Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board

Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board — March 4, 2026 - 6:19 PM

[Music] Must register with the city clerk and comply with related city requirements for lobbyists before appearing before the planning, zoning and appeals board. A person MAY not lobby a city official, board member or staff member until registering a copy of the code section about lobbyists is available in the city clerk's office and online at municode. Com. Any person making a presentation, formal request or petition to the board concerning real property must make the disclosures required by the city code and writing a copy of the city code section is available at the office of the city clerk and online@municode.Com. Please silence all cell phones and other noise making devices. Any person with a disability requiring assistance, auxiliary aids or services for this meeting MAY notify the hearing board's liaison, the agenda and the materials for each item on the agenda for this meeting was published and made available to the board in advance of the meeting. The materials are also available during the business hours at the city clerk's office and online 24 hours a day@miami.Com. Any person MAY be heard by the board through the chair and pursuant to the published notice for not more than two minutes on any proposition before the board unless modified by the chair. When addressing the board, the member of the public must first state their name, address and what item will be spoken about. Anyone wishing to appeal any decision made by this board for any matter considered at this meeting MAY need a verbatim record of the item. A video of this meeting MAY be requested at the office of communications or viewed online at miami. Com items shall proceed according to section 7.1.4 of the miami 21 zoning ordinance. The members of the board shall disclose any ex parte communications to remove the presumption of prejudice pursuant to florida statute section 286.0115 and section 7.1.4.5 of the miami 21 zoning ordinance. Staff will briefly present each item to be heard. For applications requiring board approval or recommendation, the applicant will then present its application or request to the board. If the applicant agrees with the staff recommendation, the board MAY proceed to its deliberation and decision. The applicant MAY also waive the right to an evidentiary hearing on the record. The city requires anyone requesting action by the board to disclose before the hearing anything provided to anyone for agreement to support or withhold objection to the requested action pursuant to city code section 2-8, the communications department will broadcast the meeting through all the usual channels and avenues. The meeting can be viewed live on miami tv at miami. Gov. Com and on comcast channel 77 within the city the broadcast will have closed captioning. A member of the public MAY submit comments via the city's online comment form. the comments submitted through the comment form, if any, have been distributed to the board members and administration throughout the day so that the board can consider them prior to taking any action. Additionally, the online comment form will remain open during the meeting to accept comments and distribute to the board members up until the chair closes public comment. All comments received will be included in the public record and will be considered by the board prior to taking any action, the city created a simple set of instructions explaining how the public MAY submit their comments using the public comment form. [Laughter] MR. Bowers MR. Powers if you're going to continue if you could step outside. >> thank you. The public comment options established and provided for in this meeting comply with section 286.011 for the florida statutes as the city provided these options for the public to indicate their support, opposition or neutrality, the city published an agenda as well as included in the notice of the public the items and topics that will be discussed at this meeting and the public has been given the opportunity to provide public comment during the meeting and within reasonable proximity and time before the meeting. Uh board members, are you comfortable with all the notice provisions set forth in these uniform rules of procedure we've established? Yes yes yes. Thank you. Uh, let's rise for a moment of silence and the pledge of allegiance, please. Pledge allegiance to the flag as states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under GOD, indivisible, [Laughter] With liberty and justice for all. Thank you. [Laughter] For all those who will be testifying. Please rise and raise your right hand. Do you solemnly affirm the testimony you will give today is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Thank you. Please be seated. Um okay. Did we do roll? No, we need to do that. Yes, sir. Thank you. Board member arthur. Board member ellen metoyer. Board member paul main. >> present. Board member manuel. Vadillo. Board member joseph carroll board member paula decarolis. Yes present. Board member mario j. Bailey present. Board member joshua patinkin vice chair andres r lopez. Present chair adam gersten. Here we have chrome and we have two requests for absent waivers board member manuel vadillo and joseph carroll. Do we have a motion? Yes second. >> second metoyer was first. Were there any minutes to approve? Yes, chair OCTOBER 15th, 2025. Move to approve those minutes OCTOBER 1525. Motion second. All in favor? Um ,are there any deferrals? Yes MR. Chair, [Laughter] Item one which is uh, a appeal of a revocation um, for the property located at 1401 1405 southwest 17th avenue. Um, we'd like to defer this indefinitely. Okay. >> it would be it would be SEPTEMBER 2nd. Okay. >> so if we can do SEPTEMBER 2nd. SEPTEMBER 2nd okay. Date certain SEPTEMBER 2nd. Date certain SEPTEMBER 2nd do we have a motion. Move to to reserve one to SEPTEMBER 2nd. Second motion and a second. All in favor. Any additional deferrals? Yes. >> items two and items three date certain to APRIL 1st. Can we do them together? Yes okay. Move to defer pc1 pc2 and three to APRIL 1st. Is there a. >> second okay all in favor any opposed? Are we. Was there one more or that was it. Those are all the. >> that's all the deferrals okay. Um excuse me sir that's uh item two as well. Deferred two and three went together. Yeah. Okay. Um who is here for 155 northwest 17th street? You don't have to come up yet. I'm just going to kind of get a feel for, uh. And who's here for the, um, 4000 north miami ave. Anybody else? That's all 4000. Okay. And um, 5600 biscayne. Okay. 7101 biscayne. All right. All right, well, let's, uh let's start with the the the biscayne boulevard ones first. So we'll start with um. Item number 455677. Which is the one I'm sorry. Six and seven are biscayne boulevard right ones. So yeah we'll start with 5600 biscayne boulevard. File id 18920a resolution of the of the miami planning and zoning appeals board with attachments approving with conditions and exception pursuant to article seven, section 7.1.2.6 and article four table three of ordinance number 1311 for the zoning ordinance of the city of miami, florida as amended miami 21 code in chapter four alcoholic beverages section four through seven c of the code of the city miami, florida as amended city code to permit an alcohol service establishment a warrant pursuant to article seven. Section one. Section 7.1.2.4 and article six. Section 6.3.2.2 to permit an outdoor dining area and a waiver pursuant to article seven, section 7.1.2.5 and 2.27.2.8 to allow for a non-conforming site improvement at the real property designated tk 6-80 urban core transit zone open within the miami modern biscayne boulevard historic district where uses are limited to the t4o urban general transit zone open generally located at 5600 boulevard miami, florida as a more particularly described in the attached and incorporated exhibit a making findings containing the severability clause and providing for an effective date. Thank you. >> good evening vicki toronto with the planning department as my colleague had stated, the purpose of this application is to request for an exception to allow an alcohol service establishment a warrant for outdoor dining and a waiver to allow for non-conforming site improvement at a contributing property in the miami modern biscayne boulevard historic district. Staff is recommending approval with conditions. This is a site information on the right hand side you will see the aerial there. The property is a triangular shaped lot located within the mimo historic district and it's approximately at northwest 56th street and bifurcating biscayne boulevard and northeast fourth court property is approximately 13,155ft2 or 0.33 acres. The property was built in 1954 as a service station. Here is where the transit zone you see that it's zoned t680 and then we have a plume of restricted commercial um and then these are the listed requests as stated before staff finds that they comply with miami 21 and all criteria as set forth also in chapter four of the city code of ordinances. Here is the recommendation of approval with conditions as I have the ones that are highlighted that are in black. Those are the ones that are specific to this project. In other words they're not our standard conditions as we've had in the past. Um oops. And I believe that's all. Thank you. There MAY be one other condition but I'll let him go while I find it. Thank you. Thank you. if you're having any issues on that side usually it's better on this side. Um, I don't know. Let me plug it in and see. Um. All right. It's plugged in now I don't know if, uh, the screens are going to show it though. Oh, there we go. Uh, hi. My name is ian bychkov with akerman law office I there we go. My name is ian bychkov with akerman law office in 98 southeast seventh street here on behalf of the applicant burgers and shakes v llc. Um as um vicki had mentioned we're applying for an exception as an alcohol service establishment. um, we agree with all the conditions in the order um and so we're really not asking for anything more than exactly what uh was explained and presented by the city. Uh, but just to add a little more um, to uh, what was in the city's presentation uh, let me just go through, um, what we have here. So she already went over the location. This is the former andiamo pizza site. Um. They closed. We're taking essentially their exact same space but we're also expanding, which is why we needed the exception. Um, just going back again here through the the maps that were already shown in the city's presentation. Um, here's some more just views of the site and what's adjacent to it on uh essentially all three sides uh biscayne bay or biscayne boulevard uh to the east and then fourth avenue to the west with a strip mall there uh with a couple other restaurants and retail um, specifically in that strip mall we have uh sushi siam and flora restaurant as well as a nail studio and a consignment retail store. Uh, so just a little bit about the operator, uh, jorge iglesias he is a restaurateur as mom and pop as it really gets. Uh, he has george's italian restaurant which was the first one on miami beach has been operating there um, over 25 years. Um, he also operates el cubano, which is also in that north beach neighborhood of miami beach. And he also has started opening up these burgers and shakes restaurant. The first one is in north beach and miami beach. He has since opened one up also in um uh fort lauderdale beach and is opening up one in north miami beach downtown or north miami downtown. And so this I believe is going to be his fourth one that he's opening uh, at this site. This one's going to be a little different than the rest of them and that the rest of them literally just sells burgers, shakes, fries, onion rings, hot dogs um this one because of the space and what it is um, he had an opportunity to do something a little additional here. Um, pictures of the food they serve. Uh, hope you're hungry. Um, so you'll notice, um, the site and actually this is more of a survey so let me go to the next one here. This is a little easier to see. Uh, the existing site on the left just has the existing space kind of at the at the point of that triangle to the south of the property. Um, you'll notice on on the right side the new floor plan we're proposing there's a there's an area on the north end essentially in the back uh, this property historically was a um a car service station and so this back room was the rolling doors or the garages were where they did the work to the cars. Um, it's been empty vacant in that back room for years. Uh, andiamo. Never used it. I'm not sure the last time anybody ever used it. And so what we're proposing is to, uh ,open up the front rolling door, uh, create an outdoor bar counter and really it's a circular bar. Half of it's inside really three quarters of it is on the inside of the room with the fourth quarter on the outside and then fill the rest of that interior room with seating and bathrooms and essentially create the bar area for burgers and shakes. So really it's all going to operate as one restaurant burgers and shakes. But the reason why we came here today is because we know how code enforcement operates in the city and if they see a bar operating in the back they're going to look at that like that's a bar that's an alcohol service establishment and we wanted to make sure we were not doing anything incorrect improper. We wanted it to be what it is to be approved as just that. So it's it's the room with the bar in the back but it's going to be serving all the same burgers and all the same shakes. They're also just going to have the full bar back there. Um and that that's really the the extent of the whole request I will mention andiamo did have outdoor seating there. Um what we found when we got in there was that they they had been doing it for so long historically that it was before warrants were required for the outdoor dining. We wanted to change kind of the the layout of the seating outdoors. So we're applying for the warrant now instead of utilizing what they had there for the outdoor seating uh to to make it to include the outdoor seating at the bar counter that we're creating as well as the seating around the south end and under the the covered area of the building as well. Um, just a closer look in the breakdown of the seating on the new area that's being added in the back. >> MR. Pacheco, can you just talk into the mic? Sorry, just pull it a little closer to you. A little closer to me there. Yeah. Sorry. >> yeah. Uh, apologies for that. Um, yeah, I can even hear the difference here. Um, so as you'll notice we are adding a good number of tables and chairs back there uh, because again it's for food as well as the beverages adding the bathrooms and a storeroom for the alcohol inventory as well as the, uh, a small amount of seats on the exterior in the cover under the covered area of the property. Um, the the picture on the right is the existing building there. Um, there is going to be a slight change to that building. We we went through the review with the historic preservation because this site is contributing to the historic district and essentially the only two changes we're making to the structure are the addition of that outdoor bar counter where the rolling door is facing the south. Um, so kind of where it's blocked by the the plants there and then that wall that big empty wall they're going to add an opening in there for like a rolling glass door to kind of open up the view uh to the to the street and so oh let me go back I'm sorry. Um let me go back to that slide. Sorry. >> what was the total square footage of the whole site? Um the total square footage let me. In on this. I'm assuming it's under 5000ft2, right? Yes. >> the total is under 5000ft2. Is that was required to be able to get the approval here. Otherwise we would have had to go to city commission. So the total square footage is under 5000ft2. Uh and so this view just shows that facade where we're just the two spots that are being changed the southern elevation opening for the bar counter, um, and then the western elevation where the opening is being added on the side of the building. Uh, with that with that rolling door um, and then other than that, um, there was a prior historic preservation approval for the whole building that the landlord got one of the requirements there was to rebuild a historic signage. Uh ,we plan on doing everything else that was otherwise required. So, uh, because of that we were able to get an administrative approval for that small modification from the historic preservation side. Um, and that is uh that is it if you have any questions I'm happy to answer. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone from the public who would like to speak on this item? Good evening, bob powers 565 north east 66th street. I'm the PRESIDENT Of the mimo biscayne association. We support this project. We've met with this applicant many times. Um, like our major issue up there is parking that in that area has been addressed because directly across the street there is parking available. So it's not going to be an impingement with making the property larger and having a larger seating arrangement. And historically that building was the general tire store and it was the very first general tire store in the city of miami when it was built. And kathleen o'neil's father used to run that and they lived in bay point and that whole family is now no longer alive. But there were 12 children out of that family and I knew most of them. There was a wonderful family and the building was built really well. It's kind of a really cool building. So congratulations to your project. Thank you for addressing all of our concerns and meeting with us and going over all that stuff. And we have some other opportunities to do something with that historic sign because when it came down I thought it was horrible that they took it down because it was a good opportunity for advertising that district that was missed. So I hope we can meet and possibly have that happen again in the [Laughter] Future. Thank you ladies and gentlemen. I know where to put it. Thank you. All right. Anybody else? The next. Hi. >> good evening, elisa cepeda. Um, 531 northeast 76th street. So, um, last month when I came before you guys, I told you that, um, I'm willing to show up for a good project and support a good project. Well, this happens to be another good project. I echo what MR. Powers had to say and this is a very special site and the mimo district and they've done a very nice job and they have really worked with the community. Their architect has gone above and beyond. The owner of the building has gone above and beyond. We're getting quite a few benefits as bob mentioned. You know they're restoring the original sign that was cut off. They're going to a lot of trouble to you know, retain the character a lot of the original features and continue to fit within the mimo historic district. This is kind of a signature project right at the beginning of the district. So we're happy that this is an operating business. It's not going to sit empty. You know we have a lot of challenges. A lot of you know, issues was mentioned parking is a huge problem. This area is you know a unique spot again because it has parking so full support palm grove is in support my motion support thank you guys. Thank you. Anyone else. I'd be remiss to mention there are some representatives from ownership here. They're just sitting in the back though. Okay. >> hello ownership um anybody here anything? Uh, just out of curiosity to the chair. Um, how many tables? I'm having a hard time understanding how many tables I count 13 that were going to be outside. How many tables do you plan having outside? And I know that last session we talked about creating some distance between the tables and the street. So, um, it doesn't look like you're anywhere near the parking areas but do you know how many how many tables you're going to be putting out? >> yes I actually just put it up on the on the slide. Um so um I think I actually uh 11 indoor and 11 outdoor. Are the additional. Uh no total for the entire uh the entire thing there aren't that many outdoors. Um, there's you know, ten more seats at the outdoor counter. Um, most of the seating is really meant to be inside again, you know, it's more to avoid too much noise outside from the diners. Uh, no, you can't tell what page this is. Uh, but it's way high up in the in the full agenda. Um, you seem to have tables outside of your green line to the northeast and they seem to be in the middle of the sidewalk. Is that correct? Um. >> no no no, we don't have any on on the east side. Uh the overview there the overview. Paul there's concrete all the way around that property and there's seating tables and everything that are out on the um what used to be the driveway but it was a poured cement driveway. So when it was andy olmos that's where you ate your pizzas and all the rest of that stuff. And then what there is is then abuts a walkway or so there's plenty there's no nothing impinging along the side. There's a huge sidewalk outside. It's a huge sidewalk okay. And it's one of those you'd have to really go look at it for those of us who have eaten there all know but you know he doesn't know so I need to explain it to him and I think I'm doing a very good job all the way around that that thing is concrete all the way out and it's beautifully done by the way. I just want to let you know but they used to be able to drive all the way around that and the concrete is historically significant to the building itself. So if you take out the concrete you kind of diminish what that building originally looked like. Thank you. I'm just saying. Thank you. I'm just looking at a at a what looks to be a table in the middle of the sidewalk to the north of that green wall. But if that's not a table then I'm in no problems. Ian is there a a portable mic or a wireless? Yeah. >> it's just. There. >> so um yeah so on on this plan it doesn't actually show the sidewalk um the property line that's where the sidewalk begins. So I have a landscape plan which actually shows the site so we have. That so that's landscaping and then we have the sidewalk and then biscayne boulevard. Oh uh it's a lamppost. Yeah yeah sorry those aren't those aren't um yeah. That's not a table. That was all I was curious about. >> all right. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else on this side? Good good good good. Your, um just a quick question. You're okay with the conditions? I know that vicki mentioned and yes, one more she didn't mention that full. Agreement with all the conditions. Fantastic. >> thank you. I just want to thank the applicant for working with all the parties involved and staff. Um I love to see presentations like this when everyone comes together before they meet us. So thank you for doing your due diligence. >> thank you. Um. I have a couple questions. Um, just, um ,housekeeping questions that for me to ask for clarification the the floor area is interior only. Right. So that's when we look at floor area we're only looking at the interior portion of the building. But the floor area we um we point out with the square footage of the outdoor areas for the exterior space and then also the interior space. So both of both of them are computed towards the total. Yes. >> and it's it doesn't have 5000ft2. >> yeah. No no yeah I just wanted clarification. Yeah. >> and then um the application calls for an increase in the intensity of the existing structure. Is that because we're adding the portion in the rear correct. And and adding it to the project that wasn't. Originally that correct. Originally they're correct. And the the and the pizzeria didn't they didn't have they had zero parking. Excuse me the pizzeria that wa