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CCPC Minutes 02/16/2006 W February 16,2006 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION Workshop for Flood Damage Protection Ordinance Naples, Florida, February 16,2006 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Collier County Planning Commission, in and for the County of Collier, having conducted business herein, met on this date at 10:45 a.m. in Workshop Session, in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: Mark P. Strain Tor Kolflat Brad Schiffer Paul Midney Donna Reed Caron Robert Vigliotti Russell Tuff Lindy Adelstein (Absent) Bob Murray (Absent) ALSO PRESENT: Kay Deselem, Principal Planner Jeff Klatzkow, Assistant County Attorney Page 1 Co~l' County '.""",,~~ Memorandum To: Collier County Planning Commission Mark P. Strain, Chairman Lindy Adelstein, Vice-Chairman Donna Reed Caron, Secretary Robert P. Murray Brad Schiffer Russell Tuff Robert Vigliotti Tor Kolflat Paul Midney Amy Taylor Robert f~ey, P.E., Principal Project Manager Engineering Services Department From: Date: February 6, 2006 Subject: Workshop Discussion for Higher Regulatory Criteria Additions to the Flood Damage Protection Ordinance Attached is the information that will be presented for a workshop discussion as a part of the February 16,2006 agenda of the Collier County Planning Commission. The Board of County Commissioners directed staff to present this information to the Board in a workshop format after it had been reviewed by the Development Services Advisory Committee and the Collier County Planning Commission. The tentative date for the BCC Workshop is March 20,2006. On February 1, 2006, the Development Services Advisory Committee approved a recommendation to incorporate the following higher regulatory criteria into the County's Flood Damage Protection Ordinance. Foundation Protection Lower Substantial Improvements Threshold Protection of Critical Facilities Manufactured Home Parks Stormwater Management Facilities Inspection and Maintenance Flood Hazard Disclosure If you have any recommendation or requests for specific additional information to be included in the presentation, please contact me by telephone at (239) 213-5858 or e-mail at RobertWiley@colliergov.net. Cc: Tom Kuck, P.E., Director, Engineering Services Department Joe Schmitt, Administrator, CDES JeffKlatzkow, Assistant County Attorney cepe 2~16.06 Agenda Package Cover Memo.doc Community Development and Environmental Services Division Engineering Services Department February 16, 2006 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Now we will open this next meeting up, which will be a workshop of the Collier County Planning Commission, for discussion of the higher regulatory criteria additions to the Flood Damage Protection Ordinance. Kay, was this meeting -- this workshop properly advertised, do you know, or is that -- Mr. Wiley, do you know? MR. WILEY: Yes, sir, we did place the advertisement. It went III -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. WILEY: -- supposed to have been a five-day advertisement. I think we even made a seven-day on it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Excellent, thank you, sir. And I'm assuming that you're going to walk us through this and -- MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- I don't know what the best timing is for our questions. But as you go along, let me know. MR. WILEY: Okay. For the record, my name is Robert Wiley. I'm with the Engineering Services Department, and what we're doing today is going over some higher regulatory standards that we hope to take forward to the Board of County Commissioners for inclusion in the Flood Damage Protection Ordinance. This is all part of the National Flood Insurance Program. We are a participant in what's called the community rating system. It's a voluntary participation. It's a program whereby if you entertain certain activities and essentially you exceed the bare minimum requirements of the flood insurance program, the discounts are given to all the flood insurance policyholders. We are currently a class seven community, which means everyone who has a flood insurance policy in Collier County that's within the special flood hazard area, that means the flood zones starting with the letter A or the letter V, will get a 15 percent discount; Page 2 February 16,2006 it's automatic. If you're in an X zone you're going to get a five percent discount because an X is outside essentially what they call the area likely to flood. So what we're doing is trying to promote an even more flood-resistant community by putting in additional regulatory criteria. And in so doing, it will allow us to increase our class rating so we can come up with a 20 percent discount for all policyholders. But besides the point, it does make the community more resistant to flooding. We took this before the Board of County Commissioners the 27th day of September, 2005, as a part of the ordinance whereby we adopted the new flood insurance rate maps. They went into effect November 1 st. As the board looked at it, they wanted us to basically bring this all back, go before the Development Services Advisory Committee again, then bring it before you to get everybody's input into this before we come to them. We currently have a workshop scheduled with the Board of County Commissioners for the 20th of March. So we are here to present this to you to get your recommendations, answer your questions on different issues regarding the flood insurance program as far as higher regulatory standards. The two objectives we really have going today are to discuss some of these higher regulatory standards of the community rating system and to gain your support to help make Collier County a more flood resistant community. As I said, we are a participant in the community rating system. It's a voluntary participation. But we do this, to again, bring back the concept of increasing the percentage of discounts to the flood insurance policyholders. And by the way, as you said, a time for questions is basically when you have it. We'll just stop and go into it. If you prefer to wait Page 3 February 16,2006 till we get all the way to the end or as we discuss each issue, I'm open because I really want you to understand what we're doing. And if I say something that sounds left-handed and it's supposed to have been right-handed just tell me, because it doesn't always come out like I intend it to. But what we're looking at is getting credit points in the community rating system. There are 18 activity categories. As you can see on your screen, there are over 14,000 points available, of which the county score is 1,692. So we're nowhere near close to maximizing out on available points. And this shows where the points are available and how we score on them. There are some categories that you'll notice we score absolutely zero points. Some of them we never will score points on them. For example, as you look down near the bottom, item number 620, levee safety. There are 900 points available, but we will never have any . We do not have levee systems that protect the county from flooding. So you can look at some of them, at activity number 520, about a little over a third of the way up, acquisition and relocation, 3,200 points are available. We score zero. We're very likely to continue scoring zero. This program is basically for communities which are on riverine systems, not coastal flooding. They're going to have fairly steep valleys with narrow floodplains, very limited development within the floodplain, and so it's relatively easier for them to undertake a program to buy up every single property that's in the floodplain and turn it into a preserve so it can never be built on again. Collier County, you know, you figure, what, well over half of the urban area is within the existing floodplain and likely not to decrease as we go into our new flood maps. Page 4 February 16,2006 So some of these just don't hold a lot of opportunity for us to create points, but others do, and that's what we're going to be talking about today. We're trying to improve our scoring, and so the areas we want to discuss today involve activities number 340, 430, and 450. And the advantage of emphasizing additional criteria in the higher regulatory standards 430, for every point that we submit an activity for, we actually get one-and-a-half points because of our community growth adjustment factor based upon the fact that we are a developing community, as we all know. This is a copy on your screen of the existing flood map issued by FEMA. It has an effective date for Collier County building regulations of November 1, 2005, and it has an effective date for flood insurance purposes of November 17th, and that has to do with the day we adopted them versus the day FEMA's flood insurance program mandated they be adopted. You can see the VE zones. Those are your coastal zones where you have wave action of three feet or higher anticipated. You have the -- they're in red along the coastline. Your AE zones are in blue, again, along the coastline. Now, let me explain how this works. These flood zones are based solely upon storm surge from the one percent annual chance storm event. So if you have our Emergency Management Department come and tell you we have a category three, category four, whatever, and they tell you evacuate to this line, don't come and look at this map and see if you're going to flood. Pay attention to the Emergency Management Department. They're evaluating an individual storm. This evaluates historically what will be the one percent probability storm event coming at a one percent probability direction, which may not be applicable to the hurricane of the day if it comes our way. Page 5 February 16,2006 So don't use this as information to decide, do I need to evacuate or not. You listen to the Emergency Management people. But these are the flood zones if you're in a VE zone, if you're in an AE zone, or if you're in an A zone, that big gray area off to the east. Flood insurance is mandatory if there's any federal funding associated with your house. That typically comes about with a mortgage because it's a federally backed mortgage. So these are the areas where, if you have that kind of situation, flood insurance is mandatory for you. All right. Let's talk about some of the -- yes, okay. Wow, I got some questions already. Let's back up. Okay, here we go. Okay. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: First one, in your report you reference shaded X zone, which I guess would be the 500-year storm. Do you have a map showing that? MR. WILEY: We do not on this particular map. That's the -- the 500-year zone is still considered to be within the X, outside of the one percent annual chance. It's a .2 percent annual chance, so therefore, flood insurance is not required. And so we're showing you here just the -- the special flood hazard area would be any flood zone that starts with the letter A or V. And so if it's any form of the X, it would not be in a special flood hazard area, so, therefore, flood insurance is not mandatory. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: There were bonus points for dealing with it. But what is the shaded X? That's my question. MR. WILEY: The -- okay. The shaded X area is the area that would be inundated by floodwaters between what's the 100-year or the 1 percent chance storm and the 500-year or the .2 percent annual chance storm. So essentially it's a more severe storm event, but since it's greater than 1 percent, that's what FEMA's minimum flood insurance program requires. So it's sort of an -- okay, you're not going to flood under Page 6 February 16,2006 certain events, but you could still flood if it got a little bit worse than that is what -- is a good way to think of it. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: All right. And I know what it is, but my question is simpler than that actually. Is what -- is there a map showing the shaded X, which is referenced -- MR. WILEY: We can get you a map of that, but under the current methodology we have here, this is using our GIS and was simply coded into the GIS. If it was X, it was all lumped together. But that is available. If you want to see them, you can go online and see them to FEMA's website. I've got the actual flood insurance rate maps in my office. Be glad to share them with you. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Midney? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: What is the pink area with regard to the flood damage area prevention? MR. WILEY: The pink area is a D zone, and that D zone says that no determination has been made for determining the depth or likelihood of flooding, so, therefore, flood insurance is not required. Basically, that is Golden Gate Estates up to Immokalee. This is pink on here because FEMA wanted to come in and have it all as an approximate A or the gray zone also on this color map. It's gray here, but it's an approximate A, which means that they were assuming that, based upon topography, flooding probably could occur, but they weren't willing to give an estimate of the depth of it, so they were going to float in -- throw it into the approximate A, mandating flood insurance requirements without really establishing a base flood elevation. Through our negotiations with them and actually through some of the work we did, we were able to prove to them that there might not be a lot of validity for this folks, but we had only evaluated it for the Golden Gate Estates portion of the county. Page 7 February 16,2006 So they agreed to pull this back out, leave it in its current D zone. It was D before November 1st. It's still D. But in so doing, they know that we're in the midst of a total study again, and they will hold it in D until we complete our study, at which point it won't be in D. It will either be in some kind of an A or an X zone because we will eliminate the D, since we're encumbering it in our study. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Kolflat, then Mr. Tuff? COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: How do I obtain a copy of this colored map? MR. WILEY: All you've got to do is let me know you want it. We can print one right out for you. Very easy to do. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Okay. I would like one. MR. WILEY: We can get one to everybody. And that's why we're here, to let you know what's available so that you can ask us. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Better yet, is it on the web site so you can really give it to everybody? MR. WILEY: It is on the website, but it is set up in a little bit different format, and the website, if you go to the county's web site and you look underneath the FEMA information, flood map information, you simply type in your address, and it will zoom into your lot. It will show you what flood zone you're in, it will tell you your base flood elevation. So it's sort of there, but it's in a lot-by-lot enumeration, so you have to physically zoom out then to get this map. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah. Could you post this map in our map section just as a .jpeg or something so people can look at it? The FEMA website is really not going to make website of the year. MR. WILEY: We can post it wherever you so desire. I'm open. We're trying to get this information out, and so if there are other spots for posting, let me know. If you could, though, give me the documentation, because there's Page 8 February 16,2006 so many spots available, I want to make sure I get it where you're talking about, so if after the meeting, you can -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, if you go to the home page of Collier go v, down at the bottom it says maps. MR. WILEY: Okay. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: That sounds good. MR. WILEY: Okay. Just at the bottom where it says maps? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah. MR. WILEY: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Tuff? MR. WILEY: Let me interrupt you. Quite frankly, I never go to that page. I'm always on the inside of the county side, so I don't know what you would see from outside, that's why I'm asking you that. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: It's at the front door. MR. WILEY: Okay. COMMISSIONER TUFF: The others were at like 1692, you said, and if we did all of those things in those areas, we'd be 228 more points, or if you get to 57 (sic), we'd have 114, but that would give us a little over 2,000 points. And if we did go through all this exercise and -- what kind of an impact does that have in those 300 points, 14,000 something? MR. WILEY: Right. Our goal is to get above the 2,000 mark right now. That puts us into the next class, which would be a class six community. Each class increases by 500 points. Ifwe were able to go up to the 2,500, we could be down to a class five community. COMMISSIONER TUFF: But what does that give you? MR. WILEY: Each class gives you a 5 percent reduction in your insurance premium, up to 45 percent. They don't give you more than -- they never offer it to you free. You can't get 14,000 points and get free flood insurance. That's not a possibility. You can only get up to a 45 percent discount. Page 9 February 16,2006 And there's only one community in the nation that achieves that right now. So we're not trying to be the peak of this. We're trying to get up to a class six, which is where Marco and also City of Naples are. Ultimately we hope to get to a class five once we complete our own flood insurance study, because that's a big point maker that's coming in the wings to us if they accept it, but it's only for those areas where we produce new flood information. It does not account for if you reduce base flood elevations. You don't get credit for those areas. So some of the areas we will get a good score and some we won't by completing our own study here. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I have a question. Depending on the rating, do we have to specifically ask the insurance company for a reduction, or is that done automatically? MR. WILEY: It is done automatically for you when your next premium renewal comes up. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I think we can move on. And by the way, Mr. Wiley, when you get into the various recommendations of the item-by-item recommendations that you need, I notice that the other boards took a separate -- apparently a separate motion on each one of your recommendations. MR. WILEY: That was at the direction of the Board of County Commissioners to address them individually, yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think when we get into that part of your discussion, if you ask us -- could remind us that's when we need to start considering a vote and getting our questions on that issue resolved so we can vote on it, and then move on to the next item, that might -- MR. WILEY: Very good. We can do it that way, or as with DSAC, what they chose to do was we went through the whole Page 10 February 16,2006 presentation, then they individually discussed each point. So if your preference is to go through them one at a time, we will be glad to do that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, we're going to go -- if you individually discuss them at the end or -- I think that -- MR. WILEY: At the recap is where they decided to make their motion is what they did. So I will follow your direction. If you want to do them -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, when you get into your discussion or freeboard, it would seem to me the most relevant time to ask our questions, make our motion, go on to the next one, so that's what I'd like to do. MR. WILEY: I agree with you, sir. I prefer it that way. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. MR. WILEY: These are the standards we're going to be talking about today, the issue of freeboard, of foundation protection, of lower substantial improvement threshold, cumulative substantial improvements, protection of critical facilities, floodplains, storage capacity protection, manufactured home parks, stormwater management facilities inspection and maintenance, flood hazard disclosures, and then outside of higher regulatory standards, there's an item called other higher standards, and then we're going to be talking about the issue of eliminating the option for flood-proofing. No flood- proofing. Let's talk about freeboard and what it is. If you are boaters, you know well what freeboard is. Your boat sits in the water at a certain level, and so that will be from the water line up to the top of the side rail or the back of it. That's your freeboard. Well, in a flood insurance program, freeboard is, you have your base flood elevation established on the flood insurance map, and then Page 11 February 16,2006 requiring that you build above that. And staff is requesting and recommending that in Collier County that houses be required to add one foot of freeboard. This is our request because -- well, first of all, it gives a good point scoring, but secondly, it's a level of insurance that's going to help to take into consideration something not happen exactly like that 1 percent annual chance model said it might happen. Should there be a culvert that is plugged? Should there be any kind of debris get in the way? A lot of factors can be in here. Should assumptions that were made in the modeling done by FEMA not be quite exactly with what is reality on the land? So when you are trying to put in a house, the developer comes in, and they will meet it to the .01 foot is how they submit it. And keep in mind also that these flood maps are rounded to the nearest foot. So the freeboard elevation, basically what it said is, you build a factor safety in, come up one foot higher than you would have to have to meet the bare minimum requirements of the flood insurance program. It applies not only to the floor elevation, it would apply to a basement, should you have one. We don't in this county, but I'm just reading off ofFEMA's definition. It applies to electrical, to heating, ventilation, plumbing, air-conditioning equipment, and other service related (sic) including the duct work that can be placed beneath the house. Now, that does not mean that if you've got a slab on grade and you've got your plumbing coming under the slab and up through, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about in a situation where if you had a house built up on an open foundation and typically wanted to have your electrical wiring run under the floor and then pop up. Well, we don't do that in this county, so some of this stuff doesn't really seem to be applicable but yet I want you to understand what it Page 12 February 16,2006 means in the situation. If you do have just a standard elevated house, you want to bring all this stuff out because those are items very simple to flooding and flood damage. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Sir? MR. WILEY: Yes. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: I saw on your paper one foot of freeboard is worth about 100 points. MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Why did you stop at one foot rather than go to two feet or three feet or three board? MR. WILEY: We were talking about whether to go to one foot, two foot. You can go up and get credits for as much as four feet. Above four feet they quit giving credits. The concept being, produce an additional level of safety factor, which in Collier County, by coming up the one foot, essentially gets you up to about the same elevation as your 500-year or your .2 percent annual chance of event. So it's a substantial difference in Collier County. Us being a flat topography, it has to rain basically another foot to come up that difference. Now, along the coastline, of course, the wave action can come in quicker, and that's where -- the consideration, what is a fairly reasonable number for staff to be recommending? If you build it one foot, we felt that was a number for us to put up if you want to go higher than that, but we have not had a lot of support for even the one foot from certain individuals, and yet others are thinking one foot is a good number. So we want to try to hit a reasonable area that we felt comfortable with that provided additional protection. If you want to go up two feet, that's the potential for 200 points. It's 100 points per foot that you go up. Page 13 February 16,2006 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Wiley, on your dissertation that was supplied to us, it says you surveyed 44 local builders. MR. WILEY : Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And 10 of those were willing to provide some informal potential cost information. Of those 10, only one expressed opposition to the freeboard, while three expressed strong support or stated they were already building higher than the minimum elevation. So you have gone out to the community and asked for the information, and it looks like you got a 90 percent positive feedback based on the limited survey that you did. MR. WILEY: From the people that were willing to comment, that's correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right, okay. MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Did you give them option of different freeboards, one foot, two foot or three foot, or did you just ask them about one foot? MR. WILEY: I asked just about the one foot, what would be the cost for -- if they were asked to build at one foot freeboard since that was the position. And you could take their cost and raise it on up, but we didn't do that. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Their response might be positive for a two or three or four foot also. MR. WILEY: It might be, and then again, it might be negative, since I didn't really address that issue with them. I'm only looking -- we were trying to come up with a situation that aesthetically really is difficult to make a difference. If you were to take, say, three feet, that's going to make a noticeable difference in the community, compared to one foot of freeboard. And again, emphasizing, it's the structure. It's not the Page 14 February 16,2006 whole property that we're asking to be raised up. Just the building, because that's all flood insurance is really concerned about. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Question, Mike? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: The -- one statement you made is that it's rounded off to the nearest foot. MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So if we required a freeboard requirement of 1.51 feet, would that give us a 2 board -- a 2.3 board? MR. WILEY: What you do on that is you round it to the nearest foot for establishing your elevation. Ifwe go 1.51, we get 100 times 1.51 on your point credit. But when are you looking at the flood insurance rate map itself, the flood zones are rounded to the nearest foot. So if you have a flood elevation with an AE elevation 10, what that means is, it can be anywhere from lOA down to 9.5 when they did their computer modeling, and so they rounded all of that in and drew the line and called it AE 10. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. MR. WILEY: And that's the rounding I'm talking about. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: That rounding is only on their mapmaking? MR. WILEY: Yes, sir, that's correct. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But one thing you said that's interesting is it can be a fraction of a foot and we still get credit for that. MR. WILEY: You do get partial credit, that is correct. Your number is multiplied by 100 times how many feet or fraction of a foot, that's correct. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Well, my comments weren't necessarily in support of a higher, larger freeboard. It was only to try Page 15 February 16,2006 to determine what the analysis was that came to the result that one-foot freeboard was the proper suggestion. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Mr. Wiley, did you have anything further to provide us with the freeboard discussion before -- MR. WILEY: Just trying to show you some illustrations here straight out ofFEMA's book to give you a feeling for what they are talking about on the freeboard issues. Again, here's your point score. And we go on through this talking about for a $200,000 house, just to give you the premium cost strictly for the flood insurance now, not for all of the initial policy and the -- you know, there's other fees attached to it -- but straight-out rate based upon dollar value, you can see by one foot of freeboard, you're going to cut each owner's cost by 35 percent if they build. And keep in mind that the savings in the freeboard over the life of the mortgage will more than pay for -- from the builder's information provided to me -- the cost to actually construct it. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: A question on that. What you're saying is, now you're talking about individual buildings, not county regulations? MR. WILEY: You get a -- you get a double benefit to this for-- if you are building a house, not only is your individual flood insurance policy reduced because you're building at a freeboard level -- your flood insurance is based -- is an actuarial table for likelihood of damage, and if you build at the flood elevation, there's a certain percent. If you build above that, then you're less likely so, therefore, your insurance is reduced. And up to two feet, you have substantial reductions. When you get above two feet, up to four feet, it starts to taper off. It's exponential essentially. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: To understand, why we're really here today is for regulations that would drop the whole county's rate, is Page 16 February 16,2006 that right, existing buildings and new buildings? MR. WILEY: That is correct, for people who have flood insurance, that's correct. See if we are able to get into the next category, or next classification of a class six community, everybody in the county who has a flood insurance policy would see an additional five percent savings, that's correct. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And how does that affect existing buildings? Obviously if we make a regulation, every new building would meet it. MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: An existing building would only have to address that during renovation or -- MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. At the point that they exceeded the 50 percent of the value of the structure, whether it be for renovation or damage, that's correct. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: All right, thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Is that the last --last page for freeboard? MR. WILEY: I just wanted you to understand that DSAC did not recommend approval of this one. That's my last comment here, and so we're ready to discuss it, if you want to. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Gentlemen, is there either more discussion, if you feel it's necessary, or a motion for recommendation? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Well, I -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Go ahead, Paul. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I would move that we recommend this. It seems very sensible, and -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Motion is made. Is there a second to recommend the one foot of freeboard be utilized pursuant to staffs recommendation? COMMISSIONER CARON: I'll second it. Page 17 February 16, 2006 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Motion's been made and seconded. Is there discussion now? COMMISSIONER TUFF: Yes. Why did the DSAC not recommend it, would be my question? Is there some blaring thing that we don't -- aren't hearing or knowing? MR. WILEY: The DSAC's discussion mainly concerned aesthetic appearance and cost, and primarily they were concerned about the extreme cost they felt would be added to the price of a building. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: They are basically representative of the business community? MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You went out and had 10 out of 44 people respond from the business community, of those, 90 percent of those, nine out of 10 responded favorably? MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I rest my case on that one. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I mean, here's one thing that I feel in support of it is that this will be the floor elevation that we measure building heights from. I mean, prudent designers do raise the floor above the FEMA requirement. Not necessarily for insurance, but just common sense that if it's flooded, you'd like to at least be the tallest guy in the neighborhood. And they've been penalized because they can't count that as their -- that's above the flood elevation. So this would raise the flood elevation and reward those people who have been prudent in the past. MR. WILEY: Let me clarify. It does not raise the flood elevation. What it does is it raises the elevation floor. But the FIRM map would say the same. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER. Right, but the minimum February 16,2006 requirement for development will be this elevation. MR. WILEY: Yes, yes, after compliance with it, yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: It will be from that that we will be measuring heights to buildings. MR. WILEY: I didn't want someone to think that it meant we changed the flood -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Oh, no, no, no. MR. WILEY: Okay. Got ya. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It certainly looks like all positive to me. Is there any other discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Hearing none, we'll call for the motion. All those in favor of the positive recommendation, signify by saYIllg aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion carries 6-0 (sic) on that issue. MR. WILEY: Well, thank you, sir. FOUNDATION PROTECTION CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Wiley, the next one. MR. WILEY: Foundation protection. Foundation protection basically specifies all new buildings that are built on fill. Now, this is Page 19 February 16,2006 the key here. There are multiple ways to go for foundation protection under the flood insurance program. The one we are discussing today and making a recommendation for is for those houses which are built on fill, and that one gives us potential credits up to 20 points. If you want to discuss all building foundations that are on fill or any kind, that has the ability to go up to 35 points. But we did not really want to go that direction from staffs perspective because of the potential it could have in different types of buildings and trying to build certain types of buildings on existing lot dimensions. But this is if a builder chooses to mound up fully to achieve the flood elevation, then that's what we call building on fill. What we're saying is, it's got to be designed to meet at least an ASTM D-698 or equivalent compaction test. The 2004 Florida Building Code no longer has a specified minimum compaction test. It simply says that all you have to do is have a report. So if the builder comes in and says, well, I want to compact it to enough, he is allowed to do that if the architect and engineer sign off on it. Now, I don't know that architects and engineers are doing that. I do not know that the building community is doing that. Everyone I've talked to says, well, we're still doing a compaction, which is good. But for us to implement foundation protection puts that requirement in to essentially do what we've been doing for years on foundation protection, but we get credit points for it all at once by doing this. What this does say though is that you have to build -- if you're building on fill, that you build the fill pad up so that the fill pad itself is up to the base flood elevation at least to the outside perimeter of the building. Now, staff -- I was discussion it with them, giving consideration Page 20 February 16,2006 to extending up to five feet outside the building. But this is all language that gets put into the final ordinance. This is a sure concept. Do we want to require a compaction testing? Do we want at least the fill material up to the base flood elevation that slab was built on? We think it's a very good thing because it helps protect the foundation of that building from settling and from scour. Should we have a major surge come in, it's going to start washing away from fill around the houses. We want to give it a little bit of protection around buildings. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Do we have any kind of maps that would show in any which way what kind of movement we would have with water? Is there any swift velocities of water movement in the -- obviously we have a storm surge mentality, but when a storm surge goes out, has anybody -- because these pads are very dangerous in swift moving water, could essentially wash away the foundation. MR. WILEY: That's one of the reasons we were asking it to be done through this way here, is to increase basically the protection that the fill pad itself creates. I'm not aware of any modeling with the attempt to predict flow directions on the water either coming in or leaving. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: The other thing -- MR. WILEY: But you are correct, as it goes out, you're going to have the wash-out effect coming, wrapping around houses, that is very true. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: It will scour the corner of the foundation. MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: The -- the other thing is, we have parts of the county that would be wiser to be on stem walls, which would be the higher, the 35 point, I believe, the one above this. Page 21 February 16,2006 If we put part of a county on stem wall, part of a county on this, do we get any kind of credit for that, or is it the lowest standard? MR. WILEY: No. What you can do is you can set up your regulations any way you want to. They give you credit based upon the percentage of the county covered by the regulation. And so if you wanted to go even beyond this and say, in certain parts of the county, require a different level of foundation protection, we could do that and we could submit it for potential additional scoring points, but that really depends upon what finally goes in and is implemented, because all we report to them is what we implement. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Because the concern I have is that out in the Golden Gate area, especially far out, they're really messing up the flow of the water around by building pads all the over the place. MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. We're going to get to that in a moment, too. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Would you rather we wait? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No. There is a section in here about-- MR. WILEY: There is a section called floodplain storage capacity protection. That's really the issue that ties with this. The two of them work together. So keep your thoughts in mind -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But my point is, that the pad causes the floodplain storage requirement. If we did stem wall, then the person wouldn't have that -- then we would actually be making a better community out there. MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. We're in agreement with you. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: That's the category where we get 35 points for it. MR. WILEY: The category for the 35 points addresses all foundation, whether it's stilt, stem wall, whatsoever, right. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But essentially you're not Page 22 February 16,2006 mounding earth to hit the criteria. You're building a structure to elevate the building. MR. WILEY: That is correct. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Which is what our forefathers thought was the smart way to do it, too. MR. WILEY: Yes. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So wouldn't it -- wouldn't it be wise for us to study putting part of the county on the 35 points and part of the county on the 20 points? MR. WILEY: We'll be glad to go that way if you so direct. We are trying to approach it from what we feel was a reasonable staffs perspective of having a chance to get this to the Board of County Commissioners. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But Brad, there's something you might want to consider. We have a coastal high hazard area that may be more attuned to stem wall construction than fill. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I think they'll show up here, but 1-- you know, the stuff I'm seeing, even the stuff! watch before the commission, there's a lot of problems being occurred (sic) by putting pads all over the area, that we're flooding the neighbor's property. And I know -- look at the concept you're proposing in the future in this report, that we're going to dig ditches to essentially replace what you put on the pad. So what are we doing there? I mean, that makes me say, yikes. So we're going to be building pads, which I don't think are that good-looking, then we're going to have ruts in front of these houses to make up for it. What are we doing? As opposed to what our forefathers did, which is, the 35 points here, is building up -- building up a proper way with stem walls. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: See, that may not be possible. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Can you tell me what a stem wall is? I don't know what that is. Page 23 February 16, 2006 COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, what a stem wall is -- and there was -- what he's asking for, the 20 points, is that we're going to make mounds, and the ASTM stuff means we're going to make hardened mounds. We're going to pack these mounds so that when you cast your floor, it's a monolithic footing probably, or whatever footing, it's going to be on grade. It's a slab on grade up on top of the mound, and that would be how you achieve your elevation. And elevation, by the way, we just rose five feet. That mound has to be essentially leveled. There's a 20 percent slope requirement to five feet out, and then it can go down and do the Aztec, you know, drop to the ground. But what our forefathers did is they built footings on the ground and they built walls up they call stem walls, could be piers, could be a lot of other techniques, but they built up to the floor level. Essentially it's hollow underneath it. I mean, if there was a flood, it would flood underneath the building. That's 35 points. So what I really think we should do is we should really mix it with the problems we're having out in the Estates and maybe get a mixture of both where you have some mounding. Remember, what he's saying is hardened mounds. That means water's not going to flow around them. I think if there's a velocity they could -- the edges could go offbut -- or the people could build out in the Glades -- out in the Estates, I mean, something up on a stem wall, which is really the appropriate way to build it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Wiley, what is engineered fill in regards to the 35-point scoring? MR. WILEY: As far as engineered fill would go, it requires an engineer to individually, at each site, go do the soil testing, take the parameters, and develop a specified density requirement for that site, and then for each individual site, provide signed and sealed drawings certifying that's what is required. Page 24 February 16,2006 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So to get to 35 points, it doesn't preclude engineered -- it doesn't preclude filling the site? MR. WILEY: No. It just puts a lot more standards to it, that's correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So if the goal is to concern yourself about the displaced water that would happen from a foundation, this wouldn't be the place to address that? It would be more to address it in the -- further on in this document? MR. WILEY: You could address it in both places. The displacement is really better addressed later on as we get into protection of the storage capacity. But you could address it by looking at it going to the engineered fill requirement, which basically it puts more restrictions on each individual house site versus having just a standard code meeting a density compaction testing. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But if you use the engineered fill alternative, you'd still have to have a displacement area for the area that the foundation's taking, if you were in a flood-- MR. WILEY: If you implement the latter provision we're recommending, that's correct, you would still have that consideration, yes, SIr. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. WILEY: Now, what Mr. Schiffer's talking about is if you put in a restriction that did not allow a mounded-up system, that's really not what this addresses. Although by going to the next category by default, it would be included in there. But it doesn't really address it directly here in this particular category. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: All right. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Did you review with any builders the cost benefits of this similar to what you did for the freeboard? MR. WILEY: We went with -- we went over this with DSAC. Page 25 February 16,2006 We did not discuss this with the individual builders, no, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: DSAC though recommended the 20, not the 35? MR. WILEY: That is the recommendation we took to them, and they accepted it, because they were, like us, understanding the need primarily to get back into our code a mandatory compaction requirement. They also had some discussion, quite a bit of discussion, about how far outside of the building you would take this fill pad before you can drop it down below the base flood elevation. Staff was talking about five feet. They were not necessarily conducive to that, but that all gets worked out in the ordinance itself when we come back. We're just workshopping the criteria we're bringing into the ordinance for consideration right now as directed by our Board of County Commissioners. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I think -- have we discussed this enough? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If so, is there a motion for any form of recommendation? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Just to be clear on one thing is that, obviously number one here, which is the 35 points, isn't essentially the requirement to build stem wall. It would be prudent for a builder to start looking at stem wall then to meet that qualification. MR. WILEY: Right. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So is there further down -- I'm trying to remember reading the report. Is there another place where we start getting benefits for stem wall? MR. WILEY: That comes into protection of your floodplain storage capacity, and we will be getting to that momentarily. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. Then I move for Page 26 --.....-..--. .----'~-_.._.._-_.._-,..~_.- February 16,2006 approval of the 20 points. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Second. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Motion's been made and seconded for the -- to actually be consistent with staff recommendation, which is 20 points. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is there any further discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Hearing none, all those in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion carries. Thank you. LOWER SUBSTANTIAL IMPROVEMENTS THRESHOLD MR. WILEY: Our next topic, lower substantial improvements threshold. You got into a bit of discussion very similar to this today in one of the -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Excuse me one second. Let me just fix a scrivener's error. On that page, number three, you've got the codes mixed up. Section 1612 and 1803 is from the International Building Code. Page 27 February 16, 2006 MR. WILEY: Okay. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: The pages aren't numbered so __ MR. WILEY: Right. That's going to hurt me right now. Okay, so you're in foundation protection. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, go back to where we were, yeah. It's foundation, and it's the 10 system, where you'd obtain 10 points. MR. WILEY: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Item number three, FDN 10. MR. WILEY: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The first bullet he's referring to. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. See section 1612? You say it's of the International Residential Code. It's actually of the International Building Code. MR. WILEY: Actually what I did -- this is straight cut and paste from FEMA's document. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, you can tell FEMA this, too, then. MR. WILEY: I will do so, but I just wanted you to know where it came from. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And then section R -- I mean, the give-away is that any of the stuff in the residential code starts with an R. So the line below that -- and I did check the codes. MR. WILEY: Okay. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: The line below that should be the International Residential Code. MR. WILEY: Okay. So it looks like they've got their categories flopped then maybe; is that right? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah. MR. WILEY: Okay. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Anyway. Page 28 February 16,2006 MR. WILEY: All righty. Thank you, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And don't trust everything FEMA tells you. MR. WILEY: I figure it's their document. I don't want to edit it. I can plagiarize, but I don't want to edit it, so -- let's talk about lower substantial improvements. The threshold for that right now is 50 percent. If you have a building -- and, again, we're talking about a noncompliant building. The building is existing. The floor slab, the lowest floor, is lower than what is shown on the base flood elevation on the current flood insurance rate map. So these are existing buildings, and they are already lower than what they're supposed to be, so they don't comply with the flood map. Under the flood insurance program, if you have improvements you want to make to that structure, if you exceed 50 percent of the value of the house or the building, you have to bring the whole house into compliance with the flood insurance map. If you have damage that exceeds 50 percent of the value and you go to reconstruct, you have to bring the whole structure into compliance. What we're saying is, what about if you lower that threshold from 50 percent to 49 percent? You're going to lower the threshold 1 percent, but we can pick up points by doing that. We felt it was worth the points. We -- and we'll talk about this as we go through it also with the next one, we come up for cumulative substantial improvements. But by lowering down to 49 percent, there are very, very few situations where you're going to be coming in exactly at that 50 percent, 49.6 percent number, something like that. So we felt that it was worth dropping it the 1 percent in the threshold and picking up 10 points credit, and that's essentially where this comes from. Picking up what we consider almost free points, because very rare is the case where you get right at that 50 percent Page 29 February 16, 2006 mark. Now, there are situations to where, as was mentioned today, the owner opted to make modifications, do an owner/builder, so that he could cut the cost and come down just under that 50. See, he was heading for the mark. And so that's the issue we want to talk about, is when someone's trying to cut it that fine of a line, do we want to go ahead and say, well, okay, go to 49 percent then? And so we're open for discussion on it. But staff felt by picking up -- it's -- we looked at it as almost like 10 free points just simply by dropping it by 1 percent. We will get the same 10 points going all the way down to 45 percent. But we said, just drop it by one. You can't even get an appraisal to come in -- two appraisals won't even be within 1 percent of each other in a lot of situations. So that's where we were coming from. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: But the maximum available is up to 90 per that section. MR. WILEY: That is correct, if you want to go down to where they did like a 10 percent improvement, that's correct. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Yeah. So-- MR. WILEY: We didn't figure that that had any chance at all of getting support, so -- you know, you pick your battles sometimes on these issues, so -- but we went for the first step, and we can do this every year. We can keep dropping it down, if that's the desire of the community. But the initial step we wanted to go to pick up the 10 points to get it to 1 percent. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: So acceptability was the criteria there? MR. WILEY: We felt that there are certain things that you don't want to get shot over, and this was one of them, right. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah. I kind of support what Page 30 February 16,2006 you're doing here, but your fractions kind of fascinated me. Did you __ does this get rounded down or rounded up for the nearest percent? In other words, if! come in with 49.6 percent, am I at 50? MR. WILEY: That's 50, yes, sir, the rounding the whole percent. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: What about 49A? MR. WILEY: It's 49. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay, that's good. And I think it's important that we really don't -- I mean, something like going for 10 percent -- because we do live in a community that could have a natural disaster that could put us all in the position where this clause is going to be hugged. So we've got to be careful with this. MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I think one point, that's __ especially, essentially what you're saying is half a point __ MR. WILEY: Essentially, right. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- because I can round down and get in there. And believe me, that's the game everybody's playing. MR. WILEY : Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So I think you're right, it's a free 10 points. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other comments or discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is there a motion to recommend approval? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'll move to -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'll move to recommend __ COMMISSIONER TUFF: Second. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- so that I get tarred and feathered by the design community appropriately. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And Mr. Tuff seconded the Page 31 February 16,2006 recommendation? Any further discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: All in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody opposed. (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Before we move forward, there are six more items that we have to discuss. I want to get a feeling from the board on whether or not they want to take a lunch break and come back and finish it or plow through lunch. It doesn't -- as far as I'm concerned, we can do either one. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I think we should go through -- the next one is the most important one, so -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I mean, either -- do we stay and finish the six and then -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah, I'd like to. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I'd like to plow right through lunch and then be done. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is that a general consensus of everyone? Okay, good. Mr. Wiley, you're up. MR. WILEY: Thank you. Punitive substantial improvements. This deals with taking a five-year window from the time someone wants to make an improvement to their house, you go back the previous five years, and you evaluate what permitted improvements Page 32 February 16,2006 that have made to their property, and you add this sum up, and if that sum hits your threshold, they are required to bring their whole structure into compliance. Where this comes into play is, again, going back to the illustration that was brought forth today. That's what I'm trying to come up under. If you come under that 50 percent mark -- well, now 49 percent mark, and you do 48 percent improvements to your house but you're still noncompliant. Next year you come in, you do another 48 percent, how much value do you keep sinking into a structure that the flood insurance program is going to have to pay your policy to replace because you have mathematically kept slipping in under? And under FEMA's program, they have a 10-year window, they have a five-year window. We opted to go with the five-year window. It helps us with our records keeping, and it also is something that is accepted by a lot of communities to go to the five-year window of cumulative improvements so that you eliminate so much of the issue of somebody trying to greatly improve the structure without making it more flood resistant, and that's it in a nutshell. Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: What do we have now, essentially, what the building code has, 12 months or-- MR. WILEY: You have annual. So every year you could come back in and do up to 50 percent of the value of a structure and never bring it into compliance with the flood insurance program. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. MR. WILEY: And let me also remind you of one thing. Just-- we always think of flooding disaster. Well, that's any damage. It can even be from fire. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. MR. WILEY: So, you know, what it does is, it helps your flood insurance program cover a more reasonable level of the risk factor of Page 33 '" ..--.----..-----.-------..--...-.--- February 16,2006 the improvements that have been put into the property. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And which ones were you going after, the CS -- there's three different options. MR. WILEY: We're going for the one with the five-year window. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So you're going to go for the 25-year, 25-year and then the -- MR. WILEY: It's the five-year that we're going for here. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But to gain 70 points, you're __ MR. WILEY: Right, we have the -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'm sorry. I was giving you the points, not the year. MR. WILEY: Oh, okay, okay, okay. What we're looking at here is that you want to go under CS-1. Up there it's CSI -1. You get 25 points. Regulations require that improvements, modifications to existing buildings are counted cumulatively, okay. See, that's on your first page there under subparagraph 1, sub, sub B. Then as you look underneath two, that is those who are repairs to damage. So the first one's for the improvements, the second one is for damage repairs to the building, so that's your 25 points. And then when you go over to the third category over on the next page CSI-3, for 20 points there because it says that any addition to a building is protected from the base flood. That covers the additions end. So that's how you end up getting the 70 points. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Just a question or -- MR. WILEY: I said that wrong. I'm on the wrong one. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah. MR. WILEY: It's under CSI-2, it's C, it's the -- it's the increased cost of compliance. I said this wrong when I looked at my 20-point score because I'm looking at 20 numbers. In your flood insurance program, you have a rider that, under new Page 34 ---"'''.......,._--..__.~"--"._,,-_._.__.,, February 16,2006 policies, automatically issue. It's called increased cost of compliance. If we have a cumulative substantial improvements program that we require implemented in Collier County, under the flood insurance program, your ICC coverage is available for automatic kicking in at no cost to the homeowner to cover up to $20,000 worth of improvements. That would cover, for instance, bringing up to the freeboard level. Well, ICC would cover up to $20,000, the full cost of going from your base flood elevation. Your noncompliant house, you have to bring it up to the base flood, but ICC coverage would take you on up to that freeboard level. So it provides the cost of the freeboard up to the $20,000. If we do the cumulative substantial improvements, that lets your ICC coverage have more benefit to the owner, and it's on your policy automatically. It's automatically issued. So that's our 20 pointer. That -- I was on the wrong column there. So we're getting the 25 points for improvements and modifications to existing buildings, 25 points for repairing damage, and 20 points for letting this be on your ICC coverage. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But the way this is described is you can choose one of the following. You've chosen two under the CSI-2 category. MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Are you allowed to do -- MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: It says you can't do that. It says choose one. MR. WILEY: You choose one of the following. Under CSI-2-- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: You're choosing Band C. MR. WILEY: Right. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Are you sure that's how you're getting this? Because that's only-- Page 35 February 16,2006 MR. WILEY: It's my understanding, when I'm talking to our ISO agent, that if we put this in, that that kicks in and we get the points for it. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Are you sure you don't want the points from CSI 3? MR. WILEY: If you go with CSI-3, what you look at there, it says any additions within the footprint of the original building would have to be on a floor above the base flood. Additions outside that footprint have to be elevated. So it really comes into, when you're looking at your flood insurance program, what they consider to be an addition here, and that all has to do -- it's a big, long conversation we get into here, but it deals with, do you open up a wall of the existing structure to go into the addition? If you've got an existing door and simply build out there, that's one thing, versus if you open up and create an opening. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, from my-- MR. WILEY: Personal position is, the higher you take everything, the safer the community is. But we were trying to get -- it made sure also that we had -- bring in here the ICC coverage. And it says, choose one of the following, and that's troubling me why I'm looking at this now when C was not where I thought it was. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And the thing is that that third one, essentially what it's saying is that if you build an addition-- MR. WILEY: Yes. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- that's outside the footprint of the house, that addition has to meet the requirements. MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Which is conceptually what everybody's used to. I'm surprised that we could not do that. Then also if you build it within the footprint, you have to build it on the second floor, essentially above the flood criteria also. Page 36 February 16,2006 MR. WILEY: Or raise your whole structure up. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, that's -- then everybody -- MR. WILEY: Right. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Brad, what you're trying to say is the combination that you're thinking of is 1B, 2B, and then 3? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: That's what I think -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That gives us the 70 points. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I don't think you can do it the way he described it. MR. WILEY: Well, that is fine. When we put it into the actual ordinance, bringing it through here, be glad to include that in. I do not oppose that. I just want you to understand I'm trying to make sure we cover ICC coverage, too, though. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And in terms of support, what that means is that if we build an addition on a house that is below the new freeboard level too now -- it's not just the old elevation. So essentially what we did is, most builders have been building things right at the flood criteria, so we can assume that the existing house is going to be one foot lower. MR. WILEY: Okay. See, it was my understanding in talking to our ISO agent, the way this works is, you choose one of the following. If you only want to have adopting regulatory language that qualifies for properties for increased cost of compliance, you've got 20 points. If, in addition to that, you wanted to have repairs to damage, you've got the 20, plus the 25. Now, that's the way she was explaining it to me. I will get a clarification on that before I go to the Board of County Commissioners. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. MR. WILEY: But I appreciate your concern. I am not disagreeing with your concern on item three either. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, I think item three -- you Page 37 February 16,2006 know, I'm not sure that's bad except for the fact that we raised the freeboard. How do we not raise the freeboard that would be a non-issue. But in other words, essentially, let's say a person's building a house today, they're pouring their slab, and then a year from now, after this, they come in to build a small addition, that addition's going to have to be one foot higher probably. MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Which you'll end up with some goofy -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It's called character. When a building has different heights and various -- it's called character. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, I'm sure the handicapped will appreciate this move, and the elderly. So, I guess, I don't think -- I don't think three's a good idea based on the fact that we have an elderly population, and we can make all the additions have to meet our new freeboard requirement. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Is there a recommendation for this particular issue? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I think my recommendation is that your five-year plan on one and two is fine; if you think you can mooch an -- you know, the additional 20 points on two, good luck; three, I would vote to disapprove, and that's my motion. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is there a second? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Second. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Seconded by Mr. Vigliotti. Discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. Page 38 February 16,2006 COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion carries. Next issue? PROTECTION OF CRITICAL FACILITIES MR. WILEY: The next issue we're going to talk about is protection of critical facilities. Critical facilities in Collier County are essentially, as we identified them, the fire stations, the sheriffs station and substations, EMS stations, the Collier County EOC, evacuation centers, water treatment plants and their related facilities, the pump stations and wells, wastewater plants, pump stations, electrical power substations, telephone communications centers, switching stations -- not every line, just the big main switching centers -- and hospitals. The issue here is that if you have a flooding event, those are facilities that you specifically want to make sure are still working. And so what we're saying here is protect critical facilities up to the 500-year flooding event, which is a .2 percent annual chance of event. By putting in the freeboard requirement, basically you've already done that for new facilities. For existing facilities, what they require is floodproofing techniques to come in to bring them up to that particular 500-year event level. So certain facilities, obviously, have that protection already built into them. For example -- well, it's not built yet, but the new EOC that they're designing right now. They're taking it above what they have to Page 39 February 16, 2006 have it, because they understand the base flood elevation is very low, since -- from only a storm surge event from 1 percent annual chance, and just the category of the hurricanes that we have through here will raise it. So they're voluntarily raising it, which will comply right with what we're saying here. But we're trying to say that if we put it into regulations and have this requirement, we can obtain credit points. We can go ahead and voluntarily do it, but if we don't have a document that says we have to do it, we get no credit for it. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. I mean, I'm definitely in support of that. I'll make a motion -- if anybody's been keeping score lately, I think Mother Nature's ahead, so let's -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I have no problem with that. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Let's go with this. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Are you making a motion to support staffs recommendation on this issue? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right, which is PCF-1. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is there a second? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I'll second it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Seconded by Mr. Vigliotti. Discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Hearing none, all those in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye. (No response.) Page 40 February 16,2006 MR. WILEY: Okay. The next -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Nobody's opposed. Motion carries. MR. WILEY: Sorry about that, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's okay. MR. WILEY: By the way, DSAC did recommend approval of the critical facilities. That was -- I didn't mention that to you. I try to remember to bring them up on what they recommend and what they did not. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It is in our paperwork, so -- MR. WILEY: Yes, it is, yes. MR. WILEY: Protection of floodplain storage capacity. This is the issue that Mr. Schiffer's already been talking about quite a bit. But it essentially says that you've got a floodplain, and in Collier County our floodplain is very broad, very shallow. As we develop it, we keep adding more and more fill and more and more fill, we affect the topography. The terrain is not what it used to be. So for something that was built a number of years ago, back when you had a lot of flat area and everything builds around it, they become essentially the bathtub where the water wants to collect and run off. And one of the big examples that he very appropriately brought up is consideration for Golden Gate Estates. That system is a canal system with roadside swales to connect to it, but it essentially relies upon a lot of sheet flow going across land. And as you get all the house pads starting to go, lot-to-Iot, some of the house pads touch each -- a lot of them touch each other and basically mound up in between, you have situations that you begin to redirect the flow, but you take out a lot of storage. Keeping in mind also what later on in the slide presentation that you have before you there, is we know that coming in there's a southern Golden Gate Estates project called the Picayune Strand Restoration, and as a part of that project there are pump stations that Page 41 February 16,2006 are being designed. They are designed based upon the year 2000 criteria, or what was the 1 percent annual chance storm event out there as they modeled it based upon the topography that was available at that time. As we fill it in, we lose more and more storage of which was not taken into account in their model. There's no way they could ever guess that. Their modeling accounted for additional hardening for the rooftops, but did not take up loss of floodplain storage. We see this as a very serious issue for consideration that we need to protect our floodplain storage capacity. And what that would entail is, if you are within the floodplain, we would say that if you fill in so many cubic feet of the floodplain storage, you have to provide an offsetting amount likewise. The South Florida Water Management District regulations already has a provision somewhat along this line. It says that if you encroach within the floodplain, primarily they're concerned about along the sloughs, for the flowway going through the slough. A development encroaching in a floodplain area has to analyze to see how much they've encroached and provide compensating storage of some fashion. Now, we have utilized this on a few developments, even here in the county. It gets to be quite an interesting experience in engineering design to see how you can do that. In the situation to where you have a wet season water table which is below the ground surface, you can scrape down and make the appropriate amount. Now, remember, we're only talking about between the ground surface and this surface for the 1 percent annual chance storm event. That's the depth of water we're talking about. So if someone comes in with a fill pad and they're mounding up three feet above that but you only had one foot of it was your storage space, you only account for the volume of the one foot, not the whole Page 42 February 16,2006 pad. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right, right. MR. WILEY: So what we're saying is that there's a very serious need to protect the floodplain storage capacity. DSAC really had a problem with this one. They did not like the concept. They felt that it would be very cost prohibitive, very onerous on the landowners. I cannot say I agree with them, but I appreciate their concern because they're the development community out there putting the things in. But what I'm concerned from a floodplain manager's standpoint, is I've got a certain storage volume, and if I start losing that, it's only going to exacerbate existing conditions, and it's going to make my runoff go a lot higher. So I'm asking to get the support that we have the protection floodplain storage capacity. Again, it is compensating storage, is what we're talking about here. My typical cost factor, if that seems low to you, I simply assumed in a Golden Gate Estates situation that someone's going to be able to go out there, clear off a little bit more of their yard area that they're probably going to clear anyway, that means scraping down, using that fill as part of a fill pad versus hauling it all in. That's why that figure seems very low. So I'm very open for discussion. Keep in mind how I came up with this cost factor. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I mean, what do you think the elevation would be that you could dig down to? In other words, you're pretty close to the ground out there to begin with. I mean -- MR. WILEY: In some areas of the Estates, you've got less than a foot. Some areas of the Estates -- some lots, with the season water table, is above ground surface. Essentially what that would do here Page 43 February 16,2006 would say you could not put any fill pad on that property. You would have to stilt house the whole thing. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. MR. WILEY: And then for situations where you have like your mound for your septic system, that would require going off to another lot somewhere in close proximity at a same elevation, essentially, to scrape down. This concept really came up when we started looking at an overall stormwater master plan for Golden Gate Estates as a consideration for something that needed to be done. We're not suggesting that it be put together in a piecemealed approach to where each individual lot goes and scrapes their own little shallow pond out in the back of their property. It is technically possible to do that. That's not really what we're recommending. Our preference would be that this be implemented in a fashion that regional storage areas be identified, using Golden Gate Estates as an example, and this is just an example. This is not what we're saying is going to happen. But if you've got the ability to take two lots at the end of the street to where you can direct the runoff into those two lots to use that storage space, that kind of concept. It creates sort of a small region for each street. Again, that is just a very rough example of one illustration, how it's going to happen. Not necessarily what we're promoting. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Wiley? MR. WILEY: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are you aware that in Golden Gate Estates -- and this is something that -- this is a practice I think is absolutely wrong, but the builders have a pretty strong foot in the door on this one -- they can go in and scrape it three feet down from the surface of a lot and use that fill for the house, and then fill that hole with construction -- I shouldn't say construction debris, horticulture Page 44 February 16,2006 debris. And that horticulture debris can be filled up to -- you can go three feet down, and I believe it's no more than three feet above the natural grade of earth. So what happens is you've got a pile of stumps and tree trunks and clearing from the property sitting there rotting for everybody. I see this as kind of a solution to that in some way, so I'm pretty pleased to see you coming forward with it, because these pits or these volume areas that would be dug to compensate for the house pad, would they be allowed to be filled with debris, or would they have to be kept clear? MR. WILEY: They would have to be kept clear as far as the equivalent volume that was needed to displace what was in the bottom of the house pad. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And could they be revegetated with wetland species and the like if someone wanted to do that? MR. WILEY: Preferably that's what would happen, that's correct. We're not saying create just a sand pit out there. We want the thing to be a usable -- most of the year it would be usable land. It could only be fairly shallow. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The next item -- the last question I have is, you're looking at a volume calculation now. In the case where you have lots that are adjacent to canals in Golden Gate Estates, could the canal then support the volume calculation needed to displace the -- MR. WILEY: No, sir, it could not. The canal itself is a facility used to convey the water off. What's going to happen, when you have your 100-year event, 1 percent annual chance event in the Estates, all the canals are going to come out of a bank. They're designed for a lO-year storm event. So they're going to be totally out of the bank anyway, and the ground is going to be covered with water. And we're saying, by this situation here, you've simply made an additional space that, reality, is filled up with a volume that's occurring Page 45 February 16, 2006 between the lO-year and the 100-year event, but it still is holding an amount of volume. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If you were to take this example away from Golden Gate Estates to go to a typical development that digs water management lakes and uses the fill from those lakes for the house pads -- MR. WILEY: Correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- does this have any impact on that form of development? MR. WILEY: Probably not, because the size of the lakes themselves, generally speaking, are sufficient to account for this volume, but that would have to be an individual analysis that is performed. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Any other questions? Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Here's one thing, I think, is also missing from your equation. Essentially what you're saying is that the area of the building pad itself, there'll be a ravine dug in the site of approximately that same area. If, fortunately, they're high enough that they could double the depth or something, it could be smaller. There's also the septic tank pad. If you're in that area, which a lot of these are, you're raising for the septic tank pad, which is also -- he would have to -- his displacement would have to be calculated, correct? MR. WILEY: You would not be raising the height of the septic tank, but you would have to account for displacement volume. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, I mean, if you're building a mound septic tank -- MR. WILEY: Right. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- your mound would qualify under this fill thing. Page 46 February 16,2006 MR. WILEY: It would qualify, yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. So I mean-- MR. WILEY: That is -- again, that is fill placed within the floodplain, yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Is the -- I mean, our forefathers dug these canals to drain the swamp, and now we're going to be building it back piece by piece with this method. Is there a way that we could go into certain parts of the county and require the first category here, which is -- you would get 80 percent if you prohibited fill in the floodplain, and then other parts -- because like Mark pointed out, most of the PUD work with lakes develop a perfect fill situation, but you're never going to be able to solve the problems out in the Estates by filling the property or coming up with a way to fill and ravine the property. So what I was thinking is, is there something in between? Rather than go with one of these or the other, could we start to look at providing a certain percentage of the county with the first one and other percentages with the second one? MR. WILEY: Yes, sir, you can do that. Again, the way FEMA rules work is, when you apply something like this, you then tell them what portion of the county is colored (sic) by this regulation, and they take that percentage of the county then as a percentage of the points available to you. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. So in other words, if we looked at some of these drainage issues and we did come up with the 80 percent -- we could get higher than 70 points, in other words, if we came up with a good enough percentage of the county, which, I think, we probably would. I mean, that's -- okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Any other questions? Do we have a recommendation? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: With the problems we have in Page 47 February 16,2006 drainage, I'll definitely recommend at least number two. I think we should study where in the county we could use the first option. But what -- you see a lot of projects where people are coming in, they put their house on a pad, the pad happens to be in the flowway, the flowway now starts to dam up. Essentially, you know, we're looking at blocks of streets where, you know, maybe five to 10 percent of the houses are developed. Wait till 100 percent of them are developed, that's going -- you know, pity the poor guy who's the last guy because he's got a lake. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's a long, long motion. Are you-- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Oh, that was discussion with it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, do we have a motion for a recommendation? You started off. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Oh, I did, yeah, I definitely recommend -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, let's just -- yeah. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But I'd like to add to the -- further the motion that we study parts of the county that could be eligible for the 80 points. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Recommendation is to accept staffs recommendation and with the caveat that we study the county for further possible credit points. That's it. Is there a second to the motion? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Second it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Seconded by Commissioner Midney. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: But I have a question, Brad. What about the foot -- foundation are we talking about? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, we're adding another foot to the height of that mound. We did that earlier. MR. WILEY: The elevation that we talked about before on freeboard would not apply to your septic system, no. Page 48 February 16,2006 COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: No, I'm not talking about that. You were talking about kind of like a hollow foundation. What were you talking about? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, I think stem wall. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Stem wall, so -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I mean, I think -- which would be the first one. The first one says you can't build -- put fill in the floodplain, i.e., you're going to have to build a stem wall. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: How much would stem walls cost more than what this could be, displacement? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I mean, I think the price of fill, a stem wall -- there could be an argument it might even cost less, but -- MR. WILEY: That was discussed by the DSAC, and they started looking at it, you know, maybe we all go back to stem wall because the fill is going through the roof. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, we should -- MR. WILEY: That was their very discussion, too, and so that's why they -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I mean, I'm kind ofa fan of the first one because, first of all, there's a big demand for fill just to build our roadways. So I think that -- and again, when we see the final buildout of some of these Estates, there's going to be a nightmare of flood -- I mean, you know, we mound -- COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: In that case, I'd like to withdraw my second. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And do what? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Go in favor of the stem wall. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: You're not going to get the lower one -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, let's finish discussion on the first motion. Page 49 February 16,2006 COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So you're withdrawing your second? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yes. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Can we have a -- second withdrawal before -- COMMISSIONER CARON: I'll second it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, good. COMMISSIONER CARON: I'll second it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Midney withdrew his second. Ms. Caron reinstituted her second. So now we're still having discussions on the motion of -- to recommend approval of staffs recommendation with the caveat that staff looks further into possibly utilizing number one as well in some format. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And just to talk to Paul is that, what that means, Paul, is we're going to go with at least the fact that if you build a mound, you have to build the substitute drainage area for the mound. And then the other thing is exactly the stem wall, but they're going to look at parts of the county where maybe stem wall, maybe raised structures, is the appropriate answer, not mounding, not with fill. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: So if you were looking to develop maps that would say, all in this area need stem wall and all in this other area, no? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. We definitely need somebody to study the sheet flow of water out in that area and decide what's appropriate. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: And that would be like another growth plan amendment in the future, perhaps? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Or we come back next year and Page 50 February 16, 2006 say, look, there's a potential of putting some percent of the county for this 80 points and we up this -- we up this score. In other words, I think we can up the score from 70, because I don't want to run away saying, okay, we fill and we dig when maybe we can stem wall our way out of the problem. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But your motion leaves that to -- for staff to look -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- into between now and the BCC recommendation? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Correct. MR. WILEY : We will look at that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Kolflat? COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: The two options you have are 80 and 70 credits, correct? MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: I had a note that the maximum available in our case was 110. Is that an error on my part? MR. WILEY: The maximum available for this particular one? COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Maximum available for this particular item for Collier County. What is it? MR. WILEY: I show 70. I don't understand the 110, so -- COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: How much do you show? MR. WILEY: My notation on the summary sheet at the very back shows 70 points, so if I've got 110 written in there somewhere, please show me, because I can always type it wrong. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: I'll go back and check you on that. MR. WILEY: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is there any other further discussion on the motion? Page 51 February 16,2006 COMMISSIONER TUFF: Yeah, I just don't -- I'll be not voting for it just because I don't think we have enough -- we're making some heavy-duty decisions for people without enough information. I don't want to recommend something that strong without feeling better about it. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, I think here's what we're doing that's different than today. Today, by the freeboard, we just made everybody build the mounds a foot higher, essentially. They're going to put a slab on grade foundation, the mound's got to rise higher for the building. What this would require is that if you're going to build a mound on a property, you're going to have to put an additional drainage area or a recess to hold the water that the mound is displacing. One foot of that water, you said, right? MR. WILEY: Well, the amount's whatever the depth of flooding would be. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: That's right. So essentially what we're saying is we're stopping -- the difference between today and -- if we approve this is, we're stopping just randomly mound building out in the Estates. MR. WILEY: Or anywhere in the county. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Or anywhere in the county. Most of the people in the county are doing like what Mark says, they're digging lakes, they're putting fill, and they're building it up properly. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Well, you're not preventing people from building the mounds, but you're just saying they have to mitigate it? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Exactly. MR. WILEY: Correct. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: But I think a superior would be to not have to create all that extra mounding and that need for those -- Page 52 February 16,2006 COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right, I agree with that. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: -- swales in the first place, and I would be more in favor of something like that. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I would personally be in favor of the 80, but it would never pass, so I'm being realistic. I mean, if we just eliminated fill, you know, everywhere, that would be good, or at least in -- well, I guess we ought to do it in certain areas. We can't eliminate it everywhere anyway. MR. WILEY: You would just -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: What would happen, Paul, is that the cost of this -- this work, the cost of the fill, the additional foot of the fill, and the earthwork to get the ravine -- according to Mark, the ravine's out there for three anyways, so maybe it's not a problem -- is it may cause people to start looking at stem walls to be the appropriate answer, which would not require it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Have we had enough venting over this issue? Ifwe have, let's call for the vote. All those in favor of the motion to recommend approval, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. All those opposed? COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Two opposed. Motion carries. MR. WILEY: So that was a 5-2. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, 5-2, I'm sorry. I keep forgetting how many are here sometimes. Page 53 February 16,2006 COMMISSIONER TUFF: We're not all here. MANUFACTURED HOME PARKS MR. WILEY: As we wrap this up, heading down the home stretch now, manufactured home parks. Regulations in the county allow manufactured homes -- now, these are in existing manufactured home parks to be installed to elevations that may be below the base flood elevation. Some of the older mobile home parks, the requirement says all you have to do is to put the manufactured home up on a foundation that's three feet above the ground. But if your anticipated flooding depth is four feet, that allows the floor of that mobile home to be a foot below the base flood elevation. So in an existing mobile home park, there is an existing mobile home sitting there, and the owner says, I want to go buy a new one and bring it in here, they can go back and put it right back at its same elevation as the old home without having to bring it into compliance. We didn't think that was necessarily a wise move to be allowing people to essentially build a new facility at a substandard elevation, so this brings them into compliance with what everybody else in the county would have to do, meet the base flood elevation, or in the case of freeboard, also meet the freeboard requirement. And that's where this goes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Discussion? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I do. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: What would this apply to? Like take some of these areas that are in the coastal high hazard, would you require that they are raising these things up to eight, nine feet? MR. WILEY: It could, yes, sir. Most of them -- when we looked Page 54 February 16,2006 at the illustrations that are on the GIS, I don't think we had anything going higher than between four to five feet above what it probably is right now. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. MR. WILEY: Granted, that's still high. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: You already have three feet, so four to five feet would be seven to eight feet. MR. WILEY: They might be as much as -- that's because their location right up against the coastline where a big surge is predicted to come one of these days, or anticipated. Not predicted, but anticipated. But that just shows you essentially the vulnerability of those mobile homes right now, too. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: How does FEMA handle that? Aren't these frangible buildings? I mean, the building codes kind of discuss them that way. So I mean, aren't these -- is the intent to protect the -- have the home there after a storm surge after -- MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. The intent is so that they are not damaged by flooding. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Then what you're going to find is you're going to go down there, you're going to see trussed up systems. Because remember, if you raise it, you have to structurally support it. MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So you're going to see some odd looking x-braced stuff with trailers hanging out in the air. MR. WILEY: FEMA does provide documentation to show what some people have done. And you know, one of the -- I call it an extreme case, but this one owner, with their mobile home essentially built a steel truss under it and around it. Looks like they took an old bridge and just slid the trailer right in it. But that was showing you some of the examples of what you could do, not what is recommended Page 55 February 16,2006 to do. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But I bet you that owner wasn't in a hurricane zone either. MR. WILEY: But that's why they did it because they used that to hold the trailer together. It was an old trailer, and it didn't meet the wind requirement, so they used that to basically frame it in. Now I don't know what it looks like after a hurricane. This was just a picture in one of their publications, so. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And this is our -- one of our affordable housing elements, so -- MR. WILEY: But this is just simply to elevate so that you get them to at least the base flood elevation in compliance with what everyone else does in the county. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Is there any further discussion? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But what were the recommendations of the other committees? MR. WILEY: As we looked at this one here, if you'll notice, DSAC recommended approval. They fully understood the need for everyone to be to the same level of flood protection, so they recommended approval. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, since they're manufactured homes, I wonder why that recommendation came out like that. MR. WILEY: No comment there. But to keep in mind, the very rare exception was the four to five feet. The majority of these were only one to two feet that it would have any impact on. And what we did is we took the ground elevation off of the GIS system, we took the base flood elevation, subtract the difference, and then take three feet from that -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. MR. WILEY: -- to find out what the difference they would have to raise above, should they desire to -- now, that does not require them Page 56 February 16,2006 to automatically do it. That's if they replace the structure to what it is before, or do your substantial damage or substantial improvements. Anytime that meeting the base flood elevation is a requirement, that would require them to meet it here. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I think we've got to be careful. This could wipe out some mobile home parks. So I think if there was a storm in the park and they all had to come back and build themselves up on seven-foot of stilts, that's -- all of a sudden that's permanent structures, and that's the end of that affordable housing. MR. WILEY: In looking at what's on the ground out there, we looked. There are about 50 existing mobile home parks, and of these, the most severe cases were very, very limited. Most of them, like I said, had only one- to two-foot requirements in there. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Which is a five-foot-- MR. WILEY: Versus a three foot. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- truss system that the house is sitting on. MR. WILEY: Compared to the existing three foot. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah, I bet that's attractive. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think if that's what they got to do, that will be an issue they will have to vote on right now. So is there -- if there's no more discussion on this matter, I'd like to entertain a motion from somebody. COMMISSIONER CARON: I make a motion to approve. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Second-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion's been made and seconded to recommend -- for approval per staffs recommendation. Any further discussion? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I think it will be beneficial for the trailer owner, too, because I know in Immokalee, I've seen trailer parks, and -- where some of the trailers did get their floors flooded and Page 57 February 16,2006 some didn't who were a little bit higher and it's -- boy, what an advantage to not have to do major repairs to your trailer, you know, if you weren't flooded in that way. So I would be in favor of this. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other discussion? (N 0 response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Hearing none, we'll call for the vote. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Aye. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody opposed? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I am. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: 6-1, motion carries. STORMW A TER MANAGEMENT FACILITIES INSPECTION AND MAINTENANCE MR. WILEY: Okay. Our next issue is stormwater management facility inspection. This is a situation that I've got a whole lot of personal feelings towards, having worked with the stormwater management department for 17 years before I am now working in developmental services. But there's a long history of lack of maintenance of stormwater management facilities in Collier County, both public and private. And in particular, no one says a thing about it until you have the rain, and then everybody's crying and crying and crying, help, help, help, we're flooding, get the water out. And you go out and you look, and there are no swales. You'll Page 58 February 16,2006 look for driveway culverts, you can't even find them; they're totally covered over. You -- there are situations that you can go to look at outfall structures, and they're so grown in with vegetation, so silted in that water can't get out of them. It's a mess out there. And you talk to the homeowner associations, and they have no understanding whatsoever that it's their responsibility to make sure these things continue to work. There are two things that take place. You have the flooding situation, you also have a system that was designed for a certain water quality treatment capacity. It's not meeting water quality. So we're allowing water to now leave the site that hasn't gone through treatment either. So there's a twofold thing to concern yourself with here. From FEMA's standpoint and the flood insurance program, ironically they address both concerns, water quantity and quality issues. They want to make sure that there is no pollution increasing as a result of the flooding issues. So what we're asking here is that, essentially, a program be established that would require everybody to inspect and have an engineer certify that their system has been inspected and it is able to function as designed. Now, in FEMA's requirement, it says, all new developments. It doesn't say anything about old developments. And let me back up here and regress just for a moment. You get more points if the county is willing to take on the responsibility for the operation and maintenance of all stormwater facilities in its jurisdiction. That's not what we're going for. We want everyone who assumed responsibilities years ago to live up to the responsibilities. And this simply basically is going to have it set up so -- and where staff is wanting to go with this in the ordinance, that a new development, that one that's going to get its building permit Page 59 February 16,2006 after this goes into the ordinance, they would have to file an annual report with the county where they have an engineer who's gone out and looked at it. And this -- if the system is well maintained, that engineer can do it in a heartbeat because you simply walk in, look at it, and everything's there. But ifhe takes three days to even find all of the components of the system, well, it's going to cost that individual community a bit more money because they have failed to keep up with things. It will be an annual certification to the county. For existing developments what we're proposing is a biannual inspection, and essentially breaks the county into a north and south half section. Because one thing we're looking at, too, from staffing, we don't want to have to create another monster organization to go out and review all of these submitted certifications and then spot-check to see, are they valid or not. So we're saying, from the standpoint of existing developments, every other year they would submit a certification to us. We think that will get us quite a few points. It will not necessarily get us the full number as shown here for the 110 points, but it may. We have to present it to FEMA under the illustration of what's existing versus what's new. Their regulation says new. So we're thinking we're going to get basically the full 110, but we may not. It depends on how they evaluate it. We think though, this is a very, very important program to have simply because of just past experience of how many things fail to function as originally designed, originally permitted and approved for construction in Collier County. So I can give you one example just to show you how bad this can be. A fairly recent development, the development's only about five years old. Up until this past June, had never experienced a problem. We had never had a really, really wet series of events, but this past Page 60 February 16,2006 June was sort of a record breaker. And this development began to have lakes get higher and higher and higher, and then all at once, it was out in the streets, and water wasn't going away. It kept coming up, up, up, because it kept raining every day. So naturally they called the county. We went out and started looking at it, and all you could see was water standing everywhere. So we went through the use of the sewer reviewer type company to stick a camera down the pipe and go look at it. At every lake interconnect there was a block wall across it, had been there from the initial day of construction. No one had ever done a certification inspection. The engineer certified it going from drawings provided by the contractor, but the engineer himself had never looked through the pipe. And so for all those years they had been living on perc, percolation until it just rained more than it could perc, and then here this new development started having flooding problems. And that's just a new development. But the old ones, which have lack of maintenance, go through much worse situations than that every time we have a big rain. So that's where this is coming from, to help create a program to where things are inspected to make sure they are operating as designed. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Two questions come to mind, and if you don't mind, I'll just -- one is, where's the money going to come from, that 330,000? MR. WILEY: We anticipate that that is going to be a decision made by the Board of County Commissioners. Whether they opt to do it through some kind of a fee for submitting that or if they opt to do ad valorem, we don't know yet. We're providing them with the information of what we think it would take to get the program staffed Page 61 February 16,2006 up. But that is their call. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. WILEY: My thoughts would be, it would be through the-- as the applications are submitted to us, we would have a fee that would cover the cost. But that's just my thought; that is not saying that is what's going to happen. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Then the second thing, I thought South Florida Water Management District had maintenance easements around these lakes and that the ultimate failure of a system they could enforce against the property owners who had permits from South Florida for functioning water management systems. MR. WILEY: By that time, you're too late. The storm's already passed. But you are correct, there is a lake maintenance easement around the lakes. Actually, easements to the county, and not to the water management district. Under the South Florida criteria, they're required to design, they are encouraged to maintain. But under South Florida, there are no absolute maintenance and subsequent inspections required. If a system fails, then what happens is field engineering from the water management district goes out to the site, if notified, and they look at it and they try to work with the association. But quite frankly, by default, then those people start calling the commissioners, who then call county staff, who gets told to go out there and help alleviate the problem. And it, by that time, is a real mess, especially when you're trying to get rid of the flooding situation in a hurry. This takes weeks and months to resolve. COMMISSIONER TUFF: So how did that get resolved, the one you were talking about? Who came in and saved the day? MR. WILEY: The homeowner association got with the contractor. All I know is, it got taken out. I don't know who paid for it, but it did get opened up. Page 62 February 16,2006 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Question. You have plans for each development. Is that a PUD? What constitutes development? MR. WILEY: It would be -- in a situation where you have a PUD and are going through the PUD monitoring process, we think that the best way to do that is through the annual PUD monitoring program, so the whole PUD does the evaluation. But that is going to be given, the way I'm thinking right now, up to each homeowner association. Do the master association people handle this or do they subdivide it up? That's strictly up to them. But the requirement would simply be that the drainage facilities go through an inspection. Again, our preference is through the master association, but that still has to be fleshed out as we go into final regulation development. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Now, is this only for developments with homeowner associations? MR. WILEY: This would be for every development. And so what we're -- that's a good situation to bring up. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: What constitutes a development? MR. WILEY: What? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: What constitutes a development? MR. WILEY: Where you have a stormwater system that was individually designed for a development. Golden Gate Estates, for instance, there's nothing out there the people would inspect because that's single-family lots platted. But where you have any kind of a system that had the water quality treatment, the weir, the pipes, the swales, whatever, residential, commercial, whatever, those systems would fall within this whether they are in a PUD or not. Straight zoning could still apply here. Page 63 February 16,2006 COMMISSIONER TUFF: So like Golden Gate City? MR. WILEY: Golden Gate City does not have a master stormwater system, so it would not apply. That is all a county-maintained system. However, interesting about this, it would require the county to inspect its own system likewise. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, that's a good thing. MR. WILEY: I thought that was a very good thing, knowing the condition of Golden Gate City. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, they've had problems there every year it seems. MR. WILEY: Every time it rains. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions or comments? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Is there a motion for a recommendation? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I recommend it for approval. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And I'll second that. And one of the big points, I think, of this, is we'll end up with a good data base, I think, where we can start really doing some modeling of stormwater, so -- COMMISSIONER TUFF: I concur with that, yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion's been made and seconded for recommendation of approval. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye. Page 64 February 16,2006 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody opposed? (N 0 response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion carries, 6-0 (sic). FLOOD HAZARD DISCLOSURE MR. WILEY: Let's talk about a disclosure of flood hazard. This is a situation that, again, I have a lot of personal experience in. Usually people call me in August because they bought their property in February, and we know where I'm going with this one. Flood hazard disclosure basically says if you're going to sell a piece of property or rent a piece of property, you've got to let that potential buyer or potential renter know that they are in a floodplain and that flood insurance is available. We took this by the NABOR, Naples Area Board of Realtors, as well as Marco Island. Both those organizations support it. They've even worked together to help us put together the document that will be prepared for everyone to sign off on. So we have their support for it. But it's a situation that we want people to know what they're getting into because invariably we get the calls, oh, I didn't know, and by that point it's too late. The other side of it is, your lending institution. You've gone out, you've picked the house you like, but you don't have a clue it's in a flood zone. In you go, you apply for your mortgage application. All they're required to do is, 10 days before closing, notify you, you have to get flood insurance. You've got 10 days to buy a flood insurance policy. Now, that puts a lot of stress on somebody that was maxed up to their chin with that mortgage. Now with -- what they're facing is an additional few hundred dollars -- in some situations the price of the insurance may be a few thousand dollars per year -- to get flood Page 65 February 16,2006 insurance, and especially if it's a house that is noncompliant, so it's a very expensive flood insurance program. You want them to know ahead of time. This basically would be the situation that the first face-to-face meeting that this realtor has with this potential client, they give them information, this house is in the floodplain, just so you'll know, rather than waiting until it's essentially too late and decisions are made that they sometimes can't readily back out of. But the realtors supported this, very much so. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. WILEY: Let's say, the two realtor organizations that we've been working with supported it. I better word it that way. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is there discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is -- this one seems pretty simple. Is there a motion? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I would make a recommendation for approval. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is there a second? COMMISSIONER TUFF: Second. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion been made and seconded. All those in -- any further discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: All those in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody opposed? Page 66 February 16,2006 (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion carries, 7-0. MR. WILEY: Thank you, sir. FLOODPROOFING MR. WILEY: Now, our last item to talk about today is our other higher standard criteria, and this addresses floodproofing. Floodproofing is where you have a building that is nonresidential. You want to build a nonresidential building. Now that can be commercial, but nonresidential also includes hotels because they rent out for less than six months duration. So keep in mind the term nonresidential does not mean people can't be living there. It just means it's not an individual house. And essentially in flood -- and what we're talking about here is other higher standards. And let me get my screen up here. I forgot to forward to get to the right screen. It says that you can build a building today with a -- the lowest floor elevation below the flood zone elevation. All you have to do is provide floodproofing, some means to make the building walls and all the openings impermeable to water so water doesn't come in. Now, that's easy to do on new construction plans. You can come through, you can document it, you design your building so the building doesn't physically float. Design it so that you've got some impermeability in the wall system. You can design it so inside the system, inside the building, you have a seepage collection system and a way to throw it back out, assuming that there's power to run your pump. That's another issue. But that's when you build the building. Go down the road five years. It's nonresidential, so it's going to have some turnover of who works there. It may even have ownership turnover by that time. Page 67 February 16,2006 Why is all this stuff over here on the wall? We need a new rack for something here. Swoop, out it goes, and then here comes the flood. No one has a clue how to put the flood panels up. Don't even know where they are. These kinds of situations happen subsequent, but the building was built in accordance, but it was assumed to have floodproofing to it. What we're suggesting is that this not really be a viable option. If you're going to build a new building in Collier County, elevate it to the minimum base flood elevation or freeboard level. That's just what we've felt like from a standpoint of, why let someone build a sub-elevated building and say they're going to floodproof it, when the reality is, it doesn't bear fruition later on? This did not have the support of DSAC primarily from the concerns of ADA compatibility. They felt like it might have too much of an impact on complying with disability requirements for the ramp. If you had to elevate a commercial building, it might make it harder to get access, and simply someone could walk right off a sidewalk and go in the building. I understand their concerns. I cannot say I agree with them because if you were building a house there, you'd have to elevate it, and I did not really see the difference of a person having to get in their house versus getting into a non-residential building. But that was my own opinion. I wanted to make you aware of why they did not recommend it. They understood it, but they did not feel it was usable. One of the situations that came into compliance -- that came into concern was they mentioned 5th Avenue South. And they said, well, those buildings there are right at street elevation. They do not have to build to compliance. And I did remind them, that is also the City of Naples. That is not Collier County. This is unincorporated Collier County. Page 68 February 16,2006 And so they brought up the issue, how about Gateway/Triangle? And I gladly brought that up because those are places where several buildings have already exhibited flooding, and it's just a mess when they flood down through there. So again, staffs recommendation is elevate up, not floodproof and intentionally go below. So we would like your support. But you're open for comment, I think. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: My concern with that is you might wind up with this effect. If a building, for instance, is damaged by fire or falls over the 50 percent, you'd have to build it up, so -- MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Let us take 5th Avenue. By chance, you could wind up with this up and down 5th Avenue, which is -- I can't support. MR. WILEY: That is where they came from. They said, the appearance and the -- but mainly the ADA compatibility was the issue that really, they felt, was in the county. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Brad? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And I think that's a good point. Look, Bayshore we have a requirement, we have buildings five feet off the property line. We've just raised them another foot. So my knowledge of Bayshore is that that will be two feet above the sidewalk out in the right-of-way, so that's a difficult ramp to get. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Well, you'd have to put elevators with ADA. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, it would be a 24-foot ramp -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: A big, long ramp. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: But we don't want to have that kind -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. Page 69 February 16, 2006 COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, I mean, the world's just going to be handicapped spaces and zigzag ramps. You're only going to be -- COMMISSIONER TUFF: You'll only get two points for the whole thing. It's not -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: How would this affect the building? It's -- a lot of time we floodproofby -- we have -- essentially we call it the bowl. We build a waterproof bowl, and the upper lip of that is above the floodproof requirement. But the bowl goes down within the floodproofing. Would this eliminate the ability to do that? MR. WILEY: No. That is what floodproofing is. That is one type of floodproofing. So it would eliminate that, that's correct. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: It would eliminate that? MR. WILEY: Yes, sir, because you are building the house, or building the -- not a house, but the nonresidential structure below the flood. In the situation where you're doing the bowl type concept, you're relying upon essentially the berm or a pseudo levy type situation there to hold the water out, but the structure itself is below that, susceptible then to any kind of overtop, any kind of leakage. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But that would also eliminate __ for example, lube stations have pits and stuff like is that. It would eliminate that? MR. WILEY: No, it would not. No, it would not. We're talk-- now that would be a situation where there's nothing in that pit which is susceptible to damage, so that's why we're saying that there can be exceptions that we put for certain particular commercial criteria that has nothing -- the lube pit, all it is is a cinder block wall. It doesn't hurt cinder block to get wet. So those kinds of situations. I use one example here of the open bays of a car wash. They're getting wet every day anyway. You know, Page 70 February 16,2006 you build it out of materials that are absolutely resistant to flooding. That kind of exception, when we put it within the regulations, could be excepted out. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, now I'm confused because the bowl is made out of materials, obviously, that you can wet. MR. WILEY: That's right. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: They're designed to hold out the water. MR. WILEY: Right. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And then within the bowl are chairs or whatever you have. The same as a lube, I mean, that is -- the bowl-- the first bowl I ever did was a lube facility. So are you saying that you cannot occupy that area below there, or what is -- why is that different? MR. WILEY: The lube pit that I'm thinking of -- hopefully we're talking the same thing -- is where you've got the -- basically the car rolls over the rack and you've got the guy down in there, and it just basically is concrete with the floor and concrete walls or cinder block walls and that effect. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: It's full of oil, it's full of a lot of stuff. You don't want to fill it up with water. MR. WILEY: That is correct, and that situation -- but that's not down in the pit. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yes, it is. MR. WILEY: It is in the pit? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Sure, with the worker, with his tools, with the -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That may be more of an operational issue than a flooding. MR. WILEY: It would become an operational issue where we would require them to not use that for any storage space for those Page 71 February 16,2006 hazardous materials. They would have to be above the BFE then. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Let me tell you. For 10 points, this is a really big hardship on the community. MR. WILEY: It is a serious constraint. We want to make you aware though we do have buildings proposed coming in -- not lube places, we're talking about commercial buildings -- who are wanting to come in and build with floodproofing, and we're going, why? I mean, a store, why would you want that? But they do. And so we're saying, is that really what we want to have in this community? Again, but we have this for discussion. It's not a lot of points, but these were points that we wanted to discuss to let you be aware of where the flood insurance program has criteria for consideration. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Commissioner Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Wouldn't it be better to change our floodproofing criteria as opposed to saying that the only answer is elevation? MR. WILEY: You-- COMMISSIONER CARON: For example, you gave an example of somebody who puts these panels on and then, you know, five years down the line, nobody can even find them. Why don't we say, those are no longer an option for you to floodproof? Why don't you eliminate things that are actually a problem as opposed to just saying, okay, now everybody has to elevate? MR. WILEY: That's a very good recommendation. Again, though, that would not get us any points in this criteria. COMMISSIONER CARON: We're only talking about 10 points out of 14,000. MR. WILEY: That's correct, but that's a very good recommendation for us to bring before the Board of County Commissioners. That's right. But, again, you're increasing the flood resistance without February 16,2006 requiring somebody to remember, where'd I put something. Right. And in situations, you don't know if the bowl -- in that -- and I would have to know your specific situation there, but do you have the ability for rain to get inside the bowl? Or are you talking about you build the outside of the building up, but the inside of the building's sunk down. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Give you a good example. Some are churches, some assembly, you'd, you know, recess the sanctuary, and the sanctuary -- MR. WILEY: Okay. That's all under roof. I was thinking you were talking about a situation where you build a dike around the outside of the property and then the building itself is down. So you're talking about inside the building itself? Got you, okay. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: The thing you described is called a pond for the building. MR. WILEY: When it rains, right. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'd like-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Midney seems to have a question. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Go ahead, sorry. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yeah. I have a question on, if somebody tries to build a commercial property and they quote-unquote floodproof it, but, you know, you say that these systems have a tendency to fail, doesn't that person get a break on their flood insurance that the rest of us sort of have to subsidize? MR. WILEY: What they get is a flood insurance rate that is based upon the level of flood protection that they purchase. So when you floodproof a building, you already have to go one foot of freeboard on the floodproofing. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Right. MR. WILEY: So essentially they get flood insurance at the BFE Page 73 February 16,2006 even though they're constructed below, because they're considered as being floodproof to the BFE. Does that mean we subsidize them? It could be considered that, if they were having to get flood insurance at the rate that the lowest floor actually is, which is below the BFE, it would be a much higher premium rate. But FEMA doesn't really say that it's a subsidy, such as they would for someone who's a preform house, a house that was built before there was even a flood insurance program. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Is there-- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'll make a motion that we deny this. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I'll second. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: There's a second. Motion made and seconded. Any further discussion? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron. COMMISSIONER CARON: I would like to have addressed though the business of improving our floodproofing requirements, and I think that's where we should be focusing our efforts. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Isn't that a building code or an LDC issue as well? MR. WILEY: That would be a building code issue at any point, right. COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah-- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And there is, Donna, some protection here, is that remember that issue, that 20 points which we're not sure we can get in the cumulative stuff? COMMISSIONER CARON : Yes. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: That 20 points was for repetitive Page 74 February 16,2006 loss. In other words, if this guy who threw away his -- that little dike system, which is easier to put on existing buildings and I'm suspicious of too, you know, after he has a loss, then he has another loss. He's in that program and he's going to have to fix himself anyways. COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, but we don't even need to get that far if we have good floodproofing requirements to begin with. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, FEMA's good floodproofing requirements. That's what they do. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Any further discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Hearing none, I'll call for the question. All those in favor of the motion to deny, recommended by -- yeah. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Nobody opposed. Motion carries, 7-0. Mr. Wiley, you came out pretty good today. MR. WILEY: Thank you, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. It was a very good presentation today. Thank you very much. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Before he goes, there was some things I was wondering why he isn't going for, is that okay? MR. WILEY: Yes, sir: COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'm sorry to hold you guys. Page 75 February 16,2006 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go for it. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Just give me a second. MR. WILEY: Let me back up a minute here, if I could. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Go to the first page. MR. WILEY: Okay. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And first of all, you get full credit for map information. What map information do we have to obtain that? MR. WILEY: The map information that we have there deals with how we provide information to the community on the flood insurance maps, things of that nature. We've got them readily available. So by documenting -- when someone calls up, they want to know what's the flood elevation that they have to have, you know, we can tell them in a heartbeat over the phone. We're providing a service to them to let them know what's out there. And so FEMA has given us full credit for our program of outreach and making that information available. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: All right. And is that accessible on the web site? MR. WILEY: It is more accessible now than it used to be. We now even have the elevation certificates that have been submitted to the county, that we can find -- keep in mind, we had to find them to scan them -- but we actually put them even into the website. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But in the future you'll be putting together better data. Let's go n MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Let's go to 440, which is flood data maintenance. MR. WILEY : Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: What's going wrong there? I mean, why aren't we getting more points there, or what's missing from Page 76 February 16,2006 floods data maintenance? MR. WILEY: Flood data maintenance -- let me hold a second here. Bring up my book. I don't think you want me to read this whole thing, but -- what I did, I brought this to help you understand -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: This is a pretty boring crowd. We might -- MR. WILEY: Yeah, this might be -- this is not intended to be boring at all whatsoever though. So let me -- let me just read to you so that we all get it right the first time, what that would entail. And for flood data maintenance, what it says is, under category 440 -- that's where we are, for flood data maintenance -- you get, for additional map data, up to 121 points provided for implementing digital or paper systems that improve access, quality, and/or ease of updating flood data within a community. We're working towards that with our study, we're just not there yet. As we get our new mapping done, when we finish it up, we will have the digital maps available. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. I think you -- I mean, look at what you're willing to put the community through for 10 points. There's a lot of points that you could do in there just by -- because for us to solve this flooding, we're going to have to have excellent modeling, excellent data. We gave you the ability to go do the maintenance studies, so I really think that that's important that you -- some of these -- you know, even the next one, which I was going to ask, is floodplain management planning. MR. WILEY: Right. Let me -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Why isn't that -- MR. WILEY: -- say something here. We are heading-- staff-wise, we are heading into scoring better in these other categories, too. What we're saying is, there are regulatory standards that make a Page 77 February 16,2006 community more flood resistant that we feel are worth implementing in this county. Those will give us points, and we will receive our scoring, as well as what we can do. Our ultimate goal is to get to a class five community. We're a class seven right now, which means we've got to pick up over 1,000 points. So we are working in these other endeavors through here, just like you're talking about. We're take making strides, but those are not regulatory. Those are staff issues or programs we can implement. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. But one thing I'm saying, it's easy to put regulations on the private community. Let's get in-house and start getting us some good data, which would give us a lot more points than certainly that last thing we worked through. Stormwater management, what's going down there? How come that's not higher? MR. WILEY: Stormwater management, that is a program whereby we take the stormwater department and we focus their projects to specifically make improvements to reduce the potential flooding from the 1 percent annual chance storm event. Now, stormwater, for years, was basically an unfunded capital program. We identified millions of dollars of needed funding. The board, within the past year and a half, I guess it was -- now this is their second year to get the funding for it -- has started funding it, so they are working together. And as -- what will happen on this, as they put together their work program and begin to actually physically construct and we're able to show that we reduced the potential for flooding, then we can submit the documentation to get points off. But it is sort of an after-the-fact. The stuff has to be in place. So, again, as we take these programs and pull them together -- which is something that has never been done to this date of taking the whole county's effort towards floodplain management, and trying to Page 78 February 16,2006 pull it together into a single organized approach -- which is where we're heading, by the way. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: How much of the higher regulatory standards -- how many points did we get in that? You were looking for 10. There's an awful lot more, so -- that's 430. MR. WILEY: We were looking at having a little over 500 n I think 561 points out of all the recommendations that we were suggesting. Your all's decisions today were supportive of up to 551 of those points, and I do thank you for that. Again, this will go to the Board of County Commissioners for their decision which they recommend approval for us to then put into an ordinance format that we will come back with the ordinance review process to make sure you understand clearly what's within each portion of the ordinance. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. And 520, which is acquisition of relocation, that only applies to buying properties within floodplains? MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: How about some of this conservation land we're buying? We're building theme storm management parks or something, whatever that water park. Is there -- I mean, wouldn't some of that fall into there? MR. WILEY: Most of the land that we are buying right now does not fall within the floodplain. It's a wetland, but they're not within our coastal floodplain. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. MR. WILEY: And so where it does, you get your choice, you can take credit here, or you can get credit for it in what's called your open space preservation, which is how we're currently using it in another portion of the program you have here. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay, good. And then just to Page 79 February 16,2006 clarify that last point, 700 says that because we're a growth community, whatever point we get, we get an extra half point. MR. WILEY: For those in the 400 category series, that's correct. The 300s and the 500s you do not. Just in the 400s. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. MR. WILEY: That's your multiplying factor. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. Thank you. MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Do you foresee us meeting the category five this year? MR. WILEY: No, sir, no, sir. I think we're going to get to a category five option somewhere around about 2009 at the rate we're going. And that is mainly because of, it's going to take -- through FEMA's process to our process of developing the new flood maps, FEMA's process of going out over publication, noticing, that takes about nine months anyway, it's going to take us up until the end of 2008 just to get the new flood maps. Once we do that, by then these other programs will have kicked in, and we'll be able to submit the documentation. I hope we're able to get to a category five, I hope. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: When? If so, when, possibly? MR. WILEY: As far as the category five, a class five? I've got to use category five. That's a hurricane. Class five community -- I don't want to confuse things here. Class five community, I would hope as we go through our recertification process in the year 2009, that's when we will achieve it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. If that's all the questions, this workshop is adjourned. Thank you. MR. WILEY: Thank you. ***** Page 80 February 16,2006 There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order ofthe Chair at 12:45 p.m. COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION MARK STRAIN, CHAIRMAN Page 81 _.._.'---_.~.".._- --'-'~- .......--.<.-.-.,--