DSAC Minutes 12/06/2000 RDecember 6, 2000
TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE
DEVELOPMENT SERVICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Naples, Florida, December 6, 2000
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Development Services
Advisory Committee, in and for the County of Collier, as the
governing board of such special district as has been created
accordance to law and having conducted business herein, met
on this date at 3:30 p.m., in REGULAR SESSION, at Conference
Room "F", Horseshoe Drive, Naples, Florida, with the following
members present:
CHAIRMAN:
Dalas D. Disney, AIA
Charles M. Abbott
R. Bruce Anderson, Esq.
David Correa
Robert L. Duane, AICP
Marco A. Espinar
Blair A. Foley, P.E.
Brian E. Jones
Dino J. Longo
Tom Masters, P.E.
Thomas R. Peek, P.E.
C. Perry Peeples, Esq.
Herbert R. Savage, AIA
Also present: Marjorie Student, Assistant County Attorney
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December 6, 2000
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Since we have a quorum, we'll call to
order the December 6, 2000 meeting of the Development
Services Advisory Committee.
We have an agenda here. Are there any modifications to
this agenda before we look for an approval?
MR. MULHERE: Mr. Chairman, I'll like to, under
Miscellaneous, I guess, because I did want to briefly discuss the
hearing examiner's proposal which I think you were distributed
copies of the executive summary -- and I, with the committee's
indulgence, much to Ron's chagrin probably, I wonder if I could
take, under Old Business, Item B, before Item A. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Old Business--
MR. MULHERE: That would be taking the Fee Increase issue
before the Land --
MR. SAVAGE: That doesn't need a motion; does it?
MR. MULHERE: Yes.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Huh?
MR. MULHERE: Oh, no. That, that change?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: I don't think so. I'm sure that we can
take B before A.
Any other changes in the agenda?
MR. PEEK: I have a question. Whether we want to discuss
it under Miscellaneous or under Committee Member Comments,
we've got four of us whose terms expire next week, and so we
may only have a very small committee next month unless
something's happening.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you for bringing it up. There is --
I know that there have been letters submitted and
advertisements for new members. That's not on this agenda.
Is that, is that in a position that we could review those and
act upon it today perhaps?
MR. MULHERE: I don't think so.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: No?
MR. MULHERE: I think there's the -- there's a 30-day
advertisement period. I'm not sure when it got advertised. Do you know, John?
MR. DUNNUCK: I'd have to check with Sue Filson's office.
MR. MULHERE: Yeah. There's usually 30 days, and then
there's some time for us to -- the committee to respond back to
them so that probably it's going to go on to January.
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December 6, 2000
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Well, you -- unless we're notified
otherwise, then I suppose we're -- if our terms expire and we
don't show up for the January meeting -- or we do? I happen to
be one of those also.
MR. MULHERE: I responded.
MR. SAVAGE: Well, I'll make a motion that unless you're
notified otherwise, we request that you be here.
MR. MULHERE: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Yeah.
MR. SAVAGE: Would that be in order?
MR. PEEK: I guess if we want to discuss this right now, I
guess it may be in order, but the letter that I received notifying
me that my term expires on December the 14th said, said that,
period. It didn't say anything else.
So under the ordinance, whether we have the opportunity to
continue to serve until our replacement, I don't know what the
ordinance says.
MR. MULHERE: Doesn't the Board's advisory committee
resolution allow, with Board discretion, appointees to serve until
the appointment?
MS. STUDENT: On behalf (inaudible) --
THE REPORTER: May I have your name, Ma'am, and I can't
hear you.
MS. STUDENT: Yes, Marjorie Student, Assistant County
Attorney.
I would have to check on that, Bob. It's been quite a long
time since I've looked at this provision, and I have never
reviewed the one for the DSAC, so I'd have to look.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Well, perhaps on that issue, you could
send those of us who are expiring terms some notice whether to
show up for January or March or -- and, and --
MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chairman, there's no organization I ever
heard of that you work still on that which you were appointed to
unless you're -- until you're replaced.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Any other, any other changes to the
agenda first before we --
MR. PEEPLES: I have a question about the agenda. I know
we discussed last meeting looking into the possibility of curing
the quorum problems we've been having with either staff
alternatives -- never mind. That's --
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MR. PEEK: I move the agenda be approved.
MR. SAVAGE: Second.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Moved and seconded. All those in
favor say aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Hearing none, we'll move on.
We need to go back to -- well, Item II is the approval of the
minutes for October 4 meeting, which I believe were in the
November I package.
MR. PEEK: I move the approval.
MR. CORREA: I second it.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: You second? Any comments? No?
All those in favor say aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Hearing none.
Item 3, Staff Announcements, Summary of Ordinance
Amendments.
MR. MULHERE: I don't, I don't see that in your agenda
package. It was the same -- of course, we're going to go over the
I. DC hearing, and I think there's the Weed, Litter & Exotic Control
Ordinance later on, so those were the only two that were
outstanding.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. Item B was Miscellaneous items
then?
MR. MULHERE: Yes. I had the hearing down right. Does
anyone not have a copy of the executive summary for the hearing
examiner? If not, I have copies I can --
MR. SAVAGE: That's not one copy you have in your hand; is
it?
MR. MULHERE: No, that's several. Let me grab one so I can
refer to it.
By direction of the Board we, the staff, prepared an
executive summary to have the Board consider implementation
of the hearing examiner program for quasi-judicial land use
petitions. We modeled our recommendations to the Board
largely after the Lee County Hearing Examiner program. Though
it would be limited to quasi-judicial land use hearings, I think we
can use it for other types of hearings, as well, perhaps code
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enforcement.
Not that we couldn't do that down the road, but initially we'd
modeled it just for quasi-judicial land use petitions. The
rationale, there were a couple of issues.
One, the EAC and the CCPC have expressed really a desire
to be more involved in the policy development process as
opposed to dealing with policy issues on a case-by-case basis as
they come up in specific land use petitions, which is really not
the appropriate way to deal with those policy issues.
Two, the Board, from our perspective, from the staff
perspective, the Board will have more time to deal with policy
issues as they come up through their advisory committees if
they're not spending a lot of time, let's say, on a variance or a
boat dock petition or an off-site parking petition.
Third thing is that there is in perception, whether valid or
not, that some interest groups may have greater access into the
development review approval process; and, frankly, the -- I'm not
an attorney, but, you know, the Florida law as far as the Supreme
Court basically after the advent of required growth management
plans, has found that site-specific land use petitions are
quasi-judicial, and they really need to take a different format.
There has to be a record established, and a board's decision or
whoever is making the decision should be based on record there.
So using the hearing examiner, there will be a more
formalized process, and the way we proposed this, the hearing
examiner will be making final decisions on what would be
referred to as minor land use petitions that would include various
petitions, off-site parking petitions, gas station Iocational
restriction waivers, these types of things.
For the major rezones and conditional uses, those petitions
will go to the hearing examiner; that record would be forwarded
to the Board, and the hearing examiner's recommendation would
be forwarded to the Board for final decision.
The staff would make a recommendation to the hearing
examiner; the applicant will have an opportunity to give a
presentation; and of course any affected parties or members of
the public will have an opportunity to speak at the hearing
examiner hearings.
For those minor petitions, there will be no appeal process as
restructured for the Board. If you're denied a variance or if your
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variance is approved and you're an affected property owner and
you wish to challenge it, it will be through the circuit court -- I
assume the circuit court -- the courts anyway -- but for the --
again, for those major types of petitions, PUD rezones, trade
rezones, conditional uses, the Board would still have final say-so.
One big difference in the way we structured this from the
way Lee County restructured it, Lee County does completely
prohibit ex parte communication with the Board. We knew, from
talking to the Board, that they did not want to have ex parte
communication, because mainly, from their perspective, it was
to allow their constituents an opportunity to access them.
But it also works for the development community, because
we will not prohibit ex parte communication, but we will devise,
in conjunction with the County attorney's office, a better
methodology for recording that ex parte communication and then
subsequently for disclosing it. It's probably a written log some
way better than "1 spoke to someone last week about this."
So the Board did endorse this and gave us direction to move
forward with it. We're in the process right now of submitting to
the legislative delegation by December 15. Amendments to the
special act for Collier County approved and adopted by the
legislature in 1967 specifically calls for the board of zoning
appeals to be the body that hears these types of petitions, and
we won't, we won't strike through that provision.
What we will do is try to develop or amend the special act
so that we may also have the alternative of using the hearing
examiner so that whichever process ultimately is the one that's
preferred, that's the one that was used.
So we won't eliminate the opportunity to go back to another
methodology, but right now we have Board direction to do this.
MR. SAVAGE: Question, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Before we take questions, is this item
information only, or are you looking for action from us?
MR. MULHERE: I don't need an endorsement. I don't need
any action, because the Board directed us to do it, so it's --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: So it's really information only.
MR. MULHERE: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. Mr. Savage, you had a question?
MR. SAVAGE: Herb Savage. You said a while ago that if the
staff comes up with a recommendation and it's turned over to the
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examiner, the examiner has the right to change the decision of
the staff recommending to the Board of the County commission?
MR. MULHERE: Yes. Just like right now we go to the
planning commission and the planning commission
recommendation is forwarded to the BCC, the hearing examiner
will weigh the issues, the factual issues and the expert
testimony and the competent substantial evidence and make a
decision either supporting the staff recommendation, supporting
the staff recommendation with conditions, or some other
variation thereof.
Maybe not. Maybe, if we're recommending denial and they
want support, they'll recommend approval.
MR. SAVAGE: 'Cause it was amazing to me the other day
that it was recommended about a road going through a
community, and it was the staff's recommendation, after looking
at all the facts, and here the County commission says, no.
After -- you know, I think that was a slap in the face
personally, and I --
MR. MULHERE: Well, you know, that happens.
MR. SAVAGE: Yeah. I don't care whether they like it or not;
I just think we're totally --
MR. MULHERE: I guess I can say frankly that there's been
little objection to the implementation of the hearing examiner on
the part of the development community that I've spoken to or
land use attorneys.
I would say the reason is because it sets up a very equal
playing field for those folks. If they do their job, if the project is
consistent and they put on the evidence that's consistent, then
we're going to get a recommendation for approval.
The likelihood of a petition being overturned as a result of
what's termed to be applause-meter zoning, which is a room full
of people who are in opposition but have put no substantial
evidence into the record that it should be denied with the
hearing examiner, I would say that that could still be overturned
by the -- you know, the case of a rezone or a conditional use or
PUD, because the Board will have final say-so, but you will have
a record established that creates an appeal mechanism that
would be difficult, I think, to --
MR. WHITE: The one point I want to make, the hearing
examiner will be creating a written recommendation that will
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take all of the evidence from the applicants, from the staff, and
from all of the public, and kind of synthesize it into that hearing
examiner's recommendation, or a final decision in the case of the
minor, if you will, land use petition.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Peek?
MR. PEEK: I have two questions of Bob.
Bob, is there an implementation date, and the second
question is, what impact does it have on this committee? MR. MULHERE: Two things, two good questions.
There was a tentative schedule in the executive summary
target date for implementation of June 2001. Obviously we can't
really implement this hearing examiner until we've amended the
LDC accordingly, and that process will now happen in the next
cycle, which I think is June. Final approval by the Board of the
next cycle in June, we can amend the special act, we can amend
the LDC, and we can probably move forward with interviews and
hiring.
As I understand it, the hearing examiner will, like the County
attorney's office, work directly for the Board, not for the County
attorney's office who represents the Board. The second part of the question was?
MR. PEEK: Does it have any impact on this committee?
MR. MULHERE: I, I don't think so, because frankly -- I mean,
it has an impact on some of what you do from your business
perspectives, but--
MR. PEEK: I meant as a committee.
MR. MULHERE: -- but as a committee, this committee will
continue to look at all of the issues that relate to construction
and development, and you also already look at policy issues. I
think what we'd like to see a shift in, and it appears that the
Board supports that concept -- a shift in the other -- in some
other advisory committees to the Board, particularly the EAC and
the CCPC, a shift focusing -- obviously, since they won't be
dealing with specific land use petitions, we would like to develop
a list of the policy-related issues that either they could generate
for us or we could generate for them and then prioritize that and
begin to look over that.
A couple of examples, this -- the rural assessment process is
going to necessarily generate some significant policy issues
related to wetland protection, listed species, and alternative
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land use scenarios; and those wetland protection and listed
species issues apply not only in the rural areas, but are going to
apply County-wide to some degree or another, and that's a very
large policy issue that this committee will need to be involved
with, EAC and CCPC, as we move forward with it. I don't see the
role of this committee changing.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. Dino, did you have a question?
MR. I. ONGO: How is it funded?
MR. MULHERE: It's funded by petition fees.
MR. CORREA: Would that increase the petition fees?
MR. MULHERE: Well, that's another issue we're going to
discuss momentarily.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Anderson?
MR. ANDERSON: Will there be a presumption of correctness
that attaches to the hearing officer's recommendation?
MR. MULHERE: I'll defer to Mr. White.
Pat, don't they have that in Lee County?
MR. WHITE: There is no presumption of correctness. I think
there's just the typical standard that you have that follows a writ
of certiorari, if you will. If there's competent substantial
evidence in the record, then I think that you need to have
something on the opposite side, if you will.
I mean, it pretty much follows the way Snyder goes, but --
the interplay between the applicants and the government, and
the answer depends in part upon whether the project is
recommended for denial, and then the hearing examiner
recommends approval.
So it changes as the fact matter changes, but there is no
legal presumption built into the process.
MR. ANDERSON: Well, I mean, when it goes from the
hearing officers to the Board of County Commissioners and it's a
recommendation as opposed to a final order that you might issue
MR. WHITE: The ordinance will not provide the presumption
of correctness.
MR. ANDERSON: All right. What -- what's the purpose of
going to a hearing officer then, 'cause my understanding of Lee
County commission, they have to find some rationale, some
error, that the hearing officer made to override it.
MR. WHITE: That's true, and that arises more as a question
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of black-letter law than something in the ordinance that is a
stated presumption.
An example would be the sea turtle ordinance. There's a
presumption that if there's a shadow that there's a violation on
the light in this case, and that's a legal presumption built into a
piece of legislation.
There is no such thing in this ordinance nor in Lee County's
ordinance, but as a matter of law and by operation of black letter
law, a judge-made law, that is the way that it's handled.
The evidentiary standard is that you have to find something
in the record that points out where the hearing examiner was,
was incorrect or failed to apply the correct law, you know, the
basic standard that all the courts follow.
So it's done in the nature of an appellate type of a
proceeding, but there is no legal presumption of correctness.
MR. ANDERSON: Okay. In the context of the appellate
proceeding, how will we deal with the current requirement in the
special act for a four-fifths vote for a zoning change? Will that be
disposed of?
MR. WHITE: No. My understanding is that that will remain
the same.
MR. ANDERSON: Or will it be a four-fifths vote to change the
hearing officer's recommendation? Does it take four-fifths to
affirm it, or is this just another layer of expense and
bureaucracy?
MR. MULHERE: I would say it would take -- well, you know, I
don't know, I don't know if -- how we'll structure -- I'm not sure
about your question of whether it will affirm it or change it.
It will take a super majority to approve a land use petition
by the Board just as it does right now. There's no intent to
change the super majority requirement. In fact, there's direction
not to change the super majority requirement, so --
And right now, I mean, they don't need a super majority vote
to change the staff's recommendation or the CCPC's
recommendation; they need a super majority vote to approve a
land use petition.
MR. ANDERSON: Yes, but you -- you know, what we're
talking about here is, is a true quasi-judicial hearing by someone
trained in the law which, with all due respect, you staff members
nor the members of the planning commission have --
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December 6, 2000
MR. MULHERE: Oh, I agree a hundred percent, which is why
I favor this.
MR. ANDERSON: And the whole purpose is to go to a more
factually --
MR. MULHERE: Correct.
MR. ANDERSON: -- and legally oriented process.
MR. MULHERE: Correct.
MR. ANDERSON: But if it's going to take four-fifths --
MR. MULHERE: It -- there is, there is no intent -- in fact,
there's direction not to change that.
You can certainly make the argument as this issue arises
before the Board or the legislative delegation.
MR. ANDERSON: Well, some of the support that you initially
saw from the land use community may be disappearing.
MR. MULHERE: But, Bruce, let me just say one thing:
Regardless of whether it takes a super majority or not, if a record
is established and the hearing examiner makes a
recommendation, does that -- and a, and a board makes an
arbitrary or what in your opinion is a decision that's not
supported by competent and substantial evidence, do you not
have a greater likelihood of reversing that decision?
MR. ANDERSON: It depends on what you-all put in the
special act.
MR. MULHERE: Well, you're going to get a chance to look at
that.
MR. WHITE: Very soon, and I think there are options that
can exist if you're thinking about this in terms of all or none.
For example, if you wanted to retain the four-fifths majority
in order for the Board to reverse the hearing examiner's
recommendation, that may be an option.
You know, there are any number of ways that you can look
at this, and I encourage you to not see it as just one way or the
other.
MR. MULHERE: Just, just in terms of this discussion, you'll
recall, I guess it was last year, we proposed to amend the
special act for the purpose of deleting some conflicting -- I mean,
this thing was approved in 1967. The Florida constitution was
approved in 1968.
MR. STUDENT: Yeah, the constitution gave us our own
power --
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December 6, 2000
MR. MULHERE: Oh, real powers, so --
MS. STUDENT: -- so that's really rather archaic.
MR. MULHERE: So -- but we were unable -- and initially I
believe the legislative delegation endorsed the amendment to
the bill.
Later on it was, I think, pulled by a Senator Sanders, who
was concerned about the elimination of the super majority vote,
so we've left that in.
But anyway, if I can answer any other questions -- there's a
very detailed sort of white paper behind the executive summary,
if you haven't had a chance to look at it, that gives you the
history behind Snyder and quasi-judicial, and of course I had help
writing that, so --
MR. LONGO: Yeah, just to clear my head, but this doesn't
mean that the Board has to accept the finding -- MR. MULHERE: No.
MR. LONGO: -- or the recommendation.
MR. MULHERE: No.
MR. WHITE: No. There will be a separate hearing in front of
the Board for the major land use petitions, the PUDS and that
type of thing, where, as Bruce has indicated, one of the things
that's essential if you're intending to reverse the
recommendation is to point out places where the hearing
examiner didn't get it right, and that's where guys like Bruce
make their living, if they get an unfavorable recommendation, by
bringing those things out of the record and being compelling in
front of the Board, so --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Savage, did you have a question?
MR. SAVAGE: I just want to say this: I'm getting sick and
tired of hearing all these magnificent plans and details of how to
make more money, how to have more paper printed. It's sort of
like the roar of a lion and producing a mouse.
You know, Tom, Dick, Harry and Mary, little citizens want to
do something, they're going to have to pay more and more money
to get damn little, and it just irritates me to no end when I see
these things happening.
MR. MULHERE: No. And, you know, and I understand that.
I think though, keep in mind the genesis of something like
this is the courts' findings, the courts' determinations in
something like Snyder that frankly, when a decision is made that
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is contrary to the competent and substantial evidence, the
exposure is significantly increased, I think, to the Board, and
this, to our mind, creates a process that is really fair to both
sides.
But does it, does it then make it more incumbent upon, let's
say, the public to know what the rules are and how to operate?
Yes, it does.
MS. STUDENT: Well, Bob, I'd like to make a comment here,
too, 'cause every year for the last I don't know how many years
I've participated in a panel on growth management school that
the Florida Chamber puts on; and I think one of the problems that
we have with taking things before a board is, you're trying to put
a square peg in a round hole, and you come up with all these
procedural issues.
And some attorneys want to turn proceedings before a board
into a mini trial, where literally if that were done and you had
discovery, which is depositions and interrogatories, and so on,
you know, it could go on forever and ever.
And that's not to say that the hearing officer process would
be set up like that to require what we call discovery, but there's
some problems with, you know, trying to put the square peg in
the round hole with ex parte communications and boards being
elected officials and then this issue about ex parte and, well,
gee, you know, there's issues talking to our constituents, but
that's what we're elected to do.
And I think all that is, you know, an outgrowth of some of
those problems associated with bringing these -- you know,
bringing a process that isn't necessarily suited to a political
process, you know, before a board, an elected body.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: I'd like to wrap this up if we can.
You had a --
MR. VAN ARSDALE: Just a quick comment. I think in the
conversation, one of the things that concerns me is the appeal
process, particularly as it pertains to let's say variances; and
oftentimes either the staff or the law doesn't justify a variance,
but common sense does.
MR. MULHERE: Right. Right.
MR. VAN ARSDALE: And it would seem to me that you look
at your appeal process and maybe address that issue where
there are things that should be able to --
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December 6, 2000
MR. MULHERE: Great point. That's an excellent point. In
fact, we talked about that and that one of the things we would
certainly want to do as we move forward was to look at the
criteria and make sure that the criteria did provide a mechanism
-- we recently amended our variance criteria to say where other
circumstances ameliorate the need for the setback, and it's sort
of broad, but a hearing examiner is going to want to see
something more specific. And we're going to have to work with
that person, because I think your point is very, very well -- we
can think of examples where everyone wants it to happen, and
we're hamstrung. And we certainly don't intend for that to be the
case.
MS. STUDENT: There's an issue about variances too that if
you see enough of them comin9 through and there's enough of a
problem it doesn't make sense not to grant it, then that means
there's a problem with your code or how it's applied, and the
code ought to be amended, because variances are typically
designed by somebody -- and it -- you know, strictly, strictly
speaking, if you couldn't use your property for anything because
performance standards are changed and the lot's too small to
meet everythin9 and -- you know, it's a strict, strict hardship
when they -- that was the genesis of it, and since then it's been
expanded, believe me.
But when you see too many of them coming through for
certain things, that means there could be a problem with what's
in the code.
MR. MULNERE: Well, we do intend to look at the criteria on
all of those issues and work with the member we bring in as the
hearing examiner, and of course we'll bring those back to you in
the form of LDC amendments, so I think it's an excellent point.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. Thanks very much, Bob, for the
information.
We'll go to Old Business. We were going to take Item B first.
MR. MULHERE: Hold on. Bruce is waving his --
MR. ANDERSON: Don't you have an announcement to make
about the outcome of the comprehensive planning zoning?
MR. MULNERE: Gee, I'm glad you reminded me, Bruce.
I'm sorry. We'll add one more item, and I'll defer to Marjorie
to make the announcement even though Bruce wanted to give
me the limelight.
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December 6, 2000
MS. STUDENT: Thank you, Bob. I appreciate that.
I'm happy to say that the County prevailed in the comp plan
challenge when we had the hearing last June, and what was
being challenged by the Wildlife folks and the Audubon folks
were certain provisions of the plan that we did implement in the
final order.
And I haven't had a chance yet to go through the
recommended order from the hearing officer. It's rather thick,
and I've been just buried in meetings and such, but --
MR. MULHERE: Just to give you a little perspective, 'cause
this gets very confusing even for us over this period of time,
what we -- we were -- our interim -- we were required by the final
order to repeal the offending portions, adopt interim
amendments, and then adopt amendments that ultimately will
correct the deficiencies.
MS. STUDENT: Right.
MR. MULHERE: The interim amendments, I believe, was
what was challenged here, including --
MS. STUDENT: It was part of them, the first round of them --
MR. MULHERE: -- including the natural resource protection
area --
MS. STUDENT: Right.
MR. MULHERE: -- interim natural resource protection area,
so remember we were found in compliance with DCA on that, and
we had some intervenors. I think your firm intervened, and I
don't know who else, but we had some intervenors on behalf of
the County, so it was a little bit different than the previous
lawsuit that ended up in a final order between the governor and
cabinet -- from the governor and cabinet, because in that case
we -- I mean, the County and the DCA had found us in
noncompliance, and several people intervened with the DCA.
In any case, they found us -- let me -- I guess what I'm trying
to say is, certainly you're in a little better position when you have
the DCA finding you in compliance and then you're challenged,
and that was the case here, and so we prevailed on this one.
MR. ANDERSON: On all issues?
MR. MULHERE: On all issues.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Congratulations. That's great.
MR. MULHERE: I have copies -- proposed fee increase -- I
have copies in the executive summary that's going to the Board
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December 6, 2000
on the 12th, and I don't think you have those, so I'd like to pass
those out. And there's a -- behind it, there's a copy of the
proposed fee increase and the existing fees.
I don't expect you to have a chance to look through these,
but what we would do is go over the executive summary with you
right now -- it might take a few minutes, but it's certainly
worthwhile -- and let you know what happened with your --
DUANE: We did get those with the packet.
MR. MULHERE: You did?
DUANE: Yes, without the executive summary.
MR. MULHERE: Okay. So not the executive summary. You
didn't get the executive summary. So let me just pass out the
executive summary then.
I don't know how many we need. I'll just keep them coming.
Need a few more over there? Is that about it?
MR. MULHERE: Let me start out by saying you recall that
this issue came up several months ago during the budget
process -- and by the way, let me start -- let me just -- I don't
know if you-all know Mike Smykowski and Tony Gambino. Mike
is the budget director and Tony is our budget analyst, and I
asked them to be here because I felt some questions could come
up that I certainly couldn't handle, so -- and they also work with
the ad hoc committee, as well.
We had probably five or six meetings with the ad hoc
committee, but the last three meetings have been more in
earnest looking at the fee increase issues.
Just at the outset, the objective summary explains a couple
things that I want to let you know. One is that the new building
costs, the budgeted or predicted amount of about 9 million for
the parking garage and the new building over here, at this point
we're comfortable that that cost is more like at about 7.5 and
may actually be even a little less than that, we're not fully sure
yet, but about a million and a half less than what we originally
projected.
Two -- couple of reasons: One, the building is a little bit
smaller; we're talking 40,000 square feet, and that reduced the
need for some additional parking. I think the parking in the
garage is estimated at somewhere around $10,000 a space as
you go up, so as you, you know, as you take 50 parking spaces,
you're talking about a significant decrease in the cost as we
Page t6
December 6, 2000
reduced the size of that building.
We did do -- look at all of our needs as well as the needs for
the transportation administration staff coming in here, and of
course, they will be paying rent when they come in. They're
currently in leased space on Horseshoe, and there's sufficient --
with the 40,000, there are sufficient space needs for the next 15
years at a minimum both for the community development division
and for transportation and administration with about 6- or 7,000
square feet extra built in, so it's not a significant or real large
amount of extra space.
We would obviously look to house County staff in that extra
space and get more rent generated until we need it, if we do; and
then when we do, we'll assume that space.
The other aspect that sort of came into play here was, the
first few months of this year, we -- our revenue has exceeded our
projections, I think about a hundred thousand dollars in the first
-- each of the first couple of months.
We originally proposed, during the budget process, a 17.5
percent across-the-board fee increase. You'll recall in 1994, I
think it was, that we had a 15 percent fee reduction
across-the-board, and then the -- really the rationale for the 17.5
percent was not so much to get back that 15 percent.
In reality, it was an exercise that the budget office did to
say, what is our revenue projections, what are our expenses, and
what do we need to bring those together?
And on the first -- the second page, there's a spreadsheet
and a graph of the executive summary, and that spreadsheet
shows that in this fiscal year, FY '01, we're projected to have a
deficit or more expenses than revenue to the tune of slightly less
than a half a million dollars. That does not include the capital
costs of the new building.
That number goes down significantly in '02 and '03 to
slightly less than $100,000, and the reason for that is that some
of those expenses are one-time costs for -- there's some
software and some hardware and some things like that that
we're only going to buy one time, and that's why that number is
higher.
In working with your ad hoc committee, one of the
directions that they, I think, preferred that we go to was to look
at a -- more of an activity -- by activity analysis to look at the fee
Page 17
December 6, 2000
structure rather than across-the-board fee increase.
And I talked with Mike Smykowski, and based on the
reduced construction costs and based on the additional revenue
that we've generated beyond projections, at least in the first
quarter, we were comfortable that even though we might
generate less money from an activity specific fee increase
annually than the 17.5, we would still be generating enough,
based on what our recommendations are here, that we would
cover our deficiencies.
The committee spent an awful lot of time, asked a lot of
questions. It was, it was very specific and focused on, you
know, what are you getting for money when we look at a revenue
we're generating, and why are we asking for a fee increase?
One of the, one of the, I guess, issues that we settled on
was that we have an obligation to you to conduct a very
thorough analysis of all the activities that we perform and
develop special performance measures.
And you know we've had -- those of you that have been
around for a long time know we have performance measures, and
apparently in some cases we are not living up to those
performance measures, and in other cases, they've been around
for so long that it's time to go and look at those standards and
work with -- we want to work with either an ad hoc committee or
a specific committee appointed by this group leading up to -- and
with the budget office.
And I'm sorry. I should have introduced our business
manager -- I don't know if you've met -- have you met Tom
Kelley?
Actually, John probably would have done that, but as long as
I'm in here in this discussion, we hired Tom as a business
manager. I think John and Tom Olliff looked at this operation
and said, you know, you're taking in $2 million a year; you need
to have a business manager here.
And so Tom is going to work with Mike and Tony, myself,
and the building department and John and whomever you-all
want to work with us to look at all of the activities that we
conduct on your behalf, the fees that we charge more
comprehensively, come back with a comprehensive report. I'm
sure you're going to add some things that I've forgotten to that,
and we want to do that in con]unction with the budget process
Page 18
December 6, 2000
next year.
What we're asking for you -- from you right now is for
endorsement of this activity specific fee increase that is
contained in your packet, understanding that some of those fees
percentage-wise are pretty significant, but we based those
calculations on the amount of time it takes for us to do those
activities.
We'll go ahead and look at them again and we'll look at all
the ones that we didn't look at. For example, I didn't look at a lot
of the stuff in this year, 'cause we had -- we looked at those last
year.
But we didn't conduct that type of exercise where we look
at what's your desired level of service, how long will it take us to
provide that level of service, and therefore how much will it
cost? And that -- we are agreeing -- we think it was really an
excellent suggestion. I think predominantly, you know, it came
from Mr. Van Arsdale and the rest of the committee, and we think
it's high time to do it, so --
Mike wanted to add something.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Just had a brief point. The subcommittee
also focused strongly on looking at planning fees versus the
building permit fees.
MR. MULHERE: Thank you.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Obviously, the building permit fees carry
the lion's share of the revenue generation within, within the
operation.
MR. MULHERE: Right.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Over time though, and back when I was
an analyst back when development services was created, it was
recognized that the planning side would not be self-supporting
just because you would make a rezone cost $50,000 in order to
make it work, or whatever the case may be, but -- MR. SAVAGE: Work in that direction now--
MR. MULHERE: Well, we are, and in fact I'm glad you raised
that.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: And Bob, fee specific, rather than going
across-the-board, Bob looked at the planning side, the planning
revenues and expenses; and in an effort to get that closer toward
being self-supporting, Bob's taken I think a major stride toward
getting closer toward that goal of making it as self-sufficient as
Page 19
December 6, 2000
is feasible and relieving some of the burden on the building
permit side to carry the greater weight of the entire operation.
MR. MULHERE: But we do want to look at that further
through this process, but I'll tell you that under the activity
specific fee increase, we reduced the degree to which planning
arguably is subsidized by building by about 300,000 a year, so
we're moving in the right direction.
We're certainly not there yet. We need to talk -- we feel like
we need to talk more with you-all and do it together so that we
decide, you know, are some fees going to be so exorbitant that
it's not appropriate to raise them to that level even if it costs
that much to do it, and should they be subsidized?
And there are some other fees that we talked to the
committee about where we really didn't raise them to the level of
cost, because we didn't want to discourage people.
Now an express permit is an example of that. I mean, if you
-- if we don't go on to charge the 200 or 300 or $400 it costs to
process a fence permit, basically, people are going to stop
getting fence permits. So we recognized that in what we
recommended.
And I'm sorry. Somebody had a question. Dino, I think.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Yes, Dino did.
MR. LONGO: Actually I've got two questions.
Number 1, on the special activities fees, you show -- are
these fees that you're currently projecting with the increase in
it?
MR. MULHERE: Oh, let me go over that. I'm glad you did.
That's on the -- what page is that on?
MR. LONGO.' It's on the third page.
MR. MULHERE: Right. That's the graph up here.
This is just one sample of a full spreadsheet where I looked
at all of like planning activities and some of the building
activities the building department looked at, and I put that in
there to give the Board an idea of the methodology that we used.
And I'm sorry. I do want to go over that with --
We basically evaluated the amount of time on average it
takes, in the first case, to do a rezone, a straight rezone. And we
multiplied that times, as you can see from the footnotes, an
average hourly rate of all of the employees that are involved,
everyone that touches it from the processing technician to, you
Page 20
December 6, 2000
know, an assistant County attorney to, you know, everyone that
touches it through the process, average hourly rate of $18 an
hour times an overhead and benefit factor 50 percent, you come
up with $27 an hour, multiply that times the average amount in
hours it takes to do a petition, and you come up with an average
fee per petition.
And the reason it's an average, you know, some, some fees,
we charge a straight fee for, and other things are based on
square footage and other things like that. So we can -- we used
that methodology to calculate about how much it costs us to
process these types of petitions. We know how much we charge.
What's the difference and where should we raise it to?
And these two were just put in here, Dino, as an example.
We did that for everything, variances and temporary use permits
and basically everything that we do in planning and much of
what we do in building.
Let me give you an example. I think an express permit, the
minimum fee for a permit is $36 right now for these minimal
permits and express permits. I think Ed and Johnny calculated
the cost at something much higher, a couple hundred bucks for
just a regular permit just to take it in, process it. And our
recommendation is to raise those fees $50, because, again, you
know, we didn't want to discourage, so in some cases we didn't
go all the way up.
In the other cases -- I'll give you an example. Conditional
use, we charge $700. It costs us over $2,000 to process the
average conditional use. Now, that -- now we only do 12 or 13 of
those a year, so we're not going to generate a whole lot of money
on conditional uses, but people who apply for a conditional use
generally we feel should pay.
It really takes a lot of our time. We spend every bit as much
time on a conditional use as we do on a PUD, but we're charging
much less for it.
So that was an example where we took it from $700 up to
2000, significant increase, 500 percent or whatever the
percentage is, but it makes sense; but we're not talking about
doing a hundred or 200 of those a year.
We do -- last year, I think last year we did 14 of them, so that
was the rationale.
You had some other questions.
Page 21
December 6, 2000
MR. LONGO: Well, yeah, the second question is, the new
building.
MR. MULHERE: Yeah.
MR. LONGO: And who is going to be housed in the new
building?
MR. MULHERE: I don't know that we know the answer to
that yet completely.
I can tell you who I know is going to be in there, and maybe I
should leave it up to John. You probably --
MR. DUNNUCK: Well, we're still in the programming stages
of it. We just got an architect hired a couple weeks ago, and right
now we're identifying the needs, and part of it is, it starts with
the guesstimation of where we need to be from the community
development standpoint of it, you know, where our staff has to
go, and then it's going to go to -- we talked about moving
transportation over, which he -- on a lease basis where they
would come over, because, you know, one of the Board's
priorities has been, let's get transportation and community
development closer together, working closer together and
communicating closer together. You know, and we said, let's
functionally put them closer together as part of that, but we do
not have the answers right now at this point of exactly who's
going to be in there.
MR. MULHERE: Natural resources will probably move over.
Pollution control will not, because the cost of moving that lab is
very significant and just would jack up the price to the point of --
actually, there's even some discussion about pollution control
perhaps being housed in another division, because that
relationship between us and them is not really--
MR. DUNNUCK: Yeah, you were talking a $500,000 bite just
moving pollution control over and moving that lab over here, and
we've decided from an economic standpoint that that doesn't
make good business sense, so, you know, right now we're still
too early in the programming needs.
I'll certainly be able to come back to the next meeting and
give you better information on that, 'cause, you know, Ed's
working on it back there and -- with Jack Pernelli from facilities,
but we don't have a specific answer on it right now.
What we have done is done a projection saying, 15, 20 years
out, this is the amount of space we're going to need, and that's
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December 6, 2000
how we determined what size the building is going to be.
MR. MULHERE: And one other thing, the -- right now we're
talking probably 7.5, and we budgeted 9. John won't like this --
there certainly is the potential for that cost to come down even
further. We don't know how much, and I certainly don't want to
try to give you a figure.
MR. LONGO: That's what we assigned the committee on,
and I have a problem with using building permit fees -- I
personally have a problem using building permit fees to house
transportation or other unrelated development services divisions.
And the comment was made in one of our meetings, and it's
true, and with no offense to anybody, that if you can build 40,000
square feet, we can fill it up in a heartbeat. And my personal gut
feeling is that this building will not get filled up in 10 years; it will
get filled up in three to five years, and I just have a problem with
that, and I'd like to hear comments on it.
MR. DUNNUCK: Well, I think -- and I think what Bob had
touched upon previously was, yes, you're right, it will probably
get filled up. They will be paying lease value, but it gives us the
space as community development and building review, to move
our people in as we need it and move them back out to wherever
they need to go.
MR. MULHERE: I think there's a couple issues you're
raising.
One issue is, okay, if we build the building with development
and permit fees and we charge rent market value to the people
that are in here, where does that money go?
MR. LONGO: Well, you're asking for a 17 -- you already got
the 17-1/2 percent increase based on us building a new building
for certain things that need to be housed over there, and
basically you're building a building to lease to transportation or
other --
MR. MULHERE: Well, they're only taking 7,000 square feet.
MR. LONGO: Okay. So you're leasing to other divisions or
whatever, and we're funding it and we're increasing our permit
fees because we need facilities for -- unrelated to exactly
development services.
We funded this building years ago, you know, on the premise
of how we did it and why we did it, and that was the reason, so
that's my concern.
Page 23
December 6, 2000
MR. MULHERE: But I -- you know, I agree, but a couple
things we're doing: We're trying to move people out of the
building that aren't related, and we're trying to look at our
long-term needs.
I think the only thing I could say is, it probably makes sense
to have transportation located close to us, but I also appreciate
-- I don't know the answer right here, sitting right here. I
appreciate what you're saying, that we're talking about
construction costs, and if you're going to bear the construction
costs for square footage they are going to occupy, how do you
recoup that cost.
And I think we need to come back with an answer to you,
and I'm not prepared to give that to you --
MR. DUNNUCK: Right, and I think what we're going to look
at as part of that is, that the size of the building that we're
building right now is going to be your up-front construction costs
allowing you to have a community development facility that's
going to take you out 15 years, not, not the rest of, you know, the
County, transportation and everybody else, but you, as
community development, sure, we may look at moving
transportation in from -- you know, at a market value and having
them in in the time being until we need that space, which is what
we're going through right now.
I mean, we had a lot -- we've had a lot of functions in here
previously that, you know, probably shouldn't have belonged in
here from the standpoint of a housing standpoint and what you
paid for it.
That's why they're going away right now.
MR. MULHERE: But we're making a commitment that what
we're proposing to build will meet our long-term needs though in
the interim will house other-- I mean, see, we've got -- these
people are out there paying market value somewhere else. Why
not put them in here and generate some revenue?
Your question is, where does that revenue go.
MR. ABBOTT: A quick comment on that. What Dino's
saying, I agree with him, but as long as it's market rent, as long
as we have a business manager running this like a business, I
think it will shut us up.
MR. MULHERE: We're trying to move in the direction that
you --
Page 24
December 6, 2000
MR. ABBOTT: We have to have a market rent. We can't be
paying to move extraneous people in and out. They have to pay
their own. You know, we paid to put the department of revenue
in, or at least we started with that fuss. This is just bad
business, looks bad to us, 'cause everybody covets our big pile of
money.
MR. MULHERE: Yeah, and we appreciate that.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: And as an additional comment, things
that I've heard from not only construction but also development
folks that I work with is, once a foothold is gained, how do you
get folks back out? You've got no place else for them to go,
you've got 40,000 square feet sitting here, and it's going to be
very difficult for us to recoup the building that is meant for this
development community.
It needs to be real clear from a programming standpoint in
long-term use that the development community is paying for this
building, and by George, when we need it, then people need to go
away.
MR. MULHERE: It has been hard.
There's been examples here about, you know, the health
department, we're required by statute to have them in here. And
you-all want them here, because they're easy to -- but how much,
how big?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Right. Well, then there's all sorts of
rationale nexus that, that through various studies have been built
that these particular departments can come in and stay and they
are a part of the development community, when it's really kind of
questionable to some of those areas.
MR. MULHERE: Well -- well, I think we need to come back to
you -- as part of the building expansion program, when we talk
about bringing somebody in here with a lease that clearly
identifies the fact that in the future, as those needs are required
-- because transportation is going to grow too, and I'm not sure
that we're going to be able to house them for their future needs.
MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chairman, is this something that we have
to decide today? You know, I understand Bob is leaving here at
4:30; is that correct?
MR. MULHERE: I'll stay later if necessary.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Well, certainly, I think this is --
MR. MULHERE: I'm looking for your recommendation at
Page 25
December 6, 2000
least on this interim basis. You know, I -- I've worked with a lot
of you. I commit to you, and John does, as well, that we will do
what we said in here. You can look at the bullets, the items. I
don't think I missed anything, but you can tell me if I did. MR. VAN ARSDALE: The bullets are fine.
MR. MULHERE: And we will, over the next four months,
work with any or all of you, however you want to deal with that.
Maybe we could talk about that at your next meeting, what was
the Board's, you know, decision on this.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Anderson has --
MR. ANDERSON: I move we recommend approval of the --
MR. ABBOTT: I second it.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Moved and seconded. Any additional
comments?
MR. VAN ARSDALE: Yeah, the only thing I'd like to stipulate
is, with the clear understanding that the bullet points -- frankly, I
guess there's a detail that we get an action plan to review at our
next meeting to implement these prior to the -- let's call it the
end of the project formulation cycle, 'cause I think they have to
be--
MR. MULHERE: Fine.
MR. VAN ARSDALE: -- and, and, and just so we can really
get into this, 'cause as I see this, this is like an interim rate
increase; and to a certain extent, we're putting the cart ahead of
the horse, and a lot of the questions like Dino asked and many
others, but I think we need the building, but as we go through,
we answer many of these questions and deal with some of the
issues.
MR. ANDERSON: That was certainly part of it. I mean,
everything that they've got outlined here, but as we go through
this process, let's not forget, this is not a chicken-and-egg
situation. Without a rezone, you don't need any building permits.
MR. MULHERE: You're right.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. So a motion and a second. All
those in favor say aye.
Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Hearing none. Thank you.
The next item is Item A, Land Development Code
Amendments.
Page 26
December 6, 2000
Mr. Nino will handle that.
MR. NINO: All right. We've been at this a long time -- Ron
Nino -- and a number of amendments have been -- for fine tuning
has evolved over the last couple of months.
Essentially, essentially, this committee approved the vast
majority of the material that's before you; however, there have
been certain amendments that have raised some problem.
I -- with the Board -- the Board has held their first public
hearing. The Board is essentially in accord with all the
recommendations, again, with a handful of -- I think this is nearly
the same amendment that you folks had a problem with. One --
and so therefore, I would really like to go to those areas that you
had a problem with and the Board had a problem with, and we'll
assume that you're happy with the rest of it, because you have in
fact reviewed all of these amendments.
The first one is the Goodland Zoning Overlay.
Where we are at with the Goodland overlay zoning is, the
Board has essentially approved of the proposition that the
overlay -- the VR district ought to be limited to two stories over
parking; however, in deference to Mr. Yovanovich, they have
agreed that that amendment will be taken out of the approval of
the land development code amendment, in other words,
postponed for a period of 90 days to give a landowner who would
be affected by this the opportunity to submit a PUD that they will
collectively come to an agreement with the folks at Goodland.
I understand that that PUD dealing with that one vacant
piece of property that's zoned VR however will abide by the
requirement for two stories over one of parking, but there are
some --
MR. SAVAGE: Compared to what?
MR. NINO: Compared to what? Compared to the current
requirement of three stories over parking, so -- MR. SAVAGE: I can't believe that.
MR. NINO: So that's where we're at with the village of
Goodland, the Goodland Zoning Overlay amendment, and my
question is, what is your reaction on that? What's your
disposition of it?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Any response to the comments?
MR. SAVAGE: Well, I think it's ridiculous establishing two
stories is a unique solution to a problem, and three stories is
Page 27
December 6, 2000
hardly worthwhile even noticing a difference.
You know, I'm talking about the people at Goodland now.
Everybody thinks, you know, it's so important. There's nothing
wrong with a three-story on parking facility compared to a
two-story building on parking.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Peek?
MR. PEEK: Ron, the question to us is, how do we respond to
a 90-day delay and enact this as a separate --
MR. NINO: And the decision of the Board -- basically the
decision of the body that agrees with the Civic Association of
Goodland to limit height to two stories over parking and the
90-day continuance of that. It's going to get done, but in 90 -- 90
days after the Board deal with the majority of the LDC
amendment.
MR. PEEK: I don't see why we would have a concern about
delaying 90 days to --
MR. NINO: But you would also be agreeing with two stories
over one-story parking.
MR. SAVAGE: I'll vote no on that.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: It's a reduction in density is what it
amounts to essentially.
MR. NINO: I don't know. You'd have to ask the chairman.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: What was the question?
MR. Yapping: Mr. Chairman, my name's Richard Yovanovich,
and I'm dealing with the Goodland people. I don't know if it will
help if I can explain a little bit in more detail. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Uh-huh.
MR. Yapping: I guess the answer to your one question about
reduction of density or not, I don't know the procedures for that.
The committee --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Just -- can you clarify any issues you
can?
MR. Yapping: What happened was -- I know, Herb -- my
client agreed that there was no reason to go from three down to
two over one, because what happens is, we do lose density.
What we've proposed is for the one piece that my client
owns is to go to the Goodland people with a PUD, because we
also own some single family immediately adjacent; so what
we're doing is, we're putting both the single-family piece and the
VR piece into one PUD, which will allow us to do two stories over
Page 28
December 6, 2000
one on the residential single-family piece of level so we don't
lose density, and it's essentially a compromise with the people of
Goodland to allow it to happen.
What we would really like is the endorsement of the
committee to agree with the postponement of hearing the
overlay pending the review of the PUD so we can assure that we
do not lose our density on, on the VR piece, so that's where this
all came about.
MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chairman, may I ask a question? Herb
Savage.
How tall are those boat houses that they have on Goodland?
How many feet above the ground, see? MR. Yapping: I think they're 50.
MR. SAVAGE: Yeah. There are no two stories above parking
level; they're more than that. MR. Yapping: Correct.
MR. SAVAGE: And yet they allow an individual living unit to
be three stores on stilts. It's absolutely ridiculous, and I would
tell every one of them so.
MR. ABBOTT: Well, I've got a question.
Why can't we take a neutral position on this, leave it in the
County commission's lap?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: We certainly have the ability to do that;
I guess.
I'm going to ask you a question and -- is this, is this
amendment to the LDC only for one project and one location on
Goodland?
MR. NINO: No. It's for all of VR-zoned land in the village in
Goodland, all land that's zoned VR, and there's several pieces of
vacant property in --
MR. Yapping: There are two.
MR. NINO: There are two pieces of vacant, but there is, but
there is a substantial amount of land that's zoned VR that's
developed in the village.
MR. LONGO: So you're basically telling us that we're going
for an LDC amendment because of one piece of property that's --
and now the LDC amendment will affect all the rest of the piece
of properties?
MR. NINO: Yes, it will.
MR. LONGO: I disagree with that.
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December 6, 2000
MR. NINO: And the wish of the folks in the village, in the
village of Goodland -- in Goodland, it's not a village -- is that in
any redevelopment scenario and in any scenario that deals with
vacant land, that the maximum number of habitable floors would
be two stories over one parking in the VR district.
And the Board of County Commissioners has essentially
endorsed that.
MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chairman?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Savage.
MR. SAVAGE: It's the people of Goodland who would be in
favor of this; I presume. MR. NINO: Yes.
MR. VAN ARSDALE: In favor of delaying it?
MR. SAVAGE: In favor of the two-story rather than
three-story.
MR. VAN ARSDALE: Yeah, of approving it, not postponing it.
MR. SAVAGE: My argument is with the people of Goodland,
not with the people who own that land who want to build on it,
you see, and that -- I don't know how in the world that they can
convince the political body, the County commission, that it's
okay, then how can we stop that?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Being a --
MR. SAVAGE: I'm totally opposed to it myself, but the city,
the people, that is, that live in Goodland -- if you lived -- how
many of you have been in Goodland? You know, those boat
storage houses look like -- you couldn't -- you think back here on
U.S. 41 here where they put all the windows, false windows on
the outside of the building. They have the same kind of look
down in Marco Island without any windows in the outside walls,
and they look terrible; and yet this architectural-designed
building where people are going to live, they're opposed to that,
you see. Incredible.
MR. NINO: That matter has consumed a lot of hours of
debate, believe me, a lot of hours of debate, and the Board of
County Commissioners has basically spoken to the issue. MR. SAVAGE: Right.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: As an advisory committee --
MR. ABBOTT: I don't think this is our business right now.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: -- I think that we can make our
recommendation, and if the County commission decides to do
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December 6, 2000
something else, certainly that's their option, but -- You want us to one by one on this?
MR. NINO: I think it would be best on the knotty issues.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: All right. Let's -- is there, is there a
motion on this particular issue?
MR. WHITE: I'd just point out that I think you have two
issues here. One is the recommendation with regards to the
change to the district rule and whether or not you would delay
that for 90 days, so if you want to separate them or combine
them in any fashion, that's appropriate; feel free to do so.
MR. DUANE: I support combining those motions. Bob
Duane. I further speak in favor of the motion.
MR. VAN ARSDALE: The motion is to --
MR. DUANE: The motion is to approve the 90 days and
approve the amendment to the district -- to the district
regulations.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: There's a motion. Is there a second?
MR. CORREA: I didn't hear the complete motion. Would you
repeat that?
MR. DUANE: The motion before us is to amend the zoning
district regulations to reduce the height and also have this hiatus
period of 90 days where people -- the VR zoning can make
applications for PUD zoning, as I understand the issues before
US,
MR. MASTERS: I'll second it.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Any additional comments?
All those in favor say aye.
(Several members voted aye.)
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: All those opposed?
(Several members voted aye.)
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: All right. Let's do a hand count on the
no's. One, two, three, four, five, six no's. Okay.
MR. ABBOTT: May I make a comment? May I discuss it
first?
I have no problem with the 90 days; that doesn't bother me
in the least.
I think we're messing around with this, and this is a political
issue or something.
MR. CORREA: I would think if the residents of Goodland
would like to see a two-story instead of a three-story, I think we
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December 6, 2000
should go along with that --
MR. ABBOTT: Yeah, but also --
MR. CORREA: Go on.
MR. ABBOTT: -- taking somebody's property rights, a little
bit, we've got to be real careful with that; I think.
MR. JONES: Mr. Chairman --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Yes--
MR. JONES: I just have one -- a problem with writing
ordinances for -- to affect one project. I mean, basically, we're
talking one project, and I don't think this is a knee-jerk reaction.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you. Well, we have --
MR. WHITE: I think there's 13 --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: We had -- I counted six no's, so that
would leave seven yes's?
MR. ABBOTT: One -- may I make a comment again?
Mr. Yovanovich --
MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes, sir.
MR. ABBOTT: -- would they build two stories over their
parking even if the zoning didn't change? MR. YOVANOVICH: No.
MR. ABBOTT: They would go to the three.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes. What we're doing as to
compromise is to allow us to keep our density and spread it.
MR. ABBOTT: Right.
MR. YOVANOVICH: That's why we want a PUD.
And the reason we're asking for the 90-day hiatus is to make
sure that we can spread our density and not have the new
ordinance language in effect that limits us to two over one on the
VR people.
MR. ABBOTT: Right.
MR. Yapping: And if we don't get our PUD, we've in effect --
we've lost our property rights. That's why we're asking.
MR. CORREA: How many residents are we talking about?
MR. Yapping: We're talking about 47 dwelling units total.
MR. CORREA: Forty-seven dwelling units?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Let's do this. We did six no's. Just so
that I can be sure, be sure on the count, everyone who voted yes
for that, please raise your hand so I can count that.
We've got one, two, three, four, five, six.
Do we have an abstention?
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December 6, 2000
MR. JONES: My chad was stuck. I'm changing my vote -- am
I allowed to do that -- to no.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: To no? So we've got seven no's and
six yes's.
MR. ABBOTT: Mr. Chairman --
MR. JONES: 'Cause I have no problem with the 90 days
either.
MR. ABBOTT: I agree.
MR. JONES: Can we at least maybe split it? I mean --
MR. WHITE: Feel free to make a motion.
MR. ABBOTT: Well, Marco makes a motion -- you said --
MR. ESPINAR: I make a motion that we split the two issues,
because I have no problem with the 90 days.
MR. SAVAGE: Are you on the prevailing side? Did you vote
yes?
MR. ESPINAR: No, no. I voted no. I voted no.
MR. SAVAGE: You lawyers ought to know that, you know,
you can't make a motion if you're on the voting -- the negative
side.
MR. ABBOTT: I second his motion that you have the 90
days.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: To do what? Can you be a little more
precise?
Could you expand your motion to clarify?
MR. ESPINAR.' Well, you need 90 days --
MR. YOVANOVICH: We need 90 days to do our PUD.
MR. ABBOTT: Okay. Give them the 90 days to do their PUD.
MR. NINO: What good is the 90 days? What good is the 90
days if you've recommended no change? I mean, that doesn't
make any sense.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: I think we're wasting our time then,
folks.
MR. ESPINAR.' I'll withdraw my motion now.
MR. VAN ARSDALE: I don't mean to appear ignorant, but can
you tell me why we're doing this?
It's a zoning and a planning issue, and if you look at our
charter, we're here to assist in the enhancement of operations,
efficiency, and budgetary accountability within the community
development environmental services division, and maybe to
serve as a primary communication link between the community
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December 6, 2000
development and environmental services division, the
development industry, and the citizens of the County. I guess -- I mean, I -- I'm confused.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Well, Peter, it's an LDC amendment,
and we're reviewing LDC amendments. It's one of those many
issues that -- that's come before us that may or may not be
precisely within --
MR. DUANE: We do that so the development community can
have some input on the regulations that -- MR. VAN ARSDALE: Okay. Uh-huh.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. We've put to rest that issue.
What's the next one?
MR. NINO: The next item that we had some controversy
was the institution of a floor area ratio for residential hotels.
You recall the first time that this came to you it was with
the recommendation for a floor area ratio, and it dealt with
properties zoned RT, and for all practical purposes, actually
deals with the property along Gulf Shore Drive in North Naples
where there is substantial RT zoning.
We amended -- our last cycle we amended the provisions to
eliminate the 26 units per acre for hotels and reverted to a floor
area ratio, which we thought it would maintain the 26 units per
acre, and it did, for your conventional type of hotels, your
Comfort Inns and your Holiday Inns.
We, we didn't conceive that someone would want to build a
structure called a, a structure called a hotel in which the rooms
might in fact exceed 2,000 square feet that are full housekeeping
units.
And, in effect, we concluded that in those instances -- for
those types of development proposals, we in fact reduced the
density, and that was an unintended, that was an unintended
effect to that amendment.
And this amendment attempted to restore that 26 units per
acre for those people who built -- were intended to build
something more in the lines of a long-stay full-housekeeping unit
type of hotel, and the amendment -- this is when this went to the
Board, the Board agreed that we ought to consider an FAR, but
we ought to define a residential hotel so that this doesn't
become a subterfuge for someone who in fact is building a
condominium as -- with the expectation of achieving greater
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December 6, 2000
density than they would if it were a conventional condominium
building. Conventional condominium construction in the RT
district is 16 units per acre.
The amendment that is before you in your package is one
that would establish a floor area ratio -- it says 1.15; it really
should be 1.28, and we define a residential hotel in a more
comprehensive way than we did the first time this came to you,
and you have that amendment in your, in your packet; and my
question is, you know, what do you think about this amendment?
The first time around, I believe you supported it, and
however we've had to change it since then, we changed the FAR.
Actually, the FAR that you dealt with, I think, was 1.6, if I'm not
mistaken, and we reduced it to 1.28. This one is incorrect; it's
1.28.
And we've defined a residential hotel as a facility that
generally exceeds one week but do not -- are not greater than six
weeks and greater than 12 weeks in any calendar year.
It has a check-in and check-out area; it has recreational
amenities that include at least three of the following or the -- the
condominium documents have to clearly attest to the fact that it
functions as a hotel.
We, we think we've established criteria that will make it
difficult for somebody to use this as a subterfuge to build a
conventional condominium and call it a hotel.
MR. PEEK: Mr. Chairman?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Peek?
MR. PEEK: I move approval.
MR. CORREA: I second that motion.
MR. NINO: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: We have a motion and a second.
Other comments? Mr. Anderson?
MR. ANDERSON: I have a -- excuse me -- I have a conflict in
this matter. I have a conflict -- voting conflict form that I'm going
to give to the court reporter to include in the minutes.
Our firm represents one or more clients, including Aquaport
Limited Liability Corporation, which would be potentially affected
by this amendment, so I'm going to abstain from voting.
I do want to make a comment or two before the vote is
taken though, which I am permitted to do.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Yes, you are.
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December 6, 2000
I think we still -- we have a couple of people out of the room;
we, we still have a quorum without you -- one, two, three -- okay.
Mr. Anderson, go ahead with your comments.
MR. ANDERSON: If you'll turn to the second page of this
where -- the last two paragraphs where you talk about, "No unit
shall be occupied by more than one household," and then the
next paragraph talks about one household and it being members
all from the same nuclear family.
There's a problem with that in that, say if I and Mr. Duane
wanted to take our families and share the cost of such a unit,
this language would prohibit us from doing that, because we're
not members of the same nuclear family.
And I don't know why that should be of any interest to the
County planning people whether we're the same family members
or not, and I just think that that kind of a limitation really doesn't
belong in there.
And I think that there are some other things that could be
put in here, operational characteristics of a hotel, to try to
assure that someone does not use this as a subterfuge to just
have a more dense condominium.
And I think staff has taken a step in the right direction with
some of the characteristics they have here, but --
MR. NINO: Let me say, Bruce, that we, between now and
the Board meeting, we are going to make an attempt to further
insure that the definition is going to protect the density concern
that we have over, over having the opportunity to build a
residential hotel, and that could very well include the issue you
raised about the nuclear family.
MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chairman, I do know -- Herb Savage -- I do
know that there are many in -- cases where they have three or
four families living in facilities, whether it's a short term or a long
term, and I don't know -- I assume that you've looked at the pros
and cons of that in this use of the language. MR. NINO: Yes, we have.
I was going to suggest to Bruce that he could always say
that Bob was his brother-in-law.
MR. VAN ARSDALE-' Well, in fact there is --
MR. SAVAGE: Hmm?
MR. VAN ARSDALE-' It's unenforceable anyway.
MR. SAVAGE: I was going to say, you know, who's going to
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December 6, 2000
enforce it, you know, in the local County or the local city?
MR. ANDERSON: But if it's not enforceable, don't put it in
the ordinance in the first place. MR. SAVAGE: Right.
MR. ANDERSON: You're just creating a problem for Michelle
Arnold and the other code enforcement people.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Uh-huh. That's a very valid point.
MR. DUANE: Mr. Disney, for this -- will this model still allow
you to accommodate 26 units per acre more or less based on this
FAR, but the units can now approach 2,000 or 3,000 feet or
whatever you can get in it?
MR. NINO: Correct, not 3,000, but the 1.28 will give 2500
square feet.
MR. DUANE: You know, I was the only one that was
troubled by this amendment when it went through our
subcommittee.
We used to have -- and this may be irrelevant, but we used
to have a limitation on hotel units 3- to 600 feet until we changed
the ordinance in 1991. That's why we allowed 26 units per acre
for hotels/motels, 16 units per acre for condominiums, 'cause
presumably they were smaller units and had less impact.
And now we've got to the point where we're still trying to
maintain the 26 units per acre, but we're trying to get as large a
motel unit as we can on the property, and I would submit to you
that a three- or a four-bedroom motel unit is, in reality, is likely to
generate more development intensity than would a similar
owner-occupied say single-family residence.
Maybe that philosophy is -- may be less germane today, but I
still don't feel comfortable with it; and while I supported the
motion on the previous time, I'm going to not support the motion
at this time.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Other comments?
MR. VAN ARSDALE: If I may, just a question in terms of, if
we were to analyze this and let's say change floor area numbers
or recommend changes, does that get into the document or does
that just go along with the package? CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Ron?
MR. NINO: If you were to recommend a different floor area, I
would report that to the Board when I present the land
development code amendments next Wednesday, either report a
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December 6, 2000
different FAR that you have recommended or your
recommendation that it not be entertained at all, whatever's --
whatever you decided.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Do you, do you have a
recommendation?
MR. VAN ARSDALE: No, no. I was just --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay.
MR. VAN ARSDALE: I mean, I guess the only issue -- I mean,
these are very complex issues that we're just sort of either
buying them or selling them. I mean, we could spend hours --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: And we have --
MR. VAN ARSDALE: -- on so much of this.
MR. DUANE: And the subcommittee has --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: And the recommendation of the
subcommittee was?
MR. DUANE: For approval.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: For approval.
MR. VAN ARSDALE.' Yeah, I mean, I -- but I go through them,
and I'm not on the subcommittee, and I look at them, and I say, I
could pick these apart for eight or ten hours.
And I guess I don't -- I mean, part of the question is -- part of
the reason I asked you why we do it, and as a Board member, I
mean, it's -- you know, not being on the subcommittee, it's hard
to just -- when I see something I don't like, to just accept the
recommendation, but--
MR. NINO: Mr. Van Arsdale, I'd like to remind you-all that
we're long past the time when you were supposed to have
completed this process --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Uh-huh.
MR. SAVAGE: Right.
MR. NINO: -- and due to a lack of a quorum, you know, at the
November meeting, these -- these issues have all been reviewed
by the current board, and they were -- simply required some
minor wordsmithing by and large.
And I would agree with you that next -- the next cycle, you
take all the time that you need to make sure that what goes
forward is to your liking.
MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chairman --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: And further, I know just having joined
the advisory committee here, I don't know if we've got you
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December 6, 2000
assigned to any of the subcommittees, but this might be one that
interests you and we can get you in there so that, so that you
can satisfy your concerns.
MR. PEEK: Mr. Chairman?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Yes.
MR. PEEK: I call the question on the motion.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: All those in favor of the motion to
approve the FAR for residential hotels say aye, please?
(Several members voted aye.)
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Any opposed.
Two?
MR. ANDERSON: And one abstention.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: And one abstention.
Thank you, Mr. Anderson.
MR. NINO: The next amendment is --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Ron, if I could ask you a question.
Maybe you could just quickly run down -- I don't know how
many you have.
MR. NINO: There's only four.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Four? Maybe what we could do is,
maybe you could identify what they are for us -- MR. SAVAGE: Right.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: -- and if anybody has an issue, then we
can pull those and we can get all the issues together. MR. NINO: Vehicles on the beach regulation.
When the Board dealt with this last -- at their last -- at their
first meeting, the concessionaires who operate on the beach had
a problem with the limitation that this amendment would impose
upon them, and the Board agreed with them. The Board said, go
back and make your ordinance more liberal and accommodate
concessionaires.
And that's what you have before you.
MR. SAVAGE: The next thing -- excuse me.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Let's skip through the list, and then
we'll --
MR. SAVAGE: All right.
MR. NINO: One we had some difficulty with was the
Bayshore Overlay District. There was some concern about the
height that that allowed and the expansion of the overlay district
to include one residential tier of lots which we subsequently
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December 6, 2000
found was regulated by restrictive covenant couldn't be used for
commercial purposes in any event, and The Board agreed that
we ought to come back with a lower height than we had first
recommended, and that is a feature of that amendment change.
The next one was the Immokalee Overlay District. There
was some concern about the prohibition of cellular towers within
the, the Immokalee Overlay District, the Main Street Overlay
District, and the Jefferson Avenue Overlay District.
And the amendment is one that says they're still prohibited;
however, they can be allowed under conditional use if they're for
essentially services.
The next one was Fences.
The Board -- this wasn't one you had a problem with; the
Board had a problem with it -- the Board suggested that we come
back to them with a prohibition against chainlink fences in all
zoning districts along arterial roads, and so we have added to the
fence amendment that you-all reviewed that additional
prohibition of chainlink fences on our -- the amendment you have
says, public streets; but it's going to be changed to, arterial
streets.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. We've got four items. Is there
conversation on any one of them?
MR. DUANE: Aren't there some additional amendments that
have been added, Mr. Nino, since we last discussed this issue,
compact Dumpsters being one? Are there others?
MR. NINO: Yes. Yes, compact -- that is, that is the one that
you had raised, and we have amended the garbage Dumpster
provisions to provide for compactors. You know, the current
regulation is, you have to have a Dumpster that has to be -- can't
be 500 feet from the nearest residence it serves.
The new technology, more developers are wanting to use
compactors, and certainly that spacing formula no longer makes
any sense, and the amendment to that section of the code
dealing with garbage Dumpster accounts for compactors that
can be at greater distances than 500 feet from the residences
they are to serve.
MR. DUANE: With or without curb service.
MR. NINO: With or without curb service.
MR. DUANE: Thank you.
MR. NINO: Correct. And those are basically the sticky
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December 6, 2000
wickets that were in the -- that you folks also had a -- some of
which you had a problem with when you-all reviewed these
amendments.
There was one other change that's -- well, there's a few
other changes.
The Board had a problem with the artistic expressions in the
amendments to the sign ordinance that you'll recall
acknowledged that artistic expressions are embellishments
along fences, were not signs, for the purposes of signs.
Well, the Board had a problem with that, the opportunity to
take some real freedoms with artistic expressions, so we
changed that to say, logos.
I don't know that there were -- we made some changes for
landscaping around communication towers which were a little
different than the package that you fellows reviewed several
months ago.
Basically, it basically provides for a wall and a -- some
landscape -- and landscaping around the base of cellular towers.
I don't--
MR. SAVAGE: How tall are cellular towers? Excuse me.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. I've got a list of five items here.
The beach issue, the Bayshore overlay, the Immokalee
overlay, fences, and compactors.
Which ones do we want to talk about, if any?
MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to say -- Herb Savage --
that I am amazed that we are not going to allow us to build
chainlink fences.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Well--
MR. SAVAGE: That's what the code, I'm told, is --
MR. NINO: -- okay, let's go to fences.
MR. SAVAGE: -- proposing, that we aren't allowing any
chainlink fences on arterial roads or anybody else's roads.
MR. MASTERS: Actually, that doesn't appear to be the case.
If you want to look at page 65 --
MR. SAVAGE: I thought I heard Ron say that it was.
MR. MASTERS: He did, but it appears that the chainlink
fences are permitted, but there has to be vegetative screen
planted.
MR. SAVAGE: As an example, I live about 100 feet away
from our swimming pool. We have a chainlink fence. I can see
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December 6, 2000
the swimming pool now because it's a chainlink fence. If we get
all kinds of vegetation around that -- and this is not an arterial
road obviously -- all kinds of vegetation, you wouldn't even see
the pool. You get all that kind of fences, you don't see the pool.
It's amazing.
MR. DUANE:
not to see you.
MR. SAVAGE:
that.
It's amazing how we think that plants take care of
everything.
MR. NINO: Remember, it only applies along --
MR. SAVAGE: I understand that.
MR. NINO: -- the frontage, not the interior lot lines or the
rear lot line. It's only the street lines in which the commission
has expressed the concern that chainlink fences are not in the
character that we are looking for in, in the urban coastal area.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: All right. Mr. Longo?
MR. LONGO: Make one quick comment. So the retention
areas that we have along all these County roads and stuff, the
chainlink fences are coming down? MR. NINO: No.
MR. ABBOTT: Or they're going to put a landscape buffer up?
MR. NINO: That's the landscape buffer line.
MR. LONGO: Okay. That's my question.
MR. ABBOTT: A tree every six feet.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Marco had a question, and we'll go to --
MR. ESPINAR: Are we still on the subject, or are we going
on to another, because I want to talk about vehicles on the
beach and --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Are we finished with chainlink fences?
MS. ARNOLD: Excuse me. Bob, is this retroactive? I mean
So we can move on to another subject.
MR. LONGO: No.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay.
Individual screening might be for the neighbors
Not to see me. Oh. I hadn't thought about
MR. NINO: Oh, no. It can't be. It's only for new fences.
MS. ARNOLD: Okay. All right.
MR. NINO: It can't be retroactive.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. Anything else on fences? Okay.
Okay? Anything--
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December 6, 2000
MR. ESPINAR: Just a quick comment regarding the vehicle
on the beach. I was adamantly opposed to this ordinance on the
last go-around. I'm glad to see the changes have been made
specifically prohibited during sea turtle nesting season, and that
it's more liberal and fair to everybody, and that it is basically
early morning, late evening; and with those stipulations in there,
I'm changing my vote to a yes on this one.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Well, you get a new opportunity.
MR. ESPINAR: I will vote yes on that one.
Those are my comments on vehicle on the beach, and I've
got one other comment for communication towers.
MR. SAVAGE: While we're still on that subject, Mr.
Chairman, did we not read in the paper that the hotel withdrew
this request?
MR. NINO: No. No, that's not true. The article was a little
misleading.
MR. ABBOTT: It was that one guy that Pam Mac'Kie talked
about that he was not a beach -- he was the beach
concessionaire but not a hotel, and he wanted to use an ATC, as
well.
MR. ESPINAR: And this helps him right here.
MR. NINO: He's the guy who's being satisfied by this.
MR. ABBOTT: I understand. I was just offering it to refute
the article.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay? Anything else --
MR. DUANE: Mr. Chairman, can we deal with Bayshore
Overlay District next, please?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Sure. Go right ahead. I was going to
ask if there's anything else on the beach, but I -- well, okay,
we're off the beach and onto the Bayshore.
MR. DUANE: You mentioned that the height had changed
somewhat, and my question is, the boat storage, is that affected
somehow; 'cause I notice that you have -- under conditional uses,
that we can have a height of 100 feet for the neighborhood
commercial subdistrict.
How does that affect boat storages, and can they also be
handled conditionally through that process?
MR. NINO: Well, I was hoping you guys would have got to
that earlier.
Deb Preston has left, and I'm going to have a heck of a time
Page 43
December 6, 2000
finding where that is now, Bob.
MR. PEEK: Did you find it, Bob?
MR. DUANE: Yeah, I did. It's on page 33, it's under 2.2.33.9,
conditional uses.
MR. SAVAGE: I have 36.
MR. PEEPLES: 33 in the legal size.
MR. NINO: Well, that legal -- that legal size will probably
have to be revised to the side sheet, 'cause that's an older legal
MR. ABBOTT: This came in our package.
MR. NINO: Yeah, that's an older, that's an older ordinance,
version of the ordinance. That will be amended -- yeah, I know,
but it will be amended. That was printed a long time ago. It
shouldn't have been sent to you.
MR. DUANE: What is the proposal for height in this overlay
district then?
MR. CORREA: On page 46 we have, conditional uses,
marina. We have, increase building height to a maximum height
of 50 feet.
MR. ABBOTT: What page?
MR. CORREA: On page 46.
MR. SAVAGE: This one here, Bob.
MR. NINO: On page 41, you have 42 feet and 56 feet.
MR. DUANE: So what would be the logic then of being able
to have 100-foot commercial building but to not have more than
42 feet for boat storage, particularly if the increased height is
going to be conditional and based on existing conditions around
the property?
I think people's access to the water is becoming
increasingly important as we're losing our public marinas and
condominiumizing our boat slips, and it seems to me if
someone's got the right use and the right location and they want
to go above the 42 feet, they can demonstrate that that's an
appropriate use, I'd not like to penalize boat storage facilities.
In fact, our comp plan encourages water-dependent uses,
and I, I think we got this one backwards.
MR. NINO: I don't think there's a hundred-foot boat storage
building in all of Naples.
MR. DUANE: Well, I was looking on my old one --
MR. NINO: The new ones in Naples, the new ones that were
Page 44
December 6, 2000
built recently in the city of Naples, I believe, were 56 feet high.
MR. MASTERS: This one, the new one is 50 foot on page 46.
MR. NINO: Who would build a hundred-foot boat storage
facility?
MR. DUANE: The hundred foot doesn't make any sense. I
just want to make sure we can go above the 42 feet
conditionally, and the answer to that is, right now you can go up
to 50 feet?
MR. NINO: Fifty feet.
MR. DUANE: All right. I'm satisfied with that. Thank you.
MR. DUNNUCK: I'm not honestly -- I'll put in my two cents --
I'm not honestly convinced that that's accurate.
I think it was supposed to be reduced down to 42 feet with
the Board stipulation saying that if you want it at 50 feet, you
have to come back to a variance process.
The other thing that Deb Preston's looking into, and she's
been doing this over the last couple days, is, apparently there
were some deed restrictions that came up along that property
line; and we don't know the extent of what those deed
restrictions are at this point in time, so it's kind of hard to tell
exactly where we are on this issue until she can establish that.
But what the Board had indicated at the LDC hearing was,
42 feet; if you want to do the boat storage, you can come into the
variance process and we'll consider it.
MR. LONGO: Well, that's not what this says.
MR. DUNNUCK: That's, I think, what the original proposal
was to them. That's what we had proposed. We proposed 50
feet where they come in with the conditional use.
MR. NINO: That's what we proposed to the Board.
MR. DUNNUCK: And the Board flipped it around and said,
conditional use gives them the indication that we're going to
approve it; variance is more of a difficult process. And that's the way the Board went with it.
MR. DUANE: Mr. Chairman, I have a problem with forcing
people into a variance process. I think our conditional use
criteria -- that would be my recommendation, that we not use
that procedure; we use the procedure we've always used for
conditional use.
MR. PEEK: Mr. Chairman, it sounds to me like, with all the
issues that we're being asked to act on this afternoon are still in
Page 45
December 6, 2000
a state of flux. They're moving targets that we don't have any
answers that we can act on a concrete proposal.
So I propose and move that this committee not act on any of
them, that whatever is worked out now and when they go to the
Board of commissioners, those people that are interested in it
appear at the Board and make their comments known.
'Cause I, I feel uncomfortable in trying to vote on anything
that we continue to be told is going to be changed before it gets
to the Board.
MR. ABBOTT: Well said.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: All right. That was made in the form of
a motion. Is there a second?
MR. LONGO: I'll second it.
MR. SAVAGE: Let me ask Ron Nino. Ron, you have to work
on this every day.
MR. NINO: Well, no, the -- you know, well, you have to
appreciate the Bay -- when you're dealing with the overlay
district, the Bayshore Overlay District, came out of a series of
workshops.
MR. SAVAGE: I know that.
MR. NINO: That's what the folks out in Bayshore who own
the property have agreed to.
MR. SAVAGE: That's right.
MR. NINO: And I, with all respect, I see the function of this
committee as, you know, really not germane to that issue.
I mean, if we were dealing with regulations that haven't
been workshopped and haven't met a consensus by the people
that they're going to affect, quite frankly, I don't know why you
have a problem with it.
MR. SAVAGE: Very good point.
MR. DUANE: Well, in all due respect to Mr. Peek, who I
rarely disagree with, this -- I think you were absent at this
meeting, Mr. Peek, when we discussed the Bayshore district --
MR. PEEK: No, I wasn't.
MR. DUANE: Okay.
MR. PEEK: I was present.
My whole point at this particular point is, I think we're
asking to act on something today that we don't have the
information nor the final form of proposal to act on, and we're
sitting here trying to second guess what that's going to be.
Page 46
December 6, 2000
That's not a criticism of the staff, because they're working
to try to catch up to get it in a condition as dictated by the Board
of commissioners, which they should be; but we're asked to vote
on something -- act on something that we don't have a concrete
issue to discuss or to make a motion about, so I think we're in
error to try to move ahead.
MR. WHITE: Mr. Chairman, if I may piggyback on that and
address this gentleman's comment earlier. What I'm going to do
is point you to -- I hate to do this, but that's what lawyers do -- to
what the actual code is that reflects what the powers and duties
of the body are. Functions, powers, and duties section is 2-1037,
and in parentheses 10, this is the part that gives you the
authority to do what you're doing relative to the LDC. This kind
of gives you the charge, if you will: To review proposed
ordinances and codes that may affect the community
development and environmental services division prior to their
submittal to the Board of County Commissioners for approval.
Now, you're in this state of flux between the first and
second public hearings, and I understand your concerns; but I'm
just trying to help you focus that what the ordinance, if you will,
is asking you to do is to look at these ordinances and consider
how they will affect the division and render your
recommendations accordingly.
MR. CORREA: We're being asked to recommend something
that we're not certain of. This -- we were just told that this is in
a state of flux and it might change and it's going to be changed.
I think we should know what we're voting on.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Which was the point of the motion.
Mr. Masters?
MR. MASTERS: Let me make one comment to the fact that, I
mean, everything that we approve is still going in front of several
different boards and will go in front of the Board of
commissioners and almost inevitably will change from what we
recommend for approval at the early stages here to what finally
gets approved or denied by the Board, so --
MR. SAVAGE: They're asking our opinion.
MR. MASTERS: Right. So, I mean, based on the information
in front of us, I think we can say yea or nay to some of these.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Well, we have a motion and a second
on the table. All those in --
Page 47
December 6, 2000
MR. DUANE: Well, what is the motion with regard to the
Bayside --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: The motion was to not act upon these
because they're still in a state of flux, if I've summarized that
correctly.
MR. PEEK: Yeah.
MR. CORREA: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay? All those in favor of that motion
say, aye.
(Several members voted aye.)
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: All those opposed.
(Several members voted aye.)
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: All right. Let's do the hand thing again.
MR. SAVAGE: This is more controversy than we've had all
year.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: All those in favor. One, two, three,
four, five, six.
All right. All those opposed. One, two, three, four, five, six.
How can we do that? Did somebody leave?
(Inaudible colloquy -- several members speaking at one
time.)
MR.
MR.
MR.
MR.
MR.
NINO: I thought you were talking about Bayshore --
JONES: No.
NINO: You're talking about all those that are in flux?
CORREA: Yeah.
NINO: Oh, I didn't--
MR. CORREA: I think we should know what we're voting on
or what we're approving or --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Brian?
MR. JONES: Brian Jones. As our guide, our attorney has
pointed out that we're a sounding board, and the nature of the
beast is that these things are in flux. That's the only -- that's the
way we're going to get them, and they're looking to us as a
sounding board; and if we don't say anything here, we're not
fulfilling our obligation as a -- to give them input on what we
think is best for, for this group.
So at first I agreed with Mr. Peek, but then in listening to
what we're supposed to be doing, doing nothing is not the right
thing.
MR. DUNNUCK.' And maybe I can bring a little bit more
Page 48
December 6, 2000
clarity to the Bayshore issue, if that's a driving force on this,
that's in flux.
Those deed restrictions will only be -- what I've heard is that
-- from the committee was that possibly they would like to see it
more liberal than what the 42 feet is coming in with the variance
process. That's what the Board has directed us to bring back.
We know that for certain. The deed restrictions may even make
it a little bit more stricter, but if we can make a decision based
upon what the Board has given the direction towards, which is
42 feet, come in with a variance process if you want the boat
storage facility, if you want to make a recommendation based
upon that, that would probably be your best plan of action,
because the deed restrictions that are going to come in are only
going to be more stricter than that.
They may say you can't put a boat storage facility there. We
don't know. We're trying to find that out right now, but they're
not going to make it more liberal.
So, you know, if you want to act upon what the Board
decision has been made on that case from what you previously
heard, that would probably be the route to go.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you, John.
Mr. Anderson had a comment.
MR. ANDERSON: I have a general question and then a
specific comment.
My general question is, why is this coming back to us in
between the County -- the two County commission hearings?
You're not bringing this back to the planning commission to get
their recommendation on changes that have been made in
between the two hearings. I just --
MR. NINO: Because you folks haven't dealt with any of the
amendments in any definitive way. The planning commission has
dealt with the, with the packet; however, following the planning
commission meeting and en route to the Board, amendments
have occurred.
If you happen to be the -- you're the beneficiary of not having
ever dealt with it at all, we may as well give you the
amendments, as well.
MR. DUNNUCK: There wasn't a quorum at the last
November --
MR. NINO: There wasn't a quorum at that meeting, so rather
Page 49
December 6, 2000
than say, here is the original packet and we're not going to tell
you about all the amendments that have come along in the
process, we may as well give the original story.
MR. ANDERSON: Okay. My specific question then is, with
regard to the Bayshore districts and how we are measuring
building heights, as I look at this, I think this is even more
restrictive than the building height referendum that was
approved by the voters in the city of Naples, number 1.
Number 2, why are we measuring building heights from
sidewalk grade? It seems to me that is inconsistent with all the
other requirements in this County where we measure from
required flood elevation. Let's be consistent. MR. SAVAGE: That's right. Absolutely.
MR. VAN ARSDALE: Well, except if the -- as they did on Fifth
Avenue, where they measured from the sidewalk, the purpose of
that is to create a meaningful pedestrian environment; and that's
one of the big problems with this plan is that it doesn't do it.
You know, if you, if you measure and you build to FEMA,
essentially whether it's on stilts or some kind of large barrier
wall, you're not creating a meaningful pedestrian experience,
which is what creates success; so it is done the other way for
design reasons, and this is -- I don't know, like I said, this plan
needs a lot of work to be anything of quality, unfortunately.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Savage?
MR. SAVAGE: Bob Duane was saying earlier it's much more
practical to go through a --
MR. DUANE: I'd like to make a motion -- thank you, Mr.
Savage --
MR. SAVAGE: Okay.
MR. DUANE: -- that we utilize the conditional use process --
MR. SAVAGE: Right.
MR. DUANE: -- for increases in heights in this district.
I'm less concerned about commercial structures than I am
water-dependent facilities, but I think this places a much greater
burden on the applicant to get a variance than to use the
conditional use process.
MR. SAVAGE: Right.
MR. DUANE: Now maybe that was what the Board's wisdom
is. I disagree with them on that issue, and my motion would be
that for any increase in height that we use the conditional use
Page 50
December 6, 2000
process.
And are we going to establish a maximum height in this
district? 'Cause we're on a variance that would be done on a
case-by-case basis. I'm, I guess, prepared to substitute 50 feet
as a place to start from unless someone else has some
additional input they'd like to make.
MR. SAVAGE: Is that your motion?
MR. DUANE= That's my motion.
MR. SAVAGE: You did not say anything about --
MR. DUANE= Conditional use process --
MR. SAVAGE: Okay. Okay.
MR. DUANE: -- and we establish a maximum height --
MR. SAVAGE: Okay. There's two items --
MR. DUANE: -- with -- for that conditional use process --
MR. SAVAGE: I second that motion.
MR. DUANE: -- for either commercial structures or boat
facilities.
I wish our -- Ms. Preston was here, 'cause -- I'll suggest 50
feet for lack of --
MR. DUNNUCK: That's what was originally -- that was the
original proposal.
MR. DUANE= And that's what I think this board has
previously approved also. I don't think there should be much
disagreement there.
MR. NINO: You're saying the conditional use to go to 50
feet?
MR. DUANE: That's correct.
MR. CORREA: What have the residents of Bayshore
requested?
MR. NINO: They have 42 feet, and buildings containing
mixed residential over commercial could go to four stories or 56
feet.
MR. DUANE: Okay. You can go even higher for those
facilities. I don't know what problem there would be even at 50.
MR. DUNNUCK: And there was once again an issue that
went specifically to a piece of property and the potential of
having boat storage facility.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay.
MR. SAVAGE: That's all the questions.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: A motion and a second. All those in
Page 51
December 6, 2000
favor say aye?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: We don't have to count hands.
MR. ABBOTT: For once.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Does that put us to end with that?
MR. NINO: Did you do vehicles on the beach?
MR. MASTERS: Do we need a motion for all the other ones
that we didn't --
MR. NINO: You didn't do vehicles on the beach.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Well, I -- okay. We had an exception on
this one. I thought the motion from Mr. Peek and what we voted
on six to six --
MR. SAVAGE: It didn't pass.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: -- was to set it aside, so if you'd like to
make a motion on that, we'll, we'll consider it.
MR. JONES: Motion to reconsider that vote again. Can we
vote on that again? Has anyone changed --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: We still have a quorum here, so --
MR. MASTERS: The motion had failed if it's six to six.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Finish your comment, Tom.
MR. MASTERS: Yes. I would like to make a new motion that
we approve the other items as amended that we haven't heard
yet, that we haven't specifically voted on. MR. DUANE: Second.
MR. SAVAGE: Those other three.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Which?
MR. SAVAGE: The fence and the --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Let's be specific about which ones
we're talking about.
We've got --
MR. SAVAGE: The beach.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: -- the beach access issue; Bayshore, I
think we just did; the Immokalee overlay; fences, and we had
something on the compactors and --
MR. MASTERS: The items --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Finish, finish the items that you're
talking about.
MR. MASTERS: The items that we're taking about are, in
fact, the ones you just listed.
Page 52
December 6, 2000
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: All right. Beach access, Immokalee
overlay, fences, and compactors. Bayshore was -- okay. Other comments?
MR. PEEK: I -- it would appear to me from Ron's comment
that we need to make this motion more inclusive than that,
because if this committee never acted on the subcommittee's
recommendation for the entire amendment process, we need to
act on that entire process with these amendments, it would
seem appropriate to me.
MR. MASTERS: Yeah, and that is -- I mean, any of the ones
that we haven't discussed today, and if we haven't voted as of
yet on the previous ones, which I think is the case, we need to
approve as amended all those, right?
MR. NINO: The only action you took at your first meeting
was approval in principle. You didn't actually approve any of it.
MR. MASTERS: So the only ones that we would take out
then would be the two that we specifically voted on previously
now, Bayshore and --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: We've only done Bayshore.
MR. MASTERS: Yeah, okay.
MR. NINO: You did FAR with two opposed.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: You just didn't write it down.
MR. NINO: You did Goodland and FAR and you did Bayshore.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: All right. Very good. Well, that's--
MR. MASTERS: And all the rest of them were satisfactory
the last time we spoke about them.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Uh-huh, that's true. So that's the
motion? There's a motion on the table. Is there a second to the
motion?
MR. PEEPLES: Mr. Duane seconded it.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Duane did? Okay.
MR. PEEPLES: I'm going to have to abstain from voting on
vehicles on the beach. My firm represents the Ritz Carlton, and
it's been involved in negotiation and drafting the documents, so --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. Very good.
Mr. Anderson, are you okay on these issues?
MR. ANDERSON: Yes. I'd like to abstain on that one, as
well. My voting memorandum of conflict deals with the RT zoning
district and hotels and motels generally, so that should include
vehicles on the beach, and so I'm going to abstain.
Page 53
December 6, 2000
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Very good. All those in favors say aye?
(Several members voted aye.)
All opposed?
MR. ESPINAR: Can I get clarification here for a second?
Are we voting on everything on here then?
MR. MASTERS: It's all the amendments.
MR. ESPINAR: 'Cause there's one amendment here I'd like
to discuss, and that's the communication towers and the
landscaping and that opaque wall. And I don't want to -- I would
vote yes on everything, but I would like to discuss this one item.
MR. PEEK: I move to reconsider the landscaping item.
MR. SAVAGE: The what? The towers?
MR. ESPINAR: The communication towers, yes. The
communication towers.
MR. PEEPLES: I'll second the motion.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: There's a motion and a second. All in
favor?
(Unanimous vote of ayes.)
MR. NINO: Now, Marco, what page --
MR. ESPINAR: Page 56, they're asking for an 8-foot high 100
percent architecturally finished opaque wall, and then they're
putting a landscape buffer outside of that wall and then a
security fence inside that wall, so we're basically taking the
cellular towers and turning them into Fort Knox, it looks like.
Now, I do a lot of communication towers, and I know that
the communication towers I do, we put them in a lot of pastures,
industrial areas; and I think it's a -- sort of. an overkill to sit there
and have a landscape buffer and then an 8-foot concrete wall and
then a chainlink fence.
MR. ABBOTT: That's where you hide the chads.
MR. SAVAGE: Who comes up with these ideas anyway?
MR. ABBOTT: That's a good point. I agree.
MR. NINO: Well, who comes up with these -- let's --
communication towers are ugly, you'll have to admit --
MR. ABBOTT: Yeah, but there's a whole lot of them too.
MR. NINO: -- particularly when they're visible from the
street, and those in the community with greater aesthetic
sensitivities don't want to see those facilities at grade level, and
this, this type of amendment is to insure that in fact they won't
be visible at street level.
Page 54
December 6, 2000
MR. VAN ARSDALE.' But you're missing about 90 feet of
them.
MR. ABBOTT: Can I make a comment? Think about building
or servicing these things. That wall's going to be in the way.
MR. ESPINAR: I mean, so -- okay. So 8-foot's okay, but then
the rest of the tower you can see from, you know, the rest of 20
miles.
MR. NINO: Well, there's nothing we can do about that,
Marco.
MR. VAN ARSDALE: Grow vines up the tower.
MR. ESPINAR: Yeah, opaque vines all the way up the tower.
MR. CORREA: Get some bamboo trees. They grow.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Do you have a recommendation?
MR. ESPINAR: I recommend that we deny this motion.
MR. DUNNUCK: Ron, can I ask a quick question?
Have we had any disputes from people who actually build
these communication towers?
MR. NINO: No. No, we haven't.
MR. SAVAGE: Well, they're always begging for--
MR. NINO: Our landscaper has discussed these
requirements with the industry, and the industry has not
indicated in writing or verbally or any presentation to the Board
and the planning commission any -- anything to the contrary.
MR. LONGO: Well, that's because the last time they were
here, they were asking for four more sites -- MR. SAVAGE: That's right.
MR. LONGO: -- on Alligator Alley.
MR. ESPINAR: Mr. Chairman, can I make a motion?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Please.
MR. ESPINAR: I make a motion that we deny 2-point -- what
is this -- 2.4.6.4?
MR. LONGO: I'll second that.
MR. VAN ARSDALE: Wouldn't it be better to maybe send a
specific recommendation to the boards?
MR. ESPINAR: Well, we already on the books have
landscape, but we have to put a landscape buffer on there. If
there's existing vegetation, we will preserve that existing
vegetation around that tower.
What this is doing is adding now another element, and that
is having us to put a concrete wall between our security fence
Page 55
December 6, 2000
and the landscape buffer. That was already -- it's already on the
books.
MR. VAN ARSDALE.' But I guess my point though is,
shouldn't we just recommend that -- our concerns, you know,
make a recommendation to the Board expressing those concerns
rather than voting against it? I mean, is that the way it goes to
the Board, or will it say that we, we -- will our recommendation
come as having voted against the ordinance, or does it go to the
County commission with the recommendation that they consider
those points?
I mean, I think the latter would be preferable.
MR. CORREA: I'm inclined to vote against the walls. I think
walls are ugly to look at. You know, you drive along and look up
and see a wall --
MR. VAN ARSDALE: I think the point is, it's a little overkill
and, and--
MR. ESPINAR: And not to mention that these -- the towers, a
lot of these towers are situated in, like I said, in industrial areas.
I'm doing a lot of towers myself, and I'm putting them on
pastures, on farmlands where the farmer just wants to lease a
little piece of-- in a corner, or, like I said, in industrial-zoned
areas.
MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chairman --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Savage?
MR. SAVAGE: -- may I ask Ron a question?
The procedure -- once we took this paragraph and
eliminated it from this ordinance, we would then present it to
whom without that paragraph or X'd out?
MR. NINO: No. This will go to the Board exactly the way it's
written, only we will, we will advise the Board that this
committee does not endorse the amendment.
MR. DUNNUCK-' Or alternatively you could make a proposal
stating that in certain areas like industrial zones or, you know,
agriculturally zoned areas, that you would be opposed to this, but
then in residential communities, you would support this, or
something along those lines.
I don't know. You have those options.
MR. LONGO: And the Board has those options, as well.
MR. NINO: Dino, what the, what the -- it's true this does
require a wall; however, the landscaping external to the wall,
Page 56
December 6, 2000
there are a number of alternatives. If you're seeing this way
back in the back 40, there's a good opportunity that there's
native vegetation already in place and that in fact, in reality, all
you're talking about is the wall.
MR. ESPINAR: Well, why would we have to put a wall if
there -- if there's opaque vegetation already, native vegetation? I
mean, it's redundant. Then, then there's an added cost of us
having to put a wall up even though it's opaque already with the
native vegetation.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Patrick?
MR. WHITE: Mr. Chairman, if I may, I think Mr. Foley raises a
very good point, not only in this particular provision, but in
general if you're doing any kind of legislation like this, that if you
can provide to the Board so that staff doesn't have to make some
kind of an assumption about what your reason was a part of
either the motion or just something that helps give the Board a
hint that it's more than just a mere denial.
MR. NINO:. You don't -- don't you feel there is a security
issue around the -- I mean --
MR. ABBOTT: There's already a fence.
MR. ESPINAR: There's already a chainlink fence.
MR. ABBOTT: Which we discussed earlier.
MR. MASTERS: With proper landscaping.
MR. ABBOTT: I think Peter Van Arsdale's comment was
pretty good about giving them a reason.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: The comments are very good though,
Marco, as far as making a recommendation towards -- or for the
Board so that they understand what we're doing rather than just
a flat out, we don't like this; make it go away.
Would you consider amending your motion so that it
includes that type of language?
MR. ESPINAR: So moved. I mean, how, how would you like
to word it, or, I mean --
MR. MASTERS: Leave the wall.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: So that the wall that we would -- we
would recommend that they not include an 8-foot-high opaque
wall within this, within this ordinance.
MR. CORREA: We not include it.
MR. ESPINAR: Yeah. So moved.
MR. SAVAGE: Why can't we just say, an opaque --
Page 57
December 6, 2000
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Moved and seconded.
MR. LONGO: I'll second it.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: No. We've already got a second. So
we've got that. All in favor of the amended motion say aye.
Any opposed?
(No response.)
MR. NINO: The motion is, no wall.
MR. CORREA: No wall.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: That's correct.
MR. PEEPLES: Mr. Chairman, I have somewhere I have to
be.
(Inaudible colloquy -- several members speaking at one
time.)
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: The meeting's not over, folks.
MR. WHITE: This will be handed out when we get to it on
the agenda; it's for those individuals who have to leave now.
MR. ABBOTT: Well, we have to worry about, we lose our
quorum.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Ron, we got to the end of your items?
MR. NINO: Yes. Yes, you did.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Do we still have a quorum? So we've
got --
MR. SAVAGE: I shall return.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: -- one -- who's leaving?
(Mr. Masters and Mr. Peeples left the meeting.)
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: One, two, three, four, five, six -- yeah,
we're okay. We're okay.
All right. Our next item is LDC -- committee reports, LDC
reports. Mr. Duane?
MR. DUANE: I think we have taken care of that.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you very much.
Construction code subcommittees. Mr. Longo.
MR. LONGO: No report.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Utility code. Mr. Peek.
MR. PEEK: No meeting, no report.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Ad hoc committee on fees, I think,
were taken care of with the previous.
All right. New business. Weed, Litter & Exotic Control
Ordinance.
MR. WHITE: Mr. Chairman, I'm handing out to all of those --
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December 6, 2000
essentially a revision to the existing litter, weed, exotic control
ordinance, and if you'll just take the opportunity before the next
meeting to take a quick look at it, we'll have it on the agenda for
discussion at that point in time.
Essentially what we're doing is creating a scheme where
posting can be another option for providing notice in particular to
those folks who are repeat offenders of this ordinance.
We're also making the liens that result apply not only to the
property that the violation is on but also to any real or personal
property in the County that the violator may own.
And lastly we're introducing a mandatory lot-mowing
program for those folks who again, three times or more, violated
the ordinance that essentially puts them in a place where they
are required to pay for mowing on an annual basis or otherwise
post a security to insure that they will be mowed in accordance
with the ordinance.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. Thank you. And this is for our
meeting next month and essentially informational at this point.
MR. WHITE: I would appreciate any comments any of you
may have as a result of your review.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you very much.
MR. ABBOTT: Can you give us a quick summary of what's
driving it in particular?
MR. WHITE: The fact that there are a number of absentee
landowners who repeatedly are noticed of violations, some of
whom will and do have contracts for mowing but do not have the
property mowed until they get a notice of violation.
Mostly it's the absentee landowners that make no provisions
for taking care of the property.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you. Item B under New
Business, Alternatives to Gain a Quorum.
MR. DUANE: Yes, you-all -- and it's enclosed in your packet
-- you-all have asked what opportunities you have, a., from an
enforcement standpoint of what this Board can do to repeat
offenders who do not show up for this meeting; and I enclosed a
copy of the ordinance pertaining to that issue and what options
you have on somebody-- if you determine that that person has
not attended for two, you know, for two meetings and it hasn't
met your satisfaction of why they haven't attended, you do have
the option to make a recommendation to the Board of County
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December 6, 2000
Commissioners for removal.
The second part was, in an effort to gain quorums, what
options we had available. We said, well, we'd just kind of outline
it fairly simply for you and see if you wanted to move forward
with the change to the ordinance and -- so that we can insure
that we do have a quorum.
Real quickly -- I know we've been here a while -- I'll take you
through the four options that we have.
The first one is to adopt an ordinance change that allows a
majority vote of those members that are presently in office
instead of total committee members. If you're in the process of
transition, you got four positions posted, then you could have an
11-member committee effectively allowing only six members to
have the quorum.
The second option is to adopt an ordinance amendment that
will allow the majority of those attending the meeting to make
recommendations to the Board. For example, five members
attending the meeting, it would take only three votes. You know,
that's probably -- you probably wouldn't want to go that way.
The third way is to maintain the ordinance as written
requiring a majority of total committee members.
Fourth option is to adopt an ordinance change that the staff
member to act as an ex-offi¢io member to reach a quorum, as
well. You know, Heaven knows we have enough staff members in
these meetings that we should be able to help you.
MR. PEEK: Mr. Chairman?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Peek?
MR. PEEK: I think they're, you know, good options and
explanations.
I think option I would be my preference, and if you're
looking for a motion, I'd move that we request option number 1
be put into play.
MR. DUANE: Second.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: We've got a motion and a second. Mr.
Savage?
MR. SAVAGE: Discussion on it.
I -- I'm of the feeling that I'd like to think -- and I feel that we
could depend upon the staff if we had a problem and had one
person we needed to get, I don't know why a person on the staff
couldn't handle that.
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December 6, 2000
MR. CORREA:
MR. ABBOTT:
comment.
I was, I was going to lean for that number 4 option myself.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Well--Mr. Longo?
MR. LONGO: I'd just like to make a comment that I'm proud
of the fact that we have 15 people that will show up for the
meetings for the most part, and we do, for the most part, get a
majority of our committee members here; and I think it's real
important that we maintain that, because it gives us a good
view, good input from different cross-sections of the community
as to Board issues.
And we stand a danger of people that were slacking off
because it's not as important for everybody to be there to vote
on the issues.
And some of these issues, I'd hate to see a five-to-three vote
or something like that happen on real important issues, and I
think it's not a true representation of our committee and what
it's charged to do in this community, so my recommendation
would be for option 3.
MR. WHITE: There's a motion on the floor.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: There is a motion on the floor.
MR. WHITE: We can still discuss it.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: We can discuss that.
Marco?
MR. ESPINAR: Just a comment on Mr. Savage's comment.
It's sort of, to me, it's like separation of church and state
type thing. You know, you got, you got staff coming in here with
their proposals; let us review it, and it, you know, it kind of keeps
-- has that line of dividing us.
MR. SAVAGE: I understand that.
I'm in agreement with Marco.
That was what I was going to say, my
MR. WHITE: But I have to be so obvious as to point out that
had you had number 4 last month, you would have been able to
opine and make your recommendations with regards to the LDC.
MR. SAVAGE: Amen.
MR. LONGO: Yeah, but I -- I'll comment back on that.
Tom Peek was exactly correct, even though we are asked to
give an opinion, it's hard to give an opinion on a moving target.
MR. WHITE: It's always going to be moving.
MR. LONGO: No. I'll disagree. It's not always moving,
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December 6, 2000
because we've made pains in the last couple of years since I've
been on this Board to get our facts straight, to get staff to bring
us recommendations and information on a timely basis, and it's
the first time I know that -- 'cause I wasn't here last month -- that
we really hadn't had a quorum in the six years -- yeah, six years
that I've been on this Board.
So it's not always going to happen. I think there's always a
danger of things not -- getting passed through or not looked at
correctly, and it's, and it's obvious by the things we see -- even
on the things we see continuously that we catch more things on
it.
I think we need to be careful.
MR. ABBOTT: Patrick might not recall, because it was
before his time here, that we used to have -- all the troubles with
some of the stuff we passed in our subcommittee construction
code came back very differently; and we were -- it was an
incredibly frustrating thing, and so bear it in mind that staff don't
have the same level of integrity, at that time, that I would have
expected.
MR. WHITE: My comment with regards to the moving target
is that only those that are the controversial ones and only as to
that point in time between the first and the second public
hearings by the Board.
My experience over eight years has been that as to any of
those controversial provisions, no matter what the jurisdiction or
the provisions themselves, they're essentially moving targets.
I agree that giving a precise recommendation is very helpful.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Well, if I may, certainly a moving
target, after it gets through one of our first reviews or out of our
subcommittee, various entities reviewing it would, would have
options to revise it.
But as it set on this table, we couldn't even, we couldn't
even decide or understand what it was that we were going to
vote on here today; so, fine, if it moves around after it leaves the
table and after we've reviewed it, so be it. That's part of the
process, and we all can go to those public meetings and express
our opinions.
But as it sits on this table, if we don't know what we're
voting on, how can we reasonably do that?
MR. DUANE: What does that have to do with the motion that
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December 6, 2000
Mr. Peek and I made?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Take John's -- John's comment, and
then we'll vote.
MR. DUNNUCK: I was just going to quickly comment on my
history with advisory boards with the County has been, you
know, when you go through transitional periods of members
leaving, we went through it with the advisory committee, the
environment advisory committee, just recently where we were in
a rush to try to get two new members on because we had one
who was taken ill and one who couldn't serve any longer, and,
you know, from the standpoint of option I as being a pretty good
opportunity too if you don't want to go the route of an ex-officio
member, you know, staff member, you know, that certainly is
something that probably I would say history-wise may occur at
some point in time on this, you know, on this Board.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. Very good. Well, we'll call the
question --
MR. SAVAGE: Just a moment. I'd like to have one other --
this is discussing passing number I or not, I'd like to say one
other thing, that I think on this staff, how many times we've had
to do this? Once, maybe twice. And if we can't find in one of
these fine people that work on this staff to be on that particular
moment to give us a quorum, they may not vote for it or against
it, but it's a matter of getting a body together to have seven
people.
MR. PEEK: Comment: If item number I had been in place
last month, we would have had a quorum sitting here, because
we had two, two vacancies on our committee and we had seven
people present, so we would have had a quorum last month if we
had had item number I in place.
MR. ABBOTT: We only had one other time we didn't have a
quorum, like August or something?
MR. PEEK: Well, I think that person showed up about 15
minutes late, and we did have a quorum before the meeting was
over.
MR. SAVAGE: But we have to keep a record -- exact record
of who is so and so and so and so? I mean, keep it simple.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: We had to, we had to wait.
MR. SAVAGE: K-I-S-S.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Well, I agree with what Dino was
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December 6, 2000
talking about. ~1 mean, we always need to be here. We
committed to this --
MR. SAVAGE: Well, sure.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: -- by-- in large part, we do.
The odd occasion out that it occurs, I think that option
number I gives us a very good alternative for it, so with that,
we'll call the question.
All those in favor of the motion to -- I believe we bring this
forward to the Board for a change, right -- to suggest that we go
forward with option 1.
All those in favor say aye?
Any opposed?
(No response.)
MR. VAN ARSDALE: May I just make one point though, on
the option of -- I mean, you're actually required, if a member
misses two meetings without an adequate excuse, to notify the
County commission to basically recommend that person's
removal, and that's something that isn't being done; I think.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: You're right. We have not done that,
Peter, and --
MR. SAVAGE: Because it is a political appointment, you
understand.
MR. VAN ARSDALE: Well, all I'm saying, this is what the
ordinance says.
MR. SAVAGE: Yeah, I know.
MR. VAN ARSDALE: And I don't think we have any authority
to not obey the ordinance, and that -- frankly, there are some
people that don't have perfect attendance records. If you don't
want to come, don't fill the slot.
To be honest with you, one time, to have all the staff here,
to have the public here, and to not have a meeting because we
lacked a quorum is inexcusable, and we should -- MR. SAVAGE: That happened last month.
MR. VAN ARSDALE: And it should never happen, and it's
irresponsible, and we should certainly do -- I mean, everybody's
busy as a volunteer, but that's why I think I is a pretty good -- 1
would probably eliminate that from happening.
But also I think if we adopt the rules of the ordinance and
there's people that can't make it for other reasons, then they
shouldn't fill the slot. It's not fair to us, and it's not fair to the
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December 6, 2000
people -- to anybody that comes to the meeting, and it's a big
waste of time for us all.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: That's a valid point, and perhaps the
chairman that's selected in January can take care of that issue
and follow through.
New Business, C, Plans Review Procedure/Single-family
Homes - discussion item.
MR. DUNNUCK: I asked Ed Perico to come in and update
you on an issue that's kind of popped up over the last month and
kind of bring this Board up to speed.
MR. PERICO: Unfortunately, I was away when this came
about when state statues, there was a --
(Inaudible Colloquy-- several members speaking at one
time.}
Hey, Ron? Ron? Quiet, please?
MR. ABBOTT: He can't hear you.
MR. PERICO: DBPR came in and responded to a state
statute in there that was in effect since 1998, that the lady's --
what was the name? Charlene, was it, Charlene? MR. ABBOTT: Wolf Woman.
MR. PERICO: Whatever her name --
Anyway, she came in and quoted the statute that all
planning review has to be done by certified planning reviewers,
including single-family.
We're in the process right now of opposing it. All right? And
there was a, there was a building block that was put out and --
stating that effective December 1st that this would be effective.
And what was happening is, what they're asking for is
drawings to go along with plumbing, mechanical, and electrical.
In most cases the drawings are all being done. It's just a small
schematic or something that has to be submitted, so we
submitted at this point based on the building block that's
effective December 1st, this is going in.
Patrick White was at a meeting yesterday we had. Dave
Ellis, Charlie Abbott, and a few other of the chiefs were at the
meeting, and we're going to, like I say --
Patrick, what were we going to do? We're going to get
together with the state on this?
MR. WHITE: I can advise you that just before this meeting, I
received a call from Charlene informing me that she had
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December 6, 2000
discussions with the attorney who is responsible for this part of
the state statutes, and an attorney who represents, I believe, the
board that reviews violations for building plans, reviewers, and
building officials, et cetera, and her opinion was pretty much that
of what she had expressed yesterday.
I have not yet spoken to either of those attorneys, so I do
not know whether the clarity of my argument was raised in a way
that I think gave it a fair hearing, nor have we explored what the
options we would have would be with regards to getting an
opinion from that actual board itself; plus, I'm expecting that this
issue has not boiled to a degree that it's raised enough attention
throughout the state that perhaps there's maybe a further
consideration on the part of DBPR.
In short, the argument that I believe Collier County is
making is, one, we're presently complying with the law, because
under no circumstances are the inappropriate plans reviewers
ever looking at a type of plans they are not qualified to look at.
Okay?
The second thing is that factually Collier County issues
essentially a building permit for single-family and two-family
homes that has no other part to it, if you will.
In Cape Coral there are subpermits for those types of
structures for electrical, mechanical, and so forth. And as to
those permits, there are specific drawings that the building
official has requested and that are brought in as part of the
application for those building permits and subpermits.
The third thing is, is that each of the technical codes and
the building code itself put in the hands of the building official
the discretion to determine whether drawings, plans, et cetera,
are required in order to establish code compliance.
And in sum, the argument that we're raising is, is that the
DBPR, in order to apply this statute in Collier County under our
facts, is, in effect, usurping the discretion of the building official
as to whether you need to have detailed drawings or not.
In other words, they're creating the argument that you need
to have drawings and making you provide drawings just so you
can have the appropriate types of plan reviewer review that.
Now, the issue only focuses, as I've probably not made
clear, on single-family and two-family homes. All other types of
structures in the County, they don't have a problem with; so
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December 6, 2000
where it is presently in terms of our discussions with the other
attorneys, I haven't completed those. I had a commitment
yesterday that as to January 1, before anything would become
hard and fast in terms of them looking to enforce the statutes.
MR. VAN ARSDALE: So have we implemented that -- the
building block then?
MR. PERICO: I believe the building block did go out and as
of December 1st was implemented, and so, you know, we would
be in compliance.
In most cases what's happened is -- I mean, I talked with our
chiefs, people who have been in the business all their life, and
everybody draws a schematic. Doesn't have to be done by a
design professional. You have a plumber that's doing a
single-family house, he's got to do a layout, give it to his men to
do the job, and that's all that's required to have with that set of
plans.
So somebody's already doing the drawing. It's just a matter
of getting it in here and getting it into the, into the system.
MR. ABBOTT: One of the issues is, you leave the discretion
to the tradesmen in the field to do a plumbing layout, and
whether he comes out 4 feet with the sewer, out, or out 4 feet
from the corner or he comes in the middle of the house, this is
usually done to good practice, and the inspectors recognize that.
What she's asking for is all that totally decided up front, and
then if you do anything different, you've got to go through all this
revision. It's a whole bunch of paper shuffling, but it is no benefit
to the end use of the customer or the builder.
MR. PERICO: And my directions to my staff is that if in fact
the drawing does come in and has to be changed out in the field,
as long as it meets the code, we're not asking for revisions;
we're not going to be charging for revisions. We don't need the
extra inspections, you know, as long as we're complying with
what she's asking for.
MR. VAN ARSDALE: As long as it meets the law, who cares?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Dino, you had a comment.
MR. LONGO: Yeah. What --just to clarify -- what they
wanted is isometric drawings --
THE REPORTER: I'm sorry. I can't hear you.
MR. LONGO: I said, what they wanted are isometric
drawings and details on single-family and two-family, and
Page 67
December 6, 2000
currently in our construction ordinance, we have at 5,000 square
feet, we require design professionals to seal those drawings
based on that criteria.
There are a number of issues that can pop up for, for the
requirements of isometric drawings, and, and how it relate DBPR
trying to take a license away from a plan reviewer if he did not
review that plan right and an inspector didn't go out there and
find it exactly perfect.
We're talking about mechanical drawings, for instance, for
AC, that says a 21,000-level house has so many side runs and
size registers. And you know how it works in construction -- it
moves, it joggles, but we still get the same configuration, same --
times the same -- same -- everything else just moves.
Technically, it could be wrong and against the law to move
your vents or your return air if it's not shown correctly on the
plan, and what we're now asking the inspectors to do is go out
there with a sheet of paper that shows an AC layout or pick up a
plan out of the plan box and make sure it's identical and leave
them up -- in charge as to whether they think it's at their
discretion whether it could be moved the two feet or not, so
forth, so on.
They're not a reviewer; they're an inspector at that point.
So we had a lot of problems with it. We had builders'
roundtable discussions on the Collier Building Industry
Association. Ed was on vacation. He got back and kind of
quelled the storm, and that's where Patrick came in, so we are
trying to fight the interpretation.
So basically, this is, this is an informational-type issue as far
as this committee is concerned. Everybody that's on the
committee needs to be aware Patrick is working on it, on an
argument to the case.
We effectively did decide to go, on very short notice, to the
industry to put the December 1st building block in -- or the
building block into effect December 1st. It was, it was -- on the
industry side, I did argue that for the most part most plans and
most contractors, subcontractors, do have to do -- go through the
motions of doing those type of things.
We just didn't think the DBPR really had that type of police
powers or enforcement powers, and we've asked -- we asked the
County staff at the time, last week, to look into it.
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December 6, 2000
Ed came back, Patrick got involved, and that's where we are
today.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. I want to clarify an issue
though, because I've just, I've just spent a lot of money trying to
comply with this dad-burn thing.
Are you going to require the design professional within the
near term to do these things that are in the building block, or are
you going to allow the tradesmen to continue to submit --
MR. PERICO: I'm going to allow the tradesmen -- and I think
based on what we're reading there, it doesn't say it has to be
done by a design professional.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Fine. Well, that's not what this says. It
says right at the bottom, Plans that do not comply with this
particular ordinance 98-80 must be signed and sealed by a
design professional.
So we just need to go back and look at 98-80.
All right? So I took this as, not only have I got to do this on
this project, and I spent two grand to have it done.
MR. PERICO: Is it a commercial project or --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: No, it's just -- it's a duplex, for God's
sakes. We've never done this before.
MR. PERICO: I understand that. That's where I'm having
heartburn with it.
MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chairman --
MR. ABBOTT: The lady who talked yesterday, she had zero
knowledge of building and the code. She had no idea of the
practical application of what she was insisting on.
MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chairman, who is --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Savage?
MR. SAVAGE: -- Charlene, and what does she do every day?
MR. WHITE: Charlene -- if I may, Mr. Chairman -- Charlene
Sloser (phonetic) is an investigator or auditor -- I'm not sure what
the correct title is -- for the state DBPR.
MR. DUANE: Investigation specialist.
MR. SAVAGE: Investigation specialist, which -- you know,
it's amazing to me --
MR. ABBOTT: I have another name --
MR. SAVAGE: -- I did a job for Marco Beach Realty one time,
and I finally told them, I says, construction industry is not an
exact science.
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December 6, 2000
And you see that every day, and you see it every day, and I
see it every day. And for people who are Ph.D's that come down
here on book learning and read an ordinance, page 3, page 4,
page 8 and so forth, it's got to be just like that. They don't know
what they're talking about nine times out of ten, and I won't
hesitate telling this Charlene that and the governor or anybody
else about that.
You know, this is a practical matter, and I appreciate so
much -- but I hope that what -- our attorney and our County is
going to be looking at the practical side of these matters.
MR. LONGO: Mr. Chairman, what we're trying to do is not
jeopardize the licenses of our plan reviewers -- MR. SAVAGE: Right.
MR. LONGO: -- by being stick-in-the-muds, and at the same
time, trying to give a little bit of notice to design professionals.
We're still trying to move our criteria -- correct me if I'm
wrong -- up to the 5,000 square feet. Past that, you guys start
seeing the plans.
We do have a problem with -- there is no stipulation as to
size or square footage for these isometric drawings being
required, and we've had -- already kind of addressed that in our
construction -- years back, and now she's telling us, you know,
this was in effect since 1998. If you don't comply, then we're
going to start taking all your reviewers' licenses.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Well, we certainly need to protect the
folks that are --
MR. PERICO: We'll have to have a building block, and we'll
make whatever necessary changes have to be made on the
issues.
MR. ABBOTT: But, listen, on the County, we have fought
over this issue, and she acted like everybody's in compliance but
us, but we heard tell that Lee County told them, you know, buzz
off, so--
MR. VAN ARSDALE: Well, one of the things that concerned
me when this first came out was kind of what position that it put
the department in, and I think that I guess what I'd like to see
maybe at the next meeting, just say, we do not prevail in this
interpretation that we have to implement it, that we're fully
aware of the consequences that we don't get into a situation
where, you know, I think single-family, these particular plans go
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December 6, 2000
in and out in very short order, and I'd hate to see us go to the
point where now they get like eight-week reviews or four-week
reviews or something like that.
And I think we need to be thinking, if nothing else, thinking
along those lines and really trying to understand what the
ramifications will be if we have to comply.
MR. PERICO.' This is my big concern, Peter, that we know
the turnaround time, and what I tried to express to her
yesterday, we're trying to fix something that isn't broken.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Yeah, I know.
MR. PERICO: My people out in the field are very well aware
of it, they know what they're looking at, regardless of what was
improved on a set of plans, if it wasn't for the inspectors, a lot of
stuff would just go on out in the field. We'd have a million dollars
in inspection fees.
MR. SAVAGE: Right.
MR. PERICO: And she doesn't want to hear this. You know,
she's very, you know, the way it is. And if need be, if it's going to
bog down the system, we might have to take a look at putting on
an additional reviewer for single-family just to keep that
momentum going.
MR. LONGO: And the kicker was, in June or July, if the
unified building code actually goes into effect, it kicks out this
statute.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Sure. Sure.
MR. WHITE: Well, the DBPR's position on that, if I may
chime in, is that that statute is no different and the proposed
code is really no different than the existing statute.
And that's part of the great concern our County has, is that
it's a slippery slope. Once you start off of this thing, you've
essentially got the DBPR trying to tell you how many and what
drawings you need to have in order to comply with the various
codes.
MR. LONGO: Right. Right.
MR. WHITE: And I believe that that's the building official's
determination, and I think the codes will say that. MR. LONGO: Right.
MR. ABBOTT: Her, her issue is defining what's office as
opposed to field, and Ed's position is saying to them that what's
between the office and the field we thoroughly comply with the
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December 6, 2000
law, and it's the building official's discretion.
And she wanted to have it all done up fine, but then, like I
said, she had no knowledge of building codes. MR. SAVAGE: No.
MR. WHITE: The theoretical thing is, is that there are
innumerable, if you will, code requirements in each of those
technical codes in the building code. MR. SAVAGE: Right.
MR. WHITE: How do you demonstrate through a drawing or
a detail or something all of those provisions so that you can, up
front in a plan, demonstrate code compliance?
I think it's a wrong-headed argument. I don't think that
there's anybody out there whose house, if you will, has suffered
as a result of the manner in which Collier County has complied
with the laws that exist.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Well, it's wrong for the residential that
they're trying to press it for; it's not wrong in general, in my
opinion.
MR. WHITE: That's specifically what I'm talking about.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: This is going more towards a
commercial design application for all small residences, which is
MR. ABBOTT: But the down side of that, it changes the
issue that the builder in the field can no longer make corrections.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: I'm not for it. I'm not arguing.
MR. SAVAGE: Well, how do we --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: It, it gains me funding on one side,
from a design standpoint, but I think it does all of the things,
particularly usurping the building officials' --
MR. SAVAGE: Do we know anybody in the state of Florida
that's in charge of this personally that we can talk to them?
(Inaudible colloquy -- several members speaking at one
time.)
THE REPORTER: I'm sorry. I can't hear--
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Our representatives certainly --
MR. ABBOTT: Well, listen to what Patrick says, 'cause he
picked me up on this yesterday. Say it.
MR. WHITE: I'm saying that as either a committee or
individually I have an opinion about that. I'm always in favor of
you contacting the people you believe that are part of the
Page 72
December 6, 2000
process.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. Very good.
MR. SAVAGE: I always write to the governor, and that
probably doesn't do any good.
MR. WHITE: Theoretically, that's how we got here. I'm
telling people who are complaining all the way up to the governor
and down, the DBPR, but that's just a hypothesis.
MR. SAVAGE: Mariatees, clover, and all those other things.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you. Thank you.
MR. ESPINAR: I just have a comment real quick.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Yeah, that's where we are.
MR. ESPINAR: DEP is having a meeting December 13th at
two a.m. -- excuse me -- two p.m. regarding Golden Gate Estates
single-family homes, building in wetlands. They're looking at
expanding the law currently for an exemption. You're only
allowed 6,000 square feet of clearing, 4,000 square feet of fill.
That is very restrictive, and anything above and beyond that,
single-family homes in Golden Gate Estates have to do litigation.
The U.S. Army Corps allows half an acre of impact on their
own nationwide permits, so they're trying to bring their laws
more in step with the Corps.
For once DEP looks like they're doing something in the right
direction. It's open to the public, and I encourage everybody, you
know, who is doing any construction in Golden Gate Estates to
attend that meeting.
MR. DUANE: Where is it at?
MR. ESPINAR: It's at DEP on 13th, two p.m., at DEP
downstairs; and like I said, they're trying just to bring up their
laws more in step with the Corps.
MR. DUNNUCK: Can I make one other little minor
suggestion real quick?
You've got your local legislative delegation meeting in
January. If there is some legislative issue that you want to bring
forward and get their support by a resolution, I suggest that that
may be the opportunity for you on this issue.
You know, you may want to vote in support of it tonight if in
fact that's something you'd like to pursue, give us some, you
know give us some idea.
MR. JONES: Motion to adjourn.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: I had one comment before you do that,
Page 73
December 6, 2000
if I may, as a committee member.
January you're going to be electing a new chairman, and I
just want to thank everybody for the opportunity to do this this
year. It was enlightening and very educational.
MR. SAVAGE: Are you asking to be reappointed?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: No, no. No, I'm not. Thank you.
I did submit --
MR. SAVAGE: Okay. Fine.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you very much.
We had a motion for adjournment?
MR. SAVAGE: May I ask -- point of order, point of order?.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Just a second.
MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Dunnuck had suggested if we had a strong
feeling about going to legislate. Why can't we have our
subcommittee make an effort to go to this hearing and do some
complaining and so forth to our legislative group? Would that not be possible, Dino?
MR. LONGO: Actually, we're probably doing it on the
industry level.
MR. SAVAGE: Well, even show it on our quasi-official level.
MR. DUNNUCK: And it doesn't hurt, because the Board of
County Commissioners on the January -- or maybe even
December 12, they're voting on a slew of issues of what they're
going to support for the local delegation, and if you -- may want
to make that an item for the Board to consider -- MR. ABBOTT: What day is that?
MR. DUNNUCK: -- this may be your opportunity.
December the 12th.
MR. VAN ARSDALE: When's the legislative delegation
meeting?
MR. DUNNUCK: Legislative delegation is January 17, which
would give you another Board meeting in between that if you
wanted --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: All those in favor of adjourning the
meeting?
(Unanimous vote of ayes.)
There being no further business for the good of the County,
Page 74
December 6, 2000
the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 6:10 p.m.
COLLIER COUNTY DEVELOPMENT SERVICES
ADVISORY COM M ITTEE
DALAS D. DISNEY, CHAIRMAN
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT
REPORTING SERVICE, INC. BY SANDRA BROWN, NOTARY
PUBLIC
Page 75
,FORM .8B
P,a,,ae t/' '~"
MEMORANDUM'OF VOTING CONFLICT-FOR
_ COONTY, MUNICIPAL, AND OTHER LOCAL' PUBLIC OFFICERS
Anderson, Robert Bruce
1670 Crayton Rd
Naples Co~er
Development Services Advisory C'ommi.t_~e~I
1H~eO,~qO.~CO~I~t.sK~~~~ ' '-'~', '.'~
Collier
. - Q e~CE'CT~ 'kS a, Pl:'eN~4Trel~~ .., .:.- ";
December 6', _2_000 _...":
WHO MUST FILE FORM 88
Th;s form Ls for use by a~ persoft se~ng at [~ c~ty, ~, cr ~er ~a( {~l ~ ~emment on ~ ap~n~d or elec{ed bo~, ~i~,
~m~to~ a~, ~ c~m~. ~ ~s eq~ to ~em o~ ~ and ~~ ~ who are preenled ~{h a VOt~g
Your lespons~i~t. under the law when laced with voting on a measare in whk~ you have a =onfr, ct of ;ntere~t will rapt greatly de~endir, g
on whether you h~.ld an elect~'e or appo.~n,Jve po~ilion. Fc4' ~is reason, please pay dose at&ant[on to t~e ~stmctlons o~ IN~ form betore
completing the revere side arKJ I~11i3g ~be ~flTt.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMPLIANCE WITH SECTION 112.3143, FLORIDA STATUTES
A person hokf(~lg electra or ac.l:,olntive coufity, mun'~ciFm!. cr other local ~'.,~bEc office MUST At~$TAIN from voti,~j on a measure which
[nu.~s t~ hb~ o[ her $0ec~tt! private gain or loss. Each elected or appointed io~el off, car al~o is' proh.:bRed from kno~ingly vo~ing on a mea-
~re which inure,~ to Lqe special gain or loss ol a p,'itlcipal (other tha~l a go',~amr,~ent ager, cy) by wty3m he or she {G ret~'m~d (t,'lci'dEmg the
parent o-(janize[iotq or subsidia,"y' of a cot13ora~e principal by ¥~,,ich he or ~ is te'.ained): to the spe~a~ private gain or ~ of a ~elatlv~: or
to the apecial priva;¢ gain or toss o~ a busin~.~ et,:socia~e. Corem{as[cream c.t c~mra~tnity. te,Sevelopment agencies unde~ Sec. 163.3~6 or
t63.357, F.$., e. nd o{ficer~ o~ irtdepender, t sp~[al tax d~stricts elected on a one. acre. one-vo;e basis Are not proh'bi~ed tram votin9 in that
capacity.
Far puq3C~e~ ol this law, a '~elative~ iacludes only the off'~et'$ lather, mother', son, daughter. husband. wife. binthee sister. re.that-in-law,
~',other-Lq~aw. sowln-law, and deughte~-':-n-law, A 'bus~ness e~ssoc~ate' means any person or entity engaged i~ o~ cs~cying oR a. business
enteq3tise with the offk~er as a partner, jo~t venturer, coowner of property, or c~rpor~te:~;hsreholder f,~here the shares of the coq'~oration
are IlOf li~ed on any national or regiof~al ~tock
ELECTED OFFICERS:
t~ addition to abalatni.qg lrom voli,qg in the situations ct~scfioed NSove, you must disclose the conflict:
PRIOR TO THE VOTE BEING TAKEN by publicly stating to the assembly !h,e nature of ¥o~ ~nte'.'e,~ m th~ measure on whk:n you
~[e absteinL'lg from voting; and
WITh. IN 15 DAYS AFTER 'l'H[ VOTE OCCURS by compte~{Rg and til~g this form w;-th the pe~sor~, respons;b'.e to~ r~or~fmg the
u~.es ot tr~e meeting, who should incorporate t,~e fon'n in the minutes. ,
APPO[NTEO OFFICERS:
AJth¢~gh you must abstain from yeSno in fi~e situations descried abo~e. you othenNise may participate in these mate. els- However. you
made
m~st disctoce the nature of the confi ct be{ore mat<{n.3 any at~efrp, to .,~,tcGnce the deCi~iO~'~, wrtetbe~ orally oT in x,,'fitin¢.4 and whetbee
by yO~.l or at your (fl~'ectlon.
iF YOU Ir,TENO TO MAKF_ Ably ATTEMPT TO INFL, UE, NCE TI-~E OEC, ISION PRIOR TO THE b~EF_.TiN,"~ ~,T WH[C,H TH~c VOTE WILL BE
TAKEN:
- You muot c. ornptete end {{!,e lf~ic to~m (b.-~lo~e ,nal~ncj any attefnF-t [o ir]i~uence the dec[s~on) wlth the per3on ra~or~iblo for ~c-c, ordin~ ,.he
minutes of (~ ~11eet~ng. who will inco~pOf~tr~ the loon in the mi~u{¢s. (Confinue'~ of 1 other 3~de)
~ pAGE
C,C FORM ::1~ - R~V. 1/C~-q
* ~e fo;m must ~ re~ ~c~ al ~ ne~ m~ aRe(~e Iorm
;F Y~ ~KE NO A~PT TO' ~U~CE '~E DECIS(ON'~C~T BY
DISCLOSURE OP LOCAL'OFFICER'S INTEREST
I] Robert Bruce Anderson ,hereb),d/3closethalon December 6, ..
(a) A measure came c~ will ccme before my a§ency which [check one}
~ inured Io my special private gain orloss;
~ inured !o the special gain. or loss of my Cus~ess assoc;ale
~ inured to ~he spedel gai~ or Ios~ ot my telalive.
~X inured to lhe special gain or loe~ of LaPlaya, LLC and Aquapor.t, LLC
whom I ~m retained; or
-- inured to the ~pe~al g~ or loss o!
~s Ihe parenl organ{za§on or ~ubsk~ar~ o! a prk~pal wh~;h h3s re~ed me,
~b) The measure tefore my agenoy ~nd l,he rmlure ~ my confficling in:e~est in lhe meesure is as Iollc~s:
vote on recommending amendments to the Land Development Code
concerning zoning for Residential Tourist Zoning District and
Hotels/Motels generally.
Z~ .ZO,_9_:
Daze Filed
December 6, 2000
Signature
NOTICE: UNDER PROV!SIONS OF FLORIDA STATUTES {}1~.317, A FAILURE TO MAKE ANY REOUIRED DISCLOSURE
CONSTITUTES GROUNDS FOR AND MAY BE PUNISHED BY ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLCWING: IMPEACHMENT:
REMOVAL OP, SUSPENSION FROM OFFICE OR EMPLOYMENT, DEMOTION, REDUCTION IN SALARY, REPRIMAND. OR A
CIVIL PENALTY NOT TO EXCEED $$0.000.
CE FORM 8B - PEV. 1~8
,°AGE z