BCC Minutes 02/27/2002 S (GMP Amendments)February 27, 2002
TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
Naples, Florida, February 27, 2002
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County
Commissioners, in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as
the Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing board(s) of such
special districts as have been created according to law and having
conducted business herein, met on this date February 27, 2002, at
nine o'clock a.m. In SPECIAL SESSION at the Max Hasse Park,
Golden Gate Boulevard, with the following members present:
CHAIRMAN:
VICE-CHAIRMAN'
Jim Coletta
Tom Henning
James D. Carter, Ph.D
Donna Fiala
Fred Coyle
ALSO PRESENT'
Jim Mudd, Deputy County Manager
Tom Olliff, County Manager
Joseph K. Schmitt, CommunityDevelopment
and Environmental Services Administrator
David Weigel, County Attorney
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COLLIER COUNTY
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
RURAL FRINGE FINAL HEARING AGENDA
February 27, 2002 - CONTINUED TO MARCH 4, 2002
9:00 a.m.
3ra Floor, Boardroom, Administration Building
Naples, Florida
NOTICE: ALL PERSONS WISHING TO SPEAK ON ANY AGENDA ITEM
MUST REGISTER PRIOR TO SPEAKING. SPEAKERS MUST REGISTER
WITH THE COUNTY MANAGER PRIOR TO THE PRESENTATION OF THE
AGENDA ITEM TO BE ADDRESSED.
COLLIER COUNTY ORDINANCE NO. 99-22 REQUIRES THAT ALL
LOBBYISTS SHALL, BEFORE ENGAGING IN ANY LOBBYING ACTIVITIES
(INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ADDRESSING THE BOARD OF
COUNTY COMMISSIONERS), REGISTER WITH THE CLERK TO THE
BOARD AT THE BOARD MINUTES AND RECORDS DEPARTMENT.
REQUESTS TO ADDRESS THE BOARD ON SUBJECTS WHICH ARE NOT ON
THIS AGENDA MUST BE SUBMITTED IN WRITING WITH EXPLANATION
TO THE COUNTY MANAGER AT LEAST 13 DAYS PRIOR TO THE DATE OF
THE MEETING AND WILL BE HEARD UNDER "PUBLIC PETITIONS".
ANY PERSON WHO DECIDES TO APPEAL A DECISION OF THIS BOARD
WILL NEED A RECORD OF THE PROCEEDINGS PERTAINING THERETO,
AND THEREFORE MAY NEED TO ENSURE THAT A VERBATIM RECORD
OF THE PROCEEDINGS IS MADE, WHICH RECORD INCLUDES THE
TESTIMONY AND EVIDENCE UPON WHICH THE APPEAL IS TO BE BASED.
ALL REGISTERED PUBLIC SPEAKERS WILL BE LIMITED TO FIVE (5)
MINUTES UNLESS PERMISSION FOR ADDITIONAL TIME IS GRANTED BY
THE CHAIRMAN.
IF YOU ARE A PERSON WITH A DISABILITY WHO NEEDS ANY
ACCOMMODATION IN ORDER TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS PROCEEDING,
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February 27, 2002
YOU ARE ENTITLED, AT NO COST TO YOU, TO THE PROVISION OF
CERTAIN ASSISTANCE. PLEASE CONTACT THE COLLIER COUNTY
FACILITIES MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT LOCATED AT 3301 EAST
TAMIAMI TRAIL, NAPLES, FLORIDA, 34112, (941) 774-8380; ASSISTED
LISTENING DEVICES FOR THE HEARING IMPAIRED ARE AVAILABLE IN
THE COUNTY COMMISSIONERS' OFFICE.
LUNCH RECESS SCHEDULED FOR 12:00 NOON TO 1:00 P.M.
1. Pledge of Allegiance
2. Transmittal Draft of Collier County Growth Management Plan (GMP) Amendments
addressing the requirements of the Final Order (AC-99-02) issued by the State of
Florida Administration Commission on June 22, 1999, excluding the Eastern Lands
Portion of the Rural and Agricultural Assessment.
3. Adjourn
INQUIRIES CONCERNING CHANGES TO THE BOARD'S AGENDA SHOULD
BE MADE TO THE COUNTY MANAGER'S OFFICE AT 774-8383.
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February 27, 2002
February 27, 2002
Item #2
TRANSMITTAL DRAFT OF COLLIER COUNTY GROWTH
MANAGEMENT PLAN (GMP) AMENDMENTS ADDRESSING
THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE F1NAL ORDER (AC-99-02)
ISSUED BY THE STATE OF FLORIDA ADMINISTRATION
COMMISSION ON JUNE 22, 1999, EXCLUDING THE EASTERN
LANDS PORTION OF THE RURAL AND AGRICULTURAL
ASSESSMFJNT- CONTINUED TO MARCH 4, 2002
MR. SMITH: I'd like to make a comment about participation in
this process. As you all know, the final order issued by the governor
on June 22nd of '99 required significant and active public
participation. In our attempts to accomplish that goal, we have had
54 meetings with the rural fringe area oversight committee. We have
distributed numerous brochures and signs. We have maintained a
website, up to date with all the materials relative to the transactions
taking place before the rural fringe activities committee and the staff.
We have had community presentations with specific community
groups. On June 13th of'01, we held a conceptual report meeting
with the Board of County Commissioners, at which time they gave us
specific directions, which led to the amendments drafted and
presented here today. We have had meetings before the EAC and the
planning commission. And to make sure that we covered all the
bases, on two separate occasions we have mailed out over 3,000
letters of notifications of meetings to individual property owners in
all of the areas affected by or potentially affected by these
amendments.
I'd also like to make a couple of points before we begin today
which may alleviate some concern on the part of some of the people
that are here today. Some of the things that we are not going to
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propose today we are not proposing through this series of
amendments to expand the urban boundary. We are not proposing a
rezoning of any private property of either upzoning or downzoning.
We're not going to take away the right to build a home on any
existing parcel that was in existence on June 22nd of 1999. On the
same note, we are not proposing any measures that would result in a
taking of property from private property owners without due
compensation.
We also do not propose through these amendments to convert
private property to public ownership on an involuntary basis.
Also, it's very important to point out here today also that the
amendments that we're addressing today do not change any of the
uses or address directly property in the North Golden Gate Estates.
There's a separate ongoing study and analysis to review the Golden
Gate area master plan, and those issues will not be addressed here
today.
With that note, I would like to introduce some of the participants
that will be taking place in your presentation today. One other note,
anyone who has as speaker slip that they'd like to turn in who have
not done so, Jim Mudd will take your speaker slips at any time that
you want to submit them.
Now I'd like to introduce some of the participants in today's
presentation. The general proposal presentation which you'll hear
will include presentations by Dr. Jim Nicholas from the University of
Florida, who is also author of our TDR program; Marty Chumbler
from Carlton Field in Tallahassee, a legal consultant; Bob Mulhere,
our consultant on the planning side from RWA, Incorporated; Bill
Lorenz from our own natural resources department.
We will also be hearing presentations from intervenors relative
to the North Belle Meade area plan, which include Nancy Payton of
the Florida Wildlife Federation; Brad Cornell; Bruce Anderson, a
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local land-use attorney; and Bob Duane, a local planner.
On the ag regulation issue, we'll be hearing a presentation from
Tom Reese, an attorney representing the Florida Wildlife Federation;
and again, from Marty Chumbler, representing the county on the
issue of the level of agriculture regulations that's permitted in Collier
County.
If there are no other questions, I would like to move forward
with legal background outlined by Marty Chumbler.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Before you do, Mr. Smith, there's
a couple of points I'd like to make. If we want this meeting to have
an opportunity to flow, one, turn off your cells phones and put them
on vibrator mode; and number two, if you'd like to participate, don't
do it from the audience with comments or by applauding. Wait until
your turn to come up to the podium and make your point. And the
other only other discussion I would have is to my fellow
commissioners is when they make a presentation, take notes and at
the end of the presentation ask your questions at the time, and that
will avoid duplication of effort and the answers to the next question.
MS. CHUMBLER: Good morning, members of the
commission. I'm Marty Chumbler with the Carlton Fields law firm in
Tallahassee. Our firm has been retained by the county as outside
legal counsel.
My first presentation I think my purpose right now is to sort of
give a legal background for this meeting. The county, back in 1998,
adopted amendments to this local comprehensive plan that would
result in the evaluation of successive reports for our state law.
Unfortunately the Department of Community Affairs found those
amendments to be not in compliance with Chapter I of the State of
Florida Statutes. An administrative hearing resulted from that, and
ultimately both administrative law judge and the governing cabinet
sitting as administration commission agreed with the Department of
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Community Affairs. As a result, on June the 22nd, 1999, the
administration commission, again, the governing cabinet, entered a
final order, which is in your notebook. I think it's the very
first item in your notebook this morning.
That final order required several things of the county. First, it
required some very specific immediate remedial amendments to be
adopted. Those were adopted by the county. They were not
challenged, so those are in effect.
Secondly, it required some interim amendments be adopted.
Those, too, have been adopted. They were challenged. They went to
administrative hearing. They were upheld in administrative hearing.
They were upheld in the final order of the Department of Community
Affairs. They are now before an appellate court in Tallahassee with
arguments on that issue scheduled for next week.
The final step or steps that were required in the final order was
an assessment of the rural lands, each of the lands in the rural fringe,
with the end result of that step to be further reviewed subsequent to
further amendments or all the encompassing amendments of the
comprehensive plan.
The final orders specifically allow the county to take this
assessment phase, and that's what the county decided to do, splitting
assessment of the rural fringe area and assessment of the eastern
lands. Originally the final order required that these assessments be
completed and the resulting amendments from that assessment be
adopted by the county by June 22nd of 2002, this coming June 22nd.
We have gone to the governing cabinet, and with the agreement of
the other parties in litigation got an approval to extend the adoption
date for the eastern lands to November. But we're still facing that
June 22nd deadline for adoption of these rural fringe amendments,
the one that is presented in draft form in your documents today.
Now, as Mr. Smith mentioned, one of the important points that
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the final order included was there should be public participation. I
think the cabinet said that should be a hallmark of this process.
There were also some very specific goals that the governing
cabinet indicated were to be accomplished through these
amendments, and I'm going to read those to you from the final order
itself. The final order says, "At a minimum, the assessments must
identify means to accomplish the following: One, identify proposed
measures to protect prime agricultural areas. Such measures should
prevent the premature conversion of agricultural lands and uses.
"Two, direct incompatible uses away from wetlands and upland
habitat in order to protect the water quality and quantity and maintain
the natural water regime as well as protect listed animal and plant
species and their habitats.
"And Number 3, assess the growth potential in the area by
assessing potential conversion of rural to other uses in appropriate
locations while discouraging urban sprawl, directing incompatible
land use away from critical habitat, encourages adoption of creative
land-use planning being (inaudible).
Those are the goals. Those are the things you need to keep in
mind as being your orders from the governing cabinet as you look at
these proposals. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Any questions?
MR. SMITH: At this time, Bill Lorenz of the Natural Resources
Department will go directly into natural resource protection
strategies.
MR. LORENZ: For the record, Bill Lorenz, natural recourse
director. One thing if I can have the lights turned off on the screen,
it will be help to observe the slides. Thank you.
As Marty Chumbler noted, the final order does require the
county to address a large portion of the county. We're here of course
today for the rural fringe. And the final assess the assessment
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includes all the agricultural rural areas of the county. There's big
cypress critical state concern conservation land in the South Golden
Gate Estates. It specifically excludes the urban areas, the coastal
Naples urban area and the Immokalee urban area, North Golden Gate
Estates and Orange Tree.
The fourth rural fringe, the area that we're going to be talking
about today, is pretty much in this box here, if you will; the northern
portion up around Immokalee Road up in here along the CREW
lands. And if you will, think about the southern portion as being the
North Belle Meade here just north of 1-75, and then the Belle Meade
area that's south of 75 going all the way down to 41.
What I'd like to try to use this slide a little bit for is discuss some
of the data-gathering efforts that we've used to present the conceptual
plan and framework for these amendments that we eventually are
proposing to transmit to DCA. We've talked about this rural fringe
area that's roughly 93,000 acres in size, and we're using
information from the South Florida Water Management District
database that comes from 1994/1995 aerial data.
I want to make a couple points here: One is, the staff has
modified this information to the degree that we have updated
information of areas that have been cleared so that we can have a
more up-to-date database. This is the database that was best available
data that exists for the staff to develop this conceptual plan.
Secondly, we're using this information very much in a planning
type of context of large, broad areas; where are the major
environmentally sensitive areas that this information presents to us.
Secondly, we're using this information in an analytical sense so
that when we start looking at various alternatives, we can actually
calculate the impact and then use this analysis that's the accuracy of
the water management database is reported in their system would be
90 percent accurate. So at the very least, we're talking about a 10
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percent error. So when we start slicing and dicing the numbers, as Fll
kind of refer to it, just keep in mind that this is at this broader level of
identifying the large areas. The boundaries of course, we have to
Actually draw lines on the map, and we proposed some boundaries
based upon this information.
Now, just to give you some sense of this area and its
characteristics, the wetland land cover is almost 60 percent of this
total area. So again, remember the final order. Direct incompatible
land uses away from wetlands and listed species habitat. So more
than half of this area is identified as wetland land cover. And as I
go through the slides, I'll be able to present to you generally where
this important habitat wetland land cover exists. Then of course, a
forested area is, from a habitat standpoint, another very important
measure or parameter that we're looking at.
Agriculture is in the order of 19 percent, and you can see the
other smaller percentages there which are included in the rural fringe.
Let me back up a little bit here and get a more conceptual level.
We're talking about how we'd structured this plan and the types of
strategies that we put together to, again, accomplish the final orders
requirement to direct the incompatible land uses away from wetlands
and uplands habitat.
So what we're looking at let me introduce two concepts to you:
The landscape scale and the project, or site scale. The landscape
scale is very large areas, square miles. The sections of land that we're
looking at have a very high environmental sensitivity. And quite
frankly, what we want to try to do within those large areas is, we
want to prevent them from being fragmented.
We want to minimize their intensive land uses to go into those
areas such that the areas can remain intact and provide that higher
level of ecological value simply because of being large areas and
being intact. So we can identify those areas through this process, and
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that's where I will step you through here a little bit later.
Of course, where we do allow the development to occur, we also
want to ensure that we have proper standards to protect the habitat,
the listed species that exist in those areas where we're allowing
development. So what staff has put together, together with the input
from a variety of different committees, is the set of policies
that address not only the landscape scale protection measures but also
particular standards that were addressed, protection of the important
environmental features when a project comes to be built and where
the allowed uses are to occur.
Let's talk a little bit about some tools of protection at that
landscape scale. First off, we kind of alluded to the fact that we're
using the data and information to identify these large ecosystems.
And again, these types of efforts have been occurring in a variety of
different fashions. I will refer to a couple of studies as we go through
the effort, but we're mapping these areas with the data that I
previously identified to you.
Once we map those areas of where these environmental areas
are, then we'll use some tools such as large-scale overlay districts. I'll
be talking about the natural resource protection area overlay, or
NRPA.
In our plan currently right now, we have a conservation
reservation that provides for limited allowable uses in conservation
lands, those lands that are environmentally sensitive. So the overlays
of the concept of the NRPAs and conservation reservations we'll talk
about sending lands. Those overlay districts are the regulatory
framework that protect those large ecosystems.
Then of course we have a variety of tools that are in the toolbox
for those large systems: Purchase and acquisition is a tool. Transfer
of development rights.
You'll be hearing more about this with Dr. Jim Nicholas's
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presentation about the transfer of development rights that allows us to
protect those large environmental ecosystems but still provide a value
for the individuals that are trying to protect that land. And we'll
detail that further in the presentation in a variety of different
locations. And then of course we'll also identify some policies
that deal with buffer zones. The buffer zones I'm speaking about here
are the areas where the zones are that we want to try to protect, these
large-scale ecosystem features.
So let's look at what we've tried to do with the large ecosystems.
We have taken the wetland, upland and listed species data that's
available to us, and what we've translated that into is a set of
proposals for areas that will provide that high degree of protection
from these large systems. Again, we're trying to use the data that's
available to us to identify the areas.
Let's get back to our land-cover slide again. This is somewhat
busy, and one of the ways of looking at some of these slides is to look
at the white space. What I mean by the white space is let me take off
some of the colors for this particular slide and focus in on total
vegetation. And the colors for this, forest is the green and wetland
land cover is the blue. Now, what's in the white is in the areas that
pretty much is a void through that database that we have of this
particular land cover.
Now, remember the final order: Direct incompatible land uses
away from wetlands, listed species habitat. So when we start looking
at these slides, think about development not occurring in the
colorized area, if you will. And in the white area, think about that's
where we would want to direct development to.
Let's look at this particular slide here, and let me talk about this
database initially. This is what's called priority wetlands. These are
the wetlands that have listed species characteristics that are going to
support a large population of listed species. This map was generated
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through the south through the Florida Fish and Wildlife
Conservation Commission in its report that was issued in the early
'90s, which is known as the GAPS report.
The database for this report was based upon 1986 land satellite
imagery data. That's the basis for the report. What staff has done is,
we have we have corrected to the degree that we have the data that I
talked about before, we have corrected the this data base with
updated information concerning areas that would be the void of
vegetation. And to the degree that information was provided to us in
the database, we made those corrections.
But remember, we're talking about the systems in these large
very large areas. We're not talking about, you know, exactly what is
on a particular piece of property, because we're using this information
to identify these broad areas that we're going to establish our our
regulatory, if you will, framework on.
But this data here, the hottest color, if you will, or the greatest
number of species is red. And you can see here, for instance, this is
the Corkscrew area, the CREW land acquisition. It maps out various
highest amount of listed species and wetlands.
Now, you see some smattering of that in here- and again, for
reference sake, this is 1-75 through here, so this is what the south
Belle Meade area. You see this is being very high in regard to listed
species for wetland. The blue, quite frankly, with four to six
species, is still very high in terms of utilization of habitat for listed
species. And you can see again, the blue is very much in this
particular area, very much of course in this particular area, and then
we see very much in the CREW NRPAs, and of course a smattering
in some of these other areas.
Now, remember what I said before is, train your eye to
concentrate on the white spots, because as we start bringing the maps
forward, think about those are the areas that we want to direct
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development to. And as Marty Chumbler indicated, in the final
order, that's the area where we can be creative in order to creative
and-use techniques. Rural villages you'll hear that term used, and
other types of areas, we can direct development into.
So let's take a look a little bit about some Florida panther data.
This came from the Panther Plan in the early '90s that identified what
they call priority habitat for Florida panther. The priority habitat is in
red, and you can see the sections this is along section lines, so you
can see the priority habitat is in this area. The reason why it's not in
this area is because this is under a conservation designation. This is
an Audubon CREW area, so they didn't call it priority habitat for
purposes of acquisition.
And then of course everything that's south of 95 in the what
we'll call the Belle Meade area is primary area habitat. And then we
also have some secondary habitat that's mapped out in these
particular areas here. The blue dots are the telemetry points. That's
the points that are listed I guess it's up through- I have to look at
one of my staff members here is that data up to 2000? MR. MULHERE: 2001.
MR. LORENZ: These points occur up to 2001 of the panthers
that we have the telemetry collar so they can map the locations of the
panthers.
One thing I wanted to clarify a little bit here is, because of the
scale, we have to make these dots real big so you see a conversion. I
don't want to misrepresent the those areas as being, you know, huge
points of panthers actually recorded. But what is very important is to
see the pattern. The pattern that we see here is an awful lot of
telemetry points within this area. And interestingly enough, you see
a lot of telemetry points within what's the North Belle Meade above
1-75.
Recognize, too, that that was not mapped out in '92 as priority
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panther habitat, but since then we have seen panther telemetry points
coming out of this area. And then you see a little smattering out here
in the CREW land.
Well, let's talk about kind of another term. This is somewhat of
a biological term that we use: Biodiversity hot spots. I showed you
some panther data in the previous slide. If you take a lot of the listed
species information this is what the GAPS report did back in the
early '90s. Take a lot of the listed species information, look at the
habitat that they utilize, then map it as what they call biodiversity hot
spots, and that's what this map represents.
Quite the hottest color on this slide is red. And most of this
area maps out very much in red, which is not surprising. If you were
to look at we kind of focused in on the rural fringe, and perhaps you
may have some panels at least for the public to look at, and I have
some slides if we ever want to look at it in terms of all of southwest
Florida.
But all of southwest Florida maps out very high in the state with
regard to listed species. We are in an area that is critical for listed
habitat, so it's not surprising that when we map out fringe areas that
we're going to map it out as very high.
Again, remember just my little suggestion here, follow the white
spots. And I'm drawing just general areas where kind of the white
spots are on this particular map in here.
Now, is it exactly the same as the other maps? No. But that's
where we had to come to with regard to when we finalize final
boundaries of these areas that we're going to say represent our large
ecosystem that we want to protect, but you can see with some of the
map data so far is that there are some patterns that start to emerge.
The next slide here is what was called strategic habitat. Now,
strategic habitat was somewhat of a summary in the GAPS Report
developed to say that this is the area that the state should focus in on
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for protection efforts.
These will be the areas that would have priority for acquisition,
for instance, for spending state dollars. These would be the areas that
local governments should look to to try to provide some protection
measures.
One comment I need to make on strategic habitat kind of dealt
with the former slides of the Florida panther. Because this area was
already in some type of acquisition status, it's not listed as a color
because it was already acquired. It was not a priority to apply. But
again, focusing on the white spots here to some degree, you'll see that
this is very much kind of a white spot. You will see some white spots
up around in here. Again, in north Belle Meade, it's kind of more in
the center. Obviously, this mapped out pretty good with regard to the
where the strategic habitat is. So there's the holes in the
environmental areas in the report.
So let's talk about we have mapped out these systems. At least
we've provided the data and began to map out the system for
regulatory purposes, so now we have to craft some type of a
regulatory framework for which to address these large systems. That
regulatory framework that we've decided on through the process in
the past two or three years is to some degree, the terminology is
based on the transfer of development rights, or the TDR program, so I
want to define a couple of terms here. Not to steal Dr. Nicholas's
thunder, but define these terms for you. And that is, when we talk
about receiving areas, this is the red areas. This is where we would
want to direct development to. These are the areas that in the TDR
program, can receive more units. The reason why we say that they
can is because they have kind of less environmental sensitivity. So
from a resource perspective, these are the areas that we can put
development into, more population into, which it will have less
impact on the environmental system.
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The green area here and these are what's called sending areas in
the TDR parlance those are the areas where have a high degree of
environmental sensitivity, and through the TDR program we would
allow people to send their development rights from these areas to the
receiving areas.
Again, what we want to be able to do is, we want to be able to
reduce the activity, the abuses, the concentration of the public in a
variety of different kinds of intensive land uses within these areas, so
we're trying to establish mechanisms to protect those areas.
So when we call them this kind of overlay of the district is
sending areas. So when we talk about sending and receiving, the
terminology there comes from the TDR program. Sending are the
environmentally sensitive lands. Receiving are the lands that aren't
environmentally sensitive.
Let's talk about these overlay districts a little bit here now, a
little bit more quantitatively. Conservation conservation of those
lands that are in public ownership. Now, I can make a couple of
points for everybody here on some of the maps that individuals that
everybody has for the future land-use map. Staff has been utilizing a
GIS system that we have at the natural resources department that
we're able to gather this information from a variety of different
databases. We have been able to update our database with regard to
where the lands are already acquired by public agencies. So for
purposes of analysis and when I start working through some
numbers for you later on, you can see that we can map out these
conservation areas, these publicly owned lands, and we can
determine how much vegetation, how much environmental
parameters within these areas, because these are still areas for our
inventory, if you will, of natural resources.
So when you look at your future land-use map, you won't see a
conservation FLUE in these areas, for instance, down here. That's
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February 27, 2002
simply because the mapping of a routine future land-use map can't
map all individual parcels. But we are quantifying them for you so
you can understand what the numerical impacts of all of our
strategies will be.
So the conservation lands are plus or minus some 39,000 acres
per (inaudible). The sending areas are roughly 23,000 acres in terms
of the last efforts we've gone around identifying the sending, neutral
and receiving areas.
I didn't talk about neutral lands before. And neutral lands are
between sending and receiving. They will not get increased density,
nor can you send density from them in terms of a TDR program.
Again, we'll talk about that in a little more detail. And they're
somewhat in the middle status. But what we have identified
preservation standards and appropriate allowable uses within these
areas as well. And then the receiving acreage is around 23,000 plus
or minus acres in the - for the rural fringe.
So if we kind of get away from the actual well, we start looking
at the comparisons kind of side by side. What I want to be able to do
is, again, kind of focus your eye on the white spots in the natural
resource and see how that lines up with the red areas on the left-hand
side of the map. Because, again, we're trying to identify some
regulatory lines based upon environmental data that has the best
accuracy of 90 percent, and we're trying to integrate that into a nice
regulatory program, policies, and draw lines on maps, but what you
have to feel comfortable about at the end of the day that we've pretty
much identified those areas that we need to direct development away,
and that's going to be our sending areas, the areas with the high
environmental protection status on them.
So let's take a look at this is the vegetation map, if you will, the
wetland, and that's forested land cover. And now here's a little bit of
an overlay of the biodiversity map that you saw before. You can see
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it maps up fairly close because, again, listed species obviously,
they're going to need habitat to live within, whether it's wetland or
uplands. So you can see how it kind of works through in terms of the
large areas. And again, kind of compare that to the areas that we're
showing over on the left-hand side as being the receiving lands.
So again, the biodiversity hot spots, if you start looking at the
species, again, you kind of see the pattern. You don't see perhaps as
much of the area within the red and the blue, or the priority species,
but again, you are still seeing that kind of pattern. And that's the kind
of information that we're using to try to map out the regulatory
framework for the for these broader areas.
Let me introduce another term now: Natural resource protection
areas. We talked about sending lands. Sending lands were highly
environmentally sensitive areas. The natural resource protection
areas that we're talking about are a sending a designation within the
sending lands that have the highest degree of environmental
sensitivity. And this is in your future land-use element. And on the
map, this is listed out as an overlay. But we've identified three
natural resource protection areas: The CREW; NRPA, which is the
northern most NRPA; the north Belle Meade NRPA, which is in the
end, north ofi-75.
Now, let me talk to you about this: This particular NRPA here
that's mapped out is fairly consistent, we think, in terms of our
analysis with the the north Belle Meade area plan that will be
proposed to you by the intervenors and which we'll have a
presentation at a later point. But we've mapped this out as fairly
close to what they have proposed, which staff is comfortable with
those boundaries. And then the Belle Meade NRPA, which is south
of 1-95. Now, one of the things I want to point out here is excuse me
1-75.
One thing I wanted to point out here is, there will be some
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February 27, 2002
inconsistencies in the map, and I'll try to point them out as we go
through. We have learned, for instance remember, this area here was
kind of a little bit of a notch in here as receiving lands. Based upon
our information right now, we have been finding that this has been
acquired by the state. We need to verify that. And of course, that
will take that out of the receiving area designation.
So as we go through this transmittal hearing, if we find some
additional areas that we're going to have to change our lines on the
map, reslice and dice and crunch the numbers, and of course we'll be
doing that throughout the transmittal.
But those are the natural resource protection areas. Again, a
higher level of protection. And we'll talk about higher level of
protection areas here in a little bit.
Since I've mentioned you can see here this is where we need to
make a change right here because red doesn't show up as red. But
this is the area of the map out as conservation. One thing the staff
did, too, and there was a difference that was pointed out to us earlier,
is between the planning commission recommendation and when staff
developed these maps, this area right in here and down into here, the
planning commission did not did not authorize that or recommend
those to be what we're calling now as neutral. Those were to remain
as receiving.
So we're going to have to have to be consistent with the
planning commissions' recommendation, we're going to need to trans
move those into a receiving area category. Again, we'll have a little
bit of a change
I'm looking at the staff to make sure they keep - keep this list
up. But let's take a look at how we how it stacks up in terms of the
different kinds of aerial designations that we have for the proposal in
front of you, and that from simply an area proportion of total area of
receiving lands, those are the areas where we want to direct
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February 27, 2002
development to, because, from a natural resource perspective, they're
the least environmentally sensitive. They represent roughly a quarter
of the total fringe area; the neutral lands, 8 percent, less than 8
percent.
Now, when we talk about the sending lands remember I talked
about NRPA and non-NRPA they're a different preservation
standard, and that's another quarter of the area, 25 percent. And
again, we're looking at what's already in acquired status. In
conservation status, it is 42 percent of the lands are in conservation
status. So that's how the areas map out in the overlay district.
But let's talk about now the environmental data. How is the
environmental the natural resources distributed within the rural
fringe, because, again, the final order wants us to direct incompatible
land uses away from those areas. So we can do some quantitative
work, calculate some numbers, do my thing, make some graphs, and
I'm kind of happy, you know. So I'll go through a couple charts here
to give you a sense of, again, the distribution of the habitat, the
environmental data throughout our overlay districts. Now,
remember, these are now our overlay districts for regulatory
purposes.
What I'd like to try to concentrate again on, this is the
vegetation, which is which of course is the wetland and upland land
cover, and we have the receiving areas. Again, that's where we want
to direct that intensive development to. Well, the receiving areas
remember, they had 25 percent of the total land area, but they're only
counting for 10 percent of the total vegetation. So remember, the
maps that we showed, we there was little white spots. We tried to
draw the line where there's the least amount of vegetation, the least
amount of sensitive habitat. So this is the result this if you will, this
is the result of the lines on the map that we are proposing to you. And
you look at wetland cover. Again, focus in on receiving areas. That's
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February 27, 2002
down to 7 percent. Again, remember the final order. Direct
incompatible land uses from wetland listed species and their habitats.
Well, there's only 7 percent of the wetland land cover in the receiving
areas, and this is the area where we're going to direct development to.
Every place else, if you look at the outside of the wetlands, for
instance, conservation, sending lands have a high or a high
percentage of wetlands within those areas. Those are the areas that
we're not going to have very intensive land uses at all. And then the
strategic habitat on the pie chart, you see a very similar kind of trend
here where I think that we have a perspective in locating those areas
with the least environmntal sensitivity, being sensitive receiving
areas. I mean, list nonsensitive receiving lands. So let's kind of put it
a little different way, a side-by-side presentation. Wetland land
cover. More than 10 times the amount of wetland land cover in our
conservation preservation areas than the receiving areas, and very
similar patterns again for strategic habitat and total vegetation.
So when we transmit our data our information up to DCA, DCA
applies that test to the final order and says, well, Collier County, did
you direct your land uses away from your sensitive habitats, we can
say yes, we did and we did a very good job doing it. We're up to
almost 9 percent of those important critical parameters within the
areas we're going to direct it away from. Those we talked about the
the broad areas, which is the overlay districts. Now let's talk a little
bit about the site scale. I'm not going to go into too much detail on
this, other than the fact that a lot of the bulk of your documents that
we transmitted to you or that you were given to you as transmittal
documents contains the language that discusses the site preservation,
vegetation retention standards for a variety of the (inaudible).
Future land-use elements provides the clustering land use. We
have a variety of different management policies, and these are going
to be applied in those areas where we direct the development to,
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February 27, 2002
because even in those areas, there is still some habitat concerns, still
some listed species concerns, so we proposed a set of vegetation
retention standards and Wildlife Management standards that will still
provide protection even in the receiving areas.
Now, let me give you another term here. When we talk about
when I talk about habitat concentrations within the rural fringe
planning areas, what I'm talking about is how much what is the
composition of the habitat within a particular designation. So let's
look at the receiving areas. What we're saying here is 30 percent-
receiving areas are 30 percent vegetated. That means on average 30
acres out of every 100 acres in a receiving area is going to have
vegetation. But look how much vegetation composition
concentration is within our very important areas. Very high
concentrations of the of the - the parameter that we're looking at.
Again, looking at wetland land cover, 20 acres, more than 20 acres
out of every 100 acres have wetland land cover. And you'll see a
similar trend here with regard to the strategic habitat looking at these
parameters, crucial parameters to gauge our efforts in that proposal
and to try to understand what the impacts of the total plan would be.
So we've used that information to come up with site preservation
standards, and what we've identified then is vegetation retention
standards I'm going to focus on these standards for the presentation
within a variety of area designations. So you can see that, going from
less environmentally sensitive receiving lands to most
environmentally sensitive, we have a spectrum here, a range going
from 40 percent to 90 percent vegetation preservation because of the
sensitivity to the areas. So we see that even receiving lands that we're
proposing to preserve, 40 percent of the vegetation exist in receiving
lands. So if the project comes to you, let's say five years down the
road here, and it's in receiving lands, they're going to have to retain
40 percent of the vegetation within those lands. But remember, when
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February 27, 2002
we look at the amount of vegetation that's in those lands, there isn't a
lot of vegetation there to begin with. So there's ample opportunity to
preserve that vegetation at the project site and still provide a high
degree of movement status and still provide adequate protection even
in the receiving lands.
Now, the NRPA sending sending land NRPA has a very high
preservation standard. On NRPA lands, 90 percent. We're looking at
a 90 percent figure in our data and analysis, and we'll support that
and you'll see later we're kind of targeting the 90 percent preservation
for a couple different reasons. One is, a large part of the Collier
County is an area of critical status. This was mapped out in the '70s,
and the state established a 10 percent alteration standard within that
big cypress area. If you will, that's almost like 90 percent
preservation. So we're looking at using that as our benchmark. Our
most environmentally sensitive areas, which would be the NRPA
sending lands, will rise to that particular level.
When we begin to look at now the effect of the impact of
applying these preservation standards across our rural fringe area, we
can then go, if you will, to the far right-hand column, apply the
standards with all the information we presented to you before. What
you see is, we can actually make an inventory, and we can crunch
some numbers and come up with kind of a bottom-line figure of
almost 60,000 acres of vegetation within the rural fringe can be
expected to be preserved based upon this set of preservation
standards.
Now, again, get into a little bit here of set the stage for the TDR
discussion because we're going I want to be able to show the board
that what the effect will be from the TDR program in terms of the
vegetation retention standards. So what we're looking at is, if we
have we don't have any TDRs at all in the process. We expect that
about 59,000 acres that you saw in the previous slide to be preserved
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February 27, 2002
if we apply the TDRs on the sending lands, so that gives us an
incremental gaining of vegetation preservation within the sending
lands to 100 percent. That's what the TDR program will do for us.
We can see we can preserve another 2,000 acres, roughly. We're
starting out, I think, at a very good level, close to that 90 percent
figure along the rural fringe with zero TDR utilization, and we're
going to 100 percent utilization. We're getting above the 90 percent;
91.3 percent. Although I show the decimal places here, we're still
talking 87, 88, 87 percent is the range. And just to show another point
of reference here, there's about 54,000 acres of wetlands in the total
fringe. I don't want to mislead you and say that means we're going to
preserve all of the wetlands in the total fringe standards. You can see
that that's not correct. At least this gives you a little bit of a
benchmark to look at for comparison.
One thing that a number of different speakers will touch on is
the TDR program. I'd like to make one little point here, and that is,
why do we need a TDR program if we've gone from zero utilization
to 100 percent utilization? We're only going up a few percentage
points. And the reason is, the TDR program does get us to that target
of 90 percent, but it also provides compensation and value for the
property owners in the sending lands, which we've really rafted up
high preservation standards and we'll be cutting down reliable uses.
So the TDR program, then, allows us to set those preservations
standards high in those areas so that the individuals can still have
value if they want to participate in the TDR program itself. So when
we take this plan to DCA and say look at all these great preservation
standards, we have to go to DCA and say we also have a
compensating mechanism for the property, so that's the balance of
private the balance for the natural resource protection, private
property rights protection through the TDR program. It also gives us
instrumental gain for vegetation preservation.
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February 27, 2002
So let me talk about a little bit of the elements of that integrated
strategy. And obviously this slide will be up here all morning, all
day, but you do have this information in your packet and you can use
it to kind of refer to the policies actual policies in the plan. At the
landscape scale, if you will, the NRPAs, you have a TDR program.
We've identified sending and receiving areas and allowable land uses.
We have buffering requirements. And what we've done is cross-
referenced for you those elements where they appear in your
transmittal document the actual language that addresses those
elements.
Again, at the site scale, if you refer to these pages and
references, this is where we have the clustering provisions,
preservation standards, wetland protection standards, wildlife
management standards. Again, staff is not proposing to go through
the language for all of those, but that's the detail, if you will, that that
supports the general framework that I've just outlined for you with
regard to the whole idea of directing incompatible land uses away
from the areas that we have as our highest degree of environmental
sensitivity. And what we'd like to do now is just switch it over to Bob
and talk about those those elements in further detail.
MR. SMITH: Before we jump into land-use strategies, I'd like
to give an opportunity to the chairman of the RAC committee, David
Ellis, to give you a brief overview of their viewpoints on all the
issues that you're being presented, and we thought between the
environmental presentation and the land-use presentation, we'd give
them a chance to give a few words of advise to you.
MR. ELLIS: Good morning, commissioners. I'm David Ellis.
I'm the chairman of the rural fringe committee now for about a year.
Just real quick about the committee so you know the work that we've
been through. For the last three years, we've met 54 times. Our
average committee meeting was about two, two and a half hours
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February 27, 2002
long. For every hour we had in the committee, I'm sure each
committee member would tell you they've spent twice as much time
reading and reviewing information and trying to understand from the
point of view of the citizens or folks that aren't involved in this
process how these things would work, and so when we went back
with staff from our perspective, oftentimes they say, so how does
this work? What would this really mean? To try to deal with those
issues and try to filter them through that and also to give access
points to the general public or people who have specific points of
view to come and have input into that process. I can tell you it was a
very it was a very involved process, and I can take you to my office
and show you the big box full of materials and things we've been
through. I don't want to boor you with a lot of the details today. I'll
leave that to Bill and his folks, but I really want to take a few minutes
and go over some thoughts from the committee's perspective. One of
the things that has come out of this and frankly some of the things
you won't have a chance to talk about are many of the points of
consensus that we're able to come together during this process. We
thought that was one of our jobs, as best we could, to try to find
consensus in a lot of details in this program and some of the things
you probably wouldn't spend a lot of time talking about, like
clustering and density. We spent hours and hours and hours
discussing, coming up with ideas and policies that we're dealing in
hopes that those would be issues that you wouldn't have to spend a
great deal of time on. I promise you there's a lot of hot spots left in
that you'll have to make decisions on, but those are things I'm very,
very proud of, which is in one of the vagaries in really looking at
some of the preservation standards.
The committee, the people that were involved and the staff were
able to come to a census on the preservation standards in the primary
receiving areas. Very important areas, and frankly, a consensus we
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February 27, 2002
hadn't been able to come to in the past on previous studies of the
very, very significant point. But I will tell you probably the most
rewarding thing that happened during the process with one of our last
meetings it may have been our last meeting one of the folks, in
looking at the process, when looking to develop a piece of land in an
area that's straddled in the rural fringe, we asked them to come back
and say, with the tools that we talked about, the tools that are on the
table, how it is to affect your development, what you're trying to do.
And it was very rewarding to see it. They said, now if you were able
to do this because you gave us (inaudible) as a tool, normally we
would have had to perhaps effect or void this particular wetland area,
but we were able to save it because of this tool you brought to the
process.
I will tell you, for two years of long, boring meetings, it was
very rewarding to find that those things that had been offered up gave
them the opportunity to do what Bill's been talking about, which is
steer the incompatible uses away but still left an opportunity to use
their land in a way that was economically viable. That was very
rewarding to look at that process. But I will tell you, instead of going
into a lot of details of areas of disagreement between our staff and the
committee, I'll give you a few areas of quick advice to the committee
in terms of what we saw. I will tell you, as we look particularly at
state preservation standards and some of the other things, you're
going to see individual snapshots of a lot of different areas that will
regulate this land: Wetlands, preservation standards, all kinds of
setbacks, NRPA requirements. They overlay. They create a
cumulative effect on each other. Frankly, in the sending areas that
the preservation standards that we just saw a few minutes ago, our
committee didn't feel it was necessary to have those high of
standards, partly because we didn't think they were particularly
necessary, but based on the fact that there are a lot of other standards
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February 27, 2002
that laid on top of that.
I mean, the illustration I always had in my mind was I felt like
we were putting on four rain coats and hip waders and carrying two
umbrellas to go into the rain. There were a lot of protections in place
already, and not to create protections on top of protection, they really
probably were duplicative and cumulative that really in some cases
would restrict people's ability to be flexible in their land uses.
Another area that I would mention, and frankly it's one of the
areas that we're going to spend a lot of time on today I'm very glad
Dr. Nicholas is here. There's no more preeminent expert in that field
that we've found.
Our committee's perspective early on we looked at TDRs and
said that's a tool we think would be helpful in this process, and we
put it in, as Bill mentioned before, the tool box that we wanted to
explore. It was part of our original plan. As we went in and looked at
it, Dr. Nicholas came in. The one thing we learned in looking at
those is, they had to be economically viable. We did a study and
said, they're economically viable. And on our committee - I want
you to understand because it could be a point of contention. Our
committee was split in the end over how that process should be
implemented into this plan. It's frankly a very complicated process.
I'm better at illustration than I am at some of those details when we
talked about it, and I said to our committee I said, I see TDRs in the
way that if people have been thrown in the water and they're
drowning, you need to throw them a some kind of a life preserver.
One of the committee members said, I want to throw them a live
preserver made of lead. Another committee member said, I don't
think we should have thrown them in the water in the first place.
And as we looked at it, I'll tell you, that was really a degree of
concern. I think overall as a tool, it was acknowledged that this was a
tool that has the potential to work, a great deal of concern about how
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February 27, 2002
it would be implemented.
The one bit of caution and again, back to advice, if you do go
ahead with the TDR program, it seems like it's very much a part of
the plan, I strongly recommend that you follow Dr. Nicholas's advice
to keep it simple. That's one of the things we learned in looking at
areas around the country that had these; they needed to stay simple.
The last thing I would say in terms of this and one of the things
that I try to carry into every meeting we went to, it's very easy when
you're looking at these numbers and thinking about the process to
think in abstract as if this land was owned by the county, all 93,000
acres, or if it was in a faraway land that nobody has any input on or
any control over. When I think about that land, that 93,000 acres, a
lot of it is controlled. Some of it is controlled by the government, but
a great deal is controlled by individual landowners, and we have to
keep them in mind. They're very, very, very valuable public goals:
Preserve them for wildlife and wetlands, but we also need to be
cognizant of those folks. These are places where they intend to build
communities, continue agriculture, and at the same time to build their
homes. So I realize I'm not giving you the answer to that, but keep
that in mind because, as we look at this process, we try to stay very
cognizant of that as we delve through these processes.
There are several people here from the committee who I
understand were going to be recognized at that meeting on Monday,
but if there's any input you want from us as we go into this process as
you go along, if you want our advice, we'll be available and, quite
frankly, eager to help. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Those members that made all the 54
meetings over the 2-1/2 years, that comes out to the equivalent of six
work weeks, five eight-hour days a week. I think that's a significant
sacrifice you made for the community. And we'll get into that more
on Monday, but we do appreciate your efforts.
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February 27, 2002
MR. SMITH: Now we'll get into land-use strategies with Bob
Mulhere.
MR. MULHERE: Thank you. For the record, Bob Mulhere
with RWA Incorporated. The slide that you see up here that you
cannot read we don't intend for you to be able to read that box. I just
want to let the public know that there are some graphic displays
around the room in here and also out in the hallway that include both
maps as well as this summary land-use table. That table identifies
each of the categories receiving, neutral, sending and conservation
and what uses are proposed to be allowable in this designation as well
as the preservation standards and some other components of the plan.
I just want to say at the outset that we recognize during this
process that there were some smaller parcels by in the rural fringe
assessment area that could be negatively impacted by the
preservation standards because they were 10 acres or less, and so we
did develop a guaranteed clearing for those standards, and that's
included in your plan, which allows for a minimum of one acre to be
cleared, regardless of where they're located, even if in the sending
area with higher preservation standards and up to 20 percent. So it
could be from one acre or greater to 20 percent.
Talk about the permitted-based density. The plan alls for the
base density in the sending areas to be limited to one dwelling unit
per lot or parcel that existed as of the date of the final order. It does,
however, allow for a transfer of the rights at the previous density
ratio of 1 per 5.
In receiving areas, the density the maximum density permitted
has been increased in the plan to one dwelling unit per acre. There is
another increase related to rural villages, but I'll defer that discussion
until we get to the rural village discussion.
In neutral areas, the density remains the same. It's 1 per 5, and
there is no ability to bring in units in neutral areas or to send them
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February 27, 2002
out. So that stays just as was permitted today.
I already touched on the TDR density, and I'm going to discuss
the rural village standards in just a few minutes. I do want to move
on and talk a little bit about let me just go to TDR because I want to
bring Dr. Nicholas up. He's got a presentation, and I certainly want
to get his presentation here early in this process.
Just let me say a little bit about TDRs before Dr. Nicholas gets
up. I think we've already got a good understanding of the sending and
receiving designations. There's just a couple of components I just
want to address about the TDR program before Dr. Nicholas gets up,
and that is that, in addition to being able to send dwelling units under
this plan from sending designated lands to receiving designated lands
within the rural fringe area, there is also a component that would
allow for the transfer of units into the urban area on a limited basis of
up to one dwelling unit per acre for a qualified infill developer. The
rational for that is to ensure a strong market in the TDRs, and also
because that really is where we want to see some increased density is
in those smaller infill parcels. By the way, those would be limited to
20 acres or less and surrounded by existing development. We already
have infrastructure in place to support this.
With that, I'd like to introduce Dr. Nicholas, which is right in
front of me. Thank you. Dr. Nicholas, as David Ellis indicated,
participated all along in this process, and we're very fortunate to be
able to get the professional assistance of Dr. Nicholas. He is a
national expert on the TDR process and has had quite a bit of direct
experience in a number of locations throughout the nation where I'd
say where both TDRs have worked well and where TDRs haven't
worked so well, and so he's able to shed some light in the
development of this process so that we can develop a program that
we felt comfortable would work well.
Remember, the TDRs are not a tool that we have developed
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February 27, 2002
primarily to enhance natural resource protection; they are a tool that
we are proposing that will allow for compensation to property owners
as a result of the elements that would provide the natural resource
protection. Thank you. Dr. Nicholas?
DR. NICHOLAS: Mr. Chairman, members of the board, ladies
and gentlemen, it's certainly a pleasure for me to be here with you
and talk about TDRs.
Let me begin with perhaps some candor. You, as
commissioners, probably already know, and probably most the
people in the audience know, the record of TDRs is very poor. Most
TDR programs don't work. Some do. Obviously what I'm going to
concentrate on is the ones that do work and what they have achieved.
And along the way, I want to point out why they have worked; and,
as a counter position, why the others have not worked. And
hopefully in the end, what's become of this is some insight into
implementation management to the extent that you and the
community decide that this is something worth pursuing.
What I'd like to do is go over some other experiences with you.
I've selected three: Montgomery County, Maryland; the Central Pine
Barrens of Long Island; and Southampton, New York, which is also
on Long Island.
These are not the only three, but I think they bear some
relationship to the issues that you are dealing with and perhaps can
shed some light on it.
Here, what I tried to do is to give you a sense of what they were
doing in these communities. So looking first at Montgomery County,
Maryland folksy. It's suburban Washington, DC. There's
Montgomery County up here. And major communities are Bethesda,
Silver Springs, Potomac.
Oh, Mr. Chairman, let me point out, if something I say along the
way creates an issue or a question, I'd be happy to take it as it comes
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February 27, 2002
up or at the end, as anybody sees fit. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you.
DR. NICHOLAS: Bethesda, Naval Hospital, country club and
perhaps well-known components of upland Montgomery County to
urban Montgomery County. The neighborhoods are pretty well off.
There's tremendous demand here on suburban Washington. Moving
up into Chevy Chase, there's a variety of the housing, of course.
Silver Springs. Potomac, which is the newly developing areas. And
here's a brand new home in Germantown. Can give you a sense and
here are the rural areas that they were concerned with. And what
they wanted to do is to maintain those rural areas not only as rural but
also rural in private ownership. They had a commitment to the
continuation of agriculture in this community. Here we're just getting
a sense of it.
Now, as you may know, the Potomac River borders
Montgomery County, separates it from Virginia, and they included
the Potomac River, their part of the Potomac River, in their
preservation program, part of what they're trying to do.
And here we're looking at the river. What they wanted was the
Great Falls, perhaps known to many people. The B & O Canal goes
through there also. So those are the vistas.
Now, here is what they were coping with: The growth of
Montgomery County annual change every year, 12,381 people on
average; 1.6, almost 1.7 percent per year. The type of numbers that
we're getting used to here. But great growth because it's a very nice
community. It's a nice place to be. A lot of people wanted to be
there. And of course, you've got exactly the same issue here. And of
these, almost 13,000 people coming in a year, new people need 3500
homes per year in Montgomery County. Between 1980 and 2010,
they will need 103,000 almost 104,000 new homes. And even with
the TDR program, they're going to meet that market minimum.
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February 27, 2002
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Can I ask one question? I don't
like to interrupt. Can you tell me what your building rate is.
DR. NICHOLAS: I'm sorry, sir. I cannot. I don't know.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Good question.
DR. NICHOLAS: Now, if we look at that 103, 104,000 new
homes and then try to convert that into land use obviously each one
of those new homes consume one acre you have 103,000 acres,
which would be 30 percent of the county in those new homes.
Obviously figuring in here the density from two per acre, three per
acre, certainly it goes down.
So what they saw was growth trends that were consuming
substantial portions of the land area of the rural/scenic/agriculture
area, which they thought was a matter of concern. And here we'll just
look at a map of it. Here's the urban areas. This is approximately
three years ago. So locating our cities and of course, Washington's
to the south. Active agricultural areas, the rural nonagriculture.
Basically, that's horses, the horse areas, which is an important
component of their society and also their economy.
And so we've got a fair number of active agricultural areas. And
urban is simply large lots, and preserving those areas in green, all
shades of green, is what they were after.
Our sending areas and our receiving areas, from one to the other,
basic policy was to stop that from becoming that. And of course
that's that new home in Germantown. And Germantown is one of
those areas that's moving into the agricultural areas. And, you know,
if you look at that, it's certainly a nice home. No one's taking
anything away from that, but what they wanted to do was have that
nice home elsewhere and of course to keep the agriculture going.
How do they do this? They adopted agricultural zoning in the
sending area, enforcing a minimum lot size of 25 acres in the
agricultural zoned areas, provided for infill development in the urban
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February 27, 2002
areas. These were their receiving areas, and they had a variety of
different housing styles here.
Of course, we see largely apartments or I think actually those are
townhomes. The others were were a villa variety. Some were single
families, and a variety of difference there, but much more an urban
scale than you're talking about. But of course, it's much more of an
urban area than is Collier County.
They purchased conservation easements from agriculture lands
sorry. I meant to give you the appropriation of that. We'll deal in a
moment with how much they have to purchase, but they have been
purchasing easements and obviously using a TDR program.
In addition, though, they refused to expand the roads within and
into the rural areas. You've got your basic two-lane road
configuration. They would not extend water and sewer into the infill
areas, so we're not going to provide the infrastructure for urban
development. And they adopted, enforced and defended a
transferable development rights program. This is one of the earlier
ones they initially adopted in 1981, and so it went through a fair
amount of litigation on this. We now have 21 years of experience
under their program.
Open space preserve. They have purchased easements on
93,000 acres. Forty thousand acres have been protected by
transferable developments like TDRs. Gives us a total of 42 percent
of the Montgomery County; 133,000 acres have been protected by a
combination of the two. And of course, as Mr. Lorenz was going
through, you already had a major acquisition program going on here
and so you basically have the makeup of the same type combination
program.
Now, if development in Montgomery County had been allowed
to continue in its sprawl pattern we looked at the growth from 1980
to 2010, this is what it would look like today. There would simply be
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February27,2002
none of that land. So what they have done is and through the
combination of programs and they have preserved those rural areas.
For the sending areas the TDR program, the sending area
property was allowed one dwelling unit per 25 acres. Hopefully it
would be a farmhouse, but whatever it was, 1 per 25 acres. One TDR
was allocated per five acres. So if you had 25 acres, you get one
home and five TDRs. A TDR sells for approximately $10,000 in
Montgomery County. Montgomery County will not rezone in the
sending areas. Agricultural zone, 25 acres. That's that. And the only
way to increase density in the receiving areas is with TDRs so that
the council is very supportive of the program.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Excuse me just one second, sir. I'm
going to have to ask you to refrain from talking during the meeting or
take your conversation out in the hall. We've waited a long time for
this.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We've got the same thing back
here too.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA:
that goes for out in the hall, too.
Mr. Perkins, I appreciate that. And
Please continue.
DR. NICHOLAS: Yes, sir. Go to Long Island, central part of
Long Island, what they call the Central Pine Barrens. There are three
major northern pine barrens on Cape Cod and in New Jersey, and
then the Central Pine Barrens here of Long Island, and this is the one
we're going to be looking at. And here is just a closer look at them.
And there are two key areas here: The darker green and the lighter
green. The darker green is what they call the core area, 55,000 acres.
This is the area to be preserved. It's surrounded by the lighter green
area, what they call the compatible growth area, which is almost
50,000 acres, 47,500 acres. So somewhat proximal-sized areas. But
you can see they're largely closely related to each other. The areas
are split between the municipality of Brook Haven, Riverhead and
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February 27, 2002
Southampton. So the desire was to take the development from the
core area and move it outside into the compatible growth area.
Now, why? We've got sandy low-fertility soil along the center
of the island. You're familiar with Long Island. I have so me
pictures of them in a few minutes. Under that sandy soil is a sole-
source aquifer. It serves 750,000 people. So they were simply
building on their aquifer recharge area. There's also habitat,
threatened or endangered species. To give you a sense of the area,
here are the pine barrens. They're called "barrens" because you can
see the sand through there. It's simply not fertile soil. Some of it
looks a bit like south Florida. It has a regular similarity, especially in
the soil types, to coastal south Florida. And again, the soils in here
are the recharge area for that aquifer, these properties in private
ownership.
Here again, you see similar type of soil. Very sandy low
fertility. And that right there is Montgomery Road. And then you
can sort of see out. We're looking out to the south towards the
Atlantic. Here we had legislative action. The New York Assembly
passed a Long Island Pine Barrens Reserve Act. It created a
commission and authorized the commission to develop a plan. It
required the three local governments to adhere to that plan, so in
many ways it's a regional approach with the three municipalities
being implemented as agencies.
In 1995, the commission adopted the plan and then designated
the core preservation area, the compatible growth area, and the plan
called for a TDR program to shift that growth. Part of the area is the
Mullica River, which is similar to the Florida River. As you can see,
that's the river we're looking at. So it looks much like the Everglades.
And what this TDR program did is, it allocated one development
right to each buildable lot within the preservation area. So there's no
change in the existing zone.
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February 27, 2002
Initially they considered changing existing zoning and ran into
so many problems with that that it and it's so complicated that they
backed off and said let's try and do something that doesn't require the
zoning of property.
In Montgomery County, they did. The property that's initially
zoned at one unit per five acres, they've now zoned them for one unit
per 25 acres, and that was the basis of so much of the litigation and so
much of the emotion in the whole thing. And I think what
Montgomery County has taught us, when you have an attractive TDR
program, you may well not need downsizing. And so focus on the
economic feasibility of your TDR program, and downzoning
becomes less and less of an issue. And certainly the experience here
in the Central Pine Barrens has indicated that's the case, so existing
zoning was not touched, and it greatly added to the ease of
implementation.
Now, I don't want to suggest, Mr. Chairman and members of the
commission, that it was easy. But if we contrast the two, it was much
easier. A major factor was an eliminated.
They, like Montgomery County, did not provide for any
development infrastructure within the preservation area. That's it.
There weren't going to encourage or support development in those
preservation areas, rather to make it attractive to development
elsewhere. And then they authorized increases in the development in
the path of compatible growth area. And again, I'll get in a little
more details on that, but those increases in development were by
right. And that was very, very key to this program working.
The commission created a pine barren credit clearinghouse,
which was a not-for-profit corporation. It was not a public agency as
such. And it was related to the local government, but not part of it.
And this credit clearinghouse was to design and implement a TDR
program to be known as a pine barrens credit, or PBC. One of the
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February 27, 2002
reasons, they wanted to get away from the name TDR because of the
bad connotation of that, so they called it a pine barrens credit.
In New Jersey, which has another famous TDR program, there
they call it Pinelands Development Credits, PDCs. In Dade County,
they call it severable use rights, SURs, and in Montgomery County,
they're called TDRs. A rose by any other name is still a TDR, but
that's what they did.
Now, they developed a program that had the maximum
likelihood of the PDRs having significant value. And of course the
significant value is a key part of the whole thing. And they worked
with the landowners to calm their fears, and to some extent that
worked, especially when the downzoning was removed as an issue.
They worked with builders and developers to create interest in
the program and to design a program that would be of value to them.
You heard Mr. Ellis just before I came to talk about that and how it
was a success, such a positive thing. It was one of the things that you
have done also. Simply worked with these people, the builder groups
and developer groups. How can you be made interested in this and
cause you to buy into it.
And then they obtained funds from the New York General
Assembly, $8 million, and those monies were to be used to offer to
buy the rights, which they did. Now, if they were to buy the rights in
total, it would cost about 250 to 300 million. They had 8 million, so
of course they could not get come in there and try to engage in
buying it up. But that $8 million played a very, very key role. Much
of the calming the fears of property owners is when money is on the
table, their fears get calmed. And that's what this was for. And
again, all they had was $8 million, so they had to come in and design
a program that would work that did not overcommit, because the
worst thing we could possibly do is offer to buy more than we could
pay for. A credit clearinghouse came in and purchased a number of
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February 27, 2002
PDCs from individuals at an average price of $12,000.
And what they did was simply reverse auction; who will sell us
rights after they simply bought the lowest price. Exactly what they
did. And they bought about a million and a half dollars' worth.
Average price of 12,000 is what they paid.
They auctioned those rights off a little over a year later. The
price is up to $35,000, and the whole time I was involved with this,
when they were offering to buy rights, they kept telling everybody,
we think they're worth more than you're willing to sell them for, but
if you want out, tell us how much you'll pay and we'll buy it.
Now, of course with the reverse auction, they could control how
much they were going to spend, which is a key part of it. Again, if
we offered to buy more than we could, we've undercut our own
program.
Now, needless to say, with market prices of up to $35,000, no
one wants to sell to the credit clearinghouse, and it created a huge
problem. The credit clearinghouse said they don't make any profit.
So what the credit clearinghouse has decided to do is to return that
profit to the people who sold them the rights at less than market
value, because the objective here was never to make a profit but
rather to simply support the program to put money on the table.
People who owned those lands could count on it. Now, they could
only count on approximately $12,000, but at least that is something
that is known. I can take that and leave, or I can stay around and
hope to get more. And certainly that has turned out to be the case.
So that decision to divide up the profit went over very well. The
State is being paid back the $8 million.
As an aside, in a simpler program which copied in New Jersey,
the State of New Jersey put up $35 million to support a TDR
program. They were purchased, resales, substantial profit, and now
they're fighting about whether or not to turn the profit over to the
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February 27, 2002
state or return it back to the property owners. Hopefully you might
have those kind of problems to deal with.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Our worst problem would be to
get the state to do it.
DR. NICHOLAS: Yes, sir. In both of those instances the state
was the source of the monies, and in both instances the monies were
low. However, there was no interest charged nor any time set for
repayment. So, you know, that's a very nice type of loan.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Was this considered a component of our plan
at this time?
DR. NICHOLAS: Mr. Chairman, all I can do is tell you the
experiences elsewhere, and these had been important parts of
acceptance. And I think I'd have to turn it over to others.
MR. MULHERE: These issues were considered, but really
these all fall into the next phase. The next phase is when we develop
the plan. And then when we developed the LDRs, and we talked
about whether we wanted to go through a bank or a clearinghouse
and whether or not we can find some funding sources. So first, we
establish a policy that they were considered, and certainly they're
going to have to be considered much more specifically in the months
to come.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I think you just answered they will
be considered in months to come, because I think some kind of
insurance will be very difficult to
DR. NICHOLAS: I describe, Mr. Chairman, rather than
prescribe. But there was a lawsuit, and what happened was the
individuals' value of their TDRs was greater than what they had paid
for the land, and that ended the lawsuit in a heartbeat.
So if we look at the preservation area of the property owners of
Long Island, did they have actual economic use of their property? In
theory, yes. In theory, yes, because the zoning was not changed. But
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February 27, 2002
the reality was no, because there was going to be no infrastructure.
And so while they were not altered, or I guess (inaudible) the lack of
infrastructure meant that any potential for development of property
had been substantially reduced.
But did they have a demonstrably usable TDR? Absolutely.
The clearinghouse stood ready to buy, and there were market prices
established where they could sell. Not only that, real estate brokers
brokered them. And I guess I should have brought some of these
things. You can see ads in the newspapers for people to buy and sell
TDRs, which is exactly what they want if you're going to have a TDR
program. Could they appraise the TDR? Sure. Not only that, banks
are loaning against them. And from a bank's point of view, if they
had to take property with the TDRs attached to it, they can go right to
the clearinghouse and sell the TDRs to the clearinghouse at a low
price or on the market and get substantially more. And then the uses
of the TDRs in the areas were by right.
So when someone came in and bought the TDR that (inaudible)
and I asked the question, shouldn't they have won the lawsuit? Yes,
of course. I'm not totally unbiased on this of having worked on it, but
I think it's a marvelous program. In fact, it worked so well that
Southampton wanted to extend the use of TDRs outside the pine
barrens over into this section and found that Riverhead is doing the
same thing for all of this area that abuts the Central Pine Barrens.
And they've been so popular with everybody, including the property
owners, so Southampton is now going into a TDR program here.
Their first phase was a total cluster. I want to show you what
they were able to do with total cluster, and they're now in the process
of converting that, a total cluster program to a TDR, sort of if you
will, sort of baby steps along the way.
To give you a sense of the town of Southampton a nice place.
(Inaudible) would really love it. A very walkable place. Nice area,
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February 27, 2002
nice homes. Many of these homes originally were weekend homes.
Now they're largely primary homes. And here are the rural areas that
they wanted to keep rural. A lot of horses horse activity up here.
Vineyards, big activity. Some pretty decent wines come out of Long
Island. But this is this is showing here what they were mainly
interested in is these vegetable stands, that they're very important to
the community, these vegetable stands. And you can see them many
places. There's the Montauk Highway going right through the farm
areas on both sides. Corn.
Now, this property we're looking at right here is very close to
the Atlantic Ocean, less than half a mile, and it's very valuable. Very
valuable. And you can see it's very developable. But the community
likes it to remain agricultural. They like it. The farmers are not
particularly interested in selling to a private financing of that, and of
course that's the dilemma they're dealing with, and it's the universal
dilemma. But this property is very developable. Here again,
different agricultural photographs. But this is what they want to
preserve.
Now, where did the development go? There. Here's the
agricultural. As a matter of fact, we were looking at it a moment ago.
Now I just simply put it on zoom lens. There it is. Over there. See
it? That's not a farmhouse. Let me here's agriculture development in
here. Here is our barn. See it back here? Now, that's a barn. That's
part of the farm there. That's not over here. Here again, we're
looking across the farm to a cluster subdivision and to give you a
sense that those homes are pretty nice. Here we put it on full zoom.
That's a fair-sized unit. And you can see it is right against the
agricultural active agricultural area. So that's cluster zoning what is
they used there, and now they want to go to TDR because cluster
only has relatively limited opportunities because you require largely
single ownership of the parcel in order to make cluster work.
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February 27, 2002
Now, how to make a TDR program work. Engage stake holders.
We're obviously doing that. But I think it's beyond that. I think it's a
matter, of course, of working constructively with them rather than
ramming it down their throat.
Identify a sending area from which development is to be
transferred. You've done that, or at least on a proposed basis. But is
there public support for that sending area? Because that's going to be
very important down the line. Is there landowner developer support?
That, too, is very important down the line.
Establish the remaining residual uses available to those sending
properties. Once they're developed and rights are gone, what can
they do with the land? Can they farm it? Can they use it for
mitigation? Can they sell out the mitigations rights to DOT or
something like that? Those are very important to the remaining
economic value of these parcels, and those need to be clearly
established in your zoning regulations Alternatively, if these are
supposed to be for conservation areas, there will be few, if any,
remaining rights.
But one of the things we've learned up north in some of these
programs is that (inaudible). There's still mitigation areas become
valuable, so that still is a viable economic use of the land. And the
other thing is that especially wetlands. Those are wonderful places
for cell towers, and the wet ground actually enhances the
effectiveness of cell power, and that has, again, substantial value.
Now, you may or may not want to consider those, but those are
the types of things that are developed in these other areas to try to
provide the maximum remaining economic value.
And then identify our receiving areas. There's never public
support for receiving areas, not when you get down to where the
rubber meets the road. That's always a battle. Now, hopefully the
broader picture, as it was in Long Island, we were able to keep the
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February 27, 2002
public's eye on that because they really wanted that horse
preservation area maintained in Southampton. They really like that
agriculture area there, and so the price of that is the receiving areas.
Now, I think it's important to come in with estimated TDR
values and allocate those values to sending properties, because who
what we're doing here is to trying to create value. We want to create
residual value and create a value of the right.
Now, if that's going to be done, we have to have some sense of
what it is, and then that establishes the basis for going in and
protecting that value, to the extent you do, with some type of support
program, acquisition program or whatever, as they did in the Central
Pine Barrens. You need some sense of value. What is that value.
Make TDR use by right in receiving areas. That has been the number
one reason that TDRs have failed, is that you don't know what you
can do with them. If you don't know what you can do with them,
what are they worth? The city of New York had a TDR program
where all it was was simply a ticket to the negotiating table. Well,
you don't need a TDR to sit down at a negotiating table. The owner
of the property at issue, a gentleman by the name of Fred French,
sued the city and won. And what the court simply said was is, if
you're going to be offering something like this, it has to be
substantive. It has to be substantial. We had some litigation back in
the U.S. Supreme Court in '97 1 believe, (inaudible) versus
(inaudible) Planning Counsel. And there the majority of the court
came in and said if we're going to be looking at TDRs, these things
have to constitute meaningful market value. In order for these to
have meaningful market value, they must be used as by right.
Otherwise, an appraiser cannot can never (inaudible). It's just simply
a guess. What is it worth? And you know that's not going to be
acceptable in the program nor is it going to be acceptable out in the
community.
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February 27, 2002
I will advise you, Mr. Chairman and members of the board, that
if you can not agree to use it by right, don't touch TDRs. We don't
need another failed TDR program around the country. There are too
many of them out there now. This is the number one reason that they
fail. The use by right counters the lack of willingness to have
increased density nearby and gives that real value. Now, the stress is
always that people don't like increased density. And I know you're
well aware of that. But that is what is the value creation. Make it all
part of a comprehensive plan. Of course, that's what you're doing.
COMMISSIONER OLLIFF: Would you take a moment and
explain to the board in sort of local terms what use by right would
mean for us. I want to make sure the board understands.
MR. MULHERE: Absolutely. And this proposal does allow for
the use of TDRs by right. That is that where we propose to allow
units in the receiving lands, those property owners, once they've
acquired units from the sending lands, do not have to ask for the
board's permission through a rezoning process to use those units.
They can develop up to that maximum density that we've established,
that one per one by right. It doesn't mean they don't have to go
through a subdivision process or a site-plan process or some other
review process; it simply means that they don't have to go through
that zoning process to be able to use those TDRs in the areas where
we've identified as being appropriate. And of course, the opposite
including the opposite is equally true, that, as Dr. Nicholas indicated,
the primary reason why TDR programs fail is that by-right allowance
is not included, the same thing would hold true if you look at it the
opposite way, they've also failed where there were other mechanisms
to the increased density. I'm sure Dr. Nicholas was probably going to
get to that. If I simply walk in and rezone my land and ask you for an
additional three units in a receiving area, then I certainly am not
going to go out and buy TDRS. So that's the flip side of that.
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February 27, 2002
DR. NICHOLAS: Undertake efforts to assure these values.
Now, the best way, of course, is what we just saw: Put your money
where your mouth is. That's the best way.
There are other ways. Montgomery County has a very
successful program where they did not in any way provide financial
support to the program. However, they supported it in every other
way. But the best, again, put the money on the table. Engage in
TDR purchasers, encourage TDR brokering. Nurture the program.
This is not going to be enacted and simply allowed just do develop.
It's going to have to be nurtured if it's going to work. Seek out TDR
opportunities. And there will be many that will come forward to you.
And what Bob Mulhere just said, do not improve developments that
undercut the TDR program. Again, if you can get it for free, why pay
for it?
And the Board of County Commissioners, the LPA, civic groups
and others are going to have to love this. They're going to have to
see that this is something that this community can get behind and
support. And that's been the key when we've seen successful PDR
programs, is the public thought it was important. And that's what
made them work. And that's what gave the commitment to the
negative side of it, which is use by right and also saying the only way
they're going to be rezoned or pardon me to get higher density is
through the TDR.
Nurturing, put your money where your mouth is, and I can't
believe I left this out, because Mr. Ellis mentioned it: Keep it simple.
These things get complicated enough on their own. At every mm,
make it as simple as humanly possible. Put the property owners
through the fewest possible hoops on either side, on the sending side
or on the receiving side.
Here I just want to show you an example of a use-by-right table.
This is from a community, a TDR community, and this is in their
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February 27, 2002
zoning ordinance. Allowable uses, under residential: Without PDR
of one per acre with PDR 1.25 per acre. So they're not changing the
fundamental land use with that here. Two per acre, 2-1/2. Now,
what's before you now is somewhat different, but I simply want to
show you that that is in the zoning ordinance, and so somebody
simply has to come in and meet your performance requirements,
subdivisions regulations, et cetera. If they have TDRs, it's then
approved. And you can see they also here extended it to hotels and to
retail.
Now, at this point, I don't think you want to go there, but in the
future, if this works or as Southampton and Riverhead are doing, it
worked so well that they want to extend it into other areas.
Riverhead right now is looking at converting to nonresidential
development rather than confining it solely to residential for the
future. That might be something of interest.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Dr. Nicholas, at this point in time
we're going to take a five-minute break.
DR. NICHOLAS: Yes, sir.
(A brief recess was had.)
MR. NICHOLAS: Mr. Chairman, would it work here? Of
course, the real answer for me is, I don't know. But let me go
through what I do know and see if I can apply some of the lessons
we've got from other areas. And of course, where have all the open
spaces gone? And we know, you know, that there's tremendous
development pressure, and for all the logical reasons, you could make
that into a subdivision. Where will this be? Of course, obviously
what we're here for is the rural fringe area, a relatively limited area;
although, I think you might notice the proximate sizes to the Central
Pine Barrens in Long Island, about the same size area and the same
somewhat geographic locations with respect to each other.
Now, I want to run you through just a little bit of the numbers.
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February 27, 2002
Very, very few, but why what we've got here. And here we're
looking at the price per acre. And we see the typical pattern of as
parcels become larger and larger, the price per acre gets smaller and
smaller. And then what we're going to be dealing with, of course
here is properties down here. And what we're in effect going to be
doing is, we're going to be taking properties that are zoned 1 to 5 and
in effect going to allow them to be developed in smaller increments,
so we're moving up our value curve.
And here we look at price per buildable unit. Now, these are all
prices in the rural fringe area, so we're not looking at the urban area.
And what we see here, of course, is the bigger the parcel gets, the the
price rises, but it rises at a diminishing rate. And what we're going to
be looking at again here is prices down in this area.
Now, here we're looking, of course, at the land price, not the
unit price, and here we've got sending area parcel prices. So what
we're going to be looking at again, here is parcels in this area. So
we've got increasing at the decreasing rate. It's a very typical type of
market patterns.
Now, perhaps you've had an opportunity to thumb through the
extended report, but let me give you the conclusion of it. That
market density in the rural fringe area if you had no zoning
restrictions at all, it appears that the market values would be
maximized at approximately one unit per acre. This would be the
market out in that area.
Now, of course, it's going to vary from parcel to parcel. Some
are going to have more density possibilities and others less, but
looking at the area and the values, they work out to be about that.
And we can go back to the prior and we can see again, here is the
area that we're talking about, prices in this range. And what we can
see is what we do is, when we provide for smaller parcels that can be
put on the market place, the value really jumps upward. Again,
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February 27, 2002
where is it maximized? Down around here in in the one-acre density
configurations. So what we're talking about is taking five-acre
parcels and allow them to go to as small as one acre. So what we're
doing is, we're moving right up that value curve. And you can see
that from the five-acre on lower of course, it keeps on going down,
but most of the depreciation has already occurred. And when you
keep by the time you get to ten acres, you've got again, most of it
most of that effect has taken place.
So here's where we're moving. This is our area, so these are the
values you are picking up. Now, how would it work here? The value
added by an additional unit in the receiving area will be greater than
the value lost by reducing that unit in the sending area. We're
stepping up in value is what we're just looking at. The value added in
a receiving area, I estimate on average after transactions, cost
$18,500. The value lost in the sending area, I estimate $15,412; gain
from transfer, $3,000. So we're stepping up in value.
Now, again, here we're looking at averages, norms and factored-
in transactions costs here, because what we just saw would indicate
that you can go up 20 to 40,000 dollars per parcel while I'm carrying
that 18,500, figuring transactions cost, and if we have any surprises,
we want them to be good surprises, not bad surprises. So I'm keeping
this at low values.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Before we continue on, I think
that's an important slide, backing up. You took a look at the value
today's marketable value of lands within the rural fringe, correct?
DR. NICHOLAS: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And the average value is
15,0007
DR. NICHOLAS: No, sir.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay.
DR. NICHOLAS: What I did was, I did an analysis of I believe
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February 27, 2002
it's 1200 parcels in the rural fringe area, and using that was able to
estimate what would be the effect on a rural fringe area parcel to lose
its development right, which is $15,000. It would go down by
15,000. It wouldn't go to zero, but it would go down by 15,000. And
then what is the effect in the receiving area of adding a unit, okay?
Now, that's 20 to 40,000; however, we're going to have transactions
costs here. It's not going to happen for free. That's why I'm using
18,500.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. And you looked at all
different kinds of parcels, five units up to
DR. NICHOLAS: Yes, sir. We had about 1200 parcels, and
some of them were very large. Most, of course as you know, most of
the parcels in this area are approximately five acres. A number of
them are less than that. So we have a good range of parcels.
The average sized parcel in the urban fringe area is 4.8 acres, but
we've got significant variation about that average.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay.
DR. NICHOLAS: There's every reason to expect that a TDR
program could be successful in Collier County if stake holders are
engaged, the sending area is established in the plan, residual uses of
sending properties are consistent with the preservation goals. But we
need to don't lose sight of that residual use. Very important
component of this, because it goes right back into what we just talked
about, Commissioner Henning, in terms of how much did the value
go down in the sending area. Those residual uses, of course, keep
those values up, and you want them as high as you can, given, of
course, all of the preservation goals that Mr. Lorenz was talking
about, and you're going to have trade-off there. But clearly, the
greater the value of the residual uses, the better from the property
owner's perspective.
TDR use in receiving areas by right. It must be by right;
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February 27, 2002
otherwise, those values we're talking about become illusionary. And
we can focus in on what would be the loss, but if we can't focus in on
what the gain is, how could anybody buy into it? TDRs should be
allocated to sending areas by a predictable formula, so, again, people
know what they have. If they have one unit per existing zoned unit,
that's easy, or one unit per five acres or whatever it's going to be,
somebody who knows what property they have, they should be able
to identify how many rights they have. And this is really essential to
their trading them, and you want to encourage people to trade in
these. Again, the key to value. And efforts are taken to ensure the
values of those rights. We've already discussed that with you, what
that might or might not mean, but that has proven to be a very, very
important program elsewhere. But let me say that there has been a
number of successful TDR programs in which there was no purchase
of rights, but you sure can increase the acceptability of the program
and the speed with which it picks up and begins to work by such
actions. You're going to have to nurture the program. We've already
talked about nurturing. You're going to have to put your money
where your mouth is. If all those things happen, it should work here,
because the key element is, you're moving up the value scale. You're
trading off a more valuable use for a less valuable use. And as long
as you are moving up the value scale, people are going to voluntarily
participate, and that's the key element.
So if it can be kept simple and if it can be kept at the point
where there is an economic inducement, then the program should
work.
That concludes my comments, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I'm sure there's questions on behalf
of the commissioners. May I I'll start off myself. One of my
concerns is the value of the land itself. I don't know if this is going to
work in the equation or not, but in some cases where there's a road
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February 27, 2002
leading up to the property or it boarders on the urban fringe, that land
has value of, say, a base of a thousand dollars. My concern was, is
that something that's in the middle of the sending area that may be
wetlands and never had much in the way of evaluation are all values
remaining constant from one end to the other in this particular plan
that we have?
DR. NICHOLAS: Mr. Mulhere is the one who's dealing with
that, so let me hand that question off to him.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I'd like to hear from you, too, how
this was handled in other areas.
DR. NICHOLAS: I'll be happy to.
MR. MULHAIR: Starting out, the premise of the program was
not to discriminate between property owners and their ability to
participate in the program. The initial and the primary objective of
the TDR program in the rural fringe area is to allow for some
compensation back to the property owners for lost value in order to
protect the large connected wetlands and habitat systems. So we did
not propose to differentiate values. We primarily, we felt that that
would make the process extremely complicated and would be
contrary to Dr. Nicholas's admonition to keep it very simple.
There will be a value established. The value will change from
the time when the initial purchase of for example, if there is an initial
purchase of TDRs through a bank, when that initial purchase occurs,
the value is going to change. All indications are that the value will
increase and we'll have to deal with that process. But there is no
there is no proposal to try to differentiate between the value of a unit
in a piece of property that may have wetlands or be further removed
from the urban area.
The whole rural fringe area itself is in close proximity to the
urban area. And I think the values don't show significant differences
in terms of whether there are you know, there are some differences,
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February 27, 2002
but they're not significant in terms of whether they're located close to
the urban area or surrounded by the estates. All of the values are
fairly constant out in the rural fringe area.
So there is no proposal to differentiate between a TDR that
might come from a piece of property that has wetlands, because the
whole purpose is to move that development right off of that to protect
that natural resource. And then of course, as you look at larger
parcels under the county's current allowances of one per five, you can
develop that land at the gross density. You, of course, would have to
shift those units to areas that would support the development and
avoid the wetlands through the regulatory process, but you can
develop potentially the entire density that you have, the gross density
by right of one per five on a piece of property.
And so even though you may have a hundred acres that has fifty
acres of wetlands, you can still develop all twenty acres that you're
allowed to by moving them to the developable portion of the
property. So there still is a value, and the value isn't necessarily
differentiated because you have some environmentally sensitive land
on there, at least not in our proposal.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Dr. Nicholas, does this remain
constant with the successful land transfer of development rights
compatibles that you gave us?
DR. NICHOLAS: Let me try and answer your question by
telling you what others do rather than try to interpret for you, and
then you can come to your own conclusion.
Most jurisdictions do not try and deal with subcharacterizations,
subclassifications of the property for much the reason Mr. Mulhere
said. Some do. Now, in the Central Pine Barrens, you didn't have a
single zoning classification on the core preservation area. There were
many different ones. And so when they came in and said we're not
going to downzone, that had different effects on different property
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February 27, 2002
owners, and some of those properties are presently zoned for one unit
per acre; others for five, some at ten, some at twenty and some at
forty. So you already had some spreading out of that. And largely
that zoning was consistent with at least the presumption of
developability. The closer the parcels were within one acre, of
course, the more remote were the 40. So you had that there. Now, of
course they didn't change that, so it was built into the prior zoning.
Now, in Dade County, there they had a single zoning
classification over the entirety of what they called the East
Everglades. And that was one unit per five acres. Now, they, in
Dade, felt that they needed to recognize the different equities. If
you're familiar this is a property from Chrome Avenue to the park.
And they were working on the premise that the properties closer to
Chrome Avenue, which tended to be somewhat upland if not actually
upland, had greater development potential and therefore should get
more consideration than properties more remote from Chrome
Avenue. And that's exactly what they did as they then came and
allocated TDRs on a different ratio to those properties than to other
properties.
And once the TDR allocations had been done, there was no
difference in TDRs. A TDR was the same thing, regardless of where
it came from. Some jurisdictions have created different types of
TDRs. Nightmare. Don't touch it. Don't touch that one. But what
they did in Dade County was said, okay, if you are in what they call
area one, you have one TDR for, ! believe it's 2-1/2 acres. And then
if you were in area five, which is the Stark River, okay it's a
recognized river, even though the it's privately owned property. You
have one TDR per, I believe, 20 acres, if I'm recalling correctly.
Trying to recognize that.
And of course, it introduced a degree of complexity to the plan,
and they fought like cats and dogs on where do you draw those lines
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February 27, 2002
between them because, you know, these were substantial dollars
involved.
So, Mr. Chairman, I'm sorry for the long answer.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I understand that, and I appreciate
you giving us the benefit of your experience. A question: Would
you be available for Monday's meeting for the when we have the
open public comment, at least for that part of the meeting?
DR. NICHOLAS: Mr. Chairman, as you know, I sing for a
living at the University of Florida, and Mondays are my heaviest
teaching days. I will do everything in my power to make myself
available, but Mondays, sir, I'm sorry, I cannot. I have so many
classes on Mondays. I will be delighted to make myself available on
any day that I can, but that I could not do. I'm sorry.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: It doesn't hurt to ask, Doctor. Thank
you. Commissioner Coyle?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Dr. Nicholas, how easy is it for
you to find this slide and
DR. NICHOLAS: I'm sorry, Commissioner. I can't hear you.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. This slide here, can you
display that slide?
DR. NICHOLAS: Oh, yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Can you locate this one for me?
DR. NICHOLAS: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I just want to make sure I
understand. This slide essentially says that without a TDR, I could
build four houses on four acres.
DR. NICHOLAS: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: With four TDRs, I can build five
houses on four acres. Is that what this this DR. NICHOLAS: One TDR.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: If you have one TDR, you can
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February 27, 2002
only build 1.2
DR. NICHOLAS: I'm sorry, Commissioner. Let me walk you
through it. If I have a four-acre parcel in single-family one. I can
build four units without a TDR. Under these regulations, if I acquire
a TDR, I can build five on that four-acre parcel. So my density my
allowable density will go to 1.25 units per acre, provided all increases
with the TDR.
Now, I show you this, but I probably should have showed you
one where you went from five to one, which is what's on the table
here. But what I wanted to emphasize here was going through the
that these were uses by right, but that's the way that would work.
And others, of course it would be parallel to that.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: And the second question is, you've
cautioned us against passing laws that would undermine the TDR
program. Can you give us some examples of the kind of laws you
would caution us against.
DR. NICHOLAS: First would of course be rezoning in the
receiving areas to allow higher densities without TDRs. That's the
number one thing to not do. Any other type of constraint on that
some jurisdictions I guess I do know why. People are basically
nosy, and so they want a lot of reporting about the TDRs; who sold
them for what value and these types of things. People are very
reluctant to do that. They don't want to tell you that. Don't ask them.
I mean, I'd love to find out these things myself, and but I it's a
constraint. So don't require them to do any type of reporting of of
values or anything like that. And you're going to have to have some
means of keeping track, of course. I mean, but keep it absolutely
minimal. Don't try and tax the transactions. And I think those are the
two biggest things, is, don't constrain the use of the right and don't
make the registration or sale of the right difficult or costly or don't
make them do it in public.
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February 27, 2002
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Thank you very much, sir.
MR. MULHERE: Commissioner Coyle, I would just like to add
that with respect to this slide here and really for all the exhibits, we
have, we believe, incorporated all of Dr. Nicholas's guiding
principles for making a successful TDR program into our program,
and some of them on a limited basis. For example, where we're
proposing to allow a transfer into the urban area under qualified infill
development, 20 acres or less, basically it works out to be very
similar to the first example there. You have a base density of four
dwelling units per acre, which might be by the way, we don't allow
that into the coastal high-hazard area for obvious reasons, but if
you're outside the coastal high-hazard area in any urban area, you
have a base density of four under our proposal. By right, you would
be able to increase that by one dwelling unit per acre to TDRs. So it's
very similar to that first example there.
I also wanted to comment briefly further on your question,
Commissioner Coletta. In the language that we proposed, one of the
additional TDR provisions that we call for is the subsequent
development of land development regulations for (inaudible) of the
LDC is the establishment of a process for tracking and recording
transfers of residential units, including identification of the entity or
department responsible for the ongoing administration of the TDR
program. In addition, the county shall consider the feasibility of
establishing a TDR bank to be administered by the county or some
other nonprofit governmental or quasi-governmental agency. And as
part of these considerations, projections for an annual budget for
administration of the program shall be developed, including projected
costs and funding mechanisms associated with the initial purchase of
residential development rights. So we have considered that.
Certainly we have to unfortunately take this process in the kind of
bites that are laid out for us. One thing we have to do first is address
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February 27, 2002
the requirements of the final order before June 22nd. And of course
the next step would be to develop a whole implementation strategy
which will be very significant. And that probably will take, in my
estimation a year, and then we would have the system up and
running. So I don't know if you have any further questions.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: What do they do in Montgomery
County for work-force housing? It sounds like this land is pretty
valuable. How do you accommodate work-force housing?
DR. NICHOLAS: Meaning agricultural work force?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: No. I'm talking about regular
plain-old roll-up-your-sleeves work force.
DR. NICHOLAS: The if you will, the affordable housing of
Montgomery County is not involved in this on either side. However,
what they are doing and what I showed you, is, they are converting
very expensive homes into somewhat less expensive homes. The
receiving areas are largely attached single-family, which of course
sell for less than detached. So there is at least some step towards
greater affordability. The individual unit would sell for more on a
bigger lot.
Now, at the same time, the resulting units that they have made
probably would not fall into the affordable range and in those areas of
Montgomery County where there are such housing are not involved
either as sending or receiving areas. Southampton, of course I
perhaps should have shown you some of the other areas rather than
just the well-to-do areas. They of course have areas where the homes
are not as grand as what I've shown, and those areas are not involved
either as sending or as receiving areas or cluster zones for them. And
you can see the products in Southampton are very expensive. Very
expensive. And of course that's what drives the preservation
program.
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February 27, 2002
But in Montgomery County, there is at least some movement
from more expensive to less expensive, but that's modest.
MR. MULHERE: Commissioner Fiala, could I add a few
comments relative to that question? Obviously one we did look
quite a bit at how we might be able to enhance either work-force
housing or affordable housing as we move through this process. And
of course, you would want that housing to be located in close
proximity to existing or planned services employment and those
types of things. The difficulties, of course, is that in any way
requiring a TDR purchase, you're really only increasing the costs of
providing affordable work-force housing. If you spend more money
than you did before, you're just increasing the costs except to say that
there may be circumstances where you can do that by right based on
the very high land values in the urban areas. And the example I'm
referring to is in the urban infill provision for TDRs, it may be less
costly to purchase those TDRs. And only time will tell. And if you
can develop a higher density, you've offset some of that higher land
cost.
One of the potential provisions could be to increase that
maximum increase for qualified through TDRs for qualified infill
development. But of course, again, I hesitate to recommend that
because you are requiring then for someone to spend more money
than they would otherwise have to do if they'd simply came and ask
the district through a zoning process.
The other component I wanted to share with you is that there is
an affordable density bonus provided for within the receiving lands
within a qualified rural village. And after you achieve your base
density it's a fairly complicated process, and I will go over that for
you. But I just want to let you know that after you achieve your
minimum base density within a rural village, you can acquire a half-
of-a-unit bonus for every qualified work-force affordable-housing
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February 27, 2002
unit that you build up to your maximum density. Base density's two;
maximum's three. So in that range, if you provide qualified work-
force or affordable housing, you can get a density bonus. So that is
one provision that we have provided for, because the rural villages
and I'll get into that in a minute are intended to be very much mixed
use and mixed housing in nature. I just wanted to add that in
response to your question.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Dr. Nicholas, just a clarification. I
hear over and over from you to apply the KISS formula to the
process, keep it simple, although I think it's "Keep it simple, Stupid."
Number two, let the free market work this process, because initially,
if I'm understanding this, the TDR program increases the value of the
land.
DR. NICHOLAS: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: When that increases my value of
land, therefore, my assessed valuation increases until I sell my TDRs
and then consequently I have gained profit from my land but I have
residual uses left of which I can continue in perpetuity, or if I want to
sell or whatever the case might be, is that where I hear this really
works, as long as you don't overregulate a lot of dues and don't make
it so complicated that everybody throws up their hands and says this
isn't worth even pursuing?
DR. NICHOLAS: Commissioner, if that was your final exam
answer, I'd give you an A. Absolutely. Well said.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. Then I'm on target.
COMMISSIONER OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, if I could I have
more of a timing question. For a TDR program to work where there's
a market for the actual TDRs, how do you see that working in a
community like ours where you have not competing but alternative
zoned development that may already be at a fairly high density, and
how do I avoid, from a timing perspective, the only market being the
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February 27, 2002
government-funded bank for a decade or two decades until the actual
development gets to the point where the receiving areas are?
DR. NICHOLAS: One of the reasons Montgomery County took
a long time to come to full function was, first the litigation, which put
everything on hold. But even once the litigation was set aside, it was
only new developments that came in to use the TDRs. And of course
there's an approval process, and then it's years before they are
actually out there in making use of the TDRs. In the Pine Barrens of
New York, we had the benefit of those experiences, and so how to hit
it fast. And so we got into fast track, and part of that was simply
allowing existing developments to come back in and replat. And the
other was that we required them to enter the market and get their
TDRs or the rights to those TDRs today up front, rather than on the
back end, because that then sent them out dealing with the property
owners.
I might point out, Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, most
people never actually buy the TDRs. What they do is get the rights to
them, and they joint-venture the deal with the TDR owner, and they
get paid on the back end as a partner or participant in the
development rather than as simply a seller of the TDR, which really
works great for everybody, especially the developer, because that
reduces their front-end cost and gives an additional economic option
to the owner of the TDR. Or again, they can sell them outright, if
they wish.
Sorry. I wanted to swing right into that one. But that's what we
learn, and so that was how we responded to it. And what we've seen
is, the market in New York came on very, very quickly, rather than
three to five years, which is whether it took in Montgomery County.
COMMISSIONER OLLIFF: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Who will manage this TDR
program? How many people will it take and how will it be paid for?
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February 27, 2002
DR. NICHOLAS: Okay. The example I would point to you is
the New York Pine Barrens, because they have the benefits of the
prior experience and not having to repeat the other mistakes. They
set up this clearinghouse, which is a quasi-government organization.
It in addition to entering in and supporting the TDR program, they
also administer the recordation of the rights and oversee the rights
transfer process. Now, they do it with the lightest possible touch to
have the least interference. They have relatively small costs
associated with it. Unfortunately, I cannot give you an amount. The
number of employees on this would probably equal approximately
one. Now, it was of course, it's pieces of other people, but they
wrote regulations into the zoning codes so you don't have to have
somebody there interpreting them. All these other things were set up.
It's a formula with allocation of rights so you don't have to have
somebody interpreting the property. So it was made as simple as
possible. Part of it was in fact, the real reason was simply not to
hassle the property owners. The net result of that, of course, was that
you lowered your costs.
To the extent that you are further interested in it, what I would
suggest is that you have maybe invite (inaudible), the gentleman
who's the chair of the primary credit clearinghouse, and you can truly
get it from the horse's mouth of how he did it and also what mistakes
they made that they wouldn't want to repeat. But they've tried to
keep the costs at a minimum. I would suggest you're probably
looking at one full-time employee, a mid-level professional, and
various associated costs of a mid-level employee.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: That's an excellent idea, Mr.
Chairman and Dr. Nicholas, because I keep thinking the financial
community might be the ones who gravitate towards this very
quickly. And as much as on the fees, like you do anything else and
therefore the public does not incur costs.
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February 27, 2002
DR. NICHOLAS: That's right.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Get us back to a free-market process
with the controls so that they're touching them but not overly
controlled and not as you said, I believe privacy is key here, so there's
not this I got to know everything and I want to see my name in the
newspaper because I sold a TDR right.
And I think that this is is very important to the success of this
process, so I'd like to hear how they did that.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Your comments is
approximately where we need to go, less is probably how this
program will work. Provide the foundation for it. Let the private
sector come in and work it.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: The government is pretty good at
screwing things up.
MR. MULHERE: Our recommendations are consistent with
that. It would only be I think to follow Tom Olliff's questions, the
recommendation would only consider the government involvement as
an initial involvement, and the quicker and sooner that we could be
removed from the process the better. But I think it's consistent to say
one full-time employee and (inaudible).
DR. NICHOLAS: Mr. Chairman and members of the board, I
have sent all this to the staff and to your task force, too, and we've
had several good long discussions on this.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Hopefully, Dr. Nicholas, you'll be
able to come back when we receive this back from Tallahassee to
help us through the process and where we're going to go with it at
that point in time.
I appreciate very much you being here today. Your presentation
was excellent.
DR. NICHOLAS: Thank you.
What we're going to do, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to
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February 27, 2002
have a slight change of schedule to try to accommodate all the people
that wish to speak. At this point in time, Mr. Mudd, how many
people do you have?
COMMISSIONER MUDD: Sir, we have 50 people.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: We have 50 people at three minutes
apiece. That ads up to a little bit of time, so in order to try to
accommodate everyone, or try to accommodate everyone, this is what
I'm proposing is that we limit our break now instead of a half hour,
to 15 minutes, and we will start in 15 minutes.
The other part would be at 2:30 when we were planning to
convene, we have three commissioners that are available to stay here
and listen to those who would like to speak for another hour, to 3:00.
Commissioner Henning and myself are committed to going to a
canvassing board training. We have no choice on that. If we don't
go, then the elections next November are in jeopardy of having us.
So that will continue. And what I propose, if you have speakers left
after the 3:30 time that they be the first people allowed to speak on
Monday at six o'clock when we open it up. We take the speakers list
with us, if there's anyone left at that time, and continue it on Monday.
And Monday, from six o'clock on, we have no intentions of breaking
until everybody is heard, even if it's two o'clock in the morning. I
have had it the other commissioners said they have no problem with
it, and if they have to stay that long they'll cook breakfast.
So at this point in time, we'll take a short break. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I'll speak with forked tongue. (A brief
recess was had.) 12:26.
(The proceedings recommenced with Commissioner Henning
not present.)
MR. SCHMITT: I would like to make an announcement. The
staff has only proceeded through about half of its presentation, a little
more than half. There's issues we have not discussed yet. But given
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February 27, 2002
the number of people who have signed up to speak, we're going to
open up for public comment. But I do ask if it involves issues
surrounding the rural villages, density blending, agriculture, North
Belle Meade, you may want to defer until Monday to take the podium
to speak. But if you so choose or you cannot come back Monday or
your schedule prohibits you from trying to make either of the
meetings, you certainly can so choose to to speak today.
With that, my staff will we're going to try and help with this as
far as when you come up and speak, we'll let you know whether
you're impacted by this study or not if you would tell us the location
of where you live. And with that, I'll turn it over to Jim Mudd, who
will announce the first the first speaker.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Before you go there, just a couple of
other points I'd like to clarify. If for some reason the demand for
speaking time exceeds the 3:30 deadline, at that point in time, they'll
take the rest of the applications to speak and save them for Monday,
and those will be the first people that will have the opportunity to
speak.
Also, I'm going to ask you, when you have a couple people pass
by the podium and if they have covered the area you want to cover,
you may wish to come up to the podium and just say, "It's already
been said, and that's where I stand," or you may wish to waive from
the audience, but that is your choice. We want to hear from anyone
that wishes to speak. Please continue, Mr. Mudd.
MR. SCHMITT' Stan, can I can we bring a map in here in case
anybody wants to use a map, one of the map boards, just in case one
of the speakers choose to use a map? And I don't I don't think we'll
need the projector anymore, so we can turn the lights up.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: That's correct. Mr. Mudd, it's a
three-minute time line, and you'll give warning from where you sit.
Thank you.
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February 27, 2002
MR. MUDD: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to do it so that I'll call
three speakers forward. I've got two in the seats right here for the
second and the third because it's somewhat of a convoluted way to
have to get over here to get people on the on-deck circle and and the
batter up and then the speaker. Our first speaker and the other the
other thing I'll say to you, Commissioners, some people have left and
had to go someplace. If they're not here, I'd like to take their take
their name and put it to the bottom of the list and and bring it back up
on Monday.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Excellent idea, Mr. Mudd.
MR. MUDD: The first speaker is John Cowan followed by
Donald Pickworth, and on the on-deck circle is Tim Maloney.
MR. COWAN: You've seen me before, probably too many
times. I'm a real estate agent, a long-term licensed broker in Naples,
and I've appeared mostly for charitable corporations before the
commission. Habitat for Humanity is one. Naples Equestrian
Challenge, most recent appearance; and St. Matthew's House, where
I'm on the board of directors and on their executive committee. I
want to discuss today a personal matter related to Section 24, of
which I own a major portion, and I want to talk about something that
you'll find hard to believe. Nine and a half years ago
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Sir, before you start would you see if
this microphone will come off?. There you go, sir. This may work.
MR. COWAN: Section 24 is where the arrow is. Thank you
very much. Of all the 93,000 acres, the acres in Section 24 are
essentially the most valuable. They're right at the end of Golden Gate
Parkway. It's when the bridge gets in, it'll be a ten-minute drive to
Coastland Center, Dillard's. And yet it is extremely high, extremely
dry. There's no cypress. It's all slash pine, palmetto. It is
environmentally nonsensitive. It's very densely wooded. It is the
most valuable acreage in this entire fringe area. No question about it.
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February 27, 2002
Nine and a half years ago, we embarked on a plan to acquire the
center of Section 24, and I spent 9 1/2 years and a huge amount of
money acquiring it. My wife and I can't stand the stress of living in
metropolitan Naples any longer. We're going out to the country to
have a little cattle ranch and a few horses and hopefully get it paid for
by selling off 19 of the 20 available homesites to people MR. MUDD: One minute, sir.
MR. COWAN: I work closely with the people on Horseshoe
Drive. I hired Wilkison & Associates to be my land representative.
We went to see Bob Mulhere. I presented all of the environmental
studies that I had paid for from Law Engineering. And 12 days ago I
was totally shut down when, in a secret meeting, it was decided that
Section 24 would become no longer receiving lands, but suddenly
sending lands. And I lost $700,000 that morning, and that's more
than I can afford to lose.
The people on Della Drive, 120 residences in Section 24, do not
realize that the long-term value of their land has gone straight down.
And they when they find out what happened 12 days ago in this
secret meeting, they're going to be very, very angry, and they're
probably going to come and talk to the commissioners. Basically
what's been presented to the public was one thing, and after the
public got their commentary in, they went and redrew the map and
changed Section 24 from a receiving land to a sending land, and that's
where I lost the $700,000.
And that's based on Dr. Nicholas's $18,500 per home site. You
take the 20 home sites and I paid $34,250 for each one of those
homesites. He says that the TDRs for each home site is worth
18,500. That's an absurd figure. That's way too high. They'll sell and
trade, based on my 37 years on working land acquisition and sales as
a broker, 37 years in the Naples area, they'll trade between 5,000 and
$10,000 per home site. Even if you take his number, I lost $700,000,
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February 27, 2002
and the people on Della Drive lost all of the future upside potential of
the properties that they which are their major investments over
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to
wrap it up.
MR. COWAN: I'll wrap it up by telling you that it was done for
absolutely no purpose whatsoever. You traded a racehorse, the
Wildlife Federation, for a rabbit with a broken leg. Other than my
property which I intend to keep as forest, there are no trees out there.
That's all gone. Take a look at at the aerial photographs. I brought
them with me. There's a flower nursery, Tom Buckley's nursery.
There's the Della Drive property. That's the Hideout Golf Course and
the school land. Other than that, I own it all.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Sir, I thank you very much.
MR. COWAN: Thank you.
MR. MUDD: The next speaker is Donald Pickworth, followed
by Tim Maloney, and on deck is A1 Perkins.
MR. PICKWORTH: Good afternoon, Commissioners. My
name is Don Pickworth. I'm an attorney. I represent Mr. Cowan and
his interests in this. Let me briefly touch on a couple points he didn't
say. I think one of our key concerns here, as he mentioned, were the
procedural aspects. The the Future Land Use Map that's approved by
the Planning Commission has Section 24 as a receiving area. In a
meeting that took place at the staff level, to which Mr. Cowan was
not invited and, as far as we know, to which there was no public
notice, the decision was made to change it from receiving to sending.
There's a obviously, there's an obvious procedural difficulty for that.
In addition to that, substantively we are rather concerned about the
characterization of Section 24 as a sending rather than a receiving
area. As he stated, the overwhelming bulk of Section 24 has already
been cleared. There are virtually there's very little habitat
percentage-wise left in Section 24. As a matter of fact, when I was
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February 27, 2002
listening to Bill Lorenz earlier, he was going through the vegetation
characteristics of various types of land, receiving land, sending land,
and percentages that you had up there. And interestingly enough, as I
recall his chart, the vegetation characteristics on sending lands is
somewhere around 30 percent, I believe, native vegetation, and
whereas on sending lands it's around, I think, 80 percent. And then,
of course, on the NRPA lands, I think it gets as high as 90, if I recall
all the numbers on that chart.
Interestingly enough, Section 24, the vegetation is down in the
30 to 40 percent range, far more consistent with receiving land than
sending land. And for that reason, we would like to work with you
on redesignating that either to sending (sic) land or, if if it's
reasonable, as as neutral land, but clearly not clearly not sending
land. And and we would ask that I don't think you're going to be
making final decisions on all these things here today, but we would at
least like the opportunity to work with your staff on this issue. I
mean, we think that further discussions need to be had. We were
never had the opportunity to be part of the discussions when this
change took place.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I'm going to ask staff to address that.
MR. LITSINGER: Mr. Chairman, we will meet with Mr.
Pickworth and his client in the interim period and look at all the
issues and see whether we need to reexamine some of the decisions.
We'll try to do that before close of business on Monday.
MR. PICKWORTH: Okay. That's fine. We will do that.
MR. MUDD: Next speaker is Tim Maloney, followed by A1
Perkins, and on deck is Robert Duane.
MR. MALONEY: Good afternoon. My name is Tim Maloney.
I'm a land owner, taxpayer, and voter here in Collier County. There
is no North Belle Meade, or there shouldn't be, but you know how it
is when you give a pet cow a name. It's hard to give up a pet project.
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February 27, 2002
We all know that that area is surrounded on three sides by Golden
Gate Estates: The east, west, and north. The south border is 1-75.
That area is isolated. And as far as any wildlife is concerned, a good
portion of that land is pine, palmetto, cabbage palm. There are some
cypress heads, although they're not connected in any way.
As growth occurs in this area, the wildlife will either adapt to
the environment, or they'll move on. I don't feel they're endangered
in any way. There's a lot of concern about disturbing wildlife habitat,
and I've been wondering, with the redevelopment in the south blocks
of Golden Gate, just what will happen to the wildlife in that area
when they begin to tear up the roads, plug the canals and redo the
drainage. Are they going to house and feed the wildlife while the
work's in progress, or are they going to tell them to take a vacation
until they're done?
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I'm going to ask the audience to
refrain from comments. Would you hold for a second, sir?
If you have a problem with that, would you please step out in the
hall and the deputy will address it with you? Please continue.
MR. MALONEY: Well, I should have started off, I own land in
North Belle Meade, South Belle Meade, Corkscrew, and in the south
blocks of Golden Gate. I have giving land, receiving land. My
concern with the North Belle Meade area is basically the people that
live in Golden Gate east of that area. Their access to town, right now
it's Golden Gate Boulevard. When that area is built out, there's going
to be another 12, 14,000 vehicles on the road, maybe 15,000, all
trying to come to town on Golden Gate Boulevard.
North Belle Meade should not even be considered as a preserve
or natural resource protection area. The landfill road should be run
from 951 out to Everglades. When they finish Picayune State Park in
the south blocks, how are people going to get there? The only
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February 27, 2002
automobile access is Everglades Boulevard. If they run the landfill
road to Everglades, those people can go out the landfill road and get
right down into the park. There should also be another east/west
between the alley and Golden Gate Boulevard, whether they extend
16th or Brantley and carry it out there. There's going to be gridlock
on Golden Gate Boulevard. There's no question. The wildlife,
there's very little wildlife out there. They'll adapt. They're going to
have to adapt in the south blocks when they do all this work.
The piece of land that I have in the South Belle Meade area is in
Range 27, Township 51, Section 31. I own the northeast comer of
that section, 160 acres. That's right on the border of the giving-
receiving area, right in that little the topmost spot there. The
receiving area is almost borders my 160 acres. That 160 acres is
beautiful pine land, and they want to make that a sending area. And
the reason I was given, so the wildlife will have someplace to go
when it rains or something. I mean, I have visions of a development
down there. Not in the immediate future, maybe 20 years down the
road. It's beautiful land, and I want that in the receiving areas, not the
sending areas. There's plenty of there's plenty of sending areas.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Mr. Maloney, I'm going to have to
ask you to wrap it up, please.
MR. MALONEY: Yeah. Well, just one other point. When I
saw this map, this map of Collier County, all that light green, that
land is under state and federal ownership, 80 percent, not on the tax
roles. Now they want an additional well, there's 55,000 acres in the
south blocks. I don't know how much in South Belle Meade. There's
15,000 in North Belle Meade. What's going to be left for the people?
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you, Mr. Maloney.
(Applause).
MR. MUDD: The next speaker is A1 Perkins, followed by
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February 27, 2002
Robert Duane, and on deck is Mark Irgang.
MR. PERKINS: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, you
people at home, Commissioners, and tax mules carrying the load.
Constitution of the United States, nor shall any state deprive any
person of life, liberty, or property. Article 14, look it up, people.
This is the law, not the one that they're writing up there in
Tallahassee.
Now, pay attention, please. Read my lips. No atomic or
radioactive stuff in Utah, in Yukon Mountain. Read my lips. Read
my lips again. Willing seller under the CARL program. Read my
lips, people, because these people are liars. Now, you've got your
voice and your vote, and if you don't use them, then you're to blame
for your own problem. Speak up.
Now, we heard about Maryland. We heard about Long Island.
We heard about horses, which is very important to me, and we heard
about horses again. I'm in the racehorse business. I offered up 160
acres to the State of Florida to trade equally within the given distance
of Calder Racetrack where I do business. This was some time back,
10 years ago, which I intend to sue the state over it, because my life I
can't get back the ten years. And if you know what the racehorse
business is, if you breed a decent horse to a decent mare and you go
put them into auction up in Kentucky, you can bring the top dollar so
far for an unbroken, untrained horse is $3 million. Then you
maintain them from there on out, and you get paid each and every
month. And believe me, if you add it up real close, it gets a bit
expensive.
This whole land grab is so that they can do two things: Put the
money in the pockets of The Conservancy, the Rookery Bay, South
Florida Water Management, and they'll tell you anything that you
that they think you're going to believe. And, again, the word is
"perjury." But if you don't challenge them, they just walk all over
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February 27, 2002
you. These people basically are making decisions in Tallahassee, Jeb
Bush and his staff. They don't live here. They don't pay taxes here,
and they don't vote here. Then why should they end up being a little
dictator here?
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Mr. Perkins, I'm going to have to ask
you to wrap it up.
MR. PERKINS: Okay. Dual the due compensation, this
gentleman says he lost $70,000? MR. COWAN: 700,000.
MR. PERKINS: 700,000. Right now I'm down about 4 million,
and this belongs to my grandchildren, because what the hell good are
water skis to me now at my age?
Now, my property I deliberately had tried to get a horse training
facility and hire all the handicapped people, because the horses know
the difference, and the handicapped people give a damn about the
animals. Yet they turned right around, and they would not take me
up on it. The Conservancy was right there at the meeting. The
Wildlife Federation was right there. By the way, these people are all
being funded out of your pockets.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Mr. Perkins, please wrap it up.
MR. PERKINS: Anyhow, if you read the paper, Marco Island is
being excluded from this. That couldn't be because of the oil fields,
could it? My name's A1 Perkins, Belle Meade Groups. Pull together,
people. You can defeat these not these people, the other clowns in
Tallahassee and some of these right here.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you, Al.
(Applause)
MR. MUDD: The next speaker is Robert Duane, and I think
Robert told me he wanted to do Monday. Pass. The next speaker is
Mark Irgang, followed by Pat Humphries, and on deck is Tom
Siemianowski. I hope I didn't butcher that.
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February 27, 2002
MR. IRGANG: It's okay. It's Irgang. Some people like the
German pronunciation, although I'm Jewish. In any case, I appreciate
the opportunity to address the commissioners and the distinguished
members today. I've been waiting for something to happen in this
area for approximately 20 years. That's how long I've owned my 20
acres at the 4 mile marker on Sabal Palm Road. That's about 2 miles
short of the electricity that's available.
Nonetheless, I love being in that area, and it's the only
investment that I have. I don't have a large portfolio of stocks and
bonds and other financial entities. All I have is the land. I'd like to
build a house on my land and live out there and enjoy the amenities
of nature. And unfortunately, it's becoming harder and harder to
appreciate what I really want to have.
Aside from the fact that we've had the forest fires out there that
probably burned down half of my place, we have four-wheelers that
come out there and cut fence lines, and they're running amok.
Agricultural law enforcement cannot do the job of containing them.
The litter and debris problem, which Mr. Jim Coletta has been very
gracious in working with me about, has been somewhat abated, but it
still remains a big problem. There's not enough law enforcement to
handle the four-wheelers. I know you're all working on an area
where they can go if that's ever going to happen. And to make a long
story short, I would like to see a little bit better enforcement of the
laws in the rural areas, because we're not second second-class
citizens.
You know, this this rural fringe just came to the floor recently,
but many of us enjoy living out in the wild, so to speak, and enjoy the
amenities of nature. And I certainly would recommend that we put
some electricity out there. We've done a fairly good job of providing
limerock roads. Better Roads, who has the quarry, really is falling
short of of taking care of that place the way they should. Initially
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February 27, 2002
when they were mining their limerock, they tried to make a good
impression on the county by taking care of the road. And I could
leave my place at 4 mile marker and have a nice, smooth ride all the
way out to 951 going westward. Now it's full of potholes, and the
whole area shakes when I drive my car through there.
The debris problem, as I said, is horrendous, and the four-
wheelers and the bottles and containers and the shooting is is very,
very bad also. We'd like to see some some better control out there
for my benefit and for my heirs. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you, sir.
(Applause)
MR. MUDD: Next speaker is Pat Humphries, followed by Tom
Siemianowski, and on deck is Kathy Prosser (phonetic).
MS. HUMPHRIES: Hi. I'm Pat Humphries from northern
Golden Gate estates and water director for the Golden Gate Estates
Civic Association. We have many questions about this project, but
the one question that is one of the priority questions is, when you are
supplying water and sewer for these rural fringe residents, how is that
going to affect the wells in Golden Gate Estates? That is our only
source of water. When that water table goes down, we're out of
water, and it seems like you're providing water for an awful lot of
people. That's it.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Just a second, Mrs. Humphrey (sic).
We're seeing if Clarence Tears is still here to answer that particular
question, and it's a good question. You're on deck. Come forward,
sir. I don't know if the people realize, besides being director of water
management, Clarence is also in the Air Force Reserve, is it? MR. TEARS: Yes.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: He gives a lot of time to his country.
Clarence, there was a question on the let's see if I can phrase it right.
The if the plan went forward and the rural village concept came into
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February 27, 2002
play and I might be reading more into this than there is, but being so
involved in the Golden Gate Civic Association for so many years, I
think I can paraphrase the question. The demand out there that's
going to take place over a period of time, how will that affect the
residents that are out there now as far as their water goes or wells, to
be able to get their water?
MR. TEARS: Well, I probably don't have the probably the
shortest answer for you, but there's three types of water. There's free
water, there's cheap water, and there's expensive water. Our free
water our ancestors used up many years ago. Currently we're using
our cheap water. That's the Tamiami Aquifer. That's where the
surface water is tied into the groundwater. Once you go deeper than
that, it's considered brackish, so that's the cheap water supply.
Right now, based on Collier County's current comp plan for the
year 2020, we do not have enough cheap water to meet the future
demands. So Collier County is in the forefront by using alternative
water resources. So to meet future demands, we need to look at
alternative sources: Deeper aquifers, reverse osmosis, complete
usage of reuse water, and also possibly in the future even tapping into
the Gulf, desalinization. But to meet the future needs for Collier
County, we have to look at alternative sources to ensure the benefit of
the water supply out there for Golden Gate Estates.
MS. HUMPHRIES: We can't tap into reverse osmosis.
MR. TEARS: That's correct.
MS. HUMPHRIES: So we need the free water.
MR. TEARS: Exactly. And that's why in Collier County right
now, based on the current comp plan, the South Florida Water
Management District has directed them to meet their future demands
by alternative sources. They have done that through the northern
treatment plant, the (inaudible) plant. In addition to that, in the south
plant, I think they have currently being constructed an 8-million-
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February 27, 2002
gallon-a-day plant which could be expanded to roughly 20 million
gallons a day. So alternative sources are being used to meet future
demands.
One thing I need to caution everybody about as we grow in
Collier County is the quality of the water. We need to ensure water
quality, and that will be an issue as we grow. And I think that was
addressed through some of my comments on on the study. We really
need to address water quality and ensure water quality for everybody.
MS. HUMPHRIES: So the answer is that we will not have to
worry about well water? That is our only source of water in the
estates, and there's going to be more people using
MR. TEARS: In Collier County I believe your well water will
be sufficient to meet the needs of the residents in Golden Gate Estates
with the current direction the county's taking, looking for alternative
sources. Collier County is in the forefront of using alternative
sources to meet future demands. Just realize 90 percent of the water
we get in Collier County is rain driven. So if we have a four-to-five-
or six-year drought, you know, nobody is going to have that cheap
water supply available. Everything is rain driven. We average every
year we average a certain amount of rain which recharges our
surficial (phonetic) aquifer. And as long as we have the rain, you'll
have the recharge needed to meet your
MS. HUMPHRIES: So we're at the mercy of the rain.
MR. TEARS: That's correct. We all are. So is the
environment. So is
MS. HUMPHRIES:
well water, though.
Especially the people in the estates with
MR. TEARS: That's correct. You are truly tied to the rainfall.
The deeper aquifers are not directly tied to yearly rainfall, but the
surficial aquifer where you get your drinking water supply from, it
needs to rain to replenish your supply, yes.
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February 27, 2002
MS. HUMPHRIES: And as more people come into the area
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Three minutes.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: We we will take care of that. At this
point in time, we brought counsel in to answer a question. And when
that question's answered, we'll continue the meeting. MR. TEARS: Did I answer your question?
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Clarence, any other comments on
that particular thing?
MR. TEARS: Just one other comment. In addition to that, as
part of the Big Cypress Basin Water (inaudible) Management Plan,
we're always continuing to try to prevent overdrainage. Southern
Golden Gate Estates restoration, a lot of these a lot of these
restoration projects are also to ensure water supply because of the
recharge values. And in keeping some of these areas natural, you
know, that's where the water gets back into the ground. And that's
going to be so important as we grow and move into the future, is
having these natural open areas for recharge.
MS. HUMPHRIES: I just want to be sure that we're taken into
consideration, that we're always thought of when there's a water
issue.
MR. TEARS: Those comments actually, as I reviewed this
study as I looked at some of the comments that were raised, flood
protection and water supply were some of the issues raised.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you, Mrs. Humphrey. Next
speaker.
MR. MUDD: Next speaker is Tom Siemianowski, followed by
Ms. Prosser, who says Monday, and followed by Vince Cautero, who
says Monday. So on deck we've got Nicole Ryan. Is Tom
Siemianowski here? I'm going to move him to Monday, Kathy
Prosser to Monday, Vince Cautero to Monday. Nicole Ryan,
followed by John Vega.
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February 27, 2002
MS. RYAN: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, commissioners.
For the record, Nicole Ryan here on behalf of The Conservancy of
Southwest Florida, and I just briefly wanted to make a quick
comment. First of all, thank you to the county staff for all of their
hard work during the past 2 1/2 years on the rural fringe issue. I
think that they should be commended for the work product that they
have presented to you today.
The Conservancy is in favor of a transferable development
rights program for Collier County. We think that it can work. We
generally support what staff has brought forward. We do have some
comments, but they deal with issues such as agricultural uses, so
we're going to hold off on commenting on that until Monday. But I
did just want to say for the record, we do support the TDR concept.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you, Ms. Ryan. Next speaker
is7 Go ahead, sir.
MR. SCHMITT: John Vega.
MR. VEGA: Good afternoon, Commissioners. Thank you for
having me here. I'm here on behalf of Dr. And Mrs. Francis Hussey.
They're the owners of Section 32 and the southern half of Section 29,
Township 49, Range 27 east. That's the area that says Black Bum on
the right-hand side, also just to the north, 32 and 29. It's
approximately 1,000 acres. It's been owned by the Husseys since
1971. On the tax roles, it's three parcels. It's been used for cattle
grazing for many, many years, and it's known informally as the HHH
Ranch.
The TDR proposal is significantly different than the Northern
Belle Meade proposal advanced by The Conservancy some months
ago. That was a voluntary proposal; this is a mandatory proposal.
Sections 29 and 32 have been designated as sending areas despite the
fact that they are pine uplands, pretty dry, and they seem to be to the
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February 27, 2002
west of appropriate habitats.
I'm not saying overall that the TDR program is an inverse
condemnation, but an otherwise constitutional act can be a
condemnation as applied to specific parcels. One of the proposals is
that if you're in a sending area and you choose to use it for residential
homes, that you be allowed one home per parcel, regardless of size.
Well, three parcels in a thousand acres, that's three homes for a
thousand-acre ranch. Those are pretty big homes. There's just no
question in my mind that what is appropriate for a 10- or 20- or 30-
acre parcel may not be appropriate for a 300-acre parcel or a
thousand-acre parcel.
And the proposal, as it's currently drafted I'm certainly not an
expert, but I cannot imagine that this would not be considered a
taking. I don't think the county wants to advance a proposal that is a
taking. If there is a way to recognize a distinction between larger
parcels and smaller parcels and, perhaps, bearing in mind the relative
environmental significance, I think that would be entirely
appropriate.
The Husseys also own land in Section 33 and 34, which is to the
east. They do not deny for a moment the environmental significance
and the wetlands that are to the east of their property. We had a very
good meeting with The Conservancy after the Northern Belle Meade
proposal where The Conservancy agreed to treat the lands in Section
33 and 34 as conservation lands, with the Husseys' agreement, and to
treat Sections 29 and 32 as either outside of the proposal or, perhaps,
to be looked at as receiving lands, but at least outside of the proposal,
and that certainly makes sense.
Right now I think that a very, very well-thought-out plan is as it
would be applied to this 1,000 acres is simply inappropriate. The
land's been owned for over 30 years. It certainly has investment
potential. It certainly can be developed in a very intelligent manner.
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February 27, 2002
It's almost as if someone holds their land and then tries to develop it
intelligently down the road, they're punished; and the people that
carve their lands up into little bitty bits are rewarded by being able to
preserve their uses. Perhaps that is the reason for rapid growth. But I
do think that given the uniqueness of this parcel, that it would be
appropriate, before a final decision is reached, that the county
continue to work with the Husseys on this matter. And I have
apprised staff of our concerns.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you, Mr. Vega.
MR. MUDD: The next speaker is Mike Bauer (phonetic),
followed by Brad Cornell, and on deck is Maureen Bonness. MR. BAUER: I'd like to defer to Monday, please.
MR. MUDD: That's Mike. Okay. Next speaker is Brad
Cornell.
MR. CORNELL: I I defer to Monday also.
MR. MUDD: Monday? Next speaker is Maureen Bonness.
MS. BONNESS: I defer to Monday.
MR. MUDD: Next speaker is Michael I think it's it starts with
a D. It's Duever.
MR. DUEVER: Duever.
MR. MUDD: Okay. Followed by Gary Edwards.
MR. DUEVER: My name is Michael Duever. I have lived and
worked in Collier County for most of the past 28 years. My work has
dealt largely with wetlands and the hydrology that supports them. An
important aspect of the rural fringe planning process is protection of
important natural features such as wetlands. The current plan does a
good job of keeping development out of important most important
natural areas. However, there is one aspect that deserves particular
emphasis when developing boundaries, or at least uses, in receiving
areas.
(Commissioner Henning entered the room.)
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February 27, 2002
MR. DUEVER: This has to do with the effects of hydrologic
alteration of developed areas on adjacent protected natural features.
The best available scientific evidence indicates that drainage
associated with development can extend one-half to two miles into
adjacent lands, including those we are trying to protect. Drainage is
very significant to natural areas. Types of plants and animals present
in a natural area exist largely because of the hydrology of that area,
and over the long term, these communities will be impacted in
proportion to the degree of hydrologic change that occurs not only as
a result of on-site drainage, but also as a result of draining in adjacent
lands. This is significant in terms of how land is developed in
proximity to areas that are being set aside for protection, particularly
the NRPAs.
Development that does not alter hydrology is not a problem.
However, I am concerned about whether the increased density in
receiving areas would be possible without draining the areas to be
developed; if not initially, then at some time in the future when
flooding would likely occur in at least some of these areas. Thus, for
receiving areas that are developed at proposed densities, we can
expect some degree of drainage which is likely to affect the adjacent
natural areas.
All of these comments suggest that those areas within
approximately 1 mile of wetlands or protected natural areas either
should not be included in receiving areas, or if they are included, they
should be developed in a manner that does not require drainage either
before development occurs or at some time after the sites have been
developed. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you, sir.
MR. MUDD: Next speaker is
(Applause)
MR. MUDD: Next speaker is Gary Edwards, followed by Frank
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February 27, 2002
Ormesh.
MR. ORMESH: I'll defer till Monday.
MR. MUDD: Is that Frank?
MR. EDWARDS: My name is Gary Edwards. I am the trustee
for more than 350 acres in the area between the urban boundary and
the Range 26 line. I'd like to point something out on the map, if I
could. I don't know that people in Collier County are aware of the
fact that I was involved in the Belle Meade process. At one time all
South Belle Meade area, the CARL program, was 55th on the list and
was never going to be bought. The meetings that took place here in
Collier County a few years ago moved it into the top 10, and it was
bought out.
Now, I think that a mistake was made by the professor, and I
don't understand why everybody, in every map I've seen, stops the
Belle Meade at the urban line when it stops at the Range 26 line. It
does not go to the urban line. And the area between the Range 26
east line and the urban boundary has never been in the Belle Meade,
is not in the Belle Meade, and was taken out of even the land
acquisition area, the requested area. And I have proof here that and
I'm going to give it to your clerk that it was taken out by the
Department of Environmental Protection. And, therefore, I don't
understand why the NRPA, the South Belle Meade NRPA, first of all
is going over the entire CARL program which is already owned by
the state; there is no development rights in there but it also covers
over our land. And I don't understand why it does that when we have
never been in the Belle Meade, and we are not in the Belle Meade.
And I have one other question based on the professor's comment that
most of the TDR programs fail. And if this current program is
instituted, when will we determine whether it's successful or failing,
and what will we do then? Thank you.
(Applause)
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February 27, 2002
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Would you care to address that,
please?
MR. LORENZ: Yes, Mr. Chairman. For the record, Bill
Lorenz, natural resources director. When we developed the natural
resource protection areas back in 1999, the proposals were not rigidly
based upon an acquisition boundary. The area that Mr. Edwards talks
about here, that 1-mile section, still has environmental values, in our
judgment, that raise to the level of not only a sending area, but also a
natural resource protection area.
MR. EDWARDS: Can I make one comment?
MR. MUDD: You still have 30 seconds, sir.
MR. EDWARDS: You can take pictures from satellites. You
can take pictures from helicopters. You can take pictures from
anything. But I have walked on the property. I have horseback rode
on it, and I can tell you there's not any environmental issue on this.
There's nothing but slash pine, uplands, and natural vegetation, the
same kind of land that exists inside of Naples. And I would like to
think that instead of drawing these maps, why doesn't somebody go
out there and take a look at it?
(Applause)
MR. MULHERE: Mr. Chairman.
MR. MUDD: The next speaker is Greg Davenport, followed by
William Clark, and on deck is Timothy Nance.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. Before we start
MR. MULHERE: Just a very brief comment, Mr. Chairman.
With respect to the last speaker's comments regarding the TDR
program and, you know, monitoring it, the plan does call for an
annual report to be brought back to the board so that the program can
either be tweaked to enhance it or to address any deficiencies that
might surface or to reevaluate the program. The fact that we may I
mean, success cannot be accomplished unless we at least attempt it,
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February 27, 2002
and so we've built in this process of of an annual evaluation for that
exact reason.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. Go ahead, sir.
MR. DAVENPORT: Hello. For the record, my name is Greg
Davenport. I guess the reason I'm here today is for some assurance.
I have a wholesale plant nursery in the Corkscrew Swamp area. I
have 15 acres in production at the moment, and I have an additional
15 acres I'm purchasing Friday. And I guess my question here is, will
I be able to clear 100 percent of the land, and will the county I just
want to make sure that I'm not restricted to to my business in
providing income for my family.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: That is a good question. Mr. Mudd,
would you respond?
MR. MULHERE: Mulhere.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Sorry.
MR. MULHERE: That's okay.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: My name is mud right at the
moment, so go ahead.
MR. MULHERE: Honestly, we do plan to give you a this gets
to the very core of the question of whether or not the county, under
the Right to Farm Act, is entitled to regulate agriculture or not.
Agriculture will be a permitted use, but the question of regulating ag
and 100 percent clearance is the subject of further discussion, and
we'll have presentations by a number of experts in that area. So it's a
little bit hard, I think, to raise this issue and have a full conversation
about it at this point in time. But I would invite the speaker, if he can
make it, to come back on Monday when we will talk about that. Or if
he wishes to get with us individually if he cannot make it, I'd be
happy to share what I do know.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Mr. Davenport, we do want to work
with you on that. Do you think you can come back Monday?
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February 27, 2002
MR. DAVENPORT: Yeah, I can. I just don't understand the
restrictions being put on me now, which at the present time I can
clear 100 percent of the land as long as there's no wetlands on there.
MR. MULHERE: And under our current recommended
proposal, agriculture continues to be a permitted use. And so you
would still be subject to the state or federal jurisdictional agencies if
there are any issues there. Under the current proposal, it is a
permitted use, but that is an issue that's going to be dealt with to some
some greater degree probably on Monday.
MR. DAVENPORT: And also I on Policy 6.1.4, it says, New
clearing of land for ag shall not be converted to non-ag development
for 25 years. And I oppose that. I believe the current level is 10
years. I oppose that, but I can live with 10 years, but I I really
oppose the 25-year restriction on my property. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you, sir.
(Applause).
MR. MUDD: The next speaker is William Clark, followed by
Timothy Nance, and on deck is William Liederman Lienemann.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You're about as good with names as
I am, Mr. Mudd.
MR. MUDD: I'm trying.
MR. CLARK: My name's William Clark. I also have a
wholesale plant nursery in the northeastern part of North Belle
Meade, Section 13. It's extreme uplands. It's mostly devoid of even
pines. Some of it, just by nature, is cleared. There's some question
today if I'm going to be fined for that when it comes time to grow
more plants or what have you. But I would also like to meet with Mr.
Mulhere and have him look at this property because it does not need
to be in a sending area. That seems to be the whole it seems to be
the whole sense of why you have a sending area is to send
environmental land, and this is not at all. No panthers, no
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February 27, 2002
woodpeckers.
MR. MULHERE: The northeast portion in fact, the entire, I
think, north half of Section 13 is currently designated as neutral
lands. It would have no impact. It would not be sending lands. You
would be able to continue to farm it and clear it to the degree that you
are currently permitted under state or federal regulation.
MR. CLARK: I also own in the south half also.
MR. MULHERE: The south half is sending.
MR. CLARK: And that is more uplands than even the north
half. I mean, even in, like, the No-Name Storm and all of these
heavy rain times, there was no water whatsoever. I mean, it was
almost dusty dry out there.
MR. LORENZ: Mr. Chairman, just although wetlands and
wetland land cover is very important, also we're talking about upland
habitat for listed species. So many times there's some concern that
we are not putting uplands into the sending areas. Those are
environmentally sensitive because of listed species concerns. So we
have not drawn the boundary lines for our sensitive areas based upon
wetlands only.
MR. CLARK: Okay. I that's different than what I heard
earlier, but there is no proof that there's any targeted species there,
panthers or whatever whatever species he's referring to. Also, that's
a hundred percent of how I make my living, agricultural. I don't have
retirements or anything like that.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I hear you. What I would suggest is
make an appointment with staff, Mr. Lorenz preferably, and have him
go over it in great detail and see what comes out of it. We want
whatever we do we want it to work for everyone, so please stay
active with it and don't disappear to the background.
MR. CLARK: Also, the TDR your point when they first
started, they have not showed me any per unit they'd have to have
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February 27, 2002
about $150,000 per house at, say, $10,000 an acre in a 'TDR, and
that's just not going to happen. And, you know, I don't want to get
paid 20 years from now for it if you do decide to do this to the
property. So I I'm against the TDR program as it is now.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you.
MR. MUDD: Next speaker is Timothy Nance, followed by
William Lienemann.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Before we go to the next
speaker, Mr. Lorenz, question. In our comp plan, do we regulate or
recognize listed species?
MR. LORENZ: In the excuse me. In the proposed
amendments, we do have a set of wildlife policies that will address
listed species at the project site.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: So the answer to my question is
we don't in our comp plan today, we don't have any language in there
recognizing listed species?
MR. LORENZ: We we have just just a few policies. We defer
mostly to the agencies. The the current Comprehensive Plan was
found in noncompliance by DCA through the final order with regards
to wildlife protection.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. You answered my
question. Thank you.
MR. NANCE: Good afternoon. Thank you, ladies and
gentlemen, for allowing me to speak. My name is Tim Nance. I'm
here as a private citizen to address the interests of the agricultural
industry in the rural fringe. I think there's been ample opportunity for
conservation interests, and lobbyists and speakers have had a lot of
input. I think there's been equal opportunity for developers to speak
about development interests and how a TDR program should
progress.
However, there has been no there has been no representation for
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February 27, 2002
agriculture. Andby agriculture in the rural fringe, I mean small
business agriculture that affects all the quality of our lives.
Individuals like Mr. Davenport and others who are representing
nurseries, roadside stands for produce, tree farms, aviaries, stables for
horses, facilities for kennels, and the like are not provided for in this
program the way I understand it, and I'll tell you why.
Mr. Lorenz showed some maps that showed 19 percent of the
area within the rural fringe in agriculture. And, Mr. Lorenz, I believe
the largest area is the area just south of what you have on your map.
That very large circular area there is farmland that's owned by Six L's
Farms. That comprises the great bulk of agriculture property in the
area that's being discussed as the rural fringe. That is now
designated, if I'm correct, sir, as a receiving area. That would no
doubt transfer from agricultural to highly concentrated development
of some sort, according to the according to the plan here.
Mr. Mulhere was mistaken when he said that the proposed plan
meets all the criteria presented by Dr. James Nicholas. And the
reason that it doesn't is currently when somebody that has a piece of
agricultural property sells TDRs, they lose the right to conduct
agriculture on that property. It's a poison pill for agriculture. That
activity can no longer continue. So how is small business agriculture
going to continue? Sooner or later the TDRs in all the sending areas
are going to be sold, and agricultural operations will no longer be
possible.
Certainly agriculture interests are not going to be successful in a
receiving area. Agricultural interests cannot compete in the urban
area. Everybody was sad when Long's Market disappeared. How
many nurseries are in that area? None, because they cannot compete
on an economic basis. So I believe the TDR program is fatally
flawed unless agricultural interests can continue after the small
businesspeople sell the transfer the development rights to receiving
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February 27, 2002
areas.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you, sir. Mr. Mulhere.
MR. MULHEKE: I think some of what the speaker indicated is
true, and some of it I would take exception to. It is true that the
majority of agriculture in the rural fringe is found in Area D. Area D
is a receiving area. It is true that if the receiving areas develop as we
propose, then there will be pressure to convert that agriculture to
residential. There are some provisions in the plan, however, that
would allow for continued farming operations. For example,
clustering development is required. There is no preclusion to cluster
the residential at all and continue to farm the balance of the area.
You can continue to do that.
Where where agriculture is prohibited under the plan is in the
most highly environmental environmentally sensitive and valuable
sending designated lands. And in those lands if you transfer your
development rights, no agriculture is permitted. Agriculture is
permitted as a permitted use in sending lands under the provisions of
the Right to Farm Act. But if you voluntarily transfer the units, then
you give up the right to farm along with transferring those units.
But, as an aside, we have not we have not first of all, this is a
larger issue that will be discussed in greater detail when we talk about
the agricultural issue. But ! would like to add that I didn't have the
chance to make the statement earlier that overall when we look at the
assessment area, the amount of agriculture in the rural fringe is is not
very large. Most of that ! 9 percent that was referenced is
unimproved pasture. However, when you look at the total amount of
agricultural operations in the county, by far the vast majority exist in
the eastern lands. And I think it's important to state here that none of
these provisions not one of them none of these provisions are
applicable to the eastern lands where the assessment process is
continuing.
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February 27, 2002
In the requirement of the final order to protect prime agricultural
lands which we don't have any prime agricultural lands in Collier
County, but we do have unique and very significant agricultural
portions. The provisions to protect those are largely deferred to the
eastern lands portion of the study where the vast majority of
agricultural operations exist. But there is no prohibition on
continuing to farm within the receiving areas. And, in fact, there are
certain elements of the plan that would continue to allow farming and
allow the property owner to recognize significant investment or
income from residential development in a clustered format.
MR. NANCE: There are no small businesses agriculturally
related of the type that add quality to our life, the semirural lifestyle
that many people enjoy, in the eastern part of this county because
nobody can afford to have somebody have to drive 30 miles to get to
a fruit stand. Nobody in this room is driving 30 miles to go to a fruit
stand or nursery or stable or kennel. Nobody can be successful doing
that. And when the transfer of developments rights is accomplished
on this agricultural land, those people have no residual value of their
land. Therefore, the TDR concept will be a failure in that regard.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Tim, I'm going to have to ask you to
wrap it up. But I'm going to ask Mr. Mulhere to respond to that last
question.
MR. MULHERE: And I will be very brief. I would disagree
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: No. You're doing you're doing a
wonderful job. You're answering very good questions.
MR. MULHERE: I would disagree that there's no residual value
because we do continue, for example, to allow for unimproved
pasture. So there's some residual value. And, of course, development
of one dwelling unit per lot or parcel. Nevertheless, yes, it's true:
Within sending lands, after the transfer of development rights,
agriculture is a prohibited use. That is to preserve those lands for
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February 27, 2002
their resource value. It's it's a pretty simple equation.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Mr. Mulhere, I want you to take the
time to meet with Mr. Nance and talk this over outside this meeting
without the mikes in front of you so that you can have a better
understanding. I hear both of you, and you're both saying the same
thing over and over again, and it's not going anyplace right at this
point in time.
MR. NANCE: I just think that the people in the county, their
quality of life would be great if we could maintain some agricultural
use and have it be so that those people have a right to continue long
term and don't have to fight continuously for the right to do that.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: And I think we're in total agreement
with you on that.
MR. NANCE: Thank you very much.
(Applause)
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Mr. Chairman, may I ask one
question?
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Of course you can. This is your
meeting, too, Mr. Carter.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: What if as the aspect of leasing
land, a 99-year lease I'm a farmer, and I'm a receiving area. I lease
my land to a developer to develop on it, but I maintain the underlying
rights. Is that being addressed in this process?
MR. MULHERE: There's nothing that would preclude that
from happening. Probably it would be it's allowed. It would
probably happen the other way, I imagine, where the farmer might
sell his land and have a 99-year lease to farm it, you know. But we
haven't recommended to prohibit agriculture in any area under the
COMMISSIONER CARTER: So listening to the last
conversation, that is an option in this process?
MR. MULHERE: Yes, it is.
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February 27, 2002
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: All right, sir. Would you state your
name for the record.
MR. LIENEMANN: Yes. My name is Bill Lienemann, and for
many years my wife and I have owned, and our family and related
entities, in Collier County and in, specifically, the subject area of the
Belle Meade North. I'm here today to speak on behalf of my family's
ownership as well as, by written authority, various involved and
committed landowners, local and across the United States, that
comprise approximately a half or more of the subject land area, the
15,000 acres that we're talking about.
I wish just to get some information placed on the record. I
guess, first of all, I would remind you, as you well know, that it hasn't
been very long ago when the focus study was completed, and we
thought we had something that we could work with. And, of course,
at that time that 15,000 acres was represented as agricultural land that
could be developed. The public records reflect that that subject
15,000 acres contains 2500, 2,500, individual land parcels. Public
records also indicate that this has about 1,850 individual owners on
that 15,000 acres, so they have a lot of people involved.
It's been reported in the Naples Daily News that the East Naples
Land Company, which is owned by one entity, owns approximately
2600 acres of this 15,000 acres, nearly 17 percent of that total area.
Interestingly enough, as I put together some of the figures when I got
here today, of the 3500 receiving acres in that 15,000 acres, this one
landowner, East Naples Land Company, owns nearly 2600 of it.
Anybody can judge what they want from that, I guess. The rest of the
83 percent of the owners of the land that's owned are in the lesser
category, receiving not not receiving, sending.
I'm not aware of any scientific data presented here today, other
than going back to databases that were in the '80s and the '90s and
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February 27, 2002
then upgraded in some manner I'm not sure how they got upgraded
that indicates that the land is nonbuildable or jurisdictional. I have
data with me and I'm aware of it that there is no hydrology and that
the subject land should not be jurisdictional.
It's my understanding further I think an important point that I
have not heard addressed one time here today by anyone is that the
Department of Community Affairs and this is information provided
by them has indicated that one of the problems in Collier County is
that we have one of the worst hurricane evacuation ratings in the
entire United States.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I have to ask you to wrap it up.
Keep on going, but you're short on your time.
MR. LIENEMANN: We understand that they have also said
that a well-thought-out master plan in this 15,000 acres could enable
Collier County to take care of a lot of that problem and perhaps save
thousands of lives in case we had a Category 5 hurricane.
Finally, then, ! guess, while it appears that lots of things have
been studied concerning animals, concerning wetlands, concerning
trees, nobody has spent much time talking about humans.
(Applause)
MR. LIENEMANN: I guess I would ask that as you consider
moving forward with this, that this evacuation plan be an important
part that affects all of us; that there's something in place on how we're
going to be compensated for our individual property. What I heard
this morning was that we're going to go forward with this plan. We
don't we can't tell you exactly how this is all going to work out in
terms of compensation. I don't feel very comfortable with that, and I
think a lot of us do not. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you.
(Applause)
MR. MUDD: The next speaker is Ed Carlson, followed Jean
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February 27, 2002
McCollam, followed by Roberta Wooster.
MR. CARLSON: Good afternoon. I think I'm deferring until
Monday, but I have a question. One of the things I wanted to learn
about was the rural village concept, and I didn't hear that in Dr.
Nicholas's presentation. Is that going to be discussed further on
Monday?
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Yes, sir.
MR. CARLSON: I'm deferring then.
MR. MUDD: Okay. Mr. Carlson defers to Monday. The next
speaker is Jean McCollam, followed by Roberta Wooster, followed
by Ray Pelletier.
MS. McCOLLAM: My name is Jean McCollam. I'm a property
owner in this area, and I'm a biologist by trade. I feel very strongly
that the portion of Area A called Big Corkscrew Island Community
should be considered a neutral area, as recommended by your staff,
the Planning Commission, and also the Environmental Advisory
Committee.
Also, I don't believe that a sending area, once rights are sold,
should be allowed to convert to agriculture. I think the whole the
whole idea of this is to preserve some of these areas that are
environmentally sensitive. And though I certainly know we have lots
of agriculture in this area, I feel that that's not the place for it.
Another aspect to this is there's a section that calls golf courses
open areas. It's Policy 6.5.2, parentheses, 1. I really feel that these
should not be considered in the same category with natural preserves,
natural lakes, and natural spaces, which is, I think, the spirit of this
whole thing. Golf courses, as far as wildlife goes, are very different
from natural areas in terms of compatibility.
And one statement that's come up repeatedly here today is the
idea that uplands or pine lands are not environmentally sensitive
lands, and this is really a misconception from the perspective of
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February 27, 2002
wildlife. Uplands are critical to wildlife, not just wetlands. When
those wetlands are covered with water, most land mammals and a lot
of the birds and all those things cannot live in the wetlands. They
need those uplands on the periphery to move.
Another thing is that these pine lands that we're talking about
contain more species of plants than any other community in South
Florida, 300, 600 species, depending on where you are. So these are
not just plain old pine lands. They're very sensitive. They're very
special. There's a lot of plants and critters there that aren't found
anywhere else. So not only wetlands are important, but pine lands
are too. Thank you for your consideration, and I am for the TDR
process.
MR. MUDD: The next speaker is Roberta Wooster, followed by
Ray Pelletier, followed by Eddie Filer.
MS. WOOSTER: Hi. My name's Roberta Wooster, and I want
to say good afternoon. In the interest of saving time, I'll be brief. I'm
a property owner within Big Corkscrew Island, and I've been a
volunteer out at Corkscrew Sanctuary for 12 years now. In order to
preserve the sanctuary, a 1-mile buffer zone is essential to keep our
water and our animals alive. I've signed the petition which you'll be
presented with on Monday requesting that Big Corkscrew Island
remain 5 acres, one dwelling. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. Sir, your name for the
record?
MR. PELLETIER: My name is Ray Pelletier. I'm a member of
your Rural Fringe Committee, and I have a bachelor's degree in
agriculture and natural resources from the State University of New
York. I was a member of the first committee that looked into this,
and I was the lone dissenting voice on a plan that was basically
discarded, and that's kind of why we're in the situation we're in.
Also, I'm a property owner in Area A. I thought the committee did a
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lot of good work. We set aside these natural resource protection
areas. But I think that a recommendation that I would have is that
you define the area, not just define where it is, but define what
qualities that a property should exhibit in order to be called a natural
resource protection area. That way you can eliminate a lot of good
areas from the bad areas.
Also, it's interesting to point out that the state had set up a
program to isolate these natural areas called the state areas of critical
concern, and a lot of these natural resource areas weren't weren't
included in that original study. So now we're adding another layer
that the state didn't think was necessary originally. On top of that, I
think that these these natural resource protection areas are going
back to the state area of critical concern regulations. So you're
putting the same regulations on these areas that were supposedly
more environmentally sensitive than the areas that are now natural
resource protection areas.
TDRs is a bad idea. I can't be any more simple than that.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You have one minute. Don't stop.
MR. PELLETIER: Okay. Basically you have to get past the
point of understanding or being able to explain to an individual that a
person who bought good property has to pay the person who bought
swamp land, has to compensate that person somehow. If you do
come across that in your in your thinking and you do make that
point, you know, maybe you ought to just do an environmental
impact fee, and make it simple for everyone, to generate the income
necessary, from the people who you would be deriving the money
from, the wetland property owners or actually, the dry property
owners and transferring that money to purchase the land. That way
you have it. It's not just a regulation.
Just a clarification. The motion that was made in the Rural
Fringe Committee was not to we didn't differ on how to impose the
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regulations. The motion was to remove it completely from the
program. So you might want to take that into consideration, that the
people that have been studying this for two years really had no
consensus on the TDR program. Area A, Area A was determined to
be the least sensitive environmental area in the whole Collier County
rural fringe study area.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I'm going to have to ask you to wrap
it up. Closing statements, please.
MR. PELLETIER: And due to some public participation, which
we welcome, it was put into a neutral. But the data the data analysis
that we studied basically told us that's where development should
occur. Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: And, Ray, I want to thank you for
your comments and the time you spent working on the Rural Fringe
Committee.
MR. PELLETIER: You're very welcome.
(Applause)
MR. MUDD: Next speaker is Eddie Filer, followed by Scott
Stonier, followed by Glen Dunavan. Eddie Filer I'll move till
Monday. Scott Stoner Stonier I'll move till Monday. Glen
Dunavan?
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Glen's here.
MR. MUDD: Followed by Emilio Baez.
MR. BAEZ: I'm going to waive till Monday.
MR. DUNAVAN: You need for me to get up now?
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Yes, please, Glen. State your name
for the record.
MR. DUNAVAN: My name's Glen Dunavan, and I am a citizen
of Collier County and of the United States. I have a degree in the
school of hard knocks. We got the biggest campus in the world. In
the plan as the petitioners of this thing they give us, the organization
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February 27, 2002
of Audubon Society and Wildlife Federation, they are communistic.
Take note I did not say communist; I said communistic. Communism
is alive and well in Collier County. To allow one group to take the
property of another group is definitely communistic, and that's what
you're doing.
Well over 90 percent of Collier County is now in government
hands. To the east, the north, and south, there's hundreds of
thousands of acres environmentally protected. Why in the world
would we want to take the little percentage that's left in Collier
County away from the people.'? And that's what you're doing. You
can call it anything you want to. (Applause)
MR. DUNAVAN: You can put any initials on it that you want
to, but it's still stealing their property. Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you, Glen.
(Applause)
MR. MUDD: Next speaker is Julian Stokes, followed by Doug
Ranker.
MR. RANKIN: Rankin.
MR. MUDD: Rankin. Is Julian Stokes here7
MR. STOKES: Good afternoon. My name's Julian Stokes. I'm
an MAI, CRE, CCIM here in Collier County, and I'm a real estate
appraiser. I've been here for over 25 years, native Floridian. And I'm
here essentially not only as a native Floridian and a longtime resident
of Naples, but I'm here as an advocate for private property rights. I'd
like to specifically address as an example the O-to-1-mile corridor in
the South Belle Meade area that you've designated. My comments
and observations can also be generally applied to all the properties
subject to the proposed condemnation of the property rights in these
areas. And, again, you know, let's not mix (sic) words, you know, or
dance around the fact that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a
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February 27, 2002
duck, it's a duck. What we're doing here is taking private property
rights away from private property owners.
As an appraiser I deal consistently with what we call the bundle
of rights, and that's kind of what you're dancing with right here.
Mr. Nicholas estimates that there are approximately 4,655
development rights in the sending area at a value of $3,793 an acre.
After applying a number of unsupported adjustments, or at least I
didn't see them in there, to the total sample model nothing like
dealing with regression analysis we're instructed that the total value
to the sending area properties is $71,775,757. Pretty accurate. This
boils down to about $18,500 per TDR. With this as a basis of value, I
can assume that we can conclude that Mr. Nicholas believes that the
2800 acres found within the O-to-1-mile corridor of the Belle Meade
area is worth approximately 10,500 $10,500,000 after the proposed
proposed condemnation of the property rights.
There are just a lot of concerns that I have with this. My biggest
fear is that the study is not market based. It's comprised by a series
of assumptions that tend to be hypothetical at best. I think that if you
were truly going to represent Collier County in this entire effort,
you'd better sit down and do some type of analysis on the worst-case
scenario with regard to how much money you're going to have to set
aside to pay these private property owners for their rights that you're
in the process of taking away from them. And it's a huge chunk of
change. It's a huge chunk of change. My estimate just in the 1 the 0-
to-l-mile
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You need to wrap it up, sir.
MR. STOKES: My estimate in the 0-to-l-mile corridor over
and above the TDRs is $31,500,000 to $59,500,000 that we're going
to have to come up with here in Collier County just to compensate
the property owners for their loss of rights. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you.
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February 27, 2002
(Applause)
MR. MUDD: Doug Rankin is our next speaker, followed by
Emie Cox, and then Ty Agoston.
MR. RANKIN: Thank you. My name's Doug Rankin. I'm a
local attorney. I'm also a board certified real estate attorney, although
I'm one of the few in town that does not represent developers. I'm
here basically on my own. I live a couple of miles from here. I
belong to a number of organizations that have influence out here
although I do not speak for them today because they still haven't
reached conclusions such as the property owners association out
here.
However, I have been aside from being vice-chairman of the
party here, Republican Party the only one in town, of course I have
been the briefing person for this area, which encompasses all the land
within several miles of where we're standing, for years. And, as
such, out of my own pocket, I have sent letters every other year to
everybody in this precinct to get an idea of where they stand. And so
I'm while I'm here only speaking for myself, I do so well informed of
what the main concerns are out here, and the main concerns we have
out here are roads. Of course, as many of you know, I sit on the
Golden Gate Master Plan Committee too. And that's the main thing
that and commercial is the main thing we're dealing with.
And, you know, I'm not here to express an opinion about this
transfer of development rights. What my concern because I don't
represent or own property within this area, nor do I know anybody
that does. My concern is its effect on the estates that surrounds it and
also another issue that's being considered here today and I've seen
tossed around at the various levels. My primary concerns about this
is the old Area C I don't know what you call it now which is there
and the one up around OrangeTree, because this morning one of the
things they did is they said it does not propose to affect North Golden
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February 27, 2002
Gate Estates. That's wrong.
If you'll notice, Area C here especially and, to a lesser extent,
the receiving area around OrangeTree, the majority the only way
currently to get to Area C is to come through the estates, and
currently about half the way to get to the OrangeTree receiving area
is coming through the estates. Well, for those of you who don't
understand and I know most of you do right now I'm dealing with a
population in the estates that's over the City of Naples and will soon
be twice the City of Naples. And it only has (Applause)
MR. RANKIN: three or four choke points to get in and out.
And my concern, especially with Area C and, to a lesser extent,
OrangeTree, is you're going to concentrate development in there.
We've they've only come to the Golden Gate Master Plan Committee
over the next couple of the last couple of months, and it's only been
staff, not members of the rural fringe that have come. But you do the
math, and you're talking about 20 or 30,000 people crammed into that
area there that have got to get there.
And, you know, if this if you're going to do this, you need to
make sure that the access to that area is not through my estates
because my roads can't handle what we got now, never mind what
we're building right now and what you can't change because this is all
estates, and everybody can build themselves a house if they want.
But I sure as heck don't need another 20 or 30,000 people trying to
use White Boulevard. And, in fact, I don't know whether this has
been anticipated or not, but I've seen preliminary plans come out of
transportation that have showed new roads, like right along the main
canal out here, that would destroy the semirural character.
The other concern I have and I've seen this floating around is
whether you're going to allow quarries in this new area or around this
area. As many of you know, I successfully fought for the residents
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February 27, 2002
out here several years the expansion of APAC, and I've heard rumors
that there may be them or somebody else looking at more quarries in
this area. That does directly affect the northern estates because you
can't regulate blasting anymore. They've managed to lobby the
legislature and take that away from you.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Please wrap it up.
MR. RANKIN: Okay. And that's we're concerned about that,
that you don't allow that in these areas, because if you allow it, you
can't regulate them. And it has a great effect on us. When we used to
have a lot of it in Collier, a lot of people used to have busted pools,
busted houses, etc., etc.. Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you, sir.
(Applause)
MR. MUDD: The next speaker is Ernie Cox. Is Emie here? I'll
move him till Monday. Ty Agoston is the next speaker, followed by
Margaret Campbell.
MR. AGOSTON: I'm just a short guy. My name is Ty
Agoston, and I like to feel that I speak for that endangered North
Golden Gate Estates. I'm also member of the Rural Fringe
Committee, on whose judgment and guidance the staff was going to
put together the proposal that is not the recommendation of the of the
rural fringe. The Rural Fringe Committee never did approve the
TDRs. Why? The fine gentleman in the corner there has been telling
both you and us about the potential benefits of a TDR, citing, of all
places, New Jersey, which is the most densely populated state in the
country; or Long Island, where the Long Island Expressway has long
been described as the longest parking lot in the world; or Maryland,
which is a similar area.
I personally believe that this entire concept of TDRs revolves
around buying time for environmentalists in order to drive down the
property values so the state can acquire
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February 27, 2002
(Applause)
MR. AGOSTON: it down the road at a reasonable price,
somewhat similar to what happened to southern Golden Gate Estates,
where our commissioners sat there and approved a blocking out of
utilities and power, consequently limiting the property value. And at
that time it was promised that no there would never be government
takeover or the use of eminent domain. And guess what's happening
today? Those properties remaining in the hands of property owners
are being taken to court for eminent domain proceedings.
So there is a reason why politicians have taken over the bottom
of the professional standings in the country from used car salesmen.
In all fairness, gentlemen, you carry and I've said this before an
ethical burden. The Collier County Commission allowed some
19,000 property owners raped in southern Golden Gate Estates. You
are now in the process of raping an additional some 3,000-some-
hundred people with this TDR where our staff and our consultants
cavalierly talking about tweaking.
Gentlemen, you're talking about someone else's property. What
tweaking? You know, I generally tweak my cat's nose. We're not
talking about someone's livelihood. You cannot be that cavalier in
talking about someone else's not in this country. I came from a
communist country, ladies and gentlemen. They give you tweaking
there often with machine guns in black alleys. You never complained
again.
I hope we are not heading down that direction because as we
(Applause)
MR. AGOSTON: In every area, in every committee that I have
been to, environmentalists, activists, paid people are prominently
there with spaces reserved for them. And I am not sure if it was
publicly acknowledged just exactly what these people want from us.
And if you did find what they want from us, maybe you would not be
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February 27, 2002
so agreeable.
I have a number of other things that I'd like to cover, but if you
don't mind, I would like to register for Monday. And I thank you
very much.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Mr. Augustus (phonetic), you're
welcome to register on Monday. Of course, you'll be at the at the
bottom of the list.
MR. AGOSTON: I've heard that before, Mr. Coletta.
(Applause)
MR. MUDD: Next speaker is Margaret Campbell, followed by
Ruth Sterling and Julian Stokes.
MS. CAMPBELL: My name is Margaret Campbell. Thank you
for giving me this time to talk to you. My husband and I own 20
acres in the North Belle Meade area. It's a NRPA area. And when I
read as I to begin with I was told that it was a sending area, and then
as I read this map, that's you-all passed out today, this North Belle
Meade, it doesn't it shows it just as a NRPA area. It doesn't say it's a
sending area also, so I'm not real sure. Some of the other maps that
are out there say it's in a sending area.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Ma'am, it's the same thing.
NRPA and a sending area, you're going to find them
MS. CAMPBELL: Well, there's there's two different
designations here. I was a cartographer with the National Park
Service. I notice things like that. So I was trying to figure out
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Mr. Lorenz.
MR. LORENZ: Yes. Give me the township and section. I
might be able to help you.
MS. CAMPBELL: It's 25, 49. I can't see the range. It's right in
there. Yes.
MR. LORENZ: Okay. That would be a natural resource
protection area.
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February 27, 2002
MS. CAMPBELL: Right.
MR. LORENZ: But it's also
MS. CAMPBELL: A sending area. Right, because this map is
not clear on that. About two weeks ago there was a meeting of the
planning area the planning the planning committee, and they I was
told that when I called the office, that I was told there on Horseshoe
Drive that they said, well, since you're on such a small area, only 20
acres, that you really didn't need to that I just needed to come here to
let you know of my concerns. So I didn't go to that meeting.
I did find out through the paper that I needed to have been there.
So I went to the next meeting, which was on Monday, and talked to
talked to several of the staff there, and I felt pretty comfortable when
I got done. But now when I read this, I'm confused again, especially
on page 5 that talks about the state considering purchase of
significant areas, and the county and property owners under public
acquisitions, the county and property owners should support
acquisition of privately owned lands in the North Belle Meade NRPA
as a mechanism for
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Mr. Lorenz will address all of those
questions for you.
MS. CAMPBELL: Pardon me?
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Mr. Lorenz will address all your
questions before you leave the podium, but let's go ahead and pick up
where you started, and he'll hit them all the way down the line.
MR. LORENZ: What she's referring to is the North Belle
Meade area agreement that the intervenor, working with the property
owner in North Belle Meade, is proposing to the board to adopt as a
special overlay district. We have this will be a very specific
presentation that will occur after, I think, the agriculture issues that
we have. So what she's quoting out of now is what's in that
settlement agreement.
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February 27, 2002
MS. CAMPBELL: Okay. So this will be covered Monday; is
that what I'm understanding?
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Yes. This is one issue we're going to
be covering on Monday. Is there any other detail you might be able
to give us just to be able to fill in the blanks and maybe
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Why don't we just wait till
Monday, that presentation. I think that would be the time to address
this young lady's concerns. I don't know if we're going to have
enough time for all the presentations, Commissioner.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Possibly not, but I I don't know if
the if you could make it back on Monday.
MS. CAMPBELL: I'll work it out.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: And it'll be after six o'clock that the
comments will be taken, but the meeting starts at nine o'clock. You
may wish to follow along with it and then ask your questions
afterwards.
MS. CAMPBELL: Okay. Thank you.
MR. LORENZ: She could give me a call or my office a call
tomorrow, and we could try to answer her questions there to the
degree that this is still a little bit of a
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Just swing by the table over here and
pick up Mr. Lorenz' card. He'd like you to call tomorrow.
MR. OLLIFF: Perhaps a copy of the agreement would help her
as well.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. State your name for the
record, please.
MR. MUDD: The next speaker is Ruth Sterling, followed by
Julian Stokes.
MS. STERLING: Hi. I'm Ruth Sterling. If we can go back to
North Belle Meade, Section 24, where the Woodland Grade is drawn
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February 27, 2002
on the map there, where 24 would be showing, our property is back
there. We are definitely in a NRPA. We're beyond the first cattle
grade. And we had heard rumors from the last meeting that they are
going to shut down the properties beyond that first cattle grade.
Well, that happens to be us. We're homesteaded. We're agricultural.
We have both uses. How are we going to be affected by this? Does
anybody know?
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I'm not sure we understand the
question, ma'am.
MS. STERLING: We are beyond that first cattle grade, on
Woodland Grade. Are you familiar with that area at all?
MR. MULHERE: Well, I no. I mean, you're telling me you're
in Section 24 in the North Belle Meade NRPA.
MS.
MR.
resource
area, and
MS. CAMPBELL:
MR. MULHERE:
STERLING:
MULHERE:
Right. Yeah.
Okay. So the arrow is right where you're at.
Yeah. We're just a little beyond there.
Okay. That is designated as a natural
proposed to be designated as a natural resource protection
it is also a sending area. Again, agriculture is currently
proposed to be a permitted use in that area.
MS. STERLING: So our nursery should be fine? We should
have no problems with that?
MR. MULHERE: Yes. With the exception of if you determine
to transfer residential dwelling units out of that area, under the
proposal you would be restricted from
MS. STERLING: And that is optional. You're not forced to do
that; is that correct? MR. MULHERE:
MS. STERLING:
You are not forced.
Okay. One more question. The East Naples
Land Company is going to be doing some developing or whatever
and also got mining rights. What kind of mining are we talking
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February 27, 2002
about, and where are they talking about mining?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: That's going to be covered on
Monday, ma'am.
MS. CAMPBELL: On Monday also?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, the North Belle Meade
discussion is going to be on Monday at nine a.m. At the
commissioners' chambers.
MS. STERLING: And then we have until six o'clock to
COMMISSIONER HENNING: We're going to take final
comments at six p.m. Because we know a lot of you folks work at
night (sic) and can't be there during the day. But this will be
televised during the day, so you you know, if you got work at home
and you're next to a TV, you could sit home and watch it. You don't
have to come into town.
MS. STERLING: I have just one more comment. Mr. Coletta
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Could we have silence in the room,
please.
MS. STERLING: Your name is not Mr. Mudd. There's a lot of
people here who are depending on you to take care of the little guy.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you.
(Applause)
MR. MUDD: Mr. Chairman, I need to ask you one question just
for just for so we can we have sometimes we have multiple speakers
that are representing different people. Do we want to take multiple
speakers or give them just one opportunity and then say they can
come back on Monday to represent their multiple interests?
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I would say that what we can do is
put them aside, and if we got time at the end after we address
everybody individually, then we come back to those people that are
representing other people.
MR. MUDD: Okay. Mr. Stokes, I'm putting your card in the
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February 27, 2002
back because you've already had your opportunity. The next speaker
is Mr. Tim Hancock. Your second sheet that you put in, Mr.
Hancock, I'm also putting behind Mr. Stokes's. And Mr. Hancock
will be followed by Lynda Hittinger, and on deck is Karen Bishop.
MR. HANCOCK: Good morning, Commissioners. My name is
Tim Hancock, vice president with Vanasse Daylor. I'm here today
representing 45 property owners who own more than 1,400 acres of
land located within the proposed Belle Meade NRPA, all within 1
mile of the urban residential fringe. This is the area referred to in
your materials as the O-to-1-mile corridor.
To give you an idea of the area we're talking about and I wish
we had a better way to do this this is a map of the South Belle
Meade. The areas in green are those areas that are currently in public
publicly owned. East of the or west east of the 1-mile corridor,
more than 90 percent is in public ownership. West of or included in
the 1-mile corridor, more than 73 percent is in private ownership.
This red line, in effect, is a public ownership wall that will prevent
any expansion of of development to the east. So I think it's
important to understand what the public ownership interest is out here
and the private ownership interest is over here.
First, let me state on behalf of those that I represent that the
proposed taking of property rights in exchange for only a promise of
partial compensation is wrong. I have 45 petitions signed by property
owners in the O-to-1-mile corridor, which I am turning in today,
entering into the record their objection to having 90 percent of the use
of their land removed from them without the lack adequate
compensation for that loss.
The primary issue I wish to address today is the taking of that
value with the proposed amendments, representing the failure to
present adequate remedies for that taking. The first omission in what
you've seen today is the impact of TDRs on those properties whose
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February 27, 2002
value exceeds $3,700 an acre. What is proposed basically is if your
land is worth less than $3,700 an acre, the TDRs can be a financial
benefit to you. But for everyone whose land is worth more than
$3,700 an acre, you're getting hurt. And the more it's worth, the
worse you're getting hurt, in some cases a loss of 60 to 80 percent of
the value of your land. Who's going to pay for that loss? The day
you adopt the standards you create the loss. They don't have to wait
until TDRs have either worked or not worked to file a claim against
Collier County.
The day you adopt the standards, the loss occurs. I want to
present two very quick options. And I know I'm running short on
time. The first option is one that was endorsed by the Rural Fringe
Advisory Committee by a 6-1 vote to remove the 0-to-l-mile corridor
from the NRPA. We still support that. We still seek it. We still ask
for it. Absent that eventuality, another option would be, as was
mentioned by Dr. Nicholas earlier, the ability to increase the number
of units for TDRs in those parcels that have a higher value.
Somebody has got to make up for that compensation.
If that is the route you take, I simply ask and I I'm wrapping up
in less than 30 seconds, Mr. Coletta, if I may. I ask that you, one,
establish the time frame that the property that the program will either
be determined that it works, or it is scrapped, not that it's reevaluated.
And the other item I ask is that you allow those units to be transferred
to areas where they have some market value. Ten- and twenty-acre
parcels that already have four units an acre, according to Dr.
Nicholas's study, don't need the extra units.
It has no value. But the urban residential fringe at 1.5 units per
acre is below what the market demands, and it's a very logical
receiving area.
I ask for your consideration of those, and I look forward to
addressing you further on Monday. I also have 20 petitions from
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February 27, 2002
folks that are willing to take whatever legal action is necessary to
protect their rights, and I submit that for the record also. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Mr. Hancock, a question,
please. Your proposal, what was the recommendations I think there
was a vote from the EAC. What was their vote?
MR. HANCOCK: The vote was 6-1 by the Rural Fringe
Advisory Committee to remove it from the NRPA with additional
regulations on the
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I'll ask my question again.
MR. HANCOCK: The EAC, sir, voted unanimously not to do
that. The Planning Commission voted unanimously not to do it
unless staff found additional support on the environmental side for
that proposal.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you.
MR. MUDD: Next speaker is Lynda Hittinger, followed by
Karen Bishop, and on deck is Cindy Kemp.
MS. HITTINGER: Good evening. My name is Lynda
Hittinger. My husband and I have been Collier County taxpayers for
almost 40 years and residents for 30 years. This TDR plan the county
has devised is an insidious design to infringe on private property
rights ensured to us by the constitution. I am appalled at the
terminology used by the staff at some of these meetings such as using
a carrot-and-stick approach to selling the TDR program.
Also, the deals being made with the Wildlife Federation and
Audubon association and other conservation groups about the so-
called environmentally sensitive areas, why are they making
exceptions with certain groups and allowing the county to build solid
waste resource recovery facilities, public equipment storage areas on
land in proposed preservation areas plus numerous other exceptions?
This says to me that these so-called sensitive areas, NRPAs, and the
TDR program are a ruse to allow one of the biggest land grabs the
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February 27, 2002
county has ever tried. The basis for any free society is a respect for
private property rights. This has been completely disregarded.
And as for Golden Gate residents, we will be impacted in
numerous ways. As Mark Strain said in his Golden Gate Gazette
and I quote For some reason, there's a rush to push this plan through
without adequate understanding of the impacts it will have on Golden
Gate people. The effort may not be worth the outcome for the people
of Golden Gate, end of quote. I just wonder now, when will the land
grabbers come after us? They've already taken southern Golden Gate
Estates. And I'm sure you're asking, as commissioners, what do we
do? The state's taking talking to us, telling us to do one thing, and the
property owners of Collier County want their rights respected.
As David Ellis said earlier, "Let's keep it simple." I have a
simple and viable solution, but it will take courage and statesmanship
on the part of the commissioners. Tell the State of Florida that
Collier County private landowners feel that since 87 percent of the
county land is owned by county, state, and fed government along
with the environmental conservation groups, the remaining 13
percent should be left in private hands, to be left in private hands to
develop as they wish. Eighty-seven percent is more than enough for
the so-called endangered species. Or are we becoming the
endangered species? (Applause)
MS. HITTINGER: Tell the state, hands off Collier County.
(Applause)
MR. MUDD: Next speaker is Karen Bishop, followed by Cindy
Kemp, and on deck is Bob Krasowski.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Karen, before you start,
Commissioner Coletta, I was told that there are people from out of
town that own property in in the sensitive area, and they're not going
to be able to make it here on Monday. So maybe we can ask the
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February 27, 2002
question if people are from out of town that want to speak, to come
up on deck so we could cover those people.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: All right. I think I think that's an
excellent idea. If you did not turn in a slip or if you turned one in and
waived, we'll give you the opportunity at this time to resubmit a slip
if you're from out of town.
MALE AUDIENCE MEMBER: This gentleman right here
wants to speak.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Well, just take a second to fill out
MR. SEGAL: I put a slip in already.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Great. Okay. Then your last name,
sir?
MR. SEGAL: Segal.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Would you pull that out and put it
back on? Is there anyone else out there that has a slip that waived
originally? If there is anyone while we're going through and you
want to add the slip up there to be heard today, we'll be more than
happy to take that. Go ahead, Mrs. Bishop.
MS. BISHOP: For the record, Karen Bishop. This is going to
be simple for me. I'm here representing the Mirasol owners. And
Section what's called Area B, Section 10 and 15 are shown in the
rural fringe assessment areas, and we believe we're exempt from
those areas due to our petition being in prior to the consent order.
Also, on the rural fringe assessment maps, we're shown as
neutral areas. Now, we already have environmental permits or one
of our environmental permits, and Section 10 ultimately will be 100
percent conservation easement. We've also purchased 160 acres in
Section 11 which will also be conservation easement, but we have in
mind to transfer that density to Section 15. Our plan already shows
the clustering of the of the density from Section 10 into Section 15.
But what we would like to have the ability to do, which is what when
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we went on record for our zoning, is to blend our density for our
whole project so that our Section 22, which is in the urban area, is
allowed to blend the density into 15.
So I just wanted to get on the record to say that we're shown in
the NRPA areas. We are not a NRPA. And we're shown as neutral
areas, which limits our ability to do what we believe we already have
the right to do; except for the density blending, which we do want the
right to blend our density. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you, Mrs. Bishop.
MR. MUDD: The next speaker is Cindy Kemp, followed by
Bob Krasowski, followed by Fred Segal.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Just a minute, Cindy. Bill, can
you I remember when this came before us. Is that true what Ms.
Bishop said?
MR. LORENZ: Well, yes. They had their their petition in prior
to the final order. They got it under that window. What we have to
do is work with them to make sure that our map is adequately
reflecting their their approvals, and I think we may have some
problems either in the map or in some of the terminology. So we can
get with them prior to Monday.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you.
MS. KEMP: Cindy Kemp representing myself and Property
Rights Action Committee. It's great to see everybody here. This is
what it's all about. And I think if we had some signs maybe outside
letting people know that this kind of stuff is going on, this place
would be more filled up. I'd like to thank, first of all, Tom Henning
and Jim Coletta and the rest of the commissioners for making
themselves available with the extra meeting for the public comments.
We really appreciate you accommodating the schedule of the people
who work.
I understand all the man-hours and the controversy involved in
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the growth plan. I know you are in a position where you have to
satisfy the state, get along with the environmentalists and developers,
and not provoke the wrath of citizens. The responsibility of the
decision that you have is very serious because it will set the tone for
the growth of Collier County.
While I am not a planner, an environmentalist, developer, or
politician, I am a citizen and a believer in our government. I could
argue my opposition of the some of the details of the plan, but my
main contention is that these plans are not fair, and are you ready to
sell the people out? Getting to know you more as I become involved
in the situation, I believe you genuinely care about your constituents
or you would never have gotten into such a stressful occupation.
For those of us who choose to live in rural Collier County, it is a
way of life for us. Establishing receiving areas defeats what we came
here for. Maureen Bonness and her neighborhood are an excellent
example of this. They do not want a high-density area coming to
their pristine neighborhood of Big Corkscrew Island. I applaud her,
but I believe that most every resident who lives in a rural area feels
the same. Endorsing this plan would upset the apple cart of people's
lives.
What is the crux of this whole plan, that is the growth plan? I've
been watching this for years all around the country. And the answer
is, all the way up to Governor Bush, that the politicians are being
pressured by the environmentalists so parties get together to make
deals where certain people benefit at the expense of the little guy who
is stripped of his land, his wealth, and, thus, his power. From my
understanding Collier already has 73 percent of its land under
environmental protection and another 14 percent pending, thus
totaling 87 percent of the land is already acquired for protection.
How much land is actually wanted? When will enough be enough?
The answer appears to be when the little guy is bankrupt so that
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controls and regulations will rule. I understand the need to protect
our natural resources, but the pendulum has swung too far on the side
of environmentalists. (Applause)
MS. KEMP: How will crowding people into smaller areas
alleviate environmental problems? I think it will exaberate (sic) it.
What happens to sending areas that don't sell and the investment of
that owner? Why does everything have to come down to money?
What about property rights? What about principles? What about the
Fifth Amendment? What about the Bert Harris Act? There are so
many things to consider. Why must there always be some sort of
quid pro quo?
There are too many issues and too much money and too many
lives involved. I say first get an extension on this plan so we can
have more time to study it. Go to the people. We're doing so much
already. And that's it.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you.
(Applause)
MR. MUDD: The next speaker is Bob Krasowski, followed by
Fred Segal, and on deck is Kevin (sic) Snell.
MR. KRASOWSKI: Good afternoon, Commissioners and staff
and people. My name is Bob Krasowski. I'm with Zero Waste, and
I'm here to speak for myself. I'm not going to comment on the
transfer of rights development transfer rights, but I would like to ask
some questions regarding some material contained in this document
that kind of relate to it as an aside but are included in being approved
or not approved and sent to the state.
In particular on page 48 of the plan, some new material entered
identifies as a conditional use, one of them, a public identifies public
facilities including solid waste and resource recovery facilities. And
what I would like to request is a definition of a resource recovery
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facility because that is a conditional use here. Resource recovery
facility is a conditional use under sending lands, and sending lands
are described as those lands that have the highest degree of
environmental value and sensitivity and generally include including
significant wetlands, uplands, and habitat for listed species.
Now, I don't know how this got past the environmentalists. I
consider myself an environmentalist, but I guess we have different
interests, because some of what I understand to be included in a
resource recovery facility are detrimental to the and knowingly
within environmental rules, are detrimental to listed species you're
supposed to be trying to protect by protecting these areas, these
resource protection areas.
Also in your plan it says that this exemption would be made for
the lands that meet the environmental highest category of
environmental protection that's that are north of the landfill. We
assume you will be receiving responses to your requests for proposals
that identify various methods that could be used in handling the solid
waste of this community that do not pollute like the known resource
recovery facilities do and do not cause noise and require the same
that don't create the same conditions as some of these resource
recovery I'd like for us to get a definition of exactly what these
facilities are.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: ! need you to wrap it up.
MR. KRASOWSKI: I'd like to have a definition Monday or
before of what those facilities are so we can pick through them to see
which ones might not meet these standards. And then also in this
document and this is the end of my comments. Thank you, Mr.
Coletta there is Goal 8: The county shall maintain Collier County's
existing air quality. This doesn't mean that we go to pollution
buildout. It means maintain the existing quality. If we adhere to
standards that (inaudible) more and more and more as the county
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grows, we're going to lose ground in this regard. I say we protect the
quality of the environment that we have here now to the extent
possible. Thanks a lot, and I'll talk to the staff about getting a
definition for resource recovery facilities.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you very much.
(Applause)
MR. MUDD: The next speaker is Fred Segal, followed by
Kevin (sic) Snell, and on deck is Sonja Durrwachter.
MS. DURRWACHTER: I'd like to go for Monday.
MR. MUDD: Is that Sonja?
MS. DURRWACHTER: Yes.
MR. SEGAL: My name is Fred Segal. I'm the president of
Broward County Farm Bureau. And I had received a phone call from
some of the agricultural interests here in Collier that have asked me
to come over here because we've undergone some problems at times
in Broward County, with the development we've had in our county,
with agriculture and the question of the county's right and ability to
regulate agriculture.
Now, I've heard mention today of the Right to Farm Act.
Unfortunately, you're looking at the wrong statutes. The Right to
Farm Act is not what gives the prohibits the county from regulating
agriculture. It's Section 163, the Comprehensive Land Use section of
the statutes, that exclude agriculture out of that section. Broward
County, when it looked into it and its county attorney looked into it,
came back with a decision or an interpretation that the county does
not have the authority to regulate agriculture through zoning or
otherwise and, as a result, passed ordinances (Applause)
MR. SEGAL: that stood up to that fact and said that the county
does not have that right so the staff would not try to impose
regulations that did not apply to agriculture.
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In addition, Section 604 of the statutes gives the state let me just
read a brief section out of here. And it states that the production of
agricultural commodities in this state is a large and basic industry that
is important to the health, welfare of the people and to the economy
of the state. And it further goes on in that section to state that
regulations should not be adopted that in any way inhibit agriculture
or make it difficult for people to (inaudible) agriculture.
Now, there's been talk about wildlife. Now, I will say a major
of our a major portion of our country's wildlife does spend a lot of
time on private property, and many farmers and ranchers have taken
steps to preserve native habitat and help wildlife populations flourish.
They've done this on a voluntary basis. These farmers have made a
commitment to manage their property for agriculture use in harmony
with wildlife preservation, and they should be allowed to continue to
do so without regulation placed on them. Thank you. (Applause)
MR. MUDD: The next speaker is Kevin Snell, followed by Joe
Bonness.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Hold just one second.
MR. MULHERE: Just for the record again, Bob Mulhere.
There I'm not sure if there's some confusion, but I just need to say
again for the record that we are not proposing to regulate agriculture
in any of the areas.
MALE AUDIENCE MEMBER: That's nonsense.
MR. MULHERE: We are not proposing agriculture remains a
permitted use. We were going to have a full-blown presentation on
this, and we still will, in which you will hear opposing opinions as to
what the county's abilities to regulate agriculture are, and that will be
still forthcoming on Monday. But under our provision agriculture
remains a permitted use. The only time that we are proposing a
restriction on agriculture is in the sending lands and only after
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someone voluntarily transfers units off their property. Other than that
it is still permitted. So I needed to state that for the record.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Monday; right? Okay. Go ahead,
sir. For the record, state your name.
MR. SNELL: My name is Kelvin Snell, and I own some
property on Section 27, Township 47, Range 27. And my complaint
is we bought 5 acres of land in 1997. I have three kids eight, nine,
and ten boys. We anticipated on living a peaceful life in the country
life.
My intention was to raise them like I was brought up, to enjoy
life in the country. I bought this property anticipating on building a
home, and it was zoned abandoned agriculture property.
And I just I wasn't able to afford a $250,000 home nor a
hundred-thousand-dollar home, so we bought in our budget: A four-
bedroom, two-bath mobile home. Matter of fact, they're just
installing it, putting it together as we speak. And then all of a sudden
I received a rude awakening. Your land has been classified as
wetland, a whole 5 acres. So doing the house pad and the driveway
cost me an extreme amount of money.
Now the EPA is telling me one thing, and the county's saying
one thing. They said you must remove nothing on it but melaleuca
and pepper. The law says you have to remove melaleuca and pepper.
Okay. Now you remove it. Now they're saying wait a minute. That's
exotic plants. You got to pay. I have a list here with 135 different
plants that I got to plant for moving the melaleuca and pepper. Not
only that, I have to restore the the management restoration trust fund.
I have to repay this area about $3,000 to restore land which I had to
have to build up my property.
And I went and evaluated that during wet season. And the
problem was coming down Immokalee Road, exit off Rabbit Run
Road, there's a ditch where the old farmlands were that run down the
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side of the property. And when the water is high, the seeds gets in
the water, and it travels down this little ditch. And they and they
spread all over the place, and then they grow. And they come out and
look at these melaleucas and say, wow, this is wetland.
My neighbor's been there for 20 years. He said, "I remember
when it wasn't anything on this property." Now it's considered
wetland because certain vegetation is on there that I must remove.
They're now saying if I remove it, I got to repay it. Now, tell me, if
seeds get on property coming down a stream, it's automatic they're
going to germinate. And then you look at it and classify them as
wetlands, that's not right. (Applause)
MR. SNELL: And all the speakers that have spoke one
gentleman spoke about the drainage. And when you drive down
Immokalee Road, you look to the right, you look to the left, there are
certain elevations that's high, there's certain elevations that's low.
And they they have a good flowing area where it's low. When it's
high, the water cannot travel properly. So I think if we could get the
county to get on Immokalee Road and dig those sides out like they've
already in some areas, the water would have a constant flow.
In one place the culvert is stopped up. And now I'm the only
person there's only five living residents out there. And my property
is the only one you must have a extra culvert on your driveway. You
must have extra this and extra that and replace this. And my neighbor
the contractor said, "Wait a minute. Why are they doing you like
that? What is this?" They can't understand why. And I can't
understand why. Can somebody Mr. Mulhere, can you tell me what
can I do?
MR. MULHERE: Boy.
(Applause)
MR. MULHERE: It sounds like there are some some problems
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in the permitting process there. Now, that really I that really doesn't
have anything necessarily to do with what we're talking about here.
It seems to me that the state agency, I'm assuming the DEP, has has
fined you, is that what I understand you said, or they're trying to fine
you?
MR. SNELL: Yes.
MR. MULHERE: Because you impacted wetlands, because
they're alleging that you impacted wetlands. MR. SNELL: Right.
MR. MULHERE: Okay. My suggestion would be that you get
with Barbara Burgeson or Stephen Lenberger on the county staff and
I think Barbara might be here, but if not, we'll give you a contact
number and they should be able to put you in contact with the folks
that they deal with at the state to try to resolve these issues in a
manner that's acceptable to you.
MR. SNELL: And one more thing that we must be concerned
about with all the commission and everybody on the staff, sometimes
we sit back there and institute laws that really is not legit. All we
have to do we should keep this in our mind constantly, about how
that the impact the rules and regulations about the (inaudible)
department, how we sit back and instituted that, and then it came
back to haunt us.
Let not this come back to haunt us so an extreme amount of
money would have to be paid out because of ignorance.
And I do have plans on living on all 5 acres. They're telling me
I can only live on the house pad that's, like, 97 feet by 70 feet. They
say that's all you can live on and the driveway. And I'm looking back
in the back of my property and saying, "How can my kids enjoy
this?" They can't even they're not even allowed to go back there on
that. And I have you know, I have a list of stuff they just sent me
that bills and you know, it's ridiculous.
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bill?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Why don't you send them a
MR. SNELL: That's what I'm trying not to do.
(Applause)
MR. SNELL: For stuff that I worked hard for. My land, that's
the only and biggest investment that I have, and I can't even enjoy
that.
I just need you know, I need some help. I need somebody to
give me some understanding of what constitutes wetlands. Because
there is certain debris on the land?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Mr. Olliff, if you would direct
staff to get get with this gentleman to
MR. OLLIFF: Barbara raised her hand, and I believe he'll get
with Barbara, and we'll go through his particular case. And whether
it be DEP or county or South Florida Water Management District,
we'll sort it out for him.
MR. SNELL: I sure appreciate it. Thank you and may God
bless you, and I hope we all can resolve all these problems. Thank
you very much.
(Applause)
MR. MUDD:
MR. OLLIFF:
The next speaker is Joe Bonness.
Joe, I want you to follow that one. Okay?
MR. BONNESS: I'm going to have to come back again on
Monday after we hear about the rural villages. But just earlier this
week I found out about a new classification which was tossed in here
which is the neutral zone versus the sending and receiving zone. I
represent Southern Sand and Stone. We've got the quarry down on
951 in North Belle Meade. We have property in both Section 12 and
13 that is now classified as a neutral zone. My understanding of a
neutral zone is the TDRs or the units that are there have to be used in
that area. We can't send them out. We can't transfer them one way or
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the other.
This 160 acres represents 32 units. The 32 units would have to
be used on that portion of property. With the provisional use that we
have going on at this point, that 160 acres is either all designated as
preserve or as to be dug up as a rock quarry. Kind of puts us into a
position where maybe we'll have to put up a high-rise out in the
preserve to be able to use our units, because we can't transfer them
one way or the other.
Which brings up the question of, is there going to be the ability
to be able to transfer units from the rural fringe across our border into
the urban development zone? We have 400 acres that's across the
urban development line, 160 acres which is now in a neutral zone.
That kind of puts us in limbo. We can't transfer these units, and we
really can't use them there.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Mr. Mudd, would you respond to
that? Not Mr. Mudd, excuse me. Mr. Mulhere. No. Let's give Mr.
Mudd a chance.
MR. MULHERE: I understand there will be several individuals
who will speak regarding the issue related to what Tim Hancock
raised relative to the ability to transfer units from an area that is in the
rural lands into an area that's in the urban area in a manner that would
protect the highest value of natural resources. And we're certainly
willing to to meet with with Mr. Yovanovich, and and anybody else
that has any concern, to try to take a look at that. It's sort of a hybrid
of density blending. And, again and I think, you know, there's some
application there.
So if I understand correctly, the issue is that you've got some
neutral lands here that you can't transfer units out of, but it would
make sense that if if there was an ability to transfer some of those
some or all of those units into the urban area in close proximity to
that that rural sending designation that's just adjacent to the urban
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area. We're willing to take a look at that, and we'll try to do that
before Monday.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Are these credits that are already
that would be existing?
MR. MULHERE: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: And by transferring having another
place to transfer them, the ones that are left back there, that would put
more of a demand on them and more of a value if you were able to do
that; is that correct?
MR. MULHERE: I think that is correct.
MR. BONNESS: Whereas, the way it is right now, the 32
credits have to be used on that 160 acres, but the 160 acres would not
be able to support it.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: It makes sense to me, sir, and I'd like
to hear the
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Mr. Bonness, the property that
you're talking about right now of transferring it, you're you're
excavating that land?
MR. BONNESS: Yeah. And it you know, we have 540 acres
there. 160 acres is off the urban development zone. The other
acreage is inside the urban area.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: So you won't be able to use
those units on that because, like you stated, you're excavating on it;
correct?
MR. BONNESS: Yeah. It's either being excavated, or we have
already set it up as a habitat preserve.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Then there's no value to the units
there.
MR. BONNESS: No. We still have the unit value on it, even
though it's put into conservation easements. The intent was to be able
to transfer them onto the other area that's inside the urban
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development line, which we probably could have done prior to the
Bush moratorium.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Stick around. This isn't over yet.
MR. MUDD: The next speaker is Oaness Arthur Pritzker.
MR. PRITZKER: I'm going to waive till Monday.
MR. MUDD: Monday? Next speaker is Tony Migliazzo,
followed by Bill Lhota.
MR. MIGLIAZZO: Everybody hear me okay? Good. I have a
question for the committee and counselors, Audubon Society. Who
owns land in this rural fringe area that's going to be affected by this?
Can anybody raise their hand? No. I'm saying council members that
works for the county. Nobody. Interesting.
Has anybody decided to contact any of the banks or financial
institutes (sic) that have mortgages that are holding the paper on all
this property that's going to be affected? These are questions that I
want my county commissioners to ask for me.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Well, we got staff that will answer
we're going to get an answer you won't believe. Mr. Mulhere.
MR. MULHERE: Well, we didn't we didn't contact any of the
banks. We obviously had an economic analysis of the transfer of
development rights process by Dr. Nicholas. We also have some
bankers on the Rural Fringe Advisory Committee at least one that I
know of on the Rural Fringe Advisory Committee. So
MR. MIGLIAZZO: I guess my question is, Mr. Mulhere, has
anybody let the banks know that they're holding paper on property
that may be deemed useless by the wave of the magic wand?
MR. MULHERE: Well, I mean, I guess you have to make your
comments. And, you know, I I mean, I couldn't agree that they'd be
deemed useless. But, I mean, you have to I mean, you just have to
make your comments.
MR. MIGLIAZZO: Okay. I'll quote you then, "some economic
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value." It's just a question. That's all I'm asking. My other question
is, when did The Conservancy start calling the shots? The last check
I sent in for
(Applause)
MR. MIGLIAZZO: My property tax checks I sent in, they were
addressed to the Collier County Tax Collector. I was pretty sure of
that.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: This process, sir, is open to
everyone, and I wouldn't say they're calling the shots. We're here
today. And I'm listening to you, and I'm listening very clearly to
what you're saying. I don't The Conservancy and all the other
entities out there, they play into this. But, believe me, you're
important your issue is very important to me and the rest of the
commissioners. They are not calling the shots.
MR. MIGLIAZZO: Okay. I must have been misinformed by
the newspaper.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Very much misinformed, sir.
MR. MIGLIAZZO: The Conservancy cut a deal with the East
Naples Land Company.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: They possibly did, but you're talking
about me as a commissioner. They're not calling the shots. My vote
is my own, and I will vote as I see fit. The Conservancy won't
whisper in this ear, and the developers won't whisper in the other ear.
Sir, I'm listening to you. I'll listen to them and everyone else. MR. MIGLIAZZO: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: This has not been predetermined.
Understand that now.
MR. MIGLIAZZO: I knew there was a reason why I voted for
yOU.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you.
(Applause)
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February 27, 2002
MR. MIGLIAZZO: My next statement is to Mrs. Payton and
Mr. Comell. If you want this land so bad, get a job and buy it like we
did.
(Applause)
MR. MIGLIAZZO: It costs money to acquire land. Thank you,
Mrs. Payton. I'm glad to see you responded to that.
My other question is, is that everybody wants wetlands,
everybody needs uplands. The state just bought a bunch of uplands
in the south blocks, didn't they? Where are the animals going to go
to? To all these new uplands that they purchased. We complain
about development and how bad it is. We forget being a resident of
Golden Gate Estates for 30 years has anybody been here for 30 years
to see what it looked like? Pretty flat. Development created one nice
preserve out there, so all development isn't bad. That's about all I
have to say. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you.
(Applause)
MR. MUDD: Next speaker is Bill Lhota, followed by Karol
Montalto.
FEMALE AUDIENCE MEMBER: She defers till Monday.
MR. MUDD: Okay. And that brings us back to two speakers
that we had before, which was Julian Stokes and Tim Hancock.
You're up, sir.
MR. LHOTA: My name is Bill Lhota, and I'm speaking for
myself and also as vice president of the Property Rights Action
Committee. And I'm talking to you commissioners today, and I want
to bring up four points to ask you to consider very carefully four
points before you make your vote. Number one, where is the
constitutional authority in the United States Constitution or the
Florida Constitution that empowers the government to adopt and
enforce a program such as a TDR?
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February 27, 2002
Number two, consider the injustice to property owners in the
sending areas who have their property rights infringed and
investment tied up until someone in a receiving area decides to
purchase their development rights. There is no guarantee that this
will ever happen, only a guarantee that the property of those who are
unlucky enough to be in a sending area will have their property rights
tied up until it does. Meantime, they sit with devalued land.
Number three, consider the fallout of the program against the
taxpayers of Collier County who have become who become potential
targets of litigation brought about under the Bert Harris Act by these
property owners who are adversely affected.
Number four, this program is riddled with ambiguities,
inconsistencies, uncertainties, and certainly injustice. And if I were
in your position, I would feel morally obligated to vote against it.
Thank you.
(Applause)
MR. MUDD: Commissioner, that basically covers all the
people that that have (sic) already spoken. And there's two repeats,
but they're representatives of different landowners than than the first
time that they talked.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: All right. Mr. Mudd, why don't we
let them go ahead.
MR. MUDD: Okay. The next speaker is Julian Stokes,
followed by Tim Hancock.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Mr. Chairman, before they
they get up, I must go get ready to travel to Orlando, but I do have a
question myself. I know the committee did a lot of work on looking
at what is sensitive areas and what is areas that can accept some kind
of development, quite a number of hours, and also listened to the
TDR process. The question is you got equal areas of receiving and
sending lands. Why why not develop a program to where if you
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want to develop on the receiving areas, buy the land in a sending
area? In other words, buy that property in the sensitive areas instead
of the TDR process.
MR. MULHERE: I don't think there's any reason why that that
program couldn't work, but the rationale behind this was that you did
not have to purchase the full the full value you didn't have to expend
the full value of the cost of the property. There would be residual
value. There would be
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Let him finish.
MR. MULHERE: In order to purchase the TDR, you do not
have to expend the full value of the property. There would be some
residual use. And also, a lot of property owners expressed a desire to
be able to keep the property in a fee simple format after they would
be able to transfer their units, so that was the rationale behind that. I
don't think there's anything that would preclude once the residential
development rights had been moved off the piece of property the
property owner still selling it either for conservation purpose or
leasing it for unimproved pasture. Mitigation would be a strong
market. So that was the reason. There was an opportunity for for
the property owner to retain some additional value after the transfer
of the residential development rights. In fact, they can build a house
and live there if they choose to.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: So if they were already living there
they've got this property, and it's 5 acres or 20 acres
MR. MULHERE: Correct.
COMMISSIONER FIALA:
MR. MULHERE: Correct.
COMMISSIONER FIALA:
and they have their house there
Or 50.
Or 50 and their cattle are walking
around, and and they even have some pigs and chickens. Okay.
Fine. Now they have these transfer of development rights that they
are able to sell.
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February 27, 2002
MR. MULHERE: Correct.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And they do, so they've made an
extra, I don't know, $18,000 per unit; right?
MR. MULHERE: Presumably more than that over time, yes.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Presumably. But they can still stay
in their house
MR. MULHERE: Yes.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: and their cattle can still roam
around
MR. MULHERE: Yes.
COMMISSIONER FIALA:
there, and they don't have to move; right?
MR. MULHERE: Well, they don't have to move.
live in their house, yes.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. So they still so they have
their property. They're still living on it. They've just gotten a bunch
of money for selling the rights that they would have had on this big
piece of property
MR. MULHERE: Development rights.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: if they ever wanted to
MR. MULHERE: Residential development rights.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Right. Okay.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Commissioner, I don't if you
take a look at the value per unit and how many acres it takes to get a
unit, 5 acres, it's not a lot of money. And my concern is this is
another government program to not compensate the people for their
fair market of their property.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: But they're not selling their
property.
(Applause)
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And, again, we're talking $18
and their chickens and pigs are still
They can still
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February 27, 2002
$18,000 per unit for TDR. Go out there in Collier County and buy 5
acres for $18,000.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: But I'm saying they're not selling
their property. What I'm talking about is the person who's staying
there, still has their house, still has their their cows, and they I think
some people were under the impression that they were going to then
have to move off of their property and couldn't use their property any
longer.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: It's a limited use. Just like Mr.
Mulhere said, you could use it for pasture lands. But if' your cows
die, you cannot take and plant orange trees.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Right. But you can bring more
cows on there. Right. But you can't plant orange trees. What they're
saying is, in essence, and what I'm talking about, is just this one
particular scenario, if you will, and that is you own 20 acres. And
I've had a couple people suggest that possibly they were going to be
forced off of their acreage. No, no, no. You're not going to be forced
to move. You can still have your cows there, and you can still live in
your house.
Well, I'll be forced to get off of there when the plan goes
through. You're not you don't have to ever leave. You don't even
have to sell your TDRs. You can just stay there because you're there.
That's if you want to sell these TDRs and and still stay on your
property, as long as you don't then plant a farm or a citrus grove, you
can just do your thing.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Well, you're both right. If I may add
something, what you're not looking at is the the picture is the
uncertainty of what's happening at this point in time. There needs to
be certainty as far as the value goes and what's happening. You're
going to have to feel comfortable with the fact that if you do this, that
everybody is unquestionably going to be better off. And we have to
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February 27, 2002
hear that point, and they're going to be able to show us that. They
haven't yet.
Commissioner Henning brought up a good point, and one
gentleman made the point over here. If you want the land so much,
why don't you buy it? And that's a very good comment. And so you
have to make sure that this thing is put together, if you're going to be
able to get it together, in such a way that those development rights are
going to be right off the book to begin with and going to have a value
way over and above it, or else it's never going to work. And I don't
know where that guarantee is yet. I don't think we've reached that
level of of exploring all the options, but we haven't heard the whole
program.
The reason we got so such a short time today for the actual
program and the presentations was because we had so many speakers,
and I absolutely insisted that we roll everything back to allow for all
the speakers to be able to speak. So we weren't able to get into what
we needed as far as the program goes, the background that we need to
be able to discuss this intelligently. I'll be honest with you. I gave all
the commissioners tapes from the Planning Commission, and I hope
they viewed all 12 hours of them. I know I did. I can't say it was the
most interesting meeting I've ever listened to in my life, but I still
have a lot more questions. And I'm looking forward to everybody's
input on Monday. And I want you to keep your patience for the rest
of the meeting. I'm leaving with Commissioner Henning, but we're
not riding in the same car. Sunshine.
MR. MUDD: Commissioner, we are done with all the speakers.
Everybody that was left
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You can return to the program if
you'd like.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Except for we don't have a
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February 27, 2002
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: We have three commissioners. We
can continue.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: We need a chairman.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA' In that case okay. This meeting will
be continued on Monday. Adjourned.
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February 27, 2002
There being no further business for the good of the County, the
meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 2:44 p.m.
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX
OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF
SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS
CONTROL
JAMES N. COLETTA, CHAIRMAN
S"i' "'":'"~lI. .
~ese m~nutes approved by the Board on
as presented ~ or as co~ected
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT
REPORTING, INC., BY LINDA SULLIVAN AND BARBARA
DRESCHER, NOTARIES PUBLIC
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