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CCPC Minutes 02/21/2002 RFebruary 21, 2002 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION Naples, Florida, February 21, 2002 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 8:40 a.m. In REGULAR SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: Kenneth L. Abernathy Russell A. Budd Paul Midney Dwight Richardson Mark P. Strain NOT PRESENT: Lindy Adelstein Lora Jean Young David J. Wolfley ALSO PRESENT: Marjorie M. Student, Asst. County Attorney Ray Bellows, Chief Planner, Planning Services Page 1 AGENDA COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION WILL MEET AT 8:30 A.M., THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2002, IN THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS MEETING ROOM, ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, COUNTY GOVERNMENT CENTER, 3301 TAMIAMI TRAIL EAST, NAPLES, FLORIDA: NOTE_.' INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS WILL BE LIMITED TO 5 MINUTES ON ANY ITEM. INDIVIDUALS SELECTED TO SPEAK ON BEHALF OF AN ORGANIZATION OR GROUP ARE ENCOURAGED AND MAY BE ALLOTTED l0 MINUTES TO SPEAK ON AN ITEM IF SO RECOGNIZED BY THE CHAIRMAN. pERSONS WISHING TO HAVE WRITTEN OR GRAPHIC MATERIALS INCLUDED . IN THE CCPC AGENDA PACKETS MUST SUBMIT SAID MATERIAL A MINIMUM OF 10 DAYS PRIOR TO THE RESPECTIVE PUBLIC HEARING. IN ANY CASE, WRITTEN MATERIALS INTENDED TO BE CONSIDERED BY THE CCPC SHALL BE SUBMITTED TO THE APPROPRIATE COUNTY STAFF A MINIMUM OF SEVEN DAYS PRIOR TO THE pUBLIC HEARING. ALL MATERIAL USED IN pRESENTATIONS BEFORE THE CCPC WILL BECOME A PERMANENT PART OF THE RECORD AND WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR pRESENTATION TO THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS IF APPLICABLE. ANY PERSON WHO DECIDES TO APPEAL A DECISION OF THE CCPC WILL NEED A RECORD OF THE PROCEEDINGS PERTAINING THERETO, AND THEREFORE MAY NEED TO ENSURE THAT A VERBATIM RECORD OF THE PROCEEDINGS IS MADE, WHICH RECORD INCLUDES THE TESTIMONY AND EVIDENCE UPON WHICH THE APPEAL IS TO BE BASED. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE ROLL CALL BY CLERK ADDENDA TO THE AGENDA APPROVAL OF: JANUARY 3, 2002, MINUTES PLANNING COMMISSION ABSENCES: DAVID WOLFLEY, LORA JEAN YOUNG BCC REPORT- RECAPS OF JANUARY 8 AND JANUARY 22, 2002 CHAIRMAN'S REPORT ADVERTISED PUBLIC HEARINGS A. BD-2001-AR-1608, Christian Spilker, of Turrell & Associates, Inc., representing John J. McCrohan, requesting a 30-foot boat dock extension to allow for a 50-foot boat dock with 2 slips for property located at 267 Third Street West, Bonita Springs, further described as Lot 16, Block G, Little Hickory Shores Unit 3 Replat, in Section 5, Township 48 South, Range 25 East, Collier County, Florida (Coordinator: Ross Gochenaur) B. BD-2001-AR- 1642, Christian Spilker, of Turrell & Associates, Inc.', representing Lois S. Hoskins, requesting a 30-foot boat dock extension to allow for a boat dock and boat-lift protruding a total of 50 feet into the waterway for property located at 230 Harbor Place North, Do further described as Lot 18, Block 6, Goodland Heights Amended, in Section 18, Township 52 South, Range 27 East, Collier County, Florida. (Coordinator: Ross Gochenaur) BD-2001-AR-1701, Robert E. Diem, of Hilo Capri Inc., requesting approval of a boat house for property located at 174 Hilo Drive East, in Section 32, Township 51 South, Range 26 East, further described as Lot 406, Isles of Capri No. 2. (Coordinator: Ross Gochenaur) VA-2001-AR-1584, Stan Whittemore, representing T. Michael and Barbara J. Bmtt, requesting a 5-foot variance fi.om the required 30-foot rear yard setback to 25 feet for property located at 384 Fox Den Circle, further described as Lot 32, Foxfire Ur/it 3, in Section 6, Township 50 South, Range 26 East, Collier County, Florida (Coordinator: Fred Reischl) PUDA-2001-AR-431, Tim Hancock, AICP, representing Park East Development, LTD, requesting an amendment to the Founders Plaza PUD by updating the existing PUD for the purpose of including language that permits additional retail and commercial uses on parcels that exceed 150' in depth for property located on both sides of Golden Gate Parkway at the Santa Barbara Canal Crossing in Golden Gate City, Section 28, Township 49 South, Range 26 East. (Coordinator: Ray Bellows) (CONTINUED INDEFINITELY) PUDA-2001-AR- 1133, Richard L. Woodruff, AICP, of WilsonMiller, Inc., representing The Moorings, Inc., requesting an amendment to the Moorings Park PUD for the purpose of eliminating the specific project description language and adding a general project description allowing for a full range of congregate and nursing care facilities and accessory uses including an assisted living facility and independent living units. Other changes include the revision to the list of permitted uses and accessory structures, revising the off-street parking requirements, updating the master plan to illustrate the general existing and proposed development tracts while increasing the maximum building heights fi.om one and three stories to 8 stories, for property located at 120 Moorings Park Drive, in Section 15, Township 49 South, Range 25 East, Collier County, Florida. (Coordinator: Ray Bellows) PUDZ-2001-AR-955, William L. Hoover, of Hoover Planning & Development, Inc., requesting a rezone fi.om "A" Agricultural to "PUD" Planned Unit Development to be known as Wolf Creek PUD for a residential project for a maximum of 243 dwelling units on property located along Wolf Road, approximately ½ mile west of Collier Blvd. (C.R. 951) and 3/8 mile north of Vanderbilt Beach Road (C.R. 862), in Section 34, Township 48 South, Range 26 East, Collier County, Florida, consisting of 60.84± acres. Coordinator: (Ray Bellows) (CONTINUED INDEFINITELY) CU-2001-AR- 1414, Kathy Morgan, of Land Development Consultants, representing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, requesting Conditional Use "10' of the "C-I" district and Conditional Use "2" of the RSF-3 zoning district for a church for property located in Section 32, Township 46 South, Range 29 East, Collier County, Florida, consisting of 5+ acres. (Coordinator: Fred Reischl) CU-2001-AR-1456, Dwight Nadeau, of RWA, Inc., representing Maloney and Sons Equipment, Inc., requesting Conditional Use "20" of the Industrial district for a waste recycling and transfer facility for property located at 3600 Prospect Avenue, in Section 36, Township 49 South, Range 25 East, Collier County, Florida, consisting of 4.78± acres. (Coordinator: Fred Reischl) 2 Jo RZ~2001-AR- 1743, Vincent A. Cautero, AICP, of Wilkison & Associates, Inc., representing Habitat for Humanity of Collier County, Inc., requesting a rezone from "A" Rural Agricultural to RSF-5 for a housing project for property located on the northeast comer of Little League Road and Lake Trafford Road, in Section 31, Township 46 South, Range 29 East, Collier County, Florida, consisting of 50.82-q: acres. (Coordinator: Ray Bellows) 9. OLD BUSINESS - LDC MINUTES - JANUARY 9, 2002 10. NEW BUSINESS 11. PUBLIC COMMENT ITEM 12. DISCUSSION OF ADDENDA 13. ADJOURN 2/21/01/CCPC AGENDA/SM/lo 3 February 21, 2002 CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Would you please rise and join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. (The pledge of allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I'd like to call to order the February 21st meeting of the Collier County Planning Commission. The first order of business is to call the role. Mr. Midney. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Present. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Mr. Adelstein is absent. Mr. Budd. COMMISSIONER BUDD: Here. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Abernathy here. Mrs. Young is absent. Mr. Wolfley is absent. Mr. Richardson. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Yes. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Mr. Strain. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Here. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Ray, do you have any addenda or modifications to the agenda? MR. BELLOWS: Nothing that's not already shown on the agenda. There are two continuances that are listed on the agenda. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: How long can somebody continue something indefinitely? Indefinitely? MR. BELLOWS: Yes. And-- but before they can go back on the agenda, they would have to readvertise if it passes the time limit. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: They just don't have to pay the fees again. MR. BELLOWS: They would have to pay the readvertising fees. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: For readvertising. Okay. Thank yOU. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to add a follow-up item under old business, if that's okay. Page 2 February 21, 2002 CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Go ahead. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: We need to discuss the documentation this board had asked for on, I think, January 3rd, which was copies of the Growth Management Plan adoption notebook. I'd like to bring that up with staff again. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Okay. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: We had some people come up just before the start of the meeting that were here for the continued items. Let's just make sure that they know that that's -- those are not being heard. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: All right. The two items that are not to be heard today are Item E, the Founders Plaza PUD, and Item G, the Wolf Creek PUD. Any of you who responded to this agenda with regard to those two items, they're not going to be heard today. The next item is the approval of the January 3, 2002, minutes. Any additions, corrections to those? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I move we accept the minutes. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Second? COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I'll second. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: (Unanimous response.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: (No response.) All in favor? Opposed? CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Carried. Planning Commission absences, any planned absences the next couple of meetings? (No response.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: All right. Board of County Commissioners recaps for January 8th and 22nd. Do you have anything you want to highlight in that, Ray? MR. BELLOWS: Yeah. I have a -- several things that I can Page 3 February 21, 2002 report on. The Board of County Commissioners approved the conditional use for the Rod and Gun Club. That was approved unanimously. The variance for the Vanderbilt site was approved 4 to 1, and the variance for the Glen Eagle property was denied 5 to 0. That followed the Planning Commission's recommendation of denial. The PUD for the Richland PUD that was adding the additional commercial acreage was approved by the Board of County Commissioners subject to staff's stipulations and the stipulations and changes recommended by the Planning Commission, except for the last condition that dealt with the project phasing, limiting the project to 150,000 square feet until such time as road improvements were in place. And the reasoning for that, leaving that stipulation out, was it was determined -- and it was expanded upon by the county attorney -- that we are to make our decisions based on consistency with the Growth Management Plan and, in this case, the transportation element dealing with level-of-service standards, which this project is consistent with those level-of-service standards. And to impose a larger, more stringent standard without going through the process of amending the Comprehensive Plan, in which those standards are listed, would put the county in a liability situation where the board felt that they could not make that recommendation. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Well, I think the Planning Commission ought to be moving toward amending the Growth Management Plan in that regard. MR. BELLOWS: And Dawn Wolfe -- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Is that on somebody's agenda? MR. BELLOWS: Dawn Wolfe had mentioned to the Planning Commission that, in fact, she is in the process of making those changes. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I happened to hear that portion of the -- the meeting. And, as I recall, Ray, they -- the Page 4 February 21, 2002 commissioners were persuaded that the mix in density that -- between commercial and residential and there'd be more internal trips generated, that they felt that there wouldn't be -- would not be any additional traffic on that roadway as a result of this project. And to that point I think they missed the point because we were not arguing that it would be more or less traffic. That was on the record. We were making the narrow argument that we shouldn't be approving additional commercial and let it come on-line when a roadway is in a failed situation. If you've got a roadway that's in E or F, we shouldn't be putting more traffic on it. And I think they missed the boat, and they misunderstood what we were trying to communicate to them. MR. BELLOWS: Yeah. And I think they also relied on the information presented by Dawn Wolfe and her-- I think she also made the point that the improvements to the intersection of 951 and Immokalee Road would vastly improve the traffic flow through that intersection, which also affects the perceived level of service in that area, and I think that had a lot to do with it also. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: And that's fine. If the roadway system can handle it, then let the project go forward. But we should be able to condition projects and their approval, that the COs don't come -- are not issued until the roadway's able to handle them. I mean, that just makes such common sense to me that I hope we can continue to transport that view here. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Had I known that the outcome would have been what came out of the BCC meeting, I wouldn't have voted in favor of the project, based on that one stipulation alone. My vote approved it -- recommended approval based on that stipulation. It's unfortunate that we didn't have that clarity at the time. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I have a question. Do we have anywhere how roads are graded and how they -- what are the criteria for level of service? Page 5 February 21, 2002 MR. BELLOWS: In the Growth Management Plan, the adoption notebook that you have, there's a transportation element, and in there it spells out the level of service for each road segment. The criteria how that's developed, I think that's -- the criteria that -- how those level-of-service standards are derived I don't believe is specifically spelled out in that element, but we can get you that information. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I would be -- I would really like to know that, how they decide. MR. BELLOWS: Yeah. And generally it's based on a number of factors. The number of lanes, number of access points, number of streetlights (sic), that all affects how they calculate level of service. So the more lanes you have, the more capacity the road can handle. But they also take into account the number of streetlights, which slows down traffic flow; and the number of driveway or interconnections along that road segment, which would also slow down traffic flow; and whether there's adequate level mm-lane capacity. So there's a number of factors that go into calculating the level of service on a roadway, but those are all spelled out. We have what's called a level-of-service study that was prepared by, I think, David Plummer (phonetic) & Associates, and it goes into real detail on how -- COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: If I could get a copy of that, I would really appreciate that. MR. BELLOWS: I'll talk to Dawn Wolfe and see what we can do about getting you a copy of that. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I would think that also average speed on a roadway would be interesting, too, because I know, for example, on the highways along Los Angeles, the average speed is only about 30 miles an hour. So even though their speed limit is very Page 6 February 21, 2002 high, just because of congestion. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Anything else? MR. BELLOWS: The last item was the board continued the Goodlette Comers PUD to allow the petitioner time to, I think, meet with some of the residents in and around that area. They may want to be trying to, like the Planning Commission, reduce some of the uses in that PUD. I think the board would also like to see some additional uses eliminated from the PUD and maybe some other alternatives looked at in dealing with that lake that's behind-- the borrow pit/lake that's behind the project. So the petitioner agreed to continue and is working to try to resolve those issues. That's all I have. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: The next item is the chairman's report. I don't have anything in a formal sense, but if you'll indulge me, I wanted to pass on an anecdote. I was speaking with a little lady -- to tell you how we're perceived in the community, I was speaking with a little lady who is a neighbor of mine, and we were talking about what we were up to today. And I said, "Well, I've got to get up early and go to a Planning Commission meeting at 8:30." And she said, "That sounds important." She said, 'Tll bet it lasts all morning too." And I said, "Well, sometimes." And she said, "Well, I hope they give you folks a good breakfast." So being mindful of that TV commercial for one of the car rental places, I said, "Not exactly. They let us bring our own coffee, and that's it." So moving right along to the advertised public hearings, first is BD-2001-AR- 1608, Christian Spilker of Turrell & Associates representing John J. McCrohan, requesting a 30-foot boat dock extension. All wishing to testify on this item should rise and be SWOrn. (The speakers were sworn.) MR. GOCHENAUR: Good morning, Commissioners. For the record, Ross Gochenaur, planning services. The petitioner is Page 7 February 21, 2002 requesting a 30-foot extension to create a docking facility protruding a total of 50 feet into a waterway which is 380 feet wide. The property is located on Third Street West, Lot 16, Block G, Little Hickory Shores, Unit 3 replat. It contains about 30 feet of water frontage. The project consists of the construction of a walkway situated perpendicular to the shoreline and accessing two boat lifts, one on either side. The property is a small, so-called boat dock lot for which a conditional use has been approved allowing a dock as a principal structure. The side setback variance has also been approved for this lot to 0 feet. A number of similar extensions have been approved in the area, including one on -- excuse me -- one to 45 feet on nearby Lot 9. The property line of the lot is 9 feet into the waterway, and the proposed dock would only protrude 41 feet beyond the property line. No objections to this petition have been received. It meets all criteria, and staff recommends approval. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any questions of staff?. Petitioner? MR. SPILKER: Not unless you have any questions. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Questions of the petitioner? Any member of the public registered to speak? MR. BELLOWS: No registered speakers. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I close the public hearing. Do I have a motion? COMMISSIONER BUDD: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion that we approve petition BD-2001-AR-1608 subject to the stipulations listed in the resolution. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Is there a second? I'll second. Second by Mr. Adelstein. Midney. Page 8 February 21, 2002 CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Midney. I'm sorry. He's in Adelstein's seat. Any further discussion? All in favor? (Unanimous response.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: 5-0. Next item, BD-2001-AR- 1642, Christian Spilker ofTurrell & Associates representing Lois S. Hoskins, requesting a 30-foot boat dock extension. All persons expecting to testify -- wishing to testify on this item, rise and be sworn. (The speakers were sworn.) MR. GOCHENAUR: For the record, Ross Gochenaur, planning services. The petitioner is requesting a 30-foot extension to create a docking facility protruding a total of 50 feet into a waterway which is about 640 feet wide. The property is located at 230 Harbor Place on Goodland and contains about a hundred feet of water frontage. The project consists of the construction of an L-shaped dock with mooring pilings at the terminal end. A boat lift originally proposed has been eliminated as the result of an agreement with the neighboring property owner. The mooring pilings will remain, but there will be no boat lift. An existing dock on the property is to be removed. The extension is necessary to construct a viable dock designed around a large, partially submerged concrete slab located just offshore, and I think this photograph pretty well illustrates that. No objections to this project have been received. The project meets all relevant criteria, and staff, therefore, recommends approval. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Questions from staff?. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I guess that concrete slab can't be very easily moved, huh? MR. GOCHENAUR: No, sir, not easily. Page 9 February 21, 2002 CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any other questions of staff?. Petitioner? MR. SPILKER: If you have any questions. I might state that that slab is 4 feet wide by 40 feet long. It's quite a piece, so we have no idea how it got there to begin with. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: One of the unsolved mysteries of life. MR. SPILKER: Right. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any registered speakers? MR. BELLOWS: No registered speakers. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Ross, this is along the same area where we had another one not too long ago that went out quite a bit further, and we pulled it back, up around the comer there? MR. GOCHENAUR: Yes, sir, that's correct. That would have been -- COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: This is quite a bit shorter than that one. MR. GOCHENAUR: Yes, sir, it is. Also, this is a unique situation. Where the lot's located, there's not going to be any development to the west. The property owner to the east has agreed to the project, and there is that big slab. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: There being no public speakers, I'll close the public hearing. COMMISSIONER BUDD: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion that the Planning Commission approve Petition BD-2001- AR- 1642 subject to the stipulations listed in the resolution. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: further discussion? All in favor signify by saying aye. Mr. Midney? I'll second it. A motion and a second. Any Page 10 February 21, 2002 (Unanimous response.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: 5-0. The next item is BD-2001- AR-1701, Robert E. Dietz of Hilo Capri, Incorporated, requesting approval of a boathouse. All persons desiring to testify on this item, rise and be sworn. (The speakers were sworn.) MR. GOCHENAUR: For the record, Ross Gochenaur, planning services. The petitioner is requesting approval of a boathouse to be constructed in conjunction with a boat dock, which would not exceed the 20-foot protrusion limit allowed by the Land Development Code. An existing dock on the property is to be removed. The property is located at ! 74 Hilo Court in Isles of Capri and contains about ! 34 feet of water frontage. The facility would meet all code criteria for a boathouse, and the roof would match that of the principal structure. There are four existing boathouses in the immediate area of the subject property, including one on each adjacent lot. And that would be the lot to the east and the lot to the west. We've received no objections to this project. It meets all criteria, and staff recommends approval. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Questions of staff?. Ross, I'm struck by the difference between those two boathouses on either side. The pitch of the roof of the first one blocks out a whole lot of view, where the pitch of the roof of the second one blocks out practically none. Is there some limit on how steeply pitched a roof can be? MR. GOCHENAUR: No, sir. limitation. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: MR. GOCHENAUR: Yes, sir. There's a straight 15-foot Fifteen foot at the highest point? Page 11 February 21, 2002 CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: So it could come down 5 or 6 or 10 feet? MR. GOCHENAUR: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Do we need to restrict that in any way? MR. GOCHENAUR: We haven't had any particular objections to this. People seem to feel that -- boathouses are a little strange since the considerations are all aesthetic. And I get the general impression that people feel that the peaked roof is more attractive, even though it blocks the view, than the flat roof here that -- that blocks very little view. Again, where aesthetics are concerned, I'm not really sure we'd be wise to try to get into that area. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Okay. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: One reason the adjoining properties might not object is because they can't see it until after it's built, and then it's too late. MR. GOCHENAUR: Well, I think also the fact that each adjoining property has its own boathouse is probably a factor here as well. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Better yet, they might want to build one themselves. Any other questions? Does the petitioner wish to be heard? MR. DIETZ: Mr. Gochenaur has accurately described my petition. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I think you-- you're not being picked up by the mike. MR. DIETZ: Robert Dietz. If there are any questions, I will answer them. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Questions of the petitioner? Any speakers registered from the public? MR. BELLOWS: No registered speakers. Page 12 February 21, 2002 CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Close the public hearing. COMMISSIONER BUDD: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion that the Planning Commission approve Petition BD-2001- AR- 1701 subject to any stipulations listed in the resolution of adoption. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Do I have a second? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I'll second. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Mr. Midney. Any further discussion? All in favor signify by saying aye. (Unanimous response.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Opposed by like sign. (No response.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: 5-0. Next item is VA-2001-AR- 1584, Start Whittemore requesting -- representing T. Michael and Barbara J. Brott, requesting a 5-foot variance from required 30-foot rear yard setback. All personnel (sic) wishing to testify on this item, rise and be sworn. (The speakers were sworn.) MR. REISCHL: Good morning, Commissioners, Fred Reischl, planning services. This is a request for a 5-foot variance from a 30- foot rear yard located in Foxfire subdivision. You can see on the map the location of the lot, closer to the Radio Road side of Foxfire. In this portion of Foxfire, the required rear yard for a principal structure is 30 feet, and the required accessory structure setback is 10 feet. Currently -- currently there is a patio that -- where you can see is the solid pink there, and what the petitioner is proposing is to enclose that patio making it part of the principal structure and adding an additional 5 feet. And, as you can see from the zoning map on here, there were Page 13 February 21, 2002 two similar variances in these locations. Here's the petitioner's lot, two similar variances that have been previously approved. There is no land-related hardship; however, staff believes there are several ameliorating factors. It's adjacent to a storm water lake. You can see the lake here and the two adjacent houses. The two adjacent houses - - and I apologize for the fuzziness of this next one, but it was -- I think it showed it a little better. The two adjacent houses each have pool cages, which go out farther than the 5 feet for the proposed addition. And, again, those pool cages are only held to a 1 O-foot setback. This is for a 30-foot setback -- or it's a variance from a 30- foot setback. And we did receive a letter of no objection from the association, and I have received no objections from any of the homeowners within 500 feet who were notified. And, therefore, staff recommends approval. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Just point on this map where -- how far out the new extension would go. MR. REISCHL: Probably out close to where the shadow is. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So the pool cages are not considered structures, then, in that sense? MR. REISCHL: They're considered accessory structures, and they're only required to be set back 10 feet from the property line. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Fred, what does the language in the PUD development standard say for a setback of principal structure? MR. REISCHL: Thirty feet. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay. Is this changing the language of the PUD, or is there flexibility built into the PUD that allows this language to be changed outside the PUD document? MR. REISCHL: As a variance, yes. There can be a variance to the standards in the PUD. Page 14 February 21, 2002 MS. STUDENT: Just for the record, Marjorie Student, assistant county attorney. A PUD is a zoning district, like any other in the code. Well, I mean, it is different because you basically design your own district. But variances are allowed in the code in all zoning districts if there's an issue such as this, and we have granted variances in the past in PUDs. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Thank you. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any other questions of staff?. Any registered public speakers? MR. BELLOWS: No registered public speakers. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I'll close the public hearing. MR. REISCHL: Mr. Chairman, the petitioner is here if you have any questions of him. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Do we have any questions of the petitioner? I'm sorry. Now I'll close the public hearing. COMMISSIONER BUDD: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion that the Planning Commission forward Petition VA-2001- AR- 1584 to the Board of Zoning Appeals with a recommendation of approval subject to the conditions in the resolution. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: comments? I'd like to second. Mr. Midney, second. Any I'd like to say that from my point of view, this petition is devoid of merit, but for the fact that the people who live around it and -- and the governing body support it, I could.not. But if they don't mind it, then far be it for me to mind it. Any other comments? All in favor? (Unanimous response.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Opposed? (No response.) Page 15 February 21, 2002 CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: 5-0. The next item, PUDA- 200 I-AR- 1133, Richard L. Woodruff of WilsonMiller representing The Moorings, Incorporated, requesting an amendment to the Moorings Park PUD. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: communications to reveal? COMMISSIONER STRAIN: COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: his name. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: yOU. Disclosures? Do we have ex parte I do. I spoke with -- I don't remember Who did he represent? Yeah. Mr. Yovanovich. Thank COMMISSIONER BUDD: I also had a brief conversation with Mr. Yovanovich regarding this petition. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I had a phone conversation with Mr. Yovanovich and went over a series of issues that I had concerning this petition that I told him I would rebring up today. One of those was addressed by his consult -- Mr. Woodruff before the meeting starting concerning the FAR ratio, so I spoke with him also. And I also talked to a gentleman by the name of Mr. Hale. And at that time I didn't have any package, so I really didn't have much to discuss other than the fact that it was coming before us. That's all I've got to say. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: And I have no disclosures. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: (Shook head.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: All those wishing to testify on this item, rise and be sworn. (The speakers were sworn.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any other members of the public who didn't get that cue that want to testify about this but weren't Page 16 February 21, 2002 sworn? AUDIENCE MEMBER: I do. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Thank you. Go ahead, Mr. Bellows. MR. BELLOWS: For the record, Ray Bellows, current planning staff. The petitioner is requesting an amendment to the Moorings Park PUD, and the PUD is located on the east side of Goodlette- Frank Road, as you can see on the visualizer, and south of Pine Ridge Road. The petitioner is requesting an amendment that will change the general project description as currently listed in the PUD document to one that allows for more flexibility in determining the mix of congregate and nursing care facilities along with accessory uses that include assisted living and independent living units. Other changes include the list -- a list of permitted uses and accessory structures derived from the project description and revising the parking requirements to be consistent with the Land Development Code, the parking section within the Land Development Code. The currently approved master plan will be updated to depict the existing developed area, and those will be located in Tract A on your master plan, and the future development areas will be located in Tracts B and C. And the PUD document goes on to list the types of buildings that will go in B and C. Tract B will allow for building heights of-- that are currently restricted to one- and three-story-type structures to allow up to two five-story structures with a maximum building height of 55 feet. That would be in Tract B. And in Tract A they're proposing one eight-story structure with a maximum height of 95 feet. The Moorings Park PUD was first approved in 1979 and amended in 1980 and '83. The project is currently developed as an assisted living facility with skilled nursing uses. The site currently Page 17 February 21, 2002 contains two existing eight-story structures, and I have an air photo and some pictures that are in your packet that kind of depicts the -- the structures' size and location. As you can see, the two existing eight-story structures are located near and adjacent to the abutting golf course to the east. The residential single-family development is to the east of that golf course. The existing landscaping and buffering along the project tends to buffer the height of the buildings, eight-story structures, and I have a photograph of that. As you can see, the existing landscaping along the golf course side provides a lot of screening and buffering. This is the existing eight-story building. The -- that picture was taken approximately from this location, at the parking lot here, of the golf course facility. The traffic impact review indicates that because they're not really increasing the intensity of uses within this proposed PUD, that there are no additional traffic site-generated trips resulting from this proposed amendment. There are also no environmental issues. This' project was not required to go before the EAC. I have a copy of the master plan to show you. The previous master plan did not designate tracts of development. However, because a portion of this project is already developed, it was deemed the best way to depict the existing and proposed conditions is to create tracts. Tract A would show where all the existing structures are -- have been developed, and Tract B, which fronts along the golf course to the east and to the south. This would be Tract C where the proposed eight-story structure would go. Staff, in reviewing for compatibility with this -- with the adjacent projects, made extensive site visits. I had a lot of extensive discussions with residents within the surrounding communities, primarily in the golf course community to the east. Much of the concern was, of course, the building height and fear of view blockage Page 18 February 21, 2002 of (sic) these structures when constructed. The Land Development Code doesn't have any stringent controls on height. The petitioner is eligible to ask for these building heights. There's nothing in the Comprehensive Plan or Land Development Code that I can review to say, "You exceed a maximum height limit in this area." There's no criteria that I go by other than compatibility with adjacent uses. Given the fact that the subject PUD has existing eight-story structures, two of them, that are well landscaped and buffered, that played a primary significance in staffs determination of compatibility, along with the fact that this is adjacent to a golf course that has several layers of-- of buffering of landscaping. The-- there are no other taller structures on adjacent properties within the immediate area, so that does lend some difficulty in recommending approval. I understand the residents' concerns about building height, and we have worked with the petitioner to put a little more criteria in on limiting the heights by providing a specific height in feet. The original application did not state that. And we also have reduced the number of stories from the original submission, along in the Tract B area, to five stories. Given the changes made by the petitioner and the fact that we have a golf course separating the single-family community and -- and the landscaping that's there and will be provided by this developer, staff is recommending the proposed amendment as proposed would be approved. And I'd be happy to answer any questions. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Mr. Richardson. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Yeah. Ray, the -- you say the last PUD change was 1983. Can you give me any sense as to what the nature of those last changes were? Did it have anything to do with increases of density or intensity? MR. BELLOWS: No, I don't believe there was any increased Page 19 February 21, 2002 intensity. I don't recall the exact nature of them, but I think they were more just minor changes dealing, maybe, with development standards. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: But it's fair to say that what we have in front of us, what is approved on those tracts, is a maximum building height of one to three stories. MR. BELLOWS: Currently approved, yes. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: All right. I'm a little puzzled with your conclusion that going to an eight-story building there is not going to be increasing dens -- intensity. MR. BELLOWS: Well, you're taking the number of square footage and units that are currently allowed in the document but spread out over the entire tract and combining it into one larger structure. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So you're, representing for the applicant that there -- that there will be a sufficient number of one- and three-story structures that will offset the exact square footage from-- MR. BELLOWS: That's my understanding in discussions with the applicant-- COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: That's not -- MR. BELLOWS: -- that we were not resulting in an increase in intensity. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So that's what's meant by that statement? MR. BELLOWS: That's correct. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: This fall -- fell under the public participation plan? I noticed a sign was up on this property. MR. BELLOWS: This petition was -- originally went through the preapplication meeting process prior to the requirement that the applicant go through the public information meeting process prior to Page 20 February 21, 2002 submitting. However, they have voluntarily met with residents and held their own public meeting requirements. This has been required to post the signage, though, that has been adopted since this petition was submitted, and they have placed the signs on the site as required. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: But we have no record of that -- of those meetings or any commitments that were made as a result of those meetings? MR. BELLOWS: That's correct, because it was submitted prior to the -- that requirement being adopted by the board. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Another question about your conclusion that -- staff's conclusion that the eight-story building is compatible with the rest of the property. And I'm looking at it -- and, of course, we've all driven by there a number of times. The other eight-story buildings are quite a bit further north. MR. BELLOWS: That's correct. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: You know, near Pine Ridge Road. And when you get down to the southern part of this property, as you pointed out, there are no other high buildings. So I'm not sure that you can justify on this same tract the compatibility. You have to take into account -- it would seem to me you would take into account the -- the area in which this eight-story building is being proposed. Just looking at it, it would -- it seems quite incompatible. I would think the density height restrictions of-- that were there in the PUD that's currently in place would be much more appropriate to the -- to the area, compatibility-wise. MR. BELLOWS: Yeah. I think in your handout that was handed out this morning, these photographs depicting the radius from the proposed structures and the existing eight-story structures, 'given the - - what the impact would be in the surrounding community. And, really, there's no difference in the impact from the existing structures versus the proposed structure in -- in its impact on the community. Page 21 February 21, 2002 The project will be landscaped in the same way. It's the same project in dealing with the uses. The criteria -- like, the City of Naples has adopted an area wide building height restriction. The county does not have anything like that that -- other than what's in -- the maximum building heights permitted in the standard zoning districts, such as the RSF-4 or C-5 that have standard building heights derived from that. But it's not based on any comprehensive study or overview of where building heights are applicable. We are dealing with a site that has two existing eight-story structures. It's definitely a gray area and a call that's difficult to make. I had a long time making a difficult decision on how to make a recommendation concerning something that doesn't have black-and- white criteria on how to measure compatibility. It really is a subjective determination. And given the fact that we do have the golf course separating the residences and a large landscape buffer between the two, there is no problems with the circulation of light and air or shadows casting on adjacent properties. There is a precedent set for existing eight-story structures on the site. Given all those factors, I decided that limiting the building height in feet and reducing some of the building heights along Tract B would be the best way to go. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Ray, let me just ask this: If these eight-story buildings -- I don't know exactly when they were built. But if they had a PUD in 1979 and 1980, I suspect those structures -- and we'll find out for sure. Perhaps you know. I suspect they were built prior to the time that a lot of this residential area around it was actually in place. MR. BELLOWS: I believe you're correct. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So, you know, to say that there's -- that the people that have come in subsequent to the building being there and saying that's the reason for your compatibility, you know, we've got a cart-and-a-horse problem here. If you've got Page 22 February 21, 2002 buildings that are eight stories high and I choose to buy a piece of property and move into it, I know that building's there, and I take that into consideration in my health and welfare of being on that property. But now we're talking about a new structure being proposed of eight stories, and you've got people that are already there, you know. And we've got a lot of letters here, and I'm sure we're going to hear some people that have some concerns. It seems to me that should weigh into staffs view about compatibility, and I haven't heard you speak to that point. MR. BELLOWS: Yes. I did meet with many of the residents personally and talked to them on the phone and have received the letters and made several site visits out there. It's -- it's an area that-- given the fact, as I previously discussed, the nature and the location of these buildings -- I drove up and down that single-family neighborhood and also in the neighborhood to the west. And compatibility is difficult when you're dealing with existing development versus proposed development. There is some criteria in height. And I understand that normally if we weren't dealing with such a large parcel, if we were dealing with a typical C-4 sized lot where we had very little yards to deal with to buffer and screen the site and the adjacent properties would be a lot closer, then I think that definitely the compatibility concern would be such that it would be difficult to recommend approval for such a building height. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Well, let me serve notice I'm from Missouri, so I'll remain to be convinced. MR. BELLOWS: And like I mentioned in my presentation, it's a subjective determination. I tried to make the best call I could given the existing conditions. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I've got some questions. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Go ahead. Page 23 February 21, 2002 COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Ray, on the Parcel B, what is the height, maximum height, that buildings could be there under the old PUD? Do you know? MR. BELLOWS: The PUD didn't list the maximum feet in -- height in feet. It just limited it in number of stories, and I believe it was one story. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I agree with you. I think it was maybe 12 units. I think the -- MR. BELLOWS: Oh, number of units? COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Well, no. I mean, it said 12 units. It may have been three stories. I'm not sure which, but that leads me to my real question. In reviewing the old PUD and not finding any limitation on height, just a limitation on story, what does that mean in your review? How would you look at that from a -- I mean, could someone come in with a 30-foot-high story? MR. BELLOWS: Well, many of the residents had complained about the church that was constructed, that it met the criteria in number of stories, but it had a very tall roofline, which they felt made the structure actually maybe three or four stories in height. If it was a flat-roofed building, you could probably build that within the height limitation of that church structure and -- a good point. And that was one of the reasons we decided that -- as staff, that we have -- not just list building height maximums as stories but as limited in number of feet. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay. Well, let me, I guess, look at it a different way then. If someone came in for a three-story building on Parcel B -- and I -- by the graphic that I have on an 8 1/2 by 11 that looks like it's been faxed ten times so it's kind of blurry, it looks like there was maybe three-story buildings -- they're calling them 12-unit apartments -- in that location. If they were to put a three-story building there and they showed the three stories equaling, Page 24 February 21, 2002 say, 17 feet per story, would staff accept that? MR. BELLOWS: I would say we'd have to because there is no maximum in feet. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: That's what I was getting at. So, in essence, there was no real height limitation on the previous PUD, just a story limitation. MR. BELLOWS: That's correct. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: On the existing eight-story buildings, the one to the north, based on the information we received this morning -- it was one of the questions I had asked Mr. Yovanovich, is the distance to the nearest residential units on the -- towards the east -- it looks like the existing are 600 feet from the east residential units, is that correct, on the existing eight stories? MR. BELLOWS: That's correct. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: And the new proposed eight story would be 800 feet? MR. BELLOWS: That's correct. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay. That's most -- and the last question I think I'll ask Mr. Woodruff when he gets up here. Thank you. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any questions? Ray, I was struck by the fact that the minimum setback for the two five-story buildings is 28 feet. Isn't that sort of minimalist? MR. BELLOWS: Well, it's a narrow tract, and that's -- creates some problems with developing structures. The setbacks in a similar zoning district, say, the C-4 zoning district, would allow for a 100- foot-tall building but would have less setbacks. But that is a commercial zoning district, and if the commercial zoning district, a C-4, abutted a residential, the only -- the minimum setback requirement would be 25 feet. So this exceeds -- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: For a five-story building? Page 25 February 21, 2002 MR. BELLOWS: Yes. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: In your find -- excuse me. In your "Findings for PUD," page 1, No. 1, the second paragraph, "Any inadequacies that require supplementing the PUD document will be recommended to the BCC as conditions of approval by staff. Recommended mitigation measures will assure compliance with LOS relationships as prescribed by the GMP." So is this another way of saying that we're passing on something that's incomplete? MR. BELLOWS: No. I think basically that statement is intended that the level-of-service standards as defined in the Growth Management Plan will not be degraded by this petition. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: But what about this inadequacies that require supplementing? MR. BELLOWS' If, for example, this project generated traffic that degraded the level of service, the mitigation would have to be in some sort of road improvement or some other form of mitigation. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I know -- I know traffic tends to follow rather than precede our approvals but -- MR. BELLOWS: Water and sewer would be another example, if there was a deficiency in water or sewer capacity. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: And those are not capable of being known now? MR. BELLOWS: Well, there's no specific development plan in front of us to review for that particular thing. However, these petitions are sent to the utilities department, and they review the project, and they -- I believe some information is provided on needs and demand from the project, and they make a level-of-service determination. But certificates of appropriateness and adequate public facilities is issued at the time of site development plan review. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: You're leading me just where I wanted to go. The SDP process in the county, SDP is approved by Page 26 February 21, 2002 planning staff, not by either the CCPC or the BCC; is that right? MR. BELLOWS: It's reviewed administratively by planning services and community development staff and other department agencies, such as fire, transportation, to ensure that the project meets all code requirements. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: But no -- MR. BELLOWS: No public hearing. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: -- supervisory power outside the paid staff of the county? MR. BELLOWS: That's correct. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Is that going to be -- excuse me. Is that going to be the case under the hearing examiner setup? Is he going to see -- MR. BELLOWS: My understanding -- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: -- site plans? MR. BELLOWS: -- is that the hearing examiner would be reviewing rezones, conditional uses, and variances and not site development plans. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any consideration given to changing that and bringing site development plans back before the -- at least the hearing examiner? MR. BELLOWS: I think I'd have to defer that to the community development administrator. MR. SCHMITT: Good morning. For the record, Joe Schmitt, administrator, community development, environmental services. We're currently looking at an amendment to Land Development Codes, and we're looking at what codes will be amended. That issue has not been raised nor specifically directed towards my division, as far as amending to have site development plans brought before the Planning Commission and the Board of County Commissioners. But that being said, from -- I think the way the board is moving and Page 27 February 21, 2002 the direction that the board is moving now, the Board of County Commissioners, we're being asked to defend -- or more definite answers. When we come in with a -- a PUD, those PUDs are almost to the point where they're almost -- could be called preliminary site development plans and -- because of the evolution of this process, both the demands from the public on specificity as to what is going to be built and where it's going to be built; and my counterpart, Norm Feder, administrator in transportation, also what he needs from a standpoint in the review process of ingress and egress and specific points. So, no, there's not been -- to answer your question, no, there's not been any direction for us to do that, but I -- I see the evolutionary process, that we're going to be moving in that direction. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Well, my suggestion is that you think of that as an alternative. It seems to me, in view of the recent past, somewhat chaotic, history in the planning department that somebody outside the planning hierarchy needs to take a look at these things. And I wasn't suggesting the planning -- I mean, the Board of County Commissioners. I would think either the Planning -- the Planning Commission or the hearing examiner, when he takes over that function. Whether all the uses are spelled out at this stage of the game or whether they have to be spelled out when this outside person looks at the site development plan, that would give the developer a little more time to refine what uses it is that he really wants. So I'm not staking my reputation on it, but I think it's an alternative way of accomplishing what you want to acc -- what the BCC, apparently, wants to accomplish. MR. SCHMITT: Mr. Chairman, I mean, my only recommendation is that from your position and the Planning Commission's position, you may want to propose that to the board for consideration. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: All right. Page 28 February 21, 2002 MR. SCHMITT: Because it would -- basically would have to be a proposal, and then the board would-- would give us direction to begin to amend the LDC to move in that direction. So I think that's well within your-- your charter to do that. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: It just strikes me as just one of two ways to -- MR. SCHMITT: And realize, also, that that does have a significant impact on the staff because it does create a -- much more of a bureaucratic process to get -- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: A hearing for them. MR. SCHMITT: -- to get projects through the -- through the review process. And I'm sure members of the development community will certainly voice their opinions as we propose that change, if that change to the LDC is proposed. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I certainly support the chairman's view on this because what we're missing and have apparently missed considerably over the past few years in this community is a check and balance on what is happening between the development community and the professional staff. And by all good intentions, perhaps, some things have gone by, but it's left the community holding the bag, and I think this is a reaction to that. And, as you know, in many other jurisdictions in the country -- I know Marjorie and I come from New Jersey area -- site development plan is clearly a public process -- MR. SCHMITT: Right. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: -- in front of the community. MR. SCHMITT: Right. And I was going to defer to Marjorie on that. But this is a great example, because Ray is -- is faced with a situation here that -- that -- from the way the LDC is written now -- and naturally there's what he defined as compatibility when you look Page 29 February 21, 2002 at the site. But from the standpoint of the staff, there -- there's nothing to really point a finger at to say that this could not be supported from the staff as far as reasons why -- the questions being asked to Ray and the reasons why the staff would basically defend its position as to why it's recommending approval, because, again, there's nothing in the code that says we -- we should not. But I'll turn to Marjorie as far as a legal opinion. MS. STUDENT: Thank you, Mr. Schmitt. Yes, I did practice land use law in New Jersey, and their site plans go before, and I have represented folks going before, planning commissions with site plans many years ago now, back in 1985. And I've been with the county for 14 years, so I have a historical perspective as well. In New Jersey you have several municipalities that comprise a county. And, also, the areas that would appear to be unincorporated are what are called townships, and they are considered municipalities as well, so you don't have the same geographic area. And it is evident, the way the board is going, it would be to look at PUDs with more specificity or, in the alternative, look at site plans. The only thing that I would offer -- and this is something that would need to be considered by staff as well as the board, and Ray may be able to give the correct figure, but I believe in a year anywhere between 150 to 200 site plans pass through the county. So that becomes a staffing issue and also an issue for how many hours different reviewing bodies are going to be sitting in meetings and a devotion of staff time to the -- that effort, and that would be bringing site plans through the process. And my only point in referencing New Jersey -- because a lot of people say, "Oh, don't come to Florida and say how you did it up north" -- is because there the county is broken up into maybe, in my county, Cape May County, 15 municipalities possibly, so you have 15 Planning Commissions that are reviewing site plans. And I think, just my observation, what makes some sense and more specificity, Page 30 February 21, 2002 almost site plan approval, in PUDs would be to have some kind of acreage limitation. In smaller ones or infill ones where they have impacts on neighboring properties, it makes a lot of sense to do it that way. From the legal perspective, the more -- I mean we have -- we've been sued on site plans anyway, but it's just more quasi-judicial boards, more quasi-judicial hearings, and there is a even larger opportunity, you know, for lawsuits and so forth to be filed. Not that they can't now, because under our procedures for interpretation of a site plan approval, we had one like that. You might remember the Dolphin Cove project in Goodland. So that's just a perspective based on my history here and my experience up north and that it's certainly worthwhile looking into, but the staffing considerations and the number of hours we're going to have meetings is something that's a consideration. MR. BELLOWS: And, Mr. Chairman, ifI may add, projects such as this are reviewed for consistency with the Land Development Code and with the Comprehensive Plan and with other overlay districts. Marjorie mentioned the Goodland -- in Goodland an overlay was created to restrict and regulate building heights to help residents have that assurance that future development would be consistent with their needs. Now, there is no overlay in this area that would regulate building height. There is ample opportunities to create special planning districts in this area. Even though we're dealing with a primarily developed area, there's still a lot of infill parcels that are -- that can be developed and redevelopment potential for increased building heights. I think it would be prudent upon communities that feel that building height is an issue to undertake an overlay or a -- such as the East Naples Master Plan or the Immokalee Master Plan, which also has more specific building height restrictions versus what the Land Page 31 February 21, 2002 Development Code currently allows. I think that is probably the better way of handling certain landscape and design on architectural issues versus bringing site development plans which are -- go into the hundreds before a public hearing. The intent is creating stringent ordinances and codes where each project would have to be consistent with to ensure that the development meets the needs of the community. That would be, I think, the more logical way of going about these things because those would be done through a public hearing process, to create those additional architectural, landscape, building height restrictions. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Well, that would kind of lead into something that may help with this particular PUD. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: A little louder. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: That would -- that might lead -- your statements may lead to something that will help with this particular PUD application. If you were to look at Section 2, Item 4(B)(2), Ray, do you see any objection from staffs viewpoint if that paragraph was removed? What it says, so that everybody knows what we're talking about, any other accessory uses which are comparable in nature with the foregoing uses and which the planning services director determines to be compatible. MR. BELLOWS: We had that stipulation removed from one of the other PUDs recently permitted, and the Board of County Commissioners felt that that was reasonable, and they also recommended that be deleted. I think the applicant agreed to do that. I think that was the Richland PUD. So I definitely don't think staff would have a problem with that. The applicant might but ... CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: The BCC supported removing it? MR. BELLOWS: That's correct. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: That would take a lot of flexibility out of a lot of PUDs as they move forward, so maybe that's Page 32 February 21, 2002 something we all would be watchful for from now on. But Richard could try if he'd like. I'm sure he will. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any other questions? COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I have one issue -- last issue to -- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I have one too. Go ahead. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I'd like to talk about traffic, Ms. Wolfe. Or perhaps, Ray, you can answer it. Your assessment -- MR. BELLOWS: I think I'd prefer to defer to Dawn Wolfe. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I didn't want to cast any aspersions on your capabilities. MR. BELLOWS: That's fine. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I notice in the summary it says adopted service level on Goodlette-Frank is D and E. Frankly, I didn't even know we had an E. I thought it went from D to F, but I guess that's getting pretty close to a failed roadway; is that correct? MS. WOLFE: E is -- Dawn Wolfe, transportation planning department director. There are varying levels, and the board has recently endorsed the use of Level of Service E for somewhat constrained roadway facilities. And those are the adopted level-of- service standards due to the fact that they have not yet been improved from a four- to a six-lane, in this case, of the portion that runs through the county. At such time as it may be widened to six lanes, we would, of course, increase that level-of-service standard to D as being a preferable one. But until such time as it's improved, that's generally the standard. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Dawn, doesn't -- isn't E an interim level, like a two-year level? I was reading the comp plan, and there was some, I thought, limitation on the time frame that E can be in Page 33 February 21, 2002 place, and it's a transition period or something; is that right or wrong? Do you know? MS. WOLFE: It's not been applied just as an interim. And in cases where we have constrained roadway facilities, such as Pine Ridge Road, six lanes, Airport Pulling Road with six lanes, a Level of Service E is more than likely going to be the maintained standard, not the interim standard. Interim standard of E is when you have the ability to improve it. And that would be the case on this section of Goodlette, is it's an interim level of-- standard until such time as we can improve it. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Thank you. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Let me understand the policy here. We have a level of service of E that's permitted on this roadway. Now, at what point, from your assessment, would this -- would we fail and become an F roadway? Would one more car at the bottom end of E cause it to become F? MS. WOLFE: I don't have that information in front of me because that assessment was not applied to this proposal. Because this proposal is maintaining its dense -- total, overall density, it was deemed not to have any additional impact. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Well, Dawn, I know that's what's been stated, but I'm -- we're going to probe that with the applicants. And I'm just suggesting that if this intensity goes beyond what is currently permitted, at that point it would kick into a review, then, for a traffic department? MS. WOLFE: They are -- yes, sir. They're subject to the adequate public facilities ordinance at such time as they come forward with either their site or their building plan, and we would review it to determine whether or not sufficient capacity was available at that time to issue that. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So that's back at the SDP Page 34 February 21, 2002 process, then. MS. WOLFE: Yes. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: That's beyond our consideration of this issue, then. MS. WOLFE: And it can be waived until the building permit stage, under the current ordinance. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Waived by whom? MS. WOLFE: The applicant can -- can decide not to apply for that adequate public facilities certificate until the building permit stage. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I'm just trying to close in a gap here between where -- when a roadway is moving towards a failed situation, and they've come to us. And, you know, in the broad scheme of things, it looks like they're not going to add that much more capacity -- use up that much more capacity in the roadway system. And we go along with it, and the BCC goes along with it. And then you get down to the actual case, and the cumulative effect, as we've talked about, of all of these other projects has created a roadway system that's moving towards failure or may be in a failed condition, yet they can go sailing merrily right along and get approval because they got it, you know, on the administrative level way back when. And I -- I don't see that gap being closed so that we really control COs to relate to the capacity actually being there and available to handle that traffic in a failed roadway situation. MS. WOLFE: Staffs currently working on a rewrite of the Adequate Public Facility Ordinance as it applies to transportation to tighten up that hole that you're describing, to put more emphasis on the determination being forced to be made at the SDP level versus waiting until the application is submitted for a building permit. We're working with local counsel as well as our Tallahassee attorneys, who are very experienced in that area, in providing and Page 3 5 February 21, 2002 developing a revised transportation concurrency management system that we anticipate will help close this gap. But it will also require changes to the Growth Management Plan and other sections of the Land Development Code in regards to what we allow for consideration of available capacity. There's varying limitations that can be permitted under both statute and rule in regards to either existing plus under construction or existing up to five years of a local plan and three years of the state work program. Our current is three years at the state and local program. So those are things that we are looking at as we are modifying and trying to tighten our ability to keep a handle on how growth is going to affect our roadway system, and that will be coming forward in the next few months under the LDC cycle. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Is there any doubt in your mind, Dawn, about how this commission feels on that issue? MS. WOLFE: No, sir. And we are working to resolve that issue. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Okay. I've beat the horse enough. Thank you. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Thank you, Dawn. Ray, I have one more matter to discuss, and that's my petulance, I guess is a good word for it, over the boilerplate, deathless prose that is used in some of the rezone findings. For instance, Question No. 10 asks whether the proposed change will adversely affect property values in the adjacent area. Well, there are two long sentences that respond to that, one of which talks about underutilized land, of which there is none that I can see here. But the -- the ultimate sentence says, "The mere fact that a property is given a new zoning designation or amendment may or may not affect value." Well, having read the whole paragraph, the answer is, well, it may or it may not. Well -- Page 36 February 21, 2002 MR. BELLOWS: Yeah. And that's -- if I may, the Land Development Code doesn't provide criteria for determining land value as part of our determination whether we recommend approval or not. So -- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Why ask the question then? MR. BELLOWS: Yeah. The question is a general one that -- but there's no set criteria that we would go by to say, yes, this meets any criteria for -- we would not -- in other words, we're not requiring a prop -- an appraisal of the project to be submitted for staff to review. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: No matter what the facts are, this is always the answer. So it imparts no knowledge to us that we didn't have, and it just is something to stumble over -- MR. BELLOWS: Yeah. And this -- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: -- as you read through. MR. BELLOWS: I agree. And this question was raised a month or two ago. And staff-- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I was hoping you-all would start MR. BELLOWS: Yes. No. Staff-- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: -- sprucing those up. MR. BELLOWS: Or the response was that we were going to amend the LDC to eliminate certain questions that we could not adequately answer other than provide a boilerplate language. Really the question is one that we could not answer any other way other than that, and it really isn't a question that -- it doesn't really need to be in the Land Development Code. And, therefore, the question was answered back then that we were going to amend the LDC to eliminate those review questions that were not pertinent at this stage of development. That would be more pertinent at the time of site development plan review. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Okay. One other candidate for Page 37 February 21, 2002 some treatment is No. 15, "Whether it is impossible to find other adequate sites in the County for the proposed use in districts already permitting such use." And the answer is, "This is not the determining factor when evaluating the appropriateness of a rezoning decision." So... MR. BELLOWS: That's the exact same answer. And, of course, any site anywhere in the county would be suitable for this as long as it's consistent with the Land Development Code, so it's a strange question. Of course -- of course there are other lands. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: It doesn't even seem to be a proper question to ask. That's not the burden that the petitioner ought to bear, to come in and show that there aren't any other sites. MR. BELLOWS: And that's the reason that we were going to amend the Land Development Code. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Now, can we hear from the petitioner? MR. YOVANOVICH: For the record, Rich -- for the record, Rich Yovanovich representing the petitioner. I have with me today Guenther Gosch, who's the CEO and president of the Moorings -- entity that runs Moorings Park; Regina Driesbach -- I was going to say Drysbach (phonetic) -- but she also is with Moorings Park; Dr. Woodruff, who is the planning director for WilsonMiller; and Phil Krieg, who's the architect for the project. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Excuse me. Ray, can you turn up the volume on that mike, please? Go ahead, Rich. MR. YOVANOVICH: As I was saying, we represent the petitioner, and what we have before you is a revision to an existing PUD. There's been a lot of discussion about items that I think are -- would better be characterized as proposed LDC amendments and not necessarily applicable to the petition we have in front of you today, Page 38 February 21, 2002 so I'm going to focus our discussion and presentation on what is before you today. And we'll answer, obviously, any questions you may have, but I'm going to focus on the petition. What you have before you today is an amendment to an existing PD -- PUD. I'm sorry. We are not requesting any additional dwelling units. We're not requesting any additional uses. We are requesting clarification to an existing PUD. As you know, market conditions change over time. This PUD came into effect in 1979, and no real substantive changes to the uses have occurred. We are not dealing with a new developer here. We are dealing with a tried-and-true project. Everybody has seen Moorings Park. Everybody knows that Moorings Park is a Mercedes-Benz in this community. This is a continuing care facility. You have independent living, which is basically apartment living; assisted living, which is also apartments but with a little bit more care; and then ultimately you have skilled nursing. So there's a transition for people who move into Moorings Park. You've got to be 65 years of age or older. I had lunch there the other day, and that was the first time I've ever tried to lie about my age being older than I am, because I would -- I would love to live at Moorings Park. We have met with the neighbors -- I didn't personally attend those meetings, but Dr. Woodruff did and Mr. Gosch has -- and have gone through our own residential -- we've had our own neighborhood meetings long before required under the code. We have -- the original presentation was for eight-story buildings on both B and C. We have scaled that back in response to the neighborhood concerns to five-story buildings on Tract B and one eight-story building on Tract C. Your staff has found our petition to be consistent with the Comprehensive Plan, both as to transportation, environmental, and infrastructure concerns. We are not intensifying our project. The Page 39 February 21, 2002 dwelling units remain the same. There is no intensification of our project. Therefore, we have had this analysis done, first when we did the original rezone, but yet again this project was found consistent when the zoning reevaluation process went through in the late '80s and early '90s. So there have been two reviews as to consistency with the Comprehensive Plan, and we have been found to be consistent on both occasions. We have met all of the legal requirements applicable to our project. And, again, we need to apply the code that is in effect today, not a code that some of us may want in the future, in evaluating this project. What we are doing today is a -- is modifying an established zoning district to deal with, basically, height of structures. Dr. Woodruff will get into great detail as to why we are compatible in changing from a one- or three-story building to a potential 55-foot building on Tract B and C or a potential eight-story building, 95 feet, on Tract C. He'll get into the details of distance between structures. I can -- I can share with you that there have been other examples where height has been changed much closer to residences and at much higher levels where compatibility has been found because of-- of different buffering standards. We have met the standard -- or the compatibility test by your own experts, which is your staff, and they have been qualified on many occasions to be experts in their field. You have heard from Dr. Woodruff before in the past, on other occasions. And if you would like, I will put all -- I will tender him as an expert and read all of his credentials into the record, or we can stipulate that Dr. Woodruff is an expert in planning. I -- I defer to you, Mr. Abernathy, because I would like, for the record, him to be qualified as an expert in planning. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I think we need a motion. Most Page 40 February 21, 2002 of us are aware of Dr. Woodruffs qualifiCations. MS. STUDENT: That's correct. And usually -- I'm trying to remember if Dr. Woodruff has appeared before this commission before where there's knowledge as to his expertise. Otherwise, he would need to briefly state that as a basis for your motion. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: He's appeared, but I don't think he's -- MR. YOVANOVICH: He's appeared. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: -- chronicled his credentials. MR. YOVANOVICH: And I will allow him to do that at the time he-- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Okay. MR. YOVANOVICH: -- first appears in front of you, just with the goal towards qualifying him as an expert witness. I will briefly touch on the compatibility issue. You have seen an exhibit we have prepared with the circles representing 200-feet intervals. The existing eight-story buildings are within 600 feet of residences. The proposed five-story buildings and proposed eight- story building are more than 800 feet, and we are separated by a golf course. Also, I would like to point out that the golf course has enjoyed the use of part of our client's property for some of its vegetation and buffering. If the PD -- PUD approval is not approved, there will -- and we have to build under the old plan, you can be assured that we will have to remove some of that existing vegetation in order to make the plan go forward. That is not what the neighborhood wanted. The neighborhood -- we have worked with the neighborhood in the past, including the country club, to make sure that the proposal before you today satisfies the maximum amount of people possible. As -- as this commission knows, zoning is not fixed in time forever. There have been times where property owners who owned Page 41 February 21, 2002 vacant land have had their land changed. This commission has never found particularly persuasive the argument that they bought their property in reliance upon an existing zoning category. The argument has been that, "Well, change occurs." And vacant property owners have had their property rezoned to a different category, and improved property owners have had their-- their land rezoned to a different category changing the uses and changing the expectations of the person who owned the property. The key to focus on is compatibility, and we submit that your staff is correct, we are compatible. And Dr. Woodruff will get into more detail on the issue of compatibility when he runs you through the site plan. That is what the Planning Commission has to look at. The Planning Commission has to look at do we meet the criteria under the rezoning rules of Collier County, and I submit to you we do. This is a quasi-judicial hearing. You are a fact finder based upon the evidence in front of you. You need to take into consideration the testimony of your staff, who are experts, and the testimony of Dr. Woodruff, who is an expert in his field -- and he will explain to you his credentials -- and weigh the evidence. It is not the Planning Commission's jurisdiction to submit their own opinions or the opinions of-- of the residents. It is to evaluate the evidence before you and apply the criteria. And I think we have met all legal requirements for the approval of this PUD amendment. And unless you have any specific questions of me, I will have Mr. Gosch go through the operations of Moorings Park to give this commission a better understanding and the viewing public a better understanding and the audience a better understanding of how we've operated in the past and how we plan on operating in the future. And if there's any questions, I'll be happy to answer them from a legal perspective. Page 42 February 21, 2002 COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I have a question. Perhaps it's through Marjorie. I guess I'm just struck by your assessment of our role, and I just want to make sure that -- maybe I can get that clarified. MS. STUDENT: The role of the Planning Commission is to assess the evidence that's presented to it and utilize that in -- the criteria that are in the Land -- that's in the Land Development Code and that appears in your staff report and all the criterias there and take the facts as presented here, the competent substantial evidence presented by staff, the fact testimony presented by property owners, and the expert opinions that you hear here today, applying that all to those criteria, and to be the decision-making body; and, if it meets the criteria, to grant the request; and if you find that it does not, then to deny the request. But you are the decision-making body and the find fact-finding body. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: That doesn't necessarily rule -- MR. SCHMITT: I'd like to just amend -- the advisory body, not the decision-making body. The board is the decision-making body. MS. STUDENT: Well, yes. But as to -- yes, that's correct. But the decision as to their recommendation. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: That doesn't rule out us then making an assessment of the information that's in front of us. MS. STUDENT: Not at all. You are to look at all of that information and apply it to the criteria in making your recommendation. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Rich, on Tract B and C, can you tell me how they're currently being utilized? Is it just vacant property? MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Is it under any kind of Page 43 February 21, 2002 special taxation? Is it under ag or anything like that? MR. YOVANOVICH: Yeah. It's under PUD. It's within the current PUD. It's being taxed as PUD. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So there's no -- no exemptions? MR. YOVANOVICH: No, sir. Any other questions? MR. GOSCH: Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the commission. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to take a few minutes and talk about -- can you hear me? Is that loud enough? MR. SCHMITT: They tell me the microphones are up all the way, that we've been having a problem with that microphone for probably two weeks. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Maybe he should use that mobile one. MR. GOSCH: Guenther Gosch. I'm the CEO and president of Moorings Park. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: G-o-s-c-h? MR. GOSCH: Yes, sir. It's German. Moorings Park was constructed in 1980, 1982. And at the conclusion of that initial construction, there were no additional residential units put in place. There was some additional healthcare over the years. We -- we are designed and intended to be what is called a continuing care retirement community, which means when people come to MoOrings Park, they pay an endowment fee, an entrance fee, if you will, and a monthly fee. And for that they are guaranteed for their lifetime a level of care, whether it's independent or healthcare, and whatever they need for however long they need it, and that's the structure we have. With regard to that, we recognize that when people come to us, they don't come on a month-to-month or even a year-to-year basis. Page 44 February 21, 2002 They're there for their lives. And the average life expectancy, by the time folks come to us at age 80, is 15 to 20 years, as amazing as that sounds. I say that because when we take a step to do something, we don't do it for tomorrow's gain or next year's gain. We do it because we have a lifelong commitment to our residents and -- to them and to the future residents that come in. We actually talk about a 50-year long-range planning process. That goes to the point of explaining why we have not in the past gone forward with our construction. We don't build just to build. We build to meet a need. Within the last several years, it has become apparent to us that there is a very strong need for our product, for what we sell, for retirement living that we provide at the level that we provide it. Parenthetically, I'll say to that, Moorings Park, among the 3,000 or so retirement communities like us the United States, is probably rated among the top 5 in terms of quality and ambiance. And we are in that category -- one reason we're in that category is because of our financial strength, but secondly because of the way the campus looks and the way we maintain our campus. Part of our mission statement specifically directs us to be good neighbors. We have -- we have done that over the years in terms of how we maintain and present ourselves to the community, not just physically, but our involvement in all types of community functions including education and -- and a child care and so forth. We are not - - we would not be able to sell what we have if we built structures that were unappealing to the folks that are coming in, nor would we be able to -- to operate as a good neighbor in this community if we built in a way that our neighbors would be displeased with what we were providing. Our 20-year history shows that we have accomplished both of those criteria. And our purpose in going forward now is to meet the demand and to do it in a way that is the most efficient use of the 17 acres that Page 45 February 21, 2002 we have remaining to us. On the north part of our property that's been developed, there is a high degree of open space. We do not wish to degrade the ambiance of our community by building out the number of units that we are allowed to build and cover up a whole lot of green space. We feel that the most efficient and the most effective use of what we have available to us is through a medium, moderate- rise building close to the existing residential areas and to a slightly higher building a great deal further away. And consultants will get into the details of that. With that, I will ask if there are any questions. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Can I ask a question, how long you've been with the organization? MR. GOSCH: Ten years. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So the -- when were the eight-stow buildings built? Were they there when you came on board? MR. GOSCH: They were built -- I came on board in 1993. They were built in 1982. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Your five-story structures look to me like they're going to be about 600 feet from the nearest residential across the golf course. MR. GOSCH: If-- COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I thought it said close to, and that's the only reason. MR. GOSCH: Yeah. Richard will -- will address that specifically. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Gosch? Thank you very much. MR. GOSCH: Thank you, sir. Okay. Any other questions of Mr. Page 46 February 21, 2002 COMMISSIONER STRAIN: How's the court reporter doing? CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I think we'll -- before we go to public, we'll take a break. DR. WOODRUFF: Good morning. I am Richard Woodruff, the director of planning services for WilsonMiller. As was requested, I will give you a quick biography. And, by the way, Woodruff is southern, in deference to Guenther, who is German. In 1972 1 came to work for Collier County government as a planner. And from 1972 to 1979, I was with the county planning department and became the director of planning services and was responsible with Nino Spagna for the adoption of the first Collier County Comprehensive Plan. At the end of that tour, I became the assistant county manager, and from 1979 until 1991, I was a city manager in Anderson, South Carolina. In that position I was responsible for running the various duties of government. We were specifically involved in downtown redevelopment, and as a planner I had extensive abilities to assist them in redeveloping the downtown area. In 1971 -- I'm sorry. In 1991 I had the privilege of coming to Naples to be the city manager and was there until November of 1999. Since 1999 1 have been with WilsonMiller as the director of planning services. I currently am also the operations manager for the Fort Myers office. It is correct. I have not appeared before this group representing a specific petition in the past. I have, however, testified before you on certain issues of studies or amendments to your codes. I do have a doctor's degree in public administration and will be very happy to answer questions regarding other criteria or other credentials I may have. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any questions on this limited issue? Anyone want to make a motion? Page 47 February 21, 2002 COMMISSIONER BUDD: I'd like to make a motion that Dr. Woodruff is accepted as an expert in planning before this Planning Commission. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Second? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I'll second. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any discussion? All in favor? (Unanimous response.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: 5-0. DR. WOODRUFF: Thank you very much. The petition before you this morning is an amendment to a current planned unit development. Planned unit developments began in the Collier County area in the early '70s. Just south of us, Moorings Park, you have an area of the Wilderness Country Club which my memory says was the very first planned unit development. As we know, the purpose of planned unit developments is to create the standards and to give flexibility. Nationwide this is a tool that has been very successful because it does allow specificity, it does allow flexibility, and those PUDs have very good value. And I commend the county for continuing to do that. As with any zoning district, though, it is important to continue to review them to make sure that they are, in fact, adequate and they're up to date. What has occurred since the development began in the late '70s is a planned development of the planned unit development. What we began to see -- and I'm going to ask Ray since I'm not necessarily competent in this visualizer. If you can put on just the -- just this aerial. If you will notice, what we have in this area is Goodlette-Frank Road, Pine Ridge Road to the north. You have the Country Club of Naples in this area. Now, the Country Club of Naples itself was built in the 1960's, Page 48 February 21, 2002 and I do not and -- nor did I do an exhaustive search of the records of the Country Club of Naples. I will tell you that that development was substantially built out during the '70s and '80s. You will find many of the homes in there were built by Michigan and Rutenberg. And, therefore, the development of our property was occurring at the same time as the development of their property. I do not remember the exact number, but I believe there are, like, 200 single-family units in the Country Club of Naples. There are some vacant lots there. I have not done an inventory, but I would guess there are probably six vacant lots in Country Club of Naples. It is a very stable and very good neighbor, just as Moorings Park has been a very stable and good neighbor. Compatibility is not a function of just looking at structures; it's a function of looking at how people live together. And I will tell you that compatibility over the 20-plus year history of these neighbors has been very good. That compatibility is created by a number of factors. One of the factors has to do with the fact that you have neighborhoods of quality. You have neighborhoods that have value and continue to appreciate in value. I remember in the era that this was built, you could buy a good three-bedroom, two-bath Michigan home and build on a lot in Naples for around 45 to $50,000. Well, those days are obviously gone. These homes in this area I would project would be worth in the $300,000 neighborhood, and I'm sure that some that have been rehabilitated and modernized would be worth more. When you look to the north of our property, you also have a newer subdivision, Northgate. Now, Northgate is a subdivision that was brought in basically as a planned unit development. It was built in a planned fashion. The last time I was through there, I noticed only two vacant lots. So, once again, even though it's a development of the late '80s and '90s, it has been a very successful and, once again, Page 49 February 21, 2002 a very good neighbor to Moorings Park. Moorings Park began its development in the northern quadrant. And, as you are aware, it is a limited access facility. At the current time, we have three points of ingress and egress to Goodlette Road. We are not recommending nor requesting today any modification to that. When you look at the Moorings Park area, there are a variety of buildings that have been built, and I'd like to show you that variety. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Oop. Too much. DR. WOODRUFF: What you have here are three columns. The first column talks about building type, and basically that's going to be height. The second column talks about what the PUD as presently structured would allow, and the third is going to talk about the actual that has been built. As was mentioned earlier by your staff, Moorings Park has now been -- in the petition we're recommending that be divided into three parcels, Parcel A, B, and C. Parcel A is basically that portion of the property that has been developed. Parcel B is that portion which is between the lake system, which I'll point out in a minute, and the golf course, that narrow strip. And Parcel C is the larger piece to the bottom. When you look at what the PUD would -- originally adopted would have allowed, it showed us a variety of building heights. The heights were not in feet. The heights were in floors, and that was pretty common back then. I can tell you that the zoning ordinances which we adopted in the '70s in multiple family areas, it traditionally talked about, you know, stories. It did not talk about height in feet. At the staff's request and at the request of the neighbors through the neighborhood meeting, we said, "Yes, that is a good change to our original petition. It should be in feet, because we want to give as much assurance -- we want to make sure that what we say becomes reality." Page 50 February 21, 2002 If you'll notice, at the present the PUD would allow two buildings of eight stories with 96 units each. What was actually built was two buildings with 95 units each. Three-stow buildings, we could build ten with a total of 148 units. We have built six with 84 units. Two-stow buildings, we could build three with 24 units. We have built one with eight units. Duplexes, we could build 15. We have not built any. Single-family homes, we could build 20. We could (sic) not build any. We are certainly asking for flexibility in that area. But I also want to point out the next two areas of information. The original PUD said we could build 414 units. What has been built today is 282 units, so we have 132 units left. As Mr. Yovanovich said, we are not requesting any change to the number of units that could be built. The original PUD said we could build 180 healthcare units. We have built 149. We still have 31 that we can add when the market demands it, and we are not, again, asking for any increase in that. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: That's the Chateau or-- DR. WOODRUFF: That is the Chateau. Now, that's also -- just the Chateau. Intensity is defined in your -- in your Comprehensive Plan, your Land Development Code. When you look at intensity, we have also interpretations and application of intensity. Is it more intense to have 20 single-family homes spread out with a 20-foot setback between them and 15 duplexes with 20-foot setbacks between them, is that more intensity than multistory buildings? It's certainly a matter of the site plan. We would tell you that we looked at this from two standpoints. We evaluated, first of all, what is the market asking of Moorings Park to produce? And I would tell you the market is asking Moorings Park to produce multistory buildings. Why? Because as you age, you like the security, you like the common elements, you like the Page 51 February 21, 2002 camaraderie that you have in a multistory building. What we find in the industry is that as you have single-family homes, even though they may only be 20 feet apart, that that camaraderie, that security, that feeling of belonging is harder to create. Can you create it.9 Yes. Does it take more effort? Yes. What is the market asking for? Single-family homes? No. Duplexes? No. They're asking for more common buildings with multistory. When you look at the Moorings Park development -- Mr. Richardson, you are certainly correct. We have an area to the south that we have not developed, and the question does come up, does an eight-stow building on the north mean that an eight-stow building on the south's compatible? It's a very valid question. When we first went to the neighbors -- and I do want to stress that before the county ever even began to consider adopting compatibility ordinances -- public participation ordinances, rather, we knew that compatibility with our neighbors was something we had always had, that we value today, and we're going to ensure for the future. So our very first meeting in June of this past summer was to call the neighbors together. We sent out notices to every one of them and said, Would you folks come to our house? Let us show you what we're going to do. We want your input. Now, the original plan that we showed had three eight-stow buildings, and they were lined up right here. Are we in the ballpark there, Ray? Thank you very much. I'm sorry. Let me show that again. We had three eight-story buildings. They were proposed one just south of this lake, one just north of the chapel and to the east of the chapel, and one right in the vicinity just north of the water tower. We were going to build -- we were requesting their support in building three eight-stow buildings over one of parking. At that meeting there were several neighbors who were there, and I have to tell you we've had very good attendance. I think the average Page 52 February 21, 2002 attendance was 40 or 50 people, and I think that's commendable. And I would also tell you I think it's good that the county has now formalized that because it certainly helps the negotiating process. What the neighbors said to us is, "Look, you-all have been good neighbors, but we have views, and we really want to see what we can do to modify those views." And at the end of that meeting, the message that we got from the neighbors was, "Folks, those buildings are too tall. Those buildings simply block too much." So what we did was to go back, and we looked very seriously at how we could accommodate their desires. What we came up with -- what we came up with was a plan where we said, "Okay. We really want to keep at least one eight- story building because that gives us the ability to really mass a lot of units and leave a lot of open space around it." So what we said was, "Okay. We will move this 300 feet back. The closest that building will be to the golf course will be 300 feet. And we will also cut the parking out from under it." One of the things that we find in these types of facilities is they are not real traffic generators. They don't come with -- obviously with children. They don't come with the need for two, three cars. They are really scaled-down units as far as trips going outside the neighborhoods. As you can see with these rings, what we have tried to show is that you have, from the center of the building and from the property, 200-foot rings. And we've tried to show 200, 400, 600, roughly 800 feet to the nearest neighbor. Now, does that mean they can't see it? No, that doesn't mean that. What it means is we are very cognizant that neighborhoods do have views, that we don't want them to feel we are right on top of them. Now, in my former life with the city -- you are probably familiar with the Naples Cay development and with the area of Seagate. Page 53 February 21, 2002 You're also familiar with the area there on Park Shore that the Lutgerts built on Park Shore and the multiple family and single family. When we first looked at this, you know, one of my concerns was the issue that the neighbors raised. And what we don't want to do is have the neighbors feel that there is this building leaning over them that at any time could fall on them, and I know in some neighborhoods that's present. I would tell you that an eight-story building that is set roughly 800 feet back will not have that impact. When we submitted the petition, we were talking about floors, and the neighbors said again, "Well, you know, how do we know that -- you know, why does the thing have to be so tall? Are you going to have 14-foot floors in there?" And I have to tell you, originally we were going to have 10- and 12-foot ceilings in every unit. And the architect went back at the direction of Moorings Park and said, Okay. We can do a good job with 8-foot ceilings. It's not the best situation, but in order to hold height down, we will cut these ceilings down. So the finished floor is not going to be 10 or 12 feet as some of us have in our houses, but it's going to be 8 feet. The other thing that we looked at was how we could do certain embellishments on the roof. You know, to me -- and I will tell you as a planner, one of the real problems with maximum heights is the result of flat roofs. There are very few buildings that you can create good character with flat roofs. Now, I almost had to chuckle. This morning you were looking at the boat docks and the issue of one had a flat roof, and one had a peaked roof. And Mr. Richardson hit it right on the head when he said, you know, one blocks the view more than the other. And you're right. And the other-- was that Mr. Abernathy? You-all look so much alike. I apologize. The other point, though, is-- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Apologize to Mr. Richardson. DR. WOODRUFF: But, you know, the other point is, which Page 54 February 21, 2002 was more aesthetically pleasing? Well, that becomes a personal opinion. But, to me, the more aesthetically pleasing was the one who blocked more view. So you're really torn, how do you have that balance? The original plan had a very large, sloping roof on it. It had a lot of impact to show architectural features. So working with our architect, who has done an outstanding job with a number of facilities throughout the nation, he came back to us, and Phil said, "Okay. Here's what we can do. We can establish a flat roof. We could put some parapets. We can agree that those parapets and those architectural embellishments will not exceed certain heights." And that's why you will find in the eight-story buildings and the five-story buildings we have said the maximum height will be X number of feet with X number more for certain embellishments and X number more for the -- the elevator shaft. Now, unfortunately, we can't make the elevator shaft, you know, any smaller. I mean, it just is what it is. The other thing we looked at was what we could do -- we took care of one eight-story building by moving it back and cutting the parking out from under it. We then looked at the other two eight- story buildings, and we said, "You know, we're just going to have to bite the bullet, and we're going to have to cut this thing. We just are not going to be able to get the neighbors to even begin to support eight-story buildings there." So we went back and instead of eight stories over one of parking, we cut them back to five stories in these two locations. Now, will that be five stories or will it be four stories over one of parking? We still haven't made that decision. But regardless of which way we go, the height doesn't change. You know, the request there before you is for a five-story building that can either be five habitable floors or a five-story building that is four habitable floors and one of parking. There are some challenges to getting the parking Page 55 February 21, 2002 there. I cannot commit nor are we ready to commit at this time whether there would be five habitable floors or not. What we are certainly very willing to commit to is what's in the petition, and that is a maximum height. When you look at the -- at the other issues on the property, there are other changes in the PUD. And I won't take your time to go through those, but I'll be happy to answer them as far as -- as questions. One of the things that I think you are interested in is, you know, what is the building schedule for this, and what is the impact? Well, in one of our meetings, one of the neighbors said, you know, "I really don't want to see you take out any of the vegetation that's there." And I spoke up and said, "Well, that's not going to be possible for this reason: This buffer which creates the view today is 95 percent Brazilian pepper and Australian pine." And although I've grown up with that stuff and I don't think it necessarily harmed me from any of my growth patterns, it has been determined that as a community we don't want those exotics. So what the county code says is that regardless of what we build, when we start it all comes out, and we've explained that. Now, the other thing that we have committed to -- because Mr. Richardson asked, was there a record created in these public meetings? There was not a record created per se, but we're going to, right on the record today-- and, you know, we tried to write this thing right into this PUD. Everything we told the neighbors we would do we have put in the PUD except for one thing, and that's landscaping. Now, we have -- Jack Lieber (phonetic) is the landscape architect on the project. If you look at Moorings Park, you will find that he has designed all of that. I think that you will agree with me it is very tasteful. It is very lush. The architectural budget for landscaping on this is not -- is not a slim budget. We understand that these buildings need to be set in proper landscaping. Page 56 February 21, 2002 But, once again, from the neighborhood meetings, we did make concessions, and I want to show you exactly what those concessions are. As you'll notice, my first three points, the typing was better than my third point, so I apologize for that. Modifications based upon neighborhood input: Number 1, we have modified the height, and that is shown in the petition. Number 2, we have modified the setbacks, and those are shown in the petition. Number 3, we did suggest that we would do additional landscaping, and we're even willing to go out into the golf course, which we do not own. And we have had two meetings with the golf course representatives to look at where we could put more landscaping to intercept the view. Now, the one thing that we -- that we cannot do is plant plants on someone's property other than ours unless they approve it. So we're presently in negotiations with the country club to try to intercept one or two view planes so that folks will have a few more trees. Now, those trees will be on a view plane where, at their height, they will be in line on the view plane with the maximum height of the building. Now, will we block sunsets? Yes, we will. But will we be able to buffer it where you're not actually looking at just concrete building? Yes, we can do that by a combination of things we can plant on our property and vegetation that we've asked the Country Club of Naples to let us plant between their fairways, and those negotiations are still ongoing. The last point that I would make is that when you look at stability and you look at neighborhoods, everybody who lives on both sides of this golf course are fortunate to be there. We are very fortunate to have the single-family neighbors to the north and to the south, and I would tell you they are very fortunate to have Moorings Park. Now, are we all sitting here in front of you holding hands on this issue? No. That doesn't mean that we're angry with them or they're angry with us. It has been a good exchange, and this is a Page 57 February 21, 2002 debate among friends, and we're going to make sure that it stays that way. With that, I would like to answer any questions that you had. Mr. Strain, did you want me to cover this issue of floor area ratio at this time? COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I've got two issues, and that would solve one of them. I'm not debating with you whether or not it's required. I just want to know what it is so that it's reasonable. DR. WOODRUFF: Now, again, I apologize. This -- the information was requested late yesterday, and I picked it up about 8:30 last night. So I wrote this, and I apologize it's not in a typewritten form. As you are aware, the Land Development Code has in it a floor area ratio of 0.45 when it comes to assisted living facilities. First of all, we would tell you that we do not believe that is applicable to our project because it's a planned unit development, and we are capped at 414 units. And because of that, it doesn't really matter whether we build 3,000-square-foot units or 1,000-square-foot units. We can only build 414 of them and only 180. But setting that aside -- and I'm just stating that for the record; we're not debating it-- we did the exercise to determine how do we stack up with the floor area ratio. The acreage is 83 acres multiplying that times 43,560 square feet in an acre, you have roughly 3.6 million square feet. When you multiply the factor -- and the factor of .45 means that you take the total square footage and not the ground level square footage, not the footprint -- but you take the total square footage of the buildings and then divide that into total square footage of the land, you cannot exceed 0.45. The current square footage -- and that's what that box with a line through it means. The current square footage is roughly 544,000 square feet, and you have seen that that's in a variety of buildings. That's a current factor of .15, well under the .45. Page 58 February 21, 2002 When you look at the next area of the new construction, if we're fortunate to receive the approvals that we're requesting, we know that we are going to be building three taller structures. Those will contain 112 units. The architect has a footprint and a model that he is proposing. Each five-story building would be 100,500 square feet. The eight-story building would be roughly 160,200 feet, for a total of 360,200 square feet. Now, that would bring our factor up to 0.25. Then we also know that we are going to be building some low-rise buildings because we still have 132 units we can build. We propose to put 112 of those in these multiple family buildings, and we still have 20 that we could build. Assuming 20 units at 3,000 square feet per unit, which I think is a reasonable -- probably on the high side, but I didn't want to make a thousand square feet and somebody say, well, he's lowballing this. You're looking there at 60,000 square feet, which now continues to accumulate, so the project is now at 964,000, plus or minus, square feet, and you have a factor of roughly 0.56. Then we know that at a point in time we're going to want to put another half wing or another half floor on the Chateau. As you know, the Chateau is actually built with one-half being one story and the other half being two story, but it was constructed so the one-story half could match the two-story half. We estimate that at roughly 35,000 square feet for those 31 beds we have left to build. So when you go through the math-- and I do apologize for the -- the poor presentation format -- you're right at a million square feet. That is a factor of 0.276, plus or minus, versus a code issue of 0.45. So even though we do not believe it applies, we believe that we can show you very clearly that we meet it, even if someone did say that it applies. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Well, now that you've come up with an FAR that does apply, do you mind that being stipulated, that you won't exceed an FAR of .28 for this project if it were to be recommended for approval? Page 59 February 21, 2002 DR. WOODRUFF: We could not agree to that, and here's the reason why. And it comes to the second point that you asked, and that's the language having to do with the accessory uses. Let me suggest maybe a different wording -- pardon me one second. I understand the concern that you have with paragraph B-2 that's on page 2 of the planned unit development where it says, Accessory uses and structures; number 2, any other accessory uses which are comparable in nature with the foregoing uses and which the planning services director determines to be compatible. I can understand that for various reasons, which is not necessary to discuss, that you may feel uncomfortable with that. Could we ask if we could insert the language that instead of the planning services director it simply says "and which the Collier County Planning Commission determines to be compatible"? Now, let me explain to you the reason for the request. In the healthcare industry, there are new products and new services coming on-line every month, every year. We don't know what they are. We don't know what they're going to be. If we leave the language as No. 1, accessory uses and structures customarily associated with permitted principal uses, my planning background says that that has to show some type of historic presence, because it says customarily present. Like a swimming pool, a swimming pool is not a new invention. It is customarily part of a single-family home. However, in the healthcare industry, there are new things coming on-line that have no history, so we can't show that they are customarily present. So what we would like is to say, yes, where they're customarily present, we can build them. Where they're not customarily present, we're not asking for a blank check; we were asking for come back to the planning director. If you're more comfortable with us coming back to you, we have no objections to that. What we need, though, is Page 60 February 21, 2002 the flexibility -- and I don't know a good example. I mean, let's just say for discussion purposes that -- that hot springs -- I know that in Arkansas they apparently have some medicinal purposes. But let's say that hot springs are determined to be something that are good for the retiree and that Guenther wants to put them there. We would like to be able to come back to you-all and say, "Will you authorize this?" Now, on the other side, if we determine that a McDonald's restaurant and the hamburgers there under the golden arches are great accessory uses, we should still have to come back to you. And in one case I would assume you would approve it, and in the other case I would assume you would deny it. Now, I'll have to let you decide which of those would be denied. The point being that when we lock ourselves into a specific square footage, it leaves us handcuffed as far as things that we may need to add that are customarily accessory or things that will become accessory uses we want to add. Now, do we have -- we are willing to do this: We're certainly willing to commit 414 is the maximum number of dwelling units. 180 is the maximum number of beds and that any accessory uses that we want that are not customary, that are new in the industry, we will come back to you. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: My concern with the FAR is almost exactly what you stated, that it's an unknown. And that's been a problem with zoning in Collier County that's gone on for decades, is that things get approved, and nobody really knows what it is until it happens. That's why I would like to lock you into an FAR that is reasonable. And maybe you can come back with some kind of understanding what that would be. It's like the height, without a height and just saying a stow. You're saying the same thing with the FAR. The ULDC has the FAR language in it. It may not apply to this because it's a PUD, but it's there because someone thought that was the maximum that should be allowed. Page 61 February 21, 2002 On the other hand, when you come in with a PUD and you don't even reference any maximum, you're referencing -- not referencing a height maximum, the problem we have now with the stories versus height measured in feet, that's why I'd like to see an FAR at least referenced in your PUD. And then as far as taking out paragraph 4(B)(2), I don't know why if something changes, if something's new in the industry, it wouldn't be right for the public to know how that could affect their neighborhood. And I understand you're offering to bring it back before the Planning Commission. Myself, I don't care if I'm the one that listens to it or not. I think that the public ought to have access to it. Whether that's at the Planning Commission or BCC, I guess the final resolution will be up to the board on that one. It just needs to -- I just -- I don't think it should be done at a staff level when the staff level isn't open to scrutiny of a public meeting. DR. WOODRUFF: And we don't have any objection to that. That's the reason why we were saying, "Fine. If that's a concern, let's change it where you have to" -- MR. BELLOWS: Yeah. And if I may, for the record, Ray Bellows. The Land Development Code has been changed to require language such as this that's contained in the Land Development Code to require the property owner to petition the Board of County Commissioners to get approval for that change in use, to make that determination. So I would recommend that that language be incorporated into this PUD, that the petitioner go directly to the Board of County Commissioners with what we call an interpretation of use, to make the board make that determination of compatibility. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: If it's already in the ULDC, then just drop that paragraph like I asked. Then you've already accomplished that, then; right? MR. BELLOWS: That would also work. Page 62 February 21, 2002 COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay. Then I guess that-- my one outstanding issue I have until I hear more public comment is the issue of FAR. At some point before the day's over and before we close the public hearing, I would like to hear a recommendation from you-all as to what you would limit your FAR to, if that's -- DR. WOODRUFF: We'd be happy-- COMMISSIONER STRAIN: If you're not going to do that, then tell us that too, but I'd like to know before I vote. DR. WOODRUFF: We'll be happy to discuss that as a group and let you know. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Thank you. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: What's the standard that we talked about, .45? COMMISSIONER STRAIN: That's what's in the ULDC for like facilities, and I want to make sure there's some limitation to this if it goes forward. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Something less than that? Well, certainly not more. They're talking now a .28. And it's kind of like if that's what they're saying, then let's do what you're saying. That's the kind of-- DR. WOODRUFF: We certainly -- I may have misunderstood what you were asking. If what you're asking is a statement from us that we will abide by the 0.45, we certainly will commit to that. I thought what you were asking was a number that was lower than 0.45. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I'm asking for what you've stated. And you stated .276, and then you clarified that by saying it didn't include the accessory uses. Well, whatever's the most reasonable is what I would like to see as part of your PUD because it's just another limitation, like height is on the top of buildings. If it's .45, then so be Page 63 February 21, 2002 it. But I would hope that, based on what you're going to say, it would be more amenable to the neighborhood, the lower the value would be, I would think. DR. WOODRUFF: Let us study that further, and we'll discuss it before we finalize the issue. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Thank you. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Perhaps I can just jump on to that point and tap into your expertise, Dr. Woodruff. This seems to me to relate to this issue that planning staff has brought up or the position they've said that there's no increase in intensity proposed. Well, you know, this is a pig in a poke to me. If, in fact, you can have buildings with various number of floors or perhaps various number of square footage -- I'm more comfortable thinking of square footage because that's what I have in my house. I don't have any intensity. I don't -- I don't see how you -- how that statement can be supported without the kind of numbers that Mark is talking about. You have an approval -- approved PUD right now which, I wo.uld think, would have some underlying set of intensity that -- you went through your -- your Column A, certain number of buildings, certain number of units, and that equates to a certain amount of square footage. Why wouldn't we be able to -- to get that kind of a commitment expressed in those kinds of terms.9 But yet it seems very slippery to me, that, well, we may do this, we may do that. But we're saying it's going to be the same, but we can't demonstrate how it will be the same. That's one issue. DR. WOODRUFF: Okay. Let me address that if I can. First of all, in the current planned unit development, while it talks about the number of floors, there is nothing in there that talks about square footage. I mean, for example, we could build, if we wanted to -- and I know that Mr. Gary (phonetic) has decided to -- we could build a 43,000-square-foot house if we wanted to. We could build multiple- Page 64 February 21, 2002 story buildings at the current time, and we could literally make them a wall 600, 700 feet long if we wanted to. Now, I would agree with you. The more specificity we can put in here, the better off everyone is, because being a good neighbor is not just standing here in front of you. It is being a good neighbor every day for as long as houses are there and Moorings Park is there. Now, what we are suggesting, we believe, are -- are reasonable standards. If what you're asking for is -- I mean, what we have said is two five-story buildings, one eight-story building set 300 feet back, and then the rest of the buildings will be scattered throughout that area. If what you're looking for is a maximum square footage, we can give you a maximum square footage of principal buildings. That's there. What I'm hesitant to give you is a maximum square footage of new accessory things we may build because we don't know what the changes are that'll occur in the industry. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: So you had previously stated, the other gentleman, that you guys were looking for more greenspace, trying to open the property up, and I think that's great. I have no problem with that concept. I just want to -- if that's what you're going to do, then let's put the -- put your money where your mouth is and tell me how much you're going to build. Where's your maximum? And that's all I'm trying to say. Give us a limitation so we don't have any more of these disclosed heights just related to stories that don't have heights attached to them. And I don't think that's unreasonable, so I'm going to probably keep pushing for that before the day's over. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: And just back on my narrow point, and perhaps it's of no planning consequence to you, but when you say there's no increase in intensity proposed, that suggests to me that there is some intensity that's currently authorized and that you're not going to exceed it. But I don't have any dimensions of what we're talking about. Floor area ratio might be one way to look Page 65 February 21, 2002 at it. Square footage might be one way to look at it. I -- you're leaving me without an answer to that question. DR. WOODRUFF: Well, let me answer it -- let me try one more time. The intensity that the current document allows is 414 dwelling units and 180 beds. That's what the current rule says. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Okay. DR. WOODRUFF: Now, we can not be held to standards that don't exist in that PUD. I mean, I can't tell you that in that PUD as adopted, there's a maximum square footage. And I'll give you an example. When Guenther first started -- and it was Guenther's predecessor, who wasn't nearly as handsome as Guenther. But when they started the first building, they were building small, 1200-square- foot rooms. I can tell you there's no market in this development for 1200-square-foot accommodations. So what you have is a desire on the part of residents to have larger facilities. So the first thing I will tell you is the intensity standard that's in the PUD -- and it's the only standard we have to measure intensity -- is 414 and 180. We're not modifying those. What we are saying, though, is that if we built as the current plan would let us, it would just eliminate open space. It would not be a good development plan, and personally I believe the neighbors would wound up -- would wind up being hurt more because the buildings would have to be longer to accommodate the units and the size of the units. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So, Dr. Woodruff, the intensity, then -- I'm kind of catching up with you. Intensity, they only measure it in terms of number of buildings? Number of dwelling units? DR. WOODRUFF: Under the current PUD, it's measured only by the number of units. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So they can go from 1,000 Page 66 February 21, 2002 feet to 5,000 feet and multiply out, and it'll be whatever it is, so that's what is meant by no increase in intensity. DR. WOODRUFF: That's my interpretation. Ray wrote the staff report. You should ask him what he meant by -- COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I thought I did. MR. BELLOWS: Yeah. And that's the analysis that I took, was we have a defined number of units that can be applied. Generally the analysis of square footage would be looked at, but they were not going to come anywhere near the Land Development Code requirement of 0.45. So based on those conditions we -- staff deemed this would not be -- COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Well, in future PUDs I think that's a hole, and I think we ought to try to repair it, in my opinion. A couple other questions. One of the -- I think Ray or someone said there were going to be no additional ingresses or egresses, yet on the master plan I see an additional one on Goodlette- Frank. Am I misinterpreting that? DR. WOODRUFF: You may be misinterpreting it. There are three access points. And would you mind putting that on the visualizer? Well, actually, this right here is the -- there are three in existence today, and those are the only three that we're proposing. This is the main gatehouse. This is the one that lines up at the traffic signal. This is the one that's in existence south of the Chateau. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: DR. WOODRUFF: That's correct. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: That is in existence? Where do you figure in your chapel square footage on this or intensity? How does -- I didn't hear that building mentioned in your PUD. DR. WOODRUFF: The Bower Chapel is -- the Bower Chapel is 6,475 square feet. And that really comes back to one of the issues, because I know in discussing this with the neighbors, one of the Page 67 February 21, 2002 neighbors said, you know, the roof of-- the peak of that roof-- well, actually the peak of that roof is 53 feet tall. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: And it's one story. DR. WOODRUFF: And it's a one-story building. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I have one other question, Doctor. The traffic impact statements, I'm used to doing those on regular developments, not ACLFs. When those are done, the -- there's a different ratio for calculating single family versus multifamily. How does that work here? You had single family. You're not putting any single family in. You're putting in multifamily. On a regular development, that would, in my eyes, generate less of traffic impact. Is that the same in this kind of development? DR. WOODRUFF: Actually, it isn't, and the reason why is you have to look at the profile of the clientele. In most single-family neighborhoods or multiple family, you have a different profile, socioeconomic profile and demographic profile. You have people in single-family homes like me and unfortunately still have a child at home. In multiple family you may have just a couple or one person. What we find in Moorings Park, because it is an age-limited development, that demographic doesn't change -- that traffic pattern doesn't change based upon where they live. It does change based upon their age. You know, unfortunately as people do age, they begin to have certain physical limitations. But what we find in -- in this development is the only place where the traffic generation is significantly less -- I don't mean this in an impolite way -- is when you go into the true nursing home. But, no, between single family and multiple family in this type of development, that's been our-- our experience. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: It's the same ratio then. DR. WOODRUFF: Yes, sir. MR. BELLOWS: And ifI may, it's based on the Institute of Page 68 February 21, 2002 Transportation Engineers' trip generation manual that studies these types of facilities in particular, and they don't break them down because, as Mr. Woodruff indicated, it's based on a population group and a type of clientele, that they all have similar needs as regards to transportation and traffic, and service is provided by the facility. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Thank you. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: One of the major concerns that I've read in terms of the written objections or concerns that were raised by the residents has to do with this eight-story building, and so I'm going to try and focus on that. Is there some reason, planning- wise, why you've selected the back part of the lot to put that on? And, of course, the result of that would be to perhaps move it further forward towards Goodlette-Frank? DR. WOODRUFF: Mr. Richardson, if your question is why are we locating the eight-story building where we are -- COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Right. DR. WOODRUFF: Okay. It's -- number one, it's in response to the neighbors asking us to push that building as far back as we felt was reasonable. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: When you said back before, I guess I didn't really understand that. Did you mean back away from-- DR. WOODRUFF: West, away from. The original proposal -- and let me put one of the maps back up there. We had originally proposed the southern eight-story building being right here, and we moved it back. One of the gentleman asked if we could actually move it all the way back where it was just, you know, 28 feet off of Goodlette Road. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Well, why not? DR. WOODRUFF: And the answer there is, yes, we could, but let's discuss that. There is no question that Country Club of Naples is Page 69 February 21, 2002 a view, and as we develop units, we want to make sure that they have aesthetic amenities too. Now, I recognize very clearly the single- family homes. They want to make sure their aesthetics are not damaged. They have the privilege of a view of the golf course that they do not own. We, on the other side of the golf course, would like that same reasonable privilege. And that's why we moved it -- instead of moving it, you know, all the way back to Goodlette, which we felt would be simply too far and you would not be able to really see -- and we also felt that the closer you get to Goodlette -- you know, I don't know what the traffic count is, but ifI had to guess, you know, it's 40 or 45,000, maybe 50,000 trips per day. And you're trying to create an environment for retirees and -- and the elderly to live. We felt we had to reach some type of reasonable balance, and that's why we said to them, no, we can't move it. We -- we're not willing to. Certainly we could. We're not willing to move it all the way to Goodlette, but we certainly will move it at least 300 feet away from the common property line. MR. BELLOWS: Yeah. And if I may, I'd like to add that staff. was involved in that negotiation. And our concern was that if they did push it all the way west towards Goodlette, that it would start impacting these residences over here. So we felt the more centralized location would be -- COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: It's not going to impact their sunset views, though. MR. BELLOWS: No. Sunrise. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Yeah. Right. DR. WOODRUFF: Well, if you will notice, Mr. Richardson, on the visualizer, we are 200, 400, 600, less than 800 feet here. We are 200, 400, 600, roughly 800 feet here. We have tried to find a mid area because it doesn't -- you know, both of these neighborhoods are good quality neighborhoods. Just the fact that these single-family Page 70 February 21, 2002 homes are on a highway and these single-family homes are on a golf course does not mean that our building should be impacting one more than the other. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: One other area I'd like to pursue then. You mentioned Northgate PUD at the north, obviously. Do you recall when that came in, approximate time frame? DR. WOODRUFF: When I came back to the community in 1991, it was there. Looking at the quality and age of the houses, I would assume that it was probably started in the mid-'80s, maybe early '80s. And I know from personal experience that there have been maybe a dozen houses built in there during the '90s. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: The position you elaborated on for supporting your compatibility proposition had to do with your assessment of the time frame with which Country Club of Naples and now Northgate have been populated. And you said, I think, that the populations in the two areas, that is the units, came up in about the same time that the eight-story buildings were being built, that they happened in the same time frame. DR. WOODRUFF: I do not know the exact date. Guenther, when were the eight-story buildings built? Okay. 1982. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So for us to assume that there's -- I guess I'm trying to get at this issue that I raised earlier, that if the buildings went up in 1982, I'd like to know how many houses were already in Country Club of Naples, how many houses were already in Northgate that -- that were impacted by that being built or, if they came along later, they had the benefit of knowing that that building was there, and they factored that into their choice. If there's because I -- in my mind, I still separate those decisions from people that are down in the southern part, going to be impacted by this other eight-story building, who were already there. And I think compatibility is a different question, different issue for them than it is Page 71 February 21, 2002 for somebody that already purchased and knew that the houses (sic) were there. What would support your point, if you told me that Country Club of Naples was entirely built out by 1982, then that's -- that's one issue, because they had -- they would have had some decision- making and some impact that they've come to grips with as far as the building being there. However, if they -- if those -- many of those units came in after the building, then you-- that supports your compatibility because that says they made their buying decision knowing that that building was actually already there. I'm missing that data. DR. WOODRUFF: Okay. Mr. Richardson, I don't know that I can provide that data this morning specifically, but I will try to provide it generally. Number one, being a resident in the community and working with the planning department during the '70s, I can tell you that if not all, I would certainly say 80 percent of the houses in Country Club of Naples were built in the 1970s and early 1980s. Now, I'm not saying an exact number, but I will tell you that is not a new subdivision. I will tell you that Northgate was most likely 100 percent built give me a fudge factor, I'll say at least 90 percent built -- after the two eight-story buildings were built. On the other side, the 1979 planned unit development was a rezoning of the property. It required public hearings. It required participation. The folks who lived in Country Club at that time, Country Club of Naples -- and I would guesstimate that well over -- you know, out of the 200 lots, well over 100 of them, maybe even 150 of them, were there. Compatibility -- I was certainly not saying that's the only issue of compatibility. I think that there's another factor, and that is what has been the demographic and -- and the actual sales rates, and has Country Club of Naples had a negative impact felt by them, the fact that Moorings Page 72 February 21, 2002 Park is there? When you look at these sales values in Country Club of Naples, those values have gone up substantially. I mean, I have personal friends who live in the Country Club of Naples. They have not lived there since 1980. the last four or five years. there. You know, some of them have lived there They chose to buy. They knew that it was CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I've tried mightily to let you finish, but it's gone on much, much longer than I had anticipated with the questions. I think we need to give the court reporter a break at this point. I'm very sorry. DR. WOODRUFF: That's fine. Thank you. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: You can finish when we come back at quarter past. (A break was held.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Call the meeting to order. Dr. Woodruff, you had some closing items? DR. WOODRUFF: Only additional questions from you. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Now, let's -- unless there's other presentation from the applicant, I'd like to hear from the public. DR. WOODRUFF: Thank you for your courtesy. MR. SCHMITT: We have four speakers signed up. I ask-- I'll call out two names. The second one, please position yourself near the podium so we can keep this proceeding moving. First speaker, Tom Huff, followed by Dr. John Maxfield. MR. HUFF: My name's Tom Huff. That's H-u-f-f. And -- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: You live? MR. HUFF: I live in the southern portion of the Country Club of Naples on Cypress Point Drive, 85 Cypress Point Drive to be exact. My wife and I have owned our home there for 12 years. We've heard a lot of comments here, and I could just go on with a rebuttal. But before I do my prepared statement, I'd like to just make Page 73 February 21, 2002 a couple comments that I heard. Number one is, you cannot hide an eight-story building with landscaping. Number two, you might consider a different system to get access to the planning department. I don't think we, who are in opposition to the proposal, have the same access to Ray in this case that they did. For instance, I called Ray two weeks ago on the telephone and never got a return call from him. It got to the point where I had to send him letters. I apologize. Okay. Going back to the deal. I am opposed to one of the changes of the Moorings Park PUD being discussed today. Specifically I object to the height of the residents' buildings. No surprise. The southernmost building is proposed to be eight stories; the other two are five stories. The existing PUD calls for all of these buildings to be one story. Now, there's some -- something in here about three stories, but I don't think it relates to the resident buildings. When I went and read the existing PUD, I got that the three story was some other building. If this change for the PUD is approved, it will have a devastating effect on the value of the homes in our area. We are a community on the upswing. Many homes are being renovated, and since we are built out, this trend will continue. I believe that within the next few years existing homes will be demolished so that newer, better, and bigger homes can take their place. This will happen because of our great location. We are south of the traffic problems of Pine Ridge Road. Traveling to and from downtown Naples is seldom a problem, believe it or not. Access to our subdivision is only by those who are using our area as a destination. We are on a beautiful golf course, and we are not in a gated community. That's a positive. It should be noted that this hot area that I just described is only south of the Country Club of Naples clubhouse, in other words of the southern portion of the residential area. North of the clubhouse has Page 74 February 21, 2002 to deal with the existing eight-stow buildings -- has to deal with these eight-stow buildings. This area will be slower to develop if it develops at all. I strongly believe that high-rises in a residential community are not a good fit. When many of us bought our homes, one of the reasons for buying here was that we would be in a residential neighborhood. To me, that meant no high-rises. A couple that recently completed the largest house in our neighborhood-- and it's a beautiful two stow-- had their representative check the county records and were pleased to find that Moorings Park was limited to one-stow buildings and duplexes on the undeveloped portion of their land. Obviously, they are not happy about the possibility of having a nine -- an eight-stow building being the dominant feature they see when they look out their back window. They were counting on having beautiful sunsets. I understand that there are changes to zoning on PUDs all the time. I've always thought of these changes as refinements to the existing documents, changes like those that have been requested earlier in this meeting, another 20 feet on a boat dock. There's nothing subtle about this requested change. It hits you like a sledgehammer. Moorings Park is asking for an 800 percent change from one stow to eight stories. It's like me coming to you and asking to build an eight-stow house. I wouldn't even think about it because I know it would be disapproved. Moorings Park's request is just as far out of line and should be denied. Thank you. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Could I ask you a question, sir, Mr. Huff?. MR. HUFF: Yeah. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Just in our twing to deliberate and decide what's best for evewone -- and certainly you folks are important participants in this -- given that there would be an Page 75 February 21, 2002 eight-stow building -- and I know that's not where you started from. MR. HUFF: Right. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: -- would -- would moving it further towards Goodlette-Frank be of any assistance to your concerns? MR. HUFF: Well, if that's the only choice, of course it would be. You know, we would obviously like to see -- they've got some beautiful three stories down on -- near their eight stories which have a residential-type roof. I mean, it would blend in. If they're looking for community, you know, togetherness like they talked about, they could do it in this three stow instead of a five-stow or an eight-stow deal. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Okay. Thank you. MR. SCHMITT: Dr. John Maxfield followed by John Wolski. MR. MAXFIELD: I won't be very long. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: State your name for the record, please. MR. MAXFIELD: Dr. John Maxfield. I live on Burning Tree Drive on the 18th fairway, which is on the east side of the country club. We have probably a hundred homes over at Forest Lake that we cannot see because of-- they're all one-stow homes, and they are of-- each one is occupied. There are family in every one of these, and we never see them because the trees and the hedge on the east side of the golf course hides them. This could happen on the other side, on the west side, which is what we're trying to create without the high-rises. If they put in 100 or 150, whatever your limit is, one- stow homes, I'm sure we would not be worried about it. And also leave a -- leave us some trees or hedges or something so we don't have to look at them. This is all I'm saying. Thank you very much. Questions? MR. SCHMITT: John Wolski followed by Anne Mason. Page 76 February 21, 2002 MR. WOLSKI: Good morning. My name is John Wolski. I live at 2 ! Cypress Point Drive, which is located across from the proposed eight-story building. I'm the fellow that Tom Huff referred to that built the new home about 2 1/2 years ago -- or I bought my lot 2 1/2 years ago. I did my due diligence and found that the subject Moorings Park property was zoned single story. We subsequently built our home. I could have bought an existing home on the north end of the subdivision but opted not to because I didn't want to look at eight-story buildings out my back yard. In addition to the quality-of-life issue, I'm also very concerned about the potential negative impact to my property value. We are starting to see major remodels on my street. And in discussions with area Realtors, they have indicated that teardowns are quite possible. Renovation within the subdivision is occurring on streets not -- I repeat not -- facing the existing eight-story Moorings Park structures. It is the least preferred golf course view in the subdivision. I understand that the administrators of Moorings Park have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize their profits. However, we homeowners also have a responsibility to ourselves and our families to maintain our quality of life and to hold or increase our property values. As such, I am opposed to the PUD amendment. Thank you for your consideration. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Excuse me, one minute, sir. Did you say the lots across from the existing eight story are not being built on? MR. WOLSKI: I -- I bought the last available -- by the way, Dr. Woodruff, there's only one other available lot in the subdivision now, and that's an interior lot. I bought the last available golf course lot in the subdivision. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay. Well, that-- MR. WOLSKI: I could have bought an existing home on the Page 77 February 21, 2002 north end, or I could have bought something else on the south end, but I preferred the south end. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: But the lots across from the existing eight stories are built upon. That's all I -- MR. WOLSKI: Everything is now after I built my house. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay. Thank you. MR. WOLSKI: One other point, we were talking about when were these homes built, prior to '82 or after '82. I don't think that's necessarily a consideration, because if somebody bought a home three or four years ago, an existing home three or four years ago, they had a choice to make. They could buy either looking at eight story or not looking at eight story. I don't think it -- I don't think it depends when the house was built. It depends more when it was last resold, and there's quite a bit of that going on. Thank you. Any other questions? MR. SCHMITT: Anne Mason, and Anne is our last speaker. MS. MASON: I live at 29 Cypress Point Drive, and we live on - - on the No. 3 fairway. And when we built in 1972, we were told only single-family homes would be built. And I -- I guess maybe -- I think I would miss the sunsets. I -- I love the sunsets. And maybe that's not important to anybody else, but it's very important to me and -- and, I know, a lot of my friends. And so that's -- that's my main-- I just would -- I just don't want to look at -- at tall buildings which would -- would be placed there. That's it. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Do we want to give the petitioner a chance to respond to any of those speakers? MR. YOVANOVICH: For the record, Rich Yovanovich again. Just a couple of follow-up comments if I -- if I may. I don't know where this testimony about being limited to one story has come from. We're entitled to -- under the existing zoning is up to three stories on any of the residential tracts in the Moorings under the current master Page 78 February 21, 2002 plan, so there's no -- so there's nothing in the PUD document that supports their position that you can't go more than one story on what is now vacant land. The PUD allows up to three stories. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Could we get confirmation of that from staff'?. MR. BELLOWS: Yes. The PUD document, if you look under the permitted uses, that talks about the number and type of dwelling units. Not all of the three-story buildings have been built. The master plan doesn't restrict the location of the three-story buildings, so they could be developed on the southern end. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So it's basically the overflow of what wouldn't be built in the other part of the project? Perhaps that's where they got their misconception. MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, and it -- and it may be. I don't know. I'm just -- they've said that they bought knowing that only a single-family home could be there, and that -- that is not -- it is not an accurate reading of the PUD. I just wanted that into the record. Also, the impact on the property values is -- is purely, I think, speculation and really has not been borne out with how things have proceeded. I will tell you that there were probably homes in the existing Country Club of Naples that were there when the PUD came about and allowed the eight stories. I would submit to you that I don't think those properties have gone down in value over time. And I can tell you in Seagate, where we talked about Naples Cay, that was a 26-story building that was allowed much closer than 800 feet, and I would submit to you that Seagate's property values have not gone down since Naples Cay has been built. So I think any comment regarding property values is just -- that is pure speculation and is not something that you can objectively base an opinion on. And we need to look at objective criteria. And, again, Page 79 February 21, 2002 I've said early on, I think we've met all of the objective criteria in the Land Development Code. We've -- your staff, who are experts, have evaluated that. We've presented the facts to support the decision of your staff. Unless you have any other specific questions, I'm happy to address the floor area ratio. I mean, I think we certainly can live with what the code requires right now, which is a .45, if it makes sense to them. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: That's pretty steep compared to what you testified today you needed. MR. YOVANOVICH: Right. And you-- well, I think-- honestly I think we can go down to -- we -- there is an older portion of our community, so we need to have some flexibility to renovate the older portion, still with the same heights. But I think .4 is safe, but I don't -- we're uncomfortable (phonetic) -- uncomfortable -- boy, that's a hard word this morning -- going below .4 at this point only because we need to know -- we need the ability to renovate the older existing buildings to go larger. And that -- that means the units are -- the units are about double the size as they were in the past, roughly. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Just out of curiosity, there's been a lot of talk about the existing eight stories. As to their height, how are -- how are they in height compared to what you're asking? MR. YOVANOVICH: Plus or minus 98 feet to the peak. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: How does that compare to what we -- I know you have 95 feet. Is that -- is the "peak" the term that you used? I can't recall offhand. MR. YOVANOVICH: Bear with me. I'll get the answer. The currently designed building is 85.8 to the flat roof with another 11 or so feet with the architectural embellishments. So about what is that, 97? So we're in the ballpark of what's already there. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Well, you're 10 feet above the flat Page 80 February 21, 2002 roof of the existing building. MR. YOVANOVICH: or minus, existing buildings. COMMISSIONER STRA1N: MR. YOVANOVICH: Right. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: building is going to be 95. MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, no. building is at 85, 85.8 to the flat root. I thought we said -- we said 98 feet, plus You said to the peak. Flat roof here is 85. Right. The flat roof of the new Our currently designed COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Right. The flat roof of the new building is requested to be 95. You've got a 1 O-foot difference in height for the flat roof. Is that right or wrong? That's all I'm trying to find out. MR. YOVANOVICH: I'll tell you what. Let me have the architect come up here and answer that question since we're having a little discrepancy on the math this morning. MR. KRIEG: The existing eight-story -- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Identify yourself, please. MR. KRIEG: Philip Krieg, the architect. The existing eight- story buildings are 8 foot 8 inches, floor to floor, at 8 feet comes up to about 78 feet to the flat of the roof. There are elevator penthouses that are adding about another 18 to 20 feet. So roughly to the top of the -- of the existing eight stories there's about 98 feet. The proposed five-story buildings are 55 feet 8 inches to the flat roof and approximately another 11 feet for the parapets and for the -- what has been referred to as embellishments. They're the comer pieces that come up. The new eight-story building is 85 feet 8 inches to the flat roof, plus the same 11 feet. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: You said the new building is 85 feet 8 inches? MR. KRIEG: The new eight-story -- the proposed eight-story Page 81 February 21, 2002 building is 85 feet 8 inches to the flat roof and then another 11 feet, approximate, to just these comer turrets that come up. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Why are you asking for 95 feet then to the flat roof in your PUD -- in your proposal? MR. KRIEG: Then there's an elevator penthouse, which is 20 feet. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: So you add -- that's on top of the 95 you're asking for and -- MR. KRIEG: No, no, no. the 95 overall. The 85 plus the 10 -- 10 or 11 feet is COMMISSIONER STRAIN: No. It says very clearly, gentlemen, Tract C, elevator shafts and their cupolas may extend a maximum of 20 feet above the base height of 95 feet. So you're going to end up with 115 feet compared to 98 feet in the existing buildings. Is that -- no one's paying attention to this. MR. KRIEG: We are. The -- the difference is the parking level that was taken out from under that building which lowered it, so we reduced it in height from what was actually in the PUD request. DR. WOODRUFF: For the record, Richard Woodruff. My apology. You are correct. The original document said eight stories over one of parking with a maximum height of 95 feet. And what I realize has happened is that when we took out the "over one of parking," that part was stricken, but apparently in communicating it did not come down by that 10 feet. So let me ask the architect one more time. Phil, in order to build -- in order to build an eight-story building without parking under it, what is the maximum height to the base? MR. KRIEG: Ninety-seven feet. DR. WOODRUFF: Well, that doesn't-- COMMISSIONER STRAIN: That doesn't work. You're in violation of your own PUD. Page 82 February 21, 2002 DR. WOODRUFF: Okay. Let me answer (sic) the question again. From the ground level to the top of the eight-floor buildings, without embellishments, is how tall? MR. KRIEG: Eighty-five feet eight inches to the flat roof. DR. WOODRUFF: Instead of the 95 that we had. Our apologies. Then you do have the embellishments which we show at 11.1 feet. MR. KRIEG: Eleven foot ten inches. DR. WOODRUFF: And then the elevator shaft would go up a total of 20 feet more than the base elevation. MR. KRIEG: Of 85 feet 8 inches. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay. So the PUD application is -- is wrong, and you would not need 95 feet if this were to move forward. If it were to move forward, you need 85 feet 8 inches. DR. WOODRUFF: That is correct. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Your parapet doesn't enclose the elevator building then. MR. KRIEG: The parapet is a safety measure so that people working on the roof, you know, have an edge, not to just have the -- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Well, we've also used them to hide these various little structures that end up on roofs. But 20 feet, is that-- MR. KRIEG: The elevator override for a high cab -- when you have furniture moving out -- in and out, we were probably going to get 1 O-foot-high cabs. There's an override of the structure of the elevator. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay. I have one other question as regarding the height then. Back to the original buildings, what is the height now to the flat roof of those original buildings? Page 83 February 21, 2002 MR. KRIEG: Existing? COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Existing, yes, sir. MR. KRIEG: They are 8 feet 8 inches floor to floor. Nine stories or eight stories is -- well, let me do the math. That's 64 feet -- that's roughly 70 feet to the flat roof. That's eight stories at 8 foot 8 inches. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: 'Okay. So it's 70 feet to the flat roof, and on top of that, you have 20 feet for-- MR. KRIEG: Another 20 feet, roughly, for their parapets. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: So the existing eight-story buildings are 90 feet. MR. KRIEG: Roughly. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Roughly. Let's just say -- let's max them out. The new building would be 115 feet, even though the stories are the same. MR. KRIEG: No. The stories on our new buildings are 10 foot 4 floor to floor, so we have 9 foot 8 clear inside height. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: You couldn't build the new buildings like you built the old building? MR. KRIEG: The market is saying that they want -- everybody wants 10-, 12-foot ceilings. So we stayed-- we came down under 10 to a 10 -- a 9-foot-8 ceiling height. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: You know, this is -- COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Well, Mr. Woodruff said he had- - said you had an 8-foot ceiling. MR. KRIEG: I know, and we discussed that and corrected it earlier. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: It didn't get corrected -- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: You didn't correct the record. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: -- for the record. MR. KRIEG: That's why I'm indicating it here. Page 84 February 21, 2002 COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So you're talking about a building -- this -- I'm confused about how tall this new building's going to be. Just tell me how tall it's going to be. I don't know -- I don't care to know how many floors or how much space there is between -- MR. KRIEG: To the flat -- to the flat of the top of the roof-- COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: To the top observable level, how tall is it? MR. KRIEG: Fifty-five feet eight inches. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: The eight-story building. MR. KRIEG: The eight story building is 85 feet 8 inches. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: And that includes the elevator shaft. MR. KRIEG: No. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Well, that's what I'm trying to ask you. MR. KRIEG: The maximum -- this is a building that's not just a flat top. It's got a -- COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Don't make me try to invent what you should say. Rich. MR. YOVANOVICH: One oh five. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: A hundred and five feet. So we should-- MR. YOVANOVICH: Plus 20 feet is the maximum for the elevator shaft. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So we should be looking - - and the public should be aware that this is going to be 105 foot. MR. KRIEG: Maximum. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Yeah. I guess that's what you call the top of a building, the maximum. MR. BELLOWS: IfI may, there's some confusion on how Page 85 February 21, 2002 maximum building height is -- the LDC defines maximum building height as the measure from the base foot elevation to the top of a flat- pitch roof. It does not include the elevator shafts or parapets or cupolas or things of that nature. Those are exempt from the maximum building height. So -- COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Well, Ray, understand, though, what -- you know, we're poor citizens here. And they've raised issues of compatibility, and in their view, it's the height of these buildings that's their concern, so we need to know what that height is. MR. BELLOWS: Yeah. And they're stating it's 85.8 plus the 20 feet for the elevator shaft, which makes it 105 feet .8. MR. YOVANOVICH: Yeah..8. 105.8. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I don't care about the .8. May I ask a question? MR. YOVANOVICH: Sure. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Mr. Yovanovich, I notice it says in the rezone findings -- and I'd just like to get your assessment of this. It says, "The subject property can be developed in accordance with the existing zoning, however to do so would deny this petitioner of the opportunity to maximize the development potential of the site." Could you explain to me in terms that perhaps I could understand -- that may be difficult -- how a eight-story building is -- maximizes your development potential more than two five-story buildings or any other, you know, mix of buildings that would satisfy your intensity requirements. MR. YOVANOVICH: I'm a little confused by the question. We've asked for two five-story buildings and an eight-story building. Originally we asked for eight -- I mean three eight-story buildings. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Based on what you've got Page 86 February 21, 2002 -- and the biggest fly in the ointment, as I see it, is the eight-story building, which now is 105 feet tall, plus or minus, intended. And one of the assessments we're required to make or asked to make is whether you can do this with existing zoning. But you said, oh, no. You can't do that because you're not going to maximize your development potential. And I'd like to know from the client's perspective what development potential we're talking about that's enhanced by an eight-story building and the two fives versus having them all lower rise. MR. YOVANOVICH: And I -- and I'm not trying to beg the question, but I thought Dr. Woodruff took us through a rather exhaustive analysis of why. The market has changed since this PUD was originally crafted. The market is telling our client that duplexes and single-family homes is not the types of services that continue -- you know, a retirement community such as Moorings Park is requesting. The -- Dr. Woodruff went through it exhaustively about how they -- they prefer, you know, a central lobby area where they come in and they have the community facilities so that they are -- they have the -- the camaraderie or interaction of older people so they're not isolated and -- and left alone. They like to be around each other. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So let me just pursue that. Then you would assess that a five-story building would not provide that level of camaraderie. You'd have to have an eight-story building in order to get that level of interaction. MR. YOVANOVICH: I don't believe that's what I said. What I said is we can accomplish that in a five-story building -- in two five- story buildings and an eight-story building and providing the same number of units we are already permitted within the PUD. I never said you could not accomplish community in a five-story building. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Well, then I would just Page 87 February 21, 2002 ask, why not put in two five-story buildings and accomplish your eight-story goal since it's essentially the same thing from a camaraderie standpoint? I'm just -- if you can tell me that you can only maximize your development with an eight-story building, then I need to have some proof of that. MR. YOVANOVICH: Are you -- are you advocating four five- story buildings? Is that what you're suggesting? COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I'm asking you to at least explain to us why the eight-story building is preferable over lower profile buildings on this site, which seems to be the essence of the compatibility issue. MR. YOVANOVICH: Okay. I'll let Dr. Woodruff try to do it again. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Well, I'm sorry I'm so dense for you, Mr. Yovanovich, but I think it's a valid question. DR. WOODRUFF: It is a valid question. There's no question about that. First of all, I take you back to the original proposal. The original proposal was three eight-story buildings, and I would tell that you we would be standing in front of you today asking for three eight-story buildings except for one thing: The neighbors very clearly told us, "There's no way we're going to support it." Now, I will tell you that our profile of the way that we operate Moorings Park and the desire of what we are seeing, our number one preference is the original petition, three eight-story buildings. Those buildings would be located generally where the original petition -- now, we cut two of the eight-story buildings and the parking out from under them. And I do apologize for the math error. We cut those to five story because the neighbors said, "Do not build eight-story buildings right there." We moved one of the eight-story buildings because we still believe that the best configuration is the eight-story building, but we moved it 300 feet to the west so that we Page 88 February 21, 2002 could keep the eight-story building but find a way of reducing the impact on the neighbors. If you ask me what is the impact of building two additional five- story buildings instead of an eight-story building, I would tell you that the difficulty there is that you're going to wind up with one of those buildings with a very nice golf course view and the other building looking at the public works facility to the south, looking at Goodlette Road to the west, looking at the Chateau which is certainly a beautiful building, and looking at the other building. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: So the concern is aesthetics to the -- to the new residents of the eight-story building. DR. WOODRUFF: And the functionality that an eight-story building functions better. It's cheaper to service. It's cheaper to build. There are just so many reasons why an eight-story building is better than five. We just -- as we've said, if we had our choice, we'd be standing in front of you today with three eight-story buildings. In concession to the neighbors, who we certainly want to try to find a reasonable compromise, we've did those items I've discussed. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: You know, I'm struck that that -- the buffering issue that you raised earlier that you have talked to the neighbors about and perhaps providing additional buffering, even onto their property, or at least talking to them about that -- DR. WOODRUFF: On the golf course. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: -- as a way to further shield their view of these buildings, it seems to me -- it just struck me that that works in reverse, too, that the people that you're trying to afford the view to in the eight-story building, they're going to be blocked as well if you put up this buffering. I don't know how you -- how it can work both ways. DR. WOODRUFF: Well, it -- it actually does work very well both ways. The buffering is not occurring at the face of the building. Page 89 February 21, 2002 The buffering is occurring in the view plane. And what we're talking about doing is going between the golf holes that run.noah and south basically and putting in additional vegetation that's generally 25, 30 feet in height so that you intercept the view plane of the single-family home. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: But it also intercepts -- my point is it intercepts the view plane of your residents in the eight- story building as well. DR. WOODRUFF: Yes. You're certainly correct in that if you're at the lower floors, you're now going to have one golf course hole to look across, not two. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: It's a -- it's a tangled web. So your final position, I guess, is that you obviously have come in here with an eight-story request, and you wouldn't want to consider satisfying your requirements with smaller structures. DR. WOODRUFF: Our position is that we have modified our original petition in what we think is a reasonable way to address the neighbors' concerns. We've gone from three eight-story buildings over parking to two five-story buildings that could either be five stories or four over one of parking. We've taken the other eight-story building, moved it 300 feet to the west, and cut the parking out from under it. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Would you give any further consideration to moving that structure -- if it is eight stories, a hundred and how many feet -- further towards Goodlette Drive (sic) another 200 feet, put it in the middle of your property instead of over on the edge? DR. WOODRUFF: Let us think about that a second while there are any other questions you have for follow-up. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Well, you know, there's a certain eerie similarity to this and the school board's request maybe a year or Page 90 February 21, 2002 more ago to build the Taj Mahal, as it has come to be called. They had an alternative proposal, which was two low-rise buildings, which wouldn't cast a shadow on the residential neighborhood to the west, and as long as they had that alternative and flat out refused to pursue it, this Planning Commission voted 7 to nothing against the Taj Mahal. So somehow we've become allergic to tall buildings. I don't necessarily share that view, but it's all about view, I think, and -- and compatibility, and -- and height is -- is certainly an issue. It seems to me that another alternative is just to make that five- story building on the south -- that eight-story building on the south into a larger five-story building. In other words, instead of having one elevator and one stack or two stacks, make it three stacks or four all in one building. We went through that with Naples Cay over a number of years over whether you're taking up more greenspace depending on the footprint of the building or whether you want to go higher with a smaller footprint. And it seems to me in this case the footprint is not nearly the issue that the height is. So there are several ways to skin this cat, I think. DR. WOODRUFF: Richard Woodruff for the record. We certainly believe we could -- although it's not our best position -- we could certainly move back to a 400-foot setback. A 500-foot setback pushes us so close to Goodlette Road that we have some -- we really have some design concerns because, remember, you know, we have put in there the -- taken out the parking underneath. We're going to have to have surface parking. We're going to have to still accommodate some other single-family, multiple-family units that are in that area. So we would say, yes, we could go 400 feet. We would not want to have to go 500 feet. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Let me ask a softball question. Are you a 501(c)(3) organization? MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes. Page 91 February 21, 2002 CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: So profit is not an issue. MR. YOVANOVICH: Correct. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: One of the witnesses talked about maximizing your profit. That's not one of your goals. I suspect you just want to make the bread and the molasses come out even at the end of the year, and maybe a little extra molasses. MR. YOVANOVICH: And, Mr. Richardson, I certainly hope you didn't take the comments the way you responded to them. I was not trying to question your intelligence at all by saying that. I -- I do want to say, however, though, the public process is a good process. We've always done that. You know that. But what comes down is you -- we come in front of the Planning Commission after we've in good faith given away everything we can give away, and we now have people who respectfully disagree with each other's position. So these hearings are becoming more contentious, and the problems are not always going away. You're now getting to the crux of the issue in front of this -- in this Planning Commission. But the people who own the property that have the public partic who participate in the public participation process -- we have put everything in our PUD, the commitments we have made, and we now are where we think we've made reasonable accommodations. We've just offered up another hundred feet, if you're going to really push us to it, for that setback. We are where we are. We're not -- we're not trying to bargain and negotiate any further away. And we -- we do -- and I say this at every hearing. We have met the requirements in the code, and we are entitled, based on the evidence before you, to approval of our petition. There's been no contradictory evidence presented to our petition that is competent and substantial evidence. That's my legal position. I'm just --just saying that because I have to protect the record and protect my client. And we have negotiated in good faith, and we would like a Page 92 February 21, 2002 recommendation of approval from this -- COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Rich, if this was a zoning entitlement, you wouldn't even be in front of us. MR. YOVANOVICH: Sure I would. I'd still have to prove it to the trier of fact based on the facts and give the public an opportunity to present evidence. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Well, there's plenty of evidence on compatibility, I think. MR. YOVANOVICH: Which way? COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Against your position. MR. YOVANOVICH: Not -- not from anybody who has -- who's qualified to testify. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Well, thank you very much. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Anything else from the petitioner? Any questions of the petitioner? Richard? DR. WOODRUFF: I just want to -- Richard Woodruff for the record. I just want to make sure that we are all understanding of the -- of the present concessions. I believe that we have -- that you-all accepted not necessarily accepted, but you understood we're saying that the eight-story building is going to be 85.5 feet plus 20 feet maximum for the elevator shaft. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: No. Eighty-five feet eight inches, which would be-- DR. WOODRUFF: What did I say? COMMISSIONER STRAIN: -- 85.75 feet. DR. WOODRUFF: Sorry. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: If you wanted to take off 3 inches, that's fine, but I don't want your architects saying you misunderstood them. Page 93 February 21, 2002 DR. WOODRUFF: Okay. I do apologize. Let's do that again. The building -- the eight-story building in Building (sic) C will be 85.8 -- no, 85 feet 8 inches in height to the flat roof. It will be allowed to have an additional 20 feet for the elevator shaft. The other parapets will be whatever that number is that's in there as far as additional footage. The eight-story building on Parcel C will move 400 feet, not 300 feet. The other issue had to do with the maximum square footage that we would build, and what Mr. Yovanovich said was that we would agree to 0.40 instead of the 0.45. I believe those are the only changes; is that correct? COMMISSIONER BUDD: Dr. Woodruff, there was some discussion, I'm not sure of the resolution, regarding 4(B)(2) about where the foregoing uses, where the planning services director, and there was some discussion about whether it would be Planning Commission or somebody would determine it to be compatible. Was there any movement on that? Because I got lost in the web of discussion. DR. WOODRUFF: Yes, sir, and thank you for clarifying that. That is correct. We have agreed that paragraph 4(B), No. 2 will be stricken. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Dr. Woodruff, while you're there, the floor area ratio, let's say .28, for round numbers that you're working with now, up to .40, how much additional square footage is that? DR. WOODRUFF: COMMISSIONER DR. WOODRUFF: COMMISSIONER DR. WOODRUFF: If you'll give me a calculator, I'll -- STRAIN: Do you have one handy? Yeah, I do. If you'll -- STRAIN: You've got the numbers; I don't. The 82 acres, plus or minus, is 3,615,480 square feet. A ratio in the current code of 0.45 is 1,626,966. A ratio of 0.40 would be 1,446,197. In general terms that is about 180,000 Page 94 February 21, 2002 square feet -- and that's not an exact number -- roughly 180,000 square feet less. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: So by going from .28, which was what you previously discussed with us, up to .40, you've picked up about 500,000 square feet; is that what you're looking at? DR. WOODRUFF: If you go from the current 0.27654 factor -- we'll say .28 -- to .40 you're increasing it from right at a million square foot to a million 446. So you're right. It's about 446,000 square feet. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay. Thank you. COMMISSIONER BUDD: Dr. Woodruff, on that difference between the .28 and the .40, if I understand you correctly, you're wanting that as leeway for as yet undetermined, unrecognized accessory uses. DR. WOODRUFF: And the rehabilitation of the existing units. I mean, in time we will need to refurbish. And if you have been on the grounds of Moorings Park, you know that at the current time we are refurbishing the facades of the buildings. Now, we believe that that will certainly be something that will add value to the buildings. But as those units come on-line, the number one complaint that we hear is these are small units. There will be a point in time -- is it this week? No. There will be a point in time where we will want to be able to take those buildings down. They will have to continue to meet the unit count that's in the PUD. They will have to continue to meet the height that's set up in that area. But the units, instead of being 1200- and 1100-square-foot units, will become more in the vicinity of 20- to 2500-square-foot units. Now, that's one of the issues. I mean, I have to tell you, when I first looked at that number, I thought, well, we can do a number a whole lot closer than .28. The architect reminded me, that's fine as far as new things that aren't on Page 95 February 21, 2002 the ground, but when you start taking the 282 units that currently exist and over the next 10 years, 15 years you start tearing those structures down and rehabbing them, we're going to -- we're going to have a market that says, no, no, no. Replace an 1100-square-foot unit with a 2200-square-foot unit. Well, when you multiply that number times the number of units that are there today, that's why we feel like we can't -- we can't give you a number as low as, like, 29 percent or 30 percent. We need the ability to in the future expand, rehab, tear down, rebuild existing structures. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Would you be willing, though, to specify a floor area ratio just for the new construction, that is on B and C tracts, apart from what we don't know about, which is the refurbishing? DR. WOODRUFF: I apologize for the length in time -- COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Quite all right. DR. WOODRUFF: -- in trying to provide an answer. Let me make sure, first of all, that I understand what the question is. You are asking beyond what we have identified in the square footages for the additional buildings, that you're asking would we set a limit on how many more square feet we could add to B and C? COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Right. DR. WOODRUFF: Under your request could I ask if you would consider this amount of flexibility, that if we chose not to put that additional square footage in B and C, that we would still have the ability to use that up inA, provided we are not increasing the floor area ratio beyond 0.40? I mean, and -- I mean, I think you understand what I'm asking? Thank you. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Yeah. I -- that -- I don't have a particular problem with the refurbishment and things that might take place in the future on Tract A, but what we have in front of us is a consideration of what we should be doing -- what we should Page 96 February 21, 2002 be allowing on B and C. So it would be helpful if you could focus your comments to what you're intending to do with B and C in some sort of restrictive way. MR. GOSCH: Guenther Gosch for the record. Sir, there will be a time -- our buildings are now 20 years old and on probably another 20-year life span. There will be a time when we will be replacing the buildings and doing it as a teardown. I can't take a building that has 18 apartments or 24 apartments in it and put it out of service for two or three years, absorb the revenue loss while I construct another one on site. I would have to be able to use the flexibility of the south campus where there may be additional space to put that building while I tear down the other one. In other words, we would work back and forth across campus without-- we would like to be able to work back and forth across campus without the restriction of having to build a new building right on top of the same footprint as the old one. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Okay. I understand that problem, and I guess it's just an issue that we're -- maybe this is just much too early in that whole 20-year process to even be thinking about this, but it suggests to me that whatever is agreed to here and goes forward, you can still come back at some -- decade later and add more to it without ever having to come back to us in any official capacity because of the fact the intensity is permitted across the entire site. MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes, that's correct. We would-- we would be -- we would have a floor area ratio of .40 including all of the acreage, which would provide us flexibility and has also brought us down to what the government has said is an acceptable standard of .45. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Might that include another eight-story building on this tract, then, at some future time without ever coming back to us? Page 97 February 21, 2002 MR. YOVANOVICH: No. No. We-- we have limited ourselves on B and C to -- on B itself to no more than two five-story buildings. One could be four over one of parking, but we've given you the height there. And on C we're limited to one eight story. We can't put another eight-story building on B or C. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I'm not really sure I understand, then, the flexibility that he was talking about of being able to put up another building down there as a -- as a swing. MR. GOSCH: We're only allowed to build 114. So when we build the units, if-- if you were to approve this PUD amendment, we would only have an additional 20 -- 20 units that we could build, so obviously there's no point in building an eight-story building to accommodate 20 units. Your question, though, if I can anticipate it -- and tell me if I'm wrong -- that you've also got a couple of eight-story buildings over there. What are you going to do when you have to knock down an eight-story building with 95 apartments in it? COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Good question. MR. GOSCH: If I had the answer, I'd write a book and make a million. However, it would have to be compatible with -- with what we have here in terms of height restrictions. We would probably have to build a series of smaller buildings and, I don't know, maybe go off campus or some such thing. Communities rebuilding like ours have the same problem. It is -- it is a vexing issue, and sometimes you just can't rebuild on your current site. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I guess -- would that trigger a PUD change? MR. BELLOWS: Yes. If they wanted to exceed the floor area ratio that's adopted or the number of units to allow for additional units to be constructed, we would be requiring-- COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Not -- not necessarily the number of buildings. They could go ahead and put additional Page 98 February 21, 2002 buildings in just as long as they kept within their -- MR. BELLOWS: That's correct. MR. YOVANOVICH: No, no, no. That's not -- that's not accurate. We can only have one eight-story building on Tract C. We can't tempor -- we can't have two eight-story buildings on Tract C without coming back for a PUD amendment. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: How about another three- story building on that same site? MR. YOVANOVICH: And it talks about -- yes. It says right there, all other structures are limited to 35 feet as measured to the eave on B and C. We have the height requirements and numbers of five-story buildings on Tract B, two five-story buildings no more than 55 feet. And on Tract A, again, we're still limited to the two we already have in existence, so we're not changing anything on Tract A. Yes, we can have some 3 5-foot-high buildings, but we can never have more than two five-story buildings on Tract B, and we can never have more than one eight-story building on Tract C without coming back in front of the Planning Commission and the Board of County Commissioners. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Sorry to be so dense. Thank you. MR. YOVANOVICH: You're not. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: That's the first good move you've made. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any other questions of the petitioner? I guess I'll close the public hearing and open for discussion. COMMISSIONER BUDD: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion so that we can at least use it as a starting point of some discussion and healthy disagreement. I'd like to make a motion that the Planning Commission forward a recommendation of approval for Page 99 February 21, 2002 Petition PUDA-2001-1133 subject to certain specific modifications to the PUD document: Number one, that the maximum floor area ratio be limited to 0.40; number two, there be a 400-foot setback from the east property line for the eight-story building; number 3, that the Tract C height is -- is 85 feet 8 inches in lieu of the 95 feet as presented in the document; and Item No. 4, that Item 4(B)(2) be stricken from the ordinance language. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Is there one more for staff stipulations? COMMISSIONER BUDD: And the other staff stipulations to be included as originally presented. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Discussion? COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Is there a second for that? I'll second it. Mr. Midney, the duty seconder. You got it half right. The 400 feet from the property, line isn't as much of an issue as the distance from the residential units to the east. So I would recommend, since the petitioner showed originally they were 800 feet from those residential units and they've agreed to go another hundred feet to the west, why don't we stipulate that they have to be 900 feet from the nearest residential property line to the east? And that would make sure that the -- the view distance is there for the property owner. COMMISSIONER BUDD: I'm in agreement with that modification. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: And the FAR, we went from .45 to .40 pretty easily, so therefore I think he can go down to .35 just as easily. And so I'd like to reduce the FAR to .35. That's another 180,000 square feet. That's reduced temporarily. And in the future if they want to increase that, they can come back in before the Planning Commission and the BCC. I would like to make that Page 100 February 21, 2002 recommendation as well. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: aren't we? COMMISSIONER BUDD: Yeah. how it flies with the .40 floor area ratio. I think we're niggling a little bit, I would rather-- let's see And in expectation of the vote, you might want to do some math and see if you can wiggle if that one doesn't fly. MR. BELLOWS: And ifI may, before you take your motion (sic), I just would like to point out that it would be very difficult for staff to enforce 900 foot from the nearest dwelling because it's on adjacent property, and we would have to do some special kind of survey work to make that determination. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I said property line -- MR. BELLOWS: Well, even property -- COMMISSIONER STRAIN: -- and that's a platted property. So you've got a plat that gives you that dimension. Wouldn't that work? And when their survey is supplied through the SDP, they've got to show surrounding properties. They could show all that on an SDP. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Well, my concern with the motion as it currently stands is that I would much prefer in terms of the competent testimony we received from the public, that -- on the compatibility issue, that instead of an eight-story building, that the applicant revise their plan to come in with two smaller structures, say two four stories, in an amount that's equivalent to the square footage that they would lose with the eight-story building; that is put up two - - divide that in half in some fashion and place it on the property, and I think it would be a much more compatible situation as far as the neighbors are concerned. They thought they only had one story over there, and they were mistaken. But now this vacant property -- instead of having the Page 101 February 21, 2002 eight-story building, I think it would be much more compatible with the neighborhood and still satisfy their highest and best use criteria to have it as two four-story buildings. That would be my -- I'm suggesting an amendment to the motion. COMMISSIONER BUDD: I respectfully decline to amend my motion. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any other discussion? We have at least two votes against, I suppose. So in the absence of any further discussion -- COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Mr. Chairman, you had asked the applicant if they would consider dropping to .35 voluntarily before the vote. Did you want to hear if they -- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Oh, yeah. DR. WOODRUFF: Let me -- I apologize. I guess we could. I apologize. As soon as the first question came out about the 900 foot, we made the mistake of quit listening, and I do apologize for that. We were trying to calculate. The other amendments that you wanted were 900 feet from the residential property line to the east and then a reduction in the floor area ratio -- COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Down to .35. DR. WOODRUFF: -- to 0.35. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Based on your previous calculation, that would be approximately 180,000 square feet. DR. WOODRUFF: So to -- to Mr. Budd's motion, what you're suggesting is the floor area ratio is 0.35, the setback be measured from the residential property to the east, and that would be 900 feet -- COMMISSIONER STRAIN: That's correct. DR. WOODRUFF: -- that all other conditions, three, four, and five that he had, remain? COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Yes. COMMISSIONER BUDD: Actually, where we're at, my Page 102 February 21, 2002 motion is for .40. I had declined Mr. Strain's request to change that, but I would offer the observation that you might be picking up an additional vote if you were to make that modification. And if you were to agree to it, I would agree to my motion, speculating that you might be picking up another vote by that action. MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, why don't we see if this motion passes. If it passes, we'll-- we'll be thrilled. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: Call the question. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: All those in favor? COMMISSIONER BUDD: Aye. So it CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: has two. All those opposed? You seconded? Well, that was for discussion. Okay. Well, I'm an aye as well. COMMISSIONER COMMISSIONER COMMISSIONER COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Aye. RICHARDSON: STRAIN: Aye. RICHARDSON: Aye. Case closed. Next item. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I'd like to make a motion to mirror Mr. Budd's with the exception that we have a maximum FAR of.35. COMMISSIONER BUDD: Second. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: All those in favor? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any discussion of that? Aye. Aye. COMMISSIONER BUDD: Aye. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Aye. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Opposed? COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I'm opposed for the reasons stated. Page 103 February 21, 2002 CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: 4 to 1 it passes-- MR. YOVANOVICH: Thank you. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: -- at three -- at the .35. MR. YOVANOVICH: That's correct. COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON: I gather this won't be on the consent agenda, then. MR. BELLOWS: Definitely not. DR. WOODRUFF: I do need to -- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Just a minute. Just a minute. Let's MR. BELLOWS: That's what I was going to ask. Can we -- just a point on clarification on the motion. Are we going with the 400-foot setback from Tract C or the 900 feet from the nearest residential lot? COMMISSIONER STRAIN: CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Nine hundred was my intent. Nine hundred was the motion. All right. We need to change court reporters. Is that all, Rich? Quitting while you're ahead? MR. YOVANOVICH: Yeah, I'm quitting. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Okay. We need to change court reporters, so let's take five. (A short break was held.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: We're ready to proceed with Item H on our agenda, Conditional Use 2001-AR-1414, Kathy Morgan of Land Development Consultants representing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints requesting Conditional Use 10 in one instance and 2 in another. All those wishing to give testimony on this matter, please stand and be sworn. (The oath was administered.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Mr. Reischl. Page 104 February 21, 2002 MR. REISCHL: Good afternoon, Commissioners. Fred Reischl, planning services. This is a request for a conditional use church in the RSF-3 district. I noticed that you read the title. I apologize for not correcting that. During -- when -- when this petition was submitted, the church was a conditional use in the C-1 district. The code has since been amended. So, therefore, this petition is only for the portion of the site that is zoned RSF -3, so my apologies on that. I thought that was corrected. The location is on State Road 29 north of Lake Trafford Road in Immokalee. It's over a 16-acre site in total, and the site for the church is approximately 5.96 acres, I believe. And to show you how some of this works here, this is the C-1 portion (indicating), and this is the RSF-3 portion (indicating). The entire parcel that's owned by the church is this (indicating) entire parcel. They're only asking for the conditional use on a portion of it. As you can see, this is the entire parcel, and this red-hatched area is the area that they're requesting the conditional use. So the majority of it is on the C-1 zoning where it is permitted today, again, not at the time of application, but it's permitted today. And there's the aerial of the site. You can see it's mainly cleared. We've received no objections to this. It was -- letters were sent to property owners within 500 feet of the property boundary. One of the neighbors to the west will be the residential portion of this site. The church at some point will either sell this to a residential developer or possibly develop it themselves. But the 5.96 acres is the subject of this conditional use petition, and staff recommends approval. MR. STRAIN: Questions? CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any questions? MR. STRAIN: Yes, I have a couple. Just some clarification, really. There was a site plan provided, and it shows the church in the Page 105 February 21, 2002 parking lot, two driveways. There's no orientation on this site plan. So I'm having a hard time trying to understand. Is it fronting on State Road 29? MR. REISCHL: Yes. MR. STRAIN: Okay. So the piece that we're looking at in our packet which is that, that's all in commercial zoning? MR. REISCHL: This portion (indicating)? MR. STRAIN: Right here (indicating). MR. REISCHL: Thanks. Okay. As I said before, the majority of it is in commercial zoning. The conditional use site does go back into the residential zoning. MR. STRAIN: Okay. Then I guess that -- what we're looking at in our packages to approve today and the site plan that's referenced as Exhibit C in the resolution show the commercial part of the site. But aren't we asking for a provisional use or a conditional use on the noncommercial part of the site? MR. REISCHL: That's not the legal description. What I showed on Exhibit C was the portion that is going to have the structure on it in the parking lot. The rest is going to be water management area, recreation area. The legal description does describe that entire site, which is Exhibit B, I believe. MR. STRAIN: Okay. And I -- I don't mean to beat a dead horse. I'm trying to figure this.out. Conceptual Master Plan Exhibit C is what's referenced as showing -- how do I -- how does someone tell what you're asking for under conditional use if the only portion of the exhibit we have shows what's going to be done in the commercial area? MR. REISCHL: I'm not sure I understand. MR. STRAIN: That's why I may be confused, and I'm trying to understand it myself. The diagram you got in front of us shows the church and the parking lot in the commercial area; is that correct? Page 106 February 21, 2002 MR. REISCHL: The one on the visualizer? MR. STRAIN: Yes. That one. MR. REISCHL: So what you're saying, you would rather have this on the visualizer as Exhibit C rather than the one I have in your packet. MR. STRAIN: Well, you're asking for a conditional use for an area that couldn't necessarily have a church, right, but because it's conditional -- C-1 automatically allows a church; is that right? MR. REISCHL: Now it does, yes. MR. STRAIN: Right. You're asking for a conditional use of the back part of that parcel which is residential? CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: RSF-3. MR. REISCHL: It's -- well, it's not going to be resident -- well, it will be residential zoning, but it will be -- they have to put buffers in and-- MR. STRAIN: Okay. MR. REISCHL: -- other things. So if -- MR. STRAIN: Well, do you-all understand what's going on? Maybe I'm just not seeing it. MR. RICHARDSON: The exhibits don't match what's being requested. MR. STRAIN: What is the conditional use area? What area of this map are you -- or is someone asking for a conditional use on? MR. BELLOWS: IfI may, Ray Bellows, chief planner. The conditional use is for the RSF -3 zoning, as stated in the title, which is behind the commercial property. MR. REISCHL: And as well as this tract up here (indicating). MR. BELLOWS: And the portion here. MR. STRAIN: Okay. Now I see what you're putting on the portion of the top of the page, which is a driveway. But what are you putting on the portions behind the church? If you're asking for a Page 107 February 21, 2002 conditional use for that, what is -- what's going to be there? There's nothing; it's a blank spot. MR. REISCHL: It's exactly what it is today. It could be water management. It could be fields for, you know, the --. MR. STRAIN: What are you asking us to vote on then? MR. BELLOWS: Well, ifI may, if they're going to have church activities on this vacant land, they need the conditional use. Now, if they were to put a church -- a structure for the church and it's not shown on the conceptual plan, you'll have to come back and amend the conditional use and go through the conditional use process to show any kind of structure in this vacant land area. Right now they're proposing a conditional use for accessory church uses to the current site. There may not be any structure, but it could be other church services. They might at times want to put a tent out there on a temporary basis or some kind of church activity or playground equipment. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Well, your water management at the least--. MR. BELLOWS: It could be water management also. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Be incident to the church. MR. BELLOWS: Be a conditional use for the church property that's also mostly being built on C-1. MR. STRAIN: Okay. I mean, I'm following you. I'm just not -- MR. STRAIN: I don't understand all completely yet why it's being done this way. But that leads me back to my original issue that I had is the plan that you reference in the document -- that -- the resolution that's going to be going forward -- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: It's the wrong document. MR. STRAIN: -- shows the C-1 portion of this property. It doesn't show the balance of the property that I think you're trying to say you want a conditional use on or somebody wants a conditional Page 108 February 21, 2002 use on. Is that accurate ? MR. REISCHL: So what you're saying is you'd like us to revise the legal description and revise the site plan to show only the RSF-3 portions ? MR. STRAIN: Well, I think you ought to show what you need. MS. STUDENT: I -- I have a thought. Perhaps if Exhibit C showed the entire property involved with a line that shows where it's the RSF and where it's the commercial, so that way it doesn't, if you will, disintegrate the project. It shows it as an integrated thing, but you just know where the C- 1 area -- or I think it's C- 1, the C- 1 area, is and where the RSF area is, and I think that would make it clear and revise the legal description as well which I'm discussing with Mr. Reischl. MR. STRAIN: That way we would know what area we're being asked to approve for a conditional use. That's all I'm trying to get to. Would that work for you, Fred? I mean, is that something you could add to this to revise the legal description -- MR. REISCHL: To revise the legal description? MR. STRAIN: -- and revise the graphic -- MR. REISCHL: Yes. MR. STRAIN: -- so we know what we're dealing with? MR. BELLOWS: It would just be this area (indicating) in highlighting here. MR. REISCHL: Actually, it's not even that. So I -- I will prepare or our staff will prepare a graphic that includes just the area that will be used for storm water and accessory activities. MR. STRAIN: I think Marjorie's suggestion was that you show the whole thing, show how it's integrated, but separate out -- somehow crosshatch the piece or do whatever to highlight the one that we're actually approving a conditional use on so people can see how that's fitting together. Page 109 February 21, 2002 MS. STUDENT: Yeah. That way it's understood how it fits together, but yet it's clear what parts the conditional use is for. And you might make a notation on that, Exhibit C, that says conditional uses for this part and -- MR. REISCHL: Understood. MR. RICHARDSON: A quick question on the boilerplate here, to pick up on my partner's comments. It says a traffic impact statement may be required. Can you explain to me, just educate me, what the conditions are as to when it may or when it may not and why it doesn't say will be required? MR. REISCHL: Well, that was one of the concerns of the petitioner that a traffic impact statement not hold up the conditional use going forward. They know that even according to the overlay district there will be deceleration/acceleration lanes that are required. Turn lanes may be required, but that will depend on the traffic impact statement, or it may be just a traffic analysis. So it doesn't necessarily have to be a traffic impact statement. MR. RICHARDSON: I just -- when I see maybe, it raises a flag in my mind. MR. REISCHL: No. It may just be a traffic analysis. It may not be a traffic impact statement with all its require -- MR. RICHARDSON: So I could read your analysis to say that you may require a traffic impact statement, or you may also require a traffic analysis but one or the other will be required? MS. WOLFE: Dawn Wolfe, transportation planning department director. It's going to be dependent upon whether or not under a traffic analysis, which is to determine whether or not specifically they would need a left-turn lane into the site; that would be a traffic assessment versus a traffic impact statement which looks more as to how many roadway links are impacted. It's already been determined Page 110 February 21, 2002 that a traffic impact statement under the zoning criteria that we have looked on a link-by-link basis that this will not create a deficiency on any of those roads. It should be a traffic assessment, not a traffic impact statement for the purposes of determining whether or not they need to have additional turn lanes into the site. MR. RICHARDSON: So you would always it's implied, then, that there's always a traffic analysis on any of these projects we're looking at? MS. WOLFE: Those that have a significant trip generation that is outlined in the LDC, which is either a thousand trips per day or a hundred trips in the peak hour are required under the current Land Development Code to do the traffic assessment which goes to defining exactly what type of improvements need to be put in place for their site access. MR. RICHARDSON: And this, by definition, then is knowledge that would not be available to us at this time; it would be at site development plan time? MS. WOLFE: Correct. MR. RICHARDSON: Fred, in the same spirit, then, you say that the site may be sub -- may be deemed consistent with the Florida future land use element. The -- where does the "may be" come in, in that sense? MR. REISCHL: That's comprehensive planning's method of saying basically that the determination is made by the board of zoning appeals. That is their-- they believe that it is, but it may be determined -- the board may determine that it's not, but the board of zoning appeals has that power, that decision. MR. RICHARDSON: Okay. MR. STRAIN: Fred, I have another comment to ask you about. There's a letter or a statement, and under wastewater treatment plant there's an asterisk when it says service availability, and the asterisk Page 111 February 21, 2002 says developer/owner will be responsible for building out to the Immokalee water and sewer district main lines. On the narrative statement that was supplied to us, the fourth statement says the church will be provided with potable water service from Immokalee water and sewer district and will have a septic tank for sewer service. Which one is it? Do you know? MR. REISCHL: It depends on the distance between the line. And if there's no available service, then they would have to go septic tank. MR. STRAIN: They could tie into them at the lift station. MR. REISCHL. Well, this is a conditional use, right, that's all details for the site development plan. MR. STRAIN: Okay. That just was a conflicting statement. That's why I-- MR. REISCHL: Okay. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any other questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Can we hear from the petitioner? MS. MORGAN: Good afternoon. My name is Kathy Morgan representing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And I think I can help answer any questions that you might have. The area that's proposed in the back portion of the property is strictly for water management purposes, open space, landscaping and any outdoor activities. The main congregation will be put toward the front of State Road 29 on the commercial property as depicted in the site plan that we gave. And the church has proposed at 12,728 square feet with a possible addition of 4,300 square feet. That would be the maximum size of the church. It would not grow any further for this site, for this area. What the church usually does is they will find another site and build another church. As far as the sewer is concerned, when I spoke with the utility Page 112 February 21, 2002 company, they did mention that there was a force main available, and it comes to the economics and also being able to tie in. It's not projected that this congregation -- they're going to only be an equivalent of one residential home, so it's not a large volume user, and it doesn't sometimes become cost effective to putting in your own lift station, tapping into a large force main. So that why, if it's not available at the time that they develop, to be able to hook into the system, they would supply a septic system. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Is this an existing congregation, or is this a missionary project? Are there people meeting as a group somewhere now? MS. MORGAN: I think -- we've got members from the church here that can speak better on that behalf. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Well, I didn't want to draw it out, but what's your name, sir? MR. MARTINEZ: Virgil Martinez. And, yes, we are meeting out in Immokalee there now. We're meeting at the Immokalee Middle School on Sundays and Wednesday. And so far we have not attained the figure over 50 people at one time. Any other questions? CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any other questions? MR. STRAIN: I have one for staff when we get back to staff. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Thank you very much. Any member of the public registered for this item? We just have one remaining, Daniel Dickson. MR. DICKSON: Good afternoon. My name is Daniel Dickson. The question about the property is that there's approximately 3 acres commercial, and we would like to have the chapel set on 5 acres because of the retention requirement. And -- and the rest of the land is residential, and that's why we will build on three commercial and two residential acres. Thank you very much. Any questions? MR. STRAIN: Ray, could I ask you further or, Fred, one of you Page 113 February 21, 2002 guys, we're being requested to approve a commercial -- a conditional use in a residential -- former residential property or current residential property. Are there any landscape buffering or screening requirements for that application? MR. REISCHL: Yes. In -- in addition to the standard, there are enhanced landscape requirements for the overlay district. MR. STRAIN: The procedures for conditional use require those be shown on the site plan that's submitted for the conditional use application for--. MR. REISCHL: No. MR. STRAIN: -- by the ULDC or at least plans with buffering with reference as to type, dimension, and character where proposed landscaping by county regulations. MR. REISCHL: Right. And that's in the conditions. It's not depicted on there. MR. STRAIN: Okay. So it is -- you're not going to show it on the plan? MR. REISCHL: That to me is a site development plan --. MR. BELLOWS: Yeah. I think the question is should the conditional use conceptual plan show these areas such as landscaping and water management. They don't typically do -- because it's like a PUD master plan and such that at some point it is a conceptual plan. They're not nailed down at this point. Usually there's a funding associated, especially with churches. They don't know how long it will take to get the funding to build, and how much money they get depends on the size of the structure they will eventually build. So those issues are typically addressed at the time of the site development plan, and the conceptual plan in general shows the size of the footprint of the building that they're proposing. MR. STRAIN: There is a mechanism to make sure those get done, though. That's what I'm looking for. Page 114 February 21, 2002 MR. BELLOWS: Yes. MR. STRAIN: Thank you. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Further questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Close the public hearing. MR. BUDD: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion that the Collier County Planning Commission recommend approval of Petition CU-2001-AR1414 to the board of zoning appeals subject to the stipulations in the resolution and with a clarification of Exhibit C to more clearly illustrate the land-use intent. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: It's a good motion. Do we have a second? MR. MIDNEY: I'll second. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Mr. Midney? Any further discussion. (No response.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: All in favor? (Unanimous approval.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: 5-0. Pass in your findings, please. Next item is Conditional Use 2001-AR-1456, Dwight Nadeau of RWA, Incorporated, representing Maloney and Sons Equipment requesting Conditional Use 20 in the industrial district. All those expecting to testify, desire to testify on this item, please rise and be sworn. (The oath was administered.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Do we have any ex Parte communications to disclose on this item? MR. BUDD: Mr. Chairman, I had a brief conversation on the Page 115 February 21, 2002 issue with Mr. Tom Turner. MR. STRAIN: I, too, had a -- during this meeting or prior to the meeting with Tom Turner. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Dwight? MR. RICHARDSON: (Shook head.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: And none from the rest-- none from the other three. Fred. MR. REISCHL: Fred Reischl, planning services. This is a request for a conditional use for recycling facility. As you can see on the map, it's located east of Airport Road within the industrial park adjacent to the C-5 zoning along Airport Road, and, in fact, the west property line is the borderline between C-5 and industrial. And this is the site of an aerial photograph as it exists today. And this is the conceptual site plan from the petitioner. The recyclable material is proposed to be trucked into the site, sorted, processed, stockpiled -- and you can see he has located, I guess, conceptual stockpiles there -- and then trucked off the site to the person who purchased the recycled material. Staff added some conditions to this use in order to increase the compatibility, both with the industrial property to the northeast and south and, in addition, to the C-5 to the west. It includes increased buffers, especially a Type B buffer along the west or C-5 property line, which would be a 15-foot buffer; limitations on the type of material; limit to the height of the stockpiles. We put in prohibitions against hazardous material and incineration on site, and we requested limiting of the hours of operations. I received two phone calls with questions, no specific objections, but they did have questions about how the process -- how the facility would work. And last night I had a conversation with Mr. Pritt. I won't -- he's here, so I won't interpret what he said. He will be able to speak for himself. He's an attorney representing a Page 116 February 21, 2002 neighbor of the property. This did not require a public informational meeting. It was submitted prior to that code. However, the petitioner did get the benefit of another public information meeting in the same general area. I had a public information meeting for waste management who is apparently proposing a similar type of facility, has not been submitted yet. So the -- the questions that came up in the same industrial park were similar. And I see a lot of the people here who were at that waste management meeting. And their concern was that in the case of the waste management, one, that it would turn into a garbage dump, that it would not just be a recycling facility, since it deals with construction debris, that not just construction debris would be put into these roll-off dumpsters, that other trash and -- and garbage, basically, would be put in there. And that's -- that's something that is a definite possibility and -- and should be addressed by the petitioner. Something else for your information is that Collier County is currently drafting a commercial recycling ordinance which will encourage or mandate commercial recycling. This is going to put you and the board in a position where the commercial recycling is either -- there's incentives for it or it's required. There's not a whole lot of area outside of the industrial parks to put it. So you want to be good neighbors to the industrial neighbors, and you also want to comply with the commercial recycling ordinance. So -- and, again, that's only in a draft form. There's nothing scheduled for the board yet. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I have a couple of questions, Fred. You're talking about these extraneous materials getting in with the construction material. It looks to me like your Stipulation 3, as written, walks right into that trap because you have the modifying or weasel word primarily. And you've got a string of things that it could Page 117 February 21, 2002 be. Construction debris was apparent, paper, tires, rubber products, plastics, and other nonproducing -- nonodor-producing material, and other things comparable in nature. Well, primarily to me means 51 percent, and then secondarily is up to 49 percent. What is it that you're opening the door to there? MR. REISCHL: Well, again, we have added the language that's new to the Land Development Code through the process outlined of Division 1.6, which would be an interpretation which then would go to the board. So it would be products that the board would approve. Any products that are not listed here would be those that the board did approve. That's new language that just went into the LDC in January. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Maybe primarily is too strong a word. Incidentally or something a little less compelling than primarily or more, more compelling than primarily. Principally or some such. The other question I had is if you're tossing this kind of stuff around, don't you create a lot of dust, and is there no requirement to wet down these piles at any time? MR. REISCHL: That's a possibility if you want to add that as a condition. It's not -- well, there is concrete. Concrete could be dust producing. You're right. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I think that's all I had. Others? MR. STRAIN: This says one industrial area they're talking about here. Are there any other industrial areas in Collier County? MR. REISCHL: Yes. White Lake Industrial Park which is at I- 75. MR. STRAIN: Out by the landfill? MR. REISCHL. Right. And the J and C Industrial Park which is north of Pine Ridge Road. There's an industrial section way east on 41 near the Krehling plant. Page 118 February 21, 2002 MR. STRAIN: And there's one by Orange Tree possibly, I think? MR. REISCHL: Not that I can recall off the top of my head. MR. RICHARDSON: You have Krehling north, of course. MR. REISCHL: Krehling north. That's pretty much occupied by the plant itself. I don't think there's vacant land there. MR. STRAIN: There are other places around the industrial areas where heavier duty industrial uses could be located. MR. REISCHL: Those are the main ones in the county, yes. MR. STRAIN: There's a question that was asked on page 6 of the application, a statement that says this -- the proposed conditional use overlay should have a positive impact on the property values. I'm sure we'll probably hear something about that today, but why -- how did that statement come to that conclusion? Do you know? MR. REISCHL: That's Mr. Nadeau's conclusion. I didn't -- MR. STRAIN: The applicant said that? That was from the applicant then? MR. REISCHL: In the application, yes. MR. STRAIN: Oh, okay. That ought to be interesting. Okay. MR. REISCHL: In one sense, increased landscape buffers, you could consider that-- there's very-- if you've been to the site, there's not a whole lot of landscaping there right now. MR. STRAIN: There's not 1 O-foot piles of trash either so -- okay. Thank you, Fred. That's all I have. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: We'll hear from the petitioner. MR. NADEAU: Chairman Abernathy, members of the commission, my name is Dwight Nadeau. It's a pleasure to be before you this afternoon. The petition before you is -- my name is Dwight Nadeau, planning manager for RWA. The applicant/petitioner, Maloney and Sons Equipment, is looking to do a -- a special use on this 4.87 acre -- 4.78-acre piece of property that they've owned for 34 Page 119 February 21, 2002 years. The property has been owned by the Maloney family since 1968. The conditional use 20 of the industrial zone provides for wholesale trade, durable goods with a SIC number of 5093 and a comparable North American industry classification number of 421930. This land use is engaged in primarily assembling, breaking up, sorting, and the wholesale distribution of scrap and other materials. Now, this land use does permit automobile scrap yards. This is not what we are proposing, and we have no objection to a prohibition of that use. It is not going to be a wrecking yard. And if you'd like to add a condition of approval to the staff report, we have no objection to that. The operation is going to collect and receive primarily construction debris. If that is not a strong-enough term for the commission, we would be happy to identify principally construction debris. The -- I need to clarify a little bit of some of the materials that would be coming onto the property. Yes, there will be concrete. Yes, there will be steel and rebar that would be extracted from the steel -- the concrete, paper, tires, rubber products, plastics, and other nonodor-producing materials. In order to comply or to be a certified recovered materials dealer pursuant to the draft ordinance for nonresidential recycling, this is the reason why the petition is before you today. They want to be a participant of this mandate for recycling. This is for the good of the community. We would rather have greater recycling to be in compliance with the comprehensive plan rather than to have those materials go to landfill and use that valuable space where the trash is supposed to go to the landfill, and the garbage is going to go to the landfill. Page 120 February 21, 2002 These are durable goods that are a result of construction practices or businesses, businesses like my office. We are constantly updating our computers. There's going to be junk computers. We wouldn't want to preclude that from the recycling opportunity that is being afforded us. And so with that -- I believe that that would fall under plastics as far as the computer materials. But we don't want to be limited such that we couldn't provide the services necessary to be a certified collector under the draft nonresidential recycling ordinance which, by the way, after speaking with solid waste this morning, they're anticipating to see public hearings in the spring of this year. Therefore, with -- associated with these -- this process, we would want to have on the record as well the construction debris such as wood products, wood -- tongue -- tongue-grinding processes which separates woods, wood product from other materials, and scrap metal, not wrecked cars, not -- it's not a salvage yard but the opportunity to have scrap metal processed and sold for recyclable material. Now, I think what's important to discuss related to compatibility, I'm going to move to a large version of the site plan to describe to you the way this operation is going to occur. I've oriented this north/south so you can see Prospect Avenue on it and lands to the north. This land use, as was stated in the traffic impact statement waiver request, said that it could have as many trips as 32 a day. It's not anticipated that there's going to be any more than five or ten trips a day. This is going to be not a waste management operation. This is going to be a moderately small operation on a roughly 5-acre piece of property. So when those five or ten trucks come in during the day, they're going to enter off of Prospect Avenue, and they'll come to the proposed processing facility and sorting facility where the material will be dumped off, enclosed. And the materials will then be moved into an area preferred by the petitioner south of the building where the rock crusher might be. And it's very poten -- there's a great Page 121 February 21, 2002 potential that if there's tire shredding, the tire shredding may occur inside the processing facility and then funneled out into a front-end loader, something to where it can be stockpiled. The oper -- the equipment that would be utilized in this facility is not going to be a high decibel operation. There is not going to be a great deal of noise beyond what you hear by standing on Prospect Avenue with all of the cement trucks and all of the other heavy commercial -- heavy industrial traffic on the roadwa So in my O ' ' ' ' · · Y' ' pinion, you re going to have similar noise as to road noise. The subject property has been limited in hours of operation from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Staff, for compatibility purposes, has, in some cases, doubled the buffering requirement around the perimeter of the site requiring 80 percent opacity, plantings. The petitioner has no objection to that. When I put together this site plan, I also was cognizant of the fact that the stockpiles might be too close to other property boundaries. No. They're going to be a minimum of 30 feet off of the property boundary. The entire property boundary is fenced with a chain-link fence with barb wire -- barbed wire on top of it. It is a secure site. There are also security measures after hours on the property. We agree with all staff stipulations except for one I consider a minor issue. I'm not sure where a 1 O-foot stockpile height came from, but if I can use the visualizer, this exhibit-- this exhibit identifies where the property is, very similar exhibit to what was used by Mr. Reischl when he made his presentation. This is the 5.78-acre site (indicating). Just to the southeast of it is a large auto wrecking yard. And from the property, this is what you see (indicating). You see a stack of wrecked cars that could be in excess of 20 or 25 feet tall. That's there in existence right now. That is on, as I said -- located on this property right here (indicating) to the southeast of the Page 122 February 21, 2002 subject property. MR. STRAIN: Do you know when that was placed there ? MR. NADEAU: I'm sorry? ' MR. STRAIN: Do you know how long that wrecking yard's been there? MR. NADEAU: Forever. MR. STRAIN: Right. MR. NADEAU: It's been there forever. MR. STRAIN: That's my point. MR. NADEAU: Additionally, another neighbor to the east has high structures. This is the Krehling plant. How high do you think a cement truck is? Probably around 12 feet: We're only asking for a height of a stockpile that which a front-end loader or a conveyor would allow the stockpiling to occur, this being a conveyor (indicating) which allows stock -- Krehling to have stockpiles I would guess to be around 35 feet high. And the maximum building height in the industrial zone is 50 feet high. If you'll indulge me, I brought along a tape to show you the distances that 10 feet are compared to 20 feet compared to 35 feet. And what I would request humbly before this commission will be not to limit me to 10 feet. I would prefer not having any limitation. But if we were going to have a limitation, we've estimated that the highest dump that can come out of a front-end loader would be 25 feet. If you'll indulge me, please. Can you see the end of the tape from here? him?MR. RICHARDSON: Where's Perry Mason when we need MR. NADEAU: MS. STUDENT: feet. Okay? That is 10 feet (indicating). That is 10 Dwight, I think you need to state for the record what you're doing and then have your remarks --. MR. NADEAU: For the record, Dwight Nadeau, planning Page 123 February 21, 2002 manager for RWA. I'm demonstrating to the Collier County Planning Commission some spatial -- MS. STUDENT: And you need to say "I'm holding the tape." MR. NADEAU: I'm holding a 100-foot-long tape to demonstrate the differences between 10 feet, 20 feet, and 25 feet; 10 feet (indicating), 20 feet (indicating), 25 feet (indicating). CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Of course, you're demonstrating that on a horizontal plane, and what we're talking about is vertical. MS. STUDENT: And just to clarify for the record what Mr. Nadeau is doing was taking a tape, and he first stretched the tape to 10 feet and stated 10. Then he stretched it an additional 10 feet to 20 feet and stated 20 feet. Then he stretched it an additional 5 feet and stated 25 feet, just for clarification. MR. NADEAU: Thank you, Ms. Student. The purpose for this is that 10 feet seems awful small. It's awful short for a stockpile. What you would wind up with, if this limitation holds true, is that you're going to cover the site with a larger 1 O-foot stockpile than you would have than if you had a taller stockpile that would cover less surface area, less land area. And this is what I'm requesting is not 35 feet; I'm requesting 25 feet, which I believe is reasonable in the industrial zone when buildings are permitted to be 50 feet high. And other facilities that are not -- not buildings can exceed that height as well. I'd be happy to answer any questions. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: What's the ceiling in here at the highest point? MR. NADEAU: I am estimating that the ceiling is 10 feet. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Even in this little pit area here? MR. NADEAU: You might get to 10 or 11. I wanted to bring in a range pole from our survey department, but it did not go high enough for the demonstration, otherwise I could have shown you Page 124 February 21, 2002 vertically rather than horizontally. MR. STRAIN: The buildings that can go in this district up to 50 feet, are they piles of,junk, or are they buildings? MR. NADEAU: No. A structure is something that is firmly attached to the ground 30 inches or greater in height. MR. STRAIN: It's not a pile of rubbish, not a pile of--. MR. NADEAU: It is not a pile of rubbage. MR. STRAIN: I didn't think so. Can you tell me how your conditional use would provide a positive impact on the property values? MR. NADEAU: Positive impact by providing land-use opportunity, additional buffering. That's what it would do. MR. STRAIN: So you think that's going to help the neighboring properties? MR. NADEAU: I am not a land appraiser, and I could not reference an opinion as to whether it could or not. It may. MR. STRAIN: The other statement you made in your application was that this will utilize state-of-the-art technology? MR. NADEAU: As advanced as the technology can -- can be had, the best management practices are going to be used in this facility. It is not going to be a junkyard. You're not going to see trash piles. MR. STRAIN: We're not. Then why do you need them 25 feet high? MR. NADEAU: As I stated, this is going to be the recyclable material such that if there's going to be concrete that is processed, it could potentially be 25 feet high. If you're going to have crushed tire -- or shredded tires, it could potentially be 25 feet high. As I stated previously, showing the large-scale exhibit, the materials will be brought to the facility and sorted inside, processed construction -- or the concrete outside and potentially the shredding Page 125 February 21, 2002 inside for stockpiling outside the building. MR. STRAIN: The reference to your auto wrecking yard that you brought in earlier and you had -- or you mentioned earlier, you stated it was there forever, that was exactly my point is that it has been there forever. And had it been something that would come before this board or any others, I'm sure it would have restrictions on it that would not allow it to be operating like it is today. MR. NADEAU: Potentially so. MR. STRAIN: That's all I have. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any other questions? Dwight, is this material susceptible to being put in bins? MR. NADEAU: They will arrive in bins probably -- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I mean once it's broken up. MR. NADEAU: -- once it's broken up -- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: __ waiting for a buyer. Instead of having these piles, could you not have -- put it in bins? At least you would have a structure of sorts. MR. NADEAU: Typically when you have stockpiled material, it's in a stockpile. It's not put in bins unless it's -- the recipient of that material requests that it be put in bins for ease of pickup. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Oh, Mr. Schmitt. MR. SCHMITT: Yes. For the record, Joe Schmitt, administrator, community development, environmental services. I have a couple of questions, which I want to make sure they're a part of the record. This has to do with Stipulation No. 5 specifically talking about storage of hazardous material on site is prohibited. Inherent with any construction debris is the possibility of hazardous wastes, namely lead-based paint and asbestos. How are you going to assure the general public that you're going to meet these requirements, specifically as defined by EPA and EPD standards? And the second piece of that is -- part of that as well is -- has to Page 126 February 21, 2002 do with storm water runoff that may be created as it washes over this debris. I'm concerned as administrator, again, that for clarity in meeting this -- this condition of hazardous material that, in fact, you are going to assure the public that you're going to be dealing with any storm water runoff in accordance with the EPA -- current EPA standards. MR. NADEAU: Very good questions, Mr. Schmitt, and I will respond to them by saying that the water management criteria of the South Florida Water Management District requiring all runoff be retained on site will be complied with. There will be a perimeter berm. And any materials that would be hazardous would be in violation of the proposed ordinance and that there's going to be some enforcement on the county's part, as well as a conscientious enforcement on the pickup. If the Maloney and Sons Equipment contract with a nonresidential landowner or land use occupant who wants to participate in the -- or, no, who is mandated to participate, that he better not put any hazardous wastes in Maloney and Sons' truck because Maloney and Sons will cut them off, and they'll have to go find someplace else. MR. SCHMITT: Well, again, I do not want that responsibility tranSferred to my staff and code enforcement as a responsibility for policing because I, frankly, do not have the staff to -- to assure compliance. That's an inherent responsibility of the business operation. And I'm deeply concerned, frankly, about being able to comply with that requirement of hazardous material because of the dealings with both lead-based paint and asbestos. MR. NADEAU: Of course. MR. SCHMITT: And there has to be something in place in order to police that, and it's not a responsibility to be passed off to the county staff. MR. NADEAU: Of course. And something that I did not Page 127 February 21, 2002 ' mention is that there will be containment areas where the material will be dropped off. It will be in concrete -- they're containment areas with raised walls so that if there were any materials that would spill out, they would be contained. They will be following the DEP regulations or operation of this type of facility, and it may include monitoring reports as well. MR. SCHMITT: Are you dealing -- are you treating the runoff, or are you just holding the runoff on site? MR. NADEAU: There will be pretreatment. MR. RICHARDSON: Just following up on this containment idea, Dwight, it would seem like these storage piles are going to be an issue. I'm not familiar with this business, but I can envision a three-sided structure, you know, with concrete blocks that would enable a storage area to be contained so, you know, as much as you have for aggregates and different places. MR. NADEAU: Of course. And you'll see that throughout the industrial parks, particularly at the Krehling plants and up in -- off of Shirley Street with Bonness. They use those containment areas. That is like a storage bin, but it just doesn't have one side. There is an opportunity for that to be utilized here, and I think that would be for efficiency of collection. Because if you've got two -- or if you've got three walls holding your material in, it's easier to get the scoop in and get more in the scoop so it takes less mobilization of equipment to -- MR. RICHARDSON: You could-- as you prepare this material to be exported from your site, it could be stored in a similar kind of structure. MR. NADEAU: Yes, it could be -- it could be, yes. MR. RICHARDSON: Is that what you're representing that you will be doing? MR. NADEAU: I'm not representing it now. That was a question that just came up. Page 128 February 21, 2002 CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I guess I wasn't specific enough. A four-side bin, a three-sided bin. MR. NADEAU: Yeah. Yes. Those materials such as rock and concrete, yes, they will be using those containment areas. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: After processing. MR. NADEAU: After processing, yes, sir. MR. RICHARDSON: So your pictures look like they're just little circles, and that implies piles, and that's the way you described it today so --just a little clarification would be helpful. MR. NADEAU: That's fine. If you would like to place a condition on the three-sided containment areas be used for aggregate for concrete debris, we have no objection to that. MR. RICHARDSON: So then that leads me to the next obvious question. Would these walls be 25 foot tall to accommodate your 25- foot request for the amount of materials in these? MR. NADEAU: Actually, they may not have to be 25 feet, but they could be, yes. MR. RICHARDSON: Okay. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Dwight, going back to Stipulation 3, why isn't wood in there? Do you know? MR. NADEAU: I would have to defer to Mr. Reischl. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Had you discussed including wood? You're bringing it up todaY. Wood is one of the things you want. MR. RICHARDSON: Wood and scrap metal. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Is wood there? MR. REISCHL: Fred Reischl. I don't remember if we discussed it or not. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Do you object to including it? MR. REISCHL: I don't object to it, no. MR. RICHARDSON: So Dwight's proposal would be to add Page 129 February 21, 2002 wood products and scrap metal, not automobiles to the list of recyclable material in Item 3. MR. NADEAU: Yes. Yes, prohibit -- prohibit automobile wrecking, salvage yards, and also permit wood products. MR. RICHARDSON: Okay. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Now I'm back to the word "primarily." Later in that sentence there is nonodor-producing material deemed comparable in nature. Doesn't that give you the flexibility that apparently somebody thought primarily was going to give you? MR. NADEAU: As I stated a little earlier, Chairman Abernathy, I -- we will be willing to go with the term "principally" rather than primarily. And in relation to -- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: What if you had no term at all? MR. NADEAU: Well, then that might preclude other materials -- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Comparable, it says. MR. NADEAU: Oh, well, now, the comparable material is going to have to be determined by the Board of County Commissioners. MR. BELLOWS: That's board of zoning appeals. MR. NADEAU: Board of zoning appeals. Would you like to elaborate? CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I'm back to that. And you want something broader than that? MR. NADEAU: No, no, no. I'm just saying -- I would like to say principally and add the wood products, and you may add a prohibition on automobile wrecking salvage. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Okay. MR. MIDNEY: Would that include drywall? MR. NADEAU: Probably not. Page 13 0 February 21, 2002 CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Drywall is not one of the things you're going to -- I'm not sure what the not-response to included. It's not one of the things you're going to go collect? MR. MALONEY: Tim Maloney for the record. I'm the petitioner. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Right. MR. MALONEY: We're not interested in taking in -- excuse me -- anything that isn't marketable on the recyclable end. I'm not interested in-- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Chunks of drywall are not--. MR. MALONEY: No. I'm looking for recyclable materials. And, unfortunately, the word "waste" somehow got into this whole conditional use, which is, in my opinion, a negative thing. We're not talking about piles of trash. We're talking about recycled materials to be put back to use in Collier County reducing the load on the -- on the landfill, usable material that actually, believe it or not, has a lot of value and -- and that's what we're trying to target. We're not trying to open up a garbage dump. It seems like the insinuation here is we're dealing with bringing in garbage. We're not -- we're bringing in marketable, recyclable materials. One of the -- one of the main things that I'm involved in currently is concrete recycling which has huge value. And, you know, when you crush concrete, which I've done in the past, you generate metal out of the concrete which led me to the -- getting rid of my metal waste out of the concrete during the crushing procedure. Metal after -- after the crushing is done, metal will be placed in bins to be hauled out to be scrapped out. I'm not talking about trying to haul in vehicles and -- and sheer them and cut them up and then get into the scrap business. The -- the metal came into the picture because metal is in concrete. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Rebar. Page 131 February 21, 2002 MR. MALONEY: Wood -- wood also has a value as mulch and-- and it's not garbage. It's recycled material. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Let me ask you while you're up, how about the dust factor? If you're breaking up rocks or concrete, you're going to create a certain amount of dust, aren't you ? MR. MALONEY: Yes. ' CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Is there a way to counteract that, the best business practice? MR. MALONEY: Yes, there is. If and when we decide to crush, state of the art, Dwight mentioned earlier, would be the type of crushing equipment that we used in the past is sprayed while we're crushing. Also we plan on putting irrigation above the height of my fence, if it is approved, to wet down the area to keep the dust down. I have no intentions of trying to dust out my -- my neighbors. That's -- yes, there will be dust created, but we will control the dust. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Okay. MR. RICHARDSON: Just curious -- and this is clearly a curious -- curiosity question -- where do you make your money9 Do you buy the stuff coming in and then --.' MR. MALONEY: Right now most people charge to dump concrete and tree waste, biomass waste. That's a dump fee. And put -- putting a number value on it, that would be hard to do. But basically you charge a tipping fee and then process the material, and I can sell the material as a road base or mulch, in the case of trees. It's all recyclable materials that are put back into use somewhere. You know, concrete goes into making aggregate out of it and putting it down as road base underneath asphalt and things like that. MR. RICHARDSON: Thank you. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any other questions9 (No response.) ' Page 132 February 21, 2002 Thank you. Are you finished, CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Dwight, for now? MR. NADEAU: Yes. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Public speakers? MR. SCHMITT: We have eight public speakers. I ask that the public speakers position themselves so we can move along with this process. First public speaker, Pat Maher, followed by Michael Baviello. MR. MAHER: My name's Patrick Maher. I'm an employee of Naples Dock and Marine Services. I'm speaking on behalf of Naples Dock and Marine Services located at 4701 Radio Road, subs -- subsidiary of Fred Weber Company of St. Louis, Missouri. Naples Dock owns property across the street from the proposed waste recycling station and has concerns about such a project. Our major concern is the decline of property values'in the immediate area. Please consider the long-lasting detriment of such projects to other established businesses. You may call it a transfer station, but a dump is a dump. Thank you for your time. MR. SCHMITT: Michael Bovi -- Baviello followed by -- I believe this is Pam -- I cannot read this name. I don't know if you can help me with that one. MR. BAVIELLO: Good afternoon. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Call another one. MR. SCHMITT: Followed by Cornelius Martin. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Go ahead. MR. BAVIELLO- Good morning, Mr. Chairman -- good afternoon, Mr. chairman, and members of the commission. My name is Michael Baviello, Jr. I'm a local attorney here. And in means of making this as efficient as possible, I represent the following property owners and business owners in the -- in the Page 133 February 21, 2002 locale, probably saving you about 75 minutes worth of-- of opposition to this: Marsha A. Gibbs and Robert Madson own Maxi Storage, Michelbob's restaurant which is on the corner, and Matt -- and the -- and the bill -- and the building and land at -- at Mastercraft Cabinets. I represent Leonard D. Dunn, the president of Coastal Crane and Equipment, who is located at 3763 Prospect Avenue. They own the business and their land improvements. I own -- the Jones family; Ben F. Jones, William L. Jones, and Brian Jones, who individually and collectively own property under the name -- under the names of Lee May (phonetic), Inc.; Duro Properties, LLC; Prospect Shadowlawn, LLC; 694 Commercial, LLC; Ministorage Depot; and have businesses, including, but not limited to, Duro Property Management and Jones Mining. They are all within the framework of-- of this property. I represent Mark and Michael Austin who own 4695 Prospect, LLC; BJ Excavating Enterprises and Austin Construction -- Construction Specialties; Betty Jean Jackson Trust, which owns property on Enterprise Avenue; and Elisa Ringo who is president of Jackson Total Services, which is also on Enterprise. Basically my clients all represent restaurants, storage facilities, rental properties, construction companies, including, but not limited to, general contractors, excavating companies, electrical contractors, plumbing contractors, crane operations, and the like. My clients are all opposed to this particular type of operation in this particular park. For example, the restaurant is about three, four hundred feet away from this piece of property. We're concerned about groundwater contamination. We're concerned about the possibility that while they're recycling these -- these tires, if a fire -- this is a hazard. If a fire should occur, there would be no way to put out this type of a fire because it's just one of those types of fires that has to burn itself out. It's too close to the airport; plus, additionally, it's too close to Page 134 February 21, 2002 other facilities that make great possible hazards as far as fires and additional damage. Prospect Avenue, this piece of property is only about four, five hundred feet from Airport Road. The restaurant, as far as that is concerned, is concerned about the amount of traffic of larger equipment coming into the piece of property.' Now, I understand that they're -- they're referring to maybe 10 pieces of-- 10 trucks a day. But if this is as successful as I anticipate it to be and I think the board would look at it in a long-range view that you were talking as many as 25 or 50 trucks a day. And we have restaurant patrons who are trying to come in and out of the restaurant, and that could be an inherent danger. As far as some of the stockpiling, I think it's going to be unsightly, no matter how high it is. As we say, 10 feet is the height of this room, as opposed to going long-wise. Think of a 2 1/2-story building. That's a 25-foot building they're asking for. So on behalf of the property owners and the business owners, Your Honor-- excuse me, Mr. Chairman and Commission, we're asking that you respectfully decline this conditional use for this property. Thank you. MR. SCHMITT: Next speaker, Cornelius Martin, followed by Robert Pritt. MR. MARTIN: Yes. Thank you for hearing me. I came because I received this in the mail. I'm a property owner at 20 -- at 3500 Prospect Avenue. I'm rented by the landlord actually. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: How about stating your name for the court reporter. MR. MARTIN: Oh, Martin. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: M-a-r-t-i-n. MR. MARTIN: Yes. And I'm the property owner at 3500 Prospect Avenue. Page 135 February 21, 2002 CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Thank you. MR. MARTIN: And I just received this, and it just said about the recycling. It wasn't very clear. I didn't get a petition or anything else that was actually applied for. The materials that they would be handling and whatever, it would seem to me, to be not appropriate for the area. The area is -- is heavily traveled at this point. Airport Road, it's a disaster trying to get out of area. If you ever go to Michelbob's and try to make a left- hand mm on Airport Road, it's about impossible anytime of the day or night. Constant accidents in the area. That's just one of the concerns. You also have right next to the facility that they're talking about Balgas, which if a fire got going, you have a tremendous amount of propane being stored there. There's a lot of questions about the area and the facilities that are there. The area does -- it's an older section for the industrial park, and all the buildings are in poor condition and whatever else. A lot is done out of trailers and whatever else-- there's a junkyard there. You know, the area definitely could use some upgrading and sprucing up. You know, if you talk about landscaping, there is virtually none at any of the buildings that are there. A few of the newer buildings are nicer, but most of it is old and just a minimal type of use, you know. I don't know -- this is the first time I've really heard what they had planned. Their plans are better than what I thought, but I still have a personal feeling that it's impossible to regulate what comes in on the dumpster. That's my personal opinion, is that, you know, if you have a dumpster at the facility that I rent, people come by, they throw their rubbish in there, they throw their old air conditioners, they're moving, they take everything that's left in their apartment and they throw it in the dumpsters, and this is what happens. And I'm sure this is what exactly what will happen in awry at the facility. It's Page 136 February 21, 2002 impossible to police it. And once it's there, then it will be very difficult to manage it or to, shall we say, control what's being done there. That's my personal opinion on the whole thing. All right. Thank you for hearing me. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Let me ask you, to what use is the property that you own being put at the present time? MR. MARTIN: Right now the property is being managed by auto body and auto repair in the back, and we have another guy that repair boats. So it's mostly automotive in that respect, and they do store -- the tire store has one bay that they store their excess tires in, you know, so that when you go to the store they have them next door readily available for you. But those are brand new. Thank you. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: All right. Thank you. MR. SCHMITT: Robert Pritt followed by John Rice. MR. PRITT: Good afternoon, gentlemen. My name is Robert Pritt. I'm an attorney with the firm-- with the law firm of Roetzel & Andress. I'm here on behalf of Naples Construction Services. You already heard from Mr. Maher. I would like to add a few things, primarily from the legal point of view. Like the other property owners we do have some serious qualms and concerns, and, therefore, I object to the proposed conditional use. We're concerned about the likely noise, the odor, the dust, the traffic, and the aesthetics of the proposed uses. A lot of these are what we call environmental concerns. We don't believe -- well, we do believe that there is a reason that this is a conditional use in an industrial district. It is something that is over and above and is -- is more intense and possibly more injurious to the neighborhood and incompatible with -- with the neighborhood than a normal industrial use. By the way, I do not agree within a notion that just because there's a junkyard in the area that's been there for a while or another Page 137 February 21, 2002 use that has not -- that's not a good use that we should allow Prospect Avenue or any other neighborhood to sink down to that level. Hopefully we can get these, even the industrial neighborhoods, to rise up to a better level. And I think that's the goal of the county and -- and one of the goals of the government. I do want to say a couple things about the staff report. One of the concerns that -- that I have, specific concerns that I have, are in the planning services staff recommendation. Number two, there is a provision for -- or number one and two, there are provisions for buffering on three sides. But there's no provision for buffering on the north side which is across the street which is where my client's property is. And it wouldn't hurt to have a buffer clear around there. Unless I'm reading this wrong, I don't think there's a provision there. So we hope that you don't approve this. But if you do, we certainly hope that you would make provisions for buffering on the -- on the front also. The -- number three, we're concerned, of course, about what this process, this term process means. I think we heard from Mr. Nadeau about what the term -- what they're going to be doing, and that was more than we knew prior to this time. But it -- it sounds like it is going to be a pretty loud, noisy, dusty operation. And that brings us to a concern, a legal concern that I have. In reading the environmental impact statement provisions of 3.8.3 of your code and then reading the staff report, the EAC recommendation, I think there might be a disjoint here. The staff report says under EAC recommendations, since the site was previously developed, an environmental impact statement was not required. Because an EIS was not required, the petition was not heard by the Environmental Advisory Council. I would argue that it should have been or at least processed for determining whether it should have been -- it should have been followed. And I'm quoting Page 13 8 February 21, 2002 from Section 3.8.3, and I won't read the whole thing because it's a little bit long, but it essentially says that you cannot have certain development if it's one of the following four. But number 4 is any other development or site alteration which, in the opinion of the development services director, would have substantial impact upon environmental quality and which is not specifically exempted in this code. And then it goes on. There are provisions later on in the code for exemption. I don't think that this analysis was ever done. And I think that it should have been done, and I think the fact that the property was developed in years past does not exempt this from -- from the requirement of having an environmental impact statement where you are changing the use. It says here, for approval or for development or site alter -- alteration -- excuse me. Let me back up. And shall be unlawful and no building permit conditional use zoning change, etc. So these -- these are areas in which there should be the EIS if it meets one of the following four, and we think that it should have been -- it should either meet No. 4 that I cited or there should have been some kind of analysis and sign-off as to the fact that it was exempt. I would argue that if you looked at the -- what happens in environmental impact statement, it's the very things that we're talking about here that we're concerned about that must be addressed. For example, air quality is under Section 3.8.5, changes in the level of air pollutants -- there's A, B, and C -- number of people that would affected by air pollution, procedures that will be used to re -- reduce adverse impacts of air pollution; No. 3, physiography and geology -- I missed No. 2, water quality. But you-all have asked questions concerning that -- and No. 7 is noise. So these are the types of things that really should be analyzed, whether it's in the context of an environmental impact statement, Page 139 February 21, 2002 which I think is -- it qualifies for, or in some context before you allow this new recycling ordinance which has not been adopted yet but the new recycling program and so on to get off on the wrong foot. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: It does sounds like having been previously developed for a different use is rather a slender reed to hang a waiver on. MR. PRITT: Yes, that's my point, sir. It might be okay if you're not really changing the use or coming in for something that's substantially different than the current use. But in this case a conditional use for this type of an activity, even though it's in the industrial zone, should have required or should have triggered an impact statement -- environmental impact statement or at the very least a careful analysis that it was -- as to why it was not neceSsary, which I don't think is in the file. I looked at the file yesterday, and I talked with Mr. Reischl. So we would -- we would argue that. Just for the record so that it's raised by someone other than a member of the -- of the commission, not -- I don't think there's any difference between the word "principally and primarily". I -- I agree that if that's going to be in there -- I agree that either word should be taken out. It's not necessary, and really and truly it's not necessary, and it does make Us concerned. We also think that a traffic impact statement was waived, and I know that these things are done -- a lot of these things are done at the -- at the site development plan level. However, this is our only bite at the apple. Everything else is done at the planning staff level. And we think that there really will be a significant impact and increase in traffic and traffic noise and so on. I have several other things to say, but probably the most important thing is -- the last thing is that it seems like this property is too small and too tight and not really in the best location for such a facility. I think that what we're going to see is not only 1 O-foot high Page 140 February 21, 2002 stacks or 25-foot high stacks, but we're going to see stacks everywhere all over the property, and that's going to be detrimental to the property owners on all -- on all sides and in the neighborhood. And I said it was last, but one other thing, there was one condition about it not being permanent. This is not for permanent storage. I don't think concrete and building supplies have a bom-on date, and I think it's going to be virtually impossible for the staff to be able to determine whether or not something is permanent or temporary. I don't know how permanent it's going to be, but I think it's going to be a significant -- going to be a significant amount of good -- good, bad, new, and old debris on the site. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Thank you. MR. SCHMITT: John Rice followed by Tommy Turner. MR. RICE: My name is John Rice. I'm not a direct neighbor of this property. I own a property at 4573 Exchange Avenue on the next street. I'm concerned with the whole park. We had an association out there at one time, but it's fallen by the boards. But certainly interested in the quality of the whole park. And if this goes through, as well as another one that's on the -- on the works for waste management, I feel that the whole park is slowly turning into a dump. And make no mistake, this is a dump. Property values would diminish. I don't know what criteria they use to come up with the theory that the property values will go up, but I don't think any of us would want to buy property next to a dump as opposed to a little more enhanced property. I think that's all I have to say. Thank you. MR. SCHMITT: Tommy Turner followed by John Costello. MR. TURNER: My name's Tommy Turner, and for the record, I've been around here all my life. My family's been here. My uncle's Page 141 February 21, 2002 the mayor of Naples. We've been out here in the park for quite a few years. As you know, Benny Moore (phonetic) basically established that park there. I don't think it was established for a dump because the dumps that have moved here in Naples a considerable amount of times. It's been down by Port Royal; them people didn't want it. Moved from there out to Moorings where the Moorings Country Club is. And nobody wanted that dump there, and you see what that property is today. Moved from there to Airport Road. Traffic was so bad the county and the city and everybody got together and decided to move it out, and nobody wants it in Golden Gate. Let it be no thought that this ain't a dump. It ain't. That's why they call them dumpsters. They come to the job site. We dump our junk in it. Everything gets thrown in it regardless. I don't know what Mr. Maloney's going to do to do different than what Waste Management hasn't been able to do or accomplish, let alone the county. There is a lot of hazardous materials thrown in them dumpsters, whether inadvertently, on purpose, or people wantin~ to ~et rid of their trash. Lead batteries and stuff is one of the bi~est thin~s this place this deals with, many, many chemicals dumped. We had a meetin~ last week with the county over here on waste management. We expressed our views about the park. We don't want nobody dumpin~ trash from all the sites into the park and then recyclin~ it or whatever thefre ~oin~ to do. Waste management wants to brin~ the refrigerators on the site, tear them down. They said that, you know, whether they were ~oin~ to take care of it. We don't want it. If you want the refrigerators, put them out by your-ali's house. I don't want them in my park. I own land in several different locations there; don't want it. And we told Waste Management the same thin~. The county owns a considerable amount of property out there. Go out there and Page 142 February 21, 2002 lease you a space out there for a hundred years, put it out there. Waste Management don't want to be out there because they don't want to be under the scrutiny of the county. They want to stay right there in the park. I own the property directly behind where Waste Management is going to go put this in. I don't want the traffic brought there. Traffic's bad enough. Truck's bad enough. Besides that, we signed an agreement for 20 years with the county in this park to bring all the roads up to standards, put all new water and drain storms and supposedly some beautification to the park. So we're still paying on it. You know, there's a 20-year bond that the county agreed to. They wanted to bring everything up. They had a big meeting, beautification meeting, everything, that said we want to do you people right. We want everything upgraded here. So everybody is paying on these roads, the new roads and stuff in there. I don't see that all these trucks need to come down in there. I'll just tell you fight now, we're against Pro Disposal having one there in now. It's a -- they've got green fence up there that is up higher than the 10 feet that they're proposing all the way around their property, paper blowing. They're having to water it down to keep the dust down, washing their trucks off and stuff. The stuff is still going out on the road. I don't know that -- I don't know who gave them permission. I never got contacted from the county. But if you ain't within 500 feet, you don't have to be contacted. So we didn't get contacted to see if we want that in here. I think there's -- somebody here from Pro Disposal was here earlier. I'm against it. I'll tell you right now I'm working as hard as I can to get EPA down here because when we're on the job site, they make us all have MSD sheets, all our men, for -- no matter what companies, they're electrician, through the electrical contractor. I don't know that these are safe sites, and I don't know that you can have an MSDS sheet for everything that's being brought into that park. And I'm just concerned about that. I don't Page 143 February 21, 2002 want it running off into the -- the ground and into the water and contaminating the areas there. For me, you know, I don't want the rats and rodents. They come along with that. Eventually they sniff out any food and stuff, and they eventually accumulate. We had that problem with Waste Management they were bringing in and refurbishing their garbage cans. They were about to eat John up over there and all of us in there. They started in there and finally got it under control. Don't want that there. I pay a lot of taxes. I built a new building on the comer there of Enterprise Avenue and put over a million dollars in it and trying to bring, you know, some stability to it. I don't really care to have -- have a dump site, and that's all it is. It's -- whatever you want to call it, refurbishing the tires off your car to the plastic jugs at your house, it's a dump. It's a place to dump your stuff that you didn't want at your household at. That's why the county has a landfill. That's why they're required to take and put liners in out there. They have monitoring wells out there. It's to monitor how bad the stuff gets. They're real concerned about it. They're concerned about the water contamination aspect of it. It might be dumped there, but it will -- it will eventually hit somebody else within a range once it gets into the soil. As we know, it all travels. I just think that the traffic is going to be horrendous. It's already bad in the park as it is, trucks coming in and out. And I just at this point in time don't want it. If they start putting this stuff in here, you know, the property values might not diminish like he said, but it -- it might not go up. As far as the junkyard, you might not see that junkyard there too much longer, because that property is so valuable that I think you'll see a sell on it pretty soon because people are going to retire from it. They've invested in their property instead of in the stock market. Page 144 February 21, 2002 People's looking for the value out of their property. A lot of people are retired off of the values of the real estate here -- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Excuse me, Mr. Turner. You're supposed to be addressing your comments to us. Are you wrapped up now? MR. TURNER: Yes. But just for me, I just -- I'm just telling you, I think they need to move it out to the county facility, get a lease with you guys and hold out there. They can make a profit from there. I know the county is willing to work with them and anyone else that would want to get into the recycling business. That's the appropriate place for it. Thank you. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Thank you very much, sir. MR. SCHMITT: John Costello followed by the last speaker, and I believe it may be Pane, but I'll read the address, 5878 Marble Court. MR. COSTELLO: All right. My name is John Costello. I represent probably 12 acres in the industrial park-- I don't know -- 12, 14 buildings in the park. Tommy pretty much said everything. I don't need to say a whole lot more. You know, I have a piece of land next to Waste Management now. Waste Management's done everything in their power to keep the rodents out of my buildings. I have office buildings next door. It's -- it's almost impossible. I mean, there's -- every dumpster there is has lunches from the people on the job sites. You know, there's no way in the world you're going to keep this thing clean. This is not a dump. Yahl Mulching does this same operation out on the dump site. Why can't a piece of property out there be leased to them where it needs to go? We just can't have it in our park. Our values -- you know, I've worked all my life to buy all this Page 145 February 21, 2002 land, and having this next to me I can see it on an appraisal sheet, oh, property adjacent is a dump because basically that's what we're getting. You know, they call them-- they don't call them dumpsters for no reason so -- pretty much everybody has addressed everything I needed to say other than, you know, I represent a lot of property out there, and I pay a lot of taxes in that park, and I just don't want it. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Thank you very much. MR. SCHMITT: The one last speaker. And, again, I can't read -- read the name but 5878 Marble Court, is that -- MR. REDDISH: My name is Paul Reddish. I own-- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: for the court reporter. MR. SCHMITT: MR. REDDISH: How about spelling your name I see it now. R-e-d-d-i-s-h, first name Paul. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: All right. MR. REDDISH: I own a-- I own property in the industrial park. I own a covered facility and own and operate a facility now called Pro Disposal which was just mentioned. I also own two other pieces of property in the industrial park on Mercantile Avenue. I'm not here to -- with all of the same concerns as the other -- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Slow down a bit, please, for the reporter. MR. REDDISH: I do have some concerns that we all are on a level playing field. And what I've heard so far today, there are some things that we were made to conform to that I just wanted to make sure that the other people coming before you have to conform to as well, and I'll list a couple of those things that I was directed from you, the board, that I had to comply with. The first thing was the tub grinders; we weren't allowed to put in tub grinders there in our facilities in the industrial park because they shoot material 40 and 50 feet in the air, and we were told we had to Page 146 February 21, 2002 use a vertical grinder inside a building. The second thing was tire shredding. We weren't allowed to stockpile the tires on site more than one container full, because of the fire hazard. The other issue was absolutely we were not allowed to have horticultural debris brought into our facility. We were made to agree that we would accept the construction debris as said, but we were not allowed to receive any horticultural debris of any kind at the facility, again, because it had to be processed with the type of machineries that were not conducive to neighbors being next door the way it shoots the material up in the air. Also I've heard about a building. I'm not quite sure how big the building is. Is it a new building? Is it going to be an open-ended building? What type of building is it going to be? If the material is going to be brought in, is all of the processing going to be done inside the building? Those are just some questions that I had as well. And I will -- the last thing is the ten trucks, five to ten trucks per day. I was just concerned that, you know, we take in more than that. And I think it would be hard for any other operation to make a profit on taking in five to ten units per day. That's it. Thank you for your time. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Thank you. MR. SCHMITT: No more public speakers. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Do you want to give -- do you want to go first, Fred, or do you want Mr. Nadeau -- I guess it's his turn to rebut what was said by the public speakers. MR. NADEAU: Yes. Again, for the record, Dwight Nadeau, planning manager for RWA. A dump is a dump. I suppose you could have a narrow focus of what a dump is. This is not a dump. This is a recycling facility. It's not going to be garbage; it's not going to be trash. It's recyclable -- recyclable nondurable goods -- or Page 147 February 21, 2002 excuse me, durable goods. There is going to be fire suppression system installed on the property. If the operator or this -- the operator of the facility sees the unrecyclable material in bins, they will be reprimanded and potentially reported to DEP because they don't want to have hazardous or garbage onto their property themselves. Hazardous groundwater contamination can come from more noxious uses like broken grease traps; like paint shops, automobile paint shops; auto body. They deal with a lot of chemicals in those type of uses. This is not a chemical-intensive -- this is -- this is not a process -- a processing facility that's going to be using chemicals to break things down. As far as the tub grinders and the prohibition on Pro Disposal in a comment made by Mr. Turner, the property is not large enough. The property is -- it's 5 acres. Pro Disposal has a much narrower piece of property. And, yes, primarily the sorting and processing will be within a new steel building that will be enclosed on at least, let's say, 3 1/2 sides because we're going to have doors for trucks to drive through where the material comes in. It is dumped inside the facility; you got to get out the other side. We must comply with a noise ordinance. Collier County has a noise ordinance where the inspectors actually do go out with decimeters and measure noise emanating from the property. We must comply with that. But as I stated previously, it's not going to be any louder than a cement truck or a dump truck, and it's going to be set away from the property. With the property being 660 feet deep, I would venture that the processing isn't going to be any closer than 350 to 450 feet, depending on the ultimate location of the proposed processing facility. I heard a lot of speculation in some of the comments, no real definitive identification of how property values would be diminished, Page 148 February 21, 2002 how the restaurant would be impacted, how -- there's not going to be noxious odors. I've already stated that we're using sprinklers to keep the dust down, that we're not going to have odor-producing materials. This park is not supposed to be for dumps, not supposed to be for recycling facilities. Well, there's Pro Disposal there, and there is Waste Management there, and this small operator wants to have an opportunity to participate in the county's forthcoming mandate for nonresidential recycling opportunities. And if there is a -- if there is an issue related to the term primarily or principally, strike out that word and use though -- use construction recycling and those materials that are mandated for recycling pursuant to the nonresidential recycling ordinance, which could include the paper and the plastics, the computers, those sorts of things. That's all I have. MR. RICHARDSON: Question of staff. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Discussion with Mr. Nadeau? (No response.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Thank you. I think you -- you wanted to speak to staff. MR. RICHARDSON: Staff, Fred, I noticed in the conditional use application it says the traffic impact statement is required unless waived at the preapp meeting. What happened at the preapp meeting? Was it waived, or was -- is it required? MR. REISCHL: They submitted a waiver request. I believe it was deferred. I don't know if-- Dawn is still here. MS. WOLFE: Dawn Wolfe, transportation planning department director. Yes, we received a written request for a TIS waiver based on the anticipated number, including the maximum number, not just the four to five trucks per day, but that of a greater number. The primary impact would be evaluated with the traffic assessment in regards to what needed to be provided for their ingress and egress at the site Page 149 February 21, 2002 rather than how many roads they're going to have impact on because it would be of a negligible nature as it entered onto the system since they technically have access either to Livingston, Radio, or Airport Road as points of distribution. And you've just put 30 percent -- you know, 33 percent each way. We're talking about ten trucks on a daily basis, which would be well below our percent impact. MR. RICHARDSON: So your short answer is yes, it was waived? MS WOLFE: Yes, sir. MR. RICHARDSON: Okay. Fred, what about the question which I thought was rather reasonably stated about the requirement for an EAC review of this? You know, considering the kinds of material that are here, might you reconsider that? MR. REISCHL: Mr. Pritt and I had a meeting yesterday evening. And Steven Lenberger of our environmental staff was in the meeting. And his interpretation of the code was different from Mr. Pritt's, and that's why he made that -- that call, that -- by being under the size and development threshold, that it did not require an EIS. MR. RICHARDSON: Okay. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: But not for the reason stated, previously developed it? MR. REISCHL: Yes. Because his -- his reasoning was that he looks at it more from a wetland, endangered species and vegetation issue. Mr. Pritt was saying the fourth -- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Yup, yup. MR. REISCHL: -- thing that any other impacts would have to be waived by the planning services director. MR. SCHMITT: Mr. Chairman, again, if you feel it deemed necessary, you can certainly direct the staff to go back and process Page 150 February 21, 2002 this through the EAC. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Okay. MR. RICHARDSON: And, in fact, this could be tabled for that purpose. MR. SCHMITT: That's exactly correct. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any other questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Very well. I'll close the public hearing and open the matter for discussion by the commission. MR. RICHARDSON: Well, my sense is that while this is certainly well intentioned and it is in the spirit of what the county needs, more recyclables, I get an overwhelming sense that this is just not the right place for this facility. So that's -- that's the direction of my thinking. MR. STRAIN: I wholeheartedly support that. I don't think -- Fred Reischl, as I asked him in the beginning if there are other industrial areas in Collier County, and there are plenty, there are other places this can be, places that are not in such a congested area, or in a park that's trying to improve itself after all the time it's been unimproved, certainly this doesn't need to be there. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY:. Well, it strikes me that there are just too many things wrong with this proposal to make me able to answer the questions that we're compelled to answer in approving a conditional use. So for that reason I can't support the petition either. MR. BUDD: I'm concerned that there is just no environmental impact consideration, no -- to my satisfaction, no addressing of how hazardous materials are going to be handled, the idea that anyone who had this material would have their contract canceled and wouldn't have any further chance, that's not good enough. I don't see any -- we have water retention. There's no liners, no filtration, interpretation so we'd retain whatever hazardous materials might be Page 151 February 21, 2002 on site and washing and percolated down at that site. That doesn't get us anywhere. So I can't see where this is at all compatible with the neighborhood, and I think there's too many environmental issues that the petition is silent on. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Well, it seems to me that --. MR. MIDNEY: I'll agree. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: You agree? It seems to me at this point the question might be whether we should deny it or whether Mr. Nadeau wants to withdraw it and see if he can address all of these things. Do we think they're addressable? Most of them I think are capable of being addressed. MR. STRAIN: Isn't the public hearing closed? CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Yes. MR. BUDD: I'd rather make a motion. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Well, I don't know if that applies to the petitioner. We've allowed petitioners to withdraw things before. If anyone wants to make a motion, well, then we'll go with it. MR. STRAIN: I'd like to make a motion that we deny -- recommend for denial petition CU-2201-AR- 1456. I'd like to ask the county attorney, do I need to address specific policies in the code and-- MS. STUDENT: Yes. You need to set forth your reasons. MR. STRAIN: Okay. I do not find it consistent with Policy 1.1 of the future land use element, Policy 7.2 of the transportation element, Division 1.4 of the LDC, and Divisions 2.1.2. MR. BUDD: Second. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Let me ask you, Marjorie, could Mr. Nadeau have been given an opportunity to withdraw the petition after the close of the public hearing? MS. STUDENT: He could have. And also at board meetings we've had the situation come up with where the board has been Page 152 February 21, 2002 discussing a matter after the public hearing has been closed and there's even been situations where the petitioner has stepped up and said that they wished to withdraw or do whatever. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: That's what I thought, yeah. Well, I don't know that we have that situation or whether -- whether the majority would entertain such a notion. But let me hear from you, Mr. Nadeau. MR. NADEAU: Yes, Chairman Abernathy. We would respectfully request that you continue this item so that we have an opportunity to bring forward further information that might resolve your environmental concerns. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Okay. Well, that -- we have a motion on the floor. I guess we need to call the question on that and see if there's a window of opportunity for a motion to continue would be the way I would--. MS. STUDENT: The motion maker could withdraw the motion if he so chose. MR. STRAIN: No, I do not so choose. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: He wants to continue it. MR. BUDD: Call the question. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: The motion, then, is to deny for the reasons stated by Mr. Strain. All in favor of that ... (Unanimous approval.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: 5-0. Let's take five minutes for the court reporter and -- (A short break was held.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: We're ready to proceed with Item JRZ-2001-AR-1743, Vincent Cautero, Wilkison and Associates, representing Habitat for Humanity. All those expecting to testify, Page 153 February 21, 2002 rise and be sworn. (The oath was administered.) MR. STRAIN: Disclosures? CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Disclosures on this one? MR. STRAIN: I spoke to Vince Cautero for just a moment before -- during one of our breaks concerning some discrepancies in the RSF-5 versus the RSF-4 zoning, and I asked him to address those CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Anyone else? (No response.) MR. STRAIN: That's it. MR. BELLOWS: For the record, Ray Bellows. The petitioner is requesting a rezone of the subject site from agriculture to the RSF- 5 zoning district with a cap of four units per acre for the density. As you can see on the visualizer, the subject site is located on the north side Of-- or northeast comer of Little League Road and Lake Trafford Road. This is in Immokalee. The -- due to the narrow shape -- L-shaped condition of the lot, as you can see, the RSF-4 zoning district development standards is not conducive to the type of development necessary to fit in this development and for the clientele proposed to live in these dwellings. I have a copy of a -- this is a copy of the conceptual subdivision plan for the project. As you can see, it utilizes the RSF-4 development standards or 5 development standards which allows for the narrower lots which will fit the unique site characteristics of the project. The future land use element of the Immokalee master plan -- I have a copy of that here -- shows that it's in this yellow area which is all residential, and that allows for a maximum density of 4 units per acre. So, therefore, the staff has recommended that and the petitioner has agreed instead of going through an affordable housing density bonus agreement to get additional units per acre that the density be Page 154 February 21, 2002 kept at four units per acre. This is a similar rezoning that occurred in the years past on the adjacent properties to the west where the same thing occurred where we rezoned it to RSF-5 with a cap of 4, and those units are existing and developed. The traffic impact statement or review by staff indicates that this project will not have a significant impact on any county roadway. The project was not required to go to the E -- the EAC. Staff has not received any letters of correspondence from anyone objecting to this petition. However, we do have a public speaker here today, and I'll be happy to answer any of your questions. MR. STRAIN: I just got one. At the time of SDP, I would assume there's going to have to be a TIS. MR. BELLOWS: A preliminary subdivision plat; these are single-family homes. We would normally require a traffic impact statement for projects that exceed a thousand trips at the time of preliminary subdivision plat approval. However, the transportation director may require a traffic analysis of some kind. MR. STRAIN: Well, the reason I was asking is I had received some correspondence from a local engineering firm trying to summarize some of the minimum thresholds for TIS for requirements that the county had changed. And one of the items on there was that when you reach 92 single-family homes then a TIS would have been required. Is that something that would apply to this? Or maybe that's inaccurate. MS. WOLFE: Dawn Wolfe, transportation planning department director. A TIS was submitted on this application. MR. STRAIN: Good. MS. WOLFE: However, what the secondary reference would be would be a traffic assessment to determine what specific site access needs are. We've already preapped with going through this process Page 155 February 21, 2002 with Mr. Cautero representing his clients as to the fact that there will be turn lanes required and improvements at the intersection on Lake Trafford so that there is sufficient access improvements so as to not adversely affect the operations of the roadway -- and that's the more site specific -- when they know exactly how many units they're going to be platting in there, that's the time as which we want that site specific. So it's a traffic assessment to determine site access requirements, and that will be at their preliminary subdivision plat stage. MR. STRAIN: Thank you. MR. BELLOWS: Yeah. I'd like to make a point of clarification.. I was referring to another project where the TIS was waived. Yeah. This was submitted and found consistent. MR. STRAIN: Okay. MR. RICHARDSON: Excuse me. Ray, did I hear you say something about density bonus for affordable housing? Does that apply to this project? MR. BELLOWS: No, that doesn't. That's the purpose of capping the density at four units per acre. They don't need the additional density. However, they are marketing the units and on lots in the smaller-- RSF-5 lots are more affordable than the larger RSF-4 lots. But they do not need the affordable housing density bonus, so they don't have to go through that process. MR. STRAIN: Ray, at this point how long -- if they were to get approval today, an approval from the BCC, how long do you see it would be before they get an SDP approval assuming they've submitted things in a timely manner? MR. BELLOWS: Preliminary subdivision plat after the rezoning of-- we've been averaging two month -- two months, a month and a half, two months. MR. STRAIN: Okay. That just brings up another question I'll Page 156 February 21, 2002 ask the applicant then. Thank you. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Ray, I have a question. Somewhere in here it says that there are no wetlands on the property. That's right? MR. BELLOWS: Yeah. I believe this is a -- as you can see on the air photo been previously cleared for agricultural purposes, for the most part. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Is it ever subjected to sheet flow during the rainy season, as far as you --. MR. MIDNEY: I would say no. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: You would say no? MR. MIDNEY: (Nodded head.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Okay. MR. MIDNEY: I have a question. 140 units on the end of Lake Trafford Road which is a 2-lane road and most of the development in Immokalee is going on that road, I think that it will have a significant impact on traffic because that's already a bad road for people to get out of. Dawn, would you like to respond to that? MS. WOLFE: Yes. The traffic is significant but not adverse. It does have -- what we're saying is, the amount of traffic that would potentially be added from this site will not drop the level of service standard on Lake Trafford or any of the other roads in the Immokalee area that were evaluated based on the area of influence for this property. MR. MIDNEY: We had a fatal traffic accident on that road last year, and people could not get out of that area for more than three hours because they -- since there was a fatality, there's no other way out of there. It's sort of like a cul-de-sac, and that's a lot more units, and it's just a two-lane road. It seems as though it is already a bad road for people trying to get out. And this will make a heavy impact if you have 140 families living there. Many of these people will have Page 157 February 21, 2002 two vehicles each, because working families usually both parents have to work. MS. WOLFE: The -- those are two separate issue (sic), one -- one being -- only being one point of access to this entire area and the other being how much traffic the road can carry. The fact of the matter is a two-lane road can generally carry a large volume of traffic. And what's anticipated to be generated by this site, as well as some background growth, is not anticipated that there will be a level of service deficiency created by this specific project. We will continue as it comes forward for development to apply the criteria for adequate public facility. If at that time it's identified that it's a deficiency, then we can address it. There's other issues coming on board potentially, the connection/extension of Carson Road down to Immokalee Road. So there are future opportunities such that this won't be the only way in and out of this area. However, right now it is. And so -- you know, for this case it was a matter of the road being closed. It's the only point of egress. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: So what do you do about that? Just continue to add more units? That's not a condition -- not a criteria for -- criterion for turning down a project? MR. BELLOWS' Well, as was the case with the Richland PUD, the Board of County Commissioners and staff reviews these projects with consistency with the transportation element of the Growth Management Plan. Right now that says that there is capacity for the road. Now, there may be operational constraints along the segment that may or may not be affected by this project. It appears from the review of the traffic impact study that it will not have an adverse impact on the existing road operation, based on our current adopted standards. We are certainly revising a lot of our level-of-service standards. But like in the case of the Richland PUD, the board felt Page 158 February 21, 2002 constrained somewhat from adding onto or denying or restricting a project that is consistent with the comprehensive plan. MS. STUDENT: If it's consistent, the place to fix the problem's in the comp. plan. But you're hard pressed legally, if it's consistent with the comp. plan, to deny something because the way it's structured is the comp. plan is your planning document where you set all this stuff out. And you don't -- that's your planning. This is merely implementation of what you've already planned. So in order to fix the problem, there need to be adjustments in the comp. plan, which is the planning document. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: At some point it just flies in the face of common sense to keep adding units at the end of the string. MR. BELLOWS: Yeah. And-- excuse me. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Because it doesn't take much to upset that apple cart. MR. BELLOWS: Yeah. And there are other remedial efforts that may occur along this roadway segment that are system-wide improvements that could improve traffic flow the -- that aren't necessarily tied to this petition. We're looking at a zoning action that we're looking at consistency with adopted codes and -- and policies, and that's what staff has to base its recommendation on. Now, if there are some operational problems with Lake Trafford Road that this petitioner could solve or mitigate from, that could be a condition of approval. But if there are none that we can stipulate or mitigate or have this developer provide, then there's -- I don't think there's -- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Anything. MR. BELLOWS: -- hook that we can attach it to. MR. RICHARDSON: Just pursue that point for a moment. Is there any way that -- taking Mr. midney's point where you have Page 159 February 21, 2002 blockage, I know there's some way -- I know in cul-de-sacs we often require divided entries so that you have a way in and out in emergencies. Could there be some improvements at the entry point of Lake Trafford and -- and this site that would allow, you know, some greater degree of safety for the -- for the populus? MS. WOLFE: We anticipate based on the volumes that are coming in and out of here that turn lanes onto and off of Lake Trafford will be required, as well as at the entryway into the site so thereby providing at least one extra lane either entering or existing and some level of improvement at the intersection with Lake Trafford. The actual design requirements of it is something that would come out of that traffic assessment that they'll have to do when they determine exactly what they're going to plat out there. MR. RICHARDSON: Okay. So that will come along at this fabled site development plan point then, not at this point? You can't - - we -- it's not appropriate to have any conditions at this point to speak to those issues? MS. WOLFE: They'll be dealt with as -- as part of their site- related access improvements. That is part of either the preliminary subdivision plat or site development plan. In this case it's preliminary subdivision plat. MR. RICHARDSON: Dawn, I notice'-- I'll get you -- in the traffic impact statement of standards, I'm-- I'm encouraged to see that -- in Item 11 that you have the capability of phasing projects. And I -- I don't think I really ever tumbled to this before, particularly since I've never seen it done, so it makes me wonder if we're really following what we could do. It says when a project's phasing schedule is dependent upon prose -- proposed roadway improvements, what you say may not be the case here but -- and, again, when you get through your analysis, perhaps there are some things that need to be done to improve the Page 160 February 21, 2002 situation. A phasing schedule may be included as part of the TIS. If the traffic impacts of the project are mitigated through a phasing schedule, such a phasing schedule may be made a condition of any approval. Now, are we at that point that we should be considering things like that that -- if, in your analysis upcoming if it turns out that there are requirements that would -- that would have a phasing of the project that we could depend on that -- as -- as a helpful solution to this problem that Mr. Midney brought up? MS. WOLFE: Yes. There is a high probability that that may be in place at the time that they come forward with this. As I said earlier today, we are in the process of revising the transportation component of the act of public facilities. One of those components would be to allow real-time management as impacts come on line. And if there were not available capacity, either programmed or additional development was also in the pipeline -- MR. RICHARDSON: Like short program. MS. WOLFE: Short program -- let's say that the other proj -- there's a major PUD to the south of this parcel comes in, they may not be able to develop all at once. Let's say they can only get a certificate of adequate public facility for 50 percent of it, unless they want to mitigate for it. And that would become a condition of their preliminary subdivision plat. MR. RICHARDSON: So you-- you're envisioning we could actually tie in denial of C.O.s then at the end of this process until -- until these things got approved? MS. WOLFE: That is a possibility, yes, but not at this time until we change our Land Development Code. MR. RICHARDSON: Keep working on it. MS. WOLFE: But we're plugging away at it. MR. STRAIN: Dawn, do you have -- this parcel has frontages Page 161 February 21, 2002 on two roads. Do you have the right-of-way you need there for any improvements you're looking at there, or do you need more? Do you need anything? MS. WOLFE: I believe that the site plan has -- although what's shown on here doesn't show it -- MR. STRAIN: Right. MS. WOLFE: -- anticipates the provision of the right-of-way for the widening of Lake Trafford Road, as well as what we refer to as compensating right-of-way at the entrance, because the turn lanes are specifically for their purpose. So we'll get the right-of-way so that we don't have to use the through right-of-way for providing turn lanes. We have enough room to make improvements out there so -- MR. STRAIN: As long as you have what you need. MS. WOLFE: Yeah. MR. MIDNEY: Does the county plan to pave Little League Road all the way out to the end of the project, because right now part of it's still dirt road, and I guess the county doesn't maintain it? MS. WOLFE: They're not going to be impacting the section which is unpaved at this time, so right now we don't have anything on the books to further pave Little League Road. And as the board may -- commission may recall, we are funneling the majority of our available revenues towards a major capacity program, so some of our either resurfacing or paving programs may be later in the future rather than sooner in order to accommodate the major capacity program we've got going. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Thank you. Petitioner? MR. CAUTERO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and commissioners. For the record, Vince Cautero with the firm of Wilkison and Associates. For the record, our professional address is 3 506 Exchange Avenue in Naples. I'll be very brief, and I'll try to Page 162 February 21, 2002 focus my remarks on some questions and issues that were raised by the Planning Commission, and then we can hopefully possibly answer them for you. I think all of you or most of you have raised the issue of access and capacity along Lake Trafford roadway. The conceptual site plan -- and I don't know if you can see it on the -- on the diagram on the monitor, but our map that we have on display and that we've submitted to Mr. Bellows, a revised map shows -- I believe he has it here. We might be able to put it on the visualizer-- shows a proposed deceleration lane running in an east-west direction along Lake Trafford Road and right- and left-turn lanes onto Lake Trafford Road as their residents and guests of the project site would -- would leave the property in an effort to mitigate impacts along those roadways. One other issue to keep in mind, the project to the south -- and it's mentioned in the staff report -- is currently the Arrowhead planned unit development. We currently represent the owner of that property, and it is our understanding that the owner of that property is trying to sell it to a development corporation that will come in later this year, possibly early next year, for a full-scale amendment to the PUD to increase the density. It is our understanding if that happens, some conditions would be placed on that applicant related to transportation impacts along Lake Trafford Road. I'm sure that the county transportation planning staff and the planning services staff would work jointly with us and that developer on impact mitigation along Lake Trafford Road and at the intersection of Lake Trafford and -- and Little League Road. We would have no difficulty with those conditions that we just mentioned and that we have agreed to as part of the conceptual site plan making part -- making those conditions part of the record. I noticed on the conditions there is documentation about access Page 163 February 21, 2002 along Little League Road and -- and mm lanes that Miss Wolfe has described to you. We had committed to the turn lanes on Lake Trafford Road at the intersection of Lake Trafford and Little League Road, as well as the deceleration lane as part of our review -- discussion with the staff when they reviewed the transportation document. I believe one of the commissioners -- I don't remember who. I apologize -- talked about phasing. We anticipate at least two phases in this project, possibly three. Therefore, those kinds of issues dealing with impact mitigation would be dealt with at the -- at the phasing during the preliminary subdivision plat stage. I thought I'd offer that up for your information. And finally, the issue of the zoning district -- and I did have a discussion with Commissioner Strain, as he had indicated earlier in the day. The reason for the request of the RSF-5 zoning category is for the -- basically, the dimensions of the lots and the standards for those lots within the subdivision. We have no difficulty with the cap that the planning staff is recommending to you, and we are not seeking an affordable housing density bonus. We believe that the ultimate density, once we finalize access points, native vegetation requirements, water management restrictions and permitting and those kinds of things, that the density would be somewhere between three and four units per acre so that the cap at four is not a difficult one to deal with. We like the RSF-5 standard for a couple of reasons. One, the 6,000 square foot minimum lot size is more akin to what Habitat is constructing -- is subdividing, I should say, that ultimately leads to the construction of the homes for the residents. And, secondly, the lot width is a significant issue for us as well. In the RSF-5 as you may know, the interior lot width requirement is 60 feet. In RSF-4 it jumps 10 more feet to 70. That Page 164 February 21, 2002 70 is problematic for the type of-- of lot that we'd like to develop in this subdivision to get more people in their homes. Also, Mr. -- excuse me, Dr. Durso, the president of Habitat, is here today, and he could address the issue with more competency than I can, but it is our understanding that the larger lot size has been problematic for some of the families to maintain due to their income level, and -- and we would -- respectfully would ask for those things to be taken into consideration when the RSF-5 zoning consideration is -- is finally up for a vote. Other than that, I'll ask Dr. Durso for 30 seconds of your time, and we'll answer any questions that you have. MR. STRAIN: I've got three questions of yours -- for you, Vince, if it's the appropriate timing. MR. CAUTERO: Yes. MR. STRAIN: What I had alluded to earlier was the RSF-4 has a rear setback of 25 feet. The RSF-5 has a 20-foot setback. Which is it ? Do -- do you have a concern there since you didn't address that? MR. CAUTERO: We have a minor concern there. We would like the RSF-5 standard, but we could live with the RSF-4 standard. MR. STRAIN: The reason I'm asking is if you specifically asked for very specific exceptions to the RSF-4, if these other things are to apply and they're needed, I think now would be a good time to put it on the table. MR. CAUTERO: No. I agree. And I appreciate you bringing that up. And if the Planning Commission is inclined to deal with that issue, hopefully in a favorable fashion, we would ask that the RSF-5 standards of lot width, lot size, and setback -- the setbacks are the same for the front and side. They're different on the rear -- that the rear -- those three issues would apply, even in addition to the cap, that the RSF-5 standard for lot width for comer and interior lots, lot size of 6,000 square feet and rear yard of 20 feet apply. Page 165 February 21, 2002 MR. STRAIN: What about the square footage for minimum floor area? RSF-4 is 800; RSF-5 is 600. That's not lot size; that's minimum floor area. MR. CAUTERO: That wouldn't be problematic. The minimum -- the house size are all the same, 1,064 square feet. MR. STRAIN: I have no problem with that in the final recommendations, as long as staff doesn't. And my last question is, staff indicated it might take a couple of months to get your SDP. Your land contracts requires it by the -- a due date of your land -- yeah, your land contract's due date, expiration date is April 1st. Are you going to get an extension to that contract? MR. CAUTERO: Well, I'll let Dr. Durso address that. My understanding is that the closing date in early April was -- the issue was for zoning change not for construction, but I let Dr. Durso -- MR. STRAIN: Well, it says land development construction plans and all permits, you shall receive approval on those by April 1 st, and I was just -- want to make sure you guys are the ones that are going to be handling this project. MR. CAUTERO: Thank you for raising that. DR. DURSO: Yeah. Dr. Sam Durso for the record. I'm the president of Habitat of Humanity for Collier County. I've served for nine years full time as a volunteer for Habitat. We're the second largest chapter in the country; we're the second oldest chapter in the country. We started in Immokalee 25 years ago. We have built 400 houses now in Collier County. We did 60 this year. We plan to do 70 next year. We don't look at ourselves as a developer. You know, that word was mentioned today. We're partners with the county. The county needs affordable housing. Nobody else is doing it. We've been doing it for a long time. We can do a lot more than we have done. We can build a hundred houses a year, and we need cooperation from the county. And that's something we worked real Page 166 February 21, 2002 hard at. We plan to follow all the rules and regulations. We produce a very good product. The houses across the street from this product are our-- is our development, the subdivision, there's about 40 Habitat homes there. They're very well kept up. We have another subdivision we're working on right now in Immokalee that's called Carson Lakes where we built about 20 houses so far. We have another 60 lots there. So this project will be phased in over about four, five years at least. As far as answering your question, the house size, we never go below 1,064 square feet. That's our minimum house size. The lot size, we would have a problem with larger lots than 60 feet. Our homeowners really don't like lots bigger than that. We've had some larger than that. They have a hard time taking care of the lawn, so forth. We appreciate your support. We'll follow through. We do everything we say we'll do. Right now we're developing the largest project of any Habitat in the country at Victoria Falls on 41. We have 110 lots. And unfortunately, it took us three years from the purchase date to the -- to break -- breaking ground date which really is very frustrating for me as we go forward. So I'm looking for ways to expedite the process. I'd like the county to help us by fast-tracking our projects. And if they can do that, we're going to do a lot more development. You're going to see us up here a lot in the next year or so. We have two or three other big pieces of land we're going to come forward with. Thank you for your support. MR. STRAIN: What about your land contract? It does -- DR. DURSO: We going to close as long as we get the zoning changes. We're expected to go before the commissioners March 12. If they approve the zoning change, we'll close on the land. MR. STRAIN: Thank you. Page 167 February 21, 2002 MR. MIDNEY: I have a question. You don't have any green space or common area in this development? DR. DURSO: We will have some area in there for a tot lot for sure. MR. CAUTERO: Vince Cautero for the record again. There will be some land set aside, probably a little less than one acre for a tot lot. The only other open space, if you would, would be the native vegetation and buffering requirements and set-asides, but there would be no formal open space, green space other than a tot lot that people could congregate at. MR. MIDNEY: I support the idea of affordable housing, but it bothers me a little bit when I see a diagram where it's just solid houses and, you know, no green space and very little common area. DR. DURSO: Actually, directly across the street on Little League Road -- I don't know if you're aware. In that previous project that we developed, we left aside a significant portion of the property for green space. We were -- we were forced to do it because of scrub jays, and I think we built about 25 less houses than we could have built because of the green space that we left there, and we actually donated it to The Conservancy. That's right across the street. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Isn't there a school nearby with some playground? DR. DURSO: The school is right on the other side. Oh, about a couple hundred yards in the other direction of Lake Trafford is the school -- there's a little league field right across the street. It's an absolutely great location. The only thing that is missing for those particular homeowners is a tot lot, and we will provide that for them. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I think that's it. Any member of the public registered to speak?- MR. BELLOWS: Yes. We have one speaker, Jack Johnson. MR. JOHNSON: Good afternoon, gentlemen. My name is Jack Page 168 February 21, 2002 Johnson, Jr., from Immokalee. I'm a former board member, been up there, and I know you're hungry, and if you'll just give me a few minutes, I'll certainly appreciate it. I have been the tenant of the subject property for the last 20 years and the land, 700 acres north of that property and east of that property. I have been in a ranching operation there during that time. I'd be an idiot to stand here and oppose Habitat. You know, I mean, they've done so much for my community. I've also lived in my community for my lifetime which is probably nothing that anybody can say in here. I've been on that land longer than anybody's lived in that community probably that's here. I want to share with you a few things that you've not been shared with. You've hit on the two key issues of this project. One of them I don't even want to address, and that's the traffic concerns. If you've ever tried to get out on Lake Trafford Road and get out on 29, it's a crazy place. It's not what I come for. Mr. Chairman, you hit on an issue that evidently no one's aware of. That's water flow and water management, and that's what I came to discuss. I have some serious concerns which evidently no one's looked at, and I don't know why that is because I've started stirred them up enough I thought they would. That subject property has a branch that runs through it, a natural branch that flows through there. It's called the fish branch. It's been there since I was a pup. Basically that branch disperses water that come from 4,000 acres. And in that 4,000 acres is probably about 3,000 acres of agricultural lands and a thousand acres -- 600 acres, I'd say roughly, of residential area. Though I'd have had a little more time -- they put signs up on the wrong side of the street, and I thought it was a different deal, so I'm a little late in getting all my facts together, and I apologize for that. But that land dumps all that water, both rainfall and outfall, from orange groves and farmland onto my sub -- my subject property, Page 169 February 21, 2002 my land lease, which only exits down fish branch, will go right through the middle of this project. You were told that there is no sheet flow there. That's incorrect. There is sheet flow that crosses that property, and it does it on more than just a 20-year occurrence. It's done it at least three times in the last six years to a moderate extent, very seriously probably-- most seriously in 1995. It's done it twice since then. Had some just a little bit this last summer. Fish branch is the only means of escape of that water. It cannot go to the west. It physically cannot go; it cannot go north. It comes from the north. It cannot go east. All the water in the West Clock Street, both sides of West Clock, both sides of Carson, Carson Lake project, of Habitat, all empties into this cow pasture which comes down fish branch. There's no means of ingress, any other way or escape, if you will. Sheet flow runs across the entire exposure of this property as it faces Lake Trafford Road. It goes over the sidewalk and into the road ditch basically because the water can't go down the branch and escape there when it rains during the rainy season. The sheet flows to the east all the way over to fish branch and to the school and beyond that. Every summer everybody gets upset. I'm sure they called county storm water management, said, man, we've got to get this water off of Carson Road. We got to get this water off of West Clock. A representative of Wilkison who did the project of Carson Lakes called me up after I had contacted them earlier about the subject property today and wanted to know where is all this water coming from? I don't understand it. And it rained one week, July 4th of this year. It rained a week. Their representative called me and accused me -- didn't accuse me -- excuse me. Asked me if I was pumping water to create the problem. I said, "No, I'm not." But you don't understand the problem because you don't get past -- you don't Page 170 February 21, 2002 get the big picture. 4,000 acres is a lot of land. Specifically it runs 2 miles to the east all the way to Highway 29, 3 miles north and beyond to Highway 82. People say, well, no, that -- that's stuff-- they've got -- those groves have got retention areas, and they've got to be permitted to do all of that. That's not exactly true. Most of the groves in that area came along long before retention areas were required, and that water comes down from the south. There's a canal that comes into my cow pasture, which would be about a mile and a quarter north of the subject property. That canal is probably 8 feet deep, 25 feet wide, at least 3 groves, 1 nursery, and possibly 1 farm pump into that. It leaves -- if you've ever been to the subject property, if you get on the south end -- I'm sure everyone will tell you that -- I think there's two 48-inch culverts that go under the sidewalk. The size of the canal from the north is 8 by 25. We've got one that comes from the east that takes all the outfall off of the IFA research center. We've got another one that comes from the east that takes more water from that direction. We've got two road ditches, a road ditch on either side of Carson Road, one of which comes by the Carson Lakes project. West Clock dumps into there. So all that water accumulates because we don't have a real good drainage system over there. And this builds up in that land to the north of the subject property. When it can't go down fish branch anymore, it turns into sheet flow, and -- and that's a serious problem from -- for not only my business, but it's a problem for -- for the health and the county, I know, because every year -- and my mother was very involved in civic activities. Everybody squalls about what's all this water doing at West Clock and what's all this water doing on Carson Road. And I think it's obvious that no one understands the situation because when that representative from Wilkison called me, they go, "How come water is going backwards through our structure into our lake at Carson Lake?" I said, "Probably because you didn't Page 171 February 21, 2002 understand how the water flows." If they'd known that, you know, something might have been different. But -- but they're in a quandary. One representative did come out from Collier County Storm Water Management earlier this year. I said, "Don't come unless we're going to make a day of it." And I took him personally on a tour of all the lands to the north of this and tried to explain to them where the water comes from, how much water comes from that direction, and how can it possibly lead down fish branch in two 48-inch culverts. They go, wow, we never knew that, which kind of gets me back to my point where we started. I'm appalled that no one has brought up any water management concerns with this rezone. And -- and, again, you know, I'm dispersed. I only used about 20 acres of that land. That was my cattle lease. So, you know, these people do a great job in Immokalee. They help the community. They do everything good for us. We're tickled to death to have them there. We sing their praises. The landowner is my banker; got no problem with him. But, you know, we've got to understand what the water does. And as a man that spends his life messing with the land, you -- I do that, and -- and people not to grasp the big picture, that disturbs me. I began this quest back when my landlord told me that he was going to sell the property. I began immediately -- I called Dr. Durso, told him my concerns. He referred me to Wilkison. I talked to Wilkison, voiced my concerns. At that time the project manager I think was someone different. They said, yeah, we want to get with you. Yeah, we want to get with you. They got with me when they found out that the water was not doing what they thought it would at Carson Lakes. And since then I've gotten no response from anybody. I wouldn't be here today had I not seen the signs on the -- on the side of the road and probably wouldn't have -- wouldn't have -- you know, Wouldn't have had the opportunity. Page 172 February 21, 2002 I am not opposed to the project. What I'm opposed to is us continuing to build stuff without understanding what to do with the water. My dad farmed for 25 years. He said, you know, it's not a problem what we're going to do getting water. The problem is what we're going to do to get rid of it. Realistically two to three months every year, with the way the situation is now, I can't access my grazing lease without a swamp buggy or a tractor during those wet times. Some summers if it's -- you know, if it's not an extremely wet summer, that's not the case. We picked palmetto berries on pine islands out of an airboat in 1995 because the water cannot physically leave that country other than down the branch that goes down the middle of that project. I know they've surveyed it. I've seen my friends who work for Wilkison. They've surveyed it. And they've surveyed the whole country out there, but I don't understand what we're going to do with all that water and how they've made arrangements for water to leave there not only down the branch that can't take the flow, but when we developed the site, we raised the elevation to meet the code to put in all the houses. That eliminates the sheet flow possibilities. It's just going to make it deeper not only on me but on all the residents that are off of West Clock and Carson Road. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Mr. Johnson. MR. JOHNSON: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: How much would you estimate the sites would have to be raised to so the water wouldn't be coming in the front door of these houses? MR. JOHNSON: Well, if they built it to county code, that's, you know, whatever it is above the elevation of the roads, you know, I don't know if it's -- my concern is not that it's going to run in -- my concern is that they're going to be built up high enough so that the water won't come in, but the water won't leave. Realistically on a wet Page 173 February 21, 2002 year it might come in the front door even up to county code. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Well, just give you a little background on why ! happened to ask that question -- I'm sure Mr. Budd realized it some time ago -- the last time Habitat for Humanity came before this commission when I was a member was for a project out off Barefoot Williams Road in East Naples. I went out to look at this site, and at the time I went, a trailer park right next door to it was underwater. The door was -- the water was up to the lentils of these trailers. People are walking around in hip boots and so forth. So when Habitat came in with that project, I asked the engineer - - and I'm not sure whether he was from Wilkison or someplace else -- what the elevation NGVD was. He didn't know. And there's a canal that floods Eagle Creek from time to time and -- and -- tremendous canal that comes down 95 ! into which this land would have to flow. But the county commission, in its wisdom, after waxing eloquent over the merits of Habitat for Humanity's program, which I have no quarrel with whatsoever, approved the thing. Well, I ran into somebody some time ago who said that Habitat had to abandon it because it was going to cost so much to elevate the houses that it was determined to be an unsuitable site. I don't know whether that's tree. I haven't made a project of it, but --. DR. DURSO: Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Excuse me. Let me finish Mr. Durso-- Dr. Durso. DR. DURSO: Dr. Durso, please. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: That's how I happened to ask the question. And I'm a little upset that nobody on the petitioner's side has even broached this subject whether it's capable of being dealt with or not. There's something a little disingenuous about not even bringing it up, particularly if you've talked to people from Wilkison. MR. JOHNSON: I don't know that it would be intentional on Page 174 February 21, 2002 anybody's part, but I think it's just a lack of understanding. Because people come out there now. I mean, it hadn't rained since July. You know, normally, it's not a problem if it's not raining and it's -- I think everybody's pretty well stand. But come July last year, my phone was ringing. Where's this water coming from? Are you pumping this water? We don't understand where this water's come from. It's flowing backward through our structure. The lake at Carson Lake, I went around there. Someone had cut a ditch out of the lake, the lake, Carson Lake, the big one, into my cow pasture to drain water out. I understand nobody likes water in their house, but, you know, we -- we have a tendency to get excited when it's really, really wet and really, really deep. But now that all the water's gone away, it looks really good, and this thing would just fly. And unless you're there every day for 22 years or however long it is, you don't grasp what's going to happen when it rains, and that's not any more unusual than going down any street, any development in Naples. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Well, the gravamen of your testimony, as I get it, is that the people at Wilkison knew about this because you had conversations with them about it. MR. JOHNSON: With a specific person there who I don't think is employed there now. I'm not certain. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: All right. Thank you. MR. JOHNSON: I don't -- I don't want to cast any aspersions that someone's hiding anything. DR. DURSO: Let me answer a few things. Obviously, I -- I don't remember talking to this fella, but if he says I did, I probably did. And I would definitely have referred him to Wilkison because that's who was representing us at the time. I was heavily involved with Carson Lake, and we did have a problem at Carson Lake last summer, and that's when there was a ton of rain in about a one-week period. There was no problem with the houses at all. The water Page 175 February 21, 2002 never even got close to the road, but we had water backing up into our lakes. And it was resolved about three days later, okay. The Victoria Falls project that you're talking about, Mr. Abemathy, that you people denied, the county commissioners in their wisdom did approve it, and the reason they approved it was because Habitat was committed to build a good project. And that's the project we are building right now. The trailer park next door is at sea level, and that's why they flood. They flood whether we're there or not. We have taken our project, and all of the water from our project does not go anywhere near the trailer park, and it doesn't go to Barefoot Williams Road. It is taken to a canal, and it's taken down away. So we've actually improved the area by doing what we're doing. But professional engineers looked at that. We went to Southwest Florida Water Management for approval there. We did get approval there. So you have a misconception that we gave that project up. We did not give that project up. We're successfully building there right now. I presume on this project -- I wish Mr. Johnson would have talked to me in the last week as soon as he found out, because I'm a man of action, and if he thought there was something wrong there, if he called me again, I would have probably looked into it again. We've hired professional engineers. I think they know what they're talking about. Wilkison has been doing work in Immokalee for at least 25 years, because I know that Horace Wilkison surveyed the first Habitat project 25 years ago. We've used them exclusively in Immokalee. They know Immokalee very well. Would I like to find high, dry land with no water problems --. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I'm sure. DR. DURSO: -- you find it for me, okay. It doesn't exist, okay. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Yup. DR. DURSO: I am committed to take care of the poor people Page 176 February 21, 2002 that are living in those trailers. I know you asked that we don't talk very long, and I -- I respected your wishes. But my wife and I have visited hundreds and hundreds of people living in this county right now in awful, horrible trailers in awful places that you people should see. And if you saw that, you would see that the improvements that we're asking for are really something good, and -- and we're not saying we don't want to do what's right. We want to do what's right. You tell us how to do it. You hire professional engineers, you do it that way, you know, I don't know what else we can do. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I'm not sure I would take those poor people and put them in houses that are going to be surrounded by sheet flow. DR. DURSO: Habitat has never done that. We've yet to do it, and we don't plan to do it in the future. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: How much elevating did you have to do with this project over there off Barefoot Williams? DR. DURSO: We're at 8 foot -- we're at 8 feet above sea level. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: What was it to start with? It was anywhere like that, was it? DR. DURSO: No. It was about 6 feet, 6 or 7 feet. We added a couple of feet. The trailer park was lower than us. That's what the problem was. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: So you had to elevate the entire project by two feet? DR. DURSO: A couple of feet. Very expensive. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: That's what I was --. DR. DURSO: And we'll have to do that from now on. That's the cost of doing business in this county for Habitat because Habitat can't afford to pay $200,000 an acre for land. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: You may have to do it in this project. Page 177 February 21, 2002 DR. DURSO: We may have to do it in this project. We'll do it. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Does that figure into your budget or financing? DR. DURSO: All that matters is that there are poor people out there that need housing. We will find a way. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: It just gives you a greater money need. DR. DURSO: We need a greater money need. That's it, whatever the project takes. We will definitely build it at high-enough elevation, whatever it requires. MR. JOHNSON: Mr. Chairman, the point I keep going back to, you know, they're going to build them high enough where they're not going to get wet. That's not a problem. My question is, where does the water go? I'm going to end up with the water or the residents of West Clock are going to end up with the water or the residents of-- of anything east of this project, and that's what people don't understand is -- that water -- yeah, the house won't get wet. That's what I told the young lady from Wilkison when she called me last year and she said, "We've got to do something with the water." I go out there, and I look at the project, and the houses are not in danger. I'm going, "Sister, you ain't seen it wet." I said, "You got to see it when it's wet before you get excited. It's not time to be excited now." But, you know, the houses aren't going to get wet. But if that branch-- where's the water go, that's my question. 4,000 acres of water, rainfall, outfall, if that's the only way for that water to go to Lake Trafford, which is where that goes, and we cover up some of it or we don't enhance the flow of it in some way -- and I don't have an answer, because, like I say, this has been a long quest. I harassed Water -- South Water Management District. The county is aware of the problem, has been aware of the problem for 15, 20 years, you know, but it's just one old dumb Bubba in his cow pasture that's Page 178 February 21, 2002 getting hurt right now. MR. BELLOWS: Chairman Abernathy, the applicant has an engineer here that maybe they can shed some light on the water flow in the area. MR. JOHNSON: You lived here 22 years? MR. CAUTERO: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to with your-- with your permission, I'd like to -- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Thanks, Mr. Johnson. MR. JOHNSON: Thank you, sir. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Yes, sir, Mr. Cautero. MR. CAUTERO: Thank you, sir. I'd like to introduce Girard Brown, a project engineer from our staff, that might be able to address some of these issues that Mr. Johnson has brought up. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Okay. MR. BROWN: Hi. Gerry Brown. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: You're with Wilkison. MR. BROWN: Yes. With Wilkison and Associates. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Better take that microphone. MR. BROWN: As -- as you pointed out, there is a branch that runs through the property. We can't take care of regional drainage issues, but we are going to take care of everything that comes under our property. We plan on crossing this branch (indicating) with a bridge or put -- putting in culverts at least as large as what's downstream, perhaps larger, and follow all South Florida Water Management District rules for water quality, discharge attentuation, and the like. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Do you agree that there's sheet flow in that area? MR. BROWN: I have not been out there during, you know, extreme storm events. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Files of Wilkison don't reflect it? Page 179 February 21, 2002 MR. BROWN: We know that there's water that comes through the area. We plan on passing that through. We don't know exactly how much yet because we haven't designed it. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: But I didn't ask the precise question that would have gotten a response from you about water. Is that my problem? MR. BROWN: No, no. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Well, I asked about water, were there any problems with sheet flow and so forth, and was assured there were none. MR. BROWN: To my knowledge, there's no -- I don't know how the water travels totally across the property during extreme storm events. We have topographic data showing elevations. Whenever everybody upstream is pumping, I'm not sure how that's going to affect the site. However, I do know that we will pass everything that comes through it. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: What is the elevation in there? MR. BROWN: I believe it is around 30 feet. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Thirty? MR. STRAIN: Vince, has John Bolt's office looked at this at all? MR. CAUTERO: I don't know. I'd have to talk to Mr. Bellows about that. It's part of the review process. I believe his department is in the loop, and I'm not positive. MR. BELLOWS: Yeah, copies are sent to Storm Water Management, and they've recommended approval. There's some things that may be out of their jurisdiction and solely to South Florida Water Management District jurisdiction, and I need to double-check with John if this is one of those sites that is completely, within the south Florida jurisdiction. MR. CAUTERO: I can tell you commissioners, I'm not an page 180 February 21, 2002 engineer, but I can tell that you this problem is something that's -- that's not new, and Mr. Johnson has much more experience in the area than I do in dealing with these issues. It's a regional issue. I don't believe, though, that -- let me say it differently. I do believe that good engineering during the preliminary subdivision plat stage can -- can help, and you have our commitment to -- to work closely with Mr. Johnson as we proceed with those plans and -- and permit applications, should the application be approved by the Board of County Commissioners. MR. STRAIN: Now, there's a stream then running through this property. MR. CAUTERO: There's a flow way as you can see. MR. STRAIN: If-- I'm just surprised that the EA -- with streams come habitats and a bunch of other things. Why did not the EAB review this? MR. BELLOWS: I believe the waiver was granted. MR. CAUTERO There were no wetlands on site. MR. STRAIN: Wasn't the stream a wetland? MR. CAUTERO: It's -- it was classified on that map as you can see, signed by a representative of the Water Management District as other surface waters. MR. STRAIN: Well, they've been known to make mistakes. Do you have any objection to running this back through the EAB and asking for a continuance of this meeting? MR. CAUTERO: I do have an objection to that, yes. We worked very hard with Water Management District professionals. And our professional biologists, an ecologist, Passerel & Associates (phonetic), worked very hard in achieving that determination and trying to get it on the docket for today's meeting. We have a strong objection to that. MR. STRAIN: I'm-- I'm just real concerned, Vince, that there's Page 181 February 21, 2002 something that needs to be looked at more closely here and it hasn't been looked at. MR. CAUTERO: I would respectfully disagree, but I appreciate your concern. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Vince, let me ask you -- are there other-- do you have a question? Put it in a different way, what if Mr. Johnson hadn't come in here and tossed this clunker into the collection plate -- MR. CAUTERO: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: -- would you have -- who would have told you you've got an NGVD of plus 30? Who would have told you that you better elevate or you're going to get water all over the place? I mean, how do you find that out --. MR. CAUTERO: Mr. Abernathy, with all due respect, we knew that. And I don't believe Mr. Johnson's testimony was as clear and concise as you believe it to be, and I'm sorry if I'm being insulting. I don't mean to. Our engineers are very competent. Our engineers have worked in Immokalee for 40 years. Our engineers know that community backwards. Mr. Wilkison knows that community backwards. We'd be happy to go out on site and talk with Mr. Johnson. They are very well aware of the situation. And I don't believe that you have gotten the clearest picture in the world either. MR. MIDNEY: I have a question. When would a development be required to build a retention area for its own water, and when can you just pass it through as Habitat is planning to do in this case? MR. CAUTERO: Infrastructure clearing stage, I would believe, when you start developing your infrastructure, when your preliminary plans are approved as part of the PSP. That's my understanding. MR. MIDNEY: How large does the project have to be in order for it to be required to have retention on site? MR. CAUTERO: I believe all projects, any subdivision is Page 182 February 21, 2002 required to have retention on site. Maybe Mr. Bellows can correct me. MR. MIDNEY: It sounds as though you're panning -- planning to pass it through because I don't see any retention areas in the plan. MR. CAUTERO: Well, as Mr. Brown said, that we would be passing it through. But where it's required to be retained on site, we would. We don't have those specific drawings in front of us at this point in time, because we're not -- we're not at that stage. We're discussing whether or not the zoning is -- is appropriate for the land use. MR. BELLOWS: Yeah, ifI may -- at the time of preliminary subdivision plat, our engineering staff will review their water management plans to be consistent with county codes and ordinances for on-site water retention. That would prevent flooding of the adjacent properties. There are conceptual water management areas shown on their conceptual subdivision plan that was used for the zoning action, but more detailed engineering plans will be required at the time of preliminary subdivision plat, and they're also required to get the proper permits from South Florida Water Management District. MR. MIDNEY: I don't know that much about it, but it seems like from the drawing, it doesn't seem as though there's room for a water retention area. It seems as though it's pretty well solidly platted out as houses. And, you know, maybe if it could be shown that we really were going to retain all the water that was, you know, generated on site, then that would take away some of Mr. Johnson's concerns about the project. MR. BELLOWS: Well, by code they are required to do that, but -- and if that would be an added stipulation that you would like to add that -- that they be insured that all the project will retain -- CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Vince, are those blank spaces Page 183 February 21, 2002 there? Are they water management? MR. CAUTERO: I was just going to answer that question. They're water management sites, shown on the property, towards the middle of the property and the north ends of the property as well. MR. STRAIN: Ray, how did the waiver come about from the EAB, and what was the reasoning for that? MR. BELLOWS: I think because there were no wetlands on site. MR. STRAIN: Okay. So this -- again, I'm sorry. This stream is not considered a -- wetlands? MR. BELLOWS: I'll have to check with Barbara again. Barbara Burgeson is our senior environmentalist, because I recall -- MR. STRAIN: There's two lakes. The aerial shows two what looks like bodies of water, too. I'm not sure --. MR. BELLOWS: All's I know is they applied for a waiver, and I believe that was -- MR. STRAIN: Because I know that's the kind of stuff they would have looked at, and some of these questions may have come up at that level. MR. RICHARDSON: Ray, you know, try to help move this thing along. I realize there's some time urgency involved in all of this, and clearly none of us are against this concept, and we want to try to make sure it works right. The Southwest Florida Water Management seems to be the agency that's going to play a key role in helping this design come out to be friendly enough to the environment and all. Will -- how much information will be available to the BCC from that source prior to the time they consider this rezone? MR. BELLOWS: I don't think there will be much change in information, unless the petitioner can come up with additional. MR. RICHARDSON: That's a little worrisome because that Page 184 February 21, 2002 puts -- gives them -- potentially gives them approval without necessarily the information that I think we'd all like to have had. MR. BELLOWS: Yeah. The zoning would be in place. It doesn't give them development approval. That's requires a preliminary subdivision plat. That's when the engineering drawings would be required to show the proof that they retained water on site that engineering staff-- then they would also have to be providing their South Florida Water Management District permits. So there is a -- a second layer of review for the actual engineering drawings of-- of the site. At the time of zoning we're just looking at density and land use compatibility issues, in general, environmental issues. Now, it could be that at the time of preliminary subdivision plat they may require some additional environmental information to be provided based on revised plans that they submit. MR. RICHARDSON: And at that time they'd go seek or you would require them to seek. MR. BELLOWS: That's right. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any other questions from the-- for staff or the petitioner? (No response.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Very well. He's entitled to the last bite of the apple, so -- the petitioner is, so I'm going to close the public hearing, Mr. Johnson. I appreciate your being here, the information you provided. So with that, I'll close the public hearing and entertain discussion, motions, whatever. MR. BUDD: Mr. Chairman, I'll again make a motion only to focus the discussion. I would like to make a motion that we forward Petition RZ-01AR-1743 to the Board of County Commissioners with a recommendation for approval subject to the staffs stipulations. MR. RICHARDSON: I'll second that. MR. BUDD: I'd also just like to make a comment. While I'm -- Page 185 February 21, 2002 I think I understand Mr. Johnson's concern, I'm really glad he came forward and presented that additional information. In my mind it's appropriate that we forward this for approval because the big question that we're trying to answer is this zoning appropriate for this land use. And in that case, I think the answer is yes. However, I will admit there are a lot of water management issues been raised, and fortunately they're on the public record, and I am sure that the people for -- from Habitat are not insensitive to it. I think Wilkison is a fine engineering firm. They're not insensitive to the issue. County staff is now alert to the issue. And there are mechanisms in place that during the process of achieving the site development plan approval, the Water Management District approvals will be appropriately sought out, and I am confident that the issue will be addressed at that time. MR. STRAIN: Well, Mr. Budd, had this proposal gone through the EAB and known -- and had I known that the scrutiny there involving those issues of water, wetlands and species were addressed, I'd feel more comfortable with your-- your confidence that it should be just forwarded on. Since it didn't go through them, since staff waived the EIS, I'm not sure that this has been looked at. And since John Bolt's office apparently passed the ball to South Florida Water Management District, I'm not sure that it's been looked at as closely as other projects of a similar nature would have had they gone through the entire process. And I'm concerned over that reason, and I think the Habitat program is absolutely great. I don't have a problem with that. But if we put homes up there or anybody does and it backs up water to other people -- I think there's a place in Bonita that's been suffering with that right now. South Florida had to come in and buy them out again. That kind of water backup to homes off site and to properties off site I think is more of the concern here than what the new homes will experience. They're going to be up higher. And with Page 186 February 21, 2002 that I don't feel comfortable unless there's some other agency that looks at this closer than the five of us have. MR. MIDNEY: Well, wouldn't the water management agency make sure that there was adequate storm water retention before they allow the project to go forward? MR. STRAIN: I don't know how a project of this size goes through the county at that level. Maybe, Ray, you can help us out there. Can we get Ray's input? MR. BELLOWS: I missed the question. Excuse me. MR. MIDNEY: My question was wouldn't the -- wouldn't some regulatory agency look at the storm water retention before it was approved and make sure that it was adequate before they allowed the thing to go forward? MR. BELLOWS: Definitely. The regulatory agency mostly is going to be the jurisdiction. The South Florida Water Management District would be required to issue a permit before they start construction of any kind. And we'd want that information at the time of the subdivision plat review. MR. MIDNEY: And I really don't think it's an environmental issue because it's pasture right now. There's a stream that runs through it that's running about half of the year. I don't think that qualifies as a wetland. There's no area that stays wet except for the stream bed itself. MR. STRAIN: I got some farm ditches that South Florida just said that they're wetlands. So if they think those are wetlands, I'm sure they would think a natural stream was. MR. MIDNEY: What is the width that would be involved? I don't know. MR. STRAIN: Well, the farm ditch isn't-- it's man-made, and they're trying to say it's wetlands. So I think there are issues out there like that. Page 187 February 21, 2002 MR. BELLOWS: In addition, I have a note here from Julie Minor who's with the county storm water management department, and she said, a copy of the South Florida Water Management permit, modifications or water -- waiver shall be submitted at the time of PSP, construction plan approval. So she'S approving the rezoning subject to the South Florida Water Management permit at the time of construction plan review, which is normal process. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Mr. Midney, just for clarification, storm water retention only applies to water that's generated on your own site by the -- replacing pervious surfaces with impervious. So what Mr. Johnson is talking about is water moving through there. And if you interfere with that, it's got to go somewhere. Backing up is one of the possibilities, I think, by his thesis. MR. MIDNEY: Right. But if they put in adequate drainage to get the water through, I don't think they should be -- the Habitat project should be responsible for the other 4,000 acres that's upstream of them. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Only if they aggravate it, I think, then it becomes a question. MR. STRAIN: They're the ones that are going to have to handle the flow through, though, that's the concern. MR. MIDNEY: I don't see any reason why that can't be done. MR. STRAIN: Well, what I -- obviously, I think the board's going to move this thing forward, so in that case I'd like to ask Mr. Budd if he would consider an amendment to his motion so that before any approvals are obtained on even any phase of this project that adequate review by South Florida and permits are issued, not just -- that means any phase. This project is -- doesn't go forward any kind of SDP approval or anything until South Florida has issued its findings on the flow-through issues. Page 188 February 21, 2002 MR. RICHARDSON: You suggest that we pass the rezoning issue? MR. STRAIN: Yes, I'm not -- I can tell that that's the way it's going to go, so I'm going to second position here trying to salvage something so that the water is at least addressed by an agency, because I can tell you, we're not addressing it so -- MR. BUDD: It's my understanding it would go before the Water Management District anyway, but I would be pleased to add that stipulation to the motion. MR. CAUTERO: I have a question before you vote on it. Mr. Strain, are you saying findings by the Water Management District or permits? They're quite different. Findings, I can live with. Permit, I don't want to get into a catch 22 situation where Collier County Storm Water Management says I can't issue you a permit until the Water Management District does and vice versa. MR. STRAIN: How about written findings? MR. CAUTERO: That's -- that's acceptable. MR. BUDD: That's fine in my motion. MR. RICHARDSON: I'll include that in second. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Further discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Mr. Strain, I'm -- I think I see the lineup, and I'm going to vote no just to highlight for the county commission that this is not all hunky dory, if they're inclined to think that. I don't think I would vote no if I thought the motion would fail, but it's just to highlight for them and get it off of the consent agenda or any other expedited movement so -- MR. STRAIN: So you just convinced Dwight now to go along with you now. What are we going to do? CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I'll call the question. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Page 189 February 21, 2002 MR. STRAIN: Aye. MR. RICHARDSON: Aye. MR. MIDNEY: Aye. MR. BUDD: Aye. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Opposed? No. The next item on the agenda under old business is LDC minutes of January 9th. Those were provided for us I assume so we could see what the county commission had done. No action to be taken. MR. BELLOWS: No. MR. STRAIN: I had one issue. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: You have your issue. MR. STRAIN: And it's -- it goes back to the January 3rd meeting that we had where we discussed the fact that this board has not got a copy of the comprehensive plan, and Marjorie rightfully noted that. We probably could get by with the adoption notebook. And I thought at that time it was agreed that we would receive those notebooks, and it would have been helpful to have that today for some of the issues that came forward. And I'm wondering how long it will be before we can get an adoption notebook? MR. BELLOWS: I didn't have a chance to discuss that with Susan Murray, but I will as soon as I get back and will give you a call. MR. STRAIN: Are they available? I mean, I don't know what MR. BELLOWS: Well, it's a different department that publishes the comprehensive plan, and I have to coordinate with Stan Litsinger, who is the director of that. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I assume we'd all want one. MR. STRAIN: I think we all definitely could use one especially with today's meeting and some of the issues that came up. MS. STUDENT: No, you need it. It's not a question of wanting. You need to have it. Page 190 February 21, 2002 MR. STRAIN: So it's not a matter of Susan making a decision whether we can have them or not. We're going to get them. MR. RICHARDSON: It's safe to say we will not have another meeting unless we have it? CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I wouldn't bet that. I didn't put it on the agenda, but I'm just curious. Several months ago when I brought up the matter of ex Parte communications, I was sort of advocating a take it slow, take a look at this. And the consensus as I understood of the commission at the time was, no, let's get on with this and put an end to ex Parte communications. Now, I sold myself on that proposition, but I find that nobody else has. Is that a dead issue, or do we find it more advantageous to engage in these and disclose them than to not engage in them? I'm just curious if I can have some input on that. MR. MIDNEY: Well, I think sometimes when I find out that something is coming before the commission I might want to find out from the person who knows more about it to inform myself as part of my preparation. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Well, I would have excluded staff from that prohibition. MR. MIDNEY: No. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I don't think that's an ex Parte communication. MR. MIDNEY: I meant, you know, other people outside of staff. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Other people -- okay. MR. STRAIN: Ken, I -- I thought your idea was good, if it would come down from the county attorney's office if it was something that -- MS. STUDENT: Well, I had talked to Mr. Weigel. And I thought I had spoken with you-all about it. I thought that without Page 191 February 21, 2002 changing any resolution or anything that the Planning Commission could adopt the policy not to take ex Parte. And it would involve changing a resolution. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I understood you to say that we as individuals could adopt. MR. STRAIN: That's how I understood it too. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: We as a commission -- MS. STUDENT: Well, I guess I feel a little better as individuals, so there's not any problem with raising the issue on having to amend anything. MR. STRAIN: See, that's where I have a problem because if you decide not to but Paul doesn't or I don't or Russell doesn't, then the people that are wanting to talk with us can start working on individuals instead of all nine of us, that still isn't -- I don't think that's still the right way to do it. It's either all or none, and that's kind of where I wanted to go with it. MR. RICHARDSON: Here's my problem with the all or none. I'm very sympathetic to not giving all of these professional guys out here mini bites at our apple, because they chew on it pretty religiously. But I am concerned that we would be constrained from interacting with members of the public. And if ex Parte means ex Parte, that would mean I couldn't accept comments from my neighborhood association or anyone else. And I -- I'm more inclined to -- and I can still do that, say no to a particular professional who comes to me, and say I'd rather hear that out at the meeting, respond to it that way. But if another member of the public who is not really that much involved in the process doesn't really understand how things work, they come to me and ask the questions, I want to be more helpful to that person because I think that assists the process moving forward. There's a way to bifurcate this and -- there is a way to bifurcate this, and I could separate these people by classes, which I Page 192 February 21, 2002 do in my mind already. Then perhaps that would help me. MS. STUDENT: Well, I would be -- I don't think I could recommend an official policy like that because you run into equal protection problems. MR. BUDD: I tend to agree with Mr. Richardson. I think that paid professional consultants will sit here for seven hours right to the bitter end, and then they'll take their bite of the apple at length and in detail. But the citizens of the community who got to be -- be at work and they've got a life and I -- I think that the after-hours or odd-time contacts that I get from those citizens could not be replaced because they just don't have the luxury of sitting here to get their shot, whereas the professional consultants, fine, if they can't call me at the office or can't call me at home, then they'll sit here all day on the clock and then they'll take their shot. So they wouldn't be put back, I don't think, one bit. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Okay. Well, I understand it a whole lot better than I did so -- thank you. MR. RICHARDSON: Could I ask, Ray, in our packet, separate packet, I got this ordinance No. 0203. And perhaps I should have recognized what it is. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: LDC amendments, isn't it, passed by the county commission? MR. RICHARDSON: That's what this is? MR. BELLOWS: Yeah. I believe that's the last round of the LDC amendments that were passed. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Until you get a change from that Tallahassee outfit, I think. MR. RICHARDSON: Thank you. MR. STRAIN: Which, Ray, I hate to bother you about another issue. As you've just saw again today, my -- your LDC is outdated. I know the solution was that I'm not allowed to have a new one, but I Page 193 February 21, 2002 would mrn this one in for an indefinite period of time, and the pages that were missing would be replaced. That to me is going to spend more staff time turning through every page and checking to see if it's the most recent supplement than if it -- than just giving me a new ULDC. So when the request goes in and more of these come through, I certainly would appreciate it if I could get a modern, up - to-date version since I do rely on it so much. MR. BUDD: And Mr. Strain brings up a good point. Unfortunately, I'm embarrassed to say I've been on Planning Commission for 8 1/2 years, and I have found it impossible to keep track of all the updates, just as he's saying. And I've had a Land Development Code, and it is woefully out of date, and trying to keep track of it is an insurmountable task, and if we could just have new ones issued as a matter of policy, at least we could have the relevant ordinances in front of us that we could do our best. MR. BELLOWS: I'll pass that along to Susan Murray. MR. RICHARDSON: We could take up a collection. MR. BUDD: If I had to buy one, I'd do it. If I just had one, it would be a useful thing. MR. BELLOWS: I certainly understand. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Yeah. I would too. I'd be delighted about it. MR. BELLOWS: I go through the same process when I get all the updates and I have to go through page by page to make sure I get all of the correct pages in there. Occasionally I look and, oops, missing one, I have to go track one down. I certainly sympathize, and I know there's problems because of the arrangement with Municipal Code Corporation to get the copies at a time frame that's -- meets your needs. And there's a cost factor too, but that shouldn't be a problem, concerning the duties that you do. But I will pass that along. That's all I can do. Page 194 February 21, 2002 MR. MIDNEY: Couldn't it be put on disk, and that way it could be updated much easier and it would be less paper? MR. BELLOWS: I know the county attorney's office is looking into that. MS. STUDENT: It is. I believe it is on disk, and I can tell you, though, some of the things I've seen on the intemet don't quite reflect -- and I don't -- I'm not quite sure why that is, because I've had printouts of it, and it doesn't quite reflect what's actually adopted, not necessarily in substance, just some missing words here and there and so forth. It is -- I'll have to check further, but I know that they do it in that medium or are in the process of doing it in that medium as well. MR. STRAIN: That means we would all get notebooks then to use the CD disks on; right? MS. STUDENT: Pardon me? MR. MIDNEY: Oh, to bring with us at the meetings, right. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any other comments? (No response.) CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: to adjourn? MR. BUDD: I do. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: MR. MIDNEY: Anyone want to make a motion The motion makers over here. Motion for supper. Page 195 February 21, 2002 There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 3:30 p.m. COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION KENNETH ABERNATHY, CHAIRMAN TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT REPORTING, INC., BY BARBARA DRESCHER, NOTARY PUBLIC, AND BARBARA A. DONOVAN,'RMR, CRR Page 196