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HEX Minutes 01/25/2024January 25, 2024 Page 1 of 7 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE COLLIER COUNTY HEARING EXAMINER Naples, Florida, January 25, 2024 LET IT BE REMEMBERED that the Collier County Hearing Examiner, in and for the County of Collier, having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:03 a.m., in REGULAR SESSION at 2800 North Horseshoe Drive, Room 609/610, Naples, Florida, with the following people present: HEARING EXAMINER ANDREW DICKMAN ALSO PRESENT: Michael Bosi, Planning and Zoning Director Raymond V. Bellows, Zoning Manager Sean Sammon, Planner III Ailyn Padron, Management Analyst I January 25, 2024 Page 2 of 7 P R O C E E D I N G S HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: All right. Good morning, everyone. Today is January 25th, 2024. Let's all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. (The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Okay. Real quick introductions here. This is the Hearing Examiner Meeting under Collier County. My name is Andrew Dickman. I'm the appointed hearing examiner. I'm a Florida Bar attorney. I have been a member of the bar since 20- -- it's 2000 -- I guess now, 2000, and I have been in good standing since then. My practice is in local government, City/County government, zoning, land use. I was appointed by the Board of County Commissioners. I'm not a County employee. I'm here as an impartial decision-maker to review the merits of the case and evaluate the merits of the case with regard to the criteria as expressed in the code. The way that we're going to handle these as a quasi-judicial hearing is that we will have the County staff, who are to my right here, present the petition, and then we will have the applicant or the applicant's representative speak. We'll open it up to the public. This is a -- quasi in-person and virtual hearings. There might be someone participating via Zoom. We have a court reporter here today who is taking down everything verbatim, and anyone who is going to testify here today must do so under oath. So at this time anyone who is going to testify please stand, raise your right and the court reporter will administer the oath. Thank you. THE COURT REPORTER: Do you swear or affirm the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. (The speakers were duly sworn and indicated in the affirmative.) HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: All right. Great. Let's just jump right into the first item, the first and only item. This is 3-A. Good morning, Sean. MR. SAMMON: Good morning, Mr. Dickman. For the record, Sean Sammon, Planner III in the Zoning Division. Before you is Agenda Item 3-A. It's for a variance, Project Number PL20230007304. This is a request for you to approve a variance from Land Development Code Section 4.02.01 A, Table 2.1, to reduce the required RSF-3 front setback from 30 feet to 5.6 feet on the south property line for the proposed accessory enclosed metal utility building. The subject property is approximately 0.86 acres, described as Lot 19 of Parkers Hammock and is located at 6250 Parkers Hammock Road, Naples, Florida, 34112, roughly a half mile east of Santa Barbara Boulevard and 500 feet north of Rattlesnake Hammock Road in Section 16, Township 50 South, Range 26 East, Collier County, Florida. The petition was reviewed by staff based upon review criteria contained within the LDC Section 9.04.03, a through h, and staff believes this petition is consistent with the review criteria in the LDC, as well as with the GMP. With respect to the public notice requirements, they were complied with as per LDC Section 10.03.6., f. The agent letter was distributed by the property owner on Friday, October 20th, 2023. The property owner notification letter and newspaper ad were taken care by the County on Friday, January 5th, 2024, and the public hearing sign was placed by County staff on Tuesday, January 25, 2024 Page 3 of 7 January 9th, 2024. I have received no public comments for opposition pertaining to this petition; therefore, because staff believes that the petition is consistent with the LDC and GMP, staff recommends that you approve this petition as described in accordance with the attachments to the staff report, specifically Attachment B, Site Plan and Detail for Proposed Variance. That concludes staff summary. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Okay. Thank you, Sean. Appreciate that. Is the applicant here? MR. O'DONNELL: Yes. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Come up here, sir. You can use this podium over here next to the court reporter. Good morning. Thanks for being here. MR. O'DONNELL: Good morning. Do I have to speak directly into this or -- HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Yeah, I mean just so we all hear you. Take your time. MR. O'DONNELL: All right. Well, my name is Patrick O'Donnell. I am the homeowner at 6250 Parkers Hammock Road. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Great. MR. O'DONNELL: And I'm representing myself and my wife, Lisa. The -- that first slide there shows where our property is. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Yup. MR. O'DONNELL: It's at the terminus of the southern Parkers Hammock Road, and there is a northern Parkers Hammock Road running parallel to it. I just mentioned it because it's -- it relates to one of the reasons why we want to put this metal building in. The property to the west of us is Mandelay Bay, and they have put a conservation easement on that section that you can see on the location map. So I do not believe any development will happen there which would possibly relate to an extension of Parkers Hammock Road. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Okay. MR. O'DONNELL: And there's a small drainage ditch at the terminus of Parkers Hammock as well. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Okay. MR. O'DONNELL: Next slide, please. So our property starts at that electrical pole. It goes to the west to the end of Parkers Hammock Road. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Okay. MR. O'DONNELL: My goal in the 20-something years we have been living there has been to leave up the natural canopy trees. I like the natural view, and -- but they have been very beneficial in the last four major hurricanes that have hit us since we've built, protecting us from the force of the winds. They have really protected the house and the garage that we have built. At the terminus just across from our driveway is a turnaround mainly for Waste Management. Garbage trucks on garbage day, they turn around there. There are no other driveways besides ours from the right side of the picture to the west. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Got it. MR. O'DONNELL: We do get a lot of turnarounds at the end of our street here, which we think of them -- if they're not Waste Management, we think of them as suspicious January 25, 2024 Page 4 of 7 turnarounds. They shouldn't be there. Just because people attending our property or, you know, the County -- the Waste Management trucks should be the only ones turning around down there. Because of the north Parkers Hammock Road, which is not Parkers Hammock North or South, there are a lot of people trying to find that Parkers Hammock North Road, and they end up turning around down here, but we -- we don't trust any turnarounds. There's been incidents in the past that people just parking at the end of the street for no reason. But -- so this setback variance we're looking to do would be for a metal building in front of our garage. I think you can go to the next and the one after that. The next picture just shows, again, the end of the street. So from this picture, I'd like to say that the native vegetation that I have left up would obscure the view of this building we're hoping to put in until you're actually right in front of our driveway and our -- our house. So it would even be hidden for the most part. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Right. So your report is right where this pole is going out -- MR. O'DONNELL: Yeah, just past my driveway, yeah. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: -- going out west, right. So your driveway is on the east side of this where the palm branch is and goes all the way down to the terminus down there where the mailbox is, I guess? MR. O'DONNELL: Yeah, that's our driveway where the mailbox is. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Okay, gotcha. MR. O'DONNELL: All right. You can go to the next slide. So this is right in front of our buildings. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Okay. MR. O'DONNELL: You can see our garage on the right. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Yup. MR. O'DONNELL: In the past you couldn't see our garage. There was some good native vegetation that has been compromised by Hurricanes Irma and Ian. And now I'm standing on the lawn behind the apartments, which are across the street. That used to be called Naples Place. I'm not sure what they call it now, but all those residents in those apartments have a view now into our garage when we have garage doors open and we're working outside. This metal building we're proposing to put within the current setback is -- would be right in front of the garage there. So it would obstruct any views into our work spaces and what we house in our garage, which is another reason why we'd like to put it there. You can go to the next slide. So this is -- the three orange cones there would be the corners of this building we're proposing. The driveway is already there. We would just need to extend it five feet to the south and then about 23 feet to where those cones are for the pad for this building. I have just scraped a couple weeds out of there. I haven't removed any native vegetation or large canopy trees to do that. This is the ideal spot on our property that we would like to build. The property is considered a wetland from the State due to Cypress trees and other vegetation growing on the lot. We are right next to a maybe historic drainage slough, and so we had to mitigate for all the buildings and fill and everything that we have put onto our buildable lot in the past due to its January 25, 2024 Page 5 of 7 wetland nature, which makes it more difficult to want to put the extra buildings on our property. There is a special treatment overlay from the County on the north side of our property that we really have tried not to impact with any of our buildings, but this is the spot. The next slide, please, shows -- that would be the area that, if the variance -- setback variance is not granted, we would have to take down all of those mature canopy trees in about a 2,000-square-foot area, which would probably include all those trees. We would have to bring in about 2,000 square feet of fill, which would be impacting this wetland lot that we have. We would rather not do that. These canopy trees have been the best thing to protect our buildings from hurricanes in the past and force of the winds. The building is hopefully going to house boats, trailers and other things, getting them out of the weather that we have here in South Florida and the sun. That can destroy a lot of things as well. And then the last picture, slide, this is just a view looking to the east towards our nearest neighbor, which you can't even -- you can barely see his house. He would -- if we took out all those trees, he would be looking directly at this building built on this east side of our property. He probably would rather not look at it. He would probably enjoy the tree cover that he has a view of now, but he would be -- his views would be impacted by an alternative building site. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Yeah. So the east neighbor is on Parcel A, is that correct, the east one half of Lot 19, or is it Lot 20? MR. O'DONNELL: No. So we joined the two lots together many years ago to become one lot, which is about .86 acres. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: So it's Lot 19 total? MR. O'DONNELL: Not Lot 19 total. He is just to the east of us. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Okay. So everything between Lot 20 and where your current residence and the existing garage is is wooded? MR. O'DONNELL: It is, yes. It's natural -- HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: That's what you're referring to as the wet -- the wet area? MR. O'DONNELL: Yeah, the natural vegetation, the big trees shown in the other pictures, that remains. It provides a nice buffer from us seeing our neighbor, and we would love to keep all that in -- HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Okay. MR. O'DONNELL: -- if possible, but if we don't get this variance setback from the setback, then we would have to remove -- HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: The structure that you're seeking to put on that -- that area, is it going to blend in with the rest of the architectural style that you have there? MR. O'DONNELL: Yes. So the sides of the building would be green. The roof is a maroon color like the -- our roof on the garage and the house. The -- the picture showing our house and garage, the vegetation that is currently there, that one -- HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Yeah. MR. O'DONNELL: -- I'm just going to allow that to grow naturally and fill out. That would semi-obscure the actual building itself. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: What did you lose, pine trees, things like that? MR. O'DONNELL: That was a medium-sized Maple, maybe a Laurel Oak. January 25, 2024 Page 6 of 7 HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Yeah. MR. O'DONNELL: Those grow in wetlands. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: I see you have a really nice mature pine tree. A lot of pine trees were lost during the hurricane, unfortunately. MR. O'DONNELL: That's our only pine tree and that one survived. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Yeah. MR. O'DONNELL: But there are -- you know, we have had small losses just in front of the garage. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Yeah. MR. O'DONNELL: But the mature canopy trees have been so beneficial in protecting our house and our garage -- HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Right, right. MR. O'DONNELL: -- in the past. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Okay. I get the general idea. I understand. Let me see if anyone signed up to speak for this. I know we don't see anyone here. Has anyone signed up on Zoom? MS. PADRON: Good morning. We have no registered speakers. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Your neighbors, have any of your neighbors given you letters of approval or no contest or anything like that? MR. O'DONNELL: Yes, letters of no objection, we got from the first neighbor to the east -- HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Yes, yes. MR. O'DONNELL: -- Mr. Lee. When we sent out the letter to the adjacent land owners within 150 feet, two of them actually called me and said, if we needed any additional support, they would support us. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Okay. MR. O'DONNELL: This was after I sent in all the letters of no objection. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Okay. MR. O'DONNELL: So I didn't think it was necessary, but they -- they supported us in that -- in our -- HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Yes. MR. O'DONNELL: -- variance. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Gotcha. MR. O'DONNELL: -- application. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Okay. Pretty straight forward. You have a beautiful piece of property, very nicely wooded out there. I'm sure it's beautiful at night and nice and dark. MR. O'DONNELL: Yeah. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: I'm sure you get lots of fun little adventures from the preserve to your west. MR. O'DONNELL: The wildlife, yeah. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Anything else you want to -- anything else from the County or from the applicant? Anything else you want to say? MR. SAMMON: For the record, Sean Sammons. Just to follow up on -- the letters of support will be an Attachment A in the back of the package of the staff report. January 25, 2024 Page 7 of 7 HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Okay. Great. Thank you. Appreciate that, Sean. Okay. Anything else? It's pretty straight forward. I understand the -- MR. O'DONNELL: Yeah, there's a lot of information in the packet that I don't need to go over here. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Yeah, I have reviewed that, got the whole packet. I don't make decisions here today. I don't know if they told you or not. MR. O'DONNELL: I heard that, yes, sir. Yes. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: I have up to 30 days to issue a written decision. MR. O'DONNELL: Okay. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: I will get that out as quickly as I can. MR. O'DONNELL: Okay. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Great job. Nice work. MR. O'DONNELL: Thank you. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Yeah. Okay. See, you don't need a lawyer for this stuff. Anything else from the -- you want to talk about? Nick Saban? MR. BOSI: Nothing more of County business to discuss -- HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: Okay. MR. BOSI: -- so we're good. HEARING EXAMINER DICKMAN: All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate everyone being here and have a great day. ******* There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Hearing Examiner at 9:23 a.m. COLLIER COUNTY HEARING EXAMINER ________________________________________ ANDREW DICKMAN, HEARING EXAMINER These minutes approved by the Hearing Examiner on ________, as presented _____ or as corrected _____. TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF FORT MYERS COURT REPORTING BY SUSAN SIMONETTI, COURT REPORTER AND NOTARY PUBLIC.