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East of 951 Minutes 05/20/2025 (Draft)1 MINUTES OF THE COLLIER COUNTY EAST OF 951 ADVISORY COMMITTEE (E951AC) HERITAGE BAY GOVERNMENT CENTER 15450 Collier Blvd, Naples, FL May 20, 2025 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, the Collier County East of 951 Advisory Committee, in and for the County of Collier, having conducted business herein, met on this date at 6:06 pm, in REGULAR SESSION at the Collier County Heritage Bay Government Center 15450 Collier Blvd, Naples, Florida, with the following members present: Mark Teaters, Sr., Chairman Michael Ramsey Kim Ellis Douglas Rankin Bruce Hamels Aaron Zweifel Absent: Robert Raines, Vice Chairman Also Present: Michael Bosi, Planning & Zoning Director David Farmer, MPA, AICP, PE; Metro Forecasting Models Parker Klopf, Planner III Zoning Any person who decides to appeal a decision of This Board, you will need a record of the proceedings pertaining thereto and therefore may need to ensure that a verbatim record of the proceedings is made, which record includes the testimony and evidence upon which the appeal is to be based. Neither Collier County nor This Board shall be responsible for providing the record. 1. Call to Order/Pledge of Allegiance The meeting was called to order at 6:06 p.m. by the Chairman, Mark Teaters, Sr. Pledge of Allegiance led by Chairman, Mark Teaters, Sr. 2. Roll Call Chairman, Mark Teaters, Sr., did a roll call of members present at the meeting and advised that a quorum was met. 3. Approval of Minutes from April 15, 2025 • Chairman, Mark Teaters, Sr. asked if there were any changes to the minutes. None. A Motion was made by Kim Ellis to approve the minutes as written, seconded by Bruce Hamels. Motion was adopted unanimously. • Chairman, Mark Teaters, Sr, advised that before we get to our speaker, David Farmer, we are going to get into our position points that we have worked hard to get from the minutes of each meeting, so that we will have some kind of framework to work from. No decisions need to be made today. This will be homework. Mr. Teaters passed out 2 position points to the committee members to review and advised it would be discussed after the speaker. 4. Collier County Interactive Growth Model (CIGM) Presentation David Farmer, MPA, AICP, PE of Metro Forecasting Models • Project Manager with 30+ years of experience in planning, land development and data analysis. • Mr. Farmer formerly lived in Rural Estates for 25 years. • Metro Forecasting Models is a consulting firm that works exclusively for government or government entities (ex. Collier County, Lee County). • Background: professional engineering and planning with a master’s in public administration (studied fiscal neutrality – how to balance budgets and policies). • Partner, Paul Van Buskirk, PhD, FAICP, PE is the Principal Planner with 40+ years of experience in planning and public policy analysis. • Dr. Buskirk was a City Manager during the early 60’s, who then spent the balance of his career developing the Interactive Growth Model. • Mr. Farmer has slides of growth in Collier County which are “hot off the press” and customized for tonight and not viewed by any Commissioner; has growth forecasts that were updated for the meeting tonight and will talk about general planning (most of their work has been East of 951). • Presented bar graph of the Historic Residential Building Permits for Collier County from 2015 to 2024. The graph shows around 4,000 permits until 2021, then it increases to around 7,000, reduces to below 6,000 in 2022, then below 4,000 in 2023 and 2024. • Not certain of the exact reason for the drop in permits for the last two years. Normally permits drop when no one is here, but these homes are fully occupied. • Cape Coral and Charlotte County have had substantial growth: Cape Coral - 24,000 people and 10,000 houses in 18 months; Charlotte County - 24,000 people and 11,000 houses in 20 months. They are half of our population, so affordability could be an issue. Those two places were turned into lots many years ago. You buy a lot, find a contractor, then build the house. • In Collier County, the Conservancy sued the State of Florida over issuing Army Corp permits; consequently, in 2023 the State could no longer issue wetland permits. Every developer and every private contractor had to start all over. Just spoke to Collier Enterprises and Barron Collier and they are not putting shovels in the ground in August. They plan to break ground in Brightshore and Big Cypress and that is a delay. If those projects had not been slowed down, those units would probably be online. Only short of about 500 units a year from the Corp. So, it could be a problem with wetland permits and if so, for the next couple of years, you will see that number hold steady at 4,000. If it is an affordability issue, I am not sure what happens. • Slide of Historic Residential Building permits. Looking at housing units for 2023 and 2024, the permit levels are at around 3,500 or a total of 7,000 for the last two years. You will actually have 10,000 houses in two years, because the building permits are pulled in December 2024 and those houses are not finished yet. Homes permitted in 2022, bleed into 2023, 2024 and 2025. 3 • Slide of map of Collier Growth since January 2023. There are 10,000 of those red dots and those dots represent every house built since January 2023 and we are deep red in Golden Gate Estates. So, we built 7,300 single family homes in the last two years; completed almost 2,800 multifamily units, and of that, 1,600 units were in the RLSA and most of that is in Ave Maria. In Rural Estates, excluding Orangetree, you have only have 920 homes in two years. So, it is probably affordability, and wetland permits together to explain the change in permit totals. • Slide of Collier Interactive Growth Model (CIGM) and they have been working since 2007, and the Interactive Growth Model is the adopted planning tool for Collier County. It was envisioned as a single database for all departments and the Board of County Commissioners. Work is done with the police, fire department and various other departments as they need help. The goal is to help Collier County with some long-range planning. Collier County cares a lot about planning, looking forward, and thinking about what those might mean. • Slide of Smart Growth versus No Growth. The “No Growth” mentality is we are going to “build back right” and that is what happened. The RSLA, including Golden Gate Estates, utilized 250,000 acres of 5 acre lots for building and not a lot of land reserved for such things as parks, fire stations, that sort of thing (instead of building 50,000 acres and saving 200,000 acres). “Smart Growth” must be data driven, it needs to back up the decisions made and should focus on quality of life. There are things that we and the government can do to make life better and if we can, let’s cluster growth and preserve as much habitat as we can. • Slide of Smart Growth Strategy. Smart growth involves planning for future infrastructure like utilities and roads (figure out the size you need and build it the right way). We want to locate future facilities like parks, schools, fire stations and private facilities like shopping centers. Developers love to buy houses, which are less complicated (buy, build, sell). Commercially, developers must buy the land, get permits, pay taxes on it until someone hopefully comes along and wants to build something on it. It is a long process and not many developers want to reserve that land. Mike Bosi and I were talking ten years ago about the corner of Corkscrew and Three Oaks Parkway. It was originally titled for a State Commercial Center and now it is just a bunch of homes on that corner. I am not against homes, but it would have been an ideal place for a Home Depot or something like that. • We want to make sure that we reserve land by handling it with developers or require it. Showed a slide where their methodology was used to help require minimum land requirements from developers based on housing. Ideally, if we put things closer to people and in the right places, unnecessary driving will be reduced, thereby reducing congestion. Everyone utilizing Golden Gate Parkway knows that it is not safe (sat on that road for 2.5 hours before). If you just put something closer (like a Publix), it would save a lot of driving into town, millions of miles when it is all said and done. • Slide on planning for the future and using data to plan decades in advance by using long-range planning, land use planning, project overview, economic development, law enforcement, fire/EMS, utilities and solid waste, and transportation planning. They all use the same type of data. • Slide graph of Collier County Growth Forecast for the years 1950 through 2090. The gray line is from census data, and the blue is forecast. We are halfway towards build- 4 out, which means that for the next ten years the growth rate will be the same, then the rate of growth decreases over time. • Next slide presented is two years old and some of the data is dated but shows you the whole county. • Slide table of Population Forecast which was prepared Monday of this week. Rural Estate’s population is currently at 56,000 today, excluding Orangetree, and by 2050, we are going to add 30,000 people. That is less permits and is a low estimate. Things could change if the Army Corp accelerates in the Rural Estates. • Rural Land Stewardship Area is currently about 15,000 today (12,500 is Ave Maria with balance in other parts of the RLSA). By 2050, it grows to 89,000, an increase of 75,000 people over the next 25 years. The county has done an admirable job with the Rural Land Stewardship Area and the TDR transfer of credits. • Five years ago, Big Cypress was going to have about 1,500 homes, but that wetland permitting issue slowed everything down. Again, Barron Collier is going to break ground on Brightshore and Big Cypress in late August of this year, and it takes about a year to get the infrastructure flowing. We will see how demands are and how fast things grow. • Ave Maria is going to triple over the next 30 years, and they just changed the cap to 4,000 acres per town. Don’t think Ave Maria will get too big. Good thing to have little villages and have a more cohesive type of community. We forecasted 9 towns and villages which were based on viewing the maps from the RLSA and probably will not turn out that way. • Back in 2017 when I was analyzing this in depth, we assigned 5,800 units for Alico’s new town village and the first press release said 4,500 but clarified that they were doing two sides at 4,500, so now 9,000 units. In the end they have a lot of permits to do. • Slide of Table comparing 2007 versus 2023 CIGM – states that table was updated from the comparison from two years ago; particularly RLSA and Immokalee. The RSLA from 2024 is much higher than the 2050 number. • Slide of Map of RLSA Projects. Shows the projects (ex. Brightshore, Hogan Island, etc.). We have a future village that was just purchased for 45 million dollars in January 2024 (believes that it will happen soon). Points out the future villages and future towns and discussion on which will be developed first. Around Corkscrew Growe Village and Baron County, we see two possible growth areas there. With all of that in mind, that is a lot of development and need. • Slide of Sqft per Unit Conversion. Back in 2021, the county had us review and revise schedule C of the RSLA and it talked about certain minimums which were low. We did a lot of analysis, we got a lot of calls from angry developers, and I had to walk them through the data decisions that I was making. We specifically pulled out anything more than two stories out of our data. Taking out the big hotels and resorts, you get about 76 square feet per person (no argument about the data). The county wanted to convert that per capita into per unit, so we will have 183 square feet for commercial space, 170 square feet for homes out in the RLSA, and 53 square feet for every RLSA village. • Slide of Chart of Future Commercial Centers which provides an explanation of how we derived the minimum standards in the previous slide. The chart represents the 5 percentage of the need for shopping centers by neighborhoods, communities, and regions. Neighborhoods are your typical class of “Publix” (40,000 to 50,000 square feet). Community shopping centers are about 300,000 to 400,000 square feet such as Lowes, Sam’s Club, Target. We are going to need two more “Publix” stores by 2030 (one already planned for Oilwell Road); therefore, by 2030 we are going to be short overall by one community shopping center. We know that Baron Collier has one community shopping center planned (which would be Orangetree). That is 207,000 square feet which does not quite meet our threshold, but you can get to that 300,000- 400,000. As we progress through time and see the need for 20 neighborhood grocery stores, that is a lot. By 2050 East we will need 8 grocery stores and 4 community shopping centers and one regional. The question is where? • Slide of Commercial Relationship: Towns and Villages which shows a map of the 2050 RLSA Concept Plan indicating lack of critical population mass to support commercial or employment centers and showing the flow that residents should travel to towns for certain goods, services and employment. Why: A neighborhood shopping center takes about 15,000 people to economically support it, plus or minus. Looking at the village—range in size from about 1,500 to 2,000 units, which is 4,000 people (a lot less than 15,000). We are never going to see a “Publix” inside a village (too small, not enough economic purchasing power). That does not mean that smaller stores can’t go there to meet their needs. We see that these people that live in villages that surround towns, are going to drive to those towns to get their necessary shopping done, rather than coming into coastal Collier County to shop. • Questions from the committee relating to plans for professional offices to reduce traffic flow. We are working on shopping centers right now and we have millions and millions of spaces slated for commercial buildings. For example, let’s say we have 10,000 homes; that is 1.7 million square feet for that town. A neighborhood shopping center is 100,000 square feet and if they need 2 neighborhood shopping centers, that is 200,000. There are other needs in this community other than just shopping centers. That is what is going to provide the amount of development required so that people don’t have to drive in. So, when that Ave Maria gets to 30,000, that is the rocket launch, and we will see the town growing even faster. • Slide of Future Shopping Centers. Map of towns Community Shopping Centers are represented by orange baskets and green baskets are future “Publix” type neighborhood shopping centers. Where will the region end up – don’t know (could be Ave Maria or Big Cypress or a combination). It is hard to plan for a million square feet, but because of those metrics, we must set aside land for future commercial and be confident that the land will be there. Identifies on the map one town under construction that should be finished by the end of the year. These baskets do not show exactly where they will go. For example, rural estates have a demand for neighborhood shopping center right now – not sure it will happen. He would like to see Golden Gate Boulevard punch through and tie into Big Cypress, an excellent place for a shopping center. • Slide of Future Fire Stations. 15,000 people can support one neighborhood shopping center, one fire station and one elementary school. By 2030 the area will need 4 additional fire stations. The RLSA will need a total of 16, the rural estates 14. 6 • Slide showing map of Future Fire/EMS Stations. Discussion on location of fire station at Big Cypress (inside or outside of Big Cypress). Points out a lot of future fire trucks and opportunities at fire stations. Woodland Immokalee is not an existing station, and Immokalee will probably need a third station. We see one by Alico, one in Big Cypress and Ave Maria. • Rumor of a Gen Z community out in Immokalee. • Slide of Chart of Future Public Schools. The schools do a great job of planning. I'm not trying to supplant them in any way, just analyzing the data. References that Future Charter Schools may reduce the need for traditional public schools. Will need one school (public or charter) about every five years for the next 25 years. Will need several more school sites (considered diminished birth rate and conservative numbers used). It is common knowledge that Barron Collier is working with Jimmy Buffett (Latitudes) for a 55 & older community at Ava Marie. This could change some of those demographics. • Slide of Map of Future Public Schools. The red schools are high schools. For about every two towns, I need a high school; for about every town, about one middle school (maybe less); and every town must have at least 2-3 elementary schools. Those models could change and could go to fewer schools, but it is still chairs, right? Many of these school sites are already known and/or reserved. School boards have done a great job of working with the developers. Identifies an elementary and high school on the map already reserved and a planned middle school. We see the need for a lot of schools and the county is planning for them. • Slide of Residential and Commercial Balance. Sometimes a little bit more, ends up being a little bit less. When we add more commercial to the rural and stewardship area, it requires less driving into town. If Randall Curve was not coming online, traffic would be even worse. Adding certain things to the right places is going to help. I'm not a big fan of redeveloping the estates, but part of the estates is in a precarious situation at 130,000. When we increase by 30,000, we'll be able to support more, however, it will not be fully complete until we reach 150,000, because that is what it takes to support it. • Slide of Key Findings. We're happy to build. We still have big land to solve problems. If you take away the big land, the flexibility goes away. Collier has a lot of vacant land. You, as citizens, are caring and involved. The government can’t do what you do. You're the ones that are speaking to the people who need it. These plans offer a lot of opportunities to produce turf links into town. Again, that's east of the estates. Planners and policy makers need to continue doing a great job and continue securing land for both public things like fire stations, park schools, but also for private things like business centers and shopping centers that will add to quality of life, provide employment and reduce that need to come into coastal Collier County. Half of the growth forecasted for Collier Count over the next 20 years will be in the RLSA and RFMUD. And when we look at 2040, we're adding 23,000 housing units and 51,000 permanent residences. • Question Doug Rankin: If the growth continues at the same rate or follows the curve, what is the buildup number today compared to the last time we did this exercise? There have been some shifts in demographics and income. There is no reduction in housing, but we think the buildup will be at approximately 805,000. You are going 7 to see a slide from 2023 that will be at 840,000. It will probably be somewhere between 800,000 and 840,000 number. • Question Doug Rankin: Do we really believe that the growth is going to continue at the same rate that it has in Southwest Florida, or at least in this area? When I updated the forecast for Collier County etc, they were up to about 10%. We were forecasting way under the current permitting number (5,000 vs 3,500). Permitting is slowing down. Want to be positive; America always finds a way. The growth could slow down a little; I don’t think it is going to come to a stop. People have discovered Collier County; we are covered by national news. • Question Mark Teaters: What about affordable housing, have you taken into consideration in any of the models for affordable housing? We don’t look at that in terms of forecasting because we don’t know who is going to buy the house. On a general level, when we are modeling and I know about some of the affordable projects coming along, that absorb very quickly. At Immokalee they are converting commercial to 300 units (Fritchie Square). I think that will be partially affordable, if not fully affordable. Habitat for Humanity is trying to build like crazy casting, especially in the south, Fritchie and around Beacon High School. From what I know about affordable housing, I can say that affordable housing is a very small number. It does concern me. You could buy a two-bedroom house for $135,000 and that house is now going for $600,000 (cannot afford that). It's an issue. We do see affordability just from talking to the people in the rural and stewardship area. Ten years ago, and they thought their town would be a great place, it was going to be affordable and attract a lot of people to live there. I hope that still happens and those price points are going to come down. Someone mentioned Ave Maria, but at least half of the sales are from people who do not live in our county but are from the East Coast looking for a value. They buy the house for half the money and some of them still work there and some of them are retired government workers from Miami-Dade. • Question Doug Rankin: If Trump scales back the definition of weapons, will that take away a big impediment to permitting? And are you familiar enough with that suit that you could render an opinion on the effect of that kind of rule change? What I discussed was the Conservancy Case when they sued Collier Enterprise re: Big Cypress. What happened in that case impacted the entire state and the Judge said the State could no longer do wetland permitting because they don’t have the expertise. They took it away from the state and gave it back to the Army Corp. • Question Doug Rankin: So this is going to lessen the number of wetland acres that the feds have jurisdiction over, and do you know the effect of that? You scale your credits up so that you can develop your wetlands. I think your argument is that if you took the Corp of Engineers away, you would still get the RLSA back as it was envisioned back in the early 2000s. • Question Doug Rankin: The county is mandating affordable housing in every project now (rental or sale). A sale has a 30-year situation on it. David Farmer not aware of this. A lady on the planning commission was there to get information from the group on how this all works; the meeting involved affordable housing in the community (not Habitat for Humanity). My concern is about rising housing prices because of these required services. What are we going to do? I think we need to have a lower price point. That brings up a point I failed to bring up – two years ago did a 8 massive project for Lee County Utilities, involving a study of Corkscrew Road, and having conversations with Conart Group who were putting 15,000 units next to the project that had 5,000 units. And that's already working its way through the process. That's going to help, maybe not slow down, but rival what Alico is already trying to do. • Question Doug Rankin: It that going to be a project like Bonita, which is essentially an extension of Collier, or is it going to be a Lee County mean housing project? I don't know. It's 15,000 units. It's called K7. • Comment Doug Rankin: We are the top mean pricing in the state of Florida. Lee County is way down the list. And some parts of Lee County joining Collier are as valuable as Collier, and others are back in their neighborhood. • David Farmer points out that he made changes to the slides, slightly different from handout supplied – one slide missing. • Question Mike Ramsey: Went to initial meetings with Ben Westcourt when this thing was developed. This model does not care about the cost of housing. If I understand correctly, your model takes existing permitted houses and predicts needs. With 2.25 people per household, you projected 15,000 for a fire station, 15,000 for a neighborhood center, and 15,000 for a school? Yes, for elementary school. • Question Mike Ramsey: But you only use what's permitted. You can't use something not permitted? Mr. Bosi will not tell you there are going to be 9 towns and 9 villages. That is not his job. I analyze the stuff. Ave Maria is the first one. You are going to see 9 towns and 9 villages out there based on the analysis done. • Question Mike Ramsey: That's different. That's got some very well-documented calculations already in the LDC. That one I can see. You don't care if it's affordable housing in some of the other places. You don't care if it's a mansion. You just need to know the number of houses. And that dictates through your modeling the need for transportation infrastructure, commercial shopping centers, etc. Is it a need predictor based on houses permitted or built? The model includes the people that are going to live in the LDC. Collier has 260 demographics that we use. We don’t just take 2.25. In analyzing Golden Gates Estates, we would use that demographic for the market. That's how it's tailored for a unit, and I have the data down to that level for the census. • Question Mike Ramsey: Well, I'm just trying to clarify that this is a model that predicts based on the number of people for the needs for roads, transportation, etc. We don't care about Lee County or Bonita Springs. We care about the houses here. There might be some perimeter influences. The thing that I see lacking is that your basic model takes the number of people that we must determine how many roads we need, or transportation. It doesn't do anything for stormwater. It stays with people and needs and commercial needs, commercial retail? We have a component, which the County has called the Impervious Model, used for forecasting stormwater management. • Question Mike Ramsey: That's correct. It has a very limited purview. The thing I think is lacking (which I argued this before with the RFMUD) is that instead of encouraging single-family home development (like we do in the receiving areas in the RFMUD), I would like to see an encouragement for industrial heavy commercial development, not single-family homes. It doesn't increase the population, but it provides jobs. My observation is that we don't encourage that, and neither does your 9 model? The model's policy. Brother, I'm with you. I had that data that we just presented in Citrus County. In 2023, we modeled Collier, Charlotte, Lee, Sarasota, Manatee County--every doorknob in all five of those counties. DTOD is now using it for all their road planning and so forth. So that interconnectivity gives us a very good idea of where things are going, and it also gives us a chance to analyze these counties for their industrial capacity. Manatee County is 99 square feet and Collier County is 30 square feet of industrial space per capita. That's not a grade. It's just a number. The more employee variance you have, the more commercial space: 50, 60, 70 square feet. • Comment Mike Ramsey: I'm pitching a concept that we don't hear much in these basic discussions. In the last couple of years, it's affordable housing and affordable housing and affordable housing. I do believe, and it's just like Arthrex being built on the lower level. They took that area and instead of building single-family homes, built Arthrex. This is a major employer for Golden Gate Estates. There may be Lehigh and some others, but it didn't increase the population, and it didn't increase the need for infrastructure. It's a component I see lacking. Instead of pushing for single-family homes all the time, maybe Eastern of 951 should put out a recommendation and devise a formula or component and model and in the RFMUD, for a way to work with to encourage industrial and commercial. I know in the four receiving sections in North Belle Meade, that it could be a huge employment attractor or it's going to be a major traffic problem. • Dave Farmer: I am all for more investment. My recollection from the 2007/2008, it was suggested 40 acres per town be reserved just for industrial and future employment centers. I don’t know if that stuck. • Comment Mike Ramsey: That's gone away. We don't even talk about that anymore. It's all commercial retail. • Comment: We are losing a lot of industrial and heavy commercial in various places around town and they're not replacing it with anything. • Mike Boese. In 2021, the Board of County Commissioners adopted amendments to the Worldwide Stewardship Area. And as part of those amendments, they included light industrial QTI, which is Quality-Targeted Industries, as the uses that make up the square footage, the millions of square footage allowed with Ave Maria. The reason why you see Arthrex is because the towns and villages promote industrial development and promote job creation. That's part of the strategy, to create jobs and opportunities to be able to shift those traffic burdens. In the World Friends Mixed Use District, we've allowed for stand-alone, without the use of credits, stand-alone job creation or job centers to be created in close proximity towards where the villages could be developed. This Board of County Commissioners has most certainly shown a commitment to understanding that not only is it commercial, but you need the industrial spaces as well to be able to provide jobs, opportunities, and in their specific interest, for land-use budgeting. Why do I say that? Land-use budgeting talks about what is the expected return from your land uses, from the property taxes that they pay, to the services that they consume. The most consuming of services is residential. For every dollar of residential property tax that the government will collect, they provide about $1.2 in services. Residentials lose in terms of the overall budget. Now, commercial, for every dollar of property tax, that is about $0.75 to $0.80 in services. 10 So that's a winner. That helps offset those land-use budgets. Industrial is much more, for every dollar, it's like $0.3, $0.30 of services that they demand. And the most efficient is agricultural. They demand the least amount of services for the property taxes they provide. The Board has been consistent in trying to create economic opportunities within the towns and villages. And I hear what you're saying. We do have to have those to be able to provide, without additional demands upon our infrastructure, for places for people to work. Also think about that industrial category because they create products that create wealth. And those are the type of things, instead of an exchange of services between the two, those are the things that really have the effect of uplifting the economics and finances of the individuals and businesses in the towns in which they affect. Just for clarification, I would say, that the Board of County Commissioners and RLSA in the past focused on commercial services but have expanded and understand that they really wanted to be the self- sustaining community that they advertised themselves, that they must have the industrial side of it as well. • Question Mike Ramsey: On that issue, can we propose suggestions here that make it easier and cheaper to build industrial, heavy commercial, light commercial, RFI for saving land, and make it easier and cheaper than building single-family homes because of the cost you just mentioned? Without a doubt, whatever recommendation that the group feels is important to raise the board for their awareness and for them to take future action upon. I would suggest anything that you feel that's going to benefit this area, that matters to this area, that's your task. So, yes, most certainly. • Question Doug Rankin: I assume you know something about affordable housing and the requirements. What is the exact requirement, because I don't remember all the details? In the Rural Land Stewardship, for easy math purposes first, if you have a village, a thousand acres, that village must set aside 2.5% of its overall size for a parcel of land to be dedicated to affordable housing. If you have a thousand acres, you need 25 acres dedicated to affordable housing that is entitled, at a minimum, 10 units an acre. You're going to have a minimum of 250 of affordable housing that is dedicated to a 1,000 acres. The Rural Land Stewardship area is the only area in the county that mandates inclusionary zoning, which is a requirement for development to provide a share of affordable housing for them to move forward. It was part of the suggestions that were provided by the ULI report in 2017, because of the affordable housing crisis that was becoming pronounced. One of the first recommendations they shot down was inclusionary zoning. But ironically, as part of the Rural Land Stewardship area, they require for any village or town to provide affordable housing. It is the only area in the county that requires that. Now they've developed a policy. If you're asking for any density above what you're entitled to right now by the birth management plan, you're going to have to provide for at least 30% of that development dedicated to income restriction. Normally what we see is 100%, 15% at 100% of AMI, and 80% of AMI. Just to give you a further peek into the demographics and who's moving into Collier County, last year our median income within the county was $103,400. One year later, that's $113,600. What that tells you is that the demographic that continues to move into Collier County is extremely wealthy. It is a high-earning demographic. And that is why we're trying to provide affordable housing; it's a great idea. We're out in the rural-managed stewardship area, and in the 11 past two years, we have set aside over 2,000 units for affordable housing. The problem is every year that goes by, it's another 1,000 units of affordable housing that we have. Right now, 57,000-58,000 people every day come in from outside the county to fill the economic needs, the jobs of this county, and they drive out at the end of the day (which is part of our transportation problem). What we're trying to do with our affordable housing is to find the right locations that are going to create the least amount of disruption to the surrounding land uses but also provide the opportunities to shorten those trip lines. So instead of someone coming from Lee County, driving 22 miles into the county to get to their job, if you're able to locate that at a crossroad at one of our intersections where our activity centers are located and reduce that from 22 miles they're driving to 5 miles, that's a 17-mile improvement one way every single day. You stack that up over the course of 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 individual new units, and that's significant savings. That’s one of the components of the affordable housing mix that we're always trying to allocate. We know we're never going to provide an exact match in terms of the number of units needed with the existing stock, but we're trying to get closer to that equilibrium to help with the trip stationing and the burden it has within our road system. • Question Doug Rankin: Rural fringe, that's not subject to that? Rural fringe mixed- use district is a part of the overall growth management, but it does not require the dedication of affordable housing. • Question Doug Rankin: See, what I'm worried about is if you talk to a lot of major employers in this community, the reason we don't currently have a desperate situation is because of the foreclosure crisis. But that was 10 years ago, and it's soon going to be 20 years ago, and those people are going to retire and move on and sell those houses at market rate, and then we're going to have a problem. The other thing is, I'll tell you, a lot of the boys and girls who lived here back in the old days who bought their houses for nothing and they're now worth half a million or a million bucks, they're selling those houses, they're moving up to North Georgia and Western North Carolina where they can put three-quarters of that money in the bank and have a paid- for house that's better than what they left. They make a little less, but who cares when you've got that kind of money in the bank. And so if we don't keep on top of this, we're going to have a major problem in 10 years because those two groups are going to be gone, and I don't think we want another foreclosure crisis to solve our affordable housing problem? And I agree with you. I work with several folks that meet that characteristic, who have been here for 20-25 years, bought their houses when they started working for Collier County government. Their houses are appreciated tremendously. When they move, when they leave, the likelihood that a working-class family is going to be able to afford that, their location, is very low. So that is a component of a concern but that's a market exchange that we have no business or no right to deny. • Question Doug Rankin: But I understand you've gotten smarter. In the old days, affordable housing had very few restrictions, and they weren't really enforced. I understand we've gotten up to 30 years now, and they're getting serious about enforcing them? Well, 30 years is a requirement, and our housing department has become much more sophisticated in terms of the annual inspection and making sure that the ones that have dedicated affordable housing are provided for the affordable 12 housing as they agreed to. Because of affordable housing, that developer has been granted a tremendous amount of additional market rate units to be able to provide that offset, but we're not going to allow for that offset, that benefit, without the benefit coming back to the people of Collier County that must adhere to those reservations. • Question Doug Rankin: And I assume, especially in an area like the estates or something like that, the biggest cost to government is transportation? The one thing to remember, when we were doing this the first time, what we said, what we talked about in the estates, is a wonderful way of life, but the estates cost money in the sense that when you compute the cost of providing services from a governmental entity to the population, one of the key factors is distance. And the one thing that the estates have is a lot of distance. • Comment Mike Bose: There was a time when we had a uniformed level of service for our EMS stations and for our fire stations. And we recognized that we wouldn't be able to maintain that level of service as you get east of 951. East of 951 has a different level of service for your service providers, because it's not economically feasible to have urban levels of service in that semi-rural environment. So, there is a bifurcation in terms of level of service, because the amount of people, the number of households to support one station in the urbanized area is much different than what it is in your rural areas, and it has everything to do with distance. So that is a prime component of cost, the distance between the structures and the services in which they're being provided for. • Mark Teaters asked for a motion from Mr. Ramsey. • Mike Ramsey made a motion on behalf of the committee to make a recommendation both for the RLSA and RCMP that we RFI that we find ways to incentivize for the landowners with receiving areas to construct industrial, light and heavy commercial ways over single-family homes and give a huge advantage in cost breakdown, because you guys just explained we could use more trade-offs to balance the cost. Motion seconded by ______. • Mark Teaters: Okay, we'll open that for discussion. What do you think? • Comment Kim Ellis: I think it's a great idea. We need to include towns and villages for industrial services as well, possibly in some fringe area. In a rural fringe mixed- used district you can just do that. • Comment Mike Boese: The Board of County Commissioners amended the plan that said to move forward within that rural fringe mixed-use district, you needed TDR credits to move forward. They said you don't need TDR credits if you're going to provide an industrial employment center. That can be a standalone. It can be anywhere within the receiving areas, but not within the setting areas that have been deemed environmentally sensitive. There are four receiving areas that we want a direct development and where the villages are going and are supposed to be developed. That's where the standalone industrial would be allowed to be developed, for that specific reason. Rural fringe or rural mixed-use, yeah definitely. • Comment Doug Rankin: Let's bring up something that's a bit off the subject of what we're talking about right now. Last time, we had transportation here. We all know where the receiving land is there. • Mark Teaters: Hey, Doug. Let's work in a discussion on this. Hold on just a second. You're good. All right. Doug, I know where you're going. 13 • Comment Kim Ellis: That was it. I got my answer. I just wanted to know that you could build industrial without having to build a village. Okay. Or single-family homes. • Mark Teaters: Okay. Aaron? You good? • Aaron Zweifel: Yes. • Comment Mike Ramsey: Just to clear some of the issues up here. When I was doing property research, especially a lot of the modeling for industrial and later commercial stuff, and one of the most valuable properties was Marco. And they have the highest tax rate back to the county. Secondly, you can rezone any property in the county. You're allowed to go try to rezone it to industrial, maybe commercial, later commercial. And then you must go through the process for a couple of years, maybe longer, planning permission, neighborhood meetings, and all that. But the RFA (request for applications) through Collier County’s Affordable Housing Authority(CCHA), the RLSA (Rural Lands Stewardship Area) have these specific areas, or receiving areas, that if we incentivize those, we might get some new industrial areas, like Arthrex, to employ people and not put single family homes in there that have that high cost to government and provide tax impact, and provide employment. Arthrex is the best example of that I've ever seen. It's a standing role model. Now, I'd like to see if we could support that, but right now. The RFA is eating up the receiving areas quickly with single family homes. We need a recommendation. The RLSI would also take it, because they are tremendously focused on single family homes and retail, not industrial. I admit that Mary Clark did announce that they're going to get the glass manufacturing. That's the only one I've heard in the last two years that will be industrial. And I welcome that. • Comment Doug Rankin: And it also reverses traffic flow. • Mike Boese: And remember, the reason why that Ave Maria is the only one out there with industrial is because they are the only community with critical mass. So, the town of Big Cypress has gotten a tremendous amount of light industrial allowance. They need some houses. And as you gain more critical mass, the variety of your commercial and the variety of your industry starts to be able to expand as well. You can't have a tremendous number of industrial places without the labor force. You need the households. • Comment Mike Ramsey: I don't want to wait on the mass. I'd like for this community to make a recommendation to control where the masses go, not wait for the mass to dictate the mass. I think we have some room here for that. • Mike Boese: Good example of that, about the critical mass, was forever. We looked at it even in 2006, when we started the build-out study, in our first East of 951 study. When is there going to be a supermarket developed out East of 951, beyond the small little convenience stores they had. And it wasn't until 2011 or 2012 that Publix came in and when they came in, the market realized they were 10 years behind. I know that the Orange Blossom Ranch addition for another supermarket is something that's probably going to be coming to fruition relatively soon. The market has been lagging, and I think of the pent-up demand that Golden Gates Estates has provided for. And I think what you're seeing at the Randall Curve, some of the developments that are moving forward, that that demand is starting to be spread. The market is starting to act upon that demand and hopefully continues to diversify the arrangement of 14 commercial, but also some economic opportunities to be able to, like we said, shorten the trip length, change those commuting patterns that were some of the overall end designs of what we were looking for when we were looking out East to try to change some of the patterns that we had previously. • Question Doug Rankin: Also, we need to tie into this something that I was going to go to a minute ago. North Belle Meade is a particular concern to me because you're going to have, what, four villages in there? Five, something like that? North Belle Meade only allows one village per receiving area. • Question Doug Rankin: How many are they going to end up in North Belle Meade? Well, I mean, there's one receiving area in North Belle Meade, so they would have one, but in close proximity is the Immokalee Road Rural village. • Question Doug Rankin: The problem with North Belle Meade is how do you get those people in and out of there? Infrastructure. • Comment Doug Rankin: And how do you get the industrial in and out of there or anything because unless you jump I-75, this man's going to come to your office with a torch because he lives on Wilson. • Mark Teaters: We need to get back to this motion. We need to finish this motion up. Let's get the verdict. • Comment Doug Rankin: Well, we're putting industrial in that explanation, so I want to make sure we address the problem. • Comment Mike Ramsey: I made all the points I would like to make on that. That's it. I just want to make it so that we get ahead of the critical mass, as you said, and not wait because I think we have an opportunity here to really affect the growth in East I-51. • Mark Teaters: All right. Recommend, encourage, and incentivize industrial in the RLSA and the RF money receiving lands. How's that sound? That's close enough. All right. • Parker: This is a great place for us to transition. • Mark Teaters: Wait a minute, I'll get there. Go ahead, go ahead. All right. Let's go ahead and let's vote on this. If that sounds good, what we'll do is we're going to send it out in the minutes, and then we'll look at it again when we come back next month. Is that fair? We've got a motion and a second and we've had a discussion. All in favor of the motion, say aye. Aye. All opposed? It passes unanimously. All right. We're going to do that and we'll have it in the minutes for the next meeting and then we'll beat it up again. That's okay. • Dave Farmer: Mr. Chair, may I depart? Yes, sir. Oh, wait a minute. Does anybody have anything else for David? No. It's a pleasure being here. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you, sir. • Question Mike Ramsey: One comment would be I don't know if you've got a formula for it, but how many people would it mean for an industrial heavy commercial 50 acres? Is there a formula? • Dave Farmer: No. • Mike Ramsey: Make a recommendation? • Dave Farmer: It's more about demand. We could double our industrial use in Collier County and not even flirt with our neighbors yet. 15 • Mike Ramsey: My comment is that when you make your presentations, you do a lot of years listening. Include in that fifth or sixth area that you guys considered putting industrial commercial area because you have enough people. You get a lot of taxes out of it. • Dave Farmer: In terms of the villages and towns, we have a program that I didn’t show you, we have a ton of industrial space. Ave Maria has 416,000 right now and another 400,000 coming. • Question Mike Ramsey: But you can make government leaders think more. • Dave Farmer: Well, we tried. We tried. • Question Doug Rankin: Does your model consider that the people that live there are too wealthy to do the services, so we're going to have to import a bunch of people and have bigger and more transportation to get them in and out? • Dave Farmer: It's a factor. Yeah. It goes intrinsically into the model as we're developing it. Thank you all very much. • Mark Teaters Comment: Before you go, just a little tidbit for you. Arthrex is in the process of expanding out at Ave Maria. They have a new facility that's getting ready to open that's state-of-the-art (making parts with a gamma ray machine). There's only two of them in the country, and we're going to have one at Ave Maria. We are also adding another ½ million out at the SkyPlex in Fort Myers. • Doug Rankin: We finally got the education here for the workers? • Mark Teaters: There's growth happening. • Doug Rankin: They were taking a bunch of jobs away from us because we didn’t have the education. • Mark Teaters: It's true. 5. Open Discussion/Committee Recommendations Parker Klopf, Planner III Zoning • All right. This is a great time to transition. Over the past year or more that we've been working on this, I've had each individual section, whether it be transportation or stormwater or whoever, come out and talk to you guys. I've listened to all the recommendations. I read through all the minutes, and I take notes every single time. I've coalesced a list of some of the recommendations that have come out of this board. I've also included a copy of the previously approved position points for you guys to compare. Now, again, this is just a draft copy of what I have put together based on some of the recommendations and discussions that's come out of this meeting. Now, obviously, we've added commercial inclusions and industrial discussion from this meeting. These are the draft ones. • In response to the question on whether the list is sorted by order of importance, that is our committee’s job (go through: add, strikeout, remove things that you guys think may or may not be beneficial to our goal of recommending to the Board of County Commissioners). • Chairman Teaters: Basically, you have homework. We have had several meetings together and worked on this. There may be something that may jump out at you that you don't agree with. This is your new task. 16 • When we are done with this review, we will prioritize them on a scale of one to ten for the highest priority. It doesn't have to necessarily be in the same format or include everything. These are just based on the discussions that we've had in these meetings so far. These are the main position points that I've been able to pull out and that are applicable to the things brought up in meetings (for example, limitations to four-lane roads in Long Beach Estate, concerns about North Belle Meade’s additional village and decisions on where to build the roads and the recommendation to include a spine road similar to Pelican Bay or the Vineyards in order to have a main arterial roadway connecting to two of our major roadways, with a way to flow traffic through that neighborhood, as well as the need for a gate for that community). • On the handout provided as a reference, the higher number is more important? You are comparing an older list to a newer list and some of the older items are no longer viable or were taken care of. The one thing we didn't get into was libraries. We've been able to get the most important things. If there are specific things that need to be added, such as the commercial and industrial inclusions within the rural fringe areas that we discussed today, I'll obviously add that into our list of notes or my list of points so far. • Again, I broke them up individually by topics (ex. support implementation of additional cell service providers to ensure better cell service for first responders and residents). The state laws about generators and fuel supplies. Is this something that can be brought up as a recommendation? This is what we need from you guys. • In response to Michael Ramsey’s request to make a recommendation to consider moving Naples Airport, the airport is not moving and not under the purview of this committee. Decided that it would be discussed by the committee and if as a group, they wanted to include it as a position point, that’s one thing. • In response to a question of whether Everglades City Airport is in our purview, the response was no because it is a county airport. • Chairman Teaters: At the next meeting, we have got a couple other things to do, but we're going to work our way through these position points. We'll have a discussion. Everybody's got an open mind, and we're going to work our way through all these things, language-wise, find out what needs to be removed and what needs to be added. • Chairman Teaters: We will also have at the next meeting, Jim Delaney, who now is back working for Collier County in charge of water and sewer. I've been working with him on what he's calling a bare-bones fire suppression system that would come to Golden Gate Estates that would do exactly what we talked about and would not be hooked into the city water and sewer system. • Discussion with regards to fire safety previously discussed two months ago; Parker is going to Golden Gate Estate. Discussion on getting city/county to assist financially to the city wellheads estimated at a few hundred dollars per station. Mr. Golding will be working on that, and we're going to determine how many fire hydrants will be necessary and he needs to work for the Army Corps of Engineers. Mr. Golding will attend the next meeting to discuss on June 17. If we have any more topics or any more ideas, that's the time to bring them. • Discussion on bringing someone outside of the county on industrial and commercial zoning – suggested Bill Poteet, former President of the Naples Board of Realtors. 17 Agreed a recommendation from the committee is what they are looking for and will move forward with whatever that recommendation is. • Asked if any questions on paperwork provided by Parker who will email a copy to the board for a meeting on June 17.. Parker specified for it to stay in draft form (no rewriting or retyping it). He wants a draft from all the discussions that we've had, the need for affordable housing, the need for utilities, the need for cell reception, stormwater concerns. So please review for your recommendations. Parker will send the committee a digital copy, for edits, and then we can amass them all together and discuss it more next time. At the meeting it will get a ranking on a scale of 1 to 10. • These are to get the Board of County Commissioners to be aware of what you view as the most pressing priorities and what they need to act on. If you don't provide some sort of prioritization, it makes it more difficult. Some discussion on need for prioritization versus just working from the top down. • After some conversations with Commissioner McDaniel, your end point will be to finalize your position points and then be a sounding board for the effort that the county is going to update the Rural Golden Gate Estates Master Plan to be able to provide a sounding board to staff when they're going out with their public meetings as towards where you feel that they need to put the focus upon and what you'd like them to discuss with the community. • In response to the question on the end point for the committee – specific date? The Committee was extended; however, the committee will not present to the Commissioners. Commissioner McDaniel advised that what he would like to do is not sunset this committee. He wants the committee to move directly into the master plan and then he wants to be able to use this committee again later (whether it's the same group of people or whether it's not). He feels it's a very valid purpose to be able to continue it. • Comments Michael Ramsey: I've seen two products from this committee. The first is a recent I-51 summary report, and from that, recommendations to the Golden Gate Estates. • Parker: It's going to be recommendations to the county, to the Board of County Commissions for our study area. And then based on some of those recommendations, which most of it affects Golden Gate Estates, if you are moving forward with updates to the Golden Gate Area Master Plan, that is the next step. • The balance of the meeting were issues brought out by the committee of priorities for the Golden Gate Master Plan: 1) Bay Belt not appropriate; 2) transitional condition uses; 3) North Belle Meade – now that we know it will be one village, can address more intelligently; 4) Small business rule put in place by State of Florida in 2022 to be discussed in the Master Plan; 5) Proposed mitigation plan by Commissioner McDaniel that developers could buy land and donate it for mitigation in the states; 6) proposed plan for water conservation or blue belt issue; talk of implementing a two- year program within Golden Gate Estates; 7) Golden Gates tree hibernation plant; and 8) non-functional wetland drainage system. • Chairman, Mark Teaters, advised that committee members would receive a draft copy and were asked to provide any recommendations, strikeouts or additions, to be discussed at the next meeting. 18 6. Public Comments None 7. Adjournment There being no further business for the good of The County, the East of 951 Advisory Committee Hearing a motion to adjourn was made and moved and committee adjourned at 7:47 pm. East of 951 Advisory Committee _____________________________________________ Chairman, Mark Teaters, Sr. The Minutes were approved by: _____________________________________________ NAME _____________________________________________ SIGNATURE As presented on ___________________________ Or amended on ___________________________