I do not normally send you the agenda for the Technical Review Committee but there are several items in which members of the community have shown an interest.
The meeting starts at 8:30 AM this Wednesday, Dec. 16, and is at the courthouse in South Walton.
Walmart. There has been a lot of discussion in the community about the proposed Walmart. For those interested in learning more about Walmart, there will be two hearings that you can attend. The first hearing is before the Technical Review Committee tomorrow, Wednesday, at 8:30 AM at the SW courthouse. The TRC will review the entire project. The second opportunity will be at the Design Review Board in January. I’ll get that date to you. The DRB will have a limited review as discussed below. As it stands right now, Walmart will NOT be heard before the Planning Commission or before the County Commissioners. Final approval of the Walmart development will be made in-house at the staff level. See comment at the end of this email for further explanation. ....
[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]Explanation of why Walmart will be decided in-house.
[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]Walmart is a part of a St. Joe development called “Topsail West PUD”. “PUD” stands for “Planned Unit Development”. If it were not part of the PUD and were a stand-alone development, it would be a “Major” development. The purpose of a PUD is to “provide flexible land use and design regulations and to permit planned diversification and integration of uses and structures...”. Once a development decides to proceed as a PUD, the overall project is submitted to the Planning Commission and the County Commissioners for “conceptual approval”. Conceptual approval involves some detail but not the detail required for approval of a Major Development. For example, the conceptual plan would identify a 79,000 square foot building as a shopping center but would not necessarily provide any further information about the type of “shopping center”. St. Joe received conceptual approval.
More details for each development within the overall project are provided later. That approval phase is called the “Detailed PUD Plan Approval”. According to county staff, in the past, the Planning Directors have interpreted the Land Development Code (LDC) to allow future development in the detail phase of the approved PUD to be treated as “Minor” developments even if they meet the definition of a Major Development. A commercial development of less than 5,000 sq.ft. is defined as a “Minor” development. Walmart is just over 78,000 sq.ft. The significance of a “minor” vs. “major” development is this: A Minor development request is reviewed and acted up by Staff. A Major Development must go before the Planning Commission for a recommendation and the County Commissioners for final approval. The latter two are public hearings. Walmart is technically a “Major” development. Because it is part of a conceptually approved PUD, however, it will be reviewed and acted upon in house in lieu of being submitted to the Planning Commission and Board of County Commissioners for approval.
This issue of a large development being approved as a Minor development has once again highlighted some problems with PUD developments. Major developments are required to go through a public hearing before the Planning Commission and the Board of County Commissioners because they have more potential to impact the community than a smaller development. Therefore, opportunity is provided for public input and elected officials render the final decision. Concerns about the PUD designation and procedure have been discussed by the Planning Commission several times. The PUD language, however, has not been clarified. A central issue, for example, is what is the function and what are the criteria necessary to allow a development to proceed as a PUD as opposed to a Master Planned community built in phases? The latter is clearly identified as a Major Development.
Also, there are inconsistencies in the LDC relating to the PUD approval procedure. For example, Section 10.02.01 of the Land Development Code gives the County Commissioners the authority for final approval of a Major Development. Under the definitions in the LDC, Walmart, for example, is clearly a Major development. The procedure of designating development within each phase of a PUD as a “Minor” development, even though it would be defined in the Land Development Code as a Major Development would seem to be in contradiction of the authority of the County Commissioners. Further confusion is contained in Section 2.06.02 of the Land Development Code. That section requires staff to review the submitted “Detailed PUD Plan” as a “Major” development. This inconsistency needs to be resolved as well as other issues identified in Planning Commission meetings. (e.g., need for a minimum acreage for a PUD)
It is my understanding that the PUD overlay provisions will be reviewed upon completion of the Comprehensive Plan amendment process. At that time, county staff will be required to review and amend the Land Development Code as necessary. That will be the time to clarify and address the PUD issues.
In the meantime, Walmart will be reviewed in accordance with the procedures currently in place. The importance is that if the public wants more info, they need to attend the TRC and/or the DRB hearing or review the file at the Courthouse Annex and provide comments directly to the planning staff.
Walmart will be returning to the Design Review Board for approval of their compliance with the U.S. 98 Scenic Corridor standards. They asked that their request for a rather substantial deviation from the required building sign size limit be continued to give them an opportunity to re-assess their building signage requirements. The DRB will be reviewing their site plan in terms of site development (e.g., lighting), architecture, landscaping and signage. The DRB is a public meeting. The next meeting will be in January.[/FONT]
A page or so over I brought up this very point after watching Food Inc.
