CCPC Minutes 10/03/2001 SOctober 3,2001
TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE
COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
OCTOBER 3, 2001, NAPLES, FLORIDA
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Collier County
Planning Commission, in and for the County of Collier, having
conducted business herein, met on this date at 5:13 p.m. In SPECIAL
SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples,
Florida, with the following members present:
CHAIRMAN:
Jyceanna J. Rautio
Paul Midney
Lindy Adelstein
Russell Budd
Kenneth Abernathy
Lora Jean Young
Dwight Richardson
David Wolfley
Mark Strain
ALSO PRESENT: Susan Murray, Current Planning Manager
Marjorie M. Student, Assistant County Attorney
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October 3,2001
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Call the meeting to order.
Collier County Planning Commission meeting of Wednesday,
October 3rd to consider Land Development Code amendments. Call
the roll. Do you have the list with our new members?
MS. MURRAY: I do. If you'd like me to call the roll?
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: I'd love for you to.
MS. MURRAY: Okay.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: You be the deputy clerk.
MS MURRAY: Okay. Sounds good. Paul Midney.
COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Here.
MS. MURRAY: Lindy Adelstein.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Here.
MS. MURRAY: Mark Strain.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Here.
MS. MURRAY: Russell Budd.
COMMISSIONER BUDD: Here.
MS. MURRAY: Ken Abernathy.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Here.
MS. MURRAY: Joyceanna Rautio, absent. Lora Jean Young.
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: Here.
MS. MURRAY: Dwight Richardson.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Yes.
MS. MURRAY: David Wolfley.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Here.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Any addenda to the
agenda?
MS. MURRAY: None from staff.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: All right. Ready to go.
MS. MURRAY: I guess I'll start out. I'm Susan Murray, current
planning manager. And welcome, new board members. This is the
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October 3, 2001
second of two required night meetings for amendments to the Land
Development Code. This is termed the special cycle, and I know for
the new members you were not in attendance at the first meeting, and
I'm sorry about that. You're kind of jumping in the middle here, but
at the first meeting Ray Bellows presented all the amendments that
you have in your packet to you, and you had the opportunity to ask
questions and make comments. As well the public had an
opportunity to speak at that time. I understand you were presented the
written information with respect to the changes to the excavation
portion of the Land Development Code but were not given a staff
presentation. Stan Chrzanowski is here to make that presentation to
you tonight, and I would maybe suggest, Mr. Vice Chair, that you
would like to start with that since it's new material, and then Ray
Bellows is going to carry on from the previous term and --
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: He'll lead us through the
rest of them?
MS. MURRAY: -- and will lead you through the rest, and I will
be here in the background.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Procedurally, how do we
handle -- we vote on them this time, do we not?
MS. MURRAY: You vote on them this time. You vote--
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Individually? One at a
time?
MS. STUDENT: Generally -- now there's going to be an
interesting situation tonight because one planning commissioner has
advised that there's one item that he has a conflict with, so we have to
break that item out. That's a sunsetting of PUDs issue, and he's -- has
a client that's affected by that. So we'll break that out, and we've
done that before when there might be a conflict, but usually we have
taken them as a whole and voted on the amendments as a whole.
And also a finding consistency with the Growth Management Plan
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needs to be made as part of your vote.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: If a member wants to vote
"no" as to a particular item, do we break that out too?
MS. STUDENT: Yes. I think you could rather than hold the
whole amendment hostage.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: I guess as we go through
'em as we go from one to the next, if somebody anticipates they're
going to vote "no," they'll tell me and then we'll be prepared to break
those out at the end, if that's satisfactory to people. Okay. Let's get
into our excavation explanation. (Ms. Rautio arrives.)
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Good evening, Commissioners. I'm
Stan Chrzanowski. I'm a senior engineer with the development
services department, and I'd like to apologize for not making the last
meeting. We were out of town at a drainage seminar, and Tom was
on vacation. We're probably the only ones that really know about the
excavation. I was initially going to just ask if anybody had any
questions, but I think I'd like to give you about a ten-minute
presentation on excavations in Collier County so you know how we
got to where we are. The original ordinance, the one that has been
revised, is Section 3.5 of the Land Development Code. It started out
as an excavation ordinance long before the existence of the present
Land Development Code, and it hasn't been revised much. We've
done some housekeeping on it and closed some loopholes over the
years, but we have -- we had an issue come up maybe a about a year
ago under the new commission where there were a lot of smaller
excavations going on in Golden Gate Estates. The Commissioners
had a lot of questions. Golden Gate Estates, up until maybe five, six
years ago there were no commercial excavations allowed in the
estates. You could dig a lake in your backyard by the ordinance; you
didn't have to -- you were allowed to get a permit exemption. You
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October 3,2001
didn't even have to apply for a permit with a fee. You could dig up to
a 1-acre lake, 12-foot deep on any parcel in Golden Gate Estates or
any ag parcel as long as you didn't remove any fill. Well, if you dig a
1-acre lake, 12-feet deep on a 5-acre lot, you fill the other 4 acres,
you don't feel it all that much. But we'had a gentleman named A1
McCall probably about five years ago came in front of the board and
he wanted to dig a larger lake on his parcel. And he was a Vietnam
veteran and combat wounded, I guess. Talked to the board, was
pretty eloquent, convinced the board that there was no problem with
digging a two-acre lake on his parcel. Problem with that is when you
do it on a five-acre parcel, you're going to fill the rest of the parcel
with a lot of fill. So his idea was he's going to have somebody haul
the fill off. Naturally, he's going to make a little profit. Nobody
could really see a problem with that, much the same as putting a car
on your front yard with a "For Sale" sign on it. It's not really an
ongoing commercial excavation. It's a pile of fill that you're
disposing of.
So at that time the Board of County Commissioners suggested
that we might find some way to let this happen that, you know,
people should not be prohibited from digging lakes on their property
if they want to. We couldn't see a good engineering reason to stop
him from doing it. Not much difference between a one-acre lake and
a two-acre lake. Larger lakes are generally, usually healthier. You
do have the off-site hauling of the fill, but roads are built to county
standards. It takes a couple thousand to three thousand, maybe four
thousand yards to build a good-size house pad in Golden Gate, and
these lakes were generating twenty, forty thousand cubic yards so,
you know, you really weren't doing that many houses, 10, 20 houses.
And your average Golden Gate Estates block when you break it down
at 2 1/2 acres, I think there's, like, between both sides of the street for
every mile there's maybe going to be 64 homes. So the lakes weren't
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October 3,200 !
-- you'd -- you'd be digging a few lakes just to get house pad fill out
there, and the way we saw it, it's cheaper-- it's better on the roads if
the fill distance is -- the haul distance is shorter hauling from these
small excavations than, say, Willow Run Quarry hauling up 951 and
out to all the estates. So, you know, for that reason staff didn't see
any problem with it, and the board said, "Find a way to do it," and we
came up with policies for doing it, and we'd been running that way
for many years.
When Commissioner Coletta came on board, there were a few
people out there all of a sudden saw a lot of holes going in out there,
and they objected to just pits. What they didn't realize was that every
time we let somebody dig an excavation out there, one of the
standard policy items we had was that you had to leave a buildable
section on the lot, a buildable envelope, and at the time we figured,
you know, quarter-acre lot in Golden Gate is a good-sized buildable
envelope, but because of hearings that we've had with Golden Gate
Estates Civic Association, this latest change has been reviewed by
every department that might have a say in it; utilities, transportation,
stormwater management. What you see before you is the end product
of all of that.
One of the things that the Golden Gate Estates Civic Association
wanted was a one-acre buildable lot. So I think that's worked into the
new ordinance there. It'll pretty -- pretty much limit these commercial
excavations to a five-acre lot. We were allowing 2 1/2 acres to do a -
- you know, a 1-acre commercial, because at that sized lot you can
actually do a good-sized lake, but you do have to haul the fill off site.
So because of the pressure -- not the pressure, but the
questioning being put on Commissioner Coletta about why we're
allowing all these pits, like I said, they didn't know we were turning
them into buildable lots. He brought it up at a couple of board
hearings, and it was decided that staff should rewrite the ordinance to
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October 3, 2001
handle these type of excavations. And if you look in there, you'll see
a long section on Golden Gate Estates excavations. That's one of the
main changes in the ordinance.
One of the other changes is you'll notice that there is a lot of
different classes of excavation. Under the old system, there were -- if
you were Jim Weeks digging a two-acre lake in Golden Gate Estates,
you were a commercial excavation. If you were Willow Run Quarry
digging 30 million cubic yards over 30 years from a hundred-
something acres, you were the same class of commercial excavation.
As a matter of fact, when it came to computing the road impact fees,
the program that we were given, the computer program, when you
substituted the values for the duration of the excavation, the program
is based on capacity, road capacity. And fewer trucks over a longer
period of time takes up less road capacity, even though a 30-year
excavation basically is sort of permanent. You've lot lost a lot of
road capacity for a long time, but the program the way it's written
cuts their road impact fee contribution down and the shorter
excavations; they were less than a penny a cubic yard in some cases
simply because of the way of the duration of the excavation. That's
average, but still a penny a cubic yard per 30 million cubic yards is a
lot of-- is a lot of impact fee.
The smaller excavations were paying 15 to 20 cents a cubic yard
because there was such a short duration that the capacity program
thought that they were using more road capacity, but they only used it
for a short time. You know, transportation saw after a while that this
was not working right, so we've come up with a new formula, but it's
not part of this. But it'll be in the next amendment cycle, and it was
generated by the same process where we're going to charge a road-
use fee based on the damage done to county roads that we can
determine based on how much road and bridge said they paid per
year to fix damage to the heavy vehicles moving and the amount of
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October 3,2001
yardage that's hauled. But that's -- that's an issue you will see later.
But it's one of the reasons we incorporated so many different types of
excavation in here so we could make our distribution of fees more
equitable, because it takes a lot more just to permit a larger
excavation, and we didn't have that built into the system.
One change you'll see in there is in the definition section there
was nothing in the ordinance itself that told you what an excavation
was. You had to go back to the definition section and look up how an
excavation was defined to know whether you needed to get a permit
to do the excavation. Well, we took the part out of the definition
system and incorporated it into the front of the ordinance so right up
front you know what an excavation is by size.
I can keep going on about excavations, or I can get into -- that's
the major part of what we've done. The rest of this, a lot of it is
housekeeping, grammar, spelling, capitalization, simple stuff. And
we did get some questions from Commissioner Rautio. I don't know
if they were answered to her satisfaction, but I forwarded them to
Margie. We can discuss those here if you like. Any other questions
anybody has I'll be glad to answer.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I've got one, Stan, and that's
concerning the reduction in Littoral Zone Plannings. Could you
explain why -- I could be reading it wrong since I wasn't at the first
meeting, but it looks like we reduced it from 10 percent to 2 percent.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Unless that's a misprint. What section?
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: 3.5.7.2.5.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Make sure the microphone is in front
of you.
MS. MURRAY: There are some page numbers at the bottom,
Commissioners.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Fifty-one.
MS. MURRAY: Fifty-one.
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October 3,2001
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I could be reading it wrong, Stan.
I'd just like some clarification on it; that's all.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: It might have been -- oh, 2 percent of
the total area of the lake -- an area of Littoral zone, 2 percent of the
total area of the lake. I think we -- I think we think that that's going to
be roughly the equivalent of 10 percent of the perimeter around the
larger lakes; it might even be more since it's based on area.
Like I said, I didn't make the last meeting because I was at a
seminar on drainage. One of the things that came up was lakes, and
one of the -- Dr. Harvey Harper was asked whether any type of
Littoral zone does any type of cleansing on the lake, and he said
absolutely not. It's only for wildlife value.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Which is my point.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Yeah. Which is -- which is what we're
trying to achieve here.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Right. That's why, if what you're
saying -- if the 2 percent of gross area is greater than 10 percent of
the lineal foot area, then that's --
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: I can do a quick calculation and send it
to you, but I think that's why we came up with the 2 percent.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: As long as it's in that direction, I
have no problem with it. I just wanted to be assured it was.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Marjorie.
MS. STUDENT: I just need to make a comment.
Stan and I have met, and I'm just working through this to tighten
up the language, not make any substantive changes but tighten up the
language, maybe put some of it a little bit more in, quote, ordinance
language and to make things more clear. And to that end, Stan-- and
in that division it refers to WSWT, and I think we need to write out
what that is and then put WSWT in parentheses. Could you tell me
what that means.
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October 3, 2001
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Wet Season Water Table.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Wet Season Water Table.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN:
of its water elevation.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: No.
Which would be the highest point
These lakes peak about wet
season water table. The control elevation on the discharge structure
is generally wet season water table. That's where the water normally
sits during the wet season, and then every time you get a storm the
water rises up. That's the storm routing the engineers do. The water
rises up six inches, a foot, and then it goes back down and kind of
stays at wet season water table. And then the DSWT, if it's in here,
would be Dry Season Water Table which is roughly where the water
sits at for April and May.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Would it be simpler to refer to
that as just control elevation? That's a much more common term, or
is that -- would that mess it up somewhere else?
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Well, not all these projects have Water
Management District permits, like, a house in Golden Gate Estates
wouldn't have a control elevation. They're the same, so you could
really put WSWT -- wet season water table or control elevation.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: That way you're both covered or either.
I'm only an engineer, not a lawyer. They are interchangeable.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: On page 47 of the document that I
ended up with, we still have the terminology of "double first class
postage." I think we want to deal with sufficient postage or you want
to identify that it has to be enough to pay for the weight that you're
going to mail out.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Okay. The reason we put double first
class postage is that these -- we make the petitioner submit these
envelopes up front, a stamped envelope. Now, we could -- and
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generally when we stuff them, we found that one first class stamp is
not enough. Two first -- because it's usually the same amounts of
sheets, six, seven sheets. We send the entire packet, the executive
summary plus a map of what's going on plus a shrink-down of the
drawing. One first-class postage stamp is not enough. We found that
two always is, so that's why we went that way. To go to "sufficient
postage," we'd have to put them in the envelope, weigh them, and
then bill or somehow get the petitioner to come in and stamp all the
envelopes after the fact. I think we're safe with double first class
postage.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Well, that seems reasonable to a
degree, but double first class postage right now is defined at 68 cents,
and you would be sending out 6 pieces of paper at 34 cents plus 23;
that's 57. So I think we should find some way to not be wasting -- I
mean, if these people are sending out to 1,000 people, it starts adding
up. And I think it's encumbant upon us to at least have some
language that allows -- that we're actually recognizing that postal
rates are -- for the next ounce, it's, what, 23 cents. I know it changes
on a regular basis, but --
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: I'm just curious of the mechanics of
how you think we're going to do that. Stuff the envelopes and give it
back to them to mail --
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
MR. CHRZANOWSKI:
No. If you know that six --
-- or stuff the envelopes and have our
metered mail send it out and bill them?
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Well, actually, I think isn't it logical
that the petitioner has some responsibility to tell you they're going to
send out six or eight. They could weigh the whole thing themselves
and know what that sufficient postage is.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: It's not them sending it out. It's us --
CHAIRMAN RUATIO: I know you're sending it out, but
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you're -- MR. CHRZANOWSKI: No. We get the packet together, not
them.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: All I can say is there's a better
terminology than double first class postage.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Well, you can put sufficient postage if
you want.
MS. STUDENT: Stan and I talked about this, and he explained
the predicament, but we had talked about it. I came up with
"sufficient postage" and --
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Marjorie, isn't one -- one
ounce, that's first class. So just say for two ounces and then whatever
-- whatever the fee is it is.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Yeah. That would make sense, two
ounces, because they can check on that week when they've changed
the postage rates, and they'll know that now it might be 59 cents, and
you don't have to worry about the postage is sufficient, and it's there.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Okay.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Because you don't normally mail more
than two ounces on these notices.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: No. Like I say, it's usually two first-
class stamps takes most anything we've got. We have gotten them
back marked insufficient postage and had to -- anything else?
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Just change it to "two
ounces" and we're okay.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: I agree.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: I agree.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Stan, has this latest
version or equivalent of that been reviewed now with Golden Gate
Estates people?
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Yes. This is the version that came out
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of the meeting with them, and it was reviewed by the Environmental
Advisory Council at this morning's meeting, and they had, I guess,
two questions both of which were simply answered, no comments, no
additions, no deletions.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Have you had any
indication how Mr. Coletta feels about the effort to date?
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: So far, yes, he likes it. He was at the --
at the estates association meeting.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
that meeting.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI:
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
Would you clarify the date of this --
May sometime, I think.
So this -- this -- you're saying to us
that this version here which I didn't get a chance to go over with a
fine-tooth comb is what was written after a May meeting as opposed
to our September 19th meeting? You must have incorporated more
of our changes in here. I've misunderstood something. This version
has been reviewed by the estates association? MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Right.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: When was it last reviewed, Stan?
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: I don't remember. It might have been
May. I think it was May.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: I hope you're not telling me that the
document we're looking at here did not incorporate our meeting
changes of the 19th of September.
COMMISSIONER BUDD: Madam Chair, we didn't hear this
because Stan was out of town, so it wasn't heard on September 19th.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: But we talked about several things
which are in the minutes that are before us.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: I didn't incorporate any of them, no.
MS. MURRAY: Madam Chair, I mean, for the record, why
don't you go ahead, and could you restate what those
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recommendations were? I'm-- you know--
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Well, actually, the file that they are in
happens to be sitting by my computer at home, and I did not have an
opportunity -- getting stuck in traffic -- to go there. I made an effort
to send them to staff. We talked about them on the 19th, and if this
document, which I will admit I didn't have a chance to go through
with a fine-tooth comb, if you're saying that this document has not
been changed since our 19 September, I'm not sure why we met on
the 19th of September.
MS. MURRAY: Well, we have the minutes of the meeting,
obviously, and as part of your vote today if you just want to
incorporate by verbally placing on the record that if you so choose to
recommend approval of this ordinance as it's written with those
recommended changes on the 19th, then we will forward that
information to the Board of County Commissioners as well, and if we
agree with your proposed changes, we'll make those changes prior to
the submission to the board and make that quite clear.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Let me give that some thought. Are
there any other questions on this particular item before us?
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Excuse me. I saw a list with most of
your e-mails on it. If you want I can e-mail you my response if I
have any objections to any of your comments.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: That would be helpful; however, this is
part of the process that we need to be able to know what we're voting
on here and, of course, this is a fluid document, and it will change
probably by the time the county commissioners look at it also. But it
certainly distresses me to think that we might make a major effort to
give our suggestions and then be told we're being handed a document
that hasn't been changed since May.
MS. MURRAY: Well, I don't think that's the case, but --
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: It's been changed since May. I think
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October 3, 2001
you're looking at the August rewrite, but it hasn't been changed as of
your September meeting.
MS. MURRAY: But the thing to also remember is that we are
forwarding a recommendation, not only of yours but of staffs, and
there may be times that you make recommendations that may not be
an agreeable staff recommendation and what we do with the board is
we present both sides of the story. So, in other words, if you've made
recommendations that we agree with, we will incorporate into the
document and those that we disagree with, we will separate them
from the document into our spread cover sheet, and then at the public
hearing we call verbal attention to those disagreements forwarding
your recommendation and with an explanation as to why we disagree
with your recommendation.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: COMMISSIONER BUDD.
COMMISSIONER BUDD: I'm reading the minutes of our
September 19th meeting on page 40 of our minutes. It starts the
discussion on the excavation section here, and I see there was an
early question about trees and blasting, and Mr. Nino clarified it was
a typo, and it's been corrected and it's a nonsignificant issue.
The second item addressed at the September 19th meeting was
the postage which we've addressed again tonight. As I read further, I
don't see that we addressed any other item on September 19th. Those
were the two items relevant to excavations.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. And my e-mail had several
other questions, so I'm going to just drop it for now.
MS. MURRAY: Your e-mails were forwarded to staff, and the
ordinance was reviewed and corrected.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI:
have a copy of that here.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
further with this.
And I responded to your e-mail, and I
Okay. We're not going to go any
COMMISSIONER YOUNG, please.
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October 3, 2001
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: Just a question. Then, when we
look at these recommendations which presumably you're going to
present to the Commission, I see no recommendations whatsoever
from the Collier County Planning Commission. MS. MURRAY: Tonight is the night.
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: I don't see any, and I know that
we made some; that's what I'm asking.
MS. MURRAY: Tonight is the night you will vote and you will
verbally put on the record what your recommendations are as a whole
group. So that's why you don't have any in the column.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Do we have any other questions of Mr.
Chrzanowski on this particular item? Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Can you explain why they
changed the depth from 12 to 20 feet?
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Yes. When the original document was
written, they picked an excavation for private excavations of 12 feet -
- I don't know why -- and they picked a minimum depth or maximum
depth for commercial excavations without using the fetch formula for
20 feet. There was a study done in 1974 by a firm called Black,
Crow, Eidsness, the old water management advisory board, and it
was on lake depth.
If anybody's from up North, they know that northern lakes
overturn and that keeps the lake kind of healthy. A lake overturns up
North because water is its densest at 4 degrees centigrade, less than 4
degrees centigrade which might be about 38 degrees Fahrenheit, 40,
water starts getting less dense. It's the reason that ice floats. It
doesn't float because of dissolved oxygen or the water that's trapped
or the air that's trapped in there. Ice is simply less dense than the
water -- than the cold water it's in or than the water it's in.
Well, we don't have overturn down here because we don't have
any freeze. The lakes don't ever get down to 4 degrees centigrade.
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October 3, 2001
The mechanism that is used to keep lakes healthier is overturn based
on wind, and the Black, Crow, and Eidsness study came up with
something called the fetch formula. The fetch formula -- fetch is the
distance that wind can blow across a lake. When the wind blows
across the lake, the friction causes waves which causes the water to
push and build up on one side. That head difference between one
side to the other causes a rotation of the water in the lake which
aerates the water at the bottom of the lake which stops the lake from -
- there's a term, a lake that mixes once a year is monomictic. A lake
that mixes twice a year is dimictic. The lake where the bottom
doesn't mix is called meromictic. This can happen -- you have
thermocline, you know, which is a temperature gradient, and you
have chemoclines. We used to worry down here about a chemocline
where the chemical content of the water is so great that the water is
so dense that it can't overturn, and the bottom would stay -- would
become what they call anaerobic, which means that oxygen doesn't
reach the bottom, and whatever lives down there is anaerobic.
The fetch formula was to -- like I said, was to stop that. The
formula that they came up with was that the lake could be 5 feet plus
.015 times the average fetch, and the first time they did it they said
the east/west -- east/west fetch because they figured a coastal
community the predominant winds would be from the east to the
west, but then they realized the winds here come from every
direction, so they changed it to average fetch. And the average fetch
is like the length and then 90 degree parallel to that, that width -- you
-- like, for a one-mile lake, like a very large lake like you might find
at Willow Run Quarry, the average -- you'd have an average of 5,000
feet of fetch times .015 would be 75 feet plus 5 feet is 80 feet.
You could dig that lake 80 feet deep.
A lake that's 1,000 feet by 1,000 feet, you could dig 15 plus 5 is
20 feet deep, but our water table fluctuates from wet season to dry
Page 17
October 3, 2001
season considerably. You can see it. The more you dig lakes, it drops
6, 7 feet. If you dig a 20 foot -- if you dig a 12-foot deep lake, you've
only got 5 foot of water. Dig a 20-foot lake, at least you've got 12
feet of water and we were allowing them for commercial excavations
anyway, and it seemed to be a healthier -- we have a lake minimum
depth of-- of-- we're not only told 12 feet deep; we told them
minimum 12-foot deep. And we also told them that we wanted 6 to 8
feet of water in the dry season. Well, when the water table drops 7
feet, you want 8 feet of water in the dry season; that's 15 feet right
there.
The reason that we wanted the minimum depth is there was a big
hydrilla scare, but there's -- you don't want aquatic vegetation
growing in the middle of your lake. And if your lake is too shallow,
sunlight can reach the bottom of the lake, and things can grow there.
The deeper a lake you have -- and I think they determined 6 to 8 feet
was, you know, for the clarity of the water here -- 6 to 8 feet would
stop aquatic vegetation growing in the middle of the lake, but as these
water tables drop a little more, we thought there might be a problem.
Twenty feet we were not having any problems at all. We get the
mixing. We get good depth in the dry season. It just seemed like a
good number.
Twenty foot is generally accepted by some communities. At the
seminar I was at, a lot of communities don't have a standard. Nobody
knew what the fetch formula was. Some of them said 12 feet, some
said 20 feet. They seemed to be common numbers, but that's the
reason we do it, and it seemed like a good engineering reason.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I just want some clarification
here. Let's just take a typical lot in the estates, what are they, 2 1/4, 2
1/2 acres, what kind of a lake can that homeowner dig on his
property?
Page 18
October 3, 2001
site.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Well, if he hauls fill off site--
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Let's just say he leaves it on
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Well, then, probably 1/4 acre. You see,
we tell them they have to have four to one size slope for safety. If
somebody falls in we want them to be able to climb out. When you
dig four to one for 50 feet, you're down 12 feet; 48 feet you're down
12 feet, and then another 50 feet to come back up. So the smallest
lake you can really dig is a 100-foot circle, and that just about fits on
a Golden Gate Estates lot if you fence it. And we allow you to go a
little closer to your property line if you fence because for safety
reasons we don't want the neighbors three year old walking into your
lake.
So you could dig an elliptical lake. You could dig a circular
lake 100 foot -- 100 by 200. We -- we try to -- I recall when MaCall
dug his lake he dug a perfect rectangle. It looks awful on the aerials,
and it was right after that that they changed the county code so that
now you have to have some character to the lake. Like you say, it's
an evolving document. Every time somebody does something that
meets the code we don't like, we change the code.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: So then for five acres you can
have a one-acre lake.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: No. For five acres you can do, I think,
40 percent.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Two acres.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Two acres.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY:
two acre.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY:
MR. CHRZANOWSKI:
Two-acres of lake. I'm sorry,
Okay.
And, like I say, it's hard to dig that
Page 19
October 3,2001
without --
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Okay. Thank you.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Other questions.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Madam Chair, if there are
no other questions, I wonder if you'd entertain a motion so we could
just get this one item out of the way?
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Any further discussion? Okay. I'll
entertain a motion.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I'd like to offer a motion
that the LDC Section 3.15 as submitted be approved by PCC and
forwarded -- by the CPC, us, and forwarded to the BCC unless there
are additions you would like to see added to the text.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: We have a motion. Do we have a
second? We have the attorney raising her hand.
MS. STUDENT: Just wanting to make sure that with your final
vote you decide on that you include the finding of consistency with
the Comprehensive Plan.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: That's right.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So stated.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I'll second it.
CHAIRMAN RUATIO: Okay. We have a motion by
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON, a second by COMMISSIONER
STRAIN, I believe.
COMMISSIONER BUDD: Question.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. We'll have some discussion.
COMMISSIONER BUDD: Does that include the proposed
language change on the postage?
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Yes, sir. Certainly.
Certainly.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Yes.
Page 20
October 3,2001
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. We have a motion on the floor
and a second. Do we have any further discussion?
Hearing no discussion, I call the question. All those in favor say
aye.
(Unanimous response.)
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Those opposed same sign.
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Motion carries. Thank you.
Okay. Being a little late, I am at a slight disadvantage. Are we
now just moving through the regularly --
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: From the beginning.
MR. BELLOWS: Yes. Now we'll go through-- for the record,
Ray Bellows, planning services staff. We'll go over the information
in order that's on the handout sheets, the summary sheet. Basically,
we'll start with Section 2.7.2.3.2; this was presented at the last
Planning Commission hearing on the 19th. We discussed it, the
language in general. This basically deals with increasing the
minimum sign area for properties over an acre to 32 square feet. I
have it on the visualizer here. Properties that are under an acre shall
retain the general language for sign being 1 1/2 square feet in area.
Would you like me to go through the entire document again or just
answer any questions from the last meeting?
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Do we have any specific questions, in
particular from our new people? COMMISSIONER STRAIN.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Are we referring to Items 'T'
through five, is that what we're focusing on, all five of them at one
time? Is that or -- I have a question about number four and that's all.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. Go ahead and ask that question.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: And it refers back to the
informational meeting that's to be held by the applicant, and I -- in
reading the requirements of that meeting, I was wondering how staff
Page 21
October 3, 2001
had proposed the enforcement of some of those because there's some
vague issues there. For example, on 2.7.2.3.5, would be page 5 of
our document, it says (as read): "Notifications shall also be sent to
property owner, condominium and civic associations, and civic
organizations whose members are impacted by the land use changes."
How does someone determine who the members are and which
ones are impacted by those changes? Where does that information
come from and how hard would it be for someone to find that out?
MR. BELLOWS: Well, that information will come from the
property appraiser's. We also have a list of homeowners associations.
We would verify that the applicant has contacted the proper
homeowners associations based on the list that we have and run --
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: But, see, I'm all in favor of seeing
everybody get properly noticed. I think that's something that would
save us all a lot of effort, but I'm worried that if you use it in the
manner in which it's written here there's no source for that, and I
understand-- for example, I was president of a civic association years
ago, and I still get official notices about things that organization
should be knowing, and I have no use for those at this point. So I
don't know how that's happening, but if it were to happen to someone
who was trying to put something through and there was a deficiency
there, I'm wondering how their standing would be in their
application.
MR. BELLOWS: Well, like any type of advertising we do, as
long as we follow the general intent of the ordinance, I don't think
there's going to be a legal problem. We basically take the list of
names that are on the property appraiser, the current tax roll, the
current list of homeowners associations. We realize we're dealing
with fluid movement of the general populace and it will be
impossible to contact everyone all the time, but we're making the best
effort, and that's the intent of this is to make what I feel is a good
Page 22
October 3, 2001
system in the first place even better.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: So if someone were to come to
the county staff and ask them for all the names of organizations that
would be in this realm of influence, you'd be able to provide it to
them to the best of your -- could that be added to this then saying that
as provided by county staff?.
MR. BELLOWS: I don't--
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: 'Cause if they're not going to get
it from you, where are they going to get it?
MS. MURRAY: It says here that it's all property owners who
are required to receive legal notification from the county pursuant to
Section 2.7.2.3.2, which 2.7.2.3.2 references the property appraiser's
records as a source as well we also have a list of registered
condominium and civic associations at the board office that is
regularly maintained so ...
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Those are the ones I'm concerned
about. The individuals are an easy matter. It's more of a concern is
how you determine -- I mean, every day there's new organizations
cropping up.
Golden Gate Estates has seen that happen just recently, and if they
had to be notified, where would someone know that? That's --
MR. BELLOWS: Yeah.
were on the county list.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
They would only be notified if they
Okay. Commissioner Budd.
COMMISSIONER BUDD: Wouldn't it address your question,
Commissioner Strain, that those parties, those civic associations are
required to formally notify the county of their desire to be on the list,
and then if some new civic association was to pop up and they did not
notify the county, as in the second half of this sentence that you're
referencing, then basically tough luck. They're not on the list.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: You take out the word "and," and
Page 23
October 3, 2001
I think we'd be okay. It says, "Within the general area and who have
formally notified the county of their request." Basically you're saying
only those that have notified the county of their request. Is that what
you're trying--
COMMISSIONER BUDD: No. I'm thinking that you've got to
get two things to be notified. You need to be in the area and you
need to be on the list, so it would be "and," you have to have both.
So if a new civic association forms, they fail to notify the county,
they have not successfully satisfied the "and" and gotten on the list,
they don't get notified.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Is that how --
MR. BELLOWS: That's -- that's the intent, but there are other
forms that these groups can be notified through, signs on the site, and
through newspaper advertising.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: So if someone were to put-- as
the other part of this requires a notice on the site, that would be
sufficient to notify these groups in your reading of this?
MR. BELLOWS: If they're not on the county's list and they are
not formally registering with the county -- and we're trying to get
everyone; that's the purpose of the sign and the newspaper
advertising.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Go ahead.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Speaking to Mr. Budd's
point, he suggested that it would just be the associations in the area.
I'm not quite clear on that. Is it just -- and how would you determine
which ones would be impacted following Mr. Strain's question?
MR. BELLOWS: Yes. The LDC spells out the distance
requirements for notification, and those organizations within that
distance requiring that would be notified.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So ifI live in North
Naples and if some issue came up in Golden Gate Estates, I wouldn't
Page 24
October 3, 2001
be notified by that, even though I might have an interest in pursuing
it?
MR. BELLOWS: You wouldn't be notified formally by a letter,
but you could be notified through the newspaper articles if you read
the advertisement.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: But the association, per se,
wouldn't be given the opportunity --
MR. BELLOWS: That's correct. Only those that are within the
area of notification.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: That's kind of tricky.
Does -- would staff have an objection to being the party responsible
for providing those names and addresses -- or those associations to
any of the applicants that--
MS. MURRAY: Staffs role will be to direct the applicant to the
property appraiser's office for that list. They have the ability to
provide that information, and so indirectly planning staff is not the
provider of that information. The property appraiser's list or the
property appraiser will be.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: But those are only the property
owners. I'm back again to the organizations. That's the only one I'm
concerned about.
MS. MURRAY: Right. And then we have the board office as
well. Our role will be basically if they ask where they can get the
information, we will direct them to the property appraiser and the
board office.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Do we need that clarified in this
proposal?
MS. MURRAY: No.
MR. BELLOWS: I think the intent of having it that way would
be difficult for planning services staff, community development to
keep an updated list where it's the board would be the better --
Page 25
October 3, 2001
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: That's exactly my point.
It is difficult to keep an updated list.
MR. BELLOWS: Yeah. But certainly the best facility would be
the board.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: We have a point. When we're talking
about the notification, I noticed that you have your highlights
showing the changes, where you've got the darkness but -- or
designee we had on page five one -- about one, two, three, four, five,
six lines from the bottom, am I misunderstanding that some of the
words that have changed wouldn't be highlighted? You've got them
all underlined, but--
MR. BELLOWS: I don't believe the highlighting is significant
of anything. The underlying language is the added language.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. So the assigned to
preapplication meeting, that's not relevant, or public information,
none of those darkened things on my page are relevant?
MR. BELLOWS: I'm not sure how they got on there, but it's the
underlined language that's the added language.
MS. MURRAY: I think it was just an internal marking for
ourselves that was not erased.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Oh, okay.
MS. MURRAY: But everything underlined is being added.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. And we did change a few
things like designee and the word "advice," "consulted," "contacted"
on that same page that we had that huge discussion about last time.
MS. MURRAY: Right.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON:
question.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
I think I got it all.
Madam Chair, one last
Yes, Mr. Richardson.
Page 26
October 3, 2001
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: You instructed us that the
various recommendations made by the reviewing groups will be
noted before they go to the BCC or incorporated in the language if
staff agrees with your comments. How am I to currently interpret
what the DSAC recommendations which are called out and -- and are
not part of the document then? So those are ones that staff did not
agree to then, or should I examine the language more carefully to
make sure that they are either out or in?
MS. MURRAY: My assumption is that as I told you how it
worked, it worked. It's in this document.
Since I didn't do the document, I want to double-check.
MR. BELLOWS: I just want to clarify the information on the
DSAC recommendations has been acted upon.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Has been incorporated?
MR. BELLOWS: Correct.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: That was not my
understanding.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. I am confused.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I guess I have some more
questions then. I'm not sure why these are objectionable things. It
seems to me it further limits the public involvement to not follow
these procedures. Am I saying it incorrectly? You're saying these
three things that they objected to are now part of the document which
is not the way you explained the way the process works.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: You're referring to the photograph by
the petitioner versus the Planning Commission? Those things -- I
mean, planning services.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: The one, two, three.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Yup. Okay.
MR. BELLOWS: Everything has been incorporated except for
number one, the photograph of the sign by petitioner and submission
Page 27
October 3, 2001
to Planning Commission.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Well, then I go back to
Mr. Strain's thrust of his question. It says allow mailing lists other
than the official tax roll. I'm not sure that's an appropriate thing to
put in here. I thought we agreed that that was the best record
possible.
MR. BELLOWS: I think we allow for additional mailings, but
the official tax roll --
MS. MURRAY: Letme--
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Let's focus on one thing, 'cause we did
this last time, and I think on page 4 -- let me draw your attention to
old 5 now 6, the underlined section of that paragraph there on page
four where it says (as read): "And any other persons who have
formally requested the county to be notified." Isn't that the concept
we're working with here?
MR. BELLOWS: That's correct and that's the purpose of that
language.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Right. We had it a few places and, Mr.
Strain, that was one of the concerns I had also was whether or not
we're looking at the tax rolls, how do we make sure that those people
get notified because that's fair to the -- the person doing the changes
and the county, but those who formally notify and are on this list that
gives an opportunity for them to get information and, unfortunately,
as you pointed out, sometimes it does not get updated. But that's
what our concept is here, to let other people make that request.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: And just practically
speaking, how would they be motivated to do this? They'd see a sign
on the property, and then they'd say, "Okay, I see a lot things going
on here, so I want to have my name in the pot so I'll get notified"?
MR. BELLOWS: That's one way, or newspaper articles about a
project is another way. Word of mouth is third way.
Page 28
October 3, 2001
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I tell you, this is going to
take some real education of the public to have them have enough
savvy to know that this sort of thing's going on that they should get
their name on -- into a special list for notification.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: But, Mr. Richardson, I think that's the
point. We want to let people be more involved, and the county's
making an effort to do those kinds of things so that more people will
get involved in the process earlier, so I don't view this as something
detrimental.
I do view it as something that could be good for the public
participation, and your issue of education is significant. So our
county is really making an effort from the Board of County
Commissioners down to staff to let more people be involved in the
process. So I want to really strongly support this concept. We can
work out some of the logistical details later, and I know you support
that.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I agree with that.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Item No. 2, then,
requirement to place advertisments in newspaper and public
information vehicles, they objected to that so you now also object to
that? Is that the way I understand this to be read? I mean, that
clearly is something that I think moves in the opposite direction of
public participation, if you're not going to let them know when the
meeting's taking place.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Well, the first time we
went through this we didn't accept any of those three objections of
DSAC.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I didn't think so either, but
I'm now hearing that the process says that, well, I was misled.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: You don't just incorporate
Page 29
October 3, 2001
them because DSAC wanted them or objected to them.
MR. BELLOWS: I just want to clarify a point here, confused on
the information received on the DSAC recommendations. The
information contained in your packet they -- starting on page 1 is the
items that we acted on, and as we discussed during the last meeting,
we did not incorporate the photograph as signed by petitioner and
submission to planning services. We felt that it was the applicant's
responsibility. Requirement to place an advertisement in a newspaper
and public information meeting is in there. We are requiring that.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Okay. You didn't
incorporate their objection is what you're saying? MR. BELLOWS: That's correct.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: On one and two?
MR. BELLOWS: Correct.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: How about three?
MR. BELLOWS: We did three.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: That makes sense.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: No. Say that again. If they objected to
allowing any other mailing list, then the official latest tax roll of
December 31 st, the prior year? You're allowing them -- you're
adding that we're going to have this list formally requested.
MR. BELLOWS: That's the way it would catch the old
information or any new information that's not on the list.
MS. MURRAY: I'm sorry. I have to butt in here because this
was my language that I put in here, and it was actually a board
direction and what it was meant to do was that we used the property
appraiser's tax roll list, which is at best updated once a year from
what I understand. The problem therein being is this is a very
transient area, of course, and a lot of people move. We have a better
system in place that we have direct access to, planning staff has direct
access to. The problem is that our code says we have to use the tax
Page 30
October 3,2001
rolls. What I have to do to be legally correct is I have to send out
duplicate notifications, one based on the tax roll and one based on
anything that's different in our most updated address record that we
have access to.
What I was trying to do was avoid duplicate mailings by putting
in this language that said we had the ability to use another record
other than the property appraiser's office.
For some reason DSAC didn't like that, and I guess I felt it
wasn't worth arguing. I'll continue to mail. I have 10 to 30 percent
error that I catch -- that my staff catches on every petition, and we
will just continue to send out duplicate mailings and that way where
everybody's covered. So that was the genesis of that language. They
objected to it. We agreed to pull it out and not argue it -- with it. No
harm.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: You can still have the fall-
back position that you can -- that someone could come in and ask to
be notified?
MS. MURRAY: Absolutely.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Do we now understand the
process with your recommendations? If it's in here, except for No. 3
which we've disposed of, 1 and 2 are recommendations by the DSAC
to take out, but we've not agreed with it and you've not agreed with it;
is that correct? Thank you.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: I guess at this point we
need to know if anybody is going to vote against this when we come
back to it; is that right?
MS. MURRAY: Right.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: We're finished with it
otherwise, I think.
MR. BELLOWS: If you don't want to vote on it now, then --
MS. MURRAY: Did you want to -- oh, I'm sorry. Madam
Page 31
October 3,2001
Chair, did you want to open a public hearing at this point after each
item, or did you want to go through everything and open -- for the
public to speak. I know there is a person who would like to speak on
the public notification issue.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Right. You didn't mean open a public
hearing. We are already in a public hearing.
MS. MURRAY: Well, I know, Marjorie, is it proper they open
a public hearing for each item--
MS. STUDENT: Well, the close--
MS. MURRAY: -- for public comment?
MS. STUDENT: I guess, in this case since we're considering
them separately, you close the public hearing before you vote. I don't
recall where it's opened. I think you just ask for people to speak after
each item--
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay.
MS. STUDENT: -- before you vote on it. Before you vote on
it. Then you close the hearing and then you vote.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Do we have any registered public
speakers?
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Bob Mulhere.
MS. MURRAY: Bob Mulhere.
MR. MULHERE: Hi. Bob Mulhere. I didn't register. I thought
these were where you just kind of get up if you had something to say.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: We might have changed rules since
you left, Bob.
MR. MULHERE:
some minor comments.
Well, I wouldn't be surprised. I just have
For those members of the Planning
Commission that maybe don't know, actually I worked for the
county, was the planning director until April of this year and was in
part responsible for promoting the enhanced public participation
concept and process. And I would-- I would recommend strongly
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October 3, 2001
that -- that the list of civic or community associations be maintained.
It doesn't so much matter to me if it's a board office or the planning
office. I suspect if you say the board office it's going to be in the
planning office. But it seems like it needs to be maintained at the
staff level and distributed to an applicant, because I think you're
putting the applicant in a very unfair position to expect them for
knowing what groups or organizations to notify within a certain
geographic area. And that opens up, in my opinion, the opportunity
for someone to challenge that and say, "Look, I was over here and I
belonged to this association and I didn't get notified."
If you -- if you have a list that you maintain that is incumbent
upon the association to be added to that list or be reflected to be
added to that list or any individual as well, which is fine, that list
ought to be updated, maintained, and provided by the government to
the applicant. And I don't think it says that here, and I would suggest
that it would be pretty easy if you look on page 5, Paragraph No. 1
under 2.7.2.3.5 it would be one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eight, nine lines down where the -- you have a period. The sentence
reads -- in part reads (as read): "Formally notified -- notified the
county of the request to be notified," period. And I would add there,
"a list of such organizations shall be provided by the county."
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Gee, you've said nicely what I
said earlier.
MR. MULHERE: I think it needs to be that way. I mean,
there's just going to be way too much confusion if someone doesn't
maintain the list.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. So what you're saying is that
that list, all of those people who have formally notified the county,
should be made available to the applicant by staff MR. MULHERE: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Seems reasonable to me. How else
Page 33
October 3,2001
would they find out?
MR. MULHERE: I mean, it will be a little bit difficult. The
staff will have to create a process of adding names to that, and you
could use the web -- the web site. The county has an excellent web
site. People can register there for that purpose alone. There's a lot of
ways you could do it, but, otherwise, I can see that there is going to
be a lot of confusion, people saying I didn't get notified. We have to
have some document that we can refer to to say we did notify
everybody on this list as an applicant.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: And the applicant should have ready
access to that. I agree with that.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Bob, that sentence applies
to associations?
MR. MULHERE: Yes, it does. It says it would be associations
and individuals who want to be added to the notification.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: It doesn't say individuals.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: It says property owner.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: The property owner -- it's
-- I think that property owner is talking about associations, not
individual people.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: It says, comma, sent to property
owner, comma --
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Condominium.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Condominium, civic association.
You're right.
MR. MULHERE: It should be plural, property owners.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: That would clarify it for
me.
MR. MULHERE: Then I think it's clarified.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Of course, none of this
solves --
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October 3,2001
MS. STUDENT: Well, I think it means property owner
association is the way I -- because it didn't say property. I don't know
what the intent was, but I took that property owner to be an adjective
rather than --
MR. MULHERE: Well, you know what, it's pretty easy to fix if
you want that to apply to both the list of associations as well as to any
individuals who might want to be added to that list in addition to the
tax roll. I think that staff can figure out where to put that sentence. It
may have to go in two places. But, you know, they would maintain
that list.
In other words, the list would be associations, community
groups as well as individuals who want to be added to a notification.
By the way, that goes on right now relative to the Planning
Commission and board hearings. There is a list that's maintained.
There's a lot of people that want to be notified what issues you-all are
considering, and they're on a list and they get notified. They may not
show up here because there may not be an issue that concerns them.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: I think it's going to always
be an illusory goal, though, because you take somebody up in
Vanderbilt Beach; if they're in a condo, they've got a condo
association. You've got the Vanderbilt Property Owners Association.
You've got the Second District Association which has a different
name as well, PONP, whatever, Property Owners of--
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: North Naples.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: North Naples.
MR. MULHERE: It will be--
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: How's a developer
supposed to know all of that?
MR. MULHERE: Well, I agree, and I think if the list is
maintained, it will be better than it is now. I'm sure it'll be improved
over time, too, but there will be more notification, and I think the list
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October 3,2001
just -- you know, it's something that -- there are a lot of standing
organizations, and I don't think they want to know about every
variance that occurs -- if you're the Golden Gate Property Owners
Association, you want to know about a variance in Ochopee. I don't
think so. So there is some geography to it, you know.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: But there are overlaps is
what I'm--
MR. MULHERE: There are overlaps as well. The other just
minor comments I had, for the most part, on page 3, the handwritten
number page 3 at the bottom. Just had a couple of comments relative
to signage. In paragraph 3, trying to get to the actual sentence -- I
think the second sentence. The sign shall be erected -- no, the third
sentence. "Where the subject property is landlocked, sign shall be" --
I'm trying to get to the right sentence. Okay. One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven lines down at the end of that line it starts out (as
read): "One sign shall be erected at a spacing of one sign for every
500 linear feet of road frontage and there shall be at least one sign on
each fronting road."
I have a couple of questions. If you think about a large rezone
or a PUD amendment, you can have thousands of feet, thousands --
Pelican Bay, thousands and thousands of feet of road frontage. Now
if you have to have a sign for every 500 feet of road frontage, it's
pretty expensive, and I don't think it really serves any purpose except
to have a whole bunch of unnecessary signs up.
On the other hand, if you're talking about 500 foot of road
frontage that is on the external boundary of the subject property, it
doesn't, in my opinion, say that. So, in other words, a sign shall be
erected at a spacing of one sign per every 500 linear feet of road
frontage. The projects -- my thought would be that that should be
adjacent to the subject -- subject property's external boundaries. The
road frontage adjacent to the subject property's external boundaries.
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October 3, 2001
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Wouldn't that cause the same
problem, for example, down 41 ? All that's Pelican Bay, but your --
in your example that you just used, does that mean every 500 feet
along 41 there would be a sign?
MR. MULHERE: Well, that's the second part I was going to get
to.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay.
MR. MULHERE: Second part I was going to get to is that if
you had a very long frontage road external, let's say, more than a
couple of thousand feet -- I can think of one that has 4,000 feet of
road frontage -- I'm not sure that you need a sign every 500 feet. I
think there should be a maximum to that, and maybe it should be four
signs.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: What's the purpose of this additional
language?
MR. MULHERE: To make sure there's adequate notice so
people can see that, you know, two signs on a big project is not
enough.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Right.
MR. MULHERE: And I understand that more signs may be
necessary. These are 32-square-foot signs. So they're not the little
signs that we put out now. They're 32 square feet, and they're
expensive. I don't know what they cost, but my guess is they're going
to cost -- they're going to cost more than when the county staff put
them out. So it seems to me that a maximum number -- I think it's
okay to say one sign every 500 feet, but it should say that per road
frontage but not to exceed four per road frontage.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: What's the idea of the board? I can see
some heads shaking no. Speak up.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Sounds reasonable to me.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: It depends on the length of
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October 3,2001
the size of the lot. I mean, if you're talking on right now a 1,000,
2,000, 3,000 square feet that's one thing, but what if it's a larger lot?
Why -- how can you say four is a maximum?
MR. MULHERE: See, 'cause -- but my rationale would be that
four signs spaced on 500 feet at a minimum would be -- would be
four signs in 2,000 feet spaced like 500 feet. I mean, do we want to
have every 500 foot, 32-foot-square signs saying it's going to be
rezoned as you drive down the road?
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: There is --
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: No. There's no problem with
that if you actually the length, but what if it's double that length and
you're still limiting it to four signs?
MR. MULHERE: Then you put them a thousand foot. You put
them every thousand feet.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: At which point? If you're
coming from a different angle, you may miss a sign. The idea you're
talking about we've been talking about all day -- all evening is
notification.
MR. MULHERE: Right.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Anything that might make
notification more difficult should be avoided.
MR. MULHERE: Well, I agree with that. That's why we wrote
these, and that's why the staff brought these forward, but I mean, you
also have to look, in my opinion, at reasonableness and practicalness,
and you also have to look at something called sign clutter. And I
would suggest to you that you're talking about a 32-square-foot sign,
which is large. Think about it and -- and, you know, in a hurricane
season I'd rather-- these are -- by the way, these are temporary signs.
I don't know if they have to meet the hurricane code. If they do that's
an engineered sign that's going to cost some money. I suspect
because they're temporary signs they don't have to meet 110-mile-an-
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October 3, 2001
hour wind code.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Mr. Mulhere.
MR. MULHERE: And if there's a hurricane that comes, you're
going to have a lot of pieces of plywood flying around.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: This don't make sense.
MR. MULHERE: I mean, I'm not trying to be nitpicky. I just
think a sign every 500 feet is overkill.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Your suggestion would be
on each fronting road?
MR. MULHERE: Yes. On each fronting road. And then you
don't get away with just putting four on one location. On each
fronting road you have to put signs every 500 feet.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So if-- so if it has four
sides or two sides, you at least have an opportunity.
MR. MULHERE: And you know, hey, I'll live with whatever
you-all think in your wisdom is right, but I just thought I'd raise those
issues.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
very familiar with this county.
Just out of curiosity, Bob, are -- you're
How many places do you think we're
going to have these signs erected and go through this process that we
might have more than four signs?
MR. MULHERE: There are -- there are probably maybe 8 to 12
circumstances that I could see where you would have road frontage in
excess of, you know, a couple thousand feet and, you know -- come
in for an amendment or, you know, because this is limited to rezones,
public amendments, and conditional use of this provision here. It's
smaller signs for variance, which I think is good and was wise in the
ordinance to create it that way because there's a lot more of those,
and those deal more with individual parcels and not with the whole
project.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay.
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October 3, 2001
MR. MULHERE: The only other thing I would comment is --
it's really minor, but it says in that same sentence it says (as read):
"There shall be at least one sign on each fronting road." I'm only
suggesting that perhaps the staff look at between now and the board
meeting, what does that mean? I think the term "adjacent to the
subject properties external boundary" gets to it more, but maybe there
are problems with that. I just don't know. My point is "fronting
road." Well, what exactly is a fronting road on a project?
So, I mean, I think it could be just defined a little bit better.
Perhaps these issues won't-- won't even become an issue, but I
suspect that's not the case after the fact.
On page 5 I had a couple of minor comments. Paragraph one,
third line down and the sentence reads (as read): "Application
meeting and prior to submitting a sufficient application to Collier
County." I know what the intent there was. The intent was that, you
know, an application should be sufficient when it's submitted, but if
you read that, it almost alludes that, you know, you could have a
meeting after the preapplication. I mean, can you submit an
insufficient application? The answer I think is no. So, I mean, not
knowingly. So to my way of thinking that could just read
"submitting an application." The word "sufficient" is not germane
because you have to have a sufficient application.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Well, isn't the submission or the
sufficiency of the application determined after it's reviewed by staff?.
MR. MULHERE: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: So you could really, then, have an
insufficient application?
MR. MULHERE: Yeah, you can. You can, but -- but the point
is you will already have had the meeting. Anyway, that's -- never
mind. We -- we won't deal with that one. How do you know if your
application -- my point is how do you know if the application is
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October 3, 2001
sufficient until after submitted. You assume it is, but perhaps it's not.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Well, I can tell you I've known
cases where they are trying to grandfather things in, and they'll try to
submit an application of any type just to get in the door and then
worry about how it gels out later so ...
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: That's a point.
Mr. Abernathy.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: What are the formalities of
submitting an application? Is there something, another adjective that
we'd use there, like, is that when people come forward with money?
MS. STUDENT: Would "complete" suffice?
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Or "formal" -- something.
I think you need an adjective of some sort.
MS. MURRAY: Commissioner-- Madam Chair?
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Yes.
MS. MURRAY: Sufficient is actually a term, an internal term
that we use. We actually have a computer program whereby when an
application is determined sufficient, it takes another official step in
the process, so this is probably going to be confusing to somebody to
the outside, but staff is going to understand what's --
MR. MULHERE: That does explain it to me, then. I didn't
realize that.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: A word of art then.
MR. MULHERE: I didn't realize that either, but that -- that
makes sense then. What that actually means is that you can have the
meeting and you can submit the application. It may be found later on
to be not sufficient, but that's okay. Then that makes sense.
There was one other just minor revision on that same paragraph,
number one, going up one, two, three, four lines. The sentence starts
(as read): "However the applicant is expected" -- the phrase starts,
"However, the applicant is expected to make a presentation of how it
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October 3,2001
intends to develop the subject property." Oh, I was just -- I'm not
sure about the use of the pronoun.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: How the subject property is
intended to be developed.
MR. MULHERE: I'm not sure how -- but it seems that it might
-- might read -- yeah, something along those lines.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I understand what you're saying.
MR. MULHERE: How the subject property is intended to be
developed, what is proposed by the application.
MS. STUDENT: Just say -- I have some of these things that are
brought up where it wasn't changing the substance, but I was going to
wordsmith it a bit with staff and --
MR. MULHERE: These are really very minor except the only
reason is I didn't really have the time -- I did talk to Susan about
some things, but then I read through them a little more in depth and --
I apologize. I would normally, you know, have resolved these things
but since this was the second meeting and I was here, it seemed like I
should -- MS. STUDENT:
maybe.
MR. MULHERE:
Could just say the development proposal,
Yeah.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Sounds good.
MR. MULHERE: I tell you, on the whole these are -- these are
very good in the fact that there's really nobody here objecting to them
I think says a lot, that people are willing to do what it takes to make
sure that we do have adequate public notice, and these go a long way
towards accomplishing that. They will be a little difficult to
implement the first couple -- we'll get to it.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: How do we know they got their notice,
though, of this meeting?
MR. MULHERE: Maybe we can expect to have a lot more
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October 3, 2001
people down the road.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Maybe they'll show up at the Board of
County Commissioners meeting. Okay. As far as the board's
concerned, do you all feel comfortable with these tweaking
comments that have just been made by Mr. Mulhere? We all feel
good about that?
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Some of them, I do.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Some of them. Okay. I want to hear
just a little bit more elaboration, and if you don't --
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I agreed with his comments on
page 3, and I agree with at least two of his comments on page 5 -- or
three of them I should say. The one that he and I both focused on, the
language about providing -- the county staff will provide a list of the
organizations to the applicant.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Yup.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: And the county staff will be
responsible for maintaining that list. And then the last comment --
and I think Marjorie's solution to that was better than Bob's at this
point, and that's to -- fourth line up from the bottom, expect to make a
presentation of the development proposed -- of the proposed
development.
Bob's limitation on the signage to maybe a maximum of four
over any single road frontage, I think that's a good idea. Having
experience with larger projects, I have one, for example, that's got
two miles of frontage, hundreds of signs out.
MR. BELLOWS: Also make a recommendation --
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Are you through, COMMISSIONER
STRAIN?
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Yes.
MR. BELLOWS: The signs -- I agree with four, but they should
not be clustered, so there should be some language in there to say that
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October 3,2001
the signage -- maximum four in the distance.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Yeah. That's a good point.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: That's a good point.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Yes. Madam Chair,
before we wrap up this discussion on this particular section, I would
like to take a moment to publicly thank Mr. Mulhere for his initiative
and work in bringing this to fruition. This is a -- I think, a magnum
opus, and he's to be complimented.
MR. MULHERE: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. Any other thoughts on this
particular one? We seem like we're pretty much in agreement with
the approach and some of the changes.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Take a motion.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: We can just save this one till the last
since we're not objecting. So moving right along to the second or
third item here.
MR. BELLOWS: The second item is on page 7 of your packet.
It deals with notification procedures for variance and conditional
uses, Section 2.7.4.3. We discussed this at pretty good length at the
last meeting, and would you like to ask any more questions? We'll try
to go over that. The DSAC had no recommendation on this particular
item.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: I thought they always recommended
approval or changes. I always remember voting every time I was
there.
MR. BELLOWS: It may be that it was just that it was a plain
recommendation of approval with no comments or stipulations.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: You might want to double check that
so that question doesn't become a problem when you get to the board
level, because I suspect that we always did, at least when I was there
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October 3, 2001
as a member, and as a chair we always finished some sort of
statement about these.
MR. BELLOWS: Do you have any specific questions on this
item?
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: No questions? Okay. Moving along
to the next item, page 9.
MR. BELLOWS: Starts on page 9, deals with Section
2.2.12.2.1, Section 2.2.14.2.1, and Section 2.2.15.2.1. This was the
language that was recommended by the Board of County
Commissioners, and staff has incorporated these changes into the
LDC, and at the last meeting Planning Commission had no real
objections to this.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Any comments from the board?
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: One comment. I notice that in the
sign ordinance you had time frames in which the sign ordinance
would be retroactive on a property owner who was found in
nonconformance after a certain period of time from the time this new
rule has been enacted. Would that same kind of methodology be able
to be applied to this section, meaning that if someone has -- is
operating a wrecking service right now, should they not abide by this
new ruling that after a certain amount of time it's retroactive?
MS. STUDENT: We have provisions for nonconforming uses
and the destruction of them or if they're not maintained, and that
generally covers all the uses. I have a couple concerns. These are
uses in a zoning district, and they coexist with a number of other
uses, so if we were to put language in here and that did that, I think
we'd have to apply it to all the other uses in this district as well,
because then we could possibly have an equal protection problem
'cause signs are different. We treat some of the larger -- the off-
premises signs and so forth differently. I don't know without some
further staff input whether -- because we do have to treat similarly
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October 3,2001
situated folks in the same manner under the Constitution.
And the other problem or concern I would raise is if we start to
write this now, I don't want to do anything that's inconsistent with the
nonconformity section because that's the section that deals with
nonconforming uses, and that's in Division 1.8 of the code. And
that's my -- that's my only concern at this juncture. Certainly, I don't
know, staff might want to look at something before the board and
report to the board and take that direction, but I -- I just have a
concern about trying to wordsmith something right here without
having Division 1.8 and making sure it all fits together or -- you
know, because if you put something in here and it relates to all the --
and let's see, C-1, C-3 and C-4 districts, we have other districts that
we aren't dealing with, and that's what the whole nonconforming
section deals with. And I just have a concern about trying to do it at
this juncture without examining those other sections and having some
inconsistencies in the code and possibly some equal protection
problems.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Well, maybe I didn't-- I
understand what you're saying, Marjorie. Maybe I didn't make my
point. We're requesting an amendment to a current zoning activity to
tighten it up, I believe.
MS. STUDENT: Right.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Automotive services will
specifically not allow wrecker service and towing of automobiles.
Right now that's allowed. If someone's operating that way right now
by enactment of this provision, down the road can that be removed?
Can they be -- can it be applied-- say, they have three years left in
which to abide by this ruling--
MS. STUDENT: Mark, what I'm trying to explain is that this is
one piece of a whole zoning district, and you have to treat similarly
situated properties or uses in a similar manner, and by the virtue of
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October 3, 2001
the fact that they're in a specific zoning district they are similar. So if
we put this in here my concern is that we're breaking out certain
pieces and having a different nonconformity standard than for all the
others, and we have a division of our code and 1.8 that deals with
this, and I have a concern about having an inconsistency without first
staff review and an equal protection one because this is rendered
nonconforming than if there exists one.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Mr. Bellows.
MR. BELLOWS: Yes. Marjorie's making the point that I
would just like to clarify a little bit more. Section 1.8 is intended to
address your concern that if there is a change and we change land
uses or permitted uses within zoning districts in the past, that those
uses that are currently in effect at the time of the change become
legal nonconforming uses, and there are certain guidelines and
criteria that allow them to continue to operate, and if they cease to
operate and meet those conditions or expiration, then they lose that
vesting of the use and then not be able to reassume that use.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay. So that's the only way
someone currently existing could lose that use. They are kind of like
grandfathered in until they stop doing business. MR. BELLOWS: Exactly.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: That's -- that answers -- yeah. I
understand what you're saying. Thank you. MR. BELLOWS: You're welcome.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. Any other questions about this
one? We feel good about this one. Okay. Moving on to page 10.
MR. BELLOWS: This deals with industrial permitted uses
amending Section 2.2.16.2.1 of the LDC. Again, we had no real
substantive changes during the last meeting, and anyone has any
questions, again I'll be happy to answer them or seek staff assistance.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I just -- you're all looking at me.
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October 3,2001
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Go for it.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I just have one. I think it's great
for Immokalee and what works well out there, but by allowing this as
a permitted use in an I District, does that open it up to all the I
Districts?
MR. BELLOWS: Yes.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Because we have a --
MR. BELLOWS: Industrial district is found throughout the
county --
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Right.
MR. BELLOWS: But land area big enough to have an airport.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Down by the landfill there's a
pretty good-sized industrial area which I would be concerned about if
there was an airport added out there. So I guess that's where my
question comes. Is this -- can this be limited to the area that it's trying
to focus on, or do we have to do broad brash across the whole county
for any industrial area?
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Marjorie, I don't think we can.
MS. STUDENT: That's a problem because we have light areas,
you know, in different parts of the county.
MR. BELLOWS: The amendment as we're proposing it would
affect, you know, all industrial zoning. I think the way if you want to
just apply it to Immokalee only would have to be through some
zoning overlay for--
MS. STUDENT: Yeah. I think an overlay would do it.
MS. MURRAY: I think we can be reasonably assured that we're
not going to have any more airports in the area. I mean, we do have
three at this point in time.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Well, I mean, we've got an airport
off of Radio Road called Wing South, I think it is. It's a little small
stretch of airport, and we could have one of those in a small industrial
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October 3, 2001
park, is what this is telling us?
MS. MURRAY: That's actually a private airstrip as part of a
planned unit development.
MS. STUDENT: I think it's a PUD.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: My point is, though, it's a small
airport, and if one could fit on that small property, the industrial
section in Golden Gate is large enough, I would think, to have an
equally sized landing area, and I'm wondering if there's a way to stop
that if it were to be -- if it were to become favorably received.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: But is it necessary to stop it? I'm not
sure what your point is.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I'm just -- I want to make sure
that -- that's -- everybody understands that if you do this we're adding
the ability to have airports or landing strips or whatever you want to
call them in industrial property in other areas of the county besides
Immokalee.
MR. BELLOWS: I think-- if I may --
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: That's my point.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay.
MR. BELLOWS: Yeah. We can alleviate that concern by the
wording in the -- in the amendment is general aviation which makes
specific criteria they have to have FAA approval would limit or
prohibit the Wing Park South type of private airport, so it would be
much more difficult, almost impossible to have a general aviation
other than the land areas that we have large enough, such as the
Naples Airport or the land area in Immokalee. And they'd have to go
through FAA approval, and that would be difficult, too, on any other
site.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: That's probably why you chose that
phrase; right?
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October 3, 2001
MR. BELLOWS: General aviation, that's correct.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Thank you. Okay. Do we feel
comfortable with -- about that item? All right. Infamous signs, page
12.
MS. STUDENT: I want to just point out about the signs, we're
not really rehashing signs tonight. There was a glitch in the adoption
continuation of the meeting, and this is just to readopt it to fix that
problem, but you're not really substantively looking at it. You looked
at it before just as it was, and that's the only purpose to readopt it to
correct it.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Well, if we have to readopt
it, it seems to be me that it's in play. I don't see how you can avoid
that. And I have a couple of sections that if I saw them before I
certainly had my head up and locked because one of them on page
30, just before Section 2.5.8 says (as read): "Illuminated signs, neon
or otherwise installed inside businesses and intended to be seen from
the outside."
MS. STUDENT: I need to make a point. The advertising said
readoption, and that title "readoption" carries with it the idea that
you're readopting something that was done before, and I have a
concern about the advertise -- that's the way it was advertised, and
we're going beyond that and that's my only concern.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Okay.
MS. STUDENT: You could-- you could make your
recommendation, and we could bring it back and-- and maybe we
have a cycle coming up right behind us.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Well, let me tell you what
I'm concerned about.
MS. STUDENT: Okay.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: There are lots of little
stores around this county like Schlotsky's and places like that that
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October 3,2001
have an inconspicuous little sign in the window, neon that says
"Open." When they're open it's mined on. So when you're driving
down the highway and you look over and you want to stop in
Schlotsky's -- and I might do that tonight if we get out of here in time
-- I can look over and see whether it's open or not. There may be
lights on because they're cleaning up, but just because somebody in
the county government or relative of somebody in the county
government has got this thing about neon doesn't seem to me that we
ought to rush to this judgment, and I think it sort of has the potential
of a replay of the Truly Nolen thing. That was noted the first time
that came through, and nobody said anything, and all of a sudden that
was --
MS. STUDENT: I have a suggestion. In the next cycle that's
going to come up that Truly Nolen item will be revisited, and maybe
we can revisit that in that cycle as well and -- because I really do
have a concern about the way the title was written.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Well, I'm just stating these
things for the record. I realize we're going to adopt it.
MS. STUDENT: Staff can see what we can do with that.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: I suspect that the little guy
that owns the Subway Shop has no idea that this little sign in his
window has come to the official attention of the rule makers of
Collier County, and we're going to go through the same thing again,
could have been avoided in Truly Nolen perhaps.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Does the board feel comfortable in
asking staff to review this and come in the next cycle? Mr. Budd.
COMMISSIONER BUDD: Yes. I feel comfortable in listening
to the assistant county attorney and catching this one on the next time
around.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. Does that feel good?
MR. BELLOWS: Okay. The next item starts on page 36.
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October 3, 2001
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Excuse me just for a minute.
Madam Chairman, could we vote on the issues that we've talked
about through this one because we've already voted on the last one?
This is the one I've got to abstain from.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Which, the signs?
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: No. The one on page 36.
We just started PUD procedures. So if we could do a vote up through
now, I could be part of that, and I could abstain from discussion and
voting on the next one. Is that, Marjorie, consistent with what we
talked about?
MS. STUDENT: Yeah. We have done that before when there
was a conflict with one of our members, actually, with signs, and we
broke that out separately.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Mr. Budd, do you have a comment?
COMMISSIONER BUDD: I'll be glad to make a motion unless
we -- there's a public comment or any other comment on these items.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. COMMISSIONER BUDD go
for it and throw in your -- the changes as discussed on the notification
procedures and public participation.
COMMISSIONER BUDD: I want to make a motion on
notification procedures and public participation. Notification
procedures and variances conditional uses, C-3 and C-4 permitted
uses, industrial permitted uses and signs.
MS. STUDENT: And does that mention a finding of
consistency with the code?
COMMISSIONER BUDD: Yes. In my motion on those five
described areas, I recommend that the Planning Commission forward
these LDC sections with a recommendation of adoption to the Board
of County Commissioners and that further we find that these LDC
amendments are consistent with the Land Development Code and
under the --
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October 3, 2001
MS. STUDENT: I think you mean the Comp Plan.
COMMISSIONER BUDD: Excuse me. Consistent with the
Comp Plan and that under the notification procedures there were
several items of clarification discussed and agreed to by consensus
among the board members, and I do not recall any modifications to
other sections.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: I don't have any.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I second the motion.
MS. MURRAY: Madam Chair, they're going to need for me to
be very clear about what you want changed. There was a lot of
discussion. You agreed with some of Bob's discussion and some not,
and I have notes all over the place. I'd really appreciate a list of
exactly what you want so we can make sure --
COMMISSIONER BUDD: Okay. I can attempt to cast that.
On the Section 2.7.2.3.2, page 3 there were several items discussed
and I believe agreed to by consensus regarding the signage, that we
would clarify that the signage would be on the external boundary.
There would be a maximum of four 32-foot -- 32-square-foot signs
per frontage, equal distance spacing. Some clarifying in the
wordsmithing on what fronting road means. Back to page 5, same
section, that a list of the various organizations would be provided to
the petitioner by the county.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: And the list maintained by the county.
COMMISSIONER BUDD: Maintained and provided by the
county. Were there any others?
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Fourth line up on that same
paragraph.
COMMISSIONER BUDD: The it-- rephrase fourth line up
where it says, "However the applicant is expected to make
presentation of how it intends"--
MS. STUDENT: Say "development proposal." Also I
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October 3, 2001
mentioned this about the excavations, but I have some wordsmithing
issue, solo for clarity here, and this has happened many times before,
and it doesn't affect the substance whatsoever, and the motions are
always include -- give us a little latitude that way so ...
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: This is one of the longest motions I've
ever listened to. Okay. We have a motion by Mr. Budd and and we
have a second by Mr. Adelstein-- Mr. Adelstein. Do we have any
further discussion?
Hearing no further discussion I call the question. All those in
favor state aye.
(Unanimous response.)
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Those opposed same sign.
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Motion carries. Thank you. On those
five items.
Now we are at page 36, Section 2.7.3.4, the PUD procedures.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Madam Chair, for the record, I
will not be participating in discussion or voting on this item for a
conflict of interest.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Thank you.
MS. STUDENT: And could you state the nature of the conflict,
please?
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: ! am a -- I work for a client that
has some property that would be affected by this provision.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Thank you.
MS. STUDENT: Thank you.
MR. BELLOWS: Okay. This is the PUD procedures amending
Section 2.7.3.4 of the Land Development Code. It deals with
recommended time limits for PUDs, construction within three years
as opposed to five years adoption of date otherwise subjected to
consideration of a PUD. I'd be happy to answer any questions
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October 3,2001
presented at the last hearing, and I think we have --
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Do we have any questions from--
MR. BELLOWS: -- addressed all concerns.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: -- new participants, new
commissioners?
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Madam Chair?
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Yes, Mr. Richardson.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: The DSAC I think they
raised in this instance a reasonable request to have included some
acts-of-God kind of things. Were those included?
MR. BELLOWS: Yes, those have been.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Acts of God were included?
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Well, acts of the BCC
which is tantamount to acts of God, I guess. CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: In this county it is.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Oh, we are feisty tonight.
MR. BELLOWS: That language is on page 37.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Okay. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. Since this is the last item-- is it
not.'? Yes, it is according to my schedule. We did excavations so we
don't have any discussion -- I think we could have a motion on this
item.
COMMISSIONER BUDD: Madam Chairman, I make a motion
that Section 2.7.3.4 of the PUD procedures be forwarded to the Board
of County Commissioners with the recommendation of adoption and
that further this be found consistent with the Comprehensive Plan.
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: I second it.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: We have a motion by Mr. Budd, a
second by Mrs. Young for approval of this particular item. Do we
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October 3, 2001
have
any further discussion?
Hearing no discussion I call the question. All those in favor,
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Motion carries.
abstention. Okay. I think that is the end --
(Unanimous response.)
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Those opposed same sign.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Abstain.
We have one
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Madam Chair, just one
housekeeping item.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Yes. One housekeeping item.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: We were handed when we
came in the minutes from our last LDC -- first -- first meeting, and I
would suggest that we hold approval of that or review of that until
tomorrow morning's meeting so we'd have a chance to look at it.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Sounds reasonable to me. Do we have
any other comments? I believe we were notified that our meeting
will be in the supervisor's training room.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Tomorrow.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: We all are aware of that?
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: Is that where it's going to be?
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Yes. That is where it's going to be.
We confirmed that, and I've been doing a little review of Robert's
Rules of Orders, so hearing no further business I'll entertain a motion
to adjourn.
COMMISSIONER BUDD: So moved.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Second.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: We have a motion from
COMMISSIONER BUDD and second by COMMISSIONER
ADELSTEIN.
We are adjourned if we say aye.
Page 56
October 3, 2001
(Unanimous response.)
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: We're out of here.
There being no further business for the good of the County, the
meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 6:45 p.m.
COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
JOYCEANNA RAUTIO, CHAIRMAN
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT
REPORTING, INC., BY CAROLYN J. FORD
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