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Agenda 02/25/2020 Item #2B (Minutes - 01/28/2020)02/25/2020 COLLIER COUNTY Board of County Commissioners Item Number: 2.B Item Summary: January 28, 2020 BCC Meeting Minutes Meeting Date: 02/25/2020 Prepared by: Title: Executive Secretary to County Manager – County Manager's Office Name: MaryJo Brock 02/18/2020 9:32 AM Submitted by: Title: County Manager – County Manager's Office Name: Leo E. Ochs 02/18/2020 9:32 AM Approved By: Review: County Manager's Office MaryJo Brock County Manager Review Completed 02/18/2020 11:22 AM Board of County Commissioners MaryJo Brock Meeting Pending 02/25/2020 9:00 AM 2.B Packet Pg. 15 January 28, 2020 Page 1 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Naples, Florida, January 28, 2020 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners, in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as the Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing board(s) of such special districts as have been created according to law and having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m., in REGULAR SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: Burt L. Saunders William L. McDaniel, Jr. Donna Fiala Andy Solis Penny Taylor ALSO PRESENT: Leo Ochs, County Manager Nick Casalanguida, Deputy County Manager Jeffrey A. Klatzkow, County Attorney Crystal K. Kinzel, Clerk of the Circuit Court & Comptroller Troy Miller, Communications & Customer Relations January 28, 2020 Page 2 MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, you have a live mic. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you. The county commission meeting will please come to order. Item #1A INVOCATION AND PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Good morning, everybody. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: A little bit of an interesting schedule this morning. First on our agenda is the invocation by Reverend Sheila Zellers of the Motivated by Love Ministrie s. Ms. Zellers. REVEREND ZELLERS: Good morning. May you all stand. Dear gracious heavenly father of heaven and earth. We thank you this day to live in the United States of America, the home of the brave and the land of the free and we never forget the price that has been paid for the freedom for those Americans who have served and are serving today. We thank you, Father God, for your love and your bounding safety for them in Jesus' name. We cannot ever forget that we come from one blood, many nations, and we have been given a geographical place to prosper. And we thank you today, dear God, for Collier County. I ask that you bless each commissioner, staff, and citizens of the Collier County today; that we form an unbreakable union and unconditional love and respect for each other; that we ask you, God, no matter our creed, economical status, spiritual awareness for each to come together with one purpose: To make a greater Collier County, a greater place to live, and that every decision will be made January 28, 2020 Page 3 that we will see a brighter future for our community, our county, our state, and our nation. In the name of the father, son, and the holy spirit, I ask. Amen. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Fiala, would you lead us in the Pledge. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, thank you very much. Yes. Please put your hand over your heart and say with me... (The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) Item #2A TODAY'S REGULAR, CONSENT AND SUMMARY AGENDA AS AMENDED (EX PARTE DISCLOSURE PROVIDED BY COMMISSION MEMBERS FOR CONSENT AGENDA.) – APPROVED AND/OR ADOPTED W/CHANGES CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Mr. Ochs, we're on the agenda. MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and commissioners. These are the proposed agenda changes for the Board of County Commissioners' meeting of January 28th, 2020. The first proposed change is to move Item 16K3 from the County Attorney consent agenda to become Item 12B on the County Attorney's regular agenda. This is a recommended amendment to your Hearing Examiner ordinance, and it's being moved for further discussion at Commissioner McDaniel's request. I have one agenda note, Mr. Chairman, related to Item 9B. There were some updates to the credit agreement exhibits that the Board received by email on this past Friday, and we're just noting those changes for the record. Those have also been forwarded to the Clerk's minutes and records office and all -- and the County Attorney. And then, finally, Mr. Chairman, we have four items that will be January 28, 2020 Page 4 heard concurrently at 10:00 a.m. all having to do with the Rivergrass SRA. Those are Items 9A, 9B, 11B, and 11C. Again, those are scheduled for hearing at 10:00 a.m. And those are all the changes I have, sir. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Let me make a comment to the Board in reference to those four items. Obviously, we will be taking a separate vote on each one. There's some folks that have registered to speak on more than one of those items, which everyone's entitled to do. But I thought what I would suggest is that instead of trying to have people register for two or three items for three minutes each, let's just give everybody four minutes in their presentation on these four items, period. Does the Board have any objection to doing that? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: No. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We'll give them a little extra time since there's four items. COMMISSIONER FIALA: You're the boss. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: When we get to that item, we'll give a little extra time. We'll start with Commissioner McDaniel. Do you have any additional changes to the agenda? COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: No, and no ex parte on the consent or summary. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Taylor. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I repeat -- or I echo my colleague to the left, no changes, and no ex parte to the consent or the regular agenda. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes, ditto with me. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Commissioner Solis. January 28, 2020 Page 5 COMMISSIONER SOLIS: No changes and no disclosures on the consent or summary judgment. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I have no changes and no disclosures as well. We need a motion to approve the regular, consent, and summary agenda as amended. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: So moved. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Second. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We have a motion and a second. All in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Passes unanimously. Mr. Manager, we're on the awards and recognitions, and I believe we step down there for that; is that correct? MR. OCHS: That's correct. Thank you, sir. January 28, 2020 Page 6 Item #3A1 AWARDS AND RECOGNITION – EMPLOYEE – 20 YEAR ATTENDEES MR. OCHS: Commissioners, we're pleased this morning to honor several of our team members celebrating many years of dedicated service to county government. We'll begin this morning recognizing several of our colleagues for 20 years of service with the organization. Our first awardee with 20 years of service in your Parks and Recreation Division is Al Arcia. Al? (Applause.) MR. OCHS: Thanks, Al. (Applause.) MR. OCHS: Celebrating 20 years of service with our Emergency Medical Services Division, Juan Camps. Juan? (Applause.) COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: He's not old enough to have 20. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: He started when he was six. (Applause.) MR. OCHS: Twenty years of service with our Water Division, Michael Costanzo. Mike? (Applause.) MR. OCHS: Celebrating 20 years, again, with our Emergency Medical Services Division, Alan Drescher. Alan? (Applause.) MR. OCHS: Our final 20-year service award recipient this morning, from our Museum Division, Jennifer Guida Mitchell. Jennifer? January 28, 2020 Page 7 (Applause.) Item #3A3 AWARDS AND RECOGNITION – EMPLOYEE – 30 YEAR ATTENDEES MR. OCHS: Commissioners, we have the pleasure of recognizing one of our colleagues for 30 years of service with county government this morning. From our library system, Karen Kocses. Karen? (Applause.) COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Can we get one more picture with William up here. MR. KOCSES: Me? I don't have 30 years in here. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Well, we want the spousal unit. There we go. (Applause.) Item #3A4 AWARDS AND RECOGNITION – EMPLOYEE – 35 YEAR ATTENDEES MR. OCHS: And, finally, Commissioners, this morning we have the honor of recognizing one of our colleagues celebrating 35 years of dedicated service to the organization. From your Parks and Recreation Division, Jeanine McPherson. Jeanine? MS. McPHERSON: I'm on time today. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: She made an incredible entrance. (Applause.) January 28, 2020 Page 8 CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. Mr. Ochs? MR. OCHS: Ladies and gentlemen, if you could move out quietly. Thank you very much. Item #3D1 RECOGNIZING STEVE ATHEY, GROWTH MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT, PROPERTY MAINTENANCE INSPECTOR, AS THE JANUARY 2020 EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH – PRESENTED MR. OCHS: Commissioners, that moves us to Item 3D1 on this morning's agenda. This is a recommendation to recognize Steve Athey, your Property Maintenance Inspector in the Growth Management Department, as your January 2020 Employee of the Month. Steve, if you'd please step forward. (Applause.) MR. OCHS: Steve, stand right there for a minute. I want the audience to learn a little bit more about the character of people that work here in this organization. Commissioners, Steve's been with the county since 2005 in our Code Enforcement Division. In late November of last year, the Code Enforcement received a complaint regarding a bug and rodent infested occupied dwelling with no water or electric in the Moon Lake community. The case was assigned to Steve as the property maintenance investigator. He contacted the homeowner, an elderly gentleman, who explained that his wife had passed away and that he had a water leak in his garage. The water leak ran up the water bill, and eventually the water was shut off. January 28, 2020 Page 9 Steve observed severe violations of the property maintenance code, including no water, no cooking equipment, no working bathrooms, et cetera. He could have taken the easy way out and issued a citation or a notice of violation, but true to his character and commitment to the community, he chose a different path. He contacted his supervisor and explained the conditions of the home. Then Code Enforcement coordinated with the Collier County Sheriff's Community Policing Unit and Collier County Sheriff's Senior Advocacy Unit. In November of last year, a large-scale community service effort was coordinated. But Steve didn't stop there. He took it upon himself to collect donated cleaning supplies and contacted small businesses and local organizations and received donations of new mattresses and bedding, a new hot water heater, new toilets, stove, refrigerator, and other household necessities. He also coordinated to have the electric and the water service restored. The home was cleared, and cleaned, and at the end of the day, the elderly man, with teared eyes, made a comment that no one involved will ever forget. He said, you-all saved my live by giving me a new start, and I am forever grateful. So it's with this sense of commitment to the community that we honor Steve Athey, and it's my honor to announce him as your January 2020 Employee of the Month. Congratulations, Steve. (Applause.) COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Congratulations, County Manager. That speaks volumes of what we're about in Collier County. MR. OCHS: Well, thank you, ma'am. It's people like Steve that make it happen. Item #11A January 28, 2020 Page 10 RESOLUTION 2020-22: A REFERENDUM ELECTION ON NOVEMBER 3, 2020, TO DETERMINE WHETHER THE VOTERS APPROVE REESTABLISHMENT OF A LEVY OF AN AD VALOREM TAX NOT EXCEEDING .25 FOR TEN (10) YEARS TO CONTINUE TO FUND THE CONSERVATION COLLIER PROGRAM’S ACQUISITION AND MANAGEMENT OF ENVIRONMENTALLY SENSITIVE LANDS - MOTION TO APPROVE OPTION #1 – ADOPTED; MOTION TO APPROVE BALLOT LANGUAGE WITH VERBIAGE CHANGE – APPROVED MR. OCHS: All right. Mr. Chairman, that will move us to Item 11A on this morning's agenda. This is a recommendation to adopt a resolution calling for a referendum election on November 3rd, 2020, to determine whether the voters approve reestablishment of a levy of an ad valorem tax not exceeding .25 mills for 10 years to continue to fund the Conservation Collier program's acquisition and management of environmentally sensitive lands. Ms. Summer Araque will make the presentation. Good morning, Summer. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Good morning. MS. ARAQUE: Good morning. Summer Araque, Conservation Collier Program Coordinator. Just waiting for it to come up on the screen. There we go. On February 26th, 2019, the Board requested the Conservation Collier Land Acquisition Advisory Committee to develop ballot language for the 2020 election. The advisory committee chair, Bill Poteet, should be here somewhere today if you have any questions for him. The ballot language proposed will ask voters to approve an ad January 28, 2020 Page 11 valorem tax to re-establish further funding for the Conservation Collier program's acquisition and management of environmentally sensitive lands. As you know, a referendum was approved by the voters in 2002 and reaffirmed in 2006 which established the Conservation Collier Program. Today I will be presenting the ballot language options that you have in your packet and the related millage rate information. If you need further information to inform your decision, I also have the following information available for you: The acquisition costs by cycle; the Cycle 9 list and its $14 million worth of remaining properties; and the Future Acquisition Strategic Plan, which you all reviewed in November. I have that information as well. Regarding the current status of the program, since inception in 2003, 4,300 acres have been acquired, totaling 20 preserves. To the ballot language. The advisory committee, also known as the CCLAC, worked on two ballot language options. Option 1, which you can see on your screen, is similar in terms to that of the original ballot language in 2002. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Could you go ahead and read that for purposes of the audience and just to make sure. MS. ARAQUE: Sure. Okay. So Option No. 1, which is the one that's favored by -- recommended by staff and the CCLAC, is: Shall Collier County re-establish the levy of a .25 mill ad valorem tax for 10 years for the purpose of continuing to acquire, preserve, and manage environmentally sensitive lands and provide compatible public access wherever applicable to such lands for the protection of water quality, water resources, wildlife habitat, and public open space in perpetuity. And that is 55 words out of 75 words that are allowed on the ballot. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Is there an Option 2? January 28, 2020 Page 12 MS. ARAQUE: Option 2, is the option that was provided in the last week by bond counsel, which is very different from Option 1. Shall general obligation bonds be issued in one or more series in an aggregate principal amount not exceeding -- insert amount by the Board -- with a maturity not longer than 10 years from each issuance date and an interest rate less than the maximum legal rate to finance the acquisition, management, and preservation of environmentally sensitive land payable from ad valorem property taxes levied at a rate not exceeding .25 mills on all taxable property within the county. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: With the permission of the Board, I'm going to suggest that we go to our public speakers -- we've discussed this item so many times; I think we're all very familiar with it -- then come back to discussion of whether we're going to place this on the ballot and then also what the proposed millage rate would be. So without objection, then we'll go to the public speakers. MR. MILLER: Mr. Chairman -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Just as a reminder, everyone that speaks, you're limited to three minutes. MR. MILLER: Mr. Chairman, we have two registered speakers for this item. Your first speaker is Gladys Delgadillo. She will be followed by Meredith Budd. MS. DELGADILLO: Hi, everyone. Gladys Delgadillo on behalf of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida. We are proud to support both CCLAC and staff's recommendation to approve the pay -as-you-go ballot language provided. We want to thank the members of CCLAC and staff for working together over several months on this ballot language and allowing for meaningful public participation. We are confident that this language will provide a clear understanding to voters on the issue at question in November: Whether or not to reauthorize the Conservation Collier ad valorem tax. January 28, 2020 Page 13 We are lucky to live in a county where bonding isn't necessary to raise the funds necessary to continue meaningfully investing in our water quality, drinking water sources, wildlife habitat, and quality of life via acquisition of new conservation lands. We ask you to support the recommended action, Option 1 today. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next and final speaker is Meredith Budd. MS. BUDD: Good morning, Commissioners. Meredith Budd on behalf of the Florida Wildlife Federation. I would echo my colleague Gladys' comments. We are supportive of the Option 1, which is the pay -as-you-go language. We do not feel that bonding is necessary, and the language reviewed by CCLAC will certainly be favorable with the voters. The second option here today, it was not reviewed by CCLAC to my knowledge, and so they did have different bonding language. If that was the route you would go, which would not be the federation's perspective or the CCLAC's recommendation -- but if a further discussion on that bonding language does move forward, I do think that the CCLAC should be involved since that language just came back from bond counsel and not -- excuse me, not from the advisory committee. But, again, we do support Option 1 moving forward as pay as you go. So thank you so much to staff and to you-all for supporting this important program. MR. MILLER: Mr. Chairman, Brad Cornell just slipped this in under the wire. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I think he's a little too late. MR. MILLER: Your discretion, sir. Brad? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We'll give you a minute and a half since you were late. MR. CORNELL: Good morning, Commissioners. Brad Cornell on behalf of Audubon. January 28, 2020 Page 14 I just wanted to second my colleagues' support for Option 1. If you are so tempted by bonding that you have to do it, then send it back to CCLAC so they have a chance to review it, because they didn't get a chance; otherwise, we appreciate the hard work and the diligence that CCLAC and your staff and you-all have had in bringing this back to the -- to a vote by the people. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you. Let me suggest that we really have two issues -- or three issues here. One is are we going to put an item on the ballot, and number two is which of the two items, and then number three, millage rate. And let's -- why don't we not deal with the millage rate first and just the ballot language, focus on that, see which option is preferable. And, Commissioner Fiala, you're lit up. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. I'd like to make a motion to approve Option 1, the wording on it as well, to put on the ballot. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Second. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We have a motion and second. Is there any discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We'll call for the vote. All in favor, signify -- COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'm lit up, sir. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Oh, I'm sorry. You sure are. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That's all right. That's all right. I can't support the motion. And it's not that we don't have a need to find an alternative funding source for Conservation Collier. We know that there are limited funds. Commissioner Saunders and I worked through our first year in office on what I felt was a very nice compromise to get us to a point where we could further discuss it. January 28, 2020 Page 15 I proposed back in December, I think, maybe November, one of those two, a different thought process which was a voluntary contribution by 100 percent of our taxpayers and do that for a two-year period, which we could do immediately this year as opposed to waiting until November and then putting it on next year's TRIM notice and so on, and that would give us an opportunity survey 100 percent of our taxpayers and then make necessary adjustments to a good program. There's nothing wrong with Conservation Collier. I just have a concern about a small portion of the population who actually show up to vote telling 100 percent of the people what they have to do. And so my thoughts were, in lieu of this, let's put -- and we have found out -- our County Attorney's Office checked with the Tax Collector, and they can do an insert for a voluntary contribution in the amount that we're talking about here to everybody that gets a tax bill, and do that for two years. Again, reviewing the program, trying to find out what the people who can and want to support Conservation Collier want to see and then what those who can't necessarily or won't voluntarily support it, and make adjustments to the program to even further enhance it. So I'm concerned about our taxpayers. I know there are other increases that are coming forward. Eventually we're going to see a downturn in the overall economy, and I just don't want to -- I don't want to -- I don't think we need to burden our community right now in this manner. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We have a motion and a second. Any further comment? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: And the motion deals just with the ballot language, not the millage rate that would be inserted in that. All in favor, signify by saying aye. January 28, 2020 Page 16 COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed? COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: It passes 4-1, Commissioner McDaniel opposed. In reference to the actual millage rate, we can set a millage rate today. Obviously, it's not anything that would be set in stone. We can change that anytime we want to up until the time the ballot's printed, which I believe would probably be in August. So we have plenty of time to evaluate that. Any discussion on the -- on a proposed millage rate to be inserted at this point? COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: It's already in the language that we approved. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We approved the language, but I had suggested that we not deal with the millage rate at that -- initially. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Sorry. I missed -- I thought you were talking about the -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: So we're dealing with the millage rate now. And, like I said, we don't need to have any millage rate set. We can have a further debate on that at some point, or we can try to set something today that would be tentative. Commissioner Solis? COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Mr. Chairman, could you just go back to the chart that showed what the collections will be based upon a quarter mill? MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yes. January 28, 2020 Page 17 MR. OCHS: Sir, if I might, just for some clarity here on this discussion. As the County Attorney wrote in the executive summary, given the fact that the Board is not adopting the ballot language that includes a bonding option, this becomes a straw ballot, basically, and the Board can set a millage up to that 2.5 [sic] max each fiscal year depending upon the majority consensus of the Board. So you have quite a bit of flexibility. And I'll ask the County Attorney to confirm what I'm saying here. MR. KLATZKOW: Yeah. The ballot's more of a political issue than a legal issue. You could, anytime, set the millage rate for Conservation Collier or any other purpose at any rate you wanted to. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I would assume that we do have to put an initial millage rate in the straw ballot language? MR. KLATZKOW: If you want to go by this by straw ballot, then that would be appropriate. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: So if we have to do that, which, quite frankly, if I saw a ballot question said that, would you approve blank millage rate, I would vote against that. So we have to have an initial millage rate, and I think that's really the discussion now or at some point in the future. MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Solis. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I want to make sure I understood. Mr. County Attorney, you said that if we chose to do a straw ballot. I mean -- MR. KLATZKOW: You could -- COMMISSIONER SOLIS: You mean put it on the -- MR. KLATZKOW: You don't have to. You can just, as a legislative body, say we're going to dedicate a quarter mill towards Conservation Collier this year and just do it. The Board has January 28, 2020 Page 18 historically gone by ballot, because you give the people a chance to self tax themselves, and, basically -- basically, vote on whether or not we want this program, which is why the Board originally did it. But it's a straw ballot. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: No, I'm sorry. I misunderstood. I thought there was some other thing that we could do with the ballot. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: And I think it's highly unlikely that the Commission's going to approve a millage rate without having a straw ballot on that. So do you want to have the discussion on the initial recommended millage rate today, or do you want to put that off? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I think we need to do it today. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Well, let's -- any thoughts? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I'm very comfortable with it. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: The .25? Commissioner Fial a. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I was just going to say the same thing; ditto. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I don't suppose zero would work? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Any further discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Are you going to make that in the form of a motion? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I would like to make a motion that we accept the .25 millage rate as outlined in the ballot. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. And I'll second that. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Just for the purposes of January 28, 2020 Page 19 clarification, again, this is nothing that's cast in stone. So we can have further discussions, but it will get the dialogue started. All in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed? COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: It passes 4-1, Commissioner McDaniel opposed. COMMISSIONER FIALA: You know, can I just add one little thing? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yes, Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: One of the things people don't sometimes realize, that this has been helping us to protect our future water sources. That is so important. It also protects some of the animals in that area. These places are put in preservation forever because they're most important to our future in Collier County. So that's why I and I'm sure some of the others were quick to respond to it, because this is an important thing for our future. We don't want to see that land gone. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Mr. Ochs? MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. Mr. Chairman, we do have to put one slight modification on the record, if you don't mind, on this that the County Attorney's Office -- actually, the Supervisor of Elections Office had sent us through the County Attorney's Office. Summer, if you could just note that for the record, and we can move on. MS. ARAQUE: Thank you. January 28, 2020 Page 20 You-all moved so quickly, I couldn't get to the next slide. This is just a technicality. It's in the body of the resolution, not the ballot language, and it just changes the language on -- it's not absentee voting anymore. It's vote by mail. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Mail. MS. ARAQUE: That's just a technicality that we needed to make you-all aware of. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I assume there's no objection from the Board in reference to that. (No response.) MR. OCHS: Thank you. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: And the first time we've been accused of moving along too quickly. Thank you very muc h. I'd like a copy of that transcript. Mr. Ochs? MR. OCHS: Thank you, Summer. Item #12A RESOLUTION 2020-23: APPOINTING FRANK ESPOSITO, CHRISTINE SIMONE AND CECELIA “CECE” ZENTI TO 1 YEAR TERMS AND APPOINTING KAYDEE TUFF, RON JEFFERSON AND FELIPE ARCILA TO 2-YEAR TERMS TO THE GOLDEN GATE CITY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ZONE ADVISORY BOARD – ADOPTED MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, that takes us to Item 12A. This is a recommendation to appoint the initial membership of the Golden Gate City Economic Development Zone Advisory Board. Mr. Klatzkow? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I'll jump in on that. We have the January 28, 2020 Page 21 economic zone that requires a seven-member advisory board. We've advertised for months and months. I've spoken to the Golden Gate Civic Association numerous times about the need to get folks for that. We have six people that have volunteered, and so I would make a motion to appoint those six as we still continue to get the seventh member. MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, we -- I'm sorry. We do need to assign terms to those members. So the ordinance requires -- or we're asking for appointments of three members for a one-year term and three members for a two-year term. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Wow. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: And I have no particular recommendation in reference to that. So why don't we just arbitrarily pick three names -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Eeny, meeny, miny, moe? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: -- for a three-year term. The first three on the list for three years -- MR. OCHS: Two years. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: -- for one year. MR. OCHS: Yeah. There's three for one year and three for two years. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. Read off three names for one year, and then -- MR. OCHS: Frank Esposito, Christine Simone, and Cecelia Zenti. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Three for the two years? MR. OCHS: Kaydee Tuff, Ron Jefferson, Felipe Arcila. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Anyone registered to speak on this? MR. MILLER: No, sir. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Any comments from the January 28, 2020 Page 22 Commission? COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Just a quick question -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: -- and this is more semantics than anything. I know we had talked about a seven-member committee, and we're -- there aren't people lining up to join. I'm trying to -- I want you to hear this, so... There aren't people lining up to join. What about adjusting the process to a five-member committee with alternate since you have six that are already here? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Well, let's let them meet. I think we'll get to seven. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Especially once they have their first organizational meeting. They'll find somebody. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'm fine with that. I just -- when I was reading the process and how hard it was to get people, I thought maybe we'd just do five, so... CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: It passes unanimously. MR. OCHS: Thank you, Commissioners. January 28, 2020 Page 23 Item #12B DIRECTING THE COUNTY ATTORNEY TO ADVERTISE, AND BRING BACK FOR PUBLIC HEARING, AN AMENDMENT TO ORDINANCE NO. 2013-25, AS AMENDED, THE COLLIER COUNTY HEARING EXAMINER ORDINANCE, THAT WOULD REVISE THE HEARING EXAMINER’S POWERS AND DUTIES AND ESTABLISH DIRECTIVES REGARDING THE HEARING EXAMINER’S CONDUCT – MOTION TO CONTINUE TO THE NEXT BCC MEETING – APPROVED MR. OCHS: That takes us to Item 12B, which was previously 16K3. This was moved to the regular agenda at Commissioner McDaniel's request. It is a recommendation to direct the County Attorney to advertise for a future public hearing and amendment to the Collier County Hearing Examiner ordinance that would revise the Hearing Examiner's powers and duties and establish directives regarding the Hearing Examiner's conduct. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. Commissioner McDaniel. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. And I had a meeting with Mark Strain, breakfast, I think, 10 days ago, and one of the suggestions that came out of that breakfast was that we give consideration to not replacing the Hearing Examiner. Just because we have an ordinance doesn't mean we have to plug somebody into the spot. And he felt that with the input from our very learned Planning Commission and the parameters set up by us as the Board, we could have senior staff sign off on ministerial and administrative decision-making with regard to our code, an established set of parameters coming to us from the Planning Commission and get January 28, 2020 Page 24 through the process and not just reappoint -- or put somebody in there because we have this particular ordinance. And I want to -- I want to make one point very clear, because folks have -- and you're looking at me. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I am. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: The intent here is to not plow everything that was going to the Hearing Examiner and logjam in the Planning Commission. That is not the intent by any stretch. The intent here is just simply, we don't necessarily have to fill the position. And his suggestion was utilizing the Planning Commission to establish the parameters for our staff to be able to make these decisions administratively and not plow everything back into the Planning Commission. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Solis, you were looking at Commissioner McDaniel. I assume that means you have a comment. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yeah, two things: I mean, one is that I think that the whole intent of the original Hearing Examiner's ordinance was to provide some mechanism where these smaller -- I call them smaller matters -- more administrative matters can be dealt with quickly without bogging down the agendas for the Planning Commission and yet provide some review and some public input into that process. You know, we've had a Hearing Officer for I don't know how many years now, and the former hearing officer is now saying that we shouldn't have one. So I just think that this is a position that I think is needed. For example, if someone's coming for a boat dock extension and there's a large Planning Commission hearing that's going to take three or four days, you know, I just think it beh ooves us to have this on a more as-needed basis but have this as an option for landowners that need a parking exemption or some minor site plan January 28, 2020 Page 25 deviation that doesn't really require a full -blown hearing before the Planning Commission. That's all. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Taylor. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes. I'm a little surprised at the Draconian change to this ordinance. The additional duties that -- the Hearing Examiner -- I understand that the concept, though, is that they would be subcontracted. So when we get on the phone and talk to the Hearing Examiner about anything, the clock runs; is that correct? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yeah, that's my understanding. MR. CASALANGUIDA: The hourly rate is what we proposed bringing to you, ma'am. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. So is that why we're not permitting the Board of County Commissioners to -- or the County Manager or the County Attorney to talk to this individual? COMMISSIONER SOLIS: No. I think the revisions to the ordinance were to make the Hearing Examiner sit as a judge, which is what Hearing Examiners do in every other county that I've ever heard of. I mean, I think if we all have questions regarding land -use issues, I mean, we have, I think, one of the most professional staffs in the state, and that would be more appropriate to be directed to our staff than the Hearing Examiner who is charged with sitting as a judge and being impartial. That's the only intent behind that is I always thought that there were issues with the judge also being the ad visor and that, in my opinion, just wasn't -- it wasn't the right way to do it. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And I would agree, but five, which has been crossed through, basically said you can talk to the Hearing Examiner unless there's an issue coming before the Board and, therefore, I don't see why we deleted 5. MR. KLATZKOW: The idea is to separate the Hearing Examiner, as Commissioner Solis said. January 28, 2020 Page 26 Mark's role was very unique. Chairman of the Planning Commission. He also had an office over at Horseshoe. Pe ople would come and talk to him. Commissioner Solis's idea was, no, we need more of a judge in this role than anything else. And the idea, you would not be talking to the Hearing Examiner. If you had a land -use question, you'd be talking to your -- Mr. Ochs's staff on these things or my staff. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel. MR. KLATZKOW: That's just the concept. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'm sorry? MR. KLATZKOW: That's just the concept. We're moving away towards a judicial type of appointment. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I have to say, in all sincerity, I thought my idea was really wonderful, and wasn't -- I didn't spend a lot of time in the actual Draconian adjustments to the ordinance, as you referred. I would like to ask our Deputy County Manager, from a historical standpoint, one of the propositions that came -- because we talked about this yesterday, about an alternative to -- before Mark actually became -- before we actually did -- I don't want to use Mark personally, but as our Hearing Examiner. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Thank you, Commissioner. One of the proposals originally discussed was to have three signatures sign off. It would be the county -- COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Say that again. MR. CASALANGUIDA: To have three signatures sign off, which would be the County Attorney, the zoning director, and the county engineer. And I think feedback from the Board at the time was not to make that administrative. They wanted it to be more of a hearing that people could attend to. So that was the debate that took place or the discussion that took place at the time. January 28, 2020 Page 27 If it was just three signatures, could you still schedule a hearing, or would it be more appropriate to have one individual actually advertise the hearing so the public could attend. And at the time the Board felt that the Hearing Examiner could at least advertise that hearing versus the three-signature administrative review. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And I do concur, Commissioner Solis, with the public input process, because sometimes when somebody wants to extend a boat dock, maybe the neighbor doesn't want it, and that would -- that would be a little bit of an interesting issue for our staff to have to deal with, even with the set of parameters. So may I ask that we continue this item until our next meeting and I can review the Draconian adjustments, and then maybe we can have a little further input as to how to manage it. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Well, we'll see if there's a consensus. Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, I concur. So I've had many questions about this, and it seems to be circling right around what you're saying as well, and Penny. So I would love to have it brought back to us so we could discuss it further. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And while we -- if that's -- the majority of the Board agrees to that, I would also like a copy of other Hearing Examiners' contracts in other communities so that we can take a look at how they're doing it, please. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We'll entertain in just a moment a motion to continue this. I would say that if you look as close as Lee County, there's a tremendous amount of separation between Lee County commissioners and their Hearing Examiner. They even have ordinances that prohibit developers from talking to commissioners, so -- COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: You can't even go see -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: There's a lot of separation. And I January 28, 2020 Page 28 agree with Commissioner Solis that this is the way to go. We would have a contract. We would use the Hearing Examiner on an as-needed basis. So we have a motion to continue. Do we have a speaker? MR. MILLER: No, sir. Not on this item. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We have a motion to continue. All in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Then we'll have this on the next agenda. MR. KLATZKOW: And we have a timing issue. Do you still want the County Manager to search for a Hearing Examiner? COMMISSIONER SOLIS: This was my -- and is this going to hold up any -- I mean, are there applications out there that, if we put this off, will be held up because we're going to continue it? MR. OCHS: No. We're still pursuing the recruitment as we speak. I mean, if you modify the ordinance, we'll make sure that those are built into the selection process and the recruitment process. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. I'm just concerned that if there's pending applications for one of the matters that the Hearing Officer hears, that it's in limbo while we're -- MR. OCHS: Oh, those -- yeah. Those will just go to the Planning Commission. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. So we'll hear that item January 28, 2020 Page 29 net -- at our next meeting. Commissioner -- I mean, Mr. Ochs. MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. We'll try to get as many examples to you between now and the next meeting of other counties as we can. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I have some of those, and I'd be willing to share those. I'll send them, what I've collected, to the County Manager, and he can distribute them. MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. Item #7 PUBLIC COMMENTS ON GENERAL TOPICS NOT ON THE CURRENT OR FUTURE AGENDA MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, that takes us to Item 7 this morning, public comments on general topics not on the current or future agenda. MR. MILLER: We have no net registered speakers on this item. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Where's my Rae Ann? MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, I believe the Board has become so efficient that they're ahead of their time-certain schedule. We don't have any other items. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We will stand in recess until 10 o'clock to give the court reporter a break, because it's going to be a long morning after that. So we will be back at 10:00. MR. OCHS: Thank you. (A brief recess was had from 9:46 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.) MR. OCHS: Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. If we could get everybody to please come to order. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, you have a live mic. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We're going to proceed as quickly January 28, 2020 Page 30 as possible through this. This is a very important decision we're going to be making, so I want to make sure everybody has an opportunity to say their piece. We're going to work straight through until noon, and then at noon we're going to take a lunch break. Mr. Ochs, if you could give us a little guidance on the procedures. MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. ITEMS #9A, #9B, #11B AND #11C WERE ALL HEARD TOGETHER WITH SEPARATE MOTIONS Item #9A RESOLUTION 2020-24: DESIGNATING 997.53 ACRES WITHIN THE RURAL LANDS STEWARDSHIP AREA ZONING OVERLAY DISTRICT AS A STEWARDSHIP RECEIVING AREA, TO BE KNOWN AS THE RIVERGRASS VILLAGE STEWARDSHIP RECEIVING AREA, WHICH WILL ALLOW DEVELOPMENT OF A MAXIMUM OF 2,500 RESIDENTIAL DWELLING UNITS, OF WHICH A MINIMUM OF 250 WILL BE MULTI-FAMILY UNITS; A MAXIMUM OF 80,000 SQUARE FEET OF NEIGHBORHOOD COMMERCIAL IN THE VILLAGE CENTER AND A MINIMUM OF 62,500 SQUARE FEET OF NEIGHBORHOOD COMMERCIAL IN THE VILLAGE CENTER; A MINIMUM OF 25,000 SQUARE FEET OF CIVIC, GOVERNMENTAL AND INSTITUTIONAL USES; SENIOR HOUSING INCLUDING ADULT LIVING FACILITIES AND CONTINUING CARE RETIREMENT COMMUNITIES SUBJECT TO A FLOOR AREA RATIO OF 0.45 IN PLACE OF A MAXIMUM SQUARE FOOTAGE; AND AN 18 HOLE GOLF January 28, 2020 Page 31 COURSE; ALL SUBJECT TO A MAXIMUM PM PEAK HOUR TRIP CAP; AND APPROVING THE STEWARDSHIP RECEIVING AREA CREDIT AGREEMENT FOR RIVERGRASS VILLAGE STEWARDSHIP RECEIVING AREA AND ESTABLISHING THAT 6198.08 STEWARDSHIP CREDITS ARE BEING UTILIZED BY THE DESIGNATION OF THE RIVERGRASS VILLAGE STEWARDSHIP RECEIVING AREA. THE SUBJECT PROPERTY IS LOCATED SOUTH OF 45TH AVENUE NE AND NORTH OF 26TH AVENUE NE, ALL EAST OF DESOTO BOULEVARD IN SECTIONS 10, 14, 15, 22, 23, AND 27, TOWNSHIP 48 SOUTH, RANGE 28 EAST, COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA – ADOPTED Item #9B RESOLUTION 2020-25: AMENDING STEWARDSHIP SENDING AREA 15 (“CLH & CDC SSA 15”) IN THE RURAL LANDS STEWARDSHIP AREA OVERLAY DISTRICT (RLSA), BY REDUCING THE ACREAGE BY 5.6 ACRES, BY RE- DESIGNATING 5,253.4 ACRES THEREIN AS “CLH & CDC SSA 15”, BY REMOVING ADDITIONAL LAND USE LAYERS AND PROVIDING FOR RESTORATION TO INCREASE THE STEWARDSHIP CREDITS, BY APPROVING AN AMENDED AND RESTATED CREDIT AGREEMENT, EASEMENT AGREEMENT, AND ESCROW AGREEMENT FOR CLH & CDC SSA 15 AND ESTABLISHING THE NUMBER OF CREDITS GENERATED BY THE DESIGNATION OF SAID STEWARDSHIP SENDING AREA – ADOPTED Item #11B January 28, 2020 Page 32 AN AGREEMENT TO ALLOW THE COLLIER COUNTY WATER-SEWER DISTRICT TO PROVIDE POTABLE WATER, WASTEWATER AND IRRIGATION WATER UTILITY SERVICES TO THE BIG CYPRESS STEWARDSHIP DISTRICT – APPROVED Item #11C LANDOWNER AGREEMENT WITH COLLIER LAND HOLDINGS, LTD AND CDC LAND INVESTMENTS, LLC, (LANDOWNER) THAT WILL PROVIDE MITIGATION IN THE FORM OF RIGHT-OF-WAY DONATIONS AND STORMWATER MANAGEMENT FOR PORTIONS OF IMMOKALEE ROAD AND BIG CYPRESS PARKWAY AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF A POSSIBLE FUTURE TRAFFIC SIGNAL IN ORDER TO COMPLY WITH POLICY 5.1, THE TRANSPORTATION ELEMENT OF THE GROWTH MANAGEMENT PLAN AS WELL AS PROVIDING FOR AN OPTION TO PURCHASE RIGHTS-OF- WAY BOTH NORTH AND SOUTH OF THE RIVERGRASS SRA – APPROVED MR. OCHS: Commissioners, this takes us to our 10:00 a.m. time-certain items this morning. We'll hear all four of these related items together, and then the Commission will vote separately on them. I'll just summarize them. Excuse me. Item 9A is a recommendation to approve with conditions a resolution designating 997.53 acres within the Rural Lands Stewardship Area zoning overlay district as a Stewardship Receiving Area to be known as Rivergrass Village Stewardship Receiving Area. On that item, Commissioners, ex parte disclosure is required, and all participants must be sworn in. January 28, 2020 Page 33 Item 9B, one of the companion items, is a recommendation to adopt a resolution amending the Stewardship Sending Area 15 in the Rural Lands Stewardship Area Overlay District. Item 10B is a recommendation -- excuse me. 11B is a recommendation to approve an agreement to authorize the Collier County Water/Sewer District to provide potable water, wastewater, and irrigation water utility services to the Big Cypress Stewardship District. And the Item 11C is a recommendation to approve the landowner agreement with Collier Land Holdings, LTD, and CDC Land Investment, LLC, that will provide mitigation in the form of right-of-way donations and stormwater management for portions of Immokalee Road and Big Cypress Parkway as well as the construction of a future traffic signal in order to comply with the transportation element of your Growth Management Plan. So, Mr. Chairman, I think it would be appropriate to begin with commission ex parte disclosure at this point. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel, we'll start with you. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. I have had meetings and emails regarding these. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Taylor. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Meetings, emails, and phone conservations with the developer's attorney and the developer, attended the Planning Commission meetings, read staff report, received numerous phone calls and emails from constituents, phone conversations, emails, and meetings with staff. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Solis. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Meetings with landowners, Ms. Olson from the Conservancy, Mr. Yovanovich, Mr. Huffner, Mr. Spilker, Pat Utter, a number of pieces of correspondence from January 28, 2020 Page 34 the Chamber of Commerce, CBIA, many, many emails and phone calls from concerned constituents. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. Well, I must say all of Penny Taylor's and all of Andy Solis's, meetings and so forth with everybody. I've done the same thing. So rather than read it all over again, I've got it written out just in case. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: And I've had the same communications as outlined by my fellow commissioners. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Mr. Chair, and I did -- I was remiss. I've had multiple phone calls as well. I didn't announce that in my original disclosure, but I had multiple phone calls. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Mr. Ochs, I think we're at -- MR. OCHS: Would you like to swear participants in at this time? Anyone who's going to give testimony, if you'd please stand. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: And this means members of the public as well. MR. MILLER: If you've registered to speak, yes, please stand; raise your right hand. (The speakers were duly sworn and indicated in the affirmative.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Mr. Yovanovich, I assume you have no problem in hearing all four of these items at the same time. We'll take separate votes. MR. YOVANOVICH: No, sir, Mr. Chairman. We're comfortable with that. And that's, in fact, how we're going to present it, if that's okay. Good morning. For the record, Rich Yovanovich on behalf of the team. We have our rather lengthy presentation to go through, and I thought I'd just tell you how we're going to do the presentation and January 28, 2020 Page 35 then who's going to be part of the presentation, and then we'll get into it. I'll do a brief introduction of the team and the project. I'll give a little history of the Rural Lands Stewardship program, I'll tal k about how the program works. Bob Mulhere will get into the specifics about how our petition meets both the Growth Management Plan requirements and the Land Development Code requirements. You'll have a brief presentation from our environmental consultant, Ken Passarella, and then we'll do a conclusion and open it up to any questions. We're going to try not to be duplicative because we understand your staff also has a presentation on how -- environmental and other aspects of the program. So we can get back up if we need to, but we're going to wait to see what staff has to say. With me today from Collier Enterprises mManagement is Don Huffner, who's the President; Pat Utter, who's the Senior Vice President for Real Estate; Christian Spilker, who's the Senior Vice President for Land Management; and Valerie Pike, who's the Director of Real Estate. Our consultant team is me; Bob Mulhere, with Hole Montes is our Professional Planner; Dom Amico is our Professional Engineer; Lucy Gallo did the fiscal neutrality analysis that, as you will hear, was not only prepared by her but reviewed by an independent consultant hired by the county as well as your county staff; Kirk Martin is here to address any water comments you may have; Ken and Heather are here to address any environmental questions you have regarding our -- either the SSA petition or the SRA petition; and Norm Trebilcock is our Transportation Consultant. As Mr. Ochs mentioned, we have four petitions in front of you this morning and I'm sure into the early afternoon. The four petitions are, first, the SRA village, SRA document and attachments to that. January 28, 2020 Page 36 We will spend a significant amount of time going through that petition with you today. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Excuse me for interrupting just a second. For the audience's knowledge, would you tell them what an SRA is. MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes, I will. It's a Stewardship Receiving Area, and I'll get into a little bit more detail about the different types that are out there and what's before you today. But today you have a village form of an SRA, or Stewardship Receiving Area. The other item on your agenda is an amendment to Stewardship Sending Area No. 15. It's an already-approved SSA which is being held in escrow. The first -- what's being held in escrow today is -- it has been stripped down to Ag 1. And I know there was discussion about what is the SSA program and how does it -- how does it set aside land to make sure it addresses environmental concerns out east? And what was originally removed as far as development layers was the residential land-use layer, the general conditional-use layer, earth mining and processing uses, and recreational uses. So from SSA 15, 5,253 acres, those land-use layers have already been removed and put into preservation as that term is defined in your Land Development Code set aside to address environmental concerns. Today you have an application to take two more layers from the development on roughly 3,741 acres, and that is to remove Agricultural 1, crops, and agricultural support uses. So those two layers are also being removed from that. So there are eight layers. We're removing the first six layers. Leaving Ag 2, which is basically ranching and conservation, on roughly 3,741 acres. We're also adding restoration to the program. So there is a significant change to SSA 15 that is being proposed that is part of this program to further preserve environmental lands to address water January 28, 2020 Page 37 management and listed species and wetlands. So for anybody to say that we're not -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We do have a -- I'm going to urge commissioners to hold questions till the presenters are finished, but we'll make an exception. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: That was my point of order. Just to see how you'd like to conduct this. Do we hold our que stions or do we -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I would prefer holding the questions. MR. YOVANOVICH: We have historically allowed us to make our presentation. Hopefully we will address all of your questions. I know we won't address every question. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Just so we know. MR. YOVANOVICH: But we will. So for anybody to say that an SSA is not preserving environmentally sensitive lands is not accurately reflecting how the program actually works. I was remiss in saying that on the SRA, as County Manager mentioned, staff's recommending approval of the village. Staff is recommending a village of the -- recommending amendment to SSA 15. Your next item on the agenda, which is the interlocal agreement between the county, the stewardship district, and the developer pertaining to -- or the landowner pertaining to water and sewer is on your agenda as well. What that provides for is the county to provide water and sewer service, which is part of the program; you're supposed to have centralized water and sewer. The county's going to be our provider of water and sewer service. The golf course will be irrigated through our wells. The landowner is going to prepay water and sewer impact fees January 28, 2020 Page 38 for 250 units as part of this agreement within 30 days of receip t of a non-appealable SRA and the required permits for the project to go forward. We've also agreed to convey a five-acre utility site, which Bob will show you where that is on the plan, if the county needs it in the future. And we will build all the internal water and sewer and convey it to the county as is typically done in the county. Staff is recommending approval of that. I don't plan on making a long presentation on that issue or the SSA 15, but we're available to answer any questions. And the last item on your agenda is the landowner agreement, and that landowner agreement provides for us to convey to the county Immokalee Road right-of-way including water retention associated with that at no cost to the county. We've already provided Oil Well Road right-of-way to the county at no cost to the county, as well as water management for that. The next item in that agenda item is we're going to convey Big Cypress Parkway in phases. This was actually the subject of why we were continued the last time. And we were asked to go meet with your staff to see if we can reach an agreement. We did reach an agreement. But like all good agreements, I think we all left that room feeling like we gave too much and didn't get enough, but we have an agreement. I think we're equally unhappy, which is the sign that it's probably a pretty fair agreement. So we're going to convey the right-of-way in phases. We're going to give or convey, at what we believe is a reduced value, the right-of-way for Rivergrass when this SRA becomes effective. We're going to provide a five-year reservation for the remainder of the right-of-way for Big Cypress Parkway for the county. We will convey in two more phases -- you know, we have two other villages that are in the process. January 28, 2020 Page 39 If those two villages are approved, we will convey those -- the right-of-way when the county wants it, again, at what we believe is a reduced value based upon two appraisals. If we withdraw them, the reservation stays in effect. And if the petitions are denied, the county will have the ability to acquire that right-of-way through its normal process. We don't plan on getting in the way of the county acquiring that right-of-way. The other issue that we agreed to through this agreement, and Bob will show you the details of that when he talks about the master plan, is we agreed to an interconnection of not only the north portion of the village and the south portion of the village, meaning that north of Oil Well Road, that south of Oil Well Road, we're going to interconnect those two portions of the village by our providing a traffic signal at the project entrance. Our concern was by interconnecting the north with the south without a controlled access, somebody could get hurt trying to cross the road. So we're going to build a signal within 12 months of obtaining the first certificate of occupancy so that the north portion of the village will be interconnected with the south portion of the village, and then also Bob will show you how we've agreed to interconnect Rivergrass Village with Longwater Village when it comes through the process. We've identity-ed where that interconnection will, in fact, occur. Those are the highlights of the landowner agreement. And if you have questions regarding that, we'll be happy to answer any of those questions. What we're here for as the main presentation is our SRA petition. And as Mr. Ochs mentioned, staff is recommending approval of our SRA petition with five conditions that are in your staff report. The first is the landowner agreement, which I just went over. Staff is recommending approval of that. Second is the January 28, 2020 Page 40 interconnections. I went over with that. Staff is in agreement with those connections. Prior to the issuance of the first Site Development Plan or plat, we'll have a listed management plan. We have no objections to that. The interlocal agreement for utilities, there's no objections to that. And then there were five minor revisions to the SRA document that we have no objections to. So we're sitting here in front of you today with a staff recommendation of approval of all four petitions. I would like to briefly go over the village itself and then the SRA process. I don't know if you can see the cursor. It's not moving too well. Here it is. Here is -- in the red box is Rivergrass Village. Thanks, Bob. The property is located on the western edge of the Rural Lands Stewardship District. It's adjacent to what is going to be also the Hyde Park SRA that you'll hear in the future. The total project size is 997.53 acres. With it is the SRA or SSA 15 for 5,253 acres. I went over that in detail just a few minutes ago. We're talking about up to 2,500 homes; 2.5 units per gross acre. We're going to have 105 acres of commercial and civic uses in the village center, which is right there. Bob will go into greater detail on that. We agreed that there would be five different retail uses within the village center to assure staff that there would be a mixture of needed uses for those people in the village center. We agreed to eight different uses, so we would be a shopping center, and that relates to one of the deviations we asked for in our application. The RLSA program has a long history. It started back in 1998 when my friend Nancy Payton and my friend B rad Cornell challenged the county's Comprehensive Plan and how it addresses wetlands and listed species. So back in 1998 both the Florida January 28, 2020 Page 41 Wildlife Federation and Audubon of Collier challenged the county's Comprehensive Plan stating that it didn't go far enough in protecting wetlands, listed species, and other issues. The county was prepared to do a dramatic downzoning of the properties out east, and we were basically on the brink of this long, extensive litigation. Fortunately, there was a final order issued by the governor in 2000 that basically said, put a hold, come up with a program to deal with the Rural Fringe Mixed Use District that you're familiar with and the eastern lands, which is the rural land stewardship area. And I've highlighted for you the guiding principles of that RLSA program. Those guiding principles were to, one, identify and propose measures to protect prime agricultural areas. That was the first guiding principle. The second guiding principle was to direct incompatible uses away from wetlands and upland habitat in order to protect water quality and quantity and maintain the natural water regime as well as to protect listed animal and plant species and their habitats, Guiding Principle No. 2. And, finally, Guiding Principle No. 3 was to assess the growth potential of the area by assessing the potential conversion of rural lands to other uses in appropriate locations while discouraging urban sprawl, directing incompatible land uses away from crucial habitat, and encouraging development that utilizes creative land-use planning techniques. And the final real guiding principle was public participation will be the hallmark to this planning effort. This was not to be a landowner-driven program. It was not to be an environmental-group driven program. It was to be a program driven by everybody to come up with a program that would work and meet those three guiding principles. We went through two years of a process to come up with appropriate Growth Management Plan policies and objectives to January 28, 2020 Page 42 make that happen. The Rural Lands Stewardship Area addresses 195,000 acres, roughly 300 square miles, of Collier County. Bob was on county staff and a county consultant at that time. There were many, many, many meetings that involved all of the stakeholders to come up with this program. It took over two years to come up with that program. One of the benefits of the Rural Lands Stewardship Area is it had a limited number of property owners. So you had roughly 11 major property owners. The state was one of them. They got together with the other stakeholders to come up with a program. Some of those landowners had property that, when I show you the map, would be SSA, Stewardship Sending Area property. Others had what was open areas where development can occur. They reached an agreement on a program that would protect the more sensitive lands and transfer those development rights to the areas that basically are farm fields and active agricultural right now. It was a program that the landowners said we want to have the voluntary program that we want to participate in, and we're going to help meet those goals and objectives, those guiding principles that were set forth in the final order. The citizen committee made its recommendation for the Rural Land Stewardship overlay that is in both your Growth Management Plan first and into your Land Development Code, and I'll go through some of those principles and requirements. But what's important is the program was supported by all of the stakeholders. And I want to read to you what those stakeholders said at the adoption hearing that occurred on October 22nd, 2002, almost 18 years ago. What did they say? And I know Nancy's here, and I think she's registered to speak. But what Nancy said was, we appreciate the willingness and the responsiveness of county representatives and the Eastern Collier January 28, 2020 Page 43 Property Owners to address our concerns. The three -year rural planning effort has ended as a final order directed as a collaborative community planning effort. It started out pretty bitter, but it sure has ended rather sweetly with all of us agreeing to the same plan. And I think this, in a large part -- and I think this is, in a large part, due to the commission and your encouragement that people communicate and they sit around the table. And I want to -- I want to express again my appreciation personally and on behalf of my organization of each one of you, and I urge you to adopt this plan; move it on so we can get busy writing the Land Development Code and implementing this landmark plan. Thank you. It is, in fact, a landmark plan. It found its way into the Florida Statutes to be a -- to be an example for what other communities can implement when having rural lands in their program. Brad Cornell stated, we are very supportive of the Rural Lands Stewardship Area overlay amendments that you have before you. We are all going to have to watch how these new policies, which are very innovative and very creative, how they are implemented and how they actually work on the ground, not just in theory, but that's going to be hopefully a very productive process, and we look forward to that, the writing of the LDC amendments that go with this. We've been surprised at the positive results of this kind of cooperative conservation and community planning, and we look forward to more of this. This is indeed, as Commissioner Carter pointed out, a model for how we would like to do things when we have big issues. You know, everybody has their say, everybody has their chips on the table, and we come to terms that are agreeable to everyone. No one wins everything they want and, unfortunately, we have to recognize that. But we're very supportive of this, these results, and we recommend adoption. Thank you. Those are the t wo who started January 28, 2020 Page 44 the whole -- the whole process and came to agreement. And then, finally, the Conservancy. They didn't want to be bested by their other partners. And Gary Davis says, I can't let my colleagues be the only ones to support this. And he goes on and says, no, I'll be brief, because I did meet with a couple of you last week and shared some concerns that we still had. And I wanted to make it clear that those concerns have been worked out, and we now feel that we can fully support the plan as it's come to you today. It's a dramatic improvement from what we saw back at transmittal time. Through the efforts of the DCA and through the efforts of the various parties who have been negotiating this over the last week, we did some hard work to get where we are today. And as Brad said, not everybody got what they wanted, but I think we're in good support of this plan as it's coming forward, and we urge you to adopt it today. That's what the plan -- that's what the Conservancy said back in 2002. They were fully aware of what the program was, they were fully aware of whatever changes were made between transmittal and adoption, and they were fully aware that what they spent some time in that workshop talking about is caps on development land were not part of program. They were also fully aware of the restoration program and how it was adopted. The Conservancy, in 2002, was at the table and agreed to the program that is in front of you today that was a result of landowners and other stakeholders sitting at the table and working out a deal. We're here honoring the deal, and we'll take you through how we continue to honor that deal today. How does the RLSA program work? As I mentioned, the old program would have been one home every five acres. You would have had ranchettes. You had septic systems. You would have had all the things that nobody wants as a program. That's your baseline January 28, 2020 Page 45 program. It still exists today. You can develop under the baseline, or you can participate in a program where you consolidate development into a smaller area, a more compact area, and put area into preservation through the SSA process. On your screen you can see where Rivergrass Village is located. It's in the black. It is 997 acres in the pink area. The pink area is the open area. It is where -- and we'll show you it's basically farm fields and crop production. That's where development's supposed to go. And then in exchange for that, we're supposed to establish Stewardship Sending Areas, which I briefly mentioned ab out SSA 15, which is also being amended to strip more layers and provide for restoration. The credits are the currency. You exchange eight credits for each acre of development, and that's the program that we're going through. It results in higher density and more compact area. It results in roughly five acres of preservation for every one acre of development that happens on the property. The program has very specific design criteria. In your Comprehensive Plan is Attachment C; it discusses the four stewardship receiving options that you can have under this program. The first is a town; Town of Ave Maria. The second option is a village between 100 and 1,000 acres. The very specific criteria are up here on the visualizer -- I'm sorry, up here on your screen. Bob will take you through how we meet each and every one of these criteria. Then you have a hamlet, which is between 40 and 100 acres, then, finally, you have a compact rural development. Bob is going to take you, I said, through the details of how we satisfy all of these growth management provisions. Your Land Development Code also has very detailed design criteria for villages. They're on the screen. There are requirements January 28, 2020 Page 46 that we provide for retail and office and civic. We meet all of those requirements. Bob will show you how we do that. There's a requirement for recreation and open space. We'll show you how we exceed all of those requirements. We meet or exceed everything in your Growth Management Plan and in your Land Development Code, and your staff agrees we meet your Growth Management Plan and your Land Development Code requirements. Now, through this hearing process, my term, there were some what we believe are myths that have been talked about through this review process. There's a myth, in our opinion, that walkability equals one-quarter of a mile. The reality is, you have to look at what does your Growth Management Plan actually say about villages and how pedestrians and bicyclists are to be addressed. Your code, both your Land Development Code and your Growth Management Plan, contain exactly the same provisions. Villages provide for walkability through an interconnected sideway and pathway system connecting all of the residential neighborhoods. I'm going to read to you part of the policy. It says, villages are primarily residential communities with a diversity of housing types and mix of uses appropriate to the scale and character to that particular village. It's not one size fits all. You look at a village-by-village analysis. They're not less than a 100 acres or more than 1,000 acres. They comprise of residential neighborhoods and shall include a mixed-use village center to serve as the focal point for the community support services and facilities. Villages shall be de signed to encourage pedestrian and bicycle circulation by including an interconnect sidewalk and pathway system serving all residential neighborhoods. We provide that. We provide sidewalks on both sides of the street connecting all of the residential neighborhoods, and they connect all January 28, 2020 Page 47 the way to the village center. We address both your Growth Management Plan requirements for pedestrians and bicyclists and your Land Development Code provisions for pedestrians and bicyclists. The next myth that we believe was discussed at the Planning Commission and at your workshop was that villages must provide affordable housing. We went through a rather lengthy discussion about the DRI process that used to be around that basically went away in 2011, and the rural lands stewardship program is not a DRI review criteria. But what wasn't -- what was represented was that there was no need to provide affordable housing provisions in your Growth Management Plan because you had a DRI review process. But you actually do have affordable housing provisions in your Growth Management Plan and your Land Development Code related to Stewardship Receiving Areas. And for both -- for all of the different SRA types, you get your -- you get your base density, which is up to four units per acre, which I showed you on Attachment C. If you want to go above that, you voluntarily participate in the county's affordable housing density bonus program that is in your Future Land Use Element. So you always contemplated that affordable housing was going to be a voluntary program to get increased density, and that's how the program was always intended to work and how it was included in both your Future Land Use Element under Policy 4.7 and your Land Development Code. And the very first introductory paragraph of the provisions applying to Stewardship Receiving Areas, which is 4.08.07, that introductory paragraph again refers to using the density bonus program to get increased density. And then right above the table that I showed you about the design criteria in reference to one to four units as base density, it again says, to go above four units an acre, January 28, 2020 Page 48 you have to participate in the affordable housing density program. There was no mandate or requirement that affordable housing be part of an SRA approval process. There was also comments that somehow if this project was approved, it would be the only project in the last two decades, I think were the words, that didn't address affordable housing. I knew that not to be true, because I had done a few projects in the last couple of decades. In fact, I think I did the last DRI in Collier County in 2011 which was the Hacienda Lakes DRI, and the Hacienda Lakes DRI is on Collier Boulevard by Rattlesnake Hammock. It was approved for 1,760 units and 587,000 and change square feet of retail and office development. Pretty large project. It was a DRI. No affordable housing commitment required for that project to be approved. Sabal Bay PUD in 2012, 1,999 dwelling units, 182,000 square feet of retail and office. Not a DRI. But most people would say that's a large project, probably comparable to what is before you today. No affordable housing. 2014, Town of Ave Maria, 11,000 dwelling units, 1.2 million square feet of commercial and industrial. On the very day we added 600,000 square feet of industrial to that project, the DRI was rescinded, and the affordable -- affordable housing requirements were removed from that project. So those are three fairly recent projects where affordable housing was not a requirement. So it's a myth that it is required to be provided as part of this project. So where are we today about a program that was approved in 2002? And we're at basically 2020 if I got that right. It's almost 18 years. You have one approved SRA, one, and that's roughly 5,000 acres for the Town of Ave Maria which includes the university as well as the residential and commercial development for 11,000 units. I would say the program has worked. There hasn't been the January 28, 2020 Page 49 premature conversion of all these farm fields to become residential development. You have four projects that are winding their way through right now, four villages, for another 3,600 acres. It's not been a run to the "let's develop and convert all this agricultural land." And what do you have in exchange for that roughly 8,650 acres? You have 55,000 acres in SSAs. That's over five to one. That's a pretty good program. Has the program worked? It has worked. You have what is important -- and Bob will show you the slide on how these SSAs all work together to preserve those important corridors for water flow, wetlands, and for listed species. The program as it was envisioned is working. We are consistent with that program. We meet all the requirements of that program. Bob will take you through the details of how our specific project meets those requirements, and then we'll have Ken Passarella take you through some of the environmental comments, and then we'll open it up to questions. But you always have the ability to ask questions at any time. So if you have questions you want to ask now -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Let's hold on. MR. YOVANOVICH: -- I'd be happy to answer them, or we move on to Bob. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Mr. Chair? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yes. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: We have three hours of public comment, and a lot of those folks in this room are standing or may be out in the hallway. Can we not create an overflow room so at least they have the ability to sit? It's a long, long meeting. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Well, if staff could look into that. Mr. Mulhere. MR. OCHS: Sir, I'm sorry. We do have an overflow room January 28, 2020 Page 50 that's already set up and available on the fifth floor of this building. There's also chairs in the hallway that are set up and available. You can hear the -- you can hear the meeting out there and monitor it on the TVs. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Mr. Mulhere. MR. MULHERE: Thank you. For the record, Bob Mulhere here on behalf of Collier Enterprises, the applicant. Before I start with my presentation, which is fairly brief, I did want to just remind you of my role in the development of this RLSA program. Back in 1997 when the GMP amendments were originally adopted that then got challenged, I was the director of planning. I was in that position through 2001. That's back when I had a full head of hair. I left the county in 2001 but was engaged by county to continue in my role as the lead planning consultant for the RLSA for both the rural fringe and the RLSA programs, and I did that all the way through the LDC amendment process; somewhere in the range of seven years of direct involvement and oversight in the process. So I share that with you so that you understand that when I go through this process and provide professional commentary with respect to consistency with the Comp Plan or the LDC, I speak with direct involvement in that process and in the creation of that process. You know, the Board back, I think, 1999, it may have been 2000, they created an oversight committee, a significant-sized oversight committee. There were 14 members on that oversight committee, and some left and some were exchanged. That committee had 30 public meetings all advertised with direct participation by all of the stakeholder groups who were engaged in this process. Florida Wildlife Federation, Collier County Audubon, now Audubon of the Western Everglades, and the Conservancy. In fact, the Conservancy actually had then David Guggenheim on the committee as well as January 28, 2020 Page 51 others. There were another 20 or 30 stakeholder meetings outside of the specific committee meetings. So when the final order said public participation is the hallmark of this program, the county took it seriously. There were literally 60 or 70 public meetings. So what you have before you is a summary, as Rich indicated that I would go over, regarding the Rivergrass Village. It's 997.53 acres. As you can see on the aerial -- I'm going to try to change the color here. This village you can see clearly has an active agricultural production for many, many years; f arm fields. The RLSA program has a -- your Comprehensive Plan has a policy that says if any of that property scores higher than 1.2 on the Natural Resource Index, which Ken Passarella will go over in a few minutes, then those acres have to be preserved in open space, in its natural condition. This project does not have -- it has zero acres of -- that score higher than 1.2 on the Natural Resource Index. None of this property is located within the area of critical state concern, which is further east and south. There are no Flowway Stewardship Areas, FSAs, or Habitat Stewardship Areas, HSAs, within this property. There are no water resource areas directly within the boundary of the RLSA. They are on the borders. As you probably note to the north and to the east and to the south, all of those lands are zoned agriculture with a mobile home overlay, and they all fall under the Rural Lands Stewardship Area overlay. To the west is estates-zoned land, but now there will be a public roadway, Big Cypress Parkway, abutting the project to the west. This is a fairly busy slide, but I'll go over it, you know, slowly. The RLSA program requires two context zones: Neighborhood January 28, 2020 Page 52 general and a mixed-use village center, and the Rivergrass SRA provides those two context zones. Villages, as Rich said, are primarily a residential community, which is true of Rivergrass Village. We are asking for a maximum of 2,500 units, which is 2.5 units per acre. That density's comparable to the City of Naples from a -- for a perspective. We have committed to a minimum of 250 units of multifamily which is the statutorily, and by your code, defined as three or more units connected. A minimum of 125 of those units will be north of Oil Well Road, and a minimum will be south of Oil Well Ro ad, which goes on the requirement that the village center be the intense area and that as you move outward from the village center, you reduce intensity a continuum until you reach the edges of the project, which would be the lowest intensity, which is how this project is designed. We do provide a variety of -- by the way, all of those multifamily units have to be within a half mile of the village center to further promote that policy. We do include a variety of housing options, including single-family detached, single-family attached and, as I said, multifamily. Our village center is centrally located and is the focal point of the community's goods and services. It's also located to provide those goods and services to the surrounding community, which was part of the intent of the RLSA program. We are -- there's a formula in your Comprehensive Plan and in your LDC which requires you to calculate based on the number of dwelling units within your village, the square footage that's required of neighborhood goods and services. We are required to provide a minimum of 62,500. And we asked for -- we will provide the minimum, and we may provide up to 80,000 square feet. January 28, 2020 Page 53 You are also required to provide a minimum, using the formula in the code, of civic, government, and institutional uses. And for us, that is 25,000 square feet, which we've committed to. Our -- as Rich said, our utilities, as part of the developer agreement, will be served by Collier County Water and Sewer District, and we have committed to a five-acre utility site which is right there in the event that the county needs it. The village includes an 18-hole bundled golf course which will be open to the public. The RLSA requires a minimum of 35 percent open space for villages. For us that translates to just under 350 acres. And we are providing five hundred and seven -- almost 572 acres or 57 percent open space. Along our eastern boundary, there are WRAs located there, which is Water Retention Areas, historic farm Water Retention Areas, that were mapped and addressed as part of the development of this process. And we've created an innovative perimeter lake system which is designed for stormwater management purposes and for wildlife habitat and as a buffer. And this is allowed in both your LDC and GMP. As you can see, that runs sort of along the eastern boundary here. We have a trip cap, as all projects of this type now are required to have, coming before you, which is the overriding limit on intensity, and our trip cap is 1,978 p.m. peak-hour net external two-way trips. As Rich mentioned previously, we've been deemed fiscally neutral by the county staff review and by an independent third-party reviewer. So there was discussions about innovation, and I would say at the outset that the RLSA program is highly innovative. It's innovative just in the development of it, the process of creating and mapping flowways, Habitat Stewardship Areas, Flowway Stewardship Areas, Water Retention Areas, protecting those areas, January 28, 2020 Page 54 providing for a voluntary program that allows the county to realize, and the residents of Collier County to realize significantly increased protection on critical habitat and water retention areas and water -- stormwater areas and water-quality areas through a voluntary program that sets those aside and reduces the allowable land uses to a method of protection. So it's a very innovative program and, as Rich said, it was later on mirrored and adopted in state statutes for other communities to use who have significant rural areas. But our Rivergrass Village SRA adds to that innovation, not only by complying or exceeding these requirements -- and we do meet all of the minimums and, in many cases, exceed them by providing goods and services to Eastern Collier County in the surrounding areas as well, not just the village, which will change travel patterns; by limiting the highest intensity of multifamily as well as -- to be located within a half mile of the village center boundary and reducing the density along the neighborhood edge; as I indicated, by using that perimeter water buffer to discourage wildlife from entering residential areas. We are providing the latest in technology as part of the package for development of the homes and commercial entities within the village, including smart thermostats, door locks, wireless access points, video doorbells, and so on and so forth. We are also providing a system of neighborhood parks, including over 57 percent open space, which significantly exceeds the 35 percent requirement, and miles of pedestrian-friendly sidewalks. We will provide education for the residents regarding living with wildlife and the potential use of prescribed burns for conservation of lands that may be near us. Significant reduction in water use when compared to the agricultural use that historically has existed on this property, which January 28, 2020 Page 55 benefit everybody, and providing central sewer and water in rural Eastern Collier County not only for this project, but as that system is put in place, it can provide those services for other and future projects. Rich mentioned the interconnection. This was a significant issue of discussion at the Planning Commission. And it's a little bit hard for you to see. I'm going to highlight it. Right here is an interconnection between Rivergrass and Long Water Village. So residents of Long Water can access Rivergrass Village and vice versa both using vehicles or cycling pedestrians. So that interconnection is now in place. There is another interconnection I want to mention that folks who live on the north side of Oil Well can access the south side of Oil Well and the village center; they can do that two ways. They can do that by using Big Cypress Parkway, but they can also do that, and particularly for pedestrians in a very safe way, as Rich indicated, within 12 months of -- I'm not sure what the trigger mechanism is, but there will be a signalized intersection here at our main entrance so it's safe for pedestrians and cyclists to cross from the north into the south. This slide, I think, is very, very important. It shows the wildlife and flowway corridor. There are two significant corridors in the RLSA. Camp Keais Strand is Okaloacoochee Slough, if I pronounced that right. So Camp Keais Strand is shown right here, and there's a significant volume of historic water flowing through that system, which over time has been reduced in its width in certain locations, and part of this process of creating these Stewardship Sending Areas is to ensure that this flowway will be protected and in some cases restored to allow for the continuation of the Camp Keais Strand to function for wildlife and water. This process of creating these thousands of acres of Stewardship January 28, 2020 Page 56 Sending Areas where various levels of land uses are removed is -- and I think Brad Cornell has spoke to this issue at the workshop you had. It's far more effective than small little preserve areas that are not connected that do not provide benefit -- significant benefit or as much benefit to habitat. And just -- not to be misconstrued, this historic -- these areas of historic agricultural sitting adjacent to natural areas provides significant habitat value, and that's recognized. Approximately $850,000 of funding will be generated to protect panthers and enhance wildlife habitat through the Florida Protection Program. That is known as the Marinelli fund for Paul Marinelli. I just want to make sure I got everything. So, you know, the example here of preserving 5,253 acres, which is over five times the size of the SRA and no accost to taxpayers, when juxtaposed against Conservation Collier spending 104 million on 4,400 acres. Now, I'm not suggesting that that wasn't appropriate. I'm sure that it was. And it's significant for the -- for this county and this community to do that. I'm just saying this particular voluntary program provides you with benefit at no cost to the taxpayers. So this slide -- and Rich mentioned I'd go over those requirements. I'm going to not -- I'm not going to be repetitive. We talked about the size. We fall within the size. We fall within the allowable density. We provided diversity of single-family and multiple family housing types, styles, lot sizes. We are limited to a floor area ratio within the village center for retail and office of 3.5, a floor area ratio of .6 applies to civic governmental institutional uses. This is a limitation above and beyond the square footage limitations that we agreed to. It has to do with design when you think about a floor area ratio. I talked about the civic -- 25 square feet per gross -- of gross building area for each dwelling unit, and the commercial. So, again, January 28, 2020 Page 57 25,000 for the civic and 62,5- to 80,000 for the neighborhood goods and services. I talked about a centralized wastewater system, which is significant. We provide significant parks, public green spaces. The requirement is 1 percent. We will meet that. We will exceed that. We've got over 200 acres of lakes. And an interconnected system of collector and local roads, required connection to Collier arterial and interconnected sidewalk and pathway systems, and this master plan has been designed to be consistent with those provisions. I'll show you the master plan one more time. And we haven't requested any deviation from these overriding commitments. Let me just go back to the master plan. So all of these roadways have sidewalks on both sides of the street, and they are all connected so that folks can walk or cycle or drive, it is their choice throughout the villages, and now, again, we are interconnected to the proposed Long Water Village. At this point, I'd like to ask Ken Passarella to briefly come up and briefly discuss the NRI. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Let me urge the petitioner, we've been very liberal in terms of time, but we do need to move things along. So if you could help us out on that. MR. MULHERE: Sorry. I would have put this on if I realized it wasn't on there. Just give me one second to load this. It's in. Good. I got technical assistance. MR. YOVANOVICH: Mr. Chairman, with your recent -- I have a feeling that your staff is going to cover some of what Mr. Passarella was going to speak about. So I know Ken's disappointed, but we're going to skip Ken. If we feel we need to supplement it during a latter portion, we'll go ahead and do that. If you'll indulge, I'll just go right to the conclusion slide, and then we'll open it up for questions. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you. January 28, 2020 Page 58 MR. YOVANOVICH: That would require me -- okay. Briefly, just to repeat myself a little bit is, your staff has found us consistent with both the Growth Management Plan and Land Development Code. The landowner has agreed to all of the staff conditions of approval. We're requesting that you approve the four petitions, which is the SRA, the placement to the SSA 15, the interlocal agreement with the water/sewer district. The landowner agreement -- and there's some really important provisions that I want to highlight again about that. At the workshop there was a question of, you know, why Big Cypress Parkway, is this a developer road, and it was clear it's not. It's a road that eliminates the county need to widen Everglades Boulevard to six lanes. It's a road that eliminates the county's need to widen DeSoto Boulevard to six lanes. In reality the county will be saving money by building Big Cypress Parkway. It will also save the county a lot of time and, frankly, the residents a lot of headaches of having their driveways torn up while you're building roads that are serving residences. So Big Cypress Parkway is a big benefit through this landowner agreeing to work with the county to see that happen. And that plays into another myth that seems to come about is that growth doesn't pay for growth. Well, that's not true. Look at the specific project. Collier Enterprises, through the establishment of the Big Cypress Stewardship District, has already conveyed to the county right-of-way for Oil Well Road and water management for that right-of-way at no cost to Collier County. Collier Enterprises is going to convey county road right-of-way for Immokalee Road and associated water management at no cost to Collier County. That's growth doing above and beyond. It's paying for above and beyond its impact. January 28, 2020 Page 59 Rivergrass is estimated to generate almost $59 million in impact fees under today's calculation; 17 million of that is transportation-related impact fees. Growth is paying for growth. Rivergrass is estimated to generate annual tax revenue of $10 million. As I mentioned before, Big Cypress Parkway is valued at a reduced -- reduced cost. We're going to evaluate it as if development wasn't allowed on the property. And the project was analyzed by not only our consultant but your staff and a third-party reviewer to show that we are fiscally neutral. Growth is paying for growth. I neglected to mention earlier in our presentation, it's hard to put our village center in scale because, you know, it looks kind of small on the master plan, but the reality -- a couple of projects that probably put it in perspective. Courthouse Shadows is about 100,000, 105,000 square feet of shopping center. Venetian Village is about 100,000 square feet of retail, office, and restaurants. Kings Lake, I don't know the exact -- Kings Lake is 89,000 square feet of shopping center. And all of those shopping centers not only will serve our residents but will serve residents in Golden Gate Estates with much needed services which, again, will reduce the amount of traffic back to the west because they'll be able to go east to obtain -- to go eat dinner, to go shopping for groceries, and all that. This project is more than paying for itself, meets all of the -- all of the requirements of your Land Development Code, exceeds requirements of your Land Development Code, and is a benefit to the community out east and is, in fact, the vision that your Growth Management Plan has when it recognized that villages were a legitimate form of development in the Rural Lands Stewardship Area. And with that, we're requesting that the Board of County Commissioners approve -- oh, sorry. One recordkeeping. We noticed that after the initial packet that went to you guys in January 28, 2020 Page 60 December, somehow there was a glitch and some of -- the older version of the SRA didn't get carried forward. There were a couple of changes that we just want to show you on the record real quickly. They were in the packet for December 10th. For some reason they didn't make it into today's package. So it's in the record, but we just want to go through those real briefly. Thank you, Bob, for reminding me. It won't take us long, but we want to get that on the record. MR. MULHERE: And -- is that on? Yes. Most of these I already discussed. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I was going to say, if you've already discussed them -- MR. MULHERE: There's a couple that I didn't. I don't know. I defer to the -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: The first one here you've discussed, I believe. MR. MULHERE: Yes. And I'll go through them very quickly. This is the limitation of the 125 and so on so forth. These on this page -- excuse me. These changes were -- and all of these changes were directed by the Planning Commission or staff. I believe this eliminated clubhouses and amenity centers as an accessory use because it's a permitted use, so we took out these neighborhood recreation as permitted use because it's an accessory use. So nothing significant there. Just a reference to a footnote. And staff had requested a minimum front yard 12 feet so we would avoid any conflict with utilities. We provided that. We discussed this. It's the minimum of eight retail or office uses. Same thing there. This is also the same footnote reference as well as the 12-foot front yard setback. This -- your LDC requires a fairly substantial January 28, 2020 Page 61 land-use analysis to determine whether parking calculations are appropriate for the land-use mix. The problem is, we don't know what the land-use mix is, so it's hard to do that analysis. It requires it at the time that you submit the SRA, which I think was probably not well thought out. So at this point, staff agrees that it's more appropriate for us to do that analysis when we know a land-use mix when we come in for the village center. And so I had put it in the SRA document, and staff suggested it needed to be a deviation. So we moved it to a deviation. And so there were some minor additional changes to several of the deviations as directed by -- or at least one of them. That's it. That's all the changes. Thank you. MR. YOVANOVICH: Now we're available for questions. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. Let me ask the Commission if you would have any desire to hear our staff position and then get into the questions. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I would prefer to do that. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Any objection to doing that? COMMISSIONER FIALA: What is it? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We're going to hear our staff presentation, and then we'll get into questions. Okay. We're ready for our staff presentation. MR. YOVANOVICH: I'll get out of your way. MS. GUNDLACH: Good morning, Commissioners. For the record, I'm Nancy Gundlach, and I'm a Principal Planner with the Zoning Department. And with me this morning we have a team of our subject-matter experts, and they include Comprehensive Planning is led by David Weeks; Transportation Planning by Trinity Scott; Environmental Review by Jamie Cook; and Community Human Services by Cormac January 28, 2020 Page 62 Giblin; Public Utilities will be led by Eric Fey; and then I'll close with the staff conditions of approval. And with that, if -- also, if you have any questions about -- related to the fiscal analysis, Amy Patterson is with us here as well. And with that, we have David Weeks to talk about Comprehensive Planning. MR. WEEKS: Good morning, Commissioners. David Weeks, Growth Management Manager in your Comprehensive Planning Section. I just have one slide but quite a few words to say. First of all, and foremost, staff does find the Rivergrass SRA to be consistent with the Comprehensive Plan or Growth Management Plan, the Future Land Use Element requirements. As we discussed at the workshop last week, there are very specific requirements for any SRA to comply with. These are numerical standards, a certain number of square feet of commercial development per dwelling unit, as an example, a minimum and maximum size range for an SRA, density ra nge, et cetera. All of those absolute requirements including certain land uses that are required to be in an SRA. All of those are provided for. However, in staff's opinion, this SRA does not fully meet the intent of the RLSA program. There are numerous policies within Group 4 of the RLSA overlay and the Future Land Use Element. These address certain what I call design elements, though they're not all a matter of design of the SRA, but I'll call them that, pertains to compactness, housing diversity, walkability, mixture of uses, density and intensity gradient within the project and so forth. These tend to work together, these design elements. If a project is more compact, if it has a grid street system, then by default it's going to tend to be meeting that intent to have the density and intensity gradient. Walkability, I want to talk about a few minutes, is synonymous, January 28, 2020 Page 63 I would say, with walk appeal. It is more than just providing sidewalks. And I want to give a couple of extreme examples. These are not applicable to this SRA. I just want to get the picture in your head. I want you to picture Davis Boulevard near U.S. 41. Six-lane divided highway, speed limit of 45 miles per hour, no shade trees, sidewalk is adjacent to the curb. You are inches from the travel lanes. And the view that you see walking along there is primarily commercial parking lots, many of which are old, don't have trees within them, no shade trees along the road. That's what -- in doing some research, what one planning person would refer to as un-walkable. No one would walk there unless their car broke down. Point being, unless you had to. You had no choice. Contrast that in the other -- towards the extreme would be Pelican Bay Boulevard and Vineyards Boulevard sidewalks, four-lane divided roadway, but you have a speed limit of 30 or 35 miles per hour. You have street trees. You have a changing view as you're walking along. Different architect, different vegetation, sometimes seeing a lake. Again, that all ties into walk appeal. And the sidewalk, of course, is far removed from the roadway itself. So walk appeal, which would be appealing to a person to walk on is more than just whether or not there's a sidewalk in existence. Walkability, there is a quarter-mile rule of thumb, and it's just that, a rule of thumb. First off, there are some people that if they live right next door to the destination, they would still drive, and there are other people that live a mile away, and they'll still walk. There are extremes. And going back to the walk appeal, some people would walk maybe a half mile because it's more appealing; not, again, a rigid quarter-mile dimension. And in context, the walkability in that quarter-mile rule of January 28, 2020 Page 64 thumb is to a destination. We're not talking about somebody out for exercise, for example, where they may walk or run for miles. We're talking about a destination such as going to a park or other amenity center, going to a bus stop, going to a grocery store, going to some other specific destination to have a purpose to go there and then -- and presumably return back to their residence. Walkability means a safe, comfortable, and convenient environment in which to walk. And, again, walkability fits in with some of these other design elements. Compactness. There are no constraints that staff is aware of for this SRA to prevent them from having a grid street system. This is greenfield development. No reason that the lakes that are located throughout the residential area close to Oil Well Road could not be pushed further out and then move the single-family residential closer to Oil Well Road, closer to the village center on the south side of the road, and also provide more multifamily dwelling units and also within and closer to the village center itself. The location of the village center itself, staff recognizes certain constraints about this project. Oil Well Road is there. They either had the choice of creating two separate villages or creating one. So we have to acknowledge Oil Well Road is there and it probably wouldn't make sense to do two separate villages cutting the acreage more or less in half. Part of the reason would be the amount of commercial that you would be required to provide would be so small that staff at least suspects that it wouldn't be economically viable. And, secondly, we have to recognize the shape of this property and that -- that is relevant to the design. But back to the walkability quarter-mile rule of thumb. Staff is not suggesting that every residence has to be within a quarter mile. This is like a gradient. You'll put the most people you can within that rule of thumb of a quarter mile. We're not saying everyone has to be. January 28, 2020 Page 65 The provision of affordable housing, clearly it is not a requirement. There is no absolute, but that diversity of housing as you think back to the workshop that Cormac spoke about -- and will speak about some today -- we think it would be appropriate if they did provide some. It is something that is encouraged. It is something that will be desirable from the county staff's perspective. And, Commissioners, I think with that I'm done with my portion. Yes. Thank you. MS. COOK: Good morning. Jamie Cook, Principal Environmental Specialist with Development Review. So as we discussed last week at the workshop, the purpose and intent of the RLSA is kind of threefold: To protect agricultural lands and prevent the premature conversion of those lands to nonagricultural uses; to direct incompatible uses away from wetland and upland habitats; and to enable the conversion of rural lands to other uses in appropriate locations. In order to accomplish these goals, the RLSA lands were categorized as lands that should be protected in areas where development could occur. Stewardship sending area lands are lands in which owners voluntarily give up development rights in order to obtain credits. These lands are typically considered environmentally sensitive and should be protected. Stewardship Receiving Areas are lands considered appropriate for development and use credits to entitle that development. An applicant -- when an applicant comes in for either an SSA or an SRA, they must submit a Natural Resource Index assessment. The NRI Assessment consists of six factors which attempts to reflect the environmental value of the land. It's not solely intended for listed species protection. Each factor is scored based on current LDC regulations, and January 28, 2020 Page 66 then an overall score is obtained on an acre-by-acre basis. Any lands that score over a 1.2 should be retained as open space. With respect to Rivergrass, each of these six NRI factors were reviewed. With stewardship designation, no lands within the Rivergrass boundary are designated as Flow-way Stewardship Areas, Habitat Stewardship Areas, Water Retention Areas, or are within the area of critical state concern. So every acre of land received a score of zero for this particular factor. For the proximity index, no lands are enclosed by an FSA or HSA, and none are within feet of an FSA, HSA, or any public or private conservation lands. So, again, it -- the entire boundary scored a zero for this factor. For listed species habitat, this factor is scored based on habitats listed as preferred or tolerated for that particular listed species and the documented observation of occurrence of that species within that habitat. Within the Rivergrass boundary, only Sandhill Cranes were observed in their preferred habitat in the northern portion of the Rivergrass boundary, which equates to the bluish/purple color on the map that you're looking at. Soils are classified based on the USDA natural resources conservation soils maps and Water Management District classifications. Scores ranged from a zero to a 0.3 with most of the land within the boundary being non-hydric soil and scoring a value of zero. Restoration potential, again, as I mentioned last week, is only used for lands that are being designated SSAs. So all of the land within this boundary received a score of zero for restoration potential as well. And, finally, land-use land cover looks at the vegetation on the site. Most of this site consists of active ag lands in terms of January 28, 2020 Page 67 vegetation and receives a score of 0.2 for, again, most of the boundary. Upon staff analysis of the GIS data in -- provided by the applicant in one-acre grids as well as field verification of the site by staff, we agree with the applicant's assessment that each acre scores below a 1.2 on the NRI Assessment and is appropriate for development. With that, I will turn it over to Cormac. MR. GIBLIN: Thank you. Good morning. For the record, Cormac Giblin, your Housing Operations and Grant Development Manager. I wanted to put up for the Commission the standard of review that we use when reviewing a SRA application. And I'll bring your attention to the very last line on the page from your Land Development Code, it says that an SRA must offer a range of housing types and price levels to accommodate diverse ages and incomes. How does this proposal stack up? Well, the only information we have to go on is taken from the applicant's economic analysis, and in that they state that they'll do -- or they plan on doing about 186 units with a sales value of $272,000 a unit and another 1,414 units with a sales value of $394,000 per unit. In their assessment, they state that this sales value is 41 percent higher than the county's median value. The submission offers no other details on how the affordability standards would be maintained. Those are market-rate prices. It offers no guarantee that those prices will even remain in effect. It is up to you as the Board to decide if that level of detail and commitment meets the test of offering a range of housing types and price levels to accommodate diverse ages and income. Again, it was spoken about at the workshop last week. That is a policy decision made by the Board to determine if what the applicant is proposing to January 28, 2020 Page 68 do meets your individual test of providing that range of housing types and price levels. And with that, I'll turn it over to Eric. MR. FEY: Good morning, Commissioners. For the record, Principal Project Manager, Eric Fey, Public Utilities, Engineering, and Project Management Division. I'm going to be very brief. We have one slide to present to you. Just an update with our northeast service area expa nsion project. The map you see on screen shows the routes that we've designated to get potable water, wastewater, and irrigation quality water services to the various villages in the northeast service area. Construction is underway. And we anticipate completion by the end of the fiscal year, which will provide services to Rivergrass in accordance with the interlocal agreement. That is a companion item to this agenda item that you'll be hearing concurrently. With that, I'll turn it over to the next speaker. MS. GUNDLACH: Staff has a list of conditions of approval, and they're the same list that was provided in your executive summary in the staff report. They're related to the landowner contribution agreement, listed species management plan, interlocal agreement, and SRA document. If you'd like for me to read the list to you, it would be my pleasure. And here it is. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I don't think you need to read that to us. MS. GUNDLACH: Okay. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We have that in our packet. MS. GUNDLACH: Yes. Okay. That concludes our presentation. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. That concludes the staff presentation? MS. GUNDLACH: Yes, it does. January 28, 2020 Page 69 MR. OCHS: Hold on. We have one more, sir. MS. SCOTT: For the record, Trinity Scott, Transportation Planning Manager. I will go quickly through the landowner contribution agreement. We have some visuals as far as the right-of-way goes. Just a brief review about the Big Cypress Stewardship district. It was developed 2003 and ultimately approved by the legislature in 2004. Collier Enterprises has previously donated the right-of-way for Oil Well Road, which they had committed to during that time, and the landowner contribution agreement addresses Immokalee Road as well as other roadways, Big Cypress Parkway, that have since been identified in the Long Range Transportation Plan. So this is just the entire Big Cypress Stewardship District, and these business points in this development agreement is a little different than what was in your packet in December. On January 8th, the County Manager's Office, County Attorney's Office, and myself, met with the applicant, and I will go quickly through the agreement business points. The first is, is that the landowner will donate the right-of-way and water management necessary for Immokalee Road, which was consistent with what was previously committed. The landowner will construct a traffic signal within one year of the first certificate of occupancy along Oil Well Road. They shall not seek a traffic signal along Big Cypress Parkway within one-half mile of the intersections of Randall Boulevard, Oil Well Road, Vanderbilt Beach Road extension, or Golden Gate Boulevard. This allows us to maintain Big Cypress Parkway as an arterial roadway with limited access to it. In addition, they'll also pay $170,000 towards operational improvements as identified in their Transportation Impact Statement. With regard to interconnectivity, the applicant has already January 28, 2020 Page 70 discussed -- Mr. Mulhere indicated where they will be providing an interconnection. In addition to that, as the applicant stated, they will also provide perpetual access for the folks from the north to be able to get through the gate system on the south side to be able to get into that -- the activity center. We wanted to make sure that we had that noted so that there weren't neighborhood disputes in the future like we've recently heard. That access will coincide with that traffic signal installation as well. With regard to Big Cypress Parkway, the Transportat ion Element requires that we acquire the right -of-way for projects that are identified in the Long Range Transportation Plan, so that's why staff has consistently been requesting that right-of-way. In addition, you've heard it probably seven times from e ither myself or Ms. Lantz about we completed our study for Oil Well Road and Randall Boulevard, and we believe that the network connections in this area are beneficial to support the future growth of the RLSA. That includes the future Big Cypress Parkway, and what it allows us to do is to maintain those roadways within Golden Gate Estates that have multiple driveways on them to a four-lane configuration. So with that, the applicant has agreed to reserve right-of-way that we could purchase based on the pre-SRA value. It would be a network -- I'm looking at my notes. It will be determined based on two -- the average of two appraisals based on the pre-SRA value. The right-of-way for Segment 1 would be immediately adjacent to the Rivergrass SRA. Segment 2 would be Randall Boulevard to Vanderbilt Beach Road extension; you see that noted in yellow. Segment 3A would be Vanderbilt Beach Road to Sixth Avenue Southeast, which is just south of Golden Gate Boulevard. All of these segments are consistent with our Long Range Transportation Plan. And the final segment is Segment 3B, which takes us from January 28, 2020 Page 71 Immokalee Road down to the Rivergrass SRA. So we would have that right-of-way reserved from Immokalee Road all the way down to Golden Gate Boulevard. With all of those reservations, the landowner would design, permit, and construct the water management system or provide the necessary pond sites to accept the stormwater runoff for those. The landowner would receive impact fee credits for the value of the property based on the average of the two appraisals. And if the stormwater management is incorporated into the development's water management system, they would be required to provide us easements as well as be responsible for the perpetual maintenance of the shared stormwater system, as well as to inspect it and provide those inspections to us every five years. And the final point that we have is, is the landowner will provide a separate written notice to tenants and buyers, residential and commercial, of the planned roadway improvements: Big Cypress Parkway as well as Oil Well Road with a statement county will not construct any sound wall or any other barrier of any kind to reduce the impact or noise. And that is my final slide, and I've added cleanup for growth management. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. That concludes the staff presentation; is that correct? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Mr. Klatzkow, are we required to provide an opportunity for the petitioner to ask questions of our staff? MR. KLATZKOW: If the petitioner requests it. Typically they don't. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: That's why I raised the question. Mr. Yovanovich, are you going to waive any questions you have at this point? MR. YOVANOVICH: We will just respond in our rebuttal. I January 28, 2020 Page 72 don't have any direct questions for your staff right now. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Then I believe we're ready for county commissioner questions, if any. We have two lights lit up at this point. Commissioner Taylor, you were first. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you. I'd like to speak to Mr. Weeks, please. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: We can hear you; they can't. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes. At the Planning Commission meeting, I believe you gave this development a D minus; is that correct? MR. WEEKS: That sounds accurate. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. That's what I needed to understand. And the golf course in this development is considered open space; is that correct? MR. WEEKS: That's correct. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: So you need to play golf in order to enjoy the open space. The park area is nine acres; is that correct? MR. WEEKS: That also sound correct; somewhere around 9 or 10. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Can you give me an example -- and I'm putting you on the spot. Give me nine acres. What's nine acres around here? MR. WEEKS: Kings Lake shopping center site is approximately 10 acres. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. That helps a lot. And then I think I have one more question. Oh, for the environmental. You mentioned staff observed the wildlife/birdlife on the property. For what period and for how many years did they do that? MS. COOK: We did -- staff did not actually observe them on site. It was observed during Passarella's listed species studies, which January 28, 2020 Page 73 I believe were conducted over about a 10-year period from 2007 to 2018 or 2019. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Was that our consultant? MS. COOK: No. That is the applicant's consultant. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: The applicant -- so we haven't verified -- MS. COOK: We have been on site, yes, but especially birds tend to not stay in one place. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: That's right. MS. COOK: We didn't necessarily see them on site. But the applicant did and acknowledged that in their listed species survey. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Most of the animals would be migratory in a sense. You know, they're here today, gone tomorrow. But we have not verified anything? We've just taken the word or the consultant's information in terms of it. We haven't done our own? MS. COOK: We have -- well, we don't actually do listed species surveys. Environmental consultants are hired to do those. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. So -- well, that will be a question going into the future whether we need to hire our own consultant to verify this. Thank you very much. MS. COOK: You're welcome. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Fiala. Now, Commissioner Taylor, do you have questions for the petitioner as well, or do you want to reserve those for the time being? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Later, I think. Oh, yes, I do. One question. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Mr. Yovanovich? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: So you started right off with a non-appealable SRA. What does that mean? MR. YOVANOVICH: It means you have -- someone could challenge the appeal. It's approved today, there's a 30-day appeal January 28, 2020 Page 74 period. We'll wind our way through the court system if someone were to file a challenge, and we would hopefully prevail, and in that -- then -- that's what it means. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: So it is appealable, but there's a 30-day window? MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes. There's a 30-day period to challenge the approval. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: All right. MR. YOVANOVICH: That's what I meant. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Fiala, I believe you were next. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you very much. One of the things I've heard and read from all of the people that have bothered to type a letter to me, write an email to me, or even ask in person was, we're going to lose all of our preserved land. We're going to -- it's just going to go away. For those that don't know, Collier County has 79 percent of their land in preservation forever. That can't go away; forever. And no matter what you say, it's going to be -- saying it's going to be gone, it isn't even owned by us. It's not going to be gone in many cases. So I just want to tell you, I've checked and checked. That 79 percent preserved land -- all of our land in Collier County, 79 percent is in preservation forever, and that includes our water and wildlife and panthers and all of the things that everybody's con cerned with. That stays. So -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We're on the questions portion. Do you have some questions? COMMISSIONER FIALA: No, there's no question there. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I just wanted to tell them that. January 28, 2020 Page 75 And my second thing is, I was wondering if the property owner would be able to work with us to maybe provide some kind of essential service housing or whatever that you can offer to help some of our concerns. MR. YOVANOVICH: I don't want to slow down the process, but I need to talk to Don Huffner privately to talk about that, so I don't want to -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Maybe after the lunch break you can come back on that. MR. YOVANOVICH: Happy to bring a proposal back after lunch or discuss a response to that comment. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Fiala, any other questions at this point? COMMISSIONER FIALA: No. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Just a couple. And while you're there, I'll go with you first. There was an amendment to the credit application for the designation of preservation or restoration. How many additional credits were generated with that designation? Plus or minus? MR. YOVANOVICH: I know the number if you'll let me go back to my slides. But I'm sure Ken knows it off the top of his head. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Oh, yeah. We didn't allow him to speak before. He practiced for hours for that. MR. YOVANOVICH: I've got to get him to earn his keep, so... I have the backup in my rather small binder, if you'll bear with me. It goes from the existing 7,200 credits to 31,000 with restoration. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: With those restoration -- MR. YOVANOVICH: With the restoration. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: With the designation. MR. YOVANOVICH: No. With the designation and actual January 28, 2020 Page 76 completion of the work. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And -- that was what I was trying to get to. MR. YOVANOVICH: The actual complete, yeah. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: The designation is one set of credits, and then the actual completion of the work is another. MR. YOVANOVICH: Right. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: But the second portion of those approved credits don't come until the physical restoration work is done for that area. MR. YOVANOVICH: Correct. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That was -- that was one of my questions. MR. YOVANOVICH: And there's also additional credits generated by stripping additional land-use layers to go with that as well. I just wanted to make sure -- COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Am I allowed to ask more than one question before I beep? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Sure. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay. What happens in the option-to-purchase agreement with regard to the Big Cypress Parkway in the event that the applicant doesn't go forward with the other two villages? What -- I heard you talk about that. If you would just repeat that clarification. MR. YOVANOVICH: Sure. If we elect to not pursue those two villages, the reservation stays in place for five years. County staff comes to us and says, we want it. We get the two apprais als. We take the average, and the right-of-way's there for staff. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: It's under the same terms and conditions as is currently prevalent? MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes. January 28, 2020 Page 77 COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And it's been mentioned, regularly, and maybe I need to bring Trinity back just, if I can, from a staff perspective. It's been regularly mentioned that there's a discount associated with this. Do you have an estimate for comparison purposes for me as to that proposed discounted amount? I understand that the appraisals are done as ag land without any development criteria applied to them. MS. SCOTT: I don't have specifics. I can tell you that the Long Range Transportation Plan, based on their costing tool, has the right-of-way for the segment of Big Cypress Parkway at $40 million. I do not anticipate spending anywhere near that. I think that we'll be probably 10 to 15 million. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Plus or minus. And, again, I'm not looking to nail -- I just would like a little clarification, because it's been regularly mentioned that there was a fairly substantive discount. And in comparison to normal processes, if we just decided we wanted the road, we would eminent domain, take it. MS. SCOTT: Absolutely. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And the cost comparison with that methodology compared to what's being proposed here is -- MS. SCOTT: Significantly higher. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: On the eminent domain as opposed to here? MS. SCOTT: Yes. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Solis. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Questions for staff, and maybe this is -- COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I had one more. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Forgive me. I've got notes January 28, 2020 Page 78 here. And this has to do with Eric. There you are. With the construction of the internal wastewater/water facilities, it says that the applicant's going to construct those and then contribute them over to the county at some stage; did I understand that? MR. FEY: That's correct, as per our utility standards conveyance policy. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I was just going to ask that. The construction specs -- even though the applicant's actually putting in the subsurface, it's going to be to our specs? MR. FEY: Correct. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay. I am now finished, sir. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Solis. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yes. Questions for staff. I think it would probably be most appropriate for Mr. Weeks. I just want to make sure that we're looking at this with the right lens, okay. So one unit per five acres is the base zoning in the RLSA now. MR. WEEKS: That's correct. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. And that one-per-five -- one unit per five acres, we all agree, then, that that is a threat to our water resources and the listed species habitat? MR. WEEKS: Yes. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Is that safe to say? MR. WEEKS: That is. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: We agree on that. Okay. MR. WEEKS: If I can expound just very briefly. They're asking for 2,500 dwelling units. If those were developed under the baseline conditions, that would be 12,500 acres of checkerboard development with single-family homes, which is -- COMMISSIONER SOLIS: On septic tanks. MR. WEEKS: Correct. And that's an area larger than the City of Naples. January 28, 2020 Page 79 COMMISSIONER SOLIS: And that would be a bad thing. MR. WEEKS: Yes. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. And that the intent of the RLSA was to discourage and avoid that. MR. WEEKS: Yes. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: We couldn't just say that won't happen because that was the base zoning, and it would probably be a taking. MR. WEEKS: I think we would -- the staff opinion would be that not the entirety of the RLSA would actually be developed at one unit per five acres even if landowners desired. I mean, there are state and federal permitting requirements. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Sure. MR. WEEKS: But, certainly, if we simply look at the RLSA overlay map and see all of that pink, that open area, all of that, certainly, we would think could be developed at the baseline. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: A large amount of it would be? MR. WEEKS: Yes, yes. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: And not this past weekend, the weekend before, I actually spent some time in the Estates in the Picayune Strand hiking around, and the development at one per five is happening every single day, right? MR. WEEKS: It is in places, yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I mean, I had not been there -- I'll confess, I had not been in some of the areas in a long time, and there are a lot of single-family homes being built on five-acre lots. I was hoping that -- I haven't been able to get it yet. I'd asked the -- Mr. Casalanguida if there's any way to get the number of building permits for single-family homes in the Estates that we've had in the last 10 years, because I think -- I mean, this was the underlying concern and intent of the RLSA, and I think we have to January 28, 2020 Page 80 keep that in mind as we consider. Whatever we're considering, the backdrop is one per five, 195,000 acres, single-family ranchettes on septic tanks, which I think is to be avoided at almost all costs. So I just want to say that. Thanks. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: And perhaps you can get the answer to that question during the break as well. I have a couple questions for Mr. Weeks. Prior to the Planning Commission, you -- I believe it was your report that said you were constrained not to recommend approval of this petition to the Planning Commission. I believe that was your report. It may have been somebody else's. But I'm wondering what changed from Planning Commission to today where the staff recommendation which was, I believe, for denial at the Planning Commission is now for approval. MR. WEEKS: I believe that was Nancy, and I'm going to defer to her. MS. GUNDLACH: Commissioners, the staff report statement is that staff recommends approval. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: No, I understand that that's the recommendation today, but before the Planning Commission it was not a recommendation of approval. MS. GUNDLACH: Correct. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I'm trying to understand what changed staff's position. MR. OCHS: Commissioner, let me take a stab. I think this last round of discussions on the road network where now we're able to come to an agreement to a landowner contribution for the road and the stormwater conveyance and also the interconnections that have been negotiated were all elements now that were concerns for us and constrained us earlier. Now that those have, you know, been brought forward and there's some concurrence on those, we've recommended January 28, 2020 Page 81 approval with those conditions. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Now, the interconnection you're talking about is where the traffic light will go? MR. OCHS: No, sir, the interconnection between the two villages. That was something that was negotiated after the Board directed us the last time to sit back down with the owners and see if we couldn't work on an improved agreement for Big Cypress Parkway and the interconnectivity. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. Mr. Casalanguida, in terms of the developer agreement, the agreements dealing with Big Cypress and the future dedication, I know you had some concerns about how this was all going to work, and you were concerned about the obligations or the position the county would be in under these -- under this type of an agreement. What is your opinion at this point? And I do mean to put you on the spot, so I'm not going to apologize for that. MR. CASALANGUIDA: That's okay. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: What is your opinion concerning the agreement that we have going forward with the right -of-way for the Big Cypress Parkway? And then I'm going to turn to the County Attorney concerning whether or not we would be obligated to approve any future developments, the other villages pursuant to this agreement. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sure. I think all along -- and as Mr. Yovanovich stated at the beginning, we're both a little unhappy walking out of that room. It's not staff's opinion that we'd like to have a reservation expire with terms. So that's always been one of our consternations in the communications that we've had with the developer. That said, he modified his, I guess, agreement terms to state if he withdrew, that reservation would stay in place, and in the January 28, 2020 Page 82 executive summary it was modified, and I called out the fact that if he gets denied, usually the upcharge is about 30 to 40 percent in the condemnation case. The risk to the county is that if we have to acquire the right-of-way, there'll be an increased cost if you have to condemn the property. But, you know, we are where we are in terms of what they've agreed to and what I've requested or the County Attorney and myself and Trinity requested. I'm satisfied that I think you've got enough going forward that you're covering the bulk of that main section of the road, and they also added that piece that's under Gargulio. At first they said no. That piece that was sold to the Gargulio piece has been added to the agreement. So, again, if I could change one thing, sir, it would be that that reservation does not expire regardless of what happens. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. All right. I think this will be a question for Mr. Weeks. We have -- we have a -- if you could describe the size of this commercial parcel. I believe it's 80,000 square feet of retail, if I understood that correctly? MR. WEEKS: That's the maximum. The minimum is 60-. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Sixty thousand, and then there could be 25,000 square feet of other commercial types or government types? MR. WEEKS: Well, there's a requirement to provide government, civic, institutional-type uses. That's 20 -- I think somewhere around 25,000 square feet. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: So that's not -- MR. WEEKS: Addition. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: -- not part of 80,000. MR. WEEKS: Correct. That's in addition. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: In terms of one -- you know, one of the selling points of this sounded like -- in some conversations I had January 28, 2020 Page 83 with the petitioner, is that there could be a grocery store there, other types of services. What is the typical size of a Publix grocery store in square footage? MR. WEEKS: I'm hearing 40,000, and that sounds reasonable. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. In terms of 80,000 square feet -- and I'm wondering if this needs to be a little bit larger commercial area, and that's why I'm asking the questions -- to provide real services to the 2,500 homeowners, is 80,000 square feet sufficient? MR. WEEKS: It might be. This would fall into, I believe, a category of a community shopping center. It's -- the square footage would fit within neighborhood or community shopping center; it's going to depend on the anchors. And those, for community centers, range from less than 100,000 up to probably a couple hundred thousand square feet. So it's within an acceptable range. Neighborhood centers generally run as high, I think, as 120 -, 125,000 square feet down to perhaps 50,000. So it's in the range of both of those, both of which, I believe, could serve an area of this size and possibly serve beyond the borders of their development. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. I do have a question for Mr. Yovanovich and for the County Attorney. A couple of questions for you, Mr. Yovanovich. Is there any potential for enlarging that commercial area to provide more services and retail facilities for the 2,500 people -- or families that would be living out there? MR. YOVANOVICH: A couple of issues that come to mind right now. One is I think I have to start the process all over again because we've advertised this for a cap of 80,000. So I think -- I don't think I can legally increase that number right now. So I have not analyzed nor have we contemplated increasing that number above 80,000 retail and office. Because remember the center itself is 105,000, up to 105,000, which would include the civic uses -- like a January 28, 2020 Page 84 post office and things like that that you would find typically in a shopping center. So I think we'll be meeting the needs of our residents as well as some of our neighbors. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Would you agree that if we approve this, that this does not provide any kind of a precedent or requirement that we're going to have to approve any other villages that come before us; that this is not a -- going to put us in a position where we have to continue a -- continue approving these? MR. YOVANOVICH: One of the things I've been consistent with since when I was in the County Attorney's Office to when I'm in private practice: Each petition is considered on its own merits. Approving this does not guarantee the approval of any other village in the eastern lands. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Mr. Klatzkow, do you agree with that? MR. KLATZKOW: Yes. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: And a question for Mr. Klatzkow. I've asked the question concerning commercial square footage, whether we could ask the petitioner to expand on that a little bit. Could we make that change? MR. KLATZKOW: Yes, I think you can. I don't think it's material to the overall development. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. So, Mr. Yovanovich, during the lunch break I'm going to ask you to discuss with your client the potential for making that a little bit larger just to get what your response would be. MR. YOVANOVICH: What was -- I'm sorry. I was distracted. What did Mr. Klatzkow say I can do? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: He indicated that we could make some changes to the size of that commercial area. You would not have to start the petition process all over again. So my question to January 28, 2020 Page 85 you is, will you talk to your petitioner? MR. YOVANOVICH: Absolutely, absolutely. That will be that and the question about essential service personnel housing, I believe, that Commissioner Fiala asked us to look at; we could do during lunch. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Mr. McDaniel; Commissioner McDaniel. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And this may help with that. On the site plan, is there interconnection between the north portion of Rivergrass and Hyde Park? MR. YOVANOVICH: The answer to your question is yes. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And so when River -- and this is just for consideration, Commissioner Saunders. With that interconnection for the residents that live on the north side of Oil Well Road, they can get -- because Hyde Park will be required to, under its Rural Village application, to have a certain amount of commercial and amenities for those residents, if I'm not mistaken. MR. YOVANOVICH: That is correct. There is that threshold as well. But we will, during the break, look at the possibility of expanding. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I understand. And it was just -- that interconnection wasn't talked about. It does provide for access without having to come out on or cross Oil Well Road to get to those that are proposed here, so it's something for us to give consideration to. I'm not objecting to the increase in the square footage. I certainly see that merit. But I just wanted to let folks know that there is that connection up above on the north side of Oil Well Road. MR. KLATZKOW: And just for the record, this is not a zone. The zoning here is already set in stone. So the thought process that you can't make changes here is different than if this were a rezone January 28, 2020 Page 86 process. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Taylor? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes. Just one additional question for staff. Mr. Casalanguida, how do we normally look at building roads when -- for right-of-way acquisition? How have we done this in the past? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Ma'am, I'm not sure I understand your question. In what sense? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: In terms of reserving the right-of-way, in terms of the cost of it. I thought I heard at one point -- at one point we were actually -- the county was actually gifted right-of-way to build these roads. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Many times, ma'am. Since I've been here since 2004, we've seen versions where the property was donated, including water management constructed by the developer and then turned over to the county for maintenance. Things changed significantly in 2011 with the state laws in terms of impact fee credits and what's allowed and what's not. The way they modified it is anything that a developer provides to a county is impact creditable. Now, the argument we had early on in terms of Big Cypress was, in the original design, was that's going to serve us as their primary road; therefore, they should build a portion of it because it's predominantly used by them. In this version it's a little different. They're going to access that road. It will be used by them but predominantly not. They will tie into Oil Well Road, Golden Gate Boulevard, Randall, and those other roads. So a little bit of a modification. But we've seen the gamut in terms of donations all the way to what you see today, which is everything they provide is impact fee creditable. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: So this change from what the January 28, 2020 Page 87 initial was to what the developer's intention is, is that in writing how they're going to use it? How can we control that? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Well, it's going to be a public facility, so it's open to them to use, but the way they've structured the different villages, it's different than the original town setup. The town, the way it was designed, used Big Cypress as a core. The way the villages are, they use Big Cypress as connection points like other projects would do on, say, Immokalee Road or any other road that's there. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: All right. Thank you. And also, within your knowledge being in transportation, are you aware of a village that is bisected by a four-lane soon to be six-lane arterial road designed for freight? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Ma'am, I can tell you that projects in the past have been bifurcated. Pelican Marsh is one of the m. I mean, we've seen that before. How you control the access to them is key. I think Trinity did a good job of trying to line up the signals and connect them that way. But there are projects that bifurcate major roads. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Designed for freight? MR. CASALANGUIDA: What do you mean "designed for freight"? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I understand the reason we're keeping the speed freight. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes. Well, no. Goodlette's an arterial collector. So you have projects that bifurcate roads but not typically designed for freight, no. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. Any other questions from the Commission? MR. YOVANOVICH: Commissioner Saunders? January 28, 2020 Page 88 CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yes. MR. YOVANOVICH: Before we break for lunch, did you have an idea of what you were looking for on the commercial so I can -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Not really. You know, what I'd like to see is the ability of people that live to the west of this village in Golden Gate Estates being able to go east -- MR. YOVANOVICH: Sure. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: -- to do some shopping. I understand Hyde Park is going to have some commercial -- MR. YOVANOVICH: I understand. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: -- and you're going to have some commercial. But, you know, 80,000 square feet, put a Publix there and a pharmacy, and you've used up most of that 80,000. And you're only obligated to do 60-. So I don't see that as being sufficient commercial to, number one, serve your development but, number two, to help encourage people to drive east to do some of their shopping or some of their -- MR. YOVANOVICH: I understand. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: -- dining and that sort of thing. MR. YOVANOVICH: If you had a threshold in mind, it would be great. If not, we'll talk about it. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Just give that some thought, and perhaps Mr. Weeks can even help with that conversation. He and I have not talked about it, but I just -- I just thought that that might be something that would enhance this. Mr. Klatzkow, in terms of the staff presentation and the petitioner presentation, our questions, we're finished with that portion. Anything that we need to do before we break for lunch? MR. KLATZKOW: No. The only thing left you have to do is public comment, and then following public comment, you will discuss amongst yourselves. January 28, 2020 Page 89 CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Then we will come back at 1:00 and begin the public hearing. Thank you. (A luncheon recess was had from 11:56 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: The meeting will please come to order. We're going to begin the public hearing portion of the item. As I mentioned before, we have four items up, and just to be fair to the public, we decided to increase the amount of speaking time to four minutes instead of three because we're covering four items. So please limit yourself. You only get called once, so if you registered for three or four items, you're going to get called once to speak one time, and you'll have four minutes. All right, Mr. Yovanovich. MR. YOVANOVICH: Commissioner, did you want us to address the two items you wanted us to look at before the public speaks or after? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: You know, that might be worthwhile doing because that may impact some of the public comment. So, Mr. Yovanovich, there were two issues. I think, Commissioner Fiala, you had one in reference to workforce-type housing. COMMISSIONER FIALA: No. Actually, it was essential service. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Essential service housing, okay. MR. YOVANOVICH: Okay. What we discussed at lunch was doing something that I don't think anybody's done yet, which is to create a down payment assistance program for essential service personnel to be administered by the Community Foundation. We would provide $500,000 in down payment assistance for essential service personnel, which we've all known to be firefighters, deputies, teachers, nurses, medical professionals. We would include active January 28, 2020 Page 90 military, and we would include veterans in that list of essential service personnel. They would apply to the Community Foundation. The requirement would be that they live in that house for at least five years. If they didn't live in the house, then they would repay the money. So we would propose adding that as an essential service personnel program to be part of SRA Rivergrass Village. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. Any questions concerning that? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Is that for each village that they plan on building? MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, what I expect to happen is when I come in here a few months -- yes. I'm expecting that that would become part of the submittals for the other two. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you very much. MR. YOVANOVICH: And the commercial. You asked us, would we -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Right now you have a maximum of 80,000 square feet commercial and a minimum of 60,000. MR. YOVANOVICH: Minimum of 62,5- and a maximum of 80-. We would propose -- and we also have the civic and institutional. Those are 25,000. That's separate from those numbers. I just wanted to make sure that's on the record. We would increase the maximum to 100,000 square feet of retail and office. And we would request that that additional 20,000 square feet not be the subject of the trip cap. It would obviously be reviewed when plats and SDPs come through but not -- because we have not done the analysis yet as to what number needs to go up on January 28, 2020 Page 91 the trip cap because, honestly, I wasn't prepared to do that analysis. So we would like to add the 20,000 square feet to the maximum number. Have that 20,000 square feet not be the subject of the trip cap but it would still be subject to, obviously, your normal traffic review when site plans come in. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. Are there any other issues? Commissioner McDaniel. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And it's not an issue. It's just in concert with your discussion with regard to the increase in the square footage for commercial. I'd like to remind everybody that traveling west over to Wilson Boulevard and no further than that, there's approximately 800,000 square feet of zoned property for commercial uses that's still vacant that's coming. So as we go forward with this, I mean, I'm okay with that increase in commercial here, and it certainly has the capacity of drawing people out of Eastern Collier County and reversing that bedroom traffic flow that we currently experience. But in between this project and Wilson and Immokalee Road, there's over 800,000 square feet of zoned commercial land that's still yet to be developed. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Without any further objection, let's go to the public comment. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I do have one -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Taylor. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I'm sorry. I do have one other thing to ask, and I had to have clarification on it over lunch, which I got, because I was a little confused. But I understand that the reservation of right-of-way at pre-SRA prices is contingent upon approval of these different developments. MR. YOVANOVICH: Correct. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I'd like to see that waived, please. January 28, 2020 Page 92 MR. YOVANOVICH: We did what we were asked to do. We sharpened our pencils. We sat down with your staff; reached an agreement that I think I said we were mutually unhappy with. We agreed to the interconnections and other issues related to that. We addressed staff's concerns about the timing, and we're going -- we think that the agreement was a reasonable agreement, and we're going to stick with that agreement. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: So there's no movement at all on this issue? MR. YOVANOVICH: We did not -- I guess the short answer's no. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. So that puts the burden of the cost of these roads on the taxpayers' back? MR. YOVANOVICH: That's not a factually correct statement because if -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Unless we approve your development. MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, no. Remember, you don't need that road for our projects. You need that road to avoid six-laning two other roads. There's an alternative corridor. This road is not related to us. It's related to your transportation issues out east. And what we're saying is, for Rivergrass, as each village comes through and we have an impact on that road, we're willing to provide the right -of-way at a discounted rate. If we don't -- if the road's not going to be utilized by us, it is an unreasonable request to ask us to provide you right-of-way at a discounted rate. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Why did you pay for the amendment to the LRTP last year? Collier Enterprises paid for that amendment. MR. YOVANOVICH: Do you remember that that was related January 28, 2020 Page 93 to a potential town? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Ah. MR. YOVANOVICH: That was not related to Rivergrass Village. That was when you were analyzing the impact of traffic on the town. And then you had a very eloquent explanation from Nick about the characteristics of Big Cypress Parkway when it was a town versus villages. It's a very different road corridor. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Ma'am, for the record, Rich is somewhat inaccurate. They're going to use the road. I mean, it's not -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Of course they are. MR. CASALANGUIDA: -- not at the extent they were as a town. So don't -- when they say he's not -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Well, we could say that no one in this development can use this road, but that would be unrealistic. I mean, come on, please. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Let's go ahead and get to the public comment. We've got a lot of speakers that have been waiting a long time, and we can get back to that after we conclude that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: How many speakers do we have? MR. MILLER: Mr. Chairman, we have 53 registered public speakers. I'll remind the speakers to please queue up at both podiums. Have our first speakers, Dr. Karen and Joseph -- and John Dwyer would like to combine their time, speak simultaneously , not at the same time, from both podiums, and they've been ceded three additional minutes from Fred Townsend. Is Mr. Townsend here? He is. At four minutes apiece, that will be 12 minutes. The Dwyers will be followed by Kent Shoemaker. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Excuse me. Only one person can cede one person. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: That's what they did. January 28, 2020 Page 94 MR. MILLER: That's what we did. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. So it's four, not -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I am going to ask the speakers not to be repetitive. Obviously, the first speakers can't be repetitive, but after that -- well, I guess you could be repetitive. But try to bear with us. We've got 50 speakers, and we need to go through all of this. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Just as a point of order, how's our court reporter -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: She's fine. We've already chatted about that. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I was concerned that they were going to speak simultaneously, and I think that's hard for the court reporter. MR. MILLER: No, no, no. They'll alternate back and forth, but they want to be at the podiums at the same time. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay. MR. MILLER: Doctors Dwyer. DR. KAREN DWYER: Just to clarify, we're only going to be taking about six minutes, but... CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Let's go. DR. KAREN DWYER: Doctors Karen and John Dwyer of the Stone Crab Alliance. Listen to your experts. The Planning Commission recommended denying Rivergrass in a 4-1 vote. They warned it would be a serious injustice if we, with this very first project, al lowed it to go forward and added, now is the last clear chance for our county to get it right. Whatever the Board does will set the norms and expectations for future developments. DR. JOHN DWYER: Follow their direction. Deny this application. They gave you three documents: A list, a letter, and a transcript January 28, 2020 Page 95 that provided you with more than you'd ever need to deny this project. Codes and policies violated and so on. DR. KAREN DWYER: On Page 22, the Planning Commission recommends denying Rivergrass because it fails to meet RLSA design requirements of a village. It fails to provide connectivity, accessibility, walkability, innovativeness, housing diversity, and affordability, fiscal neutrality, and more. In short, it's not a village. DR. JOHN DWYER: County staff agrees. On Page 35, they conclude that Rivergrass does not fully meet RLSA policies regarding innovative design, compactness, housing diversity, walkability, mix of uses, interconnectedness, et cetera. In the staff's view, Rivergrass is a suburban development plan, contrary to what is intended in the RLSA. In short, it's not a village. DR. KAREN DWYER: The Planning Commission at Horseshoe voices similar concerns. Rivergrass is no different than all the PUDs we have in the urban area. DR. JOHN DWYER: It does not provide, given the 19 deviations requested, a viable village. DR. KAREN DWYER: The standard of connectivity has not been reached with Oil Well Road in there and 15 dead -ends. DR. JOHN DWYER: I don't see this as bike and pedestrian friendly. On Page 249, a commissioner identifies the number one problem as the total lack of connectivity within the proposed village caused by the village center being split by Oil Well Road. We find it -- DR. KAREN DWYER: We find it beyond belief that this applicant would intentionally split the village center with soon-to-be six-lane freight road, thereby destroying everything that would make this development a village. Walkability, bikeability, interconnected pathways, a centrally located village center all destroyed. Instead, the village center is not in the center but on the edge, south of Oil January 28, 2020 Page 96 Well Road. Its customers are not just Rivergrass residents but anyone stopping along the way of two major highways. The Commission goes out of their way to fault the applicant for designing the village center. Not with the village residents in mind, as it should have been but, instead, to capture as much bypassing traffic. DR. JOHN DWYER: Worse yet, the design is flatout dangerous. Rivergrass residents living in the north half would have no choice but to cross the 55-mile per hour freight road to get to the village center. Even if a traffic signal is later added, such a design is a direct contradiction of the RLSA code. Villages must offer easy, safe, and walkable access to the center without having to cross a major thoroughfare. DR. KAREN DWYER: The solution to this problem, writes the Planning Commission, is an overpass, an underpass, two town centers, or a complete relocation of the village to other lands among the vast holdings of this applicant. The point being that this applicant has the resources to get this right. DR. JOHN DWYER: And county staff agrees. On Page 41, they cannot recommend Rivergrass without the following condition : That residents on the north side of Oil Well Road will have internal access to the commercial area on the south side of Oil Well Road without requiring trips on Oil Well Road or the future Big Cypress Parkway. A traffic light is wholly insufficient and violates the policy of minimizing signals on nearby roads. It sets a wildly dangerous standard for future development. DR. KAREN DWYER: Ave Maria doesn't have a traffic light. Rivergrass must not. Ave Maria is likewise in the RLSA and likewise on Oil Well Road. They get it right. DR. JOHN DWYER: Regarding the remaining Commission and staff objections, deny the petition because it would create rather January 28, 2020 Page 97 than curb urban sprawl. DR. KAREN DWYER: Deny it because it lacks housing diversity with 90 percent single-family and only 10 percent multifamily. DR. JOHN DWYER: Deny it because it fails to move from greater urban density to lower rural density. DR. KAREN DWYER: Deny it because 19 deviations indicate a failure to seriously want to meet village crite ria. DR. JOHN DWYER: Deny it because it refuses to address affordability. DR. KAREN DWYER: Deny it because it creates 15 cul-de-sacs, essentially dead-ends, across the which neither automobile nor bicyclists nor pedestrian may travel. DR. JOHN DWYER: Deny it because the applicant refused to provide a document the Commission needed to verify fiscal neutrality. DR. KAREN DWYER: To conclude, listen to your experts. Follow their direction. Get this right. DR. JOHN DWYER: Like the Planning Commission, deny Rivergrass because it fails to meet RLSA design requirements of a village. DR. KAREN DWYER: Like county staff, deny it because it fails to provide internal connectivity for all residents. Deny it because it gets everything wrong, from the village center to cul-de-sacs, to diversity of housing, to Primary Panther Habitat, it makes a mockery of smart growth and imperils future residents, currently wildlife, and stewardship lands with irresponsible development. It sets a dangerously wrong precedent for the many developments to follow. DR. JOHN DWYER: If we're going to have a city the size of Washington, D.C., rising on the east of us, we better get it right. This January 28, 2020 Page 98 is not right. This is not start growth. It's stupid growth. Deny Rivergrass. DR. KAREN DWYER: Deny Rivergrass and put Collier County's future on the right path. Before we conclude, we just wanted to add two additional points from having listened to others during this presentation today. Walkability; staff, David Weeks, nails it. He say s walkability means safe, easy, and appealing. I think we could all agree that Oil Well Road, a freight road, lacks walkability, a primary criteria for this future village. The village center, relocation to its present position on the edge was denied. When it was presented -- relocation to its present position on the edge was denied when it was presented as a diversion on Page 442. All the initial concerns remain. The applicant should have to comply, not the county compromise on such an important issue. Deny Rivergrass. DR. JOHN DWYER: Thank you. DR. KAREN DWYER: Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Kent Shoemaker. He will be followed by Chief Eloy Ricardo. MR. SHOEMAKER: Good afternoon. Thank you very much for hearing my comments. My name is Kent Shoemaker. I'm the Chief Executive Officer of Littman Family Farms. We've been doing business in Collier County for almost 80 years. We're an international agricultural company. I believe Collier County's a great place to live; been here for a long time, and I think it takes the work of elected officials like yourselves, concerned citizens like those of us that are here today, and great companies like Collier Enterprises to keep our community January 28, 2020 Page 99 thriving the way that it has in the past. Collier Enterprises has proven the quality of their work for a very long time. They've proven their commitment to the environment. They are a true family -run, family-owned, character-based company with great leadership that's looking, I believe, for what's best for Collier County. One of the things that we don't hear much about is the things that Collier Enterprises does from a philanthropic standpoint, and that's by design. They're a quiet company that has supported our community and our way of life for a very, very long time without any fanfare. A project that we happen to be involved with them at this time is Collier Enterprises has donated land in Immokalee. We are actually -- they've not only donated the land, but they put in the -- they're putting in the infrastructure and a half a million dollars in matching funds. We're going to build 18 homes for the same type of folks that were mentioned before, teachers, first responders, and other folks to help build up the middle class in Immokalee. And, again, this is the type of projects that they do on a regular basis that I think oftentimes go overlooked. Business leaders throughout this county are going to watch carefully what happens here today. We're very interested in making sure that this project moves forward not just because of the 2,500 homes that are going to welcome our new friends and residents, but also because Collier has gone above and beyond by donating 5,000 acres to preservation. I think it sends a -- it's beyond the requirements that are required, especially within the RLSA, but this is the type of things that a character-based company does, and I would strongly encourage the commissioners to approve this project. We need it for our county. It's the right thing to do. Thank you very much. January 28, 2020 Page 100 MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Chief Eloy Ricardo. He will be followed by April Olson. CHIEF RICARDO: Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name is Eloy Ricardo. I'm the Fire Chief for the North Collier Fire Department. And I just wanted to tell you from the perspective of our development review from the fire side, for the emergency service side, I've been working hand in hand from the beginning on this project with the Rivergrass. This development has dedicated itself to make sure that there was safety from the beginning. We've met with Chief Butcher from EMS. We've been on-the-ground work making sure that we will respond and provide the service that's allowed if this development is approved. One that I will -- the scope of this project has never -- has always been safety first for the professionals that I dealt with. I came in from working -- I was appointed as fire chief in April; before that I'm part of your team from the decisions that you made when we merged inside of Growth Management with Fire and Plan Review and Planning. So I'm there. I know how this development works. I'm looking from our scope, from Emergency Services. They've made sure that the positive impact in that community will be to provide service for emergency situations: Wildfires, water. In our fire department alone, there's a station that was already permitted to build on 22nd. Their -- their move is allowing to bring us the possibility of bringing water, which we'll be saving the taxpayers over $350,000 on a water tank that I was supposed to install because I don't have connectivity to water. So we have been moving into that direction. I said it to the County Manager when I came in earlier today. I am part of the greatest team that works here for Collier County, and I'm proud of January 28, 2020 Page 101 our partnership, because without that vision of looking forward, we would not have been in these conversations. But I want to ensure the residents here, there might be other issues, but I'm assuring you that the safety of the public will not be a risk if this development's approved. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is April Olson. She's been ceded additional time from Van Williams, from Nicole Johnson, from Ellen Murray, and from Gladys Delgadillo for a total of 20 minute s, and she will be followed by Lorilee LeBoeuf. And, April, if that's not the right PowerPoint, let me know. MS. OLSON: Oh, it is. Good afternoon, Commissioners. Thank you for allowing me to speak. I'm here on behalf of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida and our over 7,000 member families. And I just wanted to clear up a misleading statement that was said by one of the applicant's consultants this morning. And what year is it right now? 2020? Okay. Sometimes I lose my mind, but I'm pretty sure it's 2020. And the statement by the applicant's consultant has been said many times that the Conservancy was in support of the RLSA back in 2002. Yes, that is correct. That was 18 years ago. And we do support some of the requirements of the RLSA, but we do believe that the program is flawed as well, and that's because the program has not been updated with best available science. And we've done a lot of research and hired a lot of consultants, and we know that there are issues with the RLSA today, and we brought those forward to you last week. So hopefully that statement will, you know, be put to bed. So the Conservancy owns several parcels in the RLSA, two of which are located within the Camp Keais Strand not far from the January 28, 2020 Page 102 proposed Rivergrass Village. And all of us folks who are wearing green, including me, would like to see sustainable development for the RLSA, development plans that actually meet the rules of the program. So that's why we're here today asking you to vote for denial of Rivergrass Village because the project does not play by the RLSA rules. In your packet you have over 1,000 pages associated with this application which can be confusing. So I'm going to break it down for you simply. Why should Rivergrass SRA be denied? The answer is simple. Rivergrass Village project is inconsistent with the goal and the policies of the RLSA program. So why is it inconsistent with the very goal of the RLSA program? Let's take a look. So the RLSA goal states that incompatible uses shall be directed away from wetlands and upland habitats. Instead, if the project is built, it would destroy over 700 acres of Primary Panther Habitat which scientists assert are essential for their survival. Also, there would be additional primary -- additional impacts to Primary Panther Habitat in the adjacent WRAs, because that's where they plan on building their stormwater ponds. So why, then, is Rivergrass Village inconsistent with the policies? I've already told you about the goal, but what about the policies? So there are numerous design requirements for the RLSA for many reasons. Villages that are designed with those qualities are better for the county's tax base, better for traffic, and better for Collier County as a whole because the village would accommodate folks of different ages, incomes, and would even accommodate folks who cannot drive. And if you remember from my presentation last week, certain benefits come from participating in the RLSA program. As example, with the program, Collier Enterprises could build up to 20 times more January 28, 2020 Page 103 homes than that base zoning allows; therefore, under the RLSA program, development is more cost effective, but the deal is the applicant has to play by the rules. So let's see if Collier Enterprises is playing by the rules with Rivergrass. I'll start with walkable, bikeable, and safe mobility design requirements. Here are some of the many policies that state villages shall be walkable and must provide safe mobility. And you can see that the word "shall" is underlined in several places on a lot of these. Villages shall be designed in a compact, pedestrian-friendly form. So how does Rivergrass measure up to those policies? And, by the way, I'm going to give you a copy of those policies when I'm done here. Let's see. It doesn't measure even close to walkable, safe neighborhoods. So if built, Rivergrass Village, as you've heard, would be bisected by that soon-to-be six lane freight road; 55-mile per hours to roads -- mile per hour, freight-road. And according to all of the roads in Collier County, only nine of them are freight distribution routes, which Oil Well Road is. And also, according to Collier County, according to their 2040 LRTP, there's six high-crash corridors all over Collier County. Four of those six high-crash corridors are also freight distribution routes. And they all have traffic lights, which is what the applicant is proposing. So what do you think is going to happen when half of the community has to cross Oil Well Road to get to the village center as is required by their plan? How is this safe? How is this walkable? And here are some of the policies that state villages are to have an interconnected street network. Do you see the word "shall" underlined again? Now, here's an aerial photo of a truly connected street system. This is right here in downtown Naples in our backyard. And you can see there are many connections between the streets. January 28, 2020 Page 104 So how does Rivergrass measure up to those policies? Not even close. The plan is full of dead-end cul-de-sacs, at least 15, and there's only one direct connection from all of the surrounding neighborhoods to the village center; one. One connection to the village center. This plan is not interconnected. And here are some of the policies that require innovat ion as self-sufficiency. Again, the word "shall" and "require" are underlined, so you can see the program requires innovation and self-sufficiency. How does Rivergrass measure up? Again, not even close. You can see these are statements from the Planning Commission hearing. Collier County planning staff says it's not an innovative design; this is just taking what we do over here in the suburban Naples area and plopping it down in the RLSA, and we don't think that was the intent. Planning Commissioner Karl Fry says, I'm not able to see a lot of creativity in this plan. And Chairman Strain says, I don't see any detailed planning on how this village center is really going to serve the community it's supposed to serve. It's not self-sufficient. So what do the professionals think? Don't just take our word for it. Let's see what Collier County planning staff has to say about whether Rivergrass meets the design requirements. In their most recent staff report, Collier County planning staff flat out states the following: The Rivergrass Village SRA does not fully meet the minimum intent of the policies of the RLSA. Does not meet the minimum intent of the policies of the RLSA pertaining to innovative design, compactness, housing diversity, walkability, mix of use, density/density, continuum or gradient interconnectedness, et cetera. In staff's view, this SRA is, with some exceptions, a suburban development plan typical to that in the coastal area placed in the RLSA and is contrary -- contrary to what is intended in the RLSA. January 28, 2020 Page 105 So here are the reasons why the Planning Commission recommended denial. I think you'll see some familiarity in here. They said, failure to remove -- move from greater density to less density; lack of connectivity, poor accessibility, failure to be walkable, failure to be innovative. But, most importantly, you want to know if you can approve or deny it, and what are the legal considerations. Well, let's see what your legal counsel says. We have up here at the top, it says -- and I'll just talk about the bottom part. That's the most important -- the applicant must prove that the proposal is consistent with all of the criteria set forth below. Then there's 13 criteria. So all of those criteria. Let's look at No. 10. It says that the SRA must conform with the goals, objectives, and policies of the RLSA. So, in a nutshell, let's put both of these statements on one page, what legal counsel says and what staff says. Legal counsel says that the application must be consistent with the goals, objectives, and policies of the GMP. Now, staff says, Rivergrass Village SRA does not fully meet the minimum intent of the policies in the RLSA. That's what your professionals are saying. Again, I highlighted the words. Legal says it must be consistent with the policies. Staff says does not fully meet the minimum intent of the policies. So I'm going to talk about SSA 15 but, in summary, the reasons to deny this application are crystal clear. Please vote to deny this application and send a strong message to all who wish to participate in the RLSA program that they must play by the rules. And I've got another presentation about SSA 15, which is the sending land. MR. MILLER: Hold on. MS. OLSON: Okay. So it's important to talk about the area where the landowners are getting the credits for this SRA, for the January 28, 2020 Page 106 sending area. And last week I showed you why there is a major imbalance between the benefits the landowners are getting and what the public is getting under the RLSA program, and this is unf ortunate because the Conservancy would like to see that hundreds of thousands of acres are actually placed in conservation in exchange for compact, sustainable communities like the program is supposed to do. But the applicant for this amendment that is before you today is a prime example of why there is a balance in the RLSA program. Let me go back to that. But in this case, the applicant is taking this imbalance to an extreme. This is basically a scheme to gain a windfall of credits in exchange for very little restoration work. If this amendment is approved, once again, the public will be getting the short end of the stick. Keep in mind that sending areas are where landowners earn credits. Stewardship credits are the currency of the program, and they are used to increase development rights up to twentyfold. Plus, the landowner gets all of these other benefits that you see here from the program. So the county must ensure that the process is also fair to the public. SSA Amendment 15 is nowhere near fair to the public. We ask that you vote for denial of SSA 15 amendment for the following reasons: The applicant's consultants have made misleading claims about the true development potential of SSA 15; that's the number one reason. And, number two, the restoration credits the applicant proposes to generate is nowhere near equal to the restoration work they propose. So the first misleading claim made by the applicant's consultants have to do with the true development potential generated from SSA 15. And we saw this again today in their presentations. January 28, 2020 Page 107 So these slides are from the Planning Commission hearing, and the applicant's consultants mentioned numerous times during the Planning Commission hearings that the conservation areas associated with SSA 15 are five times the total size of Rivergrass. And you can see in circle, conservation areas are five times the total acres of Rivergrass, and then there's a picture of the SSA 15. It's real big. They're only building Rivergrass. That's what -- you know, with those credits. That's what they want you to believe. The consultants showed slides during the Planning Commission that SSA 15 only equates to about 7,000 credits, which is about the same number of credits they need towards Rivergrass. But what they failed to tell the Planning Commission is that they had plans to amend SSA 15, which is one of these applications you're voting on today, and that SSA 15 was already in process and, if approved, would more than quadruple the number of credits to ov er 31,000 credits, as they just stated. One of you -- one of the commissioners asked that question. This slide is from the executive summary that you have today, and you can see there are 31,367 credits that would be generated from this amendment if you approve it. So here's the reality. If you approve this amendment, then SSA 15 would generate enough credits to equate to five Rivergrass Villages, not one. So that's one acre of conservation to one acre of development. Here are statements by the applicant's consultants that they said during the Planning Commission in addition to those slides. And all of these statements are misleading and lead folks to believe that the development potential from SSA 15 is one-fifth of the reality. Now, skip down to Planning Commissioner Karl Fry's statement. He said, quote, the great win which is inherent to the RLSA program is that we're preserving over 5,000 to develop January 28, 2020 Page 108 1,000 acres. This is a wonderful win. So he obviously believed the applicant's statements made during the hearings. But why wouldn't he? He was only getting half the truth. The second misleading claim is that the applicant will place lands in conservation. You can see the applicant's consultants in their presentation to the Planning Commission again use the word "conservation." And this slide from another -- from the same presentation states that conservation is provided at no cost to the taxpayers, leading the public to believe they're providing the public with conservation lands. And you can see this is from their SSA 15 application today. You can see that out of all the 5,253 acres, all of them are remaining in Ag 1 or Ag 2. They're not going down to that conservation layer. Zero acres. The next reason this application should be denied is because the restoration credits do not equate to the work proposed. Here is what the applicant gets if you approve this amendment today. Again, they get enough credits to build five Rivergrasses as long as it's the same size and the same open space. They could also twentyfold the number of homes. So at that base zoning they could build 784, but with this approval of this application, they could build over 15,000 homes. So with that many credits, the juice better be worth the squeeze, right? In other words, the applicant's restoration plan better be worth it, right? As I mentioned to you at the RLSA workshop, the applicant doesn't have to do any restoration to earn a lot of these credits. That's because there's two types of credits, R1 and R2. R1 credits are earned when the applicant simply dedicates their land for restoration, and R2 are the credits that they earn when they actually do the restoration. January 28, 2020 Page 109 So if Collier Enterprises chooses not to do the restoration work, they would get 10,714 credits, R1 credits, for simply stating their lands are designated to restoration. That's without doing any restoration work. And that equates to 1.7 Rivergrasses worth of credit. However, if the applicant chooses to do the restoration, they get enough credits between the R1s and R2s to build 3.5 Rivergrasses. Again, that's only for the restoration credits. And I would be surprised if the applicant decided not to cash in on the R2 credits and actually do the work in this case, because the work that is proposed is extremely minor compared to the windfall of credits they wish to earn. On the left is a color-coded map showing the areas that the applicant proposes would be destroyed -- would be restored, which is 2,678 acres. On the right is a color-coded map showing the areas where they will actually complete the restoration work. That totals about 116, 117 acres. So they would get credit for 2,678 acres of restoration but only actually doing the work over 116 acres. How is this fair? Also, the restoration plan gives credits for restoring flows within Camp Keais Strand north of Oil Well Road in the lands you see circled on the left in red; however, the only work that they propose to do north of Oil Well Road is to remove eight acres of exotics; eight acres. And you can see the arrow pointing to that eight acres in purple. The water flows from north to south, right? So how is it possible that the applicant -- to get credit for fixing the flows north of Oil Well Road when all they're doing is removing eight acres of exotics? Well, the applicant claims they are justifying earning those credits on the land north of Oil Well Road because at some point they January 28, 2020 Page 110 will restore lands in SSA 14, which will then increase the flows to SSA 15. So as you can see from this map, SSA 14 is north of SSA 15. But the problem is that SSA 14 amendment, which includes a restoration plan, has not yet been approved. So not only does the applicant propose to earn credits on over 2,600 acres of land in exchange for 116 acres of restoration work, they are stating the restoration plan is contingent upon another agreement that hasn't even been approved. Once again, the public is getting the short end of the stick. In conclusion, the Conservancy urges you to deny this amendment application. Tell the applicant to stop providing the public with misleading claims and half truths about the development potential from this sending area and tell them to go back to the drawing board to recalculate that number of credits based on a fair and accurate account of the restoration work that is being done. If you deny this application today, this will be one step toward bringing the injustices of the RLSA program back to equilibrium. And I have a copy of those policies and some of our statements that we made that I'd like to give to you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Loralee LeBoeuf, and she will be followed by Erica McCaughey. MS. LeBOEUF: I've also been ceded some time by Tim Thompson, I believe, and I will only need one ceding. I have sev eral cedings. I'm Loralee LeBoeuf, and I am a resident of Collier County. I'm going to address two areas. One has to do with the intent of the RLSA program, and the other has to do with the white paper. As you know and have heard multiple times -- and I'm sort of jumping around here because I don't want to be repetitive from previous presenters -- the Planning Commission voted to deny Rivergrass 4-1. I will paraphrase this statement by Planning January 28, 2020 Page 111 Commissioner Ned Fryer when discussing the village being bisected by Oil Well Road and the 15 to 18 cul -de-sacs. These two things together, in my judgment, after hours and hours of reading, what led up to the RSLA [sic] are completely antithetical to what was intended by the planners, by your colleagues, by the County Board of Commissioners, and by your predecessors. The county staff came to a similar conclusion back in December 10 during that board meeting which was never presented. And Ms. April Olson gave a lot of reasons why -- in-depth why they came to that conclusion. They are -- staff was directed to limit their review to a narrow checklist of SRA requirements put forward by the applicant. So one of the things that they were not happy with -- they said, one of the things that must be noted, that in their parting words to the staff of the plan -- the staff -- from the staff to the Planning Commission were, we don't like the development, but our hands are tied. The staff then stated that even though their review was limited to the applicant's SRA checklist and even though it was not within the job description of the consent considered -- even though it was not within their job to consider intent, it was well within the purview of the Planning Commission and the County Board of Commissioners to consider intent when making a decision. So that brings us to the word "intent." It is an important word. It is used in our legal system by judges to interpret law, the corporate world, and in governing bodies such as yourselves. What is the intent of the RSLA [sic]? It is the stewardship of our rural lands. That means a balance between sustainable lifestyle development and ecosystems that ultimately provide financial gain to the community. There are several examples of manipulation of intent that have been manifested in this particular Rivergrass application. One has been referred to bikeability. And if you look carefully at how it's January 28, 2020 Page 112 structured, the only way you can safely ride a bike in Rivergrass is if you put your 30-pound bike in your SUV and drive to the Greenway in Naples. Wouldn't it be forward thinking if you could possibly ride your bike safely in a stewardship-like area? Another item that is a manipulation of intent, parks and open spaces. Mark Strain, chair of the Planning Commission, expresse d disappointment there weren't parks and open spaces available to all residents. The developers and -- have been allowed under the system that they may count golf courses and private lawns as open space. Let us imagine a family enjoying a Sunday picnic on the fourth hole -- golf hole, tossing a Frisbee to their dog and playing volleyball. Imagine someone deciding they would like to set up a lawn chair and read a book in your front yard because your tree provides excellent shade. Open spaces are limited to a number of people and by invitation only. This is a manipulation of intent. And that brings us to the panther. Protecting our ecosystem, that includes the panther and other related species, was important to the writers of the final order in the RLSA. Unfortunately, developer's proposal for -- there are not supposed to -- they're in 700 acres of Primary Panther Habitat, and the developer's solution to this problem is a moat and a panther fence, presumably to protect your dog and small children from being eaten. If the development was where it should be, it wouldn't need a fence or a moat. And that brings us to this one conclusion that -- to suggest to limiting the approval of Rivergrass to a narrow objective checklist created by the applicant and not include the intent of the program is an egregious misrepresentation of the 1999 State of Florida final order and the RSLA [sic] overlay. I also wanted -- that -- in my conclusion to this section, January 28, 2020 Page 113 Rivergrass is not an innovative stewardship project, it doesn't demonstrate stewardship rural lands, it doesn't demonstrate stewardship of environmental sensitive lands and wildlife habitat, it doesn't demonstrate stewardship of its residents, and it doesn't demonstrate stewardship of its taxpayers of Collier County. That brings me to another subject, and it has to do with one of the cornerstones of the RLSA program, and that is the ability to update that program and adjust it as needed relevant to today's science and economic needs. Mr. Yovanovich referred to this in one of his opening statements. He said that this was updated on a regular basis and over the last two years and the county spending tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of -- hundreds of thousands of hours. I have to find my paper here. Okay -- with the public over two years in workshops -- involve the workshops, staff, landowners to develop a white paper to be presented to the commissioners. Two of the members of staff that worked in the weeds and were very involved in this program are no longer with the county, and so we don't have their input on this. The only thing we have is this white paper. That white paper was completed and was to be presented to the commissioners in May of 2019. But that's very different from what you actually received on October 22nd, 2019. Some of the significant changes that were recommended by the people in the field over two years were that -- deleted -- several changes were made, including deleting several important recommendation [sic], revising others, removing the word "require" at least six times, and only 18 of the 51 original recommendations were presented in the version you received. Interestingly and coincidentally, those 18 coincided with the five-year review committee recommendations. In othe r words, the program was never updated. What you actually saw was an update January 28, 2020 Page 114 of -- the white paper you received is very different than what was done in the public field. Some of the changes that were put forward by the staff that are no longer here to advocate for these are capping of credits in each category. And the other thing -- the other thing is requiring tightening up restoration credits. This came out of that two -year review. Requiring flow-way plans as part of the R -- SRA approval process to require it. And importantly -- another important item is engage an independent third party to study needed restoration activity on private lands so restoration credits can be reasonably established and structured. This has been the song of everybody that has come up here. The county does not own this program because it was developed by an -- independent landowners, and they own the program. So in order for you to own this program, you must look at that unedited version of the white paper and study it. My conclusion is to consider intent, because that is what your job is to do, and you can do that. That is very important so -- when you look at the RLSA. And the other thing is to really familiarize yourself with what -- some of the changes that were recommended to the white paper. I agree with the Planning Commission. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Erica McCaughey, and she will be followed by Kelly Andrew. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. I'm going to ask the audience not to engage in applause. It doesn't do you any good, and it takes time. So please don't do that. Ms. McCAUGHEY: Good afternoon, County Commissioners. January 28, 2020 Page 115 My name is Erica McCaughey. I'm a resident and employee of Naples. I have come to speak to my opposition of the proposed Rivergrass Village. I want to ask you to think of the lower income employees such as myself. This includes teachers, entry -level associates, and students working part time who require roommates. I would like to highlight that these people are finding it increasingly difficult to find work and housing in the same ZIP code. I personally know people who have turned down jobs just because they cannot afford the cost of living here. Do you know what would help? Diversity of housing. The people in this room are aware that there is no strict definition on the subjectiveness of diversity, so let's use this to our advantage and make a standard to allow a mix of people to be able to afford whatever diversity we come up with. Let us re-think how we fill in this space. Why can't we change currently sprawling Rivergrass to a density gradient with multifamily homes and grid-like interconnections to nearby communities to make it a much friendly and environmentally-conscious place to live? Do Eastern Collier County a favor and bring in something exciting to make my generation want to invest in. Instead of seeing conservation as something we have to do, see it as something we want to do. I want actual conserved land to protect my future air and water. I do not consider my front yard or my golf course open space or green space. Maybe the alligators do, but I don't, especially when fertilizers are going to be sprayed all over my front lawn and make sure it looks nice enough like all these other HOAs that we have in Western Collier County. In addition, I would like to point out one of the major flaws of Rivergrass. Protecting natural resources and habitat is one of the RLSA primary objectives, but here we are impeding on Primary January 28, 2020 Page 116 Panther Habitat on 70 percent of the village. We have been combating panther mortalities on I-75 for decades, and you're bound to see more with the probable increase in traffic on Oil Well Road, which is the possible six -lane highway that slices into habitat. How are we protecting natural habitat this way? As we start to fight the effects of sea level rise, there is a chance for this development to be the start of something new, something different from Collier County currently. Carbon neutrality, green spaces, walkable community, this opportunity should not be overlooked. And let's finish with the buildout with Ave Maria and continue to make it the best it can be and put future developments on hold. My generation will thank you for not making a bi g, glorified gated community span across this huge highway. The Planning Commission recommends denial, and so do I. Thank you for your time. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Kelly Andrews. She'll be followed by Jean Paskalides. Paskalides. Sorry abo ut that, Jean. MS. ANDREW: Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name is Kelly Andrew, and I am a resident of Collier County here to express my opposition to the development at hand, Rivergrass Village. I speak to you today as a representative of the small but growing population of 20-somethings in Collier County. As a proposed buildout date of this development is still a decade down the road, these plans are for our generation. We are not the happily retired northerners flocking south for winter that so often settle in Southwest Florida. We're the teachers, nurses, police officers, and firefighters finding our way in new careers that offer crucial services to a growing city. You need us, and we need affordable starter homes in multiuse developments to put down roots and localize our taxpayer dollars in Collier County. We will be the ones who reap the benefits January 28, 2020 Page 117 or face the consequences of your decision here today, which will set the standard for all 45,000 acres of potential future development in the RLSA. So enough with urban sprawl. We need compact pedestrian-friendly communities where we can obtain living necessities without hopping into our cars. Rivergrass Village does not accomplish these tasks. The numerous dead-ends scattered throughout the development and literal freight road that would bisect the community are not what come to mind what the RLSAs call for interconnectedness and effective mobility. I am 22 years old, and like the more seasoned Collier residents in the room today, I, too, am uneasy at the thought of crossing a six-lane highway. I want to be able to walk home after happy -hour drinks and reduce my carbon footprint by walking or biking on basic errands without the risk of being hit by the traffic that will only grow as our county's population continues to rise. We need to see growth that promotes safe transportation by means other than fossil fuels to keep traffic and traffic accidents to a minimum and amenity accessibility on the rise. We also need to grow in a way that honors our wildlife. This is why people come to Florida. Tourism is the backbone of our economy, and it is driven by our flora and our fauna. To date, habitat degradation and fragmentation are among the greatest threats to their livelihood. Seventy percent of Rivergrass's footprint falls into Primary Panther Habitat, which best available science tells us is essential to save the population from extinction. I don't want to live in a place that jeopardizes the survival of the Florida panther and other listed specie s to maximum corporate profit. Their longevity ought to be a top priority when we consider how to accommodate new residents while maintaining our paradise for future generations to enjoy. If not here and not now, then who will speak up January 28, 2020 Page 118 for these helpless animals who can't stand here and advocate for themselves? The RLSA should be about growth to support a sustainable future for the people and wildlife of Collier County, not about replicating existing PUDs. As it has been presented to you today, Rivergrass Village jeopardizes our delicate ecosystems and presents more of the same mazes of urban sprawl that our environment simply cannot afford. For these reasons, I urge you to deny this proposal. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Jean Paskalides. Paskalides. (No response.) MR. MILLER: All right. I'll keep this aside. Jen Cardenas. (No response.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Don Norris? Don will be followed by Dona Knapp. MR. NORRIS: Commissioners, thank you. As you can see by my shirt and my cap, I am a proud member of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, but I'm speaking today on behalf of myself, not on behalf of the Conservancy, though I hope they will agree with what I have to say. I'm a resident of East Naples living in Kings Lake having moved here after retiring from my position as a university professor of public policy. I've been closely following the land development issues in Collier County and have done so from the lens of a scholar who has studied and taught urban and suburban issues for most of my nearly 50-year career in academia. Indeed, my latest book titled Metropolitan Government in America -- yes, that's a -- I'm asking for you to go buy it. Yes, I'm punching my own book here. It came about because of my concerns over many years with suburban sprawl and its many, many harmful January 28, 2020 Page 119 consequences. As a result, I've been saddened by the proposed Rivergrass development and the several others that are likely to follow it in the approval process. Let me be clear about what I'm saying today and where my comments are directed. It's not just toward Rivergrass, but it's toward Rivergrass and the developments that are likely to follow it. These developments have nearly all of the worst consequences -- worst characteristics and negative consequences of leap frogging, patchwork quilt, low density suburban sprawl that produces serious environmental damage and causes increasing costs to local residents that are utterly unnecessary. Now to the environmental impacts that I want to address. There's only one of many environmental impacts that I will address in my short conversation with you, and that is the probable extinction of the Florida panther. The Conservancy has estimated that the additional road miles that are planned because of all of the proposed developments, not just Rivergrass, but all of them, could result in an additional 37 panther deaths by automobile per year. This is in addition to the roughly average -- annual average of 30 panther deaths per year, most by automobile. This would bring the total to 67 panther deaths per year, among the total estimated population of between 120 and 130 panthers. This would result in killing between 55.8 percent and 29.1 percent of the current population of the Florida panther of this endangered species. Even at the lower rate, 29.1 percent, this exceptional level of mortality could very easily cause the extinction of the Florida panther, a species that now is relatively -- is relatively stable, possibly even growing. And by the way, for those of you who enjoy the current lack of white-tailed deer in downtown Naples, and in much of the area, you can thank the panther for that, because the panther, according to the January 28, 2020 Page 120 ranger who runs the panther preserve, says that this is the only place in the United States, in the eastern seaboard of the United States that isn't overrun by white-tailed deer. Proponents of the development in the RSLA [sic] argue that Rivergrass and other proposed developments are necessary to absorb the increase -- likely increase in population within the county by the turn of the century. This is a falsehood, and it's largely being spread -- am I done? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thirty seconds. MR. NORRIS: -- that is being spread by the proponents of these developments. That's not -- not necessarily true because of the almost certainly available land west of Collier County that could be developed or developed to handle that population. I've got, you know, other points that I could make, but remember -- thank you. MR. MILLER: I want to remind the speakers your first beep you hear is your 30-second warning. Our next speaker is Dona Knapp. She'll be followed by Meredith Budd. MS. KNAPP: Good afternoon, commissioners. Again, I thank you very much for having this meeting so that it will give us a chance to defend our beautiful Collier County. And, you know, I've been praying that you will vote on the side of nature; that you will continue to protect and defend the natural systems to which we all love. And I think something very unique about Collier County is that within a matter of minutes we can be in nature. We can be away from the constant hustle and bustle and the traffic and the pollution where we can actually hear the birds, we can see roseate spoonbills and wood storks, and these things are so important because we live in quite an unnatural world sometimes, and we all need the chance to recharge and to renew and to go into January 28, 2020 Page 121 these areas. And, you know, development doesn't seem to have any respect for these natural systems. And I'd say that the proof is -- of the pudding is in the eating when we look at what's going on in Big Cypress now where we're prospecting for oil in such a beautiful place, disrupting the water systems, plowing over -- these big thumper trucks plowing over the little cypress trees which have actually been there for hundreds of years. Although they're very small, they're still very, very old. And I think this is just the short end of the wedge if we allow this to happen. People aren't going to stay out in Eastern Collier County. Of course they're going to want to come on our beaches. They want to come to the restaurants that are in our area. So that the amount of traffic is going to be tremendous, and the pollution is going to be tremendous. We -- the water systems are going to suffer. We -- I mean, at the moment we can't even seem to -- we can't even seem to clean our own water. We've got karenia brevis, also known as red tide, on our coastal waters, and then inland we have sign of bacterias. And we haven't sorted all that out yet. We don't know what to do with it yet. And although at the moment it's a at minimum, but when the warm weather comes and the hurricanes come, it's going to happen again. And we haven't dealt with that. And to think of building -- this isn't a village. As I said last week, a village is something very small. This is a city being proposed. A city the size of Washington, D.C. And we haven't even -- we don't even know how to clean our own waters at the moment, and now we're going to build more of this. I mean, what are we going to do when the hurricanes come filling in wetlands? Where's the water going to filter? How is it going to be cleaned? The marshlands and the wetlands are like our January 28, 2020 Page 122 kidneys and our liver. Without a good marshland and a wetland, without a good liver and a kidney, our systems get sick, and they eventually die. So we can't go on in this way. And I think it's very important to preserve the land that we have. And nature really doesn't need any help from us humans. I think we're doing a terrible job as it is with all of this building. It's just upsetting all the natural systems. Where are the animals going to go? In my time here -- I've lived here for 30 years. I've sadly seen less wood storks, less roseate spoonbills. It used to be common at one time, but not anymore. Not even the bats in my neighborhood, not even the mosquitoes. Everything seems to be going. And I just ask you, please, set a precedence and do not approve this development, and please leave Collier County the way it is. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Meredith Budd. She will be followed by Michael Seef. MS. BUDD: Good afternoon. Commissioners, Meredith Budd on behalf of the Florida Wildlife Federation. The RLSA is a compromise. And before you today you have two components of that compromise. You have an SRA which is Rivergrass, but you also have SSA 15, which is extensive land preservation and restoration that the applicant is doing to generate credits that would entitle the SRA. SSA 15 is over 5,200 acres of a critical flow-way in Camp Keais Strand that is set to be preserved in perpetuity. This means no development, no mining can ever happen on that acreage, and most of that acreage will not allow for any intensive agricultural. In fact, the retained uses for over 70 percent of the SSA are limited to the last two land-use layers, which would include some cattle crazing and restoration activities. This SSA also comes along with commitments to actually January 28, 2020 Page 123 restore over 2,600 acres of the Camp Keais Strand flow-way, removing roads to restore sheet flow, also restoring old agricultural fields, and removing exotics. These restoration outcomes only come with the amended changes before you today. Yes, the credits are increased to over 30,000 credits, but this is the program, and it's how credits are generated under the current RLSA program. And this application needs to be evaluated under that current program, not how myself or anyone else feels the program should be modified to make the credit system more balanced, which the county is currently reviewing. The federation wants to see this restoration come to fruition. This SSA presents incredible environmental outcomes that we would not see out of a typical development but, as per the compromise that is the RLSA, there are credits generated from doing this landscape-scale preservation, and these credits are generated as articulated under this current program. These credits can be used to develop areas of lesser environmental value. The SRA footprint is completely situated in cleared agricultural fields, it's directly adjacent to an already platted and developed Golden Gate Estates, and it straddles a four-lane road, which we've heard a lot about today, and soon to be a six-lane road. This is the sort of area that the RLSA should be directing conversion, and this is how the RLSA works. The applicant earns credits that can be used to entitle development, and we as the county, we reap the environmental benefits of preservation of over 5,200 acres and much-needed restoration of Camp Keais Strand. The footprint of this SSA has long been targeted by the South Florida Water Management District and the Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed for protection from development and for restoration. This SSA achieves that goal at no cost to the taxpayer. There are many components to this adjacent item today that you're January 28, 2020 Page 124 reviewing. But from an environmental perspective, this does direct incompatible uses away from those key wetlands and key upland habitats, effectuates preservation and restoration over that land. SSA is a win for Collier County. SSA 15, excuse me, is a win for Collier County. So thank you very much. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Michael Seef. He will be followed by Jen Cardenas. MR. SEEF: Excuse me. Good afternoon. I hope we're still awake and viable. I'm here to speak about something rather different than what we've heard, which is population growth and the projections of -- by the way, I'm sorry, Michael Seef. I am a permanent resident of North Naples, and I've lived in -- in Naples for about 20 years. So population growth. The -- there was nothing that I saw in the staff presentations, in looking at PL numbers, or in your executive summary that showed the population growth. It seems to be a secret or a well-kept secret, because it doesn't seem to be looked at or have been looked at. Now, on the visualizer that you see in front of you, I've projected population growth. And, by the way, this comes from your model CIGM, Collier Integrated Growth Model. And the blue is total RLSA populations. Not houses or acres, but population. I don't know if you've seen this before. And it shows it growing from current 2020 to 2050. Now, there have been some projections beyond 2050, but they're so uncertain it's like the hurricane views that you have where the probability gets lower and lower as you have a larger and larger time out -- time -- future time. The bottom five depict Ave Maria and its population starting at about 5,000 and going up to approximately 20,000. And then you January 28, 2020 Page 125 have a straight line. I don't know if this shows it -- I can't show it here. The straight line in the middle is the difference between the total RLSA population projection and Ave Maria. But I'm assuming, presuming, and I think we all should, that some of the population that's supposedly destined from Rivergrass is going to be taken by Ave Maria. Ave Maria has some wonderful qualities. It was mentioned before a number of times. It has a viable center. It has all kinds of amenities, and it's very close to Rivergrass. So why wouldn't somebody who is considering -- one of the two young people who spoke here before, why wouldn't they be considering going to Ave Maria just a short distance away and has walking and has all the things that we're looking for in the RLSA? Population is key to this whole thing, and it determines dwellings required. It determines acreages, and it determines whether you're built out. So these -- the bottom four on the chart show the populations of Rivergrass, which is approximately 6,000, and the total for the four villages would be about close to 10,000. And there are other competitors to Ave Maria. There's Babcock Ranch. There's urban infill. There are Golden Gate Estates. Commissioner Andy Solis mentioned before about building. Those are not in the state forest. Not -- it's -- they're in Golden Gate Estates. There's lots of room in Golden Gate Estates. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I'm sorry. Your time's up. MR. SEEF: There's lots of room in Ave Maria and elsewhere. Thank you for listening. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Jen Cardenas, and she will be followed by Rae Ann Burton. MS. CARDENAS: Good afternoon. I'm Jen Hammer Cardenas. I've been in Naples now for 40-something years; in Florida for over 50. Rivergrass. Even the name of this proposed development seems January 28, 2020 Page 126 to make a mockery of the rivergrass, which is our Everglades and surrounding area. It was pointed out that a huge chunk of the green space that was proposed is in the form of a golf course, which we all know is just a huge dumping site for pesticides and fertilizers. This is very delicate ecosystem out there, and we all know that that wreaks havoc with the environment. The area in Eastern Collier County is an extremely sensitive and unique environmental area that is so important in so many ways. It affects our water quality, our water flow; it's the only home to many unique species of plants and animals, and it even affects our weather. For the sake of brevity and clarity, I will focus specifically on the Florida panther. According to studies, Rivergrass Village would jeopardize the Florida panther, as 71 percent of the Rivergrass area is within primary zone panther habitat. In other words, where they live and breed. The panther currently occupies only 5 percent of its historic range and is the only panther in the Eastern United States. In the 1970s, only 20 of these animals existed in the wild; most of them right here in Collier County. Great efforts were made to save this magnificent cat from extinction and, as of 2017, estimated numbers were up to about 230 cats. Their extinction is not inevitable if we continue to protect their crucial habitat. Do we want to be the generation of local government that undid years of conservation efforts? Do we want to be the generation of local citizens that stood by and knowingly allowed the destruction of an entire species, a species of big cat that is literally the designated official animal of Florida? Here in Collier County we have a heightened responsibility to conserve our neighboring Everglades and sensitive areas. We are so fortunate to live in this unique place, but we also have the January 28, 2020 Page 127 responsibility of protecting this unique place and its unique plant and animal life. We must not allow the Rivergrass Village urban sprawl project to proceed. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Rae Ann Burton. She'll be followed by John Harney. MS. BURTON: Thank you. My name is Rae Ann Burton; Golden Gate Estates. I'm three streets from Rivergrass, the first of many villages. I started this speech and finished it at 10:00 last night, woke up at 3:00 a.m. this morning, redid it, and during this meeting I've redone it again. So I may be a little confused. The developers are so sure of themselves, they have on Domain Realty a Rivergrass Village Naples website. No homes yet listed. It's RivergrassVillageNaples.com. The agenda itself has plans for utility plants because of Rivergrass. Who builds? Who maintains? Remember, Collier took over one before. Affordable housing. No number giving [sic]. Not required. State's developer. Rivergrass has 47 percent more than county medium [sic]. January 17th, 2020, 1,152 homes for sale in Collier; 500 in the Estates. We don't need more housing. We need cell towers. More roads. Dense compact housing. Less rainwater absorption. Polluted water will run into our canals from roads, fertilizers from golf courses, and landscaping and flooding. Plus increased 24/7 traffic on once quiet streets to get out. States not panther habitat. Why, then, are there panther fences shown on the plans surrounding the development? That very area is very active with panther and bear sightings. I know. I live nearby. An animal crossing is not an animal crossing. It is a road crossing January 28, 2020 Page 128 through an animal habitat. We are told there's a preservation for animals that can go. Do they know? Do they know where it is? Is it there where they are? Agricultural spends 120 mill per year; second only to tourism. Destroying Naples' unique area will deter tourism. Stressed? Yes. Angry? Yes. I'm up at 5:00 redoing this speech, so I brought hugs. The bears represent the environment. Color yellow. Go cautious. Included are maps are [sic] the panther habitat and current cheaper homes for sale in the area. Sorry my printer -- color printer ran out. I'm so stressed about this project that it's not in the best interest of the 6,133 neighbors listed on Next Door for the Estates. This is our children's future and their children's future. The cry is loud. It's from many sources. It's not a good project. Benefits the developers. Destroys wildlife habitat. Will create a stressful, unsafe neighborhood. Environments. Big Cypress is not necessary. It's only necessary for them. Promise of community centers with dense compact units, like Naples. We already have a Naples; we don't need another. Issue brought up on how much Collier has donated. Bei ng a former bookkeeper, I know. Donations and hanging onto loss -- profit-loss property creates a big tax credit. Still, they own oil and mineral rights under our land. Developers can go home, sit on their lanais, and look at stars and here the quiet signs. Well, we will sit on ours and hear the traffic storm -- traffic and sirens on our once quiet streets and breathe vehicle fumes so they can get out of their dense compact communities. We can only recall what was once. Do not approve Rivergrass or any of the other villages. It's destructible to Golden Gate and the habitat. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is John Harney. January 28, 2020 Page 129 (No response.) MR. MILLER: I'll move on. Your next speaker is Lynn Martin. Lynn Martin will be followed by Nancy Payton. MS. MARTIN: Good afternoon, Commissioners. I'm Lynn Martin. I'm a permanent resident of Collier County. And today I ask you to withhold approval of the proposed Rivergrass Village. It seems to me, as currently designed, the applicants have not upheld their side of the bargain struck with the state and the county nearly 20 years ago. The spirit of the RLSA overlay calls for innovation and smart growth. It was clear that the state's intent was to bring economic vitality into the rural areas of the county, not to build bedroom communities far from the urbanized coast that we would require residents to drive for jobs and services. Developers should not propose villages to circumvent the Land Development Code and the Growth Management Plan requirements for towns. The acreage proposed for Rivergrass Village is just under a thousand which, as you know, is the threshold for a new town. By doing this, the developers are complying with the form of the law but not the spirit. The same can be said for the other SRA villages proposed by the same applicant, Longwater and Bellmar. If Rivergrass is approved, it will set a bad precedent. What does this mean in practical terms? Under the Land Development Code, towns are larger and more diverse than villages. They are required to have urban-level commercial, civic, and government services and infrastructure which support compact mixed-use development, reduce automobile trips, and make them more self-sufficient. Villages, by contrast, are primarily residential offering a village center for community support services. It is not smart growth to split a master planned town into three separate villages with little or no interconnectivity. The aggregation rule under the RLSA calls for aggregating January 28, 2020 Page 130 villages into towns when the same company controls the developments or there is a common management, second, there is a reasonable closeness in time between the completion of 80 percent of one development and the submission of drawing and plans for new development and, third, there will be a need for common master planning services such as water management, utilities, and public services. We have a situation developing in the RLSA where three almost contiguous villages are being proposed with combined acreage of a town but without the amenities required of a town. The applicant can and must do better. Please do not approve this plan today. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Nancy Payton, and she'll be followed by Tamara Paquette. MS. PAYTON: Good afternoon. Nancy Payton representing Nancy Payton. I'm here today to urge adoption of Sending Area 15 resolution and, by extension, approve -- because it is a package deal. These are four components under consideration -- the Rivergrass Village SRA, the water/sewer services agreement, and the Big Cypress agreement which stops at Bellmar. It's the Golden Gate Boulevard. It doesn't go further south. Although staff found Rivergrass consistent with the current Growth Management Plan, staff also characterized the village, for the most part, as being a typical suburban development. Well, I disagree. No typical suburban development brings to the table over 5,000 acres of forever-protected and maintained wildlife habitat, that's functioning habitat, and wetlands. And of that, half those acres are going to be restored to their natural values. On the visualizer is a page from the Florida Forever Program. In 1990, February 1990, 30 years ago, CREW, including the Camp January 28, 2020 Page 131 Keais Strand, was added to the then conservation and recreation lands priority acquisition list. CARL, as it was commonly called, is now the Florida Forever Program. And if you look at what is in this summary, it acknowledges that the initial focus of the CREW land acquisition is on the Camp Keais Strand corridor. That's how important Camp Keais Strand has been for 30 years. And when CREW went on the Florida -- now Florida Forever list, that was the priority acquisition area. And it was composed, is, of 18,205 acres that connect CREW lands in the north to the panther refuge in the south, and Fakahatchee Strand and Picayune Strand. It's a regional connection, a regional link. Next one, Leo. The Camp Keais Strand map that's now on the visualizer was produced by the South Florida Water Management District which manages the CREW lands, and it shows the CREW lands in yellow, and in the red hatch are the SSAs, the sending areas. Sending Area 15, I've handwritten, overlapped in black, just so you can see how essential and critical it is in that habitat link. Fifteen and the seven other sending areas that I believe are within that boundary total 26,130 acres, and it shows how important and how successful the RLSA and the sending area program is and can be. We've exceeded the expectation that was set 30 years ago. Notice in the bottom there's a sign that says Camp Keais parcels. They're two little blue parcels. Those are 10 acres that the state has been able to protect. In the years and decades to come, what will be remembered about today is not Rivergrass, in my opinion, but it will be what Rivergrass brought to the table. This is the day, or this could be the day, hopefully it is the day, that Camp Keais Strand was saved, forever protected and restored. Thank you. January 28, 2020 Page 132 MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Tamara Paquette, and she will be followed by Pam Brown. MS. PAQUETTE: Hi. I wanted to start off by saying I am the Lorax, but let's just say I'm Tamara Paquette. I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees and so do you and so does everybody in this room. And this topic is -- it's contentious, and it becomes very emotional, and it will make you crazy enough to write speeches at 5:00 in the morning and not go to bed till 3:00 and even make you want to run for office. And this is one of the main reasons I actually -- in 2016 I ran for office for the seat that my friend Bill McDaniel occupies. So we know that we have on the Board -- we have a real estate agent and a real estate broker and a wonderful guy who's never seen a developer he didn't like. We need Loraxes up here that are going to be stewards, so I'm sending you love and positive thoughts that you're listening to all these fabulous people, and not just the folks that are going to donate to your next campaign. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Pam Brown, and she will be followed by Deborah Woods. All right. I don't see Pam. Deborah Woods. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Pam was here. She was right outside. I just -- I saw her a moment ago. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: She'll hear her name. Go ahead and continue and call -- MR. MILLER: Yeah. Julie Smelts. Schmelzle. Thank you. Sorry. She will be followed by Charlotte Nycklemoe. MS. SCHMELZLE: Hi. Good afternoon. I'm Julie Schmelzle. I'm here before you as a community leader, and I'm a resident of Golden Gate Estates as well. I think this is incredible that you are able to be hearing from an impassioned community, people that care deeply about what's January 28, 2020 Page 133 happening in Collier County. And so I'm speaking from the perspective of having known Collier Enterprises but more importantly the people that are part of Collier Enterprises for nearly 30 years. They are honorable and caring and act with an integrity. And, in fact, one of my first interactions was with Mrs. Collier Reed; that is Mile's mother. And she had the vision of putting healthcare out in Immokalee with the Isabel Collier Reed Center. And I had that time with her to understand why Collier County was so important to this family. Later, as you know, the Colliers were involved in the creation of the Immokalee Foundation and what was happening throughout Collier County, not just in Immokalee. They've used their assets for conservation for a century, and they will continue to do that. I've known -- and I don't pretend to know completely the RLSA and all the technical aspects. I'm really here to speak about the integrity of this company and the people that manage and own it. I see Rivergrass Village -- I live in Golden Gate Estates. It represents a comprehensible -- comprehensive, compatible village that balances the needs of our community. It's not just Eastern Collier. It's all of its assets: The people, the creatures. And it has an opportunity to approve, and you have an opportunity to approve, a well-rounded thought-out sustainable village. It addresses water quality. I'm on sewer and septic. That is not the case with this village as we move forward. Conservation is obviously a key factor, as well as providing dwelling units at a reasonable price in an area that was set and well thought out under the RLSA plans a decade-plus ago. This really represents our best opportunity today. And I know this is a tough decision. You're hearing from a lot of impassioned people who care about this community, and I respect that. And I think it's beautiful. January 28, 2020 Page 134 But this is truly a great opportunity and our best opportunity to manage thoughtfully the lands in Eastern Collier. With a history of doing right for this community, Collier Enterprises, and the individuals that I've known through the years, Mrs. Collier Reed, Miles Collier, Parker Collier, I highly encourage you to approve this application today. Thank you very much. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Charlotte Nycklemoe, and she will be followed by Alison Wescott. MS. NYCKLEMOE: Good afternoon, Commissioners. Thank you for allowing me to speak to you today. My name is Charlotte Nycklemoe, and I'm here representing the Collier County League of Women Voters. The future success of the RLSA will be made by your decisions today on Rivergrass Village. The League supports the Planning Commission's recommendations to deny Rivergrass. The Planning Commission found that this proposed village did not conform to the goals and objectives of the RLSA program; that it did not come close to the litany of provisions. Do you think the Rivergrass Village conforms to the goals, objectives, and policies of the RLSA program? The Planning Commission answered no. We agree. The RLSA program provides a new town and village concept: Towns and villages that are interconnected, bike and pedestrian friendly, with a certain diversity of housing, certain density, and a certain quantity of goods and services so that residents do not have to leave the community to meet their daily needs. Rivergrass does not do this. Rivergrass Village is contrary to the intent -- the intent. There's that word again -- of the program, says county staff on Page 35 of the agenda package. Where is the innovation? Their creative land-use planning? Oil Well Road, a high-volume, high-speed road will split the village in January 28, 2020 Page 135 half. And there is a complete lack of interconnectedness within the village. This is not the Stewardship Receiving Area envisioned by the RLSA program. Fiscal neutrality. Really? Planning Commissioners found there was no proof of fiscal neutrality because the applicant refused to provide access to its model, assumption, and analysis. Commissioners couldn't even check for accuracy or consistency. County staff relied on a peer review by Jacobs which concludes that the applicant's fiscal neutrality determination is reasonable; however, Jacobs would not warrant or guarantee this conclusion, and Jacobs pointed out that it did not independently verify the information the applicant relied upon but assumed such information to be accurate, reliable, and current. Do you consider 90 percent single-family homes versus 10 percent multifamily homes an appropriate diversity of housing? County staff did not consider 90/10 percent appropriate. The ratio for Collier County is 50/50. Even the planning staff testified to the Planning Commission that the design of Rivergrass Village is not consistent with the intent of the RLSA program. It is not innovative or compact. They concluded -- we ask you to deny Rivergrass. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: You still have 30 seconds. MS. NYCKLEMOE: Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. The Planning Commission expressed real concern for the future of the RLSA, and Rivergrass Village is just the first of four villages that will soon be coming before you, as you already know. Thank you very much. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Alison Wescott, and she will be followed by Gaylene Vasaturo. MS. WESCOTT: Great. Yes, my name is Alison Wescott, and I'm a resident of Collier County. These comments are my own. I ask you -- also I ask you to deny this application today. I am January 28, 2020 Page 136 most concerned that the county staff has accepted the Jacobs Economic Consulting Group's determination that the applicant's claim of fiscal neutrality in just 10 years by 2031 is reasonable even though Jacobs does not warrant or guarantee to the county the conclusions set forth in the peer review or those in the DPFG report or their fiscal impact model. Where is the accountability in this? It seems counterintuitive when we consider that Ave Maria was permitted 15 years ago and only received -- and only recently achieved approximately 25 percent buildout. Lely in East Naples took 30 to 40 years to reach buildout. My own community, Fiddler's Creek, which began building around 1999, has yet to reach buildout after 20 years. So how could -- how could Rivergrass Village use a 10-year time horizon? Furthermore, the motion that a primarily residential village could achieve fiscal impact in just 10 years would seem to contradict what we learned from the RLSA workshop and restudy white paper. County staff offered a rule of thumb: A single-family house uses a dollar -- a single-family home uses $120 of every dollar generated in taxes. Commercial consumes 65 to 75 cents on the dollar. Industrial uses, 35 to 40 cents. So it would seem that a mainly residential village should have higher cost to taxpayers. The public record of the workshop explains in rural areas top-heavy residential land-use patterns at buildout are undesirable. The premise for the RLSA is for towns to be self-sustaining with a balanced land-use pattern, including job-creating commercial and industrial uses preferred. There is no doubt that the current application for Rivergrass Village contradicts this, as a village will not offer the economies of scales or the mix of uses of a town. So the assumptions used in the analysis are key. If they are wrong, it could mean the county would have to increase its debt, and taxpayers will have to pay higher taxes. January 28, 2020 Page 137 And since many people move to Florida for the lower taxes, this is a big problem. Add to this, on the same time horizon, the growing cost of infrastructure to raise roads, harden shorelines, and make coastlines more resilient to deal with sea level rise, more powerful storms and more frequent flooding, the costs will go up. All of this suggests the need to be more -- for more careful analysis of the assumptions before going ahead. Thank you for your time. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Gaylene Vasaturo. She's been ceded additional time from Patricia Forkan. Patricia? Oh, there you are. And she will be followed by Bonnie Michaels. MS. VASATURO: Good afternoon, Commissioners. I'm Gaylene Vasaturo. I've been visiting Collier County for about 40 years visiting my family, and I've lived here full time for about seven years when I retired as a -- from being an environmental attorney. The RLSA is a very complicated program. And over the past several years, I've put considerable time and effort to try to understand this program and to participate in numerous permitting procedures, as well as all the RLSA workshops. Today the question is -- one question you need to answer: Is Rivergrass Village consistent with the goals and policies of the RLSA program? Now it's time for you to decide that. You've heard a lot today on that issue, so I'm going to really shorten my comments here to just highlight a few things to consider. Oil Well Road, a future six-lane highway that runs through the middle, this presents a safety hazard to pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers; so says Mr. Casalanguida last year in response to the same design proposed for Rural Lands West. The village center, it's on the edge of Oil Well Road. It will be at the intersection of Oil Well and Big Cypre ss. It's not internal to the village. It's not a focal point for the community. It's really a January 28, 2020 Page 138 commercial center designed for drive-by traffic. There is no gradient of density from the village center to the edges. What you have here is a village with single-family homes on lakes spread out throughout the entire development. Planning Commissioner Fryer concluded that Rivergrass Village promotes urban sprawl, and he based this on the design of a long tail and a long neck and the failure to have a compact pedestrian-friendly form. At a 2018 RLSA workshop, Mr. Bosi told us, the premise of the RLSA is for villages and towns to be economically self-sustaining and self-contained. This is not Rivergrass. Second -- second matter I wanted to talk about is, does it make sense for you to decide Rivergrass before you determine whether Rivergrass should be aggregated with the other two villages proposed by Collier Enterprises? Collier Enterprises should not be allowed to avoid town infrastructure costs and housing and mixed-use requirements by splitting a town into multiple villages. If you replace a town with several villages in the same area, you would expect that you would need the same amount of infrastructure, especially roads. The three villages together, proposed villages, will not provide diverse economic activity and the employment base needed to make the RLSA work. What you will have is many gated PUDs and few jobs and services, and that was not the intent or the goal of the RLSA. Third, Rivergrass will be built on habitat essential to the survival of the panther -- I'm talking about Primary Zone Habitat. I think Ms. Olson pointed out it was 700 acres -- because the applicant did not update the Natural Resource Index scores for panthers correctly. The applicant doesn't deny that Rivergrass will be built on Primary Zone Habitat. In fact, it can't deny it. Since 2002, panther experts, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Eastern Collier property owners' own panther review team have identified the location of this January 28, 2020 Page 139 habitat. And based on telemetry data, they've established that some farm fields are Primary Zone Habitat. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in its 2008 Panther Recovery Plan that the focus should be on maintaining the total area of primary zone to further -- to prevent further loss of population viability. The applicant said to the Planning Commission that they don't have to look at any panther studies because Rivergrass is situated on land that was not considered Preferred Panther Habitat in 2002. Here the applicant is referring to the 2002 Land Development Code provision that lists certain FLUCFCS codes, that's land-use codes, as preferred or tolerated panther habitat. Because the land-use codes for Rivergrass are not listed in this 2002 provision, it doesn't matter how many panthers the applicant observes during its survey. The score for panthers will always be zero. At the time of the adoption of the 2002 RLS [sic] overlay and Land Development Code provision, WilsonMiller made it clear that the Natural Resource Index values would need to be updated because there was limited data on the Florida panther, and the science on the panther and its habitat was continuing to evolve. In 2008, county environmental staff told the five-year review committee that what is considered to be habitat used by panthers has changed since 2002. The FLUCFCS codes, the land-use codes, and the Land Development Code were not protecting panthers. In 2011, Michele Mosca of Collier County emailed Al Reynolds of Stantec about the need to determine whether there have been changed conditions concerning land-use codes since the five-year review. Al Reynolds responded, quote, one of the basic principles of the RLSA is that there will always be more recent and more site-specific data as the program is implemented. And this is best addressed at the time a property owner and the county evaluate a specific application for an SSA or an SRA. That's how it was January 28, 2020 Page 140 intended, that the NRI scores would be updated, and that didn't happen here. Finally, I want to address the SSA 15. I agree with Nancy Payton, restoration of the Camp Keais Strand flow-way is very important for numerous reasons: Regional water flow, wildlife, the ecosystem. My comments concern some questions raised by the restoration plan. First, it appears that Collier Enterprises is expected to get over 10,000 R2 credits, restoration credits, for restoration of the flow -way even if the flow-way is not restored. Under the restoration plan, work has to be done on both SSA 15 and SSA 14 to restore the flow-way. Collier Enterprises has to remove a roadway in SSA 14 to restore this flow-way, but the SSA 14 restoration amendment has not been approved. The restoration plan is not clear on this, but it appe ars that Collier Enterprises could seek credits for SSA 15 flow-way restoration even if the restoration work in SSA 14 hasn't been done. The approval of SSA 15 should make clear that credits will not be awarded for restoration of the flow-way until the restoration work in SSA 14 and SSA 15 is done. Second, what if meeting -- do I get -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I'm sorry. Your time is up. MS. VASATURO: Oh, no. I get four more minutes. MR. MILLER: No, no. That was your -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Your time is up. MS. VASATURO: That was -- I only had -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Ma'am? MR. MILLER: Yeah. I reset it and added four more minutes to it without it beeping the first time. MS. VASATURO: Oh, you did? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: How many more speakers do we have? January 28, 2020 Page 141 MR. MILLER: We have 24 more speakers, sir. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We're going to take a break until 3:00. The court reporter looks like she's about ready. So we'll reconvene at 3:00. (A brief recess was had from 2:46 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.) MR. OCHS: Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: If you'd go ahead and call the next speaker. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Bonnie Michaels. Ms. Michaels will be followed by Elena Mola. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Let me just mention to the -- we have 24 more speakers and, of course, we've been listening to speakers for two hours. We're going to listen to everybody, but there's been a lot of repetition. So I'm going to ask now that we not have any repetition, if you can manage to d o that. You'll get your time, but be somewhat thoughtful in terms of the decisions we have to make and the time period. MR. MILLER: Ms. Michaels. MS. MICHAELS: Bonnie Michaels, for the record, speaking for myself. I'll make it short, I promise. I've been going to the meetings for RLSA since 2008. I've gotten old going to RLSA; many wrinkles. In spite of the assurance of staff, I think that there are still a lot of loose incidence. There's not a lot of clarity about a lot of the issues. We're still talking about what's really restoration; what's really credits. We're still talking about Oil Well Road as the big gorilla. And, you know, wildlife is back and forth and back and forth. And just, personally, I would never move out there. I mean, what would there be to do? I mean, watch the traffic on Oil Well Road? You know, take a little leisurely walk to Publix? January 28, 2020 Page 142 And you heard the young people. Who's going to actually go out there? Who's going to be your population? Even though you've said that this doesn't set a precedence, it will set a presence because any other developer that will can come will say, well, you did this for Rivergrass, so why don't you do this for us? I really need to -- think that you need to think about the precedence of this. One question: What's the rush? You've heard so many comments, you've heard so many people today. How can you make a decision? Would it be so bad to pause, think about it, talk about it? I know you've been talking and thinking about it for a long time already, but listening to everybody today and how important this is. I would hope that maybe you would take a step back and not make a decision today and really ask for everything you want. This should be the gold standard. This should be something that we're all going to tell everybody, come out and see Rivergrass the way -- the new development. Not the way it looks today. So my major comment is: Don't rush this very important decision, because what you do today, you can't go back. This will b e the future for Collier County. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Elena Mola. She's been ceded four additional minutes from Diana Walsh. Ms. Walsh, can you raise your hand? (Raises hand.) MR. MILLER: Okay. And she will be -- that will be a total of eight minutes, and she will be followed by Sal Woliver. MS. MOLA: Thank you very much. I didn't catch the name of the last speaker, but she -- I think she pointed it very well. This should be the gold standard for us. Commissioner Saunders said last week, or two weeks ago, he January 28, 2020 Page 143 said, this is too important to make a mistake. So I would urge you to all, you know, just take your time, whether it's a week or whether it's a month, just to decide, to see what is best. But I wanted to talk about money, and I wanted to talk about taxpayers and the cost of growth in relationship to the RLSA and Rivergrass. The way the RLSA works is that landowners get expanded development rights to build self-sufficient contained villages and towns. The taxpayers are supposed to get public benefits, economic benefits at no public funding cost. The government is supposed to get revenues that are greater than or equal to the cost. So if you look at the RLSA overlay program requirements as the state mandate order first came out, it says, achieve public benefits with little or no public funding. Then when you look at the Growth Management Plan, the RLSA Policy 4.18 says it has to be fiscally neutral, the development, and have a positive economic impact to the county at horizon year. So we went back, obviously, and looked at the fiscal impact analysis, and the developer presented an alternative economic impact assessment because, for whatever reason -- and I think you should think about it. I hope you all got both of my letters. Good, thank you -- you really should think about having your own impact -- economic impact analysis so you can determine what assumptions are going in, what methodology, what formulas, and what calculations. When DPFG, through a locked model, which a number of people have spoken about, and we can discuss, they came out that at a 10-year buildout, the 2,500 residential units with the 60- to 80,000 square feet of commercial, which I'm glad to see that it's been increased, would yield $9,891,000 [sic] a year in ad valorem in 2032. So you start off at 989,100 in Year 1 assuming that you have sold your 250 units a year. January 28, 2020 Page 144 Then you get to impact fees, and they say that they would pay $59,592,000 in total impact fees in 2032. The way those impact fees are paid, as you know, is they are paid when you issue the certificate of occupancy per unit. And I calculated that at $6 million a year, approximately. When I read both -- the economic assessment for the applicant, it says, the DPFG assumes no responsibility for inaccuracies in the information obtained by the developer; you can read the rest. It says, it does not warranty or -- no warranty or representation is made that any of the projected values or results contained in the assessment will be achieved. It says that DPFG has not rendered any expert opinions nor is any party entitled to rely on the economic -- to rely upon the economic assessment without prior written consent. Then it continues. It says -- when I started asking Growth Management how these impact fees were calculated with the assumptions, they said, well, we've hired Jacobson [sic] Engineering to do a peer review. So I went through the Jacobs Engineering peer review, and this is what I find; that Jacobs did not undertake its own economic impact or fiscal neutrality analysis or determination; that the overall assessment is underpinned by the fundamental assumption of fiscal neutrality at the project's horizon, year buildout 2030; that the applicant's determination of fiscal neutrality was reasonable; that Jacobs relied on information which was not independently verified and was assumed to be true, accurate, complete, reliable, and current; that Jacobs does not warrant or guarantee to the county the conclusions set forth in its own peer review or in the DPFG report or its fiscal impact model. It continues. The fiscal analysis is not a cash flow analysis. It does not include a year-by-year examination of the county sources and uses of funds; that the development may not achieve fi scal January 28, 2020 Page 145 neutrality in the early stage; that the county must make initial investments to accommodate growth to fund the necessary infrastructure services; that substantial changes to variables, including what happens with the U.S. economy, could render the analysis obsolete. The cost of future financing is not included in the analysis. This factor can add substantially to the overall cost of infrastructure development and, thereby, could negatively affect any findings of neutral fiscal impacts should financing be employed by the county, the fire district, or school district. Now, we all know what -- the level of debt the school district and the county has. So this is the bottom line. The economic impact bottom line is increase county debt and increase taxes for payers -- for taxpayers. Because when you look at every single qualifier that is contained in both the Jacobs report and the DPFG, it says, assumes no responsibility for inaccuracies, no warranty or representation, may not achieve fiscal neutrality. Changes to variables could render the fiscal neutrality obsolete. Basically, all that translates into the county and its taxpayers taking all of the financial risks associated with the provision of infrastructure and long-term servicing of Rivergrass. Now, I just wanted to -- you guys go very quickly. This is the amount of debt right now that we have, okay. We had to have this one percent sales tax so that we could basically fund capital improvement projects, because if not, we'd have had a deficit. I want to leave this with you, but with this kind of debt that we have, we cannot be the taxpayers who guarantee whether their assumptions are correct. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you very much. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Sally Woliver. She'll be followed by Leigh Kistler. January 28, 2020 Page 146 MS. WOLIVER: Good afternoon. It's a pleasure to see all of you and, as always, thank you for your service. I've been a Collier County resident living in the Golden Gate Estates primarily for the last 29 years. And like many of my fellow friends in this room, I'm also a graduate of Leadership Collier. Hello to Rich, Julie, and Crystal. Proud members of the class of 2020 [sic]. Like them -- I know, I just gave away something. It gets worse. I say 2020. 2000. Yeah, I'm ahead . Forgive my rushing. I'm a little nervous. My comments are a bit different. We're, all of us, as we should be, focused on the here and now. My focus is to pull you into a future a lot of us, especially folks like me, are not going to see maybe in the next 20, 30, 40, or 50 years. We need to imagine a time that looks at our children and our grandchild. And over the last four years, I've taken my volunteer efforts, and I've put them towards climate change and sea level rise. And toward that end, I spend a lot of time with Mike Savarese and Peter Sheng, who you all know well, working with them on their NOAA grant, and I'm going to talk about that at the very end. But keep the focus now ahead. Think about your children. Think about your grandchildren. I'm worried about what we're doing looks like something out of that wonderful movie from Kevin Costner, also 20 years ago, Field of Dreams. "If we build it, they will come." And I think we have to take -- all of us take a step back and look at some of the facts. First let's look at population protections. And this was something that caught my eye last fall. Zillow reported on it, but Fox News picked it up and did an excellent job, and it referred to all of us baby boomers as -- there's a new word for us. We're the silver tsunami. So you can take that one home with you and tell your kids to respect the silver tsunami. January 28, 2020 Page 147 And what it said is that we are in unprecedented territory. The U.S. housing market is on the verge of being inundated with homes for sale on a scale that hasn't been seen since the last great recession, the housing bubble that we all remember in the mid 2000s. This silver tsunami, they claim, is driving this because the grim reality, guess what? We're all going to die. So on that cheery note, that means that over the next two decades more than 21 million homes are -- will be available. Contrast that to the last housing bubble where there, on the average, were about 450,000 homes available for year. We also know, as a result of this study that Zillow did, that retirement destinations, especially in Arizona and Florida, will experience the most housing turnover in the wake of what is being called the silver tsunami. Hank Fishkind, which I know many of you follow and I've followed for years, has said our population is slowing down, and this is the part to pay attention to. We have gone down from 322,000 to 233,000 last year. The thing that is increasing are mosquitoes. We rank seventh in the nation in terms of mosquitoes and mosquito-borne disease. So I know it's not easy to think about a future that doesn't exist yet. At the end of May, Mike and Peter will be done with their report. Wait till then, please, to make your decisions. They'll have a lot of good recommendations. And thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Leigh Kistler. She'll be followed by Brad Cornell. MS. KISTLER: Hi. I'm Leigh Kistler. I live in Naples. I would like to begin by quote -- two Amish quotes. The first, the earth is what we all have in common. The second, the earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed. January 28, 2020 Page 148 On that note, I would like to say our duty is not to provide potential future residents but to provide for our current residents and our quality of life. Water. Runoff is caused when we pave over our permeable soils. That's what this will do. Our water is now brown in the Gulf of Mexico. When I arrived 23 years ago, it was aqua. Humans pollute. Traffic. Six lanes. I tried to cross 41 last week on foot. It took me five minutes, and I was scared to death. That is not a good thing to have through the middle of a village. Six lanes. And our jobs -- duty is also to protect the habitat and the wildlife, and I don't see this being a need. I see it being a greed. And as -- Theresa Heitmann, who is running for mayor of Naples, her platform is, for the residents, not the builders, not the lawn services. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Brad Cornell. He'll be followed by Judith Hushon. MR. CORNELL: Good afternoon, Commissioners. I'm Brad Cornell. I'm here on behalf of Audubon Western Everglades and also Audubon Florida. I want to raise the first thing which is an urgent issue. In answer to the question of what's the hurry, the hurry is that we have ecological problems that need solving, and one of those is in the Camp Keais Strand. Conservation benefits from Stewardship Sending Area 15 are really, really important. The south Lee County watershed plan found after the 1995 floods in the CREW system that put people in east Bonita Springs out of their homes for three months, that water from Lake Trafford and Camp Keais Strands was actually backing up into the Imperial River watershed. January 28, 2020 Page 149 And one of the solutions to that that was identified was removing a road that actually acted as a damn across the Camp Keais. That's part of the restoration that's being proposed in this project for SSA 15. There's two roads to be removed as well as restoration. That's going to benefit wood storks. It's going to benefit panthers, water quality, wetlands. I remind you that we have lost in Lee and Collier County over 26,000 acres of wetland since 1996. If the Clean Water Act and our regulations were doing their job, how did that happen? You know, I'm working really hard on that front to try and fix those problems, but it remains a big challenge. And all you have to do is look to Washington to see how big a challenge that is today. On the credits issue, the most important thing is that resource, preservation, and restoration are being done through this SSA; however, Audubon does agree that there are issues with too many credits being generated and, in fact, when I was on the five-year review committee 10 years ago, we had made a recommendation to the Board to fix some of these problems, to recalibrate, to figure out a better way to do restoration and not break the bank. Those sat on the shelf for 10 years. Now that looks pretty stupid that we did that, and it's time -- I would say we would all agree that it's over time to get to that issue as soon as possible. And I know you are because in October you gave direction to work on that. Two other issues that I think are incorrect assertions that are being made. One is that no one is going to build one house on every five acres. And I think we all know that that's not true; that people are coming here; that affordable housing is an issue; that finding a place and -- a little mansion in the woods is going to be attractive. That's what Golden Gate Estates is, and that model has been going for decades. And, unfortunately, that's not a good model, and we January 28, 2020 Page 150 want to discourage that. That's what Rural Land Stewardship does. It incentivizes an alternative. And the other fallacy that by building these towns and villages, that we're somehow going to be inducing a population growth here in Collier County that otherwise would not occur, and that is not true. These people are coming, and we would be foolish not to have a plan to accommodate without harming the nature of this place; where we put all these people. How do we build our communities and not harm the wetlands and panther habitat? And I will remind you that your own interactive growth model shows that if you stop Rural Lands Stewardship today, you're going to have 105,000 people. If you keep it, you'll have 116,000 people in 50 years. It's almost the same. So I will finish by just saying that this is a regionally significant plan. The village is not really the claim to fame. The claim to fame and the take-home message here is that we're going to get over 5,000 acres of restoration and preservation forever, and this is really, really important and needed today. So I thank you for that consideration. Appreciate it. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Taylor has a question for you. MR. CORNELL: Yeah. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Hi. Mr. Cornell, I'm a little confused. There are two roads that need to be removed now. MR. CORNELL: Correct. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: One is in SSA -- MR. CORNELL: SSA 14, and the other one's in SSA 15. But the SSA 14 road is the old road to Immokalee between -- it's a 3-foot grade, maybe even higher. I was out there recently, and it's a pretty high dam, basically, that needs to be removed, and it goes for several miles. If you take that out you're going to increase flow during the January 28, 2020 Page 151 wet season, and you're going to lengthen the hydro periods for the other wetlands downstream. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: In SSA 14. MR. CORNELL: That's in SSA 14 north of Immokalee Road. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. MR. CORNELL: But south of Lake Trafford. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: So you would agree with the comment -- earlier comment by a speaker that both roads need to be removed in order to restore that very, very important flow? MR. CORNELL: They both should be removed, and the pinch point that's on the south, south of Oil Well Road, there's 100 acres of some farm field that's going to be restored to wetlands. That's also really important to expand the width of where the water flows. And I've been out there and looked at it, and it's a big opportunity, and it's something that's been sorely lacking for many years. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you. MR. CORNELL: Yeah. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Judith Hushon. She's been ceded four additional minutes from Gary Bromley, who is right there, and she will be followed by Diane Flagg. MS. HUSHON: Hello, Commissioners. You're hanging in there. You know, I've been through all the hearings in the 2007 to 2009, I've been through the hearings from 2017 to 2019, and here I am today again. I didn't have white hair when I started. Neither did Mr. Saunders, I might add. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I think I did. MS. HUSHON: Your job is to protect our natural resources and our quality of life. That's really your job. You're sitting there as the -- with the power. And I'm going to go back and just talk a little bit about natural January 28, 2020 Page 152 resource scoring. It's flawed right now. We lack the baseline data. The scoring for Rivergrass -- and you didn't hear that presentation by Mr. Passarella -- was done based on 2002 data. He walked around the site a little bit -- actually, he walked around it 16 times, but he only went once in the wet season. And they didn't note that the large portions of this site in the wet season are covered with water and wading birds. That's -- it's a birder's place. But this Natural Resource Index, all the county has available to it are what I'm calling the composite gray-tone maps, and you can see those in the SSA applications, the gray-tone maps. At least they used to be in there when I used to get them. And the gray -tone maps, you can't take and go down to the natural resource score, and you don't know how it was made up. So I think we need to do some work as a county on that. As I said, I guess it was last week, we also need to look at that number 1.2, because that number is artificial and is not protecting our animals. This is the cutoff. If it's above 1.2, you can't build there. That's the why, the 1.2. And it just so happens there doesn't happen to be any of that on this property, and Mr. Passarella would have said that as well. The other thing that we need to know is that we do know now that we need to add the FLUCFCS codes, and this is a minor addition of three FLUCFCS codes to our Land Development Code. It's nothing. Because the panthers, we know, use farm fields. So that was just kind of my little panther thing. In 2020 there was a vision for the RLSA. It was set forth in the Growth Management Plan and the Rural Lands Stewardship for the Rural Lands Stewardship Area and the Community Character Plan. There was a vision. This has been lost. This development does not implement that vision, and I think that's what a lot of people have been saying. January 28, 2020 Page 153 This has to do with a range of housing. Is has to do with a gradient density. It has to do with a town center that's in the center so people who live around it can walk to it and bike to it. It has to do with interconnectedness, compactedness, et cetera. Staff called it two PUDs separated by a six-lane road, and it does kind of look like two PUDs, except we don't have any environmental areas set aside because we didn't have to here. We don't have any parkland. We don't have any -- if this had been a town -- it is three acres short of a town; three acres. If it had been a town, it would have had to have a park, a community park. Well, I think it's up to you to give us that park. I think this ought to be a town. And if it were, you'd get that -- what Mr. Saunders wanted. He wanted that larger amenities area, stores, and things. A town has to have more of that. There's a requirement for more. The town would also have to have community parks and more services available. And I think we owe it to our people to provide that, especially when we're coming so close to being a town. Three acres is farcical. So that's one of my conclusions. I just want to speak a little bit to SSA 15. SSA 15, when we restore -- I think the restoration credits should be based on what we restore, not on the whole land. They are not restoring the whole land. They are restoring a little piece of it here and a little piece of it there. That should get restoration credits, not the entire set of acres. I find it difficult to understand how this piece of land can generate enough credits for 5,000 acres of town, this was one SSA, can give us five of these villages. That's too much. That's not what was envisioned. That is not -- that was not the dream plan. And it has kind of morphed, and it's being played out so that they can claim -- they can claim they're restoring -- when they're leaving it as farm fields. It's going to be as January 28, 2020 Page 154 Ag 2. They're not restoring that. It was still ag -- it was Ag 2 yesterday. It will be Ag 2 tomorrow. So I think you need to look at what's being restored, how much is being restored. And I think it was April who showed you the map of the areas that had the restoration marked off in them. To me, that's what you should get credit for. If you take a road out, fine, I'll give you those credits. If you take out some exotics, I'll give you those. But I just think we need to put our smart hats on, because this is going to be a precedent. This is the first town. It's after Ave Maria, yes, but it's the first town of i ts type to really come through with the rules. Ave Maria started as a university and a church, so it already had stuff to work around. This has nothing. This is a blank slate. And we have to do this right so that we do it right every time we have to do it again. So thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Diane Flagg. She's been ceded additional time from Molly Cook, from Sue [sic] McFadden -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I don't see Sue. MR. MILLER: -- from Dan Miller. And that will be a total of 12 minutes, and she will followed by Neville Williams. MS. FLAGG: Good afternoon, Commissioners. Diane Flagg. I'm a 40-year resident of Collier County, retired from Collier County after 32 years. Today it kind of reminds me of that Hans Christian Andersen fable. RLSA was that king walking down the street with those fine clothes on and all the gold and all the braid and all the people on the side of the streets yelling and screaming how beautiful the king's clothes are, until that one small child said, look at the king, look at the king. It has -- he has no clothes. And I think what you're hearing today is a lot of people being that little boy saying, look at the king, RLSA has no clothes. If you look at what the Board approved -- this is a map of all of January 28, 2020 Page 155 RLSA. It's 195,000 acres; 184- and change are privately owned, so it could be developed. When the Board adopted RLSA, there were supposed to be a total of 16,800 acres as a development footprint. Your current Land Development Code -- your current Growth Management Plan states that only 10 percent of this entire area is going to be used for development, yet we learned through this that our current GMP is not what is being said. What is being said is instead of this 16,8- acres, that the Board is being asked, ultimately, to approve 45,000 acres for development. What that relates to and what we heard today from the applicant is that the housing on this 45,000 acres is going to exceed in total 2.5 dwelling units per acre. What does that relate to? That's more than 286,875 people within RLSA. That's more than 225,000 cars coming down two streets, because what we talked about just briefly at the workshop, there are two roads that actually cross Collier Boulevard: Immokalee Road, which is already bumper to bumper, and Vanderbilt Beach Road goes to Collier right now, and it's already bumper to bumper. Vanderbilt Beach Road is going to be extended, and the taxpayers are going to pay to extend Vanderbilt Beach Road to the developer's development. But these two roads, for people to get to work, for people to get to the beach, for people to get to the parades on Fifth Avenue, these two roads are the roads -- the only two roads in the next 20 years -- in the 2045 Long Range Transportation Plan, these are the two roads that are going to get them west from out here in the east. Rivergrass Village does not adhere to all the shalls in the Future Land Use Element. In order for Rivergrass Village to go from what they're entitled to, which is 200 homes -- that's what the zoning entitles them to. They're allowed to build 200 homes. They want to build 2,500 homes. That is a 1,250 percent increase in density; 1,250 January 28, 2020 Page 156 percent increase in density. In order to go from 200 homes to 2,500 homes, they have to meet all the shalls in the Future Land Use Element of the Growth Management Plan, because a shall means it's black and it's white. You shall do it in order to get that increased density. And as you've heard multiple times today -- so I'm not going to go into a lot of detail -- they don't meet the housing -- the diversity of housing. Countywide it's 50/50. They're proposing 90/10. They don't meet the mixed-use village center, because if you look at what the "shall" is, they shall include a mixed-use village center to serve as the focal point. Here's the village center. Does that look like a focal point? These people here don't even have access to the village center without going across a six-lane highway. This, up in the far corner of this development, is definitely not the focal point of this entire village. The other thing that -- and that's a shall. Another shall is that they shall have an interconnected sidewalk and pathway system serving not 50 percent of the residents; all of the neighborhoods. Now, I take my grandkids cycling a lot. This -- I call it destination cycling. We cycle to a destination: Ice cream, lunch, candy. Crossing a six-lane highway that's going to be a freight road, so the speeds are going to be higher, that is not an interconnecte d pathway. It would be for this half of the development, but that's not what the FLUE says. The FLUE says it has to be an interconnected pathway for all neighborhoods, not just this side of the road. All neighborhoods. In addition, another shall is the demonstration of fiscal neutrality. This was covered, so I won't go into a lot of detail other than to say this is the Land Development Code. And again, "will," will is a black and white. Will is it either is or it isn't. It says, will be January 28, 2020 Page 157 fiscally neutrality or positive to Collier County tax base. You can see here the Planning Commission voted to deny Rivergrass Village. You know why? Because they -- the chair asked for the working document for the fixed neutrality fiscal impact analysis, and he was told no. Now, why -- if you don't have any issues, why wouldn't you provide the chair of the body that's going to approve or disapprove your plan? He was told no. His final statement, without that document, I certainly have no faith in the analysis for fiscal neutrality, and I certainly don't know how the consultants we hired, if they didn't have that document, could have done the same thing. This is a critical point because, basically, the chair of the Planning Commission says he has no faith in the fiscal neutrality. They would not provide him the information. And then we look at -- I'm going to give you just one example, because I share those concerns. Persons per dwelling unit per the United States census is 2.5 people -- 2.55 people per dwelling unit. Jacobs, who was the county's contractor, they were contracted to verify the developer's consultant's information. Jacobs, on packet page -- and I use the pages that you have in front of you -- Packet Page 203 says that the proposed development consists of up to 2,500 dwelling units broken down by type in the table below. All right. So here, persons per dwelling unit: 1.05, 2.21. But in a different part of the packet of the information of the report, they said, the population per unit assumptions were 1.26 and 2.65. Same document; different numbers of people per dwelling unit. That's a big problem. And that was not able to be verified because they would not release the information that said that. Now, why would you underestimate how many people per dwelling unit your project is going to cost? In order to say it was fiscally neutral. I dare say if you use the United States Census January 28, 2020 Page 158 Bureau numbers at 2.55 people per dwelling unit and they opened up that model, you would very quickly see that this project is not fiscally neutral. This project is going to be funded on the back of the taxpayers. This is a very important decision. I know Commissioner Saunders has said it many, many times. The decision you make today is going to impact Collier County for decades to come. There's no turning back from this decision. This -- I hope this does not define your legacy. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Neville Williams, and he will be followed by Michael -- or Matthew Schwartz. MR. WILLIAMS: Good afternoon, Commissioners. Yeah, Neville Williams. Lely Resort. We're 23-year property owners; 10-year full-time residents. Before I start, I want to -- Dave Trecker asked me to pass on some information. Yesterday, the Collier County Presidents Council, representing over 20,000 homeowners, voted to oppose Rivergrass Village, and a few days before the Citizen Council, in a majority vote, opposed it. So I've done that, Dave. Mr. LeBoeuf referred to the two-year restudy hearings that the public believed -- the public hearings, and the public believed their recommendations and inputs would be heard, but the resulting white papers were never adopted. The planners who led the process, Kris Van Lengen and Mike Bosi, henceforth quit and left the county. Perhaps they realized that the public process was for naught. Was the exercise simply a ruse to provide cover while the development plans were finalized? Does the Growth Management Department work for the county or for the landowners and the developers? This project, 35 miles from the coast that no one asked for that January 28, 2020 Page 159 will have immense countywide impact, puts the interest and profits of one wealthy landowner over the welfare of 300,000 county residents and voters, I might add. The first rule of capitalism is that supply creates its own demand. Right now there is more than enough supply of new homes in Greater Naples to satisfy existing demand. There is plenty of buildable infill available. Have you seen the massive new residential developments along Collier Boulevard, Santa Barbara, and Davis, and along Immokalee and Vanderbilt? These are not projects I like, but we have to live with them. They're there. They're going to get built. They're not really smart growth, but they're happening. Have you seen the mile-long expansion of Isles of Collier along U.S. 41? Have you seen then the explosive growth in East Naples and the traffic? We cannot stop future building in the RLSA, but we don't need to create more supply right now without careful thought, good environmental planning, and visionary innovative design. You can make that happen. I've lived in three high-growth counties where local government put the public interest ahead of private property and the outcome benefited everyone. It can be done. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Matthew Schwartz. He's been ceded additional time from Susan Novotny and from Eric Lorenz for a total of 12 minutes. MR. SCHWARTZ: Okay. Thank you. I will try not to use the 12 minutes and, in order to shorten up this presentation a bit, I made a decision while I was sitting here to add some slides and maybe do a little bit of a slide presentation. When I talk about the panther -- by the way, Matthew Schwartz. I'm the Director of the South Florida Wildlands Association, a small organization that was founded in 2010 to protect the wildlife and January 28, 2020 Page 160 habitat in the greater Everglades. I've spoken in front of this commission many, many times on issues concerning wildlife. I always like to remind the commissioners that while you are representing a county, you're also representing the Amazon of North America. The public lands in this place are without parallel anywhere in North America. That's been verified by many scientists and by all the people here who love the Big Cypress, the Fakahatchee, the Corkscrew, and all these wonderful places. And the wildlife that lives there is a national treasure. Many of them are listed as federally in danger or federally threated. This statement by -- it's from the Kautz, et al study. This is the study statement in 2005, 2006 that actually determined the primary, secondary, and expansion areas, dispersal areas for the panther. It's one sentence. It basically will tell you everything you need to know about the panther in a very short statement. The Florida panther, Latin, puma concolor coryi, is an endangered wide-ranging predator whose habitat needs conflict with a rapidly growing human population. That's the panther. It's a predator. It's a carnivore, an obligate carnivore. It doesn't eat cat food. It kills its own animals. It needs a wide range. A male panther could use up to 200 square miles; a female, 80. It's wide-ranging, and the conflict is obvious in all the road kill that we're seeing. I actually have the control. I've got it. Give me a second. Besides that statement -- whoops, this is another map I like to show. This is not really a map. This is what an astronaut would see if he rolled down the window flying over the United States at night and started taking photos. The United States at night. What do you see? You see some dark areas, big dark areas in the western United States. That does support a healthy population of mountain lions, cougars, pumas. In the Eastern United States, what do you see? It's covered over. January 28, 2020 Page 161 The only good thing about South Florida for panthers is that dark area you see right here. That's it. That's it. That's why there are panthers here. There's nothing good about South Florida. It's too wet. The vegetation is wrong. There's not really enough prey. Northern Georgia would be much better. In fact, panthers lived all through the United States at one time. They're relegated to Southwest Florida because that's what's left of them. That's why they're here. When panther scientists were assembled to put together various studies, 2005, Kautz, et al -- I'll just read. That was of the first assessment. How much is enough? Landscape -scale conservation for the Florida panther. The primary dispersal and secondary zones comprise essential components of a landscape-scale conservation plan for the protection of a viable Florida panther population in South Florida. Assessments of potential impacts of development should strive to achieve no net loss of landscape function or carrying capacity for panthers within the primary zone or throughout the present range of the Florida panther. As we've been told, this village, a thousand acres, contains 700 acres of Primary Zone Habitat; 300 acres of Secondary Zone Habitat. The scientific conclusion is none of this should be developed. We're hearing from my fellow colleagues, the environmentalists that are threatening us with, well, if we don't do this, if we don't stop these dense developments, if we allow five -- what is it, five -- one home per five acres -- I mean, one home per five acres everywhere. But person after person has come up and said, there are five -acre parcels everywhere that are not being developed. Commissioner Solis, rhetorical question. Did you get the answer to the question? How many five-acre parcels are developing? We didn't get that. We didn't hear it. But I think very few. There are five-acre parcels throughout the January 28, 2020 Page 162 Golden Gate. Somebody also talked about all the available parcels in Ave Maria. There's no need for this. I'm going to go -- I don't want to run out of time. I want to tell you why I think you should take a step back, why you don't need to do this right now. I'm asking you to deny this on the basis of damage to wildlife, damage to wildlife habitat. We know the Camp Keais Strand is a major -- let me actually -- before I do that, let me just go through the two next slides I have. I only have four slides. This is roadkill. See that red marker over here? That's Rivergrass Village. This is roadkill all around the area. Roadkill. State Road 29. How are people going to get to -- by the way, I lived in the Golden Gate Village for a while; Eastern Golden Gate. You know why I moved? I couldn't stand the drive. I couldn't stand driving from Eastern Golden Gate to places that I wanted to go to. I couldn't stand -- and when I would come in from the east side, I would avoid going up State Road 29. I'd go all the way to Collier Boulevard, come in all the way around to avoid State Road 29 because I knew it was a highway of death for panthers and black bears. I didn't want to go through there. So I'd go all the way around to try to avoid that. And here you're putting a dense development, 2,500 people, and just part of the 45,000 acres that are coming, those 45 [sic] acres are the Habitat Conservation Plan, the multispecies Habitat Conservation Plan for Eastern Collier County. You're going to do this 45 more times? Forty-five thousand acres in South Florida in the primary/secondary dispersal zones for the panther? It's the Eastern Collier multi species. Let me tell you the other species. Because I used to get accused sometimes, I would go to off-road vehicle management plan meetings in the Big Cypress and people will say, ah, Matthew, harping on the cat again. So let's not harp on the cat again. So let's not harp on the January 28, 2020 Page 163 cat, the panther. It's an umbrella species. When we protect habitat for the panther, we're protecting it for all these other species, and the Eastern Collier Multispecies Plan lists the following: The Florida panther, number one; Florida bonneted bat. These are endangered species, in danger of going extinct in the habitat. Florida panther, Florida bonneted bat, red-cockaded woodpecker, Everglades snail kite. All endangered, federally endangered. Federally threatened: Wood stork, Northern crested caracara, Eastern indigo snake. Candidate species for federal listing: Gopher tortoise, eastern diamondback rattlesnake, gopher frog. State listed species: Big cypress fox squirrel, Everglades mink, burrowing owl, Florida sandhill crane. I've got to go to another page. Little blue heron, roseate spoonbill, Southeastern American kestrel, tricolored heron. I'm getting very sad reading this list. They're all in trouble. They're all in danger. As another resident said, we're not seeing anything anymore. Everything is shrinking. Everything is disappearing due to development, due to water drainage, due to pesticides, due to invasive plants, invasive species. You're not hearing any support for this project. I'm not hearing it. I think one person -- one resident spoke in favor of it. Everybody else is telling you don't do it. Take a step back. You're wilting. I can see it. You guys are wilting as person after person is coming up to you and saying, don't do this. Here's a reason why you shouldn't do it. Six years ago the Eastern Collier Property Owners submitted their Habitat Conservation Plan to the federal -- to the Fish and Wildlife Service. January 28, 2020 Page 164 A draft EIS was released in 2018. Why not at least, at the very least, wait for the federal scientists to do that work? None of you are federal scientists. We haven't heard from a single wildlife biologist here who said that this is okay. Dr. Robert Frakes, who wrote one of the panther studies, had said no development. I'll read his statement; I'll read his study. Because there is less panther habitat remaining than previously thought, we recommend that all remaining breeding habitat -- that includes this, because panthers do use tomato fields, by the way. Nobody lives there. Panthers use it all the time. The reason it doesn't come up -- and I'll explain a little bit about how they get the panther positions. They're doing flyovers -- they used to do flyovers of collared panthers. The FWC no longer collars panthers. They're not flying over at night when panthers are hunting. They're flying over during the day when panthers are sleeping. They don't sleep in the middle of tomato fields. Th ey sleep in forests. So that's why they're not showing up on the telemetry in this particular location. At night they're there. And this map right here shows you they're there. They're all over the place. Let me go to another map here about that -- and talk about the panther habitat. Here's Rivergrass Village again. The other letter's a little bit smaller. Let's look what it's surrounded by. Let's look what it's in the middle of. The CREW Flint Pen Strand, Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge, the Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve, the Big Cypress National Preserve, the Picayune Strand. So here's the Rivergrass Village surrounded by a nexus of public lands. And I can tell you when the Florida -- when the FWC did collar panthers, none of those collared panthers -- because they could January 28, 2020 Page 165 see from the collaring exactly where they go. None of them stay within the boundaries of public lands. This is a single population of panthers; one single breeding population mov ing all through this area, right through Rivergrass Village in the middle of it. None of you could come here and say that this is not going to be -- leave the panther on the -- on the path to extinction, and that's what your Comprehensive Plan says you should not do. You should at least, at least, at the very least, wait for the Fish and Wildlife Service, the federal government that we pay our tax money for them to do this work, to release their opinion. That's the next step in this, because we've already got the draft EIS. We haven't seen their biological opinion. We haven't even seen the final HCP. What's the rush? To make it easier? To make this project more shovel ready because the Colliers have figured out that they could make more money growing houses instead of growing tomatoes? What's wrong with growing tomatoes? Perfectly -- you know, I like tomatoes. I eat tomatoes all the time. Why not keep growing tomatoes? They're making money on tomatoes. Why do we need to continually -- and there's just no rush to do this. At the very least, wait. Wait for the Fish and Wildlife Service scientists to release their report. That's almost -- if it is positive and say go ahead and develop 45,000 acres, that's almost surely going to go through litigation, because nobody -- there's no scientist that we can identify that says that 45,000 acres of new development in the panther habitat is acceptable. I've got a minute left. I'm going to stop. I'm going to stop there and save you guys some time. Okay. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Michael Frankenberger, and he will be followed by Michael Dalby. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: How many speakers do you have at January 28, 2020 Page 166 this point? MR. MILLER: We're down to the top 10. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: The top 10. I like that. I like that. MR. MILLER: Or the final 10. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Does that include these two? MR. MILLER: Yes, sir. MR. FRANKENBERGER: Good afternoon. My name is Michael Frankenberger. I'm an ESA Certified Ecologist. I've been working as a Biologist/Ecologist for the last quarter century. Since 1997 I've been a private consultant in Southwest Florida working for both developers and governments. About a year ago I had a resident ask me to look at the SSA 15 restoration plan. I made comments. I know he forwarded on any comments. This year -- or this past year I asked -- the Conservancy asked me to take a look at several of the plans and asked me to speak specifically today on the restoration plan for SSA 15, which is significantly different than the 2016 application. So as earlier speakers brought up, what the -- what the applicant is offering is that they're going to restore on SSA 15 roughly 116 acres, potentially. That 116 acres is broken into three different types; 104 acres is a farm field that they're providing to re-grade and turn into native lands in order to provide an increased width both on habitat and flow in the slough. That would be the pink area; Area 4. So that's 104 acres, and they're proposing to take out the perimeter berms and ditches, roller chop grade herbicide that area in order to create a series of wildlife habitats. Great idea. They're also proposing to do 8.15 acres of exotic vegetation removal in two locations up in the north. There are two differen t fringes. It's No. 3 and No. 4. So small they don't show up at this scale. And that -- those are areas that they're mapping as having January 28, 2020 Page 167 more than 50 percent exotics, and they're going to take the exotics out. And then inside SSA 15 there are two roads that -- roads or trails that they're proposing to take out. One is -- actually, I'm going to move over and point for a second, but it actually ties in next to Area 4. And that is a -- right here. It is a raised farm field road that, according to applicant, overtops during the rainy season but otherwise provides a berm in that section of the slough, and that would be removed. The other area is immediately south of Oil Well Road, which is right here. That is -- they claim is an elevated road that they're going to remove. That is, according to -- they don't provide any data, no hydrological data to support their assumption that this is going to provide great environmental benefit and hydrological improvements. They don't provide cross-sections of these roads. They don't provide as -- they don't provide success criteria on how they're going to generate credits. You have -- they're going to go for 21,000 units just for those three items, those 16 acres, saying they're going to restore 26,000 -- 2,600 acres. And, yes, they are identifying something in excess of 14-. We think that should be avoided. They provide no data except in '16 they did do a hydrological monitoring plan, but that is irrelevant because they took out most of the restoration, and it doesn't identify all the additional development around the sloughs. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Michael Dalby, and he will be followed by Nina Bergman. MR. DALBY: Thank you, Commissioners, for your service and working on behalf of the citizens. The homes, the amenities, the jobs, the local goods and services that are planned for this new village are desired in Eastern Collier January 28, 2020 Page 168 County. This master plan community will be located on a thousand acres that are currently impacted by agricultural activities and, more importantly, will be dedicated -- will dedicate more than 5,000 acres of conservation lands that will help maintain an important wildlife corridor. I didn't introduce myself in the beginning. Michael Dalby. I'm the CEO of the Chamber of Commerce. The neighborhood shopping and the potential employment opportunities and restaurants that will be integrated in this village will allow Rivergrass residents to stay close to home, which means less traffic on our roads and roadways. Additionally, the jobs, goods, and services that will be readily available to residents of Golden Gate Estates, Immokalee, Ave Maria, and other nearby communities. Some of the arguments that I've heard today demonstrate some pretty interesting doublespeak. The opponents argue for increased density and walkability, something that the Chamber has supported for years, yet some of these same individuals have stood before this commission and vehemently argued against development density increases. They've complained about development on a major arterial road, yet scream when developers aren't locating their developments adjacent to established roads. They complain about cul-de-sacs, yet many people live in communities with cul-de-sacs and champion cul-de-sacs as a way to keep traffic out of their space. They argue development should be concentrated on the coast and yet vehemently fight any new coastal development. Some of the organizations were part of the creation and the approval of the RLSA and now claim it is unfair and injust [sic]. In fact, what they want are goal posts that never stay put, that always move. You started this whole project with a town that had more jobs January 28, 2020 Page 169 and services, and you oppose that. Now you have a village, and you oppose that. The developers who want to build homes, apartments, multifamily living, integrated walkable communities are constantly opposed before this body in a misguided attempt to raise the drawbridge, but there is no drawbridge. We do need more housing for our citizens, all types of housing for all of our citizens, not just the people who can spend eight hours here today. A lot of people aren't here because they're working. We need housing for young and old, working and retired, the youth who will grow to adults in our community. They have just as much right to newer and newer developments. We need neighborhoods with centralized sewers and water systems, not defaulting to more septic tanks and housing developments that don't have those amenities. You reject this, you reject the conservation benefits. Collier Enterprises' commitment to exceed the county's development guidelines, including the preservation of 5,000 acres of environmental lands in the Camp Keais Strand protects, in perpetuity, valuable wetlands and natural habitat area. Rivergrass has been negotiated and adjusted over many years to meet demands. This is a solid, good development. It addresses many needs within our county. And I would encourage your support. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Nina Bergman. (No response.) MR. MILLER: I think I see her. Pam Brown, I know, has returned, and Pam will be followed by Rick Barber. Pam? MS. BROWN: Well, I started out as good morning, Commissioners, but it's good afternoon now. As most of you know, I've lived in Collier County/Immokalee my entire life, and I care deeply about my county and the rural lifestyle. January 28, 2020 Page 170 After have sitting here all morning and afternoon listening to the commissioners, I'm really worried that you-all have already made your mind up. I'm here because I'm concerned about the push to develop Rivergrass and respectfully ask that you consider further studies and formula for fiscal net neutrality. This was a concern for the Planning Commission, and it's a concern of mine. They requested a working document for fiscal neutrality and was not provided one. As you can see, many of us are here today because we're concerned the destructive economical environmental impacts the project and future village projects will have. The study that Jacob Engineering was lacking information to make good opinions and recommendations. Throughout their presentation, Jacobs stated they do not warrant or guarantee the conclusions set forth therein in the DPFG report or its fiscal impact model, which are dependent and based upon data, information, or statements supplied by the third -- the county or third parties. With respect, why would county staff accept the developer's plans so easily and the Planning Commission? Unfortunately, growth doesn't appear to pay for growth. In 2018, the county staff advised commissioners they were short on funding and proposed that the citizens pay a 1 percent sales tax for 18 projects. Is there any assurance this will not happen in the future? Has there been actual budgets generated for schools, water and sewer, road projects and all the others that we're going to have to deal with? If this village is approved, it will take precedence in the future. County staff agrees to purchase right-of-ways, et cetera, from developer. Who will pay the cost of development? Ultimately the taxpayer. Please consider the county adopt fiscal impact model before approving any villages. Thank you very much. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Rick Barber, and he will January 28, 2020 Page 171 be followed by Steven Pryor. MR. BARBER: Good afternoon, Commissioners. Are you worn out? COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Come on. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: No. We're just getting started. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Let's go. MR. BARBER: I'm Rick Barber. I'm a Florida Registered Professional Engineer. My license is still active but I'm not. I'm here as a citizen today. Collier County resident for more than 40 years. Southwest Florida for 60 years. I'm your former Big Cypress Basin Chairman, and I'm excited to hear about the restoration about Camp Keais Strand. And it's refreshing to hear people like Brad Cornell parrot the words that I beat on with over the years, about the flooding in Bonita Springs, and how Lake Trafford runoff ended up in the Imperial basin when it should have gone down Camp Keais Strand. So that's very important to me. Water use will change dramatically. I think once Rivergrass is developed, you'll see less water being used. The water that isn't used will go down into the Fakahatchee Strand and down to the Merit Pump Station and into Picayune Strand for the restoration of Picayune Strand. I've heard you this morning talk about Conservation Collier and how Conservation Collier has purchased 4,300 acres since 2003 for $106 million. Rivergrass will transfer 5,295 acres to conservation at no cost to the taxpayers for the privilege of developing 100 percent agricultural land. Approximately 70 -- and I heard Commissioner Fiala say 79 percent. I'm not sure if I know that's true -- but it's way over 70 percent of Collier County is already in conservation or preservation, and I would say your policies are working. You ought to be congratulated, and please support Rivergrass. January 28, 2020 Page 172 Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Steven Pryor. He will be followed by Neomi Perez. MR. PRYOR: Good afternoon, Commissioners. I'm Steve Pryor. I've been a resident of Collier County since 2015, and I'm here speaking to encourage your support for Rivergrass. I am the former President of Exxon Mobil Chemical Company, and in that capacity, I managed a portfolio of investments, large projects. We invested approximately $1 billion a year in very large capital projects, and we had a rigorous system for doing that so that these projects met the highest standard of safety, of health and environmental protection. And normally those standards were well in excess of regulatory requirements. Now, if you look at the development plan for Rivergrass, it clearly exceeds the environmental requirements for a village. We heard about that in detail this morning. It also, in that plan, provides for the restoration and the permanent preservation of the land at no cost to the taxpayer. We heard about that this morning. You know, in my experience over the last several years in Collier County, Collier Enterprises is a company that does everything right. And if I look at the body of work of their other developments, they really strive to be good stewards of their land and of the environment. Now, I currently serve as chair of the board of the Immokalee Foundation, and I'm very proud to be involved with this great organization. I serve alongside on that board Mr. Don Huffner. Don is the CEO of Collier Enterprises. And among the many things Don has done -- and he's a very active and committed and passionate member of the board -- he has worked with us to shape a concept and helped us fund that concept to train our high school students for rewarding professional careers right here in Collier County; careers January 28, 2020 Page 173 in construction management, careers in engineering, careers in business management. And, specifically, what Collier Enterprises has done is they've donated a tract of land, and they've also funded the majority of the site preparation costs for a new housing subdivision in Immokalee, which our foundation, on that property we will build 18 single -family homes over the next five years. And this is going to provide a unique learning laboratory for our students. They're going to be exposed to every aspect of the home-building business, from planning a project, constructing the project, to marketing and sale of the home. And these are going to be very well-made sustainable homes. We're very proud of that work. And the reason I'm telling you about that is because this demonstrates the kind of company Collier Enterprises is. To me, they exemplify what a good corporate citizen looks like. I've gotten to know these people. These people care about their community. They invest in the children of this community. They've been doing i t for years. And thousands of lives have been impacted. And they are really devoted to be good stewards of their land, because that's the foundation of their legacy as a company. Please say yes to Rivergrass. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Neomi Perez. She will be followed by Vernon Wheeler. MS. PEREZ: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners. My name is Neomi Perez, and I serve as the President and CEO of the Immokalee Foundation. I want to thank you for this opportunity to participate in today's public hearing. I'm here to support Collier Enterprises. Collier Enterprises has been an essential partner to the Foundation across the entirety of the 29 years that we've been providing educational opportunities to the youth of Immokalee. January 28, 2020 Page 174 The company's commitment to our students is based on creating brighter futures, not only for the individual students and the families, but for the entire community. With the support of Collier Enterprises, we recently launched a program called Career Pathways Empowering Students to Succeed. Part of the curriculum for our middle school students is to take our summer STEM program, and it includes a two-week segment about natural environment in Collier County. Our students take field trips to places such as Lake Trafford and Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary and learn about the importance of water quality, wildlife habitat, and environmental lands. The Foundation and our board certainly recognize the importance of educating our students about protecting the environment. Through the support of Collier Enterprises and other generous donors, these students then proceed through individualized career-based programming that helps each student discover a professional career that leads to financial independence. And the success of each of our 1,400 students that we serve per year helps fabricate Collier County to grow stronger. I will conclude my remarks by simply saying that Collier Enterprises has been the largest and most faithful supporter to the Immokalee Foundation for many years, and that's why I support Collier Enterprises. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Vernon Wheeler. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: He's not here. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Marcela Zurick. MS. ZURITA: Zurita. MR. MILLER: Zurita. Sorry about that, Marcela. She will be followed by Tim Thompson. MS. ZURITA: Okay. Good afternoon. My name is Marcela January 28, 2020 Page 175 Zurita, and I'm a resident of Golden Gate Estates. I'm here to urge you to deny the SRA application for Rivergrass. Just like the majority of the people that are here before you today, Commissioners, when you needed our votes, you came to our communities. Today, we come to you to ask you to take the recommendation of the zoning commissioners who voted against this project, as the project contradicts the fundamental goals of the RLSA. These goals are the following: One is to protect agriculture; two, directing compatible uses away from wetlands and listed species habitat; three, discourages sprawl by using innovative planning techniques. There is nothing innovative about River [sic] Village. It is no different than any of the current developments in the urban part of Collier County. Replacing agricultural lands with gated communities will greatly decrease the connectivity of the landscape and increase other mortalities of Florida panthers, which is the number one leading cause of death. The proposed area of construction falls within what U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services scientists recognize as Primary Habitat Zone for the Florida panther. With that being said, what do you think is going to happen if we continue to develop in these areas that are so vital for their survival? The applicant is aware of the importance that is to preserve the Primary Habitat Zone of the Florida panthers but choses to ignore the RLSA principles, as Rivergrass Village falls within the Primary Panthers Habitat Zone. It is heartbreaking to know the impact -- the effect these proposed villages, including Rivergrass, if approved, would have in our iconic state memo [sic]. It will lead to the decimation and demise of the Florida panther and many other unique species federally listed as threatened or in danger. We have to do a better job. January 28, 2020 Page 176 If we don't act now to prevent these species from becoming extinct, future generations will be reading about the Florida panther as another extinct species that was lost while under our watch due to our greed. Your decision today will affect the fate of South Florida, the fate of Florida panther and other species, and our water resources. Commissioners, I'm urging you, once again, the denial of the SRA application for Rivergrass Village. I want to see truly sustainable development in the RLSA away from endangered listed species habitat. If this board approves Rivergrass Village today, then this board of commissioners will be defying the purpose of the RLSA and why it was created in the first place. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your final speaker is Tim Thompson. (No response.) MR. MILLER: And, Mr. Chairman, I have four slips of names that I've called that aren't present. Other than that, that's your final speaker. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We'll close the public hearing. Mr. Yovanovich, you have an opportunity to say your piece here. MR. YOVANOVICH: My piece? I would like to ask Ken Passarella to come up and give some brief comments responding to the comments regarding SSA 15. I think there were a few inaccuracies, and I think we just need to better explain how SSA 15 works and how the restoration works and how it coordinates with SSA 14, and then I have some brief summary comments. MR. PASSERELLA: Good afternoon, Ken Passarella with Passarella & Associates. And I just briefly want to go over the concerns or issues that January 28, 2020 Page 177 were raised regarding the restoration activities that are proposed within SSA 15 specifically related to the hydrologic restoration that's being proposed. So first I just wanted to point to the Land Development Code here. And can we zoom in on that so we can read that. Right there. This is 4.08.06.B.3.f in the Land Development Code, and it specifically talks to restoration stewardship credits. And it references here in the second sentence, it says, in certain locations, there may be the opportunity for flow-way or habitat restoration such as locations where flow-ways have been constricted or otherwise impeded by past activities. And so what we did when we came up with the restoration plan for SSA 15 was we looked at the Camp Keais Strand and we looked at where the flow-way had either been constricted or impeded. And so we went back to -- and I'm going to change this out here. The whole slide. So we took a look at what was happening in the Camp Keais Strand. And the District -- and I think this was referenced earlier and some of the speakers had mentioned this. South Florida Water Management District in 1999 did the South Lee County Watershed Plan, and they identified an old road grade south of Lake Trafford as an impediment to surface water flows that historically went south from Lake Trafford into the Camp Keais Strand. And at the time, they're being blocked by this road, diverting flows to the west which someone else had mentioned about the flooding in Bonita that had occurred. So that roadway occurs -- and this is right in this area up here just south of Lake Trafford. There's an old roadway that crosses through the strand and runs the entire length of the strand. And that roadway is about a two - to three-foot high roadbed that totally traverses the strand and cuts off fl ows from January 28, 2020 Page 178 north to south. So as part of the South Lee County Watershed Study, there was modeling done that showed how much water was being blocked there. As part of our application for SSA 15, I think it was referenced that there was no data or analysis that supported what we are doing. We actually had ABB, the engineering -- the engineer firm on the team. They ran a HEC-RAS model showing the removal of that roadway and the improvements of the flows to the south through the strand. So we took that HEC-RAS model and looked at the wetlands south of that roadway and the extent of improvements that would occur as a result of the removal of that roadway, the hydrologic improvements. And what we saw was that there would be not necessarily higher water levels during the summer, even though there would be some improvement to that, but it extended the length of time that water would be in the strand and passing those flows from north to south. So what we were doing was increasing the length the water, being in that strand, improving the hydrology and restoring the hydrology of the strand during a longer period of time and extending those water levels into the dry season. So what happens now in the strand is the water gets blocked. It flows during the summer, but then it quickly drops during the dry period because of the road blocking the flows. So by removing the road, we lengthen the time of water in the slough, and we increase the flows to the south by doing that, improving the hydrology of those wetlands. There was also two other roads mentioned that we were working on. There is a -- on this map here you can see this little white area right here. That is a farm road that crosses through the middle of Camp Keais Strand. January 28, 2020 Page 179 So if you looked on that bigger picture of Camp Keais Strand, Camp Keais Strand flows all the way from north to south. And this big, wide strand coming down, it pinches down into this little tiny point here, and all the flows come through this tiny point here through Camp Keais Strand, and that's what we refer to as the pinch point in the Camp Keais Strand. And so what we're proposing to do is to remove this old farm road, which is the pinch point road, and restore this farm field in orange here, or yellow, on this map by widening that area. So we're taking a constricted area, and we're making it wider, allowing a larger area for flows to pass through there. So I just wanted to point that out. The restoration work we are doing is significant, and it will make a significant improvement to the hydrology of the strand. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Commissioner Taylor. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. Thank you. Yes. Just -- we heard some testimony that that's fine and dandy, but SSA 14 needs also to be restored or some work done on it. Can you comment on that? MR. PASSERELLA: That's correct. SSA 14 is currently under review by county staff, so it is in place right now. This is part of SSA 14, the removal of that road. So it's currently under review by county staff. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: All right. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Mr. Yovanovich. MR. YOVANOVICH: I'd show you all my rebuttal slides, but I'm afraid that I would not survive if I put them all up. So I just want to focus what we're actually here for today. We're here for Rivergrass Village, which is a 997-acre village. We're not here to discuss potential changes to the RLSA. We're not here to discuss the potential development of 45,000 acres. We're here to focus on the petition, and is the petition consistent with th e Growth January 28, 2020 Page 180 Management Plan and the Land Development Code. That's all we're here to discuss about today. So I want to go back to one of my earlier slides. And I'll use the visualizer. Did I put that on there correct? I did. This is from your executive summary for today's meeting. This is the document you focus on to figure out what is your staff recommending. You don't cherry-pick older staff reports. You look at what is your staff recommending. And this is the executive summary for Rivergrass Village, and it says, staff recommends approval of Petition SRA-PL20190000044. They're recommending approval subject to five conditions, and I took you through those five conditions earlier. You can only recommend approval if we're consistent with the Growth Management Plan and the Land Development Code. So your staff has determined, based upon their review, that we are consistent with the Growth Management Plan and the Land Development Code if we meet these five conditions, which I've already told you we are willing to do. You have the companion landowner agreement in front of you. We've said -- and we've already signed it, so we're willing to do that. Check that one. The interconnections; we've shown you the interconnections. We've met that condition. We've agreed to the Listed Species Management Plan. We've negotiated an interlocal for Collier County Water and Sewer, and we've agreed to make those few minor changes. We have satisfied your staff's conditions for them to continue to recommend approval. Your staff is recommending approval of all four petitions. This is just one process that we go through for the overall January 28, 2020 Page 181 approval or entitlement of this community. We still have to go through state and federal permitting. Just because we meet your local requirements with regard to being able to go forward, we still have to deal with state and federal permits, and we're going through that process. We are -- I think what people are trying to say is they don't -- they want you to somehow not trust the federal permitting process with regard to listed species and wetlands. We're going to deal with all of that through the federal permitting process with regard to the panther, et cetera. You have very specific requirements for your NR scoring. And in your backup -- and I can bring Ken up here, but I'm not going to -- and your staff has acknowledged we fully staff satisfy those requirements, and our scoring is, in fact, accurate. The model that people were referring to, the fiscal neutrality model, was provided to staff. It was provided to your consultant. It was provided to everybody on the Planning Commission. All the backup material, the entire model was there. They wanted -- and the assumptions were all laid out for everybody, and your independent reviewer and your staff could verify the assumptions were accurate. Some people wanted to have the ability to tinker with the data in the model, and because we wouldn't let them tinker with the data in the model, they said they couldn't recommend approval. The analysis was fully before your Planning Commission and before your staff, and your staff has determined that the fiscal neutrality analysis is accurate, and so has your independent reviewer. Now, I know people want to say that, you know, the catchall language that's at the end of probably every document is -- you know, there's no guarantee. Things change. We know that. But based upon the data and analysis and the reasonable assumptions, we are fiscally January 28, 2020 Page 182 neutral, and your staff is recommending approval. At this point, I don't want to belabor and rebut every comment, because I think I'd be here for quite a while. At the end of the day, this is a good program. You are getting a tremendous amount of land set aside through SSAs to entitle, basically, farmlands. And with this -- you have heard from two of the original founding members of this program, both Nancy Payton and Brad Cornell, and they are telling you that this is a good program, that there are tremendous benefits through this SSA 15, and the tradeoff and the compromise has been beneficial to Collier County. And we request that you vote to approve all four petitions. And we're still available to answer any more questions you may have, obviously subject to the changes we had agreed to prior to the public comment becoming part of the -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Let's see if there are any questions or comments from the Commission. Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. I just have a few. I'll try and make them very simple. One of them I heard talking about the panthers. Many people have talked about the panthers. And when I moved here in '74, they were saying there were 30 panthers in the entire state of Florida. It's an emergency. It's an emergency. Then they sent out, probably in '76, to get the some tigers -- or no -- some Texas Cougars, right -- MR. YOVANOVICH: Cougars. COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- and bring it in to get them activating again and so forth. And then they had to take them out because they were pretty active. Meanwhile, we've prepared for them 79 percent of Collier County as conservation land, their very own bedroom. Nobody can even bother them there. And they've just been multiplying. Although everybody keeps saying their numbers are dwindling down January 28, 2020 Page 183 to 260 now. You know, all that roadkill that they find, the roadkill right now doesn't even have collars on them. So that even proves that there are more. But, anyway, we are trying our best. These people are trying their best. All of the Wildlife Federation is doing their best. Everybody's trying to preserve it. Nobody's trying to get rid of them. And they've got some kind of a corridor just for the panthers just carved to make sure they're safe. I have to say a couple other little things, please, and that is, you know, we keep talking -- people mentioned urban sprawl. If you think that we're going to stop people from coming down here to Naples, Florida, you've got another thing coming. Which one of you wants to go away and leave room for them so that they can move in? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I will do that. In fact, I did do that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Good you can do that, then. But I think that -- you know, we know that they're coming. We've read about people coming from New York, Chicago and, let's see, Massachusetts. Because of the very, very, very high taxes, they want to come down here to our wonderful -- not only do they get low taxes, but they also get a gorgeous climate. It feels like you're living in paradise. I don't think our numbers are diminishing. Someone said that they were down to 260,000, and we're way up over 375,000 now so -- you know, as far as people here. I'm not quite sure where that -- where that came from. But, anyway, there are many other things, but I don't want to hog this right now. But I just want to tell you, I think this is a good project. I've listened to everybody, what everybody's had to say, and I think it's a good project because they're trying to cover all bases and trying -- they can't be all to all things. We can't stop growth. We January 28, 2020 Page 184 can't just force the people to move out to the west part of our community, because west is pretty well piled up on top of each other, and we see the traffic because of that. You've got to spread east. It's the only way you can go. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Solis. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Thank you, Commissioner. I had been asked if I had gotten an answer to the question that I asked at the beginning about the number of permits. Nick, do you have this? MR. CASALANGUIDA: I don't have it, sir. I can put it on the visualizer if you'd like. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: If you would. And I think this is -- you know, a picture's worth a thousand words, as they say. This shows, I guess, pictorially, the number of permits -- these are permits that have been pulled since 2014. MR. CASALANGUIDA: January 2015, sir. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: '15. MR. CASALANGUIDA: And it's 5,440 residential homes. And when you pull out Ave Maria and some of the developments, it's about, in the Estates, about 3,000 to 3,500. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Thirty -five hundred permits in the last five years. MR. CASALANGUIDA: In the Estates, sir. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: In the Estates. I mean, so, this is -- this concern that was the whole intent of the RLSA to avoid, I mean, is a real thing. It's happening. We have to figure out a way to minimize that. The intent of the RLSA, as we've heard over and over, was to minimize that or figure out a way to bring that in -- that potential growth, and there's still a lot of it there, into areas where we would want it to be because it would be more compact. It would be -- it January 28, 2020 Page 185 could be on centralized sewers and utilities and all of this to minimize the impact both physically on the county and environmentally. So our rules right now provide for villages. If the rules provide for villages and the applicant meets the rules, I don't know that there's a lot that we can do. We can't change the rules in the middle of the game. That's not the way this process can work. We sent staff -- we directed staff in December to go back, sharpen their pencils. And I had many conversations with the applicant that, you know, they have to sharpen their pencils. We have to get past the concerns that the Planning Commission had and that the staff had, and we did that. And I think everybody -- and, you know, the definition of a good mediation is when everybody goes home unhappy. Well, I don't think that it's a perfect solution. We're not in a perfect world. This is a negotiated process to try to come up with the best solution we can today. It preserves 5,000 acres -- over 5,000 acres. You know, when -- I'll just say when Nancy Payton talks, I listen, and it was good to see her again. Her involvement in the beginning of this is -- we have to take note of that. This was her and Brad and everybody else that was involved in this -- I mean, this has been their life for the last 20 years, right? Or more. So I'm going to support the project as well. I think -- could it be better? Well, maybe. But we are where we are today, and I don't think that we can change the rules. If we don't like the way our rules are, then it's incumbent upon us to maybe we need to change those, but that's not what we're here today to do. So I'm going to support it as well. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. Thank you. And I concur with Commissioner Solis. I mean, there's a lot of January 28, 2020 Page 186 discussion. My predecessor in this seat put forth $1.2 million in funding to review these master plans that encompass the majority of Eastern Collier County. We've done two, the Golden Gate Estates and the Immokalee, and we're still working with the RLSA and the RFMUD. But we're not here today to talk about the shortfalls, necessa rily, one way or the other. The recommendations of the five-year review committee, Brad, you and I worked about that -- on that process back in '06-ish? MR. CORNELL: Seven, '8. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Seven, '8. Two years of our life. And we're still talking about whether or not those adjustments would increase the value of this product for -- and development of the RLSA. And, again, in an effort to not repeat -- there's been a lot of good things said as to the value of approving this project. One t hat hasn't been said yet -- and it's little known -- is the disposition of lands. And I believe it's 5,000 acres, 4,000 acres, somewhere in there the sale of those agricultural lands to Gargulio to the north have a 30-year reservation for continued agricultural use within the terms of the purchase agreement. Now, they have the right to develop. It is America. But there are costs associated with that that are pretty heavily weighted towards the initial sale of that. So I think some of the benefit that's coming from this -- it's little known -- is that preservation. Secondly, I'd like to say if we -- Commissioner Fiala stated that, you know, the folks are coming. There's a thousand people a day moving to Southwest Florida -- South Florida or Florida in general. There's no spigot on I-75 -- I've said that regularly -- or on 95, and we have to plan for that growth. That growth is inevitable. And the infrastructure that's provided within this community, January 28, 2020 Page 187 within this project, will it benefit the folks that are coming? Absolutely. But are we in arrears for supporting the infrastructure needs for the population that is here today? As well, absolutely. The northeast regional wastewater facility that has pipes that are supporting the wastewater and water for this particular project, it's going to be integrated into the entire wastewater/water facilities for all of Collier County. We have tanks in our current system today -- holding tanks today that we can't take off -line and do PM, preventative maintenance, simply because of capacity issues and the necessity for this increase in infrastructure to support the community and the residents that are here today. So, with all that -- and, Mr. Chair, are we going to go through these items individually? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We're going to go through individually. I'm going to ask the County Attorney to guide us through that, but we have -- Commissioner Taylor has some comments, and I'll have a few comments as well. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Can I make a motion? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Let's get through the comments, and then get the County Attorney to guide us through the appropriate motions. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I'm going to make my motions [sic], but I would like you to put this on the visualizer. I think we all recall up here that faithful day on December 6th when the developer sitting before us threatened to sue us, Collier County, that would mean you as taxpayers, if we didn't play the way he wanted us to play. I think we all remember that prior to this submission, it was customary for Collier County to get the right-of-way on developments. Not to be, well, at some -- at one point it was given. Now it is definitely we buy it predevelopment for the roads that are January 28, 2020 Page 188 required for this development. Let me give you some history. This development came through as a town, and then suddenly it was withdrawn, and it became villages, and suddenly the town that needed this road that the developer paid to get a Long Range Transportation amendment that I voted against on the MPO and was lobbied personally by the developer's representative at that meeting to the point where I came back and I said, let's reconsider this, and at the next meeting it passed. They wanted this road. And so now what are they saying? Play our way, or we're going to sue you. So what did we do? We had a meeting. We postponed it, and we had a meeting. The meeting was in January with our staff and with the developer's representatives. And what happened at that meeting? Well, they gave a little bit. But guess what? The rules are still the same. We don't approve. You pay more. We have never done business like this in Collier County. Ever. This is what we want, my colleagues? Who's going to pay? The taxpayer. Is this what we want? Is this the kind of precedent that we are setting? The argument is not, here, whether the RLSA is a great program. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about Rivergrass. Rivergrass that does not meet the standards established by the RLSA. Ma'am, you asked for housing for essential services. We've already heard from staff that the housing is not balanced, and there's not a diversity of housing. And you, rightly so, asked for that to be changed. And what did the developer come back? H e said, okay, I'll put a half a million down in Community Foundation for down payment. But according to their own papers, every house is 41 percent higher in price than our median price in Collier County. It would be January 28, 2020 Page 189 more economical to live in here than it would be out there. What are we doing? And this is what we are asking for? This is what we think is good? There's so much potential for this development. I don't want to vote against this development, but I would like to see if there's support up here to continue this and allow the staff to go back to the developer. I cannot vote for a developer's plan that will assess the cost of right-of-way on the backs of the taxpayers of Collier County. I am sorry. If we do this, they'll give us this. That's -- I'm sorry. That's contract zoning in my opinion. That's illegal, and I'm appalled. So I think we have potential here. I think we move this forward, but I would like to see if there's any support here for a continuance. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Let me ask you a question. You're suggesting a short-term continuance, I assume, for the next meeting or whenever that would be. If that occurred, there would be no opening of the public hearing. There would be no more testimony from the developer other than to respond to questions that you have concerning the developer agreement. Is that what you're -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes. I would -- yes, exactly. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. I don't have any problem with that. I don't know if there would be support for that. I know that that creates a bit of a problem, but we certainly have the authority -- the ability to continue an item for a couple of weeks. That's -- no harm, no foul in doing that. So... I will tell you that I have a little bit of a problem with the right-of-way issue. And I did talk to Mr. Yovanovich on a couple of occasions about the right-of-way issue. And I have a little bit of a problem with that as well. And I would support a delay -- a short-term delay. I don't want to cause any problems for the developer on this. But I would support a short -term delay for the sole January 28, 2020 Page 190 purpose of having staff revisit with the developer the issues of that agreement. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I'd like to make a motion to that effect. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Well, I'll second that. I don't know that we have support to do that. This would be a short-term continuance for that sole purpose to the next meeting. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed? COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: That fails. So we're going to take our votes this evening. So I have -- I've had mixed emotions about this project, and I'd -- to be perfectly honest with you, when I came in this morning, I had no idea how I was going to vote on this. I'm still not sure how I'm going to vote. I agree with Commissioner Solis that we are dealing with a situation that exists. We can't just change the rules in the middle of the game. If I vote for this project, I think I'd make the statement that I would not be voting for another village. And I realize there's four or five other villages along the way. But this particular village -- and maybe it's not in the worst of locations since it's at that major intersection. But villages further to the south, to the north, and to the east, I just don't think that's the right thing for Collier County. So when we call for the vote, you'll be surprised, just as I will be, as to how I vote. Because I've changed my mind up here January 28, 2020 Page 191 probably a hundred times today. Are there any other comments? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Mr. Attorney, if you would -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Andy Solis had his -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Oh, I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Actually, I just turned mine off just because it related to the motion to continue it. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. Well, then I had a question. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yes, Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: So say, for instance, we approve this now and an issue came out that they wanted to add a -- add another few thousand feet to the commercial site, for instance, but we're already voted and everybody approved, can you add and subtract and move things around after it's approved? MR. YOVANOVICH: (Witness shakes head.) COMMISSIONER FIALA: No. This is it? MR. YOVANOVICH: We'd have to -- if I may, we'd have to come back and ask for an amendment to the SRA document. Right now -- remember, we've already bumped up the commercial by another 20,000 square feet. We'd have to go through this same process to add more commercial. COMMISSIONER FIALA: The thing is, we've been working on this -- well, we haven't been, none of us have been working on this -- since the '90s. And I only got into it in about 2002. And it's been moving along. I mean, we could just keep kicking this can down the road, but I think it's about time we move forward. If you guys had felt that way, that would have been maybe something to say a little bit earlier, but I just -- you know, I think it's time to move forward. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Taylor. January 28, 2020 Page 192 COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Commissioner Fiala, I don't think anyone's suggesting at all that we not have a village here. I think the suggestion -- and at least I don't suggest that. That's not where I'm going. What I'm saying is the RLSA is here. You were there. You're the only one that sat up there and understood what the goals of the RLSA was. And I think when you look at Rivergrass it doe sn't meet those goals, the intent of the RLSA. The staff has said that. They said that in the staff report. So what would the alternative be? We say, all right, we don't really want this like this. You have an opportunity to change it, or you can just accept the denial. We can continue it. But make it so that it -- not conforms, but it is better -- it is a much better project. They can do it. Just much better in terms of the design of that project. Remember, planning -- our staff, David Weeks, got up on the Planning Commission and gave it a D minus. This is not the design that we're looking for. If you look at Ave Maria -- look at Ave Maria. That's what -- you were there. You approved it. This is the opposite. This is not -- we could do so much better. And I'm suggesting that we could do better. I'm not suggesting kill it and go away. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Any other comments? Mr. Klatzkow. MR. KLATZKOW: Yeah. I would suggest 9B first. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I'm sorry. Which one? MR. KLATZKOW: 9B, which is the new SSA. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: 9B. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Not yet. We're going to do them one at a time. MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, 9B is the resolution amending the January 28, 2020 Page 193 Stewardship Sending Area 15. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Wouldn't you do 9A first? That's the -- MR. KLATZKOW: Commissioner, you can do them all at the same time. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I don't want to do all at the same time. MR. KLATZKOW: I understand that. If you want to go 9A, that's fine. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: It just seems like that would be the logical start. What is the vote requirement? MR. KLATZKOW: Three. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. All right. Is there a motion? COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: So moved. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Second. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: No, you. That's fine. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We have a motion and second. Any discussion on the motion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. I'm -- the motion's going to pass, but for pure consistency going forward, I'm going to vote against the motion because I don't like these villages, and I'm going to vote against villages as they come forward. So I don't want to vote for one today and then turn around and vote against the next one. So, if there's no further discussion, all in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed, signify by saying aye. January 28, 2020 Page 194 Aye. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: It passes 3-2. Now we'll go to 9B. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Make a motion for approval as staff recommended. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Is there a second? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Second. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We have a motion and a second. THE COURT REPORTER: Who seconded? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Fiala. Now, I think probably all of these require -- some of these are going to require four votes. I'm going to vote for all of the subsequent motions at this point because the main motion is already approved, and these motions will enhance the quality of that product. So we have a motion and second on 9B. All in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Opposed. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: It passes 4-1. Mr. Klatzkow, we're on 11B; is that correct? MR. KLATZKOW: That is correct. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'll make a motion for approval. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Second. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We have a motion and January 28, 2020 Page 195 second. Any discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: (No verbal response.) COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: It passes unanimously. 11C. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'll make a motion for approval. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Is there a second? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Second. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. After the vote, don't everybody jump up, you know, because we may have a few comments -- I have a couple comments after this. All in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed? Passes -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Opposed. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Passes 4-1. I want to congratulate our staff, the audience, the petitioner, everyone that's been involved in this public hearing. We've been here for about five hours, and it's been very polite, it's been very professional. I think we all learned a lot, and I think we have a lot to January 28, 2020 Page 196 be proud of in terms of just the conduct of all the participants. Thank you, Mr. Yovanovich. MR. YOVANOVICH: Thank you. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Mr. Ochs? Item #15 STAFF AND COMMISSION GENERAL COMMUNICATIONS MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. Mr. Chairman, we have Item 15 left to cover this afternoon. That's staff and commission general communications. I have nothing today for the Board, sir. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. MR. OCHS: County Attorney? MR. KLATZKOW: Nothing. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Mr. McDaniel, do you have anything for the good of the order? COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: If you want to go -- I'm looking at my notes, if you don't mind. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. Commissioner Solis. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I think I had some, but at this point they're gone, so I'll save them for next time. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I think I'll do the same thing. It's been a long day. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Taylor. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes. Just one thing, and we'll put it on the visualizer. The town hall, the water quality 2020 town hall is coming forward, and what we've done we've managed to -- at Mike's suggestion we are going to have two locations for this. And it's on the visualizer. It's in front of you. It's going to be here in January 28, 2020 Page 197 Collier County, the chambers, but it is also going to be at the Marco Island Historical Museum. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, good. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And we have the capability of folks -- up to 24 hours before this town hall, they'll be able to email, right, email their questions to staff. And then as it goes forward that day 5:00 to 7:30, questions and texts can be emailed in for folks who can't make it here but still want to participate. COMMISSIONER FIALA: So this is going to be February 18th for both of them? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Both at the same time? One on Marco Island in the museum and the other one is? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: This will be -- the town hall will be here, but folks who don't want to travel in from Marco Island can sit in the museum, and they can participate and listen to the speakers. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And we've got -- and thank you, staff. That's Collier County right there. And we also have UF, University of Florida, FGCU. We have Archbold Biological Station. We have King Ranch represented by Mitch Hutchcraft. We've got Mote Marine. And then we are also waiting for someone to come from the Health Department, hopefully from the state level. So that's where we sit. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And just a quick question. Is that an interactive participation, or they just get to sit and watch? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: No, no. People -- not only can people ask questions here, they can also ask questions from remote, yes, or they can be at home on their computer and do it. This is fabulous what you've done. MR. MILLER: Just to clarify, they can text or email starting 24 January 28, 2020 Page 198 hours before. So if you're at Marco or if you're at home, you can text us. We'll get it in real time and pass the questions along that way. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And I did find notes, and there were none. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: So you didn't really find your notes. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I did. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We have the Florida Association of -- or -- yeah, I think the Florida Association of Counties -- well, actually, it's not. We're going to be in Tallahassee next week, but it's not part of the Florida Association of Counties. MR. OCHS: No, sir. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I'm going to be going up. Commissioner Taylor, are you going up? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: No. Legislative days. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I am. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I'll be going up on Monday. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Me, too. Yes, I'll be there on Monday night. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yeah, same here. I'm going up there primarily to deal with the veterans nursing home issue. We're going to try to move that project along. I know -- I don't know if, Mr. Ochs, you have any words of wisdom for us at this point, or we're all set to go. MR. OCHS: We'll bring home the bacon, sir. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Amen. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: If there are no other comments -- THE CLERK: Commissioner Saunders. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Oh, I'm sorry. THE CLERK: Hello. Very quickly. I wish the whole room had January 28, 2020 Page 199 been here, but upcoming February 7th from 2:00 to 4:00 at the Orange Blossom Library headquarters, we will be having a session on all of the Clerk's services for the community. We had a very successful session on Marco Island last week; about 30 attendees. And it went very well, so I'm hoping more people will show up at the Orange Blossom event. They have a lot of space. You do need to register. And, of course, I want to bring up our Valentine's Day wedding. For those who have not registered, we'd like everyone to register by tomorrow for -- Friday -- I'm sorry, Friday the 31st for vow renewal or original weddings. And so we want to offer that to the citizens. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. THE CLERK: Thank you. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: If there's no other business, we are adjourned. **** Commissioner Solis moved, seconded by Commissioner McDaniel and carried that the following items under the Consent and Summary Agendas be approved and/or adopted **** Item #16A1 A COLLIER COUNTY LANDSCAPE MAINTENANCE AGREEMENT (“AGREEMENT”) BETWEEN COLLIER COUNTY AND THE ENCLAVE OF DISTINCTION PROPERTY OWNERS ASSOCIATION, INC., FOR LANDSCAPE AND IRRIGATION IMPROVEMENTS WITHIN THE LIVINGSTON ROAD PUBLIC RIGHT-OF-WAY Item #16A2 January 28, 2020 Page 200 FINAL ACCEPTANCE OF THE POTABLE WATER AND SEWER FACILITIES FOR LOGAN LANDINGS, PL20180002504, ACCEPT THE CONVEYANCE OF A PORTION OF THE POTABLE WATER AND SEWER FACILITIES, AND TO AUTHORIZE THE COUNTY MANAGER, OR HIS DESIGNEE, TO RELEASE THE UTILITIES PERFORMANCE SECURITY (UPS) AND FINAL OBLIGATION BOND IN THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF $40,553.97 TO THE PROJECT ENGINEER OR THE DEVELOPER’S DESIGNATED AGENT – LOCATED AT THE SOUTHEAST CORNER OF IMMOKALEE ROAD AND LOGAN BLVD. N Item #16A3 CLERK OF COURTS TO RELEASE A PERFORMANCE BOND IN THE AMOUNT OF $243,904 WHICH WAS POSTED AS A GUARANTY FOR EXCAVATION PERMIT NUMBER PL20180002459 FOR WORK ASSOCIATED WITH SEYCHELLES - WORK ASSOCIATED WITH THIS SECURITY HAS BEEN INSPECTED AND THE DEVELOPER HAS FULFILLED HIS COMMITMENTS Item #16A4 APPROVAL OF THE SHORT-LIST OF PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING CONSULTANTS AND ENTER INTO NEGOTIATIONS WITH HIGHSPANS ENGINEERING, INC., PURSUANT TO REQUEST FOR PROFESSIONAL SERVICES (“RPS”), “CCNA SOLICITATION #19-7632 CEI & RELATED SERVICES ELEVEN BRIDGE REPLACEMENTS EAST OF SR 29" (PROJECT #66066) - MINIMAL TO NO MAINTENANCE January 28, 2020 Page 201 COSTS ARE EXPECTED TO BE INCURRED WITHIN THE FIRST 5 TO 7 YEARS OF SERVICE AND WILL BE ABSORBED INTO THE REGULAR MAINTENANCE SCHEDULE THEREAFTER; AND THE NEW STORMWATER FEATURES WILL REQUIRE MINIMAL MAINTENANCE THAT WILL BE ABSORBED INTO THE REGULAR MAINTENANCE Item #16A5 THE CLERK OF COURTS TO RELEASE AN ESCROW AGREEMENT IN THE AMOUNT OF $18,444.75 WHICH WAS POSTED AS A GUARANTY FOR SUBDIVISION IMPROVEMENTS, PL20170002331, FOR WORK ASSOCIATED WITH CITY GATE COMMERCE PARK PHASE THREE PLAT Item #16A6 TWO LICENSE AGREEMENTS REQUESTED BY THE STATE OF FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION RELATING TO COUNTY-OWNED PROPERTY REQUIRED FOR THE UPGRADING OF TRAFFIC SIGNAL AND RELATED FACILITIES ON US 41 AT ITS INTERSECTION WITH AIRPORT-PULLING ROAD AND WITH ESPINAL BOULEVARD – WITHIN THE VICINITY OF THE COLLIER COUNTY GOVERNMENT MAIN COMPLEX Item #16A7 AFTER-THE-FACT SUBMISSION OF A SAFE ROUTES TO SCHOOL APPLICATION WITH THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION TO FUND THE DESIGN AND January 28, 2020 Page 202 CONSTRUCTION OF A SIDEWALK ALONG 31ST PL. SW, 31ST AVE. SW, 45TH ST. SW AND 44TH TER. SW TO GOLDEN TERRACE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL - SOUTH IN THE AMOUNT OF $837,453.75 – APPLICATION DEADLINE WAS JANUARY 10, 2020 Item #16A8 CLERK OF COURTS TO RELEASE THE BOND IN THE AMOUNT OF $61,568 WHICH WAS POSTED AS A GUARANTY FOR EXCAVATION PERMIT NUMBER PL20180000161 FOR WORK ASSOCIATED WITH CITY GATE COMMERCE PARK PHASE 3 – LOCATED EAST OF COLLIER BLVD, NORTH OF I- 75 Item #16A9 SUBMITTAL OF A US DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR GRANT APPLICATION AND ASSOCIATED DOCUMENTS AS PART OF A COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION, AND COLLIER COUNTY TO FACILITATE MARINE DEBRIS REMOVAL ON LAND UNITS OF TEN THOUSAND ISLAND NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, COLLIER COUNTY AND STATE OF FLORIDA. THE TOTAL GRANT IS $290,003.41, AND NO MATCH IS REQUIRED - LIMITED TO MARINE DEBRIS THAT POSES A THREAT TO HUMAN HEALTH AND SAFETY AND/OR NATURAL RESOURCES (FLORA, FAUNA, AND THEIR HABITATS), SUCH AS, BUT NOT LIMITED TO DERELICT VESSELS, January 28, 2020 Page 203 DERELICT FISHING GEAR, AND VARIOUS CONSTRUCTION/DEMOLITION DEBRIS RELATED TO HURRICANE IRMA Item #16A10 A FLORIDA BEAUTIFICATION GRANT FROM THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION (FDOT) FOR A MEDIAN IMPROVEMENT PROJECT INVOLVING A PORTION OF STATE ROAD 41 (U.S. 41 NORTH), FROM GULF PARK DRIVE TO VANDERBILT BEACH ROAD, AN EXISTING BEAUTIFIED ROADWAY SEGMENT, IN THE AMOUNT OF $103,522 FOR CONSTRUCTION INSTALLATION AND APPROVE AN AFTER-THE-FACT SUBMITTAL Item #16A11 A FLORIDA BEAUTIFICATION GRANT FROM THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION (FDOT) FOR A MEDIAN IMPROVEMENT PROJECT INVOLVING A PORTION OF STATE ROAD 41 (U.S. 41 NORTH), FROM PINE RIDGE ROAD TO GULF PARK DRIVE, AN EXISTING BEAUTIFIED ROADWAY SEGMENT, IN THE AMOUNT OF $78,631 FOR CONSTRUCTION INSTALLATION AND APPROVE AN AFTER- THE-FACT SUBMITTAL Item #16A12 AGREEMENT NO. 19-062-NS WITH APOLLO METRO SOLUTIONS INC., AS A SINGLE SOURCE PROVIDER, FOR THE PURCHASE OF LIGHT EMITTING DIODE (“LED”) January 28, 2020 Page 204 LUMINARIES, NOT TO EXCEED $500,000 ANNUALLY – COMMENCING ON MARCH 22, 2020 WITH AN ADDITIONAL OPTION TO RENEW FOR TWO ADDITIONAL ONE-YEAR PERIODS Item #16A13 A PROPOSAL FROM HUMISTON & MOORE ENGINEERS FOR STATE REQUIRED ANNUAL MONITORING OF COLLIER COUNTY BEACHES AND INLETS FOR 2020 UNDER CONTRACT NO. 15-6382, AUTHORIZING THE CHAIRMAN TO EXECUTE THE WORK ORDER FOR A NOT TO EXCEED AMOUNT OF $226,920.50 AND MAKE A FINDING THAT THIS EXPENDITURE PROMOTES TOURISM - USED TO EVALUATE, RECOMMEND, AND PRIORITIZE ANNUAL BEACH SEGMENT RENOURISHMENT Item #16A14 AWARD AGREEMENT #19-7563 “EAST NAPLES COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PLAN,” TO TINDALE-OLIVER & ASSOCIATES, INC. D/B/A TINDALE OLIVER IN THE AMOUNT OF $173,563 AND AUTHORIZE THE CHAIRMAN TO SIGN THE AGREEMENT - SERVICES ARE EXPECTED TO BE COMPLETED NO LATER THAN OCTOBER 2020 Item #16C1 RESOLUTION 2020-17: A BARE LICENSE AGREEMENT WITH CAPRI COMMUNITY, INC., FOR THE INSTALLATION OF AN ARMED SERVICES/VETERANS MEMORIAL – LOCATED AT January 28, 2020 Page 205 920 CAPRI BOULEVARD Item #16C2 AGREEMENT NO. 19-7523, “DEVELOPMENT OF ENERGY MASTER PLAN FOR COLLIER COUNTY FACILITIES,” IN THE AMOUNT OF $515,470 TO HEAPY ENGINEERING, INC., AND TO AUTHORIZE THE NECESSARY BUDGET AMENDMENT – AS DETAILED IN THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Item #16C3 SELECTION COMMITTEE’S RANKINGS FOR REQUEST FOR PROFESSIONAL SERVICES NO. 19-7605, “DESIGN-BUILD OF IMMOKALEE ROAD, LOGAN BOULEVARD, AND VANDERBILT BEACH ROAD NEW 24-INCH FORCE MAIN PROJECT,” AND AUTHORIZE STAFF TO BEGIN NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE TOP RANKED TEAM OF QUALITY ENTERPRISES USA, INC./Q. GRADY MINOR & ASSOCIATES, INC., SO THAT STAFF CAN BRING A NEGOTIATED CONTRACT BACK FOR THE BOARD’S CONSIDERATION AT A FUTURE MEETING - ALLEVIATING THE CONVEYANCE CONSTRAINT OF THE 12-INCH FORCE MAIN ALONG IMMOKALEE ROAD FROM THE HERITAGE BAY MASTER PUMP STATION (“MPS” 167) WEST ALONG IMMOKALEE ROAD THEN SOUTH ALONG LOGAN BOULEVARD TO MPS 104 LOCATED ON VANDERBILT BEACH DRIVE, JUST EAST OF LOGAN BOULEVARD Item #16D1 January 28, 2020 Page 206 (1) SUBSTANTIAL AMENDMENT TO COLLIER COUNTY'S U.S DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT ANNUAL ACTION PLAN FOR FY2017-2018 AND FY2019-2020 THAT REALLOCATES $75,000 FROM COLLIER COUNTY HOUSING AUTHORITY TENANT-BASED RENTAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAM TO OAK MARSH RENTAL REHABILITATION ACTIVITY AND CHANGES THE LOCATION OF A HABITAT FOR HUMANITY DEVELOPMENT; (2) AUTHORIZING THE CHAIR TO APPROVE AMENDMENT #2 BETWEEN COLLIER COUNTY AND OAK MARSH, LLC – AS DETAILED IN THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Item #16D2 THIRD AMENDMENT BETWEEN COLLIER COUNTY AND THE DAVID LAWRENCE MENTAL HEALTH CENTER, INC., COLLIER COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE AND NAMI OF COLLIER COUNTY – ADDRESSING BUDGET CHANGES AND MODIFYING THE FINANCIAL PENALTY LANGUAGE Item #16D3 APPROVAL OF THE RIVERS ROAD PRESERVE FINAL MANAGEMENT PLAN 5-YEAR UPDATE UNDER THE CONSERVATION COLLIER PROGRAM – LOCATED 2.5 MILES EAST OF COLLIER BLVD, SOUTH OF IMMOKALEE ROAD Item #16D4 APPROVAL OF THE DR. ROBERT H. GORE III INTERIM January 28, 2020 Page 207 MANAGEMENT PLAN UNDER THE CONSERVATION COLLIER PROGRAM – LOCATED 5 MILES SOUTH OF GOLDEN GATE BLVD. W, ADJACENT TO DESOTO BLVD. Item #16D5 AN “AFTER-THE-FACT” GRANT APPLICATION IN THE AMOUNT OF $15,000 TO THE COLLIER COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR A SHADE STRUCTURE AT TIGERTAIL BEACH PLAYGROUND – APPLICATION DUE DATE WAS JANUARY 3, 2020 Item #16E1 RENEWAL OF THE NORTH COLLIER FIRE CONTROL AND RESCUE DISTRICT’S CERTIFICATE OF PUBLIC CONVENIENCE AND NECESSITY FOR ADVANCED LIFE SUPPORT NON-TRANSPORT SERVICES FOR ONE YEAR AND AUTHORIZE THE CHAIRMAN TO EXECUTE THE PERMIT AND CERTIFICATE – EXPIRING MARCH 31, 2021 Item #16E2 MODIFICATIONS TO THE 2020 FISCAL YEAR PAY & CLASSIFICATION PLAN CONSISTING OF THE REMOVAL OF TWO OBSOLETE CLASSIFICATIONS, FOUR ADDITIONS, AND SIX RECLASSIFICATIONS MADE BETWEEN OCTOBER 1, 2019 AND DECEMBER 31, 2019 Item #16E3 January 28, 2020 Page 208 RATIFYING THE COUNTY MANAGER’S EXECUTION OF AN INTERLOCAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN COLLIER COUNTY AND COLLIER COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE FOR DISPATCH COMMUNICATION SERVICES - ESTABLISHING A FORMAL AGREEMENT OUTLINING COMMUNICATION SERVICES PROVIDED BY COLLIER COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE TO MEET REQUIREMENTS OF FLORIDA STATE STATUTE AS RECOMMENDED BY THE MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS HIGH SCHOOL PUBLIC SAFETY COMMISSION Item #16E4 ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS PREPARED BY THE PROCUREMENT SERVICES DIVISION FOR CHANGE ORDERS AND OTHER CONTRACTUAL MODIFICATIONS REQUIRING BOARD APPROVAL – TWO (2) CHANGE ORDERS MODIFYING CONTRACTS BY -$96,564.44, NO AMENDMENTS AND ONE (1) AFTER-THE-FACT MEMO WITH A FISCAL IMPACT OF $5,831.12 Item #16E5 ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT PREPARED BY THE PROCUREMENT SERVICES DIVISION FOR DISPOSAL OF PROPERTY AND NOTIFICATION OF REVENUE DISBURSEMENT – NO ONLINE SALES THIS PERIOD; DISPOSED OF ITEMS HAD $1,621.72 IN BOOK VALUE AND A TRADE-IN VALUE IN THE AMOUNT OF $1,500 Item #16F1 January 28, 2020 Page 209 SECOND AMENDMENT TO REAL ESTATE SALES AGREEMENT WITH RICHARD D. YOVANOVICH, SUCCESSOR TRUSTEE (AND NOT INDIVIDUALLY) FOR THE EXTENSION OF THE DUE DILIGENCE PERIOD FOR THE SALE OF THE 47 +/- ACRE PARCEL KNOWN AS THE RANDALL CURVE PROPERTY FROM JANUARY 31, 2020 TO MARCH 31, 2020 - PROVIDING THE COUNTY WITH ADDITIONAL TIME TO REVIEW PURCHASER’S OBJECTIONS AND RESPOND AS REQUIRED BY THE REAL ESTATE SALES AGREEMENT Item #16F2 TERMINATING AGREEMENT #18-7294, “COLLIER COUNTY NAMING RIGHTS AND SPONSORSHIP,” WITH THE SUPERLATIVE GROUP, FOR CONVENIENCE, AND SEND NOTICE TO THE CONTRACTOR - STAFF BELIEVES THAT THE SUPERLATIVE GROUP HAS NOT PERFORMED TO THE EXPECTATIONS OF THE CONTRACT Item #16F3 RESOLUTION 2020-18: AMENDMENTS (APPROPRIATING GRANTS, DONATIONS, CONTRIBUTIONS OR INSURANCE PROCEEDS) TO THE FISCAL YEAR 2019-20 ADOPTED BUDGET Item #16F4 REPORT COVERING BUDGET AMENDMENTS IMPACTING RESERVES AND MOVING FUNDS IN AN AMOUNT UP TO January 28, 2020 Page 210 AND INCLUDING $25,000 AND $50,000, RESPECTIVELY – AMENDMENTS WITHIN THE ROCK ROAD MSTU (#20-207) AND THE MOTOR POOL CAPITAL RECOVERY (#20-148) Item #16G1 FIFTH AMENDMENT TO AGREEMENT NO. 16-6561, “DESIGN SERVICES FOR MARCO EXECUTIVE AIRPORT TERMINAL,” WITH ATKINS NORTH AMERICA, INC., TO EXTEND THE SCHEDULE AN ADDITIONAL ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY (180) DAYS TO COINCIDE WITH CONSTRUCTION AND INCREASE THE FEE ASSOCIATED WITH THE EXTENDED SCHEDULE BY $147,162 FOR ENGINEERING SERVICES DURING CONSTRUCTION - NECESSARY TO MAINTAIN THE PROPER CEI SERVICES IN PLACE FOR THE DURATION OF CONSTRUCTION AND ALLOW FOR THE PAYMENT OF THE PROPORTIONATE FEES COMMENSURATE WITH PROVIDING THESE SERVICES DURING THE EXTENDED SCHEDULE Item #16I1 MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE January 28, 2020 Page 211 Item #16J1 REPORT TO THE BOARD REGARDING THE INVESTMENT OF COUNTY FUNDS AS OF THE QUARTER ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2019 Item #16J2 RECORD IN THE MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS, THE CHECK NUMBER (OR OTHER PAYMENT METHOD), AMOUNT, PAYEE, AND PURPOSE FOR WHICH THE REFERENCED DISBURSEMENTS WERE DRAWN FOR THE PERIODS BETWEEN JANUARY 2, 2020 AND JANUARY 15, 2020 PURSUANT TO FLORIDA STATUTE 136.06 Item #16J3 BOARD APPROVED AND DETERMINED A VALID PUBLIC PURPOSE FOR INVOICES PAYABLE AND PURCHASING CARD TRANSACTIONS AS OF JANUARY 22, 2020 Item #16K1 RESOLUTION 2020-19: RE-APPOINTING SUSAN CURLEY AND HERMINIO ORTEGA WITH TERMS EXPIRING FEBRUARY 14, 2023 AND APPOINTING BARBARA DAVIS AS ALTERNATE MEMBER TO THE COLLIER COUNTY CODE ENFORCEMENT BOARD Item #16K2 January 28, 2020 Page 212 RESOLUTION 2020-20: RE-APPOINTING WILLIAM POTEET AND MICHAEL SEEF TO CONSERVATION COLLIER LAND ACQUISITION ADVISORY COMMITTEE WITH TERMS EXPIRING FEBRUARY 11, 2023 Item #16K3 – Moved to Item #12B (Per Agenda Change Sheet) Item #17A ORDINANCE 2020-07: AMENDING ORDINANCE NO. 91-53, AS AMENDED, THE AUDUBON COUNTRY CLUB PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT BY ALLOWING AN ADDITIONAL 4,400 SQUARE FEET OF COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT FOR THE EXPANSION OF THE FURNITURE STORE UP TO 65,000 SQUARE FEET LOCATED IN TRACT Y OF THE AUDUBON COMMERCIAL CENTER SUBDIVISION; BY AMENDING SECTIONS 2.06 AND 6.13 TO REFLECT THE CHANGE IN SQUARE FEET, AND PROVIDING AN EFFECTIVE DATE. THE SUBJECT PUD, CONSISTING OF 754.75± ACRES, IS LOCATED ON THE WEST SIDE OF US 41 EXTENDING WESTWARD ACROSS VANDERBILT BEACH DRIVE TO LITTLE HICKORY BAY, IN SECTIONS 5, 7, 8 AND 9, TOWNSHIP 48 SOUTH, RANGE 25 EAST, COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA. [PL20190000502] Item #17B RESOLUTION 2020-21: AMENDMENTS (APPROPRIATING CARRY FORWARD, TRANSFERS AND SUPPLEMENTAL REVENUE) TO THE FISCAL YEAR 2019-20 ADOPTED BUDGET January 28, 2020 Page 213 ***** There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 4:58 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL ___________________________________ BURT SAUNDERS, CHAIRMAN ATTEST CRYSTAL K. KINZEL, CLERK _________________________________________ These minutes approved by the Board on ____________, as presented ______________ or as corrected _____________. TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF U.S. LEGAL SUPPORT, INC., BY TERRI LEWIS, COURT REPORTER AND NOTARY PUBLIC.