CCPC MInutes 04/17/2025April 17, 2025
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TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE
COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
Naples, Florida
April 17, 2025
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:
Joe Schmitt, Chairman
Paul Shea, Secretary
Randy Sparrazza
Michael Petscher
Michelle L. McLeod
ABSENT:
Chuck Schumacher, Vice Chairman
Charles "Chap" Colucci
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
Kevin Summers, Technical Systems Operations Manager
April 17, 2025
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P R O C E E D I N G S
MR. BOSI: Chair, you have a live mic.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Well, thank you, staff.
Welcome to the April 17th, 2025, Collier County Planning Commission meeting. And I would
ask that all please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.
(The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.)
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Commissioner Shea, I ask that you would please take the roll.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: Chairman Schmitt?
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Here.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: Vice Chair Schumacher?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: He's not here.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: Secretary Shea is here.
Commissioner Sparrazza?
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Here.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: Commissioner Colucci?
(No response.)
COMMISSIONER SHEA: Commissioner McLeod?
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Here.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: Commissioner Petscher?
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: Here.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: Ms. Lockhart?
(No response.)
COMMISSIONER SHEA: So we --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: We have a quorum.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: -- have a quorum of five, yep.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: We have a quorum of five. That means none of you can go anywhere
yet.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: We're all here.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Next meeting is May 7th [sic]. That has been canceled. So the next --
actual next scheduled meeting is May 21st.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: May 1st was the next meeting, isn't it?
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: No, May --
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: It should have been, yeah.
MR. BELLOWS: We have canceled the May 1st meeting.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Oh, I said May 7th. May 1st.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: And then May 15th will be our next meeting.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Thank you. May 15th is the next meeting.
MR. BELLOWS: That's, I believe, going to be a 3 o'clock meeting?
MR. BOSI: Correct, starts at 3.
MR. BELLOWS: On May 15th, that will be a 3 --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: That's a 3 o'clock meeting because of the LDC amendments.
MR. BOSI: The LDC amendments require a nighttime hearing with a 5:05 start time. We have
one GMP amendment -- one LDC amendment that does not require a nighttime hearing, so those two
items will be what we will be discussing from the 3:00 to 5:05, and then 5:05, we'll start the nighttime --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Are there any land-use petitions scheduled?
MR. BOSI: A GMP -- large-scale Growth Management Plan amendment that's eventually going
to have a PUD attached to it, but that will be at the adoption stage. This is only the transmittal.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: All right.
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Okay. Mike, did you want to, at this time, since we're talking scheduled meetings, talk about the
June meeting, or was it -- correction -- July meeting?
MR. BOSI: Well, yes. One of the things I wanted to see what the Planning Commission -- the
first meeting in June we'll be able to have our regular scheduled meeting. The second meeting is the 19th
of June. The Board of County Commissioners has a workshop in this chamber, so we are going to have
to cancel the 19th meeting.
The next meeting after that is the July 3rd. The July 3rd meeting is a Thursday right before the
4th of July holiday. Does the Planning Commission want to move forward with a July 3rd Planning
Commission meeting based upon -- Friday will be the 4th of July, the holiday, and the holiday weekend is
there. I'm not sure in terms of travel schedule. I know that a lot of times people have vacations, things
like that. I'm not sure if there's going to be -- was there going to be -- our ability to get a quorum.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: I have no plans -- I'll be here. What about members of the --
COMMISSIONER SHEA: I'll be here.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Any concerns about rescheduling? I'm fine with it, if anybody else --
what do we look like, Mike?
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: I'm okay for the 3rd. But to recap, we still do have
June 5th --
MR. BOSI: Yes.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: -- at 9 a.m. and the 19th at 9 a.m. in June.
MR. BOSI: 19th is canceled.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: June 19th canceled.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: The 19th is cancelled.
MR. BOSI: Yes. The Board of County Commissioners will be in this room.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: You're right.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: They have budget hearings then?
MR. BOSI: Yes.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: So there will be -- just to recap again, the June meeting, June 5th, 19th
is canceled, and we'll meet again on the 3rd.
MR. BOSI: 3rd of July.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: And we project one of those meetings may be the Costco hearing.
MR. BOSI: One of the -- either July 3rd or July 17th, highly likely will be the Costco PDI review
and recommendation from the Planning Commission.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay. I didn't see any approval of minutes. Was the next item -- were
there any minutes in here? I didn't see them.
MR. BOSI: I don't believe there were any -- there were no minutes.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay. Next item, Ray, do you have anything, BCC report?
MR. BELLOWS: Yeah, good morning. Commissioners, on May -- or April 8th the Board of
County Commissioners heard the NC Square Growth Management Plan amendment and the PUD
companion rezone -- PUD rezone. That was continued to May 13th BCC.
MR. BOSI: Mike Bosi, Planning and Zoning director.
The issue was -- was the traffic on Immokalee Road and the density being sought. The -- or the
Board of County Commissioners was not comfortable with the density level based upon the traffic
volume on Immokalee. So they asked the applicant to evaluate what type of modifications could be made
to the proposal.
We're still waiting to hear what that's going to be; not sure. But the May 13th meeting will
provide some more clarity as to, you know, what the applicant can go to in terms of overall density and
what the Board will be comfortable with.
So we'll provide an update of that to the Planning Commission at the -- at your next Planning
Commission meeting.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay. As far as next item then, Chairman's report, I have no
comments other than what we discussed for the upcoming meetings.
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There's nothing on the consent agenda, so we'll proceed to the public hearings.
And we have three items in public hearing. The first 2, A and B, are a GMP amendment and the
accompanying -- or PUDZ, and that has to do with the 951 Vehicle Sites [sic] Commercial Subdistrict
and the 951 Vehicle Sites [sic] CPUD.
Anyone wishing to speak at this meeting, please rise to be sworn in.
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 SCHMITT: I then go to the planning commissioners. Are there any disclosures?
COMMISSIONER SHEA: Staff materials only.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Staff materials, and I did have a phone conversation with Rich
Yovanovich concerning this -- the two petitions.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Staff materials and also a phone conversation with
Mr. Yovanovich.
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: Staff materials and a phone conversation with Rich
Yovanovich.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Staff materials, spoke with Rich, and spoke with Mike Bosi about
it.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay. Rich, before we start, though, I do note and I want to make sure
staff -- I noted about probably two or three weeks ago that the sign was not in front of the right lot. It was
fixed, so -- but it should have been sufficient for the public hearing, correct?
MR. BOSI: Staff feels it's sufficient.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay. All right. But I did notice this morning it's a bit skewed, so
between now and the Planning Commission [sic] you want to have your contractor go out and fix the
sign? It's a little easier to read, though, as you're driving down the street now because it is a little --
MR. YOVANOVICH: See, we were thinking ahead.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: You're making progress. All right, Rich. It's all yours.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Thank you. For the record, Rich Yovanovich on behalf of the applicant.
With me today is the applicant, Rod Bushnell. Margaret Emblidge is our land-use planning.
Barry Jones is our civil engineer. Mr. Banks is our traffic consultant. Jeremy Sterk is our environmental
consultant. And I don't think Russ -- is Russ here? Yeah, no Russ. And Russ Weyer, you have his
materials in backup, is our consultant as to the needs analysis.
As the Chairman said, there are two petitions in front of you today, both related to doing a motor
vehicle storage facility. This petition, for those of you who were on the Planning Commission when the
Lutgert motor vehicle storage facility came through the process on Airport Road, is very similar to that
petition as far as the uses, et cetera. So there's a lot of similarity between the zoning and the Growth
Management Plan amendment. So you've seen this type of facility before.
The property is 9.3 acres. It's located on Collier Boulevard north of Championship Drive and
about a mile and a half -- no, it's on -- just let me you give you the map. It's better that way. There's
exactly where the property is. It's across the street from Pelican Lake Motor Coach Resort and Silver
Lakes RV Resort. Both of those are higher-end RV resorts in Collier County.
There are two petitions. One is a small-scale Growth Management Plan amendment because in
this particular piece that we're located right now, residential -- we're in the Coastal High Hazard Area. So
under the Growth Management Plan, we would come forward with three units per acre or we would do a
more by doing affordable housing.
As you can see from the location of this property, what we're proposing really makes sense. It's
right next door to a more traditional self-storage and next to both Lee County and FPL facilities. So our
request is to do the Growth Management Plan amendment and rezone it to a commercial PUD.
I just highlighted some of the suitability criteria. We are on a four-lane major road. It is a
low-density project, 20 p.m. peak-hour trips. We have existing utilities to service the site. And we're
near, as I mentioned, other similar facilities.
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One of the -- and I know we had this conversation, is -- or I had this conversation specifically
with Mr. Sparrazza, is when is this going to end? You know, why are there -- why are there so many of
these types of facilities coming forward? And the reality, it's probably not ending anytime soon because
there is -- there are a lot of car enthusiasts for one thing, but also with the hurricanes that we've had,
people who live in certain parts of the county, their garages are below minimum flood elevation, so
they're -- they can't basically get insurance because they don't have a place to put their cars during
hurricane season.
So there's -- there's a lot of demand for these types of facilities because they are being built at the
minimum flood elevation, which assists people who need these types of facilities, but also, there are a lot
of people who have car collections, and they're looking for these types of facilities.
So there's -- you'll see a few more of these things, I'm sure, as they wind their way through the
process. But there is, as you can see from our analysis, a significant demand for these types of facilities.
And we're conveniently located, obviously, for Marco Island, which has issues with flooding
during storms, and also relatively close to the unincorporated area of Collier County.
I'm not going to go through the proposed text. You've all seen the proposed text. I'll highlight a
couple of things. It's a maximum of 135,000 square feet of area.
We're allowed -- the uses we're allowed is we're indoor storage of vehicles, RVs, four-wheelers,
swamp buggies, we're also -- we can -- you can put your wine collection in there. You can put your cigar
collection in there. This is basically verbatim from what we did for the Lutgert self-storage.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Rich.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Excuse me. Can you back up. I just wondered. We were
talking beforehand. What is the elevation of this?
MR. YOVANOVICH: And I'll get Barry up here if I say this wrong. I believe it's seven feet is
the minimum flood elevation, so we'll be at seven feet which is, I want to say, roughly above where we
are today. Did I get that right?
MR. JONES: Yes.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Rich, I believe I looked at the D firms, and it's an AE8 zone, I believe
it is. AE zone and 8BFE.
MR. YOVANOVICH: I'm happy to bring Barry up here.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yeah, whatever. If Barry can confirm it. I mean, there's different
versions of the flood insurance rate maps. So the one I located said AE8.
MR. JONES: Good morning. Barry Jones, LJA Engineering for the record. I'm a licensed
professional engineer, state of Florida.
The FEMA flood maps that we looked at had a FEMA elevation 6.0. So the minimum BFE
would be the six plus one, would be seven. We're proposing to put the buildings at elevation nine. The
reason we're elevating them up is, number one, for additional security in the event of surge beyond what
FEMA may anticipate but also to be able to put the stormwater chambers underneath the site. In order to
minimize the impact to the wetlands, they're going to spend the additional money to do subsurface
stormwater rather than impact additional areas on the site. So that's going to require the site to come up.
So the buildings are up at elevation nine actually, so they'll be well above FEMA. Even if FEMA
was at eight, we'd still be at nine.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yeah. I don't know what version I looked -- maybe I looked at the
newer maps. I --
MR. JONES: Possibly, and possibly it's one that changed, and it's possibly that I got it incorrect.
But we're proposing to put the buildings at elevation nine, which would still meet the requirement of
eight.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: And you have one foot of freeboard anyway, so...
MR. JONES: It's FEMA plus one to get to the minimum BFE to get insurance, I believe.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Great. Thank you very much.
MR. JONES: Thank you.
April 17, 2025
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CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: For my colleagues, I don't have the indicator here, so if you want to --
have a question, please just so indicate. Thanks.
MR. YOVANOVICH: This is the -- this is the master plan. As I mentioned, the -- it's 9.3 acres
in size. We're adjacent to FP&L and Lee County and a self-storage, and then it's undeveloped to our -- I
hate that direction. I don't know what direction that is from Marco Island what we're on -- is that south?
Okay, south.
And, you know, Barry kind of hit you the highlights. I was going to bring up the height at this
point, but we talked about the height of the building at that point. We're meeting all of the native
preservation requirements within the code and open-space requirement that's required in the Land
Development Code.
Staff is recommending approval of both the small-scale GMP amendment as well as the PUD.
And I can go much more detailed if you like, but I think you've all read the materials, and this is the brief
overview of what we're proposing, and we're requesting your recommendation of approval.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Rich, can you go back to that again. The full opening there, is that the
existing opening? Jim? You may know.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Go ahead.
MR. BANKS: No. There's not a full access there. And we did speak with FDOT, and I don't
think we're going to have full access onto State Road 951.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay. But you show it on this, but it --
MR. BANKS: It was just concept.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Concept. But it will be right-in, right-out?
MR. BANKS: FDOT will have jurisdiction over what our access looks like.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: And, I mean, there is an opening not far from here --
MR. BANKS: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: -- for people coming from the south would have to do a U-turn.
MR. BANKS: Yep. Just to the north of our site, there will be full access.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay. All right. Thanks, Jim.
Anything else?
MR. YOVANOVICH: I'm just here to answer any questions. Hopefully --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: There's no deviations, no changes in use. It's pretty straightforward.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Pretty straightforward. I mean, I don't want to take up a lot of time if it's
not necessary.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: And the best part is no outdoor storage of any type.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Correct, correct.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: So everything is concealed within the beautiful building that's
going to be erected.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Correct. And available for rent.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: I'm thinking a man cave there, that's why, so...
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: And your $500,000 Mercedes or Lamborghini.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: 1.2, if you must know.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Joe, I have a question.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yes, go ahead. I've got the machine now, so we're good. Go ahead.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Oh. You say these are rentals, not ownership?
MR. YOVANOVICH: They could go either way, honestly. At this point we're contemplating
renting. But if the market turns to where he wants to sell them, he could sell them. It goes either way.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. And I like the idea that you guys are going two feet above
FEMA plus one because -- just to share an example, I built my house eight years ago. I did FEMA plus
one. Last year they changed the flood maps, as we know. Now I'm back in the flood zone. So I think it
is smart to go up as much as you can.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Sure.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: And then the only other concern I had was with these kinds of
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facilities, there's always the concern for carbon monoxide poisoning. Is there going to be carbon
monoxide indicators, or how does that concern --
MR. YOVANOVICH: Honestly, I don't think we -- we're going to obviously meet the building
code, and that's a good comment, and we could look at that to make sure --
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay.
MR. YOVANOVICH: -- that there's adequate protections for those who buy or rent these units.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Great. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: All right. And that concludes your presentation. Do we have any
public speakers, registered speakers?
MR. SUMMERS: (Shakes head.)
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Anybody in the audience wishing to speak? Please submit your -- we
have none. All right. Staff?
MR. BOSI: Mike Bosi, Planning and Zoning director. Just to give an overview of what -- the
Comprehensive Planning and the zoning review. Obviously, with a Growth Management Plan
amendment, with the adoption of the subdistrict, the project would be in compliance with the Growth
Management Plan.
One of the things that we did discuss internally was, you know, this site utilization, we really --
because of our policies, we -- we want to discourage a lot -- residential development within the Coastal
High Hazard Area in terms of any high density projects. We think this is a suitable alternative to
residential development because of the surrounding land uses. The self-storage with the two -- or the
FP&L and the LCEC substations and facilities as well as the existing self-storage, we think this provides
a consistency within land use.
We have reviewed the market study and agree that there is high demand for these facilities, and
the ones that are available aren't available because they're occupied. So in looking at -- one of the things
we also have is we've looked at the self-storage map. There is -- the one that -- the existing is the only
self-storage within a two-mile radius of this area, and we know that there's a number of high-income
households that would be inclined, I think, to enjoy the services of this -- of this facility at this location.
So with the GMP amendment in place and the consistency within the land uses and the fact that
there are no deviations being sought and that the applicant is willing to go above the FEMA plus one, for
all those reasons, staff is in support of the -- of the proposal.
Any questions that you may have for staff?
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yeah. Mike, this was -- what precipitated the requirement for the
small-scale Comp Plan amendment? Just because of -- this was identified as a mixed-use district? And
this is now not a mixed-use proposal, so it required --
MR. BOSI: It's an urban mixed-use -- urban residential mixed-use subdistrict.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yeah.
MR. BOSI: Unless you have an allocation of an activity center or another subdistrict that allows
for commercial uses or quasi-industrial uses, a commercial use or quasi-industrial use is not allowed to go
unless it is authorized by the Growth Management Plan. The Growth Management Plan concentrates
those within our activity centers.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Right.
MR. BOSI: This is outside of an activity center, not within an individual subdistrict that would
allow for nonresidential land uses. So because of that, that's why they need a small-scale amendment to
allow for the nonresidential land use to move forward.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: I mean, my comment, it's a no-brainer. Given the adjacent property, it
was really never going to be a residential area.
MR. BOSI: And that does give staff a little bit of opportunity to introduce this recognition. Our
code doesn't require -- suggests that the most appropriate places for new residential land uses is within our
activity centers. But staff does recognize that in specific locations, that there are justifications for the
inclusion of self-storage, neighborhood commercial, other types of nonresidential land uses that is
beneficial from an overall transportation and land-use pattern when you bring those uses in closer
April 17, 2025
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proximity towards where the residential units are.
And so because of that, that's why we have so many site-specific small-scale amendments is
because -- to provide for the Growth Management Plan allowance for a need that, through the market
studies, are justified for nonresidential land uses to be serving those residential uses that are in closer
proximity.
And overall -- the overall approach or the justification for it is we are going to reduce the trip
lengths that are associated -- with the trips that are associated with this commercial attractor because it's
in closer proximity towards where the demand is coming from those residential units. So when we
shorten those trip lengths, we improve our transportation system without having to increase our
transportation road miles because we're being more efficient within our land-use planning.
So that's why we have so many small-scale amendment that come through. It's not a criticism of
our plan, but our plan tries to concentrate it upon our activity centers. That's where we want the intensity
to go. But at appropriate locations, through land-use analysis and market analysis, we can make
determinations that exceptions can be made for it, and it helps the overall public transportation system
and the overall land-use arrangement to provide for better efficiencies.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: All right. Well, that answers my question. I have a second follow-up.
In the staff report -- and I'm looking at the Comp Plan. And I'll tell you what page that's on. It's Page 8 of
1406.
And -- but you have a quote in here, "Staff still has its reservations about the location of the
proposed use. According to the measurements, the subject property's located less than a mile from
Henderson Creek making effects from storm surge and wind damage a possibility." I note that, but we've
heard from the applicant that their proposal is pretty much going to negate what they believe will be an
impact to Henderson Creek.
And I know that area was bizarre during the last hurricane. In fact, several of the businesses right
along Henderson Creek, because of the storm surge, actually were -- received the floodwaters.
But given what they're proposing -- this is for future reference or when you present this to the
Board of County Commissioners -- that pretty much negates or it pretty much deals with what staff's
concerns were regarding the potential flood impacts.
And I have to believe that the applicant, because of the potential and certainly the liability that
they may incur with the -- what I would consider the value of the home -- or values of the vehicles that
will be stored there, they're going to take every measure to preclude any damage to these vehicles.
So I just need to make sure that when you -- when you provide this to the Board of County
Commissioners, include what they're doing, because we already discussed that they're going to AE --
they're going to be one -- at least one foot of freeboard, if not two.
MR. BOSI: And, Chair, that was a comment from our Comp Planning staff. There was a
concern about this being in the Coastal High Hard Area and in close proximity to Henderson Creek and
the potential for storm surge, and there wasn't a direct acknowledgment that they were going to -- or three
feet above the base FEMA elevation.
And the other aspect that I talked with our Comp Planning team about, as you know, it's their
obligation to provide the services to -- you know, to their clientele that their facility or their property is
going to be safe.
So not only going above what base elevation or the requirements for where they're going to set
this building, but they also, because this is a commercial building, a non-livable space, if they felt
appropriate, they could floodproof this building as well if they feel that -- if that was an additional
concern. So that statement will not be making its way to the executive summary.
But those were some of the initial concerns from Comp Planning related to the placement of these
facilities. But we also do recognize that the liability is always assumed by the -- by the applicant and the
applicant's team.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay. Any other comments from commissioners?
MR. YOVANOVICH: Can I add?
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Rich, do you have rebuttal?
April 17, 2025
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MR. YOVANOVICH: No, I just want to add to that comment because, honestly, that comment
was a little bit of a source of frustration from our side because there are minimum flood elevations that
are required in Collier County. If I were bringing a residential project and said, "I want to build it at the
minimum flood elevation," I'm sure I would have gotten the same comment from Comprehensive
Planning staff.
The problem with that comment is if you're not going to let us build at the minimum flood
elevation that the code requires, someone's going to have to buy the property, and that someone's going to
be the government. The government sets the minimum flood elevation, and that should be governing how
we evaluate petitions. The fact that we're going higher is an election that we're making. And we may
make that same election for a residential building or any other building that goes in the Coastal High
Hazard Area.
So I would encourage that we kind of focus the comments, as Mike has indicated to, you know,
"All right, this is what the code requires. We're going to approve it, but, you know, seller beware. Maybe
you want to go higher. Maybe you want to take additional standards or not." But that shouldn't be -- it
shouldn't be a criteria for whether or not we get something through the process.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: And I would agree. That's why I brought it up, because it -- I just
wanted to make sure, for the record, that it was clear that you're exceeding the requirements. And, of
course, as a business decision, you're making that decision based on to mitigate any potential insurance
impacts --
MR. YOVANOVICH: Absolutely.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: -- that you may or your client may have.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Absolutely.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: So -- which is not a land-use issue. That's a business decision.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Correct, correct.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yes. Okay.
Comments? Do I -- any -- would -- I close the public hearing then and open for comments from
my colleagues. Any further comments? Anybody want to propose a -- make a recommendation?
Mike.
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: Yeah. I'll make a recommendation of approval for this project
as it is.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: That's both --
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: Yes, for both, PL --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Both GMP amendment and for the PUDZ.
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: Correct, correct.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: All right. And I'll second that motion. All in favor, say aye.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: Aye.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Any opposed, like sign.
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: It passes unanimous.
Thank you.
***And we'll proceed to the next project. That's PL20230016340. That's a GMPA, Sabal Palm
Road Residential, and we'll wait for the cast of characters to change here, and we'll turn over to the next
applicant, which again is Mr. Yovanovich and Mr. Arnold for this one.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Are we ready?
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: We are ready.
MR. YOVANOVICH: As you know, this is a legislative matter and not quasi-judicial like the
last one. So I don't know if you want to make any disclosures or not. You're obviously not legally
April 17, 2025
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required to make disclosures. So I'll just -- I'll go into my presentation unless I hear otherwise.
This as -- this is the first in what hopefully will be a two-step process for this project. We're
doing -- we're doing a Growth Management Plan amendment and a PUD rezone. The reason you're
seeing the growth -- only the Growth Management Plan amendment today for consideration is because it's
greater than 50 acres, and that's the process that requires us to go to the state, get state comments, come
back -- we're at the transmittal hearing -- come back and then do an adoption hearing, and then there'll
be -- the PUD hopefully will get transmitted, and at that hearing when we come back it will be both the
Comp Plan amendment for the adoption hearing and consideration of the PUD.
We are going to share with you some of the details of the PUD so you can see the results of what
would happen should the Growth Management Plan amendment get approved.
The team with me today is the applicant, and Jon Rubinton is the representative of the applicant,
and he's here. Mr. Arnold's our planner. Mr. Trebilcock is our traffic consultant. Tim Hall is our
environmental consultant, and Jeremiah DeForge -- he goes by JD -- is our civil year.
I want to start out with you received a staff report, and in that staff report, there were
recommendations from staff as to -- related to open space and density and some other things related to the
project.
Over the last -- since Saturday, Mr. Bosi and I have had some conversations, and Mr. -- he asked
me, "Hey, Rich, can you talk about the density and maybe bring the density down, and can you increase
the open space" from what we had, which was 55 percent, to 60 percent. And I'll get into greater details
of how and what density is in the area and what can occur.
And we are able to reduce the density from the 2.66 units per acre to 2.5 units per acre. That's -- I
think that's a 27-unit reduction, if I remember the math correctly, and we are able to increase the open
space from 55 percent to 60 percent.
So I believe now with those changes -- because I'm going to modify my presentation based upon
those changes. I believe that is consistent with what staff would recommend approval of, because all my
exhibits have been modified to that, and I want to know if I need to un-modify them, so...
MR. BOSI: And, Chair, if I could comment on that.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yes, please.
MR. BOSI: We did -- in our staff report, as you have read, there was conditions that we said that
we would like to see what we felt was appropriate for this petition in terms of open space and density.
The original submittal didn't quite get us there, and so that was the recommendation. The
recommendation was for denial because -- but on Page 8 of our staff report we had said here's what we
were -- we were looking for.
Like everything, we're not getting everything that we had asked for, but we are -- we are
comfortable with the density reduction with the increase in open space that the public benefits that are
being provided for within this petition have now -- have now satisfied staff where we can support this
petition.
So based upon our staff report and our original position that we -- if there was modifications
related to the open space and to the density, that staff could get behind and support the petition, we feel
that we've arrived upon that with the applicant's modification. So what he's proposing -- what you're
going to hear, the modifications on the 2.5 units per acre and the 60 percent open space, those are things
that staff is now supportive of. So based upon that, staff is in recommendation of this petition.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Chair?
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yes, I have two.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Oh.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: It shows Chuck, but it's not Chuck. Who pressed there? We've got the
seats wrong.
Go ahead, Michelle.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. Mike, so of the four conditions that staff was
recommending, the petitioner has conceded to two but not the other two.
April 17, 2025
Page 11 of 42
MR. BOSI: Yes.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: But despite that, you guys are recommending approval now?
MR. BOSI: We're recommending approval.
One of the things that is not within this application, but you'll see within the PUD, there's also a
suggestion in the sending areas that if there's any development within there, there has to be a transition.
They are providing for a 30-foot buffer transition, but that's in the PUD. So you won't see that until --
you won't see that until the adoption stage where the PUD is going to be actually evaluated by the
Planning Commission.
But the other aspect was the two amenity centers because -- one for the townhouses and one for
the single-family homes. That was one of the things we were asking for, a single amenity center. But
because they're able to get to 60 percent, if they can do that with two amenity centers, staff is indifferent
to it. We wanted the 60 percent. And with the 60 -- with them agreeing to the 60 percent open space,
how they want to arrange the land uses within that -- the 40 percent that they're going to have as
non-open-space area, that's within their purview, and staff is really indifferent to that. It's really the
60 percent that we were tied to in terms of our support of the project.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay.
MR. YOVANOVICH: So anyway, what you see on the visualizer now is the location map of the
169.19-acre parcel. And Wayne will get into this in much greater detail as to, you know, the suitability
for this site for what we're requesting.
But we're approximately .4 acres -- and I'll show you a slide in a minute -- from the Urban
Coastal Fringe, which is the urban area of Collier County. So that distance from basically where Winding
Cypress ends, right around here is where the urban boundary ends, to our project is less than a half a mile.
And you can see that this portion of Collier County, you know, is developed. And here is, up
here, Rattlesnake Hammock. That's one of those activity centers that Mike discussed earlier as part of the
Hacienda Lakes DRI and PUD and allows for a lot of commercial. Physicians Regional is right here, and
there are several other employers in the area.
So as you know, this project is going to contain -- 15 percent of the units are going to be
income-restricted, for-sale product, which I believe we're the first project to come forward that's not a
Habitat for Humanity related project to be income-restricted for-sale product.
So we think that that is an absolute benefit to the community, furthers the county's goals to
providing income-restricted housing, and we think in the right location -- and as I said, Wayne will get
into that in greater detail. That's a little bit closer up of where the property is.
And we'll get into this in greater detail. You see the vegetation that's on the site today. And
there's not much because it's farm. We're keeping all of that vegetation, and both Wayne and Tim will get
into greater detail about how we're enhancing the environmental value of this property through our
particular project.
As I said, we're asking both for a regular scale Growth Management Plan amendment and,
ultimately, a rezone to a PUD. The property currently is zoned ag, we're currently in the Rural Fringe
Mixed-Use District, and we're establishing our own subdistrict to allow for this property to be developed
as residential and affordable housing at 2.5 units per acre.
By way of talking about the Comp Plan right now, the Urban Residential Fringe, which I
mentioned to you is less than half a mile away, under the Growth Management Plan, you can get to -- you
have a base density of 1.5, and you can get to 2.5 units per acre, an additional unit, by buying TDRs. And
if you were to do affordable housing for sale, you can get another six units per acre.
So if I'm stacking it correctly, you can get to 8.5 units per acre on property within less than a half
a mile away.
So I think what -- our request at 2.5 units per acre is certainly reasonable considering how close
we are to the urban area and the Urban Residential Fringe Growth Management Plan designation.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Paul?
COMMISSIONER SHEA: Rich, you're saying you don't need the affordable housing credits to
get to the density you're proposing?
April 17, 2025
Page 12 of 42
MR. YOVANOVICH: No. What I'm saying, the only -- what I'm saying is the reason -- first of
all, I can't put residential here except at one unit per 40 acres. In order to justify the Growth Management
Plan amendment to allow this site to be developed as a residential community, we're offering up
affordable housing.
If you remember, the Growth Management Plan says the only way you can get more density
through the amendment of a Growth Management Plan is either through TDRs or some other public
benefit. So our public benefit is not -- we're not buying TDRs. Our public benefit is to provide
income-restricted for-sale product. So yes, we have to do something to increase the density to justify the
Growth Management Plan amendment.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: Question for Mike. In your report you said that you -- affordable
housing doesn't apply to sending areas. Are we ignoring that this is a sending area?
MR. BOSI: That's the purpose of the Growth Management Plan amendment.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Right.
MR. BOSI: The Growth Management Plan amendment that they're proposing will allow for the
density that's being proposed. Currently the density is one to 40 units [sic] within the sending area.
MR. YOVANOVICH: And if I may, Mike is absolutely correct. And back in -- what was it?
2002. I always forget when the Rural Fringe Mixed-Use District was actually -- 2001.
MR. BOSI: '2.
MR. YOVANOVICH: '2, okay, that's what I thought.
I know the moratorium was put in place when my children were born, so I know exactly when
that was. I forget when we came out of it. But when these lands were designated, they were big-picture
designations. They didn't get into the specifics of individual parcels. And neither were property owners
really notified as to what was happening as to this process.
Commissioner Schmitt is aware of that. It was -- basically the county was going through this
change of the Growth Management Plan, and property owners weren't being told, unless you were paying
attention -- and most people were not paying attention -- that there were changes being made.
This portion of Collier County used to be designated ag at one unit per five acres. My -- my
client's seller was a farmer. They weren't paying attention. So you have a piece of property that basically
has been developed. There's really hardly any native vegetation on it. That's what receiving lands look
like in Collier County.
So this -- I think, had they made the case and come forward, they would have been designated
something else as part of this process. But they weren't paying attention, to no fault of their own, and so
you have a piece of property that's a farm that's been -- I'm trying not to use the word "nuked," but I can't
think of another word. The vegetation is gone, and it's close to the urban area, and we believe that this
particular piece of property should have its own subdistrict, no longer be sending lands, and should be
allowed to be developed for this very specific purpose of a -- of a residential community that provides
15 percent of the units to be income-restricted for-sale property.
This is the existing future land-use map, and you can see the green area predominantly is
vegetated wetlands; however, there are portions like here and here that have been -- that make sense for
development, and we're asking for that change.
This is the urban area at four units per acre. This is the Urban Residential Fringe. That's 1.5 units
per acre base. You can get to 2.5 units if you do TDRs. You have Hacienda Lakes, which is the big,
huge community up here. It's at -- I think it's at 2.8 units per acre, and then slightly north of that the San
Marino parcel was also approximately 2.8 units per acre in the Urban Residential Fringe.
So I think the transition that Mike was talking about at our 2.5 -- you know, properties right along
here, vacant properties, could get to 8.5 units per acre underneath the existing Growth Management Plan
by doing what we're doing, income-restricted for-sale product.
So the type of property we're talking about, the environmental enhancements that we're going to
be making, justifies our request to no longer be designated sending lands.
This is how the map will look if we're successful. You'll still have all this area designated as
sending. We'll have our own subdistrict, and then the lighter green will still remain Urban Residential
April 17, 2025
Page 13 of 42
Fringe.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Paul, do you have a question?
COMMISSIONER SHEA: Probably a question for Mike. More of an education question for me.
Usually you get your TDRs from sending areas. So you can be in a sending area and buy TDRs and
override the fact that it's a sending area?
MR. BOSI: No, no.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: Well, how is he -- he said he's using -- using TDRs, but they usually
come from sending areas.
MR. BOSI: There's no TDRs being utilized within this program. The sending areas, as you've
noted, are areas that you can create TDRs from. What he is utilizing is a Growth Management Plan
amendment to lift this 169 acres from the sending area, redesignate it within its own subdistrict, and
allocate density to that subdistrict. That's how the density is going to provide for. And because they're
providing for affordable housing, they've crossed the bar.
In 2023, we adopted the Rural Fringe Mixed-Use District amendments, and in that amendment, it
said that if you wanted to go above the base density within the Rural Fringe Mixed-Use District, you
would have to utilize TDRs or, if not, you would have to have a significant public benefit, and affordable
housing has been designated -- accepted as that an alternative accepted public benefit.
So the GMP that they're asking for that authorizes the density associated with this project is
associated with a public benefit which has been recognized by this board, affordable housing, but that's
the bar that the GMP has set. If you wanted to go above the density that's allowed, you're going to have
to provide for either TDRs or a public benefit, and the public benefit being affordable housing.
MR. YOVANOVICH: So we're not generating any TDRs from that property to justify our --
COMMISSIONER SHEA: I thought you said we were. That's why --
MR. YOVANOVICH: I said we weren't, that we're not doing that. In the alternative, we're
providing affordable housing.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Michelle.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Rich, the reason why you're not doing TDRs is -- because you
couldn't do this project without going down that way or --
MR. YOVANOVICH: I can't do this project at all if I don't do a Growth Management Plan
amendment.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. That's why you opted not to do the TDRs?
MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, to get the additional density, we opted to go with an affordable
housing project instead of buying a bunch of TDRs and not providing affordable housing. Those were the
two options under the Growth Management Plan to be able to request the Growth Management Plan
amendment in the first place.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Let me clarify this, because I was on the staff at the time when we had
the Rural Fringe Mixed-Use District. And for my colleagues, this goes back to the -- we had a consent
order, the Governor's order, and it generated, Mike, probably, Ray, what, two-year study, consultants.
So, Rich, I do say even though you stated for the record people weren't notified, it was clearly
advertised and was over two years of hearings and public meetings and night meetings and others. Now,
people have not paid attention, but it was duly advertised and noted, so...
MR. YOVANOVICH: I didn't say you didn't follow the law. What I'm saying is there was no
notice provided to individual property owners other than you read the newspaper.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: But that created the Rural Fringe Mixed-Use District and the Rural
Lands Stewardship Overlay. Now, the mixed-use district is zoned mixed use now. So -- but the
requirement at that time, there were designations of sending lands, receiving lands, and neutral lands.
One of the questions I asked both Rich and in my conversation with Mike, it's clearly evident that
this orchard's been there well over 50 years, and why it wasn't neutral lands, it's -- I couldn't -- I couldn't
answer and Mike couldn't answer. It's just -- because I can cite -- I don't want to use any names, but we
did have a couple of court cases in the county where landowners objected, and they finally had to go to
April 17, 2025
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settlement agreements.
Why this landowner didn't object, like Rich said, he just didn't know this was happening, and then
they were gladly growing oranges, which by the way, was a great location for the Honeybells here in
Collier County.
So they -- the fact is it was not designated either a neutral land or receiving, but clearly it's an
orchard, and under -- even under Florida law there's formerly used cropland rules and all these other types
of impacts.
That said, it's still designated receiving land. And as a result --
MR. YOVANOVICH: Sending.
MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Sending.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Or correction. It's still designated sending land. Thank you. So as a
result, that required the Comp Plan amendment to identify this and redesignate it through a Comp Plan
amendment.
And I still question -- and I don't know if -- I mean, your client or, of course, your environmental
staff may have some background on this in regards to how it was designated as sending, but the fact is, it's
sending, and --
MR. YOVANOVICH: I'll give you my hypothesis.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yeah.
MR. YOVANOVICH: When we were doing this project -- this process, we weren't looking at
individual -- the county was not looking at individual parcels.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: We were not, no.
MR. YOVANOVICH: They were looking at large swaths of land. And I don't think there's any
question that, you know, this portion of Hacienda Lakes, which is designated sending lands, this portion
that's designated sending lands, and everything below it and around it is environmentally sensitive lands.
The county wasn't -- they didn't go into individual parcels to say, "Whoa, wait a minute. You've
got this one oddball piece."
They were just looking bigger picture. They went through the process. They changed the code
under the right notice. Nobody's questioning whether or not the process was legal. What we're just
saying is, you know, the property owner wasn't paying attention, wasn't reading the newspaper, didn't
have a lawyer who was screaming at them, "Hey, get involved in the process." And the others, they did
have lawyers saying, you know, "Get involved in the process."
And so we're just saying we're going through the process. We think because this is agricultural
operation, it makes sense to have residences on this piece of property.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yeah. Because in other areas of the county, especially in the Rural
Lands Stewardship, it was clearly evident that farmland and orchards were either neutral or receiving.
But they were more focused on habitat --
MR. YOVANOVICH: Sure.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: -- water -- flowways and habitat areas and other types of things.
Here is, of course, the proximity to the Belle Meade area and -- which I'm going to ask staff,
because one of the things --
MR. YOVANOVICH: Can I --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: I want to get into this -- some of the questions, but go ahead, because I
have two other -- I have petitioners [sic] as well.
Michelle, your question.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Heidi, are you --
MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Yeah, I've been wanting to comment. For clarity, this Growth
Management Plan that's proposed proposes to rewrite the rules for this property.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Correct.
MS. ASHTON-CICKO: And if you feel that there are other requirements that need to get you
there to approve it, then you can add it, such as requiring TDRs or other things.
Mr. Yovanovich is explaining how he's getting to his density using affordable housing. But this
April 17, 2025
Page 15 of 42
is not a by-right. He's rewriting the rules and, you know, you can add conditions as you feel are needed.
Thanks.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Michelle, did you have any other questions?
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Not yet.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: And, Randy, I think I've got you next, even though it says Mike.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: I'm Randy.
Rich, if you would, with the maps that I've looked at yesterday and today, I don't quite see the
boundaries of where, officially, the Picayune Strand State Forest lies and how close this property is to it.
Can you help mark that?
MR. YOVANOVICH: I'm going to let -- I'm going to let Tim Hall take you through that.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Okay.
MR. YOVANOVICH: If you-all could be patient --
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Is it in your presentation?
MR. YOVANOVICH: That question's not in my presentation, but the environmental aspects of
what we're doing are all in the presentation. But we'll go in any order you guys want to go.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Let's save that, because then Tim can come up and give that
presentation.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Which is fine.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Because I have more issues on that. But let's go back to just north of
this property are the -- to leave that other map on there. There you go. Nope, Hacienda Lakes.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Let me go a little further, please.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: That Hacienda Lakes area, just properties to the north. Those are --
that's all preserve area that was placed in preserve because you did develop -- or the developer did
develop Hacienda Lakes as shown here. A portion of the -- Hacienda Lakes is in the -- was that sending
area there, or was that --
MR. YOVANOVICH: The way Hacienda was developed was -- is Hacienda had a significant
portion in the Urban Residential Fringe.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Right.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Base density of one unit per five. They also had a significant portion that
was in sending lands. They stripped the TDRs from the sending lands portion of the project to bump the
density up to the 2.8 units per acre. We're talking about that today. So they took all of this area -- and
don't hold me to the exact location, but that's all part of Hacienda Lakes. It was all designated sending
lands, and the TDRs were stripped from those lands and moved into the Urban Residential Fringe portion
of the project.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: But the area just north on Sabal Palm, that's all still -- that's now in
preserve?
MR. YOVANOVICH: Correct.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: As part of the Hacienda Lakes DRI.
MR. YOVANOVICH: So is this area right there.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: There, yes.
MR. YOVANOVICH: So there's portions of this property that is adjacent to Hacienda Lakes.
We're right across the street from Hacienda Lakes that is in a conservation easement.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Does that answer your question? Go ahead, Michelle.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: I'm trying to figure this out in my head. So again, if Hacienda
Lakes got the increased density that you want by going with the TDRs -- they didn't use TDRs? Oh, I
thought you said that.
MR. YOVANOVICH: They did. Hacienda, I believe, absolutely did use TDRs to get to the 2.8.
They absolutely did. I did the project. I know. What we're saying --
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: My question is then why are you not doing that?
MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, then we could do -- do you want the affordable housing project, or
do you want TDRs? That's the issue is we came in and we said, "Nobody's building for-sale affordable
April 17, 2025
Page 16 of 42
housing product." So we said, "We can make it work economically if we designate 15 percent of those
units, which is now 63 units instead of 68, as for-sale product."
Staff asked -- "We also want TDRs."
I said, "That's great." You know, I want a lot of things, too, but we can't throw additional TDRs
into the mix and have an economically viable product.
And staff asked for it. Mike will confirm. He said, "Hey, we want TDRs, too."
And we said, "Sorry, we can't" -- you know, there's only so much we can do. And don't forget,
my client's taking the risk of what are the construction costs going to be when we actually go build this
project. And as we can all see, construction costs are going up. And to throw another risk factor of
buying TDRs, then you'll -- you won't have a product -- project.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay.
MR. YOVANOVICH: So continue?
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Go ahead. Continue, Rich.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Okay. This is -- this is what we've done. This is the revised language
just showing you that we're revising it to go to 423 dwelling units. We're increasing the open space to
60 percent. I would also point out that if we were receiving land and we were going to do an affordable
housing project -- now keep in mind receiving lands is also in the Rural Fringe Mixed-Use District -- the
open-space requirement would be only 50 percent. So we're going an additional 10 percent to meet with
staff's request, and we have reduced the density down to the 2.5 as requested by staff.
So this is what you will see modified when we resubmit it to the County Attorney's Office to
make sure we made the changes appropriately.
From an environmental summary -- and Tim will get into this much -- in much greater detail --
we are going to improve the water quality by this project over what exists today. We're going to provide
for water to be able to flow under Sabal Palm to continue the water-flow requirements that people wanted.
We're creating wading bird forging areas as part of this project.
We are increasing -- and we'll show you this on the master plan. We're increasing -- we're
basically providing a flowway over a portion of the property that's today -- or where the orchard is. And
you'll be getting Conservation Collier easements. And I think, importantly, because this is sending areas,
it's really an environmental issue. Your Environmental staff, the bottom -- this is from your report -- is
recommending approval.
So your Environmental staff is supporting this proposed Growth Management Plan amendment,
which I think is very important considering this was at one time designated sending lands, and our project
is going to fit in with the sending lands around us.
In addition, this is -- you've seen a version of this map in the past where we show the businesses
that are in relative close proximity to this property. Where you see the "H," that's Physicians Regional.
And there's schools and other employment opportunities within a 10-mile radius that could be served by
the residents of the community as well as those who are in the income-restricted, you know, categories.
And importantly, this information was in your PUD staff report, or it was provided as part of the
PUD review. Cormac Giblin -- who I don't think he's here today, but who -- I'm not sure if he's a formal
portion of the review process for this or not -- has recommended approval. And you can see I highlighted
a couple of things from -- this is directly from him. He provided this to me.
He says the need for affordable housing units is great in Collier County. As the University of
Florida Shimberg Center for Housing reports, that are currently -- there are currently 51,368
cost-burdened households in Collier County with 25,687 of those spending more than 50 percent of their
monthly income on housing expenses.
And then down here he's saying, "Approval of this development will assist Collier County in
addressing the continued need for affordable housing." So you obviously have your Environmental staff
and your Housing staff recommending approval of this Growth Management Plan amendment.
And finally, Transportation staff has reviewed this, has found us to be consistent with the Growth
Management Plan, and is recommending approval of both the GMP and hopefully, ultimately, the PUD
when it gets in front of you.
April 17, 2025
Page 17 of 42
So from a -- from a review standpoint, you have -- now you have Comprehensive Planning staff
recommending approval, you have Environmental staff recommending approval, you have Housing staff
recommending approval, and you have your Transportation staff all recommending approval of this
proposed Growth Management Plan amendment.
I'm going to turn it over to Wayne to take you through some of the details about the site so you
can see how this will be implemented through the PUD process. Again, you can provide us some of that
feedback if you want to for the next hearing, but really the hearing today is on the Growth Management
Plan amendment. But we want to show you how this actually further fits into the surrounding lands and
is consistent with those surrounding lands.
If you have any more questions of me, I'm happy to answer them, or hopefully Wayne or Tim
will answer some of your questions and, as always, we're available for --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: I want you to just -- for the clarity, of the 450 units, 350 now will be --
what are the new numbers?
MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, there's going to be 423.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: 423.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Those are the new units, and 63 of which will be income-restricted.
When we come forward with the PUD, we will identify how those are broken up. I could tell you what
we're currently thinking. We're currently thinking that we will reduce the single-family some, and we'll
reduce the townhomes some. It will not -- the entire 27 acres [sic], the current thinking is they're not
going to come out of the townhomes. So that's what we're -- we're thinking under the PUD.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: And then -- and then you also are increasing the --
MR. YOVANOVICH: Open space.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: -- open space to 60 percent.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes, sir. We have a summary slide that will -- at the end that --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay.
MR. YOVANOVICH: -- that tells you what I just said, and I showed it to you in the revised
language.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Paul?
COMMISSIONER SHEA: Just a quick question. What's the property east -- on the east
boundary currently? Is it currently ag?
MR. YOVANOVICH: It's currently zoned ag, and it's sending lands. And I believe that's in a
Conservation Collier easement for Hacienda Lakes. I'm not 100 percent sure on that, but it is sending
lands.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: You know, there was a large swath --
MR. YOVANOVICH: Did you say the east or the west?
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: To the east.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Okay. I got it right. Somebody's coaching me in the back and said west.
I don't get direction right often.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: Is it in a conservation?
MR. YOVANOVICH: I don't know if it’s in a
conservation easement or not.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: But it is agricultural?
MR. YOVANOVICH: It's agricultural, and it's sending lands.
It's not? Is it not?
Again, that's why I hedged. I'm not sure on the conservation easement.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: It would be good, when this goes into the state or goes to the Board of
County Commissioners, that you identify the other lands around that are in conservation or in some sort
of protection.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: He did, except for that one spot.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Oh, okay.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: Just -- he got everything but the east covered.
April 17, 2025
Page 18 of 42
MS. COOK: Jaime Cook, your director of Development Review.
So the area completely on the west and to the south is in a conversation easement by Hacienda
Lakes. This eastern portion, except for about from Sabal Palm to maybe about here, is -- that is zoned
agriculture. Everything else south of that is part of Picayune Strand.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay.
MS. COOK: Good?
COMMISSIONER SHEA: Okay. You should clarify that on the map.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yeah, they do.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: That's not what it looks like on the package.
MR. BOSI: It's their map.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: Pardon me?
MR. BOSI: It's their map.
MR. YOVANOVICH: I don't know what just happened.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: I'm just looking at this map.
MR. YOVANOVICH: That's not my map.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Michelle, question?
MR. BOSI: That's a location map.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Rich, are you going to talk about, later, the breakdown of your
affordable housing? Because -- so you're going to have 15 percent of the now 423 units. Do you -- at
some point, I read that they're all going to be townhomes, but now you're saying maybe not and then --
MR. YOVANOVICH: No, that's -- I'm sorry. Let me clarify.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay.
MR. YOVANOVICH: We go from 68 income-restricted units to 63 income-restricted units.
They're still going to be in the townhome product.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Right now we have 110 townhomes and 340 single-family. What I'm
saying is the 340's going to be reduced by a certain number, and the 110's going to be reduced by a certain
number. That's the current planning.
And then of the -- I'll make up a number. Let's say 95 we reduce -- we reduced the townhomes to
95. The 63 units will be out of that 95.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. And do you know these townhomes -- how many
bedrooms are they? One, two, three, four?
MR. YOVANOVICH: I'm sure they're twos and threes or -- they're all threes.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: They're all threes, okay.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Are you ready for Wayne?
(No response.)
MR. ARNOLD: Good morning. I'm Wayne Arnold, a certified planner.
And you've talked a lot about the big-picture planning principles, and I'm going to walk you
through the PUD master plan that we've submitted that's been running concurrent through staff review,
and you'll see that again probably sometime in the summer, would be our guess, officially, but I'm going
to go through that with you.
But just from a standpoint and why this makes sense, you know, we had that discussion, Rich and
I were fortunate enough to be working for folks who had land that they had identified for future
development back when this Rural Fringe was established. That corridor largely focused on the
Immokalee Road corridor and some of the other parcels that were just east of Collier Boulevard.
I think, as we've talked about, I just think you had some land use, less sophistication, from a
citrus grower who didn't really have a direct interest in probably somebody telling them they needed to
pay attention to what was happening to their land.
I think that Joe mentioned that, you know, I think under any scenario, if somebody had raised
their hand and said, "This doesn't make sense for this to be receiving lands. You could give us neutral or
give us receiving," I think they probably would have been given some opportunity to have something --
April 17, 2025
Page 19 of 42
you know, you've seen other examples of that. There were some call-outs for lands that were near Pine
Ridge Road, for instance, just east and to the Rural Fringe. So not uncommon. It just maybe should have
been done 20 years ago instead of today.
But anyways, you can see we're proximate to the urban services. I think that this exhibit shows
you that there's easy access to Collier Boulevard and all the other things that that brings. Rich talked to
you already about the employment. And I made a list just given, you know, the radius map we had,
which was 10 miles. You have three major hospitals, 15 schools, you have dozens and dozens of major
employers, including shopping centers, home improvement stores, you're getting a new Home Depot
that's not too far from here. You may be getting a Costco that's not too far from here, but all those
employment opportunities.
You've got about 18 country clubs, by my count, and you've got 15 police and fire stations that
are in the vicinity. The affordable housing component really will serve those major employers in the area
and help provide some necessary housing for those -- for those employees.
You know, I don't think we're an isolated parcel. Yes, we may be designated sending today, but
clearly, to me, misidentified in that regard.
Tim will get into it in a little more detail, but citrus groves are not what they were. You know,
Rich and I have had the fortune to represent the Paul family who had large citrus groves out in what's now
Orange Blossom Ranch off of Oil Well Road. The citrus industry's been decimated. And I think long
term, citrus is probably not the most viable use for the property, but by the same token it's operating
today. They are basically an unregulated land use when it comes to water management and discharges
from their site.
So with urban development, you're going to get a modern water management system. You're
going to get storage on site. You're going to get limited discharges off site once that water's been
cleansed on site. So we think that that's certainly another benefit to the property.
This is our proposed PUD master plan. We have a residential district that's designated by "R" on
the master plan, and you have another area where we talked about the townhomes up on the northeast
corner that we've designated with the "R-TH" just to make it clear where those townhomes are going to be
located on the property.
We've already talked about the fact that there's very limited vegetation. There's a little over
10 acres of vegetation on site; a lot of it's exotic. It's going to be cleaned up. But we've identified those
as preserves on our site. There's one of them, and here's another one, and those two areas are the only
vegetated portions of the site that are being retained and enhanced.
We have two access points onto Sabal Palm Road. We have a primary access right in the middle
of the site. We have another access point that will be designated to the far east corner that will serve the
townhome area as well.
We've got two amenity sites; one that will serve the townhomes located immediately adjacent to
those townhomes, and we have another larger amenity area that will serve the balance of those
single-family homes in the community.
One of the large environmental features that Tim's going to talk to you about is the fact that we're
going to establish a large flowway across the western and southern portions of the site which will carry
the water that's coming from the Hacienda preserve areas to the north across Sabal Palm Road and south
through the property and then into the other Hacienda preserves that are located to the south.
The other thing that was mentioned -- and it is in our Comp Plan language now that we have
inserted. After talking to Jaime Cook's Environmental staff, they asked us to provide some sort of buffer
to those adjacent conservation lands. So we've established this 30-foot-wide buffer area that goes along
this portion of our western boundary, along the south boundary, and up along the eastern boundary of our
project. And those -- we'll provide a 30-foot buffer, and it's going to have a -- our language today says
10-foot-high wall. But I think after talking to Tim Hall and Environmental staff, I think that language
will say "a minimum 10-foot-high wall," and that's to separate wildlife from our people, and that's meant
so the wildlife that can utilize that area will have a safe passage, and there won't be an interaction between
our people and the habitat for those animals.
April 17, 2025
Page 20 of 42
So those are two significant environmental features; the buffer preserve and then the flowway
that's established through the project. Those are two very significant parts of the project.
This is our list of permitted uses. It's very standard. We're asking for single-family, two-family,
and townhome project. It's all for-sale, as Rich has already mentioned, and out of that carve-out for the
townhomes, we'll come back to you with a specific number that -- the County Attorney's asked us to
identify how many townhomes and how many single-family. I think Rich said it; we probably are --
looking at the number today, it would be about 95 with our reduced number of dwelling units from 450 to
423.
This is Sabal Palm Road. This is another public benefit that we believe we're bringing. The
image to the north shows you what was done for the Verona Walk project. The road was improved; Sabal
Palm Road was improved. Had a sidewalk on one side of the road, and you can see where they've got
their developed portion to the south is going about a half a mile to the east of this location.
And you can see this is a sign that identifies that the orange grove's about a half mile ahead. This
sign says that the county maintenance ends here. And so the road takes a definite change from that
location to the east. And one of our commitments is to bring that road up to the same standard that's been
identified above, so we'll have a sidewalk on the south side of the road as well as new improved road
surface that will meet modern standards and provide water management as well.
Rich already showed you this environmental summary slide, and I've talked a little bit about it.
And Tim's going to come up and talk to you about that as well. And I think Tim can attest, urban
development can be good for the environment. In this case, we think it does provide benefits, you know,
between the on-site stormwater, the -- part of the flowway that we're doing -- and we have a deviation --
we had a deviation related to littoral plantings but we've changed that now to just a commitment as part of
the PUD.
There will be smaller littoral areas, and there will be better wading bird habitat with this flowway
that's being established through the project. So that will provide for a more marshy environment for
habitat and wading birds.
And then, of course, the native vegetation, as Rich mentioned, we're going to be retaining --
we've committed to saving 90 percent of the native habitat that's there. It probably will be closer to
100 percent, but we're making that commitment at 90 percent of the native that's there. And then, of
course, the -- creating the separation for our development footprint with the 30-foot buffer.
And just some of the planning conclusions. The state requires us to meet certain conditions for
amending a Comprehensive Plan, we in the local government, and so that's a data-and-analysis situation.
And you've seen market-demand analysis for some of these. But in this particular case, affordable
housing is probably one of the largest public benefits that we're providing as part of this process. So the
63 for-sale affordable units will be one of the large public benefits, and we provided the former ULI study
and Collier County's own study, and then, of course, your own Housing department has evaluated that
commitment and believes that this is a significant commitment to make.
Tim Hall provided lots of data and analysis showing you that the site is heavily degraded today.
It's going to be put back in a better condition with the urban development we're proposing.
Mr. Trebilcock did a transportation analysis, and your staff agreed with it, that we don't have
impacts to the surrounding roadway network and that we're enhancing it by creating this new Sabal Palm
Road enhancement. We're creating a flowway. We've got habitat, water-quality improvements from our
water management system, and we have support for transmittal from now your Zoning staff as well as
Environmental, Housing, and Transportation.
And then lastly, I would remind you just how close we are to the urban area and all the
employment that is available for folks. So this is not an isolated piece of property out in the middle of
nowhere. This has been an impacted site that's going to get better.
So again, just a reminder of our public benefits that Rich alluded to. The for-sale
income-restricted housing -- and, again, I can't think of any other project that's come forward with that
commitment other than a Habitat community -- the flowway restoration; Sabal Palm improvements;
preservation on site; we've increased our open space from 55 percent to 60 percent; and then, of course,
April 17, 2025
Page 21 of 42
the density reduction from 2.66 to 2.5 and reflecting that in the reduced number of dwelling units.
So with that, I'm going to --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Wayne, I have a question. In regards to water/sewer, you're going to
be -- will there be a whole -- a line coming from 951 all the way up Sabal Palm now, or is there a tie-in
point further up the road?
MR. ARNOLD: There is a tie-in point today, Mr. Schmitt. I think it's about there on Sabal Palm
Road. So we'll be extending water and sewer from there.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: You're extending water/sewer?
MR. ARNOLD: Yes.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: All right.
Randy.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: I'm up now, okay.
Wayne, thank you. Probably a question for staff. If this is, in fact, the first for-sale affordable
housing not associated with Habitat, will -- will these properties be required to follow the same structure
for after the -- I'm assuming they're -- after the original owner sells it, he can't sell it for four X, you
know, market rate or something. And there's an entire process in place, correct, for that?
MR. BOSI: Correct. Mike Bosi.
Unfortunately, Cormac Giblin is occupied with Leadership Collier today, so he was unable to
make it, but I did speak with him yesterday. And there's a -- there is a formula that is -- that is imposed
upon the property owner and the title to the deed related to it has to maintain an affordable housing for the
30-year period.
Now, the owner of that property does get to enjoy the increase when -- in equity as the property
appreciates, but there's a limit towards what that appreciation can be. So if they sell prior to that 30-year
period, they are able to retain a portion of the equity that was created over the -- over that time, but they're
only allowed to sell to another income-qualified individual that would -- that would satisfy the
requirement for this still maintaining within the affordable stock.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, let me correct that. Let me correct that. The way it works is there's
a 30-year commitment. It's recorded, so it comes up in every title, and that has to be released by the
county to the next purchaser.
Mike was right that there -- I think it's roughly -- you're allowed 5 percent appreciation per year
for the -- for the purchaser. If you go to sell it to someone who is income-qualified, there's no issues with
the sale. But if you sell to someone who's not income qualified, the way it works is you get that
appreciation, and whatever that number is -- let's just say -- let's just say you sell it for 100,000 more than
you paid for it and you've got 20 percent worth of an appreciation, that other 80 percent, or $80,000 in my
example, you split the profits with the county. The county gets half; the property owner gets half. So that
money goes back to the county to provide affordable housing.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: And that money goes into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund?
MR. YOVANOVICH: Correct. So that's how the program works with the resale. If it should
happen to be a resale.
Our anticipation is is when people buy these units, they're going to stay in those units for a long
time because the reality is even if they did decide to sell, where are they going to go? Because the
housing costs everywhere else in Collier County are much higher than that, and these are going to be
market rate, really nice townhomes suitable for families which is, I think, important.
So there is a mechanism for someone to sell to someone that is not income-restricted, but they
don't get to just keep all of the increase in property value.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: To make sure I understand this correctly, using simple
numbers, if AMI right now was 100,000, 120 percent at 100,000, and in five years AMI is, we'll call it,
110,000, realistically that property can only be sold -- the new purchaser purchases that property for 110-.
They can't buy it for 150- because that's outside the AMI.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Correct.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: So that current owner can only make up to the new AMI
April 17, 2025
Page 22 of 42
percent.
MR. YOVANOVICH: But the difference is, unlike rental where only income-qualified people
can rent that unit -- let's just say you bought the unit and you were income-qualified.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Okay.
MR. YOVANOVICH: And then you want to go sell it, and nobody comes to you who's
income-qualified, and I come to you, who's not income-qualified. You could still sell it to me, but you
only get a certain percentage per year of increased value. And let's use my example. Ten years from now
the property went up $100,000. Under that scenario, let's just say 50,000 of that would be yours because
that's the normal. The other 50,000, you don't get to keep it all. You get half of that appreciation, and the
county gets the other half.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Right. The key factor there was that no one came to purchase
the unit that was income-qualified.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Correct.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: If they do come income-qualified, and it's --
MR. YOVANOVICH: You still have the choice whether to sell it to them or not, because --
because you split the profits, if you will, with someone else.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: So it could turn into a sale of a property with profits going to
the current owner recognizing that you have to split --
MR. YOVANOVICH: Right.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: -- the profit between owner and county.
MR. YOVANOVICH: And that's the way -- that's the way --
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: That's the way all of them are.
MR. YOVANOVICH: The program has always been set up that way.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Okay. I know I went off on a tangent, and I apologize to
everybody. I wanted to make sure that we were still following all the rules, and you also helped qualify --
or clear up any misunderstanding I had of the rules. Thank you. Appreciate it.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Michelle.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: I have a lot of questions on this. Where do I start?
MR. YOVANOVICH: Can Tim -- can Tim get up here and do the environmental first, because I
don't know --
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. Let me ask Wayne a question.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Absolutely.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: And then I'll get to this.
Wayne, on your presentation, can you go to Page 14?
MR. ARNOLD: Sure.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: And you pointed out where the townhomes are. And in looking at
that, I realize that there's no road into the community. Are you not going to allow the people who live in
townhomes to access the community? And where would there -- the pool and recreation center be, and
how do they get there?
MR. ARNOLD: Yes. There's a dedicated amenity area for the townhomes right here. It's called
out as "AA," amenity area.
So the townhomes will be in this general vicinity. Their amenity area will be proximate to there,
and there will be a separate access point here, and there will be an interconnection here that's an
emergency interconnection to their cul-de-sac that's part of the balance of the community. So the amenity
center for the larger single-family project will be here, and then the amenity for the townhomes is there.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: And so how do those townhome people -- can they go -- how do
they get to the other neighbors?
MR. ARNOLD: It's designed for them to be an independent community.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: That's interesting. But aren't we trying to get away from that
where when we do put affordable housing in two projects that it's intertwined so you don't feel like you're
the step -- the redheaded stepchild?
April 17, 2025
Page 23 of 42
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: Yeah, that was my question, too.
MR. ARNOLD: Well, keep in mind that the townhomes -- 100 percent of the townhomes are not
affordable, so the townhome community is a separate, distinct part of this PUD. So that's why it's been
designed to have its separate amenity and access.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Which is -- which is not unusual for different projects to have multiple
types of projects within the boundaries of the PUD.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: I get that, but normally it's all where -- it's all interconnected.
You don't, like, designate --
MR. YOVANOVICH: I have to think of some, but I know there's a handful, I think, of -- just
like this where we have a single-family with its own project entrance not interconnected with a
multifamily condo project that has its own separate entrance and there's not an interconnection.
Obviously, you can walk to your neighbors and ride your bicycles to your neighbors, but there's not a --
there's not a driving interconnection.
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: I understand what she's saying, because if all of the affordable
housing is going to the townhomes, you do feel like the redheaded stepchild, or I -- in this situation
because you're not able to use the other amenities of the entire community. Even though you're part of
whatever this community's going to be called, you're just not allowed to use the rest of the community.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Correct, but remember in my scenario --
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: And you're even segregated with a separate gate. You're not
even allowed to go through the guardhouse gate.
MR. YOVANOVICH: They're separate -- they're separate projects, there's no question. And if
this were all market-rate townhomes, it would be a separate project. So would they feel like redheaded
stepchildren because they can't go into the single-family? Maybe; maybe not. But what's important is the
townhomes themselves are not 100 percent affordable. There is a -- they're all -- they're all going to be
the same fit and finishes basically, because that's what's required. And if my numbers are correct, 95 total
townhomes, 63 will be the income-restricted units. So there are market-rate units intermixed in the
townhomes. So we haven't totally isolated the townhomes from -- I'm sorry -- the affordable housing
from other market-rate units.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Can you cite an example of where this has been done?
MR. YOVANOVICH: Sure. I've done two Habitat projects that were -- I think two -- that
were -- but they were rentals, and they were a market-rate rental apartment complex with an adjacent
Habitat project. The two did not intermingle, and 100 percent of the affordable units were in the Habitat
project. None of them in the apartments, up off of tree -- the Tree Farm PUD, which is up on Collier
Boulevard and Immokalee Road. We just came in and amended that, got a deviation to state that
100 percent of the affordable units can be in this part of the project, and none of them would be in this
part of the project. No sharing of amenities. And that's moving forward, and people are happy.
Now, this is -- now keep in mind these are, again, market-rate townhomes of which a portion of
them will be income-restricted.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Would you be willing to open up a road to allow them just to --
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: An emergency access road?
MR. YOVANOVICH: We have an emergency access.
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: Yeah, but paved emergency access road?
MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, we could talk about how it needs to be identified with the fire
department; how they want that.
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: What type of single-family homes are there? Are these -- are
these very large 3,000-, 4,000-square-foot single-family homes, or are they regular --
MR. YOVANOVICH: There's going to be a variety. Do we know how large they're going to be?
And let me -- I don't want them to tell me from the audience.
Again, these are all PUD considerations when we come forward with the PUD. I know you want
to talk about that at this point, but -- you know, we could talk about it now, but it's really related to the
PUD. But the market's going to be the market for what the units -- the housing square footage is going to
April 17, 2025
Page 24 of 42
be. But if you -- we're probably at a break. Are we at a break right now?
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: We're going to take a break in a minute and a half.
MR. YOVANOVICH: I could either get Tim up here to finish the environmental, and then
during the break I could try to get the answers to your questions. I don't really want to do it, you know --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: I think it's better we just take a break before Tim --
MR. YOVANOVICH: Okay.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: -- because I have a lot of questions on environmental.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Okay. Whatever you prefer.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: So any other questions on this issue? And just for the record, again,
these are issues that we can deal with when it comes in for the PUD, because this -- even though Wayne is
showing us this as the master plan, this is not part of this submittal packet. This is for information only.
We can -- we can get down to the nuts and bolts of this when it comes in. If it gets approved, and they
proceed with the PUD, we would deal with this issue.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: They're also not committing to that. They're just --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: They're not committing. There's no commitment to this. It is on the
record.
Go ahead, Mike.
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: Yeah. I just think it's important to talk about it now, because if
it doesn't get past this, it's not going to go to the PUD. So why don't we talk about it now? Not now. We
can take a break, but just --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Well, it has nothing to do with the submittal.
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: Okay.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: We can talk about it. They can know your desires, but it has nothing
to do with the submittal that goes to the state or to the Board of County Commissioners other than this is
for information only. It's not -- it's not part of the actual application.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, typically, you have both at the same time because we're doing them
both.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Correct. We --
(Simultaneous crosstalk.)
MR. YOVANOVICH: And I also know the curiosity of wanting to know, if the Growth
Management Plan gets amended, what's the real project going to look like? So we're sharing that
information with you. That doesn't mean it can't be massaged between now and --
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Right.
MR. YOVANOVICH: -- we get -- we come back for the actual adoption hearing.
We're asking you to transmit right now to the state so the state can weigh in and say, "Do we
agree with changing this from sending land to a potential residential project?"
You'll get -- it doesn't get approved today in this round. It comes back again for the adoption
hearing, at which time you'll have both petitions in front of you for you to -- then, you know, twist my
arm or not twist my arm on the PUD in order to get a yes on both. Does that make sense?
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: Absolutely.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: I'm going to take a break now. We'll reconvene in 15 minutes at
10:45.
(A brief recess was had from 10:30 a.m. to 10:45 a.m.)
MR. BOSI: Chair, you have a live mic.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: All right. Thank you.
With that, Mr. Yovanovich, do you want to proceed with the environmental discussion?
MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, let me -- let me try to answer -- I think there was a question about
size --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yeah. Go ahead, please.
MR. YOVANOVICH: -- size of the units. The townhomes currently is -- they're looking at
between 1,700 and 1,800 square feet. Three bedrooms, two and a half baths is the current, you know,
April 17, 2025
Page 25 of 42
thought process for the market. And keep in mind we never put all this in the PUDs, so I hope you're not
going to say this is what we have to build.
And then the single-family is going to range between 1,800 and 3,000 square feet. So we're not
talking about mansions next to, you know, very small units. We're talking about very similar unit sizes.
So I don't think you're going to have the redheaded-stepchild concept that -- and that's fair. I mean, you
know, sometimes you can't think of a better analogy. You know, it's fine.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: I know. I didn't mean to --
MR. YOVANOVICH: It's effective. I understood what you were saying, you know, but I don't
think you're going to have that scenario here.
And it's also not unusual -- if you go up and down -- you go up and down Vineyards, every one of
those communities off of Vineyards is a gated community. So every one of those, even though it's the
Vineyards community, you've got to get a code from somebody to go in to go visit your neighborhood --
your neighbor, so we -- and I think we have interconnected sidewalks so people can walk to their
neighbors' and ride their bicycles to their neighbors'. They just can't drive their car. And you know what,
they ought to exercise anyway. So hopefully we're doing them a favor.
And I think that -- hopefully that answered the questions about the market and all that.
And now Tim will come up and talk about the environment. Where are you?
MR. HALL: Good morning. For the record, Tim Hall with Turrell, Hall & Associates.
I can start with -- I think Jaime had already answered the question. There's a block of land right
here -- I believe it's a 20-acre parcel -- that is still in private ownership. From that piece down to this
corner, that block and moving to the east, is part of Picayune Strand. That's owned by the state, and then
from this corner around to this side of the property is all part of the Hacienda preserve area.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Tim, can you go further south and show us --
MR. HALL: I can't on this. This is a -- this is a set --
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Okay. Because I know further south you actually hit --
MR. YOVANOVICH: 41.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Winding Cypress -- yes, you hit 41. You hit Winding
Cypress and Naples Reserve, and the strand picks up north of Naples Reserve, so it has to come up here
somewhere.
MR. HALL: It kind of wraps around. The state has bought, you know, different properties in
that area, and they -- so I don't -- I mean, I don't have the exact boundary on it. When we come forward
the next time, you know, if we come forward the next time, I can make sure to have that map for you so
you have all of the different kind of property designations of that area around it.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Okay. Thank you.
MR. HALL: And then, you know, just like we had said, the property has been in agricultural use
for several decades. You know, even when I was young, we got oranges and all out there. And I grew up
on Six Ls, and we used to come up the back way on Sabal Palm to get to it.
So going through some of the environmental, you know, summaries that we put together -- and
trying to explain how the change from the agricultural use to the residential use is going to affect the
property -- most of these benefits are associated with the surrounding preserve areas, not so much with the
property itself.
But the enhanced water quality. Right now with agricultural uses, you get rainfall. They kick
their pumps on. The water is dumped into the adjacent areas. There's really no control on that. So a lot
of times where that pumping occurs, you get shifts in natural habitat to vegetation that can handle a much
flashier hydro period, meaning that you get really extreme highs and really extreme lows depending on
the pumping regimes and how the -- how the farms are operating their irrigation systems and their -- how
high they try to keep the water table to support the crops that they're growing.
So having the on-site stormwater retention and treatment is also going to result in a more
controlled flow that goes back to try to mimic what that natural -- that natural sheet flow would be. When
you go through the stormwater management program, they limit the amount of water that can come off of
the site at certain time frames and how long it takes the systems on the property to recover, and what that
April 17, 2025
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does is it kind of mimics kind of a more natural hydro period so that water coming into the adjacent areas
is more consistent with what would have been there historically versus what's there now.
Additional enhancements to the hydrology, they're going to allow for some increased flow under
Sabal Palm Road, which acts as a barrier to water moving from north to south, and so allowing that flow
to come through and into the flowway associated with this project, again, is going to kind of try to restore
some of the natural flows and hydro periods in that area that have been lost over time.
One thing we are doing on site is enhancing the native habitat and the native vegetation. As the
project exists today, there's about two and a half acres, 2.56, that qualifies as native habitat under the
county's code. There's additional vegetation there, but it's almost -- almost predominantly or completely
exotic vegetation.
There's a lot of Brazilian pepper, Melaleuca, java plum, acacia. There's a ton of exotic vegetation
on that site.
So as part of the project, they will remove all of the exotic vegetation and restore the native
habitat to those two preserve areas that were shown on the plan. And that will do a couple of things. It
removes the seed source in terms of enhancements to the adjacent preserve areas. You've got the
Melaleuca and Brazilian pepper and all that are producing seeds that are transported over into those
adjacent preserve areas and act as a seed source and an ongoing risk to contaminating those preserve areas
with more exotics.
So by going in and getting rid of all of them on this property and restoring that native habitat,
then you're going to remove some of that risk to the adjacent areas, really. Putting in the native plantings
and then protecting the on-site areas under the conservation easements will all be part of that.
With respect to the wildlife within that area, the separation of the development from the adjacent
conservation areas was talked about a couple of times. And having that separation -- or increasing that
separation will allow the animals to utilize the lands that they're used to using within those adjacent
preserve areas, but putting in this buffer -- and I don't know that it will actually be a wall. A wall or a
fence, either one, could suffice to keep the -- keep the animals from coming into the development area.
In addition to that, there's going to be some requirements for the development itself. When we go
through the Conservation Commission and the Fish and Wildlife Service, they're going to put conditions
on the property, and some of those are going to be how the property itself is managed and reducing these
attractive nuisances that can occur.
Generally, they prohibit feeding of pets outside, so you don't have animal food outside. They
prohibit putting your garbage cans out or -- until the day of the pickup or, in areas where they have
dumpsters, putting in wildlife-proof dumpsters to keep the animals out of them.
Cleaning, if they have outdoor grills, making sure the grills are cleaned and not left outside. In
some cases where you get really high incidences of nuisance animals, bears, raccoons, that kind of thing,
they can also prohibit bird feeders and that kind of thing. So it goes to educating the owners as they come
in that they are in an area where there are wildlife -- wildlife interactions are a potential and educating
them on what to do around their houses and within the property itself to minimize the chance of any
adverse encounters with those wildlife.
Another thing that will likely be required is that because you have these big adjacent preserve
areas, fire management or fire maintenance is a big thing with them. They use fire to help maintain and
manage those habitats. So people moving into these -- this community will also be given notice that at
certain times, you know, somewhere -- mostly likely on a five-year schedule or something, I would guess,
given the types of habitats, five to seven years, but there will be periodic controlled burns in these
adjacent areas. And, you know, they'll be given notice of when those burns occur and all, but that's just
something else that will go along with kind of ownership in here as an acknowledgment that -- you know,
that things like that are going to be happening next door.
I think that's kind of the scope and how the conversion of the agricultural to the residential use,
you know, and the improvements that would come about as a result of that. And I'm happy to answer,
you know, any questions if it wasn't clear or if you have anything else you want to --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Tim, I have several questions. But the first one really is -- probably it
April 17, 2025
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will not come back until the PUD. But you've already -- are there jurisdictional wetlands? And I'm
assuming that this is in the panther consultation area. You're going to have to go through Section 6,
consultation.
MR. HALL: Section 7.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Section 7, thank you.
MR. HALL: Yeah. We'll go through that. There are some wetlands on the site. The area where
the flowway is going through --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yeah.
MR. HALL: -- has some wetland habitat there that will be incorporated into that flowway.
And so the way that that flowway is designed, some of the depths, how that littoral area will be
incorporated into it and providing the foraging habitat and all for some of the wading birds, whether or
not they consider that an enhancement or an impact. Likely they will consider it an impact, so we will
have to do some wetland mitigation, and then it is in the panther consultation area, and so there will be
panther mitigation that would also be required for the development as it moves forward.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: PHU, purchase of PHUs.
MR. HALL: Yes.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: All right. Recognizing your expertise -- and the staff cites the Belle
Meade Hydrological Enhancement Overlay as part of the Picayune Strand. What is your assessment in
regards to any adverse impact on the flowway? Second to that is this is also -- just east of here was the
Comprehensive Watershed Improvement Plan. I have no idea where the county is on that. Jaime may.
That's been going on for almost 10 years.
But, again, they cite this in the staff report. What is your assessment in regards to are there any
potential impacts that this may have on both the BMHEO, as it's called, Belle Meade Enhancement -- or
Hydrological Enhancement Overlay, or the Comprehensive Watershed Improvement Plan which, my
recollection -- maybe you can clarify -- is to the east. I don't know how far east that is. It was part of the
Picayune Strand.
MR. HALL: I mean, the Picayune Strand project went all the way over to the Prairie Canal,
which is, like, Jane Scenic Drive.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yeah.
MR. HALL: Several miles to -- further to the east. That included filling in of the Miller,
Fakaunion, and Prairie Canals.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: The intent of the comprehensive plan -- the watershed plan, that was
the county's plan to move the water south. It was -- because of what they said was too much freshwater --
I believe, if I recall, too much freshwater. But I have no idea why staff has that in the staff report, but we
don't address it. And I'm just puzzled as to -- it appears to be a reason that staff was recommending
disapproval.
MR. YOVANOVICH: If I recall the staff report, the comments you're referring to were
comprehensive -- your Comprehensive Planner review.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yes.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Not your Environmental staff review.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Not the environmental staff. Thank you. It's the comprehensive plan
review.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Those are --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: But it's still the staff report.
MR. YOVANOVICH: I appreciate that, but I think it was made by someone in an area, if I may,
outside of their lane. The Environmental staff review found us consistent with the goals and objectives of
Collier County's environmental conservation portions of their element.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay. I've got Michelle and Mike, okay. This come up different on
here. But Mike, go ahead, you're first.
I want to -- I wanted staff to cover that as well. I'm going to ask staff specifically these questions
because it's in the staff report. I just want an environmental assessment as to -- after you reviewed this.
April 17, 2025
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And I asked, again, that, for the record, from your assessment, is there any adverse impact on either the
Picayune Strand or the Belle Meade Hydrological Enhancement Overlay?
MR. HALL: I don't believe so. I mean, a lot of the work that's been done out in Picayune by the
state and all as well has been to try to restore some of those old natural hydro periods, areas that have
been overdrained because some of the canal systems --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yes.
MR. HALL: -- or blocked-in areas because of development and so forth. So there has been a big
push with all of those areas to the east and all to try to restore these natural hydro periods.
And as I said, you know, a lot of what would happen as a result of this project would be to also
try to help kind of restore some of the historic hydro period that may have been -- that may have been lost
over time.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay. But this project will not in any way -- or will there? There's --
you're going to stay --
MR. HALL: In my opinion, no.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: You're staying within your footprint. You're not going into any other
of the surrounding areas?
MR. HALL: That's correct. We're dealing with the water that would have historically flowed
onto this site --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yes.
MR. HALL: -- to get through this site and into the areas to the south and then dealing with the
water on the site itself to make sure that it meets the state standards before it leaves the site.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay.
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: My question --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Go ahead, Mike.
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: My question relates to the water flow. Are you putting culverts
in throughout all of the road where you're making the road improvements to, or just in front of the
community?
MR. HALL: The only culverts I'm aware of --
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: North and south.
MR. HALL: -- that we're putting in are the ones right at the community that would tie into the
flowway that goes through the community.
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: So what about east to west? Are you -- what about the water
that flows east to west? Are you -- how is it going to get around the community?
MR. HALL: There are -- well, I mean, you've got -- Sabal Palm Road is there right now that acts
as a dam, and the culvert's through the dam.
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: Correct, but north/south, east/west.
MR. HALL: Well, the water -- I see what you're saying.
The water in that area flows generally from north to south. The -- so the community being tight
up against Sabal Palm Road, the water on the north side of Sabal Palm Road is picked up through those
pipes and through the community and then will outfall through the flowway on the south side of the
project.
The water to the east and west of the project will still basically just flow to the south. There's not
a big east/west exchange along there --
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: Okay.
MR. HALL: -- except through the swale that runs along Sabal Palm Road.
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: Okay. Thank you.
MR. HALL: Yep.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: All right. Michelle.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Tim, you had mentioned in your report right now that you're
considering either walls or fence to separate the wildlife from the residential use, which made me think of
something. And maybe this is -- it's really a PUD discussion -- or when we talk about that.
April 17, 2025
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But in Jacksonville there's a community, Deerwood Beach -- I mean Deerwood. It's a community
up in Jacksonville. And there's a lot of deer. It's a large development. And they have fencing with the
picks to keep the deer from entering the residence.
And occasionally a deer would try to escape or enter the community, and those peaks would, like,
rupture their bodies. So -- sorry to bring this up. But it's just like, if anything, I would rather see a wall
versus a fence. To try to keep the habitat out we may be doing more damage to the habitat than protecting
them.
MR. HALL: And I think that will -- that will, as you said, come up later on when you --
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Right.
MR. HALL: -- get into the actual design discussions. There are pluses and minuses with both. I
know what you're talking about with the picks and all on there, and, you know, my opinion is always just
"go higher" so the animals can't get up, you know, to that, to that --
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Deer can jump high.
MR. HALL: Who knows. They can, yeah. And, you know -- and alligators can climb fences,
you know. So you're not ever going to be able to keep everything out.
But the intent is just to put a barrier there that is going to help -- to help handle 95 percent of the
potential interactions there. There are still some that may or may not occur no matter what you do. The
fencing is good for a lot of reasons, airflow and all. Sometimes when you put a wall in there and you
change the way that that air can move, you create these little microclimates that can cause algae or mold
growth in areas where you may not, you know, want it or that could affect adjacent vegetation.
You also usually have more maintenance associated with a wall. People don't like the wall
looking ugly, so pressure cleaning, chemical cleaning, that kind of stuff associated with walls that you
don't have with fences. Alternatively, the walls a lot of times will hold up a little bit better in smaller
storm events and all. If a tree falls on a wall, it may not do as much damage as it does on a fence. So
there are pluses and minuses to both. Generally, the wildlife agencies prefer fences.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: And I should say -- yeah. My concern is about the animals and
not harming them, so -- and a wall -- a fence is probably more attractive than a wall, but I'm just
concerned about the animals.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay.
MR. HALL: All right. I'll turn it back over to Rich, then.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, that concludes everything we have to say about our proposed
Growth Management Plan amendment. I believe we now have a -- unanimous staff recommendation of
approval. And we're requesting that the Planning Commission forward this transmittal to the BCC with a
recommendation of approval.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: All right. Well, before I go to public speakers -- oh, we've got
Michelle again.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Oh, no. I mean, I'll talk about this after.
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: I've just got more questions.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Go ahead, Mike, because I mean, I have questions, too, but I want to
address some of the issues before we go to public comments because I think some of these questions will
be answered. But go ahead, Mike.
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: My -- just my question was about the road. You're going to
improve the road all the way to where Vineyards improved it? Or not Vineyards. Verona Walk.
MR. YOVANOVICH: We're going to pick it up where it --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Winding Cypress, whatever it's called today.
MR. YOVANOVICH: We're going to pick it up from where the county maintenance currently
ends all the way to our second project.
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: Are you going to extend the sidewalk all the way to your --
MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes.
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: So where's the closest -- this is just for the affordable housing
aspect. Where's the closest bus stop, so somebody in the affordable housing could take a bike to the bus
April 17, 2025
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stop if they need?
MR. YOVANOVICH: I -- is there one at Sabal Palm? Sabal Palm and 951? Yeah, Sabal Palm
and 951.
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: Okay. I just --
MR. YOVANOVICH: Thank you. I didn't know either. I'm glad. Yes.
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: That was my only question.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Chairman, I do have a --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Go ahead, please.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. With regards to this first-ever for-sale affordable housing
project outside of Habitat for Humanity, I need to wrap my head around how this will work, because this
is the first time we've ever done this before.
I do remember -- and I went back to the transcripts of the March, I think it was 6th, meeting when
we talked about the Community Housing Plan initiative LDCA, and I asked Cormac how something like
this would work, because how it works for rentals I get, but for for-sale I was struggling with. And I
looked at what he said, and like you said, there's two options if somebody sells. You either sell to
somebody that is -- what do you call it?
MR. YOVANOVICH: Income-qualified.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Income-qualified or if you sell to someone who isn't
income-qualified, you share the profits. You had mentioned something about a certain percentage. That
never came up when we talked about this. And so --
MR. YOVANOVICH: It is in the current regulations. I don't think it's being deleted by the
proposed amendments.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay.
MR. YOVANOVICH: And I think it's you get a 5 percent appreciation every year.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: You said that, but I never have seen that before, and it wasn't
discussed when we did this.
MR. YOVANOVICH: I'd have to go back and look and see if it's in the Code of Ordinances or
it's in the Land Development Code, but it's definitely in the -- it's in the affordable housing regulations in
one or the other codes.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Yeah. And Cormac didn't mention it when I specifically asked
him about that. It wasn't in the transcripts either. But -- okay, it is what it is. But -- yes.
MR. BOSI: What I would say is when the PUD is actually under review, I will ensure that
Cormac will be here to be able to specifically answer those -- that specific question that you have related
to the affordable housing application for the for-sale product.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. And then in understanding how this will work, like, let's
talk about a hypothetical. For instance, let's say that the community is built today and the rule of thumb is
housing that's affordable is that it shouldn't be more than three times your annual salary. At the current
rate now, at 120 percent of AMI, this person three times the amount of income would put that housing
affordability at, like, a 400,000 range. So are you saying that your townhomes of three bedrooms would
be around 400,000, and that's how you're keeping it affordable?
MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, what I'm saying --
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: How do you do this?
MR. YOVANOVICH: That would be -- that would -- the answer is, that is what we'd have to
sell -- if your math is right, and I have no reason to believe your math's not right, then that's what we
would be -- the maximum we could charge to sell that unit to someone who's income-qualified.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. And does that matter how many bedrooms it has? I know
you said three, but you may change it, but does it just -- is it per unit?
MR. YOVANOVICH: This is where -- this is where I'm not going to get outside of my lane. I
think we need to have -- we can talk about those specifics when Cormac's here.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. I was hoping, yeah.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: And this comes back for adoption as well. So once we get comments
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from the state, it does come back to us again as a Comp Plan amendment.
MR. BOSI: And I can -- Mike Bosi.
I can comment that if you've got four people, you've a four -- you have a -- at 120 percent, the
maximum purchase price would be 408,000. If you only have two people for a two-bedroom, then that
would go down to 327,247. So there is a different income price associated with the bedrooms as well.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Where did you see that? What chart is that on?
MR. BOSI: It's a chart that Cormac sent to me because he couldn't be here.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. Because I have the charts that we talked about at -- yeah, I
would just like to really get a better understanding of how that works, maybe the next time.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Yeah. But I think what's important is nobody's providing this housing for
people who -- at incomes they can qualify to buy housing. And there is a table. I don't have it. It's not on
the table I just put back up. But there is a table that talks about, you know, under the current regulations,
you know, the maximum purchase price. Apparently Mike might have it. But there is a table. It's
regulated, and we'll meet whatever those guidelines are.
But I think what's important is if you look at what -- what Cormac is basically saying is right now
the median condo price is $466,000. That's the median. So we're talking -- obviously, we're selling it for
less than what the median is going to be. So it's -- it's a discount for people to be able to come and live in
Collier County near work.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Anything else?
MR. YOVANOVICH: No. I'm just responding to questions.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: All right.
Mike, I have some questions concerning the staff report. Do you want to answer these, or --
James -- or probably a lot of this has to do with environmental as well. So Jaime.
I'm not sure who, but the one is there's a quote here, "The purpose of the BMHEO, the Belle
Meade Hydrological Enhancement Overlay, is to restore the natural flow and rebalance flowways in two
natural systems."
And then it goes on to cite as well the Comprehensive Watershed Management Plan is the
county's initiative to do exactly that.
Where is the Comprehensive Watershed Plan in regards to this development? And what -- where
are we with the Comprehensive Plan? Because I want to know if this -- it's cited in the staff report. I
would like to know, are there any potential adverse impacts to what the county's initiative is to restore the
flowway?
MR. BOSI: Mike Bosi, Planning and Zoning director, and then I will let -- Peter Hayden from
stormwater is also attending.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay. Peter's got the -- he's got the wand now on this one.
MR. BOSI: But I wanted to show you -- give you guys a couple maps --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yeah.
MR. BOSI: -- before we get there.
On the screen, this little red area is basically where they're at. They are within the Belle Meade
Hydrological Enhancement Overlay. That's why staff pointed that out to the Planning Commission, and
that's to try to promote sheet flow -- sheet flow within this area.
In speaking with Peter -- and he can come up and specifically provide his commentary, but he
says because of the way that this sits and because of the culverts within that they're going to install on
Sabal Palm and disburse the water to the south with some water quality, that it should not affect or be in
dis-alignment with what the overall goal of the Hydrological Enhancement Overlay is.
And there was another question just to give you in terms of the ownership within this area. And
let me get this to where it's manageable. So anything that's in green is owned by the State of Florida.
Anything that's in blue has had their TDRs severed.
And Mr. Yovanovich was correct, the area here and area -- and the area here was where Hacienda
severed TDRs, and those TDRs were extinguished for the approval of the Hacienda PUD approvals. So
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as you can see, the state owns this green property here, the property here, the blue areas have been
restricted. There's limitations that developments cannot be developed because they're in the TDR
program.
So this really is the last area of potential development, because the rest is owned by the state as
you move further to the east. And from staff's standpoint -- and I discussed it with Chairman Schmitt --
we think because they had the purview -- and when it started, the Rural Fringe Mixed-Use District was
93,000 acres. It was done at a 10,000-foot level, and I think this 169 acres got included within this overall
environmentally sensitive area as sending, but if they were doing a more site specific, they would have --
they would have at least made this designation probably neutral because it is an existing farm operation
that has been in existence for somewhat of 60 years.
But I just wanted to show you how that -- the ownership within that area. It's almost all owned by
the state. This is one of the last areas of privately-held property that is obviously been almost completely
cleared and has been in agricultural production for over 50 years.
And the reason why we didn't mention the hydrological area was just to show that this is on the
edge -- the east -- or the westernmost edge and the northernmost edge of this area. But because of the
design and -- because of the design and the promotion of water quality that's going -- and also providing
for a distribution of that water to the south, you know, to further enhance the overlay, we feel that it is in
concert or is not incongruent with the Belle Meade Hydrological Enhancement Overlay.
But I'll let Peter speak to the larger basin question, I think, that you had.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay.
MR. HAYDEN: Peter Hayden, stormwater manager. Good morning.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Hi.
MR. HAYDEN: So this is the actual whole larger basin. And I figured I'd bring that just to kind
of help, and I think this is going to work. As you can see -- and I don't know -- is there any way to get a
mouse on that?
All right. So you can --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Make sure you speak into the microphone there, Peter. Thank you.
There you go.
MR. HAYDEN: You got it, Joe.
All right. So you can see here that I've kind of shown the whole Belle Meade area, and I think --
it's basically going up to the north. You can see up here there's Golden Gate Main Canal.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yes.
MR. HAYDEN: Coming down to the south you can see Alligator Alley, which kind of severs it.
Then you can ultimately see below here this whole contributing watershed area, and then, actually, this
was the south area that we were studying at the time.
The project here is approximately in this area here which is somewhat like Michael said, outside
our boundary. We do have -- definitely do have flow through here. And the fact that they talked today
about having, you know, improved culverts underneath Sabal Palm Road, that's going to help that whole
area and help for, you know, keeping that flowway open. And as long as we can work that through once
it comes back, you know, for the PUD, this is going to be an improvement actually, because we still have
dam out there.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: But the project -- you're still moving forward on this, and it's still
being studied, or where are you with this now?
MR. HAYDEN: No. So the restore project we had, which is we had money from --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: From the --
MR. HAYDEN: -- Exxon --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Exxon.
MR. HAYDEN: -- Valdez, right. So that --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yeah.
MR. HAYDEN: -- with the Corps -- because we were actually looking to -- the Golden Gate
Main Canal, we were actually going to try to take that freshwater flow and bring this south, and actually
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with the Corps and everything, it wasn't permittable. So at this point we're kind of going back to see what
we can look at. But at this point, that -- at least the restore project, that's been -- that study's been done.
We couldn't permit what we wanted to do, so that one -- we can't go further with that.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay. So bottom line is it's cited in the report. It's information, but
from your perspective, there -- it's -- this development does not adversely impact anything from -- with
the standpoint of the BMHEO or the Comprehensive Watershed Improvement Plan?
MR. HAYDEN: Correct. Based on the location of it, because it's essentially right on that fringe,
on the outside of that fringe.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay. Peter, thank -- that's all I have.
Let's see. Mike, just for the record -- and you and I talked about this. The other quote here, it
says, "The Comprehensive Planning staff believes that the petitioner has not provided appropriate
relevant data and analysis to address the statutory requirements of the Growth Management Plan." That
really threw me off. I mean, if they didn't provide it, why? And why did staff bring that petition to us
without the data and analysis that they thought they needed?
MR. BOSI: And that was, in reflection, that the analysis was done to this -- on this 169 acres, and
we felt that it was not comprehensive in terms of fully trying to understand what this project meant to the
Belle Meade hydrological area.
But through further conversations with our stormwater department, we have subsequently learned
that their purview is this should not interrupt the Belle Meade Hydrological Overlay. So basically, the
statement was -- their focus was on only 169 acres, and we were looking for what are the effects from a
more -- more regional perspective or specifically related to the hydrological overlay.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Bottom line, you softened your position on that?
MR. BOSI: Yes.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: All right. Next one, then. Further down the paragraph, "Suggested
alternatives for the types of residential development is more consistent with the goals and policies of the
overlay as well as updated environmental analysis of the surrounding properties." I mean, I read this
plain language. It says, "You didn't give us what I think we want" --
MR. BOSI: Yes.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: -- yet it comes to us --
MR. BOSI: Yes.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: -- to hash this out.
MR. BOSI: Well, actually, it didn't. We came to a compromise. Before it got there, we set our
bar at X. They set their bar at Y. We compromised in between.
What we are saying is we think -- they were at 55 percent, 55 percent open space. We said, you
know, "In the urbanized area, you would have 60 percent open space. You're going less than what would
be in the urbanized area." We didn't think that was appropriate. We thought 60 percent was appropriate.
They were maintaining that 55 percent was all that they could provide for. We've -- they've come
to 60 percent. We -- because of that, we've withdrawn that objection.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: And I understand. And typically -- and I know you did this after our
discussion. And you and I talked about this --
MR. BOSI: Yes.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: -- so this is not a surprise that I'm bringing this up. But you and I have
talked about this, and in the conversations with Mr. Yovanovich as well there was a discussion in regards
to compromise.
My only point is it's in the staff report. Typically, we would have gotten some kind of an
amended staff report to correct some of this.
MR. BOSI: Yes.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: And that's what bothers me, because --
MR. BOSI: Well --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: -- my colleagues don't have the background and understanding that I
do in regards to this. And it's -- to me it's pretty inflammatory language from the standpoint saying,
April 17, 2025
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"Well, we didn't get what we want from the petitioner, and -- but we're going to send it to you-all, and you
figure it out." I am really not happy with that.
And the next statement says, "The proposed amendment does not satisfy the gradual change
designated in the FLUE, and staff believes the current permitted allowances" -- yeah -- "insinuated above
are more appropriate for the property," which they discussed again the one unit per 40 acres, which is not
going to happen on this property. I mean, I've got a staff person pretty solid on what this should be, one
unit per 40 acres. Unless somebody's going to go in there and buy this property and develop a ranch,
which would be a beautiful place if you want to have one unit per 40 acres, or a horse farm. But again,
it's in the staff report, and we're now saddled with trying to hammer through this. But go ahead.
MR. BOSI: And what I would say, back to their positions that they took, the compromise in the
agreement was arrived upon yesterday.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yeah.
MR. BOSI: So the staff report is what it was. The staff report served its purpose in staff's -- in
staff's regard.
We found -- we came to -- we came to a compromise. They didn't get exactly what they wanted.
Staff didn't get exactly what we wanted, but we think we came to an appropriate compromise. And the
staff -- it took the staff report to get -- yield -- to yield at least a little bit of leverage towards where we
were at when they were at this disagreement.
Now, related to the transect of density -- and within the planning world, you start with your
downtown -- the concept, your downtown district is your most intense uses, and you've got a transect that
goes -- as you further go away from that downtown area, you trans- -- you lower or you lessen the
intensity or the density associated with it. Within the urbanized area, you have four units an acre. Within
the Urban Residential Fringe subdistrict, it's 2.5, but you can get a little -- you can get more. And then --
and then it goes to 1 to 40. And we thought the 2.6 was a little bit aggressive based upon that transect.
Now, we do recognize that the GMP does -- does call out a special circumstance that you can go
above that 2.5 if you're utilizing for-sale affordable housing, which this project is utilizing.
So they have provided for the avenue that the GMP says, "This is the one avenue that you can get
that you could increase beyond that 2.5 units per acre." But because that -- they were moving to an area
that was 1 to 40, we thought 2.6 was just a little bit too high, and that's why we had said that the 2.5 was
an area that we could compromise in terms of that transect in stepping down of density, and that's -- and
that's why staff took that -- the position that it did.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: And then reached an agreement with them.
MR. BOSI: And then we reached an agreement. And I had to -- and, unfortunately, I had a
conversation with you, and we had a meeting already pre-set up with Michelle, so I described where we
were at. I knew at the time that we were going to spend a lot of time, and I apologize that I didn't, you
know, write a supplemental staff report and get it to you guys, but then there's probably more questions
that you're going to have in your mind. I thought that it was more appropriate that we would introduce
this compromise to the Planning Commission members who I hadn't had a chance to speak to verbally so
I could tell you why we were at, what the reasons, what the motivations were instead of handing you a
piece of paper saying, "Staff is good with what's being proposed at X" while you had Y that was the
conditions that we described within the staff report.
So that's just -- and it's just a factor of almost timing then. We didn't have enough time to give
you a full explanation of how we got here. I just wanted to utilize this time face-to-face to verbally --
because verbally I can communicate with you much more efficiently than I can when I -- you know, just
through a narrative.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: All right. Then there's another -- "Furthermore, there is a limitation
that the affordable units are regulated to townhomes which can be lackluster and inconsistent with the
goals and policies of the RFMU overlay sending district."
Is that an editorial question [sic]? What is lackluster? And why -- why are we dictating what the
product is? I've never -- in the years I've been involved in this, I don't tell a developer what the product is.
It sounds like staff is objecting to townhomes.
April 17, 2025
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MR. BOSI: And --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: I mean, we've never done this before.
MR. BOSI: That's unfortunate, because what the objection was was the bar is at 30 percent in --
as the staff person, I spoke with them, Parker. Thirty percent is what the Board of County Commissioners
has said, "This is the mark. If you want to go above that -- if you want to get density above the GMP,
you're giving us 30 percent of affordable housing."
But as a clarification, there's some nuance to that. That's 30 percent for rentals. We've never
really had the issue of, "All right, what about for-sale product?" What -- you know, "How should we
evaluate that?"
In speaking with Cormac further, Cormac said, "Fifteen percent of homeownership is a heavier
lift than 30 percent for a rental product within -- within a rental property." And because of that, that's
what the term "lackluster" was focused upon, not the housing type, but was upon the percentage and a
misunderstanding that a 15 percent of homeownership opportunities for affordable housing is actually a
more difficult lift for the developer than 30 percent over a 30-year period of time for an apartment
complex.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: And the follow-on sentence clarifies. It says, "Staff has requested
additional commitments to affordable housing," but that was based on the fact that staff didn't take into
consideration that these were --
MR. BOSI: Ownership.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: -- owner -- owner-occupied, which I clearly support from the
standpoint -- I would prefer, frankly, for the longevity and for folks to participate in the economic benefits
of homeownership, that they become owner-occupied.
I just had a real problem with this term "lackluster," because -- what's that? It just lacks shining
or I -- or, you know, that's a term of art, and I --
MR. BOSI: It's a term of art, and it's a term that I probably should have -- during my review I
should have nixed it and just said that -- I should have just revised it and said, "It's not at the percentage
that we've grown -- that we've established."
But that's on us. We have to have better communication with our internal -- with our divisions,
with our subject-matter experts to have a better understanding of how they view it, because Cormac
signed off on it, and we needed to have a better understanding. And we've subsequently had that
conversation, but we should have had that conversation before the staff report --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: And to note again, Environmental staff approved this.
MR. BOSI: Correct.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: And I've got some other commissioners. But in your closing
comments -- because I want to clarify the four bullets where the Comprehensive Planning staff -- the four
bullets on there, we need to clarify these four statements; the open space, the density, and the increased
clustering of units in our final proposal.
But with that, I've got Michelle and then Paul. Michelle.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Chair, I have two concerns that I'm struggling with. Should I
address them now, or are there --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Well, we're going to have --
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: -- speakers?
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: We're going to have speakers, so -- and then we can get into
discussion.
So, Paul.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: Mine's more -- a question I would ask now, and maybe it's been
answered, but what happens -- I mean, most -- it's very difficult to do the home-buying affordable housing
because most people don't have down payments.
MR. BOSI: Right.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: So I guess I'm -- what happens if they can't find any buyers? Do they
all of a sudden become market rate?
April 17, 2025
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MR. YOVANOVICH: No. They stay vacant until we find a buyer.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: They stay vacant until you find --
MR. YOVANOVICH: Till they find a buyer. There are down payment assistance programs and
other mechanisms to help people --
(Simultaneous crosstalk.)
COMMISSIONER SHEA: But the key is that if we can't find a buyer, we have to keep working
at it.
MR. YOVANOVICH: They never become market rate.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: Thank you.
MR. YOVANOVICH: I think that is -- yeah.
MR. BOSI: And just from discussion with Cormac and discussion with individuals that are tied
into the real estate market and -- staff is not concerned that there's not going to be an audience -- a line of
folks that will be interested and qualified to be eligible for these -- for these units.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: All right. Do you have any other questions before we go to public
speakers? Then I'll ask staff to close with comments.
So do we have any public speakers?
MR. SUMMERS: No.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: No speakers. Anybody in the audience wishing to speak?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: All right. Well, we have no speakers. So with that, staff, do you want
to give your presentation? And I would -- I'd ask that you address the points we are increasing the open
space to 60 percent.
MR. BOSI: (Nods head.)
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: The density is being reduced to 2.5.
MR. BOSI: (Nods head.)
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: I know staff says recommending to 1.5, but it's going to be 2.5.
MR. BOSI: (Nods head.)
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Increase the clustering of units. Was that -- what was that?
MR. BOSI: That's been addressed. Like I said, the clustering of units have been addressed with
them meeting the 60 percent open space, and that's what clustering is. Clustering is to provide less of
an -- less of an -- as you know, less of an impact upon the overall project development area.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: And the last point that was on the staff report is singular development
with one -- within an amenity center. But we're going to have two amenity centers. That's already been
agreed upon.
MR. BOSI: And once again, and we said because they were able to get to the 60 percent, how
they -- how they allocate their project within that 60 percent, staff -- staff is -- has signed off on.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: And I appreciate the fact that we wanted to move this forward. I'm not
busting your chops in regards we didn't get a supplemental. I just would have liked a little more clarity
from the standpoint of how -- the language that was used in the staff report and if there was clarity. But I
know there was -- there was a lot of disagreement between the applicant and the staff in regards to what's
presented. But the outcome is -- we've got a solution, and we've got a final recommendation.
So do we have any other comments from the Board? Go ahead, Michelle.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: I have questions.
Okay. So I'm struggling with how can we approve something like this if we really don't have an
understanding of how this affordable housing component is going to be played? For instance, Cormac --
as you noted, Cormac showed that the average condo right now is selling for 400-and-some-thousand.
That's exactly how much you would be required to do the -- so these -- these units are the average.
They're not affordable.
And we don't know, is it per unit -- that's why I was hoping that Cormac would be here so I could
ask all these questions. It just -- and then -- and then this point about 30 percent, the requirement to allow
for increased density, but then we're saying, well, not really because on for-sale units, 15 percent is good
April 17, 2025
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enough.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Can I take a shot first, and then you can -- first of all, what we're asking
for at the 15 percent is under your existing density bonus matrix -- your existing. Not the one that you
just considered to modify -- would allow for a density bonus of three units per acre.
So what we're asking for is consistent with your existing density bonus matrix because we're
providing owner-occupied. So the 15 percent is what your matrix says. I'm not asking for more than
what the matrix would say.
So that's my response to how --
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay.
MR. YOVANOVICH: -- how you get to that number. And we've said that early on, we're using
your matrix, and we're the first one out of the chute trying to do a for-sale product.
Cormac's number was the median is 466-. That's what that number in his report was, 466-. And
if you can get me back to my report, or my PowerPoint, I can show you, because I cut and pasted exactly
what he sent.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. So then we're off by 50,000.
MR. YOVANOVICH: $58,000.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay.
MR. YOVANOVICH: If your numbers are right, at the 408-, okay.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: In my eyes that's almost market rate.
MR. YOVANOVICH: You know, but you're not the one moving in. That 58- may as well be a
million dollars to someone who's only making 120 percent of the median income.
And it's a brand-new place, fully amenitized. And so, you know, 58,000 -- I remember my first
house, you know, what I qualified for. And I don't know if I've told this story before. They came back.
I'm at the closing table. And they amortized my mortgage on 15 years versus 30. And I go, "Keep my
deposit. I can't afford that extra thousand dollars a month." And then they realized the error.
So that may as well be a million-dollar spread for someone who is making 120 percent of the
median income. It may be close to market rate, but it isn't market rate. It's less than market rate. And
again, that's the average. So that means you're talking about units that are older units that are being sold
that are factoring in to bringing that average down to 466-. I'll bet you dollars to donuts the median
income for brand-new product is higher than 466-.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: I just get concerned, too, that we're really not filling the need of
who really needs affordable housing. And I think, Mike, you shared that statistic with me that over
50 percent of those living in our community -- what was that stat?
MR. BOSI: Over -- or over 54 percent of the jobs created in this market pay $45,000 a year. I
mean, it just --
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Right, so --
MR. BOSI: The jobs that are created within this market do not align with the housing costs.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: So this doesn't really address that.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, it addresses the other people. It addresses a whole lot of other
people that make 120 percent and below the median income.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: But in my eyes, it's almost -- it is at market rate. But thank you
for pointing out that in the current chart, 15 percent of affordable housing for for-sale gives you that
increase in density.
MR. YOVANOVICH: And I -- and I'm going to try to take your counsel when you and I talked
about privately. Nobody's doing market rate -- I'm sorry -- doing for-sale affordable housing product
other than a very qualified wonderful not-for-profit that is addressing the people in the category you're
talking about. Nobody else is doing it. We're meeting the goals and objectives and following the process
that's in your Land Development Code to address this.
And it's a little disheartening, frustrating to be sitting here and having someone who I respect
tremendously who I know is involved in affordable housing, and others, saying, "Well, it's not good
enough."
April 17, 2025
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COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Yeah, I would -- to be honest, I would like to see it more at, like,
100 percent of AMI --
(Simultaneous crosstalk.)
MR. YOVANOVICH: And at some point -- at some point you've got to say -- and that's fine. If
that's the message that's sent to the client, we'll probably -- to use an analogy -- we'll probably pack up our
toys and go home because, you know, we just -- we just can't shoulder that burden unless you're going to
get rid of impact fees or do something else to help bring the impact -- bring the price of houses down to
where it's economically viable. It can't be just the development community. We're playing by the rules.
We are playing by the matrix, and we're being told there's a shortfall. We're trying to chip away at it.
And if we don't chip away at it, then we're not going to -- you're not going to see any other projects come
forward. This is the first test case. You know, what's the message that's going to be sent to us?
MR. BOSI: And Mike Bosi, again.
And just to give you a little bit of, I guess, comfort or at least recognize that right now the PUD is
not being reviewed.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Right.
MR. BOSI: It's just -- it's a courtesy review so you can understand. The next -- when we come
back at adoption, that's when the PUD would be reviewed and the specifics, and you can get into a little
bit more in terms relating to the 15 percent and the 30 percent and the commitment at 120. But what
you're being asked to do is transmit the GMP with the density that's associated with this project with a
commitment for affordable housing.
You're going to be able to review that, what would be transmitted to the state, but then the
questions about the PUD will -- that's when the -- that's when you'll have this opportunity, again, to bring
these up.
So I think you providing these comments to the applicant at least gives them an understanding of
some of the things that they have to address as this process moves forward, but the actual application of
reviewing the PUD formally begins with the adoption hearings which would happen sometime this fall
after this comes back from the State of Florida and goes through -- it goes through their review process
again.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. And I appreciate that, which brings me, then, to my second
concern, which is how can we be putting a development on sending lands? However, through this
conversation and all this information, clearly this land is more -- has the elements of being a receiving
land because it's flat. There's no vegetation. There's no elements that define sending lands.
So I've worked through that. And I know, Paul, you were also questioning, how can we put a
development on sending lands? But I think I've worked through it because it looks -- it acts like a
receiving land. But then I'm thinking, well, if we give this up, should we then -- just like how sending
and receiving lands work, you give to take. Do we then give somewhere else? Am I the only one that's --
COMMISSIONER SHEA: No, but we'll talk about it later.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. Okay. All right. So that's where I stand with that.
MR. YOVANOVICH: And just so you know, way back when, there was a process within, I
think -- within a year, I think it was, of the adoption of the Rural Fringe Mixed-Use District, property
owners could come in with site specific and say you mis-designated me, but again, that would require
someone to be really paying attention to the rules.
So I feel fairly confident that had that happened within a year, we came and showed you this
piece of land, I think the County Commission would have said, "No, no, no, sending land is not the right
designation for this particular piece of property." And I think you've -- I think you've gotten there based
upon -- you know, and I think a lot of it has to do with the design and how we are taking care of -- it's no
longer up here -- this Belle Meade Hydrological Enhancement Overlay. We are actually helping it with
our project.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: With that, staff, any other comments?
MR. BOSI: No. I mean, I -- I appreciate the discussion. I think there was -- I mean, all of the
questions were very pointed, and I understand some of the concerns.
April 17, 2025
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It's taken a while for staff to completely wrap its hands around this, but we do think that there are
public benefits that are going to be provided for. There's safeguards that have been provided for from
how the project's going to treat the water, displace the water to the further state and protected areas.
And we do recognize that this is a unique commodity of for-sale affordable housing that doesn't
come along very often other than a Habitat project. So for all those reasons, we're supportive.
But apologize for the disconnect between what's in the staff report and where our position was
coming in, but sometimes it happens that way.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Based on the recommended changes, you are making -- you're
recommending approval?
MR. BOSI: Correct.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay. With that, we have no public -- no public comments, so I'll
close the public hearing.
Commissioners, any comments?
COMMISSIONER SHEA: Yes.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Paul.
COMMISSIONER SHEA: This is a very complicated one for me because I'm an environmental
engineer, and I'm on the Affordable Housing Commission.
There's a lot of testimony out there -- I think years and years ago somebody decided that this was
an area that needed to be in this category. I understand the argument that it wasn't well enough defined,
but I feel like we're -- we keep nibbling away by getting these one-off projects. And to me, the
environmental side of this you haven't convinced me. And I think the commissioners established where
the boundaries were. They established what the land is. This is not compatible with everything around it.
There's nothing around it that's compatible with this. I'm not going to support it only because I think the
commissioners need to make that change; otherwise, we as planning commissioners are going to keep
nibbling away at a decision that they made that this should be sending areas and should be
environmentally protected.
And it -- I'd feel a little better probably if all the land around it wasn't in conservation as well. It
just -- it doesn't feel good to me, although I will say I'm very surprised that there aren't -- usually we
would get tons of environmental groups in here, and that -- I don't know if that means that they -- that
they feel it's okay or not.
But I'm not going to support it. I think the commissioners should make that decision. They
established the ground rules. I'd rather they make it than me.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay. Any other comments from anybody else?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Well, I'll close. Clearly, in my estimation -- and I understand what
Paul's saying. This was designated sending lands, but clearly it's disturbed lands. It was farmlands. It's
been farmlands for over 50 years, and if you look at anywhere else in the Rural Lands Stewardship or,
more specifically, even out in the -- or the Rural Lands Stewardship out in the Eastern Collier County,
almost any areas that were farmlands were designated either neutral or receiving, predominantly
receiving.
The areas to be protected were the natural boundaries around many of the farms, whether they
were croplands, tomato field, orchards -- oranges groves or whatever they were out there. All those areas
that were primarily farmed were pretty much designated receiving. I believe that this is disturbed land.
It's clearly been that way for years.
I am willing to vote and recommend approval, send this to the state. I'd like to see what the state
says when they review this. I believe from the standpoint, the discussions I had with Mike Bosi in
regards to staff's position, environmental staff has approved this, the housing staff has approved this.
There was some discussion with the Comprehensive Plan. I'll leave that between Mike and James Sabo.
They can discuss how this thing will move forward, but we have it.
I'm willing to recommend approval, but I would like to see if there is any other comments from
my other colleagues.
April 17, 2025
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COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Sure. I'll make one to actually piggyback on Paul. If there is
a statement that can be put together about asking or suggesting that the BCC clarify this topic that you
were discussing about -- I'll use your words -- "nibbling away at this," where if there isn't a clear
definition, this will continue. And if that's what they want, fine, but maybe it should be brought up on a
separate topic to the BCC for "what truly are your boundaries in a case like this that we should be
following?"
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Well, to answer your question, when you nibble away, I mean, there's
nothing left. This is it.
And to answer Paul's question, yeah, this goes to the Board of County Commissioners. Their
final vote will establish the policy. They're looking to us to make a recommendation. And I look at this
as this is the -- this is what was defined with one other developer, the old hole in the doughnut that was
used many years ago. I don't want to bring up the case. I know it very well. But from the standpoint,
there's nothing else left out there.
What Tim pulled up, Tim Hall pulled up -- put up as far as, and I think even Jaime, there's
nothing left out here. This is all going to be preserved except for this one area. But yeah, I don't know,
maybe someday we'll face somebody else coming in here arguing that I want to convert from sending to
receiving.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Other than the 20 acres that's just to the -- or estimated
20 acres just --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Well, that's ag land, but it's -- clearly that's sending land, and clearly
that is not -- it's not farmland.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Okay.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: I mean, that is not farmland. This is -- and then under Florida Statute,
there are very clear procedures for formerly used croplands and converting to residential and otherwise.
In the federal permitting process, formerly used croplands, it's identified as in most -- a lot of cases
exempt even from the 404 permitting process.
So I mean, I'm willing to see what the state -- the state is the one that imposed the restrictions on
us back in '99. That was the final order -- the final order which created the requirement to stop the one
unit per 40 acres, one unit per five acres that we were developing the eastern lands in. That was the --
kind of the straw that broke the camel's back was the one unit per five acres in the -- and some of the
developments going out east.
But we complied. We developed these rules. I think when we -- go back. When we did develop
some of these rules, we knew there would be these anomalies. And we've done this before in the eastern
lands. There have been areas that we've identified that we may have missed, but they were tweaks.
Especially when we looked at the townships that came in, there were areas -- and all those have now gone
through. In fact, some of them were litigated. Are you still going through litigation on some of those,
Rich?
MR. YOVANOVICH: No.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: They're all -- they're all pretty much resolved?
MR. YOVANOVICH: I think what you're -- I think you're predominantly working -- talking
about the Hussey settlement?
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yeah, the Hussey settlement.
MR. YOVANOVICH: I was partly involved in that, but -- and that's a perfect example of
tweaking that occurred. There were lands that were previously sending lands that became receiving lands
because of this process.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yeah, I didn't want to bring up the case, but now that you have, yes, it
was the Hussey property.
MR. YOVANOVICH: It's not unprecedented.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: It's not unprecedented.
MR. YOVANOVICH: And the Board -- you know, candidly, I think the Board wants your
opinion. They don't want you to punt. They want you to say, "Does this make sense or not sense?"
April 17, 2025
Page 41 of 42
They'll let -- they'll let you know if we're, quote -- and I agree, we're not nibbling away, because it's not
going to all go away.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Nothing left.
MR. YOVANOVICH: It can't go away.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: And, Tim -- I'm going to ask Tim; just to open the public hearing a
minute.
Tim, in regards to this orchard, is there any perimeter -- was there a perimeter for irrigation?
Were these lands irrigated, and was there any type of perimeter irrigation ditch for the years that they
farmed?
MR. HALL: Yeah, it's completely isolated.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: It's completely isolated.
MR. HALL: There's a perimeter berm -- there's a perimeter berm and a perimeter ditch around it.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: So all the years they farmed or irrigated, it still never impacted the
surrounding lands.
MR. HALL: The pumping out of --
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Out.
MR. HALL: -- the field into, but it never took water in from the surrounding lands because the
berm isolated it.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay. All right. Thanks. Close the public hearing again.
Yeah, go ahead.
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: I just think that -- I think this land's been disturbed so many
times with copper, sulfate, herbicide, pesticide that it shouldn't be in the sending lands. It should be
designated receiving lands.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yeah. And by our Comp Plan amendment, we're essentially doing
that.
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: Correct.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: That's what we're doing. We're recognizing that -- to use the case that
was before us when this first went through is the Hussey property, and it was the same, which was not
that far from here, if I recall. Just north.
MR. BOSI: Just north.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yeah. It's to the north, yeah.
MR. YOVANOVICH: The blue area right there.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Anybody else? Any other questions?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: All right. Well, I -- with that, I'm going to propose -- I recommend
approval of the -- since I brought up all the discussion, I'll recommend approval. Let me get the number.
Let me go back, sorry. And this is the PL20230016340, that's the GMPA, Sabal Palm Road Residential
Subdistrict. I recommend approval. Do I -- is there a second?
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: I'll second.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: All in favor, say aye.
Aye.
COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: Aye.
COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: All opposed?
COMMISSIONER SHEA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: 4-1, it passes.
With that, thank you.
And any other closing comments?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: We will see you next --
April 17, 2025
Page 42 of 42
MR. BOSI: 15th of May at 3 o'clock.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: At 3 o'clock. And you will be sending us all the good information?
MR. BOSI: I will -- absolutely.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Thank you very much.
MR. BOSI: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: I make a motion to adjourn.
COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: Second.
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: All -- anybody opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: We adjourn. Thank you.
I didn't even hear the opposition. We're done.
*******
There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at
11:55 a.m.
COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
__________________________________________
JOE SCHMITT, CHAIRMAN
These minutes approved by the Board on _5/15/2025__, 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.
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