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CCPC Minutes 02/01/2024February 1, 2024 Page 1 of 102 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION Naples, Florida February 1, 2024 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 9:00 a.m., in REGULAR SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: Edwin Fryer, Chairman Joe Schmitt, Vice Chair Robert L. Klucik, Jr. (attending remotely) Paul Shea Randy Sparrazza Chuck Schumacher Christopher T. Vernon Amy Lockhart, Collier County School Board Representative ALSO PRESENT: Raymond V. Bellows, Zoning Manager Mike Bosi, Planning and Zoning Director Heidi Ashton-Cicko, Managing Assistant County Attorney Derek Perry, County Attorney's Office February 1, 2024 Page 2 of 102 P R O C E E D I N G S MR. BOSI: Chair, you have a live mic. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you, Mr. Bosi, and good morning, everyone. This is the February 1, 2024, meeting of the Collier County Planning Commission. Everyone please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. (The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: Before we take the roll, I believe Commissioner Klucik has asked to participate remotely. Are you -- are you online, Commissioner? Commissioner Klucik, are you online, sir? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: Well, he may be on momentarily. In the meantime, I'll ask the secretary to call the roll. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Chairman Fryer? CHAIRMAN FRYER: Here. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Vice Chair Schmitt? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Here. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Secretary Shea is here. Commissioner Vernon? COMMISSIONER VERNON: Here. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Commissioner Klucik? (No response.) COMMISSIONER SHEA: Not here. Commissioner Sparrazza? COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Here. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Commissioner Schumacher? COMMISSIONER SCHUMACHER: Here. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Ms. Lockhart? MS. LOCKHART: Here. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Sir, we have a quorum, six out of seven. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you, Secretary. And as far as Commissioner Klucik is concerned, he had made a request to call in, and so he may be along shortly. And I'll ask -- I guess I'll ask Mr. Miller in the control room -- is that the right person who would get that first, or would it be our folks in the back? MR. BOSI: Chair, Mike Bosi, zoning director. It would be Ailyn. She's coordinating the Zoom. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. All right. Ms. Padron, just interrupt us when -- if and when he dials in, please. Thank you. Addenda to the agenda? Mr. Bellows. MR. BELLOWS: We have no changes to the agenda. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. Planning Commission absences. Our next meeting is on February 15, 2024. Anyone know if he or she will not be able to attend? COMMISSIONER SHEA: I have a -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: That's right. COMMISSIONER SHEA: -- family affair. CHAIRMAN FRYER: You had told us that. Anyone else? COMMISSIONER VERNON: I'm just looking right now. I think I should be here. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Good. It looks like we'll have a quorum. Hope so. Same question for the meeting following that, which is March 7, 2024. Anyone know if he or she won't be there? February 1, 2024 Page 3 of 102 COMMISSIONER VERNON: I will not be there. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. All right. Once again, it sounds like we should have a quorum. COMMISSIONER KLUCIK: I can hear you now. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Oh, good, Commissioner Klucik. We'll go through the formality, sir, of asking you to just give us a statement of extraordinary circumstances, and then we'll take a vote. COMMISSIONER KLUCIK: Yes. I'm sorry. I had planned to come, but I had last-minute client urgent matters come up that I have to attend to today, and the three extra hours of, you know, driving in and back will make that impossible for me, so... CHAIRMAN FRYER: Understand completely. I'd entertain a motion. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Make a motion to approve by phone. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Is there a second? COMMISSIONER SCHUMACHER: Second. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Any further discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: If not, all those in favor, please say aye. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Aye. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Aye. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Aye. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHUMACHER: Aye. COMMISSIONER KLUCIK: (No verbal response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: Opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: Welcome, Commissioner Klucik. COMMISSIONER KLUCIK: Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Let's see. Approval of the minutes. We have before us those of our January 4, 2024, meeting. Any corrections, changes, or additions to them? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: If not, I'd entertain a motion. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Make a motion to approve. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Is there a second? COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Second. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Further discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: If not, all those in favor of approving the January 4, 2024, meetings minutes, please say aye. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Aye. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Aye. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Aye. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHUMACHER: Aye. COMMISSIONER KLUCIK: (No verbal response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: Opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: Passes unanimously. Thank you much. BCC report, Mr. Bellows. MR. BELLOWS: Yes. On the January 23rd Board of County Commissioners' meeting, February 1, 2024 Page 4 of 102 the PUD rezone for Mattson at the location at Vanderbilt was continued to the February 27th Board of County Commissioner meeting. On the summary agenda, the Board approved an LDC amendment for communication towers. That's the first meeting of two, actually. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. Let's see. Anything further about the BCC? MR. BOSI: Mike Bosi, zoning director. Just, as Commissioner Schmitt had pointed out, the Board did approve 375 -- or $3,750,000 of the surtax money to be allocated for purchasing of a property for an affordable housing project on 951. It's -- it was -- it's the first of the surtax allocation for a project to develop affordable housing within the -- and the project, interestingly enough, is going to utilize Live Local because it's currently a C-3 zoned parcel. So this board -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: We won't hear it. MR. BOSI: No, and the Board won't hear it. It's an administrative approval. So it's a unique situation, but the Board, you know, values and prioritized the need for additional workforce housing in such a manner that they went to a circumstance of allowing a project to go. So that's going to bypass the public hearing process. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: How many units is that; do you know? Do you recall? Well over 200, wasn't it? MR. BOSI: It was -- I thought it was 250 was ringing in my head. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: With an allowable height of 75 feet zoned, actual 85? MR. BOSI: Yes. That was within one mile of the highest allowed approved -- not developed, but approved height within the area is 75 feet zoned and 85 feet actual height. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Thank you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. You were right. It's one mile, not five. I thought it was five miles. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yeah. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Let's see. Chairman's report, none today. Consent agenda, nothing there today. ***So we move right into public hearings advertised. The first matter is PL20220006213. This is the SR846 Land Trust Earth Mine conditional-use amendment application. Ex parte disclosure -- or excuse me. All those wishing to testify in this matter, please rise to be sworn in by the court reporter. THE COURT REPORTER: Do you swear or affirm the testimony you will give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? (The speakers were duly sworn and indicated in the affirmative.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. Ex parte disclosures, please, starting with Ms. Lockhart. MS. LOCKHART: Staff materials only. COMMISSIONER VERNON: I did look at the -- briefly look at the transcript from the previous time. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Staff materials only. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. In my case, it's matters of public record, meetings with staff, and a communication with applicant's agent. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Staff materials only. And I would like to note, I understand my fellow commissioners received a lot of e-mails on this. I've only received one, so I'm not sure what's going on with the e-mails. Ms. Padron was -- the only one I got was that she forwarded, and then it went into my Collier County e-mail as well as my personal e-mail. But I had not received any of the other e-mails, and I was told there's numerous e-mails that have been sent by the public. CHAIRMAN FRYER: I think up to -- at least in my case, up to and including yesterday February 1, 2024 Page 5 of 102 evening I probably got 40. And your name was on there, and your e-mail address, so something's going wrong. I guess it needs to be looked into. MR. BOSI: Staff can reach out to IT and see what -- if there's anything they can identify as to why Commissioner Schmitt wouldn't have been receiving those e-mails. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah. And neither did Commissioner Shea, right? COMMISSIONER SHEA: I received several. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Several? COMMISSIONER SHEA: Both of our names are on this one. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah, okay. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: That's the only one I received. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Very strange. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: It looks like the other ones didn't -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. Disclosures, Commissioner Sparrazza. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Yeah. Staff materials and a conversation with Mr. Yovanovich. I also have to make the comment that I, too, only received the one from Ailyn that was sent to me. And a couple weeks ago, I did ask IT to remove the Collier e-mail site and forward everything to my personal site because I've had so much difficulty getting into that Collier site. So evidently something has not taken place that should have. CHAIRMAN FRYER: We're going to talk a little about this before we call on Mr. Yovanovich. Commissioner Schumacher. COMMISSIONER SCHUMACHER: Staff materials only. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Klucik? COMMISSIONER KLUCIK: Just meeting with the staff. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. This has nothing to do with the applicant's situation, but I just -- I wonder if there's something that we need to do or action we need to take. As I say, I got about 40 e-mails as recently as yesterday evening, and I noticed that they were all addressed to the same recipients, the Board of County Commissioners individually and the planning commissioners individually, and staff. Mr. Bosi's name was on them, for instance. MR. BOSI: I did not receive any e-mails yesterday related to the earth mining proposal, so I'm not sure -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: Well, I better -- I better retract that part. I'm not sure whether -- I'm thinking of something else. But I'm quite sure that the names of the individual commissioners were on there. Does anybody -- I mean, is there something we should do about this? Again, it's not the fault of the applicant, but it's just something that -- MR. BOSI: Every e-mail that we received up until the distribution date of the package to the Planning Commission is within the backup. So within the backup material that you received, there's a number of e-mails that staff had received up until that date. So what I think we would be dealing with is e-mails that were displaced that for some reason didn't reach the planning commissioners between the distribution date, which was -- I believe was Friday of last week and today. So we can -- I think you -- the distribution -- the recognition of those e-mails, I think, could serve adequately if you could describe if they were in support or were they -- were they in support, or were they not in support, and I think that can be -- I mean, that's a simple conveyance to your fellow commissioners as to what those e-mails contained. CHAIRMAN FRYER: As I recall it, they were nearly unanimous, or unanimously, against it, but I feel uncomfortable characterizing them without the planning commissioners seeing them themselves. But it is what it is, and I -- COMMISSIONER SHEA: It sounds like he got about 40. I got between five and 10. Joe received one, and you received one. All of the ones I received were against. February 1, 2024 Page 6 of 102 Okay. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: And I didn't check it yesterday. Probably the day before is the last time I checked my Collier e-mail. I just -- and I don't have the fond [sic] right now to check it. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: But if they came in yesterday -- but other than that, I know the e-mail's working, that's not a problem, because I do still get e-mail through my account. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Commissioner Vernon. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Yeah. I'd just say this isn't a permanent fix but temporary fix, somebody, I think -- you said that you're getting them through your personal or want them through your -- I'd like mine through my personal -- work. That's easier for me. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Correct. I had requested to IT to remove the active Collier County e-mail account and direct/forward everything to my personal account, because I'm on that all day long. COMMISSIONER VERNON: I agree with Randy. For me -- and I don't think it's a permanent fix, but just for now, please send them to my work address. COMMISSIONER SHEA: So you're wanting your personal e-mail to be posted on the web page so people can reach you; that's what you're saying? COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Correct. I'm already on four of my other businesses, so if people want me, they're going to find me. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Yeah. My website has my e-mail address, so it's -- COMMISSIONER SHEA: Okay. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: If I could make a comment. We recommend that you do use the county's website because of the public records law, and you could be opening up your personal computers for, you know, at least the County Attorney's review because we'd have to review and identify exempt documents from disclosures, so -- and I caution you with use of your personal accounts. CHAIRMAN FRYER: That's a very good point. Vice Chairman? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: I was going to say the same thing. I would definitely prefer it going to Collier County e-mail. That's public record. It's there. Even if I delete it in my account, it's still in the public record because it's part -- it's captured, and if I understand, it's still available for discovery. So I prefer not to have it sent to my private e-mail. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: I think the resolution is to first consult with the IT department, and if the Chair could send to Mike and I a couple of the e-mails that you've received that were not timely, and we can consult with them and see what can be done so those aren't blocked. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Well, it's just a matter -- they could not -- some of them may have my name on there but have the wrong e-mail address, because there was a change two or three years ago from Collier gov to whatever it is now. CHAIRMAN FRYER: But the Collier net still works. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Oh, okay. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Mike, I retract my request. Do not send it to my personal e-mail. It would be a full-time job for them to look through my e-mail. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. Before -- before we go into the -- I was just going to ask Mr. Yovanovich, I assume, sir, that you do not object to our proceeding without the benefit of these e-mails? MR. YOVANOVICH: No, but if I could just chime in. There's got to be a way to notify an applicant of e-mails that are coming into you-all so we at least are not -- we can respond appropriately, if necessary, because it's really not fair to us if we're excluded from that. And I don't want to spend all day ex parte -- asking you-all questions about what ex parte you may or may not have received. February 1, 2024 Page 7 of 102 So if we could find a way that we can be provided copies of that as well, because the only thing we see in the packet is from a Mr. Dixon, and there were a few from Mr. Dixon. One of them was asking for your e-mail addresses. So other than that, I wasn't aware of any until I think I spoke to you, Mr. Chairman, that you had received -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah. MR. YOVANOVICH: -- several e-mails. CHAIRMAN FRYER: That's interesting to me because I assume -- and I'll bet other planning commissioners did -- that applicants are seeing all these e-mails. MR. YOVANOVICH: We -- if you look at those, usually we're not a cc on those e-mails. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah. A question for staff. Shouldn't -- shouldn't they be sent as a matter of course to the applicant? MR. BOSI: When the e-mails are received prior to distribution of the packet, everything that staff receives is put into the packet that the Planning Commission is to review for the material for the upcoming hearing. We have -- we have not, I think, made a matter of practice of forwarding those to the applicant. They -- everything we receive before distribution, though, is available to the applicant the second that the agenda packet and all the materials is made available. But just speaking with Mr. Bellows, we're going to stress to our applicants to make sure that the applicants are provided copies prior to the distribution of the packet. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Part of the problem is -- maybe I'm wrong -- is somebody sends out a list of addresses for all the commissioners, and they send them -- they don't even copy you. MR. BOSI: No. COMMISSIONER SHEA: So you don't get them, and how do you get them to Mr. Yovanovich? CHAIRMAN FRYER: It puts the burden on us. MR. BOSI: If staff is not included in it, staff is unaware that these e-mails exist. CHAIRMAN FRYER: And in that case, somebody on the Planning Commission needs to copy Mike Bosi so that staff has it. COMMISSIONER SCHUMACHER: I received e-mails that staff wasn't copied on. I forward them to Ailyn when I get them. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Good. Well, that works, too. And I apologize, Court Reporter, I'm talking over people. I'll try not to do that. Without further ado, Mr. Yovanovich, you may proceed. MR. YOVANOVICH: Thank you. Good morning. For the record, Rich Yovanovich on behalf of the property owner and applicant. With me today is Don Schrotenboer. He's the owner's rep. Mr. Arnold is the planner. Jeff Straw will be speaking to you about how the blasting actually occurs and how it's monitored, and Barry Blankenship is here to answer any question you may have about the actual operations. Before I get into too much detail on this, what we did is we also reviewed the previous minutes, and I believe it was -- there were comments about how we're currently operating and that those current operations are satisfying the neighbors as far as addressing concerns or vibrations, et cetera. So what we're going to do on the record today is codify what's currently being done. So if the operators change, any operator will have to meet the current standards. And we'll go through that in a little bit greater detail. The property is on your visualizer. It's 2,560 acres. It's an existing mine operation. It's on -- this is the Randall Curve, as we refer to it. If you all remember, we have a couple of mixed-use commercial projects on this corner. You have commercial down through here. This is Oil Well Road. And if you remember, this is Rivergrass Village. This is February 1, 2024 Page 8 of 102 Brightshore Village. Some it's in an area that is becoming more and more active as part of the development as anticipated through the Growth Management Plan. You can see on this aerial map that there are ongoing mining operations that are occurring on the site, and they have been occurring on the site since roughly the year 2000. Blasting hasn't always been part of the operations, but mining has been part of the operations since April the year 2000. Blasting has been approved subsequent to the original application, and blasting has been occurring for, you know, as you can see -- roughly around '04 to '06, I think, is when blasting started and has been occurring since -- you know, for almost 20 years at this point. And over time, the resolutions have changed and conditions have changed. And I know Mr. Sparrazza's going to talk about the surety that's part of that and other aspects of that. But there has been a requirement for a surety since, the best I can confirm, 2007 in the resolution that I've reviewed for this project. The land is designated agricultural. It's within the Rural Fringe Mixed-Use District. It's within receiving lands. So at some point in the future, it is anticipated that this property will be a residential development, and the zoning is in place for that to occur under your Land Development Code unless they decide to do a village. And if they do a village, we'll be back in front of you-all for that. The request is to modify the blasting area, and there will be a minimum of 1300 feet from the mine where we blast to the property boundary as part of the conditions, and as you'll -- and Wayne will take you through in greater detail where we can blast now and where we're asking to be able to blast in the future. And we've up -- we're updating a few of the conditions in the conditional-use application. As you're aware, there are currently 38 conditions, and as we go through this process, we've kind of reorganized those and got rid of the ones that have already been satisfied, so we're at 32 conditions. I'm not going to go through all of the conditions. I know you've seen those. I'm just going to hit a few of the highlights of changes to the resolution and the conditions that we're proposing since the last hearing in front of you-all that didn't occur but there was public speakers. First, we're requesting that we take out the name of the actual operator and we just be required to tell county staff who the operator is and to notify the public as to who that operator is, because there's a process where the public can ask to be on an e-mail list, and we'll do that. I didn't want to have to come back and amend the resolution if the operator's name changed, so that's the reason for that change. Conditions 25 and 26 are related to how operations are currently occurring. And Mr. Shaw [sic] will get into greater details about what this really means from a technical standpoint. But we're reducing the maximum load per hole from 100 pounds to 85 pounds of explosives, and we're reducing the number of holes per month from 1680 to 1320. So there will not be as much activity as is authorized under the current resolution. We are currently required to have three seismographs. We're adding a fourth, and Mr. Shaw will tell you where that is. And those are basically the changes from what was previously proposed as part of the conditions and as a result of our review of the previous minutes from the public comment at that time. I'm going to turn it over to Wayne to take you through the changes in the blasting areas as part of the process, and then Mr. Shaw will come up and hopefully -- he did it for me. He made it simple enough for this person to understand how the blasting actually works and how the vibrations actually work and what damage could or could not occur from the blasting operations. With that, that's a brief overview of what we're proposing. I'm available to answer any questions you want to ask now, or if you want to wait until the end of the presentation, I'm happy to answer any questions. CHAIRMAN FRYER: No one -- oh, now Commissioner Vernon is signaling. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Yeah. I guess in looking at the transcript, my February 1, 2024 Page 9 of 102 recollection is that something happened on September 14th that caused the main problem. You know, my impression from last time and this time is the applicant is trying to be a good neighbor. I was a little worried about selling -- if the property sold to somebody's who's not a good neighbor, so -- and we may not be -- this may be beyond the purview of what we can do. But I want to figure out, is there any kind of teeth we can put into this if a 9/14 happens again? MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, there's already a process. If there's -- I don't want to -- 9/14 was -- there was a blast that occurred on 9/14. I don't want to get into whether or not that blast actually caused the damage that was alleged to have occurred as a result of a blast. I don't want to get into that. But we did come out, and we met with the neighbors, we heard their concerns, and we made adjustments to the operations. Mainly, the adjustment was -- and I know enough about blasting now to be a little bit dangerous on that topic. It starts with -- and Mr. Shaw will correct me if I'm getting this strong. It really starts with where you start the initial blast and the sequencing of the blast. So what we've done -- in that case we started away and came closer. We've now reversed that to make sure that it starts closest and goes furthest away to make sure that we're not going to have the amount of vibration that was felt on that day. COMMISSIONER VERNON: And who's the neighbor on the direction you're going now? MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, the direction we're going to go now is away from -- make sure we're away from any neighbors, going in the opposite direction. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Right. But what is it -- do you know what it's zoned or what -- what is next to the other side? MR. YOVANOVICH: I believe it's Estates there. It's Estates zoning there, yeah. So that's an agricultural, obviously, designation, but they're homes that are on those larger lots. So. COMMISSIONER VERNON: No complaints from that side? MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, there was -- I think Mr. Dixon spoke of some issues he had on the 14th or -- I don't remember the exact name of the gentleman, but I thought it was Mr. Dixon. But we're not -- first of all -- and I'm sure you'll hear this from staff, we haven't heard any complaints since the 14th. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Yeah. My impression in hearing the folks is the 14th was the problem. MR. YOVANOVICH: Right. COMMISSIONER VERNON: And there have been some before and after that were not a problem at all. MR. YOVANOVICH: Correct. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Primarily not a problem. But my thought is -- and there may be -- it may be beyond our jurisdiction to do anything, but I'm trying to -- and I'm talking to my fellow members up here as well. But, you know, I'd like to put some teeth into it that if it -- 9/14 -- and I know we can dispute whether anything happened, but it's something that concerns the neighbors. Like 9/14 happens, what -- is there anything we can do? And that may be more for staff or legal than for you, but I'm just trying to tell you where my thought process is. MR. YOVANOVICH: I understand. And hopefully when Mr. Shaw goes through this process and explains how it actually occurs -- keep in mind, there's a staff person at every blast, so county is there. They are observing every blast that we do, and they're on the property lines. They're not next to the blast. And staff can explain that to you better than I can. It's not an unmonitored blast that occurs. So hopefully -- hopefully the adjustments we've made here codifies how the operations are occurring. So hopefully that will mean there's no longer a September -- September 14th event, but know that staff's there to observe to make sure we're not violating the regulations applicable to this mine. Other than that, I don't know much more we could do. February 1, 2024 Page 10 of 102 COMMISISONER VERNON: Well, I just wanted you to know where -- my thought process -- MR. YOVANOVICH: Sure. COMMISSIONER VERNON: -- as your team stands up and starts talking, that's where my head is. MR. YOVANOVICH: Sure. Okay. CHAIRMAN FRYER: If I may also say -- try to -- excuse me. In a conversation I had in some detail with Ms. Cook on Tuesday, we got into the specifics about how the monitoring and regulation works. And I expect she would be offering testimony when staff's time comes. I expect she would be in a position to do that. And if not, we'd certainly ask her to, because there's a lot more behind this that can be said. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Thank you. MR. YOVANOVICH: Any other -- any other questions? CHAIRMAN FRYER: Commissioner Shea. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Just probably -- I'm probably jumping the gun, but for me it's simple. You have a conditional use, and you're coming in to reduce the spacing -- or increase the blast area so there's less spacing with the surrounding property lines. MR. YOVANOVICH: Correct. COMMISSIONER SHEA: I just want to make sure we all understand that. We're not -- we're increasing the blast area -- MR. YOVANOVICH: Sure. COMMISSIONER SHEA: -- which is going to take, supposedly, a problem that we hear a lot about. And what I'm looking for is to hear how increasing will not make it worse for the residents. MR. YOVANOVICH: And that's why Mr. Shaw's here. He can explain the technical aspects of how the blasting occurs and how the regulations work. And I think he's the person that's going to be the most important for you to hear about on that topic. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Rich? COMMISSIONER SHEA: Let me get his concerned, just so you know, about regulations. It's more about actual impact. MR. YOVANOVICH: And he will -- COMMISSIONER SHEA: Regulations don't protect the neighbors. MR. YOVANOVICH: He's going to get into the details of what the .2 feet per second means. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: It looks like these are changes from what's in the package -- MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: -- and what Derek reviewed, so he's not seen these or reviewed these. MR. YOVANOVICH: I understand, but they're reductions from what's already approved. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Okay. And then the conditions you're offering that has the limitations on blasting, you're offering it notwithstanding the Florida Statutes on blasting? MR. YOVANOVICH: Correct. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Correct? Okay. Thank you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: And they're more restrictive, I believe, correct? MR. YOVANOVICH: They are. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah, okay. And before you stand down, Mr. Yovanovich, maybe if you don't mind, I'll take up the question I asked you yesterday on the telephone: Is there a chance that as your client ceases blasting in a particular area, it would be willing to relinquish its authority to use that property for blasting? And I'm given to understand that when it gets down too deep it's not -- it's not economically feasible to continue blasting. And it would be nice if we could, through a surrender February 1, 2024 Page 11 of 102 process of some kind, come up with zeroing out. MR. YOVANOVICH: Sure. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Did you have a chance to -- MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes. And I've talked to my client, and that's fine. CHAIRMAN FRYER: It is fine? All right. MR. YOVANOVICH: That's acceptable. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Are you going to offer some language on that? At the proper time? MR. YOVANOVICH: I don't know. I don't have any language to that, but I think we're going to have to do that during a break. CHAIRMAN FRYER: To put a little more skin on the bones, thinking about it further, and also some of the comments you made, it seems to me that as of -- as of right now, we could exclude that property, and then if we could get a covenant from you that as your client, in good faith, ceases the need to blast in an area, that that would come out without waiting for the next public hearing of some sort. MR. YOVANOVICH: Sure. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. COMMISSIONER VERNON: One more thing. Would you mind going back to the photo? Right there. Right there. Okay. It looks like -- you see the lighter green areas, are those former blast areas, or is that former agriculture? What is that? MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, I want to make sure -- are you talking about over here, Mr. Vernon? COMMISSIONER VERNON: Yeah, in the -- if it's north, the northwest, northeast, and southwest. MR. YOVANOVICH: You talking about right here? COMMISSIONER VERNON: No. I'm talking about the big light color -- yes, that one. MR. YOVANOVICH: That's ag operations. COMMISISONER VERNON: Those are ag? MR. YOVANOVICH: Yep. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. MR. YOVANOVICH: All right. Let me get back to where I was and let Mr. Arnold take back over. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. MR. ARNOLD: Good morning, Mr. Chair and Planning Commissioners. I'm Wayne Arnold, a certified planner with Grady Minor & Associates. And I've got a few slides. I just wanted to maybe lay the groundwork of why we're here. So this conditional use was previously approved and, as you know, there's typically a site plan that's approved as part of the conditional use, and in this case there was also a separate blast exhibit that was approved when the blast was -- blasting was added to the conditional use some years ago. So what our mission was, to come in and try to modify the blasting exhibit because, you know, this is the only operating aggregate mine in Collier County, which is important, because the aggregate that comes out of here, the limestone aggregate is used for many things. From the aerial photograph, you can see that there's already some lake areas. Those were shallow scrapings of fill dirt that came off this before the blasting area was approved. So those areas were mined for fill dirt, but there's also hard lime rock deposits on this site, which is why the blasting is necessary to break up the aggregate so it can be taken out of the soil. It's broken up into various sizes. It's used for roadbed material, it's used for making asphalt, it's used for making concrete, and there's some residual fill that's allowed as well. But it's really important because there are not that many hard rock deposits. Rich and I February 1, 2024 Page 12 of 102 worked on an earth mine proposal many years ago that had been withdrawn, and it was the Hussey property, which the county now owns. But that's another vein of hard rock deposits that runs through the county, and that was an important resource. So it is a resource that's recognized through the state as an important resource, and it's important to Collier County. It's important to our region. And the nearest other mine that has aggregate coming out of it, I think it's in Bonita, and that mine is in its process of closing down. So this is a necessary part of what we do for a living, and that is we continue to build roads and infrastructure. So that's why it's very important. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Mr. Arnold, in your experience, is the life cycle of sites like this, the natural resources are removed, the site is restored, and then rezoned to a different probably less noisy use; is that -- MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes. CHAIRMAN FRYER: -- what we can expect? MR. ARNOLD: Yes. And in this particular case, you-all saw plan amendments a couple years ago which allowed for there to be a rural village in this location, or it can be zoned under the current process for homes. But the intent here is that there would be homes around this lake in some configuration in the future. CHAIRMAN FRYER: So it's not something, just because of a scarcity of resources, that's going to go on forever, is it? MR. ARNOLD: That's correct. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. MR. ARNOLD: Yeah. And in this particular case, the blast area was designated as the blasting area, which is on the visualizer, the crosshatched area was the no-blast zone. So the no-blast zone was set up to be about 3 -- 2600 feet or so. And in talking to the mine operators, they've been out there digging and blasting. They've realized that the depth of the rock really is in a different configuration than just the rectangle that's been drawn there. So there's an opportunity to go back in and get more of this resource that's vitally important to their community, and we enlisted Jeff Straw, who is one expert in seismology, to look at this and find out if we kept the same blasting protocol that's in place today, the same amount of the -- the same vibration allowances, the same explosive allowances, and things of that nature, would we have an impact if we grew the blast area. And Jeff did the analysis, and he's going to talk about that analysis that we submitted as part of the application. And his conclusion was, if we kept all the blasting protocol as is, the 1300-foot line that we've requested would not cause any impact to the adjoining homes. And as Rich mentioned, we had three seismograph locations. We'll show you an exhibit later that shows where a fourth one is being added at a resident's request so they can monitor a little bit farther away. And Jeff will get into this in a few minutes, but -- so those of us who don't deal with earth mining and blasting rock every day, there are vibrations that go through the rock, and a lot of the vibration depends on how dense the rock is or how -- the lack of density in the rock and how that gets dissipated through the rock. So you'll hear a little bit about that in a minute. So just to set the premise of why we're here. We were amending the blast exhibit and not wanting to amend those conditions, but as Rich just showed you on the visualizer, we're willing to reduce the blast load and the number of holes that they can blast per month because we think that that addresses the protocol that was addressed in the field by the mine operator back after the September event. So this is on an aerial photograph that shows you the blast area. You can clearly see the phases of the lake. The current blasting operation is occurring to the -- sort of the southeast portion of the lake. And one of the conditions previously approved is that they had to mine east to west. So you're taking it farther away from the Estates residences that are to our east and to our south. So the blasting protocol is to blast from east to west and south to north, if you will. And you can see there are two phases here. The first phase is largely the lake that was previously February 1, 2024 Page 13 of 102 started as fill dirt operation, and then the Phase 2 is to the north. So we still maintain a lot of areas in this proposal that are no blast. It's at least 1300 feet. In some cases you can see it grows considerably more, but that's based on where the lake area currently is and allowance for future homes as well. This is the blast zone comparison. So the yellow identifies the expanded blast zone. And what I didn't point out is, so the limits of the mining operation today are the purple line that surrounds this. So everything within that purple area can be dug today, and whether they go in there and just use, you know, mechanical equipment to take the topsoil down to the hard rock -- and then there's still a pecking process where I'm sure, Mr. Schmidt, you've been around construction enough to have known that. But they can come in with mechanical equipment and peck the rock. It's not as efficient as blasting, which is why the blasting is the more efficient way to get at that hard material. But it wouldn't preclude us from going in and using another mechanical process to get at the -- if the blasting expansion is not approved. It just makes it that much more difficult and a lengthier process. Some photos. The mine has been operating, as we've said, in some capacity for around 20 years out there. There is an existing perimeter berm and buffer that was required along the east and south parts of the property. There are canals that separate this property from Golden Gate Estates. One is a 60-foot-wide canal to the east and an 80-foot-wide canal to the south, and there's a 20-foot-high berm that has been planted, and it looks like it has some exotic vegetation in it at this point, but there is a berm that is there. There's a separate condition that was mentioned, I think, by Mr. Sparrazza to Rich about there -- there's also a condition that talks about the equipment also having attenuation on the motors to reduce noise of the mechanical equipment that's out there. Then there's also a condition that says if that's unsuccessful -- unsuccessful in attenuating the noise, that they would have to build a berm around that equipment. And so you've got a perimeter berm, and then you also have the requirements to attenuate the equipment where they're actually operating the equipment, and then there's also a requirement, if determined that that's not sufficient, that they have to then build a berm around the equipment that's operating to help attenuate the noise. So there are many safeguards in place. And one of the things that I would mention -- and I'll go back to it on Rich's slide that he concluded with. And it's not highlighted because this was already in your packet. But Condition No. 30, which is on the upper right-hand side of that page, after our neighborhood information meeting, we had several neighbors that said, you know, but we're not aware of when the blasting occurs. And what we did after that, we established a condition that said that we would -- within a mile radius, we would notify all property owners and ask them if they wanted to be included in blast notification, and then we would obtain their phone number, e-mail address, whatever means that they want us to contact them, and we would notify them in advance of any blast activity so at least there's no surprise. They would know in advance when a blast is going to occur on site. And, again, those blasts are limited to eight days per month. So it's not an extensive amount of blasting, but at least we would notify them, and they would have an opportunity to at least be aware of that. But I thought I would highlight that because that was one thing that came out of the neighborhood information meeting that we thought would be at least helpful for notification purposes. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Jeff Straw, who's a seismic expert and has dealt with mining all over the East Coast of Florida. He's a renowned expert in the field, and I think some of the education will be helpful for all of us as we make the decision to expand the blasting area. MR. STRAW: Mr. Chairman, members of the Board, good morning. For the record, my name is Jeffrey Straw. I'm vice president and area manager of GeoSonics. We are vibration acoustic consultants, seismologists. For the last 45 years I've worked in February 1, 2024 Page 14 of 102 the industry, for the last 43 of those here in Southwest and Southeast Florida handling the state of Florida. We measure ground vibration from blasting, pile driving, all kinds of manmade vibration in structures, outside of structures, what effects on structures there are, and we have been associated with this project since its beginning. Just as some general overview, I think it's important to know that mining occurs where the resource exists, not where it's convenient. You can't go out in Florida and just start digging a hole and expect to find rock. That does not happen with the geologic strata, as Wayne talked about. It's in this area. That's why the mining was starting here in the first place. Material also has to be of a quality to create finished aggregate. That's where it's crushed, processed, washed, and then it can be sent in specific sizes so they can use it. Concrete asphalt, you know, concrete block, they all use different sizes of material. And here, due to the depth and hardness of the rock, we use commercial explosives to actually break the rock for excavation. So that process is handled through a drilling contractor, also through a licensed Florida blaster. And, honestly, the original monitoring of the work in The Quarry we started in August/September of 2006. There was some work ahead of time. There were some evaluations done at the beginning that we did back in the time, and we have maintained as what we call the independent seismologist monitoring through this period. So we know very well what's going on. I know that you-all have raised some issues about oversight and regulation, and just so that you know, Collier County established originally 42 conditions. Some of those have been satisfied, so they've been pared down to where we are today. But the State of Florida Department of Environmental Protection, DEP, has a permit. They follow up on this. Also, the State of Florida, it's the Department of Financial Services now, but it's the Division of State Fire Marshal. They have what is called construction materials mining activity, and there is a separate permit that is handled through the state, through the state fire marshal's office that is then monitored by the state on a regular basis. There's a number of other things that are out there: DOJ; Bureau of Tobacco; Alcohol Tobacco Firearms & Explosives, ATF&E; and then we have state and federal DOT requirements. There is no material stored on site. Everything is prepared. The site's prepared, the explosives contractor brings in what he needs for the day, loads what he needs to do, and at the end of the day, that goes back to a licensed magazine that's controlled by the state. Since the rock hardness exceeds mechanical excavator's ability to break the rock -- I mean, the rock is not one solid piece of steel or anything like that. It has cracks. It has voids. But it is hard enough that at the depth that they are, they cannot use mechanical excavators. Now, you can use the rock breakers that were talked about earlier, but those start at 7 o'clock in the morning, they go till 7 or 8 at night, and they go nonstop all day long. They still produce vibration, and they do produce a lot of noise. So the use of commercial explosives is done for the efficiency so that that can be done. And you can see there's a picture of the -- a drill. That is here. This is a special Florida drill. It drills one single hole, one pass. They drill, then they put a cardboard tube into the existing hole, and then it's developed in a pattern. Now, there's a scientific approach to all of this. This is not done just by the seat of the pants. There's a blasting plan that is developed, the site locations are identified for all blasts, then the drilling's completed, as I said, by the specialty drills, and then you have professional licensed explosives contractors that load and detonate all the holes. The material is a semiliquid paste, if you will. You know, it's a slurry. We call it an emulsion in some cases. That is pumped into the hole. There's a booster and a timing device, which is known as a blasting cap. In many of these we use nonelectric or electronic blasting caps to help individually delay the holes so that that pattern that I showed before that's down here in the corner, those holes detonate individually. They detonate thousandths of a second apart. So for the blaster, that works to help fragment the rock better, honestly, than one big blast. February 1, 2024 Page 15 of 102 And for us as vibration consultants, that helps reduce the ground vibration. And as was stated earlier, the September 14th blast was where do you initiate from. So in that pattern you take a point. On that day it was initiated farthest away, driving vibration towards some of the neighbors. That has been turned around, and that has been a management decision that's been made by the blaster to, you know, reduce offsite vibration and control that. Currently, the blasting hours are allowed Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. by the state. In this, Collier has reduced that between the hours of 9 and 4. There are no weekends, and there are no holidays on the state calendar. And as was mentioned earlier, Collier County, from the beginning, has had an inspector on the site. Somebody from the -- I don't know whether it's Engineering or, you know, building department comes out and is there for each site. They're contacted ahead of time. They are there to be able to watch the loading and the detonation, and then they get the results. And we also are limited to eight blasts per month. That's it. And with the new reduction in number of holes, that still is -- we'll still end up being that same time. So there are only eight per month. How do we measure and figure out what's going on? Well, through the permitting, the state fire marshal's office, through the requirements of Collier County, and the two chapter -- the chapters there, 552.30 of the Florida Statutes, and Chapters 69A of the Florida Administrative Control -- Code really controls how blasting is required to be done as well as what is supplemented by your rules. One of the things is they require third-party monitoring of vibration and air over-pressure. That's what my firm does. So we specialize in having instrumentation that monitors what goes on. And you can see in the picture to the right there are four green boxes that are highlighted. Those are the current four seismographs. The one to the north at the top of the photo, the one to the right on the east side, and the one to the south are all -- were all originally required in the original special-use permits that were issued for this property. The one at the farthest south is one that has been recently added, and that is an additional condition that was mentioned. The seismographs are typically at the closest structure, and then we have -- obviously, can add additional machines as necessary to follow up to address concerns or additional measurements. And to talk a little bit about what we actually do, when the -- when the explosives are detonated, we call it a detonation. It's a very rapid burning of this commercial material in the blast hole. What happens is when it moves outward from the bore hole, it crushes about half to three-quarters of the distance to the next blast hole so that when they all go off, they are all fragmenting rock. Outside of that 15-foot or so maximum distance, there is no further rock disturbance other than, you know, in the pattern itself. So you're breaking that rock in that area, and that is all. There is nothing else that displaces the ground. What we have is vibration that goes out. And the best way to think about this is similar to dropping a rock in a quiet pond. You get a splash at the close point, and then you see the waves move outward. They reduce in height, which is what we call amplitude or intensity, as they go out. They get farther apart. They also change in what we call frequency, and those are two of the key things that we look at with the seismographs. The seismographs are in place. They're much more sensitive than we are as people. We're really good at feeling vibration, but we can't tell what the levels are. That's why the instrumentation is there. So people in their homes feel vibration as it excites the foundation, excites the rock, but we're talking about vibrations that you can't see other than, you know, the rock and the pond kind of thing; you can see those out here. They're thousands of feet apart, and you can't see them. That's why we have the instrumentation. And what we measure is what we call particle velocity. So when I talk about standards, we're talking about how fast a particle of ground shakes and moves from rest temporarily. February 1, 2024 Page 16 of 102 So all of this is -- you know, if I do that on the desk, I've now created vibration that's gone through that whole desk, and then eventually it dies out. The same thing we have with ground vibration. The natural soils, the water, the rock materials that we have all attenuate the ground vibration we're dealing with. So everything is measured by a seismograph. That box that you see in the upper left part of the pictures is one of our remote seismographs. Those are automatically connected. We are the only ones that ever mess with them. Those are the ones that are put out. All of the instruments are running from daylight till sunset. We have working hours. We know that they can blast between the hours of 9 and 4; 8 to 5 with the state. Most of our stuff comes on at 7 in the morning and runs till 7 or 8 o'clock at night so that we're covered a period of time that they're there. Anything that gets triggered that causes that seismograph to trigger sends an alert, and we get information in our office. They're independently designed. They're calibrated to standard, so the International Society of Explosives Engineers which tell us, you know, how to calibrate those. They are all calibrated. There's a calibration pulse. And on the right side, you see a vibration wave form. That's this diagram here. These are the actual vibration waves in three components that we measure. This is also what we call air blasts, and I'll talk about that in a second, and then these are the calibration pulses. So every time a ground vibration occurs, the seismographs measure that, and then they report that to us. The instruments are all cellularly connected. They download immediately, and then what happens is we get those to the quarry operators and they, in turn, give those to the Collier County inspector that's there. So they have this within five to seven minutes after the blast going on. COMMISSIONER SHEA: May I ask you a question? MR. STRAW: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Where does it sense this peak particle velocity; a hundred feet in the ground or right at the surface? MR. STRAW: It's at the surface. We are about -- anywhere between six to 12 inches buried. The reason being is twofold. One, ground vibration, when you get out from the site, even though the hole may be 25 foot deep, it very rapidly into [sic] the energy attenuates and moves towards the surface. So we're dealing with what we call surface waves so that they are moving across the ground. The other thing is, that's where we build our houses. So we are building on the surface of the ground. So we are measuring at that structure and getting the vibration energy that's coming to that structure. And so that's where we are measuring those surface waves. There's multiple years of study. I've been doing this, you know, almost 46 years, and I know that there's about another 45 years of study that has been ongoing before I even started in this kind of thing. So we know very, very well what the energy does and how it gets there. And so that's why the seismographs are there. We look at them in different directions to evaluate each one. COMMISSIONER SHEA: So you would consider that the worst-case scenario for the vibration being right at the slab level for the houses? MR. STRAW: Absolutely. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Okay. MR. STRAW: I mean, that's what we're -- understand what our ultimate goal is. Our ultimate goal here is to make sure that at that structure we are not creating vibration that would cause even the most minor cosmetic damage. We're talking about peeling the paint, extensions of existing cracks in drywall or plaster, formation of new cracks at the corners of building materials. Those are the most fragile building materials. Plaster on lathe and drywall are the two most fragile materials that exist, and we have standards for those, and that's what we're using. And then the standards that have been developed are designed to protect those from occurring. February 1, 2024 Page 17 of 102 So we're looking at all that. That's why we're measuring where we are. And there's a whole protocol, too, from the International Society of Explosive Engineers. You know, we're members to that. We've helped develop some of these standards. I've been on those committees to develop those standards to make sure that we are generating and everybody is measuring the same way. So there's a whole seismograph operator setup that we have for those two. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Vice Chairman. MR. STRAW: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Jeff, just so you're aware, I'm an army engineer, so I've been trained in explosives. Trained to build things, but also to destroy things. MR. STRAW: I understand. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: And so I've had a lot of experience with explosives. But I want to talk about the calibration. And you hit on a couple of things. These are all integrated systems? It's all four tied together? MR. STRAW: You mean the channels? Yes. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: And it's sending you information realtime? MR. STRAW: Well, as soon as it triggers. The instrument -- the instruments are designed to set and run, and we have what we call a trigger level. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yeah. MR. STRAW: Normally it's about what we would have walking across the floor so that the machine is -- it comes in in the morning. It calibrates itself. It sends us a signal that tells us, hey, the seismograph at the north side of the 846 mine, you know, is operating fine. We look at those every morning. We get that trigger, then, by some event. And we get people cutting grass or, you know, driving vehicles near them that will set them off, and then we get that and then we -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: So you're validating every day -- MR. STRAW: Absolutely. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: -- that these are operational? MR. STRAW: Yes. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Calibration is done by your firm? MR. STRAW: Calibration is done by our firm. We are a manufacturer of these instruments as well as a user, and so that's where the Society of Explosive Engineers standards come in. They are for all of the instrument manufacturers. And to be honest, there's maybe a half dozen in the world that make seismographs. And so those standards, we have a shop that manufacturers them actually in St. Pete for our firm, and they go to our Warrendale, Pennsylvania, office where they undergo final testing and calibration and is validated. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Does the state come out and validate the calibration, or you're providing that information to the state? MR. STRAW: We provide that information to the state. There's an annual -- a minimum annual inspection that's done by the state for each mine in the state under this, and they look at the calibration certificates as well as all of the records that are there to identify everything has been done to the state standard. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: So the efficacy of the data, you're validating prior -- well, let me rephrase the question. On a blast day, you're first validating that all the systems are operational? MR. STRAW: Correct. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: If one is not operational, you call off the blast? MR. STRAW: We don't call off the blast. What I do is -- what -- actually, Katie Mayer with my office who's here is my assistant manager. She sends somebody from our Davie, Florida, office over here to monitor. We tell the blaster you've got to wait till we get here. We'll set up an instrument. We have portable instruments as well. We set those up in the same manner, repair February 1, 2024 Page 18 of 102 the one while it's there, and let them go ahead and blast. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: So I guess, in summation, the data I'm getting, it's calibrated, it's validated, and you're assuring the mine operator that what you're gathering is valid and, I guess, within protocol standards, acceptable if you were challenged? MR. STRAW: Absolutely. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. MR. STRAW: Absolutely. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Are these the same systems, like if you were -- if I were -- because I know we have some of that in Collier County where we may have some surface blasting to check for -- when geologists are checking for oil or gas or those type of things. Are these the same kind of systems? MR. STRAW: They're similar, but they're looking for different things. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yeah, because they're checking vibration and going down. MR. STRAW: They're looking for what we call the body waves. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yes. MR. STRAW: They're looking for the -- they're using a seismograph that has a single channel sensor. Ours have three plus the sound. So we have four channels on that diagram. We have the surface. They are looking for attenuation over a distance, and then they are also looking at what happens with the body waves, the waves that move in the rock. Because what they do is -- they're not there to break it. They're there to shake it. And so they put what we use to start a blast, a cast booster, down in a drilled hole, and then they detonate it, and all their seismographs measure so they can look for anomalies in the geologic structure. And so it's a little different in that sense. But, technically, if they are near homes when they're doing this, they should be using one of ours as well, because they still shake. Sometimes they're worse. I mean, I have done some of this work where, you know, we have done these things either with the trucks that shake, so you're familiar with the vibroseis trucks as well as the explosives, and we monitor the surface vibrations because they can be worse than what the blasting is, typically. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: In summation, I guess, and just for the public in simple terms, you're validating this every day. Somebody could not -- could somebody go out there and compromise this, and if they did compromise one of these machines, you would know? MR. STRAW: Exactly. Because the machines call in. They call in regularly, and we get -- it's what we call a heartbeat. We get a heartbeat from them, and then we can go back. And if one doesn't respond when it's supposed to, we get an alert in an e-mail, you know, a text message, and it tells us. So, yes, we verify everything is going on. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: So after the blast, then you get the report? MR. STRAW: Correct. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Do you report back to the operator saying you're well within parameters? MR. STRAW: Correct. We let them know what their numbers are, and that's what they relay to your inspector with the county. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Because a follow-on blast, then, they may not put as many holes in if you're -- MR. STRAW: They will make an adjustment -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Adjustment. MR. STRAW: -- like they did, from what I understand, with the September 14th. I didn't hear all the testimony, but, you know, we looked at the records. You know, they will make an adjustment in the timing. They make an adjustment in the direction of what we call direction of initiation, if you will, and they can change the load. There's a number of parameters that we look at, and that's what we've looked at in our February 1, 2024 Page 19 of 102 report that we gave to Wayne and to the owner when we looked at this. Can we come closer and still do this? And the answer is, yes, you make those adjustments. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: One last question on the explosives. So this is not det cord where it all goes off at once? You said it's synchronized? MR. STRAW: This is -- this is all using -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Electronic -- MR. STRAW: -- electronic or nonelectronic delay detonators, that nothing goes off with det cord anymore. You don't use dynamite. You don't use det cord. We use a detonator with a blasting cap. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Very familiar. MR. STRAW: Still look the same. It goes into a one, sometimes less, pound cast booster. It looks like a small Campbell's soup can. That goes to the bottom of the hole. They load a commercial emulsion in. In this case, it's a pumped semiliquid material, almost like a paste, a runny paste, if you will, and that's considered a blasting agent, an oxidizer. None of this is high explosives except for the blasting cap and the booster. And when those are detonated, they're consumed, and the bulk of the explosives is used. What we want it to do is detonate and produce gas. We want it to produce the gas to go in and fragment the rock. There's existing cracks, and that's what we're trying to expand and widen. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Commissioner Shea. COMMISSIONER SHEA: You have two engineers on the Board, so we're getting more technical than we need to. But on the calibration side, so you calibrate it in the factory. So if it goes out of calibration in the field, how do you know? How do you re- -- how do you check it in the field? MR. STRAW: There's an automatic -- when that -- when that instrument -- the remote instruments, like you see in the box, when they call in, the first thing they do is wake up, check their time, date, make sure everything corresponds with our server system, and then it runs a cal check. And if we get a bad cal, we get a -- we get a notice. And at that point then we say, guys, you know, if you're going to shoot that day, you can't shoot, or you've got to wait till we get over here and do it and replace it. COMMISSIONER SHEA: When you say a cal check, you mean it sends out a standard velocity particle and they see that -- MR. STRAW: No. The machine actually moves the sensors. They're -- the geophone is a circular object that has electronic sensors in there. And what happens is the machine actually makes those sensors move. It's not just a computer signal that says things work. This -- the instrument actually makes the three sensors move. They're on a line between us and the blast at right angles and vertically. So you have a three-dimensional, you know, ability to measure, and it actually moves those sensors. If they don't move -- COMMISSIONER SHEA: I just want to make sure you're confident that you are recalibrating in the field, that that's not an issue that all of a sudden the instrument be wrong. You're saying you check the calibration on it routinely? MR. STRAW: That's -- it's done -- with the remote system, it's done every day, and then if there's something that comes back, we jump into it, you know, and change them out. That's -- also under the state rule, there's a requirement that if a machine is considered to be nonfunctional or has some issue with it, it has to be replaced, you know, prior to any other use. So that's something that we have to follow with. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Commissioner Sparrazza. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Thank you. To understand correctly, you're testing it every day even though the requirements or the standards here are you're going to be blasting eight days only. So if you're going to blast next Tuesday, you might still be testing today and tomorrow. Should you find a fault, you do have time February 1, 2024 Page 20 of 102 to get there, rectify it before Tuesday's blast? MR. STRAW: Correct. That's -- that would be ideal. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Okay. MR. STRAW: And so, you know, we'd love to have two or three days' notice. Normally we get -- COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Forty-five minutes. MR. STRAW: Yeah, and then we've got to make a phone call and say, guess what guys, you've got to hold your shot while we get over here. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: But that's more assurance that the system is operating correctly and to specification, because you're not just doing it on the eight days of the month. MR. STRAW: Right. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: You're doing it to every day. MR. STRAW: We're doing it every day. Saturdays, Sundays, holidays, it doesn't make any difference. The machine doesn't know any different between holidays, Saturday, Sunday. So, you know, when it turns on in the morning, it checks. When it shuts off at the end of the day, it also runs a cal check so that we have the ability to get those if there's an issue. So, you know, the machine is constantly checking itself because honestly, Commissioners, you're not asking questions we've not heard before, and, this is, you know, extremely important for us to have this kind of an evaluation. So, yes, the instruments are checked, they're evaluated, and then removed if they're not working. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Great. Thank you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Vice Chair Schmitt. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: A question again. Are these -- I assume what you stated previously, but these are sensitive enough -- I'm asking -- to even detect when the drill machine is drilling? You're going to get vibration through drilling. Are they -- MR. STRAW: Not at the -- not at the offsite loca- -- I know what you're asking. Not at the offsite location. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Not at the offsite. MR. STRAW: The distance is far enough away that outside the drill probably within 100 to 150 feet, you don't get anything. You know, where we are even at the proposed closest location, they're not going to, you know, feel the drill. They may hear the drill -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yeah. MR. STRAW: -- you know, as it's drilling, but it's not something that's going to be perceived. But, yes, I mean, people walk across the floor, and these seismographs trigger. They're extremely sensitive instruments. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. MR. STRAW: And so -- I know we've gone on, but I wanted to cover a couple more things just -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: Well, let me -- MR. STRAW: -- on the standards. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Since we've interrupted you, let us continue to do so, with apologies. And I'm going to call on Commissioner Schumacher -- Schumacher. COMMISSIONER SCHUMACHER: I apologize for interrupting. MR. STRAW: No, it's okay. No, no. COMMISSIONER SCHUMACHER: Do those monitors measure the air blast as well? MR. STRAW: Yes, and that's my next-to-last slide so -- COMMISSIONER SCHUMACHER: I won't interrupt any more till the end. CHAIRMAN FRYER: I'm going to -- maybe you're about to talk about this. You made a reference a moment ago to sound. MR. STRAW: Yes. CHAIRMAN FRYER: And are you going to say some more about the decibel February 1, 2024 Page 21 of 102 measurements; that's part of your purview? MR. STRAW: I will, yes. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. That's all I need to know. Please proceed. MR. STRAW: All right. So we talk about vibration, and we do have standards. Now, the standards have been designed to prevent any defects in a structure. I know people see thing. They will call about it. We will evaluate it. There is a program through the state for the state. For anybody that has a concern, they can go through the state. The state fire marshal looks at it. But there are some defined limits. I talked about them before, and these are in terms of what we call peak particle velocity. And we have .5 inch per second. That's the standard for plaster on lathe. And if you're familiar with that, that's the old farmhouses up north, you know, central parts of the state where, you know, they've got wood lathe, they put coats of plaster on them. It's real thick. That's the most fragile building material in the world. We have modern drywall, .75 inch per second. So it tolerates more. And then you look at things like stucco, reinforced concrete block joints. It takes 3 inches per second before you can create a crack in that material. Reinforced concrete, driveways, floor slabs, you know, other types of construction. I mean, we, years ago, blasted next to the Sawgrass Expressway, so you have all of those concrete piers for bridges and things like that. That's all reinforced concrete. It takes over 10 inches per second to do that. And what we're using as a limit is the .2 inch per second, so we're below all of those standards, so there's a huge margin of safety between what it takes to cause damage and what you're using as a limit here for this project. COMMISSIONER SHEA: You're doing an average. Do you have any limit on what the peak can be? I mean, if you blast eight times, one of them could have been over 10, and the average could still be .2. MR. STRAW: At that point, then, they have violated the state standards, and then the state comes in and handles that. Because the state has what we call the U.S. Bureau Mines Criteria, and it's a stair step that we look at vibration and frequency. We look at two things together. But it starts -- the lowest level it has is the .5 and .75 when we're dealing with surface waves and low frequency where you'd get the most response of structures. COMMISSIONER SHEA: So those numbers aren't average? They're -- MR. STRAW: These aren't average. Those are absolutes. You know, yours is an average -- COMMISSIONER SHEA: Gotcha. MR. STRAW: -- and, you know, to take care of that and look at that. But we do have the state standards on top of that. So not only are we looking at what your standard is -- and that goes in a report to the owner monthly as well as what they get every day, but then we also look at what the state criteria is. And the last one is to talk a little bit about air over-pressure. This is the noise that we hear. Now, this is -- we don't measure it the way we do community annoyance. We still use decibels, but we use a little bit of a different scale. We're looking at structure response, so we do what we call a flat or linear response, because the house -- you know, it doesn't have our ability to hear. We have a bell-shape curve that we hear from, like, 20 to 20,000 hertz. We hear best about 8- to 9,000 hertz or cycles per second. This, the structure doesn't care about that. We hear what we have. And so it's created when the gas that's produced vents at the surface, and so we get a vibration -- it looks like a vibration trace, but it's actually an air trace that we look at. It's similar to distant thunder. The state limit is 133, and what you have is 120 as a limit. So we are looking at all of the aspects that occur with side effects of the use of commercial explosive. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Is that at the property line? MR. STRAW: That is at the property line, but, you know, it would also apply to any other February 1, 2024 Page 22 of 102 house we're monitoring at. Yes, the closest locations we measure. CHAIRMAN FRYER: No one else is signaling at this point. Do you have more presentation, sir? MR. STRAW: I am done, sir. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. Commissioner Vernon. MR. STRAW: But if there are questions, I'll certainly answer. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Yeah. I'm not an engineer, so I have no formal training in blasting. Although, you know, I have plenty of experience with M-80s and bottle rockets and Roman candles as a kid, so -- I'm not sure that qualifies me. But the synchronization, it's like -- just like this (indicating), right? MR. STRAW: Yeah. If you imagine the rock in the pond -- I use just the rock in the pond as, you know, one big rock going in. But if you imagine what we actually do is break that up into -- say there's 30 holes in a blast pattern, we break that up into 30 little pieces, and you throw one in right after another. You get a little bit of a splash, but what happens is you don't get that big splash. And they're timed and separated enough that they actually help offset the vibrations. It's a -- this -- you thought we were in the weeds before. This really gets into the weeds in terms of timing. But we actually do timing from single holes. And we look at that and then provide recommendations to the blaster on their timing between holes. It helps to offset the vibration going off property. So, yes, that's what's happening. COMMISSIONER VERNON: So if you -- say, you had 20 blast holes and you blast one, you wait five minutes, blast another, wait five minutes, it would be more vibration? MR. STRAW: Yes, because you'd have the single hole all in itself, and we'd only get through eight because we're only allowed to blast eight times per month. So each one of those would be considered its individual -- an individual blast, plus we wouldn't break the rock very much. COMMISSIONER VERNON: It would be less effective? MR. STRAW: Yes. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Okay. MR. STRAW: The amount of explosives that goes in the hole is designed to actually fragment that rock in that area around each blast hole, and if it's less, you create more vibration. If they put too much in, it creates more vibration. So they're trying to get this at the -- what we call the appropriate powered factor or relationship of explosives to the rock material to actually fragment the rock, and, of course, it depends on what we have. Here we have, you know, limestone and -- you know, fragmented limestone and water, so that's what you're looking at. COMMISSIONER VERNON: And then did you look at any of the records regarding the 9/14/22 incident? MR. STRAW: I did. COMMISSIONER VERNON: What did you see that was -- what did you see that was different? MR. STRAW: Not very much. There's a difference in the levels. I know the 9/14 -- I don't remember the 22nd off the top of my head. The 9/14 had .16 as its highest -- highest reading. That was probably on -- and as I recall, that was on the vertical channel. So if we go back to this record, that would be this channel here. This is not that same record, but -- COMMISSIONER VERNON: Right. MR. STRAW: -- here looking at it, the vertical channel causes motion that people feel. We also generate some technical waves we call Rayleigh waves that are surface waves that cause some repetitious vibration in the house. They're always there because of the distance that we're dealing with. But that's the difference. And by orienting the blast the next day, you help reduce those from occurring. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Okay. So I don't know how to ask the question, but what anomalies did you see, other than what you've already said, on September 14th? February 1, 2024 Page 23 of 102 CHAIRMAN FRYER: I need to interrupt if I may, and I -- Mr. Yovanovich is about to do so anyway, but these -- this is not to open the door to this line of questioning. Where do you stand on that? MR. YOVANOVICH: I want you-all to be totally comfortable that how we're operating is not causing damage. And if Mr. Vernon wants to ask questions about the specifics of that day -- I know your staff has the records, but, you know, Jeff's the guy to answer Mr. Vernon's questions, and I'm fine with that. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: While Rich is at the mic, may I ask him a question? MR. YOVANOVICH: Ask me a question or -- MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Yeah, you. Notwithstanding the Florida Statutes preemption on blasting for Collier County, your client is agreeing to the conditions that you've placed on the visualizer for enforcement and regulation by the county notwithstanding the statutes? MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Okay. Thank you. Based on the conditions that they've offered. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. And then in your opinion, County Attorney, the preemption doesn't apply in this particular case because it's waivable? MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Well, the county, if it comes to it, will try to enforce the conditions whether or not they can ultimately be overrided even though this is conditions that are offered by the owner. You know, I can't really answer how that would play, but that would make the enforcement more enforceable. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Thank you very much. All right. Mr. Straw? COMMISSIONER VERNON: Yeah, I just -- go ahead. I just want to get your insights on whatever you can tell us about 9/14 distinguished from the other blasts. MR. STRAW: The young lady here said she could pull those up, and I can look at them and maybe highlight that if -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: While this is being prepared, I just want to alert everyone that we're coming up to a midmorning break at 10:30. Mr. Bosi? MR. BOSI: And just for your awareness, staff does have a short 25-second video of a blast going off from a pretty close location that -- at some point in time, if you'd like to see it, just request it. CHAIRMAN FRYER: It sounds like we would. Thank you. MR. STRAW: I think, you know, briefly, in terms of, you know, what I'm seeing, this is, as I'm told, the 9/14 blast. So you can see the date up here, the location. And then what we have is the actual wave form. I think one of the things I noticed here is this is some of the Rayleigh waves that I talked about, the surface wave. It's well below what the standards are. And the standard here over in the corner, the maximum on the vertical channel, is .16. The frequency's 33 hertz. If you're looking at it, that's where -- this area in here is where the peak is, right here. But there's this low frequency that -- information that comes in that at the end of the wave, you still get some response of a structure. The other thing I'm noticing here is there's some air over-pressure or air blasts, as we just talked about. So not only do you feel this, the house would then respond to this. So that may be part of what we're looking at. Now, if you look at the standards, this is a plot of the vibration versus the U.S. Bureau of Mines and what the State of Florida has. Your criteria is .2, and there would be a line straight across here averaged. The state allows this curve depending on the change in vibration frequency. So it permits out here where this one was .16 at 31.3, so it's out in here. It produces -- allows a lot more vibration, still not causing damage to structure, but this is what the perception is from there, and that's January 3rd. These are some of the other vibration waves you February 1, 2024 Page 24 of 102 have. This is -- this is a different one. This is -- we just looked at it before. This one just happened to be up here. It's January 16th. You can see that in the vertical trace here there's a little bit of the Rayleigh wave. It's not as much. There's not as much air over-pressure. The blast was probably oriented in a different direction to that. So those are some of the things that we look at that we see. That would be consistent with what happened between the 16th and the 24th. COMMISSIONER VERNON: And the higher numbers on the 9/14, would you attribute that to anything other than the direction of the blast? And if so, what? MR. STRAW: I don't think -- I don't think there's any real change, because it depends on which seismograph is closest that you're looking at. You know, it's the closest seismograph -- or we have three and then the fourth now. So looking at -- looking at that seismograph there, the orientation of the blast would drive vibration so that if you're looking at the original one, you're driving vibration towards this location. So by orienting the initiation away from structures, we reduce the vibration. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Right. And you may have answered the question; I just didn't understand it. But the numbers were higher on September 14th? MR. STRAW: Correct. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Based on your 40-years -- plus-years of experience, why were the numbers higher? MR. STRAW: More orientation. Because they're loading the same amount of product. As I recall -- and I don't have everything in front of me. But looking at it, the load is the same, you know, the pattern is the same, the depth is the same. It's more the orientation, and that's what got changed for the subsequent blasts, and they're paying more attention to that. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Anything else? You said more the orientation, which I understand. But anything else you could attribute that to? MR. STRAW: The only thing that I see that's different is this part of the air blast with, you know, other blasts that were on the computer here that I'm looking at. There's a little bit here, but this is reduced. And you can see this, how much lower the air over-pressure is. The air over-pressure is something that causes house rattling as well. So I think those two things, the confinement of the shot on subsequent blasts appears to be better. Meaning that when the blast detonates, understand the hole -- the holes individually detonate. They create gas. Eventually they vent at the surface. When that gas comes out, there's stemming material that's on top of it. It's either water or it's crushed rock that's added to the blast hole. It just holds the explosives in place longer. And what happened on the other blast was there was more venting of that. And I think the blaster's just taking more precaution to make sure that the stemming is better applied, if you will. COMMISSIONER VERNON: I know you're answering my question, but the over-air numbers were higher, right? MR. STRAW: I believe so. COMMISSIONER VERNON: That's what you mentioned. Because I said other than the orientation, what more did you see. MR. STRAW: Just the air over-pressure was higher. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Right. And air over-pressure, based on your 40-plus years of experience, was based on -- caused by what? MR. STRAW: That's the venting of the gases and whether they changed stemming materials or whether they've added more stemming. I haven't looked into all of that, because we've got -- the question came more about ground vibration than it came with people talking about the sound. But you asked the "over" question, you know, what do I see? What do I see here is the air blast is higher on the initial blast that we're talking about. On the September 14th blast, the air over-pressure's 115.9. On some of the other ones, it's less than that; 109. That's a significant February 1, 2024 Page 25 of 102 reduction. COMMISSIONER VERNON: And based on your experience, you think that was due to more stemming? MR. STRAW: More stemming in the blast or that the blast orientation deflected that energy away. COMMISSIONER VERNON: So it could have been simply due to the orientation? MR. STRAW: Correct. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Or it could have been due to extra stemming. What is stemming? MR. STRAW: Stemming is just crushed rock or in this case they also use water in the hole. You don't fill the hole to the surface. I should -- so that you understand, we have a cardboard tube in the hole that holds -- keeps sand and other debris out while they've drilled the pattern. When you load that, it displaces the water in the tube. But we only come up to a certain height, and then the top part of the column is unloaded. And in many cases they put crushed rock in there and/or we just use water, which the stemming -- it allows that -- the weight on it allows the explosives material to go sideways rather than straight back up the hole. COMMISSIONER VERNON: And then I think you mentioned that they had made some adjustments after that on the -- MR. STRAW: Well, I know that they had done the orientation. This may be as simple as orientation. I have not gone through everything to look at every parameter to see what did they do with stemming and the other things, because when we got the question, it was ground vibration. COMMISSIONER VERNON: And what could they do with stemming? MR. STRAW: Add more or make sure that it's, you know, compacted. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Okay. All right. Thank you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Commissioner Sparrazza, do you have -- is it short? Because we're -- COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: It is, yeah, very short. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Go ahead. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: The air over-pressure for normal ones, it looks as if you're in the 109 dB area? MR. STRAW: They're certainly lower. I mean, they can be anywhere, I mean, depending on where you are around the property, and it also depends on the wind conditions. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Correct. MR. STRAW: So -- but they're less. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: And the maximum was 120. MR. STRAW: One hundred twenty is what's allowed, correct. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: And on the 14th, it was 115. So 115 is actually 6 dB above 109, which makes it one-fourth the level of audio. MR. STRAW: No. It's actually higher than that because these are exponential numbers. When we look at decibels, 1 to 10 is the same as 10 to 100. So when you start calculating this, we calculate it by pounds per square inch so that the change from 109 to 115, 116, whatever that number, you know, is is significantly greater. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Okay. MR. STRAW: It's probably, like, three times the energy, if not four times the energy. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Yeah, four times the energy. MR. STRAW: From one blast to the other. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Allowed, correct. MR. STRAW: Yes. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Okay. So you're -- although the maximum is 120 dB, you're usually, as in this case, 109 or lower? MR. STRAW: Correct. February 1, 2024 Page 26 of 102 COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Very good. Thank you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. Commissioner Vernon has promised me this is going to be short. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Two minutes. So you said something about wind. Does wind have something to do with this? MR. STRAW: Wind will affect noise, sure. I mean, this is still -- COMMISSIONER VERNON: But not the vibration? MR. STRAW: No, wind doesn't have anything to do with it. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. It's 27 minutes after 10. We'll take a 13-minute recess until 10:40. (A brief recess was had from 10:27 a.m. to 10:40 a.m.) (Commissioner Schumacher is absent for the remainder of the meeting.) MR. BOSI: Chair, you have a live mic. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you, Mr. Bosi. Let's reconvene, ladies and gentlemen. And let's -- and I know the vice chairman wants to ask another question. Do you want to do that now, sir? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Well, I wanted to ask about the strikethroughs on the conditions, but I'll wait -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: -- till a time to do that. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. Mr. Yovanovich. MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, it's probably going to be that time if someone helps me get back onto wherever the presentation is. Which one do I click? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Well, I have two questions, and let's -- if you got the -- MR. YOVANOVICH: I got them. I've got the conditions up for you. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: This is the -- not your conditions. These are the -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: Ms. Padron? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: -- conditions that were part of the staff report. And I'll tell you which page if you want to do that. MR. YOVANOVICH: Okay. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Let me get the -- MR. YOVANOVICH: Do you want the previous or the current -- the proposed? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Close this and start it again. It was -- stand by, Rich. This is on the packet -- it was part of the -- it's two issues that I wanted to address, and it's -- I'm just trying to find -- it was part of the conditions, and it was the strikethrough and underlines. MR. YOVANOVICH: They're up on the screen if that helps you. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: This was on 29. There was one called 17, $1 per heavy truckload. MR. YOVANOVICH: Right. COMMISSIONER SHEA: It was -- he just had it right here. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yeah. My question is: Is there a rational nexus for this $1? It seems to have always been $1. It goes back probably 20 years it was $1, and I have to question whether that is sufficient. And I would have to believe that must have come from Transportation. And is there a rational nexus? Is this sufficient? It reads to me almost like a usage tax. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Not an impact tax. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Is it an impact fee? MR. YOVANOVICH: It's not an impact fee. It's basically a usage fee to assure that if we create issues on the road, there's a fund there to fix those issues. And there's also -- so I'm February 1, 2024 Page 27 of 102 going to let Mr. Sawyer address that. But that has been, you know, the -- determined to be the appropriate fee for every mine I've worked on. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yeah. And it seems to have been for many years. And, of course, inflation is certainly -- it seems to think -- MR. YOVANOVICH: I think they -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: I'm sort of under the impression a dollar is not enough. MR. YOVANOVICH: They overcharged us years ago. They finally got it right. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Staff's happy with a dollar. MR. YOVANOVICH: I haven't heard anything where they've said, "Mr. Yovanovich, do you want to change that number?" COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. Well, the other one is there was a strikethrough, and it was originally Condition 20. And where was that? And it was -- the one that required the inspection. If people wanted to have their homes inspected, and that has been now deleted. Is there -- I recall at one time that seemed to have always been available if a homeowner wanted to have an inspection prior to blasting so they would at least have a pre- -- pre-blasting conditional inspections, and if they deemed that blasting caused some kind of -- MR. YOVANOVICH: Right. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: -- issue with the homes, they would have a pre-inspection to validate that. And I'm trying to look for that. CHAIRMAN FRYER: It's not 20. MR. YOVANOVICH: It was No. 20. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: It was No. 20 at one time in one of the older versions, and it was lined through. MR. YOVANOVICH: Mr. Schmidt, I'll show you where it was. Where's the cursor? It was No. 26. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Twenty-six, okay. A pre-blasting survey shall be taken. And that was lined through. Is that -- is that -- is there a reason why you chose not to agree to do that, or is it just a waste of time? MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, it's probably a combination of there's probably thousands of homes -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yes. MR. YOVANOVICH: -- that, you know, we would be doing these surveys for. What we -- you know what -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Jeff is fine. MR. STRAW: For the record, Jeffrey Straw again. The original pre-blast inspections were done before there were any blasting at any time. Those were completed. You can't go back now and do a pre-blast inspection because there's blasting ongoing. So that's the reason. It was done and completed I think I said 2004, 2006 when we started, when we first started. That was the first thing we did was do inspections on all those homes. But now there's not really a value in it because houses have been built after, and they have their own existing conditions. So now anything that would be done would be an investigation. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. That makes sense, because I remember when this came in when I was part of staff, and that was one of the conditions. So I'm a homeowner -- and I'm going back to Mr. Yovanovich. I'm a homeowner. Now I want to register a complaint saying I know this blast caused a crack in my wall. Does that go to the county, or do you have -- do you receive those complaints? How is that -- I mean, because this could get into a legal battle, legal issue. No, it didn't. Those kind of things. Yes? MR. STRAW: The issues that exist is now it's -- I think it's Chapter 55.245 through the state fire marshal's office. The complaint goes to the state fire marshal -- if it's a complaint, it goes to the state fire marshal's office. If there's a complaint of damage, there is a whole procedure February 1, 2024 Page 28 of 102 under the state fire marshal's office to go through that through the Division of Administrative Hearings. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: And is there a forensic analysis that's done -- MR. STRAW: It's done. Both sides prepare information, and however that's done. The mine has an opportunity and the homeowner presents evidence. And then there's a mediation initially before it goes to an administrative hearing. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Because both you and I know the soil in Florida tends to cause more cracks than the blasting. And I'm not being -- I'm not swaying one way or the other, but -- the rule -- I always know, if you place concrete in Florida, eventually it's going to crack. MR. STRAW: That's correct. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Unless you put the appropriate measures to -- MR. STRAW: That's correct. But the process is there through the state fire marshal. It was developed after the initial regulation went in. It was added, and I think it is 552.45, if I'm not mistaken. But it's part of the construction materials mining activity, but it specifically deals with claims, and there's a process for it. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: So basically overcome by events then. Now there's clearly a statute, if I'm a homeowner, to file a complaint? MR. STRAW: That's correct. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. Thank you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Mr. Straw, don't go away, sir. I think you -- I think you may be best qualified to answer this but, if not, someone else. It's just I don't happen to know the answer. Similar operations, similar blasting operations, are they taking place nearby the applicant's site and, if so, can you say something about where they are and how far removed they are from the residential areas? MR. STRAW: Well, the closest would be in Lee County along Alico Road, and there's three or four major operations there. They've got houses in various areas around them. Cemex has an operation. Vulcan Materials, which is the largest stone producer in the United States, has an operation there. Youngquist Brothers has an operation there. Titan has an operation out on Corkscrew Road. They all have houses around them. I mean, the bulk of the mining is done in Miami-Dade County. And if you look at those areas, you've got three of the top 10 stone producers in the United States that are there. And here we're blasting eight times a month. They're blasting three to four times per day -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Wow. MR. STRAW: -- in what they're doing, and their houses are, you know, 1300 or less feet away in some of these. Some of them are much closer but, you know, in that Miami-Dade swath of quarries that, you know, I'm familiar with. But the closest one's here -- I mean, Bonita Grande is one that was mentioned -- I forgot that one -- and that one has people relatively close. CHAIRMAN FRYER: How close to this site? MR. STRAW: Off the top -- MR. YOVANOVICH: To this site? MR. STRAW: The homes to their site, off the top of my head, 1500 feet, somewhere in that ballpark. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. So in other words, there are other operators 1500 feet from the proximate residences that we'll be hearing from? MR. YOVANOVICH: No, no, no. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Straighten me out. MR. YOVANOVICH: I think what he's saying, there's nobody in Collier County doing what we're doing. They're all in Lee County. Did I get that right? MR. STRAW: Correct. MR. YOVANOVICH: So there's nobody close. You know, there may be -- there may be February 1, 2024 Page 29 of 102 occasions where a county's doing a utility project or someone's doing a development lake within their project where they may be blasting, but there's no rock mines -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. MR. YOVANOVICH: -- close to -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: But there are occasional instances of blasting -- MR. YOVANOVICH: Sure. CHAIRMAN FRYER: -- nearby. MR. YOVANOVICH: Sure. There could be, sure. CHAIRMAN FRYER: And I'm going to quickly ask Mr. Bosi because I had, I think, slightly different information. Have I got it correct that -- MR. BOSI: I believe you're referring to our Tuesday pre-meeting, and I think Ms. Cook had indicated that there are some occasional locations in proximity that may have blasting, whether it be for lake excavation and various other reasons. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Well, look who's at the podium. MS. COOK: Jaime Cook, your director of Development Review. Yes, there are other blasting operations occurring, not commercial mines as this is but frequently for development lakes. Terreno has an active blasting permit for their development lakes, the Groves at Orange Blossom, which are both about a mile south of this area of the Estates, both have active blasting permits for their lakes. CHAIRMAN FRYER: A mile south? MS. COOK: Yes. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Anybody else have a question along those lines? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: If not, thank you. MR. YOVANOVICH: Mr. Chairman, if this is the right time, I want to put an exhibit up to talk about your concept of how we can I'll use the word "abandon" portions of the project as they got completed. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yes, please. MR. YOVANOVICH: This is the exhibit. CHAIRMAN FRYER: North up. MR. YOVANOVICH: North's up? Did I get that right? Okay. The concept is this blue area is where operations have been completed. We do -- we have to annually update our permit, or we get a new permit every year through staff. Every year we will update this map to show -- increase the blue area of where we're no longer eligible to blast as part of this process. That's -- I think the concept you were talking about is let's -- how do we codify that we're no longer -- as we move along, we're done. CHAIRMAN FRYER: How do you surrender part of conditional use square footage or relinquish? MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, we can -- we could say that this blue area -- other than reclamation, because we have to do some reclamation -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: All I'm -- I'm not talking about mining or anything else. I'm talking about blasting. MR. YOVANOVICH: Blasting. We will update it annually to say we give up -- as part of our mine permit, that we're giving up this area to blast. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. Should that be a condition? MR. YOVANOVICH: We can put that as a condition, yes, sir. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Counsel? MR. PERRY: I have proposed language if you'd like to -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: I'd like to hear it. MR. PERRY: And Rich hasn't heard this, so... CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Well, we'll all hear it together. February 1, 2024 Page 30 of 102 MR. PERRY: The owner shall blast in a logically progressive manner from east to west, and as the owner completes its operations in a specific blasting area, it shall cease blasting in that area. The owner -- once the owner is finished blasting in the area depicted on the completed excavation exhibit attached hereto as Exhibit E, the owner shall provide Collier County Development Review division with an updated completed excavation exhibit as part of the owner's annual permitting process. The owner commits and covenants to no longer blasting in the areas shown as completed on the completed excavation exhibit as amended annually during county permitting. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Mr. Yovanovich? That's satisfactory to me. We'll see what the applicant says. Were you able to hear that, sir? MR. YOVANOVICH: I missed the last part. I was a little nervous about Exhibit E. I stopped listening after he was committing me to an Exhibit E. MR. PERRY: And we'll send it to you. The Exhibit E would be this, but it would be able to be amended annually during the permitting process. MR. YOVANOVICH: Look, the concept would be this is the base. We're not going to blast where it's blue, and annually we'll update where we're done blasting. CHAIRMAN FRYER: That's fine with me. MR. YOVANOVICH: Now, I don't -- if that's what he just said, in concept, we can get there, but I'd like to see the actual language, because that sounded a lot more complicated. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. COMMISSIONER VERNON: The only thing that caught my ear was he said in east/west progression, so -- did you hear that part? MR. YOVANOVICH: I did. COMMISSIONER VERNON: You're okay with that? MR. YOVANOVICH: It already says that. COMMISISONER VERNON: I mean, I like it. Okay. MR. YOVANOVICH: We're already committed to that. CHAIRMAN FRYER: If we can actually agree to the language, we don't need to worry about it either coming back on consent or me looking at it on behalf of the Planning Commission. So I hope we can get the exact language. MR. YOVANOVICH: We're fine with this exhibit becoming part of the conditional use and using it as the base that we will annually update. CHAIRMAN FRYER: And so the counselor's language is acceptable? Nothing has to come back? MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, generally, we already have an obligation to go east to west, so some of that seems to be repetitive, so... CHAIRMAN FRYER: But I just -- I don't want to have to bring this back on consent. MR. YOVANOVICH: I don't either. I don't either. CHAIRMAN FRYER: So is the language okay? MR. YOVANOVICH: I'm sure there's going to be public speaking. If he can e-mail it to me, that would help me. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Can that be done? Okay. Good. And then before we conclude this, you'll give us a sign-off one way or the other? MR. YOVANOVICH: Sure. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Anything else, sir? MR. YOVANOVICH: That's the conclusion of our presentation, if you have any further questions of me or Mr. Shaw [sic] on how this actually works... Again, your staff is recommending approval. I think we -- I know we've met all the conditional-use criteria, and we're well under what the state would permit, and we're further -- we're further limiting ourselves based upon several state-adopted standards. February 1, 2024 Page 31 of 102 CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. I have two commissioners who are signaling, starting with Commissioner Shea. COMMISSIONER SHEA: So we've been talking mostly about blasting, but you do crush and grade the product there as well, and apparently that operation is not in question. I have not seen or heard any voices against it or even talking about it. I just wanted to make sure -- MR. YOVANOVICH: It's a normal process. COMMISSIONER SHEA: -- everybody knew you are crushing and -- MR. YOVANOVICH: We are. COMMISSIONER SHEA: -- grading, but that's -- it's far enough away that it's not a nuisance? MR. YOVANOVICH: And we have -- that's the attenuation -- the noise-attenuation provisions address that. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Just for the record. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Now, with all due respect, I want to ask everyone to not talk over anyone else, please. Thank you. MR. YOVANOVICH: We're just simply here to change the blasting. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. COMMISSIONER SHEA: No. I'm just saying, though, but we haven't received any complaints about the crushing operation. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. Commissioner Sparrazza. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Rich, with respect to our conversation yesterday, I wondered if you had an opportunity to discuss with your client -- my minute request was on Page 91, at least of our packet, No. 3, to lessen the potential of noise that -- if the equipment is moved, that within six months they would rectify either with a berm to attenuate the noise if the attenuating structure did not work. MR. YOVANOVICH: Mike, can you go back to the -- I'm looking at this and I'm -- I'm putting it up. The answer is we can reduce that to 90 days. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Wonderful. I appreciate that. And another one kind of goes in line with the $1 per truckload. At least on our Page 93, No. 21, I'm wondering when this $500 -- I'm sorry, $500,000 bond was set, if that was back in 2006, '07, or '08, whenever this initially was done. Do we think that's adequate now considering it's 15, 18 years later with the price? MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, I'll say two things: One, it's never been called on in all these years. My client is willing to, you know, increase that number to a million dollars, keeping in mind that, you know, so far it's proven to be more than sufficient, that 500,000. But accounting for it's been a few years since that number's been looked at, we'll go to a million dollars. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: I think that goes a long way also in showing good faith to the neighbors. I would hope that would be strongly considered. MR. YOVANOVICH: We'll do it. We just said -- COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Do it. Great. Thank you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: That was another condition we'll add. And I was remiss in not making a record on something. Back at 10:40 when we reconvened, I should have made the record that Commissioner Schumacher had to leave due to a business commitment, and we thank him for being here for the time he could. We understand the demands of his business, and his absence from this point forward is excused. Go ahead, Mr. Yovanovich. MR. YOVANOVICH: That's it. I mean, we're ready to turn it over to staff or answer any more questions you may have. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. No one is signaling at this time and, therefore, I take that as a segue into the public speaking. So -- February 1, 2024 Page 32 of 102 MR. YOVANOVICH: Doesn't staff usually go? CHAIRMAN FRYER: Staff usually does, yeah, and this might be a good one to have staff. Thank you for correcting me. MR. BOSI: Thank you, Chair. Mike Bosi, Planning and Zoning director. Staff reviewed the revised condition of approvals that we received prior to the -- prior to the hearing. We will coordinate with the County's Attorney's office on their consent to the revised commitments. We do recognize that they are more restrictive; that they have provided a little bit more protection. The modified restrictions that the Planning Commission has discussed, staff is supportive of those as well and, as indicated within the staff report, we are recommending approval with these additional conditions. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. No one is signaling at this point. At this point I want to -- before I call on Commissioner Shea, I had mentioned that Ms. Cook is prepared to go into greater deal with respect to the steps staff takes on each occasion of blasting if anyone wants to hear that. I know she's present and would be able to come forward, but I don't want to -- COMMISSIONER SHEA: That's my question. CHAIRMAN FRYER: That is? COMMISSIONER SHEA: My question is, what does the inspector do? CHAIRMAN FRYER: Well, then, let's have Ms. Cook come up, because she's all over this one. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Can you also show the video? CHAIRMAN FRYER: Oh, yeah. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: I'd like to see that. Is that a video on this site, or was it a video elsewhere? MR. BOSI: It was a video elsewhere, not at this site. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: But similar type of blasting outfit? MR. BOSI: Yes. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. Are we going to see the video first, or are we going to hear from Ms. Cook first? (A video was played.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: Holy moly. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Fire in the hole. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah. I'd ask that that be run again because I wasn't sure when something was going to happen. (The video was replayed.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. Anyone have any questions or comments about the video? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: If not, thank you, Mr. Bosi. Ms. Cook. MS. COOK: Again, Jaime Cook, for the record. So when a blast is to occur, the blaster notifies the county inspectors and sets up a time for the inspector to be on site. So during every blast that occurs, an inspector is on site. If they were to fail to notify us and conduct a blast without us, that's actually a violation of their license, which could then be taken away by ATF under their own procedure. So they do notify us. The inspector is out on site. They do verify that all of the work on site that's going on, whether it's the crushing or digging, anything like, that has ceased. And then they -- the inspector actually goes to where the location of the nearest seismograph is to make sure that it's operating, running, and they stay there. They get the numbers February 1, 2024 Page 33 of 102 that are on those report during the -- the report that's generated with the blast and verify all the site conditions. If in the event that they notice site conditions or things like weather are not appropriate for the blast, they will stop the blast or delay it. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. Anybody have any questions or comments? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you, Ms. Cook. MS. COOK: Thank you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. Anything further from staff or for them? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: If not, now I think we're ready for registered speakers. Mr. Sabo, Ms. Padron, who do we have? MR. SABO: All right. Mr. Chairman, there are 10 registered speakers. To organize this, we can use both podiums, the one next to staff on the right, the one next to the attorneys on the left. First is Jesse Rose. Next is Harrold Hussmann. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. And at the beginning of these proceedings, the witnesses who were present were sworn in, and so before you speak, if you haven't been sworn in, kindly let us know so that we can get that taken care of. MR. ROSE: Yes, sir. I'm Jesse Rose. I was sworn in. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. Please proceed, sir. MR. ROSE: Thank you. Good morning. As I said, I'm Jesse Rose. I'm a veteran of the United States Air Force. I am retired, so I'm at home during the day, and I often hear the blasting that's happening, and I often hear the house shake and things like that. As far as damage goes, my tile is upheaving in my son's room. And we had ripped up the carpet prior to painting and putting tile down in the extra bedroom. We have four bedrooms. And in that extra bedroom, the foundation has a crack that goes all the way across it. That wasn't there when we pulled up the carpet. So I don't know how it got there, if it was due to the blasting or, you know, what have you, but it is there now. And there's damaged stucco that is on the outside of the house that is chipping, and it also has a crack that is going up the sideline of it. That is surrounding my windows that face the rear of the home. And I think that's about it as far as damage from what I could see, you know, when I inspected the home. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. MR. ROSE: I think that's about it. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Vice Chairman. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yes. First question is how far do you live from the blast area? MR. ROSE: I live on 22nd Street Northeast. So I think approximately, what is it, like a mile. Like a mile. Yeah, like a mile. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: And have you filed any formal complaints with the state or -- MR. ROSE: I have not yet, no. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: You have not. Okay. That's it. Thank you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. And one other thing, and thank you also for your service in the military. MR. ROSE: Thank you for your support, sir. CHAIRMAN FRYER: I would be interested to know if we can establish a causal connection between this applicant and your damage. And so for you and for the other speakers who are going to come up and offer testimony like that, I think it would be helpful to the Planning February 1, 2024 Page 34 of 102 Commission if you have evidence of causation -- because there is other blasting going on in that area -- we'd like to know about it. MR. ROSE: Sure. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Thank you, sir. MR. ROSE: Thank you. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Next speaker. MR. HUSSMANN: I'm Harrold Hussmann. I live at 47th Street Northeast, basically on 22, like, three-quarter of a mile from the mine. And we have also damage at the house. Basically, I have one crack that crosses the whole living room, office, and to the lanai. I have cracks on the side where the windows are, and they already know because they had an inspection done at my house, the mine people. I don't know his name, but -- let me see. Harry Blan [sic]. They came already to my house. They put a sensor since. And this was after the September blasting. So my question is, now we have two blastings per week for months. They want to do eight blastings for months. So imagine how much damage they will cause already on our houses. So this is really a big problem, you see, for the homeowners. And we have on -- the south side of the mine, basically on 47th Street, we have 600 houses. On the west side of the mine, we have 800 houses between Everglades Boulevard and the mine. So we're talking 1,500 houses, they are already there, maybe a little bit more, that get damage in one-and-a-half or one mile to one-and-a-half mile radius. So it's a lot of damage. And this will be like, basically, a lot. So what I think is the mine basically needs to lower more of the blasting, not only what they're talking; now they need to lower more or finish the blasting and continue in another way. I don't mind the noise. The blasting is what's causing our home damage. And I have a second concern. The second concern is, you know, blasting, when they make fracking for oil, he told us it's almost the same like what they're doing. So, basically, they are mixing -- they're damaging our groundwater with the well water that we have. So the top water, when they make fracking, that goes in the groundwater. So we all live on wells. So, basically, we get also a contamination from our wells that are close there. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. Sir, thank you. And we will -- the applicant will have an opportunity to offer rebuttal, and these are points that we will ask the applicant to respond to. MR. HUSSMANN: Perfect. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. Next speaker. MR. SABO: Next we have -- just a reminder, both podiums are open, so please line up. Robert Dixon on the right side. Carlos Garcia on the left side. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. Now, I believe Mr. Dixon and Mr. Garcia spoke before. Under the circumstances -- well, put it this way. I thought that a transcript of their presentations was going to find its way into the packet, and I don't believe it did. And so, without objection, I'm going to allow them to speak again. All right, who was first? MR. DIXON: Thank you, sir. Appreciate that. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Appreciate you guys being out here again. CHAIRMAN FRYER: You're Mr. Dixon? MR. DIXON: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. MR. DIXON: So there's a reason why there's not thousands of e-mails and -- because thousands of residents that border this mine don't know what's happening. It's happened Monday through Friday, like they said, between the hours of 9 to 4. Ninety percent of everybody goes to work. Nobody even has a clue this is even going on unless people started talking about it, some of the people that are home. February 1, 2024 Page 35 of 102 The two signs for the public hearing notice are set outside the mine, which is about a mile north of the 47th Avenue and Immokalee entrance, where everybody lives. Ninety percent of those people make a left to head into town to go to work. Unless you're going to the casino or you work in Immokalee, nobody goes that way. The signs that were put in were knocked down the first week, and they stayed down. There is very dense population that is to the south of the mine and to the east of the mine. Back when he said they don't do pre-inspections anymore, that's 20 years ago in 2004. They only had a handful of houses out back then. This is very populated. It's very dense. And I wish you were able to pull the map up, and I could show you exactly where it is. But there is thousands of homes with tens of thousands of residents living in these. These all border the mine. Everybody off of Everglades has no idea that there's -- this is even a notice. Nobody even knows because there's no signs out there. But they're immediately adjacent to the mine on the east, and our neighborhood's immediately adjacent to the south. So -- and I know they definitely don't want to do pre-inspections because what they're doing is damaging. I know they're professionals. They've been in their field a long time. They came up and showed us all the numbers, and they're well under. We've all established that. They could do a .5. They're doing way less than that. If they were to come close to a .5, I'm telling you now, let the record show, it's going to be catastrophic. It's going to displace thousands of residents. The structures are going to be unsafe, inhabitable, and we already know that there's a housing crisis already in Naples. There's nowhere to live now. So imagine having to take thousands of people and displace them because their structures aren't safe. They've got to worry about them falling in on them. As far as the September 14th blast, there was no doubt/question. I know they had the thing up there talking about the vibration and the effects. My house has over a dozen cracks on them [sic]. Quality Enterprise came out; they acknowledged it. They also acknowledged that they will correct the damage. They told us, don't fix it yet. Let's wait and see what the future blasts are going to do because there's no sense -- we're going to have to come back and make second repairs. They have yet to come back out or keep their word to come out to fix the damaged structures. We actually requested to have the seismic monitor put there. The direction, I'll give them credit on that. Barry changed the direction on it, and it made a really big difference. September 14th, I felt like I was on a pirate ship in the open seas. It was -- I can't overexplain how much that house moved. It wasn't just a little vibration. The entire house moved, caused numerous cracks, which was already acknowledged by Quality Enterprises. He's been very polite, Barry Blankenship. He came out. He's been doing everything he said with redirecting and all that, and it has gotten better, but it hasn't changed the fact that we're still experiencing a lot of damage to our houses from more frequent blasts. And now they want to go from two to eight, and they want to bring it in 1300 feet closer to the house. Where the blast is right now, they're not even a half a mile from some structures right now, and they want to go closer. And they know what they're doing out there, because they are building that for a housing complex. It was supposed to be smaller houses on the lake it was. They decided they want to double down, triple down, make the lake bigger, triple the houses, triple the profit. They made it clear that there is other means for them to excavate the stuff in here without doing the blasting. Nobody has any problems with the noise, this. The dump trucks are a little bit of a nuisance because they're up and down 47th on the hour every hour, every five minutes. But the only complaint that I think from the neighborhood so far -- and there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that are finally catching on on the social media sites, Facebook, neighbors next door. A lot of people are just being aware of this. If they bring that closer and go from two blasts to eight blasts even closer to our house, it February 1, 2024 Page 36 of 102 doesn't matter what level they're doing it at. I mean, they're already well below the level now, and we're experiencing negative effects to our structures and our houses. And we plead to you to -- you know, it's quicker -- if they blast, they can get it all out quicker, they can get the houses quicker, they can make their money and their profit and press on, and they're all happy. They don't want to sit out there for five years having to dig the slow way when they can blow everything up in two years. I get that from a business aspect. But those houses, they're very condensed, and they border the entire thing, and we're getting rocked out there. Even with all the things that they've changed, our houses are getting rocked. We're getting damage. And nobody knew how to file a complaint until today, which I understand the state fire marshal, so that's nice because we were never told. CHAIRMAN FRYER: You're at the five-minute mark, sir. MR. DIXON: Understood. There's a lot of houses that border that. There's a lot of damage being done. And I don't know how much they need to lower it or just go the old-fashioned way and just dig it and take a little bit more time but, you know, the homeowners, we need support; we need help from everybody. We all know there's growth. We understand that. But we shouldn't be having to suffer and have everything that we've worked for damaged for something that's going to be built five years from now. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. MR. DIXON: Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Next speaker, please. MR. GARCIA: Good afternoon. My name is Carlos Garcia. Thank you for the opportunity to speak here to you-all today. I appreciate the work that you do. It is my experience that -- from the questions that I hear that some of you commissioners ask, you guys are smart. You guys are on point. And I'm not saying that for nothing. I'm saying that because it really impressed me that you guys actually care. The general public doesn't think that way. The general public thinks that, you know, everybody's getting money put in their pocket. So that said I'm going to -- I'm going to start. The definition of a rapid burn, do you know what that is? What is a definition of a rapid burn? It's an explosion. You know how I know that? Because I'm a firefighter. The South Florida building code does not provide for our houses to receive or experience explosions. Our homes are built to Collier County code and South Florida building code. The numbers and the graphs and everything that you saw, very pretty, very well prepared. But the truth is that our homes are not built that way. When our house received a certificate of occupancy 21 years ago at this location, there was no mining operations happening at that time. I've lived there 21 years. I own five properties on that same street. The young lady that spoke here earlier, she talked about Lee County and other projects that are going on in the area. Those projects are over a mile away from us. That's 5,280 feet plus. This project is less than 1300 feet is what they're asking. I don't understand how somebody in the right capacity would think that it's okay to go ahead and blast closer to our homes. We're already experiencing problems. Why would you allow them to come any closer? It doesn't make any sense. Our homes have significant damage. And matter of fact, I encourage any of you sitting on this board to come to my house and take a look. I welcome you. Mr. Schmidt, earlier he talked about how he was a combat engineer in the military. So was I. I understand explosives. I know how explosives work, and there's no place for them near our homes. It doesn't make any sense. And I'm asking that you do not allow them to below and explode any closer. They're very eloquent when they speak. They use great words. They have beautiful graphs and pictures, but I'm more of a common sense kind of guy. To me it doesn't make any sense to allow them to come February 1, 2024 Page 37 of 102 any closer for any amount of money. The video you saw, the last video that we saw with the explosions going up in the air, that synchronized explosion, it's not a blast. It's an explosion. The particles you saw flying in the air, those are the cardboard tubes that they use. That's what -- that's how powerful that is. It blows the tubes out of the ground. What you can't see is what's called fly rock. Fly rock is the material that's blowing up in the air that's not on the video. You can't see it. How high -- nobody asked that question because they don't know. We're not all experts; not everybody knows. But how high does that fly rock fly? That's why they call it fly rock. It goes miles up in the air. It damages homes. We're over here looking at air waves and things like that, but it's reality what we're looking at. One thing is what's on paper, and one thing is reality. The truth is, you know, is what they want you to see versus what we're experiencing. I don't know if you ever had a constituent stand up here and ask you to come to my home. I welcome you to come to my home. Take a look at it for yourself. We're not here for no reason. We're not here to waste anybody's time, and we thank you for your time. This is significant. This is important. This is our home. This our biggest investment. I'm not a new person here to Collier County, and we're definitely not Lee County. I take pride in that. I'm here intentionally. I came to Collier County on purpose. This is not Lee County. We're not -- we're not at the standards of Lee County. So I don't want to be compared by anybody else. Thank you for your time. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you for your service in the military and also as a first responder. MR. GARCIA: Thank you, sir. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Next speaker. MR. SABO: Next two speakers. Jesus Mesa on the right side there, and Denzil Medford on the left side. MR. MEDFORD: I'm Denzil Medford. And we are at 47 -- 4760 22nd Street Northeast. CHAIRMAN FRYER: I didn't catch your last name, sir. MR. MEDFORD: Denzil Medford. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Medford, thank you. MR. MEDFORD: And my wife is Zephina Medford. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. MR. MEDFORD: And we're at 4760 22nd Street Northeast. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Go ahead, sir. MR. MEDFORD: I am like the other gentleman there, I'm glad that you allow us to come and to hear what they are saying and to see and to hear what these experts supposed to say. These experts are supposed to say the thing to benefit them, but I haven't heard none of them say anything that they're interested or want to know how the people around there that own homes feel. And I don't think -- especially this guy here that just said -- I don't remember your name. We just want to make you all comfortable. He's not interested in making the people that live around his bombsite comfortable. He doesn't think of them at all as far as he's saying. CHAIRMAN FRYER: If I may, sir, personal attacks like that don't help your position. MR. MEDFORD: That's -- maybe I'm too upset to hear someone saying things like he just come to make you comfortable and forgetting about all the guys that -- all the people that bought their homes and living in the area. He never mentioned nothing about those guys, about us or what -- why do we think we own the home? Because we want someplace to live. And I think at least -- he could at least say something. We're going to make sure that the homes around his bombsite is protected before they start trying to destroy any further. Like the guy said, if you got -- if we got a crack along the floor from east to west -- or the master bedroom, there's a crack there three-eighths of an inch, why? From -- on the outside of the February 1, 2024 Page 38 of 102 west wall? There's a crack going right down by the window, our front window, that is causing -- it couldn't just be caused by the wind. It had to cause by their explosions. And, like, they want to expand it more? Or maybe he wouldn't find a house on our street or my house, let's see, when he go down the street if he start to increase the explosion. And the gentleman that says that he just measured the six inches into the sand, well, he's blasting rock, but he's measuring six inches into the sand with his -- with the meter. Well, naturally, rock is going to take more to explode than sand, and he's measuring if the sand is move, but the sand will give any time easier than the rock. So when the seismic measurements saying -- in his wave graph that he said, the sand is not going to move like to the rock. And we are still under -- the house is built on the rock between -- the sand between us and the rock. And maybe that measurement is not going to tell you exactly how much the house is shaken. And it can't be from the wind out here or around the house that caused the cracks in the walls. He can come and look in our house and all they did there and see the cracks in our house. He's welcome, because it will be there when he comes to see it, if he comes to see it. And like all the other things that make it, I want to say, everybody wants to make money, and everybody wants to have some place to live. And if they choose to live there, as I said, if he had said that we're going to blow -- we're going to blast around your area, maybe I wouldn't go there, but if the house is there and now he wants to increase the explosive pressure even more, I don't think that should happen. But then who am I to say you can't do it when he's trying to make the comments and everybody's feeling happy. And I'm not going to start calling -- as you said, attacking people, but I'm not comfortable with what they're saying. At least pay a little bit more attention of what's going on with the area of the home -- and with the homes in the area a little bit more, that we can at least see that you care. And as for using the pneumatic drills and whatever to get the rock out, I rather he do it for -- if he want to do it for 10 years, fine, but explosions, and that's the one -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: You're at the five-minute mark, sir. MS. MEDFORD: I just have one question for concern, if I am able to and that is the -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: Well, why don't you tell us who you are. MS. MEDFORD: I'm sorry. Zephina Medford. CHAIRMAN FRYER: And you've been sworn in? MS. MEDFORD: I didn't, but I'm his wife, so I thought -- THE COURT REPORTER: Do you swear or affirm the testimony you will give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? MS. MEDFORD: Nothing but the truth. The truth is that I am living -- this house we have is very close in my estimation, maybe too close, for all this that is going on. I am -- like, when I go for walks in the morning, I would say, it takes me about three-quarters of an hour much to get to this blast site. You understand that? And I walk pretty fast, too, at 84 -- or 83. CHAIRMAN FRYER: I want to be sure that we pick up everything you're saying, so you might get a little closer to the mic, would you, and maybe lower it just a little bit so that -- MS. MEDFORD: Okay. I'm saying my fear is -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: Your husbands going to help. There we go. MS. MEDFORD: The truth of my fear is that I am too close -- my house is too close for all of this carry ons on. I don't know much about construction and stuff, but in my medical opinion, I know that I am a little bit too close, and to come in further would be dangerous to me, and that's my fear. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. MS. MEDFORD: And I want something to be done, hopefully, that you would consider my fear. Thank you. February 1, 2024 Page 39 of 102 CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you, ma'am. Next speaker, please. MR. SABO: Next two speakers, Mr. Chairman, Rae Ann Burton, she can go to the left podium, and Ken Schmidt to the right podium. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Well, we sure know Ms. Burton. Welcome back. MS. BURTON: Yeah. It's been a while. You guys have been pretty good boys. Okay. My name is Rae Ann Burton. I live in Golden Gate Estates, Rural Golden Gate Estates. I spent around five hours researching and trying to read the documents attached to Attachment 3, 343 pages. From 199, those pages were almost too faint to read. I received the letter for this meeting December 29th, '23, but on June the 20th, '23 there was no letter or -- I'm not even on the list. On Nextdoor, a lady said she didn't receive the notice until two days ago. I read the report of June the 20th. There was many questions asked by the public which were ignored by the promoters. Were told to go to website or call them. And at the end of -- they actually closed the meeting refusing to answer questions. I noticed the sign that's in the packet's not even for mining. It's for HB Family Trust of 150 units of affordable housing. There's no map or details. But I am familiar with vibrations. I live on 31st Avenue Northeast. I know what Terreno did. I know the vibrations shook my house, and I'm not that far from it. And they were only blasting to build lakes so they could sell lakefront homes. Today I've heard of damage done in the past. Can the developers guarantee that this blasting won't create sink holes or even worse? Earthquakes also create vibrations. These developers don't live in the Estates or county, so their only concern is profit, not creating a home, which we moved there to enjoy. I have learned that figures don't lie, but liars do lie, and that goes for words as well, to prove their point. Just to get approval to build for profit what they want, disregarding the concerns of the impacted residents. There has to be something. Growth has to be controlled. Growth is inevitable, but there is also a saying, if you build it, they will come. So if you stop building, maybe they won't come, and we won't have to build. It's creating havoc on our roads. It's creating traffic. It took me 55 minutes to get from my home in Golden Gate Estates off of 31st Avenue Northeast. I am off of Everglades. I took Golden Gate Boulevard to Pine Ridge to Airport. It should not take you that long. When I lived in Indiana, it took me that long to dust off my car of snow and 15 minutes to get to work. Now it takes the opposite. So I want you to really consider it. I don't really live that close in the area, but I know what can be done from the vibrations I got from Terreno, and they were only building for lakes. This property has been a bad item. It started out as Immokalee rural village. It's part of that. Something has to be done. We need to get control, and the public needs to have their concerns heard. We live here; the developers don't. One doesn't even live in this state, and the other one doesn't even live in the county. Thank you for your time. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Before you leave the podium, I want to be sure I understand. Are you saying that the signage for this project was incorrect? MS. BURTON: It is incorrect, yes, sir. I will show it. Just a second. Affidavit -- attachment for Legal Aid, sign affidavit, and photos. I blew up the sign. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Put it on the visualizer, please. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah. Put it on the visualizer. Have the county to that. MS. BURTON: Okay. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Oh, yeah. February 1, 2024 Page 40 of 102 MS. BURTON: It doesn't say anything about mining. I checked the PLs, and it say H&B Family Trust. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Please use the microphone. MS. BURTON: Oh, sorry. The PLs are for the H&B Family Trust. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Mr. Bosi? MR. BOSI: That's an error on staff's part. Staff included the wrong sign within the package. CHAIRMAN FRYER: But the correct sign was erected? MR. BOSI: We have received -- we have documentation that the sign was -- and we will forward that to the Planning Commission. CHAIRMAN FRYER: County Attorney? MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Can you forward it to me and Derek, and we'll get it printed so we can give it to the court reporter for the record. MR. BOSI: Yes. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Thank you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. MR. PERRY: And I did -- I do want to mention I conferred with staff, and they are actively trying to get the photo. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. Okay. So I think Ms. Burton, what staff's position is is that the wrong sign was put into the packet but the correct sign was used at the site. MS. BURTON: I have no idea. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Neither do we. MS. BURTON: Because it was in there. But to find a flaw in that, I mean, that a lot of documentation on these things, like I said, that one documentation, 343 pages. But if these are legal documents, they're presented to the public, and they should be correct. There should not be any errors. But the -- that's what I'm saying. We're afraid too many things are being manipulated to benefit the developer, and we the public are being ignored, we're being traveled [sic] over, and we're paying the infrastructure fees. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you for your testimony. And I think, at least in my view, as long as the correct signage were posted with the accurate information on it, that should suffice, but we're going to have to -- the county's going to have to come up and show us and testify that that's the case. Next speaker, please. MR. SCHMIDT: My name is Ken Schmidt. I live at 4425 16th Street Northeast. And, basically, I think my wife and I are here just to express our interest in this topic. And I wanted to come up and just reinforce a couple of things that my neighbors have already pointed out. The first one is the whole issue of the lack of information about this operation. I've lived at this address for 10 -- more than 10 years, and purchased the house. I had no idea that there was a mining operation adjacent to the neighborhood, basically, that I live in. It wasn't disclosed in any of the real estate transaction, which actually is very surprising to me. I would think that the county would have some type of a requirement to make this be known to people who are considering investing substantial sums of money in homes when they are adjacent to this type of operation. Like I said, I've lived there for over 10 years. I'm a little -- I'm a little embarrassed to admit that the first few times I became aware of these blasts, I literally thought they were sonic booms. I don't know if you've experienced a sonic boom, but they are very disruptive to your house, and that's exactly what these things feel like. When you're in your house, you get this boom, and it does feel like it's shaking the house. Now, I'm an engineer. I see the numbers up here, and I understand what these gentlemen are saying in terms of the data doesn't support that position in terms of what the potential damage February 1, 2024 Page 41 of 102 could be, but I also listen to these people, and I'm kind of convinced that maybe, in reality, something is different than what's expressed up here in these numbers. The other think I thought was very interesting, one of my other neighbors pointed out, is the potential impact on our groundwater. I didn't hear any discussion at all about that. And as an environmental engineer, I could see many different opportunities for this type of blasting operation to be detrimental to our groundwater, since we all rely on wells. So that's all I have to comment about. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you, Mr. Schmidt. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Can I -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: Go ahead, Vice Chairman. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: I have a question. Mr. Schmidt, thank you. And I'm not looking at the list, but you did not receive -- the county requires a petitioner to send out a letter notifying residents of both a neighborhood information meeting where the applicant briefs those who are interested to show up; they brief the residents of what the petition's about. Of course it's advertised, a sign's put up, and then there's letters sent. You never -- did you -- you never received a letter? MR. SCHMIDT: Not to my knowledge. We never -- never received a letter. The only reason we're here today is because somebody in our neighborhood went around and hung notices about this meeting -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: And you -- MR. SCHMIDT: -- with -- incidentally, with your e-mail addresses, and that's probably why you got an e-mail from me and from my wife. But other than that, we wouldn't have been notified. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: And your address for the record. MR. SCHMIDT: 4425 16th Street Northeast. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Sixteenth Street. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Is that within the notice perimeter? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Is that -- that's the next question. MR. BOSI: I've got to look at the map, but... CHAIRMAN FRYER: We'll check that out. MR. SCHMIDT: I mean, it certainly is within the blast area, because I'm very well aware of the blast. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: The county just -- the county has very specific rules for advertising -- of course, it's advertised and legally it's advertised in the paper of greatest -- MR. SCHMIDT: Right. I think that's a rule that probably ought to change -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Distribution. MR. SCHMIDT: -- because how many people actually get the newspaper anymore? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Right. But it's also -- it's also -- you read -- receive -- applicants [sic] who are near by receive letters -- MR. SCHMIDT: Yeah. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: -- and then it's also the signs posted. So I don't know -- other than that, it's -- and you mentioned about being noticed. Well, that's basic -- I have to say, that's the due diligence of the person who buys the home knowing that what they're -- we hear that often. MR. SCHMIDT: Yeah. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: A realtor always told me this was going to be a preserve when, clearly, on the zoning maps it's industrial or it's C-3 or whatever. MR. SCHMIDT: Yep. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. Thank you. MR. SCHMIDT: Yeah, I can accept that. I mean, maybe I should have done a little bit more due diligence. But, still, this is a major impact for the homes in this area. And considering February 1, 2024 Page 42 of 102 the amount of growth that you-all are planning for the area surrounding this mine, it seems to me that this is just -- this is just not a good idea to expand it. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please? MR. SABO: Mr. Chair, there are two more speakers. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. MR. SABO: Maria Gutierrez and Heather Wallace, please. MS. GUTIERREZ: Good morning. My name is Maria Gutierrez, and I'm here because I would like to support my neighbors, and I would like for you to hear my voice also about the damages at home. I have been living there -- my address, 4580 10th Street Northeast. And the first damage that we notice at home years ago was on the floor, the cracks that goes from the living room to the dining room. Eventually there are cracks on the ceiling, that -- most recently that my husband and my daughter has been telling me are new cracks in the garage and other areas -- of the house. But since I have limited of English, anyway, I decided to come today just to let you know that there are been a lot of damages and also because I got this notice in my mail about this meeting today, and I got lucky because my daughter was able to bring me here this morning. But I just hope that you are able to consider maybe to relocate this mining because I hear today talking about the vibration, and I -- talking about other things. But how about the feeling when we are at home and we feel the vibration that is coming from somewhere, and then the shaking of the house and the windows? It's not for a long time. I do remember one day that years ago I called the police, and I asked them if we had an earthquake or was it blasting in the area? And they say probably was a blasting. And I remember last year, was March 29, I think, 31, also I remember also that day because I called the commissioner office to ask about what's going on. They tried to answer my questions. They said, oh, there are blastings in other areas, not specifically in the mining. But I do remember that time back then I went direct to the mining main entrance to get a phone number and to look for somebody to complain about it, but there was not any phone number or nobody there in the main entrance to ask for my questions. And my neighbors already talk about their concern, and I think that's all from me today. Thank you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. And you speak very good English. MS. GUTIERREZ: Thank you. MR. SABO: Mr. Chairman, there is one additional speaker, Diane Schmidt, please. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. Hi there. MS. WALLACE: Hi. I have not been sworn in. Okay. Well, we'll take care of that. THE COURT REPORTER: Do you swear or affirm the testimony you will give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? MS. WALLACE: I do. My name's Heather Wallace. I've lived on 47th. I'm right there at 16th Street. I'm 1580 47th Avenue Northeast. I've been there since 1998. This has been a problem we've known about. In 2005 and 2006, a friend of mine bought a house down the street. Now, she lives across the street, which is closer to the mining. And there were cracks in her floor. She had cracks in the walls. But due to the time, if you remember the housing crisis and people lost their homes and foreclosed, and a lot of people didn't complain because they had other issues going on, but that was one of her major issues was the shaking of the house and the mines. She's since left, and so maybe you didn't hear any complaints back then in 2006 because, you know, they were trying to sell their house at the time. And I think a lot of people on the other side had that problem. February 1, 2024 Page 43 of 102 Now, across -- I don't know if they've moved the mine since then. I think they may have, because I'm getting it worse. I noticed -- I thought it was a sonic boom as well. I thought -- because stuff's falling off the wall. I got a new crack in my foundation on the garage, which I was just going to contact my insurance company. I didn't even know who to call or what to do. And then I was going to go out there and just fill it with some Quikcrete thinking, well, I'll just fill in the crack. But this is a bigger issue if you guys are going to increase this. And I just am grateful for Mr. Dixon for coming around and notifying people in the neighborhood because we had -- I didn't know. I had no idea this was going on, that we could come and talk, and I just thought that, you know, there was nothing we could do about it. So I hope that you can see these meters and all these things that are showing that this is not causing damage. In reality, we've got people that are being -- their homes are damaged, and their foundations are cracking. And I know there's other reasons you could have that happen, but when you're at home -- because now most people are working from home, and they see this between 9 and 4. You used to just come home and see something on the floor and think, oh, I think -- I wasn't here. What happened? Well, now we know that -- I'm at home and I can see the stuff falling off the walls when a sonic boom or -- it's not a sonic boom, but it feels like it. It really does. The whole house shakes. You feel like you're in some kind of war zone. And if we're going to have this eight times a month, I think that's something to be concerned about, and I'd like information on who to report it to because I don't even know what to do about that, so... All right. I don't have anything else to say. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. MS. SCHMIDT: Diane Schmidt. Thank you for allowing me to speak. And I want to say to the commissioners that you got two e-mails from our house, so I'm sure there were more than 40. And if there had been a meeting in Golden Gate after 5 o'clock, you would have had a lot more public input on this subject. I also want to address the term "vibrations" because I would call them tremors. I've lived in minor earthquake zones, I've felt tremors, and it's similar when the blasting goes off. I'm sure not every time, but a significant amount of time. The company asked for copies of our e-mails. I would like to ask for copies of their response to my e-mail. I think that's only fair. And I was not aware that we could contact the company and file complaints. I'd love to get a business card so I know where to voice my feelings about what's going on in the community. The -- Mr. Straw mentioned that this is like throwing a rock in water. Water is a consistent substance. I don't think that's a fair comparison. He, himself, even said you can't predict the density of rock. There are pockets, dirt and stone. So I question that there's only four monitors in the community. I also particularly question that there are no monitors around the huge substation that was built north of 74th Avenue. Was this structure built to withstand multiple blasts? And were -- the standards that were presented, were they for one-time blasts or were they for repeated blasts of whatever substance they use? And, I'm sorry, I was making notes while people were talking. Oh, and it was mentioned there wasn't a need for pre-inspection. Well, in the City of Naples, they do pre-inspections for individual homes before construction is allowed in their area. A pre-inspection would at least give you a point to start from and then a comparison point. Why can't we get that in the community? And -- I'm sorry. I'm looking at my notes here. So I also had never considered the water issue, and that is significant. And I will make sure that I send my complaints to the business and, also, I will make the February 1, 2024 Page 44 of 102 commissioners known every time there is an effect, because I see that was a lack on my part, a lack of knowledge. And posting a sign north on Immokalee Road from 47th Avenue, I don't travel there. I don't go to the casino. I didn't receive anything. I don't read the newspaper because we don't get it. I'm concerned. I'm opposed to this change. Like my neighbors, I'm opposed to this change. It seems to me there was a change less than a year ago. Why are we permitting another change when there are alternate methods that could be considered? Thank you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you, ma'am. Any further speakers? MR. SABO: There are no further speakers. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. And nothing -- nobody's online? MR. SABO: Nobody online. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. Anyone in the room who has not registered to speak but wishes to be heard on this, please raise your hand. Seeing no hands raised -- we just heard from you. MS. SCHMIDT: I know. I forgot one point I wanted to make. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Well, come on up. Come on up. MS. SCHMIDT: Diane Schmidt again. The other point I wanted to make was the county spent a lot of money putting water and sewer lines on 47th Avenue, 16th Street, 14th Street. Has anything been done to monitor the impacts of multiple blasts to these lines? There's a lot of joints there. They're going to be subjected to regular continuous stress. That's the point I forgot to make. Thank you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you, ma'am. And with that, we will close the public comment segment of this hearing. Oh, I'm sorry. Sir, you've already been heard. MR. MEDFORD: I wanted to -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: Come on up. MR. MEDFORD: And I -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: Wait till you get to the mic. MR. MEDFORD: I want to -- like you said, I want to apologize for -- if ever someone think I'm attacking them personally. I did not -- I didn't mean to attack anyone personally. I just kind of was probably too high to say what I have to say. CHAIRMAN FRYER: I understand completely, sir, and I'm sure so does the applicant's representative. And sometimes we get -- MR. MEDFORD: For that I apologize again. CHAIRMAN FRYER: I understand. MR. MEDFORD: Thank you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Apology's accepted, and you're a decent soul. Thank you. With that, we close the public comment segment. And we will ask the applicant to rebut. And before you start, before Mr. Yovanovich, we're due to have a break in eight minutes. So do you want -- MR. YOVANOVICH: Why don't we just do it now, if you don't mind. I'd hate to get started and get stopped. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Without objection from the Planning Commission -- well, let's see to decide how long we want to go before -- COMMISSIONER SHEA: I'd rather hear his rebuttal and delay lunch if we could, while we have continuity from the comments, personally. CHAIRMAN FRYER: We can delay lunch. We can't delay a court reporter break, but that's considerably shorter than a lunch. And -- but I want to hear from anybody else who wants to be heard on that before I -- all February 1, 2024 Page 45 of 102 right. Well, in order to not break up your continuity, we'll take a 10-minute break now and return at 12:03. (A brief recess was had from 11:53 a.m. to 12:03 p.m.) MR. BOSI: Chair, you have a live mic. And just to let you know, on the visualizer, before you get into the applicant's rebuttal, I can post -- or I can show a display of the signs that were posted. And just to let you know that there was a thousand-foot notification radius around the property lines of the mine for people who received notice. So the individuals who have indicated that they had not received notice, it's because they were outside of that thousand feet. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. And we as a Planning Commission have argued about wanting to extend that. But if the notice was given within the current rules, then so be it. MR. BOSI: The mile for the Estates applies to the Estates. This is an ag-zoned property. And even though it's surrounded by Estates, it's still -- per the code, it's a thousand feet. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. COMMISSIONER SHEA: To me, that would make it even worse because now you have bigger lots, and you could have an announcement that goes to nobody almost. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Well, we fought this battle a year or two or three ago. MR. BOSI: It's for Estates, and it was for Estates-zoned property, and that's what the code says. We have to follow the code. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yes. Yes, we do. MR. BOSI: And on the visualizer, the sign -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: Go ahead. MR. BOSI: The four locations of the sign are displayed, and it's -- I know it's pretty tough to see, but they have the allocation of the dates for the Planning Commission, the Board of County Commissioners. I also have the sign for the original date that they put when it was scheduled -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: But that was superseded. MR. BOSI: Yes. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Well, this is -- this is a case of a compiler's error when the packet was being put together, and it seems to me no harm no foul because the correct notice was posted for the correct period of time at the correct location. MR. BOSI: And they did provide, you know, the affidavit to us that they were posted at the right period of time. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Thank you. Mr. Yovanovich. MR. YOVANOVICH: Mike, can you help me get back to my presentation? MR. BOSI: Yep. MR. YOVANOVICH: One of these days I'm going to understand technology. Perfect. That's right where I want to be. MR. BOSI: Right there? MR. YOVANOVICH: Yep. I think that's right where he wants to be. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Do you want to do it as a slide show display? Ms. Padron is coming up because she's the expert. Here she comes, Mike. She's going to save you. Yeah, it's that little fancy thing on the bottom, Mike. MR. YOVANOVICH: I feel better now. Let me -- I just want to start with we're not insensitive to the comments we received from the public, and I don't want any comments that I make or any of our experts to come across as they're not -- that they -- I know they're having experiences with their house. We probably have all had experiences with our house. Stucco cracks. Concrete cracks. It's just a fact of life. But you heard from our expert that the science has been studied for many, many, many, many years, and the state has established parameters for allowing blasting to occur to make sure February 1, 2024 Page 46 of 102 damage doesn't happen to residences near by. We have agreed to impose greater standards on ourselves to further assure that damage is not resulting from the operations of the mine and the blasting done by us. We also, in response to the initial comments which were, hey, ever since you came to meet with us on the 14th, it's gotten better. That's what was said, and it was said again today. So we have reduced the amount of charge from 100 pounds to 85, and we have reduced the number of holes that can be done in any month from 1680 to 1320. I think we should probably add another condition that says we should start the timing of the blast in a way that it's going to assure that -- I'm going to use the word "energy" because I don't know what the right word is -- goes away from where we're starting instead of the other way, because that was a change that was made after the 14th and seemed to be addressing concerns of the neighbors regarding the potential impact of the blast. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Without objection, I think, from the Planning Commission, we would accept that as a third condition. MR. YOVANOVICH: Okay. I haven't promised anything that you can't live with, right? CHAIRMAN FRYER: They're going to aim them away. MR. YOVANOVICH: Yeah. We'll do it in a way where the sequence of timing is to go away from residences. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yes. MR. YOVANOVICH: Okay. There is a process for people to file a claim with the fire marshal if they think we've damaged the home. Our Condition No. 30 said we're going to notify people within a mile of -- every year, if you want to get on a list for us to contact you to let you know we're going to do some blasting, we will let you know. The model's [sic] a long way away from the mine to give people an opportunity to be notified. And we'll mail the notice to people within a mile and say, please give us your information if you want to be notified. Now, maybe 24 hours' notice isn't enough, so we can -- we'll increase that to 72 hours' notice. So you have time to understand when the blast is going to come, and if you want to take pictures of your house, say here's how it was before the blast and here's how it is after the blast, that will help them have plenty of notice to maybe put themselves in a better position to start the process of verifying what they're saying is the cause. I'll let smarter people like the fire marshal figure it all out whether it really was what we're doing versus, you know, something else. We want -- and when I said I wanted to make you comfortable that we're doing it right, I wanted the people in the audience to also be comfortable that what we're doing is better than what the code requires, and the code is set up in a way that it won't cause damage, what we're doing. The way we operate will not cause damage to their homes. So I think we've been responsive and we've been responsible in our requests. We've -- you know, we want people to know we're going to blast. We wanted to give them the opportunity to get comfortable that we're not the cause of their damage. And if we are the cause of their damage, we've just -- we have -- we have a bond in place that gets replenished. You know, if we do more than a million dollars' worth of damage to people's cumulative houses, we've got to replenish it. We'd have to replenish if it was only 500,000. So it's just more that's there sooner rather than later to address things that we've done. The science is the science. The science shows that we're doing what's required. We will not create a problem if we expand the boundaries to 1300 feet from the boundaries -- I guess I should go back to where that is. And that's the nearest point is 1300 feet. So I'm further away, obviously. We've met the criteria. It's a quasi-judicial hearing. The expert testimony is clear. Your staff is recommending approval. And we're requesting that you approve -- or recommend approval of our conditional-use request to increase the area where we can blast. February 1, 2024 Page 47 of 102 We've always had the ability to blast eight times in a month. We're not asking to expand that. We're going to live within the eight times a month that we already agreed to. We've reduced the number of holes, and we've reduced the charge. And I think we have responded to comments from the public, and we are -- my client is entitled to an approval of this conditional use. COMMISSIONER SHEA: So you didn't go from two to eight blasts a month as we've heard several -- MR. YOVANOVICH: Right. We've always had the ability to do eight, yep; eight days. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. We've got -- do you still want to be signaled? COMMISSIONER SHEA: No. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. We've got two commissioners, starting with Vice Chair Schmitt. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Mr. Yovanovich, you said you reduced the charge. What was your charge -- how many pounds were you -- MR. YOVANOVICH: A hundred was originally. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: A hundred originally. MR. YOVANOVICH: Down to 85. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: You're reducing to 85. MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Do you have a blasting expert with you here today? MR. YOVANOVICH: I have the operator. Well, I have Jeff, yeah. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Because I want to know why 85? Why 85, and why the number of holes? I just -- I need to understand why you have to have the size charge you have to do -- is this an economics issue? Is this a -- is this an issue that has to do with the best practices? MR. YOVANOVICH: We're -- and I'll bring him up if you need me to. But we're required to go 20 feet below water level, and that's the amount of charge we need for it to be effective to break up the rock so we can get the rock. So we've reduced it, Commissioner Schmitt, from 100, which would have been already -- which would have originally been allowed to what we need. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. Explain to me a charge out there. How many holes are we digging on one charge? MR. YOVANOVICH: I'm going to bring Barry up because -- COMMISSIONER SHEA: One blast. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: One blast. I want to know, how many holes are we digging? MR. BLANKENSHIP: Barry Blankenship, Quality Enterprises USA. On a normal blast, we're allowed, I believe it's 301 or 302. We've made -- we've always planned to keep that down closer to 200 so we keep it at a lower level. We need a minimum of 100 when the blaster shows up because that's the minimum amount they will show up for. But if we do that over and over and over, then we exhaust our charges out, you know, for eight times a month, and then we don't have enough material. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: So we're talking about a matter of efficiency and effectiveness? MR. BLANKENSHIP: Both. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: What if I said to you, reduce to 100 holes and only 50 pounds? MR. BLANKENSHIP: Then it becomes cost prohibitive, you know, at this point because it drives -- it drives the cost per ton, you know, of the material that you're excavating up to where, you know, we can't afford to sell it. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: So you just answered the question. It's more cost effective for the operator? MR. BLANKENSHIP: Yeah. February 1, 2024 Page 48 of 102 COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Because I personally think 80 is too much. MR. BLANKENSHIP: Yeah. But based on what? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Just on my experience with explosives. And nobody's explained to me why 85 is the right number now when we had 100. MR. BLANKENSHIP: That's the minimum that we can get away with to be able to drill the depth that -- where the lake has a minimum of 20 feet depth below water level that it will blast that material. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: But if you reduce the number of holes and you reduce the charge, you may only operate three days a week. I don't really care. I'm worried about the effectiveness and the explosiveness and the damage that -- alleged that is being caused throughout the -- throughout the community. MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, Commissioner Schmitt, we currently have the right to continue blasting at 100 pounds a hole. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. MR. YOVANOVICH: We can do it effectively at 85 pounds a hole. If you reduce us to where you want to reduce us to, you put the mine out of business or you make it so expensive for the rock for people to use, you can't afford it. This is an important -- as you know, this is an important resource for roads and everything else in Collier County. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: I understand. Okay. Let me follow up with another question, then. Of all the complaints you've heard, how many of these homes have been inspected? And was there any determination that the mine was at fault versus shifting of the soils or other types of things that typically result in cracking of homes? Has there been any type of investigation of these homes? MR. YOVANOVICH: I'm going to ask you -- the only one I know about personally is Mr. Dixon. I don't know if anybody else has complained. Have you heard from anybody else besides Mr. Dixon? MR. BLANKENSHIP: I have visited about six homes over the past two years of complaints. Of those, all of the ones I visited, for the majority purposes, appears to be stucco cracks. I did witness one yesterday that I went to that has some zigzags of the blocks that -- but I can't tell by looking at it how long it's been. It's been a long time since it's been there. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: I mean, I understand. You probably would have to have some kind of structural analysis -- MR. BLANKENSHIP: Right. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: -- forensic analysis to determine whether there was a structural issue, foundation issue, or otherwise. And like I said before, the old rule of thumb was if you place concrete in Florida, it's eventually going to crack unless you have expansion joints placed properly. I go back to my grad school days. It was no more than six feet. And, I mean, I remember that teacher -- that professor pounding that in my head when I studied concrete. Six or nine feet, anything beyond that, you're going to get a crack unless you reinforce, rebar and otherwise. MR. BLANKENSHIP: Correct. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: So -- but that -- we've -- we're dealing with perception of the community. MR. BLANKENSHIP: Correct. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: We're dealing with this is being caused by the mine operation. And I'm trying to figure out what have you done to convince them otherwise other than you inspected it? Has -- you've not done any type of forensic analysis or structural analysis? MR. BLANKENSHIP: I took photos -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: Before you proceed, let's have the record show that you're Mr. Blankenship. February 1, 2024 Page 49 of 102 MR. BLANKENSHIP: Yes, Barry Blankenship. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Go ahead. MR. BLANKENSHIP: Yes. I took photos of what I saw there. We did not investigate deeper into it -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. MR. BLANKENSHIP: -- to determine. I told Mr. Dixon and Mr. Harrold both, whenever I visited their house, that I took the photos. We would look at it later, see if there was any change in cracks that I saw that are the surface cracks on the outside. In Mr. Harrold's house, there was a crack across the floor that you can see that it's cracked through the tiles in the floor. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: So the onus is on the homeowner to hire the professional to prove that it wasn't structural? MR. YOVANOVICH: That's the way the code works, yes. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Again, I'm going back to the 85 is now what you're reducing to? MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: And that 85 is a scientific determination. And the number of holes was how many, again, per blast? MR. YOVANOVICH: For the number of holes per is -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: No, not per month. Per blast. Because I'm concerned about the blast. MR. YOVANOVICH: Barry, come back up and tell us how many holes. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: So it's 85 pounds -- 85 pounds -- MR. BLANKENSHIP: We're averaging right now around 200. We're trying to hover around that number, which is only two-thirds of what we're allowed. Okay. We have a maximum amount per blast, so you could have small blasts combined with a large number that equals up to the 1600. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: But as far as I know, there's no restriction in the state building code, international building code, you know, the IBC or any of the -- which the state code follows, the building code? There's no restrictions on seismic activity? I know there's issues about seismic, but there's no -- is there any type of restrictions that says you can go up to 100? MR. YOVANOVICH: We cannot -- and I'm -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: I know the conditional use. I'm talking about in practice. MR. YOVANOVICH: Can -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yes. MR. YOVANOVICH: I'd like Jeff to come up here. Because, theoretically, we could do one day and do all 1320 holes as long as we don't exceed the .2 feet per second -- and sorry, .2 inches -- inch per second. So that's the standard we need to measure by is how do we know we're not going to cause damage, and that's the standard. MR. STRAW: Let me talk about just a minute -- go back in history. When this project started, they looked at how much pounds per hole that was going to be used. Originally, it was the 100 because that was where they started; that was what the blasting contractor at that point in time, not having the benefit of having had any blasts in that site, said they needed, okay. It is a relationship -- as I talked about powder factor earlier, it is the relationship of the amount of explosives to the density of the rock. It is calculated scientifically. And what the blaster has come out with is that we can reduce that to 85 pounds per delay. Now, any less, they don't break the rock effectively. The problem there is, yes, all the things about cost. But for the neighbors, it increases ground vibration. Ground vibration is what they're concerned about. The maximum pounds per hole that we are dealing with is what controls the amount of vibration. So if I shoot one hole or I shoot 1600 or the 1320, they're all going to be separated by time, thousandths of a second. That's this delayed consequential blasting that we use. We still need the February 1, 2024 Page 50 of 102 85 pounds, and that's at the edge of what they need to actually break that rock. They shoot that whether it's one hole or multiple holes because they're all separated. The more holes that they blast, the better the fragmentation, the more energy goes into actually breaking and moving the rock, the more efficient the blast is, the less waste energy you have. Vibration is waste energy. So the 85 is where we need to be. The number of holes doesn't necessarily make an issue other than they have, you know, the eight times. So they blast the larger shots to comply with what is going on. If their need is 200 holes, they could shoot 100 and 100, and there's there 200, but their need for the month is greater than that to produce the volume of rock that Barry's talking about needing. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. So is -- I'm now -- I'm confused. Is 85 pounds total or 85 per hole? MR. STRAW: Eighty-five per hole. That's what's necessary. That's what you need to actually break that rock in that 20- to 25-foot column that they're that -- they're dealing with and in terms of their excavation. They can't go less, and they're certainly not going to go more. They're trying to fine tune this to reduce vibration as much as they can. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: And you said they -- they put water in over the top. They don't put any matting or any other type of -- MR. STRAW: No. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: -- material to make sure that explosive goes down into the hole and goes sideways? MR. STRAW: That's what the water -- the water actually works as stemming because the stemming -- the water has been found to be as effective as anything else. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: So in past practices, it has been pretty consistent at 100 pounds per hole? MR. STRAW: Yes. And in the last -- I think in the last few, you know, months they've reduced to 85 because they've found areas where they can do that. I mean, the blaster would love to shoot 100 pounds because he gets more money for it. The operator wants him to use as little as possible. The issue here is trying to find the right ratio, and that's what they've done with the 85 pounds. They can't reduce that. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: And have you been -- have you done, in the past, 85? MR. STRAW: Yes. They've had -- their last number -- last few shots -- I don't know how far back it goes, but they've been blasting at 85 pounds. That's the way they know it works. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. Enough questions for now. Thank you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Commissioner Sparrazza. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Thank you. I'm not sure who to direct this to. So two quick questions. One, is the overall vibration effect at the homeowner's site less in Phase 2 than what you're currently doing? And I say that because while you're moving closer to homes but you are reducing the charge, will that seismic detector, wherever, actually see less vibration because of what you're proposing now? MR. STRAW: Yes, because the pounds per delay -- the pounds per hole has been reduced. You know, we're not using the 100. We're going to the 85. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Even though you're moving closer to the home? MR. STRAW: Yes. Because what they have to do then is directionally look at where -- you know, where they are. They may reach a point where they say we've exceeded .2 or we're at the monthly average of .2 and they say we can't go any closer, and they're finished. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Okay. Very good. And my last question -- MR. STRAW: I guess, if you understand the vibration limits, it's a speed limit, okay. So we have a speed limit. It doesn't make -- if you're on I-75 out here, it doesn't make any difference whether you have a cement mixer, a Ferrari, or a Volkswagen. If the limit is 55 miles per hour, that's it. February 1, 2024 Page 51 of 102 You know, in this case we have a limit of .2 that we can deal with over that monthly period. We can't go above that. If it gets to the point they're going to be above that all the time, they can't continue to blast. That's -- that's where this goes. That's how definitive that is. And as soon as we start seeing those things, you know, we go back, the operator gets them, the Collier County folks get them. So you have everybody checking that. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Thank you. And the last question -- I don't think anyone on the panel -- I may be misspeaking here, but it was brought up by the neighbors. Is there any type of water evaluation, water table, water natural springs underneath evaluation done that is able to be shared with the community of here's what happened 10 years ago? Five years ago? Currently? As we've heard, that entire area gets their drinking water from wells. MR. STRAW: There's two avenues here. One, I'm coauthor on a paper studying the effects of blasting on drilled water wells. There's not an effect on the structure of the well or anything else that we're dealing with here in South Florida. I've done ones where we have really restrictive water flow like a tenth-of-a-gallon type wells, and then we've done where we have -- one where we have what we have in Florida is a lot of water flow, and there's no effect on the well itself. So that's not going to happen. We're not displacing that rock. So the well is fine the way it is. Now, DEP had done studies on the effects of blasting in the Lake Belt region, which is the Miami-Dade quarries. They were doing testing on it. I don't know the results other than I know that there were no chemicals that were coming from the water related to blasting. I mean, they weren't finding anything that was any different. In other words, they were testing a day before the blast, the morning of the blast, and immediately after the blast, and they were not finding any change in the water, because they're in the lakes. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Has any of that type or similar testing taken place within your area of operation here? MR. STRAW: I don't know whether that has been done here. I know that they were requiring it across the state for all mining operations like this, but that's outside of what I do for a living. I know the tests in Miami that were done and what they were doing, but I don't -- and I -- here I don't know. I would presume there was some at some point. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Maybe that's something that Mr. Yovanovich could look into for us, if you would, please. MR. YOVANOVICH: Sure. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Thank you. MR. YOVANOVICH: I don't have the answer, but I will look into it. I mean, we're complying with all permit conditions for the state as well as the county. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: And -- because it was brought up by the residents and nowhere had it been mentioned in the petition or in any of our previous conversations, I think it's appropriate to at least find out. Hey, by any chance is there anything adversely affecting the drinking water of these neighbors? And I don't expect you to have the answer, probably won't even have it today, but something that might be able to be presented at the BCC meeting would go a long way for either side. MR. YOVANOVICH: I understand. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Commissioner Vernon. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Yeah. Actually, Randy covered my question. But a couple of other thoughts I have. It seems to me that -- and based on everything I'm hearing, you guys are really blasting at the amount of blasting that is economically appropriate, and you're using the 85 pounds because that's economically appropriate. So you're locking yourself into that, but you're really already doing both of those things anyway. So one could argue you're not really giving up much. February 1, 2024 Page 52 of 102 And what you're getting in exchange for that is blasting closer to the homes which your expert says is not going to have an effect. But that's -- if I just simplified it, the one thing you're here today -- because you could just withdraw the petition, and, you know, you'd have -- go up to 100 pounds up to eight days, right? MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER VERNON: So the one thing you're asking for is to blast closer? MR. YOVANOVICH: Correct. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Okay. I just want to make sure I've got the big picture. MR. YOVANOVICH: Right. There's a resource there that is a necessary resource for the citizens of Collier County. It's not being used for this project. It's a resource. And in order to get that resource out at a value that people can afford to pay, we're asking to tap that resource. But we're trying to assure everybody that just because we're getting closer to the boundary of the property, we're not causing harm. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. Vice Chair. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: What is the -- I'm looking at the site on here. What is the lifespan of this mine? What is the planned lifespan of this mine operating before we begin to convert it to a residential area? Are we looking at a 10-year sunrise [sic]? Fifteen-year operation? What are we looking at? MR. YOVANOVICH: At the current levels of production, we're talking four to five years. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Four to five. MR. YOVANOVICH: Four to five. Not 45; four to five. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: And just to rephrase, in Phase 2, if we were to reduce before -- the load under 85, what I heard the expert say is it would not be efficient, or it would not be effective; is that correct? MR. YOVANOVICH: I think he said it wouldn't be effective. Correct? It will not break -- it won't break the rock. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: I'd like to have that stated on the record. MR. BLANKENSHIP: Yes. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Your name? MR. BLANKENSHIP: Barry Blankenship. If we use less than 85 pounds, then, instead of breaking the rock up, it leaves it with lots of big boulders which means that's material that just has to be cast aside and can't be used. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Or crushed. MR. BLANKENSHIP: Or crushed, because when you take boulder that are the size of this desk or larger, then it takes more energy trying to break that down afterwards. And usually, if you're trying to do that with a hydraulic hammer at that point, it costs more than what you get out of it. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. I'm going to go back. Mr. Yovanovich, you made a statement that you're -- you will commit to notifying homeowners within one mile of the property line? MR. YOVANOVICH: We already have that. That commitment's there, but we're going to let them know 72 hours in advance instead of 24 hours in advance. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: And that will be, what I read, by their text or -- MR. YOVANOVICH: It's a commitment we're adding. It's not there today. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Is that either by text or otherwise? MR. YOVANOVICH: We're going to send them a letter saying, "How do you want us to communicate to you?" And we will honor their wishes. If they want us to call them, we'll call them. If they want us to e-mail them, we'll e-mail them. If they want us to text them, we'll text them. February 1, 2024 Page 53 of 102 COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Well, what I want in that letter as well is all homeowners within a mile of the property line, not the blast zone, but the property line, so that's a mile perimeter that homeowners will be advised of how they would file an official complaint and to whom and what procedures they would need to follow. It's basically a reiteration of the state policy. MR. YOVANOVICH: We'll send them a copy. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Commissioner Shea. COMMISSIONER SHEA: I just wanted to add on to what Commissioner Sparrazza said. Some of the residents said there's some new water line, sewer lines in the area and question whether there was reason to be concerned. I would ask that you guys be prepared to address that, too, since the question was raised here. I don't know if there's any pipes in the area, but they move when the ground moves. MR. BELLOWS: I will most certainly reach out to Dr. Yilmaz and Mr. McLean with Public Utilities and make them aware so they're able to address that comment with the BCC. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Thank you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. No one else is signaling at this time, except for Commissioner Vernon. Go ahead, sir. MR. YOVANOVICH: Yeah. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Go ahead. MR. YOVANOVICH: Mr. Schmitt, what I've been told is one of the impacts of going from 100 pounds per hole to 85 pounds per hole is the actual resource is 45 feet deep in the ground, but with the reduced charge, we can only go 20 feet deep. So we're leaving with this -- with this change in the amount of pounds per hole, we're not getting all of the resource out of there, and that's what -- that's part of the downside, if you will, of reducing the charge. COMMISSIONER VERNON: I'm going to make a statement and invite you to challenge that statement. MR. YOVANOVICH: Okay. COMMISSIONER VERNON: I think it's within my -- I don't want to speak for everybody else, but based on everything I'd heard, depending on how I feel about the testimony on both sides, it's within my discretion here to approve or deny. What do you think? MR. YOVANOVICH: I think I disagree. There's the criteria. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Go ahead. Lay it out. MR. YOVANOVICH: The criteria are based upon expert testimony. In order for you to understand the criteria -- it's not a laymen's analysis. The expert testimony, not only our expert but county staff's expert, says we met each of the criteria. If we meet each of the criteria, we are entitled -- it's a quasi-judicial proceeding. It's not legislative. If it was legislative, it's a totally different standard. If there's competent substantial evidence to support our position and that's in the record and there's no competent substantial evidence refuting that, you have to approve it. It's not discretionary. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: That's Mr. Yovanovich's perspective. You have to look at all the evidence before you. Testimony of personal perceptions and some of those can count. But you're not allowed to deny it based on the vibrations. That we're -- there's case law in the statutes on that, but you can ask for increased setbacks, things like that, if you're not finding compatibility. COMMISSIONER VERNON: That -- let me go back to you. Just do a hypothetical. Let's say I -- and don't anybody take this personally. But I find your -- or applicant's experts to be not credible. Are you saying if there's no opposing testimony under your -- I understand what the county's saying. Are you saying I don't really have the discretion? I need to approve? MR. YOVANOVICH: You'd have to not only find my expert not credible, you'd have to find county staff not credible. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Okay. February 1, 2024 Page 54 of 102 MR. YOVANOVICH: Now -- COMMISSIONER KLUCIK: Mr. Chairman? COMMISSIONER VERNON: I think going back to you on -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: Commissioner Klucik, hang on one second. Commissioner Vernon, are you finished? COMMISSIONER VERNON: No. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. After -- after that, we'll get you in, Commissioner Klucik. COMMISSIONER VERNON: And could you just go over that one more time? I understand you saying -- MS. ASHTON-CICKO: I mean, I think you can find a lack of compatibility, and based on that you can say we're not recommending approval. COMMISSIONER VERNON: On the setbacks. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: I mean, you've heard a lot of testimony on the record, various testimony. So, yeah, I think you can. But that would warrant not allowing them to expand. I mean, they already are operating there. And I don't know how much time they have left on the mine, but they're asking for changes. And I would say that Heidi told you you can't consider vibration, and the people are telling you it's not compatible based upon their feelings about the vibration. They don't have -- they have yet to come and say -- provide any evidence other than anecdotal that they have cracks in their house and they think it's caused by the vibration of the blasting. We have the expert who could talk to you about vibrations and the impacts. So if you're thinking it's not compatible because of vibration, I think that that's not an acceptable determination on your part. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Well, it seems to me that's a credibility issue. It doesn't seem -- it seems to me I have the right to believe the testimony of 10 people who have testified, and I have the right to discount your expert's testimony. I'm not saying I'm going to. MR. YOVANOVICH: I understand. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: But -- COMMISSIONER VERNON: I'm just saying, as a -- from your perspective as a land-use lawyer, I think -- based on everything I'm hearing, I think I've got some discretion here depending on how I feel about all the evidence. MR. YOVANOVICH: I understand. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Okay. I'm going to say it's out of line for Rich to tell you that you have to approve it. You have to look at the criteria for conditional use and find out whether or not they have -- if you think that there are adverse overall effects that don't warrant approving it, you can do that. He's not your counsel. It's out of line for him telling you what you should do. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Well, I don't think it's out of line for me to ask him, because I think the more information I have, the better decision I can make. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: No, no. He's telling you you have to approve it, and that's the part that's out of line. COMMISSIONER VERNON: I know and -- but for example, all three of us are lawyers. If I'm in the courtroom and I ask counsel to tell me what the law is, it doesn't mean I have to agree with him. I've asked him for what the law is, and I really appreciate you giving me the law. But I think -- I want to know what he thinks as well as what you think so I can make the best decision. So don't think I'm just buying what he's telling me. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: No. He can answer any question that you have -- COMMISSIONER VERNON: Right. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: -- but I have heard him say on other occasions as well as now "you have to do this," and he told you "I'm entitled to this." That is not correct. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Oh, I hear you. You're disputing what he says. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Yes. February 1, 2024 Page 55 of 102 COMMISSIONER VERNON: Okay. I got it. I got it. I'll just make one more comment, and then I'll turn it over to Klucik, Mr. Klucik. I just want the people on the -- basically on the right side of the room to understand that -- this is just my personal opinion. But I've been doing this for two-and-a-half years now, so I've seen a lot of presentations. I will tell you my perspective. I'm not trying to suggest how I'm going to vote. But my perspective is they are, compared to most applicants, trying to be very good neighbors. That's my impression. I just want to let you know that, because I think I'm asking a lot of challenging questions. I don't want you to get the wrong impression, because I've seen a lot of applicants that are less good neighbors than they seem to be based on everything I've seen. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. Commissioner Klucik. COMMISSIONER KLUCIK: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So I guess I would ask both the petitioner as well as our counsel, what is the competent and substantial evidence regarding vibrations? What is all of the competent and substantial evidence regarding vibrations? Because I know we have the testimony of experts. Do we have any other testimony that is competent and substantial regarding the impact of the vibrations or cracks? MR. YOVANOVICH: In my opinion, you do not. You have an expert -- and it requires expert testimony to understand the impacts of vibrations. That -- the only expert that's here that has testified to that, and your own staff have testified to it, we meet the criteria. They have -- they did not put up an expert to say, "They are wrong. It is doing X, Y, and Z as far as creating the vibration, and as a result of that, that's causing the damage." You do not have an expert saying anything refuting, and that's -- the standard is competent substantial evidence. (Simultaneous crosstalk.) COMMISSIONER KLUCIK: That's my question for our counsel as well, then, is is there any competent and substantial evidence that's -- that is contrary to the expert testimony that we've had? CHAIRMAN FRYER: Commissioner, I'm going to jump in first and then turn it over to Ms. Ashton because I don't completely agree with Mr. Yovanovich's interpretation of the law here. In my judgment -- excuse me -- the evidence -- the oral testimony that is supplied by these witnesses that they've got vibration or that they've got cracks is evidence. It doesn't have to be expert evidence. They are competent to provide that testimony about their own house. What I'm concerned about is a lack of causal connection between that damage and the actions of this applicant. So having said that, let me turn it over -- COMMISSIONER KLUCIK: Yeah. That's my whole point is the -- if I show up and say that I've got, you know, blood on my -- you know, on my clothes, you know, and I'm trying to say that, you know, someone hit me, and if that -- whatever, someone did something to me, and then they're a mile away, and we have expert testimony that there's no way they could have, you know, made my clothes bloody, it's not a denial that, you know, my clothes are bloody. It's a question of whether or not the expert is right that from a mile away they could have bloodied my clothes. And that's -- you know, I know that's -- analogies always suffer. That was one I just made up. But the point is exactly what you said, we have evidence that -- you know, from experts that are sworn about what causes cracks and what kind of damage can be caused at these distances based on this activity, based on what they're asking for in their petition, and then we have evidence in the form of testimony that my house has cracks or, you know, I've heard these loud noises, you know, whatever, the negative impacts. And I think we do have to be careful about what each kind of -- you know, what we can conclude from each type of evidence, and if we don't have evidence that it is caused by what's proposed, then we have to be careful about it. We have to base our voting on not -- on that we feel sorry for people. We have to base it on whether, you know, the petition is in compliance with the February 1, 2024 Page 56 of 102 requirements, basically, based on the expert testimony and anything else before us. But we have to be careful how we weigh what's before us. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. COMMISSIONER KLUCIK: And I would like counsel's answer. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Go ahead, Counsel. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Well, you have a couple criteria for conditional uses. The effect on neighboring properties in relation to noise, glare, economic, or odor effects, and also the compatibility with adjacent properties. Now, you have multiple activities on this site. Blasting is just one of them. You've got rock crushing and, you know, you engineers can explain it better than I can. But from my perspective, those are all things that are real. Competent substantial evidence, if I'm giving expert opinion, which those are the experts that Mr. Yovanovich has presented for testimony, is one form of substantial competent evidence, but that's not the only. That is for opinion testimony. A layperson can testify. A layperson can testify to something that requires extra education, like I'm testifying how many cars, you know, are on the road and you've got expert transportation experts giving you advice on those things. But a person can say, "I've got damage to my house." I don't think we're a court of law where we're awarding negligence here or anything. We're looking at what is reasonable. And you're -- you know, you're trying to guide the Board and assist them in making a reasonable determination. MR. YOVANOVICH: May I? CHAIRMAN FRYER: Sorry? Yes, go ahead. MR. YOVANOVICH: I don't think I disagree with what Heidi said or what you said with regard to what people can testify to. Yeah, they testified that there's vibration, but they have not provided any evidence that what they've experienced was caused by us. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: And I don't think they're required to. MR. YOVANOVICH: I believe you have standards that are in the code and that are in the law. It says you can't exceed X decibels. It says you can't exceed X inches per -- X inches per second I think is the right standard. Those are all objective standards to be entitled. And I -- we disagree. One of these days we're going to go to court, and we're going to find out who's right. I believe that the standard is competent substantial evidence if I have it in the record. You've got to have competent substantial evidence to say I haven't met my burden. We could debate that all day. There is no competent substantial evidence in the record that says we're the cause of any damage to anybody's home, and I believe -- Mr. Chairman, we're done with public comment. CHAIRMAN FRYER: I know that, but I'm not interrupting you. MR. YOVANOVICH: Okay, thank you. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: And I don't think that's a legal requirement when you're making a subjective determination on whether there are -- whether there's noise, glare, economic, odor effects. Compatibility tends to be one where you do rely more on experts, but I don't know that the staff report has really addressed whether there's compatibility or not under Section 5. MR. YOVANOVICH: I believe staff's recommending approval, and the only way they can do that is to say that we satisfied all the criteria. CHAIRMAN FRYER: I'm going to address the lady who approached the podium and say, I'm very sorry, but we've closed public comment. MS. GUTIERREZ: Okay. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. All right. We've got Vice Chairman. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Mike, did you want to make a comment before I talk? Your microphone. MR. BOSI: Yeah. In relationship to the staff report and the five criteria that this petition February 1, 2024 Page 57 of 102 is evaluated against, we've highlighted the effects of the conditional-use on neighboring properties in relationship to noise, glare, economics, and odor effects compat- -- as one criteria. The other is compatibility with adjacent properties and other properties in the district. Those are subjective determinations. You're entitled to review the full evidence that was presented and determine what you feel is a compatible or noncompatible use in relationship to the surrounding properties. I understand the expert testimonies and the limits that they're allowed to blast to. But if in your mind that -- the number of houses that have been developed over the course of time since '99, since this original CU was granted approval, has grown to the point where you think that the number -- that the blasting, the crushing, the activities on aren't compatible with those -- if that's the determination that you as an individual are making, not upon specifically expert testimony but the full body of that was presented to you -- so you have a lot of discretion because it's subjective. Unfortunately, it's very gray as to what is compatible and what's not compatible. Staff arrived upon a recommendation of approval because we felt it was compatible, but you're not obligated to follow staff's position as much as you're not obligated to hear the expert testimony and think that that's the only thing that is part of the consideration. So there's a lot of discretion within the conditional-use evaluation process that you're entitled to. CHAIRMAN FRYER: I agree completely, for what it's worth. Anything else, Vice Chairman? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: I do have a question. I'm going to go back to the 85 pounds again. How did you arrive at that figure? Were there test blasts conducted, and was 85 deemed to be the optimal? MR. YOVANOVICH: Yeah. I believe that's the case. The blasts -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Can I have your expert testimony, your expert? CHAIRMAN FRYER: Just so everybody understands, even though we've closed the public comment, we as Planning Commissioners can always ask for someone else to come up and talk at any time. That's our prerogative. Go ahead, sir. MR. BLANKENSHIP: Barry Blankenship, Quality Enterprise USA. We were asked to look and evaluate what could we do to lower the vibrations in any way. Lowering the number of pounds per hole was one of those variables that we had the option to exercise. When we got to 85, anything below that, then we start producing more boulders. And like I said, that's material that we can't utilize, can't screen, crush, et cetera, at a reasonable value. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: For clarification, you did run test shots, and this was -- MR. BLANKENSHIP: Yes. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: -- deemed to be the optimal? MR. BLANKENSHIP: Yes. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Can I ask Jeff to come up again, please? Because I want to ask him a question. Jeff, you appear to be the expert at least on the explosive. What kind of explosive is in the hole? What -- is it a slurry mix, you said? MR. STRAW: It's a -- this one is an emulsion. They're the same, virtually, when you look at them. It is an ammonium nitrate, but min- -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: So it is ammonium nitrate? MR. STRAW: It's ammonium nitrate, but it is a mineral oil with other base chemicals that are used. And it's a pumpable product. That's why I'm saying it's a mix. You know, they pump it through a bulk truck. They bring it in. It's an oxidizer, so it's a semi-liquid-looking paste. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: My recollection, ammonium nitrate is not a very fast explosive like C4. MR. STRAW: No, not in any way, shape, or form. This is -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Right. February 1, 2024 Page 58 of 102 MR. STRAW: This is where we differ with your Army training. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yeah. MR. STRAW: And it is quite -- it is quite different. The only thing in the hole that's the same would be the blasting cap and the booster. Those are high P-E-E-T-N type of explosives, and those are to get this other -- to produce the pressure to produce this other material to detonate -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yeah. MR. STRAW: -- and produce the gases. We want a slower burning material in this so that it produces more gas. The idea is to produce the gas, go sideways into the existing cracks of the rock and fragment that, and then as those widen -- you know, if you have a series of cracks, the gas goes into them, and as they widen, you get more gas forced into there. And sooner or later, when that stops breaking, then the material stops moving, it heaves upward a little bit, but that's where that waste energy then becomes the ground vibration. It's, like, 95 to 96 percent of the energy goes into breaking and fragmenting the rock. That last little bit is what we measure as vibration. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: On your seismic detectors -- and you mentioned that they're in the sand. Of course, sand does not carry a vibration as far as solid rock does or rock. MR. STRAW: You're not going to get it here because, remember, we're dealing with saturated soils. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yes. MR. STRAW: So this is a little different than, you know, just a rock layer. This is -- this is not, say, the Carolinas where you have, you know, solid limestone layers, and you can -- I'm sure you've seen those, you know, in your experience. This is rock, sand interlaced with -- all of this is saturated conditions. So between all of that, it carries -- it transmits energy uniformly and it -- you know, other than some cracks and things that are different, it goes out in a radius like I talked about the rock in a pond kind of thing. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: All right. Thank you. MR. STRAW: Thank you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Commissioner Shea. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Well, I'm glad I'm not an attorney -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: I'm glad I'm not an engineer. COMMISSIONER SHEA: -- because I don't get hung up on those things. We're into a discussion over theory versus actual, and we don't -- and we don't know the cause, but we know something's going on. You could probably verify it by finding communities twice as far away of similar age and inspecting their buildings and seeing if they have similar cracks. That would probably be a good argument. So I think I like the idea of you reducing the criteria even -- why don't we do that and not extend the blast area; reduce the criteria for a year and see what happens. I know the theory says what's going to happen, but obviously there's some -- potentially a disconnect between the theory and the actual. But try the reduced blast requirements for a year and see what happens. And then come back and talk to us about expanding the blast area. I can tell Rich is really excited. CHAIRMAN FRYER: He has no appetite for this at all. MR. YOVANOVICH: No. And, you know -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: Just a moment, Mr. Yovanovich. Again, I apologize, but the public comment portion has concluded. It's possible, but probably not likely, since there are no experts on the other side, that we would call be somebody up. But it's really not likely. Again, forgive me, but those are the rules. Go ahead, sir, Mr. Yovanovich. MR. YOVANOVICH: You know, and I appreciate what you're saying, Mr. Shea, but, you know, we have -- we have experts who do this and know what they're doing, and they are February 1, 2024 Page 59 of 102 telling you that expanding this into the yellow area with the criteria we are agreeing to is not going to cause problems for our neighbors. It will be just like it is today is essentially what they're saying. COMMISSIONER SHEA: And there are no problems right now? MR. YOVANOVICH: What I'm saying is we have had -- Barry's had six people complain. There's a process. Everybody, I'm sure -- and I probably would think the same thing. I felt a vibration, I got a crack, it's got to be the vibration, but that doesn't mean it's right. That's what Jeff's here to tell you. Here's what the building code says and how it's designed, and here's what all these tests have shown, that you have to hit a certain threshold before we cause the damage they're saying they're experiencing. It's a science. He's the scientist. He's been doing this for I think he said 43 years, that's a long time, and that analysis has been done for 45 years before him. So we're going to be in the same place we are in a year, and you're going to go through another public-hearing process. And maybe I could be way more efficient by just keeping the higher charge, more holes, and go deeper for that one year, I mean, and stay within the parameters. CHAIRMAN FRYER: I'm getting signaled from someone in the back, and I have to repeat myself, sir. It's unfortunate, but the public's speaking time has concluded. UNIDENTIFIED MALE VOICE: I do have an expert witness on site here today. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Well, but it would be up to us to invite that person to speak. UNIDENTIFIED MALE VOICE: He's sitting right there. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: He had the opportunity to speak. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. Anything further? Commissioner Vernon, go ahead, sir. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Yeah. I just -- I don't know. I'm just ready, kind of, to give some comments. And I looked at my -- the transcript, and I think I was the last one to talk before the chairman at the November hearing when you guys postponed. I said, you've got an applicant trying to be a good neighbor, which I repeated here today on the -- and then I said, I'd rather see something that the neighbors think is good and the applicant is thinking [sic] good rather than a bunch of numbers which are different than the boots on the ground. So I'm kind of at the same place I was before. And this is a tough one. This is a tough one. I do agree with Heidi. I listened to you. I listened to Heidi. I agree with Heidi, and I agree with Mike. You know, these 10 people were all under oath. We've got two engineers up here. I think that I can -- and I've heard testimony -- maybe I heard it different. But I heard testimony amongst some of them that it wasn't there before the blast. It was there after the blast. So that's competent and substantial evidence that I can weigh against experts. And with respect to the staff, I usually rely very heavily on the staff. But I think Mike said it well, I mean, they're kind of a barrier to entry. If they were the final word, you don't need us. You don't need engineers on the panel or people with those kind of skills. So I -- I think it is our discretion whether we approve or not. I think that they are currently doing what is economic -- I think they're being good neighbors, but I think right now they're blasting on the number of days and the number of holes and the amount of the charge based on economics. So if you told them to go away, unless they're being spiteful, they're going to -- they're already doing this. They're not at 100. They're at 85 because it saves them money. So they're there. I mean, they're asking to get closer. And this is a really close call. And I usually -- and the reason we get into -- I get into the law as a lawyer is because I want the public and I want Rich to have some consistency on what this board does. And from day one, I don't know what the heck quasi-judicial means, but it's not a court of law but, yet, there is some parameters. I don't believe these folks have to prove causation beyond preponderance -- whatever. I February 1, 2024 Page 60 of 102 find their testimony credible. It's collectively consistent. Arguably, Mr. Garcia probably could be qualified as an expert. He didn't. But he's -- you know, he brought something to the table last time. I think I highlighted his testimony last time. I remember it. So I'm going to vote against it. And I'm really struggling with this one because I do think, Rich, your clients are being very good neighbors, and I don't think you're -- I really -- I wish you guys could get together and work it out, but I just don't see that happening. MR. YOVANOVICH: Can I correct one of your factual statements? We were doing 100. We reduced it to 85 after meeting with the neighbors. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Fair comment. And the reason I said what I said is because Barry says you have to pay for explosives, and the more explosives you get, the more expensive it is. And the 85 seems to work, so maybe you should thank your neighbors for saying, why don't we go with 85; you guys will make more money, and it will still be effective. So I don't think you're going to go back to 100. MR. YOVANOVICH: I think we will, because that will be -- because we need to get enough material from each of the holes, and you're going to force us to stay where we are, and we'll just go with more holes and a higher charge. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Well, if that is correct then, again, I go back to pointing out that these folks seem to -- this applicant seems to be trying to be a good neighbor. And, Mr. Dixon, maybe you know -- I don't know. Maybe you can realize he's going to be back at 100, and it might get worse. And so I wish you two had gotten together. And it's a close call. But I'm going to vote against it. I just want to let everybody know where I'm coming from. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. Vice Chair. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yes, I have just one question for Mr. Sawyer, if he could -- if I could -- Mike, I don't know if you were in the room -- and while you're walking you can think about it -- I asked about the dollar per truck per day, but I don't know if I really got a sufficient answer. If I recall, 15 years ago, 18 years ago it was $1 per truck per day. And are you, as staff, satisfied? You signed off on it, $1 per truckload per day as the impact? MR. SAWYER: Yeah. For the record, Mike Sawyer, Transportation Planning. The existing staff that we have with Transportation Planning wasn't around 15 years ago, quite honestly. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yeah. MR. SAWYER: I think I may have, quite honestly, reviewed this project from a landscaping standpoint originally. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Landscape. MR. SAWYER: But that being said, it is an existing condition. You -- you asked for a rational nexus for this. What I can easily bring to the front of that is -- is we have toll roads, okay, and those are charged on the basis of the size and the type of vehicle. I don't believe that this is all that much different than that. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. Let me rephrase then. The money you've collected in the past for the same condition has substantial -- or has met the -- any requirements for road repair. So you've not -- you don't believe that there's anything warranted to raise the fee? MR. SAWYER: At this time, no. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. You answered my question. Thank you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. At this point, no one is signaling. Mr. Yovanovich, anything further on rebuttal? MR. YOVANOVICH: No, sir. I appreciate this is a hard call, and there's ramifications either way. There's the opportunity to lower the charge, get the material at a less depth. It's an important resource in Collier County, and when resource runs out, you're bringing more trucks in from other locations at a greater expense. February 1, 2024 Page 61 of 102 CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. All right. So the matter is now in our hands for deliberation and motion. Who would like to speak or move? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Well, I think I'll start, then, hearing silence. Unfortunately, my experience in -- a 40-pound shaped charge or 40-pound cratering charge of ammonium nitrate makes a lot of noise and a lot of -- but that's my experience, shaped charges, C4, cratering charges. So I'm not an expert in mining. And I saw the film. And it is synchronized, and it is timed. I do have great compassion for the folks who are experiencing the problem, but I do appreciate also the applicant who took it upon themselves to evaluate to find the optimum solution at 85, reduce the number of holes. I am torn because I've heard the citizens speak, but I -- again, it's that connectivity. Yes, they've experienced it, but I have not been convinced other than the experience they say, well, it wasn't there before but it is now. But I've got to have substantial evidence to convince me that the blasting caused the damage. So based on that, I am going to make a recommendation of approval of this conditional use, that they will stay at the -- they will go to the 85 or stay at the 85, reduce the number of holes, that they will advise all -- they will advise everybody within a mile of the mine of the blasting, the days it will take place, and ask for how they want to be notified the day of the blast. And in that application -- or in that notice will also include any procedures and define procedures in how they would either register a complaint. Of course, they can always contact their commissioner. For folks out there, you all know we're volunteers. We're appointed to this position based on at least our experience, and we're -- we are citizens appointed by the commissioners. Your elected officials, again, are the ones that are going to make the final decision. You would make a complaint to them if you believe anything's gone wrong. And -- but I would advise that you either advise them to contact their commissioner or through the -- go through the state process. So with that, I recommend approval as -- based on the stipulations, and also the increase in the bond to a million dollars. Yes? MR. BOSI: And maybe -- the Chair was going to add the retirement of the excavation areas as they go along on an annual basis. CHAIRMAN FRYER: I'm going to ask the movant if he would permit me. I've got a list of five. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Go ahead, please. CHAIRMAN FRYER: And then we'll -- if it's agreeable with the movant, we'll ask for a second. And are you going to want to -- MR. YOVANOVICH: I was going to make sure you had them all, because if -- I want to make sure everything I committed to gets on there. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Well, let's -- yeah. And I don't think this needs to come back on consent, but there are sufficient language issues that it might be useful, and I defer to the Planning Commission to delegate to me the authority to review the final language. I'm not saying it's necessary, but it's something to be considered. In any event, the conditions that I believe I've got here, No. 1, that the applicant will surrender or relinquish immediately square footage no longer being blasted and, going forward, will continue to surrender or relinquish as blasting is continued -- is discontinued. That's No. 1. Number 2, the $1 million bond -- the 500,000 will be upped to a million, and it would have to be replenished if it's used. Number 3, that there would be -- the blasting will be directed away from the residences. Number 4, 72 hours' notice to persons within a mile. Number 5, 100 pounds reduced to 85-pound charge per hole. Did I get that right? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: You got it right. MR. YOVANOVICH: No, you missed the number of holes and you missed -- and we reduced the berm around the equipment from six months to 90 days. February 1, 2024 Page 62 of 102 COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Number of holes reduced from 1680 down to 1320. MR. YOVANOVICH: Correct. CHAIRMAN FRYER: 1680 holes to 1920? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Mr. Yovanovich, are there any -- MR. YOVANOVICH: 1320. You went the wrong way. CHAIRMAN FRYER: 1320. What was the other one? MR. YOVANOVICH: We reduced the -- originally, we had six months to put a berm around equipment if the attenuation wasn't working. We've reduced that to now do the berm within 90 days. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Got it. MR. YOVANOVICH: I think that's everything. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: I just have one last question. In regards to when they blast, other than yelling "fire in the hole," is there any audible sound, siren or any other thing that goes on? I don't think people could hear it a mile away. Just for the record, state your name again. MR. BLANKENSHIP: Barry Blankenship, Quality Enterprises USA. Yes. According to the fire marshal's rules, before the blast, there is a loud blast with an air horn that is on site both at the -- before the countdown and then at the all clear. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. All right. Is there a second? COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: No. I have a -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: Go. Point of information? COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: I would like to make a suggestion, not a condition for this. But as we talked earlier, if there is any way that a sample of drinkable water, potable water is available and that a couple of tests could be run before the BCC meeting to remove any conditions or problems that the residents may have, I think it would be a great education for both parties. It's a suggestion. I don't want to make it a stipulation. MR. YOVANOVICH: We're happy to do that, and maybe some of the people who are here will allow us to grab samples from their wells. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Working together in communications between the petition [sic] and the neighborhood is, I think, all of our goal. Yes, thank you for that. CHAIRMAN FRYER: So let's go ahead and make that a condition. Well water samples. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Recommendation or is condition too strong? It's never been -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: Not for me, particularly because the applicant's willing to do it. Let's not leave money on the table here. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Okay. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Movant, do you accept that? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yes. CHAIRMAN FRYER: So I've got eight conditions. Is there a second? COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: I'll second it. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Thank you. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Do we have discussion before we vote? CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yes, we do. And one of the things I'd like to discuss is whether we believe this needs to come back on consent or whether the Planning Commission wants me to review it or whether neither is needed. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Can we keep that till later? CHAIRMAN FRYER: Later? COMMISSIONER SHEA: That's a procedural thing. I'm still up for discussion. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Oh, you want to discuss on the substance of it. Go right ahead. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Yeah, I don't support that at all. I still get hung up on the fact that we have existing conditions, and I think it was Mr. Garcia said, it doesn't make any sense to February 1, 2024 Page 63 of 102 expand the blast area. I realize you're reducing the potential impacts while you're increasing the area. And I don't think the burden of proof is on the residents to prove that the damage to their house was caused -- wasn't -- or was caused by yours, your blasting. I think you should do more homework. I'm probably going to lose my -- the vote, but I would try and do some more homework and look at these things and say, you know, all the houses 10 miles away have this same kind of damage. I have the crack in the slab. I'm nowheres near blasting. I take the carpet off, 20 years later I have a big crack in the slab. So I think you need to do more homework to prove that it wasn't, whereas you're saying they need to get an expert to prove that the cracks were caused. Based on that, I'm going to vote against it. I think -- I think there needs -- you need to do more homework to convince me. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. I've got an opinion -- but I'm not going to express it now -- having to do with how the burden of going forward probably shifts, but where this -- we're not going to resolve that. So we've got a motion. And was there a second? COMMISSIONER KLUCIK: Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yes, commissioner Klucik. COMMISSIONER KLUCIK: Yes, I'll second the motion. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: I already did. COMMISSIONER KLUCIK: But I also wanted to say that I don't think that -- I don't think it's good for us to -- you know, we are a quasi-judicial body, and I think that's a legitimate thing. It's not unique to Collier County or Florida. We're quasi-judicial, and it's very simple what that means. It means that we assess the facts -- we're fact finders -- and then we apply the law to those facts. When things are legislative, we just vote how we feel like voting. When we add quasi-judicially, we are fact finders, and we apply the law to those facts. And it's real simple, and I think that it's important for the public to know that there is a distinction, and it's a real distinction. And, you know, here is a question of what are the facts that we weigh and how much weight do we give them, which is always what fact finders, you know, have to contend with. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Commissioner Klucik, I agree with everything you said with one exception. I think -- I don't think we can act in an arbitrary and capricious manner on the legislative side. But, otherwise, I agree with the way you stated this. Commissioner Sparrazza. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: No, I'm concluded. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Commissioner Vernon, are you concluded? COMMISSIONER VERNON: Just a couple of comments, because I've already sort of stated my thought process. The only thing I'd say is, you know, Mr. Dixon, I'm not sure it's going to change anything at this point, but you seem to be the quasi leader of your group, and you might want to reach out to the other side in a collaborative way and see if, you know -- because, again, I get the impression they're trying to be good neighbors. So I don't know if anything can be done, but I would recommend that. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Thank you. So at this point no one is signaling, and we've got a motion, and it's been seconded. I want to weigh in where I'm going to come down on this, and I completely understand the issues that have been raised by the neighbors, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if I were in their shoes I'd be sitting in that seat and wanting to be heard. And I think they were heard, and I think they made a good case for the existence of cracks and the existence of tremors. So, you know, they as homeowners are competent to give that testimony, but what I did not hear -- and Commissioner Vernon, I think, believes he did, and so maybe I am wrong, but I did not hear anybody offer anything that caught me as evidence of causation. February 1, 2024 Page 64 of 102 And I asked the question specifically about the proximity of other blasters. And, you know, the fact that there are other blasters, even though they only blast occasionally, raises a concern on my part that we can't necessarily ascribe all fault on this particular applicant. And I do believe that sufficient evidence was brought forward by the applicant's expert. And, you know, although the homeowners testified within their competence as to what has happened, causation is a piece that I really needed to find for them. So I will be voting in favor of this application subject to the eight conditions that have been announced. And I hear other people on the substance of this, but I would still like the Planning Commission to weigh in on how we verify faithfulness of the conditions to our discussion. COMMISSIONER VERNON: I'll just say I'm fine with you looking at it. Is that what you're saying, the conditions? CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah, if that's what the Planning Commission wants. COMMISSIONER VERNON: That's fine with me. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: That's fine with me. I ask that staff validates and substantiate, then the Chair will coordinate with staff. I don't think -- I don't think it needs to come back. These are very clear. The petitioner has concurred, and they're very clear stipulations. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. Thank you. All right. Anybody else want to be heard on this at all before we vote? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: If not, we'll close discussion. All those in favor of the motion to approve the CUA with the eight conditions, please say aye. Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Aye. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Aye. COMMISSIONER KLUCIK: Aye. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Those opposed? COMMISSIONER VERNON: No. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Aye. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. So it passes 4-2, I believe. I think I got that right. Yeah. 4-2, Mr. Bosi, is that what you -- MR. BOSI: That's what I heard. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Yes. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. So it passes 4-2. Thank you, applicant. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Can I make a statement, though? For the public, it's a split decision. You need to understand it will be full open public hearing at the Board of County Commissioner meeting. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Absolutely. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Can I add to that? You need -- if you're having trouble getting information out, numbers are very important. I would suggest now that you know what's going on, you spread the word so we can get more -- more input, the commissioners can have more input. And any homework -- you've heard some of the things that we struggle over. Any homework you -- because the commissioners are going to struggle over it the same as we do, but they have the vote. We're advisory. CHAIRMAN FRYER: And my heartfelt thanks to the members of the public who took time out of their day to come and speak. And the kindly gentleman who apologized for becoming a little emotional, apologies accepted completely, and thank you for being here, sir. And with that, it's -- we're very close to time, believe it or not, for another pause. And as we consider this, I want to say, just -- oh, Commissioner Vernon, did you want to -- COMMISSIONER VERNON: I didn't want to interrupt you, but before you break, I just had something to say. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Sure. I'm going to need to be refueled at some point February 1, 2024 Page 65 of 102 before I go too much further. I can go somewhat further, but not, perhaps, the whole distance, because we've got two more matters, and I've got extensive questions on the one coming up, so... COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: And I have a lot on the other one coming up, so there. CHAIRMAN FRYER: And in fairness to Mr. Mulhere and his client, you know, perhaps we should take our lunch break now, or we may end up having to surrender and say I can't do anything further. And speaking not for -- only for myself, but the court reporter who is going to -- may need to be refueled as well, and some of us up here. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Thirty minutes? CHAIRMAN FRYER: What do you want to do at this point? COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: May I suggest 30 minutes for all parties? CHAIRMAN FRYER: Well, here's one thing I need to know from staff. This cafeteria, it's closed now, isn't it? They close at some point. Maybe 2. MR. BOSI: Mike Bosi, zoning director. I believe they're open till 2 in terms of serving food. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Does anyone here know the answer to that question? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: No, because I brought my lunch. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Well, I didn't. All right. Well, let's do this. And Mr. Mulhere, without objection from you, sir, at least this will give you the continuity. MR. MULHERE: We'd much prefer to have a happy chairman. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Well, okay. All right. It seems to be the consensus that -- go ahead, Commissioner Vernon. COMMISSIONER VERNON: Yeah. I've got a problem, because I misjudged, and I thought that this would not go past 2, so I've got to leave, and I don't want to screw up a quorum for you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Well, we'd still have a quorum of five, and -- COMMISSIONER VERNON: Klucik's okay? CHAIRMAN FRYER: And it's still okay because we've got four people physically present. COMMISISONER VERNON: Okay. Great. CHAIRMAN FRYER: So that won't screw anything up, except we'll lose your wisdom. COMMISISONER VERNON: Well, I'm really leaving because I don't like losing, so I'm taking my ball and going home. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. All right. And that's okay with you, Mr. Mulhere? MR. MULHERE: Yes. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. So let's -- we're going to go in recess, a lunch recess, until 2 p.m. That's, what, 38 minutes? COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Thirty-seven and a half. CHAIRMAN FRYER: And we're in recess. (A luncheon recess was had from 1:23 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.) (Commissioner Vernon is absent for the remainder of the meeting.) MR. BOSI: Chair, you have a live mic. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you, Mr. Bosi. Let's reconvene, please. ***And we're going to call the next matter. It's companions. They are PL20230002460, the GMA Commercial Subdistrict Small-Scale Growth Management Plan amendment, and PL20230002458, the GMA CPUDZ. All those wishing to testify in this matter, please rise to be sworn in by the court reporter. THE COURT REPORTER: Do you swear or affirm the testimony you will give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? (The speakers were duly sworn and indicated in the affirmative.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. February 1, 2024 Page 66 of 102 Ex parte disclosures from the Planning Commission starting with the secretary. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Staff materials only. CHAIRMAN FRYER: In my case, matters of public record, meetings with staff, communications with the applicant's agent. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: I had a video conference with Bob Mulhere, and I did speak to Russ Weyer about some questions I had. And just for the record, I do know Mr. Saadeh, who is the owner of the property. I mean, I've known Mr. Saadeh for years when he was in the Vineyards, so I -- just for the record, I do know him. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: I don't think that will have any impact on the vote, but I do know him. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Staff materials only. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. All right. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Is Mr. Klucik still with us? COMMISSIONER SHEA: Robb? CHAIRMAN FRYER: Oh, yeah. Mr. Klucik, are you still there? (No response.) MR. MULHERE: Hopefully he comes back. It's getting to be rather low numbers. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah. Well, we still have a quorum. MR. MULHERE: Okay. CHAIRMAN FRYER: We've got him? Okay. So Mr. Klucik is present. So with that, turn the floor over to Mr. Mulhere. MR. MULHERE: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Commission. For the record, my name is Bob Mulhere representing the applicant, GMA Advisors, LLC. My client is Michel Saadeh, who's sitting here right behind me. I will mention that, I don't know, quite a few years ago he was a member of this august and esteemed body. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yes, he was. MR. MULHERE: Norm Trebilcock, who sent Gavin Jones here, whom I don't see, did the transportation analysis. I'm sure he'll be back. Maybe he was, you know, late getting back from lunch. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: He's here, yep. MR. MULHERE: And we had Nicholas Pearson from Turrell, Hall & Associates do the native vegetation environmental analysis. There really are no issues. I don't believe he's here. And Jeremy works with me, and he's not here today. No sense double-billing the applicant. MR. SAADEH: Thank you. MR. MULHERE: So the subject property is outlined before you on the visualizer. I do want to point out that I saw that most of the exhibits had changed, but there was still one exhibit that showed a portion of the project -- here it is right here -- a portion of the project. Right here is basically part of this parcel, but it is -- it was -- it was never conveyed to the county but, of course, the county owned this parcel. So going through the process, the GMP excludes that strip that's part of this process, the legal description excludes it. So what you see before you is the actual geographic area that's the subject of these two petitions. And although there may have been one or two exhibits in the staff report, which we had revised that show that, I just want to make it clear for the record that's not part of the application. This is a wider aerial. CHAIRMAN FRYER: I'm going to have to interrupt you for a moment, Mr. Mulhere, with apologies. MR. MULHERE: That's all right. CHAIRMAN FRYER: This has to do with the last project. I have a reference that on Page 8 of 9 of the staff report in the last project that no EAC review is required -- was required. Is February 1, 2024 Page 67 of 102 that -- am I wrong? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: The staff report identifies there was. I had a note, and I failed to include that in my motion. MR. BOSI: Yes. That -- Mike Bosi, zoning director. That's on me. I failed to mention it to you. I did get an IM from Ms. Cook that EAC was required. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Well, that -- then that contradicts what was in the staff report. So, County Attorney, can we reopen that and vote? What do we do? MS. ASHTON-CICKO: As to the EAC? CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: You don't have everybody here, do you? Well, you can do it with the group that you have. CHAIRMAN FRYER: We've got a quorum. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Yeah. You can go ahead and take a vote on that one as well. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. I'd entertain a motion that -- and this goes back to the last matter, and I'd entertain a motion to approve it sitting as the EAC. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Can I ask a question? CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yes. COMMISSIONER SHEA: We voted on it. How does that affect our vote? Can you vote against the petition and for this, or do you have to -- is there an inconsistency? MS. ASHTON-CICKO: You're the same board, but you're actually sitting as two boards. So you're sitting as the Planning Commission, the land planning agency, which you already took the vote on, and you're also sitting as the Environmental Advisory Committee, which is a separate board. COMMISSIONER SHEA: You can vote from the environmental side for it, but against the petition? CHAIRMAN FRYER: We can do whatever we want, pretty much. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Yes. CHAIRMAN FRYER: In spite of what Mr. Yovanovich says. COMMISSIONER SHEA: I'm being a lawyer now. CHAIRMAN FRYER: That's all right. I'm not being an engineer, though. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Just as clarification, we don't have Mr. Vernon. Does that -- and he voted originally. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah. I need to make that record. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Yeah, that's okay. We'll just reflect that in the minutes. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah. The record will show that Mr. Vernon had to leave before our lunch break, so we are at a quorum with four physically present and one on the phone. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: And I second the motion with the statement that all environmental concerns have to be met either through the state or through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. Any further discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: All those in favor, please say aye. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Aye. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Aye. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Aye. COMMISSIONER KLUCIK: (No verbal response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: Opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: It passes unanimously. Thank you. February 1, 2024 Page 68 of 102 Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Mulhere. MR. MULHERE: That's all right. No problem. I'm glad someone figured that one out. So this -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: Vice Chairman did. MR. MULHERE: This aerial that's on the visualizer right now shows a larger perspective to -- the subject property is right here, and to the west is Wilson. You go around the Immokalee curve here, and you have the Immokalee Curve PUD and the BCHDI -- or 1 PUD, which is up in this area. This is Orangetree PUD which is developed with a small Publix and a CVS and a few other commercial uses. Further to the east is Orange Blossom Ranch, which also has just received approval for almost a 12-acre site for another Publix because this one is undersized. So it's just down the road, but there will be two Publixes there. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Bob, while you've got this up, I'll interrupt. At that -- the PUD to the north, where it's showing, of course, land is cleared. MR. MULHERE: Yeah. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Is that now going to be converted to residential? MR. MULHERE: I believe -- these are both mixed-use, but I believe what you see there will be commercial. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Will be commercial, okay. MR. MULHERE: Yeah. I could be wrong, but I do know that -- for example, I'll just tell you, Randall Curve allows up to 150,000 square feet of commercial retail. MR. BOSI: And they are developing a multifamily facility at the Randall Curve PUD. MR. MULHERE: So it is mixed use? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: It is mixed use. So it's going to be multifamily? MR. BOSI: Yes. MR. MULHERE: And the Barron Collier BCHD1 is approved for up to 230,000 square feet of commercial. So I'm going to go over those as part of my presentation. I did -- let's see. Was there something else I wanted to point out? I think that's about it. We can go back to this if necessary. So we're asking for two companion petitions, a Small-Scale Growth Management Plan amendment to allow up to 150,000 square feet of C-3 commercial intermediate uses. You know, that's basically your neighborhood commercial designation, and -- of which up to 80,000 may be self-storage, and a PUD is the companion item. I do want to talk a little bit about the history here. The center parcel -- and I'll just go back to that aerial real quick. This parcel right here is the subject known -- it's a stormwater pond, county stormwater pond, for drainage from Immokalee Road. There was an agreement approved by the Board between this applicant and the county to allow for a swap of this parcel right here, which is a little bit larger than three acres, to this parcel here, which is larger -- a little bit larger than five acres. As part of that agreement, the applicant is required to construct a wet detention pond on that new parcel to the south, adjacent to the canal and to extend the pipes -- there's pipes that go under Immokalee Road from that canal on the other side of Immokalee Road -- to extend those to deliver that stormwater to that new location. That's all at Mr. Saadeh's cost. It's no insignificant cost. I will point out that while that's not part of your consideration for a rezone, at the time that that agreement was approved, it was certainly known that the applicant didn't enter into this agreement with the idea of developing one single-family Estate lot on that swap parcel, considering the cost and the location. This graphic shows you, you know, here's the canal on the other side. The water runs down. Here, right now, it connects to this dry retention area right here but will be piped down to this new larger wet retention area. The county originally initiated a discussion about the swap, and February 1, 2024 Page 69 of 102 it went on -- I don't know. It took quite a while to get to the point where it was approved. And I think the county appreciated the fact that they had greater capacity in the new pond area than they do in the existing one. And, again, digging the pond and extending the pipes is Mr. Saadeh's responsibility. Did you want to come up and say anything? I apologize. I was going to introduce you. MR. SAADEH: Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name is Michel Saadeh for the record. I've been a full-time resident of Collier County for over 38 years. Where Commissioner Schmitt and I know each other was back when I was the former CEO of Vineyards Development Corporation. So we've developed multiple sites in Naples over the last 38 years. This property -- this came about very quickly about -- very casual discussions with county staff about the expansion of Immokalee Road and their need not just for extra retention for the county, but the county needed a discharge point which they didn't have. So I own the parcels south of where the pond is drawn now. It's over five acres, and the county parcel is just shy of three acres with the easements that are taken out. So we offered to make the swap, and then the county came back and renegotiated the wet retention. We offered to make the swap and give them discharge on the area, and then they said, while you're at it, if you throw in the wet retention, it's a no-brainer, and we'll all go for it, so that's how the whole deal came about. So we took it back to the Board. The Board approved the swap. And once this is concluded, we will turn over five acres after the improvements are done and the utilities are run to that site. And, again, the most important thing, other than the size -- almost doubling the size of the county property, we're giving them a discharge into the canal that the county didn't have. And that's not direly needed today, but it's direly needed when they start the expansion of Immokalee Road and want to expand the road and so forth, and that's going to alleviate some of the transportation problems that you've been hearing about. And thank you for your time. MR. MULHERE: So just to specify, that discharge is depicted here into this canal. So that -- you know, they didn't have a discharge from there, so now we will; right here. This is the Future Land Use Map. The subject property is outlined in -- it looks like purple to me or blue, and surrounded by -- predominately surrounded by Golden Gate Estates zoning. The other chunk of light tan colored is the settlement area, the -- you know, when you drive out towards Immokalee and you go past where Orange Blossom Ranch and some other development -- significant amount of development -- I think this is four sections of land. It was a settlement between the state and the landowner probably in the '70s. Quite a while ago. This exhibit shows the zoning and also shows the nearby commercial zoning. We have a small PUD here and here. There is a comprehensive -- excuse me -- a Growth Management subdistrict that runs along here and includes about 360,000 square feet total of commercial, but that hasn't gone through the zoning yet. You can see that most of that is still zoned Estates. Over here is commercial portions of Orangetree, and then a little bit further to the east is Orange Blossom Ranch, you have the Randall Curve, and north of that, BCHD PUD. This is the county's PUD map. It shows you a little wider depiction of this area. BCHD CPUD, Randall Curve MPUD, and if I had looked at that, I would have known it was mixed use, and the subject property's right here in these two smaller PUDs. And this is the PUD master plan. As I mentioned, it does not include this piece in the middle that extends into the county's right-of-way. This is the TIS. The p.m. peak-hour trips are calculated at 389 p.m. peak hour two-way trips. I do want to spend just a couple of minutes talking about the needs analysis. Russ Weyer is here, and he will probably have to answer any detailed questions. I know there are some, but I do want to talk just a few minutes on the data and analysis that's required. February 1, 2024 Page 70 of 102 And before I go to that, just let me mention, I know you've heard this before, but I want to reiterate that other than maybe a regional attraction, commercial zoning doesn't generate new trips. No one is going to drive here from Marco Island to go to a fast food or to a retail store unless they're driving by. It doesn't generate new trips. It changes the driving pattern of the people that live in that area who had to take different routes before there was commercial opportunities and can now utilize the new commercial that gets approved. So I just want to reiterate. I know there's been a lot of discussion about growth. Commercial, unless it's regional or a big attraction, does not generate new trips. It does change traffic patterns. I want to talk for a minute about Growth Management Plan amendment -- this is a small-scale amendment; it's under 50 acres -- and the statute, state statute and what's required. So Chapter 163.3177, required in optional elements of the Comprehensive Plan studies and surveys. Comprehensive Plan shall provide the principles, guidelines, standards, and strategies for the orderly balance, future economic, social, physical, environmental, and fiscal development of the area that reflects the community commitments to implement the plan and its elements. All mandatory and optional elements of the Comprehensive Plan shall be based upon relevant and appropriate data and an analysis by the local government. Data must be taken from professionally accepted sources, the application of the methodology utilized in data collection, or whether a particular methodology is professionally accepted may be evaluated; however, the evaluation may not include whether one accepted methodology is better than another. It's right from the statute. Then we talk about what are the considerations that we have to address and that staff would evaluate and that you have to evaluate as it relates to a -- in this case, again, a Small-Scale Comprehensive Plan amendment. The Future Land Use Plan and plan amendment shall be based on surveys, studies, and data regarding the area as applicable, including the amount of land required to accommodate anticipated growth, the permanent -- the projected permanent and seasonal population of the area. These are not weighted. These are individual criterias. The character of the undeveloped land, the availability of public services; water, sewer, and so on. The need for redevelopment, including renewal of blighted areas and the elimination of nonconforming uses which are inconsistent with the character of the community. That really doesn't apply here. The discouragement of urban sprawl. To me that does apply here, and I'll discuss that just a little bit further. The need to modify land uses and development patterns within an antiquated subdivision. So Golden Gate Estates is considered an antiquated subdivision. That's not a derogatory comment. It's simply a fact. Why is that the case? Because it was approved and developed many years ago with very low density, single-family development, one unit per two-and-a-quarter acres with no services. No services. So we've seen a change in that over time. It's been slow, but it has occurred. And this area, although not specifically designated as such, in this area I think this area functions now more as an activity center, mixed-use activity center, than what it was originally proposed to be. Don't forget you have thousands of homes in that settlement area which is immediately north and east of this project, and thousands of Golden Gate Estate lots. So by providing other uses other than low-density, single-family, one lot per two-and-a-quarter acres, that the nearby residents and motoring traffic passing by can avail themselves of is a retroactive change which reduces the impact of sprawl, one impact anyway. What is one impact of sprawl? All those people had to drive west to get any services. They used to all shop at Pebblebrooke. Now they have a Publix. That Publix isn't big enough, so now they're building another Publix. So things are changing, and that is changing the way people drive. There's also February 1, 2024 Page 71 of 102 employment opportunities that can be associated with nonresidential uses. So there are big benefits to this. I want to just point out one other -- can you put that on the visualizer? So this is from the preliminary intersection improvement analysis that was done and planned that was done for the intersection of Randall -- sorry -- for the intersection of Randall and Immokalee, which you know is basically a T intersection. The plan on the left is the preferred alternative Phase 1 which has, you know, triple lefts coming out of Randall onto Immokalee, and at this point it looks like just a single right turn heading out of Randall if you want to head east on Immokalee, and you can see that there were some special designs that had to occur to provide access to the commercial properties that are south of this -- of Randall because, you know, obviously, the county doesn't want to have a bunch of access points on this new widened Randall Road. So access comes primarily -- primarily from the signalization at 8th and Randall, which is just east of here. And there is, again, a pretty significant commercial PUD that runs east and west in this area that will benefit from that signal. But the second preferred alternative is Phase 2, which calls for a flyover, and I think you can see on the visualizer the -- you know, by the shading that they've provided that that's going to be an elevated three-lane roadway for -- this is basically sort of almost sort of south but moving into westbound traffic from Randall heading west on Immokalee Road towards the urban area. And there will be right turns, and other turning movements will be at grade along Immokalee, but this -- this elevated section will allow free-flowing traffic heading west from Randall down Immokalee and, also, there are at least double rights heading eastbound on Immokalee to access Randall, and you can see that, and then there's some through lanes, and then there's some intersection turn lanes that are, you know, to the left. There's 4th Street Northeast. It's a little shaded, but it's right where that proposed signal is. I raise this because, ultimately -- and you can see that this elevated roadway goes beyond the perimeter to the west of this exhibit and extends in an elevated but coming-down-to-grade fashion in and around the subject property. And so we're going to have a major intersection with an elevated roadway with numerous through, right- and left-turn lanes adjacent -- and the subject property is adjacent to the canal and commercial. And so the question is -- and it's part of the evaluation in my opinion -- is this really appropriate for single-family homes? I don't think so. Now, let's talk about the amount of commercial that Russ can answer specific questions on. I think it's in and around 4 million square feet in a five-mile radius. You know, I've looked at some of those PUDs. Things do change. Let's talk about the one that was the subject of your previous petition, the Immokalee Road Rural Village. I guess it's basically a subdistrict, GMP area. They have a choice there. They can come in and do a village, or they can just do a residential development. Now, as far as I know -- I'm not working on that project. I do not know if they've made a choice. But if they don't develop a village, and come in for a 2,000-unit residential development, that's 363,000 square feet that will not get built. Things change. That's why you have more commercial square footage than you may think you need or that is acuented [sic] by any study. Orange Blossom Ranch to the east just recently amended that PUD to eliminate some commercial square footage and has now, I believe, an approved SDP for a 400-unit apartment. They also have an approved SDP for the Publix that I talked about. That's 65,000 square feet, that SDP. So there's about nine acres that's undeveloped that could be developed for commercial in that project. They have 230,000 -- I'm not sure. I've got to -- I've got to look at my notes here. Orange Blossom Ranch has 200,000 square feet approved. They've just taken a big chunk of that out because they're building multifamily. Is 200,000 square feet going to get approved February 1, 2024 Page 72 of 102 out -- developed out there? No, not unless they do self-storage or multistory office. Don't see a market for that. Don't think that's going to get built. So you have 200,000 square feet. They might build 150-. I talked about the subdistrict. Let's see if I can find it. Well, this is probably as good an exhibit as any. Let me go back -- yeah, thank you. So there is a subdistrict that exists right here and here, and that subdistrict, which fronts on -- I'm sorry. It goes this way. It goes this way. I apologize -- fronts on Randall presently allow -- and, again, they haven't gone through the zoning for most of it. It's still zoned Estates. We're working with Mike Bosi and the county to amend their Growth Management Plan to allow for residential -- to allow for mixed use to allow for residential -- multifamily residential there. Now, I'm not prejudging that application. You'll see it, and the Board will see it. But if it gets approved, a portion of that's going to be developed with residential, which is going to reduce the 300- and I think 60,000 square feet of commercial that presently is counted in the market study for that. So, again, if you add that up, right there that's 6-, 700,000 square feet. I'd venture to say that most projects -- most projects don't net out more -- we use 10,000 square feet as a rule of thumb for development area for neighborhood commercial. What drives that number? Area you have to dedicate to stormwater, area you have to dedicate to buffers -- landscape buffers and open space, and parking. So, really, it depends on the mix of the use. Most smaller commercial projects do not net 10,000 square feet per acre. They net 8-, 8500. So I understand that there's a perception that there's a lot of commercial out there, and there's certainly a lot of commercial that could go there, but not all of it will go there. And I would urge you to look at other factors that should be considered on a Small-Scale Comprehensive Plan amendment, including the appropriateness of the existing use, compatibility of the proposed use, the potential reduction of the negative impacts of sprawling, low-density, single-family development by introducing other uses to the area. I think all of these are considerations. And, again, they're not weighted. That's your job. I will say that the staff, although they raised issues with Russ's report -- and he can speak to that himself, and I hope, you know, that the questions will generate that response. I will say that there's a recommendation of approval both from Comprehensive Planning staff and from the Zoning staff. So we have a recommendation of approval. I believe we've justified the request, and now we stand open to answer any questions that you may have. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. You have a -- you have a recommendation of approval subject to a condition that -- MR. MULHERE: Yes. CHAIRMAN FRYER: -- I take it you are or you're not willing to -- MR. MULHERE: Oh, that's -- I'm glad you raised that issue. The answer is probably. I just want to point out a few things. Let me get to the -- go back to the master plan. I just want to point out a few things. You can see that there is a Tract B here that runs down the west side and the south side, and that is, on average, 50 feet, slightly more in some areas, and that is the retained native vegetation buffer Tract B down here on the south side. We agreed after removal of exotic vegetation -- let me go to the aerial, because it's a little easier to -- if I can find it -- after removal of exotic vegetation in this area here to replant with native vegetation at the time of Site Development Plan sufficient to achieve opacity at 80 percent within one year. What does that mean? Well, that means you have to put in pretty large native plants such that within one year of planting, they achieve 80 percent opacity, and the policy objective is that they'll be 100 percent opaque within two years. So we agreed to do that. That is not inexpensive. You can see there will be a need -- this is mostly slash pines. After we remove the exotics, there will be a need to significantly plant within this area to achieve that 80 percent opacity within -- February 1, 2024 Page 73 of 102 CHAIRMAN FRYER: But looking through the materials that were on CityView, I find that early on your proposal had included a commitment to build an 8-foot wall. MR. MULHERE: It may have, but I think after we were asked to do the re-plantings, we then said, well, we shouldn't have to do both because -- and I'm going to get to that right now -- is if we do a wall -- which the staff didn't recommend an 8-foot wall. They just recommended a wall, an opaque wall. And, you know, that wall could be placed on a berm that's going to be, you know, 12 or 18 inches as part of the stormwater, and you'll achieve, I think, sufficient opacity. CHAIRMAN FRYER: But eight feet was your number, your client's number. MR. MULHERE: Originally, because we weren't planning on having to replant. But, you know, you have to balance those costs. So -- and I think we were -- you know, we acquiesced to the replanting in lieu of the wall. But having said that -- MR. SAADEH: Can I say something? MR. MULHERE: Yeah, go ahead. MR. SAADEH: Commissioners, again, my name's Michel Saadeh, for the record. The swap agreement has evolved quite a bit from the first meeting we had with the county senior staff till the time that it was presented to the Board of County Commissioners. So there was a lot of variables onto what we'll agree to, what not. The very last moment, the swap was not -- was not intended to have a wet storage. We offered to build the improvements, put the drainage lines in along property line, bring them out to a discharge point, and that was an expense north of $600,000. And then when the -- when we agreed to the wet storage and digging up the pond, that number went up north of $1.8 million. So this project has evolved quite a bit over a three-acre parcel of land that was exchanged with five and all the other expenses that came with it. So, you know, during that process, that's when the eight came up, and then the eight disappeared, and we said, okay, we'll replant whatever we need to replant, and that was it. So, you know, we can work on it one way or the other. We can have a -- you know, the staff is not asking for an 8-foot fence right now. They're asking for five, I think. MR. MULHERE: Five or six. MR. SAADEH: Five or six. But the recommendation is if we -- you know, the discussions were if you would do that, then we wouldn't request of you to plant. So that's -- that's the last thing we were at. CHAIRMAN FRYER: You understand -- MR. MULHERE: What I wanted to say -- go ahead. I'm sorry. CHAIRMAN FRYER: You understand, sir, that this matter is not at present before staff; it's before the Planning Commission? MR. SAADEH: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Correct. MR. SAADEH: Yes. MR. MULHERE: Now, Mr. Chairman, what I wanted to say was the only reason, you don't have to replant in any native preservation area. You clear the exotics, and you let the native vegetation grow back in the normal way that it would. You might, through some agencies, have some mitigation or restoration. I don't think that's going to be the case here. We don't have wetlands on the site. So I guess what our position is, we'll still have that 50-foot buffer. We'll still go in and clear the exotics. And I would suggest if we are required to put a wall up, that it be a 6-foot wall on top of the berm. We haven't gone through the Water Management District, but there will be a berm because we have to hold the water on the site as it's treated, and that we not be required to replant to achieve opacity when you're not going to see that from those lots south of us because there's going to be a wall blocking your view of that. Now, I could see maybe having that fence be erected say, you know, 10 feet or five feet off the south property line so that there's access for maintenance purposes to the landowner. February 1, 2024 Page 74 of 102 So in answer to your question -- and also, one last thing, we don't think a wall is necessary adjacent to a wet detention pond that's going to be owned by the county. It will probably be fenced, but it doesn't have to be an opaque wall. I mean, that would be up to the county if they are worried about liability issues. CHAIRMAN FRYER: No one else is signaling at this time, so I'm going to ask a few questions, if I may. MR. MULHERE: Sure. CHAIRMAN FRYER: You quoted from Florida Statute Section 163.3177. MR. MULHERE: Yes. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Sub 6, Sub (a)2, and that -- that list of bullets or -- MR. MULHERE: Yes. CHAIRMAN FRYER: -- lowercase -- MR. MULHERE: Yes. CHAIRMAN FRYER: -- numbers, included the need for redevelopment, the need for job creation, the need to modify. How would you characterize those points in that statute? MR. MULHERE: I mean, they're all part -- they're all part of your consideration. They're all part of what we have to demonstrate would make this request appropriate. I don't -- I looked at it. They're not weighted whatsoever. There's no -- there's no indication that your commercial needs analysis, you know, becomes the sole reason for denying this application. It certainly is a consideration. I don't disagree with that. It is. That's why we did it. I mean, I think that Russ probably, you know, has some things to share with respect to some of the staff findings that I think will be enlightening for you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. And so I think you used the words, but isn't it fair to characterize this portion of the statute as calling for a needs analysis? MR. MULHERE: It calls for data. It doesn't necessarily spe- -- it does talk about the need for the change, yes. CHAIRMAN FRYER: But you referred to it a moment ago as a needs analysis. MR. MULHERE: That's what the county calls it. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah. All right. And that's kind of how I see it as well. MR. MULHERE: Yeah, I agree. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Thank you. I've got some more questions to go through. MR. MULHERE: Do you want me to ask Russ to come up? Because I don't want to answer -- you know, it's his professional product if there are questions on the needs analysis. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Well, you certainly can. I expect my questions may mature somewhat after I hear from staff. MR. MULHERE: Okay. CHAIRMAN FRYER: And so I sort of decided to hold some of these specific questions until the time of rebuttal. MR. MULHERE: Makes sense. Thank you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Thank you. Who else did you want to bring forward, sir? MR. MULHERE: I mean, that concludes our presentation. We do want to respond to any questions that you-all may have and certainly would like to be able to rebut after -- you know, after staff and any public speakers. There was -- I do want to point out we did notice there was one, you know, letter of objection, and I think this gentleman also reached out to us because -- I don't think he was at the NIM, but I think maybe we provided him a link. I could be wrong. I just want to point out that property is right here, which is across this substantial arterial roadway from the subject property. Canal, roadway, roadway going to be widened. And I forgot to mention, obviously we do have to do a turn lane into this project. February 1, 2024 Page 75 of 102 CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Vice Chairman? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yeah. I do have a question. I'm looking for the item in the staff report that talked about the square footage. I think it would be valuable for Russ at least to review that, because the staff report -- and that was a question I was going to ask staff. The staff report seems to imply that there's enough sufficient -- or there's sufficient commercial square footage out there, and this only adds to the already unused inventory. It seems to imply that this is more than we need. I'm looking for that portion in the staff report. That's why I'm thumbing through this. I had it, and then I closed it. It was one of the bullet points there. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Page 714 of the staff -- of the packet, the agenda packet. MR. MULHERE: Well, I have it, if you can give me a second. What page? CHAIRMAN FRYER: Well, it actually starts 708, 709. MR. MULHERE: Okay, 708, 709. CHAIRMAN FRYER: And it continues on. But you're exactly right, Vice Chair. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: You said 708? MR. MULHERE: But I would repeat -- I have to repeat, while they may have raised those issues, they also recommended approval. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yeah, they recommended approval, but there was a -- and I had it highlighted, and it's just difficult to see it for some reason. MR. BOSI: It's page -- Mike Bosi, Planning and Zoning director. It's Page 4 and 5 of the staff report what you're looking for. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Page -- MR. BOSI: Four and 5 of the staff report. Fourth and fifth page of the staff report. CHAIRMAN FRYER: I mean, the fact of the matter is -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: 485 is -- MR. BOSI: Page 472, 471 and 472. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Vice Chair, the way you explained it is exactly correct. That's what the staff report says. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yeah. I was just going to read the numbers. MR. MULHERE: I don't see that here. Oh, in the staff report, sorry. Well, I'll just flip to it in case you have to -- there you go. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: You said 475? MR. BOSI: 471, 472. Page 4 and 5 of the staff report. MR. BELLOWS: Make sure you're on the GMD. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. It is. It's at the top of page -- let me get -- MR. WEYER: 473. CHAIRMAN FRYER: I've got the quote right here if you want me to read it. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: I'll read it there in a minute. I want to make sure we're at the right page. It's at the top of Page 473. It's Page 6 of the staff report, but it's 473, packet. And it says, based on the existing commercial square footage allowed by the FLUM, the commercial demand is met throughout -- through the 2033 10-year planning horizon. The documentation provided identified the need for 8,834,211 square feet in 2033, which is less than the 4,106,891 square feet currently allowed. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Three million. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Three million. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: You said 8 million. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Oh, three million 834-. Thank you. The commercial square footage currently allowed is 50 percent greater or, in paren, approximately 1.9 million square feet than is currently developed in the market area. So that sentence seems to imply that what's being proposed exceeds what's really needed. MR. BOSI: Mike Bosi, Planning and Zoning director. On a gross, just, allocation of square footage that's approved. This isn't built. This is February 1, 2024 Page 76 of 102 approved within the GMP or within a PUD. There's 4.1. There is adequate. They did include an allocation ratio which was an evaluation of the existing subdistricts that allow for commercial development as well as existing PUDs that allow for commercial development that went through and analyzed whether those square footage -- square footages allowed could be realized. A good example would be the 375,000 square feet that's allowed within the Randall Curve subdistrict which starts to the -- which starts to the east of the developments that are on the east side of the canal. That's 375,000 square feet in the GMP approved. It's never been acted upon. There currently have -- there's currently a GMP application to amend that to introduce residential. The likelihood of 375,000 square feet of that being developed is relatively low. What they did -- staff just looks at the gross area. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yeah. MR. BOSI: We just look at the gross area, and the gross area is sufficient. They looked at the allocation per individual subdistrict or PUD and made an evaluation as to what they thought could actually be developed. And with that, that would suggest that there is more of a need than what the gross square footage allowed would suggest. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Well, my point is, I look at this as the risk is all on the developer. If they think the need is there, they take the risk, they spend the money, and they go through the process. And if it sits empty, I mean, that's the business decision. I understand staff, but what I just heard you say is, well, yes, this is what our documents say. This is what it looks like when you consider everything in the GMP now, and -- but it's never going to be that, so the end result is you recommended approval. MR. BOSI: Correct. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. CHAIRMAN FRYER: But you're not suggesting that we should speculate on how much of what is currently permitted for commercial is actually going to be zoned commercial, should we? MR. BOSI: That is -- I think from a market research analysis, a professional such as Russ Weyer in his capacity, that's exactly what he does. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yeah. CHAIRMAN FRYER: That may be what he does, but it's my understanding that the Collier County program for analyzing supply of commercial looks at what the property is zoned for, not the likelihood of how it's actually going to be used; am I correct? MR. BOSI: We do not provide the likelihood of the realization of in any one PUD or any one subdistrict that allows for commercial. That's why -- that's why the submittal that was provided provided for a more detailed analysis than what we would look at from a staff perspective. We just look at gross square footage. CHAIRMAN FRYER: More detail but, really, I think at war with the standards of the county. And from my point of view, if we were to say, well, the likelihood is 50 percent that this property that is already zoned commercial is going to become actually commercial, I mean, that's pulling things out of the air, and I would prefer to go with the way that the county looks at it, which is what is currently zoned for commercial and not try to read tea leaves about how things are -- what rezones are going to be requested in the future. MR. BOSI: It's not just zoned. It's allocated within the GMP as well. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Which is even more important. MR. BOSI: Which is even farther away from a development schedule. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yes. MR. BOSI: So it does count a gross area -- a gross square footage total that is not sometimes -- there's validity within questioning whether that square footage will be realized, but we don't do that in terms of our analysis. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Right. And I don't think we should do it as a Planning February 1, 2024 Page 77 of 102 Commission either for the same reason, because I believe it gets you into speculation. All right. You've been interrupted. MR. WEYER: That's okay. For the record, Russ Weyer from Real Estate Econometrics. Mr. Schmitt, I believe your question was answered in terms of what the differences were. A little bit of explanation. When we do the analysis, the first thing we look for is the demand, and we get into much more of a demand than the actual county does. I take a specific area. I look at the amount of commercial that has been built. I look at the current population. And that's basically what the demand is at that point. If you're talking about -- Mr. Fryer, talking about the county, then let's talk about the county demand, because in this case, the demand for commercial is 58-something square feet per person. In the county, it's closer to 78. And if you look at the -- when we do the CIGM analysis, it was closer to 100 across the county. So, consequently, we look at it in more detail. That's the reason for that. So the demand is lower in this area, and that's what we're using on the -- going forward. That could be raised, and that would solve your $4 million -- or 4 million -- 4 million square feet analysis. However, if you look at the history -- for instance, when the property just to the north was approved, it had -- what is it, 300 -- what did you say, it was 200-and-some-odd square feet, Bob? Three hundred square feet -- 300,000 square feet. They're building apartments on there now on half of it. They're building apartments over on Orange Blossom. Randall, that one will never be developed to that point, to that 300-and-some-odd-thousand square feet. So, consequently, it's not always built full commercial. It will -- and especially here in Collier County where we have the needs for affordable housing, and apartments seemed to be filling that void. People are converting it. So, consequently, if you want to look at the full 400-, and then I can increase the demand on it and say it will be there, if I use the county averages. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Your approach, though, differs from the county approach, doesn't it? MR. WEYER: My approach in terms -- well, I'm not sure what they're using in terms of -- because I did not know what they are using in terms of demand. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Well, I'll talking about supply. MR. WEYER: Supply. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Demand is easier to establish. Let's talk about supply. MR. WEYER: My supply, I -- if you look at my tables, I'm using that 4 million, and what I'm saying is the demand is saying this. So the allocation ratio of -- usually at the county -- and this isn't the first time I've used the allocation ratio. I've used it over the past few years in all of my studies I do. The two across the street, I used the allocation ratio. CHAIRMAN FRYER: I'm going to interrupt you if I may, sir. MR. WEYER: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN FRYER: I've been a student of your materials for several years now, and there is a couple of pages that I won't -- it sounds pejorative to say cut and paste, but it's stuff that finds its way -- the exact language, it finds its way into your expertized materials. And I'm going to read some of what you wrote. You said, it is at this point of the analysis that has caused an anomaly in determining a true economic supply-and-demand result. On the supply side, it is relatively easy to determine the amount of existing and approved supply from the property appraisal data. The difficulty lies in the vacant non-approved potential sites, commercial sites. Collier County staff requires the applicant to take all of those lands that have a commercial overlay on them and include them as supply by putting a floor area ratio figure to that acre. Those are your words, correct? MR. WEYER: Correct. February 1, 2024 Page 78 of 102 CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. And this is not -- and that's not the analysis that you proceed with, is it? MR. WEYER: It is the -- and that's what I did with the commercial ones, and that's the part of the PUDs that have the commercial overlays on them. CHAIRMAN FRYER: But you don't -- you don't include land that is zoned commercial. You're wanting to look at land that is either up and running as commercial or perhaps has a -- has started construction or much farther along the line than lands that are just simply available for commercial. MR. WEYER: On the demand side. On the supply side I did include vacant commercials in there, regular commercial that's been built is in there, and all the PUD square footages are in there. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah, but then -- okay. So then the staff report, as the vice chairman read, said based on the existing square footage allowed by the FLUM, the commercial demand is met through the 2033 planning horizon. That's what's in the staff report. Do you agree with that? MR. WEYER: Yes. CHAIRMAN FRYER: You do disagree with it? MR. WEYER: The demand -- right now the demand -- well, what you're saying on is on the blank supply side, the 4 million square feet? CHAIRMAN FRYER: I just -- with respect to what I read, do you agree or disagree with it? MR. MULHERE: We disagree, and we disagree because there are changing conditions, and we just named several of them, and there will be more changing conditions. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Well, I just wanted to establish that your expert and staff are coming at this from different angles and come to different conclusions. MR. MULHERE: So at 4 million, you know, was a number that was deemed to be more than adequate, and we said, well, 700,000 of that's not getting built. Now, that's speculative, I grant you, but that is a changing condition that reduces the inventory -- potential inventory of commercial use, and we know that's going to continue. And then I would reiterate, again, that there are other reasons to look at this application. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Well, yes, there are. The -- basically, sir, you're asking us to consider the possibility that some square footage that's currently zoned commercial may not develop, and I think -- MR. MULHERE: In reality in some parts. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah, and I think Mr. Mulhere just used the exact word. It would be speculation for us to weigh in either way on that, and that's why when we look at what's available commercially, we look at present zoning and, as Ms. Eastley has pointed out in her staff report quite accurately, based on the existing commercial square footage allowed by the FLUM, the commercial demand is met through the 2033 planning horizon. MR. MULHERE: And that's fine. We just -- we disagree that there's not adequate support for this. Now, let me just say, some of this is somewhat speculative. And I just gave you the example of Immokalee Road Rural Village, which has 375,000 square feet of commercial uses, commercial and light industrial uses. Again, if it comes in for a village, they may build all of that or some of that. If they come in for residential, they'll build zero. I don't know the answer to that. So in that sense, I agree with you; I can't guarantee that one or the other is the case. I can tell you that there are projects where we know they're not building the same amount of commercial, Orange Blossom Ranch is one of them, because they just got approved for an apartment -- 400-unit apartment on 12 or 13 acres of what was designated commercial. CHAIRMAN FRYER: But they're off the roster now of commercial. MR. MULHERE: They're not. They're not. That was included both in the staff and February 1, 2024 Page 79 of 102 Russ's analysis. That total 200,000 square feet was included. That's not what's going to get built. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: It's clear to me -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Also, on the -- in the expert report, you're using persons per household of 2.9 which, as Ms. Eastley correctly identifies in her staff report, that exceeds -- and I'm quoting. She says it exceeds the U.S. Department -- exceeds the U.S. Census which utilizes 2.4 persons per household, and it also exceeds the work that has been done by the Bureau of Economic and Business Research, Department of University of Florida, which is commonly called BEBR. And I don't -- I'm not absolutely opposed to departing from BEBR and the Census, but I think you need to have concrete reasons such as if you're basing your justification for departing from those standards, which are objective, they're not -- they're not based upon somebody's advocacy, I think you need to give us reasons. Like vacancies, for instance, would be a reason. And when I looked through your report, which I looked through carefully, I didn't see any justification for using the 2.9 number, which is considerable higher than BEBR and also eons higher, solar systems higher than what developers come in when they're applying for residential units. We had a developer come in and argue to us that multifamily dwelling units in Eastern Collier County, that the PPH is 1.05, which I think is totally implausible. So, you know, it seems to me PPH for a particular area -- it can be adjusted based upon facts like vacancies, but it's a number that exists regardless of whether the applicant is arguing for residential or commercial, and we ought to choose one and stick with it and then hear reasons why that number should be varied from. But you just come out with the 2.9 which I think -- and asks us to accept it, and we're the same group that heard the 1.05 on a residential development. MR. WEYER: Commissioner Fryer, I know we've gone back and forth a lot about persons per household. Persons per household was not used in any calculations in this report. The reason it was in there was because I utilized the Esri data that you see in the report. And they talk about population, they talk about households, and they calculated it at 3.9, and that's -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: 2.9. MR. WEYER: -- U.S. Census. I'm sorry, 2.9, because it's usually 2.39 is the county average -- that's the average. If you remember that map I gave you a couple years ago, that showed that the 2.39 is the county average; however, we're looking at micro areas. This is looking at a five-mile area. MR. MULHERE: Tell them what Esri is. MR. WEYER: Oh, Esri is the -- that's my database that -- I'm sorry. I use a business analyst online that uses geographic -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: I know. And you've -- MR. WEYER: You know what Esri is. CHAIRMAN FRYER: -- used it many times before, and I accept that. MR. WEYER: Yes, yes. CHAIRMAN FRYER: But just because it was propagated by Esri or some other group does not make it beyond challenge, and -- MR. WEYER: I totally understand. And sorry -- not to interrupt. First of all, it wasn't used in any calculations. It was there, and when I used the one sentence in my report that talked about it was to show that the persons per household are actually going to decline a little bit when you have, like, Sky Sail and Rivergrass and those where you're going to have retirees and that sort of thing at those price ranges. So it's going to bring it down a little bit. And if you remember our discussion, we talked about the way the county is. I'm looking at a micro area. I'm not looking at a county average. If I want to use the county average, I want to use the 100 -- February 1, 2024 Page 80 of 102 CHAIRMAN FRYER: For the court reporter, please slow down just a little bit. MR. WEYER: Oh, I'm sorry. CHAIRMAN FRYER: We'll give you all the time you want. MR. WEYER: I'm sorry. I was getting excited. If you look at the county and you want to use the 2. -- 2.39, we -- if you look along the coast, if I were to do a project along the coast, which I have done, it's probably closer to 2 because of all the retirees and all of that. And if you look at projects further east, like Immokalee and Ave Maria, it's probably closer to 3. So this was a micro -- I didn't use the county average. I was actually using the data for that area. It wasn't used in the report. It was in there, and I knew it was going to be brought up. But the only reason that I put it in there -- or left it in there -- could have taken it out -- I left it in there was to show that I think the persons per household is going to go down. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Well, you have -- you put it in your report and now you're suggesting that we shouldn't rely on it and that the applicant didn't rely on it or the staff didn't rely on it. MR. WEYER: It wasn't in any of the calculations anywhere. CHAIRMAN FRYER: But it was in your report. MR. WEYER: I understand that. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Isn't it a fair statement that a higher PPH supports the arguments for commercial developments and a lower PPH supports the arguments for a residential development? Would you agree to that? MR. WEYER: It depends on the situation. Why do we have so much commercial along the coast and along 41 and places like that where the persons per household is at 2? CHAIRMAN FRYER: You're saying it's at 2 along the coast? MR. WEYER: Sure. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Gulf Shore Boulevard? MR. WEYER: Sure. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Oh, come on. MR. WEYER: You have -- okay. I will get you the data, sir. I promise to show you that. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Well -- MR. WEYER: Anyway, we're getting off the -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: No, we're not. MR. WEYER: Okay. CHAIRMAN FRYER: The next thing I want to talk to you about in your report, you have a conclusionary paragraph, an in-conclusion type of paragraph, maybe around Page 20 or so, and then the next 80 or so pages are computations and the like, correct? MR. WEYER: That's correct. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah. And in your conclusion, you state that more commercially zoned land, quote, will not adversely affect the balance of commercial space to commercial demand, closed quote. Those were your words. MR. WEYER: That's correct. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Are you -- are you telling us that "will not adversely affect" is the same thing as "need"? MR. WEYER: I didn't say it's the same thing as need. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah. I just wanted to be sure that you're not saying that. It's not the same thing as need, is it? MR. WEYER: Correct. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. All right. And that may be all I have for you at this time. Thank you very much. I didn't mean to February 1, 2024 Page 81 of 102 be argumentative. MR. WEYER: And I didn't either. CHAIRMAN FRYER: I know you didn't. MR. WEYER: It's a professional discussion. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah. We've had this discussion before and may have it again, and I respect your expertise and your point of view, and thank you. MR. WEYER: Thank you, sir. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Mr. Mulhere, do you have some more? MR. MULHERE: No, but I assumed there might be more questions, which I'm happy to answer if there are. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Well, yeah. I think I'm going to -- MR. MULHERE: Try to answer, sorry. CHAIRMAN FRYER: I'm going to -- I'm going to reserve the rest of my questions until we hear from Ms. Eastley and other staff members -- MR. MULHERE: Okay. CHAIRMAN FRYER: -- because I think it will sharpen the issues and possibly even save time, God forbid. So no one is signaling at this point. Does any Planning Commission member want to be heard at this time? COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: No, sir. CHAIRMAN FRYER: No? All right. Then we'll turn it over to staff. MR. BOSI: Mike Bosi, Planning and Zoning director. As indicated by the applicant, staff is recommending approval. We did recognize that there was an abundance of square footage. We did look at the allocation ratio and took some merit from that because we do know that, specifically, the Randall Curve subdistrict, that 375,000 is not going to be able to develop to that area -- to that amount. We also recognized the public benefit that's being provided for. And the question of whether three single-family homes with driveways onto Immokalee Road in the location of a proposed flyover was an appropriate land use and thought that that was a conclusion that favored the transition to an alternative use than single-family. Based upon that, staff is recommending, from a Comp Planning standpoint -- but we are recommending that, for compatibility reasons, that the additional 50-foot buffer be augmented by an opaque fence or wall. We did specify a height. Traditionally, that would be six or eight feet based upon -- but we thought that would be something that we could discuss with the Planning Commission as well. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Is it staff's point of view that there is a need for this project -- for this GMPA? MR. BOSI: We believe there's justification. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Is there a need? MR. BOSI: Based upon the amount of gross square footage, the need would be questionable. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. Ms. Eastley? Go ahead, Vice Chair. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Staff recommendation, you talked about the opaque wall. Are you supportive of the position that Mr. Mulhere raised concerning -- he addressed they would do an enhanced buffer or a wall. So if he puts the wall up, it's just going to be the buffer, and it will be a natural buffer to take its own course and growing out an enhanced native vegetation? MR. BOSI: I would normally turn to Ms. Cook, but from staff's perspective, I think that removal of the exotics with an opaque fence and wall on the -- the property side -- the Estates residence side of the -- of that buffer would be more than adequate, but I could let Jaime correct February 1, 2024 Page 82 of 102 me. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Without the enhancements that was originally proffered? MR. BOSI: The enhancements, when you put up an opaque fence or wall, for me doesn't -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: It's a moot point. MR. BOSI: It's a moot point. But removal of the exotics is something we still would want. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Jaime, all yours. MS. COOK: Jaime Cook, director of Development Review. So the Golden Gate Master Plan for the Rural Estates requires a 75-foot buffer between residential and commercial development. The GMP request is to reduce that to 50 feet. Now, the exotics is almost a moot point because that's going to be required by code regardless of whether there's a wall there or not. If the wall were there, that provides the opacity that staff would be looking for in terms of what we typically look for with a preserve. So staff was supportive of the wall or an opaque fence from the sense that that provides the opacity that's needed to allow for that reduced buffer. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: And the wall would go all the way -- it would not require a wall between the applicant's property and the retention pond. That could remain a natural buffer? MS. COOK: That could remain open, and staff would probably recommend that for ease of access for even Road Maintenance to be able to get -- or South Florida Water Management District to be able to get along that canal. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. Thank you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Opacity might solve the visual problem, but it doesn't -- and don't go away yet, please, ma'am -- but it doesn't really do anything about potential noise, does it? A wall might. MS. COOK: No. The wall may do more for the noise. But staff wouldn't take a position either way as to whether it's a wall or a fence. CHAIRMAN FRYER: And why is that? MS. COOK: That's not what's within my purview, so -- I don't get into that. The -- we're focused more on the opacity part of it. So the wall or a, you know, vinyl or a wood-type fence that would meet the code requirements would provide that opacity that I'm looking for. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah. But common sense tells us -- you're very commonsensical, I know -- that with a wall you're going to get more attenuation of noise, correct? MS. COOK: Correct. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. Okay. That's all. May I have Ms. Eastley come up? MS. EASTLEY: Good afternoon. Kathy Eastley, Planner III with Comprehensive Planning. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. I was impressed with your staff report. My only critique of it would be that I think your recommendation fell a little bit short of the solid points you made leading up to it. We can talk about that in a moment. I just want to be sure that there has been no change. And you've heard it quoted both by the Vice Chairman, also by me, in the staff report that I assume you authored, based on the existing commercial square footage allowed by the FLUM, the commercial demand is met through the 2033 planning horizon. Agreed? MS. EASTLEY: That is agreed. However, if I might make one point. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Of course. MS. EASTLEY: You know, we just recently expanded our planning horizon to 2045, so we are looking at an extended period of time now. So even though we say that the commercial square footage is met today, and it may even February 1, 2024 Page 83 of 102 be met in 10 years, it may not be met in 20 years. And so from a growth management standpoint, we're looking at providing for that -- that amount of commercial square footage through the planning horizon. So there is some support for it. CHAIRMAN FRYER: But you're -- well, let me see if I understand what you're saying. Your statement goes through 2033, right? MS. EASTLEY: I believe that was correct. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah. And so now you're talking about 2045 because that horizon has been expanded, but you're not in a position to say whether it is or is not sufficient up to that time today in your testimony, are you? MS. EASTLEY: No, but I did notice that in the -- in Mr. Weyer's report, there was some documentation provided that in certain year periods of time that X amount of square footage of commercial would be necessary. And so even though we may be exceeding what is required today, that that would be absorbed in the future planning period. CHAIRMAN FRYER: May. MS. EASTLEY: Correct. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah, may. Okay. May, may not. And you also said that the staff -- that the applicant's presentation exceeds the U.S. department census which utilizes 2.4 persons per household. MS. EASTLEY: Correct. And I think that the -- I may be incorrect, but what I had assumed was that the persons per household was used on a per capita basis to determine the amount of commercial square footage to support future populations. CHAIRMAN FRYER: And what would your opinion be on that? MS. EASTLEY: If the higher persons per household were utilized, it might inflate that commercial square footage. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. And in your opinion, if you have one, is 2.9 PPH, is that justified? MS. EASTLEY: I think that we have seen -- and Mr. Weyer agrees that that's not justified. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Not justified. MS. EASTLEY: Not as a -- for use in projecting future need based on future population. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. And I think I just have one more question for you. In your -- in your point of view -- and I'm asking you to put on your needs analysis hat now. In your point of view, is there a need for this Growth Management Plan amendment; a need? MS. EASTLEY: So I think the best answer I can come up with there is that this needs analysis is not just a science, but it is also an art. And Mr. Weyer has explained that you can come up with supply. You can come up with demand. But there are factors that are going to occur that are going to affect that, and so that's where the art part comes in. Is there a need today for it? No. But is there a need for it in the future? Yes. And I do support that. CHAIRMAN FRYER: In the future, like 21st Century, something like that? MS. EASTLEY: Past 2033. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. There's all I have for you. MS. EASTLEY: Okay. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Anybody else have questions for Ms. Eastley? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: Anything else from staff? MR. BOSI: Nothing from staff, unless you have any questions. MR. SABO: I've got something. I want to say something real quick. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Mr. Sabo. MR. SABO: Good morning. Good morning. Good afternoon. Sorry. Pardon me. James Sabo, Comprehensive Planning manager. February 1, 2024 Page 84 of 102 Mr. Chairman, we -- to steal a phrase from Mr. Yovanovich, we reserve the right to get smarter. So as we developed our recommendation for this project and through the numbers that we went through 2.9, 2.4, we decided that it was a reasonable calculation, and we are, therefore, recommending approval. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Thank you. Anything else? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. So we now turn to members of the public, and, Ms. Padron, what do we have? MR. SABO: Mr. Chairman, I'm putting on my other hat. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. MR. SABO: Brian McMahon and Rae Ann Burton are the only two speakers. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Actually, before we go to the speakers, I have one more comment -- question for staff, possibly the County Attorney. With the potential for zoning this to commercial, what could the possible impacts be under the Live Local Act? MR. BOSI: Mike Bosi, zoning director. The conversion of this from Estates to commercial PUD would make it eligible for a Live Local request to be exercised. CHAIRMAN FRYER: So higher buildings, more density? MR. BOSI: It would be entitled to the highest density allowed within -- within the county and the highest approved -- that's what the statutes say, and the highest approved height within one mile of this area. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. And so if affordable housing were part of the mix -- I realize this is speculative, but we've engaged in a fair amount of speculation already on this. But if this property were rezoned commercial and then subsequently brought in on an affordable housing rezone, it wouldn't even come to the Planning Commission or the BCC, would it? MR. BOSI: No. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Thank you. And -- which I think is something worth thinking about. And I think that's all I have. Go ahead, sir. MR. MULHERE: Thank you. Is that not true of all of the other commercial that's in the immediate area right now in terms of qualifying surrounding lands for the Live Local? CHAIRMAN FRYER: Are you doing a rebuttal? MR. MULHERE: I'm asking the staff a question. I'm not entitled to do that? CHAIRMAN FRYER: No, you're entitled to do it, but just -- just the timing. MR. MULHERE: I'll wait. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah. You're going to have a full opportunity of rebuttal. MR. MULHERE: I'm sorry. CHAIRMAN FRYER: And -- if you don't mind, I'm trying to -- thank you very much. I'll try to help you remember if you don't remember. All right. Who do we have from the public? MR. SABO: All right. Mr. Chairman, two speakers, Brian McMahon and Rae Ann Burton. They can each take a podium. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. MR. McMAHON: How you doing? My name's Brian McMahon. I live on 22nd, which is a block or so off of this project. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. MR. McMAHON: I'm getting concerned, though. When I bought my house in 2000, zoning laws were designed to protect property owners, and now we're suddenly looking like we're going to start becoming Houston, Texas, where there is no zoning laws. And if he can do this, February 1, 2024 Page 85 of 102 why can't I build a Jiffy Lube two houses down from mine? This is not what we bought. This is not protecting the current residents. This isn't a small little doctor's office. This is a 125,000-square-foot building. This is the size of a Home Depot or a Lowe's on residential lots that are backing up to people's property. This isn't right. I mean, at least you addressed the noise, and I appreciate that because you're going to have trucks backing up, beeping, car stereos, car alarms, all this stuff. At least I appreciate you addressing the noise issue of it. But, you know, I understand now why the county got involved with it, but there's plenty of commercial land that this can be built on. You've got Big Cypress, you've Ave Maria, all kinds of place that this can be built. But one main point you've got to remember, and it's a state law, in Golden Gate Estates, it is perfectly legal to shoot a gun in your backyard. So you've got your 50-foot buffer, which is about from where you're sitting to that wall, and there's a guy on the other side of whatever you build running 30 rounds through an AR15, and it's perfectly legal. Now, I'm not saying he's going to shoot the people, but some people are going to get real nervous about that. Some tenants are going to get nervous; customers are going to get nervous. Something to think about, putting a building where people are shooting. Ain't a good idea. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. Next speaker is Ms. Burton. MS. BURTON: Hello. It's Rae Ann Burton again. I didn't really come for this one. I came for the other one, so I'm not really prepared, one. Two, Growth Management Plan written was to protect and keep the Estates rural and open spaces. Three, the growth plan is not a toy to be used for developers to play with and adjust so they can build what they want, disregarding the impact on those that live here. Four, heard today the area was dense, that's why the land is -- the reason it is, the land is being bought by realtors or developers, not the public, and they're building houses. I've seen the houses sit for over a year before even bought. Five, it won't increase jobs or benefit the residents. It benefits only the developers. Six, the area's already traffic congested and accident prone and a parking lot. If you try going down Immokalee over to Randall, forget it. Seven, it doesn't fit the unique rural area. Eight, it only built it there because it's cheaper than the already commercial areas. Why not build it next to Rivergrass in the new developments? Those are really dense over there. Nine, a reason why -- this is a reason why over 700 people signed petitions to try to incorporate the Estates to protect our quality of life, our unique environment of the rural area, and keep commercial out. Ten, 12 years ago, on 7/11, the corner of Oil Well and Immokalee was a panther crossing sign. It disappeared when development started. Eleven, hope I haven't wasted my time to come here today, that my voice is really heard, that this isn't already a done deal, or it hasn't been done just so the developers satisfy legal obligations. Twelve, please don't approve. Make developers adhere to the original Golden Gate growth plan. Keep us rural. Don't make us Miami. We have already increased in traffic congestion, accidents, even deaths, crimes, and panther deaths. Thirteen, please don't let developers bury us with their dense commercial developments. Fourteen, don't approve. Thank you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. And before we -- oh, any other registered speakers? February 1, 2024 Page 86 of 102 MR. SABO: We have no registered speakers online. That's it. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. Anyone in the room who hasn't registered nonetheless wishes to be heard in this matter, please raise your hand. (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: Seeing no hands raised, we'll close the public comment portion of this hearing. And before we go to rebuttal, I have another question or two for staff that I want to get in before rebuttal so that Mr. Mulhere has an opportunity to include it in his rebuttal if he wishes. We have heard a little bit about a swap agreement, and it's -- I read the materials, and it -- it is debatable whether the -- whether the swap agreement is of benefit to the county or not. But, fortunately, it's really above our pay grade. We don't need to evaluate the benefit to the county of the swap agreement because that's not the test. Benefit is not the test. The test is need. And I would just like to be sure that there's no misunderstanding here that the -- if the swap agreement may be of benefit to the county, let's say it is, but that doesn't satisfy the need to prove need, does it? MR. BOSI: That doesn't alter. The Board of County Commissioners has stated that if a Growth Management Plan is being prospered [sic], then there has to be an identified public benefit that's associated with it. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Along with a need. MR. BOSI: Along with a need. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah. Okay. That's a fair statement. And I realize that the BCC's already weighed in on this, and so that's a given; the agreement is there. And so we can take it for the sake of discussion that it is of benefit to the county. But to me that is not the equivalent of need and, to me, need is required. And, again, the Growth Management Plan is sort of like the constitution of this county; it's the most senior document we have, and it sets the legitimate expectations of the public as to what they can rely on or plan for with respect to what's going to happen to their property and to properties surrounding their property. And so I think we mustn't take it lightly when changes are requested. And I think over -- over a period of time, perhaps we're just as guilty about this as maybe staff, maybe the Board of County Commissioners. But there's been a relaxation of the requirement that there needs to be, I think, pretty strict proof of benefit and need, not benefit or need. And I think we have to look out for the interests of the residents and the folks in the rural estates who, you know, had a right to expect that without -- without meeting the letter of the legal requirements, which I think we've outlined, we shouldn't just be handing out Growth Management Plan amendments like they were Monopoly tokens. That's in my opinion. So that's all I have to say on that. And we've closed the public comment portion, and so now we can go to rebuttal. And don't forget you wanted to ask staff a question. MR. MULHERE: Yes, I appreciate that. Well, I was just going to point out -- I mean, the Live Local Act -- you know, there's an awful lot of areas where -- that are mixed use or commercial in nature. That applies to mixed use or commercial areas. So while I don't agree that by changing the designation to commercial, it may somewhat expand the area, it doesn't change it a whole lot because, as Mike said, highest density in the county. And is it a one-mile? So it's a one-mile circumference around the project, or is it -- is it the highest height or the highest density? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Height. MR. BOSI: The one-mile -- the one-mile radius around the project is to determine what is the highest approved height. MR. MULHERE: Height. MR. BOSI: And the other portion in terms of density that would -- the project would be February 1, 2024 Page 87 of 102 entitled to is the highest density allowed per the county. MR. MULHERE: And so these other PUDZs allow similar or higher than what we've requested. So I'm just saying, you know, that's already established. I do want to talk about the term "need." I mean, I think it's -- I don't know, maybe I'm stating the obvious here, but I think that term can be used to draw a very fine line. You know, one side there's no need. The other side there is need. What is the need? Is it for economic gain? No. So what is the actual criteria for a Comp Plan amendment? Which I talked about, you know, earlier. The Future Land Use Plan and plan amendments shall be based upon surveys, studies, and data regarding the area, including the amount of land required to accommodate anticipated growth. There's no question that there's going to be more commercial needed. The question is whether or not -- is the timing of that, which may or may not -- I mean, staff testified to the same thing that we did. There will be more commercial needed. It's just a question of timing. Ten years is not a long time from right now in this type of consideration. The character of the undeveloped land. I believe I put adequate testimony on there that showed you what's going to happen in this area with a grade-separated intersection and other massive improvements, adjacency to commercial. Even staff testified that it's probably not a good location for three single-family lots adjacent to this six-lane roadway. Compatibility, staff finds that we're compatible. We believe we are, especially with the design standards that we put into the PUD. And then, finally, the discouragement of urban sprawl. I don't know that this discourages urban sprawl, but it certainly helps to correct the negative impacts from a huge -- at one point the world's largest subdivision with one use, low density single-family. This is appropriate. Thank you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. Any questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. All right. So we come to the time where it's up to us to deliberate and to vote. Vice Chair. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yeah. I'll make a comment. I have to concur with Mr. Mulhere on the compatibility. I think the county made a decision many years ago when they made this a six-lane divided highway. I just do not look at this -- these three sites as being what I would call suitable for a single-family home. If this isn't built, something else will be there eventually whatever that may be. I just -- to say these are part of the rural character of Golden Gate, three lots fronting a six-lane divided highway soon to be within a mile of a grade-separated overpass is not, to me, and can -- to be compatible with the statement of this is a rural community. So I just don't even anticipate that there would -- anybody would ever build a home on these lots. So I tend to support the petition. I tend to -- I would make a recommendation, but right now I'll just say that I'll support the petition. I believe that the -- what was offered by the petitioner to put up the wall on the three lots, not the lot that is adjacent to the detention area, but put up a wall, and then with standard vegetation, a 50-foot buffer, which is proposed. So I could make the motion, or I'll wait to hear what others have to say. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Your call. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: I have a -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Commissioner Sparrazza. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Thank you. Question, I guess hypothetically for staff. When you look across the street to the north of Immokalee, you have, obviously, the canal, which makes it almost impossible to come off of Immokalee and turn into any of the vacant land. They have to come in off of 25th Avenue Northeast, right? February 1, 2024 Page 88 of 102 MR. BOSI: (Nods head.) COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Hypothetically, could landowners do that, get together just north of 24th Avenue Northeast and, for example, maybe put up flag lots with a minor road between the lots that are adjacent to Immokalee and the lots that are adjacent to 24th Avenue Northeast and make, like, a service road behind the lots that -- I know I'm getting in the weeds -- the lots that are on 24th and that butt up against to Immokalee? My question would be: Is there a way to turn this and various other property, for example, between -- still on 24th Avenue Northeast -- let's see, what is this? Between Wilson and -- I guess that's it. Wilson, because we have the canal at the other end -- to make those lots accessible for homeowners not having to have access off of Immokalee? MR. BOSI: It's possible. It would be highly unprobable. That access road at the back of their parcels, the parcels that front on Immokalee Road, would be marrying up to the very middle of the two other parcels that are -- abut Wilson Road. That configuration does not suggest that that is something that's highly probable. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Okay. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Anything else? COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: After looking at this and recognizing -- and I'm just on maps on my laptop here -- and zooming out, you don't see much commercial in this area. At first the plan might be attractive, but it's the first parcel of area that's being used as commercial outside of 4th Street, Randall, and the Immokalee curve. And once you start that migration of commercial outside of that corridor, more than likely it's only going to continue, while the corridor now that we're discussing here just before the curve is, I'll take a guess here, 98 percent rural homes. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yeah. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: So to me, it's difficult to be the first one to make a decision to increase the commercial area outside of where there seems to be possibilities for other commercial areas. So I haven't come up with a conclusion or made up my mind, but I was just trying to think, hypothetically, if somebody wanted to use that property that's in question now from the petitioner for personal residences, how could they get there? Could they do something off of Wilson? Could they do something with a flag lot off of 24th Avenue Northeast? CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Okay. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Anyone else want to be heard? I'm going to make a statement. Go ahead, though. COMMISSIONER SHEA: I might as well. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Go ahead, Mr. Shea. COMMISSIONER SHEA: It's a tough one. I totally agree with everything Joe said, that in the long run it will probably be better, but I also agree with the fact that homeowners have the right to expect that we're going to stick with the Growth Management Plan unless there's an overriding benefit to the community. I'm still torn which way to go, to be quite honest with you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. I'm going to say some things, really, in the nature of a summary, because I believe I've raised all the issues that I have concern about, save possibly for one that I'll mention in a moment. We've talked about the commercial square footage and the demand at this time and going through 2033. And I realize we've extended the planning horizon to 2045, but the farther out you go, the more speculative it is. And the fact that the staff report said based on the existing commercial square footage allowed by the FLUM, the commercial demand is met through the 2033 planning horizon, that fact, I believe, remains. And the possibility of some of the square footage that is currently available commercially, zoned commercially, or could be is speculative, and I don't think that it is within our purview to follow the invitation of the economic analysts who believe that we should assume a certain February 1, 2024 Page 89 of 102 percentage of what is now commercially available will be rezoned to something else and thereby create more commercial need. I think that's extremely -- well, it's rank speculation. Also, on the demand side, I -- thank you for clarifying in your testimony that you're not relying on the 2.9 persons per household but, nonetheless, that number was in there, and, you know, you have to assume that it's in there for a reason. And the fact that again and again we see lowball numbers coming in, PPH for residential deals, and high numbers coming in for commercial deals, PPH should be a scientific calculation. It doesn't mean there can't be adjustments to it, but you have to start with, like, a number like 2.4 and then apply your exceptions, like vacancies and whatever else. So I fault the economic analysis for even including that information. And I've talked about the gradual creep of where it seems like Growth Management Plan amendments have gone from something that should be rare exceptions to something that -- something that have really become the rule, and that is definitely not fair to the residents. I think they have expectations that are reasonable, and they're not inviolate, but it's -- to me, at least, it's a high standard before we amend the Growth Management Plan. And I think holding applicants to meeting the standards of the statute and the Golden Gate Area Master Plan and the other ordinances, I think we owe them that. The needs analysis, Mr. Bosi testified there is no need. I think Mr. Mulhere testified that needs analysis is a part -- an essential part of this process. The consultant, the most -- and I did an electronic word search on "need." I might have missed something, but I don't think I did. And the most the consultant was able to say was that the commercial zoning will not adversely affect the balance. And not adversely affecting and create -- and fulfilling a need are really two very different things. Fourth, I've heard it argued that the swap agreement provides a benefit to the county. And for the sake of discussion, I'll concede the point that Mr. Bosi made that both a benefit and a need are desirable, but a need, I think, has to be shown under the subsection of Chapter 163 that I cited. And so the benefit is fine, but it doesn't satisfy the requirement of a need. And if benefit alone were enough -- this is maybe, let's say, a Latin expression, reductio ad absurdum. But if all we needed was a benefit to the county, filing your application and attaching a million-dollar check payable to the amount of county would be enough because that's a significant benefit, but it disregards, in this case, the reasonable expectations of the people in the Rural Estates. Okay. So finally, there have been two recent developments that have made me look more carefully at GMP amendments that from my analysis make this a different process than it was six months or a year ago. And first was the Live Local Act. And Live Local, a clever alliteration, but it's a misrepresentation of what it does. What it really does is it regulates remotely, another alliteration. Tallahassee wants to make the rules for Collier County and that, to me, is an anathema. I don't want to see that, but it's happening by degrees -- increasingly frightening degrees. But it ties our hands. And as was pointed out, if there were a subsequent rezoning -- if this becomes commercial, it becomes fully eligible for administrative approval that won't even come to the Planning Commission, won't even come to the Board of County Commissioners, and it will increase both height and density, which I think is something that we do not want to lose ahold of. And, finally, another recent development -- and this is just my impression. People are free to differ. But I watched closely the meeting of the Board of County Commissioners, and although the moratorium did not pass, there was considerable discussion, not only among members of the public, but also by the Board of County Commissioner members themselves expressing what I interpret to be some angst over what has been happening along Immokalee and along Vanderbilt and, perhaps, for reasons of not wanting to invite litigation, which a moratorium might well do, or, perhaps, also maybe even more importantly for reasons that a moratorium really doesn't solve the problem. The problem is still there; it just gets postponed. February 1, 2024 Page 90 of 102 So the idea of a moratorium was rejected. But the message that I took away from our bosses, the county commissioners, was that they maybe want us to take a little closer look at these Growth Management Plan amendments particularly along Immokalee and Vanderbilt Beach. Do it on a case-by-case basis, but be sure that the applicable laws and ordinances are strictly interpreted and that their meaning is applied to each case individually. And for those reasons, I am going to be voting against this proposal. Commissioner Shea. COMMISSIONER SHEA: I'm going to yield to Joe. The only thing I wanted to add is I'm more -- I think the traffic egress, you know, in and out, right turn -- right turn in, right turn out to me, on a commercial side -- and I may be way out of whack -- presents a much more significant traffic problem with three individual lots, resident lots, and that also adds to the consideration in my mind. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Vice Chair. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yeah. I'm going to make a recommendation for approval of both the GMPA and the CP -- accompanying CPUD. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Is there a second? I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: And the reason -- again, I'm going to reiterate, the decision was made by this county and the Board of County Commissioners long ago in regards to the developing of this corridor. I've heard for years that we need commercial to prevent traffic having to come west for commercial services when, in fact, the issue is that folks along these -- this corridor, there's always been an express need for commercial. I know there's areas along the curve, but it seems to be, from what I'm hearing -- and one of the conversations I had with Mr. Mulhere and what I heard from staff, some of these commercial areas are now being converted to residential just because it seems to be either highly -- or more desirable or more profitable. But the fact is, it's a six-lane divided highway. The decision was made years ago that this was going to be a major corridor. And I just don't see this area as being suitable for single-family homes and, therefore, I'm making a recommendation of approval for both -- both petitions, both the GMPA and the PUD with the stipulation that the wall would be constructed on the three lots that back up to the residential properties, and that the 50-foot buffer will be exactly that, a 50-foot natural buffer, not an enhanced buffer. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Do you have a footage? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Fifty-foot was what they were asking for. CHAIRMAN FRYER: No, height of the wall. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: No, I don't. I don't know -- I mean, did staff come up with a recommendation? Six-foot, eight-foot wall? What do you -- MR. BOSI: Six-foot -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Six-foot wall is typical, isn't it, or is it an eight-foot wall? MR. BOSI: Six-foot typical when you have a fence. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Right, a six-foot. MR. BOSI: A wall would be eight-foot. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Eight-foot wall? MR. BOSI: I mean, the code section says up to eight feet, so it gives a lot of discretion within that buffer. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. But it could be a wall-on-a-berm type of construction as well? MR. BOSI: Yes. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Mr. Mulhere, do you have a proposal? MR. MULHERE: Well, I mean, we've used in the past is wall and berm combination up to -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: A wall and berm combination. February 1, 2024 Page 91 of 102 MR. MULHERE: Wall and berm comb- -- up to eight feet. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Up to eight feet. Okay. That's in my recommendation. MR. MULHERE: And there's -- MR. BOSI: Is there flexibility within an opaque fence or wall, or did you just -- or is it just -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: No. It will be an -- it will be an opaque -- it will be a wall for sound purposes. MR. MULHERE: So that can -- but that can still be a prefab concrete wall? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yes, yes, yes, yes. CHAIRMAN FRYER: For a total eight feet, including the berm that -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Eight feet including the berm. CHAIRMAN FRYER: That it sits atop. MR. MULHERE: I did want to point out there's actually four lots if -- I'm just trying to see here. There's -- let's see. Excuse me. One, two, three, four -- excuse me, one, two, three, four lots, not including the county's. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yeah. I was saying your three lots, not -- MR. MULHERE: Oh, I'm sorry. I misunderstood. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: The rear of your three lots that front the four lots, yes, thank you, or that -- MR. MULHERE: But excluding the county's. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Excluding the county lot, yes. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. There's a motion. Is there a second? COMMISSIONER KLUCIK: I'll second. CHAIRMAN FRYER: It's been seconded -- moved and seconded. Any further discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: If not, all those in favor, please say aye. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Aye. COMMISSIONER KLUCIK: (No verbal response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: Opposed? COMMISSIONER SHEA: Aye. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Aye. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Aye. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: What did Robb vote? I didn't hear him. COMMISSIONER KLUCIK: I vote yay. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. So it's 3-2. CHAIRMAN FRYER: 3-2 which way? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Three -- COMMISSIONER SHEA: It failed. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Two for, three against. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. All right. MR. MULHERE: Denial. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you very much. All right. Thank you, applicant. Thank you, staff. Thank you, members of the public and Planning Commission. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Can I -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: Certainly. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: -- figure out what we're going to do? CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah. We're going to take a break right now. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: I may have to get out of here by 4 o'clock, so -- MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Who were the votes again? February 1, 2024 Page 92 of 102 COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: I may come back, but I have to go to a business and pick up my car. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Well, we're going to take a -- they call it a court reporter break, but I need it just as much, and we'll take a 10-minute break to -- 10 and 4 -- to 3:54 p.m. In recess. (A brief recess was had from 3:44 p.m. to 3:54 p.m.) MR. BOSI: Chair, you have a live mic. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you, Mr. Bosi. The purpose of our coming back into session right now is to announce the absence of a physical quorum at the dais sufficient for us to continue. Vice Chairman Schmitt had a very important errand that he had to run to a location that is very close and believes he'll be back by 4:10, 4:15, and so we're going to continue in recess until he returns because there's really nothing else we could do other than adjourn. So we continue in recess until he returns. (A brief recess was had from 3:54 p.m. to 4:14 p.m.) MR. BOSI: Chair, you have a live mic and a quorum. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you, on both counts, Mr. Bosi. ***I'm going to announce the next and final matter. They are companions. They are PL20220000946, the Home Depot Southeast Naples Commercial District Small-Scale Growth Management Plan amendment, and PL20220000543, the Home Depot Southeast Naples CPUDZ. All persons wishing to testify in this matter, please rise to be sworn in by the court reporter. THE COURT REPORTER: Do you swear or affirm the testimony you will give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? (The speakers were duly sworn and indicated in the affirmative.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. Ex parte disclosures, starting with Ms. Lockhart. MS. LOCKHART: Staff materials only. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Staff materials only. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. Matters of public record, meetings with staff, and a conversation with the applicant's agent. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Staff materials only. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Staff materials and a brief conversation with Mr. Yovanovich. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. Commissioner Klucik. COMMISSIONER KLUCIK: Yes, just meeting with staff and also that was the same for the prior matters. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Oh, okay. Thank you very much. Yeah, that's right. We had lost you. COMMISSIONER KLUCIK: Yeah, I have that on the record. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Do you want to explain, Rich, while you -- when you left, we failed to vote for the EAC on your previous petition, and we did vote and passed unanimously for the EAC. CHAIRMAN FRYER: EAC part, yeah. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: We had to -- MR. YOVANOVICH: I'll take that. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: We had to complete the record. MR. YOVANOVICH: I'll take that. I appreciate that. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you, Vice Chair, for catching that. February 1, 2024 Page 93 of 102 You may proceed, Mr. Yovanovich. MR. YOVANOVICH: Thank you. Good afternoon. For the record, Rich Yovanovich on behalf of the applicant. With me, obviously, I have Trey Conway. He's the Home Depot director of real estate. Wayne Arnold's our planner. Hamilton Williams is the architecture on the project. David Dratnol is the traffic consultant. Bethany Brosious, she's still here, is our ecologist. And Justin Napolitano is our engineer. I'm going to just do a real quick overview. In speaking with the planning commissioners, there was one specific e-mail that -- someone who attended the public neighborhood information meeting and subsequently submitted an e-mail regarding how the site will operate, and I'm going to have Hamilton come up and address that. But just briefly, brief overview, the parcel's 13.77 acres. It's in the urban area in the Growth Management Plan. It's currently zoned C-3. It's what is considered consistent by policy because it was commercially developed property at the time the Growth Management Plan was approved. Essentially, what we're doing is we're adding a Home Depot store to the already allowed uses on the property, which is C-3, and Home Depot did a detailed analysis of this area of Collier County, if you've seen that review as to why they want to locate on this site. We took, you know, good care in looking at arranging the site for a couple reasons. One was we wanted to be consistent with what East Naples wanted. They didn't want the sea of parking out front. They prefer landscaping and a little bit of parking out front. So the store has been placed on this site respecting those goals of the East Naples area. And the store -- and Hamilton will take you through this -- has been specifically designed to accommodate the layout of the parking and how it will work. I don't know the easiest way to do this, but I'm going to ask Hamilton to come up. And I guess the best thing -- and I wish I could leave this up at the same time as I put the comments from Mr. Mann on the visualizer. But I think I'm going to have to do that so you can see it in the context of the questions. CHAIRMAN FRYER: You can switch back and forth if you need to. MR. WILLIAMS: Okay. Hi. Good evening, Mr. Chairman and Commission. Hamilton Williams with GreenbergFarrow Architecture. And as Rich mentioned -- will I be able to rotate between the visualizer and the site plan? CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah. MR. WILLIAMS: Right here. Oh, right here. We'll start with the site plan just to take one second to orient everybody to the current site plan as I go forward and respond to some of the interested party questions that were sent over to staff. CHAIRMAN FRYER: And while -- I just want to make the point that for those who are watching this on TV, the material, Mr. Mann's e-mail and then his annotation of the site plan, appear in the agenda packet, Pages 1779 through 1780. Sorry. Go ahead, sir. MR. WILLIAMS: That's correct. Thank you. And just as a point to -- a lot of these items were discussed at the neighborhood meeting. There was some discussion back and forth. And we honestly went back to the design team, to the engineering team, and Home Depot's design team, took some of the feedback from the neighborhood meeting and made some adjustments to the site plan that I'll walk through here. There were two primary items in Mr. Mann's e-mails. There were three or four different comments, but they focused on access off of Tamiami Trail being one, and then circulation throughout the property and the potential for some congestion, as well as the parking field location from what you consider as a standard typical prototype Home Depot Site Development Plan. So on this site, there are three access points that were from Tamiami Trail. There's one on the left side that exists today with a cross-access easement with the cross-access drive that will be February 1, 2024 Page 94 of 102 put in place, there's a driveway in the center, and then there's a driveway on the far east side of the plan that aligns with the current left-hand turn lane that's in the median going northbound. And a lot of the discussion at the neighborhood meeting and comments in Mr. Mann's e-mail regarding the access entry drive here at the, quote, front of the store and the limited area for driveway and circulation that accompanied that. In the original site plan that was presented, this was a different layout. There was parking stalls across the entire front of the store. Following that meeting, we did take a look at this and remove the parking stalls. As you can see, the large green area -- my mouse is gone -- large landscape green area right here at the front of the store which allows this throat depth to be extended, in essence. So when people enter to the site, instead of facing cars backing up at them as they drive in, now they can turn left or right, stacking them further, and then continue into the site as they would wish, to the west or to the east. The other is operations. And any Home Depot store you've been to in the past, you know, the front entrance and exit is right in the middle of the store. There's a lumber canopy on the side with another entrance for the professional contractors that they typically use. In response to the site layout, maintaining the East Naples overlay intent, Home Depot looked at reorganizing their main entry for the professional contractors and putting it on the side of the building rather than the front. So that eliminated any -- any customer access or ingress/egress to the building from this area as well. All of that will occur on the side of the building. In fact, Home Depot re -- did a full re-layout of the interior of their building to accommodate this side entry, which effectively turns this into their front field for the professional contractors and customers that wish to come to the lumber and building material side of the building. And the parking on the side, the garden center actually facilitates that as well. A majority of the customers either pick which side of the store they would like to go to when they go to shop at Home Depot. There's not a lot of cross-traffic between the two sides. Customers that go to the garden center side have ample parking area and access in and out of the building as well. There was a truck circulation question as well. We have modeled full semi-truck delivery trucks through this property. I actually made quite a few revisions to accommodate those with island radiuses. The circulation is fine. In fact, Home Depot wants good, efficient operations as well on their property. So they ensured that we looked at that on their end as well. And this site plan facilitates truck ingress and egress from northbound on Tamiami or southbound on Tamiami. So it should work fine for the delivery trucks. I'll switch back to the visualizer just to see if there are any -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Before you go again -- MR. WILLIAMS: Yes. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Go back. You said the contractor entrance. That is also the entrance for the main entrance for the store? MR. WILLIAMS: There is still a traditional main entrance here. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yes. MR. WILLIAMS: Correct, but the secondary entrance for the contractors, which acts like a full second entrance point for customers, is on the side underneath this lumber canopy. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. I'm going to reserve questions. I'll wait for your -- finish what you're stating, because I'm going to have some more questions. MR. WILLIAMS: And just as a reminder, there is a full entry and point of sale at the garden center as well. So that facilitates a lot of customer traffic in and out at the garden center itself. I just was going to switch back to the visualizer to see if there were any specific comments that were in Mr. Mann's -- let's go to the visualizer, not the microphone -- in Mr. Mann's e-mail and layout here. I think we accommodated the majority of those. In fact, some of those -- some of February 1, 2024 Page 95 of 102 the information was good for us to take back and redesign portions of the site plan with. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Just to make sure, both the professional and the garden area has checkout there, too. So you can go in one door and go out the same door? MR. WILLIAMS: That is correct. COMMISSIONER SHEA: I figured that, but I thought I'd ask. MR. WILLIAMS: Yes. In fact, they reoriented the point of sale for the lumber side to work better with that side-entry point. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Commissioner Sparrazza. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Quick question. Is it a requirement to have all three of those access points off of 41, or is it something you would like to do? I say that because the way the majority of the parking is set up, we'll call it on the east -- I guess the north and the south end of the property -- if you eliminated the middle access point, you have all the traffic coming into the two larger parking areas and no problems with cars that are parked up along 41 and people backing up because they've just accessed the property. I might be out of term here with what I'm asking. But if you removed that, we'll call it No. 2 access point, you still have 1 and 3. Is that something anyone would consider? Is there not enough egress for all the cars that are needed? Just curious. MR. WILLIAMS: No. That's a great point and something we've considered and looked at as we've developed the site plan for this in conjunction with working with FDOT on their spacing and driveway requirements. Two points I'd like to add. One is that, is we would -- originally would have preferred that driveway to line up with that left parking field; however, with this existing drive cut, there's not enough distance to put in proper deceleration lanes, and the spacing requirements between the access points per FDOT requirements would not be met. So that's as close to -- far to the west as we could push that drive, that center driveway. The concern with eliminating this, from a traffic perspective, too -- and we do have Trebilcock's representative David here as well if we need to talk further detail. You know, using this as, you know, 50 percent, we'll just say, of the traffic generation, keep in mind this is a commercial lot here. And I do believe there's an application in for this property as well for development of half of that with what I consider a fairly heavy use. I think bringing in all of Home Depot's traffic into another commercial property just to cut through their property would create a lot more congestion than what we see with this center driveway here. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Okay. Thank you. MR. WILLIAMS: If that makes sense. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Yes. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. Any more questions for Mr. Williams? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: I do. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Vice Chairman. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Would you go to -- or can the staff go to Page 1476, 1, 4, 7, 6. That's a -- I think that was a picture that was used in the neighborhood information meeting, and that gives a good perspective view. Because my concern is in the front. And I'm not talking LDC. I'm talking Joe Tent Peg human nature. MR. WILLIAMS: Correct. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: I'm going to drive there. There's no parking spaces in front. I see this nice long strip with the landscaping. I'm going to just park my car there to run in -- and that's it. MR. WILLIAMS: There you go. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: And that's kind of -- it's a better view -- more pictorial view of your site plan. So I'm looking at this and I'm saying, okay, have you accounted for fire access, fire lane? And what's going to prohibit where that -- you have that nice young gentleman February 1, 2024 Page 96 of 102 or lady, whoever that may be, on the sidewalk there. They're going to park their car right there, get out, and go into the store. Are you going to call the police every day? I mean, this -- this has the potential for disaster out in front of the store from a traffic management standpoint. Because human nature, I want to park in front of the store. And I even can say that from Lowe's. I know on either side of the store -- especially on the east side of the store, very few people park on that side of the store, which surprises me. Everybody, of course, wants to park in the front and cut across and walk in. Is this something you guys have looked at, human nature on customers coming and going to the store? There's only very -- there's very few parking right next to the door. And, again, I see that long strip of landscaping that has the potential to be quite a bottleneck. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Is it true that there would be some "no parking" signs there? Because there are none in the image. MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, we can. This was more for a visual of the aesthetics of the building rather than an outline of the circulation. So, yes, we definitely can add some traffic management signs. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: I also believe it would have to be crosshatched as a fire lane. MR. YOVANOVICH: Mr. Schmitt, those are all Site Development Plan issues. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: I realize that. I know. I realize it's a site-development issue. MR. YOVANOVICH: So I assure you, when we go through the Site Development Plan review, should we get that far, every one of these issues is going to be looked at. Home Depot spent a lot of time analyzing this site before they decided to buy the property to make sure it would function. They're in the convenience business, too. So they're -- they've looked at this, and Hamilton and the engineer will address every one of those issues when we get to the Site Development Plan. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yeah. The picture, it shows here as well that rather pretty significant depth off of 41. I mean, that's as designed and that's in consideration of what the public wanted. I mean, you are giving up a lot of space there, it appears. MR. WILLIAMS: You're talking about the throat depth of the -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yeah, the throat depth of the -- MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, this is the throat depth, and then we extended it around on each side as well to make -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Okay. Let's go back to the site plan again, the overall site plan. MR. WILLIAMS: Of course. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Thank you. Again, I -- it's not part of the rezoning. I'm just saying, I have -- what Mr. Yovanovich stated, I trust that Home Depot has looked at this just as somebody going into the store and knowing if a customer turns right or left and what aisle they walk by and what they see. I mean, I know that's all studied in detail. This breaks from that norm a little bit, and I'm just concerned that the Home Depot has to be prepared. Because this is -- it's a tight fit. I'll be honest, it's a tight fit, and Home Depot has to be prepared to deal with making sure that that traffic flows in and out of this site smoothly, and that's right in front of that right turn -- right turn out. Okay. MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. Any other questions for Mr. Williams? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: Mr. Yovanovich. MR. YOVANOVICH: Recognizing that there's still people here from the public who've February 1, 2024 Page 97 of 102 been here all day, and you've been here all day, obviously your staff's recommending approval of both petitions. Unless you have specific questions, we're just going to do -- if it's okay with you-all to do a brief overview of the petition and then opening it up to any questions you may have or the public -- we'll respond to any comments from the public. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: I do have another question, though. The interconnect with the property, as I'm looking at, on the left, that's already been coordinated? MR. YOVANOVICH: Yeah. We have -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Is that a proposal or it's actually coordinated? MR. YOVANOVICH: We have an access easement. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: You do? MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Because I know -- I think I talked to Mulhere, and I asked -- I mean Bob. I think somebody's coming in with a petition. Was that Mulhere's? MR. YOVANOVICH: Mr. Mulhere is coming in over on this piece right here. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yeah, I thought he told me that. Yeah. Okay. CHAIRMAN FRYER: So if you feel the need of doing an overview, brevity would be preferred. If you don't -- MR. YOVANOVICH: No, I'm fine, unless you want more detail. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Let me go back to -- MR. YOVANOVICH: I'm sure you all have read everything, so... COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Let me go back to the plan that was submitted by the public. All those issues have been addressed is what you're saying? MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Anything further for the applicant? COMMISSIONER SHEA: No. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. Thank you. We'll now turn to the staff for its report. MR. BOSI: Mike Bosi, zoning director. As the applicant had indicated, on both petitions staff is recommending approval. We've reviewed it against the -- or the accepted East Naples Development Plan and GMP and the LDC, and we are recommending approval. CHAIRMAN FRYER: And in the staff report it said there's no EAC approval required. MR. BOSI: None required. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. Thank you. All right. Any questions or comments for staff? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: If not, we will see if we have public comment. MR. SABO: Mr. Chair, we do. We have one public speaker, Rod Hansen, please. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Mr. Hansen. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Either podium, sir. Or lectern, as it really is called. MR. SABO: Either podium. MR. HANSEN: Good afternoon. My name is Rod Hansen. I own the lot, or my family trust does, on the corner of Habitat and U.S. 41. So, basically, I'm on the other side of their natural preserve. That conceptual -- can we get that conceptual back up on the screen? So the left-hand side, I guess, it's the northwest, you say you have an agreement for access there. I don't see it connected, but you've got an agreement. Correct me if I'm wrong if you guys haven't just changed that empty lot to a C-4 car wash. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: No. MR. HANSEN: It's not approved? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: I don't know if it's -- you have to ask staff. We February 1, 2024 Page 98 of 102 didn't -- we didn't -- we didn't rezone it. MR. YOVANOVICH: I believe that's Mr. Mulhere's petition that's -- (Simultaneous crosstalk.) COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: It's a petition coming in. MR. HANSEN: Is going to be a car wash? CHAIRMAN FRYER: We don't know. MR. HANSEN: Okay. So all the traffic is moving to the east. Everything's moving east one way. Habitat is a dead-end road. Collier County owns the land between Habitat and Barefoot Williams Road, so -- and if you want to know why you don't have grass and six to 12 inches of dirt on Habitat intersection, is it one dangerous intersection. I lose white corpuscles getting onto that road. It's hard to judge the traffic. This is what happens. I go by this lot to and from work twice a day. A minute before I got there, this lady on the right-hand lane, car pulls out of Habitat, she pulls into Habitat at 50 miles an hour, takes six to 12 inches of dirt off your swale, and her engine block is up in the bushes. Do you want pictures of what your intersection looks like? Does it matter? CHAIRMAN FRYER: No, we're fine. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: And your point is what, though? I don't understand, because this -- Habitat is not part of the petition. Are you talking about traffic? MR. HANSEN: Well, kind of -- I'm here for the -- I just want to be on the record for the SDP if they're going to hear my words, right? CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yep. MR. HANSEN: Okay. Habitat's a dead-end road. And I have no problem with the Home Depot building. I don't have a problem with it. I have a problem with all that traffic. What is that -- how many -- who's the traffic guy? Is it 500, 1,000, 2,000 cars a day? How many cars is it? CHAIRMAN FRYER: You mean without regard to this application? MR. HANSEN: Well -- well, I'm just asking how much traffic is going to be going east on U.S. 41. CHAIRMAN FRYER: We'll find out. We'll get the -- MR. HANSEN: Okay. You'll get to that. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah, we'll get to that. MR. HANSEN: Oh, I'm not allowed to ask them questions? CHAIRMAN FRYER: No. MR. HANSEN: Sorry about that. CHAIRMAN FRYER: That's all right. COMMISSIONER SHEA: We can ask them for you. MR. HANSEN: All right. All right. Yeah. That's all I've got to say. All I can say is my property will be worthless. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: And your property, for the record, is right at the corner of Habitat and 41? MR. HANSEN: Yeah, right on that -- right on the corner of Habitat and 41. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: On the east side of that corner? MR. HANSEN: No, no. The east side -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: That's -- okay, that side. MR. HANSEN: That's seven-and-a-half acres. What they're doing there is they're putting in -- they're not happy with $14 million for the property, so what they're going to do is you guys will increase their density if they put residential over their commercial, so that's what they're looking to do. A lot of stuff going on at Habitat. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. Thank you very much, sir. Does anybody have any questions of the witness? February 1, 2024 Page 99 of 102 (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. If not, any further speakers? MR. SABO: No further speakers. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Anyone in the room who hasn't registered but wishes to speak, raise your hand, please. (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: Seeing none, we will close the public comment portion of this hearing and turn to Mr. Yovanovich for a rebuttal. MR. YOVANOVICH: I don't -- I'm not really sure I understood the question about traffic. I'm assuming he's asking what our p.m. peak-hour trip is, and it is 241. CHAIRMAN FRYER: I think he -- it sounded like -- MR. YOVANOVICH: It may be Mr. Sawyer needs to tell him how much traffic is on U.S. 41. CHAIRMAN FRYER: I think he wants to know per day. MR. YOVANOVICH: The total per day? CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah. MR. YOVANOVICH: The net external is 3,228. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. Thank you. Go ahead. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: So I'm coming from the east, Rich, and I'm going to want to go to Home Depot -- I can't remember. Is it -- at Barefoot, is that a signal -- signalized turn? Can I make a U-turn there? MR. YOVANOVICH: Coming from the east is -- this thing is -- you're coming this way? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yeah, I'm coming up. MR. YOVANOVICH: You're going to come right here. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Oh, I'm going to have a left turn. I'm sorry. I did not see that, okay. So you've got an opening for a left turn there. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: There is a traffic light at Barefoot and across from the park also. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: There is, yeah. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: So, again, I'm coming in -- and I'm on the garden side. I'm just thinking, because this is in competition with Lowe's, so you're back and forth. The Lowe's is right down the street. MR. YOVANOVICH: And just like -- just like it is at Naples Park. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Naples -- MR. YOVANOVICH: Whatever that road is, Naples Boulevard. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Naples Boulevard. MR. YOVANOVICH: If you can't find what you want at Home Depot, which you will, you might go to Lowe's. Who knows? CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. Anything further, sir? MR. YOVANOVICH: No. I think that was the question the public had. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah, I think you're right. So it falls to us to deliberate and vote. Who would like to start? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: I defer. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Go ahead, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Mr. Yovanovich, did you say it was roughly 3200 cars per day in and out? MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes. COMMISSIONER SHEA: No, that's -- CHAIRMAN FRYER: In the -- on the segment. COMMISSIONER SHEA: That's on the street, right? February 1, 2024 Page 100 of 102 CHAIRMAN FRYER: Probably on the segment. COMMISSIONER SHEA: I think it's on the street. MR. YOVANOVICH: That is us throughout the day. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: That's 3200 cars a day come in and out of we'll call it the two access points, possibly three. MR. YOVANOVICH: No, it's 1,600. There's in and out, which would be -- COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Okay. I understand. So 1600 times the vehicles coming in and exiting. MR. YOVANOVICH: Throughout the day. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Throughout the day. MR. YOVANOVICH: And the peak hour, which is what we measure, is 241, if my memory's correct. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: All right. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Anything else? MR. YOVANOVICH: Keep in mind, I'm already zoned C-3, so I'm sure I could generate that much traffic with the existing C-3 uses if we wanted to. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Yeah, and that -- you just reminded me. I'm going to ask another question, so I'll push my button. C-3. But could you build -- I don't know. Can you build a Home Depot under C-3 or no? It would have to be C-4. MR. YOVANOVICH: If I could, I wouldn't be sitting here. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: You wouldn't be sitting there. But you could build a C-3. You could build a big box store. MR. YOVANOVICH: A lot of stuff's in C-3. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: In C-3. CHAIRMAN FRYER: But not a big box. That's C-4, isn't it? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: No. It depends on the use. MR. BOSI: The hardware store had specific square-foot limitations, and the C-2 and C-3 zoning district, the -- I could -- I'll look up what the exact square footage, but they need C-4 to be able build to the size of the square footage that they're asking for. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: But on these lots, they could build multiple stores, could they not? MR. YOVANOVICH: Yeah. Look, there's no question that we could generate far more traffic with individual users on this property. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Correct. I would think so. CHAIRMAN FRYER: All right. Any other questions or comments from the Planning Commission? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Just the -- for clarification, all of the improvements are developer responsibilities. Left-in, right-in, right-out, all that's the developer in coordination with the county? MR. YOVANOVICH: That is all site related. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Well, no. With approval, Mike, from the review, subject to review from the county? You may want to come up and clarify that. COMMISSIONER SHEA: He's been quiet all day. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: He's been too quiet today, I know it. Plus, he's got that wild tie on, so we've just got to have him come up so he can get on the camera. MR. SAWYER: Thank you, Commissioners. For the record, Mike Sawyer, Transportation Planning. I just wanted to clarify that, yes, Collier County will be seeing the right-of-way permits for the project, and that will be part of the SDP. But FDOT is the -- yes. Actually, yes, it's going to be through FDOT that -- it's their road. So, you know, we're going to be using their standards. February 1, 2024 Page 101 of 102 Minor clarification, but I just wanted to let you know. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Anything else? COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: That's it. Thank you. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Okay. I think the time is ripe for a motion. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Well, hearing silence, I'll make a motion again. I'll approve PL -- I recommend approval of both the GMP amendment and the accompanying condition -- or commercial PUD. That's PL20220000946 and PL20220000543, both petitions. I did not hear anything that was additions or stipulations, so it's as presented by staff and by -- and as -- presented by the commissioner [sic] and approved by staff. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Thank you. Is there a second? COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: I'll second. CHAIRMAN FRYER: It's been moved and seconded to approve both the GMPA and the PUD. Any further discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: If not, all those in favor, please say aye. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Aye. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Aye. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Aye. COMMISSIONER KLUCIK: (No verbal response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: Opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: It passes unanimously. Thank you, applicant. COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: Is Robb still on? COMMISSIONER SHEA: He can't vote. CHAIRMAN FRYER: No, he can vote. COMMISSIONER KLUCIK: Yes. I voted yes. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah, I assume he did. Okay. All right. So we are moving smartly toward conclusion. MR. YOVANOVICH: It's safe for us to leave, right? CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yes, it is. Well -- COMMISSIONER SCHMITT: I would think so. CHAIRMAN FRYER: Yeah. No EAC approval on this one. Any old business to come before the Planning Commission? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: No. Any new business to come before the Planning Commission? Anybody in the room who wishes to make public comment on any matter that was not on our agenda today, now would be the time. (No response.) CHAIRMAN FRYER: Seeing none, without objection, we're adjourned. ******* February 1, 2024 Page 102 of 102 There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 4:45 p.m. COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION _________________________________________ -26(3+6&+0,77,9,&(CHAIRMAN These minutes approved by the Board on ___, as presented ;____________ or as corrected __________. TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF FORT MYERS COURT REPORTING BY TERRI L. LEWIS, RPR, FPR-C, COURT REPORTER AND NOTARY PUBLIC. ______________________________ -26(3+6&+0,77 9,&(CHA