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BCC Minutes 11/29/2000 S (LDC Amendments)November 29, 2000 TRANSCRIPT OF THE 5:05 LAND DEVELOPMENT CODE MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Naples, Florida, November 29, 2000 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners, in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as the Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing Board(s) of such special districts as have been created according to law and having conducted business herein, met on this date at 5:05 p.m. in SPECIAL SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: ALSO PRESENT: CHAIRMAN: James D. Carter, Ph.D. Donna Fiala Tom Henning Pamela S. Mac'Kie Jim Coletta Tom Olliff, County Manager Marjorie Student, County Attorney Page I COLLIER COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS AGENDA Wednesday, November 29, 2000 5:05 p.m. NOTICE: ALL PERSONS WISHING TO SPEAK ON ANY AGENDA ITEM MUST REGISTER PRIOR TO SPEAKING. SPEAKERS MUST REGISTER WITH THE COUNTY MANAGER PRIOR TO THE PRESENTATION OF THE AGENDA ITEM TO BE ADDRESSED. COLLIER COUNTY ORDINANCE NO. 99-22 REQUIRES THAT ALL LOBBYISTS SHALL, BEFORE ENGAGING IN ANY LOBBYING ACTIVITIES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ADDRESSING THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS), REGISTER WITH THE CLERK TO THE BOARD AT THE BOARD MINUTES AND RECORDS DEPARTMENT. REQUESTS TO ADDRESS THE BOARD ON SUBJECTS V~-IICH ARE NOT ON THIS AGENDA MUST BE SUBMITTED IN WRITING WITH EXPLANATION TO THE COUNTY MANAGER AT LEAST 13 DAYS PRIOR TO THE DATE OF THE MEETING AND WILL BE HEARD UNDER "PUBLIC PETITIONS". 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 THE PROCEEDINGS IS MADE, WHICH RECORD INCLUDES THE TESTIMONY AND EVIDENCE UPON WHICH THE APPEAL IS TO BE BASED. ALL REGISTERED PUBLIC SPEAKERS WILL BE LIMITED TO FIVE (5) MINUTES UNLESS PERMISSION FOR ADDITIONAL TIME IS GRANTED BY THE CHAIRMAN. IF YOU ARE A PERSON WITH A DISABILITY WHO NEEDS ANY ACCOMMODATION IN ORDER TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS PROCEEDING, YOU ARE ENTITLED, AT NO COST TO YOU, TO THE PROVISION OF CERTAIN ASSISTANCE. PLEASE CONTACT THE COLLIER COUNTY FACILITIES MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT LOCATED AT 3301 EAST TAMIAMI TRAIL, NAPLES, FLORIDA, 34112, (941) 774-8380; ASSISTED LISTENING DEVICES FOR THE HEARING IMPAIRED ARE AVAILABLE IN THE COUNTY COMMISSIONERS' OFFICE. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE An Ordinance amending Ordinance Number 91-102, as amended, the Collier County Land Development Code, which includes the Comprehensive Zoning Regulations for the unincorporated area of Collier County, Florida, by providing for: Section One, Recitals, Section Two, Findings of Fact: Section Three, Adoption of amendments to the Land Development Code, more specifically amending the following: Article 2, Zoning, Division 2.2. Zoning Districts, Permitted Uses, Conditional Uses, Dimensional Standards including the adoption of the Goodland Zoning Overlay District or in the alternative a declaration of partial moratorium on multi-family land uses for the Goodland area and the Bayshore Drive Mixed Use Overlay District; Division 2.4. Landscaping and Buffering; Division 2.5. Signs; Division 2.6. Supplemental District Regulations including but not limited to Section 2.6.4, Exceptions to Required Yards; Section 2.6.11, Fences; Section 2~6.15, Solid 1 November 29, 2000 o Waste Disposal; Section 2.6.21, Dock Facilities; Section 2.6.33, Motion Picture/Television Production Permit; Adding Section 2.6.34, Annual Beach Event Permits; and Section 2.6.35, Communication Towers; Division 2.7. Zoning Administration and Procedures; Division 2.8. Architectural and Site Design Standards and Guidelines for Commercial Buildings and Projects; Article 3, Development Requirements, Division 3.2. Subdivisions; Division 3.3, Site Development Plans; Division 3.4. Explosives; Division 3.5 Excavation; Division 3.9. Vegetation Removal, Protection and Preservation; Division 3.10. Sea Turtle Protection; Division 3.11, Endangered, Threatened or Listed Species Protection; Division 3.14. Vehicle on the Beach Regulations; Article Six, Definitions, Division 6.3, Definitions including but not limited to the definition of "Residential Hotel"; Appendix B, Typical Street Sections and Right-of-Way Design Standards; Section Four; Adoption of Amended Zoning Atlas Maps; Section Five, Conflict and Severability; Section Six, Inclusion in the Collier County Land Development Code; and Section Seven, Effective Date. ADJOURN 2 November 29, 2000 November 29, 2000 Item #2 ORDINANCE AMENDING ORDINANCE NO. 91-102, THE COLLIER COUNTY LAND DEVELOPMENT CODE - SECOND PUBLIC HEARING TO BE HELD ON DECEMBER 13, 2000 CHAIRMAN CARTER: Good evening. Welcome to the first of two sessions of the Board of Collier County Commissioners dealing with Land Development Codes. If you will all rise, please, for the pledge of allegiance. (The pledge of allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRMAN CARTER: For those of you who are not familiar with the process, this is the first of two meetings in which we go through all of the proposed Land Development Codes. If there is any direction that this Board would be giving to staff or wordsmithing or consideration of other things, they need to be worked on prior to the second meeting. It will take a nod of three commissioners here tonight to give that direction. When it comes to the final passage of any Land Development Code, it requires four votes, four commissioners. So that will take place at the December 13th meeting, again, at 5:05 p.m. Mr. Nino? MR. NINO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ron Nino, for the record. You're correct that this is the first of two public meetings that you will have to deal with amendments to the Land Development Code. To give you a little history on it, the Board directed that twice a year the Land Development Code amendments be -- be presented to you. The first cycle typically ends in June, but, obviously, it starts with staff in January. The second cycle, again, starts in July and ends in December with this Board. So there are two opportunities each year to amend the Land Development Code. Typically, what we do at the first meeting is we go through the staff reports. In other words, we don't deal with the ordinance, which is part of your agenda package, but we go directly to the summary sheet and the individual staff reports that initiate an amendment recommendation. So for purposes of your agenda package, I would ask you to start at page 30, and we'll go through the summary agenda and each -- each staff report that proposes an amendment, and the first amendment -- and if you Page 2 November 29, 2000 would allow me to use the page numbers on the staff report because I think it will be easier for us all. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Those are in the box to the right-hand corner. MR. NINO: In the middle of the page. The page numbers that's on the staff report, they are numbered chronologically for each report. So we start at page I or the first amendment to this cycle. The first amendment is an amendment to 2.1 -- Section 2.1.5, which deals with to the zoning atlas, but in this case, the Parks and Recreation Department has asked us to amend the zoning on 16 county properties that are intended to be used for parks. So we can get through 16 pages of this agenda very quickly. I think you will all agree that -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: After yesterday, that's really good news. MR. NINO: Yes, that is good news. CHAIRMAN CARTER: We're not looking for another marathon meeting. MR. NINO: It's advisable that we deal with the first 18 pages that would have those sites all zoned P for park use -- for public USE, *** The second item on the agenda is an amendment to the rural agricultural district, which would add airboat, swamp buggies, and other kinds of tours as a conditional use to the agricultural zoning districts and lays out criteria by which we will review those conditional use applications. That's on pages 19, 20, 21, and 22 of your package. *** The next item is an amendment, and that's on page 23 of the staff reports, and that is an amendment that deals with correcting a previous amendment to the ordinance that dealt with density as it relates to hotels and motels in the RT zoning district. Previously, hotels were allowed in the RT zoning district based on 26 units per acre. This density control was the same for all manner of hotels, irrespective of the size of the unit. Consequently, the volume of building space, that could change dramatically on a particular parcel of land, depending on the size of the individual unit and accessory spaces, such as meeting rooms, dining facilities, et cetera. Staff did not think it was appropriate to regulate hotels by Page 3 November 29, 2000 the number of units because we think of units -- when we think of units, we generally think of units in terms of residential usage. A hotel is a commercial structure, and, generally, the volume of space for commercial structures is regulated by the applicable setbacks, parking, et cetera, and what's left over produces the volume or the box that you could put on the property. The application of these standards produces a maximum potential volume of building space within which the use of that space is determined by internal design parameters, the size, in the case of hotels, would be the size of the hotel units. An appropriate additional tool to regulate the intensity and thus volume of commercial space is termed a "floor area ratio," which is a numerical threshold times the area of the lot, which produces the total allowable gross floor area. And in the last amendment cycle, we did that. We eliminated the reference to units and instituted a floor area ratio, which was a number of 0.6 times the area of the lot, produced the size of the box you could put on the property, and less the number of units, then a factor of the size of the units. So that we basically converted 26 units per acre to -- when we -- when we think in terms of a conventional hotel, i.e., Holiday Inn, Comfort Inn, Super Eight, whatever, under that type of hotel, I suggest that you probably would get the hotel that had 30 to 40 units to the acre. When we did that, however, we didn't realize its implication on those -- the possibility that there may indeed be someone who wants to build a hotel where the minimum floor area is 2500, 2000 square feet. The effect of that action took away the ability that they had to build 26 units per acre because, remember, that 26 units per acre was irrespective of the size of the units. So this amendment attempts to rectify that situation, and appreciate it has limited application because it only applies to the RT zoning district, and we have a very limited supply of RT zoning, mostly on Gulfshore Drive. And when you look at Gulfshore Drive, you would have to conclude that the opportunities for redevelopment are extremely limited because those are currently well-developed high-rise structures, very modern, unlike that -- within our lifetime that they are going to be redeveloped. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Except for that La Playa, which is Page 4 November 29, 2000 currently cooking. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I have some difficulty with that on Gulfshore Drive because currently those are condominiums that are along there, which I believe have 12 units per acre, and the -- if we're looking at community character, someone conceivably could come in there, if we allow this to happen, and begin to upset that. None of the residents there are concerned if someone takes an existing condominium, tears it down, builds another one with 12 units per acre. I have no difficulty with that. They would prefer that -- and my position would be I can't support this unless we have an ordinance change that protects those units so that that doesn't happen in the future. Otherwise, right now, it's 12 per acre, and whether you change that to anything over two acres, and perhaps find -- MR. NINO: Let me speak to that directly. For conventional condominium development, the 16 units per acre in the RT zoning district, the irony -- the irony here, quite frankly, is that when you apply the current development standards in the RT zoning district to a conventional condominium building, they could -- a much larger building can be built on an acre of land under the current development regulations for a condominium than could be built under the current regulations per hotel. Let's assume, though, we have a lot of 40,000 square feet. The current floor area ratio factor is point six. So the maximum area you can build on 40,000 square feet as a hotel would be 24,000 square feet. However, as a conventional condominium unit, you can build upwards of 70 to 80,000 square feet. However, the number of units within that box could only be 16 -- actually 14 because it's not quite an acre, 14 or let's say 16 an acre. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes. MR. NINO: So that there's the irony here. So what we're really talking about in this amendment -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Ron? MR. NINO: Pardon? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: this picture, and I don't get quite -- hotel -- MR. NINO: Yes. But how is that apples to apples, I followed you. I really want to get I've got a 24,000 square foot Page 5 November 29, 2000 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- versus a condo of how many -- MR. NINO: 74,000 square feet. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: How can -- wow. I guess I did get it, and I just was so surprised. MR. NINO: Because you have to -- the setback -- the setback COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But the number of units will control it, so it doesn't actually become 74,000; won't it? MR. NINO: No. It would be 74 -- it could be 74,000 square feet, and within that 74,000 square feet, you would -- you could build a maximum of, let's say, 16 plumbing units. So, obviously, we've talking about dwellings that would be three and 4,000 square feet in area. However, within the 24,000 square foot box for a hotel, if the rooms, for example, were the standard rooms versus 600 square feet, which is normally typical of a hotel, then you -- obviously, you can get 40 units, 40 hotel units. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I understand that far, but that -- MR. NINO: So the driving issue here is the number of units. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, not only the number of units, but the use of the units. Condominiums certainly are far less traffic issues, noise issues, everything else. I don't think anyone objects if you end up with 16 units as long as you don't upset the character of what's currently in existence there, and I'm going to say height and setbacks and everything else. If that is within that framework, I don't think people would object. Your objection is to establishing commercial property within there, which really changes the character of what's going on in that particular area. MR. NINO: Except that the RT zoning district does allow hotels. I mean, this regulation may or may not stop a hotel from being built on Gulfshore Drive. CHAIRMAN CARTER: But if they came back and bought a condominium, and said, now, we want to come back and we want to now build a hotel on that site, that would have to come to us for approval as a Board, correct? MR. NINO: No, it would not. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Not with this change. MR. NINO: It would not. Without any -- under the current regulation, it's perfectly permissible for someone to buy property on Gulfshore Drive, whether it be vacant or developed. If it's developed, tear it down, and build a hotel on it. Page 6 November 29, 2000 You always had that right. CHAIRMAN CARTER: All right. MR. NINO: Under the previous ordinance -- under the ordinance before this amendment, you had the right to build 26 units to the acre irrespective of the size of the units. Now -- now, we've regulated the size of the box, and we no longer talk about units. We regulate the size of the box that can go on the property. As I pointed out, the size of the box is smaller than the size of the box that -- than would result from a conventional condominium. There are speakers here tonight on this issue. CHAIRMAN CARTER: All right. MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, I'm assuming you want to take speakers as each of these items comes up? CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think that would be a good idea. MR. OLLIFF: Okay. We have three registered speakers. The first is Wayne Arnold. I'm going to go ahead and call the next speaker as well. The next speaker is Diane Ketchum. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You need to turn them in if you are going to come up here. MR. OLLIFF: If there are any of the items on the agenda that you're interested in speaking on, if you will take a speaker slip that are out in the hallway, fill them out, and make sure you list on there which items you want to speak on, and bring it to me. I'll make sure I call your name when the item comes up. MR. ARNOLD: I'm with Grady Minor and Associates. I'm here to speak in support of the proposed change. I think what staff has tried to do with the change is put back the standard as it previously existed. I think when the standard moved from units per acre, floor area ratios, most people thought that that was a good change, but I think as with any new change, you find out through the application of that process that there are certain problems inherent with that. I think staff has identified, in this particular case, on smaller parcels, you've actually penalized those people from a standard that they have previously been living with and that to net fewer units than you could previously with the proposed change was not the intent by staff and certainly it wasn't the intent of those who were the recipients of the proposed change. So we would encourage you to keep addressing this as staff has proposed it. I know your Land Code Advisory Committee, I Page 7 November 29, 2000 believe, reviewed this and also positive -- positively commented on this proposed change. COMMISSIONER HENNING: What was the reason it was changed there? MR. ARNOLD: I think I might leave that to either Ron or Mr. Mulhere to address. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Question. What was the reason it was changed? Wayne is telling us it was. MR. NINO: We thought it was a better way of regulating the intensity of use of a property, particularly a commercial property. Floor area ratio is a technique used extensively throughout the country. We didn't think it made sense to talk about units when we are talking about a hotel commercial structure. As I said, we normally think in terms of dwelling units, in terms of a residential context. We didn't think it was an appropriate way to regulate the intensity of a commercial structure. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We're trying to picture the end result. We're trying to picture what we get. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is the height going to change? MR. MULHERE: For the record, Bob Mulhere. I just wanted to add one thing in addition to what Ron said, and that is that the floor area ratio does actually work very well on larger parcels, say, over two acres, and what it does, as we've discussed before, it -- as the building gets larger and taller, it reduces the size of the footprint of the building, which is something the Board had asked for. That was the reason why we brought back the floor area ratio. But inadvertently, we didn't realize on smaller parcels, two acres or less, in-field type development, redevelopment, the result is that that precludes someone from putting in a hotel, which they otherwise can do, with larger units, forcing them to look at, perhaps, a smaller unit hotel, which would generate greater traffic, greater noise, greater types of those negative types of activities. MR. ARNOLD: If I could even add -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You could see the light bulbs go on, MR. ARNOLD: If I could add one other thing, I know just going back to a little bit of the history of the floor area ratio Page 8 November 29, 2000 conversion, I know that that's very typical of how the City of Naples has calculated their density, if you will, for a hotel or motel. That seems to have worked very well because you still have the other requirements to meet the water management, parking, amenities, et cetera. So it's really not an equal basis to compare a hotel density to a residential density, if you will. I think that it's a step in the right direction to move away from that, typically, but I think as Bob so well put, this really did affect small parcels to the negative, which was not the intent of the original change. We encourage you to make the changes staff has recommended. MR. OLLIFF: The next speaker is Diane Ketchurn followed by Tim Hancock. MS. KETCHUM.' Thank you. I apologize. We were a little late because we used summertime to get here versus December time. So I apologize. I don't quite know what Mr. Nino said, and I may be repetitive and I apologize for that. My name is Diane Ketchum, and for 11 years, my husband and I have owned property on Vanderbilt Beach. It is because of what is happening on Vanderbilt Beach that I speak in regard to amending the floor ratio for hotels and specifically residential hotels. When Vanderbilt Beach was zoned decades ago, the land along Gulfshore Drive was zoned RT, residential tourist. There were two small motels. There were a few small condominiums. Nobody knew what our one mile of little Gulfshore Drive would turn out and eventually look like. Well, now we know. All of the land has been developed, and 95 percent of it is residential. No new hotels or motels have been built there in decades. What is happening, however, is that the beach is so desirable, developers are coming along and asking owners in the low-rise buildings to sell. So the buildings would be torn down and high-rises put in their place. Without your help, Vanderbilt Beach is going to become Fort Lauderdale. This redevelopment has already happened, and a new project -- it has already happened once. We have already had a small building and a big building put up. Now, we have a new project, which is being considered on a piece of property which is less than an acre and near our condominium where we live. A one-story complex of seven units has been torn down, and Page 9 November 29, 2000 a developer is planning on building a ten-story building. This is on the bay side where most of the buildings are three to six-stories high. We have a problem with the height, but we're not talking about that today. Even more we have a problem with the density. We're not satisfied with the code that says you can build 16 condo units on an acre. The developer is saying, we're going to build a hotel, a hotel which up until about six months ago allowed 26 units on the acre. Unfortunately, Vanderbilt Beach is still zoned residential tourist, which means any condo can be turned down and a hotel put in its place, but we don't believe the developers really want to build hotels on Vanderbilt Beach. I can show you a flyer that was sent out, and I have a copy of it to give you as evidence, saying that residences will be for sale on this property. We believe the developers want to take their profits and get out. We believe they are using this loophole in the law to gain greater density for basically condo buildings. According to conversations I've had with the Planning Department, all the developer needs to do to satisfy the law is to build a small lobby in this building, have special leases, and then the units are sold basically as condos. One developer has already done this on Gulfshore and is now attempting to do this on a property near our condo. We feel this is circumventing the law and should not be encouraged by changing the floor area ratio. When the developer who bought the land near us was in negotiations, the old hotel density code was in effect, which allowed them 26 hotel units to an acre versus 16 condo units, but the hotel code has changed. And I'm sure you have gone on about that, and I apologize if I don't have it right. But it's something along the line of 40,000 square feet, which is an acre. They can build 24,000 square feet or 28,000 square feet of hotel space. This builder, of course, wants to build large units, so they can get a lot of money for their units, 2500, 3,000 square feet of unit. That means under the current code, they can only put like 10 hotel units on it. Thus, we believe there's the move to change the floor area ratio to allow more bigger units in residential hotels. Instead of accepting the 16 units per acre for condos, developers are trying to get this hotel floor area ratio changed so they can get more density in their buildings. Homeowners on Vanderbilt Beach are vehemently Page10 November 29, 2000 opposed to this. I'm a member of the Vanderbilt Beach and Bay Association, the Gulfshore Drive Group, which is made up of 300 owners. I have spoken to their board. They are strongly opposed to changing this, as is our condo board, which my husband is vice-president. There's another piece of property on Vanderbilt Beach. People are talking about tearing it down, putting up condos. You can be assured they'll use this residential hotel ploy to get more density. In the future, we would like to work with this Board of Commissioners so that redevelopment on Vanderbilt Beach requires residential buildings to remain residential, but for now, we ask you not to change this law to allow developers more density, especially on Gulfshore Drive, and if you must change it, please make sure that residential hotels have the same density as condos. Thank you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: May I ask a question of staff? CHAIRMAN CARTER: Question to staff by Commissioner Mac'Kie. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' What the heck is a residential hotel as opposed to a hotel? MR. NINO: I think the speaker may be referring to a very early draft of a proposed amendment that instituted the definition of the word "residential hotel." That is no longer in the current package before you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' Ron -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, what did that really mean? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes. MR. NINO: It attempted to acknowledge that there was an industry that, in fact, built hotels for longer periods of stay than you normally expect at a conventional hotel. I believe, for example, in the Orlando area, you'll find many hotels where families occupy them for a month at a time, and this early proposal would have had a requirement that you had -- you couldn't stay any more than a month in it to make sure that, in fact, it functioned as a hotel. It goes without saying, if you approve an amendment and even the current regulation, if somebody comes to us under the current regulation and says they're building a hotel and attempting to use the hotel floor area ratio that currently exists, it Page11 November 29, 2000 behooves staff to make sure that it is indeed a hotel. They have to prove to us it's a hotel, and we will do that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Let me just share an experience with you guys on this point. In my former life when I was a developer's attorney, Ron won't remember this, but I had a client once on Marco who wanted to do what looked like a hotel but was going to function as a condo. He was going to sell the units, and I had this whole clever scheme for how it was really going to be, it's really going to be a hotel. Ron, he didn't buy it. He shot it down, and it never happened. I just want to be sure that we're not changing that. MR. NINO: We are not changing that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: We are not changing that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It already happened the lady says. CHAIRMAN CARTER: What you need to do is, if you want to speak, you have to be signed up and come to the microphone. We can't have dialogue between commissioners and the audience. Yes, Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Mr. Nino, could somebody own an existing hotel/motel or somebody build a hotel/motel, and ten years from now, they want to change that to condominiums; is that allowable? MR. NINO: It would be allowable if they were not exceeding the density that is otherwise provided for conventional housing. In other words, they have to eliminate some units if they were over the threshold that is allowed for conventional housing units. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That would be under RT zoning, right? MR. NINO: Correct. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Next speaker?. MR. OLLIFF: The next speaker is Tim Hancock followed by Ben Gildersleeve. MR. HANCOCK: Good evening. I'll keep this three to four hours short of yesterday's presentation. CHAIRMAN CARTER: You only have five minutes. MR. HANCOCK: And you're watching that clock, Mr. Chairman. I promise you we have no problem there. I'm here to address the amendment and actually to support what staff is proposing for a couple of reasons. Let me put this in very real terms for you. Under the current regulations, a one-acre parcel could meet Page 12 November 29, 2000 the floor area requirements in the construction of an excess of 80 hotel units. You can go in and build 80, 400 square foot hotel units on an acre of land under the current regulation and be fully compliant with it. As you know, a 400 square foot hotel unit is basically a Holiday Inn bed with a bathroom. It's not exactly what you'd call quality. As a father of two, when I go on vacation, we stay in suite hotels with one or two bedrooms, so the kids have one and you have another. Those units begin to start getting into the 12, 13, 1500 square feet at a minimum. If that same acre of land, you want to use that to build a suite hotel, you really can't under these regulations. The units drop dramatically, and the project is no longer feasible. So that is one problem in application. What makes the most sense here, when the floor area ratios were devised, the examples that the staff used were larger acreage properties, five, six acres, and it works very well for those because you have a campus-style effect. You put your rooms in one place and other uses elsewhere. When you get down to the smaller parcels, what we have here is an unintended consequence that is going to force a property owner to go one of two ways, and what the result will be here is a higher number of smaller rooms, which results in an increase in traffic, results in a higher number of stays, higher amount of turnover. On these unintended consequences, what is being asked today is simply that we go back to the rules that were in place since 1976 on RT zoning. This isn't something new. It's stepping back to those properties that have this unintended consequence that it applies to. On the issue of whether it's a condo or whether it's a hotel, in your Land Development Code, you define both uses specifically through duration of stay. It gives your staff and you ultimately the ability to enforce whether or not a property is being used as a condominium or a hotel. So that ability is there, and if you want to correct an issue in definition, then you can do that. But right now, those definitions are fairly clear between hotel, motel, and condominium, and it becomes an issue of an enforcement. So the complaints that it may have happened already may be enforcement complaints, but the way it has worked since 1976, an RT zoning at 26 units an acre for these Page 13 November 29, 2000 smaller parcels has worked just fine. The new code, however, doesn't. So the request is simply to step back from the smaller parcels where there are some applications that are not what was intended when it was adopted, and to simply go back to the way it's been done for the last 20 plus years. That's the easiest way I can couch it to you this evening. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Next speaker?. MR. OLLIFF: The next speaker is Mr. Gildersleeve followed by Joe Connolly. CHAIRMAN CARTER: If you're in the on-deck circle, if you would, come up and be standing and ready to go, we would certainly appreciate it. MR. GILDERSLEEVE: I'm Ben Gildersleeve. I am in an adjacent neighborhood to the property that has been discussed earlier. In our condominium, which is across the street from the piece of property that we're talking about and also a vacant lot, which we own adjacent -- that's adjacent to the property, we have treasured long-standing the lower density of the area. We see this recommended amendment as a threat to that as described by the previous speaker, Mrs. Ketchum. It also would strike us that it borders on spot zoning of the area, the change back to a hotel-type structure. We feel that with the traffic and other problems that exist on Gulfshore Drive, that it would not be in anyone's best interest to accept the proposal. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. MR. OLLIFF: Following Mr. Connolly would be your last speaker on this item, which is Jack Stevens. MR. CONNOLLY: My name is Joe Connolly, and I live in a condominium directly across the street from the property that's in contention here, actually in a six-story condominium building. It's been there since 1984 and was built under the conformance of the 16 per acre unit. We're very interested in keeping that 16 per acre. The property is not even an acre that is in contention that this whole thing has been brought up about. And when Ron alluded to the population of this type thing is very, very small, there is probably two or three pieces in Collier County that would fall under this small acreage thing, and the reason we're here really is that the land has been bought. They want to put 16 condos there, fine. We prefer they didn't, but, you Page 14 November 29, 2000 know, they have that right and we fully agree that they can. But what they're trying to do -- and introduced this hotel/condominium thing -- is they want to put 24 units. The minimum size is 2500 square feet, three bedrooms, three-and-a-half baths, den, living room, dining room, et cetera, two-car parking places. The larger units are 3500 square feet, and that ain't a hotel, and this is not going to be sold as a hotel. They have flyers -- go to your real estate agent, and they have a flyer there. It started out as a 28-unit condominium building. Now, it's down to 24 units because if this thing goes through, that's the most they can do on an acre as a hotel. You know, they're just misrepresenting what they're doing. They've already sold half of the things as condominiums. So, you know, they're just trying to throw flack and get approval to build a condominium and call it a hotel so they can have more units, and we're opposed to that. Condos, 16 units per acre and they don't even have an acre. Fine. We can live with that but not more than that. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Are the next speakers coming up? Earlier, the lady who spoke had a sales brochure that I would be interested in seeing it if she would. I would love to see one thank you. Give it to Mr. Olliff. MR. OLLIFF: The next speaker is Mr. Jack Stevens. MR. STEVENS: My name is Jack Stevens. I live at 10663 Gulfshore Drive, across the street from this project. I'm confused. The present zoning says 16 to the acre. They don't have an acre. The hotel is 26 units to the acre with a 300 square foot minimum, 500 square foot maximum. So the way I look at it, they can build 26 hotel units with a maximum of 500 square feet. Twenty percent can be built as suites, and that's it. Also we have a 15-foot setback on the sides or 30 percent of the height of the building, whichever is greater. Now, if they can beat that, I don't think we have any squawk, and that's the present zoning unless I'm wrong. The other thing is this: Vanderbilt Drive is a two-lane road that is insane now. Now, these people are trying to build on a 200-foot lot. What they're talking about is going to be complete chaos, no place for the workers to park. It's going to be just a crazy situation, and, I mean, I think this is something that has to Page t 5 November 29, 2000 be looked at hard. And I also looked at this. A change in this zoning would really -- no matter how we look at it, it's spot zoning, and I don't think that's the right behavior here. Am I wrong on the code? CHAIRMAN CARTER: I don't think you are, sir. I'll have to defer to staff on that. Also I would like a clarification of spot zoning. MR. NINO.' Yes, I'd be happy to. First of all, we're not rezoning anything. We're not rezoning. You can't have spot zoning if you're not rezoning, and spot zoning is -- I mean, I could go on for a long time and tell you what spot zoning -- what is spot zoning. That really isn't necessary here. We're not rezoning anything. It's not spot zoning. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay, because we have a whole section that's RT. MR. STEVENS: We are trying to revert back to the zoning that was prior to this. Plus, we had another person get up here and say they could build 80 units. That's wrong. The code says 26 per the acre, and they don't have an acre. So someone should stand corrected on this. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I'll get an answer for you in a minute. MR. STEVENS: Thank you. CHAIRMAN CARTER: If it's less than an acre and they've got 26 units, how could we do that? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' How could you get 80? MR. NINO: The regulation is 26 units per acre. If you have a 40,000 square foot lot, then it's 26 times 40,000 square feet, which produces 24 units. It doesn't mean that you have to have an acre to start getting into the business of having a hotel. MR. STEVENS: That's not 80 units. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Where did 80 units come from? MR. NINO: I don't know where the 80 units comes from. I can tell you that I would not accept that number because the floor area ratio that we've developed is based on the last seven hotels that have been built in the area, all at 26 units per acre, and they had floor area ratios of about 4.5, 5.3. Remember, there's meeting rooms, dining facilities, common areas that are included in that. You just can't take 400 square feet and divide it into 24,000 square feet, ergo 80 units. That doesn't work. I can tell you that it's pretty close to the 26 units per acre. Page 16 November 29, 2000 CHAIRMAN CARTER: With a hypothetical mathematical formula they said it could be, but -- MR. STEVENS: But when we hear 74,000 square feet, something is wrong because 26 times the maximum, 600 square feet, does not come to that kind of square footage. MR. NINO: Again, there is some confusion. MR. STEVENS: Even with 20 percent suites. MR. NINO.' The 74,000 square feet is the allowable building area on 40,000 square feet under the current regulations for a conventional condominium unit, which is allowed at ten stories in height. The setbacks -- the application of the setbacks do produce a box that can be as much as 74,000 square feet. That's for a conventional condominium, given the condominium development standards. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Sir, have you finished your comments to us now? MR. STEVENS: But they can only build 15 condominiums there, not 30 or 26, and they have to meet the code, which would be 30 percent of the height or 15 feet minimum, and I don't think we would squawk if they meet that, instead of trying to change this whole ballgame around. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yes, and I understand. I thank you for that, sir. I think the last two speakers made that point, that they could live with what is being proposed. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I have a question about -- well, this project that they brought up the sales brochure for is the Vanderbilt Beachcomber Resort. Is that something that any of you staff members are familiar with? MR. NINO: Yes. It's unfortunate that we have in this equation a specific proposal that is out there, but, remember, the regulation applies to all of the land. It doesn't deal with a specific proposal. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm asking a question about this. MR. NINO: Yes, we're very familiar with that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' My question has to do with this, an example of the application of the code? Okay. I'm not talking about this project. I'm just saying as a example of the application of the code that you're proposing, would this be allowed as a hotel? MR. NINO: Not under today's current standard. Page17 November 29, 2000 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The one that you're proposing tonight? MR. NINO: The one proposed would probably allow something that closely approximates that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It wouldn't have a limit, like you can have a three-bedroom, 35 square foot hotel room? MR. NINO: They would still have to prove that those three-bedroom units function as a hotel. We would request -- we would demand all of the documentation that limits the usagel so that one to one -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: How are you ever going to monitor that? How are you going to enforce that? How are you going to know they're operating it that way or not? MR. NINO: If the material that's submitted to us -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm talking about after it's built. MR. NINO: After it's built, it becomes an administration problem -- code enforcement problem. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Right. So what I'm asking is, are we -- it sounds to me like these people at Vanderbilt are identifying another unintended result because I don't want to allow 3500 square foot -- I don't want to allow people to use the hotel floor area ratio to net a greater density for what will really be a condo. So you go fix that before this comes back, or it's not going to have my support either. MR. NINO: We don't argue with you. We don't want to do that either. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But right now you're telling me this might work, and this is what I'm saying, it doesn't look right to me. MR. NINO: It will only work if they prove to us unequivocally that it is a hotel. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But it's got 28 residences, and if it were a condo, it could have 167 MR. NINO: I believe that's correct. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So please don't -- so don't let them -- MR. NINO.' We wouldn't approve it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' Look at that, a floor covering allowance of $15,000 for a hotel room? I don't think so. MR. NINO: That's got nothing to do with the amendment Page 18 November 29, 2000 before you. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It does -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: I have to interrupt my prerogative here and say it doesn't, but it does begin to inject into this concerns, not only of that community, but I know of two commissioners here. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It makes me understand the problem. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yes. So I think what we're both asking you is can you bring back to us prior to two weeks some wording that can give us some comfort that we're not going to create problems? MR. NINO: We could bring you back additional language to ensure -- that defines that something like that clearly functions as a hotel. Yes, we can do that if that's your direction. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That at a minimum, and, to me, it's -- isn't it going to have to have something, Ron, like a maximum stay? MR. NINO: Yes. We had intended that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. NINO: Yes. We had intended that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I don't know what else there would be. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Because we're dealing with an overall zoning classification here, as I understand it, RT, which permits either/or, and we're looking for wording that will clearly differentiate between the two so that we can protect the community. Now, this is going a step further. At some point, maybe this whole section along Gulfshore Drive, we have to address in a different -- different direction that says we don't want any hotel/motel operations here, and it has to be restricted to condominiums within specific criteria. I think that's what I really hear where the neighborhood wants to go. For the preservation of the character of the community, I would suggest that's where it wants to go, but that is not what's in front of us tonight. MR. NINO: You're perfectly correct. You would have to tell us that that's the direction you want to take. Page 19 November 29, 2000 CHAIRMAN CARTER: I won't have any trouble giving you direction now for the next amendment cycle to bring that forward to us. MR. NINO: If that's your wish. CHAIRMAN CARTER: But I have to see if that's the agreement of the Board. COMMISSIONER FIALA-' I would agree. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes. I'm interested in looking at it because I don't want to see the meshugas. I don't want to see the dominos start falling at Vanderbilt Beach either. CHAIRMAN CARTER: With respect to other areas. MR. STEVENS: Can I clarify and not be excused yet? Even if they do the motel, we're not talking 2500 square feet for a motel room. There's a code that says 300 to 600 square feet, not 2500. Twenty percent can be suites. Maybe they can be 2500, but 600 is the maximum, and that's what keeps it as a hotel. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Is that true? MR. NINO: Those regulations are no longer in effect. That's an old code. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So, unfortunately, sir, you're looking at an old code. MR. STEVENS: I just got the book. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Excuse me. Excuse me, sir. What I'm going to ask you to do is let's stop work on this and when you come to the meeting two weeks from now, make sure that you're satisfied with that. You'll have a copy of it beforehand so that you'll feel comfortable with it, if that would be amenable to you? MR. STEVENS: Very good. CHAIRMAN CARTER; Thank you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So in addition to the direction we're giving on the clarification of the language, we want to ensure that -- to ensure that any developer takes advantage of this floor area ratio computation in using the property as a hotel. In addition to that, which you're going to bring back to us, entirely separate from tonight's hearing, could I ask that you look into this project and find out if the Vanderbilt Beachcomber Resort is something that may be slipping through the cracks inappropriately?. Is there any question? I mean-- CHAIRMAN CARTER: I don't know how they could be doing Page 20 November 29, 2000 this if-- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I would like to know. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I'm really not that clear on where we are with that yet. I don't -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' Isn't that appropriate for us to ask staff? I guess we have to ask you to ask staff. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's the way it works. I've got to be careful. Can we ask you, Mr. -- can I ask you, Mr. Olliff? MR. OLLIFF: You already have. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think the message has been sent from the dais. Thank you, Mr. Stevens. Next item. MR. OLLIFF: I don't have any more speakers, but I need a little clarification in terms of what the Board's direction is on this RT zoning in Vanderbilt and whether or not you are actually directing us to bring you back an amendment that restricts hotel-type developments, as opposed to condominium-type developments in RT districts within the Vanderbilt Beach area. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'll tell you what I would like to see. I would like to see RT as a conditional use. I think that would address the Burt Harris problem, too, because we don't want to take away their rights. But as a conditional use, then we could look at them -- MR. OLLIFF.' But are you talking about hotels in the RT district as a conditional use as opposed -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's what I'm talking about. MR. OLLIFF: Yes, not all RT uses, but you're talking about hotels in the RT district? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's what I mean. MR. NINO: Well, let me understand then, because I thought that your directions were in principle you are agreeing that we need to deal with hotels on small properties differently than is otherwise allowed under the current FARs, but that we need to make sure that the product we get is indeed a hotel, and to achieve that, we will come back to you with a definition that makes -- you know, that has all of the ingredients to require the structure to function as a hotel. That's what I thought you said. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' That's for this cycle. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's for this cycle. For the next cycle, Page 21 November 29, 2000 going to Mr. Olliff and Ms. Mac'Kie, I'm asking that there be some RT restrictions on Gulfshore Boulevard, and I'm taking it further in saying that it should be an RT restriction to condominiums and not allowing for hotels. MR. MULHERE: For the record, Bob Mulhere. There's probably -- there's a couple of ways you could accomplish that, and, of course, if that's the Board's pleasure on Gulfshore Drive, it may also be applicable in other areas, and we certainly would want to look at that as well. One way is to delete the use from the zoning district, but we would have to recognize existing uses and their grandfather rights and so on and so forth. There are some Burt J. Harris implications there. We'd have to look at those. The second way, as I think Commissioner Mac'Kie suggested, is to cause hotels, commercial operations, to be a conditional use, which requires them to come in for a public hearing process in which the neighbors are notified. That's not taking a right away. It's simply restricting that right to a greater degree. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. I could probably go -- would go with that, Bob. I'm looking for the character of that community. I'm looking at, with Grover Cole (sic), coming back and the suggestions that they're making, and for this community to look at that, there may be what we would call the full residential type of hotel in there on a -- on a conditional use. It came back for approval with the input from the neighborhood association that said, you know, everything else is here and, yes, we might allow one or two in. I don't know. Flexibility to allow the neighborhoods to control their destiny. I want to make sure that we have the vehicles there, regardless of whoever sits on this dais, that they are always protected so they have that right. MR. MULHERE: And in developing the criteria associated with that conditional use, there could be additional criteria added that relates to the prevailing development pattern being residential in avocation. MR. OLLIFF: Let me step in here. My suggestion would be, I think, that you direct us to bring you back something at a regular Board meeting that gives us some time to flush this out because, frankly, that's a completely different issue than what we're really dealing with. I'm not sure there's been an opportunity for anybody who's a landowner or anyone else to come in and participate in Page 22 November 29, 2000 this discussion and allow us a chance to make some recommendations to you after actually looking at what the impacts of that might be. So if I could maybe just get a motion and some direction, I would feel a little more comfortable about bringing something back on a regular agenda that we could propose some options for you to consider. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I would like to make a motion then that we give staff direction to review the RT zoning and restrict -- potential restrictions or directions that would be applicable to this zoning on Gulfshore Drive, but I'm not -- I won't even say that -- just overall because there may be other applications. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed by the same sign? There being none, motion carries 5-0. Thank you. *** MR. NINO: The next item on your agenda has to do with an amendment to the mobile home district section of the ordinance, which would allow the option of people who own mobile home lots to construct or to place modular built homes within the mobile home district. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I have no comment. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I think that's a great thing. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yes, I don't have any problem with that. MR. NINO: Everyone is all right with that way of thinking. The next item is the amendment to the Immokalee Overlay District. The Immokalee Overlay District deals primarily with landscaping standards relative to lots of less than 5,000 square feet an acre in size. COMMISSIONER HENNING: What page? MR. NINO: I'm sorry. Page 26 through -- we're dealing with the Immokalee and Jefferson. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Page 62 of our agenda packet, page 26 of his memo. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Sixty-two to 64. MR. NINO: Twenty-six to 34. If you have any specific questions on this amendment, Michelle Mosca is here, who is the architect of these recommendations, but basically it deals with landscaping -- Page 23 November 29, 2000 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What kind of community -- MR. NINO: -- and the prohibition of communication towers within these districts. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What kind of community meetings were there in Immokalee? CHAIRMAN CARTER: Mr. Olliff, do we have speakers on that? MR. OLLIFF: No, sir. MS. MOSCA: Good evening. For the record, Michelle Mosca with your comprehensive planning staff. We originally had public meetings for the Main Street subdistrict. The Immokalee overlay is comprised of six separate subdistricts. Each one will be looked at individually by the comprehensive planning staff. Jefferson and State Road 29 existed back in 1991 and have not yet been looked at individually. The comprehensive planning staff, again, will be doing that in the near future. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: My question is: Do you have any input from the Immokalee community on whether they support or oppose these changes? MS. MOSCA: Not personally, no, ma'am. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Do you know, Mr. Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No, I have heard nothing from Immokalee about this at this point in time. I will carry it back to them. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'd hate to approve it, but I don't have any problem leaving it on for tonight, if it makes sense to me, CHAIRMAN CARTER: Maybe I'll suggest we leave it there tonight. If there's any input in two weeks, they will be back to share it with us. COMMISSION ER COLETTA: COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: information. MS. PRESTON: For the record, Debrah Preston. I was just going to say that the Chamber of Commerce was aware of the changes we were making because it was sort of a house-cleaning procedure. We had the Main Street Overlay adopted the last cycle, and then when it went to implementation, we found that some of the definitions for the landscaping weren't clear enough, and so at this cycle, we wanted to come back in and clean that up for housekeeping I'm sure there will be some input. Plus, they may have more Page 24 November 29, 2000 purposes. And we did mention it to the Chamber of Commerce out there, and they didn't have a problem. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Mr. Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: I have some questions about the communication towers and concerns with facilities of -- like fire stations, EMS stations that require that kind of communication. MS. PRESTON: Basically, the prohibition of the towers only appear in the Main Street subdistricts, which does not -- the towers do not meet the concept of the Main Street area, and that's why they're prohibited. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And it's a small area of property that they are prohibited in. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's the way I understand it. MR. OLLIFF.' In fact, you have a map on page 63 of your agenda package. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is this existing fire station in that district? MS. PRESTON: No, I don't believe it is. It is not. COMMISSIONER HENNING: It is not? MS. PRESTON: No. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' So it's basically on page 63 of our packets. That little outline is the prohibited area for -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: It's not very often I get to Immokalee, so I have to ask. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Most of us do. Me, too. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I'm sure if the EMS or Fire Department or Sheriff's Department had any concern with that, they would have been here telling us they had a concern. MR. OLLIFF: We'll make a note, and I'll have staff double-check and make sure that none of our public safety facilities are within that Main Street overlay district. I'll also make sure we provide a copy of this to certain other community leaders that have participated in some of these Main Street projects to make sure there's no opposition to that. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Would you send a copy to me, please? MR. OLLIFF: Absolutely. *** CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. If we're all right with that, let's move to Bayshore overlay district. Page 25 November 29, 2000 MR. NINO: Bayshore overlay district, Debbie Preston can speak to that. MS. PRESTON: For the record, Debrah Preston with your comprehensive planning section. The item before you today was an overlay for a section along Bayshore Drive to help to encourage mixed use development. On the visualizer, I'll put a colored map, and I believe that map is in your packet on page 36. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Seventy-two of our packet. MS. PRESTON: Okay. Thank you. There are a few things that I would like to mention that were changed since our planning commission meeting. We had originally put in a conditional use provision in the waterfront district and the neighborhood commercial subdistrict, and that was brought to our attention by the Development Services Advisory Committee. They felt that we needed to be careful of the Burt J. Harris Act to make sure that when we were limiting the height in those districts from 100 feet, which would currently be allowed in C-4, to 42 or 56, depending on the use there, that we weren't taking away any rights. And the other issue was that because of the limited waterfront property that we have in the County, they wanted to assure some flexibility in the marina district to be sure if the 42 feet wasn't high enough, someone could come in under conditional use and be granted a slightly higher provision. We had originally used the 100 feet because that's what the C-4 zoning currently allows. Since the Planning Commission Meeting, and after some input we received from the residents, we went back and looked at what the developable space would be on those neighborhood commercial lots. We are also changing some of the setbacks. So in reality, what we're allowing under this provision is that someone can build a larger footprint of a building, and they would maintain the same square footage regardless of the height of the building. So, in fact, they weren't really losing anything, and we wouldn't have to worry about Burt J. Harris. So at this point, we are deleting the 100-foot conditional use provision from the neighborhood commercial district, which is outlined in orange on this, if you can tell the colors. I'm sorry. It's outlined in sort of the purple. And then in the waterfront district, Page 26 November 29, 2000 we have a conditional use provision in there for 50 feet that we left in based on the Development Services Advisory Committee's recommendation for a little bit more flexibility in marina-type uses. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But, again, that's only conditional use. MS. PRESTON: That's correct. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So they can't get that without coming before the County Commission. MS. PRESTON: Right. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And the height maximum in both areas is 42 feet without coming before the Board -- MS. PRESTON: It's 42 feet for commercial only. If you do a mixed use development, which probably wouldn't occur in the waterfront district, the height would be 56 feet. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That would be -- it would not occur on waterfront but would occur -- in potentially neighborhood commercial, what you're saying is if we did a Fifth Avenue kind of residential. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Conditional. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: They got more height without coming in for conditional use? MS. PRESTON: Right. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- we have seen how powerful that tool is. MS. PRESTON: The other change that we would also like to mention is that we need to put an effective date in on this ordinance. This ordinance would not be compatible with our comprehensive plan until the comprehensive plan amendment is adopted. That amendment is coming to the Board on December 12th, and so it will be adopted just prior to this adoption if this goes through. And we have requested to put in the effective date when that comp plan becomes legally effective. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That would be, Margie, after we adopt it, right? We don't have to wait for -- MS. STUDENT: For the ¢omp plan amendments to be legally effective, we have to wait and see if the DCA makes the finding of compliance. If it's found compliant, the wait is 21 days to see. That's the window period in which they have to challenge. So it We want to encourage that kind of Page 27 November 29, 2000 would be the date that these issues of finding of compliance -- which I believe they have -- is it 60 or 30 or 60 days after we adopt? And then there is a 21-day window. That effective date line, it would not apply to the ordinance as a whole. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' The bad news for me -- because I'm cautious to get something fast on Bayshore. We don't want more of the same, and we have a moratorium in place for this property unless it comports with this overlay. So how does that calendar work? MS. STUDENT: Okay. The comp plan, we adopt the comp plan amendment, and then DCA has -- I don't have it with me -- it's either 30 or 60 days to make the finding of compliance because that goes to the legal effectiveness. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's the December 12th -- something. MS. STUDENT: Then we allow the additional 21 days. That's the window period for a challenger. We don't expect one, but we allow that additional time. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So we take that as the 1st of February there? MS. STUDENT: Yes, I would say yes. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: By the first of February, assuming this passes, the comp plan passes, and there are no objections filed to that particular section -- MS. STUDENT: Right. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- then the moratorium will be in effect. MS. STUDENT: I believe that at that point, we would have these development standards for this district. I believe the moratorium covers other areas besides this particular district, as I understand, in the triangle area. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes. MS. STUDENT: So as to this district, these regulations would then control. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So basically, Donna, what happens, because I know you're interested in this, too, is that we have -- right now we're protected. There can't be a trashy development in there right now. By February, we'll have good, new zoning codes in place if all goes well. COMMISSIONER FIALA: That would protect that area? Page 28 November 29, 2000 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yes. MS. PRESTON: I need to make one other point for the Board's information. There is a deed restriction that was enacted for the Gulfshore Subdivision back in 1957, and that subdivision regulation and deed restrictions continue to renew themselves. Our legal staff has been looking at that issue, and we need to continue to look at that. Right now we are recommending that we move that commercial line over one lot to allow for some additional parking opportunities and some better development along commercial. However, until we further research that, we may be, in fact, putting that commercial line back exactly where it is today but just changing the development standards, which will bring the buildings closer to the street and create a better pedestrian environment. There is not a homeowner's association there. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Any input from counsel? MS. STUDENT: Yes, I would like to give you a little background on that. There's a dearth really of case law in Florida that deals with deed restrictions vis-a-vis zoning on the area if we have a conflict in use where the deed restriction has one use that's permitted and the zoning has another, and it can put the property owner in between a rock and a hard place where to do anything, he's going to violate one or the other. And so we have to do some national legal research on this, and there is some constitutional research involved vis-a-vis takings and also impairment of obligation of contract, which deed restrictions are contracts. So we think that by the next meeting we can come up with a creative way to deal with this, and we talked to current planning staff about the idea of using the shared parking or the off-site parking regulations that we have to deal with this issue where the underlying zoning wouldn't change but would still allow the parking, with the idea perhaps of bringing that whole area to you, all of those lots at one time to have the shared parking put on it through the procedure that's established in the code. Unfortunately, as I'm sure Ms. Ma¢'Kie knows, a lot of times the cases tell us what we can't do, but they don't give us clear direction about how to -- what we can do and be creative. So this was something we came up with. Page 29 November 29, 2000 COMMISSIONER COLETTA: A question on the deed restrictions. Is it answerable to some property association or civic association? Who is this answerable to? I know we had one in Golden Gate a long time ago that was a civic association initiative. MS. STUDENT: In this particular case, there is no particular homeowners' association involved. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's the bad news. MS. STUDENT: However, the deed restrictions are considered contractual in nature. So even though there's no homeowners' association, one property owner, if another property owner violated it, could bring an action to enforce a deed restriction against their neighbor, if you will. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Can an association be formed and the property owners be able to remove this deed restriction? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We are still trying to get them to, in fact, I think they're getting closer and closer to forming a neighborhood association. Whether or not -- it probably would take you unanimity to change the restrictions. Nevertheless, we're going to be able to work around that restriction. You can be creative to work around that. I'm not too worried about that yet. MS. STUDENT: Okay. I think we have a solution in the vehicle that I identified, but we'll have an answer by the next meeting, please. MS. PRESTON: I just want to make one other point before we go to public speakers because I think this might release some of the public comment. I did learn tonight that there is another deed restricted community in this area. Again, there's not, I don't think, a homeowners' association, so tomorrow we're going to begin researching those deed restrictions as well, so that the commercial issue might be resolved. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Where is that? MS. PRESTON: That is in Demere Landings, which is right across from Gulfshore, across the creek. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Oh, I didn't know that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, I need to point out you've got about 35 registered speakers here this evening. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yes, sir. MR. OLLIFF: So I feel like we've got to pick it up a little bit. Page 30 November 29, 2000 CHAIRMAN CARTER: We have the right to registered speakers. Thank you. MR. OLLIFF: The first speaker -- you have three on this side. The first is Esther Spink followed by David Woodsworth. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Again, if you will be kind enough, if you're next up, what I call the on-deck circle if you'll come right up here and be ready to speak, we sure appreciate it. MS. SPINK: Good evening. For the record, my name is Esther Spink and I live in Gulfshore Subdivision. No, we do not have a homeowners' association. We were approached about a homeowners' association only once, and that was about six years ago. I want to speak about the building height, and I think that some of our fears have been allayed here tonight. A 100 foot building height is a little out of the question for Bayshore Drive. Then you're talking about driving down a canyon. I also am concerned about the on-street parking. I may be wrong, and I -- please, someone correct me if I'm wrong. I understand they're putting bike paths on Bayshore. MS. PRESTON: If I might answer the question -- Debrah Preston again -- the on-street parking on Bayshore has been eliminated because of the bike paths, and that was done prior to the Planning Commission. We are allowing for some on-street parking on the local streets right in front of the commercial properties. MS. SPINK.' Then that answers all my questions, and I don't have more comments tonight. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you very much. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Is that a good staff or what? CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. MR. OLLIFF: Following David Woodsworth would be -- your last speaker on this item, George Webster. MR. WOODSWORTH: Thank you for this opportunity -- I spoke with a couple of my neighbors. I live in the Gulfshore Subdivision at the -- on Lakeview Drive. It is -- it funnels into a marina at the end of the street, and it's also right across the way from Cricket Lake, which is over 100 units in there. So it's a very busy place in the morning. My contention is that we don't need any more commercial property, and the only way to eliminate it would be to have an overlay, but the overlay for the purpose of transforming that -- the Page 31 November 29, 2000 very small commercial areas into multi-family, which would be a better use of that property. It would also increase the tax revenue from that property that is presently being -- most of the commercial property along Bayshore is under utilized or not even there, I mean, they're vacant lots. Most of the property that could be built can't be built because the property is too small. The planners probably should have told you that. By increasing this commercialization, you're creating something you don't want. This street goes nowhere. Bayshore goes nowhere. It goes to Holly, and there is nothing past Holly. There is no way of getting out. You go out Thomasson Drive, all you can do is make a right. You don't want more traffic in this area. You want less traffic, and the best way is to change Bayshore into a residential corridor, and you could direct your planners to have an overlay that would encourage this, and this property probably within the ten years could turned into a completely residential area with very little commercial property still remaining. The property that is there is not well utilized. That's my comment. There's nobody in Bayshore that wants more commercial property. You look at the Town Center, and you have all of those stores empty, empty. You have more than -- there is enough commercial property along 41. You don't need to bring it down. You don't need to encourage more commercial property along the Bayshore area. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: May I ask one question? Are you suggesting that we take commercial property now and convert it to residential? MR. WOODSWORTH: With an overlay, yes, just what you're doing right here is encourage -- maybe even encouraging -- because the property can't be utilized the way it is. The commercial property is dead. The way it is without an overlay, the way to make it larger, and the same thing, if you allow higher densities of residential property along Bayshore and some along Gulfshore, you could have a very nice development, residential condos, which we don't have any. There are very few condos in this area right now. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I thank you very much. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Commissioner Coletta, I would encourage everybody to -- Debrah Preston could tell us a little of Page 32 November 29, 2000 the history about what kind of -- we hired planners, and we have been through a long process to get here. MS. PRESTON: Yes. Again, Debrah Preston. One thing I would like to point out, in the Gulfshore Subdivision, again, with those deed restrictions, those properties that are right on Bayshore Drive are deed restricted for commercial use. This gentleman is very correct that those properties have been inadequate to give us proper development there. So what this overlay's intent is is to change some of those development standards so we're creating more of a neighborhood commercial-type development where the buildings are closer to the street, and the parking is in the back rather than the side street, and when we had -- Landers, Atkins Planning Group came in last year to work with us. They had identified Halderman Creek as an opportunity to bring more pedestrians in and utilize that waterfront. That was sort of the beginning of this overlay and the steps we have taken so far. So I think we're trying to address this in both ways, one, by changing the development standards to allow for some small neighborhood-type uses. It's currently zoned C-4 which is a very intense commercial use for a neighborhood. We've limited some of those uses, and, again, it's a deed restriction issue. And you have some existing intense marinas down there as well, and we're trying to provide some buffer between some of the residential uses and those commercial uses. MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, your next speaker is George Webster, and I have to apologize. I got some of my 2.2s and 4s and 6s all mixed up here. You have three more speakers on this item. So after Mr. Webster, your next speaker would be Debrah Russell. MR. WEBSTER: My name is George Webster, and I live on Lakeview Drive. My home is in Wisconsin, but my second home is here in Naples. And the reason I'm living in this Lakeshore district is because it's a residential area, and it looked to me that that was the whole intention of creating the canal array between Lakeview Drive and Riverview Drive and Gulfview Drive and Shoreview and Bayview. And it seems -- it really shocked me when I got the notice that the Planning Commission was going to increase the business district in that short stretch of property. It's inappropriate. Page 33 November 29, 2000 This is a residential area, and the fact that the canals are in there, are supposed to serve residents; they're not supposed to serve businesses, any other than a small shop or store. I've got to say the marina that's located between Lakeview and Riverview has really -- to me, it's gotten out of hand. There's an additional lot that's being -- that's being dedicated now to the use of the marina. If they use that for customer parking, well, okay, I can stand it, but I'm willing to bet they're planning to increase their marina storage area. It's a blight. It's -- all I can say is it's a blight on this residential area. And the whole purpose of improving Bayshore was to increase the pleasant residential situation that should exist. That those canals, in that short stretch, I think it's a -- to move the business district three lots further than it was in the original plan, that's an abuse and a blight on residential. I also should say that something is really radically wrong about the amount of traffic that's being carried down Bayshore Drive. People speed. You can't get out from the side streets. It's getting to be a serious problem. I don't know where all of those people are coming from, but they all want to get to work at the same time. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Wisconsin. But that's all right, we would love to have you move here. Based on the way the Packers are playing this year, you may choose to do that. MR. WEBSTER: Thank you. MR. OLLIFF: The next speaker is Debrah Russell, followed by John B. Hall. MS. RUSSELL: Good evening. I'm Debrah Russell. I live on Lakeview Drive, and I'm here tonight to ask you to delete the conditional use from the waterfront district that allows a building of up to 50 feet. In some of the earlier agenda items, you've asked how many neighborhood meetings there have been. My husband and I went to all of the neighborhood meetings, and at every single neighborhood meeting we went to, the maximum building height was 42 feet. It wasn't until at the end of the second meeting before the Planning Commission, when I got a copy of the revised plan, that that plan had a 100-foot limitation in it, which was because of concerns about the Burt Harris Act. I was very pleased to hear that we have it down to 50 feet, but as far as I'm concerned, 50 feet is still too high. I think a picture is worth 1,000 words. First of all, I would like to point out Page 34 November 29, 2000 that one of the purposes of this overlay is to protect and enhance the nearby single family residential units. I live in one of those nearby single family residential units, and I have -- I would like to point or pass this around, an aerial photograph of the area -- one of the waterfront districts we're talking about. This street right in front here is Bayshore Drive. This street coming down here is Lakeview Drive. As you'll see as you pass this around, these are all single family homes on both sides of this canal. We do have an existing marina there. I know the marina was there before I built my house. I'm not asking to do away with the marina or to make the marina residential. I do not want to have a 50-foot boat barn built on lots that are currently zoned residential. Right now under current zoning, those lots are zoned RMF-4 and the maximum building height is 35 feet. So even though we're saying we're going down from 100 feet, what we're actually doing is going up 15 feet. Now, if there is a problem with the Burr J. Harris Act because of the commercial lot in front, well, I think what you need to look at there is the fact that we are giving commercial property owners a lot of benefits. We're relaxing the setback requirements. Under the current zoning that allows a 100 foot building, the front setback requirement is 50 feet. Under the zoning overlay, it would be 5 feet. The rear side, back setback under the current zoning, which allows 100 feet, is 40 feet. There would be 25 feet under the zoning overlay, and the side setback requirement, under current zoning, 100 feet, is 40 feet. It would be 5 feet unless it abuts residential property, in which case, it would be 15 feet. Now in the waterfront district, there is a requirement that if it's abutting residential property, it has to have a 20-foot landscape buffer, but I don't think a landscape buffer of 20 feet is going to do much to go ahead and disguise a 50-foot building. And I understand that that's a conditional use, but my concern is I have been to every neighborhood meeting. I've been to meet with Pam Mac'Kie, with Debrah Preston. I have been to the Planning Commission meeting, and I don't want to start going through this all over again because we've opened up a loophole which is going to allow a taller building, on a building that's currently zoned residential. I would like to point -- pass this around for you to take a look, and it's these buildings, Page 35 November 29, 2000 these two lots here, and then, of course, it would also apply to these two lots on the other side of the canal. CHAIRMAN CARTER: If you want that back, I must remind you that once you give that to us, it becomes public record. MS. RUSSELL: Oh, that's fine. I would like that to be part of the public record. That's why I had this done. CHAIRMAN CARTER: If you wanted to take that away now, I can give it back to you. MS. RUSSELL: No, that's quite all right. Now, the other thing that I thought would help, you can see on the aerial shot, you can see the one telephone pole. Here it is, a close-up shot, showing right here is the landscaping for the house right next to it. This marks the property line, and you can see, as this gentleman that spoke before me mentioned, we already have problems with boat trailers and everything parking on those lots. This shows it. This kind of pulls away from it again, and I would just like to pass this out, so that you can see the lots that are going to be affected. And, again, these can become part of the public record. Now, sometimes it's difficult when you read about how tall is 50 feet and what exactly is that going to do? I would like to go ahead and kind of fix in your mind how tall 50 feet is. I think everybody is aware of the furor that was -- may I continue? CHAIRMAN CARTER: I'll give you a chance to wrap up. MS. RUSSELL: Thank you. The new boat barns at the bridge at River Point, those are 48 feet tall. This conditional use would allow a building 2 feet taller. One final comment, Bill Taylor from the City Planning Department told me that that 48-foot building was built under a 42 foot maximum building height code because the 42 foot maximum building height was based on the high watermark and because they did not start the building based on the high watermark, they were able to build a 48 foot building. So I ask that this be sent back. That we go ahead and specifically mention how the maximum building height is supposed to be measured and also delete the conditional use for 50 feet. I thank you very much. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Next speaker?. MR. OLLIFF: The next speaker is John Hall, followed by what I think is the last speaker, John Emory, on this item. Page 36 November 29, 2000 MR. HALL: Hi. My name is John Hall, and I live at 2998 Cypress Street, and Cypress Street is -- dead ends on the canal, and it's part of Demere's Landing and proposed in the overlay is some commercial use on this street. Now, Debrah has just said that she thinks there is a deed restriction, and so my concerns may be met by that and I'll just say thank you for your time. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you, sir. MR. EMORY: Hi. John Emory. I'm a homeowner on Becca, Lots 43 and 44. It's my understanding my immediate neighbor to the east's property may be zoned commercial. It's the corner of Bayshore and Becca. There's a big lot on the corner. Needless to say, I'm against it, and if I wanted to live next door to a commercial enterprise in a neighborhood with poor zoning, I would have stayed in Houston. Our street, Becca, is already a high speed shortcut, much like Estey is over here in Brookside business on the north part of Bayshore, I believe, would make it worse, although I believe Becca is a model street for some of the other Bayshore neighborhoods, and I would like to keep that north part of Bayshore residential. And thank you very much. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Does that conclude our public speakers on this item? MR. OLLIFF: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Could I give just some suggestions on this topic? I was persuaded when we had to put in a conditional use for 100 feet because of Burt J. Harris, but I'm hard pressed to understand why we need to leave 50 feet flexibility, conditional use for the waterfront. I'm dubious of that as well and wonder if -- I mean, I would like to have that on the table. I'm not sure we have to do that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Counselor?. MS. STUDENT: I can address that. In that district, it wasn't a Burt Harris. It was an equal protection issue because the other marinas in the area -- because of Burt Harris having gone from C-4, but I think we can make a distinction, though, between the two, is one being the side streets and the other being along, you know, the main area. I think we can make a distinction and eliminate that, but I do -- maybe staff can help me here. The subcommittee for the Land Development Code from DSAC, I think, Page 37 November 29, 2000 wanted that flexibility in there, so I just wanted to make -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I understand they're saying they might want it, and I'm willing to listen to staff, if you're telling me in the design of a marina you need more flexibility, but I don't really understand why. Boy, that boat barn picture sure got my attention. I don't want it. MS. PRESTON: I think from staff's point of view a little bit of flexibility might be all right for a marina just because there might be some standards for some boat barns. I do understand the concern for the people that live in Gulfshore Subdivision and because it is on a local street. We do have two other waterfront districts in there. One is -- and both of them being in the Halderman Creek area, this one and this one here. We might want to distinguish the 50-foot conditional use only for those two areas that are on Halderman Creek. That way they still have to come forth for the public hearing process and make sure it's compatible or if the Board chooses to eliminate the conditional use provision for additional height, staff would be fine with that as well. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The only place I think it may be inappropriate is where it abuts that residential property, so it might work in the other two. MS. PRESTON: I guess one thing, though, on the one that is across from Halderman Creek, you do have residential right along that street as well. So the Board might choose just to eliminate that condition. CHAIRMAN CARTER: What is the residential height restriction? MS. PRESTON: Next to the commercial along Bayshore, that is actually zoned RMF or RMF-6, which doesn't have a height limitation, but it limits it to three habitable floors. The RSF-4 which is further down the street has a 35-foot height limit. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Would that give us some flexibility and work for the neighborhoods if we operated within that type of framework for compatibility, design, community character?. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, 42 would work with that, but 50 might not. MS. PRESTON: I think it's all right to have a step down from the commercial into the residential, but your concerns might be noted and just leave it at the 42 for commercial only. Page 38 November 29, 2000 COMMISSIONER HENNING: use? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: conditional use. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Excuse me. This is conditional To go over 42 would require They have to come before the Board anyway. So, you know, you get another chance to take a look at it. CHAIRMAN CARTER: You're right, Commissioner. I guess what I'm always looking for is long-range criteria within a whole community so that regardless of who sits here in these positions, you know, there is a pattern here, and they don't start to violate that in the future. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Kind of draw a picture of what you expect. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Draw a picture of what you expect. So that's what I was looking for here. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right. I understand that and appreciate it, but I don't think we can tie future board's hands. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think we can set standards for the community regardless of who is on the Board. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Is there such a thing as a variance from height? MS. PRESTON: I'll let Margie answer. MS. STUDENT: Yes, probably-- maybe Mr. Nino could address it more specifically, but I do recall in some districts there is a height variance. Is that correct, Ron? MR. NINO: Yes, there is a -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' If somebody gets in a crisis, let them come in under a variance, which is really strict criteria, really tough, but still they could come in, but not as a conditional use, which kind of hints at an approval. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think that would address your concerns. COMMISSIONER HENNING: That would be great. CHAIRMAN CARTER: All right. We're moving to the next item. Madam Reporter, how are you doing? She needs to change paper. I'm going to call five minutes so everybody can stretch because the next one does have several speakers, and you will be here for a while. Page 39 November 29, 2000 (Whereupon, a brief recess was taken.) *** MR. NINO: The next item that's before you is a proposed Goodland zoning overlay district. You may recall there -- and there are two amendments which affect the Goodland community before you tonight. The one in particular has to do with limiting the number of habitable stories that may occur in a residential structure within a 35-foot height limit, plus revisions to development standards recognizing the fact that many existing properties in the Goodland area are nonconforming. These regulations are proposed as an overlay zoning district. The idea of a Goodland overlay zoning district, to give you some historical perspective, began with the BCC directing planning services staff to work with the Goodland community to explore the development of special land regulations for the Goodland area. A member of our staff acted as a technical advisor to the Goodland Civic Association. This activity included a survey of all households in Goodland. The results of the survey indicated the desire to control height, deal with nonconforming properties, prohibit commercial development, and address parking requirements and some other community character issues. The survey did not ask, nor produce specific standards for an overlay zoning district. Following last summer's recess, staff determined that the Goodland Civic Association wished to pursue an overlay zoning district that dealt with the issue of regulating the number of stories that may be placed in a residential building in the VR zoning district and establishing lot standards in the VR district that would remove the nonconforming status of a great many of the existing developed VR properties. I should remind you that the previous Board, when it last considered the issue of height and habitable floors, agreed not to change the height of buildings, which is 35 feet, but to require that no more than three habitable floors be allowed within the dimensional height limitation of 35 feet. Even under the proposed amendment, the height limitation of 35 feet will not change. In view of yesterday's decision regarding the thrust of the purpose and intent statement, staff is concerned that this regulation does not adequately address the purposes and intent statement as now interpreted by the Board. Staff is of the opinion Page 40 November 29, 2000 that it cannot deal with any future applications for development in this uncertain and subjective environment without further clarification of what is meant by tropical fishing village and village residential character. For this reason, we suggest you may want to consider the companion moratorium amendment so as to allow staff the time to develop a more comprehensive and definitive plan of development for Goodland. With that, you may want to entertain speakers. CHAIRMAN CARTER: We have 20 speakers? MR. OLLIFF: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Again, on-deck circle please. If someone has made the point, and you feel it has been effectively covered, I would appreciate if you might limit your comments to something we haven't already heard. So let's call the speakers. MR. OLLIFF: I'll call them in the order I got them. The first one is Richard Yovanovich, followed by Julian Stokes. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Remember, you always have five minutes, ladies and gentlemen. MR. YOVANOVICH: Good evening, commissioners. For the record, Rich Yovanovich representing the -- representing Goodland, LLC, which is an owner of -- one of -- I guess until last night the only vacant parcel on Goodland that is zoned VR. I have with me Julian Stokes, who is an appraiser who specializes in appraising and advising clients on development options for their property and also Wayne Arnold, a professional planner. And with your indulgence, we'll go through -- we will explain to you why we believe that the best alternative at this time is a "do nothing" alternative, and let us work with the community to come up with a win-win situation for everybody. That would include our not doing anything on the property while we're working with the community. We think the decision to change the code needs to be made based on facts and not on emotional issues, such as what's going to happen to our community. They can be related, and we understand people's desire to protect their community, but they need to look at what do regulations do to other property owners within the community. What we have done is we have looked at the proposed change to the code, which currently reads you're allowed three Page 41 November 29, 2000 residential floors over one of parking, and that was decided about a year ago. Through the same process, the then sitting County Commissioners decided that three residential floors over one of parking within the 35-foot height does, in fact, meet the needs of Goodland, and that decision was made. The people of Goodland, through -- some of the people from Goodland through the Civic Association do not agree with that standard and are proposing a change to two residential floors over one of parking. What does that do to the Goodland, LLC parcel, which is a little over two acres? It does nothing theoretically to density, theoretically. Unfortunately practically it does, and that's what I believe the people of Goodland really are trying to do, is limit density on the VR property. What that does is it reduces the density that could be constructed on the property approximately a reduction of 10 and more likely 12 units. We will lose because of the two over one standard, because you cannot build an appropriate project with proper amenities and proper open space that's marketable, and Mr. Stokes will take you through that and explain to you that the implications to that property is a loss of density and units and that's a valuable property right to any property owner. As you know, the Florida Legislature did adopt the Burt Harris Act to protect property owners from changes in government regulations that could inordinately burden them for the benefit of the community. What we believe is happening is there's been a change to the regulations to benefit the people of Goodland to the detriment of Goodland LLC, and that detriment is a minimum of one-half a million dollars in value because of the loss for the units. That's a significant amount of money that this -- that my client is being requested to give up to implement this regulation. We feel confident that we will prevail in a Burt Harris claim for at least that amount of money. As a resident living in Collier County, I hope you're not going to have me share in the responsibility of paying that amount of money back to the client. I hope you will focus that responsibility on the people of Goodland since it's a regulation that's to benefit them. So I think what we need to do is let the people of Goodland decide through some kind of a vote, do they want to pay for the implementation of this regulation before you adopt a regulation that they may Page 42 November 29, 2000 ultimately have to pay for?. There is a win-win solution as I suggested to you. We don't have it on the visualizer, but if you could put the visualizer up it shows where the property is located. You will see that there is a little bit more than a two-acre parcel immediately adjacent to it. Currently -- that's currently zoned RSF-4. Goodland, LLC owns that as well as the three commercial parcels immediately adjacent to the VRPs. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Could somebody show us where that is? MR. YOVANOVICH: I just need another minute, if you can give me another minute. I'm talking about, right here is the commercial pieces, this is the VRPs and this is RSF-4Ps. What we're proposing to do is to come to you with a PUD for the entire property owned by Goodland, LLC. By coming to you with a PUD, we can address the issues we need to address, which is open space, height, and allow us to maintain our current density that we could have under the current zoning. So the PUD would not ask for any additional density. We would keep our density, while we're going through the process, it's a public process, we would allow the people from Goodland to comment on our proposed use, and we would limit the height of the structures to two residential floors over one of parking. That is exactly what the Goodland people have asked for. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's fabulous. MR. YOVANOVICH: What we will have to do, though, is we will spread some of the units onto the RSF piece. We will combine to come up with a master planned community that meets everybody's desires. We've heard the community. They want two over one. We will give them two over one. We would like it to be in the 35 feet, so we can do some architecturally nice things. We will include in the PUD some architectural standards to give you what is a, quote, fishing village. This can be the planning mechanism for the community, so they can get exactly what they want, maintain the fishing village character. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Would you make the commitment on the record today that you would not seek an approval for development other than a PUD application? MR. YOVANOVICH: That's what we would do, but we want a Page 43 November 29, 2000 commitment from the County and the people of Goodland to work with us to go through the process at a quick -- at a relatively quick pace to move this along. We want to work with the community. We've always said that. Our concern has always been what is going to happen to the value of our property, and we have gone out and we've spent the money to actually analyze this. There have been several comments. Now, people have said they can make plenty of money. With all due respect to these people, they're not experts in the field. CHAIRMAN CARTER: You need to wrap up. I know where you're going, Rich. You're saying to us that you will do a PUD. You would like to involve the community with the discussion of that character design, and that PUD would encompass the VR and RSF-4 sections. MR. YOVANOVICH.' As well as the commercial. We'll bring everything in on one -- one master planned project. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: With the two over one? MR. YOVANOVICH: With the two over one. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Two over one, not to exceed 35 feet. MR. YOVANOVICH: Not to exceed 35 feet, and we have Mr. Stokes here to explain to you in detail, if you want to, how we came up with -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Is he signed up as a separate speaker?. MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. MR. YOVANOVICH: As well as Wayne Arnold to make a presentation. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Thank you. MR. OLLIFF: The next speaker is Julian Stokes, followed by Wayne Arnold. MR. STOKES: For the record, my name is Julian Stokes. I'm with the firm Appraisal Research Corporation. I can make this relatively quick because what I'm going to say is redundant and nothing more than support to what Mr. Yovanovich said. The basis for my analysis was looking at the parcel of property that's zoned VR, trying to determine what we could put on that property based on reducing the development envelope from three stories over parking to two stories over parking and still remain an economic entity that we can sell to the market. Page 44 November 29, 2000 The bottom line is that the minimum square footage that is marketable is right around 1500 square feet. Based on this, Mr. Arnold has determined that we would lose 10 to 12 dwelling units on the VR property. At that loss, I have come up with a conservative determination, which is preliminary to an out-and-out appraisal of approximately half a million dollars. That's all I have to say. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That would be moot if we can solve this problem. MR. STOKES: Correct. That's why I wanted to keep it short. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Next speaker, please. MR. OLLIFF: The next speaker is Wayne Arnold. Following Mr. Arnold will be Anne Hess. MR. ARNOLD: Hi. Wayne Arnold representing Goodland, LLC. I think that you've heard Rich lay out the proposal, and you also heard Mr. Stokes confirm that we do have a diminution in value that purports to build it two stories over one story of parking on the VR zoned parcel. The compromise position, which we think is a win-win, permits us to take the PUD and spread these units out, if you will, through all parts of the property under the two-story maximum height at 35 feet. I think it does require, obviously, us working with the County Commission and the residents of Goodland. I think we do need to understand this would be seen as an in-fill parcel, if you will, because we are -- if you have driven to Goodland -- and I'm sure all of you have and you've seen the aerial photographs -- this particular piece of property has commercial structures on its frontage along County Road 92 and you have a commercial marina that's in the City of Marco Island adjacent to us on the west with 50-foot high boat storage buildings and more to come as they fill up that space. This parcel technically qualifies under your comp plan to be zoned commercial. It's zoned VR, RSF-4, and C-4, and what we're talking about doing is not intensifying the site but merely trying to give what we all like in a planned development, which is a master plan for the project that we all understand and can live with. I think that this clearly is a benefit for those folks on Goodland who have continually said for two years, what we really want is two over one. They've even said, we don't even care what the stuff looks Page 45 November 29, 2000 like as long as it's two over one, but we do care what it looks like because we know there is a certain salability to something that looks good, but we also know that if given the right opportunity to make this a master planned community, we can make this a viable project that everyone benefits from. Again, I think we have to couch this in terms of an infill development, if you will. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The significance of that, are you talking about adding density -- adding -- I mean, I'm just looking for whether -- MR. ARNOLD: The significance here is to go with the PUD zoning in Collier County, if you're outside of an activity center, you need to be -- I think Bob will confirm it's ten acres. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Unless you're infill. MR. ARNOLD: The property-- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. ARNOLD: This particular piece of property is slightly over five acres in total, but it is less than ten. To make this commitment, we need the indication that we can be viewed. It has been done in other places that are less obvious as infill, but I want to make sure that's on the record, that we can be viewed in that respect. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The only net effect of that is that you're allowed to apply for a PUD even though you're less than ten acres. MR. ARNOLD: That's correct. MR. OLLIFF: The next speaker is Anne Hess, followed by Vivian Holland. MS. HESS: Good evening, again. I wanted to just say that Goodland is a historic community, and we have among many of our buildings, buildings that were moved there from Caxambas, and that are worthy of being saved. I think in this overlay we want to carefully consider what we do in relation to the historic structures that we have. The character of the village needs to be thought of in that sense. We do care what things look like, very much so. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. Next speaker?. MR. OLLIFF: The next speaker is Vivian Holland, followed by Edward Fullmer. MS. HOLLAND: Good evening. My name is Vivian Holland. I'm a member of the Goodland Civic Association Board, also an Page 46 November 29, 2000 11-year full-time resident of Goodland and hopefully a lifetime resident of Goodland. Before I make my presentation, I would like to comment on one thing Mr. Yovanovich and Mr. Arnold both said about working with the community. We have asked since the beginning, two years ago when Dolphin Cove was first proposed, that these people come, and we have invited them to work with us in the community to get something that was acceptable to all of us. That has not happened, and it's not been for lack of our trying. So I want to make that clear. We would very much like to work with these people to get something that's good for all of us. If that can happen, you know, that would be great. First, I'm here to request -- now, I'm here to request amendments to the Land Development Codes for Goodland. The amendment request you have was generated by the Planning Services Department. As we told the Planning Commission at the last two meetings when we met with them, that this request does not fully reflect the request of the people of Goodland. It does not reflect all of what we are asking for in this current cycle. The request before you shows a change in allowable habitable floors from three to two over parking and VR, and a change in lot widths from 60 feet to 45 feet wide with 4,275 square foot in VR in order to make the lots legally conforming lots. Planning staff prepared what is before you. Our request is that habitable floors be changed from three to two over parking in VR. That height for multi-family structures in VR be lowered from 35 feet to 30 feet to be consistent with the VR single family height of 30 feet and to make all VR residential lots in Goodland legally conforming lots. This is all we are addressing in this LDC cycle. We have been asking for reduction in height since February of '99. We were told then we could not address height at that time but could address number of floors. That is why in June of '99 we came before you asking for reduction in numbers of floors allowed, but not height. We have always wanted height reduced. Height has been a priority issue with all of our residents. Planning Services told us we could not address height this cycle but had to wait until June 2001 to give us time for more public meetings. Page 47 November 29, 2000 We do not need more meetings. We have had meetings for a year and a half about height, and we want it changed in this cycle. We need to protect the village from development of multi-family units that will drastically increase the population of our village. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Next speaker, please? MR. OLLIFF: The next speaker is Edward Fullmer, followed by Connie Stegall Fullmer. MR. FULLMER: My name is Edward J. Fullmer, vice-president and acting president of Goodland Civic Association. This has been a long two-year fight, but I welcome the words from Wayne Arnold and Mr. Yovanovich tonight because this is what we wanted to do two years ago. It has been a long, hard battle. That's why I'm gray now. I wanted to be here yesterday to welcome you new commissioners. From the job you did yesterday, I think we're in for a great commission for the next four years. You did a good job. The vote last night was one big leap ahead to preserve Goodland. We've got to take another big leap and get over the overlay. If you don't adopt these things that Vivian just talked about, then we would like to have a moratorium until the overlay is done at the next June cycle. In the meanwhile, we want to meet with Rich and his client and development services and bring it to the people of Goodland. The Goodland Civic Association is only a map down there. The people in that town tell us what to do. We had a survey sent out by the County Commissioners, and I heard references before about, well, we only got 49 percent back. Only 50 percent of America voted for a president that we don't have yet. So our 49 percent vote was consistent with the rest of the United States. I thank you. I don't want to belabor it. It's a pleasure, and I will sit down with anybody to keep Goodland the way it is and discuss the advancement and the future of Goodland. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you that you're not recounting your survey and recounting and recounting. MR. OLLIFF: Connie Stegall Fullruer to be followed by Joseph Curcie. MS. FULLMER: My name is Connie Stegall Fullmer. I am here as an officer of the Goodland Civic Association to represent the members and residents of the village. On the overhead that Ron Page 48 November 29, 2000 just put up, it's an overhead layout of the lots of Goodland. These are the properties we're most concerned about for the development, the ones that are marked in red on the left-hand side, the two-acre tract of land that's zoned VR, the larger parcel of land at the bottom that's zoned VR that's five acres, and over on the water side, deep water side of Goodland, a number of lots that are VR that are likely for development. The total units that can go on those lots, the two-acre tract can have 30 units. The five-acre tract can have 76 units. The seven parcels over on the water side could be almost 13 units. That's 129 units. If you average it four units per -- four people per unit, that's 620 people just on those parcels of land that we're talking about. We're asking for these amendments in this LDC cycle because developers are pushing at the door for very near-term development, and permits will certainly be in place by June of 2001, which is the next LDC cycle, and we will have lost the opportunity to protect the village. We're very happy to hear some comments we heard already, that the developers are interested in meeting with the people of Goodland and we're anxious to do that. I do want to point out that the owner of the two-acre tract, lot purchased that property in April of 1999 fully knowing the controversies regarding these issues. So the Burt Harris issue may or may not be a concern here because in April of 1999, they were fully aware of these issues. Two hundred twelve of the 465 lots in Goodland, nearly 50 percent of the land is VR, which allows the 15.2 units per acre. We, again, strenuously stress that this request is to protect us from near-term development, but also very importantly to protect us when redevelopment begins. Looking again at the overhead, all of those lots marked in blue are VR. They're currently developed, but we have concerns about what happens to those when they're redeveloped. The road into Goodland, the infrastructure of Goodland, the surrounding waterways, and the ecosystem of Goodland cannot absorb the density that would come about from multi-family structures of three floors. We understand that density can only be changed in the comprehensive plan and we did not address that because of timing. We could not address the comprehensive plan then, but we believe the density can be reduced by using the Page 49 November 29, 2000 height and the floors allowed in VR through the LDC amendment. The representatives of the property owners who want to develop multi-family buildings are going to argue and they have commented on this. They will argue before you that a taller structure will be more aesthetically pleasing and provide more green space than the long spread out building they say they would be forced to build in order to get their maximum density. Property values in Goodland have doubled and tripled in the past three years. They would not build something on that land that will not be aesthetically pleasing just to get their density. Price points will be high because of the property cost, and it will have to be aesthetically pleasing to be marketable at high prices. We ask for your vote to amend to two floors over parking in VR, to change height from 35 to 30 in VR, and to make all VR and residential lots in the village conforming legal lots. If you are not able to vote in this session for these amendments, we're then asking that a building moratorium for multi-family development in VR be put into place until we can change the comprehensive plan to amend density. Again, our concern is height and density, not forgetting that the heights we"re talking about, the 35 and 30 feet are -- do not take into consideration the FEMA issue. When these buildings end up -- this is all flood plain area, when these buildings end up being built, they will be more than 35 feet. They will be 47 feet or whatever the number of feet is that gets them up above FEMA. Keep in mind when you're talking about all of these issues and you're reviewing, we"re talking about VR, not just these people that the representatives came up here tonight to speak to you, we're talking about the five-acre tract of land, the lots over on the deep river side of Goodland, and all of the undeveloped parcels -- all of the developed parcels of land in VR. Thank you very much. MR. OLLIFF-' The next speaker is Joseph Cur¢ie, followed by Steve Camacho. MR. CURCIE: Good evening. My name is Joe Curcie, and I'm a long-time resident of Goodland, Florida. I've owned every type of property there is to own there. In fact, one of my corporations developed probably two-thirds of Goodland over 30 years ago. I have owned every type of property there is down in Goodland from residential, single family, multi-family, village residential, and also Page 50 November 29, 2000 commercial property. I'm here to tell you that the Goodland Civic Association does not speak for me. There has been quite a commotion down there, caused amongst the people that live there, by the people I know, that feel like it's a minority of the town. They do not speak for everybody in the town there, and I am opposed to a moratorium. I'm opposed to an overlay. I'm opposed to restricting density, much more decreasing density, and I would ask that you respectfully respect the property owners' rights in that area down there. Thank you. MR. OLLIFF: The next speaker is Steve Camacho, followed by David Law. MR. CAMACHO: Thank you. My name is Steven Camacho, and I'm a lifetime resident of Goodland, Florida. My family is eight generations on Marco Island. My grandfather is Captain Bill Collier. I spoke at the Planning Board meeting we had a few weeks back, and it was my understanding that at that time it was understood by the Planning Board that we did not have a vocal vote of all of the residents of Goodland, just some proponents regarding this overlay. It was my understanding that we also were going to table this and look at this in October or November and focus on all of the zoning areas of Goodland. I would like for you to really consider that before we go forth with the overlay so everybody is on the same page with this. It's going to affect a lot of different people in a lot of ways. More importantly, with the issues at hand of the commercial development and commercial property owners, I think we have to take a hard look at this. All the people have property rights, and there are some compromises here, I think, that can be accomplished between the parties, and as a resident of Goodland, I invite that. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Next speaker, please? MR. OLLIFF: The next speaker is Mr. Law, followed by Elhanon Combs. MR. LAW: Good evening. My name is David Law. I'm a property owner of Goodland. I am here to tell you that I do not think that the overlay should go into Goodland. I think Goodland has survived for many years as it is today. To impose more rules on the small community that we live in, I think it's just going to Page 51 November 29, 2000 bring more residents at arms at each other, more than the way it is today. I think today it's probably a small majority of people that want to change Goodland. Most of the people who have lived there for quite a few years kind of like it the way it is and the way it has been. I am not for the reduction of height of two over parking. We voted last year three over parking with the commissioners. I think that was a good vote. The majority of the people respected that vote, and they still respect that vote with three over. Therefore, I would say to you to think about this zoning overlay very carefully. I think it's a very serious matter, and I think it could bring some deep problems to Goodland, more than anything else. I appreciate it. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. MR. OLLIFF: Following Mr. Combs, the next speaker would be Clyde Cameron. MR. COMBS: Good evening, afternoon, or something anyway. My name is Elhanon Combs. I own some -- we own property in Goodland. I want to thank these ladies. Three of them was here and stayed late last night, and the way they presented Goodland, I think they painted a good picture of Goodland. This one lady, she surprised -- surprised me. I have been trying to get something done for the last 20 years that she got done in five minutes, and -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Actually, it was about 11 hours and 55 minutes of us sitting here, but they were very, very forceful and everyone heard what they had to say. MR. COMBS: I agree with zoning laws, and I try my best to conform with all of the zoning. The only problem I've got with Collier County is the staff. If one would get on the staff to give you the right answers to zoning problems, instead of getting us into the problems that we have right now, we would be a lot better off. I think we should settle down a little bit and get this over with and get somebody that is in zoning that knows what they're talking about. Thank you. MR. OLLIFF: The next speaker is Mr. Cameron, followed by Pam Stoppelbein. MR. CAMERON: I apologize for my laryngitis, but I've really got a problem. I'm a commercial fisherman. That's a bad deal because of no crab traps or anything. I also own a major piece of C-5 commercial in Goodland. Hopefully, my children will not have Page 52 November 29, 2000 somebody degraded or -- I signed the papers long ago for nothing over a couple of three stories. I put in riprap seawalls because I'm a true fisherman. I love Goodland. I would like to see Goodland pretty, stay like it is, but this is 2000, so here we are. I even dressed up like a Yankee to come up here. Can you imagine being -- I mean, I hate that these people in the Civic Association -- ain't none of them come over to my house and tried to talk to me. I put a red tag on my shirt and sit in front of them at the civic meetings. I'll tell you like it is. What I'm saying, you-all, Goodland has been doing pretty good. I know what density is. What I'm telling you is it's been doing fine. All of these new people that move in, I want one of them to tell me I have complained about them. I'm busy running around arranging everything, getting my posts in high and trying to make them all happy, but when you are in a crab boat all day or half a day, you don't have time to be coming up here and doing this. All I want to do is make a living and let Goodland be Goodland. What I like is tropical fishing. It was fishing village residential. That's how come the lot I bought behind the stands - it was C-4, but I didn't know the company had means. They changed it to VR. I bought it so I'd have a place to put my traps. I put up fences. You know, everybody likes to eat them. But they doesn't like to smell them or look at them. I just -- Goodland is Goodland. Let's leave it like that. Thank you. MR. OLLIFF: Following Pam Stoppelbein will be Katherine Kirk. MS. STOPPELBEIN: You see what we're trying to protect. We are totally unique. I'm Pain $topplebein speaking as an officer of the Goodland Civic Association on behalf of the majority of our members. You'll have to check the percentages of the surveys that you have. We appeared before you to officially ask for a zoning overlay to protect the items that were shown to be of greatest concern when all of our residents, not just the association members, responded to the official survey sent by the Planning Services staff. We previously provided you with copies of the original 40 questions submitted by our citizens in February, along with a copy of the official vote of the Goodland survey overlay results completed in June. Please note that we're only discussing VR property. Page 53 November 29, 2000 At present, we have six to eight owners of commercial property who are concerned that it will be affected. We want to make it clear that that's not the case, unfortunately, a lot of these individuals have not attended our zoning meetings, the overlay meetings, and it's just not totally clear. We want to make it clear. It's just VR. Since time is of the essence, if we're to protect ourselves from imminent development in VR, staff recommended we proceed in this cycle with the three items receiving overwhelming support and return later to flush out smaller, less important items, such as signage, parking and storage of commercial vehicles, boats, and crab traps during the next cycle if it's voted on by the community. These three items are to limit future development only in the village residential district to two habitable floors over parking, reduce the height limit from 30 feet to 35, and ask the minimum lot requirements be reduced to accommodate our largely nonconforming status in the VR district. We're aware of three VR parcels that can be developed into multi-family housing at the present, but also are concerned about future redevelopment. Since there has been some confusion over the height issue, I'll address that starting with the zoning meetings that commenced in January of this year. We've had a total of 14 publicized meetings exclusively to cover the zoning overlay. The main thrust by our citizens has been to reduce height and limit habitable floors all along. I highlighted those items in the copies we gave you that we felt were most important regarding height in those two questionnaires. As I hope you noticed, the language in those documents referred to reducing height as well as to number of floors. During the September 14th overlay meeting, we received the proposed change that reduces the height from three levels to two and reduces the minimum lot area. Height is mentioned in the reason section of that proposal but not specified in the official change section that would provide official language to legally reduce the height. We want to make it perfectly clear that reducing the height from 35 to 30 feet is just as important as reducing the habitable floors from three to two in order to maintain a low-rise profile. Limiting the height to 30 feet would provide a builder with Page 54 November 29, 2000 flexibility of designing a pleasing roof line such as the hip or gable roof and still have room for cathedral ceilings or lofts. Hopefully, those designs would increase profit and resale value since the building would be more aesthetically pleasing to everyone. We have had three overlay meetings, an additional one unattended by staff since that September 14th meeting when we strenuously objected to the omission of a specific height limit. It's our request that the Land Development Code be amended to contain an overlay district and the language presented for your approval regarding the village residential only, include a height restriction of 30 feet from :35, along with reducing habitable floors to two over parking, from three over parking, and reduction of minimum lot area to make them conforming. And that particular parcel that they're discussing there, remember, that is at the gateway of our village, and that is of utmost concern. The Dolphin Cove property is still pending. There is another waterfront property and the possible redevelopment issue, so there are several areas of great concern in our VR. Thank you for your consideration. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Next speaker, please. MR. OLLIFF: The next speaker is Katherine Kirk followed by Dennis Balante, I think. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And following Ms. Kirk? MR. OLLIFF: Dennis Balante followed by Ray Bozicnik. MR. BALANTE: Good evening. My name is Dennis Balante. I have a commercial piece of property in Goodland. I have only been there a year, but I invested a lot of money there. I'm not for the change. So that's all I want to say, so, thank you. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you, Dennis. MR. BOZICNIK: Ray Bozicnik. I'm in Goodland for many years, and good evening commissioners. It's a pleasure to be here, I believe. I wish I could be as casual as Butch is. It seems that he has a wonderful way of expressing himself with the fact that once you are entrenched in a place for as long as some of us have been, we are slaves to what we have been zoned, and to have that changed underneath our feet in the process because we don't have enough time to spend paying attention to all of the problems that we are facing that we didn't even know we had makes it very difficult for us. And we would like things to stay the Page 55 November 29, 2000 way they are. I thought I was -- I was very happy to hear the lady with LLC or the LLC people have a compromise position available. I thought that was wonderful they did that for our town, and hopefully you will leave things the way they are. I am very concerned about the commercial property that I own that we tack heights on different properties. I would be the next person to be singled out and degrade the value of my property. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. MR. OLLIFF: That's all your speakers, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN CARTER: All right. Mr. Nino? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: This is an easy one; isn't it? CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yes. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It sounds like we're unanimous to all with a two over one. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Let me set it straight for the record, that staff is not opposed to you adopting the regulations that are before you, and in view of the proposal or negotiated PUD, we certainly have no reason to support the moratorium position. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I would like to ask you a question. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Question for you, Mr. Nino, by Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Just to verify actually, I see the only objections I've heard this evening were from commercial property owners, but then I heard one of the residents say, this overlay does not -- does not in any way compromise the commercial properties. We're only talking residential; is that correct? MR. NINO: That is correct. That is correct, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Do we need to make any kind of finding on the record? I mean, I see Rich hovering over there. He's getting nervous. Do we need to do anything to confirm that we -- that they're going to do nothing with their property except apply for a PUD that will have a unified development plan for all of the property that his client owns without seeking an increase of density with a commitment -- well, we don't even need your commitment because by tonight we're going to impose a two over one. MS. STUDENT: I think that we have that commitment on the record, and it would operate like other commitments that are made that maybe are outside of something written and, for Page 56 November 29, 2000 example, on a PUD rezone situation, I think we have that commitment, and I think we're okay with that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Good. MR. YOVANOVICH.' Commissioner, if you don't mind, we'll clarify our commitment that we did make because it seems to be important to the discussion that's going on right now. Our commitment was to bring to you a PUD with -- for the entire property, which would restrict building height to two over one, and that includes two over one on what is currently RSF-4 property. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I understand. MR. YOVANOVICH: I just want to make sure -- we don't want anything adopted tonight or in the future. We will not do anything until we bring you the PUD, and I got the impression that maybe, Commissioner Mac'Kie, you were talking about adopting a two over one standard tonight, but I would prefer we work through the process of coming up with a PUD without having that two over one standard in place because then we're in a corner regarding a potential damage to us if we cannot work through the PUD process quickly and with the cooperation of everybody. By not doing anything, we all have to work together. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But you're not the only piece of property. What do we do, you know? MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, the other pieces of property, they're not here. I can't speak for them. I don't know what's going to happen on the other pieces of property. I can only tell you that our particular piece of property has significant damages if a two over one standard is adopted. We don't want to put anybody in a situation of losing value to their property. So we would request, at least on our property, we be allowed and permitted to go through the PUD process without a change to the zoning standards or hold everything in abeyance. You're going to have -- Dolphin Cove is going to be an issue you're going to have to deal with separate and apart from this overlay. There is no other piece besides ours that could be developed at this time. The rest would require an assimilation of ten or more parcels to come up with enough VR parcels to develop a multi-family project in the interim. What we're saying is we're voluntarily doing nothing on our property, and we're bringing you a PUD. Dolphin Cove is the only other parcel that's VR out Page 57 November 29, 2000 there, of a size that's not already developed. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: I got the impression that -- actually, you presented such a good presentation with the two over one, which is exactly what the people were asking for. They're concerned with how many residents come in there. There's less than 400 people, I guess, that live in the whole village. They're concerned with what they look like. You seemed to come up to the podium -- I got the impression -- and you were -- I thought it was a great compromise. MR. NINO: And it is still there. COMMISSIONER FIALA: It is. It's very good. So then why would you limit us? Why would you not want us to pass this being that everything that you proposed to do was in accordance with what this is -- what this proposal is? MR. YOVANOVICH: I wanted it to be clear to the Commission that the two over one would also encompass what is currently zoned RSF-4. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I've got no problem with that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: We don't have any problem with that. MR. YOVANOVICH: That's what I wanted to hear the Commission say, that you have no problem with our having a PUD that allows two over one on everything we own, including the RSF-4. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's the way we all heard it before. COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's what you said, the three pieces of property, right? MR. YOVANOVICH: If we're all on the same page, then if that's the direction to your staff and to the people of Goodland, you'd like to see that come back to you, then I'm comfortable. I just wanted to make sure that's what you're talking about doing. COMMISSIONER FIALA: There's no problem with that, right, Margie? MS. STUDENT: Well, I believe that what Mr. Yovanovich would be doing would be rezoning the PUD. So rezoning the PUD gets them out of the VR situation, and the development conditions applicable to VR don't touch him because he's rezoning the PUD. COMMISSIONER FIALA: He's saying no extra units. All he is doing is putting them in his three pieces of property, no extra units; is that correct? Page 58 November 29, 2000 MS. STUDENT: Yes. RSF-4 is four units per acre. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I don't want you to answer for him, if you don't mind. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Time out. Time out. Hold it, folks. Hold it. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I want him to answer. CHAIRMAN CARTER: First of all, I have to finish having the question answered by Mr. Yovanovich. I need to hear from staff. Then I will allow you -- I promise I will allow you to come back and comment. MR. MULHERE: Mr. Chairman, they cannot ask for any more units than they're entitled to on that land. They cannot ask for any more units. MR. YOVANOVICH: I'm not asking for more units. What we're asking for is currently we're allowed 32 units on the VRPs and 15 on the RSF-4Ps. That's 47 units. We want to spread the 47 units over the entire property. COMMISSIONER FIALA: So he's not -- MR. YOVANOVICH: I'm not asking for any more density, same number of units. It's going to be 47 units on the same property. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Everybody is clear?. MR. YOVANOVICH: Two over one. COMMISSIONER HENNING: You are going to take your presentation to the Civic Association, the people in Goodland to get their input? MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, of course, but the reason we want the three over one to stay in place is we need to know that if for some -- we don't want to be stonewalled in the process. We're a little concerned, and they're concerned of us. There is some leeriness. We just need to know that we're not gong to be held up. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes, but why would you want the three over one if you don't need the three over one? MR. YOVANOVICH: When I get the rezone to PUD, I don't need the three over one anymore, but until then, I need it. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I understand. Commissioner Coletta and Commissioner Henning, if you have any questions of staff, I am going to allow the lady to come back to the platform and that Page 59 November 29, 2000 is it. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Just one more quick question, if I may. Are we talking about anything different as far as setback goes? We're talking about everything else conforming just the way it's supposed to go. We're not talking about a loss of any setbacks? MR. YOVANOVICH: No, no, we're -- well, yes. A PUD document is your own zoning, but you can use -- we can incorporate the same, you know, separation between multi-family structures. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Mr. Coletta, that will all have to be brought to us and be discussed and we can have any of those things happen. I think in the biggest perspective we're going to go PUD. They have committed to involving the association in a discussion of that, and when we say to you, they don't have to do that, you only have three requirements. It requires going through the Environmental Advisory Council. If they needed to do that, they would do it. They would go through the Planning Council, and it would come to us. What they are saying is in addition to that they will go and work with the association and do the public meetings and input, and I think that's where we get a spirit of cooperation in the community outside of our standard framework. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I commend him for that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Commissioner Henning? And then I'm going to allow the lady from Goodland. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Question for staff. Are we changing anything in the commercial zoning uses? MR. NINO: No, we are not. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Are we going to have crab traps allowed in Goodland? MR. NINO: We're not changing anything other than the regulations and the development standards in the VR district. CHAIRMAN CARTER: At this point in time. COMMISSIONER FIALA: What is at this point in time? MR. MULHERE: Bob Mulhere, for the record. The purpose of future meetings will be to look at all of the issues as part of the overlay, and I know that's what the community approved and lost. But at this point in time, we're only changing designation. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. Page 60 November 29, 2000 MS. FULLMER: My name, again, for the record is Connie Stegall Fullmer. We're excited with what we've heard tonight. We're truly excited that the developer, property owner of that strip of land coming into Goodland is now interested in working with us, talking to us. We can share our ideas with them, and they can share their ideas with us. The community, I'm sure as a whole, is very excited about that. The question right now though, if you don't do something in this LDC cycle for the balance of the VR properties, what is to protect us? What is the timing of the PUD? What is the timing of what we're going to do to protect us from Palm Point, the five acres? That now is a very, very valid issue. It's the main issue that was the issue before, so we can't forget that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Those are all legitimate questions, but now it will be up to the Board to take all of that into consideration. MS. FULLMER: All of the other VR properties marked in blue, the five-acre tract of land offers 76 units. That by itself doubles our population. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. All points have been made. Thank you very much. Rich? MR. YOVANOVICH: I can commit to timing. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Commit to timing. MR. YOVANOVICH: We will commit to getting into the cycle that will be done by June, so we have to get in right away. So, hopefully, we will be done before June. We're coming in right now. We're saying we're basically willing to start -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Will do it before the next LDC cycle, so that it will all be aired and put to bed before it ever gets to the next cycle. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Do we need the motion tonight? CHAIRMAN CARTER: Just a second. We have to come back and ask staff, what do you need from us at this point? MR. OLLIFF: Nothing. You don't do final approvals on this until your final public hearing. CHAIRMAN CARTER: We have heard everyone, and we can bring this forward December 13th. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: In the meantime, maybe staff could come up with something creative, like VR property can only Page 61 November 29, 2000 be developed by use of a PUD pending -- I mean, something. I don't know what. MR. OLLIFF: The only thing I can think of -- and we'll research this before the next meeting -- Mr. Mulhere and I were talking about the possibility of continuing this for just this one section for whatever period of time would be required in order for them to submit. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Because we can submit this sooner than June, right? We could do this as a small scale amendment; couldn't we? MR. MULHERE: The land code is restricted to two cycles, not small scale, just two cycles, June and January. However, the Board has in the past, on one occasion that I recall, taken one amendment and removed it from the cycle and continued it to a point in time. Then we brought it back to you at that point in time. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I remember that one very well. MR. OLLIFF: My only suggestion on that one is that there is a possibility we could give the developer enough time to be able to submit at least a PUD. Once it's been submitted, I'm assuming it would be submitted under the code. It would have been in place at the time. MR. MULHERE: Correct. One side benefit of that would be that we may have the opportunity to develop some other issues as we work with the Goodland folks. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's true, and we can make that decision on the 13th. MR. OLLIFF: Right. Thank you very much. Thank all of you for being here tonight and for your being ladies and gentlemen working with ladies and gentlemen. *** MR. NINO: We're at page 54 of the staff report. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I don't like it when they throw tomatoes at me. Mr. Nino? MR. NINO: Yes, page 54 is pretty straightforward. It would remove -- prohibit carrotwood. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Would you all please be very quiet and slip out of the room, please? Thank you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: There is no controversy on this, right? We talked about it 1,000 times. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: If you're going to carry that Page 62 November 29, 2000 mantle for your predecessor, go ahead. *** MR. NINO: The next item is an amendment to the -- that moves the landscaping requirements to the landscaping section as they pertain to communication towers. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Big deal. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. *** MR. NINO: The next item is a -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Artistic expressions. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Artistic expressions, that made me nervous. COMMISSIONER FIALA: May I mention that I would love to see us limit those artistic expressions? MR. NINO: On page 59. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Page 59. We'll probably fill that out. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Which is 95 in the packet. MR. NINO: Fifty-nine is an amendment that acknowledges signs on private bridges for the purpose of the sign ordinance are not off-site signs because those private crossings are part and parcel of the property under development. Additionally, we've had a concern about embossments on walls that have been construed by our code enforcement people as part of the sign ordinance, and we have been having a continual debate about whether or not an embossment, i.e., the fleur-de-lis on the wall of Lely Resorts is a sign. Some people feel that our definition makes that a sign. We're suggesting that it ought not to be a sign. If anything, it's an architectural embellishment. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Kind of like graffiti. MR. NINO: Pardon? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Kind of like graffiti that we see. MR. NINO: Right, the only nice looking graffiti. MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, you do have one speaker on this item. Bill Hoover. MR. HOOVER: Good evening, commissioners. I brought this issue to the Planning Commission, and it was regarding Type C buffers in neighborhood centers. MR. NINO: Bill, that's not the issue right now. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's not the issue we're talking about. MR. NINO: We went by you, quite frankly. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I just wanted to ask one question Page 63 November 29, 2000 about artistic expressions. We've got a little problem in East Naples with some artists was felt that they wanted to redecorate buildings, and sometimes the redecoration wasn't as pleasing as they were originally. So I'm afraid that a lot of people might feel that they had an open invitation with this -- with this wording here. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well -- but I think it's restrictive in terms of old walls. There is criteria around it. MR. NINO: Yes. Actually, you can paint anything you want on a wall. It's not a sign, but you can literally -- you decide to, you know, paint some artistry on our wall, then it's consistent with our architectural standards. Remember, architectural standards kicks in and probably a lot of art wouldn't be deemed architecturally acceptable so we would have that method of control. What we're talking about here is the fleur-de-lis and the old cypress and the apples and the grapes, vines, grapes that are part of a wall structure, and that's the only context in which we're applying this. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Is there a problem with it now? MR. NINO: Pardon? COMMISSIONER FIALA-' Is there a -- MR. NINO: Yes. There is a problem with it now in that the prevailing sense of the ordinance suggests that it is a sign, and, therefore, that limits -- limits the ability of a person to use logos as distinct from a sign. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Is there a way that instead of saying artistic expression, which could be interpreted in many ways, maybe we could just say logos? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's an idea. MR. NINO: We don't use artistic expression other than in the description of the project, but in the actual ordinance which is down below we use the words "graphic" or "artistic" or "architectural embellishment." COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Right, graphic, artistic. CHAIRMAN CARTER: See, again, the opening sentence tells you what it's going to be about, the details you get into it, and I think that pretty explicitly tells you what you can and cannot do. You can't hang your hat on the opening sentence and say, oh, I can do this. You have to read the rest of the code and that would, by the way, be interpreted. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: This only applies to residential Page 64 November 29, 2000 subdivision walls? MR. NINO: Yes, correct. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So that comforts me a little bit, walls around residential subdivisions. You can hear the issue is a valid one. It seems like you could probably draft around that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's all I'm asking, just with the words so that it doesn't allow people to feel they have an open -- MR. NINO: We can certainly do that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think we can wordsmith that by the 13th. MR. NINO: We can wordsmith that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Great. Thank you. *** MR. NINO: On the other hand, Mr. Hoover, had -- wanted to speak to a landscaping requirement that was part of the landscaping package, and I kind of hurried you through. It dealt with revisions to the buffer requirement as it applied to the Golden Gate neighborhood centers. The current regulation for all practical purposes blocked any external view, and that presented some public safety issues. And this is an amendment to open up that view while respecting the integrity of the landscape requirement. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Mr. Hoover?. MR. HOOVER: I'm not sure if you got the packet, but the outside here, there's nothing listed. MR. NINO: Yes, they do. MR. HOOVER: On page 31, Nancy Simeon showed me, this is what the Planning Commission approved, and basically in a nutshell, what it does, it gets rid of the six-foot high hedge, fence, wall or berm and it drops -- it drops it down to three feet, so what we would end up putting in is a three-foot high berm -- I'm sorry -- three-foot high hedge. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And Golden Gate Civic Association or somebody blessed this; didn't they? MR. HOOVER: We got a vote of 21 to 2 to support this, and the two that voted against it, they did not want any commercial at all. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Twenty-one to two of whom? MR. HOOVER: Of the Golden Gate Estates Civic Association supported removing that six-foot wall requirement, and the Page 65 November 29, 2000 Sheriff's Department had two people there that also strongly supported taking that wall out. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: If I may comment on that. There was not very much concern. This had to do with the project at Golden Gate Boulevard and Wilson. Recently, I endorsed, this Commission did, for the Centre Fund project. They had planned a six-foot fence around it, is that correct, originally? MR. HOOVER: On the two rear sides away from the road, we had a 75-foot natural preserve area. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Right, but the height -- MR. HOOVER: On the two roads, the County Growth Management Plan was requiring us to put up a 6-foot wall. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That was not practical. It was going to take away from the project. It was going to make it look like something more in the urban area than the rural area. It was going to make it impossible to be able to see inside of it for the safety of the people that were there and also the businesses. CHAIRMAN CARTER: We're okay with that, everybody is okay. MR. OLLIFF: We take all of the nods of the heads as an assumption that we want to make that amendment, and we'll bring that into the second hearing. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Thank you. *** MR. NINO: Page 60, minor after-the-fact yard encroachments. What we're saying here -- we're asking you to give us the administrative authority to make minor after-the-fact variances where a certificate of occupancy or final development order has been granted that won't exceed 2 feet. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I'm okay with that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yes. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Moving right along. MR. NINO: Moving right along is, there are amendments, and I need to hand out some revisions of that. These amendments deal with creating, finding or clarifying the limit on fence heights within residential zoning districts and in commercial zoning districts, and in commercial zoning districts, we're adding the requirement, which I think we've heard you on a number of occasions express is the need to place landscaping on the outside of the fence and this will accomplish that under the Page 66 November 29, 2000 amendment under commercial and industrial. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I have a question for staff. It's probably going to be you Mr. Ochs. We've been talking about the fencing going around Lake Avalon at Sugden Park and whether or not it's going to be landscaped and dealing with some problems with that. It sounds like this might put a restriction on the County to do what I have been hoping we would have to do and that is to use the fencing to sort of beautify. I don't know. Between now and the next meeting, maybe somebody could tell me how or if this applies to that area. MR. OLLIFF: We will do that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I just have one other question on that if you don't mind. Where it says: "Delete the requirement that the finished side of the fence must face the adjoining lot, but retain the requirement the finished side must --" MR. NINO: Let me address that. We have deleted that -- that proposal from this amendment. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Period? MR. NINO: Yes, we've deleted that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I was worried about the neighbors. MR. NINO: It stays the way it is. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Are chain-link fences really out of our picture? COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's a good question. MR. NINO: No, they're not. This cycle, since we've advertised amendments to the fence provisions, you can instruct us to add whatever regulation you want. CHAIRMAN CARTER: In this cycle or do we have to take it to the next cycle? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We could do it this time. MR. NINO: You could do it this time if you wish. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I would like to see us get rid of chain-link fences, period. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, I second that. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You mean throughout the whole business community? I've got a problem with that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Residential, residential chain-link fences, residential chain-link fences. Now, you can't get it out of Page 67 November 29, 2000 the commercial areas. MR. NINO: Correct. You can have chain-link fences in commercial areas. You cannot within the front yard of public commercial areas. You can have chain-link fences. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's existing currently. MR. NINO: Currently. You can have chain-links in the rear yard but not in the front yard on commercial development. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: This would also apply out in the Estates? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Because that's residential. MR. NINO: No. The current regulation doesn't affect your ability to build a chain-link fence in any residential zoning district. MR. OLLIFF: I think Commissioner Coletta was actually referring to the proposal that the Chair made. CHAIRMAN CARTER: The Chair is suggesting that chain-link fences not be a part of residential. MR. MULHERE: The Estates district -- again, Bob Mulhere -- is not considered residential. It's actually considered agricultural in terms of fencing requirements. So if we do prohibit chain-link fencing in residential zoning districts, it would apply to Golden Gate Estates. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: How about Golden Gate City itself? MR. MULHERE-' It would apply to Golden Gate City. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Would that be for any part of the lot or just the sides and back? MR. OLLIFF: Any part. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Whatever we said. MR. MULHERE: I mean, we can adopt -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: What would be the -- what would be -- would they be grandfathered in, the fences that are there now? CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yes. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Like a pawn shop, we can still have a nice chain-link fence, right? COMMISSIONER HENNING: I have a real problem with this because of economics in Golden Gate City. You know, it's a family community, and the cyclone fence is the least expensive fencing that a family can put up, and I have not seen any in the Page 68 November 29, 2000 front yard but I have seen in the back yard on canals and other lots to contain their children -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Or dogs. COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- or their neighbors' children. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I can understand that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So I would have a real problem if we removed the cyclone fencing from -- MR. NINO: You should appreciate that most of the newer communities, newer subdivisions probably in their deed restrictions have excluded that, those opportunities. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I don't think I have any support on that suggestion, so I'll probably drop it. I do have some commercial -- there are some areas -- and I will take it on Pine Ridge along by the old Baptist Church there and those other areas. They've got a chain-link fence along there, and they could do other types of fencing. It would not be an economic burden upon any households, but it certainly aesthetically does not look good on one of our main arterials. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And I have to agree with you, Commissioner Carter, and I'm sure that Commissioner Mac'Kie will as we venture into redeveloping the Bayshore area and the Gateway Triangle. Right now those unsightly fences make it look like a war zone, and so I don't think -- you have plenty of support. I just don't know how to design it. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I don't know if this is -- I may be in the wrong forum. MR. NINO: And for that reason, the architectural regulations address that, the very first architectural regulations. I take that back. It was the second amendment. That prohibited chain-link fences along the arterial streets in front of-- in connection with commercial properties. The front yard setback, to the front yard setback. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Does that apply to churches? MR. NINO: No, only if the church is in a commercial zoning district. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Tom, talk to him. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I have an question for you -- How are we going to do it? I don't know if we can do it this time -- is that cyclone fence is to have -- or chain-link fences to have landscaping around it, and let it grow into the fence like I have at Page 69 November 29, 2000 my business. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I wouldn't have any problem with that. I really don't, as long as you can cover up the fence. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right. CHAIRMAN CARTER: But, you know I think I'm in the wrong forum for this. Mr. Olliff, maybe you can direct me. MR. OLLIFF: Everybody keeps looking over here, so I guess I'll at least make a suggestion. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Bail me out, Tom. I think I need it. It's an issue I would like to get resolved along the LDC cycle. Does it belong here? If not-- MR. OLLIFF: You can do it in this cycle. Why don't you give some direction for the staff to bring back to the second hearing at least some proposals for you to consider, because I think making a decision like this here point-blank without thinking again of all of the ramifications that it may have is probably not a good idea, but to give us some direction to bring you back, what are the implications? And perhaps what I'm hearing is at least some landscape buffering around what would be chain-link fencing in residential areas, and if that seems to be at least one of the options -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Along major roadways. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Along major roadways. That could really drop the residential. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Major roadways is commercial, so in the commercial districts. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Most of it except I don't want to exclude churches out of this because I really believe they should fit into the aesthetic look of the community along with -- if I'm to ask commercial to do it, I'm going to ask the churches to do it. MR. OLLIFF: Or there may be some rare instances on a corner where there is actually a commercial rear lot that buts up against a major arterial roadway or something, those odd type cases. CHAIRMAN CARTER: But I would like for some -- you're right, Tom, some direction and guidance that may be appropriate in this cycle. MR. OLLIFF: Okay. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And we want to do it in an Page 70 November 29, 2000 economical way for the businesses. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I'm not trying to hurt anybody, but I also know that -- MR. NINO: I appreciate that we'll have to hand that material to you at your next meeting given the executive summary cycle, we have to have it done by tomorrow. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: One last comment, if I may. Could we have some sort of consideration for Immokalee and Everglades City? Everglades City, of course, would be exempt from this anyway. Then Immokalee, they have a unique situation there where it's their way of containing things, and it is an affordable thing. I think asking them to plant shrubbery to grow into their fence is going to be something that they'll just plain ignore. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, those are agricultural areas and not -- would not be affected by that, correct? MR. OLLIFF: Well, there would be residential areas within the Immokalee community. They're zoned residential. That would be affected unless we did what Commissioner Coletta is suggesting. So it seems to me -- I'm taking that as a number of nods up there -- as if there is a way to exclude Immokalee from whatever it is we bring back. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I don't want to hurt anybody, but there are areas that I don't think I would hurt them and it's just not aesthetically pleasing to the overall character of what we're trying to develop in the greater Naples area. MR. OLLIFF: You will have -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: I don't want to hurt anybody out there, individual residents. MR. OLLIFF: You will have some things to consider at your next meeting. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. *** MR. NINO: Page 63, this amendment is a result -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: 99. MR. NINO: -- of certain issues that we've had recently where the technology seems to prefer compactors versus dumpsters, and, obviously, if you're going to have compactors you wouldn't be able to support a compactor every 500 feet or 500 feet from the residence that they're to serve. So this amendment makes departure in terms of the distance requirement for compactors. Page 71 November 29, 2000 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What was the genesis of this, Ron? Who asked for this? MR. NINO: The genesis of this were a couple -- were two apartment projects that had instituted compactors, and those compactors would not have complied with the minimum placing requirement of 500 feet to the nearest service dwelling unit. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just because they weren't dumpsters, so we had to regulate it. MR. NINO: Correct, correct. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Did these compactors make noise? Is that something -- have you guys considered that? MR. NINO: We have not heard anything to that effect. In fact, this amendment was drafted by our Solid Waste Department and prior to instituting it, we had several meetings with them, including Bob Zachary or Robert Zachary, and, you know, this -- met their goals. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. Thank you. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Question, if I may, on that. We're talking about -- is there an exception to the rule right now where some very small commercial establishments do not need to have dumpsters? They still can use containers? We are trying to make them all have dumpsters now without exception? MR. NINO: No. You can have a garbage dumpster. You're not required to have a compactor. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I see. MR. NINO: You can have a garbage dumpster. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. CHAIRMAN CARTER: It doesn't take away that option, Commissioner, as I understand it. MR. NINO: Incidentally, there's a word misspelled. As a matter of fact, Mr. Mudd brought it to my attention. On the first page, it's hosing types instead of housing types. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Very good. *** MR. NINO: The next item is Item 6 on page 65. This has to do with amendments to our dock facilities to acknowledge that nonresidential dock facilities are subject to the extension -- the degree to which they can extend into the waterway, and, secondly, to indicate that boat docks on man-made facilities do not need to comply with the boat dock requirement. *** CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. The motion picture industry. Page 72 November 29, 2000 MR. NINO: The next item is pretty self-explanatory. Again, it singles out the change in the required permits for commercial production facilities. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Is our film director, whatever her name is, has she looked at this? MR. RUSHING: Fred Rushing, Planning Services, Maggie McCarty, Health Commission, reviewed this, offered a few changes. The risk management director had no problem with assuming the responsibility. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you. *** CHAIRMAN CARTER: Annual beach events. MR. NINO: Now, we'll get to our annual beach events permit. I would suggest you might want to take this up in concert with the turtle nesting, sea turtle nesting provision on page --we should take these both up together. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Did this item go to the Environmental Advisory Council? MR. NINO: Yes, it did. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And what was their recommendation? MR. NINO: They supported the staff recommendation. CHAIRMAN CARTER: On the sea turtles? MR. NINO: On the sea turtles and on the annual beach permit. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: On both? MR. NINO: On both. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Do we have speakers on this, Mr. Olliff? MR. OLLIFF: Yes, we do. MR. NINO: Maybe we should get to the speakers. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Let's have the speakers, and then we can continue the discussion. MR. OLLIFF: You have three speakers -- MR. NINO: We also went to the Beach Renourishment Committee. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: it? MR. NINO: Yes. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: MR. OLLIFF: Ilene Barnett. Thank you. And they supported Thank you. The first speaker is Matt Grabinski followed by Page 73 November 29, 2000 MR. GRABINSKI: Good evening. Matt Grabinski here on behalf of the Ritz Carlton. I thought that Mr. Nino would sort of introduce this a little bit more, so I guess I'll do that for him. Basically, this whole process of this annual beach events permit and amendment started late last spring. I was hired by the Ritz Carlton to work with the Department of Environmental Protection, as well as representatives from Collier County staff, to sort of hash out what the rules and responsibilities were with respect to the operations on their beach in order to get them into compliance and help them to come up with a plan that they could implement into their employee handbook, so that they could remain in compliance but still function and operate their activities at the hotel. I had numerous meetings with the representatives from the DEP, as well as from the County. Several of the meetings took place on site at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. One of the meetings was for the purpose of conducting an on-site inspection that had to do with a CCSL variance that the Ritz was obtaining and has obtained. During the course of that meeting on that particular day, the Ritz was setting up for a rather large dinner party that they were hosting for a convention that was being held at the hotel, and one of the County staff commented that the Ritz Carlton had not obtained a temporary use permit and the hotel was sort of alarmed by this, were taken aback. The hotel's position had been, is now, and always will be that they do not need to apply for a temporary use permit under the current Collier County Land Development Code because the activities that they're conducting are occurring on their property. When the 28-day limitation was brought up, obviously, the Ritz was greatly concerned. I believe last year they held about 160 events that would be classified as beach events on their hotel property on the beach. We had a meeting at Collier County Development Services, met with their staff, and staff recognized our position. We looked at the county code, and basically said, listen, why do we need to have a temporary use permit to conduct these activities? If we are having a reception in the rose garden, if we are having a dinner party out by the pool, no one would think the hotel would Page 74 November 29, 2000 be required to get a temporary use permit to conduct an activity that's incidental and integral to its operations. What difference does it make that it's on the beach? Someone said, well, you're not on your property anymore. Guess what, we are. Several years ago, when Collier County conducted its beach renourishment project, a coastal -- an erosion control line was established to Florida Statute 161. This is a copy. CHAIRMAN CARTER: You need to get on the mike. MR. GRABINSKI: This is a survey that I obtained from Coastal Engineering. I got it from Rick Ewing at Coastal Engineering. It indicates where the coastal control line was set. Incidentally, they laid the coastal erosion control line over the old mean high water line. As everyone is aware, the Oakland property owners, under common law, own down to the mean high waterline. Under Florida Statutes, when you establish an erosion control line, since you're taking funds and building up the beach in order to avoid giving away more land to the Oakland property owner, pursuant to Florida Statutes, when the erosion control line is set that establishes the new boundary line. And as you can see -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Wait a minute. You're saying that your property line varies, it moves whenever the State changes the coastal construction control line? MR. GRABINSKI: No. It's not going to change because the erosion control line is set, and I don't believe anyone would have any reason to change it any time soon. Before the erosion control line was put into place-- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Margie, you're going to be thinking about that question. Okay? MR. OLLIFF: What he's saying is because we added beach, the old law would have brought private property down to the mean high water line. Well, the mean high water line has now moved and become a much -- a much larger piece of property, so they created a new line that was the erosion control line that now delineates where that private property used to be and now still is because it's not the mean high water line. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Because I was afraid he was saying the opposite. I was afraid he was saying we built a beach Page 75 November 29, 2000 and gave it to the Ritz. MR. GRABINSKI: No. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's not what you're saying. MR. GRABINSKI: No, no. That's the whole purpose of the erosion control line. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. You need to wrap up. MR. GRABINSKI: Okay. As you can see, the Ritz has about 75 feet of beach that is on their property. The Ritz is zoned for commercial use as a hotel. All of their activities that they are conducting on the beach are taking place on their property. Now, I previously stated with respect to the Vehicle on the Beach amendment that I was happy with what I had and I wasn't going to ask for additional. I do, however, want to ask the County Commission to make one change, to not only approve this Land Development Code amendment with respect to the beach events, but originally we had had the limit at 175 events. The number was reduced back down to 150 for reasons that I'm not quite certain of, but, again, since our position has always been that absent this beach event permit, we would have unlimited rights to have an unlimited number of events that now that you're putting a cap on those events, you risk taking some valuable use rights and property rights away from these hotels. Now, given the fact that the Ritz Carlton, I presume, would have the most beach events out of any commercial hotel site in Collier County, the fact that they did 162 last year, I think that putting a limit of 175 events on that would be a safe and reasonable number. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Thank you. MR. NINO: Mr. Chairman, perhaps if I may, because perhaps I was unclear to Mr. Grabinski. We have -- we did develop this out of a Consensus Committee that represented the hotel industry, and we basically agree with the position Mr. Grabinski makes, that technically we didn't think that the temporary for special events under the temporary use provision really applied, and we never paid any attention to it in any event. This amendment memorializes and institutionalizes the way they really operate, but it sets a cap of 150 events. But more importantly -- and they agree with it -- they are giving us the opportunity, one, to charge them a fee that will Page 76 November 29, 2000 cover our costs that are associated with monitoring and regulating the events to make sure that the degree to which there may be some spillover into the public domain, that the resources of that area are not destroyed. We're given the opportunity to go in and make inspections and make sure they don't mess up those dunes and sea oat dunes and particularly in the turtle nesting season. There is a special set of requirements that we've dealt with. We think we're better off for this because it now gives us a structured set of documents. We never had them before. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Why are we talking about it? He likes it. You like it. We like it. Why we talking about it so much? CHAIRMAN CARTER: Because you have speakers here. So we have to hear from the speakers so we'll know. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay, but, I mean, I was just curious about the 175 and the 150. Where does that number come from? MR. NINO: The 150 came out of the DSA. It raised concerns raised by the DSA quite frankly and -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: The what? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: DSA. MR. NINO: The DSA is the Development Services Advisory Council. There was also some concern raised at the Planning Commission meeting as well. For that reason, we rolled it back to 150 events, and up until now, I didn't think you folks were opposed to that. MR. GRABINSKI: When it originally was rolled back, I tried to get a straight answer as to exactly why, and the only feedback I got was that some people commented that 175 days seemed too much. Like I said, you know, there is some misperception out there that the effect of this is that a lot of hotels would go from 28 to 150, and why aren't they getting a windfall? I feel that given the fact that -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: You're talking events. There was 162 last year on the beach. That does not necessarily mean days. You could have had more than one event at the same time on the beach, right? MR. MULHERE: That's correct. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Are we talking events or days? Page 77 November 29, 2000 MR. MULHERE: We're talking days, and oftentimes, there are multiple events. We don't have a problem with multiple events as long as we can go out -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: He's talking days, not events. MR. GRABINSKI: Yes, but, typically, when you talk about the larger events, the ones that count, it's been a really wild weekend, just due to the nature of the extent and the work that goes into one of those, the hotel isn't going to have two of those in one day. Yes, they may have a cocktail party for 30 people out there, and then have a large event later on in the day. CHAIRMAN CARTER: As clarification for me, you want 175 days, not events? MR. GRABINSKI: Yes. MR. MULHERE: May I just add one other item, Mr. Chairman? I think probably Ron -- I mentioned it to him earlier, but one of the other things that we want to do is we looked at protecting the natural resources, the public's right to traverse the beach, but also recognizing the incredible economic impact on the hotel trade, too, to severely restrict the number of uses they could have there. They are part and parcel to the operation in any case. We came up with a win-win situation, but we do want to monitor this. We want to monitor it for six months to a year to find out if we have any further or ongoing code enforcement action. We want to come back to you at that time and let you know how we're doing with this process. So we're not just simply going to adopt it and forget it. We will have the staff inspection. We will be monitoring. The genesis of this was -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you, Mr. Mulhere. Next speaker, please. MR. OLLIFF: The next speaker is Ilene Barnett followed by Ron Albeit. They've waived. The next speaker is Wilma Ferguson. Following Ms. Ferguson is the last speaker that I have registered, Martin Gauthier. MS. FERGUSON: Good evening. My name is Wilma Ferguson. I'd appreciate it if you'd take into consideration the citizens who purchased homes in Pelican Bay and live here the year-round and treasure their homes and peace and quiet and stop Section 2.6.34, Annual Beach Event Permits, and include all of the hotels that are Page 78 November 29, 2000 along there. I'm aware of real estate. I have sold commercial real estate across the United States and also had my own real estate company and sold homes and estates. I now live in Pebble Creek in Pelican Bay. What you have before you would affect the value of all of our property owners in Pelican Bay in a negative manner. We have all paid top prices for the amenities and continue to pay for the upkeep of the beauty and the serenity of Pelican Bay. The hotel and tourists don't pay us to down-grade our property. There is a place for tourists and their fun, but not at the expense of those of us who pay the taxes to maintain our home area and the beach. We would appreciate your consideration in remembering and being thoughtful of your citizens who pay the taxes and live here the year-round. I just heard a moment ago one commissioner say the people who live here should have the ability to control their own destiny. I would like to also add for the record that many letters have been written to Mr. Nino and Mr. Carter protesting their proposed permit. Thank you very much. MR. OLLIFF: The last speaker is Martin Gauthier. MR. GAUTHIER: Martin Gauthier. I'm president of the condo association at the Grosvenor, and I'm also speaking on behalf of Bill Madigan, who is president of the Aaron Association. My concern is not so much with the Ritz. I would like some assurance that the Registry won't get on the bandwagon, using the County beach with 175 days of functions. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Is that possible? MR. GAUTHIER: I would like some assurance that it is not possible. MR. NINO: To the extent they don't own any waterfront property, it won't be possible. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I don't think the Registry owns any. MR. GAUTHIER: They do have the pavilion out there. CHAIRMAN CARTER: If there are regulations surrounding them, the time and event has to be stopped. I don't think I'm wrong, but that would not alter. They could use that, but anyone could use that. You or me or anyone else could go down there and rent that and use it at our prerogative as long as you stay within the time lines to be finished. MR. GAUTHIER: Before sundown. Page 79 November 29, 2000 MR. NINO: It should be appreciated that the Registry does have a concession on the beach, which they've arranged -- MR. OLLIFF: The Registry is not subject to this provision of the code. They are subject to a separate standing concession agreement that they have with the County in regards to that beach-side facility, and as Commissioner Carter indicated, they have certain ability, as does anyone else, to use those facilities after hours, but there are some fairly stringent restrictions on that and those are all dictated by a separate -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: They cannot expand those in any way? MR. OLLIFF: No way. MR. GAUTHIER: Then, you know, he's coming from the beach. It comes right across the mangroves without any impediments. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Does the Registry have any beach area that they could use on this? I'm not familiar with it, the fact that they would. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Only pursuant to that concession agreement. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. Do you want to speak now, sir?.? MR. ALBEIT: Yes. I had declined. Ron Albeit, the Registry Resort. I do want to clarify that, just like anybody else would. This special permit, just so we understand, even though, we don't use the facility at night, but just the way it is written, we would be allowed to have 175 events on the beach and pull a permit if we did that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Only the beach that you own. MR. MULHERE: With the approval of the County -- I'm not suggesting that would be the case -- but with the approval of -- who owns the beach, what does the lease say, I don't have the answers to those questions, but if the Registry doesn't own the beachfront property and the County does, the County chooses to allow them, through a lease program, to conduct some activity there, then, yes, the County could authorize them to, force them to have a temporary lease permit. MR. ALBEIT: We do today pull temporary use permits when we do Beach Olympics on the beach. Page 80 November 29, 2000 CHAIRMAN CARTER: But that's daytime. MR. ALBEIT: It is all daytime. I'm just stating that. In this regulation, just to be clear, right now we may do 10 Olympics a year. It's not a lot. Under these circumstances, rather than going and paying each time for one permit, we may say, we want to buy a block of 25. We will then tell them, if you'll read the note in the regulation, exactly what is going on, when it's going on, what exactly we're doing. MR. MULHERE: And that's completely permissible accompanied by the authorization from, generally speaking, I believe, our Parks and Recreation Department. They put the stipulations on them. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just to be sure between now and the next meeting, that there is nothing here that expands the use of the beach at the Registry beyond what it currently is, but that's a carefully negotiated balance. I certainly hope that you can get a cheaper permit and apply for one as a bureaucrat -- MR. ALBEIT: That's all we're interested in. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But not use it more than currently MR. OLLIFF: I don't see any way this regulation expands it, but we'll have that confirmed for you before the next meeting. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's that. *** MR. NINO: On page 81, that would be an amendment to the essential services section of the ordinance to allow communication towers as conditional uses. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: There are no speakers on that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Do we have any more speakers on any of the subjects? MR. OLLIFF: We have four speakers on the vehicle on the beach. MR. NINO: I'm sorry. MR. OLLIFF: And that's the only thing. MR. NINO: These were dealing with vehicle on the beach. CHAIRMAN CARTER: We need to take five and let her change tapes and we'll be right back. (Whereupon, a brief recess was taken.) *** COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Vehicles on the beach. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That would be page 100. In your book Page 81 November 29, 2000 MR. NINO: Page 100. MR. OLLIFF: Do you want to go straight to the speakers, Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN CARTER: Let's hear from the speakers. MR. OLLIFF: The next speaker will be Justin Finch. Following Mr. Finch will be Ron Albeit. MR. FINCH: Good evening, Board. My name is Justin Finch. I'm manager of Gulf View Adventures. We're the beach concession located behind the Vanderbilt Inn at the northernmost end of Vanderbilt Beach. I have some comments to make about these amendments. In summary, I think the reasons for these amendments is to allow beachfront hotels to use vehicles, to set up on the beach, and to allow their concessions to move their equipment on and off the beach. According to Code 3.5.4, permits shall only be issued for ATVs when staff has determined, due to distance and excessive weight of the equipment to be moved, that it would be prohibitive in nature to use push carts or dollies. For that reason, I qualify under this situation. During an average day in our busy season, March or April, we can move 3,000 pounds in just chairs and umbrellas alone. We have 500 feet of beachfront that I can move the equipment from the storage area, and, believe me, firsthand, this is prohibitive using only carts. According to Collier County staff, the only person that's qualified for this is the Registry Resort. According to them, they have an extended range of circumstances that requires them to transport kayaks, canoes from the storage area down to the Clam Pass area to where they launch them. I've measured this off at about 1260 feet. The problem I have with this is that, not their extenuating circumstances, but the fact they're permitted for this, they're allowed to move all of their equipment, the daily equipment that myself and the two concessions down the beach from me are in the same boat. Right now I staff one full-time employee and one part-time employee, and when we get into season, I'm going to be required to hire three more full-time employees. It's not just a matter of we don't want to do the manual labor. It's a convenience. The fact is there is a huge financial benefit here. By having the use of this vehicle, we are able to -- what we normally do with three employees, I can only do with one with labor being my biggest Page 82 November 29, 2000 expense. This could turn a bad year to a good year by having this in our favor. As I read it, there are two solutions, one would be to change it so that the Registry would be allowed to use the ATV for their extenuating circumstances, and that is the movement of the kayaks and the canoes. The second is to allow the use of an ATV by all of the concessions. I prefer the second. To describe to you the basic operations so you can get a picture of this, of what exactly is involved on our part, in the morning, we would use the concession. We'd use the ATV in strictly non-turtle season, just in the time the turtles are not being protected. We'll start our setup at about 9:00 o'clock is the average time we open, 30 minutes of use in the morning. The vehicle would then be stored off property out of the sight of the public and then would be used again for approximately an hour at the end of the day to close up and pack up our equipment. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Have you discussed this with our staff? Have you suggested this to staff previously to now? MR. FINCH: Staff, they got together and did meetings with representatives from the hotel. I have been trying to find out why my hotel and my concession were not informed of this. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. Staff, it sounds like a reasonable request. Why shouldn't he get what the Registry gets? CHAIRMAN CARTER: Or could he give us a draft of what you propose and give it to staff? MS. FERGUSON: Barbara Ferguson with Planning Services. We have had several meetings with the hotels and probably eight members of County staff over a period of maybe five or six different meetings and met with the Development Services Advisory committee, the Internal Advisory Council, the Beach Enrichment Committee and Planning Commission. Throughout the process, there were concerns brought up about the use of additional or additional use of the ATV's on the beach. However, there was limited concern for the use of push carts or non-motorized vehicles. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What is the nature of the concern? MS. FERGUSON: Well, there is a concern for a number of different reasons. One, that we hadn't done some of the scientific study that maybe we needed to do to determine whether there Page 83 November 29, 2000 was a difference on how it impacts the beach. Other reasons were just the concern about the additional -- an additional use of the vehicle on the beach compared to the non-motorized -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What would be the reason why this concession should be treated differently from the Registry's concession? MS. FERGUSON: Well, the reason for that is that the Registry uses -- has fairly excessive distance and the material that they're moving is kayaks, canoes, extremely large concession equipment, they're moving down to Clam Pass. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What do you move? MR. FINCH: I have -- currently, I have 120 chairs. I have got 75 umbrellas. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' Do you move kayaks? MR. FINCH: I have kayaks. I have three sailboats. The concern I want to stress is we are already -- well, I am not personally, but all of the other concessions are permitted to rake their beach year-round. There are ATV's driving up and down the beach through turtle season, and all we're requesting is to be able to do it, me personally, to do it in non-turtle season. I only want to move my chairs and umbrellas. I have designed another system, when I was told I couldn't use my ATV to move my equipment. So I'm not worried about that. I have taken care of that. I just need to be able to move my chairs and partake in the financial benefits the other concessions get. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I would love to hear in two weeks why that's not a logical request. MS. FERGUSON: One of the other reasons why we kept the amendment to the non-motorized, if we initially -- when we were creating this work rule to increase the ability for the hotels to have more use on the beach and more vehicular use, we didn't anticipate additional use of the staff, did not anticipate additional use of the motorized ATV's, and, therefore, we did not have input from the environmental groups. So if it's something that the Board would like us to take a look it, I would encourage that we include those groups to participate maybe in the next round of the amendment cycle so at least they could have the opportunity to take a look at it and consider it because they were not involved in this. Page 84 November 29, 2000 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, I just don't understand. I'm not suggesting any intensification. I'm just suggesting equal protection. If one concessionaire can do it, why shouldn't another one be able to do it? MS. FERGUSON: We considered the fact that the Registry would be going 900 feet down the beach. Most of the other concessions were going from the top of the beach to the water's edge. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But maybe that's not true, because he travels farther than that. MR. FINCH: Yes. And one point I wanted to also make is for my needs, I would not take my vehicle off private property. It would not go -- so I don't have the erosion lines because we weren't part of the beach renourishment, but I do have the high water line and I would not use my vehicle down past that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You could stay on private property, but your concession, do it in non-turtle nesting season. You'd use it only to move equipment at the beginning and end of the day, and that's what we're going to let the Registry do and allow you as others do it. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I would like to get some wording before the next LDC, and perhaps with an application process, when the concessionaire comes to us, if that's the situation, we can approve that situation versus making it blanket we're going to have them drive 15 feet. We're going to say, wait a minute, you can use a trolley or cart. Take it down. Get some administrative latitude. MS. FERGUSON: We can craft some language for the next meeting like that. Do you want us to recommend a distance that you feel is appropriate? . CHAIRMAN CARTER: Folks, I think you can probably come up in your brain power with something that is reasonable. I don't think it's up to me. MR. FINCH: In my experience, 200 feet would be a reasonable mark. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I'll go with 200 feet with the man in the business. MR. FINCH: One of the final ones I want to make -- I want to address concerns about the implication of this on the public. Starting as far back as I can think is July of 1995. There were Page 85 November 29, 2000 three concessions along the stretch of beach that were using ATV's to move their equipment on a daily basis. The codes were not enforced up until May of 1999. The reason I was given for these codes being enforced was that they finally had the staff to enforce them. There were no concerns about public complaints. There were no concerns about people being inconvenienced by this. From my research, there were no complaints made between that time. CHAIRMAN CARTER: We thank you for your input and look forward to the language to be given at the next meeting. MR. FINCH: Thank you. CHAIRMAN CARTER: The next speaker?. MR. OLLIFF: The next speaker is Ron Albeit followed by Ilene Barnett. MR. ALBEIT: Good evening again, Ron Albeit. I happen to agree that you can't leave out a concession. It's the same idea. When you're moving heavy equipment, it doesn't make sense not to be able to move it. I don't really understand why it was singled out as the Registry. However, one thing I would like to suggest -- and though we didn't meet with the environmental -- and I do have an environmental expert here to discuss the impact and the compaction of an ATV machine with 10 psi on a beach. She can do it a lot better than I can. However, what I would like to suggest is that we operate our business 365 five days a year. We don't close in turtle nesting season. We were given a CDSL variance this turtle nesting season, even though we have operated for 14 years without knowing, as the gentlemen said, that we were breaking the law, and so, therefore, I would like to see you consider that we operate as the code has suggested today; that we be allowed to bring our equipment down to the pass in the beginning of every day after the turtle inspectors have inspected for turtle nests and we be given the all-clear, and then by the end of the day we be allowed to collect our equipment and bring it back to the pavilion. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, don't we worry about the ability of the mother turtle to dig up a nest if you pack the sand down with a heavy ATV? MR. ALBEIT: I think if I have my environmentalist -- her name is Ilene Barnett -- can tell you the difference of compaction to the Page 86 November 29, 2000 beach of what a -- a 170-pound individual has on a compaction versus a tire pressure of an ATV machine. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But still it's cumulative. MR. ALBEIT: Once in the morning or twice in the morning to get our equipment down to the pass and then back. We are operating that way. Otherwise, you are telling us we cannot operate our concession during the turtle nesting season, and the staff was very considerate when they allowed us to have the variances this summer for us to be able to do it. It's very restrictive. In fact, if you recall, we just remodeled the Clam Pass site. We drove over 100 piles into the beach during this process. We had the environmental people there to make sure that by doing that, we were not disruptive to turtle nests, and we did that. And we raked the beach every day in turtle nesting season, using up and down the beach much more often than once down to the pass in the morning to bring our equipment and back again to the end of the night. So I would ask for your consideration. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Comments from Mr. Mulhere, and maybe we do and maybe we don't. MR. MULHERE: Thank you. I think there should be a couple of more significant issues when we talk about turtle nesting season. For one thing, we received calls from interested national organizations and state environmental organizations expressing great concern that we would be expanding the use of vehicles on the beach during turtle nesting season. Of course, we really hadn't intended to do that. We assured them we were not willing to do that. We don't object to looking at the issue of utilizing, under a very limited fashion, perhaps an ATV, but we'd like to involve -- I think we feel pretty strongly on this issue -- we'd like to involve a much broader segment of the environmental population. And maybe I shouldn't limit it to the environmental population, but to look at this issue specifically during sea turtle nesting season. I mean, our objective is to find a way that we can protect the resources and still allow these folks to operate in that way. So we're not being obstructionists, but we really want to bring the appropriate people in before we shoot ourselves in the foot. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We could look at this in the next cycle. Page 87 November 29, 2000 MR. MULHERE: I would say this one really needs to go to the next cycle. MR. OLLIFF: The next speaker is Ilene Barnett, following with what will be your last speaker, Matthew Grabinski. MS. BARNETT: Good evening, commissioners. Thank you. Ilene Barnett. For the record, I am representing the Registry in this LDC amendment project. I have done this type of work in this area in Collier County for about the last 12 years, two-and-a-half of which was for you in the early '90s in the Natural Resources Department where I spent a lot of that time working on the CCME, which was the precursor of these LDC amendments. So it's kind of interesting to see the progression of what we thought we had in mind then and seeing how it has grown and changed in some way. Commissioner Mac'Kie had a concern about cumulative impacts on the beach. Right now this is very speculative. The beach is made of unconsolidated material, sand. It moves around with waves and waves and gets to the bottom and aerates. Compaction can be an issue. At the time, ten years ago, we didn't know too much about tire pressure and ground pressure, and the ATV industry has come a long way since then. The requirement now is for readily available tires that have 10 psi of pressure. To give you an example of the difference, a typical person might have between 10 and 18 psi of ground pressure every time they take a step. That's a small part of the foot that steps on the ground. The full weight of the person on that, you do a physical calculation, and that is why that 10 psi has become a requirement in a lot of county and municipal ordinances on the beach concerns. We did workshops on this with the EAC. They were all supportive of this project. I don't think our intention was to limit it to the Registry. The Registry just had concerns, but they needed to operate their business. As far as the sea turtle issue, we are in full agreement with Mr. Mulhere that we would need the workshop out in the open and look at any data that is available and any special protective measures that we can implement during sea turtle season. But for right now, this is the non-sea turtle nesting season. The chances of cumulative compaction, impact with 10 psi tires or -- I don't know if they would exist. I can't even say minimal. I don't think they would exist. I just wanted to support the Registry in their Page 88 November 29, 2000 endeavor and the county. Thank you. MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Grabinski? MR. GRABINSKI: Do you have any concerns that haven't been addressed? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: No. MR. GRABINSKI: Okay. I would just like to make one quick point. As Ilene indicated earlier, the ATV industry has come a long way. You might want to note that the current vehicle on the beach regulations and the county code, if you trace them back to the original ordinance, you go back to 1977. I did a little research of my own. As you know, we basically have four-wheel ATV's now. The predecessors were the three-wheel ones that flipped over and killed a lot of people. Those weren't manufactured until around 1976 or '77. A four-wheeler ATV did not start being mass produced until 1984. So I would suggest, as we had to do with some other rentals just recently tonight with the trash compactor amendment, you know, that an improvement in our technology is now allowing us to carry on functions that formerly would have been prohibited, but now that we have it, we now have the means to do so and I don't see why we shouldn't be able to. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Thank you. MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Nino, take us home. *** MR. NINO: Yes. I think we're at page 82. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Can I ask, are there any other registered speakers for any of these items? MR. OLLIFF: No. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Unless people have questions on any of these, the rest seem to be pretty straightforward and housekeeping. Is there anything we have to talk about here? MR. NINO: There is just one more we need to get on the record, and we need to get your direction. When we prepared the amendment dealing with typical street cross-sections, apparently, we didn't realize the opportunity inherent, in that to rectify those street standards -- and particularly Norm Feder brought it to our attention -- that he would like to use this opportunity to change all of the maps that are part of the typical cross-section exhibit at this time, and we can do that since this amendment has been advertised. So this window of opportunity does exist, and we Page 89 November 29, 2000 would like you to direct us to amend the cross-section for streets consistent with our - whatever our transportation guru recommends. MR. OLLIFF: Generally, instead of a 60-foot standard right-of-way, we are talking probably about a 120-foot standard right-of-way. That fits not only drainage and some of the other easements which you need, but some of the sidewalks and bypass issues that I think this Board has always wanted to include. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That takes us home, Mr. Nino? MR. NINO: Yes, it does. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Is there anything else we need to do? We stand adjourned. There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 8:45 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNMENT BOARD(S) OF SPECIAlDER ITS CONTROL ~ ~.. Ca~, P--~--~.D, ~;~-~i r~a-~ These,m,nutes approved by the Board on presented v/ or as corrected . ~ as TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE, INC. BY GERE RIVERA. Page 90