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EPTAB Agenda 07/13/1992 ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY TECHNICAL ADVISORY BOARD AGENDA DATE: Monday, July 13 , 1992 PLACE: Building H - 3rd Floor Collier County Courthouse TIME: 4: 00 p.m. I. Call Meeting to Order II. Roll Call III. Approval of Minutes IV. Old Business A. David Land' s proposal of June 26, 1992 V. New Business A. Development of NRPA with specific attention to North Golden Gate Estates VI. Public Comments VII. Adjournment MEETING SCHEDULE: July 27th - 4 : 00 p.m. - 3rd floor Building H - Courthouse Complex MEMORANDUM DATE: July 13, 1992 TO: EPTAB FROM: DAVE MAEHR SUBJECT: NORTH GOLDEN GATE ESTATES SUBCOMMI I"I'EE MEETING FOR JUNE 2, 1992 Attendance: Bob Gore, Mathias Tari, Mike Slayton, David Land, Dave Maehr. Gary Beardsley was absent but provided many useful materials for our discussion. The Golden Gate Estates is an area that is unique from an ecological as well as a sociological perspective. A combination of nearly insurmountable environmental problems and its recognized value for water recharge, subtropical vegetation, and wildlife have placed the southern portion of this hugh development on the State's list for acquisition. Rapid development of the northern portion of the "Estates"has created a more difficult dilemma if terms of preserving or restoring environmental functions. Any efforts to maintain or enhance the northern Estates (from a natural resources standpoint) must consider the residential nature of this development. Attached to this report is an excerpt from L. Carter's (1974) book,The Florida Experience, describing the evolution of a still controversial subject: The Golden Gate Estates. A consensus was reached on several subjects concerning the future of the Northern Golden Gate Estates. 1. There is substantial habitat remaining particularly south of 14th Avenue Southeast that is functional and valuable in and of itself. 2. Because the Estates are important to water recharge for surrounding agricultural and urban uses, as well as the city of Naples. It is beneficial to the public of Collier County to keep as much of the north estates as possible in forest cover. 3. An approximate 6 sections north of I-75 area that is sparsely inhabited has recently been recognized as important black bear habitat that supports resident breeding individuals. 4. Because housing density is increasing rapidly in the Northern Estates, drastic changes in water management practices directed toward restoring historical sheet flow are impractical and very unlikely without tremendous financial subsidies. 5. Outside of the area, south of 14th Avenue Southeast, habitat is valuable for water recharge and wildlife and should be examined for the potential of protecting our archipelago of small preserves that could range in size from portions of individual lots to clusters contiguous properties. We recommend that EPTAB accept that maintaining habitat quality in the northern Golden Gate Estates is important to the welfare of residents of Collier County. Further, several avenues for protection should be recommended to the BCC for investigation. These include: 1. Acquisition of a core preserve area that is contiguous with the Southern Estates and the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge (interrupted by the Ford Test Tract which regularly is used by bears and panthers). This acquisition should also include the eastern 1/3 of the North Belle Meade area because of the importance of this vegetation to wildlife. 2. Examine the feasibility of a non permanent, renewable (10 years?) conservation easement on Northern Estate lots that would provide a 25-100%tax reduction per unit area on developed lots where 50-90%of the lot is left in native cover. And, a 100% tax reduction on the back 100 feet of each lot that is left in native forest cover. 3. Examine the potential for purchasing habitat archipelagos of significant area that would act as wildlife-green space preserves as as low intensity recreation areas. 4. Explore the possibility of utilizing the Golden Gate Estates mitigation trust fund to direct acquisition efforts at strategic parcels. I FROM: LUTHER J. CARTER TEE FLORIDA EXPERIENCE: Land and Water policy in a growth state Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 355pp. ii 4 GULF AMERICAN AND THE RAPE OF THE LAND. The Colliers emerged from the Depression with their huge inventory of land still intact, but with relatively little in the way of liquid assets. After the death of two of Barron Collier's three sons in the early 1950s, the family sold some of its land in order to pay estate taxes. The largest single sale was one of some 300,000 acres to the Gerry brothers of New York. Over the next fifteen years or so the Collier interests would dispose of all but about 400,000 of the 900,000 acres they once owned in Collier County. _ 232 SOUTH FLORIDA: THE PROBLEMS OF GROWTH • During that same period, the Gulf American Land Corporation, founded by brothers Leonard and Julius Rosen, was mounting what was to become one of the largest land sales businesses ever undertaken. Altogether, the land purchases made in Florida by Gulf American and its successor, GAC Properties, Inc. (in 1969 Gulf American merged with the General Accep- tance Corporation), would total some 371,000 acres, or 580 square miles. The Rosens' first project was in Lee County at Cape Coral, some 30 miles north of Naples, but by 1960 they were also active in Collier County. They bought large acreages from the Colliers and certain other interests, especially the Gerry brothers and the Lee Tidewater Cypress Company. Before the end of the 1960s, Gulf American's acquisitions in Collier County totaled 182,000 acres, or more than 284 square miles, nearly all in the Big Cypress (see figure 8-2). Some of Gulf American's early purchases were made at not much more than $100 an acre, if that. Yet, once subdivided into parcels of 11/4 to 5 acres, the parcels would be resold on installment at prices many, many times that amount. The company would, for instance, first offer a 11/4-acre lot at $2,545, then later raise the price still higher and thus create the illusion of a rising market. In truth, every additional swamp lot sold made such property increasingly a glut on the resale market. Indeed, the resale market for most of the tens of thousands of small parcels of land sold in the Big Cypress by Gulf American and other land sales companies has been pathetically weak, if such a market can be said to exist at all. The largest of Gulf American's promotions in Collier County, and one that today remains of critical importance to the future of the western Big f t. Cypress, is "Golden Gate Estates.„ This enormous subdivision of 113,000 acres is located deep in the Big Cypress, the greater part of it 15 miles or more from Naples. Land in Golden Gates Estates was sold on installment (with monthly payments over as long as twelve and a half years) in parcels of 11/4, 21/2, or 5 acres that could some day—or so the land salesmen claimed—be resubdivided by the buyer and resold at a profit. Gulf Ameri- can offered the land neither as finished "homesites” in a well-planned new community nor as unsurveyed, inaccessible swampland, as in the "raw land" subdivisions marketed by the multitude of small land sales corn- , panies active in the eastern Big Cypress. Instead, Golden Gate Estates was 4. In 1970 the GAC Corporation of Miami, a conglomerate with interests in land development, finance, mortgage banking, insurance, and other fields, led all other Florida companies both in sales and in assets. Since then, GAC, partly because of s`. reverses suffered by its land sales and development subsidiaries, has fallen into serious financial and legal difficulties.The company is heavily in debt. is the defendant in several law suits (including one by the Attorney General of California arising out of GAC's land sales operations in Arizona), is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Hous- ing and Urban Development, and is under order by the Federal Trade Commission to make financial restitution and other concessions to many land purchasers.The company's ;. problems are set forth in some detail in the proxy statement sent to shareholders on November 9, 1973. 233 SAVING THE BIG CYPRESS .N CAPE CORAL W. 0 10 20 30 1/41040,vry Z7 H1 Zion NUM .'.Y,` Ilig �onibel\ Estero lEE -I I II Qmnokale } �1 I Bunker Hill: y • I Vii,) Bonds � $SpringsI�, \�< Harker� -, ` JI f :.. ...1.) 1 HENDRY y \ $unnllond Gulf • �:. "�\\` s ig C:OLLIER s 111 C .•',ColdenGa ??>~.f M f `:: p NoP k GOLDEN ' t%; f!^`'4" ©Eto Ft louderdol Parkway 1 }'e 'sk GATE ''`',, `` Mrles I< Cit ESTATES�� s,,' �;'I'`,' Mexico V \; 6 ; REMUDA RANCH I% R"_ „' '" GRANTS n yT h /too. Polm �:\ : Cooelo�d f MARCO I.'1 r •mmock -; :Cornestown i ' �Ts�- �ro V fi\\,�, Ochopee To oATITrOillt 1; rte: a•-� ,p- ,�0� Ever �ode'sCit 0 � i.z.?`Gulf American Corp. ?� >+ q Y �:L\*SSS.: P (GAC)holdings--T`-'T enoNROE--" f:ti.,._ ' Everglades N. P. -, 8.2 sr` -; 1 Land in Collier County acquired by Gulf American Corporation represented as land "semiimproved" by the construction of a grid of flood - - Y control canals and roads. In January 1972 Judge James L. King of the U.S. District Court in Miami '_ returned a judgment that tells much about Gulf American's promotional #`- tactics and strategy. He ordered Gulf American's successor, GAC Proper >;' r1 ties, to repay $23,000 to John and Ernestine Vertes, a Philadelphia couple ,M- who had signed contracts in 1963 and 1964 for four parcels (three of them __: '' in Golden Gate Estates) having a fair market value of about $6,250 (at .?__` ' f most) today. In his written opinion, Judge King described the land sales ',_- dinners to which the Vertes had been invited by Gulf American some ten __ °r '`: years ago: When the meeting began the sales manager would make a welcoming - =:fir' speech and dinner would be served. During dinner the salesman at-:- .,,,.-1. each table would engage in conversations designed to elicit informa- °_` tion to determine which persons were the most likely prospects and to establish "an atmosphere of confidence." At one dinner, [the Vertesi were asked to fill out a questionnaire to determine their buying power. : 234 SOUTH FLORIDA: THE PROBLEMS OF GROWTH • -4.• • After dinner, [Gulf American] screened a movie featuring prominent sports celebrities and showing building and recreational activities in P.r- Florida. The movies were interrupted for a slide presentations owing general statistics of Florida's growth. Included were quotations from .:; prominent historical figures concerning the advisability of owning land and its almost constant appreciation in value. After the movies and e slides the manager would turn the prospects over to the salesmen who would start with the most likely prospect. The salesmen were in- structed to, and did, emphasize the prospect of increased value of the land to be sold, and the probability of profit on resale. . . . When a prospect indicated an interest in a particular lot the salesman would jump up and shout to the manager, "Put a hold on [the lot under con- sideration]." The manager would acknowledge a "hold" for five or ten minutes. At the end of that time, he would shout to the salesman I, to inquire whether he could remove the "hold" and the salesman would renew pressure on the prospect to sign. When a person signed ':n.. a contract to buy a lot, the sale was publicly announced and at one meeting a button was put on the purchaser's coat. The purpose of all these showmanship techniques was to create an "atmosphere of urgency. The judge concluded that the Vertes—he was a crane operator and she was a telephone company employee—were people of limited business ex- perience who had been misled by a sophisticated sales organization into believing that the swamp land in which they were investing lay in the "path of progress." As pointed out in an earlier chapter, Florida land sales scandals go back at least to the turn of the century and have been the subject of recur- ="lc rent journalistic exposes and legislative investigations. The misrepresenta- • tions of Gulf American were cited in the congressional hearings of the mid-1960s that led to the passage of the Interstate Land Sales Full is- `` ' closure Act of 1968, a statute which, while stopping some abuses, has not done much overall to stop unscrupulous practices.° >F'Y 5. Final Judgement and Memorandum Opinion in John A. Vertes and Ernestine W. Vertes v. GAC Properties, Inc. No. 70-416-Civ U.S. District Court, S.D. Florida, Miami . Division, January 26, 1972. 6. The act requires that prospective buyers of land be given a "Property Report" • containing such pertinent information as whether the land is encumbered by mortgages and whether it is accessible and suitable for development. These reports. though meant to keep the buyer from being misled, can themselves be misleading. For instance, the • report issued by GAC Properties, Inc.. in 1971 for three units in Golden Gate Estates r said that "telephone services will be made available by the franchised utility." A couple who built a home in Golden Gate Estates in 1969 learned from the United Telephone . e- Company of Florida that telephone service would indeed be available to them—at a connection charge of$2,880. Unable to pay so high a fee, they had to forego a telephone. which turned out to be no mere inconvenience in 1971 when, for a sixty-day period, • forest fires were raging all around them. 235 SAVING THE BIG CYPRESS .4, F In March 1974, GAC, formally consenting to an order of the Federal Trade Commission, agreed to make partial restitution—totalling perhaps as much as $17 million—to some purchasers who, after signing contracts to buy parcels in Golden Gate Estates and certain other Florida and Arizona subdivisions, later defaulted after making payments over a long period. The order also provides that, besides making water and sewer improvements or offering lot exchanges wherever necessary to ensure past buyers of usable homesites, the company must stop various misrepresentations, such as offering lots as good speculative investments.' Yet, as the Vertes case illustrates, many of those who have bought land in the Big Cypress have simply been small speculators who have had the misfortune to become the victims of other speculators bigger and more worldly than themselves. Much of the public attention given to the plight of such victims might have been more usefully directed at the damage done by some of the land sales companies to the land itself. Extraordinary damage to land and water resources has been caused by the Golden Gate Estates project. This subdivision stretches 25 miles from north to south across the Big Cypress in a long and generally narrow • rectangular configuration, although toward its north end it also extends some 13 miles from east to west. With no more than a few dozen families living there ten years after the sale of the first parcels, the project is a vast, ready-made ghost town. The ghosts are served by 171 miles of canals and _` 807 miles of roads. Since Golden Gate Estates was promoted largely as =r investment acreage, it would have made sense, if such promotions were to be allowed at all, for the county and state to have insisted that the land itself remain undisturbed pending definite proposals for its use and de- velopment. Instead, Gulf American was allowed—indeed, apparently en- couraged—by the county to file plats and legally commit itself to install the grid of roads and canals according to a definite schedule, which ap- pears to have been observed more or less faithfully. The draglines and Ti =ZF bulldozers, together with a giant "treecrusher" machine capable of flatten- ing a forest right into the mud, began work in 1962 and this work was still in progress in the spring of 1974, although by now the greater part had been ;y completed. Many knowledgeable people in Collier County and in Talla- hassee have known that construction of the roads and canals was altering the western Big Cypress irreparably, and for no defensible or even as- certainable purpose. Anyone flying over this region and seeing the grid ' of white limerock roads extending far into the distance could only marvel 7. State regulation is also beginning to catch up with the problem of protecting the land buyer from unscrupulous sales practices. A law enacted in 1973 established im ;• portant new conditions that have to be met before a subdivision can be registered for sale. Local subdivision regulations pertaining to such things as the construction of t• streets and the installation of water lines must be satisfied. Also, the subdivider must have in hand all state permits related to dredging and filling and pollution control— '- permits without which usable lots could never be delivered. a; 236 SOUTH FLORIDA: THE PROBLEMS OF GROWTH • r . ft mer at what was afoot. Once the work began, it was as though some great h - mindless machine had been set in motion and was now beyond all power of human intervention. .': . The network of canals by GAC in Golden Gate Estates has impaired >.' freshwater resources, disturbed estuarine regimes, and contributed to • ` highly destructive forest fires. The U.S. Geological Survey has found that F; the water table has fallen 2-4 feet over a significant part of the western Big Cypress.° Further, according to some unverified reports, it has dropped } as much as 15 feet in certain areas near the Corkscrew Sanctuary and the '1' = farm town of Immokalee. Two major canals discharge fresh water from Golden Gate Estates into the Gulf of Mexico. In 1970 the USGS reported that one of them, the Golden Gate Canal, had been discharging 121/2 times the volume of water then used by the city of Naples.° In 1973 a draft report prepared by a team of investigators with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said that during 1970-72 the volume of fresh water lost ;;s through GAC's Fahka Union Canal (which enters the Gulf just to the west of the Everglades National Park) was equivalent to the total water needs of a` a population of nearly 2 million, computed at 100 gallons per person per day. y=- Yet USGS hydrologists say that, if present trends with respect to popula- Vfl lion growth and water consumption continue, Collier County will face t. . severe water shortages by the year 2000 unless all its ground water re- =Y' sources are fully used.'° Some of the water now passing to the Gulf via the GAC canal system < c would filter into the estuarine zone even without the canals, but it would 'F. come through a myriad of small rivers, creeks, and shallow depressions over a period of eight or nine months. While this extended "hydroperiod" enhances the productivity of the estuarine zone, productivity is reduced by great surges of fresh water from canals. For instance, the fact that Fahka Union Bay is less rich in marine life than the adjoining Fahkahatchee Bay is attributed partly to the massive discharges from the Fahka Union Canal. Furthermore, in the case of estuaries such as Naples Bay that have been polluted, the pollution is aggravated by incoming surges of fresh water. Stratification results, with the heavier, saltwater layer at the bottom not mixing with the lighter, better oxygenated freshwater layer on top. According to state foresters, the Golden Gate Estates canal system is a cause of the devastation wrought in the western Big Cypress by wild- 8. The system's effect on the aquifer is readily apparent from the map of the Shallow Aquifer of Southwest Florida (Map Series No. 53) published in 1972 by the U.S. Geologi- cal Survey.This map, prepared by Howard Klein of the USGS, shows ground water level contours markedly lowered in the vicinity of the canal systems during the 1971 drought. 9. H. Klein. W. J. Schneider, B. F. McPherson, and T. J. Buchanan, Some Hydrologic and Biologic Aspects of the Big Cypress Swamp Drainage Area. Southern Florida, 7d and 82. File Report 70003, U.S. Geological Survey,Tallahassee, Florida, May 1970, pp. 10. Letter of June 7, 1972. to the author from Thomas J. Buchanan, subdistrict chief, Water Resources Division, U.S.Geological Survey, Miami. 237 SAVING THE BIG CYPRESS fires. Cypress ponds that once remained wet throughout the dry season and served as fire breaks now become tinder boxes. During the drought . of 1971, fires swept fully a fourth of Collier County, including large areas '; within the Fahkahatchee Strand, which abuts Golden Gate Estates on the east. Yet, even in March of 1973, during a normal dry season, a major fire broke out in the Fahkahatchee near a Golden Gate Estates canal and raged fiercely. According to Ken Blackner, a district forester, the canal had caused an "artificial drought."11 If construction of the GAC canal system has been bad from a resource conservation standpoint, it has been little better from the standpoint of ,;: , preparing part of the Big Cypress for urbanization. Indeed, the canals and =. the accompanying grid of roads will hamper all future efforts at enlightened development. According to what Robert Wheeler, the Collier County sani- tarian, has told me, the road embankments act as dikes during the rainy season and retard runoff. Although placement of more culverts in the embankments would reduce the diking effect, the gradient of the canals is `> r so slight that drainage is slow in any event. During the wettest part of the year the water table remains at or near the surface. For this and other reasons, conventional septic tanks will not work in most of Golden Gate ,• ; Estates—a subdivision so vast that to serve a major part of it with sewers ti_ is not economically feasible today and may not be feasible a generation 'M hence. Also, the trouble and expense of maintaining the many miles of roads and canals in Golden Gate Estates represents a major problem for the county, which already has assumed responsibility for the larger part of the system. The roads deteriorate rapidly but they receive so little use that to maintain them really is pointless, especially when the cost has been put i= at more than $314,000 a year. As for the canals, they become choked with hyacinths and other nuisance vegetation if not tended to. If the road and canal system is to be maintained, it will probably be by virtue of imposing : :yy; . a special tax on tens of thousands of absentee lot owners. r ' 1-- CONFLICTING CONFLICTING INTERESTS AND GOVERNMENTAL INCOMPETENCE. The government of Collier County has, until recent years, been shot through r with potential conflicts of interest, although these can be viewed charitably as part of the legacy from the days when the county was literally owned F; by Barron Collier. Consider, for instance, the case of Harmon Turner, the Ff county's top nonelective official since 1946. Turner, who served as county _. engineer until 1966 when he became county manager (a position he still holds), is known as a personable and honorable man. But it is hard to credit him with the objectivity and broad professionalism that one looks for in the executive head of a modern county government. He first arrived in Collier }: 11. Ken Blackner, quoted in Associated Press article "Canals Increase Hazard of Wildlife, Forester Claims," Miami Herald,March 8.1973. 240 SOUTH FLORIDA: THE PROBLEMS OF GROWTH • I :' ' County as a graduate civil engineer in 1934, eleven years after the county :;i' s = was created, and he soon became a part of the Barron Collier organization. -', After his appointment as county engineer in 1946, Turner remained a j salaried employee of the Collier organization with the county paying him 'f` a dollar a year and billing the Colliers for such work as he performed. .i.4,1 t; This unusual arrangement continued until 1960, when Turner was finally .,; ` employed by the county on a regular basis. Later in the 1960s, Stanley W. Hole, once an engineer on the staff of "' f. Gulf American and afterwards an occasional consultant for GAC, became - -: chairman of the county's water management advisory board. Of all the `:`= %` potential conflict-of-interest problems that could be cited, however, none "y , was more glaring than that involving Norman Herren, who for many years ' ,' tP has been the top manager for the Collier interests. By the early 1960s, Herren was a member of the county planning board and several years ': iii`. after that he became chairman of the Coastal Area Planning Commission, : Z. the planning board's successor agency and the body responsible for ad- vising the Board of Commissioners about planning and development matters _ t, in most of the county. So here was Turner, who had been an employee of the Colliers since the mid-1930s, responsible for matters such as the review of the highly '.`_ questionable drainage plan for Golden Gate Estates, a project in which .,; ,, the Colliers retained a mortgage interest for some years after their land - '- sales to Gulf American. And there was Hole, a GAC consultant and one- . ; time Gulf American employee, responsible for advising the county commis- ,... as to the effects of such drainage. And, as for Herren, there he was, a leading member of the planning body that advises the county on a variety of matters that could affect Collier interests in the Big Cypress and elsewhere. At the same time, as the Colliers' manager, he was close to such dealings as the Colliers' joint venture with the Mackle brothers to develop Marco Island, a project involving dredging and filling on a scale even Carl Fisher could not have dreamed of. Herren was still chairman of the planning commission when I first interviewed him in 1971. He rejected the idea that there could be a conflict of interest. "Any time something comes up that involves one of our companies, I excuse myself," he ex- plained. The awkwardness of his position was evident, however, for the Colliers still owned a fourth of the land in the county. Potential conflicts of interest can exist even though the personal integrity of the individuals in- volved, as in the case of those mentioned here, has not been questioned. The county's governing body, the Board of County Commissioners, has until recently been largely in the hands of realtors and local politicians of the pork-chop school. In the early stages of the Golden Gate Estates project any county employee who questioned this undertaking found an unfriendly climate at the courthouse. In late 1963, William Clarke, the 241 SAVING THE BIG CYPRESS 11' • director of sanitation, was fired by the county commission. Wheeler, county's present sanitarian, told me that he believes Clarke was dismiss',. partly for raising serious doubts as to whether septic tanks would woi' at Golden Gate Estates. In 1967, four years after Clarke's departure, D Clyde Brothers, a retired Air Force officer then serving as county heal:, officer, was also forced to resign. In this case, too, Wheeler is convinced than the dismissal could be attributed at least partly to the fact that Dr. Brothe held that in this project septic tanks would generally be unworkable. The commissioners were no more ready for a conscientious profe.• sional planner than they were for a conscientious sanitarian or heal officer. During 1965 the Collier County Conservancy actually paid the sal: of a young planner whom the commissioners had been prevailed upon to` hire. He not surprisingly came to be regarded by developers as the "con- •`:: servancy's man," and the commissioners refused to allocate the mone': necessary to keep him after that first year. "I represented a shift from do', . as you damn please in land development to land use control arrangements,:.' ` William R. Vines, the dismissed planner who is today a prominent planning consultant in Naples, explained to me. Vines differed with the commis..., sioners on a number of issues, and took particular exception to the high density and commercial zoning that the commissioners had approved fo part of Golden Gate Estates. Later, however, partly as the result of the jetport controversy and south Florida's traumatic drought of 1971, the Collier County government came under increasing pressure to acquire greater competence in plannin: and control of land use. For one thing, strong federal and state interven' tion could now be expected, with the "feds" moving to protect the Ever-"_ glades National Park's watershed in the Big Cypress and the state demand: ing new land use controls generally. T"'= THE BIG CYPRESS NATIONAL PRESERVE - In 1971, even as the search for a new site for the jetport was going on, an i?,; Everglades Jetport Advisory Board created by Secretary of the Interior Rogers C. B. Morton was developing proposals for protection of they ,- eastern Big Cypress. In the spring of 1971 the board submitted to the secretary a report outlining alternative courses of action, and in November of that year President Nixon announced that legislation would be sub mitted to Congress for the creation of what ultimately was called the :: proposed 570,000-acre Big Cypress National Preserve.' Purchase of ease-::L 12. The name proposed by the advisory board was the Big Cypress National Fresh s Water Preserve. Seeking to appeal to the utilitarian instincts of the citizenry (and, especially of that part of the citizenry that is deaf to other arguments), environmental- ists nvironmental ists commonly stress the water conservation issue in their efforts to justify the preserve ; tion of interior wetlands. • 242 SOUTH FLORIDA: THE PROBLEMS OF GROWTH L E E IIi S.',. : , _ _ —.I Immgkoi• _ ^'':- < I _, Q i / "_-/. — —. 1 • •• • 0 •fr . . .::„:„: . . _,.:, .1. , 7/ OS • ,,, 4r "1 ; 977:::::::i Marco" —j/ ��_ 171-7:s'- ' k Ochopo �, � . ,rod;:!,e,„: v `=- �• le gip' ...• �. _ .w , Y T/ - ' Mexico �� �,! / . - (� r 4 _ / .� ,,Q -fir: Boundary originally proposed e<oEVERGLADES=o- 'o • k. for Big Cypress Area of Critical State Concern °., �-=-2": "'.;;4';" Lr NATIONAL_ Boundary finally adopted %; ,,,,, -- �• � jl _____` National Fresh Water Reserve boundary • YYPARK - ! - - - Fresh water swamps and mangroves %`',f,, -- r, 0 2 4 6 8 •Hammocks and prairie lands MILES :.:,•,•:•::;;;,:-..,..;High ground of the watershed and upland woods Major roads .-`" is A "Urbanizing areas" Canals 8.3 The Big Cypress critical area as first proposed and subsequent reduced boundaries ...,..1: as Immokalee, Ochopee, and Marco Island. Naples was the only com- ' -munity not included in this category. <• Set forth in the regulations were some general objectives followed _ by specific dos and don'ts for developers, with the regulations that were '1,`. to apply to wetlands and other floodprone areas being especially restric- 'I tive and demanding. The basic objective was to maintain in the Big Cypress fl - 'r 250 SOUTH FLORIDA: THE PROBLEMS OF GROWTH 'kDRAFT--Lower West Coast Water Supply Plan Appendix E v ' .: '¢f - ,,e' TABLE E-2. Population Projections , Utility for Collier Co ht i iii� r. \v Population Served i, VU \ G\ UtilityI \ 7/, 1990 2000 2010 \fi Collier County Utilities 34,204 54,509 112,737 v Naples Utility 39,293 49,299 72,367 Everglades City Utility 531 961 1,295Q)9 i : .,,' Florida Cities Water Company 4,751 8,271 14,766 .�,� ' Marco Island Utilities 10,453 15,739 27,164 0tP , VAS) f ((��_ 0 Immokalee Utilities 13,777 15,740 24,922 ' )_ ' d\I North Naples Utility 751 0 0 Ul vb �7 Domestic Self Supplied - 48,339 79,399 110,349 a=' Total 152,099 223,918 363,600 �fh ` - i:t, 'Illit ___„....-------- , ),. ,t, , IIVII ili 1 ''i , _ , (,^,tip ", \v,�; ,G A, ,� e ) Actual gpcd = PWSgpcd I(%PWSonly + (%PWSsup* 0.5) (E-1) i>---------- f, 0\ l V; where: , '�1� Actual gpcd = actual permanent resident per capita demand. ' rPWS cd = total public water supply um a el ermanent population ulation served. ,, PWSonly = Percent of population bya PWS for which the PWS is the sole ; source(expressed as a decimal). PWSsup = Percent of population served by a PWD which have individual wells for .,`4 ,� landscape irrigation (expressed as a decimal). Note: This is equal to 1 -PWSonly: `0,, - The Collier County Utilities PWSgpcd was used as proxy for the county's PWS , - per capita in domestic self-supplied calculations. This PWS had a percapita of 243 gpcd, and as it was assumed that 30 percent of the PWS customers have private wells for landscape irrigation (PWSsup = 0.3, PWSonly = 0.7), the per capita demand for 1: the wholly domestic self-supplied population in ollier County was calculated to be ,6..; , 286 gpcd. `(-4'- I) J PWS and Domestic Self-Supplied Demands Projected PWS and domestic self-supplied (including self supplemented) - demands are presented in Table E-4. These projections are based on the permanent ` resident population served forecasts shown in Table E-2, and the permanent resident - - per capita demands shown in Table E-3. 4. ,;::f'-'.. =:,..-.-1,- 1,V1 Vtlf fP':.' ‘t\"ti VP ''. v� :...,:.-7.;:c.,-.t4i,7 OD CI\CCP \O ' .;-..!,,y,,k!' . s \k..- VII . • l'"'R, 5 y Y� 3 "x *t ¢ ' ( RAF's sower West Coast Water Supply elan Appendix E fid°, ilAill' i vy vqk g � - ` \ TABLE E-23. 1986 Land Use in Collier :` ti o� f County. �� d\(kn c Land Use Acres . £F , `„ ii.N1)1 i Agriculture 145 543 le 1vi Gl, 1 -. Barren Land 5,225 • Iffv� ,01 Forests 109,935 " :h r tYtt Water �(,�� 6,284 `�' , AG, ' ,/if ``T' Rangeland 12,555 Urban Land 95,002 Wetlandscci 913,182, dl, , '' fsr ‘,i Total Area 1,287,726 q� , , ' Land Area 1,281442 VIQV r' ' Source: SFWMD, 1987. /f litik''',,i, , , 6 TABLE E-24. Collier County Comprehensive Plan Land Use Proj tions. 4/,'1A/i/ -1.4Comp. Plan 1986 Comp. Plan 1999 '4 Land Use Acres Acres Change n Acreage Agriculture 141,857 161,857 1,• (714) ,000 # �r Residential 32,737 48,832fflb 16,095 �`' Commercial 1,467 ___________ --2. 76 40 0 tkIndustrial ------ 2,782 v AGi�M1 1,599 (��Qp� 1 183 ¢ :Al. Vacant 579,340 24 — )1gfl 38,488 M. ,iv FPublicly Oyv ed 519,260 19 610 - � � 1 •�ti. `x J �Q � 300,350� : < Total 1,276,260 1, '76;16 scent Ag.land 11.1% 1 7% ,it,, j t '' . Source: Collier County Growth Planning Department, 1989. ,„ f 1 Lee Countyla lk \ < *: .0-/ Lee County has an area of 525,254 acres. In 1990, the county's agricultural i =r �, IV area consisted of roughly 22,000 acres of irrigated crops and y cs g p 118,000 acres non-irrigated pasture. Projections through the year 2010 have a maximum value o - approximately 30,000 acres of irrigated agriculture. Irrigated acreage expansion �': �Y ` expected to replace non-irrigated pasture, and land availability is not expected • limit growth of irrigated agricultural acreage within the projection period. '4: '' ► The current urban area is expected to remain relatively constant through '010` a ", 1' 6, as there are enough vacant areas within the current urban bounda, es toy ': accommoda.e projected growth (Lee County Dept. of Growth Mar gement,j8.8) ;�� ;-. A - , > {{ -- - ,t ,-, *�� t P k., , , .-9,11, "\'a it '44 \(i) = ..__-ci. * -",, A ` \� dc E-26 July 17 , 1992 <FIRST> <LAST> <BUSINESS> <ADDRESS> <CITY> RE: Draft Habitat Protection Ordinance Dear <PERSON>: Enclosed you will find the proposed final draft of the Habitat Protection Ordinance along with a statement of intent. This is the draft that will be presented at the next EPTAB meeting scheduled for July 27 , 1992 . Please review the draft carefully for this will be the final opportunity as a Board to provide input before the draft is sent to the County Attorney' s Office. Your written as well as verbal input is of value to us. If you have any comments concerning this draft, please do not hesitate to call me at 732-2505. Sincerely, Kevin H. Dugan Sr. Environmental Specialist cc: William D. Lorenz Jr. , P.E. , Administrator File The i udubon Society of New I . rk State, Inc. 4 Hollyhock Hollow Sanctuary, Route 2, Box 131 • Selkirk.NY 12158. 518-767-9051 NEW YORK AUDUBON SOCIETY July 17, 1992 Mr. Frederic Yarrington Box 425 Southport, CI' 06490 Dear Mr. Yarrington, Thank you for your follow-up letter regarding Hole-In-The-Wall Golf Club. You have really put together a good team for working on Cooperative Sanctuary Projects. The skills and interests represented on your resource committee will surely lead you to successful project implementation. Further, your initial plan of action is comprehensive and well thought out. We are pleased to see that you have set clear goals, tasks, and responsibilities, and that you are interested in pursuing certification for Hole-In-The- Wall. Enclosed you will find guidelines for each category of the certification process. These will help you to assess conservation and habitat enhancement efforts made by the course, and apply for certification. Again, the seven categories that make up the certification process are: Environmental Planning, Public Involvement, Integrated Pest Management, Wildlife Cover Enhancement, Wildlife Food Enhancement, Water Conservation, and Water Enhancement. Please submit a separate application for each of the seven Achievement Categories. A Request For Certification form is enclosed; photocopies will be accepted as well. Include detailed information, and any supporting documents or photographs relevant to your application. A certificate of achievement will be awarded upon meeting the required minimum standards in each category. When all seven categories have been certified, the course will become a Certified Cooperative Sanctuary. If you have any questions about these guidelines, or would like to talk more about projects undertaken by your course, don't hesitate to contact us. We look forward to hearing from you again. Sincerely, CAC*. (111,-4*-7. Jean T. Mackay Staff Ecologist The Audubon Society of New 1r ork State, Inc. Hollyhock Hollow Sanctuary,Route 2,Box 131 • Selkirk.NY 12158 • 518-767-9051 NEW YORK AUDUBON SOCIETY AUDUBON COOPERATIVE SANCTUARY PROGRAM GUIDE TO MANAGING A COOPERATIVE SANCTUARY Across the United States, golf courses represent some of the last "green spaces" for wildlife to use. The USGA alone has a golf course membership of over 8000 and many of those courses include habitat rich in local plant and animal species. Other golf courses which may be important sites for wildlife are disappearing due to lack of suitable habitat. Recently, many questions have been raised concerning the practices of golf course management and the effects of these practices on wildlife. The Audubon Society of New York State, Inc. and the USGA share a commitment to finding the answers to these questions through the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program (ACSP). We feel that it is possible for wildlife and golf to benefit each other. This document is intended to help golf course personnel assess the possibilities for adopting projects to benefit wildlife in the management plan of their site. This is not meant to be an all inclusive document but rather to offer general information as a supplement to the suggestions each golf course receives as an ACSP member and to the updated information you will receive on specific environmental topics and management strategies as they relate to golf courses. DO YOU MANAGE FOR WILDLIFE? • There are many projects a golf course can undertake to benefit wildlife. These can range from simple bird feeding stations, the mounting of nestboxes for birds and bats, to managing woodlands, ponds, and the fairways, greens and tees for habitat enhancement. Every golf course is able to participate on some level in implementing plans for the enhancement of the environment. It is up to the course personnel to develop a long-range plan for implementation of both simple and complex management strategies. STEP 1 - GETTING STARTED • Your course is now a member of the ACSP. In your Cooperative Sanctuary Report from the Audubon Society of New York State, you are given a choice of many projects to pursue on your golf course to become certified. Regardless of what projects you decide to undertake, the first step is to form a Cooperative Sanctuary Committee or "resource committee." This committee should be a group of people that will volunteer their time and expertise to help manage the golf course for wildlife. Your committee members might be composed of interested staff, members of your golf course with an interest in wildlife, a bird watcher, gardener, or biologist from the community, nearby school, or college. Potential members might already belong to an existing committee such as your greens committee. One purpose of this committee is to provide technical advice as you begin implementation of specific projects. An even more important purpose of this committee is public relations. Don't hide your good deeds for the environment from your neighbors and community. These people will be your best spokespersons for your course. The Audubon Society of New York State does not specify who must be on this committee, nor does it require any particular meeting schedule. More importantly, think of this committee as a resource for information and support for your efforts. Choose people with whom you feel comfortable working and who will volunteer their skills for you. STEP 2 - DOCUMENTATION The second step to implementing and documenting your efforts is to establish records of your activities. If you do not already have general surveys or checklists of the kinds of wildlife and plantlife that already exist on your course, you will have no idea if your efforts are successful. These lists do not have to be complete in order to begin projects but may be revised as time goes on and new information is gained through the activities. Many golf courses might want to ask for help from their members in documenting species of birds, mammals, etc. while they are out golfing. For example, one of your members might belong to a local garden group that would be happy to come out and identify landscaped or native plants on the course. • As you implement projects do not forget to continue to document the results. If you erect nestboxes for bluebirds, try to monitor the boxes during the nesting season. As a member of ASCP we will also send specific information on these kinds of monitoring projects in future issues of Field Notes and other informational mailings. STEP 3 - HOW TO MANAGE FOR WILDLIFE Space, Water, Food and Cover Wildlife of all kinds require suitable habitat in order to survive. Habitat is comprised of four basic components: Food, Cover, Water and Space. A habitat area may be a few square feet for a spider or a few thousand acres for a bear. This requirement for space is different for all species but the area must also include food, cover and water or a species will not exist. SPACE The area that you manage for wildlife may be small or it may include many acres. Space, an important component of habitat, is the one you may have the least control over. However, when the other habitat components--food, water, and cover--are manipulated or enhanced, often the amount of space needed by wildlife is not so critical a factor. This manipulation may be achieved through projects such as landscaping with trees or shrubs of high wildlife food value, keeping dead trees for cavity nesting species or mounting nestboxes, building ponds, and other enhancement projects. By implementing these projects, you will reduce the amount of living space required by an individual animal and increase your chances of attracting wildlife to your property. When you are considering the kinds of wildlife you might attract to your course, remember to think beyond the boundaries of your property. Even though you may not own or manage a large acreage, the combination of your golf course and any adjacent land, may add up to suitable space and have an impact on population levels for a particular species. If your golf course land then provides the food, water and cover also needed by that species, you may be lucky enough to observe nesting or breeding on your small patch of land. The proper use and enhancement of the space you have is the key to successful management for wildlife. WATER The availability of water is essential to all wildlife, and providing it is often the key to attracting wildlife. Birds not only use water for drinking but need a water source to keep their feathers clean in order to retain body heat. Managing your water resources should be a full-year commitment to enhance the value of your golf course for wildlife. Most golf courses incorporate water into their design for both beauty and for the challenge of the game. Manmade water areas may be maintained with wildlife in mind as well. Management of water areas for wildlife and the game of golf can be a challenge. Run-off from fertilizer, pesticide, and herbicide applications can greatly affect the balance of plant and animal life in ponds, streams, and other water courses. Working with the USGA IPM system and Turfgrass Management Advisory Service may be the first step in determining how you will manage the water areas of your land with wildlife in mind. The simplest use of water for wildlife is the addition of bird baths in areas near your clubhouse or in the area you choose to place a feeding station. Small ponds are • also important wildlife features because of their shallow bottoms. Aquatic vegetation will provide cover for the many insects, amphibians, and reptiles that inhabit the pond. This diversity of life will attract larger mammals and birds to your course. Ponds must be monitored to prevent accumulation Df vegetative matter which will decrease oxygen in the water, kill pondlife, and create an eyesore for your golfers. Watercourses such as streams, creeks, and rivers should be managed by planting the banks with a variety of plants to prevent erosion and to provide food and cover for wildlife. The water should be free-flowing and obstructions removed periodically. Again, run-off into these areas should be evaluated and monitored. Marshes, swamps, and low boggy areas are best left alone and possibly incorporated into the design of your course. These areas provide valuable habitat for a variety of plant and animal life and may also be important areas of use for forest dwelling or meadow species. FOOD When people plan to attract wildlife, providing food is probably the first activity they think about. Manipulation of food resources may be as simple as setting up a feeding station, or a long term commitment to adopting a landscaping plan to include food plants of high value to a variety of wildlife species. Some things to consider when enhancing the food element for wildlife include: knowledge of the food preferences of different species; fruiting habits and seasonal availability of plant material; and selection of plants for food and cover. Some animals will eat a great variety of food items, while others eat only a few kinds of food. How a golf course plans its landscape, and even its mowing schedule, will directly affect food resources. Insects are a vital food source for many birds and mammals. If used indiscriminately on the course, insecticides will certainly prohibit the attraction of insect-eating birds and mammals. Keeping some areas unmowed or mowing seasonally will not only reduce maintenance costs but will provide excellent areas for beneficial insect populations. COVER Cover is a general term applied to the aspect of an animals habitat that provides protection for the animals to carry out life functions such as breeding, nesting, sleeping, resting, feeding, and travel. Anticipating the need for cover is related to planning food sources for animals because animals often will not come to food if there is not a protected place for them to eat it. Also, if a golf course uses only one kind of shrub or tree to landscape, the shape and form or fruit provided by that plant may only meet the needs of a few animals. Some projects to increase the cover availability in an area include: landscaping with a variety of grasses, flowers, shrubs, and trees; leaving dead trees as homes for cavity nesting species; building brushpiles; and mounting nestboxes. HABITAT MANIPULATION When providing water, food, attractandcover to If shrubs and and thought eesareust also be planted to given to the arrangement of these habitat elements provide food and cover, they should also be located near a water source to complete the habitat for wildlife. The key to managing a property for wildlife is diversity. While golf courses must be maintained for the game of golf, leaving the rough as grassland, woodland, marsh or other native habitat will do much to promote wildlife on your course. An important component of habitat is referred to as the "edge effect". Edge or ecotone are terms applied to the zone where two habitat types meet. The zone between the forest and a grassland often supports the greatest diversity of wildlife and plants. Here animals will find cover in the forestinclude areasey lll also that areea mle ixto offorage in wildflowerse grassland. A management plan should the border between a marsh and shrubs, and trees, with mowed and unmowed areas, meadow or even the understory of your mixeswoodlanddiverse l landscape. It is possible to s, water featuresecreate the b,and tat you find in your natural areas by i clud n g meadows throughout your play and non-play areas. INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT Audubon strongly recommends implementation of an IPM program in your long- term plans for wildlife. It does not make sense to mount nestboxes for insect-eating birds only to have their food source eliminated along with turfgrass problems. You may already be practicing some IPM techniques if you are scheduling your mowing to control certain insects, using organic fertilizers or pesticides, or spot-treating areas when you first see a turf problem develop instead of broad spectrum applications. Again, the USGA can advise you in this management area. SUMMARY At first glance creating habitat for wildlife may seem a large task and one that does not easily fit into the busy day of running a golf course. We recommend starting with basic projects that incorporate some aspect of providing food, cover, or water for the wildlife in your area. If you keep the basics of habitat uppermost in your plans, you can't go wrong!