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CCPC Minutes 02/26/2009 S February 26,2009 TRANSCRIPT OF THE RLSA MEETING OF THE COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION Naples, Florida February 26, 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 Brad Schiffer Robert Vigliotti David 1. Wolfley ALSO PRESENT: Thomas Greenwood, Comprehensive Planning Steve Williams, Asst. County Attorney Page 1 AGENDA COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION WILL MEET AT 1:00 P.M. FRIDAY FEBRUARY 20,2009 [CARRYOVER DATE OF FEBRUARY 26, 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 MAY BE ALLOTTED 10 MINUTES TO SPEAK ON AN ITEM IF SO RECOGNIZED BY THE CHAIRMAN. PERSONS WISHING TO HAVE 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 WILL BECOME A PERMANENT PART OF THE RECORD AND WILL BE AVAILABLE 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 BE BASED. 1. 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 .. 2120/09 ccpe AgendafTGlmk February 26, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, let's get this show rolling. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the March -- I mean, February 26th meeting of the Collier County Planning Commission. This is a continuation of a meeting that started five meetings ago, or four meetings ago, the most recent one being February 20th. It is on the Rural Land Stewardship Area, RLSA otherwise known as, and stewardship credits. And we'll start out with the pledge of allegiance, if everybody will please rise. (Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) Item #2 ROLL CALL BY THE SECRETARY CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, if the secretary will please make the roll call. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Mr. Eastman is absent. Chairman Strain? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Here. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Commissioner Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Here. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Commissioner Vigliotti is here. Commissioner Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Here. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Commissioner Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'm here. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Commissioner Kolflat? COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Here. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Commissioner Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Here. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Commissioner Homiak? Page 2 February 26, 2009 COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Here. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: And Commissioner Midney? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Here. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, thank you. F or those of you who did not receive or could not print out some of the documentation for today in the hallway, there are copies. In particular the one that was sent out that I had finished up on -- I sent to Tom Greenwood. I believe he sent it out either Tuesday morning or Monday night. That is the one we'll be working off extensively today. So if you don't have it in color copy, there are colored copies out in the hallway. I think I'll lay out the plan of action for today. I anticipate we'll be here most of today. We will stop at the latest at 4:55. First thing I'd like to do is when we get going, if Nick Casalanguida is here, as he agreed to be -- I don't see him yet -- I wanted to finish up on all transportation and transit related issues that were brought up on our last meeting. And then as many of us have been witnessing, there's been a disagreement -- or I should say not a concurrence between parties on how panther habitat is addressed, whether it's primary or whether it isn't. We've had a report that was discussed by both sides on the issue, each claiming an interpretation of that report. There are one or two scientists who were authors of that report here today. And after Nick is finished, they will speak as to what their intentions of that report was in regards to how it was to be interpreted. As we go along in this meeting, we'll also be seeking public input, so nobody will be left out in the discussions. After we finish with those two major issues, the -- any final questions from the Collier County Planning Commission in a general nature can be addressed. And then when that's finished, I'll ask the public to make final statements, more or less closing statements on Page 3 February 26, 2009 anything that they have. We've had I think all along very good public input. I don't think anybody in this room or anybody who has been here previously can say they weren't allowed to speak or weren't allowed to get their points across. There wasn't any strict limitations on discussion, and because of that, I'd like to wrap up the public input after all is said and done today with any final comments. Because when that's finished, we need to go into our deliberations on the language that was presented to us that I sent out to everybody. There are some things in that language that need to be corrected. I have learned from various parties there's some tweaking and moving around and this and that. What I'd like to do, though, is as we go through that changed language, if any members of the Planning Commission need clarification on any of the issues, that at that time they can call on members of the public. Although I don't want to open up every single language change for debate again. I think we've already had that. And if that works for the rest of the Planning Commission, I'd like to proceed under that manner. Then after we have our deliberations and we go through the language on an item-by-item basis, we'll then call for a general vote on the issue. If we have some major disagreement on any particular point, we can work on that one separately as far as a stipulation to the motion as a split vote. And at the end of the motion today, the vote, whenever that does come, remember, we aren't looking at data and analysis on transmittal, we're simply reviewing a committee report. So the recommendation that goes to the Board of County Commissioners I would suggest isn't one of approval of the report. Our task can't be approval on something that hasn't had data and analysis. It simply is an acknowledgment of the report with the comments from the Planning Commission to move Page 4 February 26,2009 forward to the BCC. Because I don't think approval is appropriate until we've had the right data and analysis to support the conclusions that we have to come to. Is everybody on the Planning Commission comfortable with that process today? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. As long as no one isn't, we will move forward. Well, we may not. I had asked Nick to be here at 8:30. Norm Feder said that was okay, Nick said it was -- MR. GREENWOOD: He's on his way. We just called. Nick is. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, Nick. As late as the traffic is in this county, now he's late too. The two coincide. Well, with that, let's take a look at any other questions we may have while we wait for his eminence. He's going to be walking into a lot of fun here this morning. One thing I can do, I mentioned at the last meeting there were two documents I'd be working on. The most important was to get the language corrections out. I got that out to Tom. I also had tried to finish up a narrative that takes those language corrections and puts it into a more succinct document that only says what those corrections are. It says Policy 4.5, for example, A, remove to the extent practical, replace with be consistent and with comply. And it gets down to the item by item, but doesn't do it in 35 pages. Also, we have comments that were not addressed in the GMP language. I could not modify the attachments because they weren't provided to us in a working document. So on those issues, I separately addressed those and spelled them out in the beginning. And this report is broken down to two manners: General comments not addressed and proposed specific GMP language, and then the specific language recommendations to the RLSA review. Page 5 February 26, 2009 So I'll pass this out now while we're waiting for Nick. Everybody can have a copy of it. I have 25 copies. Members of the public that would want copies, they're more than welcome to have them. Well, we're waiting for Nick Casalanguida. He's caught up in traffic between transportation department and CDES. MR. SCHMITT: There's a heavy level of traffic out there. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It's terrible out there. MR. SCHMITT: I think it's a failing intersection over there across the bridge. MR. JONES: Isn't there a building across the parking lot? MR. SCHMITT: There's a little foot bridge over there, it's a failing -- what is that, level of service F. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I think I -- oh, I don't know. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, members of the Planning Commission, please remember we're on record, and the court reporter's trying to take any noise that occurs. So I've got to ask you all to kind of not talk too much unless she can -- unless it's on the microphone. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Chair? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, sir. Mr. Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Who is the author of this? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I am. That was one of the draft documents that I told everybody I'd try to produce. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: You can tell that it was a draft. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I know that if I didn't put draft on it and anybody ever thought I was trying to insinuate something of permanence, I'd be shot at high noon. So instead of doing that, I drafted every single page of every document, so __ COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Boy, you did. Beautiful. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Now, that document, we will work through -- one through the first part of it, which is general comments Page 6 February 26, 2009 not addressed one through seven. Then the rest of the language is addressed in the red lining. If you look at the rest of the language, starting on Page 2 where it says specific GMP language references, all that is is redundancy from what the inserts were on the red line you all have in the GMP language. So those will be gone through step at a time as we move through the other document. I'm sure there's going to be more after today. My intentions are to modify anything that comes up today and get it to Tom as early as I possibly can. It may be within a couple of days, but no later than Sunday night. It will go back out to the Planning Commission . immediately. We have a meeting next Thursday morning. I'd like to include this on the consent agenda next Thursday, just for acknowledgment, and then we can be done with it and it stays on schedule for what the committee had -- the RLSA committee had requested with the Board of County Commissioners and everybody else. Well, I don't want to move into the panther study until we finish the transportation. Tom, 10 minutes ago you said Nick was on his way. He's only one parking lot over. Do we know where he is? MR. GREENWOOD: My understanding when we called is he's in a meeting and he's finishing up. I don't know how long he's going to be. I thought it was momentarily. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I had an agreement with Norm Feder and him both that he would be here at 8:30 and we would start today with him at 8:30. I'm a little disappointed because Norm was very emphatic that that would work out just fine. So -- MR. GREENWOOD: That's my understanding as of yesterday afternoon as well. So you probably need to scold him a little bit when he gets here. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, it's just the point. We've -- you know, there's a lot of people here, we have a tight schedule today, and Page 7 February 26, 2009 I'm disappointed they couldn't keep that. Well, let's go back and look at some of the documentation. Let's do Mr. Greenwood's document that he sent to us for clarification on questions asked previously. That document is to the Collier County Planning Commission. Its date is February 26th, 2009. Staff follow-up questions and information requested by the CCPC at the end of the February 20th meeting. The first item that -- oh, he's here. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Finally. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I know, I heard about the traffic jam between the building next door and this one. MR. CASALANGUIDA: I'm going to sit down next to a friend. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Nice of you to -- boy, Nick, 1'11 tell you what, you sure have away. Did we not work this out before today? MR. CASALANGUIDA: What's that, sir? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Did we not work this out before today? MR. CASALANGUIDA: We've got our mid-year budget reduction in the morning. 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 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, if you don't mind using the podium. We do thank you for your indulgence today and we know how busy you must be. We do have some questions with the RLSA. Your issues are some of the ones on the top of the list. And let me read some of the Page 8 February 26,2009 thoughts that I've collected and some of the others. But then I need you to address the overall scope of transportation's concerns, if any, with the RLSA program. In the RLSA there's going to be a need for integrated transit system. I don't know how that -- or see that addressed. Unless you have already found a way that that's covered, we need to know that. The alignment of the right-of-ways between the different property owners, the public transportation needs, and the developments for transfer stations, transit facilities, government centers, shopping centers, hurricane evacuation routes and things like that. And also I know that we have the Seminole properties out there. And I don't know how the impacts to the casinos and the hotels that they're proposing have been taken into consideration, or how that's going to affect transportation. Along with the proportionate sharing language that needs to be in place. Now, last time we were here, I think someone from the audience pointed out there's a general change to one of the transportation paragraphs in another section of the GMP. If that covers all of it, then that's fine. But your acknowledgment today of these issues is real vital if we're to get any language in here to help transportation issues. So with that in mind, can you give us a briefing on where your department's at with this program? MR. CASALANGUIDA: I'd be happy to. I'll try and speak slowly. For the record, Nick Casalanguida, with transportation. There's a lot of things, dynamics that are happening at the same time. You have the RLSA review that you're going through right now, and these folks have spent probably a year and a half of their lives going through it as well. The Immokalee Master Plan is being done at the same time through a CRA that's going on. Seminole Indian tribe is going full guns, expanding their operations over there as well, too. So Page 9 February 26, 2009 there's a lot of dynamics that are happening at the same time. The county's proposing to do their own horizon study that they're completing right now, only for the roadway network. We want to take that one step further in what's called the vision build-out plan. In coordination with compo planning and the folks that belong to ECPO, the Eastern Collier Property Owners Association, to do a master plan of the rural lands. And it's not just the rural lands, it's the whole county. That will take into consideration what we need to do as a transit system in the build-out of the county. It would look at a roadway network that would be somewhat flexible. Obviously, you know, as developments come on-line, roadway networks can shift quarter mile, half a mile, but the intent of that roadway and the amount of volume that it would carry should be defined in that vision build-out plan. So you're going through this process, I know Wilson-Miller in coordination with ECPO, and that acronym, has done what they call a roadway network plan. I see it on the screen over there right now. It doesn't work quite the way we'd like it to work. We've done some preliminary analysis on it. There's room for improvement. You know, they've done quite a bit of work with the information they have. They do not include the Seminole Indian tribe properties, and that's big, if you've followed any of the -- what's happened in other parts of the country, such as Connecticut where they did the Indian casino. The governor there had to go so far as to toll the roads in front of them to get themto play with them as far as roadway improvements. We've just started our initial discussions with the Seminole Indian folks. At the same time, RW A, Tindale-Oliver, is doing this Immokalee overlay where they want to take the land use in Immokalee and change it. They want to make Immokalee a city some day and they want it to have a certain character. They are talking about up-zoning and different densities as well, too. So I don't think you can look at the map they've done and not Page 10 February 26, 2009 include that information in there. So the county intends to do that through the vision build-out plan, and we're going to coordinate with all those folks. So I'm always hesitant about including that map, even though it's conceptual, because it leaves you kind of a little bit of a false sense of security that that's the roadway network that will actually work. I don't . think it will. And I won't say definitively it will not because I haven't done the final analysis. I can tell you that when we're done, we're going to have vetted it through the folks at ECPO at Wilson-Miller, we'll work with the environmental folks, the Immokalee CRA and the Indians, and when we're done, we'll have a much more comprehensive plan of what that roadway network should look like and if it can work. Now, we talked about the demand side in transit. At some point in time I have to start thinking the other way. Do I -- I don't want to lay as many lane miles of pavement. I want to try and figure out ways to avoid that. Now what do I do? If I put government centers and landfills and, you know, I mean, I can list a whole plethora of different services that each SRA and the City of Immokalee should have to reduce that trip length. In other words, if you have -- they don't need to come over here to pull a building permit for a fence. There should be a way to do it over there. There should be maybe a courthouse over there when we build out, if the population's doubled and it's in the eastern part of the county . Where will all those services be? So that's that vision build-out plan. The transit component. These towns, as they come on line, say Ave Maria, doesn't have a big transit component right now. Big Cypress is working with us to consider what it would be like. But if you don't include a real functional transit system on day one probably in the RLSA documents and then in the approval of the subsequent Page 11 February 26,2009 small towns and hamlets, you're setting yourselfup to fail later. And these folks know that, and they've recognized that that's the way we need to go. So I would say that we need to work towards that vision build-out plan. It's probably going to take us about a year. It's a lot of coordination. And a lot of the approvals of this RLSA kind of hinge on that making sense and working. So does that kind of answer your question? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It sort of does. Basically the issues that we're bringing up, the bigger facilities, jails, governmental centers, hospitals, the coordination of those, the integration of a transit system, that's one piece of the pie. The other piece is going to be what lands are those on, how do they consume or not consume credits and how does it figure into the amount of SRA acreage, let's say created. That's a whole separate discussion outside transportation. The concern that I think we have from -- on a transportation perspective is how are you protected in the language that's in front of us today to know that whatever comes out of this vision plan, which I believe now all these issues are going to be addressed in there, government centers, landfills. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, if that's a true statement and everything's in that vision plan, how is that locked in in your mind to this language in the GMP that's proposed? Have you reviewed that aspect of it? MR. CASALANGUIDA: It is. And you're talking about the funding stream a little bit, how you pay for all that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, I'm talking about the requirement to make sure that when that plan comes out, that RLSA has to abide by it. MR. CASALANGUIDA: It's loosely tied to it. It's not definitively tied to it. Reference is that through several of the points Page 12 February 26, 2009 that are in the RLSA language that you have now. It refers back to the vision build-out plan. It's not -- I mean, we worked with these folks on language, and we couldn't come up with something right now. Because, you know, asking them to commit to something that they haven't seen yet is difficult as the landowner's perspective. They don't know what that vision build-out plan is. And if they say that they will abide by it, they don't know what they're abiding to. So it's loosely tied back to that. So if you're asking me if there's a definitive time, no, it keeps referencing division build-out plan. When it's done, I think there will have to be language inserted either in the LDC or in the RLSA that ties it back to it, because then you'll know definitively what it is. But in their defense in talking to the folks at ECPO, how can I commit to RLSA language that ties me back to something I haven't seen yet? So there's that conundrum that they're dealing with with that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, the alternative or response to that would simply be then fine, if you don't want to commit to something you haven't seen, then show us something that you can commit to that addresses the issues that obviously are missing in a long-range planning perspective. MR. CASALANGUIDA: And the issue is you're going through this RLSA process today and you're looking for surety, and these folks want to wrap this up but, you know, that's my dilemma. I can't commit to everything that's in that RLSA language, because I don't know what the issues are going to be until I go through this process. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, but that takes a lot of things off the table contingent on the strength of the implication of the vision plan into this program. If that is not strong enough, then each one of these items has to be separately addressed in a paragraph somewhere for understanding in how it's going to apply in the future. So I guess that's something this committee, when we get into our paragraphs -- we did recommend some changes to strengthen the use Page 13 February 26,2009 of the vision plan. So maybe that will be strong enough to get a level of comfort until we get to the next level of review. MR. CASALANGUIDA: And correct me if I'm wrong, this is the RLSA five-year review, RLSA committee going to the board. The board may say -- direct staff to work with the RLSA committee or the Planning Commission or all the folks to bring all these things together over this next year before they adopt that language. Is that my understanding of the RLSA process, Tom? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: This is just a review of the committee's report. It isn't even a review yet of the data and analysis portion. I think what we would do -- hopefully expect is through data and analysis your department sits down and takes a harder look at this and needs to then solidify any lingering issues that you have as far as whether or not the vision plan is in there or not and if it isn't, then what's the alternative. So this is just the first review of the committee's report, it's the first bite of the apple. We have two more, if I'm not mistaken. Is that right, Tom? MR. GREENWOOD: If this goes forward into amendments, yes, transitional and adoption hearings. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Nick, there's one other large issue of yours and that is proportionate sharing. It's my understanding there's been attempts and there still are ongoing attempts to introduce a state-wide mobility fee in lieu of impact fees. The way that could evolve may change the ability for this community to have commitments from developers when they go in to build their lands. You had talked previously about a proportionate fair share language that would be put in here to assure us that if it's at the GMP level we could still negotiate DCA's and other instruments that help us get some kind of contributions from developers who are developing nearby lands and having impacts on our roads. I didn't see that language in here. Have you proposed any? Page 14 February 26,2009 MR. CASALANGUIDA: I have and I haven't. And here's the issue I have with that as well, too. Right now we've got Senate Bill 360 that's been, you know, tentatively blessed by the state senate that talks about eliminating DRI's and eliminating concurrency out in areas of critical concern or growIng areas. So we're dealing with language that's fluid right now at the state legislative level. I'm not comfortable with it. I also see that we're a one trick pony in terms of the county's funding stream. We rely heavily on impact fees and very little from any other source of revenue stream. So how to blend that all together to come up with proportionate share language that covers both the landowner's rights and the counties -- how do I say this? I told one of folks from ECPO, you know, I represent my board and I give them fiscal recommendation based on, you know, my perspective. How do I protect our board and the people of Collier County from fiscal issues as far as the RLSA is concerned? It's not easy. I'm going to try and come up with some language that they agree with that basically says you don't get to go unless the roads are in place, and if there's no funding in place, we've got to come up together and come up with some sort of DCA that's mutually agreeable to you and to the county. How do you craft that with such flexibility? I'll work with Jess to see if we can do something that they agree to that also protects us as well, too. But that's not an easy task, based on what we're dealing with right now. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, but we're here and now today, and we have to move something forward today. I suppose we could include language to the BCC that strongly recommends that we establish proportionate fair share language before final adoption or before transmittal for analysis. MR. CASALANGUIDA: That's fair. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But here today then you don't have any Page 15 February 26, 2009 suggestions as far as where and what to add? MR. CASALANGUIDA: We have some limited language in the RLSA that talks about the -- you know, prior to approval that they will be reviewed consistent with our current GMP 223, two percent impact, two percent impact, and that they will enter in an agreement with the county that defines the terms of proportionate share at that point in time. And the thought was in talking to the folks from ECPO and some of the attorneys that represent them is that with that language, it basically says you will enter in a DCA and that DCA will be flexible enough that at that point in time, depending on what the rules are, you would come back and negotiate with the county and come up with a DCA. It leaves a lot of opening on their end and on our end. And I believe this commission and the board will want that tightened up. We'll have to work on that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think that's a concern. Okay, well, that puts in -- I think one other item I need -- I have on my list. I mean, you basically have addressed the idea of transit facilities, the integrated transit system, the right-of-way between landowners, public transportation, because all that's going to be in the vision plan. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The location of landfills, jails, hospitals, government centers, shopping centers are all proposed to be in the vision plan. MR. CASALANGUIDA: They'll be in the vision plan or there'll be documents in that say, you know, towns of a certain size need to incorporate these uses, or by reference. I wouldn't go to dictate where a hospital is going to go other than you're going to need "X" amount per "X" amount of population. And that, you know, we keep reevaluating that every year, where are we at right now. Page 16 February 26,2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. The last thing is hurricane evacuation. Right now I think it's Chapter 163.3118 or something like that provides for no de minimis impact would be allowed if our hurricane evacuation routes have failed. That's been virtually ignored all the way up to the Regional Planning Council in Tallahassee because we have I-75 that's failed, and it's the main evacuation route and it hasn't been working for years below the adopted level of . servIce. It wouldn't be good to begin the RLSA with the same routine. We have a series of failed roads out there and at some point we're approving towns that cannot have -- that have a greater than de minimis impact on a road system that's failed as a hurricane evacuation route. How are you proposing to address that in the RLSA? MR. CASALANGUIDA: I can't. And the reason why that Florida statute is pretty much loosely followed is because nobody else can either. You wouldn't be approving building permits on Marco Island today for single-family homes if that was read literally. And I don't know at the Regional Planning Council level they understand the situation they've done. A hurricane evacuation plan about a year ago, Dan Trescott worked on that and it brought up all those failures. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But nobody responded to it. I mean, no one -- I know that nobody wants to do what the conclusion is, so we either change the law or we make sure we can avoid making it worse in the future, and that's where -- that's the question that I'm raising is, is there a way to plan the RLSA so that the road system and hurricane evacuation routes can be established and meet their level of concurrency before the towns and villages are created? MR. CASALANGUIDA: We're going to look at hurricane evacuation and send it up to the RPC for, you know, concern. But I don't think you could build a roadway network that, you know, would meet the 24-hour evacuation criteria. I don't think it's feasible. Page 17 February 26, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Fair enough. Thank you. Does anybody from the Planning Commission have any questions of transportation on any outstanding issues on the RLSA report at this point? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Nick, that was easier than I thought it would be. Are there any members of the public that have to comment on transportation issues, or would like to comment on transportation issues? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Nick, I appreciate your time. Thank you. Okay, the next item up for today, as we all know, there's been a lot of discussion about primary panther habitat. There's a report called the Kautz et al report. It's used by Fish & Wildlife service for their understanding of primary habitat. The document has been peer reviewed and it's got a series of authors, and I believe there's 11 of them on the Kautz paper. Two of those -- one or two of those authors are here today. And I'm not sure-- Mr. Tom Hoctor and Bob Kawula. I'd like to start out by asking these gentleman one at a time to address our concerns over their study. We certainly would like, for the record, to understand your background and your involvement in the study so that if anybody has to go back and question this, it's extremely clear as to what's going on. And with that, we'll get into the issue. We can at some point describe the concerns we've had. I don't know if you've been briefed on any of this. What has happened, is we have a lot of lines on a detailed map. Thank you. What's being passed out and for the record is a CV on Dr. Page 18 February 26,2009 Thomas Scott Hoctor. I may have said that wrong name-wise. There's been a lot of debate over how the lines were laid out. And in a document that we're dealing with, we've got to have some kind of criteria in which to establish primary panther habitat, whether it's real or not. Meaning if we have a relationship to a distance or an acreage or something that's required or a way to tell it, that becomes useful in a government tool that has to describe it. So that's where our ultimate goal is, is to find some definition that we can apply to a rule. And with that, Doctor, I certainly hope you can enlighten us. DR. HOCTOR: If you sort by -- we're trying to get the presentation up. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Doctor, part of your effort here today, if you could tell us how the paper was put together, what your involvement was so we understand your authority to speak out, we'd appreciate it. DR. HOCTOR: First of all, good morning, Commissioners. I'm going to apologize up-front, because I am suffering from a bad time cold. I got it yesterday. Yeah, you might want to sit further away. And it includes a pretty sore throat. So I'm going to hopefully get through this, but it does hurt to talk and I'm not quite 100 percent. And I hope to do the things that you've asked. Certainly I'll answer any questions that arise after my presentation. I'll try to keep this short, but I think it's important that you understand all of the things that the sub-team did and in brief. The sub-team process, it's been a while, so the exact dates are a little bit fuzzy for me. But we started our work in the early 2000's. The Florida panther sub-team -- the reason why it was called the sub-team, it was supposed to be part of the MERIT process, the Multi-species and Ecosystem Recovery Implementation Team. And I was both a member of the sub-team but also the landscape chair for MERIT as well. So that was for the South Florida Multi-species Recovery Plan that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service of course was overseeing that I Page 19 February 26, 2009 put together. And it was decided at that time that we needed an update on panther science and also identification of priority conservation areas to make sure that the only remaining panther population would hopefully remain viable. That's what we were asked to do by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. So we began our work about eight years or more ago and worked for three to four years. And then after that work was finished, we produced a sub-team report, but then based on that report we also published a scientific journal article. And this is actually the title of that journal article. Those are all of the co-authors. All of those people are members of the panther sub-team. And we'll go over briefly their expertise here in a minute. Bob Kawula is here from the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission. He was an unofficial member of the panther sub-team. He's the one who helped us with the nitty-gritty of the analyses, or at least most of the analyses that we did. And I think Bob is here -- I'm not sure ifhe's going to make a statement after me or ifhe's here to answer questions specifically, but he knows a little bit more about the specifics of the habitat analysis than I do. I'm more of the big picture guy. But we will get into some of the details. So this is a peer review journal. This is a science journal. Came out in 2006. You know, we had reviewers who reviewed it before it was submitted to the journal, we had anonymous reviewers who reviewed it for the journal. We had a revision that we did; it was accepted by this journal. It's a published scientific article. So it's been through an elaborate extensive review process. Next slide. And I think one of the key issues here, and I'll get into this in a little more detail, is a bit of an issue of scale. This is Seminole work done by Reed Noss and co-authors. It was published in the Journal of Conservation Biology in 1996. And I'm not going to read that quote Page 20 February 26, 2009 off. I may read a few others off later, but we'll let you take a look at that really quickly. I'll try to summarize. What N oss and his co-authors are saying is that for species, wide-ranging species, species that need very large areas to support viable populations, you're going to have to work at a regional landscape scale to effectively conserve those species. You need to work at a very large planning scale. That means looking at just beyond specifically what is habitat for that species; it means you've got to do integrated land use planning if you want to maintain these type of species. And that is accepted by everyone in the conservation biology field. Next slide. This slide includes Bob Kawula, that's why it's titled MERIT Panther Sub-team Members and Co-authors, since Bob is a co-author on the Scientific Journal article that was taken from the sub-team work. But everybody else here is a sub-team member. And you can see that we had a range of expertise, including obviously panther scientists, biologists. But also we had conservation planning represented, GIS data analysis, landscape modeling, mathematical habitat modeling, people who were working in the field with panthers as public land managers, biologists, team leader for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the recovery coordinator for the panther at the time, et cetera. People who had done population viability analyses, which is an important part of our work as well. It was a diverse group. A lot of the best specific panther expertise that we could get. And we worked in a consensus fashion, meaning that we discussed issues in detail for a number of years. We had some disagreements, we talked about those disagreements. We developed a set of consensus recommendations, what needed to be done to conserve the Florida panther population of Southwest Florida. Next slide. These are the sub-team goals. Our primary goal was to identify the areas essential to the long-term survival of the Florida panther in Page 21 February 26, 2009 the wild, which you'll see very quickly is equated to the primary zone, which is one of our three recommended habitat conservation zones. Quickly, I'm going to gloss over this in the presentation, but I want to make sure that you know that we had other tasks as well, including a task to identify a landscape linkage or wildlife corridor across the Caloosahatchee River to allow for potential dispersal and maybe range expansion north of the Caloosahatchee River at some point. We know that every effort needs to be made to try to expand this population so that we maximize its viability. It's barely viable right now. And I'll talk about that more in a minute. Identify areas that could be restored. Because again, we would like to try and expand the population to make it more viable. And all of this work was done in a best science consensus base reserve design process. And I'll explain some of those details. It wasn't just what is potential panther habitat, what are the areas that are needed to make sure this population survives in the long term. Next slide. And these are the various analyses we conducted. I will not go over the details, except for I'm going to show you the zones and talk about how we delineated them. But some of these habitat analyses I'm going to gloss over. And Bob's here, if anybody has a specific question, he can answer questions about those things. But we conducted different types of habitat analyses, like the compositional analyses. We modeled potential habitat patches. We delineated the habitat conservation zones, which is the primary, secondary and dispersal zones. We conducted a review of population viability analysis and ran a new viability analysis. And we developed a comprehensive set of conservation recommendations. And one of the things that you should know is that there was, again, a sub-team report and then the journal article. The journal article includes some of our core conservation recommendations, but Page 22 February 26, 2009 we had a conservation recommendation section in the report that was well over 20 pages. It includes all kinds of recommendations including, you know, the need to work with landowners on private lands that are in panther primary habitat, that it was extremely important. I think all of those recommendations are just as relevant today as they were then. And that's something that's sort of been lost is the fact that we worked very hard to come up with a comprehensive set of recommendations. I'll focus on the ones that deal with the zones specifically today and a couple others. Next slide. So after doing all of our habitat analysis, using telemetry data, doing various -- comparing various scientific methods, including compositional analysis, including distance analysis, looking at the relationship between panther home ranges, telemetry data and land cover data, we came up with a base habitat model. And this represents that habitat model, which is pretty simple. It's forest patches that are too hectares or larger, which is about five acres. And then all non-urban cover types within 200 meters of those forest patches. So the green that you see are the forest patches. At this scale it's kind of hard to see, but you might see a little bit of light brown, especially north of the Big Cypress Florida National Panther Wildlife Refuge area. Those are those other cover types within 200 meters of those forest patches. Now, important to -- this is the base. This is the starting point for identification of the various habitat conservation zones. This is one of the modeling layers that helped us do that. Next slide. And so then we went through the process of identifying three zones: The primary zone, the dispersal zone, the secondary zone. The quote at the bottom of this slide is from the journal article. And it says, the primary, dispersal and secondary zones comprise essential components of a landscape-scale conservation plan for the protection of a viable Florida panther population in South Florida. Now, again, there's some details there. But it's suggesting that all Page 23 February 26,2009 of these zones have a role to play in making sure that we can protect a truly viable population. And I'll explain what I mean by that here in a minute. Next slide. So this is the zone that you are all most interested in for this process. And it was certainly the zone that we made very clear that this was by far our highest priority as well. Although the dispersal zone's also important and then the secondary zone, and I'll talk about them very briefly. But the definition of the primary zone is all lands within this zone are essential to the long-term viability and survival of the Florida panther. So that doesn't mean just forest patches, you know, it means this entire landscape. And we'll talk about that more in this presentation. And we're talking about a landscaped scale species, wide-ranging, needs an extremely large area. Very sensitive to human activities. Affected by transportation infrastructure and cars. It can roam over areas of agricultural land using those areas to connect forest patches in places where they're trying to get prey within existing home ranges. They use agricultural areas for dispersal. And we knew that as a team that if we were going to protect a viable population, we were going to have to identify a landscape-scaled reserve design. So the current population in the zone represents the foundation of one of the self-sustaining populations. Well, the recovery plan requires, if you're going to delist panthers, that you have three self-sustaining populations. Of course this is the only breeding population currently and it may always only be the one population that's breeding. It may be hard to reestablish panthers elsewhere. But we made it very clear that that makes this population in our recommendations extremely important. And another quote from the journal article, the habitat of the Florida panthers, an extensive landscape comprised of a mix of natural, semi natural and agricultural land uses. Page 24 February 26, 2009 So again, we're recognizing that all of these things fit the pictures of what panther habitat is and that they are important for maintaining a viable population. Next slide. This slide is intended to give you an indication of how the primary zone boundaries were delineated. This is a draft version of the primary zone. This went through a couple of iterations, a long process, including the original delineation with a standard methodology and the primary building blocks for delineating the boundaries of the primary zone, which are of course the lines -- the very thick lines in red are the boundaries of the primary zone. And the data sets that we used as the base for helping us delineate these boundaries included the forest patches in 200 meters of other land uses around them in our base habitat model. Telemetry data are the blue dots you see, so we also used telemetry data. And we also used information on overlapping home ranges of panthers. So this standard methodology was applied consistently across the region to identify the areas that were most consistently used by panthers and fit the definition of areas essential to maintain a viable population. Next slide. And this is what the primary zone in its final form looks like. It does include approximately 500,000 acres plus of private lands, but most of it of course is on public lands. Next slide. And this is one of the core issues that I think is potentially relevant. And I have been briefed to some extent on some of the things that have been said, but I haven't heard everything. I think it's important for you to know that I don't get paid to work on panther issues. I was a volunteer on the panther sub-team, so this is not work that I am continuing to do, and I'm not paid to do any of the work that we did on the panther sub-team or the production of the journal article. So some of this I've had to review to make sure I remember how we did what we did. But this is probably the core issue, based on what I've heard and Page 25 February 26, 2009 some of the things that I've read. And this is not a new issue. We talked about this during the sub-team process those years ago. And this was the difference between this base map of potential habitat, the forest patches and the 200 meters of non-urban land uses around them in a true reserve design, or landscape approach to identifying the areas that were important for protecting a viable population. And what this quote on the left-hand side of this map -- so that map represents, I've already showed it to you once, represents the potential habitat, again, the forest matches two hectares or larger, plus a 200-meter buffer. And we acknowledge that this was an important building block. But just identifying these areas was not enough. And just to highlight this, look at the white areas that are on that map in Collier and Hendry County that are interspersed with what's being identified as potential habitat and envision most of that as intensive land uses, urban some day . We knew if that happened, the Florida panther population would likely go extinct, that it was not sufficient to limit habitat identification and recommendations for conservation only on this map. So what the quote says and I'll read it: Whereas, the model in figure four -- and this is a version of figure four from our journal article -- indicates habitat patches providing important cover for panthers, the zones integrate the patches into a connected landscape mosaic of land cover types needed to support the population. So by zones we're talking about the primary zone primarily, but also the secondary and dispersal zone. Next slide. Dispersal zone, just very quickly, it became very clear for from a population viability perspective, if you could get a breeding population, even a small one, north of the Caloosahatchee River, that could help augment viability quite a bit. So one of our goals, to make sure there was always that opportunity for that to happen, and that if a population is established there, that there would be a chance potentially for interchange, genetic interchange across the Page 26 February 26, 2009 Caloosahatchee River. So we identified a dispersal zone. Next slide. Again, very quickly, I'm not going to go over all these details, but obviously we went over characteristics of functional wildlife corridors and specifically for cougars/panthers. A lot of this work came from Paul Byer out in Southern California, but this is just ways we went to look for a potentially functional corridor, including one that would be wide enough. Next slide. And the area outlined in blue over satellite image is the dispersal zone. And you can see that it's a mosaic. It includes some forested lands, but it includes a lot of open agricultural lands, a lot of pasture. But one of the reasons why we decided to identify this zone at that time, three panthers have been documented to cross in this area. They had used this area to get to the Caloosahatchee River and cross it to go further north. Next slide. The secondary zone was primarily identified because there was occasionally some panther telemetry out beyond the bounds of the primary zone, but not areas that were being used regularly. We knew that we needed to try and expand the population, so we identified a secondary zone where you might have the opportunity to do that, especially if there was habitat restoration. And we'll talk about that a little bit more in a minute. However, we also need to recognize that development in the secondary zone could impact habitat quality within the primary zone. In areas directly adjacent to the primary zone you could have some loss of habitat quality because of intensive development within areas of the secondary zone. But the primary reason we identified this zone is where the areas we could do habitat restoration, maybe expand the population. And then the quote, although sub-team members consider the secondary zone to be a lower priority than the primary and dispersal zones, the security of the population could be significantly enhanced by its protection and restoration of at least some areas in the zone. Page 27 February 26, 2009 Again, to help expand the population. Next slide. And identification of the secondary zone, again, highlights some of these ideas that it's not as simple as just forest patches and 200-meter buffer. These are all -- I'm not going to go over all these individually, but we would call these landscape indices. These are all the different things that could influence panther habitat quality, including how close are you to those potential habitat patches we identified in that base map, the size of those potential areas, proximity to urban areas, obviously habitat quality is degraded, very near to urban land uses. We want low intensity land uses and we want low road densities. Next slide. And so this is the cumulative map with the green again the primary zone, the blue the dispersal zone, the yellow the secondary zone. Next slide. And as we were doing this delineation of zones, we also reviewed existing population viability analyses, that's what PV A stands for. And we did our own new population viability analysis. And what that modeling showed us is that at the time we estimated the population to be 80 to 100 animals, roughly. That may be a little bit higher now, but at the time that's what we were working with. And that meant that overall the Southwest Florida landscape had a barely viable to moderately viable population, just on the cusp of viability. Any significant loss in habitat catastrophe, you could see this population go extinct. Next slide. And based on density estimates for panthers, and those density estimates were also related to density estimates of cougars, mountain lions in other areas. And these density estimates were in the range of those density estimates. These were the numbers that we applied to each of the zones. So the 71 to 84 that you see in the middle of the primary zone, that's how many panthers we thought at the time that the primary zone could support. Maybe in the limited habitat available within the secondary zone, nine to 10 animals, and again, the dispersal Page 28 February 26,2009 zone is intended for dispersal, it's not large enough to support a single panther, at least not permanent occupation. So again, remember, those numbers in the last slide -- could we go back to the last slide really quickly? 71 to 84 panthers in the primary zone. That puts you just on the edge of that range again of barely viable to moderately viable. And then the next slide. So the conservation implications of the culmination of that this is a landscape species that needs extremely large areas to support viable populations, that we know it's sensitive to human activities, that we need to maintain a landscape that has high ecological integrity and very low influence regarding human land uses, number of humans, general human activities, that these were the various conservation implications that we came up with in the report. The three zones could support 79 to 94 panthers potentially. There is a high probability of persistence of this population if you assume that there's no significant habitat loss in the primary zone, that population expansion actually does occur into the secondary zone and there are no unforeseen catastrophes. The population may be stable but it also might decline slightly, but only without significant habitat loss. The population is small enough that it's still going to have genetic problems. You really need 240 or more animals to have a population that's likely to have healthy genetics. So we realize that a continued genetic management may be necessary. And that's also in the new recovery plan that recently came out. Again, another relevant quote from the science paper: Thus it appears that the primary zone, a large landscape consisting of a matrix of natural and disturbed cover types -- disturbed cover types meaning primarily agricultural land uses in a lot of pasture -- provides just enough space to support a population that is barely viable demographically, as long as the base remains stable. Next slide. So I apologize for the small text on this slide, but I think this is Page 29 February 26,2009 the core issue. It's something that you're probably most interested in. These were our recommendations for the primary zone. And the key one is because the relationship to population viability and the small size of the population. We made it very clear, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, that the key, the most important goal was no net loss of landscape function or carrying capacity. That means the ability of the primary zone to support a viable population. And to do that, the factors that you need to consider include avoidance of land use change and intensification within the primary zone. Notice that it says avoid in all cases. The idea here is that you want to avoid land use conversion within the primary zone. And the four factors that we identified to help guide U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service activities included avoid reduction or degradation of the habitat base, avoid reduction in total area, avoid landscape fragmentation, avoid land use intensification, including transportation infrastructure. What we mean by this is that any loss within the primary zone, you would have to find areas, especially within the secondary zone, where you could restore habitat and add it to the primary zone, if there were any impacts within the primary zone. So then we said when impacts are unavoidable, you need both habitat restoration or enhancement in the primary zone and you need to secure and restore lands in the secondary zone that are adj acent to the primary zone that can be added to the primary zone boundaries. And again two relevant quotes. The first one from the report -- I mean from the journal article: The maintenance of existing home ranges and habitat function within the primary zone is essential to maintaining a viable Florida panther population. And this was reiterated in the recent revision of the Panther Recovery Plan: 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 Page 30 February 26, 2009 continued loss of habitat functionality through fragmentation and loss of spatial extent pose serious threats to the conservation and recovery of the panther. There's no quibbling there in terms of what we think needs to be done with the primary zone. Next slide. And just one added recommendation. This actually comes from, I mentioned, the recommendation section of the sub-team report. It's from that report, it's not from the journal article. We're also very concerned about the intensification of transportation infrastructure. And our blanket recommendation was to avoid construction of new roads and the widening of existing roads in all panther habitat zones, obviously with the most focus being on the primary zone. Retrofit existing roads to minimize roadkills and to maximize connectivity between blocks of habitat bisected by roads. So we're talking about avoiding intensification and new transportation structures and retrofitting existing roads. Next slide. I just wanted to show you just as an example -- you know, I do work with the GeoPlan Center at the University of Florida -- and I apologize, I didn't say my affiliation, and I'm not sure that information was given to you. I am director of the center for landscape and conservation planning at the University of Florida. It's in the college of design construction and planning at the University of Florida. I got my Ph.D. in wildlife ecology and conservation at the University of Florida. And I've worked on both of course panther issues but also have done a lot of work for the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission on identifying state-wide habitat conservation priorities for the Florida black bear, worked with the Critical Lands and Waters Identification project state-wide that some of you have probably heard about. Worked with the Nature Conservancy on their regional planning project, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and others. But I also work with Peggy Carr and Paul Zwick in the GeoPlan Page 31 February 26, 2009 Center in the DCP college. You are probably familiar with their Florida 2060 work, which is just a very core statewide growth projection model showing you how things might look if we continue to grow the way we're growing, using the BEBR projections for each county, the projections in growth. ' Some of you may have already seen this; They did in the last few years a more specific model comparing different growth scenarios and conservation scenarios for Southwest Florida. I'm just going to show you a couple of slides. Next slide. These are the BEBR -- the projections. They used BEBR as the base for these projections and then had to project out to 2060. I'm sure you're familiar with the numbers for Collier County, but an estimate of 600,000 new people by 2060. Obviously that's a lot. And in this entire region you're talking about a potential increase by 2060 of two million people. What they did in these scenarios is look at different scenarios of development, sort of baselined the way we grow today versus what does alternative transportation or mass transit do for us. What if we do redevelopment to increase densities? What if we protect more land than we have right now? And what if we combine all these things together? Next slide. What they found is, as you can imagine, even small increases in the density of existing development in terms of number of people per acre greatly reduces land consumption. Alternative mass transit also helps encourage higher densities. And the key finding related to what we're talking about today is this: In one of their conservation scenarios, they included the entire panther primary zone, and they showed that if you increased densities within this entire region that there was sufficient land to meet the needs of all of those additional people, two million more people, and still protect an additional one million acres of conservation land, including the entire primary zone. So again, just an aside that, you know, there is this idea that at a Page 32 - February 26, 2009 regional scale with good planning that you could accommodate all future development or development needs without impacting any area inside the existing primary zone. Next slide. That's it. And if you have any questions? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, I'm sure there's a lot of questions. I've made a lot of notes myself And just to give everybody a heads up, at 10:00 we will take a break for 15 minutes so the court reporter can take a break for her fingers and then we'll go on after that. So as we keep that in mind, we'll move forward and we'll first entertain questions from the Planning Commission. Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: What is genetic management? DR. HOCTOR: Genetic management. Recently female cougars from Texas were brought into the Florida panther population to try and restore genetic diversity. So that's one form. The idea here was to try and increase the genetic health of the population. And one of our recommendations was that I think every generation, that you might need to bring in two more females to manage the genetics of the population. It's to maintain its diversity, maintain its heterozygosity, which are measures of genetic health. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: This might sound too easy, but ifthe magic number you're looking for is 250 for self-sustainability, can't you just bring in 175 more? DR. HOCTOR: Not the purpose of the panther sub-team process -- the answer is no. You know, again, remember, we talked about carrying capacity, and we think that we're close to the carrying capacity of Southwest Florida. So if you brought those animals in, there wouldn't be enough land, enough food for them all to make it. We're trying to expand the population, but that's going to require establishing panthers north of the Caloosahatchee River where there isn't currently a breeding population, and also potentially habitat Page 33 - February 26, 2009 restoration and an expansion of established home ranges into the secondary zone as well. So it's not -- and when we start talking about things like that, we're talking about, you know, the difference between sustaining a population in the wild and very intensive aggressive management approaches, which is not the primary goal here. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Questions? Mr. Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: You showed -- do I deserve two? I don't have that much to say. From your maps, these forest patches that you showed, showed Collier County mostly covered with forest patches. Well, there's a heck of a lot more ago land than there are forest patches, the last time I went driving out there. I don't know where that comes from, but I'm sure there's a reason for it. You don't have to answer it, I just wanted to throw that up, that it makes Collier County look less than what it is. DR. HOCTOR: There is a lot of forest in the county. Remember, those biggest patches in the southern half or southern two-thirds of the county, most of that's on public land. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Well, sure, I do understand that. Yeah, we already went through the bringing in more cats. I just -- you know, most of this RLSA has panther, panther, panther all the way through it and we're trying to protect it and protect it. And I'm trying to figure out why. Why the panther and why not the hundreds of species that are going extinct through the process of probably every day hundreds come and hundreds go. I don't __ DR. HOCTOR: Well, one of the good things about a species like the Florida panther requiring as much land as it needs for a viable population is we would call both the Florida panther in this state, the Florida panther and the Florida black bear umbrella species, which means if you protect viable habitat to maintain a viable population for Page 34 - - February 26, 2009 the Florida panther, all those other species that you're talking about, the vast majority of them would also be protected. You would also have viable populations for them as well. There may be a few endangered plants that don't overlap with panthers and a few things, but the vast majority of those species would be protected by panther habitat protection too. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: All right. I just have a difficult time with it. It almost seems like we're forcing them to stay where they may not want to be. And, you know, certainly from Texas they gladly let their cougars, bobcats, whatever you want to call them, since they do an awful lot of hunting for them there. And just one second here. Oh, in your study, did you look at what the landscape would look like if the Florida panther were not here? In other words, if it was allowed to go extinct, did you look at what would happen if it went extinct? DR. HOCTOR: No, sir. I mean, I covered the goals of the panther sub-team, and we were given very clear goals by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and it was to identify the habitat base, conservation areas that would be needed to support a viable population. So we didn't look at any other scenario like that. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: In other words, the worst case scenario, the panther went away. Everything that we've spent hundreds of millions of dollars on, these hundred and however many cats there are. I mean, what would happen if, you know, we spent all that money and they went away? That's __ DR. HOCTOR: I understand the questions that you're asking, but these are really on the level of should there be an Endangered Species Act at the federal level or not. And the pros and cons, the cost benefits, that's all federal Endangered Species Act considerations debate which I think is really beyond the scope. I mean, for your group, certainly, that's something that you can talk about. But be aware of the potential implications of the Endangered Species Act. Page 35 - February 26, 2009 But that was not the purpose of our analysis. We were asked to do something very specific by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and I'm really here to answer questions about that work and the conservation zones we identified. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: All right. Well, just my engineering, what happens if, you know. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But David, let's focus on panther questions. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I understand. I'm wondering why we have so many panther questions. But anyway, go ahead. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You don't have anymore? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I'm done, thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, Mr. Schiffer, then Mr. Murray. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: How does golf courses fit into the panther habitat? DR. HOCTOR: You know, we talk about -- one of the things that was very clear that, you know, the intensification of human activity is one of the concerns we have in terms of protecting a population in the long term, a viable population. In theory, golf courses could be part of a buffer for panthers, et cetera. But there is a lot of human activity, or at least if your golf course is doing well, I hope there's a lot of human activity. Currently today in terms of the relationship between existing golf courses and where panthers are, it's not something that we dealt with directly in the panther sub-team work and not something that I've been looking at or analyzing. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Thanks. I'm done. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Doctor, in order to secure the viability at that 200 range, you spoke about corridors and then you spoke about density under Smart Growth principles, presumably. What actual density would have to be held at in order to assure Page 36 - February 26, 2009 that viability? DR. HOCTOR: What density we would have to maintain panthers at? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yeah, I'm asking you to basically to give us, if you know, what the projection would be for just outside the corridors along roads, et cetera, what kind of density utilization by people would be necessary. What numbers? In other words, you might have -- DR. HOCTOR: How low would the density of humans need to be to maintain functional panther habitat and not have a negative effect on the quality of habitat adjacent. I mean, there's a couple of ways to look at that. One is some of the habitat -- it's very course, but some of the habitat modeling that's been for panthers, other species, one of the things we use when identifying the secondary zone is that zone of one kilometer, you know, .6 miles with it near existing urban land use was considered to be an area where you might have the lowest habitat quality. So in terms of adjacencies, you know, we're talking about a scale o:f, you know, hundreds of meters up to a kilometer where there's an area of concern, a primary concern of intensive development right next to panther habitat. But these things admittedly are very course. In terms of the panther corridor, I put up a slide very quickly that talked about maintaining a functional panther corridor. Now, this is in the corridor itself, but the work that Paul Byer did suggested that any density of human dwellings above one unit per 40 acres would negatively affect the function of the corridor itself But that's a little bit different. He's talking about within the corridor. Ideally you have no houses within the corridor. And ideally, you know, you'd have no houses within the corridor itselfbut, you know, it would require a very low density. And the type of planning that we do, ideally the way you would do this is you have zones of intensity that would grade from preserved Page 37 February 26,2009 habitat to very low intensity uses to moderately intent uses to highly intensive uses. It's that idea of zoning, conservation zoning that would maintain buffers that would help maintain panther habitat quality. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, Doctor, one of the issues that was raised and why you're here is associated with questions as to how wide a true corridor needs to be and also the interface of parks and golf courses and such for estimated future development. And in order to assure -- and I think our target is viability, not sustenance, that's what I'm trying to get at, if you appreciate where I'm going. So you're saying that the heaven, as it were, would be less __ one in 40. And a corridor needs to be, some people have said, I don't know, 300 meters or something of that nature. DR. HOCTOR: We can go back to the slide. There are -- some ofthe -- if we could go back to the corridor slide. There are a couple of the width recommendations on that slide. And based on Paul Byer's work in Southern California where he did very intensive tracking of cougars that he had collared, on-the-ground tracking and his empirical work suggested some __ it should be closer to the end. There it was. One back. You see at the bottom -- and you're in this range. And I think this is something that the existing science review team is working on. But these are general recommendations. That first width, the second one from the bottom is the Paul Byer recommendation, based on his intensive empirical work. Reed Noss, in the work that he's done on wildlife corridors has suggested at a larger scale. You know, keep in mind that these recommendations for these smaller widths are for corridors that are under seven kilometers. So maybe about five miles or less in length. And then when you start talking about corridors that are larger than that, needing to start thinking about protecting wider corridors. This is sort of a moderate recommendation, the Reed Noss one, of something that needs to be a mile wide. But then some of the other Page 38 - February 26,2009 works suggest that if you really want regional corridors or landscaped scaled corridors, you need to start protecting or thinking about corridors that start approximating the size of a home range, which is even larger. I didn't think we'd talk about corridors that much today, so I didn't include all of those different widths. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, I may be in error, but I believe some of the issues have been in argument about width of corridors being sufficient to assure at least mobility, let alone preservation. And so I think that one of the things I was hoping to get from you -- but I've gotten it from you, apparently. Ideally -- now, this is for sustaining the population. DR. HOCTOR: No, these are specifically for protecting functional corridors that panthers will use to move through. I mean, once we start talking about protecting viable population, we have to talk about all those other issues, about how many animals we need, how much space they need, what land uses can be in or near that area, et cetera. So this is just one very specific aspect of a plan, and the various guidelines we use to specifically define or delineate the dispersal zone in our work. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions from the Planning Commission at this point? Mr. Midney? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yeah, earlier on we heard testimony that the proposed habitat stewardship areas would encompass about 91 percent of the panther telemetry points, basically covering the forested areas, wetland and upland. And the speaker said that if you can protect 91 percent of the telemetry points, then you've pretty much protected the panthers. What would your comment be on that? DR. HOCTOR: If you protected 91 percent of all telemetry locations, that means you can protect a viable population. Page 39 I February 26, 2009 Well, it's certainly not a population viability analysis. And, you know, you're talking about telemetry datas coming from a number of animals. Some animals have many more telemetry locations than others. So it's very misleading. If that's really the statement that was made, the idea that by protecting a certain percentage of telemetry locations, that would protect a viable population, it doesn't necessarily add up. There's other analyses that you would have to do. That's not the way you'd go about doing it. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: In the same presentation, they were talking about two different methods of estimating home ranges. And I hope I'm not boring too many people, but just to get into it, they were talking about a convex polygon home range versus a fixed kernel home range. Basically the polygon would mean that you'd encompass more land around it and the kernel you'd just sort of pick close to the areas where you have the telemetry points. Could you talk about that a little? DR. HOCTOR: Minimum convex polygons and fixed kernel. I'm actually -- this is where Bob gets to do his thing. This is the work that he did. I know something about these and do it with bear work, but he's the one who did this work for the panther sub-team. I'm going to let him talk about that a little bit more and I might have a followup comment. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I'd like to finish questions with you first, Doctor, and then we'll bring him up -- yeah, we'll just bring that question back up when the other gentleman comes up. DR. HOCTOR: What I can say for now, if that's related to a delineation of the primary zone, we use three things: We use the base habitat map, the forest patches and 200 meters around them, we use telemetry data and we used overlapping home ranges. And we did use MCP home ranges for that analysis. But we did not rely on that alone. It was three different datasets that were used. So some of this, you know, comparison of the two methods for Page 40 February 26, 2009 the -- the purposes that we created the primary zone is -- I'll defer to Bob. But again, we didn't rely just on the MCP home ranges when we delineated the primary zone. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I have another question for you. How important are prairies, pasture lands and marshes to the panthers? DR. HOCTOR: Important. Both from the standpoint of the landscape context of these forest patches, but they need to move through those areas, so for connectivity. And also for prey production. Open areas are very important for deer especially, which is a primary food source. So they are important components of the landscape. ' There was the one quote I had in the presentation at some point that talked about the primary zone being a mosaic of both forested and open land covers. And that mosaic was essential for protecting the population. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Because I guess most of the telemetry points were -- had some sort of forested cover. But what you're seeming to suggest is that you need more than just the forested areas in order to preserve the population. DR. HOCTOR: Yes. Everything that we know about this species, it cannot be just about forest. Like the primary point I made with comparing the base habitat map with the primary zone, that's a key consideration, that you cannot limit it to identification of forest and assume that everything around those forest patches can be developed and you're going to conserve this population. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Questions from the Planning Commission? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, Doctor, I have a series of questions. And I need to know if the staff has that pointer that's here. First of all, Doctor, you had said that during the discussion this is the only breeding population. Is it the only one in the world for this species? Page 41 February 26,2009 DR. HOCTOR: Florida panther is a subspecies, but yes, it's the only breeding population of Florida panthers in the world. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: One of the maps you showed, and it wasn't the one showing the forest vegetation, it was the one after that. Could we get that one back on the screen? Keep going. Well, yeah, that one will work. This is Golden Gate Estates, I believe. And the RLSA, that probably is Immokalee. That means the RLSA is out here. By this map it seems to identify -- DR. HOCTOR: Could I use the pointer? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Could you use this? Sure, we'll loan it back to you. DR. HOCTOR: Yeah, maybe we have a handkerchief or something. I'm not trying to infect anybody. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What I was getting at is it appears that the entire RLSA is primary zone, and now we've been passed out another document -- DR. HOCTOR: This map should help clarify that. I think this map shows the RLSA boundary in relation to primary and secondary zone. I think the white area represents Immokalee. So this gives you a little bit -- this focuses it down and -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. First of all, in order to qualify this map, is this a map that you recognize to be consistent with the analysis of the primary zones that you did for your study? DR. HOCTOR: Well, with the caveat that I haven't studied the RLSA boundaries or plan in detail. But in terms of the -- if you're asking me the general -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: For the primary and secondary zones shown here. DR. HOCTOR: In terms of the representation of the primary and secondary zone on this map, it appears to be the same data. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So when that larger map was Page 42 February 26, 2009 shown by all the green areas showing it as primary, really when you focus it down it's not just primary, it's a combination of primary, dispersal, open areas and secondary. DR. HOCTOR: Well, in this zoom-in, the dispersal zone is off the map. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. DR. HOCTOR: But yes, in the area of your primary interest, we're talking about a combination of primary and secondary zone. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. You had referenced, and I heard it again, that from the wooded areas, and let's say the wooded areas then that you were referring to were primary, and I need you to verify that, the distance in which that would still be considered primary outside the wooded areas would be 200 meters; is that correct? DR. HOCTOR: Yes. The general method -- or the standard methodology for this process was to take those three primary data layers, which again was the forest patches, the telemetry data and the overlapping home ranges to delineate these boundaries. And it included consideration of that 200-meter buffer. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So if we have an uplands area that's forested and it's accepted as primary panther habitat, then as a safeguard we can be reasonably assured that 200 meters around that area, even if it goes into agricultural fields that are actively row crops, that's still considered primary panther habitat? DR. HOCTOR: If it was in areas that fit in the -- with the data that we used to delineate the zones, the answer is yes, there could be tomato fields, active crop lands, citrus groves that could be included within the primary zone. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, because that's rather important. The debate is really rested on whether the open lands, which are including agricultural lands, can be or are considered primary panther habitat. And from what I've just heard, in those cases where there is a 200-meter distance from a known accepted primary panther uplands Page 43 February 26, 2009 forested area, those ago fields then would qualify as primary panther habitat. DR. HOCTOR: Well, let's make sure we're all-- it is a little bit confusing, but -- clear on the terminology . We have typically called the map that we used as -- one of the three data layers to create the primary zone boundary is the forest patches plus the 200 meters. What you have are probably people are saying that's panther habitat and nothing beyond that is panther habitat. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. DR. HOCTOR: The difference is, is that the primary zone is the area needed to conserve a viable population. So there is a slight difference. But the key is if you're talking about what we need to do to conserve this population, the primary zone identifies those areas. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, the only way we could lock down a primary zone for purposes of land use characteristics in a code is to put some kind of numeric distance or value in relationship to another. And that's why I'm getting at this issue of say 200 meters. It's so important that we understand that where there is acknowledged primary uplands, and that hasn't been in dispute, that any area within 200 meters of that, such as the agricultural areas, are considered part of that primary area. And that's an important definition that we needed to find out. And I think we've been trying to do that for three or four days now. Could you put up the second drawing that I have -- gave you, the smaller one? Would you blow up the area around Ave Maria to the south where it says Oil Well Road? Okay. Now, looking at this map and looking at the one that was previously up there, it's a little easier to see how some of this map was brought about. But what I was mostly concerned about -- and someone took my pointer again. We have budget restrictions here at the county and they limited pointers this year. Right here, there's a dip in the yellow. And the yellow represents Page 44 February 26,2009 areas that are open, not primary. And in here there's blue and over here there's blue. I know that's a one minute example, but I couldn't understand how that dip, how that peninsula going into the blue could be part -- not considered primary but the blue around it on both sides of it was primary. And I know that there's probably a logical explanation, but I'm trying to understand how the concept of primary is determined if you have points and proj ections like that that kind of separate it out. DR. HOCTOR: Well, I'm looking at if this is similar to what you're talking about. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It is. And you have the same situation occurring on this. DR. HOCTOR: I'm having trouble seeing the blue. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Could you put the other one back up and we can pick a similar point in the other one. Now that I've -- this is the area right here. Go ahead and move that one over now. Put the-- the one on the right needs to come up on the screen, if you could. That one there. Like this point here. It's primary over here, it's primary over here, but for some reason that little point is not. That just kind of makes you wonder, how did this come about? DR. HOCTOR: Well, again, there was a standard methodology. It included using those three different data layers: The telemetry locations, the forest patches with the 200-meter buffer, and the overlapping home ranges. And based on the combination of those data layers, I don't know what's going on in that little peninsula, but it didn't fall within the primary area using our consistent methodology. That's all I can tell you. I mean, I haven't compared our maps with your RLSA maps, so I have not looked at these area in the kind of detail that you have. But again, we were applying a consistent methodology throughout the region. Page 45 February 26, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: When you -- when someone wants to utilize primary for some reason, is there a successful way of mitigating the primary and still retain the viability that you're looking for? DR. HOCTOR: Our -- could we go back to the slide that talks about primary zone recommendations? It's towards the end. Keep going. That's it. Thank you. Well, we do of course talk about avoiding impacts at all -- you know, if at all possible, you want to avoid the impacts up-front. If it's not necessary to impact the primary zone, why impact the primary zone? But we recognized that there was a chance the way things work, that some impacts might occur within the primary zone, whether it be new development, residential commercial, et cetera, or new roads, that it could happen. And in those situations, we set pretty strict criteria. Because we're talking about two different things: One was habitat restoration or enhancement in the primary zone. That means, you know, again, you talk about the question about forest, that we would like -- the more forest in the primary zone the better, that you could help increase habitat quality by having more forest cover types within the primary zone. But what we're really keyed in on is the fact that given the size of the population and that we were just on the verge of a viable population or just around a viable population, we also said that it wasn't enough just to restore forest or recreate forest in the primary zone, we also said that you needed to identify areas of the secondary zone adjacent to the primary zone that could be protected, and if needed restored into primary panther cover types as well. So the idea here is that you're trying to maintain the habitat base and the aerial extent of the primary zone. So if you lose 5,000 acres in the primary zone, let's just say hypothetically, that you would need to identify a suitable area in the secondary zone adjacent to the primary Page 46 February 26, 2009 zone where you could do enough habitat restoration and add that area to the primary zone boundary. And that's -- you know, you have to find willing owners that are adjacent to the primary zone. It's not necessarily very easy, but we were fairly strict with if you're going to do mitigation what you were going to have to do to maintain the carrying capacity of the primary zone. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Now, it's my understanding your paper, or the paper of the group of you has been utilized by Florida Wildlife Service as a way to determine primary zones and permitting processes and things like that pursuant to the Endangered Species Act; is that -- DR. HOCTOR: That's my general understanding. There are other people who have stayed more in touch with the way the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service have used the panther sub-team's work. But my understanding is that they are using it. They're basing -- they've created a habitat evaluation model I think that was based on one of our recommendations. But even more importantly, it is the basis for a lot of the recommendations within the recovery plan, the new recovery plan, which again is a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service document, which included a whole nother set of scientists, some of the people on the sub-team who adopted many of the recommendations we made in the sub-team report. So it is being used. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Doctor, I have a few more questions, but we're at a break point for the court reporter. I'd like to finish and try to keep it as short as I can. I know you're not feeling well. My intentions from the public's perspective, we're going to hear from the other scientist who is here today. When both are finished and the Planning Commission's finished, I'll ask for comments from the public and then we'll move on with the day. So we'll take a 15-minute break and be back here at 10:17. Thank you, Doctor. Page 47 February 26, 2009 (Recess. ) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, if everybody will please take their seats, we'd like to move on with our discussion. Okay, Dr. Hoctor was still on -- if we could have a few more questions, Doctor, we sure would appreciate it. And I still have the pointer, the one allocated budget pointer that this committee was allowed to have. Where I had left off, discussing the use of your paper by the Fish & Wildlife Service. We have a series of permits, either issued or applied for, for some jurisdiction or areas within the RLSA, Ave Maria being one, the town of Big Cypress is another one that's coming up for approval. We're not here to weigh the pros and cons of either one of those today. That will be -- one's already done, the other's for the future. But in the case of Ave Maria or any application that's in the SRA that has secondary and primary impacts, how does an agency review those in relationship to your paper? I mean, by the fact that they've accepted your paper, does that mean that that paper then by their review is locked in to whatever their approval process is? Because that's an important consideration in the way we would look at things. Because no matter what we do, we can't override the state or the federal government in regards to how they view things. Can you shed some light on how they use your paper? DR. HOCTOR: I'm afraid I cannot. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is obviously the most relevant area. The Corps of Engineers obviously would get involved too, but coordinating with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. I only know in general that we are using our zones and recommendations to guide their review and their mitigation policies. There are other people who know a lot more than I do. It's just I have not admittedly kept up to date with the specifics of how the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's policies have changed since the sub-team did its Page 48 February 26, 2009 work. I really don't know the details. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The next gentlemen I believe works for that Fish & Wildlife Service, or -- DR. HOCTOR: Well, he works for the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission, which is the state agency. And he's not necessarily going to know the answers to that either. There are other people in this room who are working with the specifics of -- you know, not from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, but again, that's not something that I've kept completely up to date on. I've received some general information, but that's it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, then we'll move on to the next item. Could you put up that larger map. I know it's large, so let's look at the top panther corridor and then the south panther corridor. Keep moving down, down, down, down. Further down. Okay, right there. Doctor, this is a proposed panther corridor. It goes along here. I don't know the width at all these points. Obviously it goes wider and narrower, and then it picks up down here. Now, I understand the way this is -- the document's written that the corridor can be expanded on. And if it does, there's more restoration requirements and things like that. But should it not be expanded on, this is the viable -- or I shouldn't say viable, this is the suggested corridor. And I'm kind of asking you, is that the kind of corridor that is practical for use in panther areas? DR. HOCTOR: We're talking about the black lines that-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes. DR. HOCTOR: -- connect over from CREW to OK Slough? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right, right through here. DR. HOCTOR: Well, I've only heard about this proposal in general. I've never seen a map of it, so this is new to me. I'm not entirely sure of the scale, but we're pretty zoomed out, and I don'tt Page 49 February 26, 2009 know the distance between the two areas. But if -- you know, I would hope that's only conceptual and that would be talking about a much wider corridor and obviously restoration, woody cover being added to that area. But it seems to me -- I don't know how wide that corridor is, but it seems very narrow and it's probably below the minimums that we talked about earlier here today. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Let me put it a little differently then. In order for this corridor to have a minimum width that would make it viable even if it were to be used by a panther, considering its distance and length, what would you think is the minimum width this corridor would need to be? DR. HOCTOR: Well, you're asking me to do an on-the- fly delineation of a corridor width. And one of the things that I always get in trouble with planners about is sometimes when I get a little ornery about this, I said it depends when they say what the corridor width should be. And of course it does depend. We've already talked about distance matters. The longer the corridor, the wider it potentially needs to be. I would have to sit down with this data and really get a feel for the distance between these areas and come up with a recommendation. I assume others are reviewing this now. Questions I would have, again, if we actually -- if hypothetically we're talking about that that's the boundary of the corridors, the black lines -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. DR. HOCTOR: -- I would have an immediate question, just again quick, rapid assessment review, I'm not sure why it would go directly north like it does on the west side, versus cutting across. Maybe it's road related or proposed road related. The width just on its face just seems too narrow. This corridor Page 50 February 26,2009 may be longer than, let's say, five miles. I assume it's longer than five miles, but I don't know that for sure, and that we start talking about minimum widths of maybe a mile or more, to be really comfortable. So at the current stage I'd assume that that's too narrow. I wonder about the angularity and whether it could be more direct. But you could, with restoration and enough width, potentially restore a functional corridor in that area. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And with the -- could you move the projection so that we're looking at the corridor that's on the bottom of this plan or towards the bottom. Right there. We have another one that's shown right here. It goes down to this point and down here. And it has basically -- it's a shorter one, but the narrowness of it seems to be consistent in points with the other one. And I just wanted to point that out, that those are the two corridors currently proposed by the -- the owners out there have got a Memorandum of Understanding that this is under study for. And actually the corridors will have a big factor in the restoration credits used for the stewardship program. So I think what this would mean is, to be a practical corridor we would have land added to them. And if that's the case, from a viewpoint of planning it increases the number of potential stewardship credits through restoration and functionality that we'd have to address a use for, so -- okay. That's the only other questions I have at this time. Does anybody else on the Planning Commission have any follow-up questions before we go to the next speaker? Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: We spoke about genetic management. You had said that the Florida panther is only found here in Florida? DR. HOCTOR: Yes, the subspecies is only in Florida. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: What cats do you bring in to do the genetic management? Page 51 February 26,2009 DR. HOCTOR: I am pretty sure that the ones that have been brought in in the recent past when they did the introduction of eight females, Texas subspecies, Texas cougars. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: So then the actual Florida panther is being diluted or changed genetically, or how does that work? . DR. HOCTOR: Well, now you're bringing up a very long history of arguments about the way the original genetic restoration was done. There were concerns about that, but I think it's really beyond the scope of this group. I think the general consensus that appears is that the genetic restoration that's been done up to this point worked relatively well. It may not have been as controlled as we might have liked, but it seems that we have an increase in genetic diversity and that in the future the idea is to have less animals brought in each time, one generation, two females, and that it be better controlled. Controlled means limiting the number of breeding opportunities for those females for a specific defined period of time. But at the current population level, our basic recommendation was that you're probably going to need to do continued genetic restoration by bringing in cats with other genes from other parts of the species or other subspecies. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: So the end result won't be Florida panthers, it will be some mixed breed? / DR. HOCTOR: You'd have to ask an opinion of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. But I think all of this has been covered, and that clearly under the Endangered Species Act that the Florida panther is a valid endangered species, and that this genetic management would not result in dilution that would make it so that it's not anymore. But that's U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service territory. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Doctor, thank you very much for your time so far. I think that's all the questions before we go to Mr. Kawula. Page 52 February 26,2009 And then we may like to ask you anything after public comment. Thank you, sir. I have a CV here of Dr. Kawula. And I didn't know you were a Ph.D. until now, so I'm glad I have that. Thank you. DR. KA WULA: Good morning, everyone. My name is Robert Kawula. I am working currently for the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission in the Florida Wildlife Research Institute. And just to make it even more difficult, I'm in the Center for Spatial Analysis within the research institute. I've been working for the commission for over 11 years, mostly doing habitat modeling, relating species with habitat characteristics. I've been a -- as Tom has said, I've been the co-author of -- one of the co-authors on the Kautz, et al paper. Although I wasn't an official member of the MERIT panther sub-team, I did do a lot of the nuts and bolts kind of things related to habitat analysis. In addition to the Kautz, et al paper, I was also a co-author on a subsequent paper by Darrell Land, the Land, et al paper, which also looked at panther habitat and telemetry relationships. During the last few days I've had the opportunity to kind of review some of the transcripts from previous meetings, and I just -- I think Tom helped you understand some of the issues with the MERIT program. But I would like kind of to have the opportunity to make a few comments regarding specific aspects of -- that were brought up in previous meetings regardjng the home ranges and the habitat use associations. With respect to home ranges, there's a lot of arguments in the scientific literature and brought to you whether, well, is a minimum convex polygon home range better than a fixed kernel home range? And really, those are only two of a lot of different metrics used to describe home ranges. And each has an appropriate use. There's benefits, pros and cons for each different method. My opinion is in both in the Kautz, et al paper and the Land Page 53 February 26, 2009 paper that the appropriate method was used. Both methods are currently used in scientific literature, not only for Florida panthers but also other species. My second comment concerns the habitat selection techniques used in the Kautz, et al paper, the compositional analysis and the euclidian distance analysis. First let me digress a little bit and talk about something regarding the home ranges. I said there's pros and cons of each one. One of the issues that I read that was brought up before this body was that certain -- if a home range contains a habitat that you don't consider a panther habitat, such as roads, it's not a good technique. I would submit that any home range technique that you use is going to contain habitats that you normally wouldn't consider panther habitat. Roads would probably be in most panther habitats. If roads didn't 09cur in home ranges of panthers, we wouldn't have panther roadkills. So in regard to the habitat selection techniques, there are -- we did use a couple different techniques, mostly because we wanted to have a little bit of redundancy in the analysis. Both techniques are widely accepted in the scientific field and both have been used extensively. Again, a lot of these techniques, like compositional analysis, at the time that we were doing the analysis, compositional analysis, it was like a technique that was really widely used. And now since then it's a fast-moving field. There's other techniques, and one of those was the euclidian distance analysis technique. And there's also many other resource selection functions that can be used. There's books about different habitat selection techniques. I guess my last comment is it's more of a statement that in both papers the Kautz, et al paper and the Land, et al paper, the techniques, the methods used for determining habitat use are robust, they're scientifically sound, and they have withstood scrutiny by other experts Page 54 February 26,2009 in this field, not only panther experts but other experts that have done habitat use analysis for other species. Finally, the methods, results and conclusions of Kautz, et al have all been vetted scientifically and have been peer reviewed and have been published in refereedjoumals, which kind of helps to give these papers and the results of these papers the credibility that a lot of more gray literature does. With that, I'd be happy to answer any questions regarding kind of the techniques, the methods that we're utilizing in either of these, the Kautz, et al or Land, et al papers. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, I know we have some -- members of the Planning Commission, do you have any questions at this point? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, let me start out then by asking the young lady with the screen, the overhead proj ector, to put the smaller version of the plan I gave you up first. And the reason I'm using this is because it's the simplest one to explain. And could you take it down a little bit in size so the colors show up better? Okay, right there's good. We have two plans that were being discussed. We're not actually discussing this plan, it was presented to us. And this is where the issues came up over how things were determined. The other plan that is present shows much of this blue area I know down here, and I even think up in some of these others and over in this area, shows much of the blue area, which is considered primary panther habitat, and it's in ago fields on this plan. But in those other -- the other plan, it shows a lot of it as developable acreage because it's considered open space, it's considered ago land. When looking at this plan, we got into the question of well, if this is ago land and the yellow's ago land, what makes the difference? Page 55 February 26,2009 Well, then we got into two parties explaining how they got the yellow -- well, the person -- the party that had the yellow and the blue, how they got there. And they basically used some of your geometric shapes in the blue area to say that's part of the primary plan that you all presented, and that the yellow wasn't part of that. And this vaguely matches up to what the other plan was that was handed out on an eight-and-a-halfby 11. The committee didn't use the same kind of shapes to determine where primary and secondary were. They used some kind of -- we had one of the people who worked on it talk about a different geometric shape that they used that different cover -- didn't require this to be primary, didn't show it to be primary. I don't know how to describe it any better than that, and unfortunately that's a pretty lousy way to describe it. So I guess the question boils down is when this plan or any plan of yours was done, what geometric shapes did you use that would have included agricultural lands as part of primary panther habitat? DR. KA WULA: Well, I guess, you know, I'd have to reiterate what Tom said, that there was a number of layers that were used to determine the boundary of the primary, the primary zone. One of those being that the overlap ofMCP polygons was one of those layers, in addition to buffering 200 meters from forested habitats that we found to be -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Bob, if you could put that on silent or turn it off? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I thought I had. I apologize. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. DR. KA WULA: I lost my train of thought. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Sorry. DR. KA WULA: So I really don't know if I understand your question. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Paul Midney kind of succinctly said it Page 56 February 26, 2009 better than 1. Paul, would you repeat the other question when you brought up the comparisons of the different points? It's the same thing I have been trying to get to, but you said it much better than I tried to. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I don't remember what -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: -- what it was. DR. KA WULA: Was it the question regarding the MCP versus fixed kernel method and which is more -- COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Well, yeah, I had two questions. One was there was one method which was the convex polygon method which basically included more land around the forested areas, around the telemetry points. And then there was another one that was submitted that was the fixed kernel, which more zoned in on the actual telemetry point areas without providing as much buffer area or as much I guess foraging area, less pasture, less fields, less dry prairies and marshes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And the question would be which one did you use when you laid out the larger -- and ma'am, could you put that other sheet on that was passed out afterwards? That one, please. This is --let's assume for argument sake the green is a representation of your primary panther habitat. Which one of those, whether it be a convex polygon or a fixed kernel, were used in determining the green areas on a plan like this? DR. KA WULA: The layer used that the MERIT sub-team used was a layer ofMCP polygons that were overlapped in some -- I hope I'm not being a little bit vague but I didn't really actually do this part. The data, the home ranges were supplied by another one of the authors of the paper, Jane Comiskey, and they were incorporated into their thought process -- their being the panther sub-team thought process -- regarding the delineation of the primary zone. But my understanding is that there were MCP polygenes, Page 57 February 26, 2009 minimum convex polygons of essentially all of the panthers -- all of the panther points. I mean, there are some caveats there. They had to be over one and a half years old, and I don't recall the total number of MCP's, but they overlapped all of those MCP's. And then actually they realized that when you overlap that many MCP's there's going to be some areas that they're going to want to exclude. Like if only one or two cats, I believe, occurred in a -- were overlapped in an area, they just threw that -- they excluded that from their analysis and how they delineated the primary zone. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Unfortunately that doesn't help us get to a full understanding of the use of ago But in order to lock onto something that is understandable, do you believe that the 200-meter buffer around known primary panther habitat to include up to 200 meters out as additional primary panther habitat for areas like farm fields is a reasonable conclusion that the Kaufman (sic) report came to? DR. KA WULA: The Kautz report? Yes -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Kautz report. DR. KA WULA: -- I believe that's reasonable. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And what about mitigation? Is it reasonable to believe that even primary habitat -- and I know that's what's shown on the slide, I just want your concurrence -- that there is mitigation potential on a one-to-one for lands like -- that are primary? DR. KA WULA: I'm not -- I don't have the expertise to really know if that's appropriate or not. I don't under -- I don't know the entire issues surrounding the mitigation. My main -- my main contribution to the Kautz, et al paper and the Land paper was to deal with the nuts and bolts of habitat, selection analysis, and I have really no comment regarding the policy or the use of how it's -- how our information is to be used. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What about the width of corridors? Do you concur with the previous discussion on the minimum width of Page 58 February 26,2009 corridors, or is that outside -- DR. KA WULA: That's outside of my purview also. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. That basically takes up most of the questions I would have then. Anybody else have any questions? Mr. Kolflat? COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Yes, on this illustration, up there at the top there's a white area surrounding the white areas, a black enclosure line. It's my understanding that black enclosure line is the town of Immokalee; is that correct. DR. KA WULA: I believe so. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: If that's the town of Immokalee, what does the white blob up there represent? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think that would be the urbanized area, wouldn't it? MR. GREENWOOD: That's the footprint. It's shown down in the lower right-hand corner. Yeah, that's basically what's been urbanized. The boundary that's around that is the urban area of Immokalee. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: The white is the urban area, and then the -- MR. GREENWOOD: No, no, the white is the area that's actually developed, primarily developed, and the large boundary around it is the Immokalee urban area, which is the area for master planning. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It extends out beyond the urbanized and developed area, Tor. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: All right, thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions before I move to public speakers? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, sir. Appreciate your time and your trip down here today. And we may ask you to respond to -- Page 59 February 26,2009 you may feel like responding after you hear public speakers. Thank you. Okay, are there any members of the public that wish to address this issue? And Mr. Jones is jumping right up. Anxious today. MR. JONES: We've got a busy day. For the record, Tom Jones. And I had a couple of -- I have a couple of questions and I've probably got a comment wedged in the middle of my questions, I'm sure. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Tom, just so you know, the questions and discussion is focused towards the Planning Commission. And then at the end, if the gentlemen who spoke want to come up and respond or discuss, they'll be allowed to. MR. JONES: Thank you for clarifying that. I'll make sure I direct my questions then to the Commission. In the interest of full disclosure, Dr. Hoctor mentioned that he had been briefed on the previous proceedings of meetings that had taken place down here. I would appreciate it if we could find out who conducted those briefings for him. And if Dr. Kawula had briefings as well, I'd appreciate just for the record to understand who also briefed Dr. Kawula on that. , If we could go to the recommendation slide that was up there previously? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The recommendation slide, which one was that? MR. JONES: It was towards the end. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It's there. Okay, and while we're waiting for that to come up, just for a point of note for the speakers who are here, this is not quasi judicial today, so if they want to respond to your question about who they were briefed by, it's their option. So there's no obligation under their terms here today, so -- Page 60 February 26, 2009 MR. JONES: I wouldn't try to force anybody to answer a question they don't wish to answer. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I just want to make sure everybody knew the rules we're playing by. MR. JONES: I think this -- and from the layman's perspective, I think this gets to the heart of the issue, that that's been debated, rebated (sic) and continues it be debated. And what does the paper say? And I think this -- on consultants who have spoke on behalf of the Eastern Collier Property Owners have tried to say this on a number of occasions. But what this list of recommendations points to is really the heart and soul of what's required under the Endangered Species Act. And the rural lands program doesn't in any way, shape or form usurp what's required under federal regulations. What the Fish & Wildlife service has done with the Kautz, et al paper and with the earlier MERIT work that was done is they've codified a primary zone, a secondary zone and a dispersal zone. And if you propose impacts within any of those, then you're required to go into a consultation with the Fish & Wildlife Service to evaluate certain aspects. And what do you have to do? First you have to avoid, you have to seek to minimize, and if you can't avoid and after you seek to avoid, after you seek to minimize, if you still don't have what you need in hand, then you have to mitigate if you do indeed impact those areas. So if the avoidance and minimization can't be accomplished. within the primary, within the secondary or within the dispersal zones, then you have to mitigate. There isn't anything that says the primary zone, the secondary zone, the dispersal zone are sacred and you can't do anything. Under the Endangered Species Act -- and this is what it embodies. You avoid, you minimize. If you can't do that, then you have to mitigate for your impacts. Page 61 . February 26, 2009 So under the RLSA program, we've defined an open area and we had a variety of parameters of how we did that. But it doesn't give us carte blanche to go into those areas and do things willy-nilly. We have to go into the consultation process and then you go through a thorough federal review, and a determination is made on whether or not you can do the impacts that you propose. Just because we have an RLSA overlay doesn't mean we can go into primary habitat and do whatever we want to do. We have to follow the guidance under the Endangered Species Act. So I don't see any disconnect in what we've proposed under the existing program or what we've proposed -- the changes that we're proposing under the program that's in front of you all. I think what's being proposed by some organization is that there is a sacred cow and it is primary zone. But the recommendations from the report clearly indicate you need to try to avoid, you need to minimize and then you need to mitigate. And that's the basis of what the Endangered Species Act requires. And it's done. It was done at Ave Maria. We had primary and secondary impacts. We mitigated for them. We were issued a biological opinion. The opinion was referred to the Corps of Engineers. Our wetland impacts were further evaluated. And ultimately a permit was issued by the federal government in primary habitat, in secondary habitat, under the prescribed mitigation that they requIre. So I don't see a conflict between -- I think the conflict that is arising is that people are equating primary zone with primary habitat and we still can't get anybody to give us a clear definition on what functional primary habitat is. But there are procedures to be followed that coincide with what the Kautz paper is saying. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Tom, I think one issue, though, is that the RLSA does set up a procedure to determine what indicy values are on property on a per acre basis. If you have indicy value that exceeds, Page 62 February 26, 2009 I believe it's 1.2, then you're not allowed really to develop that property, it's considered FSA, HSA or others, unless there's some extreme form of mitigation. As in the case of Ava Maria, there was several dozens if not I don't know how many acres of wetlands that were developed there, but they were allowed to do so because of the SSA creations and other preservation needs. Now, what I'm getting at is if there's some primary habitat that is agriculturally considered -- right now ago is open space, or culled out as open space. But if ago is also primary panther habitat, there might be an indicy value that comes into play there. And that I think is what the focus of this whole effort is trying to understand. I don't think it's a disconnect, I think it's a better understanding of how it applies. MR. JONES: I'd like to go back to one statement that you made. We did impact the wetlands at Ave Maria, but we weren't allowed to impact them because of what was established through SSA's. We had to mitigate for those wetlands under the purview of the 404 permit that was ultimately issued. We didn't get a free pass on wetland impacts because we established SSA's. And I think the point that some of the consultants tried to make with respect to the indices in the past was one, we looked at land cover, and two, we looked at telemetry after land cover was looked at. And I think my interpretation of what the imminent doctors indicated was that they looked at three layers. We looked at two layers. We looked at land cover, they looked at forest covers. I think where part of the discrepancy comes in is potentially on the five-acre habitat patches. And you've made reference on a number of occasions to well, a 200-meter buffer adjacent to recognized forest habitat, I believe is what you said. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Primary panther. MR. JONES: Primary. But I think you also threw in the forested aspect of it. I think part of the issue would arise carte blanche would be well, are we going to include these five-acre patches of it? Because Page 63 February 26,2009 I think if you -- you can maybe go back to the aerial photo that you've showed a couple of times and you've tried to understand how these lines were drawn. Well, one aspect on how these lines were drawn -- who's got the pointer? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, no, no. MR. JONES: Is there another aerial? No, the one you just had up there, that's the aerial. I think where we come into disagreement in your effort to clarify how we do this is this is a one square mile area right here and it's not real easy to see. But this was designated, I believe, as primary habitat. Now, this is a sod farm, and it's about as flat and open as this table right here that the projector is sitting on, with the exception of there's a cypress head here and there's a cypress head here and there's a cypress head down here. And these qualify as habitat under this five-acre forested concept that was put forth to draw these primary boundaries. So -- and they also said they looked at telemetry. Well, there's no telemetry in here, you'll just have to take my word for that one. But there is no telemetry. But as you come up from this heavily forested area with telemetry points, what you do is you start leap- frogging to these five-acre patches. So your primary zone, and to answer how this little thing came down here and this was secondary and it's primary on both sides, you start leap- frogging across these five-acre patches, and that primary line just keeps getting extended. And then after you've drawn that line, then you go ahead and buffer it by 200 meters. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Understand. Thank you. Okay, next public speaker? MR. JONES: I'll leave this here. MR. EIDSON: I'm not going to use the pointer, I'm afraid. My name is Gary Eidson, and I'm a member of the RSA committee. And I found a couple of things that have come to mind as we Page 64 February 26,2009 were speaking. One of them is, the transportation issue has come up, and I will not speak specifically to your concern about the buffering right now, but I wanted to bring this point up. I would like to get some clarification about an elevated highway and what impact that's going to have in mitigating the movement of the panther. Because we have a terrific conflict that's going to go on probably for our lifetime if we don't clear it up. We're trying to develop -- apparently there is a move by the county in general that recognizes that Immokalee is the future of a diversified economic structure in Collier County. And if that's true, if that's where the county wants to go, then you're going to need highways to get there. And certainly 29 is a crucial highway. And it's right in the middle of, you know, where the panther is. We need to be creative and find a way -- and I address you folks on it, because I think it needs to be brought out, it's just -- it's never going to work. I mean, we might as well'shut down Immokalee, ask the Indians if they wouldn't mind closing the casino so that we don't get anybody coming in so that can save some panthers. Now, let's go to a broader issue which I learned today and I never heard this before, maybe my ears were closed. But the interesting thing about this umbrella concept about the panther is that we're not talking about the panther. I mean, we are, but we aren't. But what we're talking about is if I take the panther, who roams 300 miles, I am encompassing the opportunity to protect other endangered species. So I need -- sometimes we need to get a clarification. Are we talking about the panther or are we talking about just generally trying to protect stuff? And it's a very interested kind of con -- you know, we have some things going on here and the dynamics are just pulsating. So do we stop growth at 300,000 or 400,000 or 500,000, we're just not going to allow it anymore, or do we plan to keep ourselves in an economically viable situation where we're not dependent on Page 65 February 26, 2009 development exclusively, and that we are reliant on all types of different industries? We've got to find an answer. And I'm not here to -- I'm trying to pose a problem which you're probably aware of, but I wanted to publicly state it. And I guess my final coming back to the beginning is I would like to know how we resolve the highway issue. And that is something that perhaps these experts would be able to help us do. Because we can put in these wonderful paths, you know, mile wide, but what do they do? They go to the road. We've got them going -- on the north, we've got them going over two roads. So do they go under and are we going to put in aNew Orleans type of deal where we're going to have like an elevated road for four or five miles or a mile long? What are we going to do? How are we going to address it? But I appreciate the time. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Some of the language that has been discussed that the committee has come forward with is proposals for tying in an underpass plan that was supposed -- now, I think some of our suggestions were it was to be developed within a certain period of time. So that is -- that issue has been discussed. I don't know if we've ferreted out all the issues with it yet, but we certainly -- there is something in there already addressing that. MR. EIDSON: Well, I understand that. But the wider -- you know, the wider you make it and then you -- is it economically viable to be able to put the proper underpasses in? I mean, those are the things that start to happen here. And do we -- we were talking about here we shouldn't, you know, widen the road at all, according to some of these recommendations. And we do need to widen the road if we're going to have a viable interconnect from a commercial standpoint. So do we need to go beyond? And I think the committee tried very hard to recognize ag., we tried to recognize the environment. And I'm hoping that we keep this Page 66 February 26, 2009 in mind that there is a picture that -- a mosaic that we're trying to build here. And I'm thinking that this road issue is probably even -- maybe needs to be even addressed in a different way and more, perhaps. I don't know. But I'm just concerned about this gridlock that we seem to be getting towards. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Appreciate it. And we'll continue with public speakers. I just want to let everybody know that about noontime we have to not just break for lunch, but I know we're going to lose one if not two of our scientists who are here for the panther issues, so we do need to try to keep in mind that we have a deadline to reach on this issue today. Jennifer? MS. HECKER: Jennifer Hecker. I just wanted to be available to answer the question that you raised about how does this fit in with the federal side with the Endangered Species Act. And I think that Tom Jones really hit upon it, which is it's a three-step process, and it starts with avoidance. Avoidance and only after avoidance has been exercised to its fullest, then you go to minimization, and only after that occurs, then you go to Illitig2lti()Il. And so the point being in that map, that map that showed the light blue and the yellow, it outlines that in this case, in the Rural Land Stewardship area, there's 33,000 acres outside of primary panther habitat that's designated open, which could be available for development. So therefore, it's not necessary to impact the primary and therefore it is avoidable to do so. And this is an opportunity to make the local land use plan more consistent with these federal provisions, and that's why the science is so important in this process. So if you have any particular questions about that, about the policy aIlgles, we just wanted to mention that. I specialize in that, I'd be happy to answer any questions you have on that. Page 67 February 26, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Next speaker. THE COURT REPORTER: May I have your last name, please? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Jennifer, we need the spelling of your last name for the record. MS. HECKER: H-E-C-K-E-R. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Everybody, spell your last name unless it's Smith or Clark or somebody simply like that. MS. MACDONALD: Well, mine's Macdonald, and it's going to have to be spelled, actually. Lori Macdonald. And it's M-A-C with a small D-O-N-A-L-D. Thank you. I'm the Florida director for Defenders of Wildlife. I simply wanted to address the question of the Florida panther itself. And it being a subspecies of the puma, actually, which is mountain lion, cougar and so forth. As Dr. Hoctor said when he was asked does the panther just live in Florida, it does just live in Florida now. However, its range historically was throughout the Southeastern United States, all the way from Arkansas throughout to the Atlantic and down into Florida. It has now been isolated just into Florida. The -- with regard to the genetic invigoration work which occurred and which has been extremely successful and extremely important to the survival of the panther, the panther would have historically inter-bred some at the edges of its range with the Texas Cougar. And the objective, which I believe the Wildlife Commission and the Fish & Wildlife Service and all have reached, the objective was to not have more than 20 percent of the genetic contribution from the Texas subspecies be a part of our Florida Panther. If the Florida Panther was -- it has been designated as a subspecies and in any event under the ESA would be considered a distinct population. If that helps. We have -- our work in Defenders of Wildlife has involved both the Rural Land -- you know, contribution to the Rural Land Page 68 February 26, 2009 Stewardship issue, as you've seen through my testimony and through Elizabeth Fleming, but we also have been very much interested and focused on the Endangered Species Act and the federal process where we expect to -- we don't expect the Rural Land Stewardship program to bear all of the burden or all of the responsibility with regard to this matter, but we will-- there's much to be done with the Endangered Species Act and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in habitat conservation planning. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Next speaker, please? Anybody else wish to speak on this issue? Okay, do either of the -- oh, Allen, okay. MR. REYNOLDS: Thanks. Sorry about that. For the record, Allen Reynolds with Wilson-Miller. I thought while the doctors were here, it might be worthwhile to ask them if they're aware of any other incentive-based programs that they know of that are working in the State of Florida to help protect the 500,000 acres of private land that are within the primary panther zone. So in case there's some other techniques that we should be aware of. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Okay, Bill, go ahead. MR. McDANIEL: I have a lot of thoughts. I have specific questions for the doctors that might shed some light on some of the thoughts. I was party to the committee's discussions with Darrell Land when he came and made a presentation to the committee, which established the basis for our corridors that we've had extremely lengthy conversations about. And I would like to know if there's some information that's available with respect to the population of the panther. I have heard no real discussion on a percentage basis of the mortality rate of the kittens for production purposes when a mother cat has kittens. What is the percentage of survival of the kittens that Page 69 February 26,2009 ultimately rear to maturity. I would like to know the ratio of male to female cats that is in fact existent in the population that we have existent today. And that leads into my next question with respect to the methodology for actually counting them. I have found no factoring method such to date. I actually asked Darrell that question, and there -- to my knowledge, there is no factoring methodology, i.e., for purposes of discussion, for every one you see, there's one more in the bushes that you don't get to see. Basically the counting practices that have been utilized to date are if it's not seen or if it's not detected or if it doesn't have a collar, if it doesn't lay a track that the tracker actually sees, it's not there. And that seems to me to not really be a true reflection of the potential of the population that in fact exists within these areas. Those are some of my specific questions, fellas, if you have an opportunity to think about those. I would like to suggest that we, as planners, you specifically as the Planning Commission, maintain a balance with respect to folks' perspective when they're sharing with you their beliefs. I heard several conversations, from the doctors as well, about "we" would like to see. And Mr. Brad and I had an interesting conversation last week with respect to the definition of a perfect world. And there are wide ranges of that definition. And I would like for you folks to keep in mind that folks -- that people's perspectives have direct implications as to what their wishes ultimately are. And it's important for us as planners to realize that there's going to be a necessity for a balance and that we have to take into consideration those folks' perspectives as they're here. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Bill, I made notes of your questions and the other questions posed by several people that were up here. So there's about six questions to ask. And I'd like to ask one of the doctors if they wouldn't mind addressing our questions. Page 70 February 26,2009 Thank you, Doctor. And we'll try to be as short as we can; I know you're not feeling well. One question I have right off the bat is would you mind leaving staff with a copy of your Power Point presentation so we can have copies to each of us? MR. GREENWOOD: We asked, and we have it. And I'll send that out. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Good. And these are optional for you to respond to. The question was posed in the beginning, who were you briefed by before you came here today. DR. HOCTOR: In regards to relevant issues, potentially relevant issues with the RLSA program here in Collier County, I did talk to Conservancy staff and also to Defenders of Wildlife staff. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. The question was posed about the impact of an elevated highway on panther movement. Do you have a response to that? DR. HOCTOR: Well, it depends on the location. But I do agree that in general if you're going to have new or potentially widened highways in areas where there's panther habitat, that elevated roadways make the most sense. And for the longer swaths that it can be elevated, the better. But that's -- you know, that's a general recommendation. And, you know, that's -- if you could do it, that's the way to go in terms of mitigating as much of the impact as possible. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So in your program, are you recommending not modifying roads, widening them, increasing them in size, but if they have to be, the best way to do it is through elevated process, whether it be underpasses or long stretches of elevation. DR. HOCTOR: To make sure we're very clear about this, the panther sub-team did not get into that kind of detail about if you're going to mitigate or retrofit either new or existing road impacts. We Page 71 February 26, 2009 did not go into any detail about what the design standards for that mitigation would be. So the comment I just made, that's my opinion, my expert opinion. I'm not representing the sub-team when I made that comment. And I'm sorry, can you repeat the question? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, basically what kind of impact do the elevated highways have on the panther movement? I think you answered that by saying the greater the elevation distance, the less impact they may have. DR. HOCTOR: Right. And again to clarify, I mean an elevation distance, we're talking about a certain set -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Above the -- DR. HOCTOR: -- off the ground. But then the longer, you know, these bridges or elevated highways, the better. But again, that is my personal expert opinion about the best potential design. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And then there was a third -- I have six questions total that I've made notes of. The third one was any other incentive-based programs in the state that you're familiar with that are doing a better -- say a better program than what we're anticipating here? DR. HOCTOR: There is discussion of developing new incentives programs as part of the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission's cooperative conservation blueprint that's an ongOIng process. But that is an ongoing process. It's just a discussion. There are no official programs that have been developed. It will be another year before there are any concrete recommendations. But I'm not aware of any other incentives programs like the RLSA program that are alternatives at this point. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And there are some series of questions especially about the panthers. One is the mortality rate of survival of the kittens, the ratio of male to female and the Page 72 February 26, 2009 methodology for the actually counting them. Could you respond to those? DR. HOCTOR: Well, to the first two questions, all I can say is that that information is relevant to the development of a potential viability or model. So the PV A that we did as part of the sub-team process, we used that kind of information. But I am not -- Darrell Land is the person to talk to about that kind of information that's most recent. I'm not in possession of the most recent data about those factors, but they do try to measure them and they do try to keep and collect that information and keep it updated. The third issue, population estimates. We did talk about this in the sub-team process. That's why there is a range. When we were working, it was 80 to 100 . Now I've heard maybe 100 to 120. That range is -- because we know we probably missed some panthers. But, you know, again, this is not my personal experience, but the statement that has been made by folks like Roy McBride, who's been very involved in the population estimates, and Darrell Land is they feel like they do a pretty good job of covering ground, but they know that there's panthers that they miss. That's why there's a population range estimate instead of a -- you know, you can't just say a single number. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And I -- Tom Jones had mentioned something, he was the first speaker up here that I'd like to get your input on. He pointed out that if the uplands or the forested areas that were considered primary panther habitat all had a buffer established around them, that basically without a minimum acreage consideration we'd be looking at little patches and pockmarks of circles of distances that would then qualify if that standard were used as primary. How did you take in the size of a forested area in relationship to whether it was primary or not? Page 73 February 26, 2009 DR. HOCTOR: Well, there's two things going on there. First of all, we did do an analysis as part of the sub-team project to look at the relationship between panther habitat use and forest patch size. And what we found is that forest patches, as small as the minimum mapping unit that we had available to us, could be very important parts of functional home ranges. That's why those smaller patches are in there. But then again, in terms of delineation of the primary zone, taking that fact that all forest patches of any size can be important for panthers, the delineation of the primary zone boundary was based on that potential habitat map, which was forest patches all five acres or greater, 200-meter buffer, the overlap of home ranges and the telemetry data. So if five-acre forest patches were included within the primary zone, it was because they met that collective standard that we used for delineating the boundaries. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, thank you. Are there any responses you want to make as a result of what you heard from the comments earlier? DR. HOCTOR: The only additional comment is I would say that, you know, I understand the mitigation and some of the comments about mitigation, if avoidance is not possible or minimization is not possible. So the one comment is make sure that, you know, is it true that you're avoiding habitat impacts or are there other options to make sure that you avoid habitat impacts. Are you really -- is it really necessary to develop parts of the primary zone. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, Doctor, thank you very much. Any questions from the Planning Commission? Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, before you go. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Paul-- or did you have the question? Page 74 February 26, 2009 I'm sorry, I thought you were pointing to him. COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, I do. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead. COMMISSIONER CARON: In terms of mitigation, if you pretty much look at your map, you told us that the area we have here in Collier County that would be considered primary habitat can only sustain the minimum, pretty much 100 to 120 cats. We're not going to get beyond that within Collier County, is that pretty much correct from what you've looked at? In fact -- DR. HOCTOR: Well, correct. COMMISSIONER CARON: -- I think your numbers were lower. DR. HOCTOR: I mean, if you look at the larger scale maps, we're talking about primarily a lot of Hendry and Collier County. So we're talking about both counties. And no, just within Collier County you're not going to protect a viable population. Very common with wide-ranging species, you have to work across multiple jurisdictions. It's just the nature of the game, because they require so much habitat. COMMISSIONER CARON: And with the RLSA program, do we have places we can mitigate here in Collier County, or will all that mitigation have to happen up in Hendry or wherever? DR. HOCTOR: Well, if you go back to the delineation and definition of the various zones, in theory anywhere you have secondary zone, especially secondary zone adjacent to current primary zone, could conceivably be suitable for doing mitigation within the boundaries of the county. COMMISSIONER CARON: So you can bring all of that up and that will count. But then what happens to your secondary habitat, which is also necessary? DR. HOCTOR: Well, the definition of the secondary zone is a Page 75 February 26, 2009 little bit different. I mean, it has a support role, and one of the support roles is potential expansion of the primary zone, either because of mitigation or simply because we're doing such a good job hopefully of land protection. Some of that is also occurring in the, secondary zone, and you're restoring panther habitat so that the population can expand and it can be more viable. So, you know, again, it has a support role, but the primary role is to help try and restore additional habitat to have a larger population in the future. COMMISSIONER CARON: Good. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Anybody else? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Doctor, thank you very much. We certainly appreciate your time here today. It's been very helpful. And I don't know if Dr. Kawula, you had anything you wanted to respond to? If you do, come on up. Ifnot, I'll assume you don't. DR. KA WULA: I don't have anything else. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. With that, I think we've wrapped up the discussion on the panther issue that was one of our most difficult ones to sort out here in the past five days. We need to go in before noontime -- I know a lot of people may not be able to stay past noon. I have two other issues to get to before we go into deliberation. One is the final questions or comments from the Collier County Planning Commission of the committee. If anybody has a stone unturned or something that hasn't been answered or asked, we need to do it now. We also will have an opportunity during our deliberations this afternoon to come up with any other questions we may have at that time. And then after that we'll ask for final public comments before we go into deliberations. And we could probably get those accomplished between now and noontime. Page 76 February 26,2009 So with that in mind, does anybody on the Planning Commission have any final comments before the public has their final comments? Anybody at this time? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, Tom, unfortunately I've got a few. Always happens that way, doesn't it? I think we've started -- well, you know what, I can do these before deliberations after public comment if the public wants it that way. I know that we need to get the public comment done. I have -- I wanted to go over your responses to the Planning Commission's questions, and I wanted to go over -- I had some e-mails involving our policies. Let me see if all of them can be done during deliberations. Yes. I had one e-mail from Al Reynolds concerning the language of the category A and category B references in the document, but we can go over those in our deliberation discussion. I had an e-mail from Elizabeth Fleming concerning several of the policies. That we can go over when we hit those policies. And that just leaves the questions from Tom. I have an e-mail from Tom from Ray Bellows concerning the use and placement of landfills and how that was to occur. That one we'll discuss prior to deliberation so we can have any input that we may need on that. And that remain -- the last document I have that came in is the one from Tom Greenwood involving his responses to our issues. We can hit on some of those briefly. I have a bunch of questions. I don't know if the Planning Commission members did. Does (sic) anybody like to go ahead and ask any? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ifnot, Tom, I'd like to turn to your paper then. It's the one titled to Collier County Planning Commission, dated February 26th. And it was in response to our questions on the Page 77 February 26, 2009 20th. First one is Policy 4.20. And in it you responded and it says, the staff analysis -- and this one, by the way, had to do with the exclusion of essential services as defined in the LDC from the counting of the consumption of stewardship credits. Now, the way it read is it says, staff analysis of the existing wording is that the acreages of essential services are not included when calculating the acreage of public benefit uses. So that means the proposed 45,000 acres, if we were to use that, would not have included the essential service elements. And the discrepancy I found is that in the beginning it says, for the purpose of this policy, public benefit uses include. And they list golf course -- municipal golf courses, regional parks and governmental facilities. And then it says, excluding essential services. But the definition of essential services includes police, fire, emergency medical, public parks and public library facilities. So there seems to be some disconnect between what's included and excluded by that reference of essential services because of the definition of essential services. And I don't know how that's to get resolved, but it kind of goes away if we go to a credit limitation versus acreage limitation. Anyway. But it's just a suggestion that that does have a conflict built into itself, Tom. So depending how it all comes out today, our recommendations on that one may change. On Page 68, the overlay map, your response to why the overlay map didn't include the areas that I had talked about; one is by the extension of the public lands up near one on the state roads, and Mr. Midney had commented on that, and how the flow way buffers got included in lands to the south that weren't in the original plan. You indicated that the map was distorted. And I'm wondering why you used that word, because distortions usually occur equilaterally across the map. In this case we've got two specific areas Page 78 February 26,2009 that were omitted. One was omitted and one was changed. The map that you gave us to I think correct this which says Rural Land Stewardship Area's map -- and if you could put that one up on the screen, that one there -- that's yet different more so than the original map that we started this whole discussion about. Are these maps generated by Collier County staff? MR. GREENWOOD: Let me explain. One of the -- as you probably heard and read, Collier County has downsized in staff. One of the persons who would have very quickly picked this up for me, the correct map, left the employ of the county about a week and a half ago. This basically is a map that's similar to what should be provided to you, but is not, not 100 percent correct. But it does show the CREW properties, which are publicly owned that directly abut up to that road. I do have a large map that's in my office that I didn't bring here, but it's mounted that I can certainly bring after lunch. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is there a reason we just can't keep with the original map? Is there a reason the committee had to have the map changed? I mean, obviously so far the maps aren't making sense. MR. GREENWOOD: I understand, there's some differences between the maps. And that will be ironed out and straightened out if this project goes forward to GMP amendments. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, that brings up another question. So this map may not be the most accurate map in regards to what we should be dealing with. What map is it that the committee utilized? Do we know that? MR. GREENWOOD: Well, map one in the Phase I report was the one that's in the actual document that you received in the three- ring binder. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right, but that's the map you've just said was distorted. MR. GREENWOOD: Correct. And there needs to be one that's Page 79 February 26, 2009 -- and again, I think it was mentioned by testimony by Al Reynolds that that distortion occurred because ofPDF's and that sort of thing. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'm not debating whether it's distorted or not. I think something's wrong with it too. I'm trying to understand how the facts and figures -- where this map -- where the reliance on this map is. Basically it looks like -- Paul? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Finish your thought, and then I had a comment. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. It looks like the map that was part of the Phase I report, was that used to determine the acreages used in the Phase I report? MR. GREENWOOD: No. No, the acreages that are in the Phase I report are the same acreages that are documented in the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay and various policies. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So what was the purpose of the map and what was the purpose of changing it; do you know? MR. GREENWOOD: The Phase I report was put together by somebody other than myself. It was approved by the committee as Phase 1 findings and nothing more. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But they attached the map to the Phase I report that didn't have any relevance to their report because they used the calculations that a map provides other than the map that was attached to the report. MR. GREENWOOD: Apparently. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, I'm not sure why that makes sense. So I certainly think we need to understand that. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Mark? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, go ahead, Paul. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yeah, with this map, the -- well, it's not up there now, but the one that says Rural Land Stewardship Areas, I think that this map is correct, and I'm -- with regard to the CREW lands, and also the eiffis (phonetic), that little L-shaped Page 80 February 26, 2009 property in the middle, I think that's accurate and I hope that when you add up the acreages that you're talking about the different areas, that these areas are excluded since they're already publicly owned. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, before you go there, Paul, the map you think is now accurate is the one that we've had questions about, this one here? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: This one. I'm saying that it's accurate with regard to the CREW area, the Okaloacoochee State Forest and then this little eiffis area in the middle. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. But if this wasn't the one that was used for the calculations for the Phase I report then -- COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: That's a concern. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- what is it that we need as a basis for the Phase I report that was relied upon for the Phase II effort? MR. GREENWOOD: The Phase I report includes acreages that are identified in the overlay that was approved back in 2002. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Understand. MR. GREENWOOD: And again, there were maps associated with that, with that approval. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Bill McDaniels (sic), would you mind answering one question for me? Does the committee see a need or a reason to change the map? Because I don't see the consistency between the map that's been circulated with the report versus the map that's on record as being part of the current RLSA program, and it seems the basis of your analysis was the current map. So why are we even entertaining changing it? MR. GREENWOOD: No, this map that's submitted here is not going to replace an existing page in the report. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, it was Page 68, wasn't it? MR. McDANIEL: If I may, Mr. Strain -- Bill McDaniel for the record. I would like to address something. You know, I've been -- while Page 81 February 26, 2009 you've,been going through these maps, there's a lot of maps in the Phase I report. A lot of different delineations of a lot of different land areas. And one of the things I'd like to maybe suggest, that no one can necessarily hang -- there is actual GIS -- and somebody from Wilson-Miller needs to back me up with respect to delineations, specific delineations of the NRI valuations that are ultimately determined to utilize the designations in the overlay of the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay and to try to pick from a committee level a map that is copied on multiple occasions throughout the process and say this is going to be the actual one that everybody's going to hang their hat on. I from a committee perspective found that to be entirely too arduous. When a person comes in and makes an application for an SRA or an SSA, there is very specific -- my understanding was there were very specific -- what's the points I'm looking for -- GIS maps with GPS, actual physical acreage delineations that were utilized in determining the different types of habitat. So from a committee person's standpoint, Mark, looking at these maps, I mean, to the best of our ability they are accurate. But they are not necessarily the ones that staff utilizes when someone comes in and actually makes an application. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I want to just make something clear. I don't want the wrong map getting into the public realm, because we have that happen on a PUD and it's a master plan, we suffer with it for the rest of our lives. This is the biggest master plan we've ever dealt with. It has to have accurate maps. The map that has been put forth as part of the committee's report and if the report's accepted, is the map that now has shown to be distorted, and it's on Page 68. Let me show you what it was originally based upon. If you could put this on the overhead. That's the map that is currently part of our GMP. That's the map Page 82 February 26,2009 everybody reviewed and said basically why and how the numbers and calculations came out. I'm not trying to be difficult about a map, I just want to make sure the right map is used. This apparently is the map that the basis of the Phase I base report calculations were from. Is there a reason why we have to change this map? And if you look all the way down at the very, very bottom -- and someone took my pointer -- move to the north, move it further up. Way down to the bottom. You've got to go up with it a little bit. Oh, thank you, Gary. See this area down here? MR. McDANIEL: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: On both versions of Page 68 that we received, the one we just received in this packet and the one that was in the original packet, that still is different now than it is on this map. My question again has been, if we fix this up here which someone feels now is the right thing to fix and it got fixed on Page 68, why is this still different on Page 68? So why do we even need to change the map? What's wrong with the original map? MR. McDANIEL: It wasn't our intent to change the map, sir. There was no real discussion with respect to the adaptation of the map in any way, shape or form. It was generally accepted that the map that was currently laid forth for the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay was the map. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Then that's all I need you to say. MR. McDANIEL: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Page 68 is supposed to be the original RLSA map. Is that a fair statement, Mr. Greenwood? Is that how you understand it? MR. GREENWOOD: Yes. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Mark? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, sir, Mr. Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Just real quickly here. None of Page 83 February 26, 2009 these -- the map that's up there, the map on Page 68 and the map in the third page of this that we're going over, none them look the same to me. Is that the point you're trying to make, or -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah, that's what we've been talking about. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Okay, I know. But now where did this one -- well, now where did that one come from? Where did that one come from? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's the original GMP map. I pulled down that from the county's website. All I've been trying to find out in this entire discussion is how we went from this map to another map and why we got there. And what we found out is the committee really didn't need to change the map, they're satisfied with this map, if I'm not mistaken. MR. McDANIEL: And we are satisfied. And the only thing I might suggest is that there were restoration credits in areas that were established after the original overlay map was in fact set up, and there have been changes or additions to the map which may have caused changes to have occurred, actual designation of SSA's and restoration areas that weren't necessarily part of the original program. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And Mr. Greenwood, if there are instances where this map is not an accurate reflection of let's say as-built conditions, then I can understand that those should be changed on this map and we should have those pointed out and told as to why they've changed. That's what I couldn't understand and that's what I've been trying to get to for two or three questions now, so -- COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Mark? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, sir, Paul? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I support the idea of having this map as being correct, but it does omit the eiffis lands, that L-shaped land, which is almost a section of land. That needs to be taken into Page 84 February 26,2009 account and subtracted from the equation so it adds up. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any as-built conditions ought to be fixed on the map. If Page 68 was not a distorted map and reflected accurately the as-built conditions and our questions about the CREW extension up to that roadway and the restoration area down on the bottom of the page and now the eiffis section could be answered and then included correctively on this map, then we've just updated the existing GMP map and not created a whole new map with new colors with so many changes that weren't eXplainable or one that was distorted. And I think that's what I'm suggesting we want to get back to is keep the process consistent, show the changes that have consistently had to occur, and if this one needs to be updated, let's simply update this map and not reinvent the wheel and confuse the whole issue. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yeah, the map on Page 68 is really distorted. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, then I think from this committee's review, we may in our deliberations just as a note make that this map be retained and updated, and that be the simple conclusion. The last issue I have, Tom, on -- well, I think that was it. Yeah, that is it. Okay. Before we go into public speakers, are (sic) there anything else as a result of the Planning Commission's actions? Any questions? (N 0 response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, with that in mind, when we get back from lunch, hopefully this commission will go into discussions on the actual GMP language and our deliberations on if we want to go forward with each one of the recommendations that I produced as a result of our prior conversations, or if I either misinterpreted something or as a result of new information or more information or thinking about it we want to change those. Now, during that process, I'm going to ask that the public not Page 85 February 26, 2009 jump up and participate in every single language change. We will go through this whole thing again, we'll spend another three days getting there, and I think that for everybody who has participated you all have had ample opportunity to express yourself at any item along the way. So I'd like to ask that you express yourself one final time. Now, and I'll take -- if it takes longer when we start back up when we get back from lunch, that's fine. But then I -- other than a direct question from the Planning Commission during our deliberation, I'd like to ask the public just to bear with us and let us get through it. Otherwise we'll never get this thing done. So with that in mind, members of the public that wish to speak? Mr. McElwaine, you'll be first then. MR. McEL W AINE: For the record, my name is Andrew McElwaine, M-C-E-L-W-A-I-N-E. I envy Ms. Macdonald. I'm the president of The Conservancy. Our board of directors met since the Planning Commission's draft proposal was presented. Board of directors is an elected board. Our 6,500 members vote either by proxy or in person. There are 24 community leaders. They represent that 6,500 membership base. The board of directors has considered the Planning Commission draft and it represents certainly a departure from some of the things we've recommended. However, having a number of folks on my board who know a little bit about markets and who are active in it, they feel that the committee's -- the Commission's draft is supportable and they voted unanimously to support it. The -- now, as always, especially when you work with someone as intelligent and able as Nicole Ryan, we have a couple of comments, but they'll be brief. But I would also note that the reason for this is because of the way in which incentive programs are normally drafted, certainly at the federal and also at the state level, in terms of Governor Crist's work on climate change. Page 86 February 26,2009 There is a cap. And that cap is on the number of allowances, credits or what have you in almost every case. And in fact, in many cases in terms of acid rain and so on, it's a declining cap. Now, the problem with those caps is one, they can leak. For example, State of New York put a cap on climate emissions so they stopped generating climate emissions and then bought all their electricity from coal-fired plants in Pennsylvania and Ohio, so that cap leaked like a sieve. The -- a meaningful cap creates the scarcity necessary to generate the market. And our concern has been that we have lacked that heretofore and that the Commission's proposal to set that meaningful cap and prevent leakage, as in the case of the State of New York, is innovative, thoughtful, something perhaps we hadn't looked at before, and the board, again being made up largely of market oriented people endorsed it unanimously. The other item that comes into play when you create a market-based incentive system is called additionality. And additionality means that when a credit is generated, or an allowance or whatever you want to call it, that it represents an additional benefit at least equal to whatever is being done to generate that credit in the first place. So it's environment at least, or agriculture, whatever you want to call it, clean air, it's an equivalency that the allowance claimed is an additional benefit. And there have been concerns on my board of directors about the equivalency. Some cases they were very comfortable with it, others, particularly in terms of the changes in the agricultural credits, they have deep concerns about. However, nonetheless, they felt on reflection and after very careful thought and deliberation that the Commission's proposal was eminently supportable. And again, the vote was unanimous. Nicole, you had a couple of comments, which I'm going to drag you up here. Nicole is -- Page 87 February 26, 2009 COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I have a question. MR. McEL W AINE: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: You keep on referencing the Commission's report. MR. McEL W AINE: The draft proposal from the Chairman, excuse me. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: The Commission hasn't really reviewed that yet, so -- MR. McEL W AINE: I apologize, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Just for the record, that is the Commission's report. I was allowed to put into language what we had talked about for many days, some of which Mr. Murray was not here. I did that to the best of my ability. And today we're going to discuss that. So at this point it is the Commission's report. I did not do it on my own. I did it with full knowledge of this Commission and I did it with the notes I had taken during the meetings that not all members of this Commission had attended. Thank you. MR. McEL W AINE: I appreciate the correction, sir. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I don't agree with the correction, nevertheless. MR. McEL W AINE: With that, unless there are other questions, I'd like Ms. Ryan who is-- COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: One more. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Mr. Wolfley. MR. McEL W AINE: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Are you referring to this? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No. The GMP language that was sent out. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I'm sorry, this one, the other one, the thicker one. Page 88 February 26, 2009 MR. McEL W AINE: Yes. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Does it -- I haven't gone through it. Does it mention -- you spoke about a cap, capping of credits and leaking and so on. Do you have a suggested cap or is it -- MR. McEL W AINE: We endorsed the document in front of you on that side. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Then may I ask, Chair, is what's in here representative in the -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, just a succinct way of putting it. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Thank you. MR. McEL W AINE: Nicole, you have a couple of additional comments. MS. RYAN: Thank you. For the record, Nicole Ryan, here on behalf of The Conservancy of Southwest Florida. And I've handed out a document. I do have some extras if anyone is interested in obtaining a copy of that. The Conservancy very much appreciates all of the thoughtful deliberation that you have done on this issue. And we also very much appreciate all of the points of entry for public comment. We certainly think this has been a very open and public process, and we appreciate the opportunity to participate. About a month ago The Conservancy submitted to you our vision plan for how we felt the RLSA could be improved in order to allow for appropriate development and allow for protection of natural resources and preservation of agriculture. What you have in front of you today, based on your discussion and conversation, is a draft set of recommendations. And therefore, I'm going to tailor my comments to that draft document that you have in front of you, understanding that there still will be discussion, but that was the general consensus and will be the point of the -- the starting point for your talks this afternoon. The Conservancy has essentially three critical policy areas that Page 89 February 26, 2009 we would like to discuss. The first, and this is on the list of issues that I handed out, is Policy 4.2, and that deals with having a cap of acreage versus a cap of credits. The RLSA committee has proposed really an arbitrary cap of 45,000 acres of SRA's for the RLSA. The Conservancy opposes increasing the amount of SRA's. The 45,000-acre cap would be more acres of SRA's than the program currently allows. And we support the draft Planning Commission document that would cap the credits to the 315,000 credits, which was determined by Wilson-Miller to be the approximate number of credits available in the program today. And this number was endorsed by the committee and the county, because it is part of the supporting documentation that was part of the Phase II report. This is a really critical issue of how many credits are available in the program. And it's relevant to a number of policies. So I just -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Slow down a little bit for -- okay. MS. RYAN: Okay. Since I don't have the five-minute time limit, I always try to ramp it up, but I will slow down. I want to elaborate just briefly on the issue of the credits, because there's been a lot of discussion in the past as to what was the program intended to do, and how much development would it generate. In 2002 the RLSA committee report that was generated by Wilson- Miller for the committee, and it was reflected in the Board of County Commissioners' executive summary for the transmittal stated that the program was intended to generate approximately 134,000 credits, and at full participation this would translate into 16,800 acres of SRA's, which would not increase the number of people living out in the eastern lands, it would simply compress the population, though it would increase intensity and add commercial. But it was intended to do this with no land left over for the one unit per five-acre ranchettes. What happened between transmittal and adoption is that the Page 90 February 26, 2009 Department of Community Affairs, in their review of the RLSA, required Collier County to put additional specificity to the restoration policies contained in the program. It wasn't a new policy suggested by DCA. DCA simply felt that without attaching credit values to the policy, it was too ambiguous. And they also suggested the early entry bonus credits. The result wasn't really known at the time; certainly The Conservancy didn't understand the implications of how many credits that would generate. But we now realize that at least 180,000 additional credits were added to the program that initially was intended to generate 134,000 base credits. So overall the footprint which was initially intended to be 16,800 acres of new towns and villages jumped to 43,300 acres of towns and villages. And why is this important to discuss and understand? Well, it's important because the RLSA committee is recommending the addition of many more credits to the program as part of their recommendations. Agricultural preservation, panther corridors and additional restoration credits. How many credits is this going to generate? It's a good question, because there's no upper limit placed on those credits within their proposed GMP amendment language. The Wilson-Miller technical document states that with all of these credits totaled, there would be approximately 404,000 credits total, 89,000 more than the program currently allows for. The Conservancy believes this number is far too low, and that the changes would infuse actually many more credits than 404,000. Here's one example. When we look at panther corridors, which are proposed to be 10 credits per acre with no cap included in the GMP, the Wilson-Miller estimate was that it would generate 23,000 credits based on the fact that the panther corridors would be approximately 2,300 acres; 10 credits per acre, 23,000 credits. Page 91 February 26,2009 But what if much more acreage is needed for those panther corridors? The Conservancy handed out information early on that indicated that scientists believe those corridors should be at least a mile wide. That was also reinforced during the presentation this morning. Mile wide corridors would certainly generate a tremendous number of credits. In the landowner and environmental group scientific review team that is taking a look at the corridors, their preliminary report, which is still in draft form, initially concludes that the corridor should be much wider than proposed: 10,723 acres. So under the proposed new credit structure, this would infuse over 107,000 additional credits into the program. Adding that on, you wouldn't have 404,000 credits, you'd have 490,000 credits. That's just one area. And the danger of adding more credits without completely understanding the ramification of credits. And once this is done, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to undo. These credits represent value to the landowners. They're a currency of sorts. And as such, if you place a limit on the SRA acreage, which is the arbitrary number of 45,000 acres, and if landowners at the end of that process still have credits over that maximum 45,000-acre limit, it certainly opens the county up to legal action and also pressure to remove the cap. And as I've demonstrated, certainly the credits could exceed what would translate to 45,000 acres. So to make a long story short, I guess, The Conservancy believes that the most responsible direction would be to cap the credits and to cap them at the current number of credits available today, the 315,000 credits. Recall that this allows for 26,500 acres more SRA's than was initially intended. And there's already serious concern that the 43,300 acres of SRA's may not be sustainable for habitat protection because it would require impact to primary panther habitat. Page 92 February 26,2009 So we support the draft that you have in front of you on that issue, and we certainly hope that that moves forward as one of your recommendations to the Phase II report. I'll be much briefer on the other issues that I want to discuss. The second major issue is with Policy 2.2. And The Conservancy supports the draft document which provides additional credit incentives not to exceed the maximum 315,000 in total for protection of agricultural lands both within and outside the area of critical state concern for those lands that are designated as primary panther habitat. And we had a lot of discussion earlier about what's primary. We would ask that in your deliberations you consider utilizing the Kautz, et al and the Florida Panther Recovery Plan definition of primary in order to delineate what is going to be considered primary in the future if this goes forward to GMP amendments or LDC language. Our third primary set of recommendations deals with Policy 3.11. The Conservancy believes credits should only be given to panther corridors that are scientifically based and functional. They need to be located where they're going to facilitate panther movement, and they need to be at widths that are going to be sufficient in order to ensure panther utilization. We had demonstrated -- or distributed some documents in the past, the least-cost pathways document which showed the travel corridors for panthers. We would ask that that be utilized to base where the approximate location of the corridor should be, and also in using the standard of a one-mile minimum width, which was contained in the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's Panther Recovery Plan for some recommended standards as this moves forward. We also believe that all lands required for corridor functionality should be secured prior to any credits being awarded. Restoration credits should not be awarded until restoration is completed for lands within the panther corridor. And this is addressed in your policy Page 93 February 26, 2009 changes that you will be taking a look at. Our final comment on Policy 3.11 is that as the program is currently designed and as is recommended by the RLSA committee, restoration credits can be generated without any obligation to do restoration in the future. This was one of our concerns about the program in 2002. The Conservancy believes that restoration credits outside the panther corridor should not be assigned until a restoration plan has been approved and a schedule for restoration has been implemented. On the document that I distributed to you, there are some secondary recommendations. And I won't go into detail on these, but I just want to get them on the record that we support what you have in your draft recommendations regarding Policy 3.13, which is including all portions of WRA's utilized for water management to be included in the SRA acreage; Policy 4.5 requiring SRA's to be compliant with the long-range transportation plan and county build-out vision plan; Policy 4.10, which would require all open space acreage to be counted towards the SRA acreage total; Policy 4.20, requiring all public benefit uses, including essential services, to be included in the SRA acreage; and the new policies, 4.23 and 5.7, which requires a dark skies program to be implemented in the future. In addition, just a couple quick recommendations as you're deliberating. Within Policy 4.6, The Conservancy would like for some acknowledgment to be made that as the county determines that mass transit is needed, either within an SRA or to connect an SRA to locations off-site, that the SRA's obligation to provide funding or infrastructure or other in-kind donations to facilitate mass transit really should be included in the SRA mobility plan, that that's determined up- front and those agreements are made at the beginning of the process. In Policy 4.7.1, we would like to see the minimum size of towns and the maximum size of villages kept the same, but also to have a Page 94 February 26, 2009 review of that attachment C which is the SRA characteristics table. We'd like to take a look and see if adjustments need to be made in any other areas. And this was something that we had suggested previously. For example, looking at what the minimum densities of the SRA should be. The speaker this morning talked about the fact that if you increase density, you have a much greater chance of protecting the primary panther habitat, which is essential. And finally, within Policy 4.7.2, we would request that you consider removing villages from an allowable use in the area of critical state concern. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, Nicole. I'm sure we'll work our way through the document this afternoon. We probably have time for another public speaker, and then we'll probably break for lunch and come back to public speakers. And Mitch and Nancy, both of you are heading the same direction so Nancy got there first. MS. PAYTON: He's a gentlemen. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's unlike you, usually you're the last person that wants to speak, so -- MS. PAYTON: No, not -- I'm seeking clarification. We speak now or forever hold our peace; is that -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes. MS. PAYTON: -- do I understand that? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: At some point we've got to deliberate and we've got to get done. MS. PAYTON: I understand that, and I'm glad to hear that. And so I will share with you my two brief comments. We did, Mark, have some correspondence relating to dark skies CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes. MS. PAYTON: -- and I did provide some specific language to Page 95 February 26, 2009 be inserted in Group 5 for dark skies, and I did share it with Tom that was I think comprehensive and complete and addressed those issues. So hopefully you will look at that at the appropriate time. And it makes reference to the other policies so that it's comprehensive. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And Tom, do you have a copy of that available so when we get to that this afternoon you can put it on the screen? MR. GREENWOOD: I can, yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If you don't mind, that would be helpful and everybody can see what she was referring to. MR. GREENWOOD: Okay. MS. PAYTON: And also, there was some correspondence about wildlife crossings, and I commented on a suggestion to take it out of the Group 5 policies, and I was adamant that it should stay in the Group 5 policies, because this is a baseline planning that needs to be done and shouldn't be dependent upon an SRA coming on-line or an SSA coming on-line. It should be done and it should be done within the next 12 months. It actually has been done. There is a memorandum of agreement that has been signed by all the other appropriate agencies, state and federal. The county has chosen not to sign it. So a 12-month deadline from the date of -- I chose not to use approval, I think it should be when the Growth Management Plan amendments are effective. Because approval gets pretty phasy -- hazy. Because are you talking about approval when it's adopted or when it goes into effect? So I use consistency as other policies and said when it goes into effect. So the work's been done. There was a year-long study done of the Rural Land Stewardship Area by highly regarded scientists; one of them was mentioned this morning, Dr. Reed Noss. The other is Dr. Dan Smith, who is an expert on greenways and highways. It is -- if it hasn't been peer reviewed, it is in the process, so it is a reliable document and one that Fish & Wildlife Service acknowledges. Page 96 February 26, 2009 So it's an easy thing to do, and putting the 12-month deadline is important. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. COMMISSIONER CARON: Nancy? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Nancy, there's one question. Go ahead, Donna first, then David. COMMISSIONER CARON: Nancy, the wildlife crossings that are established currently, they're on a map, correct? MS. PAYTON: There is a map that is part of the memorandum of agreement that the county has chosen not to sign, to date. COMMISSIONER CARON: But they're out there now. And that's just for -- that's a current map, right? That's not a -- or is that a proj ection? MS. PAYTON: That is a map of where they should be. It identifies segments -- COMMISSIONER CARON: No matter if we widen roads or add new roads or -- MS. PAYTON: Yes, it has identified -- it's based on the least-cost pathway that Fish & Wildlife Commission did. And then the scientists from the University of Florida and University of Central Florida looked at those specific segments and gave specifics on what ought to be done there, and some recommendations on crossings, et cetera. And also some other issues. And that was the basis of the memorandum of agreement. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I was -- when you were discussing the 12-month maps, could you -- I was trying to still follow up with what Nicole was saying, trying to chase down some policy numbers, and I just missed the context. MS. PAYTON: That within the effective date of these Growth Management Plan amendments -- COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: That's signed. Page 97 February 26,2009 MS. PAYTON: -- that within -- yeah, become effective. Within 12 months the county will implement dark sky LDC regulations. And also within that 12 months there will be this plan that will be approved for wildlife crossings within the RLSA. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: And you wanted that in here? MS. PAYTON: Yes. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Okay, thank you. That's all I had. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, thank you, Nancy. Mitch, we're going to fit you in before lunch, and then we're going to take a lunch break and come back and continue with public speakers until we go into deliberation. MR. HUTCHCRAFT: Thank you. Again, for the record, my name is Mitch Hutchcraft. I'm with King Ranch and Consolidated Citrus. And I appreciate the opportunity . You guys have done a lot of work and I'm not going to have the opportunity to talk about every specific item. I want to try and just pull you back to the big picture again before you start the specific deliberations. And before I say that, I want to just compliment the landowners, Defenders of Wildlife, Florida Wildlife Federation and Collier Audubon. I think it's remarkable that we stand here before you as landowners, as agricultural folks, as environmental organizations and the committee's hard work presenting to you a program that we think maintains that balance. And I spoke to you the other day about balance. And it's critical that you understand that. You've heard some recommendations about capping those credits. And essentially what you're saying is we're going to cap your credits. That'd be like me saying I'm going to cap your income, but you know what? Your housing costs have doubled. We expect you to do more, but we're capping your ability. That's very comparable to what you're doing to us. We want you to maintain the Page 98 February 26,2009 cap on credits, but hey, we want you to do agricultural credits, we want you to do panther corridors, we want you to do dark sky, we want you to pull development out of the area of critical state concern. All of those costs directly fall on the landowner. And I'm here to tell you as a landowner, you're going to do one of two things: You're going to render the program useless or you're going to drive us out of business. One of the other things that I didn't have the opportunity to talk about with Tom Hoctor's presentation was that they presented the forested patch and they said this is our base, this is where we're starting from, this is our leeping off point. And I submit to you, that's not accurate. He made a comment about if densities are greater than one to 40, it really impacts the viability . All of the existing land use category on that property is one to five. So you don't have that property as your jumping off point. You need the opportunity to incentivize the protection of that to begin with. And without incentives it's not going to work. So I'm going to jump back to the incentive-based discussion agaIn. We have a unique situation out there where we've got multiple landowners. If we had one landowner, it would be a far more simple program. Let's make a deal that hey, it works for this landowner to send density here and there. We've got multiple landowners. And I've used myself as the example of myself and Russell. We sit on opposite sides of the exact same coin. He's going to have credits that he needs to send, I'm going to have land that we'll need to consume those credits in order for this program to work. If you cap that or you arbitrarily adjust those balances, one of us is going to get squashed. And if one of us gets squashed, the program's not going to work. If I can't afford to buy his credits, I'm not going to buy his Page 99 February 26, 2009 credits and nothing gets preserved. If he can't afford to sell his credits, he's not going to sell his credits and he's not going to put conservation easements on anything. The result is we maintain the status quo and we continue to incrementally fight it out. And I submit to you that I think this is a well thought-out plan. There are some tweaks that have been recommended that I think are reasonable tweaks, and we can address those. But the balance of credits is critical. And without that, the landowners, while they might want to participate, will not have the ability to participate. Just two last things before I leave. One was again the discussion about the least-cost pathways discussion. I want to reiterate to you, that was a model. That doesn't say this is where the panthers are. As a matter of fact, everybody in this room on that northern corridor will tell you, there are no panthers using that corridor. This is a dream of ours. We'd like to see it happen. If it's a dream and you'd like to see it happen, and you're not willing to fund it, you need to incentivize the landowners to do it. And I think the landowners at least presented, in cooperation with some of the environmental organizations, a reasonable approach to get there. Can we talk about widths? Perhaps. Don't get tied to that least-cost corridor alignment. It doesn't necessarily reflect the best alignment from an environmental perspective, from a landowner willingness perspective. It has to make sense for the landowner. The corridor that touches our property essentially runs along our State Road 80 frontage. There is no person in the world that will tell you that that's going to make sense from a landowner's perspective. In reality, it probably doesn't make sense from a panther perspective either. It would be better to get it across the road and away from the road. The widths. Again, I think some of the testimony is picking and choosing; we like this map over here but we like these corridors over Page 100 February 26,2009 here. Tom Hoctor presented today that Paul Byers indicated that a much smaller width would be appropriate. Particularly if you look at the corridors that were recommended, it included larger patches of forested habitat. Maybe we do need to take a look at what's been proposed and how does that connect, and maybe that's a more viable solution. One of the more recommended changes ties to the completion of the panther corridors being required before we get any credits. That would be like saying your kid has to graduate from college before we'll let him graduate from high school. You have to be able to allow some compensation for landowners as they go along the way. My concern is if you have that language in there, it will be so cumbersome and so difficult it's not going to happen. And again, we want to make a system that actually implements our goal, rather than makes it so difficult that nobody's going to be able to implement it. So hopefully you'll take my comments in the spirit that they were intended. I appreciate the hard work that you've done. I hope that you'll consider the work of the landowners and the environmental groups and the committee and move forward with this. Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Mitch, let me try to understand, you want a fluid amount of credits as a -- let me get this straight. So in the beginning we have -- we start with 315,000 now. And they're sold for, let's just say, 10,000 a credit, I don't know, whatever they are, maybe. And then it gets to a point where someone needs more credits and we've run out of the 315. That's one scenario. What would happen then? We just create more credits? MR. HUTCHCRAFT: Well, I think that the issue for me is not so much the number of credits or the number of acres, it's the fact that they balance. And what you're doing, if you put a cap on it -- again, we have Page 101 February 26,2009 multiple landowners. You might have a situation where if you cap credits one landowner might be able to go and create all of that and leave me out of the game. You need to have an opportunity for all landowners to participate and to do so in a balanced manner. If you could say hey, you'll have all the credits in the world but you only have this much acreage, it doesn't work. It's got to balance. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Okay. Well, that's what we've been spending the last year and a half doing, determining the amount of land, the SSA's and the SRA's, and the number of credits. I mean, so I thought we've been through this and pretty much determined that that's what it is. We've been through everything except what those credits are worth. MR. HUTCHCRAFT: The -- and I think worth is a discussion that probably is not appropriate for this committee, that's a landowner Issue. But I think the reality of what was presented did recalibrate those credits, and it brought them in line with the number of acres and the number of credits. And so I think that we addressed that in the committee's work that has been presented. The one discussion point that's been brought up was well, if we have mile-wide panther corridors, that's going to generate a lot more credits. I would suggest to you, you can give me credits all day long for that mile-wide corridor, it's not going to do anything. What I'm going to respond to is cold hard cash. If you'll come to the table with cold hard cash, let's talk about a mile-wide corridor. I don't think the credits are going to get you there. And so what's been laid out before you, that is in balance. That is a system that will work for the landowners and that was, you know, a hard fought negotiation, not only between the landowners but with the environmental organizations as well. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: So you're saying what we have here is good. Page 102 February 26,2009 MR. HUTCHCRAFT: What was presented by the committee's recommendation I think was a balance that made sense for the landowners from a sending and a receiving perspective. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Okay. Well, all right, thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, Paul? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yeah, I have a question for you, Mitch. Are you saying that you can't envision a situation -- you're talking about the balance between ag., environmental and development. And, you know, we're presented with a scenario now. You can't envision a scenario where you could still maintain the balance within that 315,000 credits? I don't see why you couldn't reallocate and find a way to make it work. I mean, conceivably isn't it possible? I mean, that's what we started with now. MR. HUTCHCRAFT: I'll refer back to my -- we're capping your income. There is additional work that's being requested of us. We want you to do ago preservation, we want you stay out of area of critical state concern, we want you to do X, Y and Z. Those additional requirements are being placed upon us, but we're not going to give you any more value. And Nicole herself said the credits are value to the landowner. And so if you're capping the credits, you're capping the value, but expecting more from us. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Well, I agree with you, if you cap, you know, what you're going to be offering, you might not get as much land as what you're talking about. But at the same time, if there are fewer credits as opposed to -- 300,000 as opposed to 400,000, won't those credits be worth more? MR. HUTCHCRAFT: Only if there's a balance between the land sending area and the receiving area. Page 103 February 26,2009 And again, the complication is there's multiple landowners. I would submit to you that the landowners are probably going to be the closest watchdog of the credits of anybody else, because there are landowners like myself and Russell who if somebody gets out of whack with the credits, we're out of luck and we'll be the first one to stand up and say this isn't working. But I believe what's been submitted allows for that balance to take place. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I think that's one possible scenario is what has been submitted, and what we're thinking about or contemplating is a second with less credits. I think you're talking about balance and proportion. If we're talking about moving the population of an area that now, including Immokalee, that has about 6,000 dwelling units and we're raising it up to over 100,000 dwelling units, that to me is placing the area out of balance in terms of agriculture and preservation. Not that the proportions might be right, but just the weight of human numbers will sort of push it out of . balance. And that's why I'm in favor of the 315,000 dollar (sic) cap limit. Yeah, we won't be able to do all the wonderful things that we would like to do, but then again, if we had even more credits, we could do even more and more wonderful things. But then you get -- you bump up against the ceiling of like the population in this area and you'll destroy the rural character and you'll make impossible panther conservation if you bump up the population too high. MR. HUTCHCRAFT: And I appreciate that perspective. I'll tell you that from a landowner's perspective and working with environmental organizations, we looked at those issues. And we think at the end of the day, if you implement the program as it was submitted, you do do a good job. You actually incentivize agricultural folks to say I've got land that's going to stay in agriculture. You incentivize landowners to take property out of area of critical state concern. You incentivize landowners to result in larger and more Page 104 February 26,2009 connected habitat. So I would say that at the end of the day you wind up with a more functional environment, not to mention the fact that in order to get to that balance, the 45,000 acres, it requires the consumption of the one unit per five acres, which is not really addressed in the other. So while the sheer numbers might be an issue, I think the footprint is even more critical. And this addresses a footprint. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: It's a balancing act for sure. MR. HUTCHCRAFT: It is. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, with that I'd like to take lunch and we'll resume with public input at 1: 15 when we come back. (Luncheon recess.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, everybody, welcome back from the luncheon recess. We have some housekeeping matters to take care of before we go into the regular process that we had left off on. When you all got back, there was some surprises in front of you. Paperwork. We killed a bunch of trees at lunchtime. One of the thickest packages is your agenda package for next Thursday's regular Planning Commission meeting. So please don't lose that. That's the one with the rubber band around it. It's a little bit thicker than the rest. Also provided was a copy of the Power Point presentation that we saw this morning. And also provided was the e-mail that Nancy Payton had sent around about the changes she suggested to the dark sky program section of the language we're going to be looking at. And the last document I haven't passed out yet, because I wanted to ask the County Attorney about the legality of it before we pass it out, it's a -- changes to the sign ordinance that we're going to be reviewing, by the way, Monday morning at 9:30 (sic) at the BCC chambers in the main building, our regular location. Staff had believed these were minor changes in yellow, but in some of them you've got an entire page rewritten in all new yellow Page 105 February 26, 2009 language inserted, and others there are paragraphs. My only concern is, and as we learned in the seating ordinance that we attempted to review, the public came there concerned, as the Planning Commission did, that there wasn't adequate public access to the documents before we heard it. Now, this item is scheduled for first thing Monday morning. It's after 1 :00 on a Friday (sic) afternoon. That means we've got about four hours business time into half an hour Monday before people could actually see this ordinance, show up Monday and comment on it. I don't know what the options are. And unfortunately, Steve, I hate to dump this on you, but as our legal adviser you need to let us know what we should do with this and then we'll go from there. MR. WILLIAMS: Let's start with the easy part. Today's Thursday, so -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thursday, I'm sorry. MR. WILLIAMS: So if you -- I got the first part right. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You're right. So we've got a full day and four hours, okay. MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, we do. And I've glanced through it. You and I both just received this within the past 20 minutes. Staff has stated, and I'll quote, that it differs only slightly, is the notes on the cover. And if I glance to Page 56 of 81, and I'm not on TV, but it looks far more than only slightly. If I go over to Page 39, it looks to have some rather substantive changes in terms of perhaps even one more sign in some areas is allowed on walls, canopies or awnings than was allowed before. It's getting right near that 48-hour public business day notice requirement that we try to have for any meeting, anything that occurs. I know the good doctor's coming in from St. Louis for this meeting on Monday to go over this, which meeting has been properly advertised, Mark. I'd say it's right on the cusp with what your comfort level is. I Page 106 February 26, 2009 believe it's being already posted to the website for the public to review this afternoon. That will give them at least on the website the rest of the afternoon, all of Friday, Saturday and Sunday . You mentioning here on TV will get it a good audience as well. I am not totally uncomfortable with you going ahead with it Monday, if that is your pleasure, but certainly I would share your concern that such last minute changes are something we would endeavor to avoid in the future. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, then it's being passed out now. And what we'll do Monday morning is when we start the meeting on Monday morning at the other location, we will discuss this issue one more time, and maybe between now and Monday you can firm your understanding of how much time is needed when it should actually have been passed out, and we can make sure we haven't violated anything. MR. WILLIAMS: Be glad to. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Great. Thank you. And then I have -- before we go back into public speakers, I have one -- go ahead, Donna, did you -- COMMISSIONER CARON: Well, I was just going to comment, isn't this supposed to be a two-day meeting anyway, so that if people had comments -- MR. WILLIAMS: I think you're set to run over-- COMMISSIONER CARON: We were hoping maybe to get through it in a day, but -- maybe. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah, it's scheduled for two days. Brad? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Mark, and there is some of this that I've been tracking. Some of these changes, who instigated them? Was it your consultant, was it staff? Because there's one here that I know to me would be major. I don't need to discuss why I think it's major, but something went poof that your consultant had put in and Page 107 February 26,2009 your consultant's doing this for free speech, why the -- I mean, who changed it? Who took it out? MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Schiffer, I saw this for the first time 20 minutes ago. I wish I could answer you, but it was brought to me during my lunch between my burgers, so I literally don't know the answer. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But just the one thing that -- and I just focused on the one thing is major. So why -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, and Brad, your concern is exactly why I wanted to bring it up for discussion before we accepted it as being the document we're going to utilize Monday. If we make a mistake -- this one is going to be as probably controversial eventually -- and it might be in the opposite direction that the prior one on outdoor seating was. The businesses were upset over that. While free speech may help a lot of businesses, I can see a lot of citizens, civic groups and homeowners groups maybe being upset over this. So I'm not sure it's gotten fair distribution being handed to us today. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: No, it hasn't. MR. WILLIAMS: Again, to me it's right on the borderline in terms of timeliness. Like I said, I was not uncomfortable with you using it. I hate to ride a fence like this, but I wouldn't be uncomfortable if you canceled Monday and readvertised with more notice either. I mean, I think you're right with whichever road you care to go with. Ultimately canceling the meeting is the more conservative approach, but you've had that meeting and that time squared away for quite a while. So however you proceed, you've got justification. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Here's one thing that isn't fair is people are looking at something marching down the trail then at the last minute. And I could -- if you want me, I'll tell you that issue, but the point is that's really not fair either is to -- Page 108 February 26,2009 MR. WILLIAMS: Understood. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- have something there that people are expecting, people are relaxed and not paying attention anymore and then poof. MR. WILLIAMS: I tried to be very clear. On the cover sheet that comes with it, it says it differs only slightly from the draft distributed on February 19th to 20th. I quickly thumbed through it and to me it looks like there's some changes in there that rise above and beyond the level of differing only slightly. And that's where you as a Planning Commission decide if you want more time to review it or you believe the public needs more time to review it, then you're not obligated to have that meeting on Monday. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Mark? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, Brad, then we'll get Mr. Vigliotti. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: The change that I have that I focused on, which is just one, it was something that the consultant wanted in. This does not have it and doesn't even note that the consultant took -- in other words, there's no strike-through, no underlined, no nothing. It's like as if it never had existed. So I don't even know who authored this. I don't even know -- I don't know what this is. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It's concerning. Catherine passed it out -- or brought it to me about -- just after we broke for lunch and indicated that there were minor changes, she wanted to make sure we got them so we didn't get them first thing Monday. And that's when I brought the question up, well, how's the public getting these? She said it's posted on the website now. But that still is from today forward. Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Yes, based upon the importance and the possible controversy over this issue, I suggest we err on the side of safety and not hear it at all Monday and readvertise Page 109 February 26, 2009 or do what we need to do. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Second. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Make that into a motion? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, is that a motion, Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: If I need to make the motion, it's so done. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, before we go too far, I'd like out of all fairness to have Catherine back here after our break, because I notice she's not -- she didn't stay around. That might have been a smart move. But I'd like to see her here after break so that if there's -- what the repercussions of this mean in regards to the expert and everything else. Because if nothing else, maybe we need to hear the expert and just not entertain a motion and spend one day doing it. I'm not trying to circumvent the process, I'm trying to make sure if we have an opportunity not to waste money and things that are already paid for, like plane flights and hotel reservations, and we can save that, if there's a way to do it before we just leave the meeting, maybe we ought to ask her for a suggestion. Is that -- COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I think that's a good idea. And if I'm making a motion, I'd like to add that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, would you mind-- COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Mark? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- tabling your motion until after we talk to Catherine? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Certainly. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And Mr. Wolfley, would you mind? Were you the second -"- COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Absolutely not. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Tor? COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: I'm against it. I'm going to vote against the motion. This is not the first time this has happened. This has happened in the past. And maybe we've got to draw a line in the Page 110 February 26,2009 sand to make it understood that we want these things on time. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, and the motion would have emphasized what you're saying. So you would really want to be in favor of the motion if we were to do that, because we would have actually postponed the meeting. All I'm suggesting is before we postpone it we have all the input we need from Catherine as to the consequences, and then we go from there. Does that work, Steve? MR. WILLIAMS: What time would you like her here? I can send her an e-mail right now. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, we're going to have to -- we'll take a break at about quarter of3:00. Could she be here at 3:00? MR. WILLIAMS: I'm sending the message. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Does that work for everybody? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, fine. Then with that, we're about to move back into public speakers, and I have one clarification I'd like to make. It was brought to my attention at lunchtime that if we were to limit this to 315,000 credits that there's going to be a lot of problems because, you know, the rest of the documentation brings up issues like 10 credits now are needed to make an acre work instead of eight, and that some of the other credits and the way they were moved around may not be necessarily the way they would have been moved around if the credits were limited to 315,000. And that's absolutely understandable. And I thought I had said this at prior meetings when the discussion was there, that we ought to consider capping the credits at 315, because that's what the Phase I report acknowledged. But how they rejigger the numbers to get to the 315 doesn't matter, as long as it's the 315 that we cap. And so let me reemphasize that so if any speakers are coming up Page 111 February 26,2009 with the concern that we're going to not only limit it to 315 but we're going to increase the needs on a per acre and everything gets skewed in a really negative manner, that wasn't the intention. The intention I believe was to keep the vesting rights established by the first program and as acknowledged in the Phase I report intact until such a time that it proves to be a different need. And that is -- that would occur every seven-year review the issue could be addressed again. And if it's shown that the program is working better and it could work better with a change in credits, that might be more appropriate than now. And it wasn't intending to suggest that we're trying to shortchange the property owners by saying their credits weren't worth as much per acre as they were before. It would have been assumed the committee would go back and take a look at these things if that's the direction that was given to them. So with that in mind, Mr. Varnadoe, you're the next speaker up. MR. VARNADOE: Thank you. For the record, George Varnadoe. I've got a few just kind of I think clarifications I'd like to go through. And I'm working with the handout that has Mark Strain's and the committee's recommended changes that was distributed by Tom Greenwood a couple days ago marked "draft" on the section two. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Just tell us the policy and page number, we'll head there. MR. VARNADOE: All right. On Page 4, and we're dealing with Policy 1.61. And at the bottom of Page 4 the recommendation is to give people who have established an SSA six months after the adoption of the Growth Management Plan amendments the ability to withdraw their SSA. And on the next to the last line between the word provided and the word such, I would suggest that we put an application to make it very clear that they have six months to put in an application to withdraw their SSA, as I'm sure the county will establish some Page 112 February 26,2009 elaborate time-consuming process to make this happen. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And costly. MR. VARNADOE: And costly. Thank you for the clarification. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. I think, George, what we will probably do, if it meets the consensus, we'll just take your changes, make note, and then when we go into deliberations we'll go back and restudy the policy. MR. VARNADOE: That was all I was asking, just that you make a note of what I'm suggesting, and then we -- you do what you will when you get to that point in time. And on Page 14 -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I have a copy here. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Fourteen of? MR. VARNADOE: Dealing with Policy 3.13. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Which page, sir? MR. VARNADOE: Page 14. Dealing with Policy 3.13. And I think the recommendation is to basically prorate the water retention area as to that part of it being utilized by the SRA so that that part being used by the SRA gets included in the SRA acreage. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. MR. VARNADOE: And my suggestion to you there is that between "as" and water management, we insert the words primary treatment for, and that is if the WRA is being used to treat the runoff from the SRA, I think we agree that that probably should be included as part of the SRA. However, if it's being treated within the SRA and the WRA is only getting the pretreated water, clean water, if you would, in the natural wetlands, I don't think it would be fair to count that as part of the SRA. That's just the natural flow functions of that area. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Understand. COMMISSIONER CARON: So George, before you go on, the Page 113 February 26,2009 words you would like to see are primary what? MR. VARNADOE: Primary treatment of. COMMISSIONER CARON: Okay. MR. VARNADOE: And that's not very scientific. That's -- I'm not a water management expert, but I think that gets the intent across. COMMISSIONER CARON: Okay, thanks. MR. VARNADOE: And this is really just a clarification. On Page 16, Policy 4.7.1, the -- we're saying that villages greater than 500 acres ought to have a mobility plan. And I think that's entirely appropriate. But this Policy 4.7.1 deals only with towns. I would suggest that we repeat that sentence in Policy 4.7.2 which deals with villages. Very minor point, but while we're doing it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Mr. Wolfley, did you want-- COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: No, that's all right. MR. VARNADOE: And Policy 4.19, at the top of Page 22 -- take that back, Policy 4.20 at the top of the Page 22. We say that the acreage of open space and public benefit use shall be counted toward the maximum acreage, blah, blah, blah, but should not consume stewardship credits, it's only the open space in excess of the required 35 percent that does not consume credits. So I would suggest that after open space we put in excess of 35 percent, or words to that effect. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's correct. MR. VARNADOE: And then Policy 4.21 -- no, I take that back. Let me -- I can't read my own notes. Well, I've got one more, Mr. Strain, if you just bear with me for CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No problem. MR. VARNADOE: -- one moment here. Oh, on Policy 4.21 on Page 22, I think -- the change I think -- the intent was to not change the amount of the entitlement that was possible in the ACSC. We've now gone from two villages with a Page 114 February 26,2009 potential of 500 acres each to villages not totaling 500 acres. And I'm not going to get into a policy discussion, you guys heard plenty of discussion on that. But I think if you want to keep the same -- if I understood when we discussed that, at least the consensus was to keep the entitlement potential the same, that it probably should be two villages at 500 acres each. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I know that it's harder to take away than to give. And this is -- something's already been given. The thought was just to make sure it's saved in the same manner. I'm trying -- where would the language be? Because 4.2.1, if it had that language in it, it would be part of the cross-out, wouldn't it? MR. VARNADOE: Well, if you read what was deleted off to the right there, it says however, the CRD's or two villages of not more than 500 acres each. You have what you deleted there? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah, I see that. So what you're saying is that meant then 1,000 acres in the SRA's. MR. VARNADOE: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I mean ofSRA's in AC -- MR. VARNADOE: In the ACSC, yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, I mean, that's certainly a point we need to discuss, yeah. MR. VARNADOE: Well, I -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah, I understand your point. I didn't -- yeah. Okay. MR. VARNADOE: And I think that Mr. Reynolds is going to talk about capping credits versus acreage. I'll let him get into that discussion with you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. VARNADOE: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, sir. Appreciate the Page 115 February 26, 2009 comments. Who else would like to speak? Allen, you're looking around for somebody else. It seems like you're the only one left standing. MR. REYNOLDS: Good afternoon. Again, Allen Reynolds with Wilson - Miller. I'm going to speak to this credit cap issue and just expand a little bit on some of the points that Mitch raised earlier. And I want to walk back to a couple of underlying principles in the adopted program that I think have been stated but need to be restated on this issue, and that is that this is an incentive-based, market-driven program. So in order for this program to do what it needs to do, it really operates under free market principles. Well, one of the most fundamental of free market principles is the idea of supply and demand. Any time that you start regulating or capping supply, you start to create issues and potentially unintended consequences. The issue that you would have in this program are that the credits are the currency of this program. And the credits, when they're generated, create the public benefits, the natural resource protection, restoration, and with the recommendation now ago protection. So creating credits actually creates a public benefit that only is exchanged for development by the approval of an SRA, okay. So if -- a couple things happen. Under the current program you have three ways to generate credits: You have the kind of the base natural resource system; you have the restoration program; and you have the early entry bonus. The only one of those three that was capped in the original program was the early entry bonus, and that is now retired. So now under the current program you really have two ways to generate credits, neither one of which is capped under the current program. In order to create a more equitable situation for property owners that don't have the natural resource land, the committee has recommended the agricultural protection to accomplish that purpose and to protect agriculture and the panther corridor program. Page 116 February 26, 2009 So now we've got -- we would have four-ways, four primary ways to generate credits. So if you cap the number of credits based on the number of credits that were generated under the original program, and then you add two new ways to generate credits, something's going to happen there. And I think, Mr. Strain, you mentioned that you're going to have to reanalyze the entire way to achieve the balance of the program. But I can tell you this, is that there would be some impact devaluation that would occur with any kind of a credit cap program. You're either going to devalue the value of future credits, because now the credits that have already been generated under the program are worth more because you've set a limit, even though you've got more land to protect, or on the other side of the equation, if you have to go back and change the credit ratio, you're going to devalue the value of the existing credits. So something's going to get whacked in that kind of a system. We spent -- when this idea of a cap, you know, first came into the discussion, and it came really out of the panther protection program, but a way to finally quantify the footprint of the development, I will tell you that there was a lot of looking at, well, are there any other ways to do that? And credit caps were something that were looked at. The problem with the credit cap, in addition to the economic issue that you create, is that you can't just create a single credit cap. You then have to look at each category of credits. Because in anyone category, you could potentially generate more credits and put the system out of balance again. So once you get -- once you start down that path, then you have to start looking at okay, how do we cap -- do we cap the restoration credits, do we cap the panther corridor credits, do we cap the baseline credits, the ago credits? Well, if you start capping those, then you create a real issue, which is equity and accessibility to property Page 11 7 February 26, 2009 owners. And one of the -- I think one of the great things about this program when it was put in place originally is it was put in place without respect to property ownership. It was put in place with a system that operates without looking at which owner gets what. But I will tell you that once you start getting into a system where you're capping credits and subcategories of credits, now you are creating a situation where you are favorably treating certain property owners and unfavorably treating others. And then you get into a process of okay, how do we deal with that allocation. So, you know, maybe a system could be created on the premise of a credit cap. And perhaps this program could have been created with that concept initially, but it wasn't. The program that was created was a market-based system that says we're not going to regulate the supply of credits, we're not even going to regulate the supply of acres, because it's too far out in the future. We're going to let the system work on a market basis and see how it's working. And I think but for the couple of issues that have been identified with respect to the market system, the program is working. Natural resource protection is out in front of development by a pretty substantial margin. You have property owners that are creating credits and banking them for future use. You have some credits that are being exchanged internally. And I think that's a good thing. I mean, the idea was let's get the public benefits in place out in front. Well, what happens if you put a credit cap in place? Well, the first thing that's going to happen is that property owner's going to say how many credits can I generate? Let me go generate them as fast as I possibly can. You create the potential for less than all of the property owners, a few of the property owners, potentially the comer of the market on credits. They could create all the credits they could possibly create. They could maybe tie up other credits. They control the market. Page 118 February 26, 2009 So then what happens on the other side, the demand side of the equation? It's out of whack, it's no longer a market-based program. But I will tell you, there's two other things that are in this program that deal with the issue that I think you're trying to deal with. And actually, I heard three issues. One was vesting and fairness. And I think what you have heard from the property owners is that even though there is a recalibration of credits required by adding these new features, they are comfortable with the balance that's been achieved because they support the committee's recommendation. So in terms of a vesting issue, I don't think you have an issue with the property owners. There was an issue with respect to a property owner creating credits and then having no market for those credits. That was a second issue that was raised. There is now a policy that was recommended by the committee that allows a property owner to unwind their credits. It's the reverter policy, which is on Page 3. So if you have a situation where there's no longer a market for credits, you get to the cap, the acreage cap and somebody has excess credits, they can unwind those credits and they're back to where they were before they participated in the program. But the third feature is one that we haven't talked about, and gets overlooked, frankly, in this whole program, but I think down the road it may be a very significant one. And that is on Page 6 and 7, and it's Policy 1.18. And what that policy says in essence is that there's more than one way to retire credits. It was recognized that what we were trying to do is create a system that could accomplish all of the public benefits only through incentives. But that may not be realistic. It may not be that all the property owners participate. It may be that there's not a supply or a demand for all the credits. So what that policy says is there's other ways to retire credits. One of the ways to retire credits is through a publicly funded program. Page 119 February 26,2009 So you could have a situation where the county or a private conservation entity could purchase credits and retire those credits, accomplish the same natural resource protection, the same agriculture protection, and there's no equivalent development on the other side of the table. So if that feature remains in place, which I hope that it does, why would you want to cap the ability to generate credits that are going to accomplish good public purposes? I don't think you want to do that. So I would really caution the Planning Commission to avoid sending this back for a reinvention. Because if -- I think if you go down this track of a credit cap, you really do have to reinvent the entire program. There may be certain things that are achieved by that, but I think you're going to have other unintended consequences that result from that, not the least of which is upsetting what right now is proven to be a reasonably well-working, market-based program. And if you want to look at other programs around the state and around the county -- or not the state, the county, but the nation that have not worked, in almost all cases it's because the government interfered with the market basis. They set a price, they set a cap, they did something to upset the market basis of the program, and sooner or later the market is then going to say, you know, we're not going to play. And Collier County has a program that is as old as the Rural Land Stewardship Overlay program that did go down the path of trying to stipulate certain controls, and it's not being used, and that's the fringe program. So again, my point is that, you know, I understand the concept behind well, if we can just cap credits it solves some problems. I don't really think it's solves the issues that you're concerned about. And I think when you look at the balance of the overall way that this program works, I think the recommendation from the committee took all that into account and came up with the best way to address the Page 120 February 26, 2009 issue of how much development are we going to have, and at the same time put as many incentives in place so that as many property owners as possible have the potential to participate and they're not compelled to participate prematurely. And again, I just say that once you put a cap in place, you are going to create a situation where property owners are going to feel compelled to make decisions solely on the basis of that cap rather than what the market is suggesting that they do. So those are my comments. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Questions? David? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I am still stuck on the part where let's say we get to the point where you want more -- you need more credits, and let's say we go to 500,000 credits. You're saying that that's going to make them more valuable? I mean -- MR. REYNOLDS: No. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: -- what you said is that they -- it will -- MR. REYNOLDS: No, what I said is that if you create more ways to generate credits because you're trying to accomplish more benefits but you cap the number of credits based on the current system, there is going to be some impact on the value of credits, either those generated already or those in the future. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: So you're talking about ways that are not in here already? MR. REYNOLDS: Well, the ways are. The agricultural preserve program is one. The panther corridor is another. Neither one of those is capped. They're both estimated. But they generate potentially another 100,000 credits on top of the 315,000 you have today. So if we like the idea of ago preserve and wal)t to keep that and want to reward that with credits, and if we like the idea of a panther corridor and want to incentivize with that credits, you're going to create more credits. You're going to create -- you know, then you have Page 121 February 26,2009 to figure out a way to balance the equation. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: That was taken into consideration with the 315. That was with the original -- MR. REYNOLDS: No, the 315 number, just again to kind of reiterate how that's generated, that's the number of credits that can be generated out of the existing program without ago preserve, without the panther corridors. That's generated by just the base credits, early entry bonus and restoration. And the early entry bonus is now gone. So under the adopted program, there's two ways -- basic ways to generate credits. We're adding two more that add more credits to the system. So our -- you do have to go back and you do have to recalibrate the system on that basis. But when you do that, the recalibration has still given property owners equal ability to access the credit generation program. Once you cap credits, I think you create a very untenable situation of allowing either some property owners to monopolize the system, A, or B, a devaluation to take place. Because once you get to the cap and let's say you get to the cap and all you've done at that point is the NRI and restoration, you have no way then to generate ago credits. So you have no ago preserve program. MR. GREENWOOD: Tom Greenwood for the record. Just briefly, Section 3 in your volume one, specifically Page 76, does delineate the credit generation under the present program. And it also further on delineates credit generation under the proposed amendments. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Allen? MR. REYNOLDS: Yeah, and it really is important to read that section I think just to understand the process that the committee and the property owners had to go through to arrive at what they think at least is an equitable way to deal with the whole situation. And again, not to say you couldn't create a different system, but we have a program in place already that is working and now we're talking about Page 122 February 26, 2009 some enhancements. So I think it's very important not to try to go back, frankly, and reinvent the wheel. And I think you're going to do that if you go down the road of a credit cap. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Allen? The build-out period for this RLSA is 2050. What's your -- MR. REYNOLDS: My opinion? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah. MR. REYNOLDS: I think it's well beyond 2050. I think 2050 was chosen as a year to look at because that's as far as we can look out and do any kind of a reasonable modeling of transportation impacts and other kinds of things. But -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, well -- MR. REYNOLDS: -- yeah, 2050 -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Let's pretend this is 2010 and 2050 is the number. That's 40 years. ,MR. REYNOLDS: Right. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: In the next 40 years do you think you're going to utilize all those potential 425 or 26,000 credits that this current program is suggesting? MR. REYNOLDS: My personal opinion? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. MR. REYNOLDS: I don't think you're going to use them all for development entitlement. I think there may be a possibility that folks will see that the stewardship program creates a more efficient way to use public dollars to accomplish land conservation, and so I think that we're going to see at some point the leveraging effect of acquiring credits take the place of publicly purchased land to some degree. So whether you get to the total number of credits, I don't know, but I don't -- you know, I think it would take a -- it would take an extraordinary rate of growth to get to the entire build-out of this program by 2050. But it's theoretically possible. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Do you think in 20 years we will Page 123 February 26, 2009 use four 25,000 credits? I think the answer to that's for sure no. Do you think we'll use half of that? MR. REYNOLDS: Perhaps. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. What do you think we're going to use in seven years? MR. REYNOLDS: Don't know. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, I don't think you're going to lose more than half, if 20 years would take maybe half to get there. MR. REYNOLDS: Right. CHAIRMAN LEFEBVRE: This program is being set up now to be reviewed every seven years. MR. REYNOLDS: Right. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What you giveth, it's very hard to taketh away with property owners. I don't see any way, especially going back -- and I was there five years ago when you stood before us and you absolutely insisted that the 134,000 credits and the 16,000 acres was going to be really good performance to the program, that's what we should expect. And I myself produced a spreadsheet trying to counter your argument that no, this is what's really going to happen. And even my spreadsheet didn't have everything happening seven years from now. And the reason I'm using seven is if we use 315 and we use credits instead of acreage, seven years when this program comes up for review, if it's an astounding success or if it's an astounding stalemate because they've gone to 300 credits in seven years under some mysterious way and they can't do anything more and save more until such time the program changes, it's easier to change it than to go back and say gee, we made a mistake, we've got to cover all these people, the taxpayers are going to have to figure out some way of handling it. And as far as your reference to the fringe, the fringe set dollar values on those fringe TDR's. A lot of people are concerned about that mistake. It is -- the program is stagnant. But that is nothing like setting Page 124 February 26,2009 credits that ultimately can get there by anybody that wants to use them -- use the basis under which they're driven to get there. And they can bank them forever. So I'm not with you on that argument. But I wanted to express the concerns I had with what you said, so -- MR. REYNOLDS: Let me just respond. And I recognize that some of you, we're just going to have a difference of opinion on this, and that's certainly fine. The reason I illustrated the fringe was to point out a situation where a market-based system was imposed with certain regulatory constraints that were not market-based. That was my point there. You're not suggesting to create a dollar value on a stewardship credit, thank goodness, that would never work. But the net effect is essentially the same, which is you start interfering with the ability of supply and demand to work themselves out in a market-based system. Nobody knew what this program was going to do when it was put in place. We could well still be looking at 16,000 acres of development by the year 2025, which was what the basis of that estimate was. Right now we have 5,000 acres of development in 2010. So who knows, you know, what that's going to be. But if -- and I would agree with you, it may be unlikely that we get to 315,000 credits in seven years, but what you're suggesting is imposing a cap on the entire program of315,000 credits, not 315,000 credits until the next review. So you're now by policy saying that's the total number of credits that can be generated unless some future group decides to change this program. And that's a different thing than saying how many are going to be in place in seven years. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But see, in the future we would know more what is appropriate. And if it isn't appropriate to review the credits in seven years, then why is it appropriate now? MR. REYNOLDS: Well, you know, let me tumthat around and Page 125 February 26, 2009 say, you know, I think that this issue of should we cap credits rather than acres can be looked at in seven years. Why don't you let the program work for another seven years and see at that point in time if that solution which would require a much more substantial redo of this program is a necessary solution or not. My guess is that in seven years we're going to find that it's probably not necessary to put a cap in place because of the other things that have been put into the program. So there's no harm. If you and I both agree that it's unlikely that we're going to see 315,000 credits in seven years, why don't we wait for seven years before we try to take that next step. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I mean, the wait I'm talking about is expanding the credits beyond 315 and not utilizing the acreage. Because if you give the acreage, you're going to have to give the credits sooner or later. Otherwise, what good is the acreage? You can't use it. Or if you are using it, your damage is met. And I'm not sure that's the right approach to take. I'd rather see us minimize the damage, rather than say this is going -- we can maximize it to fit 45,000. I'd rather minimize it to a standard of credits, and if we get there and we have the opportunity to provide more because everything's working well, that's the reason for the suggestion. We'll probably keep disagreeing on it, but I just want you to know that's how it came about, at least from my point of view. So thank you. MR. REYNOLDS: Very good, thanks. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Donna? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, obviously you're up here talking death to caps. However, the review committee wants to cap acreage. So what you're telling me is that's not really a cap. You expect that to change -- MR. REYNOLDS: No, the cap is the cap. COMMISSIONER CARON: -- as well. MR. REYNOLDS: The committee has recommended and the Page 126 February 26,2009 property owners have agreed that 45,000 acres is a cap that they can live with. That's very clear. So -- you know, so again, I don't understand the concern about capping credits. Because the market understands that there's -- on the development side, there's only going to be enough of a market to consume the number of credits it takes to get to 45. What I was pointing out to you is there are other ways in which credits can be used. And those are things that are going to be helpful to the county potentially, so -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, thank you, sir. MR. REYNOLDS: Any other questions? (No response.) MR. REYNOLDS: Thanks very much. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Looks like Dane's next. And Anita's after you. MR. SCOFIELD: Dane Scofield, S-C-O-F-I-E-L-D, with Half Circle L Ranch. We're one of the smaller property owners in the mix. I'd like to pull together some thoughts that Al shared and Mitch Hutchcraft earlier, and it relates to the issue of capping the credits. I don't think any of us anticipated the impact that the housing market would experience which resulted in this economic downturn. If everything was booming right along, we may not be talking about this cap scenario that's being presented today. And I don't think any of us foresee in the future when that's going to turn around. But let's assume that it does so quickly. What you do by establishing that 315 cap is you really incentivize the larger landowners that have sending and receiving areas. Those guys can act quickly to capture that cap limit that you're setting on the credits. And that disadvantages a person like myself or Mr. Priddy or Mr. Hutchcraft. Those individuals who, on Mr. Hutchcraft's part, they want to continue long-term agricultural activities, they may not be in a position to take advantage of a short-term window turnaround in the housing market in order to initiate a development. Those type Page 127 February 26, 2009 properties are -- those are the properties where my credits and Mr. Priddy's credits would go. By capping those credits, you disadvantage myself and Mr. Priddy the opportunity to sell our credits and generate income from the creation of those credits through the SSA's. And I just wanted to bring that to your attention. Another thing that I had a problem with earlier, I keep seeing this map that The Conservancy brought last couple of meetings, and it was being utilized extensively in reference to the corridors and also the areas for the footprint of development that was recommended by The Conservancy. Again, that -- in my opinion, those yellow areas -- I think there's some crossover in the different maps that we saw here today between the primary and secondary. I think you're getting into a crossover. But The Conservancy was promoting those yellow areas as the primary development to concentrate the development in those areas. Again, you're advantaging those landowners within that footprint, that yellow marked area, and those that were the lighter blue, you're disadvantaging those landowners from developing in those -- in this incentive-based program. I just wanted to bring that to your attention. And please be cautious about using those maps. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Dane, I'd like to make one correction for the record. The Conservancy map that was put up there was put up for one reason and referenced for one reason only. That's the blue areas that they were believing were primary panther habitat. And it was put up there to help us understand if that was indeed to be determined primary panther habitat by the two scientists that were here. I don't recall ever pointing out their panther corridors on that map, nor do I recall referring to the yellow areas as development areas. It basically was this is the yellow area, this is the blue area. The blue area is primary panther habitat. Why? Because that reflected supposedly, by testimony, it closest resembled the Kautz paper. That's Page 128 February 26, 2009 the purpose of it. So please don't think that the intent of using that was to promote it. It was simply to try to clarify a point we needed to learn about. So with that clarification, I don't have anything else. Anybody else? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, next speaker? Thank you, sir. MR. JENKINS: Good afternoon. Anita Jenkins, with Wilson-Miller. I would like to speak to the new Policy 4.23. It is on my Page 23, and it's in regards to the outdoor lighting, new outdoor lighting policy. The stated objectives in this policy to protect nighttime environment, conserve energy and enhance safety and security have merit county-wide. And a lighting ordinance could be considered county-wide. However, I would suggest to you that you would strike the language that says modeled from the dark skies program only in that there are many, many programs. The American Planning Association lists, in addition to the dark skies, more than 12 other programs that should be looked at in writing a lighting ordinance. So going forward with this language, we would ask that you consider striking that modeled after the dark sky program and then when the research is done, many other standards can be taken into consideration in drafting a lighting ordinance, and considering that county-wide as well. These comments would also go the same to Policy 5.7 in Group 5 where you have a lighting policy under the program if you're not participating. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. JENKINS: And in addition to that, just one other minor comment. Policy 4.7.3, it's on my Page 18. The last added sentence Page 129 February 26, 2009 there, Mr. Strain, there shall be no more than five CRD's of more than 100 acres in size. The committee's revisions included limiting CRD's to 100 acres, so that sentence would not apply then because CRD's are not allowed to go higher than 100 acres. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, I think the point of that sentence, and it may be stated wrong, was that you couldn't have more than five in any -- at one time before they were converted into a village. And that was the intent. So you didn't have pop clustering -- CRD's popping up all over. MR. JENKINS: Yeah, and I think that's covered in the first sentence up here. It's just the last sentence that no more than 100 acres in size should be stricken. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, I certainly made a note of it, and we'll bring it up. Thank you. Are there any other public -- oh, Brad, hi. MR. CORNELL: Good afternoon, Commissioners. I'm Brad Cornell, on behalf of Collier County Audubon Society and Audubon of Florida. And I just had two points I wanted to bring up. And one was in reference to the proposed panther restoration corridors, the restored corridors. The map that has been shown a couple times that shows the southern and northern corridors with the blackout line, those were suggested corridors from the landowners. It's on that map. What would go forward in any comprehensive plan amendment is the concept that would have just big arrows. And I want to point out that those corridors, that the committee is advocating the corridors in concept only, not in any specifics. The specifics of corridor design would be required to be functional. I mean, they have to be functional corridors. So -- but still we don't know what that looks like. That would be informed by a number of different -- through a number of different avenues, you know, in the specific implementation and development of a corridor with the agencies, as well as with the Page 130 February 26, 2009 panther review team that's looking at these -- the Florida panther protection program. They're going to' be commenting on that as well. But I just wanted to stress, those are concept corridors. You know, don't take that map as any sort of specific advocacy that's not even going to be going forward with any compo plan amendment. And the second point I wanted to make was that -- this is just a minor one, but in the Group 5 policies -- and this is really hard to -- this is one of those policies that has so many sub-policies that I can't even name it. It's 5.6. And here I get into some gray area, .3 sub F, sub Roman IV, I think. It's the one that talks -- and you'll remember this, it's the one that talks about exotics removal counting as mitigation. Do you remember that? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Uh-huh. MR. GREENWOOD: Page 28? MR. CORNELL: Page 28. Yeah, it's my 28 as well. Anyway, there's -- I don't know who made this edit. There's blue crossed out language. I don't know whether that's your edit. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mine's all in red, so I'm not sure what -- MR. CORNELL: Okay, well, this is somebody else's edit. But I wanted to point out that I believe the discussion on that had a problem with the reference of mitigation for wetlands and listed species habitat impacts. And I just want to say personally, I don't think that this policy is very effective the way it's laid out. It's not what the committee proposed, and I wasn't even a party to what the committee said on that. I was outvoted on that. But I think this policy doesn't really do the job. I think you would need to leave the original suggested language in there with the conservation easement and perpetual maintenance requirements for it to be at all effective. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Just out of curiosity in relation to that, did you read iii? Page 131 February 26, 2009 MR. CORNELL: Above that? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. There it establishes the mitigation of clearing and perpetual maintenance. And four establishes that exotic removal and maintenance may be considered acceptable mitigation. So I think one benefits the other. And that's why that additional language was redundant to what was in iii. MR. CORNELL: Okay. Good point. I'm personally not particularly in support of that, but -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, exotic maintenance I thought was something you had to do anyway, but in this program it seems to be a bonus point, so -- MR. CORNELL: That's all I had, thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, sir. Anybody else? Gary? MR. EIDSON: Gary Eidson, E-I-D-S-O-N, not to be confused with -- the struggle that I had in trying to come up, you know, to agree with the committee on the land cap. You know, we went through that deal. And we recognize -- I think the intent that I had and I think the other -- some of the other committee members shared it was that by capping the land we were creating value, okay? That meant that if you were going to -- if you were going to develop land, why, that had a place. But we at the same time said if the land is valuable, that means that if you're giving up something, that's valuable too. You know, it makes it even more valuable. And that's where we looked at the credits as being the money. So the question is do you want to limit the money or do you want to limit the land? And we thought one of the problems with this program was that nobody -- could you be confident in the land and would it work the way you wanted to do it? And so we struggled with all that. And in the end we thought, you know, this is really neat, we had a problem, we weren't emphasizing agriculture enough, so we put Page 132 February 26,2009 more weight in there, and we put some more weight towards the panther. And then the credits then could start to fall out and they could start to maybe effect some of those people with the smaller land sizes, and maybe we could get them off the table so that they wouldn't be putting one house out in the middle of nowhere, like we've got in the Estates. So that was the intent. And I'm a little concerned that we shift away from the committee's intent. And I respect, Mr. Strain, what you were -- you know, you were saying let's just ride it out, see what it looks like in seven years. But I kind of want to -- you know, we've been at this now going on -- we're going to be pushing two years here pretty soon, and we aren't even to the -- we haven't really even got to the gate yet, because it's still got to go up and come back and go around the horn again, and we've got another what, you figure another year? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Probably. MR. EIDSON: If we're lucky. Assuming everybody can still get here. Maybe a year and a half. So now we're down to five and a half. And, you know, I'm just concerned, I think that what we have set up here is a natural progression of trying to make the program more valuable to the whole picture. And I just feel -- I felt really good about it. And I know this isn't the real edgy testimony that a lot of people can give with facts and figures, but I just have to tell you that that's what I liked about it as a citizen, you know, just the average guy on the street. I liked the idea that I knew what the development potential was and I knew that there was a real incentive for people to keep agriculture, and I knew that once they put it in agriculture it was going to stay there. And I thought man, that's really great, because there's no other place where you can be guaranteed that the ago land is going to stay ago And that was the intent. And what we said, well, let's merely make it more important that Page 133 February 26,2009 you make it ago And so that's why we went this direction. And this other really big picture that I got today like the big light bulb went out, and I want to go back to it again, was when we talk about the panther, we're not necessarily talking about the panther. That's a big deal. And I know -- I mean, the panther is the biggest thing you can do and captures the most wildlife. That's really neat. But that's okay. But don't get it confused with that may be the panthers a part of, not all of the issue. And that's what I think has been forgotten in this deliberation, with all due respect. And so the two things that I want to go back to then are the ago is what we really wanted to fill that gap. We said let's keep ago because that's what DCS said and that's what common sense says, and that's what's going to keep Florida making food. And then the other thing is the big picture on the panther. And I thank you for the time. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Your philosophy about the panther and the umbrella, so by protecting the panther we're intentionally or inadvertently protecting many other species. MR. EIDSON: Sure. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What's wrong with that? MR. EIDSON: There's nothing wrong with that. I have no problem with that. But I think that it's a bigger picture sometimes than -- I mean, it's a big picture. It's a gross picture. And sometimes I think we just have to keep that in mind, that's all. I mean, you don't always paint with a four-inch brush. And that's -- and what we have done here is we've dialed the program -- and I think it's great, and I support the panther, and I'm not against the panther, I think the panther's a wonderful thing. And I was excited to learn that the panther's actually related to the Texas Cougar by history. I mean, those are good things. And I feel much better about them, because I didn't feel -- I felt like our panther had been violated by being interbred with the Cougar. But I feel better about that today because I've learned that that's a good thing. You know, they're kind of related, so it's kind of making the Page 134 February 26, 2009 family bigger. And I don't mean to make fun of it, but it's important that you understand that. But the thing now is that I want to protect the ago land too. I think that the cougar's good -- I mean, the panther's good, but I think the ago land is good too because I want to eat and I want to see people working down here making the food. And I think that this incentive program that we created and our committee will do that better than you capping that. And that's my opinion. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, sir. Okay, Bill, are -- you got some -- MR. McDANIEL: Yes, sir, just one point. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go right ahead, sir. MR. McDANIEL: And I, like Gary, feel good about everything that's been going on here today as well. I would like to suggest to you, just as a thought process, you made some accolations (sic), Mr. Chairman, with respect to time and the damage having already been done in relationship to limits of the credits or not limits of the credits. And Gary shared with you that on the committee level we wrestled with this discussion for quite some time. From the committee there were suggestions that creations of additional market places for those credits to be transferred to and utilized in more urbanized situations or -- and again, at a review process at some stage of the game intensifications of densities within areas of development as we go forth and see development occurring in Eastern Collier County, that at the committee level we felt it best to utilize the cap, if you will, Ms. Donna, with respect to the land in lieu of the credit side. The committee actually said in its deliberations that the necessity for creation of a marketplace, as people's perspectives change, as important necessities for protection in fact change, there may be a necessity for a creation of that marketplace. And we found that to be a Page 135 February 26,2009 better path to travel than a limitation on the actual credits themselves where there could be an imbalance that would have to be corrected at some future date. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, sir. Okay, if that's all the discussion from the public at this point, we can move into actual deliberations by this committee on the -- we'll start with the red lining of the GMP language first and then go to the general comments that are in that other document that were passed out. Now, the way we've approached this in the past, we've gone page by page. What I'll suggest today is that we go and we go page by page to where changes are. And assuming that if there's no changes based on the four days that we've been here discussing this, we're satisfied to that point. And something else I want to make a note to everybody. This coming Thursday, a week from today -- I thought today was Friday all along -- but a week from today we have our regular Planning Commission meeting. If you've not seen the agenda, it was passed out today and we have four or five consent items. We only have one agenda item. That would be a rather short meeting, assumably overall. So if we have to go into our deliberations, and I'm asking not to rush these, these are the most important part of what we're finishing up with, we can always finish it on Thursday. I know that doesn't make everybody real happy, and I had hoped to get through it today. But just in case, I wanted to leave that avenue open. So with that in mind, the first policy that was changed is 1.6.1 on Page 4. And if everybody turns to Page 4. There was one suggestion from the audience and that is to add on the line that begins with the word designation, designation provided and application for such withdrawal is implemented. If that's acceptable to the committee, just say so, and if anybody Page 136 February 26, 2009 has any objection, just please raise their hand. Ifnot, we'll move on to the next one. And by the way, for the sake of the committee, my intention is to take whatever changes that we make today and incorporate them into the document and get it to Mr. Greenwood no later than Sunday, but depending on the quantity, maybe even quicker so he can distribute them in time for us to finish up with the consent agenda on Thursday. So okay, we'll turn to Page 5. This one hasn't been -- no one's mentioned this, this is strictly a reinstatement of the opportunity to utilize other agencies for preservation designations. Anybody have any problem with that? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The next change is on Page 8. This just provides the opportunity for primary panther habitat to receive a higher level of credits than just ACSC. Paul? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Okay, I'm looking where it says in the red -- I guess this is the only change where it says or open lands determined to be primary panther habitat. That's the change. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's the change, but the strike-through above it is the change. The strike-through is actually a change because we -- COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yeah, that's right. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- it wasn't described, it was actually described I believe in this one. So -- COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Now, the open lands determined to be primary panther habitat, are they going to be given 2.0 credits or 2.6 credits, or how does that work? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: This suggestion is 2.6. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: And have we calculated how many additional credits that would create? Page 137 February 26, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No. Because this would have to be -- this would probably be resolved more as the science comes out that's being studied by this other group as well before transmittal. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Because I can envision, based on the maps we looked at this morning, there's a lot of primary panther habitat that's out there, and it could add a lot of credits to the system. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It could. But we don't -- it's an unknown. I think the significance here is that if we make a notation that that's something that is needed, at least it becomes an item that's addressed. And how it weaves out -- the study that's being done by a group of scientists through the Memorandum of Understanding may come out and feel that the primary panther habitat that's already been acknowledged is what's there. I mean, we heard other opportunities today, but I don't think that science is done yet. So this kind of puts it into an opportunity if it does and when it gets done. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yeah, I agree with you. And so this is not a totally refined document, but it's something that needs to be included, I agree. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think -- and I remember one of the speakers, either on the 20th or the day before, made a comment that we might not want to be so specific in this document and let the implementation language in the LDC become more specific. And he was right about that. And that's what we've been striving to do. And you'll find that as this document goes on there are some areas that were reflective of that. For example, when we get to the species, instead of listing the species, they can be listed in the LDC and be modified easier there as species change, rather than put them in a GMP which becomes monumental to modify. So that's kind of why this was written that way. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: My inclination would be since I can envision that there's quite a bit of lands that are primary panther habitat, that we would be better having 2.0 stewardship credits instead Page 138 February 26, 2009 of2.6. But this is not, as you said, a refined document. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I mean, it's up to this panel what they want to see as a majority. Do you have an objection to 2.6? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: No, I would be willing to go along with that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Page 9. This reinstates two policies that were there before the advisory committee for the RLSA recommended they be removed. In discussions that we had earlier, it didn't seem to be a good reason why they should be removed. And in fact, it might be more advantageous to have those agricultural committees exist for better input to the BCC. So rather than take them out, why don't we just leave them in? And if they want to use them, fine, and if they don't, I guess it stays just like it has been for the last five years. But the opportunity is better there than not being there. Is that comfor -- everybody comfortable with that? Paul? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I think it's absolutely vital. Because one of the flaws in the process so far is that we do have the landowners, but that is not necessarily equivalent to all the people who work in the fields, who sell fertilizer, who drive tractors, who drive trucks. And you need somebody who represents all those people. And, you know, the landowners do not necessarily do-that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You know, if this stays in and it gets approved this time around again, you might want to try to push that a little bit with your commissioner to see that it gets in place, so -- it would be a good thing to do. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: It would. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, the next comment is on changes all the way on Page 13. This talks about the corridor credits. It provides two additional stewardship credits when someone decides to Page 139 February 26, 2009 designate them for corridor. But the change is that previously should an owner also effectively complete the corridor restoration, this shall be rewarded with eight additional credits per acre. The way that could be interpreted is if the owner of that piece created it. But that does nothing to make it a corridor. So when we talked about this before, the intent was that once the owners were able to complete the corridor and it became viable, that's when the additional credits would be awarded. I know that's been objected to. I heard someone today say that wasn't a good way to do that. So it's up to this committee to decide how they want to proceed with that point. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Question? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah, Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: It -- just to be clear on this, the -- an owner of property decides to go for a corridor. Now the question is completion of the corridor. That could be many, many moons out. Are you suggesting that they get the credit initially and then only when the corridor is completed, including surrounding that property, that that credit is awarded? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, when we first discussed this, the objective was to make sure the corridor got done before those additional corridor credits were issued, because the corridor isn't viable until it is completed. And yes, that's exactly what the eight additional credits say. Everybody would have to timely and in this case it would be a limited number of property owners, two or three or one in some cases, they would have to complete the restoration so we have a viable and functioning corridor in order to get those eight credits. And the way that could be done would be further delineated in the LDC. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, I fully appreciate that. I was observing much of this on TV so I'm aware that one of the issues that was raised was about the time, how long that would take before Page 140 February 26, 2009 that would ever manifest. But if that's qualified now and that committee does not object to it, I certainly think it's okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I'm not sure the committee does or does not object to it. We heard objections I think by one person already today, so that's why, you know, these will have to be our recommendations, regardless of where the committee's coming from. If that is bearing on others, we can -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, I think it makes sense, I just -- so that's fine. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Question, Mark? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: How would the bookkeeping on that really be done if you were going to do that anyway? I mean, if everybody's waiting for the keystone piece, what does that look like? How is that done? I mean -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I think they'd have to submit for restoration credits. And first they put their land in. And then if I was a property -- first of all, let's take the northern corridor. I understood there wasn't a lot of different property owners there. But if those property owners, if two or three of them decided to go into this, or even one, I'm sure they would want to talk collectively about everybody going in and collecting all these credits together. It would be a real good thing to do. But just -- it just kind of incentivizes people to work together to create a corridor. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But if -- let's say there was one small fellow, he would have two, he would wait around and all of a sudden he'd get in the mail the other eight that he earned because the guy down at the end plugged in, right? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, it would have to be -- he'd know what's being done because his property would have improvements made on it. Restoration would be taking place. Page 141 February 26, 2009 COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I mean, isn't the intent to give everybody 10 credits if they're part of the corridor, or is the intent to reward the keystone guy? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, I think the intent was to give everybody eight credits -- at least the language that we have here, the intent was to give everybody additional credits, because that's what I believe the committee had intended when they wrote this. But the way it was written, it didn't complete the corridor. They got it for completing the restoration of their piece. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are you clear on that? I don't want to leave anything until we understand it. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I don't think it's clear. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Bill, do you have an opportunity to address this for us as far as what the committee originally intended? I know you can't tell us what we intended, but can you tell us what the committee originally intended? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: While Bill's thinking about that, Mark, can I just -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: If I were the keystone guy, if I were the keystone cop there, I would go to the other folks and say I want twice as much. If you want me to join, you're going to have to pay me. What's to prevent that? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, first of all, I don't know how many property owners are involved in each strip. And it doesn't seem like there's too many. In fact, we got a sheet that might tell us right here. Second of all -- COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Well, that particular one, yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Second of all, David, I don't know if any of them would join in until they all reached some kind of Page 142 February 26, 2009 communal agreement that they could benefit from before they did it. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: That's true. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I mean, I've got to give them -- they're smart enough to have gotten this program this far, they'd sure be smart enough to work together in the future. MR. McDANIEL: And on that note, with -- Bill McDaniel, with a big D. Big D on the D-A-N-I-E-L. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I was wondering what he meant by that. MR. McDANIEL: When the committee was adding these -- this language in here for the credits, the goal was to incentivize cooperation, as you suggested, with respect to the establishment of the corridor, but not pay the credits out until the corridor was in fact completed. Now, the additional language that you all have added in there, I don't have any real comment on necessarily in conjunction with -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Honestly, I think the additional language just says the same thing, but it clarified it. Because the way the original language showed, it says each -- should an owner also effectively complete the restoration, this shall be rewarded with eight additional credits per acre. Should an owner. And what that concern was, that if one owner went in, did his restoration, said the heck with everybody else, he gets 10 credits. This way it's very clear -- seemed clear that you don't get the additional eight until everybody works together and completes the corridor. MR. McDANIEL: I understand. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And that seems to be what you just said was the intent. MR. McDANIEL: That was the intent of the committee at the time. There again, incentivize cooperation but not reward until Page 143 February 26, 2009 completion was in fact in place. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Brad, does that work for you now? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah. Again, the bookkeeping MR. McDANIEL: How he actually gets the credits in the mail or not, I don't know about that. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I mean, the person obviously is getting credits to do some development someplace else, so he would have to hold off waiting for those eight credits. MR. McDANIEL: Agreed, until the corridor was formalized and restoration completed. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And I think the extortion David alluded to for the keystone piece is available, so -- but we'll see. You know, without understanding the land ownership of the corridor -- MR. McDANIEL: Well, and there again, and not to belabor the point, and it's off the subject matter, but the suggested corridors that came in the conceptual map were with conducive land ownership interests that allowed for some kind of connectivity. Like it, don't like it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, sir. Okay, if we're done with 13, we can move on to Page 14. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: One more thing -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Brad, go ahead. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- on number three, I have a note. It says only one type of restoration can be awarded. I have a note that says and in no case exceed 10 credits per acre. Is that a -- why do I have that note? Is that something we discussed, or -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You know what? It was. I think I forgot to add it. You're right. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The note is where it says only one type of restoration shall be rewarded for these credits for each acre Page 144 February 26,2009 designate for restoration, and in no case shall there be more than 10 credits issued. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: That's the max. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. That's a good point, thank you, Brad. On Page 14 on the top of the page, we talk about the water management area. We had one speaker indicate that we need to really focus on the primary treatment. Good point. Because when you have water management, you have outfalls. The intention certainly was not to penalize someone for using a WRA as an outfall. That's actually where water's supposed to go, especially to keep the hydrology up. The only question I have, and I'm not sure anybody can answer it, I understand -- there's primary treatment and secondary treatment. And I'm not sure if secondary treatment comes into play in the SRA. There is an engineer here. Allen? Planner, I'm sorry. Engineering firm person. Anita's the same way. Is there an engineer? Anybody specializing in water management? Oh, well, you walked in at a good time. Could you answer a water management question for us? MS. HECKER: I'll try. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You need to please tell them your name. MS. HECKER: Jennifer Hecker. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, Jennifer. Are there primary and secondary treatments for stormwater management? MS. HECKER: The current stormwater treatment regulation through the environmental resource permitting by the South Florida Water Management District is a presumptive criteria that if you capture the first one inch of stormwater in wet detention ponds that you're meeting the removal rates required. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's considered primary treatment? Page 145 February 26,2009 MS. HECKER: That's considered the primary treatment. And in certain instances where you're discharging to an impaired water body or an outstanding Florida water, there is an additional half-inch that is required to be captured and treated as well. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. That answers the question. Great. Thank you very much. So I think what the language suggested was to insert the words primary treatment prior to the words water management. That accomplishes the goal. Is everybody in agreement with that? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. The bottom of Page 14, this is the one that's been probably the most controversial. Total SRA designations shall be a maximum creation of 315 (sic) stewardship credits. I've heard the arguments from -- MR. SCHMITT: 315,000. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: 315,000 credits. I've heard the -- Mr. Schmitt, thank you. I've heard the arguments. I haven't changed my thinking on this, and I think the flexibility is there to adjust it as time might dictate it's needed. But this committee needs to make a finding on it. And this is a serious one, so I'll make sure everybody's had their say. Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I mean, what if we did this now, Mark? And I think the biggest thing is the seven-year review is really to do this. But what if we put in there the creation of the 315,000 stewardship credits or 45 acres and then just let it go at that and then-- yeah, in other words, set two ceilings, two caps, whichever one you hit first, that protects people from either direction. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I don't see the need to do that that way, Brad. I'd rather see people striving to put more on less than opening it Page 146 February 26, 2009 up to spread it out. By doing that, you're saying 315,000 stewardship credits could theoretically encourage urban sprawl by having bigger estate lots and less density, which you generally like the higher density. So I wouldn't want to encourage spread out developments at all. Especially in the SRA -- or in the RLSA. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, I mean, am I naive to -- I mean, essentially you get one acre for 10 credits, right? I mean; isn't on -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, if you were to limit the credits to 315, I'm sure the committee would want to go back and reanalyze their distribution of credits, and I would assume they'd keep the eight acres per credit that currently the program has, instead of moving it to 10. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I mean, they don't have to, but it would seem to me they would want to do that at this point. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah, I mean, I certainly would love to see more credits less. But the trouble is, we really don't equate it to density, we take the 10 or the eight and we buy acres. I mean, so we're not -- it would be nice if we took credits and bought density. But we're taking credits, buying acres and backing into density from acreage. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, there's no encouragement in this program to use high density. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: No, there isn't. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And I wouldn't want to see small amount of credits or limited amount of credits be spread over a maximum amount of acreage. I think we'd be doing just the opposite. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: How many credits have gone down in the first five years? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: 160,000. MR. GREENWOOD: How many credits have been consumed? Page 147 February 26,2009 COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah. MR. GREENWOOD: A little over 28,000 for the town of Ave Maria. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Only 28,000? MR. GREENWOOD: 28,000. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So -- MR. GREENWOOD: And there's -- presently there's 37,000 credits that have been earned. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So maybe the joke of this argument is that they're never going to get anywhere near that in seven years, and let's punt that forward. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's the point. And the reason the seven years review is important is if the program's doing that well or if it's been refined through proven methods over the next few years, it can be implemented in seven years and no one really is shortchanged because the program won't even be that far in seven years. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. MR. GREENWOOD: Just a point of reference, the EAR base that was just completed -- actually it was the 2004. The next would be 2011, and may very well not be done until 2012, 2013. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So that's not even seven years, that's even less. MR. GREENWOOD: That's correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So there's a checkmate there for that. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So it really doesn't matter -- I mean, we're -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yeah, I want to be clear in my mind here. Is this the introduction of the cap that they kept on talking about that they didn't want? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay. I would not favor a cap. Page 148 February 26, 2009 I'm convinced by their argument that that's an acceptable approach. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Should we be adding this redistribution language in here? Allowing them to shift around those credits to wherever -- do we need language in here is the question. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I would suggest we put that under one of our general comments. Because to really, if you want to talk about reshifting around the credits, you'd probably have to go back and change quite a few paragraphs, and that's something that if we just make as a general comment as a result of a -- if the 315,000 credits gets approved, then it would be wise to recommend to the committee to go back and recalculate how the credits -- those 315,000 credits are awarded. COMMISSIONER CARON: I meant strictly a comment. Not to do it, but to say you are allowed to do it. A simple declarative statement as opposed to I want to now go back and have -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, I think as a general comment. We wouldn't want to put that in the GMP language, but we should put it in the general comment language. And that works, I think that's a good idea. Anybody else have any comments or concerns? Mr. Midney? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yeah, and we're assuming that they will put the agriculture credit in there, since they've realized that agricultural incentives are an important part of this, it needs to be in it. I'm sure that they will just reapportion and reallocate. And since the committee itself voted to do one reallocation already by adding in the agriculture and panther restoration credits, it's something that can be done a second time. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Varnadoe, I can't ask for unsolicited comments from the audience anymore. MR. VARNADOE: So solicit. Page 149 February 26, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, it would set a precedent that wouldn't be workable. We'd be here for days. MR. VARNADOE: All I was going to suggest, that Policy 4.19 deals with the credit allocation. That would be an appropriate place to put your comments. COMMISSIONER CARON: Thank you. MR. SCHMITT: You were going to say that? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'm glad you didn't say that. Okay, well, leave it to you always to disrupt things. Let's move to page -- well, for the record then, when we -- COMMISSIONER CARON: When we get there. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: When we get to our conclusions today and we want to talk about how this recommendations from this committee goes forward, Mr. Murray, you made it clear you're not in favor of Policy 4.2, so when we get to our recommendations, if you want to emphasize or if anybody in this room takes precedent different than the majority, then just remember which ones you take exception to, and when we have our majority vote, if you have an exception to that, you can just list it then. Does that work for everybody? Okay, Page 15, two changes in some wordage in No. 45. It kind of gets to where Nick was talking about this morning. Kind of -- and there's one change that I missed again. And if you look at Policy 4.5, you look at the new underlined language in the new paragraph, the second line. Let me read the two sentences so we're all on the same page. Each SRA master plan shall include a management plan with provisions for minimizing human and wildlife interactions. Low intensity land uses, examples, parks, passive recreation areas, golf courses and vegetation preservation requirements, shall be exclu -- it goes on, shall be used to establish buffer areas between wildlife habitat areas. And if you recall, in the first couple of days we had a lot of Page 150 February 26, 2009 discussion about what parks meant in there, because parks could be stadiums, could be ball fields, could be anything. And I didn't go back and address this, and here I simply forgot, I should have. I would suggest that we strike the word parks and just leave it passive recreation areas. And if there's a park there and it's got passive recreation area, it meets the intent. But I think everybody acknowledged at the meeting that the intent was not stadiums and ball -- those big highlighted intense uses. So if the committee's comfortable with that, I think by just striking the word parks we accomplish the goal. Does that work for everybody? We're on Policy 4.5, the second paragraph, it's all in underline and new paragraph. (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, then let's move to Page 16. There was one point on 4.6 that was pointed out to us in I think The Conservancy's recent paper. I got so much paper here. Yeah, this is, the county determines mass transit is needed, either within an SRA or to connect the SRA to locations off-site. The SRA obligation to provide funding, infrastructure and other in-kind donations to facilitate mass transit shall be included in the SRA mobility plan. Well, I didn't necessarily agree with all that language, but I think because a lot of it could be worked out at the LDC level. But if you go to Policy 4.6 and you look at the first underlined sentence that was added, the SRA shall also include a mobility plan that includes consideration of vehicular, bicycle and et cetera. If we took the word consideration out, that would get it there. They would have to include the modes of travel and movement between the SRA's for vehicular, bicycle and pedestrian public transit and internal circulars. That may accomplish the goal, and it's a good point. I don't necessarily agree the way to get there is the way The Conservancy has outlined. But the fact that it was a consideration, as we learned in the Page 151 February 26,2009 water plan, means nothing. And maybe the word consideration, if it was dropped, would mean that they're going to have a mobility plan, they're going to consider roads, they're going to consider bicycles, and it will be part of it. Now, how it gets paid for, how it gets implemented, that's the LDC part of it. Does anybody have any questions, concerns? Donna? COMMISSIONER CARON: Just that we're not -- it's not indicating here that they would have to necessarily have all of those things. Because I don't think that was the intent, right? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, if the word consideration was taken out, then it would leave it to all those, because it would be shall. The SRA's shall also include a mobility plan that includes vehicular, bicycle, pedestrian -- it would be a positive. COMMISSIONER CARON: And other modes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. Now -- right. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: We don't know yet what allthe modes are. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But I think what Donna's rightfully concerned about is that does every town and village have to have a mobility plan for each one of those items. Some of them may not be large enough to. And I think the way we might want to look at that is include a reference in that sentence, as required by the chart that's in the back of the document that tells you what each town and village has to have based on the acreage and size of that town. And that's the attachment C, which is called stewardship receiving area characteristics. COMMISSIONER CARON: So youjust do parens, chart number or whatever it is. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah, for those that are required pursuant to the attachment C stewardship receiving area characteristics. Page 152 February 26, 2009 COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Mark? CHAIRMAN LEFEBVRE: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: But it also just relates to mobility strategies. So it's really a planning activity, as opposed to compelling the initiation of the work. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: The way I understand it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, so your belief, the way you're reading it, and it may be right, is that this says they'll have a mobility plan, but it provides just strategies, it doesn't provide inducement. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yeah, and if I read -- if I understood, Nick's reasoning was that the compact rural developments may spring up and they may be distant away and then there'll be one in the middle, and he doesn't know how to plan his roads at that point and it's not clear. But with a strategy, at least they're looking forward planning at it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, the strategy then helps qualify some of the strength of the first sentence so that it's more of a strategy and a plan. And so I think if we strike the word consideration in the first sentence and refer to attachment C and then leave the rest of it, it takes care of it. Is that a fair statement? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I'm reading. That will work. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Let's -- it's 2:45. Before we take a break, Catherine was supposed to be here. Did she show up? Didn't you tell me, Tom, you had her here at 2:45? MR. GREENWOOD: I think you instructed 3:00. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I did, but someone came up to me and said she's coming at 2:45, so -- MR. GREENWOOD: Well, I don't-- MR. WILLIAMS: She was just outside the window. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Wait a minute, what day is it? Brad said Page 153 February 26,2009 1 :45, he's on Mountain Time. I'm on Friday and it's Thursday. Okay. Well, look it, let's take a break and come back at 3:00 and by then Catherine will be here. MR. WILLIAMS: She was at the window a second ago. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We'll come back at 3:00. (Recess. ) (At which time, Commissioner Kolflat is not present.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, if everybody will please take your seats, it's the magic hour, we can start back up again. Catherine, please don't leave, you're the entertainment. Okay, now, I need to put a whole bunch of corrections on the record. It seems that when I spoke about our meeting on Monday, I inadvertently said 9:30. I thought I said 8:30, but someone thought I said 9:30. So just to be absolutely sure, our meeting on Monday is supposed to be at 8:30 in the morning at the BCC chambers, number one. Number two, I said earlier that the sign document, which is what we're now talking about, is already on the web and for review. I just found out it is not -- MS. F ABACHER: No, no. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, let me finish, Catherine. The sign document that I passed out with the yellow highlighting is not on the web for review. The original one that we got is. Now, this board was talking about whether or not we should hold our meeting based on public disclosure of information and making sure public has adequate time to review the stuff. Before we took a vote, we wanted to hear your concerns if we weren't to meet on Monday. MS. F ABACHER: Well, no, I think we should meet. If we go back to the old one you got on the 19th and the 20th, that's fine. But we still need to meet. The expert's coming, I've paid $1,250 for the ad. But what we've Page 154 February 26,2009 done here is when we were just doing a final read-through, we looked at a few things, and Diana, who -- it's been kind of balancing between Diana and -- Compagnone, who knows -- who works with the sign contractors and in fact has distributed it to all of her sign contractors, and they'll be there. But we looked and there were a few things we knew were missing that were just not right, and we were hoping that we could just -- the little yellow things, just make a little change, and give it to you so that when the Doctor comes on Monday we'll have everything in here to discuss. We were missing -- there is a big section, and it is on abandoned signs. And when we were reading it through, Diane and I for the final, we realized that whole thing was missing. And we were hoping that we can include it so we would have all the material that we need to ask our consultant about. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I know you're characterizing this as minor, and that's something this panel will have to either agree or disagree. And the beginning of your statement you said we should meet Monday, even if we don't review this language. However, I would suspect that if we meet Monday during the course of discussion, this language will be brought into play. And we've already had notice of it. And again, it's back to the concern we originally voiced, that there wasn't adequate public notice of this new language. I understand it was advertised properly, the existing language. At least the ordinance was advertised properly. The language that we currently had was apparently available for quite a while. That this is going to be available sometime today. And by the way, Steve, that means today isn't been (sic) the day that they've had it, so that means tomorrow will be the day that it might be available. So that means one working day before Monday. Now, I just want to make sure that we do what's right. I want to make sure that we deal with full disclosure to the public. We're not Page 155 February 26,2009 operating in the stealth around here. Any comments from the Planning Commissioner in that regard? Mr. Wolfley, then Mr. Schiffer. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I think we can take what they wrote in yellow just up for consideration as if I were to say I've got a change in the document, I got an idea that I want to -- we can use it like that. I wouldn't use it as an official document, though, as you had said, as the one to work off of. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Brad? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah, I mean, a concern I had is -- and there was one section of the code and it's the definition of sign. Jeff Wright and I have been talking about it. The consultant added something to the back of that definition that's not even on this. So the concern I had is that Jeff was saying is that the only things we can go into were the things that the consultant brought out as necessary to meet our court order. That was one of the things. It's not in here. So who's the one who's changing these documents? Who's the one who's going through and determining what should be in there and what shouldn't be in there? MS. F ABACHER: I'm confused. Why isn't it the Doctor's definition of sign? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, at the end of the definition of sign there's some wording essentially describing location and it's not here. So what is happening to this document? Who is editing it? And is all the things that the consultant put in in here, or are you taking them out? MS. F ABACHER: No, I'm not taking latitude. But the consultant wants to go much farther than this, and we thought we would bring it to you, staff thought we would bring it to you before we let the -- we sanitize it completely, because we feel as staff we will have gone too far, and we're concerned that if you -- it's a matter of Page 156 February 26,2009 weighing the risk. And we're going to need the attorneys to help us, what you want to take a risk on. Because they want us to remove all the labels. If you want to say open house sign, if you want to say coming soon sign, and without the labels you don't know what it is, and people will be thinking they can have additional signage. So it was our concern to stop the process now, because the Doctor wants to go even farther. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Brad, maybe a question to Steve might help. Steve, if we take Mr. Wolfley's suggestion and we run the meeting off the original document and where staff or anybody wants to change things they bring in the yellow highlighting on a piece-by-piece basis but it happens at the public meeting, is that a way, a successful way to approach this? MR. WILLIAMS: I think it would be, because I would envision that during Monday's meeting you're going to have some changes and suggestions and comments and everything anyway. You just happened to receive these a couple days early is a way to approach it. If you base Monday's meeting off the original document, I can't think of a reason that would be inappropriate. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Brad, does that kind of answer your question, or -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah, I guess. I mean, you know, the thing that scares me more than anything is that this document took stuff off that the consultant wanted on there. I mean, so I don't like that condition. MS. F ABACHER: The consultant has changed it several times, trust me. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, for what we intend to do on Monday is take the document you distributed to us as the final document and use that, and then if we come to these points where these need to be inserted, you can point it out and we can discuss it Page 157 February 26, 2009 openly, and that way it happens at the public meeting instead of distribution ahead of time. Does that work for everybody? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Remember, Mark, I'm not going to be at the meeting, so I'm going to be submitting comments based not on this document but on the prior document. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's fine. And by the way, how that -- we'd better talk about how you're going to submit comments, because I want to make sure we don't have any Sunshine -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Send it -- e-mail it to Catherine. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, that would work fine. MS. F ABACHER: I did want to remind you that he will probably be coming back for a second hearing with you, Dr. Mandelker. So -- ifneeded. So I appreciate the time, thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, Catherine. And we'll just leave it. Then we will have the meeting Monday and we'll go on. Is that okay with everybody? Okay, more fun. With that, let's move back to Page 16 was where we left off. Policy 4.7.1 had a sentence that was added and a correction was inserted into the sentence. And I think one of the speakers correctly pointed out that really what we ought to do is leave the sentence as it was, take the added language that we put in back out and on 4.7.2 put the sentence back in but take out the words towns and leave villages so that it applies to the villages like the intention was, but it's in the right paragraph. And I think that was a good call. Does anybody have any problems with that? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Good idea. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So noted then. On Page 17, the recommended amendment, there's a couple changes. And Brad, this gets the convenience retail end that you had asked about. And it takes out those industrial and other kinds of uses Page 158 February 26, 2009 that 4.7.4 had referenced in regards to a whole pile of other things. That was the first change. And it goes over to Page 18. Let's talk about the first two, adding in the convenience retail and striking out the 4.7.4. Is everybody comfortable with that? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I realize tourism -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'm sorry, I can't hear you. Can you use your speaker? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I realize that tourism has been in there. I'm just wondering, CRD's were essentially residential. Was it ever envisioned on -- I guess it must have been envisioned that tourism would playa part somehow. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, they were actually originally eco villages, hunting and fishing, camps and things like that -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Oh, that's right. That makes sense now. Thank you. That brings it back. Yeah. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. With that we'll move to Page 18. There's been a change in the top. And this is more to make sure that a CRD can have services and facilities support the permanent residents that are allowed to be there only made sense. I don't think there's any discussion on that. Towards the end of that same paragraph we had one suggested change. The addition was to maintain a preportion of CRD's of 100 acres or less to villages and towns. Not more than five CRD's of 100 acres or less may be approved as an SRA's. Prior to the approval of a village or town and thereafter not more than five additional CRD's of 100 acres or less may be approved for each subsequent village or town. And that last sentence was suggested being dropped because it confuses the issue with some others. First of all, the intent here was to make sure we just didn't have Page 159 February 26, 2009 proliferation of a whole bunch of CRD's snuggled up against one another and avoiding the requirements of a village or town. So the point was when they got to at least five of them, that would be 500 acres or close to that, they'd have to form a village to meet the village requirements. I don't have a problem with dropping that first sentence. I don't think it does that much either way. What does the rest of the committee think? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: You said the first sentence? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I mean the last sentence. I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yeah, the last sentence is confusing. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. So if we drop that, I think the rest gets to the intent we had talked about. Is that okay with everybody? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: That's fine. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Policy 4.7.4, this was one that had a whole pile of information. It just cleans it up. And I believe this was -- I think we talked about this. And Tammie was here when we talked about it. She really wanted to make sure the sustainability issue was addressed. I think that was added. And then we just left the balance of it out and then it will be defined in the LDC. Anybody have any problems? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If we turn to Page 19, there's one red line item in 19, and that's involving the open space exceeding 35 percent shall not be required to consume credits, but it shall be counted as part of the SRA acreage. And I think that was just a clarification. However, if you go to the very top of that page, that first underlined sentence is one we had discussion on, and I actually couldn't come back to a resolution of it when I wrote this. I was getting kind of weary of it all. So I put it as a general comment on the other paper I passed out to basically say Page 160 February 26,2009 infrastructure needs some kind of definition. Because this is what this is allowed now in FSA's and HSA's. It's saying infrastructure necessary to serve permitted uses may be exempt from this restriction, provided that designs seek to minimize the extent of impacts for any such areas. And I understand that. It means if you got a water line coming along and you need to make sure the water line goes in or it's problematic if it doesn't, it needs to go in there. But where do we limit infrastructure? And where the problem comes in, if you go to the LDC and try to see what the word infrastructure means, you get a variety of hits. One of them is the elements that go on top of a multi-story building for allowing the elevators to go up to the top of the roof. That's an infrastructure for the building. Then you have infrastructure that goes along the roadway. And Cherie', you can throw something at me next time. I got to slow down a little bit. You have infrastructure that goes along roadways, is underground. I just wanted -- I would suggest that the intent here gets worked out. I couldn't figure out a way at the time I was writing this to define it, so I pointed it out in the other comments. I don't know if anybody on this committee has any ideas right now, or we can just leave it as an item that needs to be addressed through data and transmittal. I couldn't figure it out in the time I had to write this, so -- anybody have any -- if we leave this in as a general concern that it needs to be more or less clarified, does that work for everyone? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yes. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Yeah. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. On Page 20, instead of referring to the maintenance of the public and private roads by the primary town or community, just say SRA, because that's what they serve is the SRA's. It just was a clarification. Page 161 February 26,2009 On the end there's a sentence that says, these actions shall be considered within the area of significant influence of the project traffic on existing or proposed roadways, period. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I have a question. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Mr. Murray. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Back on that issue of changing that to SRA. Is it even reasonably feasible that you could have two PUD's within one SRA? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Two PUD's? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yeah. What I'm thinking about, I'm not trying to pose a question you can't answer, but what I'm thinking about is who then all would be responsible? And presumably it would be in the PUD's then that they would be responsible for the roads and the rest of it, correct? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I'm trying to think of how that would work. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, take Lely Resort, for instance, or any of the other big developments. You go in and you're on a public road and then you have developments under PUD's, and they've private roads. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And an SRA in my mind can be a large area, and it's possible to have more than one development in there. And so the question then becomes who all are responsible? Is SRA adequate, because it's all-encompassing. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: See, when they come in and ask for the SRA, at that time I would believe the responsibilities by this would say the SRA's got to address them. So no matter who comes in and further subdivides it, they'd be obligated to take care of it on any pro rata share that they would sign on to when they bought the property. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And I appreciate that. But I've heard it said as a problem before us that once -- and in fact Joe Page 162 February 26, 2009 Schmitt has said it I think on a couple of times at least, once a PUD -- once a development is broken down into PUD's, it's hard to make responsibility nailed down. And that's the only thing I'm raising. It may be moot, but I thought it was worthwhile thinking about. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I would think by using the umbrella of the SRA, it gives us a little bit more strength than not. So COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And it may be. It could be my ignorance about what an SRA truly represents legally. Let me further that, maybe you can help me with that. I'm an SRA. What am I? Am I a corporation, am I a partnership? What am I? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: An SRA is the land use, like a PUD. So I think it's a zoning -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: So it's a zoning instrument. It's a form of -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You get credits -- you use your stewardship credits to enact the SRA, and within the SRA those credits allow you to do all kinds of things, including retail, commercial, industrial and residential. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: So it's akin to a PUD effectively is what you're saying. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: It's a big PUD. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Thank you, that may help me appreciate that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: On 4.15.1, okay, what this came about as, this language allows an SRA not to duplicate services if it's in an adjoining or nearby SRA or urban area, kind of like the Immokalee urban area. And that's great. And that helps. But you would certainly want to make sure that the capacity in that adjoining SRA is there for the new SRA to count on it. Otherwise you've not enforced the minimum standards and the FAR's and all the other numbers that are Page 163 February 26, 2009 in the attachment C that towns and villages have to abide by. So all this does is make sure they continue to do that. Does anybody have any questions or concerns? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: On Page 21, Policy 4.16. Just added language for clarification. And then a redundant strike of 100 acres for the CRD's, because that's said before in numerous ways, so all this does is add more clarification language. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Mark, you didn't relate to the infrastructure word there. Perhaps you did, actually, where it says essential services and infrastructure. Because there I think it's more clear that it's in the development, correct? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, it is. But, you know, this doesn't give the exception for being in an FSA and HSA, and that's the only reason. You're right, Bob, that's the only reason I did not mention this one is because here it doesn't matter, it's not in an FSA or HSA. Whatever infrastructure they need, they need to put in. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: It's not an imposing condition. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. At least that's the way we saw it at the time. Policy 4.17, this was the one where Al Reynolds in an e-mail to me had suggested that we go to policy -- the CIE Policy 1.1 and refer -- instead of saying category A and category B, because we struck that reference in the CIE, it was a good point, we don't have it anymore. We basically have the elements of the CIE as referenced in Policy 1.1. So that's a good correction. The problem is it doesn't bring in the issues that we wanted to bring in if we had included category B. Since category B is taken out of the AUIR -- or I'm sorry, the GMP's and the CIE -- boy, these acronyms are probably getting people wondering what in the world we're talking about. The CIE is the Capital Improvement Element of Page 164 February 26, 2009 our GMP, which is the Growth Management Plan. By taking out category A and category B, we've removed all of category B, because category A still stays in the GMP and the CIE. So I think what we want to do is say something to the effect the GMP for public facilities included in CIE Policy 1.1, as well as the following. And this is where we need to talk about it. Jails, law enforcement, EMS, fire, government buildings and libraries. Those are our category B facilities that if we just refer to Policy 1.1 we won't be addressing those. And so if we feel that the SRA's need to address those in some manner or form in their analysis, then this is where we'd have to put the language. Now, really, whatever this board thinks from a full planning effort, at least if they analyze those, like a CRD would probably come back and they have little impact, a village may have a little more and a town would have significant impact. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Mark? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: It seems to me that inasmuch as these are essential certainly for the CRD's and the villages residential and they'll want services for residential needs, libraries and, well, hopefully not too much in the way of big jails but other facilities would be a requirement. And I think they belong together. And I agree, I understand the differentiation you're making and I think it does belong here categorically A and B. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody have any problems? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What I'd have to do, though, is take out the reference to A and B because they no longer exist. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And replace it with the reference to the policy and then those items that I listed. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I understood that. Page 165 February 26, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Does that work for everybody? Okay. On Page 22, this is a Policy 4.18 on the top, this just clarifies when a surplus revenue -- first of all, how it's generated and when it can be used. Really you've got to look at the related impacts outside of those directly generated by the SRA, the area as a whole. So that's the only reference we were trying to make, it just cleans up what I -- we were looking at as intent. Any problems there? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Question, Mark. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And it's not something that's been revised, but on 4.19, that's where I get the impression that it's 10 units per acre. In other words, it's eight if it's an old credit, it's 10 if it's a new credit, right? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes. But that's under the current program, that capacity by acreage. And in our general comments, we'll have a note that basically says if the Board of County Commissioners instructs the committee to utilize the cap in the form of credits, then - they also need to allow the committee to go back and rework the way the credits are applied. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. So you think that might change that 10? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think it would change it. I can't imagine they'd want to penalize themselves up to 10 credits per acre. So yeah, I think that certainly will change. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So essentially they'll go back, take the credit limit, divide it into the maximum acreage they want and come up with a new number for this? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, they'd probably go back to the eight and then look at a ways to reallocate acreage based on priorities of restoration, environment, agriculture and the other elements, panther corridors and the other things like that. They may feel that if Page 166 February 26, 2009 they get reduced credits, maybe 10 credits per acre for panther corridors is higher than it needs to be. Maybe it should be a total of eight. But it would be something I would highly recommend that the BCC allow the committee to relook at. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. I got it, thanks. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Policy 4.20. This one there was a suggested change that I think was correct. It says, the acreage of open space and the words in excess of35 percent and public benefit use shall count towards the maximum acreage limits. So I think that was right. And then if you see this is the one that had the -- another reference to excluding essential services. Actually, if you exclude essential services, you're excluding things that they're saying should be included. Because regional parks and government facilities are essential services. So the thought was that essential services shouldn't be excluded, but the exclusion of the items that are listed sits and stands. That seems to take care of it. Does anybody have any concerns there? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ifnot, we get into one -- I know Mr. Midney had an issue with this. I didn't incorporate your concern on this because I know we would discuss it. And also, we -- there was a correction that this originally intended for up to 1,000 acres in the ACSC. And as distasteful as that may seem, in order to be consistent with some of the other things that have been argued, it seems if we've given something, it's not right to take -it away. So I know, Paul, you had a concern about any development, and I know The Conservancy has been concerned about SRA developments in the ACSC. Unfortunately in the first go around those were all provided, 1,000 acres of development and SRA's were allowed to be in the ACSC. Page 167 February 26,2009 So the attempt here was to put it back like it was and allow no more. I know there is concerns. Now, there's been at least two concerns expressed about that. This isn't written right. It was intended to be 1,000 acres total, and this limits it to 500. So I think that correction needs to be made to make it to what it is today. But is there -- but where do we sit on this as a group, as a panel? Paul, do you have any -- COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I would go along with it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You would? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yeah. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And that's to leave it like it was, basically. How about the rest of you, any concerns? Donna? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, I'm not sure who came up with the 1,000 acres to begin with, but it would seem to me that if we're reviewing this policy, 1,000 acres ofSRA in the ACSC just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: It doesn't make sense, but Mark, you say that it's already in there now. We would have to be taking something away, you're saying? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If you read the strike-through, that follows the red line. However, CRD's or two villages or CRD's of not more than 500 acres each, that's already in there. So that means they've already got a right to develop up to 1,000 acres in the ACSC. And if you really think about what we gave away five years ago, and that includes the 315,000 creation of credits, it's much harder to take away than to give. You know, I'm just -- out of fairness, I'm saying we gave it, we should stick by our word and live with it. And that's kind of where I was at with that. But that's my shot at it. That's where I'm suggesting. And it's Page 168 February 26, 2009 really what this panel wants as a group. So if there's any suggestions or changes that someone feels is absolutely necessary, then they need to voice that concern now and have this one stand out as one of their issues when we vote as a majority vote later on today, if it goes for recommended language. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I'm not happy with it, as I said, but I don't see how we can take something away. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Brad, did you have something? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'm just commenting on the way the thing's worded. Is it awkward to anybody else? Not more than 500 acres of SRA development in the form of villages or CRD's shall not exceed 500 acres. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Very poor wording. I can't believe how that could be -- staff, how could you word it like this? Joe Schmitt, what did you let them do this for? MR. SCHMITT: I can't believe they did it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, I think you're right, Brad. Basically not more than 1,000 acres of SRA development in the form of villages or CRD's. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, with that we'll move on to Page 23. And that's policy -- this is a new policy, 4.23. We heard a concern about referencing only the dark sky program, that there are what, maybe a dozen other programs out there? I was -- I just don't know. I mean, all I know is I think it's a very good idea. We look at limiting the lighting out there. I don't know if dark skies is the only program available or if it's the right one. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: That's the generally accepted terminology to express the reduction in lighting that we have all over this country. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And to be honest with you, Nancy Payton had submitted a -- let me find hers and I'll read it to everybody. Page 169 February 26, 2009 Because I don't myself have a concern about the language as long as we get the right language. Nancy had suggested the following, instead of the language that's here: Any development on lands not participating in the RLS program shall be compatible with surrounding land uses. Outdoor lighting shall be managed to protect the nighttime environment, conserve energy and enhance safety and security. The LDC outdoor lighting regulations using standards modeled from the dark sky -- and then she puts the link -- programs shall be implemented within 12 months of the effective date of the Growth Management Plan amendments. The outdoor lighting regulations shall be applicable to groups three, four and five policies. First of all, the first sentence is the one that I have a little concern with. Any development on lands not participating in the RLS program shall be compatible with surrounding land uses. I'm not sure that's necessary to be in Policy 5.7, since compatibility is an LDC issue. And it really isn't that well defined in our code. But putting it in here may lend to the argument that nothing's compatible to preservation land but more preservation land. The last sentence, the outdoor lighting regulation shall be applicable to groups three, four and five. If it's better -- we already have it suggested for four and five. If Group 3 needs to have it, I don't have a problem with that. Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Mark, are you comfortable with the changes that we're not being restricted to just the dark skies program? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, it says modeled from the dark sky program. My intention when I wrote it was, I mean, we'd go to that program and there may be things in there written for the northern climate. There may be things written for countries that get snow. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: That's my concern. Page 170 February 26, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So why -- I used the word modeled, meaning that would give us the ability to model it from their ideas, but tailor it to Florida, Collier County. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: So we don't have to use that particular program. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I didn't see it that way, and maybe the county attorney -- well, I can say through transmittal and data and analysis, that language -- I could see David Weeks having a field day with that. He'll tweak it 15 times. So the intention is all I was trying to get across, and David will probably fine tune everything before it goes into transmittal. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And Mark, there's another issue. I didn't pick it up until a little bit ago. Dark skies is the program. I'm used to the terminology dark skies. Whether there is a dark sky program, I'm not certain. But I think this phrasing here in the first instance does it for our purposes to move forward. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, does anybody have any preference then as the language? I mean, like I said, as long as the concept comes across, I'm not too worried about it. As long as we get something in there that gets the concept. Because the transmittal process will clean up the language. We can use this or we can use Nancy's language. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: No, I'd prefer the language that's written here. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: I think that one of Nancy's concerns was that it actually get implemented and within a reasonable amount of time. So I would think that were she still here, she would be pressing for -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: She is. COMMISSIONER CARON: Oh, she is. Oh, you are in the comer. Oh, okay, you did say within a year. Page 171 February 26,2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I had a time frame in mind. COMMISSIONER CARON: You did, okay. You're good. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Nancy's get a time frame in hers. I referenced dark sky program. I think I need to add the link. COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, that's always a good idea. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And Group 3 versus just 4 and 5. Group policies 1 through 4 all address the new RLSA, SRA uses. I don't know why it needs to be in 3. And Nancy, would you mind coming up here and answering that question for us? MS. PAYTON: Maybe it's a typo. My recollection, 3 are SRA's? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. MS. PAYTON: And there may be some activities in SRA's that are allowed that would have lights. Like if you only go off to the recreational layer, there might be a golf course out there, and you might not want to have certain types of nighttime lights there. And we have a golf course out the East Trail that is like a runway -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You're right. MS. PAYTON: -- next to conservation land. So if it's applicable, it's applicable. And if it's not, it's not. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well-- MS. PAYTON: SSA's, yes, if you look at the layers of SS -- I'm sorry, I misspoke. Group 3 is the sending areas. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. MS. PAYTON: Some of the layers of the sending areas could have a lot of intensive light. So that's why I -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I have no problem adding it. What I would do then is take Policy 4.23 and just insert it to the last policy in Group 3. MS. PAYTON: It's duplicated in 20. That's fine. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you for the clarification. Page 172 February 26,2009 MS. PAYTON: And I would like to make a pitch to have effective instead of approval. Because again, what does approval mean? When is it approved? If we have it tied to the effective date or the adoption date, I think it gives us a definite date. Whereas approval is loosey-goosey. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, no, we'll say effective. That's a good point. Okay, so the suggestion is to change the word approval to effective. Insert the dark sky link to the ww.darksky.com after where it's referenced in here. And also add it into Group 3. Is everybody comfortable with that? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: But you've chosen to use -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Wolfley, then Mr. Murray. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: You've chosen to use her language, is that it? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Are do I hear you correctly? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, I'm actually suggesting we just change the -- clean up the language that's in here with the references that she had, and in essence everybody's criteria is met. Basically within one year of the effective date of this policy LDC regulations shall be implemented for outdoor lighting using standards modeled from the dark sky program, (ww.darksky.com) to protect the nighttime environment, conserve energy and enhance safety and security. That would be then inserted also into a policy three something. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay, that's fine. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Okay, I have not gone to the site darksky.com. And I just -- talk about loosey-goosey, you modeled after the dark sky program. I mean, we're talking about something that has not been done, putting it in this RLSA program and Nancy stood up and talked about something that I don't believe is in the RLSA area, Page 173 February 26, 2009 is it, that golf course? Well-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, she was using that as an example. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I know. But there's also been some other discussions about what goes for RLSA goes for the rest of the county. Which -- and I don't -- I've heard it twice today, and that's not at all right. I'm just -- I'm concerned about 2.23. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, well, David, we're trying to figure out all of our concerns so we know if we have a consensus or not. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Well, I know. I'm concerned about something that hasn't been written yet, putting it in our document. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, this isn't-- COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I mean, that's just my concern. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Anybody else have any concerns to express on the matter? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ifnot, we'll move on to Policy 5.1. Now, this was taking language from --let me explain this one. Because 4.9 had the same language in it. 4.9 applied to areas that were accepted to go into SRA's. Policy 5 only applies to areas outside the SRA's. So this was added simply to make the two areas equitable in the way they applied themselves to FSA's and no other reason. We still, though, have the issue with the word infrastructure in this one in the same way we had it in 4.9. And so even though the language was added here, I still would suggest that when this goes to the BCC we caution them that the word infrastructure, when it applies to FSA's, needs to be further defined than just a general reference to the word infrastructure. So that was the purpose of putting this here and that's the clarification. Is everybody comfortable with that? (No response.) Page 174 February 26,2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The last one, Policy 5.3, as we learned, there were no applicable regulations listed. It really meant to refer to those of that group, and that's just a clarification. Anybody have any problems with that? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: On Page 24, up on top there's a change on -- this is about the panther crossings and that they will be incorporated into the planning of the RLSA, including all SRA's described in Group 4 policies. That just is a little strengthening of the requirement, one that it seems that everybody is in agreement with because they have a Memorandum of Understanding that defines these, so -- anybody have -- well, I'll go to the end of each page, I'll ask you if we have any concerns. Policy 5.5 is a little peculiar. If you recall, this had listed species and protected species. Protected species can be a quite lengthy list. When the intention from the environmental community that was here that I didn't hear a lot of objection from the landowners was simply those species that were delisted but still need the protection: The Bald Eagle and the Peregrine Falcon. So what I tried to do here is leave that listing open to the LDC implementation, but make sure it's referenced here as something to be concerned about. So I -- and I did this for Tor, and he's not here. Tor loves acronyms, so I invented a new acronym just for Tor. And said the-- we would -- basically shall be directed away from listed species and species of special local concern, SSLC's. And when you use that acronym -- and by the way, I put in parenthetical, to be defined in the LDC language within one year of adoption of this policy. And that is the SSLC's. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: SSLC. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: SSLC species. So what this would do is those species would be defined in the Page 175 February 26,2009 Land Development Code, which could be implemented as new species were needed to be entered into that program. And that's what all these language changes on 24 are about. They take out the reference to purely protected species and they get into the SSLC's. And that also -- then that carries over in the rest of that policy. Does anybody have a better way of doing it or are (sic) they have problem with this way? Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: I don't have a problem with what you've done, it's just probably a good time to say that Mr. Kolflat, on his way out the door, wanted to remind you that you really need a definition section with all these acronyms spelled out. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I agree. This is another one they could add to the list. COMMISSIONER CARON: So I said, you'll bring this up, won't you, Mr. Kolflat? And he said, no, I'm leaving, so you need to bring it up for me. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, we'll add it to our general comments. And what also this did, in talking with Brad, in the numerous ways that species were looked upon on-site, it was utilized, using, observing, and I think the word that was finally locked into was utilizing, and that also has gotten changed in this policy. So if everybody is comfortable with that, I think we didn't hear any objections to it from the public, we can move on to the next page, which is Page 25. This one again referred to the parks as being in the buffers. The suggestion was we strike parks and leave just passive recreation, because it accomplishes the goal better. Any objections to that? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, if we move on to Page 26, there's one change for the SSLC reference. Instead of protected. That's it. Page 176 February 26,2009 And then if we move to Page 28, this is the one that I think Brad mentioned and I pointed out that really iii takes care of it. Four, the language struck is redundant to what iii tries to accomplish, so basically we're allowing exotic removal or maintenance may be considered acceptable mitigation, period. And that the mitigation is accomplished by the efforts through iii and that is perpetual -- in perpetuity through perpetual maintenance. That's how that's the consideration. So anybody have any problems with those changes? Mr. Midney? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I'm just still having a hard time understanding it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: When you're talking about mitigation, you're mitigating -- exotic removal and maintenance is mitigation for what, something on another piece of property? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mitigation shall be required for direct impacts to wetland in order to result in no net loss of wetlands. And then it lists those. Now, as far as -- that's on properties that do not decide to go join in to the RLSA program. These are properties that exist today and they decide to stay out of it. And if they're -- if they're impacting direct impact to the wetlands, these are the forms of mitigation that they can perform. They have options to use. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: So if they're impacting wetland A and they're going to build on it, then by exotics removal in wetland B that's overgrown with exotics, that mitigates for taking wetland A? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I mean, I don't know if all the criteria are in the example you cited, so I can't tell you, Paul. I mean, the way the policy's written, I'd have to go back to the beginning of the policy and answer that for you. For those lands that are not voluntarily included in the RLSA Page 177 February 26, 2009 program, Collier County shall direct non-ago land uses away from high-functioning wetlands by limiting direct impacts within wetlands. A direct impact it is hereby defined as a dredging or filling of a wetland or adversely changing the hydroperiod. This policy shall be implemented as follows. So if you're dealing with an individual wetland on a property that's not part of the RLSA program, and it's going to be nonagricultural, and you're impacting a wetland directly, you can then impact -- you can mitigate that impact by doing those items in F. Now, if that mitigation is allowed off-site or a nearby site, I'm not -- I have to go back and read this whole thing, which I don't know if staff can answer it any better than I at this point. I don't know how to answer your question right now without -- COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: That's the problem. I've tried to understand it and I can't. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Tom, do you have any -- MR. GREENWOOD: I don't have any clarifications for you at this time. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: George, do you have some insight? This time we're asking you to come up and speak. So you can do it on the microphone. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: George, when they need you. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Slip in what you were going to say before. , MR. VARNADOE: As I understood Mr. Midney's concern last time, it was that you were mitigating on property, you were then going to destroy the wetlands. And that's not right. But let's just say you had 100 acres of wetlands and you're going to impact 10 acres. The other 90 acres are exotic infested. What we're saying is as mitigation for your impacts on the 10 acres, you could count -- may not be total, but you could count the mitigation by removing exotics from the 90 acres you're not going to be disturbing. Page 178 February 26,2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So that would be on-site, same ownership, that acreage. And I think -- and George, you may have hit on it. Because on Page 27, number three, other wetlands within the RLSA are isolated are seasonal wetlands. These wetlands will be protected based upon the wetland functionality assessment described below. And the final permitting requirements of South Florida Water Management District. And this mitigation falls under that criteria that's described below. So it looks like this is for other wetlands within the RLSA that are isolated or seasonal wetlands, those wetlands will be protected based on the wetland functionality assessment described below. And it goes into A, B, C, D, E and then F is part of that. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I understand the concept, but now I have a question about you said 10 acres developed 90 acres exotics removed. Is there some proportionality written into this? Is it one to one, is it nine to one? MR. VARNADOE: That's part of your permitting process. All we're saying here is it can be used for mitigation. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: And who decides the proportion? MR. VARNADOE: The South Florida Water Management District in most situations. Sometimes DEP. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: But somebody -- there are established standards for this. MR. VARNADOE: And that's what the UMAM score that -- it depends on the functionality of the wetland that you're disturbing. If it grades very high, your mitigation becomes much greater. If it's very low, your mitigation is less. So that's the best I can tell you. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: That answers my question. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Donna? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, now that we've had -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, George. COMMISSIONER CARON: -- George come up and give his Page 179 February 26,2009 , assessment of it, Brad, why don't you get up and tell us why you don't think this is a good policy. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I don't think he did that. I think he was COMMISSIONER CARON: He said he didn't agree with the policy, but he went along again with his committee. So I just wondered what the pitfalls -- MR. CORNELL: Well, this is an issue -- Brad Cornell, sorry. This is an issue in general, not just in rural land stewardship. It's a state-wide issue of what role does exotics removal play in the mitigation and assessment methodology. Uniform mitigation assessment methodology is the UMAM process, and it assigns a value both in terms of impacts and mitigation to the presence of exotics and removing exotics. And Audubon does not agree that removal of exotics does mitigate for primary impacts to wetlands. Because you don't actually replace those wetlands that were destroyed or filled, dredged and filled. So that's the objection. I know it's in the state policy -- in the county policies that's not allowed. But in the state permitting process, it is. We're actually working with the state on that issue so that there's a better accounting. Because there's some problems with the UMAM process in accounting with exotics concerns. That's why. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, Brad, since you started in this, when the committee voted on this, did you vote for or against this policy? MR. CORNELL: I voted against this policy. I had proposed a different policy. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What did you propose? MR. CORNELL: I propose that exotics removals shall not count as mitigation, and I was outvoted. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But you're working at a state level to change that, right? Page 180 February 26, 2009 MR. CORNELL: Correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So this -- MR. CORNELL: Well, not to change it but to better address the problems. To change it you would actually have to have a rule change. But we are trying to get a better accounting process. And that's the UMAM process, formerly WRAP. W-R-A-P, talking about acronyms. But yes, there's a real problem on a state-wide basis for how wetland mitigation is accounted for. And, you know, like for like, destroyed, mitigated, acre for acre, all that sort of accounting isn't really clear or transparent or even well done. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But see here, if we put this language in the GMP, if you get it changed at the state level, our policies become more stringent than the state and they're acceptable. Or not stringent, but they become -- I think that policy would still stand. The state wouldn't allow it to be mitigation, but Collier County would allow it to be mitigation. MR. CORNELL: We would be less-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Less stringent. So maybe we ought to caveat this policy by saying exotic removal may be considered acceptable mitigation to the extent permitted by. MR. CORNELL: Well, that's one way to deal with that. I don't think you can have policies that would be less stringent than the state. I think you can be more stringent than the state, but I don't think you can go less. I think the state policy would be the -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So if you go ahead and modify this at the state level and say that's successful, then this policy automatically becomes invalid? MR. CORNELL: If indeed that was the modification, that would be true. I'm not sure that that's going to be the extent of the change at the state level, but we definitely want to see the exotics removal as mitigation address -- not only by the state but by the federal Page 181 February 26, 2009 government. It's a problem on the federal level, too. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Do we allow this kind of mitigation in the rest of the county? MR. CORNELL: The county does not, but the South Florida Water Management District -- COMMISSIONER CARON: The county does not. MR. CORNELL: The county defers -- has deferred up until very -- until this past year, the county has always deferred on wetland permitting to the South Florida Water Management District and the Army Corps of Engineers. They do allow that. The county still requires -- whatever the state and federal agencies say, the county still requires removal of exotics. Not as mitigation, but just as a policy in the LDC. But they have not -- until the past year with Policy 2.1 on watershed management plans, there's some interim policies about wetlands and watersheds and flow ways that need to be protected, regardless of what the state and federal government says. That's the first time the county's even waded into that area. Otherwise they've always deferred. So that's why that is an issue still. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So it's really better to leave this in than to take it out at this point and let it fall wherever the state decides later on. MR. CORNELL: To leave the language as it is? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, to leave the exotic -- just the first sentence that we show in our strike-through, exotic removal or maintenance may be considered acceptable mitigation. May be considered acceptable mitigation. MR. CORNELL: That's certainly your -- I mean, that was what our committee recommended, except we also added the conservation easement, permanent conservation easement and perpetual maintenance. Page 182 February 26, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Which looks like it's in the iii above. MR. CORNELL: Yeah, I guess it was for emphasis. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It says it right there. MR. CORNELL: Right. Right, so you can do -- that's what our committee said and that's what's basically down there. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Thank you very much. MR. CORNELL: Sure. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Does anybody have any issues with the changes? Mr. Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: A couple of things. Why don't we just put either mayor may not? I mean, I think I think it should be shall. May is either mayor may not do it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, because there's a lot of criteria when you remove exotics. The method in which it's done, how much destruction, the percentage in the wetlands, whether or not there's going to be the maintenance deals and the conservation easements are in place. So I think the may leaves that open to negotiations to make sure that the better possibilities can come, rather than the least possibilities. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Okay. So is that why we took out in perpetuity? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, that's in the paragraph above. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I know, but -- well, I'mjust concerned that if that -- if four is taken by itself. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, it's may. That means if they want it, they better utilize the elements in iii above or they may not get it. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Geez. Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody else have any questions on Page 28? COMMISSIONER CARON: You don't think that that's helpful to make four stronger, though? Page 183 February 26,2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I mean, if you want to leave it as- is, then that's -- COMMISSIONER CARON: I mean, I don't know what -- we're going to leave it in, as it may be considered. I don't see how the rest of the sentence hurts anything. I think it -- COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I don't either. COMMISSIONER CARON: -- probably helps. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, well, if the vote is to put it back in, we'll leave it in. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Can't we just move that may be considered as acceptable mitigation right up above in three and get rid of four? Because it separates itself. I just don't like that separation of the two, three and four. You just move a couple of words right on up there. THE COURT REPORTER: It would be nice if you were on the microphone. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Oh, you couldn't hear me? I'm sorry. I mean, if he could just -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, let's look at this again. Number three provides that protection shall be provided for preserved or created wetland or upland vegetative communities, offered as mitigation by placing a conservation easement over the land in perpetuity, providing for initial exotic plant removal and continuing exotic plant maintenance, or by appropriate ownership transfer to the state or federal agency, along with sufficient funding for perpetual management activities. That takes care of perpetual management activities, that takes care of the easement placement. You do that, that's considered mitigation. Now we're saying that in addition to that mitigation, exotic removal or maintenance in itself may be considered acceptable mitigation. May be. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: You just had it in itself. Now Page 184 February 26,2009 that changes the whole -- now I'm agreeing with it more. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, that's what it says. It doesn't say the word in itself, because it didn't need to be. It seems to be self-standing as a policy. I'm -- you know, I'm just trying to clarify it. If you guys want it left in, I don't care. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'd -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What's the wishes of the board? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, Mark, what would be the -- what if you just killed four entirely? I mean, it's mitigation for what? I mean, that's going to -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I was trying to respect the committee's leaving something that the committee recommended. It just keeps it a little cleaner. But again, you know, it came up in conversation when we had this before. If the choice of this panel is not to include it or include it, it's all up to you all. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Okay, and you don't -- I may be way off base here, but -- and you just don't think by comma after management activities, comma, may be considered acceptable mitigation? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Where are you at, David? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Well, I'm sorry, at the end of three. I guess you are definitely trying to separate three and four. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, three was never proposed as a change by the committee or us originally. Four was proposed to be added, and it seemed redundant at the time because the strike-through on four was already addressed in three. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So that was the intent of the change. If that is making it more confusing, then I don't know if we need to do it. I still think it clarifies it, because it simplifies it. But if it doesn't, so be it. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Mark, my only concern is that Page 185 February 26,2009 four just uses the word mitigation, it doesn't tell you mitigating what. 'So I would just kill four entirely. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, then you're going to dis -- okay. Because we do -- in three, if I'm not mistaken, and Tom, doesn't three provide for exotic removal as a form of mitigation? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. MR. GREENWOOD: Tom Greenwood, for the record. It says preserved or created wetland or upland vegetative communities offered as mitigation. Well, that's a separate and distinct one from number four, which is exotic removal and maintenance. What you might want to do is say may also be considered acceptable mitigation. The also word may just again say this is in addition to the previous, and you can either -- I mean, you can either leave on or take off the language. The committee recommended eliminating the language as stricken through, just because it was -- it was basically redundant. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The committee being this one. No, the committee actually put the language in. This committee recommended striking it because it's redundant. But -- because basically this whole section is mitigation for exactly what that language says that was stricken. So I'm not sure it was needed. But again -- Mr. Midney? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I would favor leaving it in as it's written here. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well-- COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Just out of respect to the committee, and it seems to make sense to me. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So not accepting the red strike-through, leaving the whole thing as it is? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: No, accepting the red strike- through. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And just leaving the sentence? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yeah. Page 186 February 26, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Exotic removal or maintenance may also be considered acceptable mitigation; is that what you're suggesting? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: (Nods head affirmatively.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: How do the rest of you feel about that? Brad? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But four did bring in listed species habitat, where I don't think that's included in three, right? So was that the point they were trying to make? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: This is supposed to be for functional-- wetland functional assessments. That's what are it falls under, number three. So I'm not sure there's -- when you're bringing in listed species habitat, how does that -- tying it back into what three was supposed to be for in the beginning, which was these wetlands shall be protected based upon wetland functional assessment described below. It's supposed to be mitigation for that purpose. By throwing another use in there, you're opening up a whole nother level of use that exotics may be going for. Now, by throwing listed species in, Brad, listed species habitat, you're saying then in order to mitigate for listed species habitat you can do exotic removal maintenance. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And I don't think -- I think just killing four, again. But that's -- we can move on. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Mark? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: On that issue, exotics removal and maintenance, are there credits associated with that? It's not stated here. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: No. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, this is -- MR. GREENWOOD: No. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- outside the RLSA. I mean, it's for Page 187 February 26, 2009 those people that don't buy into the program. This is for your non -- people who don't go into the -- buy into the RLSA stewardship credit program. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: The reason I ask the question just in that manner is that it may actually be moot. I think this was an intent to make it an opportunity, but if you don't get any real credit for it, what's your motivation, other than just mitigation credits, I guess? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, it's kind of like the example George said, if you've got 100 acres and you want to impact wetlands and 10 of the acres you can improve the other 90 to offset your impacts to the 10. And that's what this would allow. And one of those improvements could be removal of exotics on the 90 acres. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: But see, his example was very good. The problem is is that Roman IV doesn't really make that clear enough. So that's my view. I'm fine with it, though. We can go forward. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, you're fine with it in what manner, with the strike-throughs or without-- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Where it stops where you stopped. That single line where it ends with mitigation period. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And Paul, you're comfortable there. What about the rest? Mr. Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: You know, I'm going to go way out. I'm probably going to be in somewhere probably in Saturn or Venus on this one, somewhere way out there. But I advocate that the taking out the exotics is going to impact what are now considered, you know, species. It's going to get rid of a lot of species that we may not have intended to do that get benefit out of the exotics. Now I'm wondering about the whole thing. So I better just shut up. Page 188 February 26, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I'll tell you what, let's just move on. When we take a vote today, if you all have problems with it, you can exempt yourself from the vote, depending on which way it goes. And Page 29 is the redundant discussion. It's the same dark sky policy. So if nobody has any -- we didn't have any problems previously. We kind of accepted some changes to it. I assume the same changes would apply here equally across the board. We can implement that. And that gets us through the GMP language. But it's not done because beyond the language we have some general issues, and that goes back to the sheet that I passed out earlier today that there's been probably 50 copies made so far today. It says Collier County Planning Commission, general comments and specific language recommendation to the RLSA review. It's dated February, 2009. Okay, we're only here -- on this one, the only new stuff would be one through seven, the general comments, because the balance of it just is redundant to what we just discussed, and it will have to be corrected along with the changes we made today. The first one -- do we all have that in front of us? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I guess. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The first one says, reference the need for proportionate fair share agreement or DCA. Phasing of traffic improvements can be then addressed in these documents. That one is I don't believe needed now. Nick came in and clarified all that. So I think we should strike number one. Number two -- and by the way, if anybody disagrees, please speak up. Number two is Policy 4.9. And now 5.1, because we found that same reference in the non- RLSA section. Define the meaning of infrastructure as it would apply to the added language. That's just what we talked about where it impacts FSA's and HSA's. Number three, modify the new overlay exhibit to coincide with Page 189 February 26,2009 the existing overlay in areas where restoration was previously shown. Okay, this goes back to that map on Page 68 that we heard about as being distorted. And I think we talked about it earlier today. Our recommendation would be just to go back to the existing map and modify it to any as-built changes that were needed. Is everybody comfortable with that? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Yes. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Yes. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yes, I am. But I just wonder if we shouldn't try to find out whose map that was or to lay claim to it so that the next time we see a map and if it's changed, we'll know who did that one. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, to get us past today, I think we just need to know what we want to recommend to go forward. As far as discovering the other map, I don't care. I mean, but if the rest of you COMMISSIONER MURRAY: But see, you say modify the new overlay exhibit. And the question then becomes which is the new overlay exhibit. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, no, I'm sorry then, I didn't make myself clear. Number three was written before today's discussion. Today's discussion resolved itself by saying why don't we just use the overlay map we had in the original GMP and make it an as-built to today's conditions. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay, gotcha. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's all. So all that language will be struck, Mr. Murray, and I'd reflect a paragraph that said what I just said that is what I think we agreed on earlier today. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Gotcha now. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Number four, this is the corrections I believe were already been done. It's just stating they need to be done. Page 190 February 26, 2009 Does anybody -- I mean, that is exactly what I think now we've got. So I think that got accomplished. Number five. You remember that sheet, Exhibit C? And Brad, you had some issues on this, and we talked about all this stuff. The double underlining was a little confusing because -- the single underlining was confusing because it meant something in the chart already and we thought it meant changes and it really didn't. MR. GREENWOOD: It didn't, yeah. I meant uses that are not required. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. And so I think the recommendation to clarify the changes would be any changes -- Tom, you should just double underline those. MR. GREENWOOD: Yes. And we have not done anything like that with either those attachment C. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right, so that still needs to be done. Then B is changed. Village acres, this one is trying to stop the issue that would occur if someone came in and said I have a village of 1,500 acres. Okay, is that a town or a village? Because both start and stop at the same number. I'm trying to fix that by this language. I'm not sure I accomplish that, so I need everybody to take a look at it. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: How about 100 to 1,499 or some such, if you want to be really distinctive. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: That's where I was going. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, and that's kind of what we need to talk about, change village acres to greater than 100 to 1,500. It actually should be -- yeah, greater than 100. So that means the CRD is up to 100. If it's 100.1, it becomes a village and it goes to 1,500. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: But less than 15 -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, wait a minute, let me finish. If you read that in conjunction with the town, the town then is greater than 1,500. So if a village is 1,500.1, it becomes a town. Then it goes to a town between 1,500 and 5,000. And if you tried to use Page 191 February 26, 2009 149.9 you're simply dropping one acre in size for the village and increasing one acre in size for the town. Because then a town would be greater than 1,499. I don't know if it makes a difference with that one acre, and the 1,500 seemed-- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yeah, it would be 1,500. If the one ended at 1,499, the other begin at 15 -- COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: No. MR. WILLIAMS: Mark, how about just replacing-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Steve. MR. WILLIAMS: How about just replace your dash with the words up to. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Or less than. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Wait a minute, let's one at a time. MR. WILLIAMS: That's just a thought. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Steve, you're saying if you take the dash out, greater than 100 up to 1,500. MR. WILLIAMS: And then in your next line 1,500 up to-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Greater than 1,500 up to 5,000. I don't have -- Brad? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I mean, couldn't we reward the land surveyor that could cut a piece of land to be precisely 1,500 the choice of being a town or a village? I mean, this is a non-issue. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, it's not. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: It is -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It isn't a non-issue, Brad. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Because 1,500 is the precise point where if a guy could carve a piece of land that precise -- I mean, ifhe's a nanometer less, he's one, ifhe's a nanometer more, he's the other. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: That's right. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So ifhe hits it right on, let's reward him with the choice. He can be whatever he wants. Page 192 February 26,2009 COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: No, no, no, no. COMMISSIONER CARON: You don't want to do that, because obviously Brad's figured out a way to do this. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: No land surveyor has figured out a way to do it. We don't have to worry about this, trust me. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Can we please just take out the dash and do what the attorney said? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Up to? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Up to or less than, one of the two. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, let's go this way then: A village greater than 100 up to 1,500, and a town would be greater than 1,500 up to 5,000. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: That's clear. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Does that get everybody -- COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Then the other one was add county transit access to CRD's, because it was underlined as an option, and we're suggesting it not be. Or actually it was only in -- it wasn't there, it was in villages but not in compact rural development. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Mark? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Would you have them carve out a space inside the CRD, or is it acceptable to have it just outside the CRD on a road? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, if it was outside, it couldn't there, because you can't development outside the CRD, so they'd have to have it inside the CRD. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, I don't know what county transit access is then, because I know that we have plenty of little places people can sit under and wait for a bus. And they're on -- right Page 193 February 26, 2009 on the county road right-of-way. So I don't know then for sure what county transit access means. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, then I guess we have to go back to the original language in the RLSA to find that out, because it's written in there. I assume that that was a transportation terminology. Nick's not here to verify it. But I also would assume that the vision plan that Nick's working on is going to come with definitions and locations and all ideas like that. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay. Well, here's my point, that these communities are supposed to be essentially walkable, pedestrian-oriented communities. And so then the question is with 100 acres, where do you put it? Do you put it in the center? That means you'll be driving a big bus and then maybe two of them and then you'll have a transfer station, and you might be carving out a fairly large area. If that's what your intent is. If it's just a place where people from that CRD can hop on a bus and go someplace, that's quite another matter. So I think I need to understand really what county transit access truly means. MR. GREENWOOD: I can't tell you what the intent was, but with 100 acres, chances are that 100 acres is going to be on a county road, and the intent there is to have minimum of a bus stop. Because 100 acres is not a whole lot of land, and it's certainly walkable to a transit stop. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And that's what I was envisioning. So you're saying that what I saw in my mind's eye was what is reflected in the committee's view, or in your view? MR. GREENWOOD: Well, in my view, my impression of what transportation was trying to get was is that there be county transit access to -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Because otherwise -- MR. GREENWOOD: -- CRD's. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: -- if we assume -- you know, we Page 194 February 26,2009 have something similar on the campus where there's a transit access where people can actually get a transfer and they can go from bus to bus and so forth and so on. Is that what we want to envision in a CRD? MR. GREENWOOD: Many of these same words that we're talking about, assuming this goes forward in the GMP's will be modified, corrected, clarified, and then that of course will drive the Land Development Code language as well. And there you'll get into a lot more detail. But 25 pages in the RLSA overlay translate into about 70 pages in the Land Development Code. Commissioner Schiffer has asked for a copy of that and that is on-line, but it's very detailed and whatever the RLSA overlay directs will be modified in the LDC. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I don't have a problem with it certainly being more defined, but I thought it was a reasonable question, what is it that's conceived of here. Before we can define it, we ought to know' what we're thinking of in the first instance. So, you know, I was just as happy to visualize so to speak a county road, _ which is what I anticipated, and a waiting station for a bus as being county transit access. But if that's not what this body thinks it is, then we need to understand that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Midney? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I don't think we should force the county to provide bus service to every little aggregation of 100 acres. I mean, that -- I think it should be up to the county transit authority to decide what is economically viable instead of mandating that every single little CRD that might be in the middle of nowhere would have to have bus service. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I don't think anybody is intending that. I think it says access. It doesn't mean it has to be implemented until such time that it warrants it. But when it's ready to do it and if you have a 200 residential unit Page 195 February 26,2009 CRD with other uses, including convenience, retail and others and support services, and that equates to over 400 people on the standard persons per household in Collier County, you'd want to have the ability to put the transit access in. So as a good planning tool we're saying have it available. Make sure it's there. That's all this means. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Okay, I -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So it doesn't mean it has to be implemented, doesn't mean anybody's forced to do it, just means you got to have the provision for it so that when it needs to be utilized, it's there to be utilized. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I didn't understand it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's what that -- COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: That makes more sense. So in other words, it doesn't have to be implemented, but they just have to plan to have space for it there in case in the future it's warranted. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's right. And the vision plan that Nick is working on will address when it's warranted, how it's warranted and where it's warranted. This just gets it in the process. So with that in mind, does that item, adding county transit access to CRD's, is that acceptable? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: No, I'm not going to agree with that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Fine. Next one is E, move transit and lodging in all categories to maximum floor area ratio from that to the residential. That was Brad's recommendation. Because it puts it with the residential where it probably should have been. Staff didn't have a problem with that last time. Anybody else have a problem? (No response.) Page 196 February 26,2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: F is a correction to a footnote. I don't think that's an issue. G, review the minimum floor area ratio or intensity. Now, this isn't something we do today? This was something recommended at the BCC and further referenced for data and analysis. Brad? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, you know, I think we can actually clear it up. If you look at the way it came down into the LDC, they really got it right in the LDC. I think we should add some more columns here. But what they do in the LDC is they do it per block, which is one of the questions is what's the denominator for this? For example, in a town the core is has FAR of three. The center has an FAR of two. And these uses, the way they are, these are the maximum use you could have on a block with the FAR. So that makes sense. So I think it's not that the data's that far off, I think we should just rework the table and rework it to match what's in the LDC, which does seem to have it under control better. It wouldn't change any number, it would just make it clear as to what those numbers mean. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, so G on our general comments would be to rework the table to coincide with the LDC? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And Tom, if you have that-- you know, hopefully it's not an image like it looks like in Mark's, but if you have a spreadsheet or something, I could take a shot at -- or just work it out of the LDC. My first thing would be is you should probably add a per block. You're going to have to break the town up into center and core. And then under that on -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Wait, we're getting way too much detail in the GMP. I would -- see, the way I saw this, Brad, is for example, when it says retail and office, .5, that's over the broad scope of the town, not just the block. And the block references in the LDC, if you were to cumulatively add those up, you would hit the .5. Is that-- Page 197 February 26,2009 COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah, that would be -- if you're taking the FAR across the whole development, that would be huge. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, no, just the portions that are -- just the retail and office that need to be provided. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, in other words, what these things really are intended for is that you can have multiple uses in your urban area. Each of those multiple uses can exceed these numbers. So maybe if we just reword it. The -- if you used -- instead of saying maximum floor area, you say maximum floor area per use or something, that might -- and we could leave it there. But somewhere along the line we've come up with an FAR for, you know, for the whole block. I mean. MR. GREENWOOD: In talking with Mike DeRuntz, who's no longer with us, he was involved in the review of the SRA, town of Ave Maria, and I believe he said, and my question to him was how the floor area ratio is determined. And it was based upon gross floor area for a particular use on a particular site, okay? And I think that's basically the way the floor area definition in some great detail is defined in the LDC. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. MR. GREENWOOD: Okay? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But my concern is -- I mean, I would just, to make it clear, is state that these floor areas are per use. In other words, it's -- MR. GREENWOOD: I think you're right. And, you know, should this go forward in the GMP's, I think we can and should make whatever appropriate clarifications are necessary. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, someone needs to take that on between here and Thursday. Is that you, Tom? You must have the document, because nobody else does. MR. GREENWOOD: Well, I don't know that I can in that time. And I really -- I don't intend to change any of the documents, any of Page 198 February 26,2009 the pages within the report, because the instructions from the committee was that the report goes forward as-is. The comments from the Planning Commission and recommendations and those from the EAC will accompany the report. I think many of your comments and recommendations are very good. But that's just my opinion. But -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, well, just so we understand it then, we'll make a reference in this general comment section that the table ought to be rewritten to coincide with the FAR's that are used in the LDC. MR. GREENWOOD: Yes, that would be very good. And, you know, that will be good direction in the future. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And as far as the Planning Commission's report goes, I had expressed before, and I'd like to express again that the language rewrite that we've done and gone through earlier, the GMP rewrite and this document that we're looking at right now will be modified to the comments made today, will be approved on the March meeting of the Planning Commission which I think is this next Thursday, and that will be part of our report to the BCC -- MR. GREENWOOD: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- I want to make sure that's understood. MR. GREENWOOD: Yes, sir. Yes, the executive summary of the BCC will have about five attachments. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. GREENWOOD: One will be the complete committee report, another one will be the Planning Commission recommendations, another will be the EAC recommendations, another one will be a recommendation from the committee itself, recommending a special Growth Management Plan cycle. There will also be an attachment which will be staff analysis. And it's not particularly comments on the report so much as how Page 199 February 26,2009 GMP's would fit into the queue of things and how and where county staff could proceed with this. Because there's some global issues that, you know, the BCC has to contend with. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, Brad, under G, what would you want that to read like? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I would say that -- just change the wording to be maximum floor area ratio per use, at least. But if we want to really revise the chart, Tom, if you could send it to me, I'll do it and send it right back. MR. GREENWOOD: I can do that. You know, I'd be happy to do that, if you think it's important to have that as part of this package. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, we would put it as part of our package, not -- MR. GREENWOOD: Yes, that's what I mean. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Just, you know, one thing you said is we're going to submit to the BCC a version of our version of this. MR. GREENWOOD: You'd like something that you can modify that's attachment C, basically? Is that what you're looking for? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: That's all. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And Brad -- MR. GREENWOOD: That's not a problem. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: One comment, Mark. Just put the -- change the word that it be maximum floor area ratio per use. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And Brad, if you do get this document, can you get it back to Tom by Sunday night -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- so he can distribute it Monday for us to have a look at before Thursday? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I will. MR. GREENWOOD: The only thing you want is attachment C, correct? Page 200 February 26,2009 COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah. MR. GREENWOOD: Yeah, you'll have this this evening. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, the next item on our discussion is six, and it's just a comment we had to determine who's paying for the process of the GMP amendments for the RLSA. I really think that the Board of County Commissioners needs to address that, because the next level, the transmittal, is going to take a lot of data and analysis and a lot of staff time. And if they decide that's part of the cost to taxpayers, that's fine. But they need to at least understand that's an issue that's got to be addressed, so I think that should be mentioned. And the last one was addressed by Nick, so it's a moot point and can be struck, I would think, from this reference. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Mr. Chair? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, sir, Mr. Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I had a question earlier before I even read this, is in all the maps that we have seen, it looks as though there's no Indian land -- forgive my word for that -- but Native American Indian land in Collier County. It looks like it's all owned by private entities. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Well, it's in Immokalee, it's not in the RLSA. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Every bit of the Seminole land is in Immokalee only? MR. GREENWOOD: That's correct. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: In Collier. Okay, I'm sorry, I thought it was -- MR. GREENWOOD: Within the Immokalee area. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Some outside. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, that wraps up our corrections to the GMP, our corrections to the general comments. . Oh, with the exception of one more, and for the benefit of Tor Page 201 February 26,2009 Kolflat, he was absolutely right, I would suggest as a general comment we request that a list of acronyms then be added to the beginning of the GMP section involving the RLSA. Does anybody have any problem with that? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'll add that to a general comment list then. MR. GREENWOOD: It's a good suggestion. They are throughout the document, but it would be good to have them all up front. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, with that then, we need to entertain a motion from the Planning Commission. And I'd like to suggest, whoever makes the motion, that we make a motion that we move the committee's report forward, but that we have -- subject -- we move it forward, but also request that they consider our recommendations in both our general comment list, as well as our GMP amendment list. Mr. Midney? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: I'd like to make that motion. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I'll second. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion made and seconded by Mr. Vigliotti. George, please don't do that again. We don't have public comment at this point. We've already ended public comment. If we made a mistake, we'll have to live with it, so -- Motion's been made and seconded. The motion is to move the committee report forward with consideration of the planning commission's positions as stated in this general comments and the suggested language changes to the GMP issues. Now, there are some members who have particular concerns about certain elements, so before we make the motion, you may want to state your concern so that when the motion's made you're on record Page 202 February 26,2009 as to what you object to. And we'll start all the way -- Mr. Murray, you have some concerns. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I have perhaps two. On Page 14 of the Chairman's proposal-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Let's correct -- wait a minute, before you go there, I don't have a proposal, Mr. Murray, so can you clarify what it is you're talking about? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I am telling you that it was the Chairman's proposal until and unless it's approved by the commission. Then it becomes the commission's proposal. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I don't have a proposal. The proposal that I've got put forth here, all of these policy changes were discussed at prior meetings, so it's not mine. What I believe the committee did-- I was asked by the committee to write them up. So you can insist on the word Chairman, and I will continue to insist it's County Planning Commission. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, then I have to insist that we ask the county attorney representative here who -- I had a discussion with him earlier, and he concluded that -- and he'll say for himself what he concluded, please. MR. WILLIAMS: Again, to me I don't care if we call it David, Bob's, Donna's, Mark's, Bob's, Karen's, Paul's, whose report we call it. It is -- Mark was the author, I think we all know that, and worked through the weekend to do it. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Right, nothing wrong with that. MR. WILLIAMS: Again, Mark typed it up, worked off the notes and mental impressions, memory he had. He's admitted where some things escaped his memory and other things is there. To me I don't care legally what kind of report we call it, because as Mr. Murray just stated, it's not going to be the planning commission's full report until adopted with this vote that sounds like with the first and second is Page 203 February 26,2009 coming to us in the next five minutes. I don't -- I know you had the meeting last -- it was the 20th, if I recall correctly, where the Planning Commission gave Mark the authority under some guise to do this over the weekend. And as long as he was acting on behalf of the Planning Commission, legally I don't know that Mr. Murray's concern rises to the level of illegality. Ifhe wants to call it Chairman's Report and doesn't believe it contains his full information, that's fine, that's why you're taking this vote. So I think it is a moot point in about 45 seconds to five minutes, depending on as soon as you take your vote. So he -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Vigliotti, then Ms. Caron. MR. WILLIAMS: -- I think he had the authority to do what he did this weekend. But what we call it to me is relatively moot, so -- COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: It was my recollection that the board as a group asked him to compile all our notes and thoughts and make a concise statement of what we were all saying, thinking and doing at the time. So I don't think he invented this thing. I think he, at the request of the board, took our notes and our ideas and packaged them up, typed it up and sent it out. That was my -- MR. WILLIAMS: Yeah, and I think that's exactly-- COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: -- interpretation of the way it came down. MR. WILLIAMS: -- what occurred. And I think that's exactly what occurred. You're right to a degree. And Mr. Murray's got a point, because until adopted by the board, it is whoever drafted it. It's their impression of what has occurred for the last few weeks, but he did it with full authority -- I mean, full consent of the board. So to me it's moot. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: What this reminds me of is no good deed goes unpunished. You spend the whole weekend putting this thing together as a favor to us and now we want to brand it the Chairman's report. I just don't think it's the right way to go. Page 204 February 26,2009 MR. WILLIAMS: I'm not asserting that you do that. And please don't think that I am. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Well, I would have to agree with Mr. Vigliotti. We definitely gave authority, it was we all-- we had multiple meetings to give our input. All of our input is in there. We just reviewed every single line. So, you know, I agree, I mean, it does seem like no good deed goes unpunished, and that should not be. It is the Collier County Planning Commission's report. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Agreed. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Now, I'll proceed with what I was attempting to do. I will make this comment that it is conceived by anyone that this is a personal affront is the error of the party receiving that. I take no exception to the Chairman having performed what he performed at a very fine service. I was merely attempting to be professionally correct and according to Roberts Rules, by addressing it and by conveying to others that it was the commission's report before the commission had actually approved it was a misnomer at the minimum. That's all I was saying. Let me go on with what I was going to argue. With regard to Page 14 and the question of capping -- that's the term that was thrown around, capping the creation of 15,000 stewardship credits. I find I agree with the argument of the RLSA committee, and as sponsored -- or espoused rather, by Allen Reynolds who qualified it. In my opinion this is not regulatory in the true sense that it needs to be confined. It's been working. Let's find out where it's going to go. And if I can just move to the other one, I don't know if it's appropriate, but on the specific language recommendations to our RLSA review, if that's appropriate to speak to, I think county transit access needs to be understood what it is intended and by definition what is intended before it can be qualified as to where it belongs and Page 205 February 26,2009 how much it consumes in space. Those are my objections. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Is there anybody else that has any unctions to any of the policies? Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yes, 4.21, and that's the 1,000 acres of SRA's in the ACSC, and I am opposed to that. Just for clarification, beyond that we had talked about adding some redistribution of credit language in here. And I had originally talked about possibly adding it to Policy 4.2. Mr. Varnadoe has said it might be more appropriate in 4.19; is that correct? 4.19, and then also again it may have to be addressed in 3.11. So if we could just all look at that -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, that's a very good catch, and I'm glad you brought it up, because it should have been discussed as a -- I would -- because it could be in multiple policies and it also affects the table and other things that may have to change, I would suggest that this committee agrees that we ought to make a note in the general comments section that should the BCC agree to a cap on stewardship credits, then the opportunity to redistribute the stewardship credit breakdowns throughout the document should be offered to be readdressed. Something to that effect. And if that's okay with the committee, I certainly will put that in general comments for our consent agenda. Mr. Midney? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: And I hate to at this late stage, but I think I would like to add in that when they do that redistribution reallocation, that agriculture be left with no less than 20 percent of the credits, which is what it is -- which is the percentage that was proposed by the committee was -- so to retain that same proportionality of about 20 percent for agriculture. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, we need to talk about that then Paul, because if we're going to cap the credits and there's been Page 206 February 26, 2009 obviously a strong concern about making sure there's some incentivization for ag., in that analysis of how to cap those credits, I don't think until you get into the fine points of that cap you can say that ago can still retain 20 percent or 2.0. Maybe it needs to be 1.7 or 1.8, because your ratios will change with everything. So you may not want the same ratio in order to preserve environmental issues as well. Credits for ago could be greater, but 2.0 may not be what it comes out to. But I think the acknowledgment that it needs to be greater is what everybody's been suggesting. And I think the committee would be -- have a hard time promoting something that doesn't acknowledge that in some manner or form. But I don't know if 2.0 is the right way to go. And that's kind of -- COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: When you say 2.0 -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: 20 percent. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: 20 percent is -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. I don't know if -- well, my suggestion on this would be not to get that fine -- COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- tuned at this point. Let them come back with something and we can hash it out at that time. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Just that they recognize that our opinion is that the agriculture credits should still remain a significant part of the final product. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: How about if we suggest to the BCC that should they approve the 315, that the committee be allowed to consider redistribution and allocation language for the use of the 315,000 credits and recognize the need for stronger agricultural incentives. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So now with that, we have a motion. It was recommended to move it forward with our comments, Page 207 February 26, 2009 as was previously stated. We have two commissioners who pointed to two different elements: Mr. Murray to Policy 4.2 and the reference to the county transit access, and Ms. Caron to Policy 4.21. Are there any other concerns from any other commissioners before we call for the vote? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, with those concerns in mind, we'll call for a vote for the motion as was made. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: 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 8-0. Let the record show Mr. Kolflat left early and missed the vote. And with that, we wrap up the review of the RLSA, which actually has been very enlightening. And I want to especially think the committee and Mr. McDaniels (sic) for his patience and his explanations, because without his temperament it would have been hard to get through this. The Defenders and The Conservancy and The Wildlife Federation and the Wilson- Miller people and the Cheffy, Passidomo office and the landowners as well, thank you very, very much for helping us along with this. I know we didn't all agree on everything, but there are some improvements that may have worked for both sides. And however it Page 208 February 26, 2009 boils down, we will probably have a better document. So thank you all very much. Item #4 ADJOURN CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And with that, we need a vote to -- COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: So moved. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- end this meeting. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Second. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: All in favor? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Aye. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We are adjourned. Thank you. ***** Page 209 February 26, 2009 There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 4:35 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 210