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DSAC Minutes 12/07/2022 December 7, 2022 1 MINUTES OF THE COLLIER COUNTY DEVELOPMENT SERVICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING Naples, Florida, December 7, 2022 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, the Collier County Development Services Advisory Committee, in and for the County of Collier, having conducted business herein, met on this date at 3 P.M. in REGULAR SESSION at the Collier County Growth Management Department Building, Conference Room #609/610, 2800 Horseshoe Drive North, Naples, Florida, with the following members present: Chairman: William J. Varian Vice Chairman: Blair Foley David Dunnavant James E. Boughton (unexcused) Clay Brooker Chris Mitchell Robert Mulhere Mario Valle Norman Gentry Marco Espinar Laura Spurgeon-DeJohn Jeremy Sterk Jeff Curl John English Mark McLean (excused) ALSO PRESENT: Jaime Cook, Director, Development Review Jamie French, Department Head, GMD Mike Ossorio, Director, Code Enforcement Drew Cody, Senior Project Manager, Utilities Planning Jay Ahmad, Director, Transportation Engineering Ken Kovensky, Director, Operations & Regulation Management Mike Bosi, Director, Zoning Division Patricia Mill, Senior Operations Analyst/Staff Liaison Jess Bonilla, Operations Support Specialist II December 7, 2022 2 1. Call to Order - Chairman Chairman Varian called the meeting to order at 3 p.m. A quorum consisting of 10 members was convened; three arrived later. 2. Approval of Agenda Mr. Curl moved to approve the agenda. It was seconded by Mr. English. The motion passed unanimously, 10-0. 3. Approval of Minutes DSAC Meeting – October 5, 2022 Mr. Valle made a motion to approve the October 5, 2022, meeting minutes. It was seconded by Mr. Brooker. The motion passed unanimously, 10-0. DSAC Meeting – November 2, 2022 Mr. Curl made a motion to approve the November 2, 2022, meeting minutes. It was seconded by Mr. Brooker. The motion passed unanimously, 10-0. 4. Public Speakers (None) 5. Staff Announcements/Updates a. Development Review Division – [Jaime Cook, Director] Ms. Cook reported that: • There are no major changes, but we’re still very busy. • She continues to get requests to ask contractors for site plans prior to pre-apps so staff can better serve you. • In August, Jeff Curl asked us to update a memo from Bill Lorenz from 2008 regarding the lifespan of SDPIs to also include ICPs for plats. It’s in your agenda package. SDPIs are also subject to the same expiration as SDPs and SDPAs. ICPs have the same time frame as plats do. Mr. Curl asked about the sentences toward the bottom about approval of two versus three years. Ms. Cook said they reviewed the code, and the SDP itself, when it’s first approved, is for three years and extensions are for two years. [Mr. Mulhere joined the meeting at 3:02] b. Code Enforcement Division – [Mike Ossorio, Director] Mr. Ossorio submitted monthly statistics from October 22-November 21 and reported that: • This has been a challenging month for Code Enforcement, not only for case details, but case numbers have gone down from about 1,600 cases per month to 300-400 cases because we’re losing employees, including a supervisor in property maintenance, and we have some FMLA issues with some seniors. • We’ve spoken to the County Manager’s Office and hope to be fully staffed by February. December 7, 2022 3 • We’re looking for industry input about whether Code Enforcement should extend its hours through the short-term rental issues. We’re checking to see if we can get some on-call help, which will help with on-call pay and provide better service to the community. • You should have the SOP within a month or two and he’ll bring it back to DSAC. • We’re hoping to have on-call service until 7 p.m., with a senior staffer on-call and noise specialist because there are community concerns later at night. • We continue to hold our East Naples, North Naples, Immokalee and Golden Gate City Civic Task Force meetings. • We are being reactive and not proactive. We’ll fix that. It’s not a morale issue, but Code Enforcement employees seem to be in demand by other divisions, so that’s good that they’re moving around and learning different skills in the community and divisions. Unfortunately, it hurts the Code Enforcement Division, so we’re working on it. Chairman Varian asked if they’d seen an increase in unpermitted work with all the repairs going on. Mr. Ossorio said that 80% of those cases went to the Special Magistrate and Contractors’ Licensing Board, including building issues, blight, weeds, trash and other items. Many building code violations that are brought to a hearing involve residents who didn’t know, or they bought something, or should have known the contractor was unlicensed. None have come across his desk, but Ken can speak about that Mr. Curl asked whether the loss of employees is a pay-rate issue. Mr. Ossorio said no, the Board of County Commissioners, Jamie and his group did a great job and provided a huge pay increase. We lost about 50 years of experience in the last six months. If you’ve been in Code for a long time, you look for new challenges and opportunities. If they’ve done Code Enforcement for 15 years, they need to decompress at the end of the day. [Mr. Gentry joined the meeting at 3:06] Mr. Ossorio said he put in his retirement papers and his last day will be April 7. He and Jamie spoke about that, so if he needs him to stay longer, he can. Right now, he needs to do more work. [Mr. Dunnavant joined the meeting at 3:07] Mr. Curl asked if HR could help with reclassifying positions or a higher pay scale. Mr. Ossorio said no, they just did a pay study. It’s not a matter of money, it’s a matter of job stress. Unfortunately, we had an influx of senior people leave. It’s difficult and if you’ve been here a while, you become numb and saying “no” all the time can drain you. We’re looking for new, energetic people. We’ll find them. Mr. French proposed that they discuss that issue in February and reported that: • We can have some HR representation at the meeting and, possibly, Ed Finn from the County Manager’s Office to talk about this because it’s an ongoing problem. • We recently went through this with IT on how to read and interpret an ordinance. They decided people in Canada on the other side of the keyboard need to be fingerprinted, so it’s my job to deal with that and other projects. • He appreciates the DSAC’s support and constructive criticism for the past two years. It doesn’t feel like we got much done, but hopefully we have, despite hurricanes and ups and downs. The DSAC sets the measure of how we’re doing. December 7, 2022 4 Mr. Curl asked about Mike Ossorio giving notice of his retirement. Mr. French confirmed he did give notice. He’s done a phenomenal job, is one of the best in his field, and there’s nobody more methodical than Mike. The community is growing, so he’s going to ask Mike to stay a few more months because we have a more than 10% vacancy rate. The double-filling of that position has been approved and it’s been advertised. He (Mr. French) may have a say in who they hire as the Code Enforcement Director. We want to make sure that person fits in this culture and that it’s the right person, so we need to take time. Mr. Brooker thanked Mike for his years of service, his approach to trying to solve problems and not being obstructionist. Mr. Mulhere agreed he was great to work with. c. Public Utilities Department [Drew Cody, Senior Project Manager, Utilities Planning] Mr. Cody reported that: • The numbers are back where we like them. • Turnaround across-the-board is 10 business days or less. If you’re not seeing that, please reach out to let us know. • Going into the holiday season, on revise and resubmits for the deviations, if you have questions on the availability requests, make sure you’re sending answers back to the utility planning mailbox, or you could be responding to someone who is out due to the holidays. There’s a 90% chance the same person will be handling it, but that number goes down during holidays. d. GMD Transportation Engineering Division – [Jay Ahmad, Director] Mr. Ahmad reported that: • Whippoorwill Lane Extension started in July 2021 and is a Design/Build Project with Quality Enterprises and ABB (Agnoli, Barber & Brundage). It’s under construction and should be completed on schedule in May 2023. It connects Whippoorwill Lane with Marbella Lakes Drive from Immokalee Road, making an L-shape to Livingston Road. A lot of progress been made. They’re doing lime rock and putting in a curb. There are four roundabouts so people will not be driving fast. There’s a signal on Livingston and Marbella proposed as part of the project, but the traffic light lead time is very long now. It takes close to a year to get mast arms, so we hope they meet the May schedule. • Veterans Memorial Boulevard Extension Design/Build Project is going well. Work on the east side of Livingston Road started and most of the work on the west side is in shape. They’re looking at paving the final pavement by January, which is almost six months ahead of schedule. Signals are being done at the elementary school and high school, which is under construction. The lead time for mast arms is long. They’re scheduled to complete the project ahead of the high school, which should open in August 2023, so we’ll be well ahead of that. • Vanderbilt Beach Road Extension, a seven-mile extension of Vanderbilt Beach Road, from Collier Boulevard to 16th Street. Much of the clearing is ongoing. They’ve started the excavation for a mile of Cypress Canal, which is being relocated south, and about 300 feet is finished. Completion is set for June 2025. • Bridge replacement for Golden Gate Parkway over the Santa Barbara Canal, a Design/Build Project. There’s a lot of traffic in Golden Gate City. We’re narrowing the four-lane roadway to a two-lane roadway, one lane in each direction. There was a lot of discussion on what to December 7, 2022 5 do: close the lane, detour, get it fast, build a second bridge. All options were investigated. This is the most cost-feasible alternative. The project is ongoing. Thomas Marine, which has done other county bridges, will do the work, and Johnson Engineering designed the project. Completion is set for the end of November 2023. We hope the bridge portion gets done quickly and the road work will follow. Vice Chairman Foley asked about the Pine Ridge and Livingston roads intersection that ties in with the Whippoorwill project. Mr. Ahmad said the selection process for a consultant concluded, we took it to the BCC in October or September and we gave a Notice to Proceed in November. Jacobs Engineering started the design. It’s a Design/Build Project. They will be about 1½ to two years in that process, and as they reach the 60% design, part of the scope is to provide a Design-Criteria Package, which ties the project of I-75, which is done by the state, to a 30- 60% design stage. They’ll take Livingston and Pine Ridge and Whippoorwill, combine those and we’ll bid them as one project. The schedule is 2024 for construction. There’s a grant tied to that, so we can’t do it any faster. A discussion ensued about Veterans Memorial Boulevard northbound and the Livingston Road turn lane and the following points were made: • Traffic backs up in the mornings, sometimes all the way to the fire house, and the high school hasn’t even been built. • The turn lane is being enlarged. A northbound dual-left turn lane should take care of backups. • They expect higher-volume traffic once the high school is built. • It will extend through to U.S. 41 and is in the planning phase now. • There will be a right-of-way by the Mercedes Benz dealership and it will go through environmentally sensitive areas. • The county is working on the design phase now and completion is scheduled for 2024-25. Mr. Ahmad said he’d provide an update on that at the next meeting. e. Collier County Fire Review [Shar Beddow, Deputy Fire Marshal] Capt. Bedow provided November monthly updates and reported that: • There were 317 building plan reviews. • There were 46 site reviews. • There were 952 mobilize inspection reports pending. • Julius Halas, director of the Florida State Fire Marshal’s Office, has retired and Joanne Rice was named the new director and took the helm about two weeks ago. • She introduced Capt. Cruz. We’re doing a lot of cross training and growing, so we added two new inspectors and want to ensure that the succession training is there, although she will be there for a while. • The Uline distribution center is close to completion. • Several other large projects, including Great Wolf Lodge, are coming into the district. • We’re trying to stay on top of education, despite having so many new people, in our agency, North Collier and throughout Lee County. • On December 15 and 16, the Florida Fire Sprinkler Association will teach free classes next door for the inspectors. December 7, 2022 6 • On January 30, one of the best instructors she’s had, Kelly with UL, is coming here to teach emerging technologies, including lithium-ion. There were many fires due to shorts during Hurricane Ian, especially in Sanibel, due to water intrusion. A house burned down from a Riobe battery that got wet. It’s not just batteries in cars that are a problem. If anyone is interested in attending the class, please reach out to her. • The NTSB (National Traffic Safety Board) was in last week to interview the Fire District about how to fix those problems. • The Annual Clay Shoot is coming up on January 28 for Lee and Collier County fire marshals. She’d love to see a team from DSAC come out to show us how to shoot. She brought flyers, if anyone is interested. • She attended the annual FFMIA (Florida Fire Marshals and Inspectors Association) conference in November. They’re trying to train everyone statewide. • We had to put off Texas, which is typically the premier organization nationwide that does bombs post-blast. They were coming here when Hurricane Ian was coming, so the class was canceled. We’re hoping to bring it back and we’ll update you on that. • Snowfest was just held at Paradise Coast Sports Complex. • The Botanical Garden and the Naples Zoo have been doing annual fundraisers, which involve a lot of community work. Mr. Curl said his son plays football at Paradise Coast Sports Complex, where two kids got hurt. One broke his arm and the other had a spine bruise and was temporarily paralyzed. When EMS came, they couldn’t figure out how to get in or where to go. Can you tell me who to report this to? A discussion ensued and the following points were made: • Both fire and EMS vehicles arrived and couldn’t find the location. • The incidents occurred on two different fields. • Fire and EMS initially went to The Cove. • They finally figured out they could take out the fence, drove out on the field through the fire- access lane and were able to put the boy on a body board to get him out. • There is a better access point closer to the fields. • There’s too much confusion in that area, which is poorly marked. Capt. Bedow said she’d look into that situation and report back to him. Chairman Varian asked about e-submitting final certificates to the county. Yours is the only department that still requires us to use a yellow ticket to get submitted. Are you considering going electronic, like North Collier? Capt. Bedow said the chief is aware of the problem and is looking at software. Chairman Varian thanked her and said it would be very helpful for everyone out in the field. f. North Collier Fire Review [Daniel Zunzunegui, Deputy Director] Mr. Zunzunegui reported that: • We’re doing everything we can to get disaster permits through while still providing great customer service. • Things have been very sluggish, but it’s giving us more time to help with some problem projects. December 7, 2022 7 • He’s concerned about the number of permits in the queue, which leads him to believe there’s a lot of unpermitted work going on, which will be problematic in the future. • Residents who aren’t in this industry and don’t have this knowledge will go to sell their homes and be told that work was flagged because it didn’t have a permit. We see it all the time, so he intends to speak to directors in this building to see if they can set up a task force or stop the problem in another way. We want to give the community a longer leash to rebuild, but that’s not the right way to do it. Mr. Valle suggested he reach out to NABOR leadership to get their Realtor members to spread the word about unpermitted work and what’s required. They’re the ones who will be dealing with it and contacting him about problems. Mr. Zunzunegui said he wanted to speak with Mike Ossorio and Contractors’ Licensing to find out what they’re seeing. He wants to ensure it’s not just holiday sluggishness. He believes there’s a lot of work not going through the proper process, which will be problematic for residents and business owners. Chairman Varian said he’s been called to sites by building managers and association managers where he’s seen a lot of unpermitted work going on. He asked why they’re doing that and asking him to permit it. He’s seen a lot at low-rise condos. Mr. Zunzunegui said they need to get work going, but it needs to be permitted. We don’t want them to be selling their homes five or 10 years from now only to find there was no permit. g. Operations & Regulatory Management Division – [Ken Kovensky, Director] Mr. Kovensky reported that: • There are two queues, with one for permits they already received and are being worked on. That queue is currently on Monday’s activities, so we’re nearly caught up. • Activity last month compared with last year was a little higher, but September and October of last year were much higher. • For the last three months, we’ve seen about 10,700 permits. Last year, during the same period, there were 13,300. Obviously, some of that decline is due to Hurricane Ian, and it’s taking time for permits to come in. • There’s also a queue of permits that haven’t been applied for yet. We haven’t seen that many permits. We processed 700-plus permits related to Hurricane Ian last month but believe there’s a lot out there. • In anticipation of more permits, we increased satellite offices to five days a week for the past 1½ months. That hasn’t taken off much, especially Marco Island Airport’s satellite office, which was set up to accommodate Isles of Capri and north. Only 46 people came to the office over the last month, so we think there are many permits that haven’t been applied for. A discussion ensued and the following points were made: • Collier County residents are going to Home Depot and Lowe’s to buy insulation after pulling out their own drywall, which is evident if you drive past damaged homes and see what’s being purchased at Home Depot and Lowe’s. • There was an uptick in permits after Hurricane Irma, but that probably was due to specialty permits for roofers and screen cages. • What’s going on now is internal, homeowners doing the work. • It’s likely none of those homeowners obtained a permit because they believe it’s just installing drywall, they want to get back to normal and not go through a regulatory process. December 7, 2022 8 • Everybody is back in their house, but it’s doubtful they got permits, although all those houses were under water. • Most permits received by the county involved re-roofs (not all from the hurricane) and 30 came in the other day. • As a result, the county may reduce hours in the satellite offices and redeploy employees back to where they will be more productive. Mr. Kovensky continued his report: • The Call Center is still averaging 5,000 calls in November; most were handled by KeyStaff. • Abandoned calls went up due to staff changes and hiring KeyStaff temps. • We’re in a constant state of replenishing employees, pushing them to different areas and bringing more people to the Call Center, where they must be trained. • We lost a finance manager, we had interviews that didn’t yield anything, so the job was reposted. • We lost two people in licensing; one went to Procurement and a planning tech from the Business Center went to Risk Management. • A GIS tech position has been open for two months and is difficult to fill. • We converted three KeyStaff employees to full-time planning technicians, so we built a pipeline that we’re still drawing from. • We filled an accounting tech position in the cashiering section; she’ll start in two weeks. h. Zoning Division – [Mike Bosi, Director] (None) 6. New Business a. Updated memo regarding the lifespan of SDPIs and ICPs [Development Review] [Covered during staff announcements, 5.a, by Ms. Cook.] 7. Old Business A discussion ensued over whether to hold a January meeting and the following points were made: • The DSAC-LDR subcommittee didn’t meet last month due to lack of a quorum. • There are some items DSAC-LDR needs to hear, including the East Naples Overlay. • There’s not much coming up in January. • They need to pursue alternate members for the DSAC-LDR subcommittee to ensure there is a quorum for their meetings. DSAC members could come if there isn’t a quorum, especially if it involves their area of expertise. Mr. Dunnavant made a motion to appoint all members of the DSAC as alternate members of DSAC- LDR that can be called on in case there’s no quorum. It was seconded by Mr. Curl. The motion passed unanimously, 13-0. 8. Committee Member Comments A discussion ensued over whether they would hold a meeting in January and they agreed they would not meet. 9. Adjourn Future Meeting Dates: December 7 .2022 February 1, 2023, 3 p.m. March l, 2023, 3 p.m. Mr. English made a molion lo adjoum lhe meeling. It was seconded by Mr. Brooker. The motion passed unanimo usly, I 3-0. There being no further business for the good ofthe County, the meeting was adjourned by the order of the chairman at 3:41 p.m, COLLIER COUNTY DEVELOPMf,NT SERVICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE \--; William Varian, Chairman These minutes were apgraded by the Committee/Chairman on as presented (choose one)-, or as amended _. I