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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC 2005-09-22 MinutesCity of Miami City Hall 3500 Pan American Drive Miami, FL 33133 www.ci.miami.fl.us Meeting Minutes Thursday, September 22, 2005 9:00 AM SUPPLEMENTAL City Hall Commission Chambers City Commission Manuel A. Diaz, Mayor Joe Sanchez, Chairman Angel Gonzalez, Vice Chairman Johnny L. Winton, Commissioner District Two Tomas Regalado, Commissioner District Four Jeffery L. Allen, Commissioner District Five Joe Arriola, City Manager Jorge L. Fernandez, City Attorney Priscilla A. Thompson, City Clerk City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 ORDINANCE - FIRST READING SI.1 05-01042 ORDINANCE First Reading City Manager's AN ORDINANCE OF THE MIAMI CITY COMMISSION AMENDING CHAPTER Office 13, ARTICLE I, ENTITLED "DEVELOPMENT IMPACT AND OTHER RELATED FEES," OF THE CODE OF THE CITY OF MIAMI, FLORIDA, AS AMENDED ("CITY CODE") BY CLARIFYING REFERENCES TO THIS ARTICLE I; UPDATING FINDINGS, INTENT AND AUTHORITY RELATING TO IMPACT FEES; DELETING, AMENDING AND ADDING NEW DEFINITIONS; PROVIDING FOR APPLICABILITY OF IMPACT FEES TO ALL NEW RESIDENTIAL AND NONRESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT EXCEPT FOR DEMINIMIS DEVELOPMENT AND GOVERNMENTAL USES; PROVIDING FOR IMPOSITION OF NEW IMPACT FEE SCHEDULES TO BUILDING PERMITS SUBMITTED AFTER A SPECIFIED DATE; ESTABLISHING NEW IMPACT FEE BENEFIT DISTRICTS AND SUBDISTRICTS; ESTABLISHING AN AFFORDABLE HOUSING IMPACT FEE DEFERRAL PROGRAM; ESTABLISHING NEW IMPACT FEE SCHEDULES FOR POLICE, FIRE -RESCUE, GENERAL SERVICES AND PARKS AND RECREATION IMPACT FEES; PROVIDING CERTAIN REQUIREMENTS FOR COLLECTION, ACCOUNTING AND EXPENDING IMPACT FEES AND REQUIRING ANNUAL REVIEW AND TRIENNIAL UPDATE OF IMPACT FEES; CLARIFYING LANGUAGE RELATING TO ADMINISTRATIVE FEES AND BONDING OF CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS; PROVIDING AN ADMINISTRATIVE PETITION PROCESS FOR DETERMINATIONS OF IMPACT FEES DUE, AFFORDABLE HOUSING DEFERRAL, REFUNDS AND CREDITS; CLARIFYING LANGUAGE RELATED TO CITY COMMISSION AND JUDICIAL REVIEW; CLARIFYING LANGUAGE RELATED TO IMPACT FEES AS ADDITIONAL AND SUPPLEMENTAL REQUIREMENT; PROVIDING FOR COLLECTION BY ALTERNATIVE METHODS; RETAINING PREVIOUS IMPACT FEE SCHEDULES AND SUBAREAS FOR IMPOSITION ON BUILDING PERMIT APPLICATIONS SUBMITTED PRIOR TO A SPECIFIED DATE; AND CONTAINING A REPEALER PROVISION, A SEVERABILITY CLAUSE, AND PROVIDING FOR AN EFFECTIVE DATE. 05-01042 Legislation.pdf 05-01042 Summary Form.pdf 05-01042 City of Miami Impact Fees.pdf DISCUSSED Direction to the Administration by Vice Chairman Gonzalez to provide him with a report showing the total amount of money collected from the fire fee from 1997 to the present and a detail of how the money has been spent, including the number of fire trucks purchased and the number of fire stations constructed. Chairman Sanchez: All right. Let's go ahead and -- Jorge L. Fernandez (City Attorney): Mr. Chairman. Chairman Sanchez: Yes, sir. Mr. Fernandez: Just for the record, your supplemental agenda, you know you have a presentation on impact fees. We are having technical difficulties getting everything properly on City of Miami Page 2 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 the computer for the PowerPoint and for all the charts, so we really beg the Commission to allow this to go first in the morning -- in the afternoon session. It will take some time this morning for us to get Legistar, and all the tables, and the like in place, so -- Chairman Sanchez: All right. If it's the will of this legislative body, we could bring up that item -- first item at 2: 30 when we come back. Commissioner Winton: Sure. Commissioner Allen: OK. Chairman Sanchez: All right, so we'll go ahead and do that, and that is on the impact fees. "[Later... J " Chairman Sanchez: (INAUDIBLE) back in order. The first item on the afternoon agenda will be the development impact and other related fees. We do have a presentation. Basically, it's my understanding this is just a presentation. The ordinance will be brought back to us next month for first reading, and then followed by a second reading ordinance, so we'll go ahead and start with that. Are you ready for the presentation? Dwayne Guthrie: Yes, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Sanchez: All right, sir, you have the floor, and then what we'll do is we'll have -- we'll open it to the public, to ask some questions on it. We will have plenty of time to digest this and basically analyze it, so at the next Commission meeting, it will be brought forth on the first reading, and then at the following Commission meeting, in December, we'll bring it for second reading, so, sir , you're recognized for the presentation. Thank you. Mr. Guthrie: Dwayne Guthrie. I'm with a consulting firm by the name of TischlerBise. We've prepared the update and revisions to the City's impact fees. Also, with me will be Susan Schoettle-Gumm, who's an attorney working on the new impact fee ordinance, so there are two documents and two work products that you will have to refer to as back up to this presentation. Our report is dated -- is titled "Growth -related Capital Improvements and Impact Fees." It has a date of September 16, 2005, and we're going to walk you through a little of that and give you some background on the situation with impact fees here in the City of Miami. Some of you may recall, the City adopted impact fees quite some time ago, back in 1988. The fees have not -- Chairman Sanchez: Can I interrupt you for a minute? Mr. Guthrie: Sure. Chairman Sanchez: At the request of one of the Commissioners who's running a little late, he ask that we wait. He wants to be present for this, so let's go ahead and table this item for now. We'll bring you back. Let's try to get a PZ (planning & zoning) item. I apologize -- Mr. Guthrie: Sure. Chairman Sanchez: -- but it will be -- he's on his way. He says five minutes, but I want to get the agenda moving. I don't want to lose the momentum here. I realize this is a very important item, and there's a lot of people that want to be here to -- for the presentation. Of course, there's going to be a lot of questions asked, so I apologize for the interruption, sir. "[Later... J " City of Miami Page 3 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 Chairman Sanchez: Thank you so much, and hopefully, sir, we won't interrupt you again with your presentation. All right, so we go to the development impact and other related fees. As I -- Unidentified Speaker: There's one -- Chairman Sanchez: -- stated before on the record, this is a presentation. It is an ordinance that requires two readings. In November, the first reading will come in front of this legislative body, and you will have an opportunity to address this Commission again, and then, in December, it'll come in front of us for second reading, which will have also another public hearing, so at this time, what this does is it gives us an opportunity to have a presentation as to getting us more familiar, and of course, the public and all those that are here today, on the impact fee, so, sir, sorry for the delay. You're recognized for your presentation. Mr. Guthrie: Thank you, Commissioners. Dwayne Guthrie again with TischlerBise. My legal advisor has asked that I put just a little bit of background information into the record so that we'll establish that we are experts in impact fee work. I'm a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. We've been doing impact fee work since the '80s. We've done impact fees for hundreds of jurisdictions around the nation. Personally, I've done work for over 70 jurisdictions on impact fees in at least 20 states, so that's a little bit of background. I'll let Susan do hers, and then she's going to actually walk you through some of the highlights of the -- comparing the existing ordinance to the proposed impact fee ordinance, and some of those changes. Then, I'll come back up and talk about the calculations and how we came up with the dollar amounts. Chairman Sanchez: All right. Once again, for the record, this is a City Commission presentation on the impact fees. Madam Clerk, for the point of clarification for the record, it is not an ordinance on first reading. This is just a presentation. Priscilla A. Thompson (City Clerk): And I guess what we need to do is, for the record, make sure that, as it's listed under 5111, instead of an ordinance, it's simply a presentation. No discussion item, but just a presentation. Chairman Sanchez: OK Commissioner Winton: And could we also put on the record why we're not hearing an ordinance for the first reading and we're only hearing a discussion -- a presentation discussion? There was some technical issue. Commissioner Regalado: Because it was on the agenda. Commissioner Winton: No, there's a technical flaw in -- Alicia Cuervo Schreiber: Commissioners, Alicia Cuervo Schreiber -- Commissioner Winton: -- terms of where we are. Ms. Cuervo Schreiber: -- chief of Operations, City of Miami. We were having some problems with Legistar uploading the item, and every time it went into the system, there was glitches, and it could not be read well. In the spirit of allowing this ordinance to be reviewed in a proper time format, we asked for it to be a discussion item at this time. Commissioner Winton: And it will come back for first reading -- Ms. Conway: October 13. Commissioner Winton: -- October 13. City of Miami Page 4 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 Commissioner Regalado: But I had a copy yesterday. Unidentified Speaker: We all have copies. Commissioner Regalado: I mean -- Commissioner Winton: This isn't a public discussion. Commissioner Regalado: No, no, no, no, but you're saying that we're not hearing this ordinance on first reading today because you couldn't get it out of Legistar and have the copies ready. You mean for the public because -- Ms. Cuervo Schreiber: For the public, Commissioner. Commissioner Regalado: -- I had a copy yesterday. OK, OK, that's all I want to know. Chairman Sanchez: Well, and on the other hand, I'm glad that it's a presentation today because there's a lot of issues pertaining to the impact fees that have not been properly -- Commissioner Allen: Right. Commissioner Winton: Discussed. Chairman Sanchez: -- identified, so what I would like, and as the -- Commissioner Allen: Right -- Chairman Sanchez: -- Chair, is to -- Commissioner Allen: -- and properly noticed, in effect -- in a sense. Chairman Sanchez: -- dissect this because, I mean, it's -- there's a lot of questions that I have that need to be either, you know, maybe with your presentation, they'll be answered today, but there's just a variety of issues that need to be clearly defined as to the importance of the impact fees to our city, so having said that, there being a presentation today gives us, the Commissioners, and the public more time -- Commissioner Allen: Exactly. Chairman Sanchez: -- to get more familiarized with it, get more educated on the issue, have a intellectual debate, all right, on the issue, which I -- we welcome, and I think it's just the perfect opportunity to inform the public and this legislative body, so ma'am, once again, I apologize for the interruption. You will not be interrupted anymore. Go ahead with your presentation. Susan Schoettle-Gumm: Thank you very much, Commissioners. Good afternoon. I'm Susan Schoettle-Gumm. I'm an attorney with over 15 years experience working on impact fee systems in a variety of jurisdictions in Florida, as well as across the nation. The impact fees existing in the City of Miami right now were adopted in 1988, and have not been updated, so it's -- I am not at all surprised that you have a lot of questions and have a need to examine these issues more fully because it is my understanding you really haven't grappled with impact fee issues very much because they -- you haven't revisited that portion of your code, so we welcome your questions and ideas on these issues. As Dwayne mentioned, he and I have been part of the team working with the City Administration to update these impact fees, and we'd like to present to you what some of our recommendations are. You have a number of existing impact fees, and what City of Miami Page 5 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 we're proposing is to retain some of them, for example, the police, fire -rescue, and parks and recreation impact fees. We're recommending consolidating the solid waste and the general services impact fees into one general services impact fee, and we're recommending terminating your existing street impact fees and storm sewer impact fees. We've been working with City Administration and working with the County in getting them to broaden their definition of road capacity improvements so that the City could look at using some of the County road impact fees collected within the City of Miami to help deal with transit issues and alternative transportation issues. Once that issue has been worked through with the County and we know how far we're going to be able to get them to go, we may be coming back to you looking at a transit fee or something else in that area to help the City deal with your transportation capacity needs. The difficulty you face right now is that you really are not in a situation of being able to add lanes to your roadways. You've got to look at other ways to improve the capacity and the functioning of your road system, and so we're hoping that we can develop something that coordinates with what we're able to get the County to broaden their view to. The storm sewer program the City has predominately built out. Most of the development you have today is going up, not necessarily covering additional ground area, so that most of your storm sewer needs are actually rehabilitation and maintenance, and making your existing system work better. That really isn't an appropriate use of impact fee funds. Impact fees are to be used for expansion of capital facilities or additional capital facility needs that are generated related to new development. You also have an alternate revenue source with the storm water assessment program that you can use. It's a more flexible funding mechanism that you can use to actually deal with maintenance and rehabilitation of programs, and so we're recommending that you move away from your storm water or storm sewer impact fee. Chairman Sanchez: OK Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: What we're also proposing is moving away from your existing impact fee system, which is based on smaller planning areas, with impact fees calculated separately for each of those small areas. What impact fee practitioners have found over time is that that creates a lot of difficulty with expenditure of the funds. You may have a small area, but it's very difficult for that area to generate enough revenue to actually construct a facility; for example, a fire station in a localized area, and so you have a lot of difficulties meeting the legal expenditure requirements, as well as just basically consolidating enough funds to be able to address your needs, so what we're proposing is that you have a uniform fee schedule imposed across the city with citywide impact fee benefit districts, with one distinction in that, the fire -rescue benefit district would have two subdistricts for expenditure because the operations of the fire -rescue system is really divided substantially by the Miami River, so what we're proposing is you have two subdistricts for expenditure of those funds. Chairman Sanchez: And those are the two new fire -rescue stations that'll be going online -- Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: Yes. There happens to be one -- Chairman Sanchez: -- the north and the south. Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: -- new station located in each of those subdistricts -- Chairman Sanchez: OK Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: -- so you collect impact fees for specific facility types. That money then is expended within the benefit district where it's collected, which in this instance, would be within the City, and it may only be expended for the same type of facility that it was collected, so for example, if you collect a fire -rescue impact fee, that money can only be spent for fire -rescue facility needs related to new growth. We're recommending that we develop a very bright line so that both the developers, as well as the people processing and reviewing building permits know City of Miami Page 6 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 exactly which fee schedules would be imposed, so once we have finalized the adoption schedule, we will ident a date on which building permits submitted prior to that date would go under the old fee schedule; building permits submitted after that date would be covered by the new fee schedules. Residential fees, in the past, have been based on square footage. Again, the old fee system looked at projected amounts of development on a square footage basis and specific capital facilities projected for need in those small areas. More modern methodologies look at housing type by dwelling unit. In fact, some of your higher or more predominant type development is actually been getting smaller in square footage, particularly, the high-rise condos. A per dwelling unit basis equates that impact to basically looking at census data and calculates it on a per dwelling unit basis. It's a simpler approach, and it actually will better reflect the type of development that's occurring in the City of Miami. The nonresidential fees will be -- continue to be imposed on a per square foot basis. There are certain nonresidential uses that would be by type of demand unit. For example, per room for lodging, so there's a special section in the proposed fee schedules that identifies those different types of nonresidential uses. Right now, your Code has a number of exemptions, identified specific types of development that are exempt from your impact fee system. What we're recommending is that you move away from those exemptions, and instead, create a citywide affordable housing deferral program. This type of program, we believe, will not only encourage the provision of affordable housing, but also encourage the retention of affordable housing. If you exempt an affordable house from impact fees, there's nothing to prevent that house from being sold in the very near future for a much higher price, or rented at a much higher rental value. By deferring the impact fees for so long as those units stay in the affordable housing base, you encourage people to keep them affordable, but the City would still be paid the impact fee at such time as the house -- Chairman Sanchez: But -- Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: -- or unit moves out of the affordable housing. Chairman Sanchez: -- that would be determined by Commission resolution. Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: Yes. The amount of -- the definition of what is affordable housing for this program would be determined by the Commission by a separate resolution, and you may want to look at some of your existing programs, like -- I know you have a unit price in your SHIP (State Housing Initiative Partnership Program) funding program that, I believe, is $230, 000. I believe there is some discussion that you're going to have in the near future that may be looking at establishing a higher amount for some other programs, so that would be in the control of the City Commission to define the parameters of this particular program, but this program would allow the City to still be paid the impact fee at such time as the unit moves out of the affordable housing base, and so we're hoping that that actually encourages retention of those units in the affordable base. Government buildings would continue to be exempt, as they are under your existing program, but most of the other ones that we're targeting just localized areas in the city, we're recommending that you go citywide with an affordable housing deferral program. If -- again, the affordable housing definition to be set by Commission resolution. The properties that are participating in this program would record a covenant on the property so that subsequent purchasers would be aware of the participation in this program, and be aware that should the unit fall out of the affordable housing definition, that the impact fee is due and owing. That gives you the legal mechanism for collection of the fee, as well as providing adequate notice to subsequent purchasers and renters, so this program, we're working with City staff right now to flesh out more of the details on this program, and that resolution will be coming back to you for your consideration. If there are no questions on this portion of the presentation, I'll turn it over to Mr. Guthrie. Chairman Sanchez: I do have some questions on the creation of the affordable housing impact fee program. As you stated before, that would require Commission resolution to establish the amount of money. Now, what we're seeing nowadays is, with the affordable housing, which is City of Miami Page 7 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 our priority here -- I believe it's -- it's my priority in my district, but I know it's a priority citywide -- is that you're starting to see that people tend to take advantage of the programs that we have. You know, in many ways, people tend to take advantage of it, and now, it benefits individuals who've qualified for affordable housing because the property values have gone so high that they really don't mind breaking out and saying, all right, I'm going to pay your money back because they're walking away with a profit. Right now, they can't sell it for 15 years, but right now, they're willing to sell because they're going to walk out with about $100, 000, and they don't mind paying the penalty. That's the concern that you're starting to see now when some of the individuals that have been able to participate in the affordable housing programs that we have in our city. With the proper legislation, I know that we'll be able to protect ourself [sic], but we need to establish a methodology to be able to create more affordable housing. You think that through the impact fees, the creation, it will allow us to create more affordable housing citywide. Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: I believe that it'll be a fairly persuasive encouragement for developers to do more in that area because it will be a significant price difference for them, and as Mr. Guthrie will be discussing what the proposed impact fee schedules will be for the residential development, I think it -- for those developers that are close to the margin in that area, I think it may be a strong, persuasive -- Chairman Sanchez: OK Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: -- factor for them. Thank you, Commissioners, and I'll turn it over to Mr. Guthrie. Commissioner Allen: One quick question before you leave, Mr. Chairman, along the lines of affordable housing. Mr. Chair -- the Chairman spoke to something about methodology, but are we -- I guess we -- I spoke to you yesterday about this -- are we obligated to accept the price points of HUD (Department of Housing and Urban Development) federal regulations in terms of affordable housing price point ranges? Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: No, Commissioner. Commissioner Allen: Can we come up with our own methodology or -- Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: I be -- Commissioner Allen: -- must we accept what HUD imposes? I think the ceiling is like 236, if I'm not mistaken. Right, yeah. Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: No, sir. I believe, in this program, that you've got the ability to look beyond what the state and federal standards may be. You would still need to have some rational basis for setting the amount that you do come up with, but say should you want to expand the definition of what you consider affordable for this to include, say, workforce housing -- Commissioner Allen: Right, right. Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: -- I believe that this program is uniquely yours, and that you could -- Commissioner Allen: Massage -- Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: -- develop your own path on that. Commissioner Allen: OK. Chairman Sanchez: And let me tell you, state and federal are different standards -- City of Miami Page 8 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 Commissioner Allen: Right, they are. Chairman Sanchez: -- completely different standards. Now, the issue -- number one issue here is that we want to promote affordable housing. We don't want to penalize affordable housing, so you know, as long as you put a price on it and it becomes affordable, and then the impact fees are waived, that's what I think we want to accomplish here in this program. Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: Yes, sir. The impact fees would be deferred. Commissioner Winton: It's deferred, not waived. Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: It -- Commissioner Winton: That's the key -- Chairman Sanchez: Deferred. Commissioner Winton: Yes. Commissioner Allen: It's deferred. Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: And because -- one of the reasons that we've recommended that this be established by resolution is that, you know, the economics change pretty frequently, and lately, very quickly, and this gives a very flexible method for the Commission to set those -- Chairman Sanchez: Would we also -- Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: -- parameters. Chairman Sanchez: -- have a rental component to it? Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: Yes, sir. It is proposed to be owner -occupied and rental, as well, right now, but of course, that is up to the Commission. Commissioner Allen: Correct. Chairman Sanchez: Well, yeah. Well -- Commissioner Allen: Great. Chairman Sanchez: -- it's a policy issue. Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: Absolutely. Chairman Sanchez: Now, is the Administration working on those legislation? OK. All right. Thank you. Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: Thank you very much. Vice Chairman Gonzalez: Mr. Chairman. Chairman Sanchez: Yes, sir. Vice Chairman Gonzalez: If we want to talk about affordable housing, affordable housing, as it City of Miami Page 9 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 is being presented now, is a fiction because no one can tell me that an apartment at $236, 000 is an affordable housing for any low- and moderate -income families. Commissioner Allen: Right. Vice Chairman Gonzalez: If we really want to build affordable housing, you know what we need to do? Give more incentives, give more -- put more money into these projects. That's the only way that we're going to make it affordable. Because I want you to bring me people that make the salaries -- and I'm talking about low- and moderate -income families. Bring me families from the low- and moderate -income group that can qual , or that will be approved by a bank to buy one of these units at $236, 000. Even at $150, 000, it's very, very difficult, if not almost impossible, to qual someone to buy one of these units, so how much the impact fees is going to benefit these projects? To be honest with you, I don't see how much it's going to benefit the project. Commissioner Winton: But, you know -- Chairman Sanchez: But it's not -- let me address that. It's just not the impact fee. I totally agree with you. It's going to take a variety of initiatives and assistants that are out there -- Vice Chairman Gonzalez: Well, you know -- Chairman Sanchez: -- to help individuals -- Vice Chairman Gonzalez: -- the varieties is subsidies, more subsidies -- Chairman Sanchez: I agree with you. Vice Chairman Gonzalez: -- is the only way that you're going to make it affordable. Chairman Sanchez: OK -- Vice Chairman Gonzalez: Subsidies. Chairman Sanchez: -- but -- now, the number that you're using -- you're using the $236,000 -- Commissioner Allen: Yeah, that's my assumption -- Chairman Sanchez: -- that -- Commissioner Allen: -- that they're using, right. Chairman Sanchez: -- is -- either you use that SHIP -- is that the SHIP one, two hundred and thirty -some thousand dollars? Commissioner Allen: As a ceiling. Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: Yes. You adopted that one in relation to the SHIP program. You've adopted that dollar amount. Chairman Sanchez: There are units out there -- and I know there are units in my district -- 170, 160, 180, in that range, and I agree with you. The Little Havana Homeownership Board that focus on initiatives, and it's -- it goes as far as almost $45, 000 towards -- even more towards the assistance. We're going to have to create more incentives to be able to -- that gap that exists between the developer and the individual that you're working that barely makes it, to fill in that gap. That is what we, as a government, working with the private sector, needs to do when it City of Miami Page 10 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 comes to affordable housing. This is one element of many elements to be able to accomplish and close that gap of accessibility towards homeownership, and that's what we have to do, and I think every little help -- every little bit helps out. Vice Chairman Gonzalez: All right. I'm no expert on the -- Chairman Sanchez: All right. Next component of the impact fee. Mr. Guthrie: Let's talk about how we came up with the numbers, and kind of give you a sense for the -- it's -- afraid to say, it is math, but it's simple. We can handle this, so let me just kind of walk you through the simple formula here. It's basically three steps, and each -- our job was basically to come up with the numbers and the documentation to fill in these boxes with Miami's specific numbers to support the impact fee, so basically, we asked ourself [sic], for each of the four types of fees, what creates the demand, or what's a good indicator of the demand for new infrastructure? The concept is, as we have private sector development, we need additional public sector infrastructure to go along with it, so let's just use a simple example, like we need additional police cars as we have additional development in the City of Miami, so a typical demand unit for like nonresidential would be the ratio of nonresidential vehicle trips to floor area, and so we have trip generation rates that would indicate how many vehicle trips do you anticipate like from a shopping center or from an office building, that type of thing -- Commissioner Allen: Right. Mr. Guthrie: -- and we used those trip generation rates to help indicate the demand for additional police protection because we're allocating the cost of the additional police cars to nonresidential trips. The -- that's the second box here, the infrastructure units per demand units, so we have an inventory of police cars, all their different vehicles, all the different types that they use, motorcycles, marked cars, everything, and we indicate the current relationship to the estimated number of nonresidential vehicle trips in the City of Miami, so we used property appraiser data, employment data to estimate the actual number of jobs in the nonresidential floor area in the City and turned that into vehicle trips. Then the last box is a cost factor. We had to find out from the Police Department what is the cost to buy an additional car because we're not buying into the existing fleet, we're buying additional vehicles, so the appropriate indicators, what's it cost to buy a new police car, fully loaded, with all the communications equipment and everything that goes into it, and so we come up with a cost factor per unit for infrastructure unit, so remember, back when you did algebra, you'd multiply across these units cancel. Demand units cancel with demand units; infrastructure units cancel with infrastructure units. Commissioner Allen: The coefficient, yeah. Mr. Guthrie: Then end up with dollars for development unit -- Commissioner Allen: Right. Mr. Guthrie: -- so that's your impact fee -- Commissioner Allen: All right. Mr. Guthrie: -- so the concept is not hard. Most everybody can understand it, but we have to actually, you know, document how -- what's appropriate for the City of Miami, so for each of the things that you see here in this table, for parks, fire -rescue, general services, and police, we -- these are the cost components that we'll be paying for with impact fee funding. We have a category for parks, citywide parks. Those are the larger facilities that would basically draw patrons from the entire city; things that'll have league play, ball field, soccer fields, that type of City of Miami Page 11 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 thing. We have waterfront parks. We're not going to add any additional land to waterfront parks because that land is so expensive, so those would just focus on improvements to waterfront parks, or connections between parks, so additional trails or linear parks that connect those facilities. We have a category for pools and expansion to the gymnasiums, and all of those costs are allocated to just residential development. Fire -rescue has a nonresidential component and a residential component. We're looking at the vehicles that go in the fire stations and two new fire stations, both north and south of the river. General services, we're looking at additional vehicles and equipment, and an expansion or re -- modifications to the Miami Riverside Center building, where the permits are processed, the Public Works folks review the plans, the planners review the plans, and so all those are specifically related to development activity, and we have a specific need there that the impact fees will pay for over the next five years. Then, on police, we're looking at additional building and vehicles, and the main cost component will be a new police training facility, which the impact fees will only pay a small portion of, and we'll look at that in just a moment, and as I said, the cost, as allocated for police, based on vehicle trips on the nonresidential side and population on the residential side, and this functional population is basically the idea of looking at where the jobs here and the number of residents here, people that live and work in the City, versus those that commute in because you have quite a few jobs -- you have people commuting into Miami for work, so we basically do a functional population concept that, you know, basically it counts for where people will live and work. The proposed fees are -- we broke them out into three different slides to help you see them. This is the fees for residential. As Susan mentioned, we're looking at three different types: a single-family detached, a low-rise category, and a high-rise category, and it's simply defined by the number of units in the structure, again, based on census data and census categories that we have to work with, so the low-rise is our town houses, duplexes, up to nine units in a structure; high-rise would be ten and above units per structure, and the fees are broken out here by type. You see parks is the biggest dollar amount; fire -rescue, general services, and police, so the totals are, on the far right column. Most of the development in the City, over the last five years, has been in the high-rise residential, about -- almost 95 percent of the new units are in that category, so for most -- everything that's being built here in the City of Miami, you're looking at a total of $4, 702 per housing unit would be the way that that fee would be imposed. For nonresidential, the fees -- most of them are per square foot of development. That's the same approach that you use now. The fees are broken Where into three decimal places just because there's some -- like a mini warehouse that makes very low impact, so we have to show the three decimal places to actually be able to show the fee amounts, but you can see, generally, the fees are less than a dollar a square foot. There's a few categories -- few office categories here, and the very smallest of commercial shopping center categories that are just over a dollar a square foot. That's kind of the magnitude of the fees on the nonresidential. The -- in comparison to the current fees, it's a little hard to compare apples and oranges here because the current fees are by the seven different areas, so there's a difference there, and there are -- that's also based on, you know, again, the size of the units, but basically, the nonresidential numbers are going down, and that has a lot to do because, for now, we're not going to do anything with transportation or transit. We're kind of waiting to see what happens with the County. The proposed fees on the oddballs, like Susan mentioned, lodging, schools, daycare and nursing home, those things are, basically, they're per student basis, per bed, per room. You see the breakdown there, so a new hotel in downtown, for instance, would pay $143 per room for the impact fees. The projected revenues, how we got data from the City auditors about the revenue over the last five years, 2000 through 2004, and compared that to our projections over -- from 2006 out the next five years -- Commissioner Winton: Excuse me. Could I -- Mr. Guthrie: Sure. Commissioner Winton: -- (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to the -- Mr. Guthrie: Sure. City of Miami Page 12 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 Commissioner Winton: -- (UNINTELLIGIBLE) slide in lodging? Mr. Guthrie: Yes. Chairman Sanchez: A hundred and forty-three -- Commissioner Winton: We don't charge our -- an impact fee for parks for lodging? Mr. Guthrie: No, sir, we do not, and that's a difference in the way the current one is. In downtown now, you do pay for parks; under the new system, you would not. Commissioner Winton: And what's the logic of not? Mr. Guthrie: It -- just trying to be a little more rigorous, and to make sure that we could be able to connect the demand for additional facilities to the type of development. Most of the data that we have are -- it's all based on people using the facilities. We don't have good documentation on how many -- you know, it's typically business used, travelers, or people going to get on a cruise ship, all those people in the downtown area are actually impacting the park system. You really need to have a way to show -- Commissioner Allen: Some nexus. Mr. Guthrie: -- the demand, the use, and the nexus, yes. Commissioner Allen: Nexus, right. That's right. Commissioner Winton: Well, I think we need to work on that because I really do feel that they do use our parks, particularly, in the downtown area, and there's events that are in parks all the time. We're always -- you know, there's pressure to create new parks or expand existing parks, or upgrade existing parks, that's -- and those specific items are eligible for impact fee expenditures, right? Expand -- Mr. Guthrie: Yes. Commissioner Winton: -- upgrade, not maintain, not level of service as it is, but -- and so, there's a lot of events in downtown. We have races, we have marathons, we have all kinds of things where people stay in lodging, locally, and they do, in fact, use the local park system -- Mr. Guthrie: Correct -- Commissioner Winton: -- so -- Mr. Guthrie: -- so you're saying it's probably more (UNINTELLIGIBLE) just the lodging not all nonresidential, that would be easier to show, I think. We can certainly look at that. Commissioner Winton: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. Mr. Guthrie: OK Commissioner Winton: Yes. I'm not saying all nonresidential. Mr. Guthrie: OK Commissioner Winton: I'm really focused on lodging, not office workers -- City of Miami Page 13 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 Mr. Guthrie: OK Commissioner Winton: -- and that kind of thing. Mr. Guthrie: We'll get with staff and see if we can do that. That would be a much easier one to just -- Commissioner Winton: OK Mr. Guthrie: -- than office workers and warehouses and things. Commissioner Winton: OK [SI.1 - minutes continued] Mr. Guthrie: OK Good suggestion. Thank you. OK, so we have projected development over the next five years. That's back in the appendix of our report, Appendix A, so we used those development projections and the fee schedules, and -- to estimate the projected revenue over the next five years, and these two charts compare -- you could see, by the size of the columns, there's a big increase of about $5 million a year of additional revenue if the new impact fee schedule is put into place. The lightest color here in the middle, the yellow, is the increase in parks because that's the biggest -- the fee, and it's mostly from the high-rise residential development, so that's where the -- most of the dollars are going, but there are some, you know, significant increases for the public safety down here, and at the top, the smaller one is the general services, so again, the impact fee is -- with -- under the new fee schedule, will generate about an additional $5 million a year. Chairman Sanchez: For -- five million for the parks? Mr. Guthrie: For all of those -- Chairman Sanchez: For all of those. Mr. Guthrie: -- cumulative, yes. Chairman Sanchez: OK Mr. Guthrie: Now, I want to give you a feel for how the money would be spent, and the types of improvements, so I just have four more slides here to go through, one for each type of facility. If the impact fees are adopted at the fee schedule that we've proposed, over the next five years, we're looking at a need for an additional 11 acres of citywide parkland. Most of the costs here in Miami, because of your -- the market, you being a built -out city, is going to be for acquiring additional land. That's the biggest cost component, so $24 million would be for acquiring land; $2 million would be for the improvements to that additional 11 acres, so -- Commissioner Winton: I don't see any improvements. Mr. Guthrie: Well, $2 million is not a bad price for improving a park. Commissioner Winton: It's not very good. Mr. Guthrie: It's -- Commissioner Winton: It's a million -- I think -- you know, the standards I've seen in the master planning efforts I've done on parks is a million an acre. City of Miami Page 14 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 Mr. Guthrie: What -- it kind of depends on what you're looking at and what's in those. We had, remember, broken out pools and gymnasiums, and so those higher priced things, so that might be a difference. We're looking at an additional $1.7 million for waterfront park improvements. The City and the CIP (Capital Improvement Projects) is looking at adding a new pool and a new gymnasium over the next five years. The impact fees would pay for approximately 30 percent of the additional pool and approximately 6 percent of the new gymnasium. One of the reasons why the gymnasium one is lower is because we have to give credits that'll partly be paid for out of the Homeland Security bonds, and so that negates some of that. The growth -related capital improvements for fire -rescue will be -- going for the two new stations that we previously mentioned over the next five years, one north and south, and one south of the river, paying for approximately 27 percent of those new stations, and then the additional apparatus to go into those. The fire -rescue apparatuses are very costly, so even though it's six of them, it's about $600, 000, because that's the average, with all the expensive fire trucks and the smaller, you know, cars and everything else, so that's a weighted average for the entire fleet. Impact fees will help pay for the improvements to the -- modifications to the Miami Riverside Center that I talked about. It's about -- we estimated that to be a $1.5 million of work, an additional 19 vehicles, expansion of the fleet by 19 vehicles, not replacement of existing one; and for police, the need, due to growth, is for 54 additional vehicles over the next five years, and again, a relatively small amount, only eight percent going to pay for the new police training facility. Again, that's partly reduced because, for one, it's a big, nice facility that's going to have many uses, and part of that's going to be bond financed, so we have credits again, so part of that is the amount of the fee, and general principle that Susan and I had tried to work with is the impact fees can't be used to enhance your level of service or ask new development to enhance your level of service. Basically, if you're doing that, you're saying -- the flipside of that coin is that we have some existing deficiencies, and we'd like new development to fix those. That we cannot do with impact fees. There's case law that restricts that from happening, so -- Commissioner Allen: Give us an example of what you're speaking of. Mr. Guthrie: Well, for instance, on this new police training facility, you just can't say, wow, we'd like to have this new -- pick a number -- $10 million facility. I know the plans are still being finalized, but -- and we'd like new development to pay for that all over the next five years. Well, if you look at the ratio of floor area that you have now in your existing police buildings, compared to what you'll have when that thing is built, there's a big increase in floor area per person, and floor area per nonresidential vehicle trip, and so, you'd be asking new development to fund those at a much higher level of service than you currently have today, and so, that would represent them fixing that -- enhancing that level of service, or fixing the existing deficiency, however you want to look at it, and that would be more than their fair share of the cost. You can enhance your level of service, but it always means that you've got to have some other nonimpact fee funding to do that, so you have to have general revenues. You have to have some kind of nonimpact fee money to enhance the level of service, so that's always kind of a double-edged sword that we have to be aware of when we're doing the work on the impact fees. Commissioner Allen: With the bond money, I see, yeah. Mr. Guthrie: That concludes our presentation. We'd be -- love to answer any questions, look at more detail out of our report, or questions about the ordinance, any of those. Chairman Sanchez: All right. Let's -- we could either do one thing. We could open it up to the Commission, or I believe there was some residents who wanted to ask questions on the issue. How many will be coming up to ask questions? Two, three, all right. Let's go ahead and do that, and then we'll come to the Commission. It's just a presentation, but I believe some of the Commissioners also have some questions. Maybe you have a question that I have, and it'll be answered, and I don't have to ask it, so please, not everybody stand up at once. City of Miami Page 15 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 Commissioner Winton: But, please, someone stand up. Chairman Sanchez: Yeah. Just come on up. State your name and address for the record, and ask your question -- Nina West: OK. My name is Nina -- Chairman Sanchez: -- and let's focus on the impact fees, questions pertaining to impact fees. Ms. West: These are questions only dealing with impact fees, and not even with the ordinance, just on the presentation today that Mr. -- Chairman Sanchez: Just in the presentation. You will have an opportunity -- Ms. West: Just on the -- Chairman Sanchez: -- when it's an ordinance in front of us on first reading, y ou will have an opportunity to address that. Ms. West: Right. I said I'm not going to speak about the ordinance at all. Chairman Sanchez: OK Ms. West: All I wanted to is to talk about the study that was explained today, and of course, we have the person here who can answer the questions, so that's very helpful, and then, we'll talk about the ordinance when the ordinance comes up. Is that all right? Commissioner Winton: Yep. Chairman Sanchez: Thank you. Yes. Ms. West: OK First of all, I wanted to say I was very happy to hear about a possible transportation fee, impact fee because I think that that's something we definitely are going to need, but I'm basically here to talk about only two subjects, parks and a little bit about affordable housing, and that's because I'm on the cultural -- the Parks Committee for Miami Neighborhoods United, and I'm on the Affordable Housing Committee for Miami Neighborhoods United, so that's all we want to talk about. When we talked about the current impact fees here -- when you talk about neighborhood development zones being included geographically, we also thought that was a great idea. Commissioner Winton: I don't think -- I think they're eliminating zones and making it one -- Chairman Sanchez: Yeah. Ms. West: One -- Commissioner Winton: -- citywide. Ms. West: -- citywide. Chairman Sanchez: Citywide, citywide. Ms. West: That -- and we were glad to hear that. City of Miami Page 16 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 Mr. Guthrie: Trying to listen to two conversations at once. I'm sorry. What was your question, ma'am? Ms. West: No, I said -- Commissioner Winton: No. She -- Ms. West: -- that I was glad to hear -- Commissioner Winton: -- was just making a comment. Ms. West: -- that there were going to be citywide. Commissioner Winton: There wasn't a question yet. Ms. West: We're glad to hear that. We don't agree that no office workers will use these parks and that they will have no impact because I think office workers go out for lunch in parks. I think they're going to have a definite impact on the parks system, and I think it makes it -- Commissioner Winton: I think they're included. Ms. West: -- much more attractive to work in the City of Miami if parks are available, so that workers can go out on their lunch hour and have a little fresh air, especially when the winter is here and it's a beautiful time of the year, and they will be competing for park space with our tourists. Now, I want to talk about population figures. I'm wondering if you're including -- you made mention in this study that you did that you used past building. Now, but I don't understand about that, so maybe you can answer this question. Were you using population figures, going forward, based on the past two years of permanent or under construction units, or does that 2.67 come from the census figure? How do you arrive at the 2.67 per unit? Mr. Guthrie: You're probably referring to persons per household or persons per housing unit number, and -- Ms. West: Yes -- Mr. Guthrie: -- those would all be -- Ms. West: -- and this is in relation to parks because we're focusing on that. Mr. Guthrie: Right. That's not exactly the numbers we're using. The fee tax we have is 2.91; the low-rise, 2.56; and the high-rise, 1.69. Ms. West: I think I read somewhere where it averages out to 2.67. Mr. Guthrie: Oh, well, we have it broken out by the -- Ms. West: OK Mr. Guthrie: -- types, but it is census data, yes, ma'am. Ms. West: Census data. Mr. Guthrie: That's the 2000 census data -- Ms. West: It's the 2000 census data. City of Miami Page 17 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 Mr. Guthrie: -- and it's person -- Ms. West: Was any account taken into of the building permits and buildings under construction over the last two years? Do we know how many units that is? Mr. Guthrie: Yes. We used the housing unit method, where we basically got permits, since the 2000 census, to update it, so it's 2000, '01, '02, '03, and '04. We've updated the number of housing units. Ms. West: OK, so you're up to '04, and we're starting at '05 -- Mr. Guthrie: Is '05 -- Ms. West: -- with these numbers? Mr. Guthrie: -- the base year? Yes. Ms. West: OK, thank you. Now, I want to talk about land acquisition for parks. Basically, we have $50 a square foot, which is based on the acquisition of Little Haiti Park. I'd like to know what zoning Little Haiti Park had, and what the surrounding areas were at that time. Commissioner Winton: I don't -- Chairman Sanchez: Whoa. He's -- Commissioner Winton: -- think that's the subject here. Chairman Sanchez: -- not going to know that, the zoning -- Commissioner Winton: I mean -- Chairman Sanchez: He's not going to know what zoning Little Haiti Park -- Ms. West: OK No. Well, I'm asking -- Commissioner Winton: We're not -- Ms. West: -- if $50 a foot is a realistic figure. In other words, if I could buy an acre of land in the City of Miami for -- actually, nine -tenths of an acre for $191, 000, I would write you the check as I am standing here, and I don't have to even see where the acre is, you know, because -- and that's what I'm talking about. Is that a realistic figure? Joe Arriola (City Manager): Let me -- going back to the Little Haiti Park, we paid $7 a square foot. Commissioner Winton: Oh, baloney. Mr. Arriola: Yeah, we did. Commissioner Winton: No, you most certainly did not. Chairman Sanchez: Seven dollars a square foot? Commissioner Winton: I didn't see -- City of Miami Page 18 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 Mr. Arriola: I'm sorry. You want me to prove it to you? Commissioner Winton: Yes, you -- yes, I do. Mr. Arriola: OK, I'll prove it to you. Commissioner Winton: I looked at -- Mr. Arriola: We paid $7 a square foot -- Commissioner Winton: No, you didn't. I looked at every single deal that came before this Commission, and I saw nothing at $7 a foot. Mr. Arriola: Well, sir, you didn't look at the trailer park. We actually paid $7 a square foot. Commissioner Winton: Well, the trailer park wasn't the only thing you bought for Little Haiti Park, excuse me. Mr. Arriola: Absolutely. Then the averages -- Chairman Sanchez: Whoa, whoa. Mr. Arriola: -- came out much lower than the $50 a square foot she's talking about. Commissioner Winton: Well, but you just said -- Mr. Arriola: We bought buildings for more money -- Commissioner Winton: You -- Mr. Arriola: -- but the actual empty land, we paid $7 a square foot. Commissioner Winton: A building value, in real estate, is land value if you're going to bulldoze it -- Mr. Arriola: Absolutely. Commissioner Winton: -- so I just don't want inaccurate numbers put on the table here. Mr. Guthrie: Right, and we have -- Ms. West: OK Well -- Commissioner Winton: That's all I'm saying. This is -- Mr. Arriola: So we use 50. Commissioner Winton: Yes. Ms. West: Yeah. Well, but the -- Mr. Arriola: We paid that -- Commissioner Winton: I don't -- City of Miami Page 19 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 Chairman Sanchez: From -- Mr. Arriola: -- I said we have an average of seven -- Commissioner Winton: At Little Haiti. Mr. Arriola: -- and an average of 80. Ms. West: OK, but my point is -- Chairman Sanchez: All right, all right. Ms. West: -- it -- Chairman Sanchez: Let's -- Ms. West: -- I don't think it's realistic to think that you can purchase nine -tenths of an acre of land elsewhere for $191, 000 going forward. Mr. Guthrie: Ma'am, there's 43,560 square feet in an acre, so it's really $2 million. It's 2,178, 000 an acre, if you do $50 a square foot, and convert it into acres -- Ms. West: Right, right. That's what -- Mr. Guthrie: -- so it's $2 million an acre. It's a big number. Ms. West: All right. Chairman Sanchez: It's a big number. Ms. West: Big numbers and we are 55 out of 55. Commissioner Winton: But what's your point about if it -- Ms. West: I think that -- Chairman Sanchez: She wants more parks. That's -- Ms. West: Yeah. I think -- Commissioner Winton: No. Ms. West: -- acqui -- I -- park -- I think the parks should have access that we've talked about. The CIP numbers respond to that. They're going to take care of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Acts) park programs, many things that we need in parks, but we think -- one of our members attended all five of the EAR (Evaluation Appraisal Report) meetings, and in four out of five, although it's not reflected in that update, people were asking for additional park space, so -- Chairman Sanchez: Great. Vice Chairman Gonzalez: Mr. Chairman. Chairman Sanchez: Commissioner -- Vice Chairman Gonzalez. City of Miami Page 20 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 Vice Chairman Gonzalez: Yeah. I would like -- you know, I'm listening to this discussion and this argument about the square -- the cost of the square foot per land, and my biggest concern is not the cost of the land; where is the land available? What are we -- what do we -- Commissioner Winton: It's (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Vice Chairman Gonzalez: -- pretend to do? Do we pretend to eminent domain residents of the City of Miami to build parks? If that is the plan, I hope that you're not counting on destroying my district to build a New York Central Park in Allapattah. I hope not because, you know, the biggest problem is that this city was not planned for today's development, and there isn't any land available, and going to the price of land, you are a hundred percent -- or you're a million percent right. I found out yesterday that a piece of land in my district -- I don't know how many acres, but it's not an enormous piece of land -- they're asking $32 million, $32 million, and it is a parcel of land that was intended to build 780 units, so it cannot be an enormous parcel of land, and they're asking $32 million, and I'm sure that someone is going to come and say, here it is, $32 million, so -- Ms. West: Well, let me talk about what we're talking about. We're not talking about big central parks, and we're not talking about eminent domain, but we do know that there are many -- the east side of the city is very well served. Places like Model City are not as well served with park space -- Commissioner Winton: I don't -- Ms. West: -- and we are talking about having neighborhoods identO 2 park space, which the City has encouraged over time, and for little pocket parks in little areas, so we have identified a place in Buena Vista East Historic Neighborhoods Association, where they're going to build a park in Buena Vista West, but you can't walk there with a baby carriage and cross Miami Avenue and get there and get home. It's not a neighborhood park, and one of the things we're talking about is maybe buying two lots in Buena Vista East, which I would presume 10 percent over the appraisal would come in at about $700, 000 for -- Vice Chairman Gonzalez: Buying -- Ms. West: -- those two residential -- Vice Chairman Gonzalez: -- two regular residential lots? Ms. West: -- buildings, and I think we ought to provide for these small parks, and I think we should pay market prices for them, and I don't think we should use eminent domain, but I think we should have the will where we're talking about -- Commissioner Winton: Well -- Ms. West: -- our neighborhoods being our most important things -- Commissioner Winton: -- but, Nina -- Ms. West: -- to take care of these neighborhoods. Commissioner Winton: -- I'm confused. Commissioner Allen: Wait. Chairman Sanchez: Wait. City of Miami Page 21 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 Commissioner Winton: There must be some bigger point here. Vice Chairman Gonzalez: Yeah. Commissioner Winton: On the -- Ms. West: The point is that the -- Commissioner Winton: Excuse me. Ms. West: -- impact fee, I think, for -- we should have a separate impact fee, an additional impact fee; that the impact fee that you have that your consultant has come up with should go to the CIP budget, for the capital improvement budget, for the maintenance budget, for turf rebuilding -- Commissioner Winton: It can't go to maintenance. Ms. West: -- and we should have an additional fee for acquisition, and when we get to the number where the parks are acquired for these neighborhoods, we should get rid of it. Commissioner Winton: Nina, the expert said the fee can only be used for capital cost, which includes land acquisition, period, end of story. It cannot be used for maintenance, putting down new sod -- Ms. West: That's what I -- Commissioner Winton: -- any of those kinds of things. Ms. West: All right. Well, in your capital improvement budget, you have resodding that I read, so I guess -- Alicia Cuervo Schreiber (Chief of Operations): Can I -- Commissioner Allen: But that's -- Ms. Cuervo Schreiber: -- address something? Ms. West: I mistook that, but what I'm talking about is -- Chairman Sanchez: Hello. Ms. West: -- you can build a building in there, you can put a gymnasium -- Chairman Sanchez: Let's maintain order. Ms. West: -- and all of those things that you want for the parks programs for the young people, but I'd also like to see an acquisition until we get to the number where we have a good number, where we are somewhere in the median of all the cities. Chairman Sanchez: Thank -- Commissioner Allen: Well, just one -- Chairman Sanchez: -- you so much. Hold -- Commissioner Allen, hold on, hold on, hold on. City of Miami Page 22 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 Commissioner Allen: Yeah. Chairman Sanchez: Thank you, ma'am. Commissioner Allen -- Commissioner Allen: Yes. Chairman Sanchez: -- and then, City Manager. Commissioner Allen: Well, one quick question. Commissioner Winton: And then next. Commissioner Allen: Again, I like your -- Chairman Sanchez: I'll close. Commissioner Allen: -- idea of creating more parks. I assume you're speaking of pocket parks, but before we unequivocally state that Model City doesn't have adequate parks, I think we need to discuss that because I don't want any issue of eminent domaining [sic] in my district either -- Ms. West: I said we are not in favor -- Commissioner Allen: -- according to what -- right. Ms. West: -- of eminent domain anywhere. Commissioner Allen: OK, just want to make sure of that. Chairman Sanchez: All right. Alicia, and then Commissioner Winton, and then, I believe, Commissioner Regalado, will you speak on the issue? Ms. Cuervo Schreiber: Commissioners -- Commissioner Winton: Well, I thought you had two more people out there that wanted to make public comments -- Chairman Sanchez: Oh. Commissioner Winton: -- so, I think -- Ms. West: I have very little left to say. Chairman Sanchez: All right, but I believe -- Commissioner Winton: Oh, my goodness. Chairman Sanchez: -- the City Manager had -- Ms. Cuervo Schreiber: Commissioner, on point, Nina, fortunately, for the timing of this, the City is undergoing a parks master plan analysis, and in this specific ordinance, we have put in language that we will readdress the impact fee ordinance on a yearly basis to catch some of these important issues that come up as we go through the master plan, such as connections from major parks into minor parks that may be two city blocks, or may be a city street, so those are important points that we talk about as we go through the parks master plan analysis that we can City of Miami Page 23 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 revisit, and that is in the ordinance. Ms. West: OK, thank you. Chairman Sanchez: Thank you. Ma'am. Yes. This is the item you wanted to speak on. Mabel Miller: Yes. Chairman Sanchez: Yes. Ms. Miller: Mabel Miller, 210 Sea View Drive. You all may know that I'm a facilitator for a citizen group called Virginia Key Planning Coalition, and we have offered to help the City in its dilemma about parks. If we admit -- do we admit that we need more parks for our population? If we do, then we better look at land we already possess. We have hundreds of acres -- Chairman Sanchez: There you go. Ms. Miller: -- on Virginia Key, and if you would see fit to zoning some of those acres park and recreation restricted, we would have a great deal more park areas. We can also call on the public -- I have in mind -- of course, I've offered, from my group, that we will do some service for you, but people like the man with the plan, and you know who he is, Jorge Perez, Mr. Perez is a man who's not only working to help Miami, but also Las Vegas, and he knows where the money is. Now, I am trying to influence him and other developers to help us look at, for example, Virginia Key. We need to establish a wilderness campsite for inner-city kids. We need to establish a nature center, and if these people, who are the money people, can be prevailed on to set up a means for us to raise money, I think we can move forward with land that you -- we already possess, and I have a lot of expert people who are ready to help you, people who are real estate specialists, and lawyers, and scientists, and educators, so we could move forward with this with land that we already own, so maybe you'd like to consider that. Commissioner Allen: OK. Chairman Sanchez: Thank you, ma'am. Commissioner Allen: Thank you. Chairman Sanchez: Commissioner Winton, you're recognized. Commissioner Winton: Are -- is there anyone else? Chairman Sanchez: Is there anyone else? Oh, come on up. Sorry about that. Karen McGuire: Hi. My name's Karen McGuire. I reside at 736 Northeast 67th Street. I'm a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners, and I work as a transportation planner, and I just wanted to urge the Commission to please really look at the eventuality of instituting a transit impact fee. Commissioner Regalado, if you're wondering why all the developers put their impact analysis in, and why it always seems like there's enough capacity, I'd be happy to give you a lesson in that one day, but the fact is is that, the way that we analyze the impacts, we're not really looking at the true impact of all the development in the city, and the only way we will be able to handle the development in the city is by more transportation, and I know that the City's been desperately working on putting the 2nd Avenue Streetcar into place. I think that would alleviate much of the traffic on Biscayne Boulevard, and I believe that if you have a dedicated source of transportation funding, the City's own, aside from the People's Transportation fund, that it would greatly help you leverage your funds, and to, you know, increase and enhance the mobility for all the people in the city, so that's what I just wanted to say. Thank you very much. City of Miami Page 24 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 Chairman Sanchez: All right. Anyone else? Yes, ma'am. Judith Sandoval: Judith Sandoval, 2536 Southwest 25th Terrace. I just have a question to the consultants, if you could explain this a little bit. It's number C-7, Southeast Overtown/Park West area DRI (Development of Regional Impact) for which a development order has been issued by the City before the effective date of this chapter, providing that the building permit for such DAR is obtained within 15 months of the initial effective date of this chapter. Would this apply to all projects, or just this one, and why? Commissioner Allen: Wait. What are you reading from? Ms. Sandoval: This is page 9 of 26. Commissioner Allen: OK. Commissioner Winton: I don't have it either. Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: That -- oh, that is language that was in your existing Code, actually, and that's one of the exemptions that you have in your existing Code that's being retained because it relates to DRI, so it relates to DRIs, excluding the Downtown DRI and the Southeast Overtown/Park West DRI, so any DRI for which a development order was issued before the original effective date of your impact fee ordinance is exempted, and that language was retained because of particular DRI laws. Commissioner Winton: Is that right? So, existing DRIs, including the Downtown DRI? Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: No. It excludes -- Chairman Sanchez: Excludes. Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: -- the -- Commissioner Allen: Excludes. Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: -- Downtown DRI and excludes Southeast Overtown. Commissioner Winton: OK, what's -- I'm confused, so state that again so I'm clear. Lourdes Slazyk (Assistant Director, Planning & Zoning): Yeah. The DRIs that were approved prior to this were exempt from impact fees -- Commissioner Allen: Correct. Ms. Slazyk: -- but the Downtown DRI and Southeast Overtown/Park West DRI, projects in those areas do pay impact fees. Commissioner Winton: Oh, thank god. Ms. Slazyk: They do, yes. Commissioner Winton: OK Ms. Sandoval: OK City of Miami Page 25 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 Ms. Slazyk: That's what -- the exemption is -- it's kind of one of those double negatives. Says exempt is DRIs, except for these, so when you're reading it, you think, oh, these DRIs are exempt, but it says except for them. Commissioner Winton: Oh, OK. Ms. Slazyk: They're not exempt. Commissioner Winton: Thank god. Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: And I retained that language from your existing Code because it was something already well established, and I didn't want to tinker with it. Commissioner Winton: All right. Chairman Sanchez: All right. Is there anyone else from the public? At this time, the public hearing is closed, coming back to the Commission, and Commissioner Winton, we'll recognize you for some comments. Commissioner Winton: If you look at -- and I have one question. I know that y'all tried to answer this for me, and some way or another, it's gone, so it was one of those, you know, mornings when I had too much stored up here and I had to purge, and apparently, I've purged some valuable information. Single-family detached and low-rise, their impact fees are significantly lower on a per unit basis than high-rise, and did you -- was that on the basis of individuals per household? Mr. Guthrie: They're lower? No, they're higher. Commissioner Winton: High-rise impact fee is 3959 per, right? Mr. Guthrie: Yes, sir. Commissioner Winton: Parks. Mr. Guthrie: Uh-huh. Commissioner Winton: Single-family detached is 6800. Mr. Guthrie: Yeah, it's a bigger number. Commissioner Winton: It's a bigger number than the high-rise. Mr. Guthrie: Correct, and that is based on the number of persons per housing unit. One of the reasons why -- Commissioner Winton: So, this is -- this impact fee in housing is a per capita, not a per unit. Mr. Guthrie: It's a per capita standard that you can differentiate by type of unit by using the persons per housing unit, so you end up with dollars per housing unit using that house (UNINTELLIGIBLE) . Commissioner Winton: Well, but could our -- would the -- is this state law that enables this? Mr. Guthrie: Florida doesn't have enabling legislation on impact fees. It's just case law, and Susan can talk to you about that -- City of Miami Page 26 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 Commissioner Winton: OK -- Mr. Guthrie: -- but it's -- this is pretty standard practice on the park fee. Commissioner Winton: -- so the question then is, is it possible to make single-family attached less and high-rise more, or leave single-family where it is and make high-rise more? Mr. Guthrie: It would be tough because people are the ones that use the parks, and it's the number of people in the units that we're using to be the indicator of the demand. Chairman Sanchez: It's about defendability [sic], Johnny. Commissioner Allen: Wait, so -- wait, wait. Repeat that again. Could you repeat that again, please? Mr. Guthrie: We're saying people are what use parks, and so we're using the num -- Commissioner Winton: Not units. Mr. Guthrie: Yeah -- Commissioner Allen: Right. Mr. Guthrie: -- not units. It's not the structures, it's the people in the structures -- Commissioner Allen: Exactly, right. Mr. Guthrie: -- and because you have more, on average, more people in a detached house than you have in a high-rise unit, that's why they pay more. Commissioner Allen: Is that a correct assumption? I mean, I -- Mr. Guthrie: That's based on 2000 census data, and that's consistent -- Commissioner Allen: OK. Mr. Guthrie: -- everywhere. That's the -- Commissioner Allen: Right. Mr. Guthrie: -- demographic trend. Commissioner Winton: And -- Mr. Guthrie: One -- Commissioner Winton: I'm sorry. Mr. Guthrie: -- of the reasons why the housing unit number is lower is because it's persons per housing unit, so it's spread out over the entire housing stock, because every time you go to pull a building permit -- Commissioner Allen: Right. City of Miami Page 27 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 Mr. Guthrie: -- you're asked to pay, and so, a lot of the high-rise units -- or more of your high-rise units are seasonal units, and so that -- when you add -- I mean, when you spread the number of people in those units over the entire housing stock, including the seasonal, it makes the number lower. Commissioner Allen: So, is that going to be the trend of all our foreseeable units? They're going to be largely seasonal, as well? I mean, you know, the projects that are coming on board now -- Mr. Guthrie: Well -- Commissioner Allen: -- the high-rises. Mr. Guthrie: -- we're assuming that the ratio that we had in 2000 will be good for the next five years. Commissioner Winton: Whether it's seasonal or not. Commissioner Allen: Not. Commissioner Winton: Right. I have a couple more questions. Fire -rescue, general services, and police, the proposed impact fees. Mr. Guthrie: Yes, sir. Commissioner Winton: How do these impact fees match up with other municipalities in the area, in the South Florida area, and around the state? Chairman Sanchez: That's one question I was going to -- Mr. Guthrie: We could answer that at the next meeting. Chairman Sanchez: I was going to ask that. Mr. Guthrie: I don't have that with me. Commissioner Winton: I'm sorry? Mr. Guthrie: I will be able to answer that at the next meeting. I don't have that with me. I can't really just answer that -- Commissioner Winton: Well, I think it's comparable, if I remember our meeting. Mr. Guthrie: -- but we could certainly check. Commissioner Winton: OK Mr. Guthrie: OK Commissioner Winton: Parks, and I've asked that question separately. I want, also, to compare this proposed parks impact fee to other municipalities in the Southeast Florida region and statewide. Mr. Guthrie: OK City of Miami Page 28 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 Commissioner Winton: Final question/comment, and it relates to transit, I know that we're recommending that we do away with water and sewer and roads. Mr. Guthrie: No, it's -- Commissioner Winton: I'm not particularly thrilled about doing away with it, if we can find a use for it. My view is we ought to maintain it, and then we switch it, when we work this business out with the County, so that we could, in fact, have a transit impact fee, which we desperately need. The problem with eliminating it is that, over a relatively short period of time, everybody forgets that it was eliminated, and then when you reimpose the transportation impact fee, particularly in light of where we're going with parks, and which -- and this number is huge -- that it's -- the noise level is going to be very loud again about, oh, my God, here comes another tax, so I'm not thrilled about the idea of eliminating the road and -- Did you combine water and sewer -- or storm sewers? Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: It's -- storm water was the other one that we recommended deleting. Commissioner Winton: OK, so I'm not -- you know, I would rather maintain them, if we have a use for them and it's legal for us to maintain them, I'd rather maintain them, and eliminate it once we get the issue with the County resolved on being able to utilize a transit impact fee. Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: One of the difficulties -- Vice Chairman Gonzalez: Commissioner Winton, you have -- Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: I'm sorry. Vice Chairman Gonzalez: -- expressed the same concerns that I expressed to them when they did the presentation to me yesterday, exactly the same concerns. I have a few more, but you have hit it exactly on the same concerns that I expressed yesterday; streets, water and sewer, the cost of the impact fees on single-family homes, because they're speaking in assumptions. I mean, you know, on different areas, you have -- there is an assumption that these are going to be seasonal units. Well, it's an assumption. You said it's an assumption. What if they're not seasonal? The amount of units -- what we hear is that about 60,000 units have been approved in the City of Miami, or are going to be approved in the City of Miami. Sixty thousand units is a lot of units for one city, OK, and I do have other concerns that I want -- my turn comes, I'm going to address, but you're a hundred percent right. Commissioner Winton: Thanks. Vice Chairman Gonzalez: You're a hundred percent right. Chairman Sanchez: All right. Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: Would you like me to address -- Commissioner Winton: Yes, I would. Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: -- some of that now? There's some concerns with trying to maintain your existing transportation and storm sewer fees. At the time those impact fees were created, there was a capital improvements program that identified appropriate projects, where that money could be spent. Commissioner Winton: Could I interrupt you for a second? At the end of the day, is the question relative to whether we maintain it or eliminate it a policy decision? City of Miami Page 29 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: It's a policy decision -- Commissioner Winton: OK, well -- Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: -- laced with some legal issues. Commissioner Winton: -- thank you. I don't want your answer. Thank you. Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: OK Commissioner Winton: I withdraw the question. Chairman Sanchez: Based on the legal issues. Commissioner Winton: Yeah. I don't want -- Chairman Sanchez: All right. Commissioner Winton: -- I don't know anything about any legal issues right now. Chairman Sanchez: Any other questions on the -- anyone else? Commissioner Allen: Well, we'll have the opportunity to meet with them prior to -- Chairman Sanchez: OK Commissioner Allen: -- first reading. Chairman Sanchez: Commissioner Allen, then Commissioner Regalado. Commissioner Winton: Thank you, though. Good presentation. Commissioner Allen: No, just a comment. I spoke to the guys yesterday, and I indicated that I need more time to digest this, so we would have meetings with my office prior to the first reading, OK? Appreciate it. Chairman Sanchez: That's why it's a presentation -- Commissioner Allen: Yeah. Chairman Sanchez: -- today. All right. Commissioner Regalado. Commissioner Regalado: Just something brief. Did I hear you say that there's no state law -- only case law on the impact fees? Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: Yes, sir. Florida is a state that has clearly established the authority for impact fees, but it is solely through case law. There is currently no legislation. There have been numerous attempts to codes state legislation on this matter, and in fact, there is a task force looking at the issue right now to report back to the Governor, I believe, in January or February. Commissioner Regalado: So, state law preempts County and municipal law, right? Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: Yes, sir -- City of Miami Page 30 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 Commissioner Regalado: OK Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: -- on most issues. Commissioner Allen: Yeah, most issues. Commissioner Regalado: How about if the state legislature, in the next session, they decide to run with a bill regarding impact fees, and they change whatever we're doing here? What happens? Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: They could do that. Generally, if there is new legislation adopted, there's a period of time, of anywhere from one to three years, for local governments to come into conformance with state statutes and other states where they've adopted new legislation related to impact fees for their existing systems. I'm going to be attending the task force meetings on this, so I will be able to brief you, when we come back, on what seems to be happening from that area. There have been numerous attempts, over the years -- I can think of at least five or six attempts over the last eight to ten years in Florida -- to do this. So far, there's been a reluctance Commissioner Regalado: No. There -- Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: -- by the State Legislature to move forward with legislation. Commissioner Regalado: Again, the -- most of the conversation that we had yesterday was not exactly about this ordinance, but about the future in terms of what happened in the Gulf, and the federal government taking away funds from the transportation bill. It's going to happen. It's going to hurt Florida a lot. The federal government taking money off capital improvement and all that, so the -- although Florida has a surplus, I am positive -- and you will see in your meeting next week, or tomorrow, I think it is -- that there -- now they are in an expedite process of doing something with the impact fees so the state of Florida can absorb some of the money throughout the state. They just stop a project in Homestead because they felt that it wasn't right for the state, so my question is, how do we make sure that what we're planning here is not trumped by the stated? Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: Indirectly, you can have material submitted to the task force for their consideration, representing your views and your concerns. If the legislature adopts legislation, then your system would need to be brought into conformance. I would propose that your existing system wouldn't be likely to conform with any legislation they might adopt either. This is much more likely to be in line with things they might adopt. Commissioner Regalado: OK Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Sanchez: Commissioner -- Vice Chairman Gonzalez. Vice Chairman Gonzalez: Yes. I -- on addressing the growth related capital improvement for fire -rescue, Mr. Manager, I would like to have the numbers, the monies that have been collected on fire fee since the insertion office fee in 1997, was it? -- from 1997 to the -- up to 2005, and how those monies have been spent. How many trucks have been purchased? How many fire stations have been built? Because I believe that the reason of the fire fee is exactly that, and now we're talking about using the impact fees to buy trucks and to build fire stations, so -- Commissioner Winton: And we've always had these impact fees. Vice Chairman Gonzalez: Pardon me? City of Miami Page 31 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 Commissioner Winton: We've always had fire impact fee. Vice Chairman Gonzalez: Right, but, you know, we are double dipping. To me, that's double dipping. You have the fire fee and then we have the impact fee, so -- and then when we talk about eliminating the fire fee, or reducing maybe 50 percent or 75 percent of the fire fee, you hear people crying, and you know, it's going to become a disaster, a hurricane through the City of Miami if we do that. Another issue that I have is, under the Homeland Defense bond, $10 million were allocated to build the famous police training facility. It seems like, according to this, $10 million won't be enough to build that facility, and let me tell you, I haven't spoke about this, but this is another area where money is never enough, and I have seen, every six or eight weeks, a whole bunch of promotions, more lieutenants, more commanders, more majors, and the budget keeps rising, and rising, and rising on salaries, and I don't know when that is going to end. Either we're going to have a department full of majors and commanders and lieutenants, and we're not going to have any policemen, which is fine with me -- if you're going to have majors patrolling the city, that's fine with me. If we're going to have commanders and lieutenants writing reports and taking care of business on the streets, I don't have a problem with that, but we have a serious -- it's getting -- to me, it's getting out of hand because, like I say, it's every six or eight weeks, we have a promotion ceremony. We have 10, 20 promotions, and every time we make a promotion, there goes the salaries, and there go the benefits, and there goes the pensions, so that's another concern that we have -- that I have is the money that was approved under the bond enough, or it's not going to be enough to build -- how much is this training facility going to cost, $20 million, $15 million? I would also get some information on that. Thank you. Chairman Sanchez: All right. I have some questions. We're reviewing and updating since 1988, and we're at 205 [sic], and I think that's one of the biggest issue that we've had to gone -- we had to go from the standards of '88 to 205 [sic] to try to catch up. Now, are we going to have proper legislation in this ordinance to -- for proper legislation for annual review for the Commissioners? In other words, every year, we could bring it up and recess the fees? Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: Yes, Commissioner. In the proposed ordinance, there would be a requirement for an annual review, and this is -- it's basically an annual report that would provide you with information on the total fees collected, the expenditures, the account balances remaining, and also look at the effectiveness of the affordable housing deferral program. In addition, every three years, there's the requirement for a much more comprehensive review that would really look at your costs and make recommendations on changes to the methodology, updates to the methodology, or changes that might be needed to the ordinance, so in the ordinance itself would be those requirements, and the annual report is actually a very beneficial information piece in most of the jurisdictions that do that. Chairman Sanchez: OK As the legal counsel in this ordinance, one of the most important issues that I foresee is defendability [sic]. As you've -- as we've seen, and you probably have heard, we have been challenged with other fees in the past, and based on the methodology and based on the formula used to create this ordinance that will be in front of us next meeting, do you foresee that we have the proper language, or a defendable case in court, based on these fees? Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: Yes, sir, I believe so. That's why we've spent so much time documenting the methodology, the data used for the impact fee calculations, and the impact fee ordinance language modernizes things, and brings your system into conformance with standard practice in the state of Florida and across the nation, and there are any number of cases that have gone forward, based on these types of methodologies and these type of ordinance provisions that have been upheld by the courts. Of course, that's not to say and -- you know, anyone can bring a challenge and file a lawsuit, but I believe this would greatly strengthen your system and bring you up to current standards of the practice. City of Miami Page 32 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 Chairman Sanchez: All right. I had several questions. I believe Commissioner Winton asked two of my questions that were answered, and you're going to get back to us as to compatibility with other municipalities around based on the fees. Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: Yes, sir. Chairman Sanchez: That was a big concern to me, to make sure we're compatible in a way, and if not, I would like to be educated on the issue as to why. Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: Yes, sir. Chairman Sanchez: Now, let me ask two questions that I have, and one is, are solid waste vehicles included in the new general service impact fee? And I'll tell you why I ask that. Based on the statements by my colleagues that have been made, focused on the level of service, as we see Miami growing, we all want to make sure that the level of service maintains to be a good level of service to our constituents. Is solid waste -- the vehicles are included in the general service impact fee? Ms. Schoettle-Gumm: Yes, sir, and I'll let Dwayne handle the details. Chairman Sanchez: Because I've heard about apparatus and I've heard other things, but I -- police cars. Mr. Guthrie: Yes, sir. The -- on Figure 27 in our report, there's a list of the vehicles used by departments that are impacted by new development, and solid waste vehicles are approximately $8.5 million of the total 22 -- almost 23 million, so it's a big chunk of that inventory. Chairman Sanchez: And while you're up here, how much is this going to generate, in total, for the City? Mr. Guthrie: Total numbers, as far as the -- Chairman Sanchez: Total numbers based on implemented at a maximal, supportive level, I would say. Mr. Guthrie: We gave you the -- that slide we had was average annual at 7.3 million on an average annual basis is the projected total. Chairman Sanchez: All right, and based on the average annual impact fee revenue, which is -- you could see on Figure 8, which is this one -- if you look at 204 [sic] to 206 [sic] and 2010, the biggest increase is yellow, which is identified under this chart as the Parks Department -- Mr. Guthrie: Yes, sir. Chairman Sanchez: -- so we foresee a lot of the impact fees going towards parks. Now that I've gotten to the park issue, I want to elaborate a little bit on that because I tend to have the same concern that my colleagues have up here, which is availability of land for us to build those parks, and now, we would love to have my district, which was the one that has the least acreage of land, I would love to be able to have more green space and more parks, and I'm all for pocket parks, which people have criticized, but I think 20 feet, and a nice tree, and a place to sit down and maybe read a book, or look at the river, and have a good time, it's something that would be acceptable in my district, and I'm sure people are looking forward to it, but we have land in our city to create parks. Watson Island has eight acres set aside for a park in Watson Island. This legislative body, and I was here as a Commissioner, and we passed legislation setting aside eight City of Miami Page 33 Printed on 10/20/2005 City Commission Meeting Minutes September 22, 2005 acres in Watson Island for a park, so there, we could have eight acres of a park. Virginia Key would allow us to have -- this city to have a signature park, less than five minutes from everywhere, to create an area of green space and park facilities, whether it's soccer field, baseball field, cricket fields, whatever you -- sport you may play, but these are the areas that, if we have the land, and we're able to have now the money, based on the impact fees, is that there isn't a reason why next year, or the next following few years down the line, we can't have additional parks. Now, I'm telling you, some people would say, yeah, you know, you have to put certain amount of acres in district. Well, let's be realistic here. It's all about being reality. Show me an area in my district where we could put together a park that you're not going to have to displace people that have lived there, and I've gone out and I've talked to people. I'm a -- I am a big promoter of parks. I am ecstatic to see that, every year, our budget gets -- goes up in park. We're focusing on projects in our city that are world -class, such as the water theme park that we're doing at Douglas Park, Little Haiti Park, a $5 million gymnasium in Jose Marti Park, plus an additional community center. If you look at our parks today, compared to years ago, it is night and day, but still, I do agree with you. We need more green space, and we need to find ways to add green space, but let's be realistic. Let's utilize the land that we have now, and great ideas and minds have been put forth by great people that have a plan to work with the private sector and government to create these wonderful parks, and we could start off with two that I'm mentioning right now, Virginia Key, that we'll have, I believe, about a hundred and some acres available, if they're able to be cleaned up to be a wonderful green area and park for our residents, and Watson Island. If we start with those two, we're looking at maybe 115 acres of green space and parks in our city, which is our land. We don't even have to go buy it; it's there, but I think that we all need to meet at the 50 yard line and come up with a plan, which we are. We got the mast -- the parks master plan that will focus on the future use of the city, so having said that, I am glad that we were able to have a presentation here today because this was a hot issue, and as the Chair, I -- you know, I -- people have asked me, how do you feel, as the Chair? And I feel sometimes like a lion tamer, you know. I have to have the seat, the whip, and sometimes, I have to pull out the gun to maintain a little bit of order and a little bit of love in this dais, but we're making tremendous stride here in the City because, years ago, you didn't even talk -- you couldn't even talk about what we're doing here today, which is -- it's great stuff. Now, there are going to be people that are going to say it's not enough. There is going to be people that probably say, well, that's too much, but our role, as the legislative body working with the public, is to find that happy medium, that balance to be able to, at the end of the day, say you will be having 115 or 16 acres of additional park in our city in the next couple of years, with the commitment that we will work together to provide more parks, as we continue to grow, so this is a step in the right direction for Miami. It's truly Miami's vision, and when I say Miami's vision, it's not only my vision. I think it's the vision of all the Commissioners here because when I got here in 1998, the word "park" was basically ignored. Today, you say park and everybody pays attention, so it's a city heading in the right direction. I'm glad that this is going to be coming back. I encourage my colleagues to sit down with the consultants, the attorney, the Administration, to iron out our differences on this impact fee and being able to implement it as quickly as possible because it's going to be revenues that are going to be coming towards the City for a lot of great uses, so having said that, there is no legislative action on this. This item will be brought back next month on first reading, and we invite the public to participate, and I guess we go -- we move on to PZ.12. All right. Thank you very much. Good presentation. Thank you so much for being here on this item. City of Miami Page 34 Printed on 10/20/2005