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DSAC Minutes 05/02/2001 RMay 2, 2001 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE DEVELOPMENT SERVICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE Naples, Florida, May 2, 2001 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Development Services Advisory Committee, In and for the County of Collier, having conducted business herein, met on this date at 2:30 p.m. in REGULAR SESSION at Conference Room G, 2800 North Horseshoe Drive, Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: Thomas Masters, P.E. Charles M. Abbott R. Bruce Anderson, Esq. Dalas D. Disney, AIA Robert L. Duane, AICP Marco Espinar Blair Foley, P.E. Brian E. Jones Dino J. Longo Bryan Milk Thomas R. Peek, P.E. C. Perry Peeples~ Esq. Herbert R. Savage, AIA Peter H. Van Arsdale Page 1 May 2, 2001 ABSENT: David Correa ALSO PRESENT: Patrick White, Assistant County Attorney Aaron Blair, Planning Services Maura Kraus, Natural Resources Ron Nino, Planning Services Don Blalock, Planning Services Fred Reischl, Planning Services Susan Murray, Current Planning Manager John Dunnuck, Community Development Administrator Michelle Arnold, Code Enforcement Director Ross Gochenaur, Planning Services Tom Kuck, Interim Planning Director Denny Baker Page 2 DEVELOPMENT SERVICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE AGENDA May 02, 2001 ,~:30 p.m. II. III. Approval of Agenda Approval of Minutes - April 4, 2001 Meeting Staff Announcements A. Summary of Ordinance Amendments B Update of Planning/Building Review LOS C Report on additions/funding with building expansion D. Administrator Selection Committee E. Miscellaneous IV. Old Business 1. Subcommittee Members 2. LDC Cycle Subcommittee Reports A. Land Development Regulation (Bob Duane) B. Construction Code (Dino Longo) C. Utility Code (Tom Peek) D. Ad Hoc Committee on Fees VI. New Business VII. Committee Member Comments May 2, 2001 (Proceedings commenced, Mr. Disney not present.) CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Okay. Let's go ahead and call the meeting to order. Also we had a request, which makes good sense, if we could send the signup sheet around the outside of the room, too, so we can get everybody to sign it, give the reporter a record of who's here. We've already gone through and -- and looked at the agenda, and we've made -- unanimously approved an amendment to move the LDC cycle item up to directly behind approval of the minutes. And with that we were just getting to comments on the minutes. Does anybody have any comments on the minutes from the last meeting? MR. PEEK: I have one. Tom Peek. Page No. 6, the fourth line down, Mr. Van Arsdale is speaking on the fourth line down. It says, "Will there be a -- a production of permit fees," and I think production should be reduction. MR. ABBOTT: Or reduction. MR. PEEK: Or reduction of permit fees. MR. VAN ARSDALE: Thank you. MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Mr. Savage. MR. SAVAGE: Herb Savage. Did you already introduce everybody around the room? I know there are a lot of people that -- that haven't had a chance to meet me yet. And I just want to make sure that they know. MR. ABBOTT: Your face was in the paper. Isn't that sufficient? MR. SAVAGE: I just wondered if everyone has been introduced that has -- we may not know. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Yeah. We could quickly go around the room, I guess -- MR. SAVAGE: Yeah. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: -- if everybody will introduce Page 3 May 2, 2001 themselves. MR. STATZ: Eric Statz (phonetic), Nal~les Daily News. MS. KRAUS: Maura Kraus, Collier County natural resources. MR. MULHERE: Bob Mulhere, RWA, Inc. MR. STAROS: Ed Staros, managing director of the Ritz- Carlton Naples Hotel. MR. GRABINSKI: Matt Grabinski, attorney with Garlick, Stetler & Peeples. MS. BARNETT: Eileen Barnett, Coastal Engineering Consultants. MR. BLAIR: MR. BAKER: Erin Blair, planning services, Collier County. Denny Baker, business manager, CDDS. MR. BLALOCK: Don Blalock, planning services. MR. GOCHENAUR: Ross Gochenaur, planning services, G-o- c-h-e-n-a-u-r. MR. KUCK: Tom Kuck, planning services. MR. REISCHL: Fred Reischl, planning services. MR. WHITE: Patrick White, county attorney's office. MS. ARNOLD: Michelle Arnold, code enforcement. MS. MURRAY: Susan Murray, planning services. MR. NINO: Ron Nino, planning services. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Okay. MR. SAVAGE: Thank you. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Any further comments on the minutes? MR. PEEK: I move the minutes -- MR. LONG: Tom, I apologize. We didn't discuss your fence issue. MR. PEEK: Well, we'll get it next time. Is that all? MR. LONGO: That's it. MR. PEEK: Mr. Chairman, I'll move that the minutes be approved as amended. Page 4 May 2, 2001 MR. FOLEY: Second. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Second by Blair Foley. All in favor? (Unanimous response.) CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Hearing none, the motion carries unanimously. Okay. Let's lump right into the LDC cycle. Ron? MR. NINO: Yes, Ron Nino. If you take a great leap of faith in your land use subcommittee, you might be able to get through a fairly significant part of this agenda so that you have time to discuss the issue of hearing examiner and the latest and best on turtles on the beach. If you would let me go through the summary that you have in your packet, I'm going to tell you what the land use subcommittee did. One, on the first item, they said they had no problem with that. On the second item, agriculture district, you recommended a denial. On the third item, you didn't have a problem with that, but you wanted some clarification. The fourth item, after discussing with Mr. Dunnuck, we wish to remove from the table any discussion or -- or re -- revisiting the issue of hotels and floor area ratios, so we would ask you to delete that on the -- the next item, the C-4 -- MR. DUNNUCK: And let me qualify that. We may bring something back at the first DSAC meeting in June before we have take -- go to the hearing, but at this time there's really no news to bring to you. MR. NINO: With respect to the following item, that was the addition district. wanted MR. SAVAGE: -- addition of -- of mini storage warehouses to the C-4 You didn't have a problem with that. However, you -- you wanted the requirement -- May I interrupt, Mr. Chairman? Would you tell Page 5 May 2, 2001 us where not all of us know where you are. MR. NINO: On page I of the summary. MR. SAVAGE: Of the summary? MR. MR. MR. MR. MR. MR. MR. NINO: packet? MR. PEEK: page of last -- CHAIRMAN MASTERS: You got it, the last page. MR. PEEK: Last meeting, came out last meeting. how many of you people need copies? MR. SAVAGE: I don't have a copy. MR. MR. MR. MR. you are in this book? You know you're going fast, and NINO: Yes. WHITE: It's the table. NINO: The table. ABBOTT: This thing. NINO: No, this thing. I'm sorry. SAVAGE: Well, who has that? This thing here. It's all in your packet, the beginning of your Well, what you are reading from, Ron, is the first Who VAN ARSDALE: I don't know if it's here or not. SAVAGE: I'm not that old that I can't -- NINO: Perry found it. PEEPLES: The last meeting. MR. NINO: Perhaps I could simply discuss, rather than say it's the next item, describe what the issue is. We -- staff had intended to propose to allow mini warehouses, and your subcommittee said they didn't have a problem with that. However, one of the conditions precedent to that was that the mini warehouse would have to have air conditioning, and no one building could be longer than 100 lineal feet. You fellows didn't like that. The next item is -- is the -- then the business park district, we also then wanted to allow mini warehouses in the business Page 6 May 2, 2001 park district with the same conditions per -- prerequisite, and you took the same action as you did on the C-4. You didn't think that the air conditioning and the limitation on the lineal feet of the mini warehouse was that important. Then you discussed the Immokalee overlay district. That was the -- had to do with requiring communication tower for the conditional uses. You didn't have a problem with that. Then you discussed -- MR. PEEK: Ron, excuse me. I still don't think Herb's caught up. On page I in your left hand -- you were looking at it. Open it up. Right there on the left side, page 1. MR. SAVAGE: That's right. I heard him say page 4 awhile ago. MR. NINO: We're on page 2 of the summary. And at the top of the page we're dealing with Bayshore mixed use overlay district. You -- your land use subcommittee did not have any objections to the fine tuning. Do you remember that was introduced in the last amendment cycle and there was some minor amendments to that? It kind of tightened it up, I think, by and large. And you-all -- your committee recommended approval of that. The Goodland overlay district, that is, again, to -- to allow a more relaxed form of development in Goodland, and you-all didn't have a problem with that. However, you said if they have -- if -- if -- if a fence is -- is good enough for Bayshore in terms of masking the area where you store your boats and motors and cars, it ought to be good enough for Goodland as well. So you asked that the fencing requirements similar to the fencing requirements that are required in the Bayshore area be required of the Goodland overlay district. The next item was -- had to do with fences, and staff had indicated to you that we wanted to delete that item entirely from Page 7 May 2, 2001 the consideration. The next item has to do with dock facilities. And, here again, we were revisiting the dock issue which would give us a more liberal construct on where the waterway begins in terms of measuring the protrusion of the dock; where there was receding, we would measure receding from the seawall. We would actually measure it from the receded line. And that would allow a little more flexibility and in -- in addition to that, we were revisiting the conditions precedent. You'll all recall that in a -- an appeal situation we had on docks in the Vanderbilt lagoon area, we were taken to task because the conditions, the criteria that we measured against, weren't all that clear. And one had a lot of emphasis on blocking sights. And, as a matter of fact, in our revisiting we're taking the site issue out because inherent in a boat dock is blockage of sight. So we've refined those conditions. And your committee agreed with that. The next issue -- issue is ex -- excavations. No one ever talked about that, and that will be discussed at the end of the -- later on with this meeting. Vehicles on the beach, that thing has been shifting like sand in the ocean -- CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Ron, hang on. MR. PEEK: We're out of -- we're out of -- out of phase here. MR. MULHERE: You skipped a page. MR. WHITE: He's doing the gray stuff. MR. ABBOTT: Yeah. The stuff highlighted in gray. MR. NINO: In any event -- MR. FOLEY: He skipped. MR. MULHERE: Building permits, certificate of occupancy. MR. NINO: That's correct. Building permits, certificate of occupancy. You didn't have a problem with that except where we asked that the time frame be 12 days or -- was it 12 days? Page 8 May 2, 2001 Two weeks? You asked that it be 30 days. MR. PEEK: Right. MR. NINO: The landscaping ones, increased size of trees, you-all didn't have a problem with that. Subdivision improvements, which is electronic formatting, you didn't have a problem with that. Subdivision improvements, you didn't have a problem with that. Again, subdivision improvements, again, electronic formatting, you didn't have a problem with that. Site development plans, again, that's -- has to do with our development module system, electronic recording. You didn't have a problem with that. (Mr. Disney entered the room.} MR. NINO: The next item is a new one in your plate; the subcommittee did not review that. So you will be dealing with that today. And, again, vehicles on the beach, that thing has gone through a number of reiterations, and it will get an extensive discussion later on today. However, it's important to note that the land use subcommittee did review the first draft of that that immediately followed the results of the advisory committee that consisted of environmental -- the environmental representatives and industry representatives. And we brought that to you, and you said, you know, you like that. However, staff at that time said, yeah, but we changed our mind. We don't want to change, and we don't want to make any more changes. Well, since that discussion, a lot of things have happened. And -- and it's back in your plate. The next item has to do with definition; again, we said we took the hotel issue off the table. The next item is the PSI. I think that definition would stand irrespective of what you do on the vehicles on the beach. And, lastly, the -- the hearing examiner process is all new. So if this committee would reapprove all of the things that your Page 9 May 2, 2001 land use subcommittee recommended as your land use subcommittee, we can cut through a large part of the agenda. MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chairman, question, Ron -- Herb Savage -- on the dock facilities. MR. NINO: Yes. MR. SAVAGE: I heard you say the subcommittee, and there's been so much problem in measuring how wide a dock is and where it's measured from and so forth. Is that -- is that all taken care of in our code? MR. NINO: Yes. MR. SAVAGE: It isn't the nail on the dock on the bulkhead? MR. NINO: We think it's better defined today than it was yesterday. MR. SAVAGE: Okay. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Okay? Any other comments? Go ahead. MR. ANDERSON: I have a conflict -- MR. NINO: I -- I -- there's one other issue. Your land use subcommittee recommended -- even though it wasn't in your package recommended that another amendment be included in this cycle, which would allow churches in the C-1 district. MR. SAVAGE: Yes. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Go ahead, Bruce. MR. ANDERSON: I need to disclose that I have a conflict on several of the matters that are contained within this Land Development Code amendment for clients that I represent, specifically the vehicle-on-the-beach discussion, business park PUD regulations, and churches as a permitted use in commercial- zoned districts. I also had on this form the Florida area ratio and definition for hotels. But since that's not going to be discussed, I'll just leave it on the form anyway. And I'm going to hand this to the court reporter. Page10 May 2, 2001 MR. PEEPLES: I also have a conflict of interest regarding the vehicles on the beach. And I have my form with me that I'm going to give to the court reporter, a copy of it -- CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Go ahead, Blair. MR. FOLEY: Blair Foley for the record. I, too, have a conflict with the business park PUD and the vehicles on the beach, and I'll be completing that within the allotted time frame and submitting the conflict form. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Okay. Anyone else? Anybody care to make a motion at this point? MR. DUANE: I'll move the amendment for the -- on the -- I'll move the amendments that are on the table for approval unless there are objections from someone here. MR. PEEK: I'll second the motion. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Okay. Any further discussion on any particular item? All right. Let's call it to a vote. All those in favor approving the amendments that we just discussed with Ron, please note so by saying aye. (Unanimous response.) CHAIRMAN MASTERS: And opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Hearing none, the motion carries unanimously. MR. ANDERSON: With one abstention. MR. FOLEY: Two. MR. PEEPLES: Three. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: With abstentions as noted. All right. MR. NINO: I suggest we now go to the matter of hearing examiner. To that extent, I believe, Fred, are you going to -- MR. REISCHL: -- give an intro. Fred Reischl, planning services. I'll give you a brief overview of the hearing examiner, Page 11 May 2, 2001 which I think most of you are familiar with. This was directed by the Board of County Commissioners last year. Based on several benefits, including allowing the Board of County Commissioners, the planning commission, and the EAC to concentrate on policy -- MR. DUNNUCK: Fred, can I hold you right there ? MR. REISCHL: Yes. MR. DUNNUCK'. It may be more beneficial if we address the vehicles on the beach first. They're our guests here. It's mostly staff making the presentation on the hearing examiner. Would you mind if we all do that? MR. SAVAGE: If necessary, I'll make a motion to that effect. MR. DUNNUCK.' Okay. Let's get to that issue first. I'm going to take it off because conceptually we've been back and forth all over this issue. And I want -- and I want to keep it on the conceptual level. Ron will pass out the latest and greatest version, but I will be honest with you. It will probably change before -- you know, before this time. And we may be bringing something back to you the 1st of June with some final amendments. The issue -- the Environmental Advisory Committee this morning, the issue of vehicles on the beach, and it has to do with beach raking and special events, some of the amendments that we were proposing. Right now, you know, we've had full discussion. Our intent as county staff is to make sure that there are significant penalties when they violate codes that will harm turtles on the beach. And when we crafted this language, we looked at making stiff penalties and the crime fit -- you know, the punishment finish -- you know, fitting the crime. For example, ATVs on the beach, we have said as a staff that we will allow ATVs on the beach or we're proposing to allow ATVs on the beach. However, you know, we want to control that risk of it occurring. When the vehicles go down -- we want to Page 12 May 2, 2001 make it a corridor where you go down, they tend to the business that they need to. It's after we've had a chance to get down to monitor the beach and then inspect it each day and -- you know, and they come back. There's been some discussion, you know, with the hoteliers about wanting to be able to go and pick up beach towels during the day after we've done inspections and creating a similar corridor going down there. As staff, we agree to that, and that's some stuff that were brought up in the Environmental Advisory Committee today, you know, going back and forth. But what we have said on the penalty side of it is is if you violate these major penalties because, you know, if they come down before we've had a chance to inspect, I consider that a ma]or penalty where they can run over eggs or do something, you know, that's the type of penalty we want to make sure there's a -- what I would call a hammer with the hotels. And that is your suspensions of uses. And that's what we propose, you know. The first time is a fine, the second time maybe a seven-day suspension, and the third time maybe a longer suspension. And -- and I don't know, and I'll let you-all talk about what you think about those specific suspensions when it -- when it agrees with the ATVs. The other issue has to do with chairs on the beach. Our opinion is, as an overall philosophy, we would much rather see those chairs get off the beach by nine o'clock each evening because it creates false crawls when you leave chairs on the beach where the turtles come up and they bump against them and then they run back. And we have said as a philosophy, you know, that is our number one objective. So regarding that, we're working with them saying this ATV issue is a mechanism to help the hotels get those chairs off the beach on a daily manner. And as long as they do that, you know, we will allow the chairs on the beach because that is actually by Page 13 May 2, 2001 state statute people have to have their chairs off the beach. This is just more of an enforcement mechanism. And there -- there again, we have a -- stiff penalties. If you do not get your chairs off the beach, it's kind of three you're out and you're out for that season. And we concur on that. The final issue and probably the one that's going to bear the most discussion is how do we handle special events. The Ritz- Carlton has a great deal -- and I'm sorry to single you out, Ed. MR. STAROS: That's fine. MR. DUNNUCK: They have a bunch of special events out there. And -- well, the concern on staff's part is, okay, we know we need to get these -- the furniture and everything else that they have off the beach. And currently we have said nine o'clock as a rule. Well, you know, from a reasonable standpoint, you get in the middle of summer, you get a June 21st, the longest day of the year, that's within ten minutes of sunset and the hotels have said, you know, we want to negotiate that at all. Right now I don't know if we're in a position to say we can negotiate because statute says you have to have these things done by nine o'clock. So we have to bear through those issues. You know, I look at it from a practical standpoint saying, okay, you get in the end of October and you have sunsets at 7:30 at night. Well, according to what we're saying, you have an hour and a half until nine o'clock that they can continue to have an event which is after sunset. If we're making the argument saying we -- the turtles are possibly going to come up to the beach right after sunset, that's a conflict right there. That's the kind of stuff we need to work with them on regarding this issue. And I think from their standpoint -- and rightfully so -- they don't want to have the three and you're out penalties for special events because they -- you know, they have these ma]or events that they're booking in advance. And if by chance they have a Page 14 May 2, 2001 new hotel worker come in and violate those agreements basically, they're concerned probably obviously; they're trying to protect their interests on the special events side of it, which is a point where we're going to probably, you know, come together -- we're going to come to some final discussion, probably bring something back to you the 1st of June. I don't know if we can actually resolve that today because we still continue to have discussion on that issue. But -- but that's kind of where we are in a nutshell with this issue. We're -- where we're trying to go is make sure we have penalties and provisions that if we're going to allow ATVs in these type of events that we want to be able to say enough's enough. It's easy for a big hotel to say we'll pay our $500 fine; it's a cost of doing business. We think, though, protecting our endangered species is an issue of being much broader than that, and that's kind of where we've -- we've stood on the penalty side. Withstanding that, we also want to work with the Ritz- Carlton. One of the things that we're going to be implimenting from Michelle's office and our natural resource staff is an educational element to this where we come in and we train their staff people and we talk to them. You know, past history before Ed was there has been a little bit of contentiousness between the Ritz and our code enforcement staff because we've tried to go out there and penalize them or they've had lots of code violations previously, and it's been a cost of doing business, and we haven't had the hammers in there to stop them. And it's frustrating from Michelle's standpoint because she can't do much about it. This adds the penalities in, but at the same time, to me, a more practical solution is let's get them involved up front. Let's get Michelle and Ed working together. Let's see if we can't get some of these things resolved so the Ritz -- there's no -- you know, Page 15 May 2, 2001 they can't say we don't know what the codes are, you know, we don't know why this is important and at the same time Michelle builds those relationships with the hoteliers so that we can -- you know, we don't have these penalties to begin with and then it becomes a moot point on violations. But that's where we are right now. Ed, I don't know if you want to comment on it -- MR. STAROS: I may in one minute. MR. DUNNUCK: -- add to that. MR. STAROS: One -- one or two things. One of the hallmarks of our hotel is -- is to sell the beautiful beach, and we book our beach parties sometimes years in advance. The issue I have with three strikes and you're out is -- I'll just use one example. Oldsmobile and Cadillac just had back-to- back groups at the hotel. They just spent 1.3 million dollars. That was booked 3 1/2 years ago with a beach party, a welcome party for Oldsmobile and then, when they checked out, a welcome party for Cadillac. If, hypothetically because I have done something inappropriate where you say three strikes and you're out to a contract that I signed 3 1/2 years ago and hypothetically the week before Oldsmobile and Cadillac shows up you say you can't have any more beach parties, now I'm liable for a 1.3-million-dollar piece of business, you know. The food chain keeps going as far as the liability is con -- is concerned. I can't stop something that is already in motion for the last 3 1/2 years. I'll be the first one to agree with you that I agree with stiff penalties because I am an environmentalist, and I consider myself one, and I believe that we should -- we should save our environment and we should save the sea turtles. However, when you start putting a caveat on penalties that dictates contracts that have been signed for two and three years in advance, I don't know how we can do this without litigation, end of subject. Page 16 May 2, 200t However, I'm the first one to work with you as far as working out some kind of a stiff penalty or whatever with reference to violations. That's one -- one issue. The second issue is that you used the word "statute" at nine o'clock. We have always used ten o'clock as our cutoff time. It was this season and this season for the first time that the nine o'clock issue came up, and I asked and part of our review is saying, look, it works at ten o'clock. It's going to be very difficult to work at nine o'clock because the sun sets at nine o'clock on June 21st, etc. All I wanted was a one-hour to go back to what we've done in the past and have a -- have a -- have a ten o'clock, have the beach cleaned and -- and all the equipment off the beach and so forth. So those two aspects of what you just recapped, I think, are the hottest items. There's other little nuances, but those two things are -- are the part that makes it very, very difficult to operate a -- a five-star facility. MR. SAVAGE: May I ask -- MR. STAROS: By the way, we just got our fifth star again for the 13th year, and yesterday we got our fifth diamond for the 14th year. There's only 25 hotels -- there's only two hotels in the United States that have that distinction, actually. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: First, let me say to John that after our Land Development Code subcommittee meeting, that's exactly the path I believe we were on in agreeing basically with -- with the regulations that were trying to be enacted but that there needed to be stiff penalties, as long as folks could live with that. So I commend you guys on that direction. Herb has -- MR. SAVAGE: Herb Savage. Ed, is it? MR. STAROS: Ed Staros. MR. SAVAGE: If they decide not to work with you on this Cadillac-Oldsmobile situation, then you would not be able to Page17 May 2, 2001 establish a contract, say, for three years from now, is that correct? MR. STAROS: That's what I'm getting at. It ties my hand. MR. SAVAGE: Absolutely. How much money would you say -- I think we all have heard this. How much money would you say that the hotel industry has brought to the Collier County area in the last -- MR. STAROS: I can tell you the Ritz-Carlton Naples will bring a hundred million dollars this year. MR. SAVAGE: Is that all? MR. STAROS: The Ritz-Carlton Naples alone. A hundred million dollars this calendar year. MR. SAVAGE: You heard my question. Is that all? what would you call that? Facetiousness on my part? That's -- Listen to that one hundred million dollars. And I don't care who's here, a newspaper man, TV person, or whatever. I'm sick and tired of hearing some of these old people that walk on the beach. Do you know how fast a turtle work -- walks? Example: Have you ever seen a turtle walk on the beach, any of you? The other day at the Marriott I saw a turtle walking. Do you know how fast he was going or maybe she? One mile, maybe, an hour, huh? And it butted up against a board, you know. And what happened? It sort of moved over the other -- and went on around the board, you see. We're insulting the damned turtle by its intelligence and saying it can't find its way around. Did you see in the paper the other day somebody drilling in the sand to make sure that it was dense enough so that the turtle could dig its nest? Do you know how long turtles have been around? You know, I don't know where we get these ideas. I'm an environmentalist. I'm an architect. And I'm getting sick and tired of hearing every time we have government establish a new regulation that we're going to be able to move nowhere Page 18 May 2, 2001 without the help of some -- with all my due respect of the young lady, what do you call it? Enforcement, code enforcement person following us. What's wrong with us? Excuse me. I didn't mean to get excited. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Dawn, does staff have anything to say? MR. DUNNUCK'. Not after that. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Can staff support -- can staff support the ordinance the way it's currently written? MR. DUNNUCK: Well, I think the point I was trying to make is that we need to discuss that. That issue came up in the EAC this morning. You-all have one more meeting before -- prior to we actually bring the land development code to the board. I would feel more comfortable is if we ironed out, similar to what we decided with the EAC, you know, Matt wants to talk about it, bring back -- bring back your finalized version where we can officially say staff made some revisions approximately a half hour before this meeting, and I'm not comfortable saying this is officially staff's position at this time because I think we would just be back in June saying, well, we thought of one more thing. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: I have one more question. Are you under the impression that you can't adhere to the three strikes you're out? I mean, are you anticipating that that's inevitable that you're going to go beyond that? MR. STAROS: No. We had two last year. During turtle season we had two offenses, both human error. A new employee raked the beach before it was check -- checked in the morning. We admit to that, and we know that was wrong. But we have done things to prevent that from happening again. The second time there was a -- we -- because of that incident we decided on having a logbook where every morning that the person who checks the beach can log the date and the Page 19 May 2, 2001 time that he checks the beach so we don't misunderstand that he -- he or she has not been there as yet. The logbook said -- what's -- what's today's date? It's May 2. It's a Wednesday. The logbook hypothetically said May 2, Thursday. And so it was the date and the dock -- the date and the day of the week were incorrect, and it was misread, and we had cleaned the beach on that day. So we had two offenses during the turtle season last year as far as raking the beach prior to being -- prior to it being certified and so forth. I think that was -- that's a lot. My issue is that there is a possibility that there would be somebody that runs over a sea oat and says -- and that's one of my offenses, etc., not that I'm trying to put light to that. I'm just saying that it is possible to have 3 offenses in any one 180-day calendar year, and to say that you're -- we're -- we're going to prevent a -- a group that's been booked for three years from having a beach event because I violated or drove the ATV outside of the zone or raked the beach in -- improperly or whatever, I think, is -- is -- is over and above a strict enforcement. We're talking millions of dollars here. We're not talking about a $5,000 fine or a $500 fine. We're talking about millions of dollars worth of business. If I can't guarantee that years in advance, I don't book the business. MR. SAVAGE: Absolutely. MR. STAROS: And I'm a good citizen. I've been here -- I just want you to know, I got here late October 1999. The first thing I did, because the previous general manager leaving told me that this was a very sensitive issue -- I grew up in Pensacola, Florida, so I am a Floridian. The first thing I did was hire Tom Garlic and Matt Grabinski for the sole purpose of them to explain to me and all of us at the hotel all of the attributes with reference to following the guidelines. That's -- it's a proactive approach, not a reactive approach with reference to having a team of -- a team Page 20 May 2, 2001 of Garlic and Grabinski to -- to help us out. So -- but, you know, I -- I find it inappropriate to -- to tie the two things together, to say that you can't book future business into Collier County. I'm - - I'm the largest employer. I -- I have a $22 million payroll here at the hotel, and the lives of our -- of -- of the 1,061 employees that I employ depend upon that -- that business. MR. DUNNUCK: And, Tom, just to clarify something there, too, in his example, the way we have written it right now is he used the example of raking. If he would have done three of those, he would have lost his raking. He would not have lost his special events. And I think that's something we have cleaned up from the last time around where the crime -- you know, the punishment fits the crime on that side. Now, if he violates three major things of the special events side of it, right now the current language as written has that three strikes and you're out. That's the one that's causing him the most heartburn are the special events because that doesn't allow them to book. And, you know, if we come to some, whether it's financial or something, stiff penalty or something that still makes it so it wakes up, you know, the hoteliers, make them not doing that and not necessarily suspend, we may be working on that. I -- I'm not ready to make that decision one way or the another, and that's what we need further discussion based upon the meetings we've been having. MR. STAROS: Let us plant sea oats on the weekends or let us do something positive for the environment if we do something offensive. But let's not cut -- let's not cut off the revenue stream to Collier County and the Ritz-Carlton Hotel company and the $22 million payroll that I support. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Go ahead. Marco. MR. ESPINAR: Mr. Chairman. John, I've got a quick question. You mentioned about training, staff training some of Page 21 May 2, 2001 the Ritz-Carlton staff members. Who's going to pay for that? MR. DUNNUCK: Well, I think we do that. It's educational, and our mission at -- at code enforcement is to educate people first and be punitive second. And, I think -- you know, Michelle will tell you we want to go out and educate people as much as possible. That is our mission. So we would not charge them for educating them. I think that's a win-win situation all the way around, and I'd be more than happy to have Maura and -- and Michelle get together and even bring in The Conservancy or somebody along those lines and make it even a private-public partnership so that we can get something, you know, so we're moving forward and we're doing some good. I've even made suggestions as far as -- and they do this already. They put little bulletins in their hotel rooms explaining sea turtle nesting and all those type of issues but to maybe put a kiosk out there so we have that educational element even down at the beach, you know, and that stuff that we're all working -- you know, my goal is to work together and get those things, you know, resolved. MR. ESPINAR: Espinar. I also have one more quick question. Ed? MR. STAROS: Yes. MR. ESPINAR: With all due respect, if you booked something 3 1/2 years ago, you booked something, a beach event, out there before this ordinance was ever even thought of. So why are we - - why is that beach event going to be prohibit -- or stopped because of this? You know what I'm saying? Whether this approve -- whether this amendment goes forward or not, you already booked these events 3 1/2 years ago. MR. STAROS: That's my point. MR. ESPINAR: And you still have them going forward. The only difference -- correct me if I'm wrong -- is the ability to utilize ATVs to -- Page 22 May 2, 2001 MR. STAROS: That's not -- no. MR. DUNNUCK: Yeah. See, there's three -- MR. STAROS: You're out of doing business. MR. DUNNUCK: This is -- there's three parts to this. MR. STAROS: Cancel that $1.3 million. Say good-bye. MR. ESPINAR: Okay. I think if you -- try to get this in my head. MR. STAROS: There's three parts to this on the penalty side of it. There's the part of the beach raking. There's -- and then actually you may even consider four. There's a part about leaving chairs on the beach. There's a part about ATVs, and they all have their separate sets of penalties. And then the fourth one is special events, and then the penalties go along with that. And really what we're discussing right now is the special events. If -- if they violate the three chairs on the beach, they lose their chairs. They don't lose their special events, you know, for those type of things, and that's where we have to differentiate because previously we had brought something that says if you violate any of these you lose your special events. And now we're -- we're just down to this final issue, I think, really about the special events side what the penalties are going to be because there are violations to special events that can harm potentialy sea turtles. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Okay. Dino. MR. LONGO: I have a question on the statutory regulations. You can't change that; correct? MR. DUNNUCK: No, we can't. We could ask the next legislative cycle. MR. LONGO: Right. Right now if it says nine o'clock, it's nine o'clock. MR. DUNNUCK: Well, that's what we have to verify. MR. GRABINSKI: There is no statute -- where is the statute Page 23 May 2, 2001 cite on that? I'm not aware. MR. STAROS: The nine o'clock came up about a week ago. MS. KRAUS: Maura Krause, Collier County Natural Resource Department. The nine o'clock was in the very first -- the original sea turtle ordinance back in nineteen -- MR. LONGO: Sea turtle ordinance? MS. KRAUS: Yeah, the original sea turtle ordinance was before the Collier County ordinance -- before the land development code -- MR. LONGO: But my question, is that county ordinance or state statute? MS. KRAUS: That's county. MR. LONGO: Okay. That's a big difference. The state statute can't be changed except by legislative session. Ordinances can be changed. MS. KRAUS: Right. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Go ahead, Charlie. MR. ABBOTT: I'm sorry. No, no, Dalas. MR. DISNEY: Dallas Disney. I just had a couple of issues, one maybe a question and then a comment -- a comment first. This came before us late last year. It wasn't ironed out. We were sitting here, and everybody was trying to negotiate and finalize things, just wasting our time. It appears as though the same thing is happening again. I'm going to suggest the same thing I did last time, and that is go fix it; whatever the problem is, go fix it. Get it done, and then bring it to us. Let us read it before we sit down here at this table. This is a constant problem that we have. It's dropped on us. We haven't had an opportunity to read it; we don't know what it is; and you're expecting us to respond to it. I'm -- I'm all for all sides of this. Really, I mean, I can -- I can see the landowner rights. I have sympathy for your - - your million three and a -- a -- in a deal that you cooked up Page 24 May 2, 2001 three years ago, but I also think that it's a business thing, and if you violate things, too bad. I just think that we're wasting our time trying to iron it out sitting here in a group like this. We're going to come up with a giraffe. This doesn't make a lot of sense, and I'd suggest that, fine, as an update, but let's not try to cook it while we're -- while we're sitting here at the table. Thank you. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Thank you. Tom Peek. MR. PEEK: Well, my comments were going along the same line as Dallas, although I do think John started this by introducing and saying that he did not expect us to take an action on this today, that they were going to do some further revisions and bring it back I presume to the subcommittee and then to this full committee. And my comments at this time were to suggest that we curtail any further discussion today about this and let the staff do whatever changes they want to do and schedule it for our subcommittee meeting in two weeks, whenever -- whenever it's regularly scheduled. MR. NINO: Third Thursday. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: That seems like the correct -- I think we've asked the general questions that we probably could ask today, and let's go ahead. MR. ESPINAR: Is that a motion? MR. DUANE: Is there anyone from the public? MS. KOELSCH: Well, I'm just here. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Right. I mean, as -- as we discussed, I mean, we're kind of speaking towards issues that we don't even know. MS. KOELSCH: Right. No. That's -- CHAIRMAN MASTERS: We just got this today, so we haven't had a chance to read it, so we won't get specific. MS. KOELSCH: What I was going to say -- I'm Jessica Page 25 May 2, 200'1 Koelsch. I'm with the Center for Marine Conservation. We're base -- we're headquartered in Washington, D .C., but we have an office in St. Petersburg. And I drove down, so I just, you know, want to make sure I get on the record. I was at the meeting this morning, and there was a heck of a lot of conversation back and forth. I was not anticipating sticking around this afternoon for this meeting because I figured it would be more of the same. But I did take the time to prepare some comments based on the version of the amendments that we saw this morning, and I wanted to submit those for the record. I just had a quick look at the version that you-all are looking at, and staff recommendations incorporated -- addressed a lot of my concerns. So I'm feeling much better about what you folks have in front of you now than what we had this morning, but I just wanted you to know that I had some comments that I wanted to turn in for the record. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Perhaps, John -- or -- or we can get copies of that when we have the LDC meeting when we review the proposed final version of this ordinance. Any other comments? MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chairman. I'd like to have you tell me who you are and where you're from and what do you represent. I cannot hear what you said. MS. KOELSCH: I'm so sorry. I -- my name is Jessica Koelsch MR. SAVAGE: Yes. MS. KOELSCH: -- with the Center for Marine Conservation. MR. SAVAGE: Marine conservation. Is that a natural organization? MS. KOELSCH: We're a national organization. We do advocacy for marine issues that we support science-based con conservation of our oceans and the marine life that it supports. Page 26 May 2~ 200'1 Like I said, we're headquartered in Washington, D.C. We have 120,000 members nationally and about 10,000 here in Florida. In fact, many of you probably know our new vice president is David Guggenheim formally with The Conservancy. So if you're wondering where he went, we stole him. MR. SAVAGE: Do you have anyone in Florida that represents your group -- MS. KOELSCH: Yes. MR. SAVAGE: -- that could be here? MS. KOELSCH: That's--that's me. We're -- MR. SAVAGE: Oh, you are from here. MS. KOELSCH: We have an office in St. Petersburg. MR. SAVAGE: I heard you say you were from Washington. MS. KOELSCH: No, no. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Herb, Herb, Herb. She's giving us some information. Why don't you go ahead and look at that. Okay. She's already addressed a lot of the things you're asking her right now previously during her discussion. MR. SAVAGE: I'm looking for people who are looking at turtles on this beach in Florida, not from somewhere else. MS. KOELSCH: No. That's right. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Thank you, Herb. All right. Anybody else from the public have any other things that they'd like to bring up during this discussion ? MR. GRABINSKI: Are you going to vote on this at all right now? CHAIRMAN MASTERS: No. We just received this. MR. GRABINSKh I haven't seen it either. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: We will take action on it at the next LDC subcommittee meeting when I hope that you-all have had a chance to get back together and iron out your last couple of issues. Then we'll be looking at something that we won't be Page 27 May 2, 2001 changing every two minutes. MR. GRABINSKI: All right. We just want to reiterate that we are not here arguing for or against sea turtles. We're here arguing for some common sense and some reasonableness. We also favor science and scientifically based conservation. What we're asking for is the limited right to use vehicles on the beach, vehicles that will compact the beach no more than a human being, and we just don't see why if a human carrying the towels can pass the same 12 PSI why it would matter that an ATV with 10 PSI would compact the sand any more. With respect to the beach events issue and the penalties issue, I just want to remind you-all when you're thinking about this that prior to the beach events permit being created, arguably Collier County had no right or did not have the authority at that point to regulate beach events and require these hotel property owners to obtain a permit. They -- we -- we had a group hug last fall and created what we felt was in a reasonable process and a reasonable permit and a fee, but there were not penalties attached to it that would result in revoking that beach events permit and, consequently, result in Collier County trying to shut down beach events from occurring on the upland property owner's property. And we feel that these pen -- these penalties, if adopted, if they would have the effect of possibly taking away that beach events permit, then you're flirting with taking away a invested property right that would inordinately burden the upland property owner. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Okay. Go ahead. MS. BARNETT: Eileen Barnett, Coastal Engineering. I'm representing The Registry. We've been -- I've been involved in these workshops and all, and I know we're going back to the table. I just would like to bring something to your attention and Page 28 May 2, 2001 ask for your consideration. Division 313, the CCSL variance, I believe a proposed LDC amendment -- this just came up very recently, I believe, where an exemption that was already in place regarding beach furniture during sea turtle nesting season was -- we have a proposed amendment with clarifying language which adds, after the sentence, "unless the structures are removed daily from the beach," in other words, you can put certain structures on the beach during the day during nesting season, get them off the beach at night, clarifying language was added, "prior to 9 p.m. And not to be put forth back on the beach until after the sea turtle monitoring takes place the next day." and then the three strikes you're out language was added into this. The first fine is 500; the second is a thousand, plus a suspension of this exemption for 7 days; and then the third violation would be $5,000 and no more beach furniture for 60 days or until the end of sea turtle season. This has nothing to do with ATVs or beach events. This has to do with people wanting to have a chair on the beach. So the -- The Registry intends to comply and intends to pay these fines or do anything else, but they cannot imagine that if somebody comes down there at eight o'clock in the morning and puts a chair on the beach and it happens three times they might not be able to put any more chairs on the beach for the rest of the season. This is new. This wasn't something that we had been going back and forth with prior to all of this. And I'm just asking for consideration to relook at this LDC amendment. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: If it's still in there when we look at the final version of it, we'll certainly take that into consideration. MS. BARNETT: Thank you. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Okay. MR. VAN ARSDALE: Question. When this comes back, could there be a clearer definition of the problem or at least -- in other Page 29 May 2, 2001 words, there's comments. MR. DUNNUCK: Write up a problem statement, the issue -- MR. VAN ARSDALE: And there's comments about findings, but there's no reference to the findings. And, I mean, it would be nice to know what the historical record has been of these events and what's happened. MR. DUNNUCK: Absolutely. MR. SAVAGE: That's a very good point, Mr. Chairman. What is the historical -- how many times has this happened? Six? We're spending all this money and discussions for six or seven times? Excellent question. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Okay. Have we finished? MR. ANDERSON: One last comment on what Miss Barnett brought up is it would seem to me that unless we are going to enforce such a law to everyone, meaning if you or I go down to the beach at 8 in the morning and put a chair down there, then it sounds to me like that's a violation of the equal protection law. MS. ARNOLD: The language is not exclusive -- I mean, inclusive only to the Ritz or the hotels. It applies to everybody. MR. ABBOTT: But it's not enforced to everybody. MS. ARNOLD: We are doing that now so -- MR. MILK: Could you clarify that? I'm sorry. Michelle, how does that work with -- with the enforcement of the beach chairs? MS. ARNOLD: Yeah. We get complaints from the condos association and those types of things, and we address those complaints. So this is not only limited to the hotels. MR. LONGO: But, Michelle, you only inspect the hotels, or do you inspect all the beaches? MS. ARNOLD: MR. LONGO: MS. ARNOLD: MR. LONGO: The whole beach. Okay. All the beaches. This also applies to the sheriff's department Page 30 May 2, 2001 and the city of Naples with their ATVs? MS. ARNOLD: With the exception of the city. We do not have jurisdiction over the city. MR. GRABINSKI: So you monitor the county beaches, and if someone has a chair too early in the morning or if an individual is at a county beach after sunset or are out there fishing, how do you enforce that? How do you enforce that against the general public? CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Well, let -- let's find out where this ordinance actually lands up before we have any more discussion on it. I think that's a good point. I'd like to go ahead and close the discussion on the ordinance for the moment, and let's move along for the hearing officer. MR. ABBOTT: Let's interrupt Fred one more time. MR. REISCHL: I'm Fred Reischl, planning services. As I said, this amendment for the hearing examiner was directed by the board last year. Some of the benefits that were considered by the board as -- as this hearing examiner would be that it would allow the board, the planning commission, and the Environmental Advisory Council to concentrate more on policy issues, such as these LDC amendments and growth management plan amendments, would regulate ex parte communication. The idea behind that is to create a more level playing field or the impression of a more level playing field, the impression that lobbyists have, commissioners here. Whether true or not, that -- that may be an impression; also, the possibility of reduction of the likelihood of appeals knowing that it's not just easy enough to appeal something from the hearing examiner to the board. That appeal would go to the circuit court. Some people may think twice before they want the hearing examiner to -- hearing examiner's decision to be reconsidered. The fiscal impact yearly is approximately $212,000 with a Page 31 May 2, 2001 start-up of 42,000 the first year. And I don't have the visualizer here in this room, but you got a table that summarizes the changes, and I'll basically tell you that the major petitions that still will wind up going to the Board of County Commissioners will be rezones and conditional uses. There are other petitions that are listed on there that -- oh, Patrick White from the county attorney's office is here, too. He can elaborate on that a little bit more. But we had conversation this morning. For example, we had excavation permits also going to the board because excavation permits usually track conditional uses. We figured they could hear them in tandem. Pat informed me that there's another way he could word this that would allow the hearing officer to hear nonconditional use associated excavation permits, and then an excavation permit that's associated with the conditional use would then track a different way and wind up going to the board. So there's another way that we can simplify this a little farther. But if you need any more policy information, I'll be able to help you with the legal stuff. Pat will be able to help with you any questions. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Pat, do you have anything to add? MR. WHITE: Patrick White, assistant county attorney. You'll note that there were two handouts today available, one of them a summary table that goes through section by section in increasing section number for all of the current provisions that are going to be changed. We understand there may be more of them out there based upon the discussions that will be held today or at subsequent committee meetings. The other thing that you should have is the short series of pages that look like LDC code -- yeah, the one Perry has. That is the changes based upon the meeting from your subcommittee last week and the input received there. It's only provided again Page 32 May 2, 2001 today for the purposes of keeping you up to speed with where we are, which, in order to do that completely, I have to tell you we're looking to meet next Monday with a group of fellows and whoever else that wants to come to further review each of those specific items in there that do not fall clearly within provisions for rezoning, a conditional use, or a variance. There are provisions in there that, for example, pertain to the siting of automobile service stations and are somewhat of a hybrid, if you will, between a variance and a conditional use. So what we need to do is go through a group of individuals that are interested in this process, sort those things out, decide which way they're going to go in this process. Once we've done all of that, with each of the ones that don't fit into the major categories, we're then going to adjust the overall provisions in Article 5 that deal with the administration and list each of the types of entities from the Board of County Commissioners, the CCPC, the new provisions for the hearing examiner, and adjust those so that they fit with what the specific changes made to the individual provisions will be. I encourage you-all to ask questions today about something you may have a concern or not understand. We're -- we're recognizing this as a process where we're looking for input. We aren't saying that this is the final version etched in stone. We're at the beginning of the committee review process today, and we're looking for input. So if there aren't any specific questions, I'll address them. Maybe it might be helpful to just wrap up by telling you that this whole series of provisions will be a separate subsection in the actual ordinance that the board would consider finally on June 20th. MR. SAVAGE: Good. MR. WHITE: And that whole separate subsection will itself have an increasing LDC number, the provisions that you have Page 33 May 2, 2001 before you in whatever final form they may end up. But regardless of how they end up, the thing at the very end of that packet sets forth the Section 6 provision. That's actual ordinance text that would -- that tells you that the point in time that these provisions would come into effect and how petitions that were in the pipeline would be treated on that date. Generally the effective date will be set some point in time in the future when the board by resolution establishes that date. Division would be sometime perhaps November, December. The board would set that date, perhaps, January I of '02 where you'd actually start having cases heard by a hearing examiner. We envision it's going to take that long once these provisions go through. There would be some subsequent administrative code provisions for the actual mechanical operation. There will be some time period to establish the criteria for a hearing examiner, develop a contract, develop a committee of people to go out and find the hearing examiner, evaluate those candidates, hire somebody, get that person in-house, set up the process, get assistance on board, get the person who is the hearing examiner familiar enough with all the county codes and regulations, have them attend some CCPAs, EACs, whatever the case may be, so that they understand the process while they actually sit down in a hearing maybe by January 1, '02, and being able to go to work. So there's -- there's a lot to be done. This is kind of the second step in the process. The first one is actually hopefully this week concluding, and that is to amend the special act in the state legislature. It's in the senate. The house approved it last week that amends Collier County special act relating to zoning and planning to allow for the establishment of a hearing examiner program. So I -- I think that's the -- the overview. I'll be happy to address anything from that perspective all the way down to specifics. Page 34 May 2, 2001 MR. DISNEY: I have a question, if I may. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Go ahead. MR. DISNEY: I haven't gotten all the way through this yet. Just generally, Patrick, if you could, the results or findings of the hearing examiner, are those by this ordinance intended to be binding, or is it a recommendation back to the county commission? MR. WHITE: Depending upon the type of matter that's being considered, it will either be final or a recommendation. Either way, it will be in written form with a series of conclusions of law, if you will, and findings of fact and ultimately a recommendation or decision. It will be a recommendation or anything that's a conditional use or a rezoning, which would include DRI 80 A's, things of that nature. Variances -- variances from bulk requirements, setbacks, etc., those are all going to be final at the hearing examiner. There are those other things out there. There's a half a dozen or so of them that have identified that are kind of hybrids between one or more of those things that I just enumerated on, the unconditional uses and rezonings, that we need to fine tune based upon the broad direction received by the board to generally let the rezonings and conditional use come through to them for final form with a recommendation in writing from the hearing examiner. And the other part of the general direction was to let the hearing examiner make a final decision on variances. MR. DISNEY: MR. WHITE: So this sets up a judicial or a quasi -- Quasi]udicial. MR. DISNEY: -- program that is, if I understand it correctly, intended to take some of the load off of the county commission and -- and give some finality to -- to issues? MR. WHITE: I'm not sure how to characterize what the Page 35 May 2, 2001 policy rationale of the board was, but I think those things may actually flow from the process. The nature of quasijudicial proceedings is that you have a thorough fact sifting, an evaluation of those facts against the existing code or laws and some resulting determinations, either in the form of a recommendation or a decision. MR. DISNEY: Thank you. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Tom Peek. MR. PEEK: Mr. Chairman, I have a series of questions based on the document that was distributed to us last week, Patrick, at our subcommittee meeting. I have not had opportunity to correlate the revisions that you gave us today. So I'll just walk through my questions, and if it's covered some way, tell me what your answer is. Starting on page No. 5 of 60, middle of the page, end of the paragraph numbered 2.2.25.33, the last sentence, I think it's just sentence structure. It doesn't make sense as it reads to me. "the preservation board shall be provided the opportunity to present its recommendations to the for consideration by the.". MR. WHITE: Identified a place where the words hearing examiner should be inserted to replace planning commissions. MR. PEEK: Okay. MR. WHITE: Thank you. There were a couple of those I found myself. MR. PEEK: The next one, page 7 of 60 near the top of the page, sub Item F. The middle of the page where you are connecting two sentences, the connection doesn't seem to flow. "title height of structure may be increased to a maximum height of 50 feet. Upon approval of a variance petition addition to the finding of Section 2.7 "-- MR. WHITE: It is very difficult to see, but there is a capital I for the word, "in addition." . Page 36 May 2, 2001 MR. PEEK: Okay. MR. PEEPLES: It's two sentences. MR. WHITE: That provision, again, is being amended in the round already under the stuff for dock facilities. So our -- I'm sorry, for marinas. So we're going to have to make sure -- there's three of these actually where it's being amended both by the hearing examiner process and elsewhere for other reasons in this supplement cycle. MR. PEEK: Okay. Page 9 of 60, just below the table at the top. MR. WHITE: Uh-huh. MR. PEEK: There's a change of located closer than 10 feet, changing from 15 to 10 feet. Seems to have nothing to do with the hearing examiner, but it's changing the structure of the rule. MR. WHITE: That was extraneous text that has been deleted. You're referring to that three lines that stick -- MR. PEEK: Yeah, three lines. MR. WHITE: That was extraneous text, and it was from a prior ordinance that I believe has now been adopted already in supplement 11 which just for your information was delivered yesterday. MR. PEEK: Okay. Thank you. Page 19 of 60, it's talking about no application for zoning amendments shall be heard by the planning commission or the hearing examiner until fees are paid. As I read through this, zoning amendments themselves are only going to be heard by the hearing examiner, are they not? MR. WHITE: This section or, more correctly I think maybe this division -- I'm not sure -- has a take-it-as-you-find-it series of provisions that, for better or worse, combine zoning amendments to mean two things: Both zoning amendments as changes to districts as rezonings and zoning amendments to Article 2, quote, unquote, the zoning code, meaning those types of amendments Page 37 May 2, 200'1 such as this very set of provisions we're considering today. MR. PEEK: Okay. I was thinking -- MR. WHITE: So there's a difficult dividing line to follow through that, but I think we've tracked it consistently. MR. PEEK: Thank you. Page 20 of 60, paragraph No. 8 where it talks about you added the sentence, "The decision of the Board of County Commissioners on any such adopted zoning ordinance or resolution is final.". MR. WHITE: Uh-huh. MR. PEEK: That always seemed kind of, you know, implied. I mean, legally is there some requirement that you state it? MR. WHITE: I believe that was intended to help distinguish between the two things I was alluding to before: One, the zoning amendments of the LDC and the zoning ordinances that would then have finality as a decision so that persons who were involved in the process would know that their appellate rights, if you would, began at that point in time. MR. PEEK: Okay. Thank you. MR. WHITE: It was a final decision. They were entitled to seek relief judicially. MR. PEEK: Okay. Page 21 of 60, near the bottom in the large paragraph 27234. MR. WHITE: Uh-huh. MR. PEEK: And the one, two, three, four -- seventh line down, we're talking about ten contiguous areas. Are you -- MR. WHITE: Oop, sorry. MR. PEEK: Are you meaning ten contiguous acres? MR. WHITE: I caught the misspelling of been corrected to ten, but apparently acres did not, and I will catch it, and you've got a great eye. MR. SAVAGE: He has that. MR. PEEK: I didn't mean to proofread it, but if that's what it Page 38 May 2, 2001 turns into -- on page 24 of 60 near the top, paragraph 272101, the second public hearing, last phrase added to the last sentence, "except that only participants at the hearing before the hearing examiner will be afforded the opportunity to present testimony where newly discovered evidence before the board as set forth in Section 512.". Now, as you go further in this document, you find by definition, I think, that participants are anyone that appear, including any member of the general public that wants to appear. But what you're saying is that in order for you to be able to speak before the planning commission or -- or the Board of County Commissioners, you've got to be a participant at the hearing officer level; is that right? MR. WHITE: That is correct. That is the intended effect. MR. PEEK: Okay. I just wanted to make sure we were clear MR. WHITE: That's consistent with the direction from the board that essentially the hearing examiner perform that quasijudicial function in detail of determining the facts that are relevant and applying those facts to the appropriate law. MR. PEEK: Thank you. Page 31 of 60, the large paragraph at the top of the page, subparagraph 1, zoning action on building and land alteration permits, that is one tremendous sentence. You start in the middle of -- of that paragraph, about the last, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 15 lines are all one sentence, I believe, beginning with no building or structure. And, frankly, I just had a hard time following the thing and figuring out what it was saying. I got lost in there a number of times. MR. WHITE: Can I infer from your statement that you're an advocate of short powerful sentences and clarity in the code? MR. PEEK: A little better than this. Apostle Paul wrote some great ones in the Bible. And they're difficult to read too, Page 39 May 2, 2001 and I hope it doesn't take us 2000 years to figure this out after we have that. MR. ABBOTT: My sixth grade teacher put a big RO on that for run-on. MR. PEEK: So all I'm, you know -- well, I'm saying we need to clean that up some way so we can understand what it says. MR. SAVAGE: Did you take a breath in the middle of that sentence? MR. PEEK: Did not. MR. ABBOTT: He's not an architect; he's an engineer. MR. PEEK: We think in -- The direction then would be to simplify and MR. WHITE: clarify? MR. PEEK: Please. Page 33 of 60, the last paragraph. MR. MULHERE: Thirty-three? MR. PEEK: Thirty-three. Excavation permits, recommendations of approval, then it's got two A's, but the site development review director and the hearing examiner, I think -- and then to the Board of County Commissioners. Why are we inserting the hearing examiner between the staff and the Board of County Commissioners? MR. REISCHL: That -- that's what I was trying to say before that if they -- if an excavation permit tracks with a conditional use, then since the board hears conditional uses, we're going to reword it so that an excavation permit will follow that conditional use petition. If an excavation permit doesn't need a conditional use, it's a permitted use by right, then it won't have to go to the board. It will stop the hearing examiner whose decision will be final. So that -- that wording will change. MR. PEEK: Okay. Thank you. Page 37 of 60-- MR. MULHERE: I'm sorry. I just had one other correction on that page, I didn't mean to interrupt. As long as you're there, the Page 40 May 2, 2001 word development services director. MR. REISCHL: Planning. MR. MULHERE: Yeah. There is no development services. MR. PEEK: Page 37 of 60. The last paragraph, Section 512, public participation, I think I've answered my question. I had a -- a big question there was does the public get to speak? Again, I think further on near the end of this you defined participant which does identify the participant as the general public. That question has been answered. MR. WHITE: I'm not sure to amplify the answer to your concern, but there is a change to that provision in the white page handout on page 37 of 60 that reflects it also includes conditional use petition. MR. PEEK: Right. But, again, this is participation before the Board of County Commissioners. MR. WHITE: Uh-huh. MR. PEEK: If you did not appear before the hearing officer and speak, then you will be precluded from speaking at the Board of County Commissioners. MR. WHITE: Correct. You need to put your evidence on consistent with the applicants and/or the staff if you're a member of the public. MR. PEEK: Okay. Next item-- MR. VAN ARSDALE: Let me ask a question. Is there a reason for that? Excuse me. MR. WHITE: Would you like me to answer? MR. VAN ARSDALE: Yeah. Excuse me. Do you mind me interrupting, Tom? I mean, is there a reason why it has to be that way? MR. WHITE: As I had alluded to earlier, the intent is to have all of the, quote, unquote, evidence, whether it's in the form of testimony, documents, whatever the case may be, put into the Page 41 May 2, 2001 pot and have it boil and have the hearing examiner distill it in the form of a written recommendation so that if you did not participate in the process of that fact finding and conclusions of law and all of that analysis, your evidence, if you will, will be outside of and later in time than the actual process for considering the case. You -- you have to be there at that point of entry in the process; otherwise folks would, quote, unquote, sandbag the project, never show up for the hearing examiner, only show up at the board with all new issues after the county had invested the time, the applicants invested in the time, whatever the case may be, the process had been ongoing for ex- number of months all the way back from the time the petition was filed, and at the last 11 1/2 hour you'd have issues injected where folks have not reasonably been given an opportunity to consider them or respond to them. So it's intended not to close people out but, rather, to tell people this is the place to be included. This is where you bring your concerns, because then if you bring in competent and substantial evidence, that is what the hearing examiner will consider as part of the recommendation for a conditional use or a particular rezoning or for a particular variance, if that's what the case is. MR. PEEK: Page 47 of 60. MR. LONGO: Patrick, can you do that legally in a public hearing format? MR. WHITE: Certainly. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Continue, Tom. MR. PEEK: Page 47 of 60. Patrick, page 47 of 60, Section 5.5.5, functions and authority, subparagraph A talks about actions on administrative applications, and I know you've rewritten that, and that is in the package. But I still question the rewriting of it because it still appears to me, because all Page 42 May 2, 2001 administrative applications, which I believe are -- is everything that's approved in this building from a building permit to a fence permit to a site development plan, and we're now causing all of those to go to the hearing examiner for another 30-day delay. MR. WHITE: You -- you can -- MR. PEEK: I hope that's not the intent. MR. WHITE: You can take it on faith and my word that Bruce and I have talked about this, Bob and I have talked about this. We know that this is the place where I had mentioned earlier we have to do some adjustment to. In particular, this is the place where all of those half a dozen or so things that I had mentioned were sorts of hybrids, the conditional uses or variances or some administrative process. And they have to be analyzed individually, determinations made about them specifically, and then we'll look at what happens after that analysis and see how to adjust this text to fit. MR. PEEK: Okay. MR. WHITE: We -- we probably have to add some stuff and definitely have to take some stuff out because, as you alluded to, it's way too broad. MR. PEEK: Page 48 of 60, middle of the page, subparagraph 4, authority, sub, subparagrah D of that one and Section 5, judicial review, my question is is the hearing examiners -- it's a recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners on this item. Why is there a judicial review for his recommendation? MR. WHITE: This one is for B which, I believe, pertains up above to variances only. And the variances are final with the hearing examiner. So B-5 is correct in stating that judicial review would then proceed to circuit court according to 556. Does that make sense? MR. PEEK: It does, but I'm lost then. Why do I have subparagraph D under 4 above, under authority? Page 43 May 2, 2001 MR. MULHERE: Patrick, is that the one where variances are accompanied by a rezone? MR. PEEPLES: Yes. MR. MULHERE: And, therefore, they'll go to the board? MR. WHITE: Yes. MR. MULHERE: And so a petition that's accompanied by a petition that has to go to the board will also go to the board. MR. WHITE: Similar to the excavation permit or conditional use that travels in conjunction with a rezoning request, it always gets the due process, if you will, of the highest thing in the petition. MR. PEEK: Page 49. Just turn the page. MR. VAN ARSDALE: What page was that on, Tom? MR. PEEK: The last discussion was on page 48. MR. VAN ARSDALE: What was the one on the variances, because I think we talked about -- didn't we at an earlier meeting talk about the variance issue in terms of oftentimes variance decisions are political and sort of deserve that kind of consideration as opposed to going right from the hearing exam -- through the hearing -- hearing examiner process and to court? MR. WHITE: I -- I can respond to that two ways. And, additionally, in that Mr. Anderson will probably confirm that as areas of the law go, variances in cases relating to variances, there's a breadth of cases out there as to what the appropriate standard is and how it's applied to certain facts. But foremost, I think what the board itself is looking for is to have not so much a political process but a fact finding, conclusion of law, decision process. And the other side of my answer is that as a practical consideration, up north in Lee County they have the hearing examiner process which I observed for six years plus and can tell you that, there again, is that similar breadth of cases where, if Page 44 May 2, 2001 you will, the facts and the equities are with the applicant. I've seen hearing examiners grant something that you may say may not have been the most strict application of the law, but because of the peculiarity of the facts and the circumstances, there was relief afforded. One of the things that I think is true about the board here is that they take a very strict toe to the line with variances in Collier County. They are not freely given. So I -- I don't know that there's as much of a problem with the hearing examiner process for that to be a final decision. But, again, it's going to reflect upon the -- the tenor of the individual and -- and how they see the equities of the case. MR. VAN ARSDALE: Yeah, but I guess, you know, from, a -- like the real-life issue would be someone looking to obtain a variance of -- of 3 inches into a setback to obtain a clear title to a property, that I think legally the -- I mean, you may have an examiner that says too bad, you're never going to see it. Then he -- then the petitioner has to go where? Through the -- through the courts and then to the -- MR. WHITE: That's correct. MR. REISCHL: Your example of :3 inches MR. WHITE: Administrative. MR. REISCHL: Right. We have an administrative variance process for, in some cases, 6 inches, in some cases up to 2 feet, depending on whether the CO has been issued. So that would be covered under that. MR. VAN ARSDALE: Okay. I'm not -- I mean, that just -- if you covered all the examples that -- you know, common-sense examples that you are commonly confronted with with regard to variances, then I hope -- it just seems that, you know, oftentimes a decision is a political one as opposed to a legal one. If you get a hearing examiner that is strictly by the book, so to speak, I Page 45 May 2, 2001 don't -- I think it will be ill-served under those circumstances · MR. REISCHL: Except that our book was changed a few years ago when we added the word "ameliorating factors," so it's not strictly land-related hardship. But we do have the ameliorating factors. That would give something that the hearing examiner could consider if this proposed or whatever encroachment is not visible from any of the surrounding property owners because of water or other physical features. That's something that the hearing examiner can consider. And right now the board considers those. So I think that gives them enough leeway. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Let's continue on with Tom's list. MR. PEEK: Page 49. At the top of the page, item's A through J, they are considered -- they are the considerations identified that the examiner will use for conditional uses. My question is, is there not already a list of considerations that -- that are to be followed for conditional uses, and why are we generating additional criteria to be used? MR. WHITE: I'll take a look at it. I know that we've cited to what those were back in division 22, but let me double-check it. MR. PEEK: Okay. Page 50 of 60, middle of the page, you may have already caught this. Item B relates to the Lee plan instead of to the Collier plan. MR. WHITE: Oh, did that get in there? How did that happen? MR. PEEK: It happens to the best of us. MR. WHITE: It's been deleted. MR. PEEK: Item -- page 53 of 60, this -- this is a discussion under the unauthorized communications with the hearing examiner. In the middle near the center of the page, the paragraph says "unauthorized communication means any direct or indirect communication in any form with the hearing examiner, examiner's staff, county commission" -- Page 46 May 2, 2001 MR. WHITE: If I can interrupt you, we've struck the following text: "the county commissioner or executive assistants to any county commissioner'' and inserted the war -- word "or" after hearing examiner. That's in the handout that was given out today in the gray bar text. MR. PEEK: I apologize for not having -- MR. WHITE: Well, that's quite all right. There's a lot of detail. MR. PEEK: Page 50 -- 54 of 60, the first paragraph that's discussing the hearing examiner being able to bring in expert opinion. MR. WHITE: And there were significant changes made, including setting that whole series of provisions out as a separate paragraph and affording greater, if you will, procedural due process for the participants to respond to whatever materials may be received by the hearing examiner and identifying that those materials had to be in written form. MR. PEEK: Good. That goes to my -- MR. WHITE: And there is also an opportunity to request a hearing specifically related to that topic. MR. PEEK: Thank you. MR. ESPINAR: Tom -- while we're on that subject on that page 54, Item No. 5, it's asking for expert testimony. It's like the fifth column down, concerning a matter of law, planning or zoning applicable to a proceeding beforehand. Should we not insert engineering and environmental in there so if he's seeking expert testimony everything is covered? MR. WHITE: The concept is, if I may respond to that, that to the extent that anything that comes in, quote, unquote, is part of a petition and is reviewed by planning services, all of those other areas and professions that are topics for discussion and ripe for considerations, part of planning function, are appropriate for the Page 47 May 2, 2001 hearing examiner to seek that type of additional expert input. So it -- it's meant to be inclusive, not exclusive. MR. PEEK: Okay. Page 56 of 60. The top portion of the page, sub 4, may already be altered because my comment was that the process as originally written just seems backwards of going to the -- all the way through the process to the Board of Commissioners and then sending it back to the EAC. They should be plugged in just somewhere during the process. MR. WHITE: This is an area that, as you've indicated, has been contracted to some degree. There have been further discussions that it may not be far enough yet, but that's, again, something that I think we need to go through the specific sorting of each of those six or so provisions in Article 2 and make some determination about. It may be more appropriate in my third draft that I've already kind of indicated that the word "specific" would be deleted and the words just before the second bunch of gray bar or the gray bar the board or so that perhaps only the provisions of the code, depending upon what may be out there remaining after the third round of discussions on Monday. MR. PEEK: Okay. Page 58 of 60, at the top of the page, that may, likewise, be in that same discussion. It's talking about the EAC's. MR. WHITE: The entire section has been stricken. MR. PEEK: And on page 59, I think you've already identified that the participant definition does identify that any citizen that wishes to speak and appear before the hearing examiner and speak during the public hearing process. MR. WHITE: Any person. MR. PEEK: Yeah. MR. WHITE: Also you'll note in the gray bar section of the handout today that the concern, Mr. Anderson, with regards to status as -- and standing has been added. And certainly, you Page 48 May 2, 2001 know, that's subject to review and consideration today and any further input folks may have. MR. PEEK: Mr. Chairman, those are all of my questions. Thank you for the time. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Thank you for your thorough review. MR. VAN ARSDALE: Mr. Chairman, I think we owe a debt of gratitude to that young man, Thomas Peek, and Patrick over here for the thoroughness that they have both looked into this. And I - - I couldn't do better myself. MR. PEEK: I like the young man part of it better than -- MR. ABBOTT: Well, we've said other things facetiously. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: I know Bruce also had several comments in our first preview of this. I take it you've gotten together with -- MR. SAVAGE: Tremendous. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: -- Patrick and made most of your comments already to him as well? MR. ANDERSON: (Nodded head}. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Very good. You're feeling more comfortable with the progress of the ordinance at this point than you were at the LDC, Because I know you were concerned that we were going to come with a half-baked version of it? You're reserving comment. MR. ANDERSON: (Nodded head). CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Go ahead, Peter. MR. VAN ARSDALE: Just a question on the -- the funding of the program. Where is that coming from? MR. WHITE: I'll have to defer to staff, including, perhaps, former Mr. Bob Mulhere. MR. MULHERE: User fees. MR. VAN ARSDALE: So there will be -- will there be a budget that comes forth on this with appropriate -- Page 49 May 2, 2001 MR. DUNNUCK: Absolutely. MR. REISCHL: A hearing -- the hearing examiner will have a staff and a budget. MR. WHITE: It is my understanding it has been allocated for this year's budget as it -- MR. VAN ARSDALE: Oh, new fees? Not out of the existing, right, but from planning? MR. DUNNUCK: It's an expanded position based upon the board's direction. MR. VAN ARSDALE: And I guess my point -- there's no -- I mean, the planning department's already running in a deficit. So I would assume that they're not going to be paying for this or -- or building permit fees. MR. DUNNUCK: Well, right now, that's where we're in our budget process, and we're determining all those issues. The board's hearings on the budget are in June. I've got my expanded list, the wish list from our department directors on additional positions and so forth, and some reflects of the other committees that we've been working on as far as customer service and level of service standards. But for right now, we can't tell you -- I will tell you one thing: The -- the budgets I have reviewed have been actually below what they were last year from the existing current service, that we have cut -- cut back on some of the things. Now, when we add back in those expanded, you're probably going to talk about being pretty close to what we were last year. Now you also have to look at where we are at trend-wise revenues, and we are down revenue-wise over here. We've had a trend that we're down about 8 percent from where we were last year, and where we are in the budget, we're a little bit below. So we have to mix all those two things in before we actually have a finalized budget, and we're not there yet. We meet with the county manger's office next week. Page 50 May 2, 2001 MR. VAN ARSDALE: Do we get to review that budget? MR. DUNNUCK: Typically. I couldn't answer that, but I assume that we're going to bring something back as soon as it's finalized which would be before your next meeting in June. MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask John. Would you venture to say that we have a planning board now that considers these things for which they get very little money, I mean, very little, if none, in their deliberations? How many cases are coming up to the point that this is all worthwhile? In other words, this is a phenomenally large task that we're going to have to -- how many examiners are we going to end up with, just as Peter is talking about here, you know, like Dallas one time brought up something, we only had two instances of some problem that we're making a great, big deal of. And I just wonder, is this all so worthwhile? Now, you're the director, and I'm asking anybody else who would like to offer something, but I'd like to know, is it all worthwhile? MR. DUNNUCK: I believe it is. I believe, for one thing, it puts it back on a person who can legally look at the issues outside the Board of County Commissioners. If you're looking at it from a revenue standpoint and -- and strictly, you know, how much time we spend in the board meetings discussing these issues which could be held by a hearing, Bob probably can answer that because he was on the -- you know, he did the initial analysis, better than I can. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Bob has a couple comments in closing. MR. MULHERE: Well, first of all, I would like to thank Patrick, too, for a lot of the -- MR. SAVAGE: Yes. MR. MULHERE: -- great -- great -- work -- Page 51 May 2, 2001 MR. SAVAGE: Absolutely. MR. MULHERE: -- and also Tom Peek for going through that line item by line item, which was very helpful. And I'm also appreciative of the fact that there are some outstanding issues that have to get resolved relative to certain items that are reflected as needing to go to the board for the hearing examiner that are administrative. When we brought this issue to the Board of County Commissioners, we basically told them that that -- that this process -- which, by the way, was highly recommended by the governor's growth management study commission for quasijudicial land use petition. So it's not something we just dreamed up here. It's been working well for ten years in -- in Lee County and was highly recommended by the governor's growth management study commission. We were already working on it at that point in time. There are a couple of benefits, but the biggest benefit, I think, is that we have these situations that arise as you alluded to from time to time that are highly controversial, highly public, highly addressed in the press that deal with land use petitions. But when those issues arise, it is too late to deal with the policies that allow for that situation to arise. And the concept was and the board's reason for supporting this was that this would allow an opportunity, a great opportunity, for the board and its advisory committees, the EAC and the planning commission, to look at the underlying policies that can regulate and control these quasijudicial land use petitions, development, variances, whatever they might be, so that they do reflect what the community wants rather than spending their time looking at an individual's specific petition and trying to deal with inconsistencies in those policies that result in things that they don't want to see. Page 52 May 2, 2001 When you couple that with the fact that, look, the laws have changed -- the supreme court -- court of the State of Florida has said that these are now quasijudicial and not legislate -- legislative in nature, it makes sense to bring in a hearing examiner to look at land use petitions. And the third reason was there has been a -- I think a broad public perception that the process has not been leveled, that some people have greater access in the process than others. I'm not going to say who. I'm just saying there is that perception out there. And this would largely eliminate that perception. The process would be very level and very equal for all under these provisions. So that was the rationale behind the board directing the staff to go forward with the hearing examiner. And I think there are some little minor details that have to be worked out, and I guess it would be up to this committee. Obviously we're going to try to get those things hammered out and you meet one more time before the board has a final LDC hearing. You may want to look at some of these issues that remain outstanding before that point in time. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Are we expected to hear any action now or kind of carry forward -- MR. MILK: Mr. Chairman, could I ask Patrick a question? MR. WHITE: Certainly. MR. MILK: Patrick, on the public participation under Section 512 -- MR. WHITE: Okay. MR. MILK: -- I guess I have a concern when the public has to address the hearing examiner first, only because this is a very transient-type community and most of the community doesn't live here annually. By the time they're notified for that public hearing, A, they may not have received the notice timely or lost it or been on vacation. So when you use the term "sandbagging," a Page 53 May 2, 2001 lot of those folks aren't available for that first hearing and show up during the, quote, board hearing. I just see that -- MR. SAVAGE: Good point. MR. MILK: -- as a point of conflict. If I'm a property owner and I'm out of town and I can't make it, how -- how do they attest to trying to resolve their issue not showing up? MR. WHITE: An appearance can be made in the form of an agent certainly, including a neighbor who all you need is basically a letter authorizing you to show up, and if it's done under a sworn statement, that probably alone would be sufficient. But regardless -- MR. MILK: I'm -- I'm just looking at the time element. MR. DUNNUCK: Yeah. I think -- I think the bigger picture issue, too -- and I think we discussed it with the board previously in concept -- was we're bringing back some amendments to back out that process of -- of the advertising and public notification, getting it in our computer systems quicker, you know, having it on the internet sites, those type of issues, extending the broadening and the scope of who gets -- who gets the notification and -- and the time basis of when they do that. I think the board has been consistent in repeatedly saying what we're doing right now is not good enough. We brought to them through a workshop, a plan a couple of weeks ago about what we're going to do and this is where we're headed. As a matter of fact, understanding that we couldn't make this land development code cycle, one of the elements here is approval of a 4/5 majority vote to have a special -- you know, special hearings, and I will probably be proposing that we have one of those as early as September, October of this year so that we can incorporate all those issues in, work on them over the summer, get them to you- all and bring it back to the board so -- so we can address that issue. Page 54 May 2, 2001 MR. MILK: Thank you. MR. WHITE: If I may embellish that a little bit, there already is a series of proposed text that Bob Mulhere's prepared relative to public participation that the board has heard. And I'm anticipating that this process goes forward, and there's the -- the separate trigger date for the hearing examiner at the end of the year. That will also be well timed to consider those additional public participation provisions that you-all would see again as the -- what would then be the supplement 13 round of LDC amendments. And, lastly, although you can appear by an agent, you still have the opportunity to have your comments submitted in writing. It does not constitute the same thing as an appearance in the sense that it gives you the opportunity to address the board. But at least whatever your concerns are will be evaluated by the hearing examiner. But because they're not subject to cross-examination, you don't have a live person there that you can ask questions of, either the applicant or staff, it doesn't get as much weight typically. But I understand what the concern is, -- and hopefully with the things we've offered, it will address and it. MR. MILK: Thank you. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Bob Duane. MR. DUANE: Patrick, a PUD that's gone through reviews by ordinance every five years, they go before the board to get reinstated. If the comp. Plan changes or conditions change, then that could be a basis to make changes to the zoning. Is that an item that the hearing examiner would be involved in? MR. WHITE: It's not presently contemplated to be so, but it certainly is on my list for discussion on Monday, and that would be Section 2.7.3.4, time limits for approved PUD master plans. MR. DUANE: I'd be of the view that -- that having the Page 55 May 2, 2001 hearing examiner review those might be beneficial, you know, as opposed to, on the other hand, having a political decision made as to whether conditions have or haven't changed. I think setting up some factual basis from the hearing examiner and then going on to the board I could see some benefit. Or are there any other members of this board that would -- that would look at that from a different vein? Bruce, do you have any thoughts on that? MR. ANDERSON: I think it makes sense. MR. DUANE: Okay. Put it on the list then. MR. WHITE: It's on the list. I'm envisioning that ultimately what will happen at the next May meeting is we'll have these things sorted the way that there's a consensus about. If there's no consensus, we'll give you the alternatives, and you will be able to give us your recommendations as to whatever is presented so that we can carry that forward to the board. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Okay. MR. WHITE: Thank you for your close attention. MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chair--Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Yes, sir. MR. SAVAGE: Is the bar association in favor of this? CHAIRMAN MASTERS: No. I haven't -- MR. SAVAGE: Secondly, who are the examiners? Are they professional lawyers? Are they architects, engineers, or whom? What are the qualification and so forth? CHAIRMAN MASTERS: They're lawyers. It says in here; right? MR. WHITE: That -- that is correct. That is what was presented to the board back in October and what they conditionally approved. MR. SAVAGE: You mean you have to be a registered Florida attorney at law in order to be an examiner? No one else is Page 56 May 2, 2001 capable of doing that? MR. WHITE: Based upon my experience, I would think not. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Okay. Do we need to move on to the fire under the LDC amendments, or is that an addition? MR. DUNNUCK: That, I think, will probably come up through one of your subcommittee reports. Dino. MR. LONGO: I can report on it briefly if you'd like me to. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Well, let's just jump over to staff announcements, then quickly get through our agenda the way it is. MR. DUNNUCK: Okay. A couple things, cleanup items. Well, first of all, summary ordinance amendments. The only one that's changed since last time was we brought the weed and litter ordinance to the board, and they approved it unanimously, about a ten-second presentation. MR. PEEPLES: After all that fighting. MR. DUNNUCK: I think they were worn out by the time it got to them, frankly. Update of the planning, building review level service, Peter, I think you had asked me to bring back kind of a verbal report of where we were with those level-of-service standards knowing that we're working through the budget cycle, and I've asked Johnnie to be here, and I've also got Denny who is sitting in the back there, my business manager, give you a report on both sides of it, the building review side of it, and I can answer any questions too. Johnnie, why don't you bring them up to speed on where we are and what we're trying to do. MS. GEBHARDT: Johnnie Gebhardt. I think the bottom line for the subcommittee is that they'd like to see us have a 10- to 12-day turnaround time; that's working days. I think that's where we're going with that. In order to do that, they've asked for several different alternatives, and we're going to be looking at Page 57 May 2, 2001 doing one of those, and we don't know which one yet. One of the things they suggested was that we have enough sets of plans so that they can go to every discipline at one time, which would mean probably six sets of plans. Logistically that's going to be a nightmare because storage problems, obviously. We may not have the space to store those. But that would certainly get things turned around faster than what they are now. We'd have to come up with some other method where you guys are used to seeing a set of plans that has every plan review or signature on it. Rather than having them coming out and signing one set of plans, we'd probably have a universal stamp that says, you know, approved set of plans for the Collier County building department. That's one of the things we're working on. We've obviously been working short-staffed because we -- Jaime Ceron resigned. We've replaced him. However, due to the illness of our senior family plan reviewer, we're having to use the guy who's scheduled for commercial plan review to be single -family plan reviewer. Jim Dix is scheduled to be back next week, and at that time we'll move Gary over to commercial, and hopefully we'll be back on track. We've been using two guys part time who are certified plan reviewers to try to catch up with the slack in the meantime, so we haven't been falling too far behind. We've asked for three additional staff in customer service in the next fiscal year, and this, again, is to try to accomplish the goal of getting the permits out faster than what we are now. We're looking at doing some reconfiguration in the front lobby. We don't have those plans yet, and when we do, we will come back to the subcommittee with those plans, also with a suggestion for how we're going to process permits, get their blessing, and then bring it back to you guys for the full committee to consider. Some of their suggestions were that we either set a staff Page 58 May 2, 2001 person up to answer telephones and simply answer questions, which is a big problem out there. Everybody's busy. Another suggestion was that we have designated staff work with permit writers because there are days when we have six permit agents who are out there and they've got six agents tied up at one time. Another suggestion was to put in a -- a couple of people who process commercial permits; maybe the rest can do single family or vice versa. Those are all alternatives that we're looking at. We're going to look at the best-case scenario and come back to you guys with that proposal after we've presented it to the subcommittee. We'd like to put a plan in place, get their blessing on it, and then bring it back to you guys for you to look at. We are working on a bunch of things out there. Hopefully it's going to make things get out faster, but the only way we can do it is with additional staff. We've asked for two additional customer service agents and a couple of additional reps in order to address those things. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Johnnie, you mentioned that you're shooting for a 10- to 12-day turnaround. Where are we now? MR. GEBHARDT: Probably an average of 15 to 20 -- CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Okay. MR. GEBHARDT: -- I would say. I tried to run a report because I wanted to give you an up-to-date account; however, we've got a glitch in the P.D. Plus software that every time we do a revision now it changes the issue date for permits, and it's just a nightmare to try to go through and run a report then have to go back through 15 pages on the computer to find out when it was really issued. So I wasn't able to do that, and I apologize. MR. DUNNUCK: And we -- you know, I think some of the things that Johnnie touched upon are pretty key issues. One is we want to get a policy-level decision by the development services advisory committee. We mentioned 10 to 12 where -- Page 59 May 2, 2001 where you-all set that as a standard, you know. And we -- we have come back in our budget and said this is what we think it's going to take us to get there as far as people goes. You know, we look at efficiency first. Another thing that Johnnie talked about, separating out that kind of express-level permit when you have these smaller permits, not getting behind the big jumbo condo that's coming in, you know, that type of thing so that we can keep the process moving. I think those are all real important stuff, and we should be bringing that back for final policy level discussion at the June workshop, taking it through at this subcommittee this month and then coming back for finalization for June so that we can make sure everything is incorporated in the budget for the upcoming year. MR. GEBHARDT: John, another thing that we're looking at doing -- and Denny and Don Blalock are working on this -- are setting up computer kiosks in the front lobby like for reroofs and AC changeoffs, simple permits that don't really require -- there are no plans to be reviewed. So it's a simple matter of, you know, somehow the computer would have to check their contractor license to make sure it's active and can spit their permit out right there. Hopefully they can also do that in terms of these convenience books. Maybe it can issue a block of ten permit numbers so that the people who are actually picking up convenience books now would be able to use the kiosk to do that so it would involve no waiting time basically. MR. BAKER: And, Johnnie, those could be purchased with a credit card? MR. GEBHARDT: Oh, yes. That's right. I'm sorry. That's the other thing. They will be able to use credit cards to do that. Thanks, Denny. MR. FOLEY: Mr. Chairman, I have a comment not related to Page 60 May 2, 2001 the building part of it but the planning part. MR. DUNNUCK: That will be Denny to bring you up to speed over there. MR. FOLEY: I'll -- I'll reserve comment until he speaks. MR. SAVAGE: Related to Mrs. Gebhart, I didn't recognize you. You look like Miss America. MR. GEBHARDT: You never come to see me anymore. MR. SAVAGE: I know. MR. GEBHARDT: What can I say? MR. SAVAGE: I tell you what, I compliment you very much for your presentation and -- . MR. ABBOTT: You should have heard the comments earlier about other people. MR. GEBHARDT: Now I find out what he's going to want later; right? MR. DUNNUCK: On a side note, I don't know if you all know this, but Ed has been laid out for the last week with walking pneumonia. He was back in the office stubbornly today for a little bit, but, you know, he's got a little bit of recovery time ahead of him. MR. ABBOTT: I have a quick comment, what Johnnie was saying. I have a letter here. I'm doing a permit on a thing called a modular home that has state engineering. This is totally done through DCA. And I had a rejection over how my electric service goes into the building mere -- this is merely I can Xerox it out of a code book, but that was done the 24th, and it came in today's mail. And one of my suggestions would be that we can do better than this on a timeliness basis. I don't need a letter finally mailed the 26th to finally get to me today to tell me today so another week has gone, another week on a permit on a real constructive issue. MR. GEBHARDT: Would you like that faxed? Page 61 May 2, 2001 MR. ABBOTT: Faxed or -- faxed or a phone call, any old thing. You can just straighten things up. I just happened along on Monday and found it. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Okay. MR. LONGO: Real quick. Johnnie very small tenant buildout that went at -. and I've been tracking a -- when I went back to plan review, it was 11 days from front desk to get into plan review. MR. GEBHARDT: I -- I heard about that, Dino. And I can't tell you where it was. I've tried to find the answer to that. MR. LONGO: We're still having problems between plans -- between dropoff and getting back to the desk, whether it's getting logged in on time or physically not getting back there. MR. GEBHARDT: Was it done as a drop-off or -- MR. LONGO: No, it was actually a drop-off for a permit application went through the whole review or your whole drop-off process or application process, but it took 11 days to get back to the first -- to planning before starting the whole process. MR. DUNNUCK: Well, and that's -- that's where -- when we set that standard, that's the standard we will live by and -- and when we get into those issues of 11 days between getting from one area to the next and pushing that paper along, that's the type of stuff we need to correct internally, and that's the type of stuff that we've established that level of service, and that's where I hold the people accountable to make sure that that happens. MR. LONGO: And that's what we've been working on. It's -- it's a good process. The new computerized process was allowing me to read the screen as -- as we were looking at it, and I could see when the submittal date was in and actually when it went to the first apartment so she -- she, of course, could not tell me how -- why it took so long, but those are the type of things we're Page 62 May 2, 2001 working on. MR. DUNNUCK'. With that, we'll shift over to the planning side. You know, Denny, I don't know if you can bring everybody up to speed kind of where we are. You know, we have a little transition obviously on the planning side with the main person driving it was Bob. As I said, since he left. But he briefed Bob -- or briefed Denny ahead of time. If you can give him an update. MR. BAKER: Bob put a lot of work into standards he thought was appropriate. And I think the subcommittees saw those standards in the last -- or two times ago that they met. And I didn't attend the last meeting, but I don't really have a lot -- a lot to add to what Johnnie said, but we have a lot of work to do to date stamp those as they go through the system and meet the standards that the group here wants to put out for us to follow. I really don't have a lot to add to that at this point, but we have a lot of work to do. MR. LONGO: If I may comment, we really did identify, for the most part, that the weak areas were in archi -- MR. BAKER: Landscape. MR. LONGO: Landscape planning and those type of areas. MR. BAKER: And landscaping. MR. LONGO: And landscaping where it was taking a tremendous amount of time, so those -- those type of things. Bob, in all fairness, did a very good ]ob in giving us a list of trackings and -- and to his amazement found out where he was weak in his department as far as thinking they were doing a good ]ob and finding out they weren't and then also helped us establish what we thought would be better times, more acceptable to the industry as to turnarounds. That's where we are with that. MR. FOLEY: Blair Foley. I would like to attend that subcommittee meeting. I don't know what kind of input you have Page 63 May 2, 2001 from this committee as well, but I'd like to have some -- some when your next meeting would be, I would like to attend it. MR. LONGO: MR. FOLEY: MR. LONGO: MR. FOLEY: That will be next Wednesday. Okay. At three o'clock. Just as far as the land use petitions and the engineering review goes, I'd like to make just a quick comment on it that the timing is really unacceptable currently the way the reviews are going. There was a time not long ago when site development plans of 14 day or a 2-week time frame was pretty standard and we would get comments back. Now it can be six weeks. It can -- and that's just an example. I'm not going to belabor the point. I think the point's been well taken, is being addressed. But we really need to get to some standards that are acceptable to the community and try to adhere to those. MR. DUNNUCK: Well, if I could address that, one of the things I asked for about two weeks ago, I want to find out all the projects that are in the hopper right now to get a reality check on of what is going on out there. You know, I -- personally, yeah, I took a lot of heat because of the move with Ron and then Bob leaving at the same time. We were already making excuses for that. Well, a lot of this was already happening before that all occurred. You know, I -- I have to fight the perception as well as the reality. And there is the reality out there that we have slowed down in certain areas. Obviously with -- with some of the changes over on the transportation side of the element and their review times and -- and Bob I'm sure will testify to that, but they haven't hired that new position yet, haven't found a good candidate to fill in to be that on-site reviewer that you-all approved four, five months ago. You know, we still haven't hired that position yet. And there's some issues on our side too, going back to the landscape side where we've been a little slow. We're Page 64 May 2, 2001 trying to invest some of those areas through the budget because we are short on the landscape side of it, and -- and we're looking at those issues, but I'm keeping a regular tracking of that, and -- and my new business manager, Denny, will be very much involved in that process as well. MR. FOLEY: Just in closing real quick, a couple of departments you do need to look at, in addition to the transportion, I -- I'm familiar with what Bob's probably going up against, and it's simply a matter of communication to begin with. Even the reviews are way down the line but return phone calls, return e-mails, those sorts of things. Also utilities is another area that seems to be backlogged. With that I'll close. You can address those to the subcommittee. MR. DUNNUCK: And that's secondary that I've asked for help with. MR. DUANE: I just -- not to belabor the point, but I'm finding -- I'm finding some of the same problems that Blair is outlining. I know that one of your senior staff told me that substantial -- insubstantial changes to the DP in 2 or 3 days are taking 30 days or longer. I can attest to the fact that I've had two that have been four to eight weeks, one for a storage shed at the fairgrounds -- anyway, I'm glad that you are alert to that. MR. DUNNUCK.' Yeah. And I -- and just, you know, internally, I pulled together an entire staff meeting of the entire planning department a couple of weeks ago to talk to them about some of those issues and some of my concerns and how we can't allow some of the things that occurred over here to affect the way that we perform as customers -- you know, to our customers. I think the message, hopefully we're going to catch up on those things, but I'm keeping an eye on that. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: My latest insubstantial change to the DHSDP also took 30 days to approve, minor parking changes and Page 65 May 2, 2001 whatnot. So it seems to get hung up in certain places, and disbursement was the first problem. It took a week to even get on anybody's desk, so I appreciate the progress. We'll see. MR. DUNNUCK: We'll see. MR. VAN ARSDALE: Well, let's understand that if we don't get it, then we get our rate reduction in the building permit fees. That was all conditional upon getting this great service in the next budget year, so we're counting on it. MR. JONES: I take your-all's, I put mine on top, and I get mine real quick. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Okay, John. Let's move on to the addition. MR. DUNNUCK'- Yeah. This is a report you-all asked me to come back, and I told you we had a $2 million savings or estimated $2 million savings on the building next door that we're building because we're only going to do 20,000 square feet instead of 40, and you-all asked me to come back because of the discussion that you had last September when you were approving the money for this. You asked us to come back and -- and report on what my recommendations would be to do with that $2 million, I guess. And -- and I'm going to let Denny take the lead on this issue and explain it to you a little bit. But, you know, I think we need to clarify, you know, where exactly that money has come from to begin with. MR. BAKER: I don't know if I have enough copies or not but -- this is a summary of the budget -- this is a summary of the budget for fiscal year '01 showing operating revenues of 2.2 million, operating expenses, including -- this is including expanded services of twelve five, giving us a short fall of $200,000 in the budget year. The expansion that John is talking about is included in 9.7 million, which gave us a total shortfall, including capital, of 9.9 Page 66 May 2, 2001 million for the fiscal year. That shortfall is covered by a loan of 3 1/2 million and reserve funding or funds taken from the reserve funding of 6.4 billion balancing out the total expenditures for the budget year. So what the message here is that the expansion that's being talked about was covered outside the operating revenues and the operating expenses, and those -- and that expansion, that shortfall, was covered by a loan in reserve funding. John disappeared on me. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: So basically we're not taking a loan out or as large a loan? MR. BAKER: Exactly. MR. LONGO: Well, what's that leave us in the reserves? MR. BAKER: There's plenty of reserves. I don't have a -- John asked me the same question. There's several million dollars that doesn't -- there's several million dollars still up in reserves after -- after -- after this -- this scenario. MR. LONGO: Well, let me think about this real quick. We went to a 15 percent permit fee increase to gain $2 million to subsidize the planning side of development services. We just reduced the building by $2 million. MR. BAKER: Right. MR. LONGO: That was based on all the figures that were given to us by previous administrator or director. To me that's a $4 million difference. We just cut it back to -- we gave 2 at the beginning of last year with the permit fee increase; you only took 2 off the building. That was $4 million. We were supposed to hit budget with that $2 million increase. MR. BAKER: I can't speak to that. This -- this scenario does not include a reduction in the spending on the garage. Presumably if that reduction, as it follows through, as the gentleman said, there would be less funding from the loan side of the transaction. Page 67 May 2, 2001 MR. LONGO: Yeah. But if I recall, we were never going to borrow $8 million. MR. DISNEY: No. We were not going to do that. And, in addition to that, the numbers being used for the cost of have building never came back to us in a real form. They were highly inflated. They were -- they were not justifiable by any stretch of any imagination, and we just really haven't gotten back to understanding what that real cost is going to be so we can see what those -- what those dollar amounts are, how much is coming out of contingency that we have -- that we had, the surplus that we had. MR. LONGO: Dallas, if I might, we can -- we can bring this before a subcommittee next week if you can give us a better report. MR. BAKER: Okay. MR. LONGO: Show us a much better detailed breakdown of what we were supposed to spend and what we are going to spend, you know, just a better breakdown. MR. BAKER: I'll do that, and I'll sit in on the meeting on Wednesday and do that for you. MR. LONGO: Okay. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: That brings us to the administrative section. MR. DUNNUCK: Yeah. Tomorrow we're going to start advertising for the division administrator, for the permanent role. My suggestion to the county manager -- and he concurred -- was that we set up who was going to be on the interview panel to make a recommendation to the county manager and then ultimately the Board of County Commissioners. My recommendation was that we have a member of the development services advisory committee on that recommendation committee to review and interview candidates. Page 68 May 2, 2001 And I wanted to float it out today, not necessarily, unless you-all wanted to, make a recommendation but just kind of give you the FYI that we're -- you know, that we'd like to bring that back for official discussion and so you can appoint a member to serve on that committee for next month. Conceptually who we have on that committee is somebody from the development services advisory committee, somebody from the environmental advisory committee, myself, and the human resources director and have a four-person committee making the recommendation - - recommendations to Tom ranking them and then Tom making a decision whether he wants to do a second set of interviews or go with that. MR. LONGO: You're not going to ask for any public input at all or anybody from the public being on that committee? MR. DUNNUCK: I -- I -- I hesitate because I don't know where you begin and where you end. MR. LONGO: Well, I would say with a representative at least from the building industry. MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chairman, is someone going to nominate somebody from this development services advisory board to be a member of that committee? If they are, I'm going to be willing to suggest that we select Tom Peek to be our representative of this committee, if that's what you're going to have. MR. DUNNUCK: Well, and that's a decision you-all can either make today or next month. You have some time to think about it. But, you know, because we're going to start advertising, we probably won't start doing interviews until July realistically because we're doing national advertisements. And we'll go from this. MR. PEEK: When -- when will the actual interviews be? MR. DUNNUCK: I would guess July. MR. PEEK: If they're after July the 10th, I won't be available. Page 69 May 2, 2001 MR. LONGO: In that case, I'll volunteer. I mean, I think it's appropriate since I'm president of the Collier Building Industry Association. MR. SAVAGE: And you're vice-chairman of this board, so that's a good idea, right. MR. DISNEY: John, why would you have someone from the EAC and not from the planning commission? MR. DUNNUCK: I think we wanted to have it fair and -- MR. DISNEY: And the planning commission can't do that. MR. DUNNUCK: From the public perception standpoint if you start tilting that and say we're going to have somebody from the planning commission, then you start going outside, you know what, I appreciate what you said, Dino, we talked about it, you know, okay, then who do I put on the other side to balance it out from there. And then you start picking and choosing. You may have The Conservancy, fish and wild -- you get into a whole slew of issues. I think this is a way where we said we're taking a selection of people who the board has appointed on committees, granted the planning commission would qualify in that regard, but I think this kind of balances it out, frankly. MR. SAVAGE: Would you repeat again the different members, the ones from the development services division? MR. DUNNUCK: Yes, ones from the environmental advisory committee, myself, and the director of human resources. MR. FOLEY: Has that position been filled? MR. DUNNUCK: Yes. Yup. MR. FOLEY: Because I know there was another gentleman filling on an interim basis; right? MR. DUNNUCK: We've had the new director in human resources for about five or six months now. MR. SAVAGE: John, you had mentioned four positions, and it seems to me a committee ought to have three, five, or seven, you Page 70 May 2, 2001 know. It's just a matter of -- MR. DUNNUCK: And that's where it's going to come down to a matter of ranking. We have a specific way that we go about doing it. It will probably be a two-phase interview and also qualify them on paper. And then ultimately it's, you know, Tom's decision. That's why we do it as a ranking, but we'll come to some consensus. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Okay. Is there any opposition to Dino representing us? Then let's go ahead and place him on that committee. MR. DUNNUCK.' Okay. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: And that takes us to miscellaneous. MR. DUNNUCK: I passed out just kind of a little update sheet, you know, kind of issues on the horizon. And some of it's a little bit of follow-up items in what we had discussed previously and some ideas you-all had. I just wanted to tell you where they were. There was an issue that came about, I think, last month regarding landscape standard review and maybe having committees go back and look at those, putting a full committee together. We're in the process of doing that where we get representatives from, you know, landscape community, construction all over, putting it together and -- and bringing an item to the Board of County Commissioners. One of the questions I want to ask here regarding this issue is did you-all want to see who we're recommending on these committees first? It's being put together by Nancy Siemion of our planning staff. Or would you like to -- because she has like a pseudo committee right now, and this would be making it more official by resolution, or would you like me to wait and bring it back as an agenda item next month so you-all can at least have a chance to review it first? Page 71 May 2, 2001 MR. DISNEY: John, is this the issue regarding the plant sizes and inconsistencies? MR. DUNNUCK'- Absolutely, yup. MR. DISNEY: That really is -- I brought that to attention at the urging of some of the industry folks, and that really is just a cleanup item of the -- of an LDC, and that could go through as a cycle, a normal cycle-type issue. MR. DUNNUCK: And I think -- MR. DISNEY: I didn't see it as that big of a -- that big of a function. We may want to look at that. MR. DUNNUCK: Well, I think it's just a matter of choosing who would be on the committee and getting a board blessing. I heard from the industry as well that they would like to see that and -- and, you know, I didn't know if it was necessary to actually bring that to development services. I look at it the same way. You will look at what they propose but want you to know that we're working on that and acting on that fairly soon. Other thing was, you know, permitting and building review level of service, and we already talked about that. Another item that was touched upon today was credit card use for permits. I'm going to bring that back as a full item at next month's meeting because there's impacts when you use credit cards. We have to pay a percentage to the Visa and Mastercard. And looking at it from the big picture, we've had a lot of requests from Joe Public who comes in and wants a $50 fence permit and wants to be able to use their debit or credit card to do it and we don't have that as a customer service item. I'm looking at it from the bigger picture of either we have to look at it from one of two ways. We can either raise permit fees of I percent or something like that so that we can cover and pay for the Visa; we could eat the costs. Or the only other way is for those types of services to do it off site. We can't -- Visa won't allow us to pick and choose Page 72 May 2, 2001 like a maximum amount of what we can allow to be charged like we can't say a cap of a hundred dollars or $200. So technically, a developer has a line of credit on a credit card of some sort can come in and do a $10,000 permit and save, you know, 3 percent or we will lose 3 percent because we're using Visa or Mastercard. However, the benefit to that side of that is if they can spend that money or be investing their actual cash for that period of time in something else at a higher rate than what we would be raising the permit fee, there would be a benefit to the development community. I personally think this is something that, you know, is a wave of a future. It's either -- it comes now or if it comes in a year, it's probably going to come, but I wanted to discuss that with you-all and get your thoughts. MR. ABBOTT: At one time in Florida -- and it might -- might have changed by now -- they had that you could not charge more for a credit card purchase than you could for cash. MR. DUNNUCK: That's -- MR. ABBOTT: I mean, it used to be something like that. MR. DUNNUCK: That's why we have to raise the permit fees across the board to do it. We just can't say if you want to use a credit card it's going to cost you another percent. We can't single a person out. That is a law, and that's why it's the bigger issue. MR. LONGO: It's also the bigger issue. I can't see you charging the whole industry for service that not everybody is going to take. MR. ABBOTT: Just so somebody can fly to Hawaii. MR. DUNNUCK: That's part of where -- you're right. But that's -- you know, that's kind of what you do now because anyplace that offers a Visa or Mastercard in your personal life, you're paying that percentage to Visa. So anything you buy, it's Page 73 May 2, 2001 being charged to everybody. But what you have to look at from a serious standpoint is, okay, if we have 25 percent of the people, you know, using credit cards and it's a 4-percent charge, let's just say hypothetically, for a number of purposes, maybe we'd only have to raise the permits I percent to pay for that entire fee, you know, for those 25 percent who are using it. Yes, it is a cost that's absorbed by everybody, but you don't necessarily have to raise everything 4 percent because that's what Visa requires. MR. ABBOTT: You should be able to do it for 1.76 percent because they'll do that for a small remodeler. I know that's what they do for big money. MR. DUNNUCK: And then that comes back to, you know, what -- you know, what that percentage will be. And you-all are willing to look at that. I'm just kind of giving you a heads up that's something we will be bringing forward. Internet impact fee calculator -- I think this was brought up at some point in time -- to be able to plug in what type of building you have and get an estimate of what your impact fees are going to be. We're going to be putting that on the internet web site within the next month or so so it will be posted. It's just kind of a convenience-type thing where you can go through the menu and exactly see what your impact fees may cost. I think that was brought up, and this is just a cleanup item that we're working on. Hiring permit division administrator, I think we discussed that already. Affordable housing workshop, I wanted to let you-all know that we have one coming up May 15th with the Board of County Commissioners. It's a major issue, and I know, David, you've been -- you participated in a lot of those discussions, but I just wanted to let you know some of the other things that are going on in the division. And the community character workshop, this Page 74 May 2, 2001 is where the board has asked staff to come back and take the elements out of what was proposed by Dover, Kohl and say what's the reality check on this, what can we do in the short term, what can we do in the long term. That's June 5th. And then the final thing is the land development code hearings are June 6th and June 20th. MR. LONGO: Real quick question, John. We -- we haven't seen anything on FEMA. And are we going to do anything about having our own county flood plans management coordinator of some sort that deals with FEMA issues? MR. DUNNUCK: As opposed to splitting it? MR. LONGO: Well, we don't split it anymore, do we, or do we still? MR. DUNNUCK: Well, we still want that person back. MR. LONGO: Oh, yeah. Okay. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Have you? MR. DUNNUCK: Yeah. MR. ABBOTT: When? MR. DUNNUCK: Johnnie, you can comment on that. Haven't we -- don't we have a FEMA person? MS. GEBHARDT: That's what Gene Chartrand does. He's a permanent part-time employee who does the FEMA -- MR. ABBOTT: Okay. MR. GEBHARDT: -- certificates and reviews. MR. LONGO: Can we -- MR. GEBHARDT: And he started last October or November, I think in November. MR. ABBOTT: But he was doing plans reviews; right? Wasn't he doing something like that? MR. GEBHARDT: No. MR. ABBOTT: Okay. MR. GEBHARDT: He started out as the FEMA coordinator. Page 75 May 2, 2001 We have been using him for plan review lately -- MR. ABBOTT: Okay. MR. GEBHARDT: -- as, you know, another four hours a day. But he is the FEMA coordinator. MR. LONGO: My concern is that since Bob has left that we really haven't gotten any updates and we really don't know where we stand on that. We still have three outstanding ordinances pending. MR. ABBOTT: This is Bob Devlin from the city. MR. LONGO: And we put a lot of work into it at the very beginning and probably a year and a half into it, and I have a gut feeling that something is going to come down the -- the pike here and we don't know about it. MR. DUNNUCK: Okay. We can -- we'll provide a full update for you-all on that. We can arrange that, can't we, Johnnie? MR. GEBHARDT: Are we talking about, Dino, the update for the maps or the -- MR. LONGO: Yeah. What we have, Johnnie, is we worked for a long period of time on -- on challenging the -- the proposed flood elevation changes. MR. GEBHARDT: Right. MR. LONGO: It was supposed to go to a hearing examiner at some point in time, and it was going back and forth between the flood plains management coordinator, which was Bob Devlin at the time, who was working for both the county and the city, and I really don't know where we are in the public process and the public comment process and whether they've issued their final edict. We've just not been brought up to snuff. MR. GEBHARDT: He is still handling it on both our behalfs, but I haven't seen an update on it lately, but I will check with Bob. MR. LONGO: Thank you. Page 76 May 2, 2001 CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Let's move on to old business. Subcommittee members, anybody find it in their conscience to volunteer for some subcommittees? MR. JONES: I will for the utilities subcommittee. On April 26th, of significance, the commission has -- MR. PEEK: This was not a committee report, so I just was just trying to call him off of doing a committee report. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Yeah. I think we are still looking for some volunteers to loin the committees under old business. MR. JONES: Oh. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Always need some new blood. MR. FOLEY: Blair Foley. I'm a member of the LDC subcommittee, and I'll try to attend the utility subcommittee, but my schedule doesn't warrant that I can make it to both every month, especially when the LDC committees, we've been meeting so often, every week, every other week. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: And on the same day as the utilities. MR. FOLEY: At the same time in some cases. I'll try to attend some of those because I noticed in minutes of that meeting that we -- Brian, you were the only one that attended, and I think it's important for us to have input on that -- on that. It shows the public at large has a big interest in it, and I think we -- we would be prudent to have a representative there. MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chairman, it might be noted -- Herb Savage -- that the meeting of the utilities and the LDC were the same day and the same hour, you know, last time. And I happen to be on both, and I shouldn't be. But nevertheless, I was going to plan to be on the utility, but they all look like they're all in here. Have ten people in here for this LDC. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: I would hope that the members that we currently have on the subcommittees will probably have a little clearer scheduling. It's been the previous two months that Page 77 May 2, 2001 we've had that conflict with the utility code, so we'll look for better participation. Now we've got our subcommittee reports under land development regulation. We had our last meeting -- we had our update, basically was Ron's report, so cross that one off. Utility -- I mean, I'm sorry, construction code. Dino? MR. LONGO: You have before you an executive summary and a package called "consideration" prepared by the fire districts, three of five independent fire districts. What this is is an ongoing process that three or four members of our construction code subcommittee has a meeting with the fire districts themselves and industry, a proposed fee increase for inspection fees. They have done a hugely tremendous ]ob of explaining the reasons behind a proposed fee increase for inspections. Bottom line is they've been using ad valorem monies to do inspections, for the large part. And we don't think that's right as industry. You're going to see some huge percentages of increases in your packet, but it is well backed up. I'm going to ask the committee to -- full committee to take a look at it. We're going to shove this back to subcommittee as an agenda item for next week to double, triple review it as a final draft. I will note on the executive summary on the very first sentences or sentence that says "access," and it should be "assessed" on building permits, so we'll change that on the summary. This is prepared by the fire districts in con]unction with the Collier Building Industry Association and your subcommittee. And that's what we're going to do with it. We're going to send it back to subcommittee, come back for a full recommendation to the full committee next month. If anybody has comments or want to attend a meeting next week to make input, they are more than welcome. Again, that's at three o'clock next Wednesday. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Thank you, Dino. Utility code. Now Page 78 May 2, 2001 you can make your report. MR. ABBOTT: Brian, go. MR. JONES: Okay. Of significance for utilities, the -- the county meter reader man will be able to -- will start to be reading the meters without leaving the van. They increased the fees of water and sewer fees accordingly, and they're starting that process. The detail for -- there's going to be a -- basically a transmitter. I think Tom mentioned that a few weeks ago. That's underway. Also of signifi -- of significance with fire back-flows, there will be -- it is likely that the committee will -- will vote in favor of double check valves, so anybody that -- that is involved in designing of back-flow assemblies or for projects, many designers are -- are voluntarily using that -- using that method, and it appears that it will become a requirement after -- or be supported by the utility committee and become -- become enforced. MR. RILEY: Ed Riley, Collier County fire code official. Can I clarify that? The reason for that is -- and the only place that will take place is where you have fire systems that are connected to in -- a line inside of the master meter away from the county's main water mains. Currently if you attach directly to the county's water main, you'll have to use an RPZ device, but once you get inside a project, there are no requirements other than a single check valve. So the discussion is to make that all sprinklers systems are connected to go to a double check valve assembly. It's been noted that probably 70 percent or 80 percent of the check valves that are in excess of five years old probably leak some, so you have stagnant water in these sprinkler systems that can drain back into the potable water supply that are in development communities that are on the system side or their own side of that RPZ, so they're not afforded the same Page 79 May 2, 2001 protection as the main lines are, so there's a question as to whether or not we pay more attention to transmission lines to actually potable water the people are drinking. So that was the -- the basis for possibly going to double check valve assemblies for those. It's highly unlikely you'll have both check valves fail at the same time, and there are requirements for maintenance of those check valves periodically, so that's a much better situation for protection of the potable water supply. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Thank you. MR. JONES: And the last issue is several fire marshals are interpreting the minimum fire main size contained in the NF -- NFPA there -- as opposed to the -- the flow rate at the hydrant. And there was discussion on which matters most, the size that the ordinance calls for or the flow rate. And you -- are you prepared to comment on that? MR. RILEY: Yeah. Basically, the line size had to do with NFPA 1141 -- it's a pamphlet -- specifically specifies diameter of mains that supply fire hydrants. The interpretation by the fire marshals have been that -- if it says you have to have an 8-inch minimum line, we should not have a 6- or a 4-inch RPZ in that line somewhere, in other words, come by 8 with a smaller RPZ and then upsizing your line again. They're questioning whether or not that is in strict conformance with NFPA. So that is in ongoing discussions as to whether that's appropriate to downsize those and how much of a problem it does, in fact, provide. So we are talking with the engineers in that particular meeting and talking on Kentucky pipe modeling, other issues there, too, on water supply and how it's being calculated and verified as it relates to new construction requirements. We're getting all this up front, this information up front, to rely on, and we just had one project, five buildings, that didn't have adequate Page 80 May 2, 2001 water supply on flow test, so we're trying to determine what happened in the process, where did it break down, if any things have to be altered in that process. That's -- that's all on that. MR. JONES: The -- the significance with that is that you could have a project not get a CO because the fire department says that the -- the fire line is not to size that it should be. The engineers in the meeting were pretty unanimous that the size of the line wasn't important; it was the fire flow. So that was the -- the -- the -- the issue. MR. FOLEY: Tom, I have one comment, if I could, to elaborate a little bit on your No. 7, the required downstream hydraulics that the reviewer, engineering reviewer, was asking for, and I know there wasn't any discussion on this at your meeting. Are they leaning towards applying that on a case-by- case basis as opposed to globally requiring that on any size project? I'm hoping that's what the discussion is -- is about. Are you familiar with that -- with that -- MR. JONES: No, I'm not. MR. FOLEY: Okay. That's not important. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Okay. Let's move on to the ad hoc committee on fees. MR. LONGO: You heard the report basically from Johnnie what we're trying to do. We're monitoring on the planning size. Bob Mulhere before he left did a great ]ob of bringing us up to snuff on the different departments and where they are in the tracking of their terminal times, identify some weak areas. We've set some standards as to where we think they should be for customer level of service. We are currently doing the same thing on the building permitting side, working with Johnnie and on staff and Ed, and as you heard Johnnie present earlier, we have a number of -- of options and -- and things we're going to try and look at and to try to implement as to bringing up that Page 81 May 2, 2001 level of service. So that's where we are with the ad hoc. And the agenda is next -- again, next Thursday at three o'clock. There will be -- excuse me, next Wednesday -- thank you, Tom -- a discussion that is an agenda item. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Okay. Thank you. As we have no new business. Anybody have any last parting comments they'd like to make? Dallas. MR. DISNEY: Just a comment for John or a question. Some time ago brought forward and I think that we -- we made a recommendation from this committee level, if memory serves me right, to look again at 2.8 of the LDC and the architectural requirements. I didn't hear that on your list, and I wondered where that is. MR. DUNNUCK: Okay. I -- I apologize. I -- I assumed it was with the landscape architectural requirements. You're talking about architectural requirements. MR. DISNEY: There are two separate items. And if that's where the confusion was there, then perhaps it's -- it's just that we do need to come back and revisit, and it seems like there's a -- there's a large need to re-review divisions 2.8 of -- of the LDC. It is a tremendous -- there's -- there's tremendous consternation in a number of areas of the design community with not only the reviews but the time it takes and the lack of consistent interpretation on those areas. If -- if that could come forward in that issue and that's what that is, then great. MR. DUNNUCK: Okay. MR. DISNEY: Thank you. that CHAIRMAN MASTERS: -- oh. MR. SAVAGE: I yield. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: MR. ELLIS: Okay. Anyone else? Okay. With Before Herb jumps in. Just real quick, I'm thinking -- I'm sorry. I'm Page 82 May 2, 2001 David Ellis. And I try to come every month to give you a quick update on the building codes. Of course, as many of you know, this is the last week of session meeting. They have yet to make a final determination of the codes and when they will become effective. There's been a glitch bill going on session. It -- it's now in the quagmire that happens the last few days of session. I called about two o'clock, and it had yet to move today. It is on the special agenda that they've got going. The recommendation, as it was last amended, will be for the code to be effective January 1st of 2002. Again, it's still up in the air, but I will -- I will keep you as posted as we possibly can. There should be resolution by Friday when they strike the gavel. If they don't, we're in a -- somewhat of a mess because the last termination by the legislature was July 1st. And if you make the call like I do quite often, they still can't send you a copy of the code, so it remains an ongoing challenge. We're still set up and prepared to do the training sessions, but we just don't have the documentation yet. So we -- we do feel like it will come out in January 1st, but we'll keep you posted as soon as we know. The other thing, we're working on putting together a program, seminar, whatever you want to call it, with the new person who came down from Fort Myers with DEP who is now housed here. Is it Mya, Mia? MR. DUNNUCK: Mia. MR. ELLIS: Working to try to get Mia with particularly the affected folks out in Golden Gate who are going to be often working with Mia in terms of interpretation of what can happen on lots, some other things. They're several Golden Gate type issues, and we're going to try to put together a program in the next two or three weeks. We can get the affected parties altogether to kind of hear where we're going with some of those things, and maybe through the staff we can alert you on the Page 83 May 2, 2001 committee that might be interested in that. I've talked to several of them in the last several days. It's something we're looking to do, and I think we've talked about that, so I'll keep you posted. MR. ESPINAR: On that same note, real quickly, there's going to be a meeting on July 18th with a lot of the regulatory agencies, The Conservancy, stuff like that, to look at Golden Gate single-family homes, the potential of setting up a ROMA, a regional off-site mitigation area. There's going to be a big powwow July 18th at the Golden Gate Community Center. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Okay. Herb. MR. SAVAGE: Just in light of all these building permits, I had a chap bring me a house plan that an architect from another state prepared for him for Fort Myers Beach. And I have never in my life seen so much picayune-ish, I guess, you'd -- is that a good word? Attitude-- MR. ABBOTT: For Herb it's a good word. MR. SAVAGE: For Herb it's a good word. Yeah. Are they still doing this same picky, picky, picky on the building permit processes in this county? I thought we found out that that was all in this area only and they were going to correct that. MR. ABBOTT: One -- a quick example. I had to come in here and draw the plywood detail that's going to allow the handicap ramp to go in a sliding glass door only because it's a model home. So I had to draw a little square on there and write "elevation here is this; elevation here is that." that could have so been picked up on a final. Who would have cared? But, no, it took an extra day out of my time plus an extra couple of days around the people here, a total and absolute waste of resource of creative people. MR. SAVAGE: And as you might well know that the legislators were meeting locally here and found out this was the only area here in the State of Florida, was it correct, Riley -- Page 84 May 2, 2001 MR. ELLIS: David, I'm -- I'm not sure. MR. SAVAGE: You weren't listening. MR. ELLIS: You said, "The only place in the State of Florida that" and you pointed at me. MR. SAVAGE: The only place in the State of Florida that this picayune-ish character aspect is going on in the reference to building permitting. No place in Florida are they doing it that way. MR. ELLIS: Oh, and I don't know about that. I don't know about that. MR. ABBOTT: MR. SAVAGE: MR. ABBOTT: It's a lot easier than St. John's County. Pardon? A lot easier than St. John's. CHAIRMAN MASTERS: Okay. With that, we can call the meeting adjourned. I'd like to thank our court reporter for not taking a break during an extended meeting. There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 5:25 p.m. DEVELOPMENT SERVICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE THOMAS MASTERS, CHAIRMAN Page 85 May 2, 2001 TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT REPORTING, INC., BY BARBARA A. 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