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BCC Minutes 12/08/1999 W (Transportation)December 8, 1999 TRANSCRIPT OF THE TOWN HALL MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Naples, Florida, December 8, 1999 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners, in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as the Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing board(s) of such special districts as have been created according to law and having conducted business herein, met on this date at 7:00 p.m. in WORKSHOP SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: ALSO PRESENT: CHAIRWOMAN: Pamela S. Mac'Kie Barbara B. Berry John C. Norris Timothy J. Constantine James D. Carter Robert Fernandez, County Administrator David Weigel, County Attorney Edward Kant, Transportation Services Director John Boldt, Collier County Stormwater Management Director Ed Ilschner, Public Works Administrator Robert Wiley, Project Manager, Public Works Engineering Page 1 COLLIER COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS AGENDA DISTRICT 1 TOWN HALL MEETING To be held at the Naples campus of Edison Community College 7007 Lely Cultural Parkway Wednesday, December 8, 1999 7:00 p.m. NOTICE: ALL PERSONS WISHING TO SPEAK ON ANY AGENDA ITEM MUST REGISTER PRIOR TO SPEAKING. SPEAKERS MUST REGISTER WITH THE COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR PRIOR TO THE PRESENTATION OF THE AGENDA ITEM TO BE ADDRESSED. COLLIER COUNTY ORDINANCE NO. 99-22 REQUIRES THAT ALL LOBBYISTS SHALL, BEFORE ENGAGING IN ANY LOBBYING ACTIVITIES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ADDRESSING THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS), REGISTER WITH THE CLERK TO THE BOARD AT THE BOARD MINUTES AND RECORDS DEPARTMENT. ANY PERSON WHO DECIDES TO APPEAL A DECISION OF THIS BOARD WILL NEED A RECORD OF THE PROCEEDINGS PERTAINING THERETO, AND THEREFORE MAY NEED TO ENSURE THAT A VERBATIM RECORD OF THE PROCEEDINGS IS MADE, WHICH RECORD INCLUDES THE TESTIMONY AND EVIDENCE UPON WHICH THE APPEAL IS TO BE BASED. ALL REGISTERED PUBLIC SPEAKERS WILL BE LIMITED TO FIVE (5) MINUTES UNLESS PERMISSION FOR ADDITIONAL TIME IS GRANTED BY THE CHAIRWOMAN. IF YOU ARE A PERSON WITH A DISABILITY WHO NEEDS ANY ACCOMMODATION IN ORDER TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS PROCEEDING, YOU ARE ENTITLED, AT NO COST TO YOU, TO THE PROVISION OF CERTAIN ASSISTANCE. PLEASE CONTACT THE COLLIER COUNTY FACILITIES MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT LOCATED AT 3301 EAST TAMIAMI TRAIL, NAPLES, FLORIDA, 34112, (941) 774-8380 1. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 2. STAFF PRESENTATIONS A. PUBLIC WORKS DIVISION 1) Status report to the Board and to the public regarding Transportation Services Department work program in Commission District 1. 2) Lely area stormwater improvement project status report. 3. ADJOURN 1 December 8, 1999 December 8, 1999 COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We're going to call the meeting to order. Thank you, and welcome. It's Commissioner Norris's district. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. I thank all you ladies and gentlemen for showing up here. There's been a mixup in the advertising, as some of you probably know. Our crack newspaper has advertised it for 8:00. So I know the people that are here obviously are expecting to start at 7:00, which is what it was supposed to start at. So we are going to go ahead and start, and hopefully we can address everybody's questions that are here, and perhaps then we'll catch some more people at 8:00 and talk to them as well. But to start the meeting off, why don't we all have a pledge of allegiance to our flag. (Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) COMMISSIONER NORRIS: What we're going to do tonight is we're going to first have a couple of our staff members tell what's going on in their particular bailiwick. We have several of the departments represented here. And then after we get through with that and hopefully we'll keep that fairly short, then we'll answer any questions that you may have. And you just feel free to ask whatever you want. This is actually your meeting. It's fairly informal. If you want to ask a question, just come up to the microphone and tell us what's on your mind and we'll be glad to see, if we can possibly answer it, we'll do it. So with that, who's going to start today? Mr. Ilschner, are you number one on the totem pole tonight, or what? MR. ILSCHNER: Yes, sir, Mr. Norris. We have Mr. Ed Kant that's going to provide the board and audience a status report on transportation activities in your district. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: And as you staff members come up to speak, would you please introduce yourself and tell what your position is? Because some of the people here may not know who you are. MR. ILSCHNER: For the record, my name is Ed Ilschner, public works administrator for Collier County government. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Thank you. MR. KANT: Thank you, commissioners, Mr. Ilschner. My name is Edward Kant. I'm the county's transportation services director, pleased to report to you this evening that the transportation services department is carrying on operations in four distinct areas: Traffic operations, landscape maintenance operations, transportation administrative issues, and road and bridge operations. Our road and bridge projects in this area include a number of replacement or repairs in the Lely area, on Sabal Palm Road, in the Washington Palm Street area, out in the east area of Green Way, Caroline and Martin Streets and Marco Road, Big Springs Drive. We have a number of drainage system improvements. The ditches are to be dug out in the Polly/Sunset/Whitaker area, Trail Acres and the Naples Manor area. Our urban rural mowing program is on about a five to six-week cycle. Of course this time of year it slows down a bit because the Page 2 December 8, 1999 growing is not nearly as fast. Our urban mowing, we try to get to a four to five-week cycle, but sometimes it stretches out a little bit. On the main arteries we're trying to go to a three-week cycle where we have the major grass areas, Rattlesnake Hammock, Santa Barbara, 951. We're doing some shrubbery and radius work: Highland, Lombardy -- from Albert Drive to Highland to Lombardy and along Lombardy in the Tomlinson area. We're doing some brush and vegetation trimming in the Capri Tower area; doing a lot of weed eating and cleaning out in the outfall ditches of Gulf Acres, Coconut River Estates, North Road, Gail Boulevard, Barefoot Williams. We have two jet vacs that we're using to do our drainage pipe cleaning, and we sweep our gutters and curbs on the curb section of the arterials on about a three to four-week cycle. In addition to the road and bridge operations, we have a number of traffic signal operations. We've just completed recently a traffic signal at St. Andrews and 41, Broward Street and 41. We have a signal at Price Street triangle and 41 under design. That will be coming up in the spring for installation. We're making some intersection improvements at 951 and U.S. 41. Basically some striping and overlaying. And a little bit of work out on the Marco area at 951 and 92. It's actually being undertaken by the City of Marco, but there's funding, partial funding from the county because that's a county road. We have some neighborhood management traffic programs under way in the Lakewood area, and we're also looking at some areas in Queens Park, St. Andrews, Crown Pointe, and in the Glades. In addition to the -- there are some streetlights that are going to be added as part of an agenda item that's coming up on the 14th in front of the board to expand the county-wide street lighting district, which will include Crown Pointe, Glades, Naples Manor and some work out on Goodland. And our landscape maintenance contractor in this area is Environmental Care. They're doing the work on Davis Boulevard and in Lely. We also have some ongoing liaison with our public works engineering department for capital projects, with community development division for review of development projects, the county-wide street lighting district. We participate in the community traffic safety team, the school district safety team, the metropolitan planning organization, various other advisory boards. Unless there are other questions, commissioners and public, that's all I have to report this evening. Thank you. MS. BILES: Could we ask questions from here? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Do we have a roving microphone? CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Are we recording this, Kadie? We can hear you. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Yeah, it's not being recorded, so we can hear you. Can you hear us? MS. BILES: Mr. Kant, could you explain -- THE COURT REPORTER: If they could identify themselves, please. Page 3 December 8, 1999 MS. BILES: -- the city is doing it, it's a state road, but the county is paying for it? MR. KANT: No, ma'am, the -- CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Can we pause? Exchse me, one second for the court reporter. That was Faye Biles. If you'd say your name before you speak. Thank you. MR. KANT: The location is the intersection of State Road/County Road 951 and County Road 92. And the work that's being done on the County Road 92 portion, a portion of that is being paid for by the county through road impact fee funds through our agreement with the City of Marco Island. MS. BILES: I thought 92 was a state road. MR. KANT: No, ma'am, that's a county road. MS. BILES: County road? MR. KANT: Yes, ma'am. MS. BILES: Thank you. It's a mess. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Officially, for the record. MR. KANT: I'll let the public works director and the City of Marco know that. Thank you. MR. BOLDT: Good evening. John Boldt, Collier County stormwater management director. Our task this evening is to brief you on an ongoing Lely area stormwater improvement project. I've been your stormwater director for 17 years, almost, and this has been my number one priority since my -- when I first came here. There was a water management plan prepared back in the late Seventies for all of the East Naples area that we call Water Management District 6. The plan was updated by South Florida Water Management District, Big Cypress Basin in 1985, and soon after that we made efforts to implement that plan; and particularly this whole area called the Lely area, which is kind of the heart and soul of Water Management District No. 6. I'd like to spend the evening telling you some of the difficulties we've had doing that, for various reasons. But the primary reason is this: It's a very environmentally sensitive area. We're trying to walk the tightrope between providing some drainage and flood control, while not over-draining the wetlands, while protecting the groundwater and recharging the aquifers, and in the water quality concerns, the discharge that goes into the Naples Bay area. Back in the Sixties when the Lely area was first developed, in those days you could dig ditches and just drain the property. And that's basically what was done back in those days. The system that we had there, now we're dealing with, was strictly a ditch and drain type system. That's no longer permissible. So further, by increased levels of flood control and drainage we have to meet all the other environmental concerns so we don't over-drain the area and that we provide for some water quality improvements. We have various environmental agencies that are involved in providing the -- that we need to get permits from, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the South Florida Water Management district, Page 4 December 8, 1999 and what's now known as the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, early on were involved, but they've since delegated their authority to the Water Management District for the so-called dredge and fill activities. We've gone through a series of attempts to get those permits from those agencies, and through various acts, delegation of authority, reorganization, the state government has caused some difficulties. Early on also the heart and soul of the drainage output of this property is through the project that you may know as the Villages of Sabal Bay, whatever it's called today. And that project also has been, you know, on the drawing board, so to speak, for a number of years. And early on we attempted to incorporate our project along with theirs. And we kept waiting for them to implement their project. And every time we'd inquire as to when they felt they were going to get their permits, it was always like, well, 90 days from now. So you'd wait, you know, six months and it would still be 90 days from now. And that finally -- you know, through some administrative hearings, that project went on hold for a number of years and then the Board of County Commissioners decided at that point they could no longer wait, so we launched ourselves into trying to get all those environmental permits, and that also has been rather frustrating in doing so. However, at this point in time we feel like we're within -- I'm joking, of course, within 90 days of getting our permit. That's not true. Robert Wiley is our project manager on this project for publics works engineering department. He's worked on it long and hard. It's a complex system. These agencies are used to dealing with development projects. Give them 80 acres or 160 acres, they do a wonderful job in evaluating their projects, their impacts and the discharges and all those sorts of things. But we're talking what, Robert, 15 square miles? MR. WILEY: Portions of 25 square miles. MR. BOLDT: Portions of 25 square miles in a complex system of a main channel and various branches that discharge in different directions. It's a complex system. And quite honestly, a lot of people we're dealing with in these agencies are biologists. And when we start dealing with engineering principles with them, it's very difficult. And you kind of have to bring them along very slowly, explain things to them and hope by the time you get it explained to them and they're ready to issue a permit that they haven't been hired and left the government and you have to start all over again. Or in one case, quite honestly, we had one permit almost ready to issue when the young lady got pregnant and went on maternity leave. And so we had to start all over again with another review and starting the whole process. Like I say, I could spend the evening telling you all the reasons why this has been so difficult. But we are about 95 percent complete with our modeling effort. We are going to resubmit our application to Page 5 December 8, 1999 the Water Management District and through the Army Corps of Engineers literally within weeks, and then we'll go through the response period of answering their questions, and then we'll know what kind of a project that they're going to allow us to permit. Knowing that then, the next steps are going to be the actual easement acquisition. There's going to be a significant amount of mitigation that's involved, because we are impacting some wetland areas. These agencies require that you mitigate those impacts, either within the project or perhaps even going out somewhere in the wildlife area or wetland area and purchasing property. And we'll have to go through that sort of negotiation. Part of the process we're going through right now, we have another consultant already on board to do the actual design of a Phase I. Part of his task is going to be prepare for us a phasing plan and a revised cost estimate that will lead us to come to the commissioners in the near future with a -- some funding options. Those determinations have not been finally made. We've never even laid them all out in complete entirety. Knowing what the project's going to be, how -- where are you going to fund this. We have some proposals. Commissioners over the years have seen those. They need to be revised, refined and brought up to date. So like I say, jokingly again, within 90 days we would hope that we could have some better information and that we'll be back with knowing how these agencies are going to react to our permits, and the sorts of obstacles we're going to have with particularly this mitigation issue. We're getting into lots of specifics. We've brought some maps showing the area. But I guess we'll stand later for some questions. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Does anyone have any questions on this? Yes, Chief Schank. CHIEF SCHANK: Bob Schank. I have a concern. In East Naples we know we have certain areas that we know flood, particularly for emergency services purposes. But a few years ago when we had the 12 inches of rain, 15 inches of rain, the area that surprised us the most was Lely Estates. I know Commissioner Norris has worked diligently with the Civic trying to resolve some of those areas, the issues that caused that flooding. We haven't seen it this year. We did have some flooding in Lely Estates -- of course, we didn't have the rain either that we experienced years ago. Has anything been done to help resolve that, if we should have another 12 to 15 inches of rain? The second area that really -- it cripples the emergency services, is Lakewood. We can pretty much get around the rest of the county, but Lakewood Boulevard just two months ago or a month ago was totally submerged, severe street flooding. So bad we actually had a car swept off Lakewood Boulevard into the lake, and two days later we were still out there searching in the canals to see if there was anybody in it. What's causing that in Lakewood to be so severe? Page 6 December 8, 1999 MR. BOLDT: Gee, I'm glad you asked that question, because I live in Lakewood subdivision, have for 17 years. And I've lived with that flooding we had back with -- back in '85 with Jerry and then '95 -- excuse me, with Bob. In '85 Bob, Jerry in '95, and then Harvey here just recently. Funny, got a little wise, and after Harvey we went out and identified trash lines and various areas in the Lakewood area how high the water had got in various areas, and we noticed the trash lines. We staked those areas out. We ran surveys in, so we know what the water elevations were throughout that whole upper end of that system. And I've gone through analysis. In fact, I -- just a few weeks ago I met with the Lakewood Community Services and pointed out some things to them that I think are the cause of this, some of which really belong to part of the association. And I have a conflict of interest in there because I live in the area. But your point's well taken. There are some pipes that connects the lakes that we know have had some problems. They've attempted to repair them, and I don't think those repairs were successful. I think there's another location where some pipes need to be enlarged. Down toward the lower end there's some other choke points that were caused by some Brazilian pepper infestation and a fence right out of the canal. And so I've identified about three to four different locations where we have significant difference in elevation between upstream and downstream of various points, which tells us we have a problem. So we are addressing some of those. Lakewood is an older system. It's not a modern design. It was back in the Seventies. But there's really quite honestly no excuse for it to flood like it does, as often as it does, and we are addressing those. Your other question relating to the Lely Estates area, recognizing that was developed back in the Sixties, there was a canal put in. I've got some old yellow newspaper clippings of some of the water wars they had back in those days. There were some really serious flooding problems. A lot of this relates to maintenance of the system. And I feel like we've really done a much better job of being more aggressive maintaining those, particularly aquatic vegetation that tends to choke up an area. We had another real serious problem at the Hibiscus Golf Club entrance off of Rattlesnake Hammock that goes across the canal. There are about eight culverts in there. There were eight 40-inch culverts in that location, and at least six of them had some major problems. I think about four of them were completely plugged, had failed, caved in and plugged up. Those have been replaced. And I think that was a major improvement to that. And we've done some other things in the area the best we could, recognizing that canal is basically just excavated to rock. There's not much you can do as far as enlargening of it. Our whole Lely area plan is centered about, you know, trying to minimize that area, Page 7 December 8, 1999 flooding and, you know, make improvements. Anything else we've done out in that area specifically? MR. WILEY: The Doral Circle. MR. BOLDT: That's true, Doral Circle also was a restriction. And those culverts have been replaced. So those two locations, you know, I think we're backing the water up significantly. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Anything else on that subject? I've made the comment before, but it probably bears worth repeating. We've been through this permitting nightmare trying to get these permits done. Obviously the key to this whole area is the Lely outfall canal, primarily. And we've had so much trouble getting those permits and it's gone on so long, we need to argue at some point that we have a health, safety and welfare issue here. We're more than happy to try to do whatever we can do to integrate this outfall into an environmentally sound project. But if they're not going to give us permits to do that, I say we take them to court and sue to get point discharge into the bay on health, safety and welfare basis, and see if that won't get them moving. Either that or let's just point discharge, if they don't want to give us a permit. Because at some point in time we have to take care of the systems as well. And as far as I'm concerned, 15 years of trying to permit the darn things is enough. Let's get on with it. MR. BOLDT: Yes, sir. Give us one more shot at it. See if we can keep the lawyers out of it, let the engineers solve the problem. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. That really completes all the presentations that we had planned for tonight. What we really hoped was that you had some questions you'd like to ask us and maybe we could talk about other subjects. These are just sort of general subjects that we thought of that might be of general interest. But if you have specific topics that you'd like us to try to explain or talk about, we'd be more than happy to do that. Does anyone have anything at this point that you'd like to discuss with us? Here's your chance. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Going once. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Going twice. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Go ahead, Bob. We want to hear from you. CHIEF SCHANK: I just -- my question is more of an educational question and it has to do with affordable housing. A few years ago again the East Naples Civic Association looked into what appeared to us that East Naples was becoming the dumping ground for affordable housing. At that time Mr. Mihalic here, I had a conversation with him, and he pretty much explained -- that was probably four years ago -- showed us that maybe our presumption wasn't right, because my idea of affordable housing is that it would be scattered throughout the county on a fair basis, fairly distributed. This last commission meeting, we had another affordable housing issue come up and I noticed a few more on the bulletin, and again, they all appear to be in East Naples and Immokalee. I'm not against -- as you know, I'm not against affordable housing. When you hear Page 8 December 8, 1999 that the rent's 8, $900, I don't consider that affordable. That's no different than a mortgage. But I'd just like for someone to explain how this all happened. Who -- how does it all happen to appear to be in East Naples? I didn't bring no documentation, but -- CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I'll take a shot at that. My best answer to that, Bob, would be this Habitat project, for example, that was just approved, the one you're talking about? CHIEF SCHANK: The 220 units is one. But then I understand there's one coming in on Shadowlawn, we've got one on Airport Road, we have them on 41 across -- it just seems we keep multiplying. Down Davis Boulevard. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: There have been two projects come up. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Yeah, Greg, come on up. And what I would say is that the bottom line there is cost of property. You can't buy property in North Naples that you can then sell or rent at, quote, affordable rates, because the property is more expensive. CHIEF SCHANK: As long as they keep coming to East Naples, we'll never be able to get to that same place as in North Naples, where you can't afford to buy. MR. MIHALIC: Well, I think there's a misperception that all the housing is going to North Naples -- I mean to East Naples. I don't know who you want me to address here. I'm Greg Mihalic, director of housing and improvement. For instance, right now there's -- and I think we're talking about rental developments. There is an affordable housing rental development on Old 41, just south of Bonita Beach Road. 168 units. There's another development being built on Green Boulevard by 951. So affordable housing is really spread. Next to the government complex there was a unit built. So I'm not sure it's all in East Naples at all. I don't think it is. I think it's pretty much spread out. As far as Immokalee, a multi-family affordable housing development hasn't been built in Immokalee for six years. The last multi-family development in Immokalee was located in apartments back in 1993. So Immokalee has really not gotten a lot of affordable housing because the economics don't work there. Now, as far as your rental cost, you're absolutely right, it is cheaper in this market to own a home than it is to rent an affordable apartment. And that's why most of our programs are focused at home ownership and not rental. However, rental is driven by the tax incentives that come with rental apartment developments. And those are primarily through the Internal Revenue Service and the Florida Housing Finance Corporation. The County Commissioners have two types of incentives for affordable housing: One is a density bonus to allow more density, depending on the income of people that they are renting to. And secondarily a waiver -- a deferral of impact fees for six years on a rental development. How many are we developing? Well, we've been developing between Page 9 December 8, 1999 5 and 800 units a year for the last few years, but now the pot is sort of empty. And over the next couple of years you may see only one project development of about 200 units. So I don't think you'll see continued development at the same rate that you have in the past. And the reason is cost. It is too expensive to develop in Collier County. Now, a rental affordable housing development should be approximately $150 cheaper per month than an equivalent market development of the same quality. And those rates are set by the Florida Housing Finance Corporation and escalate each year, depending on how high the median income goes. Unfortunately, our median income is rising at about 9.5 percent per year. So those affordable housing developments that we negotiated five years ago are now much higher than they were in the past. Now, why is our median income going up so fast? It's because we really have so many retired people that have passive income, and so the median income in Collier County is $59,100 this year. But the average wages are $26,500. That difference between what people earn and the passive income is what's driving the very high rents. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: But Greg, do we have control over which of those two numbers we use in a formula? MR. MIHALIC: No, we don't. Because like I said, the incentives come from the Internal Revenue Service, through low income housing tax credits and through the Florida Housing Financing Corporation, primarily through the funding that they give. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: So it's the state and feds that set the rate. We don't get to. If we could, I would think affordable housing ought to be set in this county based on the earned income average instead of the passive income average. MR. MIHALIC: I will say that we do require developers to have at least 20 percent very low income. That is for people that make 50 percent or less of median income in their developments. That's a family of four right now that makes $30,000 or less per year. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: That's very low, Bob. MR. MIHALIC: That's very low, right. And you see, that's above the average wages. CHIEF SCHANK: It's very low, but I would bet you that in some of those apartments that are very low, you've got maybe two families that are living that share rent. You go down Bayshore Drive and some of the developments down there that are, quote, affordable housing, you have two, three families. I know for a fact there are three families living in one apartment. MR. MIHALIC: I think there is a misnomer about what affordable housing is getting incentives and what aren't. Because any affordable housing development that gives any type of state or federal incentives is regulated for 15 years at a minimum. Some are up to 40 years on their contracts. If two or three families live in those, the total number of persons within that family are counted toward that income level. But there's a lot of housing that was built a number of years ago that is market, that is not affordable, at least not affordable with the Page 10 December 8, 1999 incentives, but still may rent for less than a new affordable housing development. That's certainly true. And the older a development gets and the more rundown it gets and the smaller the units are, the more that differential between those rents and the affordable housing rents will be there. And yes, you're right, that in many units, especially smaller, most professional developers will not have two and three families living in a unit. But when you're talking about somebody that has 10 units or 12 units or 15 units and wants to maximize the income, absolutely, there are two and three families living in some of those apartments. CHIEF SCHANK: There's a complex on Bayshore Drive, and it's been a few years since I've looked into it. The only reason why I know this is because some friend of mine applied for it. That complex has 600 square feet living area. The rent was over $825. And that is a rip-off. That is not affordable housing. That is -- somebody is making -- I'm just trying to figure out, who makes out on these? Does the contractor get breaks for building, quote, affordable housing? MR. MIHALIC: That's not an affordable housing development. We have no affordable housing developments on Bayshore at all. So that CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: What he means by that is that for Greg to call it an affordable housing project, he means it's one that's officially in the system and got the incentives. MR. MIHALIC: We have a contract with them. We have rate regulation. They have rent control of some kind. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: But you're talking about -- MR. MIHALIC: What you're talking about doesn't. CHIEF SCHANK: What's Crooked Lake Apartments? MR. MIHALIC: Crooked Lake Apartments were very small apartments built 15 years ago, and they are not -- they have no agreement with the county, nor the state, nor anybody else. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: They market. MR. MIHALIC: And in fact, Crooked Lake Apartments could not be built because of the minimum size standards that we have in the county today, because the units are so small. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: And Bob, that's one of the places where hopefully the redevelopment effort in Bayshore and Gateway Triangle are going to create incentives. Right now a lot of people I know who are on Bayshore who own either residential or some of that commercial frontage would love to tear down the trash that they have there and build something new. But our zoning regulations are so strict that with the tiny lot sizes, they can't do anything with their property if they tear down the junk that's on it. So in this zoning overlay and the changes that we're going to get in redevelopment, hopefully they'll let them aggregate their lots or do some off-street parking and some of that stuff so that they'll have any options. They don't even have the option now of tearing down what's there because they can build a house. So hopefully in the next -- you know, talk to Deborah Preston, Page 11 December 8, 1999 but over the next six months or so we're going to be seeing zoning overlays that will give people the opportunity to redevelop some of that on Bayshore. MR. MIHALIC: But what you're speaking of is the critical demand for housing that we have. Again, we're creating 4,500 jobs a year in this market, and those people need to live somewhere. And that's a major issue that will only get worse over in the next several years. CHIEF SCHANK: And I don't think anyone will deny the fact that we need that in Collier County. It just appears that -- I mean, there's a lot of us in East Naples that are really trying hard to make East Naples a respectable community. We've not only got Marco Island, but -- the island is beautiful. We'd like to carry that chain out. But it keeps going. And that is RV parking lot. You know, East Naples has the most mobile home RV parks, modular homes, whatever you want to call it, than anywhere in the county. How can we ever get started if all these things keep coming our way? And we're not saying that we don't think Habitat is wonderful. It's done wonderful things for Naples Manor. I for one can attest to that. Our fire rates in Naples Manor dropped drastically. It was not uncommon to have 10 structural fires, and I mean 10 working house fires in Naples Manor a year. Now you may see one, one and a half fires. And that's the good news. It's not that we're against it. It just seems like it's not being shared fairly throughout the county. This is something that we have to have, and everybody should have their part in it. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I think that both the -- Ms. Mac'Kie and Chief Schank have really echoed my concerns, that we are expending an awful amount of energy and time and effort and eventually money to try to redevelop and upgrade the area. And it just seems counter-productive to put in so much affordable housing in a concentrated area and in specific locations. My objection to the Habitat proposal of the 23rd was not anything against Habitat. I've always supported them on everything that they've wanted to do. I think it's a great organization. They have done a wonderful job here in the county and all over the country. That was not the question. The question in front of the commission was that specific piece of property, was that appropriate. And my answer for my opinion was no. It was between Eagle Creek and Lely Resort, and backing up to estate lots. And no, that's just not appropriate. How can you drop that in? Ask yourself this question: If there was a large amount of -- if there were 50 acres in Port Royal, would it be appropriate to go in -- forgetting price for a moment, but if the price was right, to go in and put in a Habitat for Humanity house? No, of course not. And to the same -- to a lesser degree but to the same principle, that applied here at this particular location. Now, if it had been another location, I would be fully supportive of it. My objection was simply location. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: And let me just say, because you mentioned Page 12 December 8, 1999 this, Chief, is Shadowlawn. You know, stay tuned in that and give your input. But I'll tell you, because where my head is right now about where I'd like to see the residential portion of, you know, Shadowlawn area, which is the heart of the triangle redevelopment, it's my hope that that turns out to be starter houses for young families. And that means they'll be earning $35,000 for a family of three or four. And that is, quote, unquote, affordable housing. But it's also my brother who works in the Sheriff's Office and it's also, you know, school teachers. I hope that as we do redevelop East Naples we still keep room for working families. And if that's quote, unquote, affordable housing, it's part of what I hope to see stay in the triangle. Because, you know, time will tell. MR. MIHALIC: Well, commissioners, I'd like to say again that really, most of our focus is on ownership housing. And we're doing about 400 houses a year for first-time home buyers. Some of those, I would say about 20 percent, are new construction, and the rest are existing houses that people are buying and rehabilitating within their price range. There's really been no negative outcry from any community. Because really, young families go in and buy fixer-uppers and houses that are -- have been rundown and -- or just not kept up over the years and have really turned these houses into ownership occupied houses, many of them rental for a number of years. And they've really been sort of beat. And so this has really been a tremendous improvement to many neighborhoods on the home ownership side. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: And again, that goes to the heart of my concern is the specific location -- MR. MIHALIC: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: -- and the appropriateness of each specific location. That's my concern. And I don't have any -- like I say, any objection whatsoever to Habitat for Humanity. I'm very supportive. I've gone out and hammered nails with them before and that sort of thing, and am very supportive of the organization. But you've got to pick the right location. MR. MIHALIC: I know Habitat looked at at least 20 sites that I know of throughout the community. And the one they bought was one of two that was potentially available within their price range and the density they needed and up for sale. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, it's done now, no sense arguing about it. MR. MIHALIC: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: But I just wanted to make the point that we do need to be more original perhaps in the future in looking for the best -- considering all the time and effort that went into the redevelopment effort of East Naples. MR. MIHALIC: Yes, Commissioner. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I don't know if there are speakers who have filled out slips or not. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, I know the first one who came in. And Page 13 December 8, 1999 by the way, for those of you who just came in, you probably saw an advertisement for it to be at 8:00. Actually, that was a mistake, it was supposed to start at 7:00. We did start at 7:00 for those people here that were expecting it to -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Who made that mistake, John? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, I don't know. Victor, do you know? VICTOR: I can't participate in the meetings. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: All right, victor's not here. MR. MIHALIC: We can blame him, though. He works for the Naples Daily News. We can blame him. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Who got the rope? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, I'm sure it's someone new in the commercial advertising department. I'm sure that's just a simple mistake. But in any case, we've already started, and we're at a point right now that if you'd like to speak, you know, we'll start calling your name. You get up here and maybe we can get you out a little earlier than you hoped. And our first one is Robert W. Morgan. MR. MORGAN: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Robert W. Morgan and I am in opposition to the alternative routes for the extension of Santa Barbara to Rattlesnake Hammock. Some time ago, about 25 years ago, they did plat a route, and many of the homeowners and the people out there in Parker's Hammock area, the church and so forth, bought their property based on that plat. We need to go with the original plat, which is down the section line, straight down to Rattlesnake Hammock. And through a traffic program, you can divert the traffic either east to west at Rattlesnake Hammock with no problem whatsoever. To go any other route and to spend the money of Collier County residents, all Collier County residents, is not necessary. It's extravagant. We just don't need that road to go east. It's supposed to go north and south. Now, there has to be some underlying motivation as to why it has to meander through the Parker's Hammock area and destroy property that's there that people have lived on for many years. Or to obstruct the habitat, the wildlife areas. We don't need that. You need to change and think very carefully about this, because it affects not just the people in that area, but it destroys their lives, plus it costs the taxpayers in Collier County a lot of money. Thank you very much. Any questions? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, just basically, are you aware of the motivation of putting it through there? MR. MORGAN: No, sir, I'd like to hear that. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, I think we have two more Speakers that are going to talk about the same subject. Why don't we hear from them and then I'll try to put this all together for you. Reverend Peter Lyberg. By the way, we're not recording this or anything, if you guys want to speak from where you are. Sorry I made you walk all the way down here. If you want to speak from where you are, just stand up, Page 14 December 8, 1999 give your name for the court reporter and start -- REVEREND LYBERG: It's a good follow-up to my knee surgery. The doctor says it's fine. So no, I -- I thought there was a need to be up here to do that. I simply echo the concern that was just voiced. We've discussed this a number of times. I see a number of familiar faces. I don't know if anything was presented before I walked in. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Not on this subject. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Not on this subject. REVEREND LYBERG: Is there going to be any kind of updating of what's happening, or just kind of -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: We can certainly do that for you, yes. We'll probably -- REVEREND LYBERG: I know it's under study. This was from the previous -- last commission meeting with action and so on. But simply to reiterate what has been a part of that is to the original planning for the street alignment and the sensibility of it, the logic of it coming in at the midpoint between east and west, which is 41 and 951. It's almost right in the middle. And you have a choice of going two different directions from that. If you move it further east, you dump it all to the east. It just doesn't -- anybody that wants to go west is going to have to take a longer route to get over to 41. There are a number of other reasons that we've discussed and we'll probably discuss again, but that's a primary one, linked to what was just said. And I think it's one that meets the needs of the community, it's less disruptive to everybody, to their homes and so on, and when there's really no need to do that because of the road. When you go back to the scoring, which was about what, a year, year and a half ago, something like that, when that scoring was done, the street alignment A came out twice as good as any of the other alignments that were even considered, which included C. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Actually, the scoring, though, if you recall, was based on some faulty information. And once that was corrected, Route A did not handle -- REVEREND LYBERG: It changed it slightly, but it was still higher, if I remember the numbers. Unless there's been some -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You apparently remember the numbers differently, because that was not the right numbers. REVEREND LYBERG: I recall two sets of numbers. The original ones were more drastic in distinction between the two. The second set still showed A significantly better than any of the other routes. Now, if that's incorrect, somebody can give me the right numbers. But I've never seen anything to the contrary to that. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It did not include the extra lanes that would be required on Rattlesnake Hammock Road, the cross scenario. It just did not take into account what -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: And further, that particular portion of the section you're referring to only took into account the segment between Davis Boulevard and Rattlesnake Hammock, and which would be the Page 15 December 8, 1999 cheapest way to get from there to there. But that's only one small piece of an entire transportation program. That's what I'll get to in a few minutes. REVEREND LYBERG: However, the four-laning of Rattlesnake Hammock I don't think has much of a bearing on it, because that's going to be four-laned, no matter whatever happens to it. So I think to throw that in I think weighs it too much the other direction. The connection from Davis to Rattlesnake Hammock, I think that's the real question. And A always comes out better, as far as anything I've seen, unless somebody's got some new numbers. And most definitely, as far as disruption of citizens' property. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, there's no question about that. REVEREND LYBERG: There's nothing along A that -- that has been held sacrosanct for 25 years. And it would be great to see something on it. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That's not correct. And I have documentation -- and I'm sorry I didn't bring it. But I have documentation that shows the decision to move away from A was made in 1993. REVEREND LYBERG: But that the alignment A was always kept. There was nothing built on it. There was no -- CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: It was platted. REVEREND LYBERG: Yeah, it was always kept, there was -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: It may have been platted, but the decision REVEREND LYBERG: They never even allowed a garage to be built under the thing. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: We'll get to all of that -- REVEREND LYBERG: Okay. But anyway, so A is definitely the least disruptive. And I think that's really important for the citizens and with the difficulties and problems of the road building. It's something that could be built. You know, nothing can be built tomorrow in the county, I realize, but maybe the day after. COMMISSIONER BERRY: I think we did them both. MR. ILSCHNER: Madam Chairwoman, I didn't hear the question. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Aren't we doing both routes? MR. ILSCHNER: We're doing both. COMMISSIONER BERRY: We're doing a two-lane from A -- MR. ILSCHNER: The two-lane would be the A route that would come off of the four-lane section, which would be termed as Route C. COMMISSIONER BERRY: Right. MR. ILSCHNER: That's correct. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That's not the concern. They don't want to see it built. Aubrey Rogers is next. Aubrey, if you'd like, you can just -- MR. ROGERS: I don't know if you can hear me or not. I've got plenty of time. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, our meeting hasn't even started yet, so -- MR. ROGERS: My name's Aubrey Rogers. I live in Parker's Page 16 December 8, 1999 Hammock. I won't take much of your time. I think you all know how I feel about taking people's property and running Santa Barbara extension. I just want to be on record every time I have the opportunity so somebody can't say later I didn't exhaust all my opportunities to speak. The only thing that I want to ask you to look at, it's easy to find ways to say no, but really look at it. The reason they announced a major development by the Collier Companies east of 951, which I always assumed, like most people, that it was all wetlands and what you could do with it. But I would just ask you to consider if there's going to be a project that major and that big, to look at moving that highway over and extending it over east and then back in that Swamp Buggy grounds. Certainly the developers ought to have some interest in the thing, and there might be some mutual grounds to work from. And that would certainly give you a route away from Naples as a bypass for those people that want to -- have no interest in going into Naples. And there's a lot of it, I'd say, on 951. Of course, I don't know what's involved in it. But I'd like to ask you, since it hasn't come before the board yet, there's still time to look at it. Nobody's started building or anything. Look and see. Maybe you can even save the money of six-laning 951, if you looked at that thing. And the rest is a matter of record, you know, why I object to extending -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Let's make a note of that and see if there's any opportunity to -- MR. ROGERS: All right, thank you. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Thank you, Aubrey. Next is Starlene Kalinski. MS. KALINSKI: My name is Starlene Kalinski, and my house, my mom's house, is the first house that the proposed C goes over. And anyhow, that property was bought 33 years ago. At that time it was supposed to go Santa Barbara -- it was supposed to go straight through. We had no worries until a couple of years ago whenever we found out that they were considering changing the plan to go catty-cornered across our 10 acres of land. Ten years ago we were offered three million dollars for that property. We did not want to sell it, we do not want to sell it now. We love that piece of property. We love living there. We moved there because it offered what we needed. We wanted someplace that we could use as a horse ranch, and it was perfect for it. And you know, changing rules in the middle of the game is just not kosher. And it is going to cost an awful lot more money to go with Route C than it is A, especially whenever you consider the fact there are probably some people who are going to fight having their land taken. And, you know, we're not going to just give it over. And another thing, I am a bus driver for Collier County. Those turns that they propose, to me, when I look at roads that have all these curves in them, they're accidents waiting to happen. It's a lot Page 17 December 8, 1999 more dangerous to have those curves than it is to go with a straight route. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Thank you. Our next on this topic is Peter Ramundo. MR. RAMUNDO: Evening. My name is Peter Ramundo. I live over at Naples Heritage. And I have a -- actually, some questions on it. And one of them is what is the rationale for having two different routes? Because as I understand it, what has been approved is Route A and Route C. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay, what -- I'm going to try when we're through with having speakers on this topic -- I'm going to try to wrap all. that up. And I was hoping to get to that. MR. RAMUNDO: All right. But, you know, my concern, and again, I'm speaking for myself, is the expenditure of large sums of money for the C route, as compared to the A route, which is a more direct route. Thank you. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Thank you. Now, I don't have any sign-up slips for anybody else on this particular topic. Is there anybody else that would like to speak on this particular topic? Yes, sir, come forward, please. If you would, just give your name for this court reporter and tell us why you came. MR. HANSON: My name is William Hanson. I live on County Barn Road in Woodmere Racket Club. And I would like to know, what are they going to do about the flooding over there we have-every hurricane? Now, about three years ago we had a hurricane, we got flooded, you came over and you saw the flood we had. And we had it this year on that Irene hurricane. They told us back three years or four years ago that they were going to clean out Whitaker ditch there, the swale down there. To this date they haven't put a backhoe in there. Now it's level with the property, and all that water keeps flooding in, and we haven't seen any action. They told us they were going to widen the road. Nothing they told us -- they were going to put a sewer in. Nothing. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Perhaps Mr. Boldt could answer that question for you, then I'll get back to the Santa Barbara question. MR. HANSON: Okay, thank you very much. MR. ILSCHNER: Commissioner Norris, I can call on Mr. Wiley, who could probably answer that question for you. Mr. Boldt had to leave. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. MR. WILEY: For the record, my name is Robert Wiley. I'm a project manager III with the public works engineering department. .I don't know where to start. Concerning the -- CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Whitaker ditch. MR. WILEY: The Whitaker ditch. Well, let me tell you what's in the proposed plan that, as Mr. Boldt said in jest, 90 days for the permit so we know where the long-term plan is. That is a portion of our Lely area stormwater improvement project. In the Whitaker area we will be bringing water down through the wetlands through a flowway, if the Army Corps of Engineers gets its Page 18 December 8, 1999 way. And Whitaker, we will be putting in bigger swales through there to take the water both south, east and west along Whitaker. South, you'll take it eventually in through the Royal Wood ' development. East also will eventually go into the northeast corner of the development. West would take it over to County Barn Road. The proposed long-range plan for County Barn Road includes a large outfall facility along the eastern side of it. North of Whitaker Road is an open ditch. South of Whitaker Road it goes through a series of culverts, eventually coming into a box culvert right down the median of a four-laning County Barn Road, which ultimately discharges into the main Lely Canal. So there is a very serious set of improvements that we've been working on for a number of years, trying to get permitting for. And as Mr. Boldt had said earlier, the permitting is not something that's going at a great speed, because of the complexity of it. We're not giving away this thing° We're giving portions of 25 sections of lands. And so there are a lot of special interests that are out there. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I just wanted to interrupt to say the short answer to what he just described is that we have to get a permit from the state to be able to do the big fix that he's describing to solve the problem that we have. MR. HANSON: What I don't understand is, all we need is the one ditch on Whitaker Road cleaned out. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: And that's where I was -- MR. HANSON: It's level with our property. And any water coming down that road comes right into our property. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: So when is it scheduled for maintenance? MR. HANSON: It floods us right now. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Is that a ditch that we maintain? Whitaker is -- MR. WILEY: The western end of Whitaker. That is the paved section. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Or maybe that's something you just want to talk with him about visually. MR. KANT: Edward Kant, transportation services director. I believe that we do maintain Whitaker. There's a paved portion and there's a limerock portion that goes further to the east. Frankly, I'm not all that familiar with that area, but I will check with our road and bridge superintendent in the morning and find out if maintenance is going to be done, to make sure that we get it scheduled as soon as possible. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Maybe get this gentleman's phone number and give him a call, and maybe he can expect to see it done. And sir, if it doesn't happen, you'll let us know, okay? MR. HANSON: Thank you. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. Now, let's -- back to the Santa Barbara issue. Is there anyone else that would like to speak on the Santa Barbara issue before I go into a short explanation? Okay. A lot has been said about having a line on a map 25 or 33 Page 19 December 8, 1999 years ago, but I don't think there's anybody in this room that would say conditions haven't changed in 25 years. If we don't~respond to change in conditions, we're going to make a big mess in the county in any number of places. And what the problem is is overall traffic flow. Now, I know that we had an initial study by a consultant to determine what would be the easiest way to resist the costs speculated to get from Davis Boulevard to Rattlesnake Hammock. And Reverend Lyberg is right, that first that turned out to be A. But that did not take any global issues into account. And that's the problem. If you just go straight down and stop at Santa Barbara extension at Rattlesnake Hammock, the major study, the global study on that part of the county for traffic circulation for the long-term future, now, I'm talking 30, 40, 50 years from now, what you will do is you'll end up fouling up that entire end of the county. It may be cheaper to build alignment A than it is C, but what it will cost you to try to overcome the mess you make 10 years after that, 15, 20 years after that, is going to be hard to estimate this far away. But you're going to have to six lane 951, you're going to have to have an overpass at 951 and Rattlesnake Hammock, you're going to have to have an overpass at Davis and 951, you're going to have to have an overpass at 41 and 951, you're going to have to eight-lane portions of 41, and you're going to have to six-lane Rattlesnake Hammock, because you did not do what you were supposed to do in the first place. You total all that up and you're probably talking in tomorrow's dollars 50 million dollars. Who knows at this point. But to say it's cheaper to build A simply ignores reality. You've got to take into account what's going to happen in the future. The traffic that will be generated now, that's estimated to be generated down in that part of the county, the bulk of it is going to come from the Lely Resort area eventually in the future, of course. But that's where it's so important to move over and be able to connect that road directly up with a road going into Lely, because then you've got a direct north-south flow that takes people out of that area and can move them into the county and back south when they're ready to come back home. It's not a matter of going down Santa Barbara and going east or west to 951 or 41. That's not the point of the road. If we're going to do that, we've got Davis Boulevard now. We could just leave it alone and do that. Which, by the way, I've said many times would be my preference, if we could get away with it, is not build a road at all and leave everybody alone in that part of the county. But we can't do that. For the future we can't do that. We have to make this road a priority. Now, the hardest thing that I've ever had to do in this job so far is to say that we're going to have to go in there and look at taking people's property to build this road. The last thing in the world I want to do is take Sheriff Rogers' house away or impact his property at all. That's an extremely difficult decision to have to Page 20 December 8, 1999 make. I'd rather have a horse step on my toe for the next two weeks than to have to make that decision. But that's the way it is. If I did not make that decision and did not say this is the way I think we should go, then I would be totally irresponsible in my job when you look out 15, 20 years from now in the future. This has to be done. And I guess that's all there is to say about it. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Do we have other speakers? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: We have another speaker on another topic. This is another drainage topic. Richard Nanneman. THE COURT REPORTER: I'm sorry, Richard? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Nanneman. N-A-N-N-E-M-A-N. MR. NANNEMAN: I'm sorry if I'm repeating anything here, because we came at 8:00, as announced in the paper. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That's okay. There was a mixup. You just go right ahead. MR. NANNEMAN: Okay. The gentleman a little earlier brought up the drainage on Whitaker. To me, in a way, especially if you're talking about the eastern end of Whitaker, the gravel road portion, a key to that is drainage under the box culvert on Rattlesnake Hammock that is just east of Lely Palms. As I understand it, as I see the water flow, the water goes in before there. It stops at the box culvert. I also had the understanding that maybe Lely was taking the responsibility for continuing the drainage further south, which direction I don't know. But I'm just wondering how they could do that, or when they can do it, will they get it done? I think -- Mr. Wiley I know has looked at the water situation out there. All of that water at this point has to go under two tubes that runs between Rattlesnake Hammock and Royal Woods, and comes up over a small detention pond there. That was trying to drain an awful large area through two tubes over a small detention pond with a skimmer tube on it. Can we approach the subject of having Lely do something about that drainage canal? MR. WILEY: Okay, just to try to expound a little more, my name again is Robert Wiley with the public works engineering department. The area in question -- in fact, I was out there meeting with him and we did a walk over the site shortly after Harvey or Irene; they were both back-to-back, I don't know which one. Maybe both of them, but I'm not sure. The area he's talking about, the first place is to the east of Polly Avenue, where Polly comes into Rattlesnake Hammock Road. There are currently two culverts that go underneath Rattlesnake Hammock Road; both of them discharge into the slough which continues on down into the Lely Resort community. Those have been in there for a number of years. Ironically, the direction of the slope on the culvert is from south to north, which is not the direction the water is supposed to flow again. So -- but around here, the slopes are so flat, it really only depends upon where it rains first is which way the water flows anyway, through some of the culverts. Page 21 December 8, 1999 The area that they're to drain to is the large slough. That is within the Lely Report community. We are showing it on our long-range planning through the Lely stormwater area improvement project as being a flowway. That flowway is quite wide, but right now it's also infested with exotic vegetation, Brazilian pepper being the primary culprits. We have had county staff walk through there to look at it. It does need to be cleaned. The Lely Corporation, as a part of their development, will be the entity responsible for cleaning it out. I cannot tell you a time schedule for that. That really depends upon their phasing and their construction that goes forward. We had looked at the possibility of cleaning it as a part of the county's mitigation for the impacts we will have on our regional program. But it being private land and them being responsible and as part of their permitting for doing the mitigations, that is not going to work out for us to go ahead and do that. The other area you're speaking of is where if we enclose the ditch to the west side of Polly Avenue, going down through the frontage on the Royal Wood development, would then bring it out over through a V-notch weir and discharges and goes through some box culverts underneath Rattlesnake Hammock Road and.to the south through the Main River Canal. In that area, at the time that we had the high water, there was a skimmer plate sitting there, which as I discussed with you, did appear to be retarding somewhat the flow of the water. That has been taken off. And I talked -- you know, I talked to the road and bridge people about it needing to be taken off. They have to have a skimmer plate on there, but I said make one a lot bigger so they don't have any flow restrictions through there. That system was designed to handle existing conditions, as well as future conditions. From what I saw when I was out there, and from the sizing of the facilities, it was handling all the water they could get to the pipes, but the water was not coming down Polly Avenue at the time to get rid of the water off Whitaker quite frequently. It happens because it's backing up, which is part of the swale maintenance program that Mr. Kant mentioned. There will be some improvements going on in that, as part of his earlier presentation, up along the Polly Avenue, is that -- MR. KANT: That's correct. MR. WILEY: The culverts that are in there, as we talked of before, are set up as a combination for water qualities for Rattlesnake Hammock roadway, and also from the off-site flow, they historically have come through. Once we come through with the total water management improvement system through there, then we're going to have more than adequate capacity. Some of the stuff right now, whether we want it to be that way or not, has to be that way, is we put some facilities in and then had to plug them off, because the system is incomplete. And we put them in in anticipation of a complete system, but are not able to open Page 22 December 8, 1999 everything up right now. Now, this is not the tubes you're going to be exposing downstream. But they're sitting there ready to be opened up for future use when we get the permits through that allows us to open them up and we do the improvements downstream. We cannot open everything up right now and put the flooding downstream on people that currently don't need to receive more water than they're currently getting. So we're trying to maintain the status quo of the facilities, with the understanding that we're putting stuff in under the anticipated we can open it up. Now, the two that you're speaking of are not part of that. Those right in front of Royal Wood are not plugged. They're all fully open. I'm talking about the box culvert underneath Rattlesnake Hammock Road. It's a triple barrel, and two are open right now. One is closed. That is a permit stipulation. We're required to do that. So, you know, we're looking towards a future, if we can ever get over this hurdle of getting the whole regional permit, you're going to see some major improvements in that area. MR. NANNEMAN: Am I permitted to say another word? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Sure. MR. NANNEMAN: It appears to me that Sunset Estates has become the detention pond for the developments around it. You speak in terms of limiting structures going under Rattlesnake Hammock up there so that we don't flood Lely down below us. Lely down below us dries out two weeks before we do. Royal Wood, the site. is dried out two weeks before we do. The whole area is -- water from those box culverts that goes under Rattlesnake Hammock has to go clear back west to go through those two tubes that we're talking about. You're essentially telling me there's nothing we can do to have Lely clean out below those box culverts? There's nothing we can do about those two tubes that run parallel to Royal Wood and Rattlesnake Hammock until when? MR. WILEY: The ones in front of Royal Wood are fully open, fully functioning. MR. NONNENMACHER: Yes, they are, but -- they're fully functioning. But everything is two feet higher than the outlet for Royal Wood. So we accept two feet more water than Royal Wood does for a couple weeks after a heavy storm. MR. WILEY: Okay, now, Royal Wood itself has its own internal drainage system which discharges downstream, as you know, of the weir which is sitting in the ditch. The weir is placed there for water quality requirements that we have for Rattlesnake Hammock roadway. The elevation of the weir is set based upon wetlands further upstream in the area which you're speaking, so that we do not overdrain the slough, which is to the east side of Polly Avenue. The tubes that are going underneath Rattlesnake Hammock Road to the east out of Polly Avenue, heading into the slough, those are open, they are older. Personally I've never been through them. I've never seen it dry enough to try to even look through them. They're always submerged. We have had surveyors who have taken elevations of them to Page 23 December 8, 1999 tell us when what the invert elevations are. The lands to the south of those culverts that go under Rattlesnake Hammock Road and into the Lely Resort community, the slough, again, that is private land. I do not know of any way to force them to advance their clearing of that flowway. Now, what we're working with them on in the future may enhance it, as we come with our permit and we come from the bottom end up. But I personally right now know of no way that we can force them to do something on mitigation prior to their need to do so at this stage of development with their overall community. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Well, what if we -- what if -- I'm just thinking out loud here, but could the county do it and require -- you know, somehow with an agreement with Lely do the work with the understanding that they would repay us at some point in time? Would they give impact fee credits? I don't know. Is there some creative way to get us there? MR. WILEY: I.would say that's a very possible way to do it. We would have to offer them an incentive to let us go ahead and do it. We cannot approach them with that portion yet, because really, we're not ready to receive the water downstream on the backside of the Manor anyway. If they put the water to us, we're not ready to receive it down there. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: That's again because of the permit from the state? MR. WILEY: Somewhat so. The way the Lely Resort is laid out is they have taken to this point essentially all of the water that comes through the slough. Ultimately there's supposed to be a 50-50 split. The county will take half of it to the west along the back side of Naples Manor, they will take half of it through their resort. They are currently taking it all. If we open the slough up, whether or not we can handle more than their system, which is currently taking it all, or not is up in question. I frankly do not think we can. So I'm not really in favor of opening up a big flowway right now before we get something downstream that could handle it. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: So what's between us and getting something downstream that could handle it? It's not the permit that -- MR. WILEY: It is the permit. The permit we're pursuing is the conceptual permit, and then we could come up with designs with the actual construction permit and then go with it, yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Let me make a suggestion. Both of these gentlemen have a similar issue. Why don't we get their phone numbers and just take another look at this issue and see if there's anything that we might do on an interim basis that will at least help some. I don't know if we can make the whole fix, but maybe there's something that we can take another look at. Can we do that? MR. WILEY: We sure will. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I'll tell you, Chief Schank, you were talking about earlier about how hard we're trying to improve East Naples. As far as I'm concerned, until we get it out from under Page 24 December 8, 1999 water, we're not going to be able to do much for improving East Naples. It's the most important thing we've got to do and that is to eliminate the flooding. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay, I hope that answered your question. I don't have any more sign-up slips. Is there anybody else that wants to speak on any topic? CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: This lady over here. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Oh, yes. MS. KALINSKI: Our property -- CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Would you say your name, please? MS. KALINSKI: Starlene Kalinski. And anyhow, our property has one of the highest pieces of property in Rattlesnake Ham -- well, we're north of Rattlesnake Hammock. But it is the highest piece of property out there. Last summer, whenever those storms came through, we had Falling Waters pumping water on us, we had Naples Heritage pumping water into the drainage area to the south of us. It backed up on us. We lost trees. We were under about six inches of water for over two weeks. We had never had water standing on that property before. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Who permits -- that would be -- is that something they should take up with Big Cypress Basin or South Florida Water Management District? Because I don't think we issue those pumping permits. It sounds like somebody was pumping water without authority to do so. MR. WILEY: Okay, I'm not aware of them actually doing pumping. So I want you to be clear of that. I am not saying they're pumping. But I would say this, that if they were pumping, there is a very strong probability they were in violation, because I'm not aware of them having permits to pump. They have a gravity discharge system on both developments. There are currently residential units in there, so I don't know of any reason they would have a permit to allow them to pump -- CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: So if somebody wanted to report illegal pumping, where do they go with that? MR. WILEY: You could call 597-1505. That's the Big Cypress Basin office. They also have field staff there from the South Florida Water Management District, and they will come out there and they will drive through the entire development. If you need to call them at nighttime, I'm not going to give you the home phone number. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Say that again, 597 -- MR. WILEY: That number for the Big Cypress basin is 597-1505. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Because that's a serious violation if somebody is pumping --MR. WILEY: And what you could ask for there is to speak to the field representative for the South Florida Water Management District. Now, that's not an actual Big Cypress Basin staff person, that is a person employed directly by the Water Management District for the purposes of ensuring that developments are built property and in accordance with the water management permits, and that they are Page 25 December 8, 1999 operating properly. And I -- Steve Nagle is one person I would ask you to -- N-A-G-L-E. MS. KALINSKI: I called Steve. He never called me back. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: That's unlike -- MR. WILEY: That's not typical of Steve, I will tell you that. But also keep in mind, you're probably one of about 2, 300 people calling at the same time. MS. KALINSKI: Well, the cypress swamp to the south of me did not have water on it. And our property, I couldn't believe it. Whitaker Road is always flooded before we -- before our place gets flooded. And we had water on us. I just -- it's just something that hasn't ever happened before. MR. WILEY: I know Whitaker Road had water coming across the top of it. A lot of water coming across the top of it. MS. KALINSKI: Yeah, but this was after it dried up. MR. WILEY: Okay. And you were still sitting there wet. And which street do you live on? MS. KALINSKI: It was not going anywhere. MR. WILEY: Which street do you live on? MS. KALINSKI: Sandy Lane. MR. WILEY: Sandy Lane, okay. MR. HANSON: I went back. That big storm we had about three or four years ago, I went back in the woods there. I had a wet suit on. And I was walking into water up to here, all the way back to Falling Waters. And they have an underground drainage system right in their property. It was draining into big holes they had back there. And they had pumps with hoses this size pumping that water out of there. I brought it up to you that time when you came through our property, Mr. Norris, and you told me that they had permits to pump that water out of there. And I said well, can -- in other words, we have a big -- big lots next to us, we could make a big hole there and pump all our water into there and let it flow into the mobile estates to get rid of our water? Well, we couldn't get a permit for that. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. MR. HANSON: It's legal for them to pump the water out of Falling Waters down through -- now that water was really -- that was some current coming down through there. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Not unless they have a permit, it's not legal. MR. HANSON: People were riding canoes down the road and going at a rapid pace down the road. MR. WILEY: Falling Waters was pumping internally, because they're still an active development. They will be having permits for internal pumping. But that's simply for de-watering the lake for excavation. That is not because the water is draining off the property site. MR. HANSON: It was being used for those storms. MR. WILEY: Well, I know that traditionally, I cannot say that these organizations are doing that, but traditionally what you will find is that when you get around anybody who is construction sites and Page 26 December 8, 1999 ag. sites, the biggest pump wins. And until the storm's over, the biggest pump wins. I don't say it's legal, but that's tradition. And so when you hear the pump running, when you see the discharge, call the Water Management District, because they are in violation. If you see them out there digging with a backhoe, cut into a berm, going around a water control structure, call the district. They do come out, they do catch the people, and they do fine them quite severely when they catch them. Don't sit back and say well, it's the county. The county has no say in that. That's strictly Water Management District. And I encourage you to call -- if you cannot get ahold of somebody at 597-1505, call Fort Myers, 338-2929. There's more people up there. They have a radio, and they'll get somebody to look at this site. That's what they need. They only have a handful of people to cover about four counties. Every set of eyes and ears that are out here will help them do their job better. And don't hesitate to call these people and get the word to them what you suspect, so they could come to verify it. And that number again, Fort Myers, 338-2929. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. Anybody else on any other topic? One more. MR. MORGAN: Question, sir. Robert W. Morgan. What false info. are we referring to, Commissioner Constantine? False info. that was put out about the -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think the word was probably better termed not accurate. And that is -- I think Commissioner Norris covered it, where it was only taking into account if your only consideration was getting people from Davis to Rattlesnake Hammock, clearly A is the best for that. But when you look at the big picture, as John said, and you look at what the purpose of what that roadway is and that is to connect north to south, it didn't serve that purpose. And when you try to put that into place, then you end up with extra lanes on Rattlesnake Hammock, extra lanes on 951, potential flyovers, and the -- so the information that I said was false was the suggestion that it was cheaper to simply build A isn't accurate when you look at what the purpose of that roadway is and what the long-term expense of fulfilling that purpose would be. MR. MORGAN: And presently, the four-lane ends at Polly Avenue there, and is two-laned there. If you take C and you dump it onto Rattlesnake Hammock further east of that intersection, you're going to create a need for four more lanes of traffic; is that not correct? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No, I don't think that's what -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Now, first of all, your premises is wrong, Robert, because the point of the road is not to dump it on Rattlesnake Hammock. See, that's where Reverend Lyberg and you have a misconception. That's not the purpose of the road. The purpose of the road is to go through Rattlesnake Hammock. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The majority of the traffic -- and I may have the number wrong -- but it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 percent of the traffic is anticipated to go through it, not onto Page 27 December 8, 1999 it. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: But also, part of your question, or part of your premises is correct, is that some day that that will be four-laned all the way out to 951 on Rattlesnake Hammock when the traffic supports it. That's already planned. But you have to wait until traffic counts get to a certain amount to do that. But the purpose of Santa Barbara is not to go to Rattlesnake Hammock. That's not the point of it at all. It's to go past Rattlesnake Hammock and have another north-south route in that area. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And if you look at the models, if all you did was bring down Route A straight down, and had no other, it would actually call for six lanes, which I know the board had said they didn't want ever to see happen. But it would call for six lanes of a portion of Rattlesnake Hammock, as opposed to just the additional, making it four. So I mean, the false information is the assumption that A, getting people from Davis to Rattlesnake Hammock would be cheaper. Because it's just -- that's not accurate when you look at the big picture. COMMISSIONER BERRY: I think you're missing one point, though. You're failing to tell them that when that road goes through, goes across Rattlesnake Hammock Road, there is a road into Lely which has not been built yet. It's kind of a -- if you look at the map, it's kind of in the corner up there. And that road has to be completed as well. So that's the -- that's the end of this picture. MR. MORGAN: You're referring that the road from -- CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Grand Lely. MR. MORGAN: -- Rattlesnake Hammock over to 41. COMMISSIONER BERRY: Right. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Right. MR. MORGAN: Okay. So you're not saying that this traffic is actually going to flow into St. Andrews, it's going to flow into some other artery? COMMISSIONER BERRY: Well, there's that little corner there. If you look on a map, you're going to see a little -- it looks like the corner of that Lely area, and you'll see a little corner, and that is this road, this C road, coming down crossing Rattlesnake Hammock Road and continuing on down onto this other roadway. MR. MORGAN: Oh, you're talking about in Lely Resort. COMMISSIONER BERRY: Right. MR. MORGAN: What do those people have to say about it? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: They want it. MR. MORGAN: They want all that traffic in their place? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: It's their traffic. COMMISSIONER BERRY: It's their traffic. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That's the point. They're the ones who are generating the traffic that makes this road necessary. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: They want it going the other way. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The other point is that road isn't planned to be a residential road. It's intended to be a carrier road Page 28 December 8, 1999 into Lely. Disburse traffic off into Lely. But there won't be any -- literally zero homes fronting Grand Lely. It's designed that way. I just got a memo here today that I read tonight as we were sitting down about our staff trying to sit down and have formal discussions with Lely to formalize that agreement. Obviously, if for some reason that didn't move forward, it served the purpose. But Lely has expressed an interest in that and tried to make that a reality. MR. MORGAN: Thank you. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I saw Mr. Kant getting a microphone. What is the timing on -- where are we with Lely? MR. KANT: I didn't hear the question. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Where are we with Lely in our discussions about connecting Santa Barbara with Grand Lely? MR. WILEY: Okay, right now staff is in the process of setting up a meeting with Lely Corporation to actually talk about the relocation within their planning. We do not have the formal agreement yet. We are setting up the meeting to do so. That's what I was told today from the project manager. MR. KANT: I can enlarge slightly on a couple of remarks made earlier by Commissioner Constantine, and again for the public's edification. The Lely Resort PUD shows a road that we call Grand Lely Boulevard, which, as was pointed out, is presently built from U.S. 41 north, roughly about halfway through the development up to the east-west road and comes out on 951. The master plan for the Lely Resort PUD requires that road to go all the way up and intersect with Rattlesnake Hammock. And the alignment, the so-called C alignment, could come down Santa Barbara and intersect with that. This is a rather small map, but what I've done on this, this is the Santa Barbara Boulevard. The dash line is just a rough approximation of that C. And you can see there's a single pen line I've drawn here, this is that Lely Grand Resort Boulevard. So that would be part of a through route and that -- the figures that the commissioner referred to earlier as far as 70 percent of that traffic is anticipated to use that through route rather than to use the Rattlesnake Hammock Road. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: That's the piece of it that makes it work. Without that connection, the whole system would have -- we'd be right back to where we would have been with the T. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: If you're not going to connect up with Lely Resort, like I said before, there's no point in going down and stopping the road at Rattlesnake Hammock, I believe. Because it does no good. That's not the purpose of the road. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Bob, one other note there. A doesn't serve the purpose for the county. And maybe by having both -- I shared that when you got up to speak, Collier County literally has never taken a single home for a road. Never taken a property and knocked it down. And I don't think any of us are enthusiastic or interested in doing that now. What we're trying to do is come up with a hybrid of not taking property and homes in there. Page 29 December 8, 1999 But we were unsuccessful. And I did not support our most recent action on this, because I would still like us to see us explore this a little more. And even if it costs more, I'd like to see that rather than displacing people from their homes. There are safety issues, engineering issues that go with it. But I don't think there are any five commissioners relishing the idea of knocking somebody's homes down to build a road. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Anybody else? Any other topic? MR. RAMUNDO: Were -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Your name? MR. RAMUNDO: Peter Ramundo. What is the timetable for this project? I know you're in the planning stage. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Could be 10 years, 15, 20. It's going to go by demand. So it's not going to happen tomorrow or next year. Anything else? We may adjourn. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: There's a gentleman. MR. JOHNSON: Worth Johnson. Is it still coming down -- is C still coming down the way it was? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: C? Yes, sir. MR. JOHNSON: It's by my house, right to my back door. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Give us your name, for the record. MR. JOHNSON: My name is Worth Johnson. So is this like still in the planning stages? Is this definitely going to go through? What's the deal here? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, we don't know that it's definitely going to go through, because we still have to make an agreement with Lely. However, don't forget that the county always has the police powers to take property in Lely, like they could take it in alignment Co If it becomes absolutely necessary to do it, then that's what we'll have to do. I don't know if you're aware, I didn't mention it before, one of the things I suggested, and I think the board has pretty much unanimously if not unanimously agreed, that during our present planning process where we take the exact alignment and see exactly where the road's going to go, when we do that and we decide that we are going to go forward, I say that we should buy the property at that point, let the people live on it for rent free, tax free or however long it is until we build the road, and at least that will give you some relief from the hardship of having to move off your property. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: And again, it's 10 years away. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: And that might be 10 years. You might be able to live 10 years rent free or whatever it happens to be. But that I believe would mitigate some of the hardship. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: As far as it being a done deal, we have to square away the issue with Lely and square away some the engineering details. They are well into that process, but it's not done. So there are a couple more steps left to be done. As John said, we're 10 or 15 years away from construction, so a lot can change in that time frame. I'd certainly be concerned if you Page 30 December 8, 1999 have a home there, but it's not finished either. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: And with the clear message I hope for everybody that there's -- the instructions, the marching orders to the engineers that have the final drawings are avoid homes at every possible opportunity. And that's the very last thing we want to do. But it's one of the hard responsibilities of the job when you see the repercussions of not doing it. We're kind of in a box to do the right thing. MS. BUCKLEY: Susan Buckley. I'm impacted by one of the -- the road as well. What you say is a good point, because 10 years, you're kind of in limbo for 10 years if you don't start purchasing or moving. What if you wanted to do something else in five years or move or something? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: You could do that. MS. BUCKLEY: You really couldn't sell your house. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That's why I say pay you now. If you want to stay there now tax free, rent free, until the road comes through your living room, fine. If you would rather take the money and move somewhere else tomorrow, fine, we don't care about that. But I think if would be to your benefit to mitigate as much as we can for you. That's what we ought to do, rather than wait for 10 years and say okay, we're building the road, get out. I don't think that's right. MS. BUCKLEY: I agree. We love it there, but we see something -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Believe me, this is the hardest thing I've ever had to do on this job. MS. BUCKLEY: That's good. If you decide to move -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I hope everybody understands the importance of having to do this. And I hope that we've made our point clear enough where you can accept what we have to do and move on from here. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Lady in the back. MS. RUSSELL: Kelly Russell. I'm just curious to know -- CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Your name, for the record. MS. RUSSELL: Kelly Russell. -- what the issues are of a situation like this. If you purchase the properties and in essence they belong to the county, what if there's an insurance issue, what if there's any kind of an accident situation or something like that? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I guess that's something we can work out with the County Attorney's Office. But I suspect if we rent it to you for a dollar a year, something like that, that you can supply your own insurance. We'll look at that issue. That's a good point. That's a good point. MS. RUSSELL: It's something I think about. And it's not going to affect my property, per se, I hope, unless you guys change your minds in five years. MR. NANNEMAN: I realize it's a -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: State your name again for the reporter. MR. NANNEMAN: Richard Nanneman. I realize it's a moot point at this point, but I think I heard Page 31 December 8, 1999 the statistics a little bit ago that 70 percent of the traffic that will be crossing Rattlesnake Hammock is from Lely anyway. Well, why are we ignoring the Route A? Let them go onto St. Andrews if it's -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: St. Andrews doesn't go to where they're coming from. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Two reasons, actually. Where 70 percent of the traffic is going, a big chunk of that would be Lely. A lot of that would be 951 and 41. But it's for the new Lely community, as opposed to the old Lely. But also, on St. Andrews, as opposed to -- I mentioned a minute ago how Grand Lely will have zero homes fronting Grand Lely. Every 30 feet, every 60 feet, 30 feet back, every 60 feet on St. Andrews, a home -- John can give you that number, something like 130 driveways fronting out there. So you don't want to try to put 15,000 cars going by 130 homes that all have their front door 30 feet off the road. So you don't want that many cars in what is literally a neighborhood street. Grand Lely will be set up as a carry-over for traffic. MR. BUCKLEY: My name is Rob Buckley. I'm just saying, you're saying 70 percent, and now the people over in Lely, future development, didn't I read too there's possibly 2,000 plus home development going up on 951, Winding Cypress? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Yes. MR. BUCKLEY: We're talking about being real worried about doing all these things to 951. Seems like all the people at the corner of Lely, basically they're bordering on 951. The Winding Cypress, they're going to have to do something to 951 anyway. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: See, you're making my point I made a minute ago. You're going to have to eight-lane probably 951, plus have overpasses. So now we're talking millions and millions and millions of dollars. MR. BUCKLEY: I understand. But how many people when they go north are going to have to go through this serpentinous route, let's say going 45 miles per hour possibly going up to 75 where a lot of traffic goes onto 951 to go to the heart of North Naples, say at 75 miles per hour. They're not going to want to go winding through. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Wiley can tell that you figure. What's the traffic number on that? MR. WILEY: We'll try. We're crystal balling. Sometimes it's easier to pick six numbers and be a millionaire than to answer your all questions. And I don't buy tickets. Let me -- MR. BUCKLEY: The reason I bring all this up is basically we're possibly going to lose our homes because of these people that are going to live somewhere in the future. Personally, I don't want to sound greedy, but let them fight the traffic on 951. MR. WILEY: Let me explain to you a little bit about the traffic analysis that was done on Santa Barbara and included 951. And we do have a report from Mr. Kant. But in a nutshell, they took the entire region in the study area, which includes all the urban area to the east of 951, which is a wide strip through there, these traffic analysis zones, put them all in the Page 32 December 8, 1999 model. We're assuming total build-out, wherever build-out will be allowed in the Growth Management Plan. So the 2,000 homes have been included in the traffic plans that the consultant has already reviewed. That's how we come up with the concern that -- 951 is set up as a four-lane, buildable to six by putting two lanes down the median. They showed it going to six, with Santa Barbara included. So that's what I'm saying, the whole region has been analyzed, and that shows the amount of traffic that is to be projected out through there. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I think to answer your question, I think it was like 35,000 cars a day. MR. BUCKLEY: Have you been back on Lely Grand Boulevard, what's left of it that winds up and around? And you're having me believe that people are going to cross 951, come up to the north piece you're going to build, get on a four-lane road and go on Santa Barbara, sight-see through Golden Gate and try to go to Pine Ridge to the Home Depot? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That's not what we're saying at all. The traffic is going to come out of Grand Lely Resort area. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It depends on what your destination is here. If your destination is on the corner of Davis and Airport, it may not make sense to go 951 to Davis and over. It depends on the destination. MR. BUCKLEY: I agree. But like I say, I'm looking to keep my house. And I say go Rattlesnake Hammock, hop on County Barn, which you should have four-laned a long time ago and bam, you're there. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I understand that, really. And I would feel exactly like you do if my house had to go. But, you know -- MR. BUCKLEY: Well, how -- can I ask another? How realistic is that in 10 or 15 years, because after the last meeting which I missed, because I didn't read about it until after the day it happened -- which I feel not treated very fairly when that happens. I think when your home's impacted like that, I think the least you could do is get a thing in the mail telling you that this thing is coming to a final vote. But it said in the paper they're talking about putting them fast track three to five years. I feel if I wanted to move tomorrow, I couldn't rightfully sell it. I couldn't until -- because the road's going to come through, maybe next year, maybe 15 years from now. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That's why -- first of all, the fast track is to get the engineering design done and to see exactly which if any and all properties that we have to take, and that's why I also say, like I told the lady here, the only fair thing to do is as soon as we can possibly make that decision, get that decision on the fast track, then say all right, we're going to have to put this through your part of the property and we're going to buy it from you. Now, you can stay there and it might be another 10 years. MR. BUCKLEY: I appreciate that. Because as it is now, we've had things on hold for three years now. Page 33 December 8, 1999 COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I understand. I understand. Ma'am? MS. ORSCHELL: I don't know if this is a question or just a verification. My name is Suzanne Orschell. S-U-Z-A-N-N-E. Orschell. O-R-S-C-H-E-L-L. It's my understanding from the Tindale-Oliver study that the amount of north-south lanes that are going to be -- that are being considered, and I'm not sure what the east-west boundaries are, I believe 951 is east, possibly U.S. 41 to the west, it's kind of confusing, will increase from 10 to 22 in the section between Davis and Rattlesnake Hammock Road. That's a lot of infrastructure for a small area. I just think more people need to realize what the plans are. Because in your statement earlier, you said if a -- if C doesn't come about, then we'll need to do this and we'll need to do this and this. But those -- the four-laning of County Barn Road is under consideration, the six-laning of 951 is under consideration, two lanes of A, four lanes of C. There's an awful lot of infrastructure that's being proposed for this area. And there's really -- again, I'm very curious to see what's being planned for the northern part. Even for the section between Radio Road and Davis Boulevard. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: You make a good point. But we're having to face some of those same problems in the southern part of the county and in the northern part of the county as well. Commissioner Berry has been very adamant about Santa Barbara goes up and it looks like it's almost going to dead end at Vanderbilt. We're going to have to have the same problem up there as we do here, just about. So you're exactly correct. But I think the point that you are probably referring to with that many lanes is the Needs Report. And there's a -- that is the maximum number of lanes that would be necessary to make it flow -- make traffic flow at a certain level. However, there's another study that's done at the same time that's called a Financially Feasible Plan. And the Needs Plan means if money was no object, what would you build. The Financially Feasible Plan then brings you back to reality. And we say well, we would love to have all these eight-lane roads, but we're only going to be able to afford to build this, this, this and this. So the Needs Plan is going to show a lot more than the Financially Feasible Plan. MS. ORSCHELL: I know Wilson-Miller has done two studies on the permittable, cost issues and so forth. But are you saying there's a third, or is the second Wilson-Miller the one you're referring to where you're saying that C is coming out better than A? Because I don't know, I've never seen the study where C has come out better than A. And I would love to get a copy of it. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Once again, if you take a segment from Davis to Rattlesnake, A comes out better because of cost, but it ignores too many factors. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Mr. Ilschner, is there a factor? MR. ILSCHNER: Commissioners, Chairwoman, Ed Ilschner, public Page 34 December 8, 1999 works administrator. The last study by Wilson-Miller has been submitted to the board and that was involving alignment C and alignment A. And that study was presented to you for the purposes of having the Board of County Commissioners direct staff to complete that routing and do that final analysis. It's my understanding that that report, which would include that updated analysis based on your direction to staff, will be available in six months. That report will identify for you all of the -- it will have the final alignment that will be directed to the board -- CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: That sounds like important information, but the question that I was asking is, there was some discussion about whether or not Route C ever ranked highest in any of these rankings that were done by Wilson-Miller. MR. ILSCHNER: Robert, let me call on you. Do you have an answer to that? MR. WILEY: I do. No. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KiE: So it never was. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And my recollection was the board did not actually accept -- we accepted the report, but we did not accept the information as full and complete. MR. WILEY: Yes, that is correct. MR. ILSCHNER: I just simply wanted to clarify the timing. Because I know there's some people out in the audience that are concerned, when are we going to know when that routing will actually be that will enable us then to identify for you the board the properties that are going to be required? Then that will clear us to actually start this accelerated right-of-way process. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay, but I think to get to the heart of the question, though, we had information presented to the board that clearly identified that alignment A would be a big mistake -- MR. ILSCHNER: Yes. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: -- in the long run. MR. ILSCHNER: That's correct. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That doesn't mean there was a study with a ranking done concurrently with that particular study. That was information that was presented to us separately. When the whole picture was brought into focus, not just the ranking. Have I made my point clear? MR. ILSCHNER: That's when we provided you all the traffic impacts and analysis. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That was something separate. It was not done by Wilson-Miller, was it? MR. ILSCHNER: No, that was done by Tindale-Oliver. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: If you would, Mr. Ilschner, go ahead and tell people when they might know for sure if their house is or isn't on the alignment C hit list, God forbid. MR. ILSCHNER: Yes, we anticipate being able to be in a position to advise you of that determination in approximately six months. We have a request for legal services into our legal department at the Page 35 December 8, 1999 request of the Board of County Commissioners to assist us in establishing the process of the accelerated right-of-way acquisition process, where we would then -- if your house were involved in a particular take, we would be able to come in and work with you on an early purchase fair market value. And then work out an arrangement where you could remain in that property 10 or 15 years rent free. We're working on those details now with our attorneys. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: But in six months or so you should know. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Robert? MR. MORGAN: Robert W. Morgan. Again, what are the possibilities if Route C were chosen and it went through Lely Resort and Lely Resort pulled a Foxfire on you and became a gated community? What would happen then? And that is a distinct possibility, because it's happened. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, Robert, I think the same people that decided to go through Route C are the ones that allowed them to put up a gated -- MR. MORGAN: I didn't understand. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I think the people who decide Route C is the one to go with are the same people who decide whether or not you can have a gate. MR. MORGAN: Well, things change, John. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That's the point I made earlier when everybody said there was a line drawn on the map 25 years ago. MR. MORGAN: Yes, sir, there was a good line. Still is. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: What's your interest, Robert? Do you own property down there? MR. MORGAN: Yes, sir. I have owned it for 12 years. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Realistically, Bob, there are some differences. You can draw a hypothetical. This board doesn't control what another board is going to do five years, 10 years, 20 years from now. But realistically we're talking about a neighborhood that's 20 years old, and you've been here since Foxfire was built. So you know when Foxfire was built and that road was turned over to the community, this was a different community than it is today. You also know that those -- that neighborhood, that street, has homes fronting on that street all the way. And when Livingston Road opens, you could have as many as 17,000 cars a day driving through there. I think if Lely Grand is design, A, it's not 20 years old. B, an agreement is entered into now with Lely, and C, that the Collier County road grid looking long-term is built with that in mind is probably not realistic to think that a future board is going to alter that. Hypothetically could happen, sure. Hypothetically anything could happen. MR. MORGAN: I needed to bring the topic up. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I appreciate the opportunity to bring the issues there, because they are different. COMMISSIONER BERRY: Could I add a clarification just briefly on Foxfire? I hate to get on that topic. But if we could just for a minute. Mr. Ilschner, Mr. Kant, one of you can answer the question. The Page 36 December 8, 1999 road that was built through Foxfire, was that built with taxpayer dollars? MR. ILSCHNER: No, that was not. COMMISSIONER BERRY: It was built by the developer? MR. KANT: No, commissioner. That was the developers' road, which was platted and then the request was made to vacate the plat. COMMISSIONER BERRY: So in other words, the tax -- the only thing that the taxpayers contributed to that road was after it was turned over to the county, the taxpayers helped to maintain the roadway since that time? MR. KANT: Thank you. MR. MORGAN: In the original situation, I don't think Foxfire's road met county's specs so, therefore, it had to be brought up to specs before it could be dedicated to the county; is that not correct? MR. KANT: That's incorrect, sir. At the time the roads were built, they met the then county specifications. Over the last 21 years I've been here, we've seen the county specifications increase significantly. So today when you see a roadway, you see a much better roadway than the county would have accepted 20 some years ago. COMMISSIONER BERRY: But the statement that a taxpayer's roadway has, quote, been taken away from them that they built would be wrong information, or incorrect. MR. KANT: That's correct. As a matter of fact, Commissioner, and for the benefit of the public, there are very few roadways that have been built with, quote, taxpayer dollars that started out that way. A number of -- most of the roadways that we enjoy in the county now, the public roadways were the result of development efforts. The roadways that the county -- the arterial system that the county took over from the FDOT roadways, those did in fact come from gas taxes, but those have always been public. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That road system, if it were to be resurfaced, will be 19 years old this coming year. So if anything, that is expected to come up in the next couple of years will fall on those residents. COMMISSIONER BERRY: Exactly. Good point. CHIEF SCHANK: One last thing, just talking about roads. I can tell you, the developer didn't put the roads in there. They were limerock roads given to the county, the driveway, which was from a passage it was fixing to give to the county. There was a special taxing district set up. And each owner of that land paid the money out of our pockets to build that road and do the drains. That's some of the roads you're talking about taking to satisfy other people's needs. I just wanted to mention that. MS. ORSCHELL: Adkins Avenue was the same way. We paid to have our roads paved. No one else did it for us, we did it ourselves. So that's the end of that. COMMISSIONER BERRY: Also, Suzanne, you've had the use of that roadway since it's been done. MS. ORSCHELL: Since we've had it paved, yes. MR. JOHNSON: We built that road. I'm off the two roads. We Page 37 December 8, 1999 built that up to the county's specifications. There's three or four families build there. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think the point you're all making further reinforces what our staff said, and that is whether it's developers or private owners, it's -- also with the exception of your major roadways, it's the private sector that brings those roads up to standard before the county takes it. It doesn't take taxpayer money to do it. So you're right, that's consistent with virtually every road around the county. Whether it's single homes or fancy development sites we're -- MR. NANNEMAN: Except we're not gated. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You're right. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Anything else? Go home. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: We are adjourned. There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 9:00 p.m. ..,,' ...~ ' ATTEST - ,' ..' DWIGHT,.E: BROCK, CLERK BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF ROL " '~-i'.'These minutes approved by the Board o ~u~,~ ~n~, as presented ~ or as corrected TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE, INC., BY CHERIE' R. LEONE, NOTARY PUBLIC Page 38