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EAC Minutes 08/07/2001 RAugust 7, 2001 TRANSCRIPT OF ENVIRONMENTAL ADVISORY COUNCIL Naples, Florida, August 7, 2001 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Environmental Advisory Council, in and for the County of Collier, having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9 a.m. in REGULAR SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: COUNCIL MEMBERS: Thomas W. Sansbury Chester Soling Alexandra Santoro Michael Coe Ed Carlson Erica Lynne William Hill ABSENT: Larry Stone Alfred Gal ALSO PRESENT: Marjorie Student, Assistant County Attorney Stan Chrzanowski, Development Services Barbara Burgeson, Senior Environmental Specialist Stephen Lenberger, Planning Services Page 1 August 7, 2001 Ray Bellows, Planning Services Chahram Badamtchian, Planning Services William Lorenz, Natural Resources Page 2 ENVIRONMENTAL ADVISORY COUNCIL AGENDA August 7, 2001 9:00 A.M. Commission Boardroom W. Harmon Turner Building (Building "F") - Third Floor I. Roll Call II. Approval of Agenda III. Approval of July 3, 2001 Meeting Minutes IV. Land Use Petitions A. Special Treatment Permit No. ST-1045 "Henry John McVicker" Section 23 & 24, Township 51 South, Range 25 East B. Planned Unit Development No. PDI-2001-AR-471 "Silver Lakes PUD" Sections 10 & 15, Township 51 South, Range 26 East C.Planned Unit Development No. PUDZ-2001-AR-986 "Walnut Lakes PUD" Section 12, Township 51 South, Range 26 East D. Planned Unit Development No. PUDZ-2001-AR-432 "Indigo Lakes PUD" Sections 27 & 34, Township 48 South, Range 26 East V. Old Business A. Wetland policy review and public comment B. Update on Beach events and sea turtles VI. New Business VII. Growth Management Update VIII. Subcommittee Report A. Growth Management Subcommittee Council Member Comments Public Comments Adjournment IX. X. XI. Council Members: Please notify the Current Planning Secretary no later than 5:00 p.m. on July 27, 2001 if you cannot attend this meeting or if you have a conflict and will abstain from voting on a particular petition (659-5741). General Public: Any person who decides to appeal a decision of this Board will need a record of the proceedings pertaining thereto; and therefore may need to ensure that a verbatim record of proceedings is made, which record includes the testimony and evidence upon which the appeal is to be based. August 7, 2001 CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Barb, are you ready to go? Okay. Why don't we call the roll. MS. BURGESON: Sansbury. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Here. MS. BURGESON: MR. COE: Here. MS. BURGESON: MR. MS. MR. MS. MS. roe. Carlson. CARLSON: BURGESON: HILL: Here. BURGESON: Here. Hill. Santoro. SANTORO: Here. MS. BURGESON: Larry Stone has an excused absence. Gal has an excused absence. Lynne. MS. LYNNE: Here. MS. BURGESON: Soling. MR. SOLING: Here. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: We have a quorum with seven of our nine members with us today. Okay. The agenda, does anyone have any additions, deletions, comments, or anything to the agenda? (No response.) MR. COE: I move we approve. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: It's been moved and approved. Do I hear a second? MR. CARLSON: Second. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: (Unanimous response.) CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: agenda is approved as written. Alfred It's seconded. All in favor-- There being no opposed, the Page 3 August 7, 2001 How about the minutes from July 3? deletions? MR. HILL: MR. COE: CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: by Mr. Coe. All in favor-- (Unanimous response.) Any corrections, additions, I move we accept them as written. I'll second it. Moved by Mr. Hill and seconded CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Hearing no opposed, the minutes have been approved. Okay. Let's go home. Barbara or Steve. MR. LENBERGER: Good morning. For the record, Stephen Lenberger, development services. The petition before you is a special treatment permit, an ST permit, on Keewaydin Island for a single-family homesite. On the visualizer I have an aerial with the subject property shown on it. It's bordered in white. The property about a year ago was covered with quite a bit of Australian pine and Brazilian pepper, and the applicant received an exotic vegetation removal permit to remove the exotics from the property, which he did. So as you you can see, there's quite a bit of open sandy areas on the site. The petitioner would like to build a single-family home with a pavilion, generator building, and a tennis court. They also have a request in for a dock extension into the pass on the east side of the property. Since the petitioner is requesting to alter more than 10 percent of the site area, we cannot do administrative approval of the ST permit. It has to go forward to the EAC, the Planning Commission, as well as the Board of County Commissioners. Site alterations are not that much over the 10 percent site alteration. They're 13.3 percent. I'll put another aerial on the visualizer. What the applicant has done for us is indicated in white lines. It's roughly the area of the proposed site improvements. The Page 4 August 7, 2001 single-family home is basically the area outlined on the lowest portion of the visualizer. The tennis court is off to the side, and smaller buildings are the pavilion and the generator building. The area where the structures are going has been disturbed as mentioned previously with the removal of exotics on the property. I'd like to put up another aerial. The aerials -- the two photographs in the center of the visualizer pretty much show the area cleared with scattered seagrapes and grass as well as some cabbage palm, younger cabbage palm. There are no protected species on site although there are gopher tortoises on the island. They may eventually colonize the area. The petitioner will be doing some revegetation on the site as stated in the staff report to make up for the difference in area altered over 10 percent allowed by administrative approval. The petitioner is here if you have any questions specific to his proposal. I'm here to answer any questions. That concludes my presentation. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Mr. Hill. MR. HILL: We did not receive a staff report with the -- at least I didn't. Did anybody else? CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: No. MS. LYNNE: I didn't either. MR. HILL: Are you saying that the real petition is based on 13.3 percent as opposed to 10 that's the criteria? MR. LENBERGER: Yeah. The site alteration is 13.3 percent. It should be on the site plan. Hopefully you'll be able to read it. You'll have to excuse me. When I did the staff report, it was right before I went on vacation, so I was not here for the mailing. Apparently some of the members did not receive some of the staff reports for some of the projects on public petitions. I can pass around my staff report. You can take a look at it. There's also an original that should be attached to here somewhere. Page 5 August 7, 2001 MR. COE: I've got two questions. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Mr. Coe. MR. COE: Two questions. I notice there's -- it looks like Marco Boulevard. Is this a proposed road down the middle of the island? MR. LENBERGER: Yeah. That's the platted easement down the length of Keewaydin Island. Obviously, there's no bridge to Keewaydin Island, so it will not be built. MR. COE: So what is that going to be? Is that for golf carts or something? MR. LENBERGER: Well, it was historically for a road. maybe Stan can answer a little bit more of the history on that. probably is more familiar with, than I am, the area. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Not Keewaydin. MR. LENBERGER: But it was an easement that was platted on Keewaydin Island historically. Obviously, there's no bridge to Keewaydin Island, so it probably will not be built in the future. MR. CARLSON: My understanding -- my historical perspective is that that was the issue, building the road to Marco Island. Rather than its present alignment, building it through Keewaydin. The community rallied against it. They started The Conservancy of Southwest Florida and the establishment of Rookery Bay. It was the issue over this road, if this is the same road. Yeah, that's it. MR. SOLING: Question. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Yes, sir. MR. SOLING: If this is an easement, how do you build on it or under it because there's the potential of somebody in the future exercising the easement? MR. LENBERGER: That's a good question. The petitioner has located the structures outside the easement. I guess He Page 6 August 7, 2001 MR. SOLING: Well, you have a septic -- MR. LENBERGER: But he does have a septic area, that's correct. MR. SOLING: And the back of the house is right on the easement. It looks or appears to be right on the easement line. There's no setback. Some day somebody 50 years from now builds a bridge or makes that road, which is a perpetual government easement, then the house is going to have to be -- it's right on the line of the road with no setback. MR. LENBERGER: I honestly don't know if it's a government easement. I think it's just a private easement. MR. SOLING: Well, whoever's easement. MR. LENBERGER: It would be the developer's risk to put a structure in there, yes. MR. SOLING: Second question: Just out of curiosity, how will the McVeys get to this -- McVickers get to this house? Are they going to build a dock or something? MR. LENBERGER: Yes. They currently are in for a petition for a boat dock extension so, yes, they'll get there by boat and have a dock. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Do we have any questions for the petitioner? Yes, ma'am. MS. LYNNE: Under what circumstances are exemptions usually made? Is it like with zoning where there has to be a special quality? What are the guidelines for issuing exemptions over the 10 percent? MR. LENBERGER: For single family, that is the exemption, 10 percent site alteration. The only other exemption for single family is in the area of critical state concern. You're allowed a minimum of 2,500 square feet of alteration for your very small lots such as in Copeland or Plantation Island. But it's spelled out in the code. That's Page 7 August 7, 2001 the only exemption for single family. MS. LYNNE: Is there supposed to be an extenuating circumstance why we should allow an extra 3 percent or 3 1/2 percent? I mean, I just don't know. MR. LENBERGER: This is the first petition that I know of that we've had over the 10 percent site alteration. Obviously the lots on Keewaydin are fairly large. The petitioner wishes to have a tennis court for his children, and that's why the petitioner has forwarded it to you. MR. HILL: What is the total acreage of the lot? MR. LENBERGER: Perhaps -- MR. McVICKER: It's about 2.4 acres. THE COURT REPORTER: Your name, sir. MR. McVICKER: Henry John McVicker. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Mr. McVicker, come on up to the podium. MR. McVICKER: It's about 2.4 acres. That's my understanding of the calculation. It's about 96,000 square feet. The 10 percent would have been about 9,600 square feet. I think we're at about 13,000 feet with the tennis court. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: So 12,642. A question for either one of you. I go up there all the time. You'll notice as you look at the pictures that Mr. McVicker's property has had all the exotics removed, but then when you get down there, you've got one lot down here that has not had the exotics removed. Is that because of the permit requirements or somebody just hasn't done it? A lot of Keewaydin down there completely has all of the Australians gone. Did you do that yourself?. MR. McVICKER: When we purchased the property, it had had some work done by a previous owner who apparently owned it for a year or two. There were still a significant amount of exotics on the Page 8 August 7, 2001 property. So in talking to Mr. Lenberger, he recommended that prior to the issuance of a permit we would need to eventually deal with the exotic cleanup. So we took the opportunity to essentially get the site in order by removing the exotics. That way we could also understand the siting of the home and basically put together our plan. So we did that recently, about two months ago, and then took those photographs that you have in front of you to try and indicate, basically, the existing remaining natural vegetation, native vegetation, and also give you some good pictures of where the site elements would go on the property. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: It looks to me, like, about half of your site coverage is that tennis court. MR. McVICKER: Yes. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: It's essentially in an area-- it looks to me like there's nothing there but sand right now. MR. McVICKER: Unfortunately, they take up a lot more space than we appreciated, yeah. Tennis courts take up over 6,000 square feet. That's correct. In fact, they're normally 7,200 square feet. We reduced the size of it to 6,000 square feet. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Anything else? Yes, sir. MR. CARLSON: Well, my understanding is to get a certificate of occupancy on this house, it's county regulations that you have to take the exotics off the property anyway. MR. McVICKER: MR. CARLSON: MR. McVICKER: Yes, that's correct. So that would happen no matter what. That's correct. We just chose to do it at this time so that we could understand what would be left on the site and how we could essentially prepare the site plan to present to you and to the state for permitting. MR. CARLSON: So with the rule in place, the 10 percent rule in place, why would we approve or set a precedent to go above that Page 9 August 7, 2001 10 percent for this project? MR. McVICKER: That's a good question. We thought that in the spirit of how we've understood the vegetation issues and natural resource issues to relate to the island, that what we would try and do is create a natural environment there, even though clearly we'd be disturbing 13.3 percent. We would revegetate a significant portion of the area at a 2-to-1 ratio to try and essentially bring it back to a natural state, in fact, more natural vegetation than would be there after the removal of the exotics, so the site location for the tennis court and for the house essentially doesn't disturb the area any further than was required for the exotic removal; slightly in some areas, but not much. It's 1 or 2 percent. That's what we tried to illustrate with the overhead, showing those things would be placed in areas that are essentially open spaces. But we would be very willing, and actually would like to do it anyway, to revegetate the area with native vegetation. We think it would just look nicer and be appropriate in this case. So if we were doing that, essentially, we would build it back up to an area of net disturbance to be significantly less than 10 percent. So in the spirit of conservation and compatibility, that was our thought. MR. CARLSON: Well, I think, you know, for me to approve the deviation from the rule, I would have to see some sort of plan about how this is an advantage to go to 13 percent, and I just don't have that. MR. McVICKER: Okay. I can try and take a shot at that. If we were to go to the 10 percent, we could do that, as I understand it, without needing to revegetate anything. We could go along with our plans and develop the site. If we go to 13 percent, we will actually revegetate 6 percent of the space. Six thousand feet is what we talked about, and I believe it's reflected in the staff report. So the net disturbance after revegetation would be 6 percent according to this Page 10 August 7, 2001 proposal as opposed to the 10 percent that we would be allowed under normal administrative procedures. In any case, we're very motivated owners to make this an extremely natural landscape, and we do recognize that you have guidelines, and we don't want to create a scenario where a precedent makes your life more difficult. We think in the spirit of what you're trying to do -- and we applaud it on the island and elsewhere -- we would embrace trying to make that a very natural environment. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Are we correct in this case that Mr. McVicker just told us that there is no requirement -- if he does the 10 percent coverage -- to do any replanting of native vegetation? What he's saying is he's going to do about 3,000 square feet greater coverage than allowed and for that 3,000 square feet he's going to revegetate 6,000 square feet. Is that what I'm reading here? MR. LENBERGER: That's correct. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: So it's a 2-to-1 ratio. MR. LENBERG: Right. For the area over the 10 percent site alteration, that's correct, 2 to 1. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: I think that's a pretty reasonable approach to it. MS. LYNNE: If this land and buildings are sold, can the next owner relandscape, in other words, put in exotics and change the whole character? MR. LENBERGER: Well, the code prohibits planting exotic vegetation, non-native species on undeveloped coastal barrier islands. MS. LYNNE: So there's no allowable planting of any non- native species on the island? MR. LENBERGER: MS. LYNNE: Okay. MR. LENBERGER: That's correct. I just wanted to verify that. The only exceptions that I am aware of is occasionally coconut palms are placed in because they're naturalized. Page 11 August 7, 2001 MS. LYNNE: Yeah. MR. HILL: Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Yes, sir. MR. HILL: Two quick ones. Steve, is there any way if this is approved of making it a covenant attached to the deed that the revegetated area cannot be disrupted by subsequent owners? Can that be put into the approval? MR. LENBERGER: It will be stipulated in a resolution with the final -- MS. STUDENT: I don't think the deed is the proper place to put it. The county's resolutions and ordinances control, and they run with the land. Any property owners, when they are a perspective purchaser, are put on notice to exercise due diligence and ascertain what the restrictions are on the use of that land, not only private as well as public. MR. HILL: Would that be fairly binding to the new owner? MS. STUDENT: It should be. MR. HILL: The other question I have -- I see nothing in the report about the dock and nothing on the photographs. Is this a city dock requirement that needs to be satisfied? MR. LENBERGER: No. It's a county dock extension. It's not on the property. Technically it's off the property and into the water, so it's a separate petition. MR. HILL: Okay. So we're not to consider the dock itself2. MR. LENBERGER: Right. Because it's not on the property or the area that-- MR. HILL: So that's not part of the 13.5 percent -- MR. LENBERGER: That's correct. MR. HILL: Okay. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Yes, sir. MR. CARLSON: Just one last question. Since you've discussed Page 12 August 7, 2001 this with staff, why don't we have a revegetation plan to look at? MR. McVICKER: We felt we would come before you to get a sense of the board's position on this, and we're certainly happy to develop that and represent or resubmit that to you. We're also open to suggestions from the board as to what revegetation. I had a brief conversation with Stephen. The island is new for us, and so the species are -- we're still learning about what species are appropriate. I know the coastal dune area has some sea oats and seagrapes up in there. We would continue to expand those and revegetate the area in consistency with those types of elements. Then as far as the balance of the property and where it would be revegetated and what would be used, we're very open to that. We do have some resources. There's several people who have worked on the island revegetating, and we would look to them to get some guidance. But we would be more than happy to submit a plan. MR. CARLSON: There's certainly lots of help out there in that department. Let me ask one more question. For 6,048 square feet, how many tennis courts do you get? MR. McVICKER: MR. CARLSON: MR. McVICKER: MR. CARLSON: MR. McVICKER: MR. CARLSON: One. Just one net? Yeah. One tennis court? Yeah. Wow. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: It's 60 x 120. MR. McVICKER: It takes a lot of space. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Would you consider, Mr. Carlson, if we took No. 3 on the recommendations and added a sentence to No. 3 that would require the submission of a revegetation plan to -- if it's acceptable to staff-- prior to approval by the County Commission? Page 13 August7,2001 MR. COE: I'd go for that. That would solve the problem as far as I'm concerned. MR. HILL: A point of interest, Mr. Chairman, on the aerial. Is that line the mean-high water line? MR. McVICKER: It's very close to it. That's the vegetation line which -- I don't have the site plan in front of me, but the mean- high water line and the top of that dune are pretty close to each other, yeah. There's actually a pretty good elevation there. It's about six feet at the top of the dune there. It happens to be one of the higher pieces. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Yes, ma'am. MS. LYNNE: From what I know about Keewaydin Island and the fact that it has been sold and houses will be put on it, I do like this approach, and I do like -- I do see a justification for granting more disturbance based on preserving the rest in a really natural -- not only vegetation, but what's going to fit in with the tortoises and the rest of the life there, and it seems that that might encourage other landowners to do similar-type things. The only thing I would like to see is something that's somehow more permanent and enforceable beyond your tenure there, and I don't know what those possibilities are. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: I think Miss Student just told us that a resolution is binding on future landowners. Is that not correct? Is that what you told us? MS. STUDENT: Yes. Land-use regulations run with the land, and so any new person purchasing the land is subject to those regulations. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: would approve this? MS. STUDENT: Yes. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Subject to this resolution that So it is binding with the land, and Page 14 August 7, 2001 it would go to the next one. MR. SOLING: One-- CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Yes, sir. Go ahead. MR. SOLING: -- simple question. Where do you get water? What do you do with the sewage on this property? MR. McVICKER: You have to have a self-contained system, obviously, on the island. MR. SOLING: Can you drill and get water? MR. McVICKER: Apparently there is an aquifer that runs under the island. That would not be our plan. I know that there's one home that has done that. It's brackish water that needs to be treated. The typical process for water is a cistern system or rain collection off the roof, and that's what we would do, and you'd have solar panels. MR. SOLING: Is electric there too? MR. McVICKER: Solar panels. MR. SOLING: Oh. MR. McVICKER: You use a battery system, and then a septic field for the septic. Also, Mr. Soling, to your point on the right-of-way, I do have some knowledge that some of the owners in different parts of the island that also have that right-of-way on their property have had that vacated. MR. SOLING: Oh, yeah? MR. McVICKER: So pieces of it are missing. And I think also somebody mentioned The Conservancy has been motivated to try and block a development of that as well, so I don't know that that would ever be utilized. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. MR. COE: I'd like to make a motion. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Mr. Coe. MR. COE: I'd like to make a motion, please, that we pass this Page 15 August 7, 2001 particular project with the caveat that an appropriate revegetation plan be submitted to the staff, and if they approve it, then the project's good to go. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Do I hear a second? MR. HILL: Can we add to that motion a request for a resolution attached to the property that that vegetation be maintained? MR. LENBERGER: It will be stipulated in the resolution. ST permits are approved by resolution. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Yes, sir. MR. CARLSON: Discussion on the motion. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Second on the motion by Mr. Carlson. Discussion. MR. CARLSON: I didn't second it. I'm discussing it. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Oh, you're discussing it. Mr. Hill seconded it. Okay. Now you can discuss it. MR. CARLSON: Yeah. I'm going to hang tough on this one because I don't like being in this position. If you come in for an exception to the rules, then you should have a plan in hand, and we should see what we're getting for the 3 percent above the rule that we're giving up. MR. McVICKER: I apologize for that. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. MR. McVICKER: We'll get that in order. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Any further discussion on the order? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. A motion is on the floor that we approve the staff report with the additional language that requires the petitioner to submit a detailed revegetation plan to staff that's acceptable to staff prior to the time that final approval of the resolution is submitted to the County Commission. Does that satisfy Page 16 August 7, 2001 you, Mr. Coe? MR. COE: That's correct. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: signify by saying aye. MR. COE: Aye. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: MR. SOLING: Aye. MR. HILL: Aye. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: MS. SANTORO: Aye. MR. CARLSON: Aye. MS. LYNNE: Aye. Okay. All in favor of the motion Opposed? CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: So it's 4-3, thus we do not have a -- it does not pass from the standpoint of the requirements of the -- or how we're put together. We have to have five to pass it. So, basically, it will go forward to the Planning Commission with a report -- MS. BURGESON: Actually-- CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Excuse me. Go ahead. MS. BURGESON: At this point we usually recommend to the board to try to make another motion that can pass with a vote of five, if anybody is willing to try to make another motion. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Someone who voted for that would have to make that amendment. Mr. Coe? Mr. Hill? Anybody have any ideas? MR. COE: Three negatives. We ought to let the negatives figure out how they're going to get it passed. MS. LYNNE: I'd really like to see the petitioner come back with more information and more assurances for how it's going to happen. I think it is a good idea. I'd just like to have more work on it before we see it. Page 17 August 7, 2001 MR. McVICKERS: In terms of-- CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: If I could, please. You know, we just got the petitioner to agree to submit a detailed landscape plan to staff that would be approved by the staff. What additional information can the petitioner submit other than a detailed landscape plan? We've had the county attorney tell us that the resolution that's passed will run with the land so that anybody else that takes it has got to live by it. If we ask for additional information, we need to tell them what additional information we're asking for. MR. CARLSON: Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Yes, sir. MR. CARLSON: All I'm asking is we not be in the position of approving things that we haven't seen. That's all I'm asking. So I would move that we move for denial of this petition until petitioner can come forward with a detailed plan so we can see what he's proposing to compensate for the impacts above the 10 percent rule that's now in place with the county. MS. BURGESON: One option you might want to consider is to continue it rather than deny it. So you would continue it until next month's meeting and they can bring forward that. MR. CARLSON: I amend my motion to continue this until next month's meeting. MS. LYNNE: Is that what the petitioner would like? MR. McVICKER: Whatever you would like. We're happy to comply with the needs of the board. MS. LYNNE: I second the motion to continue. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: A motion has been made and seconded to continue this until next month. Any discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: All in favor of the motion? (Unanimous response.) Page 18 August 7, 2001 CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: (No response.) CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: next week -- next month. MR. McVICKER: Thank you. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. This Opposed? Hearing none, it continues until MS. BURGESON: Before we start this next petition, I just wanted to ask the EAC members -- we were not aware on a staff level that some of those staff petitions did not get -- that staff EAC reports didn't get out to you with these packages. Can you tell me if there are any other projects or petitions in front of you today that you don't have staff reports for, and I'll make copies of those right now and hand them out. MS. SANTORO: We have all the others. MS. BURGESON: Oh, you have all the others. was the only one. Okay. In the future if anybody's missing one I don't have one for Silver Lakes MR. COE: I don't have one. and Walnut Lakes. MS. BURGESON: Okay. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: MR. COE: Nope. You don't? MS. BURGESON: Okay. I'll make copies of those. MR. COE: Now, remember, my mail gets forwarded if they haven't changed that address yet. MS. BURGESON: Okay. MR. COE: So that could be the reason. It may have been sent out separate and I just didn't get it. MS. BURGESON: Okay. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Did we send it up to Pontico (phonetic) or what? Page 19 August 7, 2001 MR. COE: No. They've been sending it to Egypt. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Silver Lakes. Here we go. Okay. MR. BADAMCHIAN: Good morning, council members. My name is Chahram Badamtchian. I'm from planning services staff. This is a PUD amendment to the master plan of the PUD, only, for a Silver Lakes PUD which is located along 951, Collier Boulevard, almost two miles south of the 951 and U.S. 41 intersection. This PUD was approved with the master plan which -- with the large recreation tract at the top and smaller conservation tracts, and what they are proposing, basically, is to make most of the recreation tract at the top a conservation tract up to here, and they are changing these back to recreation. Let me give you a list of things that they are doing basically. They are increasing the acreage of conservation tract from 3 to 18. They are reducing the park/TTRV area from 26 acres to 24 acres. They are reducing the buffers from 5 to 3 acres and reducing the recreation areas from 97 acres to 86 acres, and they are reconfiguring some lots. As you can see in the older master plan, this street went all the way to the end, and there are lots on both -- on the south side. And in here, this street ends here, and they were proposing a lake and some golf course. Basically, that's the extent of changes, and I believe most of the changes are due to the permitting or environmental permitting through the state and federal agencies. Steve Lenberger, the environmentalist who reviewed this in detail, is here to answer all your questions. That's basically the extent of the changes. MR. LENBERGER: Good morning again. For the record, Stephen Lenberger, development services. The subject property -- I have an aerial on the wall here -- is pretty much developed on its southern two-thirds. It has an undevelopment portion roughly of about one-third of the property on the north end. Page 20 August 7, 2001 Vegetation on the site is a mixture of pine flatwoods, hydric pine flatwoods to the east, and basically a kind of mixed wetland forest, wax myrtle cabbage palm, laurel oak to the west. The whole area was claimed as jurisdictional wetlands by the state and federal agencies. The property is located-- part of the property is located in the Deltona settlement. I have a map of the Deltona settlement on the wall. The areas in red indicate the developable portion within the Deltona settlement agreement. This property sits -- this red portion at the top and the yellow portion outside the Deltona settlement area here is this vegetative strip that you see in front of you which the EIS pertains to. The PUD master plan -- the original master plan identified this whole northern strip as a recreation area with a large lake and, I believe, also a maintenance facility as well as nature trails. There was also a preserve area, roughly, in this portion of the PUD and in this area two very small preserve areas. The petitioner has reconfigured the master plan and removed these two preserve areas. There are no preservation requirements on the southern two parts of the property since they are within the Deltona settlement area and also identified as developable area within the Deltona settlement area. So we're dealing with the north piece here. We're designating roughly -- or at least over three-quarters of it as preserve or conservation area. They'll have a commons recreation area in the front, and there will be some lots encroaching on the south end over here. Wetlands on site -- well, the whole northern portion is wetlands, 37.3 acres, and they'll be impacting 11.7 acres for the project. Preservation will be 25.9 acres of wetlands by the north end of the PUD. The petitioner is also proposing, in addition to on-site restoration Page 21 August 7, 2001 -- and there are quite a few exotics on the property -- the petitioner has removed quite a bit of melaleuca, an early vacation on this portion of the preserve. There were also some berms and agricultural ditches which will be removed, leveled off, as necessary. They're also doing off-site mitigation. At the time we processed the ElS, there was about 4.89 acres of off-site mitigation proposed or credits, I should say. MR. CARLSON: Could you repeat that? MR. LENBERGER: 4.89 mitigation credits are proposed or were proposed at the time I reviewed the EIS. I did a protected- species survey. There were no protected species observed on site. The petitioner is here as well as the environmental consultant to answer any questions you may have, and I, of course, will answer any questions. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Mr. Carlson. MR. CARLSON: Have you been on the site? MR. LENBERGER: Yes, I have. MR. CARLSON: The condition of the wetlands hydrologically? I mean, I know there's exotics, but are they hydrologically intact or impacted? MR. LENBERGER: They look pretty good. There are a lot of exotics, mostly Brazilian pepper towards the west, melaleuca, and earleaf acacia. The areas they removed the exotics look pretty good, so the habitat has pretty good quality. The laurel oaks and other woody vegetation towards the west are still fairly young. They're not very large trees. Towards the east property of the property the pines are fairly large. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Yes, sir. MR. HILL: In the existing layout compared to the proposed, the internal lakes look like they're identical, the two lake areas inside your pink. Page 22 August 7, 2001 MR. MR. portion is MR. LENBERGER: Okay. HILL: Apparently that large lake up in the original north gone. LENBERGER: That's correct. MR. HILL: Has that been cleared by water management to be acceptable with respect to water control on the site? You're losing a significant lake up there. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: It's not necessary for the water management. MR. HILL: Okay. They have passed on the removal of that lake? MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Uh-huh. MR. HILL: Okay. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Yes, ma'am. MS. SANTORO: Steve, which way does the drainage flow in that area? Does it go south? MR. LENBERGER: I'll let Stan answer that question. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Excuse me. I was listening -- MS. SANTORO: Which way does the drainage go from that area? Does it go south? MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Some of the drainage passes under-- yes, it goes south. Some of the drainage passes under 951. Stan Chrzanowski from development services. It passes under 951 to the other side of the road and flows south. There is some drainage out through the mangroves directly-- I guess it's to the west. As you drive down there, you see all the culverts under the road and drainage just going out into the mangroves both to the south and west. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Any other questions of staff?. Would the petitioner like to address the subject? MR. NADEAU: Yes. Good morning, council members. For the record, my name is Dwight Nadeau, planning manager for RWA, Page 23 August 7, 2001 Inc., representing Conquest Development USA, LC. Dr. Badamtchian and Mr. Lenberger have done a fine job explaining the project. I will again emphasize that the purpose behind the petition is merely to reflect the current development intent. They have platted and recorded eight phases in the project. The amenity for a golf course, which was originally proposed in this area on the old plan, had a strip of lots along its southern boundary. What the petitioner found was necessary was to have some additional room to make a playable nine-hole executive course. Therefore, they've opted to remove this tier of lots in here and move them up slightly above the Deltona settlement agreement line, thus the permitting process with the Army Corps of Engineers and the water management district. Really, with the changes in residential opportunities and RV opportunities, there's been a reduction of two acres of those lands for development and a net increase of two acres of open space, not to mention the increase of the conservation tract from 3 acres to 26 acres, not 18 as Dr. Badamtchian had said. I have members of-- the environmental consultant here as well the project engineer if you would like to ask any questions. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: The area, previously, that we're saying is preservation now was previously recreation? MR. NADEAU: This area on the north side of the Deltona settlement agreement was designated as commons recreation. Everything around the development, including the lakes, is all classified as commons recreation. So the commons recreation area in here was reduced such that it could be redesignated as conservation. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Questions for the petitioner? MR. HILL: Would nature trails be compatible with the conservation area? In other words, the original says you have nature trails in that upper northeast portion. Page 24 August 7, 2001 MR. NADEAU: Passive recreation, yes, nature trails. MR. HILL: That doesn't destroy the conservation designation, does it? MR. NADEAU: The environmental consultants tell me that the district or Corps will not allow any -- CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Excuse me. MR. NADEAU: We're not requesting nature trails in the application to the district and Corps. MR. LENBERGER: It would be a compatible use in a preserve area as far as staff is concerned, yes. MR. HILL: That was my question. You're saying that this now becomes conservation where it was not conservation before. MR. NADEAU: That is correct. MR. HILL: But all you had in that area originally is nature trails. MR. NADEAU: Over on the left-hand side of the page for you, sir, you can see a -- you can see the lake. That would not be consistent with a conservation area. And then on the right side of the page right up in the corner, you'll see a dashed line that says "storage area." So there was development proposed in the commons recreation designation. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Further questions by the council? Hearing none, what's your pleasure? MR. COE: I'd like to make a motion to approve. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Motion by Mr. Coe to approve. Do I hear a second? MS. SANTORO: Second. MR. COE: A second from Ali. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Second from Ms. Santoro. Discussion? (No response.) Page 25 August 7, 2001 CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Hearing none, all those in favor of Mr. Coe's petition signify by saying aye. (Unanimous response.) CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Opposed, same sign. (No response.) CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Motion passes 7-0. MR. NADEAU: Thank you, council members. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: You're welcome. Okay. Mr. Carlson has a request, Barbara. MR. CARLSON: That map and Mr. Lenberger's comments are the best explanation I have seen of where the Deltona line is and how all that played out. Could we please have a copy of that map for future reference? MS. BURGESON: We can mail that out to the EAC members. MR. CARLSON: Thank you. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. MR. BELLOWS: For the record, my name is Ray Bellows. I'm a principal planner with planning services staff. Petitioner is proposing to rezone the subject 204-acre site from agriculture and RSF-3 to a planned unit development to be known as Walnut Lakes. As you can see on the visualizer, it's located on the north side of Tamiami Trail approximately two miles east of Collier Boulevard. The proposed 240-acre PUD is a mixed-use development consisting of multi-family and single-family residential, an assisted- living facility, golf course, and a neighborhood village center to serve the residents of the community. The project is designed around the golf course and lakes. As you can see on the master plan, the lakes are intermittent throughout the middle, and the golf course comes around the side. The preserve area is along the north and in the southeast comer. The subject site is consistent with the future land-use element. Page 26 August 7, 2001 Here, this is a copy of the future land-use map. The subject site where the arrow points is urban residential. It has a base density of four units per acre in this area. The petitioner is proposing development of three units per acre. The village center commercial is consistent with the PUD requirements for location of the village center. It's consistent with all elements of the Growth Management Plan. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them. Otherwise, Mr. Lenberger will do the environmental review. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Questions. Yes, ma'am. MS. SANTORO: Is it within the growth management line? I thought it was -- MR. BELLOWS: The growth management line? MS. SANTORO: Yeah. I thought it was a mile west of 951. MR. BELLOWS: Yeah. The striped area here is the urban fringe. This area here is -- you can't see it very well on this map, but it's yellow. It's the urban residential area, so it is designated urban residential. So the one-mile part goes -- it stretches out right up to this line right here. Maybe I can zero in on it a little more. The line comes up here and here, and that's basically urban residential, the same as up in here. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. MR. CARLSON: Your map is not as good as the Deltona settlement map. MR. BELLOWS: No, it's not as good. I'll never get a better quality map. Is that it? CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Yeah. Mr. Lenberger. MR. LENBERGER: For the record, Stephen Lenberger, development services. The subject property is located on the East Trail. The area along the wall shows the site outlined in red. Most of the site -- and it's a little deceiving looking at the aerial -- is disturbed Page 27 August 7, 2001 and altered. Historically, there was a project called the Naples Isle project. It was supposed to be a subdivision. With approval of that subdivision -- and Stan and I looked in the file at the site plan -- this lake was dug. The fill was dumped in the surrounding area. And although it looks vegetated around the area indicated as "lake," much of it is just Brazilian pepper, Australian pine, just exotics and grasses. The subject property is located -- a portion of the subject property is located in the Deltona settlement area, and that would be the larger piece here. This area is identified as this red block north of Tamiami Trail on the Deltona settlement map, and it's all indicated in red as an area to be developed in the Deltona settlement area. This portion here, 21 acres, is outside the Deltona settlement area. Native habitats on site are primarily restricted to this portion of the property outside the settlement area, and they're mostly pine flatwoods, pine cypress mix, as well as some palmetto prairies. There is some cypress in this portion of the property as well as some live oak area. I believe it's in this area right here. For impacts to wetlands, the subject site has 71.46 acres of wetlands. Pretty much most of the area outside the Deltona settlement area is wetlands. There are some uplands in there, obviously the palmetto prairie, but most of it is wetlands. The petitioner will be impacting 84 percent of the wetlands on site. Now, granted, a lot of those wetlands fall within the Deltona settlement area. The petitioner will also be impacting a fair amount of wetlands here. As mitigation for those wetland impacts, the petitioner is proposing to create wetlands along the north portion of the property in this area on the aerial, as well as this portion here, putting the cypress area in this portion down here. The subject property is indicated right here. This is the Naples Page 28 August 7, 2001 Reserve PUD, which I believe is currently under construction right now. The reason they're doing the mitigation at the north end of the preserve is to align with the preservation at the south end of Naples Reserve. If you're not familiar with Naples Reserve, the native vegetation on the property pretty much is in this comer of the property. There were some native areas here, but most of this is farm field. That's why they have most of the preserve at this end of the property. They did a protected species survey on site. They didn't find any. The project meets the 25 percent native vegetation requirement. They're preserve 25 acres -- I mean, 21 acres of vegetation on the site. Technically, they would only have to preserve 5.25 acres for impacting this portion outside the Deltona settlement area. The petitioner is here, as well as their environmental consultant, to answer any questions you may have. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Yes, sir. Go ahead. MR. CARLSON: So when the Deltona settlement deal was cut, the areas in red were exempted from preserve requirements -- natural -- from preserve requirements; is that correct? MR. LENBERGER: That's right. They were identified as developable areas. Some of them were indicated in the ElS done by the Army Corps of Engineers as uplands. Some were just indicated as areas to be for construction, but they're all identified areas for development. MR. CARLSON: That's the crux of my question here. Did the regulatory agencies say, "We're not going to exert jurisdiction over the wetlands in those red areas"? MR. LENBERGER: Pretty much no mitigation is required. That's my understanding in areas indicated in red on that map in the Deltona settlement area. And there's no preservation by the county Page 29 August 7, 2001 for areas indicated in red on that map because the lands were set aside in other portions of the Deltona settlement area to satisfy the county's requirement. MR. CARLSON: I mean, that's a really important question. Is there an expert in the house? CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: The petitioner may have a comment on it. MR. PASSARELLA: Good morning. Ken Passarella with Passarella & Associates here on behalf of the petitioner. Real quick, I'm not a, quote, expert on the Deltona settlement agreement. It was before my time. But I can tell you it's my understanding that the areas in red did have identified wetlands on them, and the wetland impacts were assumed when they colored those areas in as red. And the areas or the remainder of the property was set aside as mitigation for those impacts. So the wetlands that are being impacted in the areas in red were accounted for by the preservation of the remainder of the wetlands on the property. So there was mitigation done. As Steve mentioned those areas are considered mitigated for. So there are wetlands on the property that have to be accounted for with the water management district. They keep a running tabulation of all the wetlands within those development areas, and they account for those impacts. It's an internal bookkeeping process. But all the mitigation has been done up front by the preservation and the setting aside of those other areas on the map. MR. CARLSON: Which would be the areas that look black to me? MR. PASSARELLA: Correct, yes. MR. LENBERGER: Yeah. Both of the areas, black and blue. Some of it is open water bodies, of course. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Yes, sir. Mr. Hill. MR. HILL: Correct me if I'm wrong, but Naples Reserve came Page 30 August 7, 2001 before us a couple years ago, and as I remember, they made some definite strides toward handling the waterflow south from their property. Does anybody remember that? Is that going to flow on to this property? MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Stan Chrzanowski from community development. I think July Adarmes has been pursuing that with the developer. The water management district has looked at it. I don't know. I don't remember which way they're running their water. MR. HILL: It seems to me they made a very, very concerted effort to handle that flowing south, and I didn't see anything in the staff report relative to that. MS. MINOR: Good morning. My name is July Adarmes Minor, senior engineer for the stormwater management department. spoke to the district a couple of days ago to understand this project a little bit better. The Naples Reserve is not taking any off-site flows. The Winding Cypress, which is on 951, is taking most of the off-site flows in that big region. So this one has old berm around it. There's no off-site flows coming into this project, the Walnut Lakes, or the Naples Reserve. They are discharging directly into 41 through their access road; is that correct? MR. PASSARELLA: Yes. MR. HILL: I stand corrected. It was Winding Cypress that came before us that had the -- MS. MINOR: And they're taking all the outside flows. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Those Winding Cypress guys are really good guys. MR. HILL: Really? Do you have that on good authority, Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Uh-huh. MR. HILL: Yeah. It was Winding Cypress. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Do we have further I Page 31 August 7, 2001 questions for staff or for petitioner? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Again, hearing none, what's the pleasure? Have we heard from everyone? We heard Steve. We heard everybody involved; right? Okay. MR. HILL: I have one just very minor one. I don't know. On page 2 of the staff report, it says the final density will be approximately three units per acre. Does the petitioner have any more exact figure than that? MS. BISHOP: Karen Bishop, agent for the owner. Density -- we're asking for three units to each acre. It may end up being less by virtue of how many single family you do versus how many assisted living. We have a conversion rate in there for assisted living to single-family and multi-family units. So at this time we can't really do that. Actually, most of my projects end up building less just by virtue of whatever the market is. So they may start out saying, "Here's the maximum we're going to do," but it's all based on what the market is going to bear. MR. HILL: Part of the case was to reduce it from 4 to 3, and then approximately 3 to -- I was just curious if you had a better figure. MS. BISHOP: No, sir. MR. CARLSON: Since you're there. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Go right ahead, Mr. Carlson. MR. CARLSON: Would you describe what the preserve area is going to look like at the north end of this project and how it's going to integrate with the one to the north. Is it all going to be planted from a scraped downgrade, or is there something there already that can be preserved? MR. PASSARELLA: Well, let me go to the map over there, if I may. As Steve mentioned what we tried to do is tie into the Naples Page 32 August 7, 2001 Reserve preserve area located to the north of the site. Unfortunately, this part of the site here, as Steve described, has been previously disturbed. This area was all ag field, as far as I know, back as far as in the '70s, and then around 1980 they excavated the lake here, and then they spread the fill around the property. So this stuff was all disturbed. There has been some revegetation that has happened naturally in this area here, and we're trying to save some of those cypress areas that have come back naturally. This area up here is -- there's really nothing there worth saving at this point. So this is a system we're going to have to actually restore. We're going to have to move some dirt, and we're going to have to come in and plant vegetation. The idea here is that we're going to be planting a forested system, so we're going to be planting with, you know, cypress and pine and material like that. We're going to try to tie it into this system here. We're going to preserve a portion of this area here so we can create this connection and bring it on up into here. Unfortunately, the area that is existing native vegetation, if we were to stay out of this area, this area would become isolated within the landscape surrounded by this development, and this development, and this neighborhood over here. And then there's more ag over here that will -- you know, that's over in this area that's already developed. So what we try to do is create something in here that would compliment the preserve area to the north. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay? MR. CARLSON: Okay. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: staff or for the petitioner? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: All right. All right. Any other questions for Hearing none, what's the Page 3 3 August 7, 2001 pleasure of the council? MR. CARLSON: Okay. When I look at this project, I hate the 80 percent wetland loss, but I think there's -- it's a very unusual project with the predisturbance and it's location in the Deltona settlement area, so I'm going to move for approval. MR. COE: I'll second it. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Moved by Mr. Carlson and seconded by Mr. Coe. Questions? Discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Hearing none, all in favor of Mr. Carlson's motion signify by saying aye. MR. SOLING: Aye. MR. COE: Aye. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Aye. MR. CARLSON: Aye. MS. LYNNE: Aye. MR. HILL: Aye. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Opposed, same sign. MS. SANTORO: Aye. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Motion passes 6-1. Okay. MR. BELLOWS: For the record, my name is Ray Bellows. The petitioner is requesting to amend the Indigo Lakes PUD to add approximately 40 acres of land to the site without changing the actual number of dwelling units approved for the existing Indigo Lakes PUD. As a result the density from the proposed additional land will decrease from 3.14 dwelling units per acre to 2.43 dwelling units per acre. As you can see on the visualizer, the subject site is located on the west side of County Road 951 just south of the elementary school. It goes back in along the section line. In the petitioner's project, the added land is located to the south. Page 34 August 7, 2001 I have a copy of the master plan to show where the added lands are. Basically, the agriculture zoned lands are along this portion of the southern property line and then down in here. The amendment is consistent with the Growth Management Plan and the Future Land Use Element since none of the previously approved density will be increased or the number of dwelling units will be increased and no other use changes are proposed. They're just adding these additional lands. I'll be happy to answer any questions. Oh -- and I'd also like to point out that I have a memo from stormwater management. They would like the petitioner to add two stipulations to the stormwater management section of the PUD document. The first one is prior to approval of construction plans, a 20-foot drainage easement along the west property line of the parcels shall be dedicated to the county for access and maintenance of the adjacent canal as required by the Harvey Basin stormwater management plan. The second stipulation is Section 4.9 of the PUD document shall be revised to read, "Stormwater management" department director instead of "water management." That's all I have as additional stipulations. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Steve, do we have any questions? Any questions of staff?. MR. LENBERGER: For the record, Stephen Lenberger, development services. The Indigo Lakes PUD is an existing PUD, as Ray mentioned. The petition here is to add two 20-acre parcels roughly here and here. It's these pieces right here. From the map it looks like the native vegetation preservation was pretty scant. It only included these two areas. You have to remember that much of Indigo Lakes PUD was farm field historically. You can see that on this aerial. These are the two parcels to be added. This is some of the original PUD. You can see it was a farm. Page 35 August 7, 2001 Vegetation on site is mostly pine-cypress mix, pine. This particular site is heavily impacted with melaleuca. Of the 40 acres to be added to the PUD, about 25 acres are wetlands. The petitioner will be impacting almost 18 acres of wetlands. As far as mitigation is concerned, the petitioner will have some preservation areas, and they will do on-site restoration and removal of exotics as well as replanting of the native species. They have proposed some off-site mitigation. The last I heard it was 1.46 mitigation credits to purchase the site. The protected-species survey did not reveal any protected species on site. Do you have any questions? I would be glad to answer them. The petitioner is here as well as their environmental consultant. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Questions for staff?. Questions for the petitioner? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: I'd just like to ask a question of the petitioner. I mean, it's got to run -- I don't quite follow you. I see the additional land, but just run through what you guys are doing here. MR. PASSARELLA: As far as the two additional parcels there? CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Yes, sir. MR. PASSARELLA: Sure. Ken Passarella with Passarella & Associates. I'm here on behalf of the petitioner. The project is for the addition of two 20-acre parcels, as Steve described, on the south end of Indigo Lakes. The idea there is to add additional residential units in those areas. I have the project planner and project engineer to address specific questions as far as the units and the road layout and the lakes and that type of thing. With respect to the environmental items, those areas south of the existing Indigo Lake, as Steve mentioned, are heavily infested with melaleuca. There are jurisdictional wetlands in there which we will be impacting. We have set up a preserve area on site and are looking Page 36 August 7, 2001 at mitigating off-site for wetland impacts. Now, specific questions to the site plan, I can have somebody else answer those if that's what you have. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Questions? MR. SOLING: I have a question. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Yes, sir. MR. SOLING: Just out of curiosity, you're adding housing on these two sites, and you're adding roads from the existing site. Do you have houses where the roads are being extended, or have you left the space vacant to build onto? I'm just curious. MS. BISHOP: Karen Bishop, agent for the owner. We originally had plans that showed housing along those. We are in the process now after our petition is completed to replat those area. We have not built those into those areas. That's a phase. That's for the future. But we will be changing that design to accommodate the access through this project, the existing project. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Do we have any input from the public on this item? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Hearing none, do we have any further questions for the petitioner? Yes, sir, Mr. Carlson. MR. CARLSON: Just so I completely understand, you're adding 40 acres to the site which is dominated by jurisdictional wetlands. You're not asking for additional units, but you're going to relocate units that were already approved into jurisdictional wetland areas. Is that just -- is the goal there just to lower the density of the development? MS. BISHOP: No, sir. Actually, when you look at this whole neighborhood where these last pieces are, this is predominantly in the area of these 20-acre parcels. You're bounded on the north by Indigo Page 37 August 7, 2001 Lakes. You're bounded on the west by Island Walk. You're bounded on the east by 951. You're bounded on the south by Wolfe's Road. What you have there is a series of these 20-acre parcels, some farm, some not, and what has happened over the years -- Island Walk used to be a big farm field, and they had these huge pipes. For years and years and years there was pumping in this area. What has happened is the pumping stopped, and now you're getting a tremendous amount of melaleuca and infestations there. What's happening is the district has looked at this area as a whole and has seen that each of these 20-acre parcels could be developed on their own, and access to these pieces are going to disjoint this whole section. There's no flow-way here. The stuff is becoming highly infested. And so what they're looking at is trying to create corridors of preserves from project to project, which is what we're doing. Our project preserve connects to another approved project called Brittany Bay, which has some preserves to it. So what we're trying to do is trying to create a corridor out of these disjointed 20-acre parcels. Some of these people, I think, at one time had tried to assimilate a bunch of them together. I think farther south there's some other cypress heads that are nicer, and it doesn't work out that those are going to be in development. In any kind of development scheme that I can see, those are definitely going to preserve -- this is, like, the fringes of those areas that the district is looking at as trying to keep continuity for preserves. MR. CARLSON: Then why wouldn't it be appropriate to have a preserve on the south boundary of that southeast corner? MS. BISHOP: Actually-- MR. CARLSON: You can almost hook those up and then on the -- you can almost hook those preserves up across the south end of this property. MS. BISHOP: Actually, during our negotiations with the Page 38 August 7, 2001 district, we, in fact, have done that. That master plan will be updated based on the latest district's agreement. We are in the process now of doing that, but they did negotiate with us to do that. I do have a picture of what the plan is going to look like, but it does, in fact, wrap around that bottom piece now. MR. CARLSON: So does that mean there's less wetland impact? MR. PASSARELLA: Yes. If you were to look at your EIS -- I don't know -- Figure 4 in the actual document. MR. CARLSON: Is there a page? MR. PASSARELLA: That would be page 8. I'll step over to the drawing that Steve just put up over there. MR. PASSARELLA: This is preserve on the existing Indigo Lakes, this little comer here. This was the proposed preserve here. This preserve area has been added to the plan. So this ties in down here, and then this preserve is here. When this piece would be developed, this preserve would then connect up through here, and this preserve connects to another off-site preserve over here. MR. CARLSON: You could connect them in this project right there. MR. PASSARELLA: Right there. Well, what we did was in negotiating out this with the water management district, these are the areas that made sense to connect the preserve up. The habitat in this area is of poor quality, and the idea was that this piece -- when this piece comes in, all these would be connected up together. MR. CARLSON: Are you saying that -- MS. BISHOP: Excuse me. Those are uplands too. Karen Bishop, again, for the agent. Those are uplands on that one comer there, not wetlands. So we are not impacting wetlands there. MR. CARLSON: But since you are impacting 80 percent of the wetlands that you're acquiring, it would be nice to have some upland Page 39 August 7, 2001 preservation there. MR. PASSARELLA: Those areas have been disturbed from the farm fields, and there's really not much native vegetation left in that little comer there. So there's really not much left to preserve. MR. CARLSON: All right. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Yes, ma'am. MS. LYNNE: I don't understand. The point of wetlands -- the county policy is to direct development away from impacting wetlands. You have clustered the development all in one place and have approved that, and now you're asking us to move that development into wetlands, and that seems like the opposite of county policy. MR. PASSARELLA: As Karen touched upon, we have been looking at this area from a bigger picture. Unfortunately there was -- Tim Durham from WilsonMiller was going to be here, and he's working on a study that's looking at these areas from a standpoint of what's in the basin and working with the water management district on identifying areas that, from a basin-wide standpoint, are areas that they can identify as impacts without creating overall cumulative impacts within the basin. This Harvey Basin area here -- and I can put up a little aerial I have and try to explain this the best I can. Unfortunately Tim's not here. I don't know how well you can see this aerial here, especially all the way down at the far end there, but this is the project site right here. This is a recent aerial of the property. These are the two additional 20-acre parcels that we're looking at right here. The ownership pattern, as Karen mentioned, in this area is scattered. These are 20-acre pieces that are coming in and being developed either one or two together or by themselves or three to four together. This area is building in and developing in here. Now, the water management district has looked at this area from Page 40 August 7, 2001 the standpoint of what the existing vegetation is, the current hydrology of this area, the potential for restoring or creating flow- ways through this area, as part of the overall West Collier drainage basin. And this is a particular area where they've looked at, and we've got a high degree of exotic infestation in here. We've got problems with the hydrology and the wetland. As Karen mentioned, historically, these farm fields here used to pump into these wetlands here; that would alter the hydrology during the wet season. When there was too much water, they dumped all the water in here, and these areas had elevated water levels. During the dry season, there wasn't water there because the farm fields were using the water themselves, and these wetlands remain dry. The draining in this area from the Cocohatchee Canal north and the canal on 951 and all the other drainage areas or ditches have basically drained these wetlands. Historically, a good portion of this area was jurisdictional wetlands. To date, the majority of the wetlands up in this area are no longer jurisdictional. They have not been exerted jurisdiction over by the agencies. So this is a system that's in decline. It's -- the hydrology is no longer there to support these wetlands. You have exotic infestation coming into these areas, and you have an ownership pattern that doesn't allow or lend itself to preserving large portions of this. As such, based on the study that Tim Durham had been working on and in working with the water management district, they have identified this area as an area that would be acceptable as far as wetland impacts, where other parts of the basin, around here in the West Collier Basin, you know, may not be acceptable for impacts. But that's why we're moving into these areas in here, because the water management district and the Corps of Engineers and other folks have looked at this and identified this area as an area that would be Page 41 August 7, 2001 acceptable for wetland impacts. MR. CARLSON: Have we got some documentation of that with this? MR. PASSARELLA: Unfortunately, one, we were hoping that Tim would be here and, two, we were hoping that the water management staff would be here. Unfortunately, Karen Johnson is not here, because she's been part of those negotiations. They've been also working with Rob Robbins in the West Palm Beach office on this as well, so I can't speak on their behalf. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Yes, ma'am. MS. LYNNE: For staff, in the new wetlands policy where Class III would be the most disturbed type wetlands, what was the major impact we're considering for those, I mean, the maximum amount of impact for Class III wetlands? MR. LORENZ: For the record, Bill Lorenz, natural resources director. We specified 50 percent that's allowed to be directly impacted. We would allow it to go all the way up to 100 percent if there was appropriate offsetting upland mitigation. MS. LYNNE: If there were appropriate -- MR. LORENZ: Offsetting upland protection. MS. LYNNE: Okay. And then how much -- what's the percentage impact on this new additional property? MR. PASSARELLA: We're looking at 63 percent, so we're slightly above the 50 percent. MS. LYNNE: So 20 percent above the 50 percent. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: 13 percent. Okay. Other questions for the petitioner? Staff?. No one from the public wants to comment on it? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: What's the pleasure? MR. SOLING: I'll move for approval. Page 42 August 7, 2001 CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Mr. Soling moves for approval. Do I hear a second? MR. CARLSON: Discussion. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Mr. Carlson. Questions? Discussion? MR. CARLSON: I hate to be put in this spot. You know, I don't think this was complete as presented. We don't have the documentation from the district. Even if the district wasn't here, any kind of correspondence or anything from them with this would have helped. You know, the ordinance to avoid wetland impacts, you know, I don't understand -- I really don't understand the motivation of maintaining the density and buying wetlands and moving into them. I just -- somehow that's just not -- I just don't understand that. I would -- having heard the motion, I would not vote in favor of that at this time, but perhaps an extension where we can get more information from the district for the overall planning in this area, because we're going to have other projects coming to us. I think we might as well know what's going on there up front. It's news to me that there's an overall plan for this basin, and if we've got projects coming to us, I mean, we need to know that. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Could you request the maker of the motion to revise his motion to add such language? Mr. Soling, would you be willing to do that? MR. SOLING: Yes, I would. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: And that revision would be to request a continuance until we have South Florida -- now, what would that do to us on the schedule before the Planning Commission and the County Commission? MS. BURGESON: It would just require that -- in the past the Planning Commission has required that petitions go to the EAC prior Page 43 August 7, 2001 to them hearing them. So if it is scheduled to go to CCPC later this month, they would just need to continue that or reschedule that hearing. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Yes, ma'am. MS. STUDENT: Just a point of clarification. Is the motion then being amended by the motion maker from one of approval to a continuance? MR. SOLING: Yes. MS. STUDENT: Thank you. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Yes, ma'am. MS. LYNNE: I'd like to agree with Mr. Carlson and also ask -- I don't know who's responsible for this, but it seems to me to be a routine problem that projects are being presented to us with critical pieces of information missing. Is there anything that we can do or that staff can do when they're discussing this with petitioners to make sure that all the information is available, because this wastes everybody's time? CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Steve. MR. LENBERGER: I guess the question would be, how much or what degree of information do you need as far as the wetland impacts? What are you looking for? We would be more than glad to request those of the petitioner prior to coming and writing a staff report, but we'd like to know what degree or level of comfort you're looking for. MS. LYNNE: That's a good question. But, for example, in this -- it just seem to me if-- maybe that's why we're the EAC and not staff or the petitioner. When I look at this, there's not enough information. If there's really a master plan, that should have been presented to us. That seems fairly obvious. I don't think that's something I should have to suggest. MS. LYNNE: That's a good question. But, for example, in this Page 44 August 7, 2001 -- it just seem to me if-- maybe that's why we're the EAC and not staff or the petitioner. When I look at this, there's not enough information. If there's really a master plan, that should have been presented to us. That seems fairly obvious. I don't think that's something I should have to suggest. If you guys are aware of the proposed classification systems where even a Class III -- assuming this is a Class III wetlands -- would only allow 50 percent impact, this seems to be going entirely against county -- CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Remember, that is not -- it's a proposed ordinance. That is not the law at this point. MS. LYNNE: This isn't the law, but the current policy does say that we are to direct development away from wetlands, and this project specifically puts current development into wetlands. So there's just a lot of problems with this. MS. BURGESON: What I can recommend from what I'm hearing you say is that if it appears to staff that the impacts to wetlands are against Collier County either comprehensive policies or Land Development Code policies, then you would ask us to present to you with the staff report justification from South Florida Water Management District for those impacts. MS. LYNNE: Yeah. Sounds great. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: I think what we have here is -- and staff has done a good job presenting this. Normally Miss Johnson or somebody from the district is here to answer those kind of questions. I think your question could probably be answered if they were here. Unfortunately, they're not. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: If I may-- Stan Chrzanowski from development services. If you-all go back and check your e-mails, I think on Monday -- CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Exactly. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: -- you got the e-mail from Karen Page 45 August 7, 2001 Johnson saying that she would not be here -- CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Right. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: -- and she had no major problems with this project or with any of the other projects we heard today. I forwarded that to everyone. We always check with them a couple days ahead of time to see if they're going to be here or if they do have any problems with it. I'm not aware of any Harvey Basin study that they're doing, but I do know that about six or seven years ago John Boldt did a study on the entire Harvey Basin, and we've been going by their discharge rates and their off-site flows ever since. If the district's doing one, it's news to me, but I'd like to see it too. I don't see how it affects what's going on here. That's just -- CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Mr. Carlson. MR. CARLSON: Stan, a lot of us work for a living, and we have other jobs and are on the road and out of town, as I was yesterday. So an e-mail the day before the meeting doesn't always get to me, and that sort of information should be in our package so we can review it. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: The packages are done well ahead of time. We don't always know that the district is not going to show up. This time Karen had intended on being here, but something came up, and she had to cover a meeting for Chip Merriam, so she went to that meeting instead. Like I said, with me it's always just a reminder to them, "Hey, we've got a meeting coming up. Are you coming down? And if you're not coming down, do you have anything you want me to go over with the board?" This time she had nothing or apparently thought it was not important enough to send anybody down either. You'll probably see that when you get back and check your e-mails. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: I did read the e-mail. Miss Lynne. Page 46 August 7, 2001 MS. LYNNE: I didn't receive that e-mail, so I'll look into that with whoever sent it out. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: I think I'm lacking two of your e-mail addresses. I noticed that when I was sending them out. I got one back that the e-mail is no longer active either. It might have been yours. MS. LYNNE: So you may need a new e-mail address. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Yes, ma'am. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Go ahead and check on that. MS. LYNNE: If I could just say, I do not mean this as criticism to staff. I just meant this as an observation of things that I've seen coming in here. I don't think you guys are doing anything wrong. I just see sort of a chronic problem, and I'm hoping that petitioners and staff and everybody can work together to have this information when we meet. MR. PASSARELLA: Well, I have to apologize from the standpoint that, you know, unfortunately Tim was not here. Tim is ill today, and he couldn't be here, and Karen Johnson couldn't be here. So the two people we're relying upon, you know, hopefully one of them could make it, and neither of them made it. So this was additional information that we were going to provide to the EAC to help you-all in your decision. This is no reflection on the staff report or the EIS. This was additional supporting information that we thought would be helpful in your decision. So, you know, I don't reflect that upon staff, you know, not having that in the staff report. But what we focused on in the EIS is the particulars of this particular site. This additional information became, you know, available, and we wanted to present it to you-all. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: If I could ask the petitioner a question on this. We have a motion on the table right now for a continuance. I would like to, you know, have your thoughts on your Page 47 August 7, 2001 preference of this situation, and then put this before the council. A continuance means going back on the schedule and going back for an additional month on the Board of County Commission and Planning Commission's schedule versus proceeding as we are proceeding and taking the risk that you're going to get a negative vote from this council. Which of those two would you prefer? MS. BISHOP: Unfortunately, we really do need to move forward. With the vacation of the board as it is, the schedules being moved puts us in jeopardy of contracts that we have for that site, and we need to get moving on that. So, unfortunately, even though I certainly am sympathetic -- and believe me, the reports that Tim had - - I mean, he became very ill last night. This wasn't something that's been ongoing, or we would have had someone else come and speak for him. But we really do need to have a vote, and we really do need to move forward as much as -- and we can forward you this information, which will substantiate that. And since Karen Johnson did e-mail Stan, I feel confident that you can -- she would have spoken up had there been a problem, like she does on any other project that comes before you, so I would respectfully request a vote. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. What's the pleasure? Mr. Soling? MR. SOLING: I'm at a loss right now. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Excuse me? MS. LYNNE: Which way do you want to go on your motion? MR. SOLING: I guess I'll go back to my original motion, and we'll see how it goes. I move the approval. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Yes, ma'am. MS. LYNNE: I have a question. Is it up to the petitioner for whether we do a continuance? Can we vote for a continuance? I mean, is that -- Page 48 August 7, 2001 CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: No. It's not up to the petitioner, but I just asked the petitioner to let council know what their preference would be. MS. LYNNE: Okay. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Now, if the maker of the motion after hearing that from the petitioner determines that he would like to revise his motion, that's entirely up to the maker of the motion. If the motion fails and we want to put another motion on the table, I don't know where we go from there. The first time we had a motion on the table to approve the project. We had a second to that motion from Mr. Carlson. Do you continue with that second, Mr. Carlson? MR. CARLSON: No. I withdraw my second. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. What's the pleasure? Mr. Hill. MR. HILL: I can be sympathetic towards what we've before been asking from water management and perhaps the Harvey Basin study. To me we are looking at it as having a non-negative impact on the rest of it rather than a positive impact. I don't see a justification for approving this expansion and encroachment into questionable lands simply by saying we don't think it's going to negatively impact the rest of those areas. I would vote for disapproval as presented. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. We don't have a second to the motion that's on the table right now, so the motion dies for lack of a second. Okay. Do we have a replacement motion? MR. CARLSON: I'll move -- I appreciate your problems with timing, but I would move to continue until we get further information on this, specifically from the water management district and not just WilsonMiller. MS. STUDENT: Just a point of clarification. Would that be a Page 49 August 7, 2001 continuance, then, until the September meeting? MR. CARLSON: Yes. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. There's a motion on the table by Mr. Carlson to continue this item until the September meeting and request staff and the petitioner to have information to us from South Florida and their professionals additionally. MS. SANTORO: I'll second it. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Second by Santoro. Any questions on that or discussion on that motion? MR. HILL: I prefer we go the other way. If you're going to assist the petitioner, I'd rather us go through, in my mind, with a disapproval which would allow it to go through into the process but with our disapproval based on not having proper information. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: I concur with you, sir, but that motion failed for lack of a second, so let's vote on what we have. We have a motion on the table for a continuance. All in favor of that motion signify by saying aye. MR. SOLING: Aye. MS. SANTORO: Aye. MR. CARLSON: Aye. MS. LYNNE: Aye. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: THE COURT REPORTER: CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: and Lynne; correct? MR. COE: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: MR. COE: Aye. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: MR. HILL: Aye. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: That's four votes. What four? We have Soling, Santoro, Carlson, Against the motion say aye. Aye. Coe, Sansbury, and Hill. So the Page 50 August 7, 2001 motion does not pass; is that correct? MS. SANTORO: Uh-huh. Try another one. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Do I hear another motion? What are we going to do here? Are we going to take action on this item? MR. HILL: I move that we recommend disapproval of this project because of insufficient information regarding the full impact of the encroachment on the lands -- the added lands in question. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. MR. HILL: And that this necessary positive -- the necessary impact be substantiated by the water management district. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Do I hear a second to that motion? MR. COE: I'll second it. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: (No response.) CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Hearing none, all in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. (Unanimous response.) CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Opposed, same sign. (No response.) CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Motion passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Miss Burgeson-- we lost our folks, didn't we? MR. COE: Yeah, they left. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: THE COURT REPORTER: CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Seconded by Mr. Coe. Discussion. You may want to give her a break. Okay. Do we need a little break? Sure. Okay. Let's take five. (A break was held from 10:35 a.m. to 10:47 a.m.) CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: All right. MR. HILL: Mr. Chairman-- Page 51 August 7, 2001 CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Yes, sir. MR. HILL: -- when they do come back, would you ask, I guess, Barb to produce a new member list with appropriate addresses. MR. COE: I think there's one on the internet site, isn't there? CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Mine's getting a little -- MR. COE: I think the one on the internet site has got the names and addresses and e-mail addresses and all that business. MR. HILL: Of the council? MR. COE: I'm assuming that it's up to date. The last time I checked it was. MS. SANTORO: I had trouble getting into it. I think a printed one would be in order for everybody in case they don't have e-mail. MR. SOLING: That means you have to know the internet address. MS. MR. MR. MR. MR. MR. SANTORO: That's right. HILL: Is it Colliergov.net? CARLSON: Yes. HILL: That would be the web address? CARLSON: And then you go to -- HILL: EAC? MR. COE: I think there is a site for committees, and then it kind of gets you in there. I don't know. I just -- I don't know how to do it. I just do it. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. The young gentleman at the podium would like to speak. MR. LORENZ: Yes. Thank you. For the record, Bill Lorenz, natural resources director. The item in front of you is to have council further discuss the wetland policies. Everything that we've been doing here recently is, quite frankly, more of a discussion of the classification system that staff initially proposed, and that's the November 8th, 2000, draft that we presented to the EAC back then. Page 52 August 7, 2001 The other objective would be also to allow for the public to comment on the wetland policies. Again, I kind of break it down to a classification system. There was a lot of problems that everybody had with how do we bring in the idea of functionality in the classification system. Once we determine the appropriate classification system, then we can kind of go on and look at further details of the impacts, the allowable impacts, on the wetlands with all of the -- with the additional level of details in the policy knowing, of course, to some degree some of this is an integrative process, and you go back and forth a little bit. But what I would like to try to get from the council is some really good input on what would be your preference for the classification system. Now, I have two documents here -- and I've got some extras for the public as well -- but there's two documents. One is this November 8th, 2000, document that you have been provided and are working through the comments on. The second is the document that I believe we got into your hands that says, "Possible alternatives for wetland classification, August 7, 2001, EAC meeting." This was supposed to have been mailed out to you. I can see some people have it. I see some people -- okay, everybody has it. MR. CARLSON: I've got that one, but what was that first document? MR. LORENZ: This was the original GOPs, the county-wide policies. MR. CARLSON: Okay. MR. LORENZ: Again, for the public, we've got some extra copies up here. Let me first just run down it just so everybody has the appropriate context here. Working off of this document, which is the possible alternatives for wetland classifications, again, the current proposal that you have -- that we have is -- we looked at the initial descriptions of the wetlands, the functional descriptions then, having Page 53 August 7, 2001 columns for melaleuca, hydrologic connection, and wetland vegetation. It seems like for the comments that we received from not only the council but everybody else, it pretty much doesn't seem to be pursuing that particular alternative. So I think we can, to some degree, put that aside. The second alternative that we can look at is, to some degree, have a proposal for looking at the school of classification scheme of Class I, Class II, Class III, and then incorporated WRAP scores. And when I say the WRAP score, for the public, it's the -- WRAP is an acronym for Wetland Rapid Assessment Procedure. This particular procedure is being conducted by the South Florida Water Management District. So it's a kind of functional assessment. I'll let everybody also know that the state is pursuing a uniform functional assessment methodology, and ultimately -- certainly it's staff's recommendation whatever the state adopts we should be using that functional assessment. Sometimes I'll say WRAP and functional assessment, and at the moment I'm kind of meaning the two terms to be the same thing. Then we have the ability to specify the classification of wetlands and modify them based upon their functional assessment. Typically 100 percent functional assessment means that you have 100 percent functioning wetlands that -- it's doing everything that it's supposed to do. On the other end of the scale, as you get closer and closer to zero, you basically have a trash system that's so altered that it doesn't perform a lot of functions. The other thing you need to realize is in terms of the functional assessment systems, both the WRAP with the South Florida Water Management District and the state system that's proposed -- they basically concentrate on vegetation and wildlife issues. They do not provide functional assessment for storage, flood attenuation, and for recharge. So you have to realize that even though we're modifying Page 54 August 7, 2001 the functional assessment here, it doesn't encompass those other functions. So you have to keep that in mind. However, it's still a very good tool for us to try to identify certain wetland systems that are so severely altered that they no longer function properly. Therefore, our classification system, then, is dependent upon a WRAP or functional assessment score. And that's basically the Alternative II that we provided for you to review, and we can get more detailed in that. In fact, you have the report -- you have the report that I provided to look at the classification systems -- Class I, Class II, Class III -- using the functional assessment. If I can get Barbara to hand this out. I know she's also handed out some comments that we received from one of the biological consultants in town, and I've kind of summarized his classification system in a tabular form just so we can talk about some of the elements again. MS. LYNNE: Excuse me. Did you say that we have some kind of recommendation from a biologist? Which is that? MR. LORENZ: Barbara, did you pass that out? MS. BURGESON: Did I hand it out? MS. LYNNE: It's titled "I. Wetlands Protection." MR. LORENZ: It has a -- on the right-hand side it has "Draft-2 (8-20-01)" on it. MS. LYNNE: Okay. Thank you. MR. LORENZ: We did receive some written comments for that. In this particular alternative, he's incorporated size into the classification system. So he's looking at making some breaks of greater or less than 10 acres tied with the functional assessment, and he also basically broke the descriptions down for the wetlands looking at a natural surface water body and adjacent wetland buffer and then any other wetland. So that's the approach that he's kind of taken. Page 55 August 7, 2001 Again, if I summarized the table of my handwritten notes for you, it should match up with the text. But my whole point here, simply for illustration purposes, is that this is another way of trying to look at an alternative classification system that takes into account size, wetland type, and functional assessment. Again, breaking it down into three classifications, ultimately you have to answer the question, "Why is it important to classify the wetlands?" It's because each classification is going to have a different set of rules written for it in terms of how much of that wetland will be allowed to have direct impact that ultimately will still be mitigated for. But the higher-functioning wetlands system is going to have the least amount of wetland impacts. The wetland systems that -- the Class III systems are going to have higher allowable impacts, so that's ultimately what we're getting at. MR. CARLSON: I think there is a dilemna here. You know, I know part of the Governor's order directs us to classify -- to have classifications of wetlands so, you know, we feel this, you know, need to classify these wetlands. We wind up with a classification system that rates them, and in that we include size. You could have a small isolated wetland that's extremely important and perfectly functional, but just because of its size it's classified at a lower level. I just think that's wrong. I mean, it is wrong. Some of those small isolated wetlands with certain, you know, special populations of amphibians should have, you know, a value above Class I because they're unique, and they're supporting a special species. But we automatically downgrade them because they're a small wetland. I just think we're going in the wrong direction here. I don't think we're sensitive to the ecology behind what we're trying to do. MR. LORENZ: Well, I think if you wanted to elevate or have some criteria for, let's say, a small isolated wetland system that Page 56 August 7, 2001 embodies certain characteristics, we could draft-- if we have those characteristics, specify them, and we could raise that to a level of Class I if you're so inclined. MR. CARIJSON: That's why I don't think, you know, classifying them by size should be that important. I mean, if they're hydrologically intact and functioning, they should automatically be a Class I wetland. MR. LORENZ: Okay. Well, this is -- that leads down to the Alternative III that staff has just put on the table for consideration, whereby the allowable impact is determined solely by the functional assessment or the WRAP such that the impacts are proportional to the WRAP -- to basically the WRAP score. Then size doesn't enter into it at all. Location doesn't enter into it at all or type of wetland, whether it's marine, you know, a tidal wetland or a freshwater wetland, or whether it's an isolated wetland or any other characteristics that we want to give it. You just simply say that the allowable impacts are solely dependent upon the functional assessment. So what I've tried to outline for you here is the starting point where we started back almost a year ago in terms of an initial attempt at a classification scheme. There's several different alternatives for your consideration to get to in terms of the classification. Ultimately, of course, the goal is to adopt policies that translate into what we will allow the impacts to be under that broad direction from 9(J)5 that we need to -- after considering the values, types, sizes, and locations of wetland systems in Collier County, we are to direct incompatible land uses away from those systems. mitigation is always an option. allows for that. MS. LYNNE: Mr. Chairman-- CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Yeah. Also, that's recognizing that The state criteria for the comp plan Go ahead. Page 57 August 7, 2001 MS. LYNNE: I've been looking over the WRAP policy. It's 1997, so I assume there's been some updates on it. But, basically, it uses -- instead of the categories that we've been presented in the past, it utilizes wildlife utilization, wetlands, overstory, shrub, canopy, wetlands vegetative groundcover, adjacent upland-wetland buffer, field indicators of wetland hydrology, water quality input and treatment system. Not being an expert in those things, it still looks like a pretty good system to me. It's looking at functionality. It's looking at the species that are there. If something's really functioning well and has the high-quality native vegetation and animal life and water quality, then it's going to get a high rating. I think it shows real promise. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Yes, sir. MR. HILL: When we were going through those classification matrixes, I -- again, my background is not in that area -- I was very confused, and I could translate that to a petitioner and staff and everybody else trying to wind their way through that matrix of classes and functionality. Your Option III, which was discussed in great length by our subcommittee, seemed to me to take away all of these potential pitfalls and is very straightforward and includes basically three areas of functionality: Wildlife, plant life, and hydrology. Any one of those can upgrade a wetland or grade a wetland significantly on the basis of three points for the WRAP score using those three components, and it seemed to be a very clear-cut procedure, methodology, and one which took into account all of the functions of a wetland that we want to preserve and condensed it into a fairly straightforward procedure. I don't know how Ali and Ed feel about that, but that's -- MR. CARLSON: Yeah. I mean, the idea is -- we've been -- well, I've been at this reviewing projects for over a year now. You Page 58 August 7, 2001 know, we're presented with jurisdictional wetlands, and we don't say, "Well, are those flow-way wetlands? Are they adjacent to a water body? Are they this? Are they that?" No. They're jurisdictional wetlands. They're wetlands, you know. Then we say, "Well, what's the hydrology like? You know, are they viable? What's the exotics invasion? Any special listed species there?" So these are the things we do, you know, month after month after month as we review wetlands on those three criterias. That's what this graph has boiled down to, basically. MR. HILL: I don't know how we want to proceed from here, Mr. Chairman, but if it's appropriate I'd like to move that council -- MR. COE: Public comment. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Public comment. I'm sorry. Yes, sir. Michael. MR. SIMONIK: Good morning. Michael Simonik with The Conservancy of Southwest Florida. Eventually I'm going to try and be high tech and use this, so that's why I came to this podium. I think it was over a year ago when I came before the EAC and brought with me ordinances and documents from another county that has a no net-loss wetlands policy. That's really what I was looking for and The Conservancy was hoping we'd see in Collier County, no net loss of wetlands. We have not been critical of the process up until today and are still very supportive of going through with these wetland policies that staff has brought forward to you today. I'm glad-- I heard something this morning about not caring about the size. Size doesn't matter. I totally agree with Ed on that. And I'm glad we're going to include the three components: Wildlife, vegetation, and hydrology. I understand that those aren't all three included in WRAP, so I don't know what the state's going to bring -- Page 59 August 7, 2001 CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Yeah, they are. MR. SIMONIK: They are? All three are included in WRAP. Okay. But not storage and recharge? CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: That's right. MR. SIMONIK: Storage and recharge. So somehow wetlands have more value than WRAP says they have, I guess, is my point, and a lot of us know that. A lot of people who are interested in preserving wetlands don't really care if there's exotics on them. They're a wetland. They don't really care what the alterations have been. They're wetlands that need to be preserved. That's a lot of thought, a lot of people, but not mine today because I think we have to balance some private-property rights with wetlands protection. When I came here a year ago, it was because we had seen so much wetland loss in this county. And month after month, week after week I sit in the audience and watch things go through the EAC, the Planning Commission, the Board of County Commissioners, through the water management district, through the Army Corps of Engineers with wetland loss in this county and Southwest Florida. So now I'm going to give it to you visually. I'm going to get high tech. A couple weeks ago I had one of our interns investigate wetland loss in Lee and Collier County as permitted by the water management district. They have been working on it themselves as well, and they supplied us with the document of all of the approvals in 1999, year 2000, and the first 6 months of 2001. This is total wetland acreage loss in Collier and Lee County. Those are not numbers to be proud of in our county. I did this because I read in the National Geographic last month that throughout the country 20,000 acres of wetlands are impacted a year. That's 20,000 for the whole country. We're looking at close to a thousand in the year 2001 for the first six months. That says 5 percent of wetland loss in the United States of America in the year 2001 is going to Page 60 August 7, 2001 occur in Collier County, one of 67 counties in the State of Florida, one of 50 states in the union. We should be embarrassed by that. That's why we need to push this wetland ordinance, these wetland policies through. The numbers show it all. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Mr. Hill-- MR. SIMONIK: I know that the policies have -- CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: -- do you have a question? MR. SIMONIK: Do you have a question? MR. HILL: I was just wondering, was mitigation taken into account? MR. SIMONIK: This with wetlands impacted through permitting. MR. HILL: But it does not account for wetlands that were mitigated off site? MR. SIMONIK: There are no new wetlands created. There are sometimes enhanced and improved wetlands that already exist. So we still lose area-wide net loss of wetlands when we impact them. These are -- they've all been mitigated for. Everything permitted is mitigated for, for sure. Absolutely. I'm just saying that this is the impacts we're permitting of wetlands that are then mitigated for. That doesn't mean we gain wetlands. It's not a one to one if you ask me. It's not at all one to one. We've lost these wetlands. So that's really my point and has been my point for a year, that we need a wetlands ordinance and policies in this county. We cannot rely on the state. We cannot rely on the federal government. We have to rely on our own county ordinances and policies to take care of the obligation that we have in this county to protect the natural resources of this county. I think that's all I have. MR. CARLSON: Well-- Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Yes, sir. Go right ahead. MR. CARLSON: Well, amen. He's preaching to the converted Page 61 August 7, 2001 up here. Now, listen, so where is your proposed ordinances? MR. SIMONIK: We're supportive -- that's what I'm saying. I've been supportive of what we've been hearing from staff and what I just heard this morning, too, making sure that we're not talking about the size of it. MR. CARLSON: Well, would you give us an official Conservancy review of our proposal? MR. SIMONIK: I think we support it. It doesn't go below a 50 percent loss. What I asked for and what The Conservancy's position is is no net loss. So that line might start at 5 percent of 100 percent functionality and go straight across the bottom all the way to 50 percent regardless of functionality. It stays at 5 percent, and 5 percent because we do believe there are truly unavoidable impacts, like when you have to take a road from one end of the development to the other end of the development, and you've got to get through the wetlands because there's developable land on the other side of the property, so you need to take a road or utilities or something. That's unavoidable. Choosing a pretty place for your tennis courts is not unvoidable wetland impact, but that's what we hear. "Well, we can't rearrange it because, you know, that's where this has to go or that has to go." They're not trying hard enough. That's not unavoidable in my mind. Unavoidable means a crossover of a road or utilities or something like that, the bare minimum to be able to utilize the property. But that's why we're talking no net loss. So the official Conservancy position is no net loss, 5 percent across the board. But am I going to object to this? No. We're supportive of it. I wish it were better. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Yes, ma'am. MR. SIMONIK: Lower the line. MR. CARLSON: Well-- Page 62 August 7, 2001 MS. LYNNE: Go ahead. MR. CARLSON: We would love those comments. We would love to see those comments. MS. BURGESON: You can submit those in writing to staff, and we can forward them to the EAC members if you'd like. I wanted to ask you a quick question. When you're supporting 50 percent impact, are you supporting us making the exception of going above 50 percent impact to 100 percent if they're mitigating with where we make uplands, or are you supporting a maximum of 50 percent impacts? MR. SIMONIK: I didn't understand that this went below 50 percent impact with mitigation of-- MS. BURGESON: I'm not sure if this -- MS. SANTORO: It doesn't. MR. BURGESON: -- last position -- MS. SANTORO: The proposal says that no more than 50 percent onsite wetlands can be impacted. MR. SIMONIK: Period. That's what I understand. MS. BURGESON: Okay. MR. SIMONIK: That's the third one; right? CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: That's what that's saying right there. MR. SIMONIK: That's what that means. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: That's what that says right there. MR. SIMONIK: It has zero percent functionality, and we're still going to preserve 50 percent of it because I don't think we're covering all the functionality when you do that WRAP, maybe half. MS. LYNNE: When you do the graph, you're covering half functionality. What's the other half?. MR. SIMONIK: The actual pieces of a wetland that we're not covering in WRAP, like recharge and a lot of other things, and things Page 63 August7,2001 that may not make the criteria list in a WRAP that just aren't there because WRAP isn't good enough. MR. HILL: That was part of our rationale, that 50 percent came at zero because there's always going to be some recharge and those kind of things. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Flood control and things like that. MR. SIMONIK: You may not cover all the criteria for wildlife or vegetation and its objective, for one thing. MS. LYNNE: When I read all of this stuff and I see what the state is requiring and what -- and so and on and so forth, I get caught between what I would like to see and what seems to be possible. I would encourage The Conservancy to get all of its members to write in and say, "No more than 5 percent impact on any wetland." That's the only way it's going to change in this county. MR. SIMONIK: That's our official position, but I'm not objecting to what staff is putting forward. MS. LYNNE: I understand. I'm just encouraging more public- level comment. MR. SIMONIK: Thank you. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Mr. Hill. MR. HILL: I'm still going back to your graph, Mike. Do you consider -- when mitigation results in new wetlands off-site created or credits in Panther Island mitigation bank, wetland bank, is that built into that? I can't believe that we've lost a thousand acres, a net loss of a thousand acres in 2001, when we've mitigated and purchased rights to the Panther Island bank and created in certain cases new wetlands. So what numbers go into that thousand acres? MR. SIMONIK: Those -- you're right. All of those acres that were permitted to be impacted were all mitigated. But I don't know of any newly created wetlands out of uplands, and actually we're opposed to that. Why would you create it? Page 64 August 7, 2001 MR. HILL: I agree. MR. SIMONIK: Because it never works. You can't create a wetland in an upland. You can try but -- CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: It would be pushing it though. Isn't Panther Island creating wetlands in whole fields -- MR. COE: That's what-- MS. BURGESON: For the most part, they're enhancing wetlands as opposed to creating. They're creating where they can where the soils may accommodate that. MR. SIMONIK: And where they may have been before. MS. BURGESON: They're typically not creating new uplands - MR. SIMONIK: New wetlands. MS. BURGESON: -- or not creating new wetlands. MR. HILL: It's net loss, though, even if it's a new one out in Panther Island according to your figures. MR. SIMONIK: It's a net loss because an enhanced or improved wetland already is a wetland. So it counts in the number of wetlands we have in the county. MR. HILL: I wasn't sure that Panther Island was already a wetlands. MR. SIMONIK: I don't know what's counted as actually created, but when you go to mitigate, that's the very last thing you want to do. You want to improve and enhance, and then at the bottom of it is to create a whole new wetland. It would be nice if we could start creating them, but they don't work usually. There's reasons why they're not there in the first place. MR. CARLSON: You told -- you were here last time telling us about one in West Palm Beach that was working beautifully. MR. SIMONIK: At the wastewater treatment plant; that's true. So we can start building those, and we'll be happy. Page 65 August 7, 2001 MS. LYNNE: It's also true that there's been a study recently done in the Chicago area that's showing that created and mitigated wetlands are not really working. MR. SIMONIK: We've had many studies in South Florida. The biggest study said none of them are working. I think 75 or 80 percent were not working. That was 10 or 12 years ago. I think we're getting better at it. I don't think it's 80 percent failure these days. I think it's a lot better with mitigation banks and things like that, but in the past it was a lot worse. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Let's move along. Bill. MR. LORENZ: I think it's important -- because I have these figures, too, that Michael has shown you just because here's the tabulated value. For 1999, of that 385 acres that were impacted, the total number of acres was 3,600 acres, so that was roughly 10 percent for that year. Under wetland acres created, slash, restored -- and I'm not sure of the exact definition -- that column is 545 acres. So, I mean, there is -- maybe not to take away Michael's complete point, but there is tabulated information here for which this graph is developed, and we're going to be using that as part of our data and analysis. But for 1999 we're looking at 10 percent of those acreages were impacted. In the year 2000, it looks like there was- of the 1,300 acres that were subject to the permitting process, 373 acres were directly impacted. Now you're getting up to about 20-some percent for that year of which 580 acres of wetlands were restored or created. They tabulate -- this information is tabulated across so you can get some of the more specific information, Bill, that you asked. But I'm interested in it from a standpoint of looking at the percentages, because when we start talking about where we fall on the percentages of allowable impacts, these are two years that the water management district has tabulated that we can kind of compare our numbers with. Page 66 August 7, 2001 CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Very good. Bill, you started to have a discussion a little bit ago -- oh, excuse me. Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry. MS. BARNETT: Thank you. I'm Eileen Barnett, environment consultant with Vanasse & Daylor. I'll keep my comments brief. I just had an opportunity to look over this proposal recently and will be providing more comments as the process goes on. We're very supportive of using a unified method for functional assessment of wetlands. The WRAP is what was being mentioned today, and Bill and his group are aware that the state right now with the water management district are working on a unified wetlands assessment procedure that defers from WRAP. They're also taking comments, and this might be an opportunity for them to be on notice that these other factors, such as aquifer recharge and things like that, should be considered. I do appreciate The Conservancy's opinion on trying to save as much in the way of wetlands as possible. I have questions, however, about the "no net loss" or limiting net loss to 50 percent. This is a question for Bill. Maybe you can clarify it. If there are very low functioning wetlands on site that the site plan requires to be impacted, would there be an opportunity to make new wetlands somewhere else on the site or mitigate them off-site? What I'm thinking is -- I agree that it's very difficult a lot of times to create wetlands from uplands. There's a very long time lag, also, in a lot of cases to get that created wetland functioning. But on the other hand there's a category called restoration which sometimes is not differentiated from enhancement, and that is where a wetland has been so impacted that it's not even a jurisdictional wetland anymore, but the soils and the conditions can be recreated. In other words, possibly a spoil berm along a drainage ditch. That ditch may be aquatic, but it lost a lot of its wetland function. The berm is not a Page 67 August 7, 2001 wetland at all anymore. But if you took that material from the berm and put it back in the drainage ditch, that whole area would become a functioning wetland. That's usually called restoration, which may not be captured in those figures. I was just wondering. That is one example of different opportunities where a situation may be improved for wetland function. How would that be captured in this proposal? MR. LORENZ: The way this would work is that we're saying that the allowable direct impact you have to mitigate for. So on that curve, if we go from 5 percent down to 50 percent at zero functionality, even with a zero-functioning wetland system, you still have to maintain 50 percent of those wetlands on site. Then the other 50 percent you're going to have to mitigate for. MS. BARNETT: So the 50 percent of wetlands protected on site would be where they were located in the field prior to -- well, while it was being mapped out, basically, before development. In other words, a particular pond or pit -- 50 percent of that, at least, would need to be preserved at its location, not somewhere else on the property. MR. MS. MR. would be condition MS. LORENZ: That's correct. BARNETT: Okay. LORENZ: And we would be looking at it. I mean, we crafting language and looking at that as the average under this alternative. BARNETT: Okay. MR. LORENZ: And, quite frankly, let me state this, too, from a staff perspective -- I know the subcommittee and maybe the EAC is taking a position that that third alternative is the preferred alternative. I'm not willing to say that from a staff perspective yet, but that's the preferred alternative from what we would be recommending up the line. I think we still have to have a little bit more discussion amongst Page 68 August 7, 2001 ourselves and the biological consulting community. But that would be -- but if we were to move with that third alternative, that line, that's how that would work out. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Yes, sir. Mr. Hill. MR. HILL: I think in our -- correct me if I'm wrong, Ali and Ed -- but I think in our discussions on the subcommittee we recognized that WRAP was going to be updated -- MS. SANTORO: Yeah. MR. HILL: -- so this caption here should perhaps not refer specifically just to WRAP, but any updated -- CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Updated version. MR. HILL: Yeah, that's in the process. MR. LORENZ: That's correct, yeah. We would be doing that. MR. HILL: This isn't perfect, but I sure feel comfortable with it. It goes a long way towards solving the problem. If it's appropriate, Mr. Chairman, I move that the EAC go on record as recommending it. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Do I hear a second? MR. COE: I'll second it. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: The motion on the floor is that we recommend to the county commission that this procedure set up into wetlands -- well, just verbalize it if you would, Mr. Hill, in case I mess it up, what we're voting on. MR. HILL: Okay. I move that Option III, according to the documents, Exhibit D, the graphical representation of impacts and WRAP or adjusted WRAP assessment -- that we recommend that this be a methodology of assessing and delineating impact, allowable impacts on wetlands -- I guess that's it; that's sufficient -- recognizing Seconded by Mr. Coe. Any further · Page 69 August 7, 2001 that the language which will be developed to accompany this will tie up any loose ends in the verbiage. Did that confuse matters or -- CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. It sounds good. Mr. Coe, do you concur? MR. COE: Sure. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Any further discussion on the motion? MS. SANTORO: Could I just add one word? There seems to be some confusion. Just adding "on site wetland impacts." I think there's some confusion if we're talking about wetlands on site versus mitigation. MR. HILL: I don't understand What you mean. This is on-site wetlands. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Everything is on-site wetlands. MR. HILL: Yeah. The mitigation policy would then follow, or the rider. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. All in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. (Unanimous response.) CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Opposed, same sign. (No response.) CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: It passes unanimously. MR. LORENZ: Then what staff will do is we'll put together the associated language with that alternative as to how the rest of the mitigation language and the impacts and some other information that we have to put together -- how that will work with your recommended classifications. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. MS. LYNNE: May I ask one more question? CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Yes, ma'am. Page 70 August 7, 2001 MS. LYNNE: Earlier we also talked about -- and Mr. Simonik brought it up about what is a justifiable impact. Is there going to be any language anywhere in here about what -- I can't remember the word. It's not justifiable, but unavoidable -- unavoidable impacts. I mean, is unavoidable impacts the second golf course, for example? MR. LORENZ: Yes, there will be language. At the moment we'll be borrowing a lot or heavily upon the language that we have currently proposed to you. Although I have seen some additional language come through, perhaps in what Barbara had passed out to you from the one commenter, and I think there's some other language that I've seen that we might be able to beef up that second draft with, so we'll be putting that language together for you. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Very good. All righty. Moving right along. An update on beach events and sea turtles. MS. BURGESON: Again, Barbara Burgeson with planning services. As a result of the recent storms and the bad weather that we've had, we've had notice from the state that there will be no beach raking of the beaches until -- it's 90 days past that storm event. I believe it goes until September. Don't quote me on that. I think it's, like, September 11 th from the date of the original storm event. So we've notified everyone who was issued a vehicle-on-the- beach permit that they cannot beach rake up until that time. Because what happened is a great deal of the nest markings were destroyed or washed away during those storms or those high tides. What that leaves us with is the only vehicles that are allowed on the beach are vehicles that are being used below the mean-high tide and for access through corridors that we identify and then down to that wet sand for traversing along the beach for any environmental -- typically if there's environmental work that's being done. MR. HILL: That dates back to June, not July. The major impact was in June. Page 71 August 7, 2001 MS. BURGESON: Again, it's 90 days past the storm event. MR. HILL: I was thinking that it would be July, which would have put it in October. MS. BURGESON: I could double check and forward that e- mail out to the EAC members. In fact, that's what I'll do when I get back to the office. I'll forward that notice from the state which gives the date of when we'll be allowed to beach rake again. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. MR. CARLSON: Since the nesting season, we commonly have storms. Is this a common occurrence for the nest markings to be washed away? MS. BURGESON: No, it's not. This was an unusual result of a combination of a number of-- most of it was the heavy rains that washed them away, and the combination, I think, with probably some of the winds. Maura is not available to be here today. I should have asked her by e-mail. MR. CARLSON: Because, certainly, we can figure out a way to mark those nests that wouldn't wash away. MS. BURGESON: What they do is they tried to get some satellite information to remark those nests. However, I understand that it's not as accurate as originally field marking them. That's why the state has requested that no beach raking occur until that 90-day period because of the possibility of not being able to accurately remark those nests. But they're looking at a different way in the future to mark them -- MR. CARLSON: Sure. MS. BURGESON: -- to prevent something like this from happening. MR. LORENZ: Well, we can take a look at that. We've had -- I mean, in places where we lost the nest, we lost -- that scarp on the Clam Bay system was dropped down the beach about 5 feet at the Page 72 August 7, 2001 dune level and in other places, you know, 18 inches to the point where we washed the whole nest away. One of our concerns is when we start driving stakes, even though we think we know where the nest is, we don't want to go too far down. MR. COE: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Right. MR. LORENZ: But when you lose, you know, 18 inches of beach, whatever you've got as a stake is going to be washed away as well. But we can -- I can -- we can still ask the question and check. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Very good. One other-- just an update on old business. As you-all remember, you gave me the honor several months ago of sitting on the selection committee for the new community development/environmental services administrator. I know that that -- we have been having our meetings. We had some -- oh, in excess of 35 or 45 applications for the job. The county HR staff narrowed that down to about 24 or 25 that did meet the requirements of the job description. We have then reviewed all of those resumes and have met and selected six individuals who we are going to be personally interviewing next Monday with the goal of passing three or four recommendations onto the county administrator. So that's proceeding. Okay. Growth management update. New business. Any new business? Yes, sir. MR. HILL: Could we get an updated list of addresses, numbers, and e-mail addresses of the council? MS. BURGESON: Yes. I spoke to Ali about that earlier. I'm going to mail that out when I mail out the colored map of the Deltona settlement area. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Do we have anything on the growth management update? MR. LORENZ: For the record, Bill Lorenz, natural resources Page 73 August 7, 2001 director. I think the biggest thing to update you on is the schedule; that we're having our economist, Jim Nicholas, take a look at the transfer of the development rights program, the TDR program, and to evaluate the viability of the various density bonuses that we are proposing for vegetation preservation. That was part of the conceptual plan of the rural fringe. The feedback he's given us is he's going to have a final report for us at the end of October. So that means we're slipping on the schedule a little bit more. It's getting somewhat uncomfortable. So that's the way the time line falls out. We'll have that -- of course, we'll try to keep the EAC through its subcommittee briefed as to where that process moves forward. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Subcommittee report on growth management. MS. SANTORO: I'm trying for the second month in a row. Ed wanted me to be sure and tell you that what we're trying to do in the growth subcommittee is to look at some of the items that are coming up, to keep the EAC appraised, and to have your input. This particular item is on the use of receiving and sending. It's a device whereby -- where we want to direct activities away from natural resource areas. The device is that the person who is keeping the land out of development can sell it to a receiver. The receiver pays money for this right. The receiver can increase density in a different area. So it's one device that's being advocated. Now, I think Bill mentioned that all of this will be subject to review by an economist to try to assess how much sending and receiving -- how much receiving lands are necessary for those who want to send. We don't know that yet. We don't know, also, with some of the other transfer devices how this will fit in, and that's being looked at by the economist. But what the subcommittee would like is -- and, again, you may want to bring this up next month allowing for public input, but what Page 74 August 7, 2001 we did discuss was setting up some priority receiving lands. So this is in the proposal that's before you and on the map. The other area was in C-2, but it's in the upper comer. If you look at your map in C-2, it's the upper northeast comer. We want to consider changing that from what was designated as a receiving land to a sending land. That upper northeast comer has the same wetland wildlife and other qualities as the other sending lands. So we wanted to change that area from a receiving land to a sending land. Then the other portion of our report we would like to have you endorse are the areas where we've designated are priorities as far as receiving lands go. This is where we would like to see the direction, at least in first phase. I've tried to give you an introduction as to what sending and receiving are. I've tried to give you the proposal and the map. The rest of it is just background as to why we selected these sections as priority areas. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Discussion. MR. SOLING: I have a question. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Yes, sir. MR. SOLING: Am I to understand you're talking about transferring building rights from one site to another? MS. SANTORO: Let's say that someone has land in a NRPA. MR. SOLING: Pardon me? MS. SANTORO: Let's say we have someone that owns land in a NRPA area, you know, where it's very less dense, and they want to develop it. We want to keep the density of population away from the natural resource areas and wetlands and so forth. So this device allows the person who owns that land to leave it from-- to not develop it, but also have the economic benefit by selling his right to someone in another area, in other words, into the receiving area so that that person can pay the one who's sending, keeping his land Page 75 August 7, 2001 undeveloped. The receiver pays for it and also gets a credit to allow higher density where the receiver land is. MR. SOLING: Which leads me to a question. What about zoning? Here we have a governmental organization laying out a zoning plan which takes into effect surrounding areas and says we will have a certain amount of density here as compared to a different density there. You're saying you're going to obfuscate this by transferring building rights. That sort of negates all of the zoning principles. MS. STUDENT: I think maybe I can address that and maybe Bill, too. I think the regime is going to be set up is that those areas will be identified, and no doubt as part of the study it will be looked at to make sure that they are compatible at those maximum densities that would be allowed with surrounding areas. There would also be language in the comp plan and much more detailed language in an ordinance that would spell it all out as to how it's going to work. So it would sort of like an overlay of what we already have in our zoning district. Is that an adequate explanation, Bill? MS. SANTORO: Can I just mention -- also, we're talking about the rural fringe right now, and this report will go back to the rural fringe subcommittee. What they're trying to do is to look at devices where we're going from very dense urban to not dense rural area and how in the middle -- how are we going to accommodate how we're going to have it mesh. So all of this is part of discussions as to this kind of middle area. MS. STUDENT: It's a transitional area between the lower and the higher. MR. LORENZ: We'll have to identify within those receiving areas what we would want to see as the maximum density so that we'll have a maximum density cap. We'll also have -- or at least I Page 76 August 7, 2001 envision that we would have various performance or zoning standards that if someone wants to utilize a TDR program, that he's going to have to build according to these types of principles, where we start looking at the smart-growth new town village types of principles for him to be able to utilize those additional density units, such that we have a well-planned community at that point. From an Environmental Advisory Council's perspective where, for one thing, it's very important to get your input into the process, is to look at the sending areas as being those that are of high enough environmental sensitivity that we want to direct development away from and that the receiving areas that we've specified are truly those areas that do not have a lot of environmental sensitivity, and we're saying from an environmental perspective that it's okay to increase the density in those areas. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Yes, sir. MR. CARLSON: I have a comment. For those who are looking at this map and trying to evaluate it, part of the logic was if you now have lands that are designated rural agricultural, zoned rural, very low density, and those become receiving areas, and they are contiguous with a NRPA, and those densities go way up, well, then you're putting a subdivision -- you're putting residential -- you're putting a suburban-type development next to an NRPA. A NRPA is a preserve area. Most of them are wetlands, very sensitive hydrology. Well, you're not going to put that kind of development up against a NRPA without requiring, you know, drainage. You're going to be infringing on wildlife habitat, existing low density where large animals can move around that won't go through those suburbs. And then as a land manager in a NRPA, I can tell you that NRPAs will continue to manage property and that includes the use of fire. So if you have your receiving area up against a NRPA, you're Page 77 August 7, 2001 inviting a residential community to move next door to a natural area that's going to be continued to be burned, and we know that doesn't work because of the problems with the affects of smoke on the residents. So, you know, it's just, basically, poor planning. We're going through all of this to plan properly, and right out of the box, in my opinion, you know, having a receiving area adjacent to a NRPA is just bad planning for a lot of reasons. So that's part of the justification for why the map looks like the way it does. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Bill. MR. LORENZ: Just one point in terms of the process and coordination. If the EAC were to accept this in terms of their subcommittee report, my intention will be to take the information, transfer it to the rural fringe advisory committee that meets tomorrow evening, and let them know that you have been -- that this is your current discussion. Then if you put it on your agenda for your September meeting and try to get some additional public input, then we're trying to broaden the base of the public input for these types of issues. I then will provide that feedback back to the rural fringe advisory committee at the same time staff will be working with the consultant. I notice that David Ellis must have left, but David Ellis was here for the wetland discussion. He's the current chair of the rural fringe advisory committee. I thought maybe he might want to say something as well. But that's the process to try to have staff coordinate the efforts of these two committees. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: I was going to ask Miss Santoro, do we need to have a motion from the council now that you're back on this side? MS. SANTORO: I would like a motion. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Go ahead. Why don't you do that. MS. SANTORO: I would like to move that the Environmental Page 78 August 7, 2001 Advisory Council accepts this report. MS. LYNNE: I'll second it. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: And by accepting this report, it will be passed on to the rural fringe advisory committee; is that correct, Bill? MR. LORENZ: Correct. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: All right. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor? MS. LYNNE: Or some discussion. MR. HILL: Well, I think Ed fell short. It was, I think, at his initiative that we included the concept of a NRPA buffer relating to the comments he made, and I think that ought to be stressed in this report, perhaps even more so than the starred footnote or whatever we have on that page. I think that's a very, very important item, and I think it was at Ed's instigation that we included that. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Okay. Now can we vote on this? All in favor of the motion? MS. SANTORO: Aye. MR. COE: Aye. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Aye. MR. CARLSON: Aye. MS. LYNNE: Aye. MR. HILL: Aye. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Opposed? MR. SOLING: Opposed. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: It passes 6 to 1. Okay. Do we have any comments from members of council? MR. COE: Nope. CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: Any comments from anybody in the public? MR. COE: Nope. Page 79 August 7, 2001 CHAIRMAN SANSBURY: We're adjourned. There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 11:45 a.m. ENVIRONMENTAL ADVISORY COUNCIL THOMAS W. SANSBURY, CHAIRMAN TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT REPORTING, INC., BY MARGARET A. SMITH, RPR Page 80