Concerned about speed limit on Scenic 98. We’ve told the Destiny residents they are not allowed to use golf carts on the multipurpose pathways. “We’re telling people to make them street-legal … but we’re not making it very friendly when we don’t have speed limit signs out on the road.” Would like staff to set a limit and put up signs; several stretches in city limits have advisory signs, not You Must signs.

“The church has been doing this for hundreds of years–Sacred Heart Hospital, most hospitals were started by churches … we’re not doing anything different, but we’re trying to change the perception we’re talking about.”
Sam Seevers: Destin Christian Academy is very close to the church. Don’t see how that can be resolved.
Wood: Agree there could be unintended consequences. “I have a child at Destin Elementary School–to me, a school’s a school… because of the unintended consequences, I don’t want it by a school.”
Roberts: “But you don’t have a problem with what the church is doing already?”
Wood: “Show me what you’re doing.”
Barker: A lot of people have a lot of questions in the community. “I’ve been contacted by a lot of your neighbors concerned that what your provided is different from anything else in Okaloosa County.”
Their fear: Guy does a little bit of construction in Crestview, comes down and gets treatment in a single-family neighborhood. What constitutes residency? What constitutes employment?
Kisela: We can’t monitor them to make sure they meet the conditions. We don’t have the staff.
Roberts: “How do you monitor the conditions you put on anything? … How do you deal with any rule you put out there if you don’t have the staff.”
Bagby: Put a face on this. If you have people in your congregation who will use this, bring them in: If they see it’s someone in the community, not a vagrant, that will help. “you’ve got to give some more presentations.”
5-2, with Jim Wood and Kelly Windes voting no, to have staff draft a land-use change (which will require public hearings and discussion before it comes to a vote).

Tom Weidenhamer suggests staff should go over the code annually, just to see if problems have cropped up. Like the recent debate over single-family homes w/accessory units being turned into boarding houses.
Bagby: You might want to put in a 1,000-yards from a school restriction. Because no matter what Roberts says, people will worry this is a magnet for the homeless: “They’re going to get clothed in this town, they’re going to get fed in this town, they’re going to get medical care in this town … I would never vote for it if it were near a school.”
Ken Gallander: “The church down the road has a school in it.” Would that mean they couldn’t do a clinic?
Bagby: “If they think you’re going to put a facility like this next to Destin Elementary School, that dog won’t hunt.” though he says he might be wrong.

Would this be an acceptable use in say, a storefront?
Ken Gallandar (Planning manager): If it’s allowed in the storefront’s zoning. Can’t say exactly what zoning would qualify.
Kisela: This could cause a problem with the neighbors, under some circumstances. “I think we can minimize (conflicts), I don’t think we can eliminate them.”
Dewey: His motion includes putting in the restrictions that Roberts talked about.
Trammell: Could they do this in a bus? Have it go around town as a mobile clinic?
Kisela: If it came to the same locations day after day after day, the same problem could emerge.
Trammell: With experience in the restaurant industry, she knows many workers have trouble fitting a doctor’s visit into their day; a mobile clinic could help. Hence her bringing it up.

Can the church begin the permit application process now?
Land Use Attorney Scott Shirley: In some zoning-adjustment cases the city might go ahead and award a permit while the transition was being made, but in this particular case, the process could be begun, but the permit will have to wait on the zoning-rule change (if it happens).
Bagby: Would we see a swarm of clinics swarming in if we give you the go-ahead?
Roberts: That’s the purpose of all those conditions, keeping the change from becoming a nuisance.
Bagby: Why not adopt an alternative: Some charities take people to the doctors willing to donate free services? Why bring them to you instead of taking them to help?
Roberts: This is trying to provide regular service–not a one-time visit to a specialist, but a steady medical relationship.
Dewey: Moves to have staff begin the process for making the change. It’s not that different from what’s available in institutional now.”If a bunch of people come out of the woodwork saying we shouldn’t do it, maybe we’ll change our minds.”

Roberts: People in Okaloosa and Walton counties.
Kelly Windes: Will this be a magnet for a homeless?
Roberts: “if they have to show proof of residency” no. Plus they have to show they’re employed or recently unemployed. So it shouldn’t be a draw.
Windes: “Regulations have to be enforced and we’re having a little trouble in that department.”
Bagby: What does staff say?
Roberts: We’d have to wait six-eight months if we apply for a zoning exemption. And we might not get it. And it requires more upfront money than we have to spare. And we’re ready to start now.
Jerry Miller to Roberts: Council can’t do anything for you tonight. They can start the code-amendment process, but there will be public participation and no guarantee it will come out in your favor.
Kisela: It would take three to six months to make the change (the difference is whether the LPA has to cancel meetings for lack of a quorum, since the LPA has to review these changes).
Miller: The Board of Adjustment can’t help because it’s decided the city staff interpreted the zoning rule correctly.

In institutional zoning, this isn’t one of them, Roberts said. But he believes it confirms to the spirit of the law.
“We want to change the health of Destin, nothing else. We don’t want to disrupt our neighbors” but local churches already offers counseling, AA groups, giving flu shots “so we’re not offering anything different … we are asking you to let us work with the staff and let us come up with conditions … to alleviate concerns and problems.”
e.g. No outdoor waiting area, everything must be done in doors.
•Must provide proof of residency in Okaloosa/Walton to get treatment.
•Must be done w/Florida Department of Health program, which would require a non-profit.
•Services will be by appointment, so there won’t be people hanging around outside waiting for hours for a doctor.
•No narcotics or controlled substances.
“These regulations … would allow us to serve the community without disrupting the community.”

Next up: Destin Church of Christ wants a change in “institutional zoning” uses to allow them to set up a medical clinic at the church for the uninsured poor.
“We’re talking about the people who served you lunch, possibly dinner before you came to this meeting,” Tim Roberts, representing the church, says. “The working class uninsured of the Destin community.”
Roberts says this will provide an alternative to the uninsured going to the E/R–which has to take them–when they become too sick to go without care: The clinic could help them with an ounce of preventive medicine, thereby saving a pound of cure.
There will be a screening system. There will be no narcotics or controlled substances at the clinic which will be posted outside it..

About the cause of the black streak.

I had to take a long lunch to finish my book. Thanks to these discussions, I’m still going to put in at least an eight-hour day.
Okay, back to our discussion in progress: Bagby says “If you did down beyond two to four feet, you’ll find red sand.” The idea our beach is all spun sugar is a myth. “You can see the striations, it’s like you’re looking at the Grand Canyon–in 1687, it was yellow sand, this year it was red sand … what was promised several years ago was not that we would not dredge shells or sand dollars … (Dredges) are just going out and mining some old sand dune.” In the sense the sand offshore used to be part of a beach. And he questions Jones’ assessment of the situation.
Agrees with Jones they should be very vigilant against contaminated sand, but beach renourishment is also necessary for the economy and the protection of buildings.
Agrees that there is a black streak running through the restored area.
Jones: “After Opal, all the beaches were that way … we went down four feet, every scoop had broken shells in it. The quality of the beach is going to get worse.”
Bagby: After 2005, “we were almost half peat in Rosemary Beach.” Flakes of sand from Panama City in 2004 (washed from their restoration). “I tell you know, our beach is back … it is as good as it’s ever been, it’s just not as deep or as high as it’s ever been.”