Board of County Commissioners

Oh, it's not. Oh, there we go. All right. Morning everyone. Welcome. Today's May 6th. May 6, 2026. A joint meeting between the board of county commissioners and the planning commission. We'll begin with an invocation by Ba Pastor Brock Patterson from Longboat Island Chapel, followed by a pledge of the pledge of allegiance by Commissioner George Cruz. Please stand if you are able We ask them emergency response. Thank you for serving the heart of us here. I ask you also ask that you bless them all and I know they take care of me. So thank you for what they do and bless this time together so that we can be the best that we can be in your service. We pray this in your holy name. Amen. America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right, you may be seated. Our staff have put together a great presentation covering planning and development from planning and development services to the CIP. So, thank you all very much for that. And if nothing else, I I hope the public, the board, and the planning commission can take away this. When I read the statute on what the local what enables a planning commission function to exist, it's a it's statute defines what a local planning agency is and it gives through a local ordinance that we've adopted, prior boards have adopted decades ago, uh the planning commission the authority to also recommend any updates to the land development code or comprehensive plan. I think we all know this, but just to restate for the public. People think that anytime a project comes forth, that's planning and so forth, but really I certainly hope to see after this work session because we rely on the planning commission for advice on on future planning that we do begin to see some self-initiated comp plan amendments, code amendments, small or large. We don't have to wait for a project to come to the desk to make those recommendations. With that, Miss Nap, I'll turn it over to you. >> Yeah, good morning commissioners. Uh for the record, Nicole Knap, director of development services. And um we're here today for a joint work session between our planning commission members and the board of county commissioners. Um the joint meeting was requested by our planning commission earlier this year in February and then further supported by the board in March. So that's what brings us here today. Today we're here to discuss all things transportation, if you will. But I'd like you to keep in mind uh while we're going through this so we can ask you at the end. The planning commission also asked for a joint workshop on storm water. So if you could think about what type of elements you might want us to include in that presentation. We plan to bring that back to you um the first Wednesday I believe is the date in August when you return from recess. Um so you'll notice that the team has prepared a nice packet for you today. This is primarily so you could see any of the maps and data up close because they won't be as uh easy for you to see all the way up here on the screen, but also the very front page creates a definition andor common used acronyms and what those mean is so you can reference back and forth. We tend to speak in a lot of acronyms. Um so we wanted to make sure you had those at your fingertips. So, we're going to start with transportation and we're going to move through three different segments of um the presentation and we're going to pause at the end of each section to ask questions. That's our one ask of you today. If we could try to let Prony get through the first phase, we believe he'll he'll answer most if not all your questions and if not then there'll be some opportunity for questions. Um if we could do that, we think the presentation will go a lot faster for you. Um, and so then with that, I'm going to kick it off to Prony and then when we transition later to the CIP program, then Clark Davis will step forward. So, >> thank you, M. Just for the record, we have Commissioner Bob McCann, Commissioner Jason Bearden, and Planning Commissioner Lorraine Proer on the call. >> Uh, good morning, commissioners. My name is uh Po Nibon Fields, transportation planning division manager with V development services department. Uh we are here for the uh transportation workshop. Before we start a little bit about myself uh once again my name is Ponfields. I was born and raised in Haiti where I went to earn my bachelor in civil engineering. After working there for five years, I went to Belgium to earn my master's in transportation planning. And in the early 2000s, I came here. I went to USF to earn my PhD in civil engineering and conservation transportation planning. After working with uh SAS County, FDOT67 in 2009, I started working with Malachi County. Let's start. Um I will be covering transportation planning items uh which are traffic sulation plan, traffic study review process and comprehensive plan amendment. Clark Davis deputy director for public works will be talking about the CIP and all the component of the CIP. Um let's start what is the traffic circulation plan okay this is adoped in the comp plan you have them in the table 51 in map five series it's about the major roads not local roads okay that tell us about the level of service on the different roads uh is also planned for roads that will be built in the future in the county but They call them to their affairs. Also some of them are considered as arts and collectors. Based on what this definition is based on Florida statute 50 46 chapter 3234 based on that an art road is a road relatively relatively high volume traffic long average sweep and high mobility high mobility importance. On the other hand, you have collector road. You can see the difference between these two most likely is about the the traffic volume. And it's why if you look at these two words for instance Bokai and Moasalu the difference between both of them are connected to 301 and 41. Even Moasen is connected to I75. The difference between these two is the traffic volume. It's why boa is still a collector and mokasin is an artal. Now we need to understand about how many of these affairs are art and collectors. Currently, currently in Manatach County, we have 67 miles of roads that are built currently, but 92 of them are arterials. 224 are quality 190 arts on under the state. This is county facilities in FD facilities. It's what we have now. But what we plan to have in the future if to expand the the the network you can see the county is planning to expand the network enough county and his county to meet the demand is why you think the growth is going to happen in these areas which mean in the future we expect to have 750 miles of the county network will be expanded but every will be the same because they don't have any plan to expand the land mass they can expand the capacity of the roads that mean from four to four to six but the land mass will be the same. This is what we can say the um skeleton of the network. But to understand this map you have two elements you need to consider. The first one is table 51. After that after that is the link sheet. T five one is going to let you know about the um standard develop service the functional classification of the road. Okay. The n of lead and the route of weight needed to build this road and we need also need to need the level the lit. The next is going to tell you about the you can find in table five table 51 the project the adopted develop service but you're not going to find the projected develop service and also we need to make the difference between develop service and Q develop service okay develop service most likely on one mode but Q develop service is multimodal We can see the county adopted two level of services C and D based on the location of the world. FDOT also they have C and D also based on the location of the world. Um also we have the traffic count station. It's where the county collect the data for the AD which is average and the traffic. We collect this every year at the end of the at then the beginning of next year we can have an idea about the the traffic volume and the different but also this is the link sheet we need to understand what's happening now all the the different tes are performing in term of service I want to pay attention to these first three columns okay you have standard level of service existing develop service projected develop service. It's why when we so met the when we take to the board the applications we we always want to make sure we make the difference between these three level of services and pay attention to this last column. Okay, that is the available capacity and we can see every time This number are negative. You can expect the level of service to be negative. This is projected level of service. >> Oh, okay. Every time this number is a negative, you can expect this to be this is projected. Okay. And this is updated every month based on this reserve. Okay. But when the county approve an application, you need to reserve the trip. When you reserve the trip, this is going to change. This is going to change as well. This is based on projected project that the county already approved, not build yet. Now all these teres are performing now in ter of in term of level of service. Okay. the county we have 417 miles under the county. Okay. Six miles are currently deficient which is about 1% of the county. On the other end FDOT we have 55 miles of road are deficient now which is about 9%. When you add the manag to FD which mean currently in the county we have about 10% of the road are currently deficient. We can see that it's obvious you can see 64 C70 all of them are state facilities but I want to put out to this we need to at the same times the data from the two bridges okay which is green bridge and desto are not included in the in this traffic study because we know these two bridges they carry a heavy load of traffic. This is the same thing sit 64 this segment from next to the hospital. This segment carry a lot of traffic but these are under the cities city palmetto city of pedon they were not included in in this analysis. This is what we have now but in the future based on the project the county already approve that are not build yet. Okay. If you consider the TF network the way it is now, if all these project were to be conicted today 73 miles of the county facility will be deficient under under the county's jction. Okay, this is 10%. FDOT 84 miles which mean if you add the county to FDOT that mean 22% of the facilities in the county are expected to be deficient in the future if the county approve if all the push they approve get cos in the meantime the county doesn't have the mean to extend the capacity of the vote we can see once again most of them are state facilities ities and you have some counties facilities as well for harbor these are expected to be deficient in the future if the county doesn't have the mean to expand the capacity of this world uh before moving to the next uh segment no one's hands are raised I'll start with commissioner I ran >> good Morning. Quick question on arterial versus collector. You brought up Buckeye Road. >> We are constantly reacting to traffic patterns and traffic studies that we do. Can we not get ahead of this? Because we know if we can take a road to an arterial versus a collector, we can get state funding for it. So, is there a reason why we cannot designate Buckeye today as an arterial road versus a collector? >> Okay. um to for us to be able to go out and get DOT funding to help fix the road or help you know increase the level of service. We know level of service is not based on the road base. It's based on traffic patterns and traffic flow. But if we if we were to correct go out and do it ahead of time, be proactive instead of reactive, can we not do that and start naming some of these roads that we say that are collectors that we know they're going to be arterials in the next 5 years? Can we not do that? Okay, this map I showed was based on what we have now, but we proposing it to change it from we I'm going to talk about that in my third my third segment. You are proposing to the board today. Okay. To change the classification of Bokeh from collector to minor material. >> I'm just using Buckeye as an example. I mean we have other roads. >> Yes. Yes. that that are you're saying are collectors today, >> but in the at some point way out in the future could be an arterial. >> Can we not say they're an art? Can we not designate them as arterials so we can get funding from the state or can we not just say these are going to be arterial roads and we want to get and we can go to DOT and get some funding? >> Yes, but for this road I think they have to meet you they have to meet the classification from FDO from from the state. But I'm telling you that there are two of the words. Okay, I'm we are proposing now to change the functional classification. Okay, I will I will be covering this at the in my third segment of my on my presentation. We we'll cover this. >> Uh go ahead. And then I have Commissioner Bearden's hand raised >> to add to what Prony is saying there. There's and he'll cover it in his third segment. There's two different maps. There's an existing functional classification map. That map is more or less fed to us by the state. They after every dennial census, they update it and they decide what's collector, what's arterial, what's urban, what's rural, and so on. Um my recollection is that Buckeye's probably in an urban transitioning area and a collector. It is federal aid eligible as a collector, but because of its behavior and pony will explain it later, it makes sense to start thinking of it as an arterial for future planning service purposes. and I think he's going to propose that we we initiate an amendment with that change and some others later in the presentation. It's not something you'll act on today, but it's to give you a preview of what's coming. >> Commissioner Bearden, go ahead, sir. >> Thank you. Um my only question is um these multimodal lanes, where exactly are are we wanting to put these lanes? Let me try to go back uh commissioner for clarification. >> Yeah. >> Uh we can ask me to stop when you Okay. Which one you talking about? >> Keep going back. I think it's the one where it's a level versus quality of service slide. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Let me go back. There we go. Okay. >> So, you're talking about I mean adding multimodal lanes in specific areas, right? So, where exactly are you wanting to put these lanes? >> No, you think it's about we move to LOS to Q. Okay, we need to when that mean when we design the road, we need to consider the multimodal concept. When you consider about for bike lane and sidewalk in the road, this is the concept that mean if you go with level of service only for the drivers, for the car drivers, it'll be different. If you consider the multimod the concept that's been the car when you try to accommodate the multimodel typical section in the the road for instance if you look at uh mukaseno for instance it's multimodel you have bike you have sidewalk and all the new roads under design now they have they have the concept of multimodel >> okay But what designates a road that gets multimodal and what a road that does not get that essentially? >> Okay. It's also based on >> it's also based on the context classification. We be we'll be covering that in the my next segment. It's based on the road and the land use that mean if you're in rural area for instance maybe different. If you're urban area we need to find way to accomodate this road. We know you're going to have more uh pedestrian okay more cyclist or bicyclist in this area. If you look at liquid wrench all the on liquid wrench they are built with the multimodal concept. Some of them have have uh trails. Some of them have bike lane and sidewalk. This is the concept. As long as you have the right of way we need to go with the concept to build these to meet the needs of the citizen. supports. So then my question to you is what supports the concept >> the concept >> what where are you g gathering data or what type of data is supporting that multimodal concepts are in a specific area where we need to put this concept or this this this type of road that we're going to build out with these specific lanes for bicycle pedestrian like what what are you just building it out? No, you don't believe that. >> It's a good look. It's a It's a feel-good thing. Or are you saying, "Okay, this is a great area for this particular type of road." >> Okay. >> And what what type of data are you getting to back that and support that is what my question is. >> Okay. It's based on the land use. Okay. That mean if you are in the urban area or suburban area, okay, you you have residential. Okay. that you you you you we go with the concept that we need to have sidewalk by cleans people is the way for people to have other choices for for them to move. This is the concept I'm going to I'm going to cover later about the is based on the cortex classification for FD FD define context classification we we try to follow classification is going to tell us to tell us it's going to tell us exactly what section to have based on the land use that mean if you for instance in my car for instance that mean the I claim may not needed or sidewalk but if you're in this area down where we have residential okay >> yeah but then but then I would have to say we're building a trail I mean we're building a trail that's coming up d like I mean you understand what I'm saying so like my my qu I don't I don't think you understand what I'm asking you as far as like what justifi I I know you're saying like the zoning and and whatnot but like my justification is do we need that or or can we expand it to another lane instead of building? Does it actually need that sidewalk? There is what is what my question is. Right. >> If if you expand if if you expand out of the land it's is going to be uh mono mode. You're going to expand it for the cars. But if you want to make it multi mode, you need to be sidewalk and bike. >> I know. But but I guess I guess what I'm what I'm saying is that I mean within the justification is does it need a sidewalk there or does it need a lane? I guess is what my is what my point I'm trying to make. And and how are you justifying that is is what my question is. >> I think Commissioner Cruz, you had a followup to that. So go ahead. >> I'm gonna let J I'll let Jason finish. >> Okay. Sure. >> I do have a followup, but I'll let Jason. >> Yeah. I mean, I'm pretty much I mean, that's my question is is is is what I'm trying to get answered, but Okay. >> But, >> Commissioner Denise Greer with Development Services, the public works standards also dictate when we have uh sidewalks and bike lanes and and and how many lanes of traffic. Um, so I don't know if that's what you're asking, but we also evaluate based on the amount of traffic if if it's even feasible to >> I guess this is where I'm getting at. So, are you guys out there counting how many bikes are going by to see if we need a bike lane? >> No. >> Or are you just saying, "Okay, we need a bike lane here because we we believe it's just, you can justify enough bikes coming through this lane or not." That's that's my question in a more simplistic term. >> I think we look at the type of the type of uses that are nearby to see if people are going to walk or ride their bikes to um Publix or a school or so we take a we look and see what type of uses are in the area. >> Okay. Okay. >> All right. Go ahead. Thank you. Yeah. Since this is a work session, I'll kind of opine on why I disagree with most of that respectfully. I mean, I I I've talked about this before and I've written about this. Level of service is a terrible metric. Um because first off, it it's almost the antithesis of safety. Uh level of service has to do with how fast you can drive. Uh it has to do with how little the delays are to keep cars flowing, which is a good part of it. So, there's validity to it. But, you know, you don't want roads as a one. That means you have to build all these extra lanes in place of things like say sidewalks. Um you have to maintain those. Go look at the Wall Street Journal today. There's a whole article about how uh all municipalities are end up bankrupt because they can't maintain the infrastructure they're being forced to put in politically. So all you do is building wider wider roads to get people to drive faster and faster which inherently is less safe. But level of service is just that. Um it the the problem with the the whole argument is counting how many bikes to see do we need a bike lane. Well, there's you're not going to count bikes because there's not a bike lane. It's it's like saying let's count how many people use the bus in Lakewood Ranch to determine if we should put a bus lane in Lakewood Ranch. There is no bus in Lakewood Ranch. So that that that's that's why, you know, that that's why there's other metrics and I I I've talked to people internally about why we don't use things like the vehicle miles traveled because I think that's a better metric. if the goal is to move people from one place to the other more efficiently because if I put a bus lane, a dedicated bus lane on a road and that's going to move 40 people constantly, that's inherently by definition almost going to make our LOS worse because that bus is going to start and stop and start and stop and it's going to take up a lane and that's going to temporarily make our LOS worse, but it's going to move more people more efficiently, quicker, and cheaper and take less maintenance in the future by doing so. So, you know, there's better metrics we can use, but everyone's hung up on LS every time we have a land use means. What's the LOS today? What's the LS tomorrow? Based upon a hypothetical development somewhere down the road because everyone just believes the better you can make that letter, the better off everybody is. But that's just not true. One, financially, it's 100% not true. You should never be building to A's and B's. And two, it it just doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense economically. It doesn't make sense environmentally. there's better ways of doing this. So to say, what if we take away sidewalks and bike lanes and buses and just build more and more lanes? Let's pave over more green space, make more impervious surfaces, create more liabilities to maintain those things long term, and discourage people from using multimodal options to force people to get in their cars even if they're only going a half mile, a mile down the road to get to the store because there's no alternative option. because we've used up all those alternative options to put more lanes to force people into cars and then say the traffic's bad. Yeah, we created the traffic being bad cuz we created a car centric community that you have no option but to get in your car which in creates the traffic. So at some point somebody has to be able to make the tough decision of there's a better way of doing this cuz this is not a sustainable way of doing it. and constantly focusing on loss every time we look at anything is a terrible way of doing it because it's discouraging the very things we should be doing. So even the concept of trading sidewalks for additional bike lanes should be counter to what creates a good community and a safe community and a honestly a financially viable community in the long term. That's my opinion. >> All right, I'll jump. I think I think that I think the main thing is I think we got to look at our population though, right? Like when you're looking at these additional lanes like within our population, what is the demographic, right? Who's going to use those lanes? I I also want to look at that aspect of it too. like is 60% of our population going to really utilize a bike and and go from from point A to point B to work or to their local VA or to wherever that might be. Are they actually going to use that? And and another question is why do we not have bus routes coming into Lakewood Ranch? How do we know that that wouldn't be utilized out here? >> Right. >> I mean obviously there's been data that possibly has been ran. I would assume to to say that, hey, you know what, buses aren't going to work really well in Lakewood Ranch. So, that's my only point is is I don't want us to make decisions just throwing out there thinking, oh yeah, we're going to build these multimodal lanes and people going to use them. Are they are they? And and we're talking about paving. We're going to have to pave sidewalks over that green space. We're going to have to pave lanes over that green space that you're talking about. So, I mean, I just don't want us to continue to make decisions where we believe is the best fit for the community, not based on data that's supporting that. So, that's all I'm saying. >> Sure. But, but at least in this case, we can actually look to other communities similar to us. You look at the Sun Coast Trail. You look at Legacy Trail. You look at dedicated bike lanes like at the Beach Runner um and the stuff up in Penllis and and Lynx Limo, whatever it is in Orlando. You'll get the dedicated bus lanes that parts of Sarasota put you can you can extrapolate based upon similar population trends, similar age demographics in other communities to see the success or failure of these things. And most of them have in fact been successful. Uh, where I've never seen anyone be successful is building more lanes. Just go look at Houston and places like that where there's 26 lane highways and they're still jammed up for two hours a day and someone screaming that too many people moved here. Let's build two more lanes. Um, that's just that that's never worked. But I have seen uh trail systems and multimodal and other forms work uh in other places. >> Anyone from the planning commission want to chime in? We're kind of I'm just curious. This is a joint meeting last I checked. Rob Brown. Yeah. Again, I'm kind of old school. Back in the time when we >> I got it. I got it. Um back when we had um you know um DRI and concurrency. It may not be this this time and Clark maybe going to talk to it in the future, but you know concurrency we built the roads and we built the infrastructure before the development came. Um but now we're seeing the projects coming in here and saying well okay the county is not using concurrency it's using the multimodal process. Um my question is how are these multimodal studies done and how are we using that data to get the correct infrastructure in place at the right time. the next section. >> Yeah. >> I want to say it may be Clark or something or >> it's the very next section of this presentation. >> Okay. And uh just let just wanted to let people know planning commissioner Bower is on the phone as well. When it comes to level of service and quality of service, one of the avenues of research I pursued is what are things that other jurisdictions in Florida didn't really get a lot of great answers there. So, I looked outside the state and there's examples where the I get where you're going with quality of service and multimodal one, but I've not seen a system that a transportation network that really escapes level of service. But they do incorp deemphasize it in place of other metrics or even going to a point where you define level of service for um bicycle uses, pedestrian uses and even public transit uses and the numbers look a little bit different. One of the things I would cite is the transportation research board in 2008 came up with a series of metrics for LOS for those types of transportation and it was quite interesting. Uh they deter I I won't go into the the detail but it's called report it's uh let me just pull it I had to pull up uh it's called uh it's from the national well it's under the transportation research board but it's the national cooperative highway research program report 616 uh titled multimmoal level of service analysis for urban streets it's can be pretty technical and dense but um the question from that prony is quality of service I I it seems to invariably point back to level of service A through F. But I'm curious, I'm seeing a picture here um of different kinds of transportation mo meth modes. What research have you done and staff done to move us off or deemphasize LOS in favor of something that can measure whether it's loss or VMT? uh something that can measure the overall um not overall but can measure the LO the quality of transportation per mode and allow us to assess whether we should invest more in one form over the other. I'm just curious. Yeah, this is based on FDOT. FD provided the data and if you can if you look at that mean this you have all the different modes you have develop service for bic bicycle pedestian and bus and FDOT provided the data for Q we decided to follow this data from FDOT FD standard >> the only thing I've seen from DOT is contact classification and some data but nothing saying I This is just me opinion now, but I would really encourage this board planning commission to take a look at alternative forms of measuring transportation health quality. One of the things certainly is VMT. Some of that does tie a lot of that does tie back into air quality and environmental pollution regulation. Um it's an important metric. Um but I also think if we can find an opportunity to provide more depth more breadth with what we're measuring um and then depth within those metrics. So for example be for bus transit all we have is a distinction between wrership levels at 15inute intervals or 20-minute intervals. That doesn't really tell me the quality of service. That doesn't tell me how long a bus is stuck in traffic. Uh with bicycle for example, there's nothing that really tells me are they going in a what's the quality distinction between shared use lanes uh like a trail or like a bike lane that's adjacent to or on a street for example. Nothing that measures it and the quality of this the experience they have how much road debris they run into how many signalized intersections or unsalized intersections they run across. Those are things that I think the report touches on, but just something for this board to look at and I think staff too. What we're looking at, not this comprehensive plan update, but future transportation ones. I think this board and the public need some depth because when we see some hands raised, when we see LOS A throughF, as Commissioner Cruz said, it it it forces a board to look at investing in ex just the road capacity. It doesn't even look at functionality like with uh in Commissioner Ron's district Elcon. There's a study going on there. LOS captures none of the safety metrics or information that uh that are going into improvements for safety at Elcon. Same for Ry. So, we're tracking that separately. All that to say LOS is not the best metric for us. I think one for roads needs to be inclusive of safety metrics but and there's a lot of those out there and also needs to dive into loss for those modes of transportation bicycle ped bus. I'll just leave it at that. Anyone else? All right, we'll move on. Oh, go ahead, Commissioner Shulo. >> Great. So, appreciate the comments so far. I did come here to learn a lot more about this. So, I appreciate your slides. uh every time I see these in project plans, I'm getting just small pieces of it and not just the discussion about how you came to the decision. Um so thanks for for putting this together. I had before I respond to you uh Mr. Chair, I did want to ask uh I think you should have the FDA uh line on your road slides for both current and future. I think you should show that so people understand where we're sort of putting the brakes on more density uh from the FTAB just on both of those slides that you had there. Um and then it would have been really nice to see those current and future slides overlaid. So you showed what the current future is. They were two separate slides, but it would have been nice to sort of see that overlap like here's what you're currently looking at the future roadway to be. if if he can slam those two right on top as a layer, um may maybe it's easier for the public and and us to see how that's changing, how the existing classification is and how that's changing. Just just a couple of things that were going through my mind there. But you asked what sort of planning commission things we could think about and and no matter what the road type is. I I feel like that's an amplifying piece of information to the base question is what what's the acceptable ratio of project completions here. And and what I mean by ratios are you have a 10year SIP planning to delivery best case 10 10 years. I'm talking it's more like 12 when you start talking about it and then you then you put pavement on the ground. That's 10 years for county projects. But you have and we currently have and have had over the past 10 years. I'm saying commercial, but I don't mean commercial or residential. I mean just projects are coming to this board and getting approved and put in the ground at a three-year cycle. They're delivering in three years. we're delivering in 10 to 12 years. So, how do you close that gap, that ratio, and what's more acceptable? Because the ratio we have now is clearly not acceptable. We can talk about whether it's got a bike lane or whatever, but the what's a more acceptable ratio? 12:3 is not acceptable because that leaves you with almost eight years or nine years of residents feeling the impact of that delay. So, what's the solution to that? I mean, we could spend more money uh on our capital investments, right, or our SIP projects. And I think you're already doing some of those things by tightening the reins on your project approvals. I see that in in the ratio of projects that are getting approved just this year alone. So, I think you're approaching one in projects and you said, don't just focus on the projects. You asked us at the beginning. Hey, you guys work on projects, but think about planning. Well, that's what I'm thinking about in planning. Closing the 12 to3 gap that needs an investment from this county, and I'm I don't like to pay more taxes. I I hate to see that spending, but we have a war chest of cash that needs to be invested. And I really hope you do that. And if you're asking my planning commission ideas, our plan should be to invest in our infrastructure. And then we could probably all get together as a team and lay this out, I think, by district commissioners to evaluate each one of these segments. What are your wants, needs, and what you have? Right? Here's your three. Here's what you want. Here's what you need. And here's what you currently have. And then prioritize them. One, two, and three. what's your priority of those? I think if you lay that out as a team or in a group discussion or if the staff does it and then each commissioner sort of looks at it, then you talk about okay, do you do you want it? Do you need a road? Do you want a multimodal road? And what do you currently have? And because each district commissioner should be able to represent their district and say what they have seen and what is impacting them because that's what they're bringing to us, right? Is their communities needs or their community's concerns. Um but that ratio is what needs to close. Two methods to do that. Restricting projects and investing more in the infrastructure. and this could go beyond roads to storm water and water quality and so forth. But that's my comments to that and appreciate the uh education today. >> Thank you. One quick thing. >> Well, let me finish real quick. >> In my third in my third section, we're going to see what I'm proposing now. The FD been part of the is going to be shown on the on the map. >> Yes. So the the FDA line that's in the thorough future thoroughare section. It's a purple line further down there. If you look at proposed, we'll cover that in a bit. Why don't we just go to the next slide? Actually, we can start moving to that. >> But commissioner, talking about the gap, three years and seven years, talking about close the gap, the time for us to to build the facility. What? What? What? No, what I mean is uh a a development comes in or a project comes in and they are start to finish they're putting a demand on the infrastructure in three years. They are releasing traffic and residents onto your roads and your infrastructure in three years. They want to turn they want to turn the product, right? They want to turn the table or they want to get their residents in. They want to get their profit. It's taking us 12 years to deliver infrastructure. So that's a gap that we need to close somehow. Um, so that's what I mean when I say a project comes before the county gets approved and those residents are in there and demand on the system exists in 3 years and you're 8 years away from providing uh a suitable road or a multimodal opportunity to connect to the Publix that they built down the street. That's what I mean. That's not you guys doing. The concept is the concept is when we have the CEO for this specific application that doesn't mean this facility is deficient at that time and even if we identify the deficiency for us to build a road there's no way you can build it in three years okay we need to identify the the need we need to put it on the CIP okay if you have the funding we need to go to the study we need to go to the design. Okay. After that, we need to write off acquisition. It's it's if it's needed and for the infrastructure to be built. If you look at Moas for instance, have been on the road for I don't know six, seven years. It takes some time for us to identify the need and to um to have this road constructed. It's not also. >> No, no. I I please I I understand what I'm saying is existing now in west of the FDAP. I think there is enough projects that are already digging dirt right now that are already impacting the infrastructure levels of service for and enough data of those trips for a reasonable decision to be made on those infrastructure improvements. Uh, I'm not challenging whether or not a new project >> dig and dirt right now that are already impacting >> God. Is that you? >> Can we go back to the Zoom screen so I can see whose hand who's on the meeting and then go ahead. >> Oh, okay. Went down. >> Oh, >> yeah. I what I'm saying is I understand what you're saying like just because a project pops up at on Lakewood Ranch Boulevard that you got to change your roadway. I think there's clearly and I hear it every week at your meetings, there's clearly people that are concerned about this and there's enough projects already in the hopper to prove out that this needs to happen. So that's why that's why I'm suggesting that we look at doing this faster. You don't have to create a new road. Uh it's just the data is already there supporting the need for the infrastructure improvement. It doesn't take a it doesn't take a a complex spreadsheet to prove that out. >> It it doesn't but it does take a spreadsheet to count the money necessary. We we could design every road this weekend if everyone works 24 hours a day. We probably have most of them designed, but we can't pay for them. Like I I think that's the the missing piece of like this concept that that every two years people get voted in and we sit here and outside of the sunshine maliciously figure out how not to build infrastructure to make people's lives miserable is is a fallacy. We if it was up to us we would fix all of the infrastructure because then other than animals and a few other things we'd have nobody complaining about anything. But that that's not reality. We have a finite amount of money and unfortunately a disproportionate share of the money because concurrency was effectively gotten rid of at the state level and we'll talk about that next. I don't want to take your thunder. Um comes from impact fees and impact fees come from developments getting coed and then giving us money to build the roads. There are some ways around that but they're they're they're not be in my opinion they're not best case scenarios. Like people talk about impact fee credits, which effectively is a roundabout way of concurrency because you can encourage some developer to put some road in prior to their development or concurrent with their development, which sounds great. However, they're geo fenced into the immediate area of that development. And so the impact fees they would otherwise pay us it say off of Ry Road they would pay us this money or a bad example. Let's let's they'll they'll build something someplace where there's not a huge infrastructure. You like like North River Ranch. Let's throw pat under the bus here for this one. Uh they agreed to to build Fort Hammer Road which at the present time effectively only benefits North River Ranch because it goes straight through North River Ranch. It's a spine up through the middle. Eventually, it's going to benefit everyone, but right now it doesn't. But everyone up in North River Ranch has an amazing four-lane road, divided landscaping. It's beautiful. We used impact fee credits to get that. In the short term, concurrency, which everyone's clamoring for, that's what it is. The long term, we could have collected tens of millions of dollars of impact fees and we could have been connecting Buffalo to 60. We could have been fixing Eerie Road. We could have been working on Mendoza. All those were in the same quadrant. all could have been fixed by people who who have lived there for a decade or more 12 years patiently waiting their turn to have the roads fixed. But instead of using the impact fees for the next up for golf course for all for ry road all of those could have been used that impact fee could have been used for instead somebody said concurrency. Let's have let's have Fort Hammer widened using impact fee credit. That that's what that is. That that's the roundabout way of of working back into the system. But the the fallacy is there's people, you know, that concurrency is supposed to benefit the whole community when in reality concurrency is disproportionately benefiting the new people. The people moving here from Ohio, moving here from New Jersey, people moving into these new houses that are getting built by new developers in select places because it's fixing their intersection. They're why they're they're putting in their turn lanes. They're they're putting in their spinal road for future benefit instead of saying, "Okay, who's next? Who's been waiting the longest? Where are all those people in Rye Wilderness that are stuck in traffic on Ry Road? How do we widen that road? Because there's only three ways to pay for widening roads. There's impact fees, which if we do concurrency is going to be hyperfocused on the new development and not where the the the biggest need is that's waited the longest. There's appropriations, which are few and far between, and the state's pulling back on member programs. we have a we're going to have new Congress people up in DC all around us so that they're going to be harder or the current taxpayers pay for it and for a few years that's what we were doing. We bonded hundreds of millions of dollars for upper Manatee and for 75th and all these roads, but all the debt service of those are being borne by the people who already lived here. And so if you want to fix all of this, if you want to catch up infrastructure, which you hear about on the campaign trail, we're going to build all this infrastructure before we approve anything, someone's going to have to make the tough decision to bond like a billion dollars. Look at Sarasota here. Perfect example. Sarasota just had a report come out that they were $1.77 billion dollar behind. I think that was the number $1.77 billion behind on infrastructure. So they're trying to figure out how to do it. But even there, like we can only go up a certain amount on impact fees because of state and they're talking about potentially floating hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bonds, debt service paid by the taxpayers and proposing a 1% additional sales tax down in Sarasota right now to catch up infrastructure. So everything's a give or take. If you want the infrastructure, it's got to be paid for. It's not free. And right now there's a finite amount of impact fees because of the state. We're being sued on our impact fees because this board did in fact try to substantially increase them. There's a finite amount of appropriations. The easiest way to get money, but the most painful way to get money is from the taxpayers between sales taxes, increased millage, and um and bonding. Th those are the easiest ways, but they're being born by everybody. So, people have to make decisions. Everyone keeps saying the first part, build roads. Okay, we're up for it. We got staff to do it. How how how do we do that? And concurrency I don't think is the answer because that was a great answer until it was no longer a great answer because all the people who didn't have concurrency for the past 20 years didn't have their infrastructure built on on Golf Course on Ry on Erie on Mendoza on Ellington Gillette on Canal on 17th on they're never going to have new there's not a whole lot of new development on Ry right now um because we we've been declining them because of of traffic. there's no development in places like Mendoza and places like when are they ever going to get the roads built if we focus back on concurrency or do it in a roundabout way with impact fee credits. So, I don't think that's the long-term solution because those people are just going to be permanently stuck in in what's perceived as a bad situation. And the new people in the furthest away areas are going to be the ones with the four-lane roads and the 10-ft sidewalks you can use golf golf carts and the landscape medians with the palm trees. the the new people are going to be the ones that benefit because they're going to keep their they're going to capture their own impact fees through credits. >> Yeah, I understand the the impact fee credits are aren't super exciting to me when I hear them in projects for that same reason because the impact fees only build the road. They don't maintain the road. Correct. Right. So, that's that's again born later on. You hope the road lasts seven years if they did it right. Uh if they, you know, if we supervise that, if our engineers did the right job and it doesn't fail prematurely, right? So, uh, I I I love hearing you say like, "Hey, impact fees aren't the end all be all." I guess I need, uh, better education on the money that we have in our war chest reserve to be used for that. I I um, admittedly, I need more information on that. I need more information on that amount of money that we hear it. There's a budget hawk guy that comes to most of the meetings. I love it whenever he's there because he really talks about how much money we have >> uh back there. I I just love hearing him. >> He makes up those >> hopefully he doesn't make them up, but um >> but the point being is uh sometimes you do have to dig into your war chest, right? Sometimes you have to dig into those savings. And are we not able to do that because we're bonding based on that on that amount of money? Uh that's what I don't know. And I'm admittedly saying I don't know that. when you say, "Give me an answer." I need more information to propose another solution. But sometimes when you're stressed financially, like a resident might be after a terrible hurricane season, you have to dig into your war chest, right? Your your little nest egg for the payoff later. And that's what I'm suggesting or I'd like to know more about. I'm sure this meeting isn't the one to cover that, but is there budget opportunities to dig into our, you know, rainy day fund or our war chest of emergency reserves to make these changes? And that doesn't need to be in on Ry Road or out out east. That could be in district two, right? I drive down some of these roads. I'm going to go down there later to go to a shop that I have some work getting done on and those roads are terrible. I mean, the sidewalks are terrible. like, you know, I'm I understand that they are I think they've waited in line long enough. Um, so that's what I'm suggesting and I need more information on. I understand the funding streams that you're considering, but I I would like to know more about how we fund these things. What are we keeping a rainy day fund for if when it rains we don't use it? >> Sure. I mean, I would be cautious to believe numbers. Um, a lot of the reserves that you hear about are like we have hundreds of millions of dollars reserved for some for a new reverse osmosis plant for the for water and for pipes we're putting out for the east wellfield. Those are utility funds. That's an enterprise zone. You can't move those to roads. We've got we've got whole reserves for the expansion of Rocky Bluff Library that came from a dedicated library mill and library impact fees. You can't use those for roads. We've got a lot of reserves, but they're tied to specific things. And sometimes it's because something's going to cost $100 million and we have $90 million. We have to wait till we get to 100 to use that money in the interim. There's $90 million sitting there. And people point to that like look at this slush fund. But that's not factually correct. We just need to get the we're collecting the money to build something. And that's why we start collecting that money 1015 years early so we can collect it incrementally until we need to use it. Um >> so can I ask a broader question? So let's just take we had the hurricane relief uh money that that slug of cash that came in and we're working on distribute the name I'm sorry Mr. the the >> lasting manity >> the lasting manity right so was it 60% of that was we're able to use on some infrastructure improvements right and I think you took 40% to deliver to residents is that >> 50% has to go towards housing >> okay so 50% towards housing so let's just think about let's say it's I'm using round numbers 200 million >> it's 253 >> it was 250 but okay two 250 you use a percentage that what the way I see that in my brain here is if 40% of that was given to us, right? That means what's 40% of that come out to what 110 110 million >> part chunks of this money went to municipalities and so forth too. You're working off of the >> growth. If we now got $110 million of grant money because of the storm, well then that tells me you should be able to double down. You should be able to spend the other if you had 110 that you didn't have to spend and now you're getting it. Why not use that? You just got plused up. >> Yeah, but but that's why people get blinded by infrastructure. Know what that 110 is going for? It's going for storm water mitigation. It's going for fixing our maps. All the things that that people come into our chambers. >> No, I know what it's getting invested. What I'm saying is there's more. If if if that money hadn't come along, would we have spent it anyways? if if somebody didn't, you know, fly that money in on a on a on a grant for the devastation, would we have been able to spend that amount of money to do the storm water stuff because we didn't have an emergency? That's what I'm asking. I I get you. But again, I mean, you you made a you made a valid point, and I'm not trying to debate you on this. I just this is a work session, so I want to talk about about the maintenance cost of it. You want to take money that is a one-time thing and you want to spend it on stuff that becomes a long-term obligation that we're never going to get back. Sure. Sure. Hold on. Hold on. >> And everyone wants to quote unquote put infrastructure in before development, but the minute you put the infrastructure in, whether it be pipes for utilities or it be roads and sidewalks for transportation, you immediately start the clock on have to maintain those. How early do you put these in? How early do you build the four-lane or six lane road when you only need a two-lane road or possibly no road at that point in time to have it there ready to go? Because you're immediately preparing to maintain it. You may not even have the tax base to cover the cost of the the maintenance if the development doesn't come in. But what's actually going to happen is you go out and you're going to widen some roads. You're going to put a four-lane road where only a two is necessary or a four-lane road where none's necessary. You're going to end up with even more development because now people are going to see all this pent up capacity opportunity. We and and if you want proof of it, look at 44th. Nobody was proposing anything in the Elwood Park area and stuff like that because it was at the end of a dead-end road. As soon as 44th was even being contemplated to being finished with the flyover, we saw two different projects on 44th because someone said, "Now there's demand. Now there's capacity. I want to build this and I'm going to fill that capacity up immediately." So putting the infrastructure in ahead of time is actually going to accelerate development, not slow it down. But in the interim until that development happens, the maintenance cost is still going to be borne by the people of this town that don't even drive on that road because there's no place to drive to. But we've got roads in. And if you want to see that, go look at all the roads around places like uh Lehigh Acres and and all around Fort Meyers and Cape Coral back in 2009 and 10 and 11 and 12 when they were there they were four-lane roads to nowhere with dead palm trees and the medians because they put all the infrastructure in ahead of time because they floated CDD bonds, built all these roads and then nothing got built for half a decade and all those roads effectively crumbled and more or less had to be torn up and all the pipes end up crumbling because you got to keep the water flowing through them to keep them maintained. So, it it's a it I I get what you're saying, but it's a balancing act and it's a hard balancing act to perfect. And if some other municipalities perfected it, we would take the best practices, but I don't believe any municipalities ever perfected it. And >> you're right, it is a working session. I appreciate the conversation. It is all about planning and and I'm just saying that it's not what you're saying ahead of time or ahead of they're here. It's here is my is my counter to that, right? It's it it's not we're not estimating that that need is is coming. It it's it's generally here in a majority of these areas bound by an FDAB that's getting pushed. So, uh I by the analogy of Fort Meyers and these, you know, these things that may never get used. I'm just trying to emphasize that if we're going to plan, we should plan for where we are, I think, right now. Uh and that is an infrastructure deficit. I mean, it's I'm not I'm not here to I don't think anybody would argue that. I mean, I hope you're not anyways, but I appreciate it. This is a plan. So, >> I'm gonna jump in here. >> So, I think good points have been made. Commissioner Cruz, I agree with you. Commissioner Shulo, I think you're expressing generally the frustration of virtually everyone in the county, but you you don't just plan for today. That's that's reactive. You plan for tomorrow. So here's my thought on that, right? We don't have infinite money. The solution to what you're suggesting is we we have a treasury and we print manity dollars and use that to fund infrastructure. The reality is we have limited funds. And I think the days of with the state projecting deficits unless they change something drastically in FY27 and beyond, we're also not going to see a lot of revenues coming through appropriations there. With a new member of Congress, we're competing with five other counties. not going to see a lot of money coming there in the near future. And we don't know where property taxes are going. We're projecting what could be anywhere from a.7 mil reduction if you eliminate home property taxes for homestead properties to I don't even know what the millage like no millillage. It's not no millillage but whatever that number looks like if all of them are eliminated. And that's on top of what we've been considering. So the only solution is what we're doing now which is slowing or stopping development. not stopping denying applications on our tier on roadways that we know have problems like Rye and others I won't mention specific projects in the long term we talked about planning right why don't we get to Prony's next section here traffic study and then we can actually get to the element five which covers planning so go ahead Prony >> thank you commissioner >> I had a statement hold on I had a statement >> commissioner bearden we're gonna I I appreciate your your input but why don't we go to We're going to go to the next slide and then I I'll come back to you. Go ahead, sir. Peron. >> Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you for your questions. Um traffic study review process now. Um what's happened before 2024 before the county uh decided to repeal this partition concurrency at that time when the applicants made the traffic study. The traffic studies will cover um identify the impact related to the to the application and also find a way to mitigate the impact. It was before 2024 and at the same time as well we need to go about the background improvement. The background is impact caused by project that were approved before the current application. And at at the same time they also they also required to mitigate and the access as as well on this specific segment of the world. It was before 2024. After 2024 magnetical rep transportation concurrency can see the extent of the preview impact is the same but the way to mitigate this impact is different. One of them because of the Florida stat with 16 160 to 31 180. If you can read um the paragraph here, the segment in the paragraph in in yellow, the local government may not use an alternative transportation system to deny time or phase an application for site plan approval, plat approval, finitution approval, building permits all the which mean now because of the impact fee You pay and go. That mean you you're supposed to collect money to identify to mitigate the impact because you don't have any transportation concurrency anymore which mean when the traffic studies for application that have to go in front of the board CPA GDP they submit what they call the MSA it's multimodal site access and safety analysis where the recip identify analyze and in this case they have to build a specific turn lens it's for uh CPA GDP but when application that don't have to go in front of the board for PSP FSP it's why they have what they call the TRRS report in this case they need to submit to the county the next that will impacted by the specific application and you need to reserve you need to reserve um the trip on this leg. It what I told you in first in first segment of this presentation that the link sheet being updated every month because when we have FSP when you approve the FSP you need to reserve the trip for this specific link. Now what we have that mean we identify the impact with MSA no background improvement and for the operation analysis and TR we need to have the set access analysis and also we need to identify the access point that have to be built by the developer. This is what we have now is based on the new traffic stud guidelines that was published I think two month ago. This is the concept. This is the way we review traffic study. These the requi