position and schedule it accordingly.

As always, I look forward to working with you.

BB:bb cc: William G. Collins, II, Esq.

Joseph A. Baird Joseph E. Flescher ToddHowder

t: Bruce ar ett For the Firm

ATTACHMENT 4

.,

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT

1801 27th Street, Vero Beach FL 32960 772-226-1237 I 772-978-1806 fax

www.ircgov.com

November 13, 2009

Bruce Barkett, Esquire Collins, Brown, Caldwell, Barkett & Garavaglia PO Box 64-3686 Vero Beach, FL 32964-3686

RE: Lakeside Fellowship Church: Fire line connection

Dear Bruce:

Please be advised that I am in receipt of your November 6, 2009 letter to me on the above referenced subject. This is my reply.

In 2002, a site plan was approved for Phase I of the Lakeside Fellowship Church project. Located at 8000 66thAvenue; the project site is outside the-County's Urban Service Area. Recently, Lakeside Fellowship applied for site plan approval for Phase II of the project. That Phase II site plan was approved on April 17, 2009.

Since the Lakeside project site is outside the Urban Service Area, Policy 5.7 of the potable water sub-element of the comprehensive plan prohibits the County from providing potable water service to the project. This has been County staff's position throughout the review process for the Lakeside Fellowship project. At this time, I confirm that my position is that the site may not connect to the potable water line within the 66th Avenue right-of-way.

In your letter, you listed four numbered reasons why you disagree with my potable water connection position with respect to Lakeside Fellowship. Below in numbered order is my response to each of your reasons.

1. Despite your position that Lakeside Fellowship is not seeking potable water service but only fire line service, my position is that the water available from the County water line on 66th Avenue is potable water. To connect to the County's water main, a service line to Lakeside Fellowship would be required. Regardless of how the water is used, a connection to the county's water line would constitute provision of potable water service. That is prohibited outside the Urban Service Area except for certain exceptions provided for in the County's Comprehensive Plan. Lakeside Fellowship does not meet any of those exceptions.

F:\Community Development\Users\CDADMIN\BK\Correspondence\Bruce Barkett Lakeside Fellowship 111309.doc

AJTACKMENT 5

Bruce Barkett, Esquire November 13, 2009 Page2

2. An on-site fire well with a fire pump and backup service is the fire protection system that has been used on the site for the last seven years and is an approved method of providing fire safety. If a direct fire line connection to a water main is needed for the project, the project should be located within the Urban Service Area.

3. The purpose of the County restricting potable water service to areas within the Urban Service Area is to ensure that urban services are not provided in rural areas, thereby making those areas appropriate for urban development. Although various uses, including churches and residences, are allowed outside the Urban Service Area, County policies prohibit their connection to potable water and sanitary sewer service in order to restrict the extension of urban services within rural areas. Economical "availability" of water or sewer service to projects lying outside the Urban Service Area should not undermine the basic purpose and meaning of the Urban Service Area.

4. Although the site plan shows a fire line connection to the 66th Avenue water main, that connection was not approved. Throughout the project review process, County planning and utilities staff consistently stated that connection to water and sewer would not be allowed. That the project engineer depicted an unapproved water connection on his site plan resubmittal even though staff comments had consistently stated that connection was not allowed and even though the project engineer twice in writing acknowledged staffs no connection comments is problematic. Depicting something on the site plan contrary to acknowledged comments certainly is not justification for allowing connection to the County's 66th Avenue water main.

A review of the Lakeside Fellowship Phase II site plan file shows the following:

• Utilities Department comment 65 in the May 28, 2008 pre-app conference letter states that, "Project lies outside of the Urban Service Area. Water and sewer are not available for connection."

• Utilities Department comment 34 in the TRC letter of October 14, 2008 states that, "Project lies outside of the USA. Water and sewer are not available."

• The project engineer (Todd Howder ofMBV Engineering) submitted revised plans and a response to the TRC comments on January 14, 2009. In his response letter, the engineer addressed comment 34 in the TRC letter as follows: "Acknowledged. Site plan proposes septic systems for Phase II and III. See sheet C6 for proposed septic system with dosing unit."

As evidenced by the site plan file, the water connection should not have been depicted on the final site plan.

F:\Communlty Development\Users\CDADMIN\BK\Correspondence\Bruce Barkett Lakeside Fellowship 111309.doc

ATTACHMENT 5

Bruce Barkett, Esquire November 13, 2009 Page 3

In your correspondence, you ask that, in the event that my decision is that the water connection is not allowed, your letter be considered an appeal of that decision and that an appeal hearing be scheduled. As per your request, I will schedule the appeal hearing upon your payment of the required $800.00 fee for an appeal of a staff determination.

If any questions arise on this matter, feel free to contact me.

Sincerely,

cc: William G. Collins, II, Esquire Joseph A. Baird Joseph Flescher Todd Howder Stan Boling, AICP

F:\Community Development\Users\CDADMIN\BK\Correspondence\Bruce Barkett Lakeside Fellowship 111309.doc

ATTACHMENT 5

BRUCE 0. BARKETT

CALVIN B, BROWN

GEORGE G. COLLINS, JR.*

JANET CARNEY CROOM.._t

MICHAEL J. GARAVAGLIA

RONALD KEITH LAWN**ll

LISA N. THOMPSON***•

AARON V. JOHNSON

C. DOUGLAS VITUN.AC

HAND DELIVERY

Stan Boling Planning Director Community Development­Planning Division Indian River County I 801 27"' Street Vero Beach, FL 32960

/) ' Colh1.ui, Brown., CaldweH,

Bartett & Garavaglia CHARTERED

..oJ"TORNEYS /:II LAW

756 BEACHLAND BOULEv.a.RD, VERO BEACH, FLORIDA 32963

POST OFFICE BOX 64-3686, VERO BEACH, FL 32964-3686

TELEPHONE: 772•231-4343 • FACSIMILE! 772-234-5213

EMAJL: csc@VEROLAW.COM • WEBSITE: www. VEROLAW.COM

December 23, 2009

RE: Lakeside Fellowship Church appeal

Dear Stan:

WJLLIAM W. CALDWELL, OF COUNSEL

STEVEN L. HENDERSON, OF COUNSEL

taoAAO CERTIFIED CONSTRUCTION LAW

,.80AAO CERTIFIED REAi. e:51'1TE

... MASTER OF LAWS 'l)IJ(.<qlON

d,.MASTER OF LAWS REAL PROPERlY ~EVELOPMlcNT

.A.ALSO AOMITTEO JN AA

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• ALSO ADMITTED IN THE COMMONWEALTH OF

TliE 8AKAMAS

Pursuant to your most recent letter, enclosed please find the completed application form to appeal the Community Development Director's decision concerning Lakeside Fellowship Baptist Church and its fire line connection. As you know, the appeal fee was previously submitted.

I have attached two copies of the first page of the application to show that the applicant, Lakeside, has signed, and authorized my signature as well.

Finally, your letter mentioned the January 14th meeting of the Planning and Zoning Board; however, I will be unable to attend that meeting, so please schedule this appeal for the following P & Z meeting.

As always, thank you for your cooperation and I look forward to working with you.

r\( ery truly yours,

\ \ ~- \\ f'-...

BB:bb Encl.

~\}lh_~

Bruce Barkett For the Firm

cc: Lakeside Fellowship Baptist Church ToddHowder

ATTACHMENT 6 REAL PROPERTY LAW & REA!. ESWE CLOSINGS • ZONING & LANO USE • WILLS, TRUST & ESWE PLANNING • CMt. & BUSINESS TRIAL PRACTICE • CORPORATE & BUSINESS ORGAN!ZPJlON

CONSTRUCTION LAW • INSURANCE LAW • ADMINJSTRjUWE & GOVERNMENlAL LAW • PERSONAL INJURY • WRONGFUL DEtQ'H • CRIMINAL • PROBJU'E & TRUST ADMJNISTRAJ'ION

APPLICATION FORM FOR APPEALS

APPEALS FROM:

e Decisions of the Community Development Director or His Designee; AND 8 Actions/Decisions of the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&ZC)

FEES:

I. Site Plan Projects: Appeal by project applicant: Appeal by affected party:

$400.00 $800.00

IL Appeal of Staff Determination: $800.00

Is this an appeal by a project applicant? ___ Y_e_s ________________ _

If so, please list the project name, __ L_a_k_e--'s-"i-'-d-'-e_F_eccl=l=o""w"'s"'h=i~p~Ch=u=r=-cceh~--------­

Property Owner(s): Lakeside Fellowship Baptist Church, Inc.

Address: c/o Bruce Barkett, 756 Beachland Blv:d., Vero Beach. FT. 32963

Signature: __ _ID)0!:::,'.'::':::~~~:t!!,~~-------( or letter of authorization attached) ,/

Applicant Name: -----'B"'r,,,,ucoc:::e'--"B"'a"'r"'k"'e"'-t"'-t _____________________ _

Address: Collins, Brown, Caldwell, 756 Beachland Blvd. Vero Beach FL 32963

Phone Number: __ _:2:,:3:c,l'---24=-34"-'3"-------------------------

Signature: ______________________________ _

Site Address (If Applicable): 8000 66th Avenue, Vero Beach, FL 32967

1. What is being appealed? Community Development Director determination

that the project cannot connect its fire line to the County water system.

2. Reason(s) for the appeal The Community Development Director's

determination results in a waste of expense and a less safe project.

3. What staff(orP&ZC) error(s) is alleged? Misinterpretation or mis-application of Policy 5.7 of the potable water sub-element of the Comprehensive Plan.

ATTACHMENT 6 F:\Community Development\Users\CurDev\APPS\APPEAL.doc Revised 2004 1 of 2 ,

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$ C(kAMUNHY ~ 4. What land development regulation (LDR) provision(s) have allegedly n DEVELOPMENT .j

..,1, 68L9S'9

improperly interpreted or applied See previous answer ✓L

5. What LDRs and/or Comprehensive Plan goals, objectives, policies support your position? The potable water sub-element does not prohibit fire line service from the public water supply and there is not valid'reason to do so.

NOTE: Supplemental or additional information may be attached. If such information is being attached, please list here what is being attached:

I. 2. 3.

OFFICE USE ONLY: FEE PAID: -----------DATE RECEIVED: _______ DATE ACCEPTED: ______ ~

A'fTACHMEflT 6 F:\Community Development\Users\CurDev\APPS\APPEAL.doc Revised 2004 2 of 2

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Comprehensive Plan Potable Water Sub-Element

POLICY 5.7: Consistent with the policies of the Future Land Use Element of this plan, provision of potable water service shall be limited to the following areas:

• •

•

•

•

•

Areas within the Urban Service Area;

Areas where the county has legal commitments to provide facilities and services as of the date of adoption of this plan;

Areas outside of the Urban Service Area where at least a portion of the site is contiguous to an Urban Service Area boundary as depicted on the Official Future Land Use Map. These areas are subject to the following provisions:

0 The maximum density of such land shall be as shown on the Official Future Land Use Map, and the provision of centralized potable water service shall not be justification for an increase in maximum density;

0 Potable water line extensions shall be limited to laterals and minor lines . connecting land uses to main lines; and

0 In no case shall centralized potable water lines be permitted to extend more than 500 feet from the centerline of a roadway which is an Urban Service Area boundary, or more than 500 feet from the Urban Service boundary when the boundary is not a roadway. ·

Development projects located outside of the Urban Service Area that meet the criteria of the policies of the Future Land Use Element for:

0 clustering of residential development within agricultural areas; 0 clustering of residential development within privately owned upland

conservation areas; 0 clustering development within mixed use districts; or 0 traditional neighborhood design communities; 0 public facilities such as public schools.

Areas where, consistent with Potable Water Sub-Element Policy 2,4, the risk of private well contamination is determined to be unacceptably high.

Approved agricultural businesses where at least a portion of the development site is located within one mile of a public roadway, which serves as an Urban Service Area boundary as·depicted on the Official Future Land Use Map.

Community Development Department Supplement 8; Ordinance 2006 -029 Adopted September 19, 2006

Indian River County 36

ATTACHMENT 7

Section 902.07. Appeals from decisions of the community development director or his designee.

(1) Purpose and intent. This section is established to provide a mechanism for the hearing and resolution of appeals of decisions or actions by the community development director or his designee and for further appeals from decisions and actions from the planning and zoning commission.

(2) Authorization.

(a) The planning and zoning commission oflndian River County shall be authorized to:

I. Hear and decide appeals when it is alleged that there is an enor in any order, requirement, decision, or determination made by the community development director or his designee in the application and enforcement of the provisions of the land development regulations.

Hear and decide appeals when it is alleged that there is an enor in the interpretation or application of a provision(s) of these land development regulations in relation to a development application. Decisions rendered by the planning and zoning commission may be appealed to the board of county commissioners which shall have the power to hear and decide such appeals.

(b) Upon appeal and in conformance with land development regulations, the planning and zoning commission in exercising its powers may reverse or affirm wholly or partly or may modify the order, requirement, decision, interpretation, application or determination of the community development director or his designee.

( c) Any action reversing the community development director's decision shall require four ( 4) affirmative votes of the planning and zoning commission.

(3) Appeal procedures.

(a) The applicant, or any other person(s) whose substantial interests may be affected during the development review process, may initiate an appeal.

(b) Appeals must be filed within twenty-one (21) days from the date of notification letter rendering the decision by the respective official. Appeals may be concunent with requests for approval of a development application(s).

( c) An appeal must be filed within the specified time limit with the planning division on a fonn prescribed by the county.·-All such appeals shall recite the reasons such an appeal is being taken. The appeal should identify: the enor alleged; the ordinance allegedly improperly interpreted or the requirement decision or order allegedly improperly issued; the land development regulations supporting the applicant's position; and the goals, objectives and/or policies of the comprehensive plan supporting the applicant's position. The appeal shall be accompanied by a fee to be determined by resolution of the board of county commissioners. The community development director shall schedule the appeal at the earliest available meeting of the planning and zoning commission.

( d) Notice of the appeal, in writing, shall be mailed by the planning division to the owners of all land which abuts the property upon which an appeal is sought, at least seven (7) days prior to the hearing. The property appraiser's address for said owners shall be used

ATTACHMENT 8

in sending all such notices. The notice shall contain the name of the applicant for the appeal, a description of the land sufficient to identify it, a description of the appeal requested, as well as the date, time and place of the hearing.

( e) All appeals shall be heard at a meeting of the planning and zoning commission. All interested parties shall have a right to appear before the planning and zoning commission and address specific concerns directly related to the appeal. Any person may appear by agent or attorney. All such hearings shall be conducted in compliance with the rules of procedure for the planning and zoning commission. The time and place scheduled for hearing shall be given to the applicant in writing after an appeal application is submitted.

(4) Action by the planning and zoning commzsswn, findings of fact. At the hearing scheduled for the purpose of considering the appeal, the planning and zoning commission may, in conformity with the provisions of law and these land development regulations, uphold, development director or his designee from whom the· appeal is taken. In reviewing an appeal of a decision by the community development director or his designee, the planning and zoning commission must make findings in the following areas:

(a) Did the reviewing official fail to follow the appropriate review procedures?

(b) Did the reviewing official or commission fail to properly apply the use or size and dimension regulations for the respective zoning district(s)?

( c) Did the reviewing official fail to consider adequately the effects of the proposed development upon surrounding properties, traffic circulation or public health, safety and welfare?

( d) Did the reviewing official fail to evaluate the application with respect to the comprehensive plan and land development regulations of Indian River County?

The decision of the planning and zoning commission shall be final unless further appealed. Not withstanding findings (a) through (d) above, the planning and zoning commission may make additional findings of fact

(5) Further appeals from actions by the planning and zoning commission. At any time within twenty-one (21) days following action by the planning and zoning commission, the applicant, the county administration, or any department thereof, or any other person whose substantial interests may be affected by the proceeding may seek review of such decision by the board of county commissioners. The decision of the board of county commissioners shall be final. At the hearing scheduled for the purpose of considering an appeal of the planning and zoning commission's action, the board of county commissions may, in conformity with the provisions of law and these land development regulations, uphold, amend, or reverse wholly or partly, the decision by the planning and zoning commission which is being appealed. Appeals of planning and zoning commission decisions to deny rezoning applications are regulated in section 902.12. All other types of appeals to the board of county commissioners shall be followed in accordance with the same provisions of appeal procedures to the planning and zoning commission, section 902.07(3), and the board of county commissioners shall review the appeals with respect to the findings criteria of section 902.07(4). Any action by the board of county commissioners reversing a planning and zoning commission decision shall require three (3) affirmative votes.

ATTACHMENT 8

(6) Effect of filing an appeal. The filing of an appeal shall terminate all proceedings which further the action appealed until the appeal is resolved, except when the halting of such action poses a threat to life or property. The planning and zoning commission shall make this determination. Notwithstanding this provision, proceedings involving review of a development application may proceed when an appeal of an administrative decision has been filed and will be considered concurrent with the development application request.

(7) Transmittal of the record. Staff shall forthwith compile and transmit to the planning and zoning commission all information documented which constitutes the record of action from which the appeal is taken. (Ord. No. 90-16, § I, 9-11-90; Ord. No. 91-7, § 2, 2-27-91; Ord. No. 93-29, §§ 8A, 8B, 9-7-93; Ord. No. 2002-004, § 1, 2-12-02)

ATTACHMENT 8

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31 3931 000007(0000009 .0

ATI'ACHMENT 9

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31 3932000005(0000008 .0

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31 3932000003(0000013 .0

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INDIAN RIVER COUNTY, FLORIDA

MEMORANDUM

TO: The Honorable Members of the Planning and Zoning Commission

FROM:

DATE:

RE:

TMENT HEAD CONCURRENCE

ity Development Director

Sasan Rohani, AICP; Chief, Long-Range Planning S 4 February 1, 2010

Consideration of Draft EAR (Evaluation and Appraisal Report) based amendments to the Natural Groundwater Aquifer Recharge Sub­Element, Stormwater Management Sub-Element, Housing Element, Recreation and Open Space Element, and Intergovernmental Coordination Element of the Comprehensive Plan

It is requested that the following information be given formal consideration by the Planning and Zoning Commission at its regular meeting on February 11, 2010.

DESCRIPTION and CONDITIONS:

According to state law, each local government in the state must periodically prepare an Evaluation and Appraisal Report (EAR) to assess the success or failure of its comprehensive plan, address changing conditions, and identify needed revisions to its comprehensive plan. Based on its EAR assessment, a local government's comprehensive plan must then be updated and revised to ensure that the plan continues to provide sufficient guidance for the local government to make appropriate land development decisions.

At an advertised public hearing held on November 18, 2008, the Board of County Commissioners approved the county's EAR. The EAR was then submitted to the state and found sufficient on February 25, 2009. According to state statutes, the county has 18 months (until August 2010) from the date that the Department of Community Affairs (DCA) found the county's EAR sufficient to revise its comprehensive plan to incorporate the EAR findings and recommendations.

ANALYSIS:

Since February 2009, staff has been working on revising the county's comprehensive plan to incorporate the EAR's findings and recommendations. Those revisions involve updating the existing conditions section, analysis section, and goals, objectives, and

policies section of each plan element and sub-element. Recently, staff completed revisions to the Natural Groundwater Aquifer Recharge Sub-Element, Stormwater Management Sub-Element, Housing Element, Recreation and Open Space Element, and Intergovernmental Coordination Element. For the referenced revised elements and sub­elements, drafts that incorporate the EAR's findings and recommendations are attached to this staff report and are also available at www.irccd.com/Planning Division/ EAR_ Based_ Amendments.html.

Since the existing conditions and analysis sections of the revised elements and sub­elements have been completely rewritten, it is not feasible to identify changes in those sections from the existing adopted plan to the revised plan in an underline and stfike­threugh format. Consequently, tl10se sections are not presented in underline/stfike­through format. For the Goals, Objectives, and Policies sections, however, additions are shown as underline, while deletions are shown as strike thm.

Chapter 91-5, F.A.C., requires that local governing bodies and local planning agencies provide for and encourage public participation in the planning process, including the evaluation and appraisal report based comprehensive plan amendment process. Consistent with the county's public participation plan, draft elements of the comprehensive plan will be reviewed by various groups, committees, and the Planning and Zoning Commission.

To supplement the draft documents attached to this staff report, staff will give brief presentations on each element and sub-element at the February 11, 2010 meeting. After that, the Planning and Zoning Commission should discuss the elements and sub-elements, identify any needed changes, and provide direction to staff. In so doing, the Planning and Zoning Commission should focus on the goals, objectives, and policies of the draft elements and sub-elements, since that section constitutes the "plan" component of the elements and sub-elements. For reference, the adopted EAR elements of the comprehensive plan are available for review on the county's website at www.irccdd/Planning_ Division/ Comp _Plan_ EAR.htm.

RECOMMENDATION:

Staff recommends that the Planning and Zoning Commission review the attached draft revised elements and sub-elements, identify any needed changes, and provide direction to staff.

ATTACHMENTS:

I) Draft revised Natural Groundwater Aquifer Recharge Sub-Element 2) Draft revised Stormwater Management Sub-Element 3) Draft revised Housing Element 4) Draft revised Recreation and Open Space Element 5) Draft revised Intergovernmental Coordination Element

F:\Community Development\EAR\2009-2010 EAR based amendment-planning & zoning Feb. I I, 2010 workshop.doc

2

Comprehensive DRAFT Elements

1/28/2010 Introductory Element Economic Development Element Capital Improvements Element Conservation Element Coastal Management Element

TO:

FROM:

DATE:

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY, FLORIDA MEMORANDUM

The Honorable Members of the Planning and Zoning Commission

ert M. Keating, AICP Community Development Directo

~ Stan Boling, AICP Planning Director

February 4, 2010

PLANNING MATTERS

SUBJECT: Planning Information Package for the February 11, 2010 Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting

For this meeting's packet, the following articles are provided:

(1) Century Commission for a Sustainable Florida Fourth Annual Report, January 2010, Rick Baker.

(2) "Advisory Citrus Group Approves $2.1 Mil. For Greening Research", The Ledger, January 26, 2010, Kevin Bouffard.

(3) "St. Johns challenge: Fix wetlands but respect graves", Orlando Sentinel, January 24, 2010, Kevin Spear.

(4) "Obama budget oozes uncertainty for NASA", Florida Today, February 2, 2010, Todd Halvorson.

(5) "Miami architect devises prefabs for homeless", The Miami Herald, January 28, 2010, Andres Viglucci.

(6) "Can High-Speed Rail Succeed in America?", Time, January 29, 2010, Bryan Walsh.

(7) "A Nation of Hunkered-Down Homebodies", The New York Times, January 10, 2010, The Editors.

cc: Board of County Commissioners Joe Baird Michael Zito

F:\Comrnunity Development\Users\CurDev\P&Z\ARTICLES\Articles for 2010\2-11-10 articles.doc

FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT

Rick Baker, Chair Sf. Petersburg

Mike Bennett Senator, Bradenton

Tommy Boroughs Orlando

Bob Carpenter Tampa

Rita Craig The Craig Group, Palm Beach Gardem

Ron Edwards Evans Properlie1, Vero Beach

Barbara Fitos County Commissioner, Marion County

Mike Hickman Lakeland

Laura A. Holquist Fort Myers

Gregory Langowski Wed Palm Beach

Doug Mannheimer Taflahauee

Andrew H. Mcleod The NaflJl'e Conservancy, follahassee

Julio Robaina Mayor, Hialeah

Bill Roberts County Commissioner Okaloosa County

Pam Vergara Broobville

Tim Center, Esq. Executive Director

CenturyComminion.org

2630 Centennial Place Suite Two

Tallahassee, Fl 32308

Y, 850,219.0082 X 5 !. 850.219.0491

January 2010

Dear Governor Crist, Senate President Atwater and House Speaker Cretul:

As the first decade of the new millennium closes, the Century Commission for a Sustainable Florida continues to embrace its charge to envision Florida over the next fifty years and offer guidance to policy makers on how best to make it a reality. Few, if any, state organizations have the privilege to think long-term about our collective future. The Century Commission recognizes the importance of its charge and has respectfully proposed ideas about how the state might address some critical long-term challenges.

The Commission's recommendations have focused on energy independence and climate change; conservation strategies and land use policy; and an action plan to help create a sustainable and healthy water supply for people, agriculture and the environment Funding challenges to state and local government required that the Century Commission build a strong coalition of supporters from a variety of stakeholders. These public-private partnerships enabled the Commission to convene the 2008 Water Congress.

The Commission is now working with universities, non-profits, environmental groups and associations to evaluate potential impacts of oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. Through public-private partnerships like this - supported by the Collins Center for Public Policy - government and the private sector can work together to realize a better future for our state.

The work of the Commission is vitally important to the future of Florida. Commissioners are donating their time and financial resources to meet their charge. The Collins Center for Public Policy, an independent not-for-profit organization, is donating resources to staff and support the Commission. The Commission's charge is that important.

On behalf of the members of the Commission, it has been an honor to be given the broad charge to help the state envision its future on a 50-year planning horizon. We encourage adoption of the many recommendations made to date and a more defined funding strategy over the coming years. The Century Commission stands ready to assist in the implementation of any of these recommendations.

We wish you much success in the coming months and thank you for helping to create a sustainable Florida.

Sincerely,

Rick Baker Chair, Century Commission

This is the 4th Annual Report to the Governor and Florida Legislature from the Century Commission for a Sustainable Florida. To be sustainable is to ensure economic prosperity within environmental limits to improve the quality of life of those in our community. This report builds on guiding principles adopted in the Commission's First Annual Report released in 2007. Work continues to help define a vision for our collective future and offer recommendations about how to achieve our fullest potential as a state.

Recommendation 1: Convene a Fact Finding Process to Discuss the Potential Impacts of Oil and Gas Exploration in the Gulf of Mexico.

In the First Annual Report (2007), the Century Commission stated that "the relationship between our energy sources and our security, economy and environment demand a bold vision." The first recommendation, in part, called for research that would enable Florida to become independent of foreign oil. Recent proposals to lift the ban on off-shore oil drilling and exploration have raised serious questions.

The Century Commission, in conjunction with the Collins Center for Public Policy, recommends a process to engage all interested stakeholders to discuss the potential impacts of oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Century Commission, aligned with its guiding principles, believes that it is necessary that the process be approached with the following assumptions:

• It is a fact driven process.

• There is no presumed outcome.

• The process allows the opportunity for all interested parties to participate and provide input on data collected without limitations. These interested parties should include representatives from the environmental industry, the oil and gas industry, the tourism and cruise industry, the marine and ports industry, technical experts, regulatory and government representation, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and Florida Geological Service, energy experts, citizen activists and the military.

Work on this recommendation has already begun. The results of the process will not be a conclusion that exploration should or should not take place. The objective of the process is to identify the significant issues and questions surrounding exploration, and develop answers to the questions. Where there is a consensus on a given answer it will be identified. Where there is no consensus, the lack of a consensus will also be identified and the various answers identified by the different constituencies will be presented. The end result will be a presentation to the Legislature and Governor of the list of issues, questions and alternative answers.

The process is intended to identify issues, identify consensus where available, and provide to the Governor and Legislature unbiased information and scientific data to assist in policy making decisions. With the cooperation of an advisory committee of stakeholders including representatives from the Marine Policy Institute at Mote, University of South Florida College of Marine Sciences and members of the St. Petersburg Oceans Team, along with the Florida State University Institute of Energy Systems, Economics and Sustainability, the Century Commission has started the process of proceeding in advancing this recommendation. The Commission will seek answers to a series of questions ranging from State and Federal Regulatory Interplay and Resource Estimates and Production Patterns to Environmental Risks and Energy Security to Environmental Permitting and Emergency Response.

Page 1

Recommendation 2: Follow Up on Recommendation to Design Sustainable Communities and Buildings.

In the Second Annual Report (2008), the Century Commission recommended that it was important to Florida to design sustainable communities and buildings. In order to advance the vision of a sustainable quality of life for Florida's future, the Century Commission believes it is necessary to develop communities that, through transportation, density, natural place building and community design, and related matters, result in a sustainable state, both for individual buildings and the citizenry as a whole.

In that report, the Commission recommended that the Florida Building Code be reviewed with the intention of making amendments that strengthen standards for water and energy efficiency, and for durability in case of disaster. While legislative requirements regarding energy efficiency were placed on the Building Commission, additional steps dealing with water conservation are recommended below. Adopting third-party certification standards should be encouraged to the extent possible. As noted in that report:

Examples of performance-based standards presented to the Century Commission include ENERGY STAR, Florida Water Star, green building and neighborhood standards adopted by the U.S. Green Building Council and the Florida Green Building Coalition, the Florida Yards and Neighborhoods program developed by the University of Florida's (/FAS) Cooperative Extension Service, and Fortified for Safer Living by the Institute for Business and Home Safety.

This past year, the Century Commission explored the economic and environmental savings that can be experienced through efforts that reduce the heat effect from urban surfaces. With cooler roofs, summertime temperatures are reduced, which results in better air quality and savings from reduced energy and air-conditioning costs.

The Century Commission recommends that the Governor and Legislature explore the option of providing incentives to encourage cool roofs and other reflective surfaces that reduce energy consumption, which is consistent with the number one recommendation from the First Annual Report - to become independent of foreign oil while reducing carbon emissions.

Recommendation 3: Follow Through on Florida's Water Congress and Convene a Second Water Congress

In the Third Annual Report (2009), the Century Commission's number one recommendation was to follow through on Florida's Water Congress. In September of 2008, delegates from government, industry and non-governmental sectors from around the state convened in Orlando for a Water Congress to address issues related to water conservation, re­use, ground and surface water supply, desalination and water policy administration. A total of 18 consensus recommendations were identified by the delegates, with four recommended priority items identified. In the Third Annual Report, the Century Commission elevated a fifth priority item, dealing with reclaimed water use. Thus, the Third Annual Report recommended five priority recommendations and 13 other consensus recommendations.

During the 2009 legislative session, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection included the five priority recommendations and 13 other consensus recommendations in their legislative package. One recommendation was adopted in its entirety, while portions of two others were adopted by the Legislature. A consensus recommendation to amend Florida law to prohibit neighborhood organizations and local ordinances from restricting the use of Florida friendly landscaping was adopted in its entirety in SB 2080. SB 494 provided for the adoption of

Page 2

a model fertilizer use ordinance and SB 2080 included language to provide incentives to private land owners who capture and store water by allowing for the issuance of a 50 year Consumptive Use Permit to certain private landowners meeting certain requirements, such as having an existing utility in place.

The Century Commission recommends that the Legislature and Governor review the remaining recommended items and take action an the priority recommendations.

The Century Commission also recommends that a Second Water Congress be convened ta follow up an the initial recommendations and continue the discussion an haw Florida should deal with the future of water quality and supply.

The water issues in Florida are long term. They will not be resolved by one meeting, or even by a series of summits. They will always require engagement in discussion by all impacted parties, seeking out and acting on solutions that balance the various demands and ensure the long term sustainability of supply, and thus our quality of life. The First Water Congress was a good start.

Recommendation 4: Continue the Identification of Florida's Critical Lands and Waters and Pursue New Conservation Methods

In the First Annual Report (2007), the Century Commission recommended that Florida's most precious natural places should be identified and a comprehensive Cooperative Conservation Blueprint for the State should be developed. This recommendation has continued in each subsequent report and resulted in CLIP (Critical Lands and Waters Identification). The CLIP initiative was lead by a team of experts assembled by the University of Florida's GeoPlan Center and Florida State University's Florida Natural Area Inventory. With a technical advisory group composed of experts from public and private sectors, they successfully unified all of the existing excellent natural resource GIS work in Florida into a single database and made the information available online. CLIP Phase II serves as a starting point for the Cooperative Conservation Blueprint by identifying statewide conservation priorities. The Blueprint will help government, landowners, nonprofit organizations, businesses and others make sound conservation and economic decisions to guide Florida's future development and achieve long­term sustainability.

The Century Commission recommends that a process be developed to engage landowners, agricultural interests, governmental agencies and environmental organizations to determine haw best ta create and use a Blueprint ta conserve Florida's clean water and air, and ta benefit the health of people, wildlife, and our economy.

At a minimum, the results of the Blueprint should be formally integrated into the process of preservation land acquisition by the State of Florida, including Florida Forever.

Implementing these and the recommendations presented in earlier reports will help ensure a sustainable Florida for this and future generations.

• • • • • • •

For copies of prior annual reports to the Governor and Legislature, studies and meeting materials please visit us at www.CenturyCommission.org.

Page 3

Advisory Citrus Group Approves $2.1 Mil. for Greening Research I TheLedger.com

Tl11s copy 1s for your personal, noncornmercial use only. You can order presenlaiion-ready r:op1cs for distribution to vour collcc>[JUes, clients or customers here or use the "Reprints" lool that appears above anv article. Order a reprint of th_is c3rti_c_le now.

Printed on page C6

Advisory Citrus Group Approves $2.1 Mil. for Greening Research

Growers find merit in 24 new science projects to combat citrus greening.

By Kevin Boiiffard

THE LEDGER

Published: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 5:58 p.m.

LAKE ALFRED I An advisory committee of Florida citrus growers on Tuesday

recommended $2.1 million in new research to attack the state's greening epidemic.

Page 1 of3

And not a moment too soon as several growers in the meeting at the Citrus Research and

Education Center said their coworkers have become discouraged about making progress to

halt the fatal bacterial disease, which has spread to every major citrus-producing county.

"A lot of people in the groves are discouraged. They think it's the end," said Andrew Pike, a

Vero Beach grower and consultant.

Even the more positive comments came with a dash of disaster.

'Tm optimistic we'll find an answer, but I wonder if it will come soon enough to save some

growers," said Peter McClure, a grove manager for Evans Properties Inc. of Vero Beach, one

of the state's largest growers. "We're in the southeast part of the state, and we're getting hammered."

Evans has lost thousands of trees to greening, and like many other growers, they are not

replanting until scientists come up with a more effective strategy to contain the disease, he

said.

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The advisory committee recommended 24 new multi-year research projects to study the

greening bacteria and the Asian citrus psyllid, the bacteria's insect host and the vehicle for

spreading the disease.

The new projects will cost $2.1 million in their first year, said Tom Turpen, program

manager for the greening research effort.

That's on top of an estimated $13.2 million the program will spend on the second year of some 100 projects approved previously, he said. Those projects cost $16.2 million in the

first year.

The Citrus Research and Development Foundation Inc. board of directors will review the

recommendations and approve funding for the next round of research at a 4 p.m. Thursday meeting at Havert L. Fenn Center in Fort Pierce.

The Florida Department of Citrus finances most of the research effort along with money

from a 1-cent research tax growers pay on each citrus box they harvest.

The greening research program received 72 proposals for new research projects in response

to its August request for proposals, McClure said.

A National Academy of Science panel recommended 38 proposals for consideration. A five­

person panel ofNAS scientists met last week to recommend funding 23 projects.

The growers' committee restored one of the 15 rejected projects. It is a $45,000 proposal from Lukasz Stelinksi, a Lake Alfred center entomologist, on whether psyllids can sexually

transmit the bacteria.

George Bruening, an emeritus professor of plant pathology at the University of California at

Davis, headed the NAS advisory panels.

Bruening told the citrus growers his work with the proposals gave him optimism scientists

will find effective measures against greening.

"This is something you can look forward to. If you can hang on, I think in the future there

will be genetic solutions, even chemical solutions, to battle this disease," he said.

[ Kevin Bouffard can be reached at kevin.bouffard@theledger.com or at 863-422-6800. ]

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This story appeared in print on page C6

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St. Johns challenge: Fix wetlands but respect graves - OrlandoSentinel.com Page 1 of3

orlandosentinel.com/news/local/os-burial-ground-vs-river-restoration-20100124,0,292113 .story

OrlandoSentinel.com

St. Johns challenge: Fix wetlands but respect graves

'By Kevin Spear Orlando Sentinel

11 :02 PM EST, January 24, 2010

FELLSMERE

Local tribes began burying their dead along this part of the St. Johns River about 7,000 years ago, and for several millennia left behind animal bones, clam shells, broken pottery, tools and arrowheads.

Now, at least three areas of concentrated remains are within a tract that spans 15 square miles west of the farm community of Fellsmere. The land, about an hour's drive south of Orlando, is the future site of a vast reservoir to hold agricultural drainage as part of a $100 million environmental project.

Florida's Miccosukee and Seminole tribes are appalled. They want the sacred and prehistoric sites kept above water and protected.

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"You probably have ancestors that are buried somewhere in a cemetery, and if somebody came in and said, "I'm going to put a levee around your cemetery and use your cemetery so a farmer could dump his pollution, it would just be ridiculous," said Fred Dayhoff, a former federal park ranger who represents the Miccosukee Tribe on archaeological matters. "We can't see putting a storm-water sewer-treatment system right on top of an ancient burial."

The fate of any ancient burial mound - or midden - in Florida is a very sensitive matter to the modem tribes. State and federal agencies deem the Miccosukees and Seminoles the guardians of such remains, a responsibility the two tribes consider a cultural and ancestral duty.

Tribal representatives rarely acknowledge publicly the location or contents of mounds, knowing and despising that grave robbers and artifact hunters have desecrated other burial sites.

Archaeologists estimate that there are hundreds of middens in Florida, many of them small and undiscovered but also some large ones uncovered by a developer's bulldozer.

Damage to repair

The issue of what to do about the three mounds not far from Fellsmere has been swept up by the state's pursuit of two pressing goals: repairing environmentally damaged waterways and securing new sources of drinking water for future population growth.

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St. Johns challenge: Fix wetlands but respect graves - OrlandoSentinel.com Page 2 of3

The St. Johns River is at the heart of both objectives in Central and North Florida. The north-flowing river bares the scars of extensive ecosystem damage, and counties and communities in the region have targeted it as a future water supply now that the state's primary water source, the Floridan Aquifer, has been stretched to its limits.

During the 1960s, federal workers ditched and drained many of the wetlands that feed the St. Johns' headwaters. Much harm was done before the project was abandoned. Since then, an ongoing restoration has been rendering the headwaters region into a mosaic of marshes and reservoirs that, though far from natural, are meant to mimic nature and ensure a reliable flow of water.

Nearly every bit of the watery landscape, which extends over hundreds of thousands of acres from south of Yeehaw Junction to almost east of Orlando, is regulated by levees, dams, pumps and canals.

An agency at the forefront of the resuscitation, the St. Johns River Water Management District, began developing in 200 I a piece of the restoration mosaic that eventually evolved into a I 0,000-acre reservoir meant to keep dirty citrus-grove water from getting into the river.

Caught by surprise

Early on, the district informed state archaeologists, who concurred that flooding the remains would be appropriate, as it would thwart pillaging and retard any decay of artifacts. But after several project delays, federal officials weighed in on the issue and learned that the tribes opposed inundating burial mounds.

"That caught us a bit by surprise," said Jeff Elledge, the management district's director of water resources.

During the past century, the mounds have been disturbed by tractors, cattle and canal construction, so that now they are only a few feet high. But they extend many feet into the ground and dozens of yards across. And they contain a "tremendous amount" of artifacts, said Jeff Gardner, a senior archaeologist with Brockington and Associates.

In 2007, Gardner's Georgia company probed two of the mounds and found no intact skeletons. Workers did encounter dense layers of fragments that included human fingers and toes, and bones of animals, from mice to deer.

To tribal representatives, the mounds don't simply contain sacred items that can be dug up and moved; rather, the mounds themselves are sacred in their entirety.

According to Willard Steele, a Seminole tribe historic-preservation officer, middens are regarded as the places from which spirits come and go. Water, according to widely shared beliefs, is a barrier to that movement, which is a key reason why tribes don't want mounds submerged, he said.

It's not the only archaeological site located in the midst of environmental projects. Not far down the St. Johns River is a 14,000-acre reservoir project managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, where early surveys found relics of ancient living places. In the Everglades, the South Florida Water Management District has constructed double-levee systems to protect three burial mounds.

But the remains near Fellsmere are testing the trust and patience of all involved, in part because so much of the project was completed before the tribes were approached by federal authorities. State and federal

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St. Johns challenge: Fix wetlands but respect graves - OrlandoSentinel.com Page 3 of3

laws require that tribes be consulted, but there's very little in the laws that say specifically what to do.

"This is as much an art as a science," said Jeff Collins, acting chief of the Army Corps' permitting unit in Jacksonville.

He and state officials say the tribes will be heard.

"We take their recommendations very seriously," said state archaeologist Ryan Wheeler in Tallahassee.

Among the options being discussed, none is considered desirable by all parties. They include raising the mounds' elevations, capping them with additional soil, building berms around them, or redesigning the reservoir to avoid the sites. Moving the remains may be the most likely, but least-liked, outcome.

Either side can go to court in search of a solution. But the tribes can also tum to an even higher authority should the water district do a poor job with the remains.

"The burden is on you," said Dayhoff, speaking of water-district officials, "because, if there is a guiding spirit above all of us and he thinks you did wrong, well, you're the one who did wrong."

Kevin Spear can be reached at k:speax@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5062.

Copyright© 2010, Orlando Sentinel

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February 2, 2010

Obama budget oozes uncertainty for NASA

Constellation's demise likely to trigger more than the predicted 7,000 layoffs at KSC

BY TODD HALVORSON FLORIDA TODAY

Page 1 of3

President Barack Obama proposed a radical shift in U.S. space policy Monday, saying he wanted commercial companies -- rather than NASA -- to take over development and operation of the rockets and spacecraft flying American astronauts.

NASA would invest in new technologies for the eventual human exploration _of the solar system, but its Project Constellation, which aimed to return astronauts to the moon by 2020, would be killed.

NASA would have no set destination or timeline for sending astronauts beyond Earth orbit, and it's unlikely that missions to the moon, Mars or asteroids would happen before the early to mid-2020s.

Shuttle fleet retirement -- bringing the loss of some 7,000 jobs to the Space Coast -- remains targeted for the end of this year. But Obama's proposed 2011 budget would allow for launching next year if the current schedule slips.

Cancellation of the moon program almost certainly would result in more layoffs on the Space Coast, where unemployment already is 12.1 percent. Officials here had banked on at least some relief as the moon program ramped up, replacing some of the lost shuttle jobs.

"If the Constellation program ends, then the number of jobs we expect to remain due to Constellation, affiliated projects and resulting new business would also be lost," said Lisa Rice, president of Brevard Workforce.

NASA contractors are expected to take the brunt of the 7,000 job losses. But Rice said NASA civil service jobs could be endangered if the moon project is abandoned.

Obama's plan would outsource transportation of astronauts to companies.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, a former astronaut, said the shift would "make travel to low Earth orbit and beyond more accessible and more affordable."

Leaders at NASA and private space firms are confident they can field a new crew transport system before 2017, when the agency's system was to be ready. Top NASA officials said private transport could be ready as early as 2016. Leaders of two companies already working on such projects said they're aiming for 2014.

The private companies said the cost would be far less than government-run systems.

Space policy experts said Obama is taking a chance.

"Well, it's exciting, and I think it is a high-risk, high-payoff proposition," said John Logsdon, professor

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emeritus of political science and international affairs at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. "If everything that is proposed works, then we've changed the way the United States goes about its space program."

Bolden said the shift to commercial services would create 5,000 jobs nationwide, with 1,700 of those in Florida.

Obama's proposed NASA budget calls for $19.1 billion, up from $18. 7 billion in 2010. A $6 billion increase over five years would bring the total budget to $100 billion over that timeframe.The budget includes:

• $15 billion for the International Space Station.

• $6 billion to develop commercial crew transportation services.

• $7.8 billion to develop technologies to reduce the cost of future space expeditions ..

• $3.1 billion to develop technologies for heavy-lift launch vehicles.

• $3 billion to launch robotic scouts to explore destinations for human space exploration.

• $2 billion to modernize Kennedy Space Center.

The budget also would provide $600 million to ease scheduling pressure for the five final shuttle flights.

NASA in the past six years has invested $9 billion in its moon program. Project Constellation is developing the Ares I crew launch vehicle, the Ares V heavy-lift rocket and an Orion spacecraft to return astronauts to the moon by 2020.

The cost of canceling the project: $2.5 billion in 2011 and 2012, largely for terminating existing contracts.

A presidential panel last year determined that Project Constellation was behind schedule, over budget and on a trajectory that was not sustainable.

Obama proposal faces stiff opposition in Congress, where NASA's moon program enjoys strong bipartisan support.

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Orlando, questioned whether Obama would get congressional approval to proceed.

The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel recently warned against a sudden move to commercial transportation systems, calling them "unproven."

The proposed budget is stirring uncertainty at KSC, just as NASA is setting out to launch a shuttle mission on Sunday.

"Right now, this week especially, we can't have any anxiety," KSC Director Robert Cabana told workers in an all-hands meeting.

"We have one mission this week, one focus. What we need to worry about is we're launching a space shuttle on Sunday."

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Miami architect devises prefabs for homeless - 01/28/2010 - MiamiHerald.com

fil'.he ffliatniifieral~ & Posted on Thu, Jan. 28, 2010

Miami architect devises prefabs for homeless

BY ANDRES VIGLUCCI aviglucci@MiamiHerald.com

Page I of2

Can a stripped-down, bunkhouse-like structure made of near-indestructible, space-age materials provide a solution to Haiti's post-quake housing crisis?

Famed Miami architect and planner Andres Duany certainly thinks so.

Duany, who helped develop the prefabricated "Katrina Cottage" as an alternative to the widely criticized FEMA trailers, has devised a light, expandable "core house" for Haiti's homeless that can stand up to earthquakes and hurricanes. It even meets Miami-Dade's tough building code, he says.

The house, which would sleep eight in a bunkhouse arrangement, could be easily shipped to Haiti in a package less than two-feet thick, and assembled by local laborers in a matter of hours, Duany said.

The material is a composite that Duany calls "totally miraculous" -- thin but strong, durable, fireproof, waterproof and mold-proof. The idea grew out of a project Duany was already working on in Miami's Little Haiti, to erect eight larger prefab houses using the same technique and material.

"You've never seen a house like this," Duany said. "When you build something out of this material, it's like being inside a fiberglass boat. It's absolutely the best."

A prototype of the Haiti house is now being readied at a Miami Gardens factory. On Saturday, Duany will fly to Haiti with University of Miami physician Barth Green's medical team to examine potential locations for temporary camps identified by the Haitian government.

Among the questions Duany said he needs to answer: What kind of sanitation and sewage arrangements will be available, and how level and firm is the ground -- details that would determine what kind of foundation the houses might rest on.

"Are you talking about outhouses or something else?" Duany said. "And I need to observe the ground -- how flat, how sloped -- and take core samples of soil."

Duany hopes governmental, volunteer or corporate groups will sponsor and pay to manufacture, ship and install the houses, which he said would be vastly superior to the tent cities now being contemplated.

He does not yet know the cost of each house, but said it would be low. They would be

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Miami architect devises prefabs for homeless - 01/28/2010 - MiamiHerald.com Page 2 of2

manufactured by lnnovida, the modular-home maker with a plant in Miami Gardens that is also making the Little Haiti homes.

Natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina and the Indian Ocean tsunami have inspirednumerous ideas for modular emergency and permanent housing, though not all have been widely embraced.

Duany, a co-founder of the New Urbanist movement, has considerable experience with disaster response. He and other New Urbanists -- who urge development of walkable, sustainable communities as an alternative to auto-dependent sprawl -- designed redevelopment plans and affordable, storm-resistant houses for New Orleans and other Gulf communities hit hard by Hurricane Katrina.

Duany said he and other New Urbanists are responsible for design and construction of about 3,000 post-hurricane homes in New Orleans and Mississippi. But he said even some of the simplest designs that came out of Katrina are too ambitious for impoverished Haiti.

He said that housing Port-au-Prince's estimated 800,000 to one million homeless would require about 4.5 square miles and a density of about 500 people per acre.

"What people have to get their heads around is the magnitude of very large numbers. It's also the reality of the poverty," Duany said. "A house in New Orleans like those we did, which are for lower middle-class people, is like a mansion in Haiti. Haiti is just a whole new level."

There is nothing fancy about the Haiti core house aside from the material. The rectangular house is the size of a small room -- just over eight feet in height, with a floor about eight by 20 feet.

The sides would be open and covered with screens to permit air circulation. When it rains, waterproof fabric panels would be lowered to cover the openings. A canopy would extend out from the house to provide shade, shelter and space for possible outdoor cooking -- already the practice for many Haitians.

Duany's firm, Duany Plater-Zybker & Company, is designing modules that could be added to the core house to enlarge it and convert it into long-term housing.

"Short-term, our house needs just to get them out of the rain," Duany said.

© 2010 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved. http://www.miamiherald.com

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High-Speed Rail's Job and Energy Benefits to the U.S. -- Printout -- TIME Page 1 of3

.,_ Back to Article ~ Click to Print

Friday, Jan. 29, 2010

Can High-Speed Rail Succeed in America? By Bryan Walsh

Environmentalists came away from President Obama's first State of the Union address on Wednesday with mixe<

feelings. Yes, the President focused on the importance of investment in clean energy and energy efficiency as the

best way to sustainably grow America's moribund economy, and he mentioned clean coal, biofuels and nuclear

power (though not renewable energy), and he talked up the need to pass a "comprehensive energy and climate

bill." But notably, he said nothing about putting a price on carbon - which is considered by most greens to be thi

key move to reduce global carbon emissions.

There was one part of the speech, however, that no green could fault: Obama's call for the creation of a high-spee,

rail system as a way to generate green jobs, enhance economic productivity and reduce carbon emissions. On

Thursday, Jan. 28, the White House announced the awarding of $8 billion in stimulus funding to kick-start high­

speed-rail projects and improve service in 13 corridors across the country. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden

traveled to Tampa, Fla., to announce the projects, which include the construction of an 84-mile high-speed track

from Tampa to Orlando. (See tlwsobest inventions of 2009.)

"We want to start looking deep into the 21st centnry and say to ourselves, There's no reason why other countries

can build high-speed rail lines and we can't," Obama told a crowd in a University of Tampa arena. "Right here in

Tampa, we're building the future."

That's a nice sentiment, but America's antiquated rail system will have to advance a long way just to make it to th

present, let alone the future. U.S. intercity railroads are a laughingstock compared with those in most other

developed nations - and, increasingly, even those in developing nations like China, which is investing more than

$300 billion to build more than 16,000 miles of high-speed track by 2020.

Today you can travel the 250 miles from Paris to Lyon on the high-speed TGV in two hours. Covering a similar

distance from Philadelphia to Boston takes some five hours, and that's on an Amtrak Acela train, the closest thini

the U.S. has to high-speed rail. "Every other major industrialized nation has recognized that high-speed rail is ke,

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to economic growth and mobility," says Petra Todorovich, director of the America 2050 program at the Regional

Planning Association. "It's time for America to realize that as well." (Seethe1nost i111portai1tcilrsohlltime.)

When the White House announced last spring that it would allocate billions of stimulus dollars to high-speed-rail

projects, states submitted 45 applications for more than $50 billion in aid. In the end, the Federal Railroad

Administration decided to distribute $8 billion in funding to 31 states, with the biggest single grants going to

California ($2.3 billion) and Florida ($1.3 billion).

But whatever the public's vision of a sparkling new 150-m.p.h. bullet train like those in Japan and Europe, the

reality is that not all, or even most, of the stimulus money will go toward creating entirely new rail service.

Instead, much of the initial funding will be spent improving and speeding up existing service.

In Florida, however, the money will in fact help build a new stretch of track between Tampa and Orlando, which

will allow trains to travel at speeds up to 168 m.p.h. It is the first leg of an intercity corridor that is expected to

continue southward to Miami.

Demographically, Florida is an ideal state in which to launch the rail projects. Together, the metro areas of Tampa

and Orlando are a major economic unit, home to more than 3.4 million people and close enough on the map to

make high-speed rail competitive with air and auto travel. The region is also a tourist hub, which makes it likely

that a Tampa-Orlando rail line will be well-used by Americans from around the country. That makes it a smart

advertisement for other high-speed-rail projects back in their home regions. (Read "A Brief History of High-Speed Rail.")

Florida's project is also an optimal test case, having already been approved by the state and relatively free of red

tape. The line is set to open by 2015, the environmental-impact assessment has already been done, and the state

owns more than 90% of the route's right of way. That should reduce the property struggles and legal challenges

that have slowed other new rail projects. "Florida is relatively cheap compared to other projects," says Todorovich.

"This is the sort of project they can use to build support on a national basis. You need a success."

Still, the initial round of $8 billion - which Eiden referred to as "seed money" during his remarks in Tampa - is

just a tiny percentage of what it would cost to significantly overhaul the country's rail system. And there are

concerns that by spreading the funds to so many different projects in so many different states, it won't be possible

to make a real difference in any one place, as Mark Reutter wrote in a new report for the Progressive Policy

Institute. It doesn't help that the one region that could most obviously benefit from truly high-speed rail - the

Boston-to-Washington corridor - received a mere $112 million in funding, in part because building new track in

the congested area would be prohibitively expensive and politically challenging.

Nevertheless, high-speed rail is an idea whose time has come - at least for environmentalists. According to

Environment America, high-speed rail uses a third less energy per mile than auto or air travel, and a nationwide

system could reduce oil use by 125 million bbl. a year. In addition, high-speed rail represents the kind oflong-

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term infrastructure investment that will pay back for decades, just as the interstate highway system of the 1950s

has. "This is a down payment on a truly national program," said Eiden, who has logged more than 7,900 round

trips of his own on Amtrak. "It will change the way we travel and change the way we work and live." Greens will be

happy to see that.

See the best pictures of 2009.

See 25 people who mattered in 2009.

Follow Bryan Walsh on Twitter @bryanrwalsh.

~ Click to Print

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A Nation of Hunkered-Down Homebodies - Room for Debate Blog - NYTimes.com Page I of6

[~< ,irw !Jori< Imm,,

ROOM•F• DEBATE A Running Commentary on the News

JANUARY 10, 2010, 7:00 PM

A Nation of Hunkered-Down Homebodies

By THE EDITORS

Courtesy of Chris Toumanian

The nation's mobility rate fell last year to its lowest level since World War II, according to the latest census data. Growth is slowing in Sun Belt states and Northeastern states are holding on to more people. The current recession and lack of jobs are big factors, but the trend has been gaining force since the 1950s, when nearly one-fifth of all Americans moved every year.

Why are Americans becoming less nomadic? Greater labor mobility helps the economy, but are there other kinds of effects - negative or positive - related to a more rooted population? Is there an upside to more Americans staying closer to their hometowns?

• Katherine S. Newman, sociologist, Princeton University

• Richard Florida, urban theorist, University of Toronto

• William H. Frey, Brookings Institution

• Peter Francese, den1ographer

• Bill Bishop, author, "The Big Sort"

• Lawrence F. Katz, economist, Harvard University

• Andrev,1 Gelman, statistician and political scientist

• Andrew Sum, labor economist, Northeastern University

Weathering the Storm

Katherine S. Newman, professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University, is author of "The Missing Class."

The slowing of population movement is a common response to powe1ful recessions and has many negative economic consequences, particularly for job hunters who need to be able to move in search of work. But the social impacts are more mixed.

One of the virtues of being stuck is that we can continue to rely on the friends and family nearby to help us get through hard times. "Social capital," the stock of trust and support

The benefits of more people staying put: lower crime rates, more help from grandma.

we draw on in daily life, is especially important when families are under stress. A child care emergency can be patched up if grandma is next door rather than 2,000 miles away.

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Borrowing $50 to get by is easier if you have someone close to turn to and much harder if you are a newcomer.

Crime tends to be lower in communities where people know each other well enough to intervene when they see something amiss on the street. This may help to explain why, despite very high unemployment and a great deal of social stress, we are seeing record low crime rates. Divorce often declines as well because people just cannot afford to stretch the same income over two separate households. Staying put may mean that we retain the strength of our ties to one another.

Read more ...

The New 'Means' Migration

Richard Florida is director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto. He is the author of "The Rise of the Creative Class" and the forthcoming "The Great Reset."

The mobility slowdown clearly hurts both individuals by limiting their ability to pursue economic opportunities and the economy as a whole by limiting its flexibility in matching workers to jobs. It has geographic implications as well, hitting hard at the once booming Sunbelt, especially states like Florida (which actually lost population), Nevada and Arizona, whose economies were largely fueled by the housing boom. And it overlays geography with socio-economic class.

Young, highly-educated, and highly-skilled people have the highest rates of mobility, according to the U.S. census. The mobility slowdown has accentuated what I have elsewhere dubbed the "means migration" - as these individuals have

The class divide has meant a divergence of human capital across America's cities and regions.

migrated to and become more concentrated in a relatively small number of city-regions like New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, L.A., Chicago, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Denver, and Seattle among others. Harvard economist Edward Glaeser has documented the growing divergence of human capital across America's cities and regions.

One consequence of this is a new kind of class divide in America between the "mobile" who have the resources and flexibility to pursue economic opportunity and the "stuck" who are tied to places with weaker economies or where their personal economic prospects are more limited.

Read more ...

It's in Our Blood

William H. Frey is a demographer and a senior fellow in the Metropolitan Policy

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Program at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of "The Great Migration Slowdown: Regional and Metropolitan Dimensions."

America has long been one of the most mobile countries on the planet. There is no doubt in my mind we will return to more normal migration levels, though I don't foresee it anytime soon. The return will be especially delayed for long-distance migration, which has plummeted so low that Florida and Nevada are now attracting fewer in-migrants than those moving out. Long distance migration has sunk to historic lows because it is facing a double whammy - downlurns in Lhe job markel and a near frm;en housing market.

In the not-too-distant past, long-distance migration was primarily related to labor market pushes and pulls like wages and job growth, rather than housing market considerations.

Once the job and housing market bounces back, the pioneering spirit will return.

But in recent years, migrants to different labor markets needed to also factor in housing price differences (if I move from Detroit, can I afford a house in Los Angeles?). Thus, in the mid-decade bubble years, people migrated to more affordable parts of the Sun Belt because both jobs and lower cost housing were available.

Read more ...

Aging Couples With Kids

Peter Francese is the founder of American Demographics magazine, which is now part of Ad Age. He is also the demographic trends analystfor Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide.

Much has been written about how the drop in home prices ( which has put some homeowners "underwater") has stopped workers from moving to other states to find work. Maybe so, but the decline in interstate mobility started a long time before this recession.

There are two structural reasons why fewer people move: the The growth of dual-career aging of our population and the pervasiveness of dual-career families makes moving for a couples. The largest and most rapidly growing age groups in new job far more difficult.

the U.S. are people aged 45 to 54 (largest) and 55 to 64 (fastest growing). People in those groups are in their prime working years, they have kids in local schools, and have for the most part put down roots in their communities.

They are far less likely to move away than someone in their 20s or early 30s who have yet to form community bonds. Also, in roughly half of all marriages, both spouses are employed full time. This makes moving just to get a better job for one of them next to impossible.

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Read more ...

Like With Like

Bill Bishop is the co-author of ''The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart" and the co-editor of The Daily Yonder, an online publication covering rural America.

The migration that matters to most people (i.e., those who don't live in D.C.) isn't among states. Sure, it's fun to measure how migration might change the composition of Congress. But when most people move, they point the Mayflower van to a community, not a state. The real effects of peoples' movements over the last 40 years, therefore, are best seen at these smaller, local levels.

The way people have settled since the mid-197os has created an increasing geographic inequality within the country. Communities are growing more different in how people vote, earn a living, worship, form a family and, in the end, how long they live.

The recession has slowed migration, which means the country is growing more polarized less quickly.

The important thing about migration, therefore, isn't so much the number of people who are moving, but whether the considerable movements still taking place continue to push communities further apart.

Read more ...

The Lock-In Effect

Lawrence F. Katz is a professor of economics at Harvard University. ·He is the author (with Claudia Goldin) of"The Race between Education and Technology."

Relative to those in other nations Americans have always been highly mobile and their moves in pursuit of new opportunities have enhanced U.S. economic dynamism. High rates of geographic labor mobility have allowed the United States to recover more rapidly from adverse economic shocks and to have smaller regional unemployment differences than European nations with less mobile work forces.

But American geographic mobility has declined over the last two decades and has fallen sharply in the Great Recession since 2007. Part of the decline is a natural consequence of the aging of baby boomers. In addition, geographic moves

The factors in the current decline in mobility may also lead to an extended jobless recovery.

can be expected to decrease temporarily in a deep recession. Nevertheless, several factors make the decline in mobility in this recession worrisome and may contribute to an extended jobless recovery.

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First, large declines in housing prices in many regions generate a lock-in effect, causing homeowners with negative equity to hesitate to sell their houses, thereby reducing mobility from distressed areas.

Read more ...

Going Local

Andrew Gelman is a professor of statistics and political science and director of the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia University. His books include "Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do" and ''Teaching Statistics: A Bag of Tricks."

One important thing about American mobility and rootedness is its connection to the mix of demography and geography that characterizes the divide between red and blue America.

In recent elections, the richer states in the Northeast and on the West Coast have consistently voted for Democrats, while the lower-income states in the South and central part of the country have voted Republican. And before the 1980s, the mix of which states voted Democratic and which voted Republican looked much different than today. For example, in 1976, Jimmy Carter won the election while losing New Jersey, Connecticut, Vermont, Illinois and the entire West Coast.

The differences between red and blue states are (Click to enlarge.) Attitudes of

concentrated among voters in the upper half of the income different groups of voters.

distribution. For example, the attached graph shows average attitudes on economic and social ideologies among high-, middle- and low-income Americans, looking separately at solid Republican (red), battleground (purple) and Democratic (blue) states. Rich people tend to be more conservative on economic issues (especially in Republican states) and more liberal on social issues (especially in Democratic states).

Read more ...

More Jobs, More Mobility

Andrew Sum is a professor of economics and the director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.

There has been a sharply reduced rate of migration across states in the past two years, and declines in net migration to Sunbelt states in the South (Florida), South Atlantic states and the Rocky Mountain region (Arizona and Nevada).

This is not surprising, given the factors that affect mobility. Net domestic migration rates of states over the past decade

If job growth remains low, there will be little incentive for

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have been strongly influenced by their rates of growth in employment, their relative housing prices, and their climatic conditions.

households to move.

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During the Great Recession, employment opportunities have declined in all states, with paiiicularly large declines in key Sunbelt states and in destination states for migrants from the Northeast, like North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. With few economic incentives to move to other states and problems in selling one's house without risking losses, it is not surprising to find domestic mobility sharply reduced.

Whether this trend will continue will depend heavily on employment growth across states over the next few years. I expect job growth to remain low next year with little incentive for households to move. The aging of the baby boomers will contribute to this slowing of domestic migration.

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