How is the upcoming Fort Pierce Planning Meeting relevant to the Live Local Act and Causeway Cove???

Planning Board Regular Meeting - Monday, August 10, 2026 - 2:00 p.m. City Hall - City Commission Chambers, 100 North U.S. #1, Fort Pierce, Florida.
PZTXA2026-00001 - 2026 Comprehensive Plan Evaluation and Appraisal Review Transmittal
 
Representative Trabulsy's objection to Causeway Cove rests on one claim: that the A-2 (Aquatic Development) zoning covering the site's submerged lands is a distinct, non-commercial zoning classification, and therefore falls outside Live Local Act coverage under F.S. §166.04151(7). That claim depends entirely on how A-2 is characterized — as its own freestanding zoning district, versus a mere overlay that doesn't affect the underlying commercial zoning (which is the City's current position in the Causeway Cove Development Order).
 
Why this matters legally: the Live Local Act's own definition of "commercial use" says a parcel is treated as commercial "irrespective of the local land development regulation's listed category or title" — the test is whether the zoning permits commercial uses by right (F.S. §166.04151(7)(a)3). Table 1-6 effectively documents, in the City's own comprehensive plan, that A-2 zoning sits inside a framework built around commercial FLU categories that authorize those very uses. That's exactly the kind of evidence a developer's attorney would cite to argue A-2 satisfies the statute's use-based test "irrespective of title" — even if a court agreed with Trabulsy that A-2 (not C-5) is the controlling zoning designation for the submerged portion of the site.
 
The unresolved piece: none of this is spelled out anywhere in the transmittal package — not the staff report, not the Matrix of Proposed Amendments, not the FloridaCommerce response memo. Staff introduced Table 1-6 purely as a housekeeping clarification of zoning/FLU consistency (Policy 1.1.2), with no apparent awareness that it lands in the middle of an active, politically charged eligibility dispute the same week Trabulsy raised it publicly.

That gap is worth flagging to the Planning Board before the vote — approving Table 1-6 as-is arguably locks in comp plan language that favors the developer's side of an unresolved statutory question the City itself hasn't taken a formal position on.

Please attend this upcoming meeting.