07-18-1968 Conference MeetingCONFERENCE MEETING OF THE PLANNING
AND ZONING BOARD WITH MR. FREDERIC
ROBINSON OF HARLAND BARTHOLOMEW &
ASSOCIATES, JULY 18, 1968.
A conference meeting of the Planning and Zoning Board was held
on July 18, 1968, at the Miami Shores Country Club, with Mr. Frederic
Robinson of Harland Bartholomew & Associates. All members of the Board
were present, as well as, the Village Manager, the Village Attorney and the
Building Inspector.
Mr. Robinson stated thathe understood that the property had been
proposed to be used originally for town houses which had been turned down
and the owner wanted to do something with his land and has made alternate
suggestions and the one at the moment is to build an office complex on the
property, which poses the question for the Village, what is the best course,
what is a reasonable zoning for this property, considering the effect on the
Village and welfare of the Village? Mr. Robinson thought it is fairly obvious
that, regardless of anyone's intention to keep the Village purely single
family, it is most unlikely that anybody would invest in single family develop-
ment in that locality. If we don't find anything reasonable we will be con-
tinually beset with applications for things that are unreasonable and maybe
anticipate difficulties in court.
He continued: It should not be detrimental to the property to the
west and we must take into account the railroad, the shape of the property
and the abutting development on the other side of the railroad. It appears
that the town house proposal was not a bad one if the quality of the construc-
tion were kept high. Mr. Robinson stated in a preliminary judgment, town
houses could be one of a series of possible uses, another would be some
type of office development.
He stated the owner proposes to create a new zoning district, which
he thinks would be unfortunate at this time; it is badly timed on the onset of
a complete replanning of the city. He stated it would be possible to build
office structures on that strip which could be built and operated without
detriment to the residential property across the street.
Mr. Robinson felt that the proper kind of office development there
would probably cause less activity than a multiple family development. It
must be determined what is a proper office development and how would you
take care of it and what kind of restrictions would you place on it.
Uses permitted in the "O" zone are very limited and those we have
maybe violations in the professional office sense. He stated we should
look first at changes in the permitted uses in the "O" Zone to include certain
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types of commercial offices that can be operated in this zone. He thought
the "residential character" of a building was ambiguous. He thought a two-
story office building could be built and would do no violence to the neighbor-
hood, that it would be possible to adapt "O" zoning to broader purposes,
more permissive in use and raise the height, providing, you make very
sure that the things these uses infer, such as traffic congestion, are taken
care of.
There must be a restriction on on -street parking with adequate
parking off-street and that access and service to the buildings would have
to be off residential streets. Lighting the property becomes very im-
portant, open space surrounding the buildings is very important and treat-
ment of this space with landscaping. This is more useful than limitation of
height and use, and Mr. Robinson stated he would rather see a two-story
development than three-story, that he believes this would be a compatible
use if parking can be adequately handled and not in the front yard.
With proper controls written into a change of the "0" District
you could permit a reasonable development without relaxing too much the
controls in the other districts.
After a general discussion by the members of the Board, the
attorney and Mr. Robinson, the meeting was adjourned at 9:30 P. M.
Respectfully submitted,
Village C1e