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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes 01-24-2008 WorkshopCITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP MEETING WITH THE PLANNING & ZONING BOARD CITY HALL ANNEX 111 Polk Avenue, Cape Canaveral, Florida THURSDAY January 24, 2008 5:30 PM MINUTES CALL TO ORDER The Chair called the Meeting to order at 5:31 P.M. ROLL CALL: Council Members Present: Mayor Pro Tem Bob Hoog Mayor Rocky Randels Council Member Shannon Roberts Council Members Absent Council Member Council Member Leo Nicholas Buzz Petsos Planning and Zoning Board Members Present Chairperson Bea McNeely Vice Chairperson R. Lamar Russell Donald Dunn (arrived @ 5:57pm) Harry Pearson Ronald Friedman Planning and Zoning Board Members Absent Board Member Board Member Others Present: City Manager City Attorney Administrative Assistant Building Official Dr. John Frederickson John Johanson Bennett Boucher Anthony Garganese (arrived @ 5:39pm) Mia Goforth Todd Morley City of Cape Canaveral, Florida City Council Chronic Nuisance Workshop Meeting w/ Planning & Zoning Board January 24, 2008 Page 2 of 6 Code Enforcement Officer Duree Alexander Brevard County Sheriff Cmdr. Douglas Scragg Brevard County Sheriff Lt. Jeff Ludwig DISCUSSION 1. Proposed Chronic Nuisance Ordinance Mayor Randels began the discussion by stating he believed the name of the Ordinance would be changed to Proposed Chronic Nuisance Abatement Code. He then stated that the purpose and intention of the workshop would be to discuss changes to the Proposed Ordinance and it would be divided into two areas with the Sheriff's Department handling criminal issues and the City of Cape Canaveral handling code enforcement/civic issues. Mr. Boucher started by explaining the Draft Ordinance in the agenda packet from the July 7, 2007 Chronic Nuisance Workshop meeting and the user charges and escalating fines for incidences. After doing more research over the Holidays, he found that the Draft Ordinance lacked a resolution or end game to these occurrences and the escalating fines. Included in the agenda packet were a few different city ordinances from around the country and a Florida Senate Report on Nuisance Abatement issues that the Brevard County Sheriffs Department can work on. He said Attorney Garganese re -wrote the code to specifically help the Sheriffs Department enforce the law against the chronic, criminal nuisances within the community. He explained the non - criminal, chronic nuisances will be addressed by Todd Morley, Building Official, and his staff. Mr. Boucher went on to say that a provision will be put in the Ordinance that a property owner won't start incurring fines until they've been given a chance to correct the chronic nuisance. As a result, either the Sheriff's Department or the Building Department Staff would have to sit down with the property owner and work on a nuisance abatement agreement as a means to rectify the issue. Discussion followed on the differences between the July Draft and the Proposed Chronic Nuisance Abatement Code. Attorney Garganese joined the meeting late and stated he did not have copies of the Proposed Chronic Nuisance Draft to hand out. Mayor Randels explained that the proposal was in an organizational stage at the moment and Attorney Garganese was probably looking for some guidance before spending hours of time on something that may not be approved by Council. Attorney Garganese started out by saying a shift will be made from the old draft ordinance that imposes a fee for service to more of a nuisance abatement type ordinance that actually addresses the nuisance at hand and takes a more proactive Ce approach to abate the nuisance other than charging a fee. He said this is a new concept and one way to do this is to create a nuisance board. City of Cape Canaveral, Florida City Council Chronic Nuisance Workshop Meeting w/ Planning & Zoning Board January 24, 2008 Page 3 of 6 Attorney Garganese explained that the Code Enforcement Board could be designated as the Nuisance Abatement Board. There are two categories of nuisances: 1) Florida Statute Chapter 893 relates to drugs and prostitution activities on property. For example if there are two occasions of prostitution within a 6 month period the Sheriff's office can bring a notice of violation to the property owner and bring the property before the Nuisance Abatement Board. There are statutory procedures and statutory enabling provisions for the Nuisance Abatement Board to issue orders requiring the abatement of the nuisance on the property owner. This is a good way to go after the property owners and absentee landlords who don't care what their tenants do. They will be brought before the board, not the criminals. This process is completely statutory driven; 2) There are other nuisances that can be declared by the City Council as "City Nuisances ". Those can be brought before the Nuisance Abatement Board as well. One approach would be if certain City Nuisances occur on a piece of property, the City can provide the owner Notice, require them to come in and work out an administrative plan with the City Manager to abate the nuisance that is occurring on the property. Once that plan is in place and the nuisance goes away, no further action is required. If the owner refuses to enter into a plan or violates the plan that is in place or, if there is additional nuisance activity, you can bring that person to the Nuisance Abatement board and prosecute. Just like a Code Enforcement action, the Code Enforcement Board can issue an order to abate the nuisance. Attorney Garganese stated you can add that extra step (the administrative plan) to try to work with the property owner to abate those activities that the City thinks is a nuisance other than what is in the Statute related to criminal activity. That is the concept. Ms. Roberts asked Cmdr. Scragg and Lt. Ludwig what they do now when they have a drug or prostitution situation. Cmdr. Scragg answered that they have no authority to move past the point of arrest and prosecution of those committing the crime on the premises. He said Section 893.138 FL. St. creates narrow criteria to move forward against the property owners and landlords for those problems occurring on their premises that are going unanswered. He added if this were not in place the Dept. would have no tool to use to move against properties that fall within that narrow parameter, such as a property owner who lives out of state. He said there won't be a lot of this action but it would be nice to have in case they need it. Harry Pearson gave an example how the legislative tool could be utilized. He said an older gentleman, who lives in his neighborhood of Ocean Woods, has consistently allowed drug use and other criminal activities to come in to his house. He said that it co got so bad there was actually a death in the house because of drug use and neither law enforcement nor the homeowner association was able to do anything about the City of Cape Canaveral, Florida City Council Chronic Nuisance Workshop Meeting w/ Planning & Zoning Board January 24, 2008 Page 4 of 6 situation. He stated this would give both Code Enforcement and Law Enforcement a way to go after the homeowner as well as the drug user. Mayor Pro Tern Hoog stated he thought another Ordinance needs to be incorporated into the 7/31 draft Ordinance to take care of the owners of the property. Attorney Garganese explained that the ordinance before the council and board members is a fee for services provided ordinance. He said this ordinance would operate in conjunction with the drug nuisance board under chapter Section 893 Florida Statutes and this would include incidents of possession, manufacturing and delivery of controlled illegal substances. After so many incidences a person or property owner would be charged a fee for the services to go to their property. In addition, because the person has met the threshold under the drug nuisance board, the person would be taken before the drug nuisance board and prosecuted by having an order entered to make the person do something to abate the nuisance and fine them. That would be two tools. Further discussion continued on the differences between the criminal chronic nuisances, non - criminal chronic nuisances, civil citations and code enforcement citations. Mayor Pro Tern asked if the criminal ordinance could be worked into this existing 7/31 draft ordinance. Attorney Garganese replied no and recommended doing a separate ordinance. All he needed to know, from a policy standpoint, is if this extra tool was supported. He explained that a draft could be created rather quickly by his office, because it is all driven by what is in the Florida Statutes. Mayor Randels asked for a show of hands on whether the Council understands what they are going to be working on and whether this was an issue worth pursuing. He stated only three Council members were there. Mayor Randels asked Cmdr. Scragg and Lt. Ludwig if they felt, by having this extra tool, it would help them get rid of the repetitive problems such at the one Mr. Pearson was having with his neighbor. Cmdr. Scragg answered absolutely. Mayor Randels stated that he saw a consensus to pursue this separate ordinance but it would not happen tonight. Clarification of FL Statute 893 and criminal violations that show up in both of the city ordinances were explained by the Attorney Garganese. Discussion continued on the differences between the 7/31 Draft and Proposed Chronic Nuisance Abatement Ordinances and how they would work in relation to FL Statute 893. John Grandlich, of Cape Caribe Resort, approached the podium to ask if the incidences of service portion applied to commercial areas. Mr. Boucher answered yes. Mr. Grandlich went on to explain his concern over the fairness of the July Draft (Section 2- 294) as it applies to a large resort dwelling such as Cape Caribe, compared to single City of Cape Canaveral, Florida City Council Chronic Nuisance Workshop Meeting w/ Planning & Zoning Board January 24, 2008 Page 5 of 6 family and multi - family units. Cape Caribe paid $120,000.00 for police and fire services. Discussion followed on this issue. Ms. Roberts asked John Grandlich and Roger Dobson, hotel owner, to come back and propose something to the City with that would include a threshold that they think would be reasonable for the purpose of the ordinance. Todd Morley, Building Official, suggested making a category for hospitals, hotels and resorts on page 5 of 8 assigning a number of incidences per address. Discussion about page 3 of the 7/31 Draft followed in reference to the list of civil and criminal nuisances and clarifying them in the Ordinance. Duree Alexander, Code Enforcement Officer and Mayor Randels ran through the list on page 3 of the 7/31 Draft and designated numbers 7, 11, 13, 17, 20, 22 as items that Code Enforcement would address specifically. Mayor Randels suggested keeping the list intact and putting the word "criminal" in parenthesis next to the items that apply. That was agreed by Ms. Roberts and Ms. Alexander to be a good idea. Ms. Alexander mentioned Item 2, False Alarms, as already having its own ordinance. Mr. Boucher stated that Item 2 needs to be removed from the list. Ms. Alexander brought up Parking as a two -fold (civil & criminal) item depending on the circumstances. Ms. Roberts suggested striking the word law from page 3 under Consumption of, leaving it to read Consumption of enforcement. Attorney Garganese agreed that would be ok. Ms. Roberts went on to page 4: One (1) year period means any consecutive 365 -day period. She suggested clarification of this item. Mr. Morley stated the easiest way to conceptualize this item would be to say if an incident happens "today" then rewind 365 days to the last time it happened. Mr. Boucher and Attorney Garganese agreed this item needs to be reviewed and looked at. Ms. Roberts continued on with page 4: Nuisance Activity, Item (13) production or creation of excessive noise or vibration. She asked how excessive noise is defined. Ms. Alexander stated it is defined under Chapter 34. Ms. Roberts suggested a cross reference so the consumer would know where to go. Mr. Morley stated all of these could be cross referenced. Ms. Roberts continued on to page 5: Selling or giving away of tobacco products to underage persons, Item (18); she suggested inserting the words "and /or alcohol' after the word tobacco. Ms. Roberts continued on to page 6: 295 (b) the notice shall be on a form approved by the city manager, she suggested the form be attached or cross - referenced. City of Cape Canaveral, Florida City Council Chronic Nuisance Workshop Meeting w/Planning&Zoning Board January 24,2008 Page 6 of 6 She then pointed out that the procedure for remittance was not properly defined. Attorney Garganese stated that language could be added, as one of the conditions of the notice, that payment to the City is due within thirty (30) days or appeal it Under 2-296 Appeals, (c) Ms. Roberts asked for clarification regarding evidence. Discussion followed on the details of this issue as it relates to the number of incidents and fees for excessive services. John Grandlich asked about a prior draft ordinance (June 2007) that referenced an internal or hospitality, on-site security patrol exemption that was later stricken. Discussion followed on interpretations of this issue and how hotels and resort condominium businesses could be hurt by excessive incidents of service calls. Ms. Roberts expressed a need for cross referencing, in the family of ordinances: civil citation, chronic nuisance abatement and resort dwellings, for the benefit of the community and better communications. Mayor Pro Tem Hoog and Mr. Pearson both made statements that cross-referencing would be unnecessary and the ordinances already relate to everyone in the community. Ms. Roberts stated that the Resort Dwelling Ordinance, as it is written, makes no reference to complaints and how to make them. Mr. Morley suggested making a separate publication for this Mr. Boucher suggested Ms. Roberts review the Better Place section of the City's website and explained this is specifically for residents to make complaints. He said Resort Dwellings } could be added to the list. Ms. Roberts stated that was not what she was talking about and would step back from this until she brings it up at a future City Council meeting. Mayor Randels reminded that staff is limited. Mayor Randels determined that more research on the City's part and the hotel owner's part needs to take place. He stated that Attorney Garganese would work on the Proposed Criminal Nuisance Abatement Ordinance and supply Council with a Draft. He asked Council if this current Civil Draft is ready after the changes are made or would it need to come back again. Mayor Pro Tern Hoog answered that it needs to come back for another workshop before a First Reading. ADJOURNMENT: There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 8:09 P.M. Mia Goforth, Adrrlirr'- ve Assistant ffJI ti .. .. C