The URL can be used to link to this page

EAC Minutes 03/01/2000 RMarch 1, 2000 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL ADVISORY COUNCIL Naples, Florida, March 1, 2000 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Environmental Advisory Council, in and for the County of Collier, having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m. in REGULAR SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: William W. Hill James Baxter Michael G. Coe M. Keen Cornell John DiNunzio Thomas W. Sansbury J. Richard Smith ALSO PRESENT: Stan Chrzanowski, Senior Engineer Barbara Burgeson, Senior Environmental Specialist Stephen Lenberger, Environmental Specialist, Development Services Marni Scuderi, Assistant County Attorney Bill Lorenz, Natural Resources Director Ron Nino, Current Planning Manager Page #1 ENVIRONMENTAL ADVISORY COUNCIL AGENDA March 1, 2000 9:00 a.m. Commission Boardroom W. Harmon Turner Building (Building "F") - Third Floor I. Roll Call II. Approval of Agenda IlL Approval of February 2, 2000, Meeting Minutes IV. Land Use Petitions A. Planned Unit Development No. PUD-99-29 "Champion Lakes RV Resort PUD" Sections 11, 14 & 15, Township 51 South, Range 26 East V. Old Business A. Review of Draft Annual Report VI. New Business A. Listed Species Protection - Gopher Tortoise Land Development Code Amendments B. Martin County Wetland Ordinance VII. Subcommittee Report A. Growth Management Plan VIII. Council Member Comments IX. Public Comments X. Adjournment NOTES: Council Members: Notify the Community Development and Environmental Services Division Administrative staff no later than 5:00 p.m. on February 23, 2000 if you cannot attend this meeting or if you have a conflict and will abstain from voting on a particular petition (403-2370). General Public: 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 proceedings is made, which record includes the testimony and evidence upon which the appeal is to be based. March t, 2000 CHAIRMAN HILL: Good morning, everybody. I'd like to call to order the March meeting of the Environmental Advisory Council. We welcome the public that's present, and we will have an opportunity during the course of the meeting to present anything you wish to the council. May we have roll call, please. MS. BURGESON: CHAIRMAN HILL: MS. BURGESON: Coe? MR. COE: Here. MS. BURGESON: Hill. Here. Carlson. Ed has an excused absence. Cornell? MR. CORNELL: Here. MS. BURGESON: McVey called in yesterday and will not be here. Smith? (No response.) MS. BURGESON: Baxter? MR. BAXTER: Here. MS. BURGESON: And DiNunzio. MR. DiNUNZIO: Here. MS. BURGESON: Sansbury. MR. SANSBURY: Here. CHAIRMAN HILL: Let the record show that we do have a quorum of six. We'll entertain comments on the agenda that's before you that you received in the packet. Any changes you would recommend to the agenda? If not, I'd like a motion to approve it as presented. MR. CORNELL: So moved. MR. SANSBURY: Second. CHAIRMAN HILL: Discussion? Unanimous approval of the agenda as presented. Page #2 March 1, 2000 You have the minutes of the February meeting before you. Are there additions or corrections to that document? MR. COE: I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes as written. CHAIRMAN HILL: It's been moved by Mr. Coe to approve as written. MR. CORNELL: Second. CHAIRMAN HILL: Second by Mr. Cornell. Any comments? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HILL: The minutes are approved 6-0. Item No. 4, land use petitions. We have one before us. Planned unit development, PUD-99-29, Champion Lakes RV Resort. Staff? Can we have anybody, including the petitioner, rise and be sworn in. (All speakers were duly sworn.) CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you. MR. BADAMTCHIAN.' Good morning, council members. My name is Chahram Badamtchian from planning services. Mr. Wayne Arnold, representing Mr. Raymond Smela, is requesting a rezone from agricultural and residential single families to a PUD district for an RV resort. The property consists of 101 acres, located approximately one and a half miles south of U.S. 41, on Route 951, behind Silver Lakes and the Pelican Lake RV resorts. They are requesting this rezone for a maximum of 300 recreational vehicular units, with a density of 2.97 units per acre. Growth Management Plan allows a density of 12 units per acre, so they are asking one quarter of what they are entitled to. They Page #3 March 1, 2000 will preserve 39 acres of it in the form of open space and preserves and lakes. This property is within the Deltona Settlement Agreement, which suspends environmental rules, application of environmental rules for this lot. Steve Lenberger, from our environmental staff, is here to elaborate on that. If you have any question, I'll be here to answer. And our engineer also is here, Stan Chrzanowski, to answer any engineering question you might have. Thank you. MR. LENBERGER: Good morning. For the record, Stephen Lenberger, development services. The subject property, as Chahram said, is about 101 acres. It's located south of the Tamiami Trail, this aerial here that has the property depicted. It's roughly this square here and this square here. 951 would be right about in this vicinity here. And this would be the East Trail up in this area here. The subject property is vegetated with a mixture of upland and wetland habitats. The smaller piece to the north here was basically a fallow agricultural area. And it's pretty much vegetated with laurel oaks, wax myrtle~ willows, Brazilian pepper, and a lot of weedy grasses such as andropogon. And you see the area next to it also has more evidence. You see the agricultural roads, show the farming in the area. The lower portion of the property is a mixture of mostly pine land, pine cypress mix. There are island of palmetto prairie which show up nicely in the aerial. As Chahram mentioned, the subject property is in the Deltona Settlement. Deltona Settlement was a legal case, Deltona Corporation. They basically, through the stipulations of agreement, have agreed to develop certain portions of the property and preserve other portions. The boundaries of the Deltona Settlement are up on this exhibit here up on the wall. The areas indicated in red are the Page #4 March 1, 2000 developable lands within the Deltona Settlement. And the areas in black and blue would be the preserve areas, some of those being water areas. The subject property is located in this area; this little yellow square here being the two RV parks which lie immediately to the west of the subject property. So the subject property is roughly in this area and this area up in here, identified as a developable area, according to the Deltona Settlement. The subject property has about 64 acres of wetlands. Most of those will be impacted; about 57 acres. Preservation areas are located mostly on the east side of the property, some on the south, as well as the north end. That's about 13 percent preservation. Collier County Code normally requires 25 percent preservation for this type of development, but because it's in the Deltona Settlement, preservation lands have already been set aside, which far exceed that amount; therefore, there's no additional preservation required on the county's part for this property. But the petitioner has decided to retain about 13 percent of the native vegetation on-site. Protected species survey was done on the property. Pretty much was limited to wading birds, little blue heron, woodstork, white ibis, along the canals along the perimeter of the property. And there was a small alligator seen on the canal to the north of the property. If you have any questions, I'll be glad to answer them. And the petitioner is here also. CHAIRMAN HILL: Questions from the council for staff? There was a statement made earlier, I believe, that, as I understood you to say, some environmental requirements were suspended, according to the agreement? Would you clarify that, please? MR. LENBERGER: I guess what Chahram was alluding to Page #5 March t, 2000 was the Deltona Settlement Agreement was signed by all the parties involved, including the South Florida Water Management District, Department of Environmental Protection, and all the conservation interveners at the time. The only organization that does wetland permitting that did not sign the Deltona Settlement corporation (sic} is the Army Corps of Engineers. As far as the agencies which signed the agreement, there would be no additional mitigation required for wetlands impacts -- and I think that's what Chahram is alluding to -- on the part of the Water Management District. Since the Corps is not a signee to the settlement agreement, they may require mitigation. CHAIRMAN HILL: You say no additional mitigation. MR. LENBERGER: No additional mitigation required, right. CHAIRMAN HILL: Additional over and above what? (Mr. Smith enters boardroom.) MR. LENBERGER: CHAIRMAN HILL: MR. LENBERGER: CHAIRMAN HILL: MR. LENBERGER: in '82. Over and above the preserve areas -- It's already -- -- which have already been set aside -- -- identified. -- according to the settlement agreement MR. NINO: Which was how many acres, Len, did they dedicate to the public? MR. LENBERGER: I don't have the exact figure, but -- MR. NINO: 15,000 acres. MR. LENBERGER: -- it's quite extensive. CHAIRMAN HILL: Let me interrupt just a minute and let the record show that Mr. Smith is here and we have seven members present. MR. SMITH: My apologies to the board. I got caught up in some traffic, accident traffic, so sorry. CHAIRMAN HILL: Is it implied then that those that signed Page #6 March 1, 2000 off on the agreement had no concern about wetland impact in the property? Is this what you're saying? MR. LENBERGER: I'm sure there is concern about it. The Water Management District will still permit the water management for this project, and there are certain design criteria in the Deltona Settlement Agreement which have to be adhered to. But it will be the mitigation, which basically the developer will not have to provide. CHAIRMAN HILL: Because there was a statement that led me to believe it was totally uncertain about what they were going to do in the way of mitigation. I can't put my fingers on it right now. In the documents we have -- MR. LENBERGER: Yeah, I believe in the ElS, the developer, at least the environmental consultant, indicates they're not sure which mitigation will be required. Like I said, the Army Corps of Engineers is not a signee to the settlement agreement and, therefore, the Army Corps of Engineers, when they do their permit review of this, may require some sort of mitigation. CHAIRMAN HILL: But South Florida Water District will not. MR. LENBERGER: South Florida Water Management District will not, that's correct. Now, there's one small thing you should be aware of. The entrance road to this project, and Chahram had it on the overhead, goes through the RV parks immediately to the west. That portion of the project is not in the settlement agreement. That portion of the project is, I believe, mostly wetlands, so there is a -- the access road will probably involve some mitigation with the Water Management District. CHAIRMAN HILL: Other questions for staff from the council? MR. SMITH: May I ask a question? It sounds like you may have covered this. Apparently this particular project is a little different than others in that it is part of the so-called -- not Page #7 March 1, 2000 so-called, but the settlement agreement called the Deltona Settlement Agreement? Is that what you've been reviewing here? MR. LENBERGER: Yes, the project's identified as a developable area in the Deltona settlement agreement. And through the agreement, other lands have been set aside for preservation which exceed the county's requirements of 25 percent native vegetation retention. MR. SMITH: So this has been a pre-agreed to type of situation. I mean, it's a binding agreement that we've entered into as a county; is that correct? MR. LENBERGER: That's correct. Collier County's a signee to the agreement, which is dated 1982. CHAIRMAN HILL: Is the representative of the petitioner here? MR. HALL: I just -- I'm sorry, Tim Hall, from Turrell & Associates. As far as the mitigation, I just wanted to add a little bit to what Steve had said. The entry strip not being in the settlement agreement will have to be mitigated with the Water Management District. The preserve area on-site and the initial discussions that we've had is sufficient for on-site mitigation for that. The Army Corps of Engineers, not being party to the Deltona Settlement agreement, we will need to work out a mitigation, an off-site mitigation package with them, but that can't be done until the actual environmental resource permit has been submitted. Then that's -- then that process will start. CHAIRMAN HILL: Questions for the petitioner? MR. SMITH: I had a question, which I apologize if it's been covered before. But I notice that the Florida Department of State, Division of Historical Resources, rarely finds that there's any archeological sites on parcels, but they found one on this Page #8 March 1, 2000 parcel. How is that being addressed? MR. HALL: No, sir, it was done -- it wasn't found on that parcel. It's in the same section as the parcel, but it's not on the parcel itself. MR. SMITH: I see. Yeah, it says found -- list one archeological site in the following parcels. Then it's got Section 11 and Section 14. MR. HALL: Right. MR. SMITH: And this project is in Section 11 and in Section MR. HALL: It's in both of them. And where that site is isn't on the -- it's not on the subject parcel, it's actually closer to Henderson Creek. MR. SMITH: So are any steps being taken to be a little bit more thorough about finding any more archeological sites on this particular parcel? MR. HALL: That's -- when I go out and do my site inspections and the site work out there, I do keep an eye out for that. As well as when the excavation and land-clearing activities start, all of the operators are advised that if any artifacts or whatever are discovered, then they have to stop work immediately and it's checked out. CHAIRMAN HILL: Anything else from the petitioner? MR. MINOR: Yes, sir. Mr. Chairman, my name is Mark Minor. I'm an engineer with Q. Grady Minor & Associates, and I represent the petitioner. I'd like to make a clarification in Chahram's opening statement. He indicated that the existing zoning on the site was agricultural and RSF-1, and it's in fact mobile home and RSF-1 to the PUD. CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you. I have one other question for staff that I forgot to mention, Steve, when you were up, or Chahram was up. And I guess it Page #9 March 1, 2000 might point out my ignorance, but I was very surprised to see the reduction requirement from four dwelling units per acre to three because of the traffic congestion area. That's the first time that term has arisen in any of our deliberations where I think traffic congestion was much greater than it is out there at this location. MR. BADAMTCHIAN: Growth Management Plan identifies an area as traffic congestion area. And when developments are proposed within that area, we have to deduct one unit per acre. However, that applies to residential only. And in this case, this is a travel trailer park, and 12 units would apply. We do not have to deduct anything from that 12 for traffic congestion. The original application was saying travel trailers and mobile home; mobile home being a residential unit. Then the four units per acre apply, and we have to deduct one unit, come up with three units. However, later on they removed the mobile home from the PUD document language. Right now they are not proposing any mobile homes. Therefore, that traffic congestion doesn't apply. Even though they have kept the same density; they did not increase the density. CHAIRMAN HILL: You say the traffic congestion area does not apply in a particular case? MR. BADAMTCHIAN: In this particular case. However, they are proposing 2.97 units. So even if this project was a residential project, that would have complied with the Growth Management Plan, traffic congestion requirements of the Growth Management Plan. CHAIRMAN HILL: Well, okay, I think that's a topic we need -- I'm not sure I completely understand the difference between -- the requirements for reduction and density for the different zoning classifications. It doesn't seem to be consistent. But that's beside the point now. And I think we ought to address that later. My question really was, haven't there -- are there other Page #10 March 1, 2000 traffic congestion areas identified in the master plan? MR. BADAMTCHIAN: The Growth Management Plan? CHAIRMAN HILL: In the Growth Management Plan closer in where we've had a lot more traffic. MR. BADAMTCHIAN: Yes, anything west of Airport Road is in the traffic congestion area. MR. NINO: I think we -- Ron Nino for the record. What we need to appreciate is that the density rating system in the Future Land Use Element has predetermined an area of Collier County over which there is traffic congestion. That line has been determined to be Airport Road, all the way from 4t, U.S. 41 south, to the north end of Lee County, and then east along the waterfront, or along U.S. 41, actually somewhat north of 41, in a parallel line to the Gulf. All petitions that fall within that area or fall within the traffic congestion zone, whether it's a traffic congestion zone in reality, or in the abstract, it's an area of the county in which the density is not four units -- the base density is not four units per acre but in fact it's three units per acre. CHAIRMAN HILL: Is there a northern boundary to that, Ron? MR. NINO: The northern, no. It follows Airport Road and goes right into Lee County. MR. COE: Is this the Airport -- MR. NINO: Everything west of that. MR. COE: Oh, west of it. MR. NINO: Everything west and south of that line is a base density of three units per acre, is a far easier way of describing it. CHAIRMAN HILL: It's south of the east-west line. MR. NINO: South of the east-west line and west of the north-south line. All petitions that fall within that area enjoy a base density of three units per acre, as opposed to four units per acre. Page #11 March 1, 2000 But the density rating system does some other adjustment that says -- it says the base density is four in Collier County. However, if you're in the traffic congestion zone, it's three. You deduct one. Forget about the deducting one, it's a base density of three units per acre in the traffic congestion zone. CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you. MR. NINO: However, that doesn't apply to this petition, because the future land use -- the density rating system, however, says TTRVC types of rezoning actions are not conventional in housing, and their regulation is whatever the density regulation that's provided for in the Land Development Code applies. The density -- the density in the Land Development Code for RV type of developments is 12 units per acre. It used to be about 18 about a couple of years ago. It got reduced to 12. And the reason for that is RV's are not considered standard housing, they're not permanent places of domicile, so they have a far lesser impact than conventional housing. CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you. Other questions for petitioner? Questions for staff? Anybody from the public wish to address the council? I'll close the public portion then and ask for comments or action by the council. MR. COE: I'd like to make a motion to approve it. MR. CORNELL: Second. CHAIRMAN HILL: It's been moved and seconded to recommend approval for PUD-99-29. Is there any discussion? Even in light of the Deltona Settlement, I'm distressed at 90 percent of the wetlands. But I guess somebody else has been involved in that in the past and said it's okay. But frankly, I'd like to go on record myself as objecting to that. Any other discussion? Call for the question then. All those in favor of the motion, Page #12 March 1, 2000 signify by saying aye. Opposed? Aye. CHAIRMAN HILL: Show that the motion passed 5-1 -- 6-1, I'm sorry. We've got seven. Thank you, gentlemen. CHAIRMAN HILL: Old business? For Bob, we -- I recognize you -- I put together just with respect to our annual report some comments that we could discuss later. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Before Bill starts his remarks, Stan Chrzanowski, with development services. Maybe -- and Ron might clarify this a little more. Maybe you ought to -- in the future, if you see anything in the Deltona Settlement Agreement come up, you should probably consider like an old very, very large many tens of thousands of acres PUD, where all the preserve land was put aside a long time ago. And what they're doing now is allowing development of individual tracts within that PUD, where if you had a PUD come in right now with a tract in it, and the tract was allowed to be developed, you wouldn't make that person put more preserve in an area where they already had preserve put aside by a prior agreement. These tracts were sold off by Deltona to individual buyers. If you look at it in that point of view, you're not really giving anything away. The environment was protected a long time ago. Yes? MR. COE: Stan, I mean, it's obvious that Bill didn't -- the only reason I know about the Deltona thing is because I know the history of Deltona, because I happened to learn it when I first moved into the county. But, you know, in two or three minutes or less, can you explain to the other members of the board so they kind of understand what happened out there and why that was kind of the beginning of the end of Deltona? MR. CHRZANOWSKI: I'm not the expert on that. I think Page #13 March 1, 2000 Steve might be a better one. MR. COE.' I mean, it only takes a minute or two. Basically years ago Deltona started to develop Marco Island. And as they got that sold off lot-wise, they also came in and started to construct the homes. Part of the tract that Deltona also owned was off the Island along 951. They already had some canals cut in there, illegally, by the way. They also had it already platted out, and they were ready to start selling those lots also and, as a matter of fact, they had sold them. I believe it was in the 1970's, the State of Florida all of a sudden woke up and said hey, we're kind of environmentally conscious, and we have become conscious about this project. We need to go down and take a look at it. So the Army Corps of Engineers, I guess the Corps Management District and Water Management District, everybody else came down and took a look at this and went, "Holy crow, this is all wetlands." And it is. It's all swamp and wetlands down there. So they called Deltona on the carpet and they said, "Hey, we're not going to let you develop this." And Deltona said, "But, but, but we've already sold it." And the state said, "Sorry about that, give their money back." So Deltona, in effect, from what my understanding is, had to give the money back to the property owners. But there was some of it that was -- through the mitigation process they had to preserve all those lands, and some of which, which was the northern part that we're looking at in the red area, that part there was sold off to various different property owners, some of which I think was held by Deltona. But that was the beginning of the end financially of Deltona. That's basically what happened. CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you. MR. COE: All those lands -- you know, that's part of the Page #14 March 1, 2000 process of the settlement with Deltona. CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you. Okay, review of draft annual report. Mr. Lorenz supplied us with some information last month. I've just passed out something I'd like us to consider to tear apart, add to, whatever, with respect to our annual report. And the schedule, as I recall, we are to vote on a final draft in April, and it will be presented to the commission in May; is that correct? MR. LORENZ: Correct. CHAIRMAN HILL: Mr. Lorenz. MR. LORENZ: Well, it's basically your report. What I provided you in your package gets you a start. If you want to, you know, mark up what I currently have, change it, you know, that's your discretion. Obviously the future objectives and issues are really in your bailiwick to be able to determine what you as a council want to present to the board. That's really it. CHAIRMAN HILL: I apologize for not getting this to the council prior to the meeting. But if you take a few minutes to take a look at what I've presented to you, using in part what Mr. Lorenz gave us last month. MR. SMITH: Bill, is yours the one that starts off EAC members, a preliminary draft-- CHAIRMAN HILL: Right, just what I gave you just a minute ago. I'd like to point out in Section 4, I've called it council concerns for 1999, concerns that arose in our deliberations, and have listed there six of them. Certainly that's not necessarily all that arose in our minds, but I certainly think they were six very important items. And on the basis of that then in Section 5, I've indicated some things which I think ought to be on the agenda, whether or not we can tend to them all in the year 2000 or not. Page #15 March 1, 2000 In our report, I would suggest that if we do it in this format in Section 5, we elaborate on some of these items and be a little more specific with respect to what we might want to do in the coming year. In particular, I'd like to call your attention to Item 5-B. I simply said address extensively the wetland impact and mitigation process through either amendments or separate ordinance. And I guess a question for staff. Do we have a wetland inventory in the county, or through state DEP or some other agency? I think if we're going to have an ordinance or consider that, I think we need to know what we have in the way of wetlands through an inventory. Does that exist? MR. LORENZ: What we have is a -- the 1994-95 land cover analysis from the South Florida Water Management District which identifies wetlands. Now, these wetlands are based upon aerial photographs with a minimal amount of ground truthing. It's the -- the accuracy is plus or minus 90 percent, I believe is what they call their accuracy. It is not a inventory of jurisdictional lines. So to that degree, we use that inventory to satisfy our DCA requirement. But the lines that we would show on that map are not the jurisdictional lines that you're going to see as petitions and projects come up. MS. BURGESON: Right. And in fact -- for the record, Barbara Burgeson. When someone comes in and asks to take a look at that map that we have in our office, we recommend that they take it just as a tool. In some cases, there's only a 50-50 chance that those areas that are mapped as wetland by either wetland soils or by wetland vegetation actually have hydrology left. So it really is not a very good indicator of whether you have jurisdictional wetlands on-site. It is a good indicator of whether you were in an area that has a good possibility of being a Page #16 March 1, 2000 wetland. So it really should be used more in terms of a tool than as a map system of wetlands. CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you. There are one or two other items there in Section 5 I call your attention to. They might be controversial. D, attempt to provide the ability for the commission to lay developments after approval until all infrastructure is in place. I -- to me, that's something I think may be -- it may be marginally environmental, but certainly a problem that maybe we would want to look at. And again, the question of property rights. That's -- may or may not be in our bailiwick, but I think I would feel more comfortable even from the environmental standpoint having a better handle on -- are we talking about Burt Harris Act? Is that where that's really defined? The property right question. Well, at any rate, I throw this out for your consideration. I want it to be added to, deleted, torn apart, thrown out, or whatever the council's -- and I would like to ask also staff to comment if this is a reasonable start, at least, for an annual report. MR. COE: I've got some things I'd like to add after G that I'm starting to kind of wake up, I want to start taking a look at. I'd like to add H, take a look at the water. And I'm talking about the fresh water, drinking water, that sort of thing. What's the availability. The well fields. You know, after this mess with that lake that they scraped in up there in too close to the wellfield, I'd like to know what the locations are and the locations of the developments and relationship to the wellfields. Are they within the 300-foot boundary? Now, I'm saying 300 feet. Man, it's 100 yards around these wellfields. Do we have in effect no development around any of these wellfields within 300 feet? I'd like to take a look what the locations are and see what development is around it. Page #17 March 1, 2000 Is the water pressure sufficient? I'll give you a good example. I know already in my house the water pressure is insufficient. If you're wondering how I know, I've got my own meter on the water pressure. Most houses in the area, it's 75 to 85 psi, and I'm running about 40 during the season. So I'd like to know what kind of plans there are regarding that. What kind of plans are there regarding wells? Seems to me people are just drilling wells any time they want. Are they getting permits, and what type of rules and regulations do we have for the wells? What about the canals? How do they work in the plan? I'd like somebody to brief us and let us know what's happening and what type of plans the county has in relationship to the development in the future. And do we have a plan at all? The next one on I, what kind of plan do we have for expansion of development in the Golden Gate Estates? We've got landowners out there that have been sitting there for several years, hoping upon hope that their land is going to be worth a lot of money in the future. If we know development is going to go out there, what kind of plan is there for road acquisition, for easements, for sewers, for taxation, for parks, for libraries, for all the basic infrastructure? Or are we going to have another Miller Road or Sabal Palm Road or something like that where the people actually have to do something for themselves? Can we get somebody to brief us about that, what kind of plan we have? And if we don't have a plan, why can't we do one? It appears to me now is the time to do it, ahead of time. We know that the Immokalee Road corridor is going to be developed. What kind of plan do we have there? And that goes right along also with the roads. You know, we've hired our $7,000 a month consultant to tell us the same thing that we as citizens have been saying all along. Put the Page #18 March 1, 2000 infrastructure in first. Lee County right now is considering whether they're going to raise their taxes one cent so they can generate 310 million over five years to put that infrastructure in. For those of you that haven't had the opportunity to go up to Lee County, take a look at what they've done to some of their roads. Flyovers and McGregor Parkway, for example. When you come in from the airport into Fort Myers or you come into the mall in Fort Myers off of 75. Those roads were built well before the developments were done. And there's still not too much traffic on it. Come down here and you see what we've done. And we've done it only because we haven't planned. That's the only reason we've done it. We've done it to ourselves. I'd like somebody to brief us on that. J, what about waste disposal plants, lift stations, locations, sewer pipes, easement for sewer pipes, those basic types of infrastructure. CHAIRMAN HILL: That's in Item E that addresses that. MR. COE: Okay. And last but not least, I'd like to look at whether it's worthwhile to adopt a plan like was presented to us -- and I haven't seen a copy of it yet, because it was a big, thick plan -- that Mike brought into us at the last meeting. I think it was Vero Beach or one of the county's on the east coast -- MS. BURGESON: Martin County. MR. COE: -- where it was no wetlands; don't touch any wetlands for any reason whatsoever. I'd like to see whether we have identified all these wetlands and what the impact would be if we did this. MR. LORENZ: Is that Item B? CHAIRMAN HILL: That's essentially Item B. MR. SANSBURY: Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN HILL: Yes. Page #19 March 1, 2000 MR. SANSBURY: I think we've got to remember who we are. We're the Environmental Advisory Committee, we're not the transportation advisory committee, we're not the utility advisory committee. Some of these things like wetlands, that has an effect on ours. But we are not the County Commission. We're here to advise the county on environmental matters that relate to these plans that are coming through. Now yes, maybe some traffic effect may -- but I think that scope is going a little out of the way -- MR. COE: Well, it may. MR. SANSBURY: -- from what our purpose is here. I mean, we need to stick to what our purpose is, and we're the Environmental Advisory Committee. You know, and that's what we do. CHAIRMAN HILL: That's what I want to hear about these things. MR. SMITH: Mr. Chairman, may I weigh in here a little bit? What Bill is talking about, I think is -- I think he's on Item L or K here. Whatever item he's on, I'd like to be the next letter here, maybe L. The -- I reviewed again the final order from the Governor and Cabinet that directs how we are to be making assessments for the future. And I draw your attention, board's attention, to Page 10 of that order which says in part, the assessment must be a collaborative community-based effort with full and broad-based public participation. It also says on Page 12, in part, public participation will be the hallmark of this planning effort. The participation must be wide in scope and broad community -- with broad community input. The county will ensure community input through workshops, public opinion surveys and committees, as necessary, to undertake various tasks in the study. As I understand it, we've been made part of that as a Page #20 March 1, 2000 committee. I don't know that any of the other committees are really looking to pursue the input from the public, and I wonder if what Bill is talking about, all of these criteria, all of these concerns, can and should be made part of a plan for us as a committee to obtain review from the public on all of these issues. And other issues as well. The final order itself I think fairly well summarizes what the goal would be in this review. And I refer specifically to Page 11 of the final order which talks about at a minimum the assessment must identify means to accomplish the following. And I won't read through those things. But traffic is certainly part of that in terms of providing access to facilities and making sure that there are compatible land uses, that there is a planning made for public and private schools and urban villages and new towns, satellite communities. So I think Bill is right on the mark, I think we need to be involved in this. And I would suggest that as an item, be it I. or M or whichever the next is, is that we make it one of our goals as a committee to obtain as much public input as possible to review all of these matters. CHAIRMAN HILL: I appreciate that, Mr. Smith. If you'd go back to Item No.'A, this is part of what I had in mind. Although we don't have a formal role in this assessment process, we have discussed the fact that maybe we can supply a role through either public forum or public education of what's going on. And I meant that to be all-inclusive. MR. SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had just received this -- CHAIRMAN HILL: I know. MR. SMITH: -- and I was just glancing through it and I didn't catch that. MR. COE: The reason I want to be more specific on this, because I don't know, I don't know what these answers are. I Page #2t March 1, 2000 really don't. I understand why, you know, maybe we should not look at roads. But when I look at Sabal Palm Road, Miller Road, whatever road it is that they just cut out there in the middle of nowhere, and South Florida Water Management District representative stands up here at the podium and says not only did we not permit, but we went to court to fight him and we couldn't do anything about it. And not only that, if we paved it, we still wouldn't permit it. I mean, why -- county knows it's here. Why aren't we doing something to make the road comply with county regulations? Go in and buy the land from the landowners, improve the road to county code, pave it and do what's supposed to be done correctly. And the only reason that we have a road situation like we do is because the county has not stepped up to bat and done their job. The road's going in one way or the other. But why not buy the land, do the proper acquisition, pay the landowners for the land, put the road in the right way? Now, if you really don't want the road, then don't connect it to any road. We have easements along the county road. CHAIRMAN HILL: I included traffic in this. It is an item of discussion, and Environmental Impact Statement. And maybe not -- transportation planning is not in our purview, but I'm not so sure that maybe a concern about traffic generated (sic) might be something that we ought to at least discuss. What I'd like to do, I -- let's go through this as a preliminary draft, section by section, and change it as you see fit. If that's agreeable, let's start with the introduction. And I'd ask staff to comment on this, too, if you have any feelings about it. A lot of that is your wording from last time. Is the introduction satisfactory? MR. COE: I don't have any problem with that. MR. SANSBURY: Fine. Page #22 March 1, 2000 MR. COE: I don't have any problem with the purpose either. CHAIRMAN HILL: Two, purpose. MR. SANSBURY.' No problem. CHAIRMAN HILL: That's almost boilerplate, so to speak, from the enabling legislation. Item number three, council activities for-- MR. LORENZ: Excuse me, Bill -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Yes. MR. LORENZ: -- this is clarification under purpose. For A and B, you simply want to limit it to A and B, right? I believe there's -- are there additional purposes in the -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Well, I-- MR. LORENZ: I just want to make perfectly clear -- CHAIRMAN HILL: -- believe I pulled A -- MR. LORENZ: -- what your intent is. CHAIRMAN HILL: I pulled A and B out of the wording. I think that is a general statement -- MR. LORENZ: Yes, that's right. CHAIRMAN HILL: -- of everything, and then there are other -- MR. LORENZ: Right. CHAIRMAN HILL: -- more specific in Exhibit B. MR. LORENZ: I see how you do it. That's fine. CHAIRMAN HILL: Three, council activities, 1999. Mr. Lorenz presented us with a summary of the decisions we made. I have a question, PAB acted -- I know this is an EAC report, but I would think to be -- have a complete history, that January through April probably should be handled somewhere, even though it's not EAC. But Barb? MS. BURGESON: I understand that this report is supposed to be just for this body here. So we went forward from the first meeting that this Environmental Advisory Council held. Page #23 March 1, 2000 CHAIRMAN HILL: It's.short of a calendar -- a 12-month year report. MS. BURGESON: Right. CHAIRMAN HILL: I just thought those decisions would get lost somewhere and maybe ought to be a part of this record. MR. LORENZ: Well, if-- CHAIRMAN HILL: EAB did not make a report. MR. LORENZ: Correct, they didn't have to make an annual report. CHAIRMAN HILL: So those four months. MR. LORENZ: Yeah, EAB never had to make an annual report. MS. BURGESON: That responsibility was only added into the new Environmental Advisory Council ordinance language. MR. LORENZ: Like I say, if you wanted -- if you wanted to see that, we could always break it out to show EAB for the first seven months, just so it doesn't get lumped into the EAC requirements. But as Barb said, the EAB did not have to make an annual report. So it's not as though you're using -- somewhere in the system we're losing -- CHAIRMAN HILL: But those projects were acted on by an environmental advisory body. And I just thought they perhaps should be included here. How does the council feel about it? MR. COE: If it's not required, I don't see why we have to include it. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. MR. COE: It does not come under our purview at all. MR. DiNUNZIO: Maybe it's something we could throw in as an appendix at the end of everything, so that there's some record of whatever decisions there were made. Even though it wasn't by this council, it was an advisory role of some group. But it doesn't have to be -- there's nothing that we -- Page #24 March 1, 2000 MR. COE: Staff has a record of what they did. They have summaries of it. If anybody needs to have it, they can do it. But to include it in our report, I don't see any reason why. I mean, that's like reporting on cars when we're bus drivers. CHAIRMAN HILL: No, I disagree with that, Mickey. This is a report on development petitions, exactly like those that did come before us from April on. And I just thought the record perhaps ought to show those that occurred in the first four months of 1999. And this is the only vehicle in which they could be included. So -- but if the council's pleasure is not to include them, that's fine. MR. SMITH: I like Mr. DiNunzio's idea, just make it an attachment. MR. COE: I can live with that. CHAIRMAN HILL: My intent was to identify them in this section as EAB, not EAC. It certainly wasn't to lead people to think that we as a council -- I think we will include them in some fashion, either as an appendage or as a separate note. MR. COE: Also, I didn't know whether you wanted to cover the fact, we went over the gray water plan for the county. I didn't know whether that was significant or whether you just want to consider that has a briefing. MR. LORENZ: We might want to put another item down like C as being workshops or other informational items. And then we can list those type of things that you kind of were doing fact-finding -- MR. COE: Yeah, like the zoning class? MR. LORENZ: Right. CHAIRMAN HILL: Do that as a separate one. Would you help me with that, Mr. Lorenz? Section 4. And if you want to call these anything different, let me know. Council concerns, 1999. There's listed six there. Anybody feel that any of these are not -- do not merit being Page #25 March 1, 2000 included? Or do you have others that should be included? MR. COE: F, you might want to clarify that a little bit. I think what you're talking about there is the time interval. Are you referring to the time -- from the time we make our decision or recommendations to whether the minutes get to the County Commissioners, or are you talking about the amount of time we have to review things before the meeting? CHAIRMAN HILL: The intent here was the time allowed the council for review. I realize the other is a problem that we did address. But there have been times when the volume of petitions has been such that I felt and several others felt that we did not have sufficient time to do it justice. That's what I had specifically in mind, that we have already extended it slightly by a decision two or three months ago. But that was a concern. And whether or not we address these concerns in the next section as future plans, that's up for grabs. But I think the concerns ought to be listed. Is there anything you'd like to add to that list? MR. SMITH: I'm not sure that it would be appropriate to add it in the concerns list or not. But in light of your last comment about addressing, maybe it should be -- I think again, and I don't want to sound like a broken record, but I think our role has not been well enough defined and our ability to obtain public participation hasn't been great enough. And that's a concern I think that should be listed. And I'm talking of course about the rural assessment. CHAIRMAN HILL: Does the council want traffic generation problems left in that list, or do you want me to take it out? MR. DiNUNZIO: It might be something we ought to discuss. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. MR. DiNUNZIO: I don't know if it could be the basis for everything, but it might be something we ought to look at. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. I'll leave that in there. And -- Page #26 March 1, 2000 MR. COE: So in other words, G, you would say more public participation in the future? MR. SMITH: Maybe better methods of obtaining public participation. MR. DiNUNZIO: Well, this meeting certainly is open to anybody who wishes to come in and observe. MR. SMITH: That's my point. It is open, but we're not getting the public participation on those issues, because apparently we're not doing something to get the public participation. You know, we have to seek it. MR. DiNUNZIO: Well, once again, you have a meeting that starts at 9:00 in the morning when most people are working. MR. SMITH: That's partially the problem. Maybe we need to think about how we can do it better. MR. DiNUNZIO'. Well, I work at nights, so the only time after, you know, 11:00's fine with me, so -- CHAIRMAN HILL: That's an item that's come up with our growth management subcommittee is a possible role that we can provide in not only getting public input, but maybe more importantly, educating the public. I get the feeling out there that most of the public -- or much of the public is totally unaware of what this assessment period is doing and what's happening. Somebody in the county should, I think, be looking at getting the public informed. I don't know whether that's us, but that's a possibility for our growth management subcommittee, to be working in that area. Let me put G in there and we'll phrase it slightly differently, but relative to public input or education. MR. LORENZ: How about increased public participation? CHAIRMAN HILL: Well, I think it goes beyond -- I'm not sure how I see how we get -- we can encourage public participation by educating the public of what's going on. I think if you educate the public, then you'll get the participation. So I think it's a Page #27 March 1, 2000 two-prong thing. Anything else you want to take out of there or add to it? MR. CORNEl. L: No. CHAIRMAN HILL: Section 5, future plans and missions. Partly because of the concerns that arose in 1999. I say the council plans. You may want to change that verbiage there. But will consider A, the assessment process -- and that's what I referred to about having a public role, in particular-- public education; wetland impact and mitigation process; more teeth in the habitat protection portions of the various codes; attempt to provide the ability for the commission to delay developments until all infrastructure is in place. I think-- MR. SANSBURY: Mr. Chairman, I don't really follow how that relates to environmental matters. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. You recommend we -- MR. SANSBURY: I'm just asking the question. I mean, if it involves environmental matters, I don't have a problem with that. If it's something that meets county traffic standards and things of that sort, I -- MS. BURGESON: If you'd like, we might be able to do a workshop and make a presentation on where future roads are planned and the environmental permitting. A lot of those roads do go through a pretty heavy wetland and wildlife permitting, so MR. SANSBURY: That's an environmental matter, but -- MS. BURGESON'. -- so if you're interested -- THE COURT REPORTER: I'm sorry, I can't write both of you at the same time. MR. SANSBURY: Excuse me, I'm sorry. MS. BURGESON: So if you're interested in a workshop or presentation on maybe future road locations and the permitting, we can do something like that. MR. SANSBURY: Okay, fine. Page #28 March 1, 2000 MR. SMITH: Mr. Chairman, you were going ahead there, and I thought you were going to stop on A a little bit. I had a question on A. I'm wondering, we -- it states -- you state here that we have -- although neither the EAC nor the subcommittee has a formal role. Now, I had thought we had a formal role. Aren't we provi -- isn't there a provision for the subcommittee to have been created -- wasn't it created as part of the ordinance? CHAIRMAN HILL: Right, it's a mandated standing committee. My point here is that in the assessment process -- MR. SMITH: Isn't that the -- CHAIRMAN HILL: -- we do not have -- MR. SMITH: -- function of that subcommittee, though, or not? CHAIRMAN HILL: Well, the subcommittee can take on its shoulder some role, but the committee itself as a standing committee would exist whether there was an assessment period or not. So the subcommittee I think needs to look at what its role might be from two standpoints: In serving the council as a mandated standing committee; and secondly, as a possible role in the assessment process. MR. SMITH: Would it be advisable to have the County Commission actually declare formally that we have the role of seeking and obtaining, educating public, get public input pursuant to the final order? CHAIRMAN HILL: That I hope would come out of A as a future plan. Maybe that will result from this, yeah. MR. LORENZ: If I may add to that, though. On your agenda, you have a subcommittee report, growth management. Vince Cautero wanted to come to the council meeting to be able to offer some of his thoughts concerning this topic in terms of the lines of the formal review process. There are two advisory committees that have been established very specifically for the assessment. So that does Page #29 March 1, 2000 beg the question as to what exactly the role of the EAC is to the degree that these other two committees have been already set up. So I think that there is some role. I think that would be a perfect discussion item as part of your subcommittee report. MR. SMITH: And not to belabor it too much, but, you know, it seems as if-- I've been participating, as you may know, in those committees. I sit on one and go to as many meetings as I can on the other. And it really has, so far at least, been a situation where the government is doing its level best to comply by providing all of the data and information, et cetera, and then the private property owners, providing their input and their insights, and that's the kind of procedure that's been followed. And lacking from all of that procedure is what has been deemed to be the hallmark of the purpose of this review, which is to get public input. And that's why I'm wondering if perhaps we as a subcommittee can have that very only function, that that would be our sole role. CHAIRMAN HILL: That's my point, Richard. That's exactly what I'm saying here. The government, the legislation, does not give us a specific formal role. A standing growth management subcommittee, an environmental council, should have some value in this assessment process. But we should seek that through the structure of the assessment mechanism, the two public committees and staff to help us decide on that role. Okay, and I think that's exactly what I'm asking for here. And the suggestion that has come before the subcommittee to this point is one that involves the public. Whether we are given the green light to do that or not remains to be seen. But that's the one suggestion that has been put forward, either public involvement or public education. And I think that's why I put that A in this grouping, so that we can uncover that. But I don't want in here to say what the role will be, I simply Page #30 March 1, 2000 want to say a goal of the council and our subcommittee in the year 2000 is to define that role, with the assistance from the two major committees and the county staff. So -- MR. CORNELL: Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN HILL: Yes. MR. CORNELL: May I make a couple of comments? CHAIRMAN HILL: Sure. MR. CORNELL: One was regarding C. CHAIRMAN HILL: Can -- I'm sorry to interrupt. Is A and B all right in that respect, then? MR. SANSBURY: I think so. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. Is B all right? MR. SANSBURY: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. Let me make one side comment then, Keen, before you come in. Between now and the April meeting, if anyone wishes to amplify any of these items with additional comments, we can bring that back in April and put it in the plan. Okay, Mr. Cornell. MR. CORNELL: I just wondered if we might not get a little bit more general -- thinking in particular the gopher tortoise, but not necessarily -- that not just habitat protection, but species of concern. I guess the gopher tortoise thing is partly habitat and partly just the tortoises themselves. So I would invite us to make that a little bit more general by saying something like habitat protection. CHAIRMAN HILL: And species protection. MR. CORNELL: Yeah, and species of concern. I don't know, my general comment is I think A, B and C are just fabulous, and fabulously important. And I guess I have a little bit of a concern that Tom expressed earlier, Sansbury, that if we -- I would really like to contribute in the coming year to, you know, the really great natural resource issues that the -- that we Page #31 March 1, 2000 think the county has. And I would love to hear from someone like Bill Lorenz or anybody else on whether we're really focusing on those. My problem is we get beyond C and I think we're getting into -- we're running the risk of really making our lives enormously complicated and perhaps not being able to accomplish a lot. Although I certainly see no harm in requesting information, you know, in some of these areas that we would like information on. But I'd really like to see us focus on the areas that are -- you know, that are super important, and also areas where we have a chance of contributing. And I -- you know, if I may ask Bill Lorenz from his viewpoint and with his experience, if we were able to help in the assessment process, if we're able to try to do something for wetlands and if we were able to do something for species and habitat protection, you know, are these -- are these biggies, or are we -- are these maybe too big, or are we -- you know, is this a practical chunk for us to chew on, or what? MR. LORENZ: Okay, I think -- yes, I think it's a matter of prioritizing your resources and your time. And the EAC is very specifically looking at wetlands, listed species. No other group in the county, advisory committee, is looking at those from a county-wide perspective. Only the EAC. There's other forums for traffic and for other -- growth management planning types of activities. So from a priority standpoint, I definitely see the EAC. Those are your top priorities. A second observation would be is that your A, B and C so far is pretty much -- you're looking at really trying to address some changes. You already have some feeling that you want to make some changes and you want to work on making those changes. That's the kind of the nature -- the nature of A, B and C. When you look at -- well, certainly E, F, and I think then what Mr. Coe talked about, H, I, J, K, those, all of those other items, Page #32 March 1, 2000 you might want to just roll it up into one item that says workshops, and informational or fact-finding workshops to address the following issues. And water resources, with all your subtopics. Some of the other property rights. That might be a way of doing that. So you're separating your ideas in terms of actually making changes to the code for wetlands, listed species, and even providing for additional public input. And the other ones at the moment, your plan for next year would be more fact-finding workshops, where you would have a workshop on water resources with all of those items listed. CHAIRMAN HILL: Would the council accept this? I would change G to D, and leave that as the last of four specific items for consideration. And then as Bill has suggested, under a separate heading then, get these other items from the standpoint of our own efficiency, which includes the potable water system, the sewage system, pump stations, lift stations, traffic, water management, as areas of concern and areas in which the council would like to be further enlightened. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Could I make a suggestion? CHAIRMAN HILL: Yes. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: A few months back we had a workshop on -- not a workshop, but a presentation, by the effluent reuse department. We could do something similar for potable water, something similar for transportation and something similar for sewage over the next three months. MR. COE: That's what I had in mind. But I don't want to do it at a nighttime workshop. Because if we do it during an advertised meeting of the committee, the council, then we may be more apt to have public attendance and possibly public input. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: It only took a half hour the last time. We could probably do something similar right at the start of a meeting, the first half hour. Page #33 March 1, 2000 MR. LORENZ: Yeah, I'm using the term workshop as just your fact-finding; how you schedule the workshop, how you want to do that at a later date would -- MR. COE: You advertise these meetings, don't you? MR. LORENZ: Yeah. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: This way you're represented. CHAIRMAN HILL: Item E, for example, request the analysis of existing sewage systems. I think we had a little bit of that one day on the pumping -- MR. CHRZANOWSKI: When they went through the effluent reuse, they had to go through that, because they had to tell you what rates they were in. The question is, what order do you want them in, and do you want to start in April, or do you want me to start telling people to get their stuff together? CHAIRMAN HILL: Well, why don't we finalize this, and then when we come back in April, we can prioritize these and maybe set up some kind of schedule. MR. COE: I don't see where it's any problem in prioritizing today. I mean, we're almost finished with this. CHAIRMAN HILL: Well, before we do that, let's -- is that structure okay for Section 5? Okay. MR. COE: Yeah, how are you -- I'm still not clear how you're going to put in about the water, the future development, wells. You know, how's all that going to be addressed? Are you going to have a paragraph on just education? CHAIRMAN HILL: Let me work on that. MR. COE: I'm going to give you this when I'm finished anyway. CHAIRMAN HILL: Let me work on that as either 6 or a subsection of 5, okay, and we can work on the wording in April, if you want to change that, rather than try to do that today. MR. CORNELL.' May I just add one more thing? I wonder, is this an area where you would like to invite public participation? Page #34 March 1, 2000 CHAIRMAN HILL: Yes. MR. CORNELL: I see we have several interested. CHAIRMAN HILL: I know Mr. Julian, he's on the agenda later on. You want to make a brief comment now, or just -- MR. JULIAN: Go ahead, I'll -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. Thanks for suggesting that, Mr. Cornell. Is there anybody else out there that would like to direct the council as to its activities in the future? MR. DiNUNZIO: They may tell us where to go. CHAIRMAN HILL: Is there another section or other information that needs to be added to this? Is this complete once it's put in final form? Stan, Barb, Steve, Ron, Bill, have you got any -- do you need a break, Cherie'? THE COURT REPORTER: No, thank you. CHAIRMAN HILL: Are you sure? Is there anything that you would suggest adding or changing? This is going -- this will set the standards for the EAC annual report, so let's do it right. MR. JULIAN: Can I make the suggestion -- THE COURT REPORTER: Please come to the mike. CHAIRMAN HILL: Come on the mike, Mr. Julian. THE COURT REPORTER: May I have your name, please? MR. JULIAN: Gary Julian. J-U-L-I-A-N. Instead of being general with species of special concern is put the gopher tortoises in there. Instead of putting them under special concerns, put the gopher tortoises -- you know, make them like a priority. MS. BURGESON: I'd like to interject that we just itemized that as all protected species. MR. JULIAN: Oh, okay. I tried. CHAIRMAN HILL: It will be included. It will not be identified Page #35 March 1, 2000 specifically in this report, but it is certainly one of concern, yeah. MR. COE: This is something -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Right. MR. COE: It's specific there. CHAIRMAN HILL: Was that for changes for this, Barb? MS. BURGESON: The two that I handed out? No, those are for the next two items under new business on the agenda. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. I will redo this for next month, taking into consideration all your comments. It will not be final until you get a chance to review it again in April. MR. COE: Why don't you just E-mail it to us. We'll take a look at it between now and April and then April -- CHAIRMAN HILL: I'll mail it publicly. I've tried to E-mail some attachments, and depending on the word processor, software people have been unable to download attachments. I don't know why. I could put it just as part of the message itself, I guess. MR. LORENZ: Mr. Chairman, my suggestion was simply if you could get it to us in time for the next mail-out of the agenda packet, it would just go out as the mail-out of the agenda packet. You would then get to review it as part of your regular -- CHAIRMAN HILL: We'll do it that way. MR. LORENZ: -- work. MR. COE: I'd like to go over how we're going to prioritize these briefings. Because we could do the first briefing in April, if you want to. CHAIRMAN HILL: With that suggestion, is there one item there which -- MR. COE: I'd like to take a look at the water; everything from wells to canals and how it all works into the big plan. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: The meeting is five weeks away. CHAIRMAN HILL: That's kind of late for you. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: No, we've been working on it. So I Page #36 March 1, 2000 think we ought to be able to do it. CHAIRMAN HILL: Is it clear, the scope that we're asking for? MR. CHRZANOWSKI.' Yeah, I think you want the water resources of Collier County. CHAIRMAN HILL: Right. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: From what I see, you've made some kind of note when I wasn't in about the 300-foot rule? MR. COE.' Yeah, everything. I mean, the 300-foot rule, do we have any developments within the 300-foot rule, do we have any plan developments that may be encroaching on the 300-foot rule? What are the rules and regulation on wells? Can anybody just put a well in? I mean, how do they do this? What are their requirements? Are their requirements sufficient? Do we need to change the regulations? How do the canals fit in? Somebody was telling me the other day that the canals fit into the fresh water plan, so how do they fit in? CHAIRMAN HILL: Is there a physical protection on the well site itself? MS. BURGESON: There's a section of the Land Development Code which addresses specifically wellfield protection ordinances. It was freestanding and created with George Yilmaz, I think at the time was -- well, maybe you might have been overseeing that ordinance development. Probably would have been about eight years ago. MR. LORENZ: Yeah, '91 we adopted the Groundwater Protection Ordinance, which is now incorporated in the Land Development Code, and addresses -- that particular code addresses public water supply wells that are greater than 100,000 gallons a day. But it addresses all the public water supply. MR. COE.' What about by public and private, though? Don't we have any rules on wells and how deep they can be drilled and Page #37 March 1, 2000 MR. LORENZ: There are -- we also adopted a well construction code, which is basically the standards provided by the South Florida Water Management District. The county has two well inspectors that monitor the installation of private wells. The biggest problem with private wells is to ensure that they're properly concealed and constructed properly. The Health Department has a variety of regulations that concern setbacks of septic tanks from individual wells and also public -- MR. COE: So those are the sort of things we need in detail, too MR. CHRZANOWSKI: And your question about physical protection, there's no berms or anything involved. The well gets cased down to a certain depth, and that stops it from drawing water that's too shallow. That's -- CHAIRMAN HILL: There's no surface water protection? MR. SANSBURY: Ride down Goodlette Road and look in the median. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. MR. SANSBURY: And that's where the water supply of the great -- or the City of Naples is, I believe. MR. LORENZ: And the only thing, there may be some standards -- there may be some standards for larger wells that right around the well you have to provide some positive drainage away from -- MR. SMITH: That's what I'm thinking about -- MR. LORENZ: -- the casing. MR. SMITH: --flood protection. MR. LORENZ: But that's -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Mr. Sansbury. MR. SANSBURY: If we're going to talk about that, could we possibly talk to our South Florida people, ask them maybe to Page #38 March 1, 2000 attend so that they could give us a little rundown on the consumptive use process? Because that's basically how you go about getting one. MR. LORENZ: Well, that's why I think -- when you talk about a workshop and you provide all these topics, you could be talking about a good two hours to cover-- an hour, two hours to cover these topics. And especially if the question is in-depth. And water resources, it would deserve that kind of time. CHAIRMAN HILL: You know, relative to what we've been talking about as far as the public's concerned, if we're going to have a substantial information or workshop session, could a special effort be made to notify the public that that's going to go on? Not for their necessary allotted participation, but at least to inform them -- if we're going to do that, let's do it for more than these nine people. MR. LORENZ: We would utilize our public information office, create a press release, talk about a workshop, have speakers identified, and then invite the public, again, as part of this meeting, or if you want to hold it someplace else, or -- those are some operational decisions you could make at the time. CHAIRMAN HILL: I think do it with this meeting. Relative to that, we're going to slow -- be slowed down on number of petitions, right? MS. BURGESON: I hope so. CHAIRMAN HILL: We hit the peak and now we're going to slide out gradually, right? I mean, there's more -- MR. CHRZANOWSKI: There's no way to tell. MS. BURGESON: Right. I've got several that are on hold. I'm sure that Steve has EIS's on hold. We could -- any month we could have four large projects or two small projects. It's almost impossible to predict. CHAIRMAN HILL: But it's going to be light -- relatively light compared to -- Page #39 March 1, 2000 MS. BURGESON: What we saw last fall was extremely high, unusual. I've never seen it that high before, so -- CHAIRMAN HILL: I didn't want to get us into a project where we were -- that sounds good. Thank you, Start. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: If you're going to have something the first week in April, you might ask Clarence Tears whether the district can attend. CHAIRMAN HILL: Do you think they could, Clarence? Okay. That would be the 5th of April. MR. TEARS: Clarence Tears, for the record. The first two weeks are extremely bad for me. I'll be out of town. And I would like to attend to give this board an update on the Big Cypress Basin's five-year plan, which deals with capital construction and everything related to the water resources in Collier County. Is there another date it could be held? CHAIRMAN HILL: What's the best bet, just move it to May rather than -- MR. LORENZ: May 3rd would be the next meeting. MR. TEARS: May 3rd would work. CHAIRMAN HILL: Let's make it May then, okay? That won't rush any of your activities, Stan, then. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: You want to do the transportation one in April then? CHAIRMAN HILL: Let me throw this out, a question, too. What is the coastal management plan? That's also specifically mentioned in the functions of this committee. And I'm -- it's a section, I guess, of -- where did I read those? MR. LORENZ: Well, what section? CHAIRMAN HILL: I'm looking under 513, the powers and duties, I think is -- Item No. 9, implement the provisions of the conservation and coastal management element of the comprehensive plan. MR. LORENZ: The conservation and coastal management Page #40 March 1, 2000 element is the one element that we provide for all our environmental protection policies. CHAIRMAN HILL: Oh, okay. MR. LORENZ: So it's not a -- that is not a separate element in the plan. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: You know what occurs to me, we have just redone the sewage maps for Collier County, and they came through with their effluent reuse presentation, and they were already well versed on the sewage system. I could shoot for that presentation in April. Then you'll have the sewage collection and effluent distribution system out of the way. CHAIRMAN HILL: Put water in reverse order, right? MR. CHRZANOWSKI: And then do water next. And then do transportation in April, May, June. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Then your three items are taken care of. MR. SANSBURY.' Sounds good to me. CHAIRMAN HILL: Please, if you would, Start, thank you. So I will send you an additional number two of this with the packet. Thank you. I think we ought to give ourselves a break, but I think it's really a break for Cherie' and her -- we will take a seven and a half minute break and reconvene at 10:35. MR. DiNUNZIO: Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN HILL: Yes. MR. DiNUNZIO: I've got to apologize for the council, but I have to go. As a night worker, I am about out of gas. CHAIRMAN HILL: Well, I appreciate your coming, John, for this much, okay? (Mr. DiNunzio exits the boardroom.) (Recess.) Page #41 March 1, 2000 CHAIRMAN HILL: I'll reconvene the Environmental Advisory Council meeting. MR. COE.' We've got to get you a hammer or something like that. This ain't cutting it. CHAIRMAN HILL: Well, I would have banged on something, but you guys were talking to each other on the phone. MR. CORNELL: Your natural authority is enough. MR. COE: Big hammer. CHAIRMAN HILL: An aside here. We became a council in May; is that correct? May was our first formal -- MS. BURGESON.' Right, right. These positions are through April 30th. CHAIRMAN HILL: We had two one-year positions? MS. BURGESON: That's correct. MR. SANSBURY: Who was the other one, myself? MS. BURGESON: McVey. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. Do you foresee a lengthy interval in reappointing or appointing new members? MS. BURGESON: The -- I anticipate that the Board of County Commissioners will hear that sometime in one of their meetings during April, and that person will be appointed and available for the May 1st meeting. CHAIRMAN HILL: A shorter interval than occurred when Dr. Jackson resigned. MS. BURGESON'- Yes. There should be no month where there's a lapse in -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Fine. MR. COE: Along those same lines, do we have a rule that says if you meet -- miss so many meetings that you're automatically off the board? MS. BURGESON: There used to be a rule to that effect that if you had three -- if you missed three meetings in a row, then it was basically that that position was removed. But the board has Page #42 March 1, 2000 changed that when they adopted -- or put into effect the new EAC ordinance. And basically what it says is the board can consider removing anyone who has excessive absences. They would recommend that action to the Board of County Commissioners, who would take final action. CHAIRMAN HILL: Or other reasons. MS. BURGESON: Right, right, for-- CHAIRMAN HILL: If Mickey doesn't supply those shirts for the rest of the council, we'd dump him, right. MR. COE: I knew you were going to get that in somehow. MR. SANSBURY: You should have been at the Seafood Festival. CHAIRMAN HILL: You pushed the pause button there, didn't you? Okay, new business. Listed species protection. Gopher tortoise Land Development Code amendments. You were given in your packet -- you were, I know you were -- a memorandum from Robert Fernandez, county administrator, concerning the Sanibel protection program. And Barb, I haven't looked at what you gave us. Was that subsequent? This had to do -- MS. BURGESON: What I handed out this morning is -- these are two of the proposed amendments for the next LDC amendment cycle. CHAIRMAN HILL: But not gopher tortoises. MS. BURGESON: Yes. CHAIRMAN HILL: There are, okay. Those are our packages. You have three documents in front of you. MR. SANSBURY: Mr. Chairman, I find the first one to be an ordinance on marine turtles. I don't quite find how that relates, to be honest with you. CHAIRMAN HILL: Mr. Julian, was this just an addenda? MR. JULIAN: No, that was a correction. The wrong Page #43 March 1~ 2000 information was in there. CHAIRMAN HILL: A correction to what we have from Sanibel. MR. JULIAN: Yeah, you have the proper ordinance now. MR. SANSBURY: Yeah, this was not the right ordinance. MR. JULIAN: But the right one did get the right -- THE COURT REPORTER: Excuse me, I need you on the microphone. CHAIRMAN HILL: My fault. Would you -- I'm sorry, my fault. Come to the microphone, Mr. Julian. I beg your pardon. MR. JULIAN: Hi, Gary Julian. Mr. Fernandez did interpret a little out of it as far as individual homes, so it wasn't too far off the base. At least it got something going in that respect, anyway. I'm talking about the green sea turtle ordinance that was with that. That's wrong. That shouldn't have done that. CHAIRMAN HILL: As part of this document? MR. JULIAN: Right. Eric Blinkled (phonetic) sent me the ordinances, and unbeknownst to me, I didn't really scrutinize it. And it was the wrong one the whole time. And I recently got the right ordinance from the City of Sanibel, and that's what I gave all you guys this morning. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. Do you have one more copy of that? MR. JULIAN: Yes. CHAIRMAN HILL: Did you get one? Oh, okay. Thank you. Has staff reviewed this at all? MS. BURGESON: I did have a chance to take a look at something that was sent to me about last October or November. This doesn't look like the same format, so I'm not sure if this is something exactly that I've looked at. But I did review what -- Sanibel Island and spoke with somebody regarding the differences between what we do and Page #44 March 1, 2000 what they do. They do not -- they don't do much different than what Collier County does in terms of gopher tortoise protection. They do accept the Incidental Take permit. They -- Collier County does as well. They do require protection of the gopher tortoises. Collier County does that as well. They require, on single-family homes, that tortoises are relocated and protected. That's something that we do through all of our large PUD processes, subdivisions, platting, anything that comes in larger than a multiplex. So anything larger than I think a four-plex would get our review. So that's where the difference is. The difference is on the single-family homes in, for instance, Golden Gate Estates, where the building permit is issued, it doesn't go -- each building permit does not go through individual environmental review. And so it's up to the developer to protect that species during the process. We've tried to address that briefly in the amendment language that I provided you this morning, and were even discussing that in more detail through five or six E-mails back and forth in the past 24 hours. So I'll get into that after -- Gary might want to make a brief presentation on what he's learned, and then after that I'll make a brief presentation on at least this first draft of our amendment to the Land Development Code. CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you. Mr. Julian, do you have anything you would like to -- MR. JULIAN: Well, I see there are two amends. Require that gopher tortoise population at current level of protection -- oh, improve our current level of protection. CHAIRMAN HILL: Where are you -- MR. JULIAN: I'm sorry, it's Vince Cautero's memorandum. Do you have a copy of that? CHAIRMAN HILL: Which one? MS. BURGESON: We supplied copies to the board of Page #45 March 1, 2000 whatever you had provided last month. MR. JULIAN: Well, this is from you guys, though. It's -- MR. SANSBURY: December 10th? MR. JULIAN: Yeah, December 10th, yes. CHAIRMAN HILL: Go ahead. MR. JULIAN: I'm just addressing that. And No. 2 -- excuse me, let me go over it again. Require that gopher tortoise populations and our current level -- oh, wait. I'm sorry, I get too nervous up here. Require that gopher tortoise populations and habitats conforming to applicable Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission guidelines for maintaining sustainable populations -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Mr. Julian, hold on. Does every council member have the document dated December 10th from Vincent Cautero? MR. SMITH: I remember seeing it. I read through some of it last night, but -- yeah, I got it. CHAIRMAN HILL: On Page 3, down Item No. I is what Mr. Julian is -- I'm sorry to interrupt you, but go ahead, sir. MR. JULIAN: It's okay. Let me start over once more. Here's what the LDC could implement. It's their suggestion. To require that gopher tortoise populations and habitats conforming to applicable Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission guidelines for maintaining sustainable populations be preserved on-site. No. 2, require that appropriate buffer with allowable uses be placed around the preserve areas; which of these buffers could be adjusted to preserve suitable gopher tortoise habitat on-site; address connected preserves that may exist in adjacent areas off-site; require off-site relocation where appropriate. Okay. And when Barbara said that we do the same as Sanibel, we don't do the same as Sanibel. The whole community cares about the environment there. Obviously our community, like you said, Page #46 March 1, 2000 isn't educated, so they don't have the opportunity to care because they don't know. I didn't know about a gopher tortoise. I've been here a couple of years, and I'm from up-state New York. I didn't know what a gopher tortoise was. I stumbled across one. I inquired about it, I educated myself, and I found out about their plight, which I didn't feel too good about. We're ignoring them for the sake of a dollar, and we're cutting off our noses to spite ourselves. Because if you look at Sanibel -- that's what I use for a model, even though it's smaller than our county -- they have great commerce from their environment. People want to go there. They're known all over the world. And Miami is all concrete and not too much wildlife. I'd rather go to Sanibel for the day than Miami, myself. We don't supply a biologist. We have a biologist on staff, I think; am I correct? MS. BURGESON: Yes. MR. JULIAN: Does he go in the field, or does he just do paperwork? MS. BURGESON: First of all, whenever we have a project that comes in for review, the developers, environmental consultant has to provide a thorough Environmental Impact Statement. And as a portion of that, all the gopher tortoise issues are addressed, including mapping every single gopher tortoise burrow, the habitat, the areas, and providing for whatever the management of the tortoises are on-site. Staff's objective and responsibility is to review that Environmental Impact Statement, present that to Environmental Advisory Council with recommendations. So we do not go out on-site and do the initial inspection of the property. We do go out on-site and review the material that was submitted to us. MR. JULIAN: That's where it's got to change, too. Our staff Page #47 March 1, 2000 should go on-site and not leave it up to the wildlife surveyors -- MS. BURGESON: I'm sorry, I did say staff goes on-site. MR. JULIAN: Oh, they do go. Oh, okay. MS. BURGESON: We do not do the initial survey of the property. If we did that, we would have no time to do any reviews. We take the maps, for instance, on a piece of property where somebody has submitted the gopher tortoise surveys, the burrows, we will go out on-site, identify the locations of those, verify whether we agree with them being active, inactive, abandoned. If we have any concerns, we put those gopher tortoise surveys on hold. At times they've put on hold two or three times to be amended and resubmitted to us, where sometimes the number of burrows identified in the final result is two or three times greater than the initial. So staff is going out and doing all of the site visits, identifying and locating all of the burrows and making sure that what we review and what we give to the Environmental Advisory Council to review is as accurate as possible. MR. COE: Barbara, has he received a copy of your amendment? MS. BURGESON: That was only finalized even yesterday afternoon, making some minor changes to that. MR. COE: Has Mr. Julian had the opportunity to take a look at this, because this -- MS. BURGESON: No one in this room outside of staff has had the opportunity to take a look at that yet. And I'll make a presentation on that in just a few minutes. CHAIRMAN HILL: I think with what you've presented us and with the Sanibel ordinance amended and what Ms. Burgeson has provided us, I think we've got material for the council to chew on and come up with hopefully a satisfactory solution to this. And we certainly appreciate your interest to keep on top of it. MR. JULIAN: Oh, I will. Thanks. Page #48 March 1, 2000 CHAIRMAN HILL: But rather than go into any more detail now until we all digest -- MR. JULIAN: Okay. CHAIRMAN HILL: -- this information, why -- MR. JULIAN: Great. CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you. MR. JULIAN: I'll see you again. MS. BURGESON: I think it's clearly accurate to state that staff has the ability and the direction through changing some ordinances, clarifying some sections of the Land Development Code, to do a better ]ob of what the intent of the original Land Development Code was. Unfortunately, over the past few years, we have had some extremely poor examples of gopher tortoise protection. The tortoises, the individuals themselves have been all excavated and relocated and put into preserve areas that were at times grossly inadequate. That's why the proposed language changes that I submitted to you today as a response or as a result of this board's requesting that we address that better is a result of the information that's been brought forth, mostly by what Mr. Julian's provided to the commissioners and to the general public and to staff at all different levels. We'll try to address that on a cursory level today, and then it will come back to the EAC at the April meeting for a formal vote. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. MS. BURGESON'- Did you get a copy of that? CHAIRMAN HILL: Would you put these in the package of the absent members, too, Barb? MS. BURGESON: Yes. MR. SMITH: Mr. Chairman, can I make a comment? You know, the -- one of the things I think we always have to remember is that Sanibel, Martin County, many other areas in Florida, are unique to their own situation, and Collier County is Page #49 March 1, 2000 different, too. And I think we need to learn from all of them, but we always have to -- and it looks like Barbara has done a great job here trying to deal with what we have here in Collier County. CHAIRMAN HILL: Correct, yeah. MS. BURGESON: What I'd like to do is just briefly go over the Land Development Code change that's proposed for the protected species section. This has been -- the reason for doing this is that we've listed -- the Environmental Advisory Council requested staff to amend the LDC to provide better protection for gopher tortoises and their habitat. Because it was directed by the wish of the EAC that staff do more to protect gopher tortoises over some of the discussions, particularly Little Palm Island, when that discussion came up, I'd like -- even though this is an amendment that comes from staff, I'd like input from the EAC -- I don't know if you want to take the time right now to look it over or if you want to get back to me individually to make sure that I'm at least going in the appropriate direction for what your wishes are. What normally happens is this goes through -- if it weren't something that was generated from the Environmental Advisory Council, the process would be that it goes to the Development Services Advisory Subcommittee once or twice; this one goes twice. Then it would go to the DSAC regular committee. After that I think it's scheduled to go to the Environmental Advisory Council, Planning Commission, and the Board of County Commissioners. It doesn't seem to make sense to me to spend four sessions in front of the Development Services Advisory Committee getting all of their side sheets and comments before I've gotten your comments, because this is generated from your wishes. CHAIRMAN HILL: Right. MS. BURGESON: So we can either go through it very quickly right now-- Page #50 March 1, 2000 MR. COE: I've got two quick questions, Barb. Number one, someone made the presentation, and I don't think it was from your shop, but someone made a presentation of "X" amount of tortoises per acre. That was like what it's supposed to be. Here you have five per acre. Is that what the same presentation was we had before? MS. BURGESON: The two per acre is an ideal situation. If you were getting a permit to relocate tortoises or to protect tortoises, the game -- Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission recommends that you have two tortoises per acre; provides enough space for the tortoises and the habitat. Collier County at this point recognizes that the state issues an Incidental Take permit. The Incidental Take permit will actually take into consideration the impacted tortoises' habitat in its entirety. It pays into a fund. We go one step further than that and say we recognize that even though they're paying for the taking of that habitat, we want the tortoises to be protected. So what we're trying to do is say what is an absolute minimum density -- or maximum density, minimum acreage that we think will guarantee or at least allow -- reasonably allow the survivability of the species. If we said two per acre, what we would be saying in essence is that we don't accept the state's Incidental Take permit. I've spoken with the state and we can do that. There's no reason why we can't simply say we do not recognize or accept Incidental Take permits in Collier County. And what they would have to do then is go through the relocation permit process or do preservation on-site. What -- the direction that I took is a direction that is more moderate than that. It's to say that going through the data information that I've reviewed through some information that was provided through past studies from Game and Fish, that in Florida different habitats -- different habitats recognize different Page #51 March 1, 2000 densities for gopher tortoises. For instance, there are several -- there's a page, I don't happen to have it with me, but there's a page of listed species of gopher tortoise densities on different habitats. Some are as high as eight tortoises per acre for particular types of habitat. The scrubby pine flatwoods had a five -- like a 5.5 tortoises per acre recommended density, or actual density. MR. COE: Who gets the money for this Incidental Take permit? MS. BURGESON: That goes to the state. MR. COE: We don't get a dime? MS. BURGESON.' No, we don't. And also, we don't have any ability to tell the state what they should do with that money. For instance, if Collier County lost -- let's just say they lost 100 acres last year of prime gopher tortoise habitat. That money goes to the state. The state keeps that into a fund until they can locate property that they want to use that for and purchase gopher tortoise habitat, put that under the preservation. Right now there is no identified mitigation bank in Collier County, so for the most part you'd have to assume that the state is taking funds raised from loss of habitat in Collier County and purchasing that outside of Collier County. MR. COE: Well, why can't we find something that's a proper habitat for the county, recommend to the state, hey, we need this 1,000 acres out here to move our tortoises to? MS. BURGESON: We can certainly do that. MR. JULIAN: Can I be recognized? There's 12 million dollars in the Southwest Florida Mitigation Fund. Almost a million of it is from our county. They've tried to purchase two lots on the beach, and that fell through in their lottery. So there's a lot of money there to buy the habitat. But if we don't move pretty quick, we're not going to have any. Like Page #52 March 1, 2000 Marco. They're buying up the lots. And like Barbara said, there's a dozen tortoises on a couple of vacant lots, which would make great habitat, and they're only 30,000 a lot. I've talked to the state and they look for bigger 500-acre areas to buy. But at this point, I think it would behoove us to get the state to buy the little parcels, because there are a lot of tortoises on it. It is great tortoise habitat. MR. SMITH: One of my concerns, though, isn't it better -- Barbara, maybe you could help with this -- that when you're dealing with the tortoises to have them interconnected in some fashion? I mean, if you have them isolated, then you end up having a weakening of their diversity, and then -- MS. BURGESON: One of the things -- MR. SMITH: -- if the goal is to have the species survive in the long run, don't you want to have some interconnection? MS. BURGESON: That's one of the things that I've identified in this rewrite of that section of the Land Development Code. It might be easier if we just go through that. And then if you could hold questions to the end. Because some of that presentation will answer some of your questions. Just to make sure I've finished answering Mr. Coe's question regarding the density, the -- what I've got here is a list of habitat types. And just to read off a few, this is using field data and identifying the densities that are -- that are currently surviving and doing well. For instance, in Florida, if you got into long leaf pine-turkey oak habitat, the density in that area is 2.38 acres, or 2.3 tortoises per acre. If you look down into a scrubby flatwoods, which is a large majority of Collier County habitat, and some of that habitat has tortoises, that figure is 5.26 tortoises per acre. You get as high as eight in different habitats, and as Iow as .4. I think it goes Page #53 March 1, 2000 down to the lowest is .4 -- yeah, .4 in Florida per acre. So we tried to use similar habitats. If you actually wanted to, you could probably identify each type of habitat and use that density. What I was trying to do was in fact by putting that five in there, was just to give a number for discussion for us to start. The reason -- give you the reason for it, and for you to use that as a springboard for giving me better direction to go forward. And whether you wanted to identify, for instance, if it was -- let's see. For instance, if you have a xeric or a sand pine scrub, it's .5. That's a higher density than the two per acre that the state uses as a general overview. But that's the density that was identified for that particular habitat. So if you wanted to use site specific conditions for densities, that's something we could look into. Or if you wanted to put a number down, we could look into that. If you wanted to look into the possibility of not accepting the Incidental Take permits, that's something that can be done. One thing -- CHAIRMAN HILL: Do you have -- pardon me for interrupting, Barbara. Do you have confidence in that data? I mean, is that the result of a fairly extensive study? MS. BURGESON: The data that's provided here is a result of studies done on large parcels. It's studies done on larger than 100-acre parcels. And when I talked to Jim Beaver day before yesterday, we were talking about the lack of any state data on small tracts, and how the state talks about a viable habitat being, say, 25 acres of gopher tortoise habitat. When they're doing that, they're talking about in terms of large tracts. When he and I discussed it, we talked about -- Collier County tracts coming in, for instance, if you've got a 25-acre parcel that's coming in for development and you only have a five-acre gopher tortoise preserve that will be set aside on that tract, the state doesn't even recognize that as being Page #54 March 1, 2000 solidly viable. But when I mentioned to him that our consideration would be that there may be a parcel to the east, west, north, south, adjacent with four acres, six acres, 12 acres, that when they come in, we would attempt -- or we would require connecting habitats to keep the entire preserve area viable. He admitted that that was something that would then be a viable population, if you could maintain them like that. It's just the state doesn't have that type of data to support it. MR. JULIAN: Excuse me, I'd like to interject. I have some good data from Joan Birch. She's a wildlife biologist. And it's specifically on gopher tortoise habitat. CHAIRMAN HILL: Could you submit that -- MR. JULIAN: Yeah, I have a ton of information. Sorry about earlier. I got a little defensive and a little animated. And I couldn't help it, because there's a church being built over on Goodlette Road -- and I understand Barbara, she's an advocate. But to hear her say we have the same protection for tortoises as Sanibel, to me it just strikes a bad note. If you go over to this church, you'll see where -- I don't know how many acres; let me say for an example, let's say it's 15 acres -- it was cleared in two days. Four tortoises were killed because they had the black plastic around the whole perimeter, except out by the road on Goodlette Road. A nurse called me from the hospital and said Gary, I just watched four tortoises be killed by cars because they scurried into the road from the front end loaders -- you know, there's a half dozen front end loaders. Anyway, to make a long story shorter, I was over there the other day again, and the church is up. It's a big complex with the church, school, blah, blah, blah. It's all level. There's a little corner of it, and I don't know if it's an acre or less. That's where they relocated the gophers to. Page #55 March t, 2000 And the wire mesh and black plastic that keep them in there to protect them is crunched down in about eight places. Obviously somebody -- there's a big yellow carry-all on the site, and it was sitting there when I walked in. I noticed it because it was bright yellow and brand new. As I walked through this little gopher habitat, I saw all these huge tire marks crisscrossing all through it; driving over it and crushing burrows and just crushing that vegetation. And I'm going, what is going on here? They're supposed to be protected. And this contractor's got somebody running around this little area where there's probably half a dozen tortoises, no regard for their protection. So yeah, I get upset when I hear somebody say we have the same, because Sanibel has a biologist on staff on duty in the field, because they have food. Is the habitat all right for them? They go to the extreme. And all I want to say is it's important for us to do this. If the tortoise does support over 200 other species, what's going to happen when the tortoise is gone? We're going to be like Miami's what's going to happen. Because big money gets what they want. And I can't fight big money, but I can educate this community. And hopefully some of you guys, some of your kids, some of your relatives, other people in the community will know the importance of the tortoise. I'm not a tree hugger. I love nature, I love wildlife, and I think life is boring without it. And this place, therefore, will be boring if the tortoises go and all the other creatures that they support with their burrow. CHAIRMAN HILL: We appreciate -- and don't apologize for being animated. That's all right. We get animated ourselves. We appreciate your input. We will certainly proceed with probably amendments into our ordinance. It may not come up totally to Sanibel, because Page #56 March 1, 2000 we may be different than Sanibel. MR. JULIAN: Right. CHAIRMAN HILL: You have to recognize that. MR. JULIAN: I do. CHAIRMAN HILL: It's going to be site specific, in a sense. So we appreciate everything you've done, and we're going to get on with it. MR. JULIAN: I'm always here for you, so call me if you need me. I want to make sure you guys get copies of all this. And by the way, I've got 200 signatures on a petition to adopt the Sanibel ordinance, too. And I understand it has to be fit to our bigger county. But there's 200 people in this community. There's got to be more -- MR. COE: Gary, we are in the process right now -- our discussions with Ms. Burgeson here, the reasons for these discussions is to amend the ordinance. That's what we're doing right now. MR. JULIAN: I understand. MR. COE: So it may not meet to what Sanibel is -- MR. JULIAN: Right. MR. COE: -- it may exceed it, too. That's all we're trying to do. Appreciate your input. MR. JULIAN: Yeah, the petition is just to give you guys an idea, I'm not the only person standing here. There's 200 people behind me. They might not be here, but they're there. They care. CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you very much. Back to Barb. MR. SMITH: Barbara, you asked -- I think you were asking whether or not we as a council -- BURGESON: Gary? If you trust Steve, can you stay and MS. listen? MR. JULIAN: Sure. MS. BURGESON: Because some of what we're talking about will probably answer some of your questions along the way. Page #57 March 1, 2000 MR. SMITH: Barbara, you were asking whether we as a council would be interested in having, you know, the numbers, five or whatever, and/or whether we'd want -- and the thought came to me is that, you know, we obviously don't know. I mean, we're not -- you know, we're not scientists and we haven't been dealing with the gopher tortoises. I wonder if it might be better for us to set a general goal; that is, you know, the preservation of the species in areas where it would benefit the environment the most. And what to my personal mind comes is the Estates area. For example, Golden Gate Estates area is a huge area. I mean, it's -- you could fit seven cities the size of Naples just in the northern blocks alone. And that area I'm sure has a lot of gopher tortoises in it. And, you know, the county already has ordinances such as one that makes it illegal to clear land in the Estates, in the northern or the southern Estates, beyond the need for placing of a home in there to preserve the foliage and to preserve the trees, for example, to preserve the natural beauty of that area. I would think that would fit in -- you know, the gopher tortoises would fit into that kind of concept, where instead of us as a council saying we want 'X" numbers on this, we want to make sure that the gopher tortoise is protected so that the natural beauty of those types of areas continues and the environment can thrive. MS. BURGESON: Well, in order to do even what you're suggesting, you would still have to come up with some numbers. MR. SMITH: Okay. MS. BURGESON: Because you wouldn't be able to say -- and that's not the direction I'd like to take. But just to answer that quickly, if you decided that you wanted to relocate all the tortoises into a different area, you'd still have to come up with what would be the appropriate densities for the survivability of that species in relocating them. So it's not something that we Page #58 March 1, 2000 can not address. We have to come up with some -- either some density or some rule regarding site specific densities. MR. COE: Why not use the site specific densities, rather than just five? I mean, we already have the site specific densities. We know what soils and -- MS. BURGESON: Right. MR. COE: -- vegetation and everything we have in each area of the county. Why not adopt that? Even though we're well aware of the shortcomings -- MS. BURGESON: One of the things that I talked with Jim Beaver about was right now, for instance, if -- under the best of circumstances, let's just say you have a 100-acre tract. It has to preserve 25 acres, and you have no wetlands, and you have 25 acres of habitat that gopher tortoises are existing on. That would be the perfect example of where this ordinance could help by requiring that 25 acres be set aside, period. It does a couple of different things: The tortoises have been existing and surviving at whatever densities they're at where they are in that habitat. And so that would be the best way of ensuring future survivability, short of relocating them to a larger preserve area. It would also take away the cost from the developer of obtaining Incidental Take permits. Jim told me that if the tortoises and their habitat are left alone, they don't get involved. Even if the densities are 10 per acre, they don't get involved. So you're saving the developer that cost of the Incidental Take permit and the requirement of staff to do the costly excavation and relocation on-site and setting aside a preserve area that may not be adequate for the tortoises in the future. But that's the perfect situation. What you would probably end up having is a smaller piece of property with some wetlands where you may be able to provide -- let's just say you have a tract where 10 acres is what would be required for the 25 Page #59 March 1, 2000 percent preservation requirement. Of that 10 acres, five acres are wetlands, and you have 10 acres of gopher tortoise habitat. One thing that you can do is identify the highest quality of that habitat, and require that that five acres be set aside. What you may require then is rather than relocating -- depending on the density, rather than relocating all of the gopher tortoises into that five acres, you may wish to have a combination of maintaining that five acres and then mitigating for the remaining five acres. MR. SANSBURY: Can I comment just a second? One thing, I think, Barb, we need to consider also~ having experienced a relocation, is that the quality of the habitat can be enhanced with -- and I think we ought to consider when we're looking at this, if you follow the track of the state permits. And that is actually the planting list; i.e., the gopher apples, i.e., the prickly pear cactus. Because we found by enhancing the habitat, because, you know, the woods are not always the best. If we could go in and find -- and plant a food source of grasses, prickly pears, gopher apples, that that population, viable population for that set amount of land, can be greatly increased if you put the food source there. So I think we ought to put a little thought in there of that -- MS. BURGESON: Right. MR. SANSBURY: -- portion of it all. MS. BURGESON: And that is certainly something you would want to do if you were in a situation where you were moving them out of their habitat. MR. SANSBURY: Or even an existing habitat. You know, we saw those guys come in whatever it was, three or four months ago, when they wanted to put 43 turtles in one and a half acres. Well, that's completely ridiculous. But you can take, and we've experienced, about a three and a half acre parcel would enhance the habitat by plantings. Page #60 March 1, 2000 MS. BURGESON: Right. MR. SANSBURY.' And we feel that that number is maybe five an acre, we can -- will live in there. Something of that sort. But one point is that part of it needs to be in addition just a straight acre for acre, is look at the ability to enhance the existing habitat. MS. BURGESON: I agree. MR. SANSBURY: And I think we ought to, you know, have that as the state does and put out a plant list and what have you as to what can be put in there. MR. SMITH: Along those lines -- and I mean that's a great idea. My guess is that if people generally knew that -- and again, I have to go back to the Estates area, for example. And it's a huge area. If the people there knew that by doing that kind of thing they could help the environment, by gosh, you would see all kinds of people planting those kinds of trees and wanting to do things to make it better. MR. SANSBURY: problem. CHAIRMAN HILL: for us, Barb? MS. BURGESON: CHAIRMAN HILL: MS. BURGESON: CHAIRMAN HILL: MS. BURGESON: seven-year-old, so I have time. CHAIRMAN HILL: All right, moving on to the next agenda item. MS. BURGESON: No, no, no, no, please. Going through this rather quickly, what we've done is tried to -- or staff has done is tried to provide additional language in the protected species section of the Land Development Code to They're about that high, that's the only Do you want to proceed more information Sure. We kind of interrupted you on -- That's okay. I have six more hours, so -- Six more hours? I need to leave at 5:00 to pick up my Page #61 March 1, 2000 give staff more teeth, so to speak, as has been said before; to protect -- require minimum habitat protection for the gopher tortoises on-site. If you'll flip to -- let's see, I guess the real meat of this is going over to the third page. 3.11.3.4. It's not very long, so let me just read through that. Because I'd like to read it into the record, if possible. Do I need to read that into the record, or can you -- Cherie'? Maybe we can just reference it and I'll go over it. What we're trying to do here is say that whenever gopher tortoises are identified on-site, that we require a protection management plan or off-site relocation. We do that already. It's not in the Land Development Code, but we already do that. What's new to this is that we're adding language saying that suitable gopher tortoise habitat shall be designated on the site plan at the time of the first development order submittal. Where that changes things is, for instance, with example, Little Palm Island. What they would have been required would have been when they came to you as a board, they would have been required to show you where suitable habitat was provided on that master plan that you reviewed for the protection of the gopher tortoises. CHAIRMAN HILL: Is your intent to require that independent of whether there are tortoises there? MS. BURGESON: My intent on this amendment is specifically when gopher tortoises are on-site. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay, when they're present in their habitat. MS. BURGESON: Right. Now, that shouldn't limit your scope or interest in broadening that to say that gopher tortoise habitat is one of the rarest -- typically you end up in a scrub, a xeric scrub, rosemary scrub habitat, which is extremely rare in Collier County. I believe we're down to .6 percent -- not six percent but Page #62 March 1, 2000 .6 percent -- of what habitat existed in Collier County originally, from when we first did our map. So that is a habitat that's extremely rare. So you could say that rather than protecting gopher tortoise and their habitat, when it's identified on-site, you could go one step further and say that we want to identify that habitat up front and protect it, regardless of whether there's gopher tortoise in that habitat or not. In some cases the gopher tortoises have been forced out of that habitat. In some cases they've been relocated and moved prior to development, due to a number of different things happening. But you still have a rare habitat and an extremely large number of species using that habitat that are just not as visible and not as warm and fuzzy as -- well, gopher tortoises could be considered warm and fuzzy, but not as visible to the general public. It's still a high quality habitat, though. But what I was trying to do here in this draft is to identify the concerns that have come to our attention; specifically, to protect the gopher tortoises. So what we're saying then is that suitable gopher tortoise habitat shall be identified at the initial development stage. And we're giving characteristics of what that habitat shall be. And that is presence of well drained sandy soils, which is what we need for the gopher tortoises to be able to burrow into it. As opposed to relocating them into habitat and providing enhanced food source, this requires that you're putting them into an area where the soils will allow them to burrow. An abundance of verbacious ground cover, which is what Mr. Sansbury was saying, is important and necessary. And we're saying here if not present, supplemental food sources shall be planted. Generally open canopy and sparse shrub cover. This is just the general characteristics. Actually, these four -- actually, the Page #63 March 1, 2000 first three items are listed in printed resources from the state regarding the characteristics that really are seen everywhere gopher tortoise habitat is of high quality. So those three, even though they sound fairly general, that's really important to be present to expect that there will be a good survivability chance of that population. What we added in there, where the state says an abundance of verbacious ground cover, we added in if not present, supplemental plantings should be required. And we added in No. 4 to discuss some type of maximum density. Like I said, that No. 5 was just thrown in there as a number. In fact, when I did my original copies of this, that was highlighted in yellow, just so that I would know that that really isn't a number, that's something that I'm personally and professionally recommending, as much as it is a number that we should be working from. Whether you want it to go to site specific cases with that or use that because it's a fairly -- I mean, we could go out and survey densities in Collier County, the existing populations, and probably find that that's fairly accurate. CHAIRMAN HILL: I'm a little confused and coming from a position of ignorance, I guess in this. But if we're identifying suitable habitat, it seems to me there would be a minimum density rather than a maximum density. It's suitable if you have MS. BURGESON: Well, it really depends on that site. Since the history of that rare unique habitat has been to just about disappear in its entirety, the densities have gone way up. On a piece of property, for instance, off Old 41, there's a fairly large area that was at one time pristine scrub gopher tortoise habitat. Now it's shared with a couple of industrial parks. Those gopher tortoises that were not impacted directly that were on adjacent properties, the densities there may be higher simply because they've chosen to relocate themselves Page #64 March 1, 2000 into those areas. And what I don't want to do is I don't want to say that if you've got a density of five tortoises per acre currently in a habitat that it's better to excavate and relocate them someplace that they may not be doing as well, than to keep them there at that slightly higher density. If we can identify the food source in the habitat and protect them where they are, it may be better than relocating them into a larger tract. MR. JULIAN: Mr. Hill, excuse me, may I interject right there? MS. BURGESON: Can you come up to the podium, Gary? MR. JULIAN: With the relocations, even our staff biologist -- it's the doom of the tortoises with this upper respiratory tract disease here, we're not even sure, we don't have a grip on it. We have 25 percent of the population left in Florida. For all we know, 24 percent could have it. The relocations just make that worse, along with the gene pull. It's screwing up the gene pull. That's a big concern, too, besides upper respiratory. So the relocation, it's not the greatest thing in the world from -- MS. BURGESON: One thing that we can do with the relocation, Gary, is to require that we find the best suitable habitat that's unpopulated. MR. JULIAN: And along with that -- MS. BURGESON: And so you're not mixing gene pools -- MR. JULIAN: -- a blood test -- MS. BURGESON: -- but you're finding the best acreage, lot acreage, to move the tortoise population into. MR. JULIAN: And a blood test. MS. BURGESON: Well, I mean, if you're taking an existing population, you can certainly do that. But -- and if you're taking 25 tortoises from one site and moving them somewhere else where there's no tortoises, I mean, it just -- it may be good for Page #65 March 1, 2000 the information to have that data -- (Mr. Coe exits boardroom.) MS. BURGESON: -- in the Environmental Impact Statement, but I'm not sure where you'd want to go once you got that information. MR. JULIAN: Right, just to know how many are affected with upper respiratory tract. That's another point I want to make. I just hope you guys go through the information. I know it's a lot that I left you, but at the very least, go to the web page. We have a great web page where it's all condensed, and most of the information is in there, anyway. CHAIRMAN HILL: We'll pursue this. MR. JULIAN: Okay. CHAIRMAN HILL: Let the record show that the chair recognized Mr. Coe had to leave. We still have a quorum. MS. BURGESON: The next item in that paragraph talks about where the suitable habitat cannot be provided on-site. For instance, in circumstances where 25 percent of the site is possibly pristine wetland and the petitioner chooses to preserve that, then what we're saying is that off-site relocation permits shall be obtained from Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. That would be an official off-site permit from the state, which at that point would require those lower densities. Because we are saying we're not going to adapt to the densities that are existing on the site -- on-site conditions. But they may have to relocate them to a larger tract with that off-site relocation permit and lower densities, because they're going to have to abide by the state's official off-site permit. That's not just saying that the developer can just find a willing receiver and move the tortoises to that site. They'd have to go through the full permit process in the state. CHAIRMAN HILL: The county can be more restrictive than Page #66 March 1, 2000 the state -- MS. BURGESON: Yes. CHAIRMAN HILL: -- as opposed to being more lenient, right? MS. BURGESON-' Can choose to be both -- I'm sorry, can choose to be more restrictive and cannot be less restrictive. CHAIRMAN HILL: Cannot be less restrictive, can be more restrictive? MS. BURGESON: Right. MR. JULIAN: Excuse me, Mr. Hill, that was my point from the beginning with Sanibel. It supersedes the state. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay, Barb. MS. BURGESON: I'm not sure it does, but -- I'm not sure that they ignore the Incidental Take permits. I think that what they do is a better job of providing assurances that the tortoises will survive and where they'll be relocated to, which is what we're trying to do. Thanks. MR. CORNELL: Barb? MS. BURGESON: Yes. MR. CORNELL: I don't see anything here about Incidental Take permits. So we're getting away from that altogether, or -- MS. BURGESON: Well, if we're using a maximum density of no more than five tortoises per acre, and just as an example, let's just say that the petitioner has more tortoises than they can set into the upland area, that that meets or falls into their 25 percent preservation requirement, then they will have to get an infill take permit for either a portion or all of that to relocate some of those tortoises off-site. And it may be that if they have to get an Incidental Take permit to relocate -- or to impact the entire area, that we might say that you want to let them get an off-site relocation permit to assure that there's adequate habitat and acreage off-site for relocation. MR. CORNELL: Well, I thought one of the things that we Page #67 March 1, 2000 came across in the discussion -- was it Palm -- Little Palm Island? MS. BURGESON: Little Palm Island. MR. CORNELL: -- was that the Incidental Take permit thing was sort of a blood bath. I mean, it was -- I mean, you paid money, but you squashed a lot of tortoises. And it seemed like kind of a rough way to deal with -- MS. BURGESON'. The intent from the state's perspective on that Incidental Take permit is that first word. Unfortunately in that permit, it doesn't say that you have to excavate and relocate all the tortoises. Because what they're doing is they're saying by paying this four to six -- it's either 4 or $6,000 -- MR. JULIAN: 6,000 an acre. MS. BURGESON: 6,000 an acre? So if you're paying $6,000 an acre for the taking of that habitat, what they're saying is we're not also going to require that you excavate them and relocate them into a preservation area, because that's -- we're double dipping on that permit. But what they'll tell you is that issuing an Incidental Take permit to a developer does not permit them to just take the -- the burrows and bulldoze them. Unfortunately, everyone receiving that permit doesn't see that incidental word in there and doesn't pay much attention to it. You can talk to environmental consultants who will tell you that I've paid for the taking of the tortoises and the habitat. MR. CORNELL: Yeah. MS. BURGESON: And it surprises-- MR. JULIAN: They call it-- MS. BURGESON: It surprises me to hear that, but that's not the intent of the state permit. Unfortunately there's not enough staff on the state level to assure that that's not happening. And with the county's review process, even though all of our permits -- whenever we have any site right now for review with gopher tortoises, we require on the site plan language that says all Page #68 March 1, 2000 active and inactive burrows are excavated, gopher fencing is put up, the tortoises are relocated. We don't have right now someone going out there and watching on the day that they're doing the relocation. What we have incorporated in the past few months is staff is now getting involved in the preconstruction meeting, which is identifying a need for our involvement in making sure that the tortoises are put into a protected area prior to any site improvement. So we will be out doing a site inspection prior to any site improvements or clearing for construction. That's something that we did 10 years ago when I started with the county when we had five staff doing what now three are doing. We had the additional people to go out and inspect up front. We've been relying on the developer to be doing that. And in some cases I was not aware of what Gary is saying happened at the church happened. It shouldn't have. And if somebody had called us, that would have been a violation of their site plan. We would have put a red tag, or we would have enforced some action against what they were doing. MR. JULIAN: I think that-- THE COURT REPORTER: Excuse me, I can't hear you off the mike. CHAIRMAN HILL: No, please. MS. BURGESON: Let me just finish what I'm saying here, is we've been doing, maybe naively, the best job that we thought we could do through putting that language on the plan or requiring the developers to do what we expected them to do. Unfortunately, we haven't had the ability to say we want you to set aside this habitat; we want you to make sure that there's enough habitat and enough food source, and that there's some inspection in the process. So that's what we're trying to -- we're trying to fix some Page #69 March 1, 2000 problems that have come in over the past five or six years. Probably because just of overgrowth and under staffing. MR. CORNELL: I don't see how it's going to work. I mean, you know, your basic point before was there just isn't enough good gopher tortoise habitat around. I mean, it seems like you're -- we're going to end up saying that almost every one of them gets relocated. But relocated doesn't really mean relocated, right? I mean, then you're getting into this Incidental Take thing -- MS. BURGESON: No, no, no, no. Relocated means excavating, taking the entire population, moving them someplace else. MR. CORNELL: Then we're not getting involved with the Incidental Take permit. MS. BURGESON: Well, in the case where we're asking for off-site relocation, we're basically saying that that incidental -- if we're requiring the entire population to be relocated off-site -- MR. CORNELL: Which is the way it sounds, because we're short of habitat. MS. BURGESON: Well, we are in some cases. On the particular property that we looked at at Little Palm Island -- MR. CORNELL: Yeah. MS. BURGESON: -- we had 88 acres of I think total site size acreage. We had 17 acres of prime gopher tortoise habitat. If we could have had the petitioner identify that area and preserve it, we wouldn't have required any off-site relocation. MR. CORNELL: Okay. MS. BURGESON: But when you're talking about off-site relocation, you're basically saying to the developer your Incidental Take permit is a waste of your money in this particular case because we're going to require you to get an off-site relocation permit and relocate them off-site. It would make no sense for them to get both. Page #70 March 1, 2000 Off-site relocation would address the taking of the habitat and the relocation of them into suitable habitat elsewhere. So in some cases you would be in essence superseding that, and in other cases you'd be working with it, and sometimes you would even be helping the developer not have to go through the expense of that process at all. MR. CORNELL: Well, in other words, is that the developer's choice, that either he relocates or he gets -- he pays for an Incidental Take permit? MS. BURGESON: That's why we've got the language in here that we have. We want to be able to say that if they can -- ideally, I would like to be able to say if you've got gopher tortoise population on-site and habitat that's supporting it, and through your preservation requirements on larger parcels of 25 percent, if that falls into the 25 percent, I would like to identify that up-front and say this has to be a part of your 25 percent. Outside of that, fill it elsewhere where you want. Where we have problems with that is when you come into sites where you have wetlands. It's difficult for us to say you have to provide the gopher tortoise habitat before the wetlands, because then we're possibly throwing people into a higher than that 25 percent preservation. If you say that a portion of that habitat can be preserved on-site and then the remainder of that habitat has to be relocated off-site, one of the things that you might be doing is the state, in many of those cases, will say that if you're impacting any of that habitat, we assess it as impacts to the entire habitat. And if that's the case and they would be getting an Incidental Take permit for the entire area, then maybe the developers at that point would choose not to bother with the Incidental Take permit but to simply go for an off-site relocation permit and move all the tortoises off-site. But this is something that we really -- I really need, staff Page #71 March 1, 2000 needs your input into where you'd like to go with this. I think that this language certainly is going to take a lot of maybe adjusting between now and when it gets to the board. I think it's far better than what we have, putting this in, even if we put this in verbatim, as I've submitted it to you. And if within the next year we find examples that say this doesn't work, we can certainly come back and adjust the language at a later time to improve that. But that doesn't mean that right now we should say well, this is better than what we have, so let's just accept it and see how it works. I think we should take a close look at it and see what you want to accomplish with it. If what you want to accomplish is simply saying no Incidental Take permits in Collier County, then we would rewrite this to address that. MR. CORNELL: Let me ask one more question, I'm sorry, then I'll be quiet. CHAIRMAN HILL: Go ahead. MR. CORNELL: I guess I'm a little bit confused about one thing. If I'm a developer and I have more tortoises than I have habitat, which is what you're saying is going to be the typical situation, is it a better deal for me to pay for their relocation, or is it cheaper for me to go out and buy an Incidental Take permit? Or are they one in the same? Or how do you -- MS. BURGESON: They're different. MR. SANSBURY: Would you like to have a developer answer that question? MR. CORNELL: Sure. MR. SANSBURY: It depends on your dollar value of the land. I mean, I'll give you a prime example. We identified "X' number of areas. We obtained an Incidental Take permit for $156,000, a letter of credit we had to put up. We had one year from the time we put that letter of credit up to establish suitable habitat, an option to do that. We could either walk away and give the state Page #72 March 1, 2000 the $156,000, or we could relocate those tortoises to someplace on-site or some other location, go back at the end of that year, have environmental -- I mean have our biologist do a study to say yes, they're there, yes, they're striving, make that -- give that report back to the state and not have to pay the $156,000. MR. CORNELL: I see. So it's kind of if default on being able to relocate, then you have to fork up the -- MR. SANSBURY: Yeah. And you have to make an expenditure. I mean, in this case I don't know what we spent, but you've got to put a little fence up, you've got to plant stuff, you've got to have somebody look after them, and you've got to put the signs up and what have you. We feel from a -- value of our land and so forth and the types that we had, an area within our golf course, that it made sense to us to do the relocation on-site. It's project specific. MS. BURGESON: If you're looking -- MR. SANSBURY: Looking at that sign -- that thing for Little Palm Island, I don't know whether they could have ever come up with enough land on that thing. MS. BURGESON.' If you're looking for what a developer's choice would be, you can see it by the fact that most of them take the Incidental Take permit. MR. SANSBURY: Yeah. MS. BURGESON.' The reason is that at $6,000 an acre, through the permit process, you couldn't possibly buy scrub habitat in this county for $6,000 an acre. But if you're not giving them an option, if you're saying through this process that if you don't have adequate -- if on, for instance, Little Palm Island, if you're saying that you don't want to do 17 acres of your 88 as gopher tortoise preserve, and one of the things that you can write into this is you can say then you have to do on-site relocation, then they don't have the option of the Incidental Take permit. It makes no sense to get that in addition to an off-site Page #73 March 1, 2000 relocation permit. So you're requiring, if they can't maintain them on-site, to adequately move them off-site. But one thing that we had put in here was a combination of on-site preservation and off-site relocation may be considered, if appropriate. Where I think that that would work very well is on some pieces of property where you have, for instance, two groups of gopher tortoises. If you've got a small population on one end of a large project that, for instance, may be adjacent to two or three other parcels, they could retain that, not impact it at all, not have to worry about the state, put it under preservation, and possibly with the other portion, or the other gopher habitat area, mitigate that by getting an off-site relocation permit. All of the information that's presented in the Environmental Impact Statement should be enough for staff to be able to analyze site specific cases. What we would hope to be able to do is bring those to the EAC, have them look at them very carefully, we would give you our best recommendation as to what would happen or should happen on that site, and then expect you to either question that, accept that, or modify it. CHAIRMAN HILL: I have a very dumb question, I guess. Keen, you said more tortoises than habitat. Isn't this a dynamic thing? I mean, how can you have more tortoises than habitat, if they're existing at that level in that habitat? MS. BURGESON: Well, you do if you go by what the state's recommended density is. CHAIRMAN HILL: An artificial -- MS. BURGESON: But if you go by the site specific density -- for instance, the state says that if you leave the tortoises in the habitat that they're currently existing in and don't touch the habitat at all, then they are hands off and don't get involved in that. But that might be interpreted by somebody to be more tortoises than that land can support, if they've come in from Page #74 March 1, 2000 adjacent properties. CHAIRMAN HILL: But if it is more than on their own, then they're dynamic enough that they'll reduce their own population. MS. BURGESON: I would expect that. Or move out into any other areas possible. The only way to assure that your densities would be ideal is to not accept the Incidental Take permit. I just -- we didn't put that in here, because I just don't know that that's something that this community-- CHAIRMAN HILL: That sounds better and better -- MS. BURGESON: -- would support. CHAIRMAN HILL: -- the more we talk about it, I think in my mind. You want to go through then, Barb, or are you about -- MS. BURGESON: There's just a couple other points. When identifying preservation requirements through 3.9.5, which is the section of the Land Development Code, and that's the other handout that I gave you. That's the preservation section of the code that says 10 percent, 15 percent or 20 percent of the site has to be preserved. What we're saying here is when you identify a parcel with gopher tortoises, priority has to be given to protecting the largest, most contiguous gopher tortoise habitat with the greatest number of burrows, and identifying that as a part of that preservation requirement. If you have wetlands, that's not going to work, unless you want to go and say that on certain sites we would require that greater than 25 percent of the site be preserved. I didn't go there. I'm just trying to say that we want priority given when at all possible to protecting gopher tortoises exactly where they are. When they are identified on platted single-family lots; for instance, Golden Gate Estates, or older subdivisions that didn't Page #75 March t, 2000 adequately address gopher tortoise protection, we're asking that the developer be responsible -- or the property owner, I'm sorry -- be responsible for the protection of the gopher tortoises. In E-mails back and forth in my office yesterday with four or five other staff persons, we talked about putting together some type of guidelines that we would require or could give to the property owners in those cases, and possibly adding language to building -- single-family building permits that -- similar to what we have right now for wetlands, which is -- issuance of the single-family building permit doesn't obviate the property owner from obtaining all state and federal permits necessary for wetlands. We would say issuance of the single-family building permit doesn't obviate the property owner from obtaining all necessary permits in regards to all protected species on-site. So something that's not been on the single-family building permit itself, but I feel should be. MR. SMITH: Where would these permits be obtained then? MS. BURGESON: That's just a regular building permit. MR. SMITH: I know, but you said doesn't obviate the need to get a permit for protected species. MS. BURGESON: No, doesn't obviate the builder from addressing the protection of the species. So if, for instance, you had a five-acre parcel in Golden Gate Estates and you had gopher tortoises on-site, it would be your responsibility, through the guidelines that we provide, for instance, for you to contact Florida Fish -- Florida Wildlife Conservation Commission -- Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Rather than the staff doing site visits and putting down requirements for your building permit, it would be your responsibility to do that. MR. SMITH: But how would you get -- I mean, would it be clear as to where you go as a -- MS. BURGESON: Those guidelines would give you the Page #76 March 1, 2000 names of the agencies and the phone numbers, and that it would be your responsibility to contact them. MR. SMITH: And then you would need like a letter from them or whatever to say that you have contacted and that they have -- I mean, is that going to be like a huge expense for the owners or-- MS. BURGESON: We are not recommending through this process that the county do anything different at all in terms of issuing those building permits, except for adding that language. What we are recommending for this change is that the property owner be responsible for the protected species on-site, that they should have always been responsible for -- MR. SMITH: Right. Well, I mean -- MS. BURGESON: -- but probably have not been. MR. SMITH: And maybe advise them about the potential criminal liability, for example, if they start destroying gopher tortoises. MS. BURGESON: Well, that's the last section here. MR. SMITH: I know, but I mean, that's what I mean is that you're looking to, as part of this process, in effect let the property owner know hey, you've got a responsibility here, but you're not looking to add more paperwork to the permitting process or more hurdles, necessarily, to the permitting process, as I understand it. MS. BURGESON: That's not what this proposal is expecting to do. This proposal is expecting to put that responsibility completely on the property owner. MR. SMITH: The responsibility for what, Barbara? MS. BURGESON: To protect the species. MR. SMITH: Correct, so that there's no need to go and get another permit. MS. BURGESON: They may need to. MR. SMITH: Well, I guess I'm confused. Page #77 March 1, 2000 MS. BURGESON: But not through Collier County. MR. SMITH: But that can be -- MS. BURGESON: If, for instance, on that five-acre tract there are tortoises right in the middle of the property, and that is the only area that's habitat for tortoises, the rest of it's wet, they may have to get an Incidental Take permit from the state to move those tortoises. It's something that should be done right now. But on single-family building permits, there's no environmental review when they don't fall under another previous larger review. MR. SMITH: Well, let me -- MS. BURGESON: So it's -- MR. SMITH: Sorry, go ahead. MS. BURGESON: The fact that they're not doing it now doesn't mean that they shouldn't be. It's not adding anything on to the Estates' lot that if somebody knew all the regulations and did everything they should do, they would already be doing it. What it is is educating them on what they need to do. MR. SMITH: All right. CHAIRMAN HILL: It is approaching 12:00 -- I'm not going to shut you off, Barbara. I want to ask the council. I have to put in an appearance at least at a luncheon meeting. MR. SMITH: I won't be able to be here after lunch. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. We'll get back to you -- I would suggest perhaps that we table the wetland ordinance consideration until April. And not speaking for you, Mr. Smith, but our growth management subcommittee report might be fairly minimal at this time. MR. SMITH: Yeah, I could give it probably in two minutes. CHAIRMAN HILL: Then with the council's permission, let's finish up with this consideration, have you a brief report on the subcommittee, and then adjourn, if that's acceptable. MS. BURGESON: You're lucky we have no presentation for Page #78 March 1, 2000 you on the wetland ordinance. CHAIRMAN HILL: As proper, I think we'll table that. MS. BURGESON: We had no presentation ready for you anyway. What we were going to do was ask you to take a look at that ordinance that we've given to you. And one thing we can suggest is that when I attended the Everglades coalition meeting a couple of months ago, I met one of the County Commissioners from Martin County. She had made a presentation about their wetland ordinance. And I talked with her after, and she had told me that I could find that on the Internet. She also said that they would be happy to help Collier County if they can understand what they've done with that ordinance. We may be able to get someone, a planner from Martin County, who might be interested in coming across and making a presentation to you regarding their ordinance. MR. SANSBURY: I think just one comment on the Martin County ordinance, having had experience with it. Remember the philosophy of Martin County, which is a philosophy that probably doesn't exist anywhere else in the State of Florida, and that is the last person in, lock the gate, we don't want anybody else here. And this ordinance has been structured very much on that. And it's almost impossible -- I don't believe it's structured scientifically, but it's my own opinion. MS. BURGESON: If you have someone presenting it from Martin County, they can tell you how they've worked with it and what their problems have been, and that would allow you to understand what type of problems you could expect if you went -- MR. SMITH: Martin County also suffers from the largest unemployment rate in the State of Florida, and their economy has suffered as a result of this. CHAIRMAN HILL: Why don't you proceed, Barb, with that -- MS. BURGESON: Okay. Actually, that's really probably all I Page #79 March 1, 2000 need to go through with you. The penalty section there is verbatim. The type of penalties that exist right now in the section immediately preceding this one in the Land Development Code for sea turtles. If you wish to change that in any way, please let me know. Otherwise that's using the same language that we already have in place. It's just moving it from the violations for sea turtles would be the same type of violations that we would consider for gopher tortoise issues or violations. And if you have any direction that you'd like to give to me over the next week or two individually, please feel free to give me a call. I'll try to incorporate that in to the best of my ability and to this language. MR. SMITH: What is your E-mail, Barbara? Do you have a separate E-mail address? MS. BURGESON: It's Barbara Burgeson @ CollierGov. Net. I don't know about the capitalization for that. First name -- first initial, last name has to be capitalized. MR. SMITH: Say that again? The first name -- CHAIRMAN HILL: First B and B have to be -- MR. SMITH: The two B's have to be capitalized. CHAIRMAN HILL: Thank you. You've got a minute. MR. SMITH: Very briefly. CHAIRMAN HILL: Is that your answer?. MR. SANSBURY: Impossible for an attorney to speak in a minute; no question. MR. SMITH: Mr. Hill and Mr. Keen, Mr. Carlson and I have met officially once. We've also appeared twice -- three times. I wasn't able to go, but those folks did, to three. I went to two of the other subcommittee meetings. I think some of what we have discussed has been brought to light here in terms of our involvement in a study, the rural Page #80 March 1, 2000 assessment study. And so one thing we did agree to do was to not schedule meetings until we decided what would be our course of action and to reschedule meetings from -- I think we were going to do it from this meeting. So I don't know if you want to do it at this point or -- CHAIRMAN HILL: I think probably we should hang on a little bit further. MR. SMITH: Okay. CHAIRMAN HILL: During the intermission, I think we agreed informally that Mr. Lorenz would arrange for a report from the two -- from the rural lands and the rural fringe committee to be on our agenda, and make this Item No. 1, business item, so that the public could be invited as an information session for the public with respect to the assessment. Is that -- I think it's one way we can satisfy our desire to get involved with the public, make sure that they're notified that they can come. There will be scheduled 9:05 during that meeting. Is that generally what we agreed? MR. LORENZ: Well, on the -- yes, on the agenda, I guess the option is, is to put the standing item for the rural -- update on the rural assessment. Now, the question is, is where do you want to put that on the agenda. You said Item No. 1, the first thing. CHAIRMAN HILL: I would like to have it right after approval of the minutes, have it the first, so we can tell the public at 9.'10 you'll have this report. MR. LORENZ: Anyway, in most cases, it will be a verbal report, because of the nature of the way the committees are meeting. But where I do have some maps and handouts or something, that would be important, I can get it either in the agenda package or I can bring it to the meeting. CHAIRMAN HILL: Right. Did you have something else, Mr. -- MR. LORENZ: But I'd like to make also --just to reinforce Page #81 March 1, 2000 what you said earlier, in talking with Vince Cautero, he wanted to address this topic and the role of the EAC. And I think the reinforcement that was said earlier was that the role of EAC falls through that broad community input to try to provide some workshop for the public to come in and present some information to the EAC, for you to consider together with the update by staff as to what these advisory committees are doing, to put the EAC in, comes to you in a more formal process with regard to policies, proposed policies and objectives for the Growth Management Plan. But not to so much duplicate the effort of the other two committees. MR. SMITH: One of the things we had discussed, which I think we should look into doing, if possible, is to have the EAC subcommittee, if necessary, if not the EAC entirely, to meet with civic associations, Kiwanis groups, Optimists, different community oriented organizations that probably just don't even know what's going on and would be very, very interested, I think -- and would have a lot to contribute. I think that would serve a real good function. CHAIRMAN HILL: I think it's important also that we inform both of the assessment committees of what we're trying to do and not surprise them, to come at them from left field. MR. LORENZ: Yeah, that's a good point. CHAIRMAN HILL: I don't have the data. When's their next -- MR. LORENZ: The 8th. The rural fringe committee will be meeting on the 2nd and 4th -- basically every two weeks. CHAIRMAN HILL: So it's the 8th? MR. LORENZ: Right. And the rural lands committee has not had another meeting scheduled. They could be scheduled once the rural fringe committee gets a little bit further through an environmental -- an evaluation matrix that we've been working on, CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay, if you want to give me any Page #82 March 1, 2000 information on the annual report, E-mail me any comments you might have, and I can build into the next draft. With your -- I would like a formal motion to table Item 6-B. MR. SANSBURY: So moved. MR. CORNELL: Second. MR. SMITH: Let me just ask, Mr. Hill, if you could contact our attorney and just see if there's any problems with Sunshine if we E-mail you comments. But I don't think personally that there is, but there might be. CHAIRMAN HILL: Okay. I will. MS. BURGESON: I know that Marni has problems with this board individually E-mailing each other outside of this meeting forum. CHAIRMAN HILL: Regardless of the content? MS. BURGESON.' If it's anything that would be discussed in future meetings. MR. SMITH: There's some exception to that, Barbara, when you're dealing with procedural matters. MS. BURGESON: When Bill was talking earlier about E-mailing this information out to you individually, that would not have been something she would have supported. MR. SMITH: That part I agree. But now I think Bill is talking about more in terms of getting some input into the report that we would be providing to the county. And I'm not -- MS. BURGESON: Unfortunately anything that is business of this board is something that should not be -- I mean, we can check with Marni, but I've had this discussion with her in the past. MR. LORENZ: As staff, I'd reinforce what Barbara said. MR. SMITH: It's always better to be safe. CHAIRMAN HILL: Let's not forget. Please don't do that, then. MR. SANSBURY: Motion on the floor. Page #83 March 1, 2000 CHAIRMAN HILL: Could I see the staff members here for about three minutes -- three seconds after we adjourn, just very briefly? Motion for an adjournment. E-B, MR. SANSBURY'- CHAIRMAN HILL: All -- CHAIRMAN HILL: We have a motion on the floor. I'm sorry, all those in favor of tabling Item So moved. MR. SMITH: Second. CHAIRMAN HILL: Any against? Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you, everybody. There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 12:10 p.m. ENVIRONMENTAL ADVISORY COUNCIL WILLIAM HILL, CHAIRMAN TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE, INC., BY CHERIE' R. LEONE, NOTARY PUBLIC Page #84