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CCPC Minutes 03/22/2007 GMP March 22, 2007 TRANSCRIPT OF THE GROWTH MANAGEMENT PLAN AMENDMENT MEETING OF THE COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION Naples, Florida March 22,2007 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Collier County Planning Commission in and for the County of Collier having conducted business herein, met on this date at 8:30 a.m. in SPECIAL SESSION in Community Development and Environmental Services Bldg; Room 609/610,2800 North Horseshoe Drive, Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: Mark Strain Lindy Adelstein Donna Reed Caron Tor Kolflat Paul Midney Robert Murray Brad Schiffer Russell Tuff Robert Vigliotti ALSO PRESENT: Randy Cohen, Comprehensive Planning Dept. Director David Weeks, Comprehensive Planning Manager Marjorie Student-Stirling, Assistant County Attorney Page 1 March 22, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Good morning everyone. Welcome to the March 22nd meeting of the Collier County Planning Commission. This is a continuation of the Growth Management Plan Amendment Cycle 2005. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. (Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Would the secretary please take the roll call. COMMISSIONER CARON: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Here. COMMISSIONER CARON: Mr. Midney is absent. Ms. Caron is here. Mr. Strain? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Here. COMMISSIONER CARON: Mr. Adelstein? COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Here. COMMISSIONER CARON: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Here. COMMISSIONER CARON: Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Present. COMMISSIONER CARON: Mr. Tuff? COMMISSIONER TUFF: Here. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Planning Commission absences? Whatever we do not finish today, we will hopefully continue until the 29th, which is next Thursday. If anybody knows they're not going to be here, please remind -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I just wanted to remind the Chair, I'll be leaving in the neighborhood of3:30 today. COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Also. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I'm leaving about 5:00, quarter to 5:00. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Still have a quorum. While we're . Page 2 March 22, 2007 on the subject then, as far as the commission goes, what do you see as a finish time today? Anybody have any preferences? COMMISSIONER TUFF: I need to be out of here by 5:00. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That would leave us four short, so I guess 5:00 will be the cut-off. Regarding the agenda, we were going to go in order, unless there's an overwhelming amount of public here for any particular item. And I think about midmorning we'll seek out that answer and see if a lot of people are showing up for any other item later in the day. The first two items will be 2006-04, 2005-07. I received a notice from the applicant as well as from staff that 2005-08 has been withdrawn. That is the Michael Bosi issue on the -- well, I've got mine -- I've got an old -- which one is that, David? What was the title on the one that was withdrawn, the letter from Kate English; do you recall? MR. WEEKS: For the record, David Weeks, Planning Manager, Comprehensive Planning Department. That was for a petition in the rural fringe mixed use district designated as sending lands, located north ofImmokalee Road near its intersection with Collier Boulevard. CP-2005-10 - Continued to March 29, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. I also had two applicants contact me and ask to be continued till the 29th. I suggested to them that they come here this morning and discuss that with us so we can make a decision on it. Their circumstances are a little different than others that have asked to be continued. I don't think there's any public in attendance in regard to these two issues, and I guess we need to see that. The two that have asked, I'd like to briefly ask that each applicant come forward and request a continuance and we could make a Page 3 March 22, 2007 decision on that. We could see also ifthere's any public here concerning those two issues. The first one that was requesting a continuance is 2005-10, and that one is for a change in the -- for the Naples Big Cypress Commerce Center Sub-district for an additional 88,000 square feet in C-4 and C-5 along the U.S. 41 East. Mr. White, are you representing the applicant? MR. WHITE: Yes, Mr. Chairman. Good morning. Patrick White, with the law firm of Porter, Write, Morris and Arthur representing Basik Development, LLC, on application CP-2005-1 O. I was retained late Monday on this matter, and have done my best to get up to speed on it, but believe that in order to make a competent and full presentation in response to the issues in the staff report and to best apprise this Planning Commission of all of the relevant factors for their consideration, that an extra week of time would greatly assist in being able to do so. And I respectfully and humbly ask for a continuance till next week, if we could, please. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is there any members ofthe public here who are going to speak in opposition or in favor of this particular application? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, any comments or concerns from the Planning Commission? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, is there a motion? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Move to continue. COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Move-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray moved to continue, Mr. Adelstein seconded. All in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Aye. COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Aye. Page 4 March 22, 2007 COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion carries. MR. WHITE: Thank you very much. CP-2005-11 - Continued to March 29, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, the next applicant that had requested a continuance was for CP-2005-11, and that was for the rural fringe mixed use district receiving lands to rural industrial district for approximately 500,000 square feet on the U.S. Tamiami Trail East. And Mr. Ferguson, you represent the applicant. MR. FERGUSON: Morning, Mr. Chairman, members ofthe board. There seems to be a little bit of confusion as to what mayor may not have been in your packet as far as some information that might have been included concerning a sand-mine that was previously planned on the site. And we don't intend to go forward with it at all. I don't want any confusion. Plus there were a couple other issues that we wanted to iron out before we went before the board, so I'm requesting a continuance. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes. And Mr. Ferguson, I'm glad you reminded me about that sand mine. I was the one that had brought that up to you in a discussion. The environmental impact statement that was attached to my Page 5 March 22, 2007 copy of this particular amendment request had an analysis done from an environmental perspective, and it showed a burrows pit on the property. And I think my question to you had been at the time I met you was what is it you're doing, a storage area, industrial area or burrows pit, and you were a little surprised I even knew about the burrows pit. And I wanted confirmation from staff that the information concerning the burrows pit is or is not relevant. And if it's not relevant, do we have a new EIS that was supplied that is relevant to the actual site they're building? Because there's huge differences between the two. That would be for -- the staff is the one that gave me the document. I'm asking staff if -- what document we're supposed to have. Because this doesn't appear to be the one the applicant -- MR. COHEN: Commissioner, for the record, Randy Cohen. I would defer to the applicant and the petitioner with respect to what the latest EIS is. If that is the latest EIS that was submitted and is part of your packet, I'd like to know. MR. FERGUSON: It was not the latest EIS that was submitted. We were required to do a new EIS, which we did. If we could respectfully continue the matter so we could straighten this out. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, and I think the continuance is certainly warranted, because we have to have the right document to evaluate. The current EIS that I've got and maybe the rest of this commission has certainly is not taking into consideration your current plan, even in the slightest way. So with that, I certainly would like to see a continuance provided, and that between sometime early -- we have to have the right documents or we're going to have a problem on the 29th as well. MR. COHEN: We'll straighten this out today. And Commissioner, just for the record, and I do want to point this out, there was reference made that that was not the latest EIS that Page 6 March 22, 2007 was submitted. It was. And I just spoke with a staff member. So there has been some confusion with this item. Obviously the latest EIS was not submitted, and we understand that there's some confusion with respect to the matter, and we will support continuance. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And Mr. Cohen, we need to get this material by -- rather quickly so we have time to review it before next Thursday. If for some reason that is delayed, I know we have other dates in April we could possibly move this to, or at the tail end of one of our regular meetings. MR. COHEN: Yes, sir. And we don't have it at hand, so when the petitioner provides it, we will provide it to you immediately. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. COHEN: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: With what, is there a motion to continue? COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion made by Commissioner Adelstein. Is there a second? COMMISSIONER TUFF: Second. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Second by Commissioner Tuff. Mr. Weeks? MR. WEEKS: Was there a date specified? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Next Thursday, the 29th, at this time. And if we have to continue it again, we will do so. All those in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Aye. COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye. Page 7 March 22, 2007 COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion carries. (At which time, Commissioner Midney enters the room.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Let the record show that Mr. Midney is here. Okay, we need to -- I have a couple points for the record. Last night Mr. -- Corby? Last night I reviewed my e-mail at my county site, and there was an e-mail from a resident who was opposed to CP-2005-10 and CP-2005-11. I asked -- I sent that e-mail to you and to Mr. Weeks, suggesting that you copy the e-mail to the Planning Commission. Obviously since these are continued, as long as we receive it before next Thursday, I'd like to get it on the record that I think Tabitha and Stephen Stadler wrote the objection. MR. SCHMIDT: We have those for you at this time. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And with those housekeeping matters back in line, we'll move on to the -- oh, one other item. I don't know who set this device up with the intention of using a screen behind us and having us possibly relocate, but we are not going to be relocating and that screen will not be used. So I don't know how this factors into today's meeting, but it's rather inconvenient for this panel to have to move and shift around when we have only one section exit. We won't be doing so today. CP-2006-4 - Continued to March 29,2007 With that, we'll go into Petition 2006-4, as soon as I find it on my sheet. It's a petition requesting an amendment to the Golden Gate Area Master Plan for a conditional use consideration and a site on Immokalee Road and Oaks. Page 8 March 22, 2007 All those wishing to testify on behalf of this application, please rise to be sworn in by the court reporter. (Speakers were duly sworn.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Mr. Arnold, it's all yours. MR. ARNOLD: Thank you. Mr. Corby Schmidt just mentioned to me that staff had a comment relative to this item, so it might be more appropriate to hear from them first and then we can respond. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, Mr. Schmidt? MR. SCHMIDT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. New information was given to staff-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN : You've got to pull the speaker closer to you, SIr. MR. SCHMIDT: Staff received new information regarding 06-04. During the last week I believe it was provided -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You're going to need that closer to you yet. I know she can't probably hear you, because I can't. MR. SCHMITT: All right. A little better? Staff is still reviewing that information and has yet to make a decision as to whether the staff recommendation may be changed or not. And I believe that was part of the reason it was continued from last time. And so staff requests that this be continued until -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Staffs requesting the continuance? Mr. Schmitt, she's still having a hard time picking your voice up. And I hate to keep -- these speakers are a little different than we're used to. You're going to need to pull it real close to you to speak. Well, that's different, staffs requesting at this time instead of the applicant. What's your -- Mr. Arnold, do you have any comments? MR. ARNOLD: Well, just to say that we did meet with David Weeks and Corby Schmidt last week. We provided some additional data and analysis to them a couple of days later. And I think that Page 9 March 22, 2007 information was transmitted to you all, so you have it. We're ready to go today. I think we have a strong case to make. If it's going to make a difference in staff recommendation, as you've heard -- this is the item last time in where we had a favorable recommendation in staff report. Staff changed that recommendation and said that it had been an error to recommend transmittal. We continued. We met with them, and I didn't get the impression that based on our discussion that they were willing to change the recommendation, but we were willing to push forward. And we provided some additional data and analysis to demonstrate that we did review other sites and that there weren't an unlimited number of sites available, and that we have unique circumstances in working with transportation staff with a bypass road for Oaks Boulevard. I don't want to jeopardize potentially having you all make a positive recommendation here and overruling staff, but I also would hate to continue it if staff doesn't feel like there is a potential to change the recommendation. I'd rather move forward today. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, do you have an objection if this board provided the continuance staff is requesting? REVEREND WICKER: We don't have an objection. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You can't answer off the record. You're going to have to respond to me. MR. ARNOLD: Reverend Wicker indicates that we don't have a problem in continuing to the 29th. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. When applicants have come forward, we've tried to work with them as best possible to allow continuances. We're required -- and we ought to do the same thing for staff. In that manner, the question that I have been asking on continuances, is there any member from the public here wishing to speak on this item? This is the Oaks Boulevard and Immokalee Road Page 10 March 22, 2007 item. (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Because I'd certainly -- ifthere was a member from the public here, it would weigh in on whether a continuance would be granted or not, at least in my mind. So, Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Without going into too much detail, I'd like to at least have an inkling of why staff would like to continue this. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You need to move the speaker closer to you. These are harder to use than the -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Can you hear me now properly? I'd just like to have an inkling of what it is that -- because it seems fairly clear-cut, but perhaps there's something I've missed, and I'd like to know. MR. CO HEN: Yeah, Mr. Murray, for the record, Randy Cohen, Comprehensive Planning Department Director. As Mr. Arnold indicated, the petitioner met with our staff, supplied additional information. As is the case with any data and analysis with respect to our staff before us, it takes a certain amount of time in order to analyze the data and analysis to determine whether or not the staff report and the recommendation would change. We have not had ample time to do so and we would like to do that prior to providing you with a recommendation, not only for your benefit but as well as for the applicant as well. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Thank you, Mr. Cohen. MR. COHEN: You're welcome. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Out of fairness to staff, I would certainly think we ought to provide the continuance. Is there a motion for such? COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: So moved. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion made by Commissioner Page 11 March 22, 2007 Adelstein. Is there a second? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: (Indicating.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Commissioner Vigliotti seconded the motion. Any discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: All in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Aye. COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion carries. Item 2006-4 is also continued to the 29th. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: We're not going to have much to do today. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Unfortunately, Mr. Murray, I think some of these others may get rather involved. So just so everybody's aware, this will move all the others on the agenda up earlier, so most likely there's going to be items on today's agenda that some people may have thought wouldn't have come up till the 29th, including the Petition 14 and Petition 15. So for those staff members who are involved in those, you may want to keep close watch on this meeting. The next item on the agenda, for as long as it stays on the agenda, is CP-2005-7. It's a petition to increase a commercial district from 40,000 to 70,000 square feet at the intersection of Pine Ridge Road Page 12 March 22, 2007 and Livingston Road. MR. WEEKS: Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, sir. MR. WEEKS: Pardon the interruption. Because we're dealing with all the continuances now, it would seem appropriate to try to wrap those up before we actually get into the petitions. CP-2005-13 - Continued to March 29, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You have another continuance? MR. WEEKS: Yes, sir, there is. Petition CP-05-13, which is located on the east side of Collier Boulevard. It's the site of the First Assembly of God Ministries PUD. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: When are you looking to continue that to? Or who is the applicant for that? Bob Duane, I think is representing that -- MR. WEEKS: The agent is -- yes, sir, it's Bob Duane. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Who's requesting the continuance? MR. WEEKS: Staff. And we have a hand-out, a new staff report to replace the one you were previously provided, which Corby will distribute to you now. And our request will be for one week continuance to the 29th. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is the applicant here? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No. So they're not going to be objecting. MR. WEEKS: They were certainly aware of it, Commissioner. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I just want to make sure out of fairness that both sides got to voice their concerns. Okay, there's a motion -- there's a request to continue this particular item until the 29th. Is there any comments from the Planning Commission? Page 13 March 22, 2007 (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ifnot, is there a recommendation? COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: So moved. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion made by Commissioner Adelstein. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: (Indicating.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Seconded by Commissioner Murray. Are those both the voices I heard? All in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Aye. COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, now 13 is continued to the 29th. So it looks like the 29th may be a busier day than today. With that, is there any other surprises, Mr. Weeks? MR. WEEKS: I hope not. CP-2005-07 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Let's hope Mr. Mulhere doesn't surprise us with something. Bob, it's all yours -- oh, those wishing to testify on behalf of this item, please rise to be sworn in by the court reporter. (Speakers were duly sworn.) Page 14 March 22, 2007 MR. MULHERE: Good morning. For the record, Bob Mulhere, here on behalf of the applicant. This, as Mr. Strain indicated, is a request to increase the allowable square footage on the subject property from -- within the comprehensive plan from 40,000 square feet to 70,000 square feet and to allow up to 20,000 square feet of that to be retail. Give you a little bit of background. The subject property is within the Livingston/Pine Ridge commercial infill sub-district. Was approved in 2001. It's located on the north -- I have an exhibit there. I don't know how well you can see that, but there should be one in your packet as well, an aerial. It's on the northwest corner of Livingston and Pine Ridge Road. Somewhat of a unique piece of property. Access is quite limited. I had met early on with transportation staff Nick Casalanguida -- who I don't see here this morning -- and understood from my meetings with him that the access would be limited to potentially two right-in/right-outs along Livingston Road. The property is long and narrow. It has relatively short frontage on Pine Ridge Road. And we understood that limitation. There is presently a nursery on the site under -- the conditional use under the ago zoning. And there is presently an access point on Pine Ridge Road which would not remain open, at least according to my discussions with Nick Casalanguida, and we understood that as well. What he did offer was the possibility of access -- of a shared access with the property immediately adjacent to the west, if we can negotiate such. And you may be aware that the LDC was recently amended to actually require shared access between adjacent properties. And that would be something that obviously we have not yet approached but would approach the adjacent property for shared access, which would make sense obviously to everybody, and would improve access to the site. Page 15 March 22, 2007 The site is constrained by a -- the FP&L power line easement. Fairly significant constraint on the property. More than six acres of the property is constrained by that. And in reviewing the original approval minutes from 2001 staff report, I believe that that was at least a significant portion of the reason for the original cap of 40,000 square feet. Also in reviewing the minutes I don't think that the -- and this is a different property owner now than was the applicant in 2001. I don't think that there was any specific analysis done on the property to develop an appropriate cap. There again, Livingston Road wasn't constructed north at that point in time. It was in the planning stages but hadn't been constructed. You have now a fully functional six-lane arterial abutting the property, Livingston Road to the east, and then to the south of course Pine Ridge Road. You have this FP&L power line easement running along the west portion of the property. To the north is non-residential uses, Community School. There's the dance studio immediately adjacent to the west. And so the property is pretty well isolated. There's really, I don't think, any question of compatibility or appropriateness of the commercial use. And I don't think staff -- obviously it already allows for 40,000 square feet of office and medical office. What we did when the property owner came to us and requested that we look at this property, because the feeling was that that 40,000 square feet was somewhat arbitrary, the cap, and that there was the potential to actually have additional intensity on the site. We actually prepared a couple of conceptual site plans. And depending on what the ultimate use of the property is, you could achieve closer to 70,000 square feet if you went in for all office, which has a lower parking ratio. The sub-district allows three stories and 50 feet of height, which would allow for parking under the buildings, if you designed them in that fashion. Now, we have successfully negotiated with FP&L in the past. Page 16 March 22, 2007 And again, this is an easement. The applicant is the underlying owner of the FP&L easement. And FP&L is willing to allow some utilization of that easement. We haven't had any formal discussions with them. I say that in other examples where we have negotiated with FP&L. I do not believe that they will allow any required number of parking to be placed within that easement. All of the required parking has to be in the four or so acres that are not subject to that easement. But they have in the past and in other circumstances allowed landscape buffers and water management to be located within the easement. One of the conceptual site plans that we prepared assumed that we could locate a significant portion of the water management as well as the landscape buffer within the FP&L easement, which allows for more developable area on the remaining slightly larger than four-acre portion of the site. With the allowable height and that circumstance, we were able to -- and this was just very conceptual, but we were able to provide the parking and all the other requirements on the site and have approximately 70,000 square feet of office. Now, as I indicated, we were also asking for some additional flexibility so that if -- so that we might be able to utilize some retail uses on the site. If that is the case, you have a greater parking intensity requirement. And depending on what those retail uses are, such as a restaurant which has a significantly higher parking ratio, the amount of square footage that you could locate on the site is significantly reduced. You drop down to about 45 or 50,000 square feet, depending on the mixture of uses. This is a comprehensive plan designation, and all we're asking for is the flexibility to design the site so that the owner can place on the site the amount of square footage that is appropriate, and have some flexibility in the uses. We're not arguing about the access, Page 17 March 22, 2007 which is limited. And by the way, it's my professional opinion that that limited access also limits the kinds of retail uses that you're likely to see on that site. I don't believe you're going to see a drug store, I don't believe you're going to see a fast food restaurant. There were some concerns expressed during the 2001 hearing about fast food uses. And in fact we're not unwilling to restrict that use, if that is acceptable. Although I would suggest that the appropriate time to deal with those issues and the appropriate time to actually determine what the square footage should be is at the stage of the rezone. That's also the appropriate time to put any further access restrictions on the site. I think it's a relatively simple and relatively inconsequential request. It seems that there would be no appropriate reason to limit the square footage on this site if in fact the site can be designed to reasonably accommodate 60, 65 or 70,000 square feet of office. If you look at the language in the plan for this district, it reads, the intent of the Livingston/Pine Ridge commercial infill sub-district is to provide shopping, personal services and employment for the surrounding residential areas within a convenient travel distance and to provide commercial services in an acceptable manner along a new collector roadway. Sub-district is intended to be compatible with the neighboring commercial public use and high density residential properties and will utilize well planned access points to improve current and future traffic flows in the area. There's nothing that we're requesting that is in conflict with that. In initial meetings with staff, we talked about coming in and asking for actually a higher amount of square footage. We reduced it in our application after we conducted those conceptual planning exercises and realized that there really was no way that we could exceed 70,000 square feet, even in the optimal condition. The application was submitted approximately two years ago. We Page 18 March 22, 2007 received a staff report about a week prior to your last hearing, at which point we realized that staff was not recommending to transmit. I subsequently contacted staff to try to get a little bit more understanding as to why their recommendation was not to transmit. And staff can certainly correct me, but it's my understanding that the basis of that recommendation is more so the fact that the Board of County Commissioners had already placed a 40,000 square foot cap on this, and maybe it was staffs opinion that we didn't justify the increase that we are requesting. I don't believe that it was strictly from the market analysis that was submitted, again, more than two years ago, best market analysis that Chuck Mohlke could do two years ago. Didn't get any request to update it. Chuck Mohlke unfortunately had an emergency meeting in Everglades City with DCA and was unable to attend. I'm not sure that I'm the best person to answer any questions that you will have, but I'll certainly try to if you do, relative to the market study. I think that concludes my presentation. Reed Jarvi is here if there are any questions of the -- oh, there's Nick. Nick, did you hear what I said earlier? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes. MR. MULHERE: You did. Would you agree with what I said? MR. CASALANGUIDA: It-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Nick, you've got to be on record. I appreciate that you had to be late. It's a long distance from your office to here and the traffic is pretty bad. MR. MULHERE: Maybe I could just quickly reiterate, that the reason I think this is important is early on I had met with Nick and Nick had suggested that the access to the site would be limited to either one or two right-in and right-out on Livingston Road. There's presently a right-in on Pine Ridge that's supposedly I think just as sort of a secondary ingress and egress, and that that would not remain in place, and we understood that. Page 19 March 22, 2007 Nick had suggested that we work with the adjacent property owner to try to get a shared right-in/right-out, because they already have access. And we would pursue that at the zoning stages. There's no sense in pursuing it until after the compo plan is approved. And as I said before, I think the code now actually requires or strongly encourages such interconnection. So that interconnection would significantly improve the access to the site. We don't know if we'll get it. We're certainly going to try. In fact, I think transportation even suggested that they will work with us in that respect if they could assist. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, thank you. Are there questions of the applicant? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, Bob, I have a few, if nobody else does. On Page 2, and this is of the staff report, but I think you can answer it for me. MR. MULHERE: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: There's a little description of the project and it shows two quadrants checkered in. One is the one you're talking about and the other is the southeast quadrant. I don't know why that was listed as the sub-district. Is it part of the sub-district in question? MR. MULHERE: Y es. Well, the sub-district covers both of those quadrants, yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Why doesn't it cover the northeast and the southwest then? MR. MULHERE: Well, I would say the southwest is a residential development and wouldn't allow for commercial development. I'm not sure why. It may have been timing on the northeast quadrant that -- either it was timing or they simply didn't request for that designation. But David could probably better answer Page 20 March 22, 2007 that. But that's the Cambridge Square PUD, which does allow for commercial uses. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Weeks, can you shed some light on that? MR. WEEKS: Certainly. The southwest quadrant was where this sub-district was initially created, and it was via private amendment. That was all that was requested by the petitioner. And then a subsequent petitioner came in and requested the northwest quadrant be added. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: How about the northeast, it just wasn't requested to be part of this sub-district? MR. WEEKS: That's correct. And in fact is a separate privately initiated sub-district. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Do you know what the square footage is allowed, gross, on the other quadrants right now for commercial and retail, of any former commercial office and retail, and how that compares overall to an activity -- other activity centers in the county in regards to total square footage available? MR. WEEKS: Not offhand, but I think we can get that in a few minutes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. That would be helpful to understand the magnitude of this compared to others. MR. MULHERE: I know what they're approved for. I don't have that right at my disposal what the comprehensive -- the max that the comprehensive plan would allow. I can tell you what they're approved for. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You're asking for more square footage in your area. I just was curious to see if when that total four corners is built out, is it going to be in excess of what we have other activity centers in the county, or is it within or below those activity centers? MR. MULHERE: Mr. Strain, it's significantly below. Activity Page 21 March 22, 2007 centers in general allow for 40 acres in each quadrant. In this case you have one quadrant that has no commercial allowance and that's the south -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Southwest. MR. MULHERE: Yes, southwest quadrant. And in the subject -- where the subject property is within that quadrant, the commercial node is only on that lOA-acre property. But you do have some other commercial use that were allowed through conditional use immediately to our west. The dance studio, and I think there's a gymnastics studio -- or gymnastics use as well further to the west. Those are relatively minor. There's not a great deal of square footage there. I have the -- the Bald Ridge PUD is 10.8 acres, allowing 125,000 square feet. And Cambridge Square, according to the most recent -- this is the February 23rd, 2007 PUD spreadsheet I downloaded last night off the county's website. Cambridge Square is 13.6 acres, allowing a maximum of I 15,000 square feet. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So Bald Ridge is a little over 10 acres and it's 125,000 square feet. MR. MULHERE: Correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Cambridge Square is 13.6 and it's 115,000 square feet, and yours is -- MR. MULHERE: Ours is 10.7 acres. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: 10047. MR. MULHERE: 10047 acres. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And you're looking at 70,000 square feet. MR. MULHERE: Correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. That's what I was trying to understand. You also said something during your discussion that you thought transportation staff supported or didn't have a problem with what Page 22 March 22, 2007 you're saying? And I've got the staff report. And the transportation staff says -- and I'm going to need some clarification. Transportation staff does not recommend additional intensity at this site with the limited access available to the property. Nick was nodding his head in agreement with you, so I'm curious now as to what that statement means in comparison to the comments made. MR. MULHERE: Well, I'll defer to Nick, but I would suggest that that kind of recommendation to me really should wait until we get in here for the rezone. It may in fact be a lower number than what we're asking for, based on the traffic conditions at the time we come m. But we're understanding that we're only going to get one or two right-in and right-out, which is going to severely limit any kind of retail. But you might have a bank, a lobby, an office building. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I don't disagree with your contention that this should wait until another time when we're looking at a more finite site plan, but you introduced the subject, so -- MR. MULHERE: Yes, I did. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: --I need clarification. MR. MULHERE: Nick probably forgot he talked to me. It was pretty favorable at one point. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Nick, were you sworn in? MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, sir, I was not. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Madam Court Reporter. (Speaker was duly sworn.) MR. CASALANGUIDA: For the record, Nick Casalanguida, Transportation Planner. We did meet with Mr. Mulhere on several occasions discussing access. And when we received the traffic study from Mr. Jarvi, we reviewed that as well, too. With respect to capacity on Pine Ridge and Livingston, there is Page 23 March 22, 2007 adequate capacity in the five-year planning period. And our comments in our review talked about the interchange opening up and volume dropping; and we've seen that. So as far as capacity is concerned, it's consistent with policy 5.1. Where we have a problem -- and even when we met with Mr. Mulhere, there was a problem at that time -- was circulation. You have a project at the corner that has limited access right-in/right-out. We're having problems at Whippoorwill and Pine Ridge for the same reasons. U-turns, people going different directions can't make turns easily. So when you add additional intensity at a corner like that with limited access, they have to make U-turns at intersections or downstream at median openings and things like that. So those things can be addressed at PUD. And we did in our comments discuss the fact that they could do certain things as far as intelligent traffic management systems, TCMA strategies, TDMs. We're cautiously in a position where we say it meets 5.1, but additional volumes making U-turns and circulation issues have us concerned. So I don't know if it's a recommendation of denial or approval. It's just these are our concerns, and we're expressing our concerns to this commission as well, too. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Yes, sir, Mr. Midney? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: On Page 4 of the staff report you say that we anticipate background traffic will be reduced by the I-75/Golden Gate Parkway interchange. But my question is how much and how can you -- we need to quantify it, don't we? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sure. The initial numbers coming back, even just the first week it was open, was five to six percent, and that's just day one, the day after coming out. And we expect anywhere from 10 to 15 percent, as people start to understand that that interchange is open and functioning. So even with the five percent reduction, you have capacity. And Page 24 March 22, 2007 as it becomes more widely known that it's open, we do expect it to probably drop to 10 percent. And that 10 percent more localized to that first link, which is that Livingston to the 1-75 interchange, obviously drops off the farther you get away, that reduction. So I don't see capacity is a problem, it's more of a traffic circulation problem. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Well, you say that there's overcapacity on Pine Ridge Road, meaning it's overburdened now. By what percent is it overburdened? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Off the top of my head, probably in the low single digits, three to five percent. It just went over capacity right now. It might even be less than that. But keep in mind that was before the interchange opened up. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Well, what about the increase in traffic from other things, general development in the area which continues growing and will continue to grow? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Even if I grow background traffic five years, which is required as part of 5.1, with that 10 percent reduction that we anticipated we do in a planning sort of analysis, you will have capacity on that segment. So it's not a capacity issue, it's more of a circulation issue that we're concerned with. MR. MULHERE: IfI couldjust add, we understand that the access is limited, and that's going to have a direct impact on what types of uses might ultimately go through this site. But we are anticipating working with both the property owner to the west which, you know, Nick suggested and I think is an excellent idea and would help a lot, as well as negotiating with the property owners to the north because there is an access road that comes in to service the Community School and other uses in that location. Now, I'm not suggesting that we know the answer to those questions. We haven't even talked to them. But obviously that's Page 25 March 22, 2007 something we're going to deal with as we move forward after this process. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: This is more for Nick, I suppose. On every corner property on a busy road, would you not have a circulation problem potential? MR. CASALANGUIDA: You do. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: So that's part of it or its inherent, and the planning for the use of property on busy roads that are at intersections. So in other words, what I'm trying to find out is it's not necessarily -- it's an impediment but not to foreclose it from use. MR. CASALANGUIDA: No. And I guess to follow up on that as well, too, I think you have in your TIS guidelines the ability to offer restrictions ifthere's a failing movement when they come in at that phase. So there is a safety valve, per se, if you were to let this go forward in the winter zoning and we were more detailed. And then as I had a discussion with Commissioner Caron, that level of review gets more stringent the more you get to that actual site development, development order stage. That ifthere was a failing movement you could restrict them based on that. So you've got things in place. Again, our concern is Livingston Road is your premier north-south facility in that area. And so we're just cautious at that intersection and we want to keep that north-south movement working well. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And we thank you for that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Nick, by the way, I'm glad that interchange opened at Golden Gate Parkway. It has -- I actually drive 951, which is nowhere near these intersections, but even coming down 951 now is a lot better than it was. So it has helped in that area. Did you have a question, Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, for Nick. Page 26 March 22, 2007 Nick, right now this property is limited to general and medical office uses. Doesn't that help you with your transportation issues that it is office as opposed to retail? MR. CASALANGUIDA: There's no pass-by with office, so you're going to get a higher a.m. and p.m. concentrated with, say, office as opposed to retail. Depending on what they put in you may have the opportunity for, say, a bank or, say, a CVS, which you're getting people that's convenience traffic and it's more spread out during the day, maybe not as concentrated as much. Without knowing the actual specific uses, I couldn't give you the definitive answer. But office as opposed to retail/office is set trip numbers and set times of day typically. A.m. concentrate -- COMMISSIONER CARON: Understood. MR. CASALANGUIDA: -- and p.m. concentrate. So there's an offset, depending on how you look at it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Nick, you feel confident that if this is approved today, when they come back to you you'll have sufficient control of the situation so you could do what needs to be done at that point? MR. CASALANGUIDA: I think so. With the TIS guidelines, if there's a failing movement, it's pretty clear that you can say no to them and they have to do certain things to make things better. So you have sufficient control. And as we were talking about it with Mr. Mulhere, our biggest thing is to try and get them to coordinate with the projects next door. I f we start cleaning up these driveways and get access to be more unified as opposed to -- you know, the driveways I think are only 50 feet apart, but that's a problem. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: So you will be involved in that? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Absolutely. Page 27 March 22, 2007 COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Thank you. COMMISSIONER CARON: But you can't require those people MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, not the abutting neighbors. COMMISSIONER CARON: That's right. MR. CASALANGUIDA: I can require Bob to do that. So it's up to the abutting neighbors. And the thought is if this was approved, I would ask that he stub out to the property line. And I would imagine that site, maybe not one year, five years out, will be redeveloped. And at that point in time you can require them to connect, too. It's a long process, but at least we're trying to do that with all projects right now. MR. MULHERE: If I could add, I -- and we haven't talked to them, but in general there is a benefit to that use as well, because their primary utilization is going -- is typically not the same time that this site's primary utilization would be. Evenings and weekends for that use. So if we open up an interconnection, they get to utilize our parking, they get access to Livingston and we get access to Pine Ridge. It's still going to be right-in/right-out in all conditions. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Mulhere, I have still a few more. MR. MULHERE: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You provided a narrative as backup Exhibit B. In the backup in one of the paragraphs, second to the last on Page 2 you started talking about the constraints of the geometry of the parcel. MR. MULHERE: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You said even with these constraints, given the current height limitation of 50 feet, as much as 70,000 square feet of office space can be located on the build-able portion of Page 28 March 22, 2007 the site. MR. MULHERE: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If the mixture includes medical office or retail, the overall intensity is reduced. MR. MULHERE: Correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So you're saying retail reduces the intensity when it -- if it was -- compared to all offices? MR. MULHERE: You know, that's a good question. I guess I probably should have said the maximum achievable square footage is reduced. Your question is good. The reason that it's reduced is because medical office has a higher parking ratio and retail has a higher parking ratio. So as a result you simply can't get the parking spaces on there. And then the 70,000 starts to fall down as the mixture of uses -- of more intense uses is provided for. And so you're right, that probably doesn't read exactly correctly. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I understand it better now, but I didn't by the first reading. I notice Reed must have done your traffic statement, since it's Vanasse and Daylor. MR. MULHERE: He did. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I had a couple of questions from that, since the applicant's up for discussion right now. And one of the comments in the traffic statement says that -- in the introduction it says that up to three accesses are contemplated for the site, consisting of two right-in and right-out accesses on Livingston and one right-in/right-out on Pine Ridge. Obviously that may not come to be reality. What kind of an impact will that have on the TIS that was prepared for this GMP amendment? MR. JARVI: For the record, Reed Jarvi from Vanasse-Daylor. When we initially did the TIS, as you can see, almost two years Page 29 March 22, 2007 ago, that was one of the planned -- or the initial plan was to have access similar to what's there now, which is the two right-in/right-outs on Livingston and the one on Pine Ridge. So we replicated that on our TIS. However, if the accesses are reduced to, say, one on Livingston Road, it really won't change the traffic impacts to the surrounding network. It would change that -- access numbers on that particular right in/right out. If the access on Pine Ridge Road is not allowed or we can't get a joint access, for instance, it really wouldn't change much, because the right in/right out characteristic of anything going on in or out of Livingston Road could -- would go to the Pine Ridge, take a right, which would be the same egress. So the -- actually it would be about the same impacts. But I think there wouldn't be any significant changes to the network at this point. It would obviously be differences to the access points, you know, if you go from one to -- excuse me, three to one, you're going to have three times as much at that particular access. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. On Page 3 of your report, you indicated an ADT using a mixture of office, medical and retail of 3320. You may have had it in here and I just may not have remembered where. What is the current ADT using the 40,000 square feet with a mixture that would be comparable in regards to what was allowed there under the 40,000? MR. JARVI: I don't have it, but the 40,000 would be medical and general. MR. MULHERE: Yes. MR. JARVI: So you could take the medical and general portion of that and add them together, basically. You got 3,000 -- I'm sorry, I'm doing it the wrong way. You've got about probably just shy of 1,000. If you could do 40,000 -- if you could do it all as medical, you Page 30 March 22, 2007 could get double this number and get 1,200. Somewhere around 1,000. Roughly a third of what this could be. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And the last question is on Page 10, the last sentence of your paragraph before improvement analysis, it says, the existing Pine Ridge Road access is too close to Livingston Road and other neighboring accesses to meet a literal interpretation of the criteria, although 14-97 allows closer spacing due to site conditions, subject to certain restrictions. I don't know what 14-97 is. And that seems contrary to what I just heard from everybody talking about the spacing of these openings. Can you clarify? MR. JARVI: Yes. Actually, the reference there is wrong. That's the DOT access spacing -- FDOT access spacing guidelines, which is not dissimilar to the Collier County one, but is different. And there is allowance for certain corner properties that don't have other access, that you can have less than optimal access spacing. So there is an allowance for that. It's a discussion item that would have to come on with transportation. But, you know, since -- or subsequent to the writing of this report, we've found that -- discussions with Nick, as Bob has talked about -- is that probably no access on Pine Ridge Road unless it is a joint access. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. My question there is a lot of times people will read these rules written in -- whether that's a code or whatever it is with FDOT, and they hire attorneys to make sure that they're enforcing that code as literally written. I just want to make sure that you don't believe you have a right to have more accesses by that statement than what transportation deems correct. That's the only question. Is that -- MR. JARVI: Correct. Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You don't? MR. MULHERE: And further, we have to go through the rezone to allow these uses, and during that time we're going to have typical Page 31 March 22, 2007 transportation conditions, one of which is transportation has the right to close any access point, so on, so forth. We have the right to access our property, but they get to restrict it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Kolflat, did you have a question? COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Yes, I did. At the interchange -- intersection of Airport Road and Pine Ridge, there is a large activity center with a large amount of retail. How far is that from the subject property, about, in distance? MR. MULHERE: Maybe two miles. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Two miles? MR. MULHERE: Yeah. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Thank you. MR. MULHERE: I don't know, I drive it every day, I ought to know. But two miles. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Are there any other questions of the applicant or his other people? MR. MULHERE: I did neglect to mention one thing, Mr. Strain. That is you can see in the staff recommendation that they have suggested that if the CCPC is inclined to approve this that there's some minor language changes from what we've proposed. And I just wanted to put on the record that we don't object to that. It probably reads better. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Okay, is there a staff report for that presentation? Thank you, Bob. MR. MULHERE: Come on, Marcia, be kind. MS. KENDALL: Good afternoon -- or good morning, rather. For the record, Marcia Kendall, Comprehensive Planning, Senior Planner. I believe the staff report itself speaks for itself. However, our concerns were due to the limited access, also to the small build-able size of acreage of 3 .8, including the concerns of the Board of County Page 32 March 22, 2007 Commissioners back at transmittal when they capped the square footage at 40,000 square feet and limited the use to general and office, medical offices. Also, in addition to that, the commercial inventory that was used for the petitioner was the only available information at the time. We used the '05 commercial inventory as comparison, which does show that square footage has increased in the area. And I'd also like to further add that recently Cambridge Square added 3.31 acres to their PUD, and that was for an additional 80,000 square feet of commercial. And also, that on the southeast quadrant, Marquesa Plaza, which is well under construction, is allowed for 121,000 plus or minus square feet. With all of that combined, we are recommending that this not go forward. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, are there any questions of staff? Mr. Schiffer, then Mr. Murray. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Marcia, looking at this, and if you take just the area they can build on, the 3.8 acres, that is an FAR somewhere maybe below A. Why do you think that's over-intensifying the use of this site? MS. KENDALL: Well, basically just the shape of the site and what can be done on it. Other than that, I have no other comment on it. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But this is a major traffic node. And if it's underdeveloped, it really is a kind of urban sprawl move, isn't it? I mean, I don't think it's a good thing to under-develop this. MS. KENDALL: Well, I guess, as I said before, the main concern was the additional square footage that's been approved since that district was created and the fact that there is limited access, we just -- I just felt that 40,000 was adequate. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: How much of the additional Page 33 March 22, 2007 stuff is office area? MS. KENDALL: Pardon? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: How much of it is office area? You said -- MS. KENDALL: That, I don't know. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- there's 120,000 square feet catty -corner. MS. KENDALL: David, could you respond to that? MR. WEEKS: Is the question how much office development has occurred like at this intersection? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: For example, she mentioned that there's 120,000 square foot catty-corner to this. How much of that is office, how much of that is retail? MR. WEEKS: I believe it's a shopping center that's under construction, which means we wouldn't necessarily know, I don't think, until they actually pull the building permits for the individual units what their use is going to be, whether it's going to be retail or office. I can tell you that in the northwest quadrant, the Cambridge Square PUD, it's a total of 115,000 square feet that it's approved for. 35,000 square feet is office use. The other 80,000 square feet could be at the petitioner's choice retail, office or combination of the two. But the short answer is I can't tell you specifically how much -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. MR. WEEKS: -- office. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And again my concern is that, you know, if we under-develop the site, this is a site that could have office, could intercept traffic that would otherwise go into the city. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yeah, Commissioner Schiffer stole part of my question, because it would seem that we'd want to distinguish between commercial retail and commercial office. And in Page 34 March 22, 2007 your calculation, you gave a broad number, and I wondered if that was considered as part of your evaluation. And was it? MS. KENDALL: My main consideration was the fact that the Board of County Commissioners did have major concerns about that area, and did cap it at 40,000, and did limit the uses, and that's basically what I was going on, other than the fact that as I stated before, the commercial has increased in the area since the '03 and '05 commercial inventory were done. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Could you give me an idea of whether or not that was something you observed in a meeting or something you read in minutes or a postulation of some form? MS. KENDALL: I reviewed the transmittal and adoption minutes of the Board of County Commissioners for the time when it was -- prior to creation and then when it was adopted and approved at the 40,000 limit. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And you made a recitation of-- in any of your document did you make a recitation about the key element, what was the basis for it or summary for what their conclusion was reached upon? MS. KENDALL: They were mainly concerned about retail going in there. They didn't want a McDonald's or fast food restaurant gomg m. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Right. So -- but this was not put in for that purpose, this was intended for office, was it not? MS. KENDALL: For office and -- general office and medical. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay. So I would expect you to take a look at it fresh from that perspective. But okay, that's a decision you made. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: David, you had a comment? MR. WEEKS: Yes, if I may. I was in attendance at that board hearing when this petition was originally approved to establish this sub-district at the northwest Page 35 March 22, 2007 corner. The actual request was for retail. The applicant did not come forward asking for just office uses. The petitioner wanted retail. But the commissioners limited them to the office uses only and reduced their square footage down to the 40,000 square feet. As Marcia indicated, one of the concerns that was expressed on the record was the nearby residential at that time. At the present location of Cambridge Square there was a single-family home. There was and still is single-family development further to the north but still east of the subject property. Additionally, the comments were made most particularly by Commissioner Henning about concern for retail development, going back to pretty much what Marcia said. But to elaborate, that there was ample opportunity for retail development east of this property, along the Pine Ridge corridor there in the activity center, and that commissioner in particular did not think there was a need for any additional retail uses. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I acknowledge that you folks are sensitive to what you see going on and your perception is that this is something you should probably not bring forward. But would you tell me, was that a 3-2, 4-1 or 5-0 vote? MR. MULHERE: 4-1. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: 4-1, okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I wish to remind this board, we are a Planning Commission, so politics should not weigh in on this. The voting and the way it came down at the BCC may not be as relevant as we would like to make it. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, Mr. Chairman, let me explain the reason why I put that out. I'm certainly not doing politics here. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I know you're not, Bob, I was just hoping that we don't let ourselves be -- Page 36 March 22, 2007 COMMISSIONER MURRAY: No, I'm not going to. But the reason I asked is if it were clearer to me that there was an absolute involve, it might impact on how I decide, if there were some question. Because everything is subject to being qualified again and looked at again. Even when we look 30 years forward, we think of redevelopment, and so we shouldn't preclude opportunities. I'm just trying to find out where we are. That's the only reason. No politics. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Vigliotti has been patiently waiting to speak, so let me get past -- COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Just two things: You had said the BCC limited the square footage in usage. When was that? MS. KENDALL: Back in 2001. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: That was six years ago. The situation's changed in the last five to six years. And transportation is also saying he feels comfortable with working out the flow, working out the driveway entrances, lefts in and lefts out -- right in, right out. So I don't see transportation having a problem. I don't think it's relevant five, six years ago. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Mulhere, did you-- MR. MULHERE: I did just want to add. I reviewed the transcript, and I don't disagree with anything that staff has said in terms of the discussion at the 200 I board hearing. I do think the applicant at some point prior to the board reduced their request to 40,000 square feet. It may have been because of staff recommendations, but the way I read it by the time they got to the board they were only asking for 40,000 square feet. They started out at 60,000 square feet. The other point I wanted to make was along the lines of what Mr. Vigliotti raised. I mean, we understand from reading the transcript the board's rationale at that time. But much has changed since then and, you know, we're confident that based on those changes that some greater flexibility here is appropriate. Page 37 March 22, 2007 I'm not suggesting to you that -- and there was no analysis done of site planning previously in 2001, or at least nothing on the record. We actually did some site planning for this conceptual site plan, so we have a basis for our request in terms of the square footage. If the 20,000 square foot of retail is high -- you know, we want some flexibility. We're not asking for necessarily fast food, which was an issue that certain board members raised. And if they raise it again, we would be willing to limit that use or, you know, restrict that use. So I think that discussion will occur at the board level and we'll have to react to those issues, if they're still issues. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I have one comment to staff and it's something Ms. Kendall said that primarily her reading of this was based on the transcript that she read from the Board of County Commissioners. I saw the Comprehensive Planning Department as purely a planning department. Being influenced by politics or by the board's statements, if that's not necessarily planning I'm just wondering how many of these 16 amendments are influenced that way when you are supposed to be, I thought, and I've always looked to you guys as purely analytical from a planning viewpoint. Which means the relevance of the politics at the time, no matter what the reasons are, shouldn't weigh in on whether it's good planning or bad planning. And I'd certainly like to know how much you guys really put the emphasis on those items. I'm surprised that you even would have considered that. MR. COHEN: Commissioner, for the record, Randy Cohen, Comprehensive Planning Director. I think it's probably incumbent on me to answer that question. First all, any time that we have a prior policy decision by the Board of County Commissioners that is fairly close in time, it warrants consideration. It's incumbent on us to do just that and to look Page 38 March 22, 2007 at the rationale for that. And also, in conjunction with that, to see if circumstances have changed. For example, at that point in time, as indicated by testimony, there was a single-family house across the street on the northeast corner, which is obviously no longer there. So we had to take a look at that as well, too, because that was part of the rationale for limiting the 40,000 square feet. At the same time, it's incumbent upon us to take a look at circumstances and changes in circumstances in conjunction with the prior approval or denial or whatever the constraints are with respect to the subject property in coming about with regard to that policy decision, and in this case limiting the square footage to 40,000 square feet. Mr. Mulhere, in his testimony, spoke about some issues that warrant consideration by this particular board in a manner that some of those things have not yet been addressed. Let me give you an example: Mr. Casalanguida spoke about turning movements with regard to the subject property and the fact that right now there's a right-in/right-out turn off of Pine Ridge. If anybody drives that particular area and you go through that, there's quite a bit of crossover traffic that goes up to that median cut at Pine Ridge to the west of Livingston Road where people cut across there and make that U-turn there. And that's a turning movement issue that exists. If this property is limited to right-in/right-out only off of Livingston and there is no interconnect with regard to the property immediately to the west, which is a dance studio, what ends up happening is you have to look at turning movements from the perspective of, well, how are we going to access this site? Well, the only way you're going to access this site is from traffic coming from the north down Livingston with a right-in/right-out. Which means that anybody that's going to be accessing from the other Page 39 March 22, 2007 three directions is going to have to obviously go on up to Sable Ridge and make a U-turn and come back down Livingston. If you increase the intensity of use, obviously that's a consideration. This is something that hasn't been addressed from the perspective of what I call the what ifs. You know, they haven't spoken to the property owner to the west and arranged cross access. This is a major concern with respect to intensification of use. We talked about the Florida Power & Light easement that exists CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Randy, my original question seems to have gotten a little lost. Are we somewhere going to get back? My question simply was, you guys are a planning department, and the board sets policy, which is both good planning and sometimes motivated by other outside influences. I need to know if you're setting planning standards by policy or planning standards by good planning standards, standards that are nationally recognized. And I understand you have pressures, and that's fine, but at least we need to know that that's what's influencing your planning decisions. MR. COHEN: And there is no pressure, Commissioner, with respect to this. We obviously took a look at the policy decision that was recommended back in 2001 and then the changing conditions that existed for the subject property, as well as other information that was provided both by the applicant and by our staff. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So your decisions here on the planning aspects of the GMP amendments are influenced by prior policy, whether that's good planning or bad planning; is that fair to say? MR. COHEN: That is not what I said, Commissioner. I said what we've done basically is we've taken a look at a prior policy decision and then taken into consideration the planning rationale for the request. Page 40 March 22, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, Mr. Cohen. Any other -- Mr. Schiffer, then Mr. Midney. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Actually, I'd like to make a motion to move on, because we're -- before we have the 2001 hearing all over again. CHAIRMAN STRAIN : Yeah, that's fine. I was just trying to get an answer on what's presented to us. Mr. Midney, did you have a comment before a motion's made? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I'd like to. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, sir. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I'm a little bit confused. Are we implying -- are you implying, Mark, that the Commission does not always go on what is appropriate planning? I don't understand that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I think the Commission weighs a lot of factors. Some of them may be recommendations based on planning from the planning department and others may be on practical items that they have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. I'm just trying to find out how the planning department view planning, whether they view it on policy set by the board or by planning standards set by our various codes, laws and ordinances. That was my question, Paul. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Maybe I'm naive. I would just as soon that the Commission would go on what's best planning for the community. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, that's fine. Mr. Schiffer, did you want to make a motion? Why don't we see ifthere's any public speakers. Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I'll wait for Mr. Schiffer. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are there any public speakers? MR. WEEKS: No. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We'll close -- well, there's no public hearing. We'll just go for a motion. Page 41 March 22, 2007 Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'd like to make a motion that we make a recommendation to move Petition CP-2005-7 to the Board of County Commissioners with a recommendation to transmit to DCA with a recommendation of approval, and using the staff wording. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is there a second? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I'll second that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Vigliotti made a motion to second. Ms. Caron, discussion? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah. I think that in this particular location, almost doubling the square footage with a potential for 20,000 square feet of additional retail is not the way to go. I think that I would be more inclined to vote with Mr. Schiffer if it were still limited to office uses; office and medical uses, general office and medical uses. We just had a major increase in retail just down the block at Airport. There is additional retail that will be coming on board both to the southeast and to the northeast. There is also retail closer to 75. I think this is not -- I think that the limit to office was a good thing in this particular quadrant. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other discussion for the motion? Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: While I don't seriously disagree with Commissioner Caron, I would hope that some certain types of residential that could serve as -- I don't know how to phrase this, but I don't want to call it an anchor, but such as a bank and then the office above where it lends opportunities for that type of retail. I fully agree that the increased intensity with other commercial enterprises of various sorts would be possibly a disservice, but if that could be restricted, I would agree with Ms. Caron. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other comments? Mr. Vigliotti? Page 42 March 22, 2007 COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I think it's too premature to start restricting this, so I'd like to see it go ahead with staff and with transportation to work out how this thing's going to flow best. MR. MULHERE: Come back as a rezone. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. No other comments? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'll call for the question. All those in favor of the motion to transmit, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody opposed? COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: (Indicating.) COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: (Indicating.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Two (sic) opposed to the motion to transmit. Motion carries 7-2 (sic). Thank you. Before we get into the next item, we will be taking a 15-minute break at 10:00. So we'll start the next item, but we'll have to pause at about that time to let the court reporter have a few moments to rest her weary fingers. CP-2005-9 Next petition up is CP-2005-9. It's for the Corkscrew Island neighborhood commercial sub-district at lmmokalee Road and Platt Road. All those wishing to testify today on behalf of this application, please rise to be sworn in by the court reporter. Page 43 March 22, 2007 (Speakers were duly sworn.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Okay, the applicant. Mr. Arnold, you're representing? MR. ARNOLD: Good morning. Wayne Arnold for the record. With me is Rich Yovanovich and Dean Smith from Q. Grady Minor and Associates, as well as the property owner, Bob Williams, who's in attendance today, representing the future land use text amendment to permit the new Corkscrew Island neighborhood sub-district. And the subject property, as many of you have been around here long enough to know, I'm sure Mr. Midney in his drives from Immokalee remember, it used to be, when I first moved here, the old Wagon Wheel Restaurant. But its property that's located about three miles north ofthe Orangetree community on Immokalee Road on the big curve, as I call it. And it has existing C-2 commercial zoning on the frontage and has mobile home zoning behind. And just to set the record straight, I think there's been some confusion. And I know that we've communicated with one of the area residents that they were questioning whether or not the zoning districts that are in place are truly the right zoning districts. And in fact they are. We've researched it and I think staff as well confirmed that. But it is in an area where you're surrounded by agricultural with a mobile home overlay. But in this particular area, these two pieces of property were reviewed under the old zoning reevaluation ordinance. And their zoning at that time was retained and there are policies in the current plan that would allow us to move forward on each of those zoning districts separately. Mobile home allows 7.26 units per acre, and C-2 allows a variety of convenience commercial. The subject petition asks for us to go ahead and expand the existing C-2 commercial by allowing us to come back either in the form of C-2 zoning, for instance, or a PUD that would allow us to have eight acres of commercial at this location. We think it makes sense. And I'll get into some of staffs Page 44 March 22, 2007 comments in a couple of moments. But we did some analysis. We looked at the 2005 statistics for some of the Golden Gate Estates area and the Corkscrew area, and growth has occurred fairly rapidly in that part of the community, as we all know. We heard staff tell us before that we need more commercial opportunities east of 951. In this particular case, I know that staff has some issues with the methodology we used to define our sort of trade area that we were looking at because we sort of mixed and matched. But the lines aren't really clear. And in this particular case we have a piece of property that sits on a very highly traveled road that is going to capture a lot of convenience commercial shopping. I think it's distinguishable from the development that will occur at Orangetree, Orange Blossom Ranch and Ave Maria because the C-2 level of commercial and what you can net on eight acres is substantially less than what is being planned for and developed at either one of the other communities. So when we look at this, it's hard for me -- you know, the data and analysis is always a hard one, and it's kind of nebulous, because there's no strict criteria for what warrants a planned amendment. And in this particular case, I think knowing that there's population growth, knowing that the traffic is growing on this segment of Immokalee Road and knowing that we also have commercial that's in existence, allowing an expansion by a little over four acres of that commercial opportunity here makes sense. Staff is concerned about the potential for the other three quadrants to come in and seek an amendment to also allow commercial. Hopefully they can stand on their own if that ever occurs. But I think that I can sit here and say that those other three quadrants don't have existing commercial. And for us to move forward, this is the one location that makes sense to expand this commercial opportunity. Page 45 March 22, 2007 We have worked with the Corkscrew Island neighborhood association that was established. We met with that committee. It's been two years ago now that we met with them when we filed this application. And I have a letter that summarizes the minutes from that meeting that the secretary of that organization provided, and I can pass that out to you all, if you wish. I don't know if staffs seen that or not. I f I might, Mr. Chair? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, sir. Make sure you have an extra one for the court reporter. MR. ARNOLD: In essence, this indicates that we met on April 26th. And Bob Williams and I went to the neighborhood association and we discussed the opportunity to come forward with this amendment. And it's clear from the minute summary that there was not an objection to what we were doing. And we did concur with them that we should continue to work with the association to deal with some of their issues. And they have valid issues. They're going to have lighting issues, other noise issues and other traffic safety issues, and I think the fact that we have to come back for the rezoning, that's the appropriate time to address all of those. I think the question here before us is really whether or not additional commercial at this location that's limited to no more than C-2 convenience commercial makes sense. We think it does, I think the community said it does, and we've agreed to continue working with them in doing so. I think that, you know, we can go through any of the data and analysis you want and we can go through the staff report, whatever you prefer, but I think to me the case seems fairly simple in the fact that we already have existing commercial, and that's what we're building on. I think that in talking with them, obviously they have certain issues. And they have a fairly rural community out there, and they Page 46 March 22, 2007 obviously want to keep it that way. But again, they are an active civic association and we'd be happy to continue working with them as we go through the zoning process. I'd be happy to answer any questions, or if Mr. Y ovanovich feels the need to add anything that I may have left out. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Have you met with the civic association recently? I know that this meeting -- MR. ARNOLD: We did not. We did hold our NIM, as indicated in the staff report. And it was attended by several people. I wouldn't characterize there being objections to it, but I think some of the same questions arose that we heard earlier on. I did talk to the civic association president a couple of days ago, and it was his opinion, not that they've had any new formal vote, but their opinion hasn't changed. It was kind of premature for them to take any stance against this, because if this moves forward, they'll see us at zoning time, too. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions of the applicant? Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I'm reading where you want to have 90,000 square feet of gross leasable space. Is that an actual statement, that you -- MR. ARNOLD: That is correct. That's what we've requested in the actual text amendment, up to 90,000 square feet. Can we fit 90,000? I don't know. We really haven't site planned this, and I think that's the next step that we would take. And I think that's one of the same questions that the association had, you know, is it really going to be 90? And I can't sit here today and tell you that it is absolutely going to be 90. We may come back and decide that it's 80 or that we can better fit 70 or 60. I don't know that today. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: That would still be roughly two Page 47 March 22, 2007 acres of gross leasable space in an area that's occupied in Corkscrew by rather low -- and even if we triple it, as is projected, that's a question now, given what we learned about 97 this morning. That seems an enormous amount of space. For C-2, how many -- what types are being envisioned with that 90,000 square feet of gross -- MR. ARNOLD: Well, C-2 is the first zoning district we get to that starts to insert a level of commercial. Otherwise you're at C-l, which is almost entirely office type uses. And we believe that the market out here is more for retail. And as I said, I don't see this as being a large format, any type of retail. I mean, we have eight acres and we're going to have to accommodate a drain field for a septic system that would serve it. And most retail are very low volume users anyway, but nonetheless, we have to accommodate that water management. There's no native vegetation issues, so the yield could go a little higher, because we don't have native vegetation issues that would be required to set aside in a preserve. But I think also, here again, the neighborhood association is involved. And I think that through that discussion and evolution through that group, we're going to come up with something that meets their standard, or we're not going to be moving into the zoning process. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay, I have more comments later, thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions of the applicant? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Arnold. MR. ARNOLD: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I have a few, sir. MR. ARNOLD: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: In your -- you had an environmental Page 48 March 22, 2007 consultant, Collier Environmental Consultants, and in there they mentioned there's an abandoned gas station on the site. MR. ARNOLD: That's correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Have you done any Phase 1 audits or Phase 2 to find out if you -- or have you had any monitoring wells on the site to see if you have any ground water pollution? MR. ARNOLD: I don't believe that there are any monitoring wells on the site. I don't know if a Phase I environmental has been complete. I can ask Mr. Williams, the property owner, if he has. Do you want to come forward, Bob? Mr. Chairman, would you like to hear from Mr. Williams, the property owner? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Sure. MR. ARNOLD: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You'll have to identify yourself for the record. MR. WILLIAMS: Robert Williams. At the time that I acquired the property, I did an environmental study on it, and it came up negative on pollution. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Great, thank you. I just thought I'd check while we had the opportunity. Mr. Arnold, in your TIS you base part of your trip rates on the shopping center land use category. MR. ARNOLD: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: 518. Is 518 utilized in a C-2 zoning district? MR. ARNOLD: That I don't know. I could defer to Mr. Smith. But C-2 really is again retail. And I think we looked at the most intensive type of use you could I think under those standard retail. I don't think we see the setting up for fast food restaurant or out-parcel type uses, but a shopping center seemed to be most appropriate. I can let Mr. Smith answer, but that was sort of the methodology there. Page 49 March 22, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, because we've used -- I see shopping center used all the time. And usually it's I think code ITE 820. I'm not sure if this one was the same one used. But I'm wondering, the shopping center's allowed in the C-2. We usually see it used as a category in C-3. I just wanted to make sure that C-2 uses included what you thought was consistent with your TIS. MR. ARNOLD: I think it does. I don't think there's anything in the C-2 district that would preclude us seeking a shopping center. Again, I think you'll most likely see us back as a PUD in which we'll have very specific SIC codes that would indicate what we would be proposing there. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, that's fine. If you say it's part -- it can be utilized in a C-2. Then I had one other traffic question. And it's in the staff report, but it's about your traffic analysis. And it says, the TIS trip generation calculations are compared to existing uses. Traffic generated by existing uses is estimated to be 2,509 daily gross trips two-way. Does that include the mobile homes? And at what build-out? Or does that include the existing commercial? MR. ARNOLD: I'll let Mr. Smith answer that. MR. SMITH: For the record, Dean Smith. Mr. Chairman, I stepped out so I was not sworn in. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, thank you for telling us. (Speaker was duly sworn.) MR. SMITH: I did not include the mobile home in that calculation. That was just based on the existing commercial use area that's there right now. I didn't include any trips for mobile home use. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Thank you, sir. Does anybody else have any further questions of the applicant at this time? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, we'll hear staff report next. Page 50 March 22, 2007 Thank you. MR. SCHMIDT: Good morning. I think staffs recommendation does speak for itself, but I'd like to highlight a few of the issues. Certainly this is a sub-district being proposed in the rural fringe mixed use district. And in that area there are certain land uses that are planned to be compatible with the permitted uses, and those include group homes and golf courses and schools, community facilities, parks, habitat preservation areas, essential services and sports and recreation camps. And the list is short, but it does go on. Does not include commercial uses like the ones being proposed. It would be inconsistent because it's incompatible as planned. We recognize that the study to determine whether the market would support commercial uses did show us that yes, inside their studied area commercial uses could be supported, but not necessarily at this location. There may be a problem with access because this property is directly fronting Immokalee Road and to its side is Platt Road, an unimproved dirt, private road. There may be problems just with that alone with new uses with commercial traffic being imposed on those neighbors who certainly didn't see it coming because of the plans already established or would expect that traffic circulation to now pour onto their side roads. This is not a stretch of Immokalee that's improved at this point. You have the four-laning a bit further south, about two or three miles, and then westward. But this is still a narrow stretch. That wide sweeping curve that you're familiar with does not inhibit site distances to the south, but certainly to the north there may be some problem. It is likely, and you've seen it already today, not necessarily in the same planning area, but it is likely that you give permission for commercial on one quadrant of a corner, it is likely that you will have requests in the future for others. If in an unplanned area you allow the Page 51 March 22, 2007 first, you're likely to see a second, third and perhaps a fourth. We can expect commercial uses at other locations where they're already planned, which is why it's not one of the places or this is not one of those locations where it would be identified as a land use for future. You have sub-districts with general commercial uses within a few miles, about three and a half in one direction, about four and a half to the east, I believe undeveloped yet planned at Everglades Boulevard at Immokalee Road. You have minor commercial uses between those larger nodes, again, out in front at Oil Well Road and Immokalee, just a few miles to the south and just beyond at Randall and Immokalee. The next largest major commercial establishment is -- of course you're familiar with it, because probably you have to visit that as well, Collier at Immokalee. Another general planning reason, and you've heard this perhaps stated before, and you'll hear it again, because we're in the process of studying the east of 951 area, look at all land uses out there again. It's been looked at once, twice, we're looking at it again. That East of 951 study, until finished, almost any request that comes before you for commercial or non-planned land uses are premature. I don't have anything to specifically address to statements that the applicant has made, so I'll leave it with that for now, unless you have questions. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schmidt, I think there will be some questions, but we had said we would take a 15-minute break at 10:00, and this is probably the best time to take that break. We'll resume the questions when we get back at 10: 15. Thank you. (Recess. ) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, if everybody will resume their seats and calm down a little bit, we can get on with the meeting. Okay, there is one item of housekeeping we have to clarify or clear up. I could not see Mr. Kolflat's vote on the Pine Page 52 March 22, 2007 Ridge/Livingston Road center. His vote was negative, so that changes the vote for approval for recommendation for transmittal from 7-2 to 6-3. And I know Mr. Mulhere is not here, so I'd like to ask staff to please notify him when you get a chance that that is the actual outcome so he doesn't use it at the Board of County Commissioners meeting inaccurately. With that, we will move on to questions of staff in regards to the Corkscrew Center. Is there any questions? Mr. Vigliotti, then Mr. Tuff. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I had a question for Corby. You had mentioned that there's -- you had said that there's other commercial projects, other commercial developments in the area. How far away are they? You mentioned one on 951 and Immokalee. MR. SCHMIDT: Certainly, and that's your largest nearby mixed use activity center with general commercial uses. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: And how far is that? MR. SCHMIDT: From this location, approximately 15 miles. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: So the closest largest retail center is 15 miles away? MR. SCHMIDT: For multiple uses, yes. You have a number of smaller nodes of commercial uses much closer. Four files to the south you've got those nodes out at Oil Well Road. Another mile to the south, those commercial uses, and that's a smaller grocer there. At Randall Road, about one mile further, about five miles to the south. So you have a number of uses, plus you've got a number of planned areas not yet utilized. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Okay. But the closest right now is four miles away? MR. SCHMIDT: Approximately, yes. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: And that's a really small one? MR. SCHMIDT: It's more than one convenient store, yes, small. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Tuff, then Ms. Caron. Page 53 March 22, 2007 COMMISSIONER TUFF: Yes, when Golden Gate Master Plan was working, they had not specifically put things in some of these areas and made some smaller, because they didn't have control over the Orangetree area. If that's changed or I didn't have my research, I didn't have a chance to, but a lot of that was held back for the same reason you said, well, we should plan it properly, we should do it right. And that area we didn't have control over. So is there a lot that can and will probably happen in that area that would make this one not as -- with everybody in that -- I think it was pretty well thought that yes, we needed to have some big bulk thing that could be there for the convenience of that many residences. But I don't recall, how would Orangetree affect that if people say yes, we should -- you know, the need is there, but is this the right location? MR. SCHMIDT: I think the answer to both is yes. You have instances where it can happen and it should happen. The Orangetree vested commercial uses are part of that, as well as locations nearby, and only three and a half miles away. Where an additional mixed use activity center is planned yet to be developed. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Now, on Orangetree is a significantly large area that that could happen in. MR. SCHMIDT: That's correct. A number of various commercial land uses are expected to take place. MR. WEEKS: IfI could interject, specifically on Page 7 of your staff report, under the heading up at the middle of the page, commercial development, staff has identified some of the commercial and the general area. And I would like to add specifically the last bullet point is Orange Blossom Ranch, we don't have an acreage there. And I believe it's 45 acres of commercial approved in that PUD. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, Mr. Tuff, are you finished? COMMISSIONER TUFF: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron -- I mean, Margie, did you Page 54 March 22, 2007 have something you wanted to interject? MS. STUDENT-STIRLING: I just had some thoughts about some of the language. It's nothing too major, really. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, let's wait till we finish with the questions. Okay, Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Platt is a private road? MR. SCHMIDT: It's posted so, yes. COMMISSIONER CARON: Okay. This particular piece of property, how much frontage is on Immokalee of the acreage? MR. SCHMIDT: Approximately 630 feet front Immokalee. COMMISSIONER CARON: Already there is C-2 zoning on this property . MR. SCHMIDT: There is. And I believe the agent for the petitioner spoke to that point. Some existing looking to expand the entire acreage. COMMISSIONER CARON: Right. That's it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Corby, how much of it is C-2? How many acres? MR. SCHMIDT: 4.25, something like that. It's generally two halves of a 10-acre piece with rights-of-way cut out of it. And the remainders are 3.75, 4.25. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And if we expand it to the rest of the site, would that make the rest of the site eligible for the residential conversion down the road? You know in the code for bonus density, density bonuses', we have the residential conversion for isolated pieces? This is definitely an isolated piece, right? MR. SCHMIDT: It is, but I'll let my colleague speak to that. MR. WEEKS: It would not. That provision is only applicable to the urban designated area. Page 55 March 22, 2007 COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay, thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is that it, Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Um-hum. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: When you go down Golden Gate Parkway or Golden Gate Boulevard, whatever that one is, and you get to Wilson, there's a store on the side there. And if you would make a left turn onto that road, you could nearly get killed from the very short entrance in there. I use that as a base for my question. 630 feet would suggest is enough room for a decellane along Immokalee. How much of a part of the frontage would be -- decel, I'll ask the question but hold on it, because it's a deeper question than that. The areas that you culled out which are in the sub-district are basically, from the way I understood it, community related types of opportunities. Is that a fair statement? Churches and I think community centers and things of that nature, specifically culled out and not commercial. MR. SCHMIDT: That's correct. They're non-commercial uses. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And that was by design under the master plan; was it not? MR. SCHMIDT: It is. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay. And so that would suggest that in the master plan all of the other commercial areas had already been predetermined or determined by the master plan. MR. SCHMIDT: Oh, precisely that, yeah. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay. So getting back to that issue of the decellane, along that coming north to south, as it were, that is at high speed 65, 60 miles an hour, whatever it is, it's -- that's a potential danger. So I'd ask, I guess Mr. Casalanguida, if the decel lane, if that were to go forward, whether a decellane is even plausible there. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Not only plausible, it's required. They Page 56 March 22, 2007 wouldn't get access if they couldn't put something like that for health, safety and welfare. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay. The reason I asked is because Commissioner Caron asked how long it was, and the response was 630 feet. You need 600 to get the decel, correct? Is that right? MR. CASALANGUIDA: 600 feet of decellane? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I'm sorry, between an intersection? I'm trying to remember the 600 feet, there's something associated with it. MR. CASALANGUIDA: There's usually an access management policy that goes with that. It would have to be consistent with the access management policy. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And would that be out in the rural area, the same as would be in the urban? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Right. You would look at the access class, and it has to meet the access class basin. You had brought up E's at the corner of Wilson and Golden Gate. That's a four-by-six intersection with spacing of 50 feet to that driveway. That's a preexisting condition. That's right, that's terrible. And as we're doing that design right now, that's a problem. This is not a preexisting condition. This would be subject to every requirement we have as far as access -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay. And that's what I was looking. If it got past this hurdle that would be -- at least I know that much. MR. CASALANGUIDA: When we looked at this petition, just to do a quick brief transportation, we looked at -- Immokalee Road's right now is at level of service A. Grew traffic historically up to five years. Even if Dean's calculations were offby 10,20 percent, I've got 5.1 consistency, I've got roadway capacity. That southerly road would probably -- we'd recommend access to come off of that. Page 57 March 22, 2007 But we didn't look at it in detail for site planning, because at this point in time it's not that kind of information I have in front of me. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And that I respect. I just wanted to get an understanding of that part of it. Thank you. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sure. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Midney, then Mr. Vigliotti. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Nick, do you think that it would be hazardous because it's on a curve to be not having a decellane at that point? MR. CASALANGUIDA: It would have to have a decellane. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: And you think there's enough room to do that? MR. CASALANGUIDA: I would think from what I've seen there would be. And if not, they would have to go to that Platt Road and provide a decellane there as well too, so there would be. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Nick-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You guys want to fight? MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, no, he had just pointed out you can do a decellane in 300 feet. One of the other questions was the access class basin. You can't even put the entrance within a certain distance of the intersection or another driveway. So there's two different questions that you asked me. Is there room for a decellane? Yes. Where does the driveway go? It has to meet certain spacing from another roadway. And that's based on the access class. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Just never seen Don have to jump up and confront you in a meeting. I was surprised. He usually lets you have your head. Go ahead, Bob. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Nick, at this point you don't see a problem with traffic. And when it comes back for site plan Page 58 March 22, 2007 approval do you foresee a problem at that point with area flow or anything? MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, it depends on what they submit. But we will scrutinize it under the current guidelines at that point in time. Until I know where they propose a driveway -- capacity there is not a problem. Evaluating access, it appears that if they put a driveway in where they had mentioned, there wouldn't be a problem. But when they actually come in with site plan submittal, that's when we will actually do the analysis for the sight distance, access management spacing, turn lane requirements at that point in time. And those all appear they could do that with a proposed project. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Marjorie, why don't you tell us your issues, and then I have some questions as well. MS. STUDENT-STIRLING: Okay, thank you. This is really more technical in nature, but second paragraph, last sentence about the reference to the C-2 commercial district. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Could you tell us what page you're on, Margie? MS. STUDENT-STIRLING: Okay, it would be my Page 2 of the staff materials in the notebook. And it reads, the sub-district will permit a variety of retail, office and personal service uses that are generally consistent -- I have that circled, because I don't know what generally consistent means -- with the types of uses found in the C-2 commercial convenience zoning district. Well, those districts can be amended. And the DCA does not like to see self-amending provisions in the compo plan. So we generally like to have a date to tie that to, such as in effect at the time of adoption of this amendment, were you to recommend approval. MR. WEEKS: Mr. Chairman, I'd reference the Planning Commission to Page 12 of the staff report. Staff has recommended Page 59 March 22, 2007 modifications to the petitioner's agent, as we've done for all of these. So the petitioner's agent -- excuse me, petitioner's text was on Page 2 that Marjorie was reading from. But staff has proposed in some cases significant provisions. Page 12 I know addresses at least one of the issues Mark just raised. MS. STUDENT-STIRLING: And the other things are just little minor cleanup language, like adding a preposition here where one is missing or something like that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Thank you, Margie. Any other questions of staff? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Corby, I have a few. If you could turn to Page 6 of your staff report. The third paragraph reads, staff believes immediate consideration should be given to requiring an updated TIS be provided by the petitioner. Had one or has one been provided? Or is the one we have the updated one or has one not been provided? MR. SCHMIDT: One has not been provided. It would be your discretion to require that at this time. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Subsequently another review by specialists with the Collier County Transportation Department should take place before the CCPC proceeds with a recommendation. So that item has not been addressed as well? There has been no subsequent review by the transportation department? MR. SCHMIDT: That's correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The last sentence, it does not reflect the comprehensive analysis desired for a Growth Management Plan Amendment. At what point did you notify the applicant that they were apparently now insufficient in regard to their application? Or were they deemed sufficient? And if they were, then why do we have these statements? I'm just trying to understand. Page 60 March 22, 2007 MR. SCHMIDT: Well, I think there's a couple of reasons, and I'll touch on at least one of them. We're talking about two different things. The finding of sufficiency gets someone the information they want to give us. The decision to be made, there may be not be sufficient information there to determine, and that's the situation we ran into. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So ifan applicant submits something that they feel is sufficient but you guys don't, they could still have a sufficiency letter, but it may not be enough to warrant your analysis of approval; is that what you're trying to say? MR. SCHMIDT: Basically. MR. CASALANGUIDA: With regard to traffic, the initial submittal to us did not contain the TIS. Subsequently, as Corby was preparing his staff report, we looked at the TIS. And there isn't -- when you look at the proposed use, there wasn't a problem when we did the 5.1 analysis. So I think it's a timing issue, as Corby was preparing his staff report. And we looked at something. One of the comments was we did not believe this petition, as proposed, even if off by 10 or 20 percent in either direction, we had a problem with 5.1. So it's just a timing issue. Corby's correct in what he put in his staff report. It's just getting the documents back and forth with these petitions flying around. So we did not have a problem, he's correct, it's just we weren't able to do the timing issue as part of the report. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So the TIS that we have is the one you reviewed? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: On Page 8, Corby, it seems to be clear that there's -- well, first of all, it's not on Page 8, but I have a question about Page 8. MR. SCHMIDT: All right. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What I was starting to say is there is no Page 61 March 22, 2007 water and sewer available on this site; is that correct? MR. SCHMIDT: That is correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So it would have to be on a well, which would have to be a commercial grade well, treatment system and a septic system large enough to handle 90,000 or whatever square footage they would build. MR. SCHMIDT: That's the proposal. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Does anybody have an idea how -- I mean, 90,000 square foot -- a system that can take care of 90,000 square feet would have to have an absolutely huge drain field. I mean, how would they possibly put all that on the property? Does anybody know? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: It would be a dosing (phonetic) system. I put a hospital on a septic tank. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Did you? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Y eah. You just bury a concrete house in the ground, that's about what it is. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I mean, they all have to have percolation beds and stuff like that. That's what takes up the space, the actual components. Now, I was just surprised that this is the size of it. The last sentence on Page 8, the last sentence of the last practice it says, no information is provided to substantiate that the proposal is without some negative impact to residential neighborhoods, present and future. What would you have typically expected? MR. SCHMIDT: Because the plan generally describes commercial end uses as not being compatible with the residential area surrounding them, I would look for the kind of information to counter that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But can you -- you've got an example? I'm just curious how they would know what to provide. Page 62 March 22, 2007 MR. SCHMIDT: In our business there's little if any of that kind of information. Generally speaking, the two land uses are incompatible. And I would look for something to substantiate the claim that this is the perfect place for this sub-district. 90,000 square feet of commercial uses in this rural area, surrounded by rural density homes and mobile homes, there's nothing there to substantiate it. And I was looking for something. And I would have seen the first of a few of that kind of information as well. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I understand. At least I heard what you said. Thank you. Are there any other questions of staff? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: One small one. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Corby, what is the -- half of the site is C-2. Which half is it, along the street? MR. SCHMIDT: It is divided, top to bottom so it's two tall pieces. The fronting tall piece is commercial along Immokalee Road, and the back portion, again, the tall piece, the shortest end being on Platt Road is the mobile home portion. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay, so you're saying that the C-2 runs from the Immokalee -- we'll call that the front, to the back of the property? MR. SCHMIDT: It runs along Immokalee halfway back. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If you look-- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah, if you split it. That's what I originally said, all the C-2 fronts Immokalee. MR. SCHMIDT: It does. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And one last question. Platt Road is a private road, did I hear someone say? MR. SCHMIDT: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. If they, because of transportation requirements, had to come in off of Platt Road, and that's a private Page 63 March 22, 2007 road, how do you do that? Is that something that is typically done? Because if it's not a public right-of-way, I'm wondering how you make that requirement. MR. ARNOLD: If! might, Commissioner Strain? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Sure. MR. ARNOLD: Wayne Arnold again for the record. We are one of the owners of Platt Road, being a contiguous property owner to it. And it's a 60-foot wide right-of-way. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, thank you. Okay, are there any other questions of staff? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Hearing none, we'll see about public-- okay, are there any public speakers, Mr. Weeks? MR. WEEKS: We have one. Mary Jane Gay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MS. GAY: Good morning. My name is Mary Jane Gay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You need to pull those a little closer. Sorry, these speakers are a little harder to use than the ones in the other room. MS. GAY: My name's Mary Jane Gay. I'm also speaking for my husband, Truman Gay. And I'd like to also kind of feel that I'm trying to help the wildlife in the area. I've lived there 33 years around Corkscrew Sanctuary. We-- when the first -- when the building was there back years ago, it was -- you hardly ever seen any wildlife around anywhere. And then they -- it was -- the county came in somewhere in the 1980's and moved all the trailers that was on this back parcel, which is here. This is Immokalee Road, this is the C-2, and this is the parcel that they're trying to change into commercial. I have seen deer and other wildlife on this piece of property as I pass along the road. Also, I'm concerned as to what -- the impact of the peace and Page 64 March 22, 2007 quiet that we all moved out there to enjoy, and to damage to the wildlife. Because close to this area, this property is owned by the state. A lot of this property here is owned by the state, so it will remain natural. Also, I had a problem one time, and I called the deputy, and he came out. This was two or 3:00 in the morning. We sat out down by my pond and he said to me, he says, Mary Jane, he said, this is a prestige area. He said, let's keep it that way, let's not someone come in and destroy it to make big money. And this is what one of the deputies told me years ago, and I have his name. But that's what I've tried to do there. I've tried to fight and keep the area as quiet and prestige as I can. We have fought dog kennels, saw mills, junk yards, and a whole lot of other things to keep it unique for the people coming to Corkscrew. I'm not speaking necessarily for Corkscrew, I'm speaking for my own self. That we have done -- we, I'm talking about my husband and I, have fought to keep this area a unique area. Also, I'd like to ask, they're talking about changing this zoning. Does Mr. Williams plan to keep this property or does he plan to sell it? Because as of right now, there's a sign up for sale on this property. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, ma'am, just so you know, planning considerations aren't based on whether a piece of property is for sale or not. MS. GAY: Okay. Then let me go down to my notes here. I'm sorry . Also, at the association meeting there was a lot of people -- I don't know where they got the amount that voted for it. I know we did not vote for it. There were some others that had a lot of questions as to what would be there and what wouldn't be there. And their concern is you're talking about the mobile home park. I think a lot of them would rather have the mobile home park if they knew as to what was going in there as far as mobile homes. Page 65 March 22, 2007 But I have a letter from a lady that says boom-boom boxes, four-wheelers and, you know, a lot of other stuff, I can't look at it right now, that she felt was why that she would vote for the commercial. Otherwise, she would like to keep it as it is. I did talk to a lot of the other neighbors in the neighborhood, but I wasn't able to get up a petition to get them to sign. But a lot of the people in the neighborhood does not want any change. We want to keep it as it is. Then if they do decide to come in with a mobile home park, then we will face it at that time and to see what the restrictions are and what can be done and what can't be done to protect our neighborhood. I'd like to know also, as I said before, when this was zoned to mobile home park. Because, in the 1980's the county came in and moved all them out of there. This was before the building burned. So if it was not zoned at that time, then how did it get zoned now? And you're talking about commercial being close to us? I know one time I needed ajug of milk and I stopped like at G's. It was like three or $4.00, when you can drive another five miles and get it for like 2049. And when -- I know I myself, when we go out, I buy like two jugs of milk. You have to -- to enjoy what we have there, we do these things. And we just don't want no change. We want to leave it -- we just don't need this changed over to commercial. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, ma'am. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Mark? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, sir. Mr. Vigliotti? There might be a question. MS. GAY: You have a question? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: No question, I have a statement. I have to make a disclosure. You had spoken to me on the phone yesterday regarding this. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: This is -- disclosures aren't required for this meeting. That's why I haven't asked for any. But that's fine. Page 66 March 22, 2007 Thank you, Ms. Gay. MS. GAY: I ask one more thing. Someone asked me how close I was. Okay, this is an easier map to read. This is Platt Road. This is where the property is located. I'm almost due north, right over here. And the sound does travel an awful lot. And I know when the other building was there, you could hear tires squealing, you could hear loud music, you could hear a lot of things that we don't need. And the property has been vacant for around 20 years. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I may have been a little remiss when you started, but your speakers are limited to five minutes and -- MS. GAY: I'm sorry. Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- it's been about seven. We can provide some latitude, but you need to kind of wrap up your discussion. MS. GAY: I will, I will. But if you'd like pictures, I brought pictures to show you what kind of wildlife's in the neighborhood. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, thank you, ma'am. MS. GAY: Have a great day. Thank you much. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, Wayne, do you have any statements you want to make? MR. ARNOLD: Yes, sir, I would. After listening to staff and Mrs. Gay, I would like to say that, you know, I don't want to belabor this point of sufficiency, but I think that part of the discussion point is we're provided with a request to get 20 copies ready to submit to you and presumably staff. I think -- you know, hopefully Nick has convinced you that he has reviewed this and there aren't traffic issues associated with the plan amendment. The other thing I'd like to reiterate, I mean, let's not forget that Page 67 March 22, 2007 today Mr. Williams can go and get a site development plan approval and put 7.26 units per acre on the back half of his property and he can go forward and get C-2 commercial, shopping center, restaurant, whatever the case may be under a site development plan approval. And I think what we're offering here has some very positive advantages for the community. We've committed that we're going to come back to you and rezone the entire thing. Through that rezoning, we have to show you our conceptual plan for development. We're going to have to further detail how we're handling the traffic. And at that time you can also deal with conditions and restrictions that are appropriate for things they've talked about: Lighting, noise, hours of operation, things of that nature that are neighborhood compatibility Issues. And albeit we don't have a lot of immediate neighbors, it is a concern to Mr. Williams. I mean, he lives here, too. And it's one of those things that we're trying to make the best of it possible. And I can tell you, the people I've talked to don't necessarily want a mobile home rental park out there. And that's probably the alternative, given the existing zoning. But having said that, I also talked to Mr. Williams, having listened to where you all were going with comments, and on the break we talked to Mr. Williams, and he's willing to amend the request to ask for a maximum of 70,000 square feet on the project. Mr. Smith and I worked on some numbers, and it looks as though that's more realistic when we really look at what we need for drain fields. But that would be the maximum to get drain fields, parking, landscape buffers, setbacks and things like that in there. So the 90,000 was based on sort of a gross number without native vegetation. But I think, having looked at those numbers, the 70,000 is a number that hopefully you can view as a compromise, and we'll be bringing back for at zoning a more specific plan. But again, we may not achieve the 70 when we really lay this out Page 68 March 22, 2007 and decide on what the mix of uses will be. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Wayne, under current zoning, you can -- under C-2 and the mobile home, how many square foot could he put under the C-2 zoning currently? MR. ARNOLD: I haven't laid it out. But there's no restriction as to the square footage. It's only based on what we could net for parking. I mean, could I go put a restaurant there that's 5,000 square feet? Probably. And park it? I would think. Or I could put any other C-2 use. But the reality of that is I think that looking at these eight acres as one unified project, and when you look at staffs condition in the alternate, that you decide to transmit this, we don't really have any objection to it. I don't think some of the information they provided on Page 12 is absolutely necessary, because I think those are typical rezoning considerations. But nonetheless, they've put us on notice that we are going to have to deal with all of these more compatibility issues. Because I sense that's where it's going. I think the demand's been well documented. We have commercial. It makes sense to square off the mobile home boundary with some convenience level commercial. So I think meeting this with the further restriction of 70,000 square feet works for us. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I guess I'm a little confused, too. The master plan overlay called for uses that are apparently diametrically opposed to what is being recommended here. And yet you're saying he has the C-2. So in other words, that's prior zoning, that it's extant, and so he's able to do that. And he doesn't want to do that, he doesn't want to put in whatever square feet. And basically you don't know how many, so it could be 70,000 square feet? I don't think so. But you're basically saying that he'd rather do it under unified Page 69 March 22, 2007 control in almost a PUD, I guess, huh? MR. ARNOLD: Um-hum. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And I guess I'm just surprised, because if something is available, you would think that the person could go through that process, which is less difficult, less costly and so forth. I'm just a little surprised that he wants to do it this way. But I would also -- as the chairman and I certainly had the same thought, when you look at 90,000, or even 70,000 square feet, the septic system has got to be incredible. And there's the Corkscrew Sanctuary right out there. MR. ARNOLD: Well, if I might, the septic tank issue, as Mr. Schiffer said, you know, he's put a hospital on a septic tank. I mean, it's really based on the flow. And when you have retail and office type uses, they're very low water consumers compared to a mobile home or a residential use, which has different irrigation demands and consumption demands. So from that perspective, it is. But when you go to uses, for instance, like a restaurant, they start consuming a lot of capacity in the septic system. So to come forward with something -- you know, I would be limited when I come back with uses -- and I'm willing to do that, to come and show you specific uses as we get through this process. If staff would allow us to have submitted zoning and let it run concurrent with this process, we would. I don't believe that -- I know we've talked about that in the past, and I don't think staffs position has changed. But, you know, certainly the willingness to come back and be able to demonstrate that. I mean, this is the first hurdle to get past transmittal. Once you do that, I think then we at least have a sense of where things are going. If the Planning Commission and the board say we're not transmitting, then I would hate to have spent a lot of money of my client's to start pursuing more specific planning and zoning applications. Page 70 March 22, 2007 But I think once we get past transmittal, we're more than happy to do that. And I know by the time of adoption, we can come back to you and have a lot more specificity. I mean, that's typically how these work. And I look at this one as is it more appropriate to have a little more commercial here in a location where we already have commercial and you'll have a chance to control it with respect to uses and different standards for this piece of property than for us to go in, walk away and just develop the front half of C-2 unrestricted and the back half with a mobile home park. And I think we're offering I think to the community -- it may not seem like it, because I know there's concern about the square footage. And that's why we have reduced that. And again, when we really lay it out, it may get further reduced when we look at those mix uses. But I know that we can fit that level on there. Whether we will or not, I don't know. But I do think that when you have control of a planned development where I can deal with you on conditions and setbacks and lighting standards and uses, then that gives I think everybody more power than they have under the current situation today. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Just a final thought from me. With regard to opportunities that you might or could or should or would have, and costs associated with it, in areas where those lands are sensitive, it would seem that you should make a case, at least to this person, make a case to what you, caretakers for the soil, you know, keepers of the country, want to make certain that the neighborhood is embellished and not hurt. So it would seem to me that the investment of that -- and there's nothing to preclude it from you offering it in your documents, is there, that -- what your restrictions might be, what your limitations are? I recognize it goes one step further planning. This is just a suggestion. I'm just saying the sensitive area out there, it seems an Page 71 March 22, 2007 important thing, with good planning, that's all. MR. ARNOLD: I think that's a good point, but I also -- we did meet with the neighborhood association, and I think their -- the consensus at the meeting we attended and where they took the vote was the idea of more commercial wasn't bad, but how it was carried forward was a concern. And that's why they said we want to talk to you about lighting standards, traffic safety, et cetera, as you evolve through this process. And we're happy to do so. And I guess the other thing to be said is that when you look at the aerial on that site, staffs initial discussion point was gee, that must be a wetland in the middle of your property. Well, in fact it's the old settling pond for the sewage from the mobile home park and the restaurant. So you have this open septic pool, if you will, which is the old style of treatment. And what you gain here is I guess some incentive to get that cleaned up and do it better than it was done. So I think we are trying to be responsive. But it's hard. And I don't want to belabor this point, but at this compo plan level we're having this larger discussion of is it appropriate to have commercial at some level here. And then when we come back at zoning we're going to determine exactly what level is appropriate. And I think that staff and we are in some disagreement there, but I think there are hopefully enough strong points for this that you could recommend to transmit this thing. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Vigliotti, did you have a question? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Yeah, I have a question and I'd like to make a motion. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, let's get the question out and make sure everybody has all their questions and then we'll move on. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Okay. My question or comment is this will come back again before zoning, it will come back again before every other traffic situation we may have. As far as the septic tank, I'm not concerned about septic tanks. Page 72 March 22, 2007 The state is all septic, and I think with the Health Department regulations and rules, it is probably a better situation as compared to the open septic system you have now. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are there any other questions from the Planning Commission? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, we've heard -- go ahead, Nick. MR. CASALANGUIDA: One comment. The petitioner was upset that there wasn't a proper transmittal of a TIS. In fairness to Corby, Corby did everything right. He got it to my office, I reviewed it late. So in respect to Corby, that wasn't his fault that was my responsibility to get back to him in a timely manner. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, sir. Okay, with that, we'll entertain a motion. Mr. Vigliotti, did you have a motion to make? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Yes, I'd like to make a motion of approval, with the consideration that we have a reduction of 90 to 70,000 square feet. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is there a second? COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Second. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion's been made by Mr. Vigliotti, second by Mr. Adelstein. Discussion? Mr. Weeks? MR. WEEKS: Would that be per staffs alternative language or what the petitioner's proposed? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: What's the specific difference? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: A lot of differences. There's a page of detail. It's got to be one or the on other, Bob. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I'd like to find out more about the exact details. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, it's in your packet. It's a whole Page 73 March 22, 2007 page of information. That's what the whole purpose of the meeting is. MR. ARNOLD: If I might, Mr. Chairman, the applicant doesn't have a problem with staff -- I alluded to it. There's some additional language that really it's hard to -- you know, talks about being careful. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Wayne, I'm not going to debate the language. We've all had time to read it. Do you accept the language or not? MR. ARNOLD: We do. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Let's just go on with it. Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I'll accept it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Does the second accept the staffs language? COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Absolutely. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, now, discussion. And Mr. Midney, you were the first. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yeah, I'm going to be voting against this motion. I think expansion of commercial in this area so close to the sanctuary and so close to a very rural neighborhood is out of character with the rest of the community. I don't think that it's a good idea to set a precedent for approving an expansion of commercial in this area, because I agree with staff, that this could encourage other people to do the same thing. And I also agree with staff, that there hasn't been enough planning in the East of 95 I Study to really consider what should be done in the long term in this area. And also, that there is going to be adequate commercial near the Orangetree area. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: This is the opportunity that we have for planning. The staff, working with the citizens, came up with a master plan. And they said -- they looked into the future and they said this is the area that we want to commercialize, this is another area Page 74 March 22, 2007 we want to hold pristine or near pristine. And so this is the place where we should be concerned with more than just a single parcel and its implications. And I cannot support the motion, because it's clear to me that the citizens did a good job of establishing this as a place where it was not intended for intensification. And while it may benefit an individual who owns property, it won't benefit the community, based on what I've heard. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, Mr. Kolflat? COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: I think the staffmade an excellent report, and I intend to support their recommendation. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Staffs recommendation was the opposite of the motion; is that what you're saying? COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: That's correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, I would just like to say that I will continue to be consistent and insist that the East of 951 Study be completed before we make any major changes to zoning in this area. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And I have to concur with Ms. Caron, as well as with staff, that this is at best premature and at worst not warranted, as I see no public benefit, nor do I see the neighborhood that exists being compatibly addressed by this petition, so I will be voting against the motion as well. Any other comments? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, all those in favor of the motion to transmit, please signify by raising your hands and saying aye. COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Two in favor. All opposed, same sign. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. Page 75 March 22, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion is defeated, 7-2. So I guess we need another motion not to transmit. Is there -- Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I would make the motion that we do not recommend transmittal to the DCA of the subject amendment, based on staffs recommendations and the findings of this commission. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is there a second? COMMISSIONER TUFF: (Indicating.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Tuff? Okay, Mr. Tuff seconded. Any discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: All those in favor of the motion made to not to transmit, please signify by raising their hands. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: (Indicating.) COMMISSIONER CARON: (Indicating.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: (Indicating.) COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: (Indicating.) COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: (Indicating.) COMMISSIONER TUFF: (Indicating.) COMMISSIONER MURRAY: (Indicating.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: All those opposed? COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: (Indicating.) COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: (Indicating.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion carries 7-2 for recommendation to not to transmit. Thank you. Before we go on to the next petition, which is CP-2005-12, I Page 76 March 22, 2007 know it may take some time, and we need to talk about lunch and getting back here on time. This is limited in the amount of areas to eat. We have to basically drive, if you want to go to a restaurant. And restaurants get crowded at noontime. What's the pleasure of the board? I'm going to be staying right here. As far as those of you that want to depart and get back, do you want to leave a little early so you beat the lunch at 12:00, the crowd? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Yeah, I believe we should, thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Bob, what time do you -- COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I feel 11 :30 if we leave. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is that okay with the rest of the board? So everybody knows, at 11 :30 whatever point we are in the discussions of CP-2005-l2, we will break for a one-hour lunch. CP-2005-l2 And with that, the next item for today is CP-2005-12, the North Belle Meade Special Use Sub-district. It includes a change to the future land use map involving mining areas and issues like that on North Belle Meade. All those wishing to testify in relation to this application, please rise to be sworn in by the court reporter. (Speakers were duly sworn.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. We'll start with the applicant's presentation. MR. ARNOLD: Good morning. Wayne Arnold again for the record, representing the Hussey family and the Bonnesses in this request. With us we have the applicant, Mr. Bonness, who we have a presentation that probably would be appropriate for him to try to go Page 77 March 22, 2007 through before you take your lunch break. And I know that we were planning to do power point, which doesn't look like that's going to be possible, so we have copies of each of the slides available that looks like Rich is handing out to you. This application is an amendment to the future land use element map and text to create a new sub-district that affects about 950 acres. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Wayne, can I interrupt you one moment? The applicant/owner is Francis and Mary Hussey; is that correct? MR. ARNOLD: That is correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I thought you said there was another-- did you say Mr. Bonness is an applicant as well? MR. ARNOLD: I'm sorry, I'm representing Mr. Bonness here, too, because he has obviously a -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You're representing Mr. Bonness. Who's representing the applicant? MR. ARNOLD: We both are. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Who's we both? I'm sorry, you and Richard Y ovanovich are representing the applicant? MR. YOV ANOVICH: We are representing both the Husseys and Joe Bonness. Joe Bonness has a contract for the lime-rock, if this gets approved, so we're representing both. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Staff, is this consistent with your understanding? I'm -- I just saw one name on here. I didn't know we had two applicants, because only one is listed. MR. SCHMIDT: Mr. Chairman, the original application just listed the Husseys. However, as the information has come forward, it's well understood that that other party who will be mining the property, do the actual mining operation and removing the materials, has come into playas well. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. But ifhe's going to be speaking as a contract purchaser or landowner, does he need any authorization Page 78 March 22, 2007 from the applicant and owner, who are the Hussey's, in order to do so today? MR. SCHMIDT: It's not my understanding that he's a contract purchaser. He's a contract miner. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Contract miner, okay. But he's not representing the Hussey's, he's representing himself; is that fair to say? MR. SCHMIDT: It is. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Sorry, Mr. Arnold. MR. ARNOLD: That's okay. Just so you know, we've obviously been in this process a while, and just remind you that an extensive amount of environmental work has gone into this request to amend the comprehensive plan to allow earth mining on this parcel. And as many of you realize, that when the rural fringe mixed use district and the rural standards were prepared, earth mining was one of the uses that was prohibited. And we are coming back to amend the plan to permit that use on this 950 acres. We did go to the Environmental Advisory Council a couple of weeks ago. We did receive a positive vote from them. And several things came out at that hearing that were conditions of their approval. And I'm presuming that staff has that information in your hands, the list of the various conditions. There are a couple of things in there that probably need some clarification, because I don't think they were exactly consistent with my notes from that meeting, but we can deal with that later. I think it would probably be a lot more prudent to get right into the discussion that Mr. Bonness has to try to discuss with you where we are, why this makes sense, why there's a material here that we need, and how that is so important long-term into Collier County, and how we can still be good environmental stewards of the land, even Page 79 March 22, 2007 with that mining resource on the property. And with that, if it's okay with the Chairman, I'd turn it over to Mr. Bonness to go through his presentation. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. MR. BONNESS: Good morning. I'm Joe Bonness. I represent Southern Sandstone in Winchester Lakes. We have a 30-year lease on the Hussey ranch to be able to excavate and mine the property. We have -- we entered into that lease back in, oh, I'd say about 2002 to be able to proceed with this. As you can see, we're located in several sections of land about four miles directly east of Collier Boulevard, 951. If you go on to the third page of what we have, I show we are mixed in there with the other mines and the landfill. We're about one mile east of the Collier County Landfill. And we will be adjoining property with the proposed Florida Rock Quarry and share about a half mile border with them. Immediately north of them is the current APAC Quarry, and basically we're sharing the same rock deposit for what's going on. The next page that I have shows the future current land use map. The Hussey ranch is marked in a green block. You can see that we are in the sending area of the North Belle Meade overlay, we're outside of the NRP A area, and we adjoin alongside the receiving North Belle Meade overlay area. The following chart that I have there shows the sections of land, how they have been parceled off over the years. And Section 31 immediately to the east of us and the section just north basically have all been broken down into pretty much five-acre parcels. There's a few 10, 15, 20-acre parcels that are still left over there. And where this becomes relevant is from the TDR severance program, or TDR program, transfer of development rights. Basically this area was earmarked to be able to go into basically sending areas and be preserved for natural habitat that's in there. But because the Page 80 March 22, 2007 land has risen in value, and because it is divided down into five-acre parcels, what we have seen is that the land value, according to the Collier County appraiser, is worth about $150,000 per five-acre parcel. About -- running in the neighborhood of about $30,000 per acre. The TDR program right now is working in the neighborhood of about between 25,000 to $29,000 per TDR that's severed. If a person takes the full brunt of -- or goes after all the TDRs, severs everything he has, that only comes out to about 110, $120,000 worth of value that they get from that stand. So what we're seeing is that the land value has exceeded what you can get from a TDR value; therefore, only one TDR -- or one parcel has had a TDR severance in all those adjoining acres to the east of us and to the north of us. The next one that I have showing current land uses, we've gone through from an aerial standpoint taking a look at about a year-old map and showing who owns the properties and what has happened. The properties to the east of us, I'm showing in red as having residential uses of their land at this point. The -- you've got the blue spots that show the cleared agricultural areas. And then you have the tremendous amount of area that has already been purchased by the county possibly for landfill expansion. One of the things that came out in the staff report was this -- as far as to be considered -- the Hussey ranch is considered to be a corridor for wildlife into these lands. Well, as you can see the development of such, that that is not really going to be what you consider huge habitat areas that are over in that area. It's becoming residential, becoming landscaped yards and such. The Hussey ranch then becomes probably more so a buffer area between the wildlife areas that are out to the east and the residential and developed areas over to the west. And follow up with another quick slide there from -- a letter that was basically sent into Section 31, that there are other uses that are Page 81 March 22, 2007 being heavily looked at in that area. They're reviewing that area to see if that's going to be a landfill expansion area, that whole section. So there are other areas that are going into it. The State of Florida is basically underneath an aggregate shortage at this point right now. We have seen in Collier County and throughout the State of Florida a dramatic increase in the price of hard rock throughout the state. There's a lot of motions and that that have come from the wildlife area to be able to knock out existing permits for where mines are, and have put a tremendous stress on the quarries throughout the state. The map that I show showing limestone, sand and resource areas comes from the DOT, shows the primary areas where material will be available throughout the state. And as you can see, the Collier, Lee and Charlotte County areas basically are one of the strategic areas for being able to find lime-rock resources in the State of Florida. The other one would be -- that we're getting material from is over at the lake belt area over in Miami. And other than that, we end up having to ship material all the way from Georgia generally to be able to bring it down to this area. That's done by rail, and as you know our rail resources are extremely limited. They're hardly used at all at this point. We've been shipping, from my company's standpoint, rail stone down to this area for many, many years. But because the extreme cost of being able to ship on Seminole Gulf, it usually is more proficient to be able to load it into trucks and be able to truck it down 1-75 to get here. Collier County rock needs -- when this Belle Meade area was put on, I don't think there had been a study done as far as the actual resource needs that we were going to need in the county here. Since then we have gone out and polled the industry to fine out what they thought their needs are. The FDOT released an estimate of what they thought that Collier County was using. And the Lime-rock Aggregate Page 82 March 22, 2007 Institute, not the association, but the institute, came up with their uses as to what would be going on in Collier County. From an industry standpoint, we believe that we're using about four million tons per year of aggregate, hard rock aggregate in Collier County. That doesn't include other earth mining activity such as fill and soft rock, base rock and that. The FDOT estimates that we're going to be using in the year 2004 (sic), 3.1 million tons per year. And from a demographic standpoint, Florida generally uses about seven tons of hard rock aggregate per year per person. This goes on not just because you moved into a town, but this goes on continuously . We're all continuously using materials and that as we rebuild. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: What's the cubic area of seven tons? MR. BONNESS: Cubic area of seven tons would be about one and a halftimes that -- the weight. A ton of hard rock is about 3,000 pounds. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I was just -- just looking for the volume, that's all. MR. BONNESS: Oh, the volume? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah. MR. BONNESS: Yeah, from a mining standpoint, if we're digging it up from the ground -- to give you a volume as to what's going on, if we've got a 50-foot deposit, we would probably be bringing up about 60,000 tons in that acre. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I don't mean to interrupt, but just for reference, aren't the trucks on the road like 10 tons? MR. BONNESS: No, trucks on the road are 20 to 22 tons. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So about a third of a truck a year. MR. BONNESS: Yeah, per person. Collier County of course is projected to reach a million people in Page 83 March 22, 2007 population. I've seen projections that might happen by 2030. At that point our demographics would predict that we're going to need about seven to 10 million tons per year in that time frame. Our cumulative need by the year 2030 is projected to be close to 140 million tons of material. Currently in Collier County our hard rock supply, what we have permitted at this point, is AP AC. They are the only source for DOT grade aggregates. And right now their projection is that they have at maximum a five-year supply, but I also heard that they're probably closer to a one to three-year supply because of all the draw that is on that material. Permit applications that are submitted with the county at this point is the Florida Rock Belle Meade Quarry that's going to have -- it's projected to have FDOT aggregate and probably base rock. They are submitting for about a l5-year permit, so I would suspect a l5-year supply. Just north of the Willow Run Quarry, San Marino PUD has got an application in, and they are projecting about four million tons. They may produce aggregate, but they -- because it's such a small deposit, there's a good chance that it will just come out as base rock at that point. Generally in Collier County's history our major quarries have produced about one million tons per plant per year. That has a lot to do with the cost of equipment. The more that you want to produce in a year, exponentially you have to increase the cost of the equipment that's going on, and it would have a lot to do with how big your deposit is and how you're going to amortize out the cost of your equipment. Usually the equipment is basically discarded when you're done with the quarry, because it -- after the rusting and the environmental factors, it's hard to move the equipment and get the value out again. Showing a couple of graphs in there as far as your geographic Page 84 March 22, 2007 model units as to what we have in Collier County, we're working with the -- the top sediments that we have, your sands, basically Holocene sediment sands and that is very young, as far as its deposit in there. You have some cap rock that you see. Some of that rock is less than 5,000 years old. What we are primarily trying to mine in Collier County is the Pliocene limestone, which is above the Bonita marl layer. We're unique in the Florida area here, because we have basically a basin that has gone back and forth under water in the Collier County area and formed this separate sediment and deposit. In Lee County they're basically mining the Ochopee limestone, the bottom of the Tamiami stone basin. That comes closer to the surface up in Lee County. It dips down under most of Collier County, and basically arises back again to the surface in Ochopee, which is where it gets its name from. In that bowl that's inside of there, we have the Bonita marl layer that covers that. And on top of that the Pliocene limestone layer. I've got a geologic cross-section showing the different layers there that's in the blue, green and yellow, and that really shows primarily Lee County, but it kind of falls into Collier County. I haven't seen a cross-section of Collier County made. This is using a lot of the well data and that that you have. And you can see that when you get down to the Bonita Grand area, the southern area of Lee County, how our deposit does start to form. That's the Pliocene, which is basically your Pinecrest and Fort Thompson layers that are on the surface laying on top of the Bonita marl there. They have -- because of their location there and the Bonita marl being as thin as it is in that particular location, they're actually able to mine through that little bit of Bonita marl, and they are taking both deposits. They're going through both the Pliocene down in through the Ochopee. So they have some places that they are mining 100 feet deep on that particular deposit. Page 85 March 22, 2007 Farther north in the Alico pits, they are basically just in that lower Ochopee layer, and some of those pits will be running about 65, 70 feet deep to be able to take out their material. There's an interesting way that Collier County was basically set up during these late epocs and time frames. At one point, Collier County basically had fallen down underneath the sea level. Water washed directly across Collier County, washed all the sand off that was in that area except for basically what you call the Immokalee rise. That still had the Holocene sands and that that were on there, and they prevented deposit of rock in that area. As the land rose back up again, then you started having the formations and that that are in there. So when we're looking at the rock, what has happened is because the land stood proud during that water -- high water period, rock did not form in the eastern parts of the county. So we find that going on into the primarily orange map here showing lime-rock substratum, you can see how the rock has formed basically in the southern and eastern parts -- or southern and western parts of the county. And I've marked off where the existing hard rock mines are, where Hussey's mine -- or the HHH ranch mine would be, and where we have found soft rock excavations. Now some -- many of these excavations are closed up, are parts of developments and parts of, you know, what we have down here. And what we found is because this Pliocene rock is so close to the surface that we're able to find out where it is, primarily just through looking through soils maps. And we have mapped out pretty much where we think the rock is from the soils maps. On top of that, I've gone and over-layed the effects of zoning as to what is currently available as far as where that rock deposit should be. And you can see from the maps that basically we have restricted down -- where we can mine down to just a very, very, very small amount. Down to about 2,500 acres that is possible to be able to find these deposits. Page 86 March 22, 2007 And of course you have the application in right now that takes care of most of that, which is going to be the Florida Rock Belle Meade mine. And then after that there's a very, very limited amount of material that is available because of our current restrictions on mmmg. We understand that the parcel of land that we're looking at is environmentally sensitive. We've got a multitude of endangered species and that that are there. The most critical, from what we can see, is the RCW s. They do not move to a different location. They have to have the trees, the nests and that that they have there. We have gone through and mapped out exactly where they are at this point, located all of their nests, and taken it and then went further and mapped out what would be good habitat for them in the future. RCWs need a fairly large pine tree. So it's a tree that's been out there for, you know, 100 to 150 years, so it's unusual to find after basically Collier County has been logged off almost, you know, completely I think back in the Thirties and Forties. And there's very few old stands of pine trees that are still there. But we do have several of those old stands on site, and we have identified where we think is the very best habitat, the very good habitat and habitat that can be treated to be able to bring back up into land. The RCW s on this location, although they do have good habitat, they are in peril at this point. This land, to be able to be good for RCWs, should have been burnt with wildfires on a basis of every decade or less than that. It keeps down the invaded species, it keeps the -- or invasive plants and that, Sable palms and such. And what we have is now, in areas of that, we have 20 years of pine needle fuel that's out there, very prone to wildfires. If the wildfires come through there, it would be hot enough that they kill off the nesting trees. The nesting trees are also being usurped by other animals that are out there: Red bellied woodpeckers and squirrels and such, and they're having a hard time making it through here. Hurricane Wilma Page 87 March 22, 2007 itself took out several of the nesting trees. They need -- cockaded woodpeckers looking for a tree that's got a soft heart and basically a little bit of rot in the center but a live tree, away from other trees that grow in parallel. You can't have vines, because the vines provide access for snakes and that to come up and eat their eggs. But because they're building these nests up in the tops of these trees, they actually weaken the trees, so when you have a high wind stage coming through, the trees lose their tops at the nest. We have taken -- with that in mind, we have taken a look closely at the RCW habitat, tried to maintain that as best as we can, and have proposed our lake areas to be able to miss that. I've got a sheet in there that shows how we have dovetailed in the lakes and that to be able to miss primarily the RCWs with what we have there. So we've done a large work on that. And we have a habitat management plan that's in there for RCWs that would provide for a lot of human intervention to be able to keep the RCW s going there. We will have prescribed burns. They'll go in and take out the exotic plant species, the cabbage palms and that that are basically invading their area. We will improve the understructure through the controlled burns, and we will go in and put in nest restrictors and artificial cavities to be able to get them going. Human intervention is necessary to keep these two clusters going, and we think that we'll be able to start a third cluster in the center of the property. Collier County mines have developed dramatically over the years. I've got a picture there of mines from the Seventies. That's basically the AP AC Quarry; mine out everything that you have there basically within 50 foot of their perimeters. As we went on further into Collier County, we found that there's basically an attraction to be around these lakes, so you saw that you started having development forming around. I've got a picture of Page 88 March 22, 2007 Crown Pointe; that was one of the lime-rock quarries off of Davis Boulevard. But then as we went further into it, then you started to get even more environmental concerns. And in the Nineties we started designing that with the idea of being able to be very consistent with nature and to work with it. I've got a picture of the Shady Hollow fill pits in there, and you can see how when we had finished with that, basically almost all the lakes that are put back into the environment, they're basically natural and never going to be developed. Probably one of the best fishing spots in Collier County at this point. And, you know, it's got just about everything that you can think of. There's been panthers that like to visit this area. It's sucked out most of the alligators out at Corkscrew, because they thought that this was a better habitat than where they were at. But one of the proposals we have is to have an asphalt plant on the site. I know that the thought of having heavy industrial sitting in the midst of basically preserve and, you know, very wild areas sounds like it's the opposite of what should be out there. I've been working in asphalt operations basically since I was 18 years old, and we've seen things that show tremendously different as to what that is. I'm showing a plant site that we have up in Highlands County where our neighbors there is the Archibald Biological Laboratories. They are out there in pith helmets studying the frogs and ants and everything else on that property. They are one of the foremost biological stations in the United States, and they watch very, very closely as to what we're doing. They were very opposed to us coming into and setting up our asphalt plant at the time that we did. Subsequent to that, a few years later after we had the plant set up, we find them out there in our stockpiles with their pith helmets and binoculars, taking a look at what's going on. We had had a southern kestrel that had come to roost, and roosted Page 89 March 22, 2007 continuously on the asphalt plant. We have found this also in Collier County where we had an asphalt plant on Shirley Street. We had just a beautiful signature cypress tree that was only 100 feet, maybe, away from the asphalt plant. It had a great horned owl nest in it. The great horned owl moved over to the asphalt plant and roosted on that asphalt plant until we closed it down. Year after year we would take clutches of young fledgling grey-horned owls and ship them down to The Conservancy and they would finish the raising of them when they got to the point of fledgling. The wildlife itself is not very opposed to what we have. We have the asphalt plant out at Willow Run right now. That ones we have continuous visitors of eagles and, believe it or not, panthers that love to walk on through that area. I've got a quick picture of one of the asphalt plants that we had in Arcadia area. And you can make them so that they are designed so that they work very closely hand-in-hand with nature, and they are not really a distraction from that. There was a study done by Florida Wildlife -- Fish Game and Wildlife, and it is the least crossed pathways for Florida panthers. In that study they came up and ranked areas that they thought were as to what the cost was for panthers to be able to go through those areas. The first -- to the left side it shows what the cost value is for panthers crossing these areas. Of course roads are about the worst areas. It's got a cost of20. You know, very hazardous for them, so they pay a tremendous toll to be able to cross roads. Quarries basically fall into the habitat of being barren lands. And as you can see, they are considered to be in the very, very low ranking as to the cost for panthers to be able to go through those areas. They're ranked as a three. Basically ranked as a better area for panthers to cross than even pine forest and grassland pastures. We Page 90 March 22, 2007 have seen this many times with the panthers that love to be able to wander through the quarry. On the right side is another part of that study that goes on and ranks habitats according to how panthers would like them to be. You know, obviously zero for water, they don't like crossing water. Also strands and that. Although recently we've seen that panthers will actually habitat that area, too. But the barren land again is one of the highest ranked areas for panthers to be able to use as habitat. It's excellent hunting for them. They can see their prey; it's easy for them to get around. Wildlife at our current quarry down at Willow Run, you can see the pictures of the various tracks and that. You can see the equipment off in the background. We've -- those are panther tracks. And along with them we have either kittens or bobcats, because we have two different sizes of panther tracks in there. Got pictures of one of our visitors on the northern corner of the Willow Run Quarry, un-collared panther taking down one of our neighbors -- I think it was emu at the time. But he's got a set camera out there and watches. I personally have seen the panthers out there on the property. I keep getting reports from my workers out there about the panthers coming through and visiting during the day. And even last Wednesday two of us saw one of the panthers out there at different times. They're not very shy anymore. Basically I think these are Texas cougars and their shyness is much lower than it was for the original Florida panthers. Working hand-in-hand with the wildlife, we have set up at that particular quarry a gopher tortoise preserve. It's been studied quite extensively, and it has been very successful for translocation portion. We are planning on putting in a gopher tortoise preserve on this property. There's a huge parcel ofland in there that we're seeing away. Beautiful uplands, probably excellent rock underneath it. But Page 91 March 22, 2007 it's also good cockaded woodpecker habitat. And it should be a good translocation area for gopher tortoises. So there should be no reason for a taking of a Gopher Tortoise in this county. But the reason why I brought up and talked about the panther so heavily is that what we're seeing is that the panthers are an umbrella species. If the panthers survive and like the area, that basically is showing that everything that's underneath them that they prey off of and that also work very symbiotically with what we're doing with the quarnes. And working with that, we know that we can -- from a quarry standpoint we can bring this about to the point where we have minimized and reduced all of our impacts to the wildlife on the area. We've also been working with transportation and that to be able to try and get access for the North Belle Meade area, and working with the adjoining quarry. So we have designed a couple of different haul roads. The one that goes through the cockaded woodpecker areas and that, we have come up with this concept of trying to keep the road right-of-ways as thin as possible so that we do not distract from them. Cockaded woodpeckers are vulnerable to aerial prey: Hawks, eagles and such. So we've designed basically a set of one-way pairs so it would be a nice rural cross-section, hopefully more like a park setting, and so that the woodpeckers can get across the roadway very easily without falling prey to other animals. So we've worked very closely with that. The quarry itself should produce somewhere in the neighborhood of about 36 million tons of rock. That rock right now, because we're only being supplied by one quarry, and from what we can see in the future, even the future quarries coming on, that rock would end up, having coming down 1-75, represents about one and a half million truckloads of material that would have come down 1-75 if this quarry's not in place. Page 92 March 22, 2007 And that is part of what -- you know, from a planning standpoint, that is one of our perils that we had in the past is that we had been forcing our material to come from basically the Alico and Fort Myers pits and coming down here. So the action of having the quarry and the asphalt plant in there will actually reduce traffic tremendously. One of the things that you're seeing continuously right now is the number of dump trucks that are up and down 1-75. There's no alternative. We need the material; it's going to come from someplace. Fort Myers is the closest place. So what we're running into is that that material is necessarily being shipped down 1-75. We estimated that at anyone time of the day that there are 100 trucks that are out there delivering the material that is necessary for Collier County's concrete asphalt plants and building industry down here. We've seen that by not having the material here, all we do is increase the impacts. Then again, when you're going into Fort Myers, you're also into panther habitat, and they have their own wildlife concerns. That's why we've seen some of their pits and quarries turned down. Anyways, I've got just a couple of other slides. They're basically showing what the ranch was allowed to be able to do from a right to farm by doing a -- you know, we've discussed this with Vero Beach, the Fish Game and Wildlife (sic). And by minimizing and staying away from the endangered species, we probably would be able to clear a tremendous amount of the property from a Right to Farming Act. We find that what we're proposing from the quarry standpoint basically is even minimizing the impacts even farther. One of the concessions that we have made on this proposal is basically the entire parcel, the 950 acres, when we have completed with the mining, will go into conservation easement. There will not be any building on this site when we are done. Page 93 March 22, 2007 We have also conceded that we will have an 80 percent vegetation retention, which is consistent with the Belle Meade sending area plant. We may have to go off-site to be able to add additional acreage to be able to meet that 80 percent of vegetation retention, but that's what we are planning on doing at this point. Let's see, other -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Bonness we had made a note we wanted to break at 11 :30, so why don't we take that now and we'll come back at 12:32. And I would ask that the Planning Commissioners please be on time and we can start right up at that point. Thank you all. Take a one-hour break. (Lunch recess.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, everyone, if you could return to your seats and quiet town a little bit, we're going to resume the meeting. When we had taken the lunch break, we had left off with the applicant finishing up their presentation on CP-2005-12, the Hussey mining application. (Recess.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, everyone, if you could return to your seats and quiet town a little bit, we're going to resume the meeting. When we had taken the lunch break, we had left off with the applicant finishing up their presentation on CP-2005-l2, the Hussey mining application. And Mr. Y ovanovich, I see you're standing up there now. Is there -- where are we going? MR. YOV ANOVICH: Where are we going? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Where are we going? MR. YOV ANOVICH: We're going to continue on with our presentation and address -- and discuss what happened at the advisory -- Environmental Advisory Council meeting. Page 94 March 22, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Cherie', can you hear him okay? THE COURT REPORTER: Yes, thank you. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Am I talking slow enough? Before the EAC meeting occurred, four EAC members visited the site, so they had firsthand knowledge of the site when they were considering the petition and our presentation. And your staff raised several environmental issues in the EAC report, as well as in the report to you all. And the EAC, after our detailed presentation, much of it you've already seen with what Mr. Bonness presented to you. We also had Roy DeLotelle there answering any RCW questions that the EAC had. We agreed to several stipulations that address the EAC's concerns and we believe address the issues raised by staff. Of primary concern, it appeared to be what was going to be the impact of our proposal on the RCW. Mr. DeLotelle, who I think we would all agree is a noted expert on RCWs, testified that our plan will not negatively impact the RCW, and in fact would benefit the RCW. We went through and you saw in one of the slides the limited area of where we propose our activity, and it's roughly 400 acres of the 950 acres. Your staff was concerned that we did not provide enough site detail in our application. This year's process was a little bit different than the processes we were used to in the past where there was actually discussion between staff and us before a staff report was written. So we really didn't know what the staffs concerns were until we got the staff report for the EAC. So we were prepared and did address the issues raised by your staff. The first one was not enough details on the areas that we propose to mine. Which we went through and we identified. In your exhibits the two blue lakes are the areas that we will mine and limit our activity to that area. I do not know if staff provided you with that information in the Page 95 March 22, 2007 supplemental staff report. We did provide it at the EAC and we agreed to be bound by it. But needless to say, Mr. Bonness has provided that information to you today. Staff originally wanted us to agree to an 80 percent native vegetation requirement; 40 percent on-site, 40 percent off-site. The EAC requested and we agreed to an 80 percent native vegetation requirement versus the 40 percent we originally submitted, with 55 percent being on-site and up to 25 percent being off-site. We were requested that there would be no road construction during RCW nesting season, and we agreed to that. The RCW management plan requires that there will be no blasting within 400 feet of any RCW nest, and your staff went through and reviewed our RCW management plan and acknowledged that it was sufficient, based upon the required plans within your comprehensive plan. We agree that there would be no residential development on the property at all after we are completed with the mining activities. We also agree that the entirety of the property would go into a conservation easement. There was a lot of discussion about our ability to participate in the TDR process. Now, keep in mind, the TDR process was designed with the intent of compensating property owners for taking away their ability to develop these lands when you designate them as sending. Because before that time period you were allowed to develop at one unit per five acres. So we came up with a TDR process to compensate for the one unit per five acres. What the TDR process did not do and does not do is compensate property owners for other property rights they have related to the property. One of those rights that we had was the ability to request earth mining on the property. That's a very valuable right. And that right is the subject of a Burt Harris claim with the county and their significant dollars associated with that Burt Harris claim. Because as Mr. Bonness pointed out, there's a lot of valuable minerals and rock Page 96 March 22, 2007 below the surface of this property that the property owner was not compensated for through the TDR process. There is a tremendous amount of public benefit related to our project. We are identifying specific areas that will be mined or not be mined and put into preserve area. Through the TDR process, the area where we are mining, the TDRs we generate from that, the funds we generate from selling those TDRs will be placed in an endowment fund, which will be utilized by the board and will appoint basically whoever you want to this board to make sure that the funds are appropriately spent on addressing native habitat and listed species issues. We committed to that to the EAC. That's one of the public benefits. Another public benefit is we will go in and clean up the area, as we'll be required to do through our Army Corps of Engineers and Water Management District and DEP permits. We will clean up the native vegetation areas that Mr. Bonness has already pointed out to you are not doing very well right now. So we will be responsible for doing that at our expense. We will also be making rock available in close proximity to the county. And I don't think a day doesn't go by where people aren't talking about the scarcity of rock in Collier County and what it costs to build public roads and how it affects development costs around Collier County. We submit to you that that is a tremendous public benefit for this project. We are still subject to all environmental permitting that is associated with earth mining. We will still have to get a Corps permit, we will still have to get a DEP mining permit. Those agencies will protect the listed species when we go through this process. We're confident that we'll get through that process with an earth mine that will be environmentally sensitive. We'll address all the concerns of those agencies. And really, that's what the whole sending lands was about in the first place is trying to protect habitat for listed Page 97 March 22, 2007 species and making sure that development works with the listed species. So we believe that our proposal is consistent -- or addresses all of the staff concerns raised. Your summary sheet of the Environmental Advisory Council considerations is not 100 percent accurate. Most of it is. We agree to 15 acres of littoral zones. We didn't agree to 15 percent of the surface area being littoral zones. We did not agree that all of the TDRs generated from the site would go into the endowment. We only agreed that the TDRs from the lakes would go into the endowment. Other than that, I think the summary is correct as to what the EAC voted on. At the EAC they spent a lot of time. They even -- as I said, they did site visits. They took the evaluation of the impacts of this proposal on the environment very seriously. We had a very long hearing. At the end of the day it was a recommendation from the EAC to recommend transmittal of our proposal 5-2. I found one of the no votes interesting. He suggested voting no because maybe that would put more pressure onto us to give more to the county through this process of getting a compo plan approved. But nevertheless, five out of the seven that were present, recommended transmittal. With that, we're requesting that the Planning Commission transmit our petition to the Board of County Commissioners with a recommendation of transmittal. And with that, we'll be able to answer any questions you may have regarding our request. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. We'll start with the applicant. Any questions? Mr. Midney? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I heard the previous speaker talk about that you might have to go off-site to meet the native vegetation Page 98 March 22, 2007 requirements? MR. YOV ANOVICH: No, what he said was we have an obligation of maintaining 80 percent. We are obligated to do a minimum of -- of 55 percent of that 80 percent on-site. He's talking about 25 -- we may go off-site for 25 percent of -- COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Are you allowed to go off-site for your native vegetation requirements? MR. YOV ANOVICH: Are we allowed to go off-site? We are requesting the ability to go -- we had requested a native vegetation requirement of 40 percent of the site, consistent with the neutral land designation; that is, 60 percent not to exceed 40 percent of the site. Through staffs comments, staff wanted a 40 per -- they said if you were going to prove it, 40 percent on-site, 40 percent off-site. The EAC -- we had at that point countered 60 percent with 55 percent on-site, five percent off-site. The EAC said no, we really want 80 percent, and we will accept 55 percent on-site, 25 percent off-site. So that's where that -- COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: So that's consistent with the way the law is, that you're allowed to keep less of the native vegetation on the requirement and buy credits or buy land off-site, do it that way? MR. YOV ANOVICH: If this comprehensive plan amendment is approved, yes. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Are you proposing to develop the land and ask for TDRs at the same time? MR. YOV ANOVICH: Develop the land? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: To develop what you want to do there with the lakes and the mining and ask for the TDRs as well. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Yes. We had that right before the adoption of the sending land, neutral land and receiving land criteria. We had both the rights to develop residential and the right to mine the property. So we're just asking to be in the same position we were before the comprehensive plan was changed. Page 99 March 22, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, any other questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: One clarification for the record. Mr. Murray had to leave, so he won't be back for the rest of today, so we'll be short his presence. Richard, the EIS that was supplied with this, are you the one that would answer most of the questions on that? MR. YOV ANOVICH: I don't think so. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I didn't either, but do you have someone who does? MR. YOV ANOVICH: Maureen Bonness can answer those questions. MS. BONNESS: Maureen Bonness, with Southern Sand and Stone. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Hi. Are you related to the gentleman who made the presentation? MS. BONNESS: I'm his sister. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: In the EIS, the question is, indicate how the project design minimized impacts on wetlands. And the answer was, unfortunately, due to the nature of a mining operation with large excavation areas, it is difficult to work around small areas of wetland. However, attempts have been made to keep the impacts to lower quality wetlands. The mine will enhance and preserve 411 acres of wetlands on the property. My question is, when you dig an excavation near wetlands within __ even a considerable distance from the wetlands, you have an impact on the hydrological drawdown of those wetlands. How are you planning to address that? MS. BONNESS: Part of the impact with the lake is that the water's going to sit there. It's not like a canal that's going to draw the water away. A canal would have a much greater impact on the hydrology adjacent to the lake. Page 100 March 22, 2007 As far as the lake is concerned, it will hold water. It may draw down water from some areas during some of the season. Other seasons, like during the wetter season, it may actually push water into them. So it will probably have some effect. But it's not as severe as that of a canal. And actually, I don't know ifthere's any good studies that show exactly what does happen next to a lake that's created to a wetland. And I would suggest maybe that's something the endowment should do if the endowment gets created. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: One of the things that you're doing is taking out a lime-rock layer. And it's hard rock and fractured rock and other parts, which does act as a holding and confining layer to water. It would seem to me that if you dig a lake and you're looking at depth greater than that lim-erock layer goes, you'd be penetrating that layer, opening up the lake for more percolation into lower aquifers. And I think you may not see the surface area that hold as much water and protect the wetlands because of the hydrological drawdown that you're going to have by really moving into the lake and not supporting a higher groundwater table that's there if the lake wasn't there. So I'm not sure that I agree with your statement, but I don't know, if you haven't studied it and -- you guys have not studied it and provided it or know of anybody that has, I'm not sure you're going to have my answer. MS. BONNESS: From my own experience at Willow Run with the -- there is a pop ash slough fairly close to the quarry at Willow Run. And from my experience there, the high water is still as high as it was before. I don't know about how long, but it appears -- I don't see a difference in the vegetation after we've been mining there about 10 years. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: From your perspective, though, in the EIS, you did not provide any hydrological analysis of the site? MS. BONNESS: The hydrological analysis of the site was done Page 101 March 22, 2007 by a separate consultant, Brown Collins. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I didn't remember seeing that. I must have missed it. MS. BONNESS: He's here, if you would like to ask him questions. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Maybe I missed his report. If! did I'll -- or if I read it, I may not have a question on it if it didn't address the issue I'm talking about. Yes, I certainly would like to know what his thoughts might be. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Mark? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, sir, Mr. Midney? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: As a point of information, you get a lot more evaporation off of an open body of water than you would over natural vegetation. So it definitely is going to affect the hydrology that way. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, sir, would you mind stating your name for the record, please? MR. COLLINS: Yes, Brown Collins. Brown like the color is my first name. And let me qualifY what I perceive to be my expertise. I'm a plant ecologist, and I've been certified as a soils scientist. So I'm not a geo-hydrologist. But I can certainly speak to the vigor of wetlands in this area around mine excavations. I've got considerable experience looking at those. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But can you speak to the impacts of hydrology in regards to those wetlands and open mining that go and penetrate confining layers such as lime-rock and move into different tables of water? MR. COLLINS: A couple of things. I preface my lack of expertise as a geo-hydrologist. But confining layers, to my understanding, are the layers, as I generally hear the groundwater people discuss them that are beneath Page 102 March 22, 2007 the lime-rock deposit that's being mined. And they're usually some sort of grayish, bluish sort of clay that confines the water, as I understand it. I don't -- looking at what I have seen in any mining operation here, l've seen no one proposed to go below the confining layer -- or into the confining layer. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, before you go further, let me correct that statement then. In regards to the lime-rock, do you see the lime-rock as a confinement or a holding layer for the water above it? MR. COLLINS: Again, that's geo-hydrology. It's not my expertise. What I understand is basically much of what I look at as a plant ecologist in dealing with the wetlands here are the upper, you know, three, four, five feet of soil and then perhaps a cap rock. And that is usually -- I look from that point up. Usually the top five feet. Because that's what affects, to my experience, the vegetation much more than whatever they're doing, you know, far deeper than that. And working on mines in Collier County and Lee County and a variety of other places in Florida, where you see the isolated sorts of hole in a donut wetlands there were left in some of the earlier mines years ago. By the Bonita Grande mine in Bonita Springs is a decent example. They have some small wetlands that have been there, you know, I don't know, 10, 15 years, where they've been mined around. And from -- I've not done extensive studies, but I've sampled them, I've looked at them. And the plants appear vigorous. There's reproduction. The under-story components are consistent with a higher grade wetland. It's not like you get around Tampa or Plant City or further north where there have been just some considerable impacts from mines and drawdown. The West Coast Water Authority is an example of that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, sir, for your information. I Page 103 March 22, 2007 appreciate it. I have other questions, so did you have something -- MR. ARNOLD: If! might, Mr. Strain. I think it might be appropriate to have Joe Bonness come back up and maybe describe to you how we're going down. I don't think we're breaching the confining layer to another aquifer that was discussed, and if that -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I already acknowledged that. I understand -- my reference was referring to really the lime-rock layer. You are breaching that. So that's the only point I was trying to make. I didn't intend to infer there's another layer below that. I was concerned about the lime-rock layer. MR. ARNOLD: Right. But I think the point was that the lime- rock itself is not a confining layer between an aquifer, and I think that's where that terminology goes to 1 believe the way we deal with a confining layer separates the aquifers. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I was -- my contention is that the lime-rock layer would potentially be a deterrent for faster percolation of surface waters. And I didn't know if you had any hydrological analysis to dispute that or not. And if you don't, that's okay. I asked the question. MR. ARNOLD: Well, one of the things that Mr. Collins didn't tell you is that he's been monitoring and has -- we have well sites throughout this piece of property where we've been collecting hydro data about the wetland elevations and the water levels and the quality of those wetlands, and if it's an appropriate time, maybe he could share with you that. Because I think it goes hand-in-hand with the issue. I think your issue's going to be are we going to have a detrimental affect on the wetlands that are present if we mine near it. And I know from other mines that we're involved with in Lee County, we have a certain setback requirement, 50 feet from any wetland. And there's long-term data that's been collected that hasn't shown, at least on the mines that Dean Smith and I have been involved Page 104 March 22, 2007 in, that there's any detriment to the wetlands that are near there. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I can really make it summary is that basically you're going to try to preserve and enhance the wetlands, according to the language provided. My concern is that when you claim to enhance something, you can't at the same time have a detrimental effect to it by some porous surface sands being drawn into -- percolating into a lower body of water because you've dug a large hole as a mining pit. And if that happened and you started draining those wetlands, I'm not sure the word enhancement is the right word. So, I mean, that's where I'm going. That's the direction I'm going. And if you've got something that can help that explanation, that's fine. MR. ARNOLD: Do you have something that can help with that? Okay, Mr. Collins would like to address that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Sure. MR. COLLINS: Can I answer --I want to answer your question, but can I talk about what we're looking at that's there now and then move to enhancement? I'm not trying to avoid -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Whatever the best way for you to respond, that's okay -- MR. COLLINS: Oh, I'm not sure it's the best; it's the way that's most logical to me. We've been monitoring shallow groundwater levels throughout this site since early 2004, I believe. We have several wells scattered across the site. And as the data came in and we began to see trends, we added some to try to, you know, connect the dots better and understand what we were looking at. Based on these data, we collect them monthly during the dry season and weekly during the rainy season. So we have a lot of -- well, a lot of data over at this period, a period of years. And much of these wetland areas where you see cypress or pop Page 105 March 22, 2007 ash or these sorts of things that were traditionally I think beautiful wetlands and vigorous are more degraded than I would have expected. You have a lot of cabbage palm influence. The succession in them is to cabbage palm rather than cypress. You see, even age stands and the reproduction that takes place is in the interior cabbage palm at the margins, bumelia and pepper and that sort of thing. Not certainly as vigorous as they once were. Wetlands are generally in the eye of the beholder. The federal government has one set of wetland criteria; the state government has a separate one. Under either of these, much of the land that, if you go to the site and walk through the wetlands, does not appear to meet the hydrologic criteria of either of these entities. And I am pretty sure they're in decline. We don't have nearly enough data to say how far down the curve or how steep the slope of the curve is. But unless something changes, it's not going to get any better. And I suspect it will just get worse. And working in mines in Lee County and a little bit here, we try to -- and it's almost counterintuitive to increase some of the hydro period in these through a variety of techniques. And it doesn't -- you know, I don't think we can ever make it what it once was. But making it better than what it is now is pretty straightforward. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, sir. MR. COLLINS: Sure. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are you moving -- who's going to be answering the -- well, I guess there's a variety of questions, so you'll have to pick and choose. By the way, your statement about the lime-rock, is the lime-rock a continuous layer across this property? MR. ARNOLD: I can refer to Mr. Bonness. I don't think it's a consistent layer. I think it varies what I heard him say, in thickness. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, it varies in thickness, it varies in shape, and it varies in type. I know that because I've got your soil test. Page 106 March 22, 2007 We'll be discussing those for sure. But I've determined something from the soils test. I just want to ask you or Mr. Bonness, is the layer considered continuous on your property? MR. ARNOLD: I'll defer to Joe Bonness for that. MR. BONNESS: What you're looking at on the soils test or the borings that you see is pretty much what you see throughout this area, is that you have multiple layers of rock between Pinecrest and Fort Thompson layers and that. And it builds up basically in islands of rock throughout the different sediment layers and that as they build up. And from what we've seen, there are some holes throughout the area where the lime-rock is not as present. And those layers -- each layer will discontinue in different areas. You've got the Bonita marl layer that's underneath at places in the property that rises on up, and so the rock layers above it are thinner and you have areas where the rock is fairly thick. So from a consistency standpoint, we were trying to stay where we put the lakes into what we felt was a consistent layer of rock. You know, obviously we don't have 1,000 borings out there. We'd have to upset an awful lot oflandscaping to be able to take 1,000 borings. So what we have is a kind of an indicator of what we have. And as we get into excavation we find out a lot more. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Let me ask my question in a different way. Do you have any borings that do not show lime-rock? MR. BONNESS: In the southeastern sections of the property the lime-rock started to get very porous and very thin. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. But my question, do you have any borings that do not show lime-rock? MR. BONNESS: Yeah, that would show lime-rock in that area, but it wouldn't - lime-rock is basically a sediment that contains a high percentage of lime, calcium carbonates, and anything that you run into Page 107 March 22, 2007 that's underneath the Holocene area is probably going to be classified as being lime-rock. What we're looking for is a different terminology that we usually go for is limestone which is the hardest stuff that you're seeing in there, where we have blow counts over 25 to be able to penetrate a couple of inches. And that's the material that we're really after. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'm still trying to get to my question. Do you have any portion of your site -- and I'll keeping changing my request more in line with what you're trying to say, but at some point I'll need an answer. Do you have any boring that does not show moderately hard limestone present on that site? MR. BONNESS: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Would you take the time and tell me what boring numbers those are while I go on with the other questions that I have? Since I know you must have your boring logs. And Mr. Arnold, in the EIS, there was a statement that said -- its number four, list immediate short-term and long-term impacts on the environment. And under the short term -- and its Page 28 of 28. You want to pull it out before I ask the question? MR. ARNOLD: Sure, I will. I'm probably going to defer to Ms. Bonness, but I will -- of the EIS you're looking at, the one that was prepared? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, on Page 28. MR. ARNOLD: Okay. I just wanted to make sure. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, this is more of an operational question, that's why I'm asking. MR. ARNOLD: I think I'm there. Ask your question and then I'll know if I am. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It says, list the immediate short-term and long-term impacts to the environment. And under the short term you listed blasting and mining activity noise and trucking activity. Page 108 March 22, 2007 And then under long term, approximately 357 acres of uplands and wetlands are proposed for mining. Under the short term, blasting and mining activities and trucking activities, how long do you consider short term? Because I thought you were going to be out there for a couple of decades. Is that not accurate? MR. ARNOLD: I can't answer for -- yes, I think the intent is that this is a 20 plus or minus year activity. But I think the blasting itself is a short-term event that only occurs occasionally, and then the lime- rock is mined. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, how about the mining activity noise and the trucking activity? I don't think those are short term, I think those would be long term because they're going to go on for the length of time you're going to be utilizing the site, isn't it? MR. ARNOLD: Yes, I think that's a correct statement that the mining activities are ongoing and there's obviously truck traffic in there on the days that there's mining activity occurring. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, that's the only part of that question. You can save your time in going though it. You have an out-parcel that by the stuff we receive today it shows it's surrounded by lake. Who owns that out-parcel that's in the middle of that lake, and how will they get to it? MR. ARNOLD: I don't know exactly who owns it, but I know that Mr. Bonness has had dealings with that individual and they'll be provided legal access. The same question came up at the EAC hearing. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: How do they get legal access if you're building a lake around them? MR. ARNOLD: They may be provided -- looks like Rich wants to -- MR. YOV ANOVICH: I'm sorry. That's an area of potential impact, that entire area. That's not the entire lake. We will have to Page 109 March 22, 2007 provide them access to that parcel. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, well, let's go back to what we received in this handout. I thought it said that was where you were going to put lakes. I must have misread it then. MR. YOV ANOVICH: No, that's the -- we agreed that our activity is limited to a 400-acre area. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, it says in this handout proposed lake areas, and it colors them in blue. They're not the lake area -- MR. YOV ANOVICH: It is the proposed lake area; however, it will be shaped however it will be within that area based upon permits we receive. And we will also be required to provide access to that individual because we cannot take away legal access to the property. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I understand what you've said. I'm not sure I agree with it. But-- MR. YOV ANOVICH: Well, there are other examples where PUDs have been approved with a, quote, hole in the donut. And an example would be Olde Cypress. They rezoned around it and were required to provide legal access to the hole in the donut. We have to do the same thing. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: When they rezoned it, did they show lakes around the area? MR. YOV ANOVICH: They showed development all around it. And we'll also be providing access, because that's not the final configuration of the lakes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: On the document you provided, it looks like its part of a traffic study. I don't know how to refer to it, because there's no title page in the project, the piece that I received. It's one of the elements that were submitted. But there's a trip assignment, an existing traffic and then discussion. It says that the addition of the projected 14 trip ends for the project will have little impact on roadway network surrounding the project. Page 110 March 22, 2007 I'm just wondering, how does that balance into the project? Because I thought you were doing more than 14 trip ends. I'm trying to figure how this piece fits into the project submission that we received. And it's -- I don't know who put this document together, but its just -- it's the page past the division of historical resources letter. MR. ARNOLD: In mine the traffic impact statement occurs after the exhibit that's titled Traffic Impact Statement, and it's one of the last documents in the package, the last tab -- one of the last tabs. But I think what you're referring to comes from that. If there was something in copying that ended up in the wrong place, I apologize for that, because we did prepare the packets for staff. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If that comes from the traffic impact statement -- I'm just wondering what it means when it says the addition of the projected 14 trip ends for the project will have little impact on the roadway network surrounding the project. That just -- the amount of mining going on here and the amount of yards I've heard discussed and the amount of yards you can fit per truck, I'm just wondering how factual that statement is. MR. SMITH: Sorry, I think I can answer your question, Mr. Strain. Dean Smith, for the record. If you'd look at the full trip generation report and the TIS, we calculate a peak hour volume for the project. It's actually 51 trip ends total. The peak direction peak hour trips, once they're distributed to the roadway, is the 14 trips that are there. Once we get out to Collier Boulevard, the traffic is going to split approximately evenly. And the maximum number of trips that we have in any single direction is 28. So when we split those in the two directions, it's 14. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Sure makes it sound very small, doesn't it? MR. SMITH: It does make it sound small. That includes the truck trips, as well as some employee trips during the peak hour. Page III March 22, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Nice way of stating it, I guess. Thank you, sir. Do you have time to look at the soil borings, Mr. Berson (sic)? MR. BONNESS: Joe Bonness. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Joe Bonness, I'm sorry. MR. BONNESS: Yeah, Mark, I reviewed back through them. I know that when we were out there doing borings, we did two different types of borings. We went through and just did a resistance boring at one point. But what I have from the Nastek (phonetic) report where we were actually taking split point samples and that, that shows a consistent layer, albeit it might be about five foot deep in a few areas, but consistent layer of hard rock that goes over the entire area that we tested with that. But I do know that when we were out there doing resistance boring, I did encounter one area that was definitely a sinkhole that was just primarily muck going down for as deep as we went, you know. And I know where that particular pocket is. It's over in one of the pop ash slough areas that are off on the side. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, the data provided, though -- the data that I've got is the same as apparently now you had, because I could not find an opening in that lime-rock, based on the data that I received. MR. BONNESS: No, you've got a hard rock shell that runs over that whole area. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The reason I pointed that out is because a statement made earlier about a confining layer. Several years ago I got into an issue with South Florida Water Management District on an excavation that I was involved with, and there was lime-rock present, good lime-rock, and because it was -- and they made it very clear, and we had some trouble with, what South Florida considered lime-rock a confining layer later. Until I went Page 112 March 22, 2007 back and proved to them that the lime-rock was more or less fractured boulders sporadically throughout the site. Once they realized that, they realized it couldn't be a confining layer. Now, based on the data just received and that you've just reviewed, as well as I, this is a continuous layer. So I'm wondering, in my reference to a confining layer earlier, it would seem to me that under the experience that I've had that this lime-rock being continuous might be considered a confining layer. Has South Florida opined on that? MR. BONNESS: No. But what we see from our mining down at the Willow Run quarry, that this rock layer, even the hard rock layer, it's a very porous area. And it actually is the aquifer. The rock -- the water that you're coming for is going through the rock that that -- the rock itself really designates where your aquifer is. That is your Tamiami aquifer. The confining layers that you have in there would be the Bonita marl layer that's underneath the Pinecrest and the Fort Thompson area. Because the water is going directly on through this rock. When we start cutting open and going through the rock, the water comes through profusely. And it's extremely voided. There's underground caverns and underground caves that are running through this. And when we dig up the rock, you're actually going to find that it is very porous, that there's a lot of small holes that are running through it. We calculate that we're probably going to have at least 15 percent voided in many of the areas that we're working with. So it's not really a confining layer. It is actually the aquifer. Now, the Bonita marl layer that's underneath, you're running to the southern end of where that confining layer is. When we get down to the area that we have just south of 1-75, the Bonita marl layer at that point where it has been a confining later prior to that, becomes very, very inundated with water and actually turns into a floating silt layer where the water is running directly through that. Page 113 March 22, 2007 When we dig holes and make our way through the upper layers of rock and you get down to that area, it is so full of water at that point, even though it had been a confining layer a little bit farther north, at that point it is nothing but water. It has absolutely no ability to support. And sometimes when we blast, we'll actually see the rock layer falls down through that layer because the rock itself is bridging and floating on top of basically a lime silt area that's in there. And at that point both the lower Tamiami aquifer and the surficial stuff that's going through the Pinecrest and Fort Thompson layers areas both meet together. And when we've done tests as far as water pressures and that, the two of them are so commingled, there isn't any difference in water pressure, so they're not -- you know, they are mixed together previous to this at that point. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, 1 have -- I will probably have some more comments on the soil test, but I'm going to hold off for now and try to get in a different -- some more discussion. Mr. Kolflat? Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Are you familiar with the staff report? MR. ARNOLD: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: In the staff report it indicates certain stipulations and conditions that they would like to see us add to any recommendation to go forward. Are you in agreement with those stipulations? MR. ARNOLD: I think there were a couple in there, especially with the EAC staff recommendations, that we were not. I think Rich corrected those. We need to go back and probably review the other conditions that are here, just to make sure they're not inconsistent with what we saw before. I think there were some references added to the Jake-braking and some other things. I'd just like to re-review the language before I told you that we were 100 percent in agreement with those. Page 114 March 22, 2007 COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Could you summarize those stipulations for me that you don't agree with? MR. ARNOLD: Sure. MR. YOV ANOVICH: If you look on Page 3 of the supplemental report -- is that what you're reading from? COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: I was reading from my staff record. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Well, there's two. You had your original staff report that I think is dated March 5th -- I'm sorry, not dated March 5th. It references the hearing date of March 5th. And I don't know ifthere's a date on it, Corby. Is there -- there's a 23-page document. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: This is a March 5th report. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Okay. And then there's the five-page document. Your staff has provided you a five-page document that incorporates the EAC recommendations through their -- through that hearing process. And in one of the places, I think its item number four on Page 3, it references a littoral zone of no less than 15 percent of each lake's surface acreage. And what we had agreed to and the EAC accepted was 15 acres oflittoral zones, total. So that's that issue. And I believe they, in their -- on Page I of their summary they reference that we were -- that all of the TORs go into this endowment, and that's not what was agreed to. It was the TORs from the lake area, the excavation area, would go into the endowment and the other TDRs would participate in the -- it would be the property owners TDRs. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Thank you. MR. YOV ANOVICH: So generally yes, except for those two. MR. ARNOLD: There's one more. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Is there one more? MR. ARNOLD: Yes. On Page 2, Mr. Kolflat, there was one other item. It was under Page 115 March 22, 2007 item number three at the bottom of Page 2 in the supplement. And it prohibits dawn, dusk and twilight hauling to and from, one hour before and one hour after during nesting. I don't think that's exactly what we agreed to. What the discussion at the EAC was, was related to road building and constructing those roads during the nesting season, and we agreed that that would be the case, but not necessarily in the hauling activities. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You need to talk closer to the mic. I know Cherie's probably having a hard time today, so -- MR. YOV ANOVICH: And that was in response to the issue that a lot of road building occurs at night, and putting a limitation on being able to take the materials out of the site at night is inconsistent with the goal of trying to get the roads built in an economic and convenient manner. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is that all, Mr. Kolflat? COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Yes, thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: I just wanted to make sure, it seems that some people have not received that supplemental staff report. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, three people haven't. You've got it, I've got it. You guys have it? Don't have it. Mr. Vigliotti has it, Mr. Tuff doesn't. So it looks like two or three of us have got it and the rest of us haven't. I don't know why. Do you have any extra copies of that supplemental staff report? If you could, before we -- we've still got a lot of time on this one, so in the next 30 minutes or so try to get us some copies. Ms. Caron, did you have -- COMMISSIONER CARON: No, I just wanted you to be aware that not everybody is on the same page here. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer, do you have a question? Page 116 March 22, 2007 COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: No. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, ifthere's no other questions of the applicant, we'll move on to the staff report. MR. SCHMIDT: Commissioners, Mr. Chairman, thank you. Again, for the record, Corby Schmidt, Planner with the Comprehensive Planning Department. I reserved the right to return to the podium a number of times this afternoon because of the number of issues that may be discussed. We've got a number of other staff members, speakers and agent representatives who will probably interrupt me. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Can you bring this a little closer to you, Corby? She's having a hard -- you need to bring the speaker closer to you. We're not picking you up clearly. MR. SCHMIDT: Can do. I almost don't want to begin by rehashing what the EAC recommendation was from the past. What I'd like to do is point out what the staffs initial recommendation was, and we continue to stand by it. One of the key issues that I would point out is this is a basic, and beginning by a recommendation to not transmit for approval. We also follow it up with, if it were to be recommended for transmittal, then under what conditions would it be acceptable? This is a land use that was not planned, expected and in many ways does not belong in the sending lands of the rural fringe mixed use district. But there's a balance to be struck between the natural resources above and below ground. Taking those items into account, you see that set of stipulations that was recommended by staff. One of the first objections I'd like to note before I get to those stipulations is staffs change to the applicant's proposal to make these land uses permitted uses on this land. Staff believes, for a number of reasons, that the mining Page 117 March 22, 2007 operations on this land, like all other mining operations in the county, would be allowed by a conditional use, and then whatever permission follows thereafter, for instance, the excavation permit. What the applicant has proposed and what the EAC has agreed to recommend is that this land use be permitted as an allowed or as a permitted use on the property, only being controlled by an excavation permit locally. This is unacceptable to staff at a number of levels, and we counter-recommend and we continue to stand by our original recommendation, that this be allowed by a conditional use, if allowed at all. Now, that's just the beginning. There's a number of other issues I need to address almost one by one. Again, I'll touch on those points. The EAC moved away from staffs recommendation, only because I think it's the best way to move since they have. Almost by default they've agreed to not prohibit night hauling. I think there was a point of contention just mentioned a moment ago that twilight hauling still is in there, and yes, staff revised that stipulation to make sure there's no movement at twilight times. Those are active times for these protective species on the property. And we chose a convenient period of time. And we also included language that would extend that, given the environmental personnel and experts here today and in the future who can talk about that period of time which is best to protect. We think that could be a longer period of time. And it's essential, if there is night hauling allowed, we also expect to introduce a stipulation later today where that on the entire property and on roadways leaving the property for incoming and outgoing traffic there's to be significantly reduced speed limits for those traffic operations at night. So we still stand by the original recommendation that there is no night hauling. I think there was information given by the applicant in front of the EAC that it's important that the materials be taken off-site Page 118 March 22, 2007 during the nighttime hours. In a conventional mining operation that has some merit. What also has merit is the location of this mining operation and the species on this property and on the routes leading to and from it. They're not just twilight animals, they're nocturnal animals, and night hauling does impose on them. The 80 percent minimum that was staff recommended 55 percent on-site for natural vegetation retention and a portion off-site. There was an upgrade from 350 to 400 acres for the mined area. The reason given by the applicant at that time for that was to provide for the additional littoral areas. That 50-acre difference is about 15 percent. I'm hearing again today a point being made that they said 15 acres. I'm not quite sure why that would be such a small amount. Generally speaking, littoral areas by basic standard design is about seven percent. We're looking for more here to be enhanced in the future so the 50 percent is above that acres. And so we were looking for that kind of number. The EAC limited, at the applicant's suggestion, the possible land uses on the property. And that was for the earth materials removal, the concrete plant and the asphalt plant operations. There may be some discrepancy in what was proposed and what was stated in the stipulation regarding the TOR program. We wrote that full participation of the TOR program would be allowed. Apparently the TORs would be derived only from the lake areas. That can be changed if there is to be TORs drawn from the property at all. And we are not recommending that there are. But ifthere are to be TORs severed from the property and used in the program, it's with that in mind. Noise reduction. Certainly that was an issue that came out during discussion in front of the EAC. The stipulation we've written includes a number of suggestions. There mayor may not be more of them in the future as to how to serve those purposes. Everything from dampers Page 119 March 22, 2007 on the truck gates to certain kinds of enhanced muffler systems for the trucks themselves or the engine driven machines on-site. Certainly no residential development on the property; that was an agreement and it's there in the EAC recommendation. The no road building activities during RCW nesting seasons, certainly we would support that. And I return to the point about the conditional use permit being required. I think that's the last of the points that were generally made by the EAC, followed up in your supplementary, your update or the rewritten entry. If this were to be recommended by you, as recommended by the EAC, the language is changed. And that certainly is a change having to do with permitted instead of conditional uses and so forth. There is clarification being made on the very last page under that Item H where we are talking about the 55 percent, 25 percent split to give us the full 80 percent retention. And that is simply to make sure that we have 55 and at least 25 percent off-site. I'm going to pause for a moment, if you have questions about what I've stated so far or if you'd like to touch on a certain issue or topic. Otherwise I'll continue where I am. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Questions at this point from anyone? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, thank you. MR. SCHMIDT: If this is to be approved as proposed by the applicant, and if there is to be an endowment fund set up to fund the restoration, preservation, the mitigation activities on or off-site, and there's a long list of required activities to be done, that should not be the only source of those funds. Ifthere are never TDR credits severed and used from this property and no dollar is derived, those operations for mitigation and preservation and so forth would still have to take place. So it's just the cost of doing business. Those funds should not Page 120 March 22, 2007 come solely from the endowment fund. They may, but it should not be restricted to say so. I f you were to recommend approval of this, staff has a condition to also go along with the recommendation, that a blanket easement be applied to the property to allow for the reservation of well sites that the county has an interest in. It would be located around the perimeter of the property with no general idea of their -- or no specific idea of their location at this time. That could be worked on later. Because we feel strongly about the nighttime activities, we also add a stipulation that the speed limits for the vehicles maneuvering around the subject property and along the haul routes, both on Collier Boulevard, be reduced, and I mean significantly reduced, for a period of time one hour before sunset and one hour after sunrise. In order to work on that and come up with something a bit more specific, those speed limits could be determined as part of a mitigation plan and made part of the mitigation plan approved by the county in the future upon conditional use permit consideration, perhaps. We also suggest a stipulation that adequate land area be reserved for the purpose of developing a north-south roadway along the eastern edge of the subject property in accordance with the corridor study being conducted by the county. And if so, then setbacks for the mining areas themselves and all mining related areas would be measured from that line of reservation and not from the lot line. Excuse me. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Corby, you're going to have to talk on the record. I'm sorry. Mr. Y ovanovich should know better than to try to ask you questions off the record. MR. SCHMIDT: That's just it, it was asked off mic and I was beginning to answer off mic. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I know. Ifhe has questions of you, after he gets his turn to come back up then we'll address them at that time. MR. SCHMIDT: All right. With those kinds of stipulations in Page 121 March 22, 2007 mind, to add what staffs recommendation already is, I would -- I believe I've got representatives from other departments here to discuss the difference between what the approval process and review process might be for conditional uses, and the mere excavation permit process, if you'd like to know more about that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. I think we'll take it step at a time. Does anybody have any questions of Corby at this point? Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Corby, the power of the presentation that started this application was the need for the stone. Is that something staff has reviewed? MR. SCHMIDT: Yes. The idea that there is quality stone on this property, the information as part of the packet has been presented to you, yes. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: All right. I mean, so there's no question that this is a need in the community, this amount of stone that's available on this site? MR. SCHMIDT: Generally speaking, yes, there is an identified need for quality stone in the county. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. And I'd ask David, whatever you handed out, could you print one more, because -- COMMISSIONER CARON: Here. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. That's fine. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Corby, the idea of needing more stone in the county, first of all, I've reviewed the soil test of this project and I review a lot of soil tests, so I am familiar in how they read. I don't see that much on this site that is unique to this site that isn't found in good portions of Collier County. In fact, the only thick layer on this site that seems to be unique is in the northeast corner. Certainly not enough to justify the south side being excavated as well. But at the same time I know that that limestone in some form, Page 122 March 22, 2007 whether it be in boulders or sporadic chunks or thick and thin layers, occurs in a lot of places throughout the county. Developments that come in here and ask for approval maximize their density and minimize their onsite amenities, including the lakes that they dig. Lakes are generally 12 to 15 percent ofa project to meet water management needs. If developments came in and showed a fill balance on their project, namely digging enough soil in order to cover the development area that they were supporting or the development they're asking for, would we still have as critical of a shortage of stone in this county? I know you probably can't answer that. But I'm just asking you so you can say you just don't know. MR. SCHMIDT: It's an interesting question, and I just don't know. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I know that there's a shortage, but I'm wondering how much of it is self-created by the rules and laws we have in place and the things that we probably don't enforce that we could. MR. SCHMIDT: I can answer a portion of that concern. There appears to be usable rock in this county, but it's unobtainable because of its location. It's already on underlined developed areas, it's urban areas where it cannot otherwise be mined by policy or practice. So there are other locations where rock lies but unavailable. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are all the counties where rock lies unavailable? Are all the rock in the county -- all the areas where rock lies in the county unavailable? I know you just said some were under existing developments, but there are others that may not be. MR. SCHMIDT: No. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, thank you. Any other questions of staff at this time? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Just one. Page 123 March 22, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Corby, that one site that's going to be left behind, it appears it would be big enough to be a residential site? Could that ever occur out there? MR. SCHMIDT: I'm sorry, which site are you referring to? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: The one site, the square, the hole -- MR. SCHMIDT: That apparently will likely be the end of a peninsula, not an island. But it could. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So when they're saying no residential, they don't refer to that site. MR. SCHMIDT: That's correct. That's an out lot both in consideration and in result. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. It would be a great site. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah. Someone's multi million dollar home in the middle of the woods. Okay, any other questions of staff at this point? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, thank you, Corby. It was very thorough. We can have public speakers. Mr. Weeks? MR. WEEKS: We have five. First is Timothy Nance, followed by Pat Humphries. MR. NANCE: Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name is Tim Nance. I've been a resident of the North Belle Meade since 1982. And I've come here to talk to you today to give you a few of my personal thoughts on this proposal, and then to briefly try to give you a snapshot of what I think the residents in the area -- and as I'm the president of the Golden Gate Estates Area Civic Association, whose members are Estates and North Belle Meade residents -- kind of an idea on how they feel about this proposal. As a citizen, I have a little bit of a unique perspective on this, because for the last 20 years I've lived in my home as one of the Page 124 March 22, 2007 nearest residents to an APAC mining quarry, which is in section 16, township 49, south range 27 east, a couple of miles north and east of the subject property of the applicant. As a citizen, I've participated actively in the development of the rural fringe plan and the North Belle Meade overlay of that plan. Which if I might digress a moment, I feel like was fairly poorly crafted and gave really little accommodation to some of the stakeholders' property rights, and in a lot of ways is dysfunctional and is fai ling to accomplish some of its goals because of that. But be that as it may, I realized that the rural fringe plan and specifically the North Belle Meade overlay is the controlling Growth Management Plan for this area. And I personally do not take land use plan changes lightly. I realize that's what's before you today. Personally, I feel like that this application is really not a -- does not seriously compromise the spirit and intent of the North Belle Meade overlay. And in fact, I think there is a -- it's pretty obvious that there's a compelling public need and a clear long-term benefit to this project in this particular place. Talking to some of the members of the association last night, they described it to me as what they thought was a win/win/win scenario. Mr. Bonness has conducted of course a public neighborhood information meeting, which was attended by many of our members and other residents, and as well as appearing before the civic association last evening to give a presentation very similar to what he presented to you today. And the residents basically in North Belle Meade that are near the project that I know and some of the people that are in Golden Gate Estates basically feel like the public and the county is likely to get several benefits. The win is there for them in getting some strategic rock resources that we need. We've seen just as homeowners the prices of these resources skyrocket to us. And we think that making some of these more available might reduce the cost to us as residents Page 125 March 22, 2007 and also keep the cost of our public work projects down a little bit. We also see, as this project would be developed out, that we would have a benefit of a public road coming out of it that would support the transportation element of the North Belle Meade overlay; namely, the Wilson Boulevard extension. The laymen members of the civic association also feel like there's an environmental win for them when they see that the entire project is being dedicated in the end for conservation and endowment funded management going forward. And I think finally they see a tremendous benefit in that they feel like the landowner might be getting reasonable use of his property. I think it's probably odd to see a civic association come in and say that, you know, they're supporting something of this nature. And I don't really think that's my intent to give you that idea. But basically what I wanted to convey to you is I think the community and the nearby residents are more comfortable than typical with this project. And I think it's because I don't think they have any major objections, the people in North Belle Meade or the adjacent Estates community. And I think the reason for that is that I think the spirit of the concessions that have been made and been given to you today, the approach of the applicant, the way it's been put forward and the dedication of the applicant over many years has eased some of their concerns. And basically their concerns are limited to operational issues, such things as noise, dust, transportation routes and things of that nature that I believe that they think they can be resolved through working with staff. So I just wanted to thank you for letting me come forward and let you know that I think the residents in the area would look favorably on this project. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, Tim. Next speaker, please. MR. WEEKS: Pat Humphries. Followed by Brad Cornell. Page 126 March 22, 2007 MS. HUMPHRIES: My name is Pat Humphries, and I am a resident of Collier County since 1977. I've lived in the Estates since 1992. I was on the board of directors for the Golden Gate Estates Civic Association for 10 years. And there's another side to earth mining, a downside, so to speak. A new mine or mines, possibly four, in North Belle Meade is going to bring more dump trucks into the Estates. These trucks will be parking on the owners' property. This is allowed if the truck is registered to the owner. The drivers do maintenance work there on their trucks at their homes, which is not allowed. Much to the dismay of the neighbors, these trucks start warming up engines in the wee small hours of the morning. It is not unusual to be awakened on the weekend mornings to loud noises related to repair on heavy trucks. The Sheriffs Department recently did an aerial view of the Estates during the last flooding in September, and discovered not only water but oil slicks on the water of yards where dump trucks were parked. Also seen from the air were discarded tires and other refuse surrounding the dump trucks. Related to this sighting is the discovery oflarge barrels of used oil discarded on the vacant lots in the Estates. It is not appropriate for these large trucks to be parked in residential neighborhoods. They are unsightly and devalue the homes nearby. In many cases there is more than one truck parked on the property, which raises the question, are all these trucks registered to the owner of this property or is he making space for friends and relatives who do not reside at that address? This free-for-all atmosphere has given license to an even worse scenario, tractor-trailer trucks are now parking in owner's yards. There's actually a case of lOin one backyard. If the earth mining business wants to be good neighbors, they Page 127 March 22, 2007 will address this problem by finding a place for these trucks to park, where they will be able to work on their trucks, wash them, and most important have the oil treated and taken away per environmental specifications. The area could be fenced in for security purposes. A perfect example of this kind of operation is the bus terminal for the school buses. This would also take the trucks off the road for the two trips a day commuting to their residences. Traffic is another issue, especially violations. I've clocked dump trucks on Wilson going 65 miles per hour plus. This seems to be the norm. Two years ago I counted 161 trips in two hours on Wilson Boulevard. So I don't know where this low count is coming from. In the 10 years that I was a -- on the board of directors for the Golden Gate Estates Civic Association we never, never promoted this type of operation. So I could not even think about approving it unless they address the problems that are taking place. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Next speaker, please. MR. WEEKS: Brad Cornell. Followed by Nicole Ryan. MR. CORNELL: Good afternoon, Commissioners. I'm Brad Cornell, on behalf of Collier County Audubon Society. And I appreciate the opportunity to address you about this proposed comprehensive plan amendment. I wanted to first tell you that we oppose this petition. We think that this should be recommended for not transmitting, for denial. And I'd like to share a few factors that support our position on this. The 950 acres would generate about 760 potential TDR credits, which are valued at about 25 to $29,000 a credit, which equates with 19 to $23 million for this site. In addition, there would be mitigation value that could be associated with this location. It's easy to see how that would be important, if you look at the proposed mining operations and other Page 128 March 22, 2007 places that are looking for mitigation. I don't think that the public has any obligation to maximize the return of any particular private property owner, as long as there's a reasonable compensation for any sort of regulations that the county has placed because of environmental restrictions or other restrictions. So I think that the rural fringe North Belle Meade overlay and TDR program have adequately compensated the landowner in this case. I think that there is a need for an independent study about the rock deposits and the need for rock and the impacts of rock mining. I don't have confidence in the studies that I have seen both in Lee County and Collier County and that we've heard about today that those are objective studies, and 1 think that there's a need for further study. I'd also like to point out that the applicant has listed a series of benefits of mining without development. And I think that these are suspect. First there's a claim that there are hydrologic benefits. Collier County Audubon Society has serious doubts about this. Studies that we are aware of indicate digging lakes deep into surficial aquifers pose significant hydrologic risks. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If you want to get this on record, you need to slow down a little bit. MR. CORNELL: Sorry. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I've been watching her, and she's getting difficult times keeping up with you. So if you could, slow down, it would be helpful. MR. CORNELL: Yes, sir. Sorry, Cherie'. So we believe that there are significant hydrologic risks of digging large mining pits. And those risks are substantiated by several factors. One is that we have seen a St. John's River Water Management District study from 1992 that cites artificial lakes reducing water recharge by 10 inches of recharge per year. For a 400-acre lake of mining operation, Page 129 March 22, 2007 that equates to 108 million gallons per year of evaporation. This is due to evaporation. So normally you would get in this particular study 51 inches of rainfall a year; 35 inches of that goes to ET, evapo-transpiration, normally with the ground intact. If you cut into the ground water and expose that water to the air and sunlight, you get an increase of evaporation to 45 inches a year. So now you're down to just six inches of recharge a year instead of 16 inches. That's a loss of 10 inches of recharge a year. And that lowers the ground water and that impacts wetlands all around the site. I think that's an important statistic to keep in mind. Also, Southwest Florida geology features many shell beds that are hidden and not detected until you dig a mine. And those shell beds are a consequence of the karst geology of Southwest Florida, and they provide connections to wetlands off-site, sometimes as far as away as two miles. And if you dig a mine that connects these shell beds to the wetlands, then you can easily lower the water table and drain wetlands unintentionally very far off-site. So that's another factor to keep in mind. Water quality is also a threat when ground water is exposed to the surface. There's also a claim of creation of conservation land and protection from development. But Collier County Audubon Society does not support trading away 400 acres of rock mine for such benefits. We don't think that's a good balancing of public interest. Most important, taking 950 acres out of the North Belle Meade overlay and the rural fringe policies, including the TOR program, is very harmful to the whole rationale for adopting these policies back in 2002, which was to direct incompatible land uses away from resources like wetlands and habitat. This petition completely confounds that purpose, and for that reason most importantly we think that this is -- this should be denied Page 130 March 22, 2007 and it should be recommended not to be transmitted. We strongly urge you to not to -- urge not to pass a recommendation of transmittal. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Next speaker, please. MR. WEEKS: Nicole Ryan, followed by Nancy Payton. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is Nancy our last speaker? MR. WEEKS : Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I should have known. She always seems to be the last speaker. MS. RYAN: Good afternoon, Commissioners. For the record, Nicole Ryan on of behalf of The Conservancy of Southwest Florida. The Conservancy asks the Planning Commission to recommend denial of transmittal for this comprehensive plan amendment. It is inconsistent with the intent of the rural fringe mixed use program, it would compromise the integrity of the program, and it would set a dangerous precedent for allowing parcels to remove themselves from the restrictions of the program, while selectively choosing which portion of the TOR program would be personally advantageous to retain. The proposal would take 950 acres out of the program by creating an entirely new land use category. Within this new sub-district, earth mining, among other uses, would be allowed as permitted uses, along with all other currently permitted uses within sending lands. Thus the sub-district would not have to conform to the restrictions on sending lands but could still sell or transfer TDRs to make an additional profit. They would not have to retain the amount of native vegetation currently required under sending lands at 80 percent, and in some cases they would be more permissive than receiving lands, because receiving lands would still need a conditional use permit for mining, and they're requesting that mining be allowed as a permitted use. Page 131 March 22, 2007 The fact that this parcel does contain environmentally sensitive lands has been discussed today by the applicant, and it was within the submittal packet. These are environmentally sensitive lands. They were not mis-designated in the first place. They are surrounded by sending lands on the west and sending lands with a NRP A overlay, a natural resources protection area overlay to the east. Therefore, if you take this land, which is sandwiched between sending lands and you sever the connectivity between the sending lands, you're going to tremendously impact the connectivity for wildlife transportation as a corridor between the sending lands. Wildlife utilizes this corridor today. That needs to be kept in mind. In addition, hydrologic restoration, indeed any kind of restoration is going to be significantly impacted by allowing this property to be taken out of sending lands. There was discussion earlier about the impacts of mining on wetland preservation within the area. Working with landowners to protect their lands while maximizing their profit through sending land provisions should be the goal of the county, not changing the rules to accommodate individual development plans. The TOR program will never succeed if it is piece-mea led chipped away through individual compo plan amendments. This proposed amendment would also allow the property to retain the potential of 760 TDR credits and allow, under the sending land designation, in addition to allowing mining and other permitted uses. But remember, the purpose of the TOR credits and the bonus credits is to fairly compensate property owners for development and other uses that have been removed. The TOR sales provision assures that sending lands will be protected. In this case, the amendment is requesting TDRs to be retained on property that will not be protected. In fact, this amendment is going to allow mining on these sending lands. Page 132 March 22, 2007 The applicant has promised that the sale of these TORs on the mined lands would be placed into a trust fund for RCWs. However, listed species management is currently an obligation through the sales of the TORs and the bonus TORs as the current program stands today. And as an aside, this amendment doesn't really explain how if these TDRs are not sold but simply transferred to another parcel owned by this property owner, and there's no monetary exchange, how money would go into this RCW fund. There's been talk about the placement of the lakes. I went to review the compo plan amendment package last week, and nothing that showed the exact placement of the lakes was part of the amendment package. I don't know if it's been included, but I think it's quite dangerous to be allowing as a permitted use these lakes that, as has been stated by the applicant, it isn't the final configuration of the lakes. There's been a lot of talk about the RCW and its protection. The Conservancy does not believe that this proposal will provide more protection for the RCW than is afforded under the current sending land designations. And in addition, there are numerous other listed species on this property: Gopher Tortoises, Big Cypress Fox Squirrels, Black Bears, and Wood Storks. The list goes on. There's no assurances that there will be a benefit for these other listed species or the RCW through this amendment. Moreover, there's no analysis of how the break in connectivity between the sending lands to the east and west and how it will impact the listed species have been analyzed. The bottom line is, the ability for the TOR program to function properly can only occur if allowed and prohibited uses for lands set aside as sending, neutral and receiving or maintained. The amendment is inconsistent with Collier County's Growth Management Plan and is inconsistent with proper land use planning. Staff had talked about the what ifs of if you do approve it, then Page 133 March 22, 2007 this, then that. But the bottom line is, staff is recommending denial of this. And The Conservancy asks that you also recommend denial of transmittal. There are no conditions that can be attached to this that would make it consistent with the rural fringe program. It simply needs to be denied. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Next speaker, please? MR. WEEKS: Final speaker, Nancy Payton. MS. PAYTON: I have a handout. And I'll let you absorb the previous two speakers' comments while I do this, because they were very well done. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Cherie', we'll save one for you. Save one for the court reporter, if you could, at the end. MS. PAYTON: Yes, I have one for Cherie'. Nancy Payton, representing the Florida Wildlife Federation. There's several comments that I wanted to make on this proposal. One is to remind folks about the final order and how this land came to be sending, that I'm sure many of you were aware, but I just wanted to emphasize that this land is designated sending as a result of a mandated three-year study period. That designation of sending was challenged by Dr. Hussey and other landowners, and that challenge was unsuccessful. It was appealed. That was unsuccessful. During the hearing on the challenge, the consultant -- the wildlife consultant for the challengers stated that this was Florida panther habitat, and in fact said on the record that it was within the habitat of probably two panthers. So their own experts in the past have said that this is indeed panther habitat. And there's recent documentation that there is a panther that is roaming in North Belle Meade and using this property as part of its habitat or its range. In the testimony this morning, or the presentation, Mr. Bonness Page 134 March 22, 2007 talked about the chopped up characteristics of some portions of North Belle Meade. And with that was a map, and it showed the HHH Ranch, or the land that's in question today. And it is a big chunk of land. And that is its value to wildlife, because it is a big chunk of land and can be managed as one large area. I passed out mining considerations, because I think there are issues that go beyond this specific proposal that the county has not addressed. And they really do need to be addressed before we talk about looking at areas that aren't currently allowed for mining, and to know what's going on in the mining areas that are allowed. And I'll briefly go through them. First item on the list is independently research the extent that permitted mining operations in Collier County have removed their available resources, the rate at which these resources are being consumed and how and where these resources are being used, and to estimate the remaining marketable resources. Independently research, identifY and map mining resources throughout the county. We're relying on information that's being generated from those that benefit by opening up areas to mining. We need independent resources developing this information. Research individual mines and cumulative impact of mining and the blasting that may be associated with each mine upon the quality and the quantity of the area's water supply, wildlife habitat and surrounding lands. Study the fill, rock, and other mining resources of south Florida counties and research the policies of these counties regarding the mining of those resources. We might learn something from those other counties. Then I talk about reviewing the adequacy of Collier County's Growth Management Plan upon mining and what ought to be addressed. Also, independently study the impact that mining has had in Collier County, including the following: What has happened to the resulting mining pits? And they're not lakes, they're pits, and let's call Page 135 March 22, 2007 them for what they are. How have they been maintained? What are the costs of maintaining them? Are they contaminated like the lakes, parks, mines in Lee County? What wildlife frequents the pits? Use available area photographs to compare the ecology of the mining and surrounding areas before and after the mining. Review water management monitoring reports for hydro-period changes resulting from the mining activity. Study the impact of mining upon invasive species on surrounding lands. And then I go on to talk about identifY other sources of aggregate materials with cost benefit analysis. Sources to be evaluated including availability -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN : You need to slow down a little bit, Nancy. MS. PAYTON: I know. Because I think I only have five minutes, so I -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I know. Just it would be better -- it's more important to get it properly on the record. MS. PAYTON: Okay. Then I'll relax a little bit. Sorry, Cherie'. To look at other sources of rock, and also recycled materials and products. And are we being most efficient on what we're using now? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. MS. PAYTON: And what is the current research on material and processes that reduce the future need for aggregate materials? Perpetual pavement and composite materials such as polymer molecules, asphalt rubber, cellulose and mineral fibers which could be evaluated, as well as other recycled materials all offer opportunities for the industry to build longer lasting pavements and also to make money. And this county has not looked at that. Their knee jerk response is we've got to look at the conservation lands or sending lands to open up for additional rock, which will never meet all our needs. So sooner or later we have to deal with these issues. So I think Page 136 March 22, 2007 it's best to deal with them now before we continue to dig pits in areas that are inappropriate. I think we do need to clarifY who is representing and who can speak for the petitioner and the landowner. Because we're hearing a lot of promises, but we're not sure whether they're coming from the mining operation or from the true landowner. And I think that needs to be clarified. We're not sure whether those easements are only for the mining -- during the length of the mining operation or are they forever. What happens -- and this was touched on earlier at the TDRs, when aren't sold are used elsewhere, and taking TORs off the lake is just such a bastardization for the TOR program I think that I find it offensive. Because the TOR program was to save conservation land and enhance it, not to dig pits. Lastly, there is a bill pending in the legislature about mining operations. And an e-mail was sent out yesterday from the Florida Association of Counties looking for information similar on this, because it just does not exist. And before we think about moving into areas that are inappropriate for mining, we need to know what we can maximize for the areas that are currently allowed for mining. We support the staff position, which I think is still denial. I got a little confused earlier today, because there seemed to be a fallback position. But we are definitely opposed to this and urge you to recommend denial for transmittal. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Appreciate it. David, is that the last public speaker? MR. WEEKS: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We're going to give Cherie' a break. We'll be back here at 2:20. (Recess. ) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We'll come back to order and resume where we left off in the meeting. The last item we had is the public Page 137 March 22, 2007 speakers, and I see Mr. Y ovanovich wandering up to the podium, so I'm sure he might have a comment or a closing statement or whatever he wants to call it. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Discussion. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Discussion. Okay. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Rebuttal. There were several comments made about an independent person testifYing as to the need of rock or the location of rock in the sending areas or where rock is located. Well, Mr. Chrzanowski in your engineering department made a presentation at the Board of County Commissioners a couple of years ago specifically identifYing that there's plenty of rock in the urban area -- unfortunately, there's homes built on top of it -- and that there's a lot of rock out east. Unfortunately, it's within the environmentally sensitive areas. So your own engineering staff has made that presentation to the Board of County Commissioners. There were comments about what -- you know, what happened in 2002 with the adoption of the comprehensive plan. Well, we're now in 2007, and there's better data and analysis applicable to the property, and we pre -- we presented that data and analysis applicable to the property, and that data and analysis supports what we're requesting. And what I wanted to make clear -- and I don't think I did this very well at the beginning -- was that the lake itself will be 350 acres. The area in which the lake can be constructed is in that blue area, which is approximately 400 acres. So the entire blue area will not be a lake, but the 350-acre lake will be in that 400-acre area. The EAC recommended approval of the earth mine as a permitted use. They were comfortable with the information we provided, the areas we selected with their own site visits to the site to determine that this is an appropriate location for an earth mine keeping in mind it used to be a conditional use because the entire ag area in Collier County was eligible to request an earth mine, so -- you didn't want an earth mine on every piece of property out in the ag land, so Page 138 March 22, 2007 you require people to come in and specifically identifY the location of an earth mine. That's what we've done. We've identified this area. It's a 950-acre parcel of which will build a 350-acre earth mine. We have done and fulfilled the purposes of -- of a conditional use. In -- in addition, in the North Belle Meade overlay within the receiving areas the comprehensive plan specifically allows earth mining as a permitted use on certain sections within the North Belle Meade area, so it's not unprecedented to determine at the comprehensive plan stage that earth mining is appropriate on a particular piece of property. There was discussion about hauling hours and impacts to wetlands and impact to listed species. As I stated earlier, we're still subject to environmental permitting through the Corps and through the DEP and through the water management district. Those issues will be resolved when we go in and ask for our mining permit. It is regulated. We don't get to just go dig. We have to address those issues, and we will address those issues through the permitting process, so please don't be led to believe that those issues won't be addressed and appropriately resolved through the permitting process. We're not in an aquifer recharge zone, so the concerns about recharging the aquifer, we believe, are unfounded. There are no littoral zones required at all in excavation lakes. Ask your environmental staff. They made that very clear to the EAC. Water management lakes have got to have littoral zones; excavation lakes do not. So what we were providing was additional area in the lake for littoral zones. It is above what's required today. There was a comment about recycling. We already do recycling. We're probably one of the largest recyclers of materials in our projects. There was a question about the endowment. Our environmental plans included an endowment regardless of the TOR process. The TORs were additional monies to go into the endowment, Page 139 March 22, 2007 something the EAC found to be very valuable. They thought the more money they can get in through the endowment the better because it was going to be utilized to help assist listed species. There were a couple of new requests from staff during the presentation, and I apologize for asking Corby to make that clear because they weren't in the staff report. One was well site easement along the perimeter of the property. If the county needs well site easements along the perimeter of the property, we'll provide those well site easements. Mr. Scott clarified for me the north-south road corridor reservation request. He would like us to reserve 140 acres along our southern bound -- 140 feet along our southern boundary for a road corridor, which we've agreed to do. There was a comment that developers max out their developments and that's why we don't have enough fill. I don't think that's supported by -- I don't think that's a -- that statements supported. I think, in fact, most developers don't max out their density in the urban area, so I think that -- that we don't -- I don't believe the course of development in Collier County's urban area is the cause of our shortfall in fill. Everybody talks about all this money we're going to make through the TOR process. I don't know that that process has worked all that well, and I don't know that it will work all that well. And during the adoption of the TOR process I spoke on behalf of property owners about the concern that the TOR process didn't fully compensate property owners because you were only compensating for development rights as far as housing units. You weren't compensating for other opportunities to use the property, and there is a significant opportunity available to this project owner for the earth mine. It has not been compensated for. I think Nancy asked who's authorized to speak on behalf of the property owner and is whatever that person saying binding on the Page 140 March 22, 2007 property owner. I thought I made clear at the beginning that I represent Dr. Hussey, the property owner, and also Mr. Bonness who's got an interest in the earth mining rights, so whatever I say regarding the commitments are binding on the property owner. Whether or not Mr. Hussey -- I mean, Mr. Bonness is the earth mining -- earth miner or not, Dr. Hussey has to meet these commitments. And, finally, I don't believe that the TOR program will assure protection of the environment to this area. We have a clearing permit, I believe, and we have the ability to go clear as part of a farming operation. I believe Dr. Hussey will do that. What we are proposing is what we believe to be a win-win situation. We will make money from taking the lime rock out of the ground. It will provide opportunities to build roads and other necessary infrastructure in Collier County at a reduced rate. In fact, we believe it'll actually reduce the overall truck traffic on the county roads because you won't be bringing traffic in from Lee County. And you need to bring more trucks to get the fill down here from Lee County because they've got further to go and they can't make as many trips, so you have as many -- you have as much -- as much truck traffic, if not more, under your current situation. There is a need for the fill. We are proposing to mitigate for impacts. We will address all of those issues through the environmental permitting process. One thing that was not mentioned -- one of the EAC stipulations was that if the earth mining is approved that Dr. Hussey has to give up his current clearing permit, and he's committed to doing that. So with that we believe that this is a good project. The state's civic association has spoken in favor of it. I don't know what more we could do to address the issue -- situation because we've gone and addressed all the environmental issues related to this project to the extent that the EAC is recommending transmittal, and that is one of your environmental agencies in Collier County. Page 141 March 22, 2007 And with that we're available to answer any questions you may have. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Miss Carron. COMMISSIONER CARRON: A couple of issues. What happens if the TORs are not sold? MR. YOV ANOVICH: It was never our intent to just transfer them. There would -- there would be compensation. I believe the comp plan or the LDC, one of the two, currently says it's a minimum price of $25,000. I -- I can't remember if that's in the comprehensive plan or in the LDC. So there was no intent to -- to take those units and transfer them somewhere else and -- and skirt around the endowment Issue. COMMISSIONER CARRON: That's obviously a very lawyerly thing for you to say, there's no intent. You made mention of the fact that there's a Burt Harris lawsuit involved with this property right now. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Absolutely. Well, let me take that back. There's been a Burt Harris notice filed with the county, which is the precursor. COMMISSIONER CARRON: Yes. MR. YOV ANOVICH: We're waiting for a response. COMMISSIONER CARRON: Oh believe me I understand the process very well. MR. YOV ANOVICH: I didn't want to misspeak, Miss Carron. COMMISSIONER CARRON: If you are limited to only hauling during the daytime and since this is panther habitat, it would seem only logical that it be limited to the daytime since that's -- the panthers are out at night. What does that do to traffic on 95 I ? MR. YOV ANOVICH: Well, we were -- we don't believe a limitation on hauling to only during the day is appropriate. COMMISSIONER CARRON: I know you don't, but if you are limited to during the day. Page 142 March 22, 2007 MR. YOV ANOVICH: And we would prefer-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Guys, you've got to do it one at a time, so let him finish first before you ask a question again so -- MR. YOV ANOVICH: And we would propose that we would haul from the southern portion of the property at night and not from the northern portion, so we would not be coming through the preservation areas through the center. Ifwe all go back to that exhibit, there's two lakes, and there's a lot of preserve in between the two lakes. So we'd be hauling from the southern corner south -- is that southwest, Ray? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah. MR. YOV ANOVICH: -- southwest corner of the property. COMMISSIONER CARRON: Okay. Once again, what will happen to traffic if you are limited to only hauling during the day? MR. YOV ANOVICH: Well, there's -- COMMISSIONER CARRON: What happens to 951 traffic? Do you impact that road? COMMISSIONER CARRON: Well, there's going to be no, obviously -- COMMISSIONER CARRON: So you-- MR. YOV ANOVICH: The answer would be that there'll be no trips at night. There'll still be trips during the day. And we can only get so much material off site during the day, so you're still going to have the day trips. You just won't have the night trips. And, again, a lot of road construction occurs at night, and it makes sense to allow us to haul at night. And that's for the asphalt. It would be for the asphalt. It wouldn't be -- it wouldn't be the fill portion. It would be the asphalt. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anything else? COMMISSIONER CARRON: Not right now. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Are there any other questions of the applicant? (No response.) Page 143 March 22, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Richard, thank you. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Are there any other questions of the Planning Commission before we go into discussion amongst ourselves -- or amongst all -- everybody that's here, I guess. COMMISSIONER CARRON: Yeah. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Miss Carron. COMMISSIONER CARRON: Yeah, I had something -- Corby Schmidt said that he had a staff here to cover conditional-use benefits, and I'd like to hear from that staff. MR. SCHMIDT: All right. I'm not quite sure what you're asking. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Corby, I think earlier you said that this could have been a conditional use on the property. They could have come in and applied for a conditional use and gone that route instead of the route they're going, and I believe what Miss Carron's looking for is an explanation of the conditional-use process versus the process they're asking for here today. MR. SCHMIDT: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. WEEKS: Commissioners, I'm not sure if we have anyone from zoning or not. I can -- I can explain at least some of the process. And I do see Stan Chrzanowski here from the engineering department who could advise of what the requirements are, notice requirements are, et cetera, for the excavation permit, which is what they would be subject to if it's approved as the petitioner is requesting. For the conditional use, the notice requirements would, first of all, include a neighborhood information meeting in which the notice requirement is the property owner or petitioner has to send a notice to property owners within a specified distance of their property advising them of the neighborhood information meeting date, time, and location. Page 144 March 22, 2007 And, by the way, for this process, a Growth Management Plan amendment, they have been required to hold such a meeting already. Secondly, for the public hearings in front of the Planning Commission, the property owner would be required to send a notice, again, to the surrounding property owners within the same specified distance, which I believe is a thousand feet in rural areas, advising of the date, time, and place of the public hearing, and then the next step would be going before the County Commission which -- and -- and there will be a legal advertisement placed in the paper prior to the Planning Commission hearing. There will be a legal advertisement placed in the Naples Day -- in the paper prior to the Board of County Commissioners hearing as well, and there would be signs posted on or near the property prior to the Planning Commission hearing. So there's more no -- public notice requirements for a conditional use than there would be for either an excavation permit or the stage you're in now, the Growth Management Plan amendment. Additionally, through that conditional-use hearing process is where, again, aside from the opportunity for the public to participate, that's usually where this hearing body and the board would be involved in crafting the very specific conditions or stipulations to apply to the project. If that process is not required, then from the staff perspective they all need to be addressed now, then, as part of this Growth Management Plan amendment, which means we're going to need to have a very high level of specificity in the comprehensive plan because there's not going to be an additional opportunity for a public hearing process to -- to create those types of conditions and to see the -- the real specifics -- I mean, with more detail than what you have here -- specifics about what the project is going to entail. You -- we would miss that in the public hearing process. Now, an excavation permit, I do believe, has to be approved by the Board of County Commissioners, but my understanding is that the Page 145 March 22, 2007 criteria is much more technical in nature. It is not the type of venue you have with the conditional use where the public can speak or, for that matter, the Planning Commission could deliberate on com -- issues such as compatibility. COMMISSIONER CARRON: Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, David, that brings in a -- I'll wait till you and Randy get done. MR. WEEKS: Just the -- the additional point that -- that we do not have the level of detail in the information that's submitted with a Growth Management Plan amendment as would be submitted for a conditional use. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And, David, what I was going to say is that based on what you just said, if this were to be recommended for approval for transmittal by either us or the BCC, you would want a lot more detail in this document than what's been presented here today in regards to what we've actually got in front of us. We've got a lot of verbalization from both sides, but the actual detail is not here. If it was recommended for denial by us but succeeded at the BCC level, you would still need that detail; is that correct? MR. WEEKS: That's correct. Both we would need more detailed information provided to us, and I believe we would need more detailed and specific conditions of approval to be adopted into the plan. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. WEEKS: Because, again, there's not that, so to speak, second bite at the apple through the conditional-use process. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. Would it be a better thing, regardless of how this board sees it right now, to have this go back to staff and be rescheduled for some time later in April when you've had time to put together the finite detail that would be needed in this Page 146 March 22, 2007 document in order to be considered appropriately in lieu of a conditional use regardless of whether or not it would be recommended by us or not? I'm -- I'm more concerned what happens at the next level up and as it marches down the path. Would that be beneficial? MR. WEEKS: Well, it -- it could be, but the staff perspective is we shouldn't be doing that. This is not the appropriate way to handle this. We have an established procedure for excavation, and that is that you must get a conditional use. The one exception, which Rich put on the record, is on the receiving lands in the North Belle Meade overlay. This is sending lands, and I would suggest that that's a very important distinction. But -- but our perspective is this is not appropriate. We should not be considering this level of detail through a Growth Management Plan amendment. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'm just trying to think of what the ultimate way is to make sure if this passes at any level it's better protected. And -- Margie? MS. STUDENT-STIRLING: I have an idea, but it may not -- it may take longer than a conditional use. And I think -- maybe create some kind of overlay district where you'd put regs in the Land Development Code. MR. WEEKS: No. MS. STUDENT-STIRLING: No. Okay. Just a thought. MR. WEEKS: Simply put, we see no compelling reason to treat this different than all other excavations, again, with that one exception of the receiving lands. It should go through the same process. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And, David, I understand your position. MR. WEEKS: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I have no problem with your position. My problem is the real world may end up with a different result, and if it goes through with a different result that is not kept in check with the language that may be as finite as needed it may be more problematic than less. I'm not saying it should. I'm just concerned that there's that Page 147 March 22, 2007 possibility, so that was the re -- that was the reasoning for my question. Any further questions of staff or anyone else that we -- Mr. Tuff. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Well, I'd be curious to hear what the petitioner thought of what you just said. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You need to use the mike when you do talk, Russ. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Should I say it again? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, I think everybody picked it up. MR. YOV ANOVICH: We certainly would be willing to do that, and -- and we would have been willing to do that if we'd have been asked to do that a long time ago. We believe we provided probably more detail than was provided for the North Belle Meade receiving areas. We've -- we've given the detail as to the -- exactly where the 400 acres is in relation to our environmental resource issues on our property. I think we've provided a whole lot of detail in our application. I think that's why the EAC was comfortable going to the permitted-use stage. If we need to address some additional issues between now and, hopefully, the second meeting in April because the first week is spring break -- but if we can do it -- the 18th, I think, is a regular meeting -- or whenever in April we would come back and address whatever -- whatever additional issues, and I would hope you would ask us -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well-- MR. YOV ANOVICH: -- what they were. So we'd be willing to do that, come back with the specificity, or certainly what I was going to propose is that we'd be required to do the same notice that's required for a conditional use. We'll do that before the adoption hearing. We don't have any problems with the notice. You know, we've been -- been engaging the neighborhoods throughout the entire process. We're certainly not afraid to provide notice. Page 148 March 22, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Miss Carron, then Mr. Schiffer, and then I have a comment. COMMISSIONER CARRON: Well, I just wanted to remind Mr. Y ovanovich and everyone else in this room that we are not talking about receiving lands. We are talking about sending lands. So he keeps bringing up the fact that -- that there are certain things he could do if it were receiving lands. Well, that's not what we're talking about. This is sending lands, not receiving lands. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer. MR. SCHIFFER: Yeah, I'll fold. I'm done. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I'm trying to think of what my-- what my questions center around, but I think Miss Carron was -- touched on it but not exactly. I'll come back to it. Go ahead, David. Did you have something else you wanted to add? MR. WEEKS: Just going back to our -- our line of discussion a few moments ago, the staffs position -- preference would be if we're going to go down the direction of -- of trying to -- down the direction of not requiring a conditional use and, therefore, getting to a greater level of specificity in the Growth Management Plan, I would suggest that we first wait and see what happens at the County Commission hearing for transmittal because to require the app -- request or require the applicant to submit additional data, for staff to spend additional time, and for this hearing body to spend additional time trying to craft those conditions for them to prepare additional information, et cetera, may be all for naught if it's -- if the board either chooses not to transmit as requested or chooses not to transmit at all. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Any other comments of staff or questions of anyone? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. With that is there a motion? Anyone considering a motion for this application? Mr. Midney. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I would like to move that we Page 149 March 22, 2007 suggest a denial of this petition. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You mean recommend? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Recommend denial. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think you can suggest, but it might be tarred. Okay. So your -- your -- your motion is to recommend denial. Is there a second to the recommendation for denial? COMMISSIONER CARRON: Second. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Seconded by Miss Carron. Okay. Discussion. Mr. Midney. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yeah, I think that large-scale mining doesn't belong in the sending lands. I remember when we were drafting these proposals we looked very carefully, and the main criteria on which was decided which lands are sending, which lands are receiving was their natural resource value. And so this was very carefully drafted when we went through this, and to have the petitioner try to go through and change that now seems to go against the whole intent of the rural fringe program, which is to try to map out large contiguous areas and not try to be making exceptions here and there. And I would just like to second what Brad Cornell said about the impact to wetlands. When I was on the Immokalee Water Sewer District Board, I also did research on transfer - evapo-transpiration and wetland recharge, and there is a big impact from having open water as opposed to natural cover in terms of loss of hydro periods, which was addressed by one of the experts, actually, for the petitioner that these wetlands are already becoming degraded. And I think that if we allow this -- these fill pits to go through we're just going to hasten the decline of those natural areas. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Anybody -- any comments? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I have a few, and mine are more based on the information that we did not receive. First of all, I think that the Page 150 March 22, 2007 lack of a hydrological study to show the effects of this lake and the depth of the lake on the surrounding properties is -- is a lot of -- is woefully missing from this analytical analysis that was presented to us. I think that the lime rock layer that I've seen there is not anything different than you find within most of the county except maybe a piece of it in the northeast corner. I do not see the reason why this couldn't go through the conditional-use process in lieu of a GME -- a GMP process, and I believe that part of the shortages that we're experiencing are self-created by the codes that we have. So for all those reasons I would support Mr. Midney's motion. Are there any other comments? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, I'll ask that we signifY by raising our hands and saying "aye." All those in favor of supporting the motion to recommend not to transmit, please signifY by raising your hand. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: (Raised hand.) COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: (Raised hand.) COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: (Raised hand.) COMMISSIONER CARRON: (Raised hand.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: (Raised hand.) COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: (Raised hand.) COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: (Raised hand.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: All those opposed to the motion please raise your hand. COMMISSIONER TUFF: (Raised hand.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Motion carries 7 to 1 for a recommendation of denial of the transmittal. And with that we'll move on to the next order of business today, and I think before we do this we'll take a pause for four minutes while everybody clears the room that is involved in this one before we go on Page 151 March 22, 2007 to the next one, so -- (Recess held.) (Mr. Schiffer left the room.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Let's get back in business. We have two items left that we could discuss today . We won't get through them both more likely, but we have Petition 14, which is the -- a multitude of changes, 96 different properties that have been suggested to go from sending to neutral or receiving. We have No. 15, which is a presentation or an amendment requested by the transportation department for -- to initiate traffic corridors. Now, we're here to serve the public, and I want to make sure that if -- the number of public here for either item is the one that is served, so by raise of hands how many members of the public are here for No. 14, the one involving the 96 properties? One, two, three. Okay. And how many members of the public are here for the transportation one? One. Okay. Just so nobody's waiting for something that we won't get to today, we're going to do No. 14 right now, and I don't think we're going to have enough time to start the transportation one and finish it today. Has anybody in this planning board got any different thoughts on that? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Staff, do you see the -- 14 taking the rest of the after -- we're going to have to quit at 4:30. Do you think we'll be able to fit both of them in between now and 4:30? MR. WEEKS: Commissioners, I think 14 is going to go very fast. It really depends on -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. WEEKS: -- questions of the board. CPSP-2005-14 Page 152 March 22, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Then we'll try to knock them both out. So let's go on to No. 14. It's CPSP-2005-14. It's for changes to the future land use map involving 96 properties that had been requested to go from sending to either neutral or receiving lands. Mr. Weeks. Oh, those wishing to testifY on behalf of this petition please rise and be sworn in by the court reporter. (Prospective witnesses were duly sworn.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, David. MR. WEEKS: Commissioners, I think I need to start with a little bit of background first, and I'll be as brief as the staff report was on this matter. As you may recall during the adoption hearings for the rural fringe mixed-use district back in 2002, we had a lot of members of the public show up at those hearings objecting to the at that time proposed, now adopted sending land designations on their property specifically asserting that their property had been cleared or otherwise did not warrant a sending lands designation. Ultimately what the County Commissioners did was carved out a specific provision in the future land use element within the sending lands to give a one-year window but -- for property owners of sending lands to submit environmental data to back up their -- what they were saying, to -- to demonstrate that, in fact, their property did not warrant the sending land designation, but it was limited only to those properties designated sending that were abutting either receiving or neutral as opposed to applying to all properties because of the concern for that Swiss cheese concept where you have holes throughout the sending lands, little pockets of -- of neutral or receiving. So it's limited to these bordering properties only. And the County Commissioners through a public hearing -- excuse me -- a public petition item back in, I believe it was, 2005 directed staff to look at these properties in the following manner: If there were multiple properties, individual tax parcels under the same ownership, they would be -- were to be viewed as a single property for Page 153 March 22, 2007 the purpose of determining if the property abuts sending or receiving. And if you looked at the map -- the maps that were provided to you, you could see how there were clusters of properties in some cases, so certainly some of those properties were what we call stacked. The individual parcel did not abut the sending or receiving -- excuse me -- receiving or neutral boundary, but because of the aggregation the property as a whole did. On page 2 of the staff report is the very specific language that came from the future land use element, but -- but the short of it is that there's two simple requirements: one, the property must abut receiving or neutral and, secondly, specific environmental data must be submitted to the county to demonstrate that the sending lands was -- designation was not warranted. But it also says that data that the county might obtain could also be used. Staff has taken this approach. We have reviewed the data submitted by each individual property owner, but we've also re-evaluated the data that we used in June of2002 to determine what land should be designated as sending, and our conclusion is that the vast majority of these properties do not warrant a change; that is, the applicant has failed to provide conclusive evidence that their property does not warrant a sending lands designation. As I note in the staff report, there is, actually, now only one property, and that's the Hussey property that we just discussed, that is also included within this batch petition in addition to their own private sector amendment. And, obviously, only one or the other could be approved, so ultimately if -- if the other petition is approved, No. 12, then this could not be or vice versa. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, David, are you saying, then, that the portion of the document -- the No. 14 that pertains to Map Properties 25 through 31 is not part of -- now part of this discussion? MR. WEEKS: No, sir, it still is because the outcome of that petition we don't know yet, so both -- the same property's being Page 154 March 22, 2007 considered under two separate petitions -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. WEEKS: -- up and until the point of adoption. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So we have to go through the same process we just went through, and that's why I was thinking we weren't going to get through this, this afternoon. MR. WEEKS: Yes, sir. But at least as far as the EAC presentations went it went pretty quick and pretty brief and especially now because you've heard so much from the specific private sector petition, which the EAC did not hear, perhaps there would not be a need for much of any presentation from the applicant for that property. Specifically, in -- in the back of your -- right behind your staff report is a spreadsheet that identifies these properties, and let me -- there's a few different numbers in the staff report. There's a reference to 90 properties, to 96 properties, so it's been a moving target in the sense that we started out with 96. Then we realized that we had missed a couple of properties that had been submitted but we did not include the legal description, and then 6 were withdrawn, so we're actually talking about 90 properties. When you look at that spreadsheet, you'll see a few that have been struck through. There's cross -- strike-through through the text through all of the -- the cells of that individual property. That shows that it's been withdrawn. So, again, there's a total of90 properties under consideration. Staff is recommending approval of not 16 but 17 of those properties, and the total area designated sending is roughly 290 acres that we are recommending be changed from sending to either receiving or neutral. And as noted in the staff report the EAC met on both February 7th and March 7th, and the reason for meeting on March 7th was to -- they wanted to make a site visit on two particular properties. It's Map Properties 1 and 2, the very first two on your spreadsheet. There's been no change to Parcell. Staffs recommendation was Page 155 March 22, 2007 and still is that it be changed to receiving, and the EAC agreed with that recommendation. The change occurs to Parcel 2. Staffs original recommendation was not to change the designation; that is, to leave it as sending. Our recommendation now is a bit of a mixed bag; that is, to change a portion of the property to receiving and then have a portion stay as sending. If you'll look in your tab behind the staff report, there's the tab labeled CPSP-2005-14 FLUM, and immediately behind that tab is a letter with the heading -- header of Talon Management, and it's a-- and in the upper right-hand corner it states Map Property No.1 and 2. If you'll flip that over to a map, an aerial map, it identifies Map Properties No. 1 and No.2. Map Property No.2 is the triangle piece. You can see it's labeled "area in question." There's a -- a parcel towards the top of the page, a rectangular, and then there's this triangle piece towards the bottom that's abutting U.S. 41. Staffs recommendation, which was also endorsed by EAC, is to change the land use designation from sending to receiving from that-- of that portion of the triangle where you can see a road on the aerial to the north and then for that portion south of that road to remain as sending lands. So, in summary, the EAC has endorsed the recommendation of staff, which, again, is to change 17 of the properties which are identified on your spreadsheet with the exception of this change to No. 2, and, again, that totals roughly 290 acres. And with that I'm through, Mr. Chairman. I know there are some speakers. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Any questions of staff before we go into speakers? Miss Carron. COMMISSIONER CARRON: Yeah, just -- and -- and the triangle down there is going to remain sending; correct? All right. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, from there (indicating) down it is. Page 156 March 22, 2007 COMMISSIONER CARRON: Oh, all right. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: From there up it'll be receiving, and those stay. Those go (indicating). The receiving areas where the -- the north piece is next to the receiving area, they're going to be changed. That's Parcell; right? MR. WEEKS: That's correct. COMMISSIONER CARRON: And you've approved that for change? MR. WEEKS: That's correct. All of Parcel 1, the rectangle piece. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. How many speakers do we have? MR. SCHMIDT: There are three. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Would you call the first speaker. MR. SCHMIDT: Nancy Payton followed by John Vega. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Nancy, that's the first time I've seen you the first on the list for a speaker for a while. MS. PAYTON: Right. It's like the good 'ole days when they always called me first. So I had my five minutes that was only three minutes. I generally support staffs recommendation. I -- I only am seeking clarification on an issue and have a question on one of the applications. One -- the first issue for me is that a number of these petitions were submitted by Don Lester without documentation from the landowner that he truly was acting on their agent -- as -- as their agent, and so I'm raising questions about those. And I think there's only one that was recommended approval or transmittal. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, actually, there were, I think, two -- three. MS. PAYTON: Two -- three. Okay. Well, I'll raise the issue on all three. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Four -- five. Page 157 March 22, 2007 MS. PAYTON: And the issue is that he did this without the property owners' approval. Nothing was submitted within that one-year time frame that I understand the landowners had to submit this petition, and now years later those landowners -- some of them are coming back and say, "Oh, I didn't know at the time, but, yeah, count me in," and I think that seems unfair because they got two bites at the apple. They didn't make it first year on their own initiative and then find out that somebody did it for them unauthorized, and now they're saying, "Yeah, that was legitimate" or, "Yeah, we want to be included." So I'm raising that question about some of those that were approved for transmittal, and the one that truly concerns me -- did I make myself clear on that? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No. What I wanted to -- I'd rather -- let's get this fixed first or found out about first -- MS. PAYTON: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- because it might be just an easy answer. And what I'm looking at is the approvals on the spreadsheet provided by staff. And Parcels 43, 56, 61, 70, and 79 all have the agent/applicant as Lester, and all of them are being recommended for -- with a yes. And I guess those are the ones that we're seeking an explanation as to how that could be ifhe -- ifhe -- ifhe can't seek -- if he didn't submit proper paperwork, why are any of them being considered? MR. WEEKS: The shortest answer is staff goofed. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Goofed at what? MR. WEEKS: Goofed in the sense that we did not catch the fact that we did not have the letter of authorization for all of these properties that were submitted. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So-- MR. WEEKS: We caught it so late in the process; that is, as we were preparing for these public hearings, that what we chose to do is Page 158 March 22, 2007 let's go ahead forward with these rather than -- we don't want to hold this up any further, so let's go ahead at least through transmittal. Staff will contact those landowners. We've already attempted to contact Mr. Lester, and we've had no response -- but contact the individual landowners to ask them if they have given him permission to act on their behalf, and if their response is no, then presumably staff is going to say, well, this is -- should not be -- even be considered, and we'll withdraw it. So when you get to adoption you may have a smaller list. Ifwe had time, Commissioners -- and we should have. Again, staff goofed. Ifwe -- if we would have caught this sooner, we would have gone through this process, and this would not be an issue for discussion today. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: In a -- in a different approach, might you not -- just not recommend any of those as approval because they didn't meet the criteria and then if you find out later then put them through? We're -- we're going in a reverse of what -- you're giving the benefit of the doubt to begin with. I'm just wondering why. MR. WEEKS: Well, here's the -- here's the issue. Ifwe were to not recommend them because we don't have the authorization and if the board were to choose not to transmit them, they don't get another chance. If they're -- if the petition is not transmitted or some portion of it is not transmitted, that's -- that's a denial. It's done. It's only if it's transmitted does it come back to the Planning Commission board for a second review and -- and final adoption. So if we eliminate those properties now then there's not that chance to go back and put them in at adoption. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If someone is -- do you -- do we have rules that require authorization to submit these requests? MR. WEEKS: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. We have building permits. This is a whole other subject, but it kind of matches up. We have building permits that has a stamp on it, basically, that says if staff makes a Page 159 March 22, 2007 mistake it's still the applicant's problem to make sure it's done right. Well, it sounds like an applicant made a mistake. Staff made a mistake by accepting it. Now staffs going to stand by their mistake while they check out to see if the applicant was doing right or wrong? MR. WEEKS: Well, here's the unusual circumstance. This-- this specific provision that was set forth in the future land use development only requires the property owner to submit environmental data as opposed to a complete application like the others you discussed today and in the future and the past; that is, there's not a private-sector submittal of a full petition with a signature page and -- and who the owner is and -- and et cetera. They simply had to submit environmental data to us. That's the unusual nature of this. Still there's a requirement to have authorization, but it was not clearly stated to -- to these petitioners. Again, I will point back to staff that -- that it's our fault. This is an unusual and unique process, and we simply failed to adequately notifY these -- these owners that -- that in addition to environmental data we're also going to need you to submit a letter of authorization if some body's going to be here on your behalf. And -- and we failed to do that, and we caught that mistake too late in the process to -- to require and still be able to get to you today. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So these -- but these people not having supplied an authorization to Mr. Lester, presumably, never thought they had the right to begin with, so what are -- what are you -- what are you -- what are you not giving them that they thought they had? MR. WEEKS: Well, we don't know that they -- we don't know as a factual matter whether they did or did not give Mr. Lester the authorization. We just simply don't have any proof of that, but we don't have proof that they didn't give him authorization either. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well-- so I could come in and just tell you I want to rezone all these properties to receiving, and you'd start off by accepting that and not ask for authorization until what point? Page 160 March 22, 2007 MR. WEEKS: Well, see, in the normal process, you would have to submit an application. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. MR. WEEKS: There would have to be a letter of authorization and so forth, so there would be a -- the -- the normal process we would catch that, but the unique nature of this process it -- we missed it. We missed it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: When were these applications submitted to you, the ones in question? Do you know? MR. WEEKS: When? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah, how long ago? MR. WEEKS: 2003,2004 time period. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So since 2003, 2004 we haven't had enough time to ask those property owners if they were represented by Mr. Lester when they submitted that stuff. MR. WEEKS: I know it sounds bad, but we didn't even -- we only dealt with those for the initial review of staff a determination, an initial, I'll call it, draft review of -- of an initial determination would staff support or not support. And we notified the property owner or -- or agent at that time, and then after that these have been sitting in a box waiting to -- to be able to come to hearing similar to these others that we're talking about, these 2005 private-sector petitions that got caught up in that circumstance where they could not be adopted until the EAR-based amendments were adopted, so they've just been sitting on hold. We've just simply been dealing with other priorities and -- and not those. That's what I mean by, okay, we pulled them out of the box. We're getting close to hearing. Oh, my gosh, we don't have authorizations for many of these. And it's not just Mr. Lester. There were some others as well. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: How long ago did you discover the error? Page 161 March 22, 2007 MR. WEEKS: I'd say probably about two months ago. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And you haven't -- I mean, the five that you're recommending the change for, those haven't been con -- or attempted to be contacted? MR. WEEKS: Not the individual owners, no. Our approach was going to be to notifY all of them. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Tell you what, you're a lot kinder than the Corps of Engineers or the DEP would be in such circumstances. But, anyway, we'll -- we'll go on. MS. PAYTON: Okay. Then I -- I have a second question that if all the environmental data -- data was within the proper deadline, are you -- are you telling me some of these applicants that have been approved have submitted environmental data supporting the re- designation recently? MR. WEEKS: No, they were all within that one-year window. MS. PAYTON: Then I'll go on to my -- my third issue has to do with the Hideout Golf Course and your -- your support of them designating sending lands to neutral lands. And I think it's in Section 23. And, one, I question whether a golf course needs to have their density returned to them. And this is a golf course that was approved under the old comprehensive plan when it was, say, a grid system. It was one unit on five acres so that you had -- it was like this (indicating). And you had a house here, a house here, and a house here. If you did a golf course over it, you lost the house because you didn't have the five acres. So what I see happening here is that we're restoring density to a golf course that lost it and knew they were losing it years ago when they did their comprehensive plan -- or when they did their -- their golf course. So I don't like the idea that this is being exploited to restore density or to re-create density on land that lost it years ago under a comprehensive plan that they knew they lost it, so that's my Page 162 March 22, 2007 objection to the Section 23 golf course getting their density restored. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And that is -- that one piece ofland is 85 acres. It's many, many times the addition of the total of all the other four pieces that we recommended approval for. Did you believe or do you believe that Lester represents Hideout Golf Club? MR. WEEKS: Commissioner, we simply -- simply don't know. I mean, it seems suspect in the sense that we know that in the past when they came in with the conditional use -- I know it was not Mr. Lester. I don't know who it was. But we -- we simply don't know. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. WEEKS: And absent that knowledge we think it's inappropriate to throw the property out of the process. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Thank you, Miss Payton. MS. PAYTON: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Next speaker, please. Or do you have any questions anybody? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Next speaker. MR. SCHMIDT: John Vega followed by Rich Y ovanovich. MR. VEGA: Good afternoon. I have a little bit of information about Don Lester. If it wouldn't count against my five minutes, I'd be happy to share it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, go ahead. MR. VEGA: I was counsel on the administrative appeal when Mr. Lester was represented by an attorney named James Mattson. He's still practicing. I believe he's in either Key Largo or Key West. They were very thorough on the property owners to send them all out index cards. They were green or blue like you would get if you have agricultural land. And Mr. Mattson would inspect them and only submitted petitions on those where he got back a signed index card where the property owner agreed to let Mr. Lester do it. Given that there were Page 163 March 22, 2007 hundreds, if not thousands, of properties I'm not denying that there were mistake -- that there may not have been mistakes made, but Mr. Mattson was pretty careful and probably would have the records as to whether or not Mr. Lester had the authority to bring these petitions. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. MR. VEGA: I represent Dr. Francis Hussey and Mary Pat Hussey in connection with the proposed re-designation of about 950 acres in the North Belle Meade known as the Triple H Ranch. It's somewhat ironic that I come up at this time. I filed my petition for re - re-designation in 2004, well before the Growth Management Plan amendment which we've spent the last 2 1/2 hours on. I don't pretend to think that I will persuade you to change this to a receiving land having rejected the Growth Management Plan amendment, but I would like to walk through the background. Dr. and Mrs. Hussey have owned this land since 1979. It has been designated agricultural since that time. It has always been zoned for one unit per five acres. Earth mining, golf courses, gated developments have always been conditional uses. The land has been harvested for timber probably 40 or 50 years ago. It's been continually ranched since the late '80s. There is a ranching lease on file with the county. There is an agricultural exemption designation with the county that's been in place at this point for almost 20 years. The -- at the time that the rural fringe amendments were adopted, I appeared before you-all objecting to the designation of the Hussey ranch as sending. I see some familiar faces from back then and a few new ones. And I was told that I'd need to come back and today would be my day. The issues to me were that at the time the overriding, in my opinion -- and this was somewhat borne out by the testimony at the administrative appeal -- consideration in designating sending and receiving especially in this area was the presence of wetlands and Page 164 March 22, 2007 native vegetation. I mean, that really was -- was the fulcrum. And the problem was that it failed to consider the natural resources which might be present on the site. And Administrative Rule 9J5 compels the county to consider the presence of natural resources in making its determinations. Now, that's 9J5.013-2C2. And I attached to my petition the soil borings which we've already walked through earlier today. I also included in my petition, which as you can see is -- I tried to be as thorough as I could, the -- addressing the issue of are the wetlands on the Triple H Ranch similar to other sending lands. There is a lot of discussion as mining is not appropriate in sending land, and my answer keeps coming back to why. Well, if the why is because there's a lot of wetlands or they're environmentally sensitive, then that's a good answer, but we first need to look at are they environmentally sensitive and is the presence of wetlands the same as what staff indicated. And what I submitted to you-all, and I guess at this point, 2 1/2 years ago was that there's something called a relict wetland, with a T at the end. This is under the Florida Wetland Delineation Manual which is mandatory for the computation of wetlands throughout the state of Florida. No state or local agency can deny it. And if you have altered the soil through drainage it's not enough just to look at an aerial. You actually have to examine the hydrology of the site. There needs to be groundwater within a certain distance of the surface. How close to the surface depends upon the type of soil that needs to be there a certain number of days in a row. Areas with soil that exhibit hydric soil indicators yet clearly fail the numeric criteria under the terms prescribed in the rule relict hydric soils. There has never been a consideration that the Triple H Ranch and the wetlands that are thrown about are, in fact, relict hydric soils. You heard testimony from Mr. Brown Collins earlier that these wetlands are significantly degraded. Page 165 March 22, 2007 In 2004 and, also, 2005 when the "re" sort-of submittal took place, I submitted two years' worth of the well-monitoring data from Brown Collins that show that there was never a period in any of these wells where the water got close enough to the surface to be considered a functioning wetland. What has happened through the Golden Gate canal and the 951 canal and the 1-75 canal and the Wilson canal is North Belle Meade is now an island. And the Hussey lands butt up against the 1-75 canal at the south, and it keeps draining the lands. You see palm -- you see cypress trees falling in on each other. You see the land gradually transitioning from wetland to upland, but the exotics are moving in faster than the upland vegetation can take root. And I also included an analysis from Breed, Love & Dennis, which was an engineering firm out of Orlando. They used infrared aerials, the same type of infrared aerials used by the county, but they used the ones that were five years more current. As well, they used the low-level aerials that the county property appraiser prepares, and those were within one year of current. So instead of using data that was I 1 years old they used data that was 5 years old and I year old, and they came to the conclusion that the percentage of wetlands on the Triple H Ranch is actually less than the average of wetlands of receiving lands in the North Belle Meade, and that's in my correspondence. Now, I'm not about to deny that these lands have environmental significance. As I learned from Mr. Cornell early on, the beauty of Collier County is that every piece of land has environmental significance, and I really can't tell you a way to weigh any type of value against another. My heart tells me that the National Panther Wildlife Refuge is probably a better panther habitat than this and that the real crux is the red cockaded woodpecker habitat. But even as a -- as receiving lands you have a native-vegetation retention requirement of 20 percent, which is over 200 acres, and the Page 166 March 22, 2007 Red Cockaded Woodpecker Management Plan indicates, although we volunteered more than that earlier today, that 200 acres is sufficient. The final point I'd like to make is that the proposed Wilson Boulevard extension, which is mandatory under the rural fringe amendment, is going to sever this land from the rest of the sending lands in the North Belle Meade. This is the only major sending parcel that is not a NRP A designation in North Belle Meade, and it is going to be isolated from the NRP A lands by the Wilson Boulevard extension. It is going to butt up against receiving lands on its eastern boundary on the north half. It has farmland directly to the north, and while it technically has sending lands to the west, as Mr. Bonness indicated, they're already full of roads and five-acre parcels and homes. This is going to end up an island, and as an island which does not have the wetlands it was represented to the board that it did which does have a lot of limestone and that its environmental considerations can certainly be borne in mind and it would be easier for the landowner to address those environmental considerations if it had the revenue from the use of the property, that a re-designation from sending to receiving is appropriate. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, sir. Any questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Thank you. Next public speaker. MR. SCHMIDT: Rich Y ovanovich followed by Andrew Woodruff. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Actually, I was here to support the re- designation of the American Farms property, and Andy Woodruff is our expert on the Symphony properties and will be getting into the details as to why we believe the staff recommendation that it stay sending is not appropriate under the circumstances, and with that I will turn it over to Mr. Woodruff. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What properties are you -- do you know Page 167 March 22, 2007 the property numbers, Richard? MR. YOV ANOVICH: I'm sorry. I was -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The American Farms starts on 36, I thought, and went to 96. There's two that were denied, 97 and 98. MR. YOV ANOVICH: The -- the cleared ones we're -- we're comfortable with, which are the ones that have been approved, obviously. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. So the only two you're disputing are 97 and 98; is that correct? MR. YOV ANOVICH: I don't have a 97 and a 98. MR. WEEKS: Do you have page 3 of the spreadsheet? MR. YOV ANOVICH: Oh, I'm sorry. I went -- I went on the map number page. I still don't see it. I'm sorry. Am I looking at the same thing? I'm looking at the spreadsheet. Yeah, this is what -- I'm sorry. I have a different numbering system. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We have a -- towards the back of our packet for the Planning Commission there's a section titled "American Farms" in the right-hand corner. It says map properties 36 to 41,95 to 98. MR. YOV ANOVICH: No. No. No. No, I'm sorry, Mr. Strain. We're -- we're only here to oppose the determination on the Symphony property -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. YOV ANOVICH: -- which is -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's what I was getting at. Where-- where is it that you're -- we need to get focused on the right one. Sympathy (sic) property? MR. YOV ANOVICH: Starting on the -- well, it's my page I, and it's Map Nos. 3 through 10. It was formerly known as the Bill Clark property. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Are we -- are we on the same-- Page 168 March 22, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Now, I -- it's in the beginning of our packet, that's correct. It starts out with a letter from Goodlette, Coleman & Johnson. Okay. I think we're all -- we're on the same -- MR. YOV ANOVICH: Was that how -- I don't know what they gave you, so -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I know. This is why we wanted to make sure we're all on the same page as you. MR. WOODRUFF: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. WOODRUFF: Andy Woodruff, for the record, with Passarella & Associates representing Symphony. And, again, as Rich indicated, we are dealing with Property Nos. 3 through 10. And Passarella had done the initial environmental assessment that was given to staff sometime back. That initial assessment was done based on studies in 2002. Based on that initial study, we had documented that a majority of the property was, in fact, drained wetland habitat that used to historically support a pervacious (phonetic) and somewhat partially forested wetland that was drained as a result of the Golden Gate canals in the region. COMMISSIONER CARRON: Excuse me. I can't hear you, so MR. WOODRUFF: Is that better? COMMISSIONER CARRON: Yeah. MR. WOODRUFF: Okay. Sorry. So we had documented as a part of the initial environmental assessment done in 2002 that the majority of the property was drained wetland habitat. We had also documented some upland habitat that was left on the property. We did not have any observed evidence -- direct evidence of utilization by listed species with the exception of some gopher scat that was observed in some of the upland habitats on the property, but no burrows were ever found as a part of that survey. Page 169 March 22, 2007 There are no known red cockaded woodpecker cavities on this particular piece of property, no panther telemetry points that were documented as a part of that study. I will say that since that time there have been several of the parcels on that project site that have been since cleared, and I can give you those numbers. It represents about 45 acres out of the 80 acres that have since been cleared on that piece of property. And those parcels are -- on your map numbers, they're Nos. 4, 6, 7, and 9, and based on the evidence of clearing, I don't see any existing native habitats left on those particular pieces of property. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: David, if these are recommended for sending, how did they get cleared? 4,6, 7, and 9 they're leaving un- cleared. Did they get a clearing permit? And is a percentage of the property that should have been cleared versus all of it, or how is that -- do you know? MR. WEEKS: I can't speak specifically whether they have -- whether they obtained a clearing permit or not. I would assume they did. But how they could have is because agricultural uses consistent with the Right to Farm Act are still allowed on sending lands, so the ability to clear does still exist despite the sending land designation. Real quickly, you might recall during the rural fringe amendments our legal counsel had advised us don't completely eliminate the ag uses. As long as they're consistent with the Right to Farm Act, they're okay, and so we left that. Secondly -- I really want to suppress this point -- the idea of whether or not the property warrants a sending land designation or not is as of June 20 -- 19th, 2002, the day the rural fringe amendments were adopted. It makes absolutely no sense to say, "We'll give you a one-year window in which to submit environmental data that shows your property does not warrant designation. And, by the way, it's okay if you go out and clear the property during that one-year window and then come in and show us this great clean piece of property." Page 170 March 22, 2007 It has to be as ofthe date that the amendments were adopted. Those were the assertions people were making at the hearing process. They weren't talking about the future. They're talking about right now my property does not warrant sending designation. So if any of these properties have been cleared since that time I'm -- I'm telling you don't let that sway your decision. It's not appropriate. It's not what the intent of the regulations were. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Were these properties cleared since that time? MR. WOODRUFF: I don't know the date of the clearing. I do know that the date of our initial studies predated the June 2002 deadline that David speaks about, so it was sometime after the studies that we'd initially conducted in the spring of2002. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So when you did your studies it was not cleared. MR. WOODRUFF: That's correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Thank you. Any other questions of this gentleman? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please. MR. SCHMIDT: Mr. Bob Mulhere, last speaker. MR. MULHERE: Good afternoon. I'll, I hope, be very, very brief. Bob Mulhere representing Gargiulo Land Trust. I think there are two parcels. I think the numbers on your spreadsheet are 91 and 92. Staff is recommending approval. Those lands were -- were cleared and utilized for agricultural purposes, and they were cleared prior to the amendment being adopted. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are you objecting to the-- MR. MULHERE: No. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- staffs recommendation? MR. MULHERE: No. No. No. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Page 171 March 22, 2007 MR. MULHERE I'mjust here if you have any questions. But I do want to clarifY one thing. On the spreadsheets it indicates that there was 300 and some odd acres. The actual acreage is about 14 acres. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I didn't have any questions, but since you felt you had to defend it I think maybe we should find some. MR. MULHERE: That doesn't sound fair to me. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Does anybody else have any questions? MR. MULHERE: You know, when you're getting paid to be here, once in a while you've got to get up and make sure the client knows that you were here. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I think we -- is there any other public speakers? MR. WEEKS: No, sir, there are not. MR. SCHMIDT: No. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Any questions from the commission? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is there a motion for consideration of this particular request? Okay. Does anybody, like, want to make a motion to recommend transmittal to the Board of County Commissioners possibly excepting out the ones that are represented by -- or that are shown to be under the Mr. Lester question? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I'll make that recommendation. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You'll make that recommendation. COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: I'll second it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: There's a motion made by Mr. Vigliotti seconded by Commissioner Adelstein. The commis -- if I'm not mistaken, the motion is to recommend transmittal as staffs produced it with the exception of those parcels that were approved with the submissions made by Don Lester because they were incomplete submissions as submitted by staff. Is that a fair assessment of the Page 172 March 22, 2007 motion, Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And Mr. Adelstein? COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Now, Mr. Tuff. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Ifwe leave those in -- out and let's say they were legit -- and he said then they're all done; it doesn't matter. So would that be a fair position to put those folks in? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I think that if they were legit then they would have submitted the proper paperwork required by the rules put in place in which to be reviewed. Just like any other agency, if you -- if you're not legit, you don't get reviewed and -- COMMISSIONER TUFF: But I didn't hear him say that as competently as I -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I -- were the -- were the -- was there a requirement stated by the Board of County Commissioners in extending this one-year time frame in which to challenge the sending to other designation? Was the requirement to supply staff with the right to know that the person supplying that information was representing the property owner? MR. WEEKS: It was -- it was not adopted in the plan. I don't even recall it being discussed, period. I'll -- staff simply looks at it from the perspective of -- of no one has the right to initiate a change in their designation or zoning other than the landowner or their authorized agent. That's just a given legal principle. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Any discussion on it? I mean, I just don't see that it -- Russ, do you have -- I mean, why don't you -- do you have anything -- strong feelings? COMMISSIONER TUFF: Well, it may seem like we're grasping at it, but it seems like -- let's say they really did want him to and they wanted to be there and we're taking them out, and then he's -- he gets it done and he said, "I wanted that," and you guys just took it away Page 173 March 22, 2007 forever. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, you know, the other part of the -- the problem is you're looking at -- like, the Hideaway Golf Club, 85 acres put in by a man that may not be representing them because there's been no documentation. That transmits into a lot of density for a club that was established under rules prior to the time in which the rural fringe provided that kind of density. So why are they getting something for nothing is what I'm wondering if they even -- if it should be in place in the first place, that was my thought. Richard, do you want to contribute a comment? MR. YOV ANOVICH: Yeah, I do for a couple of -- a couple of different points. This process has been a different process. And I -- I represent -- I now represent Hideout Golf Course. At the time I did not. We -- we accept what Mr. Lester does -- did, and I've written a new letter saying I'm now the authorized agent. I assumed, since I clarified it with staff, we were okay, so I didn't speak on the issue. I didn't see a need to speak on the issue. Now, I wrote letters on behalf of others submitting the documentation. Now, I wasn't questioned -- and I hope I wouldn't be questioned because I wouldn't submit something without authorization. So, I mean, there's no formal form to fill out in this -- this -- this process. It's different. It's unique. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are you an -- you are an attorney. We know that. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You come under regulations of the bar. We know that. Are there certain elements that you have a right -- you have more flexibility in in regards to your -- the way you operate in the public than people who are not members of the bar; is that a true statement? MR. YOV ANOVICH: I -- well, I have ethical standards that I have to meet that -- Page 174 March 22, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. Is Mr. Lester an attorney? MR. YOV ANOVICH: I don't know -- I don't know Mr. Lester's personal background from -- other than when -- other than when I got to see him at the administrative hearing. I don't know anything about him. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is he -- is he here today? Does anybody know? MR. YOV ANOVICH: I'm pretty sure he's not here today. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. YOV ANOVICH: But what I'm suggesting to you is I did provide information saying we're -- we're -- we were comfortable with Mr. Lester's position and now change him over to Rich Y ovanovich. So I would hope that -- and that's why I didn't get up and speak on that particular petition because I didn't think I needed to. And I just got up because I think that's exactly what Mr. Tuff is getting at. There may be others in my situation that have property owners that were comfortable with what Mr. Lester did, and that's all I've got to say. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Thank you. Mr. Vigliotti. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: That changes it for me. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, that's fine, and that's why -- that's why the discussion occurred. If it changes it for you, you need to withdraw your motion, and so does Mr. Adelstein, and we need to make a new motion. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes what? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I'm making a new motion. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Do you want to withdraw your first motion? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I want to withdraw the motion. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Does the -- does the second agree to withdraw the first? COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Yes. Page 175 March 22, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Now, I want to include the other. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Could you now restate the motion? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I'd like to make a recommendation for approval and include the ones in question. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: That's it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Recommendation to transmit as presented by staff then. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Any second to that? Mr. Adelstein? COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Any further discussion? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yeah, I -- does that mean that we're going back and granting this density to the golf course? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes. Yes. And for that reason I will be voting no on this motion. Okay. So with that all those in favor of supporting the motion as recommended -- or as suggested; that is, in support of transmittal of staff as presented today, signifY by raising your hand. Oh, I'm going to say no. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: (Raised hand.) COMMISSIONER TUFF: (Raised hand.) COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: (Raised hand.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Do you want to -- so three. Three vote for it, four against it. So now let's go back for another motion. Mr. Midney, do you want to make a motion? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: No. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I'll make a motion. I'm recommending denial of transmittal -- or recommending approval of Page 176 March 22, 2007 transmittal for -- with the exception of those five parcels that have -- are being represented -- or being shown to be represented by Mr. Lester but that are in question. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I'll second that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Motion made and seconded. Is there any discussion of this particular motion? All those in favor signifY by saying "aye." COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Aye. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARRON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. Who's opposed? COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye. COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: (Raised hand.) COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: (Raised hand.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Motion carries four to three as complicatedly stated. Okay. We have been at it for an hour and a half. Mr. Lindsey-- Mr. Adelstein is leaving. We have about another hour to go. We'll take a five-minute break before we resume. We'll come back here at -- what is it? -- 3 :40. (Recess held.) (Mr. Adelstein left the room.) . CPSP-2005-15 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. We can resume our meeting. This time we're on the last petition of our day and the last petition of our list; however, we still will be in need next week. The petition is CPSP-2005-15, and it's a petition that establishes the right to produce that transport corridor map and the transportation element of the Growth Management Plan. And this petition is being presented by our Page 177 March 22, 2007 own transportation department. Nick. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Thank you. Thank you, Commissioners. For the record, Nick -- COMMISSIONER CARRON: Go slow. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Nick Casalanguida. Give you a little introduction as to why and where this came about. About a year ago we tried to do a new alignment setback in the estates because we had identified a roadway and realized that there was no mechanism to stop people from building homes so close to roadways, and so we were going to try and do an increased setback and do it like a corridor preservation area, and we realized that we were getting the cart ahead of the horse. In order to do that, you had to have something in the GMP that authorized that -- that or recommended that. And from recommendations -- you've been working with David, and he pointed out certain things, that in the process you need to follow. We did a little bit of research what other counties were doing. We looked at Center for Urban Transportation research, Florida Statutes, and things like that, and these practices are recommended. Pasco County itself has a corridor preservation map and ordinance inside there as well too. What it's really telling us -- or what it -- what it -- what it recommends that we do is once we identify a corridor we need to protect that corridor. This isn't the how we do it. This is what it wants us to do. So I -- last night we met with the civic association, and they were concerned that this was the how. This is the -- you know, we're not going to get into that as -- until the ordinance part of it. So the intent of this is to layout a corridor once it's been adopted and it's referenced in the long range transportation plan using that map. For instance, our first, probably, road we'll bring forward is Golden Gate Boulevard. It's at 30 to 60 percent design right now. Once we have those design plans and we know where the new right-of-way is going to be, we'll bring that map forward to the Board Page 178 March 22, 2007 of County Commissioners not as a roadway project design but a corridor preservation map so that any new houses that come on board would have to set back from the new right-of-way line. Anybody applying for a permit would do that -- would know that. Existing homes would have to be covered by that. If someone has a home that's 30 feet off the new right-of-way and they want to put an addition or a garage, when we do the ordinance we're going to have to accommodate that. We don't want to restrict that existing homeowner from being able to put an addition on. That's not in there, but that's the gist of what we're going to do as part of the ordinance. What this policy says is that within a year we're going to come back with an ordinance that defines how to do that, that any map we bring forward will have to be adopted by the board with detail, and using that map will increase the setbacks based on that map, similar to an overlay. What that does for a future homeowner is when they're going to build a home -- one of the biggest complaints we had was, "Why didn't someone tell me this was going to be a six-lane road when I sited my house? And why -- and now I'm 25 feet off the new six-lane road." Well, when there's an overlay now with an increased setback, you will go for a building permit, and through the process you will be told to set back even farther. Now, as part of the ordinance, we're going to have to make accommodations. It's not going to be perfect. There are going to be times where the overlay may be a total take with the overlay. So there are provisions even through the Florida Statutes as I've read, if you're not willing to buy that property at that time, you can't stop him from building on it either, but at least he's been notified that's going to happen. We'll include that in the ordinance as well too. Referencing the Florida Statutes, it talks about interim uses and coordination. Critical in the intersections of what we're going to do as Page 1 79 March 22, 2007 well -- if we have an intersection we've designed -- and a perfect example is Immokalee/Collier. We've done conceptual planning design. We've done a single-point urban interchange grade separated for the future. When you say how long, 15,20,30 years in the future, but if we hadn't done anything with Heritage Bay just recently in front of the board for that right-of-way there would have been a CVS there, a bank, and there's no way we would have been able to acquire that right-of-way reasonably cheap. Cost savings -- today we spent a million doll -- a million eight in impact fee credits. In our LRTP it identifies it as almost $7 million, and it would have been higher if that bank was built. So if you have an overlay at an intersection what do we do? At the time we go to site development plan review and approval, you would look at the intersection overlay, and if it's meant to be something bigger than what it is right now they would have to accommodate that. Now, accommodate that how? Well, could you put your parking over there? And then we could relocate the parking later. I would rather relocate parking or water management than I would a building, so that -- that -- the things that you can do as far as interim uses. That's the critical part of what we're doing here. The second part of the Amendment Policy 3.6 gets into the fact that there are developers out there who are willing to work with us. I'll give you an example of Golden Gate Boulevard, the Walgreen's that's at Golden Gate and Wilson. They were in the process of doing their site plan. We know we're widening that intersection. We've asked them for right-of-way. Their response was, "I would love to give it to you, but when I give you the right-of-way these are my new setback lines, and it's restricting my building envelope." And I said, "Okay. So you want to donate the right-of-way to save the money -- to save the county money, but you're going to be penalized for that, Page 180 March 22, 2007 for donating it, because the setbacks will increase." And he said, "Absolutely." So I tried to work with staff to say, well, let's reduce some of the things such as buffers and setbacks. There was no mechanism to do that. So Policy 3.6 says we can do that. Ifsomeone's going to donate some right-of-way, we can make reductions in buffers and setbacks accordingly. What does that do? Ifhe had said, "I'm not going to work with you at all," I have no mechanism to stop what he's doing. I would have come back later and had to go through condemnation and buy it anyway, and I would have destroyed the buffer, destroyed the setback, and destroyed everything else that's in the area. This way you can work together to make adjustments and he doesn't get punished for doing that. So that's one of the concepts in Policy 3.6. We also mention in here that ifthere's a conflict with what we're doing with any section of the GMP it has to be brought to the board for interpretation because we realize going through this there are going to be times that environmental policy or another policy says to do this and the roadway acquisition policy says something totally different. Well, ifthere's a conflict, we take it to the board and have the board to do a determination. I don't know if you want to call it a higher value, but what's in the better good of the county. We've met with the Environmental Advisory Committee. They've already been unanimously -- unanimously for it. We've met with our own environmental division, and we've discussed the fact that we don't want developers putting preserves in future road right-of-ways and then having us take them up later on so that when -- when they plan for these developments they're not putting certain uses in there. We've met with DSAC. It was a split vote, but their recommendations were taken into effect. The county attorney helped us condense it. It was much bigger, and we brought it down to bullet Page 181 March 22, 2007 points, and it eliminated some of the DSAC conflicts as well, too. We have also met with last night the Golden Gate Civic Association who had concerns that this was, in fact, a take, and we said that anytime we do this it has to be brought to the board for adoption. And we're not going to do it haphazard. We'll have to have some sort of justification. That relieved their concerns a little bit because they thought staff would be able to arbitrarily layout a corridor and say, "We're going to preserve this corridor." That pretty much is the -- is the -- is the basis of my presentation. I'm sure you'll have some questions. And I have some references to statute if you want me to follow that up as well too. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Mr. Midney. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Say that my house or my front yard is in your corridor. How -- how is this different from eminent domain where you already have the right to take my property? MR. CASALANGUIDA: This is a preservation instead ofa taking. It's -- it's more -- not geared towards an existing house but a future house, so it setbacks (sic) farther. If, for instance -- I'll use Golden Gate Boulevard for example. If your house was 60 feet off the existing right-of-way and we were taking 50 feet or 30 feet, the corridor preservation wouldn't do anything to you, per se, but in the ordinance the way we'd structure it -- if you wanted to put an addition on your existing house right now, you'd have conflicts with setbacks for the new line. All right. Speaking of Joe's shop, it becomes legally nonconforming. But your new addition may have problems. One of the things behind the ordinance is it will allow up to a certain extent, unless you do a total rebuild, that you can add to that house. If you choose to say there, why would you not want to add to that location, put a living room on? You would be nonconforming, but you would be allowed to do it through the ordinance to maintain in that area, so we'd have to put language that would specifically deal with that. And that was the big concern from the Estates residents last Page 182 March 22, 2007 night too. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: What right would you have to appeal? MR. CASALANGUIDA: In the state statute, it talks about that I have to provide an appeal process, that if I provide one of these corridor protection overlays, as part of me doing the ordinance, I have to have an appeal process in there, so we would build that into the ordinance, an appeal process. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: What kind of compensation would there be for the property owner? MR. CASALANGUIDA: There wouldn't be any compensation up front unless it was a take. If! don't deny you the use of your land -- in other words, if I'm doing a corridor protection reservation maps (sic) in Golden Gate Boulevard, you wouldn't get compensated until the actual take, but what would happen would be is as long as you could still build your house, the new location, if it was a vacant lot, and we haven't diminished the use of your land, you wouldn't get paid until the actual take for that, but you would be compensated when the take took place. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Doesn't it always diminish the use of your land if, you know, they're putting a road through your front yard? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Right. You would -- you would get paid for that when the land was acquired, but in the meantime if -- if I'm not ready to build that road for, say, three years and you can still build your house but farther back, you have still the ability to use that as a single-family lot, then there is no compensation for it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Miss Carron. COMMISSIONER CARRON: But when do I find out about this? If I come down here and I'm buying a piece of property -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: Uh-huh. COMMISSIONER CARRON: -- I'm not going to find out about Page 183 March 22, 2007 this corridor preservation plan until I go to pull permits? MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, I -- I would think it's a part of a due diligence. And it's a good point. Now, if you look at our long-range transportation plan, there are a bunch of roads on there that are scheduled to go from two to six, say, Everglades or Wilson, two to four. Right now if you come down to buy a lot on Wilson, even though I don't have a design on Wilson, it's on my plan to go to four lanes. As part of your due diligence, you may ask, I mean, but there wouldn't be anything different than that other than to say that it's on the long-range protection plan; that corridor might be protected. It would be up to the individual person buying to say, you know, "What am I buying? What am I getting into?" CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Miss Student. MS. STUDENT-STIRLING: I just had a thought that maybe in the ordinance itself -- and maybe this isn't the place to put it, but maybe a notation could be placed on the zoning atlas map, you know, where these corridors were and to refer you to, you know, the -- and you could put that in the ordinance. MR. CASALANGUIDA: You -- you brought up a good point. I was reading the Florida Statutes. It says when I do a corridor preservation map I have to record the map with the clerk of courts so that -- MS. STUDENT-STIRLING: Oh, okay. Well, that ought to help too. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right, on the title end. MR. CASALANGUIDA: So that -- that's part of -- in the Florida Statutes, and we're going to model it based on the Florida Statutes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Mr. Vigliotti and then Mr. Tuff. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Nick, you said you have one year to put this together? MR. CASALANGUIDA: I have one year to put it together, the ordinance, after this -- this is adopted. I'm going to start working on Page 184 March 22, 2007 the ordinance prior to adoption, but I have one year from when this is adopted to go through and put the ordinance together. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: And it will come back before us again? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, that's going to be the hard part. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Tuff. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Well, like, Vanderbilt Beach Road, you know, there's a lot of controversy over that with people saying, "Well, now they've got me held down. I can't get my money. They're not paying me enough money." MR. CASALANGUIDA: Right. COMMISSIONER TUFF: And if this was in place how would have that affected that -- that whole transaction, good and bad? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Good and bad. The earlier it's in place, obviously, then people -- anybody building would know. Right now the problem with Vanderbilt, you know, good or bad -- we have some developers who'll put the building right smack in the middle of the roadway knowing they have a buyer for their building or -- or put improvements right smack in the right-of-way. We can't stop them. There is nothing in there that would allow them to legally stop them from doing that. So a developer could buy five out-parcels, put the house in the middle of the foot -- roadway footprint knowing that the county's got to buy my house in the future; I've got a willing buyer at top dollar. So I hope that answers your question. COMMISSIONER TUFF: But just -- some people feel that they're frozen and the -- the county's not coming forward to do what they said they were going to do, and I -- would this cause more harm in this situation? Because most of the corridors you're going to put in will -- probably are nonexistent places now, and you'll put it in there and say, "We're going to go here and" -- Page 185 March 22, 2007 MR. CASALANGUIDA: Well, I wouldn't do that. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Do you really hurt those people that are there in case it doesn't -- maybe it'll never ever go through or -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: And that's a good point because this came -- a lot of these discussions came up last night. We're going to be cautiously optimistic in any corridor we put on here. It will not just be just the -- the roads on the LRTP. Even in discussions with Don Scott we talked about having -- doing the IGR for Everglades and 1-75. That would be a good road to put it on, but knowing what we know with the development to the east -- are we going to get an interchange there? Will the interchange be to the east in a -- in a future development? So although Everglades is determined on the map to be widened to a future six lanes would I put one on there? Absolutely not, not until I know for sure that's going to be an interchange and be widened. So I think the cautious way to approach this would be all the critical intersections would be first and foremost because I know those will be widened to some extent. Any roads that don't have design or aren't -- aren't programmed for construction in a short amount of time, I'm probably going to leave those alone until I know for sure that's coming forward. And then for me to bring a roadway forward it has to go through a public-notice process. The people on the corridor have to be identified, and it has to be brought to the commission. So just picking one and throwing it on there is not an easy process, and I -- and I better have a real good justification as to which road I put on there. I probably would look for two roads next year, Golden Gate Boulevard and VBR extension to be put on this. And I think after that I'll, you know, look at a pause and see what else is there. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Miss Carron. COMMISSIONER CARRON: Yeah, couple of questions. If you put this in place, it says here in the language that it'll go to the Board Page 186 March 22, 2007 of County Commissioners. Will it ever pass by this board for discussion? MR. CASALANGUIDA: If you'd like it to to -- I would think that -- it just says the Board of County Commissioners. The -- the Florida Statute says the County Commission level. It references the County Commission. So if -- if that's something that you wanted brought forward through the Planning Commission, I wouldn't have a problem with that. COMMISSIONER CARRON: And by Policy 3.6 here that you're adding you can eliminate preserves, setbacks, open space. You can totally eliminate everything. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Reduce, modifY, or eliminate it, but brought through the Board of County Commissioners. And the reason that happened -- again, I -- I caution you. This is becoming a bigger problem, especially in the urban area. If -- if you can't work with somebody, they're going to just say, "Take the property. Condemn it," you know, and it's being eliminated anyway. They just -- they get -- they don't -- they're not going to give it to you for free, and they're not going to work with you on it, so allowing a reduction of modification through the board at least allows a process where the property owner may get some benefit out of giving you the land instead of charging you for it and saying, "Taking (sic) it." I can tell you in acquisition cases it is unbelievably costly -- the nursery on 951 -- to be -- to go into a full-take mode. Attorneys get involved. And the developer -- the owner was ready to work with us, but he says, "I'm being -- I'm being harmed, and -- and I'm getting nothing for it." So this really helps us to do that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Nick, let's go to 3.6. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You have a sentence on there that says -- and Tor probably loved all these new acronyms -- "The TCPP shall Page 187 March 22, 2007 allow for certain uses of such property that do not conflict with the plan prior to the construction of the facilities." Now, that seems to me that you're going to -- you're going to limit a property owner's right to use his land as he bought it for based on the placement of these traffic corridors. Is that a true statement? MR. CASALANGUIDA: That goes back to my original comment that if I had to choose between a building and a parking lot, yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. CASALANGUIDA: I would say that you can't put a building there, but you can put a parking lot there. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Nick, let me go back. I'm trying to get to another answer. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But I need you to be more succinct, and the way you -- I didn't -- I didn't ask for a paragraph, just does that limit a property person -- a person's property rights in regards to what he will be able to do ifhis property is shown as a corridor on a plan? MR. CASALANGUIDA: It does. He has the right to appeal. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. MR. CASALANGUIDA: And if it damages him he can ask to be acquired, and that'll have to be a part of the ordinance. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Then if we further go down, it says, "New or expanded facilities that may be -- must be protected may be approved by the Board of County Commissioners at any time provided that the comprehensive corridor study or traffic analysis has been completed." MR. CASALANGUIDA: That's correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So once this plan's produced it can be amended by the BCC whenever they feel like it. MR. CASALANGUIDA: That's correct, brought to the board. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Then the last sentence, "Any Page 188 March 22, 2007 corridors protected under the plan may be dedicated to Collier County and shall not be subject to time limits." MR. CASALANGUIDA: I'm not sure you're look -- we're looking at the same one. COMMISSIONER CARRON: Yeah, I'm not --I'm not reading this at all in here. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, this is the one that was given to me. You got a new one? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Let me hand you -- I have an extra copy of the one I have. It's one page. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, this is the one I've got, one page front and back. MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, that's the truncated version by Marjorie and myself. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, how did this -- well-- COMMISSIONER CARRON: Yeah. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I've got this one. COMMISSIONER CARRON: I've got it. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Have you got the truncated version? COMMISSIONER TUFF: Uh-huh. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yeah. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Mine is three pages. COMMISSIONER CARRON: No, you don't have it either then. MR. CASALANGUIDA: You've got the right one. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, that isn't it. MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, you've got the right one. It's just one page. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Is this my copy? MR. CASALANGUIDA: You can keep that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. That kind of completely messes up my train of thought on this whole matter. Page 189 March 22, 2007 MR. CASALANGUIDA: Well, the gist of what's in the -- the pages that you had have been just modified to bullet points, so if you --- you could -- it's only one page long if you want to quickly read that one. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: When does the county -- if they show a corridor map -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- a transportation corridor map, you-- you drop these corridors on the map, you -- you record the map. When does the county have to buy the land? MR. CASALANGUIDA: It has to buy the land when we actually go to the design and construction phase, when we acquire it, or if we limit the property in such a way that it becomes unusable. The person who's got that overlay on it can say to the county, "You've, in effectually made a -- in effectually made a full take of my property. I've lost the use. I'd like you to purchase it." And they can do that through the ordinance. We'd have to put that in there. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The purchase price of the property is based at what time frame? MR. CASALANGUIDA: At the taking time frame, I would . . . Imagme, SIr. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So the taking -- the purchase price of the property is devalued because you show somebody put a thorough -- a corridor map over the top of it. So the day you do that, as Mr. Midney said, you take the property and you gut its value. Then you go down the road 4,5, 10 years and decide, "Okay. I'll buy it from this guy. Now that I've devalued it enough I can afford to buy it." And at the same time I'm not going to allow the property owner to use his property for his property rights and build the buildings he wanted to build or use it for what he wanted to. I'm going to restrict him so that I'll even have to buy it for less than what I would have if I didn't restrict him. So how is that fair to the comm -- the citizens? Page 190 March 22, 2007 MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sure. Let me explain that. First of all, there will have to be an approval process and appeal process in here. If someone comes up to the board and says, "You in effect -- you in effectually have done a take where you've reduced my ability to do that." We envision this, for instance, in Golden Gate estates. You -- now you're talking about quantifY what -- what the impacts might be. Say a lot right now the setback is 75 feet from Golden Gate. Say I'm going to take 30 more feet to widen the road. The new setback would be 105 feet for that new home so he's consistent with that 75-foot overlay. If a property owner comes in and says, "I can't build 35 more feet back" -- but -- but, see, that's the -- the rub, I guess, is if he can -- if he can set the house 35 feet back, I would think the owner of the home -- and we've heard this many times from the Estates residents, "You've helped me out by telling me that road's going to be there. I'm setting back farther. What am I adding? What are my costs that I would in -- incur? Well, I'm going to add maybe 35 feet of lime rock driveway, but I'm going to put my septic system and my home 35 feet farther back." So if he can still build the home he wants the size he wants knowing that a road is coming but be set back farther his -- his take, per se, or his inability to use his land has been reduced drastically. He -- he can still use that land for his intent. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And, Nick, I fully agree with you on part of that. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If you're a new property purchaser and you're going to go out on -- and the Estates is perfect. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If you go out there and you buy a five-acre tract and you want to build a home or whatever you want to do in the future and these corridors show up -- Page 191 March 22, 2007 MR. CASALANGUIDA: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- you're well prepared. It's buyer beware. You know what's going to happen. But at the same time if I bought a vacant five-acre tract and I bought it 10 years ago and it's still sitting there and you drop a corridor plan over the top of my vacant 1 O-acre tract -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- I come in and want to build a house, you've severely restricted my rights to build on my property, but you haven't bought my property. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Well, when you say severely restricted, if I'm asking to just set back 35 more -- more feet but you can build the same house, I guess that's the argument, if you can still do what you want to do but you're -- you're building farther back. Now, any plan I take to the board I'm going to have to be cautious on. The two I would prefer to take would be Golden Gate and VBR. Those are in -- in -- pretty far along in the design phase. I think now the idea would be on those is to tell a builder, for instance, "Don't stick your house on the back of the lot line in the middle of the right-of-way because -- don't expect the county to buy that." And if you're a homeowner, "If you can still get your property in, your building in that you want -- we've had public meetings. You know what's coming. Set back 35 more feet. You're still getting the home you want. And within a year the right-of-way department will be contacting you to make that acquisition." So if it's not used prudently -- I can see where you would say, if I put this on Everglades Boulevard where I don't know if this road's going to be widened, ifthere's going to be an interchange, maybe I would agree with you, but if we'll use it more prudently and it's got to be adopted by the board closer to the actual construction of the roadway when we have it in our five-year work program when we know it's going to be there, then, in essence, I don't think that that -- Page 192 March 22, 2007 that limitation of your property rights is happening that much. You're actually -- it makes more sense to do it at that point in time. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: See, I think for future owners this is a good protection. For existing owners it's definitely devaluing their property to a point where you're able to take it at a much lower price, and I don't think -- I think that might be considered inverse condemnation or some legal phrase like that, but at the same time there's another big caveat that I think's going to happen in this whole program. These road corridors, you're not going to put them shown through the middle of gated communities and golf courses. You're going to put them through standard zoned subdivisions, the people who generally can't afford to live in gated communities, who can't afford to live along the side of a golf course because you aren't going to take out any golf courses. So what's going to happen is all the typically zoned subdivisions in this county are going to be the ones mostly affected by this, and that's where most of the working people in this county live. So I'm just wondering from the fairness point of it. You're not going to be going into gated communities to take their roads for thoroughfares or take their right-of-ways or portions of their properties. You're actually going to be going into places like Golden Gate Estates to service the lands to the east, I would think. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Well, I -- I live in the Estates, and even talking to the civic association last night and some of the residents the concerns you have they had as well, too, and -- and when we talked about getting them closer to the actual construction of the road they were -- they were a little bit relieved. But if you're asking me if in the urban area would I be doing this, I would do it anywhere where we've got a legitimate roadway in our 20- -- you know, our 25-year long-range transportation plan that showed a future alignment that makes sense and we're ready to build. Page 193 March 22, 2007 Would I do it on Santa Barbara extension? Sure, I would. We're at almost 60 percent design right now. That would be another one you would bring forward and say, "We've got a design. We have funding in the next year. I want to make sure everybody knows set back a little bit farther." But I'd caution you or recommend to you that in the statutes it tells you I have to have an appeal process. If I've limited or -- or hurt you in such a way that it -- you have the inability to use that property, I have to buy it, and if I can't do that -- there's one section; I want to find it. It says that if I can't buy it, then I can't stop you from doing what you want either. If you -- if you can prove that I've damaged you -- and I'll find that section if you want to give me a second. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Who would the appeal be to, Nick? You said there's an appeal process. MR. CASALANGUIDA: I would think it would be to the Board of County Commissioners. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The same people who put the -- who vote to put the corridor on the map. It's kind of like a wasted effort, but -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: I wouldn't know who else to appeal to. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I know, and that's -- that's where the unfairness comes in. And I'm -- again, I -- I understand what you're trying to do, and in a lot of ways it's a very good idea for future landowners. I'm more concerned about current landowners and current neighborhoods who are most likely the ones that are going to suffer from this because you aren't going to be going into a lot of the upper-valued neighborhoods with gated communities and golf courses and stuff like that. I mean, you're just not going to do it. It's going to be too costly. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Well, I'll disagree with you a little on the value. I mean, it's funny because we were talking about tax bills outside. My neighbor in the Estates just built a $4 million house, and Page 194 March 22, 2007 I've -- I've got three of them on my street, and I -- that scratches my head, too, that some of them are more expensive than the ones in the urban area. Even on our VBR extension some of those homes are unbelievable. I don't think I'm -- it's targeted towards any particular neighborhood. I think when you look at our 25- -- when you look at our 20-30 long-range transportation plan, our building is going east. If this is done prudently and it's done according to what the statute recommends, appeal periods and notification and hearings and adoption schedules and we craft this ordinance with that in mind, with the concerns that you have, I think we can do a good job with that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And this -- Nick, I -- I agree with you. I don't think this is targeted for any neighborhood. In fact, I would absolutely doubt that it is. I don't think anybody had that idea in mind. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But what I'm worried about is the way it's written it doesn't lend itself to go through the -- the communities that are more cohesive. Homeowners' associations, for example, in gated communities or PUDs are very well organized. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: They would stand up a lot stronger than individual subdivisions zoned independently like the Estates or like other -- I don't know many of them in the county that are, but those would be the ones, I think, that would be more prone to have this happen to them because it would, obviously, be easier to do. And it has nothing to do with what you may have targeted. I think that's going to be the outcome of it, though. MR. CASALANGUIDA: I think as we get to the ordinance stage -- I mean, when we move forward and you see the ordinance, this is probably going to be a 30-page ordinance in detail with appeals. That's going to be the toughest part of my job is putting this together with staff, comp planning, and legal. This is telling us what to do. Page 195 March 22, 2007 The how is going to be extremely difficult and challenging. And I think as long as we put in reasonable safeguards in the ordinances that protect those rights, make sure there's notice and a proper appeal, I think we've done our job. Reciting from state statute, it tells me to do it. It tells me to prepare maps of reservation. It tells me to do certain things. Doing the homework that you've all requested I do when we first started this, it made me -- it really brought me some insight when I looked at what -- what they tell you to do. It says protect your corridors at all cost for health, safety, and public welfare. It's -- it's in line with what Pasco County has done. So keep in mind the policy too. 3.5 and 3.6, they're different. They're together because they're in the same section and they reference that, but they're two different things. One is that thoroughfares corridor protection, and one is that right-of-way acquisition, so they're two different things. But in consistency with state statute and what other counties have done we'll try and bring you a thoughtful ordinance forward that takes into all your considerations. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Mr. Tuff. COMMISSIONER TUFF: So rather than create a whole bunch of new laws and rules that were going to be very difficult to make and have a lot of potential for error -- the laws that are in existence today, I'm not sure if they're -- you know, they want -- are they that deficient that we can improve upon them? You know, there's laws for people that you explained already, and I -- I'm scared that we're creating more of a nightmare for the people that have already homes that have already built than the -- than what is available to you and them now. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Well, I'll give you an example. Right now if you rebuild a home that's in -- doesn't meet the setbacks I think you have to redo the house to the new setbacks if you do over 40 percent. I -- Joe's here. Page 196 March 22, 2007 COMMISSIONER TUFF: But I'm -- not the new homes, but the existing homeowners. MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, that's what I mean, existing homes. If you expand on an existing home in the Estates or anyplace, if it goes over, what, 40 percent it has to meet the new code and setbacks and criteria? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Greater than 50. Greater than 50. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Greater -- greater than -- there's -- there's -- I know there's a requirement. If someone wants to expand their home or put up a new structure, it has to meet the existing setback. But one good thing that might come out of this ordinance is that to say for someone living on Golden Gate Boulevard -- and I drive by them every day -- that are 50 feet off the existing right-of-way, if they -- they're comfortable with the traffic on there and they want to put a garage on or an addition on and they are nonconforming, I think the ordinance would be a great spot to be able to put something that allows them to do that without fear that they'll be in noncompliance and for them to get an easily (sic) permit because I can tell you there are a lot of people who live on Wilson, Everglades, Golden Gate, and I'm sure -- now more than ever I'm seeing more additions go up than new construction that if they're consistent with the setback based on the ordinance that might help them out in a sense because we have to do that. According to state statute, you have to provide the ability for existing homes to still be able to permit additions and things like that of that nature, so that part of the ordinance might help those people, existing homeowners, so they can do existing construction on a lot. COMMISSIONER TUFF: So -- so rather than pass something that is so open-ended and -- I have -- I'm uncomfortable going that direction, I guess, but can we have something that's more developed to vote on rather than such a broad -- I just think to -- see more government, more government, and I just think, oh, geez, what a Page 197 March 22, 2007 terrible road to run down. MR. CASALANGUIDA: The funny part is is the more detailed I get I bring it -- the more I get from comp planning and the county attorney's office who say the Growth Management Plan is too much detail. It's not what you want in here. The detail's in the -- in the ordinance because that's where you're actually working on the -- the how-to or the legislation to do it. Pasco County has an ordinance. We're probably to take it and model it after it and then tweak it for our own purposes. And, God, I know it's going to be a lot of work as far as staff time. It will probably be more staff time, but I can tell you since I've been here that things that we've done have saved the taxpayers quite a bit of money too. That 3.6 -- I mean, I was talking to Kevin Hendricks, your right-of-way manager -- probably will save us anywhere between 3 to $7 million a year allowing the ability for the developer and the -- and the -- and the county to work together at intersections to say, "You don't have to buy it. We're going to give it to you for free. Just let us reduce the buffer from 20 to 1 0." COMMISSIONER TUFF: Can that be done in a different method than this? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, 3. -- 3.5 and 3.6 are different, so if you had a vote or a comment, you might say 3.6 is something we like and 3.5 we're worried about. I know that DSAC had the same comments. They weren't really crazy about corridor protection maps, but they liked the ability in 3.6 to make reductions based on right-of-way acquisitions and takes because they know that that's a problem. So if that was one of your concerns I could -- I could bring that going forward to the board as well too. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Miss Student, did you want to -- before Mr. Midney talks, did you have something you want to add? MS. STUDENT-STIRLING: I just want to just state that the comp plan is constitution, if you will, and it is more general, and then Page 198 March 22, 2007 the implementing regulation will be, you know, what controls, and the details will be fleshed out there. There is statutory authority because of concurrency concerns in the state that the local governments should designate transportation corridors in their comp plans. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Midney. MS. STUDENT-STIRLING: That is in 337.273 of the Florida Statutes. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: If transportation staff decided that they wanted to put a road through a neighborhood in Immokalee, could the people of Immokalee somehow appeal that and get them to change their idea? MR. CASALANGUIDA: That road would have to be put in as part of the long-range transportation plan so as that update -- so that process is not, you know, done on a whim or a corridor study. So they would have to be a part of that. It would have to go through the review process. They would have to be notified. There would be public meetings involved, public comment. I think you have to have two hearings. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Before it got designated -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: -- as a corridor? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Are there any other questions, comments, discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Nick, is there any public speakers on this? MR. WEEKS: We have one, but I don't think he's here any longer, Timothy Nance. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, he sure isn't. MR. WEEKS: That's it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Is there a consideration of the Page 1 99 March 22, 2007 board? Miss Carron. COMMISSIONER CARRON: I just have -- I just have one more question before we get into that. This particular Growth Management Plan amendment, it says here in the end that this proposed amendment does not involve adopting anything that's stated above. All it's doing is giving us the right to go through this process of figuring out whether it -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: Well, I -- I didn't write that, but I think the intent was that this management plan does not -- we wouldn't adopt the map for those corridors by doing this. This is the -- not the implementing function of it. It's the directing function to do it. So probably the way it should read is this amendment does not adopt an ordinance or anything else. It just adopts the idea of doing it, so that probably should be addressed that way. So we're not adopting any tables or ordinances or anything like that by this. You're adopting the -- the idea, the concept. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Midney. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: If this plan were not to be adopted, what would be the impact? MR. CASALANGUIDA: I think pretty significant. First of all, I wouldn't be in compliance with the Florida Statutes. I don't know why we didn't do this earlier. I think talking to staff there was always an idea to do it. The second part would be you're going to see increased costs at all your right-of-way acquisition, significant costs. And I don't mean the corridor protection. I mean more at the intersections when you're dealing with developers where we're having the hardest time at -- at anywhere from -- I want to -- if I -- 3 to $7 million a year going forward. When our budget is short, you know, 1.8 mill-- $180 million, it's significant. And the development community is for that part of it because they understand they can work with us on that. Even staff doesn't Page 200 March 22, 2007 want people to put preserves, even environmental staff, where we're going to do an intersection or a project, so if you had that map -- you know, I was even talking to Bill Lorenz. If you had that map, when a developer comes in, you could say, "Don't stick your preserve in this preservation area because the roads are going to take it." Now you have in the ordinance a way to do that. So if you don't adopt I think financially you're going to put a burden on us as far as right-of-way acquisition. I think notification you might still be able to do, but it wouldn't be done as well as the ordinance is required, and I think coordinating with, say, environmental and other departments putting in language that protects their interest as well, too, would have to be done through some other mechanism. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Would it be fair to say that it would give people more advance notice that something was planned in case they objected to it? MR. CASALANGUIDA: I would say yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Nick, you said it's required by Florida Statute. What section of the statute? Do you know? MR. CASALANGUIDA: It's in 337 and in 336. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, 337 is the transportation -- it discusses transportation corridors, and that applies to the, I believe, state and county both. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Right. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And 336 it defines how that's implemented a little bit more in detail. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Right. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: In 336 it keeps referring to the fact that commissioners may approve maps of reservation, and it's not a -- it's not a shall. It's a may, and it's -- and I'm just wondering why you said we'd be violating Florida Statutes if we didn't do this because I think it's an option that we do it, not a requirement. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Well, it's consistent -- in 337.273 it Page 201 March 22, 2007 says, "It is hereby found and declared that immediate -- immediate and decisive action must be taken to plan, designate, and develop transportation corridors within this state in order to protect the public health, safety, and welfare by -- by preserving, improving, planning for future growth, coordinating land use transportation planning and complying with concurrency requirements of 163." CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And I -- I -- I have that as well, and when I was reading that -- it talks about the state highway system, and I'm -- I would -- that to me seems to pertain more to state corridors like areas ofI-75 and 1-95 and 1-4, but if you want to get into more finite application, 336.02 talks about responsibility -- and it's titled "Responsibility for County Road System, Approval of Maps of Reservation." And that's what I was looking at where the word "may" is used more often. MR. CASALANGUIDA: And I agree with that. And, as you pointed out, I think -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We aren't in violation of Florida statute. MR. CASALANGUIDA: I would say that -- that's incorrect to say we're in violation. We're -- we're not in compliance with the recommendation of Florida Statutes and consistent with DOT roadway -- roadway purposes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's a world of difference. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Okay. Understood. To add a little more to this, we looked at some research with CUTR, Center for Urban Transportation Research, and they said even through their-- their pamphlet -- I don't have it with me now -- the number-one priority in dealing with roadway expansions is identifying in detail -- and they stressed in detail throughout that. Don't haphazardly just use a map and a plan to say this is going to be a future road -- future corridors and protect those corridors. They said that'll be the biggest challenge we face moving forward in establishing a transportation network. Page 202 March 22, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are you familiar with Burt Harris? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. You know, Burt Harris has an exclusion for transportation, but the exclusion is for transportation facilities. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And transportation facilities are the actual roadwork. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Now, transportation facilities and transportation corridors have two different definitions within Florida Statutes. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Tan -- transportation corridors are not mentioned in Burt Harris as an exception. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I would think then that all these properties that may be coming under the in-ordained -- inordinate burdened policies that may be adopted here would have Burt Harris claims as well. MR. CASALANGUIDA: And I think even in the Florida Statutes it references if they can't do what the intent of their land was meant to do they could require you to take that in cons -- consistent with Burt Harris. I think, as we go through with the ordinance, if you -- if you recommend adoption of this and we come back to you and we're doing the ordinance, if you were to say, "We don't want to see corridor preservation maps until you've got a committed roadway design" and that's your recommendation, then we're a lot farther along. Again, I stress it's the implementation and how it's done that's more critical than, I think, what we're doing today because if -- if we're haphazard by this -- if I was to take every road that's on the 20-30 long-range transportation plan and throw it on a map and say, Page 203 March 22, 2007 "These are my corridor preservation maps," you're right; we're going to have a lot more problems. Ifwe're more thoughtful and say it's got to be programmed within three years or five years or it's got to be in design, if that's your recommendation when we do the ordinance, then we're a lot closer to the actual construction of the road. But my -- my caution is right now I've got builders buying lots and sticking houses in the middle of the road, and I can't say no to them. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, Nick, my problem is that build -- some -- some builders may do that. I don't consider that honest. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But then there are a lot of property owners out there who are very honest, and right now the problem I have with this is if we're going to go in and more or less condemn their property through the restriction of their ability to use it but not buy it till some unknown time down the road, that does concern me because we've devalued their property, and when we do purchase it we're buying it at a value that we've established at a lot lower price that would be possibly unfair to the property owner. Mr. Schmitt, then Miss Student. MR. SCHMITT: Yeah, for the record, Joe Schmitt, Administrator, Community Development, Environmental Services Division. I'm listening to the argument but -- but let's put it in the context. That's no different than requiring setbacks. It's no different than the fire code mandating separation of distance between buildings. You are restricted from where you can build based on all sorts of zoning criteria. You have to be so many feet back from the centerline of the road. You have to be so many feet you -- from the utility easement or whatever. You under -- fully understand there are setbacks and requirements. Page 204 March 22, 2007 All this is doing is identifying those road corridor -- corridors that are identified as potentially to -- to become major thoroughfares or to eventually be widened that we're asking any future construction to be set back further from the road to preclude those units from potentially becoming legally nonconforming meaning that they're -- they would be in the -- in the -- what would deem -- be deemed the acceptable setback. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I appreciate-- MR. SCHMITT: We -- we have no loss -- we don't -- we don't have any Burt Harris claim for -- for setbacks. You -- you maintain a 7 -1/2- foot setback. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That doesn't devalue the property and then purchase it later. I -- my concern is the citizen's ability to regain their value out of their property when we've devalued them. And we're not even going to buy it for who knows when. MR. SCHMITT: And I -- and in that -- I understand your argument, and that -- that -- there is validity to what you're saying in regards to that. You're basically saying, "I want you to do this now because eventually I may come, and if I don't come then you" -- and I understand that, but I -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. MR. SCHMITT: I'm just trying to at least from a logic sense point out that this is -- does nothing more than require an additional setback, and it -- it -- it's determined to -- I guess, to be concluded whether it's going to take some development right away. Now, an interesting issue came up at the last board meeting, and I'll pass this since we're talking about it. The setbacks in Golden Gate Estates require 30 feet for the -- your -- your legally conforming structures, 30 feet. And a gentleman came up and said you're denying me my -- my rights to build, and now we're going to come back to the board with a possibility -- or proposing to the board to reduce that setback maybe to 10 percent of the width of the lot. Page 205 March 22, 2007 So, yes, they're -- I guess you could claim just by the standards in Golden Gate the 30-foot side-yard setbacks on a ISO-foot lot -- are we restricting it? I guess you could make the same conclusion. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, but, see, Mr. Schmitt, it comes into playas a loss to the property owner. lfhe bought his property with the intention of -- of utilizing the codes and ordinances that were in place at the time, he experiences a loss if we change him and he had rights that we take away. That's a lot different than the way this application's going. MR. SCHMITT: Yeah. And I understand your logic, your -- I absolutely understand it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Miss Student, did you have something you still wanted to say? Then Mr. Midney. MS. STUDENT-STIRLING: I just wanted to add that the -- the courts have held that just being on a transportation corridor map and having your property in that is not a, per se, taking, but in a case-by-case basis the courts would decide whether or not a taking had occurred, you know, if somebody came in for a permit or whatever. So what I was going to offer was I think that a lot depends on how the implementing ordinance is crafted, you know, to avoid that problem. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Mr. Midney. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: You said that you wouldn't put every road that you were thinking of building on the 20- or 30-year plan on -- on this corridor. MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, sir. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: As I read this, I don't see any time limitations on here. I'd be a lot more comfortable voting for it if there was something that time limited it to a reasonable amount of time. I'm thinking less than five years. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Well-- and I was going to add that Page 206 March 22, 2007 that -- that's a good point because maybe a recommendation is to say, "Y ou're not going to -- we -- we prefer you don't put anything on a corridor preservation map that's not in your five-year plan, CIE, or -- or budget." Maybe that brings a little more certainty. I, also, to add on what Joe had said as well, too, one of the ways we wanted to approach this is just to do an overlay increased setback to say that on Everglades Boulevard the setback is now 150 feet, and it would be a setback. And you would say it's not really a taking. You just said it's new setback. And you could bring that to the board and adopt an increased setback and do the same thing. That to me is -- is more haphazard than doing an ordinance and a corridor preservation map that's got some sort of roadway design because we've said maybe that's the way to do it. Maybe we just take all the Estates roads and -- and bring it -- and do an overlay and say, "Let's increase the setback on all those roads to 150 feet" and then go, wow. But then you get into what the other commissioner pointed out, what do you do with the existing lots that now don't conform, and how do they add a -- put an addition on? You can't fix all that if you don't do it through a proper ordinance. But your comment is good. If it's not in the five-year plan, maybe you don't -- don't put it there. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are there any other questions or comments? We've kind of gone full circle on this. Is there a motion in regards to this GMP amendment? Mr. Midney. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I would move that we move it forward with a recommendation for approval providing that they keep the time limitation less than five years. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is there a second to Mr. Midney's motion? MR. KOLFLA T: I'll second it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Kolflat seconded Mr. Midney's Page 207 March 22, 2007 motion. The motion was made for recommendation of approval to transmit with the stipulation that the corridor map is no more than five years into the future. Is that what basically you said? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I guess discussion. Anybody? COMMISSIONER TUFF: Yeah, Ijust-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Tuff. COMMISSIONER TUFF: I can't vote for that. I think we've -- we're -- we're not doing good by anybody, I guess. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think there's a lot of good ideas here. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Yes, there are. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But I don't -- don't think this should be rushed through, and I don't feel it's been -- enough of the issues that at least in my mind have been discussed here -- or have been addressed in this document, and I think they go further than the five years. I still think we need to address the compensation time frame and things and the valuation and all that, so I'm not going to support the motion either. Any other comments? Mr. Midney. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I think, you know, the one thing that sort of made me think that it might be a good idea is that it does give property owners more advance notice that something may be coming so that they have time to, you know, prepare their defense or whatever. On the negative side, if you designate -- you know, it may make it easier to designate corridors and, you know, to build roads where maybe they shouldn't go, so that would be a negative. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Commissioners. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other comments? Mr.-- MR. CASALANGUIDA: Add -- one thing we clarified with DSAC is -- are you more comfortable with 3.6 as opposed to 3.5? Because maybe a question would be even going forward if you said Page 208 March 22, 2007 two out of the five commissioners voted for the old package, but, you know, most commissioners felt the second part was -- was appealing as well too. At least I could take something to that forward if __ if we went that way. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Nick, I'm not looking at this for myself. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It isn't a piecemeal thing. You __ your-- your department's well versed in different things. I think you could come back with a better recommendation than this, but that's my OpInIOn. Now, as far as the motion, it wasn't broken down that way. Right now I'd like to address just the motion, and ifthere has to be another one we can possibly look at alternatives. Ending discussion, all those in favor of the motion of Mr. Midney to recommend transmittal with the stipulation of a five-year window, signify by raising your hand and saying "aye." MR. KOLFLA T: Aye. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: (Raised hand.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Two in favor. All those opposed? COMMISSIONER CARRON: Aye. COMMISSIONER STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: (Raised hand.) COMMISSIONER TUFF: (Raised hand.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion fails four to two. Is there another motion? Mr. Tuff. COMMISSIONER TUFF: I would make my motion that we deny transferring it forward. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is there a second to the motion? I'll second the motion. Motion's made by Mr. Tuff for -_ to recommend denial of transmittal. It was seconded by Mr. Strain. Any discussion? (No response.) Page 209 March 22, 2007 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: All those in favor of the motion, signify by saying "aye." COMMISSIONER CARRON: Aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I'm changing my vote. CHAIRMAN STRAIN : You're changing your vote. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Miss Carron, did you vote? COMMISSIONER CARRON: I -- I voted. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: For the motion? COMMISSIONER CARRON: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: All those opposed to the motion, signify by saying "aye." (No response.) Mr. Koltlat, did you vote for the motion? COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'm sorry. I didn't hear you. So that motion carried. Recommendation of denial carried six to zero. Thank you. Nick, I'm sorry. MR. CASALANGUIDA: That's okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Maybe next time. This meeting -- we need a motion to continue to next Thursday, the 29th, at 8:30 in the morning in this room. The -- the petitions that will be con -- were continued were CP-2006-4, CP-2005-1 0, CP-2005-11, and CP-2005-13, and they'll be heard in that order. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Say that again. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: CP-2006-4. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Right. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: CP-2005-1O, 2005-11, and 2005-13. Page 210 March 22, 2007 Those four next Thursday in this room. Is there a motion for that? COMMISSIONER TUFF: So moved. COMMISSIONER CARRON: So moved. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah. Mr. Tuffmoved. Miss Carron seconded. All those in favor, signify by saying "aye." COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARRON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER TUFF: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We're continued. Meeting's adjourned for now. ***** There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 4:31 p.m. COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION MARK STRAIN, Chairman These minutes approved by the Board on presented or as corrected , as TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE, INC. BY CHERIE' NOTTINGHAM AND KAREN BLOCKBURGER. Page 211