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EAC Minutes 09/06/2000 RSeptember 6, 2000 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL ADVISORY COUNCIL Naples, Florida, September 6, 2000 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Environmental Advisory Council, in and for the County of Collier, having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m. in REGULAR SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: M. Keen Cornell Ed Carlson Michael G. Coe Thomas W. Sansbury Alexandra Santoro J. Richard Smith NOT PRESENT: Jack Baxter ALSO PRESENT: Stan Chrzanowski, Senior Engineer Barbara Burgeson, Senior Environmental Specialist Stephen Lenberger, Environmental Specialist Bill Lorenz, Natural Resources Director Patrick White, Assistant County Attorney Ron Nino, Current Planning Manager Page PLEASE NOTE THE NEXT MEETING WILL BE HELD OCTOBER 6, 2000 (FRIDAY) IL lII. IV. V. RoliCall ENVIRONMENTAL ADVISORY COUNCIL AGENDA September 6, 2000 9:00 a.m. Commission Boardroom W. Harmon Turner Building (Building "F") - Third Floor Approval of Agenda Approval of July 12, 2000 and August 2, 2000 Meeting Minutes Growth Management Update Land Use Petitions Preliminary Subdivision Plat PSP~2000-10/ Special Treatment Permit ST-99-3 "Little Palm Island" Section 23, Township 48 South, Range 25 East Co Planned Unit Development PUD-99-20 "Brynwood Preserve" Section 18, Township 49 South, Range 26 East Planned Unit Development PUD-2000-7 "Two Lakes Plaza" Section 9, Township 48 South, Range 25 East Planned Unit Development PUD-97-18(1) "The Dunes" Section 20, Township 48 South, Range 25 East VI. Old Business VII. New Business A. EIS VJJ]. Subcommittee Report A. Growth Management Subcommittee Environmental Advisory Council Agenda September 6, 2000 Page 2 IX. Council Member Comments X. Public Comments XL Adjournment Council Members: Notify the Community Development and Environmental Services Division Administrative staff no later than 5:00 p,m. on September l, 2000 if you cannot attend this meeting or if you have a conflict and will abstain from voting on a particular petition (403-2370). General Public: Any person who decides to appeal a decision of this Board will need a record of the proceedings pertaining thereto; and therefore may need to ensure that a verbatim record of proceedings is made, which record includes the testimony and evidence upon which the appeal is to be based. REMEMBER - THE NEXT MEETING WILL BE HELD ON OCTOBER 6, 2000 AT 9:00 A.M. IN THE COMMISSION BOARDROOM September 6, 2000 CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Good morning. Welcome to the September 6th meeting of the Environmental Advisory Council. May we have a roll call? MS. BURGESON: Cornell? CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Here. MS, BURGESON: Carlson? MR. CARLSON: Here. MS. BURGESON: Coe? MR. COE: Here. MS. BURGESON: Baxter?. (No response.} MS. BURGESON: Tom Sansbury will be here between 9:30 and 10:00. Santoro? MS. SANTORO: Here. MS. BURGESON: And Smith. MR. SMITH: Here. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: We have a quorum. We have -- let's see, on the agenda, the only -- the only question I have is that we wanted to talk at some point about the format for the wetland workshops. Would that be something we could talk about under old business, or-- MS. BURGESON: I think we should hold that till the end, yes. And just so that everybody notices, that the meeting next month has been scheduled for a Friday, not Wednesday, because the Board of County Commissioners is using the room on Wednesday. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Okay. And we elect officers next month, do we not? MS. BURGESON: For the October meeting. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Okay. So you need to think about whether or not you want to be an officer. How about a motion approving the agenda? MR. COE: I make a motion we approve the agenda. MR. CARLSON: Second. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Minutes of the last two meetings. Page 2 September 6, 2000 Can we do them together? MS. BURGESON: Yes. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Any changes suggested, or a motion to approve? MR. COE: ! make a motion to approve. MR. CARLSON: I found an error -- we're on the minutes of the meeting? CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Yes, last two meetings. MR. CARLSON: August 2nd, Page 6. Am I the only one that reads the minutes? CHAIRMAN CORNELL: You're the only one that finds errors. MR. CARLSON: 14th line from the top. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: 14th line from the top. MR. CARLSON: A quote attributed to Chairman Cornell. "1 wanted to make sure that we are keeping the golfer tortoise protection ordinance rolling." CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Oh, I did see that. MR. CARLSON: Now, I know their feet can't reach the pedals in the cart, so I know they don't golf. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: You're a tough man. I was going to let it go. We have that change to the minutes. Any other changes suggested? Motion to approve? MR. COE: Motion to approve. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Second? MR. CARLSON: Second. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Further discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Okay, growth management update. Bill, is that you? MR. LORENZ: Yes. For the record, Bill Lorenz, natural resources director. The Rural Fringe Advisory Committee has completed the evaluation matrix, and we have been receiving comments from a variety of different state agency personnel who form our resource advisory group. The past two meetings they've basically been brainstorming general protection mechanisms and how they would best apply to a variety of the criteria that we've listed in evaluations. No action's been taken on any of those Page 3 September 6, 2000 protection criteria. Their meeting scheduled for September is September 13th at Development Services Advisory Committee -- Development Services Conference Room E at 4:00, and September 27th at Gulf Coast High School. And I believe that's -- I'm not sure exactly the time, I'd have to check my notes, but it's more towards 6:00 or 6:30. At the Gulf Coast High School on September 27th, the staff is going to try to provide a general overview of the environmental criteria within the evaluation matrix. We're going to present information concerning the characteristics and the extent of wetland distribution throughout the fringe, listed species concerns, variety of the number of factors in the evaluation matrix. So it would be pretty much the first time that that group has seen that information in that amount of detail. The Rural Lands Advisory Committee will be meeting September 18th. At that point they will be -- Wilson-Miller, who is a consultant for doing the data analysis for that area; the plan is that there'll probably release some information to the committee at that time. They may not give a presentation, but they may put the information in their hands. That's pretty much it. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: How's it going, do you think? I mean, as far as timing and -- MR. LORENZ: Well, timing, in terms of the final order deadlines, we're okay. I don't see a problem there. I know there is an expectation on the Rural Fringe Advisory Committee, and some individuals, that they would have like to have seen some policy -- objectives and policies probably by this point. But our timetable for that is probably November -- October, November time frame, as we may be able to release some proposed amendments to the Growth Management Plan, certainly covering what we're calling a county-wide requirement that we have to address. And at that point we ought to be in pretty good shape of identifying very specific protection mechanisms as well. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Any questions for Bill or ~- MR. COE: No. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Anyone in the room would like to ask Page 4 September 6, 2000 Bill anything about the process, or -- thank you very much. Appreciate it. Okay, we have several land use petitions. Do you want to begin with Little Palm Island? We'll swear them in one petition at a time; is that the way to do it, or-- MR. WHITE: I believe that's appropriate, yes. (All speakers were duly sworn.) MR. REISCHL: Good morning, council members. Fred Reischl, planning services. This is two companion petitions. One is a preliminary subdivision plat. Normally this is an administrative procedure. However, because an Environmental Impact Statement was required, the EAC must hear the petition. The second petition is an ST, special treatment, permit. This must go to the EAC, as well as the Planning Commission and the Board of County Commissioners. The subject property was before most of you same commissioners earlier this year for two petitions. One was the same ST, and the other was a conditional use for cjuster housing, which proposed to reduce the lot size in the RSF-3 district. With that petition, the EAC and the Planning Commission recommended denial to the board. And prior to the board date, the petitioner requested a continuance, and the CU has never been brought back. So this petition today is for a preliminary plat, coming to you because an Environmental Impact Statement was required and the ST. And if I could have the visualizer, please. There is no visualizer, okay -- oh, there we go. Okay, on the visualizer you can see in blue is the border of the property. And in green are the preserve areas. Retained native vegetation, I should say. And among them, the changes that we'll go into later in the environmental section is more of a preserve in the better quality gopher tortoise habitat. But the property, just to give you a recap again on where this is, this area is Palm River Estates subdivision. To the west is the Collier's Reserve subdivision. And to the north is Imperial Golf Estates. Page 5 September 6, 2000 The parcel itself is zoned RSF-3. There's no proposed change in the zoning. The proposed lot size meets the requirements of the RSF-3 district. Again, to recap what was submitted previously, the old conditional use had a density of 1.8 dwelling units per acre. The maximum permitted is three. That was 157 lots. The proposed PSP before you now has 141 lots on 86.67 acres for a density of 1.63 dwelling units per acre. Again, the maximum is three. And the -- as I said, the gopher tortoise preserve is increased in size and in habitat quality. And to go into that more, here's Barbara Burgeson for the environmental aspects. MS. BURGESON: For the record, Barbara Burgeson, with planning services. I'm just going to try to summarize this, because this has already been presented to this board for a previous petition. The changes that you see in this site plan over the last site plan is that the wetland impacts we're recommending approval of, or allowing the five lots to be impacted at the north end of the wetland in lieu of the property owner and the petitioner being willing to dedicate the highest quality gopher tortoise habitat to be set aside on-site to protect a number of the existing burrows in that area, which is along the west property line and adjacent to the gopher tortoise preserve on the Collier's Reserve tract. The upland preserve from the original petition was entirely along the north side of the canal, with some acreage that had not been identified on the site plan, so there was missing acreage for preservation. This site plan identifies more than what's required. 17.4 acres of native vegetation is required. This site plan shows t8.82. So they're meeting with the site plan, they're meeting their preservation requirements, they're improving location and gopher tortoise habitat. However, staff still has some concerns regarding the three-plus acre preserve on the north side of the canal and whether there's viability for relocating tortoises into that area for use as a -- as one of three gopher tortoise preserves. The third one is a very small preserve area at the southwest corner of the wetland. Already has a couple of burrows, either in the area or in the immediate vicinity of the area. So that there's quality and reason for that to be viable; however, it's very small. Page 6 September 6, 2000 The petitioner is here. The environmental consultant is here. If there's any specific questions, I'd be happy to answer them. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Questions for staff? MR. CARLSON: Question. You mention the preserve at the north end of the property and the -- your concerns about it being appropriate for tortoises. Is that based on elevation, vegetation, both? MS, BURGESON: It's based on the entire character of that area right now. MR. CARLSON: Is there any proposal for enhancement -- MS. BURGESON: It would have -- MR. CARLSON: -- in that area? MS. BURGESON: If that area is going to be accepted as part of the gopher tortoise preserve, and if they choose to relocate tortoises into that area, they will have to take out all of the exotics. They may need to grade down some of the edge of that area, which is along the canal there. And they would have to recreate gopher tortoise habitat and do a great deal of enhancement with plantings in that area. MR. CARLSON: Now, does this project now have to do a formal gopher tortoise management plan? MS. BURGESON: We've always required that, but now there's more detail in what's needed for that. And yes, it does, since the board approved the gopher tortoise rewrite in the Land Development Code, they will have to come up with what's required by that new language. MR. CARLSON: So as far as that northern area being an appropriate preserve, that will be established by you and the state via that plan? MS. BURGESON: The state would not be involved in that. The state is issuing -- is it a relocation permit? -- for all of the tortoises. Some of them will be retained on-site. The remainder will be relocated to a property off of 951. And the county will at the time of site development -- or not site development, I guess final plat and construction plan approval, receive the final language to approve what will be done to that northern preserve, too, MR. CARLSON: You said the county makes the final call on the northern -- Page 7 September 6, 2000 MS. BURGESON: Exactly, right. MR. CARLSON: Okay. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Other questions for Barbara or Fred? At the end you normally have stipulations. This looks -- MS. BURGESON: This is the first time that staff has added the growth management consistency information in the detail that's in the staff report. And I apologize, I didn't get into the discussion on that. That is the first staff report we've done this way. But this project is consistent with all of the growth management policies and goals, as stated in the staff report here. And we are recommending approval of the project, subject to the stipulations, as issued. Just the one water management stipulation and eight stipulations for environmental issues. CHAIRMAN CORNELl.: Yes, I wanted to ask you about that. I know that you generally call them stipulations. Here they -- up here is recommendations. Is that the same thing, or -- MS. BURGESON: Yes. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: And is Ed's northern gopher tortoise preserve issue covered adequately in there? MS. BURGESON: Yes, it will be. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: May we hear from the petitioner? MR. PEEPLES: Good morning. My name is Perry Peeples. I'm an attorney with the Anis-Mitchell law firm. With me here today is the petitioner, Paula Davis, president of Keystone Custom Homes. Also Mike Myers, the environmental consultant. And Dave Farmer, the engineer on this project. I think several of you recognize us from the last time we were here in January. This is not a new project, but it has been substantially re-drawn from the last time. We walked away with a denial in January, and I think the primary reasons for that dealt with the ST area, and the real concerns that this committee had with the gopher tortoise protection. At that time we had a plan that only had the top -- only had this top area as a gopher tortoise protection area, preserve area. There was no other plan made for the gopher tortoise protection. And what we have changed with regard to that, I think, is fairly considerable. We went through a plan revision. And during that plan revision, we eliminated lots. Mr. Carlson at the last meeting Page 8 September 6, 2000 suggested that we eliminate a lake and turn that into gopher tortoise preserve. We did that. And that was in the prime habitat. We worked extensively with Ms. Burgeson and with the county. They required that the prime habitat be not only protected but also that it be linked to the Collier's Reserve. So we did that. We have some maps that we will show you to indicate where the Collier's Reserve gopher tortoise habitat is. We think that this gopher tortoise habitat is much better. It's much more viable. To be quite honest, our last gopher tortoise plan wasn't very good. And, you know, I think we can freely admit that. We had an Incidental Take permit and we were relying on that Incidental Take permit to take care of the gopher tortoises. Now, this time there's no Incidental Take permit. I know the staff report mentions that. That is not correct. There is no Incidental Take permit at this time. It's a combination of retaining the gopher tortoises on-site. And also, we are relocating and we are obtaining a relocation permit that Mr. Myers will talk about. We have a single site identified, and we have assurances from the owner of the property, as well as the state with regard to the availability and quality of that site. In order to accomplish this, what we have done is we have removed 16 lots from the plan, we have removed a lake from the plan, and we have removed the recreational parcel from the plan. Those were required in order to obtain the necessary acreage to have the retained native vegetation, as well as the gopher tortoise preserve in the prime habitat. What we're showing on this drawing is all of the retained native vegetation, which would include the wetland area and will include gopher tortoise habitat, as well as the additional retained native vegetation, which is neither wet, nor really suitable for gopher tortoise habitat. It exceeds the requirements by approximately an acre and a half. And I know that there were some concerns at our last meeting, because that wasn't shown. We did not actually highlight and show where all the retained native vegetation was. And I know the committee had a real problem with where it was going to come from. And again, I want to stress, this is a preliminary site plan. Page 9 September 6, 2000 We're at the preliminary stage of this. This is the plat that's going through at this time. With regard to the gopher tortoises in particular, the plans, both the plans for the preserves, what we've done with those preserves, as well as the off-site relocation. I'm going to let Mr. Myers discuss that in just a moment. I do want to touch base on the ST area because I really see those two issues here as the two environmental issues. With regard to that ST area, the wetland area has been resurveyed. We have approximately 10 acres of wetland on the property. We have proposed to impact .89 acres, a little less than one acre, a little less than 10 percent of the overall wetlands, in order to make this project work. We have asked for lots that are -- five lots that are partially in those wetlands. And the reason for that is with the reduction of lots that we have accomplished in order to protect the gopher tortoises, we are seeking and staff has recommended approval of mitigating the loss of the .89 acres with the establishment of prime gopher tortoise habitat, and with the enhancement of those gopher tortoise areas with the enhancement of the wetland areas. ! -- with regard to the stipulation versus recommendation, we have reviewed staff's recommendations and we consider those stipulations. They will be abided by. And we will also enhance the gopher tortoise areas, particularly the area to the north of that canal. This is something that we have discussed before. Again, I will let Mr. Myers explain why we think it's good gopher tortoise habitat, or will be once we have completed our review and the enhancement. With regard to staff's recommendation, I would like to bring your attention to what their staff report says with regard to that Section 6.2 of the Growth Management Plan. This is dealing with impacts in the wetlands. On Page 3 of staff's report they state that -- Objective 6.2 says that there shall be no acceptable -- unacceptable net loss of viably functioning marine and fresh water wetlands, excluding transitionally zoned wetlands. So there's anticipated there may be some loss of wetlands. There shall be no unacceptable net loss, excluding a transitional zone. We are proposing to impact a transitional zone. The edge Page 10 September 6, 2000 of the wetlands, where because of the hydrology, because of the invasion of the exotics, it's really not very good wetlands these days. Staff's report also goes on to say that a portion of the viable naturally functioning transitional zoned wetlands shall be preserved, unless otherwise mitigated through DEP or COE. We have been in contact with DEP and COE. They have agreed to our mitigation in the form on enhancement and exotic removal. I know that Collier County requires exotic removal anyway. But we do have approval of mitigation from the state and federal agencies. And again, Growth Management Plan only requires a portion be saved. We're saving over 90 percent of the wetlands in this case. The Goal 6 of the Growth Management Plan protects gopher tortoise populations by providing the appropriate habitat on-site and off-site. That's exactly what we're doing. I'm going to let Mr. Myers explain the details of that. We're all available to answer questions. Mr. Farmer can discuss the drainage issues, if there are any drainage issues which come up. But I want to point out, this is really the hole in the doughnut. There's an aerial in your package to the north of us, just as a reminder. We have Imperial Golf Estates and the golf course. The golf course joins the northern portion of this property. To the west of us, we have Collier's Reserve, with a couple of houses, mostly with their golf course and their gopher tortoise preserve area. To the south and east of us is Palm River Estates, with golf course and single-family homes. We have eliminated our conditional use request for cjustering, we have all single-family homes, meet all requirements of the RSF-3 zoning, and they're coming in at a density of approximately half of the permitted density. So let me let Mr. Myers go through his explanation of our gopher tortoise protection plan and the ST area. Mike? MR. MYERS: Good morning. For the record, my name's Mike Myers, vice president and senior ecologist with Passarella & Associates. What I'll try to do here -- in your packet what I've given you Page September 6, 2000 is the highlights touching on the ST overlay development request, as well as our gopher tortoise plan. So I'll try to run through this quickly. To reacquaint you with the ST area, as Perry pointed out, it's located at the northern edge of our proposed wetland preserve. It is 0.89 acres in size. And it represents -- and it does represent less than 10 percent of the overall wetland. This area that we're requesting be impacted has been reviewed by the South Florida Water Management District, as well as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and it has been approved and actually permitted to be impacted. This area that we're requesting to impact is highly degraded. It's degraded as a result of heavy invasion by exotics such as melaleuca, Brazilian pepper, silk oak, Old World Climbing Fern. You name it, you can just about find it out here. The second reason, and more importantly that this area is highly degraded is due to a lack of hydrology. If you take a look in your packet on Page 3 at photograph one, this photograph here where it has my Jeep parked in the center of it. I took this photograph Saturday. And where the Jeep is parked is in the center of the proposed impact area. And in addition, you can see a number of exotics around the Jeep. But the thing that's striking to me about the photograph is there's no water. We're at the height of the rainy season, particularly in the last couple of weeks we've had a lot of rain, and this area is bone dry today. So what I did is in this photograph two, I dug a soil pit when I was out there, and at the bottom of the pit you can see the standing water. The shovel, the top of the shovel, is level with ground elevation in the wetland. And the blade of the shovel is approximately 13 inches in length. So even after -- here we are at the height of the rainy season. After two weeks of good rain, the water table is down below a foot -- greater than a foot below the ground elevation in the wetland. Having said that, what we're still proposing as compensation for impact to this area is the creation of a 3.8-acre gopher tortoise preserve over by Collier's Reserve. This is connected to a number of Collier's Reserve gopher tortoise preserves. That's what's represented by these U25, U26, U28 on Page t2 September 6, 2000 their map. In addition, we're proposing the creation of two additional gopher tortoise preserves that will be enhanced, and they will be enhanced through supplemental plantings and exotic removal. And then briefly, to touch on the gopher tortoise plan, as Perry pointed out, we are receiving a gopher tortoise relocation permit from the Wildlife Conservation Commission. And that will be -- the plan includes the on-site preservation of tortoises, as well as on-site relocation. We're looking to maintain approximately t7 tortoises on-site. If we use the game -- or the Wildlife Conservation Commission's calculation for determining the number of total tortoises on-site, it's approximately 61. We believe, based on experience, that number's probably high. But to error on the side of caution, if we use the number 61, we'll try to maintain 17 on-site. That would include nine in this preserve next to Collier's Reserve. And what these red numbers here represent are active and inactive burrows that were identified during the original protected species survey. So you can see, this is quality habitat. In addition, we're proposing to relocate six tortoises to the north and an additional two tortoises into this area. That represents approximately two tortoises per acre, which is one of the Game Commission's guidelines. The balance, 61 tortoises, minus 17, about 44 tortoises, we'd be looking to relocate off-site to suitable habitat. We've narrowed that down to two locations. One is Willow Run Quarry, located off 951, and the other would be an area called Persimmon Ridge in Lee County, which is owned and operated by Lee County Parks and Rec. So having said all that, we're happy to address any of your questions. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Questions for Mike? Do you have other speakers, Perry, that want to say something about the project? MR. PEEPLES: No, sir, unless you have specific questions that the other experts would be better to handle. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Mike, I just had one question. The ST overlay district is a county -- was a county initiative, right? MR. MYERS: As I understand it, that's correct. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: How does that -- I mean, I see that Page 13 September 6, 2000 you have noted that this impact is approved by COE and the Water Management District. But how do they come together? MR. PEEPLES: If I may answer that. In order to impact that ST, it requires county action by the Board of County Commissioners. This is the first step. It will also be heard by the Planning Commission. And then finally, if we have the ability to do that, it will only be as approved by the board. So that's where the county function comes in. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you. Questions from anyone in the audience for the petitioner or staff on this project? MR. HEMMING: I arrived late. I didn't register. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Okay. Could you swear him in, Cherie'. MR. HEMMING: My name is Bruce Hemming, H-E-M-M-I-N-G, and I'm a resident of Palm River. (Speaker was duly sworn.) MR. HEMMING: At a prior meeting there was some testimony given by, I believe, a resident of Collier Reserve regarding the canal to the north of the property. That particular testimony was that the canal was a dredge-and-drop operation, as opposed to a dredge-and-haul operation. Apparently, if that was true, that would impact this area that the developer proposes to enhance for additional gopher habitat. My question is whether or not the staff or whether or not the developer has determined whether or not that particular area above the canal is a dredge-and-drop. Obviously if it's a dredge-and-drop area, that enhanced habitat is a write-off. So I would like to know if that was pursued and whether or not we determined that was actually the issue with that canal. Thank you. MR. FARMER: Good morning, committee members. For the record, my name is David Farmer. I represent the applicant, Keystone Custom Homes, for this project. In terms of this -- or the subject of this canal, in doing the survey for it, we found that there was a recorded easement for Collier County for the stormwater department over a portion of this area, and this -- to allow for the dredging and conveyance of stormwater through the property. This preliminary subdivision plat proposes to replace that Page 14 September 6, 2000 metes and bounds description with natural platted tract for that area. As part of this plat also, areas will be designated as gopher tortoise preserve areas, and that will limit what the county or anyone else can do to impact this area. There will be periodic maintenance that Collier County will have to provide, and those areas will have to be separated from the actual gopher tortoise relocation area. I believe the area at this time is proposed to be fenced, so it will be delineated, and further details will have to be addressed in the gopher tortoise management plan. CHAIRMAN CORNELl.: But you still end up with 3.8 acres. MR. FARMER: Well -- CHAIRMAN CORNELL: No, I'm sorry, I have the wrong -- MR. FARMER: Yeah, the 3.8 acres is indicated down here. There's about a little over three acres up here. And what we have delineated on the plan is the approximate water's edge -- or excuse me, top of bank. And -- and I'll leave it at that. Does that adequately answer the question? CHAIRMAN CORNELl.: Does that answer your question, Mr. Hemming? MR. HEMMING: Well~ no, not really. My question was whether or not -- THE COURT REPORTER: I'm sorry, I need to have you on the mike. MR. HEMMING: I'm sorry. No, not really. My question was whether or not that area will be continued -- or they will continue to dredge-and-drop, and where and how will it impact the habitat. If it has -- from what you've said, if the area is under control as a gopher tortoise preserve, how does that again impact the use of the canal for drainage, and where wiii the dredge -- the soils taken from the dredging be relocated? MR. FARMER: The specifics, at the time when it's dredged, will have to be addressed by John Boldt, which is the stormwater management department head for Collier County. But like I said, the area for the gopher tortoises and their preserve will be delineated in the field, and we will provide an adequate place for future dredging or maintenance of the canal. It will not -- it does not need to be required to be deepened or widened, it just merely needs to be maintained. Not even on a Page 15 September 6, 2000 yearly basis, but on a periodic basis. MR. HEMMING: Okay. So, this is -- as I understand your answer, that this will be determined at a later date? MR. FARMER: Well, the gopher tortoise management plan will actually determine what -- how much of that area is going to be viable, if any, of that northern section will be allowed for gopher tortoise relocation (sic). If it's not -- if it is determined in the future that it's not suitable gopher tortoise relocation habitat and the gopher tortoises designated for that area are moved off-site, the point really becomes moot. The easement that will be described on the plat for the stormwater will allow for the existing drainage to move through there and for future maintenance of that area. MR. HEMMING: So we -- you are proposing that three-acre site north of the canal, as opposed to -- I guess staff has approved that site with enhancement; is that correct? MR. FARMER: I'll let staff answer that question. MS. BURGESON: We have recommended approval of that area with gopher tortoise management plan and proper enhancement of that area. MR. HEMMING: Okay, so proper enhancement will be site determinant? MS. BURGESON: Right. MR. HEMMING: When it's done, you'll determine whether it's done correctly? MS. BURGE$ON: Yes. MR. HEMMING: And at that time will handle the stormwater drainage and dredging issue with the canal? MS, BURGESON: We could handle that with a stipulation if you want right now, or if the board so desires, to have a stipulation placed that we address that prior to final plat and construction plans. And it will be handled through the gopher tortoise management plan as well. MR, HEMMING: I see. So -- and what other county is that? That's a county concern, the maintenance of that canal? MS, BURGESON: Yes, it is. MR. HEMMING: And as far as the county is concerned at this point, the maintenance level is proper and correct and will continue on the same basis? MR. CHRZANOWSKI: You'd have to talk to John Boldt about Page 16 September 6, 2000 that. Any of the county canals are subject to fill-in on a regular basis. Some of them, depending on how much construction is in the area, need maintenance a lot sooner than others. Now during construction, we make people use silt screens and other erosion control measures on a regular basis. Sometimes these fail. If they do, the person responsible for the failure generally ends up cleaning up the canal. But even despite that, dirt from the roads over the periods of years will fill in the canal, as it will all the canals in Golden Gate and all the canals throughout the entire county. When they get a cross-section that won't support the amount of water that they have to pass, they get dredged. At that time, the person doing the dredging, mostly the county or the Water Management District, because they own a lot of the canals, has to find some place to put the dredge material. The permit that they get to put that dredge material will take into account that you don't fill gopher tortoise preserve. As to a timetable, ! would assume, like the Cocohatchee River down from here, at some point you get a sandbar. Somebody files a complaint. They go in and dredge. MR. HEMMING: I understand. So essentially what we're saying is that at the time the determination will be made. And could that be a potential additional cost to the county if they had to dredge-and-haul as opposed to dredge-and-drop? Are we looking at additional cost to the county? MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Oh, yeah. MR. HEMMING: So this could impact the county financially? MR. CHRZANOWSKI: You don't have the right to drop on somebody else's property anyway. If the owner didn't let them drop, it wouldn't matter whether it was dredge-and-haul or dredge-and-drop, they'd still have to make some kind of arrangement and get a permit and pay whoever's property they want to drop on. MR. HEMMING: I understand. So they were not dropping on the easement for the canal? MR. CHRZANOWSKI: I was not at that meeting about dredge-and-drop, dredge-and-haul. I have no idea where they were dropping. I would assume they did things properly, got the owner's permission. And you would assume they didn't. Page 17 September 6, 2000 MR. HEMMING: Well, no, no, I don't assume anything anymore. I've learned not to do that. My concern obviously is the fact that we're reducing the potential population there, which has not been verified. We're using estimates from 61 to 17 gopher tortoises. In the spirit of the new ordinance that was passed, it seems that we're taking three-quarters or better of the population and trying to relocate it. The likelihood of them surviving, based on all the expert testimony I've heard, is pretty rare. I would just want to make sure that if we're going to establish some habitat, that -- to allow for these native species to exist to live there, that we are pretty careful about what we do. I believe that the developer has the intention of doing that, but intentions are not always fulfilled. That's the basis of my statement. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you for your input. Is it your pleasure to add a stipulation, this question of the dredging be resolved? MR. HEMMING: I think it's important enough to add a stipulation, if staff feels it's -- CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Yeah, I just need to get some feeling about it. Is there a motion to that effect? MR. HEMMING: Looks like I don't have much support. MR. PEEPLES: Mr. Cornell, I think it's important to note that that property will be restricted as to what can happen to it, what the petitioner can do with it, what the county can do with it. Those restrictions will be contained within the restrictive covenants for the neighborhood; they will be contained in the plat as well. I don't think that county staff is going to allow any sort of dredge material to be placed in the gopher tortoise preserve. That's exactly the sort of thing that is prevented by the gopher tortoise maintenance plan and the recorded restrictions. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you. Did you have a -- we had another speaker that was here? MR. MYERS: Well, I just wanted to add, the reason I had gotten somewhat excited about this area north of the canal is because it's an opportunity to try and do something a little more creative -- a little creative in creating gopher tortoise habitat. And I have been over to that side of the canal and looked Page 18 September 6, 2000 around, and there are a number of old spoil piles over there. And time and time again I see on a number of properties that have gopher tortoise populations is that these areas sometimes are utilized by gopher tortoises. So I suspect those spoil piles have been there for quite a while. There's a lot of large Brazilian peppers growing on them. So I saw this as an opportunity to possibly try and do something by creating a little gopher tortoise habitat over in that area. I think if we remove the pepper, that's going to allow a lot more sunlight penetrating to the forest floor, which will create a lot more herbaceous type ground cover. And this area is high and dry. The spoil is sandy material, which is good for tortoises to dig in. So that was the reason originally for kind of nominating this area as a potential gopher tortoise relocation area. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you. Sir? MR. BELT: Good morning. My name is John Belt and I'm with Palm River homeowners. And we have several concerns. We are much more pleased with the draft of the outlay they have where they've gone back to the RF-3 area. We were very much opposed to the cjuster operation. I had several items I wanted to bring up, but let's go back to this gopher tortoise, because that is of some concern to our people, and I think some concern to you, because it was a major discussion at the last time we were here with you. Reading from Barbara's staff report, it says staff is still concerned about the acceptability of creating a gopher tortoise preserve on the three-acre parcel north of the canal. This land currently has no suitable habitat for gopher tortoises and will require creating adequate habitat prior to relocating any tortoises in this area. At the prior hearing, they had five acres up there, which on their original plat they had said is a recreational area, and then they amended it because the question of gopher tortoises, and they said they're going to put gopher tortoises on the entire five acres. It's now 3.07 acres, which I presume they're leaving something for the spoil area. But gopher tortoises don't swim. They're not going to get back to their original habitat. They'll just Page 19 September 6, 2000 be up there. And the property is not now suitable at all for gopher tortoises, because there's none there. I do think that they've done a nice job in coming up with the 3.8 acres over near Collier's Reserve. I think that's a fine location. And in my mind, they should expand that location to make it adequate for their gopher tortoises situation together. They have 75 hundredths of an acre there at the bottom of the wetlands, which also the smaller preserve adjacent to the wetland is an existing gopher tortoise habitat, but it may need some enhancement. As I understand it, the standard is two gopher tortoises per acre, so you're going to put one and a half tortoises in that little parcel of property and it's going to keep them happy. They're talking about saving t7. 17 is when they take the total acreage they have, the 3.07, the 75 hundredths and the 3.8 and adding it all together. But if you've got 3.8 acres, you're not going to put in seven or eight tortoises, because you only have 3.8 acres. That's seven tortoises. You put one and a half in the 75 hundredths acres, that's nine. And I don't think you can put any tortoises on the north side, because the property is not suitable at all. And as Mr. Hemming said, it was testified at the prior hearing that this is a spoil area where they drain the canal and put the stuff up there. That's not going to be good, even if they try to enhance it, in my mind. But to do other things, let me name two or three other things that we were concerned with. They have asked that you -- at the original hearing, the county objected to five lots that was in the wetlands area. Originally the overlay, as I understand it, was a little over 20 acres. And when they came in and did some resurveying and all, the consultant said it should be only about almost 10 acres. And they set that up as being the prime wetlands. At that time -- now they want those five lots up there to cut down on the t0 acres that they said was the original wetlands, and it should be there. To me, I think those lots should be eliminated still, because it is still a factor as cutting down the wetlands from 20.1 acres or 20.2 acres, whatever it was, down to less than 10, and now they come in with three lots and knowing full well that they're cutting down the wetlands that are there. Page 20 September 6, 2000 To me, I think that they are just trying to make it easy for themselves to put in a lot of lots. And they don't care how much they bother the neighborhood or other things of that sort. I think that's something that you folks need to consider along the way. I think that it is in your power to tell them that it's appropriate to make a turtle habitat and to make an appropriate one that's in an area that they now occupy. That's that 3.8 acres. Put some additional acreage in that area, and they can do that, and then allow for the wetlands to go ahead and go. I don't think they should allow the wetlands go just because they found a small turtle preserve along the way. We are concerned a little bit about traffic in our area. I know that that may not be environmental, but nonetheless, it is important to us, and it's something that we need to raise and keep reminding them that it's important to us; the impact that they have on the traffic through our local area, and they're going to use the roads in Palm River as existing roads. I noticed in the report or in the maps that they had sent before the county that they plan to keep these private roads. They'll maintain them and build them. But we also want access through that area for our people, and it should be opened to the public. Because on one side, there's only one way out. That's Viking Way for a group of people living on the east side. Over on the west side -- I mean on the -- the west side is Viking Way. On the east side is Cypress Way East. By going through their area, we could have two ways out, which is important to our people. Also, it has not been brought up here, but in the plan of Unit 2 of Palm River Estates, there are nine lots that are platted as 100-foot lots. Under this plan that they have gotten lined up, right at this location, they have these nine lots. They're putting in 11 lots. And they're saying nothing about eliminating the nine lots that are already platted and part of Palm River Estates. Isn't there some procedure that they should go through to abandon those lots if they buy them, and then replat them along the way? Because they're platted originally at 100-foot lots. That's the only thing I don't understand. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: I don't know whether that's something -- is Ron still here, or Stan? Is it possible to help him with that question? MR. CHRZANOWSKI: I suppose they could replat. Dave? Page 2t September 6, 2000 MR. PEEPLES: That's what we're doing here now. MR. BELT: They're doing that here, just by putting it as new plat, and that will automatically replat the lots themselves. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Yes. MR. BELT: Is that what you're saying? MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Yes. MR. BELT: People bought property opposite that, expecting a house backing up to their property along the way (sic). Now they're changing that without any notice, provisions or anything like that. MR. REISCHL: This hearing is the public hearing~ and plus the final plat has to be approved by the Board of County Commissioners. MR. WHITE: I can tell you, Mr. Chairman -- Patrick White for the record -- that under the state statutes as of a couple of years ago, when you come in and replat already existing platted lands, so long as it otherwise complies with the county's regulations, that acts to~ if you will, recreate the lot lines into eliminating any existing easements that aren't occupied. So if that's any help. MR. NINO: Ron Nino. In addition to those comments made by Pat, as long as the replatting condition produces lots that are consistent with the current zoning of the property, there is no consideration that if that action reduces -- actually reduces the number of lots. There was never any guarantee to those lots in the first instance to the degree that they were larger than as required by the zoning district. MR. BELT: Well, I think that this -- your board can make an improvement in the developer's proposal for handling the gopher tortoises and also in handling the wetlands and keeping the wetlands like they are. We are concerned about their plans along the way. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you~ Mr. Belt, for coming. MS. BURGESON: If I can just interject something before we go further with the next few speakers. Mr. Belt discussed a concern about the density of the gopher tortoises into the relocated habitat areas. The county amendment to the Land Development Code, under the gopher tortoise amendment language, allows up to five tortoises per acre, and we do that on a site-by-site basis, identifying what the Page 22 September 6, 2000 existing burrows are, what the existing density is. And it may be that the preserve along the west, which is high quality, may allow five tortoises per acre, and it may be that maybe the small area to the southwest of the wetlands may be not quite suitable for five. But it will be handled at the time that we do the gopher tortoise management plan. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Questions? MR. CARLSON: ! just thought of a question. MS. BURGESON: Yes. MR. CARLSON: Is the reserve on the adjacent property, Collier's Reserve, is that like totally segregated with a fence and divided from this potential? MR. MYERS: Yes. There is -- Mike Myers for the record. There is a fence that runs down the east. MR. CARLSON: So there's no mixing of the tortoises now? MR. MYERS: No, no, there -- you can see the trails where there's a number of spots where they do go under the fence. So they're -- MR. CARLSON: But there won't be an effort in this plan to integrate this preserve with the one to the west, it will be a separate preserve? MR. MYERS: I don't think the plan is to create any kind of new fence. MR. PEEPLES: They're separate landowners. However, the whole purpose of putting it in that location and working with Ms. Burgeson and the rest of county staff over the several months was to find a location that allowed for exactly what you're talking about, the combination, the mixing of the gopher tortoise populations and the combination of this 3.8 acres with the Collier's area so that it really enhances both. There were other places that were good prime gopher tortoise habitat that we would have preferred to put this. However, Ms. Burgeson, and correctly, I think, required that it be along the Collier's Reserve preserves. They're -- the gopher tortoises go back and forth through there regularly. MS. AVALONE: My name is Kathleen Avalone, A-V-A-L-O-N-E, and I'm with the Citizens For The Protection Of Animals here in Naples. I'm here today to speak against building on Little Palm Island, which houses approximately 165 gopher tortoise burrows. Page 23 September 6, 2000 Both the destruction of gopher tortoise habitat and the relocation of gopher tortoises by law constitutes cruelty to animals. Since gopher tortoises are a keystone species, plowing over and bulldozing burrows not only threatens the tortoises directly, but also destroys a large number of species who use tortoise burrows for homes; among them the gopher frog, which is found nowhere else except in the burrows, the eastern indigo snake, both of which are, like the gopher tortoise, listed species, along with many beneficial snakes such as the pine snake, red and grey rat snake. Abandoned burrows have fox, squirrel, opossum, raccoon, red and grey foxes, and bobcats, two of which have been seen on this property, armadillo and bobwhite quail. Some live all their lives in these burrows and cannot exist without them. This indiscriminate killing and depravation of life-sustaining habitat is cruel and inhumane. Harold Wahlquist, from the Symposium On Gopher Tortoise Conservation, says gopher tortoise relocation is being advocated by developers and their environment to consultants, and by regional planning councils with little thought to such biological impacts as carrying capacity of relocation habitats, population disruptions, gene pool mixing, parasite and disease transmission. After relocation, only 30 to 40 percent of relocated tortoises usually remain on-site one or more years, according to Joan Berish, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Henry Mushinsky, graduate director and professor for the University of South Florida Department of Biology, did two studies on relocation. In one study, 116 tortoises had been relocated to reclaimed upland habitat in 1988. Three years later only 16 percent were within the study plots where they were released. In 1985, 83 tortoises were relocated. After two years, only about 30 percent remained within the released area. Both studies suggest that the majority of tortoises relocated tend to move from the point of release shortly after release. Gopher tortoises often become disoriented when relocated and wander off-site, which leaves them vulnerable to traffic mortalities. Many tortoises are killed each year by automobiles. New roads and habitat destruction from development also increase their contact with each other, which creates a greater Page 24 September 6, 2000 chance of spreading disease, such as upper respiratory tract disease, or URTD, which destroys the respiratory tract and usually leads to the death of infected tortoises. Dr. Mary Brown, a University of Florida Associate Professor of Pathobiology, writes that the decreasing habitat and increasing contact amongst the tortoises is leading to a greater chance of spreading URTD, which destroys the respiratory tract and olfactory senses. She states, this is an ideal situation for the spread of most infectious diseases. Relocation involves moving a tort from one site to another. While this makes people feel good~ it is not very effective and risks spreading the disease. According to Dr. Paul Klein, a University of Florida Professor of Pathology, Immunology and Laboratory Medicine, the loss of smell makes it difficult for tortoises to find food, which leads to malnutrition and starvation. A damaged respiratory tract can lead to secondary infections. URTD is not treatable in the wild. Researchers state that this disease is the same as that which decimated the desert tortoise in the American Southwest and on Sanibel Island. Joan Berish, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation~ reports, a colleague of mine relocated tortoises to his property and now he has had a relocatee die. It was seropositive but had been negative previously. So we are now undoubtedly spreading the disease by relocating tortoises. According to the Florida State Statute 828.12, Cruelty To Animals, a person who intentionally commits an act to any animal which results in the cruel death or excessive or repeated infliction of unnecessary pain or suffering or causes the same to be done is guilty of a felony of the third degree. According to Florida State Statute 828.16, Contagious Diseases, whoever, having charge of any animal knowingly the same -- knowing the same to have any contagious or infectious disease or to have been recently exposed thereto, sells, barters or disposes of such an animal, or knowingly permits such animals to run at large shall be guilty of a misdemeanor of the second degree. Because the destruction of gopher tortoise burrows causes the indiscriminate killing and loss of life-sustaining habitat to many animals, and because relocation of the tortoises Page 25 September 6, 2000 intentionally inflicts unnecessary pain and suffering through the spread of diseases and often results in a cruel death from starvation or traffic death, approval of a building permit on Little Palm Island would not only be a violation of the two above mentioned Florida Statutes, but an unconscionable act as well. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you, Ms. Avalone. Yes, sir. MR. BOGGS: My name is Alan Boggs. B-O.G-G.S. I am representing Collier County Audubon Society, and myself as a private resident of Imperial Golf Estates, which is to the north of this development. Everybody, Mr. Hemmings and Mr. Belt and Mrs. Avalon, have stolen my thunder and I don't propose to repeat their arguments. The Audubon Society is in complete agreement with them. One thing that particularly concerns us is this three point something acres to the north which abuts directly onto Imperial Golf. In the staff report, they keep saying that they're going to have questions about the acceptability of this particular three-plus acres as proper habitat for the tortoises. And there have been a number of things said about enhancement. Somewhere in this material, and in some of your meetings, there was a question raised as to how long it took to enhance -- quote, enhance -- property to make it into proper habitat. And as I recall, it required removing exotics and planting of other flora and whatever, and it could possibly be a year before the habitat had become successful. I can't remember what -- it was one of your meetings here. What -- if it takes a year, what happens to those tortoises while the construction is going on? We are wondering, and the position we have with Audubon Society, is the possibility or a consideration of adding that three-plus acres to the north to what is considered to be an acceptable habitat. Now, I know that those developers have gone into a tizzy, but I think it's something worth considering. Also, we keep hearing about plans, management plans. I'm not quite sure when those come about. Do they come about after permission is giving to develop, or is a plan required before permits are issued? Page 26 September 6, 2000 Ms. Burgeson, could you help me? MS. BURGESON: The gopher tortoise relocation management plan is a requirement of the final plat and construction plan approval. And it would be language that would be agreed upon prior to final county approval and added to the construction plans. So it will be a formal record, prior to them getting final approval. MR. BOGGS: And as I say~ Mr. Hemming and Mr. Belt and Mrs. Avalone covered pretty much. I think it's infamous that you would have a population of plus or minus 60 gopher tortoises and remaining with t7 after this is carried out. The others would have to be relocated. Apparently this relocation methodology or technology is still somewhat controversial. But there's no question that there is a very high mortality rate associated with it. And although the -- unfortunately the gopher tortoise is not nearly as pretty as Nancy Payton's panthers~ it still is an animal. So that's all have I to say. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you, Mr. Boggs. MR. CARLSON: I have a question for you, sir. Up here. You can't see me? MR. BOGGS: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Only half of you is showing. MR. CARLSON: Are there active gopher tortoise burrows on Imperial Golf Estates? MR. BOGGS: Not that I know of. MR. CARLSON: Is there any opportunity to have gopher tortoise habitat on Imperial Golf Estates? MR. BOGGS: That again, I don't know. When this subject came up, I contacted the residents of our homeowners' association, and apparently our homeowners' association at this time doesn't have much interest in this. I think that's unfortunate. MR. CARLSON: How big a property is -- how many acres is in Imperial Golf Estates? MR. BOGGS: I haven't a clue. MR. CARLSON: Thank you. MR. BOGGS: Sorry. I wasn't very helpful. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you. MR. BOGGS: Thank you. Page 27 September 6, 2000 MRS. HEMMING: My name is Carol Hemming. I have not been sworn in. (Speaker was duly sworn.) MRS. HEMMING: I live in Palm River, and I have a question about the canal. On Page 4 of the staff report, at the very top, it indicates that the Little Palm Isle, that water, I guess, runoff from Little Palm Isle will not be incorporated. The canal will not be incorporated. And then in the very next paragraph, it says that they will discharge into the existing canal. Could somebody clear that point up for me? MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Yes. The water management system is how the water is treated before it's discharged into the canal. The canal is the discharge point. MRS. HEMMING: So we are going to have additional water and whatever from all of this construction going into that canal, and right on the other side of the canal, which is going to be more dirt, more silt and all of that into the canal. And then on the other side is the gopher tortoise habitat. Which to me means more dredging. And where is the dredging going to go? Is it going to be dumped on the tortoises? MR. CHRZANOWSKI: When they do the construction, they install silt screens and erosion control methods to stop any runoff from carrying silt or sand or anything into the canal. The site should be designed to pass no more water after construction than it passes before construction. The runoff from what's there now goes into the canal. When they're done, the runoff will go into the lake, the lake will store the water and only discharge it at a given rate. I don't even know if the design's been done yet, but that's the standard design for water management systems in Collier County. And I think the Water Management District will tell you the same thing. They discharge at a rate that will not exceed what was discharged before construction started. During construction, our inspectors will make sure that the silt screens are up. If the silt screens fail due to some abnormal event, they will make sure that the material that entered the canal because of the failure is pulled out of the canal. The dredging you're talking about, I'm not sure where all this Page 28 September 6, 2000 is coming from. Every canal in Collier County, from eutrophication, from mud on the roads, they all fill in eventually. Some of them take 30, 40 years, some of them take t 0 years. When they fill in, you have to dredge the canal. When you dredge the canal, you have to put the material somewhere. You have to go get a permit. You have to get legal permission to dump the material. It's not a matter of you can't just dredge a canal and stick the stuff up on the side, unless it's your own property. This is not going to be their property. It's basically what I said before. Maybe I didn't explain myself properly before. MRS. HEMMING: It's somebody's property now. And apparently, from people who live there, this is what's being done now, MR. CHRZANOWSKI: See, it's a lot easier to dump on property when the property is not residential, not lived on. You go in, you say to the owner hey, I want to dump some material on your property. The owner says hey, great, you're going to raise my property. Well, they're going to keep doing this. If that property is not built on, it will keep getting raised up by the dredge material, if they're allowed to dredge-and-drop. Whereas, if they're forced to dredge-and-haul, that property won't get any higher. So what you're asking for really, if you're asking them to dredge-and-drop, you're defeating your own purpose. MRS. HEMMING: We don't want them to dredge-and-drop, because they'll be dropping on the gopher tortoises. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Right, we don't want them to either. MRS. HEMMING: And did anybody ever check into the eagle sightings that we've heard about from several people at prior meetings? MS. BURGESON: We did not see any eagles by the staff or the consultant. However, we do understand they use that area. We will be requiring that the petitioner work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. I don't believe there's going to be any requirement, since there's no active nest or secondary zone associated with this property for that to cause any of the agencies to require them to do anything differently than what they're already proposing for their development. MRS. HEMMING: Did anybody look for an active nest? Page 29 September 6, 2000 MS. BURGESON: Yes, the state has actively pursued this area over the past years with the germane eagle. There's also a couple of eagles off of Vanderbilt. And they are not only aware of the nests, but on an annual basis they fly over the area and they identify the activity of those nests. MRS. HEMMING: And I'd also just like to say, I'm in complete agreement regarding the wetlands issue. And also, this cannot be gated. We need to get in and out of there. We don't need another 241 houses dumping into these roads with -- we need a way in and out. Those of us who live there need a way in and out. Our roads are narrow enough as they are. And if we have any emergences in there, and we have a gated community at the end, we're in deep trouble. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you. MR. CORNELL: I have been sworn in. My haree's Brad Cornell, and no relation to our esteemed chairman here. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: My loss. MR. CORNELL: I do have a couple of comments, and I'll be brief, because many people have spoken about these issues. But a couple of things that I haven't heard addressed yet. One that is -- well, I have a question first to ask and that is, who manages the preserves? I see in the staff report it says the - it will be managed by the property owners. But then somebody said today the county, and so ! just -- MS. BURGESON: No, the county has the authority to go in and review and use code enforcement issues on those preserves to make sure they are managing them in accordance with the plan that is agreed upon. But it is completely up to the homeowners' association to do the annual maintenance on those plans -- or in those areas. MR. CORNELL: In light of that, I would raise a concern that historically preserves on private lands, especially small preserves like these, have not done well. Monitoring and maintenance over time diminishes the quality of the habitat and the preserve diminishes. I think you can ask anybody in the agencies who looks at these sort of things, there's a pretty poor track record on the long-term viability of the small preserves. That's not to say that we don't want them, but I would raise a flag about who's actually doing the maintenance and management and the monitoring Page 30 September 6, 2000 issues that go there. So that's one issue. The second issue is that I would -- I would say that exotics that are removed should not count for any of the mitigation, because that removal is already required by the county. I know the Water Management District and the Corps don't have that same opinion about exotics removal and mitigation. But in this case, I don't think we should be counting that as any kind of credit for mitigation. And finally, I would say, and this might even address the issue of management and maintenance, it seems to me that this property is not unlike the Naples preserve in the city, and could be a very good candidate for purchase by the county for a passive preserve park. I know that that's not being currently considered, but I would suggest to this board that you make that recommendation. And I don't think it's totally crazy, and ! think that it's something that's very much needed. We have very few passive park preserve type areas in the urban area, in particular, and I think it would be a major asset to this county. So thank you very much. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Good morning. MS. WOLOK: Good morning. Mimi Wolok, for the record. M-I-M-I W-O-L-O-K. The new gopher tortoise ordinance states in Section 7, when identifying the native vegetation preservation requirement of Section 3.9.5 of this code for parcels containing gopher tortoises, priorities shall be given to protecting the largest, most contiguous gopher tortoise habitat with the greatest number of active burrows and for providing connection to off-site adjacent gopher tortoise preserves. Now, the developer today has told you that this is a, quote, much more viable plan. It may be a more viable plan, but it does not create more viable breeding gopher tortoise populations. It creates isolated, non-contiguous gopher tortoise preserves without corridors and with very few connections. The number of active burrows in particular areas that are preserved were not of primary concern of the developer, only how to put the most houses in. Gopher tortoises live within the dryer upland sections of Little Palm Island, which is habitat dominated by slash pines. Over half of the acreage right now consists of this habitat. The Page 31 September 6, 2000 gopher tortoise population statewide has decreased to about 30 percent of our original numbers. In Collier County, only one to two percent dry scrub remains, which is a lot of what this property is. The Conservancy is concerned that this development may violate the spirit of the new gopher tortoise ordinance. Let's not begin implementation of this ordinance by allowing developers to find ways to minimize their responsibility to the community and to the species of special concern. Thank you. MS. MARKHAM: My name is Eleanor Markham. M-A-R-K-H-A-M. I have not been sworn in. (Speaker was duly sworn.} MS. MARKHAM: As a homeowner and resident of Palm River for over 19 years, living in a home currently for over 14 years at the end of Cypress Way East, we are wondering just exactly what is going to be going on. We wonder how and why it has been determined that only 17 of the 61 gopher tortoises will be relocated in the Palm River area and relocate the 44 tortoises elsewhere. In relocation, will they allow the fact that we need males and females in each area? If the 6t tortoises are thriving in this area, why relocate so many? In addition, this particular area is one of the few remaining preserved areas of any size north of Immokalee Road in Collier County. And this has limited access, as has been mentioned, through Viking Way and Cypress Way East, going past my house. I'm wondering, with regard to the tortoises, how the relocation of tortoises on the property of the now existing Saint John's Evangelist Catholic Church on 1 t t th Street, I wonder how they have fared. During the time that we have lived in this home, we have seen many other forms of wildlife. We've seen deer, bobcat, rabbits, eagles, eagles nesting on the end of our street in a tall, dead tree, owls, raccoons, and fox. And we used to see quail on Palm View Drive, where there has been a development of condos. At the end of Cypress Way East there is a stormwater drain in the area where a street would pass through. This was put in within the last few years to ease the flooding of Cypress Way East, those last few homes. Now, I have a question about the canal dredging. They Page 32 September 6, 2000 mention if the canal is dredged, more or less if it is not done correctly, it will be corrected. Well, how about the damage that is already done when it is dredged incorrectly, perhaps damaging tortoise areas? And I think that you can consider the entire environmental impact, not only the gopher tortoises. Thank you. MR. CARLSON: Ma'am? Can I ask you a question, ma'am? Can I ask you a question, ma'am? MS. MARKHAM: Okay. MR. CARLSON: I'm going to ask you the same question I asked the other gentleman from Imperial Golf Estates, and that is, you live in the -- remind me of the name of your community again? MS. MARKHAM: It's Palm River. MR. CARLSON: Palm River, okay. Are there gopher tortoises -- are there active gopher tortoise burrows in Palm River? Are there opportunities to have -- is there opportunity to have gopher tortoise habitat or preserves in Palm River? MS. MARKHAM: In the existing developed - MR. CARLSON: Yes. MS. MARKHAM: -- Palm River area? I don't see where or how. Just about every lot has been built on now. We back up to Imperial. The canal is at the back edge of our property. Across from us is an undeveloped area. I don't know for sure that it is designated as a preserve area or if it just happens that it has not been developed. I don't walk in the woods. I don't know exactly what goes on in there. But I'm not aware of any particular areas -- MR. CARLSON: Okay, thank you. MS. MARKHAM: Thank you. MR. CLIFF: Good morning. My name is Buddy Cliff, C-L-I-F-F, and I live in Palm River. (Speaker was duly sworn.} MR. CLIFF: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Buddy Cliff. And I have resided in this target area right next to it for the last 15 years. I feed the animals. I maintain the property that is not my property to the north of me and down the lane, the original Tamiami Trail. And yesterday was one of my mowing days. I hand mow Page 33 September 6, 2000 with a big mower and I have an opportunity to see the activeness of this wildlife around there. I love the wildlife. I've been feeding it for the last 14, 15 years that I've lived on this property. And having been on the building committee of the Saint John the Evangelist Church, I went through the tortoise removal situation. And I know that that situation didn't work out quite like we wanted it to. Several people got up before me and explained how the population of the gopher tortoise can diminish because of just the change in environment. I saw four gopher turtles yesterday while mowing, and that's just in a short area. And if I can point it out. I live right here. This is where the proposed property comes in. I live three lots down. I maintain all this area right here and on both sides of this road. And there are burrows in this little -- there's two burrows in this island right here. And it's kind of hard to describe it, but there are two burrows here. There are two burrows -- three burrows along here. And there's also a burrow on the other side of the original old Tamiami Trail where there's also a fox lair. We have on occasion seen silver fox that are really not, I don't think, too indigenous to that area, but we have seen them. Six kits about 7:00 in the evening, at dawn. And what I'm trying to point out is that I think it's going to be a very, very gross mistake by asking us to believe that the developers are going to develop a three-acre or whatever the dimensions are along that fill canal, plus another off-site acreage. Having been in the construction business when I was younger and operating heavy equipment, along with a 50-ton dredge, it was a drag line which I maintained part of I -- Interstate 80, up in Illinois, in the canals. And I know that the moving of in, egress, and moving the equipment in and out of the areas, if you're going to borrow out of the area and take the spoil and borrow out of the area, just the ingress and egress of the equipment, the dump trucks moving in would be very, very harmful on these animals. It's the vibration, it's the confusion that it's going to cause for these indigenous animals, and I feel it's a shame, in lieu of the light -- in lieu that we have these ordinances on the book, we're going to protect this endangered species. And you heard something about Sanibel Island, you heard Page 34 September 6, 2000 something about Florida, how these species have diminished. And having lived there, having fed the animals, I continue to feed them. I have sometimes 100 birds land in my yard to get feed. Squirrels, rabbits. I know they're not endangered, but the gopher turtles are. And I have seen eagles out there myself. So having said all that, just a comment from someone who has lived in the area and watched these animals and helped take care of them. Thank you. MR. CARLSON: Question. MR. CLIFF: Yes, sir. You're going to ask me the same question. MR. CARLSON: Where did the tortoises from the church go? MR. CLIFF: They went someplace out on Immokalee Road. And it wasn't that far out, it was close in. I had heard -- I was there the day we dug some out the first day. And the guy that ran the backhoe was very concerned. And we had two people, that we were down in the hole, some of the members of the building committee. Father Glacken was there. And we crushed some burrows. I mean, without a doubt. I mean, you have to do that. You don't know where these things are at exactly. You know, this gentleman I think probably knows more about that than I do. But I know that we destroyed some turtles the day that we were taking them out of that area. It's just -- it happens, you know. MR. CARLSON: But this was relatively recently. Do you know -- MR. CLIFF: No~ this was about t0 years ago. MR. CARLSON: Oh, this was not the one we voted on recently? MR. CLIFF: No, this was the original physical plan for Saint John the Evangelist. I was with Art Kiney (phonetic) on the building committee. And -- MR. CARLSON: Is it off Vanderbilt Beach Road? MR. CLIFF: It's on 111th, sir. MS. BURGESON: It's the same church on the same site that we looked at recently; however, they haven't -- MR. CLIFF: Approximately 15 acres. About seven of the acres, I think, was buildable and the other was left. MS. BURGESON: Right, five acres of the back was gopher Page 35 September 6, 2000 tortoise preserve. And they have not relocated those tortoises. They have at this point, as far as I understand, not identified an acceptable place to relocate them yet. MR. CARLSON: But that church came back to this committee for approval -- MR. CLIFF: ! am not-- MR. CARLSON: -- to relocate the rest of those tortoises. THE COURT REPORTER: Excuse me, would you state that again? MR. CARLSON: That church came back to this committee for approval to relocate the rest of those tortoises. MR. CLIFF: I'm not on the building committee. I have no idea. ! know that the first time we moved them~ it was -- I felt that because ! was standing there watching them do it, that it was a situation where there was some of the gopher entrances, the burrow entrances were crushed. And of course you can hand dig them, but again, having been around construction, having run a fairly large piece of equipment and dumping into rubber tire vehicles that are transporting the material off the site, that can disrupt the area just as much as the dredging can and taking the spoil out of the borrow and laying it. And like the gentleman said here, it will eventually run back into the creek or the canals. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thanks, Mr. Cliff. Any other comments? Nancy? MS. PAYTON: Nancy Payton, representing the Florida Wildlife Federation. I have some questions. And if I could direct them to the petitioner, I'd appreciate it, because I think they might be informative. I came here today to find out some information, and I must say, I know less now than I did when I walked in at 9:00. According to the documentation that I had received for today's meeting, the northern strip was to be a gopher tortoise preserve, but during the discussion today, we found out well, it may or may not be. We don't know how many tortoises we can put in there. We just don't know for sure. We think it would make a nice preserve, but we don't know for sure. When Mr. Peeples got up and spoke, he said that the environmental consultant would get up and tell us why that was Page 36 September 6, 2000 going to be a good gopher tortoise preserve. I made a little box on my paper to put in there why it would, and it remains blank. We haven't really heard that it's going to be good gopher tortoise preserve. We're supposed to have a leap of faith that it might be. We found out that the gopher tortoise preserve that's in the southwest corner that we were led to believe early on was part of a larger preserve actually has a fence between Collier's Reserve and the preserve that's proposed for these tortoises. But we're told they go underneath the fence, which makes me wonder well, maybe there are enough tortoises in that area and it can't carry additional tortoises. So that's not really going to be so good maybe for the tortoises. And then we have this tiny area, which there are no tortoises now, that's a fraction of an acre and they're going to dump they don't know how many tortoises there. So we don't know what's going to happen to those tortoises. And if I heard correctly, and please correct me if I didn't hear correctly, that you have a relocation permit for all of those tortoises on-site or a fraction of the tortoises? MR. MYERS: For the record, Mike Myers. Let's see. The reason that we're proposing the northern preserve -- the reason I got all excited about this area to begin with, I didn't realize it would create so much controversy, is that area had historically been used to deposit spoil. And I'm assuming it was from the excavation of the canal. Those spoil piles are quite high in elevation. They're white sand. And one of the things gopher tortoises need is good sandy material to dig in, which is why I thought this would be possibly suitable gopher tortoise relocation area. Those spoil piles have been there quite a while, I'm assuming, simply because there's a lot of large number of Brazilian peppers growing on top of them. I believe once we remove the Brazilian pepper, and we open up this area to sunlight, we'll have a lot of herbaceous type growth over in that area which will provide food for the tortoises. Imperial Golf Estates is to the north, and there's an open fairway grassy area, which I thought the tortoises might be able to go over there to feed. That would provide additional feed for the tortoises as well, unless the people to the north want a fence installed. Page 37 September 6, 2000 MS. PAYTON: Well, you've had communications with them, so you might work out some sort of an agreement. Have you had discussions with Imperial about this? MR. MYERS: No, I haven't. MS. PAYTON: Have you created gopher tortoise habitat in the past? What's your track record of doing this? What's your documentation that you can provide that you've done this in the past and it's worked? Or is this an experiment? MR. MYERS: It is somewhat of an experiment, yes. I think conflicts between -- gopher tortoises unfortunately live in the highest and driest, which are also the best development sites. As these conflicts persist, I think we have to do things that are a little more creative, hopefully, so that development can coexist with the tortoises side by side. I see this as an opportunity in this particular stretch north of the canal to do something of that nature, which is why we recommended it. To address your other concern, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, the number of tortoises down in the preserve that is next to Collier's Reserve, there is a fence but you can clearly see gopher trails. When you're in the field, you can see where gopher tortoises constantly walk through the vegetation. There are spots under the fence where they clearly go back and forth between Collier's Reserve and Little Palm Island. MS. PAYTON: But you've had no communications with Collier's Reserve to integrate the two preserves and open it up so there would be better access for gopher tortoise populations? MR. MYERS: No, not at this point. MS. PAYTON.' And there's enough habitat there to carry the existing population, plus the new population? MR. MYERS: Something that will have to be done prior to any site clearing activity is at the time we're out there with the backhoe operator to dig up the tortoises that are within the proposed development areas, the preservation area will be surveyed off, it will be screened off, and we'll do a current survey in that habitat, okay. Once we know the number of active and inactive burrows that are in the habitat at that time, we can make a guesstimation as to the number of tortoises in the 3.8 acres. Once we've run the calculation, if that equates to five tortoises, then we're proposing to move four more tortoises into Page 38 September 6, 2000 that habitat, for a total of nine. MS. PAYTON: But don't you have to take into consideration the tortoises that are in Collier's Reserve who are coming across and using that same habitat? MR. MYERS: No. MS. PAYTON: You don't? MR. MYERS: No. I'm sorry, what were your other questions? MS. PAYTON: The relocation permit, do you have one from the Wildlife Commission? MR. MYERS: Not at this point. We have made application to the Florida Wildlife Conservation Commission. MS. PAYTON: And is it for the entire population, or a fraction of it? MR. MYERS: Well, it's the same -- we -- in the application, we present the same plan that we've outlined here today. The application is for the relocation of "X" number of tortoises on-site to designated preserves, which we have outlined. And the remainder would be moved off-site to recipient sites, which have been named in the application as well. So the Game Commission takes a look at that. They have to approve the off-site relocation areas as recipient sites, as well as the on-site preserve areas that were designated. MS. PAYTON: So at this point there's no particular number specified. It could be for the entire population, possibly. MR. MYERS: I don't understand. MS. PAYTON: In your relocation permit to the Wildlife Commission, you're telling us there isn't a specific number that's requested in that relocation permit. And conceivably, therefore, it could be for the entire 61 tortoises, or however many are located on the property. MR. MYERS: We're estimating, based on using Wildlife Conservation Commission calculations, that there are 61 tortoises on-site. We're proposing t7 remain on-site, which leaves a balance of 44. The tortoises that we're proposing to go off-site would be relocated to off-site areas. These areas have been surveyed. We have determined the number -- estimated the number of tortoises on-site. As a result, we estimate the carrying capacity of those areas, and those carrying capacities aren't exceeded. Those Page 39 September 6, 2000 numbers get reviewed by the Wildlife Conservation Commission and have to be approved before the permit is authorized. MS. PAYTON: Let me ask you this about the quarry site. MR. MYERS: Okay. MS. PAYTON: That was in the documentation today. We learned that there's another possibility in Lee County -- MR. MYERS: Yes, ma'am. MS. PAYTON: -- Persimmon Ridge. Before you relocate, have you determined that the tortoises on the relocation site are disease free? Have you determined that the tortoises on the -- this particular site are disease free? What are you going to do if you find that you have healthy tortoises that you're going to move into a population that's unhealthy, or you've got unhealthy tortoises here that you're going to move into a site where there are healthy tortoises? How are you going to deal with that disease factor? MR. MYERS: The -- on the recipient site, to address that, I'm really not sure how we do that, unless we dig up all the tortoises on the recip -- out of the burrows on the recipient site in order to test them. So I'm not quite sure how to handle that. As far as the on-site tortoises, the best way I know of to determine whether they're currently shedding with upper respiratory syndrome that you're talking about, is to take a look at the eyes and the nose. If they have running eyes and discharge out of their nose, those tortoises, we would keep on-site, we would not relocate them. MS. PAYTON: And what if there are more than 177 I mean, the point I'm getting at, we're not really getting any information today about those tortoises. The more questions you ask, the more questions come to mind. Tortoises are getting a bum deal here. They may have gotten a bum deal in January, they're still getting a bum deal today. And you're not providing any information that's a comfort level to me, my organization, and I think to most of the people that came up to the podium today. The more questions you ask, the more answers generate more questions. You said that you had documentation from the Army Corps of Engineers and permits, I'm led to believe, from the Army Corps of Engineers and the Water Management District. Were those in your packet today? Are they here for public examination, so that Page 40 September 6, 2000 we can see specifically what your permits are, rather than this illusion to permits to do certain things? I think these are important things for you people to ask, because we're letting a lot of decisions be made by, yes, we're going to get this or we're going to get that. And I just don't see anything concrete being presented today that's good for the environment. MR. MYERS: Was that a question? I'm sorry. MS. PAYTON: Well, you can try to convince me otherwise. MR. MYERS: Well, all I can say is the permits have been issued by the Corps and the District. They are available at their offices, if you wish to get copies of them. MS. PAYTON: But you don't have them here today; they're not in the packet for the EAC. MR. MYERS: No, they're not. MS. PAYTON: They're not. And specifically, what were these permits for? MR. MYERS: It's Corps dredge and fill permit for impacting the northern portion of the wetland. And it's an environmental resource permit that's issued by the South Florida Water Management District. MS. PAYTON: For that specific little area, not for this entire site? MR. MYERS: Well, the earth permit addresses the wetland impact, as well as the on-site surface water management of the proposed project, as well as listed species issues. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: For Ms. Payton's benefit, there are representatives of the South Florida Water Management District, Richard Thompson and Karen Johnson, sitting in the audience. They may want to talk. MS. PAYTON: If they'd like to bring us up to date what the status is of this particular project in the permitting process, I'd appreciate it. And I'll relinquish the mike so that I can be educated and everybody else can be educated as to the specifics of these permits that have been issued to this particular project. My one comment is, I don't think you should be supporting, you should be approving this particular proposal, because you haven't been given any information to act on. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you, Nancy. Would you like to -- thanks for coming. Would you like to Page 4t September 6, 2000 comment at all on this, or are you prepared to, or -- (Speaker was duly sworn.) MS. JOHNSON: For the record, I'm Karen Johnson, the environmental supervisor for the Water Management District in Fort Myers. The plan you see before you proposed is essentially the same plan that the Water Management District has issued an environmental resource permit for. The drainage is similar to what's outlined in your staff report Barbara's prepared for you. It drains to the roads into a system which discharges to the lake where we get water quality and stormwater attenuation before it discharges to the canal. We also authorize the minimal wetland impacts, along with the mitigation that's proposed. Regarding the gopher tortoise preserve, under the environmental resource permit rules, gopher tortoises are a species of special concern, so they're not under the jurisdiction of the Water Management District for purposes of an ERP permit. That is -- we special condition the permits for the applicant to coordinate with the Conservation Commission to determine whether they should relocate them on-site or off-site. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you. Any other comments or questions? MR. NINO: Yes, Mr. Chairman. Ron Nino, for the record. I'd like to make a few comments. Essentially I would have you reflect on the issues here that say that -- that suggest, at least from staff's point of view, that we've presented you with a petition that advises that this petition is consistent. Nonetheless, with all the testimony that's been offered here, the -- the concerns that have been expressed, the growth management laws of Collier County, as they stand today, permit this project, that this project is consistent with the Growth Management Plan that acknowledges that to a large extent gopher tortoises are basically unprotected in the sense that even your state and federal permits allow for the taking of those gopher tortoises. The law in Collier County does not say unequivocally that every gopher tortoise on every piece of property has to be retained in that environment. We have to appreciate that over the many years, the last 20 years, that our regulations have Page 42 September 6, 2000 gotten a lot more severe. They are not to the point, however, even with the last gopher tortoise amendment, they are not to the point that thou shalt protect and preserve every gopher tortoise that is on-site. We're not at that stage, and I don't know that we'll ever get to that stage, because we need to appreciate the balancing act that we're all going through with preserving private property rights versus the rights of the public. We think there's a reasonable balance inherent in today's regulations. And for that reason, we -- staff has recommended to you that you do indeed approve this plan, because it is consistent with the current provisions of the Growth Management Plan. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Any other comments or questions on this project from anyone in the audience? Yes, ma'am. MS. AVALONE: Yes, I just want to make -- I just want to clear one thing up. When I spoke -- THE COURT REPORTER: Please restate your name, I'm sorry. MS. AVALONE: Kathleen Avalone. When I spoke with Joan Berish, Florida Fish and Wildlife, she said out of -- that there's approximately 165 burrows on this property, that she would estimate 80 to 90 active tortoises using them. And I know what you had said was quite a bit less than that, so you might be facing having to move more tortoises than you expect. MR. MYERS: Do you want me to address that? MS. AVALONE: Well, what would you do if you have 90 tortoises that you have to move? And another thing, I don't think the issue of the disease spreading has been addressed at all here. It's kind of been blown over. And I think that's very important to get some answers on that. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you. MR. MYERS: I'll try to keep this brief. The off-site relocation area, Willow Run Quarry, based on our calculations, can accept up to 77 tortoises. Persimmon Ridge, which is the secondary relocation site that we'll use if we need to, has been calculated to be able to accept up to 50 additional tortoises. So that's 127 tortoises. Page 43 September 6, 2000 And so hopefully if there is a -- and again, based on my experience, 61 is probably high. But if it turns out to be that number or possibly higher, we have sites available that will accommodate that. And as far as the upper respiratory syndrome, again, all we can do is take a look at the tortoises once we're digging them up, assess the tortoise in terms of whether it has runny eyes or nasal discharge. And if it does, we'll keep those tortoises on-site. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you. Any other comments, questions? Friends, what is your pleasure as far as recommending -- MR. COE: Actually-- CHAIRMAN CORNELL: -- action on this? MR. COE: Correct me if I'm wrong, but the first time this came before us, didn't we have an overlay as to the location of all of the burrows? MR. PEEPLES: It's in the ElS. The ElS is part of your package. One of the maps or charts within that ElS has the numbered -- MR. COE: I didn't see it. And I looked a couple of times. Let me get the map out here and see if it's on there. Oh, there we go, okay. All right, thank you. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Is there a motion on this project? MR. CARLSON: Well, I just -- I would just like to say that even though I'm going to incur the wrath of my colleagues, I think I do understand this project very well. I think it is vastly improved from what came before us initially with an Incidental Take, which would have guaranteed massive mortality. We now, because of primarily the initial response to this project, we have a new gopher tortoise management ordinance in this county. Maybe it's not perfect, maybe not everybody here agrees with it, and I'm sure they don't, but at least it's progress and we can continue to work on it and continue to improve it. I like a project that saves 90 percent of the wetlands on-site. If we could hold that up as a standard for every project that came before us, I think we'd be doing a great job in this county. I wish we had a county lands acquisition program, and I think this thing would scale out so high we would probably have Page 44 September 6, 2000 no problem reaching agreement with the owner and compensating him fairly and buying this for a park. But we don't. We don't. And I think that's a lesson that we can learn from this project, is if we want to save these places, then we need to have some sort of acquisition program for them. And we need -- everybody who wants to save this, including me, needs to work harder for that. There's a plan to either have preserves for these tortoises on-site or relocate them. That was not the case before. I would -- I would encourage the people who neighbor this property in Palm River and Imperial Golf Estates, if you yourselves and your civic associations could work together to find gopher tortoise habitat or create gopher tortoise habitat or reconfigure some golf courses to do that, you could probably keep every tortoise in this whole project right there in the neighborhood. And my heart goes out to anybody who has been feeding wildlife there and you're going to see houses go up in your backyard, but, you know, this is in the urban area. Everything proposed is legal. And I'm going to support this project. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Does that have a second? I will second it. Discussion on the motion? All in favor of the motion? MR. CARLSON: Aye. MR. COE: Aye. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Aye. MR. SMITH: Aye. MS. SANTORO.' (Indicates.) CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Four in favor. One opposed. THE COURT REPORTER: Excuse me, if I could have Ms. Santoro indicate verbally on the record. MS. SANTORO: I'm opposed to it. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Is it so that we need five votes either to recommend or to not recommend approval in order to -- MR. WHITE: Patrick White, assistant county attorney. As happened a couple of meetings ago, you're correct that the Land Development Code does require five affirmative votes, either in the form of a motion to approve or deny -- CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Right. MR, WHITE: -- in order for official action to have been taken by this committee. Page 45 September 6, 2000 Given that there are only four affirmative votes on the motion, there is no official action that will be reported to the County Commission. MS. BURGESON: Fred has brought it to my attention that this petition should be -- there should be a motion taken to review it as the preliminary subdivision plat review and separately as the ST permit. So if we can revise the motion to address those individually, or to have the motion specifically address them together, I'd appreciate that. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: You want them together or -- is that okay with the -- MR. COE: Fine. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Okay, so in other words, our vote is conveyed, but it does not represent official action by this council? MR. WHITE: That's correct. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Okay. Thank you all for your input. Let's take a five-minute break and get back together again at 11:00. (Recess.) CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Folks, can we reconvene and, yes, we will hear about Brynwood Preserve. (All speakers were duly sworn.} MR. BELLOWS: For the record, my name is Ray Bellows. I'm a principle planner with the planning services department. Petitioner is proposing to rezone the subject 29-acre site from agriculture to planned unit development, allowing for 160 residential dwelling units, at a density at 5.47 units per acre. As you can see on the visualizer, it's located on the east side of the future Livingston Road right-of-way, and about a quarter mile south of Pine Ridge Road. The adjacent developments include Kensington to the west, the Pine Ridge Center and Pine Ridge Center West, undeveloped commercial PUD's to the northwest. There's a driving range directly to the north and some residential and vacant lands to the south. Consistency with the Growth Management Plan shows on the -- the site is located in the yellow, which is urban residential. The base density is four units per acre. It's also within a density unit band, which allows for an additional three units per acre. The site could be eligible to receive for a maximum of seven Page 46 September 6, 2000 units per acre. Therefore, the proposed density of 5.47 units per acre is consistent with the density rating system of the comprehensive plan. The Site Plan A, as you can see, its primary access point is off of Livingston Road. Preserve areas are along Livingston Road and abut around behind the golf driving range, with the centralized water retention lakes. We have environmental staff to go into the environmental conditions. I'd be happy to answer any questions you have. MR. CARLSON: I had a question. You said this was agricultural, but this is undeveloped. It's not an ag, it's zoned ag? MR. BELLOWS: MR. CARLSON: MR. BELLOWS: MR. CARLSON: primary ground cover for habitat is still on this property. MR. LENBERGER: For the record, Steven Lenberger, development services. Yes, all the native habitat's on-site, some of it heavily impacted with melaleuca. But it's all indigenous vegetation. On the map here I have the PUD master plan aerial showing the location of the property. Property's up here in the upper left corner. As you can see, most of the property around, it's undeveloped. It's wooded. There's a golf driving range to the north, borrow pit to the east, and the future Livingston Road runs along the east side of the property. And there are a couple of single-family residences immediately to the south of the project. I also have on here a FLUCCS map. Dominant habitats on-site include cypress, which occupy pretty much most of the eastern area. There's also quite a bit of pine cypress, cabbage palm mix throughout the balance of the site. There's also a cypress area in this area here, as well as some pine flatwoods in this portion and in this portion of the property. The project site contains approximately 26 acres of wetlands. Most of the site's wetlands at this point. A site plan, PUD master plan, as indicated on the wall, has identified about three and a half acres of preserve area which are indicated in green. They will be impacting, according to this proposal, 23 acres of wetlands. Most of the wetlands on-site. As mitigation, Zoned ag. But it's undeveloped land. Yes, I -- There's a primary ground cover. The original Page 47 September 6, 2000 they propose to buy 150 acres of CREW land, off-site mitigation, and as well as enhancing the wetlands on-site. They also did an endangered species survey. They did not find any endangered species of wildlife. They did find some Tillandsia, as would be expected in the cypress area. Preservation requirement, there's about 25 acres of native habitat on-site, if you exclude the right-of-way, which will be taken away, as well as the melaleuca areas, which are heavily impacted. I would agree with that. So the preservation requirement for this particular project is 6.3 acres, I believe it is. And on-site preservation will amount to about 4.15 acres. So they'll have to make up about two acres, which they plan to do in buffers and landscaping at the time the project comes in for actual site development. If you have any questions, I'll be more than glad to answer them. The petitioner is here, as well as their environmental consultant. MR. SMITH: Mr. Chairman, I do have a question. I noted in the staff's report, it says that staff's only concern is the physical and legal availability and capacity of the off-site stormwater runoff. My question is, what do you mean by legal availability? Is that that there's no ownership interest in land that is available for that purpose? And the second prong of that question would be, is this something that's going to be resolved prior to the permitting? MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Yes, it's one of-- Stan Chrzanowski with development services. It's one of the standard stipulations that the South Florida Water -- not exactly a stipulation, it's one of the standard questions that the South Florida Water Management asks when they do their review. In this case, because of the distance that they are and how many properties they have to cross between there and the 1-75 canal, we figured it would be worth mentioning at this point. The Whippoorwill area here is part of one large overall study area, so the question will be answered before they get their district permit, yes. MR. OWEN: For the record, my name is Paul Owen. I work with Dick Bender and Associates. Page 48 September 6, 2000 The point I wanted to make is to describe the existing wetlands and to show that they are severely impacted, both by presence of heavy exotic vegetation invasion by melaleuca, and also, the degradation of the water tables, thus the hydrology of these wetlands is severely degraded; therefore~ this wetland is not a viable wetland. As you can see on the aerial photograph, there are four borrow pits, at least in the near vicinity which have penetrated the groundwater; therefore, draining water off the site and degrading the hydrology of the site. Additionally, the Pine Island Road to the north and 1-75 to the east has also an impeded flow onto the property. In addition to that, there's the Kensington ditch, which has also helped to drain -- effectively drain the wetlands on-site. I just wanted to let you know that when I went on-site to get a wet season water table elevation, it was very difficult for me, because the water table was so low. ! did this at the end of the wet season, in September, and had a very hard time finding any above ground indicators. So I had to find the very lowest part of the site, and it was maybe this far above the existing ground. Looking at the buttressing and historic liken lines, actually, it looked like the historical wet season water table was a foot to a foot and a half higher than what is existing now today. And that's the only point I wanted to make. Thank you. MR. CARLSON: I have a question for you. MR. OWEN: Okay. MR. CARLSON: If those borrow pits are not being used for water supply and they're not being pumped, are they really draining the property, just their mere presence there? MR. OWEN: Currently are they draining? Water does flow into them. MR. CARLSON: Right. But once the water -- I mean, they're not lowering the water table on that site once everything reaches an equilibrium. MR. OWEN: Well, once you break the pervious or impervious layer, I'm not sure what's out there, then that does on a permanent basis affect the hydrology of the area. So yes, it did and continues to affect the hydrology of the area. MR. CARLSON: Okay. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you. Other questions for Page 49 September 6, 2000 petitioner? Staff had something? MR. WRIGHT: Good morning. For the record, my name is Chris Wright. I'm a professional engineer with the firm of RWA. And I just wanted to clarify Mr. Smith's question with regard to one of the staff's comments here. Currently we are within the defined drainage basin for the Livingston Road improvement. And they've actually submitted an application to the Water Management District, as we have as well, which includes us within their drainage basin. And what that specifically means for this particular project is that we're discharging water to a canal that they're creating on the east side of Livingston Road. And we are one of the only few properties on the east side of the right-of-way that is included within the county's road improvement project for Livingston Road. So I just wanted to point that out and answer any further questions you might have with regard to that. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Other questions? MS. JOHNSON: For the record, I'm Karen Johnson, from Water Management District. We just wanted to give you a status, an update for this basin on where this district is. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Great. MS. JOHNSON: You all are aware this is one of the basins that has a problem with a positive outfall, as far as drainage goes. Currently in-house we have the Brynwood Preserve project, which you see before you now. We also have the Whippoorwill Woods project, which is located immediately adjacent to 1-75, south of the largest borrow pit. We also have the Reserve at Naples, which is immediately west of the large borrow pit. We also recently received an application for Arlington Lakes, which is immediately west of that project. We've also done several preapplication meetings with projects south of Brynwood, Balmoral and Alexandria, which are closer to the Kensington ditch outfall. We're trying to look at the basin and assess the cumulative and secondary impacts from all the projects, should they be developed. And therefore, along with the Corps of Engineers, we're trying to establish a basin-wide flowway project which will head from the northwest southerly in a southeast direction, Page 50 September 6, 2000 finally outflowing to Kensington ditch and then under 1-75. Right now the Whippoorwill Woods project is one of the key components of that as the bottom of the flowway. We've looked at the Brynwood project to try to tie it into the flowway concept. Two of the problems we encountered is that number one, the driving range to the north has an existing wetland preserve on it that was permitted by the District. We've tried to maintain some continuity with that preserve by gaining the preserve at the northwest corner of Brynwood Preserve. We're still looking at that from the viewpoint of potential secondary impacts from the adjacent proposed development. And then the southwest preserve, we still have some questions on such as is it going to be a viable preserve, what type of secondary impacts are we looking at, simply because it is going to be sandwiched between development and the future Livingston Road. In regards to the outfall from the project, we do not see them. Probably they will not discharge to the east into the flowway concept we're trying to create. Right now looking, we have the Livingston Road application in our offices, and they have shown drainage from this site going to the Livingston Road future drainage system. However, we have advised the applicant that this project will not be deemed complete from a water management standpoint until the Livingston Road project application is deemed complete, because that is their outfall, and as well as their access route. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you. Other questions? Questions from anyone in the audience, comments? What is your pleasure on this project? MR. CARLSON: Well, I just have a couple of things. And one is not -- the hydrology is my main concern, but I can't resist bringing up something that's written on the second page of our staff report under the FLUE and density. And there's a three in parenthesis. Are you with me? About getting bonus -- getting bonus units. MR. BELLOWS: As I explained, on the Future Land Use Map, there's a density band which if the project's within that density band, they're eligible to receive three additional dwelling units Page 51 September 6, 2000 per acre. That would make seven total that the site would be eligible for. MR. CARLSON: And the language in this report says this would also discourage development outside existing urban areas and into the rural areas of the county. MR. BELLOWS: That policy was created to help encourage higher densities and reduce urban sprawl. MR. CARLSON: Does anybody believe that? MR. BELLOWS: Well, it's from the Growth Management Plan. MR. CARLSON: But does anybody really believe that would work? How would it work? People in the -- MR. BELLOWS: It's an incentive to encourage development. MR. CARLSON: But people outside the urban area would have to voluntarily say well, that guy got bonus units, so I won't have as many units as I'm supposed to have. Is that -- I mean, it's ridiculous. MR. BELLOWS: Well, we can address that at the Planning Commission about density. It's really not environmental. MR. CARLSON: Okay. Well, then, you know, obviously these staff reports, I think, are fantastic. I love the way you've revamped them. And we even have colored pictures in our staff reports. And, you know, I'm looking at a picture of a cypress swamp. I know about cypress swamps. And this is indeed not a bad looking cypress swamp. Cypress forest here with a fern understory. I'm not seeing a lot of melaleuca. Not that there's not problems with exotic plant invasion. But I'm just wondering how this works. I mean, I don't know if there's anybody from the Corps here today, but I know that if I owned this property and I wanted to have a single-family home and raise horses or something like that, and I went to the Corps to get a permit to clear and fill the cypress forest, I don't think I would have much luck. I don't know if there's someone here who can vouch for that theory, but you're supposed to avoid filling wetlands. And this project just shows very little in the way of avoidance of filling wetlands. So you clear it, you fill it and you've got more runoff in an area where we're trying to figure out how we're going to manage the water. So my point is, doesn't it make sense to have an area that is still wetland and offers flood attenuation in this area? And ! don't see why -- just because it's allowed seven units per acre Page 52 September 6, 2000 and all these bonuses, I don't see why that should allow somebody to circumnavigate the Corps procedure, the sequence of avoiding and minimizing wetlands lost. Did I make any sense? CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Sure. Terrific issue. You had a comment? MR. COE: No. MR. OWEN: If I may, I might be able to help you with that. Currently we have an application into the Army Corps of Engineers. We have gone through the avoidance of minimization analysis with both the South Florida Water Management District and the Army Corps of Engineers, and that has been verbally signed off on. The reason being that in the rules, avoidance minimization has to do with viable wetlands, and avoiding viable wetlands and impacting -- allowing the impact of severely degraded wetlands. Obviously it avoids minimization and also is a lot more complicated than that in this case, but we have gone through that, and that is done. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: What about restoring? There's never much talk about restoring wetlands. MR. OWEN: We're restoring the 3.1 acres of wetlands on-site by removing all the exotic vegetation, as well as improving the drainage through there. There's going to be an outfall into there which will improve the hydrology slightly in that area. But it really is -- the whole area as wetlands are permanently degraded. MR. CARLSON: But as this area grows -- and we're putting in a lot of development. I mean, just look at that map and just imagine what's going to happen along that Livingston Road corridor. And all the impermeable surfaces, the roads and the roofs, the home roofs and all of that, we're going to be looking for a place to stick that water in the future. And here is a wetland. And you don't think there's any possibility of restoring hydro periods and maybe the highest and best use of this particular area is flood attenuation, continued wetland existence? MR. OWEN: To be honest, I think the only way to truly restore the hydrology of this region would be to take out 1-75 or put culverts in and fill in all those burrow pits with cement. That's about it. It's just sucking it out and it's done. As far as the storage on-site, I think Chris can talk about the Page 53 September 6, 2000 water management as far as, you know, the outfall amounts versus what's currently leaving now. MR. CARLSON: Well, what is the distance from this parcel to the canal on the east side of 1-757 That's the major drainage canal. MR. OWEN: The east side. About a mile. MR. CARLSON: Excuse me, this was the west side -- no. The east side, that's side. MR. OWEN: The east side, that's about a mile. And then the Kensington ditch is, you know, less than -- MR. CARLSON: Well, a mile is a pretty good distance to get away from the influence of a drainage canal. It's a pretty good distance. MR. OWEN: I wouldn't say there is a huge effect from that drainage canal directly. I really think it's more of the borrow pit and the breaking up the groundwater. MR. CARLSON: Well, you know, I worked for an ecosystems research unit for many years and we did a study of some borrow pits here in Collier County. And we did the study for Collier County. It was funded by the county. And we found by putting in shallow groundwater monitoring wells and transects away from these pits that at some times of the year they contribute water to the groundwater and some times of the year they are a drain on the groundwater. They are a drain in the dry season when the water's evaporating. And there's more evaporating from the surface of the lake than from the adjacent woodlands where the water is -- groundwater is maybe two or three feet under ground and more protected from transpiration. But in the summer, you're actually getting all of the water that falls in the lake is recharging the groundwater, and you're getting a net gain of water in the summer because you have no plants transpiring. And that's what we learned. And we learned that those lakes are not really a drain on the groundwater if they're just sitting there and they're not actively pumped. MR. OWEN: I would agree, it is -- it is. Actually, you're creating a recharge area by putting in a borrow pit. Because what you're doing effectively is you're making a larger drain into the groundwater, thus taking water out of the surface water. You're making a hole bigger. Page 54 September 6, 2000 Whereas, if it was semipermeable before, now it's fully permeable, straight down to the groundwater. So you do have better recharge, that's true, in this area. MR. CARLSON: So I guess what I'm saying, with all due respect, I think that I would disagree with you that there's no chance of restoring this wetland in a surface water management system. MR. OWEN: It would be difficult, but I think it could be -- it could be done. Or you'd have to put up a lot of structures and reroute a lot of water. But the presence of those borrows could severely affect the surface water table, I would surmise. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Karen, you have something to add? MS. JOHNSON: I just wanted to address Mr. Carlsoh's comments. The -- we looked at similar issues that Mr. Carlson brought up regarding the hydrology and the exotics. As I said, we were looking at it from a drainage-wide issue, and our first instinct was to try to provide wetland preserves in the east portion of the property to tie it into a connected system. Because of the topography out there and some of the old dirt roads that are out there, that you can see on the aerials that have disrupted some of the sheet flow, we determined that we probably couldn't do that. There is a section in the environmental resource permit rules that says if you have a wetland in degraded condition, we can jump over the avoidance minimization issue if we have a mitigation proposal that is regionally significant, contributing to a bigger system. In this case, that's where we've ended up. And I'm not going to tell you this is set in stone. We are still reviewing this project. But we do have 150oarea parcel out near Lake Trafford, adjacent to the CREW acquisition area, which has a potential for mitigation for this. We still -- we agree that the hydrology may not be at historic levels. We still have a professional disagreement, as you do, Mr. Carlson, that it is as severely degraded, as the applicant indicates. However, we feel that once Livingston Road goes in, that becomes another hydrologic barrier, so to speak, to the historic conditions. And we will be taking the runoff from these wetlands southerly a little quicker, probably. I'm turning it from sheet flow Page 55 September 6, 2000 into more of a conveyance flow down to the Kensington Road Ditch. Regarding the Corps permit, I don't like to speak for the Corps, but Skip Bergman and I have had several conversations about this project. I don't believe they've crossed the threshold of the avoidance and minimization totally at this point. The Corps has been very instrumental in trying to set up the regional flowway in this basin, and they are still of the opinion that they would like to have more wetlands preserved on the eastern portion of the property to provide some connectivity into that flowway system. So I don't think that entire issue has been resolved at this point with the Corps. And as I said, we're still reviewing it primarily from a secondary and cumulative issue as well. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you. Any recommendation as to -- to the commissioners? MR. SMITH: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to recommend that we do not approve this particular project. And my reason has to do with the fact that from what I'm listening to is that there may be a better design on this project that would take into concern some of the issues that have been raised in terms of water retention and wetlands. I think generally my philosophy has always been that if an owner complies with all the rules and regulations, he ought to be able to go ahead. But I've been proved wrong in some instance here, because I saw the project that I last voted to approve and I saw it come back with some great improvements. I'm hoping the same thing can happen to this project. So I would move that we don't approve this project and that we see what they can do when they come back. MR. CARLSON: Second. MR. COE: Third. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Motion to disapprove. We have a second. Further discussion on the motion, or discussion on the motion? I have one question. The sequence of events here, whatever we do, it seems as if the water management aspect of the project is really in the hands of the Water Management District and/or the Corps. I mean, we don't require normally that those things be revolved prior to our action. Page 56 September 6, 2000 MR. CHRZANOWSKI: No, we don't. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: I mean, I understand that there's a problem there. That's been clear for some while. But there's not a whole lot that we can do about it, right? I mean, it's something that -- MR. CHRZANOWSKI: No, but the District does a good, thorough, conscientious job. If they have issues, those issues will be handled in spite of what you let these people do. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Any other -- any other thoughts about the motion? MS. SANTORO: I don't have a question about the motion, but why don't we get these when it's been more finalized? I don't understand why we're getting them in this condition. It doesn't make sense to me, if they're not in the best final solution or second to the last solution. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: No, that's on the motion, sure. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: I'm not sure anybody really wants me to answer this. I'm sure Bill Lorenz, probably, or Bob -- MS. SANTORO: I don't think we should -- MR. CHRZANOWSKI: -- Mulhere, but this issue has come up many times before that maybe we should get a Water Management District permit before they go through any processes at all. I've been told that that is an extreme hardship on the developer. There apparently is a couple of commissioners considering requiring that. But I'd love to be there for that fight. MS. SANTORO: I don't see how -- if we're looking at environmental issues, how we can do otherwise, looking at the best solution toward the end. Looking at this saying well, we think it will be taken care of. That's ridiculous. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Good question. Any other thoughts about the motion? Okay, let's vote on the motion to disapprove. In favor of the motion to disapprove. MR. CARLSON: Aye. MR. COE: Aye. MR. SMITH: Aye. MS. SANTORO: Aye. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Four. And I -- I am opposed to the motion. So four in favor. So again, we're unofficial. But we can pass along our Page 57 September 6, 2000 deliberations. Okay, are we ready to talk about the Two Lakes Plaza? (All speakers were duly sworn.} MS. MURRAY: I'm Susan Murray with the current planning staff. The subject site is located on the east side of U.S. 41, opposite the Retreat PUD, and it's located a half a mile south of the Lee County line. The petitioner is requesting to rezone the subject 23.8-acre site from "A" rural agriculture to PUD, to permit those uses listed in the C-3, which is a commercial zoning district. The subject property is designated urban mixed use, urban residential subdistrict on the Future Land Use Map of the Growth Management Plan. Relevant to this petition, the urban mixed use district has what's called an office and infill commercial subdistrict, which provides for low intensity office commercial or infill commercial development on small parcels within the urban mixed use district, located along arterial and collector roadway systems, for residential development as allowed by the density rating system, may not be compatible or appropriate. This petition is utilizing that subdistrict. As such, that subdistrict has a number of requirements that the petition must meet. One of those is that commercial use is limited to 12 acres. This is a 20.38-acre site, 12 acres of which will be developed for commercial land uses at a maximum of 120,000 square feet. The remaining 8.38 acres will be located in preserve, conservation and Water Management District areas. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Questions for Susan? MR. CARLSON: I'll wait. MS. BURGESON: Regarding the environmental issues on the property, the conservation and coastal management element, growth management policies and objectives, this property and the proposed development is consistent with all of the policies and objectives as stated in the staff report, taking into consideration that it may not be consistent with the policy regarding net loss of viably naturally functioning marine and fresh water wetlands. However, staff understands that by the Board of County Commissioners' direction to staff through internal policy to allow for impacts to wetlands when state and Page 58 September 6, 2000 federal agencies issue wetland permits for such impacts, that it is consistent through that policy set up through the Board of County Commissioners. So it is overall consistent with all of the growth management issues and consistent with the Collier County Land Development Code requirements for the 25 percent, which they are retaining a little bit greater than that on-site. The subject property contains 20.4 acres, made up of pine flatwoods, scrubby pine flatwoods, cypress heads, wet prairies and a xeric oak community. There are two distinct cypress heads on-site which are connected by hydric pine flatwoods along the eastern edge of the property. The wetland system here connects to several adjacent wetlands system, so this is considered a flowway by South Florida Water Management District and by the Army Corps of Engineers. The petitioner sat down with staff and reconfigured their original site plan to improve the preservation of the two cypress heads on-site to connect those with hydric pine flatwoods and to maintain the connectivehess to the adjacent eastern, northern and southern wetlands on properties that are currently approved and currently under review with South Florida Management District for future development. The petitioner is proposing to preserve greater than the 25 percent. They're required to do 5.1 acres of preservation. They're doing a little bit more than that. The only thing that staff had concerns with and discussions with the applicant was that all the preservation is outside of the xeric oak community, which is extremely rare in Collier County. So in our discussions we agreed that we would add a stipulation to the PUD, stating that at the time of development that those scrub communities, that vegetation will be retained to the maximum extent possible in the landscaping and incorporated into that. Because they won't have to change the elevation of the site, they'll be able to incorporate that into their existing ground landscape scheme. So staff is recommending approval of the property as it's submitted with the stipulations. One being that that xeric scrub vegetation be preserved in the landscaping, and the second being that because this at one time probably was gopher tortoise Page 59 September 6, 2000 habitat, although there are no tortoises on the site right now, if the site sits idle and is not developed immediately, the second stipulation is that we may be requiring additional gopher tortoise surveys for the property in the future. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Question? MR. CARLSON: In your discussion of saving the xeriscape habitat, any discussion of extent, size, amount at all? MS. BURGESON: No, I think that maybe Bob could expand on that. There's a good opportunity for that, because these tracts are not identified. MR. DUANE: For the record, Robert Duane, from Hole, Montes & Associates. To answer your question directly, we've not committed to a specific number of acres or area, other than we're going to incorporate those into our natural landscape regime. MR, CARLSON: So like between parking spaces and stuff like that? MR. DUANE: And along the entrance road, the northern entrance road, that's correct. I think we'll be able to retain some of it, maybe a quarter of an acre or so. But the stipulation -- we're in agreement with the staff stipulations and the recommendations, so we're not here to question any of those today. I have Ken Passarella with me also, my environmental consultant, and either of us will be happy to answer any more questions that you may have. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Any additional questions for -- MR. CARLSON: I have one more thing I'd like to run by Barb, just so I understand about the directive from the commissioners about the wetland impacts. I have this policy of 6.2.t3 of the Conservation and Coastal Management Element says the proposed development on parcels containing viable naturally functioning wetlands shall cjuster development to maintain the largest contiguous wetland area practicable, and shall be designed to disturb the least amount of native wetland vegetation practical to preserve the predevelopment hydro period. So what you're saying is that even though that's our policy in this county, if the other regulatory agencies permit something that would be other than preserving the most possible, that we Page 60 September 6, 2000 just -- we just go ahead with whatever other agencies recommend; is that what that means? MS. BURGESON: The Board of County Commissioners, over the -- at least the years that I've been working with the county, which is almost 11 now, has accepted that Collier County's policy, which says there shall be no unacceptable net loss, they accept that that is reviewed by the state and the federal agencies in their mitigation of wetland impacts. And so they accept that if the ERP permit and the Army Corps dredge and fill permit allow impacts to these wetlands, that they've taken into consideration that there is no unacceptable net loss of viable functioning wetlands, and so, therefore, they consider that that policy is met by those agencies issuing their permits. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Good question. And an important input to our discussion, upcoming discussion about wetlands. I had a question. I hope it's not too miserable. And that is, I'm not quite clear as to which -- where the legal impact is of the Growth Management Plan provisions -- I'll ask you, Barb -- versus the LDC. I mean, I sort of had the idea that you kind of start with this grand plan and things sort of work their way into LDC regulations. But from the standpoint of the force of law, I mean, are they equally potent, or is one junior to the other, or is it unanswerable? I don't mean to ;let into an all-day discussion, but I just got a little confused. We seem to have two large documents that everyone's wrestling with. MR. NINO: Collier County's Growth Management Plan is adopted by ordinance. As such it has equal standing to the Land Development Code which has adopted the ordinance. When you're dealing with Growth Management Plan, of course you're dealing with less specific kinds of regulations. You're dealing more with motherhood and apple pie statements that don't have any dimensional relationships to them. It's the business of the Land Development Code then to take those motherhood and apple pie statements and basically give them some parameters in the Land Development Code so that we can enforce that -- we can execute or implement that policy. From another point of view, however, when an applicant comes to this body and to the County Board of Commissioners with a project that is consistent with all of the regulations, you Page 6t September 6, 2000 need to appreciate that their opportunity -- and should they be denied, that in the process of litigation, their chances of prevailing are much enhanced. And of course Patrick could speak to that. If I come -- go to court and say hey, I've met all of the requirements of the Growth Management Plan and the Land Development Code and still they turned me down, you've got a problem. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Sure, I appreciate that. Thank you, Ron. Okay, any other questions, or anyone in the audience have any questions or comments? MR. CARLSON: I have another question for, I believe, Mr. Passarella. MR. WHITE: I think before we go there, if I can just be allowed to amplify Mr. Nino's answer and give you something specific to look at. If you look in the Land Development Code in Section 1.5.t, which is entitled Relationship to Growth Management Plan, there is an expressed provision that tells you that in the event of a circumstance where there's a land development regulation that's not consistent with the Growth Management Plan, that the provisions of the Growth Management Plan govern. Okay? And furthermore, that all the land development regulations in the Land Development Code are to be interpreted, construed and implemented in a manner that will make them most consistent with the Growth Management Plan. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you, that's very helpful. MR. WHITE: Thank you. MR. CARLSON: Yes, just give me an overview of the hydrology, the flows. How far is this from the Imperial River? Where is the flowway that I read about? MR. PASSARELLA: For the record, my name is Ken Passarella. Good morning. This site is located -- 41 is located along the western boundary here. North is oriented to my left, as you all are looking over here. This is Sterling Oaks development here. This is the church, as you head north along 4t out of the county into Lee County. This is, I think, part of the Bentley Village development over on this side of the road here. Page 62 September 6, 2000 As you move across to the east of the subject site -- I'm getting my directions messed up because north is this way. But as you move east across this site, there's a preserve along the Sterling Oaks here, wetland preserve. This wetland preserve continues across Sterling Oaks, heads through what I believe was Turtle Cove Apartments, which has preserved its wetlands and flowway, which continues on down off this map here further to the south, which then crosses a triangular piece of property located at the apex of 41 and Old 41. And at that point the flowway kind of terminates into a ditch. That ditch then flows under 41, down across the north side of the Lawmetka Plaza site or the south side of Tarpon Cove, which then heads through Tarport Cove through a series of wetlands and then out into Wiggins Pass area from there. I hope that gives you an idea. MR. CARLSON: I would have went the other way. MR. PASSARELLA: Just a little information, while I'm looking at the aerial here, regarding the wetlands on-site. As Barbara mentioned, we had discussions with her, as well as with the South Florida Water Management District regarding potential wetland impacts on this project. Early on in the process, we realized due to the irregular configuration of the wetlands and uplands on the property, that we were probably going to encounter some wetland impacts from the development of the project. So we went and met early on with the South Florida Water Management District and the Corps of Engineers in a preapplication meeting back in November and December of last year and presented the project to them and explained to them that we were having difficulty fitting the development within this irregular configuration, and proposed that we may impact some wetlands. And what we had shown was some wetland impacts up to this area up in this area here. At that time, the South Florida Water Management District staff and Corps of Engineers recognized this flowway that continues to the south here and that the wetlands are generally of a higher quality and nature back in this area here, that they requested that we push our development further south out of this wetland here. And then if we were to impact wetlands, that we impact wetlands over on this side of the property. That being the case, you see there's a cypress head here. Page 63 September 6, 2000 Well, there's a cypress head here as well. But the landscape position of this cypress head is it's along U.S. 41. There is no upland buffer on this side. We've got the church on the other side to the north. We've got exotics encroaching in here in this wetland here because of the disturbance of U.S. 41. So the District staff and the Corps said if we're going to impact wetlands, let's impact wetlands over on this side of the property, let's stay out of the wetlands on the east side of the property. After submittal of the ElS and meeting with county staff, county staff felt well, what we need to do is try to maintain this little bit of remnant cypress here on the church's property and make sure that that is contiguous to off-site preserve. So originally on the plan we had impacts coming all the way over to the property line and we had no impacts to this wetland right here. And thus, we had a conflict between the county staff and the South Florida Water Management District and Corps staff. And what we did was we worked through the issue with them. We were able to sit -- not sit down, but through the telephone and over the telephone work out where we pushed the development line back this way, preserving a good portion of this area here, which would allow this to connect up and have connectivity coming through here to the east. And then we encroached slightly into this wetland over here, but we stayed out of the cypress wetlands here. So we feel like we've reached a compromise between the county staff and the South Florida Water Management District and Corps staff. MR. CARLSON: And those lakes are necessary for the fill that you need for the project, or -- MR. PASSARELLA: I'm not the engineer on the project, so I don't want to speak on behalf of the engineer, but my understanding is is that these are needed for the water management areas, not necessarily the fill on the property. One of the things that you were asking about is the preservation of some of the xeric oak habitat on the property. And the reason we can actually save some of that within the landscaping and buffer areas is the elevation on the property. The elevation comes up quite dramatically on this property as you go from the wetland up towards 41. So the amount of fill in Page 64 September 6, 2000 this area here where we've got the xeric oak area is going to be minimal. So, you know, road elevation may be near or at the existing ground elevation in this area here. So when you do your landscaping you can set stuff aside. You don't have three feet of side slope from fill coming down into a preserve area that's maybe 15 feet wide. If you take that off of both sides, you end up with a little bit of vegetation remaining in the middle. That won't be the case here because of the elevation we have on the property that will allow us to do that. But as far as using these lakes for fill, I don't think that's the primary purpose. The primary purpose is for water management and water retention. MR. CARLSON: YeaIt, because my first impression was with -- the lakes are going in uplands, lakes are excavated uplands. MR. PASSARELLA: Correct. MR. CARLSON: If you didn't have to have the lakes, you'd had more upland, you could stay out of more natural wetland. That was my first impression when I looked at this. But are they -- they're real 20-foot deep type lakes, or they're swales or -o MR. PASSARELLA: I'd have to defer to Bob on that. MR. DUANE: Robert Duane again, for the record. They are a component of our water management system. In fact, we have compressed the size of those lakes to, frankly, smaller than we would like to have it. It's actually going to force some of our water management areas to be contained in that pink area, which is our development area. You know, as a rule of thumb, you need 15 percent of your site for water management, and we're probably closer to 10 percent with the plan that you see before you today. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Other questions for the petitioner? Anyone in the audience have a question they would like addressed? How would you like to move on this? MR. COE: I'll make a motion. Move to approve it. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Move to approve? MR. COE: Yes. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Is there a second? MR. SMITH: I'll second it. Page 65 September 6, 2000 CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Discussion of the motion? If not, all in favor? (Unanimous votes of ayes.) CHAIRMAN CORNELL: I guess it's five. I would think we could finish our agenda before lunch, if that's okay with everybody. MR. CARLSON: Absolutely. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Okay. May I ask for a two-minute break? And then we'll get back to business and wrap it up. (Recess.) MR. NINO: Cherie', do you want to swear them in? (All speakers were duly sworn.) MR. NINO: For the record, my name is Ron Nino. The Dunes PUD is a PUD currently under development to adopt the petition that is before you and to add 100 acres to an existing 85-acre PUD, located on the northwest corner of Bluebill -- or Immokalee Road, Vanderbilt Drive. Some of you may have seen currently under construction three high-rise towers, 12 stories currently under construction in that whole quadrant. By and large, I think you'll note that the 100 acres that is being added is primarily going to result in that land being preserved for prosperity. The PUD that's currently in place authorizes 531 dwelling units. That's for 55 acres. For the additional 100 acres that they're adding, they're asking for another -- all they're asking is the total number of units to increase to 704, which is another 1547 Give me help. In any event, the density for this project, with the added acres, is considered to be below what is otherwise -- what would otherwise be permitted under the density rating system of the Growth Management Plan. The -- your report includes an analysis of how this PUD compares or is consistent with the policies, objectives of the Growth Management Plan, particularly with the conservation space element. And I believe that those statements attest to the fact that this petition, if approved, would be consistent with the Conservation Coastal Management Element, and is also consistent with all other elements of the Growth Management Plan. And Barbara will get into the specifics of indeed how they Page 66 September 6, 2000 are consistent with the conservation elements. MR. SMITH: Mr. Nino, I have done the math. It's 173 new units, where they could have done 531. MR. NINO.' Thank you. MS. BURGESON: In regards to the conservational -- MR. NINO: Indeed, one of the key elements, probably one of the most controversial elements, it may not be an issue with you unless -- well, I don't know, it may be an issue. One of the key issues here is going to be that the developer is proposing to increase the height of the building to -- of the new buildings that come on stream from 12 stories to 15 stories. For whatever-- if that may be of interest to you, I thought I would tell you that. MS. BURGESON: In regards to the Conservation Coastal Management Element of the Growth Management Plan, this project is consistent with the preservation and the wetland objectives, stating that there's no unacceptable net loss of viable naturally functioning wetlands on this property. Of the acreage that's being added and the acreage that was originally approved by the Environmental Advisory Board back in 1996, there's a total impacts to wetlands on the site of 12 acres. The t2 acres of wetland impacts are being mitigated. Let's see. Activities in 12 acres of wetland are being mitigated by restoration of the remaining 135.74 acres of wetlands, as well as the preservation of what is currently approved and designated as a nine-and-a-half-acre gopher tortoise preserve in the portion of the property that's already been approved and is currently under development. The PUD was reviewed and approved back in October of 1996. I've incorporated that section of the staff report into this staff report, just so that it shows the consistency of that review, as well as the consistency of the additional 100 acres being brought into the project. There is apparently a misunderstanding between staff and the petitioner regarding some of the language that was in the Environmental Impact Statement. And I think Karen wants to address that, and may want to make some modifications to staff's stipulations. But it just came to our attention this morning. MR. NINO: Let me add one other thing to the record, because I think -- I know you'll be interested in this. It's Page 67 September 6, 2000 important to appreciate that The Dunes PUD will be contiguous to another PUD that's going to come before you, perhaps in October, called the Cocohatchee Day, which will extend this preserve area here all around the Wiggins Pass Marina and indeed up another practically two miles. That whole system you see there will be, as a result of these two PUD's, become preserve areas, preserved in perpetuity. MS. BISHOP: For the record, Karen Bishop, agent for the owner. I also presented at the original, well, advisory board at that time was different. At the time it was kind of an unusual thing, because they actually voted for us to allow us to impact the wetlands, which was kind of an unusual thing. One of the reasons that was is because the wetlands that we impacted were a mess, so to speak, with exotics. And we then also were proposing to preserve -- at that time there was a sand dune at the corner of a nice beach dune section. Unfortunately during the process of permitting, we ended up saving more turtle habitat at nine and a half acres, so we had to reduce our dune. So essentially we have as much upland preserve as our impacts, which equaled out from that perspective. At this time I want to show you the old line versus the new line. The old line used to be like this. We're adding 100 acres, is essentially what you're seeing right there. And the only impact we're having is that -- the last little building footprint. Actually, we have to go a little higher. Right about there. So we're impacting probably about six~ seven acres of the 100 acres. And all the other impacts were already prepared. I do in fact already have my ERP permit and my Corps permit and my Take permit. MR. CARLSON: What was that last permit? MS. BISHOP: The Take permit, which when you have even the Take permit, we still had to mitigate some of the loss of habitat, so you write a check. But we didn't take any turtles off-site. All turtles are contained on-site and doing quite well, actually. We have them in place. The edges of the preserve itself still need a little bit of enhancement. There's about 15 feet that we have to do some enhancement on, on the edge where the construction is, but it's already in place. Page 68 September 6, 2000 MR. CARLSON: And what is the estimate of the population of the tortoises? MS. BISHOP: Oh, I really hate it that you ask me that. I have to look that up. My biologist is visiting his grandmother and unfortunately couldn't be here today. MS. SANTORO: I had a note it was 68 active, but I don't know if that's still true. MS. BISHOP: Every one of those turtles that were there are still contained on-site, so I would say that is still true. We did not remove any turtles at all from our site. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: How come you need an Incidental Take permit if you keep them -- MS. BISHOP: It's habitat loss. It's not just -- you're not -- when you take the -- when you go for these permits, it's not -- unless you're saving every square inch of -- then it's still habitat loss, so you still write a check for any habitat loss. And since we had a few more acres of habitat on-site that we needed to use for development, we in fact wrote a check to the tune of about $45,000 to compensate for that loss, even though we kept all the turtles on-site. It's a nice area. You guys should go out and see it. And as far as the rest of the environmental impacts which were wetlands, we are, as Barbara stated, going to be involved in mitigation and restoration. Now, the discrepancies between the staff's and our request confusion has to be -- with respects to when we came before you guys four years ago, at that time we were working with The Conservancy in that area and they were asking for a spot for us -- for them to put a building up, or to put some what we call educational centers, you know, like little gazebos around. So we put that in our documents to allow that, just in case that happened. You know, at this point the negotiations haven't gone that far, because we haven't gone that far into building our boardwalks or any type of wharf along our canal, which is the piece that heads into Water of Turkey Bay. We have set aside in our document that there will be no impacts of Water of Turkey Bay at all. As a matter of fact, we have two separate conservation easements. That particular one in that area allows nothing at all. The south allows some boardwalks and some Page 69 September 6, 2000 little hiking areas and some educational areas, but that's it. There is no -- you know, there would be no kind of development in those areas at all time. And our conservation easement's already in place. So there is no question that that isn't already taken care of. Oh, and just another comment. The reason why people don't get their environmental permits up front is because you spend an incredible .- to get The Dunes permit, it took us a year to get the environmental permits. And for zoning, it's very difficult to be able to hold a piece of property that long to wait for the environmental permits up front. You have to spend an incredible amount of money. And if you don't know that you're going to get your zoning, then that's a risk that most people don't want to take from that perspective. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Questions for Karen? MR. CARLSON: Where is the golf course? MS. BISHOP: No golf course. Not enough room. MR. CARLSON: I do remember reading that you intend to irrigate the area with surficial wells. MS. BISHOP: We have a water use permit already in place. They make you get those permits now before you have your EOP. It has to run concurrently. So we did in fact have to do that. We in fact do have our permits in place. MR. CARLSON: Over the long-term, I would have a Plan B. MS. BISHOP: We are in fact working on that now. We understand. I also am involved with a park to the south which also we got a water use permit or are in the process of getting a water use permit for them to irrigate the same way. I just find it to be like blasphemy to water with potable water. It just seems, I don't know, like it's sucking up a resource, so to speak. And we really don't have that much grass area in the big scheme of things. But, you know, because we do have a lot of preserve, we have big habitats. But we still, what you have, you do need to irrigate to some degree. And even that, ! don't want to see potable water used for irrigation. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Other questions for Karen? Anybody in the audience have a question for Karen? We don't have any audience. ! don't mean that. Wonderful audience. MS. BISHOP: Favorite kind of audience, quiet. Page 70 September 6, 2000 CHAIRMAN CORNELL: What action would you like to take? MR. COE: I'll make a motion for approval. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Is there a second? MR. CARLSON: I'll second. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Discussion on the motion? If not, all in favor? (Unanimous votes of ayes.) CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Five. Bill, I guess you can help us with some thinking about the -- do you want to talk about the wetland workshops, or do you want to talk about the ElS, or what? MR. LORENZ: Well, I'm pinch hitting here for Bob Mulhere for the ElS. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Okay. MR. LORENZ: As I understand it, the Board of County Commissioners had presented a set of comments on the draft ElS. That would have been several months ago. Staff has reviewed the ElS in relationship to the board's previous comments, and Bob has sent to the County Commission a memo saying that there's -- basically that the final ElS adheres to all the board's comments, basically, such that there's no further need for any additional comments from Collier County. And that's his recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners. He has provided you, I believe, with a summary document of the ElS -- you should have received that either in this packet or under a separate cover -- and just wanted to make sure that all of the advisory committees had received those comments. If you want to provide comments on the ElS, your appropriate route would be to make your comments to the Board of County Commissioners. And unfortunately, I'm not sure, Ed, you may know, when the deadline is for the comments. I think it's very quick. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: I think it's over. MR. CARLSON: I think I got it extended. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Did you? MR. CARLSON: Yeah, I called Bob Barron and asked for an extension, and he didn't seem upset about it and he said other people had asked. So I think there's time. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Into the middle of September sort of Page 71 September 6, 2000 a thing or -- MR. CARLSON: Like October. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Oh, really? Great. MR. LORENZ: So that was, like I said, that's -- Bob had to, I think, go to the dentist. So I'm pinch hitting for him. If you have any questions, maybe I might be able to address them. or I might have to refer you to Bob. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Well, in other words, if we want to comment on it or make a recommendation or something like that, did you say we would make it to the Board of County Commissioners? MR. LORENZ: That's correct. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: I don't know, any thoughts about it? I personally thought it was a great step in the right direction. I mean, a lot of people complained that it's not tight enough and so forth. But any other views? Do you want to take a position on it or do you want to let it go? MR. COE: Let it go. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: I hear let it go. Can you give us some idea of what you have in mind about the shape of these -- this or these wetland workshop activities? Or is that something that Barb wants to talk about? MR. LORENZ: Yeah, I think that Barb is the lead on that. MS. BURGESON: Again, this is hoping that the Board of County Commissioners appoints the two vacant positions at the September 12th meeting. I'm expecting -- there's two applicants that have submitted their resumes, and two vacancies. We're hoping that they get appointed. If they do, then our proposal is at this point to have that wetland workshop following the October 6th meeting, which is a Friday. We want to start out with a brief discussion on the history -- very brief on the history of wetland review by Collier County staff, get into a little more detail in terms of what we do right now when we're doing wetland reviews. We've asked someone to attend from South Florida and someone to attend from the Corps, so that they can give them a very brief overview of what their permitting process also entails and how that meshes with ours. And then we'll follow that up with a few people from Page 72 September 6, 2000 different counties around the state with discussions on how their freestanding wetland ordinances require either additional review outside of the agency permitting, or how they coordinate their reviews with the agency reviews to issue wetland permits. MR. COE: Did you say we're only filling two slots? You know Mr. Smith has resigned also. MS. BURGESON: No, I didn't know that. MR. COE: Okay, that's -- CHAIRMAN CORNELL: He's sailing east or west. MS. BURGESON: No, I wasn't aware of that. I'm sorry to hear that. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: When is that effective, Richard? MR. SMITH: This is my last meeting. MS. BURGESON: Well, I guess I'd want some direction from the board then. I would prefer to have a full new board when we have that discussion, because it's seems that the wetland discussion is going to be very important. And if it's a new member coming on board, it makes sense to me that they hear that full discussion and not meet, then necessarily go back to the tapes and review them themselves. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: My heart is with you. The trouble is, it seems like it's tough to get a full complement, you know. MR. NINO: I think if we have -- MS. BURGESON: Well, if we can put -o CHAIRMAN CORNELL: I think if you had eight out of nine, or whatever -- MR. NINO: If you had eight out of nine -- CHAIRMAN CORNELL: You'd be doing great. MR. COE: Well, one thing I might want to suggest is, you know, this thing is on TV. There's no reason that if somebody new comes on we don't hand them the VCR tape and say go home and watch this and this will give you an overview to get you up to speed about the wetlands. MS. BURGESON: Okay, we'll keep it scheduled then for the October 6th meeting. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: And do you picture it as one workshop -- MS. BURGESON: Yes. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: -- or more than one? MS. BURGESON: Yes, I do. Page 73 September 6, 2000 CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Do it all at once? MS. BURGESON: As one, right. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: And is your thought that it's a, of course, public meeting but limited input; was that where we left that? MS. BURGESON: The way that we had finished that discussion from the last meeting was that the EAC meeting will be adjourned, that it will not be open for discussion by either the EAC or the public, but that it will just be a presentation to the EAC. And then if you want to take action on that, that can certainly take -- you can certainly take action on that at the next meeting. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: So what is -- MS. BURGESON: It would be just an informative workshop. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: It's not an EAC meeting, it's a -- MS. BURGESON: It's a workshop. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: It's a workshop. MS. BURGESON: After the meeting is adjourned. Unless there's a change to -- no? Okay. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: As far as guidelines for the workshop, I think there was some questions and that's where somebody said could they present -- MS. BURGESON: What we had discussed at the last meeting, and I feel that it's the right direction to take, is that we will -- staff will put together an outline and it will be a presentation of both county presentations, state and federal presentations. And then if the other agencies wish to have any discussion, they'll have to come back to the board at another time during a regular meeting. And they have the opportunity at all of our meetings, there's always the very last item, which is public comments. So if they want to come back to the November meeting and make a presentation about their concerns or their comments from the previous workshop, I think that's the appropriate time to do it. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Okay, so we are limiting the -- MS. BURGESON: Yes, we were concerned that if we didn't limit it, if we open it up for any comments, that you are not only going to end up with comments from all of the environmental agencies, but you'll probably end up with hours of comments from the different consulting groups or engineering firms in town. Page 74 September 6, 2000 So just to get this as an educational means to the board, at least for this first presentation. If you want to then schedule a second wetland workshop, open for public comment, then that's certainly something that we can handle. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: What sort of time do you imagine? MS. BURGESON: We already have a few agenda items scheduled for this meeting, so I'd like to keep it relatively short. I think that we could probably handle the county's portion of it in under an hour. I would not expect that the Corps or South Florida would take more than 10 minutes or 15 minutes apiece, unless of course there's a lot of questions. Then I would certainly leave it open to members of the board to ask as many questions as they want. The presentations from the other counties, I've already heard a couple of these presentations from a meeting I attended a couple of months ago, and they're fairly limited to 20 to 30 minutes apiece. At this point we have two people that are interested in coming to make those presentations, and I'm still working on the third. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: So we're thinking maybe about -- MS. BURGESON: Maybe two -- CHAIRMAN CORNELl.: -- this is after lunch, is that what you're talking about? MS. BURGESON: I think it would depend on how quickly the morning agenda goes. I think it will be a shorter agenda, because we won't have an item such as Little Palm Island. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Okay. MS. BURGESON.' So I would expect the morning agenda might go from 9:00 to t0:30. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Okay. MS. BURGESON: This workshop may get you through by t2:30. So I think it will still be a half-day, including the workshop, unless of course there's questions, and I would encourage you to ask as many questions at that time. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Okay, sorry, I didn't mean to dominate that. Any other questions about what we're doing or what we're thinking about doing? MR. CARLSON: What's the likelihood of this happening in October? Page 75 September 6, 2000 MS. BURGESON: Unless you tell me you don't want it and you want to wait for that other person, it will be October 6th. MR. CARLSON: Okay. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Okay with that? Is that all right? Anything on the Growth Management Subcommittee? I guess we'll need to sort of rethink that. You were sort of our lead person on that. MR. COE: We're going to have to take a look, too, what board members have their terms up in October. Do we have anybody in that situation? MS. BURGESON: Is anyone aware of that? MR. COE: There's a face of happiness on Barb. MS. BURGESON: There would be terms expiring. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Hang on, I think Ed may have -- ! think Tom extended his. He was one year. MR. LORENZ: The expiration is in April, not October. MR. COE: Good. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: You're right. MS. BURGESON: So we're all set. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Okay, moving along. Council member comments? We've had lots of those. Public comments, we've had lots of those. No more public. MR. CARLSON: How long have we known the next meeting is going to be on a Friday instead of a Wednesday? MS. BURGESON: I called and spoke to -- I only found out within the past month, maybe, and I called and spoke -- at the time we needed to make a commitment. I spoke with your assistant or co-worker. Unfortunately you were out of town for a couple of days. And what I obtained was a majority of the people that said that -- we had the option of either Friday the 6th, or Friday the 13th. And the best that I could do was Friday the 6th. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: You cannot be here? MR. CARLSON: I don't know. I'll let you know. MR. COE: He had a fishing trip planned. MR. CARLSON: She looked at my calendar and it was empty, but-- CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Oh, something happened. Any other MR. CARLSON: I'll let you know in plenty of time. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Any other scheduling problems with Page 76 September 6, 2000 that date? MS. BURGESON: If the 13th is still available, do you want us to pursue -- MR. CARLSON: Not just for me. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Well, I mean, we're -- I don't know. Let's think about it. MR. COE: I don't care. I don't have my schedule with me, but I don't care if it's the 6th or the 13th. 52rid, I don't care. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Doesn't matter to me. Does anybody have a -- MS. SANTORO: I don't know. I have a state convention. I don't know which weekend it is. It's in October. MS. BURGESON: Can I ask that everyone contact me before the end of this week and let me know on both of those dates? CHAIRMAN CORNELL: I'm okay on both. Mickey is okay on both. MR. COE: I'm pretty sure I'm okay. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Richard is going to be under sail. MS. BURGESON.' And I'll call the rest of the members that are not here. I'll call Tom and I'll call Jack. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Okay. MR. CARLSON: I'd appreciate it if we could move it. If we can't, I will break something else that I've scheduled, but I'd rather not to. MR. NINO: There's no urgency on this issue. If that's the case~ why not do it on the regular meeting in November, and it would accommodate Ed. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: The only thing is, I think there may be some follow-up -- there may well be some follow-up that would require part of a second meeting. I don't know what's going to happen. MS. BURGESON: Then it would have to go until December. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Yeah, but December we have that private property rights thing lined up. MS. BURGESON: Yeah, I expect that will be -- MR. CARLSON: No, let's stick with October 6th. I will make it October 6th. I'll do it October 6th. MR. COE.' We don't mind changing it. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: We don't mind changing it. MR. COE: It's no big deal. Page 77 September 6, 2000 CHAIRMAN CORNELL: It doesn't seem like it's a problem for anybody. Would you like to change it or would you like to -- MR. CARLSON: Check with Mr. Sansbury. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Oh you have to -- MS. SANTORO: I'd have to check. I have a convention and it's the weekend so of course I didn't -- I didn't look at -- MR. CARLSON: Well, let's leave it. If there's a conflict for anybody else and we're all set for the 6th, I'll be here on the 6th, tOO. CHAIRMAN GORNELL: But Allie seems to be the key one, MS. SANTORO: I'll find out, What's your number?. MS, BURGESON: 403-2400. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Any pressing reason why we should not adjourn? MR, SMITH: Before we do, I just want to make a comment, that I have thoroughly enjoyed this group. I find you all to be very intellectually stimulating and honest, good, true, dedicated people. So it's been an honor to serve with you all. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you. We'll miss you. MR. COE: See you in a few years. MR. WHITE: Mr. Chairman, if I may, I don't want to end this on a downer note, other than certainly the departure of Committee Member Smith, but there's a couple of things that have been observations of mine, based upon the relatively brief number of meetings that I've been able to attend. And in looking over what your charge is, if you will, certainly it's appropriate for this committee to make suggestions to the Board of County Commissioners with respect to its procedures and the provisions in the code under which you operate. Essentially the first two petitions you heard today, the result of them was no official action. Now I understand that there's a certain amount of inference or implication that will be drawn from the votes that were not five affirmative votes by both the Planning Commission and the board. But my observation is that you may want to consider at some point in time making a recommendation to the board as to being allowed to take quote, unquote, official action on any majority vote rather than a 5-0 only. And I say that in the interest of getting, if you will, a bang for your buck, spending the time and the effort and the energy, Page 78 September 6, 2000 having the citizen input, the staff time and the culmination of it is, is quote, unquote, no official action. So with that in mind, I just kind of offer it as a suggestion. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you. MR. WHITE: Thank you. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Are we adjourned? I believe we are. There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 12:35 p.m. ENVIRONMENTAL ADVISORY COUNCIL KEEN CORNELL, CHAIRMAN TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE, INC., BY CHERIE' R. LEONE, NOTARY PUBLIC Page 79