Charter Review Commission  Minutes
Nov. 14, 2005

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Montye Beamer's Smart Growth presentation
Saralee Morrissey Senate Bill 360 presentation

CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL
Charter Review Commission Chair William Scovell called the meeting to order at 5:35 p.m. at Daytona Beach Community College, Bldg. 110, Room 112, Daytona Beach, Florida.  The following members were present:  Chair Scovell, Vice-Chair John Graham, T. Wayne Bailey, Joseph Benedict, Clarence Davenport, Patricia Drago, P. T. Fleuchaus, Alex Ford, Charles Matousek, Peter Heebner, and Ezell Reaves.  Members Richard Gunter, Thomas McClelland, Patricia Northey and Glenn Storch were excused absences.  Also present were County Attorney Dan Eckert, Assistant to the County Manager Betty Holness, Staff Photographer Jeff Crumbley, Administrative Aide Camilla Grasso, members of the press and approximately 40 members of the public. 

APPROVAL OF MINUTES
Mr. Heebner moved approval of the minutes of the regular Commission meeting of October 10 and Dr. Bailey seconded the motion, which carried unanimously.

DISCUSSION OF COUNTY’S PLAN TO IMPLEMENT SMART GROWTH RECOMMENDATIONS AND COUNTY PERSPECTIVE OF SENATE BILL 360 (GROWTH MANAGEMENT LEGISLATION)
Chair Scovell called on Montye Beamer, Volusia County Director of Growth & Resource Management.  She explained that the Volusia County Council had asked the Growth & Resource Management Department to develop a presentation after the Smart Growth Implementation Committee had made its final report to the County Council, and also to examine what could be done to put the recommendations into practice.  She gave a PowerPoint presentation on the implementation of Smart Growth recommendations, combined with a County perspective of Senate Bill 360 (see Attachment #1). 

Discussion followed the presentation.  Dr. Fleuchaus felt the guide for future growth seemed well-organized and asked about upgrading blighted districts.  Ms. Beamer stated one of the Smart Growth initiatives was to encourage redevelopment of such areas, and those areas were seen more frequently in the cities than in the unincorporated County.  She said some of these districts were adjacent to cities, but actually in the County. In these areas, the cities and County worked together, sharing the cost of redeveloping the regions.  Chair Scovell noted that Spring Hill in DeLand was one such district. 

Ms. Beamer replied in the affirmative to Ms. Drago’s question of whether Charter amendments would be required to have the County and cities come together to address the issues of protecting the environmental core, directing development to appropriate locations, continuing existence of rural lands and addressing agriculture and conflict resolution.  Mr. Matousek asked about the process of defining the lands covered under Map A and Map B and commented on the small size of Map A.  Ms. Beamer stated Panteon, the Smart Growth Implementation Committee’s consultant, studied the County as a whole, acre by acre.  This was done to determine if there were other elements which would need Map A to be larger, since there were only 55,000 acres left to be preserved.  Such elements could be rare uplands or recharge areas, which would need to be added to Map A for protection.

Chair Scovell asked what the potential was for showing City-County Comprehensive Planning.  Ms. Beamer stated the issue was what types of things each entity had to deal with.  The cities were most interested in overall urbanization and densities involved, including necessary roads, water, and sewer.  The unincorporated County had quite a bit of large acreage that did not deal with water-and-sewer-type issues on a centralized basis.  She felt some specific issues could be worked on, such as transportation, but was not sure the viewpoints or definitions in other areas would be the same.  She gave the example of densities; the County perceived low density as four units per acre, while Deltona views it as upwards of six units per acre.

Mr. Heebner asked how annexation could be controlled by the Smart Growth Initiative.  Ms. Beamer replied one would have to examine the existing land use in the County and determine if there were areas within it that could be urbanized.  Annexation would have to be a joint agreement where the annexation would bring about a certain type of development that recognized environmental conditions that might be in place.  Mr. Eckert stated there was statutory authority for a Charter County to regulate voluntary annexations.  Chair Scovell noted that a recent referendum on urban service areas was taken to court and struck down, and asked Mr. Eckert for comment.  Mr. Eckert replied the court said the title of the referendum was misleading and of the nature of a political argument rather than a fair description of what was to be accomplished. He added the Charter Review Commission could reword and resubmit the issue for a vote.

Mr. Matousek asked how a Charter amendment could direct development to appropriate locations, mentioning identifying primary and secondary water and sewer service areas with the cities.  Mr. Eckert replied the Commission had such authority within the Comprehensive Planning process, by agreement with the municipalities.

Rafael Montalvo, a facilitator throughout the Smart Growth Initiative Committee’s work, clarified the group’s recommendations as they referred to the questions of service areas and governing annexations.  He stated the Committee did not address governing annexations directly.  It recommended a requirement be placed in the Charter that the County and cities agree on a vision for the future of areas that might be annexed at some point in time, as well as on primary and secondary service areas.  Rather than an enforcement mechanism, the Committee tried to set up a strong incentive in the form of a revamped Growth Management Commission that would have the power to make a final decision if the County and cities could not agree on a future vision or on the service areas.

DISCUSSION OF SCHOOL BOARD PERSPECTIVE OF SENATE BILL 360   (GROWTH MANAGEMENT LEGISLATION)
Saralee Morrissey, Volusia County School Board Director of Site Acquisition and Intergovernmental Coordination, followed up Ms. Beamer’s presentation and spoke about Senate Bill 360 (SB 360) as it specifically related to schools.  She noted that some months before the enactment of SB 360, the School Board had adopted its own Growth Management policy in the form of School Board Policy 613.  She presented the School Board’s PowerPoint presentation (see Attachment #2).

Discussion followed Ms. Morrissey’s presentation.  Upon questions from Mr. Matousek, Ms. Morrissey verified that interlocal agreements between local governments and the School Boards to establish school concurrency were not just encouraged, but required by SB 360.  She added that if the interlocal agreements could not be reached, the local governments would not be allowed to increase residential densities through Comprehensive Plan amendments and the School Boards would be subject to the withholding of State construction dollars. 

Upon a request from Ms. Drago, Ms. Morrissey discussed Orange County, which has a school concurrency section in its Charter.  She said the Volusia County School Board’s policy was very similar to what Orange County had, which was referred to in Florida as the Martinez Doctrine and was a Charter amendment approved by the voters that addressed the connection between development and density change to school capacity.  Chair Scovell asked Ms. Holness to obtain a copy of the Orange County Charter for the Commission members. 

Mr. Ford asked for comment on the ability to find school sites.  Ms. Morrissey stated for the past 18 months it had been very difficult to compete for the purchase of developable, school site property.  This was due to the fact that the appraisers would not guarantee their appraisals for any certain period of time because the market was changing so rapidly. A super-majority vote is required for the School Board to pay an over-appraised value.  She added school officials had been telling local governments the School Board’s ability to work with new development and growth relied on the local governments and their ability to “master plan” their communities, including schools in the process, as recommended in the Smart Growth Initiative.

SUBCOMMITTEE REPORTS
Alex Ford, Chair of the Subcommittee on Protecting the Environmental Core, said the Subcommittee had met once for organizational purposes. At its next meeting, members would be examining beach issues, specifically, off-beach parking.  He added that other topics had been scheduled for discussion throughout the course of the remaining time and various guest speakers had been identified.
Joe Benedict, Chair of the Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations, stated his Subcommittee had met twice and at the last meeting reviewed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and ambulatory transport, on which the Subcommittee would be forwarding its recommendations to the full Commission.  He also said his Subcommittee would be studying environmental regulation at its December meeting.
Dr. T. Wayne Bailey, Chair of the Subcommittee on Structure of Government, said his group had had its organizational meeting and in December would have County Chair Frank Bruno and County Manager Cindy Coto as speakers, commenting on their perspectives regarding the organization of the executive/administrative function of County government.
Vice-Chair John Graham, Chair of the Subcommittee on Ordinance Review and Management Recommendations, stated his Subcommittee was examining a wide variety of subjects, but primarily, County management practices.  He noted there was mutual interest in water management between his group and Mr. McClelland’s Subcommittee on Infrastructure Needs. Two important points concerning water had been established through discussions which had been held, he advised:  1. The recommendations that would be forthcoming would be policy and practice proposals, not items for consideration as Charter amendments, and 2. The Water Authority of Volusia (WAV) had been formed but not funded.  The idea behind WAV was for it to centrally manage water usage throughout the County as opposed to the city-by-city water management practice currently in effect. But, he noted, recommending that WAV press forward with that intent would be useless without a funding source.  Vice-Chair Graham also noted that discussions were continuing within his Subcommittee.
Clarence Davenport, Vice-Chair of the Subcommittee on Infrastructure Needs, said he did not have anything to add to Vice-Chair Graham’s comments, which were on target.  He added that his Subcommittee was deeply committed to all water issues, whether they concerned wastewater, potable water or stormwater.
Pat Drago, Chair of the Subcommittee on Integrating Economic Development and Education, stated her Subcommittee had had one meeting and had identified two distinctly separate issues, economic development and education.  She added that the Subcommittee had organized and set an agenda for a series of meetings.  Economic development in Volusia County would be the first topic addressed, followed by a meeting regarding calculating the costs of particular development patterns.  She added the Subcommittee would also be holding meetings with the heads of each of the post-secondary education organizations as well as continuing discussion of SB 360 and education.

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
Joe Stich spoke about a pamphlet he had, titled “Understanding Sustainable Development—Agenda 21.”  He said Agenda 21 was unveiled in 1992 during the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, commonly known as the Real Earth Summit.  He felt Smart Growth was an attack on personal property rights and clustering was a bad idea. He thinks each Charter amendment should stand alone on the ballot.

Aidan Magee, of the Volusia/Flagler Environmental Action Committee, stated he had addressed the Commission at its opening meeting and had advised that no change be made to the Charter.  He felt Smart Growth was being pushed by developers and the clustering plan within it was not good.  He also felt sustainable development was a unique problem. It would be difficult to implement and would mean living in unison and harmony with the environment.

ADJOURNMENT
There being no further business for discussion, the meeting adjourned at 7:45 p.m.

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