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CCPC Minutes 10/20/2009 GMP October 20, 2009 TRANSCRIPT OF THE GMP MEETING OF THE COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION Naples, Florida October 20, 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 in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: Chairman: Mark Strain Donna Reed-Caron Karen Homiak Tor Kolflat Paul Midney (Absent) Bob Murray Brad Schiffer Robert Vigliotti David J . Wolfley ALSO PRESENT: Jeffrey Klatzkow, County Attorney Heidi Ashton-Cicko, Assistant County Attorney David Weeks, Planning Manager, Comprehensive Planning Randy Cohen, Director, Comprehensive Planning Dept. Page 1 SPECIAL AGENDA '"'OLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION WILL MEET AT 8:30 A.M., ON MONDAY, OCTOBER 19,2009 ~ THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS MEc'TING ROOM, ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, COUNTY GOVERNMENT CENTER. 3301 TAMIAMI TRAIL EAST, NAPLES, FLORIDA. NOTE: INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS WILL BE LIMITED TO 5 MINUTES ON ANY ITEM. INDIVIDUALS SELECTED TO SPEAK ON BEHALF OF AN ORGANIZATION OR GROUP ARE ENCOURAGED AND MAYBE ALLOTTED 10 MINUTES TO SPEAK ON AN ITEM IF SO RECOGNIZED BY THE CHAIRMAN. PERSONS WISHING TO HAVE WRITTEN OR GRAPHIC MA TERlALS INCLUDED IN THE CCPC AGENDA PACKETS MUST SUBMIT SAID MATERIAL A MINIM:UM 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 STAFFA 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 A V AILABLE FOR PRESENT A TION 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 VERBA TIM 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. PLANNING COMMISSION ABSENCES 4. ADVERTISED PUBLIC HEARINGS A. CP-2008-1, Petition requesting an amendment to the Golden Gate Area Master Plan and Golden Gate Area Master Plan Future Land Use Ma,p and Map Serie-.S, to create the Estates Shopping Center Subdistrict to allow a maximum of 225,000 square feet of commercial uses of the C-4 zoning district, with exceptions, and some uses of the C-5 zoning district, with requirement to construct a grocery store, for property located on the north side of Golden Gate Boulevard extending from Wilson Blvd. west to 3rd Street Northwest, in Section 4, Township 49 South, Range 27 East, consisting of ::40.62 acres. [Coordinator: Michele Mosca, AICP, Principal Planner] B. CP-2008-2, Petition requesting an amendment to the Golden Gate Area Master Plan and Golden Gate Area Master Plan Future Land Use Map and Map Series, to expand and modify the Randall Boulevard Commercial Subdistrict to allow an additional 390,950 square feet of commercial uses of the C-4 zoning district, with exceptions, for property located on the south side of Randall Boulevard, extending from 8th Street Northeast west to the canal on the west side of the Big Corkscrew Island Fire Station. in Sections 26 and 27, Township 48 South, Range 27 East. consisting of :t56.5 acres. [Coordinator: Michele Mosca, AICP, Principal Planner] C. CP-2008-3. Petition requesting an amendment to the Golden Gate Area Master Plan and Golden Gate Area Master Plan Future Land Use Map and Map Series. to create the Golden Gate Parkway Mixed-Use Subdistrict to allow 100,000 square feet of commercial uses of the C-l through C-3 zoning districts. and residential multi-family use at 3.55 dwelling units per acre with allowance for higher density for provision of affordable housing and for conversion of un-built commercial square feet, for property located at the southwest corner of Golden Gate Parkway and Santa Barbara Boulevard (the site of Naples Christian Academy (NCA) and a church). in Section 29. Township 49 South, Range 26 East, consisting of :!:20.71 acres. [Coordinator: Leslie Persia, Senior Planner] D. CP-2007-1. Petition requesting an amendment to the Golden Gate Area Master Plan and Golden Gate Area Master Plan Future Land Use Map and Map Series, to create the Wilson Boulevard Commercial Subdistrict. to allow a maximum of 40,000 square feet of commercial uses of the C-l through C-3 zoning districts, for property located on the southeast comer of Immokalee Road (CR 846) and Wilson Boulevard. in Section 27, Township 48 South. Range 27 East, consisting of :t5.17 acres. [Coordinator: Corby Schmidt, AICP, Principal Planner] E. CP.2007-2, Petition requesting an amendment to the Golden Gate Area Master Plan and Golden Gate Area Master Plan Future Land Use MaD and Map Series, to create the Immokalee Road/Oil Well Road Commercial Subdistrict to allow a maximum of 70.000 square feet of commercial uses of the C-l through C-3 zoning districts, for property located at the southwest corner of Immokalee Road (CR 846) and 33rd Avenue Northeast, in Section 15, Township 48 South, Range 27 East, consisting of :!:1O.28 acres. [Coordinator: Carolina Valera, Principal Planner] F. CP-2007-3. Petition requesting an amendment to the Golden Gate Area Master Plan and Golden Gate Area Master Plan Future Land Use Map' and MaD Series, to create the Mission Subdistrict to allow church and related uses, and 2.500 square feet of health services, with a maximum of 90,000 square feet of total development, for property located on the south side of Oil Well Road (CR 858). 1/4 mile west of Everglades Boulevard, in Section 19, Township 48 South, Range 28 East, consisting of :!:21.72 acres. [Coordinator: Beth Yang, AICP, Principal Planner] G. CP-2007-S. Petition requesting an amendment to the Future Land Use Element and Future Land Use Ma.Q and MaD Series, to create the LoganlImmokalee Mixed Use Subdistrict to allow a maximum of 260,000 square feet of commercial uses of the C-l through C-4 zoning districts, maximum of 60 dwelling units, and agricultural uses, for property located at the southeast comer of lmmokalee Road (CR 846) and Logan Boulevard. in Section 28, Township 48 South, Range 26 East, consisting of:!: 41 acres. [Coordinator: Corby Schmidt. AICP. Principal Planner] H. CP-2008-4, Petition requesting an amendment to the Future Land Use Element and Future Land Use Map and Map Series, to re-designate from Rural Fringe Mixed-Use District (RFMUD) Sending Lands to Neutral Lands property located on the east and south sides of Washburn A venue, east of the Naples landfill, in Section 31, Township 49 South, Range 27 East, consisting of :!:28.70 acres. [Coordinator: Corby Schmidt. AICP, Principal Planner] I. CPSP-2008-7. Staff Petition requesting an amendment to the Future Land Use Element to add a new Policy 4.11 pertaining to aligning planning time frames in the GMP. [Coordinator: David Weeks, AICP, Planning Manager] J. CP-2009-1. Petition requesting an amendment to the Future Land Use Element and Future Land Use Map and Map Series (FLUE/PLUM), to create the Dade-Collier Cypress Recreation Area District within the Conservation Designation, for property located along the Miami-Dade/Collier County border, in Sections 13,14,15 & 16, Township 53 South, Range 34 East, consisting of 1,608:t acres. [Coordinator: Thomas Greenwood, AICP, Principal Planner] 13. ADJOURN CCPC AGENDA TO CONSIDER 2007-2008 (AND 2009) TRANSMITT AI. CYCLE GMPA'S DW/MK October 20, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the October 20th meeting of the Collier County Planning Commission. This is a continuation of a meeting that started yesterday, and we will be in a moment taking up where we left off yesterday. Would everybody please rise for pledge of allegiance. (Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, will the secretary please do roll call. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Commissioner Kolflat? COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Here. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Commissioner Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'm here. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Commissioner Midney is absent. Commissioner Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Here. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Chairman Strain? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Here. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Commissioner Vigliotti is here. Commissioner Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Commissioner Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Here. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: And Commissioner Homiak? COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Here. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, the next meeting we have of this commission will be October 29th, and it will be a continuation of today's meeting. So I'm assuming we're going to need more time, so I guess we can count on that day. And at the end of this meeting we'll formally announce it will be at 8:30 in the morning in this room again. F or some housekeeping matters, there are 10 petitions in this cycle; five of them in east of 951 are the Golden Gate Estates petitions Page 2 October 20, 2009 of that area. They're all being heard together, but voted on separately. Yesterday we finished with the two of the larger ones, CP-2008-1 and CP-2008-2. We did not vote on those. We're going to vote on all of them individually after we hear all the presentations, so we understand the comprehensive nature of everything that's happening in Golden Gate Estates. Today we will start out with CP-2007-1, then we'll go to 2007-2 and 2007-3. F or those of you that don't know what all these numbers mean, 2007 -1 is Wilson and Immokalee, 2007-2 is Immokalee Road and Oil Well Road, and 2007-3 is the Mission Subdistrict off of Oil Well Road. We have two other items that I want to make sure everybody is aware of. CP-2008-3 is another one in Golden Gate Estates, but it's on Santa Barbara and Golden Gate Parkway. And that one has been -- because of an advertising issue it has to have some new neighborhood informational meetings with the local residents, so that one will not be heard by the Planning Commission until November 19th. And that's the one on Golden Gate Parkway and Santa Barbara. Then the other one that's going to have a schedule change is for the same -- not for an advertising reason but for substantial changes to the project, is the amendment on Logan and Immokalee Road. That-- it's a commercial application, it's CP-2007-5. That will not be heard till the 29th. Again, it was to give the applicant time to brief the neighborhood on the changes that they're proposing. So if we get through the first three items today, we'll move into the remaining three items that we can hear today and the two other will be put off till later in the month. Item #4D CP-2007-1, WILSON BOULEY ARD COMMERCIAL Page 3 October 20, 2009 SUBDISTRICT CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So with that in mind, the first item up is CP-2007-1. It's the Golden Gate Area Master Plan change. It's on the corner of Wilson and Immokalee Road. All those wishing to testify on behalf of this item, please rise to be sworn in by the court reporter. (Speakers were duly sworn.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, are there disclosures on the part of the Planning Commission? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yes, I had a meeting with Mr. Anderson. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody else? Ms. Homiak? COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: I spoke with Mr. Anderson. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yes, I believe same thing. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: He's been busy. I spoke with him too. And I discussed the same items we discussed then as we will today. Okay, Bruce, it's all yours. MR. ANDERSON: Good morning, Commissioners. My name is Bruce Anderson from the Roetzel and Andress law firm. With me today is Ron Nino, planner on the project, and the owner of the property, Mr. Ismael Gonzalez. Mr. Gonzalez is a man of advancing years who acquired the property in 1987. Over here on the graphic, this is the property here. I want to show you another graphic of it, an aerial photograph. And lastly, a closeup. This parcel is at the southeast corner of the intersection of six-Ianed Immokalee Road and the planned four-Ianed Wilson Boulevard. That's going to be a total of 10 lanes of traffic and turn lanes by the time all that work is through. The traffic signal -- there's a traffic signal at this busy Page 4 October 20, 2009 intersection already. And I had hoped Mr. Casalanguida would be here to share with you the anticipated horrendous traffic counts that are expected at this location once the four-Ianing of that is finished and the six-Ianing of Randall Boulevard. I'll ask to reserve for rebuttal using Mr. Casalanguida, ifhe's here by then. Commissioners, this is a compatibility issue, just plain and simple. This is not a desirable or realistic location any longer for the construction of a single-family home, which is why my client requested that this property be designated for commercial uses. We met with the Golden Gate Estates Civic Association board, and no one has objected to this application but the county staff. We firmly believe that this does warrant commercial; however, if you can't see your way clear to approve commercial at this site at this time, I would respectfully request that you allow my client an economically viable use at this busy corner and designate this property to be eligible to apply for transitional conditional uses that are allowed in the Estates, such as churches, child care, adult day care, social and fraternal organizations, private school and group care facilities. These transitional uses would be very appropriate at this location to provide a visual and sound barrier from a busy six -lane highway, signalized intersection. Again, this is a compatibility question, and there needs to be a transition from what's already constructed, what's planned to be constructed as far as roadways, and there's really no discussion of that. This is really a reasonable minimum request for a parcel that's going to have maximum exposure to multiple lanes of north-south traffic and east-west traffic, noise and fumes from those who are stopped at the intersection. I'll be glad to answer questions that you have and just ask that you give this thoughtful consideration. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Questions of the applicant? Anybody? Page 5 October 20, 2009 (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Bruce, you wanted -- your first choice is commercial. The applicant's owned this property since '87. Do you not believe that the planning for Immokalee Road and Wilson was understood in '87 when that property was purchased? I mean, was it purchased for commercial? MR. ANDERSON: I don't know what the purpose that it was acquired for. Perhaps just investment, whether that be residential or commercial. I'm not sure whether the six-Ianing of Immokalee Road was known or planned at that time. I know that it really didn't take off until Commissioner Coletta came into office and really pushed it. As far as the four-Ianing of Wilson, I don't know when that came into being to be planned. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Because your argument for commercial here is one that could apply to similar locations all over Golden Gate Estates. And that issue came up very distinctly in the Golden Gate visioning committee meetings. I was chairman of that group for two years, and I've heard a lot of discussion about what everybody thinks that group did. Well, I was chairman of the group for two years, I know what we did, and I know why we did the things we did. This property was specifically talked at a time or another, and as you know, some other properties that you came forward with. And at that time we decided that the neighborhood centers interior to the Estates were as much as was needed. And I acknowledge things will change over time. And also at that time we were supposed to go through additional revisioning of the Golden Gate Master Plan every 10 years or so, and that tenth year is coming up next year. When we had our meetings on commercial -- and this was one of them that wasn't singled out, but it was in the grouping -- we never had such well attended meetings. Every meeting, by the way, was well attended by the public. The visioning committee was not in the Page 6 October 20, 2009 dark at all. We had plenty in attendance. On this one -- on the commercial issues the rooms were full. It was standing room only. They were emphatic. It was hard even to keep order. People did not want all the small spot zoning throughout the Estates. But I do understand your request for transitional. And that might be something to consider. I certainly want to hear staffs input on that matter. Commercial may be the right thing for here, but I don't think this is the process to try to get that. I think that if you've gone this far, you can wait for the visioning committee to meet again, or whoever -- no, it will be a whole new appointed -- and I think it was nine or 10 members, and work through the committee on that process. On an item as small as this, I think that might be something to consider. But anyway, that's my thoughts on it and I-- MR. ANDERSON: I certainly understand what you're saying. I would just ask that you not wait -- not make this property owner wait two or three or five years to get some kind of relief. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. MR. ANDERSON: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, is there a staffreport? MR. SCHMIDT: Good morning, Commissioners. For the record, Corby Schmidt, Principal Planner with the Comprehensive Planning Department. Because of the presentation from the applicant's agent, I'll make this a little bit shorter and just simply point out some of those inconsistencies and highlight those for you. First we tried to show that the property was -- or is surrounded by and in itself is planned for residential uses. The entire area is zoned and planned for Estates type residential. There is no trend evident in the area towards commercial development. But in the greater area, in that support area defined by the applicant in their application, we did see some. And you saw Page 7 October 20, 2009 some of those illustrated yesterday, because this support area defined by the applicant is much the same, shares many of the same boundaries in the same area as one of your applications from yesterday. The support area for this property extends about three miles out into the east and the west and up to seven miles away, up toward Immokalee Road near Everglades Boulevard. That support area is -- I'll skip ahead here. That support area has a projected population of about 46,260 people in the year 2030 and would need only 390,000 square feet of commercial space. Accounting for the commercial space that's available now, both existing and potential, it still has a 70 percent oversupply of commercial space availability. In population projections there was a comparison in the application in the market study that showed us projections in the recent past have been lowered so that the numbers in the out years for growth in the area actually decreased. And in -- one way you can look at it is that there'll be in the year 2030 30 percent fewer people there. But you can also look at it in the way that it may take another 30 percent as long to reach that build-out or that year 2030 population. So some of the estimates you see in the staff report and in the market study can be modified a bit. Instead of 2030, the demand being exhibited then may not even be seen until about 2036. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: By the way, Bruce, your star witness woke up and has showed up this morning. MR. SCHMIDT: Because of the amount of commercial space available existing and the slow and decreased growth in the area, you saw a long list of findings from staff in drawing our conclusions. I'll touch on a couple of those. First, the property already allows for viable uses. Approval of this petition would in essence enable spot zoning. There is no additional need for commercial uses in that study area. And I mean Page 8 October 20, 2009 the larger of the two study areas; both the primary and secondary study areas exhibit no need. The magnitude, the scale of the project is less than half of a typical neighborhood center and it can be considered to be scattered site commercial development. This would position some of the most intense commercial uses immediately adjacent to some of the least dense residential uses in the Estates. We've seen from other portions of the staff report that there's no significant impacts to public facilities; however, without mitigation there would be unacceptable level of service impacts to the roadways. There's no access available from Immokalee Road. There's commercial uses existing as near as a quarter mile away and developing more, with a larger parcel offering additional community style commercial uses about a mile to the northeast. And we've already touched on it, but the restudy committee did not recommend commercial development at this location. The commercial improvement of this property would require intersection improvements at Immokalee Road at Wilson. And the right turn lane necessary to enter this property can't be accommodated because of the configuration of the entrance driveway. And generally inconsistency with the Golden Gate Area Master Plan. Staff did not recommend that you transmit to the DCA for adoption, and that recommendation still stands. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, are there questions of staff at this point? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yeah, I do. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Good morning, Corby. MR. SCHMIDT: Good morning. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: You use the interactive growth-- what's that TIMG or whatever? MR. SCHMIDT: Interactive growth model, yes. Page 9 October 20, 2009 COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Model. I was thinking module and I knew that wasn't right. You use that in that when you talk about the numbers you were using that for that area? MR. SCHMIDT: For portions of it, yes. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: For portions of it, okay, that's just one part of it. You were talking about -- the last part you were talking about a transportation issue about turn-ins where they could actually access it. Help me understand that a bit more. If a person who owned that property right now wanted to go in there, they would have access with a right turn-in. They could also make a left, assumedly, if the entrance were deep enough on Wilson. I'm trying to understand what you said. MR. SCHMIDT: Configuration with a single-family residence, transportation may clarify or change my statement, but I do not think there are prohibitions or restrictions for one single-family residence making -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Sure. MR. SCHMIDT: -- maneuvers in and out. But the restriction or the limitation that would be imposed because of the residential development is for a commercial entrance. The placement has a specific point picked out, and the turn lane that's necessary for the additional traffic that's a right turn lane from Wilson onto Immokalee could not be long enough, that load space, that length of it. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Right now it's a very short decel. lane. We'd have to extend that decel. lane and that would basically -- MR. SCHMIDT: And it can't be extended far enough satisfactorily because of the location of the commercial entrance. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I gotcha. Now I understand. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron? Page 10 October 20, 2009 COMMISSIONER CARON: There is no entrance from Immokalee; is that correct? MR. SCHMIDT: There would be none, that's correct. COMMISSIONER CARON: Right, okay. Can you tell me what's on the east side of Collier Boulevard at Golden Gate Boulevard? Is that residential estates? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, it is. She's talking about where Golden Gate Boulevard dead ends into 951, there's a huge drainage pond there now, nicely dug by Nick. And it's lined with grass and they maintain and cut it and no road will be going through there for a while so-- , MR. SCHMIDT: I'm not familiar with that location, but -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, I am. I came right by it this morning. COMMISSIONER CARON: So that whole area in there is residential? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes. COMMISSIONER CARON: So against a four-lane, against a six-lane. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. What happened in that area, before Nick bought it and turned it into a hole, it was well made. They had a lot of natural vegetation. There are lots north and south of that. And those people, one of them in particular, has put a very good vegetative buffer up with a berm. So it can be done. COMMISSIONER CARON: Can be done. Thank you, that was what I wanted to know. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions? Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Ask another question. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Of course. That's what we're here for. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Maybe you're not the right person to ask, maybe I have to ask the other gentleman, but in terms of Page 11 October 20, 2009 what Bruce Anderson suggested was the possibility of allowing the use for churches, schools, whatever the community type things they were talking about. Based on what you told me about the entrance, wouldn't that have the same problem? MR. SCHMIDT: It may. Additional transportation or traffic information would have to be submitted and reviewed so we would know that. The intensity of some of those transitional conditional uses might compare to the intensity of some commercial uses. Some may not. But that would have to be looked at, have to be taken into consideration. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And you don't have any -- that was not submitted as an alternative. No. Okay, I just wanted to have that clarity, thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I have a -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And this is the question I'll ask Nick and everything. And Corby, maybe you can give me the answer. Do you think this will have a more efficient effective use of transportation? MR. SCHMIDT: Oh, I will let Nick answer that one. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Hey, Nick, now that you've been briefed on what to say by the applicant, can you come up and discuss things with us? MR. ANDERSON: I just told him what his questions were. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: First time you get in deposition, who have you talked to before your deposition today. Well, we know. MR. CASALANGUIDA: I haven't been sworn in. (Speaker was duly sworn.) MR. CASALANGUIDA: And I promise not to jump over this Page 12 October 20, 2009 thing on top of -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Did you catch that, that you give slowly today. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Commissioner Strain, I've got to give you a lot of credit, you know, you give me more credit than due and hold me back. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I hope county's watching today. MR. CASALANGUIDA: With respect to Mr. Anderson, I said to him I can't jump up and down about this one. I said, you know, mitigation that you've offered up with that intersection being at a high volume, high congested intersection is noteworthy. Obviously the question that Commissioner Schiffer asked me before, does this reduce trip lengths and is it a benefit. Yes, but not -- I'm not jumping up and down about this one like I have been about the other project saying it's, you know, really a good location, a great location. It's a high volume location. I think Mr. Anderson has expressed to me that, you know, it's not suitable for a residential home. I understand that. You know, all critical intersections in the county that have residential zoning right now aren't the best locations to have a single-family home on. Am I excited about this one as a compo plan amendment for commercial? Not like I am about the other two projects we spoke about yesterday. With that, I'll answer any questions you have. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Do you have any more? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah. I mean, Nick, so in other words, I mean, I think the virtue of this would be is that as people were coming into the Estates or maybe going out, they would stop in here and pick up something. So is this really going to be a destination site or just interrupt traffic that we have already? Page 13 October 20, 2009 MR. CASALANGUIDA: It's not big enough to be a destination site. It doesn't have the best access to be a destination site. You know, the best he's going to get for access is a right in/right out on Wilson Boulevard when it's four-Ianed. So it's a challenge site. It's a challenge for residential and it's a challenge for commercial. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: All right, thank you. I'm done. MR. COHEN: For the record, Randy Cohen. Nick, could you talk about how that access would affect the right turn lane coming off of Wilson, going towards Immokalee? Because it's just such a tight site. MR. CASALANGUIDA: It's narrow. It's fairly long. You could probably provide him a right turn lane or access point at the extreme southwest corner of the site. It may not interfere with that right turn lane. It may. I mean, we didn't get into that design parameter of that. Again, I think where Randy is leading, it's a challenged site for access. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray, did you have another question? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: That was -- basically I was looking for additional clarity, and there you go. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Nick, just down the street there's a potential for a large shopping center that was previously presented to us. If that one would go in and this one were to go in, it would seem to me that traffic driving down Immokalee Road that might potentially pull into that site that's larger on Randall with much more efficient accesses would be able to get to that one, but they may not get there and stop at this one. This one both in and out would seem to be more of a congestion problem than the way the orientation of the one on Randall is. MR. CASALANGUIDA: That's a true statement. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Page 14 October 20, 2009 MR. CASALANGUIDA: It would be more of a congestion problem. It would have poor access on a four-lane condition. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If this were to go with a transitional conditional use, which is churches and many of the things that are off hours, it would seem to blend a little bit better. MR. CASALANGUIDA: It would. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Let me see if I have any other bothersome transportation questions for you, Nick. MR. CASALANGUIDA: We're proposing an expansion on either First or Third I think we'd want to talk about sometime soon. Isn't that where you live? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: First and Third? No, I don't live there. I live actually over by Weber and Golden Gate Boulevard, so I'm -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: That's the location. I think we're putting an overpass there next week. COMMISSIONER CARON: Overpass. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah. MR. CASALANGUIDA: I applied for a grant and I was successful and -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You know what? If you do that, I'll sell you my house and you can pay me twice what it's worth, because that's what you guys did everywhere else. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Never argue with the man who's got the golden mic I guess. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, I don't have any other transportation questions, other than the fact that House Bill 697, staff has made a notation, and I'm not sure it's a transportation issue more than just a general, that the petitioner has not submitted a response, data or analysis regarding this legislation. Is that something that is a transportation related response or is that a general response by staff? MR. CASALANGUIDA: It's more transportation related. I Page 15 October 20, 2009 mean, you'd have to quantify it by doing a model run. The way to do that is to show that by putting a location on this that you're actually going to reduce vehicle miles traveled. And like I said yesterday with one of the applications that came forward, if I was working for them I would have shown that. So it's typically something we review. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, Nick. MR. CASALANGUIDA: You're welcome. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Corby, I have -- any other questions of the Planning Commission of Corby? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I just have a few. The potential of the other corners to go -- if this were to go commercial you made a note in your staff report that there's a potential then the other quadrants would want to benefit from the same type of zonIng. Is that realistic? I mean, is that what people -- is that a premise for the others to go with that kind of zoning? If you give one corner, do the others have then the ability to have a stronger argument to make theirs? MR. SCHMIDT: The staff believes so. In past years, in past cycles of amendments we've made that statement just as a matter of practice as a forewarning that opening up the gate for one does it for the others. And in this situation at this intersection you do have available space in all the quadrants. And it's more than possible where it would do just that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And in Golden Gate Estates where we have commercial, we also automatically allow transitional conditional use between the commercial and the next slot over, or whatever distance that is. MR. SCHMIDT: They do. And we've also mentioned that in Page 16 October 20, 2009 our staff report, that opens up those adjacent properties to those additional uses. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Now, if this were to go transitional conditional use, has your department thought of an analysis for that application? MR. SCHMIDT: We have not. We've just heard about it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: David, did you -- you kind of half had your hand up, I didn't know if you wanted to say something or not. MR. WEEKS: Yes. David Weeks, Planning Manager in the Comprehensive Planning Department. On the specific question of the quadrants, Corby's already given a response. I just want to add to it that specifically at this intersection staff has had inquiries about commercial development here, most particularly the southwest quadrant of this intersection. And the way we left it with the inquirer was maybe you should watch this petition and see how it goes, because that may give you a reasonable indication of what you might expect for yours. But I absolutely agree with Corby, I think as goes this corner, so goes requests for the other three corners. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. From staffs perspective, I think I saw in your report where you were suggesting that it would be a good time in 2010 to revisit the overall Golden Gate Area Master Plan. Well, I know that's a funding issue, but let's put the money or the funding issue aside. At the time the last Golden Gate Area Master Plan met, we were under the impression we would be reconvening with obviously new appointees every 10 years to look at the changes in Golden Gate, because everybody knew the area was going to be changing. Is there any hope to see that happening in 2010? Let's take the political process out of it. But from staffs perspective, do you see that reality of being able to put together? You're looking at Joe. He's going to say he's got no money, so I Page 17 October 20, 2009 already knew that answer. MR. SCHMITT: I'll answer that. The EAR process will -- if we do it, it would be part of the Evaluation and Appraisal Report, but probably most likely would only be identified as a requirement to pursue possibly in 2011. It's not planned, nor have we set any resources to devote to are-study. And if I recall, I mean, I was here when Glen was on -- finishing that. So that -- I think he finished that about 2002, 2003 time frame when he actually finally finished the thing. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I agree with you. But our committee though finished before that. I t just takes a long time to go through the county process. Once they -- whether it's a county or a community sponsored overlay or a private application, just as we're seeing here today, we're dealing with 2007, our committee met a year or two earlier before it finally got through the process. So I agree with you on that comment, Joe, but I'm just still thinking that we need to start. We were expecting -- if we started in 2010, it would be 2012 or '13 before anything got finalized. That's kind of what I was getting at. MR. SCHMITT: Well, you're right, it would take -- it -- normally something like that will take at least 12 to 18 months, given the meetings maybe eight, six -- four, six, eight weeks apart. But I think -- well, it appears right now we'll look at it during the scoping process for the Evaluation and Appraisal Report, which is really the priority. That is due to DCA the first of January next year. Randy, what are your thoughts on Golden Gate? MR. COHEN: Well, the EAR has to be completed by January of 2011. And what would flow from that would be the GMP amendments, which would be potentially the establishment of the Golden Gate area restudy. So it would even push it even further back. The problem that we have is we've got so much in the queue and we only have 11 staff members. The board would have to identify it Page 18 October 20, 2009 as apriority, establish where in the queue that it would want it to fall, and fund it as well, too. So that's kind of where we're at. And right now we have no funding for this fiscal year in terms of what items we've got. We're barely keeping up right now if that. And that's being frank. And next year with the census stuff coming on-line and with the redistricting, we're just overwhelmed, to be very honest with you. But that's kind of where we're at as a staff. MR. SCHMITT: Well, understand also, in the queue right now we have the Immokalee Area Master Plan which -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. MR. SCHMITT: And then behind that are the RLSA amendments that you all worked on that we're still looking at trying to determine when we can bring those forward. So they're -- and then what Randy also said primarily, one of the major time-consuming activities in 2011 will be redistricting. I think David knows last time I think we -- they brought five different proposals to the board. So that's going to certainly take a lot of time and effort as we go through that process in 2011. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Understood, Mr. Schmitt. I appreciate it. Since every GMP amendment cycle we have Golden Gate Estates being -- it's kind of like we're being pecked to death by ducks. We just -- everything's being nibbled on and nibbled on. And we -- another revisit to the master plan as originally envisioned certainly would solve a lot of problems. But I know we can't do that today. I just want to understand it better. I don't have any other questions of staff or the applicant. Does anybody else at this time? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: David? MR. WEEKS: I'd just make one other comment from a staff Page 19 October 20, 2009 perspective. It's already been touched on a little bit from some of the questions and discussion at the dais. I'll just point out the obvious. This is a property in Golden Gate Estates. It's not in the urban area. The property dimensions are significantly larger than you would find in the urbanized area. I'm not going to suggest that this is an ideal location for a single- family house, but on the flip side it is a roughly five-acre parcel of land and it has dimensions typically of 330 by 660. There is the ability to locate a house on the property much farther away from the two abutting roadways than you would find in the urbanized area. And Ms. Caron had asked a question about a specific location, but just in general this is not isolated, there are numerous Estates properties that are at major intersections. And one perspective will be if we're going to treat one that way, if that argument holds true, that this is no longer compatible for a single- family home, it must be some other higher intensity use, I think we're going to see that argument for all of those other properties. And it once again I think sets what I'll call a practical precedent, maybe it's not a legal one but a practical precedent for other landowners similarly situated to make a similar request. MR. COHEN: Mr. Chairman, and if-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, sir. MR. COHEN: -- I could add on, one of the reasons when we sat down as a staff and we looked at the number of petitions in the last cycle that were in Golden Gate Estates and then the number in this one, the more we felt that it was more important to take a holistic approach in Golden Gate Estates because of what David was just alluding to with respect to the number of properties that seemed to meet those exact same criteria; some of the ones that were in for GMP amendments and the fact that we were recommending a more global approach and a more holistic vision for all of the Estates. Because it Page 20 October 20, 2009 seemed to be quite overwhelming in terms of the number of the petitions that were out there. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And that's why we're reviewing it in the manner we are, by hearing them all first. Any other questions of staff or the applicant? David? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I just want to make a statement here, is that when this gentleman bought the property this was not a major intersection. It is the growth around it that has caused it to be a six-lane and then a four-lane as -- you probably don't live in the Estates so you don't get the whole flavor, but that is not a residential piece of property. And to compare it to an urban lot is inappropriate I think. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, living out there for 30 years plus, David, I heartily disagree with you. Go ahead, Mr. Weeks. MR. WEEKS: I was just going to say that unless I misunderstood you, Mr. Wolfley, that's exactly my point. It's different from an urban lot. It's totally different. It's much larger. And I formerly did live in the Estates for, I don't know, five years or so. I have some sense of what it's like. I certainly enjoyed the piece and tranquility that I know many of the members of the public speak about when they have lived in the Estates. And I enjoyed that, the wildlife, the quiet, the nature, the vegetation, solitude, et cetera, et cetera. Where I lived was, just for the record, was off of 1 Oth Avenue Northwest backing up to Vanderbilt Beach Road. And I certainly experienced -- as that road was widened, experienced increased noise. But at the same time I was in a house that was built much closer to the local street to the north, so there were probably 400 feet or so or maybe 500 feet from the back of the house to Vanderbilt Beach Road. And that does provide both a distance and to some degree a sound buffer by having that vegetation as well in there. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Well, possibly if, you know, the Page 21 October 20, 2009 applicant could or would acquire some more property around it, that would alleviate -- if it's possible, I don't know if it is, that may alleviate some of the issues with the traffic, the entrance, the exit and so on, to pull it back down Wilson. MR. WEEKS: The other comment is just Corby's already touched on, we're reacting on the fly. This is the first we've heard of a conditional use proposal for this site. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Understand. Thank you. Bruce, we're going to have public speakers first. I was going to ask you to hold your rebuttals until we actually come to vote. If you want a few more minutes to finish your presentation, you're more than welcome to right now, we'll have public speakers, if there are any. Go ahead. MR. ANDERSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to give a response while it was still in everybody's mind. If you'll turn to Page 4 of the staff report under subject site. It states in there, the present Estates mixed use district residential Estates subdistrict designation allows single-family residences. The density of one dwelling per 225 gross acres or legal nonconforming lot of record. Nonresidential uses: Parks, open space, recreational uses, essential services, group housing, schools and school facilities. And certain conditional uses. So to say that they hadn't thought about conditional uses is simply not the case. They used that fact that some could go here as a rationale for recommending denial of the commercial. I just thought I'd call them on it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, if you want to call them I think I'll ask them, did you guys do a data and analysis review as (sic) this as a transitional conditional use? MR. WEEKS: We did not. Nor was one requested. And I would also point out that the very next sentence after what Bruce read from states, some of these uses are subject to locational Page 22 October 20, 2009 criterias found in the conditional uses subdistrict of the Estates mixed use district. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, David. Okay, are there any public speakers registered, David? Or Joe. MR. WEEKS: There are none. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Does anybody in the public wish to speak on this matter? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Then at this point, Bruce, what we'll do is we'll continue on with the others and you'll have a -- up to a COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Mark? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- 10-minute rebuttal at the time. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Are we going to walk through Exhibit A? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, good point. Thank you. Exhibit A of the staff report and the staff language would start on Page 21. Thank you for reminding me of that, Brad. Starts on Page 21. And we'll proceed just like we did with the last couple. First, Bruce, is there any objections to the strikeouts and changes made by staff on Page 21 for the language for the proposed amendment? MR. ANDERSON: Yes, sir, we had a number of objections. And I'll just keep it short and simple. No, we don't agree to them. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, we're on Page 21. Which ones do you -- you don't agree to any of them? It's your way or the highway kind of thing? MR. ANDERSON: Well-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I mean, Bruce, staff tries to clean this language up to be more consistent with the way the Growth Management Plan's written. Some of these are just grammatical changes. You're against everything? I'm just puzzled as to -- Page 23 October 20, 2009 MR. ANDERSON: No. Well, because we have modified our request, we had concerns about building heights. Estates homes can go to two stories, 35 feet. We want to be able to do that. I mean, we were willing to agree to limiting it to just 35 without reference to the number of stories, or to limit it to just one. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So you don't have any -- you just generally don't like the concept of the way it's been presented by staff, is that what I'm hearing you say? On Pages 21, 22 and 23. Because what staff did was try to -- if this were to be approved -- and he's not listening. If this were to be approved, staff was trying to get it at least into the realm of the neighborhood center criteria, which is what they've duplicated here. And you don't believe that's applicable. MR. ANDERSON: Mr. Nino informs me that all of these changes are in fact acceptable. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, that's a 360. That's a 180-degree turnaround. Okay. Well, that solves our interaction with you on these matters and we'll go back to the Planning Commission. On Page 21, are there any items on Page 21 that would be a problem for anybody, or discussion? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: No problem, really. I mean, if they agree to the one story, I'm not going to discuss it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: 22 is a rewrite of most of the GMP stuff, and 23. Does anybody have any issues on any of the other language changes in this amendment proposed language by staff? Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: This is not an issue but this -- you know, in here they also have the common architectural theme. This is exactly the kind of site I think that applies. We discussed that yesterday. I just want to point that out for further conversation. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I would hope if the committee Page 24 October 20, 2009 ever gets to meet again we can drag you into a meeting or two and get some input on this. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'd gladly be there. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Because at the time we had staff input on how the design -- with the community as well, but I don't think we had an architect on board, so -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: You can count me in. But again, there is a time and place for everything. This is definitely the time for that, a scale of this. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schmidt? MR. SCHMIDT: Yes, thank you, Commissioners. As we indicated yesterday, there were some late forthcoming statements from the County Attorney's Office. And this is one of those petitions where some changes were made to the staff language after the documents were provided to you. I want to mention a couple of those. I believe it's the bottom of Page 21, small letter "k". Driveways and curb cuts shall be consolidated with or available for use by adjoining developments whenever possible. And on the last page, which would be Page 23, in small letter "v", as in Victor, for the list of prohibited principal uses, the list is not changed or lengthened, but the SIC listings simply use the complete language, such as instead of number four where it simply said mail order houses, the SIC listing is appropriately catalog and mail order houses. And there's probably another eight or nine of those in that listing, but it makes no substantive change. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. COHEN: Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Wolfley? Then we'll get you, Randy. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: You know, I have been reading Page 25 October 20, 2009 these unacceptable uses. And maybe I don't get it, but, you know, you mentioned one, mail order houses. I don't -- I don't know why that's not acceptable. But the other one I got was radio and TV representatives, which is generally a sales office. I mean, I don't remember. I mean, I simply don't remember why we've had that. It's been there for some time. Direct mail advertising services and so on. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: David, in 2000 when the committee met, we had rooms full of people talking about commercial uses in Golden Gate Estates. We brought in the list of uses from C-l through C-5. Those lists were discussed item by item, SIC Code by SIC Code at every one of the meetings. These are the results of what the people wanted at the time. These conclusions were not done by staff, they were provided by the committee. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: That's fine. I just couldn't remember where they came from and why there were objections. And maybe there's something -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: There were objections to these uses. I can't remember the reasons for each one. But various committee members reviewed all the uses, and in their reading of the backup to how the uses could be applied, that's how this list came about. So, I mean, I just can't remember it all here, it's been 10 years or eight years, so it's been a while. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: It may be about time to, you know, re -- to look at it again. Because I don't know how many direct mail advertising services with the advent of the huge Internet increase, I think it's time to revisit some of these. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And if there isn't that much of a need for a direct mail advertising service anymore, then it being on the list doesn't hurt anything. So what are we worried about? You know. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: All right, okay. Page 26 October 20, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Randy? MR. COHEN: Yeah, Mr. Chairman, I wanted to clarify one thing for the record. Mr. Schmitt had indicated that the response from the County Attorney's Office was late. It wasn't late as a result of any fault on the part of the County Attorney's Office. It was -- in fact, the response from the County Attorney was very timely. They were responding more or less to our staff reports, which were being provided a little later than expected. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Okay, there's no public speakers, so we will now move on to the next -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I never got to 23 and I had -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, I'm sorry, I thought I said 22 and 23. Go ahead. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Corby, 23-W, there's a requirement for a reserve in a right-of-way. Is that from the center line or is that from the property line that -- do you see W on 23? MR. SCHMIDT: I'm going to let Nick answer that. But I believe that's land area, not from the center line. It is from the right-of-way line. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So that would be from their existing property line now? MR. SCHMIDT: It would be. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, is there anything else? (N 0 response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Let's move on to the next item for today's agenda. MR. SCHMIDT: I thank you, Commissioners. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, Corby. Page 27 October 20, 2009 Item #4E CP-2007-2, IMMOKALEE/OIL WELL ROAD COMMERCIAL SUBDISTRICT CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It's CP-2007-2. Again, the Golden Gate Area Master Plan. It's for a commercial proposed site on the corner of Immokalee Road and Oil Well Road. All those wishing to participate, please rise to be sworn in by the court reporter. (Speakers were duly sworn.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Disclosures on the part of Planning Commission? Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: I had a conversation with Mr. Arnold and Mr. Yovanovich. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody else? Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I had a phone conversation with Mr. Y ovanovich and Mr. Arnold. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Homiak? COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: I also spoke to Mr. Yovanovich and Mr. Arnold. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody else? (N 0 response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I too had same conversations with the same two people -- I don't know if they're the same conversations, I had conversation with Wayne and Rich. Okay, with that, let's just move right into the presentation. MR. ARNOLD: Good morning. Wayne Arnold, for the record, with Grady Minor Engineering. With me today is Rich Y ovanovich, who is our land use attorney; Jim Banks, who's our traffic engineer on the matter; and local Page 28 October 20, 2009 representative for the property owner, Ken Lynch. This proj ect -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Could we just get this a little brighter? We really can't make out -- I can't make it out. And I look up there and you can't make it out either. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Can you just zoom in on it? That's probably what we need. That's better. MR. ARNOLD: Just go with that one. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: We might need a new bulb. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's not in the budget. Okay, Wayne, sorry. MR. ARNOLD: No problem. This project, as you indicated in your reading of the title, is located at the intersection of Immokalee Road and Oil Well Road. It's opposite the Orangetree PUD and it's at the corner of 33rd Street and Immokalee Road. It consists of three parcels that make up the total 10-acre site. And I'm sure most of you have driven Immokalee Road, but I think as you heard on the last item, you now have a six-lane Immokalee Road whose property was purchased by the property owner I think in 1960 largely, at least I know the front two parcels were. So certainly far predating the significant impact of the six-lane road and the future rebuilding of Oil Well Road and what that's going to become to serve our growing rural population. But as you can see, this particular property you have two parcels that front Immokalee Road. It's zoned Estates. They both permit a single- family home. It doesn't qualify presently for any level of commercial activity. It doesn't qualify for transitional conditional uses. Our application is for 70,000 square feet of mixed commercial Page 29 October 20, 2009 development. We had a neighborhood information meeting twice. Essentially we had one that was inadvertently not advertised by Naples Daily News so we had to conduct a second neighborhood information meeting. I can't remember, I think there were seven, eight, nine people that appeared at those neighborhood meetings. We had a couple of I would say more vocal opponents to the proj ect. And in discussing this after the staff report, we made a decision to substantially modify our request. And that request would be to go from 70,000 square feet down to 35,000 square feet and limit ourselves to professional and medical office and uses such as that, veterinarian office and things. Because obviously with staffs report, looking at all of these, they're indicating that there's not a demand that can be supported for more neighborhood commercial. So we do think, if you look around and you're familiar with the area, I don't think you can find another medical or general office anywhere in this part of the county. And we believe that bringing forward a project that can support a doctor office, your insurance agent, a veterinarian office and things that the community does need makes a lot of sense. You have a property that's truly not suitable for residential. I know that staff disputes that, as they did on the last case. But I don't know anybody who's going to build a single-family home across from two major intersections. You can see those front two lots, they're shorter than many of the other lots that front Immokalee Road. And we think that we can deliver a low-scale office project that will fit in the community. In fact, what I did last week, I took the NIM list that we had and I e-mailed each of the attendees of the NIM an e-mail that said our desire would be to change the direction of this project and make it office. And I also sent with them a conceptual plan that we laid out. It Page 30 October 20, 2009 shows access on 33rd. But what you see is a project that has 75-foot wide buffers against 33rd Street and also to the rear of the project. We also kept the 35-foot buffer to our east, and we have a 50-foot wide buffer to Immokalee Road and believe that we can bring to you a small-scale office complex that fits in with the community and probably meets a lot of that need, too. I did get one response from one gentleman who lives on 33rd, probably about 1,000 feet away who said essentially thanks but no thanks, we don't need any commercial out here, I have plenty. I didn't get responses from the others that I e-mailedto.soIdon.t know what their opinion is, other than they didn't send an e-mail back with any objection. Staff in this, we looked at a couple of different things, and one of the issues that we had with your transportation staff was it pushed for a prohibition to access to Immokalee Road. And after talking to them, I think we understand where they're coming from. Mr. Banks has looked at some intersection analyses, and I think Nick was concerned about signal timing at Oil Well Road and disrupting the potential flow of traffic through that intersection. We look at it as sort of the unknown. To put a prohibition to access in the compo plan may be premature and something that you don't want to prohibit outright, because there may be one of those uses that fits in with general office. Or even if this site were to get an essential service, I don't know if they would hold the same position. But if you ended up with a fire station or an EMS facility at that location at some point, I don't think you would somehow want to prohibit access to Immokalee Road through your compo plan. It may not make sense for an office project in this case, but I don't know that you would want to preclude that from happening and have to go back to the compo plan amendment in the event that even the county might want that to happen at some future date. But we had a lot of the same conversations we had on the last Page 3 1 October 20, 2009 petItIon. And I listened to that petition, and I think -- you know, I'm not sure where that one's going, but it sounds as though they've modified their proposal to ask for these transitional conditional uses. Certainly I think those types of uses are better suited for many of these pieces of property. But I think what we've delivered on the request to only seek professional medical type offices would be something that really is a transitional use for the community that serves the community. Early on there was a lot of interest on this site by a local hardware store, because they believe they needed a good location to service this part of the county. You know, with the economy as it is and with staffs position on the retail in this area, we felt that we could distinguish ourselves by asking for the office. It's low intensity for the site. 10 acres with 35,000 square feet is very low intensity, and we think it can work. We can deliver buffers that are good for our neighbors. And I think that some of the concerns we heard at the neighborhood information meeting regarding residential appeal for their street and not disrupting that as well. Rich, do you want to jump in and do anything? I think it might be prudent for Jim Banks to come up and at least talk to you about some of the traffic characteristics on Immokalee Road and Oil Well and just sort of help frame why this really is appropriate for residential uses. And also to maybe talk about why we don't want to prohibit access to Immokalee Road at this time. MR. BANKS: Thank you, Wayne. Good morning. For the record, my name is Jim Banks, I'm a registered professional engineering in the State of Florida. I'm also president of J &B Transportation Engineering, Incorporated, an engineering consulting firm located here in Collier County. I have over 20 years of experience in the field of traffic and transportation engineering and have been recognized as an expert within those fields on numerous past occasions. And in fact, I have Page 32 October 20, 2009 provided engineering design services to the Collier County Government in the past. I'm here speaking on behalf of the applicant. As stated by Mr. Arnold, the project initially proposed a compo plan amendment that consisted of 70,000 square feet of mixed commercial use. Based upon that level of development intensity, it was estimated that the project would generate approximately 500 trips during the highest peak hour, which was the PM peak hour. Based on the ITE trip generation manual, the Land Use Code 820. Based upon the assumption of 70,000 square feet of a development of mixed commercial use, Grady Minor & Associates prepared the traffic impact statement pursuant to the applicable guidelines as set forth by Collier County. The traffic study, which has been provided to the record, has a final revision date of October, 2009. I have reviewed the content of the traffic report and I am in agreement with its findings and conclusions, which are: Those segments of roadways that will be most impacted by the project have a surplus capacity well in excess of what is necessary to accommodate the traffic associated with the development of 70,000 square feet of mixed commercial use. The six-Ianed section of Immokalee Road, which is south of Oil Well, will have a proj ected surplus capacity of 1,400 vehicles per hour for the peak direction after project build-out. The two-lane section of Immokalee Road north of the site -- or north of Oil Well Road will have a projected surplus capacity of 420 vehicles per hour for the peak direction after project build-out. Those two segments of Immokalee Road will operate at level of service B, as in boy, conditions at project build-out completion. Furthermore, Oil Well Road will have a projected surplus capacity of 230 vehicles per hour, and will operate at level of service C conditions at project build-out. Page 33 October 20, 2009 The traffic report concludes that the roadway infrastructure has more than adequate capacity to accommodate the traffic associated with the proposed compo plan amendment, which consisted of 70,000 square feet of mixed commercial use. The applicant has recently revised his request to limit the development to 35,000 square feet of professional office and medical use. That development intensity will generate approximately 52 vehicles per hour, or approximately one-tenth what was estimated for the 70,000 square feet of mixed commercial use. So there has been a substantial reduction in the anticipated traffic impacts associated with the project. I reiterate, one-tenth of what was proj ected. As such, it can be concluded that the reduction of the development intensity will result in a significant reduction of the project's off-site impacts, as documented in the report that you have on record. That basically concludes my testimony regarding the traffic report that you have on file. And I think there's probably a question out there as to whether the proposed use as proposed now will generate new trips into Golden Gate community or will it actually have a potential to reduce vehicle mile trips for the Golden Gate Estates area. The answer is there will be an overall -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I'd like to ask a question before he proceeds. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Sir, I am a little confused. Before you recited three figures, 1,400 peak hour on -- MR. BANKS: Immokalee. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: -- Immokalee. And then you said something about 458 or whatever it was on the two-lane road. Page 34 October 20, 2009 MR. BANKS: Surplus capacity, yes, sir. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yes, sir. Then on Oil Well you cited another figure. I'm trying to figure out what happened to all those vehicles, from 1,400 down to Oil Well Road. They seem to have disappeared. MR. BANKS: We're talking about-- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Use your numbers if you would, please, and recite them again, if you would, please? MR. BANKS: Yes, sir. It's 1,400 peak direction. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Peak direction. MR. BANKS: That's a surplus capacity. South -- that isn't vehicles, that's what the additional -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I understand the capacity. I understand that. Go ahead. MR. BANKS: 1,400 vehicle capacity peak direction for the segment south of Oil Well. There will be a remaining capacity of surplus of 435 -- let me double -- 425 for the segment north of Oil Well. And there is an available capacity of 230 for Oil Well. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: So my question is really the reciprocal of my first question, okay? With all of that capacity, I don't understand the arithmetic. And I don't want you to think poorly of me, but it just seems that somehow or another capacities changed. And I'm just trying to understand how that was possible. MR. BANKS: They did. Because the capacity levels for each road segment that I mentioned are different from one another. The available capacity for a six-lane facility is much greater than the available capacity for a two-lane facility, debating the two Immokalee sections. One's two lanes, one's six lanes. There is a significant increase in the amount of available capacity on that southern leg. That's why there's such a -- the number's much greater than the two-lane section. Page 35 October 20, 2009 COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yeah, I understand you have additional lane, you have additional capacity. I appreciate that. And maybe I'm making something out of nothing, but it just struck me as how the numbers didn't seem to apply. And that's my problem, I guess. MR. BANKS: I had no intent to confuse the commission, and I apologize. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: No, that's -- that may be my problem. But I listen intently and I'm trying to absorb all of it and it just seemed to be odd. Thank you. MR. BANKS: As it relates to the question as to whether the project will reduce or create new trips into the community versus will it reduce the vehicle miles traveled for the residents of Golden Gate area, the answer is there will be an overall net decrease in vehicle miles traveled for the Golden Gate Estates community. The 35,000 square feet of office will predominantly function as a neighborhood center for employment opportunities, as well as providing professional services to the surrounding residents. As documented per the extensive research by the Institute of Transportation Engineers, the average trip length associated with professional and medical office space is seven miles and nine miles respectfully. That means -- respectively. What that means is that the overall average trip length associated with professional office, seven miles. Medical office, nine miles. Some people travel less than seven miles, some people drive greater than seven miles, but the average is seven miles. I submit to the commission that that trip length range, seven to nine miles, is well within the limits of the Golden Gate Estates community . So I submit to you that the overall effect will be a net decrease in vehicle miles traveled from the Golden Gate community. There will be an increase in the amount of trips surrounding the site on those Page 36 October 20, 2009 particular segments, but the overall network will see a reduce in vehicle miles traveled. Also, there was a -- in the original application, the applicant was considering the access onto Immokalee Road via the Oil Well Road intersection. And DOT responded that they felt that there would probably be a substantial degradation of the operation of level of service at that signal if we developed the 70,000 square foot of mixed retail use and created the fourth leg of that intersection. I will point the Commission to a similar situation which I think DOT was relying upon was, like the intersection at Golden Gate Parkway at u.s. 41 where you've got the intersection of two major arterials and then on the other side of the intersection you have a shopping center and it has to run as a split phase. And based on that scenario, I would agree with DOT that the initial reaction would be that you will probably degrade the operation of that signal to an extent that would be undesirable. However, we have since then reduced the square footage that we're proposing to build and the intensity down to 35,000 square feet. I will remind the Commission, as I testified to earlier, that represents one-tenth the impact that the proposed shopping center would have had on this intersection. Now, with that said, I am not prepared to tell the Commission whether or not that the safety aspects of having access onto Immokalee Road via that intersection, signalized intersection, versus the project having access on 33rd should be the deciding factor as to whether we have access at that location. What I submit to you is that that is an engineering decision that must be made at the time we know what the end user is. As Mr. Arnold mentioned, we may come in with an end use. Let's say it's a private school, maybe it's an essential service, a church possibly. And a decision may be made at that time that it would be prudent to actually have that type of development access at that Page 37 October 20, 2009 location. And let's say for example it was a church, it may be determined that it might be safer to have a police switch in the signal out there that would only be operated on Sunday, and so that use would not impact that intersection seven days a week as typically would a shopping center. So what I'm asking the Commission to do is to leave that on the table as an alternative. That's an engineering -- I submit to the Commission that that should be an engineering decision that is made later down the road as to what it is that we're going to build on that particular site. Again, I agree with Nick and his staff that if we were going to do a shopping center at that location, I'm certain we could not have access at that location and not have a substantial affect on that intersection. All I'm asking for is the opportunity to come back to DOT at a later date. And please realize, DOT has many safeguards in place that will prevent a development from occurring at that location which would put a negative impact on that location. We will have to get zoning approval, we've got to get site plan approval. I have to go obtain a driveway connection permit from DOT and the traffic ops people, that's the traffic division. And I can assure this commission that at those numerous steps in the process, DOT can drive a stake through the heart of the idea of having access at that location at any time it cannot be proven that it is warranted that the proj ect have access at that location. So I simply ask that that engineering decision be delayed at a later date and be left on the table as an option and not a mandate from the compo plan to close the door on that concept today. That basically concludes my testimony and I'm available to answer any questions. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is that the end of your presentation, Wayne? MR. ARNOLD: I just have a couple more remarks to make, if I Page 38 October 20, 2009 could. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. ARNOLD: Unless there's some questions of Jim or me before I -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We can make them all at once or piecemeal, it's up to you. So why don't you finish up, then we'll get all your -- MR. ARNOLD: I just wanted to I think reiterate how undesirable the location is for the residential that we're only permitted to put there. I think that's probably the best aerial to look at, and I don't think -- I'm sure you all have driven there, like I said earlier. But keep in mind that if you're building the one lot that is at the intersection, its only access is to Immokalee Road. The other lot has access potential to Immokalee Road or 33rd Avenue. And I guess if I'm building a house, whether it's on 33rd on the one lot or Immokalee Road on the other, it's at probably what's going to be the most major intersection. I can't imagine building a house at that location and having the traffic that stops at the Immokalee Road signal back up in front of my house and my driveway every day. And that's an ongoing situation that I don't think makes good planning sense for this part of the world. I think when you look at the plan that we have that can bring office type uses to this location, I think that's what makes the most sense, not residential. If I can answer any questions. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Wayne, how deep are those lots, the way you've got them? MR. ARNOLD: Approximately 330 feet, or just slightly under 330 feet. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: All right. Would you go back to that other picture that you had up there, your alternative design, Page 39 October 20, 2009 35,000 square, whatever it is. Do you folks intend to build a church or anything like the gentleman recited? MR. ARNOLD: I think under our office scenario, no. I know that it had been -- I brought that up because I know it was discussed just before us on the Wilson proposal, that maybe that made more sense to have conditional uses. And I think in that context if one of you were to head that direction, a prohibition to access Immokalee Road may not make sense. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: All right. You have nine structures on there. I know you don't want to get into specificity, I'm not looking to get to the detail, per se, but I'm trying to understand, from looking at it from being up in the sky, so to speak, it kind of looks interesting. How tall would these structures be, do you envision? MR. ARNOLD: I didn't design anything vertical. But, I mean, our maximum height I think would be 35 feet. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: 35 feet, I would guess. Okay, now, nine structures. And when you first opened up your statement, you indicated, you know, a hardware store person was interested in it possibly. Nine structures is a lot of structures. That becomes an interesting -- it's not a strip mall, certainly, but it becomes a question as to what all can you put there. You know, if you're intending to serve the community, nine structures is nice to serve the community. But what all are you intending to put into those structures? Have you gotten that far? MR. ARNOLD: Well, I think out of the C-l through C-3 uses that were proposed, there were offices in that mix. And what we envisioned our spaces for, professional offices where you might have an insurance agent, you might have your veterinarian, you might have a doctor, you might have your dentist. I mean, there are uses like that Page 40 October 20, 2009 that make a lot of sense. You know, you see nine structures there. And I think the intent of that design was to keep those. Each of those footprints is under 4,000 square feet. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: But you don't want to be constrained to those. MR. ARNOLD: No. I mean, this was an idea. I sent this out to the neighbors to show them how you could really design a site that had very large buffers, low intensity type of use and make that work. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Here's my thought on it. I don't know what anybody else is thinking. But you're not that far from Randall where they want to do a whole bunch of stuff. And to put nine structures in there, possibly more, possibly less and have a repeat of -- potentially the repeat or something very similar to what's at Randall if they go forward, it strikes me as overly redundant. Would you be open -- I want you to think about being open, should this go forward, to being constrained to the types of businesses that you related to that might logically, more logically be appropriate in this area. I'm not asking you to define that right now, but I'm asking you to consider that. MR. ARNOLD: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, we're on the applicant's questions. Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And Wayne, I think that was a reasonable thing to do, to drop back to office. It would be nice. I could see a really nice office park. We all in our imaginations see some really nice office parks that Naples has. But my question's actually kind of the opposite. Why would you drop the square footage down? Because if we do determine that this is a good location, what benefit is it to the community to underutilize the site? MR. ARNOLD: Well, and that's the same question that our Page 41 October 20, 2009 client asked, do we really want to underutilize the site. And, you know, we were responding to some of the comments that we heard at the NIM, that 70,000 square feet just sounds like a lot to people. Is it really on 10 acres? No. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: No. MR. ARNOLD: But if you're in the rural setting, which we've all heard about, these Golden Gate Estates properties, we were willing to go ahead and reduce that substantially to try to get support from the neighborhood. I don't think I found support and I'm not sure I found opposition with the change. But we were trying to respond to citizen comments we heard. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right, but in terms of planning and the square footage, which you said this footprint represents, essentially it's a difference between one-story, two-story. MR. ARNOLD: It could be. I mean, some of those --like you said, I mean, there's room to make that site plan work in many different ways. But I think again the real intent with that was to show a development scenario that could still maintain very large buffers and be a very good neighbor for the residents that did use 33rd Avenue. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. But the reason you're backing off that they're dividing the square footage in half, which puts you down to a really low floor area ratio, is because of -- to satisfy some concerns of the neighbors, or what? MR. ARNOLD: It was an attempt to do that. And like I said, I mean, are we amenable to have more? If this Planning Commission would support more square footage than the 35,000 that I just threw out, I'd be happy to have it. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Again, my concern is that the site supports it. If it's efficient -- if it's a good location for office, it's a good location for something -- even as -- the 70's only like a 1.5 FAR, which is really small. I'm done. Thank you. Page 42 October 20, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions of the applicant? Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Your client, Mr. Arnold, owns all 10 acres, correct? MR. ARNOLD: That's correct, yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Was there an aerial that you had on previously? Could you put that back on? MR. ARNOLD: Sure. I've got a couple of them. I don't know which one I had up. This one. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: How about the other one? MR. ARNOLD: This one shows better. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, you've been hanging around Richard too much. Still upside down. MR. ARNOLD: I know. I thought it fits better on the page that way. MR. YOV ANOVICH: It looks right to me. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, if you -- see the words Immokalee Road south of the subject site? MR. ARNOLD: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Just to the right of those words there's a big empty lot. MR. ARNOLD: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What is that zoned for? MR. ARNOLD: It's -- I believe it's designated CN under the Orangetree Master Plan -- Orangetree PUD. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: David, is that a commercial site? MR. WEEKS: Yes, it is. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Great. And that does have access to Immokalee Road and access to four-Ianed Oil Well Road when it gets four-Ianed without any problems. Okay, that's all. Anybody else have any questions of the applicant? (N 0 response.) Page 43 October 20, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We'll get our staff report. MS. VALERA: Good morning. Carolina Valera, Principal Planner with the Comprehensive Planning Department. In light of the change of scope that was presented by the applicant, I'll keep my comments really brief. As noted in the staff report, staff is recommending not to transmit to the Department of Community Affairs. Consistency with 5.1 of the Transportation Element, we will not be able to demonstrate consistency with 5.1. And our Collier interactive growth model shows that the existing demand, commercial demand and future demand is not there but until after 2030, beyond 2030. We have not looked -- seen this proposal until today. This is the first time we are aware of the change of scope in the project, so staff hasn't been able to review this new proposal. If you have any questions, I'll be more than -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, are there questions of staff? (N 0 response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Carolina, Page 6 of the staff report under House Bill 697 it says, the petitioner failed to address this statutory requirement. Does that mean you had no input in response to House Bill 697? MS. VALERA: That is correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I guess I have some questions of Nick. Is he -- no, he didn't leave. I thought he might have ran off. Hi, Nick. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Your department found on Page 7, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven concerns with their trip -- their TIS. And one of those was that they didn't even use the correct methodology. Did you ever get a corrected TIS? MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, sir. Page 44 October 20, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So far as you're concerned the TIS still doesn't work. MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, and the updated information that they changed today hasn't been reviewed. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Has any of the data analysis from your department or from David when -- you need to chime in too -- ever looked at the suggestion they're bringing forth today? MS. VALERA: No, we have not. And we did receive a revised TIS right after we sent the staff reports to you all. So we did not review that revised TIS that I think the applicant was talking to you about today. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I have some 9J-5 questions. And I'm not sure they're yours, Nick, but you might as well just kind of hang around, I'll surely let you know. In the analysis, the data analysis that was attached to their document under consistency for 9J-5, number three, promotes, allows or designates urban development and radial, strip, isolated or ribbon patterns generally emanating from existing urban developments. The proposed subdistrict is adjacent to the Orangetree PUD, which is within the rural settlement area and is a small compact area. Therefore, this indicator of urban sprawl does not apply to the GMP. Do you agree with that? MR. CASALANGUIDA: I haven't reviewed that in the text that you've written it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I don't mean you, I meant Carolina. MS . VALERA: We did. To a certain extent. When -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's okay, you did agree with it? That was my question, did you agree with that statement made by the applicant in response to 9J-5, item V-3 on Page 8 of 11 of their data and analysis application. MS . VALERA: I'm sorry, if you could restate that -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'm not going to read it again, I'll let you Page 45 October 20, 2009 read it. If you turn to Page 8 of their data and analysis application. And looks like it's Page 61 of the overall package. MS. VALERA: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And look at number three. MS. VALERA: This indicator of urban sprawl does not apply to the Growth Management Plan amendment. No, I do not agree. It does. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's fine, thank you. On the next page, number seven: Fails to maximize use of future public facilities and services. The Orangetree utility service area, do you know any -- isn't that the one the county is taking over? And do they have current problems with their -- MS. VALERA: There are some issues, yes. And there are some plans for the county to I guess eventually take over. They are outside the Orangetree service area. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: They're outside of it? MS. VALERA: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: On Page 63, number 12, results in poor accessibility among -- linked to related land use. This is one for Nick. It says in the second sentence that they apparently relied upon, the development will have access to a local road as well as this intersection. Is that a true statement, Nick? MR. CASALANGUIDA: They will have access to a local road, but not the intersection. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Number 13, Carolina, results of the loss of significant amounts of functional open space. The way they've reviewed this it says, there is a minimal amount of open space when compared to the entire county. So when you read 9J-5 and you're supposed to determine if it has Page 46 October 20, 2009 a significant amount of functional open space, does that mean every small site within the county is applied to the entire county's open space as a whole? Is that how that's supposed to be read? MS. VALERA: No. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I think I've had enough questions on this one. Anybody -- oh, Nick, you have something you want to add? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, if I could. The comment that's been put on the record, it's on a busy road, therefore it shouldn't be a residential house, you can't apply that statement. There's going to be a multitude of intersections and roadways that have traffic projections 50, 60,000 ADT, so all those lots should be commercial. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, you know, the applicant representative, Mr. Y ovanovich, actually is involved in a project that is only 35 or 50 feet off of Vanderbilt Beach Road, which is a six-lane road. And it's got two stories right there overlooking the road. And if that can be done, I'm sure that other housing that can have vegetated buffer far into the site can be done. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Understood. But the justification of a busy road -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'm sorry, Mr. Yovanovich represented that developer. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Which project? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It's the one at Vanderbilt Beach Road behind the shopping center, Sweet Bay, the one that's half built. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Commercial project? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, the residential project. I'm saying residential can be put along streets successfully . We have DiV osta's projects along Vanderbilt Beach Road, we have multiple projects along there. And those houses don't have the benefit of big lots to where they can have buffers built in like these do. They're put right Page 47 October 20, 2009 up against a major highway. And I'm not -- I agree with you, Nick, I don't see why every site that is against a major road qualifies for commercial in this county. I don't think it does. It just means you may have a less expensive purchase price for the home, but -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: If I could add one statement. And it should apply to the review of all these compo plan amendments in the East of 951 location. Your review on 5.1 is a five-year review. And it was set up that way to say the roads have capacity in five years. And Mr. Banks is correct, these roads have been widened and they will have capacity in five years. You're supposed to be looking at these in terms of the long range. Your LR TP, your long-range transportation plan and financially feasible needs plan don't match. And we're going through an update. It's going to get worse. So when you review these things, if they're small locations they're not going to add value to that long-range transportation plan and planning process where they provide a realistic destination in a location that needs destinations. You should consider that. And small applications, these small zoning applications don't provide those large destinations in areas. So consider that when you're making your -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And again, the question is did you think this would provide a greater efficiency of transportation in that area? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Mr. Banks' comments was correct, but in general when you run a model, these small locations, that could be said for a lot of them, if they're not sufficient size and you run an area-wide model, they're not going to draw like they would a larger location. So it provides a benefit, but they become minimized when Page 48 October 20, 2009 they're very small. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right, it could be small, but it's a small project. But essentially everybody that goes to an office here is not going to an office someplace else. And we all know that someplace else is further away. MR. CASALANGUIDA: That said, if you take the rural area and you plunk down a bunch of small office locations, that general statement is true. It's just the benefit is minimal. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. Well, it's a minimal proj ect. I mean, this isn't going to tip the county. Can you discuss why that intersection would be bad? I mean, the geometry of the site is such that it would come in with sufficient dimension that, you know, could really be well planned, good rate, everything could be well done on the site. But what you're concerned about, letting that site join that light. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sure, I think you documented well. When you add a different phase or a different leg to that intersection, there's more movements and the operations start to degrade a little bit. Obviously based on sides, that degradation can be changed. But there's no reason to add a fourth leg to that intersection. It degrades the operation of the mainline and the intersection itself. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But essentially the only concern would be coming out of that using that light. But people coming -- using that intersection going into the site, it wouldn't slow it down at all, would it? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Well, you're opposing left from the northbound, it would be timed in with that phase. But depending on the volume, and as you noted, depending on the size, it would impact that. That'd be reviewed based on the size of the application. But any time you add another leg to an intersection, and more conflict points and more issues there, the intersection starts to degrade. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. But that's only -- there's Page 49 October 20, 2009 multiple turns that could go in there. The only one that really could slow it down is the guy trying to go north using the light. MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, then it's coming out as well too. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, that's what I mean, coming out to go north -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: Coming out and -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- using that light. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Right. And it's another movement. It's right in/right out. It's the lefts in, it's the lefts out. It's the through traffic that wants to get around. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. And it would really mess it up such that you really wouldn't want that on there. MR. CASALANGUIDA: If these become -- as you know, we pointed out Immokalee and Randall become our high volume roads. They need to be protected at all cost. So I would not recommend a connection at that location. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: All right, thank you. I'm done. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, let's take a break for 15 minutes, and we'll resume at 10:15. (Recess.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, everyone, welcome back from our break. We had left off finishing up, I believe, the presentation by the applicant on Item CP-2007 -2. It's the petition on Immokalee Road and Oil Well Road. Carolina, I think you were up next. MS . VALERA: If I may, I would like to introduce for the record some of the comments from our County Attorney regard to this petition. In our suggested language, which -- well, as pointed out by the applicant, it may not be relevant anymore. Our County Attorney had suggested that some of the SIC codes may not be a good idea, and just -- she suggested that the uses prevail, not the SIC Code. As you know, Page 50 October 20, 2009 the SIC Code may allow more uses than what are noted in our suggested allowed uses for this proj ect. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I can't remember, but did we have SIC codes in the GMP Golden Gate Area Master Plan? MS. VALERA: I believe not. Right, David? MR. WEEKS: Well, they exist in that list of prohibited uses. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, that's the only place. Well, then where are the SIC codes in the staffs recommended language that you're referring to as brought up by the County Attorney's Office? MS. VALERA: Allowed in the sense that the prohibited uses in letter R, where it says the following principal permitted uses are prohibited. And you're right, I mean, it's the list of prohibited uses. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But David just said they're already in the Golden Gate Area Master Plan with the SIC codes, right, David? MR. WEEKS: Correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So why would we not leave them here with the SIC codes? Because if that was the intent -- MS. VALERA: Then let me ask for the record to start the comments from our County Attorney. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I don't understand the reasoning, but-- MR. WEEKS: I think that's identified here is what I will call a global issue, because if it's a problem with this petitioner, you know, concern, legal concern for this petition, because it is already in the master plan, that means it's a concern for how it's worded in the master plan. So what I get out of all of this is I'm going to write another note here for that list of GMP amendments needed initiated by staff, and -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, before you go there, David, you need to consider one of the petitions that came here, and I forgot which one it was, discussed the problems that they had in one of the original segments of a PUD they had within themselves. I think it was Page 51 October 20, 2009 the Randall one. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Randall. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Where they had the word shopping center. And that was real difficult for staff to make a decision to a point where it had to go to the BCC. But if you had shopping center and you listed all the uses of the SIC Code, you wouldn't have had that problem. So why would we want to take out the definitiveness of the number, if that's the way it was intended from the beginning, to make it less definitive by what's being suggested? MR. WEEKS: Okay, two comments. One, I have to say something about that shopping center issue. I don't think staff had any issue with it. That was the applicant who chose to appeal that ultimately to the Board of County Commissioners. Without going into all the detail and staying low on the soap box, I'll just say that shopping center all the way back to the 1982 zoning ordinance, which is relevant at the time of the PUD that we're talking about here, the Randall Boulevard Center PUD, was very -- the definition of that was very similar as it is today. It is not a land use. A shopping center is a type of development. It's a certain number of uses within a building, or it's a certain building square footage of retail development. But, you know, off the soap box. Shopping center's not a use and it should not exist in a PUD. And it no longer exists in our Land Development Code as a use. That was a -- I don't know why it ever got there, but it was. And it's been rectified now. Now, back to the point. I think the remedy here ultimately is going to be to simply clarify the language. I'm looking at Page 16, paragraph R, number one as an example. Drinking places (SIC Code 5813.) Now, I believe the comment from the County Attorney's Office is if we look at the SIC Code book at 5813, we're going to see several Page 52 October 20, 2009 different specific uses therein. And the question is going to be which carries. If drinking places is a broader category than the SIC Code number, or vice versa, then the question is which rules? Is it the broader? If drinking places applies to -- is a single use and the SIC Code 5813 in fact includes five different uses, then what was the intent of the language? Was it -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Bars. I was there. The intent was we didn't want bars popping up everywhere in Golden Gate Estates. And that's why that was put in there. MR. WEEKS: So we'd be referring to a single use, not-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. MR. WEEKS: -- maybe four other uses that might occur on -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Restaurants that serve alcohol weren't of the concern, it was bars. And Stevie Tomatoes would be definitely problematic in Golden Gate Estates. MR. WEEKS: I believe the comment from the Attorney's Office was raising an issue of clarity. And they just want it resolved. I don't think they're -- MS. VALERA: And that is correct, it's more of a clarity issue. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'm glad we talked about it. Better understood now, thank you. Okay, did you finish, Carolina? MS. VALERA: Yes. That's all-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are there any questions of staff? David, you've got a question of staff? MR. WEEKS: Again, I'm going to chew my tongue off if I don't get this out. I just have to say this. This petition was submitted two and a half years ago this month. And it was submitted with data and analysis that presumably the applicant believed would justify and support the approval of the petition. And now here today at this hearing a substantial change is made Page 53 October 20, 2009 to the application. That's not right. Also, to my knowledge there's been no data and analysis submitted, no needs analysis submitted for this revised application, because now they're talking about office use only. Had they presented any needs analysis to show that we need office uses at this location or in this general area. And from some of the comments made, it sounds like this is more of a compatibility driven amendment, as was the last one that was specifically stated on the record that it was, and it's starting to sound to me like that's the case here as well. The other comment is I just observed that in the submitted application, a single-family dwelling is a retained use. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Are there any other questions of the -- of anyone before we go to public speakers? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are there any public speakers registered, David? MR. WEEKS: No, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Does any member of the public wish to speak on this petition, please raise your hand and come on up and use the microphone. (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, everybody's still-- okay, no public speakers. Richard, now you're going to have some rebuttal time prior to our vote, but if you have something you want to add to your presentation, feel free. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Thank you. At the risk of using David's analogy about biting my tongue off -- MR. WEEKS: Go ahead. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Not yours, his. MR. YOV ANOVICH: -- I need to point out that if I look at the Page 54 October 20, 2009 date of the staff report, which I think it was signed by staff on September 28th, 2009, that's the first time we got a substantive review of the data and analysis we provided. Yes, we believe our data and analysis supported what we requested. But it was not until then that we found out that staff disagreed with our conclusion. And it wasn't until after we had our neighborhood information meeting that we got neighborhood information or neighborhood feedback to discuss the issue. The uses we're asking for, office, are all within the C-l through C-3 uses, which is what we originally requested. So what we've done is we've gone with a subset of our original request and we've reduced our number in reaction to the staff report and the neighborhood information meeting. And what happened was the neighbors didn't like that we were being forced onto 33rd as our access point. That was one of their comments. So in reaction to staff telling us we can't go on Oil Well and the neighbors, we made a change. That is not an inappropriate thing to do. And to be chastised for reacting to a staff report and neighborhood comments I think is not fair. And it's not been an interactive process for these two years. We have received comments on the format of our data and analysis. Change this, change that, change this, change that. We have not received feedback on the what I will say quality of the information until we get the staff report. And we're going to -- we've done that throughout the history of compo plan amendments, we've reacted to staff reports, and I think we should be allowed to do that. And every one of the petitions pretty much has done that. And I'm sorry if staff doesn't like the way the process is going, but we have to live with that process, and we're going to continue to react because we have neighborhood input at the end of the game. And we've got staff input at the end of the game. So I wanted to respond to that comment. Page 55 October 20, 2009 And we'll get into more of the substantive in closing as far as the presentation goes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You might as well stay up there with Carolina, because we want to walk through the proposed language by staff that starts on Page 14 of the staff report, as we have with each petition prior to this. And it begins on Page 14 with a paragraph on the bottom. And the first question, Richard, any of the changes in that paragraph, are you or your client objecting to those? MR. YOV ANOVICH: No. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody from the Planning Commission have questions on Page 14? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Just-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Rick, maybe you should call this now an office park instead of commercial subdistrict. Just a thought. Just to be -- MR. YOV ANOVICH: We're fine with that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: On Page 15 there are a series of changes by staff. Richard, do you or your client have any problems with those? MR. YOV ANOVICH: Looks like they're just trying to make this the same as all other neighborhood centers in Golden Gate Estates, except for, you know, we had asked for the change of the 70,000 to 35,000. And reducing the uses to office -- you know, professional and medical and veterinarian office type uses. So other -- I guess the answer is no, we don't have an objection, but it's not consistent with what we had modified the request to. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, the way I'm assuming this would happen is at the end of the presentations and we do get into our voting, those that do get voted on, the appropriate change will have to be made based upon the vote, so we understand that. Page 56 October 20, 2009 MR. YOV ANOVICH: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Does anybody else have any questions on Page 15. Mr. Schiffer, and then David. Or David, you might as well go first, it might solve Brad's issue. MR. WEEKS: I was just going to say, on Page 15, paragraph B, I know the applicant has referred to what I heard was professional and medical offices. We've dealt with the issue before of identifying categories of use, and it can be problematic. I would suggest that we simply change the language to delete C-2 and C-3 so that paragraph B would allow the permitted and conditional uses of the C-l zoning district. That does go beyond professional medical offices, allows general offices and allows some personal services. But at the time of rezoning, if they don't want to avail themselves of some of those other uses, then that can be restricted. It's much easier I believe to do it that way in the process rather than try to state a category of use which we don't even have definitions for. We don't actually have a definition of professional office, as an example, in the LDC. MR. YOV ANOVICH: And I would -- I think generally I agree with that, but I'm fairly certain that a veterinarian's office is not a C-l use. So we may need to supplement -- in other words, say the C-l plus the veterinarian office, or other things like those types of offices that we think are appropriate in this location. So we can come up with a better list. But in general I agree with what David is saying to the C-l, but I think a veterinarian's office is not a C-l use. There may be those oddball uses that we need to add to the list. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If this does survive and you come back for adoption, all that would have to be modified in any new language and it would be dealt with at that time. Page 57 October 20, 2009 MR. YOV ANOVICH: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Brad, you wanted to-- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, yeah, my concern was still the 35 thou. I mean, that's really underutilization of the site. So if -- you know, sprawl is a disaster and it's a disaster in Collier County. That picture kind of shows it. So if we're -- to me if this is a good site for professional offices, underutilizing it to me is a highly negative thing. MR. YOV ANOVICH: And Mr. Schiffer, I was going to address that later, but I'll address it now. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: You can address it later. MR. YOV ANOVICH: No, but I -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Maybe you could address it later when it's important close to a vote. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah, it will certainly make those of us that may wanted to go the other way. Why don't we go on with the next page, Page 16. Any questions on Page 16? From the applicant's perspective, is there anything there that you object to? MR. YOV ANOVICH: I think -- again, I think we're okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Questions from the Planning Commission? Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I do. I mean, the two-story, I can't see again what that does. This thing -- this thing is totally going to be nested in preserves and buffers. And what the two stories is going to achieve, I'm not sure. MR. YOV ANOVICH: We had envisioned -- and I don't know if you're familiar with this. Pretty much everybody knows where the Wilson-Miller building is on Airport Road. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. Page 58 October 20, 2009 MR. YOV ANOVICH: As you go a little bit further north, there's the -- there was a children's dentist. And immediately next to that was a small office complex, I think it's called Everglades Professional Center. And what that is is that's just smaller single-story, you know, quaint -- I would think that's old Florida because they're tin roof with porches type of a project fitting in. And that's the model of what we were thinking is one story, multiple small buildings. And that was kind of the character of Golden Gate Estates when we were going with the concept. So one story, I guess we're only 35,000 square feet, you know, one story -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, you know, I would go back and stop right at Wilson-Miller's office. How can you do it any better than that? MR. YOV ANOVICH: It is a beautiful building. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah, and it's set in a -- it's the density we're talking about. If you were up at 70,000 feet and two stories. I mean, that to me is one of the greatest office work spaces in the county. MR. YOV ANOVICH: With local street access. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: See, is the Wilson-Miller center in the urban area? Is this facility out here in the urban area? The answer is no. What we do in the urban area is a lot different than what we do in the rural areas of Collier County. Densities, intensities and heights all affect rural areas than they do urban areas, where it's expected. Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yeah, I'm going to ask another question. On that "I", all buildings shall have tile roofs, old style Florida metal roofs with decorative parapet. We asked today, we were talking about Bermuda and so forth. Remind me again why we do this, we focus on the roofs and not Page 59 October 20, 2009 on the architectural style. Or at least we should have consistency, I would hope. MR. WEEKS: I don't have that history. I know it came out of the Golden Gate Master Plan committee. I believe it was part of the original. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah, it was a recommendation from the committee when we studied the various styles going in Golden Gate. What we didn't want were flat roofs with false parapets and air condition equipment sticking up and things like that and styles -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I don't have a problem with it, my issue was yesterday we talked about Bermuda and we don't have that kind of thing here. And I'm trying to -- well, we seek consistency where we can get it. And we're looking for -- if this is a definition of some form, we ought to have something that I can look at and recognize again and again. I don't want to make it -- it's not a big deal about it, but I was just curious. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, I was just giving you the history of how it got there. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I got you. I understand that. I'm not questioning that part of it. But it's different than the presentation we got yesterday. Now I realize different people make different presentations. MS. VALERA: And if I may add, Commissioner, I know there's been some talk about old Florida style. And as recognized, that old Florida is in the eye of the beholder, I think Mr. Schiffer put it. When we tried to implement regulations for activity center number nine, I think that was the first time we came across the old Florida -- trying to define what is old Florida. And in doing the research, and I was assigned to that, it had been done by a firm that had been contracted by the county. And there were some pictures, some colors, some architectural elements that Page 60 October 20, 2009 gave us some hint of what it meant. And people had left the company, so it was -- we were not able to actually talk to the people that had introduced the term. But the idea was to resemble more the Florida cracker style, which is more defined, it's been studied by some of our bigger universities in the state, and the idea is that you have that, as Rich actually pointed out, the home with the metal roof, sloped roofs, porches around. So it defines more the residences that we used to build here in Florida because of our climate. You know, it's a reaction to the climate of Florida, the wind, the sun, et cetera, et cetera, and how homes were, you know, lifted up because of our water and protected from the sun and the rain with these steep long roofs. So the idea, when we were looking into creating or implementing regulations for -- especially for activity center number nine, we tried to take hints from that Florida cracker. And the idea is that from the pictures that were shown in the study, they wanted one story, just as most of our homes, or what used to be in the state. So one story. So the flat roofs were prohibited for outer parcels for activity center number nine. Any out-parcel in activity center number nine can now have more than one story and so that's the idea behind that no flat roof. And to have certain elements and colors from the Florida -- so I just wanted to add that up. I hope it helps a little bit into what was the context behind that style. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Carolina, I thank you very much. And I recognize what you're saying. Yesterday what we had, in a similar statement we had old Florida, Key West and Bermuda. And today we have old Florida or decorative parapet. And I don't really care ultimately because I know we'll find our way. But my point was merely to try to have consistency. And I just brought that -- I was hoping to bring it to your attention. If it's meaningful, fine. If not, fine too. That was all. Page 61 October 20, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Randy? MR. COHEN: Mr. Chairman, members of the CCPC, obviously with what's transpired today with respect to this petition from the change from the proposed GMP amendment which is in the staff report and then what you've heard today, a lot of things that are in the staff report are obviously incorrect. If it's the intent of the CCPC to consider those proposed changes, obviously it would be appropriate for the staff to go back and to review these ifems in terms of impact. And when I look at it, it would be from the standpoint of looking at the staff report and we would have -- in essence we'd have to take a look at the traffic capacity and the circulation analysis impact. We would have to look at how the Collier interactive growth model would look at this particular proposal. The appropriateness of the change, section would change in the staff report. Then the question comes up, they held the neighborhood information meeting. Based on the proposed change, how would the neighborhood react to this particular change. We don't know. In addition to that, the findings and conclusions obviously would change as well, too. It's very difficult for a report like this, if the CCPC was to vote, to transmit at this point in time to move forward with something that is totally different than it would with what is now being asked for. I just wanted to point that out, because it would get extremely confusing going to the BCC and also going up to DCA if it was to be transmitted as such. MS. VALERA: And if I may, I would like to add also for the record that at the neighborhood information meeting people were not only concerned about not having access from Immokalee Road, they were concerned of the commercial uses in general, because they felt that -- that's what I heard at the meeting, that that will just bring traffic to their neighborhood. Page 62 October 20, 2009 And if you look at the aerial, most of the streets and residences that are around this property, they're not -- they don't abut -- they don't have accessing to Immokalee Road. They have access through other roads and then -- so in order to get to homes, people have to drive several small roads to get to their home. So bringing traffic and opening an accessing to this parcel will bring traffic and will change, and that's what they express, will change the character, the residential character of their neighborhood. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Nick, I have -- something just dawned on me. I know that takes me a little while sometimes to come up with these questions. But since you are so good at scheming on how to bulldoze down people's homes in Golden Gate Estates. MR. YOV ANOVICH: That's a fair word. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are you planning to at any point extend Oil Well over to meet a future connection to a north-south link of Wilson from Immokalee Road? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Only if I could swing it over your house. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah, I figured as much. MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, sir, there's nothing in the long-range transportation plan that shows that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Because at one time I had-- years ago there had been some talk about making some connection and extending it. Because this project or any attempt to this project would certainly have a detrimental effect on that cause, if that's what you were thinking of doing. Not that I'd help you there, but I was CUrIOus. MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, sir, no plans. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Okay, Richard, you're standing up there like you want to say something. Page 63 October 20, 2009 MR. YOV ANOVICH: No, no, no, I'm just waiting my turn. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, you can -- we're going to -- MR. YOV ANOVICH: We're going through the words still, right? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I thought we finished up, except for page -- I think we had one page left. MR. YOV ANOVICH: That's the only reason I'm up here is we hadn't quite gotten all the way through. CHAIRMAN STRAIN : Well, Page 17 is the top of the page. It's only one -- do you have any problems with the two sentences on the top of Page 1 7? MR. YOV ANOVICH: No. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody on the Planning Commission have any concerns on Page 17? (N 0 response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, with that we I believe are concluded with that GMP amendment discussion until we go to round up our votes later on. Item #4 F CP-2007-3. MISSION SUBDISTRICT CHAIRMAN STRAIN: With that in mind, let's move on to the next one, and that's CP-2007-3. It's another petition for the Golden Gate Area Master Plan. And this is called the Mission Subdistrict. It's for a church and related uses off of Oil Well Road. All those wishing to participate on behalf of this petition, please rise to be sworn in by the court reporter. (Speakers were duly sworn.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's the first time I've ever seen a pastor sworn in, but that's -- okay, disclosures on the part of the Page 64 October 20, 2009 Planning Commission. Are there any? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yes, I'm sorry. I spoke to Mr. Y ovanovich on this. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Homiak? COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: I spoke to Mr. Yovanovich. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody else? Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I also spoke to Mr. Y ovanovich. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And so did I. Looks like he's made his rounds. Okay, Richard, it's all yours. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Good morning. For the record, Rich Y ovanovich, on behalf of the petitioner. With me today is Pastor Steve Wigdahl, of Emmanuel Lutheran Church. Tom Gemmer also from the church. Bob Duane from Hole-Montes. Chuck Mohlke who did our market study. And I don't see Ted Treesch, but I don't think we had any transportation issues. He was going to be here when he was here yesterday for the other petitions. The way we're going to handle this is the Pastor's going to give you a brief overview of, you know, the church's desires on this particular site, and then I will take you through the specifics of our request. At the risk of giving David another uncomfortable moment, we are going to make a modification, very small. And I'll say that-- do it up front so he can have time to sit there and stew. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: He's chewing on his tongue. MR. YOV ANOVICH: It seemed that the 2,500 square feet of commercial we were asking for really confused things. So we thought it would be best to just delete the request for 2,500 square feet of commercial and focus on the use of the church, day care and private school in our presentation. Page 65 October 20,2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, before you go too far, I think David anticipated it, because on Page 15 he has an alternative review language. Is that a fair statement, David? Looks like you took out the commercial. MR. WEEKS: That's the impression, doesn't (sic) it? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah. Did you anticipate Richard changing? MR. WEEKS: We did not. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, that might work to his benefit on this one. MR. YOV ANOVICH: So that must not have cost him too much of a heartache. And with that, I'll turn it over to the Pastor to give you an overview of the church's goals for this property and then we'll go through the petition. PASTOR WIGDAHL: Good morning. And thank you, I appreciate this opportunity. I have -- when I take out notes like this, these are not sermon notes or anything like that, these are simply some notes that I brought this morning to help you understand what we are intending to do in that part of the county. I have been a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America for 25 years, and I have served here in the Naples area since 1999. The congregation that I serve is located on Mooring Line Drive, 777 Mooring Line Drive. We have had a history of 50 years in that location. We celebrated our 50th year anniversary last March. And part of our ministry of course is -- entails the many different ways that we have served the community. An example of that would be that within the last 10 years we have built 11 homes for Habitat for Humanity, we have been heavily involved in the development of St. Matthew's House and other means Page 66 October 20, 2009 of dealing with people in the community that carry such need. The Boys and Girls Clubs of Southwest Florida. The list really could go on and on in terms of the way that our ministry has been a servant ministry in the Naples area for over 50 years. One of the things that we have certainly considered in terms of Collier County in light and being aware of the increased population, the growth to the northeast, I remember Mr. Schmitt was at our congregation some time ago and helped us understand the rapid rate of growth beyond Collier Boulevard that was projected into the year 2025. With that awareness and also an accompanying need that we discovered for community services in that part of the county, we as a congregation thought it would be appropriate for us to consider an extension of our ministry to that part of Collier County. As I mentioned earlier, we are part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It includes such nationally recognized organizations and world organizations as Lutheran World Relief; Lutheran Social Services of Florida, which have tremendous reputations in terms of serving the population. And as we talked to the planning portions of our faith community, we had consistent recommendations from development experts that a minimum of 20 acres would be needed for us to provide adequate space for the variety of mission and ministry opportunities that we are considering to help serve that part of the county. We looked specifically in the demographic study at a couple of zip codes, and one of those was 34117 and the other being 34120. The analysis that we put forward at that time revealed that there was limited availability of services and certainly the lack of the presence of any mainline churches in that area. Now, I might not know that for certain at this point. You may know more than me if there are other plans in that area. But when I look at some of the mainline denominations of the Christian faith, Page 67 October 20, 2009 including the Lutheran community, we were not aware of any other developments that were being planned in that area. Along with that, certainly the significant need for family oriented services and programs. We talked with officials, school officials from Corkscrew Elementary, the middle and high schools. Also, current providers of service, such as the Boys and Girls Club, Grace Place, Baby Basics of Collier County . We spent some time in dialogue with the Golden Gate Estates Area Civic Association, and all seem to echo the message to us that there was a largely underserved population of families in that area to the northeast. So when we looked at the opportunities that we might have as a faith-based community, certainly among that would be to provide a worship center; an education center; alongside that we have expertise in infant and preschool care, child and youth after-school activities; certainly parent support programs; counseling services for those who are in need. That includes even work with Lutheran Services of Florida. We also have quite a program that we have developed in our own parish at present around health and wellness, and also we see that there might be some need for adult day care. The question in terms of why the site on Oil Well Road: Through investigations of many land parcels, many we felt were not suited due to limited acreage, a lack of major road frontage or access, and certainly some excessive prices. The most desirable parcel which was ultimately purchased on Oil Well Road seemed to meet all of our criteria: Being larger than 20 acres within the zip code areas targeted; having significant road frontage with a price within our range; and certainly the location and proximity to growing schools. So with that, that is just an indicator again of what we would like to do to be a -- try to be a servant community to the growing part of Collier County, and I appreciate the opportunity to express that this Page 68 October 20, 2009 morning. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, sir. MR. YOV ANOVICH: If you have any questions? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I do. And anybody else first want to go? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN : You now have reduced your uses to basically church, private schools and child care, all church related. David, as a conditional use, wouldn't they fit under a condi -- not at this location, but doesn't those criteria fall under conditional uses? MR. WEEKS: Yes, they do. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Because they're looking still to qualify this as a subdistrict, which I'm afraid would then allow more transitional uses next to it and we've now got a spreading of something. What if they just were to be asking for an amendment to the Growth Management Plan to become a conditional use in that area, wouldn't that work for them? MR. WEEKS: I need to clarify. My response may not have been correct. What I thought you were asking was are these uses, church, child care and school, are these uses allowed as a conditional use, and the answer is yes, in the Estates zoning district. This property does not qualify, does not meet the locational criteria for a conditional use. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I understand that. MR. WEEKS: Okay. And on top of that, their size is beyond what is allowed as well. And that's one of their -- frankly, one of the points that they've raised as a support for their petition is that there is no provision in the Golden Gate Master Plan in the Estates for these institutional uses, these conditional uses under the Estates zoning district for this magnitude of a project. It simply doesn't exist. The only allowance for these five-acre tracts either in a neighborhood Page 69 October 20, 2009 center or the certain transitional or -- there's another provision or two. But they're small. There's no ability to do a church campus, which is what I would say they're proposing. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, I was just trying to figure out an easier way. Because if this goes in as a subdistrict, do the adjoining parcels then qualify for transitional conditional use? MR. WEEKS: I would say no, because it's not a -- the transitional conditional use, one of the criteria is that you're not abutting a conditional use allowed in the Estates zoning district. But because this is a separate subdistrict, someone might raise the question. So I think the easy solution will be if we just put language right in the subdistrict that this approval of this project -- or this subdistrict shall not qualify adjacent properties to obtain a conditional use. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Are there any questions of the applicant? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: This will go down as the shortest presentation we've had probably so far, except for the last one we're going to hear. Okay, staff presentation? MS. YANG: Good morning, Commissioners. For the records, Beth Yang, Principal Planner with Comprehensive Planning Department. You have read the staff report, so I won't go over it in detail. I will jump right to the findings and conclusions. But just now we heard that there's a late change, as agent just mention. So my -- when I go over my staff report, I'll be (sic) the old staff report staff originally received. As outlined in the staff report, there are no significant impact to public facility, nor there are ( sic) any special environmental concerns as the result of this proposal. Page 70 October 20, 2009 However, this project is inconsistent with the Golden Gate Area Master Plan for development of commercial and institutional uses in the Golden Gate Estate area. The data and analysis provided in the support of the requested institutional changes was limited to compatibility findings associated with the past conditional use approvals. The data does not include the needs analysis. Staff preap. notes clearly requested that analysis of sites that allow the proposed use without the need for GMP amendment, including rural fringe mixed use district, neutral and receiving lands, Golden Gate Estates, rural settlement area, which includes Orangetree PUD and Orange Blossom Ranch PUD, as well as various neighborhood centers in Golden Gate Estate area that allows use by right as well as sites and zoning, that allows use by conditional use. Agent failed to provide the needed data analysis. The original submittal, they have the commercial, of course they want use as a medical uses, as social services in activity centers, adult handicap only, that C-l uses (phonetic). They have -- agent prepared a market condition study, analyze market conditions within their market area, which consists of rural Estates and Corkscrew Planning Community districts. As outlined in the staff report, staff determined that there appears to be an adequate supply of commercial square foot to support a growing population in this two planning communities. No additional commercial square foot is needed. Staff has not received any correspondence for the petition such as supporting letters or objection letters. F or House Bill 697, which pertains to energy conservation and efficiency, went in effect on July 1 st, 2008, and DCA will be reviewing all the GMP amendments in regards to compliance with this requirement. Agent failed to address this legislative requirement, so it is Page 71 October 20, 2009 anticipated that there will be objection in the ORC Report from the Department of Community Affairs in regards to compliance with this legislation. In conclusion, as noted in the staff report, the staff is recommending that this commission does not recommend transmittal of this petition to the Florida Department of Community Affairs. Again, there's a late change just mentioned by the applicant, they want to remove the C-1 uses, but staff did not have the time -- of course the chance to review those changes, as staff has not received any data and analysis to go with this change. That's all I have, thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, thank you very much. I-- looking for questions of staff or the applicant at this time. Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, I wanted to ask the Reverend a couple of questions. Do you provide the same sort of services you're looking to provide out in the Estates at your Mooring Line? PASTOR WIGDAHL: At Mooring Line Drive we have provided -- I arrived, again, in 1999. In 1996 we provided a day school facility, preschool work. In terms of other specific ministries, you are questioning what? Most of what I'm talking about in terms of transferring to another site, we have experience and expertise in all of those areas. COMMISSIONER CARON: Right, and are you providing those at your Mooring Line parish? PASTOR WIGDAHL: Not all of those we are not. But if I looked at the list, again, the day school we are. The health care, we have a parish nurse that is a part of our staff that works with the community . We have a large what is called Stephen Ministry program which helps the elderly with their needs. We also -- in terms of the adult day care at this point, we have Page 72 October 20, 2009 not had any special work in that area, but we believe because of the staff that we employ and the congregational membership, that we have many -- much potential in that area. COMMISSIONER CARON: And how many acres do you have at Mooring Line? PASTOR WIGDAHL: I knew that would be asked of me. Do you have that? Is it about five acres? T om had to go back to the church and I said Tom, they'll probably ask me something about those specifics that I don't know. I would suspect around five acres or so, five to six acres. MR. YOV ANOVICH: I think that's what he told us in the office. PASTOR WIGDAHL: Is that what he told you, Rich? Okay. MR. YOV ANOVICH: I was counting on him -- PASTOR WIGDAHL: I apologize, I don't carry all of that detail. I should have. I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER CARON: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anything else? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think that's all, Pastor. Thank you. PASTOR WIGDAHL: I will say, though, that site on Mooring Line Drive was again established in the early 1960s. And I presume you know where the location is? Okay, thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: David, or Beth, I don't -- one of you. One of the -- I'm assuming we're going to be working on the alternative on Page 15, which you anticipated them changing to. And that was good anticipation on your part, Dave, or Beth. Did the uses listed there, would that open the door for any soup kitchens or homeless shelters? MR. WEEKS: No, it doesn't. And Mr. Chairman, if you don't mind me interj ecting this, rather than going with the separate subdistrict -- it goes back to what I think you were perhaps wondering about a while ago. A different way to Page 73 October 20, 2009 approach this, Randy had mentioned, is we already have in the Golden Gate Master Plan in the conditional uses subdistrict a listing of the various types or categories of ways to qualify. Essential services are allowed everywhere, then we have the transitional conditional uses, transitional if you're next to a neighborhood center, and there's another one or two. Last category is exceptions to the conditional use locational criteria. And you might recall a comprehensive plan amendment, I think it was in the 2006 cycle, up on Immokalee Road just east of Oaks Boulevard, that was approved to add a specific property there in the Estates as an exception for a church. I would suggest -- well, Randy's suggesting, it's a good one, take a similar approach here. Then we don't have to deal with the special subdistrict. We just identify this property as an exception to the locational criteria. And from there we have a couple of directions. Could either be very specific and only identify the three uses the applicant has mentioned, or we could more broadly say that the site would be eligible for all of the conditional uses allowed in the Estates zoning district. That would mean the church, the child care, the private school, social/fraternal organization, ALF's and nursing homes. And there might be one or two more, but that's about it. That would give them a little broader -- again everything in the Estates zoning district. So it gives them a little bit of a broader list of uses to consider when they come in for their conditional use request, rather than tying them down to just the three uses they've mentioned. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, but they would still need to go through this GMP amendment process to get that exception to the conditional use location criteria; is that correct? MR. WEEKS: That's correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. But they would just modify in the way it's being presented. And I don't -- I think that's probably a good idea. What's the applicant -- Page 74 October 20, 2009 MR. YOV ANOVICH: That gets us to the same place, so we don't have an issue with going to that type of approach of creating this particular property as an exception to the prohibition, if I restated it correct! y . CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: David, how are exceptions then handled with what can go on either side of the exception area? MR. WEEKS: The adjacent properties would not qualify for-- COMMISSIONER CARON: Cannot qualify. MR. WEEKS: -- transitional conditional use. COMMISSIONER CARON: Okay. I just wanted to make sure. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, that might be a solution. Anybody else have any questions? (N 0 response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are there any public speakers? MR. WEEKS: There are none. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Does anybody wish to speak on this matter? Mr. Gaddy? Peter, were you sworn in earlier today? MR. GADDY: Yes, I was. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Identify your name and address and ready to go. MR. GADDY: Peter Gaddy, 370 12th Avenue Northwest. I'd just like to point out that this project is going to be a wonderful benefit to the community, and I'd like to point out that they're doing it the right way. They're getting a parcel that's large enough so as they expand they're not going to run across land use problems of the type you've seen before with respect to other churches. So by starting with a large enough parcel, it's going to be a big benefit. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, sir. Are there any -- anybody else wishing to speak? Page 75 October 20, 2009 (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. David, the process we normally review the language, is it worth reviewing the language on Page 15 or is it going to have to change substantially so that it doesn't make -- generally you know the concept, I think we do. Mr. Kolflat? COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Yes, I didn't understand whether staff endorsed this change that was put forward by the applicant. In other words, does your recommendation still maintain a denial on the basis of what you've heard on the supervision? MR. WEEKS: Our position is still for denial. The basis for it is primarily that global approach that we've explained earlier regarding the commercial request. Our preference would still be that this type of an amendment go through a restudy process. The Golden Gate Master Plan only provides for five-acre properties to qualify for conditional uses, so we would say this is not part of the vision. But certainly our concerns about this are far less than they are for commercial. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: And for the record, your recommendation is still denial. MR. WEEKS: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: David, as far as the language goes on Page 15, based on the discussions we've just had, rather than go through this, I think there's an understanding that there is a better process and any new language would come up in that regard if this project succeeds after today's recommendations. MR. WEEKS: That's correct. We would just start all over, and none of this would apply on Page 15. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Is the generalities on Page 15, that being churches, child care, adult day care and private schools with Page 76 October 20, 2009 90,000 square feet and a maximum zoned height of 30 feet, does that all work for the applicant? MR. YOV ANOVICH: We -- I think we want -- what page did you say, Mr. Strain? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Page 15. MR. YOVANOVICH: 15. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The bottom of the page. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Well, I was looking at the -- above the word or. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'm saying look below the word or. MR. YOV ANOVICH: I know. And I'm asking if we can use the above the word or and simply delete E. Because I think what we're talking about is A, B, C and D are the types of uses we described. Because we do have -- I mean, I do think activity centers for the elderly and things like that are uses that we're proposing, so I think D should stay up. And it doesn't find its way down to the bottom part. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, so you could use the bottom part as long as we took D from above and added it to D below. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Right. Okay, we're both saying the same thing. I'm just saying I need D. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I understand. MR. YOV ANOVICH: I need D. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: But the Pastor indicated that he has a nurse and they would like to provide health services; at least I thought that's what he indicated. PASTOR WIGDAHL: We do have a parish. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Sir, you'll have to use the microphone. Just say your name again so she gets it on the record. PASTOR WIGDAHL: Steve Wigdahl, the Senior Pastor at Emmanuel Lutheran. Yes, we do have a parish nurse at this time. And that parish Page 77 October 20, 2009 nurse works with a team of people in our congregation to serve the health needs of members of our congregation and the community. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Pastor, if I heard you correctly, I thought that you indicated that in the new place you'd like to have those same services. PASTOR WIGDAHL: Well, we certainly feel prepared to provide those services. And I think in regard to any work that I have done in congregational life, part of what we deal on a daily basis with our parishioners and the people who come into our community, it has a lot to do with health care issues. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: What you're missing here is that we're talking about deleting a statement that states that health services, offices and clinics would go away. PASTOR WIGDAHL: Oh, no, no, we do not charge that. I'm sorry if you were asking -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I still didn't get that point clear then. MR. YOV ANOVICH: No, I understand your point. I think what -- the reason we deleted it is because we thought that that really applied to a medical clinic where people would come and we would charge for those services. We saw the church nurse and people as part of the church outreach activities versus a medical clinic where we charge for the services. And that's why we were deleting the 2,500 square feet, because that seemed to be more of a, if you will __ I don't want to use the word for profit but, you know, more of the commercial medical office, which we're not in that business. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, you know, I didn't attribute one way or the other because it doesn't give me enough to make that determination. I thought it's not unusual for a church to provide services of those types. So I'm -- I just want to be clear that that's going to go away and he'll be precluded from having those services. Page 78 October 20, 2009 MR. YOV ANOVICH: Actually, I thought they stayed because it was under the regular church type services. So if there's an ambiguity there, we need to address that. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: You definitely -- because I do not consider health services as a normal church service, per se. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What does staff consider it as? MR. WEEKS: The reason staff in our second alternative had deleted items D and E on Page 15 is that those are uses that appear in the zoning code under commercial zoning districts. So from our perspective, our second alternative is to approve their request only to allow conditional uses in the Estates zoning district. We've recognized that churches, particularly the big campus style churches -- and I think that's what they're proposing here -- I think provide more services to a community than the traditional small church does. I happen to belong to a very large church, and I know the array of activities at that church are far beyond just come to worship on Sunday morning and Wednesday evening and choir practice and a couple of meetings. I mean, it's a full-time operational campus, various outreach ministries. That's what I see this being. From our perspective, everything you're allowed to do under the church umbrella, that would be allowed in the second alternative of our proposal. What we object to are uses that would be categorized as commercial. So the real question comes to just exactly what uses are allowed under a church umbrella. Comprehensive planning staff cannot answer that question. That's really a zoning question. But we did go to the zoning department and we did ask, here's the two uses they're calling for, health services, albeit only 5,000 square feet, and the individual and family social services. Both of those again fall under the commercial zoning categories. The response we received from zoning department as, well, you Page 79 October 20, 2009 can't get that through a conditional use. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: That's crazy, though. MR. COHEN: Mr. Chairman, I think the better question that needs to be answered is the Pastor described some specific uses. Then the question is, is do they qualify as related uses based on what's in the comprehensive plan per determination of the zoning department. And I think that's where we need to go to make sure that all those uses are covered. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Could we -- MR. YOV ANOVICH: Let me see if I can give you some examples -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Wait a minute you guys, both of you can't speak at the same time. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I thought I -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So Mr. Murray -- no, I'm just trying to stop Richard from speaking. Go ahead, Mr. Murray. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: All I was going to say is can we not attribute a no fee statement to these and satisfy that? Because prior to any commercial, there had always been people of generous nature, church or otherwise, who provided such services. And just because somebody decided to make money should not preclude others from providing them for no cost. So can we not do that simply? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: He's asking you the question, I guess, David so-- , MR. WEEKS: Okay. When we posed the question to zoning, we didn't get into the nuances. We just said here's the two uses, where do they fit and could you do this under a conditional use umbrella? And the response was no. We did not discuss the specifics of well, this is going to be operated by a church, not for profit. We just didn't get, I don't believe, into that level of detail. Page 80 October 20, 2009 Again -- I'm sympathetic and again, I've stated my own experience with a large church campus. And I know that the full-time ministry goes beyond again your worship services. I fully recognize that. But I cannot speak for the zoning department and specifically put on the record today yes, what they're proposing would fall under the Estates umbrella. We need to discuss that in more detail with zoning staff and with applicant. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay. Because I think it would be a travesty if what they came through all this point to achieve, that they failed to achieve it, if it were approved. MR. YOV ANOVICH: And let me -- if I can, from my own personal church experience, I know every Sunday we usually rotate amongst the things we do. Blood pressure screening, cholesterol screening, things like that we do for the members or whoever is attending church that day. I never envisioned that that was, quote, a medical clinic. I always thought that was -- or we brought the Bloodmobile there or we -- if the community wanted to have -- you know, we wanted to have screening for a community. We never envisioned that made us now a, quote, medical clinic. Those are the types of thing we're talking about when we're talking about health services. We're not talking about providing doctor. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Social-- MR. YOV ANOVICH: -- level care. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: -- and health services. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: The -- mostly answered my question. You are not looking for a walk-in clinic -- MR. YOV ANOVICH: Right. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: -- on-site. Your services are provided mostly outside, off property, off premises? Page 81 October 20, 2009 PASTOR WIGDAHL: It's just as was described. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: It's just as what you said. PASTOR WIGDAHL: We provide opportunities for Bloodmobiles and so on to come and make contact with our community. But other than that, no, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, with respect to D, which is the individual and family social services, and in parens it says activity centers for the elderly or handicapped only and day care centers, adult and handicapped only. I'm asking why that doesn't also fall under C. I mean, it doesn't seem to exclude it under C. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Under private schools? COMMISSIONER CARON: Under childcare centers and adult day care centers. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: B. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: B. COMMISSIONER CARON: I'm sorry, B. I'm sorry. MR. WEEKS: Actually, there is some overlap when we discovered that. Because we look in the SIC codes, there's a separate listing for adult day care center. And then we have this category here that partly repeats that use but expands it. Again, I think the end result will be when it's discussed in proper context that the county's going to say yes, the uses you're proposing would fall under the church umbrella. The real concern we have was when we saw these uses culled out individually. Then we looked, okay, where are those individual uses allowed. They fall under commercial zoning districts. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. David, if the Pastor and his church wanted to offer the swine flu vaccine to people in their congregation, would the language that we have in the alternative -- could they do that here without a problem? Page 82 October 20, 2009 MR. WEEKS: I'm hesitant to speak for the zoning staff, because we're talking about staffs suggestion as a conditional use for a church. My reaction would be yes, they could. But I don't have the authority to say that. And that's why we need to go back and talk in detail with zoning staff. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I think you know then the intent is clear. If you have -- by the way, if zoning staff has a problem with that, would you call me up and let me know? Because I'd like to file a complaint against developmental services for offering the swine flue vaccine to all their staff right there in the hallway. So on -- MR. SCHMITT: Regular flu vaccine. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I ran into a whole line of people getting that vaccine one day and I thought how interesting, we're now a medical clinic. Maybe you could correct the concerns if under A where it says churches you added, and related social and health care services affiliated with the church. And that may get you to where you're gOIng. But I think you know the intent of the direction of the discussion today. And when we get to the motion, if the motion follows the intent, well, then I would expect the language could come back cleaned up in a manner that's acceptable to everybody. So with that I think we -- is there any other public speakers? (N 0 response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Hearing none, I think that -- and do you have any -- you're going to have time for your closing statement before we vote, but do you have something else you wanted to add to your presentation? MR. YOV ANOVICH: No, I was going to ask, is there any chance we could go either in reverse order or -- when we come back? This one is freshest in my mind. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: As old is you're getting, that's difficult Page 83 October 20, 2009 to -- MR. YOV ANOVICH: It is harder than you think. It was just a suggestion. Or at least start with this one and then go back one, two, three, four. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I think what that takes us to is a discussion with the Planning Commission and how the Commission would like to proceed from here. We have listened to five presentations by both applicants and staff. We've had public discussion. We've had our questions. The purpose of doing it in a phased group like this was to see the big picture in Golden Gate Estates, and whether all of them are needed or just some of them are needed. I'm comfortable with starting with the first one and going through it with their -- let each applicant have its 10 minutes and then us have our discussion and vote. I think we're all relevant -- cognizant of what occurred in the last two days, so we probably know where we might stand as we go through the finishing up of this. Does that work for everybody? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah, I think this one is away from the other ones anyway in concept, so I would have no problem going back in on this one for a vote. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You mean hearing this one first out of order? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Sure. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Yeah, I think that's good. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is that okay? Okay, well, that's what we'll do to accommodate the feeble mind of a certain individual who requested it. And then we'll go back and start all over. So the first item that we will consider now for a vote is CP-2007-3, the Mission Subdistrict Church on Oil Well Road. Richard, you have 10 minutes or less to wrap it up. MR. YOV ANOVICH: I actually don't have anything much Page 84 October 20, 2009 further to say other than if you do look at our market study, we did look at a lot of parcels and did they meet the criteria that the church set out as what they needed for a church campus. So we didn't just simply go out and pick a piece. So we did analyze is this the right location and is there other areas that we can go to. So with that, we think that this church obviously is needed in the area. You don't have an overabundance of churches out in Golden Gate Estates. And you certainly don't have an overabundance of day care, because the day care cited by staff are really preschool -- or actually related to schools, they're kids programs, things that my kids go to, either before school or after school. It's not your true day care scenano. So I think the staff report even supports the need for churches in the area and day care in the area. And I think private school is always an option that should be provided to people, should they want a private school. And we would hope that the Planning Commission could recommend to the Board of County Commissioners a transmittal of this, whether we're either going to do it as a subdistrict or as an exception area, to the State DCA for their review. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I would -- Mr. Cohen? MR. COHEN: Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to point out at this time with not only this petition but any of the petitions that you're dealing with today and in the future, that if there's any possibility that there's not adequate data, analysis or documented need as associated with any of these, and it can be provided, that it's essential that the petitioner do so in light of recent litigation that's occurred and a court case that transpired where DCA was charged with the responsibility of having the proper analysis and demonstrated need. So I'm just -- it's more a point where a lot of times there's more analysis and demonstration of need that can be shown. And I would just ask the petitioners to please do so. And if the CCPC notices any Page 85 October 20, 2009 deficiencies, to please note them as well for the record so we can get those things in hand before transmitting to DCA. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I've got a question for you. I mean, it's one thing to show data and analysis for a need for commercial, because you can weigh that by household income, number of rooftops and things like that. How do you show data and analysis based on a religion? MR. COHEN: Well, that's why I added the comment with respect to all petitions. In some cases it may be appropriate, in other cases it may not. And since we were starting off with the Golden Gate petitions and we have five of them to consider, I thought it was probably appropriate to start at this point in time. If there was -- I know Mr. Y ovanovich just made a comment about there was a demonstrated need. And I just wanted to make sure that that need was spelled out, you know, in a manner that qualified everything, you know, for his petition in a manner that he thought would get approved if it was transmitted. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And I'm the one that sent you that court case on the need. It was in March of '09, it was a recent case. It does have a lot of bearing. But with them having removed the commercial component of this, I certainly feel this one stands out differently, which is going to be my reason for supporting it. MR. COHEN: And my point wasn't just for this particular petition, but for all petitions in general. I wanted the entirety of the CCPC to be aware of that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. MR. COHEN: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: In the Planning Commission's motion, whoever decides to make it, we did have a recommendation that this might be better considered as and identified as an exception to the Page 86 October 20, 2009 conditional use criteria within the Golden Gate Area Master Plan in lieu of a subdistrict. And I think any direction ought to be provided in that regard. We heard that they weren't going to be using this for soup kitchens or homeless shelters. And we would also want to, depending on how it comes out, to retain any language to assure there's no additional transitional conditional uses alongside this if it isn't identified as a separate CU on its own. So with that in mind, is there a motion from the Planning Commission? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I'll make that motion. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray made a motion. What's Mr. Murray's motion, first. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Just as you indicated it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Recommendation for approval-- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: For transmittal. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- as indicated. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Right. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Second. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And that was seconded by Mr. Vigliotti. Is there any further discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: All in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Aye. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. Page 87 October 20, 2009 Anybody opposed? (N 0 response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion carries 8-0. Thank you. And let's now move back to the probably more intense ones. And the first one that we had started our review on -- and by the way, we'll try to break -- let me ask the Planning Commission. I'd suggest we either can finish up voting on all these, or we can break now till 12:30. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah, let's do that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Break now? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And then come back and do them all. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So let's break now, we'll come back here at 12:30 and finish up the remaining four for the first phase and then go right into the second phase. Thank you. (Luncheon recess.) MR. SCHMITT: Live mike. Item #4A CP-2008-1~ ESTATES SHOPPING CENTER SUBDISTRICT CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Welcome back, everybody, from the lunch break. Before we had left this morning we finished up the review of all the Growth Management Plan amendments working east of 951, and then the last one of those, the fifth one, was on the Lutheran Church off Oil Well Road. We voted on that, recommended approval. And then we're going to go back on the order of the agenda for actual voting on each item as we heard them. Prior to each vote, the applicant will have ten minutes to express any final concerns, comments, or items they'd like to note. First one Page 88 October 20, 2009 we're going to consider is CP2008-1. It's the Golden Gate Area Master Plan for the commercial application of the corner of Wilson and Golden Gate Boulevard. Richard Y ovanovich. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Thank you. Again, for the record, Rich Y ovanovich on behalf of the petitioner. Wayne Arnold will also be doing part of the summary. I wanted to just briefly talk about the community involvement process that some have referred to as marketing, and others -- we like to refer to it as actually finding out what the community wants. And we spent a lot of time asking the community what they wanted. We started with a survey. We sent it to everybody in our market area. We didn't pick a sampling. We sent it to everybody. We got 1,600 responses, and of those 1,600 responses, 83 percent said they wanted a grocery-anchored shopping center on this property. Recognizing that not everybody lived adjacent to the property, there would be a varying of opinion as to, was this the appropriate location or not the appropriate location. We also submitted to staff over 2,000 letters of support from the community for the shopping center. That's the pushpin of -- up there is the pushpin of where those letters are from, and that's just the in-close portion of our market area. I showed you yesterday the larger area, but I wanted to focus on the closer area. And the green is what we determined to be the immediate vicinity of the center, and the white is as you get further out. I've put on the visualizer an even closer area for the pushpin to show you that we have worked our way out to our way in for community support. Obviously on the visualizer is, the green area is our shopping center request. The green dots are people who have supported the petition. The red dots are the two people who spoke yesterday against the petition. Page 89 October 20, 2009 And I don't know if there are others, but I haven't seen other emails for or against that are either in close proximity to this petition or not. I'd like to quickly take you through it just so we can -- from an adjacency standpoint, the level of support. The immediate parcel to the west of 3rd Street actually runs in a north/south direction, so that property owner who is immediately adjacent has signed a letter of support for our proj ect. The next parcel here is Tim Whalen. He is one of the integral players in the 1st and 3rd Group. He has supported the project. The next parcel here adj acent to us we own. We've deliberately kept it out of the project so it would serve as a buffer, an additional buffer, for the project. Obviously we support our own project. The next immediate neighbor to that property also supported the proj ect. This parcel is owned by ComCast. ComCast has not voiced an objection to our project. Mr. Harris is one of the individuals who spoke on 1 st Street. He's adjacent to the ComCast parcel. And Wayne will take you through our site plan to show you the buffer we have between us and Mr. Harris. Working our way further to the east, this individual who's adjacent to us signed a letter of support, and that is actually across the street. That's the ten acres that -- five of which is already in the neighborhood center. So from an adjacency standpoint, those immediately adjacent to us have basically signed off on our proposal. We don't think just because there were form letters that you should discount those letters. They were signed by people who are providing input as to whether or not they support the proj ect. When we went through this process, I would -- I would equate the first NIM as very ugly. You had neighbor against neighbor. You had neighbors who wanted this against neighbors who didn't want this. We continued our hearing. We went back and we started over. Page 90 October 20, 2009 And I think at the end of the day, we have shown you that this room was not packed with opposition. There were a few who spoke against us. Four of the six that spoke against us don't live immediately adjacent to the project, and their question was about changing the character of Golden Gate Estates. Somehow we were going to make Golden Gate Estates Miami. I don't know how that would ever happen when you have the minimum acre size of two-and-a-quarter acres. And having one shopping center is not going to create Miami out in Golden Gate. What we did is we worked with our neighbors. We've reduced that opposition. Is there still some opposition? Yes. But the level of opposition that started, to where we are today, has diminished dramatically to where we believe we have a very good proj ect. We have -- the main concern we heard from the neighbors were, we want a grocery store. Will you guarantee us a grocery store? We said, absolutely, we'll guarantee you the grocery store. It is our first CO in our project. Nobody else, no other petitioner here today has guaranteed you a grocery store as the first CO. Public need is a grocery store. We're meeting that public need and we're guaranteeing that we will meet that public need. We will also -- one of the questions that came up was, you know, how many jobs are you going to create? We're going to create between 350 and 400 jobs within that center with an average pay of 34- to 38,000. That's average. There'll be some, you know, obviously, lower-level positions and there will be management positions, but that's a significant economic input. We were asked about the scale of the buildings. Can we go to one story? We can go to one story. We'll lose 15,000 square feet by going to one story, but we think that that will help with this more in keeping with the character of the community. So the request would be to go to one story, as staff has modified the language, reduce the request to 210,000 square feet because we're Page 91 October 20, 2009 going to lose that square footage. We have already started working with our neighbors on the design. Wayne is going to take you through our, basically PUD master plan to show you how that master plan does, in fact, fit in with the community and bringing down the scale of the buildings within the project. So, yes, we still have the square footage, but we're fitting that square footage on a bigger area, and we'll be able to fit that square footage out in the community. I've only got ten minutes so I'm rushing. If you have any questions, please interrupt me. But I would like to get Wayne up here to quickly take you through our master plan, and then I hope we can have an interaction on some questions regarding what we're propOSIng. But from a community support, we believe there is genuine support. I think if you read your staff report, you will see that your staff acknowledges that there is zero supply out there for a grocery-anchored shopping center in Golden Gate Estates. There's zero supply whether you call it a neighborhood center or a community center. So with that, I'll turn it over quickly to Wayne, and then we'll hopefully answer any questions you may have. MR. ARNOLD: Thank you. Wayne Arnold with Grady Minor. Just in addition to some of the community support you heard Rich reaffirm, I wanted to focus on a couple of aspects of the project that I think are still critical, and that is, we think this location is an absolute perfect location for grocery-anchored shopping centers. It's at the confluence of two of the busiest roads in Golden Gate. You heard your transportation staff yesterday indicate that this type of use made all the sense in the world from at least transportation planning perspective. I told you it made good land planning sense, and I still believe it does. It makes sense for a couple of reasons. One, it's satisfying a demand that we heard from the community Page 92 October 20, 2009 input that we've had, and we know that there's no supply. We also know that with the size of the property, we have ample room to provide the right buffers that are going to make it the compatible use for the neighbors. We showed you some images from the different buffer angles. We think that the neighbors are happy with that. We think that there's still work to do with the PUD to refine some of this, but we think that it makes perfect planning sense. The other thing that I think's important is to take a look at the plan we had yesterday. That was what was submitted with the Growth Management Plan application to show you the larger areas that it really was meant to focus on, areas that would be preserves and how building setbacks would play into this. What we did for the zoning application that was submitted was take that to a little bit different level, if you will. And you'll see that the tan colored areas really reflect the various development tracts which we have once you start to put access through the site and into the site, and it really breaks it up. And I guess what I'm trying to demonstrate to you here is, the scale and massing of this isn't so that you've got one large development tract that houses a large, large building. Except for the grocery-anchored tenant space that we need and probably some inline stores, much of the site can be developed with smaller footprint stores. And I think that we can certainly work on some of those numbers. We're happy to work with our neighbors on what those numbers and what the feel would be for something like that and take the site plan into another level. But I wanted to show you this image, because I think what it does demonstrate is you're not going to get this big massive building envelope to construct a single building in. The other thing that's important on this exhibit is to show you that with respect to our neighbor to the north that spoke that was a 1 st Page 93 October 20, 2009 Street resident, you'll see that what's shown as Tract A of the northernmost tract, that is the widest part of our buffer between 1 st and 3rd. And as Rich mentioned, the parcel immediately to our north is owned by ComCast. It's not a residential lot. So there's a 75-foot-wide lot plus our buffer separating the two of us. So we're confident that that will achieve the buffer requirement that he needs. There are also a lot of other operational characteristics in the PUD document itself that have been discussed with the 1 st and 3rd Group, and I'm sure that list will be refined as we keep moving forward. I wanted to also talk to you about the feel. And we showed you these images yesterday, too. They're just conceptual images that we've been showing the neighbors to show you that this doesn't have to feel large scale. And you heard Rich mention that if it's important to you to bring the scale down, we can live with the one-story buildings. You know, if you look back on our PUD master plan, that was a discussion point with our neighbors, and we limited the location where any two-story buildings could be. We further limited where any type of gas and convenience store could be and things of that nature, but that's the level of detail that we've taken this discussion to. But I think it all points back to, it's a compatible project, it meets the demand, and we can make it function and fit into the Golden Gate community . Rich, you want to -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Thank you. From the Planning Commission's perspective, are there any last-minute questions that may have not been asked before? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yeah, I have. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, I'm not sure it hasn't been asked before. Would you put that back on again, please? Page 94 October 20, 2009 MR. YOV ANOVICH: Which one? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: The last one that you had. MR. YOV ANOVICH: The visual? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yes. And you had the one before that showed the tracts broken, and I don't want to see that at the moment, but I want to relate to that. Is -- with this -- is this intended for us to understand it as representative for all of the tracts? MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And so I could look at that building there and I could see in my mind then that might be a shopping -- I'm sorry -- a grocery store, as we call it, or supermarket, but I could also see it as a sweater (sic) or dresses or whatever. They're all going to be that style? MR. YOV ANOVICH: We committed to a common architectural theme of, I believe, Old Florida, Key West, and it was. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Bermuda. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Bermuda. I was going to say Bahamas, but I knew that was wrong, so -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, we could do a sing-along. MR. YOV ANOVICH: But we were -- the thought would be is there would be the common architectural theme throughout, low scale, appropriate buffering so that you basically wouldn't see it. The examples I've used -- and when I was going to school in South Carolina, Hilton Head Island was a development that the commercial, you really didn't see it from the road. They had very, very minimal signage, and even the McDonald's there bought into the concepts there where you had very minimal signage. So it clearly fit in and -- but, you know, we're not going to do -- unless that's the type of architecture you want. But that's the feel we would have is we would fit in -- you wouldn't basically even know we're there because you wouldn't need to know we're there because everybody in the community's going to know we're there because we're the grocery Page 95 October 20, 2009 store in Golden Gate Estates. We've got restaurants, so you don't need the big typical shopping center signages and views from the street. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And the front setbacks would be how deep? MR. YOV ANOVICH: We had -- I think we had an enhanced 25- foot buffer, but we could -- we can work with that at the PUD level or put it now. We can do that to assure the appropriate screening, because we've done that for 3rd Street with the appropriate landscape buffering to assure their view is no view. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Now, we talk about, there is a requirement for shielded light. Can we even further reduce the potential for lighting by having bollard lighting in the parking areas and such? MR. YOV ANOVICH: We had committed to a night skies type of lighting in the PUD. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Oh, good. MR. YOV ANOVICH: So, you know, that's a sensitive area out there as far as being able to, you know, see the stars in the skies, and we had committed to, in the PUD, a night skies theme of lighting. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And the last piece that I have is that there was purportedly a box that contained all those form letters that nobody really got a chance to look at. But what -- you're asserting that there were 1,700, 1,600? MR. YOV ANOVICH: 1,900 and either 60 or 40. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And they were -- they were all in the affirmative that you received? MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And that's your testimony? MR. YOV ANOVICH: I swore to it. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Thank you. Those are my questions. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Do you have a question, Brad? Page 96 October 20, 2009 COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, yeah. So you got no negative responses back? That wasn't my question, but I can't -- MR. YOV ANOVICH: We didn't receive any back. I'm assuming the people who had negative responses either, you know, sent them somewhere, to the staff or -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: The thing I'd like -- is this the time, Mark, where we could discuss in our motion? Because there is one thing I'd like to discuss. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I'd like to get -- yeah, we need to discuss a motion, but the objective was to have the applicant get a last ten-minute presentation. I didn't expect a lot of questions from us unless they were new questions or stuff that was not in our material so we could go into discussion. But I want to make sure we're done with interaction with the applicant first because that's not fair to have us discuss things and have the applicant popping up every minute to correct us. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. Then let's jump back. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Are there any questions of the applicant from the Planning Commission at this point? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. With that, we will close that portion of our public process, and we will have discussion. Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah, do -- and it's really the common architectural theme. I just want to -- everybody to be aware what they're doing here is that -- would you put up, Rich, that site plan that shows the latest one, the four quadrants or something, which can start to excite me. For example, look at that road down the center. That could become an internal road with -- I mean, the imagination can go wild on what that could be. But if you make all of these areas have the same architectural theme, this thing is going to be perceived as a three-block-long Page 97 October 20, 2009 building. I don't care how many roads you run through it or holes you cut in it or notches you put in it. So I really don't think that's something we should put in in the GMP. If it's in the GMP, it has to happen. That's not to say it doesn't happen down the road or someone's showing a really good design that does happen to have the common architectural theme, but maybe these corners are different than the site in the back so that it looks like it's not just one big building. And this would be a really big building with this size area. It's a quarter of a million square feet. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Am I allowed to -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I thought we were past this, but I guess we're not. So we'll continue the public hearing. We will not be in for discussion of a motion. We'll now ask questions of applicant. So I'm sorry. We're back to where we were. MR. YOV ANOVICH: I'm sorry, too. I mean, we're -- as you can see, we've done a lot of level of detail. And if I could just point to the site plan. This is where we basically have laid out the grocery store and some inline stores, and the rest of the site we've laid out with smaller buildings. So as far as -- we have no intention -- and I'll give you an example. We have no intentions of building any of the centers you see at the corner of Pine Ridge Road and Airport Road where you start with one that building and it just goes continuous, and you've got several hundred thousand square feet. We would have this building, and then everything else would be broken up separately onto the different tracts. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Let me -- you know, my concern is not client specific, it's site specific. So in other words, you could also sell it as soon as you walk out the door. So I just -- my only concern is, I really have a big concern over common architectural theme. I would like to see it removed from here. It's not a deal breaker, but it could be dangerous in the future. Page 98 October 20, 2009 Don't answer it, because that's -- MR. YOV ANOVICH: I wasn't going to talk about that, but as far as the size of the building, if you're worried we're going to sell it, we would agree to size limitations so you wouldn't have to worry about that issue down the road. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Too late now. I'm done, Mark. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Are there any other questions of the applicant? It would be best if we ask those outside of our discussion and a motion. So is there any other -- I mean, honestly, if there are -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: It wasn't a question. He jumped up and wanted to talk about it, but my -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Sit down. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- concern was -- yeah. My concern was to the -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'm trying to get to a conclusion here. MR. YOV ANOVICH: I understand. But, you know, this has kind of been a little different process than we normally do. We usually -- when there's comments, we're usually given an opportunity to respond to comments. But if you don't want us to, then we won't. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, no. Richard, here's the problem I have. You've had four hours yesterday or more to provide your presentation, we had public input, we had discussion, we had groups that are working with you come forward, and this panel spent many hours and time discussing this project. This was the longest one in the bunch. At some point we've got to stop asking the questions and going back and forth, read the data, and make a decision. If we're not ready to make a decision, that's fine with me. I'm not trying to say everybody needs to be ready, but at least tell me so that we don't close the public hearing and we don't try to go into discussion amongst ourselves, because at some point it's the eight of us that have Page 99 October 20, 2009 to have that discussion. And if you think we can have a discussion by allowing that applicant or others who disagree with us jump in every few minutes, it isn't going to work. So I mean, I'm just -- you tell me, guys. Are we done? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, Mark, I just want to say, I was discussing this with you guys. I mean, it made Richard excited and -- but -- and I think what excited him is my describing the worst-case solution, and he's out there, no, no, no, we're not going to do that. But that -- I just want to make sure that -- you know, my intention is, can we pull N out of this agreement? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I would think -- and I can tell you from my experience as the chairman of the Golden Gate Master Planning Committee in the year 2001/2 of the two years that went on the first part of the decade, we wanted to have architectural criteria in the master plan for those neighborhood centers. Now, honestly, we didn't envision, I don't believe -- or I know we didn't envision something of this size because this goes beyond the neighborhood center size. Had we thought of this or had this been suggested as even something anybody would have thought of, we may have looked at it differently. I can't tell you sitting here today if that's the case. But what I might suggest is if the majority feels this project should go forward, you may want to suggest that before adoption, either staff come back with a better definition of the architecture or it be pulled out, but only after consulting with the groups that have provided input, and I'm thinking the 1st and 3rd Group. Because everybody that has gone to an NIM or done anything else in regards to this application did so, most likely, on the assumptions that have been presented to us. And I'm just trying to be consistent with what the public's seen to date, so -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. But the point on this Page 100 October 20,2009 clause is that it doesn't mean that it doesn't happen that way. That could be part of the, you know, encouragement in the PUD process. It's just -- I just feel that it's a dangerous thing for the neighborhood. I mean, there's no other self-serving reason for this the way it is. But, again, I don't know if you want to straw poll the board to see if they want to yank it out or leave it in. I'm going to go the same way one way or the other, so -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We can finish with our discussion and then see where the board wants to go. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody else have any discussion before we entertain a motion? I just want to tell you, from -- the reason we reviewed these five applications together is to see how they look in the big picture in Golden Gate Estates. I don't doubt there's a need for more commercial in Golden Gate Estates, and that was one of the hottest topics of the Golden Gate Visioning Committee back in 2000/2001. When we had commercial discussion the rooms were full, standing room only; regular discussion, we had a lot of attendance. It wasn't as packed though. The neighborhood centers were set up purposely in reaction to the citizens there at the time. And the external centers were set up in the same manner. We felt that commercial out on 951 or external to the heart of the Estate was better than large commercial inside the Estates. Part of the reason we've reviewed this as one big phase was we've got two proj ects that are more or less competing, one on the external location of the Estates and one on the internal. The internal one is a big proj ect; the external one is a big proj ect. Based on my understanding of what we did when we set the master plan up, the external one adheres more to the requirements of the Golden Gate area vision than the internal one. Had the people on Page 101 October 20, 2009 Randall Boulevard come into the Golden Gate Master Plan Committee eight, nine years ago and said, instead the two of projects that are currently commercial we want to set aside a long stretch of commercial in that location, I would expect it to have been approved because that was what we were expecting to have as commercial. Had this one come along a few years back, I think it would have had some resistance with the mindset at the time. Granted people's minds change. And if their surveys are valid, then certainly that shows change. But there's two choices of commercial centers, and this is just one of two. The other thing that troubles me with this one, it goes beyond the C3 uses that we always had limited Golden Gate Estates to. It is no longer a neighborhood commercial center, as staff said. It's more of a community -- a larger commercial center. They are looking at drive-throughs, which we had not. And I believe it sets a precedent, as we've heard from staff, that there are -- the same application might occur in other corners because of this one. And I have to agree with staffs findings of need. I see the need external, not internal, and so I'm not going to be voting in favor of this project as it's been presented. So with that in mind, is there any other discussion? Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yes. I will just give you my opinion as I gave it to the petitioners. I will not support the petition. I will support staffs position. I don't think that there is a need for anything of this scale. This is 41 acres, and even if they develop only half of it, let me try to put that in perspective for you. Twenty-one acres sits at the western corner of Wiggins Pass and 41. If you've ever been by there, you know what these people are going to be looking at. They're -- in their own document it says that any use on this property can be 30,000 square feet other than the -- the supermarket, which can be 27- or whatever they can get to go in there. Page 102 October 20, 2009 I think it is really out of scale. It's not in keeping with the master plan or the rural character of the area. And I'm not saying that they haven't tried to make it thus, but it is just not. They claim 83 percent of the people who sent back their -- from their mailing were in favor of this, but let's do the real math. They sent out 5,500 letters. They got back 30 percent return, which is 1,650. Of that number, 83 percent said okay. So that means 4,130 people either said no or didn't respond. So the correlation is more appropriate to be 75 percent either said no or no response and 25 percent of the people said they'd like this project. I think that if this gets approved, it will be a precursor to other people wanting the same or similar type proj ects and that suddenly the Estates area will no longer be the Estates area. I also have a real concern about overall general commercial and office development in this county as a whole. We are overdeveloped to the max at this point. We cannot support what's out there now. If you go and put additional development in this area drawing it away from what already can't be supported then the point that I tried to make at a Planning Commission meeting a few weeks back is, we're going to run into blight in this community, and that's not going to be a pretty picture for everybody. At any rate, that's basically -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Kolflat, then Mr. Murray. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Yes. Based on the findings of the staff report and conclusions, as well as the testimony I heard today, I'm going to vote for denial of this petition. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: This is a very nice project conceptually. Golden Gate Estates is a lovely neighborhood, in fact. Well-intended development, even considering dark skies, doesn't actually get us to where the community is happy with its -- its homes. And while I would like to support this project, I think it is Page 103 October 20, 2009 intrusive. It is huge. It could best be located someplace else as it is focused there. And I -- I don't have a real problem in saying no to it, but I would like it to be understood that it does have merit perhaps on the periphery somehow, on the periphery of Golden Gate Estates. I know we build for the future, and it is hoped that we will not be into blight, but there is a possibility of that certainly. Overbuilding is a dangerous thing. And so while I would like to support it, I'm afraid I cannot. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I look at those numbers a little bit differently. I've done mailings in my time, and a 30 percent return is absolutely unheard of. And for 83 percent of those to be in approval, or in -- approving it, is -- another step, just absolutely amazing. I've never heard numbers like that, and that's why I'm glad somebody kept asking him, how many were there? And it's because it's unheard of in a mailing. I have heard in -- I'm glad we put all these five together because I've heard people say, it's too big and then another project is too small -- five acres or ten is too small. And, you know, and this blight thing -- I'm just trying to get through it quickly here -- we can't forget this House Bill or Senate Bill 697 and the intent. I don't particularly like -- and I know an awful lot of people in the Estates, and they say, I don't even like to go on the other side of75. It's sort ofajoke, but it's for real. I want to stay out here. And it seems as though quite a few people that live out there feel the way I do, I want to stay out there. I don't particularly care to go in to Wiggins Pass or to Airport and Pine Ridge to do my shopping. But it's going to be great to me for the economy. It's not going to happen this year. It's not going to be built next year. I think it's going to be a great benefit to support jobs in the future and the economy for the future. October 20, 2009 And, again, it's going to keep those vehicle miles traveled down. And that -- ever since I've been on the Planning Commission and I started on the Orangetree area, we have got to get facilities, commercial facilities, out in the Estates. I think that the project is going to look great. At -- my first blush was that it just looked like it was too big, it was too much. But the more I look at it, I see that it's going to have -- almost have to be that size to provide the amount of services. And just with that -- and we can also get part of that -- potentially get that comer fixed a little bit. So I am in support of the project. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are there any other comments from the Planning Commission? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I mean, I'm going to be against the motion in support of this because while it appears we're really -- I think the image of that neighborhood is these are huge subdivided lots. And when the developer subdivided this, he only sold residential lots in. He never put commercial in. And this is what -- I think a start where they could have something that would resemble a downtown, would resemble a commercial center for the neighborhood. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. With that, Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I will be voting for it. Actually, I'd like to make a motion -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: -- for transmittal. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion in favor? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: In favor to transmit. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. If you're going to make a motion in favor, what language, the staffs -- the language from staff that we Page 105 October 20, 2009 went over? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. There's been a motion-- COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I'll second it, and -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: There's a motion made from Mr. Vigliotti in favor of transmittal pursuant with the staffs language. Mr. Wolfley, you want to second it? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Well, I'm looking at staffs language here, and they've crossed out virtually everything over on Page 29, all of the uses, the allowable uses. I'm sorry. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. And I believe that we had gone back and corrected those, that we would put the uses back in but eliminate number 28. Is that how you understood it, David? David, did that -- did you understand our discussion that they would be back in with the exception of number 28? MR. WEEKS: I understood you-all had discussed that. I wasn't sure if that was the consensus opinion or -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, is that the consensus of the motion maker and the second? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Yes. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Because I think that was the only confusing part. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Can I make one more statement? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Sure -- well, yeah. We're in discussion agaIn. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Right. I'm just sorry, but I also noticed some of the dissenters from staff and on this board don't live out there except for one -- sorry Mark. But you have to -- you have to kind of live there and be there and know what it's like to just keep Page 106 October 20, 2009 going, geez, I mean, I'm out of bread, I'm out of milk, and, you know, have to drive 10 miles to go get it. And I just wanted to say that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: David, what side of951 do you live on? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Well, I'm on the close side. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You're on the west side of951? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: That is correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I live on the east side of951. Thank you. Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: The only statement I want to make is, if we transmit this today, it's going to come back again so we will get another bite at the apple at some point to reject it, if that's the case. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron, then Mr. Schiffer. COMMISSIONER CARON: What about the 210,000 square feet that the petitioner had stated? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: The reduction? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yes. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Yes. He was on record to reduce it, correct? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So your motion was to accept the staff language, which was one story, which would reduce the gross down to 21 0 (sic) square feet? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And Mr. Wolfley, was that your second? MR. YOVANOVICH: 210,000 square feet. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: 210,000. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Remove the second floor. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. Yeah, I like 210 better. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: That's correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer, did you have-- Page 107 October 20, 2009 COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah. I'd still like to talk to the motion maker and see if he could pull N out of there. I'm still in favor of that. And the reason is, I think -- and this layout shows it -- if these __ if this does become something that they start to build kind of a little village downtown thing, I don't want them to be hampered by the fact that all the buildings have to look like they're related. They're -- I mean, we have an architectural standard that studies massing to scale. In this case they're all going to be one story anyway, so that will be pretty easy. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Well, if we put it in now, then we can't change it. Ifwe pull it out now, we can always -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Ifwe pull it out now, when they come through for a PUD, we can say we want this to be a common architectural theme. If we leave it in, it has to be a common architecture. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: No, I agree. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So the motion maker agrees to take Item N out. Does the second agree to that? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Fine. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Ms. Homiak? MS. HOMIAK: This kind of bothers me a bit that we're just picking apart the Golden Gate's master plan like this, and now we're picking up the -- they wanted an architectural theme basically in Golden Gate, right? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's what we voted on-- MS. HOMIAK: And this is taking that away. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- in the other years, yes. COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: I mean, if this should make it to the end. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's correct. Unless it goes back in during the PUD process, which is, I think, as Brad was pointing out. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Yeah, if we leave it in, we Page 108 October 20, 2009 cannot change it later. If we leave it out, we can always require them to do the architectural theme. It will give them a chance to go back and talk to the people and see exactly what they want with the actual picture. COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: So this is going to give it more of a public process should this go to transmittal where, I mean -- COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, with or without that theme, it-- MS. HOMIAK: Doing a restudy of the area bothers me, but-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If this -- if this succeeds in transmittal, then it does -- it will come back for what's called adoption. And then after adoption or concurrent with adoption, we have the PUD rezone hearing, so there probably is in any -- if this goes forward, it will have at least two more hearings. I mean, that's the way they all work. Brad, did you want to add something? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: No, I just wanted to say that the Golden Gate never imagined something this big, so it would be hard to test whether, you know -- and like I said earlier, the smaller projects, this makes sense. It's just, once it gets to be this big, you don't want it to look like one building for three blocks. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And you're right, we never intended anything this big in the heart of Golden Gate Estates. So with that in mind, if there's no other comments, I'll ask for the vote on the motion. I'll ask you to raise your hand and signify by saying aye if you're in favor of transmitting. All those in favor of transmitting, please raise your hand and say aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Four in favor. Page 109 October 20, 2009 All those against? COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Four against. That's a tie vote, so it goes with no recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Perfect. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. MR. WEEKS: Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes. MR. WEEKS: Because we need to -- staff needs to accurately reflect the commission's motion, I'd like to ask a couple of questions for clarity. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Sure. MR. WEEKS: In yesterday's discussion -- and the motion reflected keeping the applicant's specific list of allowable uses, removing number 28, which is a -- kind of a catchall. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. MR. WEEKS: Yesterday's discussion reflected that if that specific list of uses stayed in, then a new number 14 would be added under prohibited uses. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Yeah. MR. WEEKS: That was the intent of the motion today? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Right. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: At the time it was read in yesterday, I don't think anybody objected to it, but it just basically says, any use that's not listed is prohibited. So it just re-emphasizes that. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Yeah. COMMISSIONER CARON: Maybe we're supposed to be reading our code to begin with. Page 110 October 20, 2009 COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Well, we moved it, yeah. MR. WEEKS: And another change -- again, yesterday's discussion, I just wasn't clear if the idea was all of that would carry over to today necessarily or not. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, just continue on. MR. WEEKS: On Page 30, paragraph C, a minor change was suggested. Instead of saying "a" grocery to "the first" grocery. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes. I think -- you see, the way you should look at it, when those things were discussed, if there wasn't objection from the members, it was more like a consensus that those minor changes should have continued -- should have been there in the first place. I would think so, yes. MR. WEEKS: Okay. Let me see if there's any more. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: E1 was after the PUD approval, if you remember correctly. MR. WEEKS: Okay. The architectural standards -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: They just took those out -- well, the motion that was made would have taken them out. The motion didn't succeed, so I think it's a draw on that one. MR. WEEKS: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I mean, if anybody disagrees with me, speak out, but I think -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY : Yeah, that raises -- if I may? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Mr. Murray. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: That raises a very good question because on the basis of a draw, I'm not sure -- I'm not sure that -- other than what is exactly in the motion, can be carried. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I think David's looking for something to go -- when he reports this, he wants to suggest to the commission that we considered these other things, and there weren't any objections with some of the changes that were recommended. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I understand. Page 111 October 20, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And I would -- ifhe does that, it would be better that, if the commission considers it, it would be better to be done with better language than worse. So I think that's all we're trying to do is -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I don't object, it just occurred to me that it's not clear, and that's what is occurring to me. It's-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, let's make it clear, Mr. Murray, because I don't want to see us send anything forward if we can't clear it up. MR. SCHMITT: And if I would -- I would agree, Mr. Chairman. The -- we would simply want consensus as to what is brought forward. We want clarity and consensus, because this will be presented, as you-all know, to the board, and-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, if that's what you're looking for, Mr. Schmitt, you're not going to get consensus from me that this should be brought forward. MR. SCHMITT: Well, it's 4-4, it's 4-4. But consensus on what was discussed. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Individual items may be consensus. MR. SCHMITT: All I want is consensus on what was discussed so we reflect the language appropriately. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah, David. Couldn't you just leave it in and then note that during the motion -- this was removed during the motion? You know, I mean, I think you're right. Can you take it out? Maybe not, but at least note the fact that the motion did not include this. MR. WEEKS: Well, you hit a stalemate with your vote with a 4-4, but what I just want to be able to accurately reflect is what was the motion, and was the motion to remove it, if that was it. You know, it doesn't matter what the vote -- I mean, I will relay the vote, but Page 112 October 20, 2009 obviously that was 4-4. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, then really your question is directed to the motion maker and the second, and now I'll let Mr. Vigliotti take -- respond to you. Because if your intention is to go to the BCC that we had a -- we were 4-4, a tie vote, and then you start telling them about language changes that we talked about, that's not-- no, that wouldn't be fair because -- leave it to the motion -- the four that wanted to recommend transmittal. Those are the ones that want that language change. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Except-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Mr. Chairman, except that on a 4-4, both sides, since they -- since the motion failed, both sides have equality in that sense. I recognize where you're trying to go. I'm not trying to be a problem, but both side in that sense. So maybe the best way is not necessarily on the basis of the motion maker but rather on the basis of individual items that we need to, and see if we can get a consensus for those given items. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, but see, that's almost acknowledging then that we should transmit because we're willing to change it, and I'm not even to that point. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay. I don't how to handle it, but I know that I -- I know that my sense of it is, it's wacky. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: What is it specifically? MR. WEEKS: Instead, a suggestion. Since this is going to come back under consent agenda, you'll get to see what staff writes up, what we understood the motion to be, and that could be a time for correction if we didn't get it right; is that acceptable? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's fine. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But David -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? Page 113 October 20, 2009 COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I was giving you concession. I mean, you would have to reflect the motion that failed. The motion that failed did not include N. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's correct. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So my suggestion was, you could leave it in and put a note that the motion did not include this item, was giving the benefit of the doubt to the commission. MR. WEEKS: Now, when you say, did not include this item, as in, delete paragraph N was part of the motion? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: It was deleted from the motion, ri ght. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Delete architectural. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Or just go by the correct method and take it out, and they'll never see it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Tor? COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Yeah. The motion was not to deny; the motion was to transmit? MR. WEEKS: Right. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: So what was defeated was the motion to transmit. What was tied is the motion to transmit, not a motion to deny. MR. WEEKS: Right. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. The motion was defeated to transmit. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Right. And the motion was to transmit the results, recommendation, not to deny. MR. WEEKS: Correct. We would state as, a motion to approve failed, I think, is the way we'd phrase it, 4-4, because there was no majority. And if the opposite would have been true, ifit would have been not to transmit and the same vote, then it would have been a motion not to transmit failed. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Randy, if you go to mix this up any Page 114 October 20, 2009 more. MR. COHEN: I'm going to -- we were just talking about what you're obligations are under Chapter 163, and I'll let Heidi go ahead and tell you what it says under 163.3174 in terms of making a recommendation. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, the applicant's already -- oh, no, he's still here. So if we have any -- at least they're witnessing that he's here for this purpose. Go ahead, Heidi. MS. ASHTON: Well, the statute requires that you make a recommendation. So in this case since you're split 4-4, it's a recommendation of no recommendation. And, you know, I think David was just discussing that if it went the other way, it's probably 4-4. So Mr. Klatzkow is comfortable with going forward with the 4-4 and letting the board know what the motion was. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And I was there before Randy interrupted us, so now what are you telling us that's new? MR. COHEN: Well, I guess what you have on the record is that you have a motion to transmit which failed, okay. So, in essence, it constitutes -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: A denial. MR. COHEN: -- a denial and a recommendation not to transmit. So that's kind of where you're sitting, in the middle, and it's problematic from that perspective. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So we've done it before. MR. COHEN: I understand. But I'm just wanting to know how the record would reflect it, okay? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, Randy, I mean, if we had a motion to fail and that was 4-4, would that be a recommendation to approve transmittal? MR. COHEN: Yeah, that's the problem with the motions, you know, being tied the way they are. Page 115 October 20, 2009 COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Please, staff, don't show it that way just because you weren't -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Wolfley? Go ahead, Mr. Weeks. MR. WEEKS: Well, at the risk of stirring up a hornets nest, the -- only because I've seen this before, particularly at the county commission level, sometimes when a vote fails, then a motion is -- fails, then an opposing motion is made. I'll just throw that out as you have the option to do that, but I don't -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No. The applicants and some of their people have left, some of the public's left. I think we did our motion. You guys deal with it. You've dealt with it before. It's 4-4. You're going to come back on consent with a cleanup of the language. That's as far as it needs to go. MR. WEEKS: That sounds good. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Great. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Anybody else at this point have any other comments on this one before moving to the next one? (N 0 response.) Item #4 B CP-2008-2, RANDALL BOULEVARD COMMERCIAL SUBDISTRICT CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Next item for voting is CP2008-2. It's, again, for the Golden Gate Area Master Plan. This is the commercial project on Randall Boulevard at Immokalee Road. And I -- Mr. Anderson, you can have up to ten minutes for any clarification, discussion, or comments you wish to make. MR. ANDERSON: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'll just quickly remind you that this is the application that has a public/private partnership. This is the project that is located at what Page 116 October 20, 2009 will be two six-lane roads at what will probably be the busiest intersection east of 951. This project has strong support from the abutting neighbors and the general community. I'm going to ask Mr. Hancock to come up and answer -- provide some answers on a couple issues that were left hanging from yesterday. Weare both available to answer any questions. And thank you for your consideration. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. HANCOCK: Tim Hancock with Davidson Engineering. I'd like to preface the information I'm going to supplement yesterday's meeting with by indicating that, of course, the CIGM report indicates that the only two areas underserved with commercial activity are Immokalee and the Estates. Our own independent data supports that, the data we shared with you yesterday. The market timing for this project is some five-plus years out because of being tied to the widening of Randall Boulevard. That in and of itself, I think, continues to strengthen that point. What I have -- and Mr. Chairman, I'll leave it to the discretion of the Planning Commission how you want to do this, but the information I'm about to present to you in answering some of the questions that were left hanging yesterday, I do have individual packets for each of the Planning Commission members if you wish to take them with you. If you have no use of them, let me know, and I'll just make sure the file copies are appropriate. But I do have enough packets for everyone so you can take them with you in case you need them coming back on the consent agenda, if that's what you would like. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What questions do you have remaining? MR. HANCOCK: One was the square footage. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, we settled at 411,950, I thought. MR. HANCOCK: No. If I can take 30 seconds. The number actually is 414,300. It's very close, but -- Page 117 October 20, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. HANCOCK: All it is is the economic development property; the 340,950 is the same as yesterday. The Randall Boulevard Center PUD -- and this is where that change is -- is we wanted to make sure that the proposed amount of 30,000 square feet was in addition to the existing amount, and that's a number I did not have in my head yesterday, and I apologize. They have 3,350 square feet currently developed. We believe the portion behind it could have up 30,000 square feet; therefore, that total accumulative amount is 33,350, the MirMar PUD, which is built out at 20,000 square feet, and that just tallies up on the bottom right to 414,300 square feet, a minor variation from the number yesterday but more accurate as to what is out there today. And my apologies for not having those numbers nailed down a little more specifically. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, why couldn't you propose, where it says Randall Boulevard PUD, now that you know the existing is 3,350, you think it could take another 30,000 behind it. Why don't you it could take 26,650? Then that gets you back to the 411,950. MR. HANCOCK: That may be the case, however, our discussions with the Randall Boulevard Center PUD, which is a part of our application -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I mean, these are all assumptions. I'm just saying, if you're going to assume something, why don't you assume something in numbers we're already using? MR. HANCOCK: Our assumption's based on an equivalency of 7,500 square feet per acre throughout the project. We were just trying to be consistent from one parcel to the next. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. But your inconsistency in the numbers presented, data and analysis and all along, is more concerning to me now than this last-minute stab at another 3,300 square feet. You guys are looking at over 400,000 square feet. You're Page 118 October 20, 2009 probably on the threshold of approval, and you want to quibble over 3,350? MR. HANCOCK: No, sir, we don't. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Good. MR. HANCOCK: Next item. The -- we had some questions on noticing. And I'm providing again, for the record, this is the list of labels provided to us. We went through each sheet. We further looked at the 1,000 foot radius. I counted rooftops in Valencia Lakes. Out of 147 rooftops, 110 are listed here. The other times are -- many times you're not a homesteaded property and you're up north, but all of the streets that are in Valencia Lakes within 1,000 feet are included in this list. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Good. MR. HANCOCK: In addition, on the last page, the homeowners association's notice included Valencia Lakes at Orangetree HOA at their given address. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Now, in reaction to what we heard yesterday about this possibly not having occurred, they asked for a commitment that you would at least meet with them and work with their concerns before you came back for adoption. I'd like -- rather than put that in a written stipulation, can we get that commitment here today if you succeed with this vote today? MR. HANCOCK: Yes, sir. We're already doing that. It's in motion. We've discussed it with the association already. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Good, thank you. MR. HANCOCK: And the last item does not need to be necessarily discussed. This is just backup to -- you received a table that talked about demand that was from C.B. Richard Ellis. We're including in the packet for you the demographic report on how those numbers were arrived at. Needs no further discussion than that other than it's backup for your use. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Thank you. Does that wind up Page 119 October 20, 2009 your discussion? MR. HANCOCK: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Now, any there any questions of the applicant from the Planning Commission before we go into our own discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Just so we're all on the same page, you were at 411,950 square feet is the total square footage for all combined parcels, and we were supposed to modify G on the last page. There was a discussion there about when the fire station and forestry would be relocated, and you guys had some issues with a road that you needed to put in. The timing of that, staff was going to modify the language, and you-all were in. I'm assuming that's still needed. Okay. David, before we go into a motion, are you clear on the language that we're -- on the staffs language and any changes that may be needed to that? Why don't we do that first and get it cleared up. Michele and David, we want to know from you if you have any further clarifications or changes on the actual amendment language before we vote on it so when we vote we're all in -- we know what we're voting on. MS. MOSCA: We're clear, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So any changes or things that occurred yesterday, you're clear on that? MR. WEEKS: Yes, we're clear; yes, we have a change. MS. MOSCA: Yes, that's correct. It's actually on the visualizer now. We discussed the relocation of the fire station. You asked that we come back and provide a different language. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. MR. WEEKS: So if you look at paragraph G on the visualizer, the yellow highlighted text view as deleted, and the red text is added. Page 120 October 20, 2009 So, different way of saying it, the non-highlighted text would be the new paragraph G. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We need the consensus on this one from the applicant. Tim, is there any problem with the language? MR. HANCOCK: No, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So now we're in agreement on the language. We have all our questions asked of the applicant. Are there -- is there any comment -- let's go into discussion by the Planning Commission. Any general discussion? Mr. Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Once again, I want to bring up our -- nearly our fiduciary responsibility to do the best we can to keep cars off the road by keeping travel time down from home to shopping and -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Fiduciary? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: -- so on. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Fiduciary? How can we have a fiduciary responsibility involving cars on the road? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: House Bill 697, which I read, was -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But fiduciary means we are financially responsible for it, David. I don't want to put on record something like that. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Provide's a better word. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: That we are, in essence, responsible, in a sense, to follow the state edict of trying to keep cars off the road. It's as simple as that. Didn't mean fiduciary. I'm in favor of the motion. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah. The only thing, my Page 121 October 20,2009 concern is -- and I know it's a small amount of square footage, but to me it's 2,350 feet that doesn't have to be built someplace else. So what is the good reason to not give them that? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, why don't they just ask for 50,000 more square feet? I mean, where are we going to stop, Brad? I think the original application was for 11 by the way it was totaled. Let's just leave it like that, but -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: To me -- again, I just want to say, it's square footage that's going to be built someplace else ultimately in the future, but we can move on. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I mean, if David -- well, I'm not-- we're not quite done yet. David, do you have any response to the square footage issue? MR. WEEKS: Yes, sir. On the visualizer, again, this goes back to yesterday's discussion. I understood that today there is no change from the applicant based on their earlier conversation. So the changes, again, being shown highlighted is the old figure of31,950, and that instead should be 411,950. That would be on Page 25 of your staff report, paragraph number three. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Was your data and analysis, would it be -- were you in line with the 411,950 in your review of this? MR. WEEKS: We were actually looking at a higher square footage. I think 20,000 square feet higher. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MS. MOSCA: I believe so, because what we -- what we thought was 390,950 was in addition to the two PUDs; one approved for 21,000, the other approved for 20,000. Michele Mosca, for the record. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You recommended denial based on the higher number. Would you still recommend denial based on the lower number? MS. MOSCA: Well, I think what we did is we looked at the Page 122 October 20, 2009 projects collectively, and so we were concerned about the vision changing and so forth. So I mean -- oh, are you just talking about the CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I just need you to answer my question. MS. MOSCA: We -- I'm sorry. It would still be a recommendation of denial. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Do we get closer to a recommendation of approval the less square footage there is or the more? MR. WEEKS: Well, zero would work. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's exactly why I was asking the question. So the lower this number gets, the better it gets from the perspective of staff, even though it's still not acceptable. MS. MOSCA: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Go ahead. Well, I'm not ready for a motion yet, so if that's -- you've been trying to push one. Just give us a -- could I have -- let us all have our talk here first for our discussion. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Figured if we made a motion, then we'd be able to discuss it so we don't have to involve staff. COMMISSIONER CARON: Well, David has more. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: It may be easier, and less confusion. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We need their input. David? MR. WEEKS : Yeah, Commissioners, just to finish the square footage revisions. Also on the visualizer will be paragraph E, which comes from Page 26 of your staff report. Again, responding to yesterday's discussion and getting the numbers right. Instead of 390,950, that figure should be 370,950. Again, that's paragraph E, Page 26. And then paragraph F, same page of the staff report -- I'm sorry -- same paragraph E, changing the figure from 21,000 up to 31,000 on Page 123 October 20, 2009 Tract 71, and Tract 71 is the Randall Boulevard commercial -- excuse me -- Randall Boulevard Center PUD, and that is the tract that the applicant indicated they wanted to provide an additional 10,000 square feet to be eligible for. And then paragraph F on Page 26 of your staff report, I'm showing a change, but actually it should be disregarded. The discussion yesterday was whether or not C4 captures the uses allowed in a Cl, 2, and 3 zoning districts. And in reading the C4 zoning district purpose and intent section, it clearly does capture those uses; therefore, no change to paragraph F despite what the visualizer shows. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And Mr. Schiffer's question-- and Brad, I guess the way you could -- we could handle it is, if you really feel that additional square footage is needed, either at the -- whoever makes the motion can include it, or you can ask for the motion to be amended if it's not included. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And my point, Mark, is that it has to go -- you know, I have the impression -- some people don't have the similar impression -- that if you don't build here, you're going to build it someplace else, and I'd rather not be building all over the place. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And I certainly don't agree with you, but that's no problem. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah, I know. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other discussion on this issue? Because I simply want to say that this particular project along Randall is outside of the core of Golden Gate Estates. It is one of those outskirt areas that, on the Visioning Committee years ago, we did accept those as being the focus for retail. And I would -- I believe that if we do need additional retail, this is a better place to put it than where the previous one was recommending. But there's a big difference between community desire and community need. I have to agree with staff. I certainly question the Page 124 October 20, 2009 need, but the community desire is to have more commercial. And of the two, for that reason, I will support this one. So with that in mind, is there any other discussion? Randy, you're going to throw something into the works? MR. COHEN: Just -- I want to point something out. You asked Ms. Mosca if staffs recommendation would still be denial. I wanted to be point out that up until today, we had not received any data and analysis with respect to need from the applicant, and they have put something into the record, and we will take a look at that prior to the BCC transmittal hearing. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Any other discussion from the Planning Commission? Ifnot, Mr. Vigliotti, you wanted to make a motion. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I'd like to make a motion for transmittal at the 414,300 square feet that was just submitted today with all the changes we had made yesterday. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Second. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion made and seconded at 414,000. Okay. I will not support a recommendation for more than 411,950. So I will be voting -- Mr. Murray? MR. ANDERSON: We withdraw that. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I'll withdraw my second then. MR. ANDERSON: We withdraw that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You withdraw what? MR. ANDERSON: We withdraw that extra 3,500 square feet. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Back to the 411-? MR. ANDERSON: Yeah, yeah. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes. Mr. Vigliotti, do you want to make a motion? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Yes. We'll go back to the 411-. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Who's ringing? Page 125 October 20, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Who's -- I hope it ain't mine. Nope, it ain't mine. Whoever ringing away, please step -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: It's over here. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, just throw it out the window if you can. There's not supposed to be anything left alone in a room, by the way. That is -- THE AUDIENCE: It stopped. I don't know whose stuff it is. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Okay. Back to the motion. I'll make a motion we transmit at the 411,000 square feet with the reduction from the 414- of the 3,300. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Second. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And that is subject to the changes that we've discussed -- COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Yesterday. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- with staff and the -- yeah, the changes we've just been presented today? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Exactly. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. There's been a motion set and made by Mr. Vigliotti to transmit, seconded by Mr. Murray. Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yes. I will not support the motion, not because I don't (sic) think that commercial and retail is not appropriate at this intersection. I do think this is where it should be; however, I have a problem with the amount that is being proposed and the correlating need for that amount. So I'll be supporting staff once again. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Any other comments from the Planning Commission? David? MR. WEEKS: Clarification. The motion then would be per staffs recommended language in the staffreport as revised today? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes. Page 126 October 20, 2009 COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Yes. MR. WEEKS: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The 411,950. Okay. Same sign, all those in favor of transmittal, signify by raising your hand and saying aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: All those opposed, same sign. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: No. COMMISSIONER CARON: (Raises hand.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Two opposed, motion carries 6-2. Mr. -- oh, who -- did you oppose, Mr. Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: No, I would say yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, David's looking at you. MR. WEEKS: I saw your hand still up during the vote. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Oh, I'm sorry. I was -- once agaIn -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion carries 6-2 for the Randall Boulevard Center. MR. ANDERSON: Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Item #4 D CP-2007-1, WILSON BOULEVARD COMMERCIAL SUBDISTRICT CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Next item is petition 2007-1. It's the Page 127 October 20, 2009 Golden Gate Area Master Plan on Wilson Boulevard at Immokalee Road. Mr. Anderson, you've got ten minutes. MR. ANDERSON: Yes, sir, I won't take it. Just a few comments. Yesterday's discussion was about the possibility that you could put a berm on this property; you could put two homes on the property. And I spoke with the planner on the proj ect to ask for some dimensions and how much acreage was going to be eaten up. And with the county right-of-way that they want, that brings us down from 5.17 to 3 acres. And then if there's a berm, that will take another half to a third of an acre. So there'll be 50 percent left of what they own today. And all of that -- all of the lost acreage is due solely to the roadways. This is a compatibility issue. And I ask you, please keep that in mind. Also I want to point out in the staff report that they say that we can have these other uses. Some of them are conditional, and that's what we're asking for the ability to at least apply for. And I thought it was ironic that among the uses they want to prohibit under their language are two of the ones that would ordinarily be allowed as a matter of right on this property, schools and libraries. So I think that they are being inconsistent. And, again, we ask you to at least allow a compatible use at this time. And, again, I'd be happy to answer any questions. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Are there any questions of the applicant on this issue? (N 0 response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Hearing none, thank you, Bruce. MR. ANDERSON: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We'll entertain discussion from the Planning Commission. Anybody have any comments? Page 128 October 20, 2009 (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You're all pretty quiet on this one. Okay. We'll go into motion. Is there a motion from anybody on this particular item? We've got to do something. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Tor wants one. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Pardon me? COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Make a motion to deny the recommendation. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Mr. Kolflat made a motion to deny the recommendation. Is there a second? COMMISSIONER CARON: Second. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Seconded by Ms. Caron. Now for discussion. Anybody have any items for discussion? Mr. Schmitt? MR. SCHMITT: For clarification. It's deny the petitioner's recommendation, support of staff recommendation to deny; is that correct, Mr. Kolflat? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes. Well-- go ahead, did you need clarification, Brad? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: No, no. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I thought you did. Okay. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But we're not making motions to honor staff. Aren't we making motions to recommend transmittal or not, right? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. I think the motion is made to not transmit. MR. SCHMITT: Okay. That's-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's -- Mr. Kolflat, is that what you're intending to do? COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Yes, yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And the second was the same way. Discussion? I'll offer some discussion, is simply some of the facts. This is a small piece of property. It is more of a spot zoning Page 129 October 20,2009 nature than anything else that I can see. I do think that if they wanted to come back for the next round of the Golden Gate Master Plan review and suggest that we look at transitional uses for areas like this, that would be an option at that time. I don't see the timing of it needed now. They did not respond to House Bill 697, and there is no data and analysis on the transitional application, should it go in this location, and it is inconsistent with the Golden Gate Area Master Plan and vision that was set up several years ago at this time. So I'll be voting to support the motion. Anybody else have any comments? Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, I mean, I could make a comment. One problem with this -- and we think we're planning, but actually we're doing gatekeeper planning. People come to the gate, we let them in or not let them in. And Dave, is there ever -- anything going to happen where people actually look at Immokalee and plan what should be on Immokalee Drive (sic)? I mean, some of his arguments are very strong. You certainly don't want to live here, but what would it be used for? I mean, is that happening or is that part of the Golden Gate review? In other words, why aren't we looking at the future uses of this land? Why are we just standing by this gate letting people in or not? MR. WEEKS: Well, that's -- I think you're supporting the staff position for the restudy, the need for the restudy to comprehensively review the area for land uses, infrastructure, and whatnot, as opposed to this piecemeal approach of one at a time. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And the reason it hasn't been done prior to now is no one ever thought that that corridor should have residential? MR. WEEKS: Well, the last restudy was earlier this decade. I mean, we don't do restudies too frequently. Page 130 October 20, 2009 COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: All right. But that's enough of on answer. I mean -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. With that, if there's no more discussion, all in favor of the motion to recommend not to transmit, please indicate by saying aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion carries 8-0. MR. ANDERSON: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, Bruce. Sorry you lost one. Item #4E CP-2007-2, IMMOKALEE ROAD/OIL WELL ROAD COMMERCIAL SUBDISTRICT CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Next one is 2007-2, Golden Gate Area Master Plan for Immokalee Road and Oil Well Road. Richard, you have ten minutes. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Okay. On the visualizer you have the location of our particular piece of property. You'll note that we're, I guess, similar to the big shopping center you just recently recommended transmittal. We're kind of on the outskirts of the Estates. We're not in the heart of the Estates. Page 131 October 20, 2009 We're also located at the intersection of Oil Well Road, which is going to be one of the busiest roads in Collier County, as well as Immokalee Road. And this particular piece of property, if you look at it, the five acres adjacent to Immokalee Road, candidly or not, were residential properties. We added the additional five acres to make this site a better development site so it wasn't too small. This particular piece of property also has the FPL corridor power lines right in front of it, so this is not your ideal residential piece of property. A comment was made earlier about a project that I was involved in on Vanderbilt Beach Road, and I think actually that's a good example for this particular situation. The actual intersection of Vanderbilt Beach Road and 951/Collier Boulevard is commercial, and as you get further away from the intersection, that's when residential became appropriate. Similar circumstance occurs on Santa Barbara and Golden Gate Parkway, the northwest quadrant of that. It was also on the outskirts of Golden Gate Estates. It was at the intersection of what was going to be two future six-lane roads, and the Comprehensive Plan was changed to allow the properties immediately at the intersection to become commercial. And as you got further away, you got away from the intersection; residential became more viable. So the argument that just because you approved this proj ect because it's at the intersection you're somehow going to have to approve every parcel of property that's on a four- or a six-lane road for a retail or office use or even transitional conditional use is not a valid argument and can be easily defeated. The further you get away from this intersection, residential can make sense. The two parcels that immediately front Immokalee Road in their current configuration are not residential parcels. You took right-of-way to make them narrower, you've got the FPL corridor, and Page 132 October 20, 2009 now you've got an intersection of two major roadways, and we've got, clearly, non-Estates type development around us. I mean, across the street, look at that, you've got Waterways, and then you've got commercial diagonally across from us and more urban development. Our proposal was modified from the original 70,000 square feet of retail down to 35,000 square feet of office. We were forced to design our project to have access on a local road, 33rd Street. We've designed that access to where it will be across from the county's -- and you can see it on the visualizer, the county's drainage area for their road proj ect. So we have kept the entrance of this project away from the residential neighborhood. Weare underutilizing this acreage from a square footage calculation, and that is because we're now being forced to use our access off of the residential street versus the Oil Well Road access point. We think that our proposal makes sense. We think there's clearly a demand for office out in the fringes of Golden Gate Estates. We think that this is not an appropriate parcel for residential use, the two parcels that front Immokalee Road. It is a subset of what we originally requested. It's a C 1 use. We asked for Cl through C3. We've reduced the request to 35,000 square feet. And we submit that our request is appropriate for the area, does make planning sense, will reduce trips. Is it a big project? No. Is it a small project? Yes. I think a small project fits in this area. And with that, we are requesting that the Planning Commission recommend to the Board of County Commission transmittal of the 35,000 square feet of office on this particular parcel of property. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. YOV ANOVICH: We're available to answer any questions you may have. Page 133 October 20, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are there any questions? Mr. Murray, then Mr. Schiffer. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: That's a confirmation that it's only going to be office? MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes, sir. And that's a better breakdown of the configuration of the 10 acres. You'll see the two smaller narrow parcels on 41. Yes, 35,000 square feet of office. And we talked about the offices being professional offices, medical offices, and veterinary offices, and we were going to talk about how we needed to -- staff had suggested if we were going to modify the language and go to, I think, C 1 use -- and then I had brought up that vet offices, I'm not sure if it fits in a C 1, so it would be a C 1 plus like a veterinary office. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, you know, the nature of our current economic is, of course, hopefully not going to be the nature of our future economics. But there is a predicate here, there is a time factor that's involved. In your -- I don't know what you want to call it, the analysis that you had performed, was that for the 70,000 square feet originally? MR. YOV ANOVICH: It was. It was for 70,000 square feet. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Commercial? MR. YOV ANOVICH: It was for retail, and a subset of retail is office. We asked for C 1 through C3 zone request. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And is that -- I guess maybe I'll end up asking David whether or not that analysis sustains for this change. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Well, let me -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: You can answer it. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Well, I mean, I think it does, and we can -- if you need us to refine the data to look solely at office, we can do that. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: That's what you're offering? Page 134 October 20,2009 MR. YOV ANOVICH: That's what we're offering in response to staff recommendation of denial and our meeting with the neighbors. Can I ask about the time -- I'd like to comment on the timing of this, because everybody's saying that there's empty stores right now. I've got a couple comments to that. First of all, you're not going to build it unless you have tenants. The days of building it and hoping that they will come are gone. So we're going to have to know there's a need and we're going to have to have tenants signed up to come. Weare in a horrible economic time right now. Weare going to come out of it and we are at some point going to fill up the available space today and there will be a need in the future. To sit there and say that, you know, today is a horrible time, we shouldn't be approving anything now for the future, is, in my opinion, a short-sided approach. It's a long-range plan. It's 20-year plan. And we're talking long-term. Now, if I were to try to go forward today, you know, today I've got a Compo Plan amendment. Adoption is next fall, sometime-- summer/fall of'OlO, then I've got to rezone the property. It's going to take me another year to do that. Then I've got to do a Site Development Plan and a building permit, you could easily put another year on top of that, and then I've got to -- and that's assuming I've leased it up in the interim. We're three, four years away best-case scenario from producing anything on this particular piece of property. So the thought that this is an immediate change in the area is not -- is not the case. We're several years out before we're going to deliver the offices, and I think that hopefully at that time -- because if it's not, the economy will be back and we'll be moving forward again and not looking backwards. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, I don't know if the -- if this is going to give you heartburn, but if the Visioning Committee were to be put in place in the next two years and they would resolve whatever it is that they would make changes on and they agreed that this was an appropriate type of thing, my concern is whether the timing would be Page 135 October 20, 2009 the same. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Well, my -- I think experience teaches us, no. I think that -- I don't know when the decision is going to be made to actually set up the Visioning Committee. I'm not clear on that. Maybe that will help. David, can I ask staff -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, let me just make one comment that may neutralize that, because I'm not trying to give you a bad time, but you said it yourself, you're not going to build if there's no tenants. So, you know, then this gets into the area of speculation in terms of whether or not -- when it will. We all know it will come back, the economy, et cetera. So that's what I'm wrestling with. MR. YOV ANOVICH: I understand. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay. Plus the fact that it really -- as far as I can see, it doesn't really comport with what the intent of the Visioning Committee was for the Golden Gate Area Master Plan. It doesn't comport. Is it a good idea? Probably, but it doesn't comport. And my responsibility is to try to understand what is needed and wanted by the residents, and that's the issue. Now, if you want to address those, I'd be happy to hear that. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Well, I think that -- there is always going to be a private sector amendment process that we're allowed to go through. No matter how many times we do a comprehensive study of the area, there are going to be oddball properties that don't fit the cookie-cutter analysis that was originally out there. The world has changed. I mean, Oil Well Road is going to be a major road, and this piece of property gets to share the burden of that. And we're trying to make this a piece -- a parcel of property that is of value to the person who bought it in 1986 who never envisioned what they have in front of them today or in the near future and, at the same time, balance the needs of the community. We believe there's a need out there for office space. It will be in Page 136 October 20, 2009 the relatively near future. I don't know how long this visioning process is going to take. And let's just say it takes another four years, then I've got -- then I get to start my rezone process and all that other stuff. It could be well out into the future. And no disrespect to staff, but the EAR process takes a long time, all these restudies take a long time to do. If you were to tell me, we'll be done with the restudy in the next two years, my answer might be, okay, let's go through it. But if you can't give me -- it's an open-ended question -- and I think it is open ended -- we don't know the answer, so I think this makes sense today, and we would -- we would hope that we can transmit today and, if not, then we'll have to deal with what the -- what happens on the review. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I understand. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Rich, if this is a good site for office buildings, you were going to tell me why it's a good thing to reduce the -- essentially reducing the efficiency of the site. MR. YOV ANOVICH: I understand that. And what it -- it's in response to our neighbors, quite honestly, is that we are -- we are -- we had originally envisioned that our access would be onto an extension of Oil Well Road, a driveway for us for the proj ect. Transportation staff -- I think Nick is -- is he still here? No. But he was pretty adamant that that ain't going to happen. He's decided that in the Compo Plan we need to make the decision that under no circumstances would access on Oil Well Road make sense. I don't know why we can't delay that till later, but he's made that decision. So we had to figure out, what can we do now that we're being forced onto 33rd Street as access and to minimize. And we've cut our impact, our trips, to one-tenth by going to office. And what we're looking at is blending in with our residential neighbor, because now we're sharing that street with them. And we know we're underutilizing the square footage, but we had offered the neighbors that reduction Page 137 October 20, 2009 because we were going to now share their residential street with our office. And so that's why we're underutilizing is out of respect for our neighbors and compatibility for our neighbors. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: That's fine. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are there any other questions of the applicant? (N 0 response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Discussion of the Planning Commission before we go to motion? Is there any discussion? Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I will be voting in favor of transmittal. I wasn't too happy about the 70,000 retail, but now that we're down to 35- office with a buffering, I think it's a small little project that makes sense out there. And, again, only for the office. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody else? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I will be voting against this proj ect. It makes absolutely no sense when across the street there's an area as big, if not bigger, that is zoned commercial that has got a good access, that has water and sewer and everything needed, and it is not adjacent to Estates residential. The applicant wants to modify the uses at the last minute. I'm not -- without the submission to match those uses, this is not a neighborhood center, it's not part of the Visioning Committee's recommendations, when Golden Gate Master Plan was first put together, they did not respond to House Bill 697, and it's inconsistent with the Golden Gate -- with 9J5 and in numerous ways that I reiterated during my discussion on this issue. That's my position. Anybody else? Mr. Kolflat? COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: This is changing -- attempting to change the residential to commercial, and I'm very much against that. Page 138 October 20, 2009 I'll vote against it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Anybody else? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Is there a motion for either recommendation of transmittal or recommendation not to transmit? And I imagine we'd be using staffs language that we reviewed during our discussion. But before we go into the motion, David, are there any clarifications from staff needed on the language? MR. WEEKS: One really tiny point. I just noticed a word missing, get it on the record. Page 15 of the staff report, paragraph C. This is referring to the paragraph that deals with floor area, and as modified would be a maximum of 35,000 square feet of gross leasable floor area. The word area is missing. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So with all those comments, is there a motion from anybody on the -- Mr. Vigliotti? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: I'll make a motion to transmit with the changes we had just discussed, and as I said, the 35,000 square foot of office. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is there a second? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'll second that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Motion made by Mr. Vigliotti to transmit and seconded by Mr. Schiffer. Is there any further discussion? (N 0 response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If you're in favor to transmit-- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Dave's got -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: David? MR. WEEKS: I missed my chance a while ago. I apologize. Actually there was the question of the uses. The applicant has phrased it as professional medical offices. The motion maker referred to offices. Staff had suggested earlier that C 1 uses we thought would be Page 139 October 20, 2009 appropriate. I can answer a specific question that Rich had asked about; a veterinary office is allowed as a conditional use in the C 1 district excluding outdoor kenneling; but on the other hand, I certainly understand his concern that, well, what if there's other types of professional office uses that they might have been contemplating that are not allowed in Cl? But that would be staffs recommendation. That is the zoning district for office uses. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Leaving it at Cl? MR. WEEKS: Yes, permitted and conditional. MR. YOV ANOVICH: Does that include medical? MR. WEEKS: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Mr. Vigliotti, are you in alignment with that in your motion? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Yes, I am. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So let's go back to the vote then. This is a motion to recommend approval for transmittal. Signify by raising your hand and saying aye if you're in favor of that motion. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Three in favor. Those against the motion, same sign. COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: (Raises hand.) COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Five against. Motion fails -- or recommendation to not transmit, 5-3. Well, actually, no. How is that Page 140 October 20, 2009 worded? Recommended they -- yeah, go ahead, Heidi. Clarify what I just said. MS. ASHTON: I would suggest that you make another motion and see if another one passes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yeah, we needed a new motion. I recommend that it not be transmitted. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Second. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Motion made by Mr. Murray, second by Mr. Kolflat. My reasons for -- I would be voting for this, and my reasons as previously stated. All those in favor of the motion, same sign as we had before, raising your hand. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: One, two, three, four -- what, this is six? You're in favor of it this time? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: The reason I'm in of favor it is because it supports my inefficient use of the property. The future will do better. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So that's six in favor of the motion to not transmit. Those against the motion? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I didn't hear what he said. Can you repeat that? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: He said he withdrew his view. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: What I said, that I'm glad it's failing because when somebody comes back in the future, there'll be a Page 141 October 20, 2009 much more efficient use of the property. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Oh, okay, I'm sorry. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Those against the motion, signify by saying aye and raising your hand. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Against? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Against the motion. This is a motion to not transmit. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I'm with you. I'm sorry. I'm tired. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: (Raises hand.) COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: (Raises hand.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Two against. So motion to not-- recommend not to transmit carries 6-2. With that, we have ended our first phase of our criteria -- I mean our Golden Gate area -- I mean -- yeah, the master plan amendments. We will come back. We're going to take a 15-minute break to 2:15. When we come back, we'll be starting on CP2008-4, which is in the rural fringe mixed-use sending lands and neutral lands district. (A brief recess was had.) MR. WEEKS: Hot mike. Item #4H CP-2008-4. RURAL FRINGE MIXED-USE DISTRICT CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Welcome back from the break, everyone. And we are back on the Golden Gate -- well, actually, not Golden Gate anymore. I'm getting so used to saying that -- the Growth Management Plan amendments. The next one up is CP2008-4. It's for the Future Land Use Element Map in the rural fringe mixed-use district from sending lands to neutral lands. Page 142 October 20, 2009 All those wishing to participate in this item, please rise to be sworn in by the court reporter. (The speakers were duly sworn and indicated in the affirmative.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Disclosures from the Planning Commission? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yes. I had a conversation with Mr. Nadeau. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody else? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I spoke with him. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And I can't remember if I -- I know it wouldn't have been -- I didn't think -- MR. NADEAU: Bob and Pat. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Bob and who? MR. NADEAU: Bob, and -- you spoke with Bob. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Bob, okay. That's -- yeah, I thought Bob and I may have talked, and I honestly don't remember what we walked about, so he left a lasting impression, so -- MR. WOLFLEY: Well, that's all right. He yelled at me earlier. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So, okay Dwight. It's all yours. MR. NADEAU: All righty. Commissioners, good afternoon. For the record, my name's Dwight Nadeau. I'm planning manager for R W A, and I'm representing Filmore, LLC, on this Growth Management Plan amendment CP2008-4. With me in attendance today are John and Theresa Filmore, the property owners and the petitioners; Gina Green, professional engineer of Gina Green Engineering; Mr. Reed Jarvi, of Omega Transportation; and Mr. Mike Ramsey of Ramsey Environmental. They'll be here to answer any specific questions within their disciplines if you have any; however, I am fortunate enough to have the only petition that has a recommendation to transmit, so I'm going Page 143 October 20, 2009 to proceed with my presentation. I'll make it relatively brief though so that you can have an opportunity to ask questions should you have them. Subject property is 28.7 acres. It's located off Washburn Avenue and White Lake Boulevard in Section 31, Township 49, Range 27. The property's currently zoned agricultural and is partially improved with the existing yellow mulching and recycling facility. I have a vicinity map up on the board, and now I'll put up an aerial photo. The aerial photo depicts the subject property and the existing mulching operations on the site. Those mulching operations have been in existence for a number of years, and they date back to conditional uses approved for the recycling. The reason for this amendment is that they're proposing to do some construction and demolition debris. Effectively it's not necessarily recycling, but they're taking construction materials, breaking them up into their component parts, and then transferring them to actual recycling facilities. So any of the iron that would come out of the -- or rebar that would come out of the concrete would go to a foundry and concrete may be used for roadbed. The subj ect property and the mulching operations have been working in parody with the solid waste department and their landfill operations, accepting mulching -- landscape mulching debris in the past and using that for -- excuse me -- mulching landscaping debris and providing the mulch for the community. With the new solid waste park coming in immediately adjacent to us to the west, we will still be working in operation with the waste management, but maybe to some lesser extent. We have met with the solid waste department with Dan Rodriguez and Phil Gramatges, and they have -- we have the support of county utilities on this proposed request. The site is entirely permitted by the Army Corps of Engineers Page 144 October 20, 2009 and the South Florida Water Management District. The materials, data, and analysis submitted with this petition have demonstrated that there has been nine years of wildlife surveys on the property, and in no instance was a listed species or the property used for wildlife foraging. Now, we're proposing to make a map change which -- which would change the designation from rural fringe mixed-use district sending designation to rural fringe mixed-use district sending designation (sic), and that's what it would look like on the Future Land Use Map should it be approved. In addition, the subject 29 acres has been removed from the sending lands total acreage in the overlays and special features portion of the Growth Management Plan Future Land Use Element as is referenced on Page 2 of your staff report. The same acreage has been added to the neutral designation in that same location of the plan. With staffs finding that the petition is in compliance with the transportation policies, we're not going to have any significant impacts on public facilities and, in effect, this petition or this proposed land use will, in effect, assist or further the intent of House Bill 697 through the recycling efforts. There is no residential component proposed, no commercial, so we feel that this would be a reduction of greenhouse gases just through the recycling operations. And with that, we have a recommendation to transmit by staff. There is a condition applied related to the reservation of some right-of-way on the southern boundary of the property for the future Benfield Road corridor. We do not have any objection to that. We understand that it's merely going to be informative in this Growth Management Plan amendment, and it would be more -- it would be formalized through the reservation with the conditional use and the rezoning of this property. There are also some findings and conclusions that are referenced Page 145 October 20, 2009 on Page 11 of your staff report, and we find no obj ection to those findings and conclusions. With that, I'm open to any questions that you may have. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Are there questions of the applicant? Anybody? Dwight, you said that you are in compliance with House Bill 697. MR. NADEAU: I'm verbally stating to you that the recycling operations themselves are going to have an opportunity to reduce greenhouse gases and dependence on automobiles. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. But in the staffreport on Page 10 it says, the petitioner has not submitted a response, data, or analysis regarding this legislation. They're referring to House Bill 697. MR. NADEAU: That is accurate. I have not submitted that material. I offer that commentary verbally to you today. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Are you going to be submitting that material if this were to go forward before adoption? MR. NADEAU: I would be happy to write a paragraph to include and provide that to staff that we could use in consent hearing. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, interestingly enough, in all the previous staff denials, they used the lack of information and consistency with House Bill 697 as the reason for denial. In this staff report they acknowledge you didn't supply them with anything yet they went ahead and approved this. And I'm just a little curious as to why we have that conflict. And maybe, I guess, that's not a question of you now that I understand what you did and didn't do, but certainly it is one of Mr. Weeks as to why staff is inconsistent on analysis. MR. NADEAU: Well, if I can clarify just a little bit, David, before you jump in. Corby and I had this discussion. It was a verbal discussion. And it was our impression that without the residential land use components, that it may not be necessary to respond to those prOVISIons. Page 146 October 20, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I don't care about your discussion. Your discussion is not what's going to be sent to DCA, the staff transmittal is. And when we get to the staff report, then I certainly will -- they've got some time now to think about it before we ask the question. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: If I may? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Mr. Murray. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And not to start things up unnecessarily, but in the course of breaking down material, there's an expenditure, and the expenditure is X and one hopes that the result is X plus, plus, plus, plus. MR. NADEAU: Yes, of course. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: We wouldn't know that unless and until. So I think -- strong suggestion. MR. NADEAU: Very much. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions of the applicant before we get into the staff report? (N 0 response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: In the document submitted, I believe, by your office -- yes, R W A -- the noise issues that you're going to be getting into as a result of the changes that you're asking for, that's not the kind of issue we get into in a GMP amendment, but I want to kind of give you a heads-up that when you come back in and ask for the uses, the Collier Landfill has done a good job in the way they've handled their noise, their dust, and their other issues. I would suggest that you use, at least as a minimum, the standards that they set, because they are getting along with their neighbors to a -- at least in that regard, because I also notice that right now you have a positive relationship with your neighbors, according to your report. MR. NADEAU: Indeed, we do, yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But you haven't been doing the things, Ii Page 147 October 20, 2009 believe, that you're now asking to have changed to do; is that a fair statement, or you're doing them now and -- MR. NADEAU: Oh, no, no. We're not doing construction demolition on site right now. We do have authority to improve some of the neighborhood roadbeds with some concrete material, but we are not doing the C&D operations. They would be very similar in noise to what is on the property with tub grinders and mulching equipment. And we've also agreed with the landfill that -- with solid waste that we would conform with the same regulations that they would have to should they be approved with their conditional use. So, yes, we will comply with the county noise ordinance, and actually we don't have any complaints from our neighbors. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. I'm just suggesting when you -- I don't want to see you have complaints with your neighbors, because that just makes everybody's life more difficult. And one way to maybe mitigate that is to consider what the county landfill has done and take a look at that as a part of your application in the future when you come in for the uses. The preserve areas that you've shown on your property, it seems like the northern part of the site's operation is split by a preserve from the southern part of the site, and that's the way it seems to be located on Ramsey, Inc.'s, preserve area map. How do you get through the preserve to go from the north to the south? MR. NADEAU: That area of vegetation that is not within the preserve is to be removed as a part of the new C&D operations. So there is some vegetation. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: There's a preserve map in the Ramsey, Inc. -- MR. NADEAU: Excuse me. If I may introduce Gina Green, the Engineer. She will be doing -- she did the engineering on the site and will be pursuing the conditional use. So you may want to ask Ms. Green. Page 148 October 20, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I just have a question. If you look at the study that was provided by Ramsey, Inc., there's a preserve area map, okay, and it shows a preserve area number five all across the bottom part of that upper site. The upper site's got a lot of activity in the northern part of that site. Do you intend to drive through the preserve to get to the activity in the south? Is that how you're setting this up? MR. GREENWOOD: For the record, Gina Green, professional engineer. The preserve area -- and I'm just going to go ahead and point on the overhead. Are you speaking of the -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: 624 number 5. It really goes all across the bottom, yeah. MR. GREENWOOD: Right. That is a wetland designation that is not a preserve area. That is a flux mapping. And the actual preserve area actually encompasses the eastern portion, wraps around this existing and is through the southerly portions of the project, and that's been what's approved by South Florida and Army Corps. There is a conservation easement over those areas presently that -- but that 624 where you see this vegetation here is not a preserve area. That is part of the operation that they have an approved SDP amendment for and all their environmental permitting. They just have not completed their construction of their horticultural activities that they were allowed to with the conditional use that gave them an expansion back years ago. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, thank you. The TIS. TIS is based on the site of approximately 16 acres. This one, I think, is 29? MR. NADEAU: Yes, but there's no traffic generated by the 12-acre preserve. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I -- so that -- but the site itself is 29 though, even though -- MR. NADEAU: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. You have 500 weekly and 100 Page 149 October 20, 2009 daily truck trips? So that's about -- well, 500 weekly. That's -- and 100 daily. Well, if that's what your TIS is based on, it doesn't-- there's no complaints from transportation, I don't -- I guess I'll pass on that question then. Okay. The rest will be of staff. Thank you. Anybody else have any questions of the applicant? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ifnot, can we get staff presentation? MR. SCHMIDT: Commissioners, good afternoon. Again, for the record, Corby Schmidt. I think I won't spend a lot of time with this one, just to highlight the findings of the staff. And we found that the data and analysis submitted did support the environmental conditions being explained to us and the redesignation itself. The impacts on the Transfer of Development Rights Program are negligible. There's no residential components either before or after that are affected. The property boundaries coincide with a reservation request from the transportation department for a right-of-way along the southern edge of the subject property. And certainly after redesignation, the property would be subject to all the limitations and rights of the neutral lands designation. That's it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Did you say that's it? MR. SCHMIDT: It is. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, okay. Go ahead, Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON : Yes. Corby, I was just wondering, this ago operation has obviously been there for a long time, and they've been doing their mulching for a long time, but it is in the sending area right now. I understand how certain properties got into the sending area. I realize it was a global thing. If you look at the map that Page 150 October 20, 2009 Dwight had up there, everything in his hood is orange. However, if you look on Page 2 of your staff report -- and I don't know if this map moves at all, but next to the mulching to the right of the site, to the east of the site, is another rather large ago parcel. What, if anything, is there to prevent them and future people down the line from coming in and saying that they want their designation changed from sending to neutral or sending to receiving? You know, I don't know. MR. SCHMIDT: First, let's clarify what we see on that image or on that map. Except for a small parcel off on the left side, all of that area is agricultural. Some of those red boundaries are there not to distinguish from one ago to another, but all of that is agricultural. There's an -- another use there, but they're all agricultural. COMMISSIONER CARON: All right. Well, my question remains. What's to prevent the person next door from requesting the same change as this petitioner? MR. SCHMIDT: The characteristics of the property itself and the environmental values for each individual piece might dictate whether they might be suitable or not for that. But I'm not aware of anything that would prohibit them from asking. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is that it? COMMISSIONER CARON: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. This particular site though, one of the reasons you're moving forward -- it's already -- it was kind of like grandfathered in? Is that -- it's been there for a while? MR. SCHMIDT: It has had some permissions to do some of those operations over the years, yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Because it -- one of your statements in the staff report on Page 5, it says, the subject property was not submitted and would have not qualified, does not abut neutral lands or receiving lands, and this is during the redesignation process. So it was already used for this at that time though, right? Page 151 October 20, 2009 MR. SCHMIDT: It was. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. SCHMIDT: But the uses of property were not the reason that it did not qualify. It had more to do with locational aspects of the property than the use aspects. That wholesale study and the county's offer to redesignate some of those properties, that's when those properties that might be not a round edge that might be holes in the cheese -- there were a number of analogies used at the time -- but those same criteria are no longer in effect, just used at that time. So here we have a piece of property that is essentially surrounded by its base sending lands, and that's no longer an impediment to the request. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Okay. But -- so, the neighbor next door who has an ago designation can clear their site to do their ago operation, and then they can come in and ask for the same thing, correct? MR. WEEKS: Let me take that. MR. SCHMIDT: Okay. MR. WEEKS: The answer is yes. You might remember under the sending designations, the agricultural uses consistent with the Florida Right to Farm Act are allowed. There are two, I'll say, restrictions though that come into play. One is, there's a 25-year -- once you have -- start over. Once you've cleared your property for agricultural uses, there's a 25-year prohibition from participating in the Transfer of Development Rights Program, and there's also a 25-year prohibition on change of land use unless you restore the habitat that you had cleared. So it's a very big disincentive to do that, but certainly it is -- ultimately your scenario is possible. COMMISSIONER CARON: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Corby, is -- I asked a question earlier. Page 152 October 20, 2009 We just got done with five commercial parcels, and each one of those somewhat tried to do -- respond to HB697. Some didn't even bother to respond. I believe in every case, the staff found insufficient either their response or insufficient the fact they didn't bother to respond to House Bill 697, and that you used that as a premise to deny the application. In this application they did not respond either and yet we have a recommendation of approval. Now, I'm not against this project. I'm just trying to find out why we have an inconsistency like that in this round of GMP amendments. MR. SCHMIDT: I'm not aware that the lack of submission by the applicant or their agent were reasons to recommend denial. We made the observations throughout every staff report. We were careful to point out that they gave us nothing and -- because no one gave us any kind of response, we didn't know what to expect from those that might have. So the state hasn't given us direction, DCA, as to what kinds of responses we're going to see on this, nor have, in this cycle of amendments, have we seen evidence of what we might see as responses. So we've just made the observation that they're absent. CHAIRMAN STRAIN : Well, maybe -- I mean, I can pull up the old reports in the bullets at the end where it said -- I thought you guys kept referring to HB697 in -- almost in every single case as in- -- you didn't have the right information to weigh in on that, and that was part of your recommendation -- well, let me get it. MR. WEEKS: Mr. Chairman, if I might, while you're looking. You are correct that in the findings and conclusions section of the staff reports for most, if not all of the other petitions, we did identify the either lack of or inadequate response to HR697 as one of those findings. I would also go further to say that I believe because it is a data and analysis requirement, that it could be a reason or part of a reason Page 153 October 20, 2009 for recommendation either to the support or not support depending upon the response that was provided. And I'll agree with Corby that we don't know exactly what the Department of Community Affairs is looking for, but we do believe that they want some quantification of how greenhouse gases are reduced, how vehicle mile trips are going to be reduced through the approval of each individual plan amendment. We're all anxious to see what type of comments or objections come from that state agency during the Objections, Recommendations, and Comments Report that will come after transmittal. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So when you wrote in some of the reports that the petitioner failed to address the statutory requirement and that staff anticipates the DCA to raise an objection, you really were telling us that you don't even know what they're supposed to do to provide, and you're waiting for DCA to tell you what to get; does that kind of -- MR. WEEKS: I guess a yes-and-no answer. On the one hand, we're not totally just saying either do or don't -- either submit whatever you want or don't submit anything because we know that DCA is requiring something. And you'll notice within those staff reports for commercial requests we included from Secretary Pehlam the PowerPoint presentation that he prepared on that very subject matter. And I think that gives some indication of what DCA is expecting. But because it's new legislation, because we've never -- this is our first time going through the process, we don't know exactly what they're expecting. We don't know if a response -- I'll call it almost a layman's response -- to say, well, look, I'm proposing a commercial project that's located in a sea of residential development so I can observe that some of the surrounding residences are going to shop here instead of elsewhere; therefore, they're going to drive less, I don't Page 154 October 20, 2009 know if that's going to be acceptable or if they actually want quantification, actually, you know, traffic counts and, you know, other type of empirical data. We don't know. We think they're going to want that quantification, but we just don't know for certain. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Thank you. Anybody else have any questions of either staff or the applicant on this particular amendment? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Are there any public speakers, David? MR. WEEKS: No, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody from the public wishing to speak on this matter? (N 0 response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. With that -- I don't think you need a rebuttal, Duane. Is there a recommendation for -- to transmit or not to transmit? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yes, I would-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: -- make that recommendation, but I would include that they should have at least an attempt at an analysis under 697. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So a recommendation has been made to transmit with the condition that they should have -- at least attempt to provide information in a response to House Bill 697; is that fair? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Right. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Is there a second to that? COMMISSIONER CARON: Second. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Seconded by Mrs. Caron. Okay. Any further discussion? (No response.) Page 155 October 20, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: All in favor, signify by saying -- oh, hold it, hold it. David's got further discussion. David, under staff report, you guys can tell me all the things you need to under there before we get to this point, but go ahead. MR. WEEKS: Okay. Well, sometimes it's triggered during your motion, and that's the case here. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. WEEKS: I would ask if you -- the motion maker would consider, rather than saying attempt to submit, in fact, submit something. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I was being overly generous. Submit. MR. WEEKS: And the timing? I would presume that would be prior to -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, prior to-- MR. WEEKS: -- a commission hearing? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, yeah. MR. WEEKS: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Prior to the BCC hearings. MR. WEEKS: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So the motion maker is stating that the response to House Bill 697 will be submitted prior to the BCC hearing. And there was -- does the second accept that? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Second accepts it. Corby? MR. SCHMIDT: And that's also with the understanding, not just Exhibit A language, but the stipulation for the reservation of property along the south edge? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I would assume that was staff recommendation. Was the motion maker accepting staffs Page 156 October 20, 2009 recommendation? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And the second has accepted it. COMMISSIONER CARON: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: This was a simple one. With all that in mind, is there any further discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Hearing none, all those in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody opposed? (N 0 response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion carries 8-0. Thank you. That was the simplest one we've had yet. Item #4 I CPSP-2008-7. FUTURE LAND USE ELEMENT AMENDMENT CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So now we move on to one that will probably be a little more compli- -- well, hopefully not. David, the next one up is your petition, CPSP2008-7. It's a language change to the Future Land Use Element. Rather than you guys get into a long dissertation of why you're doing this, can you just simply say it needs to be done, it had to be done, do you have any Page 157 October 20, 2009 questions, thank you? MR. WEEKS: David Weeks, for the record. And just pretend I just said that. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I was just going to make a motion. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, Mr. Murray. Does anybody have any questions on the staff language change? It's a very minor change. It's a requirement to have it done. COMMISSIONER CARON: Any questions on the kick-the-can amendment you mean? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, that's -- okay. If there's no questions, is there a motion to recommend approval? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I would make that motion. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray made that motion to recommend for transmittal, CPSP2008-7. Is there a second? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: (Raises hand.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Second by Mr. Schiffer. He had his hand up first, Tor. Did you have a question, Tor? COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: No, no. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You didn't. Any discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: All those in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Aye. Page 158 October 20, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion carries 8-0. Item #4J CP-2009-1, DADE-COLLIER CYPRESS RECREATION AREA DISTRICT CHAIRMAN STRAIN; And last but not least for today is CP2009-1, Future Land Use Element, and it's to create the Dade/Collier Cypress Recreation Area District within the conservation designation. All those wishing to participate in this item, please rise to be sworn in by the court reporter. (The speakers were duly sworn and indicated in the affirmative.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any disclosures on the part of the Planning Commission? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Hearing none, we'll look for a presentation by the applicant. We've already got one, thank you. We need one for the record. So just leave one with the girl behind you, if you could. Thank you. MR. ASHER: For the record, representing Miami-Dade County, my name is Kevin Asher, Miami-Dade County Parks Department; and two gentlemen I will have provide additional information, Andy McHall (phonetic) and Mark Clark, who will be similarly presenting information. The county has provided a PowerPoint presentation. You've been given a copy. Kind of walk through it as the basis for summary of our application. Very quickly, the Miami-Dade County Parks Department is a Page 159 October 20, 2009 large system. We own approximately 12,000 acres within Miami-Dade County and manage an additional 36,000 acres of recreation open space. The park system is managed by an open space master plan, and a lot of these I'm trying to put context into our application so you'll understand both our interests, the community desire, and the community need both within Miami-Dade County and Collier County. The department is driven by an open space master plan, which is determined to maximize the amount of open space for public use, both recreation, conservation, and preservation, and to do it in a manner which provides for greater equity, public accessibility, a seamlessness between county, city, state, and federal open space lands, a manner in which those projects and those properties are sustained, that our parks are both beautiful and they provide multiple benefits. We, like every county, is seeing growth. With growth, as it relates to our level of service, requires us to add additional land, and we have done so within Miami-Dade County, both local land as in municipal type of parks, and area-wide land, which is more of your conservation and recreation lands. And as a part of our open space master plan, you can see that not only are we acquiring it in municipal areas as in developed areas, but there is a strong county effort to create a kind of marginal (sic) line and -- a not-to-exceed line on the periphery where the county is seeking to acquire all of the open space on the very periphery as recreation open space as a means of halting development into further areas. In this particular case, not only did we notice that we have a sustained need for recreation open space for the public, but there are certain recreation open space needs for certain recreational activities, one of which, among a more topical one, has been OHV s, that we've seen that there has been a pronounced increase in 0 HV s, as in A TV s and small and enduro motorcycles and as such, not only within Page 160 October 20, 2009 Miami - Dade County, not only within the State of Florida, but across the United States. But what we're seeing more importantly is that there are few, if any, locations in Miami-Dade County able to support a safe and secure and proximate location. And we're beginning to address the fact that our cultural areas are being impacted, our environmental areas are impacted, and the lives of riders who do not have a safe area are being impacted. We went through a feasibility study with our partner, which is the State of Florida Division of Forestry, who funded an analysis for us to go through and look at location criteria as in what we wanted in a property. And again, knowing that we were -- we were never looking for an OHV area that was simply just an OHV area but one that was going to be part of an amalgam of other recreational activities. So we went through a series of feasibility studies. We looked at a variety of other locations within Miami-Dade County, some of which were owned by the county, some of which were owned privately, some of which were an aggregate of smaller parcels, some of which were intact, some on natural areas, some had no natural values at all. All said and done, we ultimately came up with a recommendation that we look at focusing our area of interest on the TNT, which is the Transition and Takeoff Airport. This is a 24,000-acre property the county owns that kind of straddles the Miami-Dade County and Collier border. Once we zeroed in on this area, we were contacted by and we forwarded discussion with Collier County about the prospect for partnering on such a project. Collier County had gone through a similar process, and they had found that that -- there was not a viable site at that time, and they were interested in partnering with us. In this particular case, if you'll look -- we are looking at a 1,600-acre property immediately south of the runway. The runway is Page 161 October 20, 2009 a two-mile-long runway. It's the second longest runway in the State of Florida after NASA. In fact, it was designed not only for supersonic transport planes, but as an alternate site for the space shuttle. It is an activity airport, although minimal. In this particular case the area is managed principally for aviation use, but there are permitted uses for swamp buggies and hunting and gladesmen camp, and a modicum of mineral exploration in terms of oil and gas leases that, when the property was purchased in 1965 through 1968, were retained. The current recreational use of the area is defined largely by the resource areas. There are six lakes on the property. There is a smattering of really quality cypress head, cypress domes, hardwood hammocks, other freshwater wetlands and marshes, all of which are in various states of either being in excellent condition, some of them are in adequate condition, and some of them are actually impacted by some of the permitted uses right now. The areas that -- right now on the site the -- we are looking in this amendment for a variety of uses. Some of those uses, particularly those exclusively passive uses, are already permitted by the current conservation district. Those that are already permitted by right are camping and hiking and fishing and bicycles and wildlife viewing and other conservation uses. OHV s are permitted solely as a transportation, meaning for a person to hunt or a gladesman or some other -- but there is no motorized recreation permitted on the site. What we are looking for in this amendment is to modify both the Future Land Use Element as it relates to creating a specific Dade/Collier Cypress Recreation Area District, and we did that in kind of working with staff to note that we wanted to create almost an exception to the conservation area that would single out this area, that it wouldn't be readily repeatable such that we were able to control it, although please understand that the adjacent land use is Big Cypress National Preserve which allows almost 300,000 acres of OHV s along Page 162 October 20, 2009 it through a management plan, and that is an important distinction, that the conservation use might otherwise permit OHV s for recreational use were there to be a management plan. There is not one in our property yet, although as -- although we've agreed and worked with staff that as we move into zoning and others, that we will put an overlay management plan on this property to make certain that it's both consistent with our adjacent uses and your Growth Management Plan. Weare also looking to modify language in your -- in your Growth Management Plan to make two exceptions; one is for a proposed visitor's center because right now a nature center is permissible, but our is a visitor's center; in other words, it allows people a little more orientation and understanding to the site wherein we're going to require that anyone who seeks to ride on the property would have a level of education and understanding that they would not, you know, go off trails, you're not going to further impact the property. And second, that we would permit textual modification to allow OHV s for recreation, not just for transportation. As you can see, the conservation land subdistrict in the lime green, this property is in the far southeast corner, the 1,600 acres, and would be in essentially a subdistrict. The proposed text change, essentially create a future land use district to expand the range of permissible uses by only those two items, the visitor's center and the motorized recreation; they commit to an adaptive management plan at the time of zoning to manage both site and environmental analysis to make certain that we are going to confine ourselves to those permitted passive uses and to do so in a way that only enhances the site. And the last one is to demonstrate a compliance with county and state regulations, both county regulations for growth management and state regulations. This is an area of critical state concern. The state Page 163 October 20, 2009 has raised concern that the Big Cypress area of critical state concern, which this is in, that we abide by it and that this application is solely within it and that we are far below any threshold of impact proposed by that. And if there are -- if there is any further consideration, we'll see that when the state tenders their ORC Report. But thus far, what we-- whom we have talked with and what we have addressed, we think that we are clearly compliant in this. I'm not going to go through all the details, but essentially you have the larger one. Weare in agreement not only with the language proposed by staff to modify the Growth Management Plan as it relates to this -- the creation of this district, but we're also in agreement to some of the conditions that staff has proposed as a means of making certain that this is a property -- this is a project that will benefit both the -- impact natural resources, the public, as well as all regulatory considerations. And then again, this is the area that the proposed map change would take place, which is the 1,600 acres of the 24,000-acre property. I want to make certain that you understand the existing site use on the property. Right now there's about 40-plus miles of trails on the property. It is used almost exclusively as permitted land for hunters, gladesmen camps, a certain amount of riding back and forth, and then a certain amount of unauthorized trespassing because there is no on-site management, so you get people who like the site so much that they come at unscheduled times uninvited. The existing use has certain impacts that the -- some of the uses in terms of the riding on the property either off of infill -- remember that when this property was created, there was a -- six lakes that were dredged, and pads around them were filled. This property looks to make use of virtually only the filled area. The only exception to that are trails on the east side. And, in fact, our recommendation is, is that we're going to limit Page 164 October 20, 2009 or eliminate some of the, quote, noncontributing use. For example, we intend to eliminate hunting on the south side. We don't think that's necessarily compatible with a park. We're going to probably eliminate all of the legacy camp sites on there. In other words, we would allow the permits to terminate. And we would probably almost certainly remove the swamp buggies. The swamp buggies, although they -- on a site-by-site basis are not that egregious, when you see in wetlands over the years what they do, they kind of make a mess of the site, and it warrants our attention as a county property to look at mitigation and improvement of the property, allow it to be restored in many areas. The proposed site -- the proposed site use of the -- actually the proposed land use for this is a certain amount of using the lakes for fishing, eliminating essentially half of all the trails and converting one quarter of the remaining to hiking and bicycling and retaining only one quarter of the trails for OHV s, and of those, they would be stabilized, not anything different than Big Cypress has done in terms of how you manage and maintain appropriate motorized access. But the motorized access is also removed from sensitive areas whether they use a firebreak road or an extra existing fill pad. We just don't think as a parks department it would be appropriate to allow those type of uses to kind of go anywhere. So there -- when we get to that, we will prescribe the exact locations where they would be permitted. There's also an area for archery, because we've had certain interest in archery, had certain interest in camping, either -- both primitive camping and an RV pad area. And the last is a visitor's center just to provide a basis for rest rooms and site management. In general, the proposed site use, we're looking to convert aviation lands to conservation and recreation, use impacted areas only, eliminate half of all trails and all legacy campsites, convert the remaining trails to stabilize areas, supporting hiking and biking and OHV use, restore the natural flow and degraded trails. And I think Page 165 October 20, 2009 this is important that there has been a concern that to formalize and stabilize certain trails would do so -- would impact the sheet flow of the area, the natural flow of water. Well, in fact, working with Big Cypress, we've seen that you can very easily stabilize it at grade and provide a surface that can accept motorized use without impeding sheet flow. So I think that we're not looking to invent any -- anything new, but to adapt and adopt some of the policies that have worked in the hundreds of thousands of acres next door. And the last is eliminate hunting. And I think that all we want to do is just to reiterate, we want to introduce some additional recreation areas. Some of these have been as a part of discussion with Collier County, some of them are our own. In fact, we've already been testing our own staff. The bottom right picture is kind of a swamp tromp from our eco-adventure staff who have already been looking at programming this property on both -- basically pedestrian trails at different times of the year. And you will see here it's a wet trail. Now, there is -- clearly this is a wetlands, and no one would be -- you'd be foolish to deny that there are certain hydric periods of the year, whether it's really wet or really dry, that we're going to have to very strongly manage use. We wouldn't want it -- very wet periods or very dry periods to allow OHV use. We don't want to -- may not want to allow camping at the very dry uses. So this is a certain obvious and cogent way that we will manage this property to look at the types of recreational uses and when it can be open. In fact, there may be times of the year that simply this property is just not open because of the conditions therein. It is important that you recognize that your county has been very forward and very aggressive in working with us. In -- June 9th they passed a Collier County resolution in support of this joint project, and we've been working with them both in the land use and as upcoming Page 166 October 20, 2009 zoning will take place. And I will halt my presentation now, and we would be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Before questions, during disclosure I forgot to mention I had two contacts. Ms. Judith Huchinson (sic), who's with our EAC, contacted me. She was the -- I guess a no vote on the EAC when this came through and had some environmental concerns. She was not in favor of the project, and a Carolyn Kritts (phonetic) who is the retired deputy superintendent of Big Cypress National Preserve notified me that she also was not in favor of this project for various reasons. And that's my disclosure. Sorry I didn't make them earlier. With that in mind, we've heard the presentation by the applicant. Any there any questions of the applicant? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I have some. Mr. Murray, go ahead. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Out of curiosity, I can't resist. You folks do an AUIR; do you not? Maybe you call it something else; Annual Update and Inventory Report. MR. ASHER: No. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: You don't meet with the county and talk about your capital expenditures and the parks you're going to need for the future? MR. ASHER: Only within the department. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Oh, interesting. MR. COHEN: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay, thank you. My question is moot. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead. MR. COHEN: Let me go ahead and I'll answer for him. The Annual Update and Inventory Report is a requirement of our Land Page 167 October 20, 2009 Development Code. They are required to do an annual update of their Capital Improvements Element, which would include a parks component. MR. ASHER: Oh, okay, yeah. MR. COHEN: So they do do that. MR. ASHER: We update our Capital Improvement Element. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay. MR. ASHER: So I'm just reacting to -- your synonyms confused me. COMMISSIONER MURRAY : Well -- and I apologize. MR. ASHER: Certainly. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: My question really would be out of curiosity, and it's not pertinent to this but it's something related. When you count parks, do you count your community parks as being with your neighborhood parks and being with your regional parks? All of those are counted in? MR. ASHER: Miami-Dade County is a two-tear type of government. We provide local type of services for unincorporated, as in nonmunicipal, areas, and we provide county-wide or area-wide parks for all cities, and county included. We have only an approved level of service for our UMSA, as in our local services. So we have a 2.75 acre per 1,000 for our unincorporated areas, but we do not have a level of service for our area-wide. Were we to calculate it, it's somewhere around 7.1 acres. So in total, we're almost at 10 acres per 1,000 residents. And the county is relatively aggressive in both acquisition of land, as in we are beginning to buy local land. But of late, we've been -- the county has been buying more preserve and conservation lands because it's more-- it's better funded. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I want to thank you. I appreciate your answer. MR. ASHER: Thank you, sir. Page 168 October 20, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yes. You gave an acreage figure in Big Cypress that H -- OHV s are allowed. What was that figure again? MR. ASHER: In excess of 300,000 acres for the -- COMMISSIONER CARON: 300,000. MR. ASHER: And I guess -- and Big Cypress is going through an amendment now for an additional -- I think it's 75,000 acres. Now, I would -- I won't tell you that I know the exact amount of acres on which the OHV s are permitted, but when you look at the Big Cypress National Preserve and the areas on which there are trails designated for motorized access -- one area of which is immediately adjacent. So there is on exception that -- and I think probably an obligation that we'll manage our property no less rigidly than they manage theirs, and we'll allow a level of use for motorized recreation that may even be below what theirs is. COMMISSIONER CARON: All right. But you don't know the exact number of acres? MR. ASHER: Not the exact number of acres that they permit for motorized access. COMMISSIONER CARON: Okay. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody else before we go to staff? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Sir, I've got a question for you. Are those -- the lands that you're talking about using for this park and all the purposes that you're going to use in those lands, are they consistent with the purposes of the Big Cypress National Preserve? MR. ASHER: I would believe so since they're -- many of them are the same, meaning that they're the type of passive recreational activities that are nonconsumptive. So, yes, I would think that they're very similar, if not wholly consistent, with Big Cypress recreational activities. Page 169 October 20, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You know, I asked that direct question of some of those people, and numerous times I can't get an answer to that. I keep getting all these convoluted answers, but never just a yes or no. MR. ASHER: I hope mine was a yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, I understand it to be. I just was wondering why they wouldn't do that. MR. ASHER: And honestly, I mean, there is nothing -- and you know, we've worked with staff very closely that certainly -- the property has permission already to offer camping and fishing and hiking and wildlife viewing. So, you know, absent the transition from OHV as transportation to OHV as recreation and a -- even a more microscopic permission of going from a small nature center -- and the nature center is like 2,400 square feet or less. I mean, you're talking about an interior square footage that probably approximates the size of this room. So we see it as a fairly minor change, although it is an important one for your county. But I think the more important issue for us is, we would like to see a transition from an aviation property to a park and recreation property. We'd like to see uses that restrict what we believe are sometimes contrary to park and recreation; hunting, swamp buggies, even private use of public property in the way of campsites. And the last is, I think that we would like to see if there isn't a way within our own house of Miami-Dade County to preclude mineral exploration. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You may have said this before. What do you do for Miami-Dade County? Are you employed by them? MR. ASHER: Yes, I am. I manage special proj ects with the park and recreation department, of which just -- my first 20 years was in charge of planning for the department; land acquisitions site planning, compo plan. My next five years was property management; acquisitions, leases, licenses, interlocal agreements, interdepartmental Page 170 October 20, 2009 agreements. And now I manage more ofComp. Plans and DRIs and large development projects. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Is this property going to be included in your Capital Improvements Element? MR. ASHER: It will go as a capital improvement item in our updated Capital Improvement Element, yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN : Well, then I have a question of our staff. Why aren't we including this in our AUIR for parks and recreation if it's in Collier County? I mean, it's 1,600 acres that if Marla were to put that under her parks and rec., we wouldn't need any more parks and rec. land for 20 years. But like everything else, I'm sure they'll have an excuse why this can't be counted, just like the national -- or the state parks can't be counted. MR. COHEN: I think the answer to your question, Commissioner Strain, is that the item has not been approved at this point in time and it needs to be vetted through the appropriate agencies. And if it does get approved at that point in time, it would be considered for inclusion in the CIE. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So that means we've double counted it because they're going to count it. So I'd like to know how you're going to do that. MR. COHEN: We're going to -- MR. ASHER: I don't -- I mean, I don't think that double counting is an issue. I mean, for example, we will count a park property wherein we may own 12 acres, and we might lease six acres from a school. We will count -- and the six acres is for public recreation use. We'll count the entire 12 plus six acres, they will count the same six acres for school level of service. I don't think the double counting does a disservice to the community, rather it provides a broader understanding. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, I'm fine with it, as long as you don't use -- as long as our parks and rec. doesn't say, well, we can't count Page 171 October 20, 2009 that because they did, because then all of a sudden they'll start looking for another 1,600 acres to buy, which is where I'm trying to stop. We've already got enough acreage. But at the same time, it's interesting that your county can go outside your county boundaries and qualify parklands yet we're not capable of qualifying the parklands within our county as part of our AUIR. MR. COHEN: And Commissioner Strain, I might add, there's some other issues associated with ownership and use and some of those things that we're going to have to explore at that point in time, so it's just not an easy question to answer right on the spot. MR. WEEKS: Mr. Chair -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It's going to lead to some other questions here in a few minutes. MR. ASHER: One other -- there is a premise that should this item be transmitted to DCA and come back as an approved item, that somewhere during the next -- during the next year, there is an expectation -- and there is already a draft produced of an interlocal agreement between Miami-Dade and Collier County that provides for much of what you're talking about, a legitimized way for the -- Collier County to work with us to make certain that what it's demonstrated needs are may be put in here, matches ours, and it may be as a product of that item going to the board, may be the opportune time to consider how it might be incorporated into your Capital Improvement Element. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. I think we need to hear from staff at that point. Thank you, sir. Staff report, please. MR. GREENWOOD: For the record, Tom Greenwood, with Comprehensive Planning. I was listening to some of the discussion and thinking about some of my previous experience in park planning. One of the things that I noticed about this application -- and I Page 1 72 October 20, 2009 think staff, as you can see from the report, is recommending not to transmit. Effectively if this is transmitted and approved, what the county will be approving is a motorized active recreation park, so to speak, in the middle of a federal preserve on which hundreds of millions of dollars have been expended, okay. I'm not -- and I don't think staff is opposed to parks. Being opposed to parks is like being opposed to motherhood and apple pie. But again, this is a very unusual situation. The applicant, I think, has very well represented their proposal. In the staff report you have their language for text amendment, you also have counter-language for text amendment from staff. The primary reason for this amendment -- and again, is to allow OHV s, which will in this case, consist of off-highway vehicles and motor-cross off-highway motorcycles. There will be, if this proceeds, a management plan. The history -- and I don't know if it's in the application. I know it's not in the report. The history of why the federal government acquired the acreage for the federal preserve, the Big Cypress National Preserve, is because of the fact that Miami-Dade County back in the late '50s, early '60s, was proposing, as Mr. Asher has stated, to construct a major airport, an international airport, for international flights. There is a -- an existing 10,500-foot runway, which is significant. There is activity on that runway. It's, again, primarily for training. The environmentalists back in the late '60s, early '60s, I should say, got very upset about the concept of placing an airport there in the middle of the Everglades. Again, that whole area is essentially marshland most of the year. They intervened and, again, the federal government stepped in -- I think it was during Richard Nixon's presidency -- to purchase the first acquisition for the Big Cypress National Preserve at many millions of dollars, public dollars. And I emphasize the word preserve. It's exactly what it's called, and that Page 173 October 20, 2009 was the intent of the acquisition, is to preserve area. Now, when the federal government acquired the property, there were opposing interests to that acquisition, and there were certain stipulations that were provided and agreed to, among which is the continued use of swamp buggies, continued use of hunting, continued use of drilling in the area, but nevertheless, it was purchased specifically for a preserve. The location has really been talked about. Again, it's 1,600 acres; -- 1,608 acres to be exact. Interestingly enough, it's an active recreation park that's being proposed in the middle of the preserve that's approximately one hour driving time from both urban areas, that is Miami and from Collier County urban area. I've driven it a few times myself. In fact, I've driven by there so many times I didn't realize there was an airport there because you can't see it from the highway. It sets back a bit. But the 93 percent of the land is wetlands, and accessibility during most of the year is very limited and much of the year probably limited to swamp buggies, which the applicant has proposed to prohibit from that use -- for that use. The area is a conservation designation. It's also in the area of critical state concern. The zoning is conservation with an area of critical state concern/special treatment overlay. A little bit about the staff report, and then I -- I've got some brief videos that staff took on October 2nd. And Kevin and the staff from Miami-Dade were very generous enough to arrange for two swamp buggies and myself and a couple of people from environmental, toured the site. I thought, since it's so isolated -- once you get there, you don't want to get through it because it's all wet -- that you might be interested in seeing those videos. In the staff report there's an attachment, and it refers to 17 emails in opposition to the project. And I'll just summarize those emails. There's two or three pages. Page 174 October 20, 2009 Concerns were increased disturbance of the site from people and OHV usage, not to mention the other vehicles, the campers and trailers, et cetera, and other vehicles to pull those recreational vehicles. Loss of wildlife habitat. Somebody said the soils are shallow and sensitive to disturbance. Impact on panther habitat. Somebody said we already have enough areas for OHV usage. I might mention at this point that in the Big Cypress National Preserve, there's 400 miles of approved trails. In the addition I believe there's another 140 or 120 miles of additional trails that are being proposed, and that hasn't been decided yet. COMMISSIONER CARON: Say that again, Tom. I'm sorry. MR. GREENWOOD: In the existing, in the original NCP purchase, there's 400 miles of trails that are existing. In the addition, which I believe was purchased in the mid '70s, there's information in the staff report there's another 120 miles or so of proposed trails. Somebody said, you know, I go to the Everglades to escape the noise of the urban environment. And when I went to the neighborhood information meeting somebody said, they were sitting in the audience, they said, you know, we're not at all opposed to these other passive uses, but I'm not in favor of, you know, motorized vehicles. Somebody also said to me in an email that I own an OHV, but I wouldn't use it there. Going to the staff report also, two areas of insufficiency. And I might also mention that the applicant and their consultants have been very responsive to staff. The application you have, I think, is the third iteration, and I think it's fairly complete. Two areas that are insufficient -- and again, one is what we've talked about and you have heard about, is House Bill 697. They wrote a memo which I think is right at the front end of the application, which does not quantify greenhouse gas. More importantly, and I think this is extremely important, that the applicant has chosen not to submit desktop analysis comparing the Page 175 October 20, 2009 subject site and the modifications that have been done, such as the so-called permanent hardened trails that were used to haul the dirt from that site to the runways and to the access road to create the runways and access road, with an analysis -- surrounding properties, to show that this site is, in fact, different than surrounding properties. And I have a feeling that if that is not part of the public record before, if this gets transmitted, that that could come back to the county as a DCA ORC report item. It also could very well haunt the county in the future if there are similar applications in the future perhaps from private landowners that want to do something similar where the record does not clearly show an analysis of this site versus the surrounding area. So those are the two areas that we thought we should mention. I'll see if I can get up the -- Mr. Asher has shown the existing site, but I'll show it again. They're talking about reducing some of the trails. Some of the trails that are shown here, if you get in the field, are actually not visible. They're somewhat grown over. But there are showing on this the six lakes that were created. The straight lines, more or less north/south lines, and the lines right around the lakes are areas that were filled not only for construction of hardened roadways to haul the dirt from the lakes, but also the areas around the lakes were developed and filled as pad sites. I assume they used clam shells or something like that to get the dirt and create the lakes and the fill. And again, the preliminary site plan, which Kevin Asher has mentioned. Most of their development is proposed on the west end of the site nearest the three lakes that are clustered at the west end of the site closest to the access road. That wasn't supposed to be on. This is one of the north/south roadways. And this was built in the '60s, so you can see it's still there. And that would be one of the trails that they would actually use. This is the -- one of the west lakes, and you can see the areas around the lakes. And again, these are the fill areas around the lakes Page 176 October 20, 2009 that have been disturbed. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: By the way, Tom, we're going to probably need to take a break around 3:30 or so. Will you be wrapped up by then; do you think? MR. GREENWOOD: I think so, I think so. This is an example of one of the trails. And again, there's somewhere between six inches and a foot, foot and a half of water. We're going to swamp buggy here. This is a -- this is a second lake, similarly filled around the lake. I'm going to let -- when I'm finished with this, I think Laura would like to make some comments as well. MS. GIBSON: I just wanted -- Laura Gibson, environmental services. The first view you saw -- which one is this? Well, we don't have -- we don't really have to. It's kind of all of the -- around all the lakes. You can see there's still wetland plants coming back on filled -- on the filled areas. In the trail, one of the trail videos, you could see that the water level was about six inches below the normal high, according to where the liken lines were on the trees that -- it could still go higher. And that's all my comments on the videos. It was actually less disturbed than I had expected it to be, especially with exotic vegetation. And around the trails it would be where you would see most of the exotic vegetation from those trail impacts, too. It was -- hoping it would have been more degraded, but it was -- it was pretty pristine. And the trails themselves, it's hard to know how long they've been there. It's -- because of -- the soil site is -- the soil that -- is very shallow, and those impacts can -- can remain for many years, and take a long time to build back up, and the use is definitely going to be different. MR. COHEN: Mr. Chairman, could I add something before we finish here? I'd like the applicant -- they have the opportunity to Page 1 77 October 20, 2009 differentiate this particular site from neighboring sites and also to explain what he had proposed early in his development scheme, how it actually affects what was just shown on the video, because I think, after seeing that, it probably warrants a little bit more explanation on how his site plan will actually address some of the concerns, as he mentioned, fill, with respect to some of the trails, eliminating some, and I think it warrants a little more discussion from his perspective. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, we're going to proceed as we always have in these cases. We are going to listen -- finish the staff report. We are going to ask our questions. I need answers to certain concerns I have from staff that haven't even been addressed. I'm a little shocked that you haven't addressed some of the most important issues here today, but we will get into that. And then if the applicant wants to address further after that, they're more than welcome to. I want to get staff past their presentation first. MS. GIBSON: And this was the campsite that's remaining that was referred to earlier. It's in an oak hammock area, which is -- which is naturally a little higher, so this was one of the only areas that was not wet when we went out. It does have an ID number given by Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Use for hunting, we understood -- most weekends from September to December they go out there. MR. GREENWOOD: In conclusion, we have some findings -- some findings and conclusions, and they're shown -- I don't know if you care to go through those. They're shown on -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, Tom, the most important part about this, I think, is the impacts on Collier County from this facility and -- I mean, I know EAC dealt with the environmental. We've had -- the environmental issues are probably more obvious from on site, but I sure would like to explore our level of service problems and standards that are impacted by this, because that's what's going to cost the Collier County taxpayers/residents to the benefit of a Miami Page 178 October 20, 2009 facility. But I need to take a break for the court reporter. We've gone another hour and a half, and we normally take a break every hour and a half. So at 3:45 we will come back here and get into questions and specifics on, hopefully, level of services and other more critical issues. Thank you. 3:45. (A brief recess was had.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. We're going to resume with the staff report, but why don't we focus on the issues of cost to Collier County level of service standards, items like that, as a wrap-up, Tom, if you could, before we have our questions. MR. GREENWOOD: All right. And, again, for the record, Tom Greenwood. On Page 17, if you will -- I think there's a couple of other pages in the staff report. We talk about consistency with level of service standards for Collier County as it's laid our in the Annual Update and Inventory Report. At the neighborhood information meeting -- and it was held at the Oasis Center, very close. I think about five miles east of the subject site -- a representative from the Ochopee fire district was present, and he indicated that the response time would be about 30 minutes, which would be expected. I don't believe there's any anticipation of any additional fire departments or EMS facilities to service that site. The typical urban response time for fire protection is about four minutes. This would be about a 50-minute run. And, again, EMS typical response time is about 12 minutes. It's the loss specified in the AUIR. And, again, the response time would be 50 minutes. So the other public facilities or public types of facilities would be basically provided on site, the water, the solid waste. That's been addressed in the application. But the emergency response time was the major concern and issue. Page 1 79 October 20, 2009 And one thing I found out, and it was almost by accident when I drove that way on Easter weekend to go to Miami to visit a child of mine, I stopped at the site because I wanted to see what it looked like and tried to use a cell phone there and found my cell didn't work in that location. So cell service may be marginal for some cell users in that location. But, again, we're dealing with OHV s. Motorized accidents do happen. When I was on site on October 2nd in the swamp buggies, the only persons in vehicles I saw were the ones that were in the swamp buggies. I don't know if that's addressed to the extent that you wish -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It's close enough. We'll have specific questions, I'm sure. MR. GREENWOOD: The findings and conclusions, very briefly, are before you. And, again, we've talked about the impact on the environmentally sensitive areas, the Big Cypress area of critical -- and the area of critical state concern. Impacts of alternative sites for OHV usage. We've cited in the staff report there's 400 miles of existing OHV trails in the original Big Cypress National Preserve, another 120 miles are being proposed in the additional. Inconsistency with the existing conservation designation prohibit prohibition of recreational uses involving motorized vehicles. The Land Development Code defines passive recreation as recreational uses not involving the use of motorized vehicles. House Bill 697, greenhouse gases. We've talked about it. Staff has found that this GMP amendment would be inconsistent with policy 1.1.4 of the recreation of over -- open space element of the GMP, and it can be found inconsistent with the policy in that it is remote, it is located an area where major population growth is neither expected nor permitted. Policy 1.1.4 specifically says, the policy of the county is not to place parks -- and again, this is not a county park. Page 180 October 20, 2009 This is a park proposed by the Miami-Dade -- in areas where population growth is neither excepted nor permitted. Inconsistency with policy 1.8 of the economic element of the GMP. This project may be found inconsistent with this policy in that this project will have a negative impact on the environment. Number seven, inconsistency with Dover, Kohl & Partners' publication Toward Better Places. This study was done in, I believe, about 19 -- I'm sorry -- about 2004. Essentially 66 percent of Collier County is set aside for conservation and preservation purposes through public ownership or permitted land use limitations. And they talk about parks and wildlife refuges that are designated to restore the Everglades ecosystem, protect water quality and aquifer recharge, and protect listed species such as Florida panther, Florida black bear, and other species which utilize this region for their migrations and home ranges. Number eight, inconsistency with established emergency response times, levels of service. We've talked about that already. And last but not least -- and again, this is not unlike other applications. Perhaps they'd be completely different than this -- but there really needs to be a good documentation of differentiation between this site and surrounding sites, and that was not provided at -- you know, at the choice of the applicant to staff. So in conclusion, our staff recommends not to transmit this application to the Florida Department of Community Affairs. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Hi, Mr. Greenwood. You just said something that fascinated me. I'll have questions, but this one fascinated me -- that there needs to be a comparison of surrounding sites. MR. GREENWOOD: Yes. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: For what purpose? Page 181 October 20, 2009 MR. GREENWOOD: If, as part of the public record, there's not document that this site should be treated differently, in other words, in this case preferentially with surrounding property -- for example, documentation that there's more disruption change to this site than the surrounding property, then it gets to be a very difficult to, A, number one, justify this amendment but, B, more importantly, if the amendment goes through and is approved, to fend off future similar applications. For example, there are private properties that still remain out in this area where they may wish to come in and do something similar with motorized vehicles. And again, conservation designation and the Land Development Code define passive recreation as recreational uses without motorized vehicles, not involving motorized vehicles. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: How would it -- if there was a parcel 640 acres or larger adjacent or abutting even this particular park, would-be park, would they be looking to the park for verification of the use, comparison of use? Wouldn't that -- the park is currently being used in some form, in a number of forms actually. What I'm trying to understand is -- and I appreciate where you want to go. I understand you've said no. I appreciate that. But I'm just -- I'm just, I guess, a little shocked. It seemed to be a place that your focus of emphasis was on, it's water inundated most of the time. There's really no true application in your minds other than swamp buggy, but swamp buggy's going to go if they have their opportunity. Camping's going to go, the legacy camping, which will go. So, in other words, I'm gathering that this -- the staff believes that this property should just basically become just environmental use only and passive. MR. GREENWOOD: Well, the property essentially, with the exception of the disruptions that were done in the '60s, is marshland. It's marsh most of the year. I don't refer to this as a park because the land is owned by Miami-Dade County, but it's under the Page 182 October 20, 2009 administration of the airport authority. Effectively the airport authority manages this and is responsible for it, so to speak, for the county . If this project gets transmitted and if it's approved, then my understanding is is that it would become under the management of parks and recreation, become a park. But right now it's essentially aviation land, and I assume that there have been legal and illegal use of those -- of those trails over the years. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: So do they. MR. GREENWOOD: Yeah. And so -- it is what it is. And I was -- I think it was very worthwhile to see the site, you know, in a swamp buggy. And quite frankly, that was the only way to see it that day. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, I guess the key word here you've used is, it's already been disrupted. MR. GREENWOOD: Parts of it, yes. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, we know -- some know what it's uses (sic) for, and there have been -- I heard the word legacy campers. That means that there are people who are using it under some statutory arrangement from Miami-Dade. MR. GREENWOOD: There is one legacy camp that we're aware of, and that was in one of the slides that you saw. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay. But my point is is that the property has already been subj ect to use. And as you may know, the county is looking for a place to allow people with off-road vehicles to pleasure. And I'm just -- I don't want to be arbitrary in any way and I don't want to be hostile in any way, but can we not find anyplace for these folks? I mean, the property's already been in a state of disruption. So I guess -- it's a general question certainly, but go ahead. MR. WEEKS: Let me make a couple of remarks. First of all, I just want to make sure we're absolutely clear what the county was Page 183 October 20, 2009 asking for. We were encouraging the applicant to make their case. If -- at first blush, and I guess I'd say substantiated by the site visit, this -- from our perspective, this is not an appropriate site for off-highway vehicles. There has been some impact to the property without question. But the vast majority of the site has not been disturbed or significantly so, that -- to the extent that restoration, either on its own over a long period of time or man-created restoration could fully restore the habitat of value of the property. So what we're asking for, for the applicant to do, is compare your site with other sites, show us how you're different. Because we look at our Future Land Use Map. You're designated conservation. The intent is for that land not to be developed, not to be disturbed, and yet that's what you're asking to do, to some degree. And so we were inviting them to show us, how are you different? Go back to one of the prior petitions, the Filmore property. They're in the sending lands near the landfill. That's exactly what they did. You look at the Future Land Use Map. Their designation was sending lands. The Future Land Use Element would tell us that is not an appropriate place for development. The purpose was, for that -- I mean, that's just a different name really for conservation but in a context of our TDR program. But they could demonstrate that, well, our site does not have the habitat value and, furthermore, that they had an agricultural-type use that was lawfully permitted on the property. So to put it in context, they were able to demonstrate, we don't want sending designation. Well, that's, in essence, what we're asking them to do here, show us why you deserve a different designation, how there's something different about your property than the tens or hundreds of thousands of other acres of land designated conservation. To your second point about, is there no place for these? It's difficult, I think, to find a location because so much of the county that Page 184 October 20, 2009 has -- that is outside of the urban area is environmentally sensitive. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I know. MR. WEEKS: And that does make it difficult, but there are lands available, certainly privately owned, and then it's a matter of, does either a private entity come in and develop an A TV park such as the Red Deck Yacht Club we reference in the staff report up on Charlotte County, which is admittedly a very different type environment? And the applicant certainly pointed that out to us. That's your yahoo riding and drinking and so forth, and they're talking about a family-type atmosphere. So we certainly acknowledge there's a difference. But the point being that potentially the private sector could step in and meet this need; otherwise, it would be, if the local government's going to do it, then we may need to acquire lands from a private landowner, forming ago fields, for example, or some other type of either less or not environmentally sensitive land. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I appreciate your reply. From my way of thinking, it would appear that there wouldn't be anyplace, because we are subj ect to inundation by water and because we are flat, and even with those properties that are private, if they wanted to come and offer development of that type to satisfy that particular need, my guess is the staff would take the same position. So it's a no, no, no, no. I just -- and maybe that's correct. And by the way, one thing; I've always understood there's -- between 80 and 81 percent of the lands in Collier County are held in conservation. We have 66 percent. Maybe there's a differentiation I should know about, because I've been going around foolishly saying 80, 81 percent. MR. GREENWOOD: Well, let me respond to that. About 66 percent is in conservation and is owned publicly. There's about another 20 percent which is in the Rural Land Stewardship Area, all right. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: So I was not wrong. Page 185 October 20, 2009 MR. GREENWOOD: Yes, so you're in the ballpark. And if you put those two numbers together, you're pretty close to 80 percent, which potentially could be considered. MR. SCHMITT: For clarification. If you take Conservation Collier, all the other federal and state and local conservation areas, it comes out to about 78, 79 percent. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay. So I certainly was right. MR. SCHMITT: Sixty-six percent public. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And I guess that adds to the flavor of this thing. Maybe there's no place in Collier County, but I know that there are an awful lot of people who own those vehicles and would like to be able to use them. It seems this is property they own, it's been utilized, it's a park, they'll-- I presume it will be managed as a park. MR. SCHMITT: Let me clarify. It's not a park now. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: No. It would become a park. I know, yes. MR. SCHMITT: You know. And certainly, if that's your opinion, then -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, it's an opinion, but I guess I'm speaking out of frustration more than I am out of -- I mean, this looks overwhelming when you look at the statements. But then again, when I think about all of the other lands that are in conservation and then the residual, whatever remaining lands are also subj ect to the same conditions here. So we might as well tell all those people, there is no place. MR. COHEN: Mr. Murray? And I think maybe this will help some. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to carry on. MR. COHEN: Yeah. What we-- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I would like to get to other questions, Page 186 October 20, 2009 Randy, so just -- we drag this staff report out for longer than the presentation, which is a little unusual, so let's just get to our questions. MR. COHEN: Yeah. I more or less just want to cut to the chase. What we asked for was data and analysis from the applicant to support the request, okay. Is the property scarified, you know? What's going on on the property. Differentiate your property from the surrounding properties. And that's what we had hoped to get from them. So when you ask, is this property different than others, that's what we're asking them to do to move forward with this, if they can do that. And we haven't -- we haven't seen any. They just haven't addressed the issue. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: All right. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Now let's get back-- COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: I'm ready to make a motion. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- to questions. Pardon me? COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: I'm ready for a motion. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I know, Mr. Kolflat, but we do have to -- I would like to have some questions answered that were on -- more or less focused on the problems rather than the aesthetics. And I'm just going to start asking them. David, Joe, whoever's in charge of determining level of service standards in the AUIR, can you tell me, by a reduction in response time, a substantial reduction in response time into our -- let's start with the fire department. They also have ISO ratings that they base on, I believe, response times. How does the response times that are diluted by a condition without -- that's 50 miles out on the outskirts of our county affect the response -- the ratings for our level of service and our ISO ratings for our local fire department that would have to respond to this? MR. SCHMITT: Well, it's going to adversely impact. I can't tell you how because I've not gotten that specific information from the chief of Ochopee, but it's no different than responding to any type of Page 187 October 20, 2009 accident on U.S. 41. It has a significant impact on response time. The Ochopee Fire District faces that problem with 41 now. This would certainly add a burden to that fire district to respond to any type of activity down in this part of U.S. 41. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And I'm assuming you'd have a similar response when I would ask you about the EMS and about the Sheriffs Office? MR. SCHMITT: Absolutely, same response. None of that data and analysis has been provided. We didn't do the analysis from staff, but we've not -- we've not analyzed the adverse impacts from a standpoint of level of service response time. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. You know, we have an AUIR. The AUIR sets our level of service standards for the various elements, including fire, EMS, and SO. Ifwe are required by our AUIR to keep and sustain those standards, how do we rea- -- what does it mean to us when the standard is, let's say, impinged or threatened by much longer times and a lowering of the standard based on a facility such as this. Will the taxpayers have to make up a sufficient loss to bring the level of standard back into compliance with the AUIR? MR. SCHMITT: The only way it would be done is if the board approved, yes, we would have to probably locate another station or some other type of temporary service out there to reduce the response time. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, Mark? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And I know a little about ISO ratings. First of all, they're with residential and stuff. This is a unique situation. I mean, we're not getting bad ratings because we have guys out in boats three miles in the water. The people that go to this are going to a frontier. Everybody's wide awake of where they're going. Things have to be done to mitigate. I mean, Tom says the cell phone doesn't work, so I guess we'll have one of those good, Page 188 October 20, 2009 old- fashioned payphones sitting out there. I mean, there's ways to mitigate it. Everybody's going out for a frontier experience. They're not expecting urban services, nor is it going to, I'm sure, affect our urban ratings. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So how many people do you think are-- what was the studies that were submitted under data and analysis of Collier County residents, who would be primarily paying for this, going 50 miles out to enjoy a ride in the swamps? MR. SCHMITT: I do not have that data. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Mark, I have a question. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I mean, essentially, this is, the City of Miami owns a piece of property, or Miami-Dade County. They want to use that for a park. That's the application. I mean, they're letting us come play in their park. We have an agreement there, but essentially they want to build a park. Isn't that right? I mean, we're not the applicant. It's going to be, their guy's are going to go there. They are going to be nice and let us go out and play, but isn't that -- is that what's happening? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah. But my point is, Brad, that we have to cover the costs to cover the park with our services. Unless I hear differently, we've got to provide the fire, the EMS, the SO. It's in our territory. And if they want to do it so bad, why don't they annex that part of our county and get it out of the our county? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: If some of these -- you know, like out in the boat, out in their park, get hurt, they're going to pull in our EMS and stuff. But how do we know that's not going to be charged back to the incident? I mean, the issue here is this a good -- at this point -- because it's the GMP -- is this a good place for a park? And you know, I kind of know the site a little bit, is, you know, it's borrow pits and roads where Page 189 October 20, 2009 they dragged fill to make this airport a long time ago. Everybody got mad at them for that. It's really ruined land to the south of that. The water flow doesn't go through the runway and get to that, I don't even think. So I mean, this is a piece of really environmentally messed up land that might make a good place for a park like this, in my opInIon. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. MR. SCHMITT: Well, in response to Commissioner Strain, when this comes back either through adoption or through subsequent zonIng process -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. MR. SCHMITT: -- there would have to be interlocal agreements, they would have to spell out and specify support requirements, all the other type of things associated with this facility. So those type of things would have to be done between the two governments in order to describe who's going to supply the services, will there be any associated financial support, those type of things? Primarily EMS. EMS, of course, the sheriff that patrol in that part of the county would require more sheriff -- may require more patrol, but it certainly is going to require some change in response times. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But Joe, we're out in the middle of the swamp. I mean, the people that are going there are going out to go to the middle of the swamp. They know they leave the urban, you know, amenities behind. MR. SCHMITT: Well, we live in a litigious society as well. So if somebody gets hurt -- I don't know if the applicant even has addressed that. That's-- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, they own the property. MR. SCHMITT: I have to defer to the applicant to address that Issue. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yes. Right now, under the Page 190 October 20, 2009 conservation designation that the city of -- this property that the city of -- the county of Miami-Dade owns, they have multiple uses for this piece of property already that they can do today without anything happening. The big change here is to convert it to OHV. And we have heard from staff that there's already 400 miles ofOHV trails and the potential for 120 miles more in the Big Cypress already. Why we need more is beyond me. I think we should be very concerned about the safety issues that staff has brought forward. Our response times should be of great concern to everybody on this board, I would think. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Any other questions of staff? Mr. Wolfley? COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Quick one. How -- how much response was to -- I just noticed the neighborhood information meeting had a handful of people, a dozen or so. Has there been much support for this thing, or has there been more opposition than support? Does anybody -- I mean, I can only go by what I've got here. MR. WEEKS: I'll let Tom give more specifics. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I saw the emails and all that. MR. GREENWOOD: My recollection, without looking at the staff report, is there are about 12 or 14 people that attended, and the majority of the people there were in support, but they were also representing Miami-Dade County, the applicant. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Right. Not just that, but have you received anything else we haven't seen? MR. GREENWOOD: Other than the email -- I received a barrage of emails, which you have as part of the staff report, and I think those were stimulated by an organization, and they all came in about the same time to my department. I might also point out -- and again, in the report there's also some letters of support, and one of them happens to come from Collier Page 191 October 20, 2009 County Sheriffs Department. But again, those are letters of support as well there. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Okay, thank you. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I had a thought. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Mr. Murray. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Now I have to try to remember what that thought was, Mr. Greenwood. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody else? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: No, no, no. I got it. I'm slow, but I'm not that bad. Do -- it's a rhetorical question really, because I think I know the answer. It's a park, or will be a park, or it's currently being used by the people of Miami-Dade as whatever. If it becomes a park, will we not see people from other counties using this park? Will we not have people from Miami-Dade using this park ifit becomes a park? MR. ASHER: Is that a question for the applicant? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yes. And the answer is, of course. MR. ASHER: The answer is yes. The traffic analysis that we did detailed the percentage that -- the proportionate percentage that respected counties would have. In fact, Dade County is only expected to provide about 35 to 40 percent. Collier County is expected to provide 35 or 40 percent, but other -- all the way to Palm Beach. The deficiency in OHV-accessible areas, as in safe, secure, licensed, educated, and enforced areas is so severe that now most people who want to ride legally go to Ocala as in Croom, which is a five-hour, thereabout, five-hour trip from Miami or Broward or four hours from here. Now, having said that, you can ride illegally anywhere else. I've seen it on your right-of-ways, I've seen it on our right-of-ways, ago areas. So there is every exception that this property is uniquely positioned, meaning it's smack dab between two metropolitan areas, Page 192 October 20, 2009 but it's only less than one mi- -- less than one hour from the -- from the MSS -- MSA area of a multitude. We're talking over five million persons have access to this site as a wilderness park on -- only using 1 percent of the area in a safe, secure, permissible use. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And apparently you do not have a restriction as we do, as he cited the rows (sic), which said that we cannot put a park out in the boondocks because we can't support it. Apparently you can do that? MR. ASHER: That's correct. I mean, we have -- in our system we have another motorcycle park on the far northern -- northwestern edge of Miami-Dade County. The nearest fire station is about, I would say, 27 miles. As other members have said, people go there to have a wilderness or distant experience. On-site staff functions as first providers, as in they do CPR, they have, you know, electric equipment. They do -- they have, you know, initial rescue services. There is no expectation that they're going to supplant fire or police. But I'll tell you in the last three years that I most know at that property, yes, there may have been some accidents, none of which -- none of which merited emergency rescue not being able to come in a timely fashion. So when I see or hear that emergency rescue has evidence of 30-minute call time yet in the application they did respond. Emergency rescue provided that this was not outside of their area. Yes, it may be a little longer than urban area. Of course it is. Is it longer than going to Oasis, as in the visitor's center down the road? It may be a little bit longer. Is it longer than to the Indian settlement that is the Miccosukee Trail who reside along the trail? No. It's exactly in that same area. Sheriffs Department commented on it, and the Sheriffs Department has provided a letter attesting to their support because they contend -- and this is an important distinction -- that what minor Page 193 October 20, 2009 issues may be for a longer service period are more than overcome by the number of lives that this property can save. A safe, secure, supervised area for off-roaders will relieve, in many cases, people having accidents and loss of life on your very same roads in town. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Thank you. And I will make one final comment regarding availability of services. If anyone visits a national park, especially Out West, one knows that you could be in the wilderness in a very short time, and your expectation is not that you will see services immediately; that you know you take risk. And I recognize there is some kind of a balancing act, but, you know, sometimes we can overaccentuate, too. We used to be a land of personal responsibility. MR. ASHER: And, you know, Tom mentioned cell service. Well, on site is Internet service, electricity, hard lines. If you have Verizon, you have three bars, if you have Metro PCS, you may have zero bars; when we were out there, all of the airboat -- all of the swamp buggy guys have their own cell service. It works fine. Yes, there are certain pockets, as is everywhere, that may be compromised. But in no way, shape, or form are you very far from being able to make a call for emergency services of any type. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Thank you, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Can you tell me how much of the improvements of this facility will be paid for by Miami-Dade? MR. ASHER: Well, at this point if Collier does not come to the table, then Miami-Dade would pay 100 percent; however, Collier, has evidenced both an interest in the joint development, meaning the development fees, and the development as in construction costs. Now, at this point Collier has -- at the same time, because I want to be fair. Collier, your Board of County Commissioners, has evidenced that their preferred scenario is to find their own site. But as Mark and as Tom have said in here, the alternative sites that were evaluated in here -- and people have said that, why didn't we do it? Page 194 October 20, 2009 Well, we didn't do it because our partner, the Collier County Park and Recreation Department, did the evaluation and provided the information to planning staff. They did the evaluation of the alternate areas. None of them have been found acceptable. The only one that's proximate was considered to be contaminated. The county has chosen not to buy a site. They're now in litigation with the South Florida Water Management District to figure out a way to offset the loss of the Picayune Strand. We're very supportive of that. If they are successful in them, we're more than happy that they go alone and we will go our lonesome. Absent that, we have offered them the opportunity to join with us on this project because it's halfway between our properties. So either way, Collier will be well served. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is Miami-Dade going to pick up the cost for Collier's emergency services to respond to the site? MR. ASHER: No, because at this point the Sheriffs Department has evidenced that the -- that enforcement for police is under their purview, and fire is also under their purview. So our county services do not go outside of our county. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, I know they don't, but are you going to reimburse Collier County for our cost to service this area? MR. ASHER: I think that's an issue that can be addressed in a j oint use agreement when it becomes a discussion item for your board and ours. So, yes, those are things that can be discussed. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You already had the discussion though because you have a resolution, right? MR. ASHER: We have a resolution that the -- both boards are in joint support of the development and operation of this and that both will support the development approvals to make it so. But no, there has not been a resolution, only that they would like to see a joint use agreement and one has -- and an initial one has been proffered. And Page 195 October 20, 2009 certainly, I think the appropriate staff at the various levels can determine what are the items that should go in there. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Thank you. MR. ASHER: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are there any other questions of the applicant or of staff or anybody? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And David, can you give me the list of public speakers that are here? MR. WEEKS: It's zero. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody in the public wishing to speak? Since nobody is here, I think that is obvious, but I want to get it on for the record. Okay. With that, we will-- is there any final comments from anybody, including the applicant? MR. ASHER: Just a small comment. Tom, who has been very kind and very helpful as a planning liaison for this application, was evidencing that although everything in the proj ect is of a passive nature, as determined by your Compo Plan, the transition of OHV use from transportation to recreation would make the property active. It wouldn't. There may be -- if you want to define that one use of OHV s as active, the rest of all activities are passive. So it is very much -- remember we are very proud to seek to make this property a park and recreation property that strives to be a conservation or preservation area by eliminating certain undesirable uses, and we would very much like to see it abide by a management plan closer to that of Big Cypress and hope that your approval today will allow us. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Okay. With that, we'll look for discussion. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, one thing we never did is run through the staffs -- Page 196 October 20, 2009 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, there were such minor changes, but that's fine; 26, 27, and 28. Let's take them all at once. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I have a question. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Mr. Schiffer. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And it's G. It's, why don't you want the wildlife viewing platforms and overlooks? The good thing about that is that might make -- a destination might make this more fun for the users. MR. GREENWOOD: What I actually did there -- what these changes reflect are they pretty much mirror a couple pages; Page 3 in appendix of the application. So what I did is I eliminated G, which is crossed out and just simply brought that forward into F. It's not -- it's included, but it's not a separate line. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. Sorry. I didn't see that. MR. GREENWOOD: Yeah. And that's the reason that was done. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: All right, thanks. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are there any other questions on the language on those pages? Did the applicant have any concerns with the language on Pages 26, 27, 28, which is the actual GMP language proposed by staff? MR. ASHER: If you'll give us a moment. There are just a few minor areas, and we've actually had this discussion with staff. For example, Page 27, under the drainage and stormwater management system, the last paragraph, where it says lake edges, crossed out may and put shall be improved with shallow littoral edges. Well, shallow littoral edges are not permissible on that site. The site -- the overall site is managed as an airport. Littoral edges attract wading shore birds. Shore birds and planes are incompatible. So while we said may -- because there are certain areas that we want to make very small littoral edges that you can either launch a boat, you can have some wading birds -- we are federally prohibited Page 197 October 20, 2009 from attracting wading shore birds and, therefore, we have discussed multiple times that -- that creating littoral edges along all of the areas would simply be impermissible. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Isn't that an area pretty swampy? I mean, aren't you going to have birds in the swamp like we normally do? MR. ASHER: No. As a matter of fact, in this area -- and Laura or Tom can attest -- the lakes do not attract your normal wading birds because they're very deep. The other shallow areas don't attract -- absent the cypress domes and the hammocks, don't attract regular shore birds. Shore birds don't wade in a cypress -- in a cypress wetland. So oddly enough, there isn't the same array of herons and egrets and other endemic species on this property that there are, like, along the trail or in larger lake systems that have littoral edges. So it is a little different in that regard, and it has been since the mid '60s. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Do you have any other issues with the language besides that one sentence? MR. ASHER: The only one is the number 10. Again, it address the same issue. If we're asked to do restoration plans essentially for all lakes, and the restoration plans are governed by the creation of littoral edges, then we would be -- we're essentially not going to be able to respond to that because we're going to be prohibited. So where we say where deemed appropriate -- because there are going to be certain areas that are going to work, and we've talked with Laura about this. There are wonderful opportunities. I mean, our department has crafted hundreds of acres of mitigation land and wetland restoration in Miami-Dade County. We look forward to doing it here with you. But I do not want to misguide you that we're going to be able to do it 100 percent when, in fact, we cannot attract the same type of shore bird that we might at another hollow littoral-edge water body. Page 198 October 20, 2009 Other than that, we are fine. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Laura, do you want to explain to us about your thoughts on the shore birds? MS. GIBSON: Yes, thank you. I would say that most of the site would pro- -- would be good habitat for foraging for wading birds. There's -- there are rockeries a half mile from the site. They tend not to -- it is true they don't forage in deep lakes. But most of the site is wet for most of the year, and that's where they would fish. Fish would be in there for them to forage on no matter where they are in cypress swamps. There are wood storks and various wading birds that forage in lots of different forested areas, not just lakes. I would say that littoral zones would be the last place that they would. So that part doesn't really matter to environmental staff if that's in there or not. I still think that they would be utilizing most of the site, and I think that we probably didn't see any that day because the swamp buggies were just really loud and probably scared them off. MR. ASHER: And we're very supportive of every area -- we're very supportive of enhancing additional wildlife in all of the areas, wood storks in the cypress heads, the domes, because we are a conservation organization. So I'm certain that absent that one small consideration, I think that it opens up a wonderful opportunity to restore natural populations to what had been managed as both an aviation area or mineral exploration area. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Based on our environmental staffreport, should this be transmitted, then the word shall would be struck and it would be may as originally inserted. And under number 10, where deemed appropriate would be placed back in, and that would then work for your -- MR. ASHER: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- review of the language, and that-- staff doesn't seem to have an objection at this point to that then? Page 199 October 20, 2009 MR. ASHER: Correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Are there any other issues we have? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Then let's -- Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Make the motion that we transmit based on the corrections to the language that have just been accepted by the petitioner. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is there a second? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'll second that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer seconded. Is there discussion? COMMISSIONER KOLFLA T: I had a question. What is the motion for? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The motion is made for -- to transmit for approval. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: For approval. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: For approval? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes. It would be to transmit, is what it's officially called. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I have -- I'll offer some discussion. Number one, I support staffs findings one through nine. I also am concerned that there's not been any data or -- supplied that offsets the potential negative costs to Collier County citizens for impacts to our level of service through fire, EMS, and sheriff. I also have not seen any data that supports the fact that this is practical for a site of this nature to be 50 miles out and its usage ability by the citizens of Collier County. I believe that the use of the A TV s is inconsistent and incompatible with the passive uses of conservation land. I see no public benefit to Collier County from this, but I do see Page 200 October 20, 2009 public detriment because it hasn't been proven otherwise, and I certainly have not -- I notice that there's a lack of financial commitment for cost involved in this. And I understand there's an agreement that could be up -- forthcoming, but it should have been provided by now if it was seriously considered, at least a draft of it. So I will be not supporting the motion. Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: People have boats. They keep their boats on their property. They look to have a place to go to take their boat, put it in the water. We spend a lot of money. The number of boats in the county may be large, but it is not the entire county. So in that sense, we facilitate and spend money for a segment. We do likewise for any number of other segments. And this is a segment of population. Some people don't care for the A TV s. I personally don't like them. But in terms of -- they are a part of our population. And while we could say that because it's 50 miles away, it doesn't serve the population, as long as it supports a sufficient number of population, and more -- to me, more importantly, environmentally, it keeps these A TV people from going and trespassing and ruining lands that would otherwise stay pristine, and it also prevents accidents. Anybody who lives in the Estates has a story about A TV s running up and down their streets. And that may not stop entirely, but it may help to provide it. So that's why I favor it. I understand the arguments. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray, was that in response to my statements? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: No, it was my statement. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Because I didn't say anything about whether I favor or don't favor A TV s. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: No. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other comments before we call for the vote? Page 201 October 20, 2009 (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. The motion is to recommend transmittal, which is recommend approval more or less. All those in favor, signify by raising their hand and saying aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: One, two, three, four in favor. All those opposed, same sign. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: (Raises hand.) COMMISSIONER CARON: (Raises hand.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: (Raises hand.) COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: (Raises hand.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: One, two, three, four. That will give the commission something to think about. So that goes forward, again, as a tie vote. David, you'll have fun with this one as well. Okay. With that, we have finished up today's agenda, and we need a motion to continue. Go ahead. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I make a motion we continue to October 29th. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: At 8:30 in the morning in this room. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: In this room. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is there a second? COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: So moved. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Made by Mr. Vigliotti. All in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. Page 202 October 20, 2009 COMMISSIONER VIGLIOTTI: Aye. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion carries 8-0. David, you had something you wanted to -- MR. WEEKS: I just wanted to know if you wanted to put on the record specifically -- I realize you're continuing the hearing, but specifically what petition will be heard that day, just part of the record. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'll be glad to mention it now. I mentioned it in the beginning of to day's meeting. It will be CP2007-5. It's the Logan/Immokalee mixed-use subdistrict, and that will be on October 29th as we just voted for continuance. MR. WEEKS: Okay. And Mr. Chair, I just want to verify that it did happen either earlier today or yesterday that the petition CP2008-3 was continued to November 19th at your regular Planning Commission hearing. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. I had said that this morning when we opened, but thanks for the reminder. MR. WEEKS: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. We're out of here. Page 203 October 20, 2009 ***** There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 4:31 p.m. COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSIONERS MARK STRAIN, Chairman These minutes approved by the Board on or as corrected , as presented TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICES, INC., BY CHERIE' NOTTINGHAM AND TERRI LEWIS. Page 204