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Summary Minutes:Regular City Commission Meeting February 19,2015 City of Sunny Isles Beach,Florida <br /> sued for an accident where the City granted a variance, and City Attorney Ottinot said no. <br /> Commissioner Aelion commented on the view of the ocean issue, and on the parking issue at <br /> LaPerla and Pier Park. Also important is a comment made by Architect Castineira that <br /> parking is not just a problem for the building but also for the City and he is correct. <br /> Commissioner Goldman asked what percentage of the 813 units in Trump Towers are <br /> occupied by primary residents, secondary residents and vacationers,and what percentage are <br /> owned by investors who rent those out? Attorney Mars said roughly it is about 40%full time <br /> residents. It is hard to determine investor ownership just because of the nature of how they <br /> own, meaning whether they rent, and a lot of times they may buy as an investment but they <br /> may use it a few times a year and so it is hard to know that statistic. <br /> Mayor Scholl said we make decisions as a Commission, and we are not going to make <br /> everybody happy but sometimes you have to look at ways to right certain wrongs. The fact <br /> that we allowed the buy down of spaces in the first place was a huge mistake,just like the fact <br /> that we allowed LaPerla to enter through that Park. We have been paying for that vote for <br /> years. LaPerla has never been happy, the City actually used to own parking spaces in <br /> LaPerla's garage because that was part of the mitigation to allow the entrance through the Park <br /> which was another disaster because the City could not really use those spaces and so LaPerla <br /> had to open their garage to the public to use the City's spaces for the folks on the weekends. A <br /> few years back we negotiated with LaPerla Association and we got the spaces in the garage <br /> back to LaPerla and they paid fair market value to the City for those spaces. Unfortunately <br /> when prior Commissions make decisions that do not play out the way they thought as they did <br /> not consider all the unintended consequences of the decisions they make at certain points in <br /> time. The residents in those buildings pays for it and ultimately the City pays for it and so he <br /> does agree with Architect Castineira and as Commissioner Aelion pointed out that it hurts the <br /> City and the residents. He has been pretty tough on variances over the years because when <br /> developers come for variances they are looking to make more money and typically they are <br /> looking at it from an economic perspective. What he always centers his questions around is <br /> how do the adjacent property owners feel because when they are asking for a variance those <br /> are the ones that are going to be impaired the most. The last variance that he gave folks a hard <br /> time on was with the Chateau because they wanted to build a 20-foot wall three(3) feet when <br /> they were supposed to have a 20-foot setback. He actually lost but he argued against that <br /> variance in that Commission meeting. In this case the adjacent property oWner is basically the <br /> Applicant, the three (3) buildings, what they are asking are encapsulated between the centers <br /> of the two sets of buildings. And so it is kind of a unique condition whereby there is nobody <br /> next door that they are bothering and so that to him is one of the major criteria of a variance. <br /> Mayor Scholl said the fact is that we changed our Code. We used to have 8 'A foot spaces and <br /> we used to allow the buy down of the parking and he thinks over the years we realized that we <br /> made a mistake because the unintended consequences of the way we had it structured <br /> originally left buildings under parked and it left residents in having a hardship,and that is what <br /> is going on here. The fact that we changed our Code and what these residents are doing is they <br /> are coming back and they are saying we really want to adhere to the new Code because we <br /> recognize that the Code change made perfect sense relative to the intensity of the parking <br /> needs of all buildings. Again, he doesn't think they are asking for anything that we have <br /> already admitted to ourselves is necessary. Before he was a Commissioner he was very <br /> 10 <br />