DSAC Minutes 03/06/2024 March 6, 2024
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MINUTES OF THE COLLIER COUNTY
DEVELOPMENT SERVICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING
Naples, Florida
March 6, 2024
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
Community 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 (excused)
James E. Boughton (excused)
Clay Brooker
Jeff Curl
David Dunnavant
John English
Marco Espinar
Norman Gentry
Mark McLean
Chris Mitchell
Robert Mulhere
Laura Spurgeon-DeJohn
Jeremy Sterk
Mario Valle
Hannah Roberts–AHAC non-voting
ALSO PRESENT:
Craig Brown, Manager, Environmental Services
Thomas Iandimarino, Director, Code Enforcement
Drew Cody, Senior Project Manager, Utilities Planning
Cormac Giblin, Director, Housing Policy & Economic Development
Lorraine Lantz, Planner III, Transportation Engineering
Michael Stark, Director, Operations & Regulatory Mgt. Division
Richard Long, Director, Building Plan Review & Inspection, GMCD
Diane Lynch, Management Analyst II/Staff Liaison GMCD
Julie Chardon, Ops Support Specialist II, GMCD
Rey Torres Fuentes, Ops Support Specialist I, GMCD
March 6, 2024
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Any persons needing the verbatim record of the meeting may request a copy of the
audio recording from the Collier County Growth Management Community
Department.
1. Call to Order – Chairman
Chairman Varian called the meeting to order at 3 p.m.
A quorum of 11 was present in the boardroom; three members joined later.
2. Approval of Agenda
Mr. Curl moved to approve the agenda. Mr. Valle seconded it. The motion passed
unanimously, 11-0.
3. Approval of Minutes
a. DSAC Meeting – February 7, 2024
Mr. McLean made a motion to approve the February 7, 2024, DSAC meeting minutes.
Mr. Dunnavant seconded it. The motion passed unanimously, 11-0.
b. DSAC-LDR Subcommittee Meeting – January 16, 2024
Mr. Brooker, chair of the subcommittee, made a motion to approve the January 16,
2024, and January 31, 2024, DSAC-LDR Subcommittee meeting minutes. Mr. Mulhere
seconded it. The motion passed unanimously, 4-0; Mr. McClean and Mr. Curl also voted.
c. DSAC-LDR Subcommittee Meeting – January 31, 2024
Mr. Curl made a motion to approve the January 31, 2024, DSAC-LDR Subcommittee
meeting minutes. It was seconded and passed unanimously, 3-0; Mr. McLean and Mr.
Brooker, who chaired the subcommittee, also voted.
4. Public Speakers
(None)
5. Staff Announcements/Updates
a. Development Review Division – [Craig Brown, Environmental Services Manager]
Mr. Brown provided an update about LDC Amendment 305-08:
• This section involves the live exotic removal ordinance, which has had a few
amendments.
• It’s been revised to limit the scope to the state’s only company.
• It’s going to the CCPC tomorrow.
• It goes to the Board of County Commissioners on March 12 and if approved, it will be
adopted on March 26.
• Anything in limbo, once this is adopted, a 7½-foot perimeter of exotic removal will go
into effect.
b. Code Enforcement Division – [Thomas Iandimarino, Director]
Mr. Iandimarino provided a February update:
• We had about an 8% increase in cases over February of last year, which is about
standard.
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• There was a 20% increase in inspections from last year that stems from the large jump
of cases in January. We have little ebbs and flows and some cases we have to finish.
• It won’t go up a lot more so we are opening up 8% more than last year.
• There are little increases across-the-board. We’ll see how the rest of the year goes.
Chairman Varian said for Contractor Licensing, once they upload their certificate of
insurance how long should someone expect that to take to be approved?
Mr. Iandimarino said he’d find out and get back to him after the meeting.
c. Community Planning & Resiliency Division [Chris Mason, Director]
(No report)
d. Building Review & Permitting Division [Richard Long]
Mr. Long reported that:
• We’re doing 1,100 inspections a day, our usual.
• We hit a new record after President’s Day, 1,490 in one day, the most he’s seen in 18
years.
• There are a couple of review teams that are about three weeks out. Everybody else is
running between seven to 10 days after it gets routed.
• There are about 2,050 pending reviews, which encompasses all trades, all reviewers in
the system now.
• Pending intake, there are 527 in the intake process, so half have already been processed
and are getting ready to be routed. The other half are in the front of the process.
• We issued 286 COs last month, 58 TCOs and 3,561 Certificates of Completion.
• We have nine open positions and three new hires starting this month. We have two
structural inspector positions open, two plumbing review positions and five
structural review positions.
Mr. Dunnavant asked about the significance of the Milestone Inspections and the HOA
inspections that are completed versus not due yet.
Mr. Long explained:
• It’s an HOA function.
• There is a typo and 1,474 is supposed to be 474.
• 965 buildings require a Milestone Inspection so we’re actively reaching out.
• We’ve just finished the workflow and are trying to it into CityView to capture the data
for reporting and track it better.
• It’s a slow process. Some have been uploaded but haven’t been paid yet.
• He was mistaken last month. He found that we can charge a fee. It’s a $50 review fee,
so some engineers don’t want to pay that. They say the HOAs should pay it, so we’ve
got some things waiting for that.
• We’re actively pursuing communication to try and get the HOAs to start getting their
inspections in.
[Ms. DeJohn joined the meeting at 3:08 p.m.]
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Chairman Varian said there are many HOAs –he has five or six now – and they’re all asking
what they need to do.
Mr. Long said they’re just starting to pay attention to it and get it going. He assumes that’s
probably because they’re finishing up Hurricane Ian work.
Chairman Varian agreed that’s definitely part of it.
Mr. Long said we try to be proactive and remind them that as long as they’re working on the
Hurricane Ian paperwork, they may as well ask the engineer to do the Milestone Inspection.
Mr. Valle said on the building plan review statistics, it looks like single family homes jumped
back up to about $250,000 but the construction value was still below $50 million. Do you have
any sense of the disparity between that and going back to August of last year, we had about
$258, 000 but the construction value was much higher. Is there a different product that’s
coming in the building? Is that just catching up with the statistics?
Mr. Long explained that the graph you’re looking at represents the ones we issued, and the
applied number is another graph, so it’ll be probably trailing.
e. Public Utilities Department [Drew Cody, Senior Project Manager]
Mr. Cody provided an update:
• Things have started to normalize after the holiday rush.
• We’re working through some longer-term requests, permits no one has asked us to help
with since 2019 and dates that we haven’t done before.
• We’re working with the county attorney to ensure everything is good to go. We should
have those reports out in the next month.
• We have a subcommittee meeting next Wednesday with Utilities Finance Director Joe
Bellone. He anticipates sending the agenda packet and details to you on Friday.
[Mr. Gentry joined the meeting at 3:10 p.m.]
f. Housing Policy & Economic Development [Cormac Giblin, Director]
Mr. Giblin told the DSAC:
• We continue to process local applications and Growth Management Plan applications
that are seeking increased density in exchange for affordable housing.
• Last week the Board of County Commissioners approved the first authorization for the
use of the sales surtax dollars to acquire property for Ekos Collier, about 7.5 acres on
South Collier Boulevard. About 160 affordable apartments will be built there. The
board authorized us to move forward with the purchase of the property for about $3.75
million.
• $20 million in surtax dollars was in the pot.
• Construction on the Golden Gate Golf Course workforce housing and family project is
continuing, with 252 units under construction. Some are in site development now. An
additional 120 senior affordable housing units will be built there in Phase 2.
• In calendar year 2023, the board approved 2,090 new affordable housing units to be
built. That represented 23% of all residential units approved that year.
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Ms. Roberts provided a report about the AHAC meeting:
• There will be a Live Local Act workshop in conjunction with a local chapter of the
ULI. It’s intended to be a deep dive into the legislation and recent updates, as well as
how we can best adopt it and still comply with our Land Development Code.
• The workshop will gather the experts in this room.
• If anyone is interested in attending, reach out to Cormac for details.
Mr. Giblin noted that several of you already have RSVPed to attend.
Mr. Brooker asked what happened with the Live Local Act revisionist bills.
Mr. Giblin said the bills passed both chambers and are on Gov. DeSantis’ desk.
Mr. Brooker asked whether 23% of all approved units being affordable was a good number.
Mr. Giblin replied:
• It’s better than 0. That’s on track for a healthy community.
• That’s a mixture of some developments that were approved that were focused on
affordable housing. Some were Growth Management Plan and opted in with 15%, 20%
or 30% affordable, so it’s a mixture.
• There were many at 0%.
• About half the 20 developments approved that contained residential units had
affordability restrictions, so half were still purely market rate.
• The incentives, Growth Management Plan and Land Development Code changes have
led to more applicants now.
g. GMD Transportation Engineering Division [Jay Ahmad, Director]
Mr. Ahmad provided an update on projects in design and in construction:
• Airport Road from Vanderbilt Beach Road to Immokalee Road is at about 40-50%
design. The project will make it six lanes like the rest of the road, three lanes in each
direction. KCA is our consultant. We hope to be in construction by early 2026. There’s
a grant associated with that and that’s the date for that.
• Collier Boulevard widening from City Gate north, where Uline is, all the way to Green
Boulevard. It’s the last section of Collier that’s not six lane. It goes from U.S. 41 all the
way to Immokalee, so this is a missing piece. We hope to be in construction in 2025.
The Army Corps has taken back permitting on the 404 Permit for the DEP, so this
project may be impacted by that transfer.
• When we had the Vanderbilt Beach Road extension, we were almost ready and the
FDEP notice to permit was issued and that took about 1½ years to clear that mess.
Jacob, of Sacyr Construction USA, is our consultant on that project.
• Vanderbilt Beach Road Extension Phase 2, which takes the project from where we
ended at 16th to just east of Everglades is in design with Kimley-Horn. We hope to
complete the design by early 2024 and the construction soon after so it’s seamless with
the other projects once it’s in. The $153 million ongoing construction projects by Sacyr
Construction USA have been undertaken now. They’re about 35% complete, about
70,000 feet of pipes being installed, almost 15 crews constructing, so it’s going very
well. It’s tracking for completion on time.
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• We’re taking a change order to the Board of County Commissioners’ next meeting. We
faced some unsuitable material we couldn’t build roadways on so we were adding days
and dollars.
• Logan Boulevard by Old Cypress construction project. We’re getting many complaints.
We’re doing a roundabout to slow traffic down. Instead of having a three-way stop, it
helps traffic flow. It’s going very well.
• There are delays in Lumen, which seems to be really slow in addressing utility
relocations. We have attorneys involved but it took a long time to have that utility move
its fiber optics, so we were backed up and it finally moved. We hope to be completed
around August and hopefully, the phone calls will end.
• At the last meeting he was asked about the fence on Golden Gate Parkway that kept
getting hit, so he dug deeper and talked to Marshall Miller, our maintenance director.
There was some confusion about FDOT maintaining the fence, but it’s our
responsibility, so from now on, we will be repairing it. When they built that bridge,
there was an agreement with FDOT to address all the landscaping and fencing features
on the bridge.
h. Collier County Fire Review [Michael Cruz, Captain]
• Chief J. Nolan Sapp is retiring Friday. We’re going to do a nationwide search.
• Deputy Chief Chris Wolfe will be interim chief until the commissioners get together
and figure out that situation.
• Plan reviewers are doing a great job. There were 231 reviews for building and 50 for
planning.
• 49% of our inspections are on the new construction side.
h. North Collier Fire Review [Bryan Horbal, Captain]
Capt. Horbal detailed the February reports:
• We’re going to have a party for Chief Sapp on Friday, so swing by if you want to.
• We had 408 reviews in February, 52 for planning.
• An average review on a permit for new construction is three days and two days on a
planning review.
• We have multiple housing projects coming up. There are a lot off of Oilwell Road and
Immokalee Road. They’re popping up everywhere. The new Publix off of Oilwell is
already in for permitting, so that’ll be next for the Ave Maria area and Estates residents.
• Fees for new construction were implemented. The new fee structure seems to be going
well. We put our fees together with Greater Naples so they’re all aligned so no matter
which side of the road you’re on, you’re paying the same fees. We got a good response
on that.
• As of March, we had 1,994 permits for new construction in our system for just north
Collier alone.
• We completed 1,400 inspections in February, including Naples, Immokalee, Ave
Maria, Bonita, so it’s been another busy month.
• We’re still one day out on inspection requests, sometimes same day if somebody’s in a
pinch.
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i.Operations & Regulatory Management Division – [Michael Stark, Director]
Mr. Stark provided a February update:
•He reviewed our DSAC ordinance to make sure we’re achieving our elected regulatory
objectives. We review a lot here and want to make sure that we highlight some of the
business centers and business units so we can collectively address any concerns and
move forward with addressing those concerns.
•There are five locations for business centers. That includes the information counter, call
center, permit intake, zoning front desk and client services.
•Our financial operations section oversees about $96 million in operating expenses and
about 49 call centers.
•We are starting the budget process now, so we’re deep into that.
•At Tuesday’s BCC meeting, they’re going to review the budget instructions for moving
forward for our programs. We also oversee cashiering, records management, 311
support, technical systems operations with IT support, our agenda management system,
as well as high-profile project support through Diane Lynch.
•We are still looking at May for testing the texts and updating that.
•Our facilities management team involves operations, security, maintenance, and capital
improvements.
•Our business center assisted approximately 957 walk-in customers.
•Our four satellite locations welcomed 189 walk-in customers.
•The Call Center received 6,129 calls to the main number. The average call lasted under
three minutes.
•The department received 3,876 permit applications through CityView, totaling 18,651
year-to-date.
•We’re still looking at numbers correlating with FY19-FY20 numbers and are still
slightly down.
•The average turnaround time for applications was less than one day, with 270 revisions.
About 1,488 of those 3,876 had incompletes, but they were processed.
•We’re evaluating this and working with Kirsten and her team to determine how to
communicate effectively to make sure that we lessen the amount of revisions. That will
increase turnaround time.
•284 permit applications were related to Hurricane Ian.
•There are 277 permits in routing for fees paid.
•Intake staff is working through 320 permits from March 1st.
•The zoning front-desk staff resolved 974 survey conditions and are working through 30
survey conditions, 10 of which are CO holds.
•We have 320 full-time employees with 29 positions in the hiring pipeline.
•We conducted our second round of interviews for the HR manager position that Jamie
French discussed. One candidate, a woman employed on the East Coast, has vast
experience not only in building, but floodplain management and other experience
specific to growth management, which will really help us out.
j. Zoning Division – [Mike Bosi, Director]
(No report)
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6.New Business
a.Sidewalk Payment-in-Lieu Provisions in LDC Section 6.06.02 (requested by Clay
Brooker)
Mr. Brooker reported:
•He has a client who is dealing with the sidewalk payment-in-lieu issue. The purpose
for bringing it to this committee’s attention is to see if anyone else is having a
similar situation.
•Sidewalks were introduced as a code 15-20 years ago and this committee was
somewhat contentious when we heard it 15 years ago.
•The reason it became contentious is there were many pieces of property where there
are no sidewalks anywhere around them, yet they were required to build a sidewalk.
We called that a “sidewalk to nowhere.”
•Because of that issue, the code has changed over time to allow payments-in-lieu so
if you don’t want to build a sidewalk, you can pay into the county’s funds, about
$9.64 per square foot.
•His client has property off Immokalee Road, a fairly eastward road on Rock Road.
His house is on an unpaved dirt road and there are no paved roads within a mile and
no sidewalks within two miles.
•He runs a small landscape business out of his property and parks his landscaping
trucks at his property, which is literally in the sticks.
•Someone complained about his trucks going down the dirt road and there was dust,
etc. It was investigated by Code Enforcement, which found everything was legal.
However, because he was operating a business on the property, he was required to
submit a Site Improvement Plan.
•But a fairly routine, an easy submission ended in many comments coming in.
•The scope of work is about $1,000 to throw some plants in. He also must create a
handicap-parking space, even though he’s the only one who lives there. It will be
$25,000 for sidewalks under the current code. That was the demand as of today.
•He’s working with staff on it. There is one provision that’s horribly worded that
says if your sidewalk payment-in-lieu is going to be more than 25% of your scope
of work, then maybe we need to adjust the payment-in-lieu because that’s out of
proportion.
•He’s dealing with Jaime and Mike Bosi and we’re trying to work through that. He’s
not being roadblocked, but it’s an issue.
•Has anyone here experienced this? If so, how did it get resolved?
•He wants to ask staff to come back next month to talk to us about this.
•Another issue is that payments-in-lieu go into a fund. The code says they try to use
the money to construct sidewalks as near to the location as feasible, which in this
case would be a long way away. It makes zero sense.
•His client is part of an MSTU, Municipal Service Taxing Unit. Because Rock Road
is private, it’s not maintained by the county, so property owners around them have
paid into this fund over the last 20 years to do what they think is best for Rock
Road. Sidewalks have never been in the plans. It doesn’t make sense.
•He’d like to invite staff next month to tell us if we can do something better.
Mr. English told him he supports his proposal.
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Mr. Curl said more development is going to happen out in that direction so this really
impacts the Estate’s zoning. The lengths are ridiculous. When do we ever see a sidewalk
group out there building a sidewalk with those funds? It’s more of a beat-down to get some
money.
Mr. English told the DSAC:
•He’s encountered this many times. We all call them “sidewalks to nowhere.”
•He had a project where instead of doing payment-in-lieu, because the way it’s
handled has changed over time, it was cheaper for them to build the sidewalk on the
frontage. But there was no sidewalk anywhere near them for miles and miles. They
put the sidewalk in and had to put an end-of-sidewalk sign on each end. That’s part
of the problem.
•It’s a noble idea to have this requirement, but the problem is the way it’s been
written. It’s very simplistic and leaves no room for reason, waivers and exemptions
where it makes sense.
•Anytime you encounter these situations, it mystifies logic and the answer is always
the same. The code says “you must.” It doesn’t make sense.
•Something that’s long been missing is some ability to introduce reason, exemption
and waiver.
[Mr. Mulhere joined the meeting at 3:33 p.m.]
[Mr. Valle left the meeting at 3:33 p.m.]
Mr. Curl said it’s almost similar to the utilities out there. With the length of lot frontage, it
doesn’t make sense in terms of bang for your buck. The rights-of-way are easements on
properties so it’s not technically a right-of-way. They’re very narrow, so how do you fit all
this within that profile? You’ve got two swales and a 20-foot road so there’s not even room
within the right-of-way to build that sidewalk.
Mr. Mitchell said we’ve never had relief. You either build it or you pay. Is there an
opportunity to do a consent agenda item or take it directly to the board? It’s a bit different,
a residential use that isn’t commercially visited by anybody, so there’s really nothing there.
Maybe the thought is the board can approve anything. In the past, Jaime and Matt have
introduced items for the board to vote on. It’s not a public process so that may be an option.
Mr. Brooker said he wants staff to come in next month to inject reason into this Land
Development Code Amendment. We need to create flexibility and inject reasonableness
into the extreme circumstances we’re talking about.
A discussion ensued and the following points were made:
•A provision allows the county manager to waive that requirement.
•That appears in certain sections, but not the one Mr. Brooker needs. He’s arguing
that it should apply in all sections.
•Mr. Mulhere said it’s usually tied to practicality.
•Mr. Brooker said the county manager’s discretion should be built into it all to
exercise discretion, regardless of whether it’s public versus private, 6-foot, 5-foot,
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private easements or rights-of-way. That should all be built in to allow the county
manager to exercise discretion when circumstances warrant.
• Mr. Mulhere agreed.
• Mr. Dunnavant said that for years staff has had the ability to fix this. Do you expect
support for your viewpoint from staff?
• Mr. Brooker said he spoke to Jaime early this week and she seemed amenable about
looking into how this code provision can be improved.
• Mr. Mulhere said that’s one side of the equation.
• The other side is transportation, where it may be more difficult.
• The pre-app notes from transportation said we have to install a crosswalk, a stop
sign for him to leave his single-family home, and sidewalks. It was off-the-charts
crazy. They said this is what the code says, thou shalt do it, with no reason to inject
into the review process. That’s what needs to occur.
• We don’t want to add more layers, but it sounds like by right, you can do it
administratively, a Site Improvement Plan for the business in the Estates.
• This is ag zoning but it has an overlay on it and he uses the property legally.
• Maybe there’s a hearing examiner process you can use to expedite it. The fear
would be that you’re giving the county manager or designee the ability to make that
decision.
• That’s a big decision to make and how do you apply it uniformly or with some
consistency?
• It’s fairly easy if you consider how many landscape businesses operate in the
Estates. Residents have 5-10 acres so it must be a lot.
• It is. There aren’t other places for them to operate. Where are they going to go?
• Why are we penalizing someone for a non-impactful business? It doesn’t draw
transportation, pedestrians and there are no customers, so why can’t we develop a
process?
• You can build a waiver into the process.
• If the county is lukewarm to this, the hearing examiner process takes three months.
It’s still time-consuming, but at least you have an opportunity to get out, a waiver,
exemption or variance.
Ms. DeJohn said she lives on the Estates street of a window contractor, a roofer and some
landscape businesses. There are quite a few bicyclists and people coming to work, so it’s
not customers, it’s the employees of these guys in their nice Estate homes with their nice
Estate slots who are drawing workers in at about 6 a.m. by foot or by bike.
Mr. Brooker said no customers come to this location.
Mr. Curl said the roadway he’s on is a 20-foot road with a multi-use path.
Mr. Mulhere said there’s only one permitted use by right in Golden Gate Estates and it’s a
single-family home. You can do a home occupation, but you cannot do a home occupation
under the current rules. You cannot get a home occupation for something that creates more
than the usual traffic, etc. There are residents who couldn’t get a home occupation for a
lawn service in the Estates and they got kicked out of the Estates. That’s why they’re out in
the ag district because we only have two industrial areas in Collier County, one across from
March 6, 2024
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the airport and one off Pine Ridge Road, and there’s no room there. The rest is scarce. In
North Naples, there’s really nothing.
Mr. Booker said he believes the only exception for this property is the Rural Fringe
Overlay, which allows agricultural services, including land and landscaping businesses, as
a matter of right.
Mr. Mulhere said it gets very nuanced in the SIC codes. You can’t have a site-
development business like bulldozers, but you can do the same things under a landscaping
business. You can build ponds, lakes, dig lakes, build berms, all under a landscape license,
so that whole thing needs to be looked at as to what is permissible. There are impacts.
Mr. English said he’d be interested in a conversation about that code item. There are
plenty of situations we can map out where it’s punitive based on frontage on a public road.
You can have 10 acres with very little frontage on a public road, and you’re going to pay
one price, but you could have the same acreage with a lot of public road frontage and
you’re going to pay a lot more. There’s no proportionality in some cases.
Mr. Mulhere said the cost is quite a bit more than if you were to go out and build it, but
you don’t want to go out and build it because it goes to nowhere.
Mr. English said he had a client who had 50-acre property shaped like this and it was all
public road frontage. The cost estimate at the county’s rate was $500,000 to pay a move for
the sidewalk.
A discussion ensued and the following points were made:
•No code is written perfectly, so it’s worth talking about. We’ve all had problems
with it. Why not at least have a discussion?
•They don’t know if there’s an appetite to change it, but it’s worth talking about.
•So we should ask staff to bring it back to us.
•Should the non-urban area be different from the urban area in terms of how that
applies?
Action Item: Jaime, Mike and Ahmad will speak at the April DSAC meeting to determine
if there’s a way to create flexibility and inject reasonableness into the Land Development
Code Amendments for extreme circumstances.
7.Old Business
(None)
8.Committee Member Comments
Ms. Chardon told the committee this would be her last meeting and Rey Torres Fuentes
will be taking over.
Mr. Espinar told the committee:
•He wants to add some context to something Jay said earlier about DEP and the Army
Corps of Engineers.
March 6, 2024
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•If there are wetland impacts, you need state and federal permits. The federal permit is
the 404.
•In an effort to streamline things, three years ago, FDEP assumed the 404 program and a
federal judge in Washington, D.C. has since ruled that it was “illegal.” They can’t do it.
The premise is that it involves the Endangered Species Act.
•All state permits, if you’re in the permitting process for single-family or big
development, are on hold.
•The state of Florida filed an appeal on Friday. The NGOs who filed the initial lawsuit
have this week to reply.
•In the meantime, applications are on hold. It may be bad in the sense that applications
that were in review under the DEP umbrella may have to start all over again under the
404 federal umbrella.
•The state is saying, it’s the Endangered Species Act, so maybe we can tweak that and
continue the program, but for now, the whole 404 program is on hold.
Chairman Varian reported:
•Last week, he attended the National Association of Home Builders (IBS) International
Show. Their economists spoke and there were a couple of points that are very important
for us here.
•Remodeling, his business, accounts for about 25% of all construction spending in the
country.
•They’re expecting that to reach almost 45% in the next five years.
•Part of that is due to the aging homeless housing stock around the country.
•The economists also said they did a study and found that regulatory costs on a single-
family home were $93,000. That was mind-boggling.
•They said that locally it could be zoning and with the state, it could be building codes.
With the feds, it could be energy codes and everything else they throw at us, permitting
and delays.
•There was a man from Kansas City who said there’s a shortage of homes in the country
and there’s only one group that can make that go away, and that’s us. We’ve got to
make everybody aware of that, that they can do whatever they want, but we’re the ones
who build it. It’s very important to take that message forward because we are the only
ones that can make something right because that’s what we do for a living.
9.Adjourn
Future Meeting Dates:
3 p.m. April 3, 2024
3 p.m. May 1, 2024
3 p.m. June 5, 2024
Mr. Curl made a motion to adjourn. Second by Mr. Mulhere. The motion passed
unanimously, 13-0.
There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was
adjourned by the order of the chairman at 3:49 p.m.
|ヽ 4arch 6.2024
COLLIER COUNTY
DEVELOPMENT SERVICES ADVISORY CO■llMITTEE
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Page 13 of 13
•"Also Present" section updated to accurately reflect attendance.
•Page 10 amended to to accurately reflect comments from Mr.
Curl.