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EAC Minutes 10/06/2000 ROctober 6, 2000 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL ADVISORY COUNCIL Naples, Florida October 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 Alexandra Santoro Michael G. Coe Tom W. Sansbury Ed Carlson Alfred Gal ALSO PRESENT: Barbara Burgeson Patrick White, Assistant County Attorney Page I ENVIRONMENTAL ADVISORY COUNCIL AGENDA November 1, 2000 9:00 a.m. Commission Boardroom W. Harmon Turner Building (Building "F") - Third Floor Rol!Call Approval of Agenda Approval of October 6, 2000 Meeting Minutes Growth Management Update Land Use Petitions Planned Unit Development PUD-00-16 "Collier Blvd. Mixed-Use Commerce Center PUD" Section 34, Township 49 South, Range 26 East Planned Unit Development PUD-99-28 "Cocohatchee Bay PUD" Sections 8,16,17 and 20 Township 48 South, Range 25 East Planned Unit Development PUD-00-17 "Collier Blvd. Commercial Center PUD" Section 3, Township 50 South, Range 26 East Dw Planned Unit Development PUD-2000-14 "Brittany Bay PUD" Section 27, Township 48 South, Range 26 East go Conditional Use Petition CU-00-14 "Townsend Lake Excavation" Section 18, Township 51 South, Range 27 East Commercial Excavation 59.755 "Longan Lakes 2, Commercial Excavation Section 25, Township 4 7South, Range 27 East Old Business Discussion regarding Wetland Workshop Public input regarding workshop Environmental Advisory Council Agenda November 1, 2000 Page 2 VH. New Business VIII.Subcommittee Report A. Growth Management Subcommittee IX. Council Member Comments X. Public Comments XI. Adjournment Council Members: Notify the Community Development and Environmental Services Division Administrative staff no later than 5:00 p.m. on October 27, 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. October 6, 2000 CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Good morning. Welcome to the October 6 meeting of the Environmental Advisory Council. Do we have a roll call? MS. BURGESON: Cornell? MR. CORNELL: Here. MS. BURGESON: Carlson? MR. CARLSON: Here. MS. BURGESON: Coe? MR. COE: Here. MS. BURGESON: Tom Sansbury said that he would be a little bit late this morning. Santoro? MS. SANTORO: Here. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Richard Smith is no longer on the Board. We have two new members. I'm sorry, I didn't get the names. MR. GAL: Gal, G-A-L. MS. BURGESON: It's Alfred or do you go by AI? MR. GAL.' Alfred. MS. BURGESON: Okay. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you. Welcome, Alfred. MR. GAL: Sure. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Good to have you with us. On the agenda, I think it's worth mentioning, but it's under VIII, the subcommittee report, the growth management subcommittee, that subcommittee has become a little bit moribund, I guess you would say. And I think I'd like to reenergize that. And I would ask you to think about whether you would like to serve on that committee, so let's talk about that when we get there. Otherwise, any changes to the agenda or -- MS. BURGESON: The changes that we have today are that we're adding the Land Development Code amendments to new business. And those were mailed out to you, I think, the day or two days after the official package was mailed out. We also need to address the two new members, Ann Daily and Alfred Gal, whether or not -- there is two positions that they're filling. One goes till April 30th of 2001; one goes to April 30th of 2003. And we can either wait and see if Ann shows up. Or if, Alfred, you'd want to choose the shorter or longer term, we can Page 2 October 6, 2000 do that. MR. GAL: I think shorter for now. MS. BURGESON: All right. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: And that's the advantage of being present, the early bird. MS. BURGESON: And then the only other thing that we need to do this morning is to appoint a new chairman and vice chairman. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Yes. And you'd like to do that next? MS. BURGESON: I think so. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Any other changes to the agenda? MR. WHITE: Mr. Chairman, if I may, I'm Patrick White, Assistant County Attorney. The typical practice with regards to Robert's rules, if it's not otherwise specified, is that the point in time that you change between old and new chairs is between old and new business. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: We'll buy that. MS. BURGESON: Okay. That's fine. MR. WHITE: If you want to establish a different rule, that's fine. MS. BURGESON: That's fine. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thanks. That's helpful. Any other agenda items? MS. BURGESON: No, that's all. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Would somebody care to make a motion that we approve the agenda? MR. COE: I'll make a motion to approve the agenda with changes. MS. SANTORO: Second. Any discussion? All in favor? CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Any opposed? (No response.} CHAIRMAN CORNELL: meeting, any problems? Any changes? No. How about a motion to approve? MR. CARLSON: I move to approve. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Second? MR. COE: Second. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Any discussion on that? Any opposed? On the minutes of the September 6th All in favor? Page 3 October 6, 2000 (No response.) CHAIRMAN CORNELL: So ordered. Growth Management Update. Good morning, Bill. MR. LORENZ: Good morning. For the record, Bill Lorenz, Natural Resources Director. I guess the biggest point that we've come to in the juncture of the work plan for the Rural Fringe Committee is the production of this binder here, which is a compilation of all of the data and information that's applicable to the environmental factors of our environmental makers. We made a presentation to the Rural Fringe Committee last Wednesday night. They will now have the month of October to go through this information and determine, Number I -- I guess their objectives would be, Number t, to make sure they understand the information that we've tabulated and graphed and mapped. Number 2, is to then take that information and try to translate it into some policy recommendations. So we'll be working with the committee in trying to help boil down all the numbers and mapped information into some decent policy recommendations that they can present to the Board of County Commissioners. The Rural Lands Committee is meeting, I believe, next Monday. And on their agenda will be a presentation by Wilson, Miller, who are the property owner's consultant to gather the information and make some planning recommendations. We haven't seen that information and data, but that is what is supposed to be on their agenda for Monday. At today's workshop what I'll be doing is, I'll be showing you some information that we have generated out of the Fringe Committee that relate to wetlands, so you'll be able to see that as we go through the wetlands workshop. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thanks. Any questions for Bill? MR. LORENZ: Yes. Bob just reminded me to make sure that the EAC understands too that as we get to a particular juncture in the process, we will be bringing this information in a formal manner to the EAC for your review and also for your recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you. Okay. We have one land use petition. May we hear from the County? Page 4 October 6, 2000 MR. BADAMTCHIAN: Good morning, council. My name is Chahram Badamtchian from planning services staff. This is a rezone petition from agricultural to planned unit development for commercial development. The property is located along 951, Collier Boulevard. On the east side of Collier Boulevard at the terminus of Rattlesnake Hammock Road. This site is 18 acres, 18.15 acres. The petition is requesting to rezone commercial, to have up to 200,000 square feet of commercial and retail uses. The subject property is located within activity -- mixed use activity center, which allows rezoning to commercial. This would generate around 10,000 trips a day. But Collier Boulevard is already four laned in this area and there are no traffic problems. It's at a level of -- operating at a level of service C. And the Collier County Land Development Code requires 30 percent open space, which they will provide that. The property is surrounded by commercially zoned land to the north and to the west there are two PUDs with a commercial tract. To the east it's zoned -- to the south it is zoned agricultural and to the east it is also agricultural. And our environmental staff is here to answer any questions you have and make their presentation. MR. LENBERGER: Good morning. For the record, Stephen Lenberger, Development Services. The subject property, as Chahram mentioned, is located in the northeast corner of County Road 951 and Rattlesnake Hammock Road, Sports Park Road to the south. The aerial is on the wall here. The property on its east side has a power line easement, which is elevated, so flows from the wetlands on this portion to the east do not come up to the site. The site is vegetated with significant amounts of wetlands. And there are about 13.7 acres of wetlands and the total acre size is about 18.7. The front part of the property has pine flat woods. There is also some saw palmetto areas. The back part of the property is heavily infested with Melaleuca. A portion of the property looked like they had a fire historically and it burned out all the pine canopy. So pretty much this area in here is all monoculture and Melaleuca at this point. In the middle it's kind of a mix of both, slash pine, cypress and Melaleuca. Page 5 October 6, 2000 The petitioner did a wildlife survey on the subject property. The only listed species they did find were little blue herons. They were using a small pond area here with an alligator flag on the northeast corner of the property. They also observed pine cones that were eaten by squirrels, but they did not see any squirrels or any nests on site, so they do not know if there are fox squirrels there. The proposed plan is on the wall here. This is the conceptual water management plan. It pretty much mimics the PUD management plan. As you can see, there would be commercial, two out parcels on the front, retail shops and other stores towards the north and towards the east side of the property, with parking pretty much centralized. The petitioner is required to retain 15 percent of the native vegetation on site. The staff took a look at the site and determined there were approximately 11.8 acres of native vegetation on site. 15 percent would be 1.77 acres. The petitioner is -- because of the development plan is proposing to revegetate with larger plant material as allowed by code in the retention area as well as in the open space areas on site, with native species t00 percent. If you have any questions, the petitioner is here as well as myself. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Let me just mention that the minutes ought to show that Tom Sansbury has joined us. Questions for staff? MR. CARLSON: Under the proposal, is any of the existing native vegetation preserved or is it all cleared off and then native plants are replanted? MR. LENBERGER: The petitioner is proposing to clear the entire site. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Other questions for Steve? MS. SANTORO: Yes, I have a question. It mentions sheet flow and that three sides are already blocked, so to speak, and they're going to put a berm in on the north side. What does that -- how does that affect the sheet flow then? Does it mainly go to the property to the north? MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Stan Chrzanowski, Development Services. The sheet flow goes around the site. MS. SANTORO: I thought it mentioned that there was water that came on from the north side and they were going to add a Page 6 October 6, 2000 northern brim. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: I'm not familiar with water coming from the northern side. But if they add a northern berm, it will force the water in the canal over to the other side to the east. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Other questions for staff? MR. GAL: I'm not sure who this should be directed at, but there is a mitigation banking plan and they plan on buying some wetlands that are in CREW or Panther Island mitigation bank. Where are those? I don't know if this has come up before. MR, LENBERGER: It would be across the regional ecosystem up in the north end of the county and the Panther Island mitigation bank is located in that area basically on the Lee County, Collier County line. MR, GAL: Okay. And you're giving a conservation easement, the owners? They're purchasing the land and keeping the easement? MR. LENBERGER: Right. Well, if they do mitigation and are in CREW, they'll have to give a conservation easement to the Water Management District and the Corps of Engineers. MR. GAL.' Is that permanent? MR. LENBERGER: Yes, MR. COE: I've got a question. You're going to put retail shops and that sort of thing there. Florida Sports Park shut down? I mean, if they shut the go-cart track and race track and pistol and rifle range and all that? MR. FERN: This is not the swamp buggy area. The swamp buggy is -- MR. COE: I realize it's not on the same spot. But isn't there going to be some kind of effect on that retail center from that sort of activity? MR. FERN: Swamp buggy is located here. There is another 18-acre tract in here. So they are not adjacent to swamp buggies. They are several hundred feet away from -- MR. COE: I realize they're not adjacent to it. But have you ever been to the Florida Sports Park? MR. FERN: Yes. MR. COE: So you're aware of the noise that's out there and the dust and dirt flying around, et cetera? MR. FERN: Yes. MR. COE: That's why I'm wondering on behalf of the Page 7 October 6, 2000 developer, maybe the developer can tell me something I don't know. MS. BISHOP: Karen Bishop, agent for the owner of the property. Noise abatement is something that I can assure you they will be incorporating into their buildings specifically. But considering that your choice for adjacent to a property line would either be residential, so -- which is actually what that back t8 acres is zoned for, ag or right now residential, so some sort of industrial or retail facility which doesn't have someone there 24 hours a day. And a lot of those races are on the weekends, not during the week. So I think that the guy is pretty much secure with the idea he can work around the noise that is there. MR. SANSBURY: It only occurs three times a year. MS. BISHOP: Well, there is parties there. People rent it. MR. COE: I go there regularly to shoot my pistol. MS. BISHOP: Just point the other way, will you? CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Other questions for staff or the petitioner? MR. CARLSON: Are you going to make a presentation on it? MS. BISHOP: I hadn't intended to make a presentation. The staff made an excellent one. If you have any questions, I have my biologist as well as my drainage engineer here to answer any questions you might want to ask. MR. CARLSON: Well, I have a question. If this property is located adjacent to a canal and has berms around it and interrupted flow and all this stuff, why aren't these wetland lines different? I mean, why does this still qualify as 13 acres of wetland if -- what I read -- from what I'm hearing is, this is not wetland. MS. BISHOP: Well, it's like a pool out there, for one. There is no flow. You've got the road on the south and you got -- you're surrounded like a swimming pool on three sides. The water comes in and you have really no place to go. So it has -- the Melaleuca has really taken off. If you look at the flux maps, you'll see that really half the site, one whole section of that site is 80 percent infested. But that still doesn't count as 100 percent, so we're still counting that as part of the native vegetation. But it is quickly being overtaken. And I'm imagining that it Page 8 October 6, 2000 is pretty at some point and some time soggy because of the fact that there is a berm on that south side. Mariel probably can explain the lines a little better. MR. CARLSON: Okay. So my question -- my other question to whomever is, as far as the mitigation that is proposed, are you going to go to the CREW area and find an area that is equally as infested with Melaleuca and then restore that? Is that the proposal? MS. MARlEL: Hi, Mariel with Pattral and Associates (phonetic) biologist here. We can find land in CREW that -- there is plenty of land in CREW that is equally infested. I'm currently working on a project out there that is 160-some acres that is very infested. So yes, that's not a problem. We can find equally infested land to clean up and remediate. MR, COE: How do you do this cleanup of the Melaleuca? Do you just strip around the tree or do you actually remove the tree? MS. MARlEL: Well, the Water Management District has required us on the other parcel I was referring to to actually open up at least 25 percent of the coverage to allow for more ground cover to come back. Because they do girdle the tree and they kill it that way, which are chemicals. But in allowing for more ground cover to come back, they actually take out several trees in an area. So they do actually have to take some down. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: So the answer is? MS. MARlEL: They take some down and they kill some in place. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Other questions for the petitioner? MS. SANTORO: I'm still on the drainage, I guess. Basically you've said it's like a pool of water right now. You are going to put up another berm so you can prevent the sheet flow from coming in, but then you're going to fill in this pool with pavement. Is there a design plan so that all the drainage off the pavement would go back to the retention pond and not into the drainage ditches? MR, JERRY: I'm Reed Jerry of Vanessa and Dailer, professional engineer, for the record. The drainage plan will be such that the pavement will drain to the dry retention areas which are on basically the north, east and west side of the project. You can see them on the plan that is on the wall. And Page 9 October 6, 2000 those areas then will overflow via a wire pipe structure into the 951 canal. The berm that we're talking about would be on the north side, is required by the Water Management District to maintain or contain our drainage on our site so it doesn't go off site. MR, SANSBURY: What I'm hearing is that you're under South Florida requirements to do pretreatment required with regard to water retention? MR. JERRY: Yes. The South Florida Water Management District is permitting because of the wetlands on site. Normally this size of site would be permitted through Collier County. But because of the wetlands, it's required to go to the District. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: I just have one question. I noticed in the environmental impact statement that you said that the wetland community -- I guess it's Area 10 is the only wetland community on the site with a reasonable functional value. And it wasn't quite clear to me from the plan whether that is -- does that remain wetland or does that get gobbled up or replaced? MS. MARlEL: Well, it currently is going to be part of-- it lies within the Water Management area that they have designated. We have the option of leaving it as it is. So that's, you know -- that is an option for us to do. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Any other questions for the petitioner? Any questions from anyone in the room? Okay. What is your -- how would you like to proceed with this? MR. SANSBURY: Move for approval with the staff recommendation. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Is there a second? We have a motion to approve. Is there a second to the motion? Motion fails for lack of a second. MR. SANSBURY: Okay. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Any other recommendation? MR. CARLSON: I move that we recommend denial of this permit because I think it flies in the face of the whole spirit of native vegetation preservation when you can clear the entire site and then replant native plants and berms and swales that you need for water management anyway. I think it sets a horrible precedent. I would move that we deny this plan. Page 10 October 6, 2000 CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Is there a second to that motion? MR. COE: I'll second it. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Further discussion on the motion? Okay. We have a motion with a second to deny. All in favor of that motion? MR. CARLSON: Aye. MR. COE: Aye. MS. SANTORO: Aye. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Opposed? MR. SANSBURY: Aye. MR. GAL: Aye. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: So that's four to two. Not the official five that we need, but we can convey that message. Thank you very much. The next agenda item is old business. I don't know that we have any old business. Does anybody have any old business? If not, let's move on to the election of officers for the coming year. Pat, any procedural advice on -- MR. WHITE: You can solicit nominations if you'd like or you can just have a nomination made and voted upon. If no one else is nominated typically for a position, it's sufficient to just quote/unquote appoint that individual. You don't need to necessarily have a vote. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Okay. Well, let's see how we do. MR. COE: We just had a motion and a second. You got sucked in while you were talking to him. MR. CARLSON: Get them while they're looking the other way. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Okay. With a motion and a second, can we solicit additional nominations or is that not appropriate? MR. COE: Appoint. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: All you need is a nomination and a second. MR. SANSBURY: Got it. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: All in favor of that? Any opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you. Vice chairman is what we need. MR. CARLSON: I nominate Mr. Sansbury. Page 11 October 6, 2000 MR. COE: I'll second that. MR. CARLSON: See, the problem is, you stepped in because other people left. So you haven't quite served long enough yet, so we're going to keep you around. MR. SANSBURY: I appreciate that. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: All in favor of that motion? Any opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Done. New business. Did you want to talk about the LDC amendments? MS. BURGESON: Yes. We've just got a small list of Land Development Code amendments. That was included in the package that we've mailed out to the EAC members. These are the ones that are environmentally sensitive or have some issues that the Environmental Advisory Council may be interested in. The first is going to be presented by Fred Reischl. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Mr. Coe needs to absent himself for a few minutes. I don't know that I got that. Do you have an extra copy? MR. REISCHL: Good morning, council members. Fred Reischl, Planning Services. The origin of this proposed amendment stems from the loss of the lease of some of the current airboat tour operations in the Big Cypress National Preserve or what is now the Big Cypress National Preserve. This has already gone before the Development Services Advisory Committee. And as you can see, a change highlighted in the title where it says change. When I wrote this, I wrote it as airboat tour operations. The Development Services Advisory Committee has amended that to tour operations in general and then including airboat, swamp buggy, horses, things that they believe also would have environmental impacts. And the reason for the change in the language was to ensure more conformity if and when these tour operations come back in for a conditional use. What I did was go back through approved conditional uses, taking stipulations from them and basically just putting them in Section 23. And let me go over that with you. That's the last Page 12 October 6, 2000 page of this amendment. And currently swamp buggies or -- excuse me -- airboats would be included under cultural, educational or recreational facilities and their related modes of transporting participants. And we added tour operations such as, but not limited to, airboats, swamp buggies, horses and similar modes of transportation shall be subject to the following criteria, which I'll summarize for you. They would be required to get their other permits, state and federal, prior to approval of the site development plan. No trespassing signs posted periodically around the periphery. They shall utilize existing trails. There are certain engineering criteria that I culled from previous uses. Limitations as to vehicle size and number and the number of passengers. Times of the operation. And the last one is a potential review by the Board of Zoning Appeals if there is any detriment to the environment, which was not ameliorated by what I said is adequate corrective action. So that could be brought back to the Board and the Board would then review the conditional use, possibly either revoking the conditional use or adding additional stipulations. I did speak to Kevin Caser of the Big Cypress National Preserve. He agreed with the proposed amendment and suggested two others, which include no molestation of wildlife, including feeding. He said he has come across that in the tour operations he's visited. And that vehicles must comply with State and U.S. Coast Guard regulations if applicable. So although it was not in the packet, since I originally spoke to Mr. Caser, I would be happy to incorporate those two additional ones into the submittal. I'll be happy to answer any questions if you have them. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: You know that Mr. Coe is back with US. MS. SANTORO: You describe the signs -- I mean, I guess I visualize going out in the airboat and here you are looking at the waterways and you are having signs posted. Could you be more specific as to the actual requirement? It says: Shall post the property line, the entire property line with no trespassing signs approximately every 300 yards. Could you be more specific as to the places and the rationale for doing so? Page 13 October 6, 2000 MR. REISCHL: The rationale was to prevent other tour operators or private individuals from trespassing on this site and causing the damage that would be blamed on the lessee, I guess. And again, this was put in place by the Board of County Commissioners. But if you'd like to limit the size, I mean, like no greater than 2 square feet, something like that; is that your suggestion? MS. SANTORO: Well, I can't imagine going out on a tour and having all the no trespassing signs out there on the waterways. MR. REISCHL: Every 300 yards would be three football fields apart. I mean, it's not going to be a continuous line. It's your discretion. I can make that your recommendation that we remove the signs. MS. SANTORO: I'm raising the issue. I don't know if there are any parameters. MR. COE: 300 yards, three football fields, that's the closest each sign is going to be. It's insignificant. MS. BURGESON: We can proceed through these. And if you'd like, we can take a vote on them at the end. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Yeah. If you'd like to make a recommendation, some specific recommendation, I think it would be -- MS. SANTORO: What are the current sizes of the signs? MR. REISCHL: I don't have the code with me right now, but I believe a no trespassing sign is not -- I do have a copy of the Land Development Code. (Thereupon, an off-the-record discussion was had.) MS. BURGESON: The second item was brought forward by the code enforcement director, Michelle Arnold. She's not here today, so this is a simple amendment. They're requesting that Carrotwood be added to the noncode trees, which would simply state that those plants may not be planted and shall not count -- I'm sorry -- may be planted but shall not count towards required code trees. However, at the Development Services Advisory Committee meeting their interest was to have that listed as one of the eight exotics that would not be permitted to be planted as well. I'm not sure what the final determination on that was, but that was a discussion. If the Board is -- so the Development Services Advisory Page 14 October 6, 2000 Committee recommended adding Carrotwood to the prohibited exotic list so that it could not be transported, planted, sold or used within Collier County. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Questions? MS. BURGESON: Would the Board be interested in supporting that move to the prohibited list? MR. CARLSON: This Board member would. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: I don't know enough about it myself, I'm sorry to say. That's what you're recommending? MS. BURGESON: A recommendation would be to support the Development Services Advisory Committee discussion on that. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Then why don't you keep going? MR. SANSBURY: Let me ask you a question. Is that added to the exotics list or just not counted? MS. BURGESON: That would be added to the exotics list. MR. SANSBURY: Carrotwood to the exotics list? MS. BURGESON: Yes. MR. SANSBURY: I've never heard of Carrotwood as being considered an exotic. MS. BURGESON: It's gone on the State list. MR. SANSBURY: It is on the State list, okay. MS. BURGESON: It was also added to the City. MR. REISCHL: On the tour operations, the Land Development Code limits signs not subject to permitting at 2 square feet. So that would be the maximum size of a no trespassing sign. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: How do you feel about that, Alex? MS. SANTORO: That's fine. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: We'll keep going. MR. REISCHL: Were you interested in endorsing Mr. Caser's two additional conditions? CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Yeah. I think your suggestion was that we keep moving. And we'll ask questions along the way and then we'll act at the end. MS. BURGESON: Okay. The next presentation, Ron Nino is going to discuss the annual beach events permit, which is page 64 of the items that I handed out to you. MR. NINO: Yes. Ron Nino, for the record. Let me give you a bit of a background of the genesis of this amendment. Some while back a task force was put together to review Page 15 October 6, 2000 the way we currently deal with essentially hotels on the gulf. That task force consisted of representatives of the industry who are here today and all of the county staff that deal with that issue, including our Code Enforcement Department, our Parks and Recreation Department and our environmental staff, were all part of that task force. And out of that task force we developed an addition -- a proposed addition to the amendment -- to the Land Development Code that would deal specifically with the beach events that are held by the various hotels currently and those that are to occur in the future. Currently under the Land Development Code, beach hotel functions have been considered special events under the temporary use section and were limited legally to 28 days per year. However, in the real world, that was not happening. And we believe that staff -- that there is good justification for construing their types of activities that really exceed the parameters that we normally associate with a special event. One of those considerations, for example, if the hotel industry were to speak to it, is by and large 99 percent of their activities occurs on their property; property that they own title to. They're zoned commercial. The activities that they're engaged in are permitted within that zoning district. However, they spill over onto the beach at times and it's that spillover that we were concerned about. And to that point, that concern, we thought it was appropriate, at least the task force thought it was appropriate -- and incidentally so does the Development Services Advisory Council -- because we have reviewed this amendment and feel that it is appropriate given the special circumstances that are characteristic of those hotels and the significant and economic impact they have to Collier County. I think the amendment is straightforward. It acknowledges a provision for annual beach event permits. It provides that they will tell us every month how many events they're going to have on the beach. That opportunity will ensure that our code enforcement staff and our environmental staff will be aware of each and every function and will determine the appropriate need to inspect and Page 16 October 6, 2000 review those activities prior to them and following their conclusion. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them. But I think otherwise the beach events permit is self-explanatory. Members of the industry are here. MR. COE: You mentioned that this is primarily to cover spillover? MR. NINO: Yes. MR. COE: Not to cover an actual event held on the beach? MR. NINO: No. Because these are permitted uses. Those are authorized uses accessory to the hotel. MR. COE: I don't understand. If I want to hold an event down on the beach -- MR. NINO: In front of your house. MR. COE: No. Down on the beach. The beach is public, correct? MR. NINO: The beach is public, correct. MR. COE: So I'm a member of the public. I want to hold a party down on the beach. MR. NINO: You have the right to go down there and party to your heart's content and you don't need a permit to do it. MR. COE: If I want to hold a beach event down there with a rock band, am I permitted to do that? MR. NINO: You'd have to get a special use permit. You'd have to get a noise permit. You'd need a noise permit as well. But you would be -- you'd be subject to those instruments, yes. But if your family were having a reunion on the beach -- MR. COE: Yeah, that's different. MR. NINO: -- you wouldn't need any special permit for that. MR. COE: Why does this apply just to the commercial? I guess you're talking about like hotels, beach clubs, that sort of things. MR. NINO: Hotels, beach clubs, yes. Because we're of the opinion that we need that inspection and we need that inspection capability to be able to monitor what's going on. And this gives us the opportunity to do that. I think the industry would -- and the industry doesn't have a problem with that. However, if push comes to shove, I suspect that the industry would balk at going back with taking a literal point of view as regards to the current regulations. Page 17 October 6, 2000 If we were to play hard ball with them, I suspect we'd be in court very quickly on a program that is currently wrapped around 28 days. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Other questions? MR. SANSBURY: Mr. Chairman, it's probably stretching it a little bit, I need to recuse myself on this item because my employer does have interest in a property that is affected by this. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Okay. Other questions for Fred on this item -- I mean, for Ron? MR. GAL.' The last paragraph of the amendment mentions a maximum number of beach events, but it doesn't say anywhere in the amendment that you provided. It's 28? MR. NINO: No, it isn't. The annual beach events provisions referenced a set of applications that they would make with the staff. It's an administrative function. And those instruments -- the application permit provides for the block of events that they intend to purchase on a monthly basis. The maximum total events is 175 a year. MR. GAL: And that's in another code section? MR. NINO: That's handled by reference. They're administrative rules. MR. GAL: Okay. MR, NINO: Mr. Mulhere says we'll put the maximum in the code. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Other questions? MS. SANTORO.' I just had a comment. It was on page 65, 2.6.34.4. I felt that the wording was a little misleading. I'd be glad to submit different wording such as, if an additional beach event is scheduled during the month after the monthly notification has already been furnished to Collier County, et cetera. I thought that the wording as it stands now is unclear. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Where is that? I'm sorry. MS. SANTORO.' On 2.6,34.4. MR. NINO: Yes. MS. SANTORO: As it is now, I'm not sure the meaning is clear. My suggestion for wording might be if an additional beach event is scheduled during the month, after the monthly notification has been furnished to Collier County and so forth. MR. SANSBURY: Mr. Chairman, can I ask a question? CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Sure. Page 18 October 6, 2000 MR. SANSBURY: We tend to drift sometimes, but how does this ordinance that we're talking about -- changes that we're talking about fall under what this council -- I mean, this advisory council -- it's the Environmental Advisory Council. We're not setting rules for the beach. MR. NINO: Well, these are activities that infringe on the environmental sensitivity to the beach. I guess it's to that extent is the reason that we brought it to your attention. But I agree with you, Commissioner Sansbury, that it's marginal in terms of your role. But we decided to bring it to you. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Is it possible with reasonable effort to clarify that or is that -- MR. NINO: No, we don't have a problem with that. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Other questions? Shall we keep going? MS. BURGESON: The next item on page 81 is to revise the section of the Land Development Code that requires exotic removal in conjunction with single family dwellings, particularly out in Golden Gate Estates, as an example. What we have right now existing in the code is if you have a single-family home built after t991, you're required to remove all the exotics on that property and maintain it exotic free. If, however, as it's currently existing you were to build a guest home or an accessory structure such as a barn or a second building on the property, you would not be required to bring your property up to code with exotic removal. This captures any additional accessory structures and major additions to the principal or accessory structures as requiring exotic removal for that home. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Questions? MR. SANSBURY: If I could, just an experience. I was out on Immokalee Road right around the area where that bird lady's street is that goes back there. MR. CARLSON: Rock Road. MR. SANSBURY: This one goes back to the south, I guess. And there is some houses back there that are relatively new houses. That if someone had to remove -- and I agree with removing exotics, but if some of those properties had to remove their exotics, the Melaleucas are so thick, I mean, it would break somebody to do that on a single-family home. Page t9 October 6, 2000 How does that -- I mean, there is some infestations where people have cut out the Melaleucas and built their house. MS. BURGESON: It's currently in the Land Development Code that's it's required for all single-family homes to remove exotics. This just captures -- if you're having an accessory structure built, for instance, a guest home or another building on the property, that you'd be required to remove exotics. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Other questions? MR. CARLSON: I'll just add a personal comment to that. That I live in the Estates and I have 2 1/2 acres and everybody around me has 2 t/2 acres. Once you get on the campaign of removing exotics, everybody jumps on board and everybody removes their exotics and wants them removed. And so -- MR. SANSBURY: I just saw so many of them. MS. BURGESON: You've also got the option on the Estates property to girdle exotics and chemically treat them and they don't have to be physically removed. As long as they are a distance enough away from the home that there is not going to be any safety issue regarding them coming down. The next item is to remove the nest relocation from the types of sea turtle permits issued by the County. It's not done anymore. Back when the Land Development Code and these freestanding ordinances were absorbed into the LDC, this was something that the State issued. It's no longer anything that we need to be concerned with, so we're just removing it from the code. The next item is to provide language to the protected species section of the Land Development Code. This was directed by the planning commission at the last LDC amendment cycle and by the Board of County Commissioners. And we had meetings with the environmental groups that were directed by both of those Boards to come back to staff and to make presentations in terms of how they wanted to make a language change. They're fairly insubstantial in terms of the way that we handle business because we're currently doing what this language puts in the code, but it clarifies language that's been around for more than a decade. On page 84 what we're replacing is language that we will be using in terms of minimum standards for preservation and Page 20 October 6, 2000 protection of protected species listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, South Florida Multispecies Recovery Plan, which is something that we've had and we've been using but we've not referenced in the Land Development Code. On page 85 we are referencing the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Habitat Management Guidelines and adopting those as minimum guidelines and standards, which is what we've been using, but again hadn't been adopted into the LDC. Made some changes to the gopher tortoise language, as required or requested by both the planning commission and the board. The one that we're adding is -- this was something that was discussed by this board previously, their interest in not only protecting gopher tortoises when the burrows are excavated, but also the commensals, so we're adding language, all gopher tortoises, their habitats and associated commensals are hereby protected. And then we're defining the take issue, putting the word take in and more clearly defining what's it is by a prohibited, what it is prohibited by take. Saying that it is expressly prohibited to take, harass, harm, punch, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, collect or attempt to engage in any such conduct any gopher tortoises or alter, destroy or degrade the functions and value of their natural habitat unless otherwise provided for in this section. And that would be through relocation or off-site relocation of the gopher tortoises. Again, we are just removing and correcting some language in two, removing "molest" and putting in "take." And three, we're removing U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service because they don't have authority at this point with gopher tortoises, which are a protected species of special concern. In paragraph four, the environmental groups were interested in having staff add language that simply states that we are going to be verifying gopher tortoise surveys, which is a standard practice for staff to do currently, but it wasn't in the code. And under five, we've replaced language that says, "where suitable habitat cannot be provided." We're saying, "does not exist." Which is just a clarification of what was in there. Paragraph C was removed because that's addressed in A. Page 21 October 6, 2000 When you have a small site and you're protecting gopher tortoises on site, if you don't have suitable habitat, if it's too small of a site, then that's allowed through A. If that habitat does not exist, then they can be relocated off site. And then replacing paragraph B with C. And it was an interest in both the environmental groups and the development services advisory committee that we add, where scientific data has been presented to the community development and environmental services administrator and their designee and an environmental professional opinion as rendered that the requirement to provide required on-site gopher tortoise habitat will not be conducive to the long-term health or the on-site population of the tortoises. That's the ability to relocate them off site as well. And then in the last paragraph, nine, on exemptions, this was just something that we omitted the last time. It really should have been in the first -- with the first amendment. And that is, single-family platted lots shall be exempt from the requirements set forth in 311.3.4, which is the requirements to put together a gopher tortoise relocation and formal management plan. This says: When these lots are not a part of a previous development order which has been required to or is determined to need to comply with 311.3.4. And then we're adding: However, gopher tortoises shall be protected pursuant to paragraphs I and 2, which we had. We're adding three, which is just to require that authorized personnel are the only ones that can relocate tortoises as provided for in this section. That is something that should have been done the first time and it's fairly -- I believe it's not a substantive amendment to that section of the code. Any questions? The last amendment that we're proposing that we've submitted to you in this package is to the vehicle on the beach section of the Land Development Code and that's to add two additional exemptions. Actually I've crafted a third that is not in front of you this morning, but I'll read that to you. We've changed the language in the second of those two. Let me just describe why these were added. Page 22 October 6, 2000 314.3.4 was added to allow understanding that if the hotels were going to be obtaining annual beach event permits and having up to 175 events per year, that at this point they're not permitted to use vehicles to set up and break down those events. However, they've been doing that, so this is to legitimize how they're doing business and to permit them to do that with each of these events. The second item is to allow the beach concessions minimal use of vehicles, which right now they're not allowed to use on the beach. But I'm crossing out language in the second sentence, crossing out "first thing in the morning" and in the third sentence crossing out "at the end of the business day." So that reads: Vehicles which are used in conjunction with approved permitted beach concession activities may be used to set up concession equipment and may be used to remove the equipment from the beach and return it to the approved storage area, These vehicles may not be used for transportation of people or equipment throughout the day. That's to allow for setup of concession items in the morning and breakdown at the end of the day. The last that I'm adding would be 314.3.6. That's not in front of you. I'll read that to you. Vehicles which are used in conjunction with routine daily hotel business shall be limited to a one-time setup and a one-time removal of that equipment. These vehicles may not be used throughout the day. And that was discussed at the most recent Development Services Advisory Committee meeting. The hotels would like to have vehicles so that, for instance, in the morning when they're coming out to the beach with hundreds of towels for their hotel guests, that they be able to use those vehicles to set those up at a designated area in the morning or anything else that they might want to set up in the morning and then to remove them at the end of the day. And that's the last proposed amendment for this cycle. Any questions on any of those? MR. GAL: What are the current beach concession activities on the beach? MS. BURGESON: They range from having small boats to Page 23 October 6, 2000 sailboats. There are a couple of wave runners at different concessions up and down the beach. Large, heavy lounge chairs and umbrellas. Typically that's what you find at most of the concessions. Also, the Registry has canoes and kayaks at their concession, which is out at the Clam Pass kayak park. Was there anybody that wanted to speak on this from the public? MR. GAL: I just have one more suggestion. You tighten up the language from "first thing in the morning to the end of the business day" to certain hours. MS. BURGESON: I had that language in there and removed it. And the reason that we removed it was that, for instance, if on any particular day the morning is stormy and they don't want to set up their concession items until 1:00 in the afternoon, then that's to give them that leeway so that there is just a one-time setup. It's designed so that -- if you want to say a time frame, you might say that they have an hour to set up and an hour to break down, but I'm not sure that that's necessary to do that. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Other thoughts? Are you looking for a motion to -- MS. BURGESON: To either support -- CHAIRMAN CORNELL: -- recommend a motion of support? MS. BURGESON: -- the added language that was read to yOU. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Do we have such a motion? MR. COE: I've got a motion to support with the changes that we've recommellded. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Okay. Is there a second to that? MR. WHITE: Mr. Chairman, does that apply to all of the LDC amendments in this cycle or just to the most recent one that was discussed? MS. BURGESON: Just to the ones that were presented to the Board this morning. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: All of these. Is there a second to that motion? MR. CARLSON: I'll second. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Any further discussion on the motion? Motion to support, all in favor? MR. SANSBURY: Note that I abstained. Page 24 October 6, 2000 CHAIRMAN CORNELL: One abstention. MR. GAL: Aye. MS. SANTORO: Aye. MR. COE: Aye. MR. CARLSON: Aye. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Any opposed? (No response.} CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Okay. The other item that you wanted to touch on was the length of appointment to service for the two new members, I think. MS. BURGESON: I think we've taken care of that. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: It seems a little bit tough to do that without Ms. Daily that -- MS. BURGESON: lan. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Oh, lan, Mr. Daily. MS. BURGESON: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN BURGESON: Would it be possible to talk to him and see what his -- if this works for him? MS. BURGESON: Certainly. If he would be amenable to the longer of those two terms, we'll set it up that way. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Maybe we can formalize it at the next meeting or something like that. MS. BURGESON: All right. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Can we do something like that? MS. BURGESON: Yes. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Okay. MR. SANSBURY: Do we have a full board? CHAIRMAN CORNELL: We're down one, I guess. MS. BURGESON: Yeah. And that was advertised. I'm not sure if we received any applications for that. We expect that the Board will appoint that vacancy possibly at their next meeting. MR. SANSBURY: I've got someone who -- that is -- who should they send their -- MS. BURGESON: That should be sent to Sue Filson. MR. SANSBURY: Sue? MS. BURGESON: Sue Filson. MR. SANSBURY: Filson. Thank you. MS. BURGESON: If you want, I can get her business card and give it to you at the end of the meeting. MR. SANSBURY: Okay. Thank you. Page 25 October 6, 2000 CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Any other new business? Item 8 is the subcommittee report on growth management. As I mentioned, we really are sort of nonfunctional there and I'd like to see us reenergize that committee. Not only is it mandated that we have a committee on growth management, but also when we made our annual report to the County Commissioners in the spring, we listed growth management as one of our three priority areas of attention in the coming year. I am quite interested in that and would like to work on the committee. And we're looking for a couple of others who might be willing to serve. MR. CARLSON: Mr. Chairman, I volunteered to work on that committee. And I am way overcommitted on committees and I haven't been able to attend a single one of those rural fringe or rural meetings. It's just been impossible. So I should probably withdraw and let somebody else try to attend. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Well, I think it is a matter of availability as well as interest. But I think it's a very important area of endeavor for us and I would hope that one or more of you would be willing to sign up. MS. SANTORO: I'd like to consider it. I would just like to know what the time frame is on it. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Well, we don't have any time frames. We would make them. But I think from Bill's presentation earlier, it seems like a timely opportunity to get together and perhaps review the materials that he has put together just so we're at least up to speed on what's going on with the two assessment committees. Anybody else interested? MR. CARLSON: Very interested. That's not the problem. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: And able, willing and able to serve. Okay. Ali, I guess it's you and me. I think it would be good to get together maybe with Bill. Does that sound practical to you, Bill? MR. LORENZ: Certainly. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: I'd love to see a copy of that. I haven't been good either recently about attending the two assessment committee meetings, but I want to get back into that. Could we get together with you perhaps and go over that Page 26 October 6, 2000 material? MR. LORENZ: Yes. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Or at least get it from you and then have a chance to review it ourselves? MR, LORENZ: Absolutely. Again, for some members who may not be aware of that, when you meet as a subcommittee, we'll have the notice of the meeting. It's an open meeting. So we will schedule it. We'll put the notice -- the staff will put the notice out. And that's your pleasure. If you want to do it in the evening, if you want to set up -- at the moment maybe you want to do a -- begin to set up a routine time in terms of the month, you know, like the first Thursday evening or however you want to do it. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Sure. Why don't we set up one meeting at least with you, if that sounds practical with you? All, I think it's a matter of what works for you in terms of, you know -- evening is fine for me. MS. SANTORO.' Good. Because it's usually easier for me after work unless I plan specially. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Let's pick a day and a time and then we'll sit down with Bill. Do you want to lead the way or do you -- what's your -- what works for you, Bill? MR. LORENZ: Thursdays -- if we're going to do it in the evening, Thursday is not a good time for me. The second and fourth Wednesday is when the rural fringe meets and -- later on in the day. But other than that, I'm okay. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: The second and fourth Wednesdays. MR. LORENZ: Yeah, that's not good. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: So that's not good for you. How about Wednesday, late in the afternoon, the 18th of October? MS. SANTORO: That's fine. MR. LORENZ: Yes, that's good. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Okay. How early -- what works? MS. SANTORO: I get out at 5:00. I'm in the Commons, so whatever, 5:30. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: 5:30? MR. LORENZ: 5:30. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: And where would we get together? MR. LORENZ: We could do it in the Development Services conference room E. That's probably -- may be the best place. Page 27 October 6, 2000 It's easy access. And I'll confirm the room. And I'll put out a notice out so that Wednesday the 18th, 5:30, Development Services conference room E, I'll confirm that with the group and I'll put the appropriate notice. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Sounds okay? MS. SANTORO-' Yeah. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you. I appreciate you serving on that. Any additional council member comments? Any additional public comments? Comments from people in the room? Any reason why we should not adjourn? MS. BURGESON: No. I just wanted to make one quick comment, that we will be adjourning the meeting and continuing with the wetlands workshop, which we will continue with the court reporter. And it will continue to be taped, so that if a new member or anyone wants to get copies of either the minutes or of the tape of that workshop afterwards, it will be available. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: I'd like to suggest that we take a four-minute break or something before we start. We stand adjourned. (A recess was taken.) CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Okay. We're on. We'd like to convene the wetlands workshop. Okay. We have just convened the wetlands workshop. I wanted just to mention going in that one of the other of our three top priorities that we spoke about with the County Commissioners in the spring was wetland protection, so this is a very appropriate activity for us. And we very much appreciate all of you who have come to talk to us about that. And I think, Bill, you had a -- MS. BURGESON: Let me start briefly by introducing the people that have come today. We have Mindy Hogan, who is a biologist with the Fort Myers Office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Karen Johnson and Richard Thompson with South Florida Water Management District, Fran Worth with Martin County Growth Management. We were not able to -- and we had a cancellation last Friday from the young lady who was supposed to attend from St. Lucie Page 28 October 6, 2000 County. And I had a phone call back this past Monday from Cathy Cartier with Broward County, who said that she was not able to attend but would be willing to come back and make a presentation on how Broward County ordinances handle wetland protection in the future if you'd like to do that. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Great. We're going. MS. BURGESON: We're going to break this down into staff presentations first and then we'll have the agencies and the Martin County presentation after that. We've had two previous wetland workshops with the previous Environmental Advisory Board and previous Environmental Advisory Council over the past t t years. There has been quite a few changes since I've been with the County. When I started t 1 years ago, we actually created our own wetland line and did wetland reviews. And we made sure that the issues that were handled in the growth management plan section for wetland protection were taken care of to the best of our ability. That has changed over the years. At that time we used the Army Corps Wetland Criteria and the Department of Environmental Protection Wetland Plant List, so it was a combination and somewhat confusing. And then you had three other agencies involved in wetland protection as well. Several years ago there was a state mandate whereby Collier County and all counties in Florida are accepting or can accept the South Florida -- for us it's the South Florida Water Management District wetland line. So that is now our new definition of what a Collier County wetland is, is that wetland that the consultant and as approved by South Florida Water Management District staff defines as a wetland. However, you need to take into consideration that there still are Army Corps wetlands as defined by the Corp and that they're handled through their own permitting process. Our goals through the growth management plan are to protect wetlands to the best ability that we have through the permitting process and through the mitigation, which typically comes through the South Florida Water Management District environmental resource permit. We try to make sure that when wetlands are impacted, that there is no, what's called, Page 29 October 6, 2000 unacceptable net loss of wetlands. And it's been directioned (sic) by the Board of County Commissioners that if the state and federal permits have been issued and that mitigation is acceptable to the State and the federal permitting agency, that any loss to wetlands have been acceptably mitigated through that permitting process. There are a couple of sections in our Land Development Code that offer additional protection for wetlands and that's addressed typically through the administrative reviews of the site development plan or the plat and construction plans as they come in. And that is to provide additional buffers to wetlands. Whether that be a distance buffer, as we typically request a minimum of 15 feet averaging 25, or whether that be a structural buffer, as South Florida Water Management District might approve through their ERP permitting process. And there are also other sections in the code that through the preservation standards require that a minimum of 25 percent native vegetation be preserved on the larger parcels. That affords the ability for the developers to protect wetlands. The language in that section also states that if wetlands are -- if the entire preservation to 25 percent is entirely of wetlands, it does not -- well, let me get that language and read that to you. Under the preservation section it says that: This policy shall not be interpreted to allow development in wetlands should the wetlands alone constitute more than 25 percent of the site. However, we have tried to protect wetlands greater than 25 percent of the site. However, when the agency permits allow the impacts and mitigation to those wetlands, and that's been considered acceptable net loss, it's difficult to get more than that. I know this Board has tried at times to preserve more when 25 percent of the site is wetlands. I guess we can listen to the presentation by South Florida about how their permit process handles that. And also the presentation by Fran Worth from Martin County might help us understand how they protect wetlands to a stronger degree than Collier County does. MR. MULHERE: Bob Mulhere, Planning Services director. I actually have to leave to be at another meeting in about seven Page 30 October 6, 2000 minutes. So before I left, I wanted to just add a couple of thoughts as it relates to this wetlands workshop. I think it's timely in the sense that one of the primary focuses of the final order from the governor and cabinet and of the rural assessment required by the final order is to develop comprehensive plan amendments to a greater degree than currently protect wetlands. So while we're having this discussion here, the Rural Fringe Oversight Committee, the Rural Lands Oversight Committee, the staff, Wilson Miller, as consultants to the eastern landowners, are all working on a process that in some -- in the rural fringe may be six months to a year away from completion and in the eastern rural lands may be nearly two years away from completion or just less than two years away. All of those collective groups are also working on developing wetland protection standards that address the deficiencies identified by the governor and cabinet ultimately. One of the, I think, interesting or perhaps positive aspects of that finding is that we still have a great opportunity in that there is 21,000 acres in the urban area of wetlands, but there is 925,000 acres of wetlands in Collier County. So we have the opportunity to develop wetlands standards from -- and Bill Lorenz will talk more specifically about this. But we have the opportunity to develop wetland protection standards that are countywide, but to enhance those standards where we have these very large connective wetlands systems which predominately, almost exclusively are found in the rural areas where we still have a great opportunity to protect those where they have not been significantly impacted, at least not by development. To the extent that they may have been impacted by agriculture or exotic infestation, that's another issue. It's still something we can deal with. I would say we have some issues. So what is an acceptable loss of wetlands in terms of perhaps an isolated wetlands in the urban area in the way of a development that might occur or wish to occur? To what degree should mitigation be permitted and to what degree does the existing mitigation standards or do the existing mitigation standards adequately allow for or perhaps to what Page 31 October 6, 2000 degree do they -- in some people's opinion maybe they offer too much flexibility in terms of wetland impacts? So to me, those are kind of some of the issues that we will be needing to deal with as we move forward in the assessment process. And to the degree that you-all look at these issues from a policy perspective and can perhaps add some input, it will be helpful during that assessment process. As I said, we do intend to bring back to you the information that we collectively develop. And we're getting very, very close to developing some draft wetland protection standards that we would bring back with the data behind it to support the draft goals, objectives and policies that we develop. So I just wanted to sort of put that all in -- there is a lot of things going on. If we keep in mind that all of those things are going on, we can all help each other in terms of the same objective; the objective here being to protect wetlands. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you, Bob. MR. LORENZ: For the record, Bill Lorenz, the natural resources director. Bob touched on a few things in terms of the growth management plan. My topic for you today is to alert you to what the requirements are with regard to growth management planning, the final order requirements, where we stand a little bit with the Rural Fringe Committee and some of the data and analysis that we have done to -- so that when you consider this whole issue, you're considering it in that growth management planning context. The first -- recognize that the first thing off the bat is that the policies that we currently have in our growth management plan for wetlands and for wildlife are not in compliance. That's why we were under the final order. So our current plan -- the final order allows us to do certain things with regard to development activities. But it says also that you are not in compliance with wetland and wildlife issues and we've got until June of 2002 to adopt the appropriate objectives and policies to get us into compliance. And very specifically the final order talks about directing incompatible land uses away from wetlands. And that's kind of a mantra that I've been using with the committee, is directing incompatible land uses away from wetlands. That's the basic Page 32 October 6, 2000 phrase that we have in the final order. Now, DCA, through their 9(J)(5) criteria -- 9(J)(5) is the section of the administrative code that deals with the growth management plan requirements -- I've just pulled out a couple of key phrases here that I think are very important for the council to see. And also -- in your packet I also gave you the actual two pages in the criteria that addresses wetlands protection, so you have the actual 9(J)(5) wording. But again, the idea of future land uses that are incompatible are to be directed away from wetlands. The other thing is that when you look at a comprehensive plan or if you look at countywide, DCA is looking at that we have basically distributed our land uses in such a manner that minimizes those impacts on the wetlands. Very specifically, when you read the 9(J)(5) criteria, it directs the County to go through a data analysis process so that we characterize the wetlands, characterize the types, categories, their functions and their values and all of that information is to be considered in our final analysis as well. The criteria also recognizes that there will be impacts to wetlands. It's just impossible not to have impacts to wetlands. So it states that mitigation is considered one means to compensate for the loss of wetland functions. So this is going to be our -- the litmus test right here, this language, when we go back to the DCA to try to get approval for our comprehensive plan. Just put this map in here -- a little bit here because eventually I'm going to refer to a couple of items. Where we've done our analysis right now -- of course we have to do this countywide. We're going to certainly send information and analysis later on. When we talk about the fringe, we're talking about basically this area in here, which is, for purposes of some information that you have in your material, this is area A and area B of the fringe. And then down here, this is the north Belle Meade, which is area C. And then down here this is part of the fringe which is what we call area D, but all of this is the fringe except for the north Golden Gate Estates. Now, what this map also shows you a little bit too that is Page 33 October 6, 2000 important is that we've also identified natural resource protection areas, the NRPAs, which are the CREW, basically the CREW NRPA and the Belle Meade NRPA along the south Golden Gate Estates. These are other NRPAs that are out in the rural lands that the staff currently hadn't done the analysis. That's where Wilson Miller is doing it for the Rural Lands Committee. But I just wanted to give you this information here so you have some context when I begin to share with you some additional data. This map also shows generally the urban and agricultural type of land uses that we see in the county. Bob was talking, of course, about the urban area, the Immokalee -- the coastal urban areas here. And of course there is an urban area in Immokalee as well as a future land use designation. I give a lot of credit to Mac Hatcher on staff. Mac has been just chained to his computer for the past, certainly, six to nine months and he's generated a lot of maps and information through our GIS system that we have to try to analyze the data. When you start talking about wetlands in Collier County, to look at a big county view, this map that's on the view graph here is the same that we've got posted on the wall. Obviously we're limited with information. The information we're currently using is the land cover analysis from the South Florida Water Management District, which, when you read some of the reports, may be 90 percent accurate totally. It was based upon aerial photographs, interpretation of those photographs and trying to interpret the land cover values. For those who are really plugged into it, the cover information in the database is broken out by flux code. Mac has generated this map and he's here available too if you want to talk to him in any more details about what specific codes he used to combine the information. But this is a way of characterizing the type of wetlands and their spatial extent in Collier County. This is the database that we currently have available. You have to realize that this is at a very coarse scale. And when you come down to a project scale and you have a consultant to go out in the field and just does a jurisdictional line, that line -- I'll be floored if those lines match up exactly the way this map is. Page 34 October 6, 2000 So we go into the process knowing this is at a poor scale. We can get some idea of patterns, spatial distribution of our large wetland systems, but it's not at a project site degree of accuracy. But when you take a look at the -- I'm trying to quantify the numbers. I think it's very important, on the left-hand column we talk about urban designation area. The future land use map -- that is the yellow in the future land use maps, if you recall your future land use maps. Of course, it would be broken out by urban north estates and south estates. Agricultural rural is the agricultural rural land use designation in the future land use map. And the conservation designation on the future land use map. Suffice it to say, a lot of Collier County is in wetlands. Fortunately, you know, in the past through the public acquisition programs, more than 75 percent of the wetlands are in conservation designated areas. These are areas such as Big Cypress areas, the CREW lands, Fakahatchee, et cetera. You can see the breakdown again, how the wetlands break out in your other land use designations. The one thing when you start thinking about this is, is that when we start looking at DCA's criteria of directing incompatible land uses away from your wetlands and when you consider the values and function of the wetlands, fortunately a lot of our highest functioning wetland systems are in many of these conservation areas. We've just gone through another analysis required by the final order to adopt natural resource protection areas, which I showed you on that other map. Some of those may line up with some conservation lands. Some of those are private lands. But those wetland systems or those natural resource protection areas also have within them a large percentage of good high-quality wetlands, which I can show you later. The point that I'm trying to work you through here is, again, when we're looking at an overall protection strategy, we have to look at a landscape scale, the macro scale, the forest, if you will; and then we look at a very site specific, a micro scale at the project review level. And at the landscape scale, what we've just gone through Page 35 October 6, 2000 adopting the natural resource protection areas, you'll see that a large fraction of our wetlands are in those natural resource protection areas. Those areas currently under the final order have limitations with regard to land use, density and intensity of land uses. That's one way of directing incompatible land uses away from wetlands is through a -- some designation of an area. The NRPA designation is what we currently have. That's a valid mechanism to direct incompatible land uses away from good high-quality wetland systems. Within the growth management plan right now, the future land use element, we have conservation land use designations. Again, these are very limited in what you can do within areas that are designated conservation and they carry the density and land use intensity standards. So at the macro level, if we're doing a comprehensive planning process, some things we want to be able to do is to look at Collier County's wetland systems and direct very intensive land uses away from our highest-quality wetland systems. But we recognize that in Collier County that you can't, you know -- you look at a 40 acre section or a 10 acre section, you're going to find some degree of wetlands in most of those areas. It's just overall when you look at Collier County with regard to hydric soils, 70, 80 percent of Collier County is in hydric soils. Hydric soils are an indication that that was, you know -- in the long-term geological sense, most of Collier County was in a wetland system. So then we have to ask ourselves a question. At the finer scale, in terms of review, how else can we protect wetlands? Now, here is where we run into a little -- I was going to say a little bit of a conflict, but it's a large conflict. At the project site scale you're basically talking about permitting issues. You've dealt with this. Obviously this council has dealt with this on every petition you've come up with. Where are the specific wetlands on the site? What's the quality of those specific wetlands on the site? How are they tied to off-site wetlands? What's going to be the mitigation strategy? There are two permitting agencies that presently exist; the Army Corps and then the State through the South Florida Water Page 36 October 6, 2000 Management District here in Collier County. Those are permitting agencies where applicants come to those agencies. They negotiate with those agencies the most appropriate way of protecting wetlands on site and they get a permit. Collier County does not have a wetland permitting program. We are not required to have a wetland permitting program by DCA. In fact, there is language very explicitly that states that just because the criteria says we have to protect wetlands does not require all counties to have wetland permitting programs. The Board of County Commissioners in the past has directed staff and through various policy decisions for the County not to have a separate wetland permitting program. So there is a little bit of a dilemma here with regard to past policy issues. If you start wanting to look at more rigorous wetland standards at the site level, it starts to inch us into some other permitting program a la federal Army Corps of Engineers or the South Florida Water Management District. So this is an issue that the EAC is going to have to wrestle with. And as you take a look at some more information, you may make the decision that you would want to see the County involved in a wetland permitting program. What I'd recommend, if you want to go that route, that staff would like to have the EAC go to the Board of County Commissioners and flesh that idea out first before we spend a lot of time on developing a program that the Commission has previously directed us not to work with. But there is other ways of handling wetlands protection and that's what I want to be able to cover now. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Bill, do you have any feeling, of all the counties in Florida, how many might have their own wetland permitting procedure? MR. LORENZ: I don't have a tally of what all the other counties have done. I know some of them do and some of them don't, obviously. That's a local choice by the respective county commissions. What I'd like to do now is talk a little bit about preservation standards because I think this might be a way of us trying to deal with wetland protection through preservation standards. This is the analysis that we have done of wetland Page 37 October 6, 2000 characteristics of the rural fringe. The lands -- the Rural Fringe Committee, through their evaluation matrix on the left-hand side, wanted to look at a variety of different criteria such as hydric soils, wetland land cover. The wetland land cover, by the way, is the information that I previously showed you which comes from the South Florida Water Management District's land cover. That's a little bit of a parameter that staff is using to help work through some of these issues. But you can see here that within the wetland characteristics of the rural fringe, when we started looking at those areas that I spoke before about, for instance, area A, which is up close to Orange Tree, area B which is along Immokalee Road where the Mulepen Quarry is along that area, area C north of Belle Meade, area D down below along 41. And then of course, we also tabulated wetlands in the natural resource protection areas. If we focused in on wetland land cover, for instance, within NRPAs, I believe that 87 percent of natural resource protection areas exhibit wetland land cover. Again, that's not a jurisdictional line. And we do have some data and evidence to suggest that these numbers would overestimate the actual jurisdictional wetlands on site. We're doing some more analysis there to help fine-tune this overall analysis. But to use this simply as a relative gauge, you can see that some areas have more wetland cover on them than other areas. Now, right now we have -- in the urban designated area we have a vegetation preservation standard. And the way it reads is, it's 25 percent of the viable natural functioning vegetation that's on site. That's not 25 percent of the site. It's 25 percent of the vegetation. If we look in the rural fringe and the other areas and we say, these are the areas where we have more higher-functioning wetlands systems, as Bob said before, we have an opportunity to do a better job protecting these systems outside the urban area. We may want to look at a possible preservation standard that may be, let's say, 30 to 50 percent of the total site. On average, if we were to do that, for instance, the sites in area A, we'd expect that we'd be able to -- if we set aside 30 percent of the site in area A on average, we think that we could probably be Page 38 October 6, 2000 able to not impact any wetlands using this kind of analysis. And you can see across the line 30 percent, of course, or 50 percent, would not help us at all if somebody wanted to develop within the natural resource protection area. Again, I know I'm talking about averages. But when we go through data and analysis and we're trying to develop some type of information to help make good policy decisions, this is the information we have. This is the information that has been presented to the Rural Fringe Advisory Committee. This is just an analysis that I just did this morning where if, for instance -- for the total of rural fringe, everything that is not within the natural resource protection areas, if, for instance, we were able to set aside 25 percent of the total site, on average we would expect we would definitely cover 100 percent of our wetlands. We'd have enough room to keep t00 percent of the wetlands on site. Again, on average. We know the different sites are different. This is -- this other line is strategic habitat conservation areas. Remember, the final order also talks about, that we haven't addressed listed species properly. The strategic habitat conservation areas are those areas that the State considers important for listed species habitat. The 25 percent preservation of the site could also have the opportunity of covering 70 percent or 72 percent of the strategic habitat conservation areas. This is some preliminary analysis. There is different ways to cut the numbers. What I'm trying to do is trying to give the EAC some way of thinking about how to direct incompatible land uses away from wetlands. And you can do it at the big picture level, for instance, conservational land use designations, NRPA designations or maybe some other land use designations that we currently do not have in our plan yet. Or -- and, I should say "and" because it's a combination of both. And you can do it at the project level by adopting a variety of different standards that will help us direct those incompatible land uses from the wetlands that are on a particular site. Again, the dilemma here with past policy decisions by the Board is not to create another wetland permitting program. But possibly utilizing these two types of tools will certainly, at least Page 39 October 6, 2000 from staff's perspective, depending upon the details, this is what we would want to bring back to the DCA to get us out of compliance with their growth management plan. (sic) MS. BURGESON: Do you want to proceed through with the next presentations or do you have any questions? Do you want to work on those as we go? CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thanks a lot, Bill. Any questions for Bill? Appreciate it. MS. BURGESON: Okay. Mindy Hogan is here with the Army Corps of Engineers' Office in Fort Myers and she's going to give us a brief presentation on how their permitting process works. MS. HOGAN: Good morning. My name is Mindy Hogan. I'm a biologist with the Fort Myers regulatory office and with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. I'm basically here just to give you a regulatory overview of the Corps of Engineers' program itself. Just to keep you in mind, I'm going to touch on several different items. I'm going to first begin our discussion with wetlands, but through our process let's just talk -- I'm going to give the Corps' definition of wetlands. And it's defined as: Those areas that are inundated or saturated by surface or ground water at a frequency and duration sufficient to support and under normal circumstances do support a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions. In there are listed three criteria that when we go out on a site that we look for to define if a federal jurisdiction is there. And that is the hydrology, the vegetation and the soil, hydric soils. The Corps of Engineers' regulatory program is one of the oldest in the Federal Government. And basically our regulatory program protects all the waters of the United States. That's another terminology that you will hear the Corps of Engineers discuss as well. We will classify wetlands and -- well, we determine Section 10 waters, which are your tidals and navigable waters as waters of the United States. One of our legislative authorities which did give us classification as one of the oldest regulatory programs is the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1890. Basically that is our Section 10 jurisdiction where it defines navigable waters, which are those waters that are subject to the Page 40 October 6, 2000 ebb and flow of the tide, as well as the -- any connection to transport of interstate commerce. So that would be anything -- the intercostal waterway as well as the Mississippi River and Ohio River as well, just to give you an idea. It also defined ordinary high water, which are nontidal waters, and then mean high water, where -- would be our tidal waters. Some activities that are -- that require permits under Section 10 are those activities that are listed there; which includes your piers, boat ramps, dredging work, underwater cable or pipe crossings, as well as marinas and any other activities. Our other legislative authority was the Clean Water Act. And then that brought in our Section 404. And that is where the wetlands -- where we regulate the dredge material and then the discharge of dredge material in wetlands, prairies, sloughs, those areas. And then a list of some activities that require a permit would be the depositing of fill or dredge material in waters of the United States or adjacent wetland, fill for residential, commercial and/or recreational developments within wetlands, construction of breakwaters, levees, dams or weirs. And then the placement of riffraff in road fills. Though in some projects, say for instance, a boat ramp needed to go in or a marina, but they also needed to put in riffraff for shoreline stabilization, they would need the two authorizations; the Section 10 permit as well as the Section 4. And those activities would be -- that permit application would be evaluated at the same time. But they would still get the two authorities. Now I'm going to focus just on the types of permits. We have two types of permits. We have general permits and then standard permits. General permits are -- they require -- they're the same as an individual permit or a standard permit. There is advantages. There is minimal paperwork and delay. It's as protective as a standard permit, but it's developed by the district engineer for that specific region or that area and for particular categories that are usually pronounced in the area, activities that are occurring, like single-family docks and things like that. Page 41 October 6, 2000 We also have the programmatic general permits. Those as well are authorized by the DE, but it's working with the State to create a one-stop shopping type of permitting process. Whereas if the State is regulating some minor activities, then the DE, or the district engineer, has given the Corps authorization to the State to issue for the Federal Government. And then we have our nationwides, which are then -- those were reviewed by Congress. And those are permits that nationwide, these are activities that occur nationwide. And again, they're minor and they have to meet the certain criteria. One of the reasons why we use general permits also is, we can also place special conditions as well on the permit. The length of a dock can exceed so many square feet. Discharge of material in a lot couldn't exceed cubic yards of fill and things like that. So we put special conditions on each permit and they have to meet that criteria. If they do not meet that criteria, then we bump them into one of our standard permits. And again, we have several of those that they could also qualify for as well. One of them is a letter of permission. Basically it is, as well, limited to a district. It could be district specific. So one district, say for instance, the Jacksonville district, which the Fort Myers regulatory office is in, could issue a letter of permission; whereas, a district in Savannah, Georgia, would not be able to issue that same permit. So again, this is limited to a district. And it has to be minor for the impacts. And then again, there can be -- there shouldn't be any opposition from either federal or state or other regulators as well. If the permit application then did not meet any of the letter of permission or the other general permit criteria, then it would be evaluated as an individual permit. And this is the type of permit that our office is normally dealing with on a day-to-day basis. These are projects that have substantial impacts. And in that process we have to do a public notice. And it's a 30-day public notice that is then coordinated with involved agencies, interested parties and the general public. And then it also requires a full public interest review, which I will later discuss as well. The individual permit, it has to -- we have to have certain Page 42 October 6, 2000 information in order for us to classify it as a completed application. And that information is necessary in order for us to go out on public notice. Some of the information that we need is the adjacent landowners. We notify all adjacent landowners that are going to be associated next to the project. Drawing sketches for that information as well. Additional information that we normally request, but is not necessary for us to go out on public notice, is what we refer to as an alternative analysis, as well as the mitigation plan. Those aren't necessary for us to go on public notice. We usually would like for us to see this. Because when we go out on public notice, we also send information to coordinating agencies so they can evaluate that material at the same time. Now I'm basically going to just give you the permit review process. It's very general. How we look at each application once it's been determined that it's complete. We first have to decide what is the basic and overall purpose of the project. Is it a multifamily residential development or is it a multiuse with residential and commercial development mixed? Then we go out on public notice. We then provide all the information that is necessary to the agency. At that time if the applicant comes in with modifications, maybe they've been in meetings with other agencies and they've modified their plan, and we've gone out on public notice and there is major revisions, we will then have to address that in a new public notice. And then if an agency or an individual, I believe, needs to review the 30-day notice longer, they can request for an extension. We do not allow extensions more than 60 days for them to review the project. Some key points during the evaluation, the Corps is in charge of the process as well as the final decision. We have frequent coordination with the agencies, state, federal. We also request necessary information from the applicant. If Fish and Wildlife Service requested an endangered species survey, they would have to coordinate that with us. And we would provide that information to the applicant as well and to the agency of the other information that is needed. Another key point -- and it's another term that we use quite Page 43 October 6, 2000 readily in our -- when we're reviewing the process, is that the project has to meet our 404(B}(1) guidelines. And that is a part of the Clean Water Act. The EPA has delegated that authority to us where wetlands are classified as special aquatic sites when there is a presumption that there are alternatives and there is a presumption that the alternatives are less damaging. And then we must require mitigation to ensure no significant degradation of wetlands. So we must off site the impacts that were incorporated into the project. Another key point is the public interest review. We have 21 public interest factors that we need to address. And some of those are listed in here in the corner. We take into consideration conservation, economics, historical properties, the land use, energy, safety, water quality, fish and wildlife values. We have several that we need to take into effect and look at. (sic) And we evaluate the impact which the proposed activity may have on any of those public interests. One project may have all 21 interest factors that we need to evaluate. Another project may just have one that we really need to focus on. But we have to look at them in order for to us proceed with our review process. Now I'm going to talk about the types of mitigation that we may require. There is four types; restoration, enhancement, creation and preservation. During the review process we will determine what type of mitigation would need to be required. There is three types that those four types of wetland mitigation could be provided. That's either on site, they could preserve so many acres on site of their project. They can go off site, either at a facility like CREW or at a mitigation bank. And then in kind where they can provide in lieu of fees to an agency or corporation or something like that to where they can use the funds to do some work like that as well, provide services. The most common is on site and off site that I've used for it. Some federal agencies do not prefer for the Corps to have the off-site mitigation. They would like for us to pursue the on-site mitigation as often as we can. And then just to give you an overview, these are the Page 44 October 6, 2000 regulatory program goals that the regulatory office has set up that are our goals for the regulatory program across the nation. And that's to provide a strong protection of the nation's aquatic environment, including the wetlands, to enhance the efficiency the Corps administration of its regulatory program and to ensure that the Corps provides the regulatory public with fair and reasonable decisions. And we try to adhere to all of those goals at the Fort Myers office. Some information -- if you're interested in obtaining more information concerning the regulatory program, these are two Internet sites that have valuable information. They contain the regs and other information that I did not discuss in this workshop today. Are there any questions? MR. CARLSON: I guess, can we get into some specific questions now? MS. BURGESON: Sure. MS. HOGAN: I'll try to answer them. MR. CARLSON: For instance, were you here today when we reviewed the project, the 18 acres at the intersection of 951 and Rattlesnake Hammock Road? It seems to me, you know, that the process might be driven by the type of project a lot. Because if that was my 18 acres and I wanted to build a home and raise horses, it seemed to me if I went to you for a permit, I'd probably be avoiding all of those wetlands because there is a place to put my home and my horses. But if somebody comes in there for a big mega commercial, 200,000 square foot commercial project, it seems like, well, that's okay. There is other things we can do and go mitigate. So it seems like the project drives the decisions and not the desire to preserve wetlands. Does that make any sense? MS. HOGAN: Well, we look at each application. And if they're doing any impacts in the wetlands or the waters of the United States, it will be evaluated under our criteria. And the wetland itself, whatever wetland they impact, it would be assessed. And if they cannot preserve the on-site remaining wetlands and they needed to go off site, they would need to make whatever the assessment of the on-site wetlands would have to Page 45 October 6, 2000 be picked up on the off -- when they go to an off-site area type of thing. MR. CARLSON: So then if, as just a land owner, not a commercial project, I came to you and said, I want to clear the entire site for my horses. You would say okay? MS. HOGAN: They would still have to go through the review process as well and they require mitigation as well. MR. CARLSON: Okay. MS. HOGAN: They need to -- we review each project and we just need to know what the basic purpose -- the purpose of the project. Now if there is ways that the individual -- the homeowner could avoid those wetlands, we would work with them. MR. CARLSON: That's my point. If I don't want to avoid them, do you ever say, no, you cannot fill those wetlands? I don't care if you want one hundred horses. Have five horses and save the wetlands. MR. GAL: Isn't it -- if there is a 2 acre residential site, don't they just get a nationwide permit on that? MS. HOGAN: Our nationwide permits have been revised and they have now stricter criteria to meet for the single family. Even now for the new nationwide that most single-family homes come under, they have to provide some type of mitigation. If they can't provide some type of mitigation, they have to provide a statement claiming why they don't need to support or have any mitigation for their impacts. MR. CARLSON: I guess my question is basically, is there any wetland that is really totally protected and safe? Depending on the kind of project that is coming at you, I mean, couldn't anybody justify off-site mitigation for anything, on any project with any wetland? Do you understand my problem? MS. HOGAN: Yes. And I don't really know how to answer that so that you have a better idea. I mean, each project when they come in or each application when they come in, it's evaluated with the same criteria. MS. BURGESON: Maybe if I rephrase that a little bit. Are there any projects that are presented for permit under any circumstances where they're told that, we will not permit impacts in these particular wetlands? For instance, if it were a pristine cypress head or if Ed came Page 46 October 6, 2000 in for a permit to dredge and fill in part of Corkscrew, which we know he wouldn't do, are there particular situations where the Corps has the ability to say no to a request? MS. HOGAN: Unfortunately I have limited years of regulatory experience and I haven't encountered that. But I still don't -- if there is a project that we would feel that is not -- that shouldn't be impacted, that the project should avoid those wetlands, it would have to go through our avoidance minimization before we would even look at mitigation. I mean, if they couldn't go through those two criteria which are under the 404(B)(1} guidelines, it has the potential to be denied. MR. CARLSON: But you don't know of that ever happening? MS. HOGAN: I personally do not know if that's ever happened. MR. SANSBURY: I don't want to have the Corps -- I mean, I can give you an example of a permitting process I'm in the middle of right now that I think the South Florida folks are aware of and that is the project that borders the Gordon River, which are jurisdictional wetlands along the Gordon River. I don't care if we're building an antimissile base or something. There is no way that anybody in the Corps or the district would allow us to permit anything inside that jurisdictional line. So I think definitely there are a lot of areas where -- I don't know what people think the process is. If for some particular use you're going to be able to tear up functional wetlands, you're not going to be able to do it. I guarantee you it's not going to happen there with anybody. But the thing that I'm concerned about is the term "functional." When we look at something like we looked at this morning, where natural flows have been disrupted, where a lot of things -- exotic vegetation are -- has come through there, not for the sake of the individual property owner, but for the sake of the environment, are we better off in trying to preserve something on that piece of property that has a questionable functionality? Are we better off than to go to someplace like a mitigation bank and preserve something at a mitigation bank that is functional and again is a plus to the environment? And that's kind of the question I have when we go through Page 47 October 6, 2000 this process. A wetland for the sake of a wetland with a jurisdictional line that, say, may not have a source of water to it anymore, may be completely overrun, is isolated by a few pieces around it, do we preserve that little piece over here or are we better off preserving a large area? And I think that's a question that we have to ask ourselves in the permitting process. MS. HOGAN: And that's something that we deal with on a day-to-day basis. We don't know the answers to all of the problems and questions out there as well either. I mean, we struggle with those questions as well day to day. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Other questions? You don't happen to know the deadline for responding to the commenting on the ElS, do you? MS. HOGAN: No, I do not. I'm not involved in that. MS. BURGESON: Thank you, Mindy. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you very much, Mindy. MS. BURGESON: Karen Johnson is going to make a presentation on the environmental resource process in which the South Florida Water Management District issues their permits there. MS. JOHNSON: Okay. I'm Karen Johnson from the South Florida Water Management District and I supervise the environmental permitting staff. And I worked with Richard Johnson, who is sitting in the back of the room. So if you have any engineering questions, we'll have Richard come up and he can answer them. The two handouts I gave you, one, the single piece of paper outlines the district. And the DEP has an operating agreement in regards to who permits what type of projects for the environmental resource permitting. The environmental resource permit, if you.all recall, was a combination of the old dredge and fill rule permitting, which DEP did years ago, and the surface water permitting that the Water Management District did. Under the old Water Management District rules, we pretty much concentrated on isolated wetlands, while the dredge and fill rules for the DEP talked about wetlands connected to waters of the state. When the rules were combined into the environmental resource permit rules, we also changed the wetlands delineation Page 48 October 6, 2000 rules a little bit. And that was to cover all of the wetlands that we felt needed to be addressed through the permitting criteria. So in order to make sure each agency was still reviewing projects, we created an operating agreement. And the main purpose of it, if you look at it, DEP covers certain things such as solid waste, hazardous waste, domestic wastewater. Those are things that need other types of permits from DEP as well, like industrial type permits. So it was more a matter of part of the streamlining process to try to get things under one roof, so to speak. So that's the main purpose of the operating agreement. One of the big ones that's constantly debated is single-family residences. And right now DEP is responsible for the permitting of all single-family residences. On the reverse side of that handout there is a flow chart that I created back when I was on the ADG doing the ElS overview and that shows the process that an application goes through when it comes in the door. It actually lays out the way we look at it, how we ask for additional information. It talks about the balancing between elimination and reduction of impacts, public interest tests, the water quality and quantity, secondary and cumulative impacts. And finally, if you notice, mitigation is the very last box on that flow chart. The other handout I gave you is from a presentation that district staff did for the consulting community. We usually do two of these a year. It's part of our partnering agreement for Southwest Florida, where we invite county, state, federal agencies and a limited number of consultants who have agreed to participate in the partnering. I'm not going to go through this entire thing, but it pulls out a number of stuff from the basis of review. The basis of review is what the district uses to review all environmental resource permits. We're a little bit different. Whereas the Corps pretty much concentrates more on wetlands or navigable water issues, our environmental criteria is wrapped up in the basis of review; which also contains all of the surface water or engineering criteria for water storage and treatment. So for the environmental purposes I'm pretty much going to Page 49 October 6, 2000 concentrate on Section 4 of the basis of review, which is our environmental criteria. 4.2.1 talks about the elimination or reduction of impacts. This is fairly similar to what the Corps -- and it's identical to what DEP uses for their review of environmental resource. And it touches a little bit on what Ed was talking about, about using design alternatives. And you notice in our definition what usually hangs us up is the word, whether the applicant has implemented "practicable" design alternatives. And they've actually tried to define what "practicable" is. And it talks about reasonable designs, you know, whether they're economically feasible. We can't require them to institute something that would break their bank account. We have to limit our review of design alternatives. And typically we go through this once or twice and we review -- especially with residential golf course developments. Oh, I need 200 units to make this economically feasible, you know. Our response is, why can't you do it with 190, you know?. So you get into a discussion of what actually is practicable versus what is economically feasible from the applicant's standpoint. So that becomes a major issue at the very beginning of the permitting because the elimination or reduction of wetland impacts is your first step. A number of the applicants come in and right off the bat, it's a junky little wetland. It has Melaleuca in it. We're going to mitigate. Well, they've jumped the step of elimination or reduction of impacts, which still is the first step that they have to cross. These are some of the criteria that's included in the elimination or reduction of impacts. We look at the value of the wetland to be impacted; whether it's a good quality, fair quality, low quality. We can look at the proposed mitigation. There is -- I think I brought it up at one of the meetings we had where we have a separate criteria from the Corps that was actually proposed by National Audubon during the creation of the environmental resource permit rules that allows us if we have a very small wetland, which we go through the first step and determine it has a significantly low functional or ecological Page 50 October 6, 2000 value, we can jump to the next step and say, Okay, does the mitigation provide a regional ecological improvement? And we do this, for instance, let's say Airport Road. I mean, it's wall-to-wall commercial, industrial type development, you know. If we have a .6 acre wetland in the middle of warehouses, typically we would apply this criteria. We would look at it and say, the existing value of it is low. Even if we preserve it, are we going to preserve anything or are we going to end up with a mudhole surrounded by more warehouses? And rightfully so, like Ed alluded to earlier, it's driven by the land use. It's driven by the zoning. And unfortunately the district and DEP do not regulate land use or zoning issues. So if we're in a basin and it's typically industrial commercial and three-quarters of that basin is developed, we're going to look at it that, well, what's down the road is going to be probably under this criteria? Unless we have some type of extremely valuable wetland that we feel we can preserve with that type of density land use around it. One of the other things we look at for wetland impacts is reasonable assurances that it won't impact the values of wetlands and other surface waters to cause adverse impacts to fish, wildlife and listed species or the habitat of fish, wildlife and listed species. One of the portions of the ERP rules, which is fairly complicated, is listed wildlife and fish species are covered in two or three sections of the rule. And you have to be very familiar with the rule to understand how the rules are applied differently in different sections of the rule. This is the main portion of the rule that pretty much covers all species. It talks about listed species. Not just threatened or endangered species, but actually listed species. So this is where we can also look at gopher tortoise potential impacts. Now, when you go into the secondary impact review of the rules, it becomes more specific and talks about threatened and endangered species and actually nesting and denning areas of those species. So this is the first piece where we look at fish and wildlife. And then as we get further down in the permitting process, we also address it through secondary or cumulative impact issues. Page 51 October 6, 2000 Wildlife surveys, this is a piece of the rule. It's kind of open ended. We determine the need for a survey based upon a project-by-project review. Typically pretty much all of the projects in Collier County, because of the potential of red cockade woodpecker habitat, the Big Cypress fox squirrel, wood storks. As we head east to 95t, panther and bear issues. Typically we require a wildlife survey on every project. And I know the County requires it on a major portion of the projects and typically we will use the surveys provided to the County as part of their review process as well. What we do is, when we get the survey information, we forward it to the Game and Fish staff, typically Jim Beaver, who works out of the Punta Gorda office, for review and comments. And we include his comments in our request for additional information in an attempt to have coordination with him through the permitting process versus preserve areas or off-site preservation or take permits or whatever they, the wildlife people, feel is appropriate. Another portion of the rules when we have wetland impacts is the public interest test. And the public interest test, it's fairly similar to the Corps' public health, safety and welfare, Fish and Wildlife, navigation fisheries. Whether the project is going to be temporary or permanent. Something like a utility line would be considered temporary; whereas actually putting a fill pad in the wetland would be permanent historical and archeological. We copy the historic preservation officer on every application that comes through the door and get comments back from them. That's part of the review process as well. That also falls under potential secondary impacts. So if they come back and request a survey or preservation of certain sites, we can look at that as a potential secondary impact issue. And then the current condition and relative value of functions. One of the glitches in the public interest test is, it applies only to those regulated activities in, on or over wetlands or other surface waters. So it's specifically limited to the activities in the wetland or in the water, such as a docking facility or if you're filling a well in. If you've minimized your impacts to those types of habitats Page 52 October 6, 2000 and you've concentrated everything on the uplands, the public interest test really becomes moot. The other factors really don't come into play. But the public interest test must always be positive or neutral when we balance it out. And we have certain projects -- typically the more sensitive projects where we have actually gone through each factor of the public interest test and given it a plus or a minus or a neutral score in order to show the applicant, this is where your project fails to meet the criteria. And that helps pinpoint the sources of the problems and get them to address our specific concerns on it. Now we get into the real confusing part; secondary and cumulative impacts. They're two separate portions of the rule, two separate criteria, although a lot of people use them interchangeably. The secondary impacts are fairly well laid out by the rule. Unfortunately, I can parade how many biologists up here and we'll all disagree on potential secondary impacts. But they pretty much deal with water quality and wetland function, upland areas used for nesting or denning, archeological resources and future activities. One of the processes we've gone to in the last year, year and a half or so, is the district tried to develop a functional analysis for wetlands. We began to see through the compliance program that through our older permits where we had preserved small, isolated wetlands surrounded with single-family residences or wetlands next to a parking lot for a Wal-Mart or something similar, that they really were not retaining the functions of a true wetland. And our staff attempted and they went through peer review and they came up with formulas, how to spell out specific functions of a wetland such as water quality, water storage, wildlife habitat and nesting for species, et cetera, and tried to score it and put it in some type of functional analysis that we could use. And what it was turned into was the wetland rapid assessment procedure, I think is what it's called; WRAP for short. And we began using this, although it hasn't been formally adopted by the governing board, as a way of trying to see how Page 53 October 6, 2000 secondary impacts might degrade the functions of a wetland. And it talks about buffers. If we have an existing wetland in the middle of a farm field and there is just some cows on it, we would assess that as a fairly good buffer because it has native range entirely around it. Now, if we're going to put a Walgreens next door to it, the function of the wetland may decrease a certain value because now they may have a 10 foot buffer and a big fence there and then they have their pharmacy wall. So it was an assessment of how things might change. Unfortunately, recent changes, we were audited in the last year by Tallahassee and one of the issues that was broached was the WRAP analysis. And all the water management districts and DEP have been directed, as a result of that audit, to try to come up with a statewide wetland functional analysis. And if you-all are familiar with the entire state, it's a big undertaking because of the vast difference in wetlands throughout the state and the difference in opinion between the districts and DEP. So it's something we're working on. We're still kind of using it unofficially because in our minds it really helps target where we're going to see secondary impacts. Whether we're concerned with water quality degradation or a reduction in wildlife usage. And it helps the applicants understand how to modify their proposals to reduce those secondary impacts. Because once we determine there are secondary impacts, we do assess mitigation for those impacts as well. And the big unknown is the cumulative impacts. This was the other discussion in our audit about cumulative impacts and how we are determining whether cumulative impacts occur or don't occur. The legislature in Apopka has decided that they will study district permits and DEP permits and come back in a year or so and tell us how to do it. So we're not sure if that's good or bad. The way we're looking at it right now -- and parts of the rule are fairly specific. The direction we have at South Florida and the way we're proceeding is, first, we go through the entire permit process. We go through the reduction and elimination. Once we get to the point of where we feel we have reduced and eliminated Page 54 October 6, 2000 the impacts to that practical point, we then -- we include, you know, secondary impact analysis in that. Then we decide if we take X amount of impacts on this site and extrapolate it through that drainage basin, will that create a cumulative impact? Now, we all know that that's not a black and white question. I mean, there is a lot of ifs and maybes in there and stuff. But we're having, as Mindy said, on a day-to-day basis to make that call. And if we decide it would have a cumulative impact in that basin, then based on the rules, it requires mitigation in the same basin. And this has thrown up a lot of questions because we have mitigation banks out. But if they're not in the same basin as the project, they can no longer use that mitigation bank. So there are some issues there. And then you go back to the point of, well, if they have no off-site mitigation, what do they do in the basin? So cumulative impacts is a big picture view, but there is really no parameters that have been drawn up on how to exercise it. And all of the districts and DEP included are kind of feeling their way. For single-family residences, I have no idea how you would look at cumulative impacts. I'm not sure DEP has gotten to that point where they're able to make a decision on what is going to break the camel's back, something such as north Golden Gate or another development, Cape Coral or something. So cumulative impacts is going to be a big issue in the next year or two. Mitigation is the final step pretty much. It can be on-site mitigation, off-site mitigation. I would say the majority of the projects we're seeing lately have a combination of both. We're trying to limit on-site wetland impacts and maximize the enhancement restoration of the remaining on-site wetlands. Also combining them with on-site upland preserves. And then coming up with any deficit off site either in a mitigation bank or in the CREW regional off-site mitigation area at this point. Mitigation is still determined on a case-by-case basis. It is dependent on the project, type of project, type of wetlands, the functions of those wetlands. The ratios in the rules are guidelines only. That's why there is a range. A lot of engineers are extremely frustrated with this Page 55 October 6, 2000 because they say, if I do a functional analysis and my score is .7, then my ratio should be X. No. There is still a range in the rules and it depends on a lot of the factors influenced by the proposed development. So that is still on a case-by-case basis. That's about the major parts of the rule. I wasn't going to bore you with all the little details and everything. If Ed wants to ask a question or if anybody else has other questions. MS. BURGESON: I just wanted to make a brief statement here. Approximately four months ago I started attending the meetings that the South Florida Water Management District has and that the Army Corps of Engineers have in reviewing the current wetland permits that they're assessing. It's helped us to coordinate and take a look at projects a little bit differently. In some cases where the County requires, for instance, the 25 percent preservation that South Florida Water Management District may not have been aware of, we've been able to discuss how additional preservation would be required on a county level. And it somewhat supports South Florida expecting that the applicant will be or may be required to protect additional wetlands. So we can work together a little bit better in the future by having the coordinated effort, which we had done in years past and stopped probably about five or six years ago due to the number of staff that were available to attend. And now it's been a directive by one of the commissioners for us to continue that effort to work with both the state and federal agencies through those meetings. MS. JOHNSON: One of the things that Barb has alluded to is, we've tried to all get together at once with the applicant, the Corps, the district or DEP, if it's appropriate, and the County, whether it's Lee or Collier County, and also the wildlife agencies. So that we don't have someone coming to you-all and saying, well, the district required me to set this aside or the district is more than happy that I'm impacting this. Or them coming to us or the Corps and saying, well, the County is making me do this. I can't impact this area and save your wetland because the County is making me preserve it. Those are the situations we've seen in the past. And through the interagency meetings, we're at the point where we're trying to combine County preservation requirements with Page 56 October 6, 2000 Corps preservation as well as the wildlife agencies' wishes on some of these design projects. One thing Richard whispered in my ear, we do have a delegation in Collier County where it was done under the old surface water rules and it still stands. It was carried over to the environmental resource permit rules, where the county staff is allowed to do the environmental -- or the surface water permits for projects that are less than 40 acres in total size and have no wetland impacts and no impacts that threaten an endangered species. It used to run fairly smoothly. The problem we've encountered more now is that you may have a 40 acre site or a 30 acre site and it has one wetland on it. And they come to $tan and Barbara and say, well, we're not going to touch that wetland so we don't have to go to the Water Management District. Well, they're forgetting about the functions of the wetland and the secondary impacts. So typically we've coordinated with Stan and Barbara and said, no, I think they need to come here so we can address all of the issues related to that wetland. Especially if the wetland extends off site, then we have -- our review is not limited to the four corners of the piece of property they own; whereas, it is with other agencies. So we've stepped up the coordination on that a little bit as well. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Other questions for Karen? MR. CARLSON: I think I heard you answer the question, right? It is driven by zoning. MS. JOHNSON: It is driven by zoning. And that's a big complaint that I've heard for a number of years from a lot of the working groups that I have sat on, that there is really still no linkage between the land use and the comprehensive plan. And the agency is regulating the permits that follow. Because once the land use is set, that's the first domino. And if you have a corridor that's designated as a high-density industrial commercial corridor, there is, you know -- you're going to have a hard time saving any significant, you know, natural systems in that type of environment. Because most of it becomes parking lots and warehouses, et cetera, and you're just -- you're not going to have room for a viable wetland or even really a native upland system once that Page 57 October 6, 2000 intense land use occurs. So it is. It's driven by the land use. That's the first step, really. MR. COE: Is anybody putting the two together? MS. JOHNSON: No, not that I know of. There are some big, big studies happening, like the Southwest Florida feasibility study, the consolidated Everglades resource program that the Corps is overseeing, you know, the recent environmental impact statement. But still, under the limitations of the permitting programs -- and we were specifically told a few years ago by, I think it was the legal group, that we cannot go back and question land use decisions. Those are still made at a county level. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Well, that's kind of what you're working on a little bit with the two committees, right? I mean, you're looking at land use, but you're -- it seems like you're trying to work in all these considerations of protecting wetlands and wildlife and so forth. MR. LORENZ: Bill Lorenz, natural resources director. Yes, but it's a matter of scale. That's one thing you have to consider, it's a matter of scale. If we look at that wetlands map there and look at some of those larger wetland systems, we can certainly put in a density of one unit per 5 acres, residential units, exclude industrial and commercial, for instance, and you may still have the same kind of problems that you have when you come down on a site by site, very specific project. Because you will have -- you will still allow for a particular project, maybe a golf course development with residential units in that particular area. Now, to the degree that you say that that is -- that kind of land use is less intense and has less impacts on a large wetland system, then that's what we're working towards with the policies in the growth management plan. On the other hand, you say that when you have a project and you come in and you want to locate your residential units next to this particular wetland, you could still run into those kinds of issues of incompatibility, you know, with the -- you're going to have to fence the area. You're going to have kids. You're going to have dogs. Page 58 October 6, 2000 You're going to have cats, et cetera, et cetera. So to me, it's still a little bit of a matter of scale that you have to take into accouRt. Certainly, we can look at their highest-functioning wetlands systems and we can direct very intense land uses such as industrial sites or high commercial sites around those areas. You're still going to come down to a particular point where a project will come in. They're going to propose a series of land uses that are allowed under the growth management plan and you still will have some degree of conflicts. Hopefully we can set our land use pattern such that we're not going to allow high-intensity land uses, let's say, for instance in the CREW area. Where else are you going to allow that to occur? That's the answer we will address through the growth management plan process. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Other questions for Karen? Thank you very much. You mentioned that the Southwest Florida feasibility study, now that's three or four years down the road, isn't it? MS. JOHNSON: Yeah. It's my understanding that most of those studies are three or four years down the road. And I probably shouldn't say this, but sitting on the ADA for the ElS, I think part of the original vision, that we would look at some of those growth issues like Bill was talking about, like the infill projects. If you're doing infill projects, would it be a little bit easier to jump through the permitting hoops than if you were, say, out on the eastern side of 9517 And I don't think we really grappled completely with that in the ElS. I don't think we got to that point fully. But those are the type of issues that need to be really looked at in how you mold your growth and your land use with the protection of the significant areas. MR. COE: What would it take to get that done; the governor? CHAIRMAN CORNELL: A miracle. MS. JOHNSON: Well, somehow it's got to be, I think, meshed at the legislative level. Because right now DCA looks at the comprehensive plans and the land use type of decisions and documents; whereas, DEP and the district still are, you know -- report to DEP. Page 59 October 6, 2000 Not on a daily basis, but we are run on a -- we're not a state agency. We're a little different than DEP, so you still -- somehow you have to create that linkage between DEP and DCA really. MS, BURGESON: Thank you, Karen. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thanks a lot, Karen. MS. BURGESON: Do we need to take a five-minute break for the court reporter? Would that be all right? And then we'll come back. Fran Worth is going to give a presentation on how Martin County protects their wetlands. We can take a look at how that might be different from Collier County's review. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Do you have any questions? MS. BURGESON: We have two more presentations. (Thereupon, a short recess was had and the following proceedings commenced.) CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Folks, can we reconvene? Tom Sansbury is gone now. Are we back in business? Okay. MS. BURGESON: Okay. Our last presentation is by Fran Worth. She's with Martin County. We had handed out copies of the Martin County Wetland Ordinance to you, I guess it may now go back about three or four months when we were originally interested in finding how they were reviewing wetlands and protecting them. MS. WORTH: My name is Fran Worth and I'm here as a messenger from Martin County. I'm a recent employee. I take no credit for the policies and the ordinances and the things that are now in place. A lot of hard-working people have worked for a great many, number of years to have an effective wetland ordinance at work now. The ordinance is tied specifically to the date that the residential land was platted for development. There is a pre-1982 condition. I don't want to go through all the details of the ordinance. It's fairly self-explanatory. Martin County is always available for questions. I'm here to gain from the workshop and hopefully to assist in any kind of present and future educational capacity. We would love to be a link for you if you chose to do your own permitting process. I'm here at the invitation of Ms. Barbara Burgeson, who is a very gracious person I met at a session at South Florida Water Page 60 October 6, 2000 Management District and made me feel quite welcome to come. The situation in Martin County, they addressed wetland protection specifically in their 1986 comprehensive plan. So that was the first step, was to get things approved by public input in their comprehensive plan supported by the citizens of our community. We do live in a more environmentally sensitive area. Generally the citizens have been sensitive to environmental issues, creatures, preservation of habitat. And so in working in conjunction with that four years later there is a lot that has been established towards preservation. Not only do we have a wetlands ordinance, we also have an uplands ordinance, but we'll just address the wetlands ordinance today. I had prepared for you a packet. The packet is basically there as a rescue tool. (sic) In your position it would be easy to feel completely overwhelmed with the task at hand that is before you now as far as wetland protection. I hope Martin County can stand as an example that this is highly doable. We have approached it in, I think, some innovative ways. You have testimony as far as the problem in delineating wetlands and how do you decide whether they're important or valuable. And Martin County really doesn't address that. Well, Martin County's policy is, there is no negative impact to wetlands. So all of our wetlands are protected. It's not that we weigh and measure them. Fortunately we're in an area where we have a very high, good quality of wetlands. What is not included in Martin County's definition of wetlands is the ocean. I'm sorry. I'm new to this technology. Also what is not protected by Martin County is anything that's been excavated, anything that is a man-made pond, lake, isolated wetland, that is not protected at all. The way we determine what is man-made and what's not man made is, staff can do a reference to aerial imagery. We looked at specifically aerials from the region of 1979. Our tax appraiser's office does not have those available to us, so we may even go further back than that. But we're looking to see if that was a natural wetland occurring prior to 1982. 1982 is our first comprehensive plan Page 61 October 6, 2000 that addressed these environmental issues. We'll do a general assessment of the area if we need to. The burden is on the applicant. You have in your packet a residential land clearing fill permit. The applicant needs to declare whether or not there is wetlands on their property. They sign it. It's an affidavit. It's legally binding. An agricultural land clearing permit is the same situation. In Martin County there is no commercial land clearing allowed until a site plan is submitted. Also in your packet on -- Article 10 deals with the development process and review process for large PUDs. We've had difficulty in protecting wetlands from certain people in the general population that are maybe more ignorant to what the goals of Martin County are in protecting wetlands. And we've had difficulty with pool contractors. Their work comes after the homeowner has a certificate of occupancy and the damage to the wetland is usually in the form of siltation. Martin County does require siltation screens to be erected at the time of construction to protect from siltation. We are protecting in the long run Indian River Lagoon. We're blessed to have one of the most diverse estuaries in North America within Martin County. We share it also with other counties. We also have the Loxahatchee River. It's the shortest wild and scenic river that is federally protected. We leave our delineations -- we've done something -- when I say, "we," I'm not including myself. Martin County has done something I feel that is innovative. They've addressed the private sector in doing delineations of wetlands. You know, there was a problem as far as looking at, is this a wetland or is it not a wetland? And the burden rests on the property owner. If the County feels this is a viable wetland, we will request before permitting is issued that they have their wetland delineated. The Department of Environmental Protection does not do this for free in our area. They can act as a consultant after it's been privately delineated. They will second the opinion at no charge. If you want the Department of Environmental Protection to do the delineation on its own, you contact an office out of Tallahassee and staff from Tallahassee comes to your location to Page 62 October 6, 2000 do the delineation at a fee to the property owner. As a county, we can't demand that happen. It has to be at the request of the property owner. But we can make whatever permitting conditional on the delineation. The South Florida Water Management District also does multiple delineations in our area, Army Corps of Engineers delineations of wetlands are respected and those wetlands are also protected and upheld. However, in a court the Department of Environmental Protection and the South Florida Water Management District delineations hold over the Army Corps of Engineers. The Army Corps of Engineers has a different methodology of delineating wetlands. You can look at one piece of property and you can have different boundaries determined by the Federal Government versus the state agencies. Hydrology is looked at, vegetation, hydric soil. In your packet on the very last page there is -- it's called a description of hydric pine flatwoods. I wanted to include that because it's an exception to the aerial imagery checklist as far as staff doing an assessment of possible wetlands. Barbara, do you have this type of wetland in your area? MS. BURGESON: The hydric flat woods, we do. MS. WORTH: This is something, you cannot search an aerial photograph and detect it because it looks like a vegetated forest upland. And it may, in fact, be a hydric pine. It can only be determined by a site visit; and then again, by professionals. In protecting wetlands, we have setbacks for all of our canals, anything that leads to water of the state. Anywhere where a homeowner is going to want to put shoreline hardening is protected. At this time the only shoreline hardening that is allowed is replacement of seawalls. New seawalls are not permitted at this time. Riffraff is permitted only when an engineer can attest to serious erosion. They attest to t foot lost per year for 15 years. The reason being, it's not a loss that happened over a single storm or an unusual incident. It's continual erosion. Under those conditions riffraff is allowed. Riffraff, I don't know if you're familiar with the word riffraff or not. For Martin County we've gotten very specific about what's allowed. If you're not very specific about what's allowed, Page 63 October 6, 2000 the property owner, the contractor will take whatever concrete rubble is available and they'll dump it out in the area that's trying to be protected. We only allow what Martin County refers to as Florida rock. It's limestone based. It's 6 inches diameter to 3 feet diameter. And it has a higher functioning than concrete rubble. Monitoring is also done through .. within your packet you have what are called PAMPs, preserve area management packets -- plans. I'm sorry. These are contracts in areas where they have wetlands. If it's 5 acres or under it would be dealt with with a mini PAMP. The 5 acres is the crux. That's at the discretion of the staff, whether it should go mini PAMP or full PAMP. A full PUD would always have a full PAMP. And that monitoring is required within the legal terminology of the PAMP. It's required that a professional consultant turns in a monitoring report once a year for five years. South Florida Water Management District under certain conditions also requires that type of reporting. And that way you can keep apprised as far as the health of the area that you're protecting. And in doing so, there is specific information in the PAMP. Exotic plants must be removed. Melaleuca needs to be removed. Not left standing, completely removed from the wetland. If there is a monumental task at hand as far as exotic plant removal, they can have years to achieve this. I think I've presented -- oh, one other thing. Barbara had asked me how we get this to work. And in all honesty, there are infractions. There are people that have violations. Martin County has a cohesive interactive agency within growth management. We have also a code enforcement agency. And we work cooperatively. If there is a code infraction, we try to work with the citizen on a voluntary basis. If the voluntary basis doesn't work, then they are faced with up to $1,000 in fines per day. You have the same feasibility within your county. These fees are set by the state, not by Martin County. In so doing, there is within your packet a commitment for installation and maintenance of plant materials. This is a restoration of a violation. So we do, in fact, have violations. Page 64 October 6, 2000 They're not overrunning, but there are things in place to deal with them when they do occur. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you. Any questions for Fran? MR. COE: How big of a battle did you have getting these rules and regulations passed? MS. WORTH: We had a majority of county commissioners that were highly environmentally protective during this period of time, over the last four years, so that made things much more conducive towards protection. MR. COE: I noticed from some of your pictures you have got, like, a golf course that you show right dead center in the middle of a wetland. MS. WORTH: They've actually found that that is a cooperative land use within a wetland. You protect the wetland from the fertilizer by berming and swaling. And the two work well together as far as land uses. Also, I wanted to address the land use map. Martin County's comprehensive plan doesn't do any permit approvals that do not go hand in hand with their future land use maps. They work very cooperatively with that. There is no second guessing. They have things plotted out for decades to come. And another land use within a wetland is low density housing. It's highly conducive. I know you had testimony that you'd have to fence things off and you'd have to have a problem. We have a four-to-one gradation in the property. So it's not that things have a 10 foot dropoff to a wet area. And lower-density housing and wetlands has worked very cooperatively. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Other questions? MR. CARLSON: Yeah. I just want to get into maybe how comparable our two counties are. And do you have wetlands that are infested with Melaleuca and Brazilian pepper? MS. WORTH: To some degree, yes, we do. And Brazilian pepper, highly, yes. I congratulate you on putting the Carrotwood on your hit list. MR. CARLSON: And do you have wetlands in the urban setting that have suffered from drainage or cutoff of flows from historic structures or -- MS. WORTH: We're not as compromised as Collier County, no. My suggestion -- and this is a personal suggestion -- is that Page 65 October 6, 2000 you address your wetland issue at a grass-roots level. I think you have people who support the preservation of wetlands for other reasons. Plants and animals will always rate very low within a public issue unless you live in an exceptional area. However, wetlands serve so many functions as far as drainage, flood control, water quality, aquifer recharge. These things are highly necessary to preserve your quality of life in Collier County. And I think even if you addressed a wetlands education program within your public school system and you have an understanding of what a wetland, the function of what a wetland is within your community, I think it would make its preservation a lot more feasible task. MR. COE: How did you get your zoning and that sort of thing, your Land Development Codes to kind of meld with your environmental? Because it appears from what we've heard earlier today we're separate. And this Board, basically, we're looking at the environmental issues, but the zoning over here is already zoned commercial or whatever it may be. It doesn't make any difference. This project is going to go through regardless of what the environmental -- MS. WORTH: That is a problem that we don't have to address. You're absolutely right. MR. COE: How did you get the two to get put together?. MS. WORTH: I think Martin County has always had a long-range outlook and a long-range view. Within those pictures -- the audience doesn't have them -- it shows you where there is highrise buildings and then there are buildings only four stories. That happened in the t970s. Martin County had in their comprehensive plan, there will be no oceanfront property past four stories. They had a long-range view decades ago and it stayed in place. But I don't discourage Collier County from trying to get a handle on your wetlands situation. Barbara had attended the same meeting I did. The long-range outcome of this mitigation situation is in two years the mitigation monies will go strictly to the State. Your County is not going to achieve any mitigation money through mitigating away your wetlands. I don't know whether Page 66 October 6, 2000 this Board knows that or not. MR. COE: I was not aware of that. MS. WORTH: Yes, sir, that's my understanding of South Florida Water Management. MR. COE: In other words, in a couple of years somebody comes in like they did today and they want to buy some CREW land, it's not going to go to CREW, it's just going to go to the State and the State is going to put it where they want? MS. WORTH: No. The State will try to keep it within your watershed, but it will be solely within the State's discretion where those mitigation bank monies go. And the objective is to keep it within your watershed. Maybe not within your county boundaries, but definitely within your watershed. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Did you want to add to that, Karen? MS. JOHNSON: That's my understanding -- well, for CREW, CREW is a different situation. Because like I said, the State and the districts are different. The district is an agency of the State because we're a taxing district. CREW is actually owned by the Water Management District. And actually, Lee, Collier -- well, I don't think Collier County bought any, but Lee County actually buys land and turns it over to the district. We buy it from them and give them more money to buy land. We actually do the management and restoration activities in CREW and have separate accounts set up specifically for CREW, so money for CREW will always go to CREW. Now, as far as some of the other areas, like Belle Meade or Estero Bay buffer or those -- one of the problems they have had that I think Fran is alluding to is that if there is a pot of money sitting there, it may be mitigation monies. Unfortunately because it's a state agency, the legislature can see that and say, oh, look, there is money here. Let's go paint the governor's mansion. And that's one of the pitfalls that we've encountered. When they've tried to set up regional off-site mitigation such as Belle Meade, we've now come back and said, no, unless there is a separate amount of money that we know will go to Belle Meade. Now, the State may have other things there that I don't know about, but those are the ones that we're dealing with at the local level. Page 67 October 6, 2000 MS. WORTH: I don't mean to misspeak. I was not saying those monies would go to some superfluous use. They would stay within mitigation banking. And my understanding is, not necessarily within your county boundaries. But I don't concur with the example. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Do you have any feeling for how unusual you are within the State in doing your own environmental, your own wetland permitting? MS. WORTH: Do I feel blessed~ yes, sir~ I do. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: No, no, not blessed, but just unusual. MS. WORTH: Unusual and blessed, yes. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: In other words, there aren't a lot of counties in the state that are doing this to your knowledge? MS. WORTH: No. I think Martin County has always had a long-range plan to set a benchmark for other counties. It's not that -- I'm not here expecting you to emulate our complete program, but if we can help in educational assistance or in any way, we'll be happy to. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Other questions for Fran? MR. CARLSON: Yeah. You said the delineations were done privately. MS. WORTH: Correct. MR. CARLSON: But then does the county confirm all the delineations? MS. WORTH: Not the county. South Florida Water Management District or the Department of Environmental Protection. And who has to do the confirmation depends on the land size and the land use. If it's 5 acre residential, it would be a Department of Environmental Protection call. If it was a PUD, that would be a South Florida Water Management District call. It's, for our experience, it's been a good idea to have these large PUD's when they've had their wetlands delineated, to have a state agency confirm it. It just keeps everything above board. MR. CARLSON: Okay. So you were here this morning when we had an application on 18 acres and 13 acres of it was wetland, but it was, as we heard, degraded with exotics. So in Martin County, it would be handled like there is your delineation line, no one was arguing about them. MS. WORTH: That's correct. MR. CARLSON: You stay out of those wetlands. Page 68 October 6, 2000 MS. WORTH: You not only stay out of those wetlands, but you have a buffer set back from those wetlands and the number of feet set back would be determined by when the land was platted for development, whether or not anybody had permits ongoing years previously or if this was a new permit brought to light. Nothing would be granted without site plans submitted tenfold and being closely scrutinized. Property owners are not denied use of their property in Martin County, but they may have to use it in a way other than what they had designed. MR. CARLSON: So what would happen to the exotics in those 13 acres of wetlands? MS. WORTH: Within a reasonable amount of time, the exotics would have to be removed. MR. CARLSON: So you would limit the commercial development to the remaining 5 acres on that property in Martin County? MS. WORTH: Unfortunately, my very lack of expertise is with commercial issues, but the bottom line is there can be no negative impact to wetlands. So it's my understanding that if the wetland was going to preclude access to the property, allowances would be made. They could cross the wetland, but their impact would have to be in an upland portion. MR. CARLSON: Has anybody used, like, the Burt Harris Act or anything like that to sue Martin County? MS. WORTH: It's my understanding that that addresses agricultural land uses specifically and to date, to my knowledge, not yet. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: And you have an upland protection ordinance also? MS. WORTH: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Interesting. Any other questions? Thanks a lot for coming down. We really appreciate it. MS. WORTH: My pleasure. And thank you, Barb. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Barb, do you have a picture of how we should proceed or what we should include in the November meeting? MS. BURGESON: Well, at this point since the meeting is actually adjourned, you can certainly discuss what you have Page 69 October 6, 2000 heard or discuss what you'd like to do for the November meeting. We can set up something under old business for that meeting. It might be a better time to do that is to -- if we do it now, we should also do it at that meeting, is to have a discussion regarding what your interests might be and what you've seen that you might want to pursue. We also will be adding something on to that November meeting for the public to comment. I'm not sure that we'll have much comment because we haven't had very much participation here. If there is anything else you'd like us to do, in terms of getting other counties to come in and make presentations, they are -- unfortunately, the few that we had that originally had committed to coming today for reasons of their own were not able to attend, but we could pursue that in the future if you'd like. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Okay. Any thoughts or wishes as to how you'd like to proceed? MR. COE: What would it take to put together the environmental side to the land use code and to actually put it together? And let me tell you where I'm coming from here because I don't want to talk in abstracts here. I guess maybe I was naive until today. I somehow or another just kind of didn't know, I guess, that the bottom line is if an area is zoned X and a guy comes in, the developer or homeowner or whatever it is, and he goes ahead and he puts in a project, regardless of whether it's wetlands or not, he doesn't give a hoot. He pays a couple extra bucks, goes buys some land off CREW, and he just knocks down the wetlands and builds what he wants. Why are the two not put together? I don't -- and what would it take to put it together so that we're protecting the environment and at the same time allowing reasonable development? MR. CARLSON: Would what happens in an ST, like the old ST special treatment overlays in the growth management plan? Are they still around? MS. BURGESON: They are and they do provide for additional protection. It's much more difficult to develop wetlands that have an ST overlay. The intent of the Land Development Code is to protect those, to redefine the boundaries of them in the field Page 70 October 6, 2000 and to set them aside under preservation. If they want to impact them, they have to go in front of the environmental advisory. MR. CARLSON: So what if those were just, that was a very thorough, detailed effort to define what kinds of areas we feel from the environmental standpoint are special treatment and we put those on a map, no matter where they fall out, regardless of the zoning, and the special treatment designation then becomes sort of like the wetlands, total wetlands protection of Martin County, but it could be wetlands or uplands. MS. BURGESON: Right. Actually the special treatment section of the Land Development Code does not limit the protection to wetlands. It identifies the ST lands as rare, unique habitat. It can be upland, it can be clear. It can be wetland. It can have protected species on them. So it's a more broad -- MR, COE: Like say gopher tortoises, for example? MS. BURGESON: Right. So it's a more broad view of the protection. As opposed to generally we see them, like when the ST overlay was done back in the '70s, the initial attempt was to put it over what were high quality, very easily identified wetlands by the aerials at the time. And it didn't really get to the point of including say tropical hardwood hammocks or xeric communities. It was -- I think the initial overlay was just directed to the high quality wetlands. And if you're asking how could we go out and field verify more areas that we want to protect and put them under ST, I don't know if Bill might want to try to address that. That would be like an urban NRPA program. MR. LORENZ: Well, getting back to, I think the original question was how do we go ahead and protect particular wetland? MR. COE: Wetland, upland, whatever we want to protect, fish, dogs, cats, turtles. MR. LORENZ: Ultimately, it's a matter of putting together a proposal and having the Board of County Commissioners adopt it. If we're talking about wetlands and you wanted to do something that is representative of Martin County that says, we don't care where the wetland is. You have to protect it. You cannot impact it at all. If that's what you want to recommend to the Board of County Commissioners, the very easy way of doing it is simply say, thou shalt not impact a wetland. And that's in our code. Page 71 October 6, 2000 The problem that comes is, as Ed mentioned about the Burt Harris Act, anything that comes in place now in the land regulation past a particular date in time, we're going to be subject to possible challenges there and we have to understand what our potential legal and financial liabilities will be. A lot of Collier County is in wetlands, so you're going to have to understand that if you're going to write a rule that way that you're going to have to provide at least beneficial use of somebody's land. So you're going to have to write in various exceptions to take care of what I would say would be the federal constitutional challenge as well, if somebody has 10 acres of wetlands and that's all their percentage of wetlands -- MR. COE: Stop, stop. I never have dealt with a problem from all the reasons you can't do something. I've always been on the positive side of it and try to figure out how it can be done. So I know there is a huge list over here of all the reasons that it can't be done. The first one of which is when one of the attorneys stands up and says, you do that, I'm going to sue you. So I realize there is a long list there. What I'm wondering is what's on the short list, what can we do to put it together, put together the zoning land use and the environmental issues. Because right now this board, commission, committee, whatever you want to call us, we sit here month after month beating the environmental issues to death and to no avail. I find out today unquestionably to no avail. Because realistically under our current regulations, if a person has 18 and a half acres and he's got 30 percent of which is wetlands, he just merely whips out his checkbook, writes a check to CREW and he could build anything he wants, knock down everything on the whole piece of property, knock everything down, every bush, everything, dirt, and then cement it over. MR. LORENZ: That was my first question. What do you want? If you want to say, thou shalt not impact a wetland directly, then you write the language and you put through the process to get the Board of County Commissioners to consider it as a land development regulation. If you say that the problem is there are certain types of wetlands that you don't want to encroach upon, then you need to tell us what your thinking is in terms of those types of wetlands. Page 72 October 6, 2000 Are we talking about certain high quality wetlands to exhibit certain characteristics? Then we start limiting the scope of what we're going to address with, if you will, zero impact. That's the question. There has been some counties that do have a classification scheme or they may call it a type one, type two, type three wetland and they do have some regulations that are less stringent for one versus another. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Isn't that kind of the direction that you're going in with the two assessment committees? MR. LORENZ: Well, no. MR. CARLSON: That's kind of like what we have. It's in the urban zone. It's a type three wetland. I'll tell you that right now. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Now, but really, aren't you trying to classify, aren't you trying to identify significant, connective, large, whatever? MR. LORENZ: We have identified those and we will be looking at a variety of different protection mechanisms for wetlands protection, but I can tell you this much, we're not proposing that you have a zero impact for a particular wetland. Certainly, the staff is not proposing that. If that's where you-all want to try to develop and flesh out some language, then that's a direct, that's a recommendation that you need to make to the Board of County Commissioners because as staff, we've had direction before that we're not going to come on a particular wetland permit program that goes beyond the federal and state requirements. And if you notice, earlier in the year when I discussed this with you, I indicated you have to come up with what specifically are the problems that we want to close. We want to -- the gaps that we want to close between what you see as where we should be and where the federal and state agencies are allowing certain things to happen. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Well, on the other hand, we want to help the commissioners comply with the final order. MR. LORENZ: And the final order in 9J5 criteria, which the State will apply on us, does allow for mitigation. So to the degree that that example that you gave of writing something on the checkbook to CREW, that's allowable under the 9J5 criteria. It may not be something that I personally want to see or the Page 73 October 6, 2000 county may want to see. MR. COE: But if we had stricter regulations within the county, that wouldn't be permitted, or conceptually, theoretically wouldn't be permitted; is that correct? MR. LORENZ: No. I think you could still have strict regulations, but that could be part of the regulations, could be allowed under certain conditions. The choices that you have of creating a wetlands protection program are vast at the planning process and at the permitting process. You already have two agencies that do wetlands permitting at that particular level and you saw an example of the rules that they have developed to guide them in their permitting. If we develop a wetlands permitting program ourselves, we'd have to generate similar or different rules and regulations, but I come back to what you, the point that you have to articulate is what is the gap? What do you see as the problem that needs to be solved from what is allowed to occur from where you want to be? MS, BURGESON: Also, I think the Board needs to remember that what the final order is requiring of Collier County and what Bill has been working hard to organize is outside of most of the projects that you have been looking at. And so even though he's doing a lot of work to protect wetlands and you're understanding and seeing that, that doesn't affect the typical project that comes in for review in front of this Board. MR. COE: You're farther out, right, Bill? MR. LORENZ: That's correct. However, we still have to, and it may modify Barbara's comment a little bit. Remember, I said earlier that our wetlands policies and our wildlife policies in our current plan are not in compliance. So we have to redraft those policies that will affect countywide and potentially could affect the urban area as well. So that's still an opportunity. MR. COE: In other words, any input we gave would be very useful to you-all. MR. LORENZ: Absolutely. And, again, I come back to the point where the first place to begin is those areas that you don't want to see happen that are happening now. If you say simply that there should be no impact at all to any wetland, that's fairly cut-and-dried. But I can tell you that that is going to be very, very difficult to try to be effective in getting that through. Page 74 October 6, 2000 CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Sure. MR. LORENZ: On the other hand, there are certain very specific problem areas that we can work on that you have concerns about. That's where I would say that we can try to target in the drafting of these countywide policies, some policies that will address those concerns. So if you can develop a list of those concerns, then we as staff know where we can help you in the technical fleshing those solutions out. MR. CARLSON: Specifically, it's frustrating. I'll share it with you guys. Buying land in CREW for impasse to wetlands in the urban area, I mean you're buying land that shouldn't be developed anyway. You're buying land that has very low development potential. So it's a huge net loss of wetland habitat. And that's the really frustrating thing. MR. COE: I mean you-all see this. I realize you have to work within the constraints that have been given to you in the past. What we're really trying to say here is we want to find out which direction we need to go to rewrite these regulations in a way to save the wetlands, to save the habitat, to save the panther habitat and these other things that make Collier County what it is. Do we want to be able to have people drive across from Fort Lauderdale our direction and right about there where the bridge is before you get to the tollbooth there, from there on it is just solid development, because that's what the developers will do. They will do it. You know it. I know it and we've seen that. Now we're bumping up against 1-75 already. How far are we going to let it go? Off of Livingston Road we already know all that whole area is wetlands in there. All we've had is PUD after PUD come in front of us. We give them a finger wave and they go right up to the next commission. Eventually, the county commissioners approve it because we don't have any regulations that are protecting this thing. The guys writes a check. He goes to CREW and the CREW buys a couple more lots. And I'm going to use just one quick story. I had the opportunity about a month ago to go up and visit a client up in Bonita Springs. I took Old 41 to kind of cut in the back way. They'd had a lot of rain up there. I said doggone, this a unbelievable. There was businesses literally floating. I mean Page 75 October 6, 2000 they were underwater practically. So when I got back, I checked the map. Come to find out, there's an old slough that goes right there. And here we've permitted buildings to sit right there, houses and buildings. That's true throughout the whole Bonita Springs area. You can look at homes that are built back in actually low sloughs and if they ever get a lot of rain, they're going underwater. Not by a couple of feet either because it's a really low area. And one of the things I learned as a Boy Scout and sure found out as a Marine too, you don't pitch your tent out there in the middle of a creek bed and that's what people are doing and we're permitting it. That's the funny thing about it. So what would you recommend that we do, sit down as a workshop and rewrite these regulations? Make a short presentation maybe to the county commissioners to find out if they want us to go in that direction, to kind of get a test like she was saying, to find out whether the new county commissioners may be a little bit for the environment, a little bit more so than the past ones that have been indicted. MR. LORENZ: My suggestion would be to, as much as you can, to articulate very specific problems that you say that occur as a result of federal and state permitting processes which they're allowing, subject to their rules but that you feel is not in the interest, the best interest of Collier County. Maybe one of them, for instance, would be that it's not appropriate to, in Collier County, to mitigate a wetland by simply purchasing or providing monies to enhance a CREW area for instance. If you can specifically state that that is a problem that you see, and you would like to see it solved in a particular direction, and have a bold list, then we could go to the Board of County Commissioners and say here are the specific concerns of the EAC. Here is where the EAC feels our requirements are deficient. We would want the Board of County Commissioners to direct staff working with the EAC to then develop the particular regulations that will address those concerns. MR. COE: What about your bullet list? You guys are the ones that work with it day in and day out. Granted, you're working within handcuffs of the regulations that are provided to you. Don't you have a professional opinion about what should be changed to protect the environment? Page 76 October 6, 2000 MR. LORENZ: Yes, we do. MR. COE: I mean, if we gave you -- MR. LORENZ: Quite frankly, not to be disrespectful, but quite frankly, a lot of our -- remember we can, as staff, we can operate technically to say that every wetland that you impact, if you don't provide storage, we've lost that flood function. MR. COE: Correct. MR. LORENZ: But having said that and then offering a solution that is going to be appropriate from a property right standpoint, from a financial standpoint is very difficult and that's what the agencies are working with as they go through their wetland permitting programs. So to the degree that I can say that we see problems that we would like to see fixed, those problems are very, very difficult to solve. And even though I'd want to stand here and say in certain areas, I want to be can do because I do believe that, some of the areas that you've brought up are very difficult solutions in the real world, when you want to set the goal to say no net loss of wetlands. And how do you do that financially and with regards to -- MR. COE: I hope that I'm speaking to the rest of us that are left. I'm not necessarily saying go with what we heard earlier, don't destroy any wetlands. ! believe there is some progress. And some of these things maybe aren't that good, et cetera, et cetera. And God knows we want to have CREW have some land too. So there is kind of a, somewhat of a trade-off. And you have to be realistic because I'm a homeowner just like a lot of the other people here. Some people own land out there in the north estates area and they should be able to build something within reason and remove trees within reason. So I think there is maybe not a happy medium, but regardless of the size of the problem, wouldn't you agree the problem still has to be tackled? We may not have a real viable solution and we may have to run it, I'm sure, by the attorneys, because I think that ogre does sit on everybody's shoulder, but we -- not we. You have an advisory council right here that wants to do something. That is willing to work at it with the staff. The staff that sees these things day in and day out. Whether you have a solution or not, why not throw the problem at us and see if we can come up with a solution? Not that we're smarter or Page 77 October 6, 2000 anything, it's just that we're outside of the forest. You-all are in the forest. A lot of times you can't see the trees. MR. LORENZ: That's why I say in the process that if you can bring to the table, if you will, those lists of problems that you've seen that you see that are difficult, that bother you, in terms of the projects that you have reviewed. And staff I'm sure can come up with a list as well. We can put that list together and make sure everybody understands what those problems are. Then take those types of problems as to the Board of County Commissioners and say here is how we see the problems. Now we'd like to have authority to spend time and resources on trying to solve that problem through language, whether it's in the code or in the comp plan, however the language needs to be done. And recognize to the Board that as you, and this is a key thing from a political standpoint, that as we solve those problems we are now modifying or making the criteria more stringent than what the federal or state agencies are doing. Just as long as we understand that and what the ramifications of that are. Then if we get Board approval to go ahead and go in that direction, then we can create a plan in terms of when we could get back to you with some specific language. My suggestion for the next meeting where you have a full, where you have actually a regular meeting that you can take action and take a vote on it, is that we can come up with some problems, you bring some problems to the table, then you as the environmental advisory council would create a report and take a position and go to the Board of County Commissioners. MR. WHITE: Mr. Chairman, if I might just add to Mr. Lorenz's comments, it may be constructive to go back and look at some of the existing comprehensive plan policies. Here is an example, Objective 6.2 says there shall be no unacceptable net loss of viable, naturally functioning marine and wetlands, excluding TZ wetlands, which are addressed in another objective. Similarly, the Land Development Code, where this council is, if you will, created. Section 5.1.32 sets forth the authority, functions, powers and duties of this council. And I think it would be very constructive to review what those say. And to that end, I'd be happy to provide you with a copy that excerpts that so that you can have the opportunity to look at it before the next meeting to convince yourselves that what Mr. Lorenz is saying is Page 78 October 6, 2000 indeed true, that that is the duty of this board. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Thank you. MR. COE: Well, you know, Bill, maybe what we ought to do is, since you-all aren't prepared and we aren't either at this particular point, why don't we kind of make up our wish lists separately and discuss it at the next meeting, just do an adjournment like we did today and just sit down at a workshop and bounce it back and forth between everybody so that we're all somewhat on the same sheet of music? And what I would recommend on you-ali's behalf is something that's been very successful for me, is I'd take the information even from a little guy that, whoever is the little guy, maybe who is walking in the weeds out there, rather than just from you-all who are on the higher land, because a lot of times they've got some things that you and I would never see in a million years. Maybe between all of us, we can get together and then -- ! don't know, should we get some input also from the public, i.e., the developers, the attorneys, what have you, before we even go to the county commissioners? I mean is it a public thing, it's not something that -- MR. WHITE: If I may interrupt, consistent with my prior comments, that's one of the functions of the council. It's expressly stated in the Land Development Code to solicit those types of opinions. MR. COE: We're talking more of a workshop aspect at this particular point. MR. WHITE: I don't know that it defines or confines the parameters of how you would achieve that objective. That's why I think it would be helpful to look at it as you kind of think about these things to see what, if you will, the outer limits are, in terms of what the regulations and the comprehensive plan have as the scope and authority and duties of the council. MR. LORENZ: I would add to that, I think it's most appropriate that you receive all views before you advise the Board of County Commissioners. MR. COE: Yeah. MR. LORENZ: So to that end, whether -- and Patrick, whether it's in a workshop -- well, in a workshop setting you can't take any formal action. Eventually, you would have to have Page 79 October 6, 2000 a regular meeting where you can take the formal action, take a vote and forward it to the Board of County Commissioners. These recommendations on a vote of blah, blah, blah. So, ultimately, you will have to get to that regular agenda item, but I don't think that -- you could still have workshops like we are doing now just to solicit input. MR. WHITE: Absolutely. And, certainly, I was of the understanding that that would be something that from the point of view of folks hearing what this council was going to be listening to, they were invited and I thought would be in greater attendance, but you can expand it to the level of having them provide you the direct input at any point in time that you choose. MR. LORENZ: May ! make another suggestion, or another option too is you have the ability to create a subcommittee with two, three members, you know, work with staff. Again, it would be a noticed subcommittee, but many times you can get two or three members that roll up their sleeves, get down and dirty with all the details with staff, you know, in some forum that's a lot easier to work through some of the pricklier issues, and then have the subcommittee make the full presentation to the full EAC. You have that ability as well. So I think those are -- the answer kind of in terms of process is all of the above. MS. BURGESON: This meeting and this workshop were set up so that the public would, if they wanted to attend and learn what the Board was being instructed on or presented, that at the November meeting that was their opportunity to comment on or provide their input to this particular workshop. That will be handled probably under old business, that we'll allow public comment. However, just so that you are aware, we potentially have an extremely full agenda on the zoning issues and petitions for the November normal EAC meeting. Anywhere from four to six fairly large, complicated projects will be presented to the Board. So even though we're leaving that open, if you want to get into a more lengthy discussion on this, I'm not sure whether you want to do that or consider that for the November meeting or you might -- the Board also has the opportunity to schedule a second EAC meeting. I mean, if you -- normally the way the ordinance is written, in the Land Development Code, you meet the first Wednesday of every month, but it also states that there can be Page 80 October 6, 2000 additional EAC meetings. I don't know if that's something you might want to consider. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: I think the committee, your committee idea is an interesting one. It would be a good opportunity to get together and, you know, put together a list of some of these problem areas, I think. I don't know, does that have any appeal? Anybody want to get together between now and the November meeting and talk about problem areas regarding wetlands with Bill or whoever you designate? If it would seem like it would help to streamline the November meeting. MR. COE: I don't think it's going to be doable in the November meeting, if we've got four to six big projects that are the PUD's. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Well, that's what I'm saying, it might be easier to do it in a committee meeting beforehand. MR. CARLSON: Did you say we were going to schedule a workshop after the next meeting? MS. BURGESON: No, not a workshop. The way this meeting was scheduled and set up and the presentation to the public on the wetland workshop is limited in public input, but on the notice it identified that at the November meeting, if the public wanted to input on this workshop. MR. CARLSON: As old business at the next meeting. MS. BURGESON: Right. MR. COE: Well, maybe we better hold off until like the December meeting since we're going to have to have the public input. I don't know how they're going to do public input when they don't even know what we talked about today. That's going to be tricky. MR. CARLSON: I need to ruminate about the whole thing for a little while longer. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: You want to ruminate? MR. CARLSON: Yeah. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: All right. So maybe we'll talk about it. We'll have some discussion about identifying problems together at the November meeting. Is that what you want to do? MS. BURGESON: Yeah. MR. GAL: Let's, at the November meeting, discuss what we're going to do. Page 81 October 6, 2000 MR, LORENZ: At the very least, I think looking at Barbara's staff, my staff and Barbara's staff, we could get together and lot down some ideas. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Sure. You think about it. We'll think about it. You get prepared for it. We'll prepare for it. MR. COE: It isn't anything where we meet in November and pass it in December. I don't think that's going to happen, but at least we can get a start in some sort of direction. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: That's good. I think we don't want to duplicate the work of the assessment committee either. You'll be able to bring us up to date on that. I mean, they're sort of dealing with some of these same problems. MR. LORENZ: Of course, there is definitely a relationship. I think as we start talking about some of the wetlands policies, that's why I brought it up the way I did this morning, is to have your input into that as well. Through your growth management subcommittee and through a further discussion here for wetland policies, this is the way that we can bring those efforts together in a more coordinated fashion. CHAIRMAN CORNELL: Why don't we adjourn? Thank you all very much for helping us. There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at t :00 p.m. COLLIER COUNTY ENVIRONMENTAL ADVISORY COUNCIL M. KEEN CORNELL, CHAIRMAN TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING BY: Tracie Sitkins Mountain, RPR Page 82 FORM 8B MEMORANDUM OF VOTING CONFLICT FOR MUNICIPAL, AND OTHER LOCAL PUBLIC OFFICERS -COUNTY, I~._, NA_M.~,,mle~T N,~IME--MI[;~Ie~,AJ_A,',,1E ..., J -- . .~ I NAME OF BOARD. COUNCIL, CObil~ll~ION, AUTH, ORFI'Y, O~OMMI~ MA;UN~S~ ~ ~ __~ ~__ J THr~OARO. COUNCIL. CaMM SS O . A~HOR OR COMMI~EE ON -- - ~ ' - - ~ ~. - ~ ~ i QCI~ ~U~ DATE ON WhiCH V~E OCCURRED ~ ~ ~ ~ MY POSITION IS WHO MUST FiLE FORM 8B This form is for use by any person serving at the county, city, or other local level of government on an appointed or e!ected board, council, commission, authority, or committee. It appiies equally to members cf advisory and non-advisory bodies who are presented with a voting conflict of interest under Section 112.3143, Florida SIatutes. Your responsibilities under the law when faced with voting on a measure in which you have a conflict of interest will vary greatly depending on whether you hold an elective or appointive positicn. For this reason, please pay close attention to the instructions on this form before completing the reverse side and filing the form. '~ INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMPLIANCE WITH SECTION 112.3143, FLORIDA STATUTES person holding elective or appointive county, municipal, or other local public ctfice MUST ABSTAIN from voting on a measure which inures to his or her special private gain or loss. Each e!ected or appointed local officer also is prohibited from knowingly voting on a mea- sure which inures to the special gain or loss of a principal (other than a government agency) by whom he cr she is ret~-ined (including the parent organization or subsidiary of a corporate principal by which he or she is retained); to the special private gain or loss of a relative: or to the special private gain or loss of a business associate. Commissioners ol community redeve!opment agencies under Sec. 163.356 or 163.357, F.S, and officers of independent special t~x districts e!ected on a one-acre, one-vote basis are not prohibited from voting in that capacity. For purposes of this law, a "relative" includes only the officer's father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, brother, sister, father-imla',':, mother-in-law, son-in-law, and daughter-in-law. A "business associate" means any person or entity engaged in or carrying on a business enterprise with the officer as a partner, joint venturer, coowner of property, or corporate shareholder (where the shares of the corpora'.~on are not listed on any national or regional stock exchange). ELECTED OFFICERS' In addition to abstaining from voting in the situations described above, you must disclose the conflict: PRIOR TO THE VOTE BEING TAKEN by publicly stating to the assembly the nature of your interest in the measure on which you are abstaining from voting; and WITHIN 15 DAYS AFTER THE VOTE OCCURS by completing and filing this form with the person responsible for recording the min- utes of the meeting, who should incorporate the form in the minutes. APPOINTED OFFICERS: though you must abstain from voting in the situations described above, you otherwise may participate in these matters. However, you .,just disclose the nature of the conflict before making any atterQpt to influence the decision, whether orally or in writing and whether made by you or at your direction. IF YOU INTEND TO MAKE ANY A'I-FEMPT TO INFLUENCE THE DECISION PRIOR TO THE MEETING AT WHICH THE VOTE WILL BE TAKEN: · You must complete and file this form (before making any attempt to influence the decision) with the person responsible for recording the minutes of the meeting, who will incorporate the form in the minutes. {Continued on other side) CE FgRM 8~3 - REV. 1/98 PAGF_ 1 APPOINTED OFFICERS (continued) · A copy of the form must be provided immediately to the other members of the agency. · The form must be read publicly at the next meeting after the form is flied. IF YOU MAKE NO A'I-I'EMPT TO INFLUENCE THE DECISION EXCEPT BY DISCUSSION AT THE MEETING: · You must disclose orally the nature of your conflict in the measure before participating. · You must complete the form and file it within 15 days after the vote occurs with the person responsible for recording the minutes of the meeting, who must incorporate the form in the minutes. A copy of the form must be provided immediately to the other members of the agency, and the form must be read publicly at the next meeting after the form is filed. DISCL i )SL Y (a) A measure came or will come before my agenf which check one) inured to my special private gain or loss; '~ inured to the special gain or loss of my business associate, __ inured to the special gain or loss of my relative, IRE OF LOCAL OFFICER'S INTEREST disclose that on..~~~~ inured to the special gain or loss of , by whom I am retained; or inured to the speciai gain or loss of which is the parent organization or subsidiary of a principal which has retained me. The measure before my agency and the nature of my conflicting interest in the measure is as follows: After consultation with the County Attorney, I abstained from voting on the above matter pursuant to Secti Statutes, which provides that "no member of any state, county, or municipal governmental board, present at any meeting of such body at which an official decision, ruling or other official act is to from voting... except when, with respect to any such member, there is or appears to be, a p provisions of 112.311, S. 112.313, or S. 112.3143. In such cases, said member shall Date Filed Signature Florida or agency who is NOTICE: UNDER PROVISIONS OF FLORIDA STATUTES §112.317, A FAILURE TO MAKE ANY REQUIRED DISCLOSURE CONSTITUTES GROUNDS FOR AND MAY BE PUNISHED BY ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING: IMPEACHMENT; REMOVAL OR SUSPENSION FROM OFFICE OR EMPLOYMENT, DEMOTION, REDUCTION IN SALARY, REPRIMAND, OR A CIVIL PENALTY NOT TO EXCEED $10,000. CE FORM 8B - REV. 1/98 PAGE 2