A recent Islamorada special meeting to discuss a series of code fixes was pushed to a workshop Thursday, May 4 after Vice Mayor Sharon Mahoney said she wanted the public to have ample time to give input.
Mahoney’s comments came after she learned residents would be limited to three minutes for 11 proposed code changes that were on the agenda and listed under the April 11 workshop portion of the meeting. The changes came to the dais after Dan Gulizio, village director of planning and development, gave a presentation last August that showed a host of inconsistencies and gaps in the current land development regulations. Gulizio said he planned to bring several proposed changes he considered housekeeping to the dais for approval.
Creating permanent regulations for mobile food trucks, which began in 2020 as a two-year pilot program, was one item before the dais for discussion during the special meeting. One proposal seeks to clear up inconsistencies between the definition for buildable area and lot area in the code, while another would add single-family residences as a permitted use in the village’s multifamily zoning district.
Discussions surrounding these proposed changes, and others, weren’t substantive as originally planned due to concerns over the lack of public comment on the items. Mahoney called for another workshop to give residents the chance to ask questions and get answers to their concerns.
“It was sort of short noticed, really. I just want to open the door back up for the people in this community who this is going to affect, these code changes. … I’m not ready to vote on anything,” Mahoney said.
A council vote on the items wasn’t the plan for the workshop portion of the April 11 special meeting, according to Village Manager Ted Yates. Gulizio gave a brief presentation of each code proposal to the dais before adjourning the roughly four-and-a-half-hour meeting. Yates said there are several chances to comment with each item going through a first and second reading. He also said the items were publicly introduced at multiple meetings of the village’s Local Planning Agency, which provides recommendations to the council on planning matters. Leaving the public out of the discussion was never the intent, Yates said.
“These exact items were noticed months ago at a full council meeting. They were advertised and published for all the public to read,” he said, adding that the items were then pulled and sent to the LPA, where it was advertised with opportunity for the public to speak. And some of those items came back to the LPA again.
Council members believed the April 11 meeting would allow residents to speak on each item. That wasn’t the case, however, with other resolutions up for consideration before the workshop on the code changes.
Two days later, at an April 13 regular village council meeting, the dais agreed to move several less controversial code fixes that were slated for the May 4 workshop at 3 p.m. ahead to a first reading at a future meeting. Those items include the alcoholic beverage use permits, which repeals a section but keeps certain protections; adding single-family residences as a permitted use in multifamily zones; incorporating boat dealership as a major conditional use in tourist commercial zoning district; standardizing notice provisions for the development review process; and allowing a variance for lot area administratively, provided the request is limited to a maximum of 5% or 250 feet of the minimum required lot area.
Councilman Mark Gregg, who suggested the dais move forward with the code change items, said some have been before the public seven times.
“That, to me, makes me feel comfortable that it’s been out there in the public atmosphere and has had adequate time to review and comment,” he said.
Changes to the mobile food vendor program, clearing inconsistencies between buildable area and lot area, and changes to farmers markets, flea markets and fairs will remain on the workshop agenda to allow ample time for public comment during the May 4 workshop at 3 p.m.
