CCPC Minutes 11/14/2001 SNovember 14, 2001
TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE
COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
Naples, Florida, November 14, 2001
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Collier County Planning
Commission, in and for the County of Collier, having conducted
business herein, met on this date at 6:01 p.m. In SPECIAL SESSION
in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida,
with the following members present:
CHAIRMAN: Joyceanna J. Rautio
Kenneth L. Abernathy
Lindy Adelstein
Lora Jean Young
David J. Wolfley
Dwight Richardson
Mark P. Strain
NOT PRESENT:
Paul Midney
Russell A. Budd
ALSO PRESENT:
Marjorie M. Student, Asst. County Attorney
Susan Murray, Chief Planner, Planning Services
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CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Good evening. I'd like to call to order
the meeting of the Collier County Planning Commission for
November 14th, 2001, to discuss the Land Code -- Land -- excuse me
-- the Land Code Development-- Land Development Code
amendments. I'll get it right yet. Have a roll call.
Mr. Midney, absent but excused.
Mr. Budd, absent but excused.
Mr. Adelstein.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Here.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Mr. Abernathy.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Here.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Ms. Rautio, here.
Mrs. Young.
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: Here.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Mr. Richardson.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Yes.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Mr. Wolfley.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Present.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Mr. Strain.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Here.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: We have a quorum. I do believe that
one member has to depart in about less than an hour. Okay. Susan,
you're up.
MS. MURRAY: Good evening. Susan Murray, current
planning manager. This is the first hearing of two scheduled public
hearings for LDC Cycle 2. The next hearing will be scheduled
exactly two weeks from tonight at 5:05 p.m. In this room.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Madam Chair, could I just
-- I'm concerned about double booking of this room. If that's going to
happen, maybe we could make some other arrangements to hold our
second meeting in a place that we can start the meeting on time. I
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mean, it's an imposition on -- on all of our times to have to wait an
hour to get this thing started.
MS. MURRAY: The booking of the room is done by the county
manager's office, so I'll talk and ensure that there isn't anybody in
advance of us that we think might run over.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I would appreciate that.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Thank you. I think we all would
appreciate that.
MS. MURRAY: The second item is you've been handed out a
packet of revisions. It should look something like this with today's
date on there. We'll be working not only from your regular-sized
packet, but where there have been revisions I will call them to your
attention when we get to them. We'll be working from the page
numbers, the handwritten page numbers at the bottom of the page.
And also following along, we will mostly be working from your
summary spreadsheet. It gives you the summary of the amendment,
of DSAC recommendation, and the EAC recommendation. So
between those three packets, I'll try to keep you on track.
MS. STUDENT: Madam Chair, I just have a couple
housekeeping items too. At the final hearing -- and this had been
discussed previously by our board, but at the final hearing on the
previous Land Development Code cycle which was in October, the
board directed that we prepare a moratorium or interim development
control for the residential tourist zoning districts in the Vanderbilt
Beach area. And so that has been done and was e-mailed by the
county attorney's office to you unproofread yesterday because I was
in meetings all day. So you have, I believe, all been given the
corrected version.
And also as a matter of housekeeping, I passed out to you an
amended Section 2.2.20.3.7 and 2.7.2.8.1, and that has to do with
dedication of public facilities and reference to the impact fee, the new
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impact fee ordinance. And if you recall it during the last cycle in the
spring, this was not handed out at the night meetings where it was
advertised, but you did consider it in a day meeting where we had an
ordinance advertised to handle three specific things. So to clear up
any issue with that, it's just a housekeeping matter. That was passed
out tonight.
And also as part of that there was Section 2.7.2.4, and that had
to do with the time limits for the number of amendment cycles in a
year. In the last LDC cycle in the spring, we amended Section 1.19
that would allow us to have more than two cycles, and this just
mirrors that to make the code consistent.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Do we need action on that
item?
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: You will.
MS. STUDENT: You will at the next meeting, not at this one.
MS. MURRAY: Also in your handouts you should have
received a spreadsheet that looks like this and it's titled "Comparison
of Proposed and Existing Development Standards." You'll recognize
that this is not in its typical underlined, strikethrough format. This
was recently decided -- well, I shouldn't say recently decided. We
had originally planned to present this to you in your packet, and it
was removed as part of our decision to remove the section of the code
referring to the NAICS conversion. And it was inadvertently stuck in
with the NAICS conversion, and Mr. John Dunnuck informed me this
morning that he would like to see this section of the amendments go
forward. And this is basically a summary of the existing amendments
for C-1 through C-5 zoning district and the industrial and business
park district in terms of the proposed changes to the development
standards.
And I know you're just getting this information tonight, and
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whenever you decide you want to talk about this, I'd be happy to
walk you through the proposed changes on this sheet, and then we'll
get you the final format as soon as we can. But I know you're just
getting this firsthand tonight, so you need to be thinking about
whether or not you possibly may want to have another meeting or a
workshop on this or if you think that between now and two weeks
from now will be sufficient time enough for you-all to review it and
comment because, of course, at your next meeting you'll be required
to make your recommendations and take a vote.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. The item -- what-- where did it
show up on our summary sheet?
MS. MURRAY: It does not show up on your summary sheet,
and so I have it handwritten in mine. I also have one speaker on this
item. So we can -- I have four different speakers on four different
items, so we can choose to hear that. Typically you hear it -- when
you have the public, you hear those first, those items first.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Right. In deference to the late hour
that we've actually started, I think that would be a good idea, anyone
that's already registered to speak. If you're not, please turn in a slip to
Susan so that we can bring that particular item earlier here in the
discussion. And I do believe that we have a comment or two about
the proposed development standards for the comparison sheet that we
were just given. Mr. Strain, I noticed you were smiling.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Oh, when we get there, I have
plenty of questions.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. We can discuss it now and
then.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I just -- no. This is -- I want to
digest this a little bit.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. So you want to wait till next
time, or do you think--
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COMMISSIONER STRAIN: That would be my preference.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: -- we need another meeting to discuss
it in detail once we see the strikethroughs and underlines? What's
your observation, please?
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I think we could handle this next
time. I mean, I'd be prepared for it next time. Is that adequate?
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Mr. Richardson.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Would it be appropriate to
perhaps have this discussion at one of our regular Planning
Commission meetings?
MS. MURRAY: I'd have to defer to the county attorney. I think
you have to have your discussion on these LDC items at a regularly
advertised public hearing.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: I believe we do too. Ms. Student, we
have a question for you.
MS. STUDENT: Yes, ma'am.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Mr. Richardson.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Well, I was just asking,
Marjorie, whether or not this -- particularly the heights and changes
of the development standards on this -- on the commercial districts
which has just been given to us in a draft form -- well, it's in a, I
guess, finished form, but it doesn't have the supporting language.
And Ms. Murray was suggesting that there's going to be some other
language come along but that they have registered public speakers
that want to talk about this, and there are obviously going to be
questions. I was wondering if we could facilitate this by not having
to wait till the end, because everything piles up at the end, if we could
-- if we could perhaps put that type of discussion on a regular
Planning Commission meeting.
MS. STUDENT: That has to be a night meeting because under
our code as it currently exists when we have meetings dealing with a
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list of prohibited, permitted, or conditional uses -- now, I don't know.
Are there any use changes as a part of that, or are there just
development standards?
MS. MURRAY: Just development standards.
MS. STUDENT: Okay. I think that we -- I think that we could
possibly do that at a day meeting because it's a development standard
and not the actual list of the uses. I just want to make sure that there's
not any permitted, prohibited, or conditional uses in there because if
there are --
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: What I'd be looking for is
just an explanation of what it is that's trying to be accomplished and
what the impacts are going to be.
MS. STUDENT: And I believe we -- I believe we can do that.
We can work with staff on that.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: However, from a logistical standpoint,
our next meeting is tomorrow, and we don't have another meeting
before the 28th, which is our final recommendation hearing, so I'm
not sure how we could accomplish that.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I'd be ready to hear it
tomorrow.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Would staff be ready to have the
papers and get it to us?
MS. STUDENT: Well, I guess there's the point it hasn't been
advertised for tomorrow in any form.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Right. Mr. Strain.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: We're talking about hearing on
this sheet tomorrow. We just got it tonight. I mean, I definitely can't
do the research tonight I would need to do to understand what this
sheet is trying to tell us. And I don't think from the perspective of the
public, the groups and organizations that review this kind of thing, I
think they ought to be given prior notice of it. They won't have any
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time between now and tomorrow to review it.
MS. MURRAY: I'm going to leave it up to you. It's honestly
not that complicated, and I can explain it tonight. And I do have a
registered public speaker on it, but I will leave that decision up to
you, though.
MS. STUDENT: I suppose what you could do because it wasn't
advertised for tomorrow is to continue that part of the meeting that
you deal with this issue until tomorrow, and that would get us over
that hurdle.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: However, is it not possible for her to
give a brief summary tonight? We can do additional review on our
own, and then you will also get us the underlined and strikethrough
material before the 28th when we have our meeting. Does that sound
good?
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: That sounds good to me.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Yeah. That would work. I think
that would be fine.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. Let's proceed with that idea. So
please give us an overview of this item first, and then we'll ask for the
one public speaker that's registered.
MS. MURRAY: Okay. This is the C-1 through C-5 industrial
and business park zoning districts, and these amendments relate to
the development standards, no change in use or anything else. If you
look at the chart starting at the top and -- well, I'll just use the -- let
me use the C-4 zoning district as an example because there's a -- a
significant change there. If you look at the C-4 zoning district at the
top of your chart right in the middle, then look to the left where it
says front yard and then you follow that line over, you'll see where
there's existing and proposed right under the C-4 designation.
The existing talks about the sections of the development standards
that are proposing to change, and this says one-half of the -- I'm
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sorry. The current regulation for a front-yard setback is one-half the
building height as measured from each exterior wall or 25 feet,
whatever is greater. The proposed -- I'm sorry. My form says
something different than I think it should, but I believe the proposed
should read 25 feet; is that correct?
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: It says that.
MS. MURRAY: Oh, I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: One-half building height.
MS. MURRAY: One-half of the building height, eliminating
the measurement from each exterior wall. So it would be a strict
measurement of one-half of the total building height from ground to
the top of the roof, you know, depending on what type of roof it is
and where you measure the building height. So we're striking out the
measurement from each exterior wall, which if you're familiar with
the wedding-cake setback scenario, this eliminates the wedding-cake
setbacks for the front, side, and rear yard. "Or 25 feet, whichever is
greater" still is retained. So that's the scenario for each of the front,
side, and rear yard for each of the zoning districts. We're eliminating
the wedding-cake setback measurement.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: And from looking at this chart, I can't
see that.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: That's what I'm trying to
understand.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: And I can just-- I can just see by the
look on Commissioner Strain's face he was doing the same thing I
was. If you just glance at this, it looks like it's staying the same.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: That's the one thing that's
changing, and that's the one thing that's not there.
MS. MURRAY: I think probably what's throwing you is the
language in there that's being struck out, which is the measurement
from each exterior wall, which would give you a clear indication
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about what's removed.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
MS. MURRAY: Right.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
it's set up on this chart.
But there is no language.
Therefore, that is confusing the way
MS. MURRAY: I'm going to leave that for just a second and
then go down to the maximum height. And you'll see for all the
zoning districts, the maximum height is proposed to stay the same
except for the C-4 zoning district, which is proposed to be reduced
from the current standard of a hundred feet to a maximum of 75.
Lot area, the next down from maximum height, is proposed to change
in C-1 from 20,000 -- this is minimum lot area requirement -- 20,000
to 10,000 square feet; C-2, 15,000 to 10,000 square feet; C-3 remains
the same; and the remainder of the zoning districts remain the same.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Susan, is that minimum, or
would it be maximum?
MS. MURRAY: That would be minimum. Lot frontage for C-1
is proposed to change from -- and this is, again, a minimum lot
frontage -- from a hundred feet to 75 feet for C-1; a hundred feet to
75 feet for C-2; stays the same for C-3; a hundred feet to 75 feet for
C-4; a hundred feet to 75 feet for C-5; and remains the same for
industrial and business park.
So in summary, what we're really proposing is changes to three
different development standards, the most significant of which is the
elimination of the ability to measure your setbacks in the wedding-
cake style. So it would be just a strict one-half the building height or
25 feet. The second significant change is in the C-4 zoning district
with respect to building height, and that would go from 100 to 75
feet. And then your various lot area minimums and lot frontage
minimum changes.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Having --
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CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Go ahead, Mr. Abernathy.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Having said that, do you
hang some language on this skeleton as to the rationale for these
things? I mean, why did we do that?
MS. MURRAY: That's the part that you're missing, and that's
normally what you get in our summary package. You get the staff
report and --
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Can that be summarized?
MS. MURRAY: That will be summarized, yes.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: About three of them.
MS. MURRAY: Yes. And we can do -- I mean, I can send that
to you just as soon as we get it prepared. Rather than waiting for a
regular mail out, if I could fax it to you-all or whatever, or even e-
mail it to you, if that's acceptable.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: I think everyone has an e-mail, so we
could get that out to us so we could completely discuss or ask
questions at the next meeting.
MS. MURRAY: Okay. That's --just keep in mind what's
changing, and then when we send you the backup materials for your
consideration, you'll have a better idea of why.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Right. Do we have any questions of
Susan?
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: But there's some speaker
that's going to object, I guess, to some part of this.
MS. MURRAY: I'm not sure if she's --
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: How are we going to know
the other side of the coin if we don't know the rationale for the
change?
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: We're going to let her talk in just a
moment.
MS. MURRAY: If you're ready, I can call her, and then she
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also will have the opportunity to come back to your second hearing.
Or if you decide you want to discuss it at length in a different -- at
another regularly scheduled CCPC meeting, she could come then too.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Just a process question,
Susan. These are proposed changes, and they would not go in affect
until they went through the whole process, that is the BCC. Would
they, however, impact anything that's in the pipeline now? In other
words, to what -- when would it actually kick in?
MS. MURRAY: It-- legally I think it kicks in-- and maybe
Marjorie can help me out on this, because I know we send our
amendments to the state, and I'm not sure of the exact effective date
of the amendments, but she could explain.
MS. STUDENT: Yes. The effective date of the amendment is
not the date that the board passes it, but there's typically language in
the ordinance that it's effective -- I believe it's upon receipt by the
secretary of state.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So an applicant could --
MS. STUDENT: So when -- so what happens is they send a
stamped -- date stamped copy back, and then we know the receipt
date. We don't know it when we send it, but we know it when we
receive it back, and then that's the effective date. And it typically is
within -- they usually go out FedEx, so it's typically within a day or
so of when it's mailed out, and we have ten days from the date of the
last board meeting when they adopt it to get it to -- the secretary of
state's got to get it by the tenth day.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So if an applicant is
concerned and wants to get in underneath the wire, he can come in a
day before you get that back, and he's in under the old standards?
MS. STUDENT: Yeah. That--yes.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Any other questions of staff before we
have the registered public speaker? Commissioner Strain.
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first.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I'm waiting to hear the speaker
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. Susan.
MS. MURRAY: Okay. The registered speaker is Sally Barker.
MS. BARKER: For the record, my name is Sally Barker. And,
no, Mr. Abemathy, I'm not going to object to anything. But what I
wanted to do was give you a little background perhaps. The issue of
building heights in the C-4 district has been a hot topic, at least in my
area, North Naples, for the last three years, since construction was
started on the 125-foot monstrosity at Vanderbilt Beach Road and
U.S. 41.
And at that time we started pushing to have the issue of building
heights in the C-4 addressed, because under the old standards if you
had just a straight C-4 zoned property, you could plunk essentially a
hundred-foot building on it, which is what happened. And I'm very
pleased to see that the building height has dropped or will -- may be
dropped, depending on whether this goes through the approval
process or not -- from a hundred feet to 75 feet. That's very much a
step in the right direction.
But -- and there's always a but here -- I think the issue that still
needs to be addressed-- and it's hard to say because I haven't seen the
language -- is whether 75 feet is still appropriate in C-4 districts that
butt up against residential, because we also have that issue ongoing in
North Naples with talk of a nine-story hotel at the comer of
Vanderbilt Beach Road and Airport Road, which would exactly butt
up against a low-rise residential. And it's questionable whether it's
appropriate to put a building of that height right next to residential.
Now, that's not to say that 75-foot buildings, even a-hundred-foot
buildings, are not appropriate in some parts of-- in some areas of C-4
zoning. But I think we have to perhaps address the issue of height
limitations in those C-4 districts that will affect, directly affect,
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residential areas next to it. And I don't know if that's very clear or
not. But if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them, and
I look forward to seeing the language. Thank you. CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Any questions?
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: One question. You started out by
saying that the building that you're -- on Vanderbilt is 125 feet high?
MS. BARKER: Well, it's a hundred-- it's a hundred feet, but by
the time they get done with the roof, it's going to be 125, give or take.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: These new regulations, Susan, are
they going to be addressing the measurement as to where the -- or is
it going to stay the same, the measurement technique?
MS. MURRAY: It's -- it's not proposed, obviously, in the
information you have in front of you, and therein kind of lies the
problem. Our plan for amending these development standards, we
had planned to go through workshops with the Board of County
Commissioners before we even brought this to you. Those
workshops have been canceled twice, and that was one of the reasons
why, other than it being involved with the NAICS conversion, that it
was pulled because we hadn't had the opportunity to discuss
questions, just like you're bringing forward, with the board. John
Dunnuck has attempted to schedule one more workshop with them.
He told me it was either the 4th or the 9th of December, and that's not
set yet. He had just proposed that today.
Another option, if we can't get in front of the board, is to
schedule a workshop with you-all, and we could adjust the LDC
amendment schedule as we currently have it proposed to
accommodate that workshop, and then we could set the public
hearing at a later date. So those type of issues the board has touched
on in past discussions, but we don't have any clear direction from
them as to what -- whether or not they want us to address that. So at
this time it's not being addressed, but perhaps if we do end up with
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our workshop, we could do that.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Commissioner Abernathy.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Sally, you were talking
about heights exclusively?
MS. BARKER: Right.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Not lot frontages?
MS. BARKER: Not setbacks.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: I just wonder what a 75-
foot-high building looks like on a 75-foot-wide lot. If you had two or
three of those in a row, it would be awful looking, wouldn't it?
MS. BARKER: Well, that's entirely possible. But you also
have to bear in mind that a lot depends on how close or how big the
lot is and how close even the side or rear setback would be to a
residential area. In the case of the proposed nine-story hotel, it would
be the rear side setback for the hotel that would butt up against
Emerald Lakes. And under this I guess it would be half of the
building height or 15 feet, whichever is greater.
So if you take half of the building height for, say, a 90-story
(sic) building, that's 45 feet for a rear setback, and that's darn close to
a low-rise residential neighborhood. I mean you'd look out your back
window, and all you'd see would be building. There would be no
sky, no air, no light, you know, all those issues that we like to talk
about as far as quality of living.
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: I was just thinking that
even if it's a straight C-4 district, C-4 by C-4 by C-4, that if you
reduce the lot size from a hundred to 75 feet, you're reducing the
amount of air that's going to flow between those commercial
buildings.
MS. BARKER: I'm sure you're right, and I have no idea how --
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: I don't know why we
would be reducing those lots. That's the rationale, I guess, I'm
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waiting for.
MS. BARKER:
lots.
You're talking about reducing the size of the
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: I'm talking about frontage,
lot frontage going from a hundred to 75. It seems to me that's the
wrong direction. We're reducing the height, and it seems to me you'd
keep the lot size, lot frontage, the same.
MS. BARKER: Excellent point. I hadn't caught that one.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Commissioner Strain has an
observation.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: If you reduce the lot size and you
put a 75-foot building on there with half the building height as the
setbacks, you'd eliminate any area to build in. So I think the problem
would solve itself. When you reduce the lot size, you couldn't build
as high because you couldn't get the half the building height for--
COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Flatiron building or
something.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: So, I mean, I think that might
solve itself; is that a correct interpretation?
MS. MURRAY: Yes. I mean, I think that's a legitimate
observation.
MS. BARKER: Yeah. But on some of the larger lots, what you
might wind up with is a buildable area that in size, you know, is
relatively small. But instead of a large, fat building, then you get a
tall, skinny building. And I'm not sure that that's any better for our
area.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: But the ratio of open space
between buildings would end up being half the building height no
matter what size width of lot you have. So I think you'd have about
the same in impact. My other question was pertaining to something
else you said, and that was that you have a C-4 existing alongside a
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November 14, 2001
residential. And maybe staff can answer this for me. Wasn't C-4
supposed to be transitioned before residential, or does this condition
exist -- I know it exists in Golden Gate in a couple places, but is this
common?
MS. MURRAY: It's common in some of the older subdivisions
like Golden Gate. And I think a lot of this is as a result of when the
ZRO process went through. When the comp plan was initially
adopted, staff had made recommendations of eliminating a lot of that,
quote, unquote, strip type of commercial development in those areas
and concentrating your commercial development at major
intersections. And while a lot of the activity centers obviously came
to life as a result of that process, a lot of the old zoning districts that
were in existence before the comp plan was adopted in the ZRO
process still remain. So that's -- there's a particular issue with that.
MS. BARKER: To answer your question, Mr. Strain, we have
quite a few pockets of-- isolated pockets of C-4 all over North
Naples, and they would be prime for building or redevelopment in a
style that may not be commensurate with what we want to live with.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I understand. Thank you.
MS. MURRAY: And there's many ways to address situations
like that, not just building height or setbacks. I mean, that's one way
of mitigating the impacts of commercial development against
residential, but you've also got landscape buffering and maybe some
architectural design features or something that could be incorporated.
So it's -- there's more than one way to resolve that.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Thank you. Let the record reflect that
Commissioner Abernathy has departed the room.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Susan, just to that point,
this height compatibility, there may be a number of ways that it can
be addressed, and I guess that would be in site development plan kind
of work. But is there some Land Development Code work that can
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November 14, 2001
that.
be done to -- to ferret out the specific situations where C-4 abuts
residentially zoned area and treat that somewhat differently than
other C-4s?
MS. MURRAY: Yes. I think that's really what I was alluding
to is, you know, perhaps it warrants -- and this was part of what we
wanted to discuss in the workshops, was did the board think that C-4
or higher intensity commercial zoning districts abutting residential
should have some special development regulation to mitigate the
impact.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: We'll look forward to
reading those.
MS. MURRAY: I hope we have a workshop soon.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Would it be that someone on staff has
already attempted to identify the locations in the county, specifically
those in North Naples?
MS. MURRAY: Yes. We have in anticipation of the workshop.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: And we will have an opportunity to see
MS. MURRAY: Yes.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: And understand it.
MS. MURRAY: Yes. We have maps.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. Thank you. Any other
questions?
Okay. We can move along.
MS. MURRAY: The next registered speakers, I have two of
them. And those are for the beach events permits, and that would be
on page 49 of your thick packet. And if you'd like, I could have staff
summarize what the amendments are, and then you could take the
public speakers. And, Barbara Burgeson, I'd call you up to the
microphone to talk about that.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. We are on --
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November 14, 2001
MS. MURRAY: Page 49.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Do you realize that was
eliminated from our summary? Is there a reason for that?
MS. MURRAY: No. It should have been on your-- the
summary you got tonight.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay. I haven't reviewed the one
I got tonight. I haven't -- but, I mean, the one that we reviewed over
the weekend, it wasn't here.
MS. MURRAY: I think while you're looking for that, it's been
suggested -- Matt, if you wouldn't mind coming to the podium and
making your presentation first, I -- we haven't had a lot of
opportunity for legal review and the legal implications of this
proposed amendment, and we're in the process of getting that
information. I don't know how long it's going to take, but -- and I
hope to have that to you by the next meeting. But we do have a
summary of the recommendations of the DSAC, and the EAC voted
to continue this. So why don't we go ahead and let Matt present his
side, and you-all can ask him questions. And he is one of the
registered speakers.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. Before we do that, I do not
have a page 49 in my packet that was handed out --
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: It's in the old packet.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: It's only in the old packet. We didn't
get any changes.
MS. MURRAY: Yes. The old packet.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. I just wanted to make sure we
-- we have no changes, so we're in the old packet. MS. MURRAY: Right.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Mr. Adelstein, we're in the old packet.
Mr. Grabinski.
MR. GRABINSKI: Thank you. Good evening. Matt Grabinski
Page 19
November 14, 2001
for the record here on behalf of the Ritz-Carlton. I will try to keep
this short since I know we can't vote on this anyways tonight. As
most of you will probably recall, last year there were extensive
amendments made to the Land Development Code regarding beach
events and the use of vehicles on the beach, particularly during sea
turtle season. There was a lot of public comment and debate.
In the end the Board of County Commissioners passed various
amendments to the Land Development Code. At their final meeting
on June 20th this past summer, one of the amendments that we
requested that they add to the code, that they did add to the code and
it's currently in the code, was an express provision that provided that
the annual beach events permit, which was an annual permit, could
not be revoked as a penalty. It was a very heated issue, but it dealt
with some very valuable, very sensitive property rights. And the
commissioners agreed, and they passed that amendment.
However, several of the commissioners had a -- had a problem with
having a permit in our code that could not be subject to revocation.
They didn't have a problem with giving us conceptually what we
wanted, but they felt that rather than calling this a permit, it should
have been structured as more of a notice process. And so in the end
when they -- as they voted to give us our amendments, it was
suggested that the code be cleaned up and redrafted to not change
anything substantively, but to merely turn an annual beach events
permit into a mandatory annual beach events notice.
At that meeting John Dunnuck respectfully requested the Board of
County Commissioners to place that burden on myself and the other
attorneys that were working with the hotels, rather than burdening
staff. And the county commissioners agreed, and so they asked me to
get back up on the record, which I did, and promise to redraft the
code and turn it into a notice process. And that's what I did, and
that's why I'm here. If they hadn't asked me to do it, I would have
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November 14, 2001
never drafted this amendment. I don't think that it really changes
anything. They felt that an apple looked more like an orange, and so
they asked me to turn it into an orange. And that's what I did, and
that's what's before you now.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Do we have any questions?
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Would you explain what
he just said? I don't understand.
MS. MURRAY: Barbara, you want to come forward?
MS. BURGESON: For the record, Barbara Burgeson with
planning services. The amendments that Matt has proposed-- the
amendments that Matt has proposed were asked of him by the Board
of County Commissioners. They -- in their meeting at the Land
Development Code the last cycle, last hearing, they were amenable to
the idea that if there wasn't going to be any revocation -- and they
talked about being no -- no revocation for a year while they were -- I
guess at least for the first year while we were seeing how the process
was working, that if there was no ability to revoke the permit, that
maybe it should be called a notice. So they directed or asked Matt if
he wanted to change that in the code, that he was to bring that back.
Staff at the time had not had any ability to respond to the board
regarding that issue and since has had a bit of time to absorb the
possible consequences of removing the language of calling it a permit
and calling it a notice. And we do not, on a staff level, support this
change, even though we understand the board asked for it to be
brought back, simply because -- I -- I want to give the -- the -- some
of the reasons that we've come up with that. We don't have the full
list of reasons because we haven't had a formal legal interpretation.
However, I've been working with the county for about 12 years, and
we used to have notices, for instance, for agricultural clearing. We
were not allowed to add stipulations or conditions to them. We could
not make changes to them. They were simply a notification process
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November 14, 2001
to us. We were given a very minimal time to review them and to
comment, but again, they were just notifications. So we had very
little control over them.
For the same reason we're concerned that if it goes from a
permit to a notice, that there may not be the ability from code
enforcement -- and I've spoken with Michelle Arnold, who's the code
enforcement director. There's a concern from her staff position --
two issues: One, whether that can be enforced as a notice; and
second, if when -- for instance, when a permit is applied for, we have
the ability to just not issue it. We can deny the permit application.
On a notice we don't have that ability.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: You do not have that ability?
MS. BURGESON: No.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: You have to give the notice.
MS. BURGESON: The -- it's a notification to us that something
will be happening as opposed to a permit where we review and issue
it. So we -- now, I've asked -- we've put in a request for a more
formal interpretation from our county attorney's office on the
differences, the legal differences. I'm just letting you know how it
happened when we used to have a notice, and that's why you went
from the notice for agricultural to an agricultural clearing permit
years ago since we had problems with that process. So that's one
concern that we have, and that's why we're not supporting it.
And then the second concern about the proposed language change is
that Matt has added that the commercial beach events -- he's added
the language -- in the very, very beginning of the amendment on page
49, he's added the word "commercial beachfront property" as
opposed to "commercial hotel resort property." So that means all
commercial beachfront property could do this, and that was not what
the board asked to come back, and that was something that staff had
not originally proposed in any of the language in last year's
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November 14, 2001
amendment cycle.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: That was one of my questions. How
did we get from the hotels to all commercial properties? And I wasn't
able to take time to figure out how many there were, so I don't want a
situation again like we had with floor area ratio where we didn't fully
understand what was happening or the implication on the ground.
MS. BURGESON: Right. And that wasn't direction, to make
that amendment. I do not -- I could not answer that question for you,
how many pieces of property on the beachfront are commercially
zoned, but that could be something we could find out for you for the
next meeting.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: That would probably be a very good
idea because I think that's probably a question from others up here.
And I'm sure that Matt has some elaboration he'd like to give.
MR. GRABINSKI: I -- I took out the hotel distinction because
through my attendance at the meetings, I thought that that was also
one of the changes. I will definitely go back and review the minutes,
and if it's absent, certainly -- I represent the Ritz -- I have no problem
changing it back to hotels only if that's one of your concerns.
And the only other point I wanted to make -- I'm not going to keep
getting up here -- about the concern with the notices and not being
able to attach conditions to them, if you look at the current annual
beach events permit, all the conditions and stipulations are taken
straight out of what's already in the Land Development Code. So if
there are ever any violations that you'd be concerned about, they'd be
enforced as a code violation through the penalties that are in the code.
All the beach events permit ever did was reiterate what was already
in the code.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: I'm not sure that's quite clear because I
remember looking at one of those, and we had something to do with
time specific on the previous beach permits, which I believe is now in
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November 14, 2001
the code. So your statement that it was just reiterating what was in
the code -- from what I remember just briefly and not having looked
at those permits again, that created this rather lengthy discussion we
had on the turtles and the beach and the time that you could break
down and leave things; is that not correct, Barbara?
MS. BURGESON: There were a number of new items placed in
the LDC at the last cycle, but for the most part it did accumulate
either what we had in freestanding ordinances or other sections of the
code and other items that came from, for instance, the state and their-
- either their permit issuance or some of their information.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. Commissioner Strain, and then
I want to ask our legal counsel a question.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Just one comment to the speaker.
You had mentioned you really don't care if this goes through or not.
This is something you kind of were forced into doing. And if staff is
content with it staying as permits, then do we really have an issue
here?
MR. GRABINSKI: Well, I would like to hope that I haven't
wasted my time and my client's money. I mean, we -- this -- the
annual beach events permit and everything that -- all the -- literally
more than a year's worth of time. I would say now we're probably up
to 18 months that I've worked on this matter. I've been through -- this
is my third LDC cycle. And it all culminated and, we thought, ended
this past June. But as a final condition, the commissioners asked that
the code be cleaned up to accurately reflect the intent that they
wanted. And county staff said we don't want to deal with it anymore.
We've been doing this for a year. Let the hotel's attorney do it. So I
said I would do it, and here it is. It's what I've done.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: In the previous record didn't you
say, though, this doesn't make a lot of difference to you one way or
the other? You'd be just as satisfied to --
Page 24
November 14, 2001
MR. GRABINSKI: No. In my opinion it doesn't -- it doesn't
affect the rights of anyone. Right now it's a beach events permit, but
the code says that the permit is not subject to revocation.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: So whether this goes through or
not, it's not going to have an impact on you. MR. GRABINSKI: Pardon me?
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Whether this goes through or not
then, you're not too concerned about its impact.
MR. GRABINSKI: I'm not too concerned about its impact on
my client's substantive rights, no.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: However, the Board of County
Commissioners has asked this to come through, so we need to be
very careful to understand what it is they were asking for. And if
there's something here such as the item of commercial which you
agreed that you would check very carefully to keep the word or
remove the word depending on what the minutes say -- we have to
give this to the Board of County Commissioners, because they asked
for it, in some form. And I'm not sure they understand the difference
between the annual notice implications versus the permit implications
as we've been presented by staff.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Do we know how long ago the
board asked for this?
MR. GRABINSKI: June 20th. I have a copy of the minutes.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Of this year?
MR. GRABINSKI: Yes.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: So it would have gotten -- you got it to
us in a timely fashion. We've been dealing with this forever.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Madam Chair, I'm back,
you know, ahead of, I guess, where the commission has ended up.
But if-- if the hotel is able to get a permit to do something and then
violates that permit, it would certainly seem to me we should have a
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November 14, 2001
right to revoke it. I -- I'm -- that just doesn't wash with me. I
mean --
MS. MURRAY: Madam Chair.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: -- we're not able to -- if
you're not able to enforce the regulations and if there's some -- and
certainly the Ritz wouldn't do this, but if there's some affront to the --
to the code, we ought to have -- there ought to be some -- some way
to -- to remedy that. And I don't hear that that's here.
MS. BURGESON: As it was discussed in the minutes of the
meeting in June, Commissioner Mac'Kie had talked about the
possibility or at least holding the idea that the board would be the
body, the Board of County Commissioners, that could hear a request
to have that permit revoked. However, even though she placed that
on record, she asked Matt how he felt about it, and he did not agree
with that. It didn't really get summarized back to her saying that she
wouldn't do it. It kind of was left at --
MR. GRABINSKI: Actually, I would love an opportunity to
read Commissioner Mac'Kie's response directly from the minutes,
because she asked me, "Matt, how do you feel about if the Board of
County Commissioners was the only authority that could remove the,
quote, unquote, permit after a hearing?"
I replied, "With all due respect, we would still be uncomfortable
for this reason: As you have all acknowledged, this is a vested right,
and it was subject to new regulation last fall. And while you may be
reasonable now, this year, we don't know who's going to be sitting in
those chairs next year, the year after that, or five years or ten years
from now.
"And if you do not put express unconditional language saying
that the permit shall not be subject to suspension or revocation, you
leave yourselves -- maybe the staff can't do it, but Collier County
leaves itself a back door to come in in the future and try to shut down
Page 26
November 14, 2001
the most valuable vested right that these beachfront hotels have, and
it is something that they can just -- they cannot accept."
Commissioner Mac'Kie responded, "But if they have a series -- I
mean, what if we -- I don't know. Because I agree with your concept
completely. It's just you're asking us to say in our code that we issue
a permit that we can't revoke, and that's illogical. So I don't know
how to get around it. I'm -- I'm open."
I responded to her, "Like you -- like you said, if you would feel
more comfortable revising the code to change the name from permit
to something else, whether it's annual beach event notification form,
then do that."
Commissioner Mac'Kie responded, "That's what it ought to be."
I responded, "Then let's rename that section of the code and then
you don't feel like you're issuing a permit that can't be revoked.
Instead you're requiring commercial beachfront property owners to
notify Collier County, submit an annual fee, and then submit them
monthly notices, and you don't feel like you're sitting up there issuing
a permit that you can't revoke."
Commissioner Mac'Kie then went on to add, "Is it possible to do
that in this cycle?" And the whole discussion ensued where they
basically said, no, you have to come back and do it in the fall.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So you're proposing to
come back with a notice that can never be reviewed. I mean, it --
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Annually it is. It's an annual notice.
MR. GRABINSKI: It's a mandatory annual notice.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: But a notice says you tell
us, and we can't tell you anything.
MR. GRABINSKI: No. No.
current Land Development Code.
You just --
You have told us in the -- in the
We have spent over a year drafting
entirely new sections that already lay out the rules for these activities.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: But if the rules are broken,
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November 14, 2001
what can happen?
MR. GRABINSKI: Penalized, fines.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: But the events cannot be
changed. You've noticed us, and those events go on, then, regardless
of what the -- what fines are applied.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: And that was the feeling of this board.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: And it's a cost of business
then, you know. And that-- we had that discussion before, and I'm
disappointed the commission didn't uphold the views of the BCC --
the CCP -- we, CPCC -- CPCC set forth, Collier Planning -- CCPC.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Collier County Planning Commission.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Pick out the letters you
like.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: And this is only our second item?
MR. GRABINSKI: Actually, in the last cycle the Planning
Commission did vote to approve these amendments.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I guess I missed that
meeting.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: And we had quite a discussion about
the cost of business and whether or not we could in good faith take
away a permit from a major hotel such as the Ritz or The Registry for
some items that may not -- they could get a fine for or violation and it
may not have been them. Someone else could drag the chairs down
on the beach and things like this. So there was a sensitivity here
about once you accumulated enough violations to have a revocation
of the beach events permit, it was really very serious. And I think
this board really sort of gave them a chance to prove that they were
going to be great neighbors, great stewards of the beach, as anyone
else that's on the hotel front. And if they weren't, we'd probably
change it later.
MR. GRABINSKI: And one issue that was acknowledged and
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November 14, 2001
pointed out by the county commission -- because the whole --
everyone's big concern -- the people that oppose this, the people that
have raised their eyebrows -- was sea turtle season and harming
wildlife, harming an endangered species. And one thing that was
pointed out was that if there was a serious violation -- not a chair
being left on the beach here or there, but if a turtle nest was
intentionally dug up or the stakes were removed to make room for a
party, the hotel has suddenly violated state and federal laws.
Okay. Violating the county Land Development Code is the last
thing on its mind right now. It's going to have the feds to worry
about. It's going to have possible prison terms if employees acted.
It's going to have fines that could go up to a hundred thousand
dollars. There are already stiff state and federal penalties in place if a
serious environmental infraction occurs. But that's not -- I think
we're getting off track here. That's not what we're here about.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: One last question --
MR. GRABINSKI: We're here to review an amendment --
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: -- Madam Chair.
MR. GRABINSKI: -- that I was asked to draft.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. One last question.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: One last question. Where
is it written in the code that the hotels have a vested right? That term
is -- I've not read in the code, or maybe it's handed down from some
higher authority.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Marjorie.
MS. STUDENT: I can address that, I think. There's a bundle of
rights that go with the ownership of land, and that's reasonable use of
it and so forth. So if the hotels prior to an amendment to the code
had the ability to use something that was not regulated or was
minimally regulated, I think the point is -- well, we had -- a common
law -- to bring up a common law right, one that's not -- that comes to
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November 14, 2001
us from British common law that was adopted into our constitution
and so forth, that is one of the property rights. So I think that's what
Mr. Grabinski is alluding to.
It's that bundle of sticks that you have that go with property
ownership that, as I stated, wasn't previously regulated or was
minimally regulated and now is being regulated or more greatly
regulated. So when that happens people talk about, well, I had the
right to do this before the change, and that's typically referred to as a
vested right.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So if I follow that
argument then, he can ignore all those codes because he has a vested
right.
MS. STUDENT: No. I don't -- I don't see it that way because
we have not taken the right away from him. We have put some
regulations on that right.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: And that's what we try to do here. Mr.
Adelstein.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: She answered the question.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Answered the question. Okay. Any
other questions? Any other clarifications? Ms. Murray.
MS. MURRAY: I have one additional speaker.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Oh, another speaker.
MS. MURRAY: Nicole Ryan.
MS. RYAN: Good evening. For the record, Nicole Ryan. I'm
here on behalf of The Conservancy of Southwest Florida. And The
Conservancy supports county staff's opposition to the amendment
language changes. The bottom line is the county needs to retain the
ability to deny or revoke a permit if repeated violations occur. A
permit will allow such a revocation and notice would not. The LDC
amendments will have absolutely no teeth if you are not allowed to
revoke a permit. Nobody should be afraid of this permit revocation
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November 14, 2001
unless they realize that after repeated violations they are going to get
to the point where the permit needs to be revoked.
And I just did want to point out in your summary packet on page
6 where it talks about the beach events and the vehicle on the beach
LDC's, it says DSAC recommendations, recommends approval.
That's not the case. They did not recommend approval. I don't
believe that they officially voted on this. And the EAC did not take
any action because Mr. Grabinski was not there to present the
petition. And just to point out on page 6 of the summary --
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: In the item called beach events and
vehicles on the beach, you're saying that the DSAC did not
recommend approval and you were there? MS. RYAN: I -- from staff, yeah.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: You've heard that from staff, and we
might --
MS. RYAN: Yes. And if staff could please clarify, they didn't
take action.
MS. MURRAY: They did not take action. They asked that their
-- their summary of their feelings be presented to you, and that was
four votes to support staff, two in abstention, and two to not support
staff's position. And the EAC, as I mentioned earlier, continued this.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: And that got translated to recommends
approval? Interesting. Thank you for that clarification.
MS. RYAN: And just one final comment. When you talk about
why should there just be fines, why should we be able to revoke a
permit, the county natural resources department has a list of beach
furniture violations for the Ritz-Carlton. And you can say, you know,
it's a completely different set of beach violations, yes, and what's the
matter with 1 chair, 8 chairs, 20 chairs left out? Well, it just takes
one chair being left out to entrap a sea turtle when she's crawling up
on the beach to nest. So do we want to give these hotels the ability to
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November 14, 2001
never have their permits denied or revoked when you have this list of
violations right after the LDC amendment went through and they
promised to be really good stewards? Thank you. And I'm sure staff
has a list of this that they can provide for you. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Mrs. Young.
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: Yes. As I recall our previous
discussion, that was one of our really very heartfelt concerns, was
that a large commercial enterprise might just -- I'm not saying the
Ritz-Carlton ever would do this, but they could factor $5,000 per
violation and hardly feel it. But they would feel revocation of a
permit if they consistently broke the rules. That was one of our very
serious problems.
Number two, I feel we should change this first paragraph
language immediately; not make it commercial beachfront owner, but
return it to commercial hotel resort, which was what the whole
discussion was about. And I don't think we want to open it up to
anyone who happens to own beachfront because who knows what
they might run. That's the terrible "they."
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Madam Chair.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Yes, Commissioner Adelstein.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Am I misunderstanding this?
I understood that the county commissioners already approved that
they could get a permit that cannot be revoked. Now, is that where
we are now?
MS. MURRAY: Yes.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: If we are, what are we doing
talking about what we should do or not do because we're already in a
position we can't revoke it?
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Well, this -- this is a -- this
is a Land Development Code cycle for us to consider changes.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: The county commissioners
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November 14, 2001
have already approved that -- the code that you cannot take away this
right. We can make all the things we want, but I don't see where
we're going.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: But we do have the right to make the
changes to the Land Development Code, and this is here because the
county commission, in a rather unusual approach, instead of directing
staff to make the presentation and present here, asked Mr. Grabinski
to. Staff said no, they didn't really want to. He's an outside party
who can make a change to the code and make those suggestions, and
that's happened, and that's why this is here right now. I do believe
that Mr. White wants to --
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Just to editorialize to my
fellow commissioner, I don't view our hands are tied by anything the
commission has done. We -- we are free to make recommendations
of any kind we think is appropriate for the public. All right. And
they can ignore us if they want to, and they have in the past, but I
think that we should speak what we think is right.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: I agree with you, and I'm not
disagreeing with you with our feelings. The point I'm making is that
if the commissioners have already passed it, they can't undo what
they've already done.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Sure they can.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Yes, they can in this process because
it's our Land Development --
MR. WHITE: If I may, Madam Chairman, at this point I think
that's precisely the comment -- Assistant County Attorney Patrick
White -- that I'd like to get on the record. I think the countervailing
argument to Mr. Grabinski's notion that things may change one, five,
or ten years from now is just that and the point of view of both this
commission and perhaps the board as well.
There was discussion, I believe, amongst the many meetings that
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November 14, 2001
were held that if, for example, there were a continuing series of
violations over the next year or subsequent period, next two years,
whatever, that the idea of the revocation or cancellation may be
revisited. But to be fair and evenhanded about this, you need to
understand that there are penalty provisions in there for failing to
provide the notice or -- as it's proposed to be the notice -- or the
permit as the code currently is written. There is a penalty for that.
And I think that the idea that the board would choose to preclude
a revocation or cancellation of a permit or a notice are, as Mr.
Grabinski's indicated to you, substantively equivalent. And I believe
that what staff's position is that if-- there really is no, quote, net
effect. And there's the potential for some things in the code as
proposed to be an alteration from what the board did direct, one
example being the commercial versus -- another being there's some
other text in here as we go through we see there's changes to it that
aren't precisely within what the board had directed.
I think that those are things that need to be considered by this
commission. And, as has been indicated, you're free to make
whatever recommendation you'd like. I'm just trying to help you to
see it from all sides and put it in the most broad perspective possible.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: I do have one request. Is it possible
that staff could present what they wanted or don't want, some of the
reasons and give it to us in a bullet fashion? I think that would be
very helpful.
MR. WHITE: Some of them were presented this evening.
There may be ones at the next meeting that are more detailed
depending upon the nature of the request that's coming to our office.
I haven't seen it yet, and I, of course, can't comment on what the
answer would be.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. Because I -- I did make several
notes here which I think were very significant when we talk about an
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November 14, 2001
annual notice versus an annual permit, and I would like to see that in
writing for our next time and whatever it is that the county attorney's
office is going to present to us.
MR. WHITE: I'd like to think that we'll be able to have that in
time for your packets. If not, the worst case scenario is we'd be able
to distribute it at the meeting.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: No. I think you can probably e-mail it
to us. Worst case scenario would be the meeting, but I hope you
could e-mail it to us.
MR. WHITE: Certainly we can do that.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. Mr. Strain.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I just have a quick question. Mr.
White, the -- Mr. Grabinski made a comment -- made a comment that
the vesting is part of the property, or Marjorie expounded on it a bit.
Do their property lines go down to the extent of their beach -- the
beach activities, or their beach activities go beyond the high mean
line or whatever line marks their property line along the beach?
MR. WHITE: There's a number of factual circumstances
depending upon which of the hotels, I believe, you talk about in terms
of where the ownership line lies. And in some instances, I think it
may be to the mean high water and others it's not. But I'd prefer to
defer to -- I think Maura Kraus may be the one who has the best
answer to that question, and I don't believe she's here this evening.
But it was an issue that was discussed in the prior meetings.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I'm -- I'm new to this board, so I
wasn't aware of that. The other question then would be the turtle
nesting location's on what side of the line? I'm just --
MR. WHITE: Both. Factually -- factually I know they're on
both sides. Anything above mean high water line.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Anything above mean high water is --
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November 14, 2001
MR. WHITE: Where they nest.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: -- where they nest. Right. And that's
usually the property ownership of, say, the Ritz-Carlton in this case.
MR. WHITE: I don't factually recall. Matt may know. I don't
recall.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Mr. Grabinski, just clarify that point
real fast, and we're going to move along here.
MR. GRABINSKI: The Ritz-Carlton owns to what is called the
erosion control line. Just to try to make it as simple as I can, if you
picture -- I'm sure most of you have been to the Ritz-Carlton. If you
picture the dune line if you go towards the water about 75 feet, they
own down that far, their property line. And since most sea turtles
will crawl up onto the beach up to or near the dune line well beyond
the mean high water line, yes, sea turtles are laying their eggs on the
upland property owner's property, whether it's a hotel or a
condominium or a house.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. I think we're ready to mark that
one off the list. We have one other where we have at least one public
speaker.
MS. MURRAY: Let's deal with the amendment on page 12 of
your thick packet, and it's -- this has to do with the Immokalee
mobile home parks. The reason this is coming before you is it's
really common knowledge that in the Immokalee area there are
numerous mobile home parks that were established without official
authorization which, if immediately were corrected, would impose an
inordinate burden on households in the Immokalee area. And a plan
of action has been designed to require these developments to come
into some measure of official approval providing for the gradual
elimination of substandard housing and to cause some measure of
improvements near consistent with current standards.
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November 14, 2001
Knowing this the Board of County Commissioners by policy
have adopted the procedures and rules that are now being proposed
for official inclusion in the Land Development Code, and those are
the ones that are in front of you right now. These policies and
procedures have been adopted by the board. By policy they are
implemented and in place, and this is just the official act of making
them part of the Land Development Code.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: I did have one question on the number
of mobile home parks and facsimiles thereof. What, about, is the
number total? Somebody have that detail? If you don't have it this
time, can we have it next time? Thank you. On page 13, Section
2.2.29.1, the purpose and intent, the purpose of these provisions are.
We might want to change the correct verb there or make it purposes
of.
On page 16, 2, landscaping, (a), I think they mean Florida plant
material, not Florida plan.
And then under Item 3 on the page 16, I guess my question is
somewhat odd, but we're talking about "Where a public water line is
available, a hydrant will be required to serve the park irrespective of
water line pressure." Anybody from the fire districts talked about
this? I'm not sure I understand the logic of putting that there if you
have an inadequate water line pressure to handle anything. And it's
talking about you're going to seek approval from them, but has the
fire district really discussed this?
MS. MURRAY: I believe they have.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Anyone from staff know?
MS. MURRAY: Yeah. We -- they've been involved in the
standards that are developed here, and they are the ones that are
doing the inspections and ensuring that the parks comply with the
standards as adopted.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: And from a liability standpoint that
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November 14, 2001
makes me just a little bit uncomfortable to have this in our Land
Development Code the way it's written right here. So if someone
from staff could perhaps talk to the fire code official and the person
in charge of the Immokalee Fire Department to really maybe
elaborate on this a little bit because it sounds like we're setting
ourselves up in a liability situation to have the presumption of fire
hydrants there and people think they're protected and there's not
adequate pressure. And then I guess you'd have to have the
supplemental apparatus for that particular area. Commissioner
Young.
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: Yes. I had a question on Section
22 -- 2229.1. The purpose of these -- the purposes of these
provisions are -- that is a very peculiar paragraph. I read it over
several times, and I wonder if you could straighten out the language.
What you're trying to do is to provide incentive to upgrade the mobile
parks, but then you continue and say "while requiring the elimination
of substandard units by offering the ability to retain correct diversities
while utilizing alternative development standards." I read that three
times, and I tried -- I edited a lot of this for my own pleasure, but I
couldn't even straighten it out. Could you put that into clear English?
MS. MURRAY: Sure.
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: What you're trying to do is
upgrade the substandard facilities; is that true?
MS. MURRAY: Right. While--
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: Could you say that?
MS. MURRAY: Yes. We could clarify that for you.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: And -- and truly I have to concur with
Commissioner Young that that seems like a very politically worded
statement versus something that's practical to be in the Land
Development Code. I have another one after she finishes.
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: Well, a lot of these are editorial
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November 14, 2001
changes, so I won't do those. Oh, one on page 17, the very bottom of
the page, could you explain this to me? B, mobile home parks that do
not meet the minimum standards may qualify for migrant worker
camps? Is that something we really want to do?
MS. MURRAY: I'm not sure if it's a regulation per se. In other
words, it's more of just a statement that says mobile home parks that
don't meet the minimum standards may qualify under the standards
that we have established in the Land Development Code for migrant
worker camps. I'm not honestly sure how that relates to state
environmental health requirements.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Right. And, Ms. Student, could you --
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: I object to that.
MS. STUDENT: I will have to look into that further. I have --
because, again, of time constraints, I have reviewed this but not in the
great detail that I would like. And I'm not sure that it even belongs in
here. And just along those lines, we -- I don't believe the fee section
should be in here either. We have the resolution that sets fees, and I
think that's probably the better place to put it because there's some
greater ability in a less cumbersome process to bring that to the board
to fix or set or amend fees than to put it in the ordinance. So that may
be something that staff would want to look at.
And I would just say the state requirements are the state
requirements, and I don't think they need to be restated necess -- in
this section because of what appears to me is the county is setting up
the process to encourage the mobile home park owners to bring or
work toward bringing their parks up to standard, and that would be
through that SIP process. And I don't really know what relevance
this has. I'll have to discuss it a bit further with staff, and we'll report
back at the next meeting.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: May I ask who actually drafted the
policy for the Board of County Commissioners?
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November 14, 2001
MS. MURRAY: I don't know. Ron, do you know?
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: If we could find that out for next time.
I'm-- I'm curious because as Commissioner Young has observed, she
sort of changed things and editorialized to determine what she was
reading. I did that too, and I thought this is somewhat odd for just the
two years I've been around here and the years I spent on the
Development Services Advisory Committee reading these to have to
vote on them at that level. This isn't normal language that I would
ever let get past the Development Services Advisory Committee
without complaining vehemently.
MS. MURRAY: I'll find out for you.
CHAIRMAN RAUTI0:
MS. MURRAY: Yep.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
Would you find that out, please?
Commissioner Strain.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Just one question. Has anybody
done a study to find out the impact that the cost of implementing this
change will have on the people in Immokalee that are living in these
units, and/or if these units fail to exist at the price range they
currently exist, where are they going to go? Is there any thought
gone to that part of this equation?
MS. MURRAY: Not that I'm aware of, but I imagine that was
kind of the -- one of the overriding concerns in developing these
policies which are clearly outside of the normal scope of standards
that we have in our Land Development Code, specifically to address
issues in Immokalee as it relates to the cost of housing and the ability
to provide housing for low income individuals.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Well, the engineering work and
the application work and the process for the consultants that are
going to be needed for this work is going to be expensive. And that's
the part of what -- I was wondering how much of the cost has been
looked at in comparison to seeing this happen in the price range that
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November 14, 2001
these units are being leased in still remain effective for the people
that are using them.
MS. MURRAY: One of our registered speakers is Vince
Cautero, and he may be able to shed some light on it. I'm not trying
to put you on the spot, Vince. But I know he's been working on some
of these projects in Immokalee so there may be some questions that
you have that he could answer.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Do we have any other questions of
staff before -- go ahead.
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: I thought Immokalee had gotten a
substantial grant for -- for worker's housing.
MS. MURRAY: That was a site-specific project. That was --
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: Oh, I see.
MS. MURRAY: This is to address --
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: So it wouldn't apply to what the
other commissioner was talking about.
MS. MURRAY: Right. This is just to address the existing
mobile home parks in Immokalee and try to attempt to bring them up
to some certain level of development standards, legitimize their
existence.
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: I congratulate you on that. I think
it's badly needed, and this is the way we ought to go.
MS. MURRAY: Well, thank you. There's a whole crew
working in Immokalee on this. I'm just kind of the carrier of the
amendment. If that's it, I have Vince Cautero as your only registered
speaker.
MR. CAUTERO: Thank you, Madam Chair and
commissioners. My name is Vince Cautero. I'm with the firm of
Wilkison & Associates. For the record, our professional address is
3506 Exchange Avenue in Naples. A couple of the questions that
were raised I might be able to shed some light on. I appreciate the
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November 14, 2001
opportunity to talk, and I know it's late, and I'll be brief.
I'd like to thank Susan and Ron and other members of the
planning staff that I've had the opportunity to talk to about the
housing initiative program in Immokalee which this document
intends to codify based on the board's policy back in, I believe, late
June of this year that they adopted which is in your preamble
statement, and also Dora Vidori (phonetic), who is the Immokalee
housing initiative supervisor located out in Immokalee. And Susan
just alluded to the fact that there are staff members in Immokalee,
and my understanding is that more staff members are being hired or
will be hired to help initiate the program even further.
I believe all my comments are logistical, and I commend the
entire staff for working on this very hard over the past several years.
And it's been an exciting project, and I was personally very glad to be
a part of it from the ground floor, and it's really good to see the
program at the stage that it's at now. But I believe in working on the
project for some clients -- and, as Mr. Strain has indicated, there are
some issues that have come to light since we've been working with
some clients on the project that I think necessitate some changes to
the document, even though the board did give direction to the staff
back in June.
For the record, I represent Pamela Brown, an owner of the park,
and Williams Farms, Incorporated. My first comment deals with the
time frames, and this is found on page 13, and it -- it stems into page
14, Section 2.2.29.2 and then also .3, the last part of-- the last --
next-to-the-last sentence of Section -- or Subsection 3. After this is
approved, it is recommended here in the document that site
improvement plans be submitted within 60 days of adoption of the
amendment. And then later on page 14 it talks about within 30 days
of the preapp meeting that the SIP application and support documents
be submitted.
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November 14, 2001
I don't think that's practical, and I don't think it's practical based
upon the experiences that we have had. There's an enormous amount
of coordination that is taking place for good reason. And as the staff
has told you earlier, the fire department and the Immokalee Water
and Sewer District are two of the main agencies outside of county
government that are being consulted. And these -- these things are
taking time to work through the process.
And I will tell you up front, and I'll come back to it at the end, in
dealing with some of the logistical issues, my understanding is that
the Immokalee housing initiative staff based in Immokalee is
intending to work with property owners of these parks on a case-by-
case basis as they go through the enforcement maze, and that is
dealing with the specifics of the property, not the setbacks that are in
here. The setbacks are what they are, and they're written well, and I
don't think there's a problem with them. It's time frames on meeting
standards to bring the park up to current codes. Those kinds of things
are being worked at, it's my understanding, on a case-by-case basis.
That doesn't mean that the staff is intending to not follow the code or
treat people differently, but I think each park is unique.
And you asked the question earlier to staff, and my
understanding is that there are 90 parks in Immokalee that fall into
this category. That was the number I worked with back in August of
1998. Again, that's over three years old. I'm only telling you what I
was told three years ago when I worked on the program. I'm not
speaking for anybody on staff, and I know that they'll come up with a
more accurate number than I just gave you, but that was the number I
worked with. There are less than ten that have submitted, as I've been
told by your Immokalee housing staff, site improvement plans.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Mr. Cautero, that was the reason I
asked that question because I wanted to question within 60 days and
the 30 days that you're talking about in these two areas. It seemed
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November 14, 2001
like such a short amount of time to provide the information from the
owners as well as completely burden the staff.
MR. CAUTERO: Yeah. I just don't think it's going to happen
for that reason as well, as you eloquently stated. If everybody came
in afterwards and you had 80-something park owners -- it wouldn't be
that many because some of them own more than one, but the number
would still be significant -- I just don't think it would happen. And I
don't even know if a number should be put into the code, quite
frankly, after dealing with this -- with this issue for several months.
A second issue deals with -- or that complements, I believe,
what I just said, and it relates to the bottom of page 15 where the staff
talks about improvement standards on Section 2229.5 dealing with
roads and drainage. I don't have specific comments for you about the
language that's in there, but I will tell you based on experience on one
of the parks that we're dealing with now for one of our clients, there
are a maze of easements within this park that are not under the
control of our client, and it leads to logistical difficulties when trying
to meet the standards for upgrades of the roads. That reason alone
would not allow us to meet any of these time frames that are in the
document that's before you.
That doesn't mean the standard shouldn't be met and that some
upgrade needs to take place, and we have to do an enormous amount
of coordination with other property owners. I'm not saying that that's
something you should change in the code. That's our responsibility.
That's our problem, if you will. But logistically I don't think these
things could happen that quickly. That relates very significantly, in
my opinion, to the last section of the code, which I'll address in a
minute.
But before I get to that, the fire protection standards that were
mentioned by Ms. Rautio a few moments ago, as you heard your staff
tell you correctly, the Immokalee Fire Department staff has been
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November 14, 2001
involved in this. And, quite frankly, I like the language that's in
there. Maybe it can be wordsmithed a little bit better.
And, quite frankly, the sentence that reads -- the second
sentence, "Should water line pressure be inadequate, arrangements
should be made to seek approval," I think that should be "shall." I
don't think it should be "should." "Should" infers that someone will
do something; "shall" is mandatory. And I think that that is good for
the property as well as the county because it is -- it is forcing the
Immokalee Fire Department to become involved in this and be part of
the approval process, which is what I believe the housing staff in
Immokalee and the planning department staff want to see
accomplished, at least that is my hope, that they want to see that
accomplished, because they're the people reviewing the plans for that
area.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Do you know, Mr. Cautero, if the
Immokalee Fire Department actually has a pumper truck or a water
truck that they could be this alternative apparatus?
MR. CAUTERO: That I don't know, but I know that we have to
work with them in order for tests to be conducted. And, again, that
leads to the -- a time frame issue, but I don't know that technical
question. I don't know the answer to that, ma'am.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. Because it might be good if
somebody would find that out, because I agree with you the word
should be "shall" not "should."
MR. CAUTERO: I'll just move on real quickly and then
perhaps you could ask questions. The landscaping section, 2(a), I
want to compliment the staff for this language in dealing with the
issue. It's straightforward. Someone with expertise but not
necessarily a registered landscape architect, again, that provides an
incentive for the people to try to come forward with the plans and be
done as professional as possible.
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November 14, 2001
Another comment that I was going to make Ms. Student has
already addressed. On the fees, I don't believe the fees have any
place in the ordinance. There's a resolution for that. It handcuffs the
county, quite frankly, if the staff comes to you or to the board at some
time -- probably not you, but to the board and the Development
Services Advisory Committee and says, "We believe the fees are too
low. We need to raise them for these reasons," you'd have to amend
the zoning code, and that's -- that's just very burdensome on you.
The last comment I want to make talks about the implementation
time frame, and I think this is probably the most problematic for the
clients that we've represented. It talks about implementing the plan
and obtaining building permits within three months. I am not trying
to put words in the mouths of the people that I've met with on the
Immokalee housing staff, but again, I compliment them for wanting
to take each park on a case-by-case basis and looking at what some of
the issues are, what the nonconformities are, what buildings are not
up to building code, and trying to work with the property owners in a
fashion where they can meet the standards that are placed here,
remove the substandard housing, replace it with housing that is
decent, safe, affordable, and meets the public health requirements.
Those are all the objectives of the program that I think we're all
trying to strive for, but that time frame, I don't think, can be easily
attained for a couple of reasons. First of all, there are going to be
some serious infrastructure costs to some property owners. I can't
say for all. I can only talk about the ones that I represent. And I
believe, Mr. Strain, you asked that question a few moments ago. I
can tell you that one of my clients is looking at spending in excess,
well in excess, of $150,000 in infrastructure improvements to the
park alone. That includes landscaping, road improvements, and fire
line upgrades. That's without replacing the mobile homes.
And that client has instructed me to work with the housing staff
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November 14, 2001
in Immokalee to try to come up with some time flame to replace the
substandard units. Thirty-nine of their forty are substandard. They
know that. They've been red-tagged by the building inspection staff
as part of the Immokalee housing team. Those are the kinds of things
that I think that the housing staff in Immokalee wants to work with
with the property owners. Knowing that alone is sufficient, as far as
I'm concerned. So I'm not even sure if the time frame --
implementation time frame should even be put in here.
When this was first written and adopted in principle by the
board -- actually, I don't know how they adopted it other than a
motion and vote, which is how they normally adopt a document -- it
seemed like a good idea. I'm telling you that I don't think it's a good
idea now based upon the things that need to be done and the
evolution of the program, the process that the staff is going through.
And that new staff is coming on, and it is my understanding -- and I
think Susan or Ron will correct me if I'm wrong. I'm sorry to put
them on the spot. But it's my understanding that a planner will be
hired to review the site improvement plans that will be part of the
team in Immokalee and that the submittal of the plans will go through
that office completely.
That is not the case today. It's kind of a -- I don't want to say a
split process, but we're submitting them to Horseshoe. The housing
staff in Immokalee is involved, and we're trying to get some issue
resolved up front, which we didn't. There's a whole other set of
reasons for that which I won't go into, but we just weren't able to for
a variety of reasons, mostly our fault. You know, the staff's done a
great job on this, but we weren't able to meet with key people in
Immokalee prior to submitting site improvement plans earlier this
year. That's happening now, though, and that's good, and I think
that's where the county is going. And if they're not going in that
direction, hopefully I can be corrected.
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November 14, 2001
But until those things are worked out and the process is not
evolving to that level anymore in that there's a set procedure: This is
what you do every time. Here's the brochures. Here's the packet.
Pieces of that exist now. Large pieces of that exist now. But I think
until all of those pieces of the puzzle come together, the time frame
issue is very problematic for the property owners.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Now, do you have a suggestion?
What's your one, two, three?
MR. CAUTERO: I put some language together that is very
crude, but I don't even know if you should put it in there. Perhaps I
can work with the legal staff and the planning staff between now and
the next hearing. But I put something along the lines of the time
frame for implementation of the site improvement plan, including
required building permits, will be determined by the applicable staff
reviewing the SIP and reflected in the SIP letter of approval or
permit, whatever the appropriate document is, because that's what I --
that's where I think the staff wants to go in Immokalee.
We're -- we're recommending certain things to them, asking
them for certain things in the actual SIP document. And if they're in
agreement with those conditions, basically on time frame when
mobile homes are going to be moved off and when other ones are
going to be put on there -- I'm not talking about, well, that setback
needs to be 5 feet instead of 10. No. You have to live with it. That's
the code. You deal with it. I'm talking about the enforcement issues
with the nature of the substandard units and moving them off the
property and the time frame for bringing them on and the time frame
for the improvements of the infrastructure. Those are the two things
I'm really talking about.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. I believe Ms. Student --
MS. STUDENT: I just have a couple comments or comment.
Mr. Cautero, would you be willing to maybe establish some outside
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November 14, 2001
parameters, you know, not to exceed and, you know, have it be a
reasonable time line, maybe two years or-- I don't know, but in light
of the circumstances, just so we have some outside parameters?
MR. CAUTERO: I think that would be a good idea. And to just
supplement that comment or question, when we first talked with
several members of the staff about those kinds of time frames, with
these time frames we thought three, six, nine months was going to be
reasonable. It still may be in some cases. In other cases it may not
be. For example, we have -- we have -- I'll just leave you with this.
We have one client that has two parks that we're representing them
on. One had ! 4 units and they've cleared it. The time frame for
implementing the changes or the conditions that are ultimately placed
on that property when the SIP is approved will not be as burdensome
as the second park, which is the one that has the 40 units of which 39
have been found substandard by the building inspector.
So those are the kinds of issues -- and maybe six or eight months
ago if we had mentioned those kinds of time frames, people might
have said, "You're crazy," but I don't know if they think that now.
They still might think I'm nuts if I come in and say two years, but I
don't know. If really is a collaboration, and I don't know if that has
any legal basis in your Land Development Code. It's just something
that's reality.
MS. STUDENT: What we may be able to do is to tie some time
frames to a range of units that need to be brought up to standard.
And then if actual infrastructure requirements need to be made, you
know, have an additional time frame that could be added on to the
time frame that you would have for, like -- you know, if you have to
fix zero to five units, it's this long; five to, you know, an additional
ten or whatever and set a -- longer time frames for the greater number
of units. And add an, even, additional time frame on there if
infrastructure -- would that -- do you think some sort of arrangement
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November 14, 2001
like that would --
MR. CAUTERO: I think that's a -- I think that idea has merit.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Why don't you take a little time to talk
to staff and try to work some of this out not only on the time frame,
as Mr. Cautero has outlined, but the 60-day and 30-day numbers that
are in here because that does not seem realistic to me at all.
MS. MURRAY: I just want to, you know, make sure that we
have an implementation time frame in there, though. Be sure that
you recognize that these are structures that have been illegal for
years. The objective here is that we have a serious commitment on
the record by these property owners to bring these up to standard. If
we don't have a standard time frame by which they have to abide by
that's reasonable -- and this may not be reasonable given the
conditions that we've come across since we've implemented the
policy that the board passed -- we may, you know, be able to amend
that.
And we'd certainly work with Vince and any other interested
party in trying to come up with some reasonable standards. But I
don't think we can throw away a time frame. You know, we need
serious commitments from property owners out there that are going
to make this happen. This has gone on much too long.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: And I agree, too, that that's very
important, but we've also got to recognize that staff has to be able to
handle 80 or 90 applications, boom, within a short amount of time
and then go to the building permit aspect of it. So that's part of what
we have to look at also, the reality of it. MS. MURRAY: Absolutely.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. Thank you.
MS. STUDENT: I would just offer to make -- give it some type
of enforceability, we need to have some type of reasonable --
reasonable time frame.
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November 14, 2001
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I think we always have to
keep in mind that there may be one of those parks -- or maybe more
since they've been out of code for so long -- that even though they've
expressed an interest in cooperating with the county, they may, for
whatever set of their own reasons, choose not to go along with the
program. And so there's got to be some kind of a way to make sure
that the overall objective is achieved, and that's some sort of time
frame.
MR. CAUTERO: I don't think you're going to get any argument
from -- from me on that, and I -- I applaud the county for that.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Any other questions of Mr. Cautero?
Comments?
Thank you very much.
MR. CAUTERO: Thank you for your time.
MS. MURRAY: Are you ready to move on to the next item.'?
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: I think we have one more.
MS. MURRAY: The next item would be on page 35 of your
thick handout, and then there's also an illustration on page 33A of
your -- the handout you received just this evening. And this speaker
wants to talk on dock facilities, and so I'd just like my staff member
to give -- Ross Gochenaur to give you an overview of the proposed
changes before we call the speaker.
MR. GOCHENAUR: For the record, Ross Gochenaur, planning
services. Some of you may recognize this amendment. It was
brought before you during the last cycle. It was defeated by the
Board of County Commissioners due to its failure to get the
supermajority vote it needed for passage. The language in the
amendment remains basically the same with one major addition.
We've made a lot of minor housekeeping changes, and we've made a
few major changes.
The major changes that we made, the first would allow more
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November 14, 2001
liberal measurement of waterway width for small canals where the
mean high water line has receded beyond the platted property line.
We've also revised dock extension criteria in an effort to make these
more objective.
And, finally, what you didn't hear the last time, we're proposing
an amendment that would exempt docks on unbridged barrier islands
in state aquatic preserves from the protrusion limits provided that the
applicant got the necessary Department of Environmental Protection
permits. The state permits for these docks are in all ways more
restrictive than the county requirements for dock extensions. And
given that you have to have a dock to get to your property on, for
instance, Keewaydin Island, none of these extension petitions has
ever been denied. This seems like a reasonable way to accommodate
the property owners and also maintain a certain integrity as far as the
dock protrusion limits. Any questions?
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I have one.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Go ahead.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: You were looking that way. I
didn't know if somebody else had a -- right now under the code if
someone wants to change any of-- I'm on page 33; is that correct?
MS. MURRAY: 35 is the text, and 33A is the illustration.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay. 33A is the illustration that
doesn't go with page 33; it goes with page 35? M S. MURRAY: Right.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay. That was -- makes sense, I
guess. I'm trying to figure it out myself right now. On page 41 of
that request, Ross, we had called out a distance of 20 feet. In the first
paragraph it says that the -- "but in no case a distance of less than 20
feet is maintained for navigability." And down below on 262122
they're talking about for lots on a canal or waterway less than a
hundred feet in width, docks may occupy no more than 25 percent of
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November 14, 2001
the width of the waterway or protrude no more than-- greater than 20
feet into the waterway.
I'm saying that too fast, aren't I?
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Yes.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I'm sorry. I just remembered
you're trying to type. If you got 50 percent of the waterway, how
does it fit in with that -- with that comment on 262122 in conjunction
with page 45? I know I'm probably confusing you as much as I was
confused trying to understand this last night. But on page 45 the
Article 2621314 reads (as read): "Whether or not the proposed dock
facility protrudes more than -- no more than 25 percent of the width
of the waterway, and whether or not a minimum of 50 percent of the
waterway width between docks on either side of the waterway is
maintained for navigability." And what I was trying to understand is
if you've got a 20-foot protrusion, no less than 20 feet is maintained
between the docks, and you've got a canal that's less than a hundred
feet, I'm trying to figure out how this fits together.
MR. GOCHENAUR: I'm baffled by your question.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Pardon me?
MR. GOCHENAUR: I'm baffled by your question.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I'm baffled by it too. Right now
with the -- I'm sorry. I'm going to have to pass on the question until
the 28th.
MR. GOCHENAUR: It -- it might help if I try to explain that
this reduction -- this relaxation in the way we measure waterway
width for these smaller canals only allows property owners to now
take the measurement from the mean high water line and not the most
restrictive point, as applies in the rest of the code. There are cases
when you can have a platted 100-foot canal, but the water line has
receded, say, 10 feet from the property line, which means under the
current code, the property owner has to build 10 feet across dry land
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November 14, 2001
before he gets to the water. Then he can only have, say, a 1 O-foot
dock.
What we're trying to do is relax the way we take these
measurements, but at no time do we relax the basic requirements to
maintain at least 50 percent of the waterway width for navigability
and also restrict the percentage of the water -- waterway width that
docks can protrude to 25 percent. So you've got 25 percent on one
side, 25 percent on the other, 50 percent maintained in the middle for
navigability. The 20 feet is an absolute minimum. If you had the
world's smallest canal and you were trying to reduce this by
percentage increments, at no point would we ever want to see a
waterway width that was less than 20 feet. Even if that 20 feet --
even if 15 feet were really 50 percent of a 30-foot-wide canal, we
would still not allow docks to go out any more than that 25 percent,
the minimum 20 feet.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay. That was -- that was what
I was trying to get at. I was trying to understand what the minimum
is someone could get down to, and it is 20 feet.
MR. GOCHENAUR: The absolute minimum -- I don't know of
circumstances where we would have that in the county based on the
actual waterway width. The smallest canals really are 50 to 60 feet.
And even with the 60-foot canal, you could still have a situation
where you had 15-foot docks on either side and still had 30 feet in the
middle for navigability.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: As confusing as my question was,
that's a good enough answer. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: What is the -- I guess
these canals, Ross, have -- have -- water has sought its own level, and
they're not -- never going to come back up again or --
MR. GOCHENAUR: I really don't know. Usually you've got
the process of accretion and erosion, not so much in canals as
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November 14, 2001
shorelines, but you can have a situation where the waterway would
accrete on one side of the canal, move away from the property line,
but erode on the opposite side if you have certain currents. So the
canal can meander within the platted width, or it can just gradually
contract toward the middle of the platted width. What we're really
trying to do is give property owners that are affected by this the
ability to take a less restrictive measurement but still maintain that 50
percent that we feel is absolutely necessary for safe navigation.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: A masterful job.
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: I agree. I want to thank you. I
think this is going to be very helpful to the people and definitely to
our board because so many of these issues that you are clarifying, we
were spending hours debating over every 12 feet. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Well, I do believe you're going to find
this next speaker very interesting.
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: Uh-oh.
MS. MURRAY: Your only -- one and only registered speaker is
Mark Morton.
MR. MORTON: Hello. Mark Morton. I live in Coconut River
Estates, and we have a less than 60 to 60-foot-wide canal. And the
staff's done a great job with this language. It's really, really close, I
think, to satisfying exactly what they said, the main concern. But our
particular canal, the way it was excavated is that the lot lines on the
north side of the canal are out in the water, and the lot lines on the
south side of the canal are up in the yards so that when you measure
from the -- either the mean high water or the lot line -- and this
corrects that, which is great.
It used to say -- the current code would say you can't -- you'd
measure from the lot line, which means people just wouldn't even
have a dock on one side, and the other people would have a dock. So
I think this is a good correction to go to the mean high water and
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November 14, 2001
really get to the practical conditions on the waterway and keeping the
navigable channel.
So we haven't had a lot of time to look at it, and we're going to
spend some time -- some time looking with -- looking at it between
now and the 28th. And we may be saying, you know, this is perfect,
or we may want to go for maybe a minor change if possible. So we
just need more time to look at that. I just wanted to come tonight to
let you know that we were going to -- we have talked to Susan, and
she said she's willing to, you know, meet with us and talk about what
we have.
Unfortunately, it's a very old canal. And what's happened is
over time as people go and, you know, add davits or whatever they're
-- you know, they kind of modify their docks, they really need to kind
of update their building permit. Some people thought the contractor
got them the building permit. They didn't. And in our particular
neighborhood, a guy built way out into the canal with his house, and
he was from New York and was -- was off site.
And the code enforcement said, you know, you can't build -- you
know, you have to remove 17 feet of your house. And that didn't go
over big with the guy. And he, of course, accused Collier County of,
you know, all kinds of horrible things. How could you make me do
that? And so there was a lot of pressure put on them. And his
response to that was to basically to, you know, drive around the
neighborhood and try to find everything possible he could on all of
his neighbors including docks, etc., and turn everybody in to code
enforcement.
So it kind of started this thing where code enforcement needed
to come out and look at some docks. And as they started to look at it,
they had to start citing quite a few people. So the neighbors, you
know, have maybe been there 20 years with a dock, others not, you
know, are pretty excited about it. And because I have some
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November 14, 2001
experience with the Land Development Code -- I was the chairman of
the Land Development Code when it was developed -- how many
years ago? I don't even know.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: '91, wasn't it?
MR. MORTON: And Commissioner Richardson was on that
committee to help develop the Land Development Code, and all the
good stuff in here he was responsible for. All the bad stuff was my
fault. But anyways, I really appreciate -- I think staff should be
complimented. Michelle Arnold in code enforcement went to a
meeting on Sunday night at-- and was, you know, greeted by about
60 people who were real excited about, you know, how this thing --
whole thing was happening. And we -- you know, we assured them
that with this Land Development Code cycle -- which fortunately it's
going on, and the language looks close -- we thought there might be a
way to do it this way. It may not be that way, and it may have to be
something different, but we think it's worth trying. So we just
wanted to give you heads up on that.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: About how many properties? Are you
talking about 60 people or 60 properties that are affected?
MR. MORTON: Well, that was husbands and wives and
children -- no. There is 27 lots on the south side and 27 on the north.
Of course, that's 54 lots, and they line up exactly, the lot lines. And
of that, 40 of them probably have docks, or more. You know, and
just about everybody, if you really closely looked at everything, they
had, you know, is probably -- is probably not quite in compliance. So
we wanted to clean it all up at one time. Everybody's committed to
that to -- even some of the people that weren't cited, just to -- you
know, to really work on this to get it all straightened out.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Thank you. Any questions?
MR. MORTON: Thank you for your time.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: That ends the registered public
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November 14, 2001
speakers?
MS. MURRAY: Yes. What I'd like to do now if it's okay with
you -- I'm sure Barbara may need a break shortly here -- I've got two
more amendments that Ross has sponsored that are very quick. I
don't think you'll even have any questions. Then perhaps we could
take a break. And then I'd like to roll through by staff member.
We've got some outside staff here. We'll just let them stand up and
roll through all of their amendments so they don't have to get up and
down. And you can ask them questions while they're here, and then
they could--
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: I like that concept, Susan.
MS. MURRAY: Okay. Page 27. Ross, if you'll come forward.
MR. GOCHENAUR: For the record, Ross Gochenaur, planning
services. What this basically does is close a loophole which allows
excess parking on adjacent lots without a parking exemption, which
requires the approval of the Board of County Commissioners. We're
basically -- if you have a restaurant and you want to expand your
parking next door but it's not because you need more seats, you just
want extra parking, you can lease the lot. If you want to do it
because you have a requirement for more parking, you have seats or
you want to add more seats and your required parking would require
spaces and you'd have to go next door for it, then you'd have to go to
the board. We like the idea that people would have to go to the board
in either case.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
me.
In either case. Sounds reasonable to
MS. MURRAY: Next page would be 47.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: You must have been good, Ross.
You're going to get done first and be able to go home here shortly.
MR. GOCHENAUR: I don't know what I did to deserve this,
but I appreciate it. This would allow temporary classrooms for
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November 14, 2001
existing nonprofit entities in conjunction with an approved
development order. There have been cases when we've asked to
approve temporary classrooms, for instance, for the David Lawrence
facility. They have an approved site development plan. They still
need to continue their classes while they're continuing the work. We
don't have any legal mechanism for doing this in the Land
Development Code right now. So what this does is basically make
allowances under certain very specific circumstances for classroom
trailers.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: No questions?
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: The not to exceed 24
months is just to put a positive time line on it?
MR. GOCHENAUR: We would typically issue a similar permit
for 24 months which would be -- which they would be able to extend
on demonstration of need. If for some reason they ran against a -- up
against a snag in the construction process and they had a good excuse
for it, we'd certainly extend it if they had a reasonable request.
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: Yeah. I looked at that "should be
renewed annually," and you assure us that that doesn't mean that they
could just go on indefinitely.
MR. GOCHENAUR: That's correct. It would allow us to
monitor the situation but still be reasonable.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
MS. MURRAY: Okay.
break or--
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
Any other questions?
Ross is done. Would you like to take a
Yes, I think we would.
(A discussion was held off the record.)
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. We are in recess for a
maximum of ten minutes, maybe seven. (A break was held.)
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. We are back in-- out of recess.
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November 14, 2001
Our summary sheet is where we are now; correct? MS. MURRAY: Correct.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Page 1 of the summary sheet.
MS. MURRAY: Well, if you don't mind, like I mentioned
before, I'll roll through with individual staff members because a
number of them have different amendments. And some of them we
can go through real quickly, and some is going to bear some
discussion.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: I just noticed it says Ross Gochenaur
on the first item on page 3.
MS. MURRAY: That's actually going to be handled by me.
Let's go to page 95 through 105 in your small handout that you
received tonight. And I'm going to make this short and sweet
because Ray Smith is here to answer questions if you have them. But
essentially all of these amendments pages 95 through 105 are as a
result of the final order and are mandated by the state. Therefore, we
are bringing them forward to you in this cycle.
MS. STUDENT: And I just would like to state for the record on
that that our outside counsel for final order matters, Nancy Linnan of
Carlton Fields, reviewed those and advised me that she found them to
be consistent with the comp plan and the final order. CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Thank you.
MS. MURRAY: Ray Smith is here to answer any questions you
might have on those amendments.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So we probably shouldn't
have any problems with this then.
MS. STUDENT: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Do we need to at least say what they
are and move right through them so they're on the record?
MS. MURRAY: I can if you want me to. I'm not sure that --
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Is that necessary?
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November 14, 2001
MS. STUDENT: Maybe just a synopsis of what it is without -- I
mean, the record is here in its written form, so if it's just a synopsis
of--
MS. MURRAY: The amendments have to do with -- I think
these are the wellfield protection zones, Zones 1, 2, 3, and 4, and
their relationship to future solid waste disposal facilities. And that is
on page 95.
On page 96 there is discussion of furore solid waste transfer
stations.
On page 97, future solid waste storage collection and recycling
facilities that will handle hazardous products and hazardous waste.
Page 98, future land disposal systems for the application of
domestic wastewater treatment plant effluent are required to meet
high-level disinfection standards found in 40 CFR part 135.
Page 99 has to do with metal concentrations and the thresholds
set forth in Rule 62-640 of the Florida Administrative Code and the
deletion of certain metals. Also, the land application of domestic
residuals is prohibited in the absence of a wellfield conditional use
permit. That's new.
On page 103 in Zones 1 and 2 it talks about future petroleum
exploration or production facilities as being prohibited and also
delete Section 3.16 -- excuse me -- 3.16.4.11.1.1.2 through page 104
and page 105 which includes 3.16.4.11.1.1.3. All of that is deleted.
And then on the final page, 105, there's a deletion of Wellfield 1
and 2 and the siting of future petroleum exploration and production
facilities. And that's -- that's it.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Any questions? These are the result of
the final order. They look excellent to me.
MS. MURRAY: Next, if you have no questions, we'll go to
page 23, and that is actually going to be in your revised packet that
you received tonight, your handout. And I'd call Carolina Valera,
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November 14, 2001
who is a senior planner with my staff, to explain these amendments to
you.
MS. VALERA: For the record, my name is Carolina Valera.
I'm a senior planner with current planning. To give you a little bit of
a background of the reason for this amendment, back in 1997 the
Board of County Commissioners adopted an amendment from growth
management to create -- create an interchange master plan for
Activity Center No. 9 that will transform in that area into a gateway
for Naples. The study -- the interchange master plan study was
prepared by WilsonMiller along with members of our community and
staff members from growth management, current planning, and
transportation department. Design concepts were established as far
as architecture, landscaping, and roadway element.
The final step in this process is the incorporation of an overlay
for this activity center, and that's what this amendment is all about.
The architectural component of this amendment will incorporate
building architectural standards to achieve a unified Florida theme in
that overlay through elements -- incorporating elements into the
facades and into the rooflines of the buildings for that overlay.
The landscaping component will require an increase of the
perimeter landscape buffers for those properties above our minimum
code, especially for those properties along 1-75 -- adjacent to 1-75,
Collier Boulevard, and Davis Boulevard and Beck Boulevard, 25 feet
to be more specific. And for the rest, 25 feet will be the increasement
(sic) from our minimum code. Also, additional planting material will
be required to be added in those perimeter landscape buffers, and
also, the trees will be required to be a bit higher from our minimum
code, will be 12 feet.
The last part is the lighting and directional signage will be
required to compliment the architecture and landscaping of this
overlay.
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November 14, 2001
So with those three components, architecture, landscaping, and
lighting and directional signage, it is the intention that a unified
character be established in that overlay. That pretty much
summarizes what this amendment is about.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Do we have any questions?
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Just a quick question. I
want to make sure I understood that the landscape buffers exceed our
current standards?
MS. VALERA: That is correct. They are above our minimum
requirements.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. Moving right along.
MS. MURRAY: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Next item.
MS. MURRAY: Let's go to page 19 and page 20, the
Bayshore/Gateway district, and I will summarize this for you, and
then Aaron Blair from the comprehensive planning staff is here to
answer any of our questions. This is an amendment -- basically I'm
working from page 19 -- to add the permission for a pole sign for
properties that are located in the waterfront subdistrict of the
Bayshore/Gateway overlay district and are located adjacent to the
Haldeman Creek bridge, that being subject to certain criteria and
standards.
And the reason for this amendment is that the
Bayshore/Gateway Local Redevelopment Advisory Board believes
that properties that are adjacent to the south side of the Haldeman
Creek bridge are negatively affected by the existing prohibition of a
freestanding sign because those properties sit much lower than the
bridge. Obviously the bridge is elevated, and properties on the other
side are at a disadvantage because of the height of the bridge. And
this is an amendment to allow those properties to have a pole sign
where they are currently not allowed.
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November 14, 2001
If you have any questions about that right now, I'd defer to
Aaron. If not, I'll move on to page 20.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Just a quick question.
Those properties are commercial properties, are they?
MS. MURRAY: I believe they are, yes. Okay. Next, on page
20, again, the Bayshore/Gateway district, this would amend certain
subsections and add a subsection, renumbering subsections, the
purpose of which, to add as a conditional use a bed and breakfast
lodging facility -- again, certain -- subject to certain criteria and
standards -- and to replace the -- there's a map in here that says it's
replacing, but I don't see a map. Maybe Aaron can clarify that.
Essentially the purpose of this amendment is to allow for a bed and
breakfast as a conditional use in this overlay district.
MR. BLAIR: The map's just a Bayshore overlay map. We're
just changing it up because there's one lot that's being added that is
part of a larger parcel. There's a -- there's a -- what it is is there's
three parcels that are owned by the same gentleman, and two of them
are in the overlay, and one of them are not. And it's -- right now it's
developed as one thing, so it makes no sense to have part of his
development split and the other part of it not.
And the reason why it wasn't included in the first place is
beyond me, but what it does is it does not allow him to properly
redevelop his parcel because he would have some guidelines on this
part of his property and other guidelines over here. So it negatively
affects his redevelopment efforts. And the bed and breakfast is just
allowed for a conditional use of bed and breakfast. There's been a
high demand for that to be allowed, and the board has told us
whatever would be needed to help spur redevelopment in the area,
that we should look -- first go to the advisory board, and they felt that
it was definitely a positive thing to have. What they're going to be is
some sort of, like, fishing guide bed and breakfasts, from what we
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November 14, 2001
understand.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: What is it now? The three parcels are
all one thing?
MR. BLAIR: It's a nonconforming use. It's got, like, 15 units
on three little parcels. So it's definitely something that needs to be
redevelopment. And for the record, Aaron Blair.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. Any questions of Mr. Blair?
MS. MURRAY: I have one more while he's standing up here.
If you'll go to page 7 of your thick handout, in the handout I have I
will tell you that page 7 through 9, you need to disregard those
amendments. Those are for the conversion to the NAICS. But if you
get to page 10, this is the actual amendments that you need to
consider tonight, and that's relative to Section 2.2.28.8.9.1. And this
is the -- an amendment for the purposes of reducing the front- and
rear-yard setback requirements. And this is in the Immokalee overlay
district, and I believe there's some architectural reasons for wanting
to do this. Maybe Aaron can explain it.
MR. BLAIR: The purpose of this is that the front setback on
Main Street -- this is for Main Street -- is 7 or 10. You don't have an
option. And if someone wants to -- if you go down Main Street
currently, most of the buildings are either located right on the street--
I mean, the majority of them are right up on the sidewalk. And if we
start requiring people to put a 7 to 10 -- I mean, the reasoning for
having 7 or ! 0, we don't know why that was even set forth to begin
with. But we are allowing them to have a -- put it at 10 and what we
are allowing them to do is encroach 7 feet if they build an arcade on
the front of their building. So it's just another architectural thing to
allow them to reach up and grab the sidewalk, as a Main Street
building should do. Does that--
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Well, I was looking at the next part on
the side yard, 0 in the event a wall is contiguous to another wall on an
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November 14, 2001
adjacent property; otherwise, it's 10 feet. You smash the two walls
together?
MR. BLAIR: So the buildings could be connected instead of--
if it was, like, 10 -- if it was -- it's 0 or 10; correct? Is that what you
said?
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Uh-huh.
MR. BLAIR: Well, if it's a comer parcel, we wouldn't want it to
be 0, right up on the sidewalk, because there's only a couple pieces
that are like that so -- but if the person chooses 10 -- most likely
what's going to happen is if there's a building that's 0 on this side, that
person's going to choose 0. If they choose 10, you're just going to
have this little narrow -- which is a safety hazard as far as design is
concerned.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Places to hide.
MR. BLAIR: Yeah. Exactly. We don't need that.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Or dump junk. Okay. That makes
sense. And then the rest of this, Susan, we just ignore because it's the
NAICS?
MS. MURRAY: Yes. We'll have that removed from your
packets for the next time.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Now, this particular -- I'm
picturing Immokalee when you're talking about this. Does this only
apply to Immokalee?
MR. BLAIR: Only on Main Street, the arcade does. The bed
and breakfast and the map change, that's on Bayshore.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I didn't see it in context.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
MS. MURRAY: Okay.
Okay.
I think now we'll go to some of our
engineering amendments and--
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November 14, 2001
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Susan, before you go further on that,
when you redo this, it will be one page, and it will refer to the
Immokalee overlay district-- MS. MURRAY: Yes.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: -- so that it's very clear when we see it
the next time?
MS. MURRAY: Yes.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Thank you.
MS. MURRAY: Bear with me because we'll skip around a little
bit here on pages. I believe the first one is going to be page 28 of
your thick handout, and that is the parallel parking standards.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Hi. Good evening. Stan Chrzanowski
from engineering review services. Because of all the construction
we've had going on and development we've had going on in the
county and the lack of space, there have been some site plans come
through. We didn't used to allow parallel parking on -- on project
sites, but we've had some requests, and we don't really have an
objection to it. The thing is the only thing in our code says you have
to have a 9-foot-by-8-foot parking space. And that's all well and
good if you're pulling in at a 90 degree angle from the travel lane, but
if you try parallel parking and all your spaces are 9 by 18 --
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
say, not eight.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI:
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
MR. CHRZANOWSKI:
Eighteen I think is what you meant to
Nine by eighteen, yeah.
Thank you.
You can't parallel park into a 9-by-18
space. And we've had a few standards that we've referred them to
over the years, architectural graphic standards and the Seelis
(phonetic) manual. And there are different lengths that they suggest,
but they're all around 23 feet. So we've decided to make a parallel
parking standard of 9 foot by 23 foot.
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November 14, 2001
Now, I have gotten some comments about this today, a
suggestion. There is a parallel parking pattern where you can have a
9 by 18, a 9 by 18, and then a 5-foot clear zone striped out
specifically so that you can pick up actually a little space that way. I
don't think I have an objection to that, and I might write that in if
nobody has a problem with it.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
MR. CHRZANOWSKI:
Do you know what I mean?
I think I do, yeah.
Yeah. It leaves enough of a gap
between every second car to where you have room to maneuver to get
in and out in a parallel parking type -- most people that live down
here a long time forget how to parallel park anyway. But I'll
probably include that in.
And another thing was pointed out to me that since I added the
sentence about except in case of parallel parking where the dimension
shall be 9 by 23. Then I say see Exhibit A. Well, that was in there to
begin with, but people thought that referred to Exhibit A, that the
parallel parking was also on Exhibit A, so I may have to revise
Exhibit A to show those two type of parking spaces. But I'll have
that done by the next time I come before you.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: That would be handy.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Any questions?
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: What -- can you describe
the kind of project this would -- would this be a big commercial
project? I'm trying to picture --
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Yeah. All sizes. They've -- they've
tried doing them in shopping centers and in -- we have a certain
parking requirement. You know, if you have a certain size building,
you need a certain number of spaces.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Right.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: And a standard parking lot is 60 feet
wide. It's an 18-foot space, a 24-foot aisle, and an 18-foot space. But
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November 14, 2001
then if you only have another, maybe, 20 feet to work with,
sometimes they try putting in a drive aisle. You know, you can't get
parking in 20 feet unless you go parallel. So they will go out of their
way to come up with these configurations to squeeze as much as
possible onto a site. And that's one of the things they've come up
with. And we really don't have anything in the code that says you
can't do it, and there's no engineering principle against it, so we allow
it.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Sounds good. Next one.
MS. MURRAY: Page 67.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Which one is that?
MS. MURRAY: That is observation of construction.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Oh, I didn't write that one.
MS. MURRAY: Oh, sorry. Tom Cook.
MR. COOK: Good evening. For the record, Tom Cook,
engineering director. And what I might do on page 67, but also
there's -- I've got, like, five of these that are pretty much
interconnected. Page 67, 68, 70, and then skipping over to page 83,
and page 84. And basically what we're doing is we're putting some
additional language in the Land Development Code which is going to
require the engineers to give a better certification on the completion
of subdivisions, site improvement plans, and site development plans.
Currently the plans we get, they kind of use some weasel words
on the certifications, and the plans that are turned in as as-built
drawings a lot of times are the ones that are given to them by the
utility contractor. And what this is going to entail is that the -- the
engineer, the record engineer, is going to have to have somebody on
site at different times to make sure they get key measurements on the
location of utilities.
As I say, we've had a lot of problems with utilities where they've
made changes in the field. The engineer's not been aware of it. We
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November 14, 2001
do have inspectors in the field, but with all the work going on, we
can't cover everything. So we're putting language in here, again, that
at the time we give acceptance, they're going to have to provide
certified drawings certified by an engineer to the exact location of the
utilities, etc. And basically all five of those deal with that same issue.
And one of the other issues is -- tying into the utility ordinance
is we're there to provide us notification when certain key work is
done, and we put that in the LDC to try and cross-reference the LDC
and pick up some of the requirements in the utility ordinance.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: I'm surprised that that doesn't happen
already. Maybe it's just in practice they try to let you know some of
the key aspects.
MR. COOK: Most -- most cases, you know, for live tap-ins and
-- they do notify us. But there are times when they don't, so what we
want to do is, like, at the time they do the paving, be notified so we
can go out and check the limerock base and be given that opportunity
to get better quality control.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Tom, I wanted to ask on page 67 --
excuse me -- 68 and 69 throughout those two pages we talk about the
development services director. Don't we mean the development
services administrator?
MR. COOK: I picked that up too. We need to make a
correction on where they refer to the development services director,
and they'll probably change that to the engineering director, since
now we have an engineering department separate from the planning
department.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. Because somewhere, I think,
earlier in this pile we run across a change to administrator, and I
wanted to make sure that it was either the administrator or it was your
engineering person who's the director.
MR. COOK: I agree with you, because when I was sitting there
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November 14, 2001
reading through, I picked that up myself.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. So anywhere that that shows up
if you would make that clear. And if that works within your
department on procedures and logistics, I would highly recommend
that we go with engineering.
MR. COOK: We'll do that.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I had one thing just on 67.
Before we see this again, you're going to go through and make sure
we have all the words in -- in the additions that you're making, the
completion certificate shall not be based on information, etc.?
MR. COOK: Yeah. What you see underlined is the additional
language we're going to add to it.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I think the word b-e, be -- just
a little thing. I mean, are we going to -- before it goes before us
again, are we going to just proofread these things and -- you know,
I'm not trying to be too critical here.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: No. Mr. Wolfley, you should bring
those things out because sometimes they miss them because you read
them so many times.
MR. COOK: Yeah. I have a tendency to read right through.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Right. And--
MR. COOK: And I know what it's supposed to say, and I don't
pick up some --
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I do it all the time.
MR. COOK: -- grammatical errors.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Exactly.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Mr. Cook, this -- this only
deals with stuff that's underground? That's what we're talking about
here?
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: No.
MR. COOK: Well, it would be the underground utilities but
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November 14, 2001
along with the roadway which -- you know, when you look at the
roadway which would be above ground, the catch basins, etc. --
actually, it's all infrastructure that's related to site development plans,
site improvement plans, and subdivisions.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I'm just sensitive to the
issue we had with one of the applications where the site development
plan was not submitted as built because we had the overhangs on a
building that turned out to be -- to cut down the distance between two
buildings to an unacceptable level. And I just didn't know if this was
part of what-- what is dealt with there.
MR. COOK: No. This wouldn't be, because -- I think I
remember the building you're talking about or the buildings. But that
would be more of a regulation within the building department where
they get into the hor -- or the vertical type of construction.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: And, Susan, as a result of
that discussion we had with that other situation, are we okay on those
words, or should there be some new words that we're putting into the
site development plan portion of our ordinance?
MS. MURRAY: I'm not following your question.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Well, you remember the
two -- remember the variance requests that we had for -- on
Vanderbilt.
MS. STUDENT: That was a PUD where those requirements
were -- the distance between structure requirements were in an old
1987 PUD.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Right. But the problem
that came to us was that the documents that had been submitted to the
county to review were not as built. They were as somebody thought
they should be, and that created the problem because we had nothing
to check. And I just -- I was just fishing here to make sure we're --
MR. COOK: I think the error might have been made on those
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November 14, 2001
when the site plan was -- was submitted for the buildings that were
going to be re -- be located, they didn't pick up some of the additional
information on the adjacent property, and it caused an encroachment
if it's the same one I'm thinking about.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: No. I think this is -- this is Vanderbilt
Beach, and it was actually a PUD which was somewhat unusual
because one developer did one portion of the PUD and another
developer did the other. And the actual site plans as-builts that they
had did not show the stairwells properly, so it was truly a confusion
over the as-builts that were submitted. And obviously they got a
certificate of occupancy.
MS. MURRAY: I'm -- you -- none of you may know this,
including Marjorie, but we're being sued over that issue. So I don't
think we're going to discuss it too much further at this point.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: We won't talk about that anymore.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Well, but in a general
sense, though, a procedural sense, I want to make -- I was asking the
question whether our site development plan adequately covers this
now so that we--
MS. MURRAY: I -- I'm very sorry. I thought we were talking
about underground --
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: We were.
MS. MURRAY: -- information, and we kind of switched gears
here, and you've kind of--
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: He said the term "as
built." That just triggered that portion of the discussion. If it's not
appropriate to bring it up now, I'll bring it up later.
MS. MURRAY: Okay. Thanks.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay.
MS. MURRAY: One more page -- I'm sorry. If you have no
more questions, Tom, page 73, are you handling the --
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November 14, 2001
MR. COOK: Page 73.
MS. MURRAY: -- dual water amendment, page 73?
MR. COOK: Okay. This amendment is -- is putting a provision
in that when they submit subdivision plans or site development plans,
if they're appropriate, that they make provisions for both a potable
water system and a reused water line system. And this was directed
to us by the utility division, and what they want to do -- or the
direction that they've -- that they're going and they've been directed
by the Board of County Commissioners is that in all new
subdivisions, that potable water will not be available for irrigation,
that they'll have to have arrangements either using reused water, if it's
available, or use a system pumping out of their lakes or with wells.
And, again, this has been directed to us by the utility division by way
of the Board of County Commissioners.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. And I did write on my original
paper that I have on page 73 here, it says, "There are no fiscal
impacts to the county; however, developer costs will increase in
direct proportion to the costs of the reuse water system." Are these
not going to be dedicated to the county? So, A, don't we have a
maintenance issue and an operations issue?
MR. COOK: The county does not want them dedicated to the
county. They do not want to maintain them. They do not want to
maintain, you know, the distribution system. They do not want to
maintain the wells or the pumping system that would be associated
with it. If they use reused water, they will install the meters.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. So then if the developer only
has to dedicate the potable water system and not the reuse system,
where do we know that by looking at this? Do we find it someplace
else? Because I thought that was very odd, that I, as a person who's
very familiar with this, thought hmm, maintenance and operations.
And wouldn't we have to say that we're not going to dedicate to the
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November 14, 2001
county the reuse water lines?
MR. COOK: Excuse me one --
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: I don't know if it comes here but ...
MR. COOK: And you may not have -- there's been a revision,
so I'm going to -- because I -- the one I was reading I couldn't pick it
up on either. But this is also a statement included in new 73, but
we're saying reuse water lines, pumps, etc., will not be maintained by
Collier County. County potable water will not be permitted for
irrigation; therefore, the developer will need to provide irrigation
water from a source until such time that reuse water may be
available.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Boy, that certainly is --
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: From an alternate source? Is
that what you're saying? MR. COOK: Yes.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: You know--
MR. COOK: The alternate source, again, would be either by
wells or pumping out of the lakes.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: That's not possible in all parts of
Collier County. I mean, that I can tell you for sure.
MR. COOK: And what I'll do, I will have Joe Cheatham
available at our next -- next meeting because they say this would --
the direction's from the utility division, and they're probably better
prepared to answer some of your questions regarding the legality of
it.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: You know, I really would like to see
him here because I used to own a piece of the property in an
industrial park that the only reason right next door could be built was
because I had a lake on my property. And we had the fire pump in
case something happened, and they had access to the water and could
do the whole thing. And once water and sewer lines went down, it
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November 14, 2001
wasn't relevant. But literally the people next door could not build if
there hadn't-- if somebody hadn't dug a fishing lake on the property I
owned.
And I can see where this issue of are you going to have an
alternative source of water could need a little bit of research, and I'd
like to see that come here because I certainly don't want to require
something that cannot be done at all. And I think utilities owes us
that information and owes the Board of County Commissioners the
same type of information to tell us, okay, what are our options if
there's any places that you're not going to have a source of water
available?
MR. COOK: I agree with you, and I will make sure that some --
a representative of utilities is here at the next meeting.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: And you might even want to mention
to them that, oh, gee, are they going to require people to buy a
pumper truck and keep the water in it to do irrigation?
MR. COOK: I have some of the same questions.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Thank you. So do get them here.
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: You know, the structure
situation now is there are 73 condominium associations that are
building projects wanting effluent water that can't get it. And right
now the rate, of course, is going up substantially because it's a limited
supply. But if you start something like this, these people may have to
wait for years in order to get effluent water. They're going to have to
have their own pumping system or there won't be any way to do it.
MR. COOK: And that's what I was saying, and that's really
pretty much what's stated in here, but I -- we do need to have
somebody from utilities here to answer your specific questions on
that and --
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Right. Because the county's potable
water will not be permitted for irrigation seems -- it's just almost
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November 14, 2001
draconian in what I know of this county and how many times I've put
water lines in and dug lakes and things like that as a utility contractor.
MR. COOK: Well, some of this came up at the last minute,
because when I talked to utilities today, that was some of the
language they gave me to be inserted in it, and it was a little bit
simpler than that until the directions I was given. So I will have them
here to defend it.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Please do.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON:
Commissioner Richardson.
Just on a slightly-- this is
only going to apply to new subdivisions it says here.
MR. COOK: Yes. It wouldn't be a retrofit to, you know,
existing subdivisions. It's just when you're coming in with a new
subdivision that -- according to this that potable water would not be
available. They would not be permitted to use it for any type of
irrigation.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I'm just thinking of some
major redevelopment, though, that might take place in existing
subdivisions. I know we've got a lot of things that are on the horizon
where that might happen. And that's certainly some advantage in
having -- in preserving our potable water supply, and I'm wondering
why it might not apply to -- you know, Cape Coral went back and
redid the whole thing to get reusable water. It's not -- but the intent is
just for new, so I understand that. But I'm just wondering why it's
limited to that.
MR. COOK: I think one of the problems right now is there's not
enough reuse water available. There's more of a demand for it than
what's currently available.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Correct. And then to require in our
Land Development Code that you come up with an alternative source
for water until the time it's available is, to me, completely
unacceptable. It is not a logical financial, economic approach to what
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November 14, 2001
we should be requiring for new development.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: It's called rainfall.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Yeah. But then you've got to collect
the rainfall and have it available to irrigate when it doesn't rain. I
guess I've editorialized enough on that one. Any other comments?
Okay. Do we have any more for Mr. Cook?
COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Madam Chairman.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. Please let the record note that
Mr. Adelstein has departed. We still have a quorum, but we're not
voting on anything, but we will listen carefully. MS. MURRAY: Page 74.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Good evening, Stan Chrzanowski
again. This amendment is -- we've noticed a trend in Collier County
to build houses as absolutely large as a given lot will take. They
come very close to the side property lines and the roofs -- the roof
area is just absolutely huge. The amount of impervious area is not
what a lot of these projects were meant to take. And we have a lot of
problem with water running off one roof onto neighbor's properties,
and we're just trying to gutter the water to the back or to the front,
whichever way the drainage goes.
But in the same vein if you look farther down, you'll see that we
also have a problem with -- there's a common design practice in
Collier County where they store water on the lots within a
subdivision. The people move in. They buy during the dry season.
They have a back yard that's at two levels. The wet season comes,
and all of a sudden they have standing water in their back yard for
long periods of time. They have young children. They come to us.
They say it's a public health, safety, and welfare hazard. And we've
let them put in these infiltrator-type systems which are a percolation-
type system.
We found that we can control this pretty good in commercial
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November 14, 2001
and industrial areas where -- where there is some type of maintenance
entity and some type of inspection. But in a residential subdivision,
once we're gone, the homeowners come in. You know, they buy a
load of fill. They throw a little in the back. The neighbor sees it. He
does the same thing. They put in an infiltrator, and then they plug
both ends of it, you know.
And we don't -- we can't physically catch them all. Most of
what we catch is when their neighbors turn them in. And if
everybody does it, we don't catch anybody. It's wreaking havoc with
the water management. So we've decided we want to do away with
infiltrators. We want to do away with on surface -- or on-site
retention in single-family home lots in these subdivisions and with
the guttering. Does anybody have a problem with that?
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
of subdivisions --
MR. CHRZANOWSKI:
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
MR. CHRZANOWSKI:
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
MR. CHRZANOWSKI:
I'm curious. Could you name a couple
I'd prefer not to.
-- that this is happening on?
I--
You'd prefer not to?
Yeah. I can tell you up in the
Willoughby Acres area there's a few subdivisions that are set up like
that.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. Because it -- I didn't think we
allowed on-site retention in a residential area that wasn't obvious.
You can't just have the lot hold the water.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Yeah, we do.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: We do?
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: That's the way they're designed.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Yeah. I can verify Stan's
comments. There are quite a few developments like that.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: And I've asked engineers not to do it,
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November 14, 2001
and they say, "We can do it.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
real -- MR. CHRZANOWSKI:
So we're trying to do away with it.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay.
large properties then.
Code lets us do it," and it does.
Wow. That's fascinating. That's a
That's what we think, it's fascinating.
And this -- that's not just the
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: It's anything from now on. Like, in
Golden Gate City, it's an existing subdivision. And when those
people come in to build a duplex, they're going to have to hold water
in their back yards. And if you've got kids, they're going to be
playing in the water in the -- in the wet season. There's no way to
stop them from doing that at this point. We're talking about new
subdivisions where the design can be done right now, it's going to be
done properly. The old ones we still have to let them do it.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Right. You can hold water
underground, too, even if you had --
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Yeah. But we don't like those
underground systems in residential areas because they -- they're not
maintained. They plug. They sediment in, and people mess with
them. They plug them up. They dig up the ends. They don't like the
way the end looks, they plug it. They want a back yard. They don't
want a retention system. They don't want a culvert sticking out.
They -- you know, when we're not there, it's your lot. It's my
property. I can do anything I want on my own property. That's --
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: It's -- I fully agree. I think this is
well warranted, Stan.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I have one question about the 10-
foot measurement. Is it -- is it 10 feet from the end of the gabled roof
to the end of the gabled roof or from wall to wall?
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November 14, 2001
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Actually it was meant to be from wall
to wall. I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: You'd be better off at 10 feet
from end to roof-- from roofline to roofline, wouldn't you?
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Yeah, but--
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: You'd get more that way?
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: The overhangs on these buildings vary
anywhere from 2 feet to 4 feet. I'd probably be better off wording it
from the face of the building to the property line.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Yeah. That might work better.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: That might be a good idea to look
closely at that because I think that happened in some other thing we
were looking at previously in a variance.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Ten feet from the face to --
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: You could set the walls back in
and end up having your overhang quite a -- quite far out and then --
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: 7 1/2 feet. Anything more than 7 1/2
feet -- or anything less than -- it's automatically 7 1/2 feet.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: A lot of them go 5 now. Just a
suggestion. But I think it's good.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Okay. I'll look at it by the next time
and change that to whatever looks good.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
every day, Stan. Thank you.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI:
You know, you learn something new
You're welcome.
MS. MURRAY: If you're done with that, page 86.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: The present -- oh, I don't have to say
Stan Chrzanowski again, do I? The present formula we have for
computing impact fees for excavation in Collier County is based on a
formula that was done by a consulting engineer for the transportation
department, and that is based on the duration of the excavation, how
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November 14, 2001
many years it's going to take, the distance that the fill travels, and
how much fill, which when you total that with the duration, it tells
you how many trucks are going to be on the road every day. The
problem with the formula is it yields values anywhere from 20 cents a
cubic yard for a small excavation done in a short duration of time
down to less than an penny a cubic yard for a large excavation that
takes 20 years. We see that as not equitable.
The road only sees the weight of the trucks that it's looking up
at, and that's -- that's what does the damage to the road, not -- the old
formula was a capacity-based formula. They figured that the trucks
took up so much road capacity. If a road is capable of taking 30,000
vehicles a day and 1,000 of those are trucks, you're using up 1/30 of
the capacity of the road. Well, if you look farther into the portion
that was deleted in here, you'll see that you get a credit for that
anyway against the future use of the project, so this wasn't really an
impact fee.
And transportation noted that the trucks are actually damaging
the road. They're not using capacity, especially on the short-term
excavations. So we estimated -- well, we didn't estimate. We went
through all the excavation permits in the county, commercial, and we
figured that over the last few years we've been averaging 4 million
cubic yards of fill moving across county roads every year. And then
we went and did a truck count. If you look on the Internet and you
go to all these AASHTOW, American Association of State Highway
and Transportation Official Web site, different state Web Sites, you'll
see they all say that heavy trucks cause all the damage to roads; cars
don't. It's the heavy trucks that -- that wear the roads down and wear
down the subgrade and all that.
So we counted all the heavy trucks moving on maybe half--
maybe a dozen roads in Collier County, and then we took a
percentage of those that were fill trucks and concrete trucks, because
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November 14, 2001
generally the concrete excavating that are done in this county are
done with local aggregate, dug out of the ground from fill pits. And
we took a proportion of the fill trucks -- that proportion of all the
trucks that were fill trucks. And the transportation department gave
us a number that they spend every year to repair damaged roads. So
we took that number and computed how many trucks haul 4 million
cubic yards and the percentage of those that are -- the percentage of
all trucks that are fill trucks, and it comes out to 1 cubic yard of fill
causes about 4.7 cents worth of damage to the road.
Now, you might ask why it's not 5 cents, like Ed Kant wanted it
to be, rounding up; and you can ask Patrick White, who said we have
to prove it's 4.7, not 5. I guess the formula has to be accurate,
statistically significant. I'm surprised I could say that. But anyway,
that's where the 4.7 comes from, and that's the logic behind what
we're doing. If you have any questions --
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: That was my question that I did have.
And I did want to ask, though, it doesn't say in the actual Land
Development Code that the money's going to go for road repair. Is
that something you purposefully don't want to put in there, or
wouldn't that be something that's allocated and you want to know that
it's going into some road repair account?
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: The account is set up in the computer.
They'll assign it an account number. Right now we put it into district
-- into road impact fee districts, and it goes to a road impact fee. So
we just set up another account. But I suppose I could get
transportation to come up with some kind of wording as to where it's
going to go, what fund. I'm easy.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: You'll wordsmith it? Because I like
that concept, and I think it makes it clearer that that money is
something that is going for road repair because people do complain
about the damage done to our roads by all these trucks running up
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November 14, 2001
and down, back and forth. And I think this is visionary, and it's going
to solve a problem. And if we have to deal with the formula at this
moment at 4.7 cents per cubic yard, I'm all for it.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON:
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Yes.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON:
Madam Chair.
The only problem I have
with it is that I presume the cost of road repair is going to go up in the
future or change.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Ed Kant said we would change this
every year.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: We'd have a Land
Development Code change, then, every time that we want to
change --
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Just change the one number.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Could we say as amended?
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Well, it's 4.7 cents this year. He -- he
may come by next year and say it's staying 4.7.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Who's he?
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Ed Kant or whoever is doing Ed's job
next year if it's not Ed.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Question, Marjorie. Is that an issue
that we should consider here, that we put the pennies into the Land
Development Code like this and then may have to change it each year
since Mr. White is saying that it has to be a formula?
MS. STUDENT: Well, it does have to -- I mean, you just can't
pick a number out of the air. I think his word was statistically
significant. But I -- when I saw that I questioned, too, why it might
not be in the fee resolution instead, and I don't understand -- to me, it
just seems for the same reasons that we utilize the fee resolution that
it -- this would seem a logical place to put it, and it's easier to amend.
But, you know ...
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November 14, 2001
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: It just seems awkward to
have to come back with a Land Development Code change if you're
changing -- change it because it needs to be changed. I'm not
objecting to the number but -- and the process. It just seems like that
process should be --
MS. STUDENT: Right. And that was the same reasoning that
we had on the other item in the -- for the SIP process for the
Immokalee mobile home parks. And I think what was in the code
prior to this was a reference to -- wasn't it another ordinance or
something, Stan?
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Ron reminded me that amend the Land
Development Code every six months -- MS. STUDENT: Right.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: -- which is more often than we amend
the fee ordinance. So I--
MS. STUDENT: That is true, but to amend the fee resolution's
a lot less cumbersome than this.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Oh, reality is wonderful, isn't it?
Commissioner Young.
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: What about the last sentence
saying subsequent yearly fees will be based on the previous year's
total excavation and computed costs that appear in the annual --
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: What that is meant to do is the first fee
for the first year we estimate you're going to dig this much, and it's
going to cost you this much. But then every year -- by ordinance
every excavation has to post a yearly summary of the previous year's
excavation, how much they dug. And we'll take their previous year's
excavation and base their next year's fee on the 4.7 cents and how
much they dug the previous year.
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: I was just trying to include a
phrase --
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November 14, 2001
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: A change?
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: -- that would involve if your
figure of 4.7 changed, that you could include it right in here so you
wouldn't have to change it. Do you follow me?
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Yes, ma'am, I follow you. But I don't
think --
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: You don't think it could be done.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: I think it's easier just to take the 4.7
and change it to 5.3 next year.
MS. STUDENT: Madam Chair?
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Yes.
MS. STUDENT: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to -- go ahead. I'm
sorry, Stan. I didn't mean to -- what is stricken through here is more
of a process of when a fee is going to be paid and what it's paid in
accordance with as opposed to setting an actual amount. And I can
talk about this with staff, but it's my position right now that this
belongs in the fee resolution and not the ordinance. We can talk
about it. But what's stricken through is different than this.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. We'll see what you-all come up
with next time around, and I do appreciate Mr. Nino's comment that
we do this every six months. And if we really wanted to, we could
put it in those special changes that the Board of County
Commissioners has deemed appropriate to keep us here at night.
MS. STUDENT: Well, that's my point. You can fix a fee
resolution, I think, in one meeting as opposed to four.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Thank you for that clarification. One
meeting instead of four. I like that concept. Next page. MS. MURRAY: Page 88.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: This one's about wellhead protection.
During the last flooding we had of Golden Gate Estates, our well
inspector noticed that some people had taken the wells drilled in their
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November 14, 2001
back yard and kind of cut them down to ground level, you know,
because they don't like the thing sticking up. He noticed one where
somebody was piling horse manure near the well. I know.
Anyway, we've decided that the best way to keep people safe
from their own devices is to come up with an ordinance where they
have to put a slab at the house slab level or 18 inches above the road,
which is truly the minimum because a lot of house slabs in Golden
Gate are raised artificially to make up for the difference that -- the
drain field has to be above the water table and the pitch of the pipe.
So we've gone with the lesser of the two, the house slab
elevation or 18 inches above the road. You pour a slab around the
wellhead, and then you slope the ground away from it. It keeps the
water away from the wellhead. It keeps the wellhead protected. It
makes it harder for your average homeowner to go out there and do
something dumb.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: And DSAC did approve this.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Stan, how would this apply to
existing wells that possibly need to be redrilled? Maybe a
homeowner has been out there in a house for all these years, because
this would require -- I mean, most of the slabs that are -- most of the
wellheads that I know out there are at level now.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: I -- I would guess we'd -- we'd do it for
any well being drilled in Golden Gate Estates from now on.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: That homeowner--
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Even if it's an existing home.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Then they'd have to -- they'd have
to build up the area around the wellhead then with some means.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Yeah. We're talking a couple of feet, 3
feet, not that much.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I'm just thinking of existing
residences where this would have to be trucked in and get done and
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November 14, 2001
you'd have to build a -- fill in a bed and proper slopes and everything
else to make it large enough to maintain your equipment.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: I'm sorry. Commissioner Strain, are
you saying we should have this apply to existing wells or not?
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I'm concerned that it would be a
burden on existing homeowners, but I understand the purpose of it.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: They'd have to truck in a truckload of
fill, about a hundred dollars, around every new wellhead that goes in.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Does this say that?
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Well, you'd have to do it. It doesn't
say you have to do it. It says you have to fill it. Now, he could go
into the back of his property, get some wheelbarrow loads of fill from
somewhere in the back, and put them around his wellhead.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. So we're talking about
immediately following the construction of a private well, etc. Does
that mean reconstruction of a private well, is my question. Do we
need to clarify that?
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Well, we don't consider that
reconstruction. You just drilled a new well.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: If you're drilling a new well, you
would have to do something different. And you wouldn't drill
necessarily in the same spot.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: You don't. You abandon the old well
and you drill one --
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: So that's a new well. Okay. And I
guess we'll have to make sure that we educate the public, that they
know this.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI:
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
MR. CHRZANOWSKI:
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
You would think.
That's your job, Stan.
Yes, ma'am.
Any other questions?
Page 88
November 14, 2001
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: If I'm just using my --
Stan, if I'm just using my well for irrigation purposes, this doesn't
apply?
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: I hadn't thought about it. In the estates
most people use one well for both. They just don't treat the irrigation
water but --
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I'm not getting this in
context. Does this only apply to the estates area?
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: It was meant to apply to ag and estates
both.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: It doesn't apply to Naples
Park, for instance?
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: No.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Or the wells in Willoughby Acres that
are used-- well, they have --
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: No. Those are all -- those are all
irrigation wells.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Okay.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: It's not-- and truly, maybe it should be
meant to protect the aquifer instead of the homeowner. And the
majority, 99-plus percent of homeowners do the right thing. It's just
you've got a few that -- and the guy could contaminate his neighbor's
-- the aquifer for his neighbor too, so we have to protect everybody.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: You know, I think that's a good
approach, is protecting the aquifer rather than protecting the
homeowner from something that they're not doing very smartly.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Yeah. I know my
irrigation well's, you know, ground level. It's right there.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: But is it near your house?
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Yeah. It's 2 feet away
from my house.
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November 14, 2001
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Almost at the same elevation as your
house?
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Yeah.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Okay. You're probably okay then.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Well, if I-- if I thought
this applied to that, though, then if I drilled another well, I'd have to
do something quite extensive.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: That's what I was getting
at with my comment.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. So--
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: But if it only applies in the
estates -- I'm just trying to get this amendment in context.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Should we limit the application of this
amendment?
MS. STUDENT: Maybe you could say it only applies to -- or
does not apply to wells used solely for irrigation purposes, and that
would cover it.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Would you work on that? Solely for
irrigation purposes. Good point, Mr. Richardson and Mr. Strain. Not
applicable.
It looks like we're narrowing them all down until we only get
Dawn Wolfe standing in front of us here shortly.
MS. MURRAY: We're slowly getting there, but right now we
need to go to page 55. Patrick White.
MR. WHITE: Assistant County Attorney Patrick White. These
proposed amendments resulted from an ad hoc committee of
individuals largely comprised of professional surveyors and mappers
who I met with at one of their organization's meetings, and we
decided to come up with the ad hoc committee approach to
developing these proposed amendments.
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November 14, 2001
They reflect essentially the consensus opinion of that ad hoc
committee with regards to means by which we could simplify the plat
process in terms of what's required to be stated on the face of the plat;
also, to conform to current standards for title opinions by attorneys,
meet what the Bar Association itself believes is the minimum. The
Florida statute allows you to have either a title certification by an
abstractor or an opinion of title from an attorney. We've had
somewhat of a hybrid that's been submitted and, based upon past
practice, accepted those. This would, if you will, to make a bad pun,
raise the bar a little bit for attorneys and require them to actually
submit an opinion that would meet the standard of the Bar.
We're simplifying some other aspects of the code by making the
dedication text somewhat more standardized in terms of a format.
One of the things that's very helpful to a reviewer is knowing where
you're going to expect to find certain things when you look for them
and to follow other kinds of conventions. And all of the surveyors
and mappers seem to agree that that's a good thing. They would
prefer predictability and consistency, and that's what these regulatory
changes ultimately are intended to provide for.
We've simplified other matters by making it possible for a
mortgagee's consent, for example, to be submitted, as the statute
otherwise allows and in Chapter 177, to be on a separate recordable
instrument such that when you go to have the actual Mylars, which
are the plastic plats that are the ultimate, final form of these
documents that are recorded in the public record-- you know, rather
than having it sent around to everybody including the mortgagee, the
bank will -- holding the mortgage. You could, in particular when you
have a circumstance where you have out-of-state property owners,
greatly reduce the amount of time to also have to send it through the
mortgagee.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: I want to comment here.
Page 91
November 14, 2001
MR. WHITE: If there are any questions, I'd be happy to try and
answer them.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: On page 58 at the top of the page, we
have our infamous phrase "development services director."
MR. WHITE: Did I miss that one too? I caught yours on the
other one.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: And I was wondering who that
position is and if the title is administrator or an engineering person.
MR. WHITE: I think it probably ought be the planning services
director.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Planning services director.
MR. WHITE: I think that's the more correct current title for the
director position. If Tom Cook wants to take it on, we could let him
be the --
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: I was going to say, but doesn't
development services director mean the administrator, the
administrator or his designee? Now we're getting down to very
specific, planning services director. I just want to clarify that because
I'm still trying to figure out who belongs in some of these positions
and what the -- you know, the titles mean. We like consistency.
MR. WHITE: Consistency is certainly fine, but I think you
would also like to have the appropriate person who has the
knowledge and expertise in the review of these instruments to make
the determination of whether or not you're going to allow for the
placement of the certification somewhere other than on the first page.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Correct. And if, for instance, that --
just using the term "development services director" -- position was
not filled, you might have an interim, but there's no designee
whatsoever. Is there only one person in the county that can do this?
MR. WHITE: No. I believe that there are code provisions,
standard code provisions that contemplate designee for any of the
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November 14, 2001
positions that are specifically mentioned in the code.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: You believe that?
MR. WHITE: Yes, I believe that to be true.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: I'd like to know that. So maybe you
could just clarify that the next time we come through, because I
notice this every so often.
MR. WHITE: My recollection is that --
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Your recollection is that.
MR. WHITE: If you'd give me a chance to go find the code
section, I will put it on the record.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: We can talk about it next time, but I
really would like to know that we're all talking about the same types
of directors and -- and people that are working so that it's real clear to
the public, it's clear to the people that work with that on a regular
basis, because I know we change titles once in a while, and
sometimes you promote someone, sometimes you demote them with
their title. But I've always been under the impression that
development services director really was referring to the
administrator.
MS. MURRAY: Historically it was referring to the planning
services director.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Planning services director.
MS. MURRAY: It might be better to put development services
administrator at this point in time because that could apply to his or
her designee as well, which may be Tom Cook or may be the
planning services director, depending on what you're --
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: And the only reason I do bring this up
is that we went through that when we were trying to make the utility
standards ordinance. We had to make sure we understood who it was
that could make some of these decisions. And there was -- within the
community of the experts and the professionals that work with it
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November 14, 2001
every day, there was some real disagreement as to what level of a
person could approve something --
MR. WHITE: My belief is --
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: -- and we spent much time on it.
MR. WHITE: -- what's on page 62, which states engineering
review services are required to sign off on the plat, that we should
conform it to that position.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Sounds good to me. Commissioner
Strain.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Yes. I've got three quick
questions. On the first page, page 55, Item No. 1, general, "no
building permits for habitable structures shall be issued prior to
approval," and habitable structures, does that include models?
MR. WHITE: No.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay.
MR. WHITE: That's a good question.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay. On page 65, Item D, "a
non-exclusive public utility easement to all licensed or franchised
public or private utilities as shown on this plat," and I think that's
referencing language that you want on the plat -- MR. WHITE: Yes.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: -- for the utility easements. Some
subdivisions don't allow all licensed, franchised public or private
utilities into their subdivision. Sometimes they are ordered by
contract. I think Time Warner does it and Sprint does it and some of
the others, and I am wondering has it got to be all, or can it be subject
to the uniqueness of that particular subdivision or what contracts it
may have?
MR. WHITE: I believe if you'll go back to page No. --
wherever the beginning of Appendix A -- I think it's Appendix A --
Appendix C, I'm sorry, page 60.
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November 14, 2001
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay.
MR. WHITE: These apply to 95 percent of the plats we review.
And in those instances where there are exceptions, as you've
indicated, those are known at the time that they're submitted. And we
would allow them to alter this provision because, as it indicates at the
beginning of Appendix C, that the text is -- and format are intended
as a guide for preparers, and it's not written in concrete, if you will.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: So if someone came in and
wanted to list the specific entities, you -- your department wouldn't
have any objection to that?
MR. WHITE: Our office has no objection to that, and I've yet to
see staff object to it. It's generally a circumstance where it's known
based upon the phase of the development or subsequent unit that may
be brought in for a further platting.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay. And there's one last line
on that same page, page 65, Item D, "In the event a cable company
damages the franchises (sic) of another public utility, it will be solely
responsible for said damages."
MR. WHITE: That is statutory.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Well, that's fine. But cable
companies, I've been finding, aren't the biggest problem in damaging
other utilities. It seems to be gas companies. And I'm wondering if
you could put some provision in there that makes sure that gas
companies will repair their damages.
MR. WHITE: I think it's an accepted notion of general law that
if you cause harm, you're responsible for the damage. The only
reason this provision is in here is because in Chapter 177 there was a
specific requirement that that -- it's not a requirement per se, but
there's a specific mention that that is applicable to cable companies
that cause damage. And we, for the sake of putting folks on notice,
in particular the cable companies and someone who may suffer
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November 14, 2001
damages as a result of their activities, that that is the case, and that's
what the statute --
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay. But in any case whatever
utility really does the damage, you feel there's adequate coverage to
make them repair it.
MR. WHITE: Right.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: That's what my concern was.
Thank you.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: By cable company I assume
you mean even the telephone cable company or the electric cable
company.
MR. WHITE: I believe it's cable company as contemplated by
the --
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Referring to cable television or
what?
MR. WHITE: I believe it's the cable company as contemplated
under the statute in 177.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Which is what?
MR. WHITE: Television, I believe.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: So, in other words, cable
television damages utilities more than anyone else.
MR. WHITE: I do not know --
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: They don't.
MR. WHITE: -- what the genesis --
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: They don't.
MR. WHITE: I do not know what the genesis of the statute --
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I'm just wondering why cable
television companies are --
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Being singled out.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: -- being singled out.
MR. WHITE: That's something I'm sure the state legislature
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November 14, 2001
would be able to tell you based upon the fact that they chose to put it
into a specific provision of Chapter 177.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: And we -- we can't be more specific on
other types of companies? There's somebody out in my subdivision
now that can't read how many feet a water meter is away from a fire
hydrant and manages to drill right through while they're putting their
cable in the ground or huge water pipes and blows out the street and a
few things like that. So -- and I don't think they're a cable company.
I think they're another type of telephone something or other.
MR. WHITE: I don't believe that this provision expands or
contracts the liability that any public utility would have for the
damage of any other facilities. One of the things that you considered
earlier today was the notion brought forward by Tom Cook that we
would be asking for specific measurements at certain points in time
when various types of utility infrastructures are being installed.
We're -- we're trying to help folks figure out where their
respective utilities are so they don't dig them up. In those
circumstances when they're already supposed to get a survey ahead of
time locating such facilities -- not everybody does it. But the notion
under general law, as I mentioned initially, is that if you caused the
harm, you're liable for the damage.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: We'll believe you and move on.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Just a quick question. I'm
-- you're suggesting then that the controlling -- control for this
language comes from state statute. MR. WHITE: Yes.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So then in effect this
whole thing comes from state statute? Do we have anything that
we've put in ourselves?
MR. WHITE: Yes. We have a series of provisions in the Land
Development Code, in particular in Division 3.2, that are far more
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November 14, 2001
detailed than Chapter 177, which is the platting statutes. The idea is
that all the plat really does in legal terms is create a shorthand legal
description for property. There are a lot of other things that the
county uses subdivisions for and subdivision plans for to achieve the
location and maintenance of infrastructure improvements.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Then I gather you
wouldn't consider changing this language to make it more inclusive
then.
MR. WHITE: I have no objection, for example, if you wanted
to say in the event a cable company or other utility damages the
facilities of another public utility, it will be solely responsible.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: That's what we're looking for.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Well, I think it just -- it
just seems peculiar that we're hung up on one possible damage here.
MR. WHITE: It's only in there because of the manner in which
the Florida legislature chose to include this provision when you talk
about dedications. My belief is that it really ought not be included
ever because it's -- a dedication is intended to convey, if you will, an
interest in real property to some entity, a dedicatee.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Why don't you leave it out
then?
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Because he can't.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I don't know why he can't.
MR. WHITE: I'm telling you because the statute --
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Tells us to put it in.
MR. WHITE: -- doesn't mandate it, but it infers and is written
in such a way that I believe it's better to have it in. And it's been the
practice that the county's followed for -- for years.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: D-u-m-b.
MR. WHITE: I don't disagree. I'm trying to merely keep our
plats, which are essentially a quasi-judicial instrument and process,
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November 14, 2001
free from challenge.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. And that's what we pay you --
or you get paid for; right?
MR. WHITE: In small part. It takes up a lot of time, but I --
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. Any other items from Mr.
White?
MS. MURRAY: 81 and 8lA.
MR. WHITE: If we're doing this on a staff basis, then I also
need to make mention of something else and it kind of overlaps into
Dawn's area. I was asked at the subcommittee meeting of DSAC last
week to help work on some text that resulted in what's on your page
8lA in your new packet that's on the back of the summary sheets, and
there's a second handout I need to provide you. (A discussion was held off the record.)
MR. WHITE: The additional page is for 6A, and it is alternate
text for what you'll find on page 6 that's underlined. It's intended to
replace the text at the end of the page numbered -- the section number
is 2733.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: I'm sorry. We've switched from 81 to
6, page 6?
MR. WHITE: Yes. I prefer to start with 6. It's a little more
conceptually clear.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: 6A does follow 6 in this case.
MR. WHITE: Yes, it does.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay.
MR. WHITE: I apologize for the last-minute nature of it and for
the late hour. The intent here is to simply conform this provision and
the one that we'll discuss momentarily on 81 and 82 to make it clear
that regardless of what you find in a PUD ordinance or PUD master
plan with respect to an access point, the actual inclusion or not of that
information is not sufficient to vest that access point. The actual
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November 14, 2001
point in time at which the access point is intended to be vested is at
site development plan approval.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: And I think-- there's nobody in this
audience, and I think that's really strange. Do they know -- in the
development community and some of the attorneys that do this, do
they know this is here, and they're not here to complain?
MR. WHITE: There was no objection to it today at DSAC, and
there were two land development -- land use development attorneys
there. I believe it's something that folks have come to accept and
understand as an absolute necessity in terms of how you're going to
control access points and manage access in the county.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Marvelous. Commissioner Strain.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I'm -- and I think David's lost too.
Where in this packet are we talking about? I cannot find the
reference that 6A would fit into.
MR. WHITE: 6A, as I'd mentioned earlier, is to replace the
underlined text that exists on your page 6. And it specifically relates
to Section 2.7.3.3.
COMMISSIONERWOLFLEY: Okay. Thank you.
MR. WHITE: 2733.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Gotcha. While we're on this, are you
the one or do we talk to Dawn about making it consistent with the
wording and whether we do or don't include resolution 92444 in it or
how we use that reference and the county -- Collier County Access
Management Policy and the Collier County Construction Standards
for work within the right-of-way. There's some inconsistencies here.
I don't know if you're going to look at that or Dawn's going to look at
that, but I marked up --
MR. WHITE: I can assure you that Dawn's going to look at
that. But I can, while we're on page 6, point out what DSAC's
suggested alternative was today just for the purpose of getting it into
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November 14, 2001
the record. They had looked at the provision numbered 2.6.38.4.3.
That would be two paragraphs above the bottom of page 6. Again
that's 2638.4.3. And they proposed to modify that text to say that
rather than striking the word "encouraged," it would read "shall be
encouraged and may be required upon SDP review." SDP, of course,
being site development plan.
A similar modification was proposed on the previous page near
the top, the second full paragraph, the section numbered 2.2.28.4.3.1
to indicate precisely the same change, "shall be encouraged and may
be required upon SDP review" in the last sentence of that subsection.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: And transportation, I assume, is going
to tell us that they accept that.
MR. WHITE: I'm going to let Dawn speak for transportation.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. Make a note of that because I
think that language makes sense.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: You mean take the
requirement out?
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Well, see, it may be required at a time
when you're really looking closely at the specifics that you're going to
have in your site development plan. When you're really down to the
nitty-gritty of it, that's where you may have to require it. You don't
want to lose the requirement, and you don't want to just encourage,
although I've seen a number of years ago where we wouldn't have
gotten one particular project if you hadn't have made the
interconnect. The project was being held hostage because they
weren't going to do an interconnect. But it was misunderstood at the
county level, and it got into the site plan, and it worked fine.
MR. WHITE: The provision is intended to further the notion
that you're going to fix access points and do your site -- internal site
circulation at the time of SDP. The idea is that you cannot, however,
compel an adjacent property owner that may already be in existence
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with their development to interconnect. You can encourage it, but
the idea is that you're going to have to hold them hostage at the point
in time that they may choose to redevelop. You cannot impose it.
And what this provision and the modifications that I've brought
to your attention are hoping to do is to recognize that the policy is to
encourage it. And where it's practical and feasible, we will require it
on the site review. And the folks in the county need to have a certain
amount of flexibility in terms of how that site development plan
looks when it's approved. There may be very specific circumstances
where it's not absolutely required.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Commissioner Strain.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I've got a question about 6A. Is it
okay to go to that one?
MR. WHITE: Certainly.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: At the time of a PUD or a DRI,
there's a -- especially if you've got an access on to one of the main
roads, you've got to do a TIS. And I'm wondering, is that still going
to be required if it doesn't gain you anything in regards to what you're
being -- the way the PUD is viewed as far as design, capacity, and
routing of traffic for an access point, or is -- TISs still have a value in
the review level at that stage?
MR. WHITE: They'll have a -- they'll still be required, and the
value of them -- we can break them down into, I guess, PUDs and
DRIs. DRIs you have a set of standards for substantial and adverse.
I'm not sure what their -- whether there's parallel provisions that the
county has for non-DRIs that are PUDs, and I'll let Dawn address that
if it's still an issue for you. But I believe that the intent is that there
are other things besides merely where the access point is fixed in a
PUD that are relevant and are learned from the information that a TIS
reveals.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay.
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November 14, 2001
MS. STUDENT: I would just add to that that the TIS could be
utilized for the SDP or SDPs that would be done to implement the
PUD. So I think it does have value.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I was more concerned about
going through the effort of doing a TIS for a PUD level and then
having down the road -- and say you would do it for a multilane
entrance or exit of a project and then have it reduced by
transportation to something much less when the TIS counted on it for
internal traffic flow. And as long as that is addressed adequately, I'm
-- I'm not concerned about it.
MR. WHITE: There's -- there's a distinction between the notion
that you do a TIS at zoning a PUD, and you do a traffic assessment at
site development plan.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay.
MR. WHITE: And there may be relationships between each of
the two types of studies that are done. And I think all we're
suggesting is that in order to have a consistent Access Management
Plan that's going to be enforced by the county, that you need to have
some degree of flexibility.
The other provision that we started out talking about and is
related to that of 6 and 6A is that on 81 and 82, and it's a somewhat
parallel provision. It's found in Section 3.3, which is the site
development plan requirements, and specifically it's Section 3.3.5.2.
And the provision on 8lA that you have as part of your packet that
was handed out along with the summary sheets -- again, the small
handout from today, the summary sheets, page 8lA.
It's intended to replace the underlying text that exists on 81 and
carry forward from the text the screening and landscaping period and
states a similar concept, a parallel provision, that notwithstanding the
requirement to comply with the foregoing provisions, that if you
depict on a PUD master plan or describe the access or location of
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November 14, 2001
access points in a PUD ordinance, it does not authorize or vest access
to the major road system.
The same idea is that the location and routing for any specific
access point will be determined by and must comply with the
regulations for site development in effect at the time of site
development plan approval. Again, we're making it clear to folks that
when you come in for your SDP, that that is the standard and the
point in time at which the notion of access points will be fixed and
vested.
There is a similar provision that was caught this morning at
DSAC by one of those aforementioned land use attorneys. Just for
the purposes of the record-- and I believe you'll see this in the next
package -- the section is 2.7.3.5.6. You do not have anything
referencing this text today, just merely making note of it. It's
intended to address circumstances for PUD amendments where
there's a minor, otherwise-not-considered type of change. And it
makes it clear that those, when they occur, are not something -- the
change of the access points that occurs at SDP wouldn't require you
to go back and amend your PUD. It would be a minor change that
would be administratively handled.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: This is the proverbial
insubstantial that we --
MR. WHITE: It's even less than insubstantial.
MS. STUDENT: It's less than. There's one that comes under
that that it can be administratively done without going to the Planning
Commission or the board.
MR. WHITE: And I believe that that's the complete set of
things that I need to bring you up to speed on.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: The language on page 82 is -- no
longer applies then; is that --
MR. WHITE: Correct. 8 lA would substitute for 82 and tag
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along from 81.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Because 82 addressed access
geometry, and I guess, Dawn, you may have looked at that or that
must be addressed somewhere else.
MR. WHITE: It's subsumed in the phrase that talks about site
development regulations on 8 lA. It's the second-to-the-last line,
must comply with the regulations for a site development -- site
development. That includes the provisions that are otherwise detailed
pertaining to access geometry, that nice segue that Dawn is going to
talk about, I believe, next. Thank you. I appreciate your indulgence.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Does that mean you get to go home?
MR. WHITE: I'm not sure.
MS. MURRAY: Page 4 is --
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Gee, we got to page 4. We're doing
great. I hope the viewing audience is enjoying this as much as we
are.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: The camera's been turned
off hours ago.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Poor Katie probably fell asleep back
there. Okay.
MS. WOLFE: Dawn Wolfe, transportation planning director. I
finally brought them to you. Lots of little changes in here. Actually,
I'll make one minor editorial. It -- at the bottom of page 4, it should
say "to an arterial or collector-level road." I caught that one myself,
but please let us know if there's any others.
The first set starting on page 4, 5, 6A are cleanup items
primarily to ensure that we don't have inconsistencies between the
Comprehensive Plan right-of-way use ordinance and the Land
Development Code. What we have tried to do here is to consolidate
what we already have in our Comprehensive Plan which is a
functional classification future roadway plan, which we are currently
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also updating, so that the criteria regarding what -- what, where, and
how streets, driveways, and parking aisles are attributed on a site plan
are consistent with our long-range plan and consistent with where we
have designated arterial and collector-level facilities.
Basically it's cleanup language to the greater extent on page 4,
as well as the addition of-- as we are encouraging that access not be
off of arterials but off of collector-level roadways. We want to
ensure that collector-level roadways, which is on the bottom of page
4, has been added in.
The next section, 2.2.2635 regarding access, we have included
in there the complying with the Access Management Plan. Yes, we
will go through and do a search and ensure that we have the most
current version of the ordinance for access management. You made
reference to the fact that we had some -- I noticed that earlier and
hadn't had the chance to correct the number in regards to the
resolution or make sure that the resolution is referred to in each case.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: In each case. And when you-- you
keep saying the word "road" when we're talking about the bottom of
4, top of 5. It says "street" in here.
MS. WOLFE: That's just --
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: I mean, don't we want a road? Doesn't
that imply something bigger than just a street?
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I thought you used the word
"highway" as well.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: An arterial or collector-level --
MS. WOLFE: Roadway.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: -- roadway instead of street. Wouldn't
roadway make more sense? Then you'd think of something like
Airport Road versus Windsor Way or --
MS. WOLFE: "Roadway" is probably a more correct word.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Thank you. And I do have one other
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November 14, 2001
question when you're talking about cleanup while we're on that. Of
course, now I lost it because I turned the page. When we're talking
about -- at the top of page 6 we're talking about the Collier County
construction standards. Isn't the title of the document "Collier
County Construction Standards for Work Within the Rights-of-
Way"? Isn't that the name of the title? Wouldn't you have -- MS. WOLFE: I will reverify that.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Right. Because I think you need some
-- some capitals there because I think that whole thing is the name.
MS. WOLFE: I believe you are correct on that one.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: I just found one on a bookshelf, and I
think I noticed that. Okay.
MS. WOLFE: Okay. So as I said, we're trying to eliminate
some of the specificity which is where the majority of the strikeouts
are and refer it back to the technical standards, which would be the
"Collier County Construction Standards for Work Within Rights-of-
Way" so that that is the document which is the controlling criteria.
And it is referenced herein, and it may be amended, but you don't
mess up with revising one but not the other.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Exactly. And I think that's very
visionary also.
MS. WOLFE: Some of the changes we have previously
indicated in regards to access to properties via Golden Gate Parkway.
We have added the condition that they'll have to be consistent with
the Access Management Plan because there is a limitation there. We
originally --
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: What page?
MS. WOLFE: I'm looking -- I'm still at the top of page 5,
26.3.5, "Access to projects shall be provided exclusively via Golden
Gate Parkway and shall be limited to one per 450 feet commencing at
the centerline ... But shall nonetheless comply with the Access
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Management Plan in place at the time of development." And, like I
said, we'll make sure that we have the appropriate title and resolution
reference.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Dawn, does that mean that
it could be a different number then if the Access Management Plan in
force at that time says something different?
MS. WOLFE: Yes. The controlling criteria would be the
Access Management Policy. We did go a little bit around and around
in regards to the "encouraged" versus "required." After consultation
with our county attorney staff, we feel that the recommended
language is sufficient to meet the intent of where we want to go with
interconnectivity between development of parcels. So the language
that you were provided is okay by us.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Excellent.
MS. WOLFE: One thing we have run into in problems in the
Golden Gate area, especially off of Santa Barbara Boulevard, is the
fact we have alleyways, alleyways which should be conducive to
keeping a lot of the majority of ingress and egress to those parcels off
of Santa Barbara but accessing off of the alleyways. However, the
current code says the access shall be limited to Santa Barbara and that
you cannot have primary access to the alleyways. So we've cleaned
up the language that would allow in instances, especially under -- if
it's duplex development or the like, that the primary access could be
off of the alleyway versus being off of Santa Barbara Boulevard.
That's the intent of having alleyways out in those areas, is that you
don't necessarily have to have all your driveways off your front
parcel.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Is this going to the east, from
Santa Barbara east?
MS. WOLFE: So it's actually all over the place. But more
specifically issues that we've had problems with recently is that
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November 14, 2001
property comes in to develop and they tell us, "We can't come in off
of the alleyway." Well, the alleyway is there to provide accessibility
to the parcels so that they don't have to have direct access off of
Santa Barbara, Golden Gate Parkway. That's the intent of an
alleyway, is to provide for that greater degree of access and limit the
number on the main roads.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: This just sort of-- it just
confused me.
I didn't know where -- where you were going with it. MS. WOLFE: It's--
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Going down a blank alley.
MS. WOLFE: Going down a blank alley. It's getting late.
"Access via a rear property right-of-way shall be required if available
in lieu of direct access to Santa Barbara Boulevard." That is rather
than the access shall be limited to one point per project. Abutting
projects shall be -- this is for in the area of-- Santa Barbara
Boulevard is where this one -- unfortunately, we did -- these aren't
full pages. These are excerpts out of multiple different pages of the
Land Development Code.
Once again, introduce -- under the access, that it "be arranged
for convenient and safe access of pedestrians and vehicles and shall
be off of a local street consistent with the Access Management Policy
in place at the time." That also gives us not only our primary arterial
system access, but also our connection off of arterial roads. So the
reference should be back to the Access Management Policy.
Minimum setback lines in regards to the access, we will also be
coming back later with revisions to the clear site distance zone areas.
Many of us, I'm sure, have tried to pull out of an area and can't see
whether there's a car coming or not, so we're going to be reevaluating
those. But at this time we need -- we feel that it's appropriate to have
"as determined by the county for safety and operations" so that we
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November 14, 2001
can make sure that you can safely enter and exit driveways. Let's see.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Dawn, on that one would
-- would there be a compliance aspect to this, and would it fold into
existing situations?
MS. WOLFE: This, I believe, is under new development.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Because you've got a lot
of places where, you know, they -- where there's overgrowth of
vegetation and that, and I wondered if this would set up a standard
that could-- that code compliance could be -- you know, could do
some citing.
(A discussion was held off the record.)
MS. WOLFE: Okay. 2.6.3.8.1 (sic) is one where we've
basically taken the details out of the language and placed the
responsibility with the Access Management Policy as the controlling
criteria. It is under the permitted sign section, development
standards. So would this be applicable to current signs?
MS. MURRAY: Sorry. Why don't you go on, and I'll look at
the codes so I can get the perspective of where you're talking about.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: I do have one question, Dawn. The
Collier County Access Management Policy, will we see that at any
point? No. The technical standards you keep talking about, that's
not --
MS. WOLFE: That -- we will be bringing them back to you. At
this point in time we -- it was recently updated and taken before the
board as a resolution because of the -- the board had designated both
Livingston and County Road 951 as limited and controlled access
facilities, and we needed to update that resolution. Those resolutions
don't necessarily come before this board; however, we are updating
the functional classification maps and roadway designations which
will significantly change the designation of those roads as far as what
their access classes are. And that can be back-- brought back
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November 14, 2001
through for informational and -- to this board. I don't think there's
anything that would prevent us from providing that information to
you, even though it's under a resolution versus an ordinance.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Right. And so the 92442 is not going
to be the citation for the --
MS. WOLFE: No. It's an 01.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: It's an 01.
MS. WOLFE: It is an 01. It's one of those ones I did make the
notation on.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Thank you. It's getting late, and I was
a little slow on the uptake there.
MS. STUDENT: I just want to point out one thing. I thought
that's where it was. At 261 of the code, it talks about visibility of
intersections. I think that might be the place where you have your
compliance. Thank you.
MS. MURRAY: I can answer that sign question now if you're
interested.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Yes.
MS. MURRAY: Okay. I -- sorry. I just needed to get my
perspective on where that was in the code. If-- whenever you change
the code in this case of a sign, for example, it would be -- then
become legal nonconforming if it no longer conforms with the code
as it presently exists at the time. Whenever we have a change in sign
face or a change in sign structure, location, etc., the sign at that time
would be made to comply with the current standards of the code. So
it would be considered legal nonconforming until it --
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Perhaps I misled you. The
section that I was looking at was the residential areas, and so that
wouldn't be signs. I was talking about driveways.
MS. WOLFE: It's in regards to signs, that section right there.
MS. STUDENT: 261 is much broader than that. It talks about
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November 14, 2001
structures, landscaping, and all types of things at intersections.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: But not in the middle of a
block, for instance.
MS. STUDENT: No. In an intersection. It doesn't -- it
wouldn't deal with a driveway, I don't believe.
MS. WOLFE: But this -- that 25511 is in regards to signage
with -- and that's minimum setback.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Okay.
MS. WOLFE: As I said, the 2638 is taking the specificity out of
the LDC and putting it into the Access Management Policy where it
should be more applicably taken care of. The following 26383, we
have recommended deletion of the access management plan maps
which, at best glance, are difficult to read. However, they're
developed prior to knowing what's going to go in out there and are
not necessarily consistent with the Access Management Policy. So
quite -- we're going to go with what we know and wait until
something comes in before we predetermine what those locations are
and try and apply the standards to the maximum extent feasible.
Okay. 2638 -- 384.1, rather -- we've taken the reference to those
maps out and placed it back with the Collier County Access
Management Policy. And we will clar -- make sure we've got the
wording -- the caps right, the construction standards, putting those in
those technical documents rather than in the context of this
document.
We covered 263843 in regards to the "encouraged" versus
"required."
We also have the elimination of the mixed-use activity centers in
regards to the future traffic circulation in regards to the access points.
Those are to be determined as those plans come forward.
And then the last one, 2733, was covered by Mr. White. Any
questions, confusion on those ones?
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November 14, 2001
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: They look good to me.
MS. MURRAY: The next page I have is 71.
MS. WOLFE' Yes. Okay. This one is -- first point, we'll make
sure we have the appropriate resolution number. We did add the
words "as may be amended," as it has been amended. Rather than
indicating the total number of access points -- that indicates that you
will have six access points -- we've changed it to a maximum of six
access points. Next, in regards to the alleyways, this is where we
have indicated the correction for the alleyway shall be utilized for
secondary access unless otherwise provided in this code. MS. MURRAY: She's on page 72. Sorry.
MS. WOLFE: Yes. 3.2841, we are eliminating the specifics of
location for access, leaving that to the construction standards and
making the reference back to the county's construction standards, and
we'll make sure that that's the same language right there.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO' Now it's the county right-of-way book
-- handbook.
MS. WOLFE: Same thing. We'll go through these with a fine-
tooth comb and make sure -- but as you can see, it's primarily taking
the technical standards and putting them in the construction standards
books where we don't have to worry about inconsistencies between
those.
Page 78, block lengths. We often have times in regards to
neighborhood traffic management and have indicated in there that
these sections shall be required to indicate -- take into account
neighborhood traffic management in regards to their design; rather
than waiting for them to be built and having problems later to have to
come back in, put the burden for neighborhood traffic management
upon the developer is the intent of that section, rather than the county
coming back and paying for it later when people come speeding
through.
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November 14, 2001
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: May I go back to page 77 for just a
moment?
MS. WOLFE: Okay.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: We took out a whole lot of things,
deleting figures. All of the language that is left over on page 77
belongs to what? Because I was -- I was fascinated by the very last
sentence language, but is this -- is it just like a mn-on of 3.2.8.4.1,
access, those paragraphs will just be there? Instead of really straining
your brain about it tonight --
MS. WOLFE: Can we get back to you on that one?
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: -- let's get back on that one. And I did
want to ask, the very last sentence refers to the "such internal access
provision. This provision shall be acceptable to the Community
Development and Environmental Services Division Administrator
and the county attorney and satisfy the zoning requirements for the
zoning district in which the subdivision is located." What does that
mean? I'm not sure why that's there.
MS. WOLFE: It's already there, but I'll get back to you on that
one, because it -- I'm reading it, and it's not getting there either.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Because it's there.
MS. WOLFE: It's actually been a -- it's there. It's there now.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: And it's not-- nothing's highlighted or
underlined or anything like that, so I --
MS. WOLFE: No. I may have stopped my pencil too soon.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: You might have. But --
MS. WOLFE:
keep in such as the
MR. WHITE:
I think there's portions of it that we do wish to
provision for internal access.
Assistant County Attorney Patrick White. I think
all of the text that you have on page 77 that you've referenced is
existing text and is intended to remain, and that's why it appears.
last sentence that you've talked about where it starts out with the
The
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words "this provision" I believe are intended to refer back to the
phrase above that says "through an internal access provision
documented on the final subdivision plat." And I believe that that
provision is one that must be acceptable to the division administrator,
the county attorney, and satisfy the zoning requirements. I think it's
something that occurs at the platting.
And similar to the prior discussion we had about the idea that
the county attorney's office approves and then there's that notion of
delegation between the county division administrator for community
development, those are the folks who arguably, or their designees,
must find that acceptable.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: This sounds like something somebody
wrote at ten o'clock at night on a Land Development Code day. It
doesn't flow right to me, but --
MR. WHITE: I can assure you that --
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: -- we'll deal with that later.
MR. WHITE: -- I have that experience many times when I read
this code.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Thank you. So when you get a chance,
Dawn, you can chat with the esteemed Mr. White, and he might clean
that up a little bit for us since we did talk about it tonight.
MS. WOLFE: Big question mark.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Big question mark.
MS. WOLFE: As I said, the -- page 78 was in regards to
basically putting the burden of ensuring nice, calm neighborhoods
back on the developer rather than developing them as long, straight
runways where we have to come back in later as the county and
retrofit them.
Page 79, modifications to necessary right-of-way widths for
various levels of major roadways, minor collectors, minor collectors
divided, major collectors, and minor arterials, we've worked through
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November 14, 2001
what the standards are and looked at what our minimums are. Minor
collectors, when they're more than just a local street, need to be more
than 60 feet. This was approved by the DSAC earlier today, I
believe. Nods. Anyways, it's to ensure that as they go through the
process when we establish the review group, subdivision, or zoning
approvals, that we have sufficient right-of-way set aside.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Right.
MS. WOLFE: And 81 was taken care of. We had Patrick redo
that wording because Susan and I both were addressing it from two
other ends and the language didn't match, so we gave it to him to fix.
That's why he did that.
85, we've placed in the criteria for site development plan
submittal the requirement that information be provided off site a
minimum of 200 feet so that we can make a determination as to site
access conflicts with adjacent driveways, adjacent parcels,
interconnectivity. If we don't have that information on that site
development plan, we can't make the determination. So we're
requesting that it formally be part of the site development plan
submittal requirement. But it can be limited if there is no need for it,
and that would be at the time of preapp. So we've left it open so that
in smaller cases, 200 feet, which may be excessive -- but we find the
200 feet provides the -- a reasonable amount of information.
89, 90, 91, and 92 are in regards to updating the language. We
have references to dated reference to documents, calculations of our
average annual daily traffic. We've updated the language to be
consistent with current practices. We've found that in Section
315325 that you may have inconsistencies. A lot of the
improvements and why these roads were shown as Level of Service E
have now gone away based on improvements. These types of
identifications under 325 there in the middle of page 90 should be
contained in the Growth Management Plan. You should not
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reduplicate them in the Land Development Code, so we've eliminated
that text.
91 is basically updating the references to the current document
and ensuring their reference to "as may be amended."
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Dawn, your LOS C, D, and E, if
you read the text in this thing, they're all the same. And I checked the
ULDC, and they're not supposed to be. So I'm assuming that'll get
caught when you go back in and incorporate it in there, or you might
want to take a look at it now. It looks like it was cut and pasted
repeatedly three times instead of--
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: I was trying to figure out what that
meant because I--
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: They're distinctly different. In
the ULDC they're written that way, and in this amendment they just
came out the same.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Well,~ I'm glad you said that because
when I had looked at it I thought maybe I'm not reading this right.
MS. WOLFE: That's the way the new standards are. There is
no difference.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: It would be really unique.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: You guys are really getting --
MS. WOLFE: No. I believe that it was a typographical error
because they are very -- they're similar in certain ways, and I believe
that's the way it started out, was they were -- we were trying to --
pick up the speed on that. So thank you for pointing that out. I'm
going, yes, you're absolutely right, those are the same thing; and, no,
they're not.
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: I wondered why the roads were
getting so bad.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: It was all because of cut and paste.
Okay. Do you still have paper, Barbara?
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November 14, 2001
(A discussion was held off the record.)
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I had -- I talked to Dawn
off-line earlier today and --
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Off-line.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Off-line, but she's staff.
MS. WOLFE: Oh, you gave me two -- he gave me two more.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: On this specific area of
level of service, I asked her if she would provide us as a matter of
information -- certainly to me, maybe others would be interested -- as
to how these new criteria, new standards could be compared to what
we currently get. So if it's Level Of Service C, I'd like to see how the
new calculations are, so we can see which way -- it's been suggested
that they're tightening them up. But I don't know how tight they're
going to get, and I'd like to see that. And she suggested that she
could do that, so I just wanted to get that on the record.
MS. WOLFE: Yes. The information as to -- as we move
forward to update our level-of-service tables, to get a comparison of
what -- the prior tables from the Comprehensive Plan which are being
removed from the table and will be a separate document so we may
more readily amend it. But, yes, we can make that information
available to you as well as the fact that we will be going before the
Board of County Commissioners in a workshop on November 30th in
regards to our annual update and inventory report. And there will be
a lot of information available in regards to how we're looking at our
transportation level of service and concurrency and the effects it's
going to have on the Growth Management Plan. That's a plug for
that day, if anyone's listening.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: That's November 30th at 2
p.m.?
MS. WOLFE: November 30th at 2 p.m.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Thank you. Because some of that
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November 14, 2001
information would be very helpful to us as planning commissioners
as we understand how you're making the changes, and we can sit in
the privacy of our own homes and read the Access Management Plan,
the policy, and some of these changes that you've got where we can
actually start understanding more specifically what we want to ask
when we get in our arguments about whether a development can be
or can't be on a road and how you're going to use that road.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: And we're sitting at home
because we can't get out on the roadways. They're too bad.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO' Well, right now I bet there's not many
people on the roads.
MS. WOLFE: I think that's called telecommuting.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO' You had two more with definitions?
MS. WOLFE: Yeah. They handed me two more. Page 109 is a
-- at the back of the packet, alleyway, a public or approved right-of-
way which affords access to abutting properties. It eliminates the
words "only a secondary means," which has caused us a little bit of
problem.
And the last one, pages 110 and 111, is the elimination of--
from the level of service for capital facilities, these are items that
should be contained in the Growth Management Plan, not the Land
Development Code.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO' Very good. Thank you, Mr. Nino, for
spotting that for Ms. Wolfe.
MR. WHITE: If there's no other questions, Madam Chair, I'd
just like to put on the record that the section that I was referring to
earlier when I stated my belief about the LDC was 6.1.5 regarding
delegation of authority. It makes it clear that designees are included
when a specific officer or a position is mentioned.
And to wrap up hopefully, on your page 77 LDC changes that
were not proposed to be amended and the internal access provision
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November 14, 2001
quote I mentioned before, in rereviewing this provision, I can tell you
that it specifically was of concern over the past two to three board
meetings for a particular subdivision plat that came in where we
created one of the list of examples of an internal access provision that
was in the sentence preceding the one we were discussing a moment
ago.
There's a list that says by way of example, but not be limited to,
and it mentions cross covenants, cross easements, dedicated access
tracts, or the like. And in specific we had -- there's a subdivision plat
where we had a, quote, dedicated access tract and code provision that
we had to implement. And it was very specific to a particular plat,
and it required our office, in conjunction with staff and community
development, to look at that and included Dawn Wolfe's review of it
for the purposes of having an access easement, if you will, overlaid
on a plat. So it does work, even though it seems to be difficult to
understand what it means. I can tell you that we've applied it very
recently, and it seemed to work okay.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Thank you. Could you humor me and
repeat your 6.1.whatever for designated --
MR. WHITE: 6.1.5. It's a section entitled "delegation of
authority."
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Thank you.
MR. WHITE: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
MS. MURRAY: A few.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
Do we have any more, Susan?
I have a couple pages left here.
MS. MURRAY: We have a lot. Let's go to 26A in your new
handout. That would be Marjorie.
MS. STUDENT: Thank you. This matter is a declaration of an
interim development control or moratorium for the Vanderbilt Beach
area residential tourist zoning districts, and there are three in the
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November 14, 2001
Vanderbilt Beach area. Again, this was per board direction because
of some issues that have come up with that particular zoning district
in Vanderbilt Beach.
Because of the unique characteristics of Vanderbilt Beach, that
being a narrow spit of land with the Gulf of Mexico on one side and
Vanderbilt Beach Lagoon on the other side, there have been concerns
about the canyonizing effect of having so many tall residential
buildings or hotels in the area. There's been concern about the lot
sizes there and the small setbacks and the need for view corridors to
the gulf and to the lagoon.
There have been issues about height, again getting to the
canyonizing effect, and the actual mass of the structures; and also,
because of the densities, the amount of trips being placed on Gulf
Shore Boulevard (sic), which is a small, two-lane roadway. And this
is an area that is an old zoning district, and there's some older
structures in it, and it has shown some redevelopment activity.
So, again, per direction of the board, this was prepared. We -- a
moratorium cannot last indefinitely. It has to be limited to a
reasonable duration, so we put a year in there. I might also add that
this is patterned after the final order moratoria that exists. The
geographic scope is described generally, and there is a map attached.
But I can -- I will add to the ordinance that it is bounded by the Gulf
of Mexico to the west, Bluebill Avenue or its westerly extension to
the north, Vanderbilt Lagoon to the east, and Vanderbilt Beach Road
or County Road 862 to the south.
I then list the prohibited uses, and I understand there was some
confusion about utilizing the term "permitted uses thereunder," but
that's pulled from the code and I differentiate between what the
permitted uses are in the code, what the accessory uses are, and what
the conditional uses and that -- it -- it lists all of them. And so it's a
total moratorium in that district because all the uses are listed. And
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November 14, 2001
many of them deal with height and mass issues. At least four out of
the five under permitted uses deal with those. Also, under the
accessory uses, height and mass are issues in at least three of those;
and in the conditional use area, at least five of the uses that are listed
there.
And I also included variances because many times you can get a
setback variance which would reduce it even further and, in some
instances, a height variance and so on. So I also included variances.
There's also a grandfathering provision, and that would be for
residential and other uses in the Vanderbilt Beach RT Zoning District
Assessment Area for which completed applications for rezonings,
conditional uses, variances, subdivision approvals, site plan
approvals, plats, or building permits were filed with or approved by
the county prior to the effective date of this amendment will be
exempt. And I just need to put in the record that -- because this came
up with the final order of what was meant.
So, in other words, if you get a rezone approved or you have an
application filed-- a completed application filed with the planning
department, that means you can continue on with the development
that the rezone would permit. So, in other words, you could come in
and get your site plan or your plat and then later on your building
permit, as the case may be. It doesn't mean that, oh, yeah, you get the
rezone, but you don't get the rest of it and whatever follows. And I
can add some language to clarify that. And then I have attached a
map which shows the three RT districts in the Vanderbilt Beach area.
And I might add that in order to do this, we need to have a
study. And it's my understanding -- and I'll talk about this a bit
further with staff, but that at the very least, staff can do an evaluation
of the development standards in the area, hold public meetings with
residents of the area to get a feel for what their needs may be, and to
come up with amended and improved, hopefully, development
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November 14, 2001
standards that address some of these concerns.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Thank you. I think one of the
questions I had that you might have alluded to, we need to put this in
the Land Development Code --
MS. STUDENT: Yes, we do.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: -- for why?
MS. STUDENT: Pardon me?
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Clarify that just --
MS. STUDENT: Yes. This is a land development regulation
because you're prohibiting development in a certain area, so it does
belong in the Land Development Code. In effect, you're prohibiting
some uses right now, and that does belong in the Land Development
Code. We put the moratoria in the code for -- there were two that
were required by the final order. And we had a proposed one during
the pendency of the study in Goodland, but it remained proposed and
was removed through the cycle because there was satisfaction that the
study was progressing adequately, and there was no need for the
moratorium. So this is the place for it.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: And then once, say, a year and a few
months go by, we would actually amend the code to remove it?
MS. STUDENT: Yes, we would. And, in fact, we're going to
have to -- in the next amendment cycle, we're going to have to look at
amending the code for purposes of the moratorium for the final order
because part of that will be hopefully completed, so it will be -- need
to be lifted for the rural fringe. And then the other part we've
petitioned the administration commission to have extended. So we'll
need to extend part of it and lift part of it, and we will be doing that
by a land code amendment.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Marjorie, some of the
criteria that you've mentioned that need to be -- that have driven this,
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November 14, 2001
it's narrow roadway, traffic --
MS. STUDENT: Height and mass of--
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: All that. I'm wondering if
-- why doesn't that apply to this entire strip then? I'm wondering why
it just -- the RT is just the three areas. Why wouldn't it be the entire
roadway?
MS. STUDENT: The board directed that this -- the study at this
juncture include the RT. It's one of the oldest -- I think it's because
it's one of the oldest districts. And there was some -- there's been a
couple redevelopments and form some of the uses permitted in those
districts that have been an issue.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: It just seems to me that
you weakened the case by limiting it to just specific zones when it --
when the conditions you've described apply to that entire roadway.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: If she doesn't mind, maybe I can
tell you. The RS -- RS -- MF-16 on the north end, I worked up there a
couple of years ago. It's all built out with brand-new condos, so I
don't think they're going to add any more to that area. I think maybe
that was why they were only looking at the RT, because it's the only
area that could be redeveloped.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: And the RSF-3 --
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Can only have one unit for 3
acres or--
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Not subject to --
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: -- three units for 1 acre. It might
have --just single-family homes is all it's going to have.
MS. STUDENT: The board particularly wanted to look at that
district and that district's standards.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Any other questions?
MS. MURRAY: Okay. Great. We can go to page 3 and page
11. I'll try to hit these both at one time. There really is no change.
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November 14, 2001
This is just an amendment to make consistent that which is already
permitted by right and/or conditional use in every zoning district.
And that is that in the essential services section of our code, you have
a list of uses that are permitted by right in every zoning district, and
you have a list of uses that are permitted by conditional use. And it
says in every zoning district. Every zoning district references
essential services in either the permitted or conditional use where
appropriate, except for the ag and estate zoning district. So this is not
changing anything. It's merely to make consistent that which is
already allowed by right in the code.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Susan, could I make one
comment? And it's for both 3 and 11. You define -- you say it's
defined in Section 2691. I think it's just 269. See if you want to
check that by the next time we have a meeting. You may want to -- MS. MURRAY: I'll check that. I think the Sections 2691 and
2692 refer to the permitted use section and then the conditional use
section. MS. STUDENT:
MS. MURRAY:
MS. STUDENT:
It does.
So they're separate.
269 is more general. I've worked with these
sections a lot, and my recollection is that 2691 is the permitted and
2692 is the conditional.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: This referred to the definition.
That's why --
MS. STUDENT: Oh, I see.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: The definition doesn't appear in 1
or 2. It appears in just plain 269. And I didn't know if that's what
your intent was here or not, so that's why I made that point.
MS. STUDENT: I think maybe as set forth might be better
because an essential service may be defined in 269. Then the types,
the kinds of them that there are are in 2691 and 2692, rather than a
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November 14, 2001
definition. But it'll say, like, transmission lines and things like that,
which is more of a type than a definition, or an example.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: That's what I was trying to point
out.
MS. STUDENT: Yeah. I appreciate that. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I wanted to get it granunatically
correct.
MS. MURRAY: Use the words "set forth" instead of"defined."
Okay. So that takes care of pages 3 and 11 if you have no other
comments or questions.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: I like those kind.
MS. MURRAY: Okay. Let's go to page 29. This is an
amendment that was brought to the attention of staff by the Board of
County Commissioners, that being an issue particularly in single-
family areas, but not exclusively, that there seems to be a pattern of
too large of an area of the front yard is being utilized for automobiles.
And I think you're going to find this in some of your older
subdivisions, Naples Park and Golden Gate City. The members of
the board have expressed some concern, and as well, other
communities in Southwest Florida are attempting to regulate this
problem as well. And so this is in response to their concern.
I'm going to try to summarize it very quickly. Basically what it
does is it places a restriction on -- depending on the type of land use,
albeit single-family, two-family, and multifamily. Specifically in the
single-family land use, you would -- the parking of vehicles would be
restricted to imperviously treated surface areas of the lot which shall
not comprise an area greater than 40 percent of the required front
yard and may not limit a driveway width to less than 20 feet. That's
for single family. For two family that requirement goes up to 50
percent.
For multifamily that goes up -- I'm sorry. There's no percentage
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November 14, 2001
there, but there's a limit and a restriction, again, to be parked on
imperviously treated areas. And there's a limit to the parking of
automobiles which shall not exceed a ratio of 2.5 automobiles per
dwelling unit in the event that all parking spaces are not located
within an enclosed structure or in combination of open air and
enclosed structure. I'll let you-all ask questions about this. I know
it's a little confusing.
Further down there's a limitation on the parking or storage of
automobiles in connection with residential dwelling units shall be
owned by the occupants of the dwelling unit unless the vehicle is
owned by a firm, corporation, or entity for which the dwelling unit
occupant is employed. And, lastly, that no other portion of the front
yard may be used to park or store automobiles, including that portion
of the right-of-way not directly a part of the designated driveway. So
that would eliminate parking in the swales or right-of-way as well.
MS. STUDENT: I just have a comment. You may want to look
at No. 4 because I think -- I just want to make sure we don't have any
constitutional overbreadth issue because the ownership -- I mean, I
know we don't want to have people have a parking lot. But as long as
they're parked in the driveway, I don't know that ownership is
relevant to the means we're trying to achieve, because restrictions are
supposed to be narrowly tailored to achieve the means, and the
ownership may not really go to the issue of people parking on the
grass. That's my only -- that's my only concern about that. And then
-- I don't know. I guess this doesn't mean that you can't have
company parking in your--
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: I hope not.
MS. MURRAY: The Development Services Advisory
Committee picked up on that as well and recommended that -- MS. STUDENT: Yeah. I just have a concern about
constitutional overbreadth.
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November 14, 2001
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: That would be good to look at that.
And I will say that I live in a subdivision that was visionary and
decided if your cars were not parked in the garage, you could only
have a maximum of three vehicles parked in your driveway, period.
That was a deed restriction. So we kind of argued about that, but I
can see why this is getting where we can put it in the Land
Development Code.
MS. MURRAY: Any questions?
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Yes, I have a question on
the multiple family. I'm thinking about Naples Park, and we have a
number of units where they have, in effect, work-force housing being
provided for. And the entire front lawn or the entire width of the
property is paved.
And so they park, obviously, all in that area. This would -- is
this only intended to apply to new construction or --
MS. MURRAY: Everything, existing and new.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Then that would argue that
-- that some part of that driveway would have to be removed on a
compliance basis?
MS. MURRAY: Possibly, yeah.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: All right. How does --
how do boats fit into this situation?
MS. MURRAY: Boats aren't permitted to be stored in a front
yard. So that--
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So this -- this is limited to
front yard, and that's defined as in front of the -- of the --
MS. MURRAY: From the building line to the right-of-way line.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: From the building line?
MS. MURRAY: Front building line to the right-of-way line.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So if they had to drive
over a grassy area to get back to the back part of the property, I guess
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November 14, 2001
they'd be in violation for the period of time that they drove across.
I'm just -- I'm thinking about real-life situations where people have
cars and RVs and that back behind the building line, but there's no
driveway to get back there. They've just driven back to have a place
because they can't park them up front.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: That's driving. It's moving. It's not
stationary as in parked.
MS. MURRAY: Thank you. That would have been my
response as well.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Could you add commercial to the
list of application -- applicated areas -- I mean, uses?
MS. MURRAY: Your suggesting to add commercial?
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Yes. Only in driving down 951
and Golden Gate to get here, you could drive past several businesses
whose front landscaped areas are -- have cars sitting on top of them.
MS. MURRAY: Okay. So you would add commercial to the
area whereby you would not park in the right-of-way.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: That's -- if you have --
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: No comment from the audience unless
you're at the microphone.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: We had -- if you have a
site development plan for a car lot and it's landscaped in front, they
very often park out in front just because they feel like that's going to
get them --
MS. MURRAY: That's not permitted presently, so if that is
occurring --
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: That's a compliance
problem.
MS. MURRAY: Right.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: That's covered then.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Code enforcement.
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November 14, 2001
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: That's fine. I just wanted
to make sure.
And what was her name again?
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: How many more do we have, Susan?
MS. MURRAY: One, two, three-- five -- six.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Would you like us to take a couple-
minute break to change?
(A discussion was held off the record.)
(A break was held.)
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Okay. We are back in session.
MS. MURRAY: Based on your suggestion, I think what I'll do
is just read the page number and the section number, and if you have
questions, just stop me if that's okay.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: Sounds good.
MS. MURRAY: Okay. Page 31, Section 2.6.11.4.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN:
MS. MURRAY: Okay.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN:
Susan, I had one comment.
Second paragraph that said,
however, at the applicant's request, the planning services director
may determine that a, you know, wall/fence is not warranted, could
some language be added to that sentence that says at the applicant's
request, subject to having received no objections in writing from the
public or -- I'm concerned that an applicant could simply say that
they don't want to have this wall, and there might be some public out
there objecting. Is there any comment like that that we could put in
there to protect the public?
MS. MURRAY: Well, my only comment on that would be that
this really is reviewed through an administrative process, so there
would be no public --
MS. STUDENT: There's no --
MS. MURRAY: -- notice.
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November 14, 2001
MS. STUDENT: -- point of entry.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay. So then if the applicant
wants to eliminate this requirement, basically it's between him and
the planning services director at this point; is that right?
MS. MURRAY: Right. Based on some of the conditions that
are laid out there.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay. That's my only question
on that one.
MS. MURRAY: Okay.
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO:
administrator. Director was changed to administrator.
that somewhere.
MS. MURRAY: Page 54, Section 2.7.3.4.
Division 6.3, definitions, page 106.
Page 54 -- I think I already said this -- Section 2.7.3.4.
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Right.
MS. MURRAY: Okay. Division 6.3, definitions, page 112.
That's it.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN:
those sections.
Page 33, Section 2.6.11.5.
Now we have development services
I knew I saw
I have no questions on any of
CHAIRMAN RAUTIO: No questions? I think that wraps it up.
We could have made it with the court reporter, but we were nice to
you, Barbara.
With no further business, we are adjourned. See you-all
tomorrow morning at 8:30.
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November 14, 2001
There being no further business for the good of the County, the
meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 10:16 p.m.
COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
JOYCEANNA J. RAUTIO, CHAIRMAN
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT
REPORTING, INC., BY BARBARA DRESCHER, NOTARY
PUBLIC
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