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CCPC Minutes 09/24/2025 LDC (Draft) September 24, 2025 Page 1 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION Naples, Florida, September 24, 2025 LDC AMENDMENTS 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 5:05 p.m., in SPECIAL SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: Chairman: Joe Schmitt, Chairman Vice Chairman: Chuck Schumacher, Paul Shea, Secretary Randy Sparrazza Michael Petscher Charles "Chap" Colucci Amy Lockhart, CCPS ABSENT: Michelle L. McLeod ALSO PRESENT: Mike Bosi, Planning and Zoning Director Heidi Ashton-Cicko, Managing Assistant County Attorney Ailyn Padron, Management Analyst I September 24, 2025 Page 2 MR. BOSI: Chair, you have a live mic. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Thank you. And good evening, all, and welcome to the September 24th, 2025, Collier County Planning Commission. I would ask, please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. (The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Commissioner Shea, if you would take the roll, please. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Chairman Schmitt? CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Here. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Vice Chair Schumacher? COMMISSIONER SCHUMACHER: Here. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Secretary Shea is here. Commissioner Sparrazza? COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Here. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Commissioner Colucci? COMMISSIONER COLUCCI: Here. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Commissioner McLeod, not here. I don't think she's on Zoom either. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: No. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Commissioner Petscher? COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: Here. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Ms. Lockhart? MS. LOCKHART: Here. COMMISSIONER SHEA: We have a quorum. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: We have a quorum, excellent. And, Mike, do we have any addenda to the agenda? MR. BOSI: Mike Bosi, the Planning and Zoning director. No, sir. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: All right. Thank you. Please note that our next meeting is on October 2nd. Are there September 24, 2025 Page 3 any projected absences from that meeting? I will be here. Anybody else? Anybody absent? Yes, sir. MR. BOSI: And I spoke with Ms. McLeod, the prior -- for the prior hearing, and she said she will be back on the October 2nd. So she'll be here as well. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay. Well, we will have a quorum then, I think. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Yeah, I'll be here, too. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Good. We have no minutes and nothing on the BCC report, nothing on the Chairman's report, nothing on the consent agenda. So we will proceed directly to our items. Note that these are items legislative in nature, so there is no disclosure required nor are there any -- is there a requirement for anybody to be sworn in. So with that, Eric, we'll turn it over to you for the first item. MR. JOHNSON: Great. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, Commissioners, thank you for being available at this nighttime hearing, for giving us your time, talents, and treasures for this effort. Just to give everyone a reason why we're here is because a nighttime hearing is required whenever you're doing a Land Development Code amendment that changes the list of permitted uses in a given zoning district or if it changes the official zoning atlas map. We originally had three LDC zoning amendments anticipated for this meeting. One of them was withdrawn. It would have -- it would have been an LDC -- a privately initiated amendment that would have allowed solar facilities, ground-mounted, at-grade solar facilities in the county, but that was withdrawn, and that would have changed the list of permitted uses. COMMISSIONER SHEA: What does privately-initiated mean? September 24, 2025 Page 4 I mean, not by staff? MR. JOHNSON: Correct. When a member of the public, an applicant submits an application to change the LDC. COMMISSIONER SHEA: But do you -- do you -- before it comes to us, would you offer an opinion on it; staff? MR. JOHNSON: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, we evaluate it. We review it. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Okay. MR. JOHNSON: There's no real criteria in our code that we use to evaluate a Land Development Code amendment, but we do use, you know, planning principles and practice, and we make sure that any kind of amendment that's initiated by the private sector is consistent with our Growth Management Plan and with Florida Statutes. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: And it still proceeds through the normal LDC review process. MR. JOHNSON: Yes. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Goes to the DSAC, comes to us, and then the Board of County Commissioners, yes. MR. JOHNSON: You're correct, Mr. Chair. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Thank you. MR. JOHNSON: ***So with that said, we do have two Land Development Code amendments. The first one is dealing with group housing. So just for the record, it's PL20250005043. This Land Development Code amendment would change or make edits to LDC Section 5.05.04. It proposes to update the group housing provisions to increase the max floor area ratio from 0.45 to 0.60, and that's to meet the current market demands within Planned Unit Developments and commercial zoning districts. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Eric, can you, just for the record, explain what the floor area ratio is? September 24, 2025 Page 5 MR. JOHNSON: Gladly. COMMISSIONER SHEA: You know, I always get confused. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Chap asked the same thing, so that's good to put it on the record. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Well, I think a lot of us get confused. Like, we have actual height and zoned height. So I want to make sure I understand exactly what it is. MR. JOHNSON: Sure. That's a very good question. I'll be happy to answer it. Floor area ratio is a measurement of intensity. In planner world, we measure intensity and density. All right. Density deals with dwelling units. Intensity deals with nonresidential. For the floor area ratio, you take your gross building area -- it doesn't matter how many floors -- and you divide that by the gross land area, and it usually results in a fraction that's less than one. All right. And I could read to you the definition in our code, but I just explained it to you. COMMISSIONER SHEA: That's fine. MR. JOHNSON: Okay. So earlier this year, the Planning Commission directed staff to move forward with an LDC amendment to effect this change to change it from 0.45 to 0.6. The very next month, the BCC echoed the same thing. Just for some context, some history, the original floor area ratio provisions were introduced into the LDC in 1997. Not much has changed over the years. A greater FAR was then introduced into the LDC in 2005. In 2015, we actually -- staff moved forward with an LDC amendment that would increase it to 0 -- the FAR to 0.6, but that was never -- no Board action was ever taken. So we're just proposing now to increase it from 0.45 to 0.6 except in five different subdistricts of the Future Land Use Element of the Growth Management Plan. And the reason for that is because September 24, 2025 Page 6 those subdistricts have a lesser FAR than 0.60, so we didn't want to create an inconsistency. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: And, Eric, we have pretty consistently approved, probably for the last at least 10 years of my recollection, deviations -- MR. JOHNSON: Yeah. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: -- on various PUDs or other zoning actions to increase -- to allow for the .6 floor area ratio. So this is not anything that's not been practiced. At least it's been in practice for almost 10 years probably in the county. And to answer your questions in regards -- it does result in a larger footprint building, larger units. Pretty much, buildings like assisted living facilities, nursing facilities, other types of things where the FAR is in effect, this does allow for a little bit larger units, which is what the market is demanding. So it's nothing significant, and it's been -- pretty habitually been approved over the last several years. COMMISSIONER COLUCCI: So we're just codifying what we currently approve on deviations? CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Correct. COMMISSIONER SCHUMACHER: Correct. COMMISSIONER COLUCCI: So no big deal. COMMISSIONER SHEA: But the floor area -- if you had multiple -- three stories, you'd have three times the footprint as -- MR. BOSI: Mike Bosi, Planning and Zoning director. COMMISSIONER SHEA: I know you have height restrictions. MR. BOSI: So here it is. So here you would -- say you've got a one-acre parcel -- COMMISSIONER SHEA: Yes. MR. BOSI: -- and you have a floor area ratio of .6, you'd take the 43,000 -- the calculation of the square feet within an acre, multiple that by .6, and that gives you the total amount of square September 24, 2025 Page 7 footage you're allowed to build within that site. That is -- COMMISSIONER SHEA: But as the footprint, then. MR. BOSI: -- exactly how it works. No, no. That's your total square footage. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Including -- that's what I'm saying. So the other cap is the height restrictions. MR. BOSI: No. It includes all the square footage on every floor. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Yeah. That's what I'm saying. MR. BOSI: Yes. So it is restrictive. A floor area ratio below one is pretty restrictive, and it's similar to the type of -- the type of development standards that we approve within Collier County, more of a suburban type of a density. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Well, maybe I misunderstand. But a floor area acre -- a floor area ratio of 1 would mean the footprint occupies the entire lot. MR. JOHNSON: No, not necessarily. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Am I misunderstanding it? MR. BOSI: No, if you had -- COMMISSIONER SHEA: It could. MR. BOSI: If you have 4,300 square feet per floor and you have 10 floors, that gives you 43,000 square feet. Basically, that's your -- COMMISSIONER SHEA: But what's -- MR. JOHNSON: I have a graphic. I could show you. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yeah. Let's do the graphic. But you still have to meet setback requirements. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Yes. (Simultaneous crosstalk.) CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: You still have to meet all the other requirements. September 24, 2025 Page 8 So there are other area factors at play to make sure that it isn't the entire lot because of setback and -- front and side-yard setbacks. Go ahead. Here's the graphic. This is a good graphic. MR. JOHNSON: Okay. So the left one -- the left graphic shows a maximum FAR of 0.20. So in this example -- and this is straight out of the code. An 8,000-square-foot building and a 40,000-square-foot lot yields an FAR of 0.20. So you could see what that looks like. Whereas, if you have the same building but multiple stories, same lot size, the maximum FAR in this graphic is represented by an FAR of 0.80. So, Commissioner Shea, when you had said that if you have an acre -- or a 43,560-square-foot building divided by an acre lot, no, it wouldn't be the entire lot that's consumed by the building because you could build up, as represented in this graphic. Does that make sense? COMMISSIONER SHEA: Oh, it does. But the only thing that would affect it would be the setbacks. MR. JOHNSON: Setbacks and building height. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: And building height. COMMISSIONER SHEA: And the building height, yeah. MR. JOHNSON: And then you have your requisite buffering, you know, landscape requirements. You have parking requirements. MR. BOSI: Water management. MR. JOHNSON: Water management areas, yeah. Stormwater management areas. MR. BOSI: Lots of space eaters. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Any of the commissioners have any questions on this? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Anybody wish to make a motion? September 24, 2025 Page 9 COMMISSIONER SCHUMACHER: Motion to approve. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: And I second. All in favor, say aye. COMMISSIONER COLUCCI: Aye. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Aye. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHUMACHER: Aye. COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: Aye. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Any opposed, by like sign. (No response.) CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: It passes unanimously. So there we go. Very good, Eric. MR. JOHNSON: Thank you so much. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: ***Next one is the Immokalee Urban Area Overlay District. MR. JOHNSON: Yes. And this should look somewhat familiar to you. Technically, you know, this could have been on old business. This had been reviewed and approved by this Planning Commission earlier this year. Let me just flip to the page in my notes. So this was reviewed on March 6th by the Planning Commission, and then we took it to the Board of County Commissioners and asked them to waive the nighttime hearing. Because you guys had met on March 6th at a nighttime hearing and recommended approval. Since -- since the time when you saw it last, staff did make some other changes to the amendment to the extent that I thought maybe you ought to see it again, just because I felt like they were substantive, that warranted a rereview. And I would characterize the added information into your LDC amendment as reintroducing existing entitlements that a property owner within the Immokalee area overlay would currently enjoy. So there are multiple -- there are multiple pages within your September 24, 2025 Page 10 packet that have the changes, and they're highlighted in yellow. And I don't know if you want me to go over each change or kind of just rely on the characterization that these are existing entitlements. They need to be put back into the amendment because we are sensitive to private property rights. We also are mindful that we don't want to create any more burdensome or any kind of hardship regulation, especially in light of the recent changes to the Florida Statutes, as that's concerned. The changes are highlighted in yellow on Pages 3 to 4, which is 11 and 12 of 101 in your packet; Pages 18 to 19 of 101 in your packet; Page 21 of 101 in your packet; 79 to 80 of 101 in your packet; and then 84 through 86 of your packet. So we wanted to make sure that, again, we bring back the things that were inadvertently -- that weren't included. Just trying to do a good job. And eventually, if I get your approval, I'll bring it back to the Board of County Commissioners. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: I have one question. I'm looking for the section, but it had to do with murals. And my only comment with murals -- I really didn't see anything in regards to content of the murals. And I know there's a free-speech issue. We're not going to legislate free speech here. But who makes the determination of what can actually be put up on a mural to make sure it's not in violation of either -- description of a political -- MR. JOHNSON: Yeah. I think it's CRA -- CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Other types of -- you know, who makes the determination of what can go on a mural? MR. BOSI: I believe the way that the process works, there's an actual subcommittee within the Immokalee CRA that will evaluate what's being proposed and then make an ultimate recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: So the Board will actually approve it September 24, 2025 Page 11 so that, you know, if somebody wanted to put up, I don't know, a mural of any political statement, may or may not be accepted. I won't use any in the public record here, but if somebody wanted to say -- or some obscenity that may not be acceptable to the community, there is -- the governing body is the Board of County Commissioners? MR. BOSI: Yeah. In about 2022, I think it was, a 7-Eleven was proposed in Immokalee off of, I believe, 10th Street and Main. And they had a mural proposed on the side of the 7-Eleven to honor the heritage of the Immokalee community. And they went through that process. They got a favorable recommendation from the CRA, and that was included within their PUD request specifically the type of mural that was being put up. So that gives you an example of how that process works. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay. So there is a screening process? MR. BOSI: Yes. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: But it's not described in here. That's -- where does somebody go through that process? Because I didn't see it -- I'm looking for the language here, again. I can't find it. But the mural process -- MR. BOSI: The mural process is kind of like the policy of how we go about -- it's like when you're proposing a project -- a land-use petition in the Bayshore CRA or the Immokalee CRA, we don't formally require that they have to go and present, but we encourage that they present to the CRA -- to the Bayshore CRA or the Immokalee CRA. And I see Heidi wants to chime in as well. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Go ahead, Heidi. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Well, it looks like the only language under the Immokalee Area Master Plan relating to murals was on Page 29, and it's struck-through text. So it would default back to our September 24, 2025 Page 12 regular sign code on 5.05.08. Okay. All right. Jaime? MS. COOK: Jaime Cook, your Development Review director. That's all I was going to say is there's a section of the LDC outside of this -- I believe it's 5.05.08 -- that specifically addresses murals, what size they can be, how many there can be, and things like that, and the process that they would need to go through. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yeah. I mean, just on a sidebar, I recall an issue in Bayshore one time about the murals. MS. COOK: This year, yes. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Yeah. MR. BOSI: In the mini-triangle. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Wasn't it a code issue all the way up to the Board? They got into a free-speech issue and everything else? MS. COOK: Yeah. Not this year's. They painted over it without going through the process. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Oh, okay. Anyways. Other than that, this is pretty much -- in yellow is what was added. I was going to ask that question, because I went through this, and I was curious as to why that was highlighted. But I don't see anything else of concern. If any of my fellow commissioners have any questions. I don't see my board lit up here. But it had to come back to us because of the additions you made? MR. JOHNSON: Yes, in an abundance of caution. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Okay. MR. JOHNSON: And also out of respect. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: All right. I see no questions. Do I hear anybody making a motion to approve? COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: So motion to approve. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Anybody second? September 24, 2025 Page 13 COMMISSIONER SHEA: Second. COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: I'll second. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: We have seconds. All in favor, say aye. COMMISSIONER COLUCCI: Aye. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Aye. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Aye. COMMISSIONER SCHUMACHER: Aye. COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: Aye. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Any opposed, by like sign. (No response.) CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: It passes unanimously. Did you want to speak before we adjourn? MS. HANSEN: No, I'm good. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: Any other business? MR. BOSI: None from staff. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: We are done. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Cocktail hour. MR. JOHNSON: Twenty-three minutes. COMMISSIONER SCHUMACHER: You've got me beat. You beat me today. COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: Minus five. MR. JOHNSON: Minus five, exactly. MR. BOSI: Minus five, yes. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: All right. Well, with that, I make a motion we adjourn. COMMISSIONER PETSCHER: Second. CHAIRMAN SCHMITT: We are adjourned. ******* September 24, 2025 Page 14 There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 5:22 p.m. COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION _____________________________________ JOE SCHMITT, CHAIRMAN These minutes approved by the Board on ____________, as presented ______________ or as corrected _____________. TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF FORT MYERS COURT REPORTING BY TERRI L. LEWIS, RPR, FPR-C, COURT REPORTER AND NOTARY PUBLIC.