CCPC Minutes 04/24/2002 RApril 24, 2002
TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE
COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
Naples, Florida, April 24, 2002
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Collier County
Planning Commission in and for the County of Collier, having
conducted business herein, met on this date at 5:05 p.m. In
REGULAR SESSION in THE COLLIER COUNTY MUSEUM,
East Naples, Florida, with the following members present:
CHAIRMAN:
Ken Abemathy
Frank J. Fry
Paul Midney
Mark P. Strain
David J. Wolfley
Lora Jean Young
NOT PRESENT:
Lindy Adelstein
Russell Budd
Dwight Richardson
ALSO PRESENT:
Susan Murray, Chief Planner, Planning Services
Marjorie Student, Assistant County Attorney
Patrick White, Asst. County Attorney
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April 24, 2002
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I'd like to call to order the
April 24 meeting of the Collier County Planning Commission to
discuss -- consider amendments to the Land Development Code. The
first order of business is to take the roll.
MS. MURRAY: Fry?
COMMISSIONER FRY: Here.
MS. MURRAY: Midney?
COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Here.
MS. MURRAY: Adelstein is absent. Budd is absent.
Abernathy?
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Here.
MS. MURRAY: Young?
COMMISSIONER YOUNG: Here.
MS. MURRAY: Mr. Richardson is absent.
Wolfley?
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Here.
MS. MURRAY: Strain?
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Here.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I think we have several
announcements to make. Who wants to lead off?.
MR. SCHMIDT: For the record, Joe Schmidt, administrator for
the Community Development and Environmental Services.
You all received a notification that one of the issues we were
going to discuss is Item 3.1.6, which is already in your packet, page
58, Adequate Public Facilities. We received a legal opinion, and I'll
have -- Patrick is the assistant county attorney and Norm Feder will
probably expound upon this as well, but we've pretty much
determined that we cannot amend the LDC until we go back and
amend the Growth Management Plan, and we would have placed the
board in a position where they would have had no other choice but to
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rule that the amendment is inconsistent with the Growth Management
Plan, which would have, frankly, nullified everything.
Our proposal is -- we're going to the concurrency issue. We will
bring that before the Planning Commission -- we're looking in
August, with the projected date of going before the board in
September.
And with that, Patrick, if you could explain from a legal
sufficiency issue where we're at.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Briefly.
MR. WHITE: Patrick White, assistant county attorney. One --
the statutory function that CCPC performs is, as the local planning
agency, the LPA. And their statutory duty is to find if the land
development regulations are LDC-consistent or not with the
comprehensive plan. As Mr. Schmidt has indicated, there are
provisions in there that propel the amendment forwards or that move
them for adoption of the LDC provisions, and that's the legal reason.
MR. SCHMIDT: What I'd like to do is to have Norman kind of
give an overview of what really 1.3.1.5 amendments we're going to
do. If you have any questions, we certainly appreciate your input. I
know you've put a lot of work into this. It would help us, as we go
through the amendment process, to get feedback with your notes. We
can do that on an individual -- or you can individually call one of us
and meet with us to review your comments.
With that, we'll start with Norman. He'll give you an idea of
where we're going with this.
MR. FEDER: Thank you. For the record, Norman Feder,
Transportation Administrator. What I want to tell you is, we, as your
staff that have been here in many, many cases about a year and a half
in transportation, looked to where we were, how we were proceeding
on our issues of concurrency, our planning for transportation and our
growth process. It's quite clear to us that we need to make some
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change.
We raised issues back on your county commissioners meeting in
April of last year. None of those items that we presented, along with
the five-year work program, are issues you are starting to see come to
fruition here. But what became very obvious to us when we started
to change the Land Development Code is, the nature of the changes
that were required were so significant that they ended up in conflict
with some of the many projects we have in our Growth Management
Plan.
Since the implementation of the management plan, we found
ourselves out in front of the process rather than to come to you in
parallel with that Growth Management update, as was identified by
Mr. Schmidt, and have the transportation provisions, the concurrency
provisions, if you will, both in the Growth Management Plan and in
the Land Development Code itself come together.
What I'm here to tell you today, though, is we have not done
anything, and I want to give you an idea of where we're going. What
-- I characterize what we're facing -- you have your cup out there, and
you take a nice big pitcher full of water. We enjoyed quite a few
years where we could pour water out of the pitcher quickly at the
present available capacity. As we've gone along these four or five
years, growth has been fast enough that we've had to back up, and
now I'm trying to find out whether I can get the thimble to catch the
drops before it falls over the edge.
And that's essentially where we are in our capacity. We're
looking at a system, though, that in the past said, I go 90, 100 miles
an hour up to the intersection, and then once I get to the intersection -
- I saw the light was red for quite a while -- I slam on the brakes and I
wonder why I went through the intersection. Hopefully I didn't get
clobbered by somebody else.
Instead, what I'm trying -- we need a process just looking at it --
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I start approaching that intersection knowing that the light is red, then
we start applying the brakes and we can pump the brakes; hopefully,
we can start slowing down. We don't stop everything. I'm not going
to stop a half-mile ahead of the intersection, but at the same time, I
don't want to go sliding through it.
So what I'm going to pass out to you is an approach that is still
in development, okay, and I need to make that very clear to you:
We're still trying to develop it. But I wanted to share it with you
folks. It's the first that this is basically getting out into a very small
circle of folks, because I realize the issue and the importance this
places on the community, and rightfully so, but at the same time, we
want to make sure that we understand what we're dealing with to a
degree, and then we also want to get out of there in time for you, for
other bodies and, obviously, to our county commissioners to give us
plenty of input on how we approach it.
So essentially what we're trying to do is get away from the
process, like I said, of getting up to the intersection before we apply
the brakes. What we're evaluating there -- and I'll give you a quick
synopsis.
Essentially, what you're showing is that checkbook balance
we've been talking about, which is essentially looking at the capacity
of an individual segment of roadway in the county based on its
adopted level of service. Basically DEO on the roads here in the
county, looking at what that segment can capacitate versus what is
the traffic out there today based on traffic counts and an update of
that.
Where are we today on traffic on the facilities? Well, what has
been submitted? And this is a very interesting discussion. We've
heard all kinds of statements about what you should consider in this,
and the fact of the matter is, when somebody gets a PUD or a
rezoning -- PUD is a type of rezoning, straight within rezoning, and
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then a subset is PUD -- that does not vest them or should not vest
them, and that needs to be clear in our Growth Management Plan, to
any specific rights. But rather, once they get an adequate public
facility, it's been determined at the time of a primary site plan for
residential, because after that, those locks are individual locks, or at
the time, STP for a commercial.
At that time, they come in and there's a determination that, in
fact, there is adequate public facilities to proceed at this time. At that
point, someone receives an adequate public facility pass permit, as
I'm referring to it here in the checkbook. Once they get their CO and
actually occupy the facility, they go from being counted under the
graph count to background traffic. So that group of development
that's in between having gotten its adequate public facilities
commitment and actually having the traffic on the system needs to be
added in that factor.
The last, when a development comes in asking for approval for
an adequate public facility is, what projected traffic are they going to
add to the various leaks on the system.
So, in that particular segment of the system, you take together
those three I said: Traffic that's out there today, the traffic that's
already been approved by adequate public facilities but not out there
yet today, and that traffic that is being requested to gain adequate
public facility certification.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Norm, as I understood you,
there's a -- if you're going to use a checkbook analogy, it would seem
to me you would subtract at the time you gave the adequate public
facilities.
MR. FEDER: Correct.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I thought you said --
MR. FEDER: But I also said you have to acknowledge if you
subtract it there, once the CO comes in and that traffic is actually on
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the system.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: You don't subtract it again?
MR. FEDER: No. It's part of the background traffic because
you'll continue to do traffic counts, so you don't want to double-count
it. You don't want to ignore it, as has been done.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: But do you initially subtract
from the checkbook?
MR. FEDER: Yes. All the adequate facilities not yet CO'd. In
other words, the impact isn't there yet until they're CO'd and what's
being requested to be given a certificate of adequate public facility.
The projected traffic requesting, once those prior adequate public
facilities certificates are cashed in, the CO issued, they become part
of that background traffic, so you don't want to keep counting them
twice. So that's basically, in essence, the checkbook.
Unfortunately, what I'm here to tell you is, I inherited a nice
opportunity, as did your current Board of County Commissioners, as
did an awful lot of people in this room. And that is, we're bankrupt.
We, basically, are in a situation now -- as I said, in pouring that
water, I'm back down to that thimble approach as opposed to using
the pitcher. So what we're trying to do is go through a very
aggressive reconstruction program to reestablish some capacity to
respond to what we've already approved. So, in many respects, when
we go to apply this system, we probably need to acknowledge that
when you basically have so many bounced checks at the bank, you
basically square things up and then you open up a new bank account
and you start working from there. And that's, in many respects, what
we're going to probably have to do and use just this checkbook
system and make sure we're doing it right.
We also needed to get those facilities built, the 29 segments you
heard me talk about in our five-year work program, basically to catch
up with what has already been approved if nothing new is approved
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today. So we have more being -- coming on. We have a fifth year
coming to our system later this year, and we keep a five-year
program of the project, so we move forward. But this will give us an
idea what would we have today. So as I said, I don't want to skid
through the intersection. I want to apply the brakes before I'm
already there.
So what you have in front of you, and hopefully the folks in the
audience as well, is a way to try to get a planning approach; which is
to say, as I start utilizing my capacity, as I start pouring that water
into the pitcher and I end up three-quarters of the way full, it's easy to
keep pouring from the pitcher at that point. Once I get to that point,
if I don't have another glass that I can shift over to empty out of the
pitcher in order for new capacity coming on, new project coming on
line, then I need to start closing down. I need to start backing it off.
And that's, in essence, what we're saying is, essentially it's 75 percent
of the capacity of that segment used up by what is out there today,
what is adequate public, certified and what is requested.
If I look across there, and in five years I can see if I have a
project in the five-year work program for construction, I can proceed
with that project, understanding that's only bringing me to 75 percent
of my segment capacity, because I have a project coming on later
that's going to add capacity to this segment, to this facility. But if I
have no project, we're saying that that's going to go into a backlog
status.
And let me speak to that as generally as I can, because we're still
working on those particular provisions. And we obviously welcome
any thoughts you have as recommendations.
Essentially, as you go up, if in fact this segment I could handle -
- and I know this isn't a correct figure, folks, but 10,000 vehicles. I'll
make it easy on myself. Ten thousand vehicles. I already have 6,000
out there on the road. I've already committed another 1500, right?
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I'm at 75 percent, and the project comes, and that's going to add
another 500 trips, bringing me up to 80 percent of my capacity. Then
I'm saying that unless I have a project within the first four years of
my work program for construction that we start establishing as a
backlog facility and, in effect, metering what the growth will allow to
allow projects to come forward and add that capacity, because there
will be other projects coming along and demanding to move forward.
Again, as you go up the scale here, you get the feel for it. Once
I end up at the intersection, time to apply the brakes is very, very
little. We're saying right here that unless it's under construction,
you're in a backlog debit situation.
And what I haven't hit on yet, if it's not in that first two years
after that program there and we've got it at 100 percent capacity, then
you're in a di minimus situation. And that one, I can tell you, is
essentially single families can go anything up to 1 percent impact on
that segment of roadway. So major development, if they're going to
impact that segment of roadway, are going do have to choose some
other options, helping to advance the project, modifications to add
capacity, improvements to a parallel roadway, maybe, whatever it
takes. But 1 percent would be di minimus.
So we see those X's over in the upper left-hand side as you go
through this table. That's what we're talking about. At that point you
are only allowing di minimus growth to impact that segment of
roadway because its capacity is so used. I'm down to the humble
folks. I'm squeezing the thimble.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: And you're dancing along the
edge of a moratorium without quite getting there.
MR. FEDER: In some cases, you may be. And if you don't
have anything coming, then you're going to be in a constraint status.
We talked about that. But even under a moratorium, you're going to
probably allow some level of di minimus growth. So if you want to
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use that terminology, I'll use the terminology, "di minimus." As
we're working through it, I wanted you to know the impact that we
needed to pull back the three that you have written, because I'm
talking about Land Development Code issues that aren't even actually
in there yet, because that was a draft that came out earlier and that
already are in conflict with my Growth Management Plan. I need to
change the Growth Management Plan at the same time we change the
Land Development Code, and we come up with how we're going to
implement it, which is both a checkbook, and some of that's being
refined, and the nature of this process and its refinement to hopefully
having something that doesn't just contain the first three years or only
the first year or only count it if it's completed. What we're saying is,
allow the development to continue growing and even end up at 90
percent and actually end up all the way exceeded and say, aha, now
I've got to apply my brakes. That isn't going to do it. We have to
have a system that lets us look at it and says, I better pump the brake
before the intersection.
COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: How do you determine what the
acceptable standard is and where would some roads be acceptable as
standard D, other roads C, D and other roads C?
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: We don't have anything now as
C, D and E as our standard. Most of them are moving to E from --
mostly that will then -- those are designated D. Unfortunately, D and
E and F are failure. Such a thin line. Okay. You can get a little bit
of additional capacity out of E, but not a lot more than you do out of
a D. But to answer your question, that's a decision by the board as to
what the community wants, realistically. Right now, we're striving to
try and catch up to basically a D and E standard, and we're still
behind. So if you -- if you're asking should we try to get to a C, let's
get to D and E, and then let's talk about it.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I have a series of questions.
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If we're going to have it in August, I'll get together with you at some
point.
MR. FEDER: Anytime you'd like to. What I'm going to do is to
try some things we haven't determined yet; a backlog situation, how
much growth we're going to allow. The state has a system, but I'm
not sure that that's not too liberal, so we want to start taking
something like this and apply it to the system, look at implications.
You get all that out in front of everything.
What I want to tell you -- one thing I want to leave you with
today is not necessarily they're in granite. It says "draft" on the
bottom. It means it. It is, rather, an approach that is going to say we
start, basically, pumping the brakes before we get to the intersection.
We start slowing down. We give ourselves the chance to pump the
brakes, maybe not have to make a full stop. We come there, and we
slow down enough that when the light turns green, we keep on going,
because other projects come forward, and that's the ideal situation --
circumstance, okay.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any other questions for
Mr. Feder?
(No response)
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Thank you very much.
MR. FEDER: Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Okay, Susan.
MS. STUDENT: For the record, Marjorie Student, assistant
county attorney. Since we're over here, there were -- sign-up sheets, I
guess, were not brought over, and I provided a legal sheet in the back
with a place for people to sign up.
And I think the best thing to do is, after -- a place to put their
name, address and the item. And after everybody's had an
opportunity to sign up, usually I -- at the meetings I end up calling
people, and I'll be glad to do that. Then if there's anybody else that
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hasn't had a chance to sign up, we can ask if anybody else would like
to speak that didn't sign up. But I wanted to put that on the record.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Thank you, Marjorie.
Susan?
MS. MURRAY: Susan Murray. I'm the interim director of the
Planning Services Department. We got off a little bit different than
we usually did, but for the audience's benefit and for the planning
commission as well, this is our first of two scheduled public hearings
to hear the first cycle of 2002 of the Land Development Code
amendments. The second hearing will be held-- and final hearing in
front of the planning commission will be held on May 8th, and that
will be in the boardroom in the regularly scheduled meeting room
there. And then these items will be heard by the Board of County
Commissioners May 29th at 5:05 p.m also in the board chambers.
And their final public hearing will be June 19th at 5:05 p.m., also in
the boardroom.
Tonight's meeting -- generally you all don't take a vote. We go
over the amendments. You can see them and will provide input. We
may or may not make changes to the amendments. We bring them
back to you at the next regularly scheduled meeting, and that's
normally when you take your vote. We normally work off the
summary sheet, which is the third page in your document. That is a
summary of all of the amendments tonight. And for the benefit of the
public, there's extra copies of these on that back table as well as one
additional handout.
So the first 1 through 5 -- six pages are a summary of everything
that's in the packet. We work normally from the handwritten sheets
on the bottom -- handwritten page numbers on the bottom sheets after
the summary sheet.
On the summary sheet, you can see all of the recommendations
if the amendment went before the EAC and the DSAC subcommittee
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and the DSAC themselves. All the recommendations of their votes
are listed there, as well as yours will be after the second meeting.
Normally we take them in order, Mr. Chairman, but I know if
there's members of the audience here to speak on a particular issue,
sometimes you're willing to take them out of order. And I do know
of a couple that I could suggest, if you'd like.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I had thought that adequate
public facilities that we just heard about would be the most
interesting -- most interesting to the most people. Next to that, I
thought the coastal construction setback line permit on Page 56 might
be worth addressing. I don't know how many people are here to talk
about that. At least one.
What are your other--
MS. MURRAY: The coastal construction setback line was -- I
was to going to suggest you take next, and then the issue with the
wells. And that's on -- on Page 42. So if we want to start with Page
56 first. And for the benefit of the court reporter, if you'll speak up
and also give your name for the record, so -- obviously there's no
microphones here, so--
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Let me ask before we go beyond
those two, is there a group of you here that are all interested in a
particular item? We'll try to accelerate it if you tell us what it is.
(No response)
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Okay. Well, we'll just -- yes,
Mr. Grant?
MR. GRANT: It's on that page -- I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman. I
raised my hand. Page 5. Section 3.3.5.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Site Development and -- yes. I
thought that would be interesting. Let's make that the third item,
then.
MR. GREEN: Thank you.
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CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY:
ma'am?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:
new handout.
COMMISSIONER MIDNEY:
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY:
work it in.
One sitting in the back. Yes,
I'm here for 3.3.5 as well as the
Six, seven.
Okay. That's new to us. So we'll
Let's get back to CCSL then and get that first.
MS. BURGESON: Barbara Burgeson with
Planning Services. This amendment is twofold. It's an amendment
requesting two changes to the coastal construction setback line
division of the Land Development Code. We're asking for two items:
One, to allow some minimal use of lawn beyond the CCSR for
single-family homes to permit pavers, decks, shell line and lawn and
nonnative species.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Page 56 and 57.
MS. BURGESON: And the second is to add an addition of a
200-foot minimum situation between dune walkovers to allow for the
CCS permit.
Let me just go over that briefly, the recommendations from the
EAC. And that was to approve with a motion of 6 to 0 with the
removal of section 313.8.3 through 313.8.3.4, which has additional
language to allow the use of decks, pavers, and nonnative vegetation
beyond the CCSL.
The Development Services Advisory Committee final motion on
this was approved 6 to 5, with the same recommendation as the EAR,
to approve the first portion on the 200-foot separation for the
walkovers and to complete the second portion of that amendment.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Which -- point 4 is already gone
by.
MS. BURGESON: We had a 313.8.3.2. We had broken that
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down, actually, to two separate items, and a recommendation the first
time at the Development Services Advisory Committee was to
combine that to one. It made more sense.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: So we're left with the pavers
and whatnot?
MS. BURGESON: Right. Just to give you a little bit of history
and background, it's not as easy to do with water overhead, but these
first set of pictures are The Strands, which is up at Pelican Bay. The
red line on that copy represents the CCSL line, and everything
beyond the CCSL line in this aerial -- everything seaward of the
CCSL line is along this stretch of single-family homes, where the
majority is existing fairly pristine dune and strand vegetation. The
proposal was to allow some minimal use beyond the homes.
All of those homes chose to build the houses at maximum right
up to the edge of their property for the build able area, and they --
well, at the time, they knew that they couldn't do anything beyond
that except keep that or restore that as dune vegetation.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: This is The Strand at
Bay Colony?
MS. BURGESON: Right. That's right. And we've had a couple
come in and request some leniency to allow some usable lawn area.
There are a couple that are in violation. One of the things we were
asked to do is consider minimal impacts to the dune to allow that
minimal use of lawn to that area, so we came up with a 15-foot
proposal to allow 15 feet beyond that line to be impacted and used for
the combination of either nonnative lawn or pavers or deck in that
area.
I wanted to show you the difference -- back to The Strands.
There are two systems that this variance would effect. One is Lely
Barefoot Beach, and the second is The Strand you just looked at.
These are examples. Lely Barefoot Beach-- the first --just so you
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can recognize, they have what we call a coastal construction
development limit line. That line jogs out to accommodate two
single-family homes at the end of each of those cul-de-sac roads to go
out further than the line, which originally had gone straight along the
beach there. This is one of the many common areas. It is the only
one that has not impacted the native vegetation, and that is what the
code requires. This is an example of what is actually out there.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: This is the first --
MS. BURGESON: This shows the native vegetation beyond the
line. It has, in most cases, been removed and replaced with sod, and
then these are photos actually taken on the parcels. So you can see
the difference. And this shows -- I'm sorry. For the audience, if you
want, I could turn it around.
This shows that line and how it jogs. The pools and the
common areas here are supposed to have no sod in front. A lot of
them have come forward with sod. This amendment does not allow
that to happen. They -- they, through code enforcement, will be
required to remove that or restore this. Those only allow some area
in front of that and where they've gone farther, again, they may have
to restore that.
One thing to keep in mind is that this aerial was taken before a
fairly large restoration project went through at Lely Barefoot Beach
recently, so a good portion of this has been restored. And that area
that's impacted with sod or nonnative is much smaller than what you
see here. The storm that went through about six or eight months ago
or maybe longer, they lost a great deal of that dune area there. It was
washed back up to the homes, so they had to recreate and move some
of that sand back.
Homes that are on the far end next to Steve, it's hard to see, but
this area here was not impacted. That's all the dune strands
vegetation that was left, as it should have been, in comparison to
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April 24, 2002
what was done on some of the other structures of that shoreline.
So our proposal here is to minimize the impacts and allow the
single-family homes a 15-foot swatch in front of the homes and to
also put in the minimum separation on the CCSL walkovers. That's
to minimize the impacts to the dunes and the native vegetation that
can occur when you're putting in more of those structures along the
beach than we feel is necessary.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: You put pavers, decks, shell,
lawn and nonnative coastal plant species all lined up in sort of the
same order of magnitude. A lawn is not less pernicious than pavers
and decks?
MS. BURGESON: Well, if you see in 3.8.3.2, we're saying that
the distance not exceed 15 feet and no more than 50 percent of that
area consists of pavers and deck. So we're saying that the structural
component there has more of an impact to keeping that area or
allowing that area to hold the sand or provide some protection.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: But there's that range with lawn
as far as you're concerned.
MS. BURGESON: That's why we're minimizing it to keep it to
15 feet.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: As far as 15 feet, it can be all
lawn?
MS. BURGESON: That would be fine, uh-huh.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: But lawn in front of the
swimming pools and common areas has to be taken out, because it
was not a part of this provision.
MS. BURGESON: That's right. And the reason for that is, the
single-family homes have no common yard area in front of their
homes, and those common areas around the pool have a large area of
lawn already. Usually a little bit more landward of the pool so that
it's not a concern they don't have lawn to use.
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April 24, 2002
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Where does the lawn go
coastwise? Does it go to the dune line or somewhere short of that?
MS. BURGESON: That's hard to say, because it goes beyond
what was the dune line more than a decade ago.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY:
MS. BURGESON: The lawn?
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY:
Is it better than nothing?
Yeah.
MS. BURGESON: The lawn is not as good as native
vegetation, which would be the most beneficial.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: If they have to rip up the lawn,
they have to replace it with --
MS. BURGESON: Restore it with native dune vegetation,
which is -- by our Land Development Code, the only thing we've
permitted up to now for anyone to do is to come in for a permit to
recreate and restore the native land vegetation.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I don't see the rational for the
pavers, myself, putting them out there where they become hazards or
whatever.
MS. BURGESON: These were requested by the single-family
homeowners and proposed to the board.
COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: So they're the ones -- the
homeowners in this area are asking us to allow them 15 feet of grass,
of lawn?
MS. BURGESON: They actually had come in with proposals
for far more than that, and we're trying to minimize it.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Was the CCS line moved before
they built their homes? Is that what caused their backyards to be --
MS. BURGESON: No. They chose -- they went into
construction to build the homes up to that line to maximize the area
that they could construct their homes.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: That's what I thought. They
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April 24, 2002
could have built back farther from the line and had 15 feet on the
right side of the line and not had to encroach on the public property
piece of the line.
MS. BURGESON: Actually, they own the property beyond the
line, but as a part of that PUD, everything beyond that line is
supposed to be -- or originally was proposed to be maintained as
existing native dune.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Does it need to be put in the form
of a variance?
MS. BURGESON: I guess that's a question of the
PUD --
MS. STUDENT: If the PUD had a required --
MS. BURGESON: If the PUD has nothing in that language to
permit nonnative vegetation beyond this line,do we need to have a
PUD amended as well?
MS. STUDENT: Well, you could get -- you could get a
variance, because where the PUD is silent, the Land Development
Code controls. So --
MS. BURGESON: As opposed to this being under a permit,
then, it should be under a variance.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I thought she just said, according
to the PUD, they couldn't go beyond the CCS line. If that's the case,
wouldn't that PUD need to be amended?
MS. STUDENT: I'm sorry. I'm used to standing at a podium.
Yes. There is a provision in the PUD -- the PUD could either be
amended or could obtain a variance.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Do we know that before we go
further with this particular LTC amendment? If we go forward with
this and this is required in the PUD and we --
MS. STUDENT: That is an isolated example, then.
MS. BURGESON: There are two areas that this will affect in
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April 24, 2002
Collier County because this addresses just single-family homes on
the beach: Lely Barefoot Beach and The Strand.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: The Strand's a PUD, right?
MS. STUDENT: The simpler thing would be, you know, to
amend -- well, the -- what I'm saying is, doing it with the variance
would be to amend the PUD, and there's a -- at the PUD, there's a
little less exposure there, as long as there's a good public health
reason to do so.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Wouldn't it be more appropriate
not to hear this without looking at the PUD first and determine if it
should be addressed that way? But if this (inaudible) can still have
an objection it to, then we still have to go back to the PUD anyway.
MS. STUDENT: Well, there's some issues, too, about amending
PUDs and who amends them. There's case law in Florida that
indicates -- more than indicates -- that said that a local government
cannot impose PUD zoning on property, you know, without the
consent of the owners.
And so our process is to usually have the owner come in and do
the amendments. However, I have opined -- and I'm going out on a
limb with this, and I admit this -- if there's a public health safety
issue, then the local government may have authority to come in and
amend the PUD. I think the best thing to do would be to have -- you
know, negotiate this out with the representatives of the PUD and have
them come in and do it.
Now, I understand that these are doled out, so, you know, we
don't have one particular agency anymore for that particular PUD,
and then that may be more problematic. It's kind of a policy decision,
too, in keeping with it in this way because, you know, a number of
owners now know we have to have them get together and apply for,
you know, a PUD amendment, which may be problematic and there
may be a better way to address it.
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April 24, 2002
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: If the PUD has legibility, this isn't
changing the language in the PUD, so wouldn't we still have to go
back and get the language corrected? So we're not accomplishing --
MS. STUDENT: In that situation, then they would need-- then
the variance would probably be the better route. So, I mean, there's a
problem.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I'm going with what staff said,
and I think Barbara said they had language in the PUD going back to
the CCSLF. If they do, why are we here with an issue we don't
MS. BURGESON: Two reasons for that. One is that this --
talking about the Homeowners' Association and having them agree to
amend the PUD when the code does not permit it is something that
would be very difficult for them to take on that expense to propose
that amendment first.
MS. STUDENT: That's what I would like to do.
MS. BURGESON: Make it a comfort level, and staff would
agree. But if this didn't go into the PUD process, then it shouldn't be
under the permit section.
MS. STUDENT: What I would like to do is bring this back to
you, because I'm -- I've read the amendment and -- but I haven't read
the PUD documents or anything. I would like the opportunity to do
that and go over it with Ms. Burgeson.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Do that in two weeks?
MS. STUDENT: Yes. That's what I would like to do.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: So that means this board tonight
just passes on this?
MS. STUDENT: We're not voting on anything today -- tonight
anyway, because you don't do that for two weeks.
I think that would be the better thing to do. And just in passing,
there is someone signed up --
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Before we call them, does all this
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April 24, 2002
rational apply to the walkovers too?
MS. BURGESON: No. The dune walkovers could be
approved, that portion of it. It would just be the area beyond the
CCSL that would be nonnative.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: So you don't need to confer with
Ms. Student on that part?
MS. BURGESON: No.
COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I have another question. Could
you go over with me again the recommendation of the EAC.
MS. BURGESON: The recommendation of the EAC was to
approve this proposal and delete everything from 3.3.8.3 on. And
that was also the recommendation of the Development Services
Advisory Committee.
COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Meaning no pavers, no decks, no
lawns, none of that stuff.
MS. BURGESON: That's right.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: In The Strand, at least the hoses
are built pretty close to the road.
MS. BURGESON: I'm not sure what the front yard setbacks
there are. There is a small front lawn area, and then the homes are
built all the way back to the line. They are -- it's at very minimal area
in terms of width there.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: That's what -- they couldn't have
pushed it forward and still built a mega house.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Yeah. They could have built a
smaller home. That would be terrible.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: It's a little pricey lot.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Now we have public speakers?
MS. STUDENT: Yes. Mr. Friday?
MR. FRIDAY: Thank you. I'm Fritz Friday. I'm representing
the Board of Directors of the Barefoot Beach Property Owners
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April 24, 2002
Association, and I happen to be one of the property owners that owns
one of these small lots, and I'd just like to clarify a few issues. We
are, first of all, in support of this whole issue and support the
Planning Commission's concept of trying to resolve something that's
taken since 1977 to come to fruition.
The basic problem here is what -- for the two home sites that are
on the end of each of these beach guards have 150 feet of property,
50 of it -- or 45, depending on how it works -- is build able. The
other roughly 100 feet is coastal development land, and it is not to be
planted with anything except native vegetation.
The problem that has come up and the problem that has gone on
since '77, is that there is -- once they got the build out and you've
built out every one of the houses in the horseshoe, the front
homeowners have no way to get a high lift around to the back or the
side of their home to maintain it, to paint it, to fix storm shutters or
whatever may happen.
So what occurred when Gabriel came in September; it moved a
good deal of the dune or took the sand from the dune, pushed it back.
We restored the dune, replanted it with sea oats. We're not trying to
disturb the dune. We're not trying to move all over it. What we're
asking for is the ability to put grass, basically 15 feet or so, that we
can get a high lift around these homes to be able to work on the home
and maintain them. We're not trying to destroy native vegetation or
anything else. And frankly, it's something that's occurred since the
beginning.
You've been here as long as I have or longer. A developer puts
a house up. He did what he -- nobody says anything. The next
person builds a house, says, I'm allowed to put a yard around here.
Some of the yards are larger than -- you know, they may face out to
30, 40 feet. There's no problem bringing those back. Our question is
simply one of making a legitimate walkway from the one side of the
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April 24, 2002
house to the other side of the house so that you're not walking on
sand and you're not walking on native grasses.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Do you know how they built the
home if they weren't allowed to go past that line?
MR. FRIDAY: That's a good question, and they -- they are. In
other words --
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Thank you. I'm wondering what -
MR. FRIDAY: I'll give you a regular example in my home
because I'm one of the ones on the end. That part from the coastal
development line seaward, okay, the part from my property where
there are the buildable footprints, oh, for 30 feet was just garbage.
There wasn't native vegetation. There was all -- just junk. And it
was nonnative grasses. It was native grasses. That was all kind of
junk, so it was very easy for a builder to just simply park. You know,
you take 10 feet, put up a screen, a fence, and they worked within
that. And they weren't trying to get out into the dunes, but they did
give themselves 10 or 15 feet of work space seaward of that coastal
development line. Once the house is up and landscaped, basically,
they come back to the coastal setback line. But we would -- you
know, on the ground he left 15 feet of grass there.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Interesting.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any questions?
MR. FRIDAY: We're not the same as The Strand. The Strand's
problem is significantly different than ours.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: How many properties would you
say? Just two properties in--
MR. FRIDAY: Now, understanding there are only two
properties in all of Collier County that are affected by this, yes.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Not those other than
The Strand? How many properties in Lely Barefoot?
MR. FRIDAY: Fundamentally, it's 20.
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April 24, 2002
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Twenty?
MR. FRIDAY: Uh-huh. It was the two end units. It's a
horseshoe, and it's two end units. And, as I say, it's our land. It's not
county land, not state land. State land, we couldn't do anything with
it. We'd like to do something with it. We don't want to do a lot, but
we want to do something.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: When staff comes back with
discussion on this with regard to the PUD, if there's another way to
look at this to explore rather than putting a permanent system out
there; meaning, if you need to maintain your home because that was
built on that line, might be there's some kind of easement-type
variance where you could go out on a work permit, make sure it's
inspected and (inaudible) maintenance after the home is done but on
a limited basis. And I'm not sure if that's practical. Putting
something beyond the line may become a serious problem.
MR. FRIDAY: It's basically allowing grass, and the grass is
pretty benign.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Is that native grass or is it--
MR. FRIDAY: Well, it would have to be St. Augustine or
something like that.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN:
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY:
registered speakers. What's next, Susan? Municipal wells?
MS. MURRAY: Municipal wells on page 42.
Stan Chrzanowski.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Good evening. Excuse me. I didn't
realize I'd be up that soon. If you look in the -- Stan Chrzanowski.
I'm with Development Service Department.
And if you look in the packet that you've got, the change to the Land
Development Code that you have in there is correct. The
That's a problem. Okay.
Thank you very much. No other
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April 24, 2002
introduction is not. What you'll see in the introduction that you have
is that this item originally was intended to do away with the
requirement that municipal -- deep municipal wells obtain a
conditional use prior to their use to extract water from the ground.
And then we started thinking about the ramifications of what we have
going on around in the county. And there was a decision to change
that I was initially not enamored with because we're basically putting
every municipal well in Collier County -- we're exempting them from
the requirement for conditional use. But the more I thought about it,
the way we do a conditional use is basically self-permitting, and self-
permitting is never a good idea. Self-permitting allows you to
exempt yourself from certain things that maybe you shouldn't and
allows for the exertion of pressure that maybe isn't right. So we
figure that the agencies that do this permitting, the Water
Management District and DEP, are much more objective than we are.
They have a public-review period. They have public input and are
probably a better agency to handle, face it, our only water-supply
system because they look at things as a regional perspective.
We have -- Tom Wides is the interim public utilities
administrator. He has quite a few people here to talk on this issue,
and he'll take over at this point.
MR. WIDES: For the record, Tom Wides, interim public
utilities administrator. Good evening. As Stan had mentioned, we in
fact bring in before you the issue on the municipal wells. These
would be the wells, for example, that hit the Tamiami aquifer, the
wells that would be hitting down from the lower Hawthorn aquifer,
the deeper brackish water wells, any form of extraction wells that the
county has, and also any injection-type wells that we would include
here.
Specifically, tonight we have Paul Mattausch, our water
director, here to speak a little bit about the well situation to us. We
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April 24, 2002
also have with us Terry Bengtsson from the South Florida Water
Management District. And the focus that they bring to us here today
-- tonight is the permitting process that the South Florida Water
Management District puts anyone through to in fact gain a permit to
in fact drop a well and extract water from the aquifers, and he can
speak to, in fact, how that process works. And also Mike and --
excuse me -- Paul Mattausch will also talk to us a little bit about what
the Florida Department of Environmental Protection requires in terms
of the permitting process before any wells can be dropped to in fact
extract water. In addition, we have Mike Weinberg here from Water
Resources to talk about the groundwater hydrology for various well
uses.
So what I'd like to do is turn this over to Paul Mattausch and let
him introduce a little bit on the FDEP activities.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Before we do that, in the earlier
version of this that we had, there was some rationale expressed why
only the deep wells were being asked for because those things that
apply to not such deep wells in that private users also get their water
from these higher sources didn't apply to deep wells. Now we're
sweeping all that rationale aside and saying the county doesn't want
to be bothered with the conditional-use process for any well.
But historically, it seems to me the county's been thumbing its
nose at the conditional-use process all along. I've been on this
commission for-- going on three years, and I've never seen a
conditional use for a well, shallow, deep or any other kind. So I don't
know where you've been. And there's a newspaper article that I
brought today that you have plans to do four more wells when you're
caught in extremis, and we haven't seen any conditional use about
those. If the code requires that now, and this is going to do away
with it, it seems to me the county, of all people, ought to be adhering
to the code. If we're going to have an audit of ethics in the county,
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April 24, 2002
maybe the county's willingness or ability to abide by its own rules
ought to be one of the areas that is inquired into. So --
MR. WIDES: I accept your perspective on the willingness, et
cetera, to in fact include our wells. I would not characterize it,
though, however, as thumbing nose at the process. In fact, what we
have realized is that all wells do need to be conditionally permitted
under the -- under the ordinances as they are today. The wells are
generally -- in the past have generally been permitted at the same
time that the facilities have. So those have been exempted. Okay. In
fact, yes, there are wells that we are asking to be grandfathered. I'd
much more characterize it as oversight rather than noncompliance --
non -- forthright noncompliance. But I think what we'd like to
convince you folks of this evening is in fact that these wells are
permitted. To a great degree, public notification is given for all the
wells in the past and all future wells by two sources that would be
very much involved with public hearings, with public notification,
giving folks an opportunity to review the wells before they're --
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I guess somebody in the county
hierarchy has to be it since it costs money to do it. Did the county
commissioners appropriate money to a single well, or does that come
out of some preexisting fund?
MR. WIDES: In fact, the county commissioners have to
approve anything brought by staff to in fact drop a well.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY:
MR. WIDES: Any well.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY:
Any well?
Shallow or deep.
MR. WIDES: Shallow or deep. That has to be an approved
project.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: So that's been going on and the
conditional-use process has just been overlooked?
MR. WIDES: If I may -- yes.
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April 24, 2002
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: That's the kindest --
MR. WIDES: Well, it may be the kindest, but I'll tell you, it's
the most forthright way to put it.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: How is it that people in your
department don't know these things?
MR. WIDES: Well, all I could respond to that-
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Did it just occur to you in the
last month or two?
MR. WIDES: No. When we became aware of the issue -- as we
talked to the folks in the planning department, we became aware of
the issue, and we felt we had to address it. That's the best answer I
could give you.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: How long have you been there?
MR. WIDES: I've been here for about a year and a half.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: And this is the first notice you
have had of it?
MR. WIDES: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Maybe I'm aiming my barbs at
the wrong person but --
MR. WIDES: Well, no matter. I'm here now, so you're aiming
it at the right person.
Okay. But what I would ask that you at least entertain this
evening is understand what the process is before it even gets
approved by the Board of County Commissioners. I'd ask you to at
least listen to that process. So what I, hopefully, will understand is
that by the time these wells do get dropped in the ground, there's a
great deal of research gone into whether they will impact other water
sources or other water wells. That's all I ask.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: So they're looked at as well as
the conditional-use process would look at them, if not better.
MR. WIDES: And that's what we like you to -- walking out of
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April 24, 2002
here, we would like to convince you of that this evening.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: You're talking about a lot more
than wells though. You're talking about every related or logically
associated water-supply storage, ejection, acquisition, withdrawal
and/or extraction equipment and/or facility, which means it could be
pumps, pump houses or anything like that, affiliated with that well; is
that correct?
MR. WIDES: Essentially, yes. Anything it takes to operate a
well, that's correct.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: And that's become the difference.
I mean, South Florida is going to address the water issue of, well, the
aquifer, but they're not going to address the buildings that are going
above the ground, the pumps that are going to need power that are
going to hum at night and things like that in the neighborhood so -- COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: And you also have toxic
substances, chlorine, fluoride.
MR. WIDES: If you wish to go to that topic tonight, we do have
our pollution control department director here to respond to those
types of issues also.
MR. PALMER: Tom Palmer, assistant county attorney.
The things that are grand fathered or exempted from local
conditional-use approval are only the ambit of improvements that are
permitted by the state agency. So if it's outside the parameters of the
state agency, it does not fall within the exemption. We wanted to
make the number of items broad, but they are not exempted if they
fall outside of the things that are permitted by the respective state
agency in the specific case. So if that involves a building and the
state doesn't do a building such as an ancillary office building, then
that would not fall outside of the county's local permitting
jurisdiction.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: To get a building permit, but they
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April 24, 2002
still could do it, though, without a conditional use based on the
language that's in front of us tonight.
MR. PALMER: Only if the capital improvements are within the
ambit of the authorization granted by the specific state permit.
MR. WIDES: More specifically, even so, what you're saying,
Tom is that this building would have to fall under the permitting
process of FD.
MR. PALMER: If the building was not permitted by the state,
the building does not fall within the scope of the exception. We're
talking basically wells and things related to wells that fall within the
state permit, whatever they may be. We're talking about basically
capital. That's wells or associated with wells. If there is an ancillary
office building, I doubt very much the state gets involved in
permitting ancillary office buildings that are associated with wells.
And if they're not, then they're outside ambit of this contemplated
language.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: But we're talking about pump
houses and storage of chemical buildings. Are they in the ambit or
out of the ambit?
MR. PALMER: I don't know the exact scope of it, but looking
at the language of the statute, it strikes me that those things are
probably not permitted by the state.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I would say not either. I think
that's what Mr. Strain's point is.
MR. PALMER: Yeah. And my point is, although that looks
like a broad list, that is just so that we're not omitting some well in
contemplation that we intend to be in there, provided that facility is
permitted by one or the other of the state agencies.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Couldn't we spell that out so it's
clearer to the public what they can expect next door to them without
notification? Because it isn't clear from what I can tell.
Page 31
April 24, 2002
MR. PALMER: Well, the question about notification is an
entirely different issue. Whatever the state permits, depending on the
specific case, they have their own self-imposed notice requirements,
and they will follow them.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: See, I'm not concerned what the
state permits because they don't hold town hall meetings; they don't
go before the various commissions and boards that it takes to get all
the public involved. Like, Terry's probably going to tell us South
Florida is going to have a public notice. It's helping Fort Myers,
possibly. It's not going to help us in our neighborhoods. I'd like to
know exactly what specific things could be permitted that the
neighborhoods -- that the neighborhoods wouldn't go through a
conditional-use-type notification on it. That's -- that boils down my
question.
MR. PALMER: Well, that goes to, I guess, their procedures in
the specific case on notice. Apparently they're not always the same,
depending on the permitting process involved. As I read the two
statutes -- for example, there's no public hearing required for a well
permit -- I believe it's a well permit -- or a consumptive-use permit if
the use is projected to be less than 100,000 gallons per day. They
said that you can have a public permit, but in that case, it's not
mandatory. So that would deponed on what sort of notice in that
particular instance the state has imposed by its own rule or regulation.
Well, obviously, the state will apply in a given case whatever its
notice requirements are.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Well, that still doesn't help us
locally. That's all I'm concerned about. But if there is a way to finite
this, to make it more specific, it might be easier to understand.
MR. PALMER: Well, if you want -- we can wordsmith it
anyway you'd like. If you want to -- our problem is to make it as
inclusive as possible and say what we mean to say but not have it
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April 24, 2002
underinclusive or overinclusive.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Well, my concern would be, if
there's a building going to go up next to a home and it's not another
residence, those people ought to be notified of it, and there ought to
be public notice adequate so that they can attend meetings and they
can voice their objection if they object to it. And if that can come
across somehow, that's where I'm coming from.
MR. WIDES: There's really two questions I see in your concern
here. Number one is, let's limit this down to the specific items, okay.
That would be well-related. The other item I hear you addressing is
the question of how do the-- the homeowners in the specific area get
their opportunity for notification and input. And I'd
like to ask a couple of our folks here to address that portion
specifically tonight. Okay.
COMMISSIONER FRY: I think it also goes beyond that,
because the state, in their permitting process, aren't going to be
looking for -- as Mark says, aren't going to be looking for the same
things we may be looking for, such as he mentions noise and
humming and smell and things like that. There's somebody sitting in
Tallahassee or wherever may not be thinking about that, where we
have to think about that for our citizens.
MR. PALMER: Well, actually, in one of the permitting process,
the statute expressly requires the government agency to coordinate
with the local government -- in this case, Collier County -- to discuss
the county's concerns in regard to a permitting process pending at that
time before that state agency. So it envisions this cooperation, and I
would think that if the county wants to in fact have its own notice to
give to people -- say, the state's having a hearing and be there, or if
you have questions about odor and location and so forth, get there.
Nothing, in my opinion, precludes the county from doing a notice
requirement on its own beyond that which may be required by the
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April 24, 2002
agency's own regulations.
So these things can-- there's an avenue here of give and take
and cooperation. It does not appear that these things are going to be
done in the dark, but I don't know and I haven't read nor had the time
to look at all the specifics of the requirements beyond the language of
the statute. Undoubtedly there are some notice regulations adopted
by the various agencies that impose upon themselves their due-
process requirements.
COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: If you have a chlorine spill, for
example, that could kill people for hundreds of yards around. So
obviously you have to have very tight control over that. And that --
that is also involved when you're talking about anything related to
withdrawal, extraction, you know, and other stuff that's related to
water.
MR. WIDES: I think our water director can address the issue on
things such as chlorine spills, et cetera, because I think what we're
coming close to is the question or the issue of storage on site, storage
of chemicals. And I think what you're going to hear in a moment is,
that is not what is -- that is not where we store chlorine, okay, or
other materials. But I'll turn that to Paul Mattausch, our water
director.
COMMISSIONER FRY: One final thing. I think what our
concern here is that we need to be as concerned if it's a county project
as we are if it's a private project, and because it happens to be a
county project doesn't mean that we should be remiss in our duty to
the citizens to make sure that it's done properly.
MR. WIDES: Agreed. And we would present to you that,
again, whether it's a county project or another well project that's a
non-county project, it's still going to go through that same permitting
process through South Florida Water Management and/or FDEP,
Florida Department of Environmental Protection. So I don't believe
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April 24, 2002
that we're trying to differentiate here county projects from other
projects that we go through this same conditional use -- or excuse me,
the same permitting process.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Sir, before you relinquish the
podium, I finally found the language that I was talking about. And to
me -- it seems to me you're making a tactical error. You started out
and you had an emergency, and you dealt with it. And you came in
with a change that would exempt these deep aquifer wells, and all of
a sudden in mid-process; you expand that to include all wells. The
rationale that was offered in favor of the deep aquifer wells, I'll
quote, do not affect the surface water table aquifer or the aquifer that
private wells draw water from. They do not constitute a nuisance and
should not be subject to public hearings or approval.
Well, all of those things militate against including the shallow
wells. I mean, that's the rational you used for exempting the deep
wells. It seems to me you've dug yourself a little bit of a conceptual
hole to now turn around and say, "Oh, we really didn't mean that. We
just want to exempt them all."
So maybe your people can address that -- try.
MR. WIDES: The way I would address that first off is that our
focus initially was on those deep wells. Okay. There's no argument
there. That's the case. Okay. But in addition, as we started to
research this further, we really started to test the process that -- again,
Florida Department of Environmental Protection and South Florida
Water Management goes through for all wells. So our next thought
was, why not treat them the same way?
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Since you're being treated the
same way by those agencies. MR. WIDES: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: All right.
MR. WIDES: May I answer any other questions for you?
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April 24, 2002
MR. PALMER: Can I make one point? As I read the statute, to
the extent that the state gives a consumptive-use permit or wells over
which they have permitting jurisdiction, to the extent that permit
authorizes an activity, all ordinances do not apply to anybody except
Collier County as a matter of law.
Therefore, it boils down to, do we want to have imposed upon
ourselves a conditional-use process that we cannot impose on
anybody else other than Collier County. Because these other entities,
if they get their permit from the state, even our ordinances, as a
matter of law, do not imply to them the permit issued by the state is
dispositive a matter, including the location of the capital
improvement.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: So what you're trying to say is,
we wanted to make the citizens here more aware of the situation, so
impose additional restrictions on the placement of wells by the
conditional-use application.
MR. PALMER: No. I'm saying that we do not have the
authority to impose any location -- any specifics in regard to these
matters beyond that which is permitted by the state; therefore, our
jurisdiction of application of a county ordinance can only apply to
our own wells. They cannot apply to wells applied for by a public
utility, a city or any other private entity. They come in. They get
their permits from the state, and whatever our ordinance says,
including the conditional-use provision, is not applicable as a matter
of law. The state permit is dispositive. So the question is, do we
want to impose only on ourselves a conditional-use process applied
only to our wells, because we do not have the power to apply it to
other entities' applications to the state.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: The City of Naples could go out
to Golden Gate Estates and drill a well, and with no permits needed
by us, they could go to the state, and the state could give them a
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April 24, 2002
permit. They could just drive out there with a truck and drill a well.
Is that--
MR. PALMER: That's the way I read the statute.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: There must have been some
rationale for doing that because --
MR. PALMER: The rationale of this is, the state is largely
preemptive in the area, and local governments cannot veto these
permits issued by the state. They cannot superimpose, except at a
very limited area, a local rule or regulation. There's one exemption
that small, private wells for private use only -- they are -- county
specifications by ordinance can apply to them. They're essentially
with some -- primarily a single-family well for single-family use.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: In 1991 David Petro was in
charge of animal services, and he sought some legal advice from Ken
Cuyler in which there were two letters written allowing wells and
extractions. It doesn't coincide with what you just said. In fact, he
advised that conditional-use would be necessary.
MR. PALMER: That's an entirely different matter. I wrote that
memo for Ken Cuyler, and that is not in play here.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Not the memo from Ken. It's a
letter from David Petro that I was --
MR. PALMER: Well, the county did an analysis on that
particular issue. I don't remember the specific case, but there was
some residual power by the county. But as I remember, that is not in
play here in regard to the wells that we are talking about presently
existing and perceptively. There was some residual analysis there,
and I'm not even sure that statute is still in existence.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: It's different than what you're
saying now, but it would be interesting.
MR. PALMER: Well, I don't recall that this issue that I just
discussed was addressed in that memo or these laws changed. I can't
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April 24, 2002
say that the statutes in play here that existed in 1992 are what are in
the statute books today. I'm referring to the existing text in these
statutes.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Well, if the law's already written
and this has got to be this way, then why are we here discussing this?
MR. PALMER: I'm saying that what is proposed there, apart
from the county's imposition of possible conditional use on its own
wells, is essentially an innervation of the existing law.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Talking too fast for me, Tom.
MR. PALMER: In other words, it says that if the state permits
these wells, then the county does not exercise or attempt to exercise
any permitting jurisdiction over the use.
Now, we get in the matters about -- possible other matters about
right-of-way permits, impact fees and other permits. They are not
exempt if they are applicable. But the placement and the use and the
draw down and those matters that are in the parameters of the state
permit are over and dispositive, and the county cannot impose upon
that process its own local regulations.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay. I understand what you're
saying. Don't say I agree with it, but I understand it.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Thank you very much.
MR. WIDES: Thank you. Paul?
MR. MATTAUSCH: For the record, Paul Mattausch, Collier
County Water Department director. Let me first address the question
that came up about storage of chemicals on site. If you go out to our
Golden Gate well field or go out to our Hawthorn well field, you will
find what we are talking about on all of the rest of the sites that we're
looking at exemption for, and there are no chemicals stored on those
well sites. The chemicals are stored in the water-treatment plants.
That is a separate location. That is -- that is subject to DEP
permitting process. That's also subject to a risk-management plan
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April 24, 2002
which is under the federal EPA, the risk-management plan for
chemicals that has to be in place for hazardous chemicals on site,
require public notification, public hearings. And in fact, we held that,
and a number of neighbors attended that meeting when we held that
meeting.
That is a fairly new requirement. That happened two years ago
for risk-management plans and that kind of notification. So I -- you
know, I just -- the wells in the Golden Gate Estates, the wells in the
Hawthorn well field do not have chemicals on site. There is no
potential for hazardous chemical spills on those sites.
There is a very rigorous permit procedure both through Florida
Department of Environmental Protection and through South Florida
Water Management District that require a number of opportunities
for public input. There's two separate public notifications that take
place under the FDEP, the Department of Environmental Protection
approval process, and they require a 30-day notification; 30-day
public notice for the first one, 14-day public notice for the second
one. Both of those allow public input, public comment. The FDEP
process includes a meeting at a local site for that public input to take
place.
That process is about a four- to six-month process, and actually
public input can happen anytime during that four- to six-month
process. South Florida Water Management District, we have Terry
Bengtsson here, and Terry can really address that permit process
much better than I because he's much more familiar with that process.
But I will say that the process is a 12- to 24-month, typically, period
of time, and it involves public notification, public comment periods at
several different points during the permit process.
Both permit processes are very rigorous. Both -- the South
Florida Water Management District process requires extensive
hydrological study modeling be done. And part of our permit
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April 24, 2002
conditions is, if we do affect a contiguous property owner or a
property owner in the area of a well, we are required to mitigate.
And they -- South Florida Water Management District enforces that
mitigation part of our -- the condition of our permit. So if I construct
a well for Collier County and -- for a municipal-use well, and I do
affect a local property owner, I -- I am required to mitigate as part of
the condition of my permit.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: You're talking about the
shallower wells, are you not?
MR. MATTAUSCH: I'm talking about any wells. Any wells
that are permitted require the same process to go through: The
submittal, the modeling, the extensive hydro geological study
modeling, and -- and the mitigation also part of my permit for a well.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Just out of curiosity, if you're
going to draw out the quantities of water that you're interested in and
there's a guy in the next lot who has a little well that takes care of his
house, how do you mitigate for him?
MR. MATTAUSCH: Typically we would put in a deeper well.
Typically, the wells that are influenced -- typically, the wells that we
would cause to go dry by a larger municipal well are very shallow
wells, and typically they' re two-inch old wells that really, you know,
you and I wouldn't put in today if we were going to put in a well.
They're typically surficial aquifer wells, and that -- that would be the
way that we would do it.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: How does this guy find out what
you were up to or how do you find out he exists?
MR. MATTAUSCH: Well, there is a public-notification
process and we do have -- we do have people show up for these
meetings.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Okay. Whose -- where did the
public notification process come? Is that a state requirement or--
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April 24, 2002
MR. MATTAUSCH: Both under South Florida Water
Management District and under FDEP requirements. Both -- yeah.
We do have the South Florida Water Management
District permitting process and --
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: So a person who is affected does
have some notice.
MR. MATTAUSCH: Yeah. And I do have copies. The one
that Mr. Wides is passing out is a South Florida Water Management
District permit process, and the one that's being passed down is the
FDEP process. Both of those require public notification.
I would like to point out, too, that the Golden Gate well field is
the Tamiami aquifer well field. That's the shallower of our well field.
And
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: How deep is that?
MR. MATTAUSCH: Those wells are typically about 80 to 110
feet deep, okay, in the lower Tamiami aquifer.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: That's for the city of Naples --
MR. MATTAUSCH: Pardon?
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: The City of Naples has wells in -
MR. MATTAUSCH: That is an entirely separate well field
from the county wells. They are a little bit farther East. A couple of
miles farther east of our well field, but they are in approximately the
same geological-- yes.
I do want to point out that that Tamiami well field, the
consumptive-use permit for that well field has been in place for a lot
of years. I think it goes back -- Terry.
MR. BENGTSSON: 91, apparently. It hasn't been increased
since '91.
MR. MATTAUSCH: Okay. The consumptive-use permit
allows us to withdraw a certain amount of water from that well field,
from the aquifer. And the wells that we are coming to you about
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April 24, 2002
concerning the conditional-use permits will not increase the amount
of water that we would draw from the Tamiami aquifer. The wells
that we are putting in that we are seeking exemption from
conditional-use permits are some existing wells that have gone in
place since 1992, the revision to the LDC that required the
conditional-use permit, okay, that -- you know, we've already
discussed that. And we were -- as the water department or the
utilities department were only made aware of that conditional-use
requirement in January of this year when we went to permit these
wells, the wells in the Hawthorn, and we are seeking a permit for --
five additional permits in the Tamiami well field.
In the -- there -- we will not be changing the volume of water
that is currently permitted and has been permitted under the existing
consumptive-use permit. Those wells are being put in for reliability
purposes rather than additional withdraw.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Well, my concern of this whole
thing is not so much the wells themselves, because I think the DEP,
and especially South Florida, because they spend so much time
putting people through the eye of a needle, that you're getting all the
scientific review for those wells that -- I think better than maybe what
the county could possibly do.
My concern is for the aboveground structures. And if you've got
a permit process for DEP and South Florida that indicates here it's at
least a year or more, that's well within a time frame that you could
come in for conditional uses on the structures that are going above
ground, so at least the neighborhood has a chance to talk about the
structure, talk about the impacts, the landscape buffers that might be
increased to blend it in with the neighborhood better and things like
that.
Is there a reason why those couldn't be run concurrently with
well-permit applications that do go through the state agencies?
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April 24, 2002
MR. WIDES: Yeah. Under a normal circumstance, I would
think that portion, that aboveground work could be -- could come
through a conditional-use process, okay. However, what I would also
allow is that as an entire production facility, an additional water plant
would come into fruition that would go through the entire process
anyway, so that would be covered to begin with.
But I think the key thing is, is we've really got two situations.
We have the existing wells that are providing water to all the local
residences. They are today. They are -- we are required to mitigate
where in fact -- if in fact we do cause any issues, and then going
forward, we'd like to be able to get those wells in the ground to keep
that process moving without having to go through an additional step.
So it's really the wells that were most significantly --
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Then going back, for the facilities
-- for a conditional user, the public hopefully would have the input.
That would be easier for your department to work with?
MR. WIDES: I would think so. Check with our engineering
director and see what they can provide.
MR. MUDD: This is Jim Mudd, deputy county manager.
I got Stan looking right now to make sure that aboveground
structures right now require conditional use, okay, because I don't
know if that's a requirement right now. I want to make sure, because
you pulled that into the discussion, to make sure that that is in code
today in the process. But I will also say -- and Tom -- as you look at
the South Florida Water Management, when it gets into specific
interests, I think we can be a whole lot more specific about who those
specific interests are.
Based on the last Land Development Code change that was
made here around January, there was a requirement to put
notification out around -- I can't remember -- 300 feet, 500 feet, make
sure you notify all of those landowners.
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April 24, 2002
I don't think that's a problem here. When we do those notices, I
think we can make sure that those specific uses can be put in there
and we can follow exactly what the Land Development Code did
with all the different developments in the process. But, Stan, can you tell us?
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: If you look at the 2.6.9.1 that you have
and the portion that's not struck through, "The following uses shall be
deemed permitted uses in any zoning district: Waterlines, sewer
lines, gas lines"--
(Brief interruption)
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: --"distribution lines, substations,
emergency power structures, sewage lift stations, water pumping
stations, individual private wells and septic tanks and similar
installations necessary for performance of these services.
Governmental facilities as defined by this code shall be permitted
uses." Oh, that's the commercial/industrial.
So the way I see it, pumping stations and similar installations
necessary for performance is already permitted use.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Then why are we here?
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: For the wells themselves.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: That's not what this language
says, though, Stan. The language that's being presented to tonight
goes beyond the wells themselves, and that's kind of where my
concern's been all along. If it isn't necessary, then why is it even
written in here? If we're going to fall back on the existing code, why
is it here?
MR. WIDES: To answer your question, we can limit it to the
wells based on what we're seeing here.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: That would solve a lot of
problems.
MR. PALMER: Well, the whole thing is qualified by --
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April 24, 2002
expressly qualified by those things, which are permitted by the state.
If it's not permitted by the state, it does not fall into this permitted-use
category. So there's a certain perimeter of things that are within the
state permit. If these things are outside of the scope of the state
permit, they do not fall within the permitted-use exception.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Well, I know that since we started
attempting to meet six weeks ago, this would be -- tonight's version is
actually the third version of this particular language that we've got,
and we've got another markup tonight, and I don't mind that. I know
it has to go through a flux, but is there some way between now and
the next meeting there would be some better language with
everybody involved so that maybe if it isn't necessary, it isn't there in
there; and if it is part of the state statute, it's in there as well so --
MR. PALMER: Well, we can change it. There's no question
about that. But it does say "facilities permitted by either of these
entities."
So if the state does not permit -- in fact, if you go on to look at
conditional uses, there are a number of things that are conditional
uses, including electric- and gas-generating plants, effluent tanks,
major repump stations, sewage-treatment plants, include percolation
ponds, water, aeration or treatment plants. They are all, and continue
to be, conditional uses. So those things do not fall within the
ermitted-use exception that's in contemplation here.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I would just think if you wanted
to limit this language to just specifically what isn't already addressed,
it would simplify it all for this board.
COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: It would make it easier for us.
MR. PALMER: Well, we can do that. It's just a matter of
making it as inclusive as we want to be and not leave something out
that we intend to be in there, because that's going to raise an issue
about how does that thing fit? Is that a permitted use or is that a
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April 24, 2002
conditional use? We can wordsmith this thing any way you like as
long as we say what we mean and mean what we say.
MR. WIDES: I think in the end -- I think we understand what
you're asking, okay, to try to simplify it so that -- I'll say, the common
man can understand what we're asking for. And it is a little technical,
okay, and we'll try to simplify that a little bit. I think that is the
commitment we can make.
I would like to ask your -- if you have a few moments, to let us
hear from our South Florida Water Management District individual,
because Mr. Bengtsson really can -- I believe he can address some of
the issues of how much depth does South Florida Water Management
get into in terms of permitting these wells, and I would like you to at
least hear that.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Be happy to do that.
MR. WIDES: Thank you.
MR. BENGTSSON: Good evening. Terry Bingtsson, and
I'm a hydro geologist in the Fort Myers Service Center. I was asked
to come to basically inform you what the -- what the standard
permitting process is.
We try to use what's in the rules and apply it evenly to any kind
of application. It is true that a general permit of a water use that's
going to be under 100,000 gallons a day is an item that is not noticed
in a legal advertisement. The individual permits, which are the ones
that are above the 100,000-gallons-per-day threshold, are required by
state statute to be notified, and all those applications are.
The public-supply permits tend to have a greater level of
interest, simply because more people know about them, and they tend
to have larger quantities associated with the permit allocation. The
legal notification is something that basically the average person
doesn't know about, to be realistic. I mean, he has to do his
homework to find where they're advertised. However, as I say, most
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April 24, 2002
public water-- public water-supply permits are known basically by
the community. And in this case, I did not participate in the review
of these permit renewals, but I can tell you that it does take quite a
while to process
water that's deemed for public consumption.
In this case, the permit process took somewhat on the order of 16,
18 months. I see the application for the --the Tamiami well field.
The Golden Gate well field facility came in in 2000, along with the
application for -- the North Regional plant was also in 2000. Both
those permits were issued in September of 2001.
Along the way, there was a -- there were a number of questions
and concerns raised in which either the county provided additional
information or their consultants worked with the district staff to try to
eliminate those concerns. It's a complicated permit, and they're both
large facilities that the county has so that the permit is structured to
have a number of conditions -- limiting conditions, and this particular
-- both permits have 29 limiting conditions. Some of them are rather
standard kinds of things. Others are specific to each particular well
field centered around monitoring operations, looking at long-term
needs for the future.
The permit is for the Golden Gate well field. It actually has a
five-year duration, and it has had that since its initial issuance. And it
is a pretty old facility. Back in the '80s, I believe, is when it was first
started and has been renewed since then on a five-year incremental
basis. As Paul has already said, the allocation has remained the same
since the '92 issuance. The permit was renewed in 2001 after review
of the water demands that the county has, the water resource
availability within the area of the well fields, and that includes
looking at existing users, permitted existing users and domestic users,
which are exempt from water-use permits. And in that evaluation,
that basically involves trying to find out where all these users are and
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April 24, 2002
what their uses are.
In this case, there was an effort to assess what the overall
(inaudible) are on the -- on the aquifer, the lower Tamiami aquifer.
And in today's world, that means numerical modeling for
groundwater flow and trying to evaluate how much draw down
occurs from the wells that are being permitted and looking at wells
that are in the area that potentially cause accumulative-type impacts.
And in this evaluation, it was -- it was deemed permitable that
there were draw down impacts but would not cause harm to the
existing users or to domestic users. Although, as extensive as the
analysis was, there's room -- there's room for error. I mean, it's
recognized that these analyses are done fairly straightforward from a
mathematical hypothetical basis, but in practicality, we're dealing
with an aquifer that does have -- that you cannot know in advance,
and those differences in properties can change how the aquifer will
respond to stress.
And so within the permitting conditions, if it is recognized that
if something was to happen, whether it be to an existing user or to the
environment, one of the things the district is concerned with and is
charged with is wetlands and wetland viability. And probably one of
the greatest (inaudible) for a well field like the Golden Gate facility is
the impacts to nearby wells. And that is part of the overall evaluation
for this permit as well as any other permit that would be in the area.
Currently, the City of Naples is in review for their East Golden Gate
well field, and one of the constraints is potential impacts to wetlands.
So, I mean, it's all part of a process, and when it becomes a
public-supply permit, that process tends to take quite longer than,
say, an (inaudible) use.
So I mean, you know, it's -- I don't know if I can alleviate some
of your concerns, and I feel that it's good for a community to have
concerns and to be aware of what may be going on around them.
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April 24, 2002
And, you know, there are steps that are spelled out in the rules that
the district has to follow, and I think there's a number of steps that are
there that try to protect the resource, you know, as well as the legal
existing user.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: This '82 permit request in the
permits that you issue, are there any accessory facilities to the well
itself for withdrawing -- anything for buildings above the ground?
Do you get any of that in your department?
MR. BENGTSSON: Not specifically. We look at --
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: So your permit wouldn't
necessarily authorize anything but the well placement and the
withdraw of--
MR. BENGTSSON: Well, I mean this district doesn't
specifically dictate the types of pumps, the pump capacities. The
permits are issued on an allocation for the entire service area, not by
well.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Do you know who would do that?
MR. MATTAUSCH: Again, Paul Mattausch for the record.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I think you already told me you
thought they did it, and now he's saying they don't do it.
So I'm wondering--
MR. MATTAUSCH: No, no. I did not -- didn't say that they
reviewed those -- the structures and that kind of thing are reviewed
and permitted by FDEP. And also there is a submittal to Collier
County with -- through the STP process.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Is someone from STP here
tonight?
MR. MATTAUSCH: No. They were not able to be here.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I wonder what kind of view they
would have on it.
And, Terry, your public notice, I think you said is in the paper,
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April 24, 2002
which -- do you do any mailings to the residents immediately
adjacent to these sites?
MR. BENGTSSON: In this district, there isn't a specific
gradient or anything that is spelled out. Anyone can get on our list,
and there is a list of special interested parties that we will distribute
whatever they request, or if they want to get a copy of the draft, staff
report, that summarizes -- and then there is this window of
opportunity if there's a legal objection or a voice of concern that can
be asserted in either -- in any form, either attending the governing
board when the permit's actually being approved or in --
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: West Palm Beach; right?
MR. BENGTSSON: Right.
MR. WIDES: As part of our process, though, as public utilities,
we can ensure that these folks have in fact the information as to who
could possibly be the affected areas. We can bring that information
to the community. And that's a role that we can fill as part of the
whole entire process here.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: If we can clean some of that
language up and take another shot at it, it might be better. Like I
said, I'm concerned about the impacts to the neighborhoods. And if
that can be resolved -- and it's already addressed by the groundwater
elevations that Terry studies and all that. Now we just have to deal
with the aboveground stuff so --
MR. WIDES: Very good. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Thank you very much.
(A brief recess was taken.)
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Please resume your seats.
MS. MURRAY: Susan Murray, for the record.
The next item we were going to consider was on page 53, and I'd like
to begin with that if you all don't object -- 53.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Site development.
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April 24, 2002
MS. MURRAY: Section 3.3.5. I'd like to withdraw that. It was
a staff-initiated amendment. Nobody directed us to do it. I just don't
think at this point in time -- it's pretty broad, and I think we'd like to
think about it a little bit more and come back later. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: All right.
MS. STUDENT: And I just wanted to note for the record,
however, that Mr. Nadeau was signed up to speak, and he said he
wouldn't speak if that was withdrawn. And Dick Grant is also signed
up. I don't know if you want to address it or --
MR. GRANT: No. I don't have anything to --
MS. STUDENT: I wanted to state that for the record.
MS. MURRAY: The next item in your list was the handout
2.2.6, and I think you had a public speaker. I'll just go over this very
quickly. This is basically eliminating the wedding cake setback
measurement requirement in the RMF-12 and RMF-16 districts,
similar to what we did in all the commercial districts last cycle in the
RTD districts.
MS. STUDENT: And Dwight Nadeau--
MS. MURRAY: I think I answered his question about that, so I
think he was satisfied with that.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Questions about that?
COMMISSIONER FRY: Could you quickly explain this to me,
only in that I've heard the wedding cake in regard to a property on
Gulfshore Drive, I believe, and the property --
MS. MURRAY: If I had a picture, it would be easier to explain.
And I apologize. I know all these guys know what wedding cake is,
but obviously you wouldn't because you're new. I guess the best way
to explain this is --the way the wording is presently in this zoning
district is, it allows you to measure each exterior wall of a structure.
So in other words, if you look at the way a wedding cake is typically
tiered, you would be able to measure this height of each exterior wall
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April 24, 2002
as you move up the structure, and that would determine your setback,
or one-half of that, really, would determine the height of the wall.
You take one-half of the height of the wall, and that would determine
your setback. So this would eliminate the ability to measure it that
way, and you would take the entirety of the height of the building
rather than measuring from each exterior wall.
And I'll be happy -- I'll bring a picture, or if you want to contact
me and I can give you a picture and help you understand it a little
better, no problem.
COMMISSIONER FRY: Yes. Thank you.
MS. MURRAY: Mr. Chairman, normally after you've taken all
the -- or the items you wish out of order, normally we start and go
through the beginning of your summary sheet with page 1.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Let's do that then.
MS. MURRAY: The first item on page 1 is relatively
straightforward. If you remember last cycle, the Board of County
Commissioners directed staff to remove the language which allowed
the Planning Services director some leeway to determine comparable
and compatible uses in each zoning district. At the time they had
done that, we had some logistical difficulties with amending large
sections of the code, and we agreed that we would put an amendment
in that required any type of uses other than those that were listed by --
expressly by SIC code in each district. If they weren't listed
specifically, we would allow an individual to apply for an official
interpretation to allow any other use that was not listed explicitly,
with the agreement that we would come back later and make that a
conditional use, that process a conditional use.
So this basically removes the interpretation process and requires
that any other use that's not listed that's comparable or compatible in
nature in the zoning districts would be determined through the
conditional-use process.
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April 24, 2002
And it's -- this is kind of a two-part amendment in that the first page
here you see is struck through, removing the interpretation process,
but then when you go into starting on page 2 -- and this gets into the
next section, you'll see that it was added -- or should be added as a
conditional use in C-1 through C-5.
So, for example, if you look on page 6, Item 14, you'll see the
language that was formerly listed under the list of permitted uses as a
conditional use. That's all this does.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I had a sort of a typographical --
on page 2, section 2.2.12, it's called Commercial Professional District
C-1 and General Office District. Whatever misanthrope did that, I
don't know. The next page on 12.22 is a General Office District. And
then finally, on page 4 at 12.3, it's called a Commercial Professional
and General Office District. Why don't we use that language
uniformly? You see what I'm saying?
MS. MURRAY: Not really, but I'll take a look at it.
I understand what you're saying. I just need to study --
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: The first column is something
that steps all over itself, and finally we get around to something you
can read, Commercial and Professional and General Office District,
C-11. So that's what I would recommend.
MS. MURRAY: If there's no questions on the first page, I'm
going to have Michele Mosca come up and explain the amendments
that start on page 2. And if you remember, Michele was the former
principal planner with the long-range planning department, and she
now works with us on a contract basis. So she drafted the
amendments with assistance from me as well, so she'll present those
to you.
MS. MOSCA: Michele Mosca, for the record. And if you have
any questions -- I have a few additions, but if we want to start out
first, Mr. Chairman, with any questions that you may have about the
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amendment itself.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY:
MS. MOSCA: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY:
MS. MOSCA: That's correct.
The entire amendment?
One through five?
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Who wants to go first?
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I saved you all a lot of time.
I have previously met with Susan and went over my concerns, so I'll
remain silent.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Well, Michele, I have a problem
with -- you can't have a hotel until you get to C-4, I think, and then
only if it's a part of an activity center. C-5 you can have a hotel that
isn't a part, but here you are in C-1 and 2 and -- well, I won't say that.
In C-11 you can have a homeless shelter. Well -- MS. MOSCA: As a conditional use in C-1.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Well, if it's a conditional use -- a
hotel, I think, is a conditional use.
MS. MOSCA: If I may, basically what this exercise was, was to
look at the uses within each commercial district and match them
against the purpose and intent.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Against what?
MS. MOSCA: The purpose and intent for each specific zoning
district. For example, in C-4 commercial zoning district on page 17,
the intent is regional commercial, serving an entire region. It's more
of a recreational-type of commercial district. CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Okay.
MS. MOSCA: So that's basically what I did, looked at all of the
specific purpose and intents statements contained within each
commercial district and then matched the uses against those
statements. And that's why that still remains -- that hotel still remains
in C-4.
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April 24, 2002
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Well, somehow it just strikes me
as an anomaly when you can have a homeless shelter in C-1, which
are not very intense uses, by and large, and yet you have to get all the
way to C-4 before you can have a hotel.
MS. MOSCA: C-1 is your least intensive commercial use.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Yeah, right.
MS. MOSCA: Right. But, as you said, a homeless shelter
would not be an intensive use, but you would want to perhaps apply
conditions to the homeless shelter. That's why it is a conditional use
rather than a permitted use in both C-1 and C-2 commercial.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I guess I would prefer that it not
even be a conditional use in those districts but --
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Isn't hotels -- they have their own
RT zoning as well, so anything that's RT-zoned can --
MS. MOSCA: I may have to defer to Susan. I believe hotels --
hotels are permitted in RTs.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Hotels are one of the primary
uses (inaudible) 5 or 6; right? That's one of the big categories where
hotels go, is what's called RT zone.
That may be why it's not needed in the other commercial zonings.
MS. MURRAY: That's correct. It's an intensity issue as well as
a locational issue.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I was moving the hotels up; I
was moving the homeless shelters back.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN:
hotel?
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY:
Oh, okay. How about a homeless
Just in passing, I notice on page
8, somebody did some good proofreading on Number 7 and changed
the word "principal" to the correct "principle" as opposed to the other
one. But then on page 11 in the fourth line, it should read, "provide
an opportunity" instead of a-n-d. Do you see that?
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April 24, 2002
MS. MOSCA: Yes. Thank you. That actually is in the original
document. All the underlines are additions to the document. But that
is helpful to know just in the event that that's the way it reads in the
Land Development Code.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: You can line through it then.
MS. STUDENT: I think what happened -- Marjorie Student, for
the record, assistant county attorney, in the original documents,
sometimes these occur after, and the code corporation makes an error
and puts, you know, a typo or a misprint, and so I have to look back
at the original ordinance to make sure that it was that way. And if it's
just one of the errors, it should be a bracket around it.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I know it didn't leave
Collier County with that in it.
Now, on page 14, when they start talking about mixed
residential, commercial uses, item sub (g) there under what's now 8,
why must the building height not exceed two stories?
MS. MOSCA: I'll have to defer to Susan because this wasn't
part of the amendment.
MS. MURRAY: Susan Murray, for the record. It's not subject
to change. It's part of the existing regulations.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Well, I'm saying maybe next
cycle -- I mean, what's wrong with three stories for a mixed use with
residential on the top story?
MS. MURRAY: On the surface, I don't see anything wrong
with it, but I may dig around and try to find a little history why that
was drafted that way --
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: They do that on Fifth Avenue in
the city.
MS. MURRAY: -- and get back with you on that. I'll note that.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Maybe that's why none of it's
being built. Or is any of it being built?
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April 24, 2002
MS. MURRAY: Yes. We've had people come through for
commercial uses -- for residential on top of commercial.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY:
MS. MURRAY: Uh-huh.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY:
Two stories?
I bet you could get more. If you
had three, you could do commercial on the first, an office on the
second and residential on the third.
MS. STUDENT: I just offer that maybe this is consistent with
the height restrictions, and that might be something else to look at,
too, without having them right in front of me. So we might need a
little bit of height restriction as well to make sure you could -- for that
district.
MS. MURRAY: I guess it's kind of irrelevant, but the height
rules would govern regardless so --
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Right. But I couldn't imagine a
height being less than 35 feet. Those are the only things I'm -- took
issue with.
Anybody else have any--
MS. MOSCA: I do have some additions, if I may.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Oh, additions? All right.
MS. MOSCA: Yes. This is to clear up inconsistent language.
If you please would look on page 7, under Permitted Uses, 2.2.3.2.1.
If you'd read the statement, "All permitted uses and all conditional
uses except increased height and mixed residential and commercial
uses of the C-1 commercial, professional and general office district,"
it does -- it does exclude additional language that I -- I do need to
include because of conditional uses in C-1.
For example, what I would like to do is add the statement, "At
the general office district or as otherwise indicated within the zoning
district." That would allow, again, for the conditional uses in C-2
that are homeless shelters and soup kitchens. Because the way the
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April 24, 2002
language reads, that permit would allow all permitted and conditional
uses of the C-1 zoning district. So it would be inconsistent. We need
to add that additional language.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Say that one more time.
MS. MOSCA: "Or as otherwise indicated within this zoning
district." That way the homeless shelters would still be subject to the
C-2 -- I'm sorry -- the conditional-use process as well as soup itchens.
If we did not have this language, they would be permitted as a right
because of that statement.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Got you.
MS. MOSCA: What I also would like to do under conditional
uses, Page 4 --
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: You're going back.
MS. MOSCA: Yes. I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: You can't go back.
MS. MOSCA: Educational services. What we did here is, we
excluded out of-- well, what we -- I'm trying to word this properly.
What we allowed were elementary schools, universities and that type
of higher educational facilities -- we allowed them as conditional uses
in C-1, but they do not appear in C-2. So we need to add that in as a
conditional use in C-2. So that language -- I apologize if I'm
confusing anyone -- would be located on page 9 under conditional
uses for C-2, educational services, 8.2.2.1 and 8.2.2.2. That would
allow for the conditional use of junior colleges and universities.
They're sort of intensive uses, so that's why it gives the board
additional discretion to look at these to see if they would be
compatible with the surrounding land uses. Did I lose anything or anybody?
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: You lost me, yes.
MS. MOSCA: Okay.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Where is it on page 9.9
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April 24, 2002
MS. MOSCA:
"conditional uses."
services."
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY:
something from 9 to take to 4.
On page 9, I would like to add that text under
It would end up being the first item, "educational
Oh, I thought you were getting
MS. MOSCA: What I want to do is point out -- I apologize. I
wanted to point out that it is located under conditional uses on page 4
for the C-1 district; however, it is not located in the C-2. So it only
makes sense if you're going to look at conditional uses for those type
of uses, the universities in C-l, that you would follow suit in C-2 and
look at the same uses as conditional uses, and then it would be
permitted in C-3. And that's already in your document. We don't
have to make any more changes to that.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Michele, you started out by
talking about some language on page 7. But what caught my eye is
the first line of item 1 on page 7 is, "All permitted uses and all
conditional uses except increased site." The words "conditional
uses," if you follow through and look on page 11, item 1 -- it's similar
to C-4 and C-5 -- your sentences there say, "Unless otherwise
provided in this section, all permitted uses of the C-2 commercial,"
and you specifically left out conditional uses. Is that intentional?
MS. MOSCA: Let me just read that through. I believe that's
how the LDC has -- this section has always read.
It doesn't allow for the conditional uses in C-2 to follow through to
C-3. I think it starts listing specific uses in the C-3 category.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: But this -- that's right, yeah. So --
but in one, and the previous one, on page 7, which is C-2, you seem
to indicate you wanted to carry all the conditional uses from C-1 over
to C-2 as a permitted use. You don't intend to do that, then, in C-3, 4
and 5.
MS. MOSCA: That's correct.
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April 24, 2002
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Okay. I just wanted to make sure.
MS. MOSCA: C-1 uses generally innocuous uses there; light
commercial.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: In some cases, they don't -- they
don't reiterate them, so you do have uses that are conditional use but
not in--
MS. MOSCA: Right. It may be permitted in the C-2 or C-3,
depending on the purpose and intent, what the intention was for that
specific commercial district.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Okay.
MS. MOSCA: And I have one more item. I just want to reopen
this for discussion. On page 4 -- and I'm sorry, we're going back one
more time -- Number 19, physical fitness facilities. This was struck
through on this amendment -- this amendment to this particular
amendment. The intent behind this physical fitness facilities was for
this to be a personal service or convenience/commercial use, which
would be an-- which would be an integral part of the building. It
would not be a freestanding building. So I wanted to open that back
for discussion. If you feel as though a physical fitness facility should
be removed completely out of C-1 and into C-3 --
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I want you to refine it, though, so
you're not going to have a Gold's Gym or something like that in a C-1
zoning. I think that may be where the concern could be.
MS. MOSCA: Right. We would have to reword that somehow.
We would have to reword that somehow to limit it to the integral part
of the building. We would have to define that somehow. And I'll
have to look at some language and -- is that something that the
commission would--
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Doesn't bother me.
MS. MOSCA: -- want or--
COMMISSIONER STRAIN:
I mean, I don't care. I don't know
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April 24, 2002
about the rest of you.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Makes no difference to me.
MS. MOSCA: I'll take a look at that language, if I may, and just
define that so it's specific.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: It's integrated within an office
building or some such language as that.
MS. MOSCA: That's correct. So it would be available for the
employees of the office building. It would not be a freestanding
building, as Mr. Strain had mentioned.
COMMISSIONER FRY: Open to the public, so to speak.
MS. MOSCA: It may or may not be open to the public.
But again, it would be incorporated into that building.
COMMISSIONER FRY: Yeah. But if you're using it for the
employees of that building, that's one thing; if you're going to operate
it as a business, which it almost would have to be if you're going to
open it to the public, then it becomes a different matter.
MS. MURRAY: If you're going to use it as part of an integral
part of the business, I think we could consider it accessory to the
permitted principal use.
Michele, if you want to just bat around some language, and -- if
that makes sense, or you think that's covered that way, we can come
back to the Planning Commission next time, and they will tell you we
decided to leave the struck out or we massaged the language a little
bit to meet the -- what we think we want to do.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Certainly nobody would be
objecting to it as an accessory to a principal use, I wouldn't think.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: No. Now, if it was a stand-alone,
you guys would look at it from its impact on a stand-alone based on
parking and the rest of it, so even that would be addressed in some
manner or form. If it was a physical fitness facility within a building,
would its parking be separately looked at within the balance of the
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April 24, 2002
building if it had a different calculation?
MS. MURRAY: It could be.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN:
traffic.
It really depends on the situation.
Because they do generate more
MS. MURRAY: Yes. And I think we want to just avoid, again,
the purpose and intent talked about not having nighttime hours and
all that, so we would want to ensure that that was carried through.
MS. MOSCA: And I don't have any additions beside this.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Thank you.
MS. MOSCA: Okay.
MS. MURRAY: And Michele, I think you're on page 28, the
industrial.
MS. MOSCA: Okay. This particular section eliminates the use
-- the retail sales or display of automotive vehicles in the industrial
section. The original intention of the commercial district was not to -
- I mean, the industrial district, rather, was not to allow this particular
display of automobile vehicles. Pretty straightforward.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Just out of curiosity, since
industrial can have some pretty heavy-duty uses, what was so
negatively thought about in regards to that issue of display of
automobiles? They just kind of sit there quietly. I'm just wondering
what the intent of-- why that was looked at as being too intense for
industrial.
MS. MOSCA: I believe it's because it's more appropriate in the
higher intensity commercial districts rather than industrial. Industrial
is more for technology, those type -- manufacturing.
MS. MURRAY: Manufacturing. I think part of the issue was
the construction of industrial land uses for a commercial use.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: That's a good point. We'd use up
all our industrial pretty fast. That makes sense.
MS. MURRAY: Okay. Next would be page 30. And this is
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April 24, 2002
pretty straightforward. It is related to the structure of a PUD
document. And in summary, it's basically to require applicants to
specifically identify those proposed modifications to the Land
Development Code in the application for a PUD.
Okay. Next? Any questions on that?
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: No.
MS. MURRAY: I'll just keep rolling through.
Page 31 is landscaping in the Goodlette-Frank Road corridor
management overlay. Nancy Semion is here to discuss this if you
have any questions. But it's basically to delete the reference to
reduce right-of-way buffer within 10 feet within the Goodlette-Frank
Overlay Corridor Management District. I believe that was to achieve
some consistency with the other regulations in the LTC.
Next would be Page 32, Special Treatment Permits. And Steve
Lenberger -- do you want to talk or give a brief summary on that?
MR. LENBERGER: Sure. For the record,
Stephen Lenberger, planning services department.
The proposed amendment is to the exception sections from the
public hearing requirements for special treatment permits. Currently,
most special-treatment permits have to go to the Board of County
Commissioners for approval, as well as the Environmental Advisory
Counsel and the Planning Commission for recommendations.
Special treatment has to deal with the site development and site
alteration. Basically, any modification or change to this site altering
in the ground, removal of vegetation, would be considered a site
alteration. So it's pretty much all-encompassing unless you put
something directly on the ground at the existing ground level.
I'd like to just go through what we're proposing. The first one is
the development services director to approve alteration where there's
a pretty minor -- the first one would be existing cleared areas. Some
of these existing cleared areas with ST overlays might have some
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April 24, 2002
minor amounts of native vegetation, which have re-grown, and the
development services director, we're proposing, would be able to
approve site alteration plans on those parcels up to five acres
maximum alteration.
Single-family principal structures. Currently, there's a 10
percent site alteration allowed to be approved administratively, and
we're proposing to bump it up 15 percent. I review most of the
special-treatment permits, and a number of the single-family
homeowners have proposed generally between 10 to 15 percent site
alteration. So we felt that this was a good amendment to be able to
allow that.
The -- conditional-use approvals. Currently, we're required to
take an ST permit in conjunction with a conditional-use petition to
the Board of County Commissioners as well as the CCPC and the
EAC, and we felt that it would be better, instead of writing two
resolutions, two staff reports, that if a conditional use has been
approved and an environmental impact statement reviewed at the
time of the conditional use, why go through the extra exercise of the
ST permit of a public hearing process.
The existing communication towers, basically, allow for
accessory structures up to a five-acre cap to be allowed to be
approved administratively.
That's pretty much the extent of the amendment. There's a
couple of corrections to some of the sections just in the language.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: In regards to the communications
towers, is there any problem with adding something that indicates it
only applies to those towers used 100 percent for essential services?
MR. LENBERGER: I don't know what the requirements are for
communication towers. I know there's different language in there
regarding public use.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Under essential service, they get
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April 24, 2002
to be plopped anywhere, and if it's there, it's there. It's an essential
service. But if it's a private tower, I'm not sure that they ought to
have the same benefit as an essential-service tower. I'm just
suggesting maybe we ought to strengthen it a bit so that this applies
to only those towers that are used 100 percent for essential service,
and if they're not, then they still got to go through the process they
had to before they can do site alterations. That's a suggestion.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: None of them are used 100
percent for essential services.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Exactly.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: You know what that "250 feet
we got to have it right at that level" -- do you know what that was all
about? Because they were going to get the money to buy the radios
after we went through two sessions on that. The real reason was to
get the money to buy the equipment they -- whoever was going to do
all that, build the tower and give them the money in exchange for
their support. Took two hearings to figure that out. Plus for use of
that part of the tower.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I think on the tower issue, though,
Steve, across the board, five acres -- that's a pretty big area. If
somebody has a tower, they could go in and demolish five acres,
basically. That just seems extreme.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: But it does limit the area.
COMMISSIONER FRY: Guide wires --
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: A lot of these things are pretty
standard anymore.
MR. LENBERGER: There are some with guide wires.
I've seen some that are fairly large that -- COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I hate to mention that there are
flagpoles as well, 100 feet high.
MR. LENBERGER: It only applies to accessory structures, not
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April 24, 2002
only towers.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Oh, yeah. I realize that. I just
thought five acres of unrestricted development without going through
public notice is a little extreme. It's quite a big area. If we were to
limit the size to substantially smaller than that, then that may be
suitable, but five acres seems pretty large.
MR. LENBERGER: Of course, in the area of critical state
concern, that would be -- you're not allowed to impact wetlands or
areas of critical state concern.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: But yet you're sitting there when
there's five acres (inaudible) and it's a pretty big thing to not have any
further review of it from the board. I think that's too much space.
And you're dying to say something.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I think he's been doing very well
tonight.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: I think so, too.
MR. WHITE: Patrick White, assistant county attorney. The
reason for emphasizing accessory structures is, my understanding of
the regulation is that it's not the area beyond what's required for those
accessory structures that support or are in support of the towers.
That would be the pads required for any kind of equipment, small
structures that would house such equipment.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Isn't it already shown on -- when
they come into us like the towers out in the - the ones on Alligator
Alley, they showed those accessory structures. And so, in essence,
aren't we approving it during our review?
MR. WHITE: Yes. And this would be -- it's noted for existing
towers and ones that are being amended.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: So anything going forward from
here, this wouldn't apply to, just the ones that are existing that we've
already supposedly seen. I'm not sure what you're asking us to do.
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April 24, 2002
MR. WHITE: Any additional accessory structures that you want
to--
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Now I understand. That gets into
what kind of public hearing would they have had if they didn't show
everything, and now we're saying if you don't show everything the
first time you come through us, then come back and show it.
MR. WHITE: It's intended to allow those additional accessory
structures -- if you put more antennas on the tower; you need to have
more boxes on the ground. You need to have the concrete pads. You
need to clear a larger area. Generally speaking -- I don't know what
the fencing requirements for these are, but typically what happens is,
they're all within a fenced area that may be out to the boundaries of
any guide wires so that you don't have kids, animals, whatever
interfering with the equipment. Sometimes they're in climate-
controlled storage area or rooms, rather, for the accessory structures.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Well, the EAC seemed to have a
similar concern, but they asked for clarification of existing tower
alterations, so maybe what you were going to provide to answer their
concerns would be sufficient, at least from my review. Were you
going to respond to that concern later?
MR. LENBERGER: There was extension of the existing tower
sites, we (inaudible) putting a tower up, so they wanted to make sure
it was just for accessory structures.
So we changed it. You're seeing the revised version.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Okay. Thank you, sir.
MS. MURRAY: Try to roll through these. Page 34, it's
basically to permit your murals depicting the history, culture and
environment of Immokalee on walls within the Immokalee overlay
district.
If there's no questions on that, we'll go to page 36. This applies
to the Farm Market overlay, and this will allow the amendment to
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April 24, 2002
allow gasoline diesel fuel buying in bulk and selling to farmers, as
defined by the Standard Industrial Classification as permitted use.
COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Can I ask why you have to have
that in the Farmer's Market itself?.
MS. MURRAY: Marlene, do you want--
MS. FOORD: Hi. Marlene Foord, with the planning
department. The genesis for this amendment was a gentleman who
owned property in the Farmer's Market overlay, who is interested in
selling the bulk fuel to farmers to take out into the agricultural district
for use. This district, Farmer's Market overlay, is intended to provide
the retail/wholesale services related to agricultural services. That's
one of the reasons that it seems to be an appropriate area for this use
to be allowed.
COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: But can it be done -- can't people
buy their gasoline in bulk anywhere? Why do they have to buy it
right in the Farmer's Market?
MS. FOORD: I don't believe they can buy it in bulk anywhere.
I think there are limits on the fuel buying and capacity of fuel buying
within the underlings of the districts.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN:
sales that it does --
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY:
MS. FOORD: No.
COMMISSIONER MIDNEY:
Different zoning takes the bulk
This is the fellow selling it now?
So how much-- he'd like to
bring the tankard trucks to bring in gasoline or the diesel to take out
to farms?
MS. FOORD: Correct.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I'm confused. There's going to
be some huge tanks there, correct, that are going to fill up tankard
trucks?
MS. FOORD: I don't know the size of the tanks for this
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April 24, 2002
particular --
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Bigger than a semi.
MS. FOORD: I don't know the details of the project itself.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: In my experience, don't you
generally have to have concrete walls around those things?
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Not to hold the containment.
It can't be underground anymore. Double-walled above ground with
walls around them that contain enough to hold the material, should it
all leak out.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: This says, "except bulk stations
and terminals," so it doesn't sound like it's a humungous operation.
MS. MURRAY: Yes. I--
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: The owners can't take home that
much anyway.
MS. MURRAY: Yeah. The SIC code was very explicit, believe
it or not. It listed all sorts of bulk fuel, and it even said, "for fuel to
farmers." And I guess our opinion of the operation was that it was
going to be -- I mean, obviously you don't -- I don't think you haul
18-wheelers out in the middle of a farm field. I think the way it was
described to us was this smaller type, the fuel trucks that are going
out and fueling machinery and equipment as it's being used. And I'm
sure there's some storage on farms somewhat -- you know, they may
be refilling, but I don't think they're looking at anything large-scale.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Is there more than one farm
market overlay subdistrict, or is there just one, and is it in
Immokalee?
MS. FOORD: There is just one, and it is in
Immokalee.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: How big is that?
MS. FOORD: There's specific boundaries for it.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Not for this. I mean, the whole
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April 24, 2002
subdistrict. Is it several blocks or--
MS. FOORD: Yes. Each sub district is geographically defined.
This particular one is one of the smaller ones.
COMMISSIONER MIDNEY:
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY:
there.
COMMISSIONER MIDNEY:
About 30 acres or so.
And he owns a piece of land in
Do they have other hazardous
materials in there besides gasoline, like pesticides or anything?
MS. FOORD: I don't believe so.
COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Mostly what they have is
packing sheds for vegetables and watermelons and things like that;
right?
MS. FOORD: I'm sorry?
COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Mostly what this contains is
packing sheds for packing vegetables and watermelons and things?
MS. FOORD: That overlay district? That's correct. There are
some retail uses that are permitted in there too that are related
specifically to the agricultural nature of Immokalee.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Right now that's a conditional use
for an industrial district. Is that -- that's the only place I find that
wholesale trade. That's a pretty intense use. A conditional use to an
industrial district, which means the specific location, will have to go
through a review and approval.
MS. MURRAY: As it's drafted, it's permitted uses that's before
you now.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Now it wouldn't be for that
district, though. Just for the Immokalee overlay; right? Other than
that, though, it's only a conditional use in an industrial. You can't
even put it as a permitted use as an industrial unless you overcome -- COMMISSIONER FRY: Are you saying this would have to or
would not have to come back before us?
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April 24, 2002
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: If it's a conditional use in an
industrial district, it would have to come back -- this wouldn't, on the
other -- normally it would, but if we do this today, I believe it would
just accept the permitted use, wouldn't it?
MS. FOORD: In this sub district only.
COMMISSIONER FRY: Well, I'm a little concerned that
I don't think we know at the present time what type of storage
facilities he's talking about. The tanks -- what size are these tanks?
Are we going to have a tank farm out there? I don't think we have
enough information on this. I wouldn't feel comfortable.
MS. STUDENT: Just generally, what the permitted uses do is
state what uses you could have in that district. What you can do is
possibly put some limitations on the size of the tanks and so forth, as
you were alluding to, to, you know, clean it up. Well, direct staff to
bring back information, and you could limit it in some way.
MS. FOORD: There are other standards within that overlay
district for site design and buffering and landscaping and that kind of
thing that are specific to the Farmer's Market overlay as well -- they
have to meet the architectural standards, too.
COMMISSIONER FRY: Yeah. But when you're talking about
wholesale distribution of petro chemicals, actually, you're talking
about something that could be extremely dangerous. You know, one
of those takes off; you're talking about a huge fire in that. I --
COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: That did happen not too long ago
in Immokalee.
MS. MURRAY: You could have the same thing with a gas
station. I mean, you know, these are regulated by DEP and all the
other permitting agencies that are required to abide by it as well.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: How many industrial uses do you
have in the Immokalee overlay, heavy industrial; do you know? This
is adding to those -- there's some there that makes this an industrial
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area.
MS. FOORD: There's a lot of industrial designated land in
Immokalee. And with this overlay, there are some uses, but they are
adjacent to the industrial district as they were earlier when the site
plan did come through. There was a meeting held, and what they did
have was very much like a gas station. There were no differences
between this station and another gas station. It was just the issue of
how he wanted to sell the gas and to who and how it would be used.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: So his tanks were underground?
MS. MURRAY: Ed Reilly is here. He has some more
information if you'd like to hear how they're regulated.
MR. REILLY: Ed Reilly, code official for Collier County.
Those operations, wholesale operations that you're talking about, they
-- they're in all the counties. And general -- really, industrial areas,
generally they do come in an 8,000-gallon tank and offioad off the
tank to the vehicles to distribute to the boats, to the industrial
locations or haul them off to the farms. Generally, they do it with the
off-road grade fuels where you don't pay taxes, so they can't run
through a standard bulk facility because of the diesel or gasoline --
generally, the diesel is colored and can be only used in off-road
equipment so they don't pay the taxes. They are regulated by the
DOT if they are not standing too long in one place.
If you have an offioad facility, there are NFPA standards that
fall into where they could have to provide containment for that 8,000-
gallon tankard to come in, pull into a containment facility, and off-
load. And then, when they move it out, they could drop off an
(inaudible) facilities for that.
Generally, they are regulated through NFPA in the way they
have to be handled and operated, but they can be large. I've had
some of them in my experience of use of process, instead of having
one or two tankards, they'll put three or four. As long as it's that
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April 24, 2002
(inaudible). And if you're talking about in the Immokalee zone, the
fire department (inaudible) is right next door, so it would be
something that he would be able to keep an eye on. He's the fire
marshal for the Immokalee Fire Department. So it could be, from a
hazardous material standpoint, not a gross hazard. We have specific
situations of where you have to locate. The distance, structures and
all that are covered in the NPFP standards for that type of thing, so
there are some pretty stringent standards there. If you're worried
about that, we don't regulate that.
COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Could that distribution actually
be a nuisance to some of the other people who are selling produce to
have an industrial facility right next to them?
MR. REILLY: That can. It depends where it's located. You
could have odor, whether diesel or fuels.
COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Do the neighboring users -- are
they aware that this is proposed?
MR. REILLY: I'm not aware that they're aware of it.'
I'm just offering some information how their regulations and --
COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I'm wondering if they might object if
you had someone that was packing oranges and your neighbor next
door wanted to do something like that. You might object.
MR. REILLY: Depends where you would locate on the zone.
Obviously, if you were on the fringe of the zone, you had other uses
nearby; it may not be appropriate there. You may want to limit it to -
- if you wanted to allow it at all, put it in an industrial area or specify
what particular area of the zone for the type of use would be --
COMMISSIONER FRY: I'm not sure I understand why the planning
commission would want to give up the right to regulate this. What is
the advantage to the planning commission and ultimately to the
citizens of the community of something of this nature? It seems to be
a big advantage to somebody who wants to put this in, but I don't see
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April 24, 2002
how it's an advantage to the community. I appreciate what you say --
MS. MURRAY: Might I suggest that perhaps your
recommendation be that it be a conditional-use district and that might
-- that would at least bring it back before you and would allow
conditions to be placed on the use with additional approval if the
board so desired, but you could certainly make those
recommendations through your--
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: He has to get a building permit
before he does any of this, so any neighbor would be aware that
something was going on, would they not?
MS. MURRAY: Through the conditional-use process, yes.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Even without conditional use, he
has to get a building permit?
MR. REILLY: He'd have to get a use permit for that location.
MS. MURRAY: But that's --
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: You have to put up a sign when
you're building something, don't you?
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: You have to post your permit
once it's issued, but by the time it's issued, it's done -- it's a done deal.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Okay. Well, conditional use
sounds like the best way out.
I think we're up to page 37, the final order
MS. MURRAY:
moratorium.
MS. STUDENT: Thank you.
attorney. And I'll be brief on this.
Marjorie Student, assistant county
We are just about done with the
process for the Rural Filing Amendment and also the rural land
amendments. The rural fringes are a little bit ahead of the rural lands,
and we are bumping up against a deadline that was originally put in
place. The moratorium ordinances pursuant to the final order, which
was June 22nd, 2002, by consolidated motion of all parties and
approval of an amended final order extending that date. In
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April 24, 2002
November, we made the changes. And rather than put another date-
certain in there, if there's any other problems where we're going to
have to amend it again, we just put the language that that amendment
is really effective on both moratoria.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Are there NRPAs in the -- I
know there are NRPAs in the rural fringe. The next layer out is the
rural lands. Is that--
MS. STUDENT: We decide.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: There is NRPAs in that too.
MS. STUDENT: I would have to go back and look at some
specifics that I don't have with me, but when we initially did this, this
was at the very start of the process, and it hadn't been -- you know,
we divided it into NRPAs because there were some different
standards and prohibitions in the NRPA areas as opposed to the areas
that weren't, and that's why it was divided up there that way. I can
tell you for sure there are NRPAs in the rural and eastern lands area,
but I would just have to look at a map, because as I recall --
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I guess it's a yes or no.
MS. STUDENT: Pardon me?
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: That was a yes or no.
MS. STUDENT: Well, I have to have the map, and I don't have
the map with me.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY:
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY:
You said you knew.
I said in the eastern land areas,
the fringe. I would have to look at the maps to refresh my memory.
That's all. And I will be glad to do so by the next meeting.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: We know there are NRPAs.
MS. STUDENT: I don't like to state categorically on the record
without having a map in front of me and trust my memory on all
these things, so I'll be glad to bring those to the next one.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: So as to the second thing, there
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April 24, 2002
may be?
MS. STUDENT: I think there are, but I don't want to state
categorically without the map in front of me.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: There may be?
MS. STUDENT: All this could extend the (inaudible).
It has no substantive effect at all. Just a procedural thing.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I need somebody to tell me.
So, you're the authority. We had the rural fringe.
What's next?
MR. SCHMIDT: We're going through the rural lands process,
amendment process.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Probably Immokalee and all.
MR. SCHMIDT: That will be brought before the -- I can tell
you the dates. It's getting close. You're going to get the -- that
amendment will be brought forward to you. Rural Lands 8.36, May
24th.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: That's rural lands.
MR. SCHMIDT: Rural Lands Amendment. That's in
compliance with the governor's order.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Is that one we have to hear
twice?
MR. SCHMIDT: No.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: It's only the Land Development
Code. Let me ask you, have somebody from your staff-- we have a
regular meeting next Thursday, I think. Could we ask somebody to
just lay out a schedule for what we're going to be doing in the next
four or five months? I notice that in July and August of the last two
years, we have knocked off the first meeting in each of those two
months. In a conversation you and I had earlier today, it sounds to
me like something was going to be percolating in June or July.
MR. SCHMIDT: We're proposing a special amendment for the
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April 24, 2002
Growth Management Plan.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY:
going to happen.
MR. SCHMIDT:
the 3.1.5 amendment.
So we lay out when all that's
Yes. That was exactly what I expressed with
And actually, it was August and September.
We would be coming to you in August with that. So there is a county
calendar. We will make sure that you get an updated county
calendar, and we'll highlight your meetings, but there also will be the
board meetings as well and some other meetings so you can see
what's scheduled.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Can you tell me when the
Environmental -- EAC is going to consider rural lands?
MR. SCHMIDT: October 22nd at 5:30 -- or, correction -- at
5:05, 22nd May -- May 22nd. And I will defer to Susan if we have a
special session for the issues on Vanderbilt Beach, but I think the
special session was only for the board, and that's for the variances for
that beach and the manatee. There was a -- at the request of the
chairman -- he wanted to do an evening session to facilitate public
attendance, but I think if those come in and -- they've been now
continued. They'll be one of your normal sessions.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: We enjoyed our July and August
stand down, so you can bear that in mind in your scheduling, if
possible.
MS. MURRAY: If you don't mind, there's a few staff here that
are planning to stay. I'd like to go ahead and get through their
amendments because I think there's some more amendments that I
have that you'll be discussing, and I have to stay here all night
regardless. So Ed Reilly, on the fire hydrant amendment, is here.
And I'll let him speak to that if you have questions of him.
MR. REILLY: I'm Ed Reilly, Collier County Fire Code official.
You have in front of you a proposed amendment to the Land
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Development Code as it relates to the fire hydrant locations. When I
got here about two years ago, it was noted that the Land
Development Code was in conflict with NTPA standards that were
adopted by the county.
It's taken quite a length of time to try and work out some of the
problems with the advent of the new code being produced. I
apologize for a typo in Paragraph 1 where the spacing should -- the
Paragraph 1 spacing should have remained 500 feet apart and not
more than 250 feet from the center of any lot. And that is the only
correction that needs to be done there.
What we had with that NTPA Level 41 -- when it was adopted
by the county, it required all hydrants distances not to exceed 300
feet between hydrants. We have been enforcing that because, when
you have two codes in conflict, the most restrictive shall apply. With
the advent of the new code, we have some language in FFH-I-24 that
gives us a little discretion and allows us to extend for single-family
residences in some areas. We don't have hydrants. We don't need
them. And in meeting with the fire officials or the fire marshals
through the county, we recognize that and wanted to make that
change so that we don't have that many hydrants if they won't need
them or we need them in commercial areas or single-family areas in
excess of 500 square feet.
We have had a couple large residential structures, single-family,
that tax the resources of the available fire supply, the water supply
and the apparatus that we could get to the scene, so we recognize that
large residential structures will still need adequate main size and
hydrants to be able to control the fires in those areas.
Basically, this brings us in compliance with the new state
requirements set by the State Building Code, and we wanted to try
and put it in compliance with some other amendments that would be
coming in the future. We're trying to take a lot of information that's
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April 24, 2002
in the -- the standards that we've adopted or the state has adopted and
put them in one single document.
That's basically it. If you have any questions, I'll try to answer
them.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: On page 2 of your submittal, is
there -- you strike through a bunch of language there, suppression
rating schedule of the ISO.
analysis."
MR. REILLY: Right.
That leaves the words "fire-flow
There will be in the new --
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Is there such a thing as the fire-
flow analysis?
MR. REILLY: Yes. There's analysis figures that are based on
the insurance rating organization schedule. It's not exactly what they
have. It's less restrictive than theirs. We have that ability to do it, so
it reduces some of the fire-flow requirements to some structures. So
it's being rewritten. In fact, it's done. It's just a matter of having a
public hearing and bringing it through the process. We have to have
another public hearing first before we can start it through this
process.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: There is a fire-flow analysis?
MR. REILLY: There is a fire-flow analysis that is based on the
ISO schedule, but it's a little bit different. It's real close to what Lee
County uses, City of Fort Myers. It's almost identical. In fact, it is
identical to the City of Fort Myers fire-flow analysis.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Does any of that come about as
a result of the loss of water pressure during the breaks in the water
pipe?
MR. REILLY: No. This was in effect prior to that. However,
we are looking at fire-sprinkler issues and the design criteria of those
because of the water issues. In fact, we've done our water analysis
where we show static pressures as low as 38 pounds, which the
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April 24, 2002
majority of our sprinkler systems are designed with much higher
pressures and won't operate as designed at those lower pressures.
So we're analyzing the Bonita Springs process that they're using for
the design of the fire-sprinkler systems, which gives you a standard
starting point. Instead of using a regular flow test, it gives you a
maximum number to use.
So we're looking at that now.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Any other questions?
(No response)
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Okay. Thank you.
MS. MURRAY: Page 55.
MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Good evening, Start Chrzanowski with
Development Services. This amendment is to -- at the present time,
if you have a project coming in for review, you go through what we
call a Site Development Plan Review. That's for the horizontal
construction and infrastructure. And then you go in for a building
permit for the vertical construction, the building itself. We give you
your STP, your site development plan approval if you have submitted
for your right-of-way permit. That allows you to start work on your
infrastructure, but you can't really start on the building until you get
your building permit.
We have, in the past, tied the right-of-way permit to the building
permit. The Transportation Department has had some problems with
this recently, and they want the right-of-way permit tied to the site
development plan instead of to the building permit. So instead ofjust
submitting for the right-of-way, you have to actually have it approved
prior to getting your STP approval.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: That's all right with me. Thank
you, Stan.
MS. MURRAY: We go back to page 41. This is basically to
correct a spelling of the ficus microcarpa and include common
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April 24, 2002
names. Really straightforward. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: We didn't do 3.
MS. MURRAY: I'm skipping that. Next would be page 45, and
this amendment will require the same minimum landscaping for
communication towers located along Alligator Alley as other
communication towers.
I'll skip 46 and 48 and go to page 49. And that is to restore the
requirement that landscape buffers be platted as separate tracts or
easements on plats.
Go back to page 48. Pedestrian access standards is to require
the same minimum landscape buffer within Division 2-8 as specified
in Division 2-4 when sidewalks are incorporated into landscape
buffers and clarification of the intent of Section 2.8.3.4.1.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Which are the ones that your
staff people are depending on?
MS. MURRAY: They can probably leave now.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: There's only two left.
MS. MURRAY: Let's go to page 46. Page 46 is to require the
Collier County Planning Commission to meet once for amendments
to the Land Development Codes as opposed to twice. And I
anticipated this might generate some discussion.
I guess where I thought we might be able to use this is, if we
were doing very minimal requirements or minimal changes to the
codes, or perhaps we had a specialty -- Special Land Development
Code cycle for a special purpose. I know generally the way it
functions -- it's kind of nice to have one meeting and we kind of have
a lengthy discussion, and you all flesh out issues and that's actually
very helpful to us, obviously. So I don't want to necessarily eliminate
that every time. I would just like to have the option to decide if what
we were discussing was warranted to have two meetings instead of
one.
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April 24, 2002
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Susan, if the Hearing Examiner
Program is implemented -- and I say "if" -- this is about all we're
going to have left, isn't it?
MS. MURRAY: That and policy discussion, GMP changes.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: So it's not -- it's not going to be a
burden on us to have two meetings. It's a question of whether it's a
burden on the staff. If we can -- if we can write it in such a way that
we could have a second hearing -- of course, then you get into timing,
don't you?
MS. MURRAY: Yeah. The schedules are set so early, and I
have to build time in to -- in case something happens, like it did last
time where a quorum doesn't show up. Then I have to have time. I
actually do build time into the schedule. I shouldn't be telling you
that, I guess, but--
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: We know now.
MS. MURRAY: Those things come up, and so there is some
flexibility in the schedule. But our schedules are --
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: As we found out two weeks ago.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: And tonight, yeah.
MS. MURRAY: -- to a certain extent -- obviously, we're in this
room but -- so, yeah, there's some logistical issues there.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: If we go to one, I would feel a
whole lot better if we had our one after the EAC and the other body
had a shot at these things so we would have the benefit --
MS. MURRAY: Yeah. You'll still do DSAC, EAC -- or
actually, it's EAC, DSAC and then you and then the board. We'll still
keep that progression.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: It would even be nicer if their
minutes -- if the timing were such that their minutes would be
available, but I may be asking too much.
MS. MURRAY: Possibly.
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April 24, 2002
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I've never seen the DSAC
minutes. I don't know if they have them but --
MS. MURRAY: If they're available, we can certainly get them
today.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: EAC is--
MS. MURRAY: EAC doesn't hear all the amendments.
They only hear the environmental ones.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: An amendment that I'd like to
see you think about is to bring the EAC into the same sort of system
that we have where, once you have a quorum, then the majority takes
action. The EAC is hobbled with this business that if they don't have
a majority of the members in favor of something, present or not, then
they take, quote, unquote, no action. I don't know -- I think that
was just a -- an attempt to weaken their authority or ability or
whatever. I can't imagine why else it was done that way. But -- MR. WHITE: County attorney, Patrick White. The rule is
actually five or more of the members and--
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Of what?
MR. WHITE: Taking action on any matter before it's
considered, quote, official.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: EAC?
MR. WHITE: As to the EAC, yes.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: See, that's not in our case.
MR. WHITE: Understood. I'll relay your request and concern
at their next meeting.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Of what?
MR. WHITE: Modification to the rule.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Who are you going to relay it to?
MR. WHITE: EAC at their next meeting.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I'm sure they'd be in favor of
it because we worked around it in the past by saying, well, we don't
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April 24, 2002
care whether it was official action or not. What was the vote? Okay.
Well, the vote was four to nothing in favor or four to nothing against.
So we know something. That's -- we're not bound by what they do
anyway. It just seems to me that it denigrates things to have this not
official when people don't show up. Okay.
MR. SCHMIDT: Can I state for the record, DSAC -- so you
understand, DSAC goes through this --
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: I'm talking EAC.
MR. SCHMIDT: But I want to go back to DSAC, because you
mentioned about minutes. We've now somewhat truncated the
process of the stenographer taking verbatim minutes because of cost
and schedule and whatever, so we're back, probably, to just a memo-
type of minutes with the Development Services Advisory Committee.
They also have subcommittees that bore through these pretty deeply.
And, in fact, there's been an issue of how we keep those minutes. But
we will probably maintain a voice record of the meetings, and we'll
then do a memo. So regrettably, there won't be a written memo.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Memo's not going to tell us a
whole lot more than this little synopsis does.
MR. SCHMIDT: That's about right. Unless you listen to the
tapes. The tapes will be available for up to two years.
COMMISSIONER STRAIN: About the amendment that we
have right here, as far as -- my preferences would be, is to leave the
two meetings and -- the main reason for that is, I'm watching -- the
two months I've been on the board, the first time around is always the
educational portion of it. Plus, between the time it's scheduled and
the time -- until the minute we vote sometimes, we get additional
input, additional paperwork. We get to question staff. They get to
refine things and come back to us with something that's more
palatable to us. I'd just assume leave the two, if that -- if the rest of
the board went to -- would go along with that thought.
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April 24, 2002
COMMISSIONER FRY: I have no problem with that.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: Okay, Susan. What's next?
MS. MURRAY: Page 39. And page 39 is an amendment,
basically, directed by the board. If you recall, I believe it was last
cycle we added the language that you see struck out, and it was
adopted by the board. And there was an issue with some public
notification, and the board then, about a month ago, maybe a little bit
more, directed staff to come back and basically rewrite the language
so it's a little more clear and understandable.
And so this is all this does. It doesn't change anything that -- it
doesn't change anything that was adopted previously. It just attempts
to break the language down a little bit into more simple terms.
And I -- for the benefit of Mr. Fry-- I'm sorry again. Usually
we have a visualizer. And I have pictures, and I did have a picture of
how this works, and I didn't even bring it with me because we -- I'd
be happy to go through it, you know, with you if you have questions,
and show you a picture.
If there's no questions, that's -- I believe that's it.
CHAIRMAN ABERNATHY: And we don't have old business
or new business tonight, so let's adjourn.
There being no further business for the good of the County, the
meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 8:30 p.m.
Page 85
April 24, 2002
COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
KEN ABERNATHY, CHAIRMAN
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT
REPORTING, INC., BY LINDA J. SULLIVAN, RPR.
Page 86