City P&Z Board rejects Gatlin variances | St. Lucie County

PORT ST. LUCIE – A Planning & Zoning Board majority rejection of a May 5 variance request for a proposed retail building at the northwest corner of Southwest Bougainvillea Avenue and Southwest Gatlin Boulevard could mean the Dollar Tree Corporation will rescind its application and look for a different site altogether along that busy commercial corridor.

Planner Sofia Trail introduced the request from property owners John and Joan Ghanie that evening, which was the first of three related agenda items including both a rezoning and conditional use permit request.

The couple owns two of the lots, while a realty company owns the others that are all being joined via a unified control agreement.

“This is a request to grant a variance to the rear setback and landscaping requirements for a proposed retail development,” she said. “The applicant and agent is Edward McDonald with Thomas Engineering Group on behalf of John Mohamed Ghanie and Joan Davis Ghanie Living Trust for Lot 6 and Haredo Realty Advisors Inc. for Lots 7-10.

“To the north is a drainage canal and right of way [and] additionally some single-family homes. To the south is Gatlin Boulevard, to the west it is currently undeveloped and to the east are some offices.”

Trail then dove deeper into the requests and the requirements of city code.

“One request is a variance of 14.6 feet from the building setback,” she explained. “The second is a variance of two trees and 154 shrubs of perimeter landscaping required along the outside of the architectural wall along the northern boundary. Our code requires a minimum rear building setback of 25 feet, landscaping may encroach a maximum 10 feet into a 20-foot drainage easement and each landscape buffer strip shall have one tree planted every 30 feet and one shrub planted every two feet.”

Although she also described the companion items, the Board never actually got to them that night.

“There are two concurrent applications, a rezoning to limited mixed density [and] a request for a special exception use to allow retail that exceeds 50 percent of the building’s gross floor area and exceeds 5,000 square feet,” Trail said. “The property owners have entered into a unified control agreement. Recently we changed our conversion manual to allow for unity of control in addition to unity of title.”

Chairwoman Jim Norton was the first P&Z Board member to pose a series of clarification questions, zeroing in on that new agreement between the lot owners.

“Before you go on, just explain that unity of control,” he requested.

“Our conversion manual previously required a unity of title for all the lots within a development project for the conversion area,” Trail responded. “Unified control allows various property owners to enter into a development agreement in which they agree to develop the project as one project for all of the parcels. For this example, the trust owns Lots 5 and 6, Haredo Realty owns Lots 7-10 and they’ve entered into an agreement to develop all of those parcels as one project, so they can’t be separated.”

The city planner then pointed to a conceptual plan on the monitor that depicted the northwest corner of the proposed store jutting into the 25-foot setback.

“I have highlighted the corner of the building, which is approximately 10.4 feet from the rear property line,” she said. “It also shows the 10-foot landscape buffer along with the proposed wall at 10 feet. The northern property line is 307 linear feet. Because of their design of the site, they are only to provide eight trees and 26 shrubs. If the Board does find the variance applications consistent with the criteria in the city code, the Board may motion to approve the variance with the condition that the variance expire one year from approval if 10 feet of the 20-foot drainage easement is not abandoned by the City Council.”

Chairman Norton subsequently hinted at a potential denial and asked Trail if there was a different way to design the site. The latter recommended he hear the applicant’s presentation first, and Dollar Tree representative Edward McDonald came to the podium. He began by describing a year of staff negotiations.

“We have worked with staff to figure how to make it work and meet the standards of the city and the requirements of the code,” he said. “We came up with the bare minimum request that we’re presenting to you. Dollar Tree stores are plus or minus 10,000 square feet. We’re seeking a variance for the corner that’s touching the very northwest tip, from 20 foot to 14.6 feet and to take the 10-foot buffer, putting the landscape material on the south side of the wall.”

McDonald insisted there was no other way to fit the proposed store on those parcels.

“It was a very difficult to work with staff on how to make the layout work,” he explained. “We have the parking met, we have the other landscape onsite met, stormwater’s going to be met, we’re extending the sidewalk on Bougainvillea, so we’re checking all the boxes. If we don’t have the variance request approved, there’s no other site plan [and] nothing else we can do to make this work.”

The Board’s subsequent debate ended with Board Member Peter Previte insisting Dollar Tree had a solution.

“If Dollar Tree wanted this badly, they could just alter the building and be within the setback,” he said. “If their requirement is to have a square building, they don’t care and they’re not going to develop there, that’s fine. But there’s certainly a remedy.”

“That does not work for Dollar Tree and this client,” McDonald replied. “They will walk away from this deal – they were very specific in that fact.”

Another Dollar Tree representative, Duane Bushey, addressed the Board during public comment.

“To cut a corner off of a building, you drastically change the structural elements,” he said. “That one corner is actually where our delivery door is, so it would make it very difficult to deliver. Getting the truck in and off that site was quite the chore. I didn’t want anybody to think Dollar Tree was being stubborn about the building shape and size. Really, the only way we could come up with developing it was what we showed you today.”

Even though Board Member Eric Reikenis almost immediately made a motion for approval that was seconded by Vice-Chairman Greg Pettibon, they got no cooperation from their colleagues except for Rose Mocerino. The vote failed 3-4, with Chairman Norton and Board Members Previte, Joe Rosen and Peter Spatara dissenting. The P&Z Board then tabled the other two related items indefinitely so the applicant would work with staff or appeal the decision to the Board of Appeals.