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CASSELBERRY CITY COMMISSION Minutes of April 13, 2015— Regular Meeting Page 7 of 16 Mr. Woodruff reminded the Commission that the City had worked diligently toward removal of these billboards throughout the City and staff felt that the continuation of this billboard at this location would be counterproductive to the City's efforts up to this point. He added that it definitely contradicted the terms of the pre- annexation agreement and the amendment to that which both stated that the billboard would sunset when the 20 -year lease expired in January of 2016. Mr. Woodruff concluded by stating that the City Manager and the Community Development Director were recommending that the pre - annexation agreement not be amended to allow for the continuance ofthe billboard on the site. Mr. Newlon clarified that the resolution which was being presented for approval was an affirmation to the request for change to the pre - annexation agreement, and a vote in favor of the resolution would approve the change. Attorney Rania Soliman of Soliman Law, 37 N Orange Avenue, Suite 500, Orlando, FL, advised the Commission she represented the current property owner, Prospere II Investment, LLC, and was the person who had applied for the second amendment to the pre - annexation agreement on their behalf. She then presented a brief history of the property, stating that her clients has purchased the property in 2012, and that prior to that the developer of the Cambridge Oaks Shopping Center had built on the property. She also submitted some photographs of the billboard and a copy of the site plan to the City Clerk for review by the Commission. She stated that her clients wished to keep the sign in place for the purposes of advertising and their position was that the City should allow it for several reasons, including: it had been in place for nearly twenty years; the agreement to remove the sign upon expiration of the lease was between the City and the previous owner and not the current one; the concerns the City originally had about the sign affecting traffic and hindering development were no longer valid since the project was now fully developed as a shopping center; and they felt the City's regulations regarding signage of this type was a violation of First Amendment Rights to free speech. She referenced a U.S. Supreme Court case and a State of Florida court case in support of this position. Ms. Soliman concluded that for the reasons she had stated, her client was requesting an amendmentto the pre - annexation agreement to allow the property owner to keep the sign in its current location to be used for advertising purposes for the duration of its ownership of the property. She added that ifthe City should require removal of the sign at the time a future sale of the property occurred, her client would be willing to enter into an agreement stating those terms. City Attorney Reischmann advised she would certainly state that the City's sign code was constitutional, contrary to what the applicant was putting forward, but that was not really the issue. She stated that there was a contract in place that clearly provided that the billboard would be removed at the expiration of the lease, regardless of what the City Code says and it did not relate back to the City's Code in any way whatsoever. She further stated that the applicant was now proposing a substantial change to that contract and it was up to the Commission to decide whether it wanted to agree to the applicant's argument that they should in fact be allowed to keep the billboard up, possibly with other concessions or restrictions to the billboard in some way. She reiterated, however, that this was purely a contractual issue. Budget Impact: There is no impact to the City Budget. Recommendation: The City Manager and the Community Development Director recommended that Resolution 15 -2717 and the Second Amendment to the Pre - annexation Agreement be denied so that continuance of the billboard is not allowed.