VERO BEACH \u2014 The Indian River County Planning & Zoning Board approved the major site plan and administrative permit March 12 for the county\u2019s newest fire station, paving the way for emergency services protection much closer to Vero Lakes Estates and Sebastian River High School.<\/p>\n
Planning Chief Brandon Creagan introduced the dual request that day.<\/p>\n
\u201cFire Station 15 is much needed for the residents of Vero Lake Estates,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is west of 90th Avenue, north of 87th Street, east of 91st Avenue and south of 89th Street. Fire Station 15 is going to be a four-bay, 9,983-square-foot truck building including administrative offices, a weight room and equipment room. The traffic circulation plan calls for one main connection and an emergency vehicle exit to 87th Street. There\u2019s going to be traffic-signal preemption at 87th Street and 90th Avenue, so all the lights will turn red.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commissioner Kenneth A. \u201cChip\u201d Landers was the first to pose a question afterward whose answer became a primary concern for his colleagues.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere are the sidewalks at [and] do they extend all the way north?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019ll be a sidewalk on 87th Street,\u201d Creagan: replied. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t feasible to put a sidewalk along 91st Avenue because that\u2019s mainly a residential road not up to full county standards.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sweeney, in turn, provided other reasons that particular street wasn\u2019t suitable for sidewalks.<\/p>\n
\u201cNinety-First Avenue is also an unpaved road and there\u2019s a drainage swale on the east side,\u201d he said. For 87th, it [the sidewalk] will run the full length of the parcel boundary. It will terminate at the right-of-way line for 90th with the understanding that it will eventually connect when the Department of Transportation completes the widening of [SR] 510.\u201d<\/p>\n
School Board Liaison Teri Barenbourg also expressed concerns about the dearth of sidewalks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis community doesn\u2019t have sidewalks, which has been a real issue for us,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had a child that was hit and killed there in the past. If you put a sidewalk on 91st and they eventually pave that, would you have to redo the sidewalk?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe county follows its own code,\u201d Sweeney responded. \u201cIf the road is not paved, then the sidewalk requirement is not applicable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both Commissioner John Campbell and Barenbourg brought up another compounding concern about the street in question, which the former described as \u201cthe rear exit from the school.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter school hours [and[after games, it\u2019s busy,\u201d Commissioner Campbell said. \u201cWas there any consideration to a light at 91st and 87th? I have seen that completely backed down to 90th.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s dangerous, and you have kids walking too,\u201d Barenbourg chimed back in. \u201cA child was driving and another child was walking and a child hit a child.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indian River County Fire Chief David Johnson then attempted to allay their concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe preemption for the light will help out,\u201d he said. \u201cIf that intersection is loaded, we may have an issue if we take a left, but we encounter that in a lot of areas so we\u2019re able to get around that normally.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commissioner Lander also broached the topic of the eight-foot-deep stormwater retention pond on the fire station site plan<\/p>\n
\u201cIs there any fencing around that lake? he asked. \u201cYou\u2019re in a family neighborhood, so it\u2019s just going to invite the activity one way or another.\u201d<\/p>\n
MVB Engineering representative Todd Howder tackled that inquiry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is not fencing proposed now,\u201d he said. \u201cThe pond is designed with the slope requirements that do not exceed [code] You can put a fence up if you want, but it does not trip the requirement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barenbourg, however sided with Board Member Lander.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a big neighborhood with lots of kids,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Chief Johnson, who actually served as the applicant, told the Board he would not oppose a fence requirement.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was unbeknownst to me that there was going to be that deep of water in it,\u201d he said. \u201cI will ensure a fence is around it before this thing is finished.\u201d<\/p>\n
The P&Z Commission then voted unanimously to approve the new fire station with a fence installed prior to issuance of the certificate of occupancy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VERO BEACH \u2014 The Indian River County Planning & Zoning Board approved the major site plan and administrative…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[32917,171,173,172],"class_list":["post-203484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-indian_river","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}