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DSAC Minutes 02/02/2000 RFebruary 2, 2000 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE DEVELOPMENT SERVICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE Naples, Florida, February 2, 2000 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Development Services Advisory Committee, in and for the County of Collier, as the board of such special district as has been created according to law and having conducted business herein, met on this date at 3:30 p.m., in REGULAR SESSION, at Conference Room "F', Horseshoe Drive, Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: NOT PRESENT: Dalas D. Disney, AIA Charles M. Abbott R. Bruce Anderson, Esq. David Correa William P. Dillon Robert L. Duane, AICP Marco A. Espinar Blair A. Foley, P.E. Dino J. Longo Tom Masters, P.E. Thomas R. Peek, P.E. Herbert R. Savage Brian E. Jones Sally Lam C. Perry Peeples, Esq. Page I February 2, 2000 COUNTY STAFF PRESENT: Michelle Arnold Vince Cautero Tom Kuck Ron Nino Ed Perico Page 2 February 2, 2000 CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Before I get started, I'd just remind us for recordkeeping, when you're recognized, you state your name prior to any comments. I call to order the Development Services Advisory Committee meeting of February 2, 2000. Our first item is Approval of Agenda. Are there any modifications to the agenda? We need a motion first. MR. PEEK: Yeah, Mr. Chairman. Tom Peek. I move approval of the agenda. MR. SAVAGE: Herb Savage. I second it. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: A motion and a second. Any modifications to the agenda? Hearing none, all those in favor of approval? Opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Passes. Second item is Approval of Minutes of January 5, 2000. Entertain a motion for approval? MR. PEEK: Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Peek? MR. PEEK: I move the approval of the agenda -- I mean, of the minutes, with one comment: On page 28, near the center of the page, where we voted on a motion, it would appear that Mrs. Lam and I voted in favor of it with an aye; and it should have been a no, because we voted in opposition. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you for the correction. MR. PEEK: Otherwise, the thing is in order, and I would move for approval. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Is there a second? MR. DUANE: Second. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Any other comments? All those in Favor of approval? Opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Passes unanimously. MR. ABBOTT: Well, might I comment on it, that something Page 3 February 2, 2000 as crucial as that is alarming, you know, to get a, get a no -- get an aye answer when it was a no, and you were very particular about that. MR. PEEK: Well, it says-- MR. CAUTERO: Okay. I think Mr. Peek's point is well taken though to make it more definitive that they voted no on that, and we can clear that up. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: The next agenda item is Staff Announcements. Mr. Cautero. MR. CAUTERO: First under A., the Summary of Ordinance Amendments, we're revising the form right now. I'd like to defer that until the end of the meeting, and if I may, discuss some issues there with you, and I, again, I have an update on the current ordinance amendments. And under Miscellaneous Items, we have lists of your subcommittee members, names of the subcommittees and the members of the subcommittees, as well as the dates and times that the committees meet. And I also have updated rosters with phone numbers, fax numbers, e-mails, categories, expiration dates. Please look these over one more time, and if there are any changes, we can -- we'll make them; if not, we'll consider that function complete. Hopefully, this will be useful to you. They're very useful to us, as well. You have -- should have two lists. One is three pages, the other is a single sheet of paper that the subcommittee assigned us for the year 2000-2001. It lists the staff support, the staff contacts, and the day of the week and the times that that committee meets. And we hope you find that useful. And one other item, briefly: Sally Lam called and said she would be unable to make it and requested an excused absence. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Can we -- we'll come back at the end of the meeting to item III A. Next on the agenda, Old Business, Proposed Amendments to Page 4 February 2, 2000 the Fee Schedule and Housing Ordinance Regarding Registration of the Rental Dwelling Units. MR. CAUTERO: Mr. Chairman and committee members, Michelle Arnold prepared some information at the committee's request dated in the memorandum to your packet under New Business, January 20 of this year. What she has done in the memorandum is outline the costs for the rental registration of dwelling units, how much money we collected in the years since the ordinance amendment has been in effect, and also has prepared some documentation following that memorandum, which is a draft ordinance amendment which carries forward the recommendation that this committee asked us to carry forward to the Board of County Commissioners. And that's found on the bottom of page I of that sheet in the ordinance amendment. It's underlined. The feeling of this committee, if you remember, at the last meeting, was to amend the ordinance so that owners of rental units that resided in Collier County would not have to register. The ordinance then, if that amendment was approved by the board, would only be limited to those individuals who lived outside of Collier County. And that ordinance amendment here is a draft form for your review and possible approval so we can send it to the Board of County Commissioners. Getting back to the other issue which we also had discussion about at the last meeting which we brought forward to you was the actual cost implication. As you remember, Michelle was recommending to you the cost be raised for the initial registration as well as the renewal for the rental units in Collier County. As you can see from the chart, we collected over $36,000 in 1997, and that number went way down in 1998, which we expected, because there were a lot of people who -- there were a lot of owners that initially registered pursuant to the ordinance, over 2400, we had; and then the next year, we only had 830 for the renewals. I think that's due to a combination of things: partly our fault Page 5 February 2, 2000 for not publicizing it as well as we should have. MR. ABBOTT: Did you mail it out? MR. CAUTERO: Yes, we did mail-outs. MR. ABBOTT: Okay. MR. CAUTERO: We probably didn't do a good enough job with public information, and we have the tools available to us and those tools have been enhanced with Channel 54; the public information office has been strengthened. They've been -- they've brought in some good people, so in the future, we'll be able to do a better job in working with them. But then last year, we became a little bit more aggressive, since Michelle has had some time at the helm of the Code Enforcement,and she was able to pick up 326 more initial registrations that had not registered in 1997; and in addition, over 1800 renewals, so that's more than a thousand from the year before. So we have been more aggressive in following the ordinance that the board put in front of us, and we collected over 23,000 last year; and the first year, the highest number, 36,000. But it's, it's gotten to the point now where if we're going to do the job the board expects us to do, notwithstanding the amendment that you proposed to the board about taking out the piece of the registration where people that live in Collier County would not have to register, we believe that we're going to need more staff members. The analysis we haven't done though is to tell you how many of those individuals would not be registering if they live in Collier County. We really don't have a good feel for that. We'd have to go back and do a little bit more analysis. This memo was an attempt to give you the information that you wanted. The total cost that we're estimating that the registration for them brings to us a year is a little over $45,000. We have collected more than that over the three-year period, but no year has collected the amount of money it takes to administer the program, and that was the, the impetus behind Michelle's recommendation. MR. ABBOTT: Well, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask a -- CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Abbott? Page 6 February 2, 2000 MR. ABBOTT: How, how much have we used this type of-- do you remember we were trying to decide if we had code violations and how do we get ahold of somebody as opposed to the normal just tax rolls or property records? How many times have we used that to really justify the -- 'cause I never liked it even from the first -- MR. CAUTERO: Right. MR. ABBOTT: --just 'cause I didn't think it was good government, but-- MR. CAUTERO: I don't know. I don't have any data to answer the question. I will tell you that the purpose of the ordinance amendment was to be able to track down the owner when we had people that were out of state, or if a corporation owned the building and it wasn't an individual and we were having a hard time tracking someone down. The purpose of the rental registration wasn't for you, as the owner, necessarily to register your building. If a corporation in St. Paul, Minnesota, for example, owned the building and hired a management company to run it in Naples, we just wanted someone to register in Naples so that we could use them as the contact point if there was a code violation. That was the only purpose of the ordinance amendment. Keep in mind how the ordinance amendment was born and what it ended up being. It was born in early 1995 or even late 1994 with proposed language that would have, would have made it mandatory for all owners to re-register every time property was sold. MR. ABBOTT: Uh-huh. MR. CAUTERO: And the real estate community, of course, found that completely onerous and fought that, and the ordinance amendment was pared down over a series of meetings that we had with the real estate community as well as this committee, and the ordinance amendment that we were left with was simply a registration. There was also a requirement originally in the ordinance Page 7 February 2, 2000 draft that called for an inspection every time property was sold, rental property. I don't think -- you know, Ed and I would not be able to recommend to you a significant number of staff to keep up with that, the ability for code enforcement. All we ended up with was that particular piece. I can tell you that Michelle has probably used it on occasion, but I don't know how often it's been used. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Peek? MR. PEEK: Looking at this valuation of rental registration fees, it appears that the County has been or development services has been supplementing this project to the tune of either -- about $9,000 in 1997 to $37,000 in 1998 to 22,000 in '99. I guess the question goes -- to follow up on Charlie's line of questioning -- is, is it, is it less expensive to do away with the whole ordinance, and when you can't find somebody, go trace them down, are you spending more than $9,000 a year to trace people down? If you aren't, then we're wasting our time. Let's get away from the, from the rental police, throw that away, and just go spend whatever money we have to to chase somebody down every now and then. MR. CAUTERO: Uh-huh. That's a really good point. I don't, I don't think we're spending that much money. If you have one or two bad cases a year where you can't track somebody down, you start spending thousands of dollars; but I can't tell you that we've spent more than that in those, in those years, in these three years. Previously to that, we probably did, previous to the ordinance amendment going in, only because we had a lot more complaints prior to it going in. I don't think it's because this ordinance has, has necessarily created some glorious program for us that has just made the problem go away. Prior to this, I know that, from what the staff tells me, they had a large number of problems. I think our code enforcement program was successful in helping abate some of those violations in the rental units, most notably in Golden Gate. Page 8 February 2, 2000 MR. PEEK: Right. So, so my -- following on through with that, it would seem logical to me that we recommend doing away with the entire ordinance. MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Savage? MR. SAVAGE: Herb Savage. It sounds like the tail wagging the dog, in my view. We talked about this before, some other areas in this county where we got so excited about something, and there were only two violations, you know, and we got all this mountain that's going on and had only one or two instances where we found the need for some sort of an ordinance. And I agree with you; I think we -- and I'd like to get Vince Cautero's feeling on this, and recommendation, as to whether we really need this ordinance. MR. CAUTERO: I don't think it's an ordinance that really does us as much good as it was intended to do. Is it useful? Yeah, but it probably isn't doing the job for us that we thought it would do. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Peek? MR. PEEK: Mr. Chairman, I make a motion that this committee recommend to the Board of County Commissioners that this ordinance on rental registration be eliminated and repealed. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: There's a motion. MR. ESPINAR: Second. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Discussion? Mr. Savage. MR. SAVAGE: this? No? MR. ABBOTT: MR. SAVAGE: started this. Okay. Is there a second? Mr. Savage. Aren't we the ones that started They, they brought it to us as a, as a situation That's what I asked. We're not the ones who CHAIRMAN DISNEY: There's a question, Bob? MR. DUANE: You know, I, I -- CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Would you -- MR. DUANE: Yes, Robert Duane for the record. Page 9 February 2, 2000 I originally was opposed to this ordinance, but I was in the minority, and it -- we've been building on it ever since. I, I -- the purpose was to try to track down absentee landlords that were not maintaining their property? That was the purpose of it, Mr. Cautero? MR. CAUTERO: Pardon me? MR. DUANE: To trace down absentee landlords that we weren't able to notify of violations? MR. CAUTERO: That's correct. MR. DUANE: Is there still any, in your mind, is there still any benefit of having that information? I'm beginning to, to think it may not be worth it. I just want to hear from you whether you think there's any benefit of retaining it in any way, shape, or form, inasmuch as last week, Mr. Peek persuaded us to, you know, take Collier County residents, you know, out of the ordinance. Is there still some benefit in your mind, given that we're going to have a greatly reduced, you know, number of registrations ostensibly now? MR. CAUTERO: Well, having that information is useful if you need it, because then you wouldn't have to go through the research in tracking down somebody that represents the owner. That was the whole purpose of it. If you do away with it, I think -- getting back to Mr. Peek's question, it doesn't appear that we've had many cases where we've had to really deal with the problem since 1995. Now, I need to get a better number on that for you and for my own use, but having the information, sure, it helps, even if it was one case; but not having it, I can't tell you that it would hurt us that badly. MR. DUANE: Do we have enough information to make a decision today if you think we still -- you still need to provide us any more data? MR. CAUTERO: I think you have enough information. The only piece of information that I might give you is that question of how many times have we tried to track down a absentee landowner since the ordinance was amended. And we've had difficulty in doing that, and we've had to go Page 10 February 2, 2000 to Minnesota and then call California and then it changed owners several times, or management companies, or mortgages have been sold to new companies, new banks, whatever the case may be, and we've run into a few cases like that. MR. DUANE: But it's not dozens and dozens of cases. MR. CAUTERO: No, I don't believe it is. MR. DUANE.' Okay. I'm then persuaded by Mr. Peek's motion. Thank you for the discussion. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Longo? MR. LONGO: Dino Longo. I have a couple questions. Vince, it would seem that, in part, that the collection of the fees that -- under the unregistered people or the people that have not renewed is part of the impetus of having the new staff person to follow up on the unregistered people that aren't registering? MR. CAUTERO.' I'm sorry. Repeat your question. I'm not following you. MR. LONGO.' We have a severe lack of renewals, so my question is, number 1, it's part of the staff person's responsibility are to follow up on renewals, get the renewals, as it stands. MR. CAUTERO: Yes. MR. LONGO: Second question is, what funds subsidized the lack of moneys collected in previous years? MR. CAUTERO: The unincorporated general fund. MR. LONGO-' Okay. Secondly -- or thirdly, couldn't we just -- if we did away with this ordinance, couldn't we attach somehow to like the tax receipts or something a renewal certificate requiring --just keep the owners -- requiring people to register, but having some other way of getting it out to them so that it's an automatic-type renewal? 'Cause, what happens if you don't register? How does the county know if you don't register? MR. CAUTERO: We don't. We don't. MR. LONGO: That's my point. MR. CAUTERO.' We don't. It was set up, it was set up to be a voluntary system where we would do publicity, and we were able to get over 2400 in the first year, which I was surprised Page 11 February 2, 2000 with. I thought we'd get less than that. The next year we have a data base; it's basically a data base. You can see from this that we have just under 2900 or so, if my math is correct, 2800, for a data base. MR. LONGO: Well, I guess my point is, if we're talking about dissolving the ordinance -- and the commissioners have seen this obviously as a good thing, 'cause they passed it over our objections the last time, the whole DSAC, even with a letter, I believe -- to give them possibly an out is to be able to have a different method of, of registering that's kind of automatic somehow some way, like the garbage or the tax certificates somehow. MR. CAUTERO: That brings -- that's a good suggestion, and I think the answer to your question is, yes, it can be done. I believe somewhere in this organization -- MR. LONGO: It would cost 45,000 a year or more. MR. CAUTERO: Right. MR. LONGO: It would have to be subsidized from the general fund. MR. CAUTERO: I don't know what the cost would be, but I would think, with the technology we have, we can certainly do that. However, when that issue comes up, you involve other agencies, and then you have to start talking about cooperation from those agencies, what is their time, what is their cost and so forth. And it wouldn't surprise me, if doing what you just said cost more than $45,000 per year when you start adding in other staff members' time, depreciation of equipment, and so forth. All those costs would have to be factored in. MR. LONGO: Okay. Then one last question is, do you know roughly how much it cost us to implement this to start with? I mean -- MR. GAUTERO: It was roughly in the $45,000 ball park. MR. LONGO: So we're just kind of-- MR. CAUTERO: Yeah, it's been the same cost each year; it hasn't risen greatly, if at all. Page 12 February 2, 2000 MR. LONGO: Okay. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Marco? MR. ESPINAR: I just want to make a quick comment. When I worked for code enforcement many moons ago and I did environmental enforcement, it just took us a little bit of legwork to track down who the property owner was. It wasn't that difficult at times to do that, and I think that this is a redundant -- and sort of a waste of money. MR. CAUTERO: I'm sorry, Mr. Espinar, but I completely disagree with you. We have had numerous cases where it's hard to track down people who don't hold the mortgages, and then I've heard horror stories where we've gone to California, Minnesota -- not literally -- North Carolina, where we've had to -- we constantly were spinning our wheels trying to track down owners and corporations of these rental units that don't have anybody locally that will -- that is responsible. Usually when we get to the bank, we've gotten somebody's attention, because their investment now is being -- is now unprotected in some way. Getting to that point is very, very difficult at times. It's very hard. It's not just the guy across the street who didn't cut his lawn. It's, it's extremely difficult to track down the owners of these multifamily units at times. It's not a simple code enforcement case. MR. DISNEY: Mr. Peek? MR. PEEK: Only to follow up on that and almost a repeat is, my whole point is that I have no doubt that there are some difficult cases of location. But it's my opinion, and I believe supported by your comments, Mr. Cautero, that those few that you do have will cost less than the subsidy that we're now putting into this program to keep it on the books, so I think it would be cheaper to do away with the program, and then whatever few cases we have to spend a few thousand dollars to track down, we just spend that money. We've spent less money than we will if we keep this in place. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: We have a much stronger code Page 13 February 2, 2000 enforcement now than we used to have, so it's -- MR. PEEK: Yeah. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Very good. One last question. Mr. Abbott? MR. ABBOTT: It's not a question; it's just that I want to make a very general comment on code enforcement, is, I leave Channel 54 -- I don't know if you-all watch it much -- on my TV in my office, and I watched the code enforcement board with a man with his boat trailer and a vindictive neighbor in a back yard, and it went on for hours. And finally I turned around and watched it seriously, and I thought that this was a terrible example of somewhat oppression of government by one individual, a neighbor, using it against this guy. And they got down to using setting their watches by exactly how many hours the boat trailer and boat was in the driveway on a Sunday. And I was just -- it was not a good example of government in action. MR. CAUTERO.' I couldn't agree with you more. As a matter of fact, we discussed that very issue at staff meeting this morning, and we were talking about when a constituent becomes a nuisance, when somebody, you know, received more than their fair share of government service per capita; and in that particular case, it's been an ongoing neighborhood feud for years. But I will tell you, that is the minority of the cases that go before the board. Ninety-eight percent of our cases we hope we can abate or might be in the court system for citation. Two percent of them go to that level, the code enforcement -- CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Well, have we got a motion and a second? We're going to call the question -- the motion is, if I can restate it briefly, is to recommend to the Board of County Commissioners that the ordinance in question be repealed. All those in favor? Opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN DISNEY: None? Good. Thank you. Page 14 February 2, 2000 MR. CAUTERO: I take it that means you don't want us to have a fee increase? CHAIRMAN DISNEY: So we'll see how the Board of County Commissioners feels about this. Subcommittee reports. MR. MASTERS: Hold on a second. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Is there an item that I missed? Subcommittee Reports, Land Development Regulation Committee. Mr. Duane? MR. DUANE: We had a meeting several weeks ago, and we reviewed several ordinance changes that Ms. Edwards brought before us of -- not of any great consequence, but defining better the definition of a recreational vehicle; and I believe that that was approved unanimously along with several other minor changes to ordinances. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. Thank you. Construction Code, Mr. Longo? MR. LONGO: Mr. Chairman, we did not meet last month as far as any agenda items. A little FEMA update is -- Vince, I think February 147 MR. CAUTERO: Correct. MR. LONGO: At two o'clock at the City Council Chambers is your next FEMA Task Force meeting, the consultant that the city hired. No? MR. CAUTERO: It's not a task force meeting; it's a joint workshop -- MR. LONGO: Joint workshop. I'm sorry. MR. CAUTERO: It's a joint workshop of the City Council of Naples and the County Commission and the City of Marco Island. MR. LONGO: My recommendation and the subcommittee recommendation is that we have a plan of action from this committee before we go to that February 14 meeting as to which way -- we're not quite sure what's going to go on at that meeting. The consultant's going to pretty much do his presentation pretty much like he gave to this full committee, and I think there needs to be some sort of a plan of action as to where we stand on it. Page 15 February 2, 2000 There's going to be a couple things that could come out of that once he makes his presentation. I don't know if they're going to vote on anything at that point or make a recommendation to vote, but I would expect that each governmental entity would take it back to their respective boards or councils and then vote as to which way to go; but somehow somewhere there needs to be a plan as to where we're going with all of this. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: This being a task force meeting, joint task force meeting, as we heard on the 19th with our FEMA presentation here, that was a preliminary finding and was informational only. Unless I read it incorrectly, the -- it's nearly the same information maybe with a closer to final report that's going to come forward, but wouldn't that report come to us before anything else occurs? MR. CAUTERO: Well, I think he's going to be drafting a final -- if I'm not mistaken, I think Mr. Tomasello is going to be drafting a final report after his presentation to the local officials. What he plans to give them -- MR. LONGO: Is what he gave you. MR. CAUTERO: And then take direction from them at the meeting, and they may be prepared to give direction at the meeting to their staffs or to him, because it is an advertised public meeting. MR. LONGO: And we're still on the same page as far as, like, we'll see it and correct it and whatever it takes -- well, not whatever it takes, but within reasonable means. The only other thing I have is this -- any update on, on -- we have one ordinance out there lately -- the litter ordinance. Vince could probably update us on what's happening with that. And then all the other three ordinances that we have are still on until the FEMA stuff is completed. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. Can you give us any update on when -- MR. CAUTERO: Yeah, I was going to -- that was the item I was going to ask to defer. I can go ahead and do that now. Page t6 February 2, 2000 CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Well, we can -- why don't we come to that at the end of the meeting then -- MR. CAUTERO: Okay. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: -- and that will update that for you. MR. LONGO: That's all I have. MR. SAVAGE: May I ask -- CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Herb? MR. SAVAGE: Herb Savage. May I ask a question? Dino, that's an information meeting, is it not, to those elected officials, not to us? MR. LONGO: Where we are at this point with it is, is the joint governmental entities have had the consultant up to this point to give his preliminary findings, and based on those findings, they're going to have to come back and decide whether they want to pursue any action against FEMA, or accept basically what FEMA has already started as far as the -- initially as far as the new firm maps. MR. SAVAGE: "They" being the cities of Marco and -- MR. LONGO: City of Marco, City of Naples, and the Collier County Commission. MR. ABBOTT: Is it my -- Charlie Abbott -- it's my understanding that we've given him 20,000, correct? MR. LONGO: I believe it was 30,000. MR. ABBOTT: Thirty thousand. Well, we're going to see what we're getting for that, whether it's worth throwing in the next hundred grand or whatever it is; is that -- MR. CAUTERO: Yeah, his contract was 30,000, proportionate share of the different jurisdictions. MR. ABBOTT: Correct. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Utility Code Subcommittee, Mr. Peek? MR. PEEK: Yes. You have a copy of the minutes of our January 27 meeting before you to refer to. I would just point out two or three items in there that are of particular interest: Item number 3, the Utility Ordinance is now on the Collier County web page, so you may access that from your computers. The -- item number 4, the Utility Standard Details, being the Page 17 February 2, 2000 drawings that go along with the Utility Ordinance are in final preparation. The subcommittee will review those in final form at our next meeting and should be able to make a report to this full committee at its next meeting. We'll inform you of their approval by the subcommittee and look for your endorsement for them then to be included in the ordinance. The only other item of real interest is to let you know of our next meeting, which will be on February 24, and all of you are invited to attend if you so choose. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you very much. The next item is New Business: Organizational Issues: Records Management, Space, Peak Workloads and Staffing. Mr. Cautero? MR. CAUTERO.' Thank you. I wanted to give you a little bit of information about an item we're going to be coming to you with in March in more detail, but I want to talk about it today so you can at least get a little bit of an idea of some of the issues we're facing in the budget this year, and this is exactly one of the items that I think really speaks to your mission and the ordinance that created this committee. We are literally busting at the seams in this building, and we are probably going to have to add more staff next year, or contract employees to handle the workloads, and we wanted to get some ideas from you how you think about it and then bring back some recommendations in March when we talk about the budget. For example, this year, already, in the first four months of the fiscal year, we're 600 permits plus over last year, to the tune of $500,000 in permit fees plus from last year. We're already over two million dollars, 2.3. One of the problems that Ed and I have experienced over the last three years has been the inability to outsource some of this work because of the cost. We're finding that if we wanted to outsource some of this, it costs more money than it would be for us to hire employees, train them, buy them equipment, buy them uniforms, put them at a desk here. It's just very expensive. We're finding that some of the private inspection firms, if Page 18 February 2, 2000 they even have the certification -- and that's the key. I think we wouldn't have this problem as bad as it is if our state statutes weren't written the way they are, but they are what they are, and we have to have people that are certified in the disciplines. When we hire them, they don't have to be certified; they have to be able to obtain that certification and then we go through a training program with them; and then once they're certified, they can inspect on their own. Getting somebody in from the field who would have to have that certification is not as easy as going out and get a structural engineer or someone who works for a plumbing company or a mechanical company or something like that. There are people that do that, but it costs us more money to do so. So we're trying a number of things. We're trying to contact some people who don't have what we believe to be large staffs where the overhead may be high, maybe the cost would be a little bit cheaper, or coming to you with some recommendations on changing some of the provisions in our building code or our administrative code, where we put more emphasis on having the contractor be responsible for certain aspects of the job, certain inspections. For example, what's the threshold or what's the criteria for the threshold building? MR. LONGO: Threshold now is anything over three stories, which is mandated. MR. CAUTERO: By statute? MR. LONGO: Five hundred occupancy, by statute. MR. CAUTERO: Okay. If we could look at the threshold requirements where a building has to be constructed under the threshold requirements of the state statute, if that could be an option for all buildings or some buildings, that would take some of the burden off of our staff. Then it becomes an issue of having inspections, special inspections done by a threshold engineer if that job were to be certified in that way, if it was permitted in that way. We're just trying to look at different things like that so we wouldn't have to necessarily do all the inspections. Page 19 February 2, 2000 There's a prevailing school of thought out there -- and this is really the root of the issue that I want you to be talking about in the next few months. MR. CAUTERO: There's a prevailing school of thought out there in the media and amongst people in the community -- and all you have to do is read the paper and talk to people, and you'll know what I'm getting to -- that the county should be doing everything. And I think that was central to the article that was written in the paper a few months ago about the building department being, you know, over- -- understaffed, overworked, and the whole bit and so forth. And there are people that believe that we should be looking at every little thing on every job -- MR. LONGO: Every day. MR. CAUTERO: -- every day. And what I'm saying is, our ]ob -- and I hope you agree with me -- is to assure that the basic components, the health, safety, and welfare components of the building code, have been met and we're doing as thorough a job as we possibly can. But there are certain things that are not within the purview of the building department, and what I'm trying to do is shift some things that we possibly can to the building industry and take some of the burden off of us. That would allow us to spend more time in the areas where we should be spending time, to give the property owner and the builder the best service for their dollar. And the service we provide is giving you the permit, if they're in compliance, going out and inspecting the building. We only conduct inspections and we give our plan review and maintain records. Those are the four major functions of the building department. And we charge money to do so, and we're making more money than we're spending every year because of the growth in the community. And what I'm saying is that we can tighten up some things in our organization and give people a better product, if we can maybe shift some of the things off to the private sector that we don't need to be doing; and then when we have to do things that Page 20 February 2, 2000 we need to do, basic inspections and so forth, we still need more staff. And Ed and I have talked many times about possibly outsourcing that, and we just can't find people that are certified for a reasonable price. For example, we've contacted one firm in town, and it's -- I mean, I don't even think they want to deal with us -- it's like 50 bucks for an inspection. It costs us less than $50 to send somebody out there to a job site if you broke it down into those components, but we don't do that with the way we set up the fee schedule. You know that. It's based on valuation of the building, which is what the Southern Building Code of Congress does in their evaluation tables, and that's what we've done in our fee schedule, and even reduced them on various occasions. So those are the kinds of things we're looking at. We -- you know, peak load has become the norm now. It's not like, well, in November and December, we're up here, and then we're going to come down. It's, it's up there. And as I said, we're 7,000 inspections over last year at this time of the year. I mean, that's incredible. So we're looking at adding people, and I may have to add people now in the middle of the year, 'cause our predictions were shot for the first quarter of this fiscal year. MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Savage. MR. SAVAGE: Herb Savage. Vince, it seems to me a couple of years ago we talked about this, and I think Dino brought it up, you know, that we had some real problems about outside inspectors. Did I -- did we -- did I remember this correctly? MR. LONGO: Uh-huh. MR. SAVAGE: It's a universal problem. We can't find work people qualified to build the buildings that we've designed, so to speak. I don't know how in the world you can find anybody who's interested in being an inspector. You know, Ed Day started years ago this idea of these Page 21 February 2, 2000 retired people like Tom Peek to get involved in a part-time basis and that sort of thing, and I just wonder, are there a lot of -- MR. LONGO: Do you want a part-time job? MR. SAVAGE: -- timers -- I don't want to call them old-times, but timers who would be willing to do outside inspections; but, you know, you still have that kind of a problem, as well. MR. CAUTERO: Well, that's one of the first things Ed did was get on the phone with people that used to work here and the people we know. That's another option. The worst-case scenario is, we post jobs and wouldn't be able to hire some people because -- we have picked up people from the private sector in the last few years, and we've lost people to the private sector. It all depends on what people want to do at that point in their career. There might be some people, quite frankly, that are burned out working six or seven days a week that want to come into the government job knowing that there's over-time work, but they don't work on Saturday and Sunday, and if they work on the weekend, it's very rare. That's where we pick up some people. Then we lose people. It's like, I'm not making enough money here. I'd be willing to work six, maybe seven days a week, because I need to be making $20,000 more a year, and I'll pick that up. MR. SAVAGE: And I'd be the first one, Vince, to go to that community person who's saying, we want the county to do all the inspections; and tell them, it's not the county's responsibility; it's the designer and it's the builder who's responsible to make sure it meets those, those codes, and I'd be very quick to tell them that. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Dino first, and then -- MR. LONGO: Vince, with the extra revenues we're making, even though I know you're projecting, would it justify to hire more staff, or you just don't want more staff 'cause we're here and we're too many people in this building? MR. CAUTERO.' No. The correlation isn't between the revenues and the staff; it's between the number of permits and the staff, because the revenue's based on valuation. So it's not Page 22 February 2, 2000 really apples to apples; it's an indicator, but it's not apples to apples, because it's based on valuation. You could have less permits and higher permit fees coming in if all the buildings are at a very high end of the scale. So when I look at permit valuation or construction valuation, I immediately have to go to another number just to make sure that it's real. You know what I'm saying? That it's skewed. MR. LONGO: Yes. MR. CAUTERO: Okay. But your point's well-taken, and your point is, if the numbers are up -- oh, yeah, the justification's there. I'm not worried about that. I'm not asking for you to help me with that. I think the board's going to, you know, buy into that real quickly. It's this issue of-- I don't believe the building department should be doing everything and being the cure-all for everything. I would like more homeowners and more owners of commercial-industrial buildings to build them under the threshold guidelines -- if I'm using the correct terminology -- when they don't have to, giving them the option. And if we give people the option to do that, maybe with a slight break in the permit fees -- 'cause we're now performing all the inspections, let them do that. That takes some of the burden off of us. Okay? So we've lowered the number of inspections that we would have to do on a typical job. MR. LONGO: Can you do that by statute? MR. PERICO: Legislation was passed that any job can be set up as a threshold job now. MR. LONGO: Any job. MR. PERICO: Any job. MR. CAUTERO: Any job. And where I may need your help is in selling that, because there are people out there -- and the picture has been painted, you know, the picture has been painted in this community that the building department should be looking at every little thing, and I believe that there's a function that we play, and that function hasn't been properly communicated out there. MR. ABBOTT: I have comments on that same thing, 'cause Page 23 February 2, 2000 Ed and I have talked all along about possibly doing something different with remodeling permits, because I do two hours' worth of work and then wait a day or so for the inspections. And in today's answer of digital cameras that have time stamps on them, all sorts of stuff, I'm totally willing to prove my case on, you know, work that I'm doing. But the perception in the public is what you say, that the building department is totally responsible for it, and people mistake not having their own superintendent or their own agent on a job to watch after them, and you get bad press in the paper that way, which I thought was atrocious; it was a misstatement. MR. SAVAGE: Herb Savage, Mr. Chairman. Vince, are there enough qualified threshold inspectors in this county to fill the void? MR. CAUTERO: I'd have to defer to Ed. MR. PERICO: There again -- Ed Perico -- there again, we've only got a handful, you know, like AGS, ASC, there's not that many. You know, there again, there's just so many bodies to go around. But there again, with the threshold, it's strictly for the structural components of the building; it wouldn't be for the electrical, the plumbing, the AC, or anything like that. And all the interior, you know, we would be doing anyway. You know, every little bit helps. There are jobs that are being set up now, you know, that weren't being set up a year ago that, you know, it's taken some of the burden off us. MR. SAVAGE: Herb Savage again. Just to point out, there's a building on Marco Island where the developer maintained -- he stopped it. Thank goodness it was a threshold engineer, you know, which you're required to have, that saw things that were being done that absolutely were totally inadequate, and they stopped the whole job down, a multi-story building. MR. PERICO: MR. SAVAGE: MR. PERICO: MR. SAVAGE: to stop it; didn't they? Right, red tag it. I stopped it. Hmm? I stopped it. You stopped it. That's right. They asked you Page 24 February 2, 2000 And it's just incredible how long it's taken them to overcome the deficiencies. MR. PERICO: And it's still going to --it's going to take quite a while longer. MR. SAVAGE: Right. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Well, I think that anybody here in the design side certainly can sympathize with the plight of finding qualified people. I know I have difficulty with that right now. This is an informational item, Vince, and additional information is going to come to us, and we've -- so are there any other -- to bring this to conclusion -- are there any other comments quickly here that we can make to help Vince along? Consensus of support or -- MR. CAUTERO: I don't really need -- I don't need anything today; I just wanted you to ask questions and listen to what I have to say. MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chairman, Herb Savage again. I do know that the threshold people have to go to school every year. Isn't that correct? MR. PERICO: Yes, sir. MR. SAVAGE: And I just feel that if you're going to try to get threshold people to do these lobs, you're going to have a beck of a time getting qualified people to do it unless the fathers that make the rules upstairs will agree that they don't have to do things, even though you're a registered engineer, are you a threshold inspector, and certified. You see, that -- I think a registered engineer in the State of Florida, or an architect or whomever they might be, that should be qualifications enough for him to be a threshold inspector without going to all this certification up on the road. MR. PERICO: Right. MR. SAVAGE: I mean, the qualifications are there, and if they're willing to do it, then I think we ought to insist that the State of Florida permit that. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you very much. Let's go back to -- Page 25 February 2, 2000 Question? MR. DUANE: Yeah, and it's a little off the wall here, but the last time we had a recession, nine, 10 years ago -- and I don't expect you to answer this today, but if you can think about it -- what is the correlation when we have a two, three percent rise in interest rates? I mean, it obviously affects the amount of product and, you know, loans and building permits. Do we have any historical information that would just show how precipitous, you know, some of these changes in the economy may be? I mean, we may very well have a slowdown in the next six, 12 months. I wish I knew the answer to that, but we raise these rates another percent or two, and I think that we're going to see some ripple effects. MR. CAUTERO: Well, that may be true. If we did have a slowdown, a slowdown in Naples is still a growth rate increase than in other places. Let's say that happened over the next few years, and we saw some of the revenues decline but not -- still be very high, but decline from what we've experienced in '98, '99, and maybe 2000, and the inspection load went down a little bit, you're talking about bringing them down to levels that are still fairly high or at acceptable levels. This economy would have to take a very sharp turn downward for us to start thinking about whether we're overstaffed or not. I firmly believe that. When I'm sending -- when Ed is sending inspectors out, anywhere between 28 and 30 a day, when you have -- when you don't have a full complement of staff, if you got anywhere in the neighborhood of 16, 17, 20, 22 inspections a day, if you had a downturn in the economy, that's still a heavy load; and it would take somebody all day to do that, given the traffic issues in this community. So those factors have to be taken into account. I don't see the day anywhere in the near future where we would probably have too many people on staff. MR. DUANE: Okay. That's a good answer. Thank you. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. Let's go back to item III A., Page 26 February 2, 2000 Summary of Ordinance Amendments. We had an issue there. Dino had a question, and I think, Vince, you've got a response -- MR. CAUTERO: Yes. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: -- for that, and some other issues? MR. CAUTERO: I believe in your chart it talks about that issue pending. Based on what you said today and something I've been thinking about when we've been talking about the staff level, that particular ordinance amendment, we are going to take your recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners. And we've discussed that in the past, that this committee -- this committee has discussed it, as well as the subcommittee, I believe, Land Development Regulation, if I'm not mistaken, is that correct, or the Construction Code discussed these elements MS. ARNOLD: The land use. MR. DUANE: Land Development. MR. CAUTERO: Land Development? Okay. In any event, it's been discussed at various times, and we are fully aware of your recommendation and so forth. What I would recommend that we do -- I plan to bring forward that recommendation to the board on February 22, and what I'm thinking of doing, based on your conversation today, is bring forward the recommendation on the rental registration units and bring forward the package to the board in the executive summary fashion and ask whether they are interested in actually proceeding, so that I don't waste money on advertising. This is something new. This committee hasn't been, in the last few years anyway, making recommendations on ordinance amendments unless it's been already initiated by someone else. You have the ability to do that, and I mentioned that to you several months ago, which is a good thing; but I can't remember a time where you've actually come to us and said, we would like this ordinance amended. And now we have two on the docket, so what I would recommend is, prior to advertising, cross out number one Page 27 February 2, 2000 documents, go through legal, getting their signatures and advertising, and then getting to the board, is asking the board -- telling the board this is your recommendation as a committee. Are they in favor of initiating it or having it go forward. You've initiated it. I shouldn't say "initiated." That's incorrect terminology. You've initiated the amendment, but I would think it would be a time saver if we could go to the board and ask them whether or not they would -- there's support there for that. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Abbott? MR. ABBOTT: I think that we would -- the committee would be -- have the benefit of your prioritizing the procedures here so that -- you're right -- so that you don't waste time. I think nobody here would give you any argument on trying to handle that as something so that you don't go to an unnecessary effort or expense. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: It seems a good idea to touch base before you spend a lot of time and energy on it. Okay? MR. LONGO: I didn't have any more questions. Those reports from -- MR. SAVAGE: You've got to talk a little louder for her, and for me. MR. LONGO: The inevitable question we discussed yesterday. MR. SAVAGE: Yes. MR. LONGO: The commissioners directed staff to go and get a district study on the fill pit issue in Golden Gate Estates and also -- MR. SAVAGE: Health? MR. LONGO: Health? Was it health? MR. SAVAGE: Yes. MR. LONGO: Did you get a chance to summarize or take a look at their conclusions? MR. CAUTERO: We have, and I'm going to defer to Michelle on that. We have received documentation from them that refer to the board meeting. Do you want to summarize their, their comments? Page 28 February 2, 2000 MS. ARNOLD: Yes. Michelle Arnold, for the record. We did receive comments back from both the health department and the mosquito control, and their concern is the -- leaving the, the pits open, or the containment areas open, would cause some health concerns as far as mosquitoes, a mosquito breeding area. They're also concerned with just what's typical: the fact that the area would maybe cause a concern for people tripping and that type of thing, and it would be much better -- it was their recommendation that we considered covering the areas rather than leaving them uncovered. MR. LONGO: That's by the Mosquito Control District? MS. ARNOLD: Both the health department and the Mosquito Control District. MR. LONGO: They really believe that? That that's a mosquito -- that's a mosquito issue, the canals and swamps in Golden Gate Estates. I'm sorry. I -- we brought professional people before this board and this committee to make recommendations, and the commissioners directed staff to go get other additional recommendations. And I guess I'm going to have to ask them before the rest of the committee, how would that proceed -- you'll just go ahead and -- forward with our recommendation and then put that forward too, the recommendations from the health department and the Mosquito Control District? MR. CAUTERO: Yes. That's why I brought the issue up. The answer to your question is yes. I'm kind of walking a fine line here, and that's why I bring it to your attention. You know, I want to make sure everything here is aboveboard and you understand what I'm doing. And as I said, I think it would be advantageous and save some money if I brought forward all that information and actually entitled the executive summary something along the lines of a discussion of DSAC recommendations. It's your recommendation. You know, I'm not going to mask your recommendation or make your recommendation look less important by putting it on the bottom of some package. Page 29 February 2, 2000 I would like to highlight that and say, the DSAC recommends you amend your ordinance, and here they are. And then tell the board, by the way, you asked us to go get other agency information on there this week, and here's that information. Are you interested in us proceeding with the crossed-out-and-underlined version, or do you want some other ordinance amendment written, or do you not like this? I think it's better to do it that way for a number of reasons. MR. LONGO: And I understand your intent. I just want the committee to realize that the board did that. I was not aware of that till after it happened, and we did make a recommendation prior to the board asking for other recommendations, so, you know, I don't know what's going to happen, of course, when it goes before the County Commission. But there was some very good input from people that this affected, and quite frankly, I don't know how the Mosquito Control District can worry about an open pit and about people tripping and stuff when that's not their charge. Their charge was to-- MS. ARNOLD: That comment came from the health department. MR. LONGO: Okay. MS. ARNOLD: And that was just an aside. MR. LONGO: And just personal comments and comments of, of -- that were re-enforced at the subcommittee level and at this level is that it wasn't an issue before, but it is a -- it is an additional cost to at least those builders and those homeowners out -- potential homeowners out in Golden Gate Estates, and with the impact fees we just put on and transportation, today they stand to look at about a $5,000 increase in their new homes starting whenever this could go into effect if it gets passed. So obviously I, I switch hats here and put on the industry hat, and I just want everybody to be aware of that so that we can try and do the right thing. And I agree with Vince on how he's going to present it and how he was asked to present it. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you, Dino. Page 30 February 2, 2000 Charlie, you had a -- MR. ABBOTT: Yeah, I just wanted a clarification of a question. The Mosquito Control District has set geographical bounds, and most of the state is out of it, as I recall. Isn't that correct? MR. CAUTERO: I believe at least a portion of it is, and they're considering amending their boundaries. MR. ABBOTT: Right, after last year and all the stuff in the paper -- MR. CAUTERO: Yes. MR. ABBOTT: -- and everybody bitched about it. I understand that. But the health department is truly county-width, but the health department needs to read their charter. It sounds to me if they even mention the word "tripping," that's not their department. That's an individual property owner and their insurance thing. As a remodeling contractor, I've frequently gone and "de-insurance-hazard" a property; it's a very ordinary thing. Typically commercial. But I'd be surprised if they would say that about an open pit. You've got to be very careful here that we start stepping over individual people's rights. MR. LONGO: A couple more issues came up, too, and we discussed them, and they were on-site possibly OSHA issues that we really did not get into detailed discussion of, but we knew the base facts of OSHA requirements on a five-foot-deep pit. So those issues were not brought all the way through, and then we had enough information to bring before full committee that we vote against it or that we recommend not to go with that recommendation and go back to the original language of that ordinance. So I just want to, you know, put it all so everybody's aware of it. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Appreciate it. Thank you, Dino. We're down to the last item here, Committee Member Page 31 February 2, 2000 Comments, item VII. Mr. Peek? MR. PEEK: No comment. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Matthews? MR. MATTHEWS: No comment. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Dillon? MR. DILLON: No comment. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Foley? MR. FOLEY: No comments. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Correa? MR. CORREA: No comment. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Anderson. MR. ANDERSON: No, sir. MR. DUANE: No, sir. MR. ESPINAR: No, sir. MR. LONGO: No, sir. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Savage. MR. SAVAGE: After my big appeal last month -- MR. ABBOTT: Thank you for your comment, Mr. Savage. MR. SAVAGE: I presume that we are not going to entertain the opportunity to be administrator of the county, Mr. Cautero. I saw two pictures in the paper today, in the Eagle. MR. CAUTERO: Oh, Marco Island Eagle? MR. SAVAGE: Uh-huh. One of Olliff and one of McNees, and I didn't see any mention of a third person there. You know, I'm sorry that somebody isn't going to really get a -- what kind of a campaign going as we do on Marco Island? MR. FOLEY: A railroad campaign? MR. SAVAGE: A railroad, that's right. We should have a railroad to Marco, you know. A railroad campaign for Vince Cautero. You know, I really am. I like both those other young men. I'm finished. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: MR. ABBOTT: No. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: M R. SAVAG E: Mr. Abbott? You have no comment either? No comment? Page 32 February 2, 2000 MR. ABBOTT: I move that we adjourn. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: I was going to ask, we have a couple of visitors that I don't recognize. I wonder if you gentlemen could identify yourself. I should have done that earlier and asked if you had any comments. MR. SPOSATO: My name is Stephen Sposato, and I'm a planner with Agnoli, Barber & Brundage. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you, Stephen. And the gentleman next to you? MR. KVOESE: My name is Jesse Kvoese, and I'm with The Conservancy of Southwest Florida. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thanks for being here. Everybody else is staff, and we've got a sign-in sheet, if you could take care of that. Now, let's entertain a motion for-- MR. ABBOTT: So moved. MR. SAVAGE: Second. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: All those in favor? All opposed? There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 4:33 p.m. DEVELOPMENT SERVICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE DALAS D. DISNEY, CHAIRMAN TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE, INC., BY SANDRA B. BROWN, NOTARY PUBLIC. Page 33