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EAC Minutes 11/03/1999 November 3, 1999 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL ADVISORY COUNCIL Naples, Florida, November 3 , 1999 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Environmental Advisor Council, in and for the County of Collier, having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9 : 00 a.m. in REGULAR SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present : CHAIRMAN: William W. Hill Ed Carlson Michael G. Coe M. Keen Cornell John DiNunzio Daniel Jackson Thomas W. Sansbury J. Richard Smith NOT PRESENT: James L. McVey ALSO PRESENT: Stan Chrzanowski, Senior Engineer Barbara Burgeson, Senior Environmental Specialist Stephen Lenberger, Environmental Specialist, Development Services Mac Hatcher, Environmental Specialist Bill Lorenz, Natural Resources Director Marjorie Student, Assistant County Attorney Marni Scuderi, Assistant County Attorney Ron Nino, Current Planning Manager Page 1 November 3 , 1999 1 CHAIRMAN HILL: I 'd like to call the November meeting of the Environmental Council meeting to order. Apologize for being a few minutes late, to the public . I 'd like to welcome everybody here who is here to show an interest in some of the proceedings . We will give the public ample opportunity to express their views on any of the petitions or discussion matters . Could we have roll call, please. MS . BURGESON: Hill? CHAIRMAN HILL: Here. MS . BURGESON: Carlson? MR. CARLSON: Here. MS . BURGESON: Coe? (No response . ) MS . BURGESON: Cornell? MR. CORNELL: Here. MS . BURGESON: DiNunzio? MR. DiNUNZIO: Here. MS . BURGESON: Jackson? MR. JACKSON: Here. MS . BURGESON: McVey? (No response . ) MS . BURGESON: Sansbury? MR. SANSBURY: Here. MS . BURGESON: Smith? MR. SMITH: Here . CHAIRMAN HILL: We do have a quorum of seven. I know Mr. Coe will be here later. There was an unavoidable conflict at 9 : 00 . Item No. II is the approval of agenda. And I do have some changes that I 'd like the council to consider. From Item VI, new business, I 'd like to pull forward two items into a new IV, moving land use petitions to V. Under new IV, I 'd like to pull up Items B and C, the remedial amendments and the DCA response to the ORC Report, into a new agenda Item IV-A and B, leaving the old VI-A and B remaining under new business . MR. JACKSON: Would you do that just one more time? CHAIRMAN HILL: Create a new agenda Item IV, which would include two sub-items from the printed Item VI . Those two would be VI-B and VI-C, creating two items under new IV, IV-A and IV-B. They would be the remedial amendments and the response from DCA to the ORC Report . MR. SMITH: It would be under the heading land use petitions agenda? Page 2 November 3 , 1999 CHAIRMAN HILL: No, a new IV. MR. SMITH: Okay, so the old IV would become V then? CHAIRMAN HILL: The old IV would become V, the land use petitions . And I 'd like to, with the council ' s approval, re-order those four, B, C, D and A. We ' ll take them in that order. MR. JACKSON: Now we ' re on the land use petitions? CHAIRMAN HILL: Right, which will be V. There are four petitions . I would request we take them in the order B, C, D, A. MR. JACKSON: B, C, D, A. CHAIRMAN HILL: I 'd like to add under new business a short item noted as VII -- new VII-C, discussion of review schedule . Are those changes clear to the council and to the public and to staff? 1 MR. JACKSON: I don't see how they could be. Under V, land use petition agenda, the first item under that is going to be? CHAIRMAN HILL: B . Victoria Falls . MR. JACKSON: Okay. Then the next one is going to be? CHAIRMAN HILL: San Marino. Pelican Marsh. And then winding up with Winding Cypress . No pun intended. I apologize, I -- are agendas available to the public? Okay, then I thought maybe it was confusing. MR. JACKSON: Well, I don' t know if this is -- are you finished making all your changes? CHAIRMAN HILL: Yes . MR. JACKSON: I think this is a very, very heavy loaded agenda. And when I received all the material that I did, trying to evaluate it, I was overwhelmed, and so I had to make a decision on what I was going to do in relation to some of this material . And so I notified the planning service department that I was going to have to abstain on which I guess is now the item -- but I have no idea of -- V in relation to the Winding Cypress PUD, on account of the fact I could not possibly read all this material satisfactorily to my satisfaction and then also evaluate this material, which I needed to, as well as evaluate all of this material given to me . Now, I 've had 40 years as a university professor, and I certainly have examined many theses and dissertations and term papers, and I have an appreciation for what people write. And I think what people write should be read. And I think that this is undoubtedly a remarkable entree, but I would like to make a motion that that particular item be continued a week. CHAIRMAN HILL: Dan, I appreciate your comments . Let ' s hold any action on that until it comes up as an agenda item. MR. JACKSON: Okay. We were just making changes now. I thought it would be appropriate. CHAIRMAN HILL: Well, yeah, abstention would come when we consider that item, which will be the fourth land use petition. Are those changes acceptable to the council members? MR. SANSBURY: I think we have a public comment . Page 3 November 3 , 1999 CHAIRMAN HILL: Oh, I 'm sorry. MR. REYNOLDS : Mr. Chairman, I 'm sorry to interrupt this discussion. My name is Alan Reynolds, with Wilson-Miller, and we ' re here -- I 'm here on behalf of the Winding Cypress petition. I was just going to ask your indulgence . We were first on the agenda, you've now moved us to last . I have an 11 : 00 conflict . So if there would be any way where you could keep us in the order that we come in the land use petitions, it would be appreciated. Thank you. MR. SANSBURY: Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN HILL: I appreciate -- yes, Mr. Sansbury. MR. SANSBURY: I 'm going to have to recuse myself on the Winding Cypress item, because the ownership of Winding Cypress is somewhat the same as the ownership of Grey Oaks . My question is, I know there ' s a lot of professionals here from Winding Cypress and things of that sort . Why -- what is the reasoning in putting it on the bottom? CHAIRMAN HILL: There was a request by a petitioner to be moved up for similar reasons . But I will -- Mr. Nelson, was it; is that correct? MR. REYNOLDS : Mr. Reynolds . CHAIRMAN HILL: Reynolds, I 'm sorry. I will accept your request and move Winding Cypress back to first . MR. REYNOLDS : Very good, that ' s fine . MR. NADEAU: My name ' s Dwight Nadeau. I represent Victoria ^ Falls . And in knowing that Winding Cypress was going to be first, I don' t have everybody here for us to go first as well . So you bringing Winding Cypress back to the front, we ' re fine. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. MR. NADEAU: Thank you. CHAIRMAN HILL: It was your request to move Victoria Falls, wasn't it? MR. NADEAU: No. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. So new Item No. V will be in the order as presented. May I have a motion for approval of the amended agenda? MR. SMITH: I so move . MR. SANSBURY: Second. CHAIRMAN HILL: Discussion? All those in favor, aye. Opposed? (No response. ) CHAIRMAN HILL: Show it 7-0 , with two absentees . ***October 13th minutes . Are there any discussions or action to be taken? I submit them for your approval . MR. CARLSON: Move to approve. MR. DiNUNZIO: Second. CHAIRMAN HILL: Discussion? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Opposed? I I Page 4 November 3 , 1999 (No response . ) CHAIRMAN HILL: Again, 7-0, with two absentees . ***Under new Item IV, the new business Item B, remedial amendments . Mr. Lorenz? MR. LORENZ : Yes, thank you. For the record, Bill Lorenz, natural resources director. We had previously -- this was an item that was continued from your last meeting. Just preliminarily, these remedial amendments are required by the final order that was issued by the Governor and Cabinet for the county to adopt specific areas that are listed in the final order, and the requirement is that those be adopted by November 30th. We intend to take these to the Board of County Commissioners for November 23rd. These amendments have also been presented to the Planning Commission and with a couple of changes, which I can show you as we go through the amendments, the Planning Commission basically approved the remedial amendments . So whatever information the VAC provides, that information will be carried forward, forwarded to the Board of County Commissioners for their November 23rd meeting. And what I 'd like to be able to do is I 'd like to go through the order with the drainage sub-element, the aquifer recharge sub-element, the conservation future land use element, which I think Barb Cacchione will be here as well to discuss, and then the conservation coastal element . I think it will unfold better that way. CHAIRMAN HILL: Which was first, Mr. Lorenz, the ground aquifer recharge? MR. LORENZ: The drainage sub-element, please . CHAIRMAN HILL: Does everybody have a copy of that? That ' s the drainage sub-element attached to the memorandum. MR. SMITH: Make sure I got it . MR. LORENZ : This was the material that I presented -- that I gave you, an October 5th memo. And there are some subsequent materials too that I sent to you on October 19th that you should have, and I ' ll probably be referring to those . And I have some overheads of those as well . MR. SMITH: Do you have an extra copy right there? With all the pack of stuff that I brought, I guess I forgot to bring that portion. MR. LORENZ: I don't have any extra copies . CHAIRMAN HILL: Do you have two copies? MR. DiNUNZIO: I just borrowed a copy from Barbara. I got there first . CHAIRMAN HILL: Can you share one and I ' ll give Richard mine and I ' ll -- MR. DiNUNZIO: Sure . MR. SMITH: Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN HILL: All right, Mr. Lorenz . MR. LORENZ: The changes for the drainage sub-element are found on Page 7, the last objective. It ' s a new Objective 1. 6 . And these changes pretty much track the final order where we had to provide policies that would address the water quality from stormwater systems Page 5 November 3 , 1999 n and would provide discharge criteria to protect the drainage systems . And those discharge criteria would look at return frequencies and allowable runoff rates . These -- and so the Policy 1 . 6 . 1, 1 . 6 . 2 and 1 . 6 . 3 accomplish that . We are basically adopting, for the water quality components, the same requirements that exist for the South Florida Water Management District ' s basis of review sections, which are referred to in these policies . Policy 1 . 6 . 3 , the allowable discharge rates, are those rates that the county has determined and utilized. I think it is Ordinance 91-110 . I 'm looking for Stan here to say yes . MR. CHRZANOWSKI : 90-10 . MR. LORENZ : 90-10 . So these are basically policies that currently the South Florida Water Management District apply to projects in Collier County, and allowable runoff rates that Collier County has been applying to projects in Collier County. So therefore, these policies are these requirements that are being incorporated in the Growth Management Plan, so we ' re meeting the final order requirements that we have specific and measurable requirements in the plan itself . CHAIRMAN HILL: Questions for Mr. Lorenz? MR. SMITH: Mr. Chairman, does this require an approval by us, or is it just that if we have particular comments or requests in terms of proposed changes that we would move that? CHAIRMAN HILL: I 'm not sure of the legal answer to that . I would like the council to make a formal statement as to the -- to their feelings regarding these amendments . Whether it ' s required or not, I think we ought to go on record as approving or suggesting any changes to it . MR. LORENZ : Yes, we would -- from staff ' s perspective, we 'd want to have EAC to make some recommendation to the board. MR. SMITH: If we ' re going to take them one by one, as I presume we are here, then I would move the approval of those changes . They sound very reasonable to me. CHAIRMAN HILL: You got ahead of us . Are there other questions for Mr. Lorenz concerning the drainage sub-element? MR. CARLSON: I just have one general comment . It has nothing to do with the proposed additional language. But the water management district ' s done a lot of work in the Cocohatchee Basin, and shown that the whole Corkscrew system, Cocohatchee system, is one basin. And it ' s much more useful to think about that as one basin than dividing it up, like it ' s listed under your various basins on Pages 4 and 5 . CHAIRMAN HILL: Are those discharge rates -- excuse me, Bill, go ahead. Were you going to respond? MR. LORENZ: Well, yeah. For Ed' s comments, these were the level of service standards that the county has previously adopted through a drainage master plan. These areas here, for purposes of the remedial amendments, we ' re not proposing to change . Page 6 November 3 , 1999 MR. CARLSON: Right . CHAIRMAN HILL: I have a question. Excuse me, Ed. MR. CARLSON: Just a general comment about -- I assume there ' s a map somewhere with the basin boundaries? MR. LORENZ : Yes . In the drainage sub-element text . CHAIRMAN HILL: In 1 . 6 . 3 , are those rates new values? MR. LORENZ : No, those rates are what the county adopted back in Ordinance 90-10 back in 1990 , thereabouts . CHAIRMAN HILL: I guess that ' s part of my question. How easy is it -- it bothers me the more -- as development proceeds within the county that those rates may be -- or should be reviewed periodically to see if they are in fact quantitatively true to these various basins . And how easy is it to alter those values? MR. LORENZ : Right now the -- I 'm not sure if the staff from water management department is here. Is Robert Wiley in the audience? MR. CHRZANOWSKI : No, I haven't seen anybody. MR. LORENZ : The operation -- or the responsibility for this element is in the stormwater management department . They do periodically -- have engaged with consulting services to do some drainage plans . My understanding is as new information may come available from that kind of work, if it requires a modification to these runoff rates, then I would certainly assume that they would be bringing those forward. MR. SANSBURY: Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN HILL: Yes . MR. SANSBURY: Similar question is I believe that South Florida has runoff rates also. Do you know how these compare? Are they in line with what South Florida requires in various areas, or are they detailed to South Florida? MR. LORENZ : I 'm not sure exactly how they compare . They are specific for Collier County as a result of some work that was done in the mid-Eighties . CHAIRMAN HILL: But South Florida has certainly been involved in establishing those rates . MR. LORENZ: I 'm not sure to what detail South Florida has reviewed these rates in terms of developing the rates . I believe -- Stan may want to handle this . MR. CHRZANOWSKI : South Florida uses our rates in the review. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. South Florida is represented here, by the way. Isn't that Mrs . Johnson? Yeah, I apologize for not recognizing you earlier. Mrs . Johnson is here, and colleagues from South Florida Water Management District . We welcome you, and certainly will value any input you might have. Other questions then for Mr. Lorenz on the drainage sub-element? I would ask if there is public input . Close that portion and ask the council for action on this proposed amendment . MR. SMITH: Mr. Chairman, I 'd like to renew my motion for approval of it . Page 7 November 3 , 1999 n MR. JACKSON: I ' ll second that . CHAIRMAN HILL: Discussion? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Opposed? (No response. ) CHAIRMAN HILL: 7-0, two absences . MR. LORENZ: The next element would be the aquifer recharge element . Let me also say that the -- from a DCA perspective, the aquifer recharge element is something -- it ' s a little bit of an unknown quantity. In the past we have had some review of some of this material that -- in the drainage element, for instance, and some other material I ' ll be presenting to you -- that the DCA staff have reviewed, and we had some degree of understanding that they would accept the language. The aquifer recharge is different . This was somewhat new in final order. So we ' re going a little bit blind here with this . Although we did have a meeting with DCA yesterday and we did provide them the draft language. So I hopefully will get some comment prior to the Board of County Commissioners ' meeting, especially on the aquifer recharge element . If I could have the visualizer on. On Page 1 of the aquifer recharge element, Policy 1 . 1 . 5 is a new policy. The final order requires the county to adopt annual -- or delineate, I should say, annual recharge -- groundwater recharge rates for Collier County and provide those rates on the map. In a previous -- in my previous, I think it was, October 19th letter that I sent you, I provided you with some copies of the recharge rates that have been published in the South Florida Water Management District ' s publication WRE No. 327 . That ' s the best available data and information that we currently have . And they are proposing that these maps be used as the -- to fulfill the requirement of the final order for recharge maps . That ' s kind of tough for the public to see the blank screen. I assume you all have your -- correct, those maps there . This is what I 'm referring to. Now, to step through it, the Water Management District ' s publication, they've identified recharge to what they're calling the surficial aquifer. And surficial aquifer is the upper aquifer system in Collier County. It ' s made up of the water table aquifer and the lower Tamiami aquifer, and it may extend down 150, 200 feet, perhaps, in some locations . And the two maps that we are putting in the plan will be the map for the surficial aquifer and the map for the lower Tamiami aquifer. The map for the surficial aquifer indicates that most of Collier County has an average recharge of around 43 to 56 inches . The -- that ' s to the total surficial aquifer. The recharge to the lower Tamiami aquifer -- and it ' s in the lower Tamiami aquifer that we have most of our public supply welifields placed. Those recharge rates are typically in the order of, let ' s say, 7 to 21 inches, with some locations being greater than 21 inches . Page 8 November 3 , 1999 CHAIRMAN HILL: Is there some particular known reason why there ' s such a discrepancy -- not discrepancy, but a difference between the two? MR. LORENZ : Well, the water table aquifer is separated from the lower Tamiami aquifer by a unit which is what we call a semi-confining unit . And it is a set of material that -- I ' ll get this up on the screen. Its materials are characteristic such that water does not go through that unit as quickly as the aquifer itself . So therefore, there ' s some degree of impedance to go through that unit . Therefore, there ' s not enough -- as much recharge. Where we do see a large amount -- some of the areas -- this is the surficial . And this is the lower Tamiami . And some of these areas we can pick up basically the effects of some of the public wellfields that exist that actually are -- as you draw water out of the ground, you're creating a -- (Fire alarm interruption. ) MR. LORENZ : That means we have to leave . (Recess . ) CHAIRMAN HILL: There are still some people waiting to come up, so if they are for this session, I think I ' ll wait about five minutes before reconvening. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay, I 'd like to reconvene the EAC meeting, with a small change in agenda, with the agreement of Mr. Lorenz . I would n like to consider one more of the amendments -- are we prepared, Bill, to do that? Are we prepared to -- MR. LORENZ : Well, I 'm looking around for -- you and I talked about whether you wanted to pull some other folks into it . If we had Barb Cacchione here, we could do the Future Land Use Element, but I don' t see Barb, so -- CHAIRMAN HILL: With that in mind then, I would like to move the remaining land use elements and remedial material to later, and in the interest of public and petitioners, revert back to the land use petitions . ***Therefore, with the council ' s approval, I would like to call on then -- or consider PUD 99-23 , Winding Cypress PUD, and ask that for this petition and all subsequent petitions, that anyone of the public wishing to express their opinion or address the petition, identify yourself prior to the beginning of discussion so we can swear you in. Are there people here who would like to address the Winding Cypress petition? If you would stand up. (Speakers were duly sworn. ) CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you. Yes . MS . MURRAY: Thank you, I 'm -- MR. SANSBURY: Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN HILL: Yes . MR. SANSBURY: If I could, before this -- again, for the record, the ownership of my employer, Grey Oaks, Grey Oaks Country Club shares ownership with the property of which, the Winding Cypress property, Page 9 November 3 , 1999 n thus I must recuse myself from discussing this matter. MR. DiNUNZIO: And also for the record, my wife works for Grey Oaks Country Club, so I have to recuse myself . CHAIRMAN HILL: The chair recognizes two people recusing themselves, which leaves us then a -- still a quorum of five. Dr. Jackson? MR. JACKSON: I 'd like to recuse myself because I did not read the material and I do not feel qualified. CHAIRMAN HILL: I appreciate that, but I -- in rechecking with the attorney' s office, I 'm afraid that is not allowable to recuse yourself for any reason other than potential conflict . MR. JACKSON: I have a conflict in the fact that I don't think that this committee is serving the public well in having all this material to evaluate and then not having an opportunity to evaluate it fully. CHAIRMAN HILL: I can appreciate that, Dr. Jackson. I 'm afraid that I cannot allow a recusal on your part for that reason, as much as I would like to. MR. JACKSON: Well, if that be the case, I would like to make a motion that the Winding Cypress be continued at the next meeting of this board. CHAIRMAN HILL: Prior to a second -- asking for a second -- Marni ' s not here . Is there anybody from the attorney' s office? I wanted to ask if those two people that recused themselves from discussion of the petition itself would be allowed to discuss an act -- ah, good morning, Ms . Scuderi . MS . SCUDERI : I apologize . CHAIRMAN HILL: That ' s all right . MS . SCUDERI : I couldn' t get the elevators . CHAIRMAN HILL: We have moved -- we ' re now on land use petitions . We have moved them back up to the current item on the agenda. Two of the seven have recused themselves from Winding Cypress . MS . SCUDERI : Right . CHAIRMAN HILL: A third council member has moved to continue the consideration of that PUD to a later date to allow himself time to review the material . The question was asked if he could recuse himself, and I was unable to acknowledge that or allow that . So the motion before the council now is to continue that to the next meeting. MS . SCUDERI : Okay. CHAIRMAN HILL: Now, my question is, relative to that motion, can the two council members who recused themselves for discussion of the petition itself vote on that motion? MS. SCUDERI : My advice would be that this is -- since they have recused themselves, really not to get involved in any aspect, although the statute does allow for a certain amount of participation, even if you cannot vote, after disclosure. The safest advice to give would be for them to keep themselves out of every issue. CHAIRMAN HILL: Including the continuation motion? MS . SCUDERI : That ' s a gray line. CHAIRMAN HILL: A gray area. Page 10 November 3 , 1999 MS . SCUDERI : It truly is . Basically I think the safest advice is for them, since they have decided not to participate, if that is their decision, that they really should not participate in any aspect . Although it is a gray area. And I really can't give you a black-and-white answer to that . CHAIRMAN HILL: But they could participate in some fashion, even though they were recused? MS . SCUDERI : The statute does allow for that, although -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Therefore -- MR. SMITH: Mr. Chairman, could I -- CHAIRMAN HILL: -- I will exercise the power of the Chair and allow those two people to vote on this motion. MR. SMITH: Could I make a comment? As I understand it, the individual council person makes his own choice . MS . SCUDERI : Exactly. MR. SMITH: You as a chairman don't tell him you' re going to participate or not participate . CHAIRMAN HILL: No, I wasn' t telling him that . I was giving him the opportunity -- MR. SMITH: They always have that . CHAIRMAN HILL: -- to participate in this motion. MS . SCUDERI : Mr. Chairman, they do, according to the statute, which I believe that both members have seen, is that although they cannot vote, that they do have an option of participation. But there -- with the explanation that was given that it is safest if they chose so, not to participate at all . And that is definitely their decision. But I believe that they will have to make that decision for themselves . CHAIRMAN HILL: Right, I didn't want to compromise their choice, but I wanted to give them the possible opportunity to vote on the continuation motion. They don't have to, but I thought it only fair that they be allowed to vote on that motion, since they had a certain latitude in participation anyway under the law. MS . SCUDERI : They do have latitude and participation, but I still think in this the best advice would probably be -- and again, this is a gray area -- would probably be for them that if they're not going to vote or participate in the main issue, to probably stay out of the surrounding. But again, they have been made aware of their participation, of what they're allowed. CHAIRMAN HILL: With that in mind, then, is there a second for the motion? MR. SANSBURY: Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN HILL: Yes . MR. SANSBURY: If I could, just to comment . You know, I feel that participating in a motion does not in any manner affect the approval or disapproval of this item, and I certainly would participate in a motion and will second it . CHAIRMAN HILL: Any discussion? The motion then, if I am correct, is to continue the Winding Cypress PUD deliberations until the next council meeting; is that Page 11 November 3 , 1999 correct? MR. JACKSON: Yes . MR. VARNADOE: Mr. Chairman, could I be heard on that just a moment, please? CHAIRMAN HILL: Yes, sir. MR. VARNADOE : For the record, George Varnadoe, attorney for the owner, Barron Collier Company. My only comment is that we are on a schedule that takes us to the Planning Commission the day after your next meeting. (Mr. Coe enters boardroom. ) MR. VARNADOE: And then to the County Commission two and a half weeks later. And as long as that ' s not going to upset us going to -- adhering to that schedule of which we have planned and we have opportunities, I think that we would probably not object to it . But I 'd have to defer to Mr. Nino to make sure we don' t fall off our scheduled hearing date. MR. NINO: Ron Nino for the record. We will hold the Planning Commission hearing. We will obviously have to report to them verbally the results of the EAC meeting the day before, but -- CHAIRMAN HILL: What is the date of the -- MR. NINO: November -- CHAIRMAN HILL: -- CCPC? MR. NINO: December 2nd. CHAIRMAN HILL: December 2nd. MR. VARNADOE: And Mr. Chairman, just for the record, I 'm not supporting the postponement of this at all . I 'm just -- all I 'm saying is if we are going to postpone it, I don' t want to lose my schedule that we already have in place . CHAIRMAN HILL: I appreciate that, Mr. Varnadoe. MR. VARNADOE: Thank you, sir. CHAIRMAN HILL: And we certainly want to assist the petitioner in meeting any schedules they have. But I have to recognize the problem that faces us . MS . PAYTON: Nancy Payton, representing the Florida Wildlife Federation. As probably the only public person that ' s going to comment on this, we would appreciate the opportunity for additional time to review the proposal . We haven't had an opportunity to look at and learn much about it, and we would like to comment on it . It would be helpful to us if there was a continuation, both for our benefit and for your benefit . Thank you. CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you. MR. SANSBURY: Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN HILL: Yes, Mr. Sansbury. MR. SANSBURY: We 've all had this package, and I understand Dr. Jackson didn't get to it, but all of us had it . I knew that I was going to recuse myself . I took the time to take a look at it . I think the staff gave us sufficient time to take a look at the information involved, as they would on any other one, and I just -- I can't support the extension. Page 12 November 3 , 1999 CHAIRMAN HILL: Other comments from council members? MR. SMITH: I 'm sorry, I didn' t follow entirely the discussion about the problems this may or may not create in terms of the time frame that the applicant has . I would think that the -- that we as a -- you know, as a public agency are -- one of our roles is to ensure that individuals who apply have a process that they can rely on, and if it does affect the schedule significantly for that claimant, I think that we ought to take that into account in terms of whether to postpone. MR. JACKSON: Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN HILL: Let me -- just a minute, Dan, I want to brief Mr. Coe. You missed the fire drill . MR. COE: No, I saw it down there . CHAIRMAN HILL: The question at hand is Winding Cypress . We had a seven-member council; two were recusing themselves from discussions . We were down to five, which is a quorum. Dr. Jackson has moved to continue this on the basis of the fact that he did not have sufficient time to review all the material . I asked if the two people who recused themselves could participate in that vote, since they did have some latitude in participation in the project . So I took the stance that they could vote . So that is before us now. It has been seconded to continue that -- PUD deliberations to a later date. We were advised that the schedule for that petitioner is such that the 23rd of November is the CCPC meeting. I believe that ' s -- it ' s Planning Commission, or the commissioners? MR. VARNADOE: I think it ' s December 2nd, sir. CHAIRMAN HILL: December 2nd, I 'm sorry. MR. VARNADOE: It ' s the day after your regular meeting in December. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. No, our regular meeting will not be the 1st . That ' s not a Wednesday, I don' t think. MS. MURRAY: It ' s the day after your first meeting. MR. LENBERGER: Yes, your next meeting will be the 1st of -- CHAIRMAN HILL: December 1st . MR. LENBERGER: -- December. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay, thank you. Is the situation clear, Mr. Coe? MR. COE: Yeah. CHAIRMAN HILL: Any other discussion? Any other public input? I ' ll close that and ask for a vote from the council, if the motion is clear. All those in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye. Could I see a show of hands? MR. COE: (Indicating. ) MR. JACKSON: (Indicating. ) CHAIRMAN HILL: Opposed, the same sign. MR. SANSBURY: (Indicating. ) CHAIRMAN HILL: (Indicating. ) Page 13 November 3 , 1999 MR. CARLSON: (Indicating. ) MR. SMITH: (Indicating. ) MR. CORNELL: (Indicating. ) CHAIRMAN HILL: Let it show then 5-2 . MR. DiNUNZIO: I didn't vote on any of this . CHAIRMAN HILL: Let it show 5-2 , one recused and one absentee . MR. JACKSON: May I have the names on that again of who voted? Because I couldn' t see. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. As I understand it, the ayes, please raise your hands -- the nays . Five nays. Cornell, Smith, Sansbury, Carlson and Hill . The yeas were Coe and Jackson. DiNunzio was an abstention, and Mr. McVey was absent . Thank you. Now. MS . MURRAY: Susan Murray, current planning section. I 'm just going to give a very brief overview of the proposed project . The project is located on the east side of County Road 951 between Sabal Palm Road to the north and U. S . 41 to the south. It ' s comprised of 1, 928 acres of land. The applicant is requesting planned unit development approval and DRI or development of regional impact approval in order to construct a maximum of 2 , 892 single-family and multi-family dwelling units . And that would equate to a density of 1 . 5 dwelling units per acre . The PUD also allows other types of uses such as assisted living facilities . There is a village center district, which will allow up to 30, 000 square feet of neighborhood type of commercial land uses, and those would be land use -- commercial land uses primarily to serve the residents of that development . There will be a golf course, driving range, tennis clubs and neighborhood pool facilities. 713 acres of the site is proposed for preserve area, which will allow passive recreation areas, boardwalks and nature trails . The requested density of 1 . 5 dwelling units per acre is consistent with the county' s Growth Management Plan, specifically the urban residential fringe land use designation, as shown on the Future Land Use Map, which allows a maximum density of 1 . 5 dwelling units per dwelling acre . With that, if you have any questions, I 'd be happy to answer. CHAIRMAN HILL: Mr. Cornell . MR. CORNELL: Susan, I 'm just not clear. What makes it an ST overlay district? MS . MURRAY: That would be -- I 'm going to go ahead and let our environmentalist answer that for you, Steve Lenberger. MR. LENBERGER: For the record, Stephen Lenberger, development services . The ST overlay -- and there are a couple of them on this property -- are designating wetland areas, and during the process of rezoning planned unit developments, those wetland boundaries are further defined and looked at . CHAIRMAN HILL: Other questions for staff? Mr. Coe? MR. COE: Yeah, what is a passive recreation area? I know it ' s Page 14 November 3 , 1999 n got boardwalks to it, but what else? Volleyball courts, what? MS . MURRAY: No, passive recreation would imply that it ' s more of a visual type of recreation, where one tends to interact with nature on a very passive or non-interacting basis . In other words, more of a visual type -- MR. COE: It ' s kind of like -- MS . MURRAY: An enjoyment of nature rather than an actual type of basketball or volleyball or some type of recreation -- MR. COE : All right, thank you. MS . MURRAY: -- pertaining to that . CHAIRMAN HILL: Lenberger? MR. LENBERGER: For the record, Stephen Lenberger, development services . The Winding Cypress planned unit development is a -- it ' s located just south of Sabal Palm Road. It extends the whole length to U.S . 41 and it is immediately east of County Road 951 and the 951 canal . The aerial is up on the wall here. A couple of features stand out on the aerial . One is an extensive slough system, which comes through roughly the center of the project . You can actually see it here . And the question was asked earlier about the ST overlay. The ST overlay was roughly defining this area in here, as well as a portion up here, which extends off-site . The project contains a variety of habitats, both upland and wetland. Wetlands include both marshes and a forested system such as cypress and mixed hardwoods . The upland areas are predominately pine flatwoods . There ' s a lot of pine flatwoods at the north end of the project . There are also smaller areas of oak hammock, cabbage palm hammock and some scrub areas . The PUD master plan is on the wall . You can see that the preserve area, which I shaded in green, roughly takes into account all the slough system, which you see on the aerial here . CHAIRMAN HILL: May I interrupt for a moment? MR. LENBERGER: Sure . CHAIRMAN HILL: I 've been requested to have you rotate the diagram so that they're in agreement directionally-wise. Is that possible? MR. LENBERGER: Sure. CHAIRMAN HILL: Makes it ' s a little easier to focus on the two. The other way. MR. SANSBURY: It ' s upside down. CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you. MR. LENBERGER: Is that better? All right . You can see the preserve that takes in the slough system. The -- some of the site is impacted with melaleuca. I took a look at the site. I did visit the site with the petitioner. We took a ride down the FP&L easement, which runs through the property. There ' s quite a bit of melaleuca in this area. And as you get toward the southern end of the property, it cleans up really nicely and the melaleuca invasion is a lot less extensive. Page 15 November 3 , 1999 n There are protected species on-site . Protected species consist of quite a few wading birds . Those are mostly located in the slough system down here . There are also fox squirrels on site, they were mostly located in this area; a black bear, which evidence was found in this area; an inactive red-cockaded woodpecker cavity tree, roughly in this area here; as well as some other animals like American alligators . A few things about the site. This area here is the Marco Island wellfield. So apparently this is the water supply, as told by the engineers for Marco Island. As far as wetlands on the site, there are 803 acres of wetlands . The project, as proposed, will impact about 150 acres . For mitigation, the -- there are proposing wetland enhancement and upland preservation. There ' s also quite a lot of hydrologic enhancement, which I 'm sure the engineers will get into more extensively. In any case, the project meets the preservation requirement of the code . Roughly 37 percent of the site will be preserved. If you have any questions, I ' ll be glad to answer them. The petitioner is also here, along with their team of environmental consultants . CHAIRMAN HILL: Questions for staff? Mr. Coe. MR. COE: When you say -- Mr. Coe, by the way. When you say that 37 percent is going to be preserve, that means preserved as is? Does that mean part of the golf course? What does that mean? MR. LENBERGER: 37 -- well, most of the site is forested, except for a few disturbed roads and power line easement . 37 percent of the site will be preserved in the preserve area as shown in green on the master plan. There also will be additional preservation in the golf course rough areas as the project is designed later on during the site development plan phase. MR. COE : Thank you. CHAIRMAN HILL: Other questions for staff? MR. SMITH: Maybe it ' s a trivial one, but what ' s the difference between a Florida gator and an American gator? MR. SANSBURY: Florida gator is seven to one. MR. LENBERGER: Well, that was my first answer. We have one American alligator. Same species . If you want to call it Florida gator, that ' s your choice. There ' s also an American crocodile. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay, I ' ll ask for a representative of the petitioner, Mr. Varnadoe. MR. VARNADOE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For the record, George Varnadoe. I guess there ' s two answers to Mr. Smith' s question. I think the correct answer is probably that one of them wears orange and blue, but as a Seminole, I think it ' s a matter of intelligence, myself . MR. SANSBURY: Mr. Chairman, I must -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Is this on the record? Page 16 November 3 , 1999 MR. SANSBURY: Yeah, it ' s on the record. Mr. Varnadoe is here. Being from FSU, I want to ask him if he is on work release. MR. SMITH: Sure sounds like it . MR. VARNADOE: Okay, I won' t try to go anywhere else with that . I 'm here today on behalf of Barron Collier Company, which is the owner of this Winding Cypress PUD DRI property. And I 'd like to talk to Dr. Jackson just for a minute. Because of the size of the project in terms of number of units, it ' s required to go through a development of regional impact process . That requires the applicant to file an application for development approval and answer some 31 to 37 questions, depending upon which ones are relevant . That is the majority of materials, Dr. Jackson, that you were given, which is the application for development approval and the supplemental questions and information. I would suggest if you would like, I ' ll give you a list of the questions that really have any relevance to local issues, or environmental issues . Some of them do. Some of them get into arcane things that really have little or no relevance to what we 're doing here today, but it is a state-wide forum. Whether you' re doing an airport facility or a baseball stadium, if you've reached a certain thresh -- or a marina -- reach a certain threshold, you have to go through this process . And the questions are standard. So some of them have more relevance to some projects than others . And I personally apologize for -- I know it ' s a mountain of material . And if you' re not used to it, it even -- it takes me a while to fetter through what ' s important and what ' s not in what we 're discussing at that point in time. MR. JACKSON: Sir, I can appreciate everything that you're saying, having written some environmental impact statements myself and knowing a little of it . What I was objecting to is that this committee, which is supposed to be one that is supposed to read material intelligently and digest material that they are given to it and reach an idea from what materials they have, that I did not have in the -- there was 168 hours total from when this was delivered to when I was supposed to assimilate all this material . Now, I guess one could use logic and say well, now, that has already been presented, it ' s been approved by all the different agencies, there ' s nothing wrong with it . But I still would have liked to have the opportunity myself to see how intelligently it was presented, which I 'm sure that it has been. I have no qualms on the material the way it ' s delivered. I think it ' s wonderful . It should be -- I think everything should be like that . But I think I should have had an opportunity to look at the material . And I do not think that this committee has the opportunity or are doing their job that they should adequately if they think that they can evaluate all the material that they've had. So I can appreciate your point of view. Mine was merely the fact standards in the past I 've tried to meet my own self . So mine had Page 17 November 3 , 1999 nothing to do with -- per se because I 've not looked at it, so I don't know. MR. VARNADOE : And I wasn' t trying to make apology for the application. I think it is very complete . MR. JACKSON: I think it ' s very -- I think it probably -- MR. VARNADOE: And your staff report indicates the same. I was merely trying to explain the process for you and why we have the mountain -- MR. JACKSON: Thank you. But I always find these things always come up from the past that it has to be done, it has to be done. You have to read it all because it has to come up for a committee that ' s going to come up for a committee. And it could have been done just a little bit earlier so there could have been more free time . CHAIRMAN HILL: I appreciate those comments, Dr. Jackson. I will at this point indicate that there will be an agenda item later on where we will discuss the review scheduling with respect to petitions in the future, to hopefully circumvent some of these problems that have occurred. Back to you, Mr. Varnadoe. MR. VARNADOE: Thank you, Mr. Hill . Also here today to answer questions and make presentations, at least one instance, Mark Morton, director of planning for Barron Collier Company, and several representatives of Wilson-Miller, who are engineers and environmental consultants on the project . Stuart Miller, Steve Means, Tim Durham. Who am I leaving out? Kirk Martin from Misburn (phonetic) and Associates, who ' s our hydrogeologist . I 'm going to give you a brief overview, and then Tim Durham will get into actually the meat of the presentation on the environmental aspects and what we ' re trying to do to address some regional water issues . As your staff told you, this is 1, 928 acres . We have a colored aerial here; may be a little clearer than the black and white. The project outlined in red on the aerial . As you can see, we have County Road 951 coming down and swinging through the west . These were the Marco pits, so-called, in this location. U.S. 41 in this location. And Sabal Palm Road being the northern boundary of the property. The proposal, as you've heard from Ms . Murray, is for a low density golf course community. The project ' s been carefully planned to accommodate development scenario while also protecting natural resources and helping to address some water management issues that are in this region. I won't go into the recreational, I think Susan covered that fairly well . And as I told you, because of the size, it has gone through the DRI process . Both the Department of Community Affairs, the State of Florida and the Southwest Florida Regional Planning Council reviewed this, in addition to Collier County. It went to the Southwest Florida Regional Planning Council last month and they voted unanimously to give conditional approval to the project, based on some stipulations, and we are in agreement with the Page 18 November 3 , 1999 stipulation. There also on the property -- on the -- this is the site plan for the property. I think I have this oriented the same way so we can all follow it . Mr. Durham will go into a little more detail on that . But it is also approximately 235 acres of lakes, and then the dark green, the 713-acre preserve, which includes both uplands and wetlands . MR. CARLSON: Mr. Varnadoe? MR. VARNADOE: Yes. MR. CARLSON: I see a lot of green over there . I don' t see so much green over here. Can you tell me what the difference is? There ' s a huge -- MR. VARNADOE: We are impacting some of the jurisdictional -- there ' s a lower quality, Mr. Carlson. This is -- here you have 713 acres of green. There I believe you have about 805 . MR. CARLSON: Okay, that was presented as -- the green over here was presented as the preserve . MR. VARNADOE: Oh, I 'm sorry. In addition this is -- has some upland in it that we are also preserving. MR. CARLSON: Okay. So that green is the preserve area. Okay. MR. VARNADOE: I was just looking at it . And you' re absolutely right . We 've tried to show where we have some upland in little areas incorporated into the preserves, and that ' s the difference . It ' s really a mosaic of uplands and wetlands . We try to do it in a contiguous manner, but thank you for pointing that out . There are also 11 archeological sites on the property. 10 of those are contained within the preserve and so there will be no disturbance to them. The 11th one, which is more of a minor site, is actually in the golf course and the state is yet to decide whether they' ll excavate it or ask us to bury it in the golf course where it can be preserved and later excavated, if they choose. It will not be disturbed. I think the -- it ' s important to recognize, as Ms . Murray pointed out, that this property is in the urban area of Collier County. It ' s not one of those properties that you've been dealing with that tried to beat the June 22nd deadline for development outside the urban area. It is in the urban area, it is in the urban -- the rural fringe. Part of the urban area, which is our transition from a more urban nature to a more rural nature. It ' s allowed to have a density of 1. 5, whereas, across the street is Lely Resort, it ' s four units an acre. As the staff report recognized, it is in the Belle Meade drainage district -- or basin, if you would. What ' s important I think for us to realize is what it ' s not in. Although the state is planning on acquiring lands to the east as far as the Belle Meade acquisition plan of the CARL program, this is not in the CARL program to be acquired. It ' s not within a regionally significant resource identified by the Regional Planning Council. It 's not on the acquisition list of any public or private agency for preservation. And it ' s not either Priority I or Priority II panther habitat . The property has been in Barron Collier ownership since sometime in the Twenties, the 1920 ' s . Historical use has been for agricultural; mainly grazing and a Page 19 November 3 , 1999 n continuing hunting lease that ' s ongoing. Historically -- and I won't get into much of this, because it ' s not my field of expertise -- the project has been severely impacted by hydrological changes in the area. And the most immediate ones, as you can imagine, are 951 and the canal that goes down that, U. S . 41, the canal goes there, and Sabal Palm Road, the canal that runs along there. Obviously it ' s also been impacted by the raw water withdrawals from the so-called Marco pits. And as Mr. Durham will go into, this whole area has been somewhat altered, as far as the hydrology is concerned, by the Golden Gate canals, where a lot of that drainage used to historically come south, is now routed down Golden Gate Canal and out into the Gordon River and ultimately Naples Bay. The -- I 'm going to turn it over to Mr. Durham, because he can get a lot more specifics than I can. I think that I want to make one more point . We tried not only to minimize the impacts to the water resources on-site, but we tried to plan this in concert with the surrounding land uses to address some regional water management issues which I think are significant . So we didn' t plan this project in a vacuum without looking at what ' s around us, what the resources are, and what the problems are in the area. I think that the project is maybe the first one of this magnitude that I can remember that went to your staff for review and came out with no additional stipulations or conditions . I would submit to you that ' s because of careful planning and the long-term planning that ' s been going on with this project . We 've been working with the Water Management District since 1993 on this property and with the environmental jurisdictional agencies since sometime in 94-95 . So it ' s long-term careful planning by a long-term landowner on the project, and I think it ' s a worthwhile project . I ' ll be glad to answer any questions you have for me or perhaps Mr. Durham, and then we ' ll take all the questions at one time, whichever you prefer. Thank you, Mr. Hill . CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you. MR. DURHAM: Good morning. For the record, Tim Durham, principal and director of Environmental Services for Wilson-Miller. George did a good job of outlining on the basic parameters around the site . I do want to go into a little bit more detail about a few of those. And one thing that is important to understand about this project is we've been addressing issues that are specific to the project site, but doing them in a context in a much larger picture. As George pointed out, the historic water shed for this area used to extend way up into Collier County. And the creation of the Golden Gate canal system took a large part of what was historically this water shed, shot that water over to the Gordon River. Also, the construction of Alligator Alley and later 1-75 had some interruptions to some of those flows . Page 20 November 3 , 1999 Unfortunately we don't have an exhibit to point to. But the whole Belle Meade system flows typically from north to south with some southwest direction to the water. When the water comes south, it runs up to the Six L' s farm area, just to the east of this project site, and a lot of water is then diverted around that area and through this site. The development of the 951 -- well, 951 canal actually goes way up north to the tollgate and shunts a lot of water down south. As it comes through that system, it goes under -- through a weir under the road into the Henderson Creek Canal, which then runs to the south. That water body, when you have a heavy storm, has to pass that water through; otherwise, you have some problems back upstream. What you see happening is Henderson Creek gets very large slugs of fresh water, which is not exactly how it historically occurs . Historically water would have worked its way down through the Belle Meade system and at some point started releasing water into Henderson Creek over a broader time period. Other parameters . Sabal Palm Road, traditionally water would have flowed in that kind of direction to the site . Sabal Palm Road has -- is paved for a ways out this direction. There are then a series of culverts further to the east which pass water through. Clearly, Sabal Palm Road has a hydrologic impact . The effect of 951 canal has also been to pull the groundwater down on-site, as has the U. S . 41 canal . So for quite a number of years the site was significantly over-drained by those two features . Then in the Seventies, FPL came in and put a major power line through here. And you see that, this white line through here. To treat their access road, they created a bermed area through the power line corridor and put in some culverts periodically. I 'm not sure how they decided where to put those culverts, but they didn' t match where the flow areas were. So for a number of years, this area was over inundated with water. At some point there was some corrections made, and this road was dug out and placed to where flow was occurring. And then you go back to an over-drained condition. So what I 'm telling you is the last 20 years the site has gone from over-drained to partially over-flooded, back down to over-drained. And we see that in the vegetation features on-site. There are quite a few areas where you can have upland and wetland plants growing much closer in proximity than you normally see in other areas with other amounts of exotic vegetation. I just wanted to point out, the property' s been owned by the Barron Collier Company for over 70 years . We have been working on this project since 1994 . Some of that was in the context of discussions with the Water Management District about regional drainage issues. Shortly after that, started doing wetland determinations and wetland assessments . The project ' s value to the CARL program, the Belle Meade CARL program, is in the hydrologic connection it creates . I 'm having trouble with this pointer. And the site plan we 've come up with Page 21 November 3 , 1999 preserves and enhances that hydrologic connection, as I ' ll explain. Florida Department of Environmental Protection performed a jurisdictional wetland evaluation, a formal evaluation, in 1996 -- they generated a very thick document -- in which it talks about the severe hydrologic alteration of the site . In ' 97 and ' 98 we worked with the Corps of Engineers to perform a jurisdictional wetland analysis on the site. It got to be fairly complicated because the normal indicators you use for wetlands were very mixed on this site. A lot of that has to do with that shift in the hydrologic regime . But in May of 1998 , the Corps of Engineers signed off on a wetland delineation, and again, spoke in that document quite a bit about the altered hydrology. We have also been coordinating with the Rookery Bay Aquatic Preserves . They issued a report about the Henderson Creek area, which we are using to assist us in the design of this . We ' re having ongoing discussions with Rookery Bay. Clearly anything we do on this project to enhance the water flowing into Henderson Creek is a big benefit to Rookery Bay. We have had pre-application meetings on this project with the Corps of Engineers, discussing our site plan features, looking forward to the next step at the Office of Environmental Permitting. Steve did touch on -- Steve Lenberger did touch on the vegetation issue. We have a severe melaleuca infestation in the north end. And when Sabal Palm Road went in, and some of the typical flows stopping at that site, that northern area, the melaleuca really got thick. There have been occasional wildfires out there, which again propagated that melaleuca infestation. The site is used for cattle ranching. There ' s also some hunting areas on site. The bear that Steve alluded to before, it was found -- signs of it was found next to a corn feeder that the hunters had put up to attract game . So in that sense we 're not too surprised to find that situation. If I can short circuit it a little bit here. And Steve also mentioned the listed species survey and the other work done on site. There was an RCW cavity tree found in here. It was long abandoned. Our supposition is that before the melaleuca came into this area -- and there ' s a big infestation of melaleuca to the east of our site. Before that time period, these flatwoods up here would have been very good for RCW' s . They've long since deserted this area and probably moved most likely to the east into the Belle Meade area for better foraging habitat . Again, as George mentioned, we are in the urban area. The land plan we 're proposing is relatively low density. I heard some questions about the preserve area in the center. And let me maybe make it a little easier to see with this exhibit . What we did here, tried to look at this preserve area and pulled out different colors for different types of habitats within that preserve. We have some areas that are definitely upland within the preserve, but by the same token, we have other areas which are technically wetland but exhibit a lot of upland characteristics; a Page 22 November 3 , 1999 large degree of pines, et cetera. So preserve area for the project will be managed, actively managed, and enhanced, which means several things : One, removing exotic vegetation; two, the water management system, which I ' ll talk about more in a second, is going to stabilize the wetlands hydrology within this preserve area, and it will be put in a conservation easement and perpetually managed. That I hope clarifies that preserve area concept a little bit more. One of the key parts of this project is how it does relate to the overall water management issue. Initial discussions with Water Management District many years ago had talked about taking the 951 canal, intercepting some of the water that came through it, and running it down a canal, letting it work through this project and ultimately come out at U. S . 41 further to the south. Historically Henderson Creek, the natural part of Henderson Creek, actually was here. It was channelized years later to have it be over here. The idea is to bring more flow here, as well as here, to spread that flow out that ' s getting south of the project . Through the evolution of design and discussion with the Water Management District, it ' s now determined that one of the better ideas would be to pass a lot of the water that comes off-site through the project, take the 951 canal here and create a little bypass channel right there to allow the flows from 951 to equalize over. The point of all this is that the site design' s been carefully j coordinated with the Water Management District to allow some regional benefits . The water management system on-site, all the water is routed internal to the treatment lakes. It is then treated in there and released into the wetland system where it then works its way through this long wetland system and ultimately discharging downstream. The site itself, this area right here which shows as a road, and this area shows as a road, serves dual functions . And unfortunately we always talk in two dimensions . I guess maybe in the future we ' ll have a hologram that shows the site plans in three dimensions to be easier to explain. But think of it this way, if you would. This end of the site is several feet higher than this end of the site . The water runs through it . What we want to be able to do is hold water back on the site longer. Right now it goes right through and falls off into the canals at the end. What the current design is looking at is taking this here and raising this area to form somewhat of a revetment to hold the water back. It will be able to hold the 5 and 10-year storm event here. As the water moves over, it goes into this area in a second revetment or elevated area here; holds that water at a correct elevation. So it basically steps down through the site . We can't hold water back by putting one big revetment across here and storing all that water, because you end up flooding too much here to get the right hydrology here. So basically we have a step system here. We were very careful to look at what the existing vegetative Page 23 November 3 , 1999 n communities were on site and how these water elevations would work with them. Today the wetlands get wet very late in the season. They reach a certain elevation, which -- with fairly functional elevation, but then as soon as the rain stops, it just drops right back down again. So it ' s the duration of the hydro period that ' s very altered on the site today. With this water management design, we ' ll be able to stabilize the hydro periods and basically stabilize some of these wetlands systems on-site . I ' ll probably stop at that point and allow for questions -- I 've been going on for quite a while -- if any of you have questions, see if I 'm helping or not . CHAIRMAN HILL: I want to apologize for leaving the dais in the middle of your presentation. We had an agenda situation. But I didn't realize I left you at 11 : 30 and got back at 12 :35 . I was gone for an hour and five minutes . MR. SANSBURY: Supposed to be in charge of humor around here. CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you. Questions? MR. JACKSON: First I want to say you did an excellent presentation. I thought it was very good, and I enjoyed hearing about it . I would have liked to have read about it, but I enjoyed your presentation. I think that the flow system is very commendable . MR. DURHAM: Thank you. CHAIRMAN HILL: Questions from council? MR. CARLSON: Yeah. Could you give me just a little more detail on how the 951 canal flows relate to this project and what ' s going to change in that regard? I got the whole rest of it, I just didn't get the 951 canal part . MR. VARNADOE : Mr. Carlson, I don' t know -- I don't think you were on the EAC when we did the Fiddler' s Creek project, which is south and to the east . One of the problems that John Boldt and the water management have had is the 41 canal out for almost two miles, they're having to flow it back to the west and down Henderson Creek, because there was no way to get it south across the farms and back to Mcllvane Bay finally. When we at the Fiddler' s Creek project -- which was like 6, 000 acres, the old Deltona settlement out there -- we provided two fairly significant easements for water to go down south and then in a spreader swale along the south boundary of Fiddler' s Creek where it bounds up to the state lands to go into a spreader swale system, which is what they actually call Fiddler' s Creek, about three miles long and then bleed, if you would, from that point of discharge over. So now, what John Boldt has said, I could take water from the east down 41 and south. And I ' ll let Tim answer this from a technical point of view, but from my perspective as a lay person, instead of all the water now having to go into Henderson Creek, it comes down 951. We 're actually going to have a shunt of where the water management can take the elevation of the weir and take some of that water when they Page 24 November 3 , 1999 want to and push it east down to 41 canal and then down into Mcllvane Bay, which is trying to recreate the balance that we had before. Now, any technical details, I can't answer that, but that ' s just a little background. MR. CARLSON: Right . Who ' s managing that? MR. VARNADOE: The South Florida Water Management committee. CHAIRMAN HILL: Other questions? MR. SMITH: I had a question, Mr. Chairman. I was very interested to read about the archeological history of -- fascinating things . Two questions, really. One, is there a requirement for you to have done that, or is this just something that you did on your own? Secondly, I notice that some of these sites appear to be quite important and that the recommendation is that they be preserved. Are you going to do anything, or should we as this board do anything in terms of recommending that some agency acquire those sites for future preservation? MR. DURHAM: I can -- first of all, the DRI review process that Mr. Varnadoe explained we had to go through before has a question on archeological resources that needs to be addressed, so that ' s standard to look at those issues . We took those issues very seriously as well . The archeological team was brought in, scoured the whole site. We worked with them. r� They identify sites . And typically, you know, they find a site, do a little poking around to try and characterize it, but they don't go in and look at each one in significant detail . We had them identify the sites and then put a 25-foot buffer around them, if you will, to ribbon. The applicant landowner was in very good -- actually paid to go get that surveyed, the exact location, plus the buffer zone. And that information was imported earlier on into the site planning process . So those are again protection zones on the site plan. So the result is, as George Varnadoe said, the site plan puts those in preserve areas for the most part; one area being slightly different . I work on a lot of projects with archeological sites . Typically what they like you to do is -- the main thing is don't destroy the sites . We never get to investigate the resources of it . Typically they don' t like to publicize where they are . They just as soon if you put somewhere in some preserve or somewhere off the chart so nobody ever disturbs it . They come back through and systematically look at those sites. There ' s just thousands of them to be examined. So what we 've done is basically put those in a preserve area. They' re protected. And when somebody wants to come back through and -- (fire alarm sounds) . Testing. I hope that answered. CHAIRMAN HILL: Other questions? MR. SMITH: So in effect you're not looking to have someone else come in and acquire these sites for preservation? Page 25 November 3 , 1999 MR. DURHAM: That ' s typically not the way that -- you know, the archeological people will tell you, they'd just as soon have this become anonymous and just put it aside somewhere and -- sometimes the archeological group will contact the landowner later and say we 're doing a study of so and so, can we come and investigate that . Certainly that ' s found. CHAIRMAN HILL: I had two concerns, maybe premature, and maybe somebody' s going to address it later. But I may have missed it in the presentation. I 'm concerned about the Marco Island wellfield. Has that been addressed from the standpoint of assuring that there will be no potential contamination into that field? MR. DURHAM: Yes . And there have been ongoing discussions . Obviously the City of Marco is concerned with that issue. That ' s something they would look for satisfaction on. There have been several meetings with them. The physical parameters of the project site really protect that in a lot of different ways . And the -- I ' ll use this across the room. That pit right there is used as a water source for the City of Marco. They pull water from that . Several things. The design elements of the project, the water management system, routing all the water through internal lakes, then through a wetland system before it comes out the other end is a high degree of protection. Also, one of the main points to recognize is the 951 canal forms a hydraulic barrier between our project and the pit side . Recognize that ' s a large slug of water coming through there. We ' ll be glad to continue discussions with the City of Marco, but we ' re comfortable with the design and that they're well protected. CHAIRMAN HILL: Have they been satisfied with the discussions? MR. DURHAM: To the best of my knowledge, our development order has some additional language that says we ' ll continue to have that discussion with them. Recognize we still have to go through several major permitting processes on the wetlands, another issue . We have the federal program, the 404 permit program. And on the state side we have environmental resource permit and water use permits and many other permits to go through. CHAIRMAN HILL: Stan? MR. CHRZANOWSKI : Mr. Chairman, Stan Chrzanowski with development services . We 've been talking to the City of Marco and they don't seem to be concerned. We invited them to the meeting. They were not concerned enough to attend. I don't think they have any problems with the project . CHAIRMAN HILL: Is there a Marco Island representative here? Okay, thank you. MR. CHRZANOWSKI : Thank you. CHAIRMAN HILL: The other question I had in my notes, I can't find the right book, but as I understand it, there are -- you're going to fill in 119 acres of wetlands in that 150 total . And you' re going Page 26 November 3 , 1999 n to excavate 23 for lake . MR. DURHAM: I believe that ' s correct . In some of those -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Since the density is not an entitlement, it looks like you may be endangering a significant amount of wetlands in order to put in a certain -- the maximum allowable density. Now, are those 119 that you're filling, are they functional, are they impacted already by exotics? MR. DURHAM: There ' s a varying degree of impact . A lot of the wetlands that will be impacted are significantly impacted. Some of them are less impacted but happen to be in an area that has such a 1 significant change on the site plan to go around them that they will be disturbed. Recognize that during the Corps 404 and the State DRP permit process, we will do a functional wetland assessment of all the wetlands on-site. And the mitigation program that ultimately this permit has to show replacement for all lost wetland functions, so it ' s certainly not in the project ' s best interest to hit a high quality wetland. They get penalized much more on the other side. As I said earlier, the sites go into such radical shifts in hydrology that some of the areas that are technically wetland out there are very peculiar. Some of the wetlands on-site that are proposed to be impacted have some upland and wetland characteristics to them. And the idea of stabilizing some of the water out there will 1 probably shift those areas anyway. So given some of those scenarios, we 're proposing those for impact . But again, we 've had a pre-application meeting with the Corps of Engineers, we 've been in discussion with the Water Management District about these elements, and feel fairly comfortable we can work out the details on them. I would point out that Karen Johnson and Rich Thompson from South Florida Water Management District are here today. And at the Regional Planning Council hearing on our project two weeks ago, Mr. Chip Merriam from South Florida Water Management District, Fort Myers office, spoke up and was supportive of this project and the ongoing dialogue we 've had with them. CHAIRMAN HILL: The question on the wetlands, it ' s a concern this council I think has had almost unanimously, that projects come before us without any real assessment of wetlands on the project site, and in fact some are Collier County jurisdictional wetlands, some are South Florida, the Corps of Engineers gets involved. So we seem to get involved in a process of assessment without full information on some of the wetlands from a function or habitat standpoint . And it ' s very difficult to -- does the South Florida Water Management District wish to -- okay. Other questions for petitioner at this point? In the staff report, the 150 acres of wetlands impacted are listed as South Florida Water Management District . Are any of them Collier County? MS . BURGESON: Collier County wetlands are actually defined by the wetlands that South Florida Water Management District accepts . So Page 27 November 3 , 1999 whenever they're talking about South Florida wetlands, those are the lines and boundaries of Collier County' s wetlands . CHAIRMAN HILL: Several times some of the projects seem to indicate that there ' s a distinction between the two in part -- MS . BURGESON: They are -- CHAIRMAN HILL: -- so that ' s never the case? MS. BURGESON: They are identical . We are required to accept their boundary, what they accept as wetlands . CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. How does the Corps of Engineers fit into that scenario? MS . BURGESON: They have a different line sometimes . They do define their line differently. CHAIRMAN HILL: Other questions? Do you have any additional presentation? MR. VARNADOE: No, sir, not unless you have questions . CHAIRMAN HILL: I just have a comment . It ' s my first experience with a DRI proposal, and I was somewhat overwhelmed until I began digging in. I 'm still somewhat overwhelmed by the process, and I think this council wants to be as fair as they can be to the developer, petitioner, and also the public . Are there people from the public that would like to address the council? MS. PAYTON: Nancy Payton, representing the Florida Wildlife Federation. We haven' t had an opportunity yet to look at this proposal in detail, but I will share with you where our issues are and our concerns are, and maybe you' ll take them into consideration in your deliberations . First is water quality issues . We seek reasonable assurances of compliance with water quality criteria relating to protecting, not causing or contributing to the degradation of the water quality of the Rookery Bay outstanding Florida waters . Rookery Bay is an outstanding Florida water and, therefore, water flowing into it has to be of equal quality or better. I might add that the 41 canal is a noncompliant water body; that is, that the= State of Florida has determined that ' s dirty water, it doesn't meet minimum standards . And I 've heard Mr. John (sic) Varnadoe talk as that was part of this whole new water management strategy. So we raise the concern that 41 canal is a noncompliant water body. Two, impacts to wildlife habitat . We seek minimum impacts to wildlife habitat . It is adjacent to Priority I panther habitat . It is adjacent to the Belle Meade acquisition area. And also, there is panther telemetry data that shows that panthers are using the southern area of this project . Also, there are issues of cumulative impacts; issues of past and foreseeable cumulative water quality impacts and loss of wetlands in the general area, especially 951. I do think it is important that you view this in the context of where it is located, and the impacts, not just on the wetlands within the project, but the cumulative impacts Page 28 November 3 , 1999 that are happening to wetlands in the county. And lastly, a suggestion. You are the Environmental Advisory Council, and it would seem appropriate that staff could frame proposals that are brought forward, projects in the context of public lands, their relationship to public lands, their relationship to CARL acquisition areas public lands . Also, in this case, its relationship to an outstanding Florida water. And also the Rookery Bay Natural Estuarine Research Preserve, which is a public body; its relationship to priority panther habitat, abuts panther habitat, and the use of panthers . And I remind you, panthers was and continues to be a major issue in the discussions in the issue of Collier County' s comp. plan and its obligation to protect listed species . And lastly, I think it would be useful to you as a body to know how the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, formerly the Game Commission, has assessed this property during its evaluation of wildlife areas in its Gaps Report . And it is strategic habitat conservation area for certain listed species of wildlife . Those are our concerns, the ones that immediately come to my mind during the discussion, and I hope you' ll take them into consideration during your discussion. Thank you. CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you. MR. SMITH: Ms . Payton, I have a question. Is that all right? CHAIRMAN HILL: Yes . MR. SMITH: Is it ever in your mind possible to have a development that really takes into account some of the issues that you raise? For example, one of the main issues you raised was water quality. And the material that I have, and the presentation that was made, to me it shows that the water flow that is existing now, if nothing was done to this property, the water flow is such that it just goes -- it inundates it in certain ways at certain times, but there ' s no rhyme or reason to it . And you have a situation where you can have actually a lot of dirty water, as you call it, that is not cleaned before it goes into the estuary ultimately. Whereas, this project, as I understand it, is taking that into account and is actually doing gradations and holding back water in certain ways and giving control to the flows of those waters . Is it ever possible in your mind to have a project that actually benefits the environment? MS . PAYTON: There may be . And as you recall as I framed my comments, it was we haven' t had an opportunity to look at this project in detail . But I wanted to share with this body our concerns and what we would be looking for when we reviewed this . I wasn't making a comment whether this is dirty water or bad water that ' s coming in and out of that project, whether it will be good or bad for the environment . I was raising issues for you to consider and what we will look at . And yes, there are projects that probably are improvements, Page 29 November 3 , 1999 enhancements on what is currently there. It may not be the best that ' s possible, but it may be better than what is there . MR. SMITH: Thank you. CHAIRMAN HILL: Would the petitioner like to address Mrs . Payton' s comment concerning the 41 canal as being, quote, noncompliant? MR. VARNADOE: Yes . She made two comments, the best I could follow. Ms . Payton, I think, was concerned about the quality of water and the amount of water going into the Henderson Creek, which actually finally ends up in Rookery Bay. And then also the fact that the 41 canal is an impaired water body, which has recently been recognized. The reason we 've worked so carefully with the South Florida Water Management District and Rookery Bay folks is to try to address those issues; number one, to reduce the slug of fresh water that ' s going into Henderson Creek, which is the main water quality problem they're having right now -- or one of the main problems they're having is that we have a major rain event, storm event, that comes down 951, it goes over the weir and directly into Henderson Creek, directly enters Rookery Bay. That ' s why South Florida Water Management District and Rookery Bay are very interested in this shunt to take some of that water and take it east to try to equalize the situation. And obviously by running some of this water that now drains through our property and treating it, we will not be adding to, and in fact will be improving the water quality on U. S . 41 . MR. CARLSON: Have all of the designs of that whole shunt thing -- are they finalized or are they still flexible as far as what those conveyances look like? MR. VARNADOE: The -- the answer is yes and no. We 're in the process of design with both South Florida and Rookery Bay. Mr. Carlson, the control of that and how much goes where, that ' s not going to be our decision. Those are going to be controlled by South Florida Water Management District, not by the developer, if that ' s your question. I mean, we 're going to provide the apparatus for digging the water at either point A or point B, and they' re going to decide which way it goes or how much goes each way. I mean, if that ' s -- I 'm trying to be responsive . But no, it ' s ongoing, you know, how wide is the canal, how high is the weir, how much control elevations you've got . We are dealing with them and will be of course during the permitting process where you' ll actually get into the design of that with Rookery Bay. MR. CARLSON: Well, it ' s -- the question was related to not only quantity but also how you design these things . You know, water that 's conveyed in a deep canal is not as high quality as water that ' s conveyed through a -- like a shallow slough system where you have a -- I was just wondering if that ' s been determined yet or is still flexible. MR. VARNADOE: Still flexible. You want to answer that, Tim, or Steve? MR. DURHAM: Just understand that there ' s been an evolution of Page 30 November 3 , 1999 thought here. Again, when we were dealing in two dimensions, the thought was take 951 canal, route it through the property and down, which is just -- didn't have enough differential to do that . So instead what we're doing is taking water from the Belle Meade area and basically taking some of the pressure off the 951 and U. S . 41 system. So those design elements are still going on. The Rookery -- one of the things that Rookery Bay determined in a study they did at the Hendry water quality was there ' s to be improvements made to the weir, but at the south end of the project, the 951 canal weir project . There are efforts under way to computerize that weir to try to mimic more natural flow conditions . So our bypass canal will work with that to kind of basically mimic the gradual release of water, the peaking of flows and the gradual reduction in flows . That ' s all being coordinated. It ' s all aimed at trying to mimic historic -- to get better water quality. But again, the Water Management District, the Big Cypress Basin, there ' s a lot of players involved with this . We ' re doing our part actually, I think, spurring on some of these concepts trying to work with them to get it to happen. Short of going into some very technical -- the drawings, it ' s just hard to get any more detailed than that . There is flexibility. We know we can accommodate the flows . We 've done enough modeling to know basically the size and what it will take to accommodate that -- CHAIRMAN HILL: I have a question which I guess is directed to the Water Management District . We have another proposal before us for a development north of this on the east side of 951 . In the deliberations, is there coordinated effort between the impact of both of those on water management? MS . JOHNSON: For the record, Karen Johnson from South Florida Water Management District . Typically during our reviews, once we have an application in-house or we 've had pre-application meetings, we can consider all of those projects that are already permitted, proposed to be permitted, or have just come in and talked to us as part of the secondary and cumulative impact review. So yes, from that standpoint there is coordination on the design of all the projects related to one another in a basin. CHAIRMAN HILL: So as long as they' re on the table or in the pipe line -- MS . JOHNSON: Right . CHAIRMAN HILL: -- their impact will be considered. MS . JOHNSON: That ' s right . CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. We 're still in the public portion of the meeting. Is there any other public that would like to address? MR. SIMONIK: Good morning, council members . My name is Michael Simonik from The Conservancy of Southwest Florida. I just have a couple questions that I hope you have already had answered in your materials. I did not request the full stack of materials, I only requested the executive summary from county staff, so I haven't seen Page 31 November 3 , 1999 it all . My questions may be answered either by you all or by the petitioner. The first one, I wonder what the management plan -- MR. COE: Mike, you want to take a look at it? MR. SIMONIK: In 168 hours, probably not enough time . What is the management ' s plans for the petitioner that they've developed to address the needs of the wildlife in that area? We 've heard of the bear. At least one bear that we know of is there. The alligator, the wood storks and all the other wildlife is there. And I 'm more thinking in terms of how are we going to address the concerns of the wildlife relating to the people that will be moving in there, and how will they live together in that environment? This is a time when we can say now that we are moving into their backyard first, it ' s not them coming into ours . They're there now. So people are going to be there . What is the management plan for those? Maybe it ' s been answered. And I hope that there ' s been thoughtful consideration to that . Because we see people living in the Golden Gate Estates who tell us that the bears have moved into their backyard because they have bird feeders up and all that, it ' s not an appropriate place for them to be, they need to be removed, it ' s a place for people. So we ' re creating all these preserve areas, which of course is wonderful, which allows the wildlife to stay and hopefully eke out an existence in the middle of a development . But these wildlife, the alligators and the bears, when they come in contact with humans, there ' ll be interaction, there ' ll be bears in people ' s backyards. What does the plan in this petition say they're going to do about bears? Are they all going to be removed? Are the people going to be signing affidavits moving into the development saying yes, I know I ' ll have bears in my backyard and I won't ask for them to be removed, like they do with airport noise and all that, yes, I know I ' ll have airport -- planes flying over. So that point -- and I hope it ' s been covered in the material . Because I can tell you, I know where that bear' s going to end up. It ' s going to end up in the same place that another bear from a project just north of this is right now. It ' s in a cage at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center at the Conservancy, and it ' s going to be put to sleep next week because it was hit by a car. And it was on a development site that it happened. So that ' s where this bear' s going to end up, just like we see many of the wildlife coming in. That ' s where they come, they come to the Conservancy and then they're put to sleep. The second question is -- and Mr. Durham had talked about the stabilization of the hydrology. And if he can clarify that, because he said stabilization of the hydro period -- and maybe it ' s in the materials -- but does that mean mimic the natural hydro period or stabilize it at a certain level of water throughout the entire year? Does that -- it ' s probably not true, I 'm just making sure that that ' s clarified, that it ' s going to be highs and lows in that wetlands so that wood storks can come in and feed when the water drops down and Page 32 November 3 , 1999 catch fish and whatever they catch. So I just hope that there ' s been thoughtful consideration to these things, either in the materials or by the petitioner. And Mr. Chairman, you were talking about wetlands, and we know that Water Management District, just from the material I 've read, has classified 150 acres impacted wetlands . What has the Army Corps said about that? Because I didn't see that mentioned in here. Because usually theirs are usually more, because of their soils . They look at different criteria. So that might help. Thank you. CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you, Mr. Simonik. There were two questions raised. Would the petitioner like to address those two? MR. DURHAM: In regards to the management plan for wildlife, during the review process, we went to the Regional Planning Council for development and impact review. We had numerous discussions with -- let ' s see if I can get the new name right -- the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission representatives . Some of those discussions did center on black bear. We also had discussion about some of the other species on-site. In response to that, we drafted and submitted to the Regional Planning Council for review a wildlife habitat management plan. The development order language recommended by the original planning council includes a commitment from us that had a minimum -- we would implement this wildlife habitat management plan. I ' ll hand a copy out to you in a second, but I ' ll point out to you that it requires the recognition that wildlife may be encouraged to use the preserve area. Surprise, surprise. We intend to have that preserve area be a very functioning area. It ' s 700 acres in site . We lose perspective in some of these exhibits sometimes . You know, it ' s still all on a 24 by 36 inch piece of paper is how big it is . 700 acres, you know, that ' s more than a section of land would be in an active wildlife preserve. So we do expect -- we hope and encourage wildlife to use that area. That will be one of the amenities of the project . But in recognition of that, there are quite a few programs that would be implemented. Wildlife crossing signage would certainly be on --------- - the roads out there. There will be an educational program for the homeowners. There will be deed restrictions placed on people who purchase houses in here requiring pet control . Garbage has to be put in bear-proof containers and cannot be brought out . You can't bring it out a couple days in advance and stick it out there and not expect to have trouble. Educational signage relating to wildlife will be out there. Traffic calming devices . There ' s also specific language in here that -- I ' ll read it to you, because I think it probably addresses this concern. Signage that directs the following shall be placed adjacent to preserve area: Should a black bear be encountered, the bear should be left undisturbed and allowed to continue to its destination. However, should a bear remain in the immediate area for several hours, the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission local office should Page 33 November 3 , 1999 /-\ be contacted so they can provide appropriate direction and, if necessary, provide appropriate action to assist the bear. Under no condition is a bear to be disturbed, harmed or fed. Again, we recognize this is wildlife and people living in close proximity to each other. I think there are good ways of addressing that . Again, I ' ll pass out a copy of this plan. And I just want to add to that, during the ERP permitting process, which we ' ll be undergoing, we ' ll be coordinating with the Wildlife Commission at that point and finalizing the details of that management plan through that permitting process . Thank you. Oh, we did have another question. Mr. Simonik did ask what I meant by stabilize the hydro periods . And again, I 'm referring to the year-to-year fluctuation or the inconsistency of the hydro periods out there. What we mean by stabilizing is attempting to mimic what historically happened out there . Yes, with a gradual increase of water levels to a natural condition, a gradual decrease, mimicking historic conditions . So we 're look -- we 're talking about stabilization of the long-term trends, mixing it as close to historic as possible. Also, the Corps of Engineers did do a wetlands jurisdictional determination on the site . Their wetlands are very similar to South Florida Water Management District, but because they do have a different definition, they do vary in places . But on this particular site, they track very close to South Florida' s definition, more so than most projects . Because the county recognizes the state of Florida ' s jurisdictional lines; that is what we do for the DRI analysis for this discussion in front of you. There will be a few more acres of impacted Corps wetlands. Typically those are more up gradient areas that frankly have a lot of melaleuca in some instances . There is a slight difference . What you see before you is primarily -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Relative to that question of Corps and South Florida, in one of our projects this month and one previous, the Corps and South Florida were mentioned specifically. If they are not designated in a proposal as being agreed on or differing, can we assume they're the same? Is that a fair question, Mrs . Johnson, that if the Corps is not specifically mentioned here that we can assume they are in agreement? I 'm putting you on the spot, I know that . MS . JOHNSON: I don' t think so. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. MS . JOHNSON: Most of the district wetlands, we do a lot of pre-application inspections, so we actually go out in the field and set a line. So simply because you don't have any idea if the Corps line agrees or not, they may not have even been on the site, so I don't think we can make an assumption one way or another. CHAIRMAN HILL: What triggers them to be brought into a project? MS . JOHNSON: When an application is submitted, typically. CHAIRMAN HILL: Which also triggers the Water Mana -- South Florida, right? Page 34 November 3 , 1999 n MS . JOHNSON: That ' s an official trigger. But the Water Management District has a process where we typically do pre-application meetings and inspections so that the applicants can get a jump on their project design, knowing where their wetland limits are. Unfortunately, the Corps of Engineers ' office is -- at least in Fort Myers -- is substantially understaffed and really doesn't have the staff to go out and do a lot of intensive wetland surveys to determine jurisdictional boundaries . CHAIRMAN HILL: Is there a way in which we could assure that a project gets -- I guess you can't answer the question. But I would think this council might be interested in having the Corps assessment at the same time we have South Florida' s . MS . BURGESON: Let me answer that . Barbara Burgeson with planning services . The Environmental Impact Statement that ' s done by the petitioner for each project requires that they identify Collier County wetlands . And that ' s why through this particular process of the Environmental Impact Statement, South Florida' s line is the only one that they need to provide for your review. They do need to provide at a later stage the Army Corps jurisdictional lines so that staff can review that during the process prior to approvals . CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay, so that will come in after our assessment . MS . BURGESON: Right . CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. Be nice to have that moved up, but I don' t know as we can -- MS . BURGESON: By our Land Development Code, I 'm not sure that we can require that . CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. Any other public input? Anything else from the petitioner? I didn' t mean -- MR. VARNADOE: No, sir, thank you. CHAIRMAN HILL: I 'm going to shut the public portion and ask the council for their pleasure. MR. SMITH: I move approval of the project . MR. COE: I second. CHAIRMAN HILL: It ' s been moved and seconded to approve the project . I call for the question then. All in favor, signify by saying aye . (Unanimous vote of ayes . ) CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. Let it be shown six ayes and two recusals and one absentee for the record. Thank you very much. I keep looking at that clock. It ' s not 10 after 1 : 00, it ' s still 10 after 12 : 00 . We need -- Mon Cherie ' needs a break, I know. Let ' s take a five-minute break. What I 'd like to do is perhaps take one more petitioner after this break and possibly then break for lunch. So we will reconvene at 12 : 15 . (Recess . ) (Mr. Jackson and Mr. Sansbury are not present . ) CHAIRMAN HILL: I 'd like to call the meeting. Page 35 November 3 , 1999 ***We will consider Victoria Falls PUD 80-10 (2) and will call on staff, please. Would those representatives of the petitioner or public that would care to address the council in this petition please stand and be sworn in. (All speakers were duly sworn. ) CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you for reminding me. MR. MURRAY: I started to say good morning, but good afternoon. For the record my name is Don Murray. I 'm the principal planner with planning services department . This petition is an application to amend an existing 25 .41-acre planned unit development that was last approved in 1991 for 76 multi-family units with a density of three units per acre . The proposed amendment, if approved, would provide 100 percent affordable housing at this site. It would increase the number of dwelling units from 76 to 115 units for a gross density of 4 . 5 units per acre. It would provide a five-acre preserve area and 12 acres of open space, and it would retain 6 . 35 acres, 25 percent of the functioning native vegetation on-site. The proposed homes are 1, 000 square foot homes on 3 , 500 square foot lots . This site is located about a mile, I guess it would be, north or northwest of County Road 951, and about 400 feet just south of U.S . 41 . This PUD is located in the urban coastal fringe subdistrict of the Future Land Use Map. It ' s located also in a traffic congestion area, which limits the total density -- base density to three units per acre. But it also qualifies for an affordable housing density bonus of up to eight units per acre. The applicants are utilizing 1 . -- I believe it ' s 1 . 52 units per acre in addition to the base density for a total of 4 . 52 units. Traffic will be limited to the private access to U. S . 41, and will not be on Barefoot Williams Road. Staff has reviewed this PUD for consistency with the Growth Management Plan and with -- consistency with other regulations in the LDC. Therefore, we are recommending approval of this . MS . BURGESON: For the record? CHAIRMAN HILL: Questions for staff? MS. BURGESON: For the record, Barbara Burgeson with planning services . We did the environmental review on the site. It ' s approximately a 25 and a half acre site composed of hydric pine flatwoods, cypress and pine, pine and mesic oak and oak hammock and saw palmetto prairie. There are two soil types found on the property. One ' s identified as a hydric soil type and the other as non-hydric. Approximately 13 . 7 acres of jurisdictional wetlands were identified on the property. Lichen lines, water marks and adventitious roots were identified to use the seasonal high water levels, which on this parcel are approximately 10 inches above ground level . Page 36 November 3 , 1999 This project proposes to preserve the best of the cypress wetlands on the property and to improve the hydro period within the wetland preserve area by discharging pretreated stormwater runoff into these areas . The project ' s required to preserve 25 percent of the existing native vegetation on-site . That total is 6 . 35 acres . They've identified a five-acre preserve up front, which is along the northeast or eastern portion of the property, with a commitment in their PUD document to address the additional 1 . 35 acres at the time of the next development order submittal . A total of 61 hours were spent on-site by the environmental consultant, doing a combination of habitat identification and wildlife surveys . No protected species were utilizing the property or observed evidence of them being observed on the site by either the consultant or county staff . CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you. Questions? MR. SMITH: I had a question. On the aerial photos that are presented, there ' s a -- what looks like multiple units immediately adjacent to the -- is that a trailer park or a mobile home park? MS . BURGESON: Yes, it is . Dwight, do you want to -- MR. NADEAU: Chairman Hill -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Yes, sir. MR. NADEAU: -- members of the council, for the record, my name is Dwight Nadeau, McAnly Engineering and Design, representing Habitat for Humanity of Collier County. I 'm proud to be before you this morning on this affordable housing project . To answer your question, yes, there is the Hitching Post Travel Trailer Park, which is directly to the northwest of the access easement that would provide access to the property. And if you'd like, I ' ll continue . CHAIRMAN HILL: Go right ahead. MR. NADEAU: Thank you. Planner Murray went through the density allocations that were originally approved, was 157 units back in 1980, as a part of the zoning reevaluation. The density was reduced down to 76 multi-family units at three dwelling units per acre. This proposed amendment is only going to add 39 dwelling units through the affordable housing density bonus, which is provided for in the Future Land Use Element ' s density rating system. There is an allocation for 600 dwelling units in the urban coastal fringe. This would reduce that 600 affordable units by 39, which are being proposed in this project . The entire project, 115 single-family homes, will be very low income -- for very low income families . Planner Murray identified the access . I 've addressed compatibility issues with the PUD by effectively isolating it from Barefoot Williams Road, isolating it from lands to the south through a 20-foot buffer, a substantial increase in setbacks along that south Page 37 November 3 , 1999 property boundary, along the east side up against the commercial property, the wetland preserve being 5 .27 acres of uplands and wetlands, and that ranges in width from anywhere from 88 feet at its narrowest point down to 297 feet . Now, the site has 13 . 7 acres of wetlands, as identified by Ms . Burgeson, of which approximately 10 . 55 acres would be impacted by the development . Now, the site quality is significantly impacted by exotics, being melaleuca, downy rose myrtle. And this is possibly due to pioneering exotic vegetation due to the clearing of the site back in the Seventies for cattle grazing. We 've researched some old aerials, and the site was stripped backed in the Seventies . Beyond that, if you have any specific questions regarding environmental issues, I have Mr. Butler from Butler Environmental that would be able to answer those questions . In regard to water management, the property is generally without topographic relief . We have elevation ranges from 4 . 3 to 5 . 8 NGVD. And with the lake lines being found to be approximately 10 feet above existing -- yeah, 10 inches above existing grade, we have a control elevation of 5 . 5 . Our elevation for parking is going to be 7 . 17 feet NGVD, based on a 10-year one-day storm event . And the center line for the road was 7 . 79 feet NGVD, which is based on a 25-year three-day storm event . And then finally, the finished floor elevations for the single-family homes would be 8 . 51 feet, which effectively means the house pads are going to have about three feet of fill underneath them. In consideration of your agenda, I ' ll stop there and answer any questions that you might have. MR. SMITH: Mr. Chairman, I just have a question. CHAIRMAN HILL: Yes . Smith? MR. SMITH: I notice that the density was increased due to an ability to do so because of providing affordable housing. MR. NADEAU: Yes, sir. MR. SMITH: Has there been any change or any available decrease in the requirements for environmental concerns because of the affordability, the housing affordability status of the project? MR. NADEAU: Absolutely not . The any affordable housing project has no greater consideration by Collier County, South Florida Water Management District, nor the Army Corps of Engineers just because it is affordable housing. We will have to go through the same steps as any other project . Mr. Butler is estimating 10 acres of off-site mitigation required for our 10 . 55 acres of wetland impacts . So no.. MR. SMITH: Thank you. CHAIRMAN HILL: Carlson? MR. CARLSON: Why can't we establish the entire preserve requirement now? Why are -- and this says it ' s five acres committed now and 1.35 later. What prevents you from establishing that preserve area now? MR. NADEAU: Well, when you look at our water management plan Page 38 November 3 , 1999 n here, this is the conser -- the preserve area as we have it right now. There are pre-treatment areas that run along the perimeter of the project, as well as centralized areas . Now, given that a 1, 064 square foot home is only going to really occupy less than 20 percent of an average lot on this property, there ' s ample room for retaining additional vegetation and possibly creating vegetation easements during the preliminary subdivision plat and platting processes . So we will be able to conform with the 25 percent retained native vegetation, but the extent of which at the zoning stage I can't define it for you at this time, Mr. Carlson. MR. CARLSON: So the additional preserve area will just be scattered throughout the development; is that what you' re saying? MR. NADEAU: Well, given that the water management detention areas -- in here I believe they total 2 . 34 acres . And with our control elevation being slightly in the average of the grade, there ' s 1 a strong potential that all the native vegetation would be able to be retained in those retention areas . When we do our final water management calculations for the district, it would be at that point that we would be able to certify that that vegetation would be retained. Do you agree, Mr. McAnly? MR. McANLY: Yes . CHAIRMAN HILL: I have one or two simple questions . I was -- the staff report said this was approved on September 16th, 1999, and I searched my mind for -- I heard the dates ' 91 and ' 80 as being the previous approvals of the original project . MR. NADEAU: Yes, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN HILL: And yet I read in the EIS that the extent of wetlands has not been verified by either Water Management District or the Corps of Engineers . Having gone through two previous approvals? I 'm surprised at that . MR. NADEAU: A week ago today the Water Management District did do a pre-application site inspection, and they confirmed the wetland delineation identified by Butler Environmental . That didn' t make it to the staff report, though. MS . BURGESON: Excuse me, it was a typographical error to put 1999 . It should have been ' 91. And also, just for the record, the environmental staff has recommended approval of this project, subject to the two environmental stipulations. CHAIRMAN HILL: But the original project did get approval without any wetland delineation? Is that -- that ' s the implication I have . MR. NADEAU: Well, there were some environmental concerns done back in the Eighties, but the environmental review back in the Eighties wasn't what it is today. As a result of the zoning reevaluation back in 1991, the county down-zoned the property. So they didn't take into any consideration of the environmental constraints of down-zoning the property from 157 condo units down to the 76 condo units . Page 39 November 3 , 1999 But if you were to see the PUD master plan from Pattison PUD, which was the original ' 80 PUD, I don' t know if you' ll be able to see, effectively the entire site was being stripped and there was a corner and there was a large lake dug in the middle. MS. BURGESON: Dwight, we can put that on here, if you'd like. MR. NADEAU: Oh, sure. The visualizer. So no, as you can see from this, there was some consideration to some green space and open space, but not to the extent of this project . CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you. I have one other question. You have not utilized the allowable bonus, and you settled on 4 . 5 density? MR. NADEAU: 4 . 52 , yes . CHAIRMAN HILL: Will that be a covenant on the project as it goes through? Will they somehow be restricted throughout the entire development process to 4 . 52? MR. NADEAU: I can respond to that, unless staff wants to. MR. MURRAY: It ' s listed in the PUD document; therefore, that will be the maximum density that they' ll -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. MR. NADEAU: In addition, the Board of County Commissioners, on our November 23rd date, will adopt the affordable housing density bonus agreement as a part of the PUD, as Exhibit B, and we will be limited to 115 single-family ownership units . CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you. MR. SMITH: Can I ask a question, Mr. -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Yes . Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH: Are you familiar with a Habitat For Humanity project in North Ft . Myers that ' s under development now just -- I think it ' s a little bit north of the old airport, Paige Field? MR. NADEAU: I am not, sir, I 'm sorry. MR. SMITH: Okay. Then I can't ask my question then. Because I was going to ask you to compare. That ' s all right . I must say, Mr. Chairman, that project in Ft . Myers, Habitat for Humanity, looks very much like what is being proposed here, and it ' s absolutely a gorgeous project . MR. NADEAU: Well, as I started out my presentation, I 'm proud to represent Habitat for Humanity of Collier County. The president, Dr. Sam Durso, is here with us, and he ' s got a whole stack of pictures of the homes that are being done. And the people in the Habitat program are proud homeowners . So it ' s a really good thing for our community. And actually, Collier County staff directed Habitat of Collier County to this site. MR. SMITH: Thank you. I used to represent the housing authority in the City of Fort Lauderdale, and we got into a lot of these issues in terms of house ownership. And it ' s to me at least a wonderful and great way to deal with some very serious problems. CHAIRMAN HILL: Any other questions for the petitioner? Is there any public that would like to speak to this proposal? Close the public portion and ask for the pleasure of the council . Page 40 November 3 , 1999 MR. COE: I 'd like to make a motion to approve it . MR. DiNUNZIO: I ' ll second. CHAIRMAN HILL: It ' s been moved and seconded to approve this, with the recommendation -- MR. NINO: Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN HILL: -- of the staff in the staff report . MR. NINO: You just said the magic words, thank you. Staff report . You were acknowledging the recommendation -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Right, there are -- MR. NADEAU: And the petitioner agrees with those conditions. CHAIRMAN HILL: There are three recommendations, stipulations . Would you reword, just to make it official, that the motion include the recommendation -- MR. COE: I make a motion to include the recommendation of the staff to recommend approval . CHAIRMAN HILL: Any discussion? All those in favor, aye. Opposed? (No response. ) CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you. That ' s 7-0, with two absentees . Ladies and gentlemen, I don' t know whether this is going to be accepted, but with the council ' s approval, would you like a short break for lunch? Or shall we stay on and fight the good fight? MR. COE: Lunch. I 'd say go to lunch. CHAIRMAN HILL: Can we have a very short lunch break? MR. NINO: Mr. Chairman, I believe Mr. Passarella -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Oh, I 'm sorry. MR. PASSARELLA: For the record, Ken Passarella. Unfortunately, with all the delays this morning, I have a scheduling conflict . And if there ' s any way we can hear the next one -- I 've got a conference call at 1 : 00 I have to attend. So if we could hear that before 1 : 00 , that would be great . If not, then I ' ll -- you know, I won't be available for that next petition. CHAIRMAN HILL: That will be San Marino? MR. PASSARELLA: San Marino, correct . CHAIRMAN HILL: With the council ' s pleasure, let ' s go ahead with that then. MR. PASSARELLA: My stomach' s growling, too, so -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Is there any public that would like to speak to this? Then if the petitioner and any public would stand and be sworn in, please. (All speakers were duly sworn. ) MR. MURRAY: Good afternoon again. This is Don Murray, for the record. This petition' s for rezoning from A agricultural with an ST overlay over portions of the property, to plan unit development for a 235-acre parcel located on the east side of County Road 951, approximately a mile and a half south of Davis Boulevard. The surrounding area around this PUD is developing. We have PUD' s developing along the west side of County Road 951. Most of the Page 41 November 3 , 1999 abutting properties around this site are still agricultural and undeveloped. There is a concrete batch plant and rock quarry on the -- what would be the south side of the PUD. If approved, this PUD will provide 353 multi-family units and an 18-hole golf course . The residential units will be limited to the southeast portion of the site, which is this area right here. And the PUD will also provide 22 . 62 acres of multi-family residential with accessory buildings, a gatehouse, child care facilities . It will provide preservation area comprising approximately 99 . 1 acres, or 42 percent of the site; 15 to 25-foot buffers around wetlands and 25-foot buffers around preservation areas. It will provide water distribution and sewage collection to county standards . And it will also provide a minimum of 60 percent open space and various recreational uses, including a clubhouse, driving range, clay fields, boat docks and walking paths . This PUD' s located in the urban residential fringe subdistrict . It ' s limited to a base density of 1 . 5 units per acre. And this would allow the 353 units be located in the proposed 23-acre residential site. And staff has reviewed this for Growth Management Plan consistency and has found it consistent . Therefore, staff is recommending approval . CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you. Any other staff comments? MR. LENBERGER: For the record, Stephen Lenberger, development services, current planning section. As you can see from the aerial I have on the wall, the project is forested. There are quite a bit of areas of pine flatwoods on most of the site . There ' s a wetland cypress system in this corner of the project . And there ' s also a cypress system on this portion of the project . The PUD master plan is on the wall . The product will be -- as Don mentioned, will have a residential component and a golf course . Preservation areas are marked in green. The preserve area is about 99 acres in size, which is about 42 percent of the site. The preserve areas do connect to a preserve area or Forest Glen of Naples to the north, which you can see on the overhead, indicated in this area here. Basically -- I 'm sorry, the overhead wasn't on for that . And also, there ' s the Naples Quarry, The Willow Run Quarry is in this area. And they had a mine expansion, additional use through our department a couple years back. They have purchased this portion immediately to the east of the project . And most of this portion here is designated as preserve area within a conditional use plan. Wetlands on-site, about 156 acres of wetlands, and the project will impact about 56 acres of those, about 36 percent of the wetlands . A protected species survey was done by the applicant, Passarella and Associates, and they found no listed species on the project site. If you have any questions, I ' ll be glad to answer them. And the petitioner is here also. Page 42 it November 3 , 1999 n MR. CARLSON: Is it still hydrologically connected all around, or is it going to be bermed off and separated from the water shed? MR. LENBERGER: I ' ll let the petitioner answer that question. CHAIRMAN HILL: Questions for staff? Petitioner? MR. ROBAU: Good afternoon. Emilio Robau, for the record, professional engineer, RWA. I 'm representing the petitioner today. You have a specific question about hydrologic connection. We 've been -- I happen to have also been the engineer for Forest Glen, and I know their system intimately, so I understand how it works . And our preserves connect to theirs essentially on the north and the northeast portion of the property. And yes, there is a hydrologic connection. There ' s not going to be a berm across the northern property line, at least in the preserve areas right now. So that ' s -- should be consistent with what they've done . I 'm going to quit right there and get right to -- Ken Passarella ' s got time constraints . And I want to thank you very much for hearing us . It ' s been a disorderly day with the alarms and everything. With that, I 'm here to answer water management questions . And I 'm going to go ahead and ask Ken Passarella to give a little presentation on the environmental issues . Thank you. MR. PASSARELLA: Can you hear me? For the record, Ken Passarella with Passarella & Associates . And real quick, I 'm going to go over the site conditions on the property and the proposed plan. Looking at this aerial photography here, you can see the adjacent land uses we have. The Willow Run Quarry to the south down here. We have 951 here, the 951 canal running parallel . We have the Florida Power & Light easement running -- cutting through the property right here . We have Naples National across the street . And then this aerial doesn't show it, but we have the Forest Glen development up here to the north. The existing conditions on the site, we have jurisdictional wetlands that have been verified by both the South Florida Water Management District and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. When we did the jurisdictionals, there was consideration taken into account that we have some remnant wetland vegetation in some of these areas and amongst the pine flatwoods, but due to the effects of the 951 canal and the hydrology in the area, this canal has effectively drained some of the wetlands on the property, so the extent of jurisdiction is not as great as it may have historically existed on the property. What has also happened, due to the drainage of the area, we have incurred the infestation of the exotics, melaleuca and Brazilian pepper, into a lot of the wetlands on the property. We have heavy melaleuca infestation up in this area and back in here, and we have heavy Brazilian pepper infestation in these wetlands in this area here. We do have a couple of unique features on the site as far as Page 43 November 3 , 1999 uplands . We have a couple -- small tropical hardwood areas, and they' re located up in this portion of the site up in here and here. In looking at the preserves and coming up with a plan for the property, as far as development, we did a pre-application meeting with the South Florida Water Management to discuss the golf course portion of the site, which is this area up in here. And through that discussions in the pre-ap with the district, we originally had a plan, and I can maybe point -- show on the other one over there. But we had more golf extending further to the east and a little further to the north, and we had larger preserves in between the actual golf course holes . In discussions with the Water Management District, they felt that the preserves between the golf course holes, they would treat them as secondary impacts and that we should condense the project and squeeze the golf course holes closer together. And the current site plan reflects that meeting and those changes based on that meeting. There was discussion about the acreage of wetland impacts on the property. We show 56 acres of wetland impacts . Those are both direct and secondary impacts . The direct impacts are where we 're actually filling for the golf course holes . The residential portion of the project will have no wetland impacts . The golf course has the impacts . The secondary impacts are the areas -- the strips of areas between the fairways where we plan on doing no clearing of the native vegetation. We 're going to remove exotics, leave the existing vegetation. But the Water Management District is considering those a secondary impact, because we ' re basically isolating strips of wetlands between the fairways; therefore, we 're going to have to mitigate for those and consider them as an impact, even though we ' re not physically destroying the wetlands, so -- MR. CARLSON: So how many acres would be in wetland in between the fairways? MR. PASSARELLA: Roughly 30 or so acres . So we 're only roughly around 20 acres of actual direct wetland impacts for filling wetlands . The remainder of those are areas between the fairways where we 're not actually filling wetlands . As far as mitigation, we propose to remove the exotics from these areas up in here, remove exotic vegetation. And as Steve pointed out, as Emilio pointed out, these areas shown in yellow here are basically how the Forest Glen and then the preserves on the Willow Run Quarry tie in. So you can see that our larger preserve area back up in here ties in to the Willow Run Quarry preserve, and then our preserve up in here ties into the preserve off-site onto Forest Glen. So we 've tried to interconnect all these preserves to establish, you know, a single larger preserve instead of having fragmented preserves on the various projects. The other thing we considered in looking at the areas we were going to preserve was the existing hydrological conditions . And if Page 44 November 3 , 1999 you were to look at the topographical information that we have, the map in the back of the EIS, you' ll see that the elevations show that in this area up in here is where we have our lowest elevations on the property, this area in here and then this area back in here . And those areas where we have the lower elevation is where -- coincide with the areas where we established our preserve areas, our mitigation. The reason being is that we 're trying to preserve those areas which will have a better chance of having adequate hydrology to maintain themselves in perpetuity, instead of trying to preserve areas that are marginally wet right now and that are heavily affected by the drawn-out effect of the 951 canal . And the other thing was -- I wanted to mention was that we did do a listed species survey on the site and we did not identify any listed species on the property. CHAIRMAN HILL: Questions for petitioner? I had one, and I -- I couldn' t find it, probably overlooked it . You mentioned three discharge points; one to the southeast . I couldn't find that on any of the plans . MR. ROBAU: It ' s -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Where is that and where does it hit? MR. ROBAU: It goes -- can I go over there real quick, and I ' ll point that one out . CHAIRMAN HILL: Sure . MR. ROBAU: For the record, Emilio Robau again. It ' s right here, essentially. The discharge point is in this direction. And what we 're trying to do is kind of level out the discharge in three locations . This one continues to hydrate this preserve over here . You know, our discharge rates are fairly limited by the Water Management District, so we 've got one going in this direction, because this actually is a flowway that extends on the easterly part of the property and kind of close to the south. And then we 've got a couple of them going over here into the canal itself . One serves a residential tract and then one serves this area over here. It ' s just a way of splitting the discharge into more than one place versus having it in one shot . And the wetlands to the east, the Forest Glen project, that was a concern of the district, that they wanted to continue to try to hydrate those things, because that ' s the way the water goes. Thank you. CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you. Are there any other questions for Mr. Passarella? We can excuse him, if there are not . Thank you, Mickey. MR. PASSARELLA: Thanks again, I appreciate it . CHAIRMAN HILL: I 'm going to open up a little can of worms here. In the PUD document in Section 5 . 10, environmental, Section A, the second sentence reads, "Removal of exotic vegetation shall not be counted towards mitigation for impacts to Collier County Page 45 November 3 , 1999 n jurisdictional wetlands . " That ' s the first time I have seen that in any document . I tend to agree with it, but -- MS . BURGESON: For the record, Barbara Burgeson. That language is fairly standard, and we have applied that as stipulations in staff reports consistently over probably the past five years. A lot of the times you won't see that as a stipulation in the staff report, because often it ' s already in the PUD document . CHAIRMAN HILL: Well, haven't we had projects where we mitigate by enhancement of existing wetlands, which means removal of exotics? MS. BURGESON: The concern that we have on allowing only exotic removal to count as mitigation for wetland impacts is that exotic removal is a requirement of Collier County' s Land Development Code in and amongst itself, and we don't feel that it qualifies as mitigation to wetland impacts . And the Growth Management Plan conservation and coastal management element also requires that there be no net loss of viable functioning wetlands on-site . CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay, then I was wrong in assuming we 've approved projects where mitigation has been considered as exotic removal of existing. MS . BURGESON: Exotic removal is often a component of the mitigation, but in those cases, almost entirely there is an additional component of the wetland, either mitigation off-site -- and we don' t often see that because it usually comes in a little bit later in the process with the ERP permit -- and also enhancement of wetlands .-� on-site. CHAIRMAN HILL: So some of the off-site mitigation we don' t see. MS . BURGESON: That ' s right . CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. MS . BURGESON: The staff will review it at that point . And the only thing that we ' re really trying to review for is to make sure that there is not that net loss of viable functioning wetlands on-site . CHAIRMAN HILL: Because that statement is in our next proposal . There ' s a statement concerning no net loss . Thank you. MR. ROBAU: I just wanted to add one more thing. The county' s conservative with that point, because exotic removal also has to be coupled with hydrologic enhancement. The reason exotics are usually there is because there ' s been some alteration. The Water Management District acknowledges that as a way to mitigate. But they always include the hydrologic enhancement of the water tables to prevent the exotics from coming back in once you remove them. MR. SMITH: Mr. Chairman, I had a question. CHAIRMAN HILL: Yes, Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH: I 'm going to have to leave, by the way, in just a minute. But one of the staff ' s recommendations is that there be a removal of the last sentence of 4 . 1, which is, as I see it here, Tract B is intended to be a conservation easement, that 's being deleted. What 's the -- what ' s going on with that? MR. LENBERGER: We went through a -- again, for the record, Stephen Lenberger, development services . Page 46 November 3 , 1999 Yes, there will be a conservation easement, but there is no Tract B on the PUD master plan, so it ' s an error. That was missed earlier when we were going back and forth with the developer on the site plan and there were some changes done . So anyway, it ' s an error. There is no Tract B on the site plan, that ' s why it was removed. CHAIRMAN HILL: Any other comments or questions for petitioner? Public? Anybody in the public wish to speak? I ' ll close that portion and ask for comments by council . I 'm a little disturbed here that we 're filling -- we 're losing so much more lake, it looks like, in order to meet the 1 . 5 dwelling unit density, which really is the maximum, not an entitlement . And I 'm very concerned about what ' s happening in this particular project . Mr. Smith, I know you're -- could you wait three minutes so that we have one more than a quorum? MR. SMITH: No more than that . I think we do have a quorum. CHAIRMAN HILL: Well, but it has to be unanimous . If we just have -- MR. SMITH: All right . CHAIRMAN HILL: Any comments by council members, or -- MR. CORNELL: I ' ll move we approve, subject to staff recommendations. MR. COE: I ' ll second that . CHAIRMAN HILL: Discussion? MR. DiNUNZIO: I ain't in love with it, but there ' s nothing I can do about it. CHAIRMAN HILL: I call the question. All those in favor? MR. COE: Aye. MR. CARLSON: Aye . MR. CORNELL: Aye. MR. DiNUNZIO: Aye. MR. SMITH: Aye. CHAIRMAN HILL: Opposed? Aye. Show 5-1, three absentees . Thank you, Mr. Smith, for holding. (Mr. Smith exits boardroom. ) MR. SMITH: ***We have one more. Do you want to go ahead now and MR. NINO: We also have the LDC amendments . CHAIRMAN HILL: I know, but let ' s get the -- let ' s go with the last petition. MR. GRIFFITH: If I could just make a quick statement . My name is Ed Griffith. I 'm with WCI Communities, who we are doing the Pelican Marsh PUD. George Varnadoe is our representative, who I think was planning on being back at 1 : 00 . And I know you all are wanting to break for lunch. And one of my concerns is after breaking for lunch, coming back, if there ' s still going to be a quorum here for the commission. CHAIRMAN HILL: When will Mr. Varnadoe be back? MR. GRIFFITH: I can call him on the phone right now. Page 47 November 3 , 1999 n CHAIRMAN HILL: I heard you say 1 : 00 . MR. GRIFFITH: He said he was going to be back here at 1 : 00, so I 'm just needing verification to be absolutely sure he ' s not hung up somewhere, something like that . But if a quorum is coming back, we could also be here for the return. MR. COE: Let ' s take a break. We don' t have to kill ourselves . CHAIRMAN HILL: How many will be here if we reconvene in 45 minutes? MR. COE: We ' ll all be here . CHAIRMAN HILL: Mr. DiNunzio? MR. DiNUNZIO: Yeah, I 'm dumb enough to stick it out . CHAIRMAN HILL: We will have a quorum. MR. GRIFFITH: Okay, that would be fine. CHAIRMAN HILL: Mr. Lorenz, will we be able to get back with your schedule on the amendments following Pelican Marsh deliberations? MR. LORENZ : Oh, yes, I ' ll be prepared to -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. I wasn' t sure about your schedule. Reconvene at 2 : 00 . (Lunch recess . ) CHAIRMAN HILL: ***I 'd like to reconvene -- are we on -- reconvene the November meeting of EAC. And we are to consider the next agenda item, which is the Pelican Marsh PUD. Mr. Nino. MR. NINO: Do we swear in folks? CHAIRMAN HILL: Yeah. Those wishing to make a presentation, please stand and be sworn in. (All speakers were duly sworn. ) MR. NINO: For the record, my name is Ron Nino. The petition that is before you is a petition that would rezone 141 . 6 acres of land to the east of the existing Pelican Marsh development of regional impact and PUD. That land will be used to spread the existing allocation of dwelling units from Pelican Marsh. There will be no increase in dwelling units as a result of this petition, this land being rezoned from agricultural to PUD. And in fact, the development order would reduce the existing allocation of housing by 100 units . So the effect of rezoning this property will be to reduce the density over the entirety of the Pelican Marsh PUD. However, that site, in its annexed form, will be used to accommodate some of that housing allocation; a golf course, nine-hole golf course, and open space. Other modifications to the PUD document have to do with reallocating the commercial component at the activity center. And those numbers are, for all practical purposes, negligible. And then their aggregate effect actually will result in a slight reduction in terms of traffic generation. Staff has re -- staff and those members of our staff who have responsibility for elements of the Growth Management Plan that are applicable to this petition have reviewed this petition in the light of consistency with those elements, and we find that this petition, if approved, would be consistent with all applicable elements of the Growth Management Plan. Page 48 November 3 , 1999 MS . BURGESON: For the record, Barbara Burgeson. The 141 acres is comprised of 58 acres of improved pasture, 30 acres of pine flatwoods, with varying degrees of exotic infestation, 26 acres of pine cypress, and approximately 26 acres dominated by cypress with pine . Two swale types are found on the property, one being pineda fine sand, which is identified as hydric. The other being boca fine sand, which is identified as non-hydric. There are over 70 acres of wetland jurisdiction on this property. Approximately 29 acres of the highest quality wetlands on-site will be preserved and hydrologically enhanced by additional run-off proposed by the water management systems . At this point the mitigation for the impacts to the 41 acres of wetlands is not known. But during the South Florida Water Management District ERP permit process, they will be required to provide for those impacts, and staff will review those accordingly. In accordance with the preservation requirements of the Land Development Code, which would require 25 percent of the viable vegetation on-site to be preserved, we would require a minimum of 20 . 5 acres . This parcel is instead preserving 28 . 86 or 36 percent of the existing native vegetation on-site. On -- as a result of the listed species surveys that were done between April 12th and April 29th, with approximately 42 hours total time, there were no listed species observed or no evidence of listed species using the site . However, the Florida Natural Areas Inventory reports stated that back in 1990 there was evidence that active colony RCW trees were observed outside of the property boundaries; and, therefore, during the South Florida Water Management ERP permit process, this particular project will probably be required to submit any additional red-cockaded woodpecker surveys that they -- that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission would deem necessary at the time . As stated by the consultant in the EIS, also, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reported that in addition to the possibility of red-cockaded woodpeckers on-site, the property may be suitable for black bear and Big Cypress fox squirrel . No indications of either of these two species were noted either by the consultant or by staff . And we recommend approval of the PUD, with I think it ' s just two additional environmental stipulations and two recommendations from water management . MR. CHRZANOWSKI : And the water management recommendations, as a result of a meeting yesterday with the petitioner, the petitioner' s engineering, representatives from the public works engineering department for stormwater management, and for transportation and development services, we 're satisfied that they have looked at the aspects of the project that we had problems with. And the first stipulation under water management you can do away with. Collier County stormwater management and transportation are apparently satisfied. Page 49 November 3 , 1999 n And the second stipulation, instead of prior to submitting subdivision construction or site development plans, it will be prior to construction drawing approval, like usual . CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. Do environmental recommendations stand? MS. BURGESON: Yes . MR. CHRZANOWSKI : Yes. CHAIRMAN HILL: Questions for staff? Again, I made a note. Now I can't find where it came from. In -- I think it was in the PUD document there are two statements -- and it ' s not environmental, I realize -- two statements of different maximum heights for principal structures . Is that -- seems to me it was 35 feet one place and 50 feet in another? MR. NINO: I can' t speak to that . I didn' t expect that type question. I don' t have a PUD with me . Perhaps Mr. Varnadoe can respond to it . CHAIRMAN HILL: 2 . 16 in the PUD document, B-5 . Maximum height of structure is 25 feet? And 4 .4 (d) , 50 feet . Is that -- MR. NINO: Of course, you're dealing with two different sections . The section 2 . 16 deals with uses generally permitted throughout the PUD, not on-site specific sites, like guardhouses and gate houses and temporary structures . Whereas, the second height that you refer to has to do with the height limitation on buildings located in the golf course recreation and open space tract . So they're really not two different height regulations, they apply in two different contexts . One applies to those buildings erected in the golf course district; whereas, the other applies to accessories and supporting uses generally permitted throughout the PUD. CHAIRMAN HILL: Yes, Mr. Varnadoe? MR. VARNADOE: For the record, George Varnadoe. And I concur with Mr. Nino' s comments . I was looking at the same time, and that was my reading of the same thing. I ' ll try to be fairly brief . I 'm here today on behalf of WCI Communities, Limited Partnership. Also here today is Ed Griffith with WCI, and consultants with employees of Johnson Engineers, who are the engineers, planners, environmental consultants of the project . Chris Hagen (phonetic) , the engineer, Church Roberts, Hagen Farmer Environmental Consultants, and Pat Newton, who' s the planner on the project . As Ron said, the object is to add 141 . 6 acres to the existing Pelican Marsh community. This is a land use plan and fairly small scale because of the obvious magnitude of it of the entire Pelican Marsh project, which extends from U.S . 41 across Goodlette-Frank Road, across Airport Road and over to the proposed future Livingston Road. The parcel in question is this 141. 6 acres here. And I ' ll get that out of the way. That ' s just my way of orientation. As Mr. Nino noticed, it 's within the urban boundary, so we are consistent in our land uses . As he also pointed out, this is in fact a density reduction, not only of the project, but if you think about it, it ' s a density reduction in terms of overall build-out of the Page 50 November 3 , 1999 /-N county. If you take 141 . 6 acres out of the urban area and not adding any units to it, that property is eligible up to four units an acre . So you're taking somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 plus or minus units out of the inventory for future growth of the county. The property is located immediately east of future Livingston Road and north of Vanderbilt Beach Road. I-75 being this location. This is the Wilshire Lakes project that comes over in here. There ' s a little out-parcel here, and then we have the future Collier County park site, and then development of Immokalee Road. Of course, to the west, you already have development, so we ' re -- it ' s basically an infill parcel . The -- approximately half the site in this area has been previously cleared and has been used for active ag. , in this case pasture, for some extensive period of time. The majority of the remainder of the property has been identified as jurisdictional wetlands . And in this instance, as far as development is concerned, it was a little bit of an easier job than we sometimes face, because it ' s fairly uniform in the higher quality wetlands being up here. Then as you continue south, you are in more of a mix of the upland wetlands category, and you also have more of exotic infestation. To the extent that really the cypress pine -- you can' t hardly see that line on there. But the cypress pine, where we have less than 25 percent melaleuca infestation, matches what we 're pretty much seeking to preserve on the site. It allows us to have a concentrated preserve area, if you would, of wetlands as opposed to isolated wetlands, two or three acres scattered through the site . So we attempted to -- in light of the environmental conditions, to bring the development as far south and use of course all of the clear area in the development . The property has about 21 -- a little less than 21 acres of lakes . Your golf and your buffer are about 68 acres . You've got a little sales center over here in the corner. And your preserve is right at 30 acres, plus or minus a tenth. The -- as you might expect in this area with this proximity to development and the major road systems, the hydrology and the water regimen have been severely impacted by previous development in an over-drained condition. Obviously the future Livingston Road is also going to have an impact on what wetlands are -- remain on the site. Immediately west of Livingston Road you have the major Florida Power and Light power line of about 235 cleared feet of a 275-foot easement there. The Pelican Marsh project of course is to the west . The plan is to -- the water management plan is to of course try to help the hydrology by providing somewhat of an ability to back up the water in this area, and then the internal drainage will come out and go through the lake system about here and bring it under Livingston Road and into the main water management system for Pelican Marsh, rehydrating that wetland and bringing it eventually out to the Airport Road canal, after treatment, which is where our permit is. As Mr. Nino noticed, the yellow parcel is about 21 and a half Page 51 November 3 , 1999 n acres, 21 . 6 acres of residential development, which is the only impervious surface we ' ll have other than access road into the property. I don't think I have anything else. I 've got the technicians here to answer any questions, or I ' ll be glad to try to respond to any questions . It ' s a fairly straightforward proposal . And basically it ' s an infill project that does have the ability to reduce some build-out density in the county. But I 'd be glad to answer any questions you might have. CHAIRMAN HILL: What ' s the status of Livingston Road' s construction plan or design features already on paper? MR. VARNADOE: As I understand it, Mr. Hill, starting this year we are working from Radio Road north with each segment basically starting one year hence. So we ' re ' 99, 2000 starting at Radio Road to Golden Gate Parkway. Then we 're building from Golden Gate Parkway to Pine Ridge. This section, they' re actually talking they may do some work on Vanderbilt Beach Road starting 2001? In 2001 . They' ll actually be building through the intersection, as they often do, to get the turn lanes and the arrow -- back down. They' ll be coming up about 1, 000 feet to here . And as we understand it, starting 2001, 2002 , they' ll be going forward to Immokalee Road. One feature I guess I should mention is that we have requested in the PUD the ability to put a golf cart crossing -- separate crossing ' in the PUD. It will either be an underpass or an overpass . We 're still working with the county transportation folks on which is the best design, and they've had some requirements of how far from the intersection it has to be, and site lines, and those things obviously need to be addressed before the design is finalized. CHAIRMAN HILL: Questions for petitioner? MR. CARLSON: Two questions about the wetlands . When you go through the permitting with the agencies beyond us and you're going through the sequencing of avoiding and minimizing impacts to wetlands, I 'd like to sort of hear your argument about how you've avoided impacting wetlands when it ' s a pretty high number of acres that are being impacted. And then secondly, if you' re relying solely on on-site rainfall for enhancement of the preserved wetlands to restore the hydrology, is on-site rainfall really going to make a difference in a project like this that ' s surrounded by a generally lowered water table? MR. VARNADOE: Let me turn that over to Church Roberts, environmental consultant . MR. ROBERTS : For the record, my name is Church Roberts . I 'm the environmental director at Johnson Engineering. With regard to your question concerning avoidance of minimization, the first thing you do is conduct an alternative site analysis. And obviously this is a perfect site, being under single ownership, right next to the existing Pelican Marsh development. Once you have established a site and you've already got your basic site plan down, then you have to address avoidance and Page 52 November 3 , 1999 n minimization. This project has minimized impacts by targeting the more exotic infested wetlands and having a condensed, contained development . Not spread out like Mr. Varnadoe referred to by having pockets . We could -- there are little isolated pods of uplands to the north that you could conceivably, you know, set a green on, but again, you're just sprawling your development around. And then also, as she alluded to earlier, we will be looking at additional mitigation alternatives off-site and we will be negotiating that with the agencies in order to determine the most adequate mitigation plan for the project . With regard to your on-site precipitation -- and back again to the avoidance argument . There ' s basically two drainage basins that this particular site occurs in. There ' s one in the south, which is comprised of the ag. fields and the wetlands proposed for impact to the north of the ag. field. As you can already see with the ag. field, that over a third of that basin' s already been disrupted. By avoiding the wetlands to the north, we can tie that basin in to its historic sheet flow to the wetlands, which would be west of Livingston Road through a culvert installation. So we do have the ability to maintain the integrity of that particular basin. With precipitation, there is sheet flow that comes onto the property, and then by having a development that ' s built up, you can get some tail water effect into your preserve wetlands as well . MR. CARLSON: Thank you. CHAIRMAN HILL: Any questions for the developer? Petitioner? Anybody here from the public that would like to address the council? I ' ll close that portion then and ask for the pleasure of the council . MR. CORNELL: Move we approve, subject to stips . MR. DiNUNZIO: I ' ll second it . CHAIRMAN HILL: It ' s been moved and seconded to approve the Pelican Marsh PUD, subject to the changes in the staff ' s recommendations from their staff report. Discussion? All those in favor, aye. Opposed? (No response. ) CHAIRMAN HILL: Show it carried 5-0, with four absentees . MR. VARNADOE: Thank you, gentlemen. CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you for all your patience today. No more fire drills . MS . BURGESON: I know that you wanted us -- wanted me to make a brief presentation on the change of the scheduling. I need to -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Yes, you want to do that now? MS . BURGESON: I need to make a very quick phone call, somebody' s paged me . So I ' ll be back -- CHAIRMAN HILL: I 'm sorry, Barb? Page 53 November 3, 1999 MS . BURGESON: I need to make a very quick phone call, just a minute or two. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. While Barb is -- okay, let me do this first . While we ' re waiting for Barb, Ms . Scuderi, we 've had the question as to whether a member of an agency or commission can assume a position of not voting due to anything but a conflict of -- or apparent conflict of interest . I wanted this clarified, and Ms . Scuderi was very kind. I call your attention to 286 . 012 , which to me -- and I have to be very pragmatic, it says very definitely that the only vote we can -- the only chance for not voting on a commission of our nature is if we have a conflict of interest . So there ' s no other way to avoid voting on a question if you have no conflict of interest . I needed to see that in black and white . MR. NINO: May I editorialize, that -- if you don' t mind, that that is notwithstanding your ability to continue a petition. CHAIRMAN HILL: Right, right . Yeah. Yeah, it just says the vote on the petition itself can be avoided only by a conflict of interest, yeah. MR. CHRZANOWSKI : Does it give a punishment for just refusing to vote? MR. NINO: The guillotine. CHAIRMAN HILL: It says -- yeah, I see it . In footnote here it says thou shalt give something to the chairman of the council -- MR. CORNELL: I knew it . MR. COE : Pull out your toenails . MR. NINO: One free luncheon. CHAIRMAN HILL: Uh-oh. THE COURT REPORTER: You're being televised, too. CHAIRMAN HILL: I forget that sometimes . MR. COE: Hide your head, Bill . I 've got a couple of questions of staff . CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. MR. COE : The Planning Commission that met last month voted 7-0 to approve the golf course project that we disapproved. And to kind of update you a little bit, we disapproved it because Southwest Florida Management District said very specifically they would not under any circumstances permit that road ever, much less permit it to be blacktopped. That was part of it . The other reason, of course, it just didn't fit within what we thought was a good plan. I did a little checking around, and come to find out -- I have a question: What was presented to the Planning Commission for them to make an intelligent decision? Did they have a copy of any summary of what our deliberations were for them to make a decision? MR. NINO: Again, Ron Nino for the record. The answer to that question is no. We would simply advise them what your vote was and, you know, what your position was . MR. COE: Then my question could would be, why are we here? MR. NINO: You're an advisory body to the County Board of Commissioners. Page 54 November 3 , 1999 MR. COE: How can we advise if our deliberations, at least in summary form, is not provided to the Planning Commission? MR. NINO: You're not advisory to the Planning Commission, you're advisory to the Board of County Commissioners . We do, however, advise the Planning Commission, because we usually come to you first . Although that -- even that sequence isn't absolutely necessary or prescribed by law. And we could simply advise the Planning Commission what your position was . MR. COE: What did you advise the Planning Commission regarding what our deliberations were regarding that golf course, other than our vote? MR. NINO: I don' t remember or recall the specifics . I 'd have to ask Don Murray, who was the planner on that . I don' t know if we simply told them that you recommended a denial . Whether we gave any reasons for that or not, I 'd have to refer to the record. MR. COE: Well, I think you've got -- I think you can see where I 'm going -- MR. NINO: Yeah. MR. COE: -- in that why are we spending all this time here and why do we have a reporter here and why do we put it on camera? Basically for what? Is this for the attorneys? Why are we doing this? MR. NINO: You' re making a recommendation to the Board of Collier County Commissioners . And it behooves staff to advise the County Board of Commissioners what your reasons were for recommending a denial of that petition. MR. COE: So in other words, when it goes before the County Commissioners, they will have all this, and plus they're going to have our -- MR. NINO: Correct . MR. COE: -- deliberations? MR. NINO: Correct . MR. COE : And they're going to spend the time going through this like we have? MR. NINO: Correct . Theoretically they -- theoretically they have the same information you do. Depends upon how much homework they do. But they certainly will know what the position is of their two advisory boards, you and the County Planning Commission. MR. COE: Well, why do we provide anything to the Planning Commission from us if it ' s not in such a form that they can make a reasonable decision? And quite frankly, I don't see anything -- I mean, if there ' s ever been a decision I 've seen that this board' s made, that ' s probably been the biggest lay-up. Let ' s say the golf course is approved. Fine. How are you going to get there? MR. NINO: Well, your point is well taken. MR. COE: I mean, it ' s apparent to me -- MR. NINO: Perhaps the Planning -- MR. COE: -- that that Planning Commission did not have the sufficient information for them to make a reasonable decision. MR. NINO: Well, that Planning Commission had the same Page 55 November 3 , 1999 environmental analysis that you did. They had -- they have the benefit of our environmental staff, who has made a report . They have the same resources you do. They -- I suggest to you that they do have the ability to make that decision. MR. DiNUNZIO: Did they have the people from water management people there to -- MR. NINO: Yes, they do. MR. COE: So they did have the Southwest Florida -- MR. NINO: The same consultant team is there, of course. MR. DiNUNZIO: I 'm not talking about their consultant team -- MR. NINO: Well, I think -- MR. DiNUNZIO: -- I 'm talking about the people -- MR. NINO: -- you have to appreciate that when you' re dealing -- when you' re dealing -- we 're dealing with a zoning -- we 're dealing with a land use question. Collier County has the police authority to zone land, irrespective of what any state or federal agency thinks about it . We 're -- the zoning of land does not necessarily confer the ability to construct the project . You have to put that all in perspective . We 're not held hostage by state or federal permitting requirements on a rezoning action. It ' s nice to have that information so that you could make a more intelligent decision, particularly when you're dealing with a PUD type of zoning which has a master plan attendant to it . I mean, as planners we don' t like adopting master plans that have no opportunity to come to fruition because they haven't done their homework with the permitting agencies to define the jurisdictional wetlands, for example. We want it to be more than an academic exercise . But you need to appreciate that we are not held hostage by state and federal permitting requirements in the rezoning of land. You have to put it in that perspective . And that ' s the perspective that the Planning Commission is coming from, largely. They're the official land use advisory agency, established by state law. MR. COE: So in other words, what you're saying is well knowing that a road cannot and will not be permitted as it currently stands, that they can still zone that property any way they want? MR. NINO: Correct . Correct. MR. COE: Okay, so let ' s give them that . And what ' s going to happen with the road? MR. NINO: It ' s going to behoove the petitioners to get their permitting -- their essential permitting from state and federal authorities in order to develop the land that ' s now zoned for a golf course. If they can' t do that, they're not going to be able to proceed with their zoning. They're not going to be able to maximize the use for which the property is now zoned. So sure, it becomes an academic exercise, but that ' s the way the system -- MR. COE: Why doesn't the county solve this problem? Since we all have known for years and years that Sable Palm Road exists. Even on maps . We 've got a taxing authority out there. Southwest Florida Management District has already said hey, it doesn' t meet any Page 56 November 3 , 1999 specifications in accordance with Southwest Florida Management . MR. NINO: Well, they haven't officially done that . MR. COE: No, they just turned it down. They've refused to permit it, they've turned their head, they've sued and lost, so they walk away from it . MR. NINO: But we don' t know at this point in time whether or not they' re going to deny that -- the land -- the golf course the opportunity to proceed. We really don' t know that yet . There ' s been -- you're telling us there ' s been some historical activity dealing with Sabal Palm Road. That ' s not to say that that historical situation is not going to be swept under the rug and indeed we 're going to accept the real world condition out there and they're going to allow that golf course to proceed. We don't know that yet . MR. COE: Why doesn't the county take it upon themselves to do it right since -- I mean, what I heard from some testimony, that we even go out and have been known to grade the road to assist the people that live out there who happen to be taxpayers and residents of the county. We even help improve a road that is unpermitted and basically an illegal road. Why don't we go out and do it right, or at least ask Southwest Florida Management District hey, why don't you guys come in and tell us how to do this and we ' ll do it right? MR. NINO: I can' t speak to whether it ' s right or wrong. That ' s a whole other matter. MR. DiNUNZIO: The water management people said that the road has not been permitted ever, that there ' s no records of permits for Sabal Palm Road at the county level or at the state level . Seems like that would make it illegal, give or take. MR. CHRZANOWSKI : I think the county has tried to permit the road and I think that they've gone in and done the work. MR. COE: Nancy Payton -- MR. CHRZANOWSKI : Have tried to permit . I don't think we 've succeeded. MR. DiNUNZIO: Tried to permit and have a permit is a different thing. MR. CHRZANOWSKI : Yes, exactly. And when we didn't get the permit, I think the -- I think the head of the transportation department took matters into its own hands and went out there a couple times and did work. That ' s my memory of the history of it . And that ' s a long time ago. As to -- MR. DiNUNZIO: Well, the county apparently -- MR. CHRZANOWSKI : -- whether we should try again -- THE COURT REPORTER: Excuse me, one at a time. MR. DiNUNZIO: -- has a special taxing district to pay for the paving. THE COURT REPORTER: Please repeat that, for the record. MR. DiNUNZIO: The county -- according to the landowner, the county turned it into a special taxing district to pay for paving. MS . BURGESON: I understand that that was done in anticipation or in hopes of getting permits for the road. CHAIRMAN HILL: I have one question, Ron. You seem to put our Page 57 November 3 , 1999 role in a zoning perspective . We go far beyond. Zoning simply says we approve this property for a certain use, totally independent of any wetland impact, any water management, any consideration. We say in the county zoning criteria we allow you to use this as -- for certain land use. Environmental Advisory Council goes far beyond that, far beyond that . And I think any deliberations that we make here should be carried on forward. MR. DiNUNZIO: If not, we 're nothing but speed bumps to some developer. MR. NINO: I think they are carried forward -- MR. DiNUNZIO: And we 're not even big speed bumps. MR. NINO: -- to the agency that you' re responsible -- to the legislative body that you serve as an advisory committee. CHAIRMAN HILL: But so often we ' re put in a catch-22 . We 're asked to evaluate and assess environmental impacts, and yet we don' t have all of the water management, we don' t have all wetland mitigation, we don' t have wetland delineation often. So much of the input that ' s necessary for an environmental assessment to be made by this council is not there . And I find that we ' re kind of sitting in no man' s land on many of our projects . And it ' s relative to Mr. Coe ' s question here, why are we doing this if it doesn' t seem to get very far -- MR. DiNUNZIO: It doesn't seem to affect anything. CHAIRMAN HILL: I feel very uncomfortable in this matter. MR. NINO: Well, again, you've got to accept your role as advisory. I mean, if the Planning Commission felt useless every time the county board reversed a decision of theirs -- CHAIRMAN HILL: You miss the point . MR. NINO: -- they'd probably all quit . CHAIRMAN HILL: You miss the point, Ron. MR. COE: Ron, you missed -- CHAIRMAN HILL: You missed the point completely. MR. COE: -- the point completely. I don't think that -- I 'd have to think pretty hard, but I don' t think I 've ever been in a position where I had to make a decision, and I could only make the decision with only this amount of information. Something I 've learned since I was way back very young man is I wanted to have all the information laid out in front of me so I could weigh it and look it and then make the decision, a decision for which, by the way, I was responsible for. And that ' s why I asked the question I did is how can the Planning Commission be expected to make a decent decision when their hands are tied and they're in a box and the light ' s off? They don't have any input at all from this commission. None, zero. Other than a vote. Now, the County Commissioners, where are they? They look at our vote, they look at the Planning Commission' s vote and they make a decision in the box without the light on again. Why is that? Who are we advising here? What kind of advice are we giving? I mean, we went through -- this is only half what we went through today. And we went through it . I 'm going to speak for all the members of the council Page 58 November 3 , 1999 here. We went through it . We read most of it . Not all of it, but most of it . MR. NINO: Yeah, there is another proposition that you need to perhaps think about in the next few months . But legally, from the county' s perspective, if somebody stands up in front of you and says that this petition is consistent with the county' s Growth Management Plan, you're required to -- in my opinion, you're required to adopt . The Board of County Commissioners cannot deny a petition that has been deemed consistent with all elements of the Growth Management Plan without risking -- I mean, they can, but you' re risking litigation. Because remember, the touchstone of everything we do is, is it consistent with the Growth Management Plan. You have to -- MR. COE: So what you're saying is that what you presented to us, what your office presented to us on that golf course, and you approved it, in that it ' s consistent with the Growth Management Plan and all that mumbo jumbo, even though it ' s got an illegal road out there? MR. NINO: That ' s correct . MR. COE: And we 're supposed to accept that? MR. NINO: The Growth Management Plan doesn't talk about any illegal roads . MR. COE: But you should consider that . MR. DiNUNZIO: I take it that the Growth Management Plan doesn't take into consideration any type of environmental problems either. MR. NINO: That ' s not true . MR. DiNUNZIO: Well, we haven' t had anything up here that says hey, there 's an environmental -- MR. NINO: There are thresholds of environmental enhancement and protection. There are -- the Growth Management Plan does allow the destruction of wetlands . But it sets up a mitigation requirement . And if you respond to those things, then you're consistent with the Growth Management Plan. CHAIRMAN HILL: But that ' s two points there, Ron, that are the key to this problem. One, we now have an approved maximum density associated with the Growth Management Plan, right? Some of these today, 1. 5, 4 .2 , 8 . -- whatever there are, limits to dwelling unit densities under the Growth Management Plan. Now, it may be consistent with that, but this group wants to look at those things and say whoa, let ' s take a look at the natural habitats, the wetlands, the species, and maybe we don't think you can go to 1 . 5 or 4 .2 or whatever. We think that ought to be limited, even though your maximum is consistent with the Growth Management Plan. That ' s one of the key roles that this council should provide. MR. NINO: May I -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Or should be able to advise. MR. NINO: With all respect, may I suggest that what I hear you saying is you really want a workshop on the philosophy of this whole business. And I think the -- MR. DiNUNZIO: No, we want our decisions to count as something. MR. NINO: It ' s really more appropriate to have -- CHAIRMAN HILL: I have asked the council -- Page 59 November 3 , 1999 MR. NINO: -- that workshop and -- you know, because there are a number of players in this game, and I think it ' s important . I do see that you have some legitimate concerns, and you ought to workshop. You know, you have to workshop these questions, rather than -- MR. COE : You know what ' s interesting to me? I 've never been out on Sabal Palm Road. I 've heard about it, but just heard the words Sabal Palm Road. But I just wondered, would this have even been brought up by the staff or anybody if I hadn' t asked a couple stupid questions like where is Sabal Palm Road and is it dirt and who paves it . I wonder who would have brought it up to them. You? One of the staff members? Certainly not Jassey, he wasn' t going to bring it up. He was real uncomfortable with those questions . Because I just couldn' t picture a golfer driving on a dirt, bumpy road to go out and play golf . I just don' t think that . MR. NINO: No, we fully expected that that road would -- that function -- MR. COE: Then what is the county doing to get it permitted? That ' s my question. MR. NINO: We would have expected that as a function of that development . They would have had to -- they would be required to bring Sabal Palm Road up to county standards . The very same way that the Vanderbilt Beach extension into Old Florida, they were required -- they needed a road, there was a right-of-way there. It was their responsibility to develop the extension of Vanderbilt Beach Road to get to the Old Florida Golf Course. That happens regularly. Roads or road rights-of-way that are not to our standard, a condition of rezoning is that they be brought up to standard, and they need to be in place prior to the C of 0 of that project . MR. COE: Well, if that is in fact true, why wasn' t that one of. the staff recommendations on that golf course project? That should have been one of the recommendations, that one of the things as you bring it up and get it approved by South Florida Water Management District and bring it up to the standard of the county, roads. Why wasn' t that -in there? MR. NINO: I would hope that bringing it up to standard was in there. Not necessarily getting approval of the Southwest Florida Water Management District . MR. DiNUNZIO: There was nothing about the road in that . MR. NINO: I 'd have to look at it . MR. COE: Absolutely nothing. MR. DiNUNZIO: There wasn't a word about the road in there. We'd have never found out if Mr. Coe hadn't asked -- MR. COE: Stupid questions. MR. DiNUNZIO: Well, Mr. Weasel over there. And then these people from water management jumped in. There would have been none of -- none of us would have known a word about any of that stuff . CHAIRMAN HILL: I 'm going to cut this discussion off now and -- MR. DiNUNZIO: Why? We 've been here all day. We might just as Page 60 November 3 , 1999 n well hammer out the rest of it . CHAIRMAN HILL: Well, I gave you a couple of months ago a request for us to consider the 16 different charges that have been placed on this council, and I think that bears to the question at hand: Who are we? Where do we fit in the procedure? What are our responsibilities? And I think we need to discuss these things sometime in the near future and get some of these resolved. MR. DiNUNZIO: They just told us -- CHAIRMAN HILL: If you need a copy of this -- MR. DiNUNZIO: They just told us, we ' re speed bumps . MR. NINO: No, I didn't say that . CHAIRMAN HILL: No, we ' re -- MR. DiNUNZIO: No, but they -- nobody has to pay any attention to anything we do -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Well, let ' s -- MR. DiNUNZIO: -- right? The Planning Commission doesn' t have to and the County Commission doesn' t . So what are we? CHAIRMAN HILL: All right, let ' s -- MR. CARLSON: I ' ll have one parting comment . Our effectiveness depends on the sensitivities of those we advise. MR. DiNUNZIO: I ' ll see you in the parking lot . MR. CARLSON: If those we advise choose not to listen, what can we do? CHAIRMAN HILL: Dig this out, gentlemen, and sometime in the future when we have a short meeting with no fire drills, and -- I 'd like us to discuss this. And I think it needs to be on the agenda. Bill, please, back to you. MR. LORENZ: ***Yes . Well, we covered the drainage element, and we were on the aquifer recharge element, in which case I was showing you the aquifer recharge maps. And on the -- as I said, the Policy 1 . 1 . 5 of the aquifer recharge map, the final order requires us to adopt these maps, or adopt a -- to delineate the aquifer recharge areas in Collier County. This is the South Florida Water Management District ' s, the information out of their publication. I think it ' s W-327 that we 're using to delineate the aquifer recharge. This is for the surficial aquifer and this is for the lower Tamiami aquifer. Just to be -- just to understand, I believe in the packet that I sent you back several weeks ago, we reproduced these in black and white for you. We 're going through an exercise now, as we presented to the Board of County Commissioners. We 're getting it on a better -- even better format in a black and white where you can see the crosshatching a little bit better. CHAIRMAN HILL: Bill, how much detail do we need to go in on these today? MR. COE: What areas do you see are in conflict with the state that we have to look at? MR. LORENZ: The only -- what I 'd like to be able to go through is a little analysis here for proposing or to showing why we do not have a very large, if you will, regulatory proposal for protecting Page 61 November 3 , 1999 aquifer recharge . Not anything more than what we currently have. I want to be able to go through this analysis with you. Because that ' s a concern that I -- MR. COE: But is this -- MR. LORENZ : -- have with the state . MR. COE: -- in conflict with what the state wants us to do? MR. LORENZ : Well, the state says that we have to identify appropriate land use restrictions to protect aquifer recharge. MR. COE: Have we done that? MR. LORENZ : On Page 2 is the Policy 1. 2 . 1, where we have discharges to sinkholes or other cost-related features with direct hydrologic connection. The surficial intermediate aquifer system shall be prohibited. That, I believe, is an appropriate protection of the recharge area, along with the stormwater system controls that we have that require retention and detention of runoff . That ' s in Section 5 .2 of the basis of review from the South Florida Water Management District . Those together, with also the allowable runoff that you've also seen in the drainage element, is my recommendation that we will have -- we will have met the requirements of protecting groundwater recharge in Collier County. I 've got analysis, and I can step you through some more detail for that, if you want to see it . But that will be part of a report that I ' ll present to the Board of County Commissioners . If you don' t want to see that, then I won't have to go through it . MR. COE: Have you had any discussions with the state at this point? MR. LORENZ: No, we haven't . MR. COE: You haven' t . So you don' t really know how this is going to fly. MR. LORENZ: This particular part is what we don' t have -- we have not had discussions with the state on. MR. COE: But if we go ahead and approve it as is, that kicks off the step to present it to the County Commissioners and then get with the state and -- MR. LORENZ: Right . MR. COE: -- then it ' s negotiated out; is that correct? MR. LORENZ: Correct . The state will then, if they like it, fine, we 're in. If on the other hand they have questions, they' ll submit an objection report . We ' ll have to respond to the objection report and go back to the Board of County Commissioners. MR. COE: I don't have any further questions or discussion. MR. DiNUNZIO: I 'd just like to bring up my motion of last month, that we just approve this and let you guys hammer it out, because I hope that nobody around here thinks that any of us on this board have any idea what any of this stuff is . I mean, this is -- this might just well be in Mandarin Chinese. We haven' t had any experience with goals and objectives and policies of trying to find the aquifer recharge areas. We ' re just humble citizens drug in off the street by our own stupidity, and here we sit . MR. LORENZ: Let me step out and maybe risk raising some ire here Page 62 November 3 , 1999 from the councilman. I think you just heard Ron Nino speak to the fact that when you approve a project, you' re approving a project that ' s consistent to the Growth Management Plan. What you are looking at is those standards, those criteria that the environmental group will apply to make that decision as to whether a project is consistent with the Growth Management Plan. This is what ' s the most important part of the staff to have to use to make a determination for that consistency. MR. DiNUNZIO: Well, the only problem is -- MR. LORENZ: So I 'm just -- MR. DiNUNZIO: -- is the way it ' s presented to us is, is here ' s a bunch of rules, do you like them or not? How are we supposed to -- what kind of context do we put this stuff in? I mean -- MR. LORENZ : The context I just mentioned. Now, I can go through the analysis, I can cover it for you, you can ask questions -- MR. DiNUNZIO: If we don' t know -- MR. LORENZ : -- or if you don' t want to hear that, that ' s fine . MR. DiNUNZIO: If we don' t know where it ' s coming from and where it ' s going to, it ' s basically senseless. I mean, we don' t -- I don't have any understanding other than what you've just told me about where these things come from. And then you tell us it leaves here, it goes to you guys and the DCA to hash out where it ' s actually going to be. So we don't know where it ' s going to. And once again, we ' re a speed bump. MR. CARLSON: Did you derive these from some other model, some other program that you used as a model, or from information from the water management district? I mean, how did you actually create -- MR. LORENZ: On the aquifer recharge? MR. CARLSON: Well, I 'm looking at new language -- new objectives and policies . I mean -- MR. LORENZ: Ed, you have to be specific to me, because some of them come from our Land Development Code, some of them are new. So the aquifer recharge are the new ones . The wellfield protection language comes right out of our code. The coastal zone management language comes right out of the code. MR. CARLSON: Okay. My understanding was that the real meat of this is to look at the underlying text . MR. LORENZ : Correct . That ' s what I 'm speaking of, the underlying text . MR. CARLSON: And some of that comes out of an existing code? MR. LORENZ: That ' s correct . Some of it does, some of it doesn't . I ' ll be glad, again, if you want -- if you want me to go through and discuss each and every one, I can tell you which comes out of the code, which doesn't . There is some underlying language in the wellfield protection ordinance, for instance, that we 're going to have to modify the code because of some of the state requirements. And I can cover that for you. MR. COE: Are you prepared to go to the state, should we approve this and should it be approved by the Planning Commission, Collier Page 63 November 3 , 1999 County Commission? You're prepared to go to the state with what you've got and do the negotiating out until we come out with a plan that is going to be approved not only by the state but will hopefully be approved by us also; is that correct? MR. LORENZ: Yes . MR. COE: I have no problems with that . I 'd like to make a motion that we approve it as is, send it forward. MR. DiNUNZIO: I ' ll second it . MR. CARLSON: Are we just talking about the natural groundwater aquifer recharge sub-element at this point? MR. COE : That ' s correct . CHAIRMAN HILL: Any discussion? MR. DiNUNZIO: I think in a way this is an exercise in futility. If we don' t understand where it ' s coming from -- CHAIRMAN HILL: No, it ' s not . No, I ' ll have to defend Mr. Lorenz in this case, with one caveat . I looked through these objectives, the underlined objectives in this document, and all are reasonable from the standpoint of what they're trying to do and how they're trying to do it . I find it difficult to decide how I will take any one of these six and apply it to any one of the petitions that came before us today, okay? I don't see how we can use this to assess Winding Cypress, okay? Because as soon as we get into, quote, water management areas, we 're told hey, that ' s South Florida Water Management District and that will be taken care of . So I 'd like to review these. I think they're critical . But to say we have to use these as checkpoints on the petitions that come before us, I don't think we can do that . I don' t see any petition that came before us today where I 'm capable of saying okay, these aquifer recharge areas are of concern to us, how we can quantitatively evaluate -- or qualitatively evaluate those petitions on the basis of any one of these six? Do you get my point, Bill? MR. LORENZ : Well, pick an example. I ' ll pick an example of the stormwater -- the stormwater -- the drainage section, where it talks about the criteria we will adopt for detention and retention requirements . Stan, right over there, as part of the review project, he will be applying that information of the project to determine -- to ensure that that project meets these requirements in the plan. So from that perspective, he ' s doing a -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Right . MR. DiNUNZIO: So he ' s got to tell us there ' s something wrong. MR. LORENZ : And he ' s using this as the basis. MR. CARLSON: So it ' s at the staff report level that you would say a certain project was inconsistent with a certain policy in here. MR. CHRZANOWSKI : Yeah, that wouldn' t happen, because we'd never let them get by with a discharge greater than allowed, and neither would the Water Management District . And you heard them say -- they say they use our discharge rates to do their computations, their Page 64 November 3 , 1999 calculations . It just wouldn't happen. You'd never see a report that says it ' s inconsistent . It would never get past us . MR. COE: Somewhat just as kind of a sideline. Someone mentioned earlier to me, they said has the staff ever disapproved a project . And my answer was the project doesn't get here unless it ' s approved. MR. CHRZANOWSKI : That ' s right, like -- MR. COE: Basically they have to make all the -- all the negotiations and everything, and the browbeating' s been done before it even comes before the board. So from that standpoint, I understand what you' re trying to say, Ron, but please understand what I 'm trying to say also. I want the whole thing laid out for us . I don't want secrets . And I don't think that was done -- I think that was just an oversight . I don' t think that was done on anyplace on purpose. I think it was done on behalf of the developer. But as far as you all, I mean, it ' s always been there, it ' s always been Sabal Palm Road, so who cares . MR. CHRZANOWSKI : This other, Winding Cypress, the guy said he was in the system since 1994 . That ' s why. Because it just doesn' t get through on the first try. They keep coming in till they get it right . And the golf course -- the last golf course you saw up there off 951, that was the second try. And it looked a lot better than the first try. And Water Management District, when they looked at it, they remembered the first one. And I asked them on the way out if they had any problems, because I knew it was going to come up, and they said no, this is a lot better than the first plan. So you don' t see the bad products . You don' t see it until everything is staff approved. MR. LORENZ : And let me add, let ' s go beyond the stormwater management side of the house and let ' s talk about, let ' s say, wetlands. And I 've sat down and listened and heard the board say well, it ' s too much -- we 're impacting too much wetlands. Right now we have in the plan a 25 percent requirement . That ' s what ' s in the plan. It ' s a consistency requirement in terms of native habitat . If you think as a body that that is too low, then that is what you need to then begin to have discussions on and recommend to the Board of County Commissioners we ought to have a 50 percent requirement, or we ought to have a 75 percent requirement. MR. CORNELL: Right, I agree with you. MR. LORENZ : Okay. This is where you begin to shape the future projects up front, through the policies and the plan and ultimately the standards that are in our code. And if you feel that those policies and standards are too weak from an environmental perspective, then it ' s incumbent upon you as a body to advise the Board of County Commissioners to that effect . Then we can have workshops with staff to determine where those appropriate numbers should be. At the moment, we 're working through the requirements of the final order for some very specific standards here and information in the plan. But remember, you as an environmental advisory body are to Page 65 November 3 , 1999 look at these standards and say yeah, those are appropriate, or Bill, why aren't they -- why shouldn' t they be greater? If you feel comfortable with them, that ' s your advice to the Board of County Commissioners. That ' s fine. MR. CHRZANOWSKI : And also, we will miss things in our review because we 're too close to the problem a lot of times . We 've seen it come in over and over and over, and all of a sudden you overlook something and another set of eyes looking at the project is going to pick something up that we missed. MR. NINO: But Bill ' s comment is very germane . You people have the ability to affect the threshold that we as staff have to recognize in reviewing a petition. CHAIRMAN HILL: I think we 're going to do that . I think we 're going to look at our role and come up with -- we 've just been inundated with projects for the short time we 've been in existence. And we 're getting accustomed to the process and procedure, but I think you're going to hear from us in the future . I do have a motion on the floor to accept the 5 -- 1 . 2 . 1 through . 5 on the recharge area. Is there a discussion? Those in favor, aye. Opposed? (No response . ) CHAIRMAN HILL: Bill, okay, we ' ll -- next? MR. DiNUNZIO: What exhibit now? MR. LORENZ : Well, the next -- I take it that motion that you talked about the natural aquifer recharge element . MR. CARLSON: Right . CHAIRMAN HILL: Yes . MR. COE: How many more elements have you got, Bill? MR. LORENZ : The conservation and coastal management element . MR. DiNUNZIO: The which one? MR. LORENZ : Conservation and coastal management element . CHAIRMAN HILL: Exhibit A(6) . MR. LORENZ : On Page 8, all of the underlying portions for Objective 3 . 1 of Policy 3 . 1 . 1 are those standards that we 've discussed with DCA. This -- these are pretty much verbatim from the final order. When we do make these changes in the comp. plan, we will have to make a couple of changes to the Land Development Code. Most all -- virtually all of this is in the Land Development Code except for some strict prohibitions for landfills within certain wellfield protection zones and for petroleum exploration and some wellfield protection zones . But that ' s just something that we' ll have to advise the Board of County Commissioners if they approve this language, we ' ll have to make some changes to the Land Development Code. But this language pretty much conforms to our understanding of our settlement negotiations with DCA back in March. CHAIRMAN HILL: One thing that kind of bothered me. In 2 (j ) , it seems to imply that some industrial application can have a septic Page 66 November 3 , 1999 tank, and I guess a subsurface absorption field along with it . Is that still permitted? MR. LORENZ: I know that I have not lost contact with the Health Department regulation. At one point there was some discussion of not having, quote, industrial systems on septic tanks . That ' s why we have -- this is existing language . But that is -- so for existing systems, we 're requiring these criteria. The septic tank -- regulation of septic tanks is controlled solely by the Health Department in terms of permitting. And we 've addressed it here with regard to wellfield protection zones . Remember, this is specific to wellfield protection zones . If you're not in one of these wellfield protection zones, you' re not subject to these criteria. MR. COE: It ' s like the industrial area there off of Airport Pulling, weren't they on septic tanks for a while? MR. LORENZ : I believe so. MR. COE: Yeah, up to like five years ago, something like that . I remember they were all griping because they had to connect to the sewage line. MR. LORENZ : Again, this is applicable to the wellfield protection zones, which I 've provided that map to you. MR. COE : I don't have any questions . MR. LORENZ : And then of course -- oh, on Page 10 we 've struck out the Objective 3 . 3 , because now instead of saying that we 're going to do this, we have the criteria that we 've talked about . MR. CARLSON: I 've got something on Page 25 . CHAIRMAN HILL: Is that the next one in order, Bill, the -- MR. LORENZ: Yeah, I just wanted to verify. Yes, on Page 25 would be Objective 9 .4 . Are also -- is also language that we worked out with DCA on the March 19th negotiations. But Ed, you said you had a question about it? MR. CARLSON: No. MR. LORENZ : Oh, okay. CHAIRMAN HILL: Ed, did you have something on Page 21? MR. CARLSON: No, just that there was something there. A change there, that ' s all. CHAIRMAN HILL: Oh, okay. MR. CARLSON: Hey, for this late in the day, it ' s good to just find them in here. MR. LORENZ: Well, I ' ll find the next one for you so you don't have to worry about it . CHAIRMAN HILL: When you use the term storage tank, you're talking about all subgrade storage tanks of any substance? MR. LORENZ: It could be above grade as well . And basically the point there is we have simply adopted the state ' s criteria. We 're not adopting anything more stringent than the state ' s criteria. The next set of changes is on Page 32, Objective 10 . 6, and subsequent policies. Again, all of this language that ' s -- that we have provided in here is in the county's current code, Land Development Code. And now we're applying it to the Growth Management Page 67 November 3 , 1999 n Plan so we have specific measurable criteria in the plan. There is one change that I would bring your attention to on policy -- well, because of the underlying strikeouts, it would be new Policy 10 . 6 . 3 . When I go to the Board of County Commissioners I 'm going to suggest shoreline development . Because that ' s the clarifier that we have in the Land Development Code is shoreline development, not all development . CHAIRMAN HILL: Keewaydin Island now is being developed under this one unit per five acres? MR. LORENZ : I believe so. CHAIRMAN HILL: That ' s the current -- so Dracket sold all that, didn' t he, and it ' s being developed now, minimum five-acre lots? MR. NINO: Yes . MR. LORENZ : And really, from an environmental perspective, those are the only changes . CHAIRMAN HILL: How do these get reflected in the beach renourishment problem, the construction of the small dunes with seeded -- or I should say dune grass, sea oats . Is that part and parcel of this? MR. LORENZ : I don' t believe that these policies here are part of the beach renourishment review that the county staff would apply. However, I do know that as a matter of state permitting, that a restoration of the dune system is a requirement of the permits. Barb may want to talk more specifically as to how the county applies these standards for that project . MS . BURGESON: Right . We do in the coastal zone management section of the codes and in existing growth management elements have a requirement that whenever there ' s new development on any of the coastal shorelines, that any areas of the dune that are denuded of vegetation have to be restored or replanted; has to be completely 100 percent salt tolerant dune vegetation. So any time we have a petition that comes in front of us for review, we require dune -- avoidance of dune impacts and any areas that need to be replanted, if they are -- if they've either been impacted or -- or limited vegetation have to be restored or enhanced. That ' s already existing in our regulations. CHAIRMAN HILL: The beach restoration process two years ago or so, was that primarily a city shoreline -- MS . BURGESON: No, no. CHAIRMAN HILL: -- or county shoreline? MS . BURGESON: Quite a bit of that was in the county as well . CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. MS . BURGESON: And as part of that requirement from the state to do some of the plantings, dune vegetation along the shoreline, the county allowed the property owners to choose whether to have that planted out front of their properties . It wasn't a requirement, but most of them chose to do that. Because it didn't -- at the time it wouldn' t have cost them anything to have those plantings put in. CHAIRMAN HILL: Is that -- was there one more, Bill, in there? MR. LORENZ : No, that ' s it . There is a -- n Page 68 November 3 , 1999 CHAIRMAN HILL: 12 . 1? MR. LORENZ : -- change on 12 . 1, but this deals with emergency management concerns, not environmental . MR. COE : I 'd like to make a potion -- motion to approve. CHAIRMAN HILL: What kind of potion would you make after today? MR. COE: Any kind of potion that 's better than what we got right now. MR. CARLSON: I ' ll second that . MR. COE: As long as it says Scotch at the beginning of it, it would be just fine . CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay, the conservation coastal management element has been moved to approve the changes recommended by natural resources . Those in favor? Opposed? (No response. ) CHAIRMAN HILL: 5-0, four absentees . MR. COE: I 'd like to bring one thing up. I would like to make a recommendation to the staff, probably for approval by the board. MS . BURGESON: Bill, did you want a very brief summary of the change of scheduling now, or do you want to wait till the next meeting when you have a larger staff? CHAIRMAN HILL: I think maybe -- like I thought maybe what we 'd do today, might be nice to discuss that while some petitioners are here, but let ' s do it with a full board. MS . BURGESON: Okay. CHAIRMAN HILL: We 've discussed changing -- lengthening the period of time that we have to review materials without compressing staff ' s time period. And it was going to be an agenda item, but let ' s do that before the full board at our next meeting. I think that ' s going to help. Do you have a comment right now? MR. COE: Yeah, I 've got one comment I 'd like to make. I 'm very concerned, obviously, as I said earlier, about the road and the fact that it was not a subject of discussion or presented to the Planning Commission. And, therefore, my fear is that that may go as is to the County Commissioners . Does the staff make a presentation to the County Commission regarding this particular, say, golf course project? MR. NINO: Yes, we will . We will, particularly since you recommended the denial . Whenever -- when anyone, including yourself, recommends a denial, that petition has to be discussed by the board. It can't go on the summary agenda. And again, having heard your concern, you can rest assured that I will direct that staff member to explain why this commission recommended as they did. MR. COE: Well, keep in mind -- and I don't want to just dwell on this, because it wasn't just the road; that was not the primary reason. That was a large reason on my behalf as to why it wasn't approved, because of all the reasons I 've gone through, and I don't want to belay it anymore. But is this sufficient just for you and I to discuss this and you Page 69 November 3 , 1999 to, you know, say yeah, my guy will just bring it? I 'd like the County Commissioners to be aware of maybe a brief history of this road. CHAIRMAN HILL: Bill . MR. COE: It was -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Are you finished? MR. COE: The Southwest Florida management woman made a wonderful presentation. Because I was never aware of the background. Fortunately, she ' s been around long enough to know it . But maybe something, three minutes or less for the board, for them to understand. Someone has to make a decision as to what to do with this road to do it right . We all know it ' s there and we all know it needs to be improved, and it needs to meet all the criteria of everybody, from environmentalists to road people . Why don' t we just do something about it? MR. NINO: We will advise the board that that is an unresolved matter. I will personally ask Ed Kant, our transportation director, to be at that meeting to discuss that issue with the board. At least alert the board to the fact that that road is under a cloud from the Southwest Florida Management District . The final analysis is up to the board as to what they want to do. CHAIRMAN HILL: But there were other objections to that project, too. MR. COE: Obviously. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay, we ' re going on. MR. NINO: Yes . I 'd like your -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Is that all that Bill had? MR. NINO: Yes. I 'd like to deal with the Land Development Code amendment, if you have the patience to spend a few more minutes with us . Let me advise you that Land Development Code amendments are made twice a year. You can expect amendments to come to you in March and in November of every year. And here again, you have an opportunity to -- if there ' s something in the Land Development Code that you think ought to be amended after you all deliberate on the appropriateness of some environmental regulation in the code that ' s not to your satisfaction, ought to be enhanced, you have the opportunity to ask staff to include that consideration in either of its two cycles, amendment cycles. Suffice to say that in this cycle we have several amendments that we think fall within your jurisdictional area, and they have to do with the removal of exotic vegetation. These were -- and I hoped that she would be here. These were authored by Michelle Edwards, who ' s director of the code enforcement department . And basically she is reacting to current administrative difficulties or code enforcement difficulties that they have with respect to the removal and maintenance of an exotic free environment. And that is basically one -- I think three of these amendments have to do with -- Michelle Arnold, yes . CHAIRMAN HILL: 3 . 9 -- n Page 70 November 3 , 1999 MR. NINO: Did you have a question on any one of these? CHAIRMAN HILL: 3 . 9 . 3 I guess is terminology. In the past we 've -- staff has talked about a clearing permit . Now we talk about vegetation removal . Are they one in the same? MR. NINO: One in the same. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay, so that ' s old -- clearing permit is old language? MR. NINO: No, no, no. Sorry. We ' re still talking about vegetation removal . The clearing you' re talking about is a special application. I 'd like Stan Chrzanowski to talk about that . MR. CHRZANOWSKI : It ' s called a vegetation rule and site-pulling permit, but shorthand we call them clearing permits . CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay, clearing' s just a generic term. Okay. So an individual homeowner has to receive that permit . MR. NINO: One of these amendments is an amendment authored by Stan, and it has to do with reworking our rules governing the advanced clearing. MR. CHRZANOWSKI : The old rules were a little confusing. And it had to do with when you get to a certain point in the process, we allow you to clear. We have -- one of the big things in here is we 're now allowing -- you come in for a site development plan for, say, a small commercial parcel like a 7-Eleven or a convenient store of that type or some other retail facility. The site development plan, when that is approved, allows you to clear for the infrastructure, the utilities and the parking and the driveway and all. But for some reason the old code didn' t allow you to clear for the building pad itself . You had to apply for the building permit . So you had -- somebody would get the SDP and they would go out and they would be three weeks away from a building permit, because they had just submitted for that . They could clear the whole site, but couldn't clear for the building, even though the building showed on the SDP drawing, which resulted in increased costs and inefficiency. And there ' s no reason, when you've approved the entire SDP, not to let them clear the building. So it was meant to clean up things like that . MR. NINO: Yeah, at this point in time we 're primarily in the housecleaning mode. If we have a section of the code that we 're having administrative difficulties with, then those are the type of amendments that we 're authoring at this point in time . We ' re not establishing new horizons, but that ' s not to say that you ought not to do that . We would appreciate you endorsing these few amendments that fall within your area. CHAIRMAN HILL: I have one other question, Ron. On Page 3 , clearing, grading and filling, somebody has marked that delete, the word, and seems to indicate the word -- MR. CHRZANOWSKI : We got challenged on that by a few of the developers. And it is redundant . It ' s required anyway. MR. NINO: Right -- Page 71 November 3 , 1999 CHAIRMAN HILL: What is it that you're deleting? MR. NINO: -- we ' re deleting the entire subsection on the recommendation of the DSAC, Development Services Advisory Council, because it is redundant . You have to remove exotics . It ' s redundant to say so. MR. COE: I 'd like to make a motion to approve it as is . MR. DiNUNZIO: I ' ll second. MR. NINO: Thank you. Let me -- CHAIRMAN HILL: All in favor, aye. (Unanimous vote of ayes . ) MR. NINO: Let me make a comment that in my experience with Collier County in the last 11 years, that whether you think you're a bump in the road, let me tell you as a planning professional person involved in this business for over 40 years, that this committee has raised the bar of discussion. And I personally commend you for doing that . You know, I 've seen your predecessors, and you truly have raised the bar of discussion on petitions, and I -- for what it ' s worth, I think you're doing a marvelous job. CHAIRMAN HILL: Well, I thank you for that on behalf of the council . But I would like to add this : We -- if I could put a plug in for staff, because they've certainly served us very well . I 'm sorry Stan' s the only one here to hear that . Pass that to them, please. MR. NINO: Definitely will . ^ CHAIRMAN HILL: We probably stepped on some of your toes from time to time in raising that bar, and we may step on a few more. And I hope you' ll understand that this group is dedicated to doing its job, whatever that may turn out to be . And we may cross some boundaries at times and do more than what we ' re supposed to. MR. NINO: We ' re all used to that . MR. CHRZANOWSKI : We 've been called worse things than you ever called us . MR. DiNUNZIO: We ain't started calling yet . CHAIRMAN HILL: There were one -- two other items on the agenda. I 'm not even going to -- one was to talk about the -- whether we should as a council respond to DCA' s report . Let ' s take that up later. And whether we wanted to respond to the article in the paper. Mr. Finch was appointed to new director and had some comments, very strong comments, concerning environmental . So I call your attention to that . He ' s now -- I don' t know what his title is. Anyway, it -- there are some things that we need to talk about. MR. NINO: You want that back on the agenda, Chairman Hill? CHAIRMAN HILL: Yes, I would appreciate both of those. MR. NINO: And the review schedule? CHAIRMAN HILL: And the review schedule. And if you would, dig this out. It ' s germane to what we have said today. Who are we, what are we going to do, what are we supposed to do, how are we going to do it? Define our role. What I call council ' s horizon. MR. CORNELL: You're shooting to take that up at the next Page 72 1 November 3, 1999 n meeting? MR. COE: Well, my recommendation is we take that, run it up to the County Commissioners and let them approve it, bring it back to us and say yeah, that ' s what we want you to do. CHAIRMAN HILL: Well, that ' s from the enabling legislation. MR. CORNELL: Yeah, that ' s from the -- MR. COE: Then it ' s already -- what ' s the discussion? CHAIRMAN HILL: Well, how do we do all those things, and in what form do we do it? That ' s my question. I don' t see this group of nine people taking up this much time and effort simply to solely review petitions . I think there ' s more to be done environmentally in Collier County than that . MR. COE: I agree . CHAIRMAN HILL: And we have to decide -- did I shut you off too early? MR. LORENZ : Well, you've mentioned that you wanted to look at the NRPA' s at a later meeting. CHAIRMAN HILL: The DCA. MR. LORENZ : Yes, the -- MR. DiNUNZIO: The meeting with the DCA? MR. LORENZ : -- the schedule is, is that the Board of County Commissioners has to adopt the NRPA' s by November 23rd. So we have to send those up to DCA by that time frame . So the EAC will not have another meeting after that to discuss, if you want to provide some additional information back to the Board of County Commissioners . They're going to have to take that action on the 23rd. CHAIRMAN HILL: Now I 'm confused. I thought we had three years to finalize those. MR. COE: The initial NRPA' s are already going up. CHAIRMAN HILL: They've already been up. MR. LORENZ : Well, no, we had to transmit by September 14th. Then from 30 days from the time DCA gives us the ORC Report, the board has to have final adoption. That would be November 23rd. MR. DiNUNZIO: Well, what did the DCA say yesterday at the meeting? MR. LORENZ : Well, at the moment -- CHAIRMAN HILL: You have a copy in your packet . MR. DiNUNZIO: No, no, no. This is -- they had a meeting yesterday where they negotiated on these to see where it was going. What did they say? MR. LORENZ: At the moment they' re still looking for the staff to come up with additional data and justification for why the boundaries -- we selected the boundaries for the northern portion of the Okaloacoochee Slough, for the portion between Okaloacoochee and Camp Keais, which is that southern portion, and North Belle Meade. We presented DCA with -- the staff member with some additional information, and we have not heard as to how receptive they are with that additional information. At this point I still don't know exactly how they' ll respond to Page 73 November 3 , 1999 the information we 've provided to them. MR. DiNUNZIO: Now, this was information as to why it didn't need to be as big as we asked for it to be, as this body asked it to be? MR. CARLSON: You gave them justification for why the boundaries were the boundaries submitted by the landowners? MR. LORENZ : That ' s correct . MR. CARLSON: And DCA objected to those boundaries . MR. LORENZ : That ' s correct . They're asking for data and justification for those boundaries. MR. COE: Hey, we did our job. MR. CARLSON: We recommended the state ' s -- the county staff' s boundary and would do it again. MR. COE: You want to bring it back before us again? CHAIRMAN HILL: How about -- MR. LORENZ: No, the County Commission -- the county has taken the position, and that ' s the position that was transmitted September 14th. MR. COE: That ' s the one -- MR. LORENZ : That ' s what staff -- MR. COE: -- that got bounced, right? MR. LORENZ: That ' s what staff is carrying to DCA and defending. You have on your agenda an item that you wanted to take some additional action. You indicated that you wanted to maybe continue it to your next meeting. I 'm just standing up here letting you know -- giving you the information that -- the timing that will be outside the window. CHAIRMAN HILL: I 'd forgotten that 30-day period. Would the council want to reiterate our stance and send our recommendation back to the commissioners? MR. COE: Do it again. MR. DiNUNZIO: Here, here. MR. COE: I will mention something, that the vote will be different right now than it was originally. And we owe it to the other members of the board not to usurp a previous vote. My point is, is that the previous board, when we voted on Camp Keais and the other things, there were some of those areas that were not approved, and that was because some of the members that are not here now were there before and that vote, if we were to take it again, I believe would be very much skewed a different way. CHAIRMAN HILL: Oh. Then the only way to overcome that is to have a special meeting. MR. COE: That ' s the only way to overcome it . Because we can't do it with the five of us . CHAIRMAN HILL: Well, we could send the same -- MR. COE: You could send the same recommendations up. Now, we could vote to do that . I don't see what ' s wrong with that . MR. DiNUNZIO: Well, the thing was that the recommendations that we did have, according to that letter, that we -- the ones that were approved weren't good enough. And we had a lot more in there than the county did, so -- Page 74 November 3 , 1999 MR. COE: No, we had -- I think we had the same as the county did. MR. DiNUNZIO: No, the North Belle Meade thing -- CHAIRMAN HILL: North Belle Meade. MR. DiNUNZIO: -- ended up being a wash. And the state asked specifically for North Belle Meade, right? MR. COE: Well, that will be carried to the County -- MR. LORENZ: They were asking for information -- MR. COE: -- Commissioners again, won' t it? MR. DiNUNZIO: Yeah. MR. LORENZ: Pardon? MR. COE: Won't that be carried to the County Commissioners again, like, hey, this is what the Environmental Advisory Council voted on before, so we just remind you that hey, that ' s what our recommendation was. Does that go back to them, or do they just start off bald again? MR. LORENZ: Well, I probably would not have mentioned that, since -- because we 've already told the board during their September 14th meeting what the EAC votes were . The County Commission voted to send up a different set of lines . Our -- staff ' s response now to the Board of County Commissioners is how do we resolve the difference between DCA and the County Commission' s proposal? MR. CORNELL: So what happens next? Now, you're waiting -- MR. LORENZ: If on the other hand you voted today, you took a vote today, and -- we would carry that vote to the Board of County Commissioners on November 23rd, certainly. I wasn't intending on going back to the board and saying well, you know, EAC voted this way and this way and this way beforehand. I would not attempt to do that . CHAIRMAN HILL: Well, I don't think we can take another vote on the NRPA' s without the full council . MR. COE: Why not? We stayed. CHAIRMAN HILL: We can' t do it . MR. DiNUNZIO: Yeah, we stuck it out . We ought to at least do something. MR. COE: We can't do it . CHAIRMAN HILL: As a private citizen, you can -- I don't think that would be fair to establish another stance without four -- with four members missing. It wouldn' t be true . Because it has to go through as a recommendation from the council . And I don't see us being fair in doing that, so -- so what you're saying is really, unless we wanted to get a full council together and make another statement, all we can do now is remind the commissioners of what our original -- MR. COE: And the shortest part of that is happy hour. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay, guys . MR. CORNELL: I move we adjourn. MR. DiNUNZIO: Actually, we could test that theory. If we had a five to nothing vote on one of these things, it wouldn' t matter if the other four were here or not . CHAIRMAN HILL: That ' s true. But it would go to the Page 75 November 3 , 1999 commissioners as 5-4 versus 5-0 . MR. DiNUNZIO: They don' t pay any attention anyhow. What difference does it make? CHAIRMAN HILL: I heard adjournment . We meet on December 1st . Thank you very much, everybody, for your patience and efforts today. MR. DiNUNZIO: That ' s a wrap. MR. COE: That ' s it . Good-bye. Carry me out . ***** There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 3 :40 p.m. ENVIRONMENTAL ADVISORY COUNCIL WILLIAM W. HILL, CHAIRMAN TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE, n INC. , BY CHERIE ' R. LEONE, NOTARY PUBLIC Page 76