2003-0918 Regular City Commission Meeting

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Summary Minutes:Regular City Commission Meeting September 18.2003 City of Sunny Isles Beach,Florida has provided a 10,000 square foot public ocean park. She said that Fortune designed the 20-foot public beach access on the south side of their parcel in order to align with proposed development on the west side of Collins Avenue, and they also placed the beach access at that location so that it could be combined with the access to be developed on the north side of the adjacent parcel, therefore providing a combined 40-foot public access way to the beach. She noted that she wanted to incorporate the comments made by Mr. McDowell during the hearing on the TDR Ordinance (Item 8C) into the record of this hearing as further expert testimony in support of the utilization of bonuses and TDRs. Ms. Burke also stated that Fortune will pay the City for the use of the TDRs, an additional sum of$6,622,642.00. Kobi Karp, Architect, presented renderings and site plans of the project, noting that the tower front setback is 150-feet (75-feet required) away from Collins Avenue providing space for water fountains and landscaping which ascends up to the building as you approach it; and created a promenade beach access walkway from Collins Avenue to the beach. Mayor Samson asked how wide the access is to the beach,Mr. Karp answered 20- feet; Mayor Samson asked how high is the garage, Mr. Karp said that the garage is completely underneath the approach of 150-feet, he asked what the angle is as you walk up from the street to the building, and Mr. Karp said that the approach is 150-feet and the garage above the street is about 35-feet. Mayor Samson also asked what the side setback on the building is and Mr. Karp said that 50-foot setback is required on each side. He asked if that was from the tower or the base and Mr. Karp said the tower, from the base it steps up from 50 to 36 to 23 and then to 10 feet. Mayor Samson asked how high is it from the land base to the top of the garage and Mr. Karp said approximately 30-feet. Mayor Samson asked that they redesign it to have a tall and skinny concept for the view corridor to the beach. Mr. Karp said that the requirement for an open space on this project is going to be about 40% and what they did was meet it and beat it by 150%, and so what happens in order to get the tall and skinny, you have the side yard setbacks for the pedestal in order to get the tall and skinny for the tower you have the side yard setback for the tower, furthermore, they took that massing and they increased their height to get the building as skinny as possible, met and beat the required setbacks, and provided open green space. Mr. Karp stated that not only did they provide a view corridor to the water, but they provided the access and the promenade to the water, they took all the parking that was required and they set it 150-feet back from the street, and the sole purpose for that was to create the tall and skinny,not only on the tower but on the pedestal as well, and to provide as much green space to the front as possible and provided as much setback from the sides as possible. Commissioner Goodman said to Mr. Karp, if he turns the building around the other way, we would have view corridors on both sides, and that Mr. Karp is talking about tall and skinny going north and south, and we would like it to be tall and skinny going east and west. Mr. Karp said that the problem is that the way this site sits, when he turns it 90- degrees, he loses the front yard, and would have the steep slope effect. Commissioner Goodman asked where the lobby was, you have four levels of garage,each level is 9-feet, 3