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CCPC Minutes 01/28/2009 S January 28,2009 TRANSCRIPT OF THE RLSA MEETING OF THE COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION Naples, Florida, January 28, 2009 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 8:30 a.m. in SPECIAL SESSION at Collier County Development Services Center, 2800 North Horseshoe Drive, Room 609-619, Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: Mark Strain Karen Homiak Donna Reed-Caron Tor Kolflat Paul Midney Bob Murray (Absent) Brad Schiffer Robert Vigliotti David 1. Wolfley ALSO PRESENT: Jeffrey Klatzkow, County Attorney Heidi Ashton-Cicko, Assistant County Attorney Tom Greenwood, Comprehensive Planning Page 1 AGENDA COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION WILL MEET AT 8:30 A.M., WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2009 [CARRYOVER DATE OF JANUARY 30, 2009] AT COLLIER COUNTY DEVELOPMENT SERVICES CENTER, CONFERENCE ROOMS 609/610, LOCATED AT 2800 N. HORSESHOE DRIVE, NAPLES, FLORIDA: NOTE: INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS WILL BE LIMITED TO 5 MINUTES ON ANY ITEM. INDIVIDUALS SELECTED TO SPEAK ON BEHALF OF AN ORGANIZATION OR GROUP ARE ENCOURAGED AND MAYBE ALLOTTED 10 MINUTES TO SPEAK ON AN ITEM IF SO RECOGNIZED BY THE CHAIRMAN. PERSONS WISHING TO HA VE WRITTEN OR GRAPHIC MATERIALS INCLUDED IN THE CCPC AGENDA PACKETS MUST SUBMIT SAID MATERIAL A MINIMUM OF 10 DAYS PRIOR TO THE RESPECTIVE PUBLIC HEARING. IN ANY CASE, WRITTEN MATERIALS INTENDED TO BE CONSIDERED BY THE CCPC SHALL BE SUBMITTED TO THE APPROPRIATE COUNTY STAFF A MINIMUM OF SEVEN DAYS PRIOR TO THE PUBLIC HEARING. ALL MATERIAL USED IN PRESENTATIONS BEFORE THE CCPC WII.L BECOME A PERMANENT PART OF THE RECORD AND WILL BE A V AILABLE FOR PRESENTATION TO THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS IF APPLICABLE. ANY PERSON WHO DECIDES TO APPEAL A DECISION OF THE CCPC 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 I3E BASED. I. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 2. ROLL CALL BY SECRETARY 3. FIVE YEAR REVIEW OF THE RURAL LANDS STEWARDSHIP PROGRAM PHASE II REPORT PREPARED BY THE RURAL LANDS STEWARDSHIP AREA REVIEW COMMITTEE, DATED JANUARY, 2009. 4. ADJOURN ]/28109 cepe AgcndaITG/mk 1 January 28, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If everybody will please take your seats, we are going to start on time, or at least one minute off, so -- and I don't know where the mics are or how they're working today. Okay, if everybody will rise for pledge of allegiance. (Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) Item #2 ROLL CALL BY SECRETARY CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, will the secretary please take the roll call. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Commissioner Kolflat? COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Here. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Commissioner Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'm here. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Commissioner Midney? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Here. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Commissioner Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Here. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Chairman Strain? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Here. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Commissioner Vigliotti is present. Commissioner Murray is absent. Commissioner Homiak? COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Here. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: And Commissioner Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Here. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Page 2 January 28, 2009 Item #3 FIVE YEAR REVIEW OF THE RURAL LANDS STEWARDSHIP PROGRAM PHASE II REPORT PREPARED BY THE RURAL LANDS STEWARDSHIP AREA REVIEW COMMITTEE, DATED JANUARY, 2009 Just so everybody knows, this is the Planning Commission Meeting for the review of the RLSA Committee's Report. This is not quasi judicial. This is not a transmittal hearing. This is not an adoption hearing. This is a -- more of a courtesy review of the committee's report. There is no data and analysis done by the county staff to this date that I know of on this, we're basically reviewing what the committee is going to be suggesting for GMP Amendments and other backup material that they supplied to us. There will be no swearing in today; there will be no disclosures needed today because it is not quasi judicial. Weare -- have verbatim minutes and we are televised today. So there will be a transcript of the meeting and there'll be a tape made of it. Another thing I'd like to mention, I apologize to the public that's here today. This room was never supposed to be set up like this today. This is a Planning Commission Meeting; it is not a workshop meeting. The room will be changed before Friday. The public needs to be as participatory as much as they would like. One of the things that will be done different than other times, as we go through each question, as we go through each segment of the review and as we go through each policy proposed to be changed, I will be asking members of the public if they have any comments. You do not have to fill out slips. Simply raise your hand, come to a microphone, state your name and then we'll listen to your concerns. I ask that you be succinct in your comments, that you try to limit yourself to five minutes. Not to be redundant with other people. If you Page 3 January 28,2009 simply want to come up and say you agree with the previous speaker, please do so. We're looking for input. We want as much input and data from the public as we can possibly get for today's meeting and for however more meetings this may go forward. It is going to be a slow and long process. The way we're going to handle it today, the committee's presentation will be first. I believe it's a Power Point presentation. There'll be a period of time for the Planning Commission to ask questions about the presentation. And I will certainly turn to the public for the same opportunity. After the questions about the presentation are finished, the Planning Commission has questions left over from May 1 st of 2008 that we were promised would be answered. They will be brought up next one by one and responded to. After that we will get into the review of the proposed GMP amendments. The section of the document that we will be reviewing is the Phase II, Section 2 section during that time. That is the most complete section of the GMP amendments. Then after that, if there are questions in any other parts of the document or other supporting material, we'll open the questions for that. Whenever this gets done, the Planning Commission will then come to a consensus on how it wants to forward this or not forward this to the Board of County Commissioners. It won't be one with approval or disapproval. There's not enough data and analysis to provide either of that. It will simply be an acknowledgment to move it forward for data and analysis, or an acknowledgment that there's not enough information here to move it forward to data and analysis. But that would more likely what the context of the motion will be by the time we get done with these two or three-day hearings. So with that in mind, we can move right into the five-year Page 4 January 28, 2009 review of the rural land stewardship area. I don't know if staff has any introductory statements. Mr. Greenwood, do you have anything you want to open with from a staffs perspective to kind of give us the setting? MR. GREENWOOD: Yes. Good morning. And for the record, Tom Greenwood with comprehensive planning. I've had the pleasure to work with the rural land stewardship area review committee for the past 11 months. And the committee members are here this morning. First off I want to apologize for the room setup. We're going to try to modify this a bit so it will be a little more easily viewable by the public on television. The slide presentation that we're going to be making, and it will be made by a number of members of the committee, there's about 35 in number. You have hard copy of that slide presentation before you. We would recommend and encourage you to write down any questions you have as we go through these slides and then at the end there will be a question and answer period and then we can go from there. As Mr. Strain pointed out, this is a report of the committee. It's not a transmittal hearing, it's not quasi judicial. In fact, as this -- as the proposals proceed, if they do proceed beyond the report recommendations, there'll really be a total of three bites at the apple: Here before your group today, before the Environmental Advisory Council tomorrow, and there is also a public hearing -- I should say a public meeting set for the BCC on March 16th, that's at the BCC chambers. That was the first slide, basically. Next slide. There are 11 members of the review committee. And quite frankly, they work very hard. It's a diversified group. Ron Hamel was actually the chair of the original group, which met in the late Nineties, which resulted in the adoption of the present Growth Management Page 5 January 28, 2009 Plan RLSA overlay back in 2002. And Neno Spagna is here today. By the way, Ron is out of the country, he was not able to be here today. Neno Spagna is here today. Brad Cornell, Gary Eidson, David Farmer. Jim Howard; I didn't see Jim. Tom Jones is here. Bill McDaniel, Tammie Nemecek. And Fred, I'm not sure ifhe's here; he indicated he would be. And then David Wolfley. And David also happens to be a member of the Planning Commission. Almost all these people attended very religiously all meetings. The duties, powers and functions of the committee -- and it is ad hoc; they have been in existence since October of 2007 -- is to review the data concerning the participation and effectiveness of the overlay, meeting the goal, objective and policies of the FLUE. This was done through the Phase I Report, which was presented to the Planning Commission I believe on May 1st of2008. It was also presented to the EAC on I believe March 6th of 2008, and to the Planning Commission on May 27th, 2008. That report was forwarded to DCA, or the Department of Community Affairs. To my knowledge there's not been any response from DCA. And that again was dead as to the activities that occurred within the overlay. The second item which really is the Phase II Report, is to review the RLSA overlay and make recommendations to increase the effectiveness of the overlay. We'll get into that in some detail. And to assist in determining the most effective venues and dates to hold public presentations. And four, to assist in promoting public interest in the review. Next slide. There were 23 public meetings. And this is in your handout. Fifteen were held in this building, in this room. There were five held at the Town of Ave Maria and three at the North Collier Regional Park. Our invitations are basically through the county information Page 6 January 28, 2009 officer, we published notices in the Naples Daily News, and there were 65 plus e-mails that were part of the participation list. The average attendance in the audience was between 20 and 30 people. And we have audio recordings and summary minutes from those meetings. Next slide. A very large number of individuals and corporate -- actually, organizations contributed to the review. And this is certainly a partial list; I probably left some off. I might mention in terms of the Naples Daily News, one of the appendices which is in volume two, I believe it's appendices I, is a copy of certainly most of the Naples Daily News articles that informed the public as to what was going on with respect to the rural land stewardship area. Next slide. Mike, if you would switch over to the overhead. Just a few comments. To put the rural land stewardship area within the context of the county. And -- technical difficulty. There it is. Very briefly, the area that we're speaking about today is right in this area here. Collier County is a very unique county, as most counties are in the nation. In Florida, Collier County's conservation areas comprise about two-thirds, two-thirds of the total county area. And generally those areas are represented with the green area at the lower right and lower portion. These are federal and state-owned lands. The area itself, the cons -- the rural land stewardship area surrounds Immokalee, which is in this area, and comprises about 195 acres. About 305 square miles. Another 14 percent of the county. Interestingly enough, and again, this is a unique county, if you total the two-thirds, which is in conservation already, and the rural land stewardship area, which is intended to be primarily conservation and ago land, that totals about 80 percent of the total county area. It's a Page 7 January 28, 2009 critical area. It's an area that the committee has focused many, many hours over the last 14 months. But that basically are my comments. And I'd like to turn this over to Brad Cornell. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Clarification on two of your comments. On the third slide, you have David Wolfley -- THE COURT REPORTER: I'm sorry, I didn't see who was speaking. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It's me. Everybody else will be raising their hand to be acknowledged before they speak, but if you hear someone just blurting out, it's probably me. David, when you were appointed to this committee, were you a member of the Planning Commission? No, you weren't. But I mean, I wanted to hear it from your mouth. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I guess I -- I'm trying to remember the dates here. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I just was-- COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: No, I was appointed to this committee before the RLSA prior to being asked to be on the Planning Commission. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And so I was just wondering, you noted here that the review of the committee members. Everybody else was labeled as to how their appointment -- or why their background was chosen for them to be on the committee, I would assume David wouldn't have been chosen for the purpose that you have here as a member of the Collier County Planning Commission. He would have been there for some other reason. MR. GREENWOOD: Apparently that is correct. I only mentioned that, that David is a member of the Planning Commission at this time. The appointment I believe was October 22nd of 2007. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Just so the record's clear, David's work Page 8 January 28, 2009 on the committee was not formally brought back and presented to the Planning Commission. He was acting in that position prior to his involvement with the Planning Commission. So whatever came out of the committee isn't (sic) been yet reviewed by the Planning Commission from David's -- no comments really have been made to this commission. MR. GREENWOOD: Understood. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Second thing: You have on the sixth slide, public participation in the five-year review process, you have Collier County Planning Commission. What did we do to review this? MR. GREENWOOD: Well, on May 1st, Mr. Strain, if you recall, the Planning Commission reviewed the Phase I report, and you presented to staff, which was to present to the committee, nine pages of questions and comments. And that was why the Planning Commission was included. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You know that those -- at the time those questions weren't answered, so that's why I was trying to understand how there was participation by the Planning Commission when our questions were deferred to today. MR. GREENWOOD: Only with respect to that point. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Anybody else have any questions at this point for Mr. Greenwood? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, we'll move forward. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Comment? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, sir, Mr. Midney. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yeah, on slide six, I would just also like to point out that the -- one of the major stakeholders in this, the farm labor community, is not represented in the process. MR. GREENWOOD: Thank you. And again, I apologize if we left somebody out. There was just simply not enough room. I'm sure Page 9 January 28, 2009 we overlooked others. Thank you. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yeah, I mean, they're the people with the greatest at stake here. MR. CORNELL: Good morning. I'm Brad Cornell and I'm here as a member of the Rural Land Stewardship Five-Year Review Committee. And I also represent Collier County Audubon Society, an environmental perspective in this process of reviewing these policies. And I'm going to very briefly take a look at some of the history with you of the rural land stewardship program that we have in Collier County, which is a -- as you are aware, this is the first place in Florida that has rural land stewardship policies and is a ground-breaking approach to working on -- working with private landowners on public policies for public benefits. In 1997, the Department of Community Affairs, the state's growth management agency, challenged the evaluation and appraisal report that Collier County had sent up to be reviewed, saying that basically that the compo plan was not in compliance and that the proposed amendments that the county was suggesting should be adopted did not comply with state growth management rules. That -- what ensued was a Chapter 120 hearing, challenging the Collier County Growth Management Plan in the rural areas, basically saying that the policies did not protect the environmental resources and rural Collier County and also, the agricultural resources and rural resources in these areas. It's about 300,000 acres that we're talking about in rural Collier County. That challenge was joined by the Florida Wildlife Federation and the Collier County Audubon Society. Resulted in an administrative hearing in front of an administrative law judge which ruled against the county, went to the Governor and cabinet as the administration commission, which made a final order that required a three-year study of rural policies in Collier County. That commenced at the end of 1999,2000. Page 10 January 28, 2009 I just want to make one point on that previous slide, Mike, if you could go back, or whoever's doing that. If you look at the -- this is basically a representation of the rural land stewardship area around Immokalee, 195,000 acres. The green, the darker green, are public lands: The Okaloacoochee Slough State Forest in the northeast, and CREW lands, Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed on the northwest side of that. The rest of the area around Immokalee is all private ownership, about 182,000 acres. And essentially that's zoned agricultural. One unit per five acres is the underlying density that is possible. It's all vulnerable to be converted to such densities, or those kinds of land uses. There's a hash marking that shows basically an environmental overlay that does not have really any -- these hash marks are like an ST overlay that shows there's environmental concerns, mainly wetlands. Special treatment areas. Okay, next slide, please. In 2000, the rural study commenced on 300,000 acres. It was divided into two. About 95,000 acres was called the rural fringe around Golden Gate Estates and Corkscrew and South Belle Meade. And then the rest of it, 195,000 acres, was called the Eastern Lands rural study. And both of them involve separate committees and separate processes for three years. And this is part of the process. The first step was to establish interim natural resource protection areas. And these are these dark green areas here. They're not public ownership, like CREW, or the Okaloacoochee Slough State Forest. However, there were protections provided on an interim basis. And these were mainly the wetland areas. These were challenged by Florida Wildlife Federal and Collier County Audubon in another Chapter 120 hearing. So there was a lot of litigation at the beginning of this process. And it looked like adversarial discussion was the only way to go forward on this, and that didn't provide a lot of hope for a good outcome. Page 11 January 28,2009 Nevertheless, the Governor and cabinet required the county, the staff, the landowners, the environmental groups, the public and the agencies to work together to come up with some kind of plan. Next slide, please. And this is the plan that was produced. At the end of the three-year study at the end of 2002, the DCA, the county and the process concluded with a proposed set of policies that would protect environmental resources, primarily, as well as rural and agricultural resources on a significant portion, much more than what we had before. And I think you can see in the map that the green areas again involve public lands, Okaloacoochee Slough, CREW, but also private lands that now have protective overlays that have both a set of regulations -- in other words, the group five policies in the compo plan provide a regulatory floor below which landowners cannot go or developers cannot go, but also very important incentives to those landowners to do better. And the acreage now has become 43,000 acres of potential stewardship receiving areas or development that would be entitled through the protection of over 90,000 acres of stewardship sending areas. And that sending area process and receiving area process we'll go into in just a little bit. But nevertheless, this is the way the map looks. So that's a total of about 95,000 acres of preservation and restoration estimated at build-out, and about 87,000 acres of development potential; 43,000 acres of entitled stewardship receiving areas, plus 44,000 acres of base density, one unit per five acres, which is what the yellow is. The yellow is where all the development was potentially to occur. So this is an excellent outcome. Obviously it still has some vulnerability to the one unit per five acres, but that is an issue that we do take up in the rural land stewardship review. Next slide, please. Page 12 January 28, 2009 In 2004, the first stewardship receiving area under the new policies was proposed in Ave Maria in order to entitle the development on Ave Maria, which is a 5,000-acre town and university. 17,000 acres of stewardship extending areas had to be basically put into conservation easement, stewardship easements. 2006, Ave Maria went into construction. Big Cypress Stewardship area was announced. Ave Maria opened in 2007,2008. There are now 37 -- almost 38,000 acres of stewardship sending areas approved, with another 18,000 pending that have been applied for. And that's at the point in which we now undertake our five-year reVIew. And to continue with where we are now, I'd like David Farmer to come up and continue this presentation. MR. FARMER: Good morning, Commissioners. Good morning, public. For the record, my name is David Farmer. I'm here to walk us through the existing plan as it is today. The rural land stewardship program or area is an overlay to the existing land use map. Participation is voluntary by private landowners, and the system is based on incentives to attract participants. And the incentives provide rewards for voluntarily preserving their land. The goals of the adopted Rural Land Stewardship Area Overlay are to protect agriculture and prevent premature conversion of agriculture to non-ago uses; to direct incompatible uses away from sensitive areas; to enable the conservation of rural land to -- conversion, I'm sorry, of rural land to other uses in appropriate locations; and to discourage urban sprawl and incentivize creative land use planning techniques. And to again echo what Brad was saying, the Rural Land Stewardship Area program was found consistent with the final order and in appliance with the Growth Management Plan Act. Here's a map of the adopted Rural Land Stewardship Area Page 13 January 28, 2009 overlay. We currently have 92,000 acres in stewardship sending areas, generating approximately 315,000 credits. The stewardship -- the SRA or stewardship receiving areas, are about 43,000 acres, leaving open areas of about 44,000 acres. When you add the SRA acres plus the open areas, you get 87,100 acres of potential development. And then there are 16,000 acres of public miscellaneous lands for a total of about 195,000 acres. The program is an award-winning program. Most noted, by -- there's probably more than this, but the 1,000 Friends of Florida, the Florida Engineering Excellent (sic) Award, Economic Development Council, the Governor's Council for Sustainable Florida, and the American Planning Association. In our Phase I report, the technical review, stewardship sending areas 1 through 9, 11, 14 and 15, as designated, I believe in the orange hatch on the map above, were approved for about 38,000 acres. And under review at this time are in red, stewardship sending areas 10, 12 and 13, for about 18,000 acres. This is an update from the original Phase I report, because as we know, time doesn't stand still for anyone, and plans are moving ahead. So today we have almost 56,000 acres either in or proposed to be in stewardship sending areas. To date, to my knowledge, the only project that's taken advantage of the program in terms of development is Ave Maria. It's 5,000 acres again, as Brad mentioned earlier. And also in one of the previous slides it mentioned that about 17,000 acres were dedicated in the stewardship sending areas to entitle to develop the Ave Maria project. I think that's my -- go ahead, the next slide, please. And now I will turn the presentation over to member Bill McDaniel. MR. McDANIEL: Good morning, Commissioners. For the Page 14 January 28, 2009 record, my name is Bill McDaniel. I was kidding with our record keeper over there about one of my fake aliases earlier on, so I didn't end up with a true enunciation of who I am and what I'm doing. With respect to that, I was selected by the committee to make the presentation, highlighting our -- what we consider to be major suggestions for adjustments in the existing Rural Land Stewardship Overlay. With that, Tom. The basis for our recommendations are as put forth here. It's very important that we discuss the fact that a tremendous amount of public participation, public vetting and discussion was implemented throughout the process of our making the determinations for the recommendations to the adjustments to the existing Rural Land Stewardship Overlay. And this -- these are a few brief points of how we arrived at the suggestions that we have here before you today. I would like to just as a point of reference make a suggestion. Today we're here to make a presentation. You have all received, I believe, a copy of our report and the suggestions for adjustments to the existing Rural Land Stewardship Overlay. Our goal here is to answer as many questions as we possibly can, but primarily we're here today to highlight the report and its changes. You've been -- and there are volumes, multiple volumes of information that has been provided to everyone who was seeking it, both on the website -- I believe Mr. Greenwood had a slide up there that had the website that showed that. But our goal today is to make the presentation and offer as much suggestion as we can as to why we came to the conclusions that we did. Next slide, please. During the process we sought the expert advice of a lot of people. To name a few are listed above. Throughout the entire process we sought the advice whenever we felt necessary to gather additional Page 15 January 28,2009 information, to ground truth, if you will, to justify and ratify the suggestions that we came up with, with respect to the adjustments to the existing Rural Land Stewardship Overlay program. And I might add, Commissioners, if you have a comment or a discussion, I'm not opposed to interaction. Some people don't like that, they want it all at the end. If you -- feel free to interrupt me if I hit a button or if you have a discussion point at that particular stage, I'm not opposed to that at all as we're going through this. So next slide, please. Again, these were our staff participation groups. People who were intimately involved in this process, assisting us with, as I said before, the ground truthing, the data sets that were utilized, the -- all the way through and even into the straight-up word-smithing with respect to the proposed adjustments that we have in fact suggested. Now, going forward, here are highlighted -- and again, I suggest that these are in fact highlights. This is a synopsis of our entire report. For those of you who had the blessing of receiving volume two of the suggested adjustments, it's quite a bit of information, tremendous amount of information, actually a phenomenal amount of information to show what in fact transpired, the time that was in fact committed, the information sources that we sought and the input that we received from the public. Not always in agreement. I mean, there was not always a consensus. But we, the committee, came together and put forth what in fact it is we have here. And these are some of the substantive recommendations that we'll go through point by point. Next slide, please. If I might ask the committee and those of you who have your volume one book to turn to Section 2 -- or excuse me, Phase II, section one. It's actually Page 30 in the book. One of the things as we were going through the process, we felt that it was necessary to make some suggestions with respect to the Page 16 January 28, 2009 actual goal of the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay. And on Page 30 of your volume one book is a fairly concise, fairly clear description of everything that we have suggested as changes and adjustments to the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay program. There is a tremendous amount of information that follows. Volumes, literally volumes of discussion that transpired as to why and how we came up with these suggested changes. And on this particular slide it looks perceptively like we made some -- well, we did make some serious changes to the goal itself. But the latter part, you know, to discourage urban sprawl, encourage development that employs creative land use planning techniques, those were already there. They were already part of the original adopted goal that is in fact part of this particular plan. Our main objective in the recommended amendments to the goal itself were to provide clarity and lack of subjectivity. That was our main premise behind the suggested recommendations. As we did on a regular basis throughout the entire process of making these suggestions to -- and amendments to the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay. That was ultimately our goal, was to provide clarity and reduce subjectivity so that it wasn't up to one particular planner, one particular planning agency, one particular group to interpret language that was incorporated in the original Rural Land Stewardship Overlay and manipulate it to their advantage or not as the case may be. Next slide. Specifically in the group one policies, their general purpose was for the overall structure of the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay. We actually -- and as you're going along there in that section, phase -- again, it's Phase II, Section 1, it talks with specificity. There are underlying words here that share the new verbiage that we developed for the program. And in the striking through are the ones -- are the changes and the misspellings and that sort of thing that came about. But more specifically on Policy 1.6.1, we actually developed an Page 17 January 28, 2009 entire new section and policy there with respect to the credit utilizations that are generated from stewardship sending areas and how they're utilized, what time frames are available for their utilization. And I believe -- it's not on this particular slide, but Mr. Greenwood, I believe there's even extension processes in place if credits are not utilized and you care to continue to remain with the program. MR. GREENWOOD: The way it's written, it allows for one additional year extension. MR. McDANIEL: Okay. In the original program, there was somewhat of a lack of specificity with regard to participation of folks who voluntarily participated in the program, who submitted their land to be a part of the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay and what happened if those credits were not actually used. That was the premise behind what we were doing here in the group one policies. Next slide, please. In the group two policies, there were -- we spent quite a bit of time here. The main premise behind the group two policies is for the retention of, protection of, preservation of agricultural lands throughout the entire Rural Land Stewardship Overlay program. We found that there -- in the adopted program as it exists today, there was somewhat of a -- I don't want to call it a deficit, but there was somewhat not as much incentivization -- is probably a more polite way of saying it -- for the retention and preservation of agricultural lands. And these policy adjustments and recommendations that we've made are to in fact incentivize -- and you'll see as we go through the balance of the presentation -- incentivize the retention and protection of a very important resource we have here in Collier County and that's our agricultural business at large. Next slide, please. Our group three policies. These revolve predominantly around the protection of natural resources. And for all intents and purposes, as Page 18 January 28, 2009 Brad shared earlier on, that was the main focus, if you will, back in the day when this -- when the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay program was in fact adopted and approved. We made adjustments. And these in fact are highlighted here. Establishment of panther corridors. And as you all know, anybody who's reading a newspaper or anything along those lines, there is an entire panther habitat program in the process of being adopted. And it was brought to us in its infancy stages and discussed, and through that information we afforded an opportunity for establishment of north-south corridors for the panthers. Next slide. Our group four policies, they predominantly revolve around the planning techniques, requirements and designations of the individual towns and villages and how they're in fact set up. I think Tom, you could probably go to the next slide; there's a little more meat in the next couple of slides. Just to highlight some of these points. And again, these are highlights. And if you're looking at your volume one book, you can see with specificity the suggested amendments that we made to the existing Rural Land Stewardship overlay. One of the things that was a very prominent maneuver was the capping, if you will, of 45,000 some odd acres in the footprint that ultimately can be designated for SRA's, stewardship receiving areas. And forgive us, if you will. I mean, we all live in a world of acronyms. So if we throw one out there that doesn't balance, please let me know and we'll try to spell it out. We designated with size, with economic viability, based upon necessities for public utilities and sustainability, for towns and villages. Actually founded hamlets really have no place as a designation in the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay program. We changed -- in the creation of the agricultural credits for incentivization for protection of agricultural lands, we obviously Page 19 January 28,2009 increased the amount of credits that were going to be available through the program. And also the adjusted per unit credits necessary for development in a stewardship receiving area at the same time. And obvious of course took some considerable consideration in public benefit necessities, infrastructure, to sustain growth and development in the rural lands of Collier County. Next slide, please, Tom. First one there probably should have been a little more specific. It was -- the goal was to minimize -- not necessarily minimize human and wildlife interactions, because positive human and wildlife interactions is kind of a fun thing. Our goal was -- and I say that with gest. I mean, my children and I sat on the porch last night and watched a momma raccoon and her babies in a cabbage palm eating the berries. That's not a bad thing, that's kind of a nice thing. Our goal here was to provide buffer zones, provide internal traffic mobile systems that would allow for less negative impact and interaction between humans and wildlife. This area that we're talking about here is a plan. It's a plan for the growth and development that's ultimately coming to our community. Necessarily no plan is infallible. Necessarily there can be suggestions and adjustments as you go across. But the bottom line is these are some of the things that we found that were going to assist in the growth and development of the rural portion of our community. We spent a tremendous amount of time down there on 4.1.4, the connectivity, the road systems, the moving of our people from one development to another through the rural areas of our community. Suggested -- received new data sets with respect to wildlife crossings and suggestions as to how those can be managed and utilized to better benefit everyone, both the human race and the wildlife of our rural lands. And not to not be taken account for, we did receive quite a bit of Page 20 January 28, 2009 information, and it is in your volume two book from the Naples Cultural Landscape Organization. Tremendous amount of information. Really, really beneficial historical information about pioneers, paths and so on and so forth that traversed eastern Collier County and the rural land stewardship area overlay. Next slide, please. In conjunction with what we were doing, we worked a tremendous amount with Mr. Casalanguida and his staff, and have come up with a companion policy to suggestions for the transportation element of the GMP. And it's not as clear as we'd like to see, but this map necessarily shows the transportation network's suggestions of eastern Collier County and the connectivity for moving the people to and through. Also with that, there is a far more substantive plan to be developed for public services, for government and jails and landfills and court houses and so on, so forth. Next slide, please. The group five policies. These are the policies that I like to say are not regulations, that are suggestions for people's voluntary participation into the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay program. Did you bring me one? Group five policies again, these are basically regulations established to assist in the management of lands for folks that do not voluntarily participate in the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay program. And we made several suggested changes to these, again with the map and just with new policies. Addressing outdoor lighting. One of the things that we found that really didn't have a lot of specificity. And remember this, a lot of these things flow out of the comprehensive Growth Management Plan into the Land Development Code for final implementation and utilization. So these are our suggestions to assist with that. Page 21 January 28, 2009 Outdoor lighting was a concern, and a tremendous amount of discussion occurred with respect to the ambient lighting and maintaining the rural characteristics of our already rural area of the overlays space. And there again, not to mention the fact we also did account for the historical and cultural resources of Collier County in the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay. Next slide, Tom. With the proposed changes -- and I have another -- I think we have another slide coming up that actually has a comparison of the two as it stands today, and the new horizon date out there of2050. And it's -- again, remember, the goal is to have a plan. We obviously, in the adoption of the initial Rural Land Stewardship Overlay program, there was a five-year review, which is what we're all getting to have a shot at today, if you will, but rubbing your crystal ball and determining what's in fact going to occur out there in 2050. And if you had an opportunity to review any of the information that was passed out, there are a lot of different population data sets that come at the ultimate population and growth and development of eastern Collier County. And there's quite a divergence from one to another. But on a positive note, we felt that our suggested changes were a far more aggressive stance on protection and preservation of agriculture through incentivization, and you can see that there -- bless you, by the way -- the newly created agricultural stewardship areas, some odd 92,000 acres in the SSA's, and a reduction of the overall developable land. If you'll recall on the prior slide, it was pushing 90,000 some -- 87,000, I think was the prior slide. And that necessarily for today's purposes as to what we feel the credits can be generated and the sustainability of the populous has been capped at 45,000 developable acres. Including of course are the public lands and utilities and such. Page 22 January 28, 2009 Next slide, Thomas. And here are our summary conclusions. And just to highlight a few of those, I'm not going to read them all to you, I think most of you have seen a copy of our presentation. But an increase from 92,000 up to 134,000 some odd acres of stewardship sending areas, preservation/conservation areas, along with preservation and protection of agricultural lands, a huge industry, a huge basis of economy for our county. Ultimately -- ultimately utilizing incentivization for the voluntary participation in the program. Next slide, Tom. Again, this recaps. It was fairly prevalent and important that we established a cap. We increased the amount of credits requisite to develop an acre of land in a stewardship receiving area, reduced the potential for conversion of lands. One of the things, the discouraging of urban sprawl. As the current zoning is, if you're not voluntarily participating in the program, it's one per five. And that is highly conducive to urban sprawl and not cost effective for the municipality in extending utilities, infrastructure, if you will, road systems, highways, schools and such to an area such as that. At the end of the day, this is a plan. This is a suggestion on management of the inevitable growth and development that's coming to Collier County. And our goal was to provide a plan that would accommodate as much as possible with the information and requisites that are important as of today. Five years ago when this initial plan was developed, there were priorities. As Mr. Midney suggested earlier on, particularly the priorities change over time. And we have established -- I would like to assure you that there is an established review process for the ultimate Rural Land Stewardship Overlay that we're suggesting to be revised -- can you tell me the time frame on that that was moved from a five to a -- to January 28, 2009 coincide with -- MR. GREENWOOD: It would coincide with the evaluation appraisal report calendar. It would be done every seven years. MR. McDANIEL: About seven years, I believe. MR. GREENWOOD: Seven years. MR. McDANIEL: There again, to take into account to allow an already successful program, an already functioning program to evolve, to allow different data sets. That was -- again, one of our maneuvers through the process was to make available for review -- as SRA's, stewardship receiving areas, stewardship sending areas, were coming in, new data sets, new information that was available to staff for the approval and implementation of these projects to be part of the approval process. And I think the last slide we have is here's how it is over on the left. Here's how we the committee think it ought to be. And it's a picture, if you will. I would like to caution, if I may, the conceptual plan. Those stars and designations of towns and villages throughout the Rural Land Stewardship Area are not carved in stone. If you looked at any of the information that Dr. VanBuskirk and his group with the Collier interactive growth model suggested, those were based on probabilities and locales of assimilation of lands necessary to amass the size of properties required for support of towns and villages throughout the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay. Prominently, though, you see a lot more green in our process, and a considerable amount more of incentivization provided for the preservation and protection of agriculture in Collier County. With that, I believe we're open to questions. My goal is to assist you in direction to the parties of who might be far more qualified to answer your questions and suggestions as we go along. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. But first we'll start out with Page 24 January 28, 2009 questions on the presentation that we just saw from the Planning Commission. Planning Commission members, anybody have any? Mr. Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I can't seem to read anything over here due to lack of light. MR. McDANIEL: You can turn the light back on. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You turned them off. Turn them back on. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I was requested to. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, turn it back on. MR. McDANIEL: That was my fault, David, forgive me. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: There is no fault, there's only responsibility. MR. McDANIEL: Okey-dokey. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are there any questions? Mr. Midney? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yeah, I guess it's really sort of hard to decide where to start grappling with this, but I think one fundamental question is that when this thing started five years ago, the landowners had agreed to a developable footprint of 30,000 acres. And how do you think that you'll be able to have more ago and more conservation by increasing that by 50 percent? It seems to fly in the face of reason. MR. McDANIEL: Did somebody write that question down? No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding you, Paul. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: From 30 to 45,000. If they had agreed with -- it was okay at one point, why do they want more developable land now? MR. McDANIEL: Well, and I'm not necessarily sure that there was a -- with specificity and agreement to what you're talking about. There were allowable lands as potential designations for voluntary Page 25 January 28, 2009 participation within the program that summed up to a particular amount of acreage that in fact could be developable, without refute. And then those then translated into credit systems that were in fact created for incentivization for the voluntary participation of the folks -- of the landowners that came into the program. And at the end of the day, the data sets then provided potential developable lands. Our information shows that there were some baseline rights pushing 87 some odd thousand acres of developable land. And correct me. I see -- and again, Brad was up first. MR. CORNELL: Well, I think that it's not a question of what landowners agreed to, because I don't think anybody really knew what was going to happen. I think what has happened over the time that has gone by since this program's inception is that we've gotten a whole lot clearer picture of what actually occurs when you establish stewardship sending areas, and particularly what happens with restoration. Because we didn't really know how much restoration -- which was a voluntary extra step in the stewardship sending area process -- we didn't know how much of that was going to happen. And you can generate -- and if you look at the analysis in the Phase I report, there's a lot of restoration credits that have been generated that we did not realize was -- I mean, we didn't know what that potential was and we now have a clearer picture. So that obviously also increases the entitable (sic) acreage. So the 30,000 acres was a guesstimate. You know, any of the figures back in 2002 were estimates. And these are still estimates. All those figures up there are estimates. Although the 45,000-acre cap is a hard number. But everything else is conjecture about what might happen. We have a clearer picture of what might happen, because we already have 38,000 acres of SSA's. So that tells us a lot about the general percentage of restoration as part of those SSA's and how much Page 26 January 28, 2009 credits will be entitling SRA's. MR. McDANIEL: Did that come across okay, Paul? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I heard the answer. I still don't think the question was answered. Because I thought in the presentation that I got there was something written that the developable footprint was 30,000, in what we received. MR. McDANIEL: And I'm not -- that's not a recollection that I had. It may have been -- again, it may have been a calculation at some stage of the game, but that's not a recollection. There was actually some percentages with respect to the aggregate amount of developable land in the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: (Shakes head negatively.) MR. McDANIEL: Tom, did you have something else to add in there, or did Brad cover it? MR. JONES: No, Brad covered it. MR. McDANIEL: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any questions from the Planning Commission? Mr. Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I'm going to have to hold off. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You're going to hold off or you have a question? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I think it was really 33,000 to begin with, but regardless. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Pull your mic -- if you could, pull that mic down. There you go. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I believe it was 33,000 to begin with, what my notes have. And that transition from, let's say, that added 10,000 acres came at a point, as we might know by reading the newspapers, when the -- most of the environmental groups and the landowners got together and Page 27 January 28, 2009 what they labeled as a behind door meeting, a closed door meeting. And that's what they came up with, with the added acreage. So -- and the report I think is public record. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I don't know if there's any comment. Go ahead, Mr. Jones. MR. JONES: Mr. Chairman, if! could maybe add a little bit to that. There was never an agreement of 30,000 acres anywhere. There was never a back room agreement for 43,000 acres. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Forty-five. MR. JONES: 45,000, whatever. The existing program is contained within the document. The existing program to date can entitle 43,000 acres ofland, period. That's what the adopted approved plan can do. Other acreage figures floating around, I don't know where they came from. I don't think there's any calculation that supports it that that's what was going to happen. I think Brad said it eloquently, everything's an estimate. In the beginning no one knew exactly how the program was going to be received, no one knew what the level of participation was going to be. There was a stage one report that had some estimates in it. After the stage one report from the initial go-around of the Immokalee area study, groups added their thoughts to what the program should be, the county added their thoughts to the program, DCA offered suggestions to the program, and there was never an ultimate calculation of what the estimated acreage could be. It was done during this committee's work. Mr. Greenwood did a number of iterations as he collected more data and new data throughout the time we were meeting. And the committee saw two or three different presentations on numbers. And the number that kept coming up was in the neighborhood of 43,000, based on potentially 300,000 plus credits that could be Page 28 January 28,2009 generated. That's what the existing program can do today. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Midney? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yeah, I found where I got the figure. This was what was presented to us May 1 st, 2008, the Collier County Rural Land Stewardship Overlay, Phase I, Five-Year Review. And the last page there's a column that says, potential SRA build-out development in the RLSA under the current RLSAO. And it says, total potential acreage in SRA's under the current RLSAO, 30,096 acres. MR. JONES: And as I stated in my remarks, Mr. Greenwood made a number of iterations as he was attempting to calculate a number that had never been calculated by staff previously. That is one of his iterations from May. In subsequent months, as he evaluated and reevaluated the SSA's and the potential number of credits that could be generated from future SSA's, he modified his numbers, I believe, once perhaps on two different occasions and came up with a number in the neighborhood of 43,000 acres under the existing program. That's information from the stage one. That's probably Mr. Greenwood's first run at calculating what the existing program could do. MR. GREENWOOD: Tom Greenwood. I would point also, there's an appendices, I believe it's Appendices G, which is the September calculation by staff. Might also point out that the -- I hate to use the word build-out for the RLSA. Maybe referred to as maturity. But the build-out that was projected through the RLSA program by staff was 43,000. And it generated a certain number of population and dwelling units. That population and dwelling unit projection that we did is very similar to that which was prepared by VanBuskirk and Associates for the geography of the RLSA contained within the East of951 Infrastructure Report. Also, our projection and VanBuskirk's closely resembled a Page 29 January 28, 2009 projection made by Wilson-Miller, which is also in another appendix. So there's three different projections and they're all very close within the 43,000 SRA footprint area. MR. McDANIEL: And if! may, Tom Jones has another comment. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Tom. MR. JONES: And I think the point to keep in front of you with respect to what the existing program can do, and Tom certainly explained where the 43 has come from, but that number comes from the entitlement of potential SSA's. It doesn't include any credits being generated from agricultural lands. So therefore, under the existing program, not only can you entitle 43,000 acres through development SSA's, you also have the ability to go to the baseline zoning outside the program at one unit per five. It's a little bit different than Golden Gate Estates, but it's not all dissimilar to Golden Gate Estates. So you have a potential footprint that was mentioned in the initial presentation. You have a potential development footprint of close to 87,000 acres under the existing program by utilization of the program and outside of the program. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions from the Planning Commission at this time? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I have several. It's interesting that Mr. Midney brought the issue up, because I had made a note to try to understand where the 43,000 came from. I was in this -- on this Planning Commission in 2002 when this came forward. Those of you who may remember, I produced a rather lengthy spreadsheet that calculated numbers. And I think my number at the time for nominal usage of the program showed about 42,000. And I tried to get everyone to understand that what we were being told at the time could have far greater impacts than -- based on what I Page 30 January 28, 2009 calculated versus what we were being told. And I have to go back to what the perception was given to the public, to this panel and to the Board of County Commissioners in 2002. There was a report produced by Wilson-Miller in May of2002 that was used as the basis for the program. Under a section called credit exchange rate methodology they said the following thing: The net result is 134,388 credits generated for the rural compact development of 16,805 acres, resulting in an exchange rate of eight sending unit credits per acre of receiving land. 16,805. That continued on another part in their final analysis. Approximately 16,000 acres are required for compact rural development. Then that report got passed or through the Planning Commission, it moved on to the Board of County Commissioners. And in the executive summary in front of the Board of County Commissioners the following was stated, and this was about a month later: Although there are 115,300 acres of potential SRA's (private lands, less FSA's and HSA's), it is estimated that the eight-credit requirement will set aside approximately l6,800 acres or nine percent of the study area for cluster development. It is estimated that only 6,700 acres would be needed to meet the study area's population projection by the year 2025. Now, I'm not offering that for comment from you all, because you've already told us why you -- how you got there today. But I thought it might clarify Mr. Midney's question or anybody's else's question on where we were in 2002, and where we are today. It's not a 50 percent increase, it's 300 percent increase. That is a little different. MR. McDANIEL: And if I might add, Mr. Chairman, in that regard, there were a lot of things that occurred back in 2002 that were at best a shot, having been challenged to the task that was at hand to create the rural land stewardship overlay program at large, with Page 3 1 January 28, 2009 virtually no experience to draw upon. We're a lot farther down the road than we were. You were not incorrect in your statements with respect to the impacts of this particular program being far more reaching than what necessarily was estimated in its infancy stages. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But in its infancy stages we didn't analyze it on those greater impacts, unfortunately, we analyzed it on the basis of 16,800 and a nine percent impact. So that therein is the difference, substantial difference on the way the program is folding out and how it should have been studied at that time in 2002. That was only one of my questions. You basically answered it when you answered Paul's. But I wanted to refresh Paul's memory. I think you were on the Planning Commission back then too. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yeah, I was. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: One of the slides showed -- one of your colored pictures, similar to what you have here, showed ago land in the yellow, as it does I guess in a lot of it. Does that mean ago land has no environmental value? MR. McDANIEL: Absolutely not. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What value does ago land have environmentally? MR. McDANIEL: From a lot of different levels. It's a water retention, rehydration and habitat, as an over-simplified answer to that. I mean, there's a tremendous amount of environmental value. I mean, Mr. Jones is in the farming business on a regular basis, but those are just a few of the consequences of protection and retention of agricultural lands. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What kind of habitat; do you know? MR. McDANIEL: Wildlife habitat, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I know, but what kind of wildlife? I mean, particular endangered species, listed species? MR. McDANIEL: Of course. Page 32 January 28,2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Like panther? MR. McDANIEL: Absolutely. On a regular basis. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Would it be considered primary panther habitat? MR. McDANIEL: That's a determination that experts are necessarily going to determine at some stage of the game. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Before the next day or two are over, we'll probably get an answered. MR. McDANIEL: Yeah, I wouldn't think that that's an impossibility. I mean, you know, the designation as primary or not has to do with the time of day and when the cats are traveling. Mr. Jones? Don't argue. MR. JONES: One thing that we've done under -- in our proposed recommendations to the BCC, and it was done in light of, I don't want to say criticism, but perhaps DCA pointing out a flaw in the existing program in that there really wasn't much emphasis on agricultural preservation. And what we've attempted to do in this program is to put agricultural preservation on a somewhat equal footing with environmental preservation. And a credit system has been developed with respect to the ability to generate credits from agricultural land that didn't exist in the past. I don't think in two or three days or in two or three months we'll arrive at a conclusion where there is necessarily an agreement on all the environmental benefits of agricultural lands. There are different opinions that are put forth in various forums related to some of the environmental values. But the committee decided to look at agricultural lands from an agricultural value perspective, recognizing that the existing program set aside for environmental preservation in excess of 90,000 acres. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. On one of the plans you presented, you showed the plan that was Page 33 January 28, 2009 originally labeled town centers that are now of course T AZ centroids. I'm not sure what a centroid is, I've not seen a definition, but I'm sure if I asked I'd get an elaborate explanation, so I'm not going to. But I also heard in comments on that plan that Nick Casalanguida was consulted with in regards to that plan? Because his name was referenced in the county transportation department when you put that plan on the overhead. So with that in mind, I'd like to ask Nick how much involvement he had with the plan, does he endorse it, does he have an alternative plan, is he working on a plan? And ifnot, if this is the plan, it would sure be nice to know. MR. CASALANGUIDA: For the record, Nick Casalanguida, with Transportation. No, we have not reviewed the plan, no, we have not endorsed the plan yet. We have worked with them and we're going to get to that point. There's lots of issues with the plan that we've discussed with the folks that put it together. They provided the documentation, we have a Horizon Study group from Aim Engineering that's looking at the build-out of the county. This plan focuses primarily in the RLSA. It doesn't talk about the impacts leaving the RLSA. It really doesn't consider the Immokalee redevelopment and what's going to go on there. It can't consider the Seminole Indian Casino lands, so we're trying to do that on our end of the plan. That's why we worked with those folks to come with that language that said within a year. We're going to take this one step farther and consider all those things. So we've looked at it, it's a good first step, but we haven't done enough work to say that that's going to work at this point in time. And that's a pretty honest assessment. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. MR. CASALANGUIDA: You're welcome. Page 34 , __~~~,~~_,___~"_""_""""_"__"' .,.-.,_,.___.n._'.._'" ..._______.__ January 28, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I guess my last question is so the record's clear on where staff was during this whole event. I've had numerous conversations with Mr. Greenwood on how staff managed the committee. Because this is an absolutely different and unique way of a committee's progress through the process, as compared to what I personally have seen both being on committees and chairing them and seeing others come before us. Usually the staff is very detailed involved. And then they actually formulate the reports and present, and the questions and answers go back and forth to staff. This time I was told that staff had a more hands-off approach to it. And I'd just like confirmation from Mr. Greenwood how far staff went with this report. MR. GREENWOOD: The committee basically, as I refer drove the bus, it was very much a committee oriented review. Staffs review basically was not to the extent that we were looking for details and dead analysis for a transmittal but more so that this was a report, a recommendations, findings, recommendations, some data that most of which is in the report, volumes one and two. And that this would form the basis for a possible growth management plan amendment at a later date. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Would it be fair to say that you basically had a hands-off approach to it? MR. GREENWOOD: To a large extent, yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Any other questions from the Planning Commission before we go to the public? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, members of the public who wish to speak on the presentation at this point. We're going to get into the whole pile of questions shortly. Nicole? Anybody else want to ask again, just raise your hand, you're Page 35 January 28,2009 more than welcome to come up and speak. MS. RYAN: Good morning. For the record, Nicole Ryan, here on behalf of The Conservancy of Southwest Florida. And if I may, a question was asked about primary panther habitat, so I thought that I would just give you a quick definition of that to provide that further answer. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. It didn't come up for some reason. Tom, do you know how to make that show up there? MR. GREENWOOD: I thought I did. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: There you go. MS. RYAN: This first map, it's a little difficult to see, so I may put up a better map in a minute. But all of the area that is in green is considered primary panther habitat. And the science has already established what primary panther habitat is. It was reconfirmed in the recently revised U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Florida Panther Recovery Plan. And by definition in the plan, the primary zone, which is primary habitat, supports the only breeding panther population. To prevent further loss of population viability, habitat conservation efforts should focus on maintaining the total available area, quality and spatial extent of the habitat within the primary zone. The continued loss of habitat functionality through fragmentation and loss of spatial extent pose serious threats to the conservation and recovery of the panther. So that's the definition. That's where it's located. The Conservancy will keep our comments to the specific policies for that portion of the discussion. We also do have some concepts that we believe would help provide sufficient answers to our questions and some solutions that you may want to consider in your recommendations, but I will put up our concept map, just to show you specifically for the RLSA what Page 36 January 28, 2009 areas are primary panther habitat. And it's a little tough to see, but essentially the areas that are not in yellow and are not part of Immokalee R primary panther habitat, excluding that northern corridor. So that just gives an estimate. The green areas and the light blue areas are considered primary panther habitat. So just that's in reference to that question. As I said, we'll save our -- and you can go ahead and turn the lights back up if you want. I'll save our specific comments for later in the presentation, but I do want to get back to this idea of what was the intent of this five-year review. Because the RLSA, as a new and essentially untested program, needed to have some sort of accountability at some stage. And The Conservancy did support the five-year review. And looking back at Policy 1.22 of the GMP, it established the intent of the review. And I'd like to read a portion of that. It says, a comprehensive review of the overlay to be reviewed by Collier County and the Department of Community Affairs upon the five-year anniversary of the adoption of the stewardship district in the LDC. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Nicole, you might want to slow down a little bit. MS. RYAN: I'm sorry. Am I doing that again? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, no, we want to make sure your comments are accurately taken. So anybody that has to talk too fast, our court reporter can't quite keep up. MS. RYAN: I'll give her a break this early on. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. I'm notorious for being the worst at it. She hasn't kicked me yet. MS. RYAN: And the policy goes on to state that the purpose of the review shall be to assess the participation in and effectiveness of the overlay implementation and meeting the goals, objectives and Page 37 January 28, 2009 policies. The Conservancy attended each and every of the RLSA committee meetings. We gave testimony, we gave documentation for part of the record. We also gave a lot of ideas as to how we believed the Phase II report should go and some of the things that needed to be considered. And we really felt that looking back at the intent of the program and comparing it to how the program has been implemented to date was important. The results should have been a series of recommendations that would, where needed, bring the program back in line with the intent or demonstrate how the program is still at least compatible with the intent of those initial goals. Instead we're concerned that what you have before you are sweeping changes to the RLSA that will exponentially increase the amount of credits available land to landowners, which translates into more acreage for development without among other things comparable natural resource protection assurances. The intent of the program basically was protection of natural resources, preservation of agricultural lands, and compact sustainable development in appropriate locations. So in looking back on how this was supposed to be balanced, the credit system really plays into that. And I won't repeat the information that Chairman Strain has brought forward, but The Conservancy, when we initially signed onto it and felt that we could support the concept of the RLSA, had we known that those numbers were simply a shot in the dark, a very, very small guesstimate of what could happen, I don't think we would have supported it. So it's very concerning that numbers that were written down as very close to definite are now being seen as simply a shot in the dark and should not be truly considered. We were told in 2002 that there would be approximately 16,800 Page 38 January 28, 2009 acres of SRA's. And if these additional credits were brought in at the end of the process and now we have a lot more development, I think that shows that adding more and more credits to the system is quite dangerous. At the time of the transmittal, as Chairman Strain mentioned, he tried to do some calculations on how many credits were out there. The Collier 2005 Build-out Study preliminary findings, in their estimates, there was about 56,365 acres of SRA's out there. County planning staff then did their estimates, coming up with 30,000 and then 43,000. And then Wilson-Miller came up with a number that the committee is using as the actual number of 43,300 acres of SRA's. Of course that's with assumptions. It's assuming 10 percent of the land will be for public benefit, and it's also assuming that 29 percent of the total acreage will be utilized for restoration credits that are eligible. What if 50 percent of the areas that could be restored actually take advantage of those credits? It means more land for SRA's. The bottom line is, I don't think we can really tell how many credits are out there to date. And it's very concerning that there are recommendations to infuse even more credits into that system. So The Conservancy had really hoped that those were the things that the committee would look at. And because this is something that the Department of Community Affairs is going to be looking at, we thought it was also important that DCA's comments about the Collier RLSA were brought into consideration. These were put into the backup materials for the committee, but they really didn't get a lot of air time during discussion. So I would like to just read in the record some of the comments that the Department of Community Affairs had. Because we think that these are still relevant and should be part of your discussion as you move forward with this Phase II report. Page 39 January 28, 2009 DCA did express concern about the number of SRA acreage available. They referenced back to the 10 percent or the 16,800 acres. They stated, quote, the maximum number of stewardship credits in the RLSA is not known, and thus the maximum development footprint cannot be determined, end quote. They go on to conclude, quote, it is questionable whether this very large amount of development is consistent with rural sustainability, including maintaining the viability of agriculture, end quote. They raised other issues regarding the sustainability of SRA's, especially SRA's that are not up to the town infrastructure standards. They raised questions about additionallocational criteria being needed for SRA's. And they were also concerned that the program did not sufficiently preclude habitat fragmentation or ensure habitat connectivity . At the end of their report they reiterated, quote, the ultimate total amount of geographic extent or footprint of development in the RLSA cannot be determined, and there are practically no standards guiding the distribution of development areas. The large 93,000-acre area eligible for designation of receiving areas, which also allows the conversion of land uses to the underlying low density uses, is the exact opposite of a plan to direct growth to the most suitable areas. This may lead to fragmentation of natural resources, wildlife habitat and agricultural areas. The overall rural character of the area is under threat from the potential large amount of urban development, end quote. These are the issues that really needed to be brought out and discussed in this five-year review. DCA's going to have to approve any compo plan amendments that would come out of this. So we really need to look seriously at what their issues are. They did hear about the panther protection program, which Page 40 . _'_'~_"~__~_M_'~_~'_'____""""""-_"_~"'''~_~~~'"~_"~^'' -_.__.".,._....~,.~,,-_._y,._-~.,_.._-_._-- January 28,2009 incorporates a lot of the proposed GMP changes. And they had a preliminary or initial comment on that, which was, quote, an increase in development rights available for transfer raises questions about the adequacy of current development potential, justification for additional land use allocation, consequences on the footprint of development and urban sprawl, and the public facility impacts. We recommend that you work within the extent of development rights currently available for transfer, end quote. So these are concerns that have been raised by The Conservancy and also by DCA. And we hope that you keep this perspective in mind as you move forward with your review and review of the policies to come. And I guess that we'll save our specific remarks on policies and some of our -- what we believe could be good solutions for the appropriate time in the future. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: As we go through the questions and policies, and probably as often as I can remember or as I can cluster them together, I'll be asking for comments. So that your comments will be relative to the policies at hand, rather than wait till the end of the day and then get public comments. So please keep that in mind, anybody else in the audience who will want to speak. Mr. Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Nicole, could you stay there. Yeah, I'm looking at page -- of the thinner book that we all received, Page 85, which is the 2050RLSA concept plan. It looks similar to this. But if there is a way someone could take that out of their notebook, kind of set that side by side, I've got a question for Nicole. Is that possible to do? Well, sort of side by side? Bill, could you -- MR. McDANIEL: I'm not a techno-genius here. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Well, that's pretty good. Now, it looks -- actually at first blush it looks pretty close. Can Page 41 January 28, 2009 you describe -- but it looks like your plan has a little bit more of that roaming land of habitat. Can you -- MS. RYAN: Sure, sure. And I apologize for not getting more into this map. I had put it up there to show the primary habitat. But just to give a little bit of an overview, the Conservancy put together our build-out concept map because we wanted to have something to show that -- give a different perspective than the Wilson-Miller map that you have in your binder. And one of the very important things that The Conservancy wanted was to make sure that first of all primary panther habitat was not an area where new stewardship receiving areas, towns and villages would be located. And secondly, we wanted to make sure that there were appropriate panther corridors at meaningful widths in the proper location. So on our map, the green areas are the HSA's and FSA's of the current program. The blue area, that is the agricultural land right now available for SRA's, but it's also the primary panther habitat. So our suggestion would be to have those blue areas be -- call them primary zone sending areas or ago sending areas, but to direct development away from those areas and maintain those as agriculture. The darker green areas that are boxed in the black, those are the panther corridors that we've proposed. And we've based our panther corridors on the actual travel routes of panthers, based on Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission data. We have based the widths of the panther corridors on science that states that is panther corridors need to be at least a mile wide to be functional and viable. So those are the areas that we felt would be really appropriate to try to restore and have some panther corridors. And the interesting thing is that we talk about the panther and we say protect the primary habitat, protect the panther. But you also protect a number of other species when you protect that primaryH Page 42 January 28, 2009 panther habitat. This area also encompasses all of the bald eagles nests in the RLSA, at least through 2006 data, all of the black bear telemetry points through 2006 data. It protects all of the bird rookeries and most of the wetland areas within the RLSA. So we believe that it really encompasses most of the natural resource areas. There are two little dots right above and a little bit below that northern panther corridor, and those are some scrub jay areas that just weren't otherwise captured, so we pointed those out. So by directing development to the yellow areas -- and there's about 32,000 acres of yellow area within that footprint, excluding Ave Maria. And from an environmental natural resources standpoint, directing development to that area, we're not saying that every square foot needs to be an SRA, but if you're going to have an SRA, those are the appropriate areas to locate it. That also helps to protect ago Because if you look on the Wilson-Miller concept map, a lot more ago area is being turned into future towns, potentially. We also believe that from a planning standpoint compressing the available SRA area is going to be a smart thing to do. You can then provide incentives that aren't just giving landowners more acreage to develop. You can incentivize through additional density which then makes your communities more walkable, mass transit friendly. You can also have other incentives, transferring density into the urban areas where appropriate. So if we see -- and you don't have to have such an extensive road network to service a smaller area. So we see that this really gets to a lot of the core principles that we think are part of the RLSA. And so we, like I said, brought that in as our alternative to the committee's Wilson-Miller map. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Okay, so then what I want to ask -- and Mr. Jones, I find you to be one of the more knowledgeable members. And pardon me, anybody else, including myself. But that man right there has put in umpteen hours and volumes of work. Mr. Page 43 January 28, 2009 Jones, I'm referring to. It looks though -- and I wish as a committee member of the RLSA we could have started with that 2050 map and gone backwards. Because it seems -- it puts the household -- whatever you want to call it, centroids in areas that we can relate to. And it looks like The Conservancy view of the 2050 RLSA concept is mighty close. And I'm afraid I didn't totally just study every word of the panther agreement plan. And also in that -- I mean, do you see any way to get it closer to that, Tom? Since you, you know, have pretty much into the stake in this. And it doesn't seem like it goes over any of those town centroids, what The Conservancy has. MR. JONES: Well, I think what's important to keep in mind is that the 2050 concept map is a concept map. And it's not a plan that's telling people who own private property in eastern Collier where they can develop. What the 2050 concept map came out of -- and it's, I don't know, I don't like to say build-out either, but you might say it's a build-out map. I don't know if it's 2050 or 2070 or 2300. But what the review committee did, which brings a lot of clarity to it to an extent, is that it's capped the development at 45,000. The credits, regardless of the 29 percent restoration or 100 percent restoration, and regardless of how many credits all that could generate, what's being proposed by the committee is a 45,000-acre cap that includes public benefit acreage. That's what we're proposing. The existing program has nothing. The concept map is a theoretical distribution of where development could occur, and that's pretty much all it is. It doesn't say landowner X, you can do this, landowner Y, you can't do that. I think the other map that's up there is kind of headed in that direction. And, you know, they'll probably have additional comments as we go through the policies as far as how these incentives are developed and things like that to encourage participation. Page 44 January 28, 2009 But I don't think it's really a point of trying to bring the two maps together. What we have and what we have as an approved plan is a voluntary incentive driven plan that today could entitle 43,000 acres, regardless of what happened. And to Mr. Strain's credit, he came up with a very interesting number a number of years ago that turned out to be very close to what could be done under the existing program. But even his number didn't include the additional development that could take place at one unit per five acres. The baseline density exists, period. And if you're going to take baseline zoning density rights away from people, I don't know how the government does that. But the concept map is a concept map. And it was tied to a 45,000 acre cap. And theoretically this is how it could occur. And based on that theoretical development pattern, here's a potential road network that we believe could support that kind of development, recognizing that it needs a lot more analysis to prove it up to see if it really does. But as far as what's being requested by the committee, the committee's fulfilled what they were asked to do. And when you really get into the Stage II portion of the report, that was kind of like the gravy for the committee. I don't think anybody signed up for that. Stage I report is all that's required by the final order, period. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Dave, we've got to take a break. And I'm just wondering, at what point is it going to be most convenient to interrupt your line of questioning? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: You can do it right now. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Why don't we take a break and come back here at 20 after 10:00. (Recess.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, if everybody will take their seats, Page 45 January 28, 2009 we'd like to resume the meeting. Okay, everybody please take your seats. We need to get back going again on schedule. Everybody please quiet down. Okay, Cherie' moved. Now you've completely disorientated the Planning Commission. Mr. Jones? MR. JONES: If appropriate, I'd like to add one additional comment to the comments I was making in response to Mr. Wolfley. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, that's where we're going to resume is with the response that Mr. Wolfley started, so go right ahead. MR. JONES: Okay, thank you. To the extent the Planning Commission's at a disadvantage to what the oversight committee -- with respect to the information, the testimony that came before us. But one important presentation that was made, and it relates to the map and the stuff that was put up there, was by Darrell Land of the -- from the Florida Game Commission. And for those of you who don't know Darrell, but you probably know him by reputation, he's probably one of the foremost panther biologists in the State of Florida, without a doubt. He's spent most of his career in South Florida following panthers around. He appeared before the committee. He made a very eloquent presentation. And he specifically made the point regarding his opinion of the existing program. Not the one that we were proposing changes, because when he came before the committee, it was long before we got into the restoration and the ago presentation and those type of things. But Mr. Land said that he was 95 percent happy with the existing RLSA plan with respect to panthers. And I think that says a lot. He said that if allowances were made for corridors, he'd probably be 100 percent happy. So I think any time you can get a panther biologist of his Page 46 January 28, 2009 reputation before the committee who makes that kind of a statement, I think it carries a lot of weight. And it certainly carried a lot of weight with the committee with respect to the RLSA, the overlay, and panthers. And I think as an added point, and I think I'm probably the one that said it because I knew it at the time, but the existing overlays of the HSA's and the FSA's and the WRA's capture over 90 percent of the telemetry points from day one. And day one was 1981. So you've got an existing plan with respect to panthers that captures 90 percent -- over 90 percent of lands that they're utilizing. And historically the big criticism of the telemetry is that it was daytime telemetry. Well, Darrell Land came up with a subsequent paper that utilized GPS collars which shows 24 hours of utilization by panthers. And his conclusion was that from a statistical standpoint, there was no statistical significance in panther utilization between daytime and nighttime. So by capturing the bulk of the population utilization -- I think panthers are telling us where they go, and they've been telling us for a long time. A lot of the primary map is tomato fields and pepper fields. There's for all practical purposes no utilization. There isn't data to support that they're utilizing it. So I think that's when I -- in my earlier comment I said I don't know that we could come to a conclusion about the viability of primary panther habitat in two or three months. I think eventually the discussion will revolve around what are panther utilizing, what data and analysis do we have to support what they're utilizing, and are they utilizing lands that aren't protected? And I think the answer is no. We've captured over 90 percent of their telemetry points. And for a plan that was put together, not specifically directed at panthers, that was a pretty good shot in the dark, if you come up with 90 percent. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: One thing I wanted to clear up, Page 47 January 28, 2009 because it looks like there's a potential from The Conservancy plan to the 2050 RLSA concept plan that actually the landowners could end up with a higher -- do I want to say density or acreage? Which brings up to another question. I'm just wondering how that would work. It looks like it's pretty close. But let me get onto another thing, and maybe Mr. McDaniel will be able to answer that. Credits. What are the credits traded for? Are they traded for -- not traded, are they provided for more acreage or more units, more density? What are you trading credits for? MR. McDANIEL: Ultimately the credits are translated into density at the end of the day. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Okay, how about -- AUDIENCE: No, no. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: -- at the beginning of the day? MR. McDANIEL: Excuse me. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. McDaniel (sic) is responding, let him respond in his way. Go ahead, Bill. MR. McDANIEL: I mean, there is a calculation that it ultimately comes back around in ascertaining the acreage that ultimately can in fact be developed. But the credits that are generated through the development of SSA's ultimately translate into amount of density that can transpire in the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay. There is a secondary calculation for those to ascertain an approximate. And as we've talked today, it's an approximate amount of acreage that ultimately can be developed. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Okay. Because I'm going to try to bring this together in a moment. Because I personally think that the credits should apply to density, thus keeping those towns, you know, obviously more dense. MR. McDANIEL: More compact. Page 48 January 28,2009 COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: More compact, thank you. And it might be an easier compromise, rather than, you know, doing the credit to acreage. And that's been my problem through the whole thing. And honestly, in the RLSA committee it took me two months to even figure out what in the world is going on. I mean, it was practically -- MR. McDANIEL: How did that work out for you? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: -- the entire Phase 1. Because it is a very complex document, in my opinion. MR. McDANIEL: Without a doubt. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: And without -- and in addition, it is also probably the most important issue that's come up in front of this county in years. It encompasses most of Collier County. I mean -- MR. McDANIEL: A large portion, yes, sir. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: And it's the old three-legged stool. We're dealing with landowners and their rights, we're dealing with -- and their ago land and so on. We're dealing with government. And -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: David, we probably need to focus on the questions concerning the presentation now. Because a lot of the issues you're asking about, when we get into our nine pages of questions and the 30 pages of GMP suggested changes, we'll probably flesh a lot of those questions out for you as we move forward. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I will then continue later. MR. McDANIEL: If I might add just one point with respect to that, Mr. Chairman. And it has to do with the information that has been provided to the Planning Commission to date; the information that's already been shared with you in our initial presentation. Maybe with not as much specificity as what Nicole had shared with us today as to specific widths of corridors for travel of the Florida panther and such. A tremendous amount of information has already been Page 49 January 28,2009 disseminated to make the determinations. At the end of the day, our choices are do we leave it all at one per five and encourage urban sprawl, or do we endeavor to come to a consensus, an agreement, a compromise, if you will, amongst these factions and have a plan that is somewhat -- it is not somewhat -- is functional, it does in fact work. And that was the goal of the committee through this process, to review the existing overlay plan, to take into account these multiple factions that have opinions as to what's right, as to what's wrong, as to what's good and to what's bad, and take those into consideration in forwarding our opinions and our final report ultimately to you. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: And absolutely. I don't think there's anyone here that wants to see the extension of Golden Gate Estates going to the eastern border. MR. McDANIEL: Or whatever. I mean, you can recall during those processes, there were a lot of folks who had an opportunity to stand up and speak and express their personal opinions, and with -- some with data and some without as to necessarily what was good and what was bad. And I think our goal as we move through this process is a further -- necessarily a further discussion of our opinions, but at the end of the day, the committee's report is what it is. We have made these suggestions, and you the Planning Commission are going to ultimately ratify, not embellish upon, if you will, and make your recommendations to the Board of County Commissioners as we move through this final process. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And I'd like to remind everybody where we're at. We had the committee's presentation. The Planning Commission commented on questions from that presentation. We turned to public speakers. The first public speaker was Nicole Ryan. Commissioner Wolfley responded to Nicole Ryan's presentation with questions. And I'd like to keep us all focused. We still have to finish public input and questions. And as far as philosophical ideals, we all Page 50 January 28, 2009 probably have plenty about what's going on out there. We need to see where they fit in the process of the GMP language at the time we bring them up. So it may not be the best timing to expound on philosophy right now. But try to get to the point so the presentation-- so we can move into the more detailed work of this meeting here today. And with that, Mr. Vigliotti, you had a comment? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Mr. Jones, do we know the exact population of the panther, and is it increasing or decreasing? MR. JONES: No, those little rascals run around in the woods so it's hard to come up with the exact number. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Approximately. MR. JONES: There's an estimate. I think the current estimate ranges from 90 to llO. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: And is that -- MR. JONES: And the population has increased significantly since the mid Eighties. They brought in Texas cougars to jazz up the genetics of the Florida panther. And since that time they've increased significantly. I think it was probably -- the low number at one time was probably in the low twenties, prior to the introduction of the Texas cougars. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Thomas? MR. THOMAS: First I want to apologize, I'm in between doctors appointments. That's why I'm late, and I'm going to have to leave to take my wife to the doctor. And I apologize. And I may be being redundant and I'm going to ask you to be patient with me, Mark Strain, to do a little philosophical thing. Just a little. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'm the epitome of patience. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: We could all laugh at that. MR. THOMAS: Mark and I have a long relationship, because we were on the Planning Commission for about 11 years together. But anyway, the point is, the only example we have right now is Page 51 January 28, 2009 Ave Maria. And I think it's an outstanding example of where we're trying to go. Because the thing that people often overlook, they worry about the panther habitat, the scrub jay habitat and all the rest of that stuff, but they're not thinking about the human habitat. And we, because of the way we developed in this county over the years, have put ourselves in a situation where we have some social problems that you're not looking at. When you can get back to walkable communities where you've got commercial close enough to the residential so that a lO-year-old child, a 12-year-old child can be sent to the store to get a dozen eggs, a pound of bacon and some -- those kind of things, until you can get back to that, you're going to end up with idiots at the McDonald's who can't make change. Because they get no change to practice making change. They don't get the chance to see the neighbors and know the community and all those kinds of things that we have to have. So this program really, really works. And if we can get them so that we have communities that have the local services available for the residential -- yes, for the mega services you can go, and that's why I've been pushing since I've been on this committee to look at the skeleton, which is the road network, to make sure that as these little towns sprout up there's easy connection between them where the jobs or the movies or the other big stuff can be located. But the program is working good and we're working hard to keep it going like that, you understand? And I know that I'm from the hole of the donut, if you will, you understand, but in order for us to become that industrial hub for Collier County, we need to have a situation around us where we can protect everything. Also remember, 1991, two and three, and we learned that from that gentleman you mentioned about the panther, we changed the ecology down here. Those orange groves changed the ecology of the panther and made them healthy again, because there was a place for the young pigs to go and the young deer to go, and they're coming east Page 52 January 28, 2009 from the other side of the panthers to range in the groves. And we need to understand that, okay, and know that we can make it happen. But we also need to be concerned as much about the human habitat as we are about all the other creature habitats. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, Fred. Are there any other questions involving Nicole's comments before we move on? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I have one, and that's for clarification. I want to make sure the record's clear, and if I hear something I'm not familiar with, I'll always ask for a clarification. We've heard numerous references to the plan on the left being a Wilson-Miller plan. And I have -- that's the first I heard that. I thought staff produced the backup data for this report. Mr. Greenwood, is that your map or is that produced by Wilson-Miller or somebody else? MR. GREENWOOD: It's produced by Wilson-Miller. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, were they under contract to the county? MR. GREENWOOD: No, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. How did they end up providing maps to your committee? MR. McDANIEL: Necessarily as in an advisory capacity to and through the Eastern Collier County Properties Association, and in assimilation of information and the data sets that we had available to us to try to estimate the ultimate acreage and the location of the development that's going to occur in the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay. And again, I stress, Mr. Strain, that it's an estimate at best. I mean, we have some of the information that's quite readily available to us. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I just want to make sure everything that Page 53 January 28,2009 is stated is accurate, and that's what I was trying to find out. Thank you. MR. THOMAS: And most of us on the committee looked at that CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Thomas? MR. THOMAS: -- question very carefully, and we all agree that this is the best information we had to work with. MR. McDANIEL: Well, and with that in mind, I just would like to add to Fred's comments, the ultimate goal at the end of the day was to establish a balance. Not just for human habitat, but also for wildlife habitat and preservation of agriculture as we go through the process. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Now, we had left off on public speakers. I want to continue there. Is anybody else wishing to speak? Russell Priddy and Tim Durham, you want to speak too, I take it? Okay. MR. PRIDDY: Russell Priddy. And I want to make some public comments in reference to some of your discussion. And I guess we'll start with the two maps up there. If you don't leave this room with anything else firmly fixed in your mind, please leave here with that map on the left is a concept. And I can assure you it's a concept, because some of the locations of those towns are on people's property who don't have credits to entitle them. So until they come to me or Mr. Scofield or other small landowners and have those credits, who knows where the towns are going to be? It's going to be within the receiving area, which is which some 80 or 90,000 acres, but to pinpoint exactly. So please, leave here, take a snapshot of that, let's get it off the board, because it's just a concept. It's a planning tool. Secondly, Nicole's map, interestingly enough -- as she admitted, she did show up to every meeting. She gave input, asked questions. But guess what, folks? This is the first time this committee or any of Page 54 January 28, 2009 us have seen that map. Some of these committee members, when The Conservancy raised concerns, asked what the solution was from them. They didn't have it. But today now they bring you a map that's seen for the first time. From a landowner perspective, her map will never work. Because if you tell us where the towns have to go, then you're limiting who I can sell my credits to. It has to be that landowner. That puts me in a real bad position, because now rather than it being an open market situation, I'm having to deal with someone who knows that I've got to take their price for those credits. This is a voluntary program, not regulatory. And the reason in those meetings -- and I lost count after 20 -- The Conservancy kept proposing things is they didn't fit a voluntary program. So virtually none of them got included. So please keep in mind that this is a voluntary program. Going back to this number of 16,000 and so acres that could be developed, please keep in mind that that was an initial run using baseline credits. There were a number of things that took place -- also keep in mind that the landowners were the ones that were paying for and driving putting this plan together. But that doesn't mean that we got everything in it we wanted. People came along and put stuff in it and added to it. And some things that were added to that program during the transmittal process, I think there was an additional 5,000 acres that got switched into habitat area. The conservation groups came forward and they wanted restoration put into the program. That was never anything the landowners thought of. When DCA got the program, they said this program's not going to work, to let's see if we can get it to work, you need early entry bonus credits. DCA came up with that. Page 55 January 28, 2009 So that 16,000 number was a guess that got added to with a number of things that took place after that was shared with the county. And then there was the fourth change was the public benefit exemption was added in there. So, you know, those are four things that came along after that number was thrown out that increased, if you will, a footprint that none of us knew exactly what it was from the beginning. Mr. Strain for three or four years was probably the only one that had somewhat of a clue, because he took the time to do some in-depth calculations. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Priddy, before you leave, make sure there's no questions. Anybody? Mr. Midney? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yeah, I just have a question. You mentioned as a landowner that you might be selling some of these credits to someone to build a town. Has anyone come up with an estimate about what the credits are worth, like a dollar estimate? 5,000, 10,000? MR. PRIDDY: Not that I know of. And when I do sell my credits, that still won't be public. That's a -- COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Well, I wasn't specifically asking what it would be. But I'm just -- for the purpose of trying to figure out whether these are going to be workable in terms of, for example, getting farmers to agree to commit to leaving their land in agriculture permanently, just a dollar figure would be helpful to me to sort of get my hands around this. MR. PRIDDY: I don't have any idea. I would be on the side of it being as high as anybody can get it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron, then Mr. Wolfley. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: With that -- one second. Let me just say that that would depend on how many credits we ultimately end up with. Page 56 January 28, 2009 MR. PRIDDY: Not if we have a 45,000-acre cap. Because you're only going to have enough credits to entitle that 45,000 acres. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: No, but ever since I've been on the committee, those number of credits have increased. MR. PRIDDY: Well, you're right. The number of credits -- if all of us landowners took our land down, you don't make any changes to this plan, we keep the plan that's here today, all of us landowners take our land down to conservation, yeah, we may be able to do 70,000-acre footprint. Now, you know, I'm never going to take my land down to conservation. You know, it just doesn't make any sense. So everybody's not, you know, going to do that. But that's the beauty of let's quit talking about what we can do, let's adopt the 45,000 acres which we know what we can do. That adds certainty. Even though we can generate enough credits to do 70,000 acres, doesn't make any difference, we're only going to develop the 45. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I just -- later on in further discussion I'm going to discuss more about the devaluation of the credit, which would definitely affect you, which I wouldn't want to see. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: I just wanted to make a comment that when you started your remarks, Mr. Priddy, you wanted us to remember that the map on the left is just a concept plan. And I just want to say to you that that's how The Conservancy map was presented as well, as a concept plan, not as a gospel plan. So -- MR. PRIDDY: And my point wasn't that it wasn't a concept, but why not share that with the committee back when they were discussing things, so that they could have taken that into account? I don't know, ask the committee, maybe I missed it. COMMISSIONER CARON: I think we can ask The Page 57 January 28, 2009 Conservancy people. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And Mr. Priddy, I have one other question. You had said about The Conservancy plan versus the 2050 plan that's up there that The Conservancy plan is problematic because it locates towns. I think it's just the opposite. The concept plan does more to locate towns and tells you who you have to sell credits to, to utilize them than The Conservancy plan. MR. PRIDDY: Well, but that concept plan, we can move a town over to the adjacent landowner. You know, you've got 90,000 acres out there and seven or eight landowners. Well, the landowner with the most land would like for all the development to take place on their land. But for those of us that helped pay for, helped participate in, whose name was on the final order, that wasn't exactly fair. So we kind of had to come up with a scattering over different property owners of where development could take place. That doesn't mean that King Ranch wants to get out of citrus and build a town. They may never want to do that. But we couldn't exclude them from a dot on the map, you know, showing that that was a possibility. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I don't disagree with your point that any time more intensity is shown on one map over the other it presents a problem for those of you that want to sell credits, because you've got to focus on selling the credits to where the intensity can be. And if one property owner has an advantage over that, then he's the only guy you're going to be able to go to. All I was trying to say is I think that the 2050 plan on the left has more potential to show where those credits could be used than the one on the right. That was just an observation based on what you said. I'm not disagreeing with what your argument was, I just didn't see it the way you did. Mr. Thomas? Page 58 January 28, 2009 MR. THOMAS: Remember what I said earlier about the skeleton. These are just possible locations based on a transportation grid that could be put in there that would make sense where those towns could possibly go. Not where they have to go or where we wanting it to go, but we just didn't want to have a situation where the skeleton didn't work when you start putting muscle on it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody else at this point? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, thank you. Tim? MR. DURHAM: For the record, my name is Tim Durham, with Wilson-Miller. Mr. Strain, out of respect for your comment about trying to keep this on course, maybe my comments should be more in terms of setting a placeholder. The Conservancy's position, which was presented, is somewhat unique among the views that were expressed during the committee meeting. But one fundamental issue that is the basis for their comments that probably needs to be dealt with and discussed more by this group, but I don't think now, is the issue of primary zone. I think everybody's agreed that primary zoning should be protected for panther. I think what we're disagreeing about is what constitutes the primary zone. And it gets to be a fairly complicated issue in terms of data and analysis and things that have gone on. Let me try and generalize it, because that's what I tend to do is generalize things. Back six and seven years ago, there was a group of scientists got together and met, trying to analyze these kind of issues. A lot of analysis was done of habitat usage, frequency of different things. You can go all -- all kind of details on that. And we're prepared to do that, if you want to today, but I'm not sure this is the time. In the end, a concept of what constitutes primary zone came out. Page 59 January 28, 2009 A working definition of primary zone was developed. And then at that point a line encompassing primary zone was screen digitized. All right? This isn't computer generated (sic) but screen digitized was drawn around an envelope to basically capture what they were saying was land that functions as primary zone. That envelope was based on land cover data that was not as specific as the data we use in the RLS program. All right? So we now have a map that shows primary zone. At the time it was drawn, there was discussion and general understanding that that map was going to encompass areas that may not actually be primary zone, but at least it gave you fair warning where you needed to be looking. At that time too, as Tom Jones mentioned, there was some debate in the science community about what do panthers do at nighttime. We've got telemetry points that shows what they do in the daytime. Who knows, at night maybe they throw a party in the middle of an ago field and invite all their buddies and, you know, it's major usage. Nobody thought that's really what happened, but there was a question mark there. So there's a little bit of fluff in everything. You know, you kind of had to have a safety factor in there. And so the primary zone got drawn bigger than the actual functioning area, but it was a good idea to kind of encompass a large thing. We now have more data, we have more accurate FLUCCS maps, and we have the working definition of what constitutes primary zone. Now, I think The Conservancy, you know, it's one of these circular reasoning kind of things. You have this concept of what is primary zone, you draw a map of it, and then what are you left with? Is the map where primary zone is or is the definition more accurate? Our position is that when you go in and carefully look at the definition of how does land function as primary zone, what you really Page 60 January 28, 2009 end up with is key areas that are doing the most lifting or carrying of panthers. In our mind that is the true primary zone. Some of the extraneous stuff that gets captured in this encompassing envelope needs to be looked at carefully. The effort to map primary zone was done for all of south Florida. They were not hyper- focused on the RLS area, they were looking at all of Florida. Now that we're hyper-focused on the RLS layer -- area, you know, we've done the analysis and it shows, as Tom said, what we do with the flow way stewardship areas, habitat stewardship areas and water resource areas. When you put those in these protected layers, it accounts for 90 -- plus 90 percent of the panther telemetry points. It's our position that you can actually define what lands the panthers are truly using out there. I think The Conservancy, in an abundance of caution, is saying let's take the primary zoned map, that generalized map, and use it. And there's, you know, arguments on both sides of that issue. And again, to really delve into that argument's a fairly technical matter. I only felt compelled to come up here and express this because, you know, Nicole did a good job of injecting their perspective on the equation, I just wanted you to realize there was another perspective, and one that's shared by quite a few people. I'd be perfectly happy to get into it now, if you'd like to, but-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It depends on the wishes of the committee. Does anybody have any questions at this point or do you want to wait as we go along? I have one. If you have a lot of panther telemetry points in a narrow corridor of green on that map and are not focused on the farm fields on both sides of that green or close to that, yet the farm fields were developed as SRA's, would the panthers still utilize those narrow green corridors? MR. DURHAM: It depends how long they are. The shorter a corridor is, the narrower it can be and still function. Page 61 January 28, 2009 You know, picture if you had to go walk through a tube somewhere. You know, the longer the tube is, the bigger you want it to be as you go through. So I think it's a geometry issue there. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: In some places we're looking at primary panther habitat in a narrow focus. And if the surrounding areas are developed, just as if you would develop close to Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, you'd impact the wildlife there, I was just curious of how much an impact that would have on the telemetry points for the future, let's say. MR. DURHAM: Sure. Recognize also when you say developed, you know, that's kind ofa broad term. If the development has a requirement for buffering, then that makes a big difference in how wide that corridor can be. If you're talking about, you know, can it have a major box store commercial center right at the edge of the corridor, that affects things drastically. You've got water management lake and maybe some parks and things like that, that affects that as well. So there's things you can do within the development itself which will make the corridor more functional. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, let's look at this northern corridor here, since you want to talk about geometry. From the south to the north, what's the length of that section of the corridor? How many miles? MR. DURHAM: I'm sorry, which one are you referring? There's a north and -- COMMISSIONER CARON: The northern. MR. DURHAM: The northern one? COMMISSIONER CARON: On the 2050 map right there in front of us, there's a little narrow L-shaped thing, and that's a panther corridor. MR. DURHAM: One thing you need to recognize in this is we Page 62 January 28, 2009 worked with Darrell Land of the Game Commission, the concept. Recognize when we talk about corridor, we're talking about an area of agricultural land with dedicated parts of it that would serve to connect for panther. That's not saying that everything else is not panther habitat around it, all right? Recognize we're not looking at development on all sides of that corridor so all you're left with is what you see shown there. Think of that as the backbone for a corridor. COMMISSIONER CARON: Well, but that's not really true, because you've got essentially an SRA sitting up there. So conceptually, there's an SRA there. So tell me again, what is the length of the north to south? MR. DURHAM: I would have to go back in my books and read that up. It's many miles. It's many miles. It goes through -- COMMISSIONER CARON: I'm looking for the miles, and then from west to east. Because you're the one who brought up the geometry and how if it was short and narrow, that's okay, but the longer it gets the wider the animal is going to want it to be. So I'm just MR. DURHAM: Up to a point. That doesn't go endless. Doesn't say -- you know, there's a cap on that. COMMISSIONER CARON: I'm just trying to get an estimate. I'm trying to see what you've plotted out here on your conceptual plan. Understanding it is a conceptual plan, and understanding that maybe everything that looks like it could be developed here may not be developed. MR. DURHAM: Correct. COMMISSIONER CARON: But I'm asking you what's on here to give me some figures on that. And you can give it to me later on in the meeting. MR. DURHAM: Be glad to give it to you later. COMMISSIONER CARON: Thanks. MR. DURHAM: We did work with Darrell Land on the concept Page 63 January 28, 2009 for that, and the fact that if there is development, SRA, in the area of that corridor, there would be very specific and very extensive buffering requirements. We can get that broad data to you on that -- COMMISSIONER CARON: Thanks. MR. DURHAM: -- but it was not created in a vacuum. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, Tim. I think that's it. Appreciate it. Elizabeth or Lori? MS. FLEMING: Elizabeth. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I keep getting you and Lori mixed up. Sorry. MS. FLEMING: Elizabeth Fleming, with Defenders of Wildlife. I wanted to explain a little bit about how some of these maps came about. Defenders of Wildlife, we do a lot of work on the endangered Florida panther and other imperiled species. And we took an interest in the rural land stewardship program, and also the federal regulatory process that was -- we were seeing the development potential for this area, which is so important to the panther and other speCIes. So we've worked on a number of levels. We've worked with the Fish & Wildlife Service, we participated in this five-year review, we met for about a year and a half with three other conservation organizations and eight landowners who owned the land. So very important to talk to the people who ultimately are going to be deciding what happens to that land. And there are several processes in motion right now, so it's almost difficult to tease one apart from the other. The first of course is the five-year review, and now the discussions and decisions that will be made by the Planning Commission, the Environmental Advisory Council and then ultimately the Board of County Commissioners. Page 64 ---~---_._"_._----"---~_._--"_.~-----,- January 28, 2009 Separate -- well, not separate of that, but a little bit different is the collaboration that the conservation organizations and landowners had, focusing on primarily panther. Also some of these land uses. And in addition to some of the changes recommended here, that collaboration came up with some ideas to have an additional source of funding for things like wildlife crossings. Some of those primary areas on State Road 29 is still the deadliest road in the state for panthers, and there isn't a funding source available. And so we see that as a good benefit. And there's some additional concepts in there also that we feel is very worthwhile exploring together. I want to let you know that these ideas we've come up together are being reviewed right now by a panel of six scientists who are experts in panther ecology and landscape level planning. And it is unfortunate in terms of timing that we couldn't have their set of recommendations to fold into all these other processes. But we are going to meet again with all the landowners and the conservation organizations and discuss their findings when they are available. And those findings will then be taken forward to the federal level. Because as I mentioned, looking at it from the endangered species act, the Florida panther and perhaps other species in the area. So we see this as one part of a large set of processes going forward, which we sincerely hope is going to improve the status and recovery potential of the Florida panther. And that is the reason that we got involved. And ultimately, if it can work in Collier County, we hope to work with other landowners in the state, moving into adjacent counties. And the only way the panther is going to be recovered is if we get north of the river and up into the rest of the state. So a lot is riding on this. We have the highest hopes for this. We've worked hard collaboratively with landowners. We realize we can't regulate the situation, the Fish & Wildlife Service. I mean, they Page 65 January 28, 2009 have a role to play, but the record of land conservation under their purview has not been good with respect to panthers in South Florida. And we're going to put a lot of stake in what these six scientists come up with. And that -- they're analyzing this independently without any intervention from any of us. They're looking at it now. And my last comment I wanted to make about this is so many people seem very, very interested in panther science. And I don't feel comfortable with members of different committees or ourselves or analyzing data or responding to questions. Get Darrell Land in here and ask him yourself. If we want to know what Darrell Land thinks or what Darrell Land said, I would recommend that perhaps he be put on an agenda for everybody to talk to in the near future about these Issues. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Are there any questions at this point? Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Just one. Do you have any idea when this study will be done? Be complete and ready for presentation? MS. FLEMING: We hope in the next few months. COMMISSIONER CARON: So three, four months? MS. FLEMING: That's the hope. Like I said, we are hands off. We're letting them do their work. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: My question was about the same line. Your organization, as well as others that signed the MOU are obligated to basically support the RLSA conclusions that are coming before us today, from my reading of it. Also from my reading of it, there were time tables expressly stated in the MOU in which the scientific study was supposed to have been benchmarked at certain processes. At the time it was signed, there were provisions for three or six-month intervals. I don't believe you've hit those time frames, if I'm Page 66 January 28, 2009 not mistaken. But even more concerning to me is while you are -- got an agreement and you're obligated and you're doing what you have to do to make sure things come out right for all of you, if your scientific study comes out to the negative or requires extensive changes in the language that is before us today but it comes out after it was all passed, how is that going to help anybody? MS. FLEMING: First of all, you asked several questions. The MOU is nonbinding, it's a voluntary agreement that we've all agreed to work on together. We're still hammering out aspects of that regarding the panther. As far as the certain deadlines in there, everybody's aiming to keep to those deadlines, but I don't think -- it's not as binding as it might appear to be. And you asked me another question -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'm worried about the outcome of the scientific study, if it involves changes to the language we're seeing here today, how is that going to happen if it comes out after the changes were already approved or gone through the process? MS. FLEMING: Well, as I said, regarding the panther, a lot more will be placed on the federal process moving forward. There'll be an agreement reached and they may require -- in addition to what the Rural Land Stewardship Area has agreed to, Fish & Wildlife Service may require other modifications based on the recommendations. It is unfortunate that there are four or five different things in play at the same time. But I just wanted to put some background into why we are involved and how this fits into a larger framework for landscape level conservation. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And I -- my questions were really as we're trying to make sure that if there are changes needed, they get into the program. I understand from what you just said maybe the feds or state can further enforce those where we might not have been able Page 67 January 28, 2009 to or incorporated in our language because of the timing. But again, it goes back to the timing. I'm not sure we're rushing this through then if we still have science to complete, so -- but I understand your position. MS. FLEMING: I don't know who's rushing what through, but these are county meetings as scheduled, and -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We had a nice discussion about that about a month ago. MS. FLEMING: But anyway, it's not been a -- it's been a fairly open, long, extensive discussion. Conservancy has been involved. Many of us have been involved. And it seems like people are becoming skeptical of motives or how we got to be here, and I just wanted to let you know what our involvement has been. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you very much. Okay, next speaker? MR. HUTCHCRAFT: For the record, my name is Mitch Hutchcraft. I'm with King Ranch and Consolidated Citrus, and we are agricultural landowners. Based on the comments that I've heard this morning, there's two specific points that I'd like to make. First one is about perception. And I appreciate the comments that we just heard, because I think that there's a perception that, you know, gosh, we're greedy landowners and we're trying to get more or that, you know, there's deals being cut. And I want to make sure that it's perfectly clear, that's absolutely incorrect. I can tell you from the very beginning, our participation in this has been stated from the very beginning, we are interested and working in collaborative effort to see if there is a way that we can achieve the objectives of is there a better way to deal with the connectivity of panther habitat, can we do a better job of protecting agricultural lands, is there a better way of protecting growth into the future. And the landowners have been working with all commerce; with Page 68 January 28, 2009 environmental groups, community activists, anybody that would come and speak with us. And I think what you see before us is a suggestion of here's a scenario that we think will work and achieve the objectives that you guys have shared with us, and the realities of the families that own the lands out here. So I want to make sure that I clearly dispel that perception that I think I'm beginning to see, because I think it's inaccurate. The other comment is targeted towards that northern corridor, because I want to make sure that it's perfectly clear. That northern corridor does not exist. There are no panthers using that corridor. That corridor that is presented on the left map was a suggestion by the landowners here's a scenario how we think we can do a better job of providing that connectivity. And we do it through landowners and linking natural habitat patches. So rather than there be a characterization that gosh, we're not doing enough, it's more than what existed, and it was at the behest of the landowners saying we understand your concerns, we want to work with you and here's an alternative solution that we think will meet both environmental objectives and landowner family ownership realities. So those are the two points that I wanted to make, and I appreciate your time. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Midney, then Mr. Wolfley. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yeah, and I really appreciate that. I'm not one of the people that thinks it's like a conspiracy type of thing. I think that you all have done a really good job. I'm really happy about the addition of the ago credits. I think that was -- when it first came out, I remember saying, five years ago, I can see what this does for the environment but I don't see what it does for ago And so I'm real happy that you put that in. And on your initiative, as you said, the panther corridor, the Page 69 January 28, 2009 panthers don't use it now, but if this could help. I'm really appreciative of what you're doing, and you've come up with a lot of good new ideas, but I think that we probably can make it even better. That's my whole point of -- MR. HUTCHCRAFT: And I don't think we would ever say, hey, we did 100 percent. But I think it's fair to say that we clearly have done our very best to advance the ball forward. And I can tell you from King Ranch and Consolidated Citrus perspective, we have a long agricultural history, we have zero development history, and I'm not the only one, but I was one of the ones that clearly strongly advocated for the importance of the agricultural credits. And I think that that's an important component. And I'm on the flip side ofMr. Priddy. We've got lots ofland that could potentially be developed, but no credits. It doesn't work for either of us if it doesn't make sense in balance. So that balance is critical, and it's important that you make sure that that's clear in everything that you review. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I believe it was me that started that behind closed door thing. Only because my nose was rubbed into that by a member out there months ago. And so I thought I'd bring it up again, just because it was -- my nose is still a little dirty on that one. Could you explain to me the generation and use of panther habitat units? It was in the Memorandum of Understanding. And before you answer that, I am totally in favor of landowners and the environmental groups getting together without any governmental intervention. More can be done then in that I'm sure than could possibly be done, you know, by a government. MR. HUTCHCRAFT: There are a lot of things I'll pretend to be an expert in, but the generation of panther habitat units is not one of them. So with all due respect, I'd defer to somebody else. Page 70 January 28, 2009 COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Mr. Jones may know. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: David, you've had the benefit of23 meetings with the RLSA committee that you sit on, and we need to get through a lot of stuff today. That MOU is a supporting document. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Well, you brought it up, that's why -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah, I know. And your answer could get rather involved. If you want to know the details of the MOU, I passed it out to the Planning Commission two months ago. Is that something that we could hold off till later in this, when we get into other issues, if you don't mind? Because I'm still trying to focus this committee on answering responses to the presentation and the public comments. If we can get past that, then we'll get into more detail, and those kind of things will probably be more appropriate. Does that work for you? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: That's fine, sir, yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Mr. Jones? MR. JONES: I'll hold my answer on the PHU generation. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. MR. JONES: I always appreciate when somebody says they don't know something. But I do want to respond a little bit to something that you brought up and Elizabeth was addressing. And I think this comes from comments I've heard from other people and from what I've read in the paper. And there seems to be a great deal of confusion about the MOU and the Panther Protection Plan and the RLSA overview. And since I've been involved in both of them, I'll give you the background on it. But these are independent processes running on parallel tracks. And it's just coincidental that they occurred on the time line that they did. We've been working on the Panther Protection Plan long before the oversight committee was put together to review the RLSA. And in Page 71 January 28, 2009 our collaborative efforts from the conservation organizations and landowners, we were trying to develop a panther protection program that addressed some of the issues that, well, the RLSA isn't corrected to the federal program. You're right, it's not. And it was never intended to be. So we've tried to marry these things together. And people that are intimately involved in them are probably better equipped than those who are not intimately involved in them. But we saw the RLSA as an opportunity, as a vehicle to implement some of the things that we wanted to do with respect to panthers. If the Panther Protection Plan falls apart in the consultation process or something or never comes about, it doesn't impact the RLSA. The only thing that ties the RLSA and the panther protection program together is that we were utilizing credits an incentives for the panther protection program. If the RLSA chose not to incorporate those credits and the primary credits we're talking about were the ones for corridors, and we estimated an acreage. Everybody else came up with their own acres of what it ought to be, but there's an estimate of acreage figures in there and credits would be generated from the creation of those, and that's an incentive that works in the other program. And the other area that kind of ties together is the ago preservation credits. And the ago preservation credits creates significant open space within the RLSA. They're probably a benefit. I'm not going to get into it because that gets us into the panther debate. But one doesn't have to occur for the other one to be functional. If the RLSA doesn't incorporate the credits or the panther corridors, then the group working on the Panther Protection Plan, probably through the federal process, will develop another set of incentives. The common ground between the two is that we're trying to develop incentive-based programs, and we used an existing program that we thought we could piggyback on part of the panther program. Page 72 January 28, 2009 And since we've tried to do that, that has gotten so twisted and convoluted that I just -- you know, I'm going to stop there. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Jones, my point of bringing it up was simply that without the protection plan in place, without the PHD's being created, is the RLSA language as being presented to us today something that would have survived without additional tweaking needed or concerns from the environmental community who feel that the Panther Protection Plan is giving them that protection? And if it is and it works for them, that's fine. But my concern is if it wasn't there, how does that change things? And that's where I was coming from. MR. JONES: Right. But we're kind of dancing around that these things are linked. And I understand what you're saying, but I was just trying to clarify for the general good of the committee that the science review that's being done with Panther Protection Plan doesn't have to be done before this process of the county's overview moves forward. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Vince, good to see you. Mind letting everybody know your position with Hendry County, since we're used to remembering you when you were here in our county? So -- MR. CAUTERO: Thank you. Although my good friend and former colleague, Anita Jenkins, did say that she thought a ghost walked through the door when I came in this morning. I thought that was very funny. For the record, my name is Vince Cautero. I'm the administrative services director in Hendry County. And I thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'll be brief in my remarks, but before I get into those, if I can ask county staff to assist me by putting up just one graphic that I want to focus on in my brief remarks, it would be the roadway network. I don't know how to work that, I'm sorry. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The centroid map. The one with the red dots, I think that's the one you're looking for. There you go. Page 73 January 28, 2009 MR. CAUTERO: Thank you. First let me say that Hendry County in 2007, during their strategic planning workshop, the board of county commissioners asked staff to embark upon a rural and agricultural land study and asked them to set up parameters for such a study. As an outgrowth of that workshop, the board of county commissioners partially funded a study, with a grant from the Department of Community Affairs, and went through a competitive process and hired the firm ofRW A, and that study was completed last year. Weare now at the point where I would say Collier County was six or seven years ago in that the study has been completed and now we are working towards the initial refinement of that to have it adopted. So you're a whole full four, five, six years ahead of us in that process. And we appreciate the opportunity to work jointly with Collier County's committee, staff, consultants, the Planning Commission and other groups so that we can make this the best plan as possible for Hendry County. The Hendry County board has indicated a strong desire to provide incentives, as well as standards in their comprehensive plan that will accomplish two things. And from what I've seen in the RLSA plan in Collier County, and from what I'm seeing today, and I know you have more data to pour through and more work will be done, it appears that the incentives and regulatory framework to preserve environmentally sensitive land and establish long-term agricultural areas is present. That's my opinion, based upon what I've read and what I've heard. And the board of county commissioners in Hendry to that extent shares that goal. I want to thank publicly people that I've had the opportunity to talk with, and I look forward to more discussions regarding some of the aspects of this plan, and that would include yourself, Mr. Page 74 January 28,2009 Chairman, as well as Tom Jones, and others on the Panther Protection Plan and Allen Reynolds and his senior staff at Wilson-Miller. So there are only two issues that I want to focus on today. And I know you have a lot more deliberations, and we look forward to working with you. One is just that, that we look forward to learning more from you as to how you're going to tackle these key issues with regard to environmental preservation of sensitive lands, and setting up the framework for future development within this overall area, and with emphasis on the Panther Protection Plan. Because we are giving that a lot of emphasis right now in our community. And our advisory committee that the board appointed to review the study has only had three meetings. So they haven't gotten deep into these discussions. The second issue was one that is contained on this graphic that I just wanted to focus on, and it is the proposed east-west road north of the county line. The board of county commissioners is concerned very much about level of service. To that extent, the proposed order -- and I realize this is just a conceptual map, and any roads that are constructed may not be in these specific areas that are depicted on the map. But at such time ifthere is an east-west connector at the northern end of what we're calling the Collier RLSA, any improvements that that road would have upon the level of service network in that area, with emphasis on State Road 82, is very important to our board of county commissioners. The Hendry County board has stated publicly that they don't believe that county roads should be spent on state roads -- county funds should be spent on state roads. To that extent, we're working with developers, landowners and DOT and DCA on a long-term concurrency management plan for State Road 82. Mind you, only 1.3 miles of State Road 82 exist in Hendry County. But we were told not so ago -- and I will define that Page 75 January 28, 2009 by saying that is less than 12 months ago -- DCA and DOT told us that our segment of State Road 82 was failing in terms of level of service. We've now been told that that's not the case, based on new analysis. We have pending comprehensive plan amendments in that area for a mix of uses, most notably commercial and industrial, and the board supports this. Further, the board of county commissioners has granted a franchise to Florida Government Utility Authority to serve water and sewer in that area. As a backdrop to this, we're looking for level of service on State Road 82. So therefore, getting back to the point that I raised a moment ago, level of service is a key issue for us. So anything that the road network that is ultimately planned for in this area could do to help level of service on 82 is important to us. Having said that, though, we also have one additional concern, and I appreciate the discussions that I've had thus far and we look forward to continuing those. The community that you see to the north of the county where that road is. And maybe if you could use your curser, if somebody can use the curser and just point to it. Thank you. This community that you see here where I'm showing the light, and further north, approximately seven miles from the county line is the community of Felda. Unincorporated community in Hendry County. And we're seeing very low density development in that area. It is very sparsely populated. I don't even believe there's more than 1,500 residents in that particular area. They are seeing slowly some commercial development along 29, and the community is fully aware of the planning, development and engineering report, or PD&E, that is being undertaken now by DOT for the four-laning of29, and possible six-laning. The community just completed a community plan that was made part of our evaluation and appraisal report. And that report was Page 76 January 28, 2009 accepted by the Department of Community Affairs last June, and we are now preparing EAR-based amendments. That community made it clear to the board of county commissioners that they want to maintain a low density status. Low density is defined in that community as one unit per two acres. To the point where they don't even want to see clustering. They want two-acre tracts with some scattered commercial development and agriculture. One of the big issues we're facing right now in Hendry County is an influx of mining and extractive applications from various landowners for a variety of reasons. And that is also taking place in the Felda area. What we're saying is from a staff level -- and the board of county commissioners has not been a part of this conversation yet -- anything that this could do to enhance level of service as it comes into our world, which is right here in Hendry County on State Road 82, is fine and there is no objection to that. And I think the long-term plan ultimately you'll adopt would dovetail nicely with what we're setting up as our initial goals now. But just keep one thing in mind, and then that's all we ask, in addition to continued communication, and that is the people in Felda have already approached the board and they wish to maintain low density in their community with some commercial along State Road 29, which would be neighborhood commercial. And we would like to keep that focus in our comprehensive plan amendment. As we work through our rural and agriculture land study implementation, that is going to be taken into account and is being taken into account by our consultants and our advisory committee that that community of Felda has carved out, if you will, their small piece of low density development, as we look at other strategies in our rural and agricultural area, which takes up a large portion of the county, as you would imagine. Page 77 ,--_....._._...~-,-~_..__.,....,~..,..-~ .__..~^'-'.----,_.+<_.,-. January 28,2009 So we just ask that you take that into account. Our community is looking at this, especially the community of Felda, and we look forward to close communication with yourselves and the other groups that I mentioned, as well as Collier County staff. And I want to thank you for your time. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Any questions? Mr. Eidson? MR. EIDSON: I was wondering if Hendry County was entertaining the environmental concerns that we have about the panther, and are they try trying to make that corridor work up into Hendry? Because our committee was concerned that we might get a toll booth put in up at Hendry County for the panthers and we didn't want to see that happen, so -- MR. CAUTERO: I don't think you will see that. The advisory committee is taking that very seriously. And to the extent where we will be looking at that in great detail, we have had presentations at the staff level from Mr. Land and other professionals. I believe that that is an issue that is going to be carried forward throughout. And it won't be one that is ignored. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any others? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Vince, I've just got one. Does your community have any long-range plan for State Road 29? I mean, I know it's a state road, but the timing of that -- because we're going to be six-laning right into your county. Are you coinciding with that six-laning and opening 29 up to six lanes at some point? Is that what the ultimate plan is for your area? MR. CAUTERO: Yes, that is the ultimate plan for that area. And I apologize for not mentioning that. Our county did adopt a new long-range transportation plan last year as well, which will be made part of the comprehensive plan, and we are taking that into account and gearing up for that as well. Page 78 January 28,2009 The community residents of Felda are aware of that, and they understand that. And that was taken into account during their deliberations. We had a great deal of discussion with them about commercial, where commercial will be located, based on an ultimate six-laning. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: County Line Road, as shown on this plan, assuming that it's a Collier County line road, is actually in Hendry County. Does that coincide with your plans in Hendry County? MR. CAUTERO: We have not shown that. And that's something that we're going to have to coordinate very closely with the planning staff, as well as the comprehensive planning and transportation planning staffs. But from what we see now on how this might not only interact with your network, but if there's any way, as I said earlier, that it might alleviate some of the level of service on 82 in Hendry County, I don't think you're going to see opposition for that. But if it is to be in Hendry County and you have willing buyers and sellers, so be it. But we need to take that into account in our plan. It is not part of our plan, but we have time. I don't know the exact length of time for this planning process. Our planning process may even be extended. We're going to use the full 18 months and maybe more for our EAR-based amendments, so there is time to make adjustments to that. We do plan to be discussing this with our elected officials in the near future, depending on how the EAR process goes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, that county line road comes up from Corkscrew Road, crosses our county line, goes north. I can't even tell the distance. But it looks like it's going into a grid pattern of development, similar to what you find in Golden Gate Estates with the standard grid. And I can tell you, we have an extension in Golden Gate Estates Page 79 January 28, 2009 called the Vanderbilt Beach Road Extension, and it is very controversial. So I would think if that road's going to go through all those areas, your people may have concerns about them. That's kind of the reason when I spoke to you first, I wanted to know what the thoughts were on that. MR. CAUTERO: And the Felda community has not spoken to us about this. I will be talking to them about that as well. I think that their concern is going to be the one I mentioned, though, that if we can have some assurances that the density would remain low in that area. And how we do that, we're open to suggestions. But I do share your concern that there will be some concern in the Felda community based on that. So my point in talking today is to just make everyone aware of that, that they do want to keep a low density community. And some people have said to us, when we embarked on this discussion with them, that it just promotes more urban sprawl. Well, we made a case in our evaluation and appraisal report and DCA approved it. And they approved that report. So now we're moving forward with amendments to change some land use in that area and change regulations that will keep it low density. So they are serious about that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, sir. Mr. Jones, you have something? MR. JONES: Mr. Strain, I may be able to help you a little bit on the way it looks north of that county line road. Although it may look like Golden Gate Estates, there's a very limited ownership immediately on the other side of the Collier County line. There's probably not -- the length that that's running, there's probably not more than four landowners involved. MR. CAUTERO: I have that in front of me, if you'd like. MR. JONES: I hope I'm right. MR. CAUTERO: Six. Page 80 January 28, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Six. Well, you're 50 percent wrong, that's not too bad. Can we make the same assumption with the acreage on the RLSA? MR. CAUTERO: Sorry, Tom, I just had it with me. MR. JONES: Well, they may be different names by the same company. MR. CAUTERO: One of them is. One of them. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, now you're 25 percent off. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Compromise. MR. CAUTERO: I did my homework. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, Vince. We appreciate your time and attending today. Thanks for your input. Next speaker, please. MR. SEIF: Michael Seif. I just wanted to say something for the record to clarify. There was some questions before when you had The Conservancy map up versus the plan -- well, both the conceptual plans. The Conservancy did prepare a map called Natural Resources within Collier County. And that was presented last June. And it's in appendix T in the materials that you have. And it clearly shows proposed water retention areas, proposed habitat stewardship areas, flow way stewardship areas, open areas of critical state concern, and -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is that the map you're talking about, sir? MR. SElF: Yes. Thank you. So I just wanted to clarify that, you know, somebody mentioned before that nothing had really been presented in that earlier period to discuss the natural areas. So thank you. You know, just for clarification. I just have one other comment about transportation, though. I'm not sure how you can present a plan for town locations or proposed town locations, even centroids, without saying a little bit more about Page 81 January 28, 2009 transportation. And I would think that the County Commissioners would like to know something about what the cost might be for this plan. Even if it's a conceptual cost. Seems to me that one needs to incorporate that. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Terry, I think you're next. If you don't mind, I know you're with South Florida Water Management District. If you -- we're seeking any comments that your district may have, I actually put a call in to you guys and I'm glad to see you're here. Thank you. MR. BENGTSSON: Yes, I'm glad to be here. I'm still learning with this plan. Terry Bengtsson for the record, South Florida Water Management. And I know Clarence Tears, our director for Big Cypress Basin, has worked quite hard in fostering private and public relationships in getting resource management type projects forward. So the committee here should certainly be acknowledged for their efforts in garnering the support and volunteers and working on developing some recommendation here. It is difficult, from a planning perspective, exactly what these recommendations mean, since there is this inherent voluntary effort. The couple of observations that I wanted to offer that is worth you all please taking a note of is that since 2002 there's some things that have changed with regards to the lower west coast water supply plan. It was updated in 2006. Where because of the uncertainty of how much water would be available for use in the surficial system and in surface water, those systems being integrated into wetland systems and the like. For planning purposes, any new proposed use to meet future demands on the public water side would -- should come from alternative sources. And so that is a -- something we've been working on for the last couple of years to make sure that utilities are working that way. We're fortunate to have utilities that are very progressive in Page 82 January 28, 2009 our area. A new wrinkle to all this is that now DCA has established a link with water supply and growth management to the compo plan amendments that are looking at changing densities, and need to look at making sure that the water supply is available. And so from a planning perspective and having this uncertainty both with this plan and then what source of resources are available, planning perspective, it should be something, a source that is considered alternative. And so that's a fairly important fact. The other aspect that I wanted to bring up is that there has been a rural development process with Picayune Strand, which I'm sure you're all aware of. That is a rule that will affect potentially water use permitting in that it may limit what new uses can be permitted. It may entail more effort in establishing a new use that wasn't in place back in 2002. So those are I think two significant things that -- you know, worth looking at. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Midney? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Are you saying that there may be water constraints on the building of some new towns in this area? MR. BENGTSSON: I'm saying that the resource that is available from a planning perspective is alternative sources. In other words, it needs to be brackish or it needs to have a reclaimed water component. It needs to have conservation methods. Any way to reduce the demand from a conventional source. The conventional source in our area, as identified through our water supply plan, is considered limited. And so since DCA is now requiring local governments to look ahead in a 10-year facility work plan to identify where our water's coming from to meet the projected growth, then that source needs to be something that regulatory governments -- regulatory agencies can feel comfortable in agreeing with a plan with that map. Page 83 January 28, 2009 COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: So what I'm hearing you say is that the water supply will be more expensive, but it's not going to be limited. In other words, there's no restrictions on the amount of brackish water that can be removed from the deep aquifers? MR. BENGTSSON: That's true. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody else? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The Hawthorne Aquifer is considered an alternative source? MR. BENGTSSON: That's a good question. There's a couple of different zones within the Hawthorne group. As identified in our nomenclature, the mid Hawthorne in the Hawthorne group is not technically referred as an alternative source, although in Collier County it is brackish. And so the fact that it is brackish would lend its support towards providing future sources. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And the other question, you mentioned the Picayune Strand. And when that legislation or that action goes forward, it may limit the amount of freshwater aquifers that are going to be tapped for new uses. Currently in the area of the RSLA there's extensive agricultural uses, consumptive use permits. Those aren't new uses, but converting those to landscape irrigation and potable uses for households, if they were to tag on to the consumptive use permit and have it modified, and I know there's a reduction rate between the uses, would because they use the consumptive use permit from the farm be acceptable as avoiding the term new use? MR. BENGTSSON: Well, that's a very good question. A land use change would constitute a new water use permit. The difference between agricultural irrigation and landscape irrigation in many people's minds are essentially the same. However, the duration is year round for a golf course versus winter crops. And additionally, the type of drainage associated with agriculture is different than a subdivision. Page 84 January 28,2009 So the connection of changing or modifying an agricultural water use permit to something different for common grounds, turf and landscape, may not be a straightforward matter. On the east coast, currently there is a water availability rule. And there is a method that has been established that's sort of referred to I believe as a ledger, where if some old agricultural permits are retired, there's a certain amount of allocation that becomes present on this ledger and may be available for a new use. How exactly that works, I'm not certain, because the Picayune Strand is a reservation rule that's different than a water availability rule. There are some distinctions legally that I'm not quite sure what they are. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Some of the changes in the RLSA language involve the WRA's, and there are going to be questions about conversion of ago pumpage to irrigation and potable uses by other uses. And that's where -- we'll probably get into that in more detail later on. I don't know of your intentions for sitting out the duration here, but if you're here, you might be asked. If not, we'll just do the best we can. Thank you. Does anybody -- Mr. Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Yeah, I -- did I just hear -- Chair, I promise I wouldn't have brought it up if it hadn't already been started. But Commissioner Midney just asked if these towns or centroids would have any effect on the water, aquifers, being used for the towns. And you said there would be no effect from the use of the water for these towns? In other words, let me try this again. We were told, I think it was our last session, that the water we're getting out of the Tamiami Aquifer has absolutely no effect on that aquifer. Are you saying that these towns, that that's the same, no effect on the aquifers that we're going to be drilling down to? MR. BENGTSSON: Well, no, I'm not saying that. And I don't-- Page 85 January 28, 2009 when you say no effect, I mean, that's kind of hard for me to understand. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: That was exactly my point, too. MR. BENGTSSON: But sort of like the transportation dilemma as to you'd like to locate some potential routes. But without knowing the specifics of whether or not that route would be better than another gets to be a little more on the technical side. What I was attempting to say is that if there are some existing use out there of the shallow aquifer, the Tamiami Aquifer, and that use is for agriculture and it's now going to be converted into a public water supply activity, that source may not necessarily be available to it, to tl12lt lltilit)T. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: And the next layer down, I cannot remember, was that-- MR. BENGTSSON: Right, there's a number of aquifers that are available. And the deeper you go, the more isolated they are to the environment, to the surface. The unfortunate thing in Collier County is that those aquifers, those deeper aquifers are brackish. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Certainly. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions at this time? Mr. Jones. MR. JONES: Another for what it's worth. In anticipation that hopefully we would eventually move forward with data and analysis to support GMP amendments, we -- property owners in Eastern Collier County anticipated that there would be potentially a question arise over water. And to that end, and I'd like to enter it into the record, I just have this one copy, but we did have an analysis done by a registered geologist from the State of Florida to look at potential water sources available to support a 45,000-acre footprint. And recognizing what Mr. Bengtsson has said, the district, for lack of a better term, is forcing utilities to deeper aquifers. I'm sure Collier County Utilities is well Page 86 January 28, 2009 aware of that. The mid-Hawthorne where people are generally now going to be withdrawing their water supplies from is recharged well north of this area. Primarily in Polk County is where the entrances to the Hawthorne are, I believe. And so we were fairly comfortable with it. In addition to that, the geologist also ran a scenario that if water was available from the lower Tamiami, what would that impact be, based on current usage. They did a rather critical analysis and only assumed -- and assumed the pumpage based on ET, not on permit allocations, and they pretty well clearly demonstrated that not only the Hawthorne had sufficient water supplies to provide what would be necessary for future development, but even that there was a significant resource of agricultural acreages were converted to urban development as well. So I'll give this to Mr. Greenwood to -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Tom, if you could during lunch make copies for the Planning Commission and maybe extras for others, and then make sure that the recorder gets one copy for the record, that would be helpful. Then we can read it at lunchtime when we get back. Okay, any other questions of Terry? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you very much, Terry, appreciate it. Are there any other members of the public who wish to speak? Yes, sir, Andrew. MR. McEL W AINE: For the record, Andrew McElwaine, President, Conservancy. I was listening on-line, and was concerned about an earlier discussion on the primary zone of the panther and whether there was fluff in it or whether there was disagreement about the zone. I spoke just now with a preeminent panther biologist who -- David Shindle of our staff -- Page 87 January 28, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Questions from the audience please. You'll get your time to come up if you need to. MR. McEL W AINE: And he referred me to the Panther Recovery Plan, which the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has just issued. It's a couple weeks old. And it states very clearly, the primary zone supports the only breeding panther population. To prevent further loss of population viability, habitat conservation efforts should focus on maintaining the total available area, quality and spatial extent of habitat within the primary zone. The continued loss of habitat functionality through fragmentation and loss of spatial extent pose serious threats to the conservation and recovery of the panther. Therefore, conserving lands within the primary zone and securing biological corridors are necessary to help alleviate these threats. That's as clear as day, sir. And that is not an opinion piece, that is directly from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. It is only a couple of weeks old, and represents a scientific consensus that has been developed over years. Thank you, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Would you mind if the staff made a copy of that to distribute to the Planning Commission so we could have it for our record? Thank you. Okay, are there any other comments from the Planning Commission? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other members of the public wish to speak on the presentation made by the RLSA committee? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, well, it's a quarter to l2:00. And instead of going to into a whole new section that's going to take a lot of time, which the next item up will be the questions that the Planning Commission put on record on May 1 st of 2008, we're going to break for lunch. But before we break for lunch, there's going to be some Page 88 January 28, 2009 changes when you come back. Everybody that's sitting at a table right now, please consolidate what you're using into one pile in the place you're sitting at. The tables are going to be rearranged while we're at lunch. The idea of having people's backs to the public and tables separating the public from the actions of the committee is unacceptable, it's going to be changed and we're going to modify that. So that will happen during lunch time. In order for people not to have their paperwork mixed up, either take it with you or consolidate it in a pile. And with that, why don't we resume at 1 :00. That will give us enough time to get to local restaurants or wherever else we have to go. Thank you. (Luncheon recess.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, I think the mics are working. Everybody back on? It's 1 :00. We'll resume the meeting. I don't see many people back yet, but we'll try to move forward. Mr. Greenwood, during the break -- or during lunchtime we had some matters passed out for copying. Did those get copied? MR. GREENWOOD: Yes. And they're on the table and we'll bring those to the commissioners. I think there were three items. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I think there was only two, but whatever was it, if you get those copies to us during the day, we'd appreciate it. MR. GREENWOOD: We'll get those to you shortly. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. The portion of the meeting we'll be getting into now is the questions that the Planning Commission had presented in a nine-page handout to the committee when they did their Phase I review back on May 1st of2008. And at that time we were asked to hold our questions until the Phase II report came forward. And we have those -- we'll start working our way through the nine pages. Page 89 January 28, 2009 Several of the pages were done by myself. And others were done by The Conservancy. And I think there was a section of them by Nancy Payton as well. So we'll just look for answers. I'm not sure who's going to be responding to us. Mr. Greenwood? Bill? I'm not sure you want to take on that or-- MR. McDANIEL: Well, if nothing else with as far as taking on, sir -- for the record, Bill McDaniel -- I would like to assist in directing folks to come answer those specific questions, if -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's great. MR. McDANIEL: -- we the committee can't necessarily come up with specificity. That was during our process in determining this presentation to you what they asked to do. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think that works fine. And basically the questions were posed to see if they should be considered in new GMP language. And I know that you did on one of the backup documents discuss them, try to respond to them. And whether they were answered in there, I just want to make sure the record is clear on how that occurred. MR. McDANIEL: And as a point of discussion, if you might direct folks as to where to look when we're talking about those. And I believe they're contained in the volume one book. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I'm running off the nine pages that I have, so I didn't use the ones in your book. But if you have a page reference, that would be helpful. DR. HUSHON: Page 519. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Page 519. I'm looking for the questions. I read the answers, and that's kind of why we want to reiterate them in the public here today, so everybody knows what the question was and how you all responded to it. Not everybody has the ability to have 700 pages made available Page 90 January 28,2009 to them. MR. McDANIEL: Absolutely. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, sir. The first question that was posed back then was a discussion about the fiscal impact analysis model called the FIAM. It looks for fiscal neutrality for any new properties put out in the RLSA. The problem that occurred in reviewing some of the documentation for the only SRA that was utilized, Ave Maria, was that there were some instances in the FIAM, which is that impact analysis model, where the standards for multipliers used were not the standards in Collier County. And the most relevant one I can think of is persons per household. In Collier County we operate on an average of 2.39 persons per household. Now, if you use that as a multiplier and you multiply it to a whole bunch of other statistics, you get a different answer than if you use a different number. Well, the Ave Maria, as example, used 2.2. They argued that their households would be less in population. And that's fine if the statistics show that and it works, nothing wrong there. But as a standard we ought to see from a county perspective where the FlAM would show the fiscal neutrality if you used the standard statistics that the county historically has used. And at the same time, the other part of the question was why don't we standardize it to county standards and why don't we do this FIAM more frequently. And I think the question was every year. But right now it's every five years. And what that means is someone could change their fiscal neutrality to a point where they're running into the negative to the taxpayers, but you wouldn't know about it for five years. And if someone's doing really well, what does it hurt to rerun a computer model that's already -- the spreadsheet's initially done and it's just a matter of updating the numbers. Page 91 January 28,2009 So that was the question that was posed, Bill, and I'm not sure -- I saw that it was under Section 4.18. You all believed it was responded to, but there was no response there. It was the language we have today. So does that mean the committee did decide -- decided it didn't need to be responded to? MR. McDANIEL: Basically yes, sir, there was discussion. Mr. Greenwood, if you'll help a little bit with regard to that. There was discussion there. And candidly, Mr. Chairman, some of the comments that came back in written format to you were rather blunt, candidly. You know, we -- there was discussion with all of the questions that were posed to the committee, both by yourself and by The Conservancy and other organizations. But at the particular juncture with the information that we had available to us, no action was taken at that particular time. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, that's fine. And if -- who in the committee analyzed it? Because I know since staff wasn't participatory as much as usual, how did they decide that this wasn't something that needed to be changed? Does anybody know? Or they just decided it wasn't -- didn't need to go any farther with no reason and -- MR. McDANIEL: I'm scrapping for information at this particular juncture. MR. GREENWOOD: Well, let me just mention the fiscal impact analysis model. It's built with all the county-wide data in it, including the household sizes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. MR. GREENWOOD: What happens when you get to a certain area, a geography -- for example, if we used it in Immokalee, the average household size there should, in that model, accurately represent what is probably going to happen in Immokalee. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. But the census takers in Immokalee have that as a census zone. There was no zone for Ave Page 92 January 28,2009 Maria, they just used -- they created one and we accepted their numbers. And maybe historically now that's proving out to be true or false, I don't know. I just wanted -- the question was raised because shouldn't we standardize it on these new towns until we get a census that says, you know, we looked at that, 2.39 is too high, it should have been 2.2. Well, that helps them in the future when they re-review. If the committee's position was it didn't need to be addressed, then so be it. We'll just so note that and move on to the next question. Does anybody else -- MR. McDANIEL: And with a statement there, it wasn't that it didn't necessarily need to be addressed, it's just that the information that was in fact put forth in front of the committee at that particular time didn't warrant a change in that particular policy revolving around the fiscal neutrality comments. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And what I'll probably do is every few, say every four or five questions I'll ask for public input. And that way we'll keep the process moving. The next question was concerning the conversion ratio of stewardship credits. It should have been applied -- it was suggested it should have applied in the model as the maximum scenario for development. If you recall, and I think you all testified today to this fact, that the 16,800 acres put forth a long time ago was an estimate. It now appears that the estimate was significantly low, based on the argument that we have higher acreage ranges, based on more of a scenario usage. And that's exactly what I think we've discovered is what the question posed. And I guess that you're just going to leave the language as needed, because you've now come back and actually posed the -- supplied us with a higher number. Mr. Eidson? MR. EIDSON: I don't have a mic so I should --I'm sorry. Page 93 January 28,2009 One of the -- the spirit, and I don't know if it specifically addresses your question, but I'll do my best. The spirit that we went to when we capped the size of the area carried that thought in mind. We were trying to get something -- we were trying to put limits and trying to define the growth rather than to leave it loose. You know, it was a little loose the way it had been defined before. We got into that discussion this morning, we talked about an infinite number of credits you could go here, go there. So what we tried to do was to say here's -- we're going to do a bunch of things. Number one, by confining that area, it makes it more valuable. It drives -- it becomes a self-driver. In other words, limiting the size, 45,000 or whatever the exact number is, it creates a demand. In other words, there's only so much out there that can be used. It defines it and it also makes it more valuable. And that gets back to the earlier point about what's a credit worth. It's called a free market society that -- the analogy is the $200,000 house you can buy for $80,000. I mean, that's where we are. So those credits are as valuable as the limitations of getting land are. And so what we tried to do is confine it and put it into a perspective. As to the specifics in the question, I don't know that we addressed it specifically, but generally. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think you did, because the question was looking for a maximum scenario. You basically have pegged that at 45,000 acres. So that was responded to. MR. McDANIEL: And with the proviso, sir, that early at the initial adoption of the plan, there was no working model. There was -- these were at best -- I don't want to call them guesses, they were really, relatively speaking, educated guesses, but estimates as to what in fact could occur. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And that's exactly why the question was posed, because the change in estimates. MR. GREENWOOD: And Mr. Strain, also I would like to again Page 94 January 28, 2009 for the record mention, and I hope that you understand that the credit maximums that were calculated that are included in the support three -- section three, which is the support documentation, and the calculations that I made, which are Appendix G in the large book is based upon an assumption. And the reason the assumption is the way it is, is it's based upon 100 percent participation by the property owners in the program that have environmentally sensitive lands. Now, that assumption mayor may not happen. It's not likely to happen. And we don't know if staff and the other calculations were made based upon an assumption of 50 percent. One could say well, that's not going to be enough or it's too little. So what these credits represent are the maximum amounts that could be possible both under the existing program, as well as under the proposed. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, thank you, sir. The next question talked about impacts based on certain elements of regional infrastructure that may not have been given adequate analysis. And the items in particular mentioned were hurricane evacuation and shelter space. Health care facilities, affordable housing as example may not have been adequately addressed and the minimum standards should have been considered as guidelines for SRA approval. Your response to that was supposedly in Policy 4.l6. And I'm not sure it was a response, but I think where I found it listed was after Policy 4.16. And I don't see how that policy addresses any changes. So I guess it's again a matter of the committee. Did they not feel that some of these additional elements needed to be addressed? Do we -- hurricane evacuation routes and how shelter space was to be allocated in new towns and SRA's, where the health care facilities were going to go in the rural lands. MR. McDANIEL: One of the things that was brought up to us, Mr. Chairman, during those discussions, and there were lengthy discussions, and ultimately it evolved out that a lot of those things are Page 95 January 28, 2009 -- especially the hurricane evacuation routes, are and can be in conjunction with the transportation system moving the people to and through the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay. As far as -- and again, you can see these comments that came about. I'm just briefing some of them while you were asking the question. There are other portions of government regulation that probably could have a better handle on the specificities for the location of public facilities. It was pointed out to us that there was lacking evidence that there was sufficient -- that slide is up there right now -- lacking sufficient support for infrastructure, government offices, jails, landfills and such. You cited a couple others that were there that could necessarily be probably more easily regulated within the LDC than in the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I think the intent was to look for some requirement that they be addressed. Because I found the document I thought silent on those matters. And I know you referenced the main elements of our AUIR in element A, but you didn't reference B. I guess in some cases you did and other cases you didn't. And when we get into the language, I'll point that out. But I was concerned that there's no requirement to produce a hurricane evacuation route that is meeting the level of service needed for hurricane evacuation for a particular SRA. How do we know those people will be able to evacuate? And that's kind of why the question was originated. And I don't know ifthere's an answer for that. Maybe that's something that will come out of Nick Casalanguida, but that was a concern. MR. McDANIEL: And again, that's a -- predominantly it's a transportation issue that we have been working in conjunction with transportation throughout the process of these -- of our meetings. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: As we get through the policies, maybe Page 96 January 28,2009 we can get Nick to comment on them later on then. MR. McDANIEL: Ms. Caron? She had her hand up. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Donna? COMMISSIONER CARON: Well, that may be true of evacuation and shelter space, but it certainly doesn't address affordable housing or health care facilities, or jails or -- MR. EIDSON: You know, I think -- I think that the charge -- I mean, I guess that our -- as we perceive the charge that we were operating under, we were trying to get a blueprint, an overall blueprint to make this a little better. It wasn't -- that language isn't there now. And what we're trying to do is to tune it up. Now, we didn't perceive that we were going to get into micro-detailing every inch of the way with this. And your comments, you know, you're bringing up are -- I mean, it makes -- there's some interesting ideas, but those are ideas that we didn't pursue. We were trying to make sure that we met the overall goals that we had, which was preserving the ago land and the environment and so forth. We didn't climb down that deep. And maybe in another three or four -- if we had another year or two to do it, perhaps we could climb down that deep, but that's not where we were going initially. At least this guy wasn't going there. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, the problem that I see with that is this five-year -- first of all, we did address the ag., the environmental and the development five years ago when the plan was first put into action. With the requirement that in five years we would revisit it and see what needs to be improved upon. These were just suggestions for improvement. If we didn't address it five years ago and we now have passed five years, we've had more time to think about it and we looked at better planning, wouldn't it be better planning to be looking at some of these necessary infrastructure needs after five years? And I think that's why my questions were originating is it's time we now looked at them. If we Page 97 January 28, 2009 don't do them now, does that mean another five years and before you know it, it's a decade before some of these bigger issues that will involve huge amounts of infrastructure support get addressed. And I don't mean just roads. I mean water, sewer, I know we can do package plants. But then you've got jails, you've got police, you've got law enforcement, you've got all kinds of things. And I notice there's some other questions. Ms. Caron, did you finish with yours? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, that's fine. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: At the very beginning, our first meeting of the RLSA program, we were provided a page that listed four goals. Those goals were to protect agriculture and prevent premature conversion of agricultural land to non-agricultural uses. Two, to direct incompatible uses away from wetlands and upland habitat. Three, to enable the conversion of rural land to other uses in appropriate locations. And four, to discourage urban sprawl and encourage urban development that utilizes creative land uses, planning techniques. That's the only four things that we dealt with. COMMISSIONER CARON: But that -- but what Mr. Strain brought up is a planning issue. And that was number four on your list that you just read to us. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: But that was within each urban whatever we came up with, each sector. We were not asked to develop an entire infrastructure plan for the rural lands. COMMISSIONER CARON: No. Nor did you really need to. What you needed to do if you were going to put forth GMP amendments is to say that -- have your GMP direct that standards be detailed in the LDC, which would have been for another time. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And it looks like that didn't get Page 98 January 28, 2009 accomplished. That committee saw their goals differently, so we'll just move on to the next question and just get our answers and -- Neno? MR. SPAGNA: Thank you. I can't speak for the group, but only for myself. But I didn't feel like it was my job to get into all of these specifics. I thought if we laid out the framework that the zoning, the land use would all follow in sequence when people came in with their specific plans. We did look at certain things that I thought were relative, such as the roads, water, perhaps, the effect on the environment and so forth, but I personally didn't get into all that specific stuff. I just took for granted that that would be taken care of in time based on what we submitted and what you all looked at and recommended and that our job was simply to layout the framework to look at what we had, to look and see what worked, to see what didn't work, to improve what didn't work, maybe to eliminate some of the problems that had occurred since the initial plan was put in place. So that was my view on the matter. I just simply didn't get into a lot of the things that you've talked about. Although I appreciate that they're very tangential to the work that we did. And maybe if we had the time and the instructions, that we could have gotten into this some of them. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, Neno. I appreciate it. Maybe the solution is with staff. Mr. Greenwood, whenever the next level is gotten to, the transmittal level, your department has got to do a data and analysis on this plan. Would your data and analysis include a review of the elements that we just mentioned as being of concern? MR. GREENWOOD: Yes, they would be. MR. McDANIEL: Only presuming that is a direction of the Planning Commission to staff as we come through that process at this particular -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, I -- at the end we'll probably make a Page 99 January 28, 2009 recommendation, yes. At least I know that at some point the question has got to be answered then before the transmittal occurs so we can study it to see if the answer actually has addressed the issue. So with that we can move on to number four. Number four is talking about the retained uses on ago two that are not preservation, yet they are proffered as such in subsequent development analysis. Where this came into play -- and again, I don't mean to keep using Ave Maria as a bad example. It's a -- it went through the process. They have absolute right to go forward what they're doing out there. But during the process of the review of Ave Maria we were actually able to take the application of the RLSA for the first time and apply it. And in that application hopefully we learn things. One of them that we saw was that there were numerous environmentally sensitive spots in the massive area of Ave Maria that weren't taken into consideration because they had a right to by the basis of the SSA that was put up. And the SSA that were put up to support Ave Maria were argued that they were preservation areas. They put all these preservation areas into play so they get their credits. Rightfully so, absolutely they did. The problem is when you hear the word preservation, I think a lot of us are thinking of pristine areas where there's habitat untouched and unspoiled. That's not exactly what is considered preservation in the RLSA. And the only thing that this question was getting at was is there a way that that could be differentiated when it goes up for the approval process of an SRA. For example, native preservation was X, but agricultural preservation was something different. And I think you may have accomplished that by creating stewardship credits for ag., which is another question in this batch. So with that, unless there's any other questions on number four, Page 100 January 28, 2009 we'll just keep moving on. You want to argue about anything, Bill? MR. McDANIEL: Silence is golden on that one. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Number five, the -- we've heard it today, too, and this is just a comment more than anything else, that under the standard zoning everybody has said one to five is much worse than what we have with the compact rural developments that we're going to be putting in here. And I question the value of really saying that, because in a one-to-five scenario, how realistic is it that we would actually develop that one-to-five scenario throughout 200,000 acres in Collier County. And it was only a statement more than a question. And I'm just reading it now for the record, because honestly, I've heard you say it today and I've heard others say it today, and to think that we're going to build out the rural lands in a one-to-five and use that as a hammer as to why we need to have these new reductions -- I mean, new changes in the acreage and uses out there, I don't see that as a good reason, so -- MR. McDANIEL: And as a further point in that line, the -- you know, from moving from a regulatory standpoint for growth and development into an incentive based system such as what we have, the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay, there is a lot of additional public benefit that comes not just from the manipulation of where the development ultimately can go, but the access of government agencies to get the lands that they -- prior to the institution and the voluntary consent of the folks to participate in the program -- am I saying too much? MR. JONES: No, I'm just waiting for the bench. MR. McDANIEL: There's a tremendous amount of information that comes to the general public that wasn't afforded to them before. There was almost a penal system that was in place for environmentalists to get on to environmentally sensitive pieces of Page 10 1 January 28, 2009 property to ascertain what was utilizing them and how they were in fact being utilized. And through this program there's more value other than just the protection of those environmentally sensitive lands. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Jones? MR. JONES: Thank you. I think Bill did a pretty good job hitting that. But I think it really goes back again to the genesis of how the program was developed. And with rare exception, there aren't a whole lot of people in this room that were around when this program was developed. I don't think there was any insinuation -- you know, urgency to protect the environmentally sensitive lands. What we did with the rural land stewardship program initially was create value to landowners on lands that the public had deemed to be environmentally significant. Now, the public has never put up any money to acquire any of these lands that these landowners own, but there's certainly volumes and reams of regulations available and penalties if we go into these quote, unquote, sensitive areas. And what this stewardship program did was now create value among the most environmentally sensitive lands through the generation of credits that could be then transferred to less environmentally sensitive areas. We didn't have a sense of urgency. This was really a sense of fairness. Ifwe were to propose to go out into the Okaloacoochee Slough at one unit per five acres, they'd be lined up from here to the Okaloa. Granted, not very many people know where the Okaloa is, but they'd still be lined up out there. So what we did was create a program that generated incentives to take these lands that society has deemed to be significant, and [or once create value for landowners to preserve those lands. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Any questions from the Planning Commission? Page 102 January 28, 2009 (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's the first five general questions that we had. Does anybody from the public wish to comment? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, next page, number six. MR. McDANIEL: One second. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Hi, Brian. MR. GILLIGAN: Brian Gilligan, Barron Collier Companies. I just want to address a few of the points. One was on the FlAM. And I think it came up that FlAM should be done every year, as opposed to the five years. And I think that basically you need to allow projects out there to mature. It's really not fair to impose, you know, each and every year starting out of the blocks with that regulation. It's really -- you get a much better look after five years and every five years thereafter. I can tell you, though, the question has come up in Ave Maria in terms of where it is financially. And we have run our FlAM, and we do know that it's net positive. A lot of people look at that and say okay, well, on the revenue side there isn't as many homes and therefore, you know, somehow there's a deficit. But I can tell you, on the service side the costs haven't been there. So we did the developer contribution agreement, and on a net basis we know that on that project we are significantly positive. The other thing that came up was affordable housing. On Ave Maria we basically stepped up, and we stepped up to a commitment which I think is the largest commitment that anyone has made on a large-scale project in Collier County. Basically we stepped up to I believe 19 percent of our homes are going to be in the affordable range. So I think there rather than mandate it, I think on a project-by-project basis, it is appropriate to take a look and, depending on the particular project, determine what's appropriate at the time that Page 103 January 28, 2009 each project comes through, as opposed to trying to put regulations on the front end. Thanks. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Brian, one question. If you have an FlAM that's already laid out and all the statistics are there and it's on a spreadsheet, and I know that particular document contains yearly projections for absorptions and it contains yearly revenues as a result of those absorptions to the tax base, whether it be impact fees, ad valorem taxes or whatever. And it's all generated from just one page of input numbers. And I'm just trying to understand why -- and why would it be so concerning just to update the yearly information so that you could see that you're maintaining a steady positive. And I'm not saying that if it goes negative every year that it's got to be corrected. But at least you would know by, say, every fifth year that the negativity is persisting and we now have to do something about it. There's a mandatory review at that point. But just to supply the numbers on a going forward basis to show we're being consistent with the absorptions -- because that was a big discussion I had with your representative during the meeting of Ave Maria was the absorption seemed really high. And I think today, sure enough, they are really high. I know the project's doing well in regards to absorptions as a whole, but they were predicted to be higher than I think they are today. I didn't see that as a big work effort, that's why I was -- MR. GILLIGAN: Well, it is. I mean, in terms of -- there is a cost associated with running that model every year, consulting costs and things of that nature. But I do know this: I do know there is some misperception out there. And I think -- and I wanted to clarify that. I mean, I think there's misperception that somehow Ave Maria is a drain. And I can tell you that when you look at something like that -- I mean, let's just Page 104 January 28,2009 understand what Ave Maria is. We did a developer contribution agreement. We paid almost $8 million in cash upfront for the design of Oil Well Road. We donated 130 acres of land for right-of-way. We've made significant contributions. And that -- and on the capital side there hasn't been all that much from the county expended out. And on the operations side we are also positive. Mark, to your point, I'm more concerned if there was a financial measure every year and if there was a net check that had to be written one way or the other every year. I think that would be -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I wasn't looking for that. I was just thinking a tracking method so that then every five years we'd have to balance the books, more or less. But certainly not every year, no. But I thought it would be good to know where we're heading with things. MR. GILLIGAN: I can only tell you, there is a cost associated with that ongoing, you know, regulatory requirement, ifit was put in each and every year. But again, I'm more concerned on the financial side to try to, you know, somehow have it where a check might be cut one way or the other. Although I can tell you, based on the compact sustainable nature of the developments that take place in the Rural Land Stewardship Area, I'm very confident that it's always going to be a positive fiscal impact. I mean, if you compare it to the Estates or other areas like that, where the county's completely under water, developments like this make sense and they throw off positive surplus revenues to the county. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, thank you. Anybody have any questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody else? COMMISSIONER CARON: Excuse me. Just on Ave Maria, we did our first review after five years, and then initially it was going to Page 105 January 28, 2009 be every three years after that, correct? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, it stayed at five. COMMISSIONER CARON: But now it's -- it got changed to five years, every five years, right? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I believe when Ave Maria actually got approved, it was for five years, was it not? MR. VARNADOE: The first -- COMMISSIONER CARON: It was for five. MR. VARNADOE: Excuse me. George Varnadoe, for the record. When we came before the Planning Commission, Mark was after every year, and I'm saying the LDC, it says every five years, and Ms. Caron said would you agree that if it's negative after five years you do it every year. And that was certainly what we wanted to do to make sure we didn't get further in the hole. So that's what the development -- the SRA says now, that we do it every five years. But after any five-year period, if it's negative, then we do it every year thereafter. COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, thank you. MR. VARNADOE: You bet. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. I knew you'd be able to clear it up, George. MR. VARNADOE: Well, no, I just remember you and me. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I do, too. We never have many bad words, do we? That moves us past -- oh, Allen, hi. MR. REYNOLDS: Hello, Mark. How you doing? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You look different than Bill, but okay, you're about the same height. Go ahead. MR. REYNOLDS: For the record, my name is Allen Reynolds with Wilson-Miller. And we represent the Eastern Collier Property Owners, and probably have done so since 1999 in working with the Page 106 January 28, 2009 rural land stewardship project. The second question that was raised, Mark, had to do with the maximum scenario for stewardship credits. If you look in tab three, Page 75, and then there's a number of pages beyond that. What that analysis does in part is go through that exact process. What we recognized, as has been pointed out before, that when the program was first put in place there was some features of the program that could not be estimated. Specifically the restoration program. So the committee wanted, and we assisted in providing our analysis, the county provided their analysis. We went through that quantification process, as you had asked for in that question. So I think without -- and we can obviously go through that in some detail, if you'd like. But that was an attempt to show what can be realized in terms of credit generation under the program. All the facts are documented, all the assumptions that are built into that are documented. So I think all of that information is there. And frankly, the committee spent a fair amount of time going through that process to try to get a good understanding of what the potential was under the credit system. So I just wanted to point out that that is in the documentation. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No matter what the potential is, it can't exceed -- it wouldn't be able to exceed any cap now that's being placed on it. MR. REYNOLDS: That's correct. Yeah, there's a -- you know, there is probably a plus or minus number of credits. Because again, it's a voluntary process that you have to opt in. But regardless of how many credits would be generated at the end of the day, with this new cap feature that was not in the original program, you could never go beyond the 45,000 acres of SRA's. And I think the actual credits, with the calibration that the committee has done has brought the credit generation in very close Page 107 January 28, 2009 alignment with what that cap would be. The other point I'd like to make is on the comment on question number three which has to do -- COMMISSIONER CARON: Before you go further, Mr. Reynolds, I just wanted to ask a question. Is it possible to reach the cap without 100 percent participation? MR. REYNOLDS: You could probably get close to it. The 100 percent participation basically, just to recap, would mean every property owner -- COMMISSIONER CARON: Right, I know what that means. And nobody expects that. MR. REYNOLDS: Right. COMMISSIONER CARON: What I'm asking you is if 60 percent of the people are involved in the RLSA, can you reach this 45? MR. REYNOLDS: No, I don't think you can. COMMISSIONER CARON: Okay. And I don't mean that as an exact figure for you. But -- so if there is some sort of diminishing. If -- you know, if75 percent of the people are involved, you can only get so far, and if 60 percent or 50 percent, you can only get so far. MR. REYNOLDS: That's true. COMMISSIONER CARON: Okay. Now, as to the cap itself, where in the document does it say we can never go beyond 45,000? MR. REYNOLDS: That would be -- COMMISSIONER CARON: What page? MR. REYNOLDS: Group policy four. Let me see if I can find it. If you look under -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah, on Page 56, I think, in Policy 4.2. Total SRA designation shall be a maximum of 45,000 acres. MR. EIDSON : You must have been at our meeting. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, I've read this multiple times, so-- did you see it?d Page 108 January 28, 2009 COMMISSIONER CARON: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Does that answer your -- COMMISSIONER CARON: Well, it tells me what it says today, but it doesn't tell me that that figure can't ever be changed. It says we shall do this right now. But GMP amendments -- MR. REYNOLDS: What is being presented-- COMMISSIONER CARON: -- people come in for -- MR. REYNOLDS: Sure. COMMISSIONER CARON: -- cycle changes all the time. MR. REYNOLDS: What's being presented to you is the committee's recommendations. For those recommendations to become law, they will have to go through a Growth Management Plan Amendment process, through the county. The Department of Community Affairs will have to find them in compliance. They will then have to be implemented through land development regulation modifications to the program. So there is a process that would probably take at best a couple of years to complete before that standard or any of these standards would be put in place. Once those are put in place and if it's part of this Growth Management Plan Amendment package, the only way that it could be changed was to do a further amendment. And what you've already done through the committee's recom -- or what the committee has recommended is to set up a periodic re- review during the EAR process that presumably this program will be looked at, like the rest of the comprehensive plan, on a seven-year basis. COMMISSIONER CARON: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anything else? MR. REYNOLDS: Just on the other comment. And I will, maybe just as a general observation, I know when the committee was starting to go through this, one of the things they discussed early on is that they wanted to take all of the questions that came from the Page 109 January 28, 2009 Planning Commission, from the public, from other interested parties and look at them. And they applied a test. And the test was if we have a plan that has been approved, is in place, has been found in compliance with growth management laws, in order for us to recommend a change there has to be one of two things: Either the program has to -- the data, the supporting information has to show that there was a problem, that the program is not working as it was intended to work, or that there has been an enhancement to the program that has been brought forward that was deemed to be of significant enough importance to actually change the policy. Because we're going back in and changing a program that's only been on the books for five years. So in many cases you will find as you go through this process that at the end of the discussion the committee's recommendation was either not to change a policy or to make maybe minor modifications to the policy. In other cases they made substantive changes. But that does not mean that it was not -- all of the input was not fairly considered. Because I'll tell you, as I've sat through this process, and as the minutes will show, and as tab four will show, every single question was put in front of the committee, was discussed, debated, it was a very public process. And at the end of the day, the committee said is this something that we think is broken that needs to be fixed, yes or no. If so, how would we fix it. Or if it's not, let's not change the program. Because again, all of this came out of the Stage I report, the Stage I report documenting how has this program been working over the first five years. And I think by any measure, notwithstanding the fact that there's always ways to improve a program, and Lord knows, you know, hopefully this program can be improved. But what that has shown, at least in my opinion, and I think in the opinion of a lot of people, is we have a program that is doing exactly what it was intended to do when Page 110 January 28, 2009 it was put in place five years ago. And I think that has been demonstrated by the participation of property owners voluntarily giving up rights to their lands in advance of there being a demand for their credits, which is one of the things that was intended. I think we've shown that we have gone much farther towards environmental resource protection in the first five years than I certainly thought we would, or anybody would, given the fact that people were giving up their rights in advance. The development -- the rate of development I don't think has out stripped demand. In fact, I think the point has been made that in the case of Ave Maria, because of the economic cycle, right now we have more infrastructure and more facilities in the ground out there paid for with private dollars than there is currently a population to use. So that's not necessarily a bad result. Because what we're doing now is we're building infrastructure, facilities, services, protecting lands, and we're doing that in advance of the demand, which is really what planning is all about. So I just want to make that general comment. I also think, you know, specific to question number three, and this is another one where I think there's a good further explanation of the question about infrastructure analysis. The county has a definition of what infrastructure is. And that definition is what is mirrored in the policy. And I think Mr. Strain has pointed out that there are other kinds of facilities that need to be assessed, as you look at approving any new projects. But the fact of the matter is, is that hurricane evacuation, affordable housing, health care and a host of other kinds of issues have to be addressed with every single project every time one is proposed before it's approved. And if the project exceeds a certain size, it has to go through the DR! review process. And I will tell you that that is an extraordinarily time-consuming and detailed analysis of the project point by point. And Mr. Strain is Page 111 January 28, 2009 very familiar with what the DR! process is about. And before you can get a development order from the local government, you have to have addressed all of the points that have been raised in this question. So really the issue becomes how much of this can you address in advance when you're putting a plan together that looks out 25 to 50 years, and how much of it must you address only at an appropriate point in time. And I think what we've tried to do collectively with the county and everybody in putting this program together is to try to figure out what are the issues that can be looked at prospectively looking out over a long-range horizon, a large-scale environmental protection, large-scale transportation networks, general suitability for development. But then there are other issues that you just cannot assess until you are at the point in time where there is enough of a market demand to say, you know what, it's time to plan a new town out here. And then you go through a very detailed process. And I will tell you that the process that Collier County has created for the SRA is almost -- I won't call it identical to, but it certainly covers much of the same things that the DR! process covers under state law. And for those things that don't get covered by the SRA, they are covered by the DR! for any project that would exceed a 2,000 unit count. So again I think, you know, it's not that the committee didn't think that it was a good question or that there isn't an appropriate time to address details such as how many affordable housing units are you going to build. The question is at what point in time do you have enough information to make a good assessment and figure out what the best solution is for that. And that's what I think the committee and the program has tried to do is to seek that balance. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, Allen, thank you. MR. REYNOLDS: You're welcome. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, Chris, welcome to the crowd Page 112 January 28, 2009 today. MS. STRATON: My name is Chris Straton, and I'm here as a former member of the Affordable Housing Commission. And I just wanted to make sure that the record is clear as it relates to the issue of affordable housing. Brian used a number of 19 percent for Ave Maria. It's my understanding that the definition of affordable housing that was used by Ave Maria includes units that only have to be affordable for two or five years, which no longer would meet the standards of Collier County. So for the viewing audience or anyone who was not involved with the Ave Maria project, don't think that these communities are going to be bringing you 19 percent affordable housing units. What Ave Maria did was unique and would not meet -- my understanding, it does not meet our current definition of what's considered affordable. So I wanted to get that on the record. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And I believe the current definition is 15 years, Chris? Do you believe that? Is that right; do you know? MS. STRATON: When I left, it was 15 years. So Ave Maria has units that only have to be affordable for very -- much less than that 15-year time period. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: They do have a-- MS. STRATON: So if you're waiting for affordable housing units out in the new RLSA, there's not going to be that many units. And I'm sure Brian will want to -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But just so you know, that there are about 300 units, I believe, either on-site or off-site that were going to be reserved for 15 years. MS. STRATON: Right, but that's not 19 percent. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right, I agree. Jeff? MR. PERRY: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Commissioners. For the record, my name is Jeff Perry. I'm with Page 113 January 28,2009 Wilson- Miller. I just also wanted to point out something that's actually on the screen that was not mentioned by the committee spokesman but I think is very important. And if you didn't get back through any farther than group -- or Section 2 in your binder, if you get all the way back to section five, there is a policy that actually came out of the committee's effort that is actually a policy recommendation to the transportation element, not to the rural lands future land use. Which actually lays out, if you read it all the way to the end, lays out a requirement that the county do regional planning, not only for roads, but also looking at many of the things that you're talking about here today. Dealing with things like infrastructure, like jails and public health facilities and things like that. And in fact, the vision plan, as it's sort of been named by Nick, will do just that, and it's something that they have already embarked on. A lot of the information that they will be dealing with at the build-out level will come out of the work of the Horizon Committee. Because that is in fact a build-out plan for this area. And the county already has good urban area build-out information that includes a lot of the numbers, a lot of the things that are required for this long-range planning. Keep in mind that the Growth Management laws only require you to look out in this case in Collier to 2025. And I think it's admirable that this commission and the Horizon Committee and in fact the Board of County Commissioners want to look at to build-out and say we really need to be looking out a lot farther than just 20 years for the kinds of infrastructure that we think -- we've done it with transportation to some degree, we also need to do it with the other kinds of public facilities. And I think if that other Policy 3.7, I believe it is, gets put into place, it would ultimately require the county to take that step to do that Page 114 January 28, 2009 long-range vision planning. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you very much. Anybody else have any questions of the -- anybody? (No response.) MR. JONES: I apologize. I was -- I need to go back to comment four for a minute, because I was rearranging my books under my chair and it took me longer than I expected. But comment four, I wouldn't want to leave the Planning Commission with the impression that by establishing an SSA it relieves the land developer of an obligation for mitigation. The SSA's are established to entitle it. The mitigation areas that -- the required mitigation is developed through the state permitting process and is developed through the federal permitting process as well. Unfortunately we keep using Ave Maria as the example, but all the wetland impacts for Ave Maria were mitigated under the 404 section from the Corps of Engineers, and they were also mitigated for in the ERP process through the South Florida Water Management District. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. I understood that. But my point was that there was a lot of thought that said all the preservation that was put up for SSA's to get Ave Maria permitted was -- was the word preservation. It's not all of preserve like we think of it. It's a lot of it ago land. Nothing wrong with that, I was looking for clarification. MR. JONES: Well, and again, but, you know, to people less informed than you, they may come away with the impression on comment four that we do no mitigation as a result of establishing the SSA's, and I wanted to clarify that. It could be my misinterpretation. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Any other questions from the public at this point before we move on? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Then let's go on to number six. Number six is a moot point because it involved the incentive program that I Page 115 January 28, 2009 guess is complete. It ended this month, if I'm not mistaken; is that right? MR. McDANIEL: Correct. Tomorrow. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Tomorrow. MR. JONES: That is correct. And again, to clarify for people that weren't involved, the early entry bonus program was a request that came from the Department of Community Affairs at the inception of the program. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Number seven, the Governor's order was aimed at creating a balance between agriculture and development. This is really lending to the argument that we needed to have more incentive for ago I think that's been accomplished, or is proposed to be accomplished, I should say. So again unless, Bill, you want to argue about the point, I think it works fine. MR. JONES: How about me? I can argue. MR. McDANIEL: No, no, no, we're not going to let him talk on that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Number eight, the vesting issues and concurrency were not adequately addressed as a result of separate developer contribution agreements. And this is an issue again. Boy, Brian, I'm sorry I've got to keep using Ave Maria as an example, but you're the only guys that came through the SRA process, so unfortunately we learned a lot of lessons and I have to keep bringing it up. Their deal is over and done with. What they got they got and we need to live with it and make sure we abide by it. But the point of this number eight was that in the DCA process that they had, it happened before I think all the impacts to the development were really understood. It was before, I believe, the approval of the DR! and the Page 116 January 28, 2009 PUD and other documents. Looking back at that now, I've heard concerns over the fact that the DCA was put in place thinking a certain value to that DCA at the time, but the cost to the county to now meet the intent of that DCA with no way out has become a lot more than the county expected to bear. And so my comments to number eight were strictly to suggest that we shouldn't put DCA's in place until we know exactly what that development's going to be, whatever SRA it is out there, whether it's a DR! or a PUD, so that we know that their absorption rates, their type of marketing, their impacts are better known to us. And I was suggesting that DCA's not be allowed by language in the GMP until such time that the development's zoning has gotten to a point where we are more locked into to know what they're going to be having out there. MR. McDANIEL: And just as a point, DCA is the developer contribution agreement, not the Department of Community Affairs. I saw a lot of folks flinching out there while you were saying that. Anybody have a comment they -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, sorry, double acronym. MR. McDANIEL: -- want to say about that? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I didn't see it addressed to any changes as a result of the language, so I'm assuming the committee felt that it was adequately addressed the way it was. MR. McDANIEL: I'll go along with that, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Number nine. The indices were weighted heavier toward environmentally sensitive lands when in actuality those areas are least likely to ever be used for development, based on various agency regulations. I know that we're trying to preserve the development, but the agencies are also trying to preserve the development. So to give environmentally sensitive lands the highest indices would seem to Page 117 January 28, 2009 indicate there's no protection for them already when there's a lot of layers of protection for them. But this also leads to the argument that the agricultural needed more protection. MR. McDANIEL: That's correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So -- and I believe you were suggesting more protection for ago the way it's written now. MR. McDANIEL: That is correct, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody else have any questions on that one? MR. McDANIEL: Without taking away from the importance of the protection of the environmentally sensitive lands at the same time. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I understand. In essence we're getting to a lot more credits. But then you're asking for a lot more land, so you get -- one works with the other, so -- number -- yeah, I wanted to wait until after -- thank you. SSA's can be created in noncontiguous and piecemeal fashion, thus assuring no functionality of wetland land mass. Now, the concern there is emphasized by the panther corridors we saw earlier. What good is a panther corridor if you have all the land acquired for it but one landowner in the middle is holding out and it doesn't become a panther corridor? So I'm wondering how we can address that, and I didn't see it addressed in the language that was supposed to respond to this, which is your temporary SSA's, 1.6.1. And Tom, it looks like you get the hard ones. MR. JONES: No, these aren't hard. The -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We'll work on that. MR. JONES: I think the Stage I portion of the report clearly indicates that the concern expressed in the comment really didn't come to fruition. If you look at the pattern that the SSA's have been developed in thus far, they've been in large contiguous swaths of Page 118 January 28, 2009 property or they've been standalone SSA's adjacent to federal or state properties. So that didn't occur. And when these comments -- I don't know if these comments were written in December of'05, but we didn't even talk about panther corridors in 2005. But I think to the point about the panther corridors now, that's why we're trying to develop an incentive-based plan. This north corridor that's being proposed by a number of people involves multiple landowners. And if we don't have an incentive-based program that can entice them into the program, I don't know how those occur. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are there any regulations in the language that you could cite us to that addresses the concern that if a landowner didn't want to for some reason, even if the incentives weren't enough, they wanted to not put their land into that panther corridor that seems so vital to everybody, how does that panther corridor then get completed? MR. JONES: That panther corridor doesn't get completed if the landowners don't voluntary participate. And there isn't a regulatory mechanism to do it. And I think it would be premature -- one, it's a voluntary incentive program. But I think it would be premature to even broach regulatory constraints to make something happen. Because there's no agreement on where the corridors should go or what the form of the corridors should take at this time as well. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, anybody have any questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: With that I'll ask for any public comments for the last five questions we went through. Russell ? MR. PRIDDY: Yeah, to the question about assigning higher credit value to environmentally sensitive lands, I think there is another way to do that. Page 119 January 28, 2009 We can spend $350 million for acreage like they did at Babcock. I didn't get to read the article this morning, but the Governor I think, even in hard times and laying people off, put $250,000,000 back into Florida Forever for purchase. Yeah, we as a public can go out and buy those lands is another way to do it. Or through this voluntary incentive program we can let the landowners put that land in preservation. By the way, we'll keep paying property taxes on it, and we'll manage it. So I think it's a fairness issue to -- you know, if the public wants it preserved, that's the funding mechanism to get it preserved without the public having to pull money out of their pocket. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Any questions? Mr. Varnadoe? Brad. MR. CORNELL: Brad Cornell, with Collier County Audubon Society. And I just wanted to address that same line, which has a philosophical element to it that really underpins the whole rural land stewardship program, and it's not a point that should be overlooked at all, and that is that there's some justice in the public providing some extra value to resources that benefit the public. I think that was the rationale for adopting this sort of upside down regulatory approach. In other words, the regulatory approach would in essence devalue private property owners' land that had important public resources on it. And in the way of eagles nests or panther habitat or wetlands, that sort of thing. And the flip to turn that upside down would be to say, well, if the public really feels that this is important for public benefit, then we should ascribe a higher value to that. And that's always been difficult for us in the environmental community to come to terms with what happens in the regulatory environment, which is penalizing private landowners for having good Page 120 January 28,2009 public resources and being good stewards. We want to reward that. And this was one way that we found through the market system an incentive so we could do that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Okay, George? MR. VARNADOE: Let me talk about developer contribution agreement for just a moment. In general, the committee decided that the developer contribution agreement should be treated in the Rural Land Stewardship Area just as they are in the urban area. And that's why, Mr. Strain, there were no changes to the policy. As far as Ave Maria, the developer contribution agreement was approved prior to the adoption of the development order in the SRA but after the Regional Planning Council had evaluated the proposal and issued their report and the parameters of the development were the same before the DCA as they were adopted in the development order and SRA. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. We'll agree to disagree on one point. MR. VARNADOE: What point is that? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I still think DCA's ought to be done after the development and not before. MR. VARNADOE: If you do it after the development order, you're never going to get a development order approved. Because you haven't -- potentially you haven't shown how you're going to mitigate your impacts of the SRA or DRI or whatever kind of development you're paying. Now, if you think they should be done simultaneously, then suggest that to the county commission. Because I don't have any problem with that. But I think you really do, in most instances, have to have some agreement on what you're going to do to mitigate your impacts, particularly on transportation network, before your Page 121 January 28, 2009 commissioners, being public servants, are going to want to approve whatever you're proposing. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You are correct. What should have-- the way that should have been worded is concurrently with the Collier County zoning process. And that means when we get down to the point where we know what the impacts of that development are. So thank you. Anybody else? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, we'll move on to number 11. This one is suggesting that we have SSA approval by the lower boards, EAC and CCPC and not just the BCC. I think today's presentation even highlighted the need for that even more to get a handle on where this process is going from a suggested or proposed temporary basis and how it fits into the corridors that are being shown on here, and how some of the primary panther habitat may be developable habitat, may be developable land on one program that's been introduced. So I'm just curious as to why -- where the committee decided to go with that. I didn't find that listed anywhere, so I may have missed it. MR. McDANIEL: Again, we had discussion on it. But-- MR. JONES: The discussion that I recall is that it fell back to -- and we had public comment on this, I remember in particular, that the discussion fell back that this is a voluntary program on the landowner's part. He's giving up rights. And from a landowner's perspective, we're not quite sure what value the EAC and the Planning Commission would add to a landowner proposing to give up rights on his property. I think it could play out with another committee's proposal that well, you need to give up more rights or you need to give up less rights. It just didn't seem to be in spirit with the establishment of the SSA with the rights being voluntarily given up by a landowner. Page 122 January 28,2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, the SSA is a process in which indices are used to determine the value of the SSA and the layers taken off. And that part of it, that science, that review, that detail is what I thought the committees could participate in and maybe be a benefit to the Board of County Commissioners with any comments that would make it more palatable or whatever it needed to be before it got to them, so -- MR. JONES: Well, I think somebody else can probably address the nuances of the scoring and all probably better than I can. I don't get into that level of it. But it's a very prescribed methodology. It's a very transparent methodology. The application is created by the consultant. All that information then is given to county staff. The information is vetted through them. They run the same models that were used to develop the scoring. And, you know, it's kind of like a two plus two equals four kind of thing. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And I understand that. MR. JONES: And then that was the sense of the committee, with all due respect. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: In that same way, though, if we accepted that philosophy, then Planning Commission doesn't need to be here for zoning and other matters because staff does the analysis on those as well. So -- and that's where I was coming from, Tom. MR. JONES: Well, we could talk about that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. MR. JOHNSON: Good afternoon. For the record, Bruce Johnson, with Wilson-Miller. I'd just like to address your point about the necessary -- the necessity of having commission review of the SSA applications. I think there's a couple of clear distinctions here. One is when the commission is normally dealing with applications, you're dealing with impacts. And what we're dealing with here is a voluntary Page 123 January 28, 2009 program where we're actually creating a public benefit, environmentally and otherwise. Secondly, I just want to expound a little bit on what Mr. Jones just said, and that is when we submit an SSA application, it is completely transparent. In other words, the relationship between the raw natural resource data and the scoring is apparent. So they have a FLUCCS -- county staff has a map and we also provide it in large format, so it's extremely detailed, not just an 11 by 17. The staff performs a site review with us on-site. In some case a helicopter, if access is an issue, to review the FLUCCS map in detail, to look at the listed species data. They have the NRCS soils map. In short they have everything that is in the stewardship credit worksheet, the raw data available. And as Mr. Jones indicated, they take the same raw data that we have provided and they put it into a model and they basically recalculate and verify our credit calculations. So there is no real capacity for there to be an issue with the calculations. In fact, the only time we've ever had an issue with calculations, we had an issue where I had underestimated the base credits for something because I had transferred some spreadsheet cells inappropriately, copied -- or formulas instead of values or vice versa. So the bottom line is the current review process works exceedingly well. And since this is a voluntary program, the landowner is going to decide how many land use layers they're going to take off, what's appropriate for their property, and the rest is just meeting the criteria that's put into the program. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Mr. Eidson? MR. EIDSON: The other -- I was just recalling the discussions that we had -- Gary Eidson. One of the things that we were concerned about was that there's a small portion of this equation that's owned by smaller landowners. Page 124 January 28, 2009 Not a whole big section of it, but -- and we were trying to find a way to entice people to get close to that 100 percent. And so I think we were trying to streamline this thing, as I recall, as best we could without, you know, hurting either side of the equation. So that was another thing that had occurred to me was that we felt that there was protection involved and that it would work. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Okay, with that, we'll move on to the next question, which is the evaluation -- the question was talking about the consumptive use permitting and the comparison between agriculture pumpage and the volumes permitted for development area. And I think Terry Bengtsson made it pretty clear this morning that they're not going to be looking at the consumptive use for agriculture in the same way on a use basis that they're looking at new development. Is that, Tom, what you heard or what-- MR. JONES: To an extent. My interpretation with what Mr. Bengtsson said was that there were sufficient water resources in Eastern Collier to support future development, primarily through the utilization of the Hawthorne Aquifer. The paper I distributed to the committee also took it a step further, and the issue raised in the comment was using a comparison of agricultural pumpage versus permitted allocations. And the example that we ran through for Eastern Collier actually went a step further and analyzed actual ET and then took a percentage of that to come up with it from the lower Tamiami. But I think Mr. Bengtsson was clear, the Water Management District pretty much is forcing people to deeper aquifers. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And what I got out of his discussion was that there will be no new non-alternative sources. Existing uses, and existing sources seemed to be acceptable to the point they are today, but they weren't authorizing any new alternative sources. Is that what Page 125 January 28, 2009 you heard too? New non-alternative. I'm sorry. They've got to have new non-alternative. MR. JONES: Yeah, they're going to deeper aquifers and alternative water resources. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And that resolves the issue that I had raised in number 12. Number 13, the concentrated centers of development will produce nighttime glow from electric light sources. This is the dark sky issue that's come up. And in prime example is what Nick did to Immokalee Road. Is he here? I love giving Nick a bad time when I get a chance. MR. McDANIEL: No, he's not here. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, darn. MR. McDANIEL: He's watching, I'm sure. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Immokalee Road is a nicely brightly lit roadway now, and it's out in the rural area. And it's those kind of nighttime glows that I was concerned about limiting in the rural area to keep that rural atmosphere that we've sought and the DCA even suggests needs to be kept. I know you've got language in one of the elements. MR. McDANIEL: In two policies. In the group four policies and again in the group five policies for those folks who don't voluntarily consent or participate in the program. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So I think that's been covered as much as I can understand it at this point. The next item is number 14, the water storage areas from South Florida allowed -- oh, this is WRA's. And this is an issue that is certainly going to get into in the exact language. When they use WRA's, they're actually opening up more land for development. In the 45,000 acres that you all are proposing, that doesn't include the WRA's, unless they're used exclusively for the development. The word exclusively is in the language, which means Page 126 January 28,2009 someone could use one-tenth of one percent for ago or for natural runoff, and because it isn't exclusively used for development, that WRA is getting an additional 15 percent of development credit, more or less. Because that's what Water Management generally takes up as rule of thumb. I think that hurts your argument that -- the 45,000 acres development pattern, because it's actually going to be more than that, more intense than what people would expect. MR. JONES: This is probably a little bit more difficult one to understand, so I'll wade into it and somebody else may have a better answer. But actually what the committee was trying to do with the language that was incorporated in these policies was to correct what we viewed as a potential deficiency in the system. And what we were trying to get at with this is that WRA's that are used as part of the water quality treatment for your ERP needed to be included into the -- into the acreage figure. In other words, if they're being used to meet your stormwater requirement, they have to be included into your SRA, just as if it was a lake that was being constructed. So what we were actually trying to do was to recognize that under the existing policy, if you used a WRA for your stormwater quality to meet your ERP, you didn't have to include it into the SRA. Now if it is being used for your water quality component, as opposed to on-site water quality through your stormwater management system, then it has to be included in the SRA acreage. But to take it to an extreme and say yeah, somebody could use a small percentage and say it's not, yeah, I guess they could. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But I definitely think that we need to look at that language. I know you changed the policy. I'm not sure if it was because of this question or because you realized through other sources it needed to be changed. But when we get to that policy, the word exclusive is concerning in the WRA's, because I doubt if any Page 127 January 28,2009 WRA's today were built in a manner expecting or anticipating the size of development that might be next to them. And so it would be almost unilaterally not counted. And if you're saying they should be counted on a pro rata basis or a proportionate area of use, that changes the program. That certainly makes it a lot different, and that's something we should talk about when we get into the GMP language, if that's where you're going. MR. JONES: Where we were going was trying to capture something that we had -- that we thought was omitted. I don't know if it was prompted by this comment or just general discussion with respect to WRA's and whether or not they were in or outside the SRA acreage. But it was definitely an attempt to qualify that they needed to be included, if they were meeting the -- if they were fulfilling your requirements under your ERP. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, good, that would be helpful. MR. McDANIEL: And just for the record, water retention areas are WRA's and ERP's are environmental resource permits. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Tor, does that work for you? Tor's the acronym guy. He always wants acronyms every time we get talking. And I forgot all about that. MR. McDANIEL: It just helps a little bit. Again, there are a lot of folks watching and actually here in the room that haven't lived these things the way we have, so -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Good point. Number 15 talks about the indices. Again, in fact, Ave Maria. When the study of Ave Maria was brought forward, there was a grid pattern overlayed on the property being developed. And if a grid had -- a certain percentage of it was ag., it was looked at one way for indice (sic) valuations versus the balance of it. And it seemed that it would be a better process to average those out instead of just taking the 51 percent quantity and applying it that way. And here comes your indices expert. Page 128 January 28,2009 MR. JOHNSON: One of the few things I'm an expert on. The issue -- if you think back to the -- I think it's -- you can recall the SRA application for Ave Maria. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes. MR. JOHNSON: Everything, first of all, again is mapped in vector. So we map all of the land cover for Ave Maria as you do for any normal FLUCCS map. The GIS requires -- the system requires -- to do the arithmetic in adding up the index scores, it requires you to apply a grid to each layer. So you will take your FLUCCS map and you will chop it up into one-acre cells, and you'll tell it -- you'll assign a score to each cell, okay? That's the only way the GIS can add all of these layers. So the base data is dead on, it's exact. Once you grid it, yes, the cell must choose one value or another. But if you recall, in the SRA application we had to demonstrate that none of the areas within -- or we had to identify areas within Ave Maria that exceeded the 1.2 threshold. And when we first did the run, indeed we came up with about seven, 10 acres, I forgot what it was, that said it had exceeded 1.2. When you looked at those cells on top of an aerial, what you saw was that was the interface between a farm field and a natural area. And in each case you could go through and manually replace the value on one side of the dike with an agricultural field score, and on the other side with a natural cover score. And so we had the original table in the SRA application that showed there were potentially some areas exceeding 1.2. Then we had an amended table with the graphics to show the changes, saying this is why the values have changed. And at the end of that process there were no areas greater than 1.2. Now, one thing I'll add to that is again, this has absolutely no bearing on regulatory issues. Any, you know, one-acre wetland out there or .8-acre wetland that was identified in the FLUCCS mapping Page 129 January 28, 2009 still had to go through all the Section 404 and ERP permitting process. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I wish you were there at that meeting. I don't remember -- recall you telling us these things at the meeting. MR. JOHNSON: I tried to hide. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, thank you. Well, that's the end of number 15. There's three or four more on this list. But before we go to the rest, are there any public comments on the last five? MR. PRIDDY: Yes. The one about bringing SSA's before the EAC and Planning Commission. Folks, this is not the Army. You don't volunteer for something and then find out later what it is you volunteered for. I as a landowner am going to bring in an SSA application stating specifically what I'm willing to volunteer for. And as far as I'm concerned, the county commission can go thumbs up or thumbs down, but it is what it is. Now, if you think the Planning Commission needs to question me or have me bring my kids and ask if I really understand that I'm getting ready to put a permanent easement on their inheritance, maybe there's some benefit to that. But I'm at a loss. And I spent a lot of time thinking about this, because it's been brought up over and over. Shoot me a question from the Planning Commission or the EAC that is going to change my mind on what is in that SSA. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: See that northern panther corridor, the one that -- where it turns 90 degrees and heads south? MR. PRIDDY: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: There's an application in right now to turn that into a mining pit. It doesn't make a too effective panther corridor if the rest of you come in and want SSA credits for that, knowing that that situation is sitting there. So that's one example that the Planning Commission could possibly weigh in at in regards to the person who wants to put that Page 130 January 28,2009 mining pit there. MR. PRIDDY: But does that person wanting to put that mining pit there need credits to do that, or are they operating outside of this system? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: They're operating outside this system, but that -- MR. PRIDDY: Okay, then it's got -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, because if they're going to disrupt that corridor by putting a pit there, it takes a value of our need for your SSA down a notch or two. And that's what needs to be considered. Those kind of things are what the Planning Commission is involved in a lot more actively than some of the other boards in the county. That was why the suggestion was made. You may be right, there may be times when it's so plain and simple, nothing needs to be done, it just gets passed through, there's very little discussion. But there are times when it may not happen. MR. PRIDDY: Yeah. Well, I'm not sure about that. But let me tell you, I'm the little guy in this ordeal. I'm one of the large landowners, but I think I'm number five, I'm the little guy. There are a lot of folks out there that are a lot smaller than me. I have a lot of land. Unfortunately I don't have a bank account that equates to that. If you want to encourage the little guys to participate, you've got to keep this, you know, somewhat a way for them to get through the process. I think I had to pay the county $9,500 for the privilege of putting in an application to give them an easement in their favor. I don't know that that's exactly right, but that's the rules I understood when I wrote the check. I'm not going to embarrass myself or Wilson-Miller in telling you how much they've charged me or how much I've paid them to get the information to get that SSA in. Page 131 January 28, 2009 So I think if you have to take it another couple of steps along the way, you're just absolutely not going to get anyone that owns much less land than what I own that's going to participate in the program. I think you're just going to financially make it not feasible for them to even attempt to volunteer. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Anybody -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Question, Mark. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- else have any questions on the past five questions? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Just a question. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Brad. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Maybe you can answer, Mark. Is there a public notification in the SSA process? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I don't know. Does anybody know? MR. GREENWOOD: Yes, there is. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: There is? MR. GREENWOOD: Yes. There's a public hearing that's scheduled before the BCC. And a report on the SSA is there. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And the adjoining neighbors are notified prior -- or during the application? MR. GREENWOOD: No, the only notification is done through the Naples Daily News and normal notification. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: In the areas of the SSA's, the adjoining neighbors may be far and few, I think. MR. GREENWOOD: And again, with an SSA, in reality you're not increasing impact, you're decreasing possible future impact. It's just the opposite of what you normally review in your development projects. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, we'll move on. Bill, there's three more questions on these pages before we get into another section. Page 132 January 28, 2009 The buffers for wildlife habitat. I think -- MR. McDANIEL: You addressed those. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah, those have been addressed. Number 17, the analysis is needed to determine how the long-range transportation plan is coordinated. And I think we've already -- you've started that with this plan here, but I -- and Nick? Nick is here. MR. McDANIEL: I told you he was watching. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Good. Nick, the question is an analysis is needed to determine how is the long-range transportation plan coordinated with the transportation needs plan and the transportation financially feasible plan for this area? MR. CASALANGUIDA: For the record, Nick Casalanguida. They've looked at and used the 2025 plan, which is what's only in our GMP right now. We have a 2030 plan and we're in the process of doing a future LRTP update. So they've looked at the network that's existing on the books right now as part of some of their concept plans. They've done a good job at least overlaying that. If you're asking me about that, that plan that they have up there right now, they have those additional roads that aren't on the LRTP. They haven't really looked at that with us. And we haven't done that yet. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: How would you approach this from a financially feasible plan? MR. CASALANGUIDA: That's a whole different ballgame. And I really -- I don't think today's a good time to talk about how we fund that network. I think you've got to come up with what the network needs to be and then present it to either the Planning Commission or the board and say how do you want in the long run to pay for something like this. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think the purpose of the question that Page 133 January 28,2009 was put in this paper was simply to make sure that if there was some language needed in these RLSA changes that protected the overall communities, citizens or residents from having to pay for items that are particular to a site or something else out in the RLSA, that the paragraph is there to do so. Have you reviewed the proposed GMP language yet? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Consistent with what Mr. Varnadoe said, I agree that DCA's can be done concurrently with approvals. They shouldn't be done ahead of time. And you couldn't do them in the back end, they have to be done at the same time. There'd have to be some sort of agreement in place as a town, such as Big Cypress, and we're working on one right now, that it's done concurrently so the board could evaluate the impacts, financial and into the system at the same time before the approval's done. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. That's the point of the question. You've responded. Thank you. Anybody else have any questions on that one? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, Nick. MR. CASALANGUIDA: You're welcome. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The last one is number 18, and this came to light as a result of the early study of the Pepper Ranch. As those of you have followed that closely know, the Pepper Ranch had some contamination problems that showed up on some earlier issues, and they had to get cleaned up, or they had to be excluded, I believe, from the sale and purchase or some format. But I'm wondering if there's any provisions to be looking at SSA's in that regard. Because it looks like the SSA's created and there's no study done, Phase I environmental audit. And I don't mean the environmental meaning the trees and the land, I mean the environmental meaning contaminants study on the property to see if the property is worth the conservation effort, whether or not it's Page 134 January 28, 2009 polluted. Cattle vats are a prime example. Oil wells are another one. Has anything -- has the committee taken a look at including a review of that as a potential for an SSA? MR. McDANIEL: Mr. Jones I believe-- MR. JONES: We didn't propose any changes to it. There was a lot of discussion. I think that the state has a published list with respect to cattle vats. And just from a historical perspective, the state required that those cattle vats be constructed and utilized. I think, and I can't remember when, it was in the Forties, I believe. MR. JOHNSON: 1933. MR. JONES: 1933, thank you. About the same time I think a fence was constructed across State Road 60 from the East Coast to the West Coast to confine cattle on each side of it. But the state required landowners to do that. And the state has removed the obligation from landowners to remediate those sites. It's the state's responsibilities to remediate those sites because they're a required action by the state. And there is a list of where those cattle vats are. I think getting into a -- and there's probably a way to address it through that list. But to do a Phase I audit across those areas would be cost prohibitive. I mean, using Ave Maria as an example, and I know I hate to do that, but we set aside 17,000 acres. And I don't know how much money it would cost to do a Phase I audit across 17,000 acres. It may not be as much as I think, but because they would narrow down on potential hot spots. And, you know, they may zero in on the cattle vats, but the cattle vats have already -- those locations have been identified by the state. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The committee then didn't have a response to this other than the verbal you just gave me. There's no Page 135 January 28, 2009 written changes to the -- MR. JONES: No, there weren't. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I didn't see any. Okay. MR. McDANIEL: And it was a consensus discussion during the discussion that, you know, again as Tom Greenwood pointed out, it's kind of -- the evaluation process with respect to an SSA is based upon the disturbance of -- an SSA is almost a protection area action, and we really didn't find it necessary to put that in there. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, if I was someone and wanted to make sure my land -- if my land was contaminated, the best way to get rid of it is give it to the government, without the government knowing that they were getting it. MR. JONES: I think one other thing, too, maybe a little scale and scope of it. These cattle dipping vats are usually a couple hundred square feet by a couple hundred square feet. They're not big facilities. It usually involved -- Russell Priddy probably knows more about it than I do. But they're very small areas. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Anybody have any questions on that? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's the last of the questions from this first phase. Anybody from the public have any comments? Jeff and George. MR. PERRY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again for the record, Jeff Perry. I just wanted to point out on item number -- on question number 17 to the point about the analysis. Every SRA that comes through the county's review process is required to submit a transportation infrastructure assessment. In most of these, as we can probably expect, will probably be DRI's, many of them will be at least in the future, as Ave Maria. And the DRI process requires a lookout through to Page 136 January 28, 2009 build-out. The analysis that's done, while it may not be 30 years out, if the build-out of the project is, you know, predicted to be 10 years, the analysis goes out 10 years. It just doesn't look at the first five years. In the case of DRI's and now in the case of even sub-DRI's, SRA's, an analysis of financial feasibility, how you're going to pay for the necessary improvements that will ultimately be required is part of that process. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. MR. VARNADOE: Talking about SSA's and potential contamination. The committee should -- the counsel should look -- the commission should look at Page 127 and 128 where there was a pretty in-depth discussion and some references to state law and how oil spills are handled and the cattle vatting. The one thing, Mr. Strain, I want to make sure I was -- didn't misunderstand you. On these SSA's, the land ownership does not change, and any responsibility or liability remains with the landowner ifthere is contamination on the property. It does not shift to any governmental entity. Because it's an easement and not a change in ownership. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, good, thank you. Appreciate it. Are there any other questions from the public? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, that gets us past the first chunk of questions left over from six months ago. We normally take a break for the court reporter. Before we do, though, I'd like to layout what we're going to start on when we get back. At the time, in May of last year, two other organizations submitted requests for questions. One of those was The Conservancy and the other was Nancy Payton. The Conservancy is here. Is Nancy here? Page 13 7 January 28,2009 MR. DeRUNTZ: No. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I know Nancy is closely involved with the committee. I don't know if she still has concerns on her questions, but I wanted to give her the opportunity to be here to vocalize those during -- just as I had with the questions I had written up. I intend to do the same with The Conservancy when we get back from break. Tom, do you have an input on where Nancy might stand on these? Not that you could speak for her, but-- MR. JONES: No, I'm never going to speak for Nancy, trust me. I would just offer a suggestion. You can obviously do what you want. I think for these remaining questions, I think it would be probably a lot more cohesive if we went through the policies and addressed the questions, as opposed to trying to address the questions and look for the policies. The way we addressed these in the committee was that a group was formed and they took all of these questions and grouped them under the appropriate policy. So it wasn't a matter of the committee trying to address one question from this group or a question from that group. The questions were all grouped by policies, and that's how the committee went through it. I think it would be a lot more coherent if we followed that same process and started through it. But it's certainly your prerogative. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, thank you. With that, we'll take a break till 2:45 and resume at that time. Thank you. (Recess. ) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, if everybody will please take their seats. Cherie' advised me that I'm talking too fast again, so I'm going to slow down. But the sad part is, Nicole's going to speed up. So where we ought to go next is I've got a series of questions that The Conservancy wanted to ask in May. Some of the questions Page 138 January 28, 2009 may be more appropriately addressed as we go through the GMP language. And if that's the case, that's fine. But I want to give Nicole, who wrote the request from The Conservancy, an opportunity to address us on any of the questions that she may not be able to get to in the GMP language or needs to express any concerns over prior to going into the language. And I'll do the same thing with the sheet that we received from Nancy, if she's here. Ifnot, we'll just move on. Nicole, if you want to use the microphone. MS. RYAN: Thank you. For the record, Nicole Ryan, Conservancy of Southwest Florida. And I don't want to get too much into did they address the question or did we just not like the answer and battling that here. I think we can do that in the policies. I will say that the issue of dark skies we don't believe was really addressed sufficiently. There was some discussion and it seemed to be deferred to later and later, and later never seemed to come. So -- and the other I guess concern that I have is going back and looking through where our questions and comments were. At each point in the document the Eastern Collier Property Owners' attorneys answered the questions. Their comments weren't comments, their comments were how they interpreted I guess how the committee should respond to our comments. So I don't know if that in any way predisposed the committee to act or not act on our comments, but I did find it interesting that everyone else's issues and concerns about a policy were related to the plan itself, and the Eastern Colliers Property Owners' attorneys were addressing each and every question, some starting out with The Conservancy does or does not acknowledge this or that. So I just wanted to point that out, and we will get into specific issues and questions as we go through the policies. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, any questions of Nicole at this time? Page 139 January 28, 2009 And again, I don't see Nancy in the room, so I'm going to assume we'll just go past her line of questioning and move right directly into the Land Development -- or the GMP amendments. MR. McDANIEL: I'll speak for her, if you want me to. No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. That's a joke. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, okay. By the way, as we work through the policies, if any of the Planning Commission members or public have other questions that don't relate to a specific policy that we're on at the time, save those, because at the end of the day any and all issues that hadn't been discussed, we will open the floor to discuss those to make sure that everybody's issue is vetted as thoroughly as we can. And at least they're on record for their concerns at this meeting either today or Friday. MR. McDANIEL: If I might make one-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Sure. MR. McDANIEL: -- suggestion. And based on what Nicole just had got done saying, I was one of the committee members, and there were a tremendous amount of comments and information that came to the committee and myself personally. I endeavored to regularly take consideration for all of the comments as they were for what they were and then the impacts on the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay themselves, not necessarily being, as she suggested, predisposed in the decisions that we came up with. It wasn't that we didn't necessarily or I didn't personally agree or disagree with something that The Conservancy had to say or the Eastern Collier County Properties Association had to say. Those were taken in aggregate and then the decisions of the committee were then brought forth by vote. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Page 140 January 28, 2009 Okay, the Planning Commission has always taken these documents a page or a section at a time. So we'll take these a page at a time. And what I'll ask the Planning Commissioners to do is respond to any page when we call them out. As far as the public goes, we'll probably work into either every page or every couple of pages, depending on how much data's in each section. Then I'll ask for any comments from the public on the policies covered up to that point or through those pages, and we'll go from there. MR. McDANIEL: Do you have a heading on what you're actually looking at? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, we're going to work off of Phase II, Section 2. And that starts on Page 45. We're going to work through that document. And I guess there's 71 pages, 72 pages, 73 pages to it, it looks like. So that's the section we'll be working from. MR. GREENWOOD: It ends on Page 73. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Seventy-three? MR. GREENWOOD: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That seems to be the most comprehensive section of the GMP amendments. And since the Planning Commission's main issues are planning and GMP, that's what I feel we'll be focusing on. Is that okay with the rest of the members? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, with that, the first page is an introductory page and it starts with a group one discussion. And it's Page 45. Does anybody have any questions from the Planning Commission on Page 45? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ifnot, we'll move to Page 46-- MR. GREENWOOD: Just a minor -- Page 141 January 28,2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Mr. Midney. MR. GREENWOOD: -- change. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, go ahead, sir. MR. GREENWOOD: Tom Greenwood. The word employs in the goal, that should be underlined. That's intended to replace the word utilized, which is crossed out. But, you know, again, those kinds ofword-smithing can be pointed out later on. I just wanted to point that out. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, appreciate you pointing it out. Paul? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yeah, this goes to the phrase or the deletion of the phrase to prevent the premature conversion of agricultural land, non-agricultural uses. And it was the response of Mr. Jones that premature conversion is not something that's definable I think was what he said. And I think it is definable and I'd like to define it here. I think we're finding out in the current recession, global recession and in some of the economic decisions that have been made with regard to the amount of building up that was done in Collier County, that economic decisions were made that at the time seemed very sensible, but looking back with hindsight we realize that they might not have been the best decisions. Sometimes the decision to convert agricultural land to other things may at the time seem like a very important and reasonable thing to do. But I think when you look at the long view of it, the importance of agriculture in Collier County is irreplaceable. We have 20,000 seasonal residents in Immokalee; the majority of them depend on agriculture for their livelihood. And another 20,000 migrants who also depend for a good part of the year on agriculture for their livelihood. And I think that as the country changes and we move towards that 2025 and 2050 horizons, agriculture will be even more important. Page 142 January 28, 2009 Because as transportation and energy costs increase, vegetables that are produced and citrus that are produced in Southwest Florida will be more economical to ship throughout the United States, especially the northeast, than bringing it from California or Mexico. So I think that we can't -- just normally we think of short term as being, you know, two, three, five years. But in this case what we're planning for, the eventual disposition of what the county's going to look like say in 2050 at build-out, we have to be very, very careful. And I think that there is a danger that agricultural lands can be prematurely converted on the basis of economic decisions that, you know, may seem good at the time but later on may not seem to be quite so good in hindsight. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Does the committee have a reason why they need to have that struck? MR. McDANIEL: Absolut -- well, I believe so, yes, sir. I mean, and I was -- I remember when I first -- Tom jumped up here. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: He just popped right up, didn't he? MR. McDANIEL: Yeah, he did. MR. JONES: I got a short answer. MR. McDANIEL: Then we'll let him go first. MR. JONES: I don't think you can make us farm forever. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: No, I don't think that you can make that either, but they're talking about premature -- MR. JONES: I didn't hear the definition for premature conversion, though. MR. McDANIEL: If I might add, and again, this isn't from a farmer's perspective necessarily. If you'll recall when I was making the presentation with respect to the substantive changes that we made, our goal throughout the process was to provide clarity, to take away judgmental or discretionary decision-making processes throughout the entire Rural Land Stewardship Overlay, Paul. And the -- because, as you've just seen in two comments over the Page 143 January 28, 2009 same subject matter, and not to take away from the importance of the farm workers and the economic viability of farming at large, there is a disparity there and a discretionary item that doesn't really have a predisposed definition. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Mark? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Brad? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah. And Paul, I like the removal of it. First of all, the way they've changed it by wiping out protect, it's really stating that they're going to protect agricultural activities. The concept of premature conversion gives the illusion that there's a conversion inevitable, and I think this words it a lot tighter. For your goals, too. MR. McDANIEL: And there's language there with respect to the retention of agricultural lands, to protect and retain those lands. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Greenwood, by the way, just for clarification, the word protect is crossed out. I assume the word retained needed to be underlined? MR. McDANIEL: No, I believe it was part of the original goal. MR. JONES: It was the existing language. MR. McDANIEL: It was the original goal. Yeah, we just struck the protect aspect of it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So the two words were linked together? It doesn't even read right. The goal is to protect retain? MR. McDANIEL: The goal is to retain. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I know. But if you had left protect in, because you're saying that was the original language, it would have read, the goal is to protect retain? MR. McDANIEL: I believe so, yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, that just seems an odd grammatical way to do it, so -- Page 144 January 28,2009 MR. McDANIEL: There was a lot of odd grammatical ways in this particular program. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. But Paul's point about removing the language, you all felt some meaning for the words premature conversion that was necessary to remove it. And that's where you're staying. And Paul, I don't know if you have any other argument you want to put forth on that, but -- COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Well, I have a further question. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Sure. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: If they're going to use these agricultural credits, doesn't that mean that they are committing to perpetual agriculture? MR. McDANIEL: Absolutely. And there again, during our earlier presentation, that was one of the items that we talked at length about, to protect, to retain, necessarily, and incentivize the retention of agriculture in perpetuity through that incentivization process by generating those credits on the ago lands. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, I don't think you're saying you're going to use those lands for agricultural uses in perpetuity. But you're not going to use them for anything else. Meaning that -- I don't think -- I think Tom was right, you can't force them to farm property that they deem in the future either is non-farmable for its value or it's just not profitable for any economic reason. But I think what they're saying is those lands will be retained for ago or no other use. So if they don't use them for ago they just go fallow. I think that's the point. MR. McDANIEL: And that -- and that was a fine correction on my behalf. I misstated that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, it's not my -- I saw George grimace when you said that, so I figured that there must have been Page 145 January 28, 2009 something wrong with what you said. So that's why I locked onto it. He just walked out. MR. McDANIEL: He grimaces every time I speak. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But I'm not sure that we've -- Paul, has your question been answered to the point it can be? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: It's been answered, yes, thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Tor? COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Yeah, just a minor question on the bottom of the page. Not a question but a correction. On the fourth line up it says Rural Land Stewardship Area Overlay, and then it repeats overlay after that in parenthesis. I don't know why it has to be overlay -overlay. MR. GREENWOOD: It's just placed that way because we use the word overlay in future sentences. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It's like an acronym. MR. GREENWOOD: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Instead of using -- instead of saying that's how they're going to refer to it, they're going to refer to it as overlay. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: That's generally placed the first time the word is used, overlay. And this is -- MR. GREENWOOD: And that's the way the present language IS. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, no, the word overlay is used prior to that. I think that's where he's getting at. In fact, it's up in the objective statement. So maybe based on that comment, you may need to take the parenthetical and move it up to the second line of the objective statement. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: You actually use just the word overlay in that upper sentence, too, so -- Page 146 January 28, 2009 MR. McDANIEL: But it is part of the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay in that entire sentence. And it is only used singularly after the parenthesis are put around it describing it as the overlay property. Did I miss one? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah, up above -- COMMISSIONER CARON: Up above in the objection -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- in the end of the first paragraph they use. MR. McDANIEL: Okay, included in the overlay. I see what you're saying now. MR. JONES: I'd just like to make a point of clarification. That's all the original language from the original document. We did a lot of word-smithing, but we may have missed some of it. And I don't know the most effective way to go through the word-smithing exercise for all this. But that was the original write-up. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I can assure you, we'll probably get through it for you. We do a lot of word-smithing as well. So with that, let's turn to Page 46. There's policies on that page. Policy 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5 and the beginning of 1.6. Does anybody have any questions on Page 46? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I have one. The third line of Policy 1.6, the very end it says, land becomes designated as an SSA upon petition by the property owner seeking such designation and the adoption of the resolution by the BCC. We're not to 1.6.1 yet, but because of the way you wrote 1.6.1, wouldn't that have an impact on the way that sentence designates the land? Because you're looking at a temporary basis in 1.6.1. If that policy would survive and you have a temporary SSA, then it really doesn't become an SSA upon petition, because it's a temporary, but it doesn't become a permanent until such time it goes through the process that you guys are asking for in Policy 1.6.1. Page 147 January 28,2009 So I'm suggesting to you if 1.6.1 succeeds, then 1.6, you may want to refine that to clarify that it's subject to the temporary conditions on 1.6.1. I know it's not language that you messed with, but it seems to have an impact from the language that you've modified. Now, we've gone through a couple of pages. We aren't really to the meat of the whole issues yet, but -- because there's not been many changes in these two pages. Are any comments from the public needed on these two pages? Nicole? MS. RYAN: Nicole Ryan, Conservancy of Southwest Florida. Policy 1.2 was an area where The Conservancy did submit a question to the committee. And it is part of the last sentence that states, the overlay includes innovative and incentive based tools, techniques and strategies that are not dependent on a regulatory approach, but will complement existing local, regional, state and federal regulatory programs. And our concern is that as we've shown, the primary panther habitat, which is considered by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to be essential for the continued existence of panthers, that area should be protected, in The Conservancy's position. However, under the current program and under the proposed amendments, you can put SRA's in the form of towns and villages right in the middle of primary panther habitat. We believe that that is inconsistent with the intent of the Endangered Species Act. So we would like to see policies that focus the RLSA to be consistent with both the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act. There was some discussion about 90 percent of the panther telemetry points are captured under the current HSA's, FSA's, maybe WRA areas, if it's a cypress head. However, only about a third of the cats are collared, we don't have all that much nighttime telemetry, and Page 148 January 28, 2009 we also know that part of the habitat mosaic are those ago fields that are important. That's where the prey base is going to be for the most part. So we would like to see further refinement in the program. And I know I have to be careful, because this is something that will be coming before you, but you can actually have a proposed town or village that could be almost 100 percent in primary panther habitat, have 63 panther telemetry points and have it consistent with the RLSA. And we believe that that is a problem that should be corrected, and we don't believe has been corrected as part of this review. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Before you leave, I want to make sure we vet your concern to a point where we're either recommending or thinking of suggesting language changes or whatever. You brought this out through Policy 1.2, and you particularly pointed out the last sentence. MS. RYAN: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What in the last sentence are you suggesting needs modification? MS. RYAN: Well, we would like to see modification actually to what is considered open area on the RLSA map for what is eligible on the map for towns and villages. And we believe that the map that we had presented earlier where you direct development to the non-primary panther habitat would in fact make the RLSA consistent with the federal regulation and then compliant with this last sentence of the policy. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So your cause for Policy 1.2 is to point it out to us that that policy is -- your map is supportive of that policy. MS. RYAN: Correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Anybody have any comments? (No response.) Page 149 January 28, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, thank you. MR. JOHNSON: For the record, Bruce Johnson with Wilson-Miller. I'd like to make one general point first. And we've stated it many times, but I don't think we can overstate it. The RLSA program is an entitlement program. There is -- it conveys no exemptions from standard regulatory reviews, including those by U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. In fact, when you go in to have any sort of major impacts with an SRA or any other sort of development, you will fall under the consultation process under the Endangered Species Act with U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. And since they are the ones responsible for the Panther Recovery Plan and they're also the ones reviewing your application, one would assume that they would be the ones to point out any inconsistencies between your application and those of their recovery plan. I would like to get on record some basic facts, because The Conservancy has come up to the podium several times today to talk about primary zone, and they've shown you a map of primary zone. This paper, which I believe the paper by Randy Kautz I believe is in the appendices, is it not? This was effectively -- I'd like to back up for just a moment. We actually sat through the meetings in Vero Beach of the scientific team that was responsible for developing the primary, secondary and dispersal zones for panther conservation. So we are intimately familiar with what went into the sausage. We watched the process unfold. This paper by Kautz and others that was published in 2006 in the Journal of Biological Conservation is basically the scientific journal version of that federal process. And on Page 119 of that document, in the introduction the authors define the primary zone. And I'd like you to pay close Page 150 January 28, 2009 attention to this definition: Areas of suitable habitat that have been consistently occupied by panthers in the past 20 years. Okay, occupied habitat. Now, the most basic point you can begin with for panther biology is starting with the records of where we know they have been. The telemetry data that's been collected since 1981 represents nearly 30 years of data collection. I doubt there are many species if any that have been so well studied. There are well over 100 cats that have been collared over the years. And the database right now stands at 90,000 telemetry points overall and nearly 10,000 points within the RLSA. So we're not dealing with small sample sizes here and there's not much ambiguity. If you take those data points for each individual cat on an annual basis, you can use computer software to estimate the home range for each cat. When you look at the raw telemetry data and you look at the home ranges for those cats -- and again this by their own definition is what the cats are occupying, the habitats they're actually using, the RLSA overlays do accommodate most of those home ranges and most of those telemetry points. Now, cats and other animals will make exploratory movements. They will go out in the middle of an open field or a vast citrus grove and they'll decide that there's not enough there to keep them employed, so they will leave. So you will see telemetry that falls outside. The question is, where are they really living, where are they doing their business. Now, it is interesting, because by these -- by their -- in the paper they are defining panther habitat this way, and they're defining the primary zone this way. Tim Durham this morning properly pointed out that there is an inherent contradiction between their own definition of primary zone, what the cats are using, and what they actually drew on the map. And I'd like to just briefly tell you why that is. Because I Page 151 January 28,2009 think a lot of people are scratching their heads. When you look at the habitat that cats are actually using, if you could picture a habitat where the eat's occupying something like a five-pointed star shape, okay. A five-pointed star shape would be the way that they calculated home ranges for this paper, okay? And it does represent the actual area that the cat is using. There is another older technique for calculating home ranges where you would connect the outer points of the star, forming a pentagon, and you would say that's the eat's range. But the truth is, it's not. The cat is not using everything within that pentagon, it's only using what's inside the five-pointed star, okay? The problem is when they defined and analyzed panther habitat usage in here, they have tables detailing what land cover the cats are using. When they were looking at the land cover the cats were using, they used a fixed-kernel home range method, which is the one that creates that five-pointed star, or whatever shape, but it creates a fairly limited shape, limited to the telemetry that the cats are actually laying down on the landscape. When they went to draw the primary zone, however, it tells you clearly in this paper that they used minimum convex polygons or the maximum possible interpretation of those points. So again, I would get back to Tim Durham's original point that if we're concerned about protecting panther and protecting the habitat that they're actually using, the telemetry and the fixed-kernel home ranges are adequate, and the RLSA overlays do accommodate those very well. And that is why Darrell Land, the lead panther researcher, said he was 95 percent happy, because the land that the cats are actually using is being accommodated. One last point. When we devised the habitat stewardship areas back in 2002, we recognized that there were 14,000 acres of active agriculture within the 40,000 acres ofHSA. And we deliberately included those agricultural areas because it's the context that's Page 152 January 28, 2009 important. If there's an ago field within a vast area of forest, the cats will tend to use it or cross it or accommodate it in some way. However, if you have a huge block of agriculture with no forest near it, in that context the cats do not use that habitat. So I hope that clears up some of this. But we need to be on record as saying get back to the data. And the data says the cats are using predominately forested native habitats, we know where we are, we know what they do. And the current RSLA overlays sufficiently protect those habitats. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Before you leave, does anybody have any questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Tor, do you have a question? MR. TOREKY: No questions, I have a comment on one of the pages. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, before you leave then, I've got-- Nicole specifically stated that there are the possibility based on the plan that shows the 45,000 acres, the 2050 plan, that SRA's could be developed in primary panther habitat. Do you agree or disagree with that statement? MR. JOHNSON: I disagree that they will be -- that SRA's will occur in the definition of a primary zone, which is the lands that the cats are consistently occupying. The SRA's will not be in an area where the cats are consistently occupying and utilizing habitat. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, but are some of those lands considered to be primary habitat right now today? MR. JOHNSON: The map that the US. Fish & Wildlife Service is using, what they've mapped as primary habitat covers a larger area of the RLSA than our overlays do. However, if you look in the portions of the primary zone that we have not covered with our overlays, the density of telemetry points is extremely low. It does not show any sustained utilization by panthers and largely represents Page 153 January 28, 2009 exploratory movements by the cats. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And I understand the give and take and the shove and push here, I do. And I know you're saying your words very carefully, using words mostly, 90 percent and you're being very careful on what you say. Ails I'm trying to do is focus down on what we're -- actually where the disagreement is. The Conservancy's position is that some of the 45,000 acres is utilizing primary habitat. And you're acknowledging that's a true statement? MR. JOHNSON: Repeat that again, please? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That some of the 45,000 acres that you want to utilize for development is considered primary habitat for panther. Is that true or -- MR. JOHNSON: I do not agree with that statement. Not by my definition of primary habitat, nor the definition of primary zoned as stated in this published paper. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And there is other published papers, though, that may consider contrary to what you're saying. MR. JOHNSON: I want to make it clear again, there's a discrepancy between what they have defined as primary zone and what they have mapped as primary zone. And that is the fundamental problem we're having here. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I just -- that's what I'm trying to get to. Basically it's a definitional problem between you and Nicole's definition. MR. JOHNSON: I think we both -- I can't speak for her. I think the definition is solid. I think the map does not match the definition. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. MS. FLEMING: May I say something? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Tim was going to come up next, but I think he doesn't want to now, so Elizabeth, absolutely. MS. FLEMING: Elizabeth Fleming, Defenders of Wildlife. Page 154 January 28, 2009 I think we're having a black-and-white discussion here. The truth lies somewhere in between. And you have to look at specific parcels and where they lie in the landscape relative to the other habitat features within the larger matrix. One example where we all collectively realized where there was primary zoned designated, which was being consistently used by panthers, is that southern corridor. And that's one reason that we all advocated that that change be made to the map. But if we're going to pursue this, really getting into the panther science, I say let's bring in some panther scientists and ask them these questions. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, that would be nice if we had time to do that. I have no problem with doing that. The problem is that we have to get this accomplished in the time period allotted to us and it has to move on in some manner or form. And I don't know if panther scientists can be here. If you can bring one in for Friday, I have no problem talking to somebody. I think that -- this is an open public meeting and anything we can settle here is less that's got to be settled at the Board of County Commissioners level. So if that's what you can do, do it. If you can't, then we'll just have to go on. MS. FLEMING: I'd feel more comfortable having somebody professionally qualified to answer these questions, rather than us bantering it back and forth amongst ourselves. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, we're bantering the language, and the language unfortunately can't open up some areas that maybe shouldn't be opened up, or vice versa. So we're just trying to get to the bottom of it. So any way that helps us, we're all in favor of that. Thank you. Anybody have any other questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Tor, did you have another question on that Page 46? Page 155 January 28, 2009 COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: No, I'm on 47. Sorry. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, with that any -- Bill, are you-- we're going to move on to Page 47. Forty-seven starts a new policy. Let's take the whole policy in one jump. Starts -- it's Policy 1.6.1, and it finishes over on the top of Page 48. It's a full page plus policy introducing a new concept for the SSA's. And I'll go with questions from the Planning Commission on that policy. Tor? COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Just a minor question. On the left-hand margin it's noted four and five and six numbers. What happened to one, two and three? MR. GREENWOOD: I think it was a computer glitch. Actually four becomes one, five becomes two, six becomes three. C becomes A and D becomes B. It's just something that happened. It just needs to be renumbered. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Not a problem. Okay. Go ahead, Brad. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: You know what I was wondering? Is there a way somebody could explain this in -- I was going to say 25 words or less, but that's -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, they won't be able to answer questions that quickly, but we can certainly try. You want to explain the process here, Bill? MR. McDANIEL: I'm going to defer to Mr. Jones. MR. JONES: I haven't had anything to say in a few minutes so it's my turn. Policy 6.1 probably could be coined as the Scofield policy amendment. And just like with some of the ago preservation credits, we were trying to correct something that was not apparent when the initial program was established. This policy 1.6.1, I'm not going to explain Page 156 January 28, 2009 all the nuances line by line. It was vetted between the county attorney's office and attorneys for the Eastern Collier Property Owners. The point that we were trying to get at in this -- the Scofield example has Circle L Ranch east of Immokalee established SSA's on their properties under the notion that they were going to be able to sell these credits. The deals all fell apart and the Scofields then were faced with a situation where they now had easements placed on their property. They had the credits but they also had easements in perpetuity placed on their property. What further complicated it was a policy shift at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Whereas previously they could have used that property for panther mitigation, once an SSA was established on it they no longer had the ability even to use it for panther mitigation at that time either. So essentially what had happened is the SRA that they thought was going to be entitled with their credits never came to fruition and they were stuck with the easements on their property and the inability to use it for anything other than what was established in that. What we're trying to do is get to a fairness issue here that ties the stewardship credits to the full entitlement of wherever those credits are gomg. The permitting process for an SRA extends well beyond the county approvals. Probably the most complicated and convoluted process is the federal process. And you could be looking at a situation where a landowner, not the Scofields now, but another landowner takes down SSA's, intends to entitle an SRA, and at some point in the process they can't get their approvals. So what they've done is they've encumbered their property to entitle another piece of property that they now no longer have the ability to develop. And it didn't seem like that was an equitable situation, that a landowner could go so far through the process, Page 157 January 28, 2009 encumber his property on one end of it but he had no repayment on the other end of it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Don't go away, unless -- are you going to answer the questions that have come up? I've got a series of them on 1.6.1, but I'm sure others may have, too. Heidi? MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Mr. Chairman and other Commissioners, I just wanted to let you know that as this was vetted through the RLSA, the County Attorney's Office had recommended that the details and language be included in the LDC and not in a GMP amendment. This proposal is, I understand, favorable to the property owners in the area and that's why it's being pushed through as a GMP amendment. I had proposed alternative language. However, what is proposed, if it's the desire of the Board of County Commissioners to adopt this language, it's more of a policy issue. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, thank you. Questions from the Planning Commission on Policy 1.6.1? Go ahead, Brad. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So what you're saying, though, is that if you created an SSA and you -- with the intent of putting it into a specific SRA and that deal falls through, then you can pull the SSA off the property? MR. McDANIEL: It sets a time frame for the expiration of those easements that are put in place for the creation of the SSA. I think that was one of the things that we found where a property owner could in fact entitle an SSA and then not have a place for those credits to go, but he's encumbered his property. And there was no language in the original program to allow for the reversion of those easements or take those entitlements off. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Yeah, the current program creates a permanent easement at the time the SSA is approved. Page 158 January 28, 2009 What this is proposing is that that be a conditional easement essentially for a period of six years. It's five years with the potential to extend it one more year. During that time period the easement could be terminated. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But they do have the credit. The credit exists. They just -- MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Yes. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- have no market for it, therefore, they want to back down. I mean -- MR. JONES: In simple terms, yeah. The other caveat that plays into this, I know it's probably unheard of, but you could establish your SSA to entitle a piece of property and go through the process, and then somebody challenges you in court over your approvals. And that could drag on for years. Or you could lose the case. Again, you've entitled a piece of property that you were going to utilize, you've encumbered a piece of property that you were going to use another -- to entitle another piece of property and now you no longer can do that. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But in the SSA program -- MR. JONES: And when it reverts back, then the land goes to its existing baseline uses and the credits disappear. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: In the creation of the SSA, you're getting just a credit essentially, correct? In your mind, you're the one that was going to use it on that other piece of property. Is the SSA ever tied to another piece of property? I mean, you're creating a credit that's a marketable -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Slow down just a minute. You okay? You want to take one of your cough drops? Let's take a five-minute break for Cherie'. 3:30 we'll start back up again. (Recess. ) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If everybody will please take their seats, Page 159 January 28, 2009 we'll resume. Cherie' survived, we can continue. Okay, I've been asked by numerous people what the rest of today's schedule will be, and because Cherie' and Bill McDaniel can't be here past 4:30, we will stop at 4:30 today. We're afraid if Tom got here in place of Bill for the rest of the day, it would be too problematic, so -- MR. McDANIEL: Exactly. Everybody say thank you for the early release. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So with that in mind, we had left off on a discussion of Policy 1.6.1. And I don't remember exactly what we left off on. Brad, were you asking questions? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah, I think so. I was just trying to understand it. So essentially what you're saying, the credit is established. When it's established, it's not earmarked for a specific project at that time, correct? So it's a marketable thing, you could turn around and sell it to somebody else. MR. McDANIEL: Sometimes it can be specified or earmarked for a particular SRA. But it's not -- the case is to establish an open marketplace. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Correct. And then what you're saying is that if somebody sits with it, they can't achieve what they expected on the market, they can then opt out of the program and drop all the easements and everything. MR. McDANIEL: Basically. Necessarily there was no provisions in the original plan to allow for the removal of those encumbrances that were put on the property to establish the credits if the credits were not ever consumed. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. And you feel that that could be a trap or something. But if that exists, people would be reluctant to use the program, or -- MR. McDANIEL: And again, this is an incentive-based process, Page 160 January 28, 2009 Brad. And in order to incentivize folks to encumber their properties to establish the credits, if there is no marketplace for the credits -- and it's been brought up on several occasions, if there is no marketplace for the credits, then a property owner has to have an opportunity to be compensated at some level for those encumbrances. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: All right. I'm good, thanks. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, what happens to the SSA land during this five-year period? Is it still being worked the way it was before or are we essentially four to five years stripping whatever we intend to strip off of it? MR. McDANIEL: The easements are placed at the creation of the SSA, and the property rights that are extinguished by the creation of those easements taking -- in those layer discussions that we've had in the past, Ms. Caron, those are enforced during the term of those easements. COMMISSIONER CARON: Okay, so for the five-year period you treat it as if it is the SSA. MR. McDANIEL: That's correct. COMMISSIONER CARON: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions from the Planning Commission? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Mark, one more. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Mr. Schiffer. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: How many SSA's are out there that have not been accredited towards an SRA? MR. McDANIEL: We talked about that earlier. I believe it's five. I'm not positive. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Five? MR. McDANIEL: I believe so. In the earlier presentation there was a discussion of -- go ahead. MR. JONES: There are two SSA's that are out there that havew Page 161 January 28, 2009 not been tied to an SRA, with the exception of a number of the SSA's that Barron Collier took down to bank the credits. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I have several. When I first read this, I understood the problem, and I empathized with the problem for the landowners. If you're going to do something, you should be allowed to do it. And if you can't do it, you should be allowed to go back and say well, I can't get that, it doesn't work, I need to have it fixed. I have no problem with that. So I'm not -- my questions aren't coming out of concern for an unfairness level here, but it's coming out of an issue involving planning. The window for concurrency and everything is basically five years; five years for the road system and everything else. You get into a process for an SRA and you go down through the process to get all your development orders in place, your permits, your discretionary approvals necessary to commence construction, including subdivision plat and site development plan. But at that very last moment it doesn't work, you pull out -- all that planning that would have been put in place or had been figured to apply to your development is down the tubes, the SSA that may have been set aside in conjunction with other SSA's to secure a panther corridor or something else is down the tubes, and the whole planning effort is kind of in limbo. Now, that's the part that I'm concerned about. I'm not saying this doesn't need to happen. I'm trying to figure out a way that good planning can be done around a program that is temporary for -- and it's actually up to six years. So that becomes a real problem I think from all levels of concurrency and from Collier County planning. And I don't know if planning staff has thought about this or not Page 162 January 28,2009 and can offer some comment on it, or who. I'm looking for a solution. And by the way, for the people that have not sold the SSA's, transferred the SSA's, transferred the credits from them, sold the credits from them, utilized the credits from them -- I'm making sure I use every word possible for Bruce -- but every type of word you could throw in here to mean what I'm trying to get at, they should have the same reverter option for their property, if it's not been utilized to date for a certain period of time should this pass. But thinking of fairness in all that, how is the planning going to be done with this kind of a program? Tom, do you want to comment? Mike? I don't care. MR. GREENWOOD: I don't have any easy, simple comment, but yes, there is uncertainty. There's uncertainty as to the credits, whether they're going to be employed and whether they're going to be employed in an SRA. But the whole program is a voluntary program and we really can't predict the future. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, okay. That didn't get us anywhere. MR. PRIDDY: I have an answer. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead. Anybody can help with an answer, let's go. MR. PRIDDY: If! as a landowner with SSA don't come forward early, I hold back to the end, the county's no better or no worse off, because you couldn't get started with your planning now because I haven't come forward with the SSA. So you're no better -- the county's no better or worse off -- no worse off by having this in there than they are today. Now, what I as a landowner and a strong supporter of this rural lands program, I was trying to be a good guy and jump in and add certainty to the program of what was going to be set aside and give some definition for planning purposes too. But, you know, I'm doing that with a leap of faith that government agencies are going to approve Page 163 January 28, 2009 some project that somebody else is doing down the road, or that the one or two buyers out there are going to buy from me at some point and, you know, that there's a market for these credits. So I guess if you don't have language like this, you're not going to see any SSA's come in until there's a marriage. It's a little easier for a couple of the landowners. Barron Collier, Collier Enterprises, they've got enough land, SRA land and enough credits to entitle, you know, their share of that. But for all the rest of us, you're either on one side of the fence or the other. You either have receiving lands and no credits or credits and no receiving lands. And until those can get matched up or married, you know, it's just a bad spot for me with SSA to put myself or my family in encumbering lands five, 10, 15 years ahead of when those credits might be used. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Russell, I empathize with your position. I'm just trying to figure out how to properly plan around it. When a project comes in and is predicted to go on a piece of property or an acreage, county staff has to start calculating when infrastructure will be there; we have AUIR's that are done on a yearly basis showing five-year projections within the five years. If they know a project's going to go in and it's an SRA, they're going to try to start moving facilities and budgets to accommodate that. They may do it for a period well before the six-year period is up that this temporary SSA's in place for. I'm not against what you're trying to do. I'm trying to figure out how to get it there practically without having a problem with planning efforts that have to go coinciding with an SRA. George? MR. VARNADOE: George Varnadoe. And Mark, I think you bring up a valid point. And I'm going to say this not by trying to get around what you said, but just to throw it out there. Page 164 January 28, 2009 That would be true if we went through, got the SRA, it was challenged in court by somebody and we never got the final permits, it was rej ected for whatever reason. We have the same problem. You've done the planning. It doesn't come to pass. The poor guy with the SSA is stuck, and all we're trying to do is un-stick him. I think you have a valid point and we ought to try to find some way to work around that. My suggestion, if you agree with the concept that those who are doing SSA's should have a reasonable period of time to find some utilization for those credits or have the ability to rescind their SSA, if you would, and get back to the status quo, then I suggest that you say this is okay but what we want during the transmittal process, for planning staff and others to see what we can do to minimize the impact on the planning process. But I do think you raise a valid point. Of course, you know, the project has no impact on county facilities until construction starts. And even if we did this stuff, I don't know how we'd get around it. Same is true today with projects in this environment that have been entitled and aren't going forward because of the economic environment. I'm not trying to downplay your concerns, I think they're valid, but my suggestion is if you like the concepts, you say we like the concepts. But as this goes forward in the process, if it goes forward, we'd like some consideration given to what this does to the planning effort and how we minimize the exposure to the county. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody have -- Brad, then Ms. Caron. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Mark, is your concern that the person with the SSA would actually retreat, causing the collapse of the project, or -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, no. Because once the SSA dedicated credits to the project, they couldn't do it. It would have to be Page 165 January 28, 2009 the project that didn't go forward first, and then the SSA could choose to opt out. That's from what I'm reading. Because once the SSA credits have been dedicated, until that dedication is removed, I don't think the SSA can go away. That's some of the criteria they seem to have here. MR. VARNADOE: That's correct as far as it goes, Mark. But there's also a method in the Land Development Code that lets you get your SRA in place as long as you provide the credits within a certain time period. I think looking at the other side of that coin, that is, why do I want to buy SSA credits if I can't get my SRA approved. So there is a process to let you get your SRA, and then within a certain time frame you have to come forward with the credits or you lose your SRA. So it could happen simultaneous, it could happen before, or it could happen over a certain time period after. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But once an SSA credit, even one, is dedicated, you can't take that SSA away then. MR. VARNADOE: That's correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's correct, okay. Ms. Caron? Oh, I'm sorry, Brad? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And then the other thing is that what would happen in a situation where like we're doing here, changing the credits? Would somebody then collapse their SSA and then bring it back to life to get more credits, or -- MR. VARNADOE: I guess that's a potential, Mr. Schiffer. But given the cost of going through this process, I'm not sure the juice is worth the squeeze. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: All right, thanks. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron? MR. VARNADOE: That wasn't as good as Tom Jones who said we're trying to sneak daylight past a rooster in the last meeting. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Sound bites for the press. But anyway, Page 166 January 28, 2009 go ahead. COMMISSIONER CARON: I'm not sure I remember my question. But essentially, though, the way this is worded, you can pull out at the 11 th hour for any reason, not just because you didn't get a permit, the way the language reads. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, it says-- COMMISSIONER CARON: It's totally -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- all necessary final and non-appealable development orders, so -- COMMISSIONER CARON: Right, so for anything. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, if they decided the economy didn't work, I don't think they could pull out. But it would have to be something related to approval, wouldn't it? COMMISSIONER CARON: I'm not sure. I would read this that they could. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. VARNADOE: That certainly was not the intent. Once you go through an SRA and a DRI, you're going to have hundreds of thousands of dollars. And you don't go into that lightly. You don't go in it with the idea, well, I'm going to pull out. But I think the concern was to make just absolute, with absolute certainty you had the right to go vertical construction before you were -- didn't have the ability to collapse the SSA, in the event you could not go forward with your development, Ms. Caron. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody else? Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Mark, I have a suggestion. Would it help to shorten the amount of time and put a caveat that if there is a lawsuit and it is appealed it can be extended on a year-to-year basis? MR. VARNADOE: We've got people who do permitting here Page 167 January 28, 2009 that can answer that question. But all I can tell you is that we were well into the fourth year with Ave Maria before we could go vertical from the time we started the process. Maybe longer. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, it will take that long. MR. VARNADOE: It takes -- and I wish I could say yes, but the truth of the matter is you've got to go -- the environmental agencies aren't going to start processing your permit until you have your local development approvals. So you go through two years ofDRI/SRA review, then you apply for your permits with the feds. DR. HUSHON: Another two years. MR. VARNADOE: I'm sorry? DR. HUSHON: Another two years. MR. VARNADOE: Another two years. So you're -- it could well go five years. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I would agree that the time frame's right. Okay, any other questions of George at this point? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, sir. Mitch, next. MR. MITCHELL: Just to that point, and Chairman, I appreciate your point. I think the comment that you made was your issue was primarily about the planning associated with it. And I guess my point to the committee would be to understand that that's an issue that exists across the county today. So I would encourage you not to look for a specific planning solution just for the rural land stewardship. If you're going to address it, you need to address it countywide. The specific issue in the rural land stewardship is that there's a tertiary property owner that's adversely impacted. All we're asking for is the tertiary landowner to get some relief. If there's a planning issue that needs to be addressed, let's address it Page 168 January 28, 2009 county-wide, not specific to the rural land stewardship. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, we are addressing it county-wide and that's why it becomes a problem with Policy 1.6.1. County-wide we address it in the AUIR on a regular basis yearly and a five-year plan for the infrastructure in the known zoned areas. In the Rural Land Stewardship Area, you're introducing sporadic zoning, mean you have rights to plan and build somewhere. We don't know where until you come forward. At that point we got to start mobilizing to meet your needs. That's the difference between the coastal area and the RLSA. And that's why I think it's more of a planning issue for the RLSA, because the planning issues in that regard have already been addressed in the coastal area. One way that might help is we have issues here that, as Heidi noted, may not need to be in the GMP but could be in an LDC. If we move forward this in the GMP, the scrutiny of it is going to have to be on a different level than the detail that we could have it in the LDC. I've been asked numerous times by elected officials, why do we have such a backup in compo planning with so many compo planning changes? Well, the answer is simple. We put too much in our compo plan. And constantly putting all this detail in there means any word that has to be changed is going to result in a compo plan change. And that's going to take anybody to do it years. So why don't we instead take a look at Policy 1.6.1. for its first paragraph and instead of the word therein at the very end, substitute the words in the LDC. And then we -- if this policy survives and there's reasons -- ifthere are continued good reasons to keep it, then we detail it out in the LDC and we just put the concept in this document. Now, that's one suggestion to get past it. And that would give us plenty of time to work out the planning problems that staff has not Page 169 January 28, 2009 reviewed yet in regards to any of this language, but especially this one. So that's one suggestion that may be helpful. I don't know if the committee explored it or not. I know Heidi, you said you had discussed it. I don't know to what extent you did. The only other thing I would suggest is that if this turns out to be a better program and it gets adopted, then everybody ought to have the same right by it. And that means whether -- SSA's prior or future that have not been utilized. One of the big benefits from that would be as a standardization of the process. I am very concerned the other language we're going to be getting to that separates out this credit system to those before a certain date get calculated by staff at eight units per acre, and those after a date get calculated at the new rates, which is proposed to be 10 units per acre. If that comes to fruition, everybody in this room knows how difficult it is to find consistency in the permitting process because we change hands over here so rapidly. And if some staff come and go and people don't pick this up, you're going to -- into problems that we don't need to have if we can have more consistency in the programs. So that's one item I think we ought to consider if this policy has enough merit to move forward. And with that, I'll ask for any more comments from the Planning Commission. (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Then public. Nicole? MS. RYAN: Nicole Ryan, Conservancy of Southwest Florida. The Conservancy supports further exploration of this temporary easement. But one of the things that is really going to need to be explored is that -- and it's as part of the planning process that you haven't touched on. But for example, when wildlife crossings, panther Page 170 January 28, 2009 crossings are planned, oftentimes the agencies will want to know that the land on both sides is permanently protected. So how do you do some of the wildlife management that we're trying to do with the program when you have temporary easements that mayor may not become permanent after a certain number of years? So that's another question that needs to be sufficiently addressed before this would move forward. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, Nicole, and the suggestion of just accepting the concept in the GMP subject to definition in the LDC, I think that gets us past the concept point and gets us into more of the detail the LDC's normally used to. So that's another -- it might solve your concern, too, at the same time in that regard. MS. RYAN: Yeah, we'd support exploring that, yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Bill, I don't think there's anything else on 1.6.1. Does anybody else have any comment? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Mark? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Brad? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Do we want to, you know, incorporate that suggestion? Because it is a good one. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I'm making notes of all the things. And as we normally summarize in the end, I was going to do that. Because I'm not sure how much in the rest of this GMP language could fall back in this policy. Because I do have other areas in here where if we have something that's temporary, it affects another part of the GMP. So we may want to look at the whole thing first and flush everything out, so -- With that then we'll move to Page 48. That starts with Policy 1.7 and ends on the page of Policy 1.10. Does anybody have any issues with those policies or the language on Page 48? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Bill, I've got one. Page 171 January 28,2009 In Policy 1.7 you added Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission, which is fine. Why does anybody care if the rest are left in here? MR. McDANIEL: Again, my perception and recollection of those discussions was that it was just to provide clarity and that the Florida Fish & Wildlife Commission were the main regulator with regard to those areas. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, let me tell you something that happened to me. I had an occasion to meet a requirement for conservation land dedication on 400 acres, and that land was adjacent to some conservation land owned by a state agency. But their policy changed. They couldn't accept any more conservation land. And their attorneys were all upset over it, but they couldn't change it. So another agency had to take that land. And now their other agency, the first agency who owns contiguous property has now decided they could take land but it's too late because it's been given to another. All I'm suggesting is if you put a definitiveness of one conservation entity, one agency in here, you may find that state policy or something else changes down the road and that's not going to work any longer, and then we're boxed into a problem with changing the GMP. MR. McDANIEL: Don't refute what you're saying, but I mean, there are two agencies that these are recorded with and that's with Collier County and the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, but it needs to be two agencies. And if you lose one, it doesn't mean it should be accomplished by the other. In Collier County, it takes the change of the political climate to undo something, and it would be better if multiple agencies were involved so that can't happen very easily, especially if someone's willing to do the dedication. I'm just -- are you guys set on that? Does it have to stay that Page 172 January 28, 2009 way? MR. JONES: Yeah. There was a lot of discussion related to this one. And again, alls we're doing is conveying the easement. We're not conveying land to anybody. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I realize that. MR. JONES: So I think as far as changing policies and state agencies and stuff, I'm kind of missing the point of what the issue is. It's conveyed to two entities. The way the original language read, it was -- there was a smorgasbord of agencies that could be conveyed to the county, as well as one of the following, and there was a lot of public comment that, you know, people didn't like us being able to convey these easements to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. There was insistence that it be given to the Department of Community Affairs. And it seemed like a good equitable solution to having it conveyed to two parties was convey the easement to the wildlife agency, as well as the county. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I don't think that's a good move and so I guess we'll agree to disagree on that one. Anybody else have any comments? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: This will all come out in the end of the day, so we'll just keep moving forward. Any there any citizen comments on policies through 1.10? Elizabeth? MS. FLEMING: Just on this point? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Page 48 is what we're on. MS. FLEMING: On that same point right there, we were very much in favor of having the Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission be one of the two, but we wouldn't have a problem with the others, if there were cases where it would be helpful to add in Page 173 January 28, 2009 addition to one of the others, if there was a case that merited that. So if it would help by not deleting that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, what I was thinking is why wouldn't it be Collier County or, and then you list them all. Who cares what the other agency is. I mean, I'm not sure why we want to limit -- I'm not sure how it's to the benefit of those property owners to limit themselves to one agency. To me that's just the opposite of what they ought to be doing. And I don't know what it hurts to open the possibility up to others. MS. FLEMING: If the point was stewardship credits and it was -- it's for natural resources, imperiled species, we thought that the natural resource agency was the local -- the logical state partner. But -- and they had had the agriculture, Department of Agriculture, we would not object to that being a third entity. We just wanted to see the Wildlife Commission as an entity, a signatory to the stewardship easements. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, and you know, you brought up a good point. If an SSA still has retained ago lands, it would be probably more proper to make sure the Department of Agriculture is a part of that than even the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation. So now you're suggesting a third entity. But I certainly think your reasoning clearly shows that those single entities is not still the right way to go. So I don't know where it's going to go, but I'm sure this commission will have a series of suggestions before the day's over on Friday. Thank you. Anybody else? Nicole? MS. RYAN: Nicole Ryan, Conservancy of Southwest Florida. My comment is to Policy 1.8. This was one of the issues that The Conservancy has been very concerned about. And guess what? Primary panther habitat is what we're still concerned about. This idea that the map of the primary zone and the just recently Page 174 January 28, 2009 released revised Panther Recovery Plan that states that primary zone in its spatial entirety needs to be protected, and now we're going back and revisiting that. We believe that the science is very clear, and we believe that the primary should be protected, and that's why we had wanted to see this natural resource valuation system updated, because there are many areas that are currently considered open and therefore suitable for SRA's that should not be allowed for future towns and villages. And I guess the best way to really give you a visual on this is to show you an example, so I'm going to put this graphic up on the visualizer. I have a few copies, probably not enough for everyone. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If you put it up on the visualizer, that will be enough, Nicole. Since that way everybody can see it equally. MS. RYAN: It's a little hard to see. Maybe if we could just turn the light down for a second. This is for the proposed Phase I part of the Town of Big Cypress. On the left-hand side you can see that the areas in pink are the open areas, which are considered under the RLSA to be appropriate for development. And in the circle is the general area where the town of Big Cypress Phase I is proposed. On the right-hand side, the proposed town of Big Cypress is outlined in yellow. Primary panther habitat is in pink. Non-primary is in the golden color. And you can see that out of the 3,700 acres of the proposed proj ect, 3,400 acres are primary panther habitat. Those little blue dots are panther telemetry points, and there are 63 panther telemetry points within that proposed footprint. Now, some of those telemetry points are within those WRA's, but it's within the footprint of the development. We find that this is incompatible with the Endangered Species Act, and we would like to see the RLSA updated so that you don't have development that is clearly inconsistent with the Endangered Page 175 January 28,2009 Species Act. Protect those primary panther habitat areas by directing towns and villages to areas outside of that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Now, I hate to ask this next question, because I know some people will jump up and come to the podium. Whose opinion is it that there's primary panther habitat? Which one of the many studies that we've been told that exist out there dictate that; do you know? MS. RYAN: That is the MERIT sub-committee's primary habitat map. This was the map that I had had put up earlier. It's been in the peer review scientific review. And the Panther Recovery Plan, which was recently released, stated that the panther zone is critical to maintain a spatial extent and quality and quantity for the panther. So we base our assessment on that. We also base it on there are 63 telemetry points within that footprint. So 90 percent of telemetry points are captured in the HSA's and FSA's, but a lot aren't. So these are things that we would like to see corrected. We don't believe they were really delved into at the committee level. And so we're asking that you take a look at some of these concepts of directing development away from primary habitat, which also is habitat for other listed species. CHAIRMAN STRAIN : Well, if you turn to your Policy 1.8, which is what you introduced the issue with, what language in 1.8 is problematic as it's written here, or is it in another part of the document that we'll get to eventually? MS. RYAN: Well, if we look at the natural resources valuation system, our initial comment was that primary habitats should be brought into that complicated matrix system that equates to the natural resource index value. However, if there's the creation of some sort of agricultural stewardship area that encompasses the primary habitat, either a sentence could be added here that ties in not only the ago preserve values of those lands, but also ties it to the natural resource Page 176 January 28,2009 value, which we think that you really should keep ago preservation and natural resource value coupled together. So it could be referenced here, it could be referenced later, but I did want to bring up that we see this as a defect in the current natural resources valuation system, because it does allow for development in areas that are clearly utilized by panther. So whether it's corrected in a policy here, whether it's corrected in a policy later, we wanted to introduce it here because it's tied into the system that's referenced in 1.8 and 1.9. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, before we are finished with this whole review, ifthere are language changes that are being suggested by any party, I'm going to ask that they bring that language forward to us at some point where it should be properly inserted, and let us make an evaluation from our perspective. And if we don't go further with it or we do, that's where the chips will fall with us, okay? MS. RYAN: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Tim? You're the counter, right? MR. DURHAM: I'm the person who jumped up when you said it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I was waiting for Bruce to come up, but we'll see. MR. DURHAM: We're going to alternate, so you won't get too tired of anyone of us at a time. As I listened to Nicole's words, I realized that the words are very important here. Nicole treats every habitat within the primary zone as being primary habitat. We look at it and say there's a primary zone, and within the primary zone there are habitats that are primary habitats. It also includes other areas, which when you read the report talk about they may form some connectivity or do something else in the equation, all right? So when you hear her talk about primary zone and primary Page 177 January 28,2009 habitat, they may not be the same thing in our mind is counterpoint to that. And that's where this gets real dicey, because -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think we've realized that. MR. DURHAM: -- we did change in the discussion, so -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think that became real clear to us a little while ago. So I think we realize that. MR. DURHAM: I feel obliged to point it out again. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's not a problem. Thank you. Any other -- Mr. Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: May I turn the light on? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I don't -- it's up to you. You're the only one that's in the dark, I think. The rest of us got lights above us, so -- COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I've been in the dark for well over a year. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, Mr. Midney's in the dark, too. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: No, that's fine. I just had a comment. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: David I think had a question next, then we'll get to you. Did you have a real question or did you want to talk about lights? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: We could talk about lights, but I would rather talk about the complex worksheet that Nicole discussed. And we're tossing around the words credits, just like they're nothing. The credits really are something. And, you know, some people talked about stripping off credits. Does everyone on the Planning Commission know what that means? I mean, am I the only one that is a little fishy about it? Because I'm not sure that we're all clear on that. And is there someone from the RLSA committee that would -- there you go -- that would like to stand up and go through the stewardship credit matrix? Page 178 January 28, 2009 There is a base, correct? And then we have stewardship national (sic) resource index factors, and we can get way up to, you know, eight plus credits per acre, I believe, correct? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Ten. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It's 10 credits per acre after certain -- if this were to pass, it's 10 credits per acre. Anybody that was before this is eight credits per acre. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: That is correct. And I would like -- I just wondered, Mark, maybe you and I may be the only ones that are close to getting it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I don't know, I think everybody-- COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Everyone understands all of this? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think everybody understands it. This is a -- we've been around this before. I mean, it's not the first time we've all come across this. Maybe Karen or a few of the newer people hadn't seen it before, but most of us have experienced this before. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, that's fine, continue as you want. I just -- COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: No, I just wanted to -- I just wanted to go into that. I wanted to make sure everybody knew what this means and possibly the difference between ago one and ago two. And maybe it's not necessary right now. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I think Allen's going to address something in that regard, so Allen, if you want to try to answer David's questions, that would be great. MR. REYNOLDS: I'll certainly try. And let me start by saying I'm not going to stand here and say I know anything about panthers as a panther expert. But I don't know, can you read -- can you see that sheet up there? Can you read it okay? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Well here, let me turn the lights Page 179 January 28, 2009 off. MR. REYNOLDS: Yeah, if you could turn the lights off. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: No. MR. REYNOLDS: Okay. Well, there's a -- it's in your book as well. And I'm -- hopefully that one's more legible, but maybe the -- COMMISSIONER CARON: Give us a page. MR. REYNOLDS: Okay. Natural resource index is on Page 70. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: One of the last ones. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: It's too small. MR. REYNOLDS: The natural resource index, which is what the subject of this policy is, is what sets out this particular index system. And what that does is provide the objective measures by which land is scored under the RLS system. This is a planning tool. This is not a substitute for federal regulations that protect the panther, this is a way to identify the relative value of the different kinds of natural resources in the stewardship area. And you're going to see that on that sheet there is an index at the top that starts out by saying if you're already mapped within one of the primary designations, FSA, HSA or WRA, you get certain points. The next one is a proximity index. The third one is dealing with listed species. And you'll see that the first two lines are panther occupied habitat, preferred and tolerated, plus other listed species. And the second one is panther habitat by itself. Those received the highest score under the natural resource index system. If you couple those factual data sets with the other data sets here, which include whether or not you have native land cover, which is the land use cover index down at the bottom, and a mapping, what you find is that the panther winds up scoring the highest of any potential habitat in the Rural Land Stewardship Area. That is the science behind Page 180 January 28,2009 the NRI process. If you take what Nicole is suggesting, what she's suggesting, if you play it out, is to take an incentive-based overlay process and to say that if there is any indication that there is panther utilization of that property, you are no longer able to exercise your rights to use this program as a stewardship receiving area. If you take that to its logical conclusion and if you look at some of these maps that show where panther habitat is, you're going to find that it overlays a lot of Collier County. So what I would suggest to you is I'm not sure you have to fall into the final, you know, debate about whose definition is correct. What you have to do is just I think step back and think about this logically, which is that this is a planning process, it provides an opportunity for a property owner to utilize it, to make their case. It has a scientific basis. We can agree or disagree about whether the indexes are correct or not correct, but there was a lot of discussion about whether these indexes were working. And there are some differences of opinion, but the consensus at the end of the day is we have a natural resource index system that seems to be working well. It shows places that have panther utilization as the highest scoring areas that need to be protected. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Questions? David, did you have anymore questions? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I just -- yeah, not right now. I'm going to hold them for -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, does anybody have any questions of Allen while he's up here? I have one -- Tor? COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Yeah, I had a question. This exhibit that you have in the overhead on Page 70, can I get a large copy of that? MR. GREENWOOD: Sure. We'll bring them tomorrow. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Friday. Page 181 January 28, 2009 MR. GREENWOOD: I'm sorry, Friday. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, we'll have one Friday morning. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: No, that's all right. I'm -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Allen, you had said -- one of your statements was that the panther habitat has the highest value indices. What if the panther habitat is ago land? Does it still have the highest indices? MR. REYNOLDS: If it's -- the listed species index is measured whether or not it's ago land. So that's just purely on the basis of panther use. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So if a panther's using a forest-- MR. REYNOLDS: Has a higher score. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- it has a higher score than if a panther's using ago land. MR. REYNOLDS: Right. Because these are cumulative -- these indexes are added cumulatively. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, that's what I was getting at. So the highest score for panther is when it's in forested land. MR. REYNOLDS: Correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And it doesn't have the equivalent scoring if it's in an ago land. MR. REYNOLDS: That's correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. But I think that's the point that maybe Nicole was trying to make over what you're suggesting, that there is primary panther habitat in ago land that needs to have retained value of the panther habitat that other portions ofland do. MR. REYNOLDS: That may be the case, but what she is suggesting is a prohibition of that use. We're not talking now about a relative value. What she's saying is that that land, because it has a panther classification, should now be removed from the land that has Page 182 January 28, 2009 the potential to be considered as open land or SRA. That's what she's saymg. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I understand what you're saying. I'm not sure -- MR. REYNOLDS: So it's an absolute versus I guess a relative approach compared to an absolute approach. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Any other questions of Allen? Go ahead, Mr. Midney? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Just a comment. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, Allen. I think we're done with that part. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Just kind of in support of what Nicole has been saying, I think that it's hard to really quantify all this stuff. But I think there is a difference between telemetry points that have shown where the panthers have gone and a range. A range of a panther is a little bit larger. On one of the sheets that Nicole passed out, which was excerpts from the Florida Panther Recovery Plan, Page 30, they talk about travel and dispersal corridors and landscape corridors for wide-ranging predators should be half the width of an average home range size. And I think when you have habitat interspersed with population, a lot of things become corridors. So if you have panther areas that are now surrounded by farm fields, it will be fairly easy for them to move around within that area. If the fields are converted to towns, what is a panther corridor now may not be in the future. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: And vice versa. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Are you getting up to respond, or just to be prepared for the next foray? MR. McDANIEL: I have plenty of responses. And I might just add a point for you folks. We at the committee level that weren't necessarily representing one particular faction or another got to hear a tremendous amount of discussion with respect to Page 183 January 28, 2009 the information that's again being provided to you folks here today. And we had -- it's quite a dilemma for the novice, myself, for someone who though has had experience with the Florida panther, who is quite a conservationist, who is quite an environmentalist, who spends a tremendous amount of time in the wilds of Florida. Those critters go where they want to when they want to. And the argument about a foot or two here or an acre or two there, really at this particular stage of the game there's a lot of discussion as to what can and cannot be. I mean, if you look at the map that Ms. Nicole put up earlier on and the designation of the primary zone and that they feel that development should be directed away from that particular primary zone, the entire Rural Land Stewardship Overlay is encompassed in that zone, particularly. It's only 50, 35-mile wide, so. DR. HUSHON: No, no, no. MR. McDANIEL: A large portion of it is, I should say. And again, this is my -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: For those of you in the audience, he has absolute right to speak his mind. Please not interfere. He hasn't interfered with yours, so -- MR. McDANIEL: I'm sure someone will correct me. The long and the short of it is, is there are -- a balance. As I shared with you early on, a balance has to be reached. This is a tool for planning of the future population of Eastern Collier County, and a balance has to be reached. It can't be all necessarily one way or all the other. And we battled with that a lot during the process of making the decisions for these particular amendments to the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay. And I do apologize if I misquoted what was said. There was a perception there more than anything as far as specificity. And I did preface it by saying that I'm not an expert with respect to those cats. Page 184 January 28, 2009 But I do know for a fact that because we establish a corridor to the north that travels east and west, if that cat gets to the end where it turns south and chooses to go straight through, he's going to go. And that's something we need to remember as we're discussing the boundaries, if you will, of the habitat. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, thank you, Bill. With that we will move on to the next page. Page 49 has one, two, three, four, five, six policies, starting at 1.11 through 1.18. There is no committee changes except one reference that apparently was maybe a grammatical. Other than that, there isn't much change in that. Is there any comments from the Planning Commission on those pages of policies? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody from the audience have any issues with those policies? Oh, Mr. Wolfley, you got-- COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Yeah, I started bringing it up earlier this morning. And there was certainly -- and I was thinking of bringing it up later, but I'm just going to bring it up now. Can we get some discussion on what these credits stands for? Is it acres or units? So we're all aware of what's going on. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, each acre is worth four units and it takes eight credits now to qualify one acre to be developed. You can take that four units and use it for -- those four units per acre and collate those under a single parcel, if you want to, at a higher density. But the gross is just like it is in the urban area, four units per acre. You buy the acre with a number of credits. Either it's eight credits in the current plan or 10 credits in the new plan. So does that -- did you want me to answer that or did you want Bill? Unless you want -- MR. McDANIEL: That's pretty good. Page 185 January 28, 2009 COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Just when I brought it up before, half the people were saying -- well, there was not an agreement. I'm hoping everyone agrees with that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, let's stop there. We want to reach agreement. If someone has a concern, I want to hear it. Does anybody not understand the way the credits and the acres are partitioned out? If there is, ask the question and we'll get it clarified. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Let me just -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, you don't understand, Brad? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I think I understand it. Dave, go to Page 73. Essentially eight credits will give you the use of one acre. And that one acre could be used in any of these characteristics on Page 73. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. But his question was related to density, so that's why -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: The residential density on that page would be -- it's different in different -- where it's located. But essentially four units per acre. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I understand. I was just -- there was a little bit of disagreement earlier. I guess everyone's in agreement now. Thank you. MR. McDANIEL: And just as a point, David, you asked me that question and I have an interpretation of that that probably was not nearly as eloquent as Mr. Strain's. I mean, he clarified it completely. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are there any other questions on Page 49? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Nobody else, we'll move on to Page 50 at lightning speed. It starts on Policy 1.19 on top and goes through to the beginning of the group two policies on the bottom. Page 186 January 28, 2009 Comments from the Planning Commission? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anyone? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: On Policy 1.22, you substituted in the EAR -- for those acronym people, evaluation and appraisal report -- process in lieu of the five-year anniversary. Just so we understand, that takes place every seven years; is that right, Mr. Greenwood? MR. GREENWOOD: Yes, sir. . CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So we're going from five years to a seven-year review, basically. I think that's what-- And then where it says -- the last sentence of Policy 1.22, the specific measures of review shall be as follows. Then it starts outlining one through eight. I just want to make sure that whenever we develop this temporary policy language in 1.6.1 that somewhere that has to fit in to the way that this area's reported on. So I'm not sure how that fits yet, but it probably will just be another line on a chart as a temporary use. And Bill, while we're at this on Policy 1.22, where in those numbers one through eight is there the reference that suggests an expansion of the anticipated acreage use from 16,800 to 45,000? MR. McDANIEL: There is nothing in those particular eight, sir. And again, with reference to that, the representations early on were based upon best estimates and information available at the time. We've had, as you have brought up, Ave Maria and a lot of experience in developing of SSA's that had not been prior to that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I know. The review -- the five-year review's intent was supposed to be limited to those items one through eight. That's why I asked the question, because it certainly is going to be an issue, having gotten so much larger than originally anticipated. Page 187 January 28,2009 MR. McDANIEL: Well, and I'm not -- I don't refute the point. I mean, I can certainly understand how you feel the way that you do. But there were those of us that didn't necessarily hang on all the words that were the initial projections that came forth when the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay was in fact adopted at the time. There was -- at least personally I felt that there was a tremendous amount of information that had passed through to give us a much greater foundation for making the representations that we have now. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Questions, anything else from the Planning Commission? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody in the public have any questions on that page at this time? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, we'll turn to Page 51. It starts with your Group 2 policies. 2.1 is the one up on top, and we move on through to Policy 2.4. Any questions? Mr. Midney? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yeah, could somebody please walk me through -- did you have some sort of economic analysis, or how did you come up with the figures for 2.0 credits for non-ASC lands and 2.6 for ACSC lands? MR. JONES: You know, you can't please all the people all the time and sometimes you can't please anybody any of the time. But, you know, one I don't want to say criticism, but one jab, lob at the program historically has been, well, it's too complicated. Okay, we kind of took that to heart, and we said we're going to develop an agricultural preservation component to this and generate credits and we'll simplify the process. So to simplify the process, we looked at what the average credits being generated on high value environmental lands were, and it came up somewhere around 2.6. Recognizing that these lands are within the Page 188 January 28,2009 area of critical state concern because of their location within the area of critical state concern, a defined boundary by state law, that there was probably some extra incentive to value those higher than we were valuing outside the area of critical state concern. And what we're really attempting to do, and where those numbers came from as far as an economic analysis, to be perfectly candid with you there were a lot of discussions among the landowners who owned the land within the area of critical state concern, and through discussions we arrived at landowners would probably participate in this preservation component ifthere were 2.6 credits per acre. You know, it wasn't real complicated, but if you want to get to an economic analysis, sometimes to their fault farmers don't get real complicated, and that's how we arrived at the 2.6. The additional -- and so that's where it came from. It was from discussions with landowners. And the other thing that we were trying to accomplish within the area of critical state concern was to potentially consolidate a land base of consistently used habitat. And that occurs within the area of critical state concern. And there's a number of parameters that allow development within the area of critical state concern. Although in the original program it was scaled down. You couldn't do everything in the area of critical state concern that you could do outside of it. But there are significant development allowances that can be developed through there. So we looked at it at a number of different levels. And every now and then you just -- something makes sense intuitively and you just kind of draw down to the point and that's where it is. We tried to simplify it. Landowners felt 2.6 inside the area of critical state concern was enough of an incentive. It accomplished something within that boundary . Page 189 January 28, 2009 And then outside of the area of critical state concern we arrived at 2.0 credits. Again, you put it up against high value environmental land, it's not there. So we just dropped it down to 2.0. And it made sense to the people that were participating in the program at the time. And we had extensive discussions, from landowners as well as others, in front of the committee about how to arrive at the -- you know, how do we do this stuff. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I certainly would respect those guys, the landowners, because they probably have a better idea than other people about the economical value of it and so forth. But I would still feel more comfortable if there was some sort of agricultural economist who had weighed in on it. Because this thing is so important. What if it doesn't work? What if the incentives are not enough and nobody wants to do it? Have you thought about getting an agricultural economist to try to do more analysis of it? MR. JONES: I'm going to go back to the farmer mindset. And I don't know that an agricultural economist has ever proved anything to us with respect to what we could -- what value we could derive from our properties. I don't mean that in an arrogant way. But, you know, you could line PhD's up from here to the area of critical state concern and, you know, whether you're going to convince anybody they're right or not, I don't know that that would occur. It was an intuitive process. The people who owned the land believed that this was a significant incentive and that's what we went with. And we did have a number of agriculture economists come in and talk about agricultural land values and these types of things throughout the process. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Did they seem to concur with it, or -- MR. JONES: I think at the time that we came in -- that they Page 190 January 28,2009 came in, I don't know that we were discussing it. A lot of their focus was on the future viability of agriculture in Southwest Florida and along those lines. I think another important component to recognize is that -- you know, and we talk about retaining land for agricultural purposes. What these two-credit programs do is I think it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 55, 56,000 acres are potentially available for agricultural lands under this credit preservation -- under this credit program. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I just hope it works. MR. JONES: We do too. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Paul, I just wanted you to know that Tom and I had gone around a couple of times with these numbers when they came out. And I just said, you know, where do these things come from? And I finally had to just say well, it is what it is. I mean, I don't know -- no, because I didn't know of anyone -- I couldn't find anyone that knew more about it than he did. So I just had to say, I gIve. MR. McDANIEL: That's a scary thought. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I didn't know any better. I was finally convinced. MR. McDANIEL: Just a layman's perspective of it, because I was part of that, right along with David. There are already restrictions on lands that are included in the area of state's critical concern, a 90 percent overlay and protection for environmentally sensitive habitats and such. And there really was never any compensation to any great extent offered to property owners in there. So for an oversimplification for myself and again on the premise that one of our goals was to incentivize the retention of agricultural lands in the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay, an increase in the Page 191 January 28, 2009 credits associated with the lands already included in there was an additional benefit for that particular landowner. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I think it's a great idea. I just hope that it works and that it -- MR. McDANIEL: We all hope it does, Paul. Candidly. I mean, you know, and that goes to what Russell Priddy has said on a regular basis, and a lot of landowners have said, at the end of the day there has to be a marketplace. There has to be an equality and a -- we can create all the credits that we want. If there is no marketplace, they are of no value. We all hope it works. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, I need someone from the Planning Commission to make a motion to continue this meeting till 8:30 Friday morning in this room. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: So moved. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Made by Mr. Wolfley. Seconded by? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Second. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Vigliotti. All in favor? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Aye. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion carries. See everybody back here Friday at 8:30. Page 192 January 28, 2009 ***** There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 4:30 p.m. COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION MARK STRAIN, Chairman These minutes approved by the board on presented or as corrected as Transcript prepared on behalf of Gregory Reporting Service, Inc., by Cherie' R. Nottingham. Page 193