AGENDA ITEM REPORT
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AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE CITY’S CODE OF ORDINANCES, BY AMENDING CHAPTER 13, “LAND DEVELOPMENT CODE,” ARTICLE II, “SUBDIVISION REGULATIONS,” DIVISION 1, “GENERALLY,” SECTION 13-142, “UNDERGROUND UTILITIES; REQUIRED,” TO REMOVE THE CITY-WIDE REQUIREMENT FOR THE UNDERGROUNDING OF ALL UTILITIES WHILE RETAINING THE REQUIREMENT FOR UNDERGROUNDING OF ALL UTILITIES WITHIN AND ALONG THE PERIMETER ROADS OF THE MAINSTREET REGIONAL ACTIVITY CENTER (RAC) AND REMOVAL OF LANGUAGE PERTAINING TO WAIVERS OF SAME; ADDRESSING STATUS OF CURRENT APPLICATIONS. (SECOND READING)(PUBLIC HEARING)
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BACKGROUND:
This item was approved on First Reading at the August 27, 2020, City Commission Meeting.
The City desires to amend Chapter 13 of the Code of Ordinances, relating to undergrounding of utilities by amending Section 13-142, “Underground Utilities; Required,” of the City’s Code of Ordinances. Specifically, this amendment addresses recent policy changes of key utilities such as Florida Power & Light (FPL), and the impact they have had on implementation of the City’s code provisions contained in this section. This amendment also recognizes the importance and undeveloped nature of the MainStreet Regional Activity Center (RAC) and the ability to maintain, and even strengthen, requirements for the undergrounding of overhead utilities in this area.
As a result of technological advances and policy directives from state agencies/commissions relating to FPL infrastructure, there has been significant investment in the hardening and reinforcement of poles along major roadway corridors. This, for the most part, has made it impractical to implement the City’s requirement to underground utilities with the most recent development projects within the City. In fact, in certain instances the ongoing hardening program has made it impossible to underground utilities. This amendment, taking the above into consideration, discontinues the overhead to underground conversion requirements for any area of the City outside the MainStreet RAC.
DISCUSSION:
The City is currently undertaking the design of the conversion of utilities on Johnson Road from overhead to underground. This corridor has been identified as the last corridor outside of MainStreet that is still feasible for undergrounding and would provide a significant benefit both from a reliability and aesthetic perspective. The cost of the Johnson Road project is anticipated to exhaust the funds in the trust account for this purpose.
The MainStreet RAC, being substantially undeveloped, does not have the same type of undergrounding conflicts as the more developed areas of the City. As such, with the City’s strong desire to ensure the benefits of the undergrounding program for this area, the requirement to install all utilities underground in the MainStreet RAC has been specifically identified and maintained in this amendment, and the waiver provisions have been removed.
The revisions of this ordinance are proposed to apply to all current development applications in process, including those for which utility waiver applications are currently being processed. As such, as drafted, if this ordinance is approved by the City Commission, any current utility waiver applications will be deemed withdrawn as no longer necessary.
RECOMMENDATION:
The Planning and Zoning Board recommended approval of these amendments at its February 12, 2020, meeting. Staff recommends approval.
FISCAL IMPACT: N/A