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BCC Minutes 05/30/1990 WCOLLIER COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS IN THE MATTER OF: IMMOKALEE MASTER PLAN PUBLIC WORKSHOP, per agenda of May 30, 1990 Heard by the Board of County Conm%isstcn~rs, commencing at 7:00 p.m., Wednesday, May 30, 1990, at the University of Florida Agricultural Center, uounty Road C-894 and Highway 29, Immokalee Naples, Florida 33943 PRESENT: Chairman Max A. Hasse Vice-Chairman Michael J. Volpe Commissioner Anne Goodnight Commissioner Burt L. Saunders ~W~$~4'/3 Neil Dorrill, County Manager Kenneth C~yler, County Attorney Mr. Lincoln Walther, Consultant Ms. Barbara Cacchione, Staff Representative Ms. 5~rjorie Student, Assistant County Attorney Ms. Michelle Edwards, Key Planner Mr. Robert Blanchard, Growth Planning Director Reported by: Connie S. Potts, Notary Public, State of Florida at Large Deputy Official Court Reporter RALPH G. CARROTHERS, OFFICIAL Collier County Courthouse, Naples Florida 33962 COMMITTEE MEMBER-and STAFF SPEAKERS: Ms. Barbara Cacchione Mr. I, incoln Wa] ther Mr. David Land Mr. Chuck ~4ohlke Mrs. Maureen Kelleher Ms. Michelle Edwards Mr. John Witcbger IDENTIFIED SPEAKERS HEARD: Mr. Neno J. Spagna Reverend Clayton L. Hodge Mr. Howard Allen, Sr. 5Ir. John Wltchger Mr. Dallas Townsend Mr. David Land Ms. Lucy V. Ortez Ms. Denise Coleman RALPH G. CARROTHERS, OFFICIAL Collier County Courthouse,'~Naples Florida 33962 (Whereupon, the herein Public Hearing on the Immokalee Area Master Plan held before the Board of County Commissioners having been announced to commence at 7~00 p.m., the following proceedings were had:) CHAIRMAN HASSE: It's seYen o'clock. We'll call the meeting to order. The first thing, let's have the pledge to the flag. Everybody rise. (Whereupon, the Pledge of Allegiance was recited.) CHAIRMAN HASSE: Well, we're here tonight to discuss the Immokalee Master Plan. I guess everybody here has been waiting for that and looking forward to the time when we can finally have it into fruition. I would like to introduce the Vice-chairman of the Board of County Commissioners, Mike Volpe. VICE-CHAIRMAN VOLPE: Good evening, everyone. CHAIR~N HASSE: And Commissioner Anne Goodnight. And I'm Commissioner Max Hasse. This -- Immokalee Master Plan Technical Advisory Co~nittee was formed -- can everybody here me or do I have to use the mike? UNIDENTIFIED: CHAIRMAN HASSE: Mike. Use the mike. I'll get other people a hearing aid, then. (At this point, Chairman Hasse approached the pod Jura and pro¢oodin0a continuod, as CHAIRMAN HASSE: Is this better? UNIDENTIFIED~ Good. CHAIRMAN HASSE: Good. This Immokalee Master Plan Technical Advisory Committee was formed in the early 1989. The first meeting was held February the 1st, 1989, and after some odd thirty moet. Jn~l~, tho co~nittoo with the input from the public and our staff came up with the final view of what the Master Plan will be in Immokalee. It's not engraved in Granite at the present time, so that's what we're all here for, to look at and see what we can do to improve possibly what the committee has done or accept what the committee has done. I'm especially pleased to be able to introduce the committee. The committee was formed and comprised of ~ndividuals representing specific interests in the community, such as farm workers, aGri business and other local businesses, government, and a general citizenry of the Immokalee area. I would like to introduce the committee at the present time. We have David Land, ~he chairman of the committee, David? We have David Entey, vice-chairman. I'm glad that we havo Liout~nant Wayne Graham. you're here with the gun tonight. Dorcus Howard. Dorcus. Chuck Mohlke. James Williams. later. didn't see you before now, Chuck. Well, I'll bet you he shows up Jerry Bosworth. William Gains. Wo~]ey Harr]n~ton. Maureen Kelleher. Everett Lawkenone (phonetic). John Price. And John Witchger. I got ~t. A'private plannin9 consultant was hired by the county to assist in the preparation of this Master Plan. Linc Walter, Lincoln Walter and Associates. Public hearings were -- are scheduled before the Planning Commission on June the 29th, 1990, and before the 0O0O5 Board of County Commissioners on July the 25th, 1990. I'm looking forward to having a fine plan finished here, approved by the committee and approved by the cJl:Jzr,r, ry and, fir, ally, approved koch by tho Planntn~ Commission and the County Commission. I would like to express sincere thanks for the con -- the unlimited amount of time that was put in by the co~ntttee. I'm most appreciative of it, and so the citizens o~ Immokalee should feel the same way. So thank you. With that, I would like to turn the meeting over to Barbara Cacchione. I hoped I said that right, Barbara. Or is it close enough? MS. CACCHIONE: CHAIRMAN HASSE: MS. CACCHIONEr It's close enough. Okay. Barbara Cacchione. I would also like to personally thank the committee for all of their hard work and their efforts that they put in through the last year, actually the last year and a half. They have worked very closely with planning staff and the consultant, and what you see tonight is the fruits of our labors. The Comprehensive Plan for Collier bounty was adopted in January, 1989, and Immokalee is a part of that plan. And 0O0O6 during that process, we found that the Immokale~ area was unique in its characteristics; being a rural agricultural farming community, that it needed {~n additional sector plan. It needed additional, more detailed review than we were able to provide through the General Comprehensive Plan. At that time, the Board of County Commissioners adopted a policy, and the policy reads as follow: "A detailed sector plan for the Immokalee community shall be developed and incorporated into this Growth Management Plan by August of 1990. Sector plan should address natural resources, future land use, public facilities, housing, urban design, land development regulations and other considerations. Major purposes of the sector plan shall be coordination of land use and transportation planning, redevelopment, renewal of blighted areas and elimination of land use inconsistent with the community's character." That was the charge Given to staff and the Technical Advisory Committee which was formed in January of '89 to exist with staff and the planning consultant to bring forth this document to you. The Master Plan that you have before you tonight is a product, as I said, of all of these work efforts. What it calls for really is a two to three-year planning process for th~ Immokalee ar~a. It is a beginning rather than an end product in and of itself. It calls for various studies and ongoing efforts in regard to transportation planning, better methodology for estimating population so we have a better idea of what facilities we need in the future, housing studies, transportation studies, environmental studies. So as I said, this is really a beginning with this Master Piano, and it does call for a two and three-year work effort for the community. we did try to elicit public participation through other means. We held various community meetings in the I~okalee area. We sort of divided the area up into a south, north and west posture, and we had meetings in each of those communities to try and get a ~ood feel for what the community felt in their particular area, what they saw as problems, what they would like us to consider in this plan and where they would like for us to ~o in the future for their area. So those were all considerations we tried to dovetail together into this document. Tonight what you have before you in the goals, objectives and policies and the support documents represent that work effort. The -- the support document was basically put together by our consultant Lin4 Walther and Associates,' and I,~nc -- this ~s Linc Walthor right here, ho Just walked in the room -- and he put together a lot of the basic information, the demographic information, the population information, and this is all found in the backup and support for the Master Plan itself. The various work efforts are what we have before us tonight. We'll gee the goals, objectives and policies in & crossed through and underlined format. This represents staff's initial response, and also the committee's work efforts are also underlined in that document to fdentify the com~.tttee's work efforts on this product. With that brief introduction, I think -- THE COURT: Barbara, may I interrupt, please. MS. CACCHIONE= Sure. CHAIRMAN HASSE: Sort of rectify some of my neglect re. introduce the rest of the table here and our staff, please. MS. CACCHIONE: Sure. On the far right, we have Margie Student, who is the O00UD Assistant County Attorney. We have Commissioner Anne GoodniGht. And this is Linc Walther, who was the consultant with Walther and Associates. We also have Michelle Edwards, who is the key planner on this project. we also have Bob Blanchard, who is the Growth Planning Director. Ken Cuyler, who was the County Attorney. Dick Clark, with Code Enforcement. Russell Schreve (phonetic) with our Housing and Urban Improvement Department. And Nell Dorrill, the County Manager. I think I got everybody. With that, I would like to turn it over to Linc who will try give us a background of the Immokalee Master Plan process and what we went through to get to this point in time. MR. WALTHER: Good evening. I'm quite surprised and very happy to see everyone here this evening. This process started out November of 1988, and the County Commission had recognized that Immokalee is 00010 10 different. It's a -- it's more unique because it is an agricultural community, unlike the majority of Collier County where the population is -- over in the coastal areas, which is very urban. The County Commission recognized that it would be best if there was an Immokalee sector plan or, as we're calling it, a Master Plan; that it be ultimately, once developed and adopted, incorporated into the county's Growth Management Plan. Further, that -- the commission also recognized that the development of the plan in a vacuum would not be very effective. Participation was understood to be very important. In that light, there were a series of mechanisms -- citizen participation mechanisms, ways in which we try to get input from the public within Immokalee. We established early on -- we had a couple of early workshops, in late '88, early '89, and basically these initial workshops were to kind of lay out what the process was to accomplish, the steps we were going to take, and to make sure that people were clear as to what to expect. I hope people are clear as to what to expect. We 11 have had considerable discussion among the Technical Advisory Committee on what to expect. When the contract -- when ! first signed the contract, we had identified that we would establish a Technical Advisory Committee, that there would be four meetings of this particular body. As we got into the process, we recognized that four meetings were not even close to how many we needed, and in fact we have had over sixteen meetings with the Technical Advisory Committee since approximately the period of a year and a half. They have been meeting almost on a monthly basis. The Technical Advisory Committee -- and you'll hear from different members this evening -- has probably been the heart of the citizen participation effort. The document that probably many of you may have before you certainly reflects this group's thinking, and this is what it is all about. The goal of -- at least my goal for participation was to make sure that within the plan the desires and aspirations of the people that live in Immokalee is reflected. They certainly weren't to be what Lincoln 000 ~ ~ 12 Walther, the consultant, expected or wanted. Plans should reflect the community in which they're being developed. Therefore, this 9ffort was very, very important. In addition to the Technical Advisory Committeo, there were a number of times that we establfshed, quote, subco~ittees to deal with specific issues or wrestle with individual problems, and certainly one issue was population. As you well know, there is a -- if you're here in July and you're here in December, you know there's a difference, and that was a major concern; how do we Get a handle on how many folks are here during the pea'~ season. We also had another subcommittee on planning and zoning, which probably was the essence, and many of the members participated on that committee. We also had another subcommittee dealing with public participation. And towards the end of the process, there were a series of other subcommittees that were developed to deal with special issues, such as housinG and human services w]~]ch are vital to the overall planning effort. 13 And ber~Jdo~ t;hn oho you n]way~ h~ar about, which ~ we also have public workshops, which you're sitting in this evening, and public hearings. There was another effort initiated the -- during the end of last year, the beginning of this year, and that was community meetings around Immokalee, and staff attended a series of meetings discussing with various local, localized groups what had transpired with the planning effort, what was In the I~okalee proposed Master Plan at that point, and that input was very valuable in terms what you see today in the Immokalee Area Master Plan. Those, that input was taken back and it was used to make a variety of revisions and changes in the document. I will leave it at that and turn it back to Barb. MS. CACCHIONE: MR. WALTHER: MS. CACCHIONE: Uh-huh. Okay. I would like to also mention that on the table as you first enter, there are siGn-up sheets, and ]f you would ]fke to speak towards the end of the agenda where we have open for public discussion, if you could just sign your name. And I'll call you when it's your turn. Next, we have David Land who served as the Chairman 14 of our Technical Advisory Committee, and he'll talk about the issues and concerns that we face. MR. CUYLER: David. MR. LAND~ Yes. ~IR. CUYLER~ Turn the podium a little bit out. It has a speaker. That way I think everybody can hear better. MR. [,AND: (Did as requested.) MR. CUYLER: Thank you. blR. LAND: You want me to speak to them, not them; right? Perhaps before going in and -- perhaps issues and concerns is not the best way to describe it. I'm going to talk more about what I would call some of the characteristics of this community which have a bearing in terms of why tho plan may look like it does, and also when we think about modifications or needs or changes that we want to make to the plan, that these are factors that we want to keep in the backs of our minds. Perhaps before going into that. Aa you go through any plan like this -- I had either the good fortune or the bad fortune of ~erv]nG on the county's C~tizens Advisory Committee for that Comprehensive Plan -- what comes out of 15 the end is a compromise. There is no way that a plan will make every individual or every group of individuals happy, but hopefully what comes out gives an overall consensus! not unanimity, but consensus of what is best for the community. We may or may not have done that at this particular point in time, but that's what we're attempting to work on at this stage. we struggled long and hard on this committee. As mentioned, we met thirty some odd times over a sixteen-month period. Our last two meetings, one started at one thirty in the afternoon and finished about I' believe it was eleven thirty at night. The other one started at I believe four o'clock in the afternoon and finished somewhere around midnight. So these were long, long sessions and, as I say, it could be some things slip by us in those sessions, but overall, we think we have a reasonably good product at this time to bring before you. What I would like to do is talk about 'Immokalee for a moment itself. Every community has it particular personality, needs, potentials. Immokalee is no different. Immokalee is a very special place. It is different, 16 and we need to recognize that difference in an attempt to say what does that mean for this planning process. In many ways, and I know that some people may see this as a ne§ative relationship or comparison, but I don't mean it that way at all. In many ways, some of the issues and what we face here in Immokalee are very similar to those, to what you find in a third-world nation. We're agrarian based. We are both ethnically and linguistically mixed. We have a variety of different cultures here in the community. We have low literacy rates in many cases and, also, low income levels. In some respects, although nc~ totally, I think we need to amend those where this is the case. We have both what you might call intellectual and middle class flight because of the lack of certain types of opportunities w~thin the community. In many respects, we are often at the mercies both economically and politically of forces outside the community, either national forces or forces on the coastal Collier County or whatever, but in many respects we do not control our own destiny here in Immokalee. Our destiny is 000~? 17 being controlled both economically and politically elsewhere. Overall, we're a much youn~sl population and especially when being compared to coastal areas. I understand that the average age in Immokalee is close to twenty years old, which is a very, very different situation. Consequently, we have needs that are different bocau~(~ of that. There are few alternatives and resources for dramatically changing our conditions here, and in many respects, we have -- and this gets into a technical terminology -- but we have terms of trade with respect to agriculture, which in some respects perpetuates some of the low income levels that we find here in the community. A lot of this seems to be getting away from what we talked about on 9J-5. In many respects, the Nesbitt Report (phonetic), which did a study called Collier 2000, said one of the faults they saw in the county's Master Plan was that it was too mechanical, that it was not sufficiently visionary. And one of the things we have made an effort at and we're still struggling with at this time is to make this plan somewhat visionary; to try to take the overall needs of 18 this community, the characteristics of this community, and make a special plan which fits this community and not simply go through the law of 9J-5. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, that's the state law that requires us to go through this process. We're trying to go beyond that. We're trying to think of things beyond what we're required to do by law. Some of the other things that you find in Immokalee -- and I won't say whether these are Good or bad. I think increasin01y the community is controlled either by the new-comers or outsiders. I think if you took the composition of our Technical Advisory Committee, it's very evident on that. A number of us on the committee don't live in the community; a number of us on the committee have come within the last two, three, four or five years. And as I said, that could have influenced what this product is and maybe it influenced it in a positive way, maybe it influenced it in a negative way. That ethnic and cultural diversity that I talked about, again, creates a situation where we may have some very different values, very different priorities, maybe even a different aesthetics in terms of what we think is best for 0[')019 19 the community, and that's something we need to recognize. A very positive thing that I've seen within Immokalee is to me there is a much greater sense of neighborhood and a much greater sense of community here in Immokalee than you find in what I would call the coastal urban sprawl areas or, when I lived in another part of the U.S., what you find in some of the big city areas where you have bedroom communities and so forth. We have a much greater sense of community here in Immokalee than I sense over in the Naples area and perhaps Bonita and some of those locations. It's a very positive thing. We're industrially based here in Immokaleo, And by that I'm talking at this stage agricultural industrially based, which is very different from the coastal area which is primarily tourist and retirement oriented and, because of those, construction oriented. We have what I call depressed but upwardly aspiring neighborhoods. By that I'mean we have some locales, we have some neighborhoods in town that are not the best neighborhoods in the world, but the people in those neighborhoods want their neighborhoods to be something better than what they currently are, and that's a resource 20 with potential I think we can truly tap. We also have what I would call greater density in housing. Our average number of peo31e per housing unit is closer to five; in the coastal area, I think it's somewhere around two and a quarter. So that's a very, very different characteristic here in Immokalee. From a pure planning standpoint, there are four or five things I think we need to keep in mind. Number one: A large percentage of our population is pedestrian oriented. They do not have carsl they do not have at least regular access to cars. Maybe there's one vehicle in the family and whichever family member goes to work in that vehicle, the remainder of the family has to walk. Because of that, we may have to do things different here than you might in Naples, which is not a pedestrian oriented community. Secondly: I think we have what I would call three urban centers in Immokalee. we have what I would call our pedestrian center, and that is the traditional downtown area. Main Street and First is very much a pedestrian oriented, a walking, community. 000'2.7,1 21 Secondly, we have a vehicular center, and I would say that Lake Trafford Road and 29 is the center of the vehicular traffic locale of Immok85ee. And, third, we have a business or industrial center, and that's esentially the New Market Road and out to the east-southeast of town. So we kind of have three different locales in town that we could call centers of the community, each one meeting different needs. Fourth -- and I think this is a very positive thing which we can do that I think the coastal area cannot -- we have significant green spaces remaining, not Just in the periphery or the outer areas of Immokalee's urban designated area but within the urban core as well. In other words, we have areas that are large enough and not developed that we can plan around and do things with those particular areas, which the opportunity in the coastal area may already have been lost. One thing that we have, and if you look at some of the maps, although that's not filled in there, we have a largely in-place linear commercial area stretching almost from one end of the town to the other. 22 Now, whether we like it or not and whether that was good planning, it's almost a fact of life that if you go from First or if you go down 29 tc~,ard Farm Workers Village and go all the way around to the banks and so forth on the north end of town, there are some intermittent areas that are not developed; but essentially, whether we like it or not, we do have an in-place -- largely in-place commercial linear strip right through the center of our town. We have a tremendous need not only for permanent housinO solutions in Immokalee but for interim solutions as well, and that sometimes comes at odds with what we're trying to do with housing codes, enforcement codes and so forth. But we have to grapple not only with the long-term solutions but where these people are going to live in the interim. Again, one of the major challenges we face. Another item is: We have no direct control over our sewer/water district. The county does; Immokalee does not. In other words, the county outside of Immokalee, over in the urban designated area on the coast, actually the sewer and water is part of the county government; here, it's an independent district. So that means that we can plan one way, but we have to work with this independent district 00023 23 making sure things mesh. That may or may not be possible at all times. We have the existence of two underutilized resources in town. Number one is our airport~ a tremendously underutilized resource. And, secondly, our economic zone which exists in town which only now I' think people are be~inn]nQ to understand the benefits of. Perhaps the last and major difference between Immokalee and the remainder of Collier county, or at least the coastal urban area, I think the single biggest d~fference that I see is that Immokalee's primary obJectiv~ is to aggressively promote and attract development which will benefit the communtty~ whereas, I think in the coastal area at this sta~e of our development, the primary objective may be to moderate, slow, or do other things with development. We have a tremendous need for new housing. We have a tremendous need for new businesses which allow a better utilization of the labor force throughout the year, which allows incomes to be raised and so forth. And if we in any w~y block or make it moro difficult for that, thoso businesses or that new housing to come to town, the community will suffer. As I say, I think that ts a very different situation than what we face in the coastal area. so I would ask both you and the public, as well as the co~.[~nfonors, as we 0o through this process tonight and through the coming months -- I'm certain any individual that lives in the community could do a much better Job than I of iterating some of these factors, but try to keep these thing~ l~, mind both when you criticize, when you give constructive idea, when you propose changes and so forth to this plan. What we're proposing now in terms of movin~3 into the next portion cf the presentation tonight -- there's kind of two routes that we could go, and I think that we propose we proceed on one. That is, we elect to give short, five or ten-minute summaries of each of the major elements of the Comprehensive Plan and then move into specific discussion of the plan. My fear is that if we do an introduction of one area, spend a lot of time on that, we all of a sudden at the end of the evening will find that it's time to close and some of the key issues may have been not addressed at that particular point in time. t t 025 So if the com~issioners will bear with us, what we'd like to do i, maybe go through quick presentations on oach one of these. CHAIRMAN HASSE: Fine. MR. LANDs Chuck Mohlke will do the first one, on population. MR. MOHLKE: If it please this honorable commission and those who are here in attendance this evening. My purpose is to draw a boundary around this issue in terms of concerns about population and what is, as we all know, frequently referred to as ~nfrastructure; namely, what do we have under the ground in terms of storing water, what do we have on the surface of the land in terms of roadways, how do we deal with the public services needs of the community. What we have attempted to do here is best described as -- CHAIRMAN HASSE: Hold on a moment. MR. MOHLKE: That gets us to that part of the Immokalee Master Plan document that I'll be referring to. I wonder if I can call your attention to, under Roman Numeral III, the implementation strategy. You'll find 26 expressed there goals, objectives and policies that refer to population, and you'll also find a ~ection on demographics beginning on page forty and going through page forty-three. And further, in respect to population, you havo in your documents an appendix, one which provides you with a detailed review of -- a very fine explanation of population census methodologies and estimates of the Immokalee population that was done by planning serwices, your consultant. In respect to population, I wonder if I could make five points, please. I'll put the first point under the general heading of what we have provided, to the best of our ability in this report, is what I will call a best-for-now attempt to characterize and describe the population of the community. The best-for-now in two senses. One~ We have currently under way the completion of the 1990 census. We're about to be nourished by a much better understanding of the Immokalee community on the publication of that data, probably between eighteen and twenty months from now. We will likely see something that commissioners are familiar with from the 1980 population data that you saw 27 described many times before during the comprehensive planning process in what is often described as the neighborhood statistics program. It 9ives a very detailed rendition of the populations of the subcommuntties inside of Collier County. Hopefully, hopefully, the county staff will have the opportunity to provide you with that very detailed insight into this community that previously has elluded us in terms of our ability to properly describe the number of persons and their characteristics here. I'm confident that when you see that data, you will see many surprises as to the nature of this community and the diversity of it and the degree of that diversity. Although you have heard that described many times before, havin9 those numbers in front of you I think will improve everyone's understandin9 of this area. I want to 9ive special emphasis to somethin9 that we have attempted to include for your review in the appendix which is an attempt to look at population in respect to the impacts that people create on 9overnment services, on housing, on transportation, on the criminal Justice system, on law enforcement, on the many states agencies that provide 28 survtcef~ In this community. We're suggesting in the material that we have there that through a very forthcoming collaboration between the agricultural community, the county staff, of the intense division and other resources that we can do a very credible job of calculating when the impact is felt here, what the dimensions of that impact are as we go into the respective planting and harvesting seasons that are so critical and important to this community, and perhaps you would like to spend just a moment of your private time as you examine these documents to get an indication why we think that's important and how we might undertake to do this Job. One thing that I'think I would like to say in conclusion here is that if there is anything that is certain about population, it is how many times we have undercounted the population of Immokalee for a variety of reasons; and should you have an interest in this at some later time, we could very easily take the school population that we have here as a way to get a better insight into that, the true population of the community. Let me just summarize the point by saying this: That based on our best calculations, the under age eighteen 29 population in Immokalee, if we accept the very best estimates that we can have, represents over fifty-three percent of the total population of the area. Fifty-three percent. Compare that with the Naples urban population where the under age eighteen population comprises fourteen percent. Within the City of Naples, as an example. So if you thought about the needs of the Immokalee community in no other way than to look at it from the standpoint of how age distributions create different priorities in this community than they create in the Naples urban area, I think that will be an important insight. Let me conclude by talking very briefly, very briefly about infrastructure. In your larger document, you will find, beginning on page eighty-one and concluding on page one hundred and one, an attempt to review everything from issues relating to solid waste, water, transportation, and a variety of the other government services that are provided in this co~nunity. You need no comments from me. The material and the narrative describes itself and does so very well. 3O However, there is something that David Land alluded to that I would like to repeat. The crucial role of the independent districts in this co~nunity in terms of government services needs to be repeated often. The independent water and sewer district, Collier County Housing Authority, the independent fire district all serve very important functions here, independent of county government. The impact on this community of a variety of state agencies has had enormous impacts on the community, and the coordination of effort between county, community, the independent districts and state and federal agencies as they impact on this important community needs to be taken much account of, I think. There are a variety of studies are that -- that are called for. Again, they are well described in the narrative, and you don't need a great deal of comment from me in this regard, but I would ask you to pay special attention to the studies that are called for in these presentations of narrative that you have because they are crucial to properly estimating what the needs of this community are. Transportation alone requires a major revisiting of 00031 31 what the priorities are and how to allocate resources. The important recommendations in the report for a so-called by-pass or loop road around the community, the need to connect all of the street networks so that there is ease of access, neighborhood to neighborhood, and not interruptions in transportation or pedestrian access. One thing that should not be -- go overlooked that again the unique nature of our exercise here and this community, that we may have access to a good deal of plan funds through some statutes recently enacted by the Florida legislature, particularly the 1987 enactment of what is usually referred to as a Safe Neighborhood Act, 87-243 House Bill, that made extensive amendments to everything from the way in which the criminal justice system deals with indigenous neighborhood problems to the way in which planning grants can be made available to resourceful local governments who choose to use this as a way to assist in dealing with problems of a community like Immokalee. And lastly, back to the independent districts very briefly. We have a little bit of an activity on the part of the Florida legislature which we feel is going to assist us 32 enormously, and that is the enactment last year of the Independent Distrct Accountability Acts. It's finally going to join the efforts of the independent districts and local government in the comprehensive planning efforts, and I think the likelihood of that showing immediate results in terms of forthcoming cooperation between the districts and county government is something that we can all look forward to. Thank you very much for the opportunity to serve this community. It's been a real, real important part of my life recently. CHAIR/~AN HASSE: It's not over yet. MR. LAND~ We had a public -- first, on coming before The one that I'll now address is conservation or natural resources. With respect to what we tried to do in this plan, it is very limited at this particular point in time. In many re~pect~ from a natural resource standpoint, Immokalee is very fortunate. As I 'indicated earlterl we still have significant, relatively undeveloped areas within our community that benefit the community. And secondly, 33 Immokalee sits within a much larger ecosystem that is still generally healthy and productive a( this particular point in time. So we don't face, again, some of the problems that you do on the coast where you have heavy development with major disturbance of the system up against a coastal district, which is water. We have a different -- very, very different setting out here. The rural area essentially allows us to do two thing~ Allow0 us to develop area-wide link solutions which have a Greater chance of success. And by ~hat I mean we can look at, instead of doing what I would call piecemeal project-by-project type of natural resource protection, such as one of the things that we're doing in the coastal urban area, each project has to protect twenty-five percent of its native vegetation. Similarly there's others who have a better understanding and knowledge -- I know I now have a knowledge -- of the ecological value. Generally when you can put little pieces together to make larger pieces is where you Get the true value, where there ks a chance of a system continuing to function in a near natural state. I think we have that potential here in 34 I~okaleo. So what we have done is ess~.ntially only made at this stage two recommended changes from the original goals, objectives and policies. The first was the need for an aCCu~t~ lnvQntory and maDDing of our greatly sensitive areas, and what I would like to do is maybe direct your attention to the map behind you over here. What you see outlined in red are what exist on our current land use map as being environmentally sensitive ar~a~ in th~ I~nokalee locale. If you look at the green area -- I know the further you go back, the less visible this is. But if you look at the green area, that is actually where wetlands which tend to be the primary reason why an area is dis -- denoted as environmentally sensitive area which is unique, because we haven't done the inventory. You can see a very, very different configuration here. So what we have here is -- it's still -- the land use map that we're using utilizing is inaccurate, and one of the first objectives is to do a survey of the community, and to see -- . Right now, we don't have that. So we made that change, and rather than in the land use plan talking about 35 the Lake Trafford corridor, we wanted to look beyond in a broader area than simply Lake Traff.%rd corridor. The second major change is that we do not wish to impose more and stringent natural resource requirements locally if that were in any way going to harm low and moderate income groups within the community, be it a housing project, be it a business that would employ these people or whatever. The feeling was that we have very good and in many cases very stringent state and federal laws relating to natural resources. In the coastal area, which is a bit wealthier and perhaps other locales of the county, we have the luxury of imposing more stringent standards, but within the co~nunity itself, as long as we're planning a system- wide basis, the -- here the needs of the people had to take precedence over certain natural resource issues of these areas, so -- Drovided we were in no way violating state or federal laws. So proceeding, those are the -- those are the two important things that we wanted to do natural resource way. So really that's tho only changes there. I think -- Maureen. 36 MS. KELLEHER~ One of the things that we have in Immokalee as you can see from some df the people that are -- have been before you is amazing talent and interest and concern. We also have from that community base that we already spoke about an awful lot of knowledge about ourselves and about our housing needs, even though the very first recommendation we have is that we really need a serious study of the problem. It's no s~cret since wa were lucky enough to attract state attention to our plight, and attract a million dollars in pocket money. It is no secret statewide that we have an incredible Gap between the populations that are here, who are hard-working people, and the shelter that we cannot yet provide as a county and as a community. So we're very serious about it, and we know from our best guesstimates that we're talking at least four thousand units and maybe more. That was the figure we used two years ago when we were under study by a special com4~ittee of the legislature. The first goal we're asking as a full county is that we ~cally ~ay wo'rc uorlout~ about: housing, that the time has 37 come, the ideas is ripe, that each uf us should have prober shelter. It's the base of how families can enter-relate. It's that which makes for safety, that which makes for opportunity and growth. To that end, we have a very serious recommendation. We have a ten-year plan that really begins to look at the existing housing stock, the existing populations, the projected populations and that housing which shall be needed. We want to do a budget thing along with this. Please, Nell, don't faint, but we're saying we're going to take two policies. One, that the federal and state level move in and begin to do their share. The private sector meets us, and we as the county will have an optimal budget based on that assumption. The second is a state fall-back situation. State and federal continue not to meet us in the kind of incentive and tax funding that we know we need, and see what the county can do with the private sector implementation for the housing. That we really close the gap between the gross indignities that are out there and what we need for the future. O0038 38 The -- and I'm following along the plan. I'used to be a teacher, so everyone has page ~leven now. So let's go forward. That we as a committee, coming down to 3.21. We basically are looking for a much more serious commitment to the public infrastructure, particularly roads that are here. I'm an old fashioned person, I have white hair to prove it, and I remember when the counties first put in the roads and then the housing followed. We need to have county commitment that we get the ~nfrastructure and priority in the county's capital budget. We are appropriating our code enforcement, and we support that, but we do need to bring along a -- much more of a commitment in capital growth, roads, paying, et cetera, to make new housing replace what we are In fact going to take off the land because of its failure to comply with the housing code. The important ones -- I'm not going to take you through every one here -- are on page twelve. We are looking for a serious commitment from the county of what will bring down the cost of housing. Unfortunately, while we all say that we need to contain 39 growth on the coast and we want equality, and here we need something different. We need a proactive county resDonse that will monitor the need for lower income housing development. So policy 3.21. We're saying we know we do not have sufficient supply of vacant lots for people to buy. Call any realtor in Immokalee, and what you'll find is that their business is pretty much in groves. But you say, "How many lots are there on the market for a family to come forward and put up their dream." "We don't have those lo=s." So we're saying that one of the things that the county can do is take a look at the map and downzone, as you have to by law, but upzone. Take a look -- almost half of our acres is still called agriculture. So we're saying take a look at those priority parcels, we're going to call them, those that are sitting -- with no economic base, sitting on the map, with no proximity to water and sewer, and we're saying rezone them with the consent of the owner, or if they have it right there, go ahead and zone them for residential use. Why not go on without county help? Many times it's absentee ownership or people who do not live here 40 year-round. Point two: We are looking for a special way to put up those roads. W~y can't we use tax increment financing. Go ahead and put out some general revenues, and then with the added value you know will be put on the land, take that future tax base. Commit now as a county to put the roads in. One of our problems is we have an awful lot of people that really, if they knew how to work the system and the many offices that you have to go to to get that piece of land and the proper zoning understanding and merits, et cetera, would probably be able to get up some of the housing. County can help. If we could have an inventory -- this would not be hard to do. Develop an inventory of vacant land and list it at the development services here. List it by loan, by location, by zoning qualification, tax liabilities if they're there. All of that information is in our county by communities. Just put it together and make it available for John Q. Public to walk in and see what lands there are and he'd then be able to approach that owner and try to make the 41 purchase of a lot. How am I doing on time? I meed a timekeeper. 3.24. We really need a research report from county staff on how we can increase the supply of ungroved land. Frankly, I have been in other county planning process where they do not have urban designated area, and we have sprawl. we have stopped. But, bam, we have just improved the price of lots. It's a hard way to go in a community such as Immokalee's economic base. So we need some study from county staff as to how to get more lands into the market and bring down the prices. We need help in rezoning those area. And one of the improvements in this plan you're going to see is that mobile homes will not be allowed just anywhere as maybe had the past, really mobile home parks in some of these lands uses, and what I'm a fearing is some owners of mobile homes need to have the help of the county to rezone that area. We're saying if it's predominately a mobile home area, let the county, with the consent of those mobile home owners, go ahead and zone it for mobile home subdivision or mobile home residential park, depending on the character of the area. 42 we need to provide a lot plan of regulatory reforms to reduce the cost of development and maintenance for affordable, decent, safe housing. We need expedited development. We needed it a couple years ago and now definitely. The more sophisticated we're getting as a county to protect quantity, the more difficult it is for those who are the lower income household to get through all the hoops. So we need all of the assistance we can get, and I understand that that's going on. Neil, we need to have a review. MR, CUYLER: We are in the final stages of developing a unified development plan that will assist with that. MS. KELLEHER: So we're right on target and that's already going forward. Years ago you could write to Sears Roebuck and get your house, put it up. We wish. Our next recommendation. County could have preapproved plans that were -- a couple models, A, B, C or D -- for that basic single-family home, and then the home owner could step up and go through, avoid all of that cost and time lag. We're looking, of course, for favorable 43 impact fees for those low and very low income families. Wo're also aug~e~ting that, that bhe county could focus on that entry home owner. Have threshold expenses. If you could defer ad valorum taxes and then pro rate in succeeding years. One of the reports -- Collier County 2000, I think -- spoko of tho amount of talent we have in the coast, of retired persons, so the next suggestion really is that we work with county staff to network these kinds of resources that are ~n the county already and to put together, counsel, develop, and county officials to take Immokalee as a target area of concern. In our housing element that we have already adopted in our Comp Plan, we said we needed a relocation plan for those displaced persons who were moved out because of government action. I know this is a plan that can work, and I hope landlords in the audience will work with me. I know you keep your property, you so you're not the ones who will suffer. If tenants are moved out of property because of v~olation of codes that were so serious that county had to 44 shut it down, that violator, that landlord who broke those warrant of habitability should pay the tenant the cost of relocation. If not, the county forwaIds those relocation costs and then puts a lien on those properties for the cost of administration cost and relocation. That's not a new idea. That's been done in other communities. Dropping down, we're looking for a full survey of our labor needs. We need to talk more to our agriculture industry about their plantings, about their projected future labor needs, and we need a much more serious study done on what in fact are our farm workers' In fact, we have a serious proposal here. Where are the attorneys? W~ are suggesting, if we could, to actually look at our increased acreage ~n agriculture and take from this ad valorum, dedicate the thirty percent and put it in a farmer reserve. Increase in -- agriculture increased acreage is staggering. The new incomes that are being generated I'm sure are spent already by Tal]ahassee i]~ many ways, but housing of workers is something that basically -- something with a very 45 minimum wage income. Just the private sector can't do it. We have to develop dictated porcenta]e, something to help meet the problem. We have a serious problem of those who are trying to run migrant labor camp here in Immokalee and they think they're following all of the codes that they think is applicable and, bam, there's another code that they didn't know about. So we're suggesting in those cases where they are complying with the state and their code, 10D-25, Florida Statute for Migrant Labor Camps if already on the land, that the housing code, Dick, would not apply to them. And there should be continual meetings in the years to come of the state officials out here inspecting and of the county officials and to start removing obstacles. So we can get to the last two suggestions deal with particularly needy isolated population. One is on AIDS. We know we have some AIDS in the community, and we're saying the hospice for these people should not be in a coastal area far flung from family and friends. But we should put a hospice proximate to their home for their cultural ties. And some percentage, a percent of the permits fees for the 46 problems that wo have with homeless and abused spouses and children. Thank you very much. CHAIR/~AN HASSE: Thank you. MR. WITCHGERz There are two areas that I'll cover. One is recreation, and the other is the formation of an advisory committee on inter-sector goals that are included in the back of the packet. First of all, recreation. Maybe we can turn to page twenty and twenty-one Just to look at that briefly. Just as a reminder to the Board of County Commissioners -- it's familiar to all those here in the audience -- is that there is no swimming pool within forty miles of Immokalee. Transportation is not available to all residents. Walking is the common form of transportation, the grocery, laundry-mat, work pick up point, and even the recreational facilities that are available. And as mentioned before, we have a young population up here. So in our recreation element, we talk about providing ample high quality recreational opportunity, and the way to do that is to provide parks and recreational programs that 47 are convenient to all Immokalee re~dents. We're calling for a five-year plan in the budget. It would be based on a survey, and the survey would be done by the county. And that future parks be located in neighborhood centers that we have designated on the map and that the need for parks be based on the total population because many of our restdei~ts are here much longer than the tourism season in the coastal community. The second area that I have been asked to address I believe is the most important area. The staff included it as a memo in the back of your packet, and the staff also neglected to include it in the blue packet. If you picked up a blue packet tonight, it's not even included in that packet. This is what I would call the visionary part that David Land referred to. As I recall, it was the recommendation of the Technical Advisory Committee that the essence of this memo be part of the Master Plan. T think the staff missed this point in not putting it in the packet for the public and putting it in a memo in the back. In fact, in my opinion, it should be at the front of 000,18 48 the document. This is not a typical ingredient of most master plan~. W~'ro coming from an ~ntirely different perspective here, a different one than you're accustomed to. This memo explains and Justifies the rest of the document. All are components of, are instrumental in, accomplishing these goals. We're talking about a inter-sector or inter-component goals about coordinating the services needed for the people to live dignified lives within Immokalee. Because of the time constraints that the committee had -- we were basically set up by the county staff -- the Technical Advisory Committee was not able to fully address this, but I think the Technical Advisory Committee is not the best group to look at this in detail and that memo recommends who might be the best people to do it. I guess for those of you on the Board of County Commissioners, we're asking two things. One: To understand our perspective. Our perspective -- and you won't find it written there. As clearly as I-can do it right now, our perspective -- we're asking to focus on the elimination of involuntary poverty. Understand our perspective. Focus on the elimination O00,1D 49 of involuntary poverty. Secondly, we're asking the Board of County Commissioners to take action. Form a blue ribbon advisory committee to continue and complete what efforts have begun in what this memo addresses. I think it will bring meaning to the whole planninG. We believe that you, the Board of County Commissioners, are in the best position to do what is critically needed now in Immokalee. The overarchinG goal of this memo states, and maybe the reason for the whole plan is, we need to provide equal opportunity for mental and physical health help for all people. Equal opportunity for mental and physical health. And second of all, we expect equal effort and reponsibility from each resident. We're not talking about building hospitals or institutions of mental health~ we're talking about the poverty conditions that exist and we recognize here in Immokalee. David Land briefly alluded to them as parallel to a third world county. Some of us see it every day. There is hunger out here. There's hazardous housing conditions, and the housing 50 element begins to address that. There is insufficient clothing. There is language illiteracy. Unavailability of essential health care. Political illiteracy. I think the inter-governmental coordination element begins to address that, calling for an inter-governmental coordinating counsel, and an assistant county manager with a multi-lingual staff right out here in Immokalee. There is lack of legal counsel out here and lack of employment opportunities, and the economic element begins to address the lack of employment or acts on the employment opportunities. So the elements, three out of the eight of the conditions of poverty that exist out here, the elements begin to address. The Board of County Commissioners, I think is the only unit of government, the only unit of general purpose government that can begin to address this by forming an Advisory Committee. Without addressing this, we're addressing only the structure, not the essence of the problem here. In effectively addressing the conditions of involuntary poverty out here,'we're talking about pennies C0051 51 for prevention of poverty and the provision of equal opportunity for health, mental and physical health. Without it, we may be paying dollars for maintenance of people in institutions, people who suffer from irreversible damage that poverty inflicts on them. We pay for it in greater police protection, subsidised hospital care, drug and alcohol treatment and more jails for prisoners. I think we're looking for the Board of County Commissioners to take leadership. We want you to recognize our perspective. We're calling for the elimination of involuntary poverty. Second of all, we're asking for action to form a blue ribbon advisory committee to address the elimination of involuntary poverty in Immokalee. Thank you. MS. EDWARDS: Good evening, everyone. I'm Michelle Edwards with the Growth Planning Department. I'm going to go over the land use designations and the land use map. Recognizing all of the factors that David Land and all of the other committee members spoke about tonight, to the pedestrian nature of the community, the median age, industry, persons per household, housing demand. All of these factors were considered in the process of developing a future land use map for the area and land use designations that would serve the needs of the Immokalee community. I will at this time present to you the land use designations. This map to my left has a lot of different colors on it. I'll Go over all the various colors, starting with the residential areas. The first residential category we have on this map is low residential subdistricts or LR, or the yellow that you see on this map. Within the -- the purpose of this designation is to provide both low density residential district that would accommodate single-family, duplexes and multi-family dwellings. Multi-family dwellings, however, are to be provided within a planned unit development. Mobile homes are permitted within this low residential district provided they're in a mobile home subdivision or mobile home park. The densities within here (indicating) would be permitted up to four units per acre. The next category on our map is low residential, mobile home subdistrict. The density is similar to that of the low residential category. It's this yellow-oranGe area 53 that you see. The diff0renc~ with that district is that wo would / accommodate mobile homes and single-family dwellings to exist within this area. Mobile homes would be permitted, outside of subdivisions and parks. Duplexes would also be a permitted use within this designation. Tho next ro~idonttal cate0ory that you ~os on the map is the mixed residential or this -- I guess It's like a salmon color on our map. The purpose of this designation is to provide a mixture of housing types with a medium density residential area. The residential dwelling shall include single-family structure, multi-family dwellings, individual mobile homes and duplexes on a lot-by-lot basis. The mix is similar to the residential zoning districts that exist in the area where you may have a single-family house next to a duplex next to a mobile home. That mixture, on a lot-by-lot basis, is permitted within this district. The density of this district would be permitted up to six units per acre. The next residential category is high residential, which is the brownish color that you see on this map. (3OO54 54 The purpose of this district is to provide for a high density residential development. Multi-family structures would be permitted and less intensive units, such as single-family and duplexes, provided they are compatible with the surrounding area. Mobile homes are again permitted within this district but only within a mobile home park or subdivision. The density within this residential district would be permitted up to eight units per acre. Within all the residential categories certain non-residential uses would be permitted, such as parks, open space, publicly owned recreational uses, such as churches, libraries, cemeteries, public and private schools, daycare centers and other essential uses as defined in our county zoning ordinances. The next category that I'll describe to you is the commercial designation. The first area, the red area on this map here, is a general commercial district. The purpose of this district is to provide for retail office -- retail offices, transient lodging facilities and ]~]ghwoy ¢:omn~orc']al ty~,o %l~et~ thtlt would ~rvo tho travoling public of the Immokalee area. ( t)055 55 The commercial uses must be located along arterial roads as you see them here on the map or within the cass of the one of New Market Road, it's representing some existing commercial development that is within the area right now. The other commercial designation would be the blue areas that you see on the map which we're calling our neighborhood centers. The purpose of this land use designation is to provide for centers of activities that serve the needs of the surrounding neighborhood. The center should contain a mixture of neighborhood oriented uses, such as daycare centers, parks, schools, governmental activities and General Governmental branch offices. The -- most of the neighborhood centers that we have on the -- designated on the map right now, with the exception of this northern one, have elementary schools located within them. The idea behind the neighborhood center is to, as I stated earlier, create centers of activity. We have used the elementary schools as an anchor into these neighborhood centers, and a part of the -- the school component would be the recreational facilities that are provided with those 56 would be the elementary school. That was created to address some of the other issues that we spoke of earlier. With the median age being twenty in Immokalee, we felt that there was some additional recreational demands and we addressed them with these community centers. There is some other criteria that are listed within these neighborhood centers. The centers, as I said, are anchored by elementary schools. They are -- range from forty acres to a hundred and twenty acres in size and serve a population ~raning between five thousand to seventy-five hundred people and accommodate a service area of a mile radius. No two neighborhood centers are closer than a mile of each other. The non-residential uses within the neighborhood centers are permitted up to fifty percent of the entire size of the neighborhood center but no ]ess than twenty percent of the size of the neighborhood center. There is residential development that's a component of these neighborhood centers, and the density of that residential development would be permitted up to twelve 57 units per acre. The residential development shall be limited to the multi-family structures and other less intensive units, such as single-family and duplexes, provided they are again compatible with the district that surrounds them. Tho mobile home development shall be permitted only in the form of, again, of a mobile home subdivision or mobile home park. Commercial development within the neighborhood center shall be permitted only provided certain criteri~ are met. The uses are limited within the neighborhood centers to, to those -- the zoning category similar to I guess a C-3 in our zoning ordinance, uses such as barber shops, beauty shops, drugstores, your small restaurants, your dry cleaning, your drugs, your medical offices, ]aundromats and so forth. Your convience type commercial are permitted within the neighborhood centers. No co~nercfal shall be permitted within a quarter of a mile of an existing elementary school. The access to the commercial development must ~n no way conflict with the school traffic in the area. We're trying to prevent any conflicts with the school children. ,® 58 we're -- want to be very careful with the type of uses that are permitted within neighborhood centers. And as a last criteria for the commercial development within neighborhood center, the design of any proposed commercial development must take into consideration the safety of the children, the school children. we've got five other criteria, again for the neighborhood centers. Single project cannot utilize more than fifty percent of the allowable co~ercial acres in a neighborhcod centers. The projects within the neighborhood center shall make provisions of ~hared parking. We're trying to avoid all of the individual access points of -- for each individual commercial establishment. There is criteria for buffering and providing landscaping strips between abutting riGht-of-way or off- street parking areas. We have on the map, as I said, a future neighborhood center identified. From time to time additional neighborhood centers may be proposed, and we've got specific criteria that we have listed within this plan that each proposed neighborhood center must follow. OOO5,9 59 Another commercial component is our commerce center, and this is the area that we have highlighted in bold black and it's two shades of purple. One area, the commerce center, mixed use center is the further, I guess it's everyone's -- I don't know -- left. Within the mixed use district, w~ envision it as functioning as an employment center for the cormmunity and encourages commercial and institutional type uses. You already see your institutional uses being existing within that area with your high school and your library and the health facilities off Immokalee Drive. Uses permitted within the subdistrict shall include shopping centers, governmental institution,'middle schools and high schools, community parks and other employment generating uses. Other permitted commercial uses shall include transient lodging facilities. In considering new commercial zoning, priority shall be given to protecting existing residential uses within the area. Residential development is permitted within the mixed use subdistrict at a maximum density of twelve units per 0[)060 6O acre. Residential development shall be limited to multi-family and less intensive uses, such as single family and duplexes, provided they are compatible with their surrounding area. Mobile homes are permitted within subdivisions and parks. The mixed use district will be controlled by a series of performance standards that address issues of buffering, noise, signage, lighting, architectural compatibility, lot size and parking and landscaping. The entire commerce center districts are what we're envisioning as a special plan for redevelopment in the Immokalee community. We want to revitalize the downtown area, and we propose in one of the policies in the land use element to do a study for that entire co~nerce center. The other district on the map is the industrial designation. That's basically the area in gray and as well as the other part of your commerce center, industrial. The gray area on the map is designated to provide industrial type uses, including those related to light manufacturing, proceessing, storage and warehousing, wholesaling, distribution, packing houses, recycling and other designated industrial uses as described in the county 00061 61 zoning ordinance for our industrial and light industrial zoning district. Accessory uses and structures customarily associated with the uses permitted within this district, including offices, retail sales, and structures which are customarily accessory and clearly incidental and subordinate are also permitted. No residential facilities shall be permitted within the industrial district with the exception of a caretaker's quarters for a commercial or industrial use. The commercial center is similar to that industrial district, but it is an extension in some ways of the CCMU district which functions as the employment center of the Immokal ee area. There are some special provisions that are written in with the land use designations or as a part of the land use map. There are provisions suc}~ as density bonuses that we've got four different bonuses for density on top of whatever land use you've got designated. There is a bonus for those lands that are in close proximity to a neighborhood center or commerce center. If half of your project is within either of those designations, 62 the density within the higher portion or within the neighborhood center or commerce center can be averaged in over your entire property. There is a bonus for providing affordable housing, up to eight units per acre. There is a bonus for residential in-fill in those areas that are already substantially developed and you've got a vacant lot in between already developed residential uses, we are providing a bonus of three units per acre. And the last bonus would be roadway access. If a project has direct access to two or more arterial or collector roads or if the project commits to provision of interconnection between an adjacent development, one dwelling unit per acre would be added as a bonus. The final special provision speaks to commercial development within a planned unit development. There are -- there have been three categories that have been created for providing commercial within a planned unit of development. The acreage sizes range from eighty acres to a hundred and sixty acres to three hundred acres or more. If you ]]ave a project, a PUD with eighty acres, you 63 would be permitted to have up to five acres of commercial; if you have a PUD of a hundred and sixty acres or more, you would be permitted ten acres of commercial; and the final category, three hundred acres, you would be permitted up to twonty acre~ worth of commorcial. The commercial within each of these categories shall be no closer than a mile of the nearest commerce center and no closer than one mile from the nearest PUD commercial zoninG of ten acres or Greater size. Tho configuration of the commercial parcel shall be no more frontage than the depth of the property. Commercial zoning or development shall be no closer than half a mile of the nearest elementary school within a neighborhood center. And your construction of commercial designated area shall not be allowed until thirty percent of the project has commenced construction or otherwise authorized by the Board of County Commissioners. If a project wishes to exceed the acreage limitations that we have set within the industrial or the PUD'commercial district, the applicant must demonstrate the need for additional acreage, and there is a formula that we have developed within our land use analysis that staff and who~vor ~, reviewing that project will be using to Justify . whether or not there is a need for that additional commercial acreage. With that, I guess I'll close. Those are all the designations on the map. Oh, there is one other thing. We recognize the Indian reservation section on the map with the blue color, and we have also recognized the need for additional roadway extensions by the dashed lines on the map. And a~other proposal is the, a loop road or by-DaBs road that we have discussed the need for in our transportation element. And then the final overlay that you see on this map is a representation of the environmentally sensitive lands in the Immokalee area. CHAIRMAN HASSEz Thank you, Michelle. And I think what we might want to do, Barbara, now, if it's okay with you, is have a ten-minute break so everyone can stretch, move their brain around in some other 00065 65 direction. (Whereupon, a recess was had and proceedings were resumed without the court reporter being present until the following reported proceedings were heard:) MR. SPAGNA~ Provide some of this affordable housing that is in such great need. For the past two years since I have been working on th~, project for -- last year November, the 20th, I believe it was, we thought we had a project that was acceptable to the county. However, the day before we were to appear before the Board, we received a notification from the Game and Fro{~hwator Fi{~h Conu~l,~on that they had ~otten word that there was some Florida Scrub Jays on the property. The following morning at eight o'clock, I met with the county staff prior to coming into the county commission meeting, and we had received a hand-carried letter that if the Board approved the project, that the Game and Freshwater Game -- Game and Fr~?~hwat~r Fish Comm]~s]ol~ would object to the project and recommend that it not be continued. So as a result of that, as you ladies and gentleman know, we agreed with the staff that we would postpone the project until such time as we would be able to review the 0()066,. ,; situation to see what we could come up with. Since that time, we have made an environmental -- an additional environmental study of the area to determine where the Florida Scrub Jays were located and what the extent of them were. We found three Scrub Jays on the premises on the fieldtrip that we made with the county ~taff. Subsequently,-when the environmental study was made the second time, there was one Florida Scrub Jay sighted -- found on the subject property. We very much would like to Go forward with the project. Mrs. Winefeld (phonetic) feels very kindly toward the protection of these birds. She wants to do everything that she can within her power to protect them. However, I think we all understand that there is Just so much that a property owner can do and still have a viable project on their hands. I would like to show you some illustrations and then I'm Going to make a request of the Board, and that is to consider how you can help us provide this affordable housinG. CHAIRMAN HASSE: Mr. Spagna? Where did you say that was located, MR. SPAGNA: Trafford Road. it. 67 Northeast corner of Carson Road and Lake I would like to hold this up. I hope you all can see This was the original project that had been approved by all the review agencies and which we had intended to present to the Board on the morning of November the 20th. It contains some three hundred and fifty units, including forty single-family homes. It encompasses forty acres of land that we had intended to use completely. We were in negotiations with the client to come in there and build forty units of affordable, -tow-cost housing contingent on tho~r 9ott~ng a loan from the Farm Homo Administration. CHAIRMAN HASSE: Mr. Spagna, could you tell me: What would be your consideration of low-cost housing in that area, rental? MR. SPAGNAz It would be defined by the ordinance, the affordable housing section. CHAIRMAN HASSE: How much? Let's be practical. MR. SPAGNA: It doesn't go by price, it goes by square footage of the floor area, but we incorporated in the PUD'document that we would comply with all of the 68 requirements. CHAIRMAN HASSE: I'm aware of that, but I'm still asking~ How much would you be asking? MR. SPAGNA: I have no idea. They are all rental units is what they are. CHAIRMAN HASSE: I'm aware of that; but you have to pay rent, though. MR. SPAGNAz Normally I think they have been Going for somewhere in the two to three hundred dollar range, the upper two hundred and three hundred, but that's Just an estimate on my part. CHAIRMAN HASSE: And frankly, is that any control of the county commission or our staff in regard to the Scrub Jay or anything such as that? MR. SPAGNAz No, it is not. It's under the control of the staff to a certain extent, but the real control comes from the Game and Freshwater Fish Commission. CHAIRMAN HASSE: And of course you're going to speak to them now. MR. SPAGNA: Yes. Definitely. CHAIRMAN HASSE: Fine. MR. SPAGNA: We're working with them. Like I said before, Mrs. Winefeld wants to do everything she can to preserve the bird population. I would like to show you briefly where the Scrub Jay are located. This is a rough drawing of a forty-acre parcel of land. Everything that you see in yellow there is a possible habitat for the Florida Scrub Jay. If I take and overlay that -- I know it may be a little difficult for you to see, but I will explain it. If I do another site development plan, trying to protect the areas where the Scrub Jays are known to inhabit, I end up with approximately, just roughly, twelve to fourteen acres of land that would be preserved for the bird population and approximately twenty-two or so acres that we w~ll be able to build homes on. Of that land, I'have been able to divide that parcel of land into some four, five acres tracts of land with approximately forty, forty-five, possibly fifty units per five-acre tract. That means that from the original density of three hundred and fifty units, we are now down to a density of approximately two hundred units. }{ow we're going to work this out, I've got to be honest with you, I just don't know. There is a matter of 70 econOmics that are involved in here. We are presently thinking of doing the entire parcel of land in affordable housing. We have eliminated the single-family homes. We have completely redesigned the roads, the drainage, the water retention and everything. My purpose for being here tonight is to ask that we be given some help. Originally when we started this project, w.~ had some commercial property located at the northeast corner of Lake Trafford Road and Carson across the street from the fire station, across the street from that small, I believe it's a handy shop, a little grocery store. We thought that the commercial would be compatible with that. When we -- when we discussed this with the staff, it was their wish that we not have any commercial in there, that they felt that the possibility of getting commercial was not good. So we went back and redesigned the plan. We took the commercial out of it, but now we're back to the place to where our back is up against the wall, and we want to 9o forward with this. We still want to provide the affordable housing, we want to preserve the Scrub Jay and the 9ofer tortoises, but 71 I Just don't think we're going to be able to do it with having to lose a hundred and fifty affordable housing units. So what we would like is we want to go back to, in part, to the original request for some commercial property there at the northeast corner of Carson Road and Lake Trafford. We would like to incorporate possibly two acres of land in there that could be used for the neighborhood commercial uses. Originally when we started this project, the Comprehensive Plan permitted five percent of the area, that that could be devoted to commercial uses within a PUD. Two acres would have been permitted at that time, if this had not drug on so long. We know that the rules have changed. We're not sure how we can get the commercial in there. We're not sure that the Board would want commercial in there. But our request is: We would like very much for you to consider that, and it would be of help to us to make this project viable in order for us to go ahead with the project if the Board would consider, maybe ask the staff to work with us and try to come up with a way that we could get some 72 commercial in there. As far as these other incentives that have been talked about for affordable housing, I can tell you that in my estimation, they're very impractical. Most of the affordable housing that's going to be built is going to be built with some type of federal assistance, subsidy or grants or loans. The federal government does not like nor, to the best of my knowledge, give any grants on any structures that are more than two stories high. From a practical standpoint, this gets down to like eight; if you're very lucky, possibly ten units to the acre. So whether you can get sixteen units because of your proximity of streets or whether you can get them because you're within a commercial activity center or whether you can get them as bonus points for affordable housing becomes a very academic question, and we have not been able to -- to utilize all of those to provide, frankly, affordable housing. Now, it is true that giYes the advantage to someone who wants to have mixed housing on a project if he has a large parcel of land that he can come in and get his twenty-five percent affordable housing and gain the benefits of the higher densities for the rest of the land and come out with a project that is economically viable, but we cannot do it on a small parcel of land such as we have. CHAIR~tN HASSE: Mr. Spagna, may I suggest that your problems about your property there, you take up with the fish and wildlife and make application to the staff. At the present time here, we're not prepared to address this particular one piece of property. We're here on a future land use map of Immokalee and uses of the land in Immokalee to the best of its advantage and how we can cooperate together. And I would suggest to you to do it that way. We can't have a forum right now in this respect. Thank you. MR. SPAGNA: Okay. Thank you. MS. CACCHIONE~ The next speaker we have is Reverend Clayton Hodge. REVEREND HODGE: Good evening. I come here to stand in support of the LR-and -- right here? CHAIRMAN HASSE: Would you please use the microphone, 74 Reverend. REVEREND HODGEz I stand in support of the LR area · located between Eustis and Doak Avenue -- not Doak. Stokes Avenue. The reason of this is because when we build a home in a certain area and we plan to relocate, then if trailers or any kind of -- say of populace area, we cannot get our market value for our home. We want to be able to upbuild, upgrade our area, and we feel the only way this can be done is by having the Lg-variance. This way will provide us with our homes and our area being an upgraded area. Now we see that LR is to the west and to the north, and we don't see any in our area. Only one small strip of yellow space in the area that I said beforehand. The gustis to Doak Avenue -- not Doak. Stokes area. So I stand in support of the LR-variance and the Eustis to Stokes Avenue. CIIA1RMAN HAf~SEt MS. CACCHIONEz UNIDENTIFIED: MS. CACCHIONE: MR. ALLEN~ Thank you, Reverend. The next speaker is Karold Allen. Howard. Howard Allen. I'm sorry. Harold, that's my brother. No, he's not 0t 0'75 75 here. Good evening. My name is Howard Allen, and I live on Gaunt Street, Eustis and Gaunt. Over here. And I see you have an HR there which is okay, I guess. I would have like to had LR In that area. I believe when we discussed it a few months back down at the First Baptist Church on South Third Street. We talked about this whole area here being LR, because ]n any community you cannot upgrade the community when you allow a home to be built, and I am planning some improvements on mine, and then somebody can come in there and put a trailer or bus or whatever they want by your property and live in it. And I know we have to have areas for everyone to live, and I'm concerned about all of Immokalee, but I believe the best uses of the land would be is that you would allow trailer parks to be in the city and not -- and small parcels of ]and, either they build a house on the land or allow rezoning so that they can build a house on it, and not allow trailers to come on that area. And see I see we have MR'here in this area right here; and in that area already there are trailers that need 76 to be pulled out. Most of them are rental. They're not owned typed trailers where peoples own their trailers; they're rental trailers, and you walk by them or you ride by them and you see the floor falling out of them, and all of them inhabited, and yet we're going to allow these to stay. South of the railroad track. I'll Just put it that way. North of the railroad track, that is not allowed. And I believe in order to have Immokalee as a community where all of us can get to live and enjoy our property, I think we need to zone it and have it where the same idea or uses of the land is all over the county -- I mean all over the area rather than having one area and say~ "Well, you can take this piece of land and put anything there or allowing anything to go on there." I just -- I want to thank you all for coming over tonight and for being here, and also with -- for our medical thing that you passed the other day. But we also, if you could -- continuing on what the gentleman said here -- I can't even think of his name now. MS. CACCHIONE: John Witchger. MR. ALLEN: John Witchger said a while ago that team, a blue ribbon team, I believe he called it, to continue to 77 study the medical area in Immokale~ and to prov~do mome needed care for the peoples all over Immokalee that is not here. Such as the -- we talked about the AIDS patients and the other peoples that are in this community that need somewhere to go and don't have it here. Some type of a support area that they can attend. I believe that that would be beneficial also to the county and to Immokalee if this would happen in our community also. CHAIRMAN HASSE: Mr. Allen, I want to tell you that we're lookinH at that at the present time. You know how hard these things are being discussed. MR. ALLEN~ All right, sir. CHAIRMAN HASSE: And I like your thought and idea not to bring areas down but to bring them up, and that's important. What you're doing, what you were talking about your own home and a home adjacent to the home that deteriorates your area is not the proper way to do it, and I agree with that. Thank you. MR. ALLEN: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. 78 MS. CACCHIONE~ The next speaker is John Witchger. MR. WITCHGER: Good evening. In reference to the same area, the south side of the co,hungry. For a group of people who are primarily Spainish speaking -- could those people who live in Hunter's Trailer Fark please stand up. MS. GOODNIGHT: Do you want to point out Hunter's Trailer Park to us? MR. WITCHGER: Yes. Hunter's Trailer Park is located on Doak Avenue. And Doak Avenue runs right through the center of Hunter's Trailer Park. A couple of the people that live on the north side, which is -- land use has been designated low density residential, and some is on the south side, which is going to be designated high density residential. These residents would like to maintain their trailer park as a trailer park, and they're looking for the county to take -- to give them the leadership and the support they need to change that to a trailer park designation. Even though it might not meet all of the criteria of a -- for the trailer park, there's at least twenty trailers down there. In a little broader area, there's more than twenty trailers that -- it's going to need a trailer park designation within the ]ow d~nsity, high density residential area. CHAIRMAN HASSE: Mr. Cuyler. MR. CUYLER: John, what's it currently zoned? MR. WlTCHGER: Part of the village residential classification, the catchall. MR. CUYLER, And as I understand it, the majority of the lots that are there are resident-owned lots, but there may also be a problem with multiple trailers occupying a single lot? MR. WITCHGER: Correct. Yes. MR. CUYLERz Part of that is a code enforcement problem that will need to be enforced and corrected through our minimum housing code and our zoning ordinance. The other part of the problem is kind of the inverse. of what Reverend Allen was talking about, which was we need to have a reasonable separation between individual trailers, we need to provide an incentive for residential trailer parks or mobile home parks. We may have to determine what flexibility we have in terms of minimum park sizes so that we can provide an incentive for trailer parks in a community of mobile homes, 8O MR. WITCHGER, CHAIRMAN HASSE: or later. as opposed to individual spot utilization of trailers and mobile homes throughout otherwise existing single-family structures, and have them interspersed. MR. WITCHGER: There's trailers scattered throughout that area, but this particular area is down in the south corner of that, and called now Hunter's Trailer Park, an area of a solid block that trailers are on. MR. CUYLER: I'm aware of it. And as I understand it, it's on the south side of Doak. MR. WITCHGER: It's on the north side and the south side. MR. CUYLER~ Okay. MR. WITCHGER: Right around there. Right in half. CHAIRMAN HASSE= Mr. Wittiker? Witchger. Witchger. I knew I'd get it sooner You're talking about trailers or are you talking about mobile homes? You know, there is a tremendous difference, if you will. And mobile home livers and owners don't live in trailers, they live in mobile homes -- there is quite a difference -- and that's when you have an 81 established home in an area; and a regular trailer is utilized when you go to an RV park. I just thought I'd correct your -- MR. WITCHGER: CHAIRMAN HASSE: MR. WITCHGER: homes out here. MS. CACCHIONE: MR. TOWNSEND: Specific. Maybe it's a misnomer. Thank you. They're called trailers and mobile The next speaker is Dallas Townsend. First of all, I would like to compliment the committee that has been working on this plan for so many months, and I know it took a lot of time and effort on everyone's part, and you have accomplished a great deal. And what I would like to do today or this evening is share with you a plan that one of the real estate owners in this city hopes to accomplish to the benefit of Im~nokalee. I think everyone here is familiar with the Roberts estate. It's right down here on Highway 29, right on the curve. It encompasses a citrus grove and some open pine land and there is no environmentally sensitive lands on this property. They have recently made the decision to dispose of 82 this property in such a manner that they hope that it will bring a great deal of benefit to the people of Immok&lee as well as greater incentive for people to have employment within a shopping center, which they have proposed for that area, and have -- also going to make a part of this available for housing, preferably in the eight to twelve d~nsity range. This property is located in the western end of this CCMII area here. It encompasses a fraction under forty acres, and what they have proposed -- and we need the community support and the support of the planning staff and the Board of Commissioners to make this project come to pass. I would like to show you a conceptual plan of the use. MR. CUYLER: Dallas, could you also point to the -- the parcel, ldcation of the area and give the commission a little point of reference both 846 and 29? MR. TOWNSEND: This is Highway 29 coming from the north as it makes its easterly turn to go straight east. And this property encompasses the entire curvature here, going over to this point. There's a slight Jog out of the 83 northeast corner, and encompasses thirty-nine point nine acres. MR. CUYLER: Thank you. MR. TOWNSEND: Included in this property. It is thQ family's intent to donate to the county for historical preservation a three-acre tract that houses or that contains the original home that Mr. Roberts built. I might point out th~s property is unique in that it has been under one continuous ownership since 1914 when the family moved here, and so it has transcended through about three generations. And they -- you know, the generations have passed in such a manner that there's so many heirs that there's no effective way to divide the property. So in order to benefit the community, they want to make it available so that the community can benefit from it. This is a survey drawing, and they will be seeking zoning changes which will be commensurate with your future land use plan that's shown on the map here, seeking to have about seventeen point thirty-three acres of land on the western end zoned C-4 for a future shopping center. They currently are negotiating with a client that 84 would anchor this shopping center with a major Grocery chain as well as potentially a department store, such as a K-Mart or a Wal-Mart or something of that nature, and others to accompany that. The historic site is shown outlined in blue. It's our intent to shorten this depth and widen it to give it more, broader access from aoberts Avenue. It's not drawn quite correctly on this map here. The remainder of the property, they will seek a zoning for residential. That's been brought up this evening quite a bit, about the need for affordable housing; and they haven't settled on the density rate that they're going to request, but they are going to work with the Planning Commission to seek the most appropriate density rate for this particular parcel, for where it's located. It's probably Going to go anywhere from eight to ten density with that. CHAIRMAN HASSE: Thank you. I might say that I have had the privilege of breaking bread in that old Roberts homestead at one time or another, and observed the architecture and the quaintness of the place. 00085 85 And what you're talking about, I'm sure that the staff is looking at. MR. TOWNSEND: We would appreciate it very much, and I think the citizens of Immokalee would be the long-ter~ benefactor. CHAIRMAN HASSE~ Thank you, Mr. Townsend. MS. CACCHIONE~ The next speaker is David Land. MR. LAND: I'm speaking now not as a member of the Technical Adv~,ory Committ0o. At the break, several people expressed some concerns to me, and if they would like to come up and address it as oppot~d to hav~no m~ do it, thoy might give Barbara a note here. But basically what we have in the LR areas, and if you would Go to page twenty-eight and look at your low residential subdistrict language, I think it's that language which ~ives ce~'tain individuals concern, in whether s~n~]e-fam~]y, primar~]y s~n~le-famlly residential areas. I think what we have in Immokalee right now, as you notice on the map, there is a tremendous amount of lfght yellow area that is designated LR, and there's probably three types of development or non-development within that LR 86 are~o ~umber one, you have so~e areas ~hat are distinctly single-family; in other words, every home in it is single-family. There may be the odd lot that has not been developed on, but essentialy within a block or several block area, solid single-family. Then you may find some areas that maybe are highly single-family, but -- there may be some individual duplexes or whatever scattered within it and then, again, some undeveloped land. And then, thirdly, you have types of land which essentially are not developed at all; in other words, there are large tracts out there which has no development or a scattered home or scattered duplox or a scattered trailer at this particular point in time. Their concern is less the latter area and more the protection of the first category and the trying to upgrade the second category, and that's, again, the single-family. Looking at the language here, when we add the words "and duplex," as opposed to leaving duplex as part of the PUD, their fear is in the developed single-family area with some vacant lots left or within this kind of mixed area with OOO8? ' 87 some duplexes but not primarily duplexes, there can be a proliferat~on of duplex type which would actually reduce property values. In terms of the -- I don't think there is any concern about having duplexes outside of the PUD in the undeveloped or very marginally developed, but there's definitely a concern in those two areas. May I ask those who have expressed a concern~ Have I conveyed it properly, what the concerns are? What the solution is at this stage, I'm not certain. We have so many land use designations at this point that I kind of hate to add an additional land use designation. Staff seems to feel convinced that during the zoning process, the single-family areas can be protected, but I think right now ~t's a sense of the people that live here and have single-family homes that that may not be the case. So I guess what I would ask county staff and the co~nission and perhaps our technical advisory group to do is perhaps ensure that those single-family areas are protected. One of the things that I think we do not want to have happen in !mmokalee -- Just as there's a crying need to 88 address the low income group's needs for affordable housing, I think there's also a crying need to attract and retain a middle class in the community, and we don't want to do anything to drive out that middle class or to prevent the neighborhood from upgrading itself. So I think this is the same type of thing that was addressed by some individuals earlier. CHAIRMAN HASSE~ Thank you, Mr. Land. I might add that what we're here to do is to do what we can for the best interest of Immokalee in general, and that's exactly what we're trying to do here. So staff is taking note of this, our reporter is recording it, and this is what's going to be discussed and thought about, all these questions that you have. And I'm particularly interested in what you Just said there, Mr. Land, because that's the important thing. We've got to upgrade as best we can. VICE-CHAIRMAN VOLPE: Ms. Cacchione, over ten thousand acres that are in that category, low density residential? MS. CACCHIONE: That's correct. VICE-CHAIRMAN VOLPE= I-think the point was well 000S9 89 made, maybe not add another land use designation. But if those are -- it Just seems that when I looked at the '~ acreage, that eleven thousand acres, that falls in that category. So I understand the protection of the neighborhood, but something in -- perhaps creating it, another sub of creating it. CHAIRMAN HASSE: Look carefully at the duplex road to this, and ~s it necessary. MS. CACCHIONE: Both that issue and the previous issue with the Hunter's trailers. Subcommittee meeting June the 5th in this room -- we're not sure of the room yet, and wa can brin~ up thoso two ].~sues with the Tochnical Advisory Committee. CHAIRMAN HASSE: Thank you. MS. CACCHIONE~ The last speaker that I'have registered is Lucy Ortez. CHAIRMAN HASSEz MS. ORTEZz Thank you, Commissioners. Committee members. Thank you again for all of your work. I did come and attend one committee one time, but other obligations did not permit me to come. I have been a resident of Immokalee for twenty-five 90 years. CHAIRMAN HASSE~ You're not that old. MS. ORTEZ~ Ahd over the years, I-am currently the director of immigration project of Immokslee, so I have had the privilege of working with people that are rich and people that are poor, and ± would like tonight especially to affirm the Technical Advisory Committee's recommendation of the involuntary poor that Mr. Witchger has presented to you. A little bit of history of the Hunter's Trailer Park. I am very familiar with, and I know that it was originally purchased as a labor camp. Okay? For a citrus grove. They were not able for whatever reasons to keep it as a labor camp, and then they subsequently sold each it -- very narrow strips of like twenty-five or thirty feet -- and someone with some money purchased it, and they subsequently sold it to individuals. I think this particular situation really epitomizes the problem that involuntary poor have in our community. Things happen beyond their control, and this blue ribbon committee or the inter-sector advisory committee to be made up of different people from different levels in Immokalee I think is essential to this plan. We need everyone in all 00091 91 levels. Not everyone, but different levels of people, poople that are lnt~restod at different levels of things that are happening with their community. This -- the whole presentation today has been very exciting, very exciting and I really enjoyed it, but I really would propose that you give this consideration and make it part of your recommendation. CHAIRMAN HASSE: Thank you, Mrs. Ortez. I can assure you that we're looking at all aspects of what has been discussed and what the staff and committee have said in their comments. MS. ORTEZ: I have heard that, your comments about upgrading of the communities. I would like to see the upgrading of the individuals. CHAIRMAN HASSE: Well, by doing that, you're putting the foundation up. MS. CACCHIONE: We have one more speaker. Denise Coleman. MS. COLEMAN: I think David did an eloquent Job of saying what he said about the concern with low residential subdistrict, but, you know, I believe it behooves those who know and live in Immokalee to speak for ourselves. 92 I'do have a concern with this low residential designation, and I would very much like to see the duplexes moved into multi-family dwellings in the planned unit development category, because the dilemma that we face here in Immokalee is that when you do make a commitment, and I' mean a substantial commitment in single-family home, to upgrade the community, it is -- it's particularly demoralizing that when you go to the bank and ask them to provide you with a loan and they look at your property and then they will tell you that it's not worth what you pa~d for it. And that's what I think we would like to avoid in having in-fill with duplexes in the primarily single-family, currently colored light yellow, residential subdistricts would create more of those kinds of problems. And I think one of the things that we need to do here in Immokalee is learn to work cooperatively, and I think we can work cooperatively. Some of the concerns expressed by Reverend Hodge, Reverend Allen, to upgrade the community needs to be considered in all locations in Immokalee, because I think that's how we're going get it done is when we do it together. 93 Thank you. And I'm glad I'm last. MS. CACCHIONE: This conclude the staff presentation and the public comments. I just want to reiterate the dates for future public hearings. June 5th is the Technical Advisory Committee. It will start at three thirty. I believe it will be in this room. You can call us, 774-8282, and we'll let you know for sure where it's going to be at. June 29th is a Planning Commission public hearing. It will be held on the third floor of the courthouse in Naples. July 25th is a Board of County Commissioner's meeting. You voted for that. VICE-CHAIRMAN VOLPE: Ms. Cacchione, if we're -- you're getting ready to adjourn. Just one question I have. In terms of what I would like to see, and I haven't seen it in material that has been presented. It maybe is here and I've overlooked it. But I would like to see a little more in there about the demographics and the income analysis of the population of Immokalee. We have heard -- I didn't see it. Maybe it is. MS. CACCHIONE: There is some demographic 94 information. Unfortunately, what we have basically is 1980 census data, which is ten years old. So we can provide that again in there. VICE-CHAIRMAN VOLPE: Because not only the demo~raphics but lncom~ analysis, which we don't have any. What I'm hearing is concerns about the involuntary poor, but I'm not sure what segment of this community that represents. MS. CACCHIONE: We can compile that, but Just bear in m~nd that's it's from informat~on ten yoars old. VICE-CHAIRMAN VOLPE: Don't bother. That information has to be available someplace, and without -- until we can identify what the problem is, we're dealing with perceptions, we're dealing with we may have two hundred people or we may have three thousand people, and I can't Get an appreciation for the problem without some of that information. As I look at the populations projections for the next five years, it's projected that the population will Grow, permanent, two thousand. Seasonal, by three thousand. Permanent by two. Over a period of ten years you're talking about an increase in your population of about ten thousand. I read tho Collier ~000 report. And the citrus is supposed to increase by how much percent over the next few years. So something doesn't Jibe here. And, again, to address the problem, you have to be able to identify it; and I hear what you're saying, but we n~od more ~nformation. MS. CACCHIONE~ That is one of the basic problems. When we have outlined policies that we need to Go about to change the way we collect population information, we identified, you know, and if you look at 1980, one thousand seasonal workers in the community. Well, everybody that lives here knows that that's wrong. So we have identified a method to actually Go out and survey the growers anually and how many laborers will they have -- how many to plant, to lay the plastic, to harvest, how much in the process -- and Get a better estimate of the number of people that we're deal~n~ with, and it will help when we ~et the census lnfor~ation. That's one of the difficulties that we faced and the community faced in preparing this plan, is where we are in the census years, and the methodology so far has been lackin9 in projections. VICE-CHAIRMAN VOLPE~ One other project in that. The statistic was fifty-three percent of the population is under eighteen years of age. Those numbers don't -- it Gets a little confusing as you go through this as to whether that really bears up with those numbers. And also, I would be interested in knowing, Just for my own information, if that population, if the average age, median age in the community is twenty years of age, how many of those people are reflected in the two thousand people who are stayinG in your community, as opposed to those who are Going off to other parts of the county or other parts of Florida. Just Get a census. If we take the more global issus here, that moves beyond the technical aspects of your plans. MS. CACCHIONE~ That has been a difficulty that we faced from the beg~nninG. The information has been seriously lacking. CHAIRMAN HASSE: The -- Commissioner Goodnight would like to say a few words. After all, this this is her territory, and she has been very supportive of Immokalee and 97 the Immokalee area, and I'm very proud to serve on the commission with Commis~ionor Goodnight. COMMISSIONER GOODNIGHT~ Barbara, you and Michelle and the rest of the staff and the advisory committee, I would like to say how much ±~ appreciate the work that you have done. I ~ave you tho task to do, as you well know, and you brought me back better than what I'thought was possible. So I appreciate it. I've got Just a couple of things. I think that there on the north, northeast side of the map, where you've got the RL right there where New Market comes out into 29. MS. CACCHIONE: (Indicating.) COMMISSIONER GOODNIGHT: Uh-huh. That heritage PUD is in that area right in there. It's not located on the map, and I'know that it was supposed to be multi-family withl some commercial. MS. CACCHIONE~ The overall density of that project I believe is about three -- two to four units per acres, so that fitted into the concept of low residential development. They do have a mix, multi-family and duplexes, but 98 the overall density is very, -low and -- under four -- so it would be consistent with what we have on the map. COMMISSIONER GOODNIGHTz Well, I'also notice that'the commercial part is not on there either, and that was one of my concerns, because as you well know, some of that land has been donated to the Naples Community Hospital. MS. CACCHIONE: As the plan is currently written, it would fall under the PUD commercial section and it would be consistent with that section. CO~4ISSIONER GOODNIGHT: Okay. North of that, you've also got listed as low residential, and I think that area is -- probably is going to be -- need to be cleaned up and probably make it back into an A-1 area since the majority of it is in orange grove, and I don't see there bein~ resident~al units being built there. MS. CACCHIONE: Originally on this map that you see ~,ere, these low density on the outskirts all around were designated rural residential, and they permitted a density of one unit per -- two and a quarter per acre. The Technical Committee, in considering the need for affordable housing and increasing property that is available O00,gD 99 for housing, decided to put that all into the low density ~ residential. I~ -- it's land that could remain in low agricultural, and it wouldn't change the zoning on the property unless the property owner himself wants to the change the zoning. COMMISSIONER GOODNIGHT~ The reason I brought that up is Commissioner Volpe brought that up, what low residential there was, and some of that is beinG actively farmed, and I don't see it turned into low density residential. MR. LAND: One of the things that was proposed in two of the elements, and -- on the housing and on the land use element -- is quickly after the adoption of this plan is to actually do a survey of all of the lands to see how much was actually in wetland areas -- because, as you well know, a lot of the LR'area -- include a view that run to the southwest portion of the community,' to look at those lands that have active agriculture, and it was unlikely unless the economics changed. That in the f~hort term would convert to one of the other residential or commercial uses and actually come up with an acreage of land that was not being actively farmed 100 or undeveloped area, and that ten or eleven thousand acres, whatever you had, to see what left off or what not. That then would give us a better indication of whether we needed to propose any change in densities or urban boundaries. That has not been done at this stage. When it is, I think you might have a better handle on that land. CHAIRMAN HASSEt Thank you. COMMISSIONER GOODNIGHT: One of the other questions was reservation area. I realize that that is government property. However, I will note that, that one corner there on Eustis is going to come before the Board for a proposed bingo parlor. ~And I think that we're going to need -- and I would like for staff to make the recommendation to whatever staff is going to handle this that there be some type of buffering along there between the single-family homes that are located on Eustis and the parlor that is going to be erected. UNIDENTIFIED: About twelve feet high. COMMISSIONER ~~ And then my next question or suggestion would be to take this area on Eustis Avenue and all the way across, all the way across 29, and move that area from -- I see that you've got an HR, which is high 101 residential, and I guess NC is neighborhood commercial. MS. CACCHIONE~ It's a neighborhood center which~maY include some commercial if it's far enough away from the school. COMMISSIONER GOODNIGHT: Well, I'm not real sure that it is, but okay. I -- MS. CACCHIONE: Any commercial in there, it would have to be at least a quarter of a mile from the school. COMMISSIONER GOODNIGHT: Well, the school is located right there, so I don't see that that's going to be, unless I'm really off. MS. CACCHIONE: It might -- down there at the southerly end. COMMISSIONER GOODNIGHT: I think that this area really needs to be upgraded, and some of the homes that have been built in there over the years, there's a lot of other things that have gone in there in the meantime, and I'think that's one of the areas that staff needs to look at, is really trying to make some of this low residential area. Now we've got that PUD that is going in there down there that is four C's that is going to have some multi-family, single-family and the congregate living 001()2 102 facility. So that's going to be listed in the PUD. MS. CACCHIONE: Collier Village. COM~4ISSIONER GOODNIGHT~ I-guess you're right. So think that project alone is going to upgrade the area, and we need to do whatever we can do to continue to upgrade the area there. So I would like to see that area to be looked at as possibly upgrading it. Now, as I look at this thing, I see that in the residential -- designation of low residential, there can be mobile home development. So long as it's a -- some type of a mobile home park as -- that would take care of anything there. And anything north of Eustis on the west side of 29, that that multi-family or high residential, because you're Got an area in there that is now listed as CR, and I agree to change it from the other listings on there. Also, the area on Eustis that is -- that is west of Eustis. I'm sorry that's east of 29. Where it says Eustis Avenue, an extension. There is a neighborhood that is right in there that there is a lot of single-family homes that -- that's been there, that has been built for a while. Some of them have 103 Just gone in and built some new homes. And then right there behind that is what's called Weak's Trailer Park. And there is an area -- there's a couple of streets in there where only mobile homes can be placed, and there were some people that were wanting to build some single-family homes in there. So that's another area that I think maybe you can look at to either designation because the people in there owned the property that the mobile home is -- whatever the name of that road is -- sitting on. MS. CACCHIONE: It's zoned mobile home rental park. COMMISSIONER GOODNIGHT: No, that's north of that road. I'm talking about south of it, because there is some on the side of the road that is -- MS. EDWARDS~ South of Eustis? COMMISSIONER GOODNIGHT: No, not south of Eustis. But whatever the name of that road is. UNIDENTIFIED: Deleware. COMMISSIONER GOODNIGHT: Deleware. MS. CACCHIONE: That's on DR. That district permits a single-family, a duplex and a mobile home as a permitted 104 use. COMMISSIONER GOODNIGHT, But there is aboUt a three or four block area in there that's got some very nice single-family residences in there, and some of the other stuff that has been in there has now burnt down or Mr. Clark has seen to it that it has been removed. So I think that's a good area that we could look to improve. MS. CACCHIONE: We could look at the idea of proposing to the committee that we look at that whole southerly area to study all of the zoning categories in there. COMMISSIONER GOODNIGHT~ All right. Then my other question that I.have is the single-family areas. One of the biggest problems that have heard in the last couple of weeks is that single-family homes being built next to single-family homes with extremely low square footage, -less than a thousand square foot home next to twelve hundred square foot home. Now I realize the majority of that in other areas is done by deed restrictions, but is there some way that we could either verify or say that there is a certain lot size or something like that to where there would be areas that ~we ool_o5 - '" 105 could definitely upgrade and keep them that way so that the property values would not be devalued? UNIDENTIFIED: MS. CACCHIONE~ all of single-family categories. In RSF-1 and two, which are low densities single-family districts, you have to have at least fifteen hundred square feet for one story and e~ghteen hundred square feet for two stories. ~SF-3, which would be that New Market area, one thousand square feet for a one story, and twelve hundred for a two story, and then eight hundred feet for RSF-4, and it goes down to six hundred. And six hundred feet for RSF-5. COMMISSIONER GOODNIGHT: I think that's what we need to do, then. We need to take some study areas again, like we're doing with that area that I just talked about, and have a study area to look to see if we couldn't put some restriction on the square footage of the house so that if n¢~m~body has OOn,~ In uncles, th~ ]mpr~on that th~ build a twelve hundred square foot and ever what is next has to be at least that much, that somebody doesn't come in and build NOt downgrade. Wo do have minimum square footages in an eight hundred square foot. And I don't have anything else. 106 CHAIRMAN HASSE~ In conclusion, I would like to thank the audience from Immokalee here tonight. You have been probably one of the finest audiences I ,have ever experienced. Most cooperative. We've gotten a great deal of input from them -- from~ you and our staff, as well as the committee that worked here, and our consultant ks ~oing to take all of these things into consideration. We will look them over, see where we can implement different things, and you'll be advised when we have the next meeting in this respect. But I would like to thank you for being here and taking your time. I would like to thank our staff for the time that they put in, and I hope they're all still awake. And I would certainly like to thank the committee for spending all of these hours they have spent. Thank ~ou. So goodnfght and God bless. (Whereupon, the meeting/pt~blic hearing was adjourned at 9:45 p.m.)